A Family (x reader)

Stealthy

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Knox has joined a small group of guards on a trip past the sections outside of Haven. They're going around to kill off the zombies that was in a town, so they could scavenge through it safely. There wasn't as many as they suspected, but still a few. When they get back to the truck, they're shocked to see their weapons are gone and the one that guarded the truck was unconscious. Immediately on alert, they have their guns up and look around. They hear a noise from an alley and head for it while two stay with the truck.

Then suddenly someone covers the mouth to one of the guards from behind and chokes him with the other arm. He chokes him only until he's unconscious and lay him down on the ground silently. The other guard calls for the other. Not getting a response, he frowns confused. He turns around to look for him, but only to come face to face with a man with a hood and bandana covering most of his face. The man grabs him before he can aim the gun, and covers his mouth immediately before he can call out to the others. Then chokes him the same way as he did the others. He had waited until they had killed the zombies around the town, or else he would've found another way and not just leave them helplessly unconscious as a meal for zombies.

He then heads to the alleyway he had set up a noise trap. They had followed the noise and reached the end of the alley. Jackson sees what caused the noise and then looks to Knox in alarm, realising it's a trap. But as he turns he immediately aim his gun at someone behind him. The others turn around and see a man aiming two guns at the group. Instead of testing him and aiming Knox stop them, they raise their hands calmly after his orders.

"Who are you? Where are you coming from?" He asks them.

"My name is Knox. What can I help you with?" Knox politely offers, not wanting this to go bad for them and hoping to avoid any casualties.

"Where are you from?"

"I'll answer if you show your face."

He ignores it. "Where are you from?"

Knox just looks at him for a long time, waiting for him to remove the cloth covering his face. So Ethan takes it off, not wanting to get too hostile with these guys, not yet at least.

"Where are you from?" He repeats the question for the fourth time and is slowly getting annoyed by having to repeat himself. "I won't ask again."

Noting the growing frustration, Knox sighs. "I'm David Knox. We come from a place we call Haven. It's a safe place."

"Where is that?"

"I'm not just gonna give you our location. I need to know more. What's your name? Where are you from?"

Ethan stays quiet for a while, but then tells him which direction he has come from, not more than that. "North."

"How long have you been on the road?" Knox then asks him.

"Give or take six months."
(Again, I'm still not sure about the timeline, so I might change it.)

"Wow, that's a long time out here. Are you heading somewhere with a purpose?"

Ethan looks at all of them for a long moment, trying to read them. They all seem okay, just anxious about having a scary stranger aiming guns at them. He realises that these guys at least aren't like the typical bad people he's met since the apocalypse. They seem friendly, but that could also just be because they realise he has the upper hand. He can tell it's unusual for them to be snuck up on like this, like they have been used to have the numbers and advantages when meeting other survivors. Which tells him there are more of them somewhere.

He knew it wasn't that bad out here in this area as he has been walking through the past few days. And he hadn't seen any sign of survivors in over a month. If there were was, they might've gathered wherever these guys are from. So without any dangerous groups near, they must've thought it would be okay with the amount of people they had with them. It could've been, but Ethan was intelligent and extremely skilled for exactly these kind of things, having planned and executed missions for years in the military before the apocalypse.

He decides to slowly lower his guns, but keep them in his hands. He wasn't going to just assume they were good.

"I'm looking for someone."

"Who?"

Ethan just looks at Knox, not giving him an answer.

Knox frowns. "What's your name?"

"Ethan."

His eyes widen and look at Ethan in disbelief. Ethan frowns confused. Knox scoff a chuckle in disbelief.

"She's waiting for you." He then tells and see Ethan's strong stance immediately fade to shock.

"What did you say?" He stutters slightly, asking for confirmation.

"You're looking for Yn, aren't you?" Knox asks and Ethan lets out a shaky breath.

"Yn? You know.. you know where she is?" He asks.

He nods with a smile. "She's at Haven."

...

Ethan talks some more with them, just in case, getting more information. He makes them explain how you look like and other stuff that confirms they really know you. Then he agrees on coming back to Haven with them. He doesn't trust them yet, he needed to see you and know what you would say about them first. It could be a trap if they had only known you, but not anymore, but everything was too convincing not to give it a chance. If it turns out to be false that you're there, he would figure out what to do from there.

On the way to the truck, Ethan tells them about the knocked out guards. He then walks into a nearby building. When he comes back out a while later, he has a backpack and a child on his hip.

Having had to sometimes be hidden alone in places while Ethan checked an area or took care of zombies, Parker had over time learned to handle it a little bit better. But it's still not ideal. Parker is shivering in his arms.

The others look at them in surprise at seeing the child. He introduces Parker, but he just snuggles his face into his neck sniffling and breathing heavily from having cried during an anxiety attack when he was alone.

As they're driving and sitting on two rows opposite each other in the back of the truck, Jackson notices that Ethan is still tense and on alert. He understood the lack of trust in strangers, but wants him to feel better.

"She never lost hope, you know." He tells them.

Ethan sighs with a small smile. He hugs his son close, trying to comfort Parker.

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