lumy12

Page Two Hundred Five

You stare at the man, and you would swear that you're intimidating him, even though he's the one with the gun. Dude, you suck at this... "You want my gun? Come take it, then." You're being a good girl, keeping your hands in the air.

He moves toward you slowly, reaches for your gun... you wait until his hand is on it, then grab his head and bring your knee up swiftly into his face. It stuns him enough that you can easily take the gun from him. You back away, leveling it at him. "Your turn to freeze."

He lifts his head up, and you wince at the blood spurting from his nose. "Don't... please!" he cries, his voice trembling. "I can help you! I'll help you get out of here!"

"Why do I need to get out of here? What's going on? What's the alarm for?" When he doesn't answer for three seconds, you waggle the gun at him impatiently. "Answer me!"

He's covering his nose, and in doing so, his mouth, which makes it kind of hard to hear him when he does speak. "It was him. ...We know who you are."

"Him" meaning Joel? "What do you mean you know who we are? If that's true, you wouldn't have fucking threatened me!"

"I'll help you," he repeats through his hand, blood trickling through his fingers. "If you let me go, I won't let them touch you. I promise."

"Who wants to touch me? What does that even mean? And dude... no offense, but I don't think you can protect me any better than I can protect myself. If you don't fucking tell me what's going on..." ...Joel! He's sneaking up behind the guy! That totally distracted you from your line of thought, but it was pretty good timing with the words of your unfinished sentence hanging in the air ominously.

"Can you not guess?" the guy replies. "Like I said--"

You're not surprised when Joel attacks the guy. You are surprised to see him using a shiv instead of just strangling him, or whacking him with whatever club-type weapon he's carrying. You wish he would've let the guy talk a little more first, but you're certainly not going to complain.

"Thought you liked to save those for Clickers. And doors!"

Joel lets the guy topple to the floor, then shrugs. "His hands were right up there... he might've been able to stop me."

"Ha! His hands were up there cuz I fucked up his face -- you totally could've taken him. I'm surprised you couldn't tell by looking that he--"

"C'mon -- we've gotta get out of here," Joel urges, grabbing your arm -- as if you're not going to follow him or something.

You shake him off. "Wait! There's a guard--"

"Took care of him already."

"What about Danny?"

"He's here. If anyone shows up, he'll cover for us. Let's go!"

You try to match his trotting pace. "What do you mean 'if anyone shows up'? Who's going to--"

"I'll explain later," he tosses over his shoulder.

"That guy said he knows who we are? But I don't think he does, cuz he was acting like we're hunters or something--"

"Later, Ellie!"

It's clear that you're not going to get anything else out of him right now. Not while he's in flight mode.

"Can I at least say hi to--"

"No!"

You jog past several people in the halls on your way out -- scared, freaked-out people -- but Joel doesn't kill them, or even acknowledge them. You suppose because none of them are armed... and none of them try to stop you. You mount your horses and take off without incident.

You don't even try to ask Joel what happened for another good fifteen minutes or so. Again, he dismisses your questions with "later." Two hours later, when you're ready to go following a 'bathroom' break, you try yet again -- and you get a "later" laced with exasperation.

You groan. "Joel, can you blame me for wanting to know what the fuck all that was back there? I didn't even do anything, and this guy points a gun at me and says he knows me. Knows us. You did something that set off the alarm, right? What was it? Did that guy know about it? I don't get how that's connected to me, though, unless he--"

"I'm sorry, kiddo. You're curious; I get it."

"I'm a little more than that!" Although you can't think of a word for 'extremely curious.' ...Maybe 'FUCKING DYING TO KNOW?!'

"I can't explain it right now, all right?"

"I have a right to know. Why were we being treated like the enemy in there? They're supposed to be allies with Jackson!"

"Ellie. I can't explain it right now."

"Why not? We're safe now. Is it because we're Outside?" ...Would he be perilously distracted by telling you what the deal is or something? Why???

"It's because I can't go into it right now. I'll fill you in later."

"...You can't explain the reason that you can't explain by saying the exact same thing only with different words," you chide him... and he doesn't seem to follow your line of thought.

"I'm sorry. It'll have to wait. You ready to go?" He's already back on his horse.

You sigh super loudly. "I guess!"

Somehow you get the feeling that Joel isn't just postponing his explanation; sometimes his "later"s actually mean "never." Typically it's when you ask him something he seems to think you're not old enough to know about. Which usually isn't a problem, because after a time, you forget all about it -- sometimes even the very same day, if it's minor enough. But this... this was something big! I KNOW it!

For a successfully completed mission, you certainly feel very unsatisfied.

THE END

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