Resident Evil: Tangled Web

By: PhantasmBabeIvory

Chapter Fifteen

Claire found it was very hard to look at Elliott, even after he had gotten redressed and settled on the couch next to her. Thankfully for her, he remained quiet for a long while even though he must be dying to know what she and Wesker had talked about.

Claire was the one to break the silence. "I'm sorry for walking in on you like that. When I found the place empty and I didn't hear anything... I didn't think you were here."

Elliott sighed. "Chalk it up to bad timing, I guess. I wasn't expecting you back so soon. Didn't hear you calling for me." He was silent for several minutes. "You're going to have to help me out, Claire. I don't know what to say that won't sound inappropriate or clichéd."

"And you think I do? I suppose this was inevitable with the two of us sharing a living space." She paused. "If we're going to be in this for the long haul, then maybe we should set some rules so this doesn't happen again."

Elliott chuckled. "There's something I thought I'd never have to worry about again after my siblings and I left home. Never imagined having to make a bathroom schedule ever again in my life."

"Elliott," Claire said with an edge in her voice.

"Just trying to keep things light," he answered. "You know, we have time to figure this out. Do you want to talk about what happened between you and Wesker?"

Claire let out a deep breath. "You were right," she said, her gaze fixed on her hands. "I shouldn't have agreed to go with him."

She saw Elliott turn to look at her out of the corner of her eye. "Did he hurt you?"

She hesitantly nodded. "Whether it's with words or fists, that's what Wesker does." When she heard Elliott sigh heavily, she said, "He got a little rough, but he didn't hit me if that's what you're thinking."

"What did he say?"

Claire gnawed at her lip. "A lot of things. Promised stuff too that he'll probably never deliver on." She turned her head a fraction in Elliott's direction. "He claimed he'll let us go once he get what he wants. That he'll compensate us as well." She sighed, then hesitantly said, "He told me to ask if you'd like to see the person you've wronged the most returned to full health. Said you'd know..."

Claire never got a chance to finish before Elliott abruptly kicked at the coffee table. She looked at her companion with a start, frightened by both his outburst and how furious he looked. He leapt to his feet after a second, angrily stomping toward the center of the room. "Wesker, you sick son of a bitch!" Elliott spat out. "Whoever's watching this, you can tell him he has no right! If he lays one finger on her, I'll kill him myself!"

That broke the ice like nothing else. Claire stared at Elliott in bewilderment. Is he talking about his ex-girlfriend, Jasmine? "Elliott?" she asked.

He didn't turn to look at her. From the set of his shoulders, he was clearly fuming. "Not now, Claire," Elliott warned.

There was something in his voice that stopped her from asking any more questions. She bowed her head, biting back tears. She now regretted saying anything since she knew that Wesker was good at hitting people where they hurt the most; he'd done so before with her brother and her. She felt stupid for thinking Elliott wouldn't be affected like this.

Claire didn't know how long it took before Elliott spoke next. "God, I could really use a smoke now." After another minute, he walked over and settled onto one corner of the coffee table facing her. She glanced at him for only a second, but she could tell he was considerably calmer. "What did Wesker offer to you?" Elliott asked.

"To reunite me with someone I believed to be dead," Claire said quietly.

"Your friend from Rockfort Island?"

Claire nodded. "I can't think of anyone else that Wesker could be talking about, especially after the conversation you and I had yesterday."

"Please don't bite my head off for asking this, but... Are these things that Wesker can actually do, or is he just playing us?"

He had her full attention now. "You're changing your tune that quick?"

"I don't trust him, but it'd be nice to know if the science is possible." Elliott paused, wringing his hands together. "I have good reason, Claire."

"What did you do to Jasmine that you'd want her healed?"

Elliott hesitantly said, "Wesker isn't talking about Jasmine. He meant..." Elliott bowed his head. "I told you that my younger sister, Lisette, is mentally challenged, but I didn't tell you why. It's because of me. I'm the reason she doesn't have a normal life."

Claire shut her eyes, disturbed by the admission. The realization that she knew very little about this man she was stuck with weighed heavily on her. She let out a deep breath and focused back on him. "What did you do?"

"You up for a long story?"

Claire nodded.

"Okay," Elliott said. "Fair warning though – my relationship with Jasmine played a big part in what happened." He rose from his seat and paced over to the other side of the room. "Jasmine was someone I met in college and really hit it off with. At the start, she seemed like a dream come true. She was a writer too – the most gifted one I had ever met up to that point. We moved in with each other after graduation. For a while, I kept asking myself how I got to be so lucky."

"I'm guessing she turned out not to be so perfect," Claire said when he faltered.

"A lesson I learned the hard way," Elliott said. "After several months, my sister, Katherine, came to stay with us when she and her husband temporarily separated. I didn't give Jasmine much of a choice in the matter of our houseguest. Didn't think I needed to. I would have done the same for any of Jasmine's family if they had nowhere else to go."

He stopped to clear his throat, then said, "I know now there had been warning signs that Jasmine didn't like intrusions into our private little world. At the time, I was too infatuated to see them. So when Jasmine set it up to look like Katherine had erased a lengthy fiction piece my ex had been working on for a year, I bought it. Even Katherine was duped into thinking she'd done something terrible."

Claire's eyes widened. "Damn," she blurted out. "You said Jasmine was manipulative, but I had no idea."

Elliott nodded. "Katherine spent some time trying to make up for the incident, even after she and her husband, John, had reconciled. John didn't like that Jasmine kept holding a grudge and eventually placed a call to her asking for forgiveness on Katherine's behalf. When Jasmine refused to let my sister off the hook, that's when John hired a private detective to have Jasmine investigated.

"After a month, John came to me with the information that anyone who tried to leave Jasmine had a tendency to serve time in prison. I didn't want to believe it. But as the days passed by, I started to notice things about Jasmine that were... off." He gazed at Claire. "I doubt it would make much sense to you without having known her."

Claire rubbed her eyes, feeling tired. "What does any of this have to do with Lisette?"

"Everything," Elliott said with a haunted look. "Lisette was staying with John and Katherine to save on college costs. Ironically, she was the one who had the least to do with the whole mess and yet she's the one who got hurt the most.

"Katherine, John, and I met one day for lunch and reached a mutual agreement that I should leave quietly while Jasmine was at work and stay with my family to sort things out. The evening I walked out, the police came to Katherine's home to arrest me. Jasmine had fed the cops a pretty convincing story that I had assaulted her. I can't even imagine what she did to sell the deception." Elliott paused. "My sisters and brother-in-law were quick to bail me out. We were starting to make arrangements to meet with a lawyer. Katherine even made me promise not to have any further contact with my ex."

Claire froze, suspecting where this was going. "What did Jasmine do?"

"She stopped by about two weeks later. Katherine had just found out she was pregnant with her first child, and she and John were away for a doctor's appointment. I don't know how Jasmine knew. She said she just wanted to talk, that she missed me, wanted to work things out. Jasmine made it a point to remind me of how good things had been between us and she said she was sorry that it had come to this. And I believed her. I invited her in... It was the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life."

It took a while before Elliott could speak again, he looked so heartbroken. "The most tragic part is that Jasmine didn't even know Lisette was staying with Katherine and me. Jasmine had a gun out and pointed at me when my back was turned. Lisette walked in and surprised my ex, and the gun went off."

There was such pain in Elliott's voice that it brought tears to Claire's eyes. She wiped them away and turned her head to stare at the floor. It was hard not to put herself in Elliott's shoes and imagine how she'd feel if her brother Chris was shot in front of her.

Both Elliott and Claire sat in silence for a long while. He finally said, "Thank you for not telling me it's not my fault. I've heard that so many times since." Elliott let out a deep sigh. "I wrestled the gun away from Jasmine and called 911. Most of what followed was a blur. But I still have nightmares of seeing Lisette unconscious and bleeding on the floor, of hearing Katherine scream when she came home and saw our sister being wheeled out on a gurney. I've had to live with this ever since."

"What happened to Jasmine?"

Elliott looked down. "The tables were turned on her. My father used his influence to personally see that she was sentenced to forty years for attempted manslaughter and premeditation. She didn't even last a year before she killed herself."

Claire closed her eyes. "Well," she said quietly. "I guess now I know why you reacted so badly when we were taken prisoner. No wonder you didn't trust me."

After another long silence, Elliott said, "Are you going to be okay?"

Claire laughed, the question was so unexpected. "You're asking me?"

"Considering I lost sight of the day you've had, yes." Elliott brushed a strand of hair from his eyes. "You had to be depressed enough already before my story came out. I'm sorry to unload of you like this when your talk with Wesker had to be hell."

"It's alright, Elliott." Claire cleared her throat and focused on her companion. It was hard not to blush when a visual of seeing him naked flashed through her mind. Oh, my God. How can I still be thinking about that? "If you're feeling up to it, there's a lot more I need to tell you about that conversation. Maybe you can help me make sense of some things."

Elliott sighed softly. "Go ahead. I'm all ears," he said.