[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 465 - What Is She Doing?

Ada hoisted the rocket launcher onto her shoulder.

She pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

A rocket trailing fire shot straight into the monster's gaping maw.

The explosion erupted from inside.

Black flesh and leech fragments burst in every direction like a sudden downpour.

The monster that had driven all of them to despair was blown apart in the firelight.

Silence.

The crisis was over. Nothing left but the hum of the emergency lights and the ragged breathing of everyone still standing.

Ada tossed the spent launcher aside. It hit the ground with a hollow clatter.

Then she walked toward Leon. Step by step.

Leon was leaning against a stone pillar. He watched her come.

"Ada."

She didn't answer.

She walked up to him and crouched down.

"You—"

Ada moved.

A dagger appeared in her hand. The motion was so fast it barely registered as real.

Shlick.

The blade didn't hesitate. It punched straight through Leon's chest.

Leon's body locked up. He looked down at the dagger buried to the hilt in his chest.

Blood welled from the wound and soaked through his clothes.

"Fuck!"

Shawn Greene reacted first. He let out a roar and leveled his gun at Ada's head.

"Boss!"

Abraham and Merle were right behind him, barrels swinging toward the woman in unison. Everyone was.

They didn't understand.

Everyone knew what Ada and Leon were to each other.

Why.

Why would she do this?

Ada ignored the guns. All of them, every muzzle that could have turned her into a sieve.

She leaned in close, her lips near Leon's ear.

Her voice was barely a sound. Only Leon could hear it.

Leon felt something cold and hard being pressed into his hands.

Then Ada straightened up.

Shawn Greene's eyes had gone red. His finger was on the trigger.

"I'll fucking kill you!"

"Don't."

Leon coughed. Blood came up with it.

He lifted one hand, forcing it toward Shawn Greene in a weak wave.

"Don't shoot."

Shawn Greene looked at Leon. Then at Ada's face, which held absolutely nothing. He felt like he was losing his mind.

"We're at this point, and you're still covering for her?"

"What the hell did this bitch do to you?"

But Leon's word was law.

Rick clamped a hand on Shawn Greene's shoulder.

The others kept their guns up. They hated her. Every one of them did. But Leon had spoken, and nobody fired.

Ada stood.

She didn't look at Leon again. She turned and walked toward Rebecca.

Rebecca was still on her knees, frozen solid with shock.

Ada grabbed her by the hair and hauled her off the ground. The blade went to Rebecca's throat.

"Nobody moves."

She backed up, one step at a time, dragging Rebecca with her until they were at the edge of the underground river.

The current was brutal. The roar of it filled the tunnel.

Ada stopped at the bank. She turned her head and looked at Leon one last time.

Then she drew her foot back and kicked him.

Leon's body flew like a dropped sack, tumbling back off the edge and straight into the black rushing water.

One instant he was there.

The next he was gone.

"Leon!"

Rebecca's scream tore through the tunnel.

She thrashed, wild, trying to throw herself in after him. Ada locked her down, iron-tight, no room to move at all.

Rebecca could only stare at the darkness that had swallowed him. The sound that came out of her wasn't a scream anymore. It was something rawer than that.

"Let her go!"

Glenn advanced on Ada with his gun raised, face cold as stone, closing the distance one step at a time.

Ada didn't look at him.

She leaned down and said something quietly into Rebecca's ear.

Rebecca went still.

Just like that. No more struggling.

Then, while everyone watched in stunned silence, she opened her hands.

The incubator holding the Stairway of the Sun dropped to the ground.

Ada pulled Rebecca into the dark of a side passage and disappeared.

Her voice drifted back from the shadows.

"Don't follow."

"Or she dies."

The tunnel went dead quiet.

Only the river kept going, tireless, indifferent, roaring on and on in the dark.

Shawn Greene hit the bank first. He stared down at the black water and drove his fist into the ground.

"Goddamn it!"

"I swear to God, I will kill that bitch."

Rick walked over and pulled him to his feet.

"Saying it now doesn't help."

Merle stared at the river. When he spoke, his voice came out rough and dry.

"The boss is just... gone? Like that?"

"It's early spring. That water's freezing. Can he even survive that?"

T-Dog quietly picked up the incubator and held it against his chest. Nobody noticed the tiny leech threading through a crack in the casing, burrowing into the soil packed inside.

Abraham came to stand beside Rick. He looked at the river for a long moment.

"This place is built inside a mountain."

"This river has to have an exit somewhere."

Shawn Greene wiped his face. He stood up straight. His eyes were cold.

"Then we go to the base of the mountain and we look."

"We follow the river."

Rick nodded. He looked around at the team.

"Don't worry. I'm remembering something Candice told me."

"Leon's body is half-human, half-corpse now. A wound like this probably isn't enough to kill him."

"And you all know what Ada is to him. If she actually wanted him dead, why not just put a bullet in his head?"

He left the rest unsaid. He didn't need to say it.

Everyone already understood.

"Let's not stand here talking. We move. Find Leon first — everything else comes after."

➤ Next: T-Virus Acquired