Chapter Thirty One

She couldn't look at him, even as he settled in the pilot's seat. The aircraft would take them to Tokyo, but he had taken it without even calling in to HQ. Angelica strapped herself in, her numb fingers working over the straps slowly. Redfield did not even pay any attention as he activated the engines, firing off the various thrusters that would push them into the air. A troop of men launched themselves out of the hospital, waving their arms frantically to stop the leaving pair. It was all in vain as the craft lifted into the dark sky, and out of sight. Angelica watched as the plane went higher, the winds of the morning gently caressing the grass that waved about on the ground hundreds of feet below. She had seen this town in it's pride.. when it flourished with life and love. Chris had grown up near here, he and Claire. She could only imagine how it was for him that the enemy was rebuilding his home town. Flexing her hands, Angelica looked down at them. The virus was now back in her blood, not held back by what ever serum that Trent had forced into her. But even as she looked at them, she could see the age.

She could easily pass for a woman in her mid thirties, and a very trim thirty at that.. But they would be about twenty years off. Her hands.. the skin upon them was still smooth, but small, almost unseen lines ran across their backs. These hands..these hands had nurtured, held, loved.. murdered, torn, brought down. These hands were a traitor of years that she could no longer get back, and everything she had thought about her life was beginning to tilt. She had thought she was doing the right thing, she had thought Trent would not be corrupt. She had thought he was a good man, with good intentions.. she had thought.. maybe she hadn't thought well enough. Her fiery eyes burned with tears that she was trying to hold back, Angelica's lips began to twitch as she slid on the pair of aviators that had been left in the cockpit from its former owner perhaps. The sunlight warmed her face as the horizon came into view, and she didn't dar look back to the man next to her.. all she could do was stare forwards, into the flaming, golden orb of light that was creeping into the sky.

"I know what you are now.." The voice nearly made her cringe as he finally broke the silence. She had to look at him now.. he was forcing her to do so out of curiosity. As she turned, Chris stared back at her, his face perfectly calm. The sunglasses the woman wore made the statement that much more painful to say, but none the less he was going to share his conclusion with her. He had been watching her, especially at the hospital. He saw something in her that reaffirmed what he had originally wondered. Angelica looked at him, waiting silently for him to explain himself. Looking forwards, Chris carefully guided the aircraft. He had watched Sheva during the other flight.. and he was a pilot after all. Things may get bumpy later, but he'd get them where they needed to go. "Sheva asked you back in Africa who and what you were.. I finally have the answer. You are another life that Umbrella has taken.. you are still alive, but barely as a shell they have used and twisted. You believe we can make a better place, yes..but they've forced you to do things because of that little girl. You fought back until you had her, and now the only thing stopping you from becoming like Wesker..is that child. She stops you from taking your revenge, and you hope that she may do the same for her father… You hope she can keep you both from the darkness that Umbrella has spread in you..because in truth, all you want to do is die, and that little girl is the only thing left worth living for."

Angelica's eyes flashed red behind her glasses, then subduing into a pale amber. Her body fell back against her seat roughly, as if the very words had been a punch directly into her abdomen. He was right.. he was absolutely right. Whispering as she felt the torrent of tears flood down her nose and cheeks, Angelica felt sorrow rack into her body. "Then what does that make me? If I am so easily broken by them..so easily beaten down..so used." As he looked back at her, Redfield angled the plane higher into the clouds, fingers moving to program the system for a direct route. He let her cry.. she probably had not done so properly in over fifteen years…

"It makes you human."

…

"Shh..it's ok"

Frederick leaned over his patient, gently gliding his hand over her forehead. The child had tossed and turned for several hours straight, the veins upon her skin looking darker with every passing hour. Wesker had paced the room ten times over, finally to the point of damaging the insulated area with one punch. He was acting like a father.. a father who could not help his child. Larson now tended to the child, attaching an IV drip to calm her cellular break down. It would post pone it, but it would not cure it. Finally the little girl settled into a deep sleep, her eyelids fluttering wildly in a dream of some sorts. Wesker stood by the doorway, his arms folded. Taking off his sunglasses, the man sighed in evident exhaustion. His body could take this, his mind could not. "Doctor, how long do we have to make a solution before her stage becomes critical?" Larson turned, standing taller. He himself rubbed his brow, the coolness of the room not preventing a damp sweat to line his hairline. "A day or so…the scarab I had attached to her cerebral area flushed her system far too rapidly when it broke.. her system is basically creating a resistance to it..we have to work fast."

Wesker growled beneath his breath, running the fingertips of his gloved hand back through his gelled hair. There were two options. One, he could use the serum upon the child, and reverse her stage, basically rendering her human. Or, two, they could reinfuse her system with the T-virus.. but it could result in killing, or mutating her already present DNA. Either way was a risk he was not prepared to take.. Stalking towards the door, Wesker laid his palm on the recognition pad, and stepped through. He should have never rendered himself this weak, he should have never been so human as to let something like this happen.. The guards at the doorway snapped to attention as he passed by, giving some sort of dark satisfaction to his mind. The man that was walking towards him from the other side of the hallway, was only the cause of more annoyance. Trent briskly walked down the painfully white establishment, his suit contrasting severely with its ebony richness. The blonde woman behind him struggled to keep up, her small heels clicking softly against the polished flooring. She kept her head down, and slumped with the pile of paperwork that her employer had given her.

"I see everything is going rather well then, Albert? I have a few things to discuss with you however." Before Wesker could realize it, her shoulders were being slipped about with an arm. Trent escorted him down the hallway slowly, his head bent. "I take it the child is settled in?" Wesker nodded as he slipped his sunglasses back on, hiding the flare of ruby behind them. "Her condition is degrading at a rapid rate, Larson is stating we should act quickly." Trent grinned, a toothy, sharklike smile. "Indeed..I have an option that may buy us some more time.. Her mother was seen on the outskirts of the Raccoon border, in the local hospital. If we can collect her and harvest her DNA to stave off the break down, it could give us the time we need.." Halting their trek, Wesker gave the man next to him a genuinely shocked look. "You would mean to harvest Burrows like a common lab rat?" Trent's shoulders raised gently, his eyes showing no hint of emotion towards that matter. "She is no longer with this company, and poses a threat. I have already sent a team to dispatch of her and her companions.. you will be supplied with her antibodies within the next..twelve hours or so? Miss Frost, shall we?"

As Trent motioned for his receptionist to follow like suit, Trent moved on by himself. A satisfied, almost evil smirk was splayed across his mouth. Waving his hand behind him, Trent laughed gently. "Everything will be as it should be soon, Albert. Just you wait an see.. You'll be the right hand of Umbrella once more, my boy." As Wesker stood solitarily still, the blonde woman stepped around him. His eyes bore onto her, causing the woman to blush. She looked familiar.. too familiar. As she clacked away desperately from his sight, Wesker sharply turned his head back to the room where his child was being watched. How long would it be before he himself would be considered a lab rat to be torn apart? What would they do to his daughter if they had to resort to binding her DNA and rendering her human.. Angelica would not come down so easily, and if Trent thought so.. he would think again. But she may allow it just to see her daughter one last time. Angelica was strong, but her daughter was her one weakness…and she had failed to even protect that. Then again…

How could he protect her if he wasn't even sure he could protect himself?

…..

Sheva slammed the communication device downwards, her lips quivering in anger. HQ had not been forgiving, and she had been told that the four of them would be collected by the end of the night. McNeal refused to comment on what he was going to do about Redfield, and had purposefully broken the connection before she could question him further. Leon sat wide eyed in the chair next to Jill's bed, not wanting to provoke the woman further. But even that was a wrong move. Throwing her hands up in the air, Sheva now blasted at him her rage. "Well! What are you going to do? Sit there..or would you rather go back to ADA's room." Leon scrunched his brow together, his blue eyes narrowing. "What does she have to do with this?" Sheva spat at the comment, her dark eyes narrowing in return. "Oh nothing, you just seem like you can never concentrate when that woman is within ten feet of your dick." Leon's eyes went wide as the statement was thrown his direction. Sheva's face turned deep red, and she turned away as a nurse walked by. She was a young thing, her eyes a bright green as she readied a syringe in the corner. Slowly standing, Leon moved towards Alomar. He slid a hand on her shoulder as he recognized the way she shook. The woman was crying..

"Come on now..pretty girls aren't supposed to look so sad." Finally Sheva turned into his chest, sniffling lightly. "Chris is like a brother to me, Leon.. I don't know what to do..I'm just stuck here." Softly shushing her, Leon kissed her forehead lightly. Smoothing back her hair with his uninjured hand, Kennedy slowly smiled. "Look..I've known him for a long ass time, Sheva. The boy can take care of himself. He knows what his I doing." Alomar slowly nodded as she wiped the moisture from her cheeks. Leon smiled, hugging her tightly. But as he did so, he moved for something close to her rear.. "Leon! Stop!" Even as she protested, his hand jerked at her belt, tugging free the item he wanted. Leaning around, he pointed her secondary Berretta at the nurse. "Ok, Lady..step away from Miss Valentine.." The nurse pulled back, her hands into the air. Pointing the gun at her, Leon hobbled over slowly to pick up the clear vial in which she was getting her syringe's content out of. "Ok..who are you? We had a nurse just give her a bag drip no less than ten minutes ago.. " Slamming the vial onto the flooring, Kennedy gruffly huffed as the contents made the floor smoke. Hydrochloric Acid…

The woman's eyes were wide with fear as she tried to inch towards the door. Leon let off a warning shot, as Sheva herself picked up the shotgun that Chris had left next to the other side of the bed. None of their weapons had been taken during check in.. and it had been a good thing. The woman slowly smiled as she lowered her arms. Leon stepped forwards, but far too late. "Nuononono…" As he screamed, she pressed a silver bracelet upon her right arm. The sound of a violent injection whooshed, and the woman dropped upon the floor convulsing. Leon waved towards Sheva, his voiced strained with fear as what was once the nurse began to contort into a creature. "GET JILL OUT AND TELL EVERYONE TO EVAC THE BUILDING NOW!

SHE JUST INFECTED HERSELF WITH THE G-VIRUS!"