The Both Of Us | Zelink X The Last Of Us

Chapter Eighteen

Zelda's pov

Link isn't thrilled about me coming with and he's making it very clear. If I stray too far behind, he snaps at me. If I walk too close, he tells me to back up. It's like he's trying to find things to be upset about.

On the hill that overlooks town, I see distant staggering shapes in the streets and my breath catches.

"Don't lose it now," Link says. "You wanted to come." His I told you so. I want to prove him wrong. And myself.

"We pissed them off yesterday," Revali says in almost a teasing kind of way. "Now they're hungry and mad." My heart drops. What was I thinking asking—no telling—them I was coming with?

Link slides his sniper rifle from his shoulder. "Let's take some out from up here."

He lays down and Revali gets his sniper rifle as well and lays down too. They look through their scopes and shoot. I watch two of the infected drop. Four. Six. Link ejects the cartridge and shoots again. Eight. Ten. They don't miss a single shot.

"Can you show me how to do that?" I ask before I even realize I was thinking it. Link turns around slowly and looks at me like I'm stupid. Maybe I am.

He motions me over with his finger and I lay down next to him while Revali kills more infected. Some of them are running out of buildings and eating the dead ones.

He hands me the rifle and it's heavier than the pistol. "I don't know what to do," I remind him.

"You've watched me do it." He's still trying to prove his point but I won't let him make me feel like I'm stupid. He didn't know anything at one point either.

I put the butt of the rifle on my left shoulder like how I've seen him do it and I hold it with my right hand with my left hand at the trigger. It feels strange. Then again, it's a gun.

"You're not left handed." I see the flicker of amusement in his eyes again at my ignorance. I guess I never really noticed that he's left handed until now.

I switch sides with the rifle and it feels much better. "Maybe I'm ambidextrous."

"Yeah okay."

"It was a joke."

"It wasn't very good," he quotes me and I swear I see him almost smile again. I don't know why he tries so hard to keep a straight face. Impa said he's been broken but from what I've seen, the pieces are salvageable if he tries.

I look through the scope and see the infected running and staggering through the streets. I tremble now. I've never killed anything before.

"Stay steady," Link instructs. "Hug the trigger like you love it." I don't think loving the trigger is only an analogy for him.

I line up the crosshairs with an infected feeding on a body and take a deep breath. It's not a person anymore and killing it is a favor. Kill or be killed. That thing wouldn't hesitate to kill me so why am I hesitating to kill it? Maybe because I know it used to be a person with thoughts and hopes and dreams like me. But all that ended when it was bit. It's a monster now.

I shoot.

The rifle kicks back into my shoulder and the infected drops. I killed it. I look to Link as if searching for praise. Do I want praise?

"Now do it again."

Link's pov

I underestimated her. I thought she was weak and incapable. I thought she wouldn't be able to pull the trigger. I was wrong. She hesitated for only a moment. And then she did it again. And again and again. And I realized she's angry too. Her brows drew together in a glare and she ejected the cartridge to keep firing before I could tell her to. She didn't stop until I made her stop.