[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 537 - It Had to Be Jill

At the mention of Wesker's name, every hair on Rebekah's body stood on end.

"No! Don't tell him!" She practically screamed it into the mic.

Inside the helicopter, Chris yanked his headset away from his ear, grimacing.

"Rebekah? What's wrong? Why can't we tell the captain? We're on a search and rescue mission — he needs to know the target's situation."

"Chris, please. Just listen to me." A note of desperation had slipped into her voice. "There's no time to explain. Whatever you do, don't contact Wesker. Don't use the bureau's main comms tower to report anything. Just come — the three of you. When we meet, I'll tell you everything." A beat. "Remember. He cannot know I spoke with you."

The line went dead. Static hissed in the headset.

Chris held the mic, staring at Jill Valentine.

He had absolutely no idea what to make of that.

What was she playing at? In the field she was always quiet, obedient, by the book. And now she was asking them to go behind their direct superior's back. That wasn't a small thing. Disobeying the captain's orders was the kind of move that ended careers.

"She's afraid." Jill Valentine slipped her headset off and hung it around her neck.

As a woman, her instincts cut far sharper than Chris Redfield's blunt, straight-line thinking ever would.

"Afraid of what?" Chris Redfield asked.

"Of Wesker." Jill Valentine pulled the cabin door shut, muffling some of the rotor noise. "Think back. Listen to how she sounded when she said his name. That wasn't someone calling for help in the middle of a crisis. That was pure fear. Something closer to dread."

Chris Redfield rubbed the stubble on his chin. "That doesn't add up. Wesker's our captain. He was just in the office ten minutes ago chewing people out over Bravo Team going dark."

"Rebekah's a rookie and a medic. She's not stupid." Jill Valentine adjusted the holster at her hip, her eyes steady and careful. "She's been through the same training as the rest of us. She knows exactly what it means to withhold intel from the chain of command." She paused. "She wouldn't ask this unless things were already extreme."

Jill Valentine leaned back in her seat and turned her gaze to the black sky outside.

"Wesker has been off lately. A lot of his orders don't make sense. None of us know what he's actually thinking."

"So what do we do?" Chris Redfield still hadn't landed anywhere solid. "Just outright defy orders?"

"First, we go get her." Jill Valentine's voice was flat and decided. "Rebekah is one of ours. She needs us. As for Wesker..."

Jill Valentine leaned forward and tapped the pilot on the shoulder.

"Brad. Cut the positioning signal to the bureau. Shut down the main comms."

Brad was a careful, cautious man by nature. The color drained from his face.

"Jill, that's against regulations. If Wesker finds out we changed course without authorization, all of us are facing disciplinary action."

"Do it, Brad." Her tone left no room. "Anything that comes of this lands on me. Take off. Head for that factory by the abandoned highway."

The engine note climbed.

The helicopter lifted slowly, banked, and cut through the night sky above Fort Benning, its nose pointed toward coordinates far from the mansion.

Nobody spoke. The cabin felt heavy, the silence thick enough to press against your chest.

What was Rebekah hiding?

What had happened in the Arklay Mountains?

---

Atlanta Prison.

Rebekah let go of the transmitter. Her back was soaked through with cold sweat.

She had always been the good girl. She had never done anything like this in her life.

Leon patted the top of her head.

"Not bad. The little rookie's getting better at this."

"I didn't lie." Rebekah pushed back, voice barely above a murmur. "I just didn't tell them everything."

"Exactly." Leon stood and tucked the radio away. "Selective disclosure. That's the sharpest tool there is." He glanced back at her. "Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine aren't stupid. As long as they didn't call Wesker the second we hung up, their lives are already half-saved."

"And the other half?" Rebekah looked up at him.

"The other half," Leon said, walking to the window, "is my problem."

Outside, nothing but dark wilderness.

Wesker was probably still over at the mansion ruins right now, waiting for his cast to hit their marks.

Too bad his lead actors had already been quietly pulled from the production.

"Get some sleep. You've got a full day tomorrow." Leon flicked a hand toward the door. "Old man Marcus isn't going to excuse you because you didn't rest."

Rebekah stood. She crossed to the door and stopped with her hand on the frame.

She looked back at his silhouette against the window.

"You're really confident you can deal with Wesker? He's not easy."

"Not easy?" Leon turned around, hands loose in his pockets, the smile on his face unhurried.

"No matter how vicious a dog is, once you break its legs, all it can do is whimper."

The door clicked shut.

Intercepting Alpha Team was only the opening move.

Without combat data, Wesker had nothing to bring back to H.C.F. Nothing to show. And an asset who couldn't deliver results was just dead weight.

A director with no cast, standing alone on an empty set. What exactly was the point of that?

Leon had always believed in seeing a job through to the end. If you were going to help someone out the door, you walked them all the way out.

Taking Wesker's life along with everything else — that was just good manners.

---

Morning came.

Through the window, from the direction of the moat construction site, the low, rhythmic boom of Tyrants hauling boulders drifted in on the still air.

Time to go meet Alpha Team himself.

➤ Next: A Specific Identity Granted by the Spacetime Fusion?