Chapter Text
The longer the silence stretched on between Chris Redfield and Clive O'Brian, the more Chris was starting to become agitated; his teeth on edge and a crawling sensation settling under his skin.
Not only had O'Brian used Jill to track him down and send him up here, the only person he couldn't say no to. But now he was just staring at Chris while the clock tick, tick, ticked around them, too comfortable with the desk between them. The armchair Chris was cooped up in was too small, his elbows poking his ribs and fingertips digging into the arms, hopefully enough to put a hole in the leather.
O'Brian is taking his sweet time starting the meeting. Hands clasped on the table, watching Chris with eagle eyes and then, after what feels like an age he clears his throat, leaning back in his chair. Chris hopes one day he'll fall off he leans back far enough. He also hopes he's the one to see it happen.
"Two weeks ago the DSO sent an agent to Sweden to gather intel on what appears to be a fully formed B.O.W operation. A few hours ago, the DSO reached out to me to inform us that the agent has been MIA and they need to us to step in for a recovery."
Chris swallows. He already doesn't like the way this is going and his mind is going a mile a minute with questions that he can't ask just yet. He keeps his expression neutral, but his toes curl in his boots and his nails dig impossibly deeper into the leather.
"I'm sending your team. All the information you need is in there plus whatever else you manage to find before you fly out in seventy-two hours. Any questions?"
O'Brian nods to the folder sitting in front of him, unassuming and definitely not holding enough information going off how thick it is.
Chris' eye twitches. "A few days? Sir, with all due respect, if the agent is missing now shouldn't we go out there now?"
"The agent has been MIA for ten days, Redfield."
That gets a reaction out of him, his hands clenching into firsts and his eyes narrowing. "Ten days?" he repeats scathingly. "Protocol is forty-eight hours before an agent is declared MIA."
O'Brian tilts his head, his facade dropping just enough for Chris to work out that he's enjoying this. It takes everything in Chris to not react, to give him the satisfaction of a disciplinary, or even take him off the mission.
"Agent Kennedy is known to go rogue. The DSO weren't too worried until recently. Surely you know this, having worked him professionally before."
Chris fights the almost knee-jerk reaction he has and instead digs his nails into his palms. It had to be Leon, didn't it? Of all the DSO agents, it just had to be Leon that O'Brian calls him in for. Still, Chris doesn't let any of that show on his face. He takes a breath and wets his lips, keeping his tone as placid as possible.
"You didn't say it was Agent Kennedy, sir."
O'Brian says nothing as he pushes the folder across his desk, his posture rigid once more. "You will assemble the team together and recover Kennedy dead or alive. Understood, Captain?"
He breathes out a measured breath through his nose and nods once. "Understood."
"You're dismissed."
Chris stands too quickly, ignoring the wave of dizziness that shoots through him and leaves the office, letting the door click shut quietly before he picks up his pace into heavy, determined strides down the corridor. He almost barrels head first into the person he's looking for — Jill's leaning against the wall, arms folded over her chest and raises an eyebrow at him when she catches his expression.
"How—"
He cuts her off by taking her elbow and guiding her into the storeroom further down the hall.
Once the door closes and Chris leans his weight against it he takes a long controlled breath and hands the folder to Jill.
"That bad, huh?" she asks, keeping her eyes on his face, reading the twitch of his eye easily. "Chris, what is it?"
He clears his throat, and even then his voice still cracks now he's around someone he trusts. "Leon's on and op… and he's been MIA for ten days."
Jill's reaction goes exactly how he thought it would. First her eyes widen a fraction sympathetically, then her brow creases into a frown, her eyes narrowing as she takes it in.
"Ten days? You don't go ten days before being declared MIA. Are the DSO fucking insane?" she hisses, mindful of where they're standing. She flicks through the folder while Chris comes up with a better answer other than 'yeah' and then she looks up at him. "It's the bare bones in here, do we have anything better to go off?"
Chris takes a few steadying breaths, something awful wrapping around his heart and squeezing. He shakes his head. "Only this and whatever else we can find in the meantime. O'Brian has given us the go ahead to leave in seventy-two hours."
"I'll try and get in contact with Hunnigan. She's the only person at the DSO that will help us."
God, he hadn't even thought about Hunnigan. She's been his handler for years, even go as far to say they're friends. He can't even begin to imagination how she felt when the DSO didn't care enough to send out backup.
"I'm coming over tonight so we can go over this and plan accordingly. There's no way we're waiting seventy-two hours before flying out, not if it's been this long already. It's like they're wanting to admit he's KIA."
KIA. Missing in action he could deal with but killed in action? It's not a thought he wants to entertain but his mouth goes dry at the possibility.
"Jill," Chris starts, "If he's dead. I don't think I could live with the guilt."
"He won't be," she says, her tone so sure. "Like I said, we're not waiting."
Chris presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, a kaleidoscope of shapes bursting behind his eyes and drags them down over his face.
A pair of heavy-set footfalls come down the hallway, the same way that Chris came, right past the room that he and Jill are hidden in and they both freeze. Jill's eyes locked onto the door and Chris' weight thrown against it. The person outside doesn't stop, or maybe doesn't notice that they're in there before carrying on. He's sure it's O'Brian, though he can't prove it. It feels too calculated to be another random agent.
"Come over tonight, we'll put a plan into action."
Jill lets herself in with the key Chris had given her after her rehabilitation. He'd told her at the time to use it whenever the nights got bad, or the days felt endless. The guest room was always there, ready just in case she needed it.
Right now, he hears the key in the lock just as he's about to go from the shower to his room, towel wrapped tight around his waist. What great timing on his part.
"Chris?" Jill calls out from the hallway.
"One second!" he shouts back, pulling on a shirt that clings to his damp skin, the collar darkening from where his wet hair drips onto it. The come the sweatpants that he fights to get over his legs.
Jill doesn't bat an eye as he comes out of his room, he's sure he looks a little dishevelled with his rumpled clothes and the steam from the bathroom lingering around.
"I got in touch with Hunnigan," Jill starts, straight to business and going straight for the dining table where he's already laid out what little information they have in the folder. "She's furious, and rightly They've let it go on so long and she says that Leon's check-ins got further and further apart until he stopped responding. The comm signal went offline shortly after. It's still in the castle when she last tracked it."
"Did she say why he wasn't checking in?"
"No. She said he sounded normal, just that the time got away from him."
Normal. Leon had mastered the facade of normal years ago. Chris had long since been able to see through that plastered on smile and believe the lie of 'I'm fine'. He'd like to think that even Hunnigan could see through that, unless something had happened and it wasn't Leon talking anymore.
"He should never have been sent there alone," Chris snaps, yanking open the fridge and pulling out two cans of soda.
"Which Hunnigan agrees with. She says it was a very last minute ordeal, she was only told after he'd left in the jet."
Chris frowns, the drink hissing when he cracks the tab open. "What?"
Jill shrugs with one shoulder. "From what she said it sounds like one minute he was called into the office, then the next he was being hurried onto a jet. He had no time to do anything."
Chris leans against the dining table, staring at the glossy photos of the castle, trying to piece all the information together in his head. But none of it adding up, all the hush-hush, the last minute plans. There's something he's missing.
"Right," he says slowly. "So Leon leaves in the jet, he then gets to castle and makes contact with Hunnigan," Chris puts together, moving the photographs around as he works out the order of events.
"He then checks in again with her a couple hours later, when his communication was still consistent. Tells her that he's investigating the upper floors first," Jill finishes, writing this down in her own shorthand.
"He was there for four days before he went MIA. He checks the upper floors, keeps in contact with Hunnigan then, what? Works his way down to the dungeons? Does it have dungeons?"
"We don't have a full layout, but from what I can work out, yes," Jill replies, flipping through the folder. "He probably went floor by floor until he gets to the dungeons."
"And he gets found down there…"
"Found in the dungeons and then captured by whoever or whatever is down there. Possibly the B.O.W or the people working on it."
"He's under their control, his communication gets more and more sporadic till Hunnigan gets nothing. Either he's laying low, playing the part or—"
Chris inhales a shaky breath at the thought and shakes his head, not letting that thought worm its way into his head.
"Where do we start?" Jill asks, noticing that Chris is about to become lost in his head.
"The place is called Okänd Avgrund. It's surrounded by acres of forest so it looks like we'll be rappelling down and then walking up to the castle."
"We?" Jill challenges, lifting her soda can to her lips to hide her smirk.
"I need you down there with me. If there's a B.O.W in that castle and Leon is injured I'll need you even more. Nadia and D.C will stay in the helicopter until we need evac or backup. I'm not losing anyone in that mess."
"I think it's best we split up in the castle, take different entrances. The priority is Leon, but any other evidence we find we take with us."
What if instead of finding Leon alive, they find him being controlled by the B.O.W's. He's only just got Jill back, and that almost took it out of him. The thought of losing Leon, when there's still so much unsaid between them? Chris doesn't think he can come back from that, the guilt would eat him alive.
"Chris," Jill says, the hardness in her town dropping to something much softer. "Hey, look at me. We will get him back, alright? And when we're done I need you tell him how you're really feeling and either get it together or get together. I don't think I can sit through another round of your will they, won't they bullshit."
Chris blinks away from where he'd been staring at photo of the castle to look at Jill. The dim lighting of his apartment casting her half in the shadows, but her eyes are glassy and locked on him. He moves his wrists her gentle grip to hold her forearms.
"I'm with you," he whispers. "You won't lose me in there."
"You got anything decent in your cupboards?"
Chris gives her a small smile, "I think there's instant noodles in there somewhere."
"You're a lousy date. You better stock them up before inviting Leon back here."
That gets a dry chuckle from him with a shake of his head. He can only hope that he gets Leon back here in his apartment, safe and out of harm's way. He decides then and there that Jill's right, he needs to tell him exactly how he feels. He can't lose any more time.
Chris doesn't ask how Jill manages to sweet-talk O'Brian into signing off their recovery operation to leave the very next day. But she did, and she came back with both the smug expression on her face and the signed paperwork to prove it. She'd already sorted out their firearms and other necessities and simply told him to meet them all in the hanger.
Chris drags his feet down to the hanger, his heart jack-rabbiting in his chest. He greets the few guards spread around the hangar with curt nods and clipped tones, trying to find his team. Nadia spots him and waves him over, folding her arms across her chest as an agent with a clipboard approaches her. She shrugs them off, shaking her head. Chris has no idea what that was about, and she doesn't elaborate, only follows him into the jet.
"Now you're here we can finally get moving," D.C grins, moving past him to grab a bottle of water from the cooler. "Flight's going to be about seven hours. Six if we've got ourselves a decent pilot. Valentine's managed to get the helicopter signed off and ready for us when we land. Should get into Sweden around sunset."
"Sooner the better," Chris replies, "I haven't said it yet, but thank you for taking this on with such short notice."
"We've got your back, Captain."
Chris' barely done anything, but he appreciates the dedication from his team. He chooses the window seat, ready to be alone with his thoughts for next seven hours. That, and it's too early to try and make small-talk with the others.
"You should sleep. I heard you tossing and turning all night."
Jill falls into the seat next to him, rattling a bottle of pills in his face. He looks away from them, not even asking where she'd gotten them from or how.
"I'm fine."
"You're not. And when we find Leon he's going to need you on top form, Redfield. Now sleep."
Chris rubs his eyes and slumps further into his seat. It would ease his mind, he wouldn't have to think, his brain could shut off for a good few hours and he could catch up on sleep. God knows he'll need it with what's to come. He sighs, dejected, and holds his palm out. Jill uncaps it, jostling it till two white and red pills fall into his palm.
He swallows them dry and turns slightly on his shoulder, waiting for them to kick in. Jill's still talking, though he's not listening, her voice lulls him into unconsciousness.
The helicopter, stamped with the BSAA logo, is waiting for them just as instructed. Damian takes the pilot seat with D.C next to him while Chris, Jill and Nadia climb into the back. Chris is still wrapped up in his own thoughts. He hadn't slept well on the jet despite the sleeping pills, a fitful sleep that mirrored the one the night before.
But being in London is one step closer to Sweden, which is one step closer to Leon. The two hour flight to the castle passes by in a blur. He listens to the chatter on the headset between D.C and Damian, their lighthearted joking around the lifts the mood. Chris only offers a tight smile in return, tilting his head back against the seat, too preoccupied with his racing thoughts.
Finding the castle is a feat in itself, when D.C had announced that they now entering Sweden, Chris had shifted his gaze from his knees to the outside. The sun setting in brilliant pinks and oranges and the forests below never ending. He hadn't seen the castle tucked away, only when the helicopter flies over in a tidy loop does he see it.
"You two sure you're fine to rappel down?"
"We'll be fine," Jill shouts, easing off her headset and crouching by the sliding door. The wind whips around them as Damian manoeuvres it to be as low as he can. "Just keep it steady till we're on the ground."
"I'll be your eyes," Nadia nods, positioning herself by the door and throwing down the ladder. "Remember, comms on at all times. We're not losing you down there."
Jill salutes and lifts her chin at Chris. He takes the lead, easing himself down the ladder, his grip wavering when the wind catches him. He plants his feet in one of the rungs, head bowed until it passes and then climbs down as fast as he can, dropping onto the grassy slope below him.
"I'm on the ground," he says, tapping his ear.
"You're both one mile out from the castle, due west," D.C relays into the comms as Chris looks up to watch Jill's shadow climb down the ladder. He steps back so she can drop next to him with a dull thud, a lot more gracefully than Chris could ever achieve.
"Understood."
Jill tugs on the ladder twice and Nadia starts to pull it up. Chris watches as the helicopter hovers above them, the light guiding them in the right direction. If there are any guards around, they'll know that someone's here. Let them come, Chris thinks, his fingers twitching against the knife on his chest.
"Ever get the sense of de-ja vu?" Jill asks, sparing him a glance before making her way through the thick of the trees.
He huffs through his nose and follows her, clicking on his own light, the other hand pulling out his Desert Eagle, ready in case something jumps them. He's perfectly comfortable with Jill taking point, falling back into their own rhythm.
He looks up, squinting through the canopy of branches and leaves, trying to see the sky but there's nothing — just endless dark and the sound of the helicopter blades overhead.
"On you, Valentine."
The woods are endless. Even though they both dropped close by to the castle, it feels like the trees never end . The helicopter has left them by now, waiting nearby for evac just as they planned. His Desert Eagle is a welcome weight in his hand, keeping him grounded. They just need to get to the castle, he needs to find Leon.
It's what keeps him going when his boots get caught in vines, when thorns from the underbrush catch his skin, or when he trips on the jut of a rock. He's exhausted, sweat beading on his forehead, the back of his shirt tacky with it despite the night time chill that rushes through the woods.
His flashlight only shines a few feet in front of him, branches looming, creating grotesque shadows that has Chris' heart racing before his mind catches up with him.
He's sure they get turned around at least once, but the plants all blend into one blur. His legs ache from the incline but he pushes on. Jill tries to check in with him, only to receive a grunt in response. It's not that he doesn't want to talk, he just can't find the words to .
Everything feels the same. He's sure he's seen this smattering of trees before, the way one of them twists and knots itself around another. But then the forest is so large that there could be a number of trunks like that.
Finally, finally, they break through the treeline and Chris sags against one of the trunks, staring up at the castle; large and looming and intimidating with it's many spires and extravagant windows. Why the fuck the DSO sent Leon here alone, he'll never know.
Jill's in front of him, her face pinched as she catches her breath, hands on her hips. She's looking at the castle, probably trying to pinpoint where the guards are lurking.
"Silver Dagger," he says, his throat dry, voice cracking.
D.C answers immediately, the signal warping only a little. "Everything okay?"
"We've made it to the castle. Be in touch when I need evac or backup."
"Copy that. We'll be on standby."
The line dies as Chris takes a deep inhale through his nose, staring up at the castle.
"You take this entrance, I'll go around and take a side way in. Should be easier to meet in the middle," Jill says,
Chris hums his answer, trying to get a good look at the windows for any sign of guards or snipers but the only sign of life is the dull yellow light spilling from a couple of the high risen windows. It feels too empty, not even a line of defence in the forest.
"You get the feeling that something is terribly wrong?" he asks in a low murmur.
"Yeah," Jill breathes and Chris feels a twist of unease in his chest that only worsens the longer he stares at the lifeless castle. "Though I'm certain that he's in there, Chris. I just get the feeling that this could be a trap."
"Set your watch, if we don't meet back up in three hours then you call for evac regardless if me and Leon are with you."
"Chris—"
"That's an order, Valentine."
She thins her mouth and shoots daggers at him. He hates to pull rank on her like this, but he can't risk losing her in this mess too. If it means that he's stuck inside the castle for longer than necessary so be it.
"Understood, Captain."
He hears the beeping of her watch as she sets a timer, hears the click as she pulls out her handgun and checks it over. He can't bring himself to meet her eyes, he'd not sure he's going to like what he finds if he does.
"Comms on."
Chris nods, meeting her eyes and offering her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. "I will meet you in there."
"You better."
He watches her as she disappears, the night swallowing her up, the only sign of that she's there is the bobbing of the light beam. He trusts her to stay safe, but if he hears a gunshot ring out before he makes it inside, he's legging it down there to help.
He gives it a minute, or as long as he stretch out a minute and then makes his way to the formidable oak door that towers above him. Even reaching for the handle feels wrong. An unexplainable twist in his stomach, trying to warn him away.
But Chris can't back down. So he pushes that feeling down and twists the handle. The door gives too easily and a creaks as it opens. He takes a breath, peering inside before stepping inside and that twisting feeling intensifies tenfold, every part of his brain screaming at him to run.
The door slams shut behind him, whistling with the wind and Chris flinches at the sound. He has his Dragoon up and ready for someone to come hurrying through, a security guard, hell even a scientist. But there's no one. The place is empty. Too empty.
The only response he gets is warbled static. Not ideal, not in a place like this. Not when the exact same thing happened to Leon. God, he doesn't even know where to start in a place like this. Does he search every single room or make a break to where he thinks Leon could be. Jill's intel from Hunnigan had been vague at best, only that he'd found something down in the depths of the castle and Chris has no way of even to guess where that could be.
But he is in an entrance hall of some kind. Scarcely decorated and whistling with the wind outside. There's the sound of trickling water coming from somewhere, spilling onto the stone, dampening the threadbare rug that squelches under his boot.
He decides to follow it, pointedly ignoring the suits of amour lining the walls. Leon's shared that story with him — the ones that came alive in Spain all those years ago. He shivers, shoulders flexing back as he hopes the same thing doesn't happen right now.
Rifle raised and the mounted flashlight still on, he shoves it around the corner first and then follows to find there's nothing but the one beaten up door. He nudges it with his boot and then it creaks on its hinges, squeaky and drawn out. Chris doesn't know what he's expecting, but it's not an empty room. The only thing remarkable about it is the upturned chair.
He turns back around, following that same rug back through to the large oak door when he double takes at the dark stain on the end of the rug. He crouches down and feels his heart thunder in his chest. Dark blood stains the fraying edges, dribbling onto the stone, leading him down the shadowy hallway. There's only one patch of it.
The flashlight sweeps over the hallway and then Chris stands, making his way into the unknown with the one goal in mind to find Leon, and in one piece. He keeps the gun raised, finger ready on the trigger, his steps quiet and measured. But nothing jumps out at him, no one standing guard. It's just… empty.
The hallway brings him to a staircase with just a single lamp lit, casting a sickly yellow glow over the stone. Chris rechecks the ammo on his rifle, purely out of habit and takes the stairs slowly, being as quiet as he can despite the rubber of his sole squeaking.
The entire place is too still, too silent for Chris' liking. It feels too much like a trap. He pushes that thought aside. Even if it is a trap, his main priority right now is getting to Leon. The light from the lamp slowly diminishes as he rounds the corner.
A set of frantic footsteps come barrelling down the hallway, right towards Chris. He fires a warning shot at the ground in front of him and then backs himself against the wall, spine colliding with the jut of stone. Just as fast as they start, the footsteps stop, vanishing into the oppressive silence.
"Leon?" Chris tries, sweeping the hallway with the flashlight.
There's no answer, only an intense, blinding pressure and a high-pitched ringing in his ears that has him dropping the rifle. It clatters to the ground as he presses his hands against his ears, ripping the comm unit out and willing the pressure in his head to fade. He groans, sliding down the wall to sit, his face pinched as he tries to focus on breathing in and out.
The pain and the ringing vanish in an instant, leaving Chris heaving, comm unit pinched between his fingers that he carefully puts back in, tapping it on instinct to receive nothing in return. What the fuck was that?
He doesn't like this one bit. B.OW.S and the awful scientists who create them he can deal with. Things like this? The unexplainable and the messing with his head? It doesn't bode well for him. It sets him on edge, gripping the rifle tighter in his hands while he composes himself.
The hallway twists and turns, leading him down another set of stairs, the stone cracked and dusty. He almost trips on loose debris, catching himself and looks down. What he'd tripped over is stained with dried blood. Chris swallows the lump in his throat. He can't afford to jump to the worse case scenarios. It might not even be Leon's.
Gotta keep moving, Redfield, he chides himself and doesn't look back as he takes the next door, the sign above, weathered and faded reading Entréhallen. He goes in blindly, throwing his shoulder against it, not that he needed to — it opens just as easily as the others.
It doesn't bode well for the lack of guards. Where the hell are they all? Did something happen down below? Has the whole place been evacuated because the B.O.W got out of control? Whatever it is, that twisting unease is back in his chest.
He has to blink to get his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room. It's the first room he's come across where there's a sign of life, and it's the bare minimum, all the torches on the wall are lit. He raises his rifle and takes slow, controlled steps into the entrance hall.
On his quick glance around, he notes that there's even more doors, two leading down, two up the stairs. That he can work with. On his left yet another hallway that leads to a similar oak door that he came through. With a little luck, this is where Jill came from. On the far side are high arched stained glass windows complete with a fountain. He squints at it, then decides to check that later.
He jogs down the hallway, noticing another door. It can't hurt to look, maybe Jill's already searched the place
finding it jammed shut and kisses his teeth, ramming his shoulder at it. What he wouldn't give for one of Jill's lock picks right now. He taps his ear uselessly, only receiving that same off-key static so opts for brute strength. It opens on his third shoulder barge against the door, swinging open and bouncing off the wall.
There's a lamp lit on the small desk but that's not what draws Chris' attention, it's the papers scattered all over the floor. He crouches down, picking up one in blocky handwriting and written entirely in Swedish. He pockets it anyway, filing it away for later when he can get someone back at headquarters to translate.
There's more of the same on the desk, all different handwriting and diagrams of human anatomy and lists of equations. He pockets them too, folding them in half and pushing them into one of the zipped pockets in his pants.
There's not much else in the room, just bookshelves lining the room with their spines all in peeling gold. He takes one look, and flips through the nearest one. Though he can't understand it, he doesn't think there's anything about mutant B.O.W in there.
The door closes behind him on the way out, making Chris pause. He's not sure if the wind caught it or if there's something else messing around. Either way, it sends a shiver down his spine. He pushes it down, opting to ignore it for now.
Back in the entrance hall, he goes to check out the fountain. It's an odd place for it, inside and by a window — he's not even sure where the water supply would come from.
The closer he gets, the more his mind is screaming at him to turn away. He wishes he'd listened. He really really wishes that he'd listened. Where water should be trickling through is instead filled with thick, dark blood. A body thrown in to the basin, a once white lab coat now painted a rusted brown, torso torn open from clavicle to navel, guts and gore spilling out into the fountain of blood.
He coughs, choking back the gag in the back of his throat and turns away. It reeks of rotting flesh, a smell that Chris is way too familiar with in this line of work. He stares at the bloated body that's face up in the fountain. The only thing running through his mind is thank god it's not Leon.
He has to turn away, the metallic taste burning in his mouth. One stairway leads down to a 'laboratorium', the other leading upstairs. He'll follow Leon's pattern of checking the upstairs rooms first.
Two steps onto the stairs and the stone rumbles dangerously under his feet, loose stone falling onto the floor below. Chris presses himself against the wall and moves as quickly and quietly as he can, hoping that the entire structure doesn't come apart under him.
The first door he tries is locked, of course it is. Even his shoulder isn't budging it, nor can shooting the handle. The shot rings out, bouncing off the metal handle too loud and too brash in otherwise silent chamber. There's no sign above the door, so he assumes it's another empty storage room and decides that no, there's no time for this.
He tries another door, slipping inside, still trying to keep a low profile. It's another dead end, just yet another storage room that doesn't have much going for it.
Until the beam from Chris' flashlight lands on an overturned cabinet, door hanging on by its hinges that he feels that something is very wrong. He approaches it, using the muzzle of the rifle to open the other cabinet door and his blood runs cold.
Leon's belongings. He'd know that attaché case anywhere. DSO issued with silver latches. Definitely Leon's. Chris puts the rifle down, clicking on his proper flashlight and dropping onto a knee to get a better look at what's been left behind.
Holster, knife, Silver Ghost, even his comm unit is thrown inside. He reaches for the gun, holding it in his grip and closes his eyes in despair. All he can think is why? Why has Leon left everything he needs to survive here? In a musty and rotting cabinet.
Blood thunders in his ears as he reaches for the attaché case, finding it empty save for a pouch of crushed herbs. He shakes his head, pocketing them and then takes the holster, clasping it around his chest. It's a tight squeeze, Leon is slightly smaller than him without all his gear on. But he gets it to work and then sheathes the knife and holsters Silver Ghost, but not before checking the ammo.
Leon was running around this goddamn castle with five bullets left. The last thing he grabs is the comm unit, checking it over and then pocketing it with the herbs.
"Leon…" he whispers as he stands, brushing the debris from his BDU's while his heart clenches, thumping against his ribcage. "Where the fuck are you?"
Somewhere behind him, in the depths of the castle, a door slams shut and the cold, damp air settles in his joints, knowing that has to find Leon, and fast.