• Chapter One


    There was only one thing that Chris Redfield hated more than Albert Wesker: waiting in line. There was that, then doubled by the fact that this particular line was leading to an airplane that may or may not take him to one Ms. Valentine, his seemingly deceased partner in the Arklay Mountains. So here he was, standing in line next to 17-year-old Scarlet Adams, who apparently knew exactly where Jill was and had predicted what was going to happen within the next few months. Chris had nothing else on his plate, except maybe another nightly trip to the bar and a call to his sister, so he had chosen to tag along as requested.

    His past two years had mainly consisted of alcohol and Late Payment notices, and this ticket out of town woke him up considerably, tempting a recalculation of his time spent as of late. As they moved further in line, Chris started to notice the dignified, hygienic appearance of the other to-be-passengers, and suddenly he became more conscious of his scruffy stubble beard, as well as the yellow stains on his neglected clothing. He must have looked like a drunken haggard to everyone else in the room, yet Scarlet seemed to not even notice his less-than-poor condition. In fact, she had seemed like she already knew that he would be this way.

    Each time in the car ride to the airport that Chris had tried to ask Scarlet where she had come from or how she had even known who he was, she told him that there wasn’t any time for questions and he should just focus on the road instead. So he just went along with her plans, whatever they were exactly, she’d been almost excruciatingly vague in describing their impending venture. As he stood, it dawned on Chris that he didn’t even know where the plane was heading to, which seemed silly now, considering all the screens Scarlet had been checking on their way to the correct terminal.

    “Have you ever been to Italy, Chris?” Scarlet asked, looking up at him through her too-large sunglasses, making her expression indecipherable. The thought of mind-reading came to Chris, but he shook it off, knowing the idea was silly. Maybe she just knew him somehow; it had been seemingly so thus far, but how?

    “No, but my sister, Claire, has always wanted to go there,” he replied monotonously, attempting still to read the young girl in front of him. In turn, she offered a small smile, and then faced forward again. They both took one step in line and stopped for the twentieth time. Scarlet sighed.

    “How’s Claire these days, Chris? Oh, and Leon?” she asked happily, as if reminiscing about old times. That’s it! Chris thought. She knows me through my sister… but that still doesn’t explain this trip or what she claims to know about Jill. He shrugged lazily and let out a grunt before replying.

    “Claire’s happy as ever; she and Leon are dating now.” It was hardly the first time Chris had told this to someone, yet chills still ran down his spine as harshly as they had when he first heard the news. His first reaction was to find Leon and scare him into a coma so he wouldn’t be physically able to date Claire. On a second thought, though, Chris realized this may have been a somewhat rash conclusion to his dilemma, but he’d always been a protective older brother, so what was he to do?

    Leon had a bit of a reputation of being a lady’s man. Apparently, in his two years of college, he had dated roughly 24 different women, leaving all of them with various tales of heartbreak and remorse. Yet, Leon and Claire had survived Raccoon City together, and had become best friends before the notion of romance had ever stumbled its way into their relationship. These facts alone are what kept Chris from tearing Leon’s hair out. Well, there was that and the fact that he’d have to deal with Claire afterward, which was not a pretty sight to imagine. Chris had raised his sister right, though, and he knew she’d be fine out in the real world on her own.

    “Well it’s about time,” Scarlet responded finally, catching Chris off guard and throwing him off of his train of thought. “I thought those two would never have the guts to start going out.” She looked up at Chris and pushed her sunglasses off her face onto her head, revealing a pair of chocolate brown eyes which held a somewhat annoyed expression. Her eyes matched her high ponytail in color, but definitely not intensity. Despite their hue being of a dull nature, somehow they pierced Chris’s gaze like a dagger, reading him like an open book.

    It took Chris nearly a minute to break the stare they were holding, and he noticed Scarlet was blushing slightly when he faced forward. She looked flustered for a moment then re-obtained her previous cool stature. Thinking, Chris shifted his weight anxiously. The pair was almost to the front of the line, and his nerves were nearly peaked. Small amounts of sweat began to pool in Chris’s palms, and he wiped them on his pants. What if Scarlet was telling the truth? Was this plane actually heading to wherever Jill was? What would he do if she was alive?

    “Hey,” Scarlet spoke to him quietly, looking up at him with a sweet smile playing across her lips. “You want to talk about something? It might help your nerves.” Chris thought over it for a moment, deciding now was as good a time as any to get some answers.

    “Yeah, let’s talk about you,” he told Scarlet quickly, and immediately her shoulders tensed and her brow furrowed. She looked away from him suddenly, pretending to search the crowd for an invisible target. After a short moment and another place up in line, she turned back to him boasting an unexpected smirk and a glint in her eyes.

    “Alright, Redfield, shoot.” Chris chuckled at her response almost nervously; her sudden confidence had caught him off guard.

    “Last name?” he inquired, taking a safe, trivial route at first.

    “Adams.”

    “Uh, age?”

    “Seventeen.”

    “Do you know my sister?” he tried, testing his boundaries.

    “Yes, but she doesn’t know me,” she replied mysteriously, offering no change of tone nor an accompanying expression. Her answer had been entirely specific, yet so absolutely vague. Chris grimaced for a moment, and then smiled. In that moment, Scarlet reminded Chris of his sister. Once when Claire had sneaked out in the middle of the night to meet her high school boyfriend without Chris’s permission, she had acted nearly exactly the same when Chris had interrogated her the next morning. One word answers, vague or cryptic responses. It was how they worked, Chris guessed while unconsciously chewing on his cheek inside his mouth.

    Finally, the pair was at the front of the line. Scarlet stepped briskly in front of Chris and handed the attendant her and Chris’s tickets. The blonde woman at the counter raised her eyebrow in question, but Scarlet ignored her curiosity and continued into the tunnel-like bridge onto the plane, Chris close behind her. When they reached the interior of the plane, which was considerably cooler and fresh compared to the terminal, instead of being led right like the majority of the passengers, the attendants directed them left, toward the front of the plane.

    They were flying First Class.