Soulbound (Carlos x OC)

Chapter 1, Recreation

                                         ***
                              Serenity's POV

     "Serenity! Hurry it up, we've got a time limit here!" I hear Jill yell from the floor below. We have plans to go to a local school and share the story of Raccoon City, I guess it's a sort of warning not to fuck with the wrong things or whatever. I don't really know the details, Jill put together the whole thing and whatnot. 
     "I'm working on it!" I shout back. I walk into the bathroom that's connected to both mine and Carlos's room. I grab a hair tie off the counter and throw my hair back into a low ponytail. I adjust my coat, that Jill insisted I wear as an effort to be more formal in the school setting. I look into the mirror for awhile, then finally let out a sigh and walk out of the bathroom.
     I head downstairs and turn into the kitchen, where Jill was sitting at the counter and drinking tea. She always insisted tea was better than coffee, so now Carlos and I gotta suffer the lack of coffee in this household. Chris and Claire suffer too whenever they're visiting. They've got a place two houses to the left of ours. When Jill reunited with Chris, she made him and Claire agree to stay close, so we can all go forward with our Umbrella investigations together. 
"Where's Carlos?" Jill asks me.
I shrug.
"It's like that man doesn't understand the concept of time." Jill complains.
"I'll go get him." I say, then begin walking back up the stairs.
     "Carlosss!" I shout.
He doesn't reply. I walk to the door that leads to his bedroom, but as I go to put my hand on the knob, he pops up behind me.
"Boo!" He shouts and places his hands on my shoulders. 
"Very funny." I tell him.
"Where's your sense of humor?" He asks.
"Its there, just waiting for you to say or do something remotely funny." I reply.
"Ouch." He replies.
     We look at one another for awhile.
"We better go before Jill rips our heads off." I tell him.
"Bleh." He replies.
     As we're about to go, I notice how messed up his tie looks. I undo the random knots he put into the tie then start redoing it.
"Aren't you supposed to know how to do this?" I ask.
"You'd probably look better in a suit and tie anyways." He replies. I'd be flattered, but that was just his way of complaining that he had to wear something decent.
      I finish tying his tie for him, then I straighten out his hair. I notice some shaving cream left on his chin, so I use my thumb to swipe it away.
"You're like a toddler." I tell him.
"Don't insult toddlers like that." He tells me.
I roll my eyes and laugh.
I finish fixing everything up for him.
"You're cute when you're acting like a stressed mother of three." He tells me.
"Is that supposed to be a compliment? You realize you're the reason I act like a stressed mother of three, right?" I ask.
"And you love me for it." He winks.
I roll my eyes. "Yes, I do."
Carlos and I made it official on New Year's. He asked me right as midnight hit. Guess that's an easy anniversary to remember. To be fair, I would be able to remember any day though, I mean, if Carlos asked me to be his girlfriend on that day, it'd sure be hard to forget.
     "Is nobody taking this seriously?!" Jill calls from downstairs.
"Nope!" Carlos calls back.
I elbow him then grab his hand and force him downstairs with me.
"We gotta go." Jill says once we get downstairs.
"Yes ma'am." Carlos replies, then opens the front door. He allows me and Jill out before him, then he closes and locks the door. Jill gets into the drivers seat of the Car. I take the passenger, and we leave the child in the back.
     "Time?" Jill asks.
"It's only 2:21." Carlos tells her.
"The schools ten minutes away and we gotta be there at 2:30." Jill says.
"We'll only be a little late, take a breather Jill." I tell her.
She takes a deep breath, then the car goes into motion.
     We arrive at the school at 2:27 considering Jill ignored almost all traffic laws to ever exist. She rushes us into the main office of the building.
"Hi!" The lady at the front desk greets us.
"Hello! I'm Jill, this is Carlos and Serenity." Jill introduces us.
"Ah, you're the presenters." She observes.
"Yeah." Jill replies.
"Go ahead and follow me." The secretary smiles.
     We do as she asks and follow her. We're brought into some sort of gym. The bleachers are filled with kids that seem to be about 12-16. She brings us to the center of the gym.
"Alright everyone, lets welcome Jill, C-" She begins, but is then cut off when she notices the back door that leads to the outside is open.
"One moment!" She smiles then rushes to the door. As she placed her hand onto the knob, something rushed up and bit her.
     I watched in shock as the thing tore through her flesh. I could hear kids in the bleachers screaming. I heard commotion and chaos as they rushed to leave the gym. I couldn't stop staring. I wanted to run and help her, we cut her arm fast enough she wont turn, but I couldn't move. I could only stare and watch as everything hit me again. Everything. So awfully overwhelming. I try to close my eyes, but it makes it worse. The zombies. Nicholai. Nemesis. Jade. Jill ran over to help. I felt my body go tingly and I got lightheaded. Before I knew it, I was on the ground. Carlos had been running to the door too, but when he heard me fall, he rushed back.
     He immediately went to his knees and scooped me closer. My eyes were open, and I was blinking and breathing, so he knew I was alive. But, I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything.
"Serenity, are you okay?!" He asks me.
     He helps me stand up, and I begin to regain my awareness.
"Serenity??" He asks.
"I'm okay.." I reply to him. I grab onto his arm with all my might as I breathe heavily. I don't trust myself trying to stand alone with no support.
     Once I've fully regained all five of my senses, Carlos and I both rush to assist Jill. The thing is trying to reattack the secretary, but Jills holding it. As shes holding it, she cant get her gun to kill the thing. Sure, us casually carrying around guns might be weird, but its legal, and, can you blame us? After Raccoon, we have to.
Carlos gets his gun out and puts a bullet through the things head. Where did it come from? How could this be happening?
Jill pushes the thing off of her after its dead, then rushes to the secretary. Her arm was bit a little below her shoulder, meaning if we cut it off, she's gonna have to lose the whole arm.
"Serenity! Run to the cafeteria. We need something for her to bite down on, and something to cut it off with. Carlos, you call the police." Jill instructs us.
I run outside of the gym, and head toward the cafeteria. I allow myself behind the counter, all of the lunch ladies are gone, I guess because their shifts end after lunch. I rummage through tons of cabinets until I find a wooden spoon for her to bite down on, and a knife. A knifes not gonna have the cleanest cut and its gonna hurt like a bitch, but its all they have. I turn the stove on and run the knife over the flame sterilize it. Once I have both things, I run back to the gym.
I burst through the gym doors and rush over to Jill and Carlos. They're holding her down to the floor. Once I get there, I place the wooden spoon into her mouth. I hand Carlos the knife, as he's better off doing this than I am. As he's about to place it to her arm, she snaps up and tries to bite him.
"Fuck! She turned quicker than usual." I shout.
Jill places her gun to the secretary's head, and after about a second of hesitation, she pulls the trigger. Its one thing that we had to kill all those zombies back in Raccoon, but we didn't know them. We actually knew this one when she was alive, we spoke to her.
We all standing up. We kinda just look around at each other. Nobody speaks a word.
"That was interesting, you should book us jobs more often." Carlos says to Jill.
"Not now." I tell him.
"Right, sorry." He apologizes.
We all begin heading toward the exit of the school. I mean, what more was there for us to do other than go home? Surely the police can handle the whole situation before it escalates.
     As we neared the exit, I could already see all the chaos waiting outside the doors of the school. People running, screaming, crying, and quite literally being eaten. How could so much happen in such a short amount of time?
     As I was lost in thought, a zombie rushed at the class door. He smacked right into it, but the glass was fairly strong and held him back. Carlos pulled me away from the door.
"Holy shit.." Jill mumbles.
"Its happening again." She adds.
"No! Its not. It cant." Carlos says.
"We gotta get back to Claire and Chris." Jill says.
"Think we can shoot through these ones at the front?" I ask.
"Better play it safe. We can leave through the side door, circle back to the car." Jill suggests.
Carlos and I both agree, then we set on our way.
As we rushed to the side door, we found a little girl running from a zombie. Jill quickly put a bullet into the zombies head. I rushed over to the little girl to check her for bites.
"You okay?" I ask her.
She nodded.
"Where's your mom?" I ask.
"She was the secretary." The girl replies.
"Fuck." I mumble.
"We cant leave her." I tell the group.
"Bring her with us, but we gotta go." Jill says.
I nod, then offer the girl my hand. She takes it, and we lead her to the car. We all got in and Jill stepped on the gas. We had no time to waste.
As we drove through the streets, it only got more chaotic than it was at the school. Carlos was sat in the front seat this time, I wanted to make sure the girl was okay.
"What's your name?" I ask the kid.
"Lily." She replies.
"Well, I'm Serenity. The really scary lady is Jill, and the guy that smells like a sewer is Carlos." I introduce us to the girl.
She lets out a small laugh over my comment on Carlos and how he smelt.
"Thank you for bringing me with you." Lily thanked me.
"Yeah, sure thing." I reply.
Jill continued driving us toward our house. We were about five minutes away, but Jills going insanely fast, so we could be there in about half that time.
"How old are you?" I ask Lily.
"10." She replies.
"What were you doing with the older kids?" I ask.
"I was bumped up two grades." She explains.
"So you're smart." I observe.
She shrugs.
We finally get to our house. We rush inside, and Chris and Claire were already waiting for us.
"Have you seen?" Jill asks them.
"How could we not?" Chris asks as he walks over to Jill and hugs her.
"Glad you're okay, partner." He smiles.
"Always." Jill replies.
"VOMITT." Claire says then pretends to throw up.
Chris and Jill definitely weren't dating. They were like, the definition of platonic soulmates. Claire just likes to give them shit.
"Who's that?" Claire asks and points her finger to Lily.
"Shes from the the school. We figured we'd help her out. Her names Lily." I explain.
"Hi Lily!" Claire smiles.
"Hi." Lily responds.
Claire's always liked kids. Not sure why.
"We need to figure out what we're doing here." Chris says.
"I agree. Do we evacuate?" I ask.
"We cant just leave. I wont accept that Denver's becoming the next Raccoon." Jill says.
"Well what can we do?" Carlos asks.
They all continue talking, but I dismiss myself from the conversation and approach Lily.
"Hey, why don't you go sit on the couch over there? Ill get you some water." I suggest.
Lily nods.
She walks over to the couch and I walk to the sink. I fill a glass with water for her, then grab a cookie from our cookie jar. I walk over to her and hand her the cookie and water.
"Thank you, Serenity." She thanks me.
I nod.
After ensuring Lily's okay, I put myself back into the conversation. It seems they've decided on driving toward the closest police station. When this happened in Raccoon, police stations were safe havens. Odds are, they'll secure them again. And if we're at a station, we can be of use. We can help, and hopefully stop this before it spreads worse than it already has.
We all agree on putting supplies together to keep with us. Worst case scenario, we get stuck in Denver and have to live off of our own resources for awhile.
I go upstairs and grab my backpack. I throw together various things I'd need. I have a change of clothes, a spare pair of shoes, ammo for my hand gun, first aid supplies, and I am going to head downstairs for some foods and water.
As Im about to head downstairs, I notice my coloring book that I left on my vanity. Its one of those coloring books full of super crazy patterns, but I figure Lily might find use of it. I grab the coloring book along with some colored pencils. I bring them downstairs with me, then walk over to Lily. Carlos already finished packing, so he's sitting next to her.
"Hey Lily, I got this for you. Not sure if you like stuff like this." I say and hand over the coloring book and colored pencils.
"Thank you." She smiles and accepts.
I nod, then walk into the kitchen.
Once I'm in the kitchen, I grab bottled waters and canned goods. I also put in some sandwiches and packs of gum. I grab a flashlight and lighter from the drawer near the sink too.
As I'm heading to the living room so I can sit with Carlos and Lily, I notice Carlos coloring with her. They're both sitting on the floor, while the coloring book is on the coffee table. They both keep laughing as they color their pages. Carlos leans over and draws a piece of crap on the kids paper, so she scribbles all over his page. They both burst out laughing again. Watching Carlos be so sweet and work well with Lily brings a smile to my face.
As Claire is walking by behind me, she taps my shoulder.
"You got a little drool there." She teases me.
I roll my eyes and laugh.
     I finally walk into the living room. When Carlos notices me, he turns to Lily.
"Hide! That's the monster I was talking about!" He shouts. He rolls over to the side of the couch, while Lily runs and hides behind a plant.
I decide not to ruin the fun, and look around for them, even though I clearly saw where they went. I look in the most dumb places, like behind the couch pillows and under the T.V remote. I finally decide to find Carlos.
"Got you. You're a monster now too." I tell him.
"Im gonna find you Lily!" He shouts. He puts on this whole act and starts walking weird and making noises.
He finds her behind the plant, but she runs.
"Get her, Serenity!" Carlos tells me.
I chase after her, but shes a really fast runner. Shes also smaller, so she keeps sliding under the tables.
As she was sliding, I grabbed her leg and pulled her over.
"Got you!" I declare, then start tickling her. She squirms and laughs.
"Okay okay! You got me!" She tells me. I stop ticking her and help her up.
     As Carlos was about to say something, Chris walked in.
"Is everyone ready?" He asks.
We all say yes.
"Let's get outta here." He says. And with that, we were on our way to the police station.