Chapter Text
Luis
After seeing Leon run into Wrenwood Hotel, Luis had been chained to the street by hesitance. Was he being stupid? Why would Leon even want to see him? Likely, all he’d receive from Leon would be a scathing glare, or a hurt questioning as to why he’d let Leon believe he was dead.
Or, Leon might not remember him at all. All they had was a single night. It would be naive to think he’s anything more to Leon than a faceless, voiceless memory.
He’s not the same Luis from Spain. Hell, he’s not the same as he was just a month ago. That Luis had a working suppressant.
Then again, Leon looks changed too.
But Luis doesn’t have to stress over these things if Leon never sees him. All he needs to do is make a vaccine, leave it somewhere for Leon to find, and scurry out of there before his presence can be traced.
Definitely easier said than done, but it’s not like Luis hadn’t managed something like that before. Back then, Leon had been cured of Las Plagas without Luis there. He didn't need Luis around this time either.
Luis strides through the rainfall, ignoring how it presses heavily into his coat and mats his hair with dark water. It clogs his ears, obscuring his lenses with wet pearls. But, it doesn’t dampen the fire coursing through him, fueled by infection and a desire he’d never really been able to bury.
Because whilst Luis’ eyes are tired and bloodshot, they noticed every new detail in Leon. Luis doesn’t know how it’s possible for the other man to look better than he did back in Spain. Silver suits him.
Some things still haven’t changed, though. Leon might be able to barrel through the front doors, but Leon is a mass of thick muscle and tense training. Luis is bone and a few lucky shots. No way is he making it through a hoard of zombies.
The back entrance is more plausible. It’s locked, but when you’re somewhat friends with Ada Wong, locked becomes synonymous with enter as you please.
Luis pulls out a hairpin and shimmies it into the keyhole. It scratches the worn brass, trying to find a suitable space for invasion.
After a few twists, the door opens with a click. Luis eases it open, and steps inside. The hotel is swallowed by an empty darkness, and it’s unnervingly quiet. There’s no groaning of the undead, or gunshots silencing them.
Luis digs out his lighter. It’s rusted, the emblem now nothing more than light scratches and a guilty memory.
Luis is surprised it still works. He’s glad for it; despite all it came from, that lighter remains dear to him. It flickers with no more than a faint light, but it’s enough to see the massacre of zombies creating a path down the hall. Some are left as nothing more than a headless body and a drying, red stain, whilst others have craters blown through the backs of their skulls which still drip thick, pulpy syrup.
Luis grimaces. At least Leon left him a trail.
He tiptoes over the dead, trying not to gag at the heavy, metal stench that follows close behind. Leon could’ve at least been more gentle in his slaughter. At least this reduces the chance of Luis dying twice.
Still, a few zombies linger in the hallways and on the upper floors. It would’ve been asking too much to hope that Leon might’ve brutalised them all. Yet, until Luis burns their vision with a blinking glow, they don’t attack. Like the Ganado’s, these zombies wander as lost spirits, searching for who they used to be. Every rotting expression of these creatures harbors a deep set regret before it contorts into bloodthirst. They somehow retain a little humanity.
It’s almost what Luis had begged for when Valdelobos first became host to Las Plagas. Seeing neighbours and old friends turned, Luis had tried to reach their memories of the young boy who’d lost his grandfather. It took only a near impalement by rake to accept the people he’d shared his childhood with were gone. All because of his own naive belief that Saddler could repair a world beyond broken.
He hopes that Leon doesn’t come to the same conclusion about these undead. Even if Leon didn’t confide in Luis, he knew that Leon’s guilt rivalled even his own. Luis didn’t want to imagine how torturous that guilt would feel if Leon believed he was killing something that’s closer to human.
But, Luis can’t die because of sympathy. When it comes to it, it’s those monsters or him. He just has to tell himself he’s putting them out of their misery. It’s the only way to make himself feel better.
As he explores the hotel, he tries not to wonder how long it’ll be before someone has to give him that same act of mercy.
But, with only a lighter to reveal what lies ahead of him, it’s inevitable Luis misses what hides behind. Perhaps, it’s Leon’s lingering presence that makes Luis feel too safe, as if there’s no zombies left to overwhelm him. His focus is tempted by curiosity and the past, so he isn’t grounded in the very real danger of the present.
When Luis realises a few zombies have massed in the space around him, almost every escape point has been consumed.
As soon as Luis notices, the zombies begin to hunt.
“Joder!” Luis yells. He stumbles to the side to narrowly avoid having a chunk of his arm mutilated. His dazed exploring led him back down to the first floor, to where he started, so he knows the layout enough. But that means nothing when around every new corner another zombie awaits, or more, all salivating over the stench of fear.
His gun is hot in his hand, a reminder of a way he can survive. Yet Luis has always chosen flight above all else. He keeps running down carpeted halls and past numbered rooms. He can’t stop to study any of the zombies, not when they’re gnashing at his ankles with rotten teeth. Luis’ footsteps beat brutish in his ears, in tandem with his pulsing heart. Twisted with the hungered snarls of the undead behind them, it’s a cacophony he can’t shut out.
When Luis thought he was dying, he’d been faced with a truth that you can’t outrun death forever. The reaper never gets tired of chasing. Now, he thinks it’s finally caught up. When he finds the same dilapidated staircase he’d ascended before, he can’t climb it. Above, a few zombies wait for him, as if they’d known he’d try to escape upstairs. Luis feels played like a fool, outsmarted by something with no stable mind.
But he can’t turn back. There’s no way he can break through the undead wall behind him.
All Luis can do is fire repeatedly as they approach, and hope that this time, if they catch him, Las Plagas won’t try to bring him back. It’s one thing to wake back up as mostly himself; it’d be another to awaken as a parasitic corpse.
When his gun clicks, Luis grimaces. He can’t reload in time. He’s not Leon, with all his training and skills, or Ada, who could always remain collected.
Luis was only ever meant to be a researcher. Maybe, that’s all he still is. He couldn’t change at all.
He stares at the blank, blind eyes of the zombie before him, and then cruelly imagines watching the crystalline blue of Leon’s eyes lose all their beauty. He doesn’t want to, but he can’t help but imagine Leon like this, bound to a body that yearns to be human again. Leon might become dead and starved because Luis couldn’t live long enough to test just one damn sample.
“Ah, Sancho,” Luis mutters. “The things I do for you.”
When the next zombie rushes towards him, Luis manages to kick it away. It’s not with the bone crushing strength Leon possesses, but it’s enough to make the zombie flail backwards, causing the rest to stumble in confusion.
It grants him enough time to scramble into a safer position and reload.
Going upstairs would be a risk. At least he knows what awaits him down here. If Luis can take out this hoard, he has a chance. It’s unlikely Gideon’s lab is in the rafters. If that weirdo is within the Wrenwood Hotel, it’ll be somewhere on the ground floor.
The zombies stir, and Luis braces himself.
Don’t mess this one up, Luis. All you need to do is create an opening.
He swallows a gasp of air before he fires the first shot. It tears away the space between the zombie’s eyes. His next shot is less precise, catching onto a fraying leg. The zombie pitches to the side. It disappears underneath the staircase with an usually sharp thunk.
The sound makes Luis think it caught onto something.
The undead don’t seem to question it at all. They continue to crowd towards Luis. Those bastards don’t have any sense of patience. Luis can’t think much about the sound. Not until the wall beside him splits apart, revealing a staircase and an escape.
Whatever that zombie triggered gives Luis the opening he needed. Even if this opening is a trap, he’s pretty fucked anyway. He might as well take it.
With one final spit of gunfire, he runs into the hole in the wall. The zombies rush towards him, but they’re not quick enough. Frenzied, Luis pulls the only lever he sees, and he’s enveloped into darkness.
For a moment, Luis chases his breaths. He really isn’t made for this. It’s hard not to mourn the more simple life of studying microorganisms behind a workstation. Working with Ada let him have that for a while, but it made him complacent. He shouldn’t have been able to come this close to death again.
When he finally remembers how to breathe, he starts to creep down the staircase.
The connecting corridor reminds Luis too much of being bound and left to starve underneath his childhood home, lost in the dark and unable to breathe against the claustrophobia. He’s beyond glad when he emerges from the darkness to the stark white of a hospital wing. It’s exactly where Luis expects an ex-Umbrella scientist to reside. Residues of violence mark the floors and walls, but it’s less dark and murky than the laboratory Saddler stuck him in. Gideon should count himself lucky.
Desperate to not be caught by a zombie for the third time, Luis sneaks around the hospital floor, trying his best to leave no trace. Every time he sees an undead, he flees. It’s pathetic, but it’s better than being trapped again.
With no more corpses to guide Luis to Leon’s whereabouts, becoming lost is all too possible. Every sign that might recover his bearings is smeared by browning red and a thick, black substance that Luis doesn’t want to try and rub off. It would definitely ruin the labcoat that he’s become weirdly attached to.
Yet, by some miracle, this cowardice directs him exactly to where he wants to be.
When Luis forces open the next lodged door, he feels both triumphant and disturbed towards what lies ahead of him.
There’s no muddied plaque to announce this room as Gideon’s laboratory, but Luis is sure that’s where he is. The room appears overwhelming in size, with a distant ceiling and craning walls. Long, metallic tables strain under the heavy loads of equipment dumped upon them. In every beaker the stench of copper bubbles, spitting out blots of red when it reaches boiling point. Upon stretchers the undead are laid out like convicts on the rack, their bodies pinned open, their organs on the tables. Some body parts are still whole. Others fell victim to the precision of a scalpel and a craving to understand.
One of the stretchers is tilted upright, but it only retains a shadow of a person, of wrists and ankles tightened by leather straps. Luis chooses not to think about who was trapped there.
What sickens Luis most is not the pulsing lungs on the counter, or the hearts hollowed out like ripe, tender fruits. It’s the fact he doesn’t feel sick enough. Everything here is familiar.
Before he can stress over when he lost that part of his humanity, his phone vibrates with an impatient hum. Only one person ever calls him, and she hates to wait.
“Hello, my dear Ada.” Luis smooths his voice over, hoping to conceal any lingering anxiety over his close brush with death, or what he’s found.
If Ada can sense any disturbance, she doesn’t comment on it.
“Have you found anything on Elpis yet?”
“Ah. Here I was thinking you wanted to check in on me,” Luis pouts.
Ada scoffs. “Yes. I’m checking in on your research progress.”
“So cold, Ada.” Luis laughs. “But no, not much. Though, I did find Gideon’s lab. Very creepy. He’s not a clean guy.”
The room is a breeding ground for disease. Knowing Gideon, that’s probably what he wants.
“I see..” Ada hums. If Luis knew her less, he would have missed the disappointment latched onto her voice.
“I haven’t been able to test anything,” Luis defends himself. “There’s probably something I missed.”
“You don’t miss things, Luis.”
Luis shrugs. “Maybe not when I’m able to study a virus. But I might have more for you if I can get to reading his research, yes?”
The phone signal is weak, but it still picks up on Ada’s annoyance. Her sigh is so sharp Luis can feel it nick his ear. “Fine. I had another update for you, but considering you’re giving me nothing, I might keep it to myself.”
Luis bites down the urge to bargain with information of his own. Selfishly, he wants to keep all knowledge of Leon to himself.
Instead, he grovels.
“Come on, Ada. You’re not the one having to deal with these monsters again. What would you do without me, anyway?”
“I'd probably have less headaches.” Before Luis can voice offence, she continues. “You can’t say I don’t ever do anything for you.”
Luis grins, and hopes his pride doesn’t show too much in his voice. “I’d never even dream of saying that.”
Her eyeroll is audible. “I think Gideon knows more about Elpis than I presumed. A few years ago, a woman named Alyssa Ashcroft was murdered in Wrenwood. It seems Gideon wants something from her daughter.” She pauses only for the dramatics. “But that’s all you’re getting. Do your research, Luis. It's what you’re good at.”
She leaves Luis in a silence interrupted only by blood dripping onto linoleum.
He drags his teeth across his lip. Really, what Gideon has planned is none of Luis’ business. Sticking his nose where it didn’t belong ended either in a fretful escape, or a knife lodged in his spine. Understanding the virus is his priority. He needs his parasite out. Leon needs a vaccine.
But Luis thinks back to another young woman, targeted by a vicious man who thought the world could only prosper after his intervention. He knows, without his offer to help, Ashley would’ve succumbed to the parasite, much like Luis is now, except it would’ve been more excruciating, more horrifying, and less deserved.
Not for the first time, Luis wonders how she is. He misses her.
He wonders, too, if she and Leon still talk. After all, Leon gave all of himself to save her.
Luis still admires that part of Leon; how good he is. How selfless. It’s something Luis feels he can never replicate, no matter how much he strives to be better.
Without a second thought, Leon would try to save this missing senorita too.
“Mierda, I’m really doing this,” Luis groans. A nagging part of him believes Ada wanted this outcome. For what reason, however, he can’t imagine.
He still takes a moment to snatch the only empty syringe on the counter, and extract blood from one of the corpses. It’s as it should be for the dead; thick and blackened. But Luis’ parasite doesn’t react to it. It aches just the same.
Luis clicks his tongue. So much for that.
The files Gideon’s left behind don’t give Luis what he wants either. Granted, Luis only skims them, but all they describe is symptoms, not origin. There’s an emphasis on blood, but that could be said for any infection. Luis doubts this is all of Gideon’s research if he’s the reason behind this horror. There’s too much of it. But this is all the evidence Luis can find.
There’s not really any time to waste in being frustrated over how this only makes his life worse, but Luis wastes it anyway. If he’s being honest, he didn’t think his life could become even more wrecked. He’d assumed it was at its worst when it was ending in agony. Only he’d woken up, and then he’d decided being kept alive because of the minor shred of parasite he’d missed in his surgery was more painful. Then, he was proven wrong the first instance the suppressant failed. And again, now, as he’s forced to accept how foolish he’s being. Saving the senorita, Leon, and then himself? It can’t be done.
Ever since Luis saw Leon again, a sickening déjà vu followed. It comes to a harsh halt now, digging deep into his spine, and Luis just knows things will end the same as they did before.
The parasite is restless again. A searing pain seizes his muscles, and it takes twice as many steps before it numbs. He has to lock his fingers to ensure his handgun doesn’t fall from his grip. Thankfully, his lab coat has pockets, so the syringe is safe from being lost.
The further Luis drags himself into Gideon’s laboratory, the more bloodied his surroundings become. Despite his prolonged exposure to such things, even Luis feels bile stick to the roof of his mouth. The zombies here are like dolls, victims of a child’s tantrum, their stuffing spilling in red clumps. He can’t smell anything but blood. The stench isn’t stale enough to just be dead blood, either. But there’s not enough clarity left in Luis’ mind for him to linger on what that means.
The clotted fog in Luis’ mind persists, even when he comes across something that might be useful. It takes more effort than it should to read through the notes. It isn’t diligently typed research like the files before. The handwriting is scratchy lead carving through the paper. Like in the previous files, Gideon is fixated on blood. When Luis finally makes sense of what he’s reading, he understands whose blood Gideon is really so obsessed with.
So, Ada was right. Luis grimaces. That creep wants the senorita’s blood.
From what Luis can gather, Gideon seems convinced that Ashcroft’s blood is essential for his virus. No wonder the laboratory reeks of metal. Las Plagas thrived through the amber and parasites. It might be that Elpis thrives through blood.
It’s more than Luis knew before. He grins. He’ll let himself celebrate this small discovery.
Any elation deflates when he hears a furious yell. Luis freezes. The voice is too far to discern what’s causing the anger, but close enough to tell it’s deep, throaty, and old.
Unless Leon is in desperate need for cough medicine, or his voice aged less beautifully than his looks, that voice had to be Gideon. Luis doesn’t need to be a genius to figure that one out. No one else should be here.
If Luis is found in Gideon’s laboratory, he doubts it’d end any better than the last time he was caught in a place where he shouldn’t have been. No intelligence is needed to know that, either.
Shit, Luis mutters. Frantically, he scans the room for a quick escape, or even a place to hide. He could run back the way he came, but he doesn’t want to leave the laboratory, not yet. After finally finding out something about the virus, he can’t go. It still needs to be studied. Leon needs his vaccine. Luis has more to understand.
In the corner of the room, a vent clings to rusting hinges. With enough force, Luis could tear it off. It wouldn’t be the nicest place to crawl into, and it’d probably hurt like hell to twist himself in there. But that pain would likely be more bearable than what Gideon would do to him.
Luis rushes over, and begins to claw at the loose gate. But it’s persistent. His nails start to break under the pressure, and so do his nerves. The voice is close enough for Luis to know what it’s shouting now.
Victor Gideon is calling for Grace Ashcroft.
And, just as Luis thinks this, the door ahead of him flies open. But he doesn’t need to brace himself for a fight he can’t win. It’s not a large, heavy, monstrous man in the doorway. It’s a young woman with messied blonde hair, red scabbing around her wrists, and eyes pried open with fear.
Luis never saw her picture, but this woman has to be Grace.
When her eyes land on Luis, her pupils begin to shake. She backs towards the door again, before remembering why she ran through it in the first place. Her expression becomes hopeless. Like a stone hurled into a torrential current, her whole body sinks.
Luis doesn’t want to think about why Grace looks so scared of him. Though, with the increasing, intense presence of the parasite, he can make a guess. It’s why he’s been avoiding looking into any reflective surfaces.
He abandons the vent. When he approaches her, he does it with gentleness that no monster could replicate. She swallows sobs, but she doesn’t shrink away anymore.
When Luis believes that his voice won’t shock her into death, he speaks. “Hey, senorita. You’ve got to move. That guy.. ha, I guess you already know that we don’t want to just be sitting here waiting for him, yeah?”
Grace’s lip wobbles. “You’re not with him?”
Luis swallows the hard lump in his throat. Does he really look that monstrous?
“N-no.” Awkwardly, he laughs, hoping to make it hurt less. “I won’t hurt you. I promise. Hey, look.”
He holds out his pinky finger.
“What, are we twelve?” Grace sniffs. She takes it anyway. When she does, Luis lifts her up.
“I’m honoured you think I look so youthful,” Luis jokes. Grace hiccups a laugh.
Gideon howls again, closer and brimming with rage, and Luis knows he can’t waste any more time.
Grace’s terror has softened ever so slightly, so Luis can guide her out into the adjoining lab rooms without worrying about her panic overwhelming his own. He doesn’t know where they’re going. He just keeps rushing through, turning past the zombies that block off hallways, keeping Grace behind him when there’s one he can’t avoid. When he shoots, he tries not to make the pain of doing so obvious. But the wounds he gives the concrete betray his weak aim. Grace must notice, but she doesn’t say a word.
When Gideon’s voice becomes muffled by the walls between them, Luis feels safe enough to pause. They’re still in Gideon’s laboratory, he’s sure of that. But it’s a smaller room with only a lone table and a fogged glass cabinet that contains nothing but empty beakers and sample medicines. It’s not nearly as much equipment as Luis needs.
But he has to stop here. His eyes burn bloodshot. His limbs burn with fire. Everything burns.
With shaking arms, he grips the table, and presses it against the door they entered. If Gideon’s shows, it’ll give them time to escape through the door behind. It’s locked, but Luis has quite a few more hairpins.
He collapses against the wall. Every inhale is heavy and coarse against his throat. Looking down at his arms, he can now clearly see the black veins striking down his skin, bleeding shadows. His mind aches with agony and fear. The first time he was infected, he’d had enough control to remove the parasite himself. He’d not given it any time to consume him whole.
“Oh my god, are you-“ Grace starts, but when Luis pulls himself up, the words become lost in her throat. When he stumbles towards her, she steps back.
Before Grace becomes lost in her panic, Luis holds his hands up in defence. At least his feverous shaking makes him look weak and harmless. “Relax. I swear I’m not working with Victor Gideon. He’s a bit too creepy for me.”
“You told me that,” Grace murmurs. She won’t look at him.
Luis pauses. Did he? “Oh. Well, you really have nothing to be scared of, senorita.”
“I’m not scared of you,” Grace retorts. “Specifically. I’m just really freaked by everything that’s happening right now.”
As if on cue, Gideon’s enraged screams rumble in the distance. Grace gasps, backing away from the table and towards Luis. At least, when given the choice, she sees Luis as safer. He’s not quite as inhuman as Gideon yet.
“Will he find us here?” she whispers.
“Probably,” Luis admits. “So let’s not wait around, yeah?”
Grace nods, and gulps down a large breath of air. “Okay. I’m sorry, by the way. For being freaked out by you. I just thought you were...”
“It’s okay,” Luis reassures. He doesn’t want to hear what she thought he was. Not when he knows.
She’ll have a right to in a moment, though. If Grace’s blood is the key to freeing Elpis, there’s a chance it might have the opposite effect too. Luis needs to test the only theory he has. If time is running out for him, it will be for Leon too.
Even if, by taking Grace’s blood, it will make him too much like Gideon.
“Senorita. Before we go, I’m going to ask you for something. But you can say no, okay? Hey, you can slap me for even suggesting it.”
Nervously, Grace laughs. “What?”
“Can I take a small sample of your blood?”
The whites of Grace’s eyes shine in the dim light. Her lip trembles, and her teeth pin it down. In her throat, her breaths lump together.
However, she doesn’t move away.
“You said you’re not working with Gideon. How do you know about my blood?” For the first time, she looks at Luis fully.
He wonders how bright his own eyes look. He wonders if his whites are nothing but black veins.
“He is not the best at cleaning up his files,” Luis admits. “And I’m known to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Okay…” Grace breathes. “Wow, I actually believe you. But if you’re not with him, why do you need it? Is it for, well… you know?”
She gestures towards his clear signs of infection. Luis bites back a laugh at her subtle way of telling him he looks like shit.
As much as Luis would like it to be that easy, Las Plagas was never about blood. “Not for myself. But, it might help someone very dear to me.”
Grace’s brows create a deep crease between her eyes. She presses her lips together. “That freak said my blood was needed to free the virus. It can’t help anyone.”
“Hm, perhaps. But I think I can make it so it can. Though, you’ll have to trust me.”
Towards her, he holds out his shaking hand. For a moment, Luis is back in the torrential rain, gasping down breaths, holding a bloodied hand with care. Like before, he doesn’t know if he deserves this trust. Like Leon, Grace hesitates.
But then, with a soft sigh, she nods.
“You asked, which is more than he did. But if I’m doing this, I want to know about whoever you want to give my blood to.”
“As you wish, senorita.” Luis shuffles towards the cabinet, straining to keep his balance. At least he still has enough strength to open it and disinfect a syringe.
Gently, he feels along Grace’s arm until he finds a lifted vein. There’s no tourniquet, so he has to make do with wrapping a stray piece of fabric around the soft skin. It’s a process he hasn’t done in a while. When working with Ada, he never had any patients.
“I’m going to take your blood now, okay?” He soothes. Grace squeezes her eyes shut, and nods.
Luis inserts the syringe. As he watches it fill, he confesses to Grace the thoughts he’d never before allowed to escape his mind.
“I’m hoping to use this for someone called Leon. We met a long time ago, in less than ideal circumstances. Before meeting him, I wasn’t proud of who I was. Because of him, I was given the chance to change. He inspired me to be better.” Luis removes the syringe, and wipes at the blood that struggles through the pinpricked wound. “I never got to thank him for everything he did for me, without even knowing. Every day since, I hoped that by some miracle I’d see him again, just so I could show him who I was now.”
“But you did,” Grace whispers. “He’s here now, isn’t he?”
Luis swallows. “Mm, he is. And I ran away, because it seems to be the only thing I’m good at. No matter how much I change, I will never be as good and selfless as he is. I don’t think I’d ever be worthy of him. I’d rather not know if he’d think the same.”
“That’s just sad,” Grace mumbles. Her words drag down the atmosphere, until it rests above Luis in thick, stifling smoke.
He shrugs, hoping to shift the pressing weight off his shoulders. “Maybe. Anyway, we’re all done.”
A sigh of relief escapes Grace. “Oh, thank god. I really hate needles.”
“Really? Don’t worry, I couldn’t even tell.” Luis smiles. Behind, Grace rolls her eyes, but Luis is rushing towards the beakers. He’d prefer if there was a way to study Grace’s blood, to see if there really might be the antibodies he needs lurking within, but there’s no microscope to use. All Luis can do is trust Gideon’s words, and the years he’s spent researching his own man-made viruses.
In hindsight, it’s definitely a horrible idea, but he has to latch onto the minute chance that it works.
With precision, he presses the blood into a vial, and seals it shut. Grace watches, until she jerks back with surprise when he shakes the tube, then flicks it, then shakes it again. Luis knows, usually, the process of separating for a serum takes more than almost dislocating his arm through vigorously thrashing a tube around. But he doesn’t have the time to be patient.
He doesn’t have the time at all. As Luis takes a moment to observe any visible changes in the blood, the walls shudder. Then, they begin to crack. Through the cuts made in the concrete, Luis hears a retching, guttural scream.
Neither he nor Grace move. It’s only when whatever made that sound gets so close that Luis can no longer hear much else that he claws out from his terrified trance. Frantic, he stumbles to the locked door, and begins jamming a hairpin into the keyhole.
Under her breath, Grace mutters, horrified. “What the fuck was that?”
As she does so, the opposite door shakes. In horror, Luis realises that on the other side, muffled and seething, is Gideon.
“I know you’re in there, Grace!”
“Leave me alone!” Grace screams.
In response, Gideon thrusts against the door until it has to strain to stay on its hinges. Grace watches in despair, held in place by chains of terror.
When the table pressed against the door screeches with a slight movement, Luis’ hairpin clicks. The door opens to a hallway of shadows, but one that is, for now, silent and safe. He ushers Grace towards him, and presses the syringe into her hand. Then, he takes out his lighter. The emblem is rough and warm against his trembling hands. He doesn’t have the time to trace or whisper the names engraved for good luck. He gives it to Grace too.
“Take these and leave. The lighter isn’t the best, but at least it’ll mean you’re not wandering around blind. Try not to lose it, okay?”
“You’re not coming with me?” Grace trembles.
“Ah, sadly not. I think I’d like to stay and use Gideon as target practice.”
“He’ll kill you.” Grace pleads. “You haven’t seen him, you don’t know what he’s like.”
“Senorita, I promise I’ve handled much worse. Have a little faith in me.”
Luis forces a smile, but Grace only responds with exasperation.
“My name isn’t senorita, it’s Grace. Grace Ashcroft. Please, just listen to me.”
There it is again. That Déjà Vu. It makes Luis miss Ashley even more.
But there’s no time to reminisce, and there’s no time for Grace’s pleas. Not when Gideon is pounding at the door, and the monstrous sounds are now one with Luis’ heartbeat.
“I know. I told you, I read Gideon’s files. That’s why I know it’ll be much, much worse if Gideon catches you instead of me. Whatever that other thing is, it’s not through that hallway, not yet. You have time to run. Once you find Sancho, you’ll be safe.”
The nickname slips, but Grace doesn’t question it. Her thoughts are nothing but a dark cloud of bright desperation and thundering fear.
“But my blood, it’s still as it is. What if-“
Luis grabs Grace’s shoulders. Underneath his palms, she shakes.
“This is only my theory, but I think that, somewhere down the line, you were exposed to a strain of Elpis. It’s the only reason I can think as to why Gideon is so convinced he needs your blood. Usually, I’d spend time studying it. But I don’t have that, and neither does Sancho. We’ll just have to hope that your exposure makes your blood itself a serum. But I need to know that you’ll try to find and give this to him.”
Luis knows he’s asking too much. He knows it’s wrong to beg Grace to do this, whilst she can barely breathe against her fear.
But, because she’s braver than Luis ever could be, Grace nods. “Okay. But I better see you again. We still need to find you a cure. And you have to see Leon again.”
Luis’ heart twists like a rag in his chest. “If that’s what the senorita wants.”
“I told you…” Grace mutters, but she doesn’t finish. The door bangs again, and the thing screams. Luis takes Grace’s moment of shock to push her into the hallway and shut the door. Only once does Grace gasp in protest before a loud, heavy thumping beats through the floor. It’s followed by her light, frenzied footsteps. Luis listens until they fade.
“Look at that, Sancho,” he murmurs to himself. “I could take your job.”
The door ahead of him flies open. Beyond it, Gideon looms, a large, greying hunk of skin and anger. When he opens his mouth to leer at Luis, a sharp stench releases, one that rots his bleeding gums.
“You wretch. Grace is meant to be mine. Elpis needs her.” Gideon pauses. “The state of you now… Elpis could free you from your infection. From your sins.”
“God, you reek,” Luis forces down a gag. “Look, I know we have some similar history, but I’ve already dealt with most of those sins. And, you know what? I’m kind of getting attached to this little parasite. I’m not looking to get infected by anything else.”
“You’re a fool,” Gideon snarls. “You will die soon. All of you will.”
“Maybe, but I at least want to stay alive long enough to see you kick the bucket.”
“You won’t.”
To Luis’ surprise, Gideon says nothing else. He doesn’t even attack. Instead he turns down the hallway, and begins commanding something Luis can’t see.
The next time he hears the distant, grating shrieks, they come from behind. They’re following Grace. It might not just be her that’s in the hallway, either.
Luis takes out the only suppressant he has left. There will be no better time to take it.
For what might be the final time, he buries the parasite. With more stability and strength, he abandons Gideon, and runs for Grace and Leon instead.