Rain pounded the windows in sheets. Somewhere across Raccoon City, fires lit up the skyline. Screams tangled with the guttural howling of zombies, rising and falling in a chorus that no longer shocked anyone. The city had already fallen into hell.
Total collapse. The surveillance teams that had watched Jill for weeks were gone, scattered or dead. Blockades and curfews meant nothing now. No one was left to cage them in.
The window they'd been waiting for had finally opened.
Ryan and Jill moved through the apartment with practiced efficiency, loading up. Every weapon, every explosive, prepped and accounted for. They strapped on ballistic vests, divided the ammunition and first aid kits between them, packed flashbangs and portable C4 charges into their rigs. They'd rehearsed this a hundred times.
The days of house arrest had forced them together, and something solid had grown out of that pressure. Jill had figured out early on that Ryan was hopeless in close quarters. His footwork was clumsy, his punches telegraphed, and he couldn't shed a grab to save his life.
Everything else about him defied explanation.
He always had the right call at the right moment, calm and precise when it mattered most, every decision landing like he'd already seen the outcome. His marksmanship bordered on supernatural. She'd shown him the basics once and he'd taken to it like breathing, each shot steady and clean. Strangest of all, he sensed danger before it arrived. Not instinct. Something deeper. He'd lock onto a threat behind a wall, in pitch darkness, things no one should have been able to detect.
Jill saw all of it. She never asked.
Some things didn't need explaining. In a city like this, he was the only person she'd trust at her back.
Ryan knew she'd noticed. He also knew she'd chosen to trust him anyway, fully and without reservation.
That unspoken understanding between them was worth more than any conversation could have been.
So during those long days of waiting, Jill became his instructor.
She started from scratch. Stance. Footwork. Blocking. Then progressed to blade disarms, counterstrikes, emergency escapes. Everything she'd learned in S.T.A.R.S., distilled and drilled into him piece by piece.
He was slow at first. Then Jill promised rewards for hitting daily training targets, and his learning curve went vertical.
He had no natural gift for hand-to-hand, so she compensated with sheer repetition, day and night. Sweat soaked through his shirt, his arms burned and trembled, and still he kept going. She corrected his form with steady hands, steadied his wrists, shifted his center of gravity. The two of them trained in that cramped apartment like their lives depended on it.
Because they did.
Meanwhile, Jill never stopped digging. Every spare moment went into gathering evidence against Umbrella. Secret lab records. Cover-up documents from after the initial outbreak. Proof of officials on the payroll. Assassination orders targeting S.T.A.R.S. members. Any single file would have been enough to bury the corporation.
On Ryan's advice, she organized everything into waterproof bags and kept them on her person. She didn't make copies or backups. The evidence only mattered if they made it out alive.
Everything was ready.
The phone on the table shrieked to life.
Jill snatched the receiver. "Hello?"
"Don't trust anyone! It's coming! It's hunting S.T.A.R.S. specifically..."
The line went dead.
She set the phone down slowly. Her jaw tightened.
Ryan's head snapped up. His gaze locked onto the side wall, voice dropping low. "Something's coming. Big. Not a zombie." A beat. "Does this thing have GPS on us or what?"
Jill took it in stride. She'd long since stopped questioning his sixth sense.
Neither of them spoke another word. They reached for their heavy weapons in the same breath.
Jill brought the M37 shotgun to her shoulder. Ryan leveled the Striker, its rotary cylinder loaded and ready. Both barrels aimed at the wall. Fingers on triggers.
Waiting.
The wall exploded inward.
Concrete shattered under impossible force, spraying brick and dust across the room. Nemesis stepped through the breach, massive, moving straight for them. It had one objective: annihilate everyone in front of it.
It was halfway through the hole. Hadn't even planted both feet. Hadn't locked onto a target.
Ryan and Jill fired together.
The twin blasts caught it dead center. Heavy-gauge buckshot tore into the creature's chest, shoulders, and the restraint device bolted to its skull, hammering it from both angles at once.
Nemesis never saw it coming. The thing didn't even have time to react.
The massive frame launched backward off its feet and slammed into the far wall hard enough to collapse it.
Brick and concrete caved in, burying the creature under a mountain of rubble.
"Go!" Ryan barked.
Jill spun, grabbed his arm, and hauled him forward in one fluid motion.
They sprinted for the back door without looking back.
Behind them, a roar erupted from the wreckage, loud enough to shake the walls. The entire apartment building shuddered under the sound.
"S.T.A.R.S...!!!"
Nemesis tore free of the rubble and smashed through what was left of the walls.
Out in the rain, the chase began.