Jackson

a Joel Miller fanfic

"What exactly are we going to do with her, Tommy? Let her loose only to run back and tell 'er friends where we are? Huh?"

The voice that drifts in from two rooms over is low, velvet, southern. You hadn't heard an accent like that since before—well. Since before everything happened.

"We can't just kill her, Joel, she didn't want to be with those men!" a second masculine voice responds. "She's as much a victim as—"

"As who? Diana? 'Fore she killed her?" the first voice growls. Deep, dark, like ragged silk to your ears.

You feel like the conversation you're overhearing was meant to be hushed. You also feel like they don't care that it isn't, prolonging your torture that much more before they get around to actually killing you. Your hands strain uselessly against the ropes binding you to the chair, and your lip throbs where a third person—a woman—busted it with the butt of a rifle.

You just wish they'd get on with it instead of arguing about it two rooms over.

A third voice chimes in, and you recognize it as belonging to the woman who gave you your still-bleeding fat lip.

"Maybe we could bring her in. Let her prove her worth. We could always use another hand in the work force," the woman says.

"'Specially now that Diana's out of commission? Sure. Bring her in, feed her, give her a bed to sleep in. Why not, Maria?" the original voice quips back.

There's a settling of air and everyone falls silent for a moment.

"It could work, Joel," Tommy says. "The man you killed—the one with the red jacket—he made her kill Diana. Saw it with my own eyes. She didn't want to. She was scared for her life."

"Should be scared for her life now," Joel responds.

You whimper and continue to struggle against the restraints, but they're too tight, too expertly knotted against your skin. You feel the sobs wanting to break free of your lungs, expanding to a tight pressure in your chest, but you choke them back. You don't want to give the man—Joel, they called him—the satisfaction of seeing you scared; of begging for your life.

"I can hear you, you know," you call out boldly.

You hear the shuffling of multiple pairs of boots on cracked, dusty wood, and then a large shadow darkens the doorway of the room you're in.

"Good," Joel says, his face contorted into a scowl. His dark eyes study you. His hair is dusted with gray, sweeping into the scruff peppering his jaw. You guess he's probably in his mid-fifties, but judging by the muscles you see moving beneath his clothing, you can tell he's still in ridiculously good shape.

He's tall. And broad. There's a rifle slung across his torso and his wide shoulders flex under the flannel he's wearing as he removes the gun to point the barrel straight at you.

A hand shoots out from around the edge of the doorway to grab the rifle: Tommy's.

"Joel..." Tommy says, softly.

You make a meager, pathetic sound, unable to keep your fear in check if only for a moment, but it's enough for him.

Joel doesn't take his dark eyes off of you as a single corner of his mouth quirks into the ghost of a bemused smirk, nor do they move when he lowers the gun to his side.

"Who were those men?" he asks, stepping further into the room. Tommy follows suit and Maria is not far behind. "Where'd you come from?"

"Nowhere. I mean—a camp, about five miles from here. Just the four of us. They had been talking about raiding here for weeks, before they actually..." You swallow the hard, painful lump in your throat. "...attempted it."