Silver ||Joel Miller||

that's my dicey-as-fuck plan

LAURA

"Welcome to Killa City," Henry said as they walked into an old conference room, the windows reaching from floor to ceiling and giving them a clear view of most of Kansas City. Laura had perched herself on the edge of the table in the room. The kids were down the table reading through Ellie's book of terrible jokes while Henry stood in front of the window next to Joel.

Waking up that morning had been... interesting to say the least. Laura hadn't slept for long, but when she woke there had been an arm over her waist, a chest pressed to her back and Joel's familiar breathing against the back of her neck. While she was beyond okay with it, she made sure to nudge Joel off of her before he woke because she knew he wouldn't be. The look in his eyes when she'd asked if he trusted her...

"So there's no FEDRA anymore," Laura pointed out, dragging her eyes away from Joel so she could focus on the task at hand. Her fingers gripped onto the edge of the table, placed either side of her body for stability.

"Not since ten days ago," Henry replied. At the words she looked back to Joel through the corner of her eye, and the wince he gave in response showed her point had been made.

"I heard things about KC FEDRA..." Joel trailed off, and Laura gripped onto the table even tighter.

"That they were mobsters and savages? That's all true," Henry said. Laura took a deep breath, looking out over the city. "But you know what happens when you rape and torture people for twenty years? The first chance they get, they do it right back." She was glad for the fact that this had happened before they'd come, because the kind of bloodshed she imagined took place was not something she wanted to take part in.

"Jesus..." she whispered.

"But you weren't FEDRA," Joel pointed out the obvious. If Henry was FEDRA he would already be dead, but he was still standing.

"I was worse," Henry said. Her body went tense at the words. "I was a collaborator." So the terminology was the same here as it was in Boston. That made it easy for her to keep track.

"I don't work with fucking rats." Joel took a step back from Henry, and she stood up to keep him from walking away.

"Yes, you do." She looked up at him through her lashes as she spoke. "What do you think I did? I traded information, how do you think I got what I did from FEDRA? Yeah, I only gave them dirt on people I fucking hated, but I still had to collaborate with them so I could tear them down. We don't know why he worked with them, but you should know better than to judge so quickly." Joel's cold eyes softened for a second before they were like stone once more. Damn it.

"And I also have a way out of this hellhole, unlike you." Henry added, which was exactly what she didn't need but what else could she do? She could tell Joel what to do with her eyes alone, this kid had yet to learn her body language. "I have a plan, I just didn't have a way to actually get it done. I need people with actual combat skills, I don't have any. I've never killed anyone, the closest I've ever been to being violent was pointing an unloaded gun at your wife." God, Henry had been so confident in that assumption too.

"Wife?" Joel asked as she turned to look at the kid behind her with wide eyes.

"Girlfriend then?"

"For fucks' sake," she said as she ran a hand over her face.

"Okay, I'm confused. You two shared a bed last night and-"

"We're just friends, at best." Joel cut Henry off, and she had to take a deep breath to stop herself from being hurt by those words.

"I think we're getting a little off track here." Laura tried to bring the conversation back to topic. "What point are you trying to make exactly? Why do you need people who can fight to make this plan work?"