He usually took his whisky neat, but tonight, the ice seemed a fitting touch. A metaphorical cooling off.
He had just returned to his reconnaissance room aboard the ship, and he was in rare form. Uncomfortable. Despite being alone, he focused himself, schooling his features into a tight mask, even as the emotions raging through him lingered in his chest. They were solid and jagged and enflamed, pushing themselves to the surface; even his skin felt too tight.
He needed to release it, perhaps a fist through the monitor or a chair through the glass wall. No, it would pass, he told himself, forcing his muscles to stay relaxed, his face blank.
The alcohol was a fine accomplice, and so they sat together, his legs splayed and head back as he rocked in the chair, hoping that each sip would push the feelings further and further down, deep enough to smother them. The memory of her skin on his. The feel of her body, hot with the fever from that infection, and so limp in his arms.
Another sip of that whisky so smooth he didn't even have the pleasure, the distraction, of feeling the burn. So, he poured another, fighting the images of her beneath him, that dark hair against the pillow and his hand around her throat.
'See that you remain an asset, and not a liability.'
xx
After depositing her on the bed, he stood as far away as he could, at the window where he could watch the rain until she woke. Where he could think of the plans that he had or the world he would build or anything except her, on that bed so vulnerable and soft. His hand rested on the gun at his side and then it was moving again, drawn to the softness of that face, that mouth that held such a sharp tongue, the splash of red against the white bed as deep as blood; her signature color. Sharp and deadly. Alluring. How many men would gladly meet their maker led by Ada, on their backs with their chest under that heeled foot.
He was not such a man.
He removed his glasses, folding them into his shirt collar and stared at her in the dim light. In her neck, he could see that tiny twitch, the erratic pulse. What had tipped him off.
Her vitals had been going insane, off the charts. Something told him he needed to get to the village. And so he went.
He saw it happen. He was unnaturally fast, and though his instincts told him to hurry, he took out as many Los Illuminados members as he could along the way, for no reason other than he could. To prove his cruelty. His coldness. As if it could somehow balance the scales for what he was about to do. The air stung his face with the pace that he moved.
He was as annoyed to see her still breathing as he was relieved. He knew, though, that she was too good for a death at their hands. Her end should be violent, glorious, leaving even death itself shuddering in the wake. The would be ripped from the world clawing and screaming and certainly not alone, stranded. She could not be snuffed out by a fluke.
Besides, she still had a job to do.
They were surrounding her, but he refused to pick them off from the roof, opting instead to call out to them, draw their attention before leaping from his perch and killing then with his own hands. He would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy the sensation of pushing his palms through their chests; the solidness of fingers around spines.
The cruelty helped fuel him for what he was about to do.
When they had been returned to the soil, it could be put off no longer and Wesker finally approached her and saw the black that had infiltrated her veins and spidered across her face. If she could open her eyes, he would see the darkness there, too.
Shit.
He hated unpredictably, but it went with the territory with her.
It was the first time since meeting her that he allowed himself to touch her. There was no one around to see, so he lightly traced her jaw. The heat of her skin burning with that fever thrummed against him, even through the leather of his gloves. The distraction was brief, and when the raindrops began falling around him he resumed his work, scooping her up into his arms and surprised at just how small, how light she was.
Because there, pressed to his chest as he shielded her from the rain, she wasn't the assassin, the spy. As he kicked in the doors to Mendez's house, and carried her up the stairs, she was just Ada. Just a woman. A beautiful, powerful woman. Almost as powerful as he was. He had never seen her like this, and never wanted to, again. Not because he didn't want to see her hurt, but because it affected him in a way that made his skin crawl. As good a weakness as any.
Her infection was an unforeseen event. A shame, because now he would be forced to act. The syringe felt so familiar in his hand as he approached the bed, her hand outstretched to him, finger curled and beckoning and before he could stop himself, he was touching her face. Instinctively she leaned into it. He could have pulled away, should have. But he lingered as long as the moment would allow. He wanted to drag his fingers along her jaw, her lips. Her breasts. His hands along her sides to her hips and those thighs...
Instead, he settled between her legs and trailed from her face to her neck, until his hand was around it. His fingers pulsed along the fine muscles there, applying just enough pressure to feel the steady beat of her heart. A breath escaped her, too much like a moan; the effect was instantaneous. Every muscle in his body tensed at the jolt that ran through him at the sight and sound, and he had to pull himself away before he did something that even he would regret, violent or otherwise.
He pulled up her sleeve and traced the dark veins that spread there to the inside of her elbow, and then his eyes were on her chest, her face. He watched her expression as he slid it in, her lips parted and chest rose, but she did not wake. He withdrew the needle and pulled her sleeve back down. The now full syringe burned in his hands, perhaps a side effect of the infection.
Those dark tendrils that had stained her body were lightening, dissolving – though he knew they were not disappearing. Only burrowing deeper into her, pushing their way further to incubate and multiply until she would be consumed by it. Wesker, of all people, knew how insidious these things were.
He forced himself to leave her there, to return to the window. That blood he had taken was as much for himself as it was for her. If nothing else, if Luis couldn't manage to remove the infection...then he would develop something. Insurance, he thought.
She was his valuable asset, after all. His. And Wesker would take good care of his things while they were of use to him.
He heard the rustling, the bed creaking. She was awake. He slid on his glasses, along with that mask that wasn't really a mask.
"Having a bad day?"
XX
'See that you remain an asset, and not a liability.'
He drained the last of the booze from the glass and rocked back in his chair.
Wesker had meant what he said to her, every word, and they echoed in his mind. She would betray him, undoubtedly. As he could – no, would just as easily betray her. Ada, who would rise against him. Ada, who loved to flippantly throw wrenches into his plans. Who loved to subtly spite him at every turn. He loved it and hated it and hated her. At least, he wanted to. It would be so much easier to maintain that separation, as he did with all things.
But in that room with her so helpless, with no one to see, he didn't need to.
Until she woke up, and then it was back to normal. Back to the commands, forcing the chill into his tone, to keep her low and serving. Obedient. Not like a hollow, lifeless puppet – more like a Doberman waiting for its orders.
A well-paid Doberman, whose leash he held tightly.
Wesker's own strings burned at the thought. How long had he danced for Spencer?
He rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck. And drank, listening to the sound of her heart pumping rhythmically over the monitor.
He shouldn't be drinking at this pace, too much to do and yet he fought the whisper of temptation, in both the bottle and the ghost of her body heat. By now, she would have nearly cleared out half the village and with Luis, close to retrieving the amber. Close to betraying him. But he had a contingency – for the plagas sample, at least. He would have to decide, another day, what he would do with her...to her.
He meant what he said, she had become a liability. Only not in the way he implied it, not in the way she believed.
His asset. His liability.
Ada.