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Assistant: Title: Dulce et decorum est
        Author: LadySirana LadySirana 
        Chapter: 21/162 
        Summary: It has only been a few weeks since Spencer Manor, and Chris is back in Raccoon City. He doesn't know if he’s seeking justice or revenge, but he doesn’t care. Blood will flow and he’ll be the one to spill it.Jill is afraid Umbrella has something terrible in store for them, and she wants nothing more than to get her remaining friends to safety.Leon should be happy, he is the best cadet to graduate from the Police Academy, but he is miserable. However, he still has hope, since he’s going to start his life anew. A hope that is a fading flame.Carlos is a ray of sunshine, he strives to be because no matter what life brings you, there’s always a reason to smile and be kind to others. He just wants to bring joy, hiding his sadness.Nicholai is the scum of the earth and he feels no shame. When the world wants nothing more than to drown you in sh@t, whoring yourself up to the top is the most suitable solution. Anything has a price tag until your conscience knocks on your door like an unwelcome, rotten guest.In a Raccoon City doomed to destruction, they’ll have to find a way to survive. Will they do it together or will they stab each other in the back?
        Contents: Chapter 21
    

    


      
        
          
          (See the end of the chapter for  notes.)
          
      
  

  
  
    
    
  Carlos and Jill had reached the police station the night before, and although she wished she had not stopped and continued looking for Chris, they both could not back down from helping.

  Inside the R.P.D., there was chaos. Her colleagues were running in every direction, trying to coordinate their forces with the Umbrella militia and the army, which had just arrived in the city to try to contain the contagion and create safe corridors to get citizens to safety, or, at least, that was the official plan.

  "Hey, you should lie down for a while," Carlos told her, concerned. He had been following her the whole time, doing his best to help everyone he could, but they were both exhausted. Plus it had been heartbreaking for her to see Brad's body almost in front of the entrance to the gates, even if she had taken that blow like a champ.. 

  "I'll sleep when I'm dead," Jill hissed, hurrying up a flight of stairs.

  "Wait, slow down." He grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to turn around, "Staying clear-headed is important, and you don't stay clear-headed when you're tired, in fact, you risk scr@w@ng up that can endanger you, the guy you want to find, and the people you want to help. I can go on a little longer. I haven't been around since last dawn," he told her, resolute, and, seeing that he still hadn't convinced her, he resumed speaking without giving her a chance to open her mouth. "What does this Chris look like? I swear on my 
  
    mamà'
  
  s head, if I see him I'll bring him to you right away!"

  Jill sighed, for she was indeed tired. She had not kept a relaxed pace in France, then the flight, the jet lag, the sleepless night, the day spent sweeping the city, the Nemesis, and now the coordination. She nodded.

  "Come with me," she urged him because at least she wanted to get to the office since she had not yet had time.

  "This place gives me the creeps," Carlos admitted, looking uneasily at the unicorn statue.

  "And you should see it at the end of the evening shift when it's semi-deserted, it looks like the set of a ghost movie," she agreed, "come, this way."

  "Can I have a map?" 

  "There should be one in the operations room if no one has taken it yet. Once back in the hall, go down the stairs and take the door on the right, not the one of spades, the last one. Go past the reception desk and then follow the corridor to the end."

  "Door of spades?" Carlos asked her, confused.

  "This city is weird. You'll get used to it." Jill cut it short, finally opening the door to the S.T.A.R.S. office.

  She frowned when she noticed marks on the wall that, clearly, indicated a struggle, and, on the floor, there were now-dried traces of small but substantial drops of blood.

  
    Chris, for f@ck's sake, what did you do to that kid? 
  
  She wondered, distressed, but she was reassured to see the open first aid kit on her desk. Maybe they had made up their minds. She hoped so.

  
    Sh@t! 
  
  She cursed mentally, maybe if she hadn't stopped to question Carlos at the roadblock, she would have been able to intercept them.

  "Oh, what a big beautiful doggo!" The other suddenly exclaimed with his usual boyish enthusiasm.

  Jill turned to look at him and smiled, wistfully. "He was Kujo. Yes, I've always been an avid King reader since childhood."

  "Was?" Carlos asked, with those saddened dark eyes. 

  "Yeah," she nodded, "I had to put him down, about six months ago. He was old and sick. It would have been selfish to make him suffer to have him with me for a few more days. One of the hardest decisions of my life. God, what a sh@tty year!" She whined.

  Chris had been wonderful in those days. He had been there for her both before and after. He had helped her give Kujo the best day of his life. He had even carried him the three miles of uphill trail to the lake and back, even though he weighed more than 70 pounds, because it was his favorite place since they had arrived in Raccoon and she wanted him to see it one last time. In retrospect, she recognized that hers had been just a foolish whim, but Chris had indulged her no questions asked. In the evening, he had waited for her in front of the veterinary clinic, and when she had come out alone, without her trusty companion of more than a decade, he had brought her home. He had stayed with her all night, holding her in his arms as she cried her heart out, until she had fallen asleep, and, in the morning, he had tried to cheer her up by making her the best French breakfast she had ever eaten outside France. For the @ssh@l@ could cook as well. He had a gift, he would open a recipe book, and with a snap of his fingers he would succeed, while she had tried dozens of times to make the same, f@ck@ng, breakfast, getting only barely edible sh@t. She had appreciated the gesture, sure, but she had also told him to f@ck off because it was flat-out unfair that he was so good at it without even having to make an effort. And then they had laughed, and mocked each other like children. F@ck, it had been one of the worst mornings of her life, but, thanks to Chris, it had also been one of the best. He had treated her with every care in the following days as well, and if for work reasons he couldn't be there personally, he had instructed Claire to call and keep her company, and she had been a real sweetheart, too. The Redfield siblings could be two nasty-tempered pr@cks, but if you got lucky enough to get into their good graces, then they went all-in in making you feel all their affection and part of their family.

  "It's so stupid to feel sorry for a dog with all that's going on," he blamed herself aloud.

  "Not at all," Carlos intruded, even though he had not been asked. "I've never had a dog. I would love to. I did have a monkey, though, for a while, you know, back in Colombia. I don't know if that counts."

  She looked at him in curiosity. "A monkey?"

  "A nasty little b@tch, to be exact," he chuckled. "She started stealing food from the camp supplies at night and no one could catch her. The kids loved her. I began to leave fruit for her outside my tent, and slowly she began to trust me. We became friends. She even saved our lives later on by starting to scream like crazy when an army platoon was about to surprise us at night. I haven't seen her since then, because, of course, we had to move positions. She came to say goodbye to me when we left, though, and it broke my heart to leave her.  Sometimes I wonder if she is still around and if she misses me as I miss her." He sighed, seeing her pouty. "Hey, I didn't mean to make you sad! No one is allowed to be sad in my presence!

  Jill shook her head. "I was just wondering how someone like you ended up doing the job you do. You're so out of place."

  Carlos shrugged his shoulders. "Sometimes the current pushes you through unexpected ways, and if you're smart enough to let it, something good pops up all the time, eventually. Like you," he told her, sincerely. "I mean, I can tell you my story, it's not a secret, but not right now. You really need to get some sleep," and in telling her, he finished clearing the desk to allow her to lie down.

  Jill sighed, then took her wallet out of her pocket and opened it. "This is Chris," she told him, handing him a passport photo she had stolen from him when, for the umpteenth time, he had had to redo his S.T.A.R.S. badge because he kept losing it. 

  Carlos smirked. "Are we already at the stage of keeping a picture of him in your wallet? That's desperate, hon!" He teased her tenderly. "Regardless, I expected better," he commented, looking at the somewhat anonymous guy with a p@ss@d-off face.

  "At least he's not a crazy-ass Russian twice my age," she retorted, lifting her chin, defiant.

  "Says the one who tried to hit on him and was turned down at a speeding light. Yeah, this 
  
    poodle 
  
  pays attention, and, ouch, that must have stung."

  Jill couldn't help but blush, mostly in irritation.

  "I wasn’t 
  
    hitting 
  
  on him! I was just trying to follow your suggestion to trick him into our side!" She hissed, resentful because it was also Carlos' fault she had made such a fool of herself.

  "Hey, hey, don't blame me for that!  I only told you to be nice, not to throw yourself at him. It was bold of you to try to fool a fox, though. Dumb but bold. I’m sure he appreciated."

  She gave him an annoyed look and then sat down on the desk. "What's the story behind you two?"

  Carlos shook his head, a little dejected. "There isn't much. He was the one who hired me for Umbrella, but he didn't just do that. To make a long story short, I was more dead than alive, all my friends were gone. He was supposed to pay the Colombian militia to free me, but, for some reason, I don't know, he decided to take payback and kill all those m@th@rf@ck@rs. Then he spent a week with me, maybe more, in the jungle, putting me back together so that I could survive the trip to the states, but I only have flashes of those days. I was in terrible shape. He fed me, gave me medicine to break my fever, treated my wounds, and he didn't do it because he had to. He did it because he cared. I owe him my life. In what little I can remember, he even tried to comfort me as much as he could. Too bad we didn't understand each other. I didn't know a word of English, let alone Russian, and he didn't speak Spanish, but he was so patient and gentle. He is very nice when he thinks no one notices. He's probably also convinced that I don't have the slightest memory of those days, but he's hella wrong. Once we got here, however, he dropped off the radar. For two years I managed to meet him only in passing, and he always refused to even exchange a greeting. Until tonight. I'm not interested in his reasons behind what he did for me in Colombia, those are his and if he doesn't want to share them that's his right, but I want us to be friends. He... He is not well-liked in the ranks of Umbrella. Everybody fears him and, most of the time, they try not to get in his way, others really loathe him -not that he tries hard to be liked, apparently, he doesn’t give a f@ck- and it's such a sad thing. I think he deserves better and I want him to know that I am here for him, because he has been there for me. This is, more or less, the story. That's why I told you to be nice. Clearly, he's not used to it, but he likes it, and I think anyone has the right to be treated like a human being."

  "Want to know what I think?" Jill asked him, harshly.

  He shrugged his shoulders, still with a smile on his lips. "Fire away."

  She sighed. "Sometimes people are just what they are. Nicholai seems rotten and is probably rotten. I mean, as soon as you realized what Umbrella really does, you immediately took a step back because you are a good person. Him? He's in that sh@t up to his neck and he's splashing around in it like a kid in a swimming pool. Maybe you're lucky enough to be in his good graces, but what about all the others he leaves to die? The ones he personally kills? How much blood is on his hands? You barely know him and maybe he is right in saying that you have created castles in the air about a knight who does not exist outside your mind. I really don't care what you think of him but... You remind me a lot of Chris in this. He adored our captain and when he betrayed us it was a hard blow to him and still is. I just want you to be prepared, that's all."

  "And that's very sweet of you," he answered her, but with a hint of condescension. "I know there are some people who are just sh@t, I've met my share, but there are also a lot of others who didn't really have a choice. The first time a firearm was put in my hand I was five. Nicholai has a tattoo on his chest that his cellmate gave him when he turned eighteen, when do you think he first went in?"

  "It depends on why he got in for," she retorted, not too sympathetic.

  "He was a thief, but what's interesting is that he still claims to be one. A thief is not a murderer by nature. He is made a murderer. I too have done a ton of dirty sh@t, some horrible, but do I identify myself as a terrorist? As a kidnapper of children? As a heartless radical? No, I did those things because I had, around me, people I cared about that I didn't want to leave, because life forced me, because, for a long time, I didn't know any better. Does that clear my conscience? Absolutely not, but it doesn't define me and I'm sure as hell it doesn't define him either. He has books in his trunk, he has interests, things he is passionate about, and things he hates," he chuckled, remembering something. "He was really a fish out of water in the jungle which made him hypervigilant. Hot, humid weather is not his element, clearly. He definitely can't stand mosquitoes and being sweaty all the time. What I mean is that he's not a machine or a monster. He is like you and me. I spent my entire childhood believing that everyone outside of our group was just a dehumanized thing, a target to be killed or a tool to be used. Now I am adult enough to realize that is not the case. I want to believe in Nicholai because I've seen that side of him and I'm sure I didn't make it up out of fever and delirium."

  Jill couldn’t hold back an exhausted yawn."I hope you're right, and I do it for you. Not for him, because until he proves something, to me he will remain a son of a b@tch like everyone else at Umbrella, and I'll treat him accordingly."

  "That seems fair enough. Now get some rest. I'll see you in a while, and, don't worry, if I meet Chris I won't tell him about the picture in your wallet, I'll preserve some dignity for you," he joked, but waited until she had lain down, before covering her precisely with Chris's leather jacket, with extreme care and tenderness, as if she were a little girl to cuddle.

  "Light one of the table lamps for me, before turning the room one off, please," Jill murmured, feeling that there was no reason to be ashamed of that somewhat childish request. Not with Carlos. She had never liked the dark and, after Spencer Manor, even less. He would understand without judging her.

  "Of course, 
  
    princesa.
  
   Have a good nap."
 
  Irons parked in front of the R.P.D. with a mild sense of anguish. After being caught red-handed by Vickers he had hidden, for a while, in the orphanage and, from there, had watched through the cameras scattered around the station as the situation unfolded. He had seen Kennedy flee from the two S.T.A.R.S. agents, return alone with Redfield, after a while, and then leave again with that @ssh@l@. Doubt, however, gripped him. He could not know if the three had talked about what he had done to the rookie, and although the idea of being reported and even arrested did not distress him all that much, because he would easily be able to drop all charges and come out clean, he feared Wesker's f@ck@ng pet. Redfield was a rabid maverick, and Irons knew perfectly well that he couldn't wait to slaughter him with his own hands, so he didn't want to risk crossing his path without being sure he could surprise him and kill him first. The situation, however, had become complicated, and when he had received a phone call from a furious Annette Birkin, he had realized that he could no longer stay holed up until the dust settled, but had to get back to work and make sure that no one went snooping around the sewers.

  He closed the car with feigned calm and watched the commotion of people gathered in front of the station gates with some curiosity. There were a couple of army trucks, but, for the most part, it was the members of the U.B.C.S. who were running the games. He decided to ignore them all, disinterested in their problems and walked toward the alley so that he could get in through the side entrance without being too conspicuous. At the end of the day, he didn't give a sh@t about what was going on, and if Umbrella had screwed up, they had to f@ck@ng sort it out themselves.

  He stopped, however, when he spotted some of Branagh's men intent on digging ditches in the garden.

  "What's going on here?" He asked.

  The policemen shot him a frightened look. They all appeared exhausted and in shock.

  "We bury our men," he replied, the bravest one. "We are trying to prepare the station as a shelter, sir. There is no one available to retrieve the bodies at the moment, and the morgue is full, so w-we thought we should bury them, at least, to show some respect."

  Irons feigned a grave, contrite face and nodded earnestly.

  "Carry on," he gave them his approval, but he had to force himself to hold back a grin of triumph and delight when he saw, among the bodies lying in the driveway, the mutilated one of Brad Vickers. The nosy coward had met the end he deserved, one S.T.A.R.S. down, four to go. This also raised the odds that Redfield knew nothing about the rape. Irons was a longtime predator, and although he had been decidedly careless in that particular scenario, he knew that prey, more often than not, kept their mouths shut. His little dove was also a boy, and if it was already unlikely that women would talk after such a short time, it was even less so in that circumstance. 

  As he approached the doorway his mind wandered back to when he had first started f@ck@ng the little b@tch, and just remembering his stifled squeals, his desperate pleading cries, and his gasps as he choked him, made him hard again. He was aware that, with all that mess, it was unlikely that the rookie would ever get back into his clutches. but he would do anything to make it happen. Not least because he and the little sl@t had a score to settle. Irons could not bear to have been interrupted right at the most delicious moment when he had been on the verge of the most fulfilling @rg@sm in years. Oh, no, he was going to catch his prey once more and f@ck him again and again and again until he was begging to be killed. That little angel-face deserved to be punished for good after all the trouble he had caused him. And so he was going to keep him alive, strapped to his work table in the orphanage, for as long as that filthy bruise disappeared from his snow-white skin; until he was perfect again and ready to be preserved forever in his collection. In the meantime, he would stuff him with his c@ck whenever he felt like it and that would be often.

  He gave his d@ck a squeeze from over his tweed pants, aware that his hard-on would hardly go away unless he did something about it, and an idea crossed his mind, making him grin with perverse amusement.

  
  

    
      
        
        
          Hello, my dears!Here we are at our weekly appointment, which by now I think will remain fixed on Wednesday evenings (Italian time). As usual, thanks to everyone who is reading, leaving kudos, comments, subscriptions, bookmarks, and commenting on this story of mine.Irons is back (and no one is happy about it). I'm honest, I needed, in this part of the story, a human villain, but I didn't quite anticipate how challenging it would be to write this son of a b@tch. To make a long story short (also because I may have already told you, but I have a very short memory, forgive me), I have a particular method of writing. I internalize all the characters when I move them through a chapter, and this is a necessary process for me in order to make them as authentic as possible or at least try. It's kind of an extreme version of "every character thinks he's the hero in his own mind," too bad Irons' mind sucks. I detest him and everything he stands for. He is such a concentration of monstrosity and cruelty that he always leaves me a little dazed and upset after writing about him. Obviously, he's not going to do anything good.Carlos and Jill, on the other hand, are tender. He, at least for the moment, seems to have taken a step back from hitting on her, since he has realized that she is into someone else, however, he still treats her like a princess, which will be a bit of a constant in how he will deal with her.Jill, on the other hand, has now fully accepted his presence and has also begun to be protective of him because she fears that Nicholai might let him down, and she tells him so outright. My characterization of Jill is very much based on Jill from RE3R, where, clearly, she is always very direct and does not take any cr@p from anyone.In the next chapter, we're going to go back to Leon and Chris temporarily, with a chapter that's going to be a bit transitional but I need to put in another detail that will be important much later in the story. So we won't go back to Irons right away but expect a pretty heavy chapter when we do. Don't worry, I will put the proper trigger warnings.Again many thanks to everyone!A hug,Lady S.'
User: are leon and chris in this chapter?
User: are leon and chris in this chapter?
Assistant: