#scientist ada x test subject leon

[october-writes]

Icarus sneak peek...

Okay, so I'm being super generous with this sneak peek because I have no idea when I'll be ready to post the whole fic. Pandora!Verse Leon has a long, bittersweet backstory and I love it, but it's a lot to get down especially when all I want to do is cry and hug him. 😫

Thank you for your patience. Any likes/comments here or on Pandora are the fuel that keeps the fic engine running.

‘Is this really where you grew up?’ she asked, her voice light with surprise.

He turned in time to see her cringe at the question. She’d been quiet since the drive away from the motel and the scene with Russ and his posse. No, scratch that. Ada had kept to herself because he’d asked her to and he’d been kicking himself for that ever since.

His stomach flipped whenever Ada asked him about himself; one part excitement, one part terror. He wanted to tell her everything and, in turn, he wanted to know her as well as he knew his deepest desires. But he was scared of the guy in those stories. Steadfast, optimistic, stable, responsible. He was sure that version of him had died on a forest floor. Now he was trying to live up to his own ghost.

Leon swallowed before replying glibly, ‘Nope! I grew up in a house.’

‘You know what I meant, Leon.’

God, he loved the way Ada said his name; like she owned the word, like no one had ever called him that but her.

‘Okay. I spent a lot of time here too,’ he conceded, nodding at the front facade of the church and the flawless circle of its Gothic stained glass window, ‘One Easter when I was fourteen, me and the chaplain’s son changed the sign out front to read: “Honk if you love Jesus”.’

She spluttered on a laugh, ‘You did what?’

‘You could barely hear mom’s sermon ‘cause of the car horns. I would’ve been grounded ‘til Christmas, but lucky for me she has a sense of humour! Damn. I was such a little asshole when I wanted to be.’

Ada bit her bottom lip until it shone pearlescent pink and he couldn’t look away from her mouth.

‘I could show you around,’ he offered suddenly, ‘If there was time.’

‘Really? And where would you take me?’

Her eyes glinted like a dare. He’d reignited her interest in him and they were back there again, at the edge of something beautiful and dangerous.

Go ahead. Impress me, rookie.

‘Well, um... there’s the Boott Cotton Mills Museum just across the canal,’ he suggested weakly, his throat suddenly dry, ‘I uh... I wrote an essay on it in High School.’

Her eyebrows twitched, ‘High School...?’

‘Yeah, it was on child labour reforms during the Industrial Revolution. I got an A minus.’

Oh for the love of- Shut up, shut up, shut up!

Ada blinked at him before turning away, ‘Interesting. Maybe some other time.’

Her eyes went dull, the glint of challenge extinguished. They were left beneath the cool light of the street lamp looking at everything but each other.

‘Come on. We should get going before I’m recognised,’ he said, leading her across the street, ‘We’ll check out the back lot.’

Leon remembered the first time Sarah had taken him to First Presbyterian to help out the day crew, officially as penance for his reckless escape attempt on his first night under her roof. He hadn’t been due to start school for another week and, while he’d been sincerely forgiven for his antics, he’d still been grounded.

The church ran a Day Centre from Monday to Friday, the doors opening at eight on the dot come rain or shine or biblical levels of snow. Refreshments, clean clothes and pastoral counselling were available no questions asked and, in the evenings, volunteers served hot meals alongside a rotating programme of art therapy, sign language classes, and addicts anonymous meetings.

Sarah had started the programme during her first few months in Lowell. The way some locals liked to tell it, Sarah had crashed into town on a wave of radical ideas. The Day Centre hadn’t been popular with everyone, bringing ‘undesirables’ and addicts from the fringes into the centre of town where they were harder to ignore.

‘I’ve brought the poor and the sick to Jesus’ doorstep, just like he instructed,’ she’d retorted, knowing the Bible was her home turf and she’d arrived ready to fight dirty, ‘If you’ve got a problem, take it up with him!’

‘I’m on a first name basis with the Mayor’s office,’ Sarah had boasted as they’d carried boxes of donated clothing through the back of the church, ‘Mayor Wiggins reminds me every time I stop by that I shouldn’t let it go to my head! I think he preferred the old pastor, Reverend Dawson. But Wiggy knows I’m better at getting things done. He’d rather boil his own head in lard than admit it though, so I’m not holding my breath for the key to the city!’

Young Leon had tipped his head back to take in the building’s decadent red brick and stained glass, its silver spire bouncing the sun towards every corner of Lowell.

‘Is all this yours?’ he’d asked.

He’d lingered at the threshold, a deep breath ballooning his stomach as he’d prepared himself to enter. The air had smelled apple-crisp, the pavement sun-dappled and warming the tops of his sneakers. It had stirred something familiar inside of him. But he hadn’t been inside a church since... since they’d buried his mom.

Sarah had chuckled, bumping the backdoor open with her behind, ‘Oh, no! Frannie belongs to everyone. But I am humbly responsible for her, like a sheepdog with her flock.’

She knew the church well enough that she could walk through it backwards without knocking into anything. All the better to keep her eye on Leon so she could read her new foster son’s lips.

‘What does that make me?’ he’d wondered as he’d followed her, ‘Like... a stray puppy or something?’

She’d hooted at that.

‘I don’t tell people who they are, Leon. But if I am to be completely honest, which under his roof is essential,’ she’d thrown the box of donated winter coats onto a nearby table and had turned to relieve him of the ones he’d carried, ‘I am sincerely looking forward to meeting the man you’ll become some day.’

Leon hadn’t known what to say to that.

Old foster parents, social workers, even a cop once; they’d all warned him that who he was becoming was someone he should be afraid of, ashamed of. But Sarah had greeted all sides of him like they’d known and loved each other for years.

The Day Centre had become a fixture of Leon’s teenage years from that day on. He’d never been much for the services, the singing, the prayer. But he’d helped out with the art classes and he’d learned how to cook in the community kitchen. He’d taken sign language classes after school and pulled weeds from the community garden across the street. He’d done his homework in Sarah’s study, her day sermons sailing in through the open window like a warm breeze.

When he’d turned fifteen and grown a foot taller in what had felt like a week, Leon had begun captaining one of the local street hockey teams. Their casual league had been run out of the back lot of the church.

He remembered long afternoons three times a week, two dozen kids howling like wild animals after sunset, and sweating even when it was so cold he could see his breath. Rhonda in the goal, as reliable as rain in September. She’d used the church to escape her alcoholic dad for a few hours a day. And Marty, a formerly homeless teen, playing offense and doing a backflip every time he scored. The slap of hockey sticks, rollerblades tearing up the tarmac, a puck smacking off a brick wall, his heart in his throat as a shot narrowly missed a car window.

There was still a dent in a lamp post from where one of Leon’s shots had gone wide. It had struck the post so hard the bulb had gone out. They’d played the rest of the night by the light of the church’s silver steeple and it had felt like an incredible dream.

It had been yesterday and forever ago. But as Leon walked the lot with Ada now, a part of him was convinced he’d be back here tomorrow, hockey stick in hand with his skates tied at the laces and slung over his shoulder.

‘The Day Centre closes early Thursdays,’ he told Ada as they lingered at the edge of the lot, ‘It shouldn’t be this busy.’

The lights were on and the church shimmered from every window. The front of the building was still bustling, so they’d given it a wide berth. Though Leon had his cap down, he’d grown up inside these walls. There was no way he’d make it to the rectory without being recognised.

Ada was getting restless. Her face was hidden by her hood, but Leon could see the tense line her shoulders made beneath her sweater.

‘Maybe things have changed,’ she muttered.

‘She’ll be here,’ he replied, ‘That much’ll be the same. I know it will.’

Minutes later the backdoor to the church opened and Pastor Sarah stepped into the warm summer night.

Her dark hair had regrown in gentle waves, softer and less curly than before her illness and now tinged with grey. She wore a thick cardigan, unbuttoned and showing off a baggy Guns and Roses tour t-shirt that Leon had stolen from her closet about a hundred times before it had stopped fitting him.

Leon muffled a quiet laugh into the collar of his jacket, but deep down he felt like sinking to his knees.

He knew Lowell’s streets. He knew there was a house a few blocks away where his old bed waited and his sketchbooks tumbled out of the wardrobe in an avalanche of memories. But ‘home’ was a complicated concept for a guy who’d had so many. A one bedroom in Chicago snuggled safe between his mom and dad, Buchanan with its dreams unfulfilled, in shady motels forever awake in front of a TV with the sound as low as it would go, and finally seven foster homes; a number that made ‘normal’ people from ‘normal’ families wince so he’d stopped repeating it until he could almost imagine that his early childhood had happened to someone else.

For Leon, ‘home’ had eventually come to mean Sarah reminding him to be back by ten. Home was the leftover casserole in the fridge with his name on it. It was about not being alone at the kitchen table because Sarah would always wait up and ask him how his game went. She’d even pretended to understand the rules.

Someone Leon didn’t recognise stepped out with Sarah. It was an older woman in a long cotton dress. She and Sarah shared a quick hug before the woman left for her car. Sarah stood in the doorway and waved goodbye. Then she slid back into the church, disappearing like a dream at sunrise.

Ada was watching Leon. Her gaze passed up and down his face, mapping the angle of his nose and the cleft of his chin like they’d just met. Leon knew what she was thinking.

He and Sarah sang off-key to the same songs, they ate their eggs over-easy with too much Tabasco sauce, and they both thought cilantro tasted like soap. But they didn’t look even a little bit alike.

‘I’m adopted,’ he explained.

She frowned, surprised, ‘Oh. I see. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not.’

‘I didn’t mean... I just didn’t know.’

‘But you knew my mom was a pastor?’

‘It was in your obituary.’

Leon did a double-take, ‘My... what? I have a damned obituary?’

‘Of course you do! You died,’ Ada replied sardonically, ‘Your colleagues had some interesting things to say about you.’

‘Yeah, I bet,’ he winced, and his mind raced to suss out exactly what Ada knew about the old him as filtered through the eyes of his peers. They’d treated Leon like he was fresh out of school and an old man at the same time, ‘Come on. It’s now or never.’

The back of the church held Sarah’s office, a common room for the staff, and a library that smelled like cold coffee and chocolate. Leon opened the door quietly and checked it was empty before ushering Ada inside.

They heard voices echoing from the church hall beyond the big wooden doors:

‘Has anyone seen Pastor Sarah? We’re running low on baby formula!’

‘She’s in her study. Don’t trouble her. I’ll call the supplier first thing tomorrow.’

‘I’ve barely seen her all day, Lucille. Is this ‘cause of that silly protest outside the Governor’s office? I told her to take it easy!’

‘She’s tired, Frank. Let her be.’

Sarah’s office door was ajar. Leon could see her shadow spilling over the desk and onto the carpet. He could smell her hand lotion, its residue on the doorknob. His eyes drifted shut as his hands formed a tight claw around the knob like he’d forgotten how doors worked.

Maybe this was a mistake. A panicked sensation surged inside his chest. Ada was right. Umbrella could be monitoring Sarah. He could put her in danger just be showing his face around town. He should go, shouldn’t he? Right now, just go and leave her be. He could think of another way to track down Jill and Chris.

And what was he going to say to her? How could he explain what had happened to him? She’d thought he was dead for nearly two years, but at least her ignorance had kept her safe.

Leon tensed when he felt a pressure on his forearm. He looked back to find Ada gently peeling him away from the door.

‘I’ll go first,’ she whispered, her dark eyes trained on his face, ‘I’ll make sure she’s alone.’

He nodded but Ada was already slipping past. She opened the door just enough to squeeze through.

‘Pastor Morris?’

A chair scraped the floor as Sarah stood.

‘Yes?’ her voice sounded jittery like she’d just woken from a nap, ‘Hold on... Let me just...’

There was a long pause. Leon guessed Sarah was fumbling with her cochlear implant.

‘Could you come closer, honey?’ Sarah said breathlessly, ‘I can’t quite hear you all the way over there. Are you here about tomorrow’s charity drive?’

‘No. No, I’m...’

Leon swayed on his feet, his ears ringing. He’d been so nervous, he’d forgotten to warn Ada that Sarah was deaf. He mentally kicked himself.

Then Ada raised her voice and when she spoke, she filled all corners of the little study, her voice lifting its high ceiling and rustling the pages of every tome. Like a fair summer wind, she was the little lift he needed to make it home.

‘I’m a friend of your son.’

Then it was as if they were the only three people in the building. A silence enveloped them, as dense and safe as stone. Leon didn’t feel himself move, but he felt Ada’s hand, warm and insistent around his wrist as she pulled him through the doorway and into his mother’s study.

Sarah, to her credit, didn’t cry out. She didn’t seem to be breathing either.

‘Mom?’

Her hands flew to her mouth. Her eyes turned red to signal an oncoming wave of tears. But when her hand fell, Leon saw she was smiling like it was the first time he’d ever called her that. It wasn’t, not by a long shot.

Leon took a step towards her. Then he stopped, realising that Ada was still holding his wrist. Her grip was loose, almost reassuring. Not too much pressure, just enough; like a whispered phrase he felt all the way up his arm to straight to his heart: ‘I’m right here’.

When his hand slipped from hers, Leon still felt her warmth; that fair wind driving him forward.

Sarah whined softly. She rubbed at her throat like the words had gotten tangled up in there and she needed pry them away from each other. Her fingers were trembling and he realised she was too overwhelmed to sign to him.

He stepped towards her and raised his hands to tell her:

I’ll explain everything. I promise.

I’m so sorry, mom. I’m sorry...

He made a fist with his thumb extended and scored circles with it deep into the centre of his chest. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Sarah dove forward and latched both her hands over his fist. Then she tugged him forward and threw her arms around his shoulders. She clung to her son like the grave could snatch him back. She buried her wet nose into the crook of his neck. Then she keened against his shoulder, a wordless cry of grief and joy combined that shook his core.

‘I love you so much. Okay? I love you,’ Leon murmured into the crown of her head where his tears were already soaking her hair. He hoped she could feel the raw honesty in his voice even if she couldn’t make out the words, ‘I missed you. I did! I missed you, mom.’

Who knows how long they huddled in the centre of her study? Long enough that his face was still pink but finally dry when they parted. Long enough that Sarah could stand to let him go so she could snatch a tissue from the box on her desk while laughing at how terrifying and strange and wonderful this was.

And long enough that when Leon looked over his shoulder, he saw that Ada had disappeared.

🥲

To be continued...

[october-writes]

Albert Wesker stared back at her. If it wasn’t for the shifting images on the computer screens behind him, she’d have worried that the video call had frozen.

A sensation of mild panic began to nip at the back of her neck. She couldn’t have guessed wrong or else he’d have terminated the call already. Ada held herself still under his cool appraisal even as fresh sweat blossomed underneath her armpits.

‘You are right,’ he finally conceded, ‘But you are also a child, Ms Wong. And you are playing in an arena for adults.’

‘Maybe so,’ she glanced down at her lap before fixing him with a determined look, ‘But one thing children are good at is learning. I’m an incredibly fast learner, Wesker and I don’t plan on wasting my talents working for Jon Howe or any other Umbrella lackey. Now, do you want Delta or not? If the answer is no, then you’re wasting my time.’

Wesker sniffed at her impudence, ‘If I accept your offer, you must understand there will be consequences. You won’t have the luxury of turning your back on the arrangement once the novelty wears off. If you work for my organisation, you belong to me .’

Ada blinked and her fingernails curled into her palms. She wanted a ride out for herself and Delta, but Wesker was demanding a hefty price. In order to save his life, she was essentially selling Delta to the man who was at least partially responsible for him ending up in an Umbrella lab in the first place.

Working with Wesker would buy her the time she needed to track down Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield, and find some way to call for their aid. But in the meantime, Delta would be at Wesker’s mercy, as would she. The irony wasn’t lost on her. As noble as her intentions were, it felt like a betrayal.

On the other hand, there was no clean and comfortable way to do this. Umbrella wasn’t going to hold the door open for her. If she back-pedalled, she’d lose Delta to Manning and he’d suffer and likely die at her hands. She couldn’t live with that.

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[october-writes]

‘A myth. I’m thinking about a myth,’ she said. ‘Which one?’ ‘The Ancient Greeks blamed all the world’s pain on the curiosity of a smart, beautiful and talented woman,’ Ada replied, her voice low as she placed the butterfly down between them, ‘Zeus created her as a trap to punish men for accepting the gift of fire from Prometheus.’

Emery gave a high pitched “ha”, ‘Pandora with the box?’

‘Actually, the original texts described it as a “jar”. But this was mistranslated as a box in the sixteenth century.’

‘I still prefer the idea of a box! It’s cooler and I like the symmetry.’

‘Fair enough. Either way, Pandora was overcome with curiosity and opened the jar-’

‘Box.’

‘Whatever,’ Ada chuckled and slumped back in her chair, ‘When she opened it, all the evils of the world were freed. Every sin, disaster and malady imaginable.’

Emery nodded sagely, ‘War. Famine. Hatred. Dial-up internet.’

‘Lukewarm showers. Itchy sweaters.’

‘Hang nails.’

‘Split ends.’

The two women looked at each other for a moment before bursting into mutual giggles.

‘You know what? Fuck that!’ Emery declared as their laughter petered out, ‘Pandora. Eve of the bible. Misogynist propaganda to blame women for all the evil in a world controlled by men. Thus reinforcing the necessity of patriarchal domination. Pandora was freakin’ framed!’

‘Probably,’ Ada slumped forward to rest her cheek against her palm, ‘Oh, I think about her all the time. Why did she do it? Was it curiosity? An insatiable thirst for knowledge? Was she bored? Or malicious? Or was it her destiny?’

‘Well, you like to understand causes and outcomes. Point A to Point B.’

‘You got a problem with straight lines, Locke? I thought you liked symmetry.’

‘Yeah, to a point! Too many straight lines drive me crazy. You want everything to square up. I’ve told you, it’s not realistic. Life is improv. A wild squiggle on the back of a napkin.’

‘I like things to work the way they’re supposed to,’ Ada jabbed a playful finger at her, ‘You’re a scientist. You should understand that.’

Ada’s early life, from birth to the disastrous months leading to her eighteenth birthday, had been planned by her parents with such perfect precision that she often wondered if they’d plotted their daughter’s career trajectory on graph paper. Every activity, every class and every grade had led to something greater. It had all happened so naturally, so organically, that she hadn’t questioned it. Her life had been a series of steps in the right direction, until she’d had no direction at all. No home, no family, no career.

Her existence had been on pause until she’d been offered her place onboard The Persephone . There had been no improv, no wild tangents, and no crazy adventures for Ada Wong. Forget the wild squiggle. Her life had become a black dot at the end of a sentence. Nothing, period.

The Persephone was supposed to be her chance to get back onto the ladder to somewhere. Instead she felt like she was climbing the side of a mountain, swinging from handhold to handhold, rising and descending as she navigated a crumbling, never-ending rock face.

‘I have a theory,’ Emery announced. She turned sideways in her chair and rested her arm over its back. She gestured with her hands as she spoke, drawing shapes through the air with her sky-blue painted nails, ‘I think Pandora wanted to understand the world. The jar... I mean, the box was the world. Pain, death, loss. They’re just the other side of pleasure, birth and love. You want one? Then take the other. Life’s a package deal. My mom’s a physicist and she taught me that nothing is ever destroyed. Energy, organic matter, the molecules that make a million decisions every day to keep us alive? They all wind their way back into the ecosystem one way or another, forming new cells, new organs, new bodies, new actions, thoughts...’

‘Connections?’ Ada asked with a sleepy smile.

Her friend shrugged back, ‘Yeah. I may be a biologist, but mark my words! The first law of thermodynamics is the most romantic premise in the entire freaking world. It’s never really over. No energy gets created in the universe and none is ever destroyed. We’re all here and we always have been. Maybe one day when we’re both dust, my atoms will take a new form and find yours again, Ada Wong.’

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[october-writes]

‘Oh? So we’re a team now, hmm?’ she exclaimed, lifting their clasped hands and waving them in front of his face, ‘Partners in crime?’

His eyebrows arched invitingly, widening his perfect blue eyes until she could see so much promise illuminated. She hung her head and grinned at her sneakers. Where she stood, so close to him, her feet were bracketed between his larger ones. She rocked on the balls of her feet and sighed again.

Whoever you once were, I bet you were good at causing trouble for people like me.

‘I hate to break it to you, handsome, but I’ve always been more of a one-woman show,’ Ada reluctantly withdrew her hand from his, ‘It’s... a nice thought though.’

Delta eyes brightened as if that admission had been more than he’d dared to hope for.

‘It’s getting late,’ she said, stepping aside and nodding at his stasis pod.

He obediently hopped to his feet and climbed inside. He knew they’d pick up where they left off in the morning. They always did. This wasn’t the end of their song. This was simply a semibreve rest; the short pause in-between. Gratitude and gentle mornings would always follow.

Ada programmed in his next sleep cycle, mentally calculating whether she had enough time to bathe, sleep, eat breakfast with Emery and Donovan, and file her reports before Delta woke up. Over time their schedules had become synced like two clocks in different rooms chiming at each other from across the hallway; it’s a harmony she could set her heartbeat to.

It was getting harder to imagine her days without him. But the date of his departure loomed like a storm cloud, dark and pregnant with misery. She had to practice letting go. Instead she was sinking deeper into Delta’s open arms, as if fate might merge them into one being so she’d be carried along wherever he went.

I’ve imagined every scenario, but I can’t imagine one where I wouldn’t miss you.

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[october-writes]

Once he was satisfied the area was clear, Leon circled back to Ada. His intent was obvious. She suddenly wanted to crawl under the table she was sitting on.

‘Who were those guys?’ he asked, ducking his head to get her to look at him.

‘Nobody we need to worry about anymore,’ said Ada, smiling at the ease with which that lie had slid out of her and into the world; a world where Jon Howe and Mica Hussein were planning to re-build Umbrella in their sick image.

They were so screwed, she felt like her head would never stop spinning.

‘You told me you’d been in lock up when the outbreak started,’ Leon must have noted her dodging the question, so he switched tracks with his interrogation, ‘Why?’

‘A minor misunderstanding between me and the rig’s Head of Security. She thought I was a “damn dirty thief”,’ Ada replied, mimicking Hussein’s thick Tennessee accent.

‘Are you?’

Ada laughed airily and hopped off the table, ‘Oh, don’t worry. I only steal hearts.’

Leon rolled his eyes and huffed through a smile, ‘ Right . Then what’s her deal?’

‘She has a lot of guns and she doesn’t like me. What does it matter?’ she retorted with an indignant toss of her head, ‘We need a way off this rig. So help me find one or get out of the way.’

He stared back at her and for a second she thought she’d been made. Instead, Leon sighed and gestured towards the observation room’s panoramic windows and the invisible seam where the sky met the ocean.

‘What they’ve done here won’t be the end of it. Umbrella has multiple sites in Raccoon City alone. That’s over a hundred thousand lives at stake,’ he paused to flex his hands into fists as a shudder of rage worked its way through him, ‘When I get back, I need to report all of this to my team and to Captain Wesker.’

Oh. Oh, no.

Ada hung her head. What Leon Kennedy didn’t know was going to hit him like a freight train.

---

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[october-writes]

Ada didn’t know where to look.

The eyes she knew so well, the ones that had gazed into her with a longing she’d felt all the way to her core, now scanned her from head to toe with polite professionalism. Those lips, pillow-soft and rosy that she’d imagined pressed against the most intimate parts of her body, were now held together in the sort of encouraging smile a preschool teacher might give to a clumsy toddler who’d tripped over her shoelaces in the playground.

‘Can you tell me your name, Miss?’ he asked, the simple question overflowing with cherubic innocence.

Her eyes stung.

It’s me. It’s Ada.

He really didn’t remember her. Delta was gone. After everything she’d faced to get here, she’d still lost him.

‘Ada,’ she told him, her voice strained as if she’d been crying, ‘Ada Wong.’

‘It’s nice to meet you Ada,’ he replied, his voice gentle but rehearsed as if he’d been preparing all his life to comfort a damsel in distress, ‘I’m Officer Leon Kennedy. I’m with the Raccoon City Police Department. It’s alright. You’re safe now.’

She wanted to laugh hysterically, but from the sour ache in her stomach she was sure the sound would spew from her mouth like vomit. He’d think she was insane.

How had this happened? How was it even possible?

Had Jon done something to him? Ada doubted it. Jon had moved Delta here to keep him out of the way and use him as leverage against her.

But Delta had been outgrowing The Persephone for weeks. She’d watched him do it; every little change a raindrop heralding the coming storm. Even before they’d met, he was already proving how different he was to Umbrella’s other test subjects. Maybe Delta had always been temporary; a shell protecting Leon Kennedy as he healed from whatever had happened to him. He picked a hell of a time to hatch.

Ada’s thoughts returned to the dreams she’d had, the ones that had brought her into Delta’s reach only to snatch her away, leaving her bereft and aching and cursed to regret every time she’d ever pulled away from him.

Leon frowned as he noticed the pinched expression on her face, ‘Are you in pain?’

Tell me where it hurts.

Everywhere.

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[october-writes]

She hadn’t realised she’d been behaving any differently than normal, but he’d picked up on her conflicted mood. Maybe it was the way her shoulders rounded inwards, as if she was physically shielding her spiralling thoughts from him. She was closing herself off and he seemed to feel that lonely distance even though she was no more than a few feet away.

Ada sighed and combed a hand through her hair, shaking it at the roots. She hated this. She hated how she felt about him now. She hated how personal she’d let this project become. She hated that she cared what he’d done long before she’d ever met him. And most of all, she hated turning her back to him.

Was it fair of her to treat him differently now that she knew what he may have done in the past? The crime was horrific. The things Reese had done to that family were unthinkable. Could she reconcile that those same hands had saved her, had held her, or that she’d dreamed of them touching her in her most intimate places?

If the soul abandoned the body at the point of death, what was left for Nemesis? An empty shell to ride around inside like Saint Augustine had imagined?

But what of Delta and his unusual behaviour? His disobedience, his compassion? Where had that come from?

Perhaps Nemesis had hit some reset button deep within what had passed for Patrick Reese’s soul, offering him a chance at redemption.

Or had something else taken Reese’s place inside that body? The Hindu religion taught the samsara , the near endless cycle of death and rebirth known as ‘reincarnation’. According to that belief, the immortal soul would be reborn again and again into a new body until it reached karmic perfection and merged with the absolute universe.

Had Patrick Reese been exiled from that body and left a vacant spot for another wandering soul to make nest?

‘So, what did you do in a previous life to wind up in here, soldier?’ Ada had whispered to Delta as she’d removed the blood pressure cuff from his arm earlier that day, ‘You can tell me. I’m pretty hard to shock these days.’

He’d only blinked at her.

‘Look at you,’ she’d said with a wry smile, ‘I used to just take your labs and do crossword puzzles by your pod. Now you’ve got me ruminating on the nature of the eternal soul.’

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[october-writes]

That’s better. So much better.

And if there was a tiny voice in the back of her mind that recalled a cold, hard floor and blood between her teeth? Well, that voice could be smothered beneath the warm blanket and the white noise of the waves outside that coaxed her deeper and deeper into peace.

There was movement behind her. She felt the mattress dip before a sublime warmth settled against the length of her body.

Ada blinked her eyes open. She brought the duvet up to her chin and rolled over.

‘Hello,’ she breathed when she caught sight of her companion, ‘Fancy meeting you here, handsome.’

Delta smiled on the pillow beside her.

He had his own pillow, but sometime during the night he’d migrated onto hers.

Couldn’t stand to be away, huh soldier?

His hair looked a few inches longer than it had been since she’d last seen him. It was shot through with lighter shades of blond, sun-kissed and gleaming in the morning light. Her eyes traced those two kissable moles on his left cheek and her heart turned pirouettes in her chest. Her mouth watered at the two matching freckles near his Adam’s apple. She fought the impulse to lean forward and bury her face into the crook of his neck.

He watched her with a contented expression his face. His blue eyes shone with understanding and want. They captivated her.

He’d always been like this; completely unafraid of what he wanted and how he felt. She’d envied him that from the start. He had no other freedoms. He couldn’t go where he liked, eat what he liked, do what he liked. So he’d taken this one desire and he’d given it everything he had. And, as luck would have it, his deepest desire had been her .

She’d have given anything to be worthy of it.

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[october-writes]

‘Where does it hurt? Show me.’ He hesitated for a long moment. That wasn’t like him.

But then he reached for her with an open palm. She placed her left hand in his right one. His long fingers circled her wrist before sliding up the back of her hand in a way that made her want to weave their fingers together. Delta pressed her palm to his skin about two inches above his scar and slightly to the left of his centre chest.

‘It hurts here?’ Ada frowned, her fingers spreading outwards against his skin in search of telltale swelling or discolouration.

The pads of her fingers disturbed the soft hair on his firm chest. It mesmerised her. He radiated warmth. Ada imagined herself curling up on top of him like a lizard on a hot rock on a sunny day. She felt her palm rise with his inhale.

Their bodies had built this odd rhythm, a kind of shared breath. It was private. It was one of those ‘not real things’ she could leave at his cell door when she clocked off for the night. Maybe she was losing her mind, but at the start of every shift she’d find her breath again at the threshold of his cell right where she’d left it the day before.

Ada’s first breath would always crest in time with the sound of Delta’s feet hitting the floor when he’d stand to welcome her.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said, her eyes searching his face for a clue, ‘I’m not seeing any problem. Your blood pressure’s normal. Your x-rays came back clean. Your thoracic cavity should be fine.’

Delta bowed his head towards their joined hands. He cupped his hand over the back of hers and applied the slightest pressure. He rubbed the back of her wrist with his thumb in circles so small she could almost ignore them.

His blue eyes shone at her and a smile ghosted across his full lips. Fleeting hope.

Ada looked to where their hands were joined. Her own chest felt hollow and her next words echoed in its open spaces.

‘I still don’t understand what you mean. Are you in pain?’

Delta paused his ministrations. A silent sigh. His shoulders slumped and he raised his eyes to the ceiling.

Ada frowned at his attitude. Was he frustrated with her or with himself?

She slid her hand out from underneath his and turned towards her stethoscope. But Delta immediately reached out and caught her by the hand again. He guided her back to his chest.

His forehead creased like even this small disobedience would ruin him for the rest of the day.

Delta’s eyes met hers and he cupped their joined hands against his chest. Strong but tender, he held their hands like this gesture was the only thing he’d ever owned. The telltale thump of his heartbeat echoed his confession between the lines of Ada’s palm.

His eyes widened, a plea for her to understand what he couldn’t say out loud.

But Ada’s mind was obstinately blank, as if all the blood and oxygen in her body had been redirected to her hammering heart.

‘I... I don’t understand,’ she shook her head and tugged her hand out from under his, ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.’

You do.

I don’t. That’s enough!

Delta gave a barely perceptible nod as if he’d overheard the argument she’d had with herself. His hands fell onto his lap. He looked dazed, like someone who had fallen a long way onto a hard surface.

‘I’ll ask Dr Yates to schedule an EKG for you tomorrow,’ Ada promised him, her tension painted over with thick, artificial cheer, ‘Trust me, you’ll be fine when we’re... when we’re done. When it’s over... It won’t hurt anymore.’

She was an indulgent idiot, wasn’t she?

She’d been so relieved to see him well again after his seizures. She’d let her emotions fly her like a kite when she should’ve been the one thing grounding them both.

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[october-writes]

Bad news, they say, always comes in threes. And this third blow was by far the hardest to endure.

Dr Yates was taking a call in the conference room when Technician Garrett conveniently turned up in time to catch Ada filing the last of his paperwork. He gave Ada a cheery wave as he trotted past her desk like a smug show pony.

She smiled back and imagined how far she could shove that hand down his throat.

Garrett entered Delta’s cell to place the test subject into his sleeping pod for the night. While Delta was Ada’s main responsibility, some routine aspects of his care were shared between herself, Garrett, Dr Yates and Dr O’Leary.

Ada slammed the filing drawer as she watched him go. She’d hardly seen Delta all day and now the date of his planned departure was looming over her and casting a shadow that painted everything grey.

She gazed in the direction of Delta’s cell. It’ll make things easier if she got used to not seeing him everyday, said a sensible voice inside her. She tucked her chin into her chest and rubbed her eyes.

That’s when she heard a solid thump from the direction of Delta’s cell. It was followed by a confused yelp, but she was already running. Her heart thudded in time with her feet.

Ada rounded the corner of the cell to find Technician Garrett and Security Officer Henderson kneeling on the ground beside Delta.

Delta was on the floor. His body was in spasm, limbs convulsing rhythmically and his eyes wide and unblinking. His legs shuddered and he clenched his arms by his side. He was panting as if he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. He was so pale. His skin looked almost blue.

Ada assessed him from the doorway. He was completely rigid. The tension of his body was unnatural and it looked like someone was sending a thousand volts through him.

She had diagnosed him the moment she was through the doorway. He was having a grand mal seizure.

Ada shoved past Henderson and slid to her knees beside Delta, ‘Henderson, get Dr Yates. Now!’

‘Hey,’ Garrett complained as Henderson left the cell to get back-up, ‘I’ve got this!’

Ada ignored him and shrugged out of her lab coat. She quickly folded it into a pillow and slid it beneath Delta’s head to keep him from banging it against the hard floor.

She gently angled Delta’s face so he could see her. His eyes were clear but unfocused. She’d seen that look when she’d examined him in Sarajevo too. She wasn’t sure if he even knew she was there.

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[october-writes]

‘Rolling out the red carpet just for me, Hussein? I’m flattered.’

Hussein’s laughter smothered her bravado like smoke, ‘You’re never gonna drop the attitude, are you? The writing’s on the wall! Time to surrender, Dorothy.’

‘No thanks. I’ll make other arrangements.’

‘I wasn’t asking, you stuck-up little bitch!’

Ada smirked and lifted her finger until it was poised above the ‘disconnect call’ button, ‘We both know this shindig is almost over, Chief. And you’ve been a lousy dance partner.’

She cut the line.

There was a chance Hussein would come after her, but it was slim. The Chief had to know about the self-destruct. The woman was hateful, but she wasn’t suicidal.

Ada passed the security booth’s weapons cache on her way back to the elevator. The locker had been left open, by Jon she assumed. But her relief was fleeting. There was a single Berretta and a half-empty clip inside. It wouldn’t get her far, but it beat using an Umbrella-branded paperweight against the horde of infected.

She stepped into the elevator, ‘Persephone, Level Four.’

The doors slid shut and she descended with a gun clenched between hands that were still slick with blood.

Level Four must have been evacuated as well. It was emptier than Ada had ever seen it and just looking at the empty desks made her feel exposed and vulnerable. She dropped her duffel bag by the elevator doors, deciding to pick it up on the way back.

Ada walked on the balls of her feet as she crossed the reception area and crept through the entrance corridor. The main office was a ghost town, but it gleamed like a fresh smile.

If it wasn’t for the flashing emergency lights in the recesses of the ceiling, Ada could’ve imagined this was any other weekday. She expected to hear Technician Garrett calling first dibs on the box of bear claws in the staff room. Out of the corner of her eye, Felicia was weaving between the desks to greet her and ask her to take Delta’s vitals.

Ada dodged the haphazard carts of medical supplies that had been abandoned during the evacuation and staggered towards Delta’s cell.

Please. Please be here.

She threw herself through the door, her heart thudding a chaotic rhythm.

But his cell was vacant. There was no blood or sign of a disturbance. Delta was just gone . The white uniform, neatly folded at the end of the gurney, was the only sign he’d ever been there at all.

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[october-writes]

‘I’m fine,’ she told him, her voice soft but insistent as she slid a hand along his hard bicep to nestle in the warm crook of his elbow, ‘You need to stop worrying about me, soldier. Trust me. It’s bad for your health.’

Delta’s eyes locked with hers and she felt that familiar swooping sensation deep in her belly. The sensation had become so thoroughly about him that she imagined it signing his name deep into her body every time she felt it.

He took the backs of his fingers and brushed them reverently down the left side of her face. Ada gasped and squeezed her eyes shut. She backed up against the gurney, bumping it an inch across the floor. Delta’s hand fell limp to his side.

Ada opened her eyes, panting like she’d been holding her breath.

She stared Delta down through lowered lashes, ‘You don’t listen.’

A statement. Not a question. But he still thought it was his place to respond. He shook his head; such a small movement she wouldn’t have seen it if not for the low lights casting shadows over his features.

‘You’re impossible.’

She gripped the edge of the exam table so hard her shoulders trembled. Energy spiralled within her, a deep coil that led back to the moment they’d met and he’d first looked at her that way; bright and limitless. And soon, too soon she’d felt like he belonged to her.

With a short, keening cry, Ada shoved herself away from the gurney. Then she grasped the front of his t-shirt and dragged him into a deep, hungry kiss.

He grunted from the impact of her body, swaying lightly on the balls of his feet. For a moment, she was terrified he’d push her away. Then Delta wrapped one arm around her waist and brought his other hand up to cradle the back of her head. He combed his fingers through her hair, the pads of his fingertips massaging at her scalp. He tugged at her roots. Ada moaned into his mouth.

She swallowed a whine when he slowed their kiss, leading her out of it until their lips had only just parted. Ada exhaled a warm, wet sigh against his lips and tasted the spot at the dip of his Cupid’s bow with the tip of her tongue.

The sound of her panting morphed into breathless laughter when he bumped his nose against hers. He did it again. And suddenly she was giggling too much to kiss him back. He leaned away, cheekily nipping at her top lip as he went.

‘Like I said. Impossible.'

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