CHAPTER FOUR:

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

NO MORE RAIN had been pouring from the early morning sky, the sun having replaced the moons spot as it decided to actually shine down on the infected and the lasting survivors, especially the group of four that had escaped the quarantine zone just during the night.

Inside of an abandoned building, Ellie found herself laying in the middle of a room on some grass as the sun shined down on her through a large hole that was in the roof of the building. A tired grunt escaped her just as a butterfly flew above and past her, her eyes slowly opening.

She squinted once she looked up, noticing the sun shining down on her. The first person she had noticed was her brother, who was sitting beside her, elbows resting on his knees as he glared at something in front of him. Following his gaze, she stopped once she noticed the other three all watching her.

"Morning." She murmurs in greeting.

The fourteen year old moved to stand up, which only made Joel slightly raise his gun. This had Alec, who had been holding his own pistol lazily, aim his own right at the man. Standing behind her mother and Joel, Y/n straightened from where she had been leaning against the wall, eyes narrowing on him.

Slowly, Ellie sat back down. "Do I look like I'm infected?"

"Show us your arm." Joel demands.

Knowing they wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, she rolls up her sleeve, revealing the bitemark. Y/n leans forward, now leaning against the chair Tess was sitting in to try and get a better look at it. Alec was the only one who didn't look.

"Yeah, it's not getting any worse, is it?" Alec tells them with an annoyed tone, scratching the back of his head with his gun.

"If we're out in the open city," Ellie tugs her sleeve down, "why aren't we getting swarmed?"

"Don't worry about that." Joel replies.

"Well, I'm gonna."

Tess squints her eyes. "What was Marlene doing with an infected kid?"

"She's not infected." Alec argues. "We found her after she was bitten."

"And you didn't shoot her." Joel points out.

"Clearly not." The older sibling snaps.

"Marlene locked me up and had her guys test me everyday to see if I was getting sick." Ellie adds.

Y/n crosses her arms. "Test you how?"

"I have to pee." Ellie blurts out.

"Test you how?" Tess repeats more slowly and firmly.

"They'd make me count to ten and hold out my hand and then keep it steady. But, you know, I think what really impressed them was the fact I didn't turn into a fucking monster." The fourteen year old stands up. "Now can I please?"

Just as she was getting up, Joel was quick to also stand up, gun still tight in his hand. Noticing this, Alec got to his feet, taking a step in front of his sister. Ellie slowly raised her hands in surrender.

"Fine. Back there." Tess motions to the room off to the side. "You can find a spot."

Nodding at her, thankful, Alec wrapped an arm around Ellie, moving her with him towards the back room. He caught a magazine with ease when Tess tossed it towards him.

"There's not gonna be anything bad in here?" Ellie asks.

"Just you." Joel and Y/n reply at the same time.

"Oh, funny." The girl mumbles sarcastically.

Once the siblings were in the other room, the other three relaxed. Both adults sat back down as Y/n leaned against the wall, watching as Joel stared down at his dried bloody hand from the night before.

"Broken." Tess comments.

"Maybe a hairline. It'll heal fast." Joel assures.

Y/n stared at them before finally blurting out what they had all be thinking, "She made it through the fucking night."

Joel shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. It's gonna happen sooner or later. Alright? We're still close to the wall. We sneak them back into the QZ. We find a different way to get the battery."

"This is our best shot." Tess argues. "We take her back to the QZ, someone's gonna notice her arm, they're gonna scan her, then they'll kill her."

"It's better them then us." Y/n whispers.

"She's right." Joel stares his partner in the eye. "You need to stop talking about this kid like she's got some kinda life in front of her."

They stopped by the sound of footsteps. Looking in the direction of the sound, the siblings soon walked out, Ellie leading the way. She tosses the magazine back towards them before sitting back down.

"You guys hungry?" Tess questions as she digs into her pack. "You can share some of ours."

"Marlene sent us with our own." Alec tells her.

Within minutes, they were sitting in silence as they ate at their food. Tess, Joel and Y/n's food were stale and hard, yet it was still good enough to eat. Meanwhile, Alec and Ellie's looked like they had just been made.

"Is that chicken?" Y/n breaks the silence, staring at their sandwiches.

Alec nods. "We get it from smugglers."

"Guess not you guys." Ellie quietly adds.

Right after, Tess tosses the rest of her food to the floor, standing up. Joel immediately stands up while Y/n grabs her gun, though Tess holds her hand towards them, asking, "Why are you so important to Marlene? And don't lie to me or we'll take you back."

"You take her back, you don't get your battery." Alec reminds.

"You heard that?" She asks through a scoff. "Then you must've heard that they both wanna shoot your sister."

The nineteen year old looks away from her and over her shoulder. His eyes immediately meet Y/n's, who didn't look anywhere near guilty at the fact that she wanted to shoot his sister if she really was infected.

Tess crouches down in front of Ellie, making her rear back. "I'm gonna talk to you like you're an adult. Okay? Joel and I aren't good people. My daughter is slowly turning into that. We're doing this for us before, apparently, you're worth something. But we don't know what you're worth if we don't know what we have. So answer my question."

Ellie drops her food, rubbing her face hesitantly. "She told me not to tell anybody, and now I'm telling the first people that I--"

"Hey." Alec grabs her shoulder reassuringly, looking at the adults. "There's a Firefly base camp somewhere out west with doctors. They're working on a cure."

Joel hums. "I've heard this one before."

"And what happened to her, is the--" Alec continues.

"--is the key to finding the vaccine." Joel finishes in an interruption. "That's what this is? We've heard this a million times. Vaccines, miracle cures. None of it works. Ever."

Ellie shoots to her feet. "Fuck you, man. I didn't ask for this."

"You and me both." He fires back, turning to his partner. "This isn't gonna end well, Tess. We need to go back."

"What if it's true?" He looks at Y/n when she says this.

"It's not." Joel replies.

Tess stands back up with a sigh. "Let's just finish it. It doesn't matter if she is or she isn't what the Fireflies say. If they believe that she is, then we get what we want."

"If she so much as twitches..." Right after he says this, Ellie begins twitching and croaking in a joking manner, only to stop when Tess gives her a death glare. She rubs her neck awkwardly.

Together, they all grabbed their stuff, packing everything together. Crouched down, Ellie had been doing the same, stopping when she noticed they all had guns, other than herself.

"Can I have a gun?" She suddenly asks.

"No."

"Are you crazy?"

"Absolutely not."

"Not in a million fucking years."

"Okay, Jesus. Fine. I'll have to throw a fucking sandwich at them." She grumbles.

Her eyes stop on her brother's gun. He shoves her lightly, grunting, "Don't even think about it."

Joel moves the large shelf he had put to block the door, slowly opening the door, letting the sun shine through. When he saw it was clear, he walked out with the others following. Y/n squinted her eyes from the sun as she looked around, hearing Ellie mumble a small 'woah' at the sight in front of her, finding it very different than how she had first seen it at night and in the rain.

Joel had been the one to announce that they should get moving, the others silently agreeing as they all moved in the direction they needed to go to. Nothing was said for a few minutes as Ellie glanced around in amazement. Walking beside his sister, Alec noticed the way Y/n looked around.

No matter how many times Joel and Tess left the QZ for supplies from their two friends, they never let her go with them. It wasn't safe, as they'd always say.

Soon enough, they caught sight of a large crater shaped on the road just off to the side. Ellie was quick to move towards it to get a better look, having never seen anything like this before.

"It's like a fucked up moon." She comments. "Is this where they bombed?"

Tess nods. "Yeah. They hit most of the big cities like this. They had to slow the spread somehow. Worked here, but it didn't in most places."

Joel had completely walked by them when they stopped beside the crater. Y/n was right behind him, glancing down at it. The other three soon followed behind. They eventually came to a stop as they stared at a fallen building that was blocking the rest of the road, debris laying everywhere.

"So, the State House is across there. It's about a ten minute walk if you could go straight." Tess informs.

Alec raises a brow. "So?"

"Long way or short way?" Joel asks his partner.

The woman shrugs. "I mean, it's the long way or the 'we're fucking dead' way."

"Well, I vote long way just based on that limited information." Ellie tells them.

"We have to check it from the hotel first." Joel states.

Tess just nods in agreement before moving on forward in the direction of the hotel. Joel waited for all of them to begin walking before he trailed behind them from the back as they continued their journey to the State House.