𝒑𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒓 ᖭི༏ᖫྀ 𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖𝚜

chapter eighteen : your words, not mine...

[XVIII]

THEY WERE your words.

"I'll kill you."

And I left you for it.

You and I were just a flicker, I thought, traipsing across the overgrown foliage with the pull of my heart weighing my feet down. Not even that. An ember. Something that was already dying when it decided to spark.

But you're still everywhere.

Fuck.

I rubbed my eyes that stung with the threat of tears and continued to push forward. I had no plan anymore. I wasn't sure I had a purpose. But my rage seemed to manifest once again on the same target.

You did this.

Ellie may have dug into my heart and torn it out but it was, once again, Abby who was the reason I was alone. She had wormed her way between us without even being present. She had ruined the only thing that kept me sane after I was abandoned. Well, no more. I refused to be directed, controlled by this woman who I didn't even see anymore. She had ruined me, murdered Joel, destroyed Ellie's happiness. She didn't deserve it. To live. And now it was as if my anger was, somehow, different. It wasn't this passionate, unavoidable feeling but, much like it had been whittled down to lethality, it was directed, honing in on one sharp edge that pointed towards a strategic outcome. She had to be eliminated. Before she destroyed anything else. And I would find her here.

The poignant sound of branches breaking snapped me out of my inner thoughts, and my head flicked towards the sound, monitoring the surrounding area. Neither beast nor man would prevent me from bashing the threat to death with Bertha or, if need be, shooting its head clean off.

I lifted the pistol from my holster to maintain a safe distance. It could be anything, anyone. Infected, some sort of animal, maybe. Abby, Ellie, some WLF fucker or a Seraphite. So I called out curtly and clearly,

"Show yourself, right now, or I'll fucking shoot."

The assailant rustled in a nearby bush a little, and I snapped round and aimed heartlessly. Whoever or whatever was in there was mere moments away from becoming a corpse. I stood my ground, waiting.

But when the assumed target finally crept out of the bush, I had to put my weapon down. I couldn't believe it.

"...Finn?"

A scruffy boy of about fourteen emerged from the greenery. His hands above his head to indicate his undeniable lack of hostility, he gently snuck from his previous hiding space into the light. His brown hair was cut shorter than I had remembered; it suited him, though it was matted a little with grease and dirt. His bony fingers were equally dirty, matching his faded attire. His grin was recognisable enough, however. Sheepish as ever as he spoke.

"Miss me, Amelia?"

His sing-song Scottish accent was still as endearing as I had remembered. I dropped my things to go and hug him immediately. His body was frailer than I had remembered, and it saddened me.

"I thought you were dead, you little shit," I gasped, pulling back to look at the boy. A little starved, very messy, but alive.

Finn and I had known each other from before I joined the WLF. Not long after my mum had passed, I met him at the San Francisco quarantine zone. We were introduced as the 'non-Americans' of the QZ, due to my being English and him Scottish, amongst a few others. I managed to leave for the WLF before the quarantine zone fell to the infected, and had presumed he had fallen with the city. I should have checked, I thought, but knew the WLF had strict rules about the independence of their trainees and soldiers. Had I gone to find Finn on my own, I probably would have died. And I was too wrapped up in my Abby fantasy, embarrassingly.