Chapter Four

Demon. Claire dreamed of a demon with leathery red wings, and golden eyes. It smelled masculine. Reached one clawed hand toward her. It – no, his – mouth opened. "Chaos," he said. A light grew in his chest, expanding outward with a purple-black darkness. The voice was familiar, and sent a shiver through Claire's entire being. "I want him too. Hojo," the familiar voice said. She blinked, and his features appeared to morph closer to a human form.

Then she was spinning away from the demon, the sensation of floating in nothing fading. It was replaced with the normal jostle of being carried. Every fiber in her body balked, wanting to take instant flight, but she forced herself to stay calm.

She heard Reeve. "It jes goes to show that some people can be cold-blooded killers and ya never even know. But we've got a nice cell at the WRO for people like her."

"Back when ShinRa ran things, girls like her would just work for the Turks," Barrett said with a snort.

"The Turks weren't always hired thugs and cold-blooded killers," the man holding her said. Claire recognized his perfect voice. Vincent. Her entire body tensed, and she felt his grip on her tighten in return.

She let a small moan escape her lips, and turned into his body, acting like she was just disconcerted by a nightmare. With her face pressed into his chest, she raised her arms, holding him as if he were her pillow. "No more . . ." she moaned, and then forced her breathing to even off. It was her best fake sleep ever.

Vincent's grip loosened.

"Hey!" she heard someone shout. Leon. Internally Claire groaned. It was bad enough she was under arrest. "What are you doing with Claire?"

"She's under arrest," Reeve said. "For murder."

Claire imagined the look on Leon's face. If he got dragged into things because of her there would be less of a chance that Umbrella would be stopped. She sat upright, snaking her arms up so she was holding Vincent tight. "It was a zombie," she said. "From Umbrella."

Leon looked like he was still going to take some kind of action.

So Claire did the next best thing. She slipped out of Vincent's arms, snagging his gun in the process and taking off at a dead run. It was luck, she knew, but on the other hand it was skill too. People never held on to the stuff right in their arms if said stuff (her in this case) was holding on to them. Vincent wasn't an exception. As soon as she'd held him, he'd stopped holding her.

She heard pursuit, but ignored it. Outside the tavern was a decent looking motorcycle, and that's what she took. She fired it up, and peeled out of town.

The bike was low in the front, and heavy, but the faster she went the less the weight mattered. The wind bit at her eyes, sand blasting up. The terrain was gritty outside of town, but within a few moments she hit the main road. She put on a burst of speed, heading west. Once or twice she tried to check for pursuit, but the bike really was too big for her and it wobble so she couldn't see properly. So she kept her body facing forward and prayed there weren't any potholes up ahead.

She stopped when her body couldn't take riding the bike anymore. It was certainly a big boy's bike. She dismounted, working out the kinks in her shoulders. She was on the edge of a mountain range, and able to hid the bike from the main road behind a couple of boulders. Then she sat down, wiping grit from her face.

For several long minutes she just rested. Then some ground-hog thing popped out of the ground and threw a lump of hard dirt at her. "Hey!" she protested. "Stop that."

The gopher-thing didn't listen. Just threw a harder piece that hit her in the head with a significant amount of force. She lifted her hand, feeling a growing goose-egg. "What the hell?" she muttered. Then remember what Reno had said about monsters roaming the country side. She eyed the gopher again. It was cute. How could that be a monster? It ducked into its hole and emerged with a jagged rock.

That was how.

Claire lifted Vincent's gun and shot the gopher. The recoil and weight were more noticeable when shooting a gopher as opposed to a zombie. She lowered the weapon, examining it. There were three barrels, and the clip looked like it loaded three bullets at once. There was a dangling charm and a glowing orb slotted in the side of the weapon. "Interesting," she muttered.

She counted the bullets, and decided that avoiding the gophers was probably better than shooting them. Which meant she had to get to civilization of some kind. She mounted the bike again and headed down the road until a sign directed her that the nearest town was six miles away.

She got to the outskirts, and then was tackled off the bike.

She screamed, a loud panicked noise, and struggled. Her attacker pinned her almost effortlessly. He was a lot stronger. Once she was completely pinned, she looked up, eyes showing too much white. She honestly expected to see a tyrant (what else would knock someone off a speeding motorcycle?) but instead she found herself looking into Vincent's red eyes.

"Oh thank goodness," she breathed. "I thought you were a Tyrant." She gave a shaky laugh, tension escaping her body.

"Tyrant?" Vincent asked, raising an eyebrow.

Claire wiggled a bit. "T-virus created monster."

"I'm no monster," he said, standing and hauling her to her feet. He retrieved his gun from her. "Come on."

"Aren't you afraid I'll take off?"

Vincent paused. "There's nowhere for you to run anymore. You're unarmed and this town doesn't have anything for you to steal for your escape." He paused, eyes lingering on Cloud's bike. It had turned off upon crash, and Claire could hear the sound of the engine cooling. "We'll take Cloud's bike to Edge."

Claire scratched the back of her head. "Where's Edge? Is that where the prison is?"

Vincent didn't answer.

"How did you find me?" Claire asked, trotting after him. She reached one hand toward his, and then froze when he turned to look at her.

"Unlucky."

She licked her lips, mouth dry at his look. "You guys simply staked out every possible road, didn't you," Claire said. She shook her head. "And you get to be the one to find me. I guess that explains why I was drawn here."

"Oh?"

She brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "You're . . ." She grimaced, at a loss for words. Although, now that she was thinking about it, he had tackled her off a speeding motorcycle. At the very least he was different in a dangerous way.

"I'm what?"

Claire shook her head. She wasn't going to answer that question. She walked toward him, and then past him. The edge of the town seemed dark. She reached the road. Vincent caught up, longer legs allowing him to match her pace effortlessly.

"You will be incarcerated by the WRO."

"That man was already dead."

"So am I."

Claire stopped walking. "Are you an Umbrella experiment?" she asked, fearful of the answer but striving for nonchalance.

"Hardly." He lifted his gun and shot several bat creatures that swung out of the darkness. Then smoothly reloaded the weapon.

"Well, that's good," she said. She stopped at Cloud's bike, and then reached to haul it up. If this was Cloud's bike, she had to reevaluate how tough he was too. Because he hadn't looked like he'd been struggling to drive for hours before entering the tavern.

The bike popped a side compartment open. The metal whacked into her fingers, causing her to exclaim in surprise.

Vincent calmly shut the compartment, and hoisted the bike to a standing position. He checked a few gauges, and then grunted, tapping a dial repeatedly.

"Gas gauge?" Claire asked. The dial had been low to begin with, but the longer she been driving the lower it had gotten.

Vincent nodded, the motion very, very slight. He motioned her to walk to the town.

"You know, this is the weirdest arrest I've ever had."

"Meaning?"

"You're not tying me up or warning me not to run or anything like that. Hell, you haven't even read me my rights."

"Rights?"

"Lawyer, the right to be silent . . . and all that other stuff."

"You may be silent."

Claire paused, cocking her head to the side. "You don't like people talking, do you?" He rolled his eyes. Claire was sure of it. But the motion was so slight it was like he hadn't done anything. It made Claire smile. "You know," she said. "I can respect you wanting silence and no mindless chatter."

"Thank you."

"But . . . this isn't mindless chatter. This is important." She stopped walking, resting her hands on her hips. "I don't know you and I don't know what your limits are."

"I have none."

Claire shook her head. "Not what I meant."

"You want to know how observant I am. How likely I am to stop you from escaping again." He strolled up to her, tilting her chin up so she was looking into his face. "You will never escape me again."

His words made Claire's heart hiccup. "Fine. Let's just get some gas and go to Edge." She walked past him.

They reached the streets without a word. Claire glanced around, noting the silence. "So, tell me, what time is it?"

"Time?"

"Yeah . . ." her voice trailed off. She could hear the shuffling of feet, and out of the corners and crevices, bodies were starting to move. "Hey Vincent . . ."

He grunted a response.

"Do you see those things moving?"

"Yes."

She sniffed the air, catching the faint odor of death. "We're getting surrounded."

"I noticed."

"Did you notice what was surrounding us?" Claire asked, struggling for calm. She didn't have a gun and Vincent probably wouldn't shoot the dead townspeople.

"Zombies."

"You . . . ah . . . believe in zombies?"

"Of course."

Claire was silent for a very long time. "And you got upset when I shot one?"

"There wasn't enough left to determine if he was dead before you shot him," Vincent said after a long moment. He drew a gun from a hidden holster and handed it to her. "It's a Griffin . . . lighter than the Cerberus, but still pretty –"

"Heavy," Claire agreed, lifting the weapon and experimentally sighting down the barrel. "But it's a good weight."

"It reloads faster," Vincent said. "And can shoot more rounds per second."

Claire nodded, no longer in the mood for conversation – pleasant or otherwise. The zombies were coming in full swing. Vincent grabbed Claire and jumped onto the hood of a car, and then boosted her onto a roof. She stood up, and shot a zombie jumping toward Vincent. It fell backward with a neat hole in its forehead that was oozing green. Then it stood and started after them again. She shot it twice more and it stayed down.

"J-virus," she said. "You'll need more than one shot to take them out."

Vincent glanced at her. He appeared to have leapt onto the roof without any assistance at all. "J-virus?"

"Like the T-virus, only stronger."

"T-virus?"

"It kills people and reanimates them as zombies. If you get bitten, you get the virus."

Vincent nodded. "I see." He started moving. He was good; Claire had to admit that. He led her across the roofs until the zombie hoard below was going the wrong way. Then he headed back to where Cloud's bike was at a rapid pace. He leapt off the roof, shooting as he went down. Ten zombies hit the ground, permanently dead, before he landed.

"Jump. I'll catch you."

Claire jumped, and, true to his word, he caught her. Within seconds they were at Cloud's bike. Vincent righted it, mounting. "Let's go," he repeated.

Claire froze. "There might be survivors. We should help them."

"There are no survivors."

"How do you know?"

"Instinct."

Claire lifted her chin slightly. "Then we . . ." her voice trailed off. "Well, I suppose you don't have to do anything. But I have to end it for these people." She turned, shooting the closest zombie in the head. It went down and stayed down. Apparently only some of them had the T-virus. "I'll need to borrow your gun a bit longer." She licked her lips. "And I need you to deliver a message for me in case something goes wrong."

"I'm not a delivery boy. That's Cloud."

"Tell Leon – he's the guy from Kalm – that I might have the J-virus. Tell him that stands for the Jenova virus and that Hojo is probably releasing the virus –"

Vincent seized her, spinning her around, eyes blazing with passion and fury. "Hojo?" Cloud's bike fell over, making a loud crash and the side compartment popped open again. "Jenova?" Vincent demanded, eyes burning.

"Yes. Now tell him." She pushed at him, but Vincent didn't budge. "Hojo. Professor Hojo from ShinRa?"

"No. Hojo-the-hobo from Umbrella."

"Umbrella?"

"The logo I tried to show Shelby. That's Umbrella."

"That's a new health company," Vincent said. "They're based near the ruins of the Temple of the Ancients."

"Tell Leon that too," she said. At least they had a target now.

"You tell him. I'll take care of the zombies," Vincent said. He pushed her toward the bike.

"You tell him," Claire said. "I know what I'm doing here. You don't."

Vincent looked at her, expression unfathomable. "I shoot to kill. I can handle this."

"Together then," Claire said. "You me and hell of a lot of chaos."

Something flashed behind his eyes, and she felt a tightening in her stomach. And a burning low in her body. Then he blinked and the expression was gone. "Fine," he said. And together they entered the town of the dead.