MASTERLIST
Characters: Carmen Lopez (oc), Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine
Word Count: 3.6k
Trigger Warnings: Mention of blood, gore, self-harm, use of drugs (sleeping pills)
Read on AO3 (x)
The coffee tasted bitter.
Something he usually liked. Dark, with no sugar or milk and yet it tasted foul. Wrong. The black liquid was staring back at him, as his eyes searched for something in the blue cup. Chris set the warm drink back on his desk, where papers and files had made themselves comfortable as an unsortable mess. Most of the mess contained information about Umbrella. Of course, none of them ever mentioned the devil’s company by name, but the signature was all the same.
Jill, sitting at her desk across from him, hovered over her own reports. Her hazel hair hung over her face like a shield, while a hand lay in her neck, massaging it. She had already sat at her desk since the early morning and had been the last one to leave yesterday. Part of him had questioned if she had ever left the department. He thought about asking her, pointing out the clear dead end they came across, but it would be in vain. There was no way Jill Valentine would give up. And neither would he.
“Anything new?” A rhetorical question. He knew if Jill would have found something, he’d be the first she’d tell, but now silence haunted the STARS office.
“No. Just going over some names. Hoping to find someone who might be willing to help,” she answered. Voice raspy and coarse.
“Someone who won’t hang up right when they hear your name?” He took a sip from the coffee, trying to keep his face from scrunching. He pushed the cup aside. He should try to get through the day without any caffeine.
“I don’t believe we have so much luck, but perhaps someone Umbrella pissed off as much as us.”
Chris scoffed. “And hoping they are still alive?”
“You never know…” It was a daring thought, but the looming silence covered it. Every second scorning them for trying to find anything still. The clock over the office’s door ticked, mocking him. Chris stared at the mess in front of him, wishing that something, anything, would come up in his head. Their saving grace. The one clue they had been missing. Anything was better to break his head over, than to let it wander to the nightmares. The memories…
“Have you heard anything from Carmen?”
Chris swore he heard the clock stop for a moment. As if it was awaiting his answer as much as Jill, who had lifted her head for the first time in a while. He didn’t look back at her, rather keeping his eyes down. She’d only see the anger in his eyes. The disappointment of himself to have trusted the wrong person again.
“No.” He snatched after a paper, holding it in front of him and even if his eyes followed the text, nothing reached his head. Only the memories, the false promises, the daring hope, that had so quickly died down, when two weeks passed and he had heard nothing from her. His eyes fell to the paper at the corner of his desk. A dossier.
A picture was pinned in the right corner. A bit old, as she looked much younger and energetic. Someone who was thinking they could conquer the world, but the world she had chosen hadn’t let her. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders in curls, framing her face, and giving her this look of innocent and youthful boldness. The complete opposite of what he had found between bloodthirsty plants and cannibalistic undead.
A knock made them jump from their chairs—their nerves and instincts were on edge. Every sound might state something coming from them. Instincts they hadn't been able to lie down since July.
“Excuse me…” A gentle voice, belonging to an older woman reached their ears. Jill was standing up, breathing through her nose. Another citizen getting lost between the daily chaos of Raccoon City’s police station. Jill was at the door the moment the woman dared a look into their office.
“Ma’am, any kind of complaints are given forward to the officers down below,” she explained politely, halfway urging the lady back.
“Actually, Miss, they sent me up here. I am looking for Chris Redfield.”
Jill stared back at him, eyebrows high, as she opened the door again and let the woman enter their office. “That would be me.” The older woman let a deep sigh out, a smile coming onto her face.
“Please, excuse me for bothering you. I am sure you have other important matters to attend to, but I think you are the only one who might help me.” As she spoke, Chris noticed a faint accent. The R’s rolling from her tongue.
“And how might I help you, Mrs…?”
“Lopez,” she answered. His eyes locked with Jill’s. “I am Carmen’s mother. They said you were the officer who helped her.”
He looked back at their visitor. He tried finding some resemblance between them. Bruises, cuts and dirt had covered Carmen. Proof of defending her life against monsters and abominations for twelve days. Dark circles under her eyes, kin paler, but the olive tan hadn’t completely disappeared back then. Her lips chipped from the lack of water, and her long black hair pulled behind in a messy braid. But the woman in front of him looked like life on two legs. Dark olive skin, kind warm eyes, which looked at him filled with hope. Carmen had either looked at him with resentment or distrust. Not that he had been any different. Those two women were nothing alike.
“That’s right, Ma’am, but how can I help you?”
The hopeful smile on her face became more forced. “I was hoping you might know where she is. She hasn’t tried to contact me since… since your colleague informed me of my Elena’s death.”
Jill stirred behind her, giving him a silent sign she would leave them alone, but he dismissed it with a short shake of his head. Mrs. Lopez didn't notice it. Chris and Jill battled with each other. Jill felt at the wrong place. She shouldn't be part of this conversation, but Chris had no intention of being alone with the older woman. He didn't know if he could lie to her if she asked about her late daughter. The name of Carmen’s sister only sent shivers down his spine.
“I am sorry, Mrs. Lopez, but I haven’t been in contact with your daughter since we came back from the mountains. Perhaps she left town.”
Jill shook her head, but this time he ignored her silent comment. They had talked about it before, after Carmen hadn’t contacted them as agreed. She had disappeared. No address of an apartment and no one at her university had seen her. She had disappeared, and while Jill and Rebecca had argumented, she might be laying low because of Umbrella, Chris disagreed rather . She had bailed. Left the town as soon as possible. Help fight Umbrella, his ass!
“No, she didn’t. I know it, because this was left in a package on my doorstep. I saw it when I came back from breakfast,” she explained, her hands searching in the bag around her shoulder. Chris’ breath caught in his lungs, as Carmen’s mother showed him the silvery bracelet with the sun and moon swinging on it as a pendant. Carmen had had such problems to get it from the lifeless arm of her sister. The tears streaming down her cheeks and her legs giving in to the exhaustion. He had been there in time to catch her before she’d let herself fall to the ground. The hot tears drained his neck and blood sprinkled vest, as he held her in her arms.
“It belonged to my Elena, you see? I gave it to her as a present, when she was accepted to nursing school. I— Carmen must have—” He heard the tears before he saw them and now he wished Jill would have left the room. The quick tears of Mrs. Lopez took him out... as Carmen’s had. The anger for Umbrella returning. For another life destroyed for selfish plans.
“Please, excuse me. I am the one to cry. I am sure, you have your own loss to mourn. I heard about the lost lives. Losing so many of your team, especially your captain… It certainly isn’t easier for you.”
“Nothing to compare to the loss of a daughter, Ma’am,” Chris replied and rubbed over her shoulder. He didn’t dare to smile, even though she tried her best. It felt wrong to him, even if it was meant in condolence. Especially from him, of all people.
“Do you know where she might be? Does she have anywhere to go? Friends? Other relatives?” He had asked around the same questions before. No one had been able to answer just one.
“No, no… Carmen never had many friends. Not since her sister got sick. She was too involved in her school work and later research, but Mr. Redfield—”
“Chris,” he corrected. His first name was the least he could offer the poor woman. Mrs. Lopez nodded with a faint smile.
“Chris… her sister’s funeral is tomorrow and I know Carmen would never miss it. She loved her big sister more than anything. She wouldn’t leave town without saying goodbye to her.”
He didn’t dare to tell the older woman that Carmen had already done it. In a way, he would wish upon no one. In a way, he had forced her to.
“I cannot promise anything, Mrs. Lo—”
“Esmé,” she corrected him, hope shining through her eyes again. His stomach turned.
“I cannot promise anything, Esmé, but—” His eyes searched for Jill again and she nodded. “—but I will do what I can to find Carmen.”
His eyes closed and his stomach turned for another time, when Esmé closed her arms around him, thanking him over and over again. Chris gave her an encouraging smile and nodded, as she left through the office’s door.
“Damn it!” Chris cursed, turning his back to Jill. His hands curled into fists and it ached in his fingers to throw the papers on the table into the paper bin. He should have told her that he had already tried finding Carmen. No one had seen or heard of her. She had disappeared into thin air, just as a part of him had expected.
“Come on, Chris. We’re gonna find her.” How Jill could find this amount of optimism was beyond him.
“Don’t kid yourself, Jill. She’s gone or at least doesn’t want to be found. Her mother needs time to accept that she lost two daughters, instead of one.”
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Her piercing blue eyes stared at him, lips pressed against each other, as she walked in front of him. “She is still in town. Perhaps in a hotel under a false name. Have you actually walked into every hotel and showed her picture around?”
No, he hasn’t. He had gone to Raccoon University, spoke to her professors, the staff, and other students but no one had seen her since she had been dragged by Umbrella into the Arklay Laboratories. They had told him, she had kept to herself and given her jumping forth in classes—little wonder brain of hers—she had never gotten into the typical college life. No frat parties, no attendance at any social gatherings. Only her and her research. But he had asked around in the hotels, asked for a woman with her description, but no one had seen her.
“Jill, it doesn’t matter!” Chris stopped her, and held down Carmen’s file as she was about to read it. His best friend stared at him with big blown eyes. “It doesn’t matter if I find her. She doesn't want to be found. She is fucking bailing. That's all that matters.”
He had hoped to see understanding in his friend’s eyes, but she only narrowed them and sighed.
“For a cop, you are sometimes so dense about people’s motives, Chris,” she explained, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “She lost her sister. Because of a mistake she has made. How would you feel if the same happened to you and Claire?”
“Leave Claire out of it!” His voice raised. Even the thought of Claire getting involved was striking him to his bone. He had to tell himself twice that she was safe. She is in college. Away from Raccoon. She is safe.
“Then stop with the fucking tunnel vision!” Jill countered. “You think she left town all smiley-face and mentally gave us the middle finger? No, She is hiding and not from Umbrella… but from reality. If you lost Claire because of a well-meant act that turned out to be a big mistake, don’t tell me you wouldn’t hate yourself?”
“Carmen isn’t me.” A vain argument, but he wouldn’t let Jill win without a fight.
“No, but she is still human. She makes mistakes. As much as Umbrella might have tried to make her believe otherwise.”
He had avoided staring at the little office to their right. An office that was being avoided by any surviving STARS member as if the plague was housing there. Fitting, Chris had thought for a while, until he had avoided even looking at it, but now his eyes forced him to look inside it. Silence spread out. Even the damn clock was quiet. He didn’t hear the ticking anymore.
“I will call the university again. Dig a bit deeper. Perhaps something will come up.” As much as Jill tried to hide it, the triumphant smile was visible to his eyes.
The white towel brought forth a long hiss from her. She glared at the broken bottle on the floor, cursing it. The burn over her palm ached through her arm, but where she had expected the cut to run deep, running sharp pulses through her hand, the pain subsided. Maybe the cut isn’t so deep.
Carmen lifted the towel, peeking under it, but as soon as the cloth left her palm, new fresh blood swelled up.
The sound of flesh being torn, pierced by a dull rock. The smell is metallic—and sickly sweet. She barely reached the bathroom in time, as bile creeped up her throat, landing in the toilet. She hadn’t eaten much, except for a dry toast—and some sleeping pills.
Her open hair stuck to her neck again, sweat breaching through her skin and the quick glance in front of her, made her gag. It looked too much like the bodily fluids that mixed with the blood of that Umbrella worker—the first one she had killed with rock outside the dormitories. Her fingers trembled, as she wiped over her face, getting rid of the blood splattered on it. Of the blood that didn’t want to get off her face, no matter how often she’d wash it.
Carmen swayed when she stood up, ignoring the sharp pinch in her injured hand as she leaned on it for support. She needed water. It had to come off. She had enough of this.
In the cold, flickering light of the bathroom, the water had a greenish color for a second. She pressed her eyes together. The deep breath anything but refreshing helped from making her turn around again, emptying her stomach for another time. Carmen kept her eyes closed as she splashed the cold water into her face with her uninjured hand. The other gripped for the bathroom sink’s edge. Her blood was dripping on the floor.
Her heart began to race, her chest so tight, Carmen thought she’d drown. There was just not enough air in this damn room. She heard her scream.
But it was hers. The reality of the dirty motel bathroom hit her, as the pain of her hand reached her hand. Her dark eyes stared to her left. She had hit her injured hand against the wall. A bloody handprint covered the formerly white tiles in a dark crimson and as much as this picture conjured other memories, the deep sting had brought her from the edge of another attack. She was a wreck.
The red hoodie cared less about being strained than the white top she wore underneath. The walk to the twin-sized bed in the next room came closer to that of a robot than a human taking these steps. She didn’t care how miserable she might look. As her back hit the mattress which smelled of mold and other things she didn’t want to think about, she ignored her still aching hand, which came to hate her with every passing second. Carmen was too tired to stand up and wrap a clean bandage around it. It would stop bleeding eventually. She just needed some sleep first.
“Hey, lady!”
Her eyes spread open. Has she been sleeping already? Another hit against the door. Carmen looked out the window. It was raining. Had it been raining when she came to bed?
“Hey! Here is someone searching for—” The words of the motel owner were cut off and any thought of sleep vanished from her thoughts. It was hard to hear much from the door, some thunder rang in the distance, but she did hear a key turning.
They found me. She should have left town when she had the chance.
It was instinct. Pure instinct, even though there might be a chance they catch her on the way. The key fumbled in the hole and without second thought, she ran to the window. It screeched loudly as she ripped it open, but she was out quickly. The summer rain was ice cold against her naked skin and her black hair got stuck to her skin. Away! Somewhere. Not the road.
The big neon sign which shone ‘Sunset Motel’ in bright letters. Only 10 bucks the night. And a chatty owner in it for free. She couldn’t think about this now. There was nothing. A clean wheat field and the long road away from Raccoon City. Nowhere she could run. Not if Umbrella came in squads. But she had too.
Her boots splashed through the built puddles, running around the building. A passing car blinded her, as she peeked around the corner. Carmen shook her head, blinking thrice before observing the front of the motel. No vans, no cars with Umbrella logos. Nothing. The motel had been empty the last two days. Then she saw it. A green jeep.
“You’re lacking.”
Carmen jumped around and hit—with her injured right hand. The only one starting to wince, was her, as the man caught her wrist and stepped to the side before it could have made contact with his face. She wanted to scream and slash at him, even bite if it would make him let her go, until her eyes adjusted to the night and the rain.
“Redfield?” She didn’t sound surprised, rather tired, but it quickly changed, as she noticed his stern, impenetrable face.
“Disappointed? You want me to call Umbrella and tell them where you were hiding these two weeks?” He hissed at her, stressed and pissed off. She tucked her hand back, but his grip was firm. “So far for helping us.”
“Let me go.” Her voice was barely even there, drowned out by the splattering rain around them. Drenching them both to the bone.
“Then what? You leave town and all that shit you helped fabricate behind?”
“Let me go!” This time, even the rain couldn’t silence her plea, but she wasn’t sure it was only her words causing him to lose his grip on her. Chris had spotted the cut on her hand.
“Where did you get that?” He asked and Carmen tucked her hand back for the last time, freeing herself. His features were falling softer, but it might just be the looming shadows in which they stood. She had barely even recognised him.
“Not your shit,” Carmen replied. Chris rolled his eyes, before he nodded to the green jeep a few feet beside them.
“Come, I’ll take you somewhere else. Umbrella might know you are here.”
“I can take care of myself,” she mumbled, turning around to get back to her room, but Chris caught her elbow holding her back. They had moved into the light and for the first time, she could see his face more lit. His eyes were fiery, fed up with her and even if his grip on her didn’t hurt, it was clear he was serious.
“Today, two missing reports came in for you. One by your mother, the other from Umbrella. One of them goes beyond this county. If you think you can do this alone, you’re dumber than I thought.” His words punctuated with every sybille, it reached Carmen’s bones as she spoke of Umbrella. Missing reports?
“What do you mean? Why a missing report?”
Chris caught her lack of interest for her mother, brows furrowing. “Umbrella has to lay low for a while. The press is going hard on them and a missing report with a big reward gives them a nicer look than a direct hunt for you.”
Her muscles tensed, her arm tight inside his hand. “How did you find me?”
Chris sighed and his grip loosened without breaking the contact with her fully. “Another cop told me about a call from a motel owner who said he harbored a young woman who had arrived with bruises and cuts, and paid him fifty bucks to keep it between them. He gave me one hour before the report from that call would be given forward.”
“Asshole, and I paid in advance,” Carmen scoffed. “And what now? It basically means everyone with some trouble on their bank accounts might rat me out to Umbrella.”
“You come with me, for a start. Then we’ll see.” Chris let go of her arm, his eyes falling to her right hand again. “I need to take a look at that.”
