… until a howling, terrible scream knifed into her darkness, a shriek of such fury and pain that it spoke for her heart, and she jerked back to life, panting and afraid…
… and then realized what had snapped her out of her dreamless sleep, and her thoughts came together, giving her one more clear and constant thing to hold on to. It was William. William had come home, he had followed her and Umbrella would have nothing, because the thing that had been her husband had come back into the blast radius. The scream sounded again, this time echoing away into one of the lab's many secret places as the lift went down and down. Annette closed her eyes again, the new thought joining her lost love from before, the two of them together making her happy at last.
William has come home. It's almost over.
The third followed naturally, added as she slipped back into the silence, knowing that she had to get up too soon, to begin the final journey. When the lift stopped, she'd wake up and be ready.
Umbrella will suffer for what they've done – and everybody dies at the very end.
She smiled, and fell asleep, dreaming of William.
TWENTY-FOUR
Leon finally started to feel like himself again, sitting in the control room where Ada had left him. She'd found a medkit in one of the dust– covered cabinets, along with a bottle of water; she'd only been gone for about ten minutes, but the aspirin was starting to kick in, and the water had worked wonders. He sat in front of a switch-covered console, trying to piece together what had happened after the explo-sion in the sewers; the last thing he really remembered clearly was seeing the headless crocodile collapse, and then being overwhelmed by a light-headed weakness. Ada had bandaged him up and then led him through tunnels…
… and a subway, we were on a subway for a minute or two…
… and finally to this room, where she'd told him to rest while she went to check on something. Leon had protested, reminding her that it wasn't safe, but had still been too fuzzy to do much more than sit where she'd put him. He'd never felt so helpless, or so totally dependent on another person. Once he'd gulped about half of the gallon jug of water, though, he'd started to snap out of it. Apparently, blood loss tended to dehydrate…
… so she gave me the water and then went to check on what, exactly? And how did she know to come this way?
He'd barely been able to walk, let alone ask any questions, but even in his delirium, he'd noticed how certain she was, how she'd chosen their path with unwavering precision. How could she know? She was an art buyer from New York, how could she know anything about the sewer system of Raccoon City? And where is she? Why hasn't she come back? She'd helped him, she'd most probably saved his Life, but he just couldn't keep believing that she was who she said she was. He wanted to know what she was doing, and he wanted to know now, and not just because she'd been keeping secrets; Claire was still somewhere in the sewers, and if Ada knew the way out of the city, Leon owed it to her to try and find out. Leon stood up slowly, holding onto the back of the chair, and took a deep breath. Still weak, but no dizziness, and his arm didn't hurt as badly, either -
– the aspirin, perhaps. He drew his Magnum and walked to the door of the small, dusty room, promis– ing himself that he wasn't going to accept any more vague answers or smiling brush-offs. He opened the door and stepped out into an open– ended warehouse almost big enough to be an aircraft hangar, it was empty, decrepit, and heavily shadowed, but the brisk night air that breezed through made it almost pleasant…… and there was Ada, stepping onto a raised plat-form just outside of the hangar, disappearing behind what looked like a section of a train. It was an industrial transport lift – and from the well-oiled look of the rails that ran through the warehouse, it was one part of the abandoned factory that hadn't been completely abandoned.
"Ada!"
Keeping his wounded arm tightly pressed to his body, Leon ran toward the lift and felt dull anger as he heard the rising thrum of the transport's engines, the heavy mechanical sound spilling out into the clear night sky. Ada was leaving, she hadn't gone to "check" on anything…… but she's not going anywhere until she tells me why. Leon ran out into the moonlit open, hearing the door to the transport slam shut as he skirted a control console and stepped up to the vibrating metal plat– form, nearly tripping on the brightly painted steps. Before he could catch his balance, the transport started its descent; three-foot-high panels of corru-gated metal rose all the way around the train, contain– ing the large platform as it slid smoothly down into the ground. Leon grabbed for the door handle as the darkness swept up around the humming transport, the sky dwindling into a smaller and smaller starry patch overhead. The cool, pale light of the moon and stars was quickly replaced by the electric orange of the transport's mercury lamps. He stumbled inside, and saw the startled look on Ada's face as she stood up from a bench bolted to one side, as she half-raised her Beretta and then lowered it again – and a flash of guilt, there and gone in the time it took for him to close the door. For a moment, neither of them spoke, staring at each other as the room continued its smooth descent. Leon could almost see her working to come up with an explanation and as tired as he was, he decided that he just wasn't in the mood. "Where are we going?" he asked, making no effort to keep the anger out of his voice. Ada sighed and sat down again, her shoulders sagging. "I think it's the way out," she said quietly. She looked up at him, her dark gaze searching his.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tried to leave without you, but I was afraid…"
He could hear real sorrow in her voice, see it in her eyes, and felt his anger give a little. "Afraid of what?" "That you wouldn't make it. That you wouldn't make it, trying to keep both of us safe." "Ada, what are you talking about?" Leon moved to the bench, sitting down beside her. She looked down at her hands, speaking softly.
"When I was looking for you, back in the sewers, I found a map," she said. "It showed what looked like some kind of an underground laboratory or factory and if the map was right, there's a tunnel that runs from there to somewhere outside of the city." She met his gaze again, honestly distressed. "Leon, I didn't think you were in any condition to make a trip like that, like this – and I was scared that if I brought you with me, if it was a dead end or some-thing attacked us…"
Leon nodded slowly. She'd been trying to protect herself – and him."I'm sorry," she repeated. "I should have told you, I shouldn't have just left you there like that. After all
you've done for me, I… I at least owed you the truth."
The guilt and shame in her eyes wasn't something that could be faked. Leon reached for her hand, ready to tell her that he understood and that he didn't blame her…… when there was a resounding thump outside. The entire transport shook, just a slight tremble, but enough to make both of them tense. "Probably a rough spot in the track…" Leon said, and Ada nodded, gazing at him with an intensity that made him pleasantly uncomfortable, a warmth spreading through his entire body… BAM!… and Ada flew off the bench, thrown to the floor as a massive, curled thing slammed through the wall, crashing through the sheet metal of the vehicle's side as though it were made of paper. It was a fist, a fist with bone claws, each of them nearly a foot long, the claws dripping with…
"Ada!"
The giant hand withdrew, its bloody talons ripping new holes in the metal wall as Leon dropped to the floor, grabbing Ada's limp body, pulling her into the center of the transport. A terrible shriek pealed through the moving darkness outside and it was the same furious cry that they'd heard in the station, but louder, more violent and even less human than before. Leon held on to Ada with his one good arm, feeling the warm trickle of blood seeping out from her right side, feeling her dead weight against his heaving chest.