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

Chapter 62

The gunshot echoes throughout the room, at once Ada's hand flies up to her wounded shoulder. Running a finger through the red streaming down her arm now, eyes flickering to Leon in honest surprise I'd shot her.

The second she lowered her gun I knew she was only toying with us. Ada has to get the G-Sample one way or another, even if it means killing Leon and. Like she'd threatened hours before, and now only seconds ago. Although from how she's acting, it's as if she doesn't like the idea of harming him in any way.

Leon gawks at me as I continue to focus my gun on her—

The platform gives worse than the last time and the portion behind us slants. I lose my footing and fall with a startled yelp. Leon shouts my name as I slide uncontrollably down the ramp. Barely managing to catch my fingers into the grating as my entire body dangles in the air over the void. My gun falls into the darkness. I close my eyes at the loss of the Glock, another weapon short adds to the anxiety filling my veins with adrenaline.

Sweat beads across my forehead. My face scrunches in pain as I try hauling myself onto the catwalk. It can't end like this. I can't die here, not after everything I've survived.

A cry escapes my lips as I lose the energy and return to hanging from my spot. Startling when rough fabric and a hand slide around my wrist. My eyes snap up from where I stare into the dark abyss I'm about to inevitably fall into. Leon's there above me, a hand threaded into the grating himself to not lose his footing.

I rasp his name from the terror in my system in an unspeakable relief at seeing him. "I've got you," he promises as he pulls me up by the wrist in his hold. I grab at the grating with my free hand, dragging myself further onto the platform. With my pushing and his pulling, my knees eventually meet ground and then my feet. I cry out of joy to be safe, looking up to see Leon's moved over to Ada now. She must have fallen herself.

More of the platform comes apart only a few feet behind me, I scramble up the ramp to a safer part. He's grabbing her wrist to lift her too, "I've got you," he assures as he tries to save her.

"Take care of yourself, Leon," I hear her tell him.

"No!" he yells, staring down and when his arm comes back up, I know he wasn't able to save her. I'd feel remorse, but at what she's done, what she was planning to do. I don't.

Leon stands up, continuing to stare down and then shakes his head. Moving off the platform as it collapses, brushing past me without a word.

I follow just as wordlessly, seeing the tension in his shoulders. He's furious.

When we both make it onto the center platform, he turns around. "How could you do that? How could you shoot her?" he demands, the anguish on his face.

Furrowing my brows, "How could I do that?" the way I ask making it sound rhetorical, because deep down he knows the answer. "Leon, she was going to shoot you..."

"She'd lowered her gun!"

"And then what? You two were going to escape together? Go your separate ways and she'd leave you alone about the G-virus? She thinks you have the sample, Leon. She wasn't going to stop!"

"You don't know that!"

"I do know that!" I scream, hushing him as I point towards where she fell. "I was that, Leon. Collecting data, stealing experiments from Umbrella scientists like they tried doing to William in this lab, and if they didn't comply. Our orders were to just gun them down! If they wouldn't hand it over alive, they sure as hell couldn't fight back if they were dead!" he's the only other person I've ever willingly spoke aloud just what they'd make me do in the U.S.S.