Ichor And Steel

Chapter Sixteen; Peering

It was as if they were children; hands clenched on the peaks of fences, intrudingly leering at neighbours with nosy intentions. But replace the fence with a mountain range and leers with binoculars but the same meddlesomeness.

Women with thin blonde hair or red buns and men with shaved heads treaded around the crunchy snow camp clad in black windcheaters and red scarves. Their heads were kept warm by either grey or beige ushankas, hands gloved, and boots pulled high to knees. They all looked so expert and aware of what they faced in the Southern valley. Rose only realised then she wasn't here in secret.

"Chris," she whispered, tugging at the hem of his coat; no matter the weather, the coat stayed on. "Chris, who is everyone here? Are they Umbrella—"

"Not really, no," he said behind a cigarette he chewed as lighters couldn't flare up against all the wind. "Just do as I told you at the airport; we're conjoined at the hip unless I say otherwise."

He missed Rose's disappointed glance, and she bundled in on herself, lips pouted and steam ready to huff out of her ears. She was being used or would soon be. That birthday present was false, Chris had been acting—she wasn't one to jump to conclusions, but she swore it—and their "secret mission" became a failed ruse. A dull heartache panged in her chest, and she continued to sit, unhappy and in silence, as Chris turned and yelled a few orders as people exchanged places between outside, trucks and inside the tent-domes that had been erected.

"I want to go home," she said gently, biting her knuckle in fear of a respiting cry. "Chris—"

"In a moment," he hushed, waving a spurning gesture.

"Chris!" she raised her voice, shifting in her position on the sandbags. His face tore away from the three he spoke to. "I want to go home."

"You wanted to come here—"

"Yeah, without an army." Rose slipped onto her feet and dusted stray bits of snow from her rustling pants. "I understand you aren't a one-man show, Chris, but you made me a promise; we'd find dad."

Chris sighed and gestured his men away, catching Rose's shoulder before she made for a leave. He took her to a quiet alley between convoys and breathed out harshly. Normality returned to his character, something she'd missed over the last few hours.

"Rose."

"Chris."

He smiled at her, a little simper tugging at the corner of her lips. He got down on one knee and rubbed at his snow stained stubble. "I understand I made a promise, but I never said how that promise would be carried out."

"Then why be so secretive about it at the diner?" she asked, combing some hair under her cap.

Chris's jaw wiggled wordlessly. "Your guard couldn't hear it because, in reality, this is a secret mission...or, in more technical terms, a classified operation."

Hope sparked in her eyes again, something restoring to her. "So, we're really not meant to be doing this?"

"Well, I was going to, it's just not under usual orders..." he glanced to her and then away, to the slithering glimpse of the village. "I wasn't meant to bring you, but plans changed...attitudes changed."

He nodded, listlessly, and with pursed lips, an aimless glaze over his eyes. Rose could tell he was thinking fondly, but of what was mostly indecipherable. She began picking the thin ends of her nails and let out a small, breathy laugh.

"You had me there, or more when we arrived at the airport," she recollected, "I thought I was going to be a weapon, again."

"Rose, I would never let that happen, again—"

"Good but don't go risking your life," Rose half-snapped. "If you're going in there, give me a gun; don't use me as one."

Chris shrugged in agreeance and quickly unstrapped a velcro stitching. He revealed a folded hand around the barrel of a silver pistol, short but its poise promised sharpness. "Here's your real present. It's not from me but from the man who organised this. You'd know him from a while ago."

"Yes," she said, "I think I would."

Her intuitive nature led her fingers to an engraved few initials, rubbing away the tarnish freshly painted on its grip. They seemed smudged, old and weathered and, in honesty, it didn't fit the shape of her palm; evidently, this was a gift with better, more skilful intentions than her. But she took the holster Chris handed her and buckled it to her chest.

"You'll be great, Rose," Chris vowed, flicking the brim of her cap. She believed him but still, an unease ate away at her confidence for what laid in the distance wasn't meant to be there. Chris Redfield swore it had been destroyed and, even with a handgun, Rose doubted whether she should cross into distantly familiar territory.