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"Ancient martial arts? For fitness and health?"
Claire's voice trailed off, her tone so skeptical it practically made Noah's scalp tingle.
She didn't enter the Records Room immediately. Instead, she leaned against the doorframe he'd just violently breached, her arms crossed over her chest. She cocked her head, her beautiful eyes sizing him up from his boots to his messy hair, as if she were inspecting a specimen from another planet.
Noah felt the sweat of the previous fight cooling on his neck. His innocent expression was holding on by a thread.
"Yeah, it's just... a set of forms I do every morning," he explained, though even to his own ears, it sounded like he was trying to sell a used car with no engine. "Stretches the tendons, aligns the bones. It's good for the circulation."
Claire curled her lips. She didn't believe a word of it.
She took a step toward him, her long legs closing the distance until she was inches away. She reached out a slender finger and poked the muscle of his forearm, right above the grip of the rebar. It felt like tempered steel beneath the fabric of his shirt.
"An ancient martial art for 'fitness' that lets you use a piece of scavenged rebar..." Her finger slid up his arm, stopping on his shoulder. "...to throw a two-hundred-pound mutant like a hammer-throw champion?"
There was a hint of playfulness in her voice, but beneath it was a genuine, wide-eyed wonder.
Noah gave an awkward, lopsided smile. He couldn't exactly explain that he was practicing the Half-Step Crushing Fist—the legendary technique of the Xingyi masters that was said to conquer the world. He definitely couldn't tell her that he knew this "hellhole" because he'd seen it all before in another life.
Seeing his mouth clamped shut, Claire's mischievous side took over. She liked this—seeing her normally steady, "I-have-a-plan" boyfriend looking like a deer in the headlights. It was a strange, romantic spark in the middle of a nightmare.
"Alright, 'Great Hero Lin'." She drew out the title with a giggle. "I'll play along with your nonsense for now."
She didn't press him. Every survivor had secrets, and she was smart enough to know when to let them be. Besides, what girl would complain about her boyfriend being a one-man army?
Recalling the way he'd stood between her and the Licker—his back as solid as a mountain before that earth-shattering thrust—her heart did a sudden, violent somersault. It was a raw sense of security that no words could match.
She reached out, slipping her arm through his and leaning her head against his shoulder. "Your 'fitness' results are... very satisfactory. I'm impressed." She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a quick, soft kiss to his cheek. "From now on, I'm officially under your protection, 'Grandmaster'."
The warmth of the kiss and the softness of her leaning against him made Noah's awkwardness vanish, replaced by a surge of pure affection. He shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips, ready to say something appropriately witty—
"Help! Someone... please help me!"
The cry was high-pitched, fragile, and filled with a terror only a child could produce.
The warmth in the room vanished. They snapped their heads toward the door, their eyes meeting in a shared, frantic realization.
A child.
There was a kid alive in this slaughterhouse.
"Upstairs!" Claire shouted.
Noah gripped his rebar, his face hardening into a mask of lethal focus. He grabbed Claire's hand and they bolted from the Records Room, their boots drumming a frantic rhythm against the stairs.
"Help! Don't come any closer! Go away!"
The screams became shrill, punctuated by the kind of sobbing that breaks your heart. They reached the second-floor corridor, and the scene at the end of the hall made Noah's blood run cold.
A massive zombie—a former riot-squad officer by the looks of his shredded gear—was cornering a little girl. She looked about ten years old, with short blonde hair and a white sailor-style top. She was huddled under a window, her tiny body shaking so hard her teeth were chattering.
The zombie was barely six feet from her, its rotting, blue-tinged arms reaching out as it let out a low, wet rattle of hunger.
Claire raised her Samurai Edge, but she froze. The girl was directly behind the monster's head. The risk of a through-and-through shot was too high.
Noah didn't hesitate. He didn't have to worry about a trajectory.
He lunged forward with explosive power, his boots barely touching the floor. He was a blur, a human arrow launched from a bow. The tall zombie began to turn, sensing the movement, but it was moving in slow motion compared to Noah's momentum.
Noah dropped his weight, coiling the power from his heels through his waist. His arm muscles bunched, the rebar becoming a black streak in the dim light. He swung the steel bar in a heavy, horizontal arc, aiming for the zombie's center of mass.
THUMP.
It was the sound of a wrecking ball hitting a brick wall. The rebar slammed into the zombie's lumbar spine, and the "crack" of vertebrae shattering echoed through the hall.
The monster's massive frame was launched sideways. It crashed through the empty window frame, disappearing into the dark courtyard below. A second later, a heavy, final thud signaled the end of the threat.
Noah stood by the window, breathing hard. Claire lowered her gun, her eyes wide as she looked at him. "Nice shot," she panted.
Noah turned back, softening his expression. "You're safe now, honey. It's okay."
But the corner was empty.
The blonde girl was gone.
"Where did she go?" Claire blinked, stunned.
Noah scanned the hall. A flash of a blue skirt disappeared around the far corner. "She's running! She's terrified of us!"
"After her!"
They didn't need to discuss it. A ten-year-old child alone in the R.P.D. was a death sentence. They gave chase, calling out to her, but the girl was like a shadow, slipping through doors and down backstairs.
They rounded a corner into the central corridor and nearly collided with a figure emerging from the East Wing.
"Whoa!" Leon skidded to a stop, his shotgun raised before he realized who it was. "Noah? Claire? I was just trying to reach you on the radio!"
"Leon!" Noah panted, his eyes scanning the hall. "Did you see a girl? Blonde? Blue skirt?"
"Yeah! She just zipped past me like a startled cat," Leon said, pointing to a barricade of overturned cabinets and plywood. "She slipped through that tiny gap at the bottom. I couldn't fit, and she wouldn't stop when I called."
Claire looked at the narrow gap. It was barely big enough for a child to crawl through. Her face fell. "We have to find her, Leon. She won't survive another ten minutes alone."
"Wait," Noah said, his voice low and commanding. He stepped into the center of the trio. "Before we go chasing her deeper into the dark, we need to talk. Information first, or we're all going to die in separate rooms."
Leon and Claire nodded, forming a triangular defensive block.
"I found a shotgun," Leon said, patting the weapon on his back. "But the news isn't all good. I found some notes in the Secretary's office. Chief Irons... that sick bastard. He anticipated an escape attempt. He personally sabotaged the mechanism for the Goddess Statue. The secret passage is dead."
The air seemed to leave Claire's lungs. "So the medallions... they're useless?"
"For that path, yeah," Leon said grimly. "But there's a silver lining. The Secretary's notes mentioned that the station's basement connects to the city's sewer system—which leads directly to an Umbrella research facility beneath the city. If we get there, we can find a way out of the quarantine zone."
Noah's mind clicked into place. The path was changing, but the destination remained the same.
"And there's more," Leon added. "Irons has a private basement hidden inside the Chief's Office. It's his personal trophy room, and it has an elevator that goes straight to the sewers."
All the pieces were on the board. The Goddess Statue was a bust. Their new North Star was the Chief's Office.
"Our mission just updated," Noah said, his eyes sharp. "First, we find the girl. She's headed toward the administrative wing—the same place as Irons' office. She might be the only 'innocent' left in this building."
"And then," Claire added, her voice cold with resolve, "we find the Chief."
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