Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She comes in just a few minutes after midnight.
The only light guiding her through the road is the moonlit sky.
Her feet are numb and her back is throbbing,a sharp pain travelling up her spine that almost makes her limp.But she doesn't stop.Not until she sees the outline of the gates.

Her legs falter and she suddenly feels unsure that this was,after all,the right decision.
She asks herself if she’s capable of facing that old hurt,the one that has never quite left her,in such close proximity.
She begins to feel it,then.That aching at the center of her heart,her breaths coming short.

The watchtower light catches her before she’s even at the gate.Before she can change her mind once again,turn around and do the one thing she’s gotten too good at.Running away.
Two shapes up high,their rifles slung over shoulders and coats drawn tight,lean forward as she steps into range.One of them calls her name,uncertain,but she doesn't really recognise him.
She hasn’t heard her name being spoken by another person for a long time.She’s almost surprised to hear it.

“Ellie?”
She doesn't answer.
When she gets close enough for them to see her face,the silence shifts.
No orders.No suspicion.Just recognition,fast and sharp,and something like fear.Or more likely,pity.

They open the gate without asking.
She can tell she must look like shit,the way their expressions shift when the light hits her face.
One arm hangs stiff at her side,bound in a stained cloth wrap.
Her skin is smeared with dirt like it’s settled into her.
Like it belongs there.

They open the gate without asking a second time.
“Should we-”one of them starts,the younger one.Ellie thinks for a second his name might be Logan,or Laurent.Something with an L,she really doesn't care as of now.
“Don’t tell anyone I’m here.”she says.Her voice is hoarse.Raw from disuse.
She doesn't wait for a reply.Just walks past them,down the slope,into Jackson’s sleeping heart like she never left it broken.

The house is cold.
Not abandoned.Just paused.
Like it’s been holding its breath since the last time she was here.
It had been with Dina,maybe two months after Seattle.
They’d taken a few things from the house to the farm.
Some pictures.Joel’s paintings.A few of his wood carvings,the ones he never let anyone touch but her.

Ellie had been silent,back then.
The thought of living with pieces of him,with memories she couldn’t control,had felt like picking at a scab that would never close.But Dina had said it might help.That having pieces of him nearby would make it easier.That time would soften the sharp edges.
That hadn’t been true.

Nothing’s been moved since.
The coat still hangs by the door,sleeves empty.
His boots sit beneath it,untouched,gathering dust.
The air smells like old wood and stillness.
Not him.
Not anymore.

She closes the door behind her and leans into it,eyes shut,as exhaustion creeps in from the soles of her feet to the back of her throat.
Her knees almost give out.She forces herself forward before they do.

The kitchen’s dark.She moves by memory.Foot after the other.Not really thinking,just moving.
Cabinets still hold what he hoarded.Cans,boxes,small comforts.She checks above the stove and finds it;a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels,left right where it always was.

She unscrews the cap and takes a drink.It burns going down.She doesn't cough.Doesn't flinch.
Just drinks again.And again.And again.
She grips the bottle tightly and makes her way through the house.
Slow,almost mechanical,like she’s underwater.Like she is not really there.
Then again,she hasn’t been there for a long time.

Some pictures are still on the wall.
Sarah.The horse in winter.One of her and Joel,off-center,blurry,taken on a day she forgot how to smile.She stares at that one a little too long.
She wonders why everything is still here.Why Tommy hasn’t packed it all up.Boxed the memories,cleared the rooms,made space for someone who might actually need this place.
Maybe he couldn’t.
Maybe he thought she’d come back.
Maybe some part of him couldn’t let it go either.

Upstairs,the bedroom door creaks when she pushes it open.
The air inside is thick.Unmoved.Untouched.
The sheets are still rumpled,just enough to look like someone meant to come back to them.
A flannel shirt is tossed over the chair in the corner,sleeves dangling.
Dust clings to the collar.

She doesn't turn on the lamp.Just continues to move through the dark.
She sits on the edge of the bed and sets the bottle down beside her after taking yet another sip.
Outside,the wind taps at the window.Inside,it’s all silent,the kind that grows teeth.

She doesn't move for a long time.She doesn't sleep.Not yet.
On the dresser sits the book she gave him for his birthday.His last one.
An Idiot’s Guide to Space.
She’d felt unsure giving it to him at the time,given how things had been strained between them.
It had felt like a small peace offering.
A way of saying that she,despite it all,still cared,even if the words caught like glass in her throat.
Even if all she could manage was giving him that book,a window into the parts of her he never stopped trying to reach.

She remembers how his eyes lit up when he unwrapped it,like she’d handed him a moon rock,
He treated it like a treasure.Read it slowly,like every word mattered.Half of it still unfinished.
Like so many other things.

She reaches for it.The leather mattress creeks beneath her as she shifts,the sound too loud in the quiet.
She picks it up,holds it with both hands.Her fingers are trembling slightly,almost imperceptibly,like a leaf caught in no wind at all.The cover is warm with age.Dust clings to it in patches,caught in the ridges of Joel’s fingertips,probably.

She opens it without really meaning to.Just enough to see the inside,to remember the weight of pages.She barely glances at the words.And the something slips loose.
A whisper of paper.The sound so soft she might’ve missed it,if not for how loud it is in the stillness.
It flutters out from the book’s middle and glides to the floor like a falling leaf.
Ellie’s breach catches.

She stares at it;flat,folded once,thin,face-down on the wood floor like it’s hiding.Something pulls tight in her chest.She knows what it is.She knows exactly what it is.

It takes her a moment before she can move.Even then,it’s like her body is lagging behind her mind.
She sets the book down beside her on the bed,careful like it’s fragile.Like it might disappear.
Leans forward,her muscles groaning,and picks up the paper.It’s soft around the edges,creased.
The fold worn from being opened and closed,maybe more than once.

She turns it over and sees it.Her name is written on the front.She turns it over.

And the handwriting-It’s like a punch to the gut.
Neat,rounded letters.Just a little rushed,like it was written too fast,like the hand holding the pen had more to say than it had time to.

Ellie’s lungs forget how to pull in air.She stares at her name,the loop of the E,the angle of the Ls.
Memories still like dust in an old attic,light and brittle and dangerous.
The letter is warm in her hand now.She should open it.She should have opened it already.

But she just sits there,holding it like it might fall apart if she’s not careful.Like it might hurt more than anything she’s survived.She stares at it for a long time.So long the wind outside shifts again,rattling the window softly.The kind of sound that used to mean nothing.Now it sounds like something ending.

The flannel shirt on the chair doesen’t move.The book stays open beside her,spine up,pages spread like wings.And Ellie finally unfolds the letter.
Her hands shake harder now.
Not a tremble.A quake.Small,but steady.Like the moment before something breaks.
The paper crackles in the silence.
Her eyes move to the first line and she almost wants to close it again.Never read those words that she knows are going to tear her apart once and for all.

She can’t read it.She can’t.Because her voice is in her head suddenly,real and soft and alive.
Not the way she sounded last time.Angry,scared,tired of trying.
No.It’s the other one.The quiet voice.The warm one.The one that used to speak to her like she was safe.She presses the letter to her thigh,holding it flat.Looks at it.Not reading.Just looking.Her mouth is dry.She swallows nothing.Her pulse is high and tight behind her ears.
The room is watching her.Or maybe just remembering her.

She reads the first line.

Ellie,

If you’re reading this,it means you’re alive.
And if you are alive,then maybe-just maybe-some piece of me can exhale again.
I’ve spent so long praying for that.

Do you remember the first time we met?
I do.God,how could I not?
Your hair was a complete mess,it looked like you’d gone at it with a pocketknife.Knowing you,it probably was the case.This quiet,scrawny kid with eyes too sharp for someone so young,like you’d seen things the rest of us couldn’t even imagine.
You’d only been in Jackson for a couple of weeks,but I'd already noticed you before then.The day you arrived here for the very first time and then went away before I could blink.
And then you were back and I thought it was some kind of sign.I know that you don’t believe in these things,that you’ll probably think i'm naive for believing in these bullshit after all that has happened.But from the moment i laid eyes on you i had this weird gut feeling.
Like the universe had just dropped something into my life that would change everything.It was like i knew you were going to mean something.
Something big.
And you did.
You still do.

I waited.
God,Ellie,I waited.
For a long time.
Too long,maybe.

But waiting turned into drowning.
I have a kid to raise.A lids to live.And I can’t keep going on like this.Not if I want my son to grow up with a mother who is actually one and not just a miserable shadow of herself.

I think you will always have a place in my heart.
Always.But that place doesn’t have the strength it used to.
Not after everything.Not after all the ways I had to keep breaking just to keep breathing without you.

I couldn’t stay at the farm.Couldn’t bear to be surrounded by the shadow of everything we had and then lost.And I can’t stay here in Jackson.I thought at first that being around familiar faces might help,might ground me somehow.But it didn’t.
I can’t walk these streets without feeling like I’m still chasing ghosts.
I pass houses and glance over my shoulder,thinking I see people who aren’t here anymore.
Thinking,just for a second,that it might be you.

Please know that I don't blame you.I am not angry.Not anymore.
Not at you,at least.But at this cruel fucking world that never seems to stop taking.
I don’t regret loving you. I never could.
I’ll always carry the weight of what we had and what it cost.
But I have to let go of the hope that you'd come back.
I have to let go of you.

So if you’re reading this...
Please don’t come find me.
Please don’t make this harder than it already is.

We’ll be okay.
I hope you will be too.
Stay safe.

Yours,Dina

She reads the last line again.
The words echo louder than anything in the room.Like they were spoken aloud.Like Dina’s voice traveled across time and found her here,in this cold,quiet house,just to tell her not to look back.
Her hand is still holding the letter,but her fingers have gone slack.
She stares at it.Not reading.Not thinking.Her eyes are fixed in that empty way,like looking through glass.

Something shifts in her chest.Not a snap.A slow,low splintering.
Like a floorboard giving out after years of rot.
Like the smallest movement was all it took to break something that had already been coming undone.
She breathes in.And it catches.And before she even realizes it,her throat closes around a sound she doesn't recognize.

Not a sob.Not at first.Just a small,sharp inhale that cuts too deep,like something inside her was pulled loose.It happens all at one and the tears come fast.No warning.No crescendo.
Just a sudden,violent release.

Her whole body folding forward like it’s been hit,like her lungs can’t hold the weight anymore.
She tries to breathe through it,but it comes out choked,wet and raw and shaking.

The letter falls from her hands.
She doubles over on the bed,palms pressed to her eyes,shoulders curled in like she is trying to disappear inside herself.Like id she makes herself small enough,maybe she won’t feel the way this hurts.The way it finally hurts.

The sound she makes next is broken.More animal than human.
A sob that rips through her like it’s been buried for years.
It’s ugly. Muffled. Shaking.Mucus clogging her nose, tears soaking into her sleeves, her breath hitching in desperate little gasps.

And then it shifts — not calms, not ends — but slows.Like a wave crashing, then receding.
She slumps sideways on the bed.Fetal position.Still trembling.
At some point, her body stops asking for more.Her eyes burn dry.Her chest aches like she’s run for miles.And then, finally,for the first time in what feels like months,Ellie sleeps.

Not because she wants to.
Not because she’s at peace.
But because she has nothing left to give.

And the room watches over her like a tomb.Still.Quiet.Holding everything she couldn’t.

The knock on the door comes sooner than she expected.It's not even light out yet.
Still,it doesn't surprise her.
She hasn’t slept that much,but it’s still more than she has grown used to.
“Please don’t come find me.”the words still ring in her skull.
Her head is pounding with a dull ache,the cold air biting at her exposed skin,but she welcomes the discomfort.It’s grounding.It’s real.

Grunting from the ache still rooted at the base of her spine,she rises.
Her bare feet touching the freezing floor.
She wraps herself in the blanket bunched at the edge of the bed.

Another knock.It is quieter this time.Whoever it is,they’re waiting.
Even if she knows exactly who it is.

She steps out into the hallway,her movements slow and stiff every joint protest.
The steps creak under her weight as she descends,one hand on the wall for balance.
She doesn't rush.

The steps creak under her weight as she descends, one hand on the wall for balance.
She doesn’t rush. She doesn't want to face anyone.Not yet.Maybe not ever.
By the time she reaches the bottom,the silence feels heavier than the blanket wrapped around her.
She hesitates at the door.Lets it hangs there.And when she finally cracks it open,Tommy stands there,hands buried in his coat pockets,eyes fixed on the porch like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“You’re gonna let me in,or just keep starin’?”he mutters,not unkindly.
She doesn't answer.Just turns and walks away,leaving the door open behind her.
He shuts the door behind him,the click echoing off the cracked plaster walls.
Ellie is already moving,dragging herself forward the kitchen with the slow,heavy weight of someone who’s been carrying too much for too long.

She drops in the chair by the scarred wooden table,its surface carved with names and half-forgotten promises.She stares out at the window,where the sky burns orange and purple,as id the world itself is bleeding.Tommy pulls the chair opposite her,his movements stiff.He lowers himself down,runs a hand across his face,and doesn’t bother hiding the exhaustion etched deep in his eyes.

“You look like shit,”he says,voice rough,like gravel scraping against stone.
No malice.Just brutal honesty.
Ellie snorts,bitter and dry.She just raises an eyebrow at him,af if to say,Have you looked at yourself lately?

He looks older.More than just the limp.There’s something off about the way he holds himself.More sunken in,like someone chipped away at his edges and didn’t bother cleaning up the mess.
She studies him for a long moment,her voice hoarse when she finally breaks the silence.
“How’re you holdin’ up?”
Tommy lets out a short,cracked laugh.
“I should be the one asking you that.”
“Still,”she mutters,bitter and low.

Tommy shrugs,eyes tired and distant.”Me and Maria…we’re done”
Not with a bang,just a tired sigh,like the words cost him.
Ellie’s eyes narrow.”Yeah,well,you saw that coming.”
Tommy looks at her,accepting the blow.
“I guess we both did.”

Ellie looks away,swallowing a bitterness that tastes like ash.
“Dina and JJ-they’re safe.They’re with Jesse’s family,far from here.They left after a few weeks here.Didn’t want to be stuck in the ashes.”

“Yeah.I know.”Ellie says flatly,her hands balled into fists on the table,nails digging into wood.
Tommy leans forward,voice rougher now.
“We all fucked it up,didn’t we?
Everythin’ we cared about,burned to the ground.”

Ellie stares at him,her jaw tight.”You’re just realizing that?”
“I guess it took me longer.”

He meets her eyes,steady and tired.Then he blinks,voice breaking just a little,like he’s swallowing down something fierce.
“You’re alive.”he says.”I started to doubt I’d ever see you again:”

“You’re not the only one who’s surprised.”for a moment the bitter walls around her falter.

“What happened in Santa Barbara?”he then asks,his voice almost a whisper.

Her breath catches.The words come out slow,each one raw and ragged.
“I found her.”
Her fingers nervously against the table.“I could’ve ended it.Had my chance.”
She looks up,face hard.”But I didn’t”
Tommy waits.
Ellie’s voice cracks.”I let her go.”

Tommy is saying something but she doesn't hear him.
Her gaze drops,unfocused and she’s not in the kitchen anymore.
She’s back there.

The wind is salt and rot.The sand is cutting dip into the broken skin of her body but she doesn’t feel it.All she feels is the knife,cold,steady in her grip,and the fire in her lungs.Abby is barely standing.Half a ghost.Bones and bruises and the stubborn will to survive.
She tackles her.Drags her into the surf,foam crashing around them.A sharp pain in her hand.And then she holds Abby under.

Abby.Abby.Abby.

Her bloodied hands are squeezing her throat,tighter and tighter,knuckles white,wrist trembling.
Her nails dig deep in like claws.Abby trashes,kicks,her mouth open beneath the water,screaming for air that never comes.

And Ellie wants it.She wants to watch the light go out.
She wants to feel that final twitch,the stillness.She wants it so bad it makes her nauseous.

But then she sees him.His face comes back.
It’s not the screaming,gurgling one from the floor of that house,but the quiet one.
The one from the porch.Eyes soft.Older.Sad.Forgiving in a way she has never asked for.
And suddenly,her hands feel like they are someone’s else’s.
Heavy and reong.Like they belong to a monster in the dark and not to her.
She can’t take it.Not anymore.
She wants to let go of her and touch his face.She wants to reach for him.
She lets go,
Abby coughs,gasps,crawls away with what was left of her life.Ellie just kneels in the surf,she watches the blood mix with saltwater,watching all of it drain out of her.
She blinks now,and the kitchen swims back into focus.
“Why?”Tommy asks finally.It’s quiet,but not gentle.There’s no softness left in him.Just a hollow curiosity,like he’s trying to understand a different version of the world than the one he chose.
Ellie stares at her hands.Her nails are chewed raw,fingertips red.She presses them flat against the table like it’ll help her stay tethered.
“I had her,”she says,low.”In the water.My hands were on her throat.”
A beat.Her voice gets quieter.
“She was done.Barely fighting.I could’ve finished it.”

She rubs her thumb over a scar on her hand,eyes not meeting his.But she can tell that he sees them,her fingers,by the way he shifts in his chair.
“Because I saw him,”she mutters,like the words taste wrong coming out.”I don’t know why…but she–she looked like him.”

Her throat tightens.She shakes her head.frustrated.
“Not her face.It wasn’t that.Just…the way she was with that kid.How she wouldn’t let go of him,even after everything.It felt like…”
She exhales through her nose.Her voice drops again,raw around the edges.

“Tommy,I fucking saw him.And it messed with my head.I couldn’t do it.”
She shrugs,but it’s brittle.A shitty attempt to pretend she’s still in control.

Tommy shifts in his seat,the wood groaning beneath him.He doesn’t say anything at first.Just leans back,jaw working like he’s grinding his teeth down to dust.Then he pushes himself upright with a grunt,the old injury flaring in his leg.He limps a few steps toward the counter,then stops and turn to her.

“You stayin’?”he asks.Voice low,almost accusatory,like he doesn’t know if he want her to say yes or no.
Ellie still doesn't look at him. She stares at a knot in the table,something safe and empty.
“I’m gonna pack up,”she says.
Tommy’s face doesn’t change much,but his shoulders go stiff. There’s something sharp in his silence,like the words hurt more than they should.

“Right,”he mutters after a beat. “Figured.”
She nods once,slow.

Tommy exhales hard through his nose,dragging a hand down his face,calloused fingers scraping over days-old stubble.”You know,”he says finally,voice tight,thick with gravel and something unspoken.
“You can keep runnin’ like this.Keep driftin’ from town to fucking nowhere,thinkin’ it’ll quiet down in your head.”

He looks at her now,really looks at her.It’s searching.Tired.
“But it doesn't. It never fuckin’ does.”

Ellie says nothing.Her arms are crossed over her chest,hands gripping her elbows like she’s trying to hold herself in.She stares at the wall,at nothing.
Tommy’s lips press into a hard line.
“You think lettin’ her go makes it better?That that was the righteous thing,and now you just ride off into the fuckin’ sunset?”
He snorts,short and bitter.

“Shit don’t work like that.It sticks,Ellie. Always fuckin’ sticks.”
He steps back from the counter,limping a little heavier now,as if the anger stirs up something physical.
“You walk outta here thinkin’ you’ve buried it…guess what?It’s gonna dig itself back up.
When you’re sleepin’. When you’re not. When it’s quiet,or loud,it doesn't matter. You’ll hear him. See her. Feel that water on your fuckin’skin again.”

Ellie’s throat moves as she swallows. Her eyes stay low,fixed on a spot near the table leg. There’s dust on the floor, someone’s boot print fading there.
“You think I don’t know that?”she says. It’s quiet,but not weak.

Tommy looks at her for bear longer,then drops his gaze. His shoulders slump, but only for a second, just long enough to show how tired he really is.
“You were like a daughter to him,” he mutters,voice fraying at the edges. “I can’t say that I get what you did. Because I don’t. But…this shit…it cost us everything.”

Ellie finally looks up. Her face is flat,unreadable,but her eyes are red around the edges. Not from crying. Just too many nights without sleep.
Tommy leans on the edge of the counter,his knuckles pale against the wood.

“If you’re gonna leave,”he says,harsher now,”then at least do somethin’ with it. Don’t just rot out there like the rest of us.”
Ellie rises from the chair slowly,her body stiff like she’s been sitting for years. Her knees crack. The air feels heavier around her now.
“I won’t;”she says. She doesn’t sound quite convincing. But there’s something in it,maybe intention. Maybe just the will to move.
She turns around without another word,shoes scuffing lightly against the floor,and walks out of the room. The sound of the door brushing open is soft,but it lingers.

The morning fog hangs thick over Jackson,curling low like smoke that never quite lifts. Her pack presses into her shoulder, familiar and unforgiving.
Before she reaches the gate,she breaks off the worn path,heading toward the edge of town where the trees stand bare and brittle against the pale sky. The air here is colder,sharper. A biting wind slips through the skeletal branches, whispering secrets she doesn’t want to hear.

She comes to the small clearing,where the ground is uneven,frozen hard beneath her feet.The earth is cracked and stiff,the grass a dull and lifeless grey.
There,a simple wooden marker leans slightly to one side,weathered and scarred by sun and rain.
The name carved into it,Joel,is rough,the edges a little softened with time. A faded photo is taped to the wood,curling at the corners. A guitar pick lies half-buried in the dirt beside it.

Ellie kneels slowly,her fingers trembling as they brush the cold soil. The chill seeps through her skin,grounding her in the weight of it all.
“Hey,”she whispers,voice ragged and low. The words crack in the silence.
“I’m leaving.Going to find whatever’s left out there. Don’t know if I’ll come back.”

The first rays of sun break through the mist, slicing long shadows across the clearing,touching the grave with a fleeting warmith.
She swallows hard,her throat tight and raw.”I’m sorry,”she says,voice breaking. “For everything.”
For a long moment she just stays there,eyes closed,breathing in the silence,the cold,the memory.
Then,slowly,she stands.Her shoulders are tight,coiled with grief and something like resolve.
The wind catches a stray lock of hair,pulling it across her face.She brushes it away and moves toward the gate

There,Maria waits,leaning against the post with her arms crossed,the outline of a horse beside her sharp in the gray morning light. The mare’s breath streams in the cold air,nostrils flaring softly.
Ellie’s steps slow down as she approaches her.Maria’s eyes lift,sharp and guarded,flickering with a mix of resignation and something deeper,unspoken.

“I figured you’d try to slip out before sunrise,”Maria says,voice flat but edged with something like tired knowing.
Ellie shrugs,the movement stiff,like a question unanswered.Her fingers tighten reflexively on the pack strap. “Didn’t see the point in goodbyes.”

Maria’s jaw tightens,a slow nod acknowledging the bitterness between them.
“Yeah.You never were much for that.”

The mare snorts softly, stamping a hoof against the dirt with a faint crunch. The sound breaks the tension for a moment, the horse’s muscles rippling beneath her sleek chestnut coat.Maria steps forward, her hand closing gently around the reins. “She’s yours,” she says, voice softer now, almost reluctant. “Strong legs. Knows the road east.”
Ellie’s gaze drops to the mare, taking in the powerful curves beneath the glossy fur, the alert flick of her ears. Her throat tightens, a knot forming as she swallows hard. “You didn’t have to—”
Maria cuts her off, voice firm, carrying the weight of hard-won resolve. “I know. But I did.”Ellie reaches out, fingers brushing along the mare’s neck, the warmth of the animal grounding her.

The leather reins feel worn and familiar in her grasp, roughened by years of use and care.
Maria steps back, eyes never leaving Ellie’s face. There’s something raw there.Pain, regret, maybe even a trace of something like forgiveness.

“I got tired of holding onto the anger,” she says quietly, voice fraying at the edges. “It wasn’t doing either of us any good.”
Ellie says nothing. The wind picks up, tugging strands of hair across her face, cold against her skin.

Maria breathes out slowly, then says, “Whatever you’re looking for out there, I hope you find it. Or bury it. Just don’t let it eat you alive.”
Ellie nods once, voice barely audible. “Thanks.”
Maria offers a small, almost imperceptible nod in return. “Don’t get killed.”

Ellie swings her leg over the mare’s back. The animal shifts beneath her, muscles coiling like springs ready to snap.
The heavy wooden gate creaks open with a slow groan, revealing the empty, wide expanse beyond,open road, uncertain futures.
She doesn’t look back.

Chapter Text

The only memory she has of her mother is one made of hands,gentle and soft,combing through her hair. Separating the strands. Smoothing them down in a rhythm so steady it felt like a lullaby. There were no words, no demands. Just touch. Just presence. A kind of intimacy that asked for nothing in return.

Her father used to say she was a carbon copy of her.Said it like a joke, like something light, but she always knew there was weight behind it. That his genes hadn’t even put up a fight. The long, wheat-blonde hair. The tilt of her eyes, the way her nose curved at the bridge, the full lower lip that always looked a little bitten. Even the shape of her ears.Small, neat, tucked too close to her head. All hers.She moved like her too, apparently. Walked with the same steady rhythm. Talked with that same quiet certainty that made people listen even when she didn’t say much.

But it was a strange kind of inheritance,one made up of shadows.

Because her mother had died long before Abby knew how to remember her. Before she could understand what it meant to lose something that had once been hers.

So she learned her mother through fragments,through photos that curled at the corners, through the soft ache in her father’s voice when he said her name, through the mirror that stared back at her like a ghost with familiar eyes.She carried the resemblance like a scar she didn’t earn and clung to her father’s words like scripture.As if, by holding on to the way he spoke about her, she could somehow hold on to her too. She would listen,carefully and hungrily,catching every small detail, every offhand memory, like it might vanish the moment she looked away. A laugh her mother used to have. A book she read too many times. The way she always added salt after tasting, never before. 

And when he died, it wasn’t just him she lost.It was her mother again, all over again.

The last voice that remembered her was gone, and Abby had to make room in her chest for the weight of both their absences.A double grief. A hollow she couldn’t fill.

She can’t recall a face. Or a voice. Not even a scent. Just that warmth. Those patient hands. The sensation of someone taking care.Sometimes she wonders if that memory is anything more than a dream dressed in kindness. A lie her brain stitched together in the quiet hours, just to give her something soft to hold onto. Maybe it’s comfort. Maybe it’s desperation. Maybe it’s just the echo of something she needed so badly, she created it.

But real or not, it’s hers.

And on mornings like this, when she can’t quite twist her hair into a braid, when the strands fall just short,she thinks of those hands. And lets herself pretend.

The day begins with the distant cawing of gulls and the soft rush of wind against the canvas of Abby's window curtain. The sea is a silent presence beyond the horizon, a constant, glittering line of blue and silver that stretches into the unknown. Abby stands by the window in her room, the wood beneath her feet warm from the early sun, the salty scent of the ocean filtering through the cracked pane. 

It’s been five months since Santa Barbara, and yet, the heaviness of those final days still wraps around her like the fog that rolls in from the cliffs.

Her hand rests lightly on the windowsill, fingers tracing a worn groove in the wood as her eyes follow the calm sway of the water. Each wave crests gently and recedes, and for a moment, it feels like the world is breathing again.

She exhales.Feeling her chest tighten for a split second.

The burn marks are fading, though they’ve left their memory. They trace her skin like old ghosts, always reminding her of the time she almost lost herself. The scar on her forearm, the one she sometimes touches when she’s alone, seems to have a life of its own. It’s a reminder of the day when revenge had looked so clear, so necessary, and yet it only led her deeper into the wreckage of her own soul.Her strength, once a thing she carried with pride, is still coming back to her slowly, measured in how far she can run, how much she can lift. It’s as if the fabric of who she was, the strength she had before all this — before Santa Barbara, before her — has been torn apart and stitched back together in fits and starts. She tries not to let it show, but the stiffness in her body is a constant reminder of what she’s trying to repair.

Her days are structured, almost rigidly so. Wake up Lev. Breakfast.Training. The usual drills. She doesn’t push herself too hard, but it’s enough. Some days, her body betrays her, reminding her of how much weaker she feels than she should.

Then lunch. Always followed by physical therapy with John, a former medic who’d lost most of his knee function in a raid years ago. He’s sarcastic and dry, but there’s something oddly soothing in the way he handles her recovery. He doesn’t expect miracles, just progress.

Then, the afternoon patrol. Always the patrol. The perimeter of the base. Checking the cliffs. Walking the shoreline. Keeping an eye out for any movement on the water. The Fireflies are safe here, but safety feels like an illusion. It’s a reprieve, not a resolution. And Abby knows better than to believe in it.Dinner. Sometimes Lev insists on eating with the younger recruits, other times he stays close. It doesn’t matter; she always ends up alone by the window. A habit she’s carried with her since before, always looking out. Maybe it’s a way to feel less isolated, or maybe it’s the first thing she’s learned about being here: You can’t escape the past, but you can let it drift like the tide.

Then, the worst part of her day. Trying to sleep for more than five hours.

Her eyes scan the horizon, yet even here, in this quiet sanctuary, her mind remains alert, scanning for threats invisible to anyone else. The silence presses in, heavy with expectation. She’s still locked in a state of vigilance, as if any moment could bring a sudden eruption of violence or chaos. Prepared to run, to fight, to struggle, instincts born from hardship that refuse to loosen their grip.

She takes a slow breath and tries to steady herself. The scent of salt and sea air drifts through the open window, mingling with the faintest hint of pine from the trees outside. For a moment, it soothes her. But her hands clench involuntarily at the edges of the windowsill, nails digging into the wood, reminders of battles past and wounds still raw beneath the surface.

She pulls on a worn grey shirt and a pair of faded fatigues, the fabric soft but sturdy, a second skin she’s come to rely on.The mirror on the wall is cracked, spider-webbed at the corner, but it reflects enough. She doesn’t stare long. She doesn’t need to. She knows who she is. Or at least, who she’s trying to be.She grabs her worn boots, shrugs into her jacket, and steps into the corridor. 

Lev’s room is three doors down. She knocks twice, light but firm.

"Lev," she calls. "Up. We’ve got breakfast."

The door creaks open and Lev peers out, hair slightly messy from sleep, a faint line still creased on his cheek from the pillow. But he smiles.

"You’re early."

"You’re slow."

He huffs a laugh and grabs his own coat from the hook by the door. Together, they walk the narrow hallway that leads down toward the communal dining room. Sunlight spills through the broken panes, casting uneven shadows on the walls. The compound is built on what used to be an old marine station,cement walls, reinforced doors, and lookout towers added with scrap metal and scavenged lumber. Catalina Island wasn’t meant for this, but they’ve turned it into something resembling stability.

Breakfast is a quiet affair. A few metal tables set up around a long hall, the faint buzz of a generator audible through the floor. A pot of oatmeal is on the stove, and someone’s managed to brew coffee that doesn’t taste entirely like dirt.

Lev grabs two bowls and spoons and they eat in the company of other early risers. There’s Mara, who handles the northern watchtower, and Kevin, who used to be a biology teacher before everything fell apart. They talk about the weather, about the rising wind and how it might mean trouble on the western trail. There’s talk, too, of Cole’s team's imminent departure.

"Should be back in a week or two," Kevin says, chewing slowly. "Assuming the route through Colorado holds."

"It always holds," Mara mutters, sipping her coffee. "Cole’s a hard bastard to kill."A dry laugh ripples through the small group.

Abby keeps her head down.Quietly listens.

In the months she’s spent here, she hasn’t made many friends,only a few acquaintances with whom she trades small talk when the silence gets too loud.

There’s Iris, a young girl about her age who works in the infirmary alongside John. Iris has a gentle steadiness, the kind Abby sometimes envies but rarely lets herself show. Then there’s Elijah, the calm and steady presence she patrols with, whose quiet confidence somehow makes the endless watch feel a little less bleak. Chris is another,someone she runs into at the gym, muscles taut and always pushing himself, but never quite managing to break through Abby’s guarded shell.

Mostly, though, Abby keeps to herself and to Lev.

Lev finishes his oatmeal and wipes his mouth. "I’ll head to class. You going to the yard later?"

"After PT," Abby nods. "Don’t go easy on them."

"I never do."He leaves with a grin and a wave.

Abby lingers at the table, sipping the last of her coffee. It's gone lukewarm, bitter, but she doesn’t mind. The dining hall has mostly cleared. Mara is folding napkins absently. Kevin’s gone. Through the open windows, she can hear boots on gravel and the distant bark of someone calling out instructions.

She stands, brings her bowl to the wash basin, and takes the longer route to the infirmary.

The hallway past the generator room smells like antiseptic and old gauze. It’s the kind of sterile, clinical scent that reminds Abby of operating rooms, of sterile tables and open wounds, a reminder that every time she steps into a room like this, there’s a part of her that’s still broken. A part of her that will never fully heal. She pushes through the curtain, the blue fabric worn with time and bleach stains. Inside, the room is dim, lit only by the soft wash of light from the skylight overhead.

John is already there, knee brace half-locked, sleeves rolled up. He looks up when she enters, offering her a half-smile that’s more like a silent challenge than anything else.

“You’re early,” he says, voice low, amused. “Planning to show me up again?”

Abby shrugs, the same old response that comes too easily. “I was bored. Lev called me slow. Had to prove him wrong.”

John chuckles, tossing her a resistance band with a flick of his wrist. “Warm-up. Then the usual. And if you do that thing where you grind your teeth through the whole set, I swear I’m going to install mirrors just to prove it.”

Abby smirks, the old habit coming naturally. There’s something strangely comforting about being in control of her body again , even if it’s just for these brief moments when the pain isn’t screaming at her.

They fall into the routine. The slow, deliberate stretches. The resistance work. It’s all mechanical now, the familiar sequence that has come to define her days. Her shoulder, still stiff from the old injury, burns as she reaches for the resistance band. It’s a dull pain, one she’s learned to live with, to push past.

“Liz is asking about patrol leads,” John says after a moment, his voice breaking the rhythm of their stretching. He sounds almost casual, but Abby hears the subtle undercurrent of something more, a suggestion, an invitation. “You interested?”

Abby doesn’t answer immediately, and she feels a strange rush of tension coil in her stomach. Her fingers tighten around the resistance band as she focuses on her breathing, trying to push the thoughts away. But they linger, the words hanging in the air like a challenge. 

“No,” she finally says, her voice flat, as if she’s already dismissed it. She’s not looking to lead anyone anywhere. Not anymore.

Abby inhales sharply, blinking as she focuses on the resistance band again. But the memories won’t stay locked away this time.

The WLF. It feels like a lifetime ago. And yet, the memories still sting like fresh wounds. She was once their top scar killer,a title she wore like armor, like something to be proud of. But looking back, it feels more like a badge of shame than anything else. Isaac’s favorite.Always the first to volunteer for raids. The first to draw blood. The first to be sent out when they needed someone to break down a wall, someone who didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

She can still remember the first kill so clearly, the feeling of the hot blood on her hands, how it burned her skin, even in the freezing cold of that night. They had given her a knife to make the job easier. Clean. Quiet. Efficient. It was supposed to feel like a victory, but it had only felt like emptiness. 

A hollow, gnawing void that never went away.

She’d been good at it. Too good.

Isaac had loved that. He had seen something in her,a ruthlessness, a drive to get the job done. 

And he rewarded her for it. The missions. The honors. The fear she instilled in others. But none of it had ever felt like enough. It didn’t matter how many people she killed or how much blood she spilled. There was always another target. Always someone new to hunt, to take down. The cycle had become endless.

Abby exhales slowly as she stretches, feeling the tightness in her back. Her shoulders burn, but it’s the memories that hurt the most. She had been more than just a soldier. She had been Isaac’s weapon,his tool to carve through the world in ways he couldn’t do alone. She had led his forces. She had killed in his name, following orders without questioning why. 

And then, there was the loss.

Her friends died. The world seemed to swallow them whole. And the last thing she had wanted to do,to live through it ,felt like the ultimate punishment.

Abby adjusts her posture as John hovers over her, his hands steady as he corrects the position of her shoulder. She tries not to flinch, but the old scars still twinge.

She swallows the lump in her throat.

Punishment.

They fall into the rhythm they’ve built.Slow, deliberate stretches, targeted resistance work. Her range of motion has improved. The tightness across her upper back still flares if she overdoes it, but her endurance is better. John watches her form, adjusting her posture with a touch to her shoulder blade or a clipped suggestion. He doesn’t waste words.

Punishment.

She hasn’t earned forgiveness. She hasn’t earned peace.

Not after Joel. Not after Seattle.Not after Everything.

Her mind flashes back to those final moments. To the cold satisfaction she’d felt when she pulled the last swing. The swift, brutal way she’d silenced the man who had caused so much pain. The rage that had driven her to act without thinking, to obliterate whatever had stood in the way of her revenge. She’d made him pay. But she hadn’t anticipated the price she’d pay in return.

And now, every time she picks up a weight or stretches her arm out, she’s reminded of the body she used to have,the one that had no guilt, no hesitation. The one that had no consequences for killing. The one that had never once questioned her actions.

John’s voice cuts through her thoughts, low and steady. “You’re holding your breath again.”

Abby exhales sharply and nods, trying to steady herself. It’s not just the physical effort that’s draining her; it’s the weight of what she’s been through. The memories, the choices, the faces of everyone she’s lost.

Her hand tightens on the resistance band, her knuckles turning white.

The stretch feels harder than it should, the resistance band pulling tight as her shoulder muscles protest. Damn it, this shouldn’t be so hard. She clenches her teeth and forces her arm into position, despite the dull throb in her shoulder.

“One more set, Abby.”

John’s voice is calm, but there’s a hint of something else in his tone now. Maybe concern. Maybe something more.

Abby nods, her face tight with concentration. 

The resistance band snaps back in place as she pulls again, the stretch taking longer, each pull feeling like a war between her body and the weight of her past. What does she owe herself now?

Abby closes her eyes for a second, trying to focus on the simple, repetitive motion. Not the mistakes, not the lives lost, not the faces she’ll never see again. Just the stretch. The movement. The recovery.

She doesn’t know how long they stay like that, the slow rhythm of her work, the sound of John’s occasional instruction. The tension in her muscles starts to loosen, the pain beginning to fade into something manageable. But there’s no illusion of total healing. Not yet.

“Alright,” John says after a while, his voice breaking the silence. “Let’s call it a day. You’re done for now.”

Abby stands up slowly, her knees a little stiff, her shoulder sore but bearable. The weight of her thoughts, however, still clings to her like an invisible shackle.

“Thanks,” she mutters, her voice hoarse. It’s the only thing she can manage.

John doesn’t offer anything more than a slight nod. He knows better than anyone that some scars don’t heal. Some things can’t be fixed in a gym or with physical therapy.

She keeps walking.

One step at a time.

The day stretches into routine. Abby’s legs ache after therapy, muscles burning in a way she’s slowly beginning to welcome.Patrol follows, three hours spent combing through the eastern perimeter with Elijah. He’s quiet but observant, pointing out deer tracks and showing her where he thinks a raccoon got into their storage shed.

Nothing tries to kill them today.

When she returns to the compound, the sun has dipped lower. Dinner is being served in the main hall, but Abby skips it. She’s feeling nauseous,let’sLev be with his classmates.

She drops her gear in her room and takes the long path that winds behind the barracks, down toward the rocky shoreline. The wind is cooler now. The salt air is sharper.

She walks until the ground turns to loose stone and the waves crash louder. Her boots scuff along the edge of a tidepool, seaweed clinging to rock, tiny fish darting in shadows.

She crouches near the water and watches the tide shift in and out, like breath.

Her fingers trace the edge of a smooth stone. The sky above is streaked with orange and rose. 

The sun hangs low, its reflection shattering across the water like broken glass.

She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to feel. Five months should be enough to find peace, to adjust, to settle. But something still tugs at her chest. An invisible tether that keeps her from sleeping too soundly.Her father’s face visits her often, like a ghost slipping through the edges of her mind. But it’s not the nightmare she’s come to know at Saint Mary’s Hospital,the cold, clinical smell of blood pooling on the floor, the hollow, lifeless eyes staring up at her in silence. No, this time it’s something else.Memories older, softer, worn like the pages of a cherished book.

She sees him singing a song, off-key and stumbling over the words, laughter bubbling from both of them like a secret shared in the quiet of a late afternoon. She remembers his hands holding a book so worn that its spine was barely hanging on, pages dog-eared and softened from years of love. His gentle smile, the kind that reached all the way up to the wrinkles framing his bright blue eyes,the eyes that held warmth, patience, and a kind of quiet hope she’s been chasing ever since.

For a fleeting moment, the weight in her chest loosens, and she lets herself drift there, in that distant warmth, before the tether pulls tight again, dragging her back to the present,the island, the Fireflies, the endless, fragile hope.

She also sees Owen’s face. And Mel’s. Nora. Manny. Each memory slides past her like waves under moonlight,Warm, familiar, distant. They don’t speak in these dreams. They don’t need to. Their presence alone is enough to crack something open in her chest.

She wishes she could hold onto them longer. Wishes the memories stayed like photographs instead of fading like smoke. But they slip, always, just when she needs them most.

She shifts on the stone, hugs her knees to her chest. The wind has picked up slightly. Out at sea, the sky has darkened to indigo, the clouds tinged at their edges with fading gold. Catalina’s silhouette rises behind her ,the shape of a sanctuary that still feels like a stopgap. A pause in the violence, not a true end.

She also thinks about her . She remembers those hands clamping around her throat, the crushing tightness that stole her breath and made her vision darken. The sharp, metallic tang of her blood flooding her mouth, a bitter reminder of how close they had come to tearing each other apart completely. The weight of that moment presses on her chest like a stone, impossible to ignore.

And still, she wonders why. Why, after everything she had done,after hunting her down with relentless fury, after forcing her into a fight when she was broken and barely able to stand, after having her completely under control,why did she choose to let her go? Why did she let her escape with Lev, slipping away from the grip she’d tightened around Abby’s throat?

The question gnaws at her, a dull ache that never quite goes away. It’s not just confusion; it’s something deeper,frustration, maybe even a quiet rage she doesn’t always admit. Abby can’t decide if her mercy was weakness, exhaustion, or something more complicated.

The walk uphill is slower, and by the time she reaches the edge of the compound, most of the lights have dimmed. Voices carry from the barracks, laughter, the clatter of dishes being washed, someone tuning a broken guitar in the corner by the fire pit. Life, such as it is.

She doesn’t stop to join them.

In her room, the window is open and the curtain flutters like breath. She peels off her jacket, then her boots, and sinks down onto the mattress. The sea’s hush follows her in, always.

She lies back and stares at the ceiling.Outside, something calls, not a gull this time, but something further, stranger. She can’t tell if it’s real, or just her body remembering the way fear used to live in every cell.She closes her eyes.Sleep, when it comes, does not arrive peacefully. But it arrives. That’s enough.

Chapter Text

The wind never lets up.
It scrapes against her skin like bone over stone, relentless, sharp. Nebraska opens wide beneath a bruised sky, flat and endless, a nowhere that stretches on forever. Ellie rides through it like a ghost. One month since she left Jackson. One month of silence, starvation, rot.
The horse,thin, wind-burnt, ribs stitched like knuckles beneath its skin,moves slow beneath her. 
It’s not a companion. It’s a burden she hasn’t had the heart to abandon.
They’re both limping through what’s left.

She keeps west through cornfields turned graveyards.
Crows watch from fence posts, glassy eyes sharp and silent. She scavenges the towns that remain: burnt-out diners, flood-rotted basements, empty churches that still smell like candlewax and mildew. Sometimes she finds food.Cans with labels bleached blank, jars of pickled something that crunch bitter between her teeth. Sometimes she finds bodies.Huddled in corners, mouths open in silent prayers or screams. She doesn’t check their names anymore. Doesn’t care who they were. What matters is what they left behind.

Her body is falling apart. Fingers cracked and bleeding, ankles wrapped in stained bandages. Hunger gnaws a permanent place in her gut. When it gets bad, her hands shake. The rifle feels heavier every day. Still, she keeps moving. Because stopping feels worse. Stopping means letting all of it catch up.The silence, the ghosts, the ache of things undone.

Once she kills a mule deer,an easy shot through the eye. She guts it slow, hands trembling from the cold. When she cooks the meat over a makeshift fire pit beside a burned out farmhouse, she thinks of Joel. Thinks of the way he showed her how to clean a kill without wasting it. Halfway through, she drops the knife. Her stomach twists too hard to keep going.
She leaves the rest for the crows.

The nights are the worst. She builds fires from broken fence slats, curls up inside crumbling sheds or overturned trucks.She sleeps curled under old tablecloths in root cellars, sleeps in overturned dumpsters, sleeps in the backs of dead trucks with her knife tucked into her fist. She smells like piss, blood, smoke. The world doesn’t notice. She’s just another piece of wreckage blown through the Midwest.When the wind howls, she thinks about Jackson. About Dina’s laugh, warm bread, the sound of a guitar string plucked in quiet. And then she remembers the look on her face when she left.

The dream comes more often now. A dark room. Blood on her hands, warm and slick. She’s holding something.Someone.But they keep slipping through her arms, down into the dark. Sometimes it’s Joel. Sometimes Dina. Sometimes it’s just a blur of red and bone. She wakes gasping, fingers clenched like claws. The horse never flinches. It just watches her with those dark, dull eyes, like it knows exactly what she’s running from.

The infected out here are quieter. Sparse. Less twitchy, more decayed. Runners with one eye left, limbs half gone. Clickers that seem to echo themselves as much as the world. Still dangerous. Still lethal. But slower. Like everything else out here, they’re just… decaying.
Time, too, has started to rot.

She hears Tommy’s voice, rough and low, echoing in her mind.
“If you’re gonna leave, then at least do somethin’ with it. Don’t just rot out there like the rest of us.”
But that’s exactly what she’s doing.Rotting. Slowly, quietly. Day by day.Why does she even bother to keep searching for scraps to eat? Why keep dragging herself forward when all she wants is to curl up in the dirt, let the cold earth swallow her whole, let nature reclaim what’s left of her?
She’s got nothing left. No direction. No one to call out for.
The cracked highway stretches ahead, a broken ribbon of ice and crumbling asphalt, flanked by scorched grass and skeletal trees. Rusted, battered road signs lean crooked against bent poles. Most are faded past recognition. Names don’t mean much anymore. Only the distance does.
Her fingers tighten around the reins, white-knuckled. If she loosens her grip, everything might slip away.Her memories,her purpose.

But what even is her purpose anymore?
What the hell is she doing out here,alone,starving,drifting from one ghost town to another,chasing something she can’t even name?
That question has become her constant companion over the last few weeks, gnawing at her like a persistent ache she can’t shake. 
But still, she holds on. That stubborn streak,burned into her bones since she was a kid,won’t let her lie down and die. She scrapes together whatever strength she can find in the cracks of her broken self, pulls it close like threadbare cloth, and pushes forward. One foot. Then the next. Hoping.Begging that somewhere out there, something is waiting. Something that makes all this worth it.
She hears his voice sometimes. Clear as if he’s walking beside her, heavy boots in the snow. Telling her to fight. To keep going. To find something worth the pain. She clings to that voice like a lifeline, like it’s the only thing anchoring her to the world. Her own thoughts are too jagged, too cruel. His are softer. Warmer. Even now.For a long time, revenge was her something. That raw, red need. It lit her up from the inside, gave her direction when nothing else could. But that fire’s gone now.It’s burned out, cold. All that’s left are the ashes. And the ache of being lost.

The gallery stands stubborn against the quiet decay of Lincoln’s cracked streets. Its tall windows are smeared with years of grime, filtering the weak daylight into a soft, ghostly glow. Ellie pauses at the door, her fingers tracing the chipped paint of the frame. The cold bites through her gloves, rough and unforgiving like everything else in this world. She hesitates only a moment before pushing the door open, the creak echoing through the empty space like a whisper from another time.
Inside, the air is thick with dust and a lingering scent of oil paint and rotting paper. It clings to her skin and fills her lungs. The floorboards moan beneath her boots as she steps forward, cautious and slow. Paintings lean against cracked plaster walls. Some hang crooked, others fallen and forgotten. Their colors are faded but still vivid enough to pull at something deep inside her.

A woman’s face stares out at her from one canvas, pale eyes steady and patient. Nearby, a child’s wide gaze holds a frozen hope that feels almost cruel in its innocence. A field of wildflowers bursts with impossible life, bright against the backdrop of rust and ruin. Ellie’s breath catches in her throat. It feels like a betrayal and a mercy all at once. The world these paintings came from is gone, but here it clings stubbornly to the walls.
Her fingers brush the rough surface of a canvas, the thick paint catching beneath her nails. The colors are tangled and wild, bold in a way that the world around her is not. She wonders what her life would have been if she had been born before everything broke. Would she have had a mother to call her own? A father who told her stories before bedtime? Would she have grown up in laughter and warmth instead of cold and loss?The thought drags at her like a slow tide pulling her under.

She closes her eyes and hears a voice in the quiet.Low and worn, familiar and distant all at once. His stories from before the world fell apart. The rare times when grief cracked his tough exterior and spilled out in memories of Sarah.
Joel had told her about Sarah, about how her laugh once filled a house that no longer exists. About the weight of losing her, the way it pressed down on him every year around his birthday until he couldn’t hold it inside anymore. Those moments had been brief and fragile, windows into the man beneath the scars. She had been afraid then, not knowing how to hold that kind of pain. But now, alone in this quiet gallery, that fear melts into something else, a hunger for connection, for a glimpse of what life might have been.
Ellie’s eyes open slowly. She looks at a portrait of a woman, her smile faint but real. The woman’s eyes seem to hold a steady kindness that Ellie has not seen in a long time. She wants to reach out, to touch that gentleness, but all she can do is sit down on the cold floor, her knees pulled up to her chest.

The silence of the gallery presses in around her, vast and empty, but beneath it there is a fragile pulse,a stubborn flicker of hope that refuses to be snuffed out. It is the same stubbornness that has carried her this far, the same stubbornness that will not let her give up.

Colorado Springs finally drags itself onto the horizon like a bruise swollen and dark beneath winter’s unforgiving bite. The city is a an echo of something that once breathed and moved and lived. Frost clings stubbornly to cracked sidewalks, tracing the fractures like veins in frozen stone. Broken power lines sag and twist overhead, tangled like dead limbs caught in a desperate reach toward a sky that offers no mercy. Rusted cars litter the streets, half-swallowed by dirt and snow, their shattered windows reflecting a world gone silent. The buildings stand like gravestones, cold and still, their facades mottled with peeling paint and scars from long-forgotten fires. Everything waits. Watching. Silent and patient.

Ellie slides down from her horse, the cold biting merciless through her gloves, settling deep in her fingers and bones like a slow ache. She ties the animal to a sagging post outside a long-abandoned gas station, its faded sign hanging by threads, windows cracked and coated in grime so thick it obscures everything inside. From her pack, she pulls out a shriveled apple, rough and dry, and drops it at the horse’s feet. The animal snorts softly, crunching the fruit slowly, its tired eyes locked on her with something almost like understanding,a quiet knowing that this moment, too, is fragile and fleeting.

She fingers the strap of her rifle, the cold metal reassuring against her back. The pack feels heavy with wear and weight, but it carries everything she has left. 
There’s no reason to linger in the open any longer. Ahead, a large building rises from the decay,stone and glass, battered but mostly intact. A courthouse, maybe, or a library. Whatever it was, it might still offer shelter.The door groans and creaks as she pushes it open, a stale breath of mildew and rot rolling out to meet her. The air inside is thick, clinging with dust and something older,something that whispers of abandonment but also, faintly, of life. A warmth, almost imperceptible, lingers beneath the cold, stale air.

And then she hears it.
Voices.
Soft, alive.
Laughter.

Male and female, probably young, their voices weaving through the silence like fragile threads of a world that still exists somewhere beyond these ruined walls.

Her heart lurches, pounding painfully against her ribs. She slips forward, boots light on cracked tile and scattered debris. The walls close in, stained with rust and dirt, and the ceiling hangs cracked and heavy overhead, threatening collapse. She moves slow and careful, gun raised, senses stretched thin like a taut wire.

Upstairs, two figures come into view,neither aware of her. A skinny young man, swallowed by a coat too large for him, his hands twitching nervously at his sides. Beside him, a girl with wild, curly dark hair, a hunting knife strapped to her belt. Her smile is wide but brittle, as if it’s holding back something fierce beneath the surface. Neither looks older than Ellie, maybe even younger.

Her voice cuts through the stillness, cold and sharp. “Don’t move.”
They freeze, startled, eyes locking onto hers with a mix of fear and wariness,not hostility.
The guy raises his hands slowly, open and empty. His voice is calm, though strained. “We don’t want trouble.”
Ellie doesn’t lower her gun. Her voice is steady, hard. “Do what I tell you to and you won’t.”

The girl steps back, muscles tense like a coiled spring, eyes flicking toward the shadows as if expecting danger to burst from the walls.
Ellie narrows her eyes, reading them both like open books. “What’re you doing here? Who are you?”
“Scavenging,” the guy answers quickly, eyes steady. “Same as you.”

Ellie’s gaze hardens. “Lying gets you shot.”
“No lie,” he insists. “Just passing through.”

A fragile silence hangs between them, heavy with suspicion and unasked questions. Then, from the broken windows, a low, guttural growl crawls through the air like a cold hand dragging over metal.
The sound scrapes at Ellie’s nerves, sharp and cruel. Her eyes snap to the windows, where shards of glass glisten faintly in the dying light. The air thickens with the stench of rot and sweat,the unmistakable, sickening breath of the infected closing in.

Her fingers curl tighter around the cold steel of her rifle, muscles coiling like springs ready to snap. “Runners,” she spits, voice barely above a whisper but sharp enough to cut the tension.

The guy pulls a battered baseball bat from his pack, knuckles whitening as he grips the worn leather handle. His eyes flick nervously around, searching for an escape, for anything that might save them.
The girl moves with fluid, practiced precision, drawing her hunting knife from her belt. Her jaw is set, eyes narrowed but steady. A flicker of fear trembles in her hands, but she hides it well.

Ellie steps forward, planting her feet between the newcomers and the nightmare creeping closer. Her breath comes fast and shallow. Her heart is thudding loud enough to echo in her ears.
“Don’t make a sound,” she says. Her voice is low, edged with steel. No one argues.

The first infected crashes through the glass with a wet, splintering crack. Shards scatter across the floor like jagged stars. The creature snarls, twisted face contorted and rabid, and launches itself toward the girl.Without thinking, Ellie lunges. She slams her shoulder into the runner’s chest, knocking it sideways mid-pounce. Her gun’s already in her hand. She fires point-blank. The shot tears through the infected’s skull. It drops, spasming once before going still.

Ellie spins around. Another runner is already charging. She lifts her pistol again, fires twice. The first shot misses. The second finds a mark in its gut, but the thing doesn’t stop.
The girl doesn’t hesitate. She slashes low and hard, her knife cutting deep into the runner’s leg. Blood arcs across the broken tiles. The creature stumbles.

The guy brings his bat down in a savage swing, catching another infected in the jaw. The crunch of bone and wood echoes loud and sharp. The body collapses beside them.
They might have bought themselves seconds. That’s all.

Above them, the building groans. It’s a low, deep sound that vibrates through the air and the bones. Ellie’s head jerks upward. A beam is splintering above them. Cracks zigzag through the ceiling like lightning.
“Move!” she shouts.

The girl hesitates for a heartbeat, eyes wide.
Ellie doesn’t wait. She grabs the girl by the shoulder and shoves her away, out from under the beam just as it gives way. Wood and drywall come crashing down. Ellie doesn’t make it clear.

The ceiling caves in directly above her. A split-second of noise, of weightless dust in the air, then impact. Beams and debris slam into her back. Her legs buckle. Her world goes sideways.
Pain explodes through her spine. Her head smacks against something hard. Her breath vanishes. She hits the ground and doesn’t get back up.

The room fills with dust. Coughing. Creaking. Silence.
A voice,panicked and racking,cuts through the ringing in her ears.
 “Shit! She’s down!”
But Ellie can’t answer. Can’t move. Can’t breathe.The dark closes in fast.

Chapter Text

The first time it comes through,it’s nearly four in the morning.

The compound is asleep. Low buildings nestled between the dark hills, washed in silver light from a half-buried moon. The night patrols are almost finished, their boots worn smooth from quiet circuits, shoulders hunched against the cold. Soon, they’ll hand off their rifles, write their notes, and disappear into bunks that never quite warm.Somewhere outside, birds start to stir.Small, tentative sounds, like they’re testing the edge of the coming day.

It begins with static.

It’s not loud. Not obvious. Change never is. It doesn’t arrive with trumpets. It slips in sideways.

It’s a low, grainy whisper, crackling to life through the comms tower’s oldest receiver. A threadbare signal, dragging itself out of silence like it’s been underwater for years, clawing its way to the surface, one broken syllable at a time. Not words. Not yet. Just fragments,ghosts of a message.Most would ignore it. Catalina is littered with broken equipment,old radios that catch nothing but the sound of their own dying. Static is background noise here. Another pulse of the island. Meaningless.

But in the tower, one man jolts upright.

He’d been dozing,elbows on the desk, boots up, chin tucked into his jacket. The radio crackle shivers across his spine like cold water, and he’s instantly awake, blinking into the greenish glow of the instrument panel. He blinks, grimaces, and rubs a hand over his face. His skin comes away clammy. On the console, the headphones hang off a cracked hook, coiled like something dead.

He grabs them without thinking,then pauses.The sound coming through isn’t random.Not the usual scatter of noise, not a ship ping or the high whine of a dying signal. It’s clean. Repeating. Not loud, but steady. Intentional.He puts the headphones on.

Static fills his ears, sharper now. The pitch steadies, the noise pulls tight,and then a voice cuts through. Warped, clipped. Female, maybe. Or just too chewed-up by distance to tell.

“This is node Sierra–Nine. If you’re receiving this, proceed to the designated site near Chicago. Medical wing is holding. Stand by for retrieval code. Do not transmit a return signal. Do not trust local channels. We’re still here.”

Silence.Longer this time.

He pulls the headphones off like they’re burning.Just sits there for a second, breathing. Listening to the quiet.The monitors blink calmly in the dark. Nothing else moves.

Outside, Catalina is still. Fog pressed close around the hills. The ocean somewhere out beyond it, black and endless.But inside that one room, everything is different

Lev is quiet that day.Quieter than most days since they arrived here, at least.

Abby notices it before he even sits down. There’s a heaviness in the way he moves. His shoulders are drawn in, his feet dragging just slightly, like gravity’s pulling harder on him than everyone else. His expression is distant, unfocused, like his mind is somewhere far off and he’s not in a hurry to come back.She doesn’t need to ask.She’s learned not to press.She knows the signs. The way his voice drops when he doesn’t want to talk about something. The way his posture folds in, smaller and tighter, when someone pushes too hard. How questions, no matter how gentle, only seem to make him slip further away.So she lets him be.Watches him from across the table as he picks at his lunch, dragging his fork across the plate more than eating from it.But that doesn’t stop the worry from creeping up in her stomach, slow and heavy, like something she can’t swallow down.

Taking care of a kid hadn’t been part of what she imagined her life would be.Not after everything fell apart.But somewhere along the way, Lev became the reason she kept moving forward. It wasn’t a decision. It wasn’t a role she stepped into with intention. It just happened. Day by day. One impossible moment at a time.And now, it’s hard to picture anything without him in it.He’s family.

That word used to feel out of reach after her dad.Like something meant for other people. But not anymore. Not when she looks at him and sees the only person left who knows the shape of what they’ve been through. Who still sees her and doesn’t look away.

She wonders, sometimes, what would’ve happened if Lev hadn’t been there with her.If it had been just her, captured and dragged through the dirt, beaten and strung up like some warning to others. She still remembers how it felt, the way the sun pressed down like a punishment, how her arms burned from being stretched above her head, how the rope cut deeper every time she moved. The skin on her back had split open from the lashings, her body blistered from heat, her throat too dry to scream.And through all of it, Lev was there.Hanging a few feet away, just as broken. His body too small for the weight it carried, his lips cracked, eyes barely open.She thinks about how his head would loll forward sometimes, the sudden fear that he’d stopped breathing. How just the sound of his voice,raw and shaking,was enough to make her dig her heels in and stay alive a little longer.

If he hadn’t been there, if it had been just her on that pole, under that sky, in that hell—

She doesn’t know if she would’ve made it.

Maybe she would’ve let go. Maybe she would’ve welcomed it.But he was there.He needed her. And she needed him.And somehow, that was enough.

She shifts in her seat, trying not to stare, but she knows he can feel it. The tension between them isn’t heavy, just… present. Like a storm that might pass without rain, or might not.Lev finally lifts his head. His eyes look a little less far away now, but there’s still something closed off behind them. A shadow she recognizes. One she’s seen before.

“You’re doing that thing again,” he says quietly.

Abby blinks. “What thing.”

He shrugs, pokes at the food again. “The look.”

“What look.”

“You know.”

She doesn’t answer right away. Just exhales through her nose, leans back a little, and glances past him toward the back wall of the mess hall. The air in here smells like boiled rice and burnt protein. Metal trays clatter somewhere behind them. Still, the space between them feels still.

“We could do something later,” she says.

He glances up, cautious.

“After dinner,” she says. “Walk up by the bluff or something. Throw rocks at the old fencing.”

His shoulders lift in the ghost of a shrug. “Sounds dumb.”

“Yeah.” She nods. “That’s the point.”

A small pause. The kind that would close back up if she said too much. So she doesn’t.

“You don’t have to,” she adds.

“I know.”

Another beat.Then he nods, just once. “Okay.”

Footsteps creak behind her. Soft, deliberate. Abby doesn’t turn. She already knows it’s Iris. There’s a lightness to her gait, not careless, just practiced. Like someone who’s used to walking around tension instead of straight through it."Anton wants to see you,” Iris says.

She’s standing just behind Abby, arms folded across her chest, head tilted slightly to the side, as if she’s half curious and half bored. There’s always something unreadable about her, like she’s holding five different thoughts behind her eyes and hasn’t decided which one to say out loud. She waits a moment, watching Abby, and when no reaction comes, she adds, “He said now.”

Abby nods and pushes her tray back with one hand. “Guess I’d better not keep him waiting.”

As she stands, she reaches down and ruffles Lev’s hair without looking. He grumbles, swats at her arm half-heartedly, but doesn’t pull away.

She and Iris fall into step together as they leave the mess. The corridor beyond is narrow and echoing, the floor worn smooth from decades of boot traffic and salt air. The temperature drops a little as they move deeper into the old marine station. The air is thick with the scent of brine and metal, layered with the faint chemical bite of whatever the Fireflies have been spraying on the walls.

Every few steps, the overhead lights hum and flicker, pulling power from the salvaged solar grid that never quite works the same way twice. Abby watches their shadows shift across the walls, stretching and breaking with each faulty pulse.

Iris walks as she always does, steady and self-contained, her hands tucked loosely behind her back. Her face gives away nothing, caught somewhere between alert and faintly amused, like she’s watching something play out that she saw coming a long time ago. Abby can’t decide if it makes her feel steadier or more on edge.

“You know what this is about?” she asks.

“No idea.”Iris shrugs without breaking stride.

Abby glances over. “When are you heading out?”

Iris doesn’t look at her. “With Cole? Tomorrow morning. If the weather holds.”

“Are you still going inland?”

“Yeah. We’re heading east of Colorado Springs to that old military base. Anton wants us to secure it and set up a forward supply point. It’s been abandoned since before everything went down, but it’s got warehouses, fuel storage, even an old radio tower. Could be a huge asset for communications and logistics.”

Abby watches her for a moment, thoughtful. “How long will you be out?”

“A week, minimum. Two if things get messy.” Iris nudges a stray bolt with the toe of her boot, sending it skittering down the corridor. “Cole wants to take a bigger truck this time. More room, better chance we don’t come back with nothing but a bag of empty pill bottles.”

“You trust him?”

“With my life,” Iris says without hesitation. Then she smirks. “But not with a map.”

That draws a quiet snort from Abby. It’s not quite laughter, but it’s something.

The Fireflies weren’t built around one leader anymore. No big voice calling shots from the top. Things were split now, shared between a few people doing their best not to let it all fall apart.Anton handled the recruits. Mission plans, base logistics, all the stuff that needed organizing. He liked having structure. Kept files, ran meetings, wrote everything down like it might actually stay that way.

Cole was more hands-on. He took what Anton came up with and made it happen. Oversaw the runs, kept the trucks moving, did the long-haul stuff when no one else wanted to. Abby had seen him patch people up in the dirt with whatever he had in his pack, then drive through the night with no headlights to avoid being spotted.

And then there was Liz.She kept the place running in ways no one really talked about. Got people where they needed to be. Took over when things started fraying at the edges. She didn’t raise her voice, didn’t need to. Just gave you a look and somehow you found yourself moving faster.

It wasn’t perfect. None of them had all the answers. But somehow, it worked. Most days.

“You sure you’re good for it?” she asks, quieter now. “You had that limp a week ago.”

“It’s nothing,” Iris says, waving a hand. “Twisted it on a slope, but it’s already better.”

Abby doesn’t answer right away. She wants to say “don’t push it,” but she knows how it would land. Everyone here has pushed too far, too often. That’s what surviving means now,knowing your limits and ignoring them anyway.

They pass rusted lockers missing their doors, lab tanks with glass so cloudy they’ve turned white, an old freezer now packed with sterile gauze and sealed surgical tools. A shattered aquarium in the corner is filled with MRE crates and cartons of iodine.Anton’s office is near the back, in what used to be the observation deck. The glass wall curves out over the water, wrapping the space in panoramic light. Even now, with clouds hanging low and the sky pale and washed out, the view is breathtaking. The sea glitters with broken silver.

Iris slows to a stop. “Guess this is where I leave you.”

“Good luck tomorrow,” Abby says.

“You too. With... whatever this is.”

Abby turns to look at her. “You really don’t know what he wants?”

“I swear I don’t,” Iris replies. “But you’ll tell me later, right?”

Abby doesn’t promise. Just gives a faint nod and steps into the room.

He’s standing by the window, hands clasped behind his back, watching the horizon like something important might crawl out of it.

“Anderson,” he says, still not turning. “Come in.”

She closes the door behind her with a soft click and waits. The office is clean, organized, not out of obsession but practicality. A cot in the corner, unmade but neatly tucked. A desk stacked with maps and reports. Shelves holding labeled boxes,weather logs, dried samples, old hard drives that no longer power on. The bones of science, now bent toward survival.

“You wanted to talk to me?” Her voice comes out steadier than she feels. It reminds her of the way she used to talk to Isaac, and that thought catches her off guard. For a second she sees Yara pulling the trigger. Isaac’s face when it hit him. She pushes it down.

“You’ve been here,what?five months?”he says,and continues after Abby gives him a short nod.

“You’ve adjusted well,” he says. “Kept your head down. Helped when asked. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice more than that.”

Abby shifts her weight, folding her arms across her chest. “Not sure what you mean.”

He smiles faintly at that. Not amused,almost... respectful. His face is worn, but alert. Every line etched deep by wind and loss and long hours. His gray hair is pulled back in a low tail, and his sleeves are rolled just past his elbows, revealing forearms marked with pale scars and fading ink. A man built in hospitals, but hardened outside them.

“I served with your father,” Anton says.

Abby stills,but not with surprise. Not completely.

“I know,” she says. “Dallas

He nods once. “He used to carry you around in that busted old field pack. Swore it was temporary. Said you’d stop asking to come to the clinic once you saw a gunshot wound up close.”

She almost smirks. Doesn’t.

“I remember you,” she says. “Not well. Just… the way you smelled like iodine and smoke.”

Anton chuckles. “That’s not inaccurate.”The warmth dies quickly.“I was transferred out to  before he left for Salt Lake,” he says. “Didn’t hear from him again until the comms came through. Scrambled audio. Dozens dead. Some lunatic tore through the surgical wing. You know the rest.”

Abby says nothing. She doesn’t need to.

“I’m not bringing this up because of sentiment,” he says. “Your father mattered to me, but that’s not what this is.”

She nods once. “Okay.”

He walks to the desk. Places one hand flat over a circle on the map.“Yesterday morning, a signal came through. A real one. Firefly frequency. Encrypted.”

Abby steps forward now. Not far, just enough to see the mark under his hand.“Chicago,” she says.

Anton nods.

“Someone,or something,is transmitting from a Firefly relay near the old QZ. It's been dormant for years, but this message wasn’t noise. Coded, clean. Repeating.”

He recites it from memory.A long pause.Abby stares at the map like it might move.

“You think it’s real?”

“I think it’s something. And if there’s even a fraction of a lab still intact out there,if there’s tech, records, old medical logs,we owe it to every person still fighting to find out.”

Abby watches him, jaw tight.

“Would it even matter? It’s not like we’ve got anyone who’s-.”She thinks of her and wants to suppress the churning feeling in her stomach.

Anton nods slowly. “Immune?No,we don’t. But what if we can?”

He lets that hang for a second. Not dramatic. Just honest. “It’s a long shot, sure. But people are still being born. Still getting infected. The world’s not done yet. What if the next immune person shows up tomorrow? And we’ve thrown away every tool that could help us understand why?”

Abby doesn’t answer. Her jaw tightens, arms still crossed.

“This isn’t about some miracle cure,” he goes on. “It’s about putting something back together before it’s too late. Your dad believed in that. Not the miracle. The work.”

A pause. Then—

“And you want me to go,” she says.

“I want you to lead.”

That lands. He doesn’t push it. Just stands there, waiting. Abby exhales, barely a sound. Then takes a step back. Not far. Just enough.

Anton doesn’t move. “I’m not asking you to go in blind,” he says. “The signal just came up yesterday. We still need to verify it. Cross-check frequencies, map possible routes, figure out what kind of resistance is out there. This isn’t a rush job.”

Abby watches him, expression unreadable.

He goes on. “If it turns out to be nothing, we walk away. But if it’s even half of what it might be,a sealed lab, archived records, working tech,then it’s more than we’ve seen in years. We’d have to be careful. Build this out right.”

She still hasn’t looked at him directly. Her voice is flat. “Why me?”

Anton exhales through his nose, not impatiently. Just honest.

“Because you know what’s at stake. Because you don’t chase glory. And because people follow you even when you’re not trying to be followed”

She lets out a short laugh. “That’s not always a good thing.”

“I didn’t say it was. But it means something.”

She looks up then, finally meeting his eyes. They’re calm, steady. Tired. But there’s something else there, too,something like belief. 

She looks away, jaw clenched,and Anton softens. Just slightly.

“This isn’t about finishing what your father started. But it is about what it cost him. And what it might still be worth.”everytime he continues mentioning her father she feels a blade slashing trough her stomach.

“I’m not him.”she says,sincerity and exhaustion in her tone.

“I know. But you’re not nothing, either.”

Silence.He doesn’t press.

“You don’t have to decide today,” he says. “We’re not ready anyway. We’re still sorting through it.”

She doesn’t answer. Just shifts a little, weight moving from one foot to the other. Glances at him, not fully, but enough to show she’s still with him.

Anton watches her closely. His voice stays calm.

“But we need to act. If we wait too long, whoever sent that message might stop waiting. Or they might not be alive by the time we get there.”

Abby stays still. Her arms are folded tight against her chest and her jaw clenches, just slightly. She breathes through her nose, slow and quiet. A few seconds pass. 

“That’s all,” he says, quieter now. Not cold. Just done for now.

She turns without speaking and walks out of the room.

The hallway outside feels colder than it did when she came in. Not from the wind. Just something under her skin. Something sharp, familiar, and already moving.

Abby moves along the ridge trail in near silence, boots grinding over loose gravel, rifle slung across her back. The afternoon sun hangs low behind a bank of clouds, casting long shadows through the brush. The light is dull and washed-out, sky faded to a pale silver-blue. Catalina lies quiet in the distance, but her mind is anything but.

Anton’s voice loops in her head, steady and low, stubborn in its quiet conviction.

“Because you see the long game. Because you listen before you speak. And because people follow you even when you’re not trying to be followed.”

He’d meant it as a compliment. As justification. A reason to trust her with something that might matter.But all she hears is a fucking indictment.

Because people did follow her once.And she led them straight to their undoing.

She hops a fallen log, boots landing hard on the other side, and keeps walking. A pair of gulls cry out overhead, wheeling against the glare of the sun. Abby doesn’t look up.

She had been blinded. Not by lies, not even by hope.But by grief. By rage. By the yawning, howling space her father left behind when he died. Revenge burned hotter than reason. Louder than doubt. It felt like justice. Like survival. Like the only thing worth doing.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew what Joel’s death did to her group.Saw it on their faces when they returned to Seattle. The way they avoided her eyes. How they gave her space, then more space. Manny and Jordan still cracked jokes around her, tried to act normal. Others faked it,talked like nothing had changed, like she hadn’t done what they all knew she had.But she could feel it, the shift, the weight of it. And then there were the ones who didn’t fake anything. Mel. Leah. Owen. They hadn’t spoken to her at all.Not for a while,at least.

At first, she called them fucking hypocrites.

No one had dragged them out there. They hadn’t followed her orders because she was in charge of something,they’d volunteered. Every single one of them wanted Joel dead. Not just for her father, but for everything that man took from them in Salt Lake. Futures, friends, years of purpose. Joel hadn’t just killed one doctor. He’d shattered a vision they were all building. Cut the legs out from under what little hope they had left.Everyone had lost someone or something that day.They followed her because they needed that pain to mean something. Because they carried it too. And if she was the one with the machete clearing the path, they followed because it gave their grief a direction.

They told themselves it was justice. That it would be clean.

But when the time came, it wasn’t clean.And it wasn’t justice.

It was her. Swinging a golf club. Covered in blood. Not stopping when he begged. 

Not even when she screamed.

Abby stops walking. Her hand goes to the strap of her rifle, adjusting it on her shoulder like it suddenly weighs more.

The thing is, the idea of coming face to face with the man who murdered her father had always lived somewhere between a fantasy and a fever dream. A ghost she chased in circles. Something she imagined in flashes.How it would look.How it would feel.Never really believing it could happen.

But she chased it anyway. Even when there were no leads. Even as the years stretched and warped and the trail went cold. She kept hunting. Like it was the only thing tethering her to the world.

Because it was.

Revenge gave her shape. Purpose. Breath.

Then,suddenly,they did have a lead.And it was like being blinded. Like someone had torn open her skull and poured fire straight into her brain. She was in that hospital again. Frozen. Staring at her father’s body on the ground. The sterile light above his head. The smear of blood on the tile. That hollow, impossible silence.The moment she heard his name,she stopped being herself. There was no logic, no weighing of consequences. Just heat. Just noise. A tunnel vision so complete it might as well have been instinct.

Everything narrowed to a single point: Joel Miller.

If the fantasy had always been hazy, shaped more by grief than memory, more by rage than truth, then the real thing struck her like a blunt object. Not in a distant field or some desolate compound. Not at the end of a chase. No. He was just there.

And when she realized it was him, she hesitated.For a split second, she doubted it.

She remembers staring at him, trying to reconcile the man in front of her with the story she had carried for so long. Searching for the cruelty in his eyes, the coldness she had imagined, the monstrous edges she had sharpened over years of waiting.

But it wasn’t there.He just looked human. Worn down. Tired. Old.

And that made it worse.

He had saved her. He had followed her. He had trusted her.

And still, she had swung.

She remembers that moment with horrifying clarity. Joel’s breathing, ragged and wet. The grind of broken bones. Blood slick under her boots. The smell of it, heavy and metallic. He was still fighting. Still trying to stand. Like his body hadn’t gotten the message yet. Like he couldn’t let go of something.

And then that girl’s voice cut through it all. Ellie.

Joel’s brother had said it in that theater, months later, when everything had come crashing down. 

She came out of nowhere.Screaming, kicking, sobbing with a fury Abby hadn’t thought possible.

And Abby had faltered again. Just for a moment.Because no part of her had ever considered that someone could love the man who had destroyed her life. That someone might mourn him. That there might be a world where Joel Miller was more than what he took from her.

It broke something open. Sliced through the blind fury. Because Ellie’s screams weren’t just grief. They were hers. Years of buried hurt. Years of nightmares and silence. They merged with Joel’s choked breathing, with her father’s name still ringing in her ears, and the line between them all blurred. Joel became her. She became him. And Ellie... she was the echo of everything Abby had lost.

Her hand had trembled. She remembers that.

And then she brought the club down again.

Past the point of justice. Past the point of vengeance. Past the point of anything remotely human.

And they all watched.That was the cost. Not guilt. Not grief. Them.

She shifts again, scanning the ridge automatically, though there’s nothing out here but the wind and the distant glint of the ocean. Her radio hisses softly at her hip. No chatter. Just static.

“Because people follow you even when you’re not trying to be followed.”

Anton’s words return, clear and sharp.

It’s not a compliment.It’s the reason they’re all gone.

She finds Lev down by the beach, practicing again.

He stands just off the dock, feet firm in the sand, body still, eyes fixed. The bow in his hands is something he made himself.Bent PVC pipe, darkened by time and weather. The string is repurposed fishing line, tight but fraying, stretched just enough to hold tension. 

It’s not pretty. But it works. Because he’s made it work, over and over again.

The arrow is metal-tipped, salvaged and sharpened. He knocks it cleanly, draws it back. The bow creaks with the strain. In front of him, jammed into the dune, is a mannequin head on a rusted pole. Someone once taped a pink wig to it. Now it hangs in brittle clumps, sun-bleached and wind-torn. Whatever joke it was meant to be, the punchline has long since eroded.

Lev exhales through his nose. Releases.

The arrow whistles and lands with a sharp, final sound. Straight through the left eye.

Abby pauses at the top of the stairs and watches. She doesn’t call out.

Lev doesn’t turn. “You watching long?”

“Long enough to know I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of that.”she raises an eyebrow.

He shrugs. A hint of a grin pulls at the edge of his mouth. “Good. I don’t miss.”

He pulls the arrow free, brushes sand off the fletching, and slips it back into his quiver. 

He doesn’t say anything else,but gives her a slight nod as he starts walking past her,to the trail uphill where the fencing curls along the edge of the ridge.Abby joins him without a word.

They walk side by side,the moon now rising just behind them..The wind picks up a little. It smells like iron and salt.

Abby kicks a rock loose from the path with the toe of her boot. Lev stoops, picks it up, and tosses it without aiming. It hits the rusted wire with a dull thud and drops.

Neither of them speaks for a while.

Eventually, he asks, “You going to tell me what Anton wanted?”

She walks a few more steps before answering.

“He asked me to lead a mission.”she grits out the words like they hurt.

Lev stops. “Where?”

“Chicago.”she exhales.

He studies her for a moment. “You said yes?”

She doesn’t look at him. “I didn’t say anything.”

They keep walking.

“Why not?”

She picks up a rock, turns it in her palm. It’s flat and smooth, the kind that might skip if there were water near enough to try.

“Because I’m not sure I want to be that person again.”

Lev doesn’t rush her. Just waits.

She tosses the rock. It bounces against the wire fence and skids out of view.

“The one who gives orders. Who decides who follows and who gets left behind. Who thinks she knows what’s right until someone ends up dead.”

There’s no edge to her voice. Just the sound of someone thinking out loud. Worn down.

Lev says nothing for a few seconds. Then, quietly, “You got me out of that building. When everything was falling apart. You didn’t have to.”

“That’s not the same.”

She crosses her arms, and the wind shifts behind them, cooler now, carrying the sharp scent of the tide pulling back below the cliff.

Lev bends, picks up another rock, and tosses it into the wire. It strikes one of the posts and falls into the grass.

“I don’t think it’s all that different,” he says after a moment. His voice is quiet, but steady.

He looks at her, not trying to convince her, just stating what he believes. “You’re not who you were before…you know. And I’m not trying to tell you what to do. But if you’re waiting to feel ready, you’ll be waiting a long time.”

Abby doesn’t answer right away. The words hang there, not pressing her, not demanding a reaction, but waiting all the same. She turns the thought over in her head. It doesn’t sting, but it doesn’t settle cleanly either.

“You think I should go,” she says.

Lev shrugs. It isn’t casual. It’s just honest. “I think you already know what you’re going to do. You just haven’t said it out loud yet.”He adjusts the bow across his back and turns toward the dock, walking the path they came down. His steps are quiet, the shape of someone used to moving without needing to be seen.

Abby stays behind.

She stands there as the sky continues to darken, the last streaks of light fading behind layered clouds. The breeze cuts a little deeper now, brushing over her sleeves and the back of her neck. Her arms fall to her sides, the tension in them slowly letting go.The ache in her chest hasn't left, but it feels quieter. Not gone, just not shouting anymore.She leans down, finds one last stone near her boot, and throws it toward the wire. It misses, skips once in the grass, then disappears down the slope.She watches the spot where it landed for a while, then turns toward the water.

The sea is quiet. The tide has started to pull back. There’s no horizon left to track, just the steady movement of waves under fading sky.She draws in a breath. Not sharp, not held. Just a breath.It feels like something she hasn’t done in a while.

Something steady.

Chapter Text

The world is soft and blurred when Ellie wakes.The sharp edges of pain haven’t reached her yet,only a dull, persistent ache beneath her skin that feels like it’s been there for days.She tries to open her eyes, but the canvas of the tent above her shimmers unevenly, pale light seeping through the stitched seams. Everything smells of damp cloth and something antiseptic, like bleach mixed with earth.
The air is thick but cool, sticky against her skin.

She scrambles to connect the fractured pieces of her mind, to remember what the hell happened and why she feels like someone clocked her in the head with a hammer.
Then it hits her,flashes of chalk dust, collapsing boards, the groan of old wood giving way.
The ceiling. A whole fucking ceiling came down on her.

Her heart kicks up, sharp and frantic.She wants to move but her arms are heavy and won’t obey.
Panic ripples through her chest, tightening like a fist, as she realizes she’s tied down. Her wrists are bound tight to the cot with coarse rope that rubs rough against her skin, chafing already raw from whatever this place is.She bites down on a curse, sharp and sudden, the air catching in her throat.

This is not good.
This is so not good.

Her eyes burst open, trying to ignore the brutal stab of light burning behind her lids.
She blinks, squeezes them shut, blinks again, repeating the motion like it might dull the ache.
It doesn’t.She feels as if someone shoved needles under her eyelids, like they want to gouge her sight out.She tilts her head slowly, forcing her vision to adjust, trying to scan the room. 

She doesn’t have a single clue where the fuck she is. Great. Just fucking fantastic.
Her gaze drops to her legs, heavy under some kind of rough cloth.She shifts, already uneasy, and the fabric drags. Her stomach turns. No pants. Just bare skin.
She’s still in her underwear at least.Small mercies.

She looks down at her right knee, wrapped in bloodied gauze. Pain hits fast and sharp, flaring down her leg to the soles of her feet, hot and relentless. Her jaw locks. She grits her teeth and tries to breathe through it, but the ache won’t let up. It digs in, stubborn and pulsing, like it wants to outlast her.
She’s on the edge of screaming when the tent flap rustles open.

A girl steps inside.Tallish, skinny, dark curls piled into a careless bun that looks like it could fall apart any second. She doesn’t look at Ellie right away. Instead, she bumps her head against something with a soft thud and mutters under her breath.
Ellie blinks,now really fucking confused.She notices the headphones in her ears then.
The girl starts humming as she goes over to a small bag on the corner and begins to search for something inside,turning her back to Ellie.What the actual fuck?

Ellie’s jaw tightens. “Who the fuck are you?” she snaps, voice rough and sharp.
Nothing.She tries again, louder, harder. “Hey! Are you fucking listening to me?”
The girl is still humming, off-key,and still has her goddamn back to Ellie.

A cold spike of panic twists in her gut,mixed with pure,furious frustration.
She struggles against the ropes again, heart hammering. No luck.
The girl mutters something under her breath again, low and distracted.Ellie can’t make out the words, but it sounds like she’s half-annoyed at herself.Then,finally,she seems to have found whatever she is looking for in that damned bag of hers and turns around.

She’s holding some kind of notes, flipping through them slowly. She reaches the last few pages and finally looks up,startled to see Ellie,waken up and alert,staring at her like she wants to play darts with her face.She yanks her headphones out, struggling as the wires catch in the strands of curls that have fallen from her bun.

“Oh, good! You’re up.”She breathes out.She’s wearing a faded patch on her sleeve,wings splayed in a rough arc, like something burning mid-flight. Ellie stares at it,blinking hard.Her stomach turns. 
They must’ve given her something because there’s no way this is real. No way any of it makes sense.

“Iris,” the girl says, voice soft enough it almost doesn’t register. “I’m Iris.”

Ellie’s chest heaves. The cold grip in her gut loosens,just a little,but the adrenaline keeps surging.
“Untie me,” she rasps, throat raw. “Now.”
Iris doesn’t flinch. She steps closer, slow and deliberate, palms raised like Ellie’s some spooked animal she doesn’t want to scare off.
“I know you saved my sister. Maddie.”

Ellie stares at her like the girl has suddenly grown two heads,which,given the fucked up reality they lived in,wouldn’t even be that absurd.
But then it clicks.She wasn’t alone in that building.
The memory hits in pieces,infected swarming the hallway, a guy shouting,Ellie running forward through the chaos, pushing someone out of the way while the ceiling above them groaned and cracked.

“Yeah,” Ellie snaps, the words edged and bitter. “You’re welcome. Now fucking untie me.”
The girl glances at Ellie’s bare legs and pulls a sheepish face.
 “Uhm… you had debris in your knee and were all bloody and—y’know—I kind of had to cut your pants off. But it was just me, you don’t have to worry.”
Ellie’s eyes narrow, scanning the dim interior of the tent. Every inch of her hums with suspicion. She shifts against the bindings, frustration burning beneath her skin.

 “Where am I?”
The girl meets her gaze without flinching. Her voice is steady, careful.
 “You’re safe. We’re at a camp nearby. Not far from Colorado Springs.”
Ellie scoffs, bitter.
 “Right. So what is this, then? Am I your fucking prisoner?”

The girl tilts her head, a faint flush rising in her cheeks. Ellie can’t tell if it’s embarrassment, irritation, or if the girl’s just plain fucking slow.
 “What? No, of course not. It’s just that—you see—”
“No, I don’t fucking see anything,” Ellie snaps, struggling against the ropes again. “Now untie me, for the love of god, because I swear I’m going to—”
But the girl backs away before Ellie can finish the threat.

 “Uh okay,I’ll be right back,” she blurts, and ducks out of the tent before Ellie can hurl another curse.
The flap snaps shut behind her, and Ellie’s left alone, the fading light bleeding through the seams of canvas. Her fingers flex against the rough rope, knuckles whitening, but the bindings hold fast.
The silence stretches. Thick. Cold. Alive with every thought she can’t outrun.

Her chest tightens. The ache in her back pulses, reminding her how fragile she is right now,how little control she really has. She wants to scream, curse, break free, but the weariness drags at her bones like a weight she can’t shake.
Minutes feel like hours.
Outside, muffled voices drift in. Footsteps crunch on dry earth.
Then the flap shifts again.

Iris slips back inside, her footsteps light but purposeful. Behind her stands a tall man, broad-shouldered and steady, moving with a quiet authority that makes the air feel heavier. His eyes scan the tent with sharp precision, like a predator sizing up its prey. Ellie’s gaze catches a glint of metal hanging from his neck,a Firefly insignia shimmering faintly in the muted light.

He nods once to Iris without a word, then steps forward, voice calm but firm. 
“You’re awake,” he says. “Name’s Cole.”
Ellie narrows her eyes, jaw tight. “You know, I really don’t give a shit about your names. Can you just fucking let me go? I don’t want anything from you.”

Cole tilts his head slightly, a small, almost patient smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, like he’s talking to a stubborn kid throwing a tantrum. “Well, what if we want something from you?”

Ellie’s eyes dart away, then back, narrowing into slits. Her chest tightens. Panic flickers just beneath the surface of her defiance, fast and sharp. He’s a Firefly. What if he knows who she is? What if he’s seen her before? What if this whole setup is a trap?

“What do you mean?” Her voice strains for calm, but there’s a brittle edge underneath.
Cole doesn’t rush to answer. Instead, the silence stretches, thick and heavy, like he’s weighing his words carefully before dropping them.
“I can see you’ve been traveling alone.And,from what i’ve heard from the guys that were with you, can hold your own, that you’re capable with a weapon. But out here, alone, in this world? That only gets you so far.” His eyes hold hers steadily. “It’d be a shame to see a skill like that wasted. Especially when you could put it to use for something that actually matters.”

Ellie’s brow furrows. “Something like what?”
Cole’s gaze flicks briefly to the Firefly tag swinging from his neck, then back to her. “By the way you’re looking at that, I’m guessing you are familiar with who we are”
Ellie snorts, bitter. “I thought there weren’t any Fireflies left.”
A faint, almost inaudible voice. Nora’s. It echoes somewhere in Ellie’s mind, cold and distant: 
“Haven’t you heard? There aren’t Fireflies anymore.”

The man,Cole,glances down for a moment, a small smile tugging at his mouth.When he looks back up, his gaze is firmer.“Yes, that’s what everyone says. Maybe because they’d rather avoid the problem like scared little sheep than face it. But we’re still here. Trying to rebuild.”

He shifts slightly, calm and grounded, the quiet confidence in his stance unshaken.
“I wasn’t with the Fireflies myself for a few years. Had to distance myself when some shit went down.Left when things got too messy.”He’s fidgeting with something stitched onto his sleeve.

Ellie’s breath catches, just a fraction.
She has a pretty fucking clear idea what kind of “shit” he’s talking about.

“But now… every day we grow. We get better,piece by piece. And we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.”

Her eyes flick to his face, searching for cracks. She’s learned to read people like maps, to smell lies like blood.But Cole’s gaze holds steady. No twitch. No spin. Just a kind of worn-down honesty.
Maybe too honest.

“So… where are we now? Is this some kind of base?” Her voice is hoarse, the curiosity threaded with razor-edged suspicion.
Cole exhales a short laugh. “No, this isn’t our base.”
He adjusts the sleeve again, brushing over the fabric with idle fingers. “I can’t say exactly. For your safety,and ours. We’ve got a permanent station, far from here. This is just a field camp. A few of us are out scouting. Looking for supplies. Looking for people who still want to fight.”
The word lingers like smoke.

No Jackson.No familiar faces. Just strangers in a stitched-up tent and a creeping weight pressing down like the dust outside.

“And you think that’s me?” Her tone sharpens, mockery creeping in.
 A weapon. A warning.
“I think you’ve got exactly the fire you need,” he says, calm.
 His expression softens, just enough to let something else bleed through.Faith, maybe.

 “We can help you use it. Make it count.”
Ellie nearly laughs. Bitter and bone-dry. The sound catches in her throat like broken glass.
He doesn’t get it.Of course he fucking doesn’t.
That fire inside her? It’s been scorched and suffocated, buried under ash and the ghosts of everyone she’s lost.She’s fought too much, lost too much.And he has no clue. No clue that the reason the Fireflies disappeared, the reason they fell apart, was her fault. Because she lived.
“Maybe,” she mutters, voice soaked in irony, “or maybe I’m just done.”

Cole doesn’t push. Just steps back a little, giving her space without backing down.
 “That may be. But you're here now.”
Ellie’s jaw tightens. Her wrists flex again against the ropes.Yeah, because you fucking dragged me here and tied me down.

“You don’t even know my name,” she snaps. “And you want me to fight beside you. Why the fuck would you trust me with that? And why would I trust you?”
Cole watches her, expression unreadable.
 “Well,” he says after a pause, “what is your name?”
Ellie thinks about giving him a fake one,but at this point she is so fucking tired with all of this bullshit that the truth spills from her mouth .What,is she supposed to be the only one named Ellie in this fuckass country?
She doubts that anyone,besides Marlene,from the Salt Lake people,knew her name.
They certainly didn’t waste any time exchanging  small talk with her before planning to cut her brain open.
“…Ellie,” she mutters.

“Well, Ellie,” Cole says, “you helped two of our people,even though you didn’t know them. We don’t take that lightly. We owed you. And if we meant to hurt you, you wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t have wasted the meds. Or the rope.”
He doesn’t say it with malice. Just fact.

“I won’t lie to you,” he continues. “We need people. Probably more than you need us, by the look of it. But being out there alone?” He shrugs. “That catches up to you eventually. Doesn’t matter how tough you are. It always does.”
Ellie watches him, silent.

There’s something familiar in the way he talks.Steady, firm, like conviction is armor. She’s seen it before.Marlene.That same glint of hope behind the eyes. The kind that clings to some imagined future, even when everything’s already gone to hell.
A dream. That’s all it ever was.

She hasn’t forgot.What they stood for.What they promised.
A chance at something better. A cause worth dying for.
She remembers how badly she wanted to be part of that. How she’d envied Riley, who seemed like some kind of superhero back then.Firefly tag brand new, eyes shining with the thrill of finally doing something.Something that mattered.Something that made her believe.Made her hopeful.
The same hope made her reckless,and in the end,had gotten her killed.

Ellie has yearned for a second chance for so fucking long.
Wondered what might’ve happened if Joel hadn’t razed that hospital to the ground.If,given the choice,she would’ve gone through with it.
If she would’ve really sacrificed herself for a cure.And now that chance is here,wrapped up in a short man with a rough haircut and calm but firm eyes.
But she can’t move too fast. Can’t let herself get pulled in.

She has to be careful.Has to be sure.Why should she trust these new Fireflies?What if they’re just another pack of idealists who don’t understand what it really costs?
She’s been alone too long.Seen too much to believe in easy answers.
The world doesn’t owe her anything.And neither do these Fireflies.

And yet...Part of her aches at the idea of belonging. Of having a purpose beyond just surviving.
But that’s the dangerous part,because hope can burn you alive if you’re not careful.
For a split second she’s back in that mall,her fingers on the trigger,Riley’s blood on her hands.
Her eyes drop to the ropes binding her wrists.
The cold canvas of the tent feels smaller now. Tighter.
Suffocating.
“Untie me,” she says, voice low but firm.
Cole glances at Iris. The girl steps forward cautiously and pulls a knife from her belt. The blade scrapes softly against the ropes.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Iris murmurs, eyes flicking to Ellie’s face,not sure what she sees there.
The ropes fall away, but the weight of everything doesn’t.

Ellie flexes her wrists, rubbing the raw skin, but the fire inside her flickers, stubborn and fierce.
She’s alive. For now.

Cole steps back, folding his arms loosely across his chest. His gaze doesn’t waver from Ellie’s, steady and patient, as if he’s willing to wait out whatever storm brews behind her eyes. “Look, I’m not asking you to decide right now,” he says, voice low but firm. “You don’t have to agree to anything this second.” He nods to himself, then adds, “We’re not going to be here long. The team plans to return to our permanent base in a few days. So you’ve got some time to decide what you want to do.”

Ellie shifts on the cot,glances at her wrists where the ropes have left angry red marks.
Her head is pounding as Cole’s words hang between them like a fragile truce, a fragile thread tethering Ellie to a choice she’s not ready to make. 

She doesn’t say yes. She doesn’t say no.
Not yet.

“You are free to go.No one is going to force you to stay.You’ll have to make that call yourself”are his final words as he and Iris step out outside.Ellie closes her eyes,feeling a thousand thoughts spiral behind her eyes, sharp and tangled. The cold of the tent presses in on her skin like a second layer, but the real chill is in the weight of uncertainty. 

She stays still. Listens. The sounds outside are distant: boots crunching over dirt, a muffled voice, a breeze rattling the canvas.She watches the darkened space where Cole’s Firefly tag had glinted at his neck and wonders how fast she could get out of here.She could move. Could grab her pack,if they haven’t taken it,stumble into the trees before the sun dips low enough to swallow her whole.

But when she shifts, pain lances up her side.Her knee screams. Her ribs feel like cracked porcelain. Her legs are so heavy they might as well be bolted to the ground.Her hands tremble,not with fear. Not even adrenaline. Just the low, bitter hum of exhaustion that’s etched into her joints like old scars.

She leans back against the tent wall.Eyes half-lidded.
She tells herself she’ll rest for just a second.Sleep catches her before she can finish the lie.

She dreams of Riley.Not as a memory. Not through that hazy, half-faded lens her brain usually slaps over the past like some scratched-up filter.But vivid. Real.
They’re sprawled out on the dusty floor of some abandoned building, sunlight bleeding in through the shattered windows in soft, golden shapes.It smells like dust and old wood and summer.The world is still. Held in place.

Their fingers are tangled between them, hands resting in that quiet space where nothing hurts yet.Where nothing has happened yet.Riley’s smiling, not saying anything for once. Just watching her. Soft. Calm.It unsettles Ellie more than if she’d been laughing.

Riley was always moving. Always kinetic. Always shifting from foot to foot like her thoughts moved faster than her mouth could catch up.This stillness isn’t right.

Ellie turns to speak,to make a joke, say something, anchor herself in the moment before it slips.But Riley moves too.
And suddenly there’s weight in Ellie’s hand.
A gun.Heavy. Cold. Real.

She tries to let go, tries to scream, but her body moves without her. A reflex. A memory.

The shot cracks through the dream like lightning.
Riley jerks back, her mouth falling open in wordless shock. Her eyes go wide,hurt and betrayed and so fucking real.She’s falling, but it’s slow. Drawn out like the universe is trying to make Ellie watch every second of it.
And then her face changes.It morphs as she drops.Dark skin lightens. Curls flatten.Eyes shift color. Mouth narrows.By the time she hits the floor, it’s Joel’s face staring back at her.
Dead.Slack.Silent.Blood pools out beneath him, black-red and endless.

Ellie jerks awake with a sharp inhale, her chest tight, the echoes of the shot still ringing in her ears. For a second, she doesn’t know where she is.Her body throbs in dull aches,remnants of the collapsed ceiling, the fight, the miles she’s dragged herself across. 
The tent feels smaller than it did before. Cramped. Suffocating. The air isn’t moving enough. Or maybe it's her.She's sweating, even though the cold has crept back in. Beads of it trail down her spine, under her shirt, cold and clammy.
She sits up fast, too fast,and the world tilts for a second.

She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, hard, like she can grind the dream out of her skull.
It doesn’t go away.Ellie fumbles to her feet, wincing with each shift of muscle and bone. She shrugs on her jacket and a pair of pants that don’t belong to her,someone must’ve left them folded at the edge of the cot,and steps out through the flap like she’s breaking surface after being held under too long.

The camp is quiet, except for the low murmur of voices and the crackle of a fire. A few of the Fireflies sit in a loose circle near a bonfire, their weapons propped casually against overturned crates or tucked within arm’s reach. The flames cast their shadows in twitching orange across the snow-dusted ground, their faces lit like masks,part real, part flicker.
Someone’s turning a spit over the flames. A rabbit, Ellie realizes from the gangly limbs and uneven roast. The meat’s blackened in patches, skin curling away from exposed bone. It smells like grease and ash and something almost sweet underneath.Burned fat, maybe. Her stomach clenches hard enough to hurt.

She stays in the periphery. Watching. Measuring.
One of them glances over and freezes. Not with fear,just the sharp awareness of someone clocking a presence. His hair is shaggy, cut uneven like it was done with a hunting knife and zero patience, and light enough to catch the fire’s glow. Almost silver in the right angles. Maybe one of the fairest shades she’s ever seen, and not in a soft way.There’s something cold about it, glacier-toned under the grime. Pale eyebrows, pale lashes, eyes she can’t make out from here.

He nudges the guy beside him, mutters something low. Doesn’t point. Doesn’t move.
But now she knows she’s been seen.Ellie doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away.

Let them stare.
Let them wonder what kind of stray they’ve picked up. Let them try to read her the way she’s reading them,where the threats sit, where the weak spots show, who’s just playing soldier.

She shifts her weight onto her good leg. Doesn’t step forward. Doesn’t retreat.
One beat. Two.

Then a figure stands up and peels off from the group. Iris. She moves with that quiet, deliberate grace that tells Ellie she’s seen some shit and knows better than to talk loud or walk fast. A medic’s hands, maybe, but a soldier’s spine.She doesn’t speak right away. Just stops a few feet away, arms crossed loose, not defensive,just aware. Ellie straightens a little, jaw ticking. She hates the way people look at her when they think they know something. Iris doesn’t look like she thinks anything,she just observes. Quiet. Focused.

“Hungry?” she asks, nodding toward the fire. Her voice is quiet, steady. Not warm, not cold—just there.
Ellie eyes the spit. The rabbit is still turning, one of the others poking at it with a knife to check if it’s cooked through.
“I’m good”It’s a reflex. A shield. Hunger means need, and need means weakness, and weakness gets exploited. She’s too fucking exposed already.Body hurting, mind cracked open by dreams she can’t control. She won’t add “starving” to the list.
Iris doesn’t press. Just shifts her weight a little and pulls something from her pack. A wrapped bundle,wax paper and cloth, dark with grease. She holds it out, casual. 
“Take it anyway. Easier to make choices on a full stomach.”

Ellie hesitates. Her ribs ache. Her legs feel like she’s been running in circles for days. And the smell,salt, fat, real food,makes her stomach cramp.
She takes it, fingers brushing the edge of Iris’s glove. The food is still warm, dense and heavy in her hand. She doesn't say anything.
She takes the meat,biting into it like she hasn’t eaten in days. Because she hasn’t. The rabbit is dry and stringy, cooked just enough to kill whatever might’ve been crawling in it, but it’s food. 
Her jaw aches as she chews through the toughness, her stomach clenching with the first real intake of calories in god knows how long. 

Only when she’s halfway through the bundle,lips greasy, breath shallow from chewing too fast,does she realize Iris hasn’t moved.Ellie pauses mid-bite, blinking up at her. 
“You all stare at everyone this much,” she mutters, “or am I just special?”mouth half-full,voice low and defensive.
Iris doesn’t smile, but there’s something like it in her tone. “You showed up bleeding, unconscious, and full of attitude. You kind of made an impression.”

Ellie flicks her gaze back to her,studying her “What are you,some kind of doctor?”
A ghost of a smile crosses Iris’s face,there and gone. “
I’m… whatever they need. Usually the one patching people back together.”
Ellie exhales through her nose. “Must be a full-time job.”
Iris hums in agreement.“There's water by the mess tent,” she says, and turns to go. “Sleep where you want. You’re not a prisoner.”

Ellie watches her walk away, boots leaving faint prints in the frost-covered ground. The fire flickers behind Iris, shadow warping her outline as she blends back into the half-circle of figures around the flames.
The food sits heavy in Ellie’s gut. Her fingers curl around the now-empty wrapping like she might wring something else from it.
Not a prisoner.Right.

She stuffs the wrapping into her jacket pocket and moves a few feet away, crouching low by a thick tree root jutting near the fire’s edge, half-hidden by shadow. Not out of reach. Not part of them either. Somewhere in between.
Trying to decide whether she believes that.
Or if she just doesn’t give a shit anymore.

Her eyes drift back to the fire, to the people gathered there like orbiting moons,close enough to feel the heat, far enough to burn if they get careless.

They talk in low voices. The kind people use when the dark is listening. Muted, cautious, but not without softness. Their laughter comes in bursts, small and dry, but real. Not that brittle, desperate sound people make when they’re trying to prove everything’s fine. This is quieter. Sadder. Like they all know nothing’s fine, but they laugh anyway because it’s either that or break.

There are eight of them.Five men, three women,including Iris's sister,Maddie,and the guy that was with her in that collapsing building,the one she nearly shot in the face. Real diplomatic start.
Scraped cheek, jaw stitched tight with neat thread. He meets her gaze across the flames,just for a second,then looks away. No heat in it. No open hostility. Just wariness. Like someone looking at a half-wild dog: might be safe, might bite.

The rest? Older. Not old in years, but old in the way the world they are living in makes you.Creased, worn thin, calloused around the edges. Faces marked by dirt, time, and loss.
Cole is seated nearby, legs crossed loosely, a metal cup in his hands like it’s something sacred. Steam curls from it, catching the firelight. He’s not talking, not laughing. Just watching. Quiet, composed. Eyes steady.
He’s watching her.

Not with suspicion. Not exactly. More like curiosity honed by experience. The kind of gaze that’s measured survivors before, weighed the threat, the fragility. He watches her like she’s something caught in a trap. Not cruelly. Just carefully. He knows better than to assume which direction she’ll run.
Ellie doesn’t look away. Doesn’t puff up. She’s too fucking tired for posturing.

Her head throbs,still. That dull ache behind her eyes that’s been dragging at her like an anchor. Feels like her skull’s filled with stones and static. She curls her arms around herself and sits there, bone-weary, letting the fire warm one side of her face while the rest of her remains cold.

The flames spit and hiss, sending up sparks that vanish into the black. Her clothes still reek,smoke, blood, dried sweat caked into the seams. Her boots are damp. Her socks are stiff. Her whole body is one long complaint.
She needs a bath.
She needs a week of sleep.
She needs to wake up in a different reality.

None of these people know who she is.
And if any of them do, they haven’t said it yet.

Still, her muscles haven’t fully relaxed. Not even close. She’s like a spring held in place, ready to snap if anyone gets too close or looks at her the wrong way. But for now she lets herself stay seated. Lets herself breathe in the warmth, the murmured voices, the temporary illusion of peace,watching strangers laugh in the dark.

No one tries to welcome her. No one smiles too wide or speaks too soft like she’s a wounded animal they’re trying to coax into trusting them.
They just let her sit.And that, maybe more than anything, is what keeps her from walking away.

She looks down at her hand,the one where the two fingers are missing.
Something plays in her mind,chords,guitar strings humming low in a dark room,the cries of a child,jj’s soft and barely hearable breaths as she looks at him falling asleep in her arms.Dina’s distant laugh coming from the kitchen,summer wind coming through the window,bristling up the pages on the table.Drawing.Of them,of everything she has lost.

She watches the embers die.Listens as the voices quiet down.
People drifting away.Some to tents,some to guard shifts.
Her knee throbs as she stands.”You’re going to have to be patient with that leg.”The voice comes from behind her—low, rough at the edges. Cole. He’s leaning against a supply crate, arms crossed, watching her with that same unreadable calm. 
“I have been through worse.”she hisses through her teeth,unable to cover up her pain.
Cole hums.”I trust you on that.”he looks at her,and he sees it.
He straightens his back,begins to turn around but stops half way.
”Try and get some rest.We leave in two days.”

Ellie doesn’t try to argue.
She just stands there, tired and aching, and lets the silence answer for her.

Chapter Text

She doesn't sleep for two days.Not really.

She wakes up in the middle of the night,Shadows stretch across the floorboards like they’re reaching for her. Abby’s already upright before her mind catches up, breath trapped high in her chest, hands clawing at her throat.Clutching.Gripping like someone else was just there.

Her pulse hammers in her neck, wild and panicked, like it’s trying to escape her body.

Her skin is clammy, tense. There’s no pressure. No hands. No bruises. But her lungs aren’t convinced. They’re still gasping for something that isn’t there.

Fuck this.

She stumbles to the window and shoves it open hard enough to rattle the frame. The hinges shriek. Cold air floods in, salt-bitten and bracing. She leans into it. Stares out at the night like it’s something she can fight.She just stands there, arms braced against the sill, chest rising and falling in erratic bursts. Her hair sticks to her temples. Her jaw aches from being clenched. Her fists don’t know how to unclench.Sleep won’t come back. Not now. Not later.

She knows what to do.

By the time the first ribbon of light spills over the water, Abby is on the beach, burning her body from the inside out.Her boots cut deep into wet sand. Her breath comes ragged, sharp enough to draw blood. There’s no structure to the run.No intervals, no pace. Just motion. Just force. Just the ache in her chest pounding against bone with every step.

She pushes herself harder, faster. The wind howls. The sea spits back at her like it’s fed up too.

Her thighs are screaming. Her lungs might as well be filled with salt and she begins to feel bile rising up from her stomach.But she keeps going.Because the minute she stops, it’ll catch up.

And so she runs until her legs buckle.

There’s no poetry in the way she hits the sand,just noise. Just weight. Her knees hit first, then her palms, then her forehead dips low to meet the cold shore like a surrender. Her body shakes. Her fingers claw into the grit.She waits for the relief to hit, but it doesn’t.

She forces herself up and begins to walk before her mind can register it and say otherwise.

It’s early but she knows that he’ll be up.And she ends up being right.

Anton barely looks up when she knocks on the rusted door frame of his office.She doesn’t wait for an answer.Not this time.She steps in,walking over to the worn out couch on the corner of the room,where she plops on with a grunt,not really caring about being polite.She’s still out of breath and she closes her eyes for a brief second as the heels of her hands dig into it.

“I’ll lead,” she says after what feels like an eternity.

Anton’s eyes flick up, slow. “That so?”

He’s got the same clipboard in his hands, the same half-scowl carved into his face like he was born with it. A mug of something bitter steams on the desk between them. The walls are lined with salvage. Maps, weapons parts, old satellite prints marked with dark ink trails, maybe a few faded photos of Catalina’s first scouting units,pinned like warnings. Abby ignores all of it.

“I’ll lead,” she repeats, firmer this time. “But I pick the team.”

He sets the clipboard down with a quiet tap, fingers still resting on the edge like he’s thinking of picking it back up again. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t frown. Just watches her for a beat too long, like he’s waiting for the punchline she hasn’t delivered.

“You’re sure?” he asks, voice even.

She nods once, sharp, though the words catch in her throat before she can force anything else out.

Her shoulders are squared, but there’s tension there,drawn tight, like something wound too many times.

A pause.Anton makes a low sound in his throat. Not quite agreement. Not quite doubt. Abby doesn’t move.She stands there a second longer, jaw working slightly before she speaks again.“You’re still waiting on Cole’s team to do this, right?”Her voice is quieter now, not unsure, but more measured,like she’s already running the odds in her head.

Anton exhales through his nose and leans back in the chair, rubbing a hand over his jaw.

“Yeah,” he says. “Can’t move on anything until they’re back. No point drawing up plans if we don’t even know how many we’ve got left to pull from.”

He shifts in the chair, something in his expression flickering.

“And even if they walk through that gate in one piece, I doubt many of them will be in the mood to head straight back out there.”He stands, coming around the desk to face her fully. Leans forward, eyes locking on hers like he’s stripping her down to bone.Like he sees through her.

“Look, Anderson, I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m not gonna sugarcoat this. We don’t have the privilege to do that in the kind of world we live in. Chicago won’t be easy. We don’t know what’s waiting there. It’s going to be messy,and getting there will be worse. This isn’t a scavenging run. This is uncharted. This is dangerous. People are more likely to come back bleeding than clean, if they come back at all.”His tone sharpens,just slightly.

“I’m putting a lot of weight on your shoulders,” he says, voice quieter now. “More than’s fair.I need you to be sure.”

Abby exhales, quick and sharp. Shakes her head as a humorless laugh slips out, brittle as glass.

She can’t fucking believe this.

“If you’re having doubts,” she says, voice low, steady, “then why give me the whole speech? Why bother with the whole “I see something in you” bullshit,uh?”

She finally looks at him, eyes narrowed, mouth set. 

“I didn’t come in here to be tested,” she adds. “I said I’d lead. If that’s not enough, say so.”

She stands there waiting for a reaction.Waiting for him to shout at her or kick her out,to confirm what she already half-expects.Anton doesn’t blink. Doesn’t shift. Just watches her for a long second, unreadable.

“I’m not doubting you,” he says, voice level. “I’m making sure you’re not doubting yourself.”

“I know you can do this,” Anton says. “This whole thing—Catalina,Chicago,all of it—it’s not just about surviving day to day. It’s about building something that lasts. Looking toward a future that doesn’t chew people up and spit out bones. It’s about Jerry’s death not going completely to waste.”

That last phrase hits her like a punch in the gut.

He straightens. Voice lower now. More tired than hard.

“And someday I’m not gonna be the one running things anymore. Not me.Not Liz. Not Cole. We need people who can take the reins if shit goes sideways. People who won’t flinch.”

Abby exhales, quick and sharp. The kind of breath you take when you're trying not to say something worse.

He leans back a little, but his gaze stays locked. No softness. Just steadiness.

Abby doesn’t look away, but something in her jaw ticks,like she’s biting down on every instinct to argue.“This isn’t a test,” Anton says. “It’s a fucking warning. You get halfway to Chicago, things start to fall apart, and you’ll be the one people look to.”He pauses. Lets the weight settle.“And I need to know that when it happens, you won’t freeze. You won’t hesitate. And you won’t lie to yourself about what it’s gonna cost.”

“You think I don’t know what it costs?” she mutters. Not loud. Not defensive. Just there, worn into her like a scar.

Anton doesn’t answer that. He doesn’t have to.

“Good.”he simply says.

She doesn’t reply. Just breathes. And something inside her steadies.

“You are right.If we’re expecting Cole’s team by the end of the week,if the plan goes accordingly,we need time. Time for them to recover. Recharge.”

She steps forward now, more grounded.

“We’re gonna need numbers. People who can stay calm under pressure. Not all of them,but some. If we don’t want this turning into a bloodbath, we can’t go in with a skeleton crew.”

Anton drums his fingers on the desk, eyes flicking toward the open door before settling on her. “Who?”

Abby doesn’t hesitate. “Cora. Taylor. Iris.”

He raises a brow. “That’s three.”

“As far as the ones from Cole’s team, yeah,” she says. “I still have to figure out the rest, but I’ve got a general idea. I don’t want to bring too many. Or too few. Small makes us faster. Cleaner. But I need enough to keep us alive if things go sideways.”

Anton studies her, then asks, “You thinking Weston?”

She shakes her head. “Lina.”

He pauses. “Lina?”

“She’s steady. And trained. If someone gets hit out there, she won’t panic.”

Anton leans back in his chair, arms folding. “You know people are gonna talk.”

“They always do.”

He doesn’t argue. Just turns the clipboard toward her and slides it across the desk.

“Write it down.”

Weston catches her outside the supply room like he’s been lurking in the shadows all afternoon, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

“You’re leaving out half the roster,” he snaps before she can even finish loading her pack.

Abby doesn’t need to look to know the tone. Self-righteous. Clipped. That thin little smirk tucked behind every word.

The man she’d written off early as Anton’s loyal attack dog never made much effort to hide that he didn’t like her. Hadn’t from day one. At first, she chalked it up to personality.Some people just had punchable faces, and Weston had the kind of voice that made you want to chew glass. 

Maybe that was just how he talked to everyone.

But the longer she’s been in Catalina, the clearer it’s become. This isn’t neutral. It isn’t impersonal. He doesn’t just dislike her,he sees her as a threat.And after the conversation with Anton, she kind of gets it.Still, she doesn’t turn. Doesn’t rise to it.

“They’re not ready,” she says evenly.

Weston snorts behind her.That smug, dismissive sound she’s heard too many times. 

“What do you think you’re doing here?” he pushes. “They’re never gonna be ready if you don’t stop babysitting them.”

Abby keeps ignoring him. Keeps her hands moving, methodical,checking inventory and cinching straps.She blocks him out like background noise. Until he puts himself in her way.

Literally.

He moves in close, lifts his arm, and plants it across the doorway, palm pressed against the frame. 

His body fills the space.Not imposing exactly, but deliberate. Calculated. She could get past him easily, but that’s not the point. He’s trying to send a message.

He tilts his head slightly, that familiar smirk curling at his lips, and speaks to her like she’s a stubborn child refusing to listen.

“What about little Lev, huh?” he says, voice mock-light. “He sure as hell can handle himself, by the looks of it. Seems more than ready to me.”

That lands hard. Too deliberate. Too close to the mark.

Abby goes still.Just for a second.

Not visibly, not enough for him to call it a flinch.But inside,everything in her clenches. Her breath stays shallow. Her fists don’t tighten, but they want to. She feels that old heat flicker at the base of her spine,the one she used to answer with violence before she learned how to carry it.

Her voice, when it comes, is calm. Cold.

“You don’t get to talk about him.”

Weston raises an eyebrow, leans a little closer like he’s testing how far she’ll let him push. “Why not? He’s on the training schedule. That means he’s fair game.”

Abby steps in, just an inch. Not backing down,meeting him.

“He’s not a game.”

Something in her tone makes the air between them go still.But Weston isn’t smart enough to leave it.

He shrugs, casual. “Look, I’m just saying,he’s got more fight in him than half the recruits you’re dragging to Chicago. Maybe it’d be better for everyone if you stopped making him an exception.”

That does it.

Abby’s jaw tightens. Her mouth twitches,like she’s considering something, calculating damage. Instead, she lets the silence stretch. Lets him stew in it for a few more seconds before speaking.

“If this is you being worried about your little rotation list, you can drop the act,” she says. “This isn’t about readiness. This is about you not getting picked .”

Weston’s eyes narrow. He leans off the doorframe, stands fully now, no more smirk.

“You think I give a shit if I’m on your team?”

“I think you give a shit that Anton didn’t ask you to lead it.”

That lands.

It’s not a yell. Not a threat. Just the truth, flat and clean and unavoidable. She lets it sit there between them.

Weston doesn’t speak. Doesn’t need to. His posture says enough.Tight, defensive, like the wind just went out of something inside him.Abby steps past him without needing to push.

“Try that shit again,” she says, voice low, steady, almost bored, “and we’ll find out if you’re as ready as you think.”She doesn’t look back.

Abby doesn’t even try to rest that night.She already knows that sleep won’t come.

She tells herself it’s because of the generator buzz, or the wind coming off the cliffs, or the distant creak of the dock swaying against its pylons.But the truth sits heavier and quieter than any of that. She’s awake because the decision’s been made, and now it’s real. There’s no walking it back.

She’s leading this thing.And it’s time to figure out who’s going with her,even if she already has an outline in mind.No strategy session. No formal planning meeting.Not yet.

She sits on the edge of the bed jacket still on, boots untied, a blank sheet of scavenged notebook paper balanced on her knee. One name already sits at the top.Hers, printed in clean block letters.

Below it, space.Space that needs to be filled by people she might have to bury.

She doesn’t lie to herself. This isn’t the hardest thing she’s done. There was Jackson. There was Santa Barbara. There were months after Seattle when she’d wake up and forget who was gone until the silence reminded her.She’s carried heavier.She still does.

Regardless,this feels different.For the first time she’s got a responsibility far more grand than revenge and she feels the weight.

Anton told her Cole’s team was due back by week’s end. Maybe sooner if the roads held. They were pushing east of Colorado Springs when last reported.Still within range, still alive, hopefully.

She needs people from that squad. Veterans. Fighters who’ve seen field work and won’t freeze when it gets ugly.Abby draws a breath and writes the first name.

Cora Halsey. She’s from Cole’s squad.Early 30s, solid under pressure. Has a calmness that never feels performative,just matter-of-fact. Abby’s worked with her on patrols before, only briefly, but enough to know she’s the kind of person who doesn’t waste movement or energy. She won’t fold if things go sideways.

Second name. Taylor Eston .Communications tech. Originally from the Portland annex, before it fell. Lost his sister to raiders years ago. Talks too much, but listens when it counts. He’s not a fighter, not really,but he can handle himself with a pistol, and more importantly, he knows how to patch signal, reroute transmitters,dig into old systems. If Sierra–Nine’s signal is coming from something more than static, they’ll need him.Abby shifts, hunching over slightly, pen scraping faintly against the paper.

Iris Trent. She hesitates before writing it,even if she’s already told Anton that she wants her on the team,She already vouched for her once. It’s a repeat, but a real one. Iris knows triage and is a field medic.Keeps her head when someone’s bleeding out.And she might be the one that Abby trusts the most.

Three from Cole’s side.Now hers.

Anton gave her the freedom to build. “Pick your people,” he’d said. “Just make sure you can count on them.”Abby writes slowly now. Every name a commitment. A risk.

Silas Kwon. Scouting. Not friendly, not chatty, but reliable. Speaks in clipped sentences and barely makes eye contact, but he’s the one who found the flooded tunnel collapse near the west road and marked it off before it could swallow anyone else. Detail guy. Quiet gut instinct. People underestimate him, and he lets them.

Micah Bell. Logistics. Long-range travel experience. She was in Catalina for less than six weeks before volunteering for a desert run, and everyone assumed she’d flake. She came back sunburned, dehydrated, and with a full manifest of salvage and intel. She doesn't talk much, doesn’t get involved in politics,but Liz once called her “a fucking machine” in a briefing, and Abby made a mental note right there.Cain Wilson.Wiry, focused, soft-spoken. Can strip and rebuild a carburetor blindfolded. His real strength is keeping the team mobile,fixes what breaks, reroutes what’s failing. Abby hasn’t spoken ten full sentences to him, but everything she’s seen from Cole’s reports tells her Cho does his job like it’s religion.

Seven names total.

She stares at them.It’s not enough.She taps the pen against her thigh, frowning.

They’ll need a medic.Iris helps, but she’s also frontline.Abby needs someone strictly support.

She thinks for a moment. Then:

Lina Vos. Late thirties. Strictly medical. Precise, serious, and unshakably calm. Lina trained under John back when they were still based on the northern docks. Abby's seen her stabilize a gut wound with nothing but a needle, gauze, and cold resolve. She doesn’t pretend to enjoy the violence around her, but she doesn’t look away from it either. Abby doesn’t need her to be fearless,just effective. And she is. Every single time.

Eight.Still not enough.

She presses the other to names into the paper.

Ana Reyes and Flynn Becker.Young,maybe a year or so younger than Abby,but not reckless.

They listen,wich already makes them more valuable than half the base.Train hard,don’t complain and are both decent shot and decent heads.

Ten names.

She reads them again. Each one a risk. Some more than others. She reads her own name at the top and doesn’t look away.She thinks about what Anton said: “ You get halfway to Chicago, things fall apart, and they’re gonna look at you.” That’s what this list means.

They’ll follow her because they were told to. But what happens when it’s her decision that costs someone a leg, a lung, a life?What happens when she has to decide who keeps going?

Abby folds the paper slowly, pressing the crease tight like sealing a wound.It’s done.

She tucks the list into her jacket pocket and stands.

The room feels colder now, like the air’s been stripped of anything soft. Her legs are stiff, her back aching from the hour hunched over, but she forces herself to move. Step after step, out of the barracks, down the long corridor lit by flickering solar bulbs, until the heavy quiet of night wraps around her like a second skin.

She’ll go to Anton’s office in the morning.But as of now,she needs air and space.Something bigger than concrete and recycled oxygen.

She takes the long path, past the storage rooms, past the infirmary where John is probably still cataloguing bandages into the late hours, past a line of crates turned makeshift seating outside the main structure. Catalina’s lights run dim this late,just enough to keep people from tripping. Not enough to chase off thoughts.She steps out into the open edge of the compound, where the wind off the ocean sneaks around corners and slips under clothes. The concrete landing’s scattered with stripped machine parts, old rope coils, and one broken floodlight that’s been rusted into place for over a year now.

She almost doesn’t see him.

Lev sits hunched beside a supply crate, bow resting at his side, hoodie half-pulled over his face. He’s got a knife in one hand, a whetstone in the other, moving slow, rhythmic. Scrape. Flip. Scrape again. He doesn’t startle when she steps closer. Doesn’t even look up.

Abby slows, then stops just short of the railing.“You’re not sleeping,” she says.

Lev pauses the blade mid-draw. “Neither are you.”

“Fair.”

She folds her arms across her chest, leans against the railing. 

“You okay?” she asks.

Lev sets the stone down. “I’ve been seeing Yara more.”

The words aren’t dramatic. Just offered like fact.

Abby shifts. “Nightmares?”

“Not really.” He shrugs. “It starts normal and turns into something else. It’s her face. The way she looked before she…you know.” He cuts off, jaw working for a second. “Before the Island.”

Abby doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t try to fix it. She just nods once and sinks to the ground beside him. The cold concrete presses through her pants, but she doesn’t move again.

They sit in silence for a while.Then Lev glances sideways. “You finish the list?”

She nods. “Yeah.I’ll give it to Anton tomorrow.”

“Who’s on it?”

She runs through the names. The ones she trusts. The ones she’s betting the mission on. He listens without interruption, nods at a few, squints at others like he’s trying to remember if he’s seen them spar.

“You sure Anton isn’t going to push Weston in anyway?” he asks.

Abby snorts. “We’ll have to cross half the country and I don’t want that prick stirring up trouble in the middle of nowhere. Anton gave me the call. He’s not the type to back off from his word.”

Lev gives a short nod. “Good.”

They sit another beat before he says,quietly,”You didn’t ask.”

“Ask what?”

“If I wanted to go.”

That lands sharper than it should.

Abby stays quiet for a beat and pulls her knees up and stares at the concrete between her boots.”Lev-”she starts,but he interrupts her.

“Did Weston really say I’m getting special treatment?” .

Her head tilts slightly, then turns. “What?Where did you hear that?”

“This place isn’t that big,Abby.”he says.”People talk.Some of the kids said you two had some kind of argument by the supply room and he said that you don’t want me to go because i’m your…whatever I am.That you’re babysitting me.That’s why you didn’t put me on the list.”

Abby stiffens.“I didn’t ask you to stay behind because of Weston,” she says.

“Then why?”

She exhales, steadying herself. “Because after everything you’ve gone through I wanted you to have... I don’t know. Something close to a normal life. Some part of your adolescence that doesn’t involve watching someone die or patching your own wounds.”

Lev doesn’t answer.

She pushes her hands into her coat pockets. “I know that’s bullshit. I know that this world doesn’t work like that. But I guess... I wanted to give you the chance. Even if you didn’t ask for it.”

He looks at her, really looks, his expression unreadable in the low light.

“I’m not a kid.”

“I know.”

“I haven’t been in a long time.”

“I know that too.”Abby meets his gaze. The wind picks up slightly, tugging a strand of her hair across her mouth. She doesn’t move to fix it.

“I wasn’t trying to control you,” she says. “I was trying to protect you. And maybe that’s not my job anymore.”

Lev exhales, quieter now. “You think I’m not ready?”

“I think you’ve been ready for longer than I’ve wanted to admit,.”She hesitates, then adds, “But if we’re out there together you’ll be a liability. Not because you can’t hold your own. But because I’ll put you first. Before the mission. Before the team. You know how that ends, Lev.”

“And you are my family.That’s whatever you are.”

He’s quiet. But he doesn’t flinch.

“You better not get killed.”

“Not planning on it,kid.”she breathes out a small laugh,shaky.The light behind them turns the edges of things gray. Quiet settles again, but it’s a better quiet. Not the heavy kind. Just earned.

The list’s still in her coat pocket. Folded, re-folded, the corners soft now from being touched too much.

Ten names.Not eleven.

Chapter Text

The truck rattles over the broken road, its shocks long dead.
The world outside passes in flashes.Dead fields, hollowed trees, metal skeletons of burned-out farms. She doesn’t look at them. Doesn’t need to. They’re all the same after a while.

Cole’s people fill the rest of the truck bed.Six of them total, not counting the two in the front.
Some talk quietly. Some stare into the middle distance.
No one talks to her.She hasn’t spoken since they left Colorado.
She’s glad for that.
The trees begin to thin as the road curls west. Branches scrape the side of the truck in slow, irregular intervals, a dry sound like bones dragged across sheet metal. Ellie’s in the backseat, knee braced against the side door, her head leaned against cold glass. The ache in her leg hasn’t let up since Denver. It’s a low, molten throb now, burned into the rhythm of her breath. She shifts, winces, then stills.

The ride’s quiet. Not silent,the engine growls and dips as they crest another rise, tires crunching over frost-fractured asphalt,but subdued.
Someone in the front reaches down and presses something on the dash. There’s a mechanical click, the soft whirr of a cassette spinning to life. Then the truck fills with a warped, drawling country track.

The kind of song that sounds like it’s been left out in the rain. Steel guitar, slow and cracked, the lyrics half-melted by age and heat. Ellie closes her eyes.It shouldn’t hit her like it does. It’s not even one of the same songs he used to listen to.But something about the tone, the slow slide of it, the hitch in the singer’s voice, catches her square in the chest.

For a second, Joel is there.A different car. A different road.Her in the seat beside him, shoes up on the dash. His hand on the wheel, humming lowly, drumming out the beat with two fingers like it meant something.She lets it pass. Doesn’t chase it. Just presses her forehead to the cold glass and lets the music rot out into static.
She drifts. Not sleep exactly, but close.That place where time stops behaving right. Shadows play under her eyelids. At one point someone laughs, sharp and too loud,probably Iris’s sister.The sound cuts through her fog like a blade. Then nothing again. Just the pulse behind her ribs and the warble of a song that might’ve meant something once.

She sits there with her eyes half-closed,her mind somewhere else,somewhere far where the mountain casts shadows upon her and the air is sharp and cold.She wonders what would have Joel thought about her going with the fireflies,probably would have laughed at her and her stupidness for trusting these people.She supposes it doesn’t really matter anymore since he isn’t here to scold her or yell at her.After all,she is in that position because she has lost everything.What else is there to cling to?
The only warmth comes from the coat someone handed her. It smells like someone else’s sweat, someone else’s fear. She wears it anyway.

The trip back to Catalina isn’t supposed to be complicated according to what she has heard.
Route’s clear, gas rationed, gear re-packed in tight crates. But things never go how they’re supposed to. Ellie knows that better than most.
Fifty miles of highway choked with cars, backed up like time froze mid-evacuation.
The truck jolts without warning. Not much,just enough to rattle the windows and jolt her knee. Ellie jerks upright with a hiss.

Outside, the trees are really thinning now, the slope of the land shifting downward.Someone in the lead signals a full stop and the backdoor of the truck stirs open,a sharp and scraping sound coming from its rusted surface.
Ellie hops down without waiting for orders. Her shoes hit the ground, and she scans the horizon, eyes narrowing against the wind. Something about it feels wrong.

Cole catches up, boots loud on fractured pavement. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just stops beside Ellie and stares at the line of wrecked cars jammed across the highway like a scar that never closed.
“Block’s too deep to drive through,” he says eventually. “Only other option’s the ridge.”
Ellie’s eyes stay on the tangle of vehicles.Hollowed-out sedans, busted axles, scorched hoods.
“How far?”
“Maybe thirty miles. Doesn’t matter. The switchback’s gone,flood last winter took the whole thing with it. Lower road’s a landslide now.”

She shifts her weight, wincing slightly. Her right knee’s been throbbing since morning. It doesn’t take much these days.Cold, uneven terrain, a bad step. Now it feels like someone’s twisting the joint with every movement.
“So that’s a no,” she says.Cole nods once, then turns, speaking low to one of the guys.
Maybe Taylor, maybe someone else. Ellie’s not paying that much attention.
Faces have blurred since Denver. She knows their rhythms better than their names: who moves fast, who lingers, who keeps glancing behind them like the past might catch up.

“We could try swinging west,” the guy says. “Loop around through Hollen Ridge,but we’d run out of gas before we hit the pass.”He doesn’t sound hopeful. Doesn’t need to. Cole shakes his head, jaw set.
“We go forward, or we don’t go,” the guy says.
“That’s where we’re at,” Cole mutters, already walking off.

Ellie stays behind, pressing her fingers against the stiff joint through her jeans until the burn dulls. Then she straightens. They start clearing cars by noon.
The work’s slow. Brutal. Most of the vehicles have been sun-welded into place, tires long since rotted away, glass melted into slick curls. The Fireflies don’t need instructions,they fall into pairs without a word. Cole and the guy with pale blonde hair lead the effort, shifting debris, testing unstable frames. Ellie ends up pushing with Cole for a while, then Iris. Later, someone hands her a rust-pitted crowbar without comment, and she uses it to pry a rusted bumper loose.

Her knee protests with every shove. Each step sends heat shooting up her thigh, but she doesn’t stop. Just sets her jaw and grits through it. When her foot skids on a slick patch of oil, she catches herself on the fender with a sharp hiss. No one comments.
They don’t have time for weakness.

Some of the cars move easy, metal groaning before giving in. Others need three, four people leaning full weight just to shift an inch. Ellie works in silence, arms aching, sweat soaking into her shirt despite the chill. Her body has stopped cataloguing pain; it’s just one constant thrum now, pressure and fire down her right leg and up through her spine.
Time warps. There’s no clock here,just the slow crawl of sun across wreckage, the grind of steel on pavement, the scrape of boots.
They get maybe ten cars off the road before she notices the next knot in the line. Two sedans, nose-to-nose, crumpled like they collided mid-escape. Glass everywhere. One windshield’s caved in around something,old bones or branches, she can’t tell.

She limps forward, crowbar still in hand, and slows.
Something catches her eye beneath the rear bumper of a delivery van tucked behind the sedans. Not obvious. Just a shape. Wrong texture. Wrong color.
Ellie angles lower, hand already at the knife on her belt. Her pulse shifts, sharpens.
A body.
Slumped half under the vehicle, legs bent wrong. One arm outstretched toward the shoulder of the road, fingers curled. The blood beneath him is still dark, wet at the edges. Not old. No birds. No insects. Not enough time.
Shot in the back. Entry wound only. High,between the shoulder blades. Execution-style.
She steps closer.
There’s something clutched in the dead man’s hand,creased and dirt-stained. A piece of paper. Ellie crouches, eases it loose. It’s folded, messy. Torn from a larger page. Not bloodstained, just worn.

She flips it open.
“Day 6. No reply on the radio. Kept watch all night, nothing moved. Sasha says we should go back but I think she’s scared. I would be too. Still haven’t told her about the tooth—hurts worse today. Fever maybe? God, I hope not. Gonna break down the last crate tomorrow and see if the filters are still good. That truck better run. We’re not staying here another week.”

No names. No ending. Just one more note to no one, left behind like so many others.
She reads it twice. Then folds it again, slower this time.
Doesn’t put it back.

She steps away without a word.
“Found a body,” she tells Cole, when she reaches him again. “Fresh. No signs of infected. Shot high in the spine.”He goes still. Doesn’t even blink. Just follows her back, hand drifting to the pistol holstered beneath his coat.

The others gather in silence. Nobody speaks, but the air changes,coils tight around them like wire.
Off the road, they find more signs. A burned-out tarp. Half-covered in dirt. A ration packet split down the middle, the foil curled and blackened. A water bottle, still half-full, mud clinging to the plastic. Ellie brushes ash from a circle of rocks,finds warmth in the coals beneath.
Someone camped here. Someone left fast.

Iris crouches low beside the tarp. “Cut, not ripped,” she mutters. “Deliberate.”
Ellie straightens, scanning the treeline. Pines swaying. Shadows shifting behind them.
“They were scared off,” she says, low. “Or hunted.”
No one disagrees. They don’t have to.
The clearing picks up speed.Not efficiency, just urgency. Like if they move fast enough, they can outrun whatever left that body behind.
Ellie works through the pain. Every push is a spike in her knee, a flash of white that rattles her teeth. She starts shifting more weight to her left leg, but the imbalance throws everything off. Her back starts to ache. Her hands sting. Her jaw stays clenched so long her teeth hurt.

She bangs her knee against a hood and doesn’t even notice until blood sticks her jeans to her skin.
They don’t speak unless they need to. The air has a taste now,copper and smoke.Something watching.
Ellie glances toward the trees again. The world’s too quiet.

She sees a glint,barely there,at the base of an old minivan’s axle. Thin metal line, almost invisible in the shade.She stops cold. Raises a hand.
“Tripwire.”
Taylor freezes mid-lift, hands under a rear bumper. “Where?”
“There. Under the van. Rear axle.”

Cole appears like smoke beside her. Sees it. Swears.
“Shit. Pipe rig. Would’ve taken out half the damn crew.”
They disable it slow, careful. Taylor does most of the work, crawling in on his belly while Cole keeps watch. Ellie stands guard, heart thudding in her ears. Every leaf rustle feels like a footstep. Every bird call feels like a warning.

The others fall back, eyes scanning the trees, weapons suddenly held higher.The body wasn’t an accident. Neither was the trap.

They break through just before dark. The last of the wreckage is pushed aside with a groan of metal, and the truck lurches forward, wheels spitting gravel as it slips free of the blockade. The road opens up, curving sharply downhill, winding like a spine toward the coast. Pines give way to low, wind-beaten brush. The sky is heavy with cloud, and the air shifts.Cooler, sharper, tasting of salt and electricity.Ellie looks out of the window.Through gaps in the trees, she catches fractured glimpses of the ocean: grey and writhing under the dusk, the tide rolling in angry and fast.
It churns against itself, wind-knotted and endless. Just as she remembers it.
The salt stings the back of her throat.

Seabirds wheel above something far out in the surf, dipping low, their calls thin and distant.
She closes her eyes for a brief moment and she’s back there,Santa Barbara.
The edge of that beach. Her blood painting the water read. Salt in every breath. The crushing stillness after it all, when nothing was left to fight and she wasn’t sure if she’d meant to survive.
She’d looked at the ocean and felt nothing. Nothing but the weight of it all.

Now it stares back at her again. Familiar and indifferent.
Ellie blinks, and the moment recedes. The truck rattles on. The sea keeps coming.
Rain begins as they descend. It comes fast, swept sideways by the wind in sharp, cold needles that sting exposed skin. The truck slide through the first curve, tires hissing on mud-slick asphalt. Headlights cut wide arcs through the mist, illuminating the dense sweep of brush and crooked silhouettes of trees.They make camp just past the ridge, settling in a shallow depression where the land curves in on itself. It offers a little cover, but not much. The rain doesn't stop.

Tarps go up fast. Poles are hammered into soft ground. Bungee cords snap taut. Someone starts a fire and fights to keep it lit, shielding it with their body as the wind slaps wet hair against their face. When the flames finally take, they hiss and sputter and spit sparks sideways, licking along the damp wood with uncertain hunger.

Ellie keeps to the edge, near the rear tire of a supply truck. Her hands are shaking,Not from the cold, not entirely. She shrugs off her jacket and bunches it beneath her leg, then slowly unwinds the bandage around her knee. Each pull of gauze makes her flinch. Her breath catches and shortens. Fingers stiff with rain and effort.

She peels the last layer away and looks. The skin is red, swollen, stretched tight with fluid. The scar tissue at the side of the joint pulses faintly. She doesn’t care. It has to hold. There’s no other option.
She fishes a clean strip from the pouch in her pack, teeth clenched around a piece of her sleeve to stifle the sound. She winds the bandage tight, slow and deliberate, hands working on instinct. Rain taps steadily on the truck beside her. The pain pulses upward, behind her eyes now, dull and constant.

Ellie finishes wrapping her knee and pulls her jacket back on, dragging the damp fabric over her shoulders. Her hair clings to her neck. She doesn't move to join the others.
Later, she sits cross-legged on her sleeping mat beneath the tarp and takes out her notebook. Her hands are still shaking.She sketches the pile of cars from memory. The way they looked, twisted together. Windshield glass like teeth. Doors flared open like ribs. She presses harder than she means to, smudging lines.Doesn’t stop. Just keeps drawing.

Elsewhere, the same wind pulls along the edge of the sea. Abby stands at the railing of a second-story balcony, arms folded, hair pulled back in a rough knot. The rain hasn’t started yet, but the salt is thick in the air, pressing in like a warning. She doesn’t move for a long time.

Below her, the island sleeps. Most of it. Her too, eventually.

Ellie sets the pencil down. Glances once at the sketch before closing the notebook. They’ll cross to Catalina at first light.

Chapter Text

The fog hangs thick over the water, stretched low across the channel like a veil.
Catalina’s shoreline hums low with the quiet ache of early morning. The distant sound of waves coming undone over rocks, the hush of wind shifting through sand still wet from the night storm.
Mist curls around the pylons. Solar lights buzz faintly, half-drained. No birds.

It’s barely dawn when the boats come in.
A call goes out across the northern outpost. Engines. Shapes. Figures at the edge of the horizon. One of the patrol radios in a single clipped phrase, rushed:
“They’re back.”

Boots scatter down the bluffside trail.
Weapons slung. Shoulders braced. No alarm raised, but no one relaxes either. The dock crews move like they’re underwater,methodical and wary. Ropes are thrown. Mooring lines catch. The boat lists hard against the dock, a dull thud echoing off wood slick with salt.
Cole steps off first, shoulders squared, jaw tight,but there’s a calmness in his eyes,the relief of being back home.Behind him, the others follow.Faces thinned out by weather, tension in their movements, salt crusted into the seams of their jackets.

And then,someone else.Someone who wasn’t with them when they left Catalina.

She steps off last. Hesitates, just barely. The limp is subtle but visible. The way her body favors one leg over the other, a shift in her posture like every inch of her is braced for pain she won’t acknowledge. No name spoken. No introduction made.
Brown jacket. Scuffed boots. A satchel held too tight over one shoulder. She moves like someone used to disappearing. Head low. Eyes forward. Not hiding,but not offering either.

One of the dock runners pauses.Starts to ask something. Cole shakes his head once. That’s enough.
The clipboard woman makes a mark. Motions them forward.
They disappear down the corridor without a sound.
The engine cuts. The boat goes still.Up on the catwalk, the patrol turns to watch.
A moment lingers in the salt wind.Thin, sharp, fragile.

The girl doesn’t look back.

But something about her follows.
And Catalina exhales like it’s just felt a shift it doesn’t understand yet.

She’s already awake when the knock comes.

Not the frantic kind. Just two flat raps against the doorframe.Sharp, restrained, no urgency.
Abby doesn’t move at first. Doesn’t answer. She’s perched on the edge of her cot,boots off, elbow braced to her knee, slowly rolling her shoulder for the third time this morning.
The joint aches,not even painful, just that deep, dragging warmth of something worn in.
Familiar. Almost sentimental. A reminder that she’s still carrying everything she hasn’t figured out how to set down.

She blinks at the wall across from her, caught in that quiet gray hour just before dawn fully crests.
The voices outside are faint, blurred by distance and fog, but she can tell.
Abby stands slowly. Her knees click, not loud, but loud enough in the silence.
She plants her foot on the cold floor and lets the chill center her. One deep breath, two.
She doesn’t bother fixing the cot behind her, doesn’t straighten the corner of the blanket she kicked loose during the night. Just crosses the room barefoot, dragging her hand once along the edge of the desk like she’s checking if the world is still real.

She pulls open the door already half-expecting who to find on the other end.           
Her jacket is streaked with dried road grit, braid unraveling in places, exhaustion pressed into the lines of her face like soot that won’t wash off. There’s a faint smear of blood along the sleeve near her elbow. Abby clocks the way she favors one side, weight resting unevenly, like something’s pulled in her hip or her ribs. Iris would never say. She’d probably crack a joke first. Then climb a tree about it.

“Hey you,” Iris says. 
She’s already crossing the threshold without waiting for permission, boots thudding over wooden floors, jacket creaking from dried salt. She slumps into the metal chair in the corner like she’s been here the whole time. Legs stretched. Boots kicked up on the desk like it’s hers.
Abby doesn’t smile. But something like relief fills up her chest.

“You’re early,” Abby says, voice still low from disuse,but a hint of amusement there.
Iris shrugs, lazily, like it’s not worth unpacking. “Lost a tire. Got lucky with fuel. Got unlucky with everything else.”

Her head tips back against the wall, the shadow of a wince flitting across her brow before she smooths it out like it didn’t happen. Abby watches, arms crossed, saying nothing. She crosses the room without a word and picks up the enamel cup from the corner of the desk. Pours from the metal jug,lukewarm, but clean. No rust. No iodine aftertaste. It’s not much, but after a week on the mainland, it probably tastes like gold.

She hands it over without asking.
Abby leans against the opposite wall. Crosses her arms tighter. Watches her without speaking, but her gaze narrows slightly.
“Are you hurt?” she asks.
Iris snorts. Not a laugh. Not quite. Just a sound that says don’t ask stupid questions.

“Only in the emotional sense.”

Abby doesn’t smile. Just raises an eyebrow.

“I’m serious.”
Iris shrugs again, loose and slouching. “Would I be here if it was something serious?”
Abby shifts her stance, arms uncrossing briefly as she presses her thumb into the knotted muscle above her knee. “Fair,” she mutters. Then, after a beat: “The others?”
“Cora caught the worst of it. Hayden’s ankle’s fucked. Maddie—” she exhales through her teeth “—almost got crushed under a ceiling.”

Abby’s brows draw. “Shit. How’s she?”

Iris lifts the cup again, takes one final sip, then sets it down with a soft clink. 
“Didn’t even get a scratch,” she mutters. “That dumbass of my sister always gets unbelievably lucky somehow. If that girl hadn’t been there—”
She trails off. Doesn’t finish the thought. Just shakes her head, mouth twitching like she’s trying not to say more.

Abby watches her closely now, arms still folded tight across her chest.
“What girl?”

Iris glances at her, and for a second,leaning further in the chair.“She was with Maddie and Flynn when they got pinned by a small group of infected. No one knows why she was there,she came out of nowhere. Alone. Gear wasn’t Firefly.She was passed out when we found her and brought her back to the camp.”

“She Firefly?” she asks, too casually.
Iris shakes her head. “No insignia. Civilian clothes.”

“And she said nothing?”
“Barely spoke.” Iris frowns faintly. “Not in a scared way. Just… not much to say, I guess.”

Abby’s heartbeat slows. Then quickens.
She doesn’t press. Doesn’t ask what she wants to ask. Catalina takes in people all the time.Civilians, drifters, scavvers who ran out of road. Survivors with nowhere else to land. This isn’t unusual. Not on paper.Still,there’s something in Iris’s tone that sticks. Like a splinter under the nail. The kind of detail you can’t shake even if you don’t want to think about it.
Abby’s stomach drops, low and cold. She keeps her face still. She’s good at that.

“Anton already seen her?” Abby asks, keeping her voice steady, casual, like she doesn’t already know something’s wrong.

Iris nods. “They’ve got her in the med corridor.”She rubs her fingers along the lip of the empty cup.
“Her knee’s pretty fucked up. I tried to take care of it as best I could, but we were low on supplies. She didn’t really complain much, though.”

“Did she say what her name was?”
As the words spill from her mouth,the knot in her stomach tightens.
Iris tilts her head,like she almost forgot.Then,casually-
“Yeah.Ellie.”
Abby doesn’t move.
Not even a blink.

The name hits like a quiet backhand.No sound.No echo.Just pressure,deep and rooted and instant,sinking straight into the center of her chest like a hook was already waiting there.
Her eyes flick back to Iris, searching, but Iris doesn’t say more. Just leans forward, elbows on her knees, as if her own exhaustion is catching up now that she’s stopped moving.
Abby stands still in the center of the room who is now suddenly spinning.

Abby doesn’t say what’s in her throat. Doesn’t ask if the girl has dark hair. If she’s got an old pack. If two of her fingers are missing. Because if she says it out loud, it becomes real. And she’s not ready for that. Not yet.

She turns,reaches for her jacket.The motion is sharper this time.She doesn’t bother fixing the collar or zipping it close.Just pulls it on and shoves her arms through like she needs out of the room immediately.
Iris watches her.Eyes narrowed slightly.”You okay?

“I’ll find Anton,”Abby says,already moving for the door.
She doesn’t wait for a reply and doesn’t give one either.
The island is quieter now. But her blood’s loud in her ears.

She doesn’t go find Anton.Not yet at least.
Her boots move on their own,faster than her thoughts.
She cuts through the corridor like a shadow,not acknowledging the people who pass her by.
Their faces blur.Voices dull.Every step echoes loud in her ears.
It’s not until she rounds the final corner that she slows.

The door to the medical wing is cracked open.A dull light spills through it.Sterile and flat,tinged slightly green by the aging solar panels overhead.Inside,it’s quiet.The kind of silence that’s layered, stacked on top of antiseptic and gauze and tension.It smells like bleach and wet stone and ghosts from her past coming alive,the ashes rising through bloodied sea water.
Abby stands outside it for a beat.Breathing hard. 
She thinks of Lev. Of his bow slung over one shoulder. The way he jokes under his breath when he’s trying not to show he’s scared. The way he said her name that night in Santa Barbara, like he didn’t expect her to still be alive.
Inside, she hears the faint murmur of Lina’s voice. Calm. Clipped. The same way she always sounds when she’s cataloguing injuries aloud more for her own record than for the person bleeding in front of her.Abby takes one slow step forward. Then another.
Just enough to see the edge of the cot inside. See Lina bent over with a roll of bandage in one hand. And see her propped back on her elbows, jaw clenched, hoodie bunched around her waist.
Her knee is wrapped in a mess of gauze and tension. No blood showing through, but it’s swollen, bruised. Her right boot is off. Her left leg shakes slightly,just once,ike she’s trying not to let it.

Abby freezes.She doesn’t make a sound and feels her throat dry out,the air coming to a full stop in her lungs.Because suddenly breathing burns.
It’s real.She’s really here.
And somehow, Abby doesn’t feel angry at first. She feels sick.

Ellie doesn’t see her.She’s facing away, profile half-lit by the dull battery lamp bolted to the table beside her. Her hair’s longer than the last time she has seen her face.Still messy, but cleaner somehow. Her face is thinner. Or maybe it’s just more hollow. Whatever softness she had before is long gone.

“You’ve been lucky,” Lina says, stepping back, checking something off on a pad. “The joint’s inflamed, but it’s not torn. Rest and wrapping. That’s all I can offer until we can check you with proper imaging.”

Ellie doesn’t answer.
“Pain level?”
She shrugs.
“On a scale.”
Another shrug.
“Right.” Lina sighs. “You need anything, you call someone. You get me?”

A nod this time. Barely.
“Good. I’ll be back in twenty. Stay put.”

Lina steps out.Doesn’t notice Abby standing there just beyond the curtain.Or if she does,she doesn’t say anything.She just keeps walking,clipboard hugged to her chest,eyes flicking across her notes,mouth tight in the way people get when they’re processing someone else’s pain and trying not to let it follow them home. Abby watches her go.
Then she waits. Five seconds. Then ten. Long enough for the footsteps to fade into the hum of generators, into the low murmur of the morning shift waking up beyond the walls.Then she moves.

She steps through the curtain like it’s a threshold into something burning, her body moving before her brain does. Her boots hit the vinyl floor in dead silence. The pistol’s already in her hand. She doesn’t remember pulling it. Doesn’t need to remember. It’s there. It’s always there. The weight of it in her grip might as well be bone.
Ellie doesn’t hear her.Doesn’t even turn. She’s seated at the edge of the cot, hunched slightly forward, elbows on her knees, eyes fixed on some invisible point beyond the opposite wall. Her coat is still on, one sleeve darkened with old dirt, one knee heavily wrapped. Her hands hang loose between her thighs. Still. Passive. Like she hasn’t really come back to her body yet.That makes it worse.

And then Abby’s on her.

She moves in fast, smooth, like muscle memory.In one brutal motion, she yanks Ellie upright by the collar, slams her arm across her throat, locks it in place, vice-tight. Her forearm catches under the chin, pins her where she sits. The pistol jams against the side of her skull, cold and solid, pressed just above the temple.Not shaking. Not bluffing.Ellie jerks once,but not far.
Her hands come up, scrambling toward Abby’s elbow, fingernails digging into her skin in a blind, useless effort to peel her off.She can’t.Abby’s hold is too tight.

Abby doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t loosen her grip.
Her face is pressed close now, her breath hot and ragged against Ellie’s ear.
She snarls, voice low, a whisper ground down to bone.“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Ellie freezes.Completely.Her muscles don’t go slack, but they stop fighting. Her hands still cling to Abby’s arm, but not with intent anymore. Her head tilts,just barely,and Abby feels the shift, the way Ellie’s body recognizes her voice.Recognition. Not fear.That makes it worse.

Abby’s breath burns in her chest. Her heart feels like it’s caught in a vise, like every pulse is trying to crawl up her throat and choke her from the inside.
She wants to scream.Wants to break something. Wants to shake her.But she doesn’t.
She instead presses harder. The gun digging in.

“Have you come to finish what you couldn’t last time, you fucking bitch?”

Ellie’s eyes flick toward the edge of her vision. Not at Abby. Just toward the tent opening. Assessing. Calculating. A thousand fucking things probably running through her head and none of them apology.
Abby’s breathing is ragged now. Every inch of her pulled tight like wire. She hasn’t felt this kind of fury in months. Maybe years. Not since Jackson. Not since the compound in Santa Barbara, salt drying in her mouth, the taste of blood and ocean and loss.

Ellie’s voice is dry when it finally comes. Rough.
“Didn’t think you’d be the welcoming committee.”
It’s nothing. Just a sentence. A throwaway line. But it punches through Abby like a goddamn spike. It’s how she says it. Calm. Blasé. Like they’re still playing the same game. 

Abby’s vision goes hot.
The gun presses harder to Ellie’s skull. Her hand’s trembling now,not from weakness, but from how much she’s holding back. Her forearm’s still locked under Ellie’s chin. One sharp motion and she could crush her windpipe. One twitch of the trigger and it’s all over.

But Ellie’s not flinching. She doesn’t look afraid. She just looks.
Sideways. Upward. Still not directly at her. Still avoiding the one thing that would make this human.

Abby snarls, her voice lower now, ground down to something bitter and scorched.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face here.”
Ellie lets out a dry sound that might be a laugh. “Didn’t realize this place was yours.”

Wrong answer.
Abby slams her back against the cot again,hard enough that the metal legs screech against the floor and the frame gives a protesting groan. Ellie grunts, but doesn’t cry out.
“Don’t—” Abby’s voice cracks. She bites it off. Swallows. “Don’t fucking play dumb with me. Not here. Not now.”

The words taste like acid. Her body’s shaking with the force of keeping the scream inside. Because it’s not just rage anymore. It’s grief. It’s terror. It’s the sudden image of Lev’s body twisted in an alley. The whole fucking island burning because she turned her back for one second and let Ellie walk in.

“What are you doing here?” she growls. “Say it. Say why you came.”
But Ellie’s still quiet.
“You think I won’t do it?” Abby hisses.

Ellie blinks once. Slow.
“I think if you were gonna,” she murmurs, “you wouldn’t be talking so much.”

That does it.Abby yanks her back again, the motion sharp, brutal. Her grip falters,just a second,but it’s enough for Ellie to twist in it. Not to break free, but to face her. The gun's still at her temple, but now they're eye to eye.The gun doesn’t move. Abby’s finger twitches near the trigger.

One pull.She could do it.Right now.End it.
But her hand won’t move.
Because Abby knows things now. Things she didn’t want to think about until this second. About Chicago. About the broadcast. About the science still left buried in the bones of this country. And about Ellie. About what she is.Her immunity.
It rushes in like floodwater. Her father’s voice, clear as day, rattling around in her head:
“This girl could save the world, Abigail.”

Her jaw tightens until her teeth ache.

Because isn’t that just fucking poetic? That the girl who tore her life apart might be the only shot Catalina has at building something better. That all roads,everything,would lead right back here,to this room.To this girl.To this moment.

Abby almost laughs. It bubbles up her throat, hysterical and joyless, like the wind howling through a broken window. She lets out a sound instead,a breath that sounds more like pain than anything else.
“This some kind of joke?” she rasps. “You show up, just as we finally get a signal out of Chicago? My dad dies for this,and now you want in?”
Ellie’s expression doesn’t change. But Abby sees it. The shift. The way her throat works when she swallows. The small flick of movement in her jaw, like there’s something she wants to say, but won’t.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t,” Abby says, suddenly. Her voice is quiet now. Dangerous in a different way. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”

Ellie shakes her head, slow.“I didn’t come here for you.”
“You think I want anything from you?” she asks, barely above a whisper. “You think I planned this?”
The silence after that is instant. Heavy.Abby’s not sure if it’s better or worse than if she had said she did.Her grip doesn’t loosen. But her arms feel like they’re burning.
“If I still wanted you dead,” she murmurs, “I would’ve planned it better.Maybe held your head under water for a little longer this time. ”

Abby goes still.The rage simmers and coils tight around the ribs like wire. For a second, the pistol presses even harder against Ellie’s temple, just shy of snapping bone. 

“You think this is a game?” she hisses.
Ellie doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to.
Abby can feel the truth of it in her bones. That same sharp-edged contempt. That cold, brittle steadiness Ellie’s always had. Like she’s standing in the ruins of her own body and daring you to flinch first.
“I should’ve killed you,” Abby says. “I should’ve done it right. Back then.”
Ellie’s mouth tugs, not quite a smile. “Guess we both fucked that up.”

Abby’s hold falters. Not completely. But her arm slackens by a fraction. Enough that the pressure eases. Enough that the gun’s barrel drifts just slightly off center.
Her whole body is still trembling. And she hates it. Hates the way her chest is heaving, the way her eyes burn even though she’s not crying. Not now. Not in front of her.

Abby’s eyes squeeze shut for a second. Her lips pull tight like she might spit. Or scream.
Instead, she lets out a breath. Rough. Shaky.Then she releases Ellie.Just lets her go.
Ellie stays perfectly still for a moment, like she doesn’t believe it. Then she shifts slowly,stiffly,rubbing at the side of her throat but never taking her eyes off the floor.

Neither of them speaks.Not at first.Abby steps back another pace. Her hand curls around the pistol again, but only out of habit. Her voice is rough when she speaks.“I ever find out you’re here to fuck with us,” she says, not quite a whisper, “I won’t hesitate next time.”

Her eyes linger on Ellie one more second.On her face,her knee,her hands,on her two missing fingers.
She turns and walks out without another word.

Out into the hallway. The corridor lights buzz low and dull.Her pulse finally begins to slow.
But inside her, it’s chaos.
It all loops in her brain like something preordained. Like the universe has decided to tangle every piece of her life into one fucked-up knot,and now it’s tightening.

And at the center of it all,again,is her.

Chapter Text

Ellie watches Abby go. Her eyes stay locked on the fading shadow of her frame until the door slams shut with a hard crack that rattles through the medical room. The sound hits her like a second impact. It reverberates inside her skull and sinks all the way down to the pit of her stomach.She does not move.
She stays in place for what feels like hours, frozen in the exact spot she was when Abby stormed out. Her stare stays pinned to the empty space in front of her. The space Abby filled only moments earlier. The space that still feels charged with everything that passed between them, all of it wordless and sharp and carved too deep. Hate. Disgust. Recognition. The kind of recognition that cuts like a blade turned backward.

Her thoughts scatter and collide too quickly to catch. For a few seconds she almost convinces herself she imagined the whole thing. That her brain, pushed past every limit, cracked wide open. That she is losing the ability to separate reality from the things her trauma invents to punish her. She believes it. Halfway at least.
It would not be surprising. She knows how unstable she is. She has watched herself slip down that slope more times than she can count. She knows there will be a day where she might vanish entirely into whatever darkness she has been carrying around. Maybe this was the start of that.

Then her throat throbs. A deep, ugly pulse. She turns to the small mirror hanging crooked on the wall. The glass is clouded with dust, smudged with years of grime, but the mark on her neck is unmistakable. Red already. Fading into a slow, ugly purple.
She knows.She knows Abby was really here. That she had not hallucinated the whole thing. That Abby touched her. Hurt her. Saw her.That fate has decided to twist her life again, like it always does, dragging her back into a story she has been trying to escape since what feels like her entire life.

Her hands move on their own. They hover midair, still curled from the memory of defending herself. Slowly she brings one to her throat. Her fingers press exactly where Abby’s arm had been a moment earlier. The touch is instinctive, almost surgical. It feels like she could peel something out from under the skin if she tried hard enough. As if the bruise might reveal something more than pain.Her throat tightens. The lump forms again. She swallows it. Hard.
It burns.

The silence around her is so complete it becomes loud. Her ears replay Abby’s voice without mercy. The echo of it ricochets through the room, bouncing off the metal frame of the cot, the walls, the tile. It grinds along her skin like something corrosive. Still there in her bloodstream.She hears the weight behind Abby’s words. The finality. The fury. The grief sharpened into something lethal. It makes her stomach twist and her chest hollow out until it becomes something fragile. Something that could break with one wrong inhale.

She sinks onto the edge of the cot. The springs groan beneath her.She tucks loose strands of hair back behind her ear with fingers that tremble more than she wants to admit.Her elbows rest on her knees. Her hands clasp together like she is holding the last fragile piece of her sanity between them. If she loosens her grip, something might spill out.
She should have known.Of course Abby would be here.

Of course the Fireflies, if they survived long enough to rebuild anything at all, would pull Abby back into their orbit. Abby always had a gravitational pull stronger than sense. Stronger than safety. Stronger than Ellie can stomach.
Ellie, stupid, selfish, numb-fucked Ellie, had not let herself think any of this through. She drifted for weeks with no plan except movement. No goal except noise. She convinced herself the next road or the next wound or the next bad choice would finally make everything inside her quiet.
It never did.And now she is here. On an island she never intended to reach. Facing the one person she spent years trying to kill, then spent more years trying to outrun inside her own head.This will not end well. She knows that. If Abby talks, the Fireflies will know who Ellie is. What she did. If they are generous, she will be a prisoner. If they are not, they will slit her throat before sunrise.

She closes her eyes. Corrects the thought.
Her immunity might stop them.
She hopes it will.Maybe not.
She is not sure anymore what she hopes for.

She tries to push herself upright. Her knee explodes with pain. A sharp burst that shoots up her thigh and into her hip. She drops right back onto the mattress with a hiss of pain. Breath stolen. Pulse kicked up again.
Fine. She will stay sitting.

She moves slowly, forcing her back against the wall and letting her legs stretch out. Her knee throbs like something alive. Her ribs ache. Every bruise reminds her she is not invincible. Not unstoppable. Not anything but a tired girl in a stranger’s clinic.
She lies back. Not peacefully. Not willingly. Her body demands it. The mattress is thin and unforgiving, pressing into her spine like wire. Her gaze slides up to the ceiling. The mold stains look like constellations no one bothered to map. She focuses on them anyway.

Sleep does not come. It never does when she wants it. She drifts in and out, body loose but mind burning. She scrubs her palms over her face. Her skin feels too hot.She continues to shift into endless uncomfortable positions until she sits up once again and rest pressed with her back against the wall,staying like that until her breathing evens out enough that she stops feeling like she might black out again.

She does not know how long she sits like that before the curtain shifts again.
She tenses instantly. Her hand moves toward the knife beneath the flimsy pillow.

Iris steps inside carrying a tray. She does not look surprised to see Ellie awake. She does not smile or soften or pretend she has good news. She just stands there like she is assessing the structural integrity of a wall that might collapse if she leans on it wrong.

“I brought dinner,” Iris says. No smile. No warmth. Just a flat statement like she is fulfilling a duty she didn’t ask for.

Ellie’s shoulders drop a fraction. Only a fraction.
“I am not hungry,” she mutters.

Iris sets the tray on the stool beside the cot. “That is unfortunate, since you look like you might pass out again.”

Ellie glares at her. “I will live.”

“That is debatable,” Iris replies without missing a beat. She pulls up a crate and sits beside the cot. Not close. Just close enough to observe. “Eat something anyway. Humor me.”

Ellie grudgingly reaches for the spoon, mostly because the heat from the bowl feels good against her bruised fingers. Iris watches her movements with a clinical eye, tracking every wince.
“You are a strange one,” Iris says, leaning back slightly. “Most injured people try not to look like they are dying. You act like it is a challenge.”

Ellie huffs. “What do you want me to do, put on a show?”

“Not necessarily,” Iris says. “Just curious what kind of person limps into a collapsing warehouse alone and then fights the people who try to help her.”

“That is a hell of an accusation,” Ellie mutters.

“It is not an accusation. It is an observation. You have the look.” Iris gestures vaguely. “People who do not flinch at danger but panic when someone pays attention to them.”

Ellie focuses on the soup instead of responding. She takes a small sip. It is hot enough to sting her tongue, which is probably the only thing keeping her from saying something reckless.
Iris studies her face. Her eyes narrow slightly, the way someone narrows their eyes when they are trying to guess what the truth is and what part of it they will regret knowing.
Then her gaze flicks downward. Straight to Ellie’s throat.

Ellie freezes.
The bruise is darker now. Ugly. Obvious.

Iris tilts her head the slightest bit. “That was not there earlier.”

Ellie’s jaw tightens. “I bumped into something.”

“I see,” Iris says, and she clearly does not believe that. Not even close. “Strange how often people bump into things around here.”

Ellie does not answer.
Silence grows in the space between them. Heavy. Not comforting. Iris’s stare is quiet but sharp. She is trying to figure out whether Ellie is a threat, a victim, or something in between.
Iris lets the silence stretch before she speaks again, her tone still level but pointed.

“You are free to lie,” she says. “People do it constantly. But bruises usually tell a clearer story than their owners.”
Ellie swallows another mouthful. The heat burns her throat on the way down.
Iris doesn’t push further, but she does not back off either. She leans forward, elbows on her knees, eyes still sharp.

“You ended up on this island by luck,” Iris says. “Or bad luck. Hard to tell yet. But I need to know what walked in with you. Ghosts. Enemies. Bad decisions. All of those have a way of spreading.”

Ellie keeps her voice steady. “Nothing followed me.”

Iris raises an eyebrow. “You sure?”

Ellie lifts the spoon again, not breaking eye contact. “If something did, it is not coming for you.”

A faint smirk twitches at the corner of Iris’s mouth, gone before Ellie can decide if she imagined it.

“Well,” Iris says, “that is comforting in the worst possible way.”

Ellie finishes a few more bites. Her stomach finally stops twisting around itself. Her body seems to accept the food as if it has been waiting days for an excuse to stop falling apart.
Iris keeps watching her. There is nothing gentle in her stare now. Just calculation, tempered with the slightest thread of professional duty.

“So,” Iris says, tapping her fingers once against her knee, “where exactly were you before Cole found you?”

Ellie shrugs. “Everywhere.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the one I have.”

Iris studies her for another long moment, then nods slowly, like she’s filing Ellie under a category labeled “problem for later.”
“You are not from around here,” Iris says. “You carry yourself like someone who expected something worse than we gave you.”

Ellie snorts. “You think this place is friendly.”

“I think this place is honest,” Iris answers. “Not safe. Just honest.”

Ellie considers that. The Fireflies had never been anything close to honest in her life, but she keeps that thought buried so deep it barely registers.
Iris rises from the crate, picking up the empty cup from the tray. She glances toward the curtain, then back at Ellie.
“You should rest. I will come back to check your temperature in an hour.”

Ellie mutters, “Do not bother.”

“I am paid in canned goods and headaches,” Iris says. “I bother everyone. Do not flatter yourself.”
She turns to leave. The curtain shifts, and for a moment Ellie thinks that is the end of it.
But Iris pauses.

Without looking back, she says, “We do not get many strangers. When we do, they usually bring trouble, even when they do not mean to.”
Ellie’s grip tightens around the edge of the tray.

“I am not here for your people,” Ellie says quietly.

“I did not say you were.” Iris glances at her over her shoulder. “But something put that bruise on your neck, and it was not a wall.”
The curtain falls. The room feels colder.

Ellie stays still with the tray on her lap until her breath evens out. The generator hums outside, steady and distant. Something metallic clatters down the hall and she flinches before she can stop herself.
Her entire body feels wired and hollow. She leans her head back against the wall. The bruise at her throat pulses in time with her heartbeat.

“You are fine,” she whispers to herself.
It is not true. Not even close. But it is the only thing she can force out.
The last thing she feels before drifting is the bruise throbbing,a warning.

Chapter Text

She has been staring at the ceiling for so long she has the pattern memorized. Four long metal panels in each row. Twelve rows total. She has counted them twice already. Maybe three times. She keeps losing track every time her jaw clenches hard enough to make her vision pulse.The place is mostly empty at this hour. Just the dull hum of old lights and the scrape of her breath dragging in and out of her chest.
She hooks her fingers under the makeshift bar and lifts. The muscles in her arms catch immediately. Too tight. Too wired. Her teeth grind as she forces the weight up anyway. The strain gives her something to focus on, something she can force into obedience. Something that is not the memory of auburn hair and hollow eyes burned into the backs of her mind.

She lowers the weight. Raises it again. Again. Again.Her arms are shaking. Not from effort. From lack of sleep.And she knows that tonight would not be different.That it will be another night spent tossing between anger so sharp it left her throat raw and a kind of cold fear she refuses to name. Usually she drags herself to the gym to sweat it out or run until her lungs give out.She pushes until her mind stops racing and her body takes over.

But tonight the weights are fighting back. Not heavy. Just wrong. Her grip slips once. She catches it before it can slam into her chest, but the shock of it cracks through her system like a warning.
“Fucking hell.”She curses under her breath.

Her shoulders burn. Her ribs ache with every breath. She does not stop.She racks the weight harder than necessary. The clang echoes through the gym, bouncing off the walls, making the nearest trainee flinch.
She ignores them.
Her hands are already moving to grab a heavier plate. If she hits herself hard enough with exertion maybe her brain will finally shut up.But It doesn’t.

She catches a small figure standing on the far corner of the old gym of the resort that he fireflies have made base on in the mirror,sharp brown eyes gazing at her disapprovingly.
“You really have to stop sneaking up on me like that”Abby mutters,wiping the sweat off her forehead with her arm that is already aching and screaming for rest.

Lev stands there with his arms crossed, the same posture he uses when he’s trying not to scold her. He looks small against the massive wall of dusty mirrors, but his expression is steady and unimpressed. He shifts his weight, the faintest tap of his foot against the old hotel carpet that still clings to patches of the floor.

“That plate almost crushed you,” he says. His tone is calm, but the judgment is layered in.
Abby rolls her eyes and reaches for her water bottle. Her hands are shaking slightly, and she hates that he sees it.

“It slipped.”She cracks open the water bottle and drinks.
The water is cold enough to sting. It wakes her up in the wrong way. Her hands feel steadier for half a second, then go right back to trembling.

Lev watches her through the mirror for a long moment.”You are doing the thing again.”
Abby wipes sweat from her brow. “What thing.”
“The thing where you pretend your body is a machine that you can just push until it breaks.”

Abby lets out a breath. “I am not pretending.”
“That is the problem,” Lev says.

Lev waits for her to say more, but Abby only stares up at the ceiling for another moment, as if the panels might arrange themselves into an answer she can live with.
She drags the towel over the back of her neck, thinking for longer than she should. Her pulse hasn’t settled. Her jaw still feels locked. The gym is starting to feel too small.She stands up, rolls out her shoulders, and grabs her water bottle again even though it’s empty.

“I was going to talk to you anyway,” she says finally.
Lev blinks once. “About what?”

Abby doesn’t look directly at him. She crosses the room to the far wall,catching her reflection,and who is staring back at her looks worse than she expected. Tired. Worn down. Distracted in a way she hates.
She drags a quick breath in and releases it slowly,shaking.
“Cole’s team came back this morning.”

Lev blinks, thoughtful. “I figured. I heard them moving supplies.”
“Yeah.” Abby nods, jaw tightening. “And they brought someone in.”

Lev’s posture shifts, small but deliberate. His arms uncross, his gaze sharpens, and he leans in just slightly as if the air between them has changed pressure. Most people would miss it. Abby doesn’t. She feels it like a tug in her gut.“Why are you telling me this,” he asks. His tone isn’t confrontational. It is measured. Careful. Like he already senses he needs to brace for whatever comes next. “Is it someone you know?”

Abby nods once, slow and stiff. “A girl.”
Lev’s eyes narrow, reading the tension in her shoulders, the tremor in her hands, the way she can’t keep her breathing even.“Is she a Wolf?,” he asks.Lev’s brow furrows. He already knows the answer is not that simple. “Abby,” he says, softer now, “who is it.”

She looks down at the empty water bottle in her hands. Her thumb presses into the plastic until it warps. She doesn’t want to say the name aloud. Saying it feels like reopening something she welded shut years ago.
But Lev is standing there waiting for the truth, and there’s no point pretending he won’t drag it out of her eventually.

“It’s the girl,” Abby says, voice low. “Ellie.”
The sound of it hits the room like a dropped weight.It seems to echo in the stale hotel air, sinking into the peeling walls and cracked mirrors.
The boy goes completely still.He lets out a small breath, half disbelieving, half something else.
“Ellie,” he repeats, voice low. “As in the girl who tried to murder you, then kind of saved our lives, and then tried to murder you again? That Ellie?”

“Yes,” Abby mutters.
Lev drags a hand over the back of his neck, processing. “She is here,” he says. “In this building.”
Abby nods. “Med wing.”

“Are you completely sure it is the same girl,” Lev asks. “Have you seen her?”
Abby shifts her weight and finally lowers herself to the floor, her back sliding down the wall until she’s sitting with her knees bent, elbows braced loosely against them. She can’t look at him. The gym lights feel too bright on her face.

“Yeah,” she mutters. “I have… uhm… talked to her.”
She drags the back of both hands across her eyes, pressing hard enough that small sparks flash behind her eyelids. It does nothing to steady her.

Lev sinks into a crouch a few feet away, watching her with that careful patience he uses when he knows pushing too hard will make her shut down entirely.
“What happened,” he asks. His tone is cautious, but not afraid. Just controlled.

Abby exhales, long and uneven. “I made sure that she is not going to cause any problems,” she says.

Lev absorbs that without reacting outwardly, though she can see the gears turning behind his eyes. “You talked to her,” he says, repeating her earlier words, trying to understand the shape of them.

Abby presses her tongue to the back of her teeth. Her throat feels tight. Talking sounds like dragging broken glass up through her chest.“She was confused,” Abby says finally. “Weak. Out of it. I don’t think she even understood where she was at first.”

“And you,” Lev asks softly.
Abby lets her head fall back against the wall, staring straight up at the stained ceiling tiles she had been counting earlier. Her breath leaves her in a shaky rush. “I handled it,” she says.

Lev doesn’t look convinced. “Abby.”

“I handled it,” she snaps again, quieter this time. “I got control of the situation. I made sure she could not do anything. That is all.”

Lev watches her for a long, steady moment. No judgment. Just understanding that she is holding herself together with whatever scraps she has left.
“She did not attack you,” he says.

“No,” Abby admits. “She didn’t.”

Lev tilts his head slightly. “Why.”

“I don’t know,” Abby says. “I don’t know why she is here. I don’t know what she wants. But she didn’t come at me. She didn’t even try.”
The admission tastes strange in her mouth. Too heavy. Too familiar.

Lev eases out of his crouch and sits beside her, leaving a small space in between them. “She let you go,let us go,” he says. “Back in Santa Barbara. She had every reason not to. I have thought about that more than once.”
Abby shuts her eyes. “I know.”

“So maybe this is not what you think it is,” Lev continues. “Maybe she is here because she had nowhere else to go. Maybe she is not a threat.”

Abby opens her eyes and finally looks at him. Lev’s expression is calm. Grounded. Exactly what she needed and didn’t know she needed.
He repeats the question, gently but firmly. “Tell me what happened when you saw her.”
Abby inhales slowly, bracing herself.
And this time, she doesn’t look away.

By the time lunch rolls around the next day, Abby feels like she has already lived through an entire week. Sleep had been a joke, slipping in and out of her reach all night, and as soon as the sun broke she threw herself into work with a kind of desperation she didn’t bother hiding. She took the longest perimeter route, hauled crates from the docks to the storage wing without stopping to breathe, checked the gym for equipment damage, and still found time to help run a weapons check on half the rifles in rotation. Anything to keep her body moving. Anything to keep her mind from circling back to the girl lying two floors above the med wing tiles.By noon, her legs feel like someone hammered nails down the muscle. Her pulse is still too quick, her jaw aches from clenching, and sweat is dried salt on the back of her neck. None of it slows her down. Slowing down is the last thing she wants.

John had told her yesterday that she was finally reaching the point where they could start spacing out her sessions. Her shoulder responded faster now, strength returning in ways it hadn’t for months. It should have felt like progress. And it did. But he’d followed it with the same warning he’d given her since the day she stepped into his makeshift office: don’t overdo it. Rest when you need to. Listen to your body. She’d agreed. Promised she would.But it wasn’t in her nature to slow down.Not after everything that still lived under her skin.

The cafeteria is louder and more crowded at lunch than breakfast.The old resort dining hall hums with movement, dozens of Fireflies packed around tables that were never meant for this many bodies. People talk over each other, trays slam against tabletops, boots drag across the stripped flooring where the resort carpet used to be. Abby steps inside with Lev beside her, and the room reacts before she has the chance to brace for it.The noise doesn’t disappear, but it dents. A few heads turn. Recruits straighten by instinct. Someone elbows their friend in the ribs. Someone else looks away too quickly, guilty of staring. Abby ignores all of it. Lev watches it happen with that small, unreadable expression he uses when he sees more than he comments on.

Half a year ago, when Abby limped onto this island with Lev and nothing else, the Fireflies were barely holding together. Fifty people, if that. A cracked lobby with leaking windows and a med room that barely deserved the name. They grew only because they had to, pulling in wanderers from coastal towns, recruiting anyone with clean lungs and steady hands. Abby didn’t rest when she got here. She refused to. She wanted structure, purpose, something to drown out everything Santa Barbara had carved out of her. So she took every shift offered, and then asked for more. Patrols. Supply runs. Training sessions before dawn. She pushed recruits hard, and they cursed her for it, then trusted her anyway. Somewhere along the way she became the person people looked to when something needed doing. Competent. Relentless. No bullshit.

They move through the line with trays in hand, Lev grabbing two bowls while Abby selects whatever looks like it won’t turn her stomach inside out. A spike of loud laughter erupts,and Lev glances over toward the far side of the room, where a small cluster of people his age are waving him over. One of them nearly tips his chair sending the signal.Abby catches the look on Lev’s face before he hides it. The half hesitation, the tiny pull in his shoulders.

“Come on, go,” she mutters.
Lev blinks. “What.”
“You heard me. Go sit with them. I’m not going to implode if you walk ten feet away.”
“You do not look convinced,” he replies.
Abby rolls her eyes and nudges his arm with the back of her hand. “I’m sure I will survive this devastation.”
Lev huffs a laugh as she gives him a gentle shove. “I’m going, I’m going.”

He heads toward his friends, who immediately make space for him, talking over each other, dragging him into whatever story they’re arguing about. Abby lets her shoulders fall a fraction. Lev deserves that. He’s been glued to her side since last night.
She scans the room and spots Iris at a smaller table near the window, sipping something out of a metal cup and flipping through a worn notebook. Abby moves toward her before she can second guess the decision.

Iris glances up when Abby approaches, one brow rising. “You look like you fought the dawn,” she says. “Sit.”
Abby drops into the chair across from her. The sunlight hits the back of Iris’s hair, turning the strands copper in a way Abby always forgets until she sees it.
Iris closes her notebook with a soft snap. “Long morning?”

“Something like that,” Abby mutters,then watches her,the dark circles under her eyes.”You don’t look so rested yourself.You just came back,you should slow down.”
Iris lets out a long breath, almost a laugh but not quite. “You’re the one to talk. It’s physiologically impossible for people like you and me to rest,you know that.” She rubs at the side of her neck, thumb digging into tense muscle. “Besides, I spent the night looking after the new girl,Ellie,I’ve basically not slept.”

Abby’s spoon pauses halfway to her mouth. Hearing her name spoken without hesitation hits her wrong. Too sharp under the ribs.Iris doesn’t miss the flicker of tension but keeps talking, flipping her notebook shut with one hand.

“She’s in rough shape,” Iris says, voice even. “Exhausted, dehydrated, bruising everywhere. Whatever road she’s been trough, it chewed her up.”
Abby’s jaw tightens. “She’s stable though,right?.”
“Stable,” Iris confirms.”But she needs rest. Fluids. Someone who knows what they’re doing monitoring her.” She taps the rim of her cup against the table. “Which is why I stayed.”

Abby looks up before she can stop herself. “Why you?”
Iris snorts softly. “Because half our younger techs panic at the first sign of elevated temperature. Because I’ve done graveyard shifts more times than anyone else and Anton knows I won’t fall asleep on duty.” She shrugs. “And because she was scared when she woke up. Confused. I’m not great with people, but I know how to manage that kind of thing.”

Abby’s stomach knots. “Scared.”
“Yeah,” Iris says, leaning back slightly. “And that’s the strange part. I think someone messed with her yesterday. She had marks on her neck that weren’t there when we arrived.” Her brows draw together. “I asked her about it when she woke up. She denied everything.”
Abby’s pulse kicks once, too hard.

Iris keeps going, unaware of the way the words hit. “I don’t know who would do that to a girl in that shape. She could barely stay upright when I checked her this morning.” Iris taps her cup softly against the table, thoughtful. “Whoever it was, it wasn’t for a good reason. And she’s too proud to admit it.”
Abby’s jaw tightens. Her fingers curl around the edge of her tray until her knuckles pale. Every part of her feels suddenly too hot and too cold at the same time.
Iris eyes her with a flicker of curiosity. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was protecting someone. Or maybe afraid of what happens if she tells the truth.”
Abby forces a breath into her lungs. “Maybe she just doesn’t want trouble.”
“Then she came to the wrong island,” Iris mutters, unimpressed.Iris eyes her with a flicker of curiosity, about to say something else, when a voice calls from across the room.

“Iris,” someone shouts, not urgent, just insistent. One of the med techs stands in the doorway holding a clipboard. “We need you for a minute. Ashton wants a second opinion on a splint.”
Iris exhales through her nose, annoyed. “Of course he does.”
She stands, gathering her notebook. “I’ll be back. Try to look less like you’re about to break the table in half.”
Abby keeps her eyes on her tray. “I’m fine.”

“Sure,” Iris says, unconvinced. “Don’t go anywhere.”
She moves off toward the doorway, weaving around the tables without waiting for Abby’s response.

Abby doesn’t watch her go.
She sits perfectly still, jaw set, pulse still hammering in the hollow of her throat.

Chapter Text

After the first twenty four hours on Catalina Island, Ellie has officially lost count of how many times she’s woken up in this room. The med wing feels less like a place she’s recovering in and more like some weird waiting room between the world she crawled out of and whatever this new one is supposed to be. She only knows it has been four days because Iris tells her on the fourth night while changing her bandages, her voice steady in that way that makes everything sound like fact.
Four days.She arrived thinking she only had a mild knee injury. Annoying and hurting like a bitch,sure, but nothing she hasn’t walked off a hundred times before. She figured they’d patch her up, wrap it, hand her a bottle of water, and send her on her way with a pat on the back.Instead they’d insisted she rest,insisted she eat.Insisted she stop pretending that she wasn’t being held together by grit and fumes.

Four days.Laying on her back and not having to grind her teeth and bite her tongue trough death and devastation.Four days,and her legs don’t shake when she stands now.That’s new.
Her ribs still drag when she breathes too deep or curses too loud,but they don’t scream anymore.
The skin underneath her eyes is a lighter shade of purple.Her hands are steadier.Her mind,not so much.But she’s used to working around that.There isn’t anything normal about her,but she can at least pretend to be a functioning human being again.

When the first thin line of morning light hits the floor on the fifth day, the curtain gets yanked open and Iris strolls in, looking way too awake for someone who apparently never sleeps.
“Last check,” She says. “Then I’m kicking you out.”

Ellie pulls a face. “Thought you liked having me here.”
That’s new too. She has kept people at arm’s length since she arrived, but Iris is the one person Ellie can manage to talk to without her throat locking. A low bar, but it is still something. Iris doesn’t push or soften anything. She’s blunt and she doesn’t seem to care whether you like her or not, because she is going to say whatever she thinks anyway, and she’s impossible to argue with. Ellie can respect at least two of those things. Their interactions have mostly been checkups and the occasional shared dinner, something Ellie suspects has nothing to do with shift rotations and everything to do with the girl taking an interest in her for whatever possible reason.She seriously doubts that eating with the people you’re treating is part of the job description, but who knows.

Iris hasn’t really offered a single detail about her history or what exactly she does here. Not that Ellie asked. But she can tell the girl holds more weight in this place than she lets on.
There is a quiet authority about her, the kind that makes people listen without putting much of a fight..
Other than her, Ellie hasn’t really spoken to anyone in Catalina. Not really. Just the younger med techs drifting in and out, offering food and awkward smiles, none of them staying long enough to count as conversation. And of course there is the girl who ruined her life and tried to strangle her. Hard to forget that one. She thinks this room has seen enough chaos in four days,but somehow she has grown a strange affection for the smell of antiseptic and the collapsing ceiling tiles.

“I like my bed,” Iris replies. “And you’ve taken up enough of my oxygen.”
She steps closer, eyes flicking over Ellie’s face in a quick, practiced sweep,built to assess damage.
“Your color’s better,” she murmurs, leaning in to check the bruising along Ellie’s throat.Her cold fingers graze too close, and Ellie stiffens like her nerves misfired.Iris doesn’t say anything,she just shifts her touch without a word and keeps working.
“You still look like hell,” Iris says, matter of fact, “but a slightly less concerning hell.”

“Thanks,” Ellie mutters. “I’ll put that on a mug.”
She tries standing fully. Her legs hold.Her body protests in that dull, lingering way that means she’s improved just enough to do something stupid again.Iris steps back to give her space, crossing her arms loosely over her chest.As Ellie stretches her limbs,she actually looks at the girl standing in front of her for possibly the first time. Skin tanned, not burnt. Dark hair pulled into a tight ponytail that still can’t stop the loose strands escaping around her face. Strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, a small beauty mark under one eye. And, yeah… she’s pretty.And she also hates herself for thinking it.

Iris lifts an eyebrow at the staring. “What,” she asks. “Did I grow another head?”
Ellie clears her throat. “Just figuring out if you’re always this charming or if it’s a morning special.”
“It’s a lifestyle,” Iris says, deadpan.

She nudges Ellie’s shoulder lightly with the clipboard. “Go slow. Your legs aren’t invincible.”
Ellie scoffs. “Nothing about me is invincible.”

For a second, something flickers across Iris’s face,something sharp and assessing,before she smooths it away.“I get the feeling that’s not entirely true.”Then she turns toward the hallway and jerks her head. “Alright. You’re mobile, mostly safe, not actively dying.” She taps the clipboard. “Time for an upgrade.”

Ellie blinks at her. “A what?”
“A room,” Iris says.“You’re done living behind my curtain..”

She raises an eyebrow. “Your curtain?”
“If you faint on the stairs, I’m leaving you there.”
Ellie rolls her eyes,but follows.

They step into the hallway, the air colder out here than in the med wing.Iris walks ahead, not bothering to check if Ellie can keep up. She just assumes she will,and Ellie appreciates it more than she should.The hallway is narrow, lined with doors that don’t quite shut right and walls patched with mismatched boards. Voices drift from somewhere deeper in the building.
“You’ll get used to the noise,” Iris says without turning around. “The walls don’t do much. You hear every argument, every bad dream, every kid who thinks running at five in the morning is a personality trait.”

Ellie grunts. “Comforting.”

They turn a corner where one of the windows is cracked and taped, the ocean visible beyond it. Gray waves crash against the black stone outside, strong and relentless, the kind of sound that could lull someone else but only grates against Ellie’s nerves. She shifts her gaze back to the floor, focusing on the sound of Iris’s boots ahead of her.Then it hits with a twist in her chest, sharp and sudden, slowing her for half a step before she can hide it. It isn’t her knee or her breath catching.It’s ghosts rising up faster than she can shove them down,a memory she didn’t ask for.

Early days in Jackson, when everything around her still felt borrowed and temporary. Ellie standing near the mess hall, trying not to look like she wanted to bolt, hands shoved deep in her pockets, pretending she didn’t see everyone staring at the new kid.And then a girl walking up to her like it was instinct. Bright smile and easy confidence,moving through the space like she owned every corner of it.“You arrived with Tommy’s brother, right?” she asked, like the question wasn’t meant to pry, just to make room for Ellie to stand somewhere that didn’t feel hostile.
She barely managed a nod before Dina started introducing her to everyone their age, pulling her into conversations she didn’t understand, treating her like she wasn’t a stranger or a burden but someone she’d already decided to keep around.Ellie hadn’t understood that kind of warmth then. She still doesn’t, not fully. But she remembers how it felt. Instant. Disarming. Too much, even in that first moment.And she’d liked it far more than she was ready to.

The memory slips away as quickly as it came, leaving a faint ache behind.She pulls her attention back to the hallway, to Iris’s steady footsteps ahead of her, to the warm California air drifting through the cracked windows, carrying the sharp smell of salt and sunbaked wood.A few strides later they stop in front of a door with half-scratched numbers carved into the frame. Ellie is still clenching her jaw too tightly, shoulders drawn a little higher, breath not quite steady, and Iris catches it the moment she turns.Her eyes move over Ellie’s face in a quick, quiet assessment. “You good?” Iris asks, voice flat and simple, offering Ellie an easy out if she wants it.She clears her throat. “Fine.”

Iris watches her for another second, something unreadable shifting behind her expression, then lets it go with a small nod.She rests a hand briefly on the doorknob before pushing it open.
“Before we go in,” she says, shifting the clipboard under her arm, “Your roommate is Allison. She’s been here for a couple of months. Quiet kid. You two should get on with no problems.”
Ellie nods, still working her breathing back into something normal.

Iris gives her one last quick look,and she nudges the door open with her hip and steps aside.
“Alright,” she says, stepping back so Ellie can enter. “Home sweet home.”

The door swings open on a small room that looks like it’s been repaired a hundred times and still isn’t done fighting the salt air. Two single beds,a cracked mirror,a dusty blue loveseat and sunlight slipping in through slanted blinds.A girl sits on the bed closest to the window, legs tucked beneath her, shoulders slightly rounded like she is trying to take up less space.She looks up when Ellie steps inside.Strawberry blonde hair tucked away and big blue eyes that make her look like a child,despite appearing to be just a few years younger than Ellie herself.She offers a tiny nod.

Ellie clears her throat. “Hey.”
“Hi,” Allison says, barely above a whisper. She has a book open between her hands, the pages yellowed and soft at the edges, but Ellie can’t make out the title. Silence settles almost immediately, neither of them pushing past it.

Iris clicks her tongue behind Ellie. “See? What did I tell you? I’m sure you’ll get along just fine.” She taps her clipboard lightly against her thigh, and Ellie thinks if she keeps doing that the poor thing is not going to survive another day.“Alright,” Iris continues. “You’re settled. Wash up and then head to the dining hall. You need real food in you. I’ll see you later."
She makes a turn to leave,then stops as if frozen,lifting a finger.“Actually, before that, stop by Liz’s office. She always wants to meet new arrivals. Allison here will show you the way.”
Allison doesn’t bother looking up and just gives another enthusiastic nod from her bed.
Ellie frowns. “Liz?”
“Second in command,” Iris says. “Or first, depending on who you ask. You’ll see.”She steps out into the hallway without waiting for a response, the door clicking shut behind her. The room settles again, soft and still, with only Allison’s steady breathing and the distant hum of the building filling the silence.

Ellie exhales and rubs a hand over her face. “Alright,” she mutters to no one in particular. “Guess that’s that.”

Allison shifts on the bed and stands, the book still tucked under her arm. “You can use the bathroom,” she says softly. “There’s running water most of the day.”Her eyes flick down to Ellie’s worn, stained shirt and torn pants.“If you want… I can lend you clothes. We look close in size.” She “Uhm,yeah,thanks.”

Allison moves to the small chest at the foot of her bed and pulls out a folded pair of pants and a simple gray shirt, both soft and worn but clean. She offers them without ceremony.
Ellie takes them carefully. “Really. Thank you.”
Allison shrugs, a small movement. “It’s fine.There is running water most of the day.Not hot,obviously,but still.”

With a quick, almost awkward nod, she moves toward the bathroom. The door creaks as she pushes it open, and the space inside is just as cramped as the room, maybe smaller. The tiles are cracked, the mirror clouded with age, but there’s a sink, a shower, and a door that locks.More privacy than she has had in weeks.

Ellie strips off her clothes, the fabric torn and worn from weeks of wear, every layer smelling like sweat, dirt, and a road she barely survived. Iris had offered her some kind of gown, which Ellie had taken one look at and scoffed at like the girl had personally tried to insult her..Sure, she wanted to get out of the shit she was wearing. She wanted to burn it all and send the memory of it off her skin. But a gown? A flimsy, backless thing that barely tied together?
Yeah, no.
She didn’t really think being with her ass half out was an excellent idea,especially in case Abby decided to come back for round two and give her neck another little squeeze just for old time’s sake. And she sure as hell couldn’t bring herself to ask Iris to find something else, as if she needed to be any more of a bother than she already had been.

She finally lifts her eyes to the cracked mirror, half expecting it to lie to her.Unfortunately for her ego,it doesn’t.
Her body looks like someone carved a person out of bone and left the rest behind.Too thin.Too sharp.Her shoulder jut out more than they should,her ribs sit just under her pale skin like they’re waiting to break through.She lifts a finger and starts to trace the map of bruises across her torso,spread out in sick colors,yellows turning to greens,purples blooming over older wounds.Her legs look smaller,like they could snap with the wrong step,and her waist hollow.Starvation is not really the look on her, she thinks grimly.

The scar tissue catches the light, familiar in its own miserable way.Old knife and bite marks,the thin pale line across her side that almost took her out,the jagged one down her leg,the chemical burn.She lets out a slow exhale and cast her eyes down at her hand,the one where the two fingers are missing.The skin puckered and uneven, refusing to heal into anything remotely decent. It’s the kind of wound that never stops looking fresh, no matter how much time passes, like her body wants the reminder carved in for good,as if she could ever forget.She flexes her remaining fingers once, jaw tight,and then turns on the shower.

The cold water hits her like a slap, but she lets it run,cupping her hands beneath it and splashing her face, letting the shock settle something in her chest. She scrubs the grime from her arms, the dried sweat from her neck, the fog from her mind.When she steps out, the cracked mirror still shows the ghost she has become, still shows the wreckage she’s walking around in.But at least now she looks a little less like she crawled out of the sea.

She changes into Allison’s clothes. They fit well enough. A little loose in the shoulders, a little short at the ankles, but clean and soft and not smelling like blood and death. She runs her fingers through the short strands of her hair, combing them until they look somewhat alright.She stands there for a moment, gripping the edge of the sink, breathing. Trying not to think about the million different ways she could end up screwing all this up.
Then she straightens and steps back into the room,where Allison is waiting by the door, hands clasped lightly in front of her.

“Ready?” she asks, and Ellie wishes she could give her something more than yet another nod without risking throwing up the sudden knot in her throat.Allison doesn’t wait for a spoken answer. She turns and heads down the hall, walking fast despite her small frame.She doesn’t bother with small talk.That works just fine for Ellie.

They walk deeper into the building, the older floors creaking beneath their steps. Eventually the hallway narrows and darkens, lit by a single line of flickering bulbs overhead. Doors crowd both sides of the corridor, some open, some missing entirely. Ellie catches glimpses inside the rooms as they pass.Maps pinned to walls, ink stained boards covered in scribbled notes, desks buried under paper, people hunched over them speaking in low, sharp tones.It feels like stepping into the ribs of something living and quietly working.

Allison slows just enough to point at a door near the end. “First one on the left,” she murmurs. “I’m late for my kitchen shift. I’ll see you.”She offers Ellie a small, brief smile, then bolts down the hall, quick and quiet as a shadow. Ellie watches her go, strangely feeling a little more lost now.

She shouldn’t be surprised.And she isn’t. She has been anticipating this moment since the boat hit the dock.Cole had questioned her before she even decided to go with them.If you could even call that to begin with,since he hadn’t asked anything that mattered.Just enough to decide she wasn’t going to slit anyone’s throat while they slept.And,once she answered,he’d backed off with little suspicion,no pressure.Just a quiet nod and a “Alright then.”.Apparently,that was all you needed to join the fireflies these days.T
hey were,in fact,that desperate for people.But Ellie knows that places like this don’t let strangers exist without knowing what they’re housing.She knows that better than anyone.Communities don’t gamble unless they are desperate,and even then,they gamble carefully.

So she had been waiting for something more,to be put on the spot and be asked to laid bare.And her gut tells her that something appears to be a woman called Liz,standing on the other side of the door she’s now knocking on.Whatever happens next,Ellie knows one thing is for sure.She’s going to have to decide what she’s willing to give.And what she can’t.

A strong feminine voice comes from the inside.”Come in.”
Ellie pushes the door open,and everything in her mind goes abruptly still. She’s not used to freezing like this, not used to being caught off guard by discomfort.What once sparked fire in her has incinerated into ash along with most of what still feels human. It isn’t much.

Liz is shorter than Ellie expected, but her gaze stands taller than Ellie feels right now. Deep brown eyes sweep over her in one slow, assessing pass and once she seems satisfied with whatever she’s gathered, a tight smile curves at her mouth.She gestures to one of the two wooden chairs in front of the desk.”Please,take a seat.”

The desk itself is buried under papers and folders.Lists of names,timetables,yellowed files and old pictures curling at the edges.”You’ll have to excuse the mess,” Liz says, settling back into her chair.She leans into it and then stretches forward,her hands settling against her chin.

Liz taps a knuckle against one of the folders, eyes still on Ellie.
“So,” Liz says, “you’re the one Cole brought in.”

Ellie shifts in her chair, the wood digging into her spine. “Yeah.”
“So,Ellie.What were you doing in a collapsing building in Colorado,all alone?”
“I was just passing through."
“Mh,why alone?.”
“Why does it matter?”Ellie snaps.
“Just humor me.”a smirk tugs at the corner of her lips,as if she’s getting some kind of satisfaction out of this.

“Me and my group got attacked by a hoard and I was the only one to make it,I've been travelling alone since then.”
“Tough luck.And where did you get attacked?”
“Wyoming.”
“That’s pretty far off from Colorado.How did you manage to survive that?”
“I’m used to it.”
“Mh.Not many people could pull something like it off.I’m fairly surprised.”
She looks like she’s about to say something else when she stops,then gathers herself again.

“Before we get too far into this,” she says, “I want to make one thing clear. This place isn’t a shelter. We don’t sit on our asses waiting for the world to fix itself.” Her tone stays calm, almost polite, but nothing in her face moves. “Everybody here pulls their weight. Everybody contributes. That’s how we’ve stayed alive this long.”

“I get it,” Ellie mutters.
Liz watches her closely. Not unkind. Just… measuring. Like she’s trying to see where Ellie’s edges start and end. “Do you?”
“I said I did.”

Liz’s mouth twitches in something that isn’t quite a smile. “Alright then.”She lets the silence settle for a breath or two, then flips another page in the folder and shifts the conversation like she’s turning a steering wheel.
“Okay,” she says, tone flattening. “Let’s talk practical.”
Ellie blinks. “Practical.”

“You’ve been here four days. You’ve rested, eaten, stopped looking like you’re about to pass out the spot from what I've heard.” Liz taps her pen once. “Next step is placement.”
“Placement,” Ellie repeats.
“Yes. Training schedule for the next week. Short patrols to see where you stand physically.Don’t worry,we’ll ease you in.”Liz watches her face closely. “I need to see how you move with a group. How you listen. How you react under pressure.”
Ellie stiffens. “I’m not worried.I’ve handled worse.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Liz smiles. “But you haven’t handled our worse yet.”

“We don’t waste people,” the woman continues. “Not their skills, not their time. Everyone does something. Even if that something hurts.” She glances at Ellie, and for a half second something sharp flickers behind her eyes,something like recognition. “We’ve had to rebuild from scraps more times than I care to count.”
At this,Ellie remains silent,not sure how to move next.She’s edging on dangerous territory.“So you’re the boss.”

“One of them.,” Liz corrects.
She reaches for a map on her desk and pulls it closer, smoothing it out with the side of her hand. The paper is worn soft, borders smudged from months of fingers tracing the same lines.
“We keep the structure simple.The island’s divided into zones. Small teams rotate between them. Scouting, clearing, hauling, whatever needs doing.There are three of us who oversee things,” Liz says. She doesn’t name the rest right away. “Leadership splits depending on what the situation demands. Logistics, routes, security, training… it all overlaps. It has to.” She shrugs. “If one of us goes down, the other two keep things moving.”

She wants to ask what happens in case all three of them go down,but settles on just nodding absent minded.Liz keeps talking,details, rotations, the structure of the place,but Ellie feels herself drift.Not fully,but enough that Liz’s voice fades into the back of her head to a low hum.
“You still with me?” Liz’s voice cuts back in.
Ellie lifts her chin. “Yeah.”

“Good.”She closes the folder. “Tomorrow, you’ll start with a light training cycle.Nothing far from base. Short patrols, small groups. I need to see what you can actually handle. How you move with others.”

Ellie nods once.Liz tilts her head. “You said you’re used to traveling alone.”
“I am.”
“Well,” Liz says, tone flattening, “that’s not how it works here. We don’t run solo unless we’re desperate. And we’ve been trying very hard not to be desperate lately.”

Ellie forces her shoulders not to tense.Then,as she is opening her mouth to form a response,there’s a soft tap on the door.
Liz doesn’t seem surprised. “Come in.”Ellie hears the door swinging open,her back turned away from it so she can’t see who it is.
“Alright,” Liz says, voice shifting into dismissal. “We’re done here. You can go.”

Ellie’s lungs finally remember how to work. She pushes to her feet, wiping the sweat from her brow with her forearm.And when she looks up,she halts in her steps for a second.
Standing in the middle of the room,Abby is not looking at her.She’s doing the opposite, actually. Purposefully keeping her eyes fixed on Liz, jaw tight,
Ellie moves forward, keeping her shoulders straight, her breath even. No hesitation and no sign of the way her pulse just kicked up, stupid and traitorous.
Neither of them steps aside,and when Ellie slips past, her shoulder brushes Abby’s.A small, unintentional contact.
The girl doesn’t move, doesn’t jerk away, but she feels the way she tenses.

Ellie keeps walking, head down, feet steady on the warped hotel floorboards.
But she can feel her watching.And that’s when it hits.
They are not done,not even close.