[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 475 - Grim Tidings — What Was Lost

Leon's voice dropped to something that belonged in a nightmare.

"Trust me. I can make that happen."

"You, Tara, and that little girl Meghan — your food, your water, your sickness, your health, your life, your death — all of it runs through me. Whatever I tell you to do, you do it."

"You... you bastard!" Lilly's voice was shaking.

She tried to pull away, but Leon's grip was iron.

"Your choice." He let go and stepped back.

"I'll give you ten seconds."

"After ten seconds, it's too late."

He didn't even look at her. He turned around and sat back down.

"Ten. Nine."

Lilly couldn't move. Every inch of her had gone cold.

She knew. This man was insane, and he meant every word.

"Eight. Seven."

Tara. Meghan.

If she fought back, would he actually...

"Six."

"Fine! I'll tell you!" She broke.

Leon stopped counting.

He didn't turn around. He just waited.

"It's... it's west of Fort Benning. The coordinates are..."

Lilly gave him the string of numbers.

Leon repeated them to Citizen Z.

"Received!" Citizen Z's voice punched back through the static.

"I've already passed your position to Rick and the others!"

A burst of interference, and then a familiar voice came through the earpiece, familiar, and barely able to believe what it was hearing.

"Leon? Is that really you?"

"It's me."

Leon leaned back in the chair. The tension that had been locked in his body since God knows when finally let go, just a little.

"I'm fine."

"Jesus Christ... you son of a bitch..."

Rick got something out that might have been a curse. Then Shawn Greene's voice bulldozed in over him.

"Holy shit! Boss, you're actually alive! Where are you? We're coming to get you right now!"

"Slow down. I'm safe here," Leon said. "Is Daryl Dixon out looking for me?"

"Yeah. Him and Glenn Rhee and the others. They've been tracking all day."

"Figured Daryl Dixon would come. Tell them to turn around." Leon gave his coordinates again. "Come straight here and bring people. I've got something important with me and I'm not letting anyone intercept it."

"Oh, and bring food. Enough for three people, roughly a month's worth. Call it a thank-you for the ones who got me out."

"Done!" Shawn Greene's voice boomed from the other end. "I'm going right now to tell Ashley. She's been going out of her mind!"

"Good. Hand her the radio after," Leon said. "Let her pick up."

He wanted to hear her voice.

5 minutes passed.

Rick, who had been talking steadily the whole time, went quiet.

"Leon..." Something in Rick's voice was wrong.

"What?"

"Ashley... something happened to Ashley."

...

The prison.

3 minutes of knocking, no answer. Shawn Greene kicked the door in.

He charged through.

And stopped dead in the doorway.

Ashley was on the floor, her body coiled in on itself like a shrimp dropped into boiling water.

She was convulsing. Hard. All across her body, veins had risen beneath the skin, blackish-blue, bulging, writhing like something alive and wrong.

Her mouth was stretched wide open.

No sound came out.

"Shit."

Shawn Greene stared at what was in front of him and his brain just stopped.

He didn't need to think about it. He already knew. This had gone catastrophically wrong.

What the hell had happened to her?

It looked exactly like what they'd done to Leon back then during those experiments...

"Go! Get Candice and Li Meizhu, now!"

The others piled in. Someone reached for Ashley to help her up, touched her arm, and yanked their hand back.

Her skin was burning.

"What the hell is going on?"

The letter was lying on the floor beside her, soaked through with tears. Shawn Greene picked it up.

He read it.

By the time he reached the end, a chill had shot from the soles of his feet straight through the top of his skull.

"She actually ate that thing..."

Candice burst through the door. She took one look at Ashley and the color drained completely from her face.

"What? Shawn Greene — you're saying she ate the original sample? Has she lost her mind!"

"Damn it. Damn it, damn it!"

"How did she even get to it? I locked that up myself."

Li Meizhu shoved through to Ashley's side, ripped open her emergency kit, pulled out a tranquilizer, and drove the needle straight into Ashley's neck.

It didn't work.

Ashley's convulsions tore worse the moment the injection went in.

"Her immune system is crashing!"

Panic. Actual panic in Candice's voice.

"Her body is rejecting it! She's going to die, she's going to burn herself alive from the inside!"

Rick stood with the walkie-talkie pressed in his hand. His hand was shaking.

Through the speaker, Leon's voice came, familiar, urgent, tightening with every word.

"Rick? Talk to me. What happened to Ashley!"

Rick opened his mouth. He looked at the shape of Ashley twisting on the floor in agony. He listened to Candice screaming. He looked down at the letter in his hand.

He put it all together.

He understood exactly why Ashley had swallowed something that dangerous.

His throat had sealed itself shut.

How was he supposed to say this?

How was he supposed to tell the man who had just dragged himself back from the edge of death that the woman he cared about most, who had done this because she wanted the strength to protect him, to go find him, was now about to die?

He couldn't.

Leon would lose his mind.

➤ Next: The Neutralizer — Tears Unshed