Jill entered the classroom, keeping both her penlight and weapon carefully trained on Rain. Rain squinted against the light, which seemed brighter to her than it actually was.

Angela wasn't sure what to make of the situation. She looked back and forth between the two women, clutching her schoolbag close to her body.

Slowly, Rain began to lower her arms.

Jill tightened her finger on the trigger. "Keep still," she ordered. "Or I'll fire."

Rain paused. "Yeah. Alright."

"What? You don't believe me?"

"Nah, I do. Doesn't mean I give a shit, though." That was partially a lie. While Rain wasn't as intimidated by having a firearm aimed her way as most people probably would be, getting shot would most definitely not be preferable. It was clear her injuries didn't heal quickly like Alice's did, and even if she wouldn't feel a bullet, there was a very real possibility one could take Rain out if it hit her in the right place. Those places were not few and far between on a person, either.

However, that didn't stop her from continuing to push her luck a little. Slower than before, she resumed her movements.

Jill's expression hardened further. She pulled back the hammer.

"Listen." Rain readjusted her bandana so that it was covering her face. Then, she put her hands back up. "I could hear you approaching," She jerked her head in the direction she knew Jill had come from, "all the way down the hall. Hell, I could smell you not long after, too. I knew that if the door opened, I'd be seeing you. I could've shot you dead before you even finished twisting the door handle, but I didn't."

"Well, you could've tried to. And I would've outshot you," Jill corrected. "But I'll humor you for a second. Why not?"

"I didn't want to. I'm not trying to cause any serious damage to anyone who doesn't deserve it."

"What do you consider that stunt you pulled earlier?"

"That..." Rain could feel blood oozing from the splits on her lip. She cleared it away with her tongue. "I didn't mean for that shit to happen. I wasn't myself anymore."

"Tell me what you are."

"Can't. Your guess is as good as mine."

Jill glanced down to where the girl was, realizing that throughout the course of the exchange, she had been sidling back over to Rain's side.

Rain stiffened. More people were drawing near. There were two sets of feet. The first were clad in heels. Terri, maybe? The other were wearing something heavier. Boots, probably. Theoretically, that meant it could have been anyone, but it might've been Alice. Alice was meant to be returning.

The heels stopped, but the other person continued to grow closer.

"You're Angela, right? You should keep away from her. She's dangerous."

No less uncertain, Angela shifted back and forth on her feet.

...There was a medicinal, chemical-ly smell. Like the hospital. And familiar blood. Infected blood. Definitely Alice.

"It's fine. Go on. Stand with Jill. It's probably for the best, anyway."

Angela hesitantly moved to be beside the S.T.A.R.S. officer, who placed a hand on her shoulder. "Follow me. We need to go."

"What about her?"

A shadow entered the doorway.

"She can't come with us. She's very sick."

"I know she is." The girl pulled away. "But—"

"What exactly do you think you're doing?" The barrel of a sawed-off shotgun pressed against the back of Jill's head.

She turned slightly to get a look at the person behind her. "So you survived that fall too, huh?"

"It wasn't as high up as it seemed," Alice replied. "Now, why don't you put the gun away? Things don't need to get messy. There's a child here, after all."

Jill was stubborn. Even when the odds were tipped completely out of her favor, she wasn't one to throw in the towel. A weapon at point-blank range behind her, and that freak angled toward her front? Maybe there was still a way out of this. Maybe she could get that shotgun pointed elsewhere and twist her and Alice around, shielding her body from Rain with the other woman's.

But having Angela in the room with them meant that any potential action would put her life at risk as well.

"Put it. Away."

That was strange wording, wasn't it? Put it away. Don't hand it over, don't drop it, don't remove the clip, no, put it away.

Equal parts bemused and begrudging, Jill reholstered her pistol.

Alice shifted most of her attention over to Angela, tilting her head slightly. "She's—"

"Infected, yeah," Rain finished for her.

"On a massive level."

"I know."

Jill asked, "How can you tell?"

"Because they're like me," Angela explained.

"Both of you? That explains why you've been sticking together the way you have. And let me guess, if that whole mess on the overpass didn't happen, you wouldn't have told us? You would've just let us go on our merry goddamn way with you, blissfully unaware that the two of you are as dangerous as all the other B.O.W.s wandering around here? That at any moment, you might try to eat us? Yuri didn't even know how the virus spreads, and he still told us he was bitten!"

Rain looked away shamefully. Though she was certain she already knew what the answer would be, she decided to ask, "...Yuri... Is he...?"

"Yeah, he's dead. You killed him. I mean, sure, with the state that guy was in, he may have been a goner either way, but we'll never know now, will we?" Jill's tone was clipped. "You might not want to go around ripping throats out, but that doesn't matter since you clearly can't control yourself well enough to not."

"I'm sorry. You guys deserved a proper warning. I... I've never pulled something like that before." Not to Rain's knowledge, anyway. She really hoped she hadn't. "We thought we could keep the shit under control, and we were wrong."

"Got that right. What exactly did you think coming here would accomplish, anyway? You knew we would still be on our way over, and there's no way in hell anyone's gonna let either of you near them now. We can't trust you guys not to turn on us!"

"You can trust Alice," Rain insisted. ...Maybe things weren't fixable in regards to herself. Maybe she was letting too much of her partner's optimism rub off on her while fighting a losing battle. Maybe she would keep mutating and lose herself completely. The thought scared her, but even if Alice wouldn't give her all the details, Rain at least knew that she wasn't going through the exact same experience. Her sense of self was still firmly in place, not being shaken by primal urges. "She ain't like me. She is, but she isn't. I'm the problem, the danger, all that. She's got a good heart, just doesn't know when to give up."

"Stop it. Don't even try that. I'm not going anywhere without you, Rain."

"Exhibit A."

"'Partners look out for each other'," Alice quoted back at her. "I can't do that if you're not around, can I?"

"That's—" Rain cut herself off and huffed. "Jill's right. I wanna help everyone. I wanna be there for you, wanna believe when you say that whatever's wrong with me is reversible, but—ugh, look at me!" She tugged her bandana back down, baring her sharp teeth. "I'm not done changing, apparently! Come morning, I could be closer to one of those ugly ass lickers than a person."

"You don't know if that'll happen."

"Neither do you."

"Maybe I can help," Angela piped up.

Alice slowly lowered her weapon. "...That's a sweet offer, but—"

"No, I really can! Here." The girl removed what appeared to be a metal lunchbox from her bag, which had the Umbrella logo plastered on the front and back. Upon hitting a concealed switch, the side of the box slowly slid open, revealing injectors and vials of green and blue liquid sitting in foam padding. She took out a blue vial, leaving five.

"That's the antivirus," Alice murmured in disbelief. "That's the cure."

Jill's eyes widened. "There's a cure?"

Alice crouched down to Angela's level. "Where did you get this?"

"My daddy has me take it two times a day. He says I need to in order to balance out this one." She tapped the green liquid. "I've already done it for today, so I can share with you all."

'Man, we've got to get this stuff to Nicholai,' was Rain's immediate thought.

"Rain..." Alice carefully accepted the antivirus when Angela handed it to her. "You've taken this before. It definitely helped to some extent, but you were bitten so many times, and a lot of time passed before it could be administered... A fresh dose might do you more good."

Then, Rain processed that information. "Wait, actually?" She joined Angela and Alice on the floor. Alice grabbed one of her shoulders and lightly shook her.

"What did I tell you?"

"Daddy says too much at once isn't good for you. This is what I take." Angela pointed to a black line on the side of the tube, indicating that the amount was small. "But I think you're a lot more sick than I am."

"Yeah, I think so too."

"We can double the dose for you," Alice said matter-of-factly. "Let me see your arm."

Rain rolled her sleeve up and complied. Jill stared at the mark there. The skin was slightly darker in places, leaving clear imprints of human teeth. "How long ago were you bitten, exactly?"

"Uh..." Rain turned to Alice for the answer.

"It all happened the night prior."

"But that looks healed."

"Yeah, it does, doesn't it?" Alice loaded the antivirus into an injector and pressed the end of it against Rain's inner forearm. "Here." With a deep breath, she began to push down the button.

Shuk. The needles stuck Rain. Although it hadn't back on the train, the injection made her muscles tense like she was being electrocuted.

Alice carefully watched her, hoping desperately for a positive reaction.

The insects stilled completely, but the tingling in Rain's skull persisted. She had a feeling this was similar to putting on a Band-Aid. It wasn't fixing an open wound, just helping protect it from irritants, from... worsening.

It was pacifying her dark, unwanted desires without having her follow through on any of them.

When her eyes met Alice's, Alice thought they seemed more brown than blue now. She was relieved. That was a good sign.

"Keep it with you and take the rest later. Maybe it'll make you all better."

"Thanks, kid."

"I'm not a kid. I'm almost ten."

Rain withheld a snort and took the vial from Alice, tucking it into the pocket of her cargo pants. "Right. My bad."

"Call me Angie. That's what my friends do."

"Angie. Got it." She turned her attention back to Alice. "Alright, what about you?"

"No, I can't take it," was Alice's immediate response. She stood.

"What? Why not?"

"It's like you said. We're alike, but we're not. The antivirus won't help me. You'd only be wasting it."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do."

"But—"

"I can't." Her voice wavered ever so slightly. "You're the one who seriously needed it. I'll be fine."

There was something she still wasn't telling Rain. That much was obvious. Rain was going to drop it, but only for the time being. Alice left the room, and Rain could faintly hear her saying that it was okay to come out, that she was sorry for taking so long. The heels became audible again.

"Today is your lucky day." Jill crossed her arms. "But if I see any signs of you about to turn again, I'm afraid I'm going to have to shoot you."

"Yeah, that's fine. I get it."

Alice reappeared with a familiar figure dressed in dirtied white in tow.

"Terri? Where's Peyton?"