Suffering: Male Reader x TWDG

Chapter 34: Desperation

Captain Anderson pulls the car over behind a big hedge and orders everyone out. You all grab your backpacks out of the back and begin your trek into the woods. The plan is to create a small camp and wait until nightfall before observing the Delta HQ. You pull a map out of your backpack and study it, Jim reckons he saw their base on a huge river, which you guess makes sense considering they call themselves the Delta.

A small shipyard sits on the river according to the map. Jim said they have a few big ships parked up and have made a lot of defences around this shipyard, even going so far as to grow plants on the roof and setting up solar panels. He unfortunately didn't see much more as he didn't want to get too close in the helicopter lest they hear or see it.

"Why hadn't we searched this place before?" you ask, putting the map back into your bag.

"Because it didn't seem worth searching" Anderson replies, "Besides, the last time anyone from the Militia came here, all that was there was a small horde of infected and a whole lot of rusty boats".

You eventually find a good place to set up camp and get to work, small lean-to tents are erected around a tiny gas burner. You find some sticks and leaves to camouflage the tents to make them even less noticeable than they already are.

Goldilocks glances up from his position over the gas burner, "I hate camping" he sighs.

You crouch down next to him and reach your hands over the gas burners' flames to warm them up. "Why's that?" you ask.

"When I was eight years old me and my family went camping for the first time" he says glumly, "We drove five hours to the nearest national park and set up our tent near to a lake surrounded by these huge mountains" he says gesturing with his hands. "It was great until the second night in when we were attacked by a bear".

You raise an eyebrow at this, "You were attacked by a bear?".

"Yes" he replies impatiently, "My dad got his arm mauled by a bear and had to get it amputated at the ER, the park rangers reckoned that the bear was trying to protect its cub that was nearby and mistook us as a threat".

"Damn mate, that's some heavy shit!" Hulk exclaims as he leans up against a tree, he suddenly widens his eyes, "Umm Goldilocks, I don't wanna alarm you but there's a bear behind you".

You snap back around to see Bear standing behind Goldilocks, "Ha ha, not funny" Goldilocks says as he notices Bear and rolls his eyes, "I was real scared of camping because of that, it traumatised me!".

The others finish setting up their parts of the camp and join you around the gas burner. "Ghost what's going on with you and those girls?" Captain Anderson asks as he sits on the ground next to you and begins sharpening his knife. 

"I'm not sure sir" you mumble in reply, "It's all a bit confusing".

"Weren't you dating one of them?" Cutter asks.

"Yeah, Jessie" Bug says with a grin, "But they split up ages ago".

Hulk stops leaning against a tree and joins the rest of the group, "Why did you guys break up?" he asks solemnly.

"I dunno, I guess she just didn't trust me and I had enough" you answer, "Which is a shame, y'know because I loved her; or at least I thought I did. I think a little part of me was happy though, when we broke up". You bury your head in your hands and think back to your relationship with Jessica, regardless of whether it was true love or not, at the time you needed someone, you needed her, and now you don't.

"That's enough of the depressing shit" Goldilocks says, reaching into his backpack, "Who wants to play Uno?".

Many boring hours pass until it is finally dark enough to carry out what has been dubbed as "Operation Phantom" by Cutter, you even managed to get some sleep in your tent but now, everything has been packed away and the trek to the Delta HQ continues.

You're all wearing your masks now and have unslung your rifles from your backs, you're not supposed to engage the enemy but if they spot you and open fire you're not gonna just sit there and take it. Anderson puts up an arm and you all stop, he crouches down and creeps up forward, you all follow as he pushes through some shrubbery.

"There it is" Anderson whispers, "That's where the fuckers live". 

You peer through a bush and realise you're on the opposite side of the river from where the Delta HQ is, its lights illuminating many of the facilities they boast: A few guard towers, a rooftop farm, some strong looking walls, and a fleet of what seem to be fully operational boats.

The boathouse itself is a lot bigger than you originally assumed, and sits at the edge of the water, its white bricks reflecting the bright lights making the building almost glow slightly. "Shit, there's a lot more of them than we thought" Bug whispers as he looks through a pair of night vision binoculars towards the base.

"Yeah I wasn't expecting this many either" Bear whispers as he hands out binoculars to the rest of you, "What do you think Captain?".

It's too dark to properly see Anderson's face, and even if you could it would be obscured by the mask, but you're pretty sure he's frowning, "I dunno boys, they seem pretty well prepared, I don't think an assault would work, no matter how many soldiers we throw at them".

This dampens your spirits slightly but nevertheless you grab the night vision binoculars that were handed to you and look through them, the lights from the Delta HQ blind you slightly so instead you focus on the edge of their base, looking for any weaknesses and easy spots to sneak inside. That's when you spot it.

"Hey what's going on over there, to the edge of the base by those smaller boats?" you whisper to the others.

"It looks like two teenage girls" Hulk whispers in reply, "Not sure what they're doing though".

You zoom in further with your binoculars, "It kinda looks like they're trying to escape", you whisper, watching as they load up a small row boat with a couple bags and hop in.

"Well they aren't going to get very far" Bug whispers, "Look". A group of Delta soldiers run over to them, weapons drawn, and presumably begin questioning the girls. A searchlight shines over them, blinding you all. You decide to turn off the nightvision in your binoculars to watch what happens.

Without the green filter from the nightvision, you can see more details; like the girls' ginger hair. Your mind goes back to that school, to when you killed that ginger haired woman. What was her name again, wasn't it Bonnie? You wonder if they were related to her and suddenly feel a small tang of guilt which fades as quickly as it came.

You watch as it looks like one of the girls begins to plead but to no avail. She gets slapped across the face by a woman who then points at the other ginger girl. You cannot hear anything from so far away but you can tell from the body language that there's a heated argument going on. This then culminates when the angry woman hands over a knife to the ginger girl she slapped.

The girl looks down at the knife, perhaps in reluctance, and then she sighs; glancing over at the other ginger girl. "There's no way she's gonna-"  Bug whispers before gasping as the girl with the knife stabs the other girl in the chest, twisting it as it's pushed deeper.

"Holy fuck!" you exclaim, probably a bit louder than you should've, as the others shush you. You lower your binoculars and try to understand what you just saw, "They looked like sisters" you whisper to the others, "Why would you kill your sister?".

"Desperation" Anderson replies grimly, "Now come on, we've seen all we needed to see". 

A/N: Hello everyone, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to you all. We recently hit 5k reads and over 200 votes on this book!

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