Guilt (A Zero Spin-Off)

Two - Kyle

Miles said it. We'd made the decision before knowing we'd be taking an extra addition along with us. When the base commander tells you that the smartest person on the base, the one working to reverse this shitstorm, needs runners for something and requested you personally, well, you don't just turn that shit down. But I sure as hell wasn't going to pretend to be happy the girl tagging along. No matter how damn cute she was.

We were great. No close calls or bites. Nothing. But Miles, Joel, and I had been a team since long before any of this mess. We'd been working together for years and trusted one another implicitly. I knew we could keep each other alive, through in this girl, though, and I wasn't so confident. I doubted she'd ever held a knife for more than to cut her steak with.

End of the damn world as we knew it and Ella Fairchild walked in wearing lipstick. That was about all I needed to know that one way or another, this girl would be the death of me. Her long, dark hair was pulled into a high pony tail and her warm brown eyes were accented by thick black plastic frames that she kept scrunching her nose to keep up on her face. She had just come from the clinic with Dr. Summers and for the most part, she had the scientist look down. Except for the red lipstick. She was... not the kind of girl I expected to volunteer to go outside the gates. Ella was the kind of girl I wanted to take back to my room to see what her hair looked like spread across my pillow, not the kind I wanted to take outside these gates, into danger.

But I didn't have much choice.

"You're fucking serious with this aren't you?"

Joel wasn't thrilled about taking Ella along either, though his reasons were more personal. He'd get over it.

"What else do you suggest?"

He paced across the floor as we all packed our bags and I packed an additional one for Ella. He stopped, noticing the fourth bag and rolled his eyes.

"You think she's gonna be able to carry that?"

"She doesn't have a choice." I expected her to have a lot of trouble shouldering forty pounds of weight on her back for hours at time, days on end, but she needed the gear. I worked to make hers lighter, spreading out what I could between the three of us, but the fact of the matter was, she needed to carry her own weight.

"What if this is wrong?" He asked. "She made zombies. On. Purpose. What if they get this H-whatever and make it even worse?"

"Come on, Joel. I doubt it can get worse," Miles pointed out.

"You really wanna find out?"

"It doesn't matter," I interrupted. "You see the way she looked? That girl didn't do anything on purpose and she's what? Twenty, maybe? You really think she knew what she was doing?"

"That's not the point."

"You're right, because it's decided already. We're going and we're taking her with us."

"She ain't makin' it back."

Yeah. I hadn't been too sure about that either; it was why I'd fought against her coming to begin with. "It's our job to make sure she does."

Joel rolled his eyes, but he went back to getting his bag packed, so I counted it as a win. "Why ain't she here?"

Miles smirked. "She said she was going to pack."

"Just what the hell does she think she's gonna pack? Her makeup?"

Miles laughed, joining in as he said, "Twenty bucks says she shows up wearing to glittery shoes."