The Mansion Incident

Chapter Thirty

Wesker leaned against the wall and let his hands drop to his sides, breathing heavily. That had been far too close for comfort. Jill didn’t even see him and was just firing blind, but two of her shots came within inches of hitting him. He unscrewed the silencer from his pistol and tossed it onto the dirt floor, then returned his gun to its holster. He could hear Jill screaming for Barry through the fake wall. He felt confident that they would never find the hidden switch to reveal the concealed hallway he was now in, but after the disastrous attempt on Enrico’s life, he was not going to take any chances.

He tracked Enrico’s progress using the security cameras and followed him down to the unfinished section of Theta lab. Apparently, Enrico spent the night there, getting some sleep in a cramped supply closet. Knowing that Barry and Jill were not very far away and might discover Enrico by accident, Wesker wanted to get there first.

The plan was fairly straightforward, if a little messy. Find Enrico and kill him silently, then drag the body where Barry and Jill would not find it. Wesker didn’t know just how much Enrico knew or suspected about Wesker’s involvement, but he didn’t want him giving that information to Barry and Jill. The whole thing seemed stupidly complicated and counter-productive, since Wesker already revealed the truth to Barry. Basically, he needed to get rid of Enrico to keep Jill in the dark.

Things did not go as planned. Somehow, Enrico heard him coming, or seen him out of the corner of his eye, or maybe he possessed a magical sixth sense. He dodged at the last moment, getting shot in the shoulder instead of the back of his head. And then he opened fire himself and Wesker was forced to take cover. All the shooting alerted Barry and Jill. In a panic, Wesker almost shot Jill in his haste to kill Enrico. The only thing that went right was that Enrico did not have time to tell Jill what he knew. Wesker managed to shoot him in the head right before Jill tried to drag him to safety.

Wesker never intended to kill anyone himself, because he didn’t think he’d have to. He thought the zombies and other roaming monsters would do the job for him. But once it seemed possible that the Alpha could survive the labs, Wesker realized he would have to take care of it personally. But that part of his plan hinged on the rest of the team still trusting him. Barry knew the truth, or some of it anyway, but with his family threatened he would go along with it. Wesker boasted no such leverage over Jill and Chris.

If Enrico lived to tell Jill or Chris what he knew, that would ruin everything. Barry would lead them to the final lab, but Wesker needed them to be unaware of his involvement when they arrived. If they knew he betrayed them, they would come in with guns drawn and probably shoot him down before he could activate the last part of his plan.

At this point, his success rode on a very narrow probability scale. Everything needed to go just right if he wanted to get out of this mess. All the work he did, all the sacrifices he made, all the deaths and betrayals, all of them led down to one final act. He finally realized that even after all his planning, his chances of success were extremely low.

Enrico was dead, but did that even matter now? Wesker heard Jill ask Enrico who the traitor was, and even though Enrico didn’t live to tell her, now Jill knew that a traitor existed. She would be on her guard. And when Barry saw that Enrico was murdered, that might push him too far. He would know who the traitor was, and Wesker said nothing to him about killing Enrico.

God, everything was screwed up now. Wesker gritted his teeth and pressed his palms against the side of his head. He wanted to scream in frustration at how everything went wrong. But he had to keep it together for a bit longer. It would not be long until Barry and Jill made their way to the final lab room, and if Barry could still be counted on, Chris would be with them and neither he nor Jill would be expecting anything. But there was so much Wesker still couldn’t be sure of, so many variables he could not take into account.

It was too late to back out now, though. He had to see it through at this point. At the very least, he had to kill Barry. The other team members might survive, but they had to believe Wesker himself was dead as well. He planned for it, but hoped it was unnecessary to take such a huge risk. He had no choice now.

He didn’t even expect it all to work out anymore. Wesker was the last person in the world deserving of divine intervention, but it would take nothing short of a miracle for him to get out of this lab alive.

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