Chapter 3
Storm
He'd made a mistake. Called a 'meadow' a 'field', and now paid the price for his semantic flub.
"Technically, a field is a strip of cleared land suitable for cultivation. A meadow is comprised of low-lying grassland. Battles were fought on fields, Chris, not in meadows."
This is what happens when your partner is a chick, and not a guy. If Jill were a man the whole scenario played out different.
Guys constructed criticism around a good-natured ribbing. A dude reprimand over his word choice faux pas might have gone, 'Hey Chris, why don't we put on our pink tutus and ride our fluffy unicorns out into a meadow. We can traipse around with our candy-colored wands, and shoot the evil rainbow fairy with our sparkly pixie dust.' Emphasis on the words tutu, unicorn, and meadow; quite possibly a few fruity ballet steps thrown in to drive the point home.
Hardy-har-hars all around. An instant tension icebreaker while trekking into unfamiliar territory at Chris's expense.
What guys didn't do was break out a Webster's and go dictionary on some other poor mistaken guy's ass.
A flock of geese shot skyward. Meadow, smeadow. He'd tell her the earth was square if that's what she wanted to hear to shut her up long enough for him to think.
"They're all the same to me. Every damn last one parked in the center of bum-fuck-Egypt. Call it whatever you like, but once, just once, I'd like to make an arrest without a plane ride, boat ride, car ride, bike ride, canoe ride, backpack mountain climb, zip line, and a skydive to get close to my target."
"You had that chance, in Raccoon City."
"Nice. Way to bring it up." He brought his binoculars to his eyes.
"I'm not rubbing it in. I'm pointing it out."
Meadow. Field. BFE. The only thing moving on the manor grounds, not castle grounds, thank you very much Leon and your overpriced informants, was the long grass pushed back at the edge of a cliff swaying in the breeze.
"I'm going to correct Raccoon tonight."
"And when it's over? What then?"
He ducked behind a low stonewall and motioned her forward. "Last time I checked Oprah was black."
Storm winds brewed coffee-colored clouds across gray sky. Ocean swell rolled over the coastline and slammed onto a driftwood-drenched beach.
Jill hunkered next to him. "It's a cycle, Chris. You. Me. Hunting the Big Bad Wolf."
They stayed low and shuffled along the edge of a copse of trees. The first raindrops landed on his head.
Fifty yards closer he stopped and surveyed the scene again. Where's the gardener? A wheelbarrow, bags, and a rake lay beneath one of the trees that circled a paved driveway. Wind gusts stroked the ground. Cinnamon-brown leaves, lifted from neatly piled mounds, fluttered in the air, and scattered across pruned flowers in mulched beds.
"The thing is though this wolf, this beast, didn't start out Big and Bad. It started as a cub. It suckled. It grew. It developed fangs. It spawned its own cubs. There might be hundreds of dens out there; never ending plane rides and skydives, and just when you think you've cornered the last wolf, you won't, because there is always the one that gets away."
Chris grunted. "Not today."
A car parked in the drive. Shiny. Factory shiny. Chimney smoke. Lower floor windows open. No lights. Scratch that. A flicker of light flashed on the top floor and a dark silhouette painted on even darker walls.
He tugged the binocular strap over his head. "Here, have a look."
"Did you hear anything I just said?"
"Tell me what you see."
Jill gripped his chin. Her gaze met his. "Listen to me. I don't want to spend the rest of our lives stumbling into dens."
Lightening cracked its static whip across the sky.
Chris sat back on his heels. Only Jill could find a way to turn a mission into a lifestyle sermon. He half expected the rest of the team to pop out from behind the hedges in some surprise gang intervention. Save Chris Redfield from his one-track mind, or some such bullshit.
"We won't."
"Damn straight. I've made a decision."
Jesus fing Christ! Why did women do this? She'd had all the time in the world to make any revelation she needed to share over the last month, and she'd picked now, right now, of all time and places, to let her intentions be known.
"Tonight is my last stop. Spencer is my exit."
Chris tilted his head back and sighed. He needed her focused. Her lack of focus was going to get them killed.
His hand fumbled at the bulge in his vest. He rooted in his back pocket for a lighter. A quick glance at the front face of the manor, still devoid of activity, gave him a silent thumbs up. She obviously wanted something off her mind. He'd give her five minutes, or as long as it took to suck nicotine down to the filter. He owed her that much, and a lot more after last night's lip service.
"So, out with it." He flicked his lighter. The sparked flame instantly snuffed out in the stiff breeze. He cupped his hands. Flame. No flame. Flame. No flame.
Jill leaned into him. Her body blocked the wind. The lighter stayed lit and Chris sucked a hit of instant stress relief deep into his lungs.
"The dipstick was magenta," she whispered in his ear.
"What?"
"It's supposed to be purple, or pink. It's magenta."
"What dipstick?"
"The one I peed on yesterday morning."
"Why in the hell would you pee on an oil dips-" His cigarette slipped from his mouth and hung down his chin. "Oh."
The meadow fiasco branded him an uneducated idiot, but mistaking a car dipstick for a pregnancy test catapulted him straight to the top of the 'tard charts.
"I was going to tell you last night."
A handy bit of information that might have been nice to have before we went green light with the plan. Damnit! "So, why didn't you?"
"Timing. You were upset. Babies are happy moments, Chris."
Suddenly, she wasn't just his partner. She wasn't his best friend. His confidant. His lover. Suddenly, in half a cigarette burn, she was so much more. Protect overdrive kicked into jet propulsion high gear.
He stubbed his cigarette. The decision sucked harder than a dead transmission on a Saturday night, but like it or not, and right now he chose not, Spencer would have to wait. "C'mon." He grabbed her arm and turned back the way they'd come. His boots squished soggy bark and fallen tree limbs at a double time pace.
"Chris, what're you doing?"
"We're leaving. I'm hauling your ass back across this fie-meadow, and we're calling it a day."
The rain came harder now, BB gun size droplets wind driven into his skin.
"What? Why?"
"I don't want you injured."
She tried to plant her fast moving feet on the ground. "Wait just a second, Mister. Hold up. Who made you Lord All High and Mighty? You snap your fingers, say it's so, and that's it?"
"You said you were finished. Be finished."
"I said after Spencer."
"Why wait? You can call it quits right now. I'll deal with Spencer on my own."
"Over a magenta dipstick?"
"No." He stopped mid-stride and squared himself in front of her. His finger jabbed her vest. Each jab harder than the last. "No, no, no, no, no. This is not about magenta, or purple, or pink; this isn't a color or an inanimate object we're talking about here. This is a child. My child. Mine."
"Chris, calm down. We don't know anything. It may be nothing." She squinted her eyes. "As usual, you're over reacting."
"As opposed to under reacting? You want a man who doesn't give a shit?" He pulled a cluster of wadded one-dollar bills from his pocket. "Here, take it. All of it. Call a clinic, but don't come cryin' to me when it's not enough. There, is that piece of shit enough for you?"
They stared at each other over a thunder rumble.
When she spoke her playful tone had vanished. "Are you finished?"
"Look, Jill-"
She held up her hand. "We'll discuss our magenta problem, later, off duty." Her finger poked his chest equal to the number of times he'd tagged hers. "You don't get to decide, Redfield, what I will and what I won't do. When you're in charge you can decide, but you're not in charge, I am. As your superior I order you to turn around."
Gunshots pierced the howl of the wind funneled through the trees and the patter of rain on the ground.
They simultaneously drew their weapons.