Peyton limped out of the stairwell and properly entered the second floor. Beside him, Terri was filming with one hand and awkwardly holding the revolver with the other. The hall ahead of them was lined with classrooms.
"I'll check the rooms on the left, you check the right."
Terri nodded. "...Wait, what if I find one of those bioweapon-things when I look inside?"
"Shoot at it," he told her. "Or slam the door right in its ugly mug. If neither of those work out for you, holler. I'll hear you."
Well. That didn't exactly inspire feelings of safety, but Peyton and the others had managed to keep her alive thus far. And she was armed now. Firing a gun couldn't have been too difficult. Maybe she'd get some good footage out of this...
Out by the front of the school, a black vehicle pulled into the parking lot.
Rain wasn't sure if she'd ever experienced a more uncomfortable car ride before, but she sincerely doubted it. Alice engaged in some light conversation with the guys while she kept quiet, unwilling to contribute unless directly addressed, which only happened once because they quickly got the hint that she was uninterested in talking. Alice explained it away by lying and saying she was a quiet person.
L.J. put the car in park right beside the sidewalk. Rain was the first to get out. Second was Nicholai, who staggered the moment his feet were on the ground. Alice caught him by the back of his tactical vest before he could keel over completely. It was evident he wasn't doing too hot when she and Rain first climbed into the back with him, and he was only getting worse. He was white as a sheet and covered in a cold sweat. Alice kept her grip as she got out after him, righting him with a single tug.
"God, I feel like shit..."
"I've got him." Carlos came over and took him from her. "Hold on just a little while longer, Nicholai. As soon as Dr. Ashford has us on our way out of here, we'll be able to get help for you."
"How're we going about this?" L.J. removed two gold-plated handguns from the waistband of his jeans.
Rain left no room for argument or other suggestions when she said, "We're breaking off into groups." It would be her with Alice, and the two soldiers with L.J. She really didn't want to stick by them any longer than she already had. Thankfully, the others seemed content with that. Considering how the last one went, Rain really wasn't trying to get into another argument.
Following a bit more discussion about who was going where, the five split off in two different directions. As the others grew further and further away, Rain removed her hand from her forearm.
If they were unwittingly growing close to finding Angela or running into anyone else, she would be able to smell it. Living humans had a distinctly different scent than recently infected or undead ones. Plus, after the time they had spent together, she was familiar enough with the more personal notes that clung to everyone they worked with during their journey to identify them. Cigarettes, colognes, perfumes, marijuana, the spread of infection... those things stuck out to her, even from relatively far away.
The virus in her system wasn't causing all negatives at least, right?
Rain pulled her bandana down to make things as clear as they could be. She let her teeth dig into her bottom lip again as she tried to hone in on the scents she wanted to find and/or look out for, rather than any of the gore smeared across surfaces they passed here and there.
Alice walked behind, the rail-mounted light on her handgun shining over Rain's shoulder and illuminating the area ahead. In tandem with the pain, there was a dull, pinching, stitch-your-side sensation radiating throughout Alice's chest and shoulder when her body began to slowly heal itself. It wasn't entirely unpleasant, but it certainly felt odd. Foreign. Unnatural, even. She found herself somewhat appreciating the distraction it gave her, though.
In the middle of them poking around, she decided that she didn't need to be using a sling anymore. The pinching had become even weaker and she wasn't hurting nearly as badly. Besides, she could move her arm normally again. She removed her partner's bomber jacket. Darkness briefly swallowed the area. The swishing of the ripstop nylon was noisy, but Rain paid it no attention. Too focused.
"Here. You can have this back." That voice husking in her ear, however, managed to finally break through.
Without really thinking, she turned. She realized her mistake the instant she did it and moved to recover her face, but it was too late. As evidenced by the minute change in Alice's expression, by the slight furrow of her brows, she had noticed what she wanted to keep hidden.
There were two red marks right next to each other. At first glance, Alice thought it might have been viscera from Yuri, but Rain was sure to completely scrub any traces of that off the moment she got the opportunity. No, they were gouges that went vertically down the swell of her lower lip and ended a couple of centimeters onto the skin below it. Fresh ones.
"When did that happen?" Alice asked, attempting to get a better look at them. She had covertly scanned over her for more injuries after that broken wrist was revealed and didn't notice anything.
Rain tilted her head down, the dark curtain of her loose hair obscuring them from view. She seemed almost guilty.
"I was chewing on my lip," she admitted gruffly.
"That's what those are from? ...I thought you said you were feeling alright." The word "mostly" was implicit. "Can I see?"
When Alice's fingers brushed against Rain's chin as she went to tip her head back up, she recoiled as if burned.
Alice let her hand continue to hover in the space between them. This was similar to how, during the car ride, Rain kept herself pressed against the door in an attempt to not be touching her. There was an obvious reason why she was suddenly being avoidant, but Alice still found herself a bit stung.
"I am. Doing fine, I mean. And I'd prefer it to stay that way." Rain shrugged her coat back on. After another beat, she reclosed the distance between them and placed her chin in Alice's lingering palm. She meant what she said earlier about them watching out for each other, and if she wanted the blonde to be open about her current condition, it was only fair that she continued to do the same.
For a second, Alice forgot what she was meant to be doing until she caught sight of the glistening red again. The splits thinned out toward the bottom. The deepest parts left a rather noticeable dip. Alice was surprised they weren't bleeding more.
"Rain..."
"It's worse than I think it is, ain't it?"
"How did you even manage that?"
"Don't know. Didn't think I was biting too hard."
Alice kept her gaze trained on her mouth. "Let me see your teeth."
Rain stared up at her from under her brows, a brief glint of confusion in her eyes. She gave her something that was close to a grimace, causing a fresh red pearl to form from one of the gouges. She wasn't sporting a full set of razor-sharp teeth, but her lateral incisors and canines were noticeably pointier than they ought to have been.
The blood slowly began to trail down her face. Alice swiped it away with her thumb before hesitantly releasing her. "...You have fangs."
"What?" Rain ran her tongue along her teeth, but it was difficult to truly gauge any sharpness without pain. The thought that she potentially wasn't finished changing was more than enough to freak her out, but she willed herself to maintain her composure. Fully becoming a zombie would already be bad enough, but turning into something more beastial would be even worse. "Great. I haven't seen a single one of those soulless freaks have fangs, and I've had to look at a whole lotta them in the past few hours."
"You're not one of them, though," Alice gently pointed out.
"But I was damn close, wasn't I? And if not, what am I, then?"
Alice didn't have an answer. Her mind drifted to what the Red Queen told them about lickers. About how they mutated after feeding on fresh human DNA.
But the incident with Yuri wasn't the first time Rain had consumed human flesh. Back at the mansion, she was tearing into more than a few of the Umbrella personnel trying to contain her. There hadn't been any mutations after that. Not that Alice could see, anyway.
Could it have been because Yuri was already infected when Rain attacked him?
"...What makes me different from everyone else? What makes both of us different?"
"I don't know. We'll figure it out and fix it, though. I promise."
In the distance, something groaned. A faint tingle started in the back of Rain's skull. Infection.
"But first, we need to find the girl and get out of here. I don't know about you, but I don't think I could survive a nuclear blast."
Despite herself, Rain huffed out the ghost of a laugh. "You implying there could be a chance?"
Alice cracked a wry smile. "Suppose you can never be sure, but I'm not trying to find out. Come on."
They kept moving.
