September 28th. Raccoon City. 6:30 pm
The group was huddled against the cold concrete wall of the subway station, a dead corner off the main platform. The emergency light, dim and flickering, painted the collective despair in yellow and gray tones. Kendo, exhausted and with his heart still pounding from the run, held Evelyn close to his chest, his body serving as a shield against the fear and the dirt of the floor. Evelyn, eyes closed, clung to her teddy bear, trying to silence the outside world.
Leo sat between John and Kendo, his small hand touching John's boot. The boy, after the vomiting episode, was in a state of near-catatonic stillness, absorbing the silence and security that John's body provided.
John Wick wasn't resting. He was still, yes, but his mind was a silent engine processing information. His MP5 remained secured to his chest. Sitting with his knees drawn up, the tension in his shoulders was the only physical evidence of his constant state of alert. He scanned the tunnel and the crowd. Safety was an illusion. The subway was a rat trap; if the metal door failed or if the train didn't return, desperation would turn into violence.
It was then that danger stopped crawling and began to whisper.
John felt the change first in the eyes. They were not the empty, irrational eyes of an infected, but human eyes, filled with concentrated hatred and terror.
It had been as subtle as a change in air pressure. At first, it was just a middle-aged woman, sobbing in a corner, who looked up and fixed her gaze on John.
Then a man with a bandaged arm stopped talking to his wife and turned around. The collective murmur on the platform began to transform, the energy of the crowd slowly moving, like a silent tide, toward them.
John narrowed his eyes. His ears, fine-tuned to catch the click of a gun or the growl of a creature, caught the first sentence:
"That's him. Look at him. That face."
Another murmur, more audible: "The killer? The one from the school?"
The name of the massacre site, the place that had made him the lead story in the news just before Raccoon City fell, spread like a spark in gasoline. The man sitting across from John, who had been calm moments before, now stared at him with clenched teeth.
"Murderer!" The scream was sharp and echoed off the tunnel's vaulted ceilings. It was the middle-aged woman. She stood up, limping, and pointed a trembling finger at John. "You're the one from the news! The one who killed all those children!"
The panic, the rage, the guilt of an entire dying city found a perfect scapegoat. John Wick was a monster they had heard about. For the people in the subway, consumed by fear and helplessness, it didn't matter if the T-virus outbreak had begun. He was the personification of the chaos that had devoured them.
Several people stood up. The man with the bandaged arm raised a piece of metal rebar.
"Get out of here, demon! We don't want you near our children!" shouted the man with the rebar, his voice raspy with fear.
Kendo, instantly, got to his feet, his shotgun raised. He stood between John and the approaching crowd. His face, though visibly frightened, was filled with a protective fury.
"Calm down! Step back! He's a survivor just like you!" Kendo shouted, his voice trying to sound authoritative.
"He's not a survivor! He's an animal! Look at his face! He caused that massacre at the school!" the woman retorted, her face covered in tears and snot. "If it wasn't for him, my nephew...!"
John didn't move. His posture didn't change, his eyes still scanning the crowd, but not as enemies, but as crazed variables in a defensive equation. He knew he couldn't shoot; killing an innocent civilian here would be his end, not only morally but practically—they were about 70 people or maybe more.
The man with the metal rebar took a step forward. "Drop the weapon, murderer! You have no right to be here!"
Kendo raised the shotgun and aimed. "Don't come any closer! I swear I'll shoot! If you touch a hair on him, I swear it!"
"You wouldn't dare! Kendo! Now that I think about it, did you sell him the weapons he used to kill those kids?" the man bellowed.
Evelyn, terrified, gripped Kendo's jacket. Leo got up and took refuge behind John, his small body trembling.
John, finally, spoke. His voice was barely a whisper that cut through the crowd, but in the tense silence, it resonated with a deadly authority.
"If you take one more step, the slaughter you saw on TV will seem like a bad joke," John said, his eyes cold as Arctic ice. It wasn't a threat, but a brutal reminder of his capability.
The man with the rebar stumbled, not only from the fear of death, but from the inhuman coldness with which John had sentenced him.
An older woman, off to the side, screamed: "Don't believe him! He's just one man, and we're sick of his lies! He brought evil here!" The civilian mass compacted, advancing two steps, closing the circle. A young man tried to grab an abandoned toolbox, desperately looking for anything to use as a weapon.
"What if we push him onto the tracks?! We can't leave him here! He's a demon who brings bad luck!" shouted another voice from the rear, filled with the cowardice that the safety of the crowd provides.
The people hesitated again, looking at the dark abyss of the tracks, a horrible but tempting solution. The man with the metal rebar stopped dead in his tracks, the rust on the bar creaking under the pressure of his grip.
John Wick noticed the change in the rebar man's gaze, the cowardly hesitation in those shouting from behind. That hesitation was his only, silent chance. Without losing a millisecond, John drew his MP5 from his chest.
The metallic click of the assault rifle being brought into position was the first warning sound. Then, without aiming at anyone, but at the highest point of the concrete vault rising above their heads, he fired a controlled burst of three rounds.
The blast was cataclysmic in the enclosed space. The echo reverberated through the tunnel with the force of a bomb, and debris of concrete and dust rained down on the crowd. It wasn't a shot to kill, but a demonstration of sonic and physical power.
Several people dropped to the ground covering their heads, the sheer force of the sound shaking their bones. In that instant, the crowd remembered they were dealing with a man who could not only kill them, but would do so without blinking.
In that moment of chilling terror, Leo, the little boy who had lost his mother, stepped out from behind John. He looked at the people, and then at Kendo. With all his might, the child screamed, but not with words, but with a sound of deep anguish. The sound was the pure desperation of an orphan who saw his last protector attacked by the only thing left: other humans.
"He saved me! He can't be a murderer!" Leo screamed, pointing at John. The child couldn't form complete sentences, but his desperate attempt to defend John was enough to break the spell of rage. The people backed away, struck by the innocence and terror in the child's voice.
The people fell silent. The child behind John was defending him. The contrast was too sharp: the monster in armor was, to this child, a savior.
Kendo seized the moment of confusion, his shotgun still raised. "Look at him! We just came from the surface! John saved us from a squad of mutated dogs! If you want to fight, we'll fight, but if I were you, I'd save that rage for when the train returns! We have real enemies outside this station."
The crowd felt embarrassed and confused. The hatred began to dissolve, leaving only fear. The man with the metal rebar slowly lowered his arm, his eyes fixed on the concrete floor. The screaming women hugged their children, their sobs now silent and humiliated. The danger had dissipated, leaving a residue of guilt and fear in the air.
But John Wick hadn't lowered his guard one bit. He knew the calm was temporary. The following ten minutes stretched out in the station like a tense, silent eternity. The platform had become an emotional minefield.
Kendo, exhausted by the adrenaline of the confrontation and the run, slowly put down his shotgun and sat on one of the old metal benches attached to the wall, pulling Evelyn and Leo with him. Evelyn huddled against her father, silently trembling. Leo, still clinging to Kendo's thigh, glanced at John, feeling safe but confused.
John didn't move. He remained standing, in the exact spot where he had fired, his MP5 now held at chest height, the barrel slightly tilted toward the ground in a low alert position. He was a statue of concrete and Kevlar. His posture didn't invite conversation, approach, or forgiveness. He was on guard, waiting.
The crowd regrouped, but this time, the movement was to distance themselves. They shuffled toward the other end of the platform, an awkward silence hanging over them. There were whispers, of course. Murmurs of scorn, resentment, and renewed fear.
"The killer..." "He's not human..." "An armed monster..." But no one dared to look John in the eye for too long, much less approach him. The hole the bullets had left in the ceiling was a physical reminder of the controlled lethality John had exercised.
The fear of the infected in the tunnel had mingled with the fear of this man. They were safe from him for now, but they knew they didn't have him on their side.
John, ignoring the ostracism, kept his focus on the blind spots: the dark tracks, the mouth of the arrival tunnel, and the stairwell gap. Ten minutes. The emergency light kept flickering, marking time in irregular pulses.
Suddenly, the silence was broken with immediate violence.
There was no diesel engine, no horn blast, only a dry, dull impact, like a tactical boot hitting the first concrete step of the tunnel entrance. Immediately after, the brutal, mechanical, and coordinated sound of metal: the click of seven rifle bolts being chambered in the darkness of the stairs.
It was the sound of professionals with suppressors. John turned his head sharply, his eyes widening in a rare instant of brutal surprise. They had been flanked.
Before the first military shadow materialized, John lunged toward the bench where Kendo and the children were. His movement was so fast and forceful that he nearly dragged Kendo.
"To the tracks! Now!" His voice was a guttural whisper, more a physical command than a verbal one. He pushed Leo and Evelyn toward the platform with one hand, while his other hand grabbed the back of Kendo's vest.
Kendo, confused, barely had time to react. His mind processed that the threat wasn't the infected, but something worse. "What...?"
"NOW! Move, Kendo!" John's tone allowed no questions. It was the voice of a man who had seen death too many times and recognized its imminent arrival.
Kendo reacted by instinct. He grabbed Evelyn and slid her into the dark, moldy gap leading to the tracks. "Evelyn, down! Leo, follow us, fast!"
While Kendo helped Evelyn down into the void of the tracks, Leo lifted his head. His eyes, still swollen from recent crying, fixed on the first figure descending the stairs.
The man entering the gloom wore dark, thick, unmarked tactical gear. What captivated Leo wasn't the rifle or the boots, but the full gas mask with red reflective lenses that concealed the soldier's face.
The bright red in the darkness, the inhumanly heavy silhouette, the cold control emanating from the figure...
A memory, a fragment of pain, settled in his small mind. Not a memory of fear, but of betrayal. The deafening sound of his mother screaming and then the silence. And the last figures he had seen, just before John dragged him out, had been dark silhouettes, with bright red eyes in the night.
It was them. The ones who had shot. The ones who had killed his mother.
The pain was a knife, and the boy was paralyzed for a second, the brutal truth of the military figures crashing down on him. Kendo pulled him hard, making him snap out of it.
"Leo, come on!" Kendo, not understanding the cause of the child's paralysis, pushed him gently and slid after the children into the dark tunnel.
The darkness of the tracks was a cold embrace. Kendo leaned against the damp wall, his shotgun raised. He and the children took refuge in the first maintenance recess of the tunnel, the blackness being their ally.
John stayed behind. He pressed himself against a concrete support column, his body merged with the shadow. From his position, he had a clear view of the soldiers. The MP5 was in firing position, his index finger resting just beside the trigger, but his left hand had already drawn his suppressed pistol.
He saw the crowd. Despite the initial click of the bolts, relief flooded the panic. The people, desperate for official salvation, ignored the implicit violence in the raised weapons.
The first soldier who approached, the leader (John identified him by the fluidity of his movements and the radio on his shoulder), held a small, directional megaphone. He wore a gas mask identical to his men's, with the red reflectors hiding his eyes.
"Citizens of Raccoon City! Calm! We have arrived. We are military aid from Umbrella," the leader's voice was a professional, reassuring echo that bounced off the concrete arches. "Stay calm and cooperate. We will take you to a safe place. An evacuation point."
The crowd began to move toward the voice.
"Thank God!" shouted a man with a bag, with tears of desperation.
"I knew the government wouldn't abandon us!" cheered a woman, crying with relief as she approached.
"Umbrella! We work for them! I knew they would come!" exclaimed another, feeling a false sense of connection to the corporation.
"Tell them where the sick people are, we have to get out of here!" urged an old woman, willing to cooperate with any authority.
While the leader maintained the distraction, the other six soldiers moved with terrifying efficiency. They advanced in an open formation, not to defend, but to contain. They separated into pairs, moving silently between the columns and the crowd. John noticed the pattern: they were creating a deadly semicircle, securing every exit and cover point on the platform, from the entrance tunnel to the opposite edge. They were not establishing a perimeter of protection; they were establishing a crossfire field.
The leader, perfectly positioned in the center-front, became the focal point. His speech continued, full of false hopes.
A man in the crowd, the one who had raised the metal rebar against John, saw his chance for revenge and approached the leader.
"Soldier! Thank you! But you have to stop that murderer!" The man's voice was filled with resentment. "The one from the school massacre! He's here, among us, he threatened us and tried to kill... He doesn't deserve to be saved!"
Several voices joined the chorus of accusation. "Yes! The man in the black suit!" "Where is he?!" "Stop him!"
The Umbrella leader raised a hand, stopping the commotion with a calm gesture. John, watching from the column, felt a chill that had nothing to do with the damp air.
The soldier spoke again, his voice low and serene. "Don't worry, citizens. That individual will be detained. And don't worry about his judgment anymore..." The leader paused dramatically, looking at the crowd with his reflective eyes. "...because he will be sentenced to death, just like all of you."
The calmness of the statement was worse than a scream. The crowd fell into complete silence, paralyzed by confusion and terror. A man tried to ask, stammering: "What... what are you saying?"
The leader didn't answer with words. He simply raised a gloved hand. It was a signal.
Instantly, the remaining six soldiers, who had already positioned themselves perfectly at strategic points on the platform, raised their rifles. They were not aiming toward the tracks or the infected. They were aiming toward the defenseless crowd. They had created an extermination trap, ensuring that no one could escape the crossfire.
John saw the monstrosity of the plan. If he tried to shoot the leader, the other five would slaughter the crowd. If he shot one soldier, the other four would take care of it. He couldn't shoot everyone without risking hitting a civilian, as the people were too tightly grouped. His position at the column gave him a clear view, but it was also a trap.
His eyes fell on the soldier positioned on the far right, near the mouth of the arrival tunnel. That soldier was the most isolated of the six, and his elimination was the only move that could break the formation. John raised the suppressed pistol that had been in his left hand.
When the leader lowered his fist and the soldier on the right began to bring the barrel of his weapon toward the crowd, John fired first.
The shot from the suppressed pistol was a loud, wet phut, a sound that was drowned out by the screams of terror. However, it was enough. John's bullet struck directly into the reflective glass of the soldier's left eye mask. The impact was dry and lethal. The soldier's figure slumped against the concrete without making a sound, the rifle falling with a dull thud, as the bullet perforated his brain.
The silent death of the first soldier caused a momentary confusion. The leader, believing his man had initiated the fire, roared an unintelligible order.
The remaining four soldiers (excluding the leader and the fallen) didn't hesitate. Following the leader's order and the fire initiation signal, they opened fire on the crowd. The metal screamed, bullets whistled, and the screams of the crowd drowned out the sound of the shots, as the massacre had begun.
John felt a pang of cold rage. His shot had been perfect, surgical, designed to break the formation before the fire started. He had failed. The extermination had begun. The only effect of his action had been to turn the murder into chaos.
He lunged out from the concrete column with terrifying speed. His MP5 hung from his shoulder, but the suppressed pistol in his left hand was now his only active weapon, as he needed his right hand to navigate the terror.
The air was saturated with pure terror. The shots from the rifles, although suppressed, sounded like compressed thunder in the enclosed space. The smell of blood and gunpowder was already mixing with the stench of the subway's dampness.
As John moved, the horror unfolded around him. He saw bodies fall like rag dolls. He saw the panic reflected in the eyes of a man who stumbled right in front of him, who died an instant later from a shot to the chest before he could get up. People weren't fleeing the soldiers; they were fleeing the fire, running in erratic, directionless patterns, directly across John's lines of sight. The massacre became a tactical obstacle.
His target was the second soldier in the Umbrella line, the one positioned directly across from him, with the rifle aimed toward the center of the platform.
He covered the last few meters toward the soldier, his movement almost a fusion of agility and strength. At a distance of two meters, John used his right hand to forcefully shove a stumbling man who had obscured his target. The man tripped, falling onto another civilian, creating a quarter-second tactical window in the flow of refugees.
In that small opening, John raised his suppressed pistol. Double-tap. The first shot impacted the base of the soldier's neck. The second, barely a flash later, went to the back of his head. Two dry bursts, phut-phut.
The Umbrella soldier, the second to fall, stood momentarily still, the rifle falling before him. His body slumped, without a single spasm, joining the chaos on the concrete.
The Leader, who was near the main entrance, had been monitoring the firing field. But seeing his second man fall, and then the dark figure that had emerged from the column, he understood. It wasn't a civilian mistake. It was John Wick.
"Forget the civilians!" The leader's voice, amplified by the megaphone, cut through the gunfire with a sharp cry of rage and authority. "Hammer is down! Lance is down! There's a ghost on the left, near 'Hammer's' column! Secure the target! Civilian dispersal, eliminate the subject!"
Instantly, the fire ceased. The three remaining soldiers (the leader and the two men on the left flank) stopped shooting at the crowd, and the barrels of their suppressed tactical rifles rotated with deadly synchronization toward John.
The chaos stopped, replaced by a sudden, eerie silence, broken only by the moans of the wounded and the sobs of those hiding. The crowd, realizing the massacre had stopped, scrambled in terror toward the entrance tunnel, away from the man in the black suit and the three masked soldiers who now faced him.
John stood amidst the blood-stained concrete, his MP5 in his right hand, his suppressed pistol in his left. Three opponents. A leader in the center and two well-positioned soldiers on the flanks.
The Umbrella Leader stepped forward two paces, his red eyes piercing the darkness. He saw John's cold, calculated posture, the aura of lethal efficiency surrounding him. "Umbrella's 'Baba Yaga.' Death sentence for interference," the leader hissed.
John didn't reply. He just executed a quick, almost invisible change in posture. His left foot moved slightly forward, his body weight shifted, and his MP5 came up.
The first soldier on the right flank didn't wait. He raised his rifle to shoot.
John was faster. He fired the MP5 in a controlled burst of two rounds, the first pair aimed at the head of the soldier on the right. The 9mm bullets impacted directly on the gas mask with a metallic sound. The soldier staggered.
But before he could fall, John didn't wait for the result. The second pair of his MP5 burst was aimed at the soldier's knees, and as the figure fell, John threw his suppressed pistol with brutal precision. The weapon spun and struck the left flank soldier's shoulder, a strategic distraction that bought John half a second of movement.
The left flank soldier moved to intercept, but John was already within range. He grabbed the soldier's wrist with his free right hand, twisting forcefully against the thumb. The soldier's tactical rifle dropped with a painful crunch of bone. John didn't let go of the hand; instead, he swung it, using the soldier's dislocated arm as a whip to strike the Leader who had now recovered and was aiming.
The dislocated arm struck the Leader's masked face. The Leader grunted, his shot deflecting and perforating the concrete ceiling.
John finished the movement. With overwhelming force, he pulled the soldier's arm back, and with a single levering motion, broke his neck. The left flank soldier's body went rigid for a moment and then slumped lifelessly.
Now only two remained. John and the Leader.
The Leader, recovering from the blow to the head, aimed his rifle again. John gave him no time. The MP5 in John's hand roared, emptying the rest of its magazine into the Leader's armored center mass.
The Leader felt the impact of the 9mm bullets on his vest's armor plate. They were powerful, but not penetrating. However, the force of the shots made him stagger backward. The Leader fired blindly, missing John by a meter.
John dropped the empty MP5. The sound of his hand moving to the back of his suit, where he kept his ballistic knife, echoed in the deadly silence. The battle, which had begun with a whisper, was going to end with knife and hand.
The Leader, seeing John unarmed and the glint of the knife, dropped his rifle. The leader knew that long-range combat was over and that John was a master of close combat. He drew his own tactical blade, a heavy combat knife, and charged at John.
The clash was an impact of steel against bone. The Leader attempted a horizontal thrust, a broad, powerful technique designed to cut and penetrate soft armor. John, using his waist, leaned under the blade with inhuman precision, allowing the Leader's blade to pass harmlessly over his head.
In the same movement, John pivoted and used his entire body weight to drive his elbow directly into the reflective glass of the Leader's gas mask. The blow was devastating. The glass shattered with a wet crunch, and the Leader stumbled back a step, groaning. The impact knocked the air from his lungs, but did not stop his rage.
The shattered mask revealed the Leader's eyes, filled with professional hatred and absolute coldness. His knife rose for a downward slash.
John intercepted it with his forearm, cushioning the blow, feeling the edge of the blade superficially cut the Kevlar of his suit. It wasn't enough to stop him. John slid his hand over the Leader's wrist and, with a simple levering pressure on the joint, made the Leader drop his knife. The combat weapon fell to the bloody concrete.
The Leader, now defenseless, tried to lunge at John. He was a big man, laden with heavy gear. John didn't fight the force; he used the Leader's momentum. As the Leader leaned in, John grabbed him by the neck and waist, spinning his body and throwing him over his shoulder.
The Umbrella Leader crashed onto the concrete with a force that shook the platform, the weight of his own armor punishing him.
Before the Leader could even gasp for breath, John was already on top of him. John plunged his ballistic knife in again and again, seeking the flexible seams of the armor, the soft points of the gear: the collarbone, the groin, and finally, the neck exposed by the impact.
John's movements were clean, fast, devoid of emotion. Each thrust was the completion of a contract. After the sixth stab, the Umbrella Leader lay still, his exposed eyes staring at a place John knew too well: nothingness.
John rose from the Leader's remains. The silence was total, except for the dripping of water and the muffled weeping of the survivors who had crawled away from the scene of the massacre. Seven Umbrella soldiers lay dead on the concrete.
The tactical silence revealed the magnitude of the horror. John had not been able to prevent the carnage.
The platform's concrete was a newly finished battlefield, a chaotic mix of fallen bodies, scattered belongings, and pools of dark blood. There were fragile corpses of elderly people who hadn't been fast enough to flee, young people who had died in their desperation, and, most starkly, the silent, inert bodies of several children who had been mercilessly gunned down in the first burst of fire.
The air filled with new sounds: the anguish cries of those searching for loved ones, the agonizing groans of the wounded, and the orders of other survivors who, emerging from their paralysis, rushed to help.
Kendo was the first to react. He crawled out of the track refuge, his shotgun falling to the ground. He shouted Evelyn's and Leo's names, and seeing they were safe, he launched into aid.
Kendo was the only one with first aid training; his voice rose above the misery, directing the unharmed to make tourniquets with torn strips of clothing. He lifted the wounded, dragged them, ignoring the soldiers' blood. There was only room for the civilians' pain.
John retreated to the base of the nearest column. He let the MP5 and the suppressed pistol drop at his feet, but instead of reloading, he sat heavily against the cold concrete. His shoulders slumped. The rage that had driven him dissipated, leaving an icy void.
He checked his wounds with professional efficiency: a couple of superficial cuts from the Leader's knife on his forearm and an expanding bruise on his elbow from the impact against the mask.
As John regained his breath, he noticed the change in the gazes. The survivors who had watched him kill, the ones who moments earlier had shouted his name with resentment and fear, now paused.
Their eyes no longer reflected hostility or thirst for revenge, but a silent, shocked gratitude. He had been a demon, yes, but he had just killed five worse demons.
A middle-aged woman, with white hair and a dust-stained dress, slowly approached him. John saw she had been helping a wounded young man.
"Sir," the woman said, her voice sweet despite being broken by horror. "Thank you. Truly, thank you. You saved us all."
John looked at her. His confusion was palpable, a small break in his emotional armor. Ten minutes ago, they wanted to lynch him. Now, she was thanking him. He only nodded, unable to form a reply.
The woman saw the cut on his forearm. "Please, allow me to help you with that?" she asked with an outstretched hand. John hesitated, but then nodded again. "Fine," was his only word.
She knelt, with an astonishing calmness amidst the chaos. She tore a piece of fabric from her own dress, soaked it in one of the remaining water bottles, and cleaned the cut with almost maternal tenderness. "I'm a nurse, or I was," she murmured, as she wrapped the clean cloth and knotted it firmly, but without tightening, to prevent excessive bleeding.
"That was... that was brilliant," the woman continued. "Very brave. No one else dared to stand up. We were blinded by hope."
John only nodded again. "I had to stop them." His voice was hoarse.
"My name is Emma," she said, sitting beside him for a moment.
"John," he replied, laconic.
They stayed in shared silence. John watched the pandemonium: the pain, the despair. He saw the tiny bodies of the children, people who had nothing to do with Umbrella or the Raccoon City hell, torn apart by a military order. He felt an indescribable weight. The world was hell, and no matter how much he killed, the fire kept burning.
Shortly after, Emma got up, excusing herself. "I have to get back to help the boy. Take care, John." She left without waiting for a response.
At that moment, he felt a movement. Evelyn and Leo had come out of the tunnel and, seeing that Kendo was busy lifting a heavy man, they approached John. They stopped beside him. The boy and the girl, silent and trembling.
Leo broke the silence first, not with words, but with an act of pure childhood need. He quietly walked up and hugged John's side. His small face burrowed into the armored fabric of the suit. John noticed the trembling of his body and the silent tears falling onto his jacket.
Evelyn, although older and more aware of John's imposing figure, couldn't help but follow suit. She approached John's other side, her small body sobbing.
"I was so scared, Mr. Wick," Evelyn whispered, her voice muffled. "I was so scared something would happen to my dad. It's just... he's my father and my mother at the same time. I don't have anyone else."
Hearing those words, John's heart, which had been frozen for years, felt a painful warmth contract. They were words he knew too well, the same feeling of loss and the same brutal dependence.
With a tenderness he hadn't allowed himself in a long time, John placed a large, warm hand on Evelyn's back, gently squeezing it. He did the same with Leo, enveloping the boy in a gesture of comfort. He said nothing, but the contact was the only answer that mattered.
After a minute, the crying subsided.
John kept his hand on Evelyn's back until her tremors lessened. The scene was of a man who didn't know how to give comfort, but was trying. Finally, they pulled away.
"We have to go," John said, his voice low. "Now."
He turned toward the tracks, but before he could take three steps, a loud metallic rattling echoed from the tunnel. It wasn't the sound of the infected's shuffling steps, but the unmistakable and expected rumbling of a moving train.
A wave of frantic relief swept through the survivors. Despair transformed into organized energy. Cries of pain turned into cries of urgency.
"The train! The train is coming!"
The people, including the less severely wounded, moved with renewed strength. The unharmed began to carry the most severely wounded, dragging them and carrying them on their backs toward the edge of the platform. The chaos turned into a somber dance of cooperation. Those who had attacked each other moments before now worked together to drag the crippled bodies away from the recent massacre, toward the promise of escape.
John watched calmly. He was a man of solitary action, but he respected the collective will to survive. He methodically reloaded his MP5, the stock pressed against his shoulder to ensure the magazine was seated. Then, he picked up the suppressed pistol he had thrown during the fight and holstered it.
The train, a rusty, dirty utility vehicle from the Umbrella corporation (ironically, the very symbol of their doom), screeched to a halt.
Kendo was at the car door, his shirt already torn to make makeshift bandages. His hands were covered in blood, but his face reflected immense gratitude as he carried an elderly man. Kendo made sure Evelyn and Leo got onto the train and sat safely, away from the flow of the wounded.
After about ten minutes, the platform was almost empty of survivors. Only the silent bodies and the blood remained.
Kendo approached the train door, looking at John, who still stood in the center of the stained platform, a dark, immovable anchor. Evelyn and Leo were right behind Kendo, their faces small and serious.
"Mr. Wick," Kendo said, his voice low and loaded with emotion. "Get on. There's still room. Without you, we would have died in that shop, or worse, here."
John slowly shook his head. "I can't go. I have some things to take care of."
Kendo nodded. He understood that, for a man like John, some debts couldn't be paid by running away. "Take care, John."
"Take care of him," John replied, his eyes fixed on Leo.
Kendo nodded, then looked at Evelyn with a light tone, breaking the tension. "Hey, Evelyn, looks like you and Leo will get along fine on this trip."
Evelyn, her cheeks flushed at the mention of Leo, looked away and only murmured a shy "Yes, Dad."
Kendo turned back to John. He slid the strap of his pump-action shotgun off his shoulder. "Take it," he said, offering him the weapon. "I have my daughter, my mission is over. You... you'll probably need it more."
John accepted the gesture. The shotgun, heavy and familiar, felt good in his hands. Kendo handed him a box of ammunition shells.
"Go," John said.
Kendo got onto the train. Just before the conductor slammed the door shut, Kendo and the two children peered out. Evelyn and Leo, together, raised their hands and waved one last, silent goodbye.
The train began to move, slow at first, then faster, swallowed by the dark tunnel.
John was left alone. The emergency light continued to flicker over the inert bodies of the Umbrella soldiers. The pools of blood slowly coagulated on the concrete, the brutal evidence of the massacre. John was in a deafening silence, now more alone than ever. The train had taken with it the only reason he had hesitated on his path.
He methodically chambered the new shotgun, the sound of the metal sliding a shell into the breech echoing in the void. Now, his mission was all that remained. He looked at the bloodstain of the Umbrella leader.
The only way to stop the fire was to find the arsonist.
John looked up at the station ceiling. Umbrella was beneath the city. He needed a map, a route, an access point. He remembered Jill Valentine's words, mentioning that the police chief, Brian Irons, was probably more involved in Umbrella's secrets than he would admit.
Before the infection, the Police Department (RPD) would have been a hive of police, an impossible target for him, with his face potentially in all databases. But now, the city was a wasteland. The RPD was likely in ruins, filled with desperate survivors or totally abandoned, the perfect place to look for clues about a possible service access to Umbrella's underground infrastructure. It was the only option that came to mind at the moment.
John stood up. He slung the new shotgun over one shoulder and the MP5 over the other. He drew his suppressed pistol, holding it firmly as he headed toward the exit. It was then he saw the shadow cast by an imposing vehicle, abandoned by the Umbrella soldiers. It was a deep black armored Humvee, stained with dust and blood.
John smiled, an almost imperceptible grimace. "Well, at least I won't have to walk to the police station."
Before getting in, he took out his satellite phone. The screen had a few cracks, scars from recent battles. He dialed Jill's number. No answer; just the dead tone. John sighed. Still not answering. She probably lost it, he thought.
Just as his hand rested on the armored door handle of the Humvee, he felt footsteps. The sound wasn't the slow shuffle of an infected or the heavy movement of a frightened human. It was a deliberate, light step, effortlessly approaching from the darkness.
Almost instinctively, John crouched and raised his suppressed pistol toward the source of the sound, moving with the silent speed of a phantom.
The intermittent flash of a revealing lamp illuminated a silhouette moving with a supernatural grace among the shadows.
It was none other than Ada Wong. Despite the chaos, she remained impeccable. She wore a cocktail dress, an incongruous vision of high society amidst the destruction. Over it, she had a trench coat of an intense scarlet color that covered her like a shield.
Her high-heeled boots, despite being completely impractical for the situation, seemed to be no impediment, and she moved with effortless fluidity. Unlike the rest of the survivors, her black hair was tied back in a neat ponytail, not a single strand out of place.
Ada slowly approached John, raising her open hands in a sign of surrender, her face playful.
"Is someone not answering the legendary John Wick's calls?" she said, her tone playful and full of brazen confidence.
John, without lowering the pistol, narrowed his eyes. His voice was a growl. "Who are you?"
Ada lowered her hands, crossing them over her chest with exasperating calmness, ignoring the barrel of the gun pointed at her face. Her eyes met John's, a mix of cunning and ancient knowledge.
"I come on behalf of the Continental and everything you know," she replied calmly. "The High Table wants to help you annihilate Umbrella."
Author's Note: This chapter is longer since I'll be away for a few days, so I'd appreciate some feedback on the story.