Set Me Free ▪︎ Joel Miller ▪︎

▪︎○ Twenty Two ○▪︎

The sun beams down on the trio as they continue to push forward, hopping over a concrete block and landing into ankle high mossy water that floods the street ahead. Olivia scrunches her face in disgust at the smell and feel of the water, her feet picking up their pace as she climbs to stand atop an algae coated car.

Meanwhile, Joel dove into the water, swimming towards an old wooden pallet that sat floating atop the water a short distance away. He wasted no time gripping it and pushing it back to the two females, especially with the echoes of screams and gunshots filling the air around them.

He frowned at the familiar sounds that took him back to his hunter days - the part of his life he was most ashamed of. "Get on," Joel ordered Ellie as the pallet nudged gently against the car she and Olivia stood upon.

"What the hell was that?" the teen asked in reference to the gunshots.

"We're cutting through the hotel," Joel tells her simply, a look sent Olivia's way causing her to nod in understanding.

"Okay..."

"You're gonna make me swim aren't you," Olivia mutters with a unimpressed pout that rises a slight smirk on Joel's lips as he instructs Ellie to set up the plank across the gap between the two trucks they'd need to cross to reach the hotel.

"Yep,"

"I don't like you," she grumbles before reluctantly shuffling off of the car and into the cold murky water. Her expression and careful swimming causes Joel to chuckle, his head shaking at her visible discomfort and growing disgust. "Yeah, keep laughing. I'm about to make you drink it, old man."

"I am kinda thirsty," he says with the same smirk.

"Shut up," Olivia giggles, now shaking her own head, amused.

She follows Joel into a nearby coffee shop, swimming up to the counter and rounding it to search the cabinets for supplies. "Ugh, this place stinks." Ellie complains atop the truck that was half crashed inside the shop, already having bridged the plank across the gap.

"Yeah, the woods all rotted." Joel comments casually, unfazed by the stench.

"I am not a fan," Olivia mutters whilst scooping up some alcohol and rags, tossing them to Joel with a smile.

The older man catches them with ease, placing them in his pack and turning to Ellie as she asks a very fitting question. "Did you drink a lot of coffee?"

"Yeah, all the time."

"And... what would you get?" she pressed further.

"Just- Just coffee." he shrugged.

"Boring," the teen mumbled unimpressed before turning to Olivia who also shrugs.

"I've never tried it but I've heard good things."

"God, I miss coffee." Olivia hears Joel breathe out wistfully causing her to chuckle and clap him on the back as she passes by him to climb atop the truck, crossing the wooden plank to the large broken hotel window.

She drops down into the lobby of the building, making a small splash in the ankle high water as she does so. She groans and shakes her feet in distaste, glaring at her soaked combat boots. "Damn it," she mutters lowly, her feet moving towards the ladder leant up against some scaffolding to the far right of the floor.

She picks it up, sliding her hands up the smooth cold metal in an effort to get a better grip on it before moving to place it against the upper balcony where a section of the railing had broken away.

"Wow," Ellie whispers in awe of the fairly beautiful and grand building. She wanders the lobby area slightly, taking in the details of each wall, the different patterns and engravings carved into the columns left her speechless.