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

Chapter 64

I brush my hair from Leon's face and push onto my hands and knees off his chest, catching my breath as the crying ends. We're alive. We're getting out of here. After everything that's happened, I'm not going to die alone in this city. I'm not going to die at all.

"Either you get on, or I'm jumping off because I won't leave you here to die alone," he'd yelled and though I can tell myself it was said in the heat of the moment to spur me on. The look in his eyes was genuine, if I didn't make it onto the train, he was going to jump off it and willingly die with me in that lab. And once I was on the train, lying on him after we fell over, he wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly. As if I might vanish.

I sit against the wall now, and he does so too. Staring out at the blur of the tunnel as we pass through it, rolling out his wounded shoulder while I remain in my thoughts.

"I'm not going to let anything hurt you, okay?" it was the first thing he promised when we left the underpass to head into the R.P.D. I lean my head against the wall, watching the roof of the tunnel whiz by. Closing my eyes, I bask in the air washing over us each second as this train carries us out of the city.

I saw him get in the Tyrant's way during the fight... twice. Nearly getting himself killed both times. He helped me to a safer part of the lift too, and distracted it when it came at me for what could've only been a killing blow. And until the day I die, I will never misunderstand that when he fired his magnum at one of the zombies and clicked empty. It meant he miraculously killed the Tyrant with the last bullet in his gun and saved my life.

I think we are officially indebted to each other.

I can't relax my thoughts, honestly not quite sure for the time being what I'll do once this train stops. Knowing Sherry is my cousin through law. She's lost her mother and father in one night, and I still have to go to Europe to find Chris, because... whether it's selfish or not, I can't allow anything to stop me.

Then Leon unabashedly pops into my head above all the others. This time, it's not his hands, his eyes, or even the cologne I'm still somehow managing to catch whiff of. Despite the foul substances currently on his body. No, the image of his mouth becomes the center focus.

I saw people kiss at least once or twice in Raccoon. In a lot of the action movies one thing was always for certain, the good guy won, and the good guy got a kiss in the end. There was even one weekend I had off where I sat in my lone chair and tried watching TV. Settling on some day show with overdramatic actors, lots of kissing, and love affairs. I couldn't stand more than an episode before switching to something else. I don't even know if I made it through that.

There was a movie that came out not long after we survived the mansion. It was another day I was off work, and I didn't know what to do. Alone in a dark movie theater, I watched some new iteration of Cinderella with somebody named Drew Barrymore as the main lead.

I know that kissing is considered romantic between two people. It shows how they feel for one another.

Right now, in a state of disbelief we survived, my mind keeps thinking about those people as they did it. Lifting my head, I look over at him. Eyeing the back of his head, the dirt on the back of his neck and the dust in his hair, memorizing the bandages of the bullet wound. Finally taking in those dark, intense blue eyes when he turns to look at me himself.

I told myself in the station we wouldn't get close. There would be no development of attraction towards him, but I realize now my brain got the better of me and did so anyways. Developed more than just attraction, but to what extent I guess I still don't really understand. Maybe that's what Ada had been implying when she said it was so obvious... Maybe I'd been really good at hiding just how much I'd come to care for him.

Might as well accept it now even if it's all so foreign: I care for Leon, in a way I've never felt towards another person... Liked, him? But not even that seems to properly define the swelling feeling in my heart at any thought of him.

My eyes drop to his mouth and before he says anything, I lean forward. Pushing the weight of my upper body into my left palm. My right hand comes forward to cup his cheek like I did on the lift, but this time I don't stop there. Don't miss the way his eyes round in surprise as I press my lips against his. Shutting mine in response to the act.

My first kiss, right here. In the aftermath of this outbreak, as we're escaping the ruins of the lab. It's an odd place, and yet all things considered, with him... It's the first thing I've done tonight concerning him that feels right.

His lips are soft, gentle, and hot on mine as I kiss him. I'd caught myself wondering at least once tonight what they might feel like and this is a satisfying detail to learn about him. I feel the rough cloth of his gloves grazing over my hand as he presses his against it, seemingly wanting me to keep it there.

I open my eyes to find his closed and pull away from him with a shaking breath. His eyes snap open now too, blue boring into mine with a mixture of confusion like he wondered why I stopped, and something else. Sheepishly my eyes fall to where my hand sits between our legs, pulling the one on his cheek away where his hand drops in response. Pursing my lips, still feeling the heat of his lips there. I look back up with one tucked between my teeth before releasing it at the sight of him staring at them.

"I'm gonna go find Claire," I yell to him over the rushing air in the tunnel. Pushing myself up and deserting his side for the doors in front of us. They open and inside the main car is Claire and Sherry, facing each other and in the middle of a conversation I'm guessing as Sherry's giggling about something. They turn to face me, "Madeleine!" Claire smiles and Sherry runs forward, wrapping her arms around my waist.

"Claire told me you stayed behind to fight that monster," she says, staring up at me with gratitude in her eyes. "She said... she said you risked your life to distract it so she and Mommy could save me." At that my eyes fly up to inspect the car for Annette, watching Claire shake her head with a sad look on her face.

I knew she looked like she was on her last leg back in that room, but the reality of her actually being dead is different than just thinking it to myself.

I kneel at eye level in front of Sherry just as Leon walks in beside me. "Listen... we have to talk, okay?" and I look over at Claire, "You too," I add.

She nods and her smile widens, "I'm just happy right now that we all made it," she admits while I stand back at full height beside Leon—

The car shakes violently and we all stumble to keep our footing, "What was that?" Claire asks as we all look at each other.

Whatever caused the quake isn't in this car. It might be in another. Taking a step back with a feeling of dread in my stomach, "I'll go, you two take care of Sherry­—"

Leon shakes his head in disagreement, "No, I'm going too. Claire..." we both look at her and see she's already standing behind Sherry with her hands on her shoulders. "Just watch her," he gestures and she nods. Our eyes meet and I know the looks on our faces are both grim. Grim and probably frustrated to have just survived one attack and who knows what we're walking into now past these doors.

"Let's go, I have abad feeling about this," he tells me as we exit the car, the doors shuttingbehind us as we step over the gap where the coupler sits and enter the nextone.