The infected were thick upon the path between the facility and the mansion. Marigold wove through them at a fast walk, determined not to panic and bolt. She'd dislocated her thumb to slip the tracker from her wrist, and planted the thing on an infected maintenance worker, whose coveralls identified him as "Bill". Bill barely registered being stopped nor having the bracelet slipped into his breast pocket, but continued to shuffle down the path, back towards the facility where the soldiers were allegedly prepared to move in.

The crows had been hungry. The glasses had covered his eyes after she had taken him down, but the dozen or so crows that had remained had been happy to pick at the wounded flesh, the softer, exposed parts, at their leisure. Wesker would jerk and kick at this- her holding him in place meant that the pain had an open conduit- which was keeping them from getting comfortable.

The garden was up ahead. A lion statue had acted as a fountain for a small pool, though Scott had long ago said the fountain itself was in disrepair. Marigold made a beeline for it, and sat on the edge. At least she could do something about the blood covering her hands. The rest of her would have to wait. She splashed some water on her face, wiping at her blood-streaked chin. It had already begun to dry. A little water would help a little, but not much.

The pain she could handle. Being what she was, learning to use it and maintaining her humanity, had taught Marigold to work within pain. To work through it. To understand that the signals it sent were not always in line with what was best for her, and to move beyond it.

She could bear it a while longer, given how it was the only thing keeping Wesker from ordering the remaining troops to move in on Alfred. It was keeping the window evacuation open. That was what mattered.

It was still bad enough to make Marigold want to vomit, now that she had stopped moving for a moment. She pushed it down. There was a small cache hidden here, with a special formulation designed in case any of the children were exposed to-

"Aunt Callie?" A voice called from the front of the mansion. The voice was tentative, deeper than she remembered, but still recognizable. She looked up, and saw him blanche at the sight of her, then set that aside to step towards her. He had his gun drawn, but it was pointed at the ground. Alfred had found a hooded windbreaker in the time it had taken for her to get there. "You're really here?"

"Hi Crow," she said quietly. "I broke the trap."

Alfred paused, then snickered in spite of himself. "I saw. I made a copy of the recording to bring along." His hands were shaking almost as badly as hers had been a few minutes earlier, and there was something smeared across his face. He had broken into a feverish sweat.

She had heard a little of what Alfred had grown into. The stories, the insinuations, had a consistency to them which she found disturbing. Wesker himself, while not necessarily a reliable source, rarely seemed to lie to her outright.

It was a trait they shared.

The last time she had seen Alfred, he had been growing steadily more dependent on his sister's attention, more actively hostile to Harmon's slightly older son. He'd been starved for attention, any attention, at the time.

And now here he was, and she could sense the toxins from the roses all over him. The last few months, free of her medication, had shown her just how much the world - the virus, in its many terrible forms, had changed. The roses themselves though, were a beacon in their familiarity.

Back at the manor, in England she had once compiled a list of symptoms from those who had wandered too close to those damned roses over the years. From what she could see, Alfred had gone well beyond the brief accidental exposures she had seen in the past.

Alfred took in her uniform, one of the same worn by the mercenary outfit attacking the island. "What on earth-"

"We've both been having a bad day," Marigold interrupted. "I can't hold him down like that for long." She was already moving towards a lion statue by the fountain. She climbed up and peered inside its mouth, allowing herself a small smile, and reached in.

When she dropped down, a small, plastic-wrapped tin was clutched in her hand. She tore the plastic off and opened it, her smile growing a little wistful when she saw the contents. The little time capsule the children had made in 1981 was filled with a photo, and several little personal objects the family had gathered into the little time capsule- and three doses of the emergency medication for exposure to the roses' toxins, scoped to a normal human. Alexander had carried them out with him on that sweltering hot day and deposited them himself, despite how unenthused he had been at the activity as a whole.

It almost hurt to look at the photo of all of them together - happy, healthy, whole. That day had felt like the first of a long string of days where she could watch the family grow strong together as a unit. The smiling woman in the photo had had no idea that they'd been about to step off the brink, and shatter.

She looked back up at Alfred. "How long have you been exposed?"

Alfred stared. "The T-Virus affected the grounds, but I managed to-" Marigold pinned him with a look, and he grimaced when she held a dose out to him. Quietly, she said, "I probably would have more had trouble snapping out of it in time if I hadn't sensed them, but we always tried to keep people away from the roses for a reason. Take that now. If the stuff stored in the training yard still works, then this should as well. Is there a way out?"

Alfred nodded. "The mansion. The old lab. We have to get back-" he stopped, looking at her sharply as if he had just stopped himself from saying something damning.

Marigold watched him, eyes steady. The near-slip, and the better light in this place so that he could get a proper look at her face- had made his eyes grow huge. "I know," she responded. "I've been off my medication for a while now, and I could feel her when I tried to look. They all still think she's dead, or…here..for some reason." She took a closer look at his face. "Ah."

"What?" Alfred looked genuinely confused but took the dose anyhow. "There's an airfield, and I can fly us out of here. They have fresh forces though, so getting there will be interesting. There's an extra coat in the jet," he added, looking at her changed eyes with some trepidation. Slowly, the tremors subsided.

Protecting Alexia's secret had been slowly draining away Alfred's life and sanity over time. That much was clear. Considering how her neck and face were still covered in blood, she could hardly judge. "It's alright," she said. "I can get us to the airfield if you keep your face covered. They don't know what I've done yet- they probably still think the drugs are working- but we need to move." She reached over and drew his hood up over his head. "Do you have everything you need? We don't have much time."

Alfred shook his head. "I was ready to take my leave anyhow. Come on- there's a passage across that should be clear enough until we reach the airfield."

They fled.

Alfred wasn't sure how he had pictured Marigold making her way back, but this -

No, he thought, as he led Marigold through the private tunnel connecting the palace to the airfield, that wasn't entirely accurate. He hadn't been entirely sure she had contacted him at all for a little while, half-convinced he'd dreamed up that short call. A few days after Raccoon City began to crumble, a call had come through from the old manor in England. Mrs. Higgins, a strict woman who'd had the family's every confidence on that side of the pond, had received a strange message: someone Marigold recognized, and feared, had intercepted her escape back in July.

Alfred had asked for more information, and Mrs, Higgins had little else to add. "I have a list of people to call after this, luv. I think she's going to where all the bodies are buried." With that cryptic remark, she'd ended the call.

He could count the number of people who had the temerity to speak so abruptly to him (and walk away unscathed) on one hand. Alexia had done so, as was her right. Alexander had barely noted him at all. Both were out of commission, so to speak. Duvall and Vladimir were decent, if hazardous company. Grayson, of course spoke mostly without consideration- a trait that would have been refreshing had Alexia not developed a fascination with him growing up. Raccoon City had left its scars on his childhood…friend…as it were. The man drank heavily these days, but managed to skirt that thin line of being a functional alcoholic without yet tipping over the edge.

Mrs. Higgins was a special case. When he'd grown short with her as a teen, the woman had actually smirked at him. "I grew up alongside your Auntie, boy, and her temper was worse than yours before she couldn't afford to have one anymore. Learn to stow it, and your life will be easier."

After hanging up the phone, Alfred had begun to make preparations. If Umbrella were going down, the island would become a target for any rival operations looking to tear off a piece of the black market.

Alfred glanced back as they moved through the tunnel. There was barely any light, but Alfred knew the way well enough to do it mostly blind. Besides, Marigold moved at his back like a shadow, eyes reflecting the low light.

She looked the same. She looked smaller. She looked exhausted, and drawn into herself. In the light by the door, he had realized that something had caused her irises to mutate from Ashford ice blue to a mottled reddish orange.

She'd kept talking about being able to feel the infected. Like an extra sense. "Could you…sense them…before?" Binary questions. Those might be safe enough. There would be time enough once there were in the air, and Marigold had that look on her face like she was beginning to nurse a headache.

She took a long moment before answering. "Yes," she said slowly. "I wasn't sure for a while if they did something, but…no. I don't think they did. I think I picked up on Grayson at the house during my last visit, but I didn't understand what I was sensing back then. There's just more of it now." She paused. "It's starting to feel normal. Like feeling bad weather on the way." Her voice sounded distantly horrified. There was a tight, focused expression on her face.

Alfred glanced back at her. His hands felt steadier than they had in weeks. He'd taken the shot as they'd fled the garden, and he was feeling remarkably clear. She caught his look and shook her head. "He's still in my head, and I don't know how long I can keep moving and hold him down if he wakes up. He passed out again after I left, thank god. I've done it once, but Birkin was barely aware; I was fresh at the time. Not really the case now."

Alfred slowed to a near stop, trying to process the flood of completely unintelligible statements that his aunt had just launched at him, but she caught him by the arm and towed him up the stairs to the airfield tower in her wake. "The man. In the yard. Regenerates like a starfish. He's tested that in a way that I won't. The rebar and the crows are doing their bit to slow things down, maybe keep the bleeding going. But we need to go."

They came to the top of the stairs to the inside of the air control tower. The two of them crept forward towards the window, both understanding the need to take advantage of cover and get a sense of the field beyond it. Alfred could see his Harrier jet from here- it was the closest one, but they'd still have to cross some distance of open ground. A small unit of five soldiers was stationed around the back of it, using it as cover while BOWs prowled the open space.

A moan rang out behind them. An infected began to rise from his chair, formerly the air traffic controller. Marigold moved quickly and…shut the surprisingly passive zombie into the nearest bathroom. It made a soft scratching sound behind the door, then went quiet. Marigold caught his surprised look and shrugged.

She returned to crouch next to him. The zombie stayed quiet. At his look, she made a face and shrugged. "This isn't going to be a pretty thing to watch, and I don't know how much your father told you about what I was capable of back then. If I tell you to get back, can you manage that?" She asked, voice low. "I never wanted anyone to see this side of me. It was bad enough knowing that it was there in the first place." She looked at him. "You and your sister were never in any danger from this. We did everything we could to make sure of that." She pursed her lips. "I'd thought we had, back then."

"Aunt Callie…" A rising sense of dread rose in his gut. No one knew about Alexander.

Marigold almost seemed to read the thought from his expression. "One's sleeping. One's in pain. That's all I know, but I was able to find out enough to put it together. I'm not going to hurt her, Alfred," she said emphatically, plucking at the next deep, horrid question hanging between them. "I'm going to grieve, and I may have a few choice words for her when she comes back, but there are other problems here to deal with."

She squinted through the window at the soldiers, thinking. Then, "we need to split them, so they don't just chase us down, yes? We need chaos…and I might have an idea, but it only works if they don't realize who you are."

Alfred took a breath, held it, and let it out. It was no secret that he had a well-developed taste for bloodshed. Aunt Callie had been one of the few adults to actually pay attention to him from the outset*,* rather than to 'Alexia's twin' - which made her one of the few people who had his implicit trust.

The people who had put her into that uniform had seemed to come to the same conclusion. The recording he carried in his coat pocket was documented proof of how well his aunt had taken to being used against her own.

Alfred had held out against these invaders for days on a battlefield scale. He was curious to see what she was planning to do.

And he badly wanted to see these invaders tear themselves apart. "After you then, " he said, barely suppressing a cold grin.