CYOA Page 30
Sep. 15th, 2013 04:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumy12"All right then," you say... sounding an awful lot like Joel, you think. I gave her a chance.
You fire your gun and immediately drop down to take cover behind the rock, in case she gets a shot off... you know you hit her, and if it's not fatal, Joel will--
Joel fires.
You had barely hit the ground, now you're popping back up. "Damn -- didn't I get her in the head?"
"You did, but you basically just blew her cheek off..." Joel approaches the woman, who is now sprawled on the ground, absolutely still. Lifeless. "Shit. I was gonna show you, but my shot took off a lot more than that. Don't look."
You've seen your share of dead bodies by now, yet still he tries to shield you from the worst of it. It's not necessary, but you love him for it. And, let's be real: I have no desire to take a closer look at what's left of that poor bitch's face. That... pleasure is reserved for people who have wronged you. Really wronged you, not just threatened you out of self defense.
"All right, let's get on outta here before her friend comes back," says Joel.
"You searched her already?"
Joel holds up the woman's gun in answer. "This old thing's in a sorry state... wouldn't be surprised if it can't even fire." He tosses it on the ground; if you guys kept the guns of everyone you killed, you'd have no room in your bags for anything else. And perhaps Joel was taking pity on the woman who fled, if she even comes back.
"Ours are old, too," you point out.
"Not that old. You ready to go?"
"Oh, wait... I left the shampoo... haha, she totally thought we had booze in it." You fetch the flask and Joel mounts his horse. "It would be pretty stupid to drink out here, wouldn't it?"
"Some people got nowhere else to drink."
"...But it is stupid, right?"
"Definitely. Anythin' that dulls your senses out here... that's gonna put you at a serious disadvantage."
You tuck the flask back in its place. "You don't even do it Inside." Not like Jackson's overflowing with alcohol, but there is some... and Joel won't even keep any at the house. You've wondered if it's because he doesn't want you to have such easy access to it; he says that's not it, that he trusts you.... that there's just--
"No need."
...Yeah. That!
"You all right, kiddo?" he asks for some reason.
"Of course." You give him a puzzled look. That was only one of the EASIEST encounters we've had lately...
"She could've shot you," he says by way of explanation.
"Or you," you toss back. "I mean... yeah, it's scary having a gun pointed at you... every time it happens might be the last time. ...I mean like... the last time you do anything, cuz... yeah. But we had the advantage, and it just didn't feel like... hey, are you okay?" you ask as a thought occurs to you.
"I'm fine. You gonna get on that horse or what?"
You dutifully mount your horse. "You don't like killing women, though."
"I don't," he admits, "but I don't mind so much when they're pointin' a gun at my baby girl. Even if it's a piece of shit gun. Now c'mon, let's move."
You look uneasily in the direction the other woman went. "Joel, wait... what if the other one comes back?"
"Well, if we leave now, hopefully we'll be long gone before she gets back," he says in his I'm-starting-to-lose-patience tone.
"Yeah, but... she's gonna see we killed her... friend. Girlfriend. Sister. Mother? ...no, they were too close in age, don't you think? Whoever. If it was me, coming back to find..." You can't even say it. "I'd be so pissed off-- no, beyond pissed off. Extremely furious. And if I knew who did it? I'd vow to kill them... or spend the rest of my days hunting them down."
Joel snorts. "We should be dead a hundred times over if everyone felt that way."
He has a point. Except... "Well, like... hunters and soldiers who saw us kill their... whoever... maybe they weren't close to them. I think these two were close. And we did actually have a lot of them track us down anyway, remember? You even said right before we left that you wanted to keep the body count down this time to try to prevent--"
"All right, all right... I hear you. However... I just don't see this one woman as a particularly worrisome threat. -Yes, it's sexist, I know."
"I didn't even say anything!"
"You were thinkin' it."
Yes, you were. "So... you don't want to kill her."
"If she were right here in front of us, yes, at this point, I'd kill her. She'd be lookin' to kill us, for sure. Or at least me. But we don' know where she went--"
"And you don't really want to kill her."
"No, I'd rather not. Can we just get back to it now please, Ellie?" He clucks to his horse, who starts trotting away.
His words from ten seconds ago finally register. "Wait -- you don't think she'd want to kill me? Just you?" You spur your horse on to catch up to him.
"Maybe you, too. If she saw you shoot, prob'ly, yeah. But maybe she don't like shootin' kids."
"I'm hardly a kid! I'm not a kid-kid, anyway."
"You could pass for one."
"Pfff." I have BOOBS now, Joel! Haven't you noticed?! But you don't torture him by saying that out loud; it's hilarious, making him squirm, but now isn't the time. "You and me... we fired the same number of shots back there. We're both guilty. And you could say I started it, so I'm more guilty."
"She might think it ain't your fault. That you're just goin' along with what I say. Which is basically what you're doin'."
Something about what he just said makes you think of that fucker, David... you remember how he tried to recruit you to join him, and when you were skeptical, he was willing to overlook your transgressions against his men because you were 'just a kid'... it wasn't your fault. You generally try not to think about him much, so you never worked out whether he was lying the whole time or if he just eventually turned on you when you refused to play nice. He wanted revenge, though... he wanted to kill Joel...
"I would feel better if we killed her, Joel."
"An' I'd feel better if we left it alone. We don't even know if she's comin' back. Why go lookin' for trouble?"
If you quit arguing and get back to your mission, turn to page 60.
If you convince Joel that this woman needs to be killed, turn to page 65.
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