Starting Over Again (Book 1: Leon Kennedy)

Chapter 5: A Dirty Little Secret

Months have passed by since Justine began to work at the Hospital. Everything was going smoothly, her co-workers were nice and she's getting along with them very well. It was well past nine and there were only a few people in the lab with her. She tosses her half-empty cup of tea in the bin and begins to clean her desk. When she was done, she takes off her coat and folds it before placing it at the backrest of her seat. She picks up her bag from the left side of her desk, which was beside a wall and slings the strap on her shoulder. She bids goodbye to her co-worker and steps out of the lab. As she walked along the hall, she noticed that a door on her right was slightly open, and it was obvious that there were people in the room talking. She never intended to eavesdrop but a particular sentence caught her attention.

"...Are you sure this will work? Do you really think they're the perfect test subjects for this?" The man sounded distraught. She couldn't clearly hear what the other man was saying, the sounds coming out muffled.

"But, these are elite cops, what if they make it out?" The same distraught voice asks again.

Elite cops? Does that mean...? A disturbing thought pops in Justine's head but she shakes the thought out of her head and continues to listen.

"The Mansion Incident along with the T-virus cannot escape to the public, this will destroy us!" Us? Mansion Incident? T-virus? This was becoming too much for Justine, and with how tired she was it was making all of the overthinking worse. She quickly scurries away, the sound of her heels echoing through the room, from the door, and heads to the elevator. The lift opens seconds later and she steps inside it, quickly pressing the ground button before standing up straight.

She didn't know what to think with what she's heard. A virus? And who are they? Who made that virus? The elevator door opens with a 'ding' and she quickly steps out of it, rushing towards the exit of the hospital. She let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding as she walked. She's decided that she wasn't going to think much of what she heard, she thought that maybe she's just misheard it or that she was taking things out of context since she didn't hear everything. She steps inside a small cafe and walks to the counter, looking at the menu displayed on a giant flatscreen t.v. as the lady greets her.

"I'll have an iced coffee, decaffeinated, please," The lady at the cashier nods and begins to punch her order. While Justine waited for the lady to finish, a familiar voice speaks behind her.

"I'll have a black coffee too, but make mine regular." Justine turns her head to see Leon, but he wasn't wearing regular clothes but rather his police uniform. R.P.D. was plastered on the vest he was wearing. He smiles at her and then hands a bill to the cashier, flashing the lady a smile as well. The lady takes it and hands him the receipt.

"Hey, fancy seeing you here," Justine says, a smile on her face.

"I could say the same." They head to a table in the middle of the room, two small couches facing each other that were separated by a coffee table. She sets her bag down at the table and leans back on her seat, crossing one leg over the other.

"You didn't have to pay for the coffee but thank you, I appreciate it," Justine says.

"Not every day you get to buy a pretty lady a coffee." Leon smoothly responds as he leans forward with a sly expression on his face. Justine blushes and lets out a giggle and sighs.

She then raised a brow as she spoke. "I bet you say that to every girl you meet."

"No, not really." Leon chuckles. "How are you? It's been a while since we've last met."

"It is," Justine responds at the same time, a server comes to their table and hands them their order. They both say thanks to the server. She smiles at them and tells them to enjoy their order before walking off. She picks up her drink as she spoke, "I've been doing fine. Never really realized that it's been months since I moved here." She lifts the cup to her mouth and sips the drink. "You?" She asks as she sets the cup down.

Leon then proceeds to tell her how his entire time at the R.P.D. was going, how hard his job was, but nonetheless, he seemed happy as he spoke, and Justine was enjoying his company. She liked how his eyes sparkled as he spoke, and how happy he sounded as he told stories about his co-workers and what they've been up to. He also spoke about how being a cop is what he's always wanted to and he asked to be specifically assigned here because of the city's reputation in crime.

"I remember Jill telling me about their usual drug raids here. It's kind of sad, Raccoon City was never like this before." Justine comments.

"I heard about that too, they said that this used to be a really quiet place. But I guess that's what happens when a city grows, everything in it does too." Leon glances at his watch then adds, "It's getting pretty late."

Justine looks at her watch and it is late, '11:15 pm' blared on her digital watch. "Huh, it is." She agrees.

"C'mon, I can give you a ride home," Leon says as he gets up, his drink in his hand.

Justine gets up from her seat. "You don't have to, I'll be fine."

"I insist. It's not safe for you to be out at this time alone." 

After a moment of thinking, "All right. I'll accept the offer."

Leon chuckles, "Don't worry, I'm not gonna hurt you." Leon adds jokingly, "And I don't want to face the wrath of your sister." He joked.

"My sister? She's not that scary!" Justine chuckles as they walk towards the exit with Leon next to her.

"She's got quite the attitude when she's on duty. Guess that's why she's respected in the Department." They got to the cop car and Justine swears she could feel someone's eyes on her. She looked outside, nothing seemed suspicious as the streets were busy as always. The entire ride was quiet, she tried to ignore the nagging thought in her head.

It's been years, Justine, get over it! She thinks to herself. Don't let it haunt you again, please...

"Justine? Hey, you okay?" She snaps out of her thought and looks at Leon whose eyes are still on the road.

"I'm sorry... what?"

"Your address. You zoned out there for a bit, you okay?"

She forces a chuckle, "Yeah, sorry. It's uh, along Fox road."

"You sure you're all right?" Leon glances at her for a second before focusing on the road.

"Yeah, yeah, sorry I'm just tired." It wasn't long when they got to Justine's shared place. She got out of the car and so did Leon. Justine walks up to the door and stops to turn to Leon, thanking him and telling him to have a safe trip home.

"Good night." He says with a smile, his bright blue eyes sparkling.

"Good night," Justine replies before turning her back to him, taking out the spare apartment key in her bag and unlocks the door and steps inside. She sighed as she walked up to the bathroom, taking her clothes off and stepping inside the shower to calm herself, making sure that she didn't get herself wet. Unfortunately, it didn't help her so much. She walked out of the bathroom and went to her room, a towel wrapped around her body. She put on a plain white shirt and shorts and hopped onto the bed, immediately falling asleep.

Justine gasped as she woke up from her sleep. "Fucking hell." She had a nightmare, it was about those noises she had been hearing from her old place. Whoever it was managed to unlock her door at night, and before something bad was about to happen she woke up.