Consequence

Chapter Eleven

Joel watched through the frosted glass of the window at the heavy snow fall outside. Watching as every inch of snow covered their tracks until there was nothing left but a white blank canvas untouched or unmarked. It was good, it eased his worry even if it was only by a little. They'd spent long enough travelling as far away from the lake resort as they could in order to make sure no one followed.

Until they couldn't even see the thick black smoke that floated into the air from the burning restaurant. Though Joel could still smell the ash on his jacket and in his hair. He pushed it out of his mind, Ellie was safe and that's all that mattered.

He'd led the girls as far they could walk until he found somewhere he deemed safe for them to settle. An old farm house not so dissimilar to the one Ellie had run off to back in Jackson. Except this one had had the attic renovated into a third story; complete with a bathroom, a bedroom and a small living space near the stairwell. The man had wasted no time in clearing the first two floors and securing them as best he could before moving into the attic. They'd emptied their supplies out and made the place as homey as possible. Giving Ellie and Ada the privacy of the bedroom; Joel had laid his sleeping bag out along the old beaten up couch. The first few nights had been hard but it turned out surprisingly comfortable. And he figured anything was better than the floor. Two weeks had passed and yet none of them were the better for it; Ellie was still having nightmares, Ada was hardly sleeping as she paced about the room listening out for the poor girl's cries and Joel was so paranoid of David's people tracking them down, that he'd put all his time and energy into staying on his watch by the window. His gun in hand, his wound still agonizing him as he pulled against the poorly sewn stitches.

The girls had done their best with what they'd had at the time, Ada using what medical knowledge she had from her skills as vet but without the proper equipment and medicine; it'd been difficult to tend to the wound and Joel counted his blessings that he was even still standing after the fall he'd suffered. From what Ada had told him it had seriously been touch and go for a good while before he'd eventually woken up.

He didn't even want to think about what could have happened had he awoken too late. Ada had been so scared when she realised that Ellie was gone. Only leaving a note informing her guardian of her hopes of finding them some food and perhaps some medicine for Joel. She had always been the one to go on the supply runs. The one who had taken Callus out to hunt for food. Ellie had always stayed with Joel, watching over him as he slept. Making sure he was warm enough; checking his fever had broken and then stayed away. Dabbing away the sweat with a wet rag while she waited for Ada to come back.

The woman had just rested her eyes for a minute beside Joel. Just a minute and yet when she'd woken...Ellie was gone. His fever had come back and the young girl hadn't wanted to wait. Hadn't wanted to disturb her from a well deserved rest.

He wishes he could've stopped it, wishes Ellie hadn't had to go through any of it. It wasn't fair, she was just a kid. It still made his blood boil when he thought about what that sick bastard was going to do to her. His hands were still bruised and sore from the men he'd beaten in order to find her.

Joel hated that Ada had seen that side of him. It was one thing to kill when you were defeating yourself against hunters or infected but killing two restrained men with no means of fight back was something else entirely. The brunette had just stood to the side as she watched it all happen. Flinching every time Joel brought his fists down against the man's face in the chair. That darkness that had slowly crept back; as he straggled the life out of him before beating the other by the radiator until he was nothing more than a bloody pulp. He'd turned back to see something he never wanted to see again in Ada's eyes as she stared at him...fear. She held back a flicker of caution as he'd dropped the metal pipe and moved towards her, when she took his bloody hand in hers; it surprised him when she smiled. It was small and broken but it was there. That look wordlessly telling him that it was okay. That he wasn't that monster that so many had been scared of in the past. When she looked at him he was just Joel. They were just two people trying to survive and save a lost girl they both loved as their own.