𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐎 (𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐔𝐒) *editing*

𝗦𝗮𝗳𝗲 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲🌞

"What kind of trouble are you in? Where the hell's Tess?"

After they left the bar, Bill began leading them upstairs, which happened to be a few worn-down break rooms or whatever. Maeve didn't know what to call it. It was upstairs, that was it. There wasn't much to the rooms, either. They were mostly empty and musty.

"It's a job. A simple drop-off." Joel answered Bill's questions.

They passed through a broken wall, over a sign, and into another broken wall.

"What are you delivering? Those brats?" Bill inquired.

"Haha. Fuck you, too." Ellie coughed.

Bill hollered out this weird laugh, "Y'know I hope you know what you're doin."

Ellie scoffed, and flipped Bill off, but he didn't see it. Maeve smirked, amused by how drastically this guy changed from the bar. He wasn't so hostile now, just...weird. She could hear him talk to himself, though she couldn't call that weird. She talked to herself sometimes too, for the times she needed expert advice.

"So, where are we goin', Bill?"

"My other safe house. It's more of an armory." The heavy clad man answered.

"Wait, I thought we were gonna fix up a car?" Ellie pondered.

"We? You know how to fix a—"

"Bill, just..."

Maeve rubbed the side of her forehead, a headache brewing. Between the dust and humidity, she was starting to feel snippy. She wanted this over with. She was exhausted, and frankly, she was tired of walking.

"...like I said, what I need is on the other side of town," Bill's voice rattled through the stairwell they descend in. "Now, that side I don't ever go to 'cause it's filled with infected. So, we're gonna need more guns."

They continued into a new building and hear an infected growling out.

Maeve's heart took off for the sky, was there one in there with them?

"Shhh...there's one inside." Joel ducked his head, ready to go stealth mode.

"Oh..." Bill puffed and pulled out his machete as they walked into a cafe-looking place. "I've been meaning to take care of that. Relax, it's nothin. So you didn't answer my question about Tess. I mean, I thought you two were inseparable."

"She's busy."

Maeve's breath caught in her throat when she saw the infected they heard stuck within a window. Its back and torso was pierced by spike trap. It growled and squirmed as it tried to escape the trap, though it only made blood seep from its wounds more. She couldn't help but feel sorry for the infected woman when Bill approached her with his large blade.

"Yeah, sure...busy," he hacked at the infected. "Sounds to...me...like might be trouble in paradise."

"Aw, gross..." the girls made faces as Bill beheaded the infected woman, the head bounced and rolled into the desert display case to the right of the window.

"Yeah, somethin' like that," Joel was quiet.

Maeve didn't blame him. He lost someone who was important to him. Hell, when she lost Jordan...she shut down. And she wasn't able to think straight at least two weeks. Sometimes she thought she wouldn't make to the next day, she still thinks that. She lost a piece her that she could never get back; it's like that with Joel, and she could sympathize with him because of it. The grief she felt could suffocate her.

"Alright..." Bill approached the door that led into a parking lot, which really was a deserted street. He pulled a ring of keys out of his vest and jiggled with the lock. "Here we go."