Chapter 23

Exchanges

'Here,' he nudged her arm, 'drink this.'

Claire lifted the tin cup to her mouth and wrinkled her nose. 'Whiskey?'

'It'll warm you up. Take the edge off.' He snagged a lighter from his pocket and pinched a cigarette between his lips. 'We're gonna be here a while. They're de-icing the plane. How's the shoulder?'

'Sore,' she mumbled into the cup.

'I believe it.' Chris crouched and tucked stray hairs behind her ear. 'Could have been worse.'

'I suppose.'

'I've seen everything. You name it. I've seen it. Hell, I've probably done it. Scratch that,' he grinned, 'don't name it, because I'd never be able to admit some of that crazy shit to my sister. I gotta say though I've never in my life seen a bruised lip. Fat lip. Split lip. Dry lip. Hair li-'

'I get it,' she snapped.

'He do that to you?'

'No.'

'Claire, look at me. Hey, no, no, no, look at me. When you were alone with Wesker, he try anything with you?'

'Oh for the love of God. No.'

'You're sure.'

'I fell.'

'On your face?'

'Pretty much.'

'I think you should see a therapist.'

'A shrink? Jill, I don't need a shrink.'

'Might be good for you. A professional, unbiased opinion.'

'I'm not crazy.'

'Combat. Death. It takes a toll, mental as well as physical. Chris told me about the nightmares. Talking your way through things may help.'

'Marry me. You. Me. Couple of gorgeous kids.'

'Leon-'

'We're good apart, let's be great together.'

She stared at the rim of the cup. 'I was worried about you. Looked for you. Thought I'd never find you. How could you just...just walk away? We're family. We're supposed to stick together.'

He sighed. 'I could give you a thousand reasons, not one you'd understand. It seemed for the best, and it's as honest an answer as I can give. I don't want you involved in my mess. You should have stayed out of Raccoon...and Paris. You weren't meant to be here.'

'Here we go again. Brother knows everything. Brother is always right. Can't you just say good job, glad you were with me because I needed you, and be done with it?'

'Hell no! My business isn't your business. You aren't a soldier. You have no field training. I don't need you Rambo-ed up, running around all G.I. Jane pretending you've got my back.'

'For your information, I did just fine on my own.'

He held up his hand and one at a time raised his fingers. 'One, I told you to stay on campus. You didn't, and ended up smack fucking dab in the middle of a mess. If I didn't think Bangs was such a sneaky, two-timing, double fuck douche bag I'd be forced to thank his sorry ass for making sure my sister made it out of zombie central alive. Two-'

'How dare you? You make it sound like I used him as a shield and that he carried me over itty bitty puddles so I wouldn't get my dainty little feet wet. I stood fucking front and center and took my chances the same as Leon.'

'Watch your mouth.'

'Oh, please forgive me, Chris Double-Standard Redfield.'

'Damn fucking straight. I do what I do to keep you safe. I say what I say to help keep your nightmares away. I sleep in shit holes so you don't have to, and all I ask is for you to respect me enough to trust my judgment. When I say not to do something it is not your starting gun to fuck me over behind my back and do it anyway. You could have gotten yourself killed...Or worse.'

'But I didn't. I'm still here. We're still here. You get to tell me I told you so, and you get to be the big hero. The man who killed Albert Wesker.'

He leaned back and took a long cigarette drag. 'Yeah...Imagine that...'

They'd unwound in a bevy of sleep. Took turns rummaging the medicine cabinet. Chris suffered in silence, hunched over like an eighty year old man.

Claire set a bowl in front of him. 'Let me call a chiropractor.'

'I don't need a quack. I need a different profession.'

'You're suffering. You can barely walk, and beds were invented to be slept in. You're sweating all over the couch cushions.'

'The damn mattress is too soft.' He pushed the bowl aside. 'I told Jill it was too soft.'

'What if you've really damaged something this time? Wouldn't you want to know? Maybe you need more than rest to make it better.'

'Thanks Web MD, but no thanks. Doctor visits mean questions. BSAA'll put me on leave.'

'Well, shouldn't you be? You're not going to be jumping out of airplanes with a bad back.'

'Jesus, are you and Jill part of a WWF tag team? Damn. No quack. A few more days and everything will be fine.'

Wesker's boot brushed against her foot. "An unlimited draft on my bank account for your thoughts."

Claire nudged back with a shove of her own. "It's a limo, Wesker. Plenty of leg room."

He nudged again. Harder. "My limo, my leg room."

Claire shifted in her seat, drew her legs to her chest, and pressed herself up against the car door. "Take it. It's yours."

"Is it really so much of an effort to have a conversation, Claire? A friendly chat between acquaintances."

"No, Wesker. Friends have conversations. They commiserate. They share secrets. They're there when you need a shoulder to lean on. There...Forget it. You're not my friend. I don't want to know you. I don't want to get to know you. You purchased my company. If you had wanted conversation you should have included the request in a package deal. Get used to the sound of your own breath, because over the next two weeks that's the only sound you're going to hear. At the first available opportunity I'm buying a bottle of super glue and conveniently sealing my lips shut."

"Spare me your melodrama. If you desire sealed lips I know a few surgeons who can oblige you in accomplishing your threat. Permanently."

Claire threw her head back and closed her eyes. Now, she knew. Hell wasn't a place. Hell was a metaphor. Hell comprised the moments in life when God's blessings seemed furthest away.

Hell was waking up late on a school day and walking into a classroom to take an exam after the night had been partied away. Hell was the flat tire on the way to a job interview. Hell was the start of a period while on a date with a guy, so hot his looks would melt butter on an icicle. Hell was taking your first ride in a limousine and having the thrill of the first time experience ruined with the presence of an asshole.

"I purchased living the life of a common man. Your role in my social experiment is to play the part of my counterpart. Fail me in this and-"

"You'll what? Shove my brother in one of your little water tubes?"

"Your brother may find one of my 'water tubes' a wonderful reprieve in comparison to the repercussions the BSAA will meter for justice when the fallout from the investigation into Spencer's death settles."

Claire's head shot up. "That comment right there is why you'll never be anything to me, except noise. You're static, Wesker. Pure static. You may kiss any hope of conversation goodbye."

"What a shame. You might have been interested in the few topics I would be willing to discuss in exchange for civil companionship."

"We've bargained enough for one night."

He leaned forward, wicked, ever-present orange ember gleam in his eyes. "I can offer insight you had never imagined, Claire. Going once..."

###

Suits. Uniforms. Suits. Men in more suits, looking rolled out of bed tired, tropped two abreast through the sliding double doors.

"Get a load of those guys."

Rebecca glanced up from a clipboard and paused mid-signature as she watched black-tied and stars and bars devils stream past her in a seemingly never-ending wave of polished loafers and red-eyed weariness.

Men with faces Rebecca had only seen in close up mug shot style pictures on quarterly company newsletters. Men who used ink stamp pads to sign their name.

"That's a hell of a lot of upper management. Were you transporting a spy?"

"No," Rebecca whispered. "BSAA's finest."

"Must be, with that kind of welcome."

Rebecca set the clipboard on the admitting desk, her portion of the journey complete. Chris Redfield was technically no longer her patient. She was officially released from his medical care. Free to make her way to the studio apartment she called home and unwind in a hot bath and a hot meal, whichever suited her needs first.

The suits talked in unison, to each other, over each other. A mortar barrage of questions aimed squarely at the admitting nurse. Pressing forward. Demanding. Moving in a tight knit herd closer and closer to the desk, puffed out chest superiority pushing past Rebecca and cycling her to the back of the pack.

"Chris Redfield."

"Chris Redfield's status."

"Chris Redfield's condition."

"Chris Redfield's current whereabouts."

Classified stamped manila folders gripped in steady hands.

Jesus. This was more than collective concern for a soldier wounded in action. More than an average run of the mill military debriefing. This is something else.

"One at a time. Gentlemen, one at a time."

Rebecca retreated down the hall and lowered herself onto the nearest sofa within earshot and view of the mob milling around the desk. A couple of pitchforks and a few torches and these suits would be ready to storm the Wolfman's lair. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the cushion. Lurk long enough and she wouldn't need to see top secret documents inside a classified folder to fill her in on everything she now, out of curiosity, wanted to know.

###

Searing white-hot pain ripped through her gut, doubling her in half, punching oxygen from her lungs in a rapid gush.

Warmth exploded between her legs. And she knew. It was uncontrollable and red, and a fate undeniably final. Her hand came away from her inner thighs shaking and stained the crimson color of death.

Floating. Spiraling downward, gravity pulling her body deep into an endless chasm. The faint light at the top of the swirling maw slowly fading inward and folding over on top of itself.

Two faces. Bodies collided in silhouette. Desperation and fear. A rush of breeze upon her face.

"How's it going today, Gorgeous?" A familiar voice bubbled up from the depths of mental darkness.

Jill sucked in her breath and batted at the arm floating in the fluorescent light overhead.

"Y...ou, y-y-ou, kill...ed."

The arm came down gently across her chest. "Calm down. It's all right. I haven't killed anything. You were dreaming. Pretty lucid too by the sound of it. Relax. Nobody is going to hurt you. I'm here to see that you get well."

Dreaming? Sleep? Had she slept? Maybe she had, coaxed by immobility and the constant, almost comforting, whir and whine of the machines stationed next to the bed. Seamless hours blended into a fuzzy mental void punctuated with the recurring visions of the profiles of two men extracted from the shadows creeping out from the corners of the room.

The dream, perhaps waking nightmare, scrubbed barren by his reality intrusion. Confused thoughts and the unfathomable memory of a few fleeting moments shoved aside in a rambling torrent of pain coursing up and down her body.

She remembered fear, but not for herself. Desperation, but not for what had been lost.

He'd spoken about babies, that much she remembered. Said she could have lots of them. Had there been a baby, sweet and innocent, lost in hatred and a trauma-vaporized blank state of mind?

She dug chipped fingernails into his white lab coat, pinching the flesh on his arm beneath the material. "A baby? My baby?"

The light swing arm was pushed back and Ryan's face took the place of fluorescent glow.

"I'm sorry, Gorgeous. Truly. The world missed out on a great looking kid."

She dug deeper, dragging her body vertical until her head was almost level with his. "Why?"

###

"You'll have to do better than that. No takers, Wesker. I don't care what you have to say about, well, anything."

"I would strongly advise you reconsider. Open your mind to the possibility I am the guardian of a wealth of information you might enjoy receiving."

"I have the sneaking suspicion my mind isn't the only thing you'd like to open. And unless you'd care to name the exact location of every secret lab you're affiliated with, then I'm afraid you have nothing to say worth a hill of beans to me. Stop dangling Cartier when all you've got is pawn shop."

"As expected, your brain functions as a residual cesspool of vulgarity. Do not make the mistake of fancying yourself the last woman in existence and me as desperate. We are neither. Legs are easily parted, especially those attached to a lingering young girl mentality. I have been forthcoming and succinct in my demands and you have been equally plain. If I had wanted to treat you as your brother entertains his one night affairs I would have done so in the mining town and discarded you like the Redfield refuse that spawned you."

She swung without thinking and connected a satisfying slap that spun his face sideways.

He cocked his head back to center with a bone popping snap, and much to her surprise it was not anger twisting the features of his face into a scowl, it was a lopsided smile.

He'd jabbed the wrong nerve, and he knew it. No apology for the parental slur, brandishing her mother and father as trash.

"Not the desired response I meant to elicit, but I suppose some reaction is more easily tolerated than your self-imposed, defiant, silence. A sore subject, your mother and father?"

"One you'd be wise to avoid, Wesker. Mention them again and I'll put a bullet in your brain while you sleep."

"The hostility of unresolved issues. How old were you when they were denied their mortal existence and dispatched into the great beyond? The police reports were rather vague. Christopher is mentioned multiple times in the case file. You are surprisingly absent."

Claire curled her fingers into a fist.

Wesker's gaze shifted from her face to her hand. "If you so much as twitch I will break every bone in your arm."

"You wouldn't."

"Do it, and find out. I mean what I say and say what I mean."

Claire shook her head and relaxed her grip. "You aren't worth expended energy."

"I offered to make our conversation worth your time, your energy, your half-assed effort. Let us put your temporarily circumvented bottled rage to more productive use. Shall we try again? I will give you information I have on the whereabouts and status on one of two people. Your choice. Not both. One."

"Nope. Still not interested."

"In exchange for this information you will answer any question I choose to ask related to your Redfield life, up to and including information about your mother and father, prior to the rise of Chris Redfield as your overlord and dictator. You will engage me in polite discussion on any topic I choose to discuss."

"You obviously read the police reports. You know what I know. What else have you read?"

Wesker unbuttoned his jacket and spread his arms open across the top of the seat. "Enough to script an entire Redfield documentary without you as a fact checker. Blame only yourself. You opened the door, Claire. Invited me into your world. I told you I would monitor your computer access, and monitor I did. Every click. Every website. Every chat room. Going twice."

"Did you break out binoculars and watch me undress from a hiding spot in the bushes too?"

"No, but surveillance video did manage to capture quite a few goodnight breast massages in the front seat of Kennedy's car."

"Let me get this straight; you're a cold-blooded killer, a psychopath, a sociopath, a lunatic, a traitor, a savage son-of-a-bitch, a remorseless turd, a waste of skin, and...a pervert. Bravo! Winner is you of the man most likely to make me vomit my intestines out my ears from pure disgust. You go to hell!"

"I did not say I watched the videos, Claire. They were erased in deference to your modesty. I am fairly positive your neighbor had a more generous view. He stood at his front window, shielded by a curtain, when Prince Charming pulled into the driveway. Would you care for a teaser? A morsel of the invaluable insight I can provide? Think carefully before you refuse. The offer is null the moment you decline."

Claire frowned and turned her head to the window, the world outside rushing by in streaks of gray.

"You may have a detailed account of the life and experimental trials of Mr. Steve Burnside."

She jerked upright and braced her hand on the door handle to keep from jolting out of her seat, her eyelids sucked behind the wide-eyed whites of her eyes.

"Alternatively, you may choose to sacrifice your own selfish interests and pursue information relating to the current circumstances surrounding your brother's bed warmer, Jill Valentine."

"I knew it! She's alive. What have you done? Where is she?"

Wesker waggled a finger back and forth. "Not without a choice. Going three times."

Claire tugged on her lower lip with her teeth. Steve. Dead? Not dead? Is it a trick? I pick Steve and Wesker laughs in my face and tells me I already know the answer. He gets what he wants and I'm left empty handed. Forced to talk to him at his beck and call. Jill. Chris is in deep. When they tell him Jill is dead he'll be devastated. I can't tell him she's alive. He'll want to know how I know. He can't find out I was with...with...this deviant prick. I'm a terrible liar. Keeping this Humpty Dumpty mess off Chris's bullshit radar is going to be hard enough without inventing more lies to reassure him Jill is alive. It doesn't always have to be about someone else. I can choose me. I deserve to know what happened to Steve. Why can't it be for me?

She squared her shoulders and her mouth opened. "Jill. I want to know what you've done with Jill."

"Sold, to the woman in the torn shirt and smeared mascara. Civil conversation, Claire. Really, was it too much to ask?"