Chapter 15: Recovery Time Objective
When they reached the edge of the town Alice wasn't holding Claire up so much as Claire was holding her up. By the time they got to the vehicle she was relying completely on the redhead to keep her standing.
"Where are you hurt, Alice?"
Everywhere, Alice thought. Her black clothes were hiding it well, but there were literally dozens of tiny of bleeding holes in her skin where the buckshot from K-mart's slug pierced her. They were slowly healing over and the pain from the pellets that remained embedded inside her flesh was excruciating.
"You're not going to like what I'm about to ask you to do," Alice finally responded, and Claire's eyebrows came together in worry. The blonde pulled out her knife and handed it to the redhead. "K, get the lantern and a wet rag, and meet us in the bank."
The teen did as she was told as Claire helped the blonde inside the dark building.
"What to do I have to do?" Claire asked with trepidation as Alice pulled her arms out of her shredded jacket.
"The shot from K's slug is still in my body. It's gotta come out." Alice stripped from her shirt, though her skin had many small lines of blood there was no longer any open wounds.
Claire looked at the knife she'd been given in horror finally realizing that she'd have to dig into the blonde's flesh. "Oh – no way, Alice!"
"Trust me; I'm not gonna like this anymore than you will."
Claire sighed as K-mart entered with the light, rag, bottle of water and a blanket. The teen set everything out as Alice made sure to keep her back to her.
"I'll be i-in the Hu-Hummer," the girl said and then left.
The majority of the shot was in Alice's right arm, shoulder, and torso; none of it lower than her belly button or higher than the base of her neck and most of it cluttered beneath her breast in her ribs. Every pellet burned beneath her skin as she set herself down on the blanket. It was the same wool fabric that a night before Alice asked Claire what she'd do if she found the person responsible for the outbreak, and now Claire was standing over her – knife in hand.
The blonde swallowed involuntarily when Claire kneeled down next to her.
"So…" Claire stated, not sure how to begin.
"They're not too deep, and you should pretty much be able to guess where they are by the blood trails."
"I don't know if I can do this."
Before Claire could get too timid Alice took a hold of her hand, guided the knife to her right arm where she felt a hot pain in her elbow and slipped the tip inside. The blade was so sharp that at first she didn't feel it enter her skin, but she did when it twisted against her bone as she dug the small pellet out. The first bloody metal ball rolled off her to land on the blanket. Her skin was already beginning to heal again.
"Much better," Alice stated and released the redhead's hand so she could continue on her own.
It was a long and painful process as Claire removed each individual pellet from her skin and cleaned up the blood after, but again there was a beautiful women staring at her topless form. Alice wasn't sure what was more arousing – the gentleness with which Claire inflicted pain on her or the simple fact that Claire was inflicting pain on her.
The redhead was about to move on to retrieve the final shot when Alice couldn't help herself anymore. She rose from the blanket and caught Claire's lips with her own, one hand holding her up as the other tangled itself in red hair. Claire easily succumbed to the kiss and set the knife down so that she could put both of her hands to use as well.
The redhead's touch set Alice on fire as she teased every inch of her naked flesh. Too bad more of her flesh wasn't naked, but there was an easy enough remedy for that. Alice began to remove her pants and Claire was more than happy to help her. Of course, it was only fair that Claire be without clothes as well. They cheerfully stripped each other until the only thing between them was pure skin.
It didn't take the pair long to drive each other absolutely crazy. Alice was going to have Claire first, but the redhead wouldn't have it. She kept Alice on her back and pinned her hands above her head with one of her own. The blonde tensed to fight the grip but Claire whispered dangerously in her ear.
"Don't make me get the knife back out."
Alice raised a playful eyebrow and considered it, but Claire terminated all thoughts of resisting when she brought their mouths together again and placed her other hand at the apex of Alice's thighs. Claire worked her hard and was rewarded a couple minutes later when she brought Alice to her orgasm.
Alice had wanted to call out Claire's name but for some reason she held it back. She couldn't contain her entire reaction from the flood of pleasure that overwhelmed her nerves however, so she bit her lip and her mouth filled with blood when her teeth broke skin. She was so in love with pain that swallowing the coppery liquid only added to her gratifying release.
The self-inflicted injury was healed in about the same amount of time it took Alice to flip Claire over on her back so she could be ravished to the blonde's content, and as the redhead was about to find out it took a lot to make Alice content.
Sometime later, Claire pulled her pants back on and then spoke as Alice copied her with her own clothes. "You know I'm really beginning to think that every time you get hurt it's just some kind of ploy to get you naked."
"Are you complaining?"
Claire laughed. "No." Then her words became serious. "I just don't like to see you hurt."
"Speaking of – there's one left."
Claire's arms found their way through the armholes of her top as she put it on, but Alice remained shirtless.
"Where?" the redhead inquired.
Alice rubbed the soft spot above her collarbone on her right side. Claire picked up the blood-tipped knife from where she left it and Alice approached her for the last surgery. The blonde had Claire practically backed up against the bank teller's counter with very little room to maneuver.
She turned her head to the left so Claire could get at the pellet, but as Claire's breath warmed her neck and she began to prick her flesh Alice twisted her head back around to kiss her. The knife slipped in Claire's grip and sliced along the blonde's collarbone to her throat.
The redhead immediately broke the kiss. "Fuck Alice, don't move!"
Alice tried to be still again, but she couldn't contain herself. Before Claire could try again, the blonde picked her up by her thighs and set her on the desk, kissing her hungrily as she unbuttoned her pants.
"I'm trying to do something here," Claire said between ragged breaths.
"So do it."
Alice slightly bent her head again but her hands kept massaging the insides of Claire's thighs.
The redhead seemed determined not to miss again because she set her hand around the front of Alice's shoulder so that when the blade of the knife entered, it could only go where she allowed it or Claire risked cutting herself as well. The redhead was about to make the incision but then one of Alice's fingers slipped inside her underwear and rubbed against her.
Alice smirked as Claire's green eyes slid closed. "You keep closing your eyes and you're gonna slice up your hand."
The redhead gasped as Alice moved two fingers inside her. Her motions were slow enough that she could watch Claire find the will to open her eyes and attempt to remove the metal again.
Alice let slip a confession with more honesty and hope than she intended. "I'm in pain, Claire. You're the only one who can stop it."
If Claire didn't have the resolve to cut into the blonde before – she did now, even as Alice increased the tempo with which her fingers pumped inside her.
Alice felt the knife pierce her flesh and it grazed against her collarbone as she hit a particularly sensitive spot on Claire. In no time the last piece of buckshot was taken from her skin and the redhead was riding out her second orgasm of the night.
Claire kissed her right shoulder as she began to recover from the pleasure Alice inflicted upon her. The blonde couldn't help but smile at the action as her mind was commandeered by an exceptionally sappy thought. Kisses make everything better.
Alice pulled back and helped the redhead off the counter. She let Claire compose herself as she picked up her fallen shirt. It was a tattered disaster but it was the only thing she had available to her at the moment. She put it on, but left her coat off. It was beyond repair now thanks to the bear's claws and K-mart's ability to listen to orders. Looking at it gave Alice an idea.
The teen had stood face to face with an undead grizzly and when it counted she didn't show an ounce of fear. Alice would have to do something for the girl to show her what that courage meant.
"Claire," she called. "I'll be back in a minute."
With that Alice grabbed her knife and left the redhead to stand alone in the bank, completely lost as to what the blonde was doing.
Alice jogged back to the section of woods where they'd faced off against the bear; her eyes found the furry mass in the dark exactly where it had fallen. What she was about to do was nasty work, but it would be worth it.
She located the bear's left forepaw and set in on her knee as she grabbed the smallest claw still caked with her dried blood; then cut it out of the thickly padded appendage. The black nail came off in a sticky mess, but she could clean it up easily, and she even had some leather string in her pack that would make a perfect cord to hang it on. She'd put it together in secret and when it was done, present it to the teen.
With the T-virus's host dead again the infection in the claw had been exterminated as well. It was only in the first two hours that the virus still had the power to transmit its disease after the body it occupied was decommissioned. Alice learned that after her second painful session with Dr. Isaacs. He was always so keen to discuss his findings over his scientific torture of her, even in the beginning.
When Alice looked to the right of her she knew the sight of Matt's partially dissected face would haunt her for a long time.
"The T-virus is manifesting itself as a mutation," a doctor observed over his precious Nemesis experimentation. "We'll leave this for now. I want to start on her."
The man looked at her; the way he spoke with his British accent and haughty stare told Alice all she needed to know. The doctor had pride and joy in his work, but she'd take his accent over Cain's German one any day. The retired Major wasn't standing but two feet from her and she wished she could pull herself far enough from her drug induced haze to curse the bastard out. He'd given the order to reopen the Hive and while she didn't know if it had been done yet, she desperately wanted to break away from her restraints and choke her once superior to death, but the belts remained in place. After all, she was only human.
"What will you do to her?" Cain asked.
The doctor answered but it seemed that he disliked Cain as much she did because he kept his response curt and without detail. "Inject her with the virus."
The virus? Alice's heart rate began to skyrocket in panic. No, not the virus.
"Why?"Cain asked.
"How can I put this in layman's terms?" The man in the white lab coat filled a jet injector with a single glass cartridge. She saw that the swirls of azure tubing inside the container formed a familiar double helix pattern as he continued. "To see what happens."
The blonde struggled against her restraints but she was too weak; then Cain placed his cold hands on her shoulders to help keep her down as the doctor approached her – jet injector in his gloved hand.
He placed the gun to her forearm and pulled the trigger. The pain of the needles was next to nothing; Alice had expected more. Her overactive heart pumped the newly infected blood throughout her entire system in under a minute, and that was when the true agony began.
Alice couldn't contain her scream anymore than she could contain her hate for what the man in the lab coat had just done to her. The searing of her flesh overwhelmed her with every heart beat, and the pain was sent to her extremities in cardiac rhythm. It was like a song Alice never wanted to hear again but it played on loop; every pulse louder and more severe than the last.
The doctor's excited accent found its way into her ears. "This is unexpected."
"What will she become, Dr. Isaacs?"
Now she had a name to put with the pain being inflicted on her, and soon she would have an answer to the question she wondered herself. Cain was at least good for one thing.
"Something new."
On her return, she found new sleeping arrangements had been made inside the Hummer. Instead of Alice and Claire sleeping on their own in the front seats, K-mart was occupying the passenger side and Claire was in the back on the seat that had been lowered to fit more than one body. Alice had a choice to make and the survivors weren't making it easy for her.
The thought of sleeping next to the redhead, while they'd slept together before on accident, scared Alice more than an infected bear. Mostly because it would be her own conscious decision and it would imply things; relationship type things. Are we in a relationship? Alice thought as she looked through the shaded passenger-side window at Claire's sleeping form. Is this a relationship?
No, Alice decided. Having relationships meant you got attached and she was still under the illusion that she could leave anytime. No, Claire's just a good fuck. With that concluding thought she walked back to the driver's side and curled up in the leather seat, but she couldn't help wondering what it would be like to be curled up next to Claire instead.
Paging Dr. Redfield, you have a patient in room one (hehe, guess what everyone – that patient would be me). Paging Dr. Claire Redfield – it's an emergency (yes, yes it is…oh. *gulp* Hi, Evil Alice. Don't mind me – just here for the old check- I mean I was just leaving. He-he-he…he…he… *nervous grin* Bye!).
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