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「 ten. I was ridin' in a getaway car
I was cryin' in a getaway car
I was dyin' in a getaway car . 」

THE FAINT SOUND OF CRICKETS ECHOED THROUGH THE MORNING AIR, the noise being drowned out with the pleasant chirping of morning birds. Finally, the morning had arrived and the sky lit up in a pale blue, adorned with fluffy clouds.

Beneath the clouds, in the forest in the middle of nowhere, Elizabeth Dean rolled over in her sleeping bag with a drowsy yawn. Her eyes felt heavy despite the couple hours sleep she'd gotten, and she gave in to the urge to roll over and carry on sleeping.

"Beth." A voice whispered, a soft hand shaking her
as she groaned lightly. "Beth, wake your ass up."

"Fuck off." She mumbled faintly, moving her hand up to the persons face and pushing them away from her. A feminine wail developed her ears as Ellie fell backwards. She was already squatting anyway, so the fall obviously hadn't hurt her.

"Beth, what the fuck." The brunette cried, looking over to Joel with a shocked face, to which she could've sworn the man looked back with a touch of amusement shining in his eyes.

An idea flashed in Ellie's mind as she grabbed the bottle that held the most disgusting thing she had ever smelt — Coffee.

Grinning, Ellie moved over to the blonde, placing the container next to her until she shot up from her lay down spot. "Oh, my fuck," she coughed, looking over to Ellie with a wince as the girl laughed brightly.

"You bitch." Lizzie shook her head, her eyebrows creased in mock anger, "get that away from me. That's vile."

"Neither of you like Coffee?" Joel emphasised, raising his eyebrows in disagreement. Beside him, Bellamy lay with his paw's in front of him and his teeth latched into a large piece of bark.

Lizzie shook her head. She'd drunk coffee before on several occasions. If Marlene was ever to send her as a look out, she'd suck up her dislike for it and drink it to help her stay active. Whenever she was on patrol or being moved during the night, she drank Coffee so she'd stay awake much longer.

In all honesty, the smell wasn't as disgusting as she made it out to be, but having your senses flooded with the rich smell first thing in the morning wasn't pleasant.

The trio didn't have time to debate. Within the next structure of minutes, Joel and Bellamy were back in the front seat, Lizzie and Ellie in the back.

On the backseats, Ellie and Lizzie sat huddled together with a bright and shiny 'savage starlight!' Book in between them. Every so often Joel would call for directions, gesturing for one of them to instruct him where to go next on the map that sat beside them.

"Is that seriously what those Starbucks in the QZ used to sell?" Ellie questioned, looking up from the comic book, and staring distastefully at Joel's drink.

Joel took a long sip of the rich coffee, "Well, theirs was a lot fresher than what Bill saved up, but, yeah, this is what they sold."

"That smells worse than horse shit." Lizzie commented, her eyes captured on the comic before her.

"Exactly." Ellie agreed, clasping her hands together.

In response, Joel took an exaggerated sip of his drink, the sound making Bellamy tilt his head in confusion. The man looked in the rear-view mirror, rolling his eyes as he watched them sit in fascination with the comic. "Would you put that goddamn book down and keep your eyes on the map."

"Fine, Jesus." Lizzie muttered, throwing the comic back into her backpack, and shifting her gaze to the map.

"Seventy-six west and then seventy west for, like, ever." Ellie read out from the map, sighing in boredom.

" So, where in Wyoming did you say your brother was?" Lizzie questioned, leaning forward from her seat.

"Last contact came through a radio tower close to Cody." Joel responded.

"Cody. Cody, Cody," Ellie repeated, looking for it on the intricately detailed Map, "ah, man. That is deep up in there."

"Yeah."

"And what if he's not there?" The blonde raised an eyebrow, catching the almost scared look that passed over Joel's face for the ghost of a moment.

"Then odds are he'll be near a settlement, probably close to another city out there. Ain't too many of 'em in Wyoming." Joel remarked, directing his gaze back onto the endless road ahead.

Ellie creased her eyebrows together, tapping the blonde's arm and gesturing for her to look at where she pointed on the map. "Chee-Yen." The brunette pronounced slowly.

"Che-n." Lizzie read slowly, wincing at the wrong pronunciation of the place.

"Cheyenne." Joel corrected.

"Che—really?" The brunette raised an eyebrow. "Cheyenne."

"Laramie." Lizzie read from the Map, "Caspe—hey, what's his name?"

"Whose name?" Joel asked in confusion, glancing to the blonde through the rear view mirror. "Your brother's." She responded.

"Tommy. Doubt you'd know him," Joel answered, "reckon he left the fireflies before you even joined. How old were you when you joined, if your, like what, thirteen now?"

Lizzie huffed, "fourteen, dickhead. And besides, what happened to keeping our pasts to ourselves?" She raised an eyebrow, recalling the words he'd told the two girls back at Bill and Frank's house.

To be truthful, Lizzie wouldn't mind telling Joel and Ellie a fraction of her past. Maybe just how she'd managed to come across Marlene, or the non-violent things she'd done throughout her time in the fireflies, which wasn't a lot considering her actions were, more often than not, cold-blooded and ruthless.

Looking back on it, Elizabeth Dean hadn't been a good person. What good person holds a loaded gun to somebody's head at the age of eleven with no remorse. What type of saint helps plan acts of violence that lead to the loss of multiple lives at the age of twelve. And what type of angel watches in bliss as a dog rips apart a man simply for pointing a gun at her at the age of thirteen.

However, the motto of the world they lived in was 'kill-or-be-killed', so Lizzie's actions appeared miniature compared to the likes of Joel or Marlene.

Lizzie blinked out of her stare, looking back between Joel and Ellie with a recollective stare. "Was he younger or older?"

"Younger." Joel responded.

Looking up from the map, Ellie asked, "why isn't he with you?"

Joel grumbled lightly, as though it were a subject he wanted to neglect talking about, "it's a long story."

"Longer than twenty-five hours? Cause I think that's what we got." Ellie questioned, leaning through the gap between the front seats.

Joel turned slightly, looking at the two with a conflicted expression, deciding wether or not he should tell the two his brother's backstory.

Huffing, Joel explained, "Tommy's what we used to call a joiner. Dreams of becoming a Hero," he stated, "So he enlisted So he enlisted in the Army right outta high school. A few months later, they ship him off to Desert Storm—It's what they called that war. It doesn't matter." Joel mumbled the last two sentences as the girls gave him confused looks, "Point is, bein' in the Army didn't make him feel much like a hero. Cut to twelve years later, outbreak happens. He convinces me to join a group makin' their way up to Boston, which I did. . . mostly to keep an eye on him, keep him alive. It's where we met Tess." The world fell like poison from his lips, beckoning for him to take a large sip of his coffee, "And that whole crew, we, uh. . .Well, for what it was, it worked. And then Tommy meets Marlene. She talks him into joinin' the Fireflies. Same mistake he made when he was eighteen. Wants to save the world. Pipe dream. Him, Fireflies, all of 'em. . . delusional."

"Hey!" Lizzie protested, leaning forward to hit the man on the arm, "I'm not delusional."

Joel raised her an eyebrow, "could've fooled me." The man sat smugly, fighting the smallest smile as she mumbled at him, "whatever cowboy, carry on."

"'Course, last I heard, he quit the Fireflies, too. So now he's on his own out there, and. . . I gotta go get him." Joel finished, finishing the large bottle of coffee he carried.

Ellie looked out the window distantly, "if you don't think there's hope for the world, why bother going on? I mean, you gotta try, right?" She inquired, changing her gaze to the man.

Joel sighed, "You haven't seen the world, so you don't know." He paused for a moment, "You keep goin' for family. That's about it." He answered.

"We're not family." Lizzie intervened, looking thoughtfully at the man. She could tell in his voice that something was absent. Taken from him, slipped from his grasp never to be returned. Surely it couldn't have been Tess. Even when the woman had been alive, Joel showed resentment towards the two girls, his eyes glistening with the horror of past experiences. And Lizzie wanted to know why.

"No, you're cargo." He remarked, "And I made a promise to Tess. And she was like family."

After a moment of silence, Ellie asked, "What if you don't find him?"

Joel responded instantly, "I will."

"How'd you know?" The blonde added.

"I'm persistent." Joel grumbled, his tone irritated as he was starting to get annoyed by the endless round of questions he received. "You two got up pretty early. If you wanna grab more sleep—"

"Not even tired." Ellie denied.

It was then that Joel Miller learned not to believe fourteen year old girls whenever they say they aren't tired.

It hadn't take long for the truck to fill up with soft snores, both girls embraced in the comfort of slumber. Every so often, Joel would look into the rear view mirror, just to make sure they were okay— certainly not because he cared.

Beside him, Bellamy sat curled in a ball, his snores being louder than the girl's as he barked faintly in his sleep.

Joel sighed, looking up into the rear view mirror, his eyebrows raising at the sight: Lizzie sunk tiredly into her seat, her eyes closed and soft breaths falling from her lips slowly. Her head rested gently on Ellie's shoulder, to which the brunette's leaned on top.

For the first time Joel had seen them, both matched expressions of serenity and peace, free from any negativity as they leaned on each other. They fit together like two pieces of a lost puzzle, completing one another.

Joel shook his head in surprise. "Well, I'll be damned."

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"NAH, WE'RE NOT DOING THIS SHIT AGAIN." Ellie grumbled, noticing the weight of a head resting against her shoulder as she woke up. Recalling how stubborn the blonde was to wake up earlier, Ellie internally groaned.

Lizzie groaned as Ellie flicked the side of her head, turning away from her shoulder and towards the door. Ellie shook her head, "No. come on, sleeping beauty."

Peaking an eye open, Lizzie grinned tiredly, "you think I'm beautiful?" The girl let out a faux wince as Ellie pushed her away. "oh, shut up."

Sitting up properly with a yawn, Lizzie took notice to the car's unusual stillness and lack of a gun-wielding cowboy driving in the front seat. "Where's Joel?"

"Over there." Ellie pointed outside the car to a large blockade of forsaken vehicles that lay forgotten in front of the tunnel they needed to pass. In front of the vehicles, Joel sat, crouched, staring through the sliver of a gap that gave him the view of the tunnel.

Lizzie groaned, opening the backseat door and climbing out, ignoring Ellie's calls to ask where exactly she was going. Instead, she opened the passenger door, making tsking noises to get Bellamy's attention.

Immediately, the dog lit up, practically jumping on top of her and spinning excitedly. They weren't accustomed to spending time apart—even if it was just one of them sitting in the front, whilst the other sat in the back.

"Oh, who's the best boy?" She cooed, sitting on the floor and petting the dog as he jumped up, placing his paws on her shoulders, prancing around playfully. "Oh, you are." She giggled, kissing his head gently as they embraced each other.

After a moment, Lizzie stood up from the floor, dusting herself up. "Come on, come on." She beckoned Bellamy, opening the door to the backseat back up and letting him jump up straight onto Ellie who shrieked in surprise.

After closing the door, she made her way to the front seat, jumping in the passenger side as Joel walked back to the car.

"So, where the fuck are we?" Lizzie asked, unfolding the Map and looking at it in confusion. The one thing she could never do was read maps—to her it just looked like a dozen mismatched lines going every-which-way, impossible to identify where you where.

"Kansas city." Joel answered, taking the Map from her grip and trailing his finger across one of the multiple red lines.

"How far back do we have to go to get around this?" Ellie asked, pushing Bellamy away gently after stroking him, so that she could see what the two people were saying.

Joel shook his head, leaning back in his seat and looking at the tunnel before him with an exaggerated sigh. "Screw it." He dropped the map back down into Lizzie's lap, closing his door and starting the car.

"Uh, what exactly are we doing?" Lizzie asked, turning to look at the man with a confound look gracing her face.

"We can jog right around this tunnel. . . take the next ramp. . . and we're back on the road. Minute tops." Joel answered, steering the wheel around and driving back where they'd came from.

Lizzie couldn't help but feel tense as they drove through the discarded streets of Kansas City. Something about the lack of everything made her feel on edge.

"Where the fuck is the highway?" Joel ordered, looking to the the blonde next to him in urgency. She sat staring at the map in confusion, Ellie leaned in the space between the seats, and looked over the blonde's shoulder at the map.

"I can't tell from this. We're all turned around." Ellie complained, tilting her head as she looked at the unreadable piece of paper.

Joel barked back, "Don't look at the state map. Look at the inset."

"I can't fuckin' read the inset if I don't know what it is." Lizzie commented, for once her smiley attitude had disintegrated.

"The little box—"

"We don't know where we are on that either!" Ellie interjected, "this is my second day in a fuckin' car, man. I mean, I think we're heading north?" She guessed.

They carried on driving, each second inside the foreign city more deadly than the last.

"Stop!" Ellie belted, successfully making Joel slow down the car. "Is that the QZ?"

The Kansas City QZ was nothing like the QZ back at Boston. Instead, the enclosure was completely desolate and unattended to, as if the only people there were phantoms.

"What the fuck?" Lizzie breathed out, staring at the quarantine zone in surprise.

Ellie looked equally as surprised, "where the fuck is FEDRA?"

"Hey!"

Immediately, Lizzie's head snapped towards the foreign voice. A man—young looking, probably in his mid to late twenties stood—his hand clutched inside of his jacket which appeared to be coated in a layer of blood. "Please help!"

"Put your seat belts on." Joel demanded, reaching for his. "Ellie, grab Bellamy."

The girl did so, wrapping her arms around the dog who stood looking out the window closest to him. "Are we gonna help him?"

"No, he's got a fucking gun." "No."

Instantly, Joel slammed his foot hard on the accelerator, his eyes cold as the car drove straight towards the man.

The man panicked immediately, "Fuck!" He cursed, running to the right to avoid being crushed to death under the car. Only then did Lizzie notice the set up they were victim to.

"Joel!" She shrieked, gaining the man's attention as his eyes darted around the area, witnessing the men stood above the fire escapes of abandoned apartments.

A large box slammed onto the windscreen, shattering it with a gaping crack that shot around like a spider's web, covering the glass until it became unable to see through.

Joel turned the car in surprise, the vehicle running straight through a line of spikes infiltrating the concrete floors. Joel cursed harshly as a man ran in front of the car, shooting at them mercilessly, causing Joel to accept his only option left.

And so, the truck drove straight through a glass barrier of an uncared for laundry shop, fractured by the impact against a solid wall.

☼

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Every chapter is just closer and closer to Henry and Sam and I'm not ready at all

Anyway if any of u are making those GUT WRENCHING edits on tiktok of episode 6 stop my heart can't take any more 💔

Also I'm trying to do like a chapter a day maybe more depending on whatever just cause if I get it done by next episode it's just easier. But next episode is Riley and Ellie so I'll probably be sobbing so love that