Silver ||Joel Miller||

'I told you so' isn't enough to convey what I'm feeling

JOEL

"Save your ammo."

Joel was throwing his weight against the door, helping move the heavy fucking table that was in the way. Laura was getting her arrow from the skull of the person she'd killed, wiping their blood and brain matter onto their shirt before putting the weapon back into her quiver.

"I'll do it."

He should have heard Bryan coming. He should have dealt with the kid easily, but instead he ended up pinned to the ground, having to be saved by Laura who then had to be saved by Ellie because he was in shock and couldn't move. Joel should have killed Bryan, and instead Laura had done it without displaying a single emotion on her face.

The door finally gave way and he rushed inside, Laura right behind him as they closed the door and pushed the table back to where it had been.

"I'm good," Ellie said the second his eyes landed on her, trying to gauge how she was feeling about everything. She'd just shot someone, and the kid was... well, she was a kid. "We've got some food in our bags, we all have our lights and some clothes. We should be all set." Ellie have him his bag and handed Laura's over to her, which she immediately put over her quiver. Maybe she thought it was best to have them separate in case she needed to drop the weight quickly.

"Are you okay?" He asked, just to be sure. Ellie nodded, but he could tell she was putting in a brave face.

"We need to move, and we need to move fast." Laura cut in, tucking Bryan's knife into the side of her boot with a bit of material wrapped around the blade. "We need to find high ground so we can figure a way out of here."

"Then let's move." Joel agreed. The three of them carefully and quickly ran from the building, seeing painted over FEDRA vehicles wheeling through the streets and hearing whoever these people were finding the bodies of their friends.

They crept through several buildings before temporarily settling in one, an old bar with the windows covered in newspapers. All Joel could do was watch the movements of the people, of the vehicles and take notice of exactly what they were doing.

"Are we safe here?" Ellie asked, and he nodded.

"For now," he said. "Looks like they're checking apartment buildings first, so we should be fine." He pulled away from the window, turning to look at Laura who was back to wearing a stone-cold face like when they'd been running from Boston. And there was venom in her eyes, the toxicity matching how she'd looked at him when he'd pointed his gun at Ellie a few days ago. "What is it that you want to say? Is it 'I told you so'?"

"I have nothing to say." Well, that was a blatant lie.

"Don't bottle shit up." If he wanted to poke the bear, he was doing a spectacular job of it. Reminding her of the promise she'd made back at Bill and Frank's was one way to guarantee a rise from her. That's what he wanted. He wanted her to shout at him, wanted her to blame him for what had happened. That way he'd know he was right, he'd know that she hated him.

"I don't have anything to say because 'I told you so' isn't enough to convey what I'm feeling. 'I fucking told you so' doesn't come close to what I'm thinking. You wanted to cut through Kansas to save time and made that decision while ignoring the information I had and the instincts telling me to run the other direction. Because of that decision we have lost our mode of transport, all of our supplies as well as our safety." Her voice was calm, maybe a bit too calm, but at least she wasn't holding back. "We don't know who these people are, we don't know what they're looking for, how they got control of Kansas... and I don't like not knowing."

"They're not FEDRA and they're not Fireflies..." Ellie trailed off, and Joel didn't necessarily want the assault coming from the both of them.

"They're people." Laura said, her eyes never leaving Joel's. "They're a rebel militia we know nothing about. If we knew who they were we could find a way out of here by making a deal, instead we have gone in blind. You put us in this mess, and now I have to claw us out of it." He shook his head, sitting down across the booth from her.