𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐫 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 | 𝐉𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 - 𝐓𝐋𝐎𝐔

𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭.

𝐂𝐈𝐑𝐈.

My eyes snapped open immediately when I heard voices coming from outside. I sat up straight and rushed over to the window.

I woke Ellie with my movement and she slowly sat up before looking over at me confused. "What is it?"

I peeked through the gap of the makeshift curtains we'd put up to see three men in the middle of the street, signalling to each other to search the houses. Shit, they found us.

"I think David's men tracked you - tracked us." I spin around and pick up my bag and weapons.

"Oh shit. W-what're we gonna do? What's the plan?" She scrambles onto her feet, picking up her things as well but I shake my head at her.

"What I'm gonna do is draw them away from here and deal with them myself. You're gonna stay here and watch over Joel." I point at her before jogging upstairs.

"What the fuck! No, I'm not. I'm coming with you." She follows after me.

"Ellie-" I turn on her at the top of the stairs.

"I'm not gonna sit here and wait, not knowing when you're gonna be back, okay? We'll be able to deal with them a lot quicker if there's two of us." She stands strong in front of me. "And even if you lock me up in here, I'll just find a way to sneak out."

She scowls up at me, evidently not going to budge.

Christ, is this how I sounded to Joel? No wonder he found me annoying.

"Fine, you stubborn little brat." I huff. "I trust I don't need you to repeat anything about what to do in an emergency."

"If we get separated, think of only myself and think of you later. You'll come find me." She says without missing a beat.

"Nice."

After a quick fist bump, we get to the horses in the garage and sneak out together. We had to roll the garage door up and back down as quietly as possible at the rear of the house.

There were men scattered all across the properties, but the main road cutting through was pretty clear. If most of these guys had guns then we had to be careful that neither us or the horses get hit once they spot us.

"Stick close to me and we'll be fine." I whisper to Ellie, who nods promptly.

But then as we were only just creeping away from behind our house, I heard footsteps rush towards us from the behind and heading right towards Ellie as she was just a few feet back from me.

"Over here!" The man hollers to the others as he races towards us.

"Ellie go!" I bark and she spurs on Callus as I pull out my handgun and shoot the guy in the face just as I nudged Paris.

We gallop down the main road and I quickly catch up with Ellie. "Don't look back, Ellie!" I call out as she glances back at me. We rode at high speed as the ground was on a decline, keeping our heads low as bullets flew overhead from nearly every direction. I shot the guys who got too close and let the others come after us.

We had just rode under the archway out of the village when I overtook Ellie by a few feet and a bullet hit Callus. The horse squealed and tumbled down a ravine, throwing Ellie and sending her down with him.

"Ellie!" I scream, sharply pulling on the reins and making Paris skid and do a tight u-turn.

I look up to the guy who stood upon a truck container beside the archway. He held the rifle that he'd shot Callus with and I quickly fire up at him, taking him down before shouting out for Ellie while keeping my eyes on the men coming straight towards us.