chapter four
'outside'
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Daniella closed her eyes as her back met the aged cabinet she and Joel pushed in front of the doors. The storm was getting stronger every minute and they were lucky enough to find an old beauty store to hide in.
"Go there." Tess shoved Ellie into the middle of the room. "You'll be staying here and we will keep an eye on you." She warned the girl, ignoring her offended scoff. "Who will take the first shift?"
Daniella ignored the woman and walked further into the store, taking off her jacket and then her top, standing there only in her sports bra.
Joel awkwardly looked away while Tess and Ellie watched her in shock.
"What you're staring at?" Daniella sighed and then let her hair fall. "I'm not getting sick from the wet clothes." She shrugged and then sat down, her gaze on Ellie. "You can go to sleep, I'll take the first shift."
"Fine by me," Tess murmured and laid her head on her backpack. "C'mon Joel, let's get some sleep." She said to the man before turning away, and facing the wall.
Joel walked right past Tess directly toward Daniella, his stern look stayed on her face as he handed her the rifle without a single emotion shown on his face. "Wake me up in two hours." He murmured and then walked back to his place, sitting down and crossing his arms.
Ellie was the first one to fall asleep, Tess was the second one and Joel was the last one. He kept his gaze on Ellie as long as he could before slowly giving up.
The brunette watched all of them, she watched their chests go up and down as they slept. They all seemed so calm to her at that moment. Comfortable and vulnerable. She was surprised to see them trust her so freely
Especially Ellie. Daniella kept her gaze on the sleeping teenager, millions of thoughts running through her head. She was unable to recognize the emotions she felt when she saw the bite mark on Ellie's arm.
Could the girl be immune? Or was the infection slowing down? Making it longer to turn? If the girl turns would be Daniella able to shoot her? Kill her?
She never killed a child.
She also didn't want to.
A small sigh left her mouth as she let the back of her head hit the shelves behind her. Here she was, sitting in an abandoned store in her bra with a rifle in her hands, waiting for a kid to turn into a monster.
Her life was a joke.
But at the same time, it made sense why Marlene wanted Ellie to get to the Fireflies. If the girl was really immune it could mean a huge influence in the world, or at least what was left of it.
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Ellie woke up the next morning with a rifle aimed at her head.
Daniella told Joel that it was a little drastic but he ignored her completely.
So the three adults were sitting in front of the girl like judges, waiting for her to wake up.
"Morning." The girl croaked out, intimidated by the three people watching her. She was about to stand up but Joel moved the rifle along her movement, making her stop.
A small hint of guilt appeared in Daniella's chest as she noticed the hurt look on Ellie's face. "Show us your arm, Ellie." She requested, her voice gentle as she did not want to traumatize the girl even more.
"Do I look like I'm infected?" Ellie said back, trying to appear tough but the tremble in her voice said otherwise.
"Ellie." Daniella sternly said, ignoring her comment.
The girl sucked on her bottom lip, eyeing the adults before finally rolling up her sleeve and showing them what they wanted to see.
The bite mark was the same as the night before, which was something that none of them really expected. Joel and Tess looked at each other while Daniella kept a close look at the girl in front of them. She was amazed.
"Yeah, it's not getting any worse, is it?" Ellie scoffed, rolling her sleeve back down. "If we're out in the open city, why aren't we getting swarmed?"
"Don't worry about that," Joel snapped.
Ellie rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm gonna." She snapped back, noticing the amused look in Daniella's eyes.
Tess frowned. "What was Marlene doing with an infected kid?" She questioned.
"I'm not infected." Ellie pressed her lips into a thin line. "She found me after I was bitten." She admitted seconds after.
A line formed between Joel's eyebrows as he listened to the kid. "And she didn't shoot you?"
"Clearly not." Ellie snarled. "She locked me up and had her guys test me every day to see if I was getting sick." She locked down, her fingers tearing up the moss beneath her.
"Test you how?" Tess asked, engaged in the conversation. The woman was fascinated and she did not hide it.
But she wasn't alone of course, Joel was only better at hiding it, and Daniella was too lazy to ask the questions. She knew that Tess was the negotiator.
"I have to pee." Ellie groaned, unamused by Tess' questions.
"Test you, how?" Tess raised her voice, making shivers run down both Ellie's and Daniella's backs.
Tess had one of those deep voices that made you uneasy if beings yelled at. And Tess knew that, she used it as her leverage.
Ellie rolled her eyes again. "They'd make me count to ten and hold out my hand and then keep it steady."
An impressed look crossed Daniella's face, not even she could keep her hands steady most of the time.
"I think what really impressed them was the fact that I didn't turn into a fucking monster."
Daniella snorted at that, earning looks from all of them. "Sorry." She put her hands in the air in surrender. "Go pee kid." Her head moved toward the door at the back of the room and then she threw her a magazine for use.
"There's not going to be anything bad in there?" She asked as she was walking away.
"Just you," Joel remarked instantly, ignoring Daniella's surprised look.
Who knew that the man would try to be funny?
While Tess was taking deep breaths, Daniella noticed Joel's trembling hand. She saw the bloodied knuckles from killing Adam but she knew that his knuckles were the least of his problems. He was traumatized, she could tell.
But it wasn't her place to console him.
Tess' voice made her look back up, no longer staring at Joel's hand. "She made it through the fucking night." She said with a low voice.
"We noticed, Tess." Daniella sighed and a hand through her hair. "This could change so many things."
"It doesn't matter." Joel shook his head. "It's gonna happen sooner or later." His hand was still tightly wrapped around the rifle as he thought about what to say next. "We're still close to the wall, we can sneak her back into the QZ and we find a different way to get the battery."
At that Daniella scoffed, loudly.
"What?" Joel looked at her, irritated by her manners.
The brunette stood up, shaking her head at the pair in front of her. "She's dead the moment FEDRA notices the bite on her arm and you know that."
"Better her than us."
Daniella opened her mouth in shock and then she let out a way louder scoff than before. "Are you listening to yourself, Joel?" She threw her hand towards the way Ellie left to pee. "You're talking about an immune kid." She whisper-shouted the last part of the sentence.
"You need to stop talking about this kid like she's got some kinda life in front of her." He replied, ignoring her outburst.
Their argument was cut short when Ellie came back into the room, eyeing them suspiciously before sitting back down.
Tess looked at Joel and Daniella again before turning her attention toward Ellie. "You hungry?" She pulled a paper bag out of her backpack. "You can share some of ours."
"Thanks." Ellie thanked before reaching for her own backpack. "Marlene sent me with my own."
So they ate in silence, exchanging looks when chewing. It was uncomfortable for all of them, especially since Ellie had a chicken sandwich and the three of them were eating shitty food from the QZ.
"Is that chicken?" Tess asked after a while of eyeing the food in Ellie's hands.
The girl swallowed the bite she had in her mouth before nodding. "Marlene said they get it from smugglers." She replied, a smirk appearing on her face. "Guess not you guys."
"Touché." Daniella nodded, taking a bite of her food before packing it up.
Tess chuckled at that remark before standing up, walking towards Ellie, and ignoring Joel's warnings. "Why are you so important to Marlene? And don't you dare lie, we can take you back."
"You take me back you don't get your battery and Danilla won't get a way out of Boston with supplies."
Daniella's breath hitched a little as she felt Joel's and Tess' eyes on her. She and Marlene made the deal in private, sworn by secrecy but apparently, the sneaky little firecracker in front of her knew everything.
"Joel wants to shoot you, you know." Tess crouched down, facing Ellie and ignoring the remark about Daniella.
At that moment Daniella swore she saw fear in Ellie's eyes, especially when she crawled back a little when Tess stepped closer.
"I'm going to talk to you like you're an adult," Tess spoke up slowly. "Joel and I aren't good people, Mrs. Foreign over there is still struggling with that." She nodded toward Daniella who was standing behind her. "But the three of us? We're doing this for us because, apparently, you're worth something."
Daniella bit the inside of her cheek, anxiously listening to Tess' speech. Her idea of good and bad people had changed over the last twenty years but it was true that she had no idea what Joel and Tess were capable of.
"But we don't know what you're worth if we don't know what we have." Tess kept on talking. "So answer my question." She hissed.
Ellie breathed out, rolling her eyes as she hid her face behind her hands. "She told me not to tell anybody, and now I'm telling the first people that I-" She stopped herself from talking, avoiding their stares. "There's a Firefly base camp somewhere out west, with doctors." She gulped before speaking up again. "They're working on a cure."
Daniella put her hands on her waist as she let out a heavy breath, not knowing what to do with that information.
As the women stayed silent, Joel only hummed. "I've heard this before." He shook his head.
"And whatever happened to me, is the key to finding the vaccine." Ellie finished talking, not bothered by Joel's input.
Joel clenched his jaw and looked up in frustration. "That's what this is?" He stepped closer. "We've heard this a million times and none of it works."
"Fuck you, man." Ellie rapidly stood up. "I didn't ask for this." She spat.
"You and me both." He rebuked sternly. "This isn't gonna end well and we need to go back."
Daniella bit her lower lip before stepping in. "I'll take her, you can go back." She spoke up. "That was Marlene's original plan anyway."
Tess looked at Daniella first and then at Joel before standing up. "Let's just finish it." She shrugged. "It doesn't matter if she is or she isn't what the Fireflies say. If they believe that she is then, we all get what we want."
Joel pressed his lips together, his gaze moving from one female to another. "If she so much as twitches." He warned.
At that Ellie started making twitching noises and started moving her hands as an infected.
"Don't." Both, Tess and Daniella warned her with raised voices.
Ellie immediately stopped, nodding.
"Let's go then."
They all grabbed their stuff and quietly were walking towards the door they barricaded.
"Can I have a gun?"
"Absolutely not."
"No."
"Hell no."
"Jesus, fine. I'll just throw a fucking sandwich at them." Ellie mumbled, noticing a tiny smile on Daniella's face. "I saw that." She whispered to her as she walked past her outside.
The woman shook her head as she did her best to bite her smile down. "Fuck you." She told Ellie and walked right after her.
The sun was bright outside, blinding them all for a couple of seconds, the last remains of August heat hanging in the air. There was no wind, only heavy September air.
All of them turned around when they heard Ellie's impressed gasp.
"Looks different in the daylight, huh?" Tess nodded, staring at the collapsed buildings in front of them.
Daniella was entertained by Ellie's shocked reaction to the world behind the wall but she couldn't blame her. The woman had her own fascination with abandoned places and there was more than plenty of them out there. Sadly old asbestos was their smallest problem in the new world while exploring aging buildings. Their new problems were infected and Daniella would rather die of asbestos poisoning than of being torn apart.
Still, it was nice seeing nature taking back what was once hers.
They started slowly walking through the city, Ellie looking around as much as she could. "It's like a fucked up moon." She commented on the crater in the ground. "Is this where they bombed?" She took a step closer, looking down there.
Tess nodded. "They hit most of the big cities, trying to slow down the spread."
"Didn't work in most places." Daniella finished the story, not stopping to look at the hole, she saw them many times before.
They all stopped in their tracks when they saw a fallen skyscraper in front of them. It's been ages since either of them walked that way so neither of them knew that the building fell.
"The Statehouse is across there." Tess tightly grasped her backpack straps before groaning. "It's about a ten-minute walk if we could go straight."
"Long way or short way?" Joel spoke up, his eyes on the building.
Daniella scratched her cheek, not answering. "I don't really remember the way, to be honest, it's been a while since I walked through Boston." She joked but then shut up when she saw Joel's stare.
"Long way or 'we're fucking dead' way," Tess answered instead of Daniella.
Joel clicked his tongue, nodding. "We have to check it from the hotel first."
They all exchanged a nod before walking towards the overgrown hotel. They passed numerous restaurants and stores, making Ellie curious to see what was inside but she knew that there was no way they would let her go and explore.
"Where the fuck are they already?" Ellie asked when they reached the highway. Her eyes moved over the cars and the buildings, amusement swiftly turning into boredom.
Daniella and Tess were leading the group while Joel was following them at some distance. He kept to himself, but that was nothing new to Daniella, she was his neighbor for years so she already knew that.
"You know it when they're close," Tess muttered, not stopping.
"I didn't know last time." Ellie blurted, looking around.
Daniella hummed and glanced at the girl. "How did you get bit anyway."
Ellie looked at her feet before speaking up. "You know the old mall in the QZ?"
The women nodded. "The one that's sealed off and boarded up and no one's supposed to go in, ever?" Tess pointed out while Daniella only shook her head at Ellie's obvious teenage behavior.
"Whatever. I snuck in." The girl confessed. "Wanted to see what it was like." She continued. "Didn't think there was gonna be anything in there, and then one just came out of me outta nowhere." She concluded.
Daniella jumped over the hood of one of the cars that were blocking the road as she listened to Ellie's story. "You were there alone?"
The girl nodded, not speaking.
Tess and Daniella looked at each other with impressed stares. "How old are you?"
"Fourteen," Ellie answered the woman in front of her.
Daniella raised her eyebrows as an amused frown appeared on her lips. "You're a badass." She complimented the girl and gave her a hand with getting down from the car.
A proud smile grew on Ellie's face as she thanked the woman, grabbing her hand as she jumped off the hood.
"Nobody's gonna be coming after you, right?" Tess changed the subject as they waited on Joel behind them. "Parents, boyfriend, or any relatives?"
Ellie swallowed, preparing her answer. "I'm an orphan and nope." She answered with a sass, not noticing the side eye she was receiving from Daniella. "Everyone said the open city was crazy." She quickly changed the subject as her eyes fell on the emptiness below the highway. "Swarms of infected running around everywhere."
"Not exactly like that." Joel made his presence known, speaking up for the first time since they decided to go toward the hotel.
Tess grinned. "People like to tell stories."
"So there aren't superinfected that explode fungus spores on you?"
Daniella chuckled. "If there are any, I definitely never ran into them." She then turned to Joel and Tess, walking backward. "Have you guys?"
"Not that I remember." Tess joked back.
"Or ones with split open heads that see in the dark like bats?"
At that, all of the adults looked at each other, not knowing what to answer.
But they didn't have to because a loud shriek in the distance answered for them.
Ellie wouldn't admit it but at that moment she felt uncomfortably alarmed. "What was that?"
"Let's just keep moving."