Right where you left me {a Joel Miller fanfiction}

Chapter 8 - Nothing Fucks With My Baby

"Nothing fucks with my baby, nothing can get a look in on my baby." - NFWMB, Hozier

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November 2023, Kansas City

It was mid-morning when we all awoke, packing up the small amount of things we had, sharing another few granola bars between the five of us. The food supplies were growing slim but the promise of getting out of Kansas City was enough to keep me going for now.

As Henry had promised we made our way up to the top floors of the building in order to get a better look at the city and plan our escape. Joel, Henry and I now stood at the large windows that overlooked all of downtown, or what was left of it. I tried to push away the feeling of nausea that had come over me like a tidal wave. I didn't love heights at the best of times but this stupid head injury was causing some serious vertigo.

"Welcome to Killa City."

"No FEDRA," Joel muttered, his arms crossed over his chest as he glanced outside the window.

"Not as of ten days ago, no."

"We always heard KC FEDRA was-"

"Monsters? Savages? Yeah, you heard right."

"Raped and tortured and murder people for twenty years. And you know what happens when you do that to people? The moment they get a chance, they do it right back to you."

"But you're not FEDRA?" Joel asked, looking down at Henry.

"No...worse." He paused for a minute before meeting Joel's gaze, "I'm a collaborator."

Joel looked between me and Henry shaking his head, "I don't work with rats," He scoffed.

I placed a firm hand onto his chest, looking up at him sternly, "What did we talk about last night, huh?" I spoke quietly, but with authority, trying not to crumble under Joel's sheer size looming over me that never made me feel very authoritative.

"I'd listen to your girl." My head snapped around to Henry.

His girl.

"Listen. I live here and you don't. So you do work with'rats'. Today you do. That's how I followed you here. I know this city, and that's how I'm going to help you get out."

"Why help us?" Joel asked, narrowing his eyes at Henry.

"I saw what you did, both of you. The way you killed those men. Now, I know where to go but I don't know how to make it through alive. Not if it's just me and Sam."

"You seem capable enough, you're armed," Joel argued. I could tell he was never going to fully trust Henry, but as I had said last night I just needed him to trust me. Although even that was never full proof.

"Wrong and wrong. Never killed anyone. And pointing an unloaded gun at you was the closest I've ever come to being violent. So that's the deal. I show the way, you two clear the way."

Our rather tense conversation was interrupted by the sound of bright laughter coming from the table behind us. Henry and I turned to see Sam's head thrown back as Ellie showed him her pun book. The sight almost made my eyes well up with the tears, something that should have been so natural for children, was ripped away from them and made a rarity, a privilege even.

I thought back to my own childhood. The one that was cut far too short, taken from me by the outbreak which caused me to lose everything. From my parents to the innocence which went along with watching them die at the hands of FEDRA guards at the entrance to the QZ they had fought so hard to get us to. I knew they were infected, but I had hoped someone could have helped them, maybe they could have found a cure. But that was a naive thought, there was still no cure I didn't think there would ever be one. No matter how much bullshit the Fireflies preached about one.