[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 416 - Getting Ready to Develop It a Bit

Leon looked at Rebekah's crystal-clear eyes, which at this moment were practically screaming: are you kidding me?

Experience it?

This wasn't some Disneyland roller coaster where you buy a ticket and take a ride.

Leon wanted to refuse. It was, after all, a bit inhumane.

But looking at that face, pure, burning curiosity written across every feature, the refusal died in his throat.

He needed an explanation.

A scientific one. Something he could actually understand.

And the girl standing in front of him was the only person who might have answers.

Besides.

It was kind of strange. But also, yeah. A little exciting.

"Fine."

Leon took a deep breath and stood up from his chair.

He walked to the lab door, glanced left and right down the corridor, confirmed it was empty, then slammed the door shut and locked it behind him. He crossed to the window next and pulled the venetian blinds all the way down.

The whole lab went dark. Only the faint glow of the emergency lamps remained, catching the bottles and jars on the bench and throwing strange reflections across the walls.

Rebekah had watched all of this in silence. Somewhere in the middle of it, her heart had started pounding.

She didn't feel like she was about to participate in a scientific experiment. She felt like she was trapped in a room with a serial killer.

"Wh — what are you trying to do?"

She stepped back on instinct. Her back hit the lab bench.

Leon rolled his eyes.

"Didn't you just say you wanted to try it?"

"Oh." A vague, mumbled sound.

Leon dragged the chair over and sat down in front of her again. Closer this time.

"Ready?" he said.

Rebekah swallowed. She nodded.

Then Leon slowly raised his head, and those dark-gold pupils drove straight into her eyes like a blade.

He asked a question that crashed her brain on contact.

"What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?"

Buzz,

It felt like an invisible hand had reached into her skull and closed around her brain.

She wanted to say I don't know. She wanted to say I forgot.

She even wanted to scream at Leon to stop.

But her mouth had become a tape recorder she couldn't control, and it was already playing back the secrets she had buried at the very bottom of herself. The ones she wouldn't dare say out loud even in her dreams.

"Si, since that night... in the Watchtower..." Her voice came out cracked, close to tears. Her cheeks flushed red at a visible rate, the color bleeding down to her fair neck and the tips of her ears. "I... after I got back to the dorm... I couldn't sleep..."

"My head was full of... full of you pressing that remote..."

"And then... I just... I just by myself..."

She stopped. That pure, open face twisted with shame.

She bit down hard on her lower lip, fighting to hold back the word that would make her want to die on the spot.

It didn't work.

"I just... did some manual mining..."

"Half — halfway through... my roommate... she pushed the door open and came in..."

"She asked me... if something was wrong, why... why was the bed shaking..."

"I was so scared I almost passed out. I told her I was having a nightmare..."

"But I didn't stop. Right at the most critical moment —"

Leon: "..."

Fuck.

His scalp was on fire.

He had only wanted to test his ability. He had not signed up for this.

Manual mining?

What in the hell kind of euphemism was that?

It didn't matter. He understood it perfectly.

He looked at this girl who clearly wanted to dissolve into the floor, and the guilt that had just started forming in his chest was swept away by something far more absurd, a sharp, ridiculous satisfaction.

This kid. Talking about science with her mouth while her body was more honest than anyone in the room.

"Then why are you helping me?"

Leon didn't stop. He needed that answer too.

This one mattered.

The shame on Rebekah's face shifted when she heard the question. Some of it drained away.

"Didn't I already tell you? Because you saved my life."

Each word came out clean and unhurried.

"In that storage room, I thought I was done. I was certain I was going to die in there."

"You brought me out."

"You gave me a second life, Leon."

"So isn't it obvious that I'd help you?"

The words hit him like a key turning in a lock, and every weight he'd been carrying in his chest for weeks came loose all at once.

He hadn't expected it to be this simple. Such a stupid, earnest reason.

In that single unguarded moment,

Rebekah tore free.

She surfaced like someone dragged out of deep water, hauling in ragged lungfuls of air, her whole body soaked through with cold sweat.

She stared at Leon. Fear had moved into her eyes.

Not the fear of a man. The fear of something unknown, a force too vast and too alien to reason with.

She staggered back several steps.

"You... you..."

Her finger rose toward him. Her lips trembled. She couldn't finish a single sentence.

Then something clicked behind her eyes.

She spun around, lunged to the other lab bench, and snatched up a clipboard and a pen. Her back to Leon, shoulders shaking hard with some violent mix of terror and excitement, she started writing in a frenzy, scratching the pen across the board like she was afraid the thoughts would vanish if she slowed down.

"This is beyond hypnosis..."

"This is, this is mental interference."

"Through direct visual contact... locking onto the target's cerebral cortex... bypassing every logical defense mechanism in sequence..."

She was muttering half to herself, the words tumbling out in a rush.

"This is incredibly useful to you." She didn't look up. "Every time new members arrive, you can use this ability directly, ask them their real reasons for being here, what they actually want. Rick's three questions are solid, but if a new survivor decides to lie, there's nothing to be done about it. This is different."

She finally paused. When she looked back over her shoulder, her eyes were blazing.

"We need to develop this ability further."

➤ Next: Another Discovery