Silver ||Joel Miller||

so much for thinking clearly

JOEL

Joel's stomach dropped through the floor as he turned to see plaster and wood where the open doorway had been. They'd just walked through it... they'd just... and Laura had been...

Laura.

He wanted to shout her name. He wanted to shout it so that he could get a response. Every fibre of him needed to know that she was okay, but knew it would be stupid to do so.

They couldn't afford to make noise. No, that collapse would have drawn the infected towards it, which meant they had to hide. And quickly.

Tess and Ellie were in the room with him, so that was where he had to place his focus and worry. Laura would either be okay and figure it out or she wouldn't, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He directed Ellie behind a set of cabinets since she seemed to be in shock as she stared at the pile of rubble. He couldn't blame her for being stuck, because the only thing he was truly aware of was the lack of Laura...

But he had to focus. He had to keep Tess and the kid safe. Joel held a finger against his lips, and Ellie snapped back to the present and nodded.

He heard the slow hobbles of an infected and turned to see one walking into the room. Fuck. It was a blind one.

Okay. He could figure this out. He would figure this out. There was no other option.

All he had to do was think clearly, focus and—Ellie gasped. Ellie fucking gasped as her eyes landed on one of the infected.

God fucking damn it, so much for thinking clearly; there wasn't any time for it.

He pulled up his gun and immediately started shooting at the infected, but the gunfire drew the attention of a second one.

"Run!" Joel shouted, and it was hard for him to follow the chaos that ensued.

Tess and Ellie both disappeared from his view as he struggled against one of the infected, losing the rifle in the process.

Through some minor miracle, he slipped away from the infected, hiding himself behind a cabinet as he tried to reload his pistol slowly and silently behind it.

Fuck. They were going to die. He was going to die. He was getting too old for this shit and he was going to die. It would be his fault if the others died. He was too old, and it would get them killed.

He silenced his breathing as he heard the infected creep closer. He also tried to speed up the reloading process, but was more concerned about making noise and giving away his position.

At least until he looked up briefly and saw something that almost made him sigh in relief. Almost. It was an arrowhead poking out around the doorframe behind him.

It slowly lifted to what he knew was Laura's shoulder height before she quickly stepped into the open and let go of the string.

She shot the arrow with enough strength that it tore through the infected's skull, which then fell straight to the ground. Without wasting a second, she joined him behind the cabinet and he took in her appearance.

There was a gash on her forehead, and she was covered in a layer of dust, but otherwise she seemed okay. He could confirm that once they were in the clear.

Joel took a slow breath as he went to communicate there was more than one. She nodded before he could do anything, held up two fingers and lowered one. Okay, so she knew there were two, and that one was down. Good.

He nodded to show that her understanding was correct.

Then there was a clatter from across the room. Joel looked through the glass cabinet but didn't see anything. Maybe it was Tess or Ellie. Slowly and carefully, he made his way to where he'd heard the noise, Laura one step behind him as he found Ellie hiding behind a low cabinet.

He gestured for Ellie to follow him, and the kid crept around the cabinet to do so. Okay, he had Laura and Ellie, which meant Tess was the only one still missing. They were almost out of this.

At least they were until he stepped on a fucking piece of glass and the second infected came into the room. Laura slowly and quietly drew another arrow, and the three of them waited patiently as the infected clicked and shuffled around the room. He didn't entirely know what she was waiting for, but he didn't question her as she pulled the string taut, ready to loose it.

The infected crept closer. Too fucking close.

It would be on them in a few steps if Laura didn't fucking—Tess sprinted into the room behind the infected, and swung an axe into the back of its skull.

It wasn't enough to kill it, but it was enough to confuse it. Laura took that confusion in stride and finally stood up, loosing the arrow which went through the infected as perfectly as her first shot had.

"Is that all of them?" Laura asked, and Tess nodded. "Thank god." Laura stumbled, catching herself on the cabinet and propping herself on it.

"Are you okay?" Ellie asked the question at the forefront of Joel's mind. Concerned probably wasn't a strong enough word to describe what he felt. Distressed, maybe. Anxious, definitely.

"I had a fucking ceiling fall on me and woke to the sound of gunshots, so no," Laura replied, her eyes squeezed shut. She probably had a concussion, and he'd questioned why she had moved so slowly. Damn it, he was an ass. "Is everyone else okay?"

"Fucked my ankle, but otherwise..." Tess replied, and Joel's eyes flicked to his partner.

"Ah fuck." Ellie swore, stealing his attention completely. "Well, if it was going to happen to one of us..." there was another bite on the kid's arm, and he had to ignore the thundering in his ears.

"Are you kidding me, Ellie? You need to be more careful," Laura said, clearly compartmentalising her own ailment to shove past Joel and get to the kid.

"Careful? There were two blind infected, and you didn't let me have a gun!" Ellie shouted, which caused Laura to let go of Ellie's arm and hold her own skull.

"Joel, are you all good?" Laura's eyes seemed unable to focus as they turned to him, but he let it go. If he knew anything about her, she had to make sure everyone else was okay before she could focus on her issues.

"I think I'm okay," he responded, and she nodded.

"Good. We should get moving," she said before she stumbled over to the dead infected and pulled the arrows back out of their skulls. That was one handy thing about using arrows, he guessed. They were reusable, unlike bullets.

"We have to cross a plank of wood. Are you going to be able to do that?" He asked her, and she nodded.

"I just need a minute to sit down and then I'll be fine," she answered. He didn't believe her.

But at least she was alive.