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… but Umbrella knows the way, why would she ask if she knows already?It doesn't make sense!
A
She backed through the door, pushing it closed on the surprised and frightened girl, squeezing her arm against her bruised or broken ribs as soon as the hatch was shut.
Sherry…
It was a lie, it had to be a lie, but it didn't change anything, either way. She could still make it, she had to make it back to the facility, to finish what she had started. Turning, limping and gasping, A
A cold, silent cavern, the walls sheened with ice, and I am lost. I am lost and exhausted, ru
Leon opened his eyes, aware at once that he'd hazed out again. The realization made him catch his breath, the sudden fear jolting him fully awake.
Ada, Claire – Jesus, how long?
He gently pulled his hand away from his arm, the blood gummy and thick between his fingers. It hurt, but not as sharply as before and the bleeding had stopped, at least at the entrance; the shreds of his torn uniform had clotted to the wound, forming a stiff seal. He leaned forward, reaching around to touch where the bullet had come out; again, a hardening, tacky patch of fabric beneath the pulsing ache of the wound. He couldn't be positive, but he thought that the bullet had gone straight through the flesh, missing the bone completely – which meant he was extremely god– damn lucky.
Even if it blew my arm off, Ada's still out there and I sent Claire after her. I have to go after them.
He thought it was the shock of the trauma that had made him black out, rather than the pain or blood loss and he couldn't afford any more time to re– cover. Clenching his teeth, Leon pushed himself up with his good arm, his muscles cold and stiff from the damp chill of the concrete. His left shoulder brushed against the wall, and he gasped as the pain intensified briefly, stabbing and hot, but it ebbed, receding to the duller throbbing sensation after a few seconds. Leon waited it out, breathing deeply, reminding himself that it could have been a hell of a lot worse. When he was finally on his feet, he decided that he could take it; he wasn't light-headed or dizzy, and although there was blood on the floor and wall, there wasn't nearly as much as he'd thought there would be. Careful not to jostle his wound, Leon turned and walked down the corridor to the closed door at the end, moving as quickly as he could. Through the door, he was faced with another water-filled tu
Chasing after the sniper… how could she do that, how could she just leave me there?
After their confrontation with the vomiting monster-thing, he'd sworn to himself that he wouldn't assume anything else about Ada Wong; she was alter– nately flirtatious and standoffish, and if she'd learned how to shoot by playing paintball, he was a bank executive. But in spite of her confusing behavior and probable duplicity, he liked her; she was smart and confident, she was beautiful and he had assumed there was a good, decent person beneath that contra-dictory facade…
… and yet she left you to chase after the shooter, left you rolling on the floor with a bullet in your arm. Yeah, she's great; you should propose.
He'd reached a split in the tu
An obvious choice, except…
Leon stopped in the elongated patch of murky light, looking down into the offshoot. Another door, and he didn't have time to decide, the shots could have come from anywhere… Barn-bam! To the left. Leon jumped up from the tu
… acetylene, maybe oxy, good GOD what takes that many bullets and doesn't die?
He heard another string of shots, splashing water and a different sound, a deep and guttural hissing that chilled him to his core. Strangely familiar, but too loud to be possible.
A million snakes, a thousand giant cats, some pri-mordial, terrible dinosaur…
He ran, finally giving up trying to hold the bullet hole closed, needing his arm free to pump for more speed. The end of the tu
raining down on the floor in a thick sheet. "Stop, I'm coming in!" He shouted and heard Ada's voice, and felt a sweeping relief in spite of whatever horror was ahead.
"Leon!" She's alive!
Magnum raised, his wound bleeding freely now, he stepped in front of the open door and saw Ada across a lake of churning muck, boxes and broken boards swimming through the turbulent liquid. She was standing on a small ledge of concrete be– neath a ladder, her Beretta pointed into the thrash-ing pool.
"Ada, what…"
Splash! A giant burst out of the lake and slammed him off of his feet, knocking him back into the corridor. It happened so fast that he didn't actually see it before he was flying through the air, his mind feeding him the picture as he hit the ground. He fell on his injured arm and cried out, as much from the shock of what he'd seen as from the stinging blast of pain.