The 0714 Files: File #1 Inferno (Remake 2)

Chapter 13

There's something I've decided on. Something that has to happen tonight in case there is no tomorrow for us.

"Marvin... can we step back here?" I sniffle quietly while asking the Lieutenant weakly an hour or two at most after...

He looks up at me, blinking and changing his whole demeanor in one second from utter defeat to being someone attentive and willing to listen, "Yeah... sure," he responds, then stands. He looks over at Rita, "We're just gonna step into the back room. Get us if anything comes up," he orders.

She steps out from the desk she was sitting at, "What's up? Something I can help with?" she asks. No doubt going stir crazy just sitting here, aimlessly staring at the floor with nothing to do.

My throat practically closes shut at the offer though. I'm sweating and anxious at the thought of telling Marvin alone, I don't know if I can handle telling Rita to her face too. "Uh-h," Marvin looks back at me, "Is it something you need her for too?" And there it is, I can send her away and reveal it to just him, or I can place the burden on her too.

Swallowing, "She can come," I answer distantly.

Then we walk into the back room, Marvin sits on the corner of the desk and Rita stands to the side. I stand with her, my arms crossed as I burn a hole into the linoleum floor. "What do you need to tell us, kid?" Marvin prompts when it's silent from my side for too long.

Rita steps forward, rubbing a hand on my arm. "... you okay, Trish?" she pries slightly at seeing the look of distraught on my face.

And that was all I needed to start this ordeal that I can't foresee how it ends, but the truth has to come out before we die in this place. "My real name's not Patricia, Rita," I confess to her in a depressed whisper.

Her hand motion stops brusquely on my arm, she retracts it to back up a step and match my pose with her own arms crossed. Her brows are scrunched together in confusion, Marvin's face matches hers too at the sentence. "What?"

My eyes lift from the ground to the woman who's been my partner and training officer for the last month. And then to the Lieutenant whom without ever meaning to, became something of a father figure to me.

"I don't... know how to say this. My name isn't Patricia O'Donnell. It's Madeleine Sówka."

Then it's back to silence between us all, I give them time to absorb the new information. Waiting for them to ask— "What the hell are you talking about?" Marvin demands impatiently.

Then my eyes drop again, in shame. "I didn't come to S.T.A.R.S. straight from the military... I was never in the military..." I allude and the two stare at me now, but I can tell from the look that they're not regarding me as the young kid they've known for the last two months, but as a complete stranger. "I don't know where my hometown is, or what state I came from. When I was 8... I was kidnapped by Umbrella," their eyes go wide at that.

"You're..." Rita says, but doesn't finish the thought. Like she couldn't process the right words to finish it.

Tears comes to my eyes; I have cried enough in the last week to last a lifetime it feels. Wiping a stray one from my cheek, "From the time I was 8 until I turned 18, I was raised as a child soldier through the company... I was sent in by them in July to help the team's own leader, Wesker, in killing them off in the forest—" Rita's putting a hand to her mouth, Marvin's eyes never leave me. Another stray tear escapes and I wipe it away, "I've hurt people-I've... I've killed people for them..."

"Why are you telling us this?" Marvin asks, unlike Rita his face is a worrying blank slate of what he's thinking.

I shrug, no other word except exhausted is good enough for the strength it took to even do that. "I uh, I don't see us surviving this honestly. And I... I guess I just couldn't take the lie anymore. That the company I used to work for did this to this city... I wanted somebody in this station outside of S.T.A.R.S. to know the truth about me," I admit. Rita turns around and walks over by the door, bracing a hand against the wall as if for support. "I'm... I'm sorry. I never—"

Rita stalks over to me then suddenly, raising her hand and slapping me before I could tell them I never wanted to hurt anybody. Never wanted to see them suffer the way they are now, or wanted to have to even have an affiliation to the ones causing them their pain.

Marvin jumps from the desk and grabs her around the waist, hauling her back from no doubt strangling me next.

"You shut your mouth!" she yells at me, as my hand flies to my cheek. The skin instantly burns, instantly turns red I'm sure to show the evidence behind the force of it. "You kept this from us this whole time? And now when there's only six of us left in this entire station you think it's okay to tell us as such?" I can see tears running down Rita's cheeks now when I look up.

I say nothing at first, "I never asked to be a part of the mess they caused."

"But you were! You were sent in to kill people from our own station!"

"And I'm sorry! What do you want me to say? Do you want me on my knees? Do you want to hit me more? I've faced the consequences of being a part of that company for my entire life, Rita!" I snap at the Sergeant. "I wanted to tell everyone I knew from the moment we came back from that mansion. I wanted you to know—"

"I don't care! I don't care what your real name is, whether it's Patricia, or Madeleine. I don't fucking care, because you've hurt people," Rita determines. And I finally have the answer to my question on just how badly this would go, and end.

I shouldn't even defend myself, but, "I was just a kid when they took me, Rita. If I didn't do what they said they would've killed me—"

"Well, you should have let them!" she yells unforgivingly.

Biting my lip and wiping my eyes at the horrendous statement, "I'm sorry—"

"I don't want to hear it!" she interrupts with a sob; Marvin is surprisingly silent still. Just holding Rita back with a pained look in his eyes, "We trusted you. You have no idea how we feel, Patricia!"

"And you have no idea how I feel!" I scream at her hoarsely at the fake name. "I have a real name. It's Madeleine Sówka. And I have lived my life as a prisoner under Umbrella. This tattoo on my arm isn't the date I joined the military. It's my barcode for them!"

The words don't sway her even remotely though, and even through my grief I still understand. "Get out!" Rita shouts then, freeing a hand and pointing it at the door to the hallway behind me. "Get the fuck out, Madeleine! I don't want to spend my last day alive with a murderer near me!" she shouts and the air is ripped from my throat. My eyes glance from behind them to the open door to the operations room where the three remaining men watch wordlessly. It appears nobody, except for Rita, knows what to say at the information of who I am.

"Rita!" Marvin finally speaks for the first time since our shouting match began.

She shoves herself out of Marvin's arms, "I want her out! That company is the reason we're sitting on our goddamn asses, waiting to die in this fucking room!" I've never heard her swear so much before.

Then the same thought I had days before at opening the door to Mr. and Mrs. Newman's apartment comes to mind. This is pointless. Wiping my eyes, "Just..." they stop and look over at the pathetic person standing ahead of them. "Just let me get my bag and I'll leave," I offer, not having it in me any longer to keep fighting.

Marvin eyes Rita for her reaction, "Fine!" the word spat. "Get your bag, and leave us. Don't let me catch you in this station or I'll shoot you myself," she demands, storming off into the operations room. The rest say nothing, not even Marvin, before walking into the room after her. I follow, long enough to collect where my bag is by the podium. I sling it over my shoulder, looking behind me at the five men and women remaining of the original numbers that made up this police station.

Rita's sobbing in a corner, David's eyeing his shotgun again next to his nearly finished bottle of whiskey, Elliot's consoling Rita. Neil and Marvin watch me with weary and sorrowful eyes. Like hearing what I said actually did strike a chord of empathy in them to know I at least regret what has happened and what I've done, but we're too far past the point of no return. What I did was unforgivable. Untrustworthy.

Even now, two months later. I find myself still paying the consequences of having ever been taken by this company.

I shut the door behind me, leaving them without a goodbye.