Daynah

One night you heard them arguing. 

Their shouts echoing down the tunnels until they reached you and roused you from your bed. Pulled you from your room and into the hall where your brother already stood listening. 

“Go back to sleep,” Jake told you when he saw you, sounding like your father even though he still looked like you. Just another kid who was trying not to be scared while hiding in the dark. 

“We have to go find them,” came your mother’s voice from down the hall, the distance and the door to their room not enough to cover the way she was pleading with your father. “They could still be alive. We have to at least see.”

“No,” your father had replied with a snap. “No, they should have listened to me. I told them. I told them it was only a matter of time.”

“They could die. We have to go back. My parents. Yours. Your brother. His family.” Your mom listed them on and on, each name bringing a memory to your mind, goodbyes you didn’t know you’d already made. “We can’t just leave them. We have food here. Supplies. We could expand the tunnels. We could – ”

“No.” There was silence then except for the sound of crying, more muffled words that were too faint for you to make out until your father said, “If you go, you go alone.”

*****

The scream had been your starting gun. 

The snap of the concealed rope ripping your captor up into the air with enough strength to crack branches as well as bones while the two remaining stand in transfixed horror. Though not for long.

In a matter of seconds they’re after you again, their speed and their balance far less compromised than yours is with your hands still tied behind your back. But you don’t need to be fast so much as you need to be smart, a map you’ve only ever held in your hands now playing out rapidly beneath your feet in the moonlit dark.

The rock with the broken face. Four steps past. One step right and — 

The ground starts to give way beneath you as you stumble forward, nothing to break your fall before your body hits the ground with enough force to knock the air clean from your lungs. To leave you gasping for breath as tears sting your eyes, another scream ending in a yawning pit of sharpened spikes.

Too close. Too close. Too close.

The stream of frantic yelling behind you is your first indication that it didn’t claim both of your remaining assailants. The random eruption of bullets whizzing over your head and shattering chunks of tree bark the second as you awkwardly scramble to your feet and keep running.

“You fucking bitch!” the last one screams at you from his own place on the forest floor, your eyes finding him there when you look back just in time to see him get up and start moving with a slight limp that you hope is still enough to slow him down. 

The fear clawing at your chest makes you want to sob even as your survival instincts refuse to spare you the energy or the oxygen to do so, refuse to let you slip into enough self-pity that you just curl up in the leaves and give up.

No. Not like this. Not like this.

You’re so tired already. Your lungs burning and your side aching as you try to breathe. Try to get enough air that your vision stops going fuzzy at the edges.

“Wait until I fucking catch you!” he shouts behind you. “You’ll wish you were dead!”

If he does, you know he’ll make sure he’s right, but if he doesn’t… The one in charge… He had mentioned a truck. If you can just get to the truck. 

You keep moving, trying to keep in mind both the direction they were heading with you and where you are on the grid. Wondering how far away the truck could even be, how deep in the woods you even are.

When you were a child it always felt like the walk from the car to the bunker took ages, your arms laden down with canned goods and clothes but your legs are longer now. Already carrying you to parts of the world you haven’t seen in so long, and even if you can’t afford to cry, you can’t help but laugh. An insane burst of air from your chest at the knowledge that even while being hunted, you’re still more free than you’ve been in thirteen years.

Behind you, the last man is gaining, his heavy steps growing closer to yours as you swing left, trying to do the rapid mental calculation of even steps to choppy strides. Frightened of your own failure even more than you are of him, afraid that the hand that snatches your escape from you in the end will be your own.

Dry creek bed. Twin trees. Five steps to the side…

Nothing happens. At least not to you. Relief propelling you forward as you keep running, your head turned to look over your shoulder as you pray that you’re the only one that makes it through –

And that’s how you miss them. So preoccupied with what is behind you that you miss what is now in front. Four faces in a clearing looking at you like you’re already a ghost.

No. No. No. No. 

There are more of them? Four more of them?

No, please, no.

There has to be a way out. There has to be something. This can’t be it. This can’t be it.

Back in the woods, you hear the sound of what you thought was your last captor finding your last trap. The deafening crack ricocheting around the following silence long after it does you any good, and you almost laugh again, thinking about how you had thought you had a chance. You’d really thought you had a chance. 

This can’t be it.

“Get on the ground now. Get on the fucking ground.” 

One of the men is shouting at you, panicked-sounding orders you don’t think you should follow. Knowing that if you do go down, you won’t be getting back up. 

“I said get on the ground!” he says again, the light on his rifle alternating between shining into your eyes and into the trees behind you. Looking for whatever might have taken out the others. Apparently not willing to believe it could have been you even if no other options are currently presenting themselves to take credit.

It was. It was you. You had just led three men to their deaths.

Shouldn’t you feel guilty?

“Fuck it,” the man in front snaps, pointing his gun directly at you as two of the others do the same, and you can’t help but study each of their faces as you squint into the light. Their haggard, hardened appearance, dirt-streaked and scarred and… scared. 

Not exactly what you’d hoped for when you dreamed of encountering the rest of the human race again but maybe this is what it is now… Maybe everyone is just hiding in the dark now. 

The fourth man you look at is the only one that still has his gun at his side, the only one whose eyes will actually meet yours. When was the last time someone’s did?

Is that why you find yourself wishing you could know their exact color, wishing you could see them closer? See him clearer than the shadows and the glare from the rifle lights will allow.

He’s larger than the others, stronger too you would guess, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t seem to be afraid like the rest of them are. Maybe that’s why his gun stays at his side. Maybe he already knows he doesn’t need it to define your fate.

You look away, finally giving up, your eyes going to the sky as you wait for them to close one last time. One last thought before you hear the bullet fire.

At least, you won’t die in a tomb.

*****

He doesn’t even know why he does it. 

Knows for certain that he doesn’t even actively decide to do it until the image of you squinting into the flashlight’s beam is sharper in his mind than the knife already in his hand. The same blade they’d tried to use on him in his apartment back in Nashville now finding a new home embedded in the man that had stood to Joel’s right, his death nearly silent until the moment he softly thuds against the hard ground.

When the one who had been to Joel’s other side hears it, he turns, barely having a chance to see the gun aimed point blank in his direction before Joel is already squeezing the trigger, and he falls too, louder than the first so that the one left standing closest to you pivots in Joel’s direction.

“Fuck – ” He switches his rifle to line up with Joel, choking up on the grip and his finger on its way to the trigger until he sees Joel’s is already on his own. “You fucking asshole. What the fuck are you doing?”

Joel shrugs with a half smile on his face. Still not sure himself, but if his choice is between watching these assholes hurt you or watching them die at his hand, it’s not much of a choice. No love exactly lost anyway between him and the men he’s been sharing a city with for the last few months.

“Drop the gun,” Joel tells him coolly, watching Edison’s last Hunter shake. His grip on his rifle far from steady as he tries to hold it level, his eyes darting back and forth between you and him though Joel has barely dared to look at you again except to note exactly where you are in relation to himself. Which is how he knows precisely when the rifles starts to drift back in your direction.

“Not at her,” Joel snaps, making the other man jump as he follows the command. “You aim at her, and I will shoot you. Drop it.”

“You’re already going to shoot me,” the Hunter argues, his voice tinged with desperation as he watches Joel press forward with his pistol, surrendering the rifle to the ground as Joel shifts to place himself between you and him. “What? So she’s with you? This whole thing a fucking setup?”

What whole thing? Because Joel is increasingly certain that it involves more than just the supply run Edison had claimed if there’s a tied-up young woman fleeing out of the woods. His suspicions only aided by how tight-lipped the other men had been about it after Edison left. Likely not trusting Joel enough with the truth… Not that he can exactly fault them for that instinct. 

He doesn’t risk a glance in your direction until he’s stepped forward and kicked the gun a safe distance away, your gaze intently following its path before you look back at him with wide, uncertain eyes.

Where the fuck had you come from? 

They’re too far off the map to be close to a town, but is there a camp in the woods? Are you part of a group of survivors that had recently fled the city? Decided to take their chances in the wild? Is that why Edison is here? His fucking delusional quest for expansion? 

Don’t worry… we’ll make sure everyone gets a chance to have some fun.

Edison’s last words to Joel before he left with the others resurface in his mind, and while he’d had a bad feeling about them then, he feels even worse about them now that he’s had a better look at you. Seen the way your clothing is torn and your arms are scratched, your face swollen on one side and your bottom lip trembling even as you hold your head high. 

Honestly, he’s amazed that you’re holding yourself up at all, apparently ready to fight again as you actively tug at the rope around your wrists where you think they can’t see.

So she’s with you?

Joel’s attention shifts back to the disarmed man in front of him, the Hunter taking an involuntary step back as Joel starts to stalk forward.

“Guess all that shit about you is true, huh?” the other man accuses, his voice cracking as he jerks his head towards the men lying near the truck. “How many that make for you? Or can you even remember?”

Joel does. He remembers all of them. 

And as he aims his gun once more, he knows he’ll remember this one, too.

*****

You don’t flinch until the gunshot. An automatic reaction more to the sound than to the sight. More to the violence of the disrupted silence than to the disrupted life.

With the light from the rifle on the ground, his outline looms large and foreboding from behind, his broad shoulders rising and falling, straining his denim shirt with each breath he takes. Faster than perhaps he might otherwise though his hand falls slow and controlled back to his side. 

Who is he?

As if you had asked the question aloud he turns, his features coming into focus again in the moonlight as he steps closer. A strong jaw and nose, thick dark hair and a short cropped beard, a furrowed brow over eyes that you still can’t see well enough to satisfy your curiosity over their color.

“You okay?” he asks, his tone as abrupt as the actions he’s just taken. “How badly are you hurt?”

You blink, taking your eyes from him as you look down at yourself. Hurt? Are you hurt? 

At the question, you suddenly remember the sharp sting of the hit to your face, the strength of Edison’s hand squeezing around your throat, your hard fall against the forest floor as you had tried to escape. The sudden collective and returning pain enough to make you sway where you stand. 

When he reaches a hand out to steady you, your automatic reaction is to shrink away, curling in on yourself as if to protect from another oncoming blow. And in response, his jaw clenches, something akin to anger in his expression though you don’t think it’s directed at you.

“You’re alright,” he says, stopping where he is and raising his hands after slipping his gun back into the holster at his hip. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay? Is there anyone else coming after you?”

“There was one other one,” you tell him quietly, your eyes falling to the ground and your voice feeling hoarse as if from overuse. “He stayed in the tunnel with my… He wanted to talk to him.”

God, your dad… and Jake. Jake is still back there. 

“Who?” he asks, bending down slightly to get you to look at him again. “Are there other people out here?”

“Just my brother and… Edison,” you say, his name enough to make you grind your teeth together as angry tears threaten to spill over. “He kept my brother back when the others took me out of the bunker. Said he wanted to make sure they were on the same page.”

“Well that buys some time considering how much Edison loves to run his mouth.” He sighs, cursing under his breath. “And the others? They’re all dead?” 

He’s so much closer now, his eyes locked on yours. Brown, you finally realize, a deep shade of brown that right now looks nearly black.

“They’re dead?” he prompts again when a few more moments pass without you answering, clearly impatient for details you have not yet offered. “Are there traps in the woods?”

You nod, not remotely surprised he’s managed to guess. Not when you can still hear the way they’d screamed. Would it bother you more if you couldn’t also still hear their words as they led you out of the tunnel, couldn’t still see the cruelty etched into their faces as they beat your father?

“They deserved it,” you tell him coolly, daring him to disagree. Instead he simply says, “We need to move.”

This time when he reaches out, you let him touch you, his hand encircling your upper arm, the heat from his palm radiating through your shirt as he guides you towards the back of the truck. Holding on just enough to keep you upright as the fatigue and the realization of everything that’s just happened continues to set in. 

“Wait,” you murmur suddenly, turning back towards the woods, a sudden movement that he interprets as a stumble, pausing long enough for you to right yourself and start moving with him again. “My brother. I can’t — ”

You can’t leave him here. You can’t leave him here with that man.

When you reach the truck bed, he lowers the gate, helps boost you up to sit on it with his hands briefly on your waist before searching his jeans pocket, muttering a curse under his breath, and scanning the woods once more.

“Hold on,” he tells you, the implication clear that you should stay where you are as he stalks back to the body of the first man he’d killed. Bending down to retrieve the previously abandoned blade, he wipes the glinting edge on the grass to clean it with a casualness that should turn your stomach, a sense of indifference that should terrify you. But it doesn’t. 

Whoever he is. He clearly knows not just how to fight but how to kill, how to survive in whatever state the world is in now. Are you crazy for still wanting to find out for yourself?

He straightens back up out of his crouch, the knife still in hand as he walks back your direction. 

“Stay still. I’ll cut you loose,” he explains, gesturing in the direction of the rope, and you hesitate for all of two heartbeats before you lean forward to give him better access, looking back over your shoulder as he stands behind you.

His callused fingers brush fleetingly against your skin, the touch very nearly soothing even as your wrists give another dull throb of pain. Drowning out the additional curse he mutters as he examines the binding. 

“This’ll hurt for a second,” he tells you right before he puts pressure on the rope, pulling it away as far as possible from your skin so he can slip his knife underneath and slice through the cord with one sharp tug.

The relief is instant when the binding snaps, full feeling rushing back to your fingers as your wrists fall free and you move to massage them without thinking. Hissing in pain as soon as you do.

“Shit,” you mutter, letting him closer again. His touch gentle as he examines your wrists, disappears again to collect a bag and a flashlight from the truck cab so he can get a better look. 

Under the sudden flood of light, your skin looks angry where the ropes had been, abrasions wrapped around each that sting and bleed, and just like last time there seems to be a delay in how quickly your body registers the sensation. 

“It looks worse than it feels,” you murmur absently, so soft that you almost expect him not to hear you let alone to answer but he does.

“Adrenaline is a hell of a drug,” he says simply, gently clasping your chin between his index finger and thumb so he can turn your face and get a good look at your cheek, too. He frowns, jaw clenching just before he says, “It’ll hurt plenty soon enough.”

Why is he helping you? Why are you being so quick to let him?

“You were with them,” you say softly, half statement and half question, because obviously he was when he came, but apparently he isn’t now. The bodies lying on the ground serving as testament to the fact. 

Is he hoping that if he patches you up, you’ll lead him back to the bunker? Hoping to have fewer ways to split things if everyone else is dead?

His eyes follow the same path through the carnage that yours had just taken. “I was.”

*****

He needs to get you out of here. Is pissed at himself that he hasn’t already, but he had been set on at least checking to make sure you weren’t too badly hurt before he got you into the truck, the image he has in his head of you bleeding out on the highway not one that he is particularly keen to experience.

He’s already lived enough nightmares, and you seem to have tonight, too.

Whatever happened even before the clearing understandably has you shaken up, enough that you’re likely not even aware of how much you keep trembling. And he wants to ask you about it even if he knows it’s not his place. Especially not now when most people prefer to keep their stories to themselves.

“We need to go,” he tells you again, watching the way your eyes seem more and more intent on drifting closed the longer he has you up on the truck gate. But as soon as he makes the suggestion, they widen. 

“I can’t,” you say adamantly with a firm shake of your head. “I can’t. I have to go back for my brother.”

Part of him would like to see you try, has a feeling that you would surprise him with how far you get even in the state you’re in, but if there really are traps in the woods… Even if you managed to make it through those a second time, you would still have to deal with Edison. Who will undoubtedly have the advantage.

He could go with you… Christ, what the fuck is wrong with him? Why the fuck did he have to go to Nashville in the first place? He doesn’t need this shit. Didn’t need to get roped into some grand plan by a fuckin wannabe cult leader. Didn’t need to get hauled from his apartment out to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. And he definitely doesn’t need some young woman with doe eyes looking up at him like he’s…

Joel lets out a tired, frustrated sigh before asking, “This brother younger or older than you?”

Please don’t let it be a kid. Please don’t let it be a kid. Please don’t let it be a –

“Older,” you say, the frown on your face showing your confusion at his question. “He’s a few years older than me. Why?”

Joel feels a brief brush of relief before he presses his mouth together into a hard line, already anticipating your reaction to what he’s about to say. But he knows this is the right thing. It’s what he would want if it was him and Tommy in this situation.

“We need to move,” he says again, helping you down from the truck and wrapping an arm around your shoulders when you immediately start to wobble. As soon as you’re steady, he releases you, trying not to focus on how you had so briefly fit against his side. How good you smell.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

He walks a few paces ahead, wrenches open the driver’s side door and leans in to get started on hot wiring it. “You can’t go back in there. I’ll take you to a QZ – ” 

He stops, hating that idea but not sure what to even offer besides that. Where else is there to even go now? Unless you’re someone like him, and despite whatever you managed to pull off in the woods tonight, he can already tell that you’re not. Although it’s not like you would exactly be safe in a QZ either.

As brave as you seem to be, you’re still too soft looking. Too sweet with how trusting you already are of a man who has just murdered three others in front of you. Not seeming to realize that he could be just as bad if not worse. How have you not run screaming?

“What’s a QZ?” you ask as you walk up behind him, your curiosity bare when he looks back at you. Your expression carrying none of the overstated edge that most people have had to equip just to survive. As if somehow… 

“It’s a… ” he begins to say, your earlier mention of a bunker finally clicking into place as the car jumps to a start. He turns to look at you as he straightens back up. “How long have you lived out here?”

You look away before you answer, your fingers fidgeting across your lap before you hedge your words and reply, “A while. A few years.”

No. There’s no fucking chance. 

Raiders would have found you. Something would have found you. He looks back at the men on the ground. Perhaps something just had.

“A few years,” he repeats, staring you down but you only jut your chin up at him in defiance. Something about the gesture causing a flickering awareness within him to lift its head.

Too soft, he reminds himself. Too sweet.

His hand twitches at his side as he jerks his head in the direction of the truck cab. “Get in the truck. We need to go.”

You shake your head again, taking a step in the other direction. “I already told you. I can’t. I need to go get my brother.”

“All you’re going to get is yourself killed,” Joel counters, gripping the door to keep himself in place when all he wants to do is match the step back you took with a forward one of his own. “I’m sorry about your brother. I am but if Edison hasn’t killed him already – Stop.”

You’re already halfway to the treeline by the time he lets himself follow you, his long strides making up the distance of yours in half the time.

“Look, I get it,” he tells you as he plants himself in front of you, hands up so you’ll remember he’s not a threat. “I have a brother, too. I understand. But you’re injured. You’re not thinking clearly, and you’re going to end up in one of your own traps.”

“What? So I’m just supposed to leave him here? With that…” you trail off, close to yelling as tears start to stream down your cheeks. “I can’t do that. I can’t just go.”

“Alright then, walk me through it,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady as he becomes increasingly aware of how much time is being wasted. “What’s your plan? Where even are they right now?”

“They’re in the bunker,” you tell him, pushing the hair back from your face before you cross your arms in front of your chest. “There’s only the one asshole left… I can make it back. I know where I’m going and I’ll be quiet getting through the door, and I’ll — I’ll shoot him.”

“With what?” Joel snaps, torn between annoyance and pity as he gestures at your empty hands. You can barely stay standing but he’ll be damned if you’re not clearly convinced you’re going to storm the fort and succeed.

You look down, flustered, but you turn on your heel with a huff and stride towards the closest dead man. Reaching down and picking up his orphaned gun just before you stumble again, catching yourself with a low curse.

“Look,” Joel says once more, approaching even more cautiously now that you’re armed, “This isn’t going to go the way you want. Just… ” 

When your head whips back in his direction, you look so desperate that he’s half tempted to say fuck it and go with you anyway, to follow you on a suicide mission in the dark. But instead… He lies.

“Just give it until morning, okay?” he offers in what he hopes is a convincing tone. “We can take the truck and move it so they can’t leave. We’ll lay low. And in the morning when you’ve had some rest, and we’ve had a chance to think about this, we can go get your brother. Alright?”

You stare back at him, teeth digging into your bottom lip before you look down again at the weapon in your hands and ask, “You’ll go with me?” 

“Yes,” Joel says, the lies coming even easier now that he thinks they might actually get him what he wants. “I’ll go with you.”

He’s not sure that he breathes until you finally nod in acceptance, your shoulders sagging as you let the gun fall to your side. “Is this about the supplies? Is that why you’re helping me?”

Joel frowns, not following your abrupt swerve in topic. “The supplies?”

You look up at him from beneath raised brows, doubtful about his honesty on this topic at least. “That’s why you all came, right? For the supplies? I – I promise to give you whatever you want from the stockpile if you help me get him back. You don’t have to pretend.”

He stops himself from pointing out that if a few canned goods were what he was after he would probably not be the one suggesting leaving. But he’s willing to play along with any line of thinking that gets you back towards the truck and away from whatever is lying in wait for you in the trees. 

“Okay, deal,” he says simply, walking forward again and herding you towards the truck with one hand hovering over your back. Not able to keep from looking over his shoulder again and again until he has you safely in the driver’s seat. You hesitate before sliding over to the other side. Is he going to have to fight with you over who is driving to because he’s just about –

“Wait, who – what’s your name?” you ask, your eyes narrowing as you study his face, and he does the same to you now that it’s illuminated by the overhead light inside the cab.

Soft, he thinks again as he scans your features. Everything about you is so soft, but especially… His gaze lingers on your mouth, the inviting shape of it, the way it looks like it would have the perfect amount of give beneath his tongue. His teeth. 

“Your lip is split,” you murmur softly, his eyes flicking back up to yours as you take a shaky breath in. And he has a sneaking suspicion that this time the root cause of your trembling isn’t the same as it was before. “You, um… ”

God, how easy would it be just to lean in… just to…

The light changes on your face as you look down, the cut on your cheek standing out even more prominently on your skin as Joel feels a dark undercurrent of rage at the sight of it. He should have made them suffer more.

He looks back at the woods, one more check before he nods his head in the direction of the passenger seat, signaling for you to slide across the bench to the other side. And this time you do. 

“Joel,” he tells you once he climbs in beside you, watching you closely when you offer your name as well as your hand in return.