Albert Wesker watched with amusement as he saw Claire and Leon work together to fend off the predators that now stalked them. He found it quite interesting to see Claire pushing people out into the main hall, in hope of saving their lives. He just didn't have the heart to tell her that it was a lost cause. Their deaths were already predestined. "Just run!" she cried, shoving a fear stricken woman away. "Don't look back, just get out of here!" Claire turned a fired at a Hunter charging straight for them. She aimed higher, away from the center of mass. With exceptional precision, she took out both eyes of the Hunter. It screamed and hissed, swinging it claws, seeking blood.

Wesker would never say that he admired the female Redfield, but he was rather impressed with the progress she's made over the years. She handled herself better, easily evading the attacks of the Hunters, and she was able to save just about everyone in the room. From the corner of his eye, he saw a man impaled by a Hunter claw... well, almost everyone. Claire Redfield was no longer the kid sister to his arch enemy, Chris Redfield. No, she had grow up into quite a striking woman, and she was untouched by the virus. She was the perfect specimen. He wondered how her older brother would take it now he had officially claimed Claire as a new player in his little game. How he wished he could see Chris' expression, but one can't always get what they want, but he was damn close. He walked out onto the balcony and jumped down to the first floor, waiting for everything to be set in motion.

"Claire!" Leon shouted, pointing behind her. Trusting her partner completely, Claire ducked, feeling the sharp wisp of air just above her head. Several strands of her hair had been cleanly cut, falling down to the blood covered floor.

Leon braced himself as the Hunter pounced on him, bringing his hands up to keep the large gaping teeth away from his face. They crashed to the floor, sliding into several tables, knocking down champagne bottles and platters of food. Claire had to act quick. Reloading her Beretta while running to help Leon, she pointed the gun right at the back of the Hunter's head and fired two shots. The Hunter went limp and slumped forward, almost crushing Leon under its weight.

With both of their strength combined, they were able to haul the beast off of Leon. Claire helped him to his feet, but he was covered in green slime and dark colored splotches of blood. "Any of it yours?" Claire asked, keeping her eyes on the Hunters that were now surveying them.

"No," Leon said in disgust, wiping at the slime that was dripping off of his face. "Could you have waited for me to move out of the way?" he asked jokingly, also studying every movement the T-virus abominations made.

Claire smiled, keeping her back against Leon's. "You know better," she said. Something definitely wasn't right here. Her smiled faded. This type of behavior was inconsistent with the Hunters she had seen before. They were just circling them, observing them. Occasionally, one would step up and snap its jaws at them, but it made no move to attack. "What do you think they're doing?" she asked.

"No idea..." Leon admitted. "It's like they're waiting for something."

She was going to ask for more input, but her thoughts were interrupted when a table suddenly overturned. A young teenage boy tried crawling away, keeping his face buried in his hands. "No, please!" he cried when he saw the monsters just a few feet away from him. "I don't want to die! Please!" The boy's hair was matted down in dried blood, giving his natural brown hair a maroon shade. He couldn't have been older than eighteen.

Memories of Rockfort Island came flooding back to Claire. The guilt that she had worked so hard to bury resurfaced, reminding of her failure to save a friend. "Steve..." she barely whispered, taking a step toward the boy.

"Claire, what are you doing?" Leon snapped, when he realized that Claire had broken their formation.

Claire's eyes were on the Hunters that now teamed together to take down the poor boy. She aimed the Beretta, eyes narrowing in anger. "You get away from him!" she hissed and ran toward them. The gunshots echoed throughout the ballroom as Claire fired round after round. The Hunters screeched in pain, and one fell dead as Claire emptied her clip into it, not caring where the bullets pierced its body.

The last Hunter was sprayed with bullets from Leon's Desert Eagle. Except for the young boy's whimpers, the room was deadly silent. Claire looked down at the boy cowering at her feet. Her gaze softened when she realized that he was alive. She couldn't bear to see another Steve die in her arms. She knelt down and rubbed the boys shoulders. "Hey, are you all right?" Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around her.

"Thank you, miss!" he cried into her shoulder.

Claire let out a huff, exhaling the air she could when she was caught in the bear hug. All she could do was let out a relived laugh. She felt a pinch in her arm as he pulled away. "Ah!" she gasped, seeing a thin trail of blood run down her arm.

"Oh, sorry!" the boy said nervously. He used a clean portion of his shirt to wipe away the trickle. "Must have been one of my cuff links." He began straightening out his blood stained shirt, but Claire stopped him.

"Get out of here while you can," she said, standing to her feet. "Just because the only monsters we're seeing right now are dead doesn't mean there aren't more of them around..."

"Thank you, miss," he said again before he managed to get to feet and stumbled out of the room.

Claire scanned over the large ballroom, but Wesker was nowhere to be found. "Any sign of him?" she asked Leon.

"None... listen," he said immediately after his answer. "Don't do that again."

When she gave him a glare, he put up his hands in defense. "I'm not going to pull a Chris on you, but you scared the hell outta me when you didn't stick to the plan."

Claire could never stay mad at Leon for long. It was the way he looked at her that made her forgive him on a number of occasions. "Come on..." Claire sighed. "How often do we actually stick to the game plan with these guys?"

Leon reached out and brushed some of her hair from her sweaty cheeks. "It's not that. I just know when you're zoning out. Believe me, when you and Chris get into tunnel vision mode, it's pretty scary. What were you thinking? Did you even know there was a third Hunter right beside you?"

Claire blinked. She looked to the left, close to where the boy had emerged from. A Hunter lay dead at the foot of the neighboring table. Freakin hell... She didn't say anything.

Leon nudged her gently. "Hey, I know you're more than capable of handling yourself. Trust me, I think I knew sooner than your brother did. I just... it worries me when you lose focus like that."

It was one of the few times that Leon ever expressed such concern for her. She partly believed that half of the time he couldn't was because of Chris' overprotective nature that caused Leon to keep his mouth shut. The bond they have developed back in Raccoon City would never break, even if one of them had to be in a different continent for a long period of time because of different missions. Back then, she relied on Leon more than she wanted to let him know.

When they met up again after the destruction of Raccoon City, he had taken the time to teach her how to shoot and how to properly defend herself when Chris was too busy blowing up the different properties that belonged to Umbrella. She even recalled a few times when Leon would just hold her when she couldn't sleep. The nightmares became too real for her, so she had formed a bit of a coffee addiction. It was only when she was in his arms that she found rest, but the monsters in the dark always came back.

Leon made the suggestion to train her while the others were creating several strategies to take Umbrella's main laboratories down. He believed that if she became confident in the real world, then perhaps she could fend off the monsters from her mind. And it worked. The monsters still invaded her dreams, but she wasn't helpless. Their morning conversations always started with Leon asking, "well...?"

And she would answer. "I kicked ass."

Claire snapped out of her thoughts, noting that Leon still watched her, waiting for an answer. He was always kind to her, and even though Jill and Rebecca made little jokes about them having cute kids, she wanted to keep those ideas out of her head. Until Umbrella was finished, she couldn't be distracted by a future that had no chance of existing. But as of late, she started to believe that as long as corruption and greed lingered in the human heart, they would always be fighting.

She was human, so she allowed herself one moment of weakness. "Thank you," she said, stepping toward him. "For everything. You have no idea how much everything you've done means to me..." She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, nestling her forehead against his neck. The warmth and comfort she had relied on over the years returned as he hugged her back.

"Anytime," he said in her ear. He ran his fingers through her hair as he pulled back. His fingers then traced the outline of her face before resting beneath her chin. "Your brother would kill me, but I think I'll take my chances," he said, raising her chin up.

Claire smiled, feeling her heart beating faster. It had been so long since she felt the intimate touch of another. She felt comfortable in Leon's arms; she always had. "You would probably have better chances with a tyrant," she joked, closing her eyes. She felt the tip of his nose, brush past hers, and the moment their lips met, a sharp pain shot through her mind. A pained cry escaped from her lips.

"Claire!" Leon gasped, holding onto her as she fell back, passing out in his arms.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jason West ran as fast as he could in the parking garage. Holy shit! Holy shit! his mind kept screaming. He had no idea what the hell those things were, but he wasn't going to find out. He only hoped that the girl made it out alive. He looked back to see if any of the monsters were chasing him, but then he ran head first into a wall.

He felt his body slamming down into the ground, his head pounding from the impact. When his vision cleared, he looked up to see the man who had hired him to attend the party. Red eyes... he thought fearfully. "Look, man I did what you said. You just said scratch her with this right?" holding up a small pin. "So I did it!" Jason cringed when the man bent down, offering him a hand.

"You did well," the man said in a low even tone. "Did you make sure that it drew blood?"

Jason nodded his head, accepting the dark gloved hand. "Yeah, man... her arm was bleeding a bit. You didn't say anything about monsters invading the party..." The moment he got to his feet, the man wrapped his fingers around his throat.

"It slipped my mind, Mr. West," he said, placing a pair of black sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. "Did I also mention that once your objective was completed, your life immediately became expendable?"

Jason West's screams filled the crisp night air, but they fell upon dozens of deaf lifeless ears.