[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 563 - Overplayed It

They kept walking.

Daryl Dixon was leaning against a modified Ford pickup, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his lips, running a tattered cloth methodically along the limbs of his crossbow.

His eyes weren't on the weapon.

They kept drifting toward Carol Peletier, who was handing out food for the evening gathering a short distance away. Carol had on a gray knit sweater, head down, saying something to a cluster of survivors.

Those two were always joined at the hip around the prison. Everyone knew they were close. Neither of them had ever admitted to anything more than that.

The crossbow guy ran cold as a January creek on his best days, few words, fewer expressions, the textbook definition of a brooding hard-ass. Try to start a conversation with him and you'd be lucky to get a nod.

Ashley watched him, a slow, wicked smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

Always so untouchable?

Congratulations. You're test subject number two.

She drew a slow breath, reached back into that strange current humming behind her eyes, and locked her focus onto Daryl like a targeting reticle.

A man's mental frequency felt steadier than a woman's. More weight to it. The faint white-noise static lasted less than 2 seconds before it cleared.

Daryl's low, rough voice filled her head.

"Finally got some meat last night."

"That Carol woman looks skinny, but damn — nearly broke my back. Woman's relentless."

"Gotta find a way to slip into her room again tonight."

"That busted spring bed of hers has got to go, though. Squeaks like a dying animal. Gonna wake up whoever's next door."

"Check the supply warehouse tomorrow, see if there's a decent mattress..."

Ashley's face went scarlet.

What in the actual,

These two had been sneaking around this whole time and nobody knew!

And Daryl, the man who looked like you couldn't pry a single word out of him with a crowbar, had a head packed wall-to-wall with this kind of filth!

Was there one normal person in this entire prison? Even one?

She clapped a hand over her mouth and barely held it together.

She had just found the greatest source of entertainment the apocalypse had to offer. Cracking open the skulls of these perfectly composed, serious-faced people and seeing what was actually running underneath, a hundred times better than any soap opera she'd ever watched.

No. A hundred million times better.

She swung her gaze around eagerly, hunting for the next target.

Ada was nearby, checking over a firearm. Good choice. The woman was wrapped in mystery from head to toe, moved like a ghost, hit like a freight train. She'd be interesting.

Or Jill, standing a little further off, wearing that permanent ice-queen expression of hers?

Ashley could barely contain herself. There were so many secrets left to find.

And then.

The instant she reached out to force her way into Jill's mind,

Something broke.

Scanning human neural activity wasn't anything like probing those mutant dogs. The load was in a completely different league. And she had only just climbed out of a serious illness, then burned through everything she had left at the training ground. Her body was running on fumes.

2 forced reads in rapid succession. Her cranial nerves overloaded at once.

The world spun out from under her.

It felt like someone had driven a high-speed saw blade straight into her skull. White-hot pain detonated through her head, shredding right through rational thought. The world in front of her eyes warped, doubled, fractured.

"Leon—"

Half a syllable. That was all she got out.

Two bright lines of blood ran from her nostrils without warning, dripping onto the front of her shirt.

Her legs went.

She dropped straight back like a felled tree.

Leon had been right beside her.

He felt the change in her breathing before his eyes even registered the fall, that sharp, instinctive read of a body failing. He spun hard, one broad hand sweeping around her waist, and caught her before she hit the ground.

"Ashley!"

He looked down at her. Eyes shut, completely gone. Two dark trails of blood tracking down from her nose to her jaw.

His brow locked into a hard furrow.

Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine heard it and came at a run, dropping whatever they were holding. Daryl threw down his crossbow and covered the distance in a few long strides.

"What happened?" Chris stared at Ashley's white face. "She was fine two minutes ago."

"I don't know."

Leon pressed his thumb to the blood still running from her nose. Then he pulled her up against his chest, got an arm under her knees, and ran.

"Rick! Get Lee Mi-joo to the Infirmary — now!"

His voice cracked across the prison yard like a gunshot.

Jill stood still, staring at the small dark drops on the concrete. Her brow folded into a deep crease.

The girl who'd punched clean through a sandbag 20 minutes ago. Lying limp as a rag doll.

Power never came free. It never did.

Leon hit the infirmary door with his boot and it blew open.

Lee Mi-joo and Candice were already there, first-aid kits out, waiting. The monitors beside the bed were screaming, rapid, insistent beeping, brainwave readings jumping all over the screen in jagged spikes.

Leon set Ashley down and took position at the side of the bed. Both hands clamped onto the bed frame.

He didn't move. Just stared at her.

His face was completely still. The kind of still that had no warmth left in it at all.

Candice clicked on a flashlight, lifted one of Ashley's eyelids, shone it in. Did the same with the other.

Slowly, the waveform began to flatten. The spikes smoothed out.

Ashley's eyes stayed shut.

No movement. No flicker. Nothing.

The air in the infirmary turned to concrete.

Leon kept his eyes fixed on that green line crawling across the monitor screen. The wall clock ticked. Seconds peeled off, one at a time.

Outside the door, the others waited in silence.

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