[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 509 - Ada Wong, You're Completely Finished!

DING!

The elevator arrived at the residential floor.

Ada forced herself upright, showing nothing.

She stepped out.

The corridor stretched long ahead of her, the overhead lights a blinding, sterile white.

Every step felt like walking on cotton. Her feet barely seemed to touch the floor.

Swipe card. Push open the door. Deadbolt it shut.

The moment the safehouse's heavy steel door sealed off the outside world, the last of Ada's strength left her.

Her legs gave out. She slid down the door and crumpled to the floor.

The room spun.

Her temperature was still climbing. Large beads of sweat seeped from her forehead, tracked down her cheeks, and dripped onto her black silk dress.

She gulped for air and tore open the buttons at her collar, letting the room's faint coolness reach her skin.

This was the virus's ultimate effect.

An absolute master-slave link. A genetic suppression that allowed no resistance.

Right now, that link was taking root inside her neurons.

"So I really am your property now, you despicable little bastard."

Ada leaned against the door and muttered it to no one.

"Looks like I dropped the rock on my own foot."

But after the curse, the panic she'd expected never came.

Controlled by Leon?

It sounded terrifying. But when she really thought about it — what kind of free woman had she been all these years?

At Umbrella Corporation, she was a blade. A tool. A dog Wesker could discard the moment she stopped being useful.

Just a change of bosses.

Traded Wesker for Leon, that hot-tempered, foul-mouthed man who would still step in front of her when it mattered.

Honestly, that wasn't such a bad deal.

Waves of dizziness rolled through her. Ada gave up fighting it, closed her eyes, and let her thoughts drift through her feverish brain.

What if Leon actually used this control to force her into something?

Like, no more patience for her games of playing hard to get, just tying her down to that hard iron-framed bed in the prison. Or pressing her against the Watchtower wall and not asking twice.

The heat on Ada's face climbed higher.

She'd spent so long dodging him. Even a proper kiss had to be kept shallow, cut short before it could go anywhere. Her biggest fear had always been infection through contact.

She didn't want to be controlled by anyone.

But her defenses had already been dismantled from the inside.

She was already infected. Leon's virus had already made itself at home in her bloodstream.

So what exactly was she still guarding against?

Force, then. Fine.

Do whatever he wants.

It wasn't like she minded.

She didn't even have the physiological basis to resist anymore.

The moment that thought surfaced — if the pot's already broken, might as well smash it — something in her chest unclenched. The tension that had been wound tight for days by this mission simply... eased.

She almost laughed.

A top-tier spy. And she'd managed to sell herself out like this.

Some of her strength crept back.

Ada pushed herself up along the wall, staggered to the bed, and dropped into the mattress.

The bed was soft. Incomparably better than that wreck of a cot back at the prison.

But the trouble hadn't gone anywhere just because she'd made peace with it.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow she still had to deal with John.

The bookworm with the black-rimmed glasses whose entire world was microscopes and gene maps.

Wesker had given her 2 days.

To get the hard drive, she had to keep playing the devoted, adoring woman. Smile at John. Listen to his tedious data. Let him hold her hand. And to actually get the drive, she would even have to...

A violent wave of nausea surged from her stomach straight to her throat.

Ada flipped over, hung off the edge of the bed, and retched twice.

Nothing came up.

This wasn't the virus. This wasn't physical.

This was revulsion. Pure, psychological revulsion.

She opened her eyes and stared at the pattern in the carpet, breathing hard.

Something was wrong.

She was a rigorously trained intelligence operative. Seduction and deception were fundamentals carved into her bones. Playing a role was as natural as breathing, she didn't think about it, she just did it.

Didn't matter if the target was old, fat, or a nerdy recluse like John. Whatever the mission needed, she could deliver. She could even control her own heart rate to the precise tempo required.

But now, just the thought of touching John's hand made her body recoil before her mind could even weigh in.

Leon's virus hadn't only built a submission link. It was staking a claim.

This possessive, aggressive exclusivity had locked down every possibility of playing that game with another man.

She couldn't summon a single thought of betraying Leon.

Anything that would hurt him. Anything that would wrong him. She couldn't do it. Any of it.

"God."

Ada rolled onto her back and stared up at the crystal chandelier.

She couldn't get the hard drive.

She couldn't seduce John. Couldn't fulfill Wesker's ultimatum.

And if she came back empty-handed, what would Wesker do? Internal purge. A disposal team. Or they'd torture her until she gave up the truth, and then the crosshairs would shift to that prison in Atlanta.

Could she hold up under that?

Any other time, backed into a corner, she could calmly map out 3 escape routes before the walls closed in.

But tonight her mind was a tangle of loose wire she couldn't pull straight.

Her reason had been ground to dust.

And she'd just realized she didn't care about Wesker's threats anymore. Not even a little.

All she could think about was the way Leon looked at her. That look. Consuming. Invasive. Like he'd already decided something and was only waiting for her to catch up.

It's over.

Ada draped her arm across her eyes and blocked out the light.

Ada Wong. You are completely finished.

Fallen for a man, and you didn't even leave yourself room to struggle.

➤ Next: Naive Rebecca — Words Unspoken