Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PART I 

Ellie

The thing about anger is that you need to want to let it go. 

Joel often reminded me of this, ironic all things considered. It was only after he died that I finally understood that it wasn’t meant as a lesson for me, but as a reminder for him.

Seattle smelled like wet dog and rust, a constant metallic tang in the back of my throat that even the piss-stinking alleys couldn’t entirely mask. Rain, or what passed for it in this perpetually grey shithole – a miserable, persistent drizzle – had been my unwelcome companion for the last three days of the trek. It plastered my hair to my scalp, seeped into the worn leather of my jacket, and made the silence between the squelch of my boots and the distant, guttural moans of the infected feel even heavier.

Jackson. The name itself felt like a bruise, tender to the touch. Leaving had been like ripping off a scab that had only just begun to form, exposing raw, bleeding flesh to the elements. Maria’s face, etched with a pity I couldn’t stomach. Tommy’s gruff, awkward attempts at comfort, his eyes reflecting a shared, hollowed-out grief that only made my own feel sharper. Even Dina, usually a welcome distraction with her laughter, had started looking at me with that same careful, hesitant sympathy. Like I was a spooked animal, liable to bite or bolt. Maybe I was.

The truth was, Jackson had become a cage. A comfortable one, sure, with its flickering lights, hot meals, and the illusion of safety. But a cage nonetheless. Every familiar face, every shared memory, was a fresh twist of the knife. Joel was everywhere and nowhere. In the calloused palm of my hand when I gripped my knife. In the way I scanned the tree line, expecting his steady presence beside me. In the phantom scent of sawdust and old coffee that sometimes clung to his jacket, the one I’d stolen from his room before I left, the one I was wearing now, a size too big, a constant, suffocating embrace.

His watch. That was the thing that clawed at me in the quiet hours, when the exhaustion was too deep for sleep but not enough to silence the goddamn thoughts. It was gone. Smashed, probably, during whatever the hell happened in Salt Lake. My own memories of that place were fractured, nightmarish shards: the suffocating fear as we arrived, the icy shock of drowning in that river, then nothing until I woke up, gasping, in the back of a truck. 

Tommy was at the wheel, his face a stone mask, and Joel… Joel was a still, cold weight in the back, wrapped in a tarp, just a pale, indented strip of skin on his left wrist, a ghostly outline of the time he’d always kept, the time that had run out. Tommy had driven us out of that hell, him without his brother, me without the man who’d been my father in every way that mattered. 

In the weeks that followed, Tommy had never given me much about Salt Lake, not really, even when I’d pushed, desperate and raw. Just clipped answers, his eyes haunted. It wasn't until much later, sifting through the wreckage of my own grief, that I realized he probably hadn't known much more than I did. He’d just been there to pick up the pieces – his brother’s body, and me, the girl who was now his unwanted, pseudo-daughter. 

Who did this? Why? 

The questions had echoed in the hollow chambers of my heart for years, fueling a cold, hard knot of something that wasn’t just grief anymore. It was rage. Pure, undiluted, and looking for a target. Jackson offered solace, community. I needed answers. I needed… something else.

Seattle was supposed to be a step towards that. Rumors had trickled into Jackson, carried by traders and wary travelers – whispers of a formidable group called the Washington Liberation Front, the WLF, or "Wolves" as some called them. They’d apparently cleared out a significant chunk of the city, established a stronghold, and were even more militaristic and organized than the remnants of FEDRA. More importantly, some said they had dealings, or at least knowledge, that stretched further south, maybe even towards Salt Lake. Towards the Fireflies, or what was left of them. Towards the place where everything had gone to shit.

Finding the WLF hadn’t been hard. Their presence was stamped all over the outskirts of the city – crude barricades, watchtowers manned by figures bristling with weapons, stark wolf insignia spray-painted on crumbling walls. Getting in was the trick.

I’d spent two days observing one of their checkpoints, a fortified gas station on the edge of what looked like a reclaimed residential zone. They were disciplined, alert. Not the usual ragtag bunch of scavengers. These guys moved with purpose, communicated with hand signals. They had numbers. They had guns. Lots of guns.

My approach was simple. Direct. Walked right up to the barricade in broad daylight, hands raised, backpack slung obviously to show I wasn’t hiding anything bulky. A couple of rifles immediately centered on my chest. Good. Attentive.

"Looking to talk to whoever's in charge," I called out, my voice rough from disuse and the damp air.

A guy with a scarred face and dead eyes, probably a lieutenant or something equally unimpressive in the grand hierarchy of assholes, eventually sauntered over. He looked me up and down, a sneer playing on his lips. "And who the fuck are you?"

"Someone who can be useful," I said, keeping my gaze steady. "Heard you folks run a tight ship. Looking for a place to earn my keep. I’m good at… problem solving."

He spat on the ground. "We ain't a charity, girl. What can you do that my people can't?"

I just smiled then, a tight, humorless stretch of my lips. "Let me show you."

They weren’t stupid enough to let me keep my primary weapons, but they left me with my switchblade. Contempt, probably. Or maybe they just wanted to see if I had the balls to try something. The "tryout," as Scarface called it, was a run through a cordoned-off section of what used to be a small shopping plaza. "Clear it," he’d grunted. "Few stragglers in there. Runners, maybe a Clicker if you’re unlucky. You make it back, we talk. You don’t… well, less paperwork for us."

The air inside the plaza was thick with the stench of decay and damp concrete. Every shadow seemed to writhe, every distant creak of settling debris sounded like a footstep. It was a familiar dance. The silence, then the tell-tale gurgle of a Runner, the frantic, jerky movements as it caught my scent. My blade was out before I consciously registered the threat, a silver flash in the gloom. It was messy, brutal. The way it had to be.

There were three Runners in the main concourse, another two in a collapsed bookstore. I moved fast, using the environment, the overturned shelves and shattered display cases, to my advantage. Years of this shit, years of relentless training, had honed my instincts to a razor’s edge. I didn’t think; I reacted. A feint, a dodge, the sickening crunch of bone and cartilage as my elbow connected with a decaying jaw, the quick, efficient slice across a throat.

The Clicker was in the back, in what used to be a pharmacy. I heard its chattering rasps before I saw it, the sound like nails on a chalkboard, grating and alien. Those things still made my skin crawl. Their fungal plates were tough, my switchblade less than ideal. This one took more effort. More risk. I used a fallen metal shelf to pin it momentarily, scrambling for purchase on the slick floor, driving the blade up under its jaw, into the softer tissue, again and again, until the chattering stopped and it collapsed with a wet, shuddering sigh.

I was covered in gore, reeking of infected blood and adrenaline, when I walked back out into the grey light. Scarface and a few of his goons were waiting, their expressions unreadable. I tossed a string of fungal growths – trophies from the Clicker – at his feet. They landed with a soft thud.

"Problems solved," I said, my breath still coming in ragged gasps.

That’s how I met Isaac.

He wasn’t what I expected. Older, maybe late fifties, with a stern, weathered face and eyes that seemed to see right through you. He didn’t look like a brute, more like a tired schoolteacher who’d seen too much. But there was an undeniable authority in his quiet voice, a steeliness that commanded respect, or at least obedience. He’d watched my "audition" from a concealed spot, apparently.

"You’re reckless," he said, his tone flat, after Scarface had given his grudging report. We were in a makeshift office, a former luxury box, the air thick with the smell of stale cigarettes and something antiseptic. "But you’re effective. And you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty. We can use that."

He asked about my past. I gave him the edited version. Survivor. Alone. Looking for a place with structure. Jackson was a "settlement that got overrun." No mention of Joel. No mention of the Fireflies. No mention of immunity. That secret was buried so deep, sometimes I almost forgot it myself. Almost.

Isaac didn’t press. Maybe he didn’t care. In this world, everyone had ghosts. Everyone had a story they didn’t want to tell. He saw a tool, a weapon. Fine. I saw a means to an end.

The WLF was a well-oiled machine, a small army carved out of the ruins. They had a clear hierarchy, strict rules, and a singular focus: fighting the Scars, their fanatical, primitive rivals who occupied another part of the city, and, of course, the ever-present infected. Days were filled with patrols, scavenging runs, guard duty, training. Endless, grueling training. It was brutal, but it was… straightforward. There was a grim honesty to it. Survive. Kill or be killed. It was a language I understood.

I pushed myself. Harder than anyone. Volunteered for the shittiest, most dangerous assignments. I needed to prove my worth, not just to Isaac, but to myself. Needed to feel that burn of exhaustion, the sting of a fresh wound, anything to drown out the relentless ache in my chest. And slowly, grudgingly, I started to earn a reputation. "The bitch’s got fight," I heard one of them mutter. "Crazy, but she gets shit done."

Isaac noticed. He started giving me more responsibility, pairing me with more seasoned units. He’d watch me sometimes, during drills, his expression thoughtful. I didn’t know what he was looking for. Didn’t care, as long as it got me closer to whatever information this place might hold about Salt Lake.

It was during mess, a few weeks in, crammed into a noisy, steamy repurposed warehouse that served as the WLF’s main canteen, that I first heard the name. "Anderson."

"…heard Anderson’s unit took down a Scar raiding party near the stadium. Clean sweep."

"No surprise there. Anderson doesn’t fuck around."

"Isaac’s golden girl. Gets all the best gear, toughest assignments." There was a note of resentment in that last one, quickly stifled.

The name stuck. Anderson. 

It was common enough, but something about the way they said it, with that mix of awe and fear, snagged my attention. I started listening more carefully. Piecing together fragments. Lieutenant Anderson. Isaac’s right hand. His top enforcer. Someone who apparently never failed. Someone who inspired a fierce loyalty in her own people and a healthy dose of terror in everyone else.

They said she was relentless. Disciplined. Cold. Some even whispered she was more machine than woman. No weaknesses. No attachments. Just pure, focused lethality. A perfect soldier.

The descriptions were almost… mythical. And in a world stripped bare of most comforts, people clung to myths. Or created new ones. I wondered what kind of monster, or marvel, lived up to that kind of hype.

Then I saw her.

It wasn’t dramatic. No grand entrance. Just another day in the WLF’s sprawling, fortified compound – a former football stadium, its once-vibrant turf now a vast expanse of churned mud and makeshift training grounds. The towering stands loomed like silent, concrete sentinels. I was heading to the armory, my boots sinking into the ever-present muck, the drizzle a cold caress on my face. 

Across the open field, near a heavily reinforced section of what might have once been luxury boxes or a press area – now clearly some kind of command center – a group was drilling. Hand-to-hand combat. I’d seen these drills before, usually a chaotic mess of flailing limbs and shouted instructions. This was different.

There was a focus, an intensity to this group that was almost unnerving. And at their center, directing, demonstrating, was a woman.

She was tall. Broad-shouldered, with arms corded with muscle that strained the fabric of her WLF fatigues. Her blonde hair was pulled back severely from her face, emphasizing sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw. Even from a distance, there was an aura of contained power about her, like a panther coiled to strike.

She moved with a brutal grace that stole my breath. One moment she was explaining a technique, her voice too low for me to hear, the next she was a blur of motion, disarming and taking down a sparring partner twice her size with an efficiency that was terrifyingly beautiful. There was no wasted effort, no hesitation. Just pure, controlled force.

I stopped walking. Couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to. My heart hammered against my ribs, a strange, unfamiliar rhythm. It wasn’t fear, not exactly. It wasn’t admiration, either. It was… recognition. Like looking at a sharpened, perfectly balanced weapon and understanding, instinctively, its deadly purpose. Or maybe, like looking into a warped mirror and seeing a version of yourself you didn’t know existed, a version forged in a different fire, harder, colder.

She corrected another soldier’s stance, her hand briefly on his arm. Even that small gesture seemed to carry an immense weight. Then, as if sensing my gaze, she turned her head. Just a fraction. Her eyes, even from fifty yards away, seemed to pierce right through me. They were dark, unreadable, and utterly devoid of warmth. A flicker of something passed through them – assessment, dismissal, or maybe just the blank regard one gives to a piece of the scenery. Then she turned back to her drills, and I was left standing there, feeling like I’d been punched in the gut.

That was Abby Anderson. Isaac’s right hand.

The air suddenly felt colder, the drizzle more insistent. I had a bad feeling, a prickle on my skin that had nothing to do with the rain. This woman… she was a force.

And in this world, forces like that didn’t just exist; they collided.

A few days later, Isaac called me to his office. The luxury box again. He was looking at a map of Seattle, dotted with red and blue markers. WLF and Scar territories.

"Got a new assignment for you, Ellie," he said, without preamble. He tapped a finger on a contested zone near the city’s waterfront, an area notorious for ambushes and heavy infected presence. "Recon. High-risk. We need intel on Scar movements, and we need it yesterday."

My stomach tightened. This was it. A real test. "Who’s leading?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Isaac allowed himself a rare, thin smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. "My best. You’ll be joining Lieutenant Anderson’s squad for this one." He looked up at me then, his gaze sharp, assessing. "She’s demanding. Doesn’t tolerate mistakes. But if you want to learn how to survive out there, really survive, there’s no one better. Don’t disappoint me. Or her. She has less patience than I do."

My mind flashed back to that figure on the training field. The controlled power. The cold eyes. A shiver, not entirely unpleasant, traced its way down my spine. This was either a golden opportunity or a one-way ticket to a shallow grave. Maybe both.

Later that day, the summons came. Lieutenant Anderson’s unit was assembling near the west gate. I checked my gear, the familiar weight of my rifle a small comfort. My knife, freshly sharpened, was snug in its sheath. Joel’s jacket felt heavy on my shoulders, a silent reminder.

The squad was already there, a tight-knit group of five, all hardened veterans by the look of them. They watched me approach with open suspicion, the new blood, the outsider. Anderson stood slightly apart, talking to a burly guy with a dark beard who I vaguely recognized as one of her sergeants.

She finished her conversation and turned. Her eyes – those same cold, appraising eyes from the training yard – swept over me, lingering for a fraction of a second before moving on to address the group. Her voice was low, calm, but with an underlying current of authority that was impossible to ignore. She didn’t waste words, her briefing concise, brutal, and to the point. Objectives. Risks. Expectations. Failure, it was implied, was not an option.

When she was done, Isaac, who had materialized silently beside the group, stepped forward. "Ellie," he said, his voice carrying easily in the sudden quiet. "Meet Lieutenant Anderson." He gestured towards her. "Abby, this is our newest recruit. Show her the ropes."

Abby. So the myth had a first name.

She turned fully towards me then. Up close, she was even more imposing. Her blonde hair, the same shade as dried winter grass, was pulled back from her face in a tight, functional braid that exposed the strong column of her throat and the sharp line of her jaw. There were faint scars on her face, a roadmap of past battles. 

But it was her eyes that held me. The steely grey-blue of an impending Seattle downpour, and just as unyielding. They locked onto mine, and the world seemed to narrow to the space between us. There was no welcome in that gaze, no curiosity. Only an unreadable challenge, a silent weighing and measuring. I felt like a specimen under a microscope.

I met her stare, refusing to look away, a familiar defiance rising in my chest. Let her look. Let her judge. I’d been judged by worse. Survived worse.

You need to want to let the anger go, kiddo. 

The thought, Joel’s voice, echoed in my head, a mocking counterpoint to the tension coiling in my gut.

Me? The only things I’d ever let go of had come away with claw marks.

Chapter Text

Abby

Control.

It’s the only currency that matters. Lose it, and you lose everything. My father understood that. He controlled scalpels, infections, life and death with a precision that was almost reverent. Then he went to Salt Lake City and lost control of his own. And in doing so, wrested it from me.

The rain was a familiar lash against the cracked asphalt of the training yard, each drop a tiny, insistent tap against the discipline I’d spent years cultivating. It slicked the ground, made the makeshift obstacles treacherous, and plastered stray hairs to the faces of my squad as they gasped for breath. Good. The world didn’t offer ideal conditions. Neither did I.

"Again!" My voice cut through the rhythmic thud of boots, the grunt of exertion, the hiss of rain. "Smith, your form is sloppy! You telegraph that punch, you’re dead before you even realize you made a mistake. Vazquez, keep your goddamn guard up! You think a Scar is going to wait for you to compose yourself?"

They were good, this team. Mel, Owen, Manny, Jordan. Handpicked, mostly by me. Forged in the same fires that had tempered my own resolve. They knew my standards. They knew the price of failure. But even the best steel needed constant honing. Complacency was a rot, and it spread faster than cordyceps in a damp basement.

We were running drills on disarming and close-quarters combat. The kind of brutal, intimate fighting that left no room for error, where the smell of your enemy’s sweat and fear was as much a weapon as the blade in their hand. I moved between them, a ghost in their periphery, correcting, criticizing, pushing. My body ached with a familiar, satisfying burn. The rain was cold, but the fire in my muscles was hotter.

My father. The thought of him was a constant, dull ache beneath the surface, like a poorly set bone. Dr. Jerry Anderson. Head of surgery for the Fireflies. A healer. A man who believed in a future most had given up on. He’d gone to Salt Lake City with that belief burning bright, a beacon in the overwhelming dark. And then… nothing. Just silence, then fragmented reports, rumors of the Fireflies’ collapse, chaos, death. The official WLF line was that he’d died in the ensuing bedlam, a casualty of a failed dream.

I didn’t buy it.

Not entirely. There were too many gaps, too many neatly tied-off loose ends. My father wasn’t careless. He wasn’t a fool. And he wouldn’t have gone down without a fight, or without a reason. That reason, that truth, was buried somewhere under the rubble of Salt Lake, and I would dig it out, piece by painstaking piece, even if it took the rest of my goddamn life.

The WLF, for all its flaws, its brutal pragmatism, its often-suffocating bureaucracy, was a means to that end. Isaac Dixon, the old wolf himself, had taken a chance on a traumatized, rage-filled young woman years ago. He’d seen… something. Potential, maybe. Or just a useful tool. I’d proven him right, on the tool part at least. I’d risen through the ranks, become his enforcer, his problem solver. His interrogator, as the whispers in the barracks called me. Let them whisper. Their fear was a shield. Their respect, a weapon.

Isaac’s trust was a heavy cloak. It afforded me privileges, access, resources. It also meant I was the one he threw at the ugliest problems, the one expected to succeed where others had crumbled. He trusted my strength, my discipline. He didn’t know about the hollow space my father’s absence had carved inside me, the cold, methodical obsession that truly drove me. He didn’t need to. As long as my goals aligned with the WLF’s, as long as I kept bringing results, my private war could remain just that. Private.

"Alright, take five," I barked, and the squad sagged, relief evident in their posture. Even Owen, usually inexhaustible, leaned against a concrete barrier, his chest heaving. Mel shot me a look – half exasperation, half grudging respect – as she wiped rain and sweat from her brow. I ignored it. Their comfort wasn’t my concern. Their survival was. And survival was earned, every single goddamn day.

I scanned the perimeter of the training yard, my senses always on alert. The rain hadn’t let up. It drummed a relentless rhythm on the corrugated iron roof of a nearby shed, a soundtrack to this broken world. Control. Keep your head. Assess the threats. Neutralize them. Simple. Except when it wasn’t.

Later, summoned to Isaac’s den – the repurposed luxury box that always smelled faintly of stale smoke and desperation – I found him hunched over a map of the city, his brow furrowed. The lines on his face seemed deeper today, the weight of leadership pressing down.

"Abby," he said, his voice gravelly. He didn’t look up. "Got a situation."

I waited. Isaac wasn’t one for pleasantries.

"New recruit," he continued, tapping a finger on the map, not on any specific location, just a general, dismissive gesture. "Girl. Showed up a few weeks back. Caused a stir during intake. Reckless, but… effective." He finally looked at me, his eyes narrowed. "Name’s Ellie."

Ellie. The name registered vaguely. I’d heard some chatter. Another piece of fresh meat for the grinder. Usually, I paid little attention to the raw recruits. Most didn’t last. They washed out, or got themselves killed doing something stupid. Wasted resources. Wasted time.

"She’s got a mean streak," Isaac said, a flicker of something almost like amusement in his eyes. "And a death wish, from what I gather. But she’s a survivor. I’m putting her on your next recon."

I stiffened. "My team is set, Isaac. We’re running a tight operation. I don’t need a wildcard, especially not on this next run. The waterfront is crawling with Scars, and God knows what else."

"It’s not a request, Abby." His tone was flat, final. "She needs seasoning. And I want your assessment. See if she’s got what it takes. See if that fire in her can be aimed, or if it’s just going to burn her, and anyone around her, to cinders."

Fire. I thought of the almost feral intensity I’d seen in some of the younger recruits, the ones who’d known nothing but this broken world. It was a dangerous quality. Useful, if channeled. Catastrophic, if not.

"Fine," I said, my voice tight. Another variable. Another potential point of failure. "But if she slows us down, if she puts my people at risk…"

"She’ll be your problem to solve," Isaac cut in, his gaze unwavering. "As always."

The implication was clear. I nodded curtly and left, the name ‘Ellie’ echoing unpleasantly in my mind.

The briefing was held in the dim, damp concrete shell of a repurposed section of the stadium's old locker rooms. My squad – Owen, Mel, Manny, Jordan – were already there, their expressions carefully neutral as the new girl walked in.

Ellie.

She was scrawnier than I’d pictured from Isaac’s description. Wiry, almost. But it was her eyes that caught my attention. They were a startling, intense green, and they burned with a defiant light that was almost… familiar. Too familiar. Like looking at a ghost of a younger, angrier version of myself, a version I’d fought tooth and nail to bury under layers of discipline and scar tissue.

She carried herself with a coiled tension, a readiness that belied her slight frame. There was a hardness around her mouth, a cynicism in the slight upturn of her lips that spoke of things seen and done that no one her age should have had to endure. Not that age meant much anymore. Trauma was the great equalizer.

She met my gaze directly, no fear, no hesitation. Just a cool, appraising stare that mirrored my own. Interesting. Most recruits flinched, or at least had the decency to look intimidated. This one… this one was different. A potential liability, as I’d told Isaac. Or worse, someone who might ask too many questions, dig too deep. Someone who might upset the carefully constructed order of things.

I unrolled the map on a makeshift table, the worn parchment crackling in the silence. "Alright, listen up." My voice was clipped, all business. "Recon mission, waterfront sector. Primary objective: identify Scar patrol routes, numbers, and any new fortifications. Secondary: assess infected presence, particularly Shamblers or anything else out of the ordinary. This area’s been heating up. Intel says the Scars are getting bolder, pushing further south."

I outlined the route, the rally points, the contingency plans. My squad listened, their faces grim. They knew the waterfront. It was a deathtrap, a maze of flooded streets, crumbling warehouses, and blind alleys where Scars could materialize from the shadows like wraiths.

"Standard loadout," I continued. "Conserve ammo. Stealth is paramount. We go in quiet, we get the intel, we get out quiet. No heroes. No unnecessary risks. Anyone deviates from the plan, anyone puts the team in jeopardy, they answer to me. Understood?"

A chorus of "Yes, Lieutenant."

My gaze settled on Ellie. She hadn’t said a word, just watched, listened, her expression unreadable. That fire in her eyes hadn’t dimmed.

"Williams," I said, my tone deliberately harsh. Testing her. Pushing for a reaction. "You’re new. You stick close to Manny. You do exactly what he says, when he says it. No arguments. No initiative. Your job is to observe, stay out of the way, and not get yourself or anyone else killed. Think you can handle that?"

A flicker of something in those green eyes – annoyance? Defiance? But her voice, when she finally spoke, was surprisingly steady. "Got it."

Just two words. But there was a world of unspoken challenge in them.

I held her gaze for a moment longer, a silent battle of wills. Then, I turned back to the map. "We move out at 0500. Gear check in one hour. Dismissed."

The squad filed out, leaving me alone with the map and the unsettling image of the new recruit’s eyes. There was a reckless energy about her, a sense of someone teetering on the edge. Someone who had nothing left to lose. Those were the most dangerous kind. They either became invaluable assets or spectacular, catastrophic failures. There was rarely an in-between.

I traced the planned route on the map with a calloused finger. The waterfront. It was a place of ghosts for me, too. Years ago we’d fought a bloody battle there against a rival faction. I’d lost people. Good people. The memory still left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Control. It always came back to that. Control the situation, control your emotions, control your team. Control the outcome.

This girl, Ellie. She was an unknown quantity, a disruption to the equation. I didn’t like unknowns. They were messy. Unpredictable.

But Isaac’s orders were clear. And my own quiet investigation into my father’s death… it had stalled. I needed access, resources. And for that, I needed to remain Isaac’s most reliable, most effective weapon. If that meant babysitting some green, fiery recruit, so be it. I’d make it work. I always did.

The hour passed quickly. Gear check was routine. Weapons cleaned and oiled, ammo counted, supplies packed. My team was professional, efficient. Even Ellie, under Manny’s watchful eye, seemed to know her way around her equipment. She moved with a practiced economy, her hands steady as she checked the action on her rifle, slotted spare magazines into her vest. She wasn’t entirely green, then. She’d seen action. That, at least, was something.

As we assembled near the west gate, the pre-dawn gloom was thick and heavy, the drizzle having momentarily subsided to a damp mist that clung to everything. The air was cold, biting.

I did a final check of my own gear. My rifle, customized over the years, felt like an extension of my own arm. My sidearm, snug in its holster. Knives, plural, strategically placed. The weight was familiar, comforting in its lethality.

"Alright," I said, my voice low. "Eyes open. Stay sharp. Radio silence unless absolutely necessary. Let’s move."

We slipped out of the gate like shadows, melting into the grey, ruined landscape of outer Seattle. The city was a corpse, picked over by scavengers and slowly being reclaimed by nature. But even corpses could be dangerous.

The first part of the journey was through familiar territory, streets we’d cleared a dozen times. But familiarity bred contempt, and contempt got you killed. I kept the pace brisk, my senses straining, listening for the tell-tale click of a Scar’s bow, the gurgle of a Runner, the unnatural silence that often preceded an ambush.

Ellie was positioned mid-pack, between Manny and Jordan. I watched her in my periphery. She moved well, quiet, alert. She wasn’t lagging. She wasn’t making unnecessary noise. So far, so good. But the real test was yet to come.

As we neared the contested zone, the atmosphere grew heavier, the sense of menace palpable. Buildings leaned at precarious angles, their windows like vacant eyes staring out at the desolation. The silence here was different, deeper, more watchful.

We were approaching a notorious choke point – a narrow, debris-strewn alley that offered the only viable passage through a collapsed section of the elevated highway. It was a perfect spot for an ambush.

I signaled a halt, holding up a clenched fist. The team fanned out, taking cover behind rusted-out cars and crumbling concrete barriers.

"Manny, Jordan, scout ahead," I murmured into my radio. "Cautious approach. Report anything."

"Copy, Lieutenant," Manny’s voice crackled back.

They moved forward, shadows detaching themselves from deeper shadows. The rest of us waited, the silence stretching taut. Every rustle of wind through the skeletal remains of a tree, every distant drip of water, sounded unnaturally loud.

My gaze fell on Ellie. She was crouched behind a pile of rubble, her rifle up, scanning the rooftops. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the weapon. That fire in her eyes was banked now, replaced by a focused intensity. She wasn’t just looking; she was seeing . Assessing angles, potential threats, escape routes. The instincts were there. Good.

But instincts weren’t enough. Discipline, control, experience – those were what kept you alive.

Manny’s voice came over the radio, low and urgent. "Lieutenant, we’ve got movement. Multiple contacts, rooftops, east side of the alley. Looks like Scars. Setting up an ambush."

"Understood," I replied, my mind already racing. "Hold your position. Do not engage. We’ll draw them out. Owen, Mel, with me. Williams…" I paused. This was it. Time to see what she was made of.

I looked directly at her, my expression unyielding. "You're on point, recruit."

Her head snapped towards me, those green eyes wide for a fraction of a second before narrowing. Surprise, then a flicker of something else – understanding? Resignation?

"Lead us through that alley. Slow and steady. Draw their fire. We’ll be right behind you, ready to provide support. Try to keep up."

The unspoken message hung heavy in the damp air: Fail, and you're done. Or perhaps, fail, and you're dead. 

Her jaw tightened. A muscle twitched. For a moment, I thought she might argue, might refuse. That defiant spark was back, burning brighter now. Then, she gave a single, curt nod.

"Moving," she said, her voice surprisingly calm, and pushed herself up, rifle at the ready, and started towards the mouth of that dark, waiting alley.

Control. She was about to find out just how much of it she really had. And so, I suspected, was I.

Chapter Text

Ellie

Point man. Figures. 

The world’s always enjoyed putting me out front, a human shield with a smart mouth. Fine. At least from the front, you don’t have to see the knives aimed at your back. Or, in this case, the ice-cold glare of Lieutenant Fucking Anderson boring into your spine.

My rifle felt like an extension of my arm, a familiar, comforting weight in the pre-dawn gloom. The alleyway yawned before me, a narrow throat choked with shadows and the skeletal remains of burned-out cars. Each crumbling window felt like an eye, watching. Waiting. Abby’s words, "Try to keep up," still echoed in my ears, a taunt wrapped in a command. Oh, I’d keep up. I’d do more than keep up. I’d shove her damn words right back down her throat, with interest.

The air was thick with the smell of damp concrete, stale smoke, and something else… something acrid and unsettling that pricked at my nostrils. Scars. Their scent was as distinct as the infected – a mixture of woodsmoke, unwashed bodies, and some kind of weird, herbal concoction they probably used for their creepy rituals.

My senses were cranked to eleven, every nerve ending thrumming. The slightest scrape of debris under my boot sounded like a gunshot in the oppressive silence. My eyes scanned every rooftop, every darkened doorway, every pile of rubble that could conceal a threat. Adrenaline was a live wire humming under my skin, a familiar companion. It sharpened the world, made the colors more vivid, the shadows deeper. It also made the simmering rage in my gut burn hotter.

Abby. Even the name felt like a burr under my skin. She moved with a predatory grace, her every action precise, controlled. Annoyingly competent. And that constant, scrutinizing gaze of hers… it was like she was trying to peel back my skin layer by layer, looking for weaknesses. Good luck with that. My weaknesses were buried so deep, even I had trouble finding them most days.

We moved slowly, methodically. Me out front, her core team – Manny, Jordan, Owen, and Mel – fanned out a few paces behind, Abby a looming presence somewhere in the rear, a silent, judging shadow. The tension was a palpable thing, thick enough to choke on. Her commands, when they came over the radio, were clipped, impersonal. "Williams, check that doorway." "Williams, hold." Each one a tiny, irritating poke.

I pushed back in the only ways I could. By being too good. By anticipating her orders. By moving with a speed and efficiency that I hoped, just hoped, wiped that smug, know-it-all expression off her face, if only for a second. My defiance was a subtle thing, a tightening of my jaw, an almost imperceptible quickening of my pace, a competence that bordered on aggressive. Let her see I wasn’t just some "recruit." Let her see I was a goddamn force of nature in my own right.

The alley twisted, a claustrophobic nightmare of crumbling brick and rusted fire escapes. The silence was the worst part. It stretched, taut and brittle, making the frantic thumping of my own heart sound deafening. Every instinct screamed that this was a trap. The Scars weren’t stupid. They knew these choke points.

"Anything?" Abby’s voice, low and calm, crackled in my ear.

"Clear so far," I muttered back, my voice tight. "Too clear."

"Stay sharp."

No shit.

We were about halfway through when I saw it. A flicker of movement on a rooftop to my left. Just a shadow detaching itself from a deeper shadow. But it was enough.

"Contact!" I hissed into the radio, dropping to one knee, rifle already shouldered. "Rooftop, left side, two, maybe three!"

The world exploded.

An arrow thwacked into the brick wall beside my head, close enough for me to feel the rush of air. Then another, and another. The Scars were out in force, their eerie, ululating war cries echoing through the narrow confines of the alley. Gunfire erupted from behind me as Abby’s team returned fire, the roar of their rifles deafening.

"Williams, push forward!" Abby yelled over the comms, her voice cutting through the chaos. "Draw them down! We’ll cover!"

Draw them down? Was she insane? I was already drawing enough fire to start a goddamn bonfire. But there was no time to argue. I scrambled forward, using a burned-out husk of a van for cover, firing short, controlled bursts at the figures on the rooftops. They were agile, moving like spiders along the crumbling ledges, their arrows raining down with terrifying accuracy.

This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To see if I’d break. To see if I’d panic. Screw her.

I moved, I fired, I dodged. The world narrowed to the space in front of my rifle sights, the acrid smell of cordite, the whine of arrows, the satisfying thud of my bullets hitting home. I wasn’t thinking, just reacting, years of survival instincts taking over. Joel’s voice was a distant echo in my head: “One shot, one kill, Kiddo. Make it count.”

Then, from a side passage I hadn’t seen, a new threat. Clickers. Three of them, their fungal plates grotesque in the dim light, their tell-tale chattering rasps sending a fresh jolt of adrenaline through me. The Scars must have herded them in here, a lovely little surprise package for anyone stupid enough to wander through.

"Clickers! West passage!" I screamed, just as one of them lunged.

I threw myself sideways, the Clicker’s grasping claws missing my face by inches. I landed hard, my rifle clattering away. Shit. My switchblade was in my hand before I even registered losing my primary weapon. The Clicker was on me, its grotesque head snapping, its chattering filling my ears.

Suddenly, a figure was there, a blur of motion. Abby. She slammed the butt of her rifle into the side of the Clicker’s head, sending it staggering back. Then, without a word, she was beside me, her back to mine, her rifle spitting fire at the other two Clickers that were closing in.

"Get your rifle!" she barked, not even looking at me.

For a moment, we were a whirlwind of desperate, brutal efficiency. Back to back, surrounded by Scars on the rooftops and Clickers at ground level. There was no time for animosity, no time for anything but survival. Her movements were powerful, economical. She didn’t waste a shot. I scrambled for my rifle, my heart pounding, and joined the deadly dance. We moved in an unspoken rhythm, covering each other’s blind spots, the shared adrenaline a potent, terrifyingly intimate thing. It was like our bodies knew what to do, even if our heads were still trying to kill each other.

The Clickers went down in a spray of gore and fungal matter. The Scars, perhaps realizing their little trap had backfired, started to pull back, their war cries fading into the urban sprawl.

Silence descended again, heavy and ringing, broken only by our ragged gasps for breath. I was shaking, not from fear, but from the sheer, violent intensity of it all. My hands were slick with something – Clicker blood, probably.

Abby straightened up, her chest heaving. She didn’t say anything for a long moment, just scanned the alley, her rifle still at the ready. Then, she turned to me. Her face was grim, streaked with dirt and God knows what else.

"You alright?" she asked, her voice surprisingly devoid of its usual harshness.

I just nodded, unable to trust my own voice.

"Let me see," she said, taking a step closer. Before I could protest, her hands were on me, surprisingly firm, checking for wounds. Her touch was impersonal, professional, but it sent a jolt through me, a spark of unexpected heat that had nothing to do with the recent firefight. Her fingers brushed a tear in my sleeve, probed a tender spot on my ribs where I’d landed hard. I flinched.

"Just bruised," I managed, pulling away slightly. Her proximity was… unsettling. Overwhelming.

Her eyes, those damn unreadable eyes, searched mine for a moment. I couldn’t decipher the expression in them. Relief? Annoyance? Something else entirely? Then, it was gone, replaced by that familiar, steely mask.

"You were reckless," she said, her voice back to its usual clipped tone. "Could have gotten yourself killed. Could have gotten us all killed."

There it was. The blame. I bristled. "I did what you said! Drew their fire!"

"There’s a difference between drawing fire and tap-dancing in a minefield, Ellie." She took another step closer, her shadow falling over me. She was taller than me, broader. And right now, she seemed to fill the entire goddamn alley. "You got lucky. Luck runs out."

"Luck had nothing to do with it," I shot back, anger flaring. "It’s called competence. Maybe you’re not used to seeing it."

A muscle twitched in her jaw. Oh, I’d hit a nerve. Good.

The rest of the patrol was a blur of simmering tension and unspoken animosity. We found evidence of Scar patrols, new fortifications being built near an old cannery. We even stumbled upon a Shambler nest in a flooded subway station, a terrifying encounter that left us all reeking of acidic spores and on edge. Through it all, Abby’s scrutiny was relentless. I could feel her eyes on me, even when her back was turned.

It was during a brief halt, while Mel was tending to a shallow cut on Jordan’s arm, that I overheard it. Snippets of conversation, not meant for my ears. Owen and Manny, their voices low, talking about Abby.

"...still torn up about her dad." Owen’s voice was laced with a weary concern. "It’s been years, but she just… closes herself off, you know? Pushes everyone away."

Manny let out a short, humorless laugh. "Don't I know it, man." He shook his head, then glanced at Owen with a smirk. "Seriously, dude, I still have no idea how you dated her for as long as you did. She scares the absolute shit out of me."

Her dad. Owen. Dated her.

The words hit me with a different kind of force this time. Not a blow, but a weird, sideways jolt. Abby’s father was dead. Gone. Just like Joel. That much I’d already started to process, that unwelcome sliver of shared experience. But Owen? Blond, kind-of-goofy, seems-like-a-decent-guy Owen? He and Abby… they’d been a thing.

A picture tried to form in my head: Abby, the ice queen, the muscle-bound lieutenant, with Owen. It didn’t compute. Then again, what did I know about her, really? Nothing, except that she was built like a fucking tank and seemed to enjoy making my life miserable.

And she was straight.

The thought landed with a dull thud, an observation so mundane it was almost jarring. Of course she was straight. Why wouldn’t she be? It was just… another fact. Another piece of the puzzle that was Abby Anderson. A piece that, for some reason I couldn’t quite name, felt a little disappointing. 

I shoved the thought away. Her love life, or lack thereof, was none of my goddamn business. And it didn’t change anything. She was still a hard-ass. Still my commanding officer. Still someone I wasn’t sure I could trust.

The world was full of ghosts, full of people hollowed out by loss. Maybe she was just another one, carrying her own invisible wounds, her own silent screams, and a history with one of her own goddamn sergeants. The thought was unwelcome, and I shoved it down, hard. Empathy was a luxury I couldn’t afford, especially not for someone like Anderson. 

The rest of the patrol passed in a daze, though for a different reason now. I performed my duties on autopilot, my mind wrestling with this new, unwanted piece of information. Abby. Fatherless. Abby. Owen’s ex. It was a simple fact, but it felt complicated in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

We were heading back, the grey light of late afternoon filtering through the perpetual Seattle drizzle, when it happened. We’d taken a shortcut through a dense, overgrown park, the kind of place where the silence felt too heavy, too watchful.

I was on point again – Abby’s little way of keeping me on my toes, or maybe just keeping me in her sights. I was scanning the tree line, my senses on high alert, when I saw something that made my stomach clench.

A fresh Scar kill site.

Three WLF soldiers, or what was left of them. Arranged in some kind of grotesque ritualistic display, their bodies mutilated, the stark white paint of the Scars’ symbols smeared across their faces. The smell of blood and fear hung heavy in the air.

"Anderson," I whispered into the radio, my voice hoarse. "We’ve got a problem."

Before she could respond, before any of us could react, a hunting horn blared, its mournful cry echoing through the trees. Ambush.

The world erupted into chaos again. Scars seemed to materialize from the very ground, their painted faces contorted in silent snarls, arrows and spears flying.

"Scatter!" Abby roared, her voice a lifeline in the sudden storm of violence.

I spun, bringing my rifle up, but a Scar warrior, bigger and faster than the others, was already on me. He lunged, a long, wickedly sharp blade flashing in the dim light, aimed straight at my chest.

There was no time to dodge, no time to think. I braced for the impact, for the searing pain.

Then, a blur of motion. Abby.

She slammed into me, knocking me sideways, her body taking the force of the Scar’s lunge. I heard a sickening thud, a sharp intake of breath that wasn’t mine. We both went down in a tangle of limbs, the Scar warrior sprawling over us.

I scrambled free, my heart hammering against my ribs, and saw it. A dark stain, spreading rapidly across the side of Abby’s jacket. Just below her ribs. The Scar’s blade. It had found its mark. A mark that had been meant for me.

She grunted, shoving the dazed Scar warrior off her, and tried to push herself up, her face pale, her teeth gritted in pain.

"Abby!" I yelled, scrambling towards her, the battle raging around us, a distant, roaring backdrop to the sudden, sharp terror that gripped me.

She looked at me, her eyes wide, a flicker of something I couldn’t name – surprise? Pain? Regret? – before her expression hardened into that familiar, stubborn mask.

"Get… to cover…" she gasped, clutching her side.

But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. All I could see was that spreading stain, and the horrifying realization that she’d taken a hit meant for me.

The weight of that, the sudden, unexpected debt, was a crushing blow, heavier than any physical impact.

It was later, after the Scars had been driven back, after the frantic, bloody chaos had subsided into a tense, watchful quiet, that she cornered me. We’d found temporary shelter in a collapsed, half-flooded office building, the air thick with the smell of mildew and stale fear. Mel was trying to patch Abby up, her face a mask of worried concentration, but Abby had waved her away, her eyes fixed on me.

She was pale, her breathing shallow, but that damn stubborn pride was still blazing in her eyes. She pushed herself off the wall where she’d been leaning, wincing as she moved, and stalked towards me. I was checking my ammo, my hands still shaking slightly, the image of that blade, of her falling, replaying over and over in my mind.

She backed me against a damp, crumbling wall, her forearm pressing hard against my throat, cutting off my air. Her face was inches from mine, her eyes burning with a cold, controlled fury. The pressure on my windpipe was immense, stars beginning to dance at the edge of my vision.

"You listen to me, you reckless little shit," she snarled, her voice a low, dangerous growl. The smell of her sweat, of blood – her blood – filled my nostrils. It was intoxicating and terrifying. "That stunt you pulled back there? Nearly got us all killed. Again. You think this is a game? You think you can just charge in and expect to walk away?"

Her forearm pressed harder. I gasped, clawing uselessly at her arm. Panic, sharp and cold, clawed at me, but beneath it, something else stirred. A familiar defiance. A refusal to break.

"I told you," she seethed, "you follow orders. You stick to the plan. Your little heroics, your need to prove something… it’s a liability. And I don’t tolerate liabilities."

I met her gaze, my own eyes probably wide with a mixture of fear and fury. The world narrowed to the space between us, the pressure on my throat, the wild thumping of my heart. I could feel the heat radiating off her body, the coiled tension in her muscles.

"Who’s in charge here?" she bit out, each word a drop of ice, "Tell me."

My vision was starting to tunnel. My lungs burned. But I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Not now. Not ever.

With a surge of adrenaline, fueled by pure, stubborn rage, I managed to rasp out two words, my voice a strangled whisper.

"Make me."

For a split second, something flickered in her eyes. Surprise? Shock? Then, to my utter astonishment, a dark flush crept up her neck, staining her cheeks. Her grip loosened, just a fraction, the pressure on my throat easing almost imperceptibly. Her eyes, for the first time since I’d met her, seemed uncertain. Flustered.

It was gone in an instant, replaced by that familiar, icy composure. But I’d seen it. And the knowledge of it, the tiny, almost imperceptible crack in her armor, sent a jolt of something like triumph through me, even as I gasped for air.

She pulled back abruptly, as if burned, taking a shaky step away. She didn’t say anything, just stared at me, her expression a maelstrom of conflicting emotions I couldn’t begin to decipher. Then, she turned on her heel and stalked away, leaving me leaning against the wall, my throat aching, my heart pounding, and a strange, unsettling mixture of fear, anger, and a bewildering, unwelcome flicker of… something else entirely churning in my gut.

The hunting horn sounded again, closer this time, followed by a fresh volley of shouts and the unmistakable thud of arrows hitting the building. The Scars weren’t done with us yet.

Abby, clutching her bleeding side, barked orders at her team, her voice strained but still firm. "Barricade the door! Jordan, Manny, windows! Owen, with me!"

She glanced back at me, just once, her expression unreadable, before turning to face the renewed threat.

And as the sounds of fighting erupted around us once more, all I could think about was that fleeting moment of vulnerability I’d seen in Abby Anderson’s eyes, and the terrifying, undeniable fact that she had just saved my goddamn life.

Chapter Text

Abby

Discipline. It’s the bedrock. Without it, there's only chaos. But her words… "Make me." They echoed, a discordant note in the usual rhythm of command and obedience. An itch under the skin I couldn't scratch.

The trek back to the stadium was a grim, slogging affair. My side throbbed with a dull, insistent beat, each jarring step sending a fresh wave of pain through me despite Mel’s tightly bound field dressing. Rain, that eternal Seattle curse, had started up again, a cold, persistent drizzle that plastered my hair to my forehead and seeped into the already damp fabric of my fatigues. The physical discomfort was a familiar companion, almost a comfort in its predictability. It was the other thing, the unsettling thrum of energy that still vibrated in my chest, that I couldn’t place. Couldn’t control.

Ellie.

Her face, pale and defiant in the gloom of that collapsed office building, her green eyes blazing, her voice a raw, strangled whisper. It replayed in my mind, a stuck record. The sheer audacity of it. The raw, untamed will. And worse, far worse, the memory of that sudden, inexplicable heat that had flooded my own system, the way my heart had hammered against my ribs for a reason entirely unrelated to combat or adrenaline. A flush, creeping up my neck. Me. Flushing. It was humiliating. Unacceptable.

A weakness.

I’d spent years building walls, fortifying my defenses, burying every soft, vulnerable part of myself so deep it might as well have never existed. Control was everything. Emotional detachment was survival. And this girl, this scrawny, sarcastic, reckless goddamn recruit, had somehow, in the span of a single patrol, managed to find a crack.

I pushed the thought away, filed it under the rapidly expanding mental dossier labeled ‘Ellie: Volatile and Dangerous. Handle with Extreme Caution.’ She was a problem. A disruption. But Isaac wanted her tested, forged. Fine. I’d test her. I’d forge her until she either gleamed like tempered steel or shattered into a thousand pieces. Either outcome was acceptable, as long as it neutralized the threat she posed to my squad’s cohesion, and to my own carefully constructed composure.

The stadium gates loomed out of the grey mist, a welcome, if grim, sight. The sentries waved us through, their faces impassive. Home, such as it was. A fortress of concrete and fading glory, filled with the constant thrum of a small army trying to carve out an existence in a dead world.

Mel insisted on dragging me to the infirmary. Nora was on duty, her expression a familiar mix of weary professionalism and the wry concern of someone who’d patched me up more times than either of us cared to count. She’d been a friend, in the sparse, utilitarian way that friendships worked in this world, since the early days of the WLF, seen too much alongside me, and probably slept too little as a result. She clucked over the wound as she cleaned it with stinging antiseptic. "Superficial, mostly," she pronounced, her voice tired but steady. "But deep enough. You were lucky, Lieutenant. Another inch either way…" She didn’t finish, didn’t need to. We both knew the variables.

Lucky. That word again. Ellie had called her own survival competence. Maybe it was a bit of both. Or maybe luck was just what you called it when the universe hadn’t quite decided to fuck you over completely yet.

As Nora stitched me up, her movements practiced and efficient, my mind kept drifting. Ellie’s eyes. That tattoo – I’d caught a glimpse of it when she’d rolled up her sleeve after the Clicker fight, a dark swirl of something on her forearm. It was another mark of her, something hidden, something personal. Like everything else about her, it felt like a challenge.

Isaac had officially assigned her to my unit. My problem now, full time. Our barracks were in the C-block, a section of what used to be luxury skyboxes, now stripped bare and repurposed. The main room was a long, narrow space, crammed with metal bunks stacked three high, each with a small footlocker. Thin, scavenged tarps and dented sheets of corrugated metal hung between some of the sections, offering the illusion of privacy, but not much else. The air always smelled faintly of sweat, gun oil, and damp wool.

My own quarters were a small, converted storage closet at the far end, a privilege of rank. Barely big enough for a cot, a small metal desk, and my own footlocker, but it was private. A place where I could shed the skin of Lieutenant Anderson and just be… Abby. Though who that was anymore, even I wasn’t entirely sure.

The rest of my core fireteam – Mel, and the other two women who made up the permanent roster of my direct command, Taryn and Jordan – shared the main space with the rotating male members of the broader platoon I often led. Taryn was our sniper, quiet, almost unnervingly still, with eyes that missed nothing and a wit as dry as old bone. She was small, wiry, and could disappear into the landscape like a ghost. 

Jordan was the opposite – a breacher, built like a goddamn battering ram, loud, boisterous, her face a roadmap of old scars from shrapnel and close calls. She used humor like a bludgeon, deflecting anything that got too close to the surprisingly soft heart she tried to hide. Mel, of course, was the medic, the steady hand, the one who’d seen Owen and me through our own messy history.

Ellie had been assigned a bunk near theirs. When I finally limped back from the infirmary, my side aching, my mood fouler than the Seattle air, I found the three of them – Taryn, Jordan, and Ellie – in a tight knot around Jordan’s footlocker, which was apparently serving as a makeshift card table. A game of something that involved a lot of slapping of cards and loud, crude jokes was in progress.

Ellie… she looked different. Smaller, somehow, without her tactical gear. Her dark, chin-length hair was damp, pushed back from her face, and she was wearing a threadbare WLF-issue t-shirt and pants. She was laughing, a genuine, unguarded sound, as Jordan slammed down a card with a triumphant roar. It was a startling sound, that laugh. I hadn’t realized she was capable of it. It made her look younger. Softer.

Dangerous.

My presence cast an immediate pall. The laughter died. Jordan’s grin faltered. Taryn just watched me with those unnervingly perceptive eyes. Ellie’s face hardened, the brief flicker of warmth extinguished, replaced by that familiar, wary defiance.

Good. Let her be wary.

I pushed past them without a word, heading for my small room, the door clicking shut behind me with a sense of finality. Debrief with Isaac in ten. Just enough time to try and shove the image of Ellie’s laughing face, and the memory of her damn defiant words, into a locked box in the back of my mind. A few moments to myself. That’s all I needed.

The debrief with Isaac was, as expected, frustrating. I laid out the facts of the patrol: the Scar activity, the new fortifications, the ambush. And then, Ellie. Her recklessness in the alley. Her insubordination. Her general unpredictability. I recommended, firmly, that Ellie be transferred off my team, effective immediately.

Isaac listened, his steepled fingers resting on his cluttered desk, his expression unreadable. When I was done, he was silent for a long moment, just staring at me with those tired, knowing eyes.

"She took down three Clickers, almost single-handedly, after her rifle was knocked away," he said finally, his voice quiet. "And she stood her ground when your position was about to be overrun by Scars."

My jaw tightened. "She was out of position. If she’d followed protocol…"

"Protocol doesn’t always win fights, Anderson," Isaac interrupted, a rare edge to his voice. "Sometimes, you need that… fire. That willingness to go to the brink. She’s got it. In spades." He leaned forward. "She’s got fight, Anderson. Real fight. Like a cornered wolf. That’s rare. Most of these kids, they’re just scared. They follow orders because they’re too afraid not to. Her… she fights because it’s in her blood."

I stared at him, incredulous. He was actually defending her. Praising her.

"Her recklessness is a liability, Isaac," I insisted. "It endangers the squad."

"Or it saves them," he countered. "You said yourself, she drew their fire in the alley. Created an opening." He sighed, a sound like air leaking from old bellows. "Look, Abby, I know she’s a handful. I know she’s not your typical WLF soldier. But we’re not living in typical times. We need every weapon we can get. And she, Lieutenant, is a weapon. A potent one, if she can be aimed."

His gaze sharpened. "Your job is to aim her. Forge her, don’t break her. Push her. Test her limits. See what she’s capable of. If she can learn discipline, if that fire can be channeled… she’ll be a hell of an asset. More valuable than a dozen by-the-book grunts." He paused, a faint, almost nostalgic smile touching his lips. "Reminds me a bit of you, when you first showed up. All piss and vinegar, a world of hurt in your eyes. I pushed you. Hard. Look at you now."

The comparison landed like a punch to my already injured side. Me? Like her ? The thought was repulsive. I was disciplined. Controlled. I’d earned my place through relentless effort, through iron will. Ellie was a chaotic force, a loose cannon.

"With all due respect, Sir," I said, my voice colder than I intended, "I am nothing like her."

His smile faded. "Aren't you, Anderson?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Just do your job. Make her an asset."

I wanted to argue, to scream. It felt like he was completely undermining my authority, rewarding behavior that should have seen her scrubbing latrines for a month. But the look in his eyes was final. This wasn’t a discussion. It was an order.

"Understood, sir," I said, my voice tight with suppressed anger.

"Good." He leaned back. "Now, about those Scar fortifications…"

I left Isaac’s office seething. The throbbing in my side was nothing compared to the churning frustration in my gut. He didn’t understand. He didn’t see the danger Ellie represented, not just to mission objectives, but to the delicate balance of a functioning combat unit. Her defiance, her unpredictability… it was a virus. And that comparison… it was an insult.

And that other thing. That unsettling current she’d sparked in me . That was the most dangerous part of all.

I needed to burn it out.

The WLF gym was a vast, echoing space, a repurposed basketball arena. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, rust, and stale adrenaline. The rhythmic thud of fists against heavy bags, the clang of iron weights, the grunts of exertion – it was a symphony of controlled violence. My kind of music.

I stripped off my jacket, my side protesting with a sharp twinge, and went straight for the heaviest punching bag, a monstrous canvas cylinder that had probably seen more action than most recruits. I didn’t bother with wraps. I wanted to feel it. The impact. The burn.

I started slow. A steady rhythm. Focusing on form, on the mechanics of each strike. Jab. Cross. Hook. Uppercut.

I picked up the pace, filled by a raw, unfocused anger. Isaac’s dismissal. Ellie’s defiant face. That goddamn unsettling heat coiling in my belly. Each punch was a release, a desperate attempt to exorcise the turmoil inside. The bag shuddered under the assault. My knuckles screamed in protest, but I ignored them. Pain was a purifier.

I imagined Ellie’s face on the bag. Her sarcastic smirk. Her challenging eyes. Make me. The words fueled the fury. I hit harder, faster, a relentless barrage, until my arms were leaden, my lungs burning, sweat stinging my eyes. The image of her, pinned against that wall, her body surprisingly wiry and strong beneath my forearm, her breath hot on my skin… it flashed behind my eyelids, unwelcome, infuriating.

Why did she get under my skin like this? No one got under my skin. I was impervious. The immovable object. Lieutenant Anderson, Isaac’s right hand, the one who never cracked, never wavered.

But this girl…

I finally stumbled back from the bag, gasping for air, my knuckles raw. The anger was still there, a dull, simmering coal, but the sharp edges had been blunted by exhaustion. The gym was mostly empty now, the late afternoon light slanting through the grimy, boarded-up windows.

I felt… hollow. And the unsettling feeling, the itch I couldn’t scratch, it was still there, buried deeper now, but definitely not gone.

It was late when I finally made my way back to C-block, every muscle in my body screaming in protest. The main barracks room was dimly lit by a few flickering emergency lamps. Most of the cots were occupied by sleeping forms. Mel was already out, a dark shape under a thin blanket.

But a low murmur of voices drew my attention to the far corner. Taryn, Jordan, and Ellie. They were huddled on Jordan’s lower bunk, a scavenged, battery-powered lantern casting long, dancing shadows on the concrete wall.

And then I saw Ellie.

She’d showered. Her dark, chin-length auburn hair, usually plastered with sweat and grime or hidden under a beanie, was damp and fell in soft waves around her face, pushed back slightly. She was wearing a plain white tank top, the thin WLF-issue cotton clinging to her in places. I could see the curve of her collarbone, the surprisingly delicate line of her neck. 

My eyes were inexplicably drawn to her right arm. An intricate tattoo, dark ink against pale skin, snaked its way from her wrist, disappearing under the strap of the tank top. A swirling pattern of what looked like fern fronds, and a moth, its wings spread. It was beautiful, in a stark, slightly menacing way. Unexpected. Another layer to the enigma.

She was leaning back against the wall, one arm casually draped over the back of the bunk behind Jordan, her fingers just brushing Jordan’s shoulder. Jordan was saying something, her voice a low rumble, and Ellie laughed. Not the sharp, sarcastic bark I’d heard before, but a low, easy sound, genuine and surprisingly warm. It echoed in the quiet room, a sound that felt… out of place. Here. With her.

There was a casual confidence in her posture, in the unapologetic way she inhabited her own skin, in the easy display of that tattoo. It was a stark contrast to the coiled, defensive energy she usually projected. Here, in the dim light, surrounded by my squadmates, she looked… relaxed. Almost content.

And it pissed me off.

More than it should have. Far more.

My internal monologue, usually a calm, rational assessment of threats and strategies, was suddenly a raging torrent. This is a squad, not a goddamn social club. Relationships, attachments… they’re weaknesses. Distractions. Unit cohesion is paramount. And this girl, this Ellie, she’s a walking, talking disruption. Flirting. Laughing. Getting comfortable.

It was reckless. Inappropriate. Dangerous to the fragile equilibrium I’d fought so hard to maintain within my team. My team. These were my people.

The anger was a hot, tight knot in my chest, a possessiveness over my squad, over the order I’d imposed, that felt dangerously close to something else entirely. Something I didn’t want to name. Something that tasted like the metallic tang of fear.

My boots were heavy on the floorboards as I approached their little huddle, the sound unnaturally loud in the relative quiet. Their conversation faltered. Three pairs of eyes turned to me. Ellie’s gaze, even in the dim light, held that familiar spark of defiance, though it was softer now, less overtly hostile.

"Lights out," I said, my voice clipped, colder than the damp Seattle air. "Drills at 0500. Don’t be late."

I didn’t wait for an acknowledgment. I stalked past them, the floorboards creaking under my boots, and slammed the door to my small room shut, plunging myself into a darkness that offered no comfort, no answers. Only the lingering image of Ellie’s smile, the ghost of her laughter, and the unsettling, undeniable truth that she was burrowing her way under my skin, one defiant glance, one unexpected laugh, one goddamn tattoo at a time.

And I had no idea what to do about it.

Chapter Text

Ellie

0500. The number itself felt like a personal insult. Especially when barked out by Lieutenant Prude Bitch Anderson, who looked like she'd wrestled a nest of Stalkers all night and lost. Good. Served her right for being such a goddamn buzzkill.

The pre-dawn air in the training yard was a cold, damp slap to the face, the kind that made your teeth ache. Mist, thick as infected breath, clung to the ground, swallowing the edges of the crumbling stadium structure and muffling the distant, mournful groans that were the city’s perpetual soundtrack. We were already kitted out, the familiar weight of gear a grim comfort. My rifle felt cold in my hands. My stomach was a tight knot of something that wasn’t entirely dread, but definitely wasn’t enthusiasm either.

Abby stood before us, a silhouette against the bruised purple of the barely-there dawn. Even in the dim light, her presence was a physical force, a locus of tightly-leashed power. Her blonde hair, usually scraped back from her face with a severity that could curdle milk – each strand a tiny soldier in perfect formation, a testament to her iron-fisted control over every goddamn thing, including her own goddamn follicles – had a few rebellious wisps escaping near her temples this morning. They caught the faint light, almost soft. Almost. The shadows under her glacial blue-grey eyes were new, though. Darker. Deeper. Like she hadn’t slept. Or if she had, like sleep had been another enemy to be wrestled into submission.

I remembered her face from last night, the way she’d loomed in the doorway of the barracks, her expression like a thundercloud, effectively dousing the small spark of camaraderie I’d managed to find with Jordan and Taryn. “Lights out. Drills at 0500. Don’t be late.” Not a request. Not even a command, really. Just a statement of inevitable, joy-crushing fact. Bitch.

“Alright, listen up!” Her voice cut through the morning chill, sharp as a shard of glass. No preamble. No ‘good morning, assholes.’ Just straight to business. Always. “Today, we’re running killhouse scenarios. Target prioritization, room clearing, CQC. Full gear. Live rounds on the range portion. I want to see speed, precision, and for fuck’s sake, some goddamn situational awareness. Vazquez, you’re still hesitating at breach points. Moore, your shot grouping was shit yesterday. Fix it.”

Her eyes swept over us, lingering on me for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, a silent, pointed reminder that I was the new, unwelcome variable in her well-oiled machine. “Ellie. You’re with Taryn and Jordan today. Stick to them like glue. Try not to get anyone killed. Including yourself.”

The sarcasm was a familiar barb. I just stared back, my expression carefully neutral. Let her think whatever she wanted. I’d show her. I’d show all of them.

The “killhouse” was a series of interconnected, derelict shipping containers and hastily constructed plywood rooms, designed to mimic the claustrophobic, unpredictable interiors we usually found ourselves fighting in. It stank of old metal, damp wood, and gunpowder.

The drills were relentless. Abby ran us through them again and again, her voice a constant, critical commentary. “Faster, Jordan, that door won’t open itself!” “Taryn, watch your six!” “Ellie, that was a civilian target, you goddamn idiot! You pay attention or you paint the walls with friendly blood!”

That last one stung, mostly because she was right. I’d been a split second too slow to identify the crudely painted ‘non-combatant’ symbol on the wooden cutout. My fault. But her voice, laced with that particular brand of icy contempt she reserved just for me, still made my blood boil.

I channeled it. The anger. The resentment. The burning need to wipe that smug, superior look off her face. I was faster on the next run, my movements economical, my senses hyper-alert. My shots on the pop-up targets were tight, center mass. I cleared corners with a vicious efficiency born of years spent fighting for my life in places a hell of a lot worse than this glorified shantytown.

And slowly, grudgingly, I started to find a rhythm with Taryn and Jordan. Taryn, the sniper, was quiet, almost unnervingly still, but her movements were fluid, precise. She’d appear at my shoulder, offer a quiet correction on my grip, a subtle shift in my stance, her voice a low murmur that was surprisingly devoid of judgment. Jordan, the breacher, was all explosive energy, a barely contained force of nature. She’d kick down a door with a grunt and a grin, then lay down covering fire with a terrifying, almost joyful, abandon.

Between drills, while we reloaded mags and chugged water, the others fell into an easy, familiar banter. Even Manny, Abby’s second-in-command, a wiry guy with a quick, often crude, wit, managed to crack a few jokes that almost made me smile. Almost. He was still an asshole most of the time, but his humor, when it wasn’t aimed at making someone else feel small, was surprisingly sharp.

 Owen, who usually partnered with Mel, was quieter. He’d offer a nod, a small, encouraging smile. He had kind eyes, the kind that didn’t seem to be constantly sizing you up, looking for weaknesses. A goddamn unicorn in this shithole. Mel, too, was… different. Gentle, almost. Her hands were steady when she’d checked a scrape on Jordan’s arm, her voice soft. It was hard to reconcile that gentleness with the brutal efficiency she displayed during the drills. But there was a core of steel there, too. You didn’t survive this long without it.

And Jordan. Jordan was… a lot. Big, loud, covered in a roadmap of pale scars that snaked across her tanned arms and disappeared under the collar of her shirt. Her dark hair was a wild mane, constantly escaping the tight bun she tried to wrangle it into. She had a grin that could be either terrifying or infectious, depending on the situation. 

And yeah, okay, she was undeniably hot. Not in a delicate, pretty way. But in a ‘I could snap you in half and then make you laugh about it’ way. The kind of hot that made you think she definitely, absolutely, knew her way around a woman’s body. 

But Abby… Abby remained an island. She’d observe, correct, criticize, her voice a whip crack, her presence a constant pressure. She didn’t participate in the banter. Didn’t offer a single word of praise, not even when I aced a particularly difficult target sequence. Just that cold, appraising stare. It was infuriating. And, if I was being brutally honest with myself, a tiny part of me, a part I hated, wanted to earn something other than that icy disdain. A nod. A grudging, “Not bad, Ellie.” Something. Anything.

Fuck her.

Lunch was a hurried, noisy affair in the main mess hall, a cavernous repurposed warehouse that stank of boiled vegetables and stale coffee. I’d expected Abby to isolate herself, to radiate her usual ‘fuck off and die’ vibes from a solitary table. But, to my surprise, she sat with her core team – Mel, Taryn, and Jordan. Owen and Manny joined them, sliding onto the bench with an ease that spoke of long habit.

I sat a few tables away, with a couple of other grunts I vaguely recognized, pretending not to watch. But I couldn’t help it.

From this distance, Abby was… different. Still intense, yeah. Still radiating that air of coiled authority. But there was a subtle shift in her demeanor. She wasn’t barking orders. She was listening. Jordan was recounting some story, gesticulating wildly, and Abby was actually… smiling. A small, almost imperceptible quirk of her lips, but it was there. Taryn said something, her voice too low for me to hear, and Abby nodded, her expression thoughtful. Mel offered her a piece of whatever vaguely edible protein was on her tray, and Abby took it without comment.

They were a unit. A real one. There was a current of loyalty there, flowing both ways. They respected her, that much was obvious. Feared her a little, probably. But they trusted her. And she, in her own tightly controlled, emotionally constipated way, seemed to trust them. Cared about them, even. She asked Manny about a new recruit in his fireteam, listened intently to his assessment. She discussed a supply shortage with Mel, her questions sharp, practical. She even shared a brief, almost conspiratorial glance with Taryn over something Jordan said that made everyone at the table chuckle.

Everyone except me, of course. I was still firmly on the outside, looking in. The ice-queen treatment was reserved solely for yours truly. And it was… confusing. This Abby, the one who could command fierce loyalty, who could actually crack a smile, who seemed to genuinely give a shit about her people – she didn’t quite mesh with the Prude Bitch Drill Sergeant from Hell I’d been dealing with. It was another layer, another irritating wrinkle in the already complicated tapestry of Lieutenant Anderson.

Later that afternoon, it was our squad’s rotation for the WLF gym. My first time. The place was even bigger up close than it had looked from the barracks window, a massive, echoing arena, the ghosts of cheering crowds and squeaking sneakers replaced by the clang of iron, the thud of fists on leather, and the grunts of exertion. Scavenged equipment was scattered everywhere – rusty barbells, mismatched weight plates, punching bags hanging like grotesque fruit from the steel rafters. It smelled of old sweat, iron, and something that might have once been disinfectant.

Abby moved through the space like she owned it. People nodded to her, a mixture of respect and wariness in their eyes. She didn’t acknowledge them, just strode towards a bench press station in the far corner, her focus absolute.

Most of the squad stripped down to tank tops and shorts, or the thin, WLF-issue workout pants. No gear here. Just muscle, sweat, and the sheer, bloody-minded force of will it took to keep pushing your body past its limits in a world that was constantly trying to break you.

I tugged off my own jacket, leaving me in my worn grey tank top and cargo pants. I felt… exposed. Scrawny, even. I knew I was strong. Years of running, fighting, scrambling for my life had honed my body into a lean, efficient survival machine. But it was a different kind of strength than what I saw around me. These WLF soldiers, especially Abby’s core team, they were built . Cultivated. Their muscles weren’t just for surviving; they were for dominating.

My eyes drifted to the large, grimy blackboard on one wall. Scrawled in chalk were names and numbers – personal records. Squat, deadlift, bench press. Abby’s name was at the top of the women’s list for bench. 205 lbs.

Two hundred and five fucking pounds.

I did a quick, disgusted calculation. Cool. Almost twice my goddamn body weight. Just… great.

Jordan, a grin splitting her scarred face, clapped me on the shoulder, nearly sending me sprawling. She was a solid wall of tanned muscle, her dark hair escaping its tie to frame a face that was all sharp angles and fierce energy. A network of pale scars crisscrossed her arms like angry white tributaries against her skin. She was strong, undeniably funny when she wasn’t being terrifying, and carried herself with a swagger that screamed she’d seen and done it all, probably twice, and was ready for a third go-round.

"Alright, stringbean," she boomed, her voice echoing slightly in the cavernous space. "Let’s see what you’re made of. Don’t want Anderson to think we’re letting you slack, eh?"

Before I could protest that ‘stringbean’ wasn’t exactly an accurate assessment, she was dragging me towards a pull-up bar. "Let’s start with these. Show me what you got."

To her surprise, and frankly, a little to my own, I knocked out a decent set. Eight clean ones. Not exactly Abby-level, but respectable. My strength was different. Leaner. More wiry. Born from years of desperate scrambles, of hauling myself over fences, of close-quarters struggles where agility and speed mattered more than brute force. I wasn’t a brawler like Jordan, whose power was all explosive, direct impact. I was a survivor. My muscles were for dexterity, for endurance, for that sudden, desperate burst of strength you needed to drive a shiv home or break a stranglehold. Not for endlessly lifting stupidly heavy objects just to put them back down again like some of these WLF meatheads.

Jordan whistled, impressed. "Not bad, stringbean. Not bad at all. Got some fight in those skinny arms after all." She then led me through a circuit of bodyweight exercises – push-ups, lunges, planks – watching my form with a surprisingly critical eye. Then, it was onto the barbells. "Alright, now for the real fun," she said, loading a couple of small plates onto a bar. "Squats. Deadlifts. We’ll start light, focus on form. Don’t want you snapping yourself in half on your first day."

As I struggled through my first set of squats, acutely aware of Jordan’s instructions and the unfamiliar burn in my thighs, I could feel it. A prickling sensation on the back of my neck. Abby. She was across the gym, supposedly focused on her own workout with Owen spotting her, but I knew she was watching. I could feel the weight of her gaze, cold and appraising. It made me push harder, grit my teeth against the burn, determined not to show any weakness. The ache in my muscles was surprisingly good, though. A clean pain. An earned pain. Different from the constant, dull ache of grief that was my usual companion.

Later, I was spotting Jordan on her own set of heavy squats. She was a goddamn powerhouse, the muscles in her thighs and glutes bunching and releasing, her face a mask of concentration. She finished the set with a grunt, re-racking the bar with a satisfying clang.

"Damn, okay strong girl!" I said, clapping her on the shoulder, genuinely impressed. "Making that look easy."

From across the gym, there was another, much louder clang. Abby. She’d just finished her last set of bench presses and had slammed the bar back onto the rack with enough force to make the whole apparatus shudder. Her breathing was loud, ragged, each exhale a harsh rasp in the relative quiet of that section of the gym. Owen, who’d been spotting her, said something, his voice too low to hear, and patted her shoulder.

I watched as Abby sat up, her face flushed, her chest heaving. Sweat plastered strands of her blonde hair to her forehead, and she pushed them back with an impatient hand. The muscles in her arms and shoulders were… unbelievable. Sharply defined, powerful, each one a testament to years of relentless, brutal effort. For a split second, as she arched her back and stretched, the thin fabric of her tank top pulled taut across her chest, and that low, unwelcome twist returned to my stomach, tighter this time. I quickly looked away, annoyed at myself, at the involuntary reaction.

After what felt like an eternity of pushing, pulling, and lifting things that felt like they were made of lead, the workout was finally over. I was drenched in sweat, every muscle in my body screaming in protest, but there was a strange sense of satisfaction, too. A feeling of having faced something difficult and not completely failing.

"Alright, ladies, shower time!" Jordan announced, slinging a towel over her shoulder. "Last one in is bloater food!"

The squad – Mel, Taryn, Jordan, and a couple of other WLF women I didn’t know – started heading towards the communal shower block, a steaming, echoing chamber of concrete and mildew. I hesitated for a moment, then followed. A shower sounded like heaven.

As we were walking, I realized someone was missing. "Hey," I said, trying to sound casual as I fell into step beside Jordan. "Where’d the Lieutenant disappear to?"

Jordan shrugged, toweling sweat from her neck. "Anderson? Oh, she never showers with us." She lowered her voice conspiratorially, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Guess she likes keeping that insane body all to herself. Or maybe she’s got her own gold-plated shower somewhere, who knows." She winked, making a joke of it.

A strange mix of emotions washed over me. Relief, definitely. The thought of being in a confined, steamy space with Abby, both of us stripped bare… yeah, no. Hard pass. But underneath the relief, there was something else. A tiny, undeniable flicker of… disappointment? Curiosity?

The idea of Abby, alone, separate even in this, was… something. It lodged in my mind, another irritating, unshakeable piece of the Abby Anderson puzzle. What was she hiding? Or who was she hiding from? Was it about maintaining that icy wall of command? Or was there something more to it?

The question lingered, an unwelcome guest, as I stepped into the scalding spray of the shower, the water washing away the sweat and grime, but not the unsettling new thread of curiosity about my CO. A curiosity that felt dangerously close to something other than pure, unadulterated hatred.

And that, I knew, was a problem. A big one.

Chapter Text

Abby

Control. It’s a comforting lie. The truth is, the world is chaos, and we’re all just pretending we can steer. And Ellie… Ellie is a storm I never saw coming, threatening to tear down every carefully constructed wall.

Weeks bled into a month, then two. The Seattle drizzle became a constant, a grey shroud over a city already draped in mourning. And Ellie Williams became a fixture. A constant, infuriating, undeniably present thorn in my side.

She was good. Too good. It was the most frustrating thing about her. During drills – the brutal, close-quarters battle simulations in the killhouse, the high-stress marksmanship exercises where targets popped up with terrifying speed, the grueling obstacle courses we ran in full kit until our lungs burned and our legs screamed – she was a goddamn machine. 

Her movements were economical, almost unnervingly fluid for someone so… compact. Her aim was deadly. She absorbed my harshest critiques, the ones I delivered with an extra layer of ice just for her, with a stoic mask, her green eyes narrowed, a muscle twitching in her jaw. And then she’d turn around and perform the next evolution with even more infuriating precision, as if to spite me.

It wasn’t just her skill. It was… her. That challenging, almost feral light that never quite left those sharp green eyes when she looked at me. It made my stomach twist with an unnamed, unwelcome sensation, a coiling tension that had nothing to do with combat readiness. It felt like looking at a wild animal – beautiful, dangerous, and utterly unpredictable.

And the way she’d integrated herself into my squad… it was a constant, low-grade irritant. Against all my expectations, against every principle of maintaining professional distance, she’d somehow charmed her way into their inner circle. I’d see her laughing, that surprisingly deep, throaty laugh, with Manny over some stupid, crude joke he’d made. I’d catch her in quiet, intense conversation with Owen, his usually kind eyes fixed on her with an almost unnerving focus. She even managed to get a rare, dry chuckle out of Taryn, our stoic sniper, during weapons maintenance, their heads bent close together over a rifle schematic.

The casual way she flirted with Jordan – a lingering touch on the arm after a shared joke, a smirk that passed between them during mess that spoke volumes – it grated on my nerves more than it should have. It wasn’t just the potential for disruption to squad cohesion, the breakdown of discipline that such… familiarity could breed. It was something else. Something I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, name.

Ellie was a constant surprise. One moment, she was a ruthless, efficient killer, moving through a combat scenario with the deadly grace of a seasoned veteran. The next, she was cracking a dark, sarcastic joke that had even Mel, our usually composed medic, hiding a smile. She made me feel unsure. Off-balance. And I hated feeling unsure. Control was my bedrock. Ellie was a goddamn earthquake.

I prided myself on being a good judge of character. It was a skill honed by years of survival, of having to decide, in a split second, who was a threat and who could be trusted. But Ellie… something about her didn’t add up. Her story – lone survivor, drifted into Seattle, looking for a place – it was plausible enough. Common, even. But there were… inconsistencies. The way she sometimes looked at the infected, not just with fear or hatred, but with a strange, almost clinical, detachment. The questions she asked. Relentless, almost obsessive questions about people’s pasts, where they came from before Seattle, before the WLF. Her pointed interest in the WLF’s history, in Isaac’s rise to power, in the old Firefly presence in the city.

She was searching for something. Something specific. Something hidden. I could feel it, a prickle of unease that had nothing to do with her combat prowess or her unsettling charisma.

It was late. The kind of late where the silence of the stadium was almost absolute, broken only by the distant howl of wind through shattered windows and the occasional, mournful groan of settling concrete. I was in my small, coffin-like room, sleep a distant, mocking possibility. My side, where that Scar’s blade had kissed me weeks ago, still ached with a dull throb when I lay on it wrong. But it wasn’t physical pain keeping me awake.

It was Ellie.

Her image, unbidden, unwanted, kept flashing behind my eyelids. Ellie in the gym, her auburn hair damp with sweat, that goddamn tattoo a dark, intricate secret snaking up her arm. Ellie in the killhouse, her green eyes narrowed in concentration, her movements a blur of deadly efficiency. Ellie laughing with Jordan, her head thrown back, a flash of teeth, a moment of unguarded, almost startling, joy.

The usual barracks sounds – the chorus of snores from the main room, someone muttering in their sleep, the creak of a bunk as someone shifted – were suddenly punctuated by a new sound. Stealthy. Deliberate. Movement.

My senses, always on a hair trigger, sharpened. My hand, by instinct, went to the combat knife I kept under my pillow. It wasn’t uncommon for squad members to sneak off for… private liaisons. God knows, Owen and I had done the same, years ago, back when things between us were simpler, before the weight of everything had crushed whatever fragile thing we’d had. The memory brought an embarrassing, fleeting warmth, quickly doused by a colder, more immediate dread.

Ellie.

The thought slammed into me with the force of a physical blow. Was it Ellie? Sneaking off with someone? I’d seen the way her eyes sometimes lingered on Jordan, the easy, almost possessive way she’d drape an arm over Jordan’s shoulder. I’d heard that surprisingly deep, almost husky timber in her voice when she was relaxed, doling out praise or a well-aimed compliment that made even hardened soldiers flush.

A strange mixture of anger and an emotion I refused to name, something hot and tight and deeply unsettling, coiled in my gut.

I was out of my cot in an instant, the cold concrete floor a shock against my bare feet. Knife in hand, I eased my door open a crack. The main barracks room was dark, lit only by the faint, ghostly glow of the emergency lamps. And there, a shadowy figure, moving with a disturbing, almost preternatural silence, was slipping out of the main barracks exit.

It was Ellie.

Barefoot. Dressed in WLF-issue sleep shorts that did little to hide the lean strength of her legs, and a thin, faded tank top. Her auburn hair was a dark smudge against the pale skin of her neck.

My heart pounded, a frantic, trapped bird against my ribs. I should go back to bed. It was none of my business. She was just another soldier, blowing off steam, finding some fleeting human connection in this godforsaken world.

But I couldn’t. I had to know.

Moving with a silence born of years of practice, I trailed her, a ghost in the darkened, echoing corridors of the stadium. The air was cold, carrying the faint, metallic tang of rust and decay. What was I hoping to find? To catch her in the act? The thought of Ellie, pressed against a cold concrete wall, someone’s hands tangled in her hair, pushing up the fabric of her shirt… the dark, intricate lines of that tattoo stark against her pale skin as she moaned, a low, desperate sound…

The image flashed, vivid and unwanted, sending a jolt of something hot and sharp through my body.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I shoved the thought down, hard, my knuckles white where I gripped the hilt of my knife. Focus. This wasn’t… that. This was about Ellie. About the inconsistencies. About the feeling that she was a threat, a loose wire sparking in the dry tinder of our fragile existence.

She didn’t head for any of the known trysting spots – the abandoned concession stands, the shadowed underbelly of the bleachers, the secluded maintenance tunnels. Instead, she moved with a quiet, unnerving purpose towards a less-trafficked section of the stadium, the S-1 Admin block. The place where personnel records, old intake files, mission archives, and God knows what other sensitive WLF documents were stored.

My unease intensified. This wasn’t a late-night fuck. This was something else.

Ellie paused by a heavy steel door, its paint peeling, a faded stencil reading: “Archival Storage – Level Gamma Clearance Only.” My blood ran cold. Level Gamma. That was restricted access. Highly restricted.

Then, with a disturbing proficiency that spoke of practice, or a natural, unsettling talent for illicit entry, she produced a set of thin metal picks from somewhere in the waistband of her shorts. Her head was bent in concentration, her fingers working with a delicate, almost surgical precision. A soft click, and the heavy lock disengaged. She glanced quickly down the corridor, then slipped inside, the door closing behind her with a barely audible snick.

Clearly this wasn't about sex. It was something worse. If that was even possible. If there was something even worse than imagining Ellie having sex with someone.

My heart hammered against my ribs. This was it. This was the something that didn’t add up.

I moved silently to the door, my bare feet making no sound on the gritty concrete. I eased it open a fraction of an inch, just enough to peer inside.

The room was crammed with floor-to-ceiling metal filing cabinets, their drawers labeled with faded, handwritten tags. Stacks of dusty, bundled records tied with string sat on overflowing shelves. The air was thick with the smell of old paper, dust, and neglect. A single, grimy window, high up on one wall, let in a sliver of watery moonlight, barely enough to illuminate the oppressive gloom.

And there was Ellie.

Her back was to me. Her auburn hair, mussed from sleep, caught the faint moonlight, a fiery halo in the darkness. She was hunched over a battered metal desk, those long, nimble fingers sifting through a stack of what looked like personnel files.

I slipped into the room, my knife held low, ready. The door clicked shut behind me, a soft, definitive sound in the heavy silence.

Ellie whirled around, her eyes wide, surprise – and something else, something like fear – flashing across her face.

But I was already on her.

Faster than thought, I closed the distance, my body moving with the brutal efficiency of long habit. One hand shot out, slamming her against the cold metal of a filing cabinet, the other brought my knife up, the edge pressing hard against the soft, vulnerable skin of her throat.

She gasped, a sharp, startled sound, her body tensing, already trying to counter, to fight. I could feel the wiry strength of her, the desperate, animalistic energy coiling within her.

We grappled for a breathless, violent second, my superior strength and weight pinning her. Her back was flush against the cold steel, my body pressed tight against hers, the knife a cold, hard promise at her throat. I could feel the frantic thrum of her pulse against the blade, see it fluttering in the exposed skin of her neck where the moonlight caught it. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps, hot against my cheek.

"What the fuck," I snarled, my voice a low, dangerous growl, inches from her face, "do you think you're doing?"

Her green eyes, blazing with a mixture of fury and something else – fear, yes, but also a defiant, almost feral cunning – met mine in the dim light.

"I could ask you the same damn thing, Lieutenant," she growled back, her voice a low, husky rasp that sent an unwelcome shiver down my spine.

I pressed the knife a fraction harder, just enough to draw a tiny, sharp intake of breath from her. A warning.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said, her voice tight but steady, her gaze unwavering, locked on mine with an intensity that was almost hypnotic.

Then, I felt it.

A sudden, sharp pressure against my lower abdomen. Just above the groin, angled upwards towards my belly. Cold metal.

I glanced down.

Ellie. She had a goddamn switchblade, the point digging into the thin fabric of my sleep pants, pressing against my skin. A perfect, horrifyingly precise placement. A femoral artery shot. If she twisted that blade, I’d bleed out, slowly, agonizingly, on the dusty floor of this forgotten records room.

A stalemate.

And I knew, with a chilling, absolute certainty that settled like ice in my veins, that she would do it. I’d seen that feral light in her eyes before, witnessed the brutal efficiency of her movements during combat. She wasn’t just a soldier. She was a survivor. A killer. She’d gut me like a fish and probably never lose a night’s sleep over it.

As this cold, hard realization settled, another, far more unwelcome awareness crashed over me. Our proximity. My body was pressed so tightly against hers I could feel every line, every curve. The surprisingly solid muscle of her thighs against mine. The way her hip bone dug into my stomach. The soft, yielding pressure of her breasts against my own chest, separated only by the thin, worn cotton of our tank tops. 

I could feel the heat radiating from her skin, smell the faint, clean scent of soap from her recent shower, mingled with the sharper, metallic tang of her fear, and my own. The air was thick with unspoken violence, with the coppery scent of adrenaline, and with something else… something electric, dangerous, and terrifyingly, undeniably, alive .

The room was almost completely dark, save for that sliver of watery moonlight. It illuminated the sharp line of her jaw, the defiant set of her mouth, the rapid, shallow rise and fall of her chest. I could feel her breath, warm and quick, against my neck.

My own breathing was ragged. My heart hammered against my ribs.

With a guttural sound, a sound that was part rage, part confusion, part something else I didn’t dare name, I shoved myself away from her. Roughly. Abruptly. As if her touch had burned me.

I kept my knife up, the point still aimed at her, though my hand was shaking slightly.

Ellie brought a hand to her own throat, her fingers tracing the line where my blade had pressed. They came away stained with a thin, dark line of blood. Her eyes, narrowed to slits, fixed on me, blazing with a cold, murderous fury.

"You bitch," she spat, her voice a low, venomous hiss. She looked at the blood on her fingers, then back at me, her expression a mask of pure, unadulterated hatred.

"You're going to tell me exactly who you really are," I demanded, my voice shaking slightly despite my efforts to keep it steady, to project the icy control that was my armor. "And what the fuck you're doing in here."

Ellie, infuriatingly, just scoffed. A short, humorless, utterly contemptuous sound. "Yeah, or what?" she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You gonna shiv me in the records room, Lieutenant? I don’t think so." She took a small, almost predatory step forward, her own knife still held loosely at her side, but ready. Always ready. "Isaac would be pretty pissed if his new favorite toy got broken by his barely controlled attack dog, wouldn't he?"

Her words, the casual, knowing contempt in them, hit me like a physical blow. Attack dog.

She continued, her voice dropping, becoming soft, almost conversational, but laced with a venom that was far more dangerous than any shout. "He needs to tighten your leash, Anderson. Isn't that what you crave so much? Being controlled? Even while you pretend you’re the one in control?"

My heart pounded in my chest, a frantic, trapped bird. A deep, odd tension, a confusing, sickening warmth, bloomed low in my stomach. What the fuck is she talking about? Why would I want to be controlled? I AM the controller. My whole life, every goddamn decision, every action, revolves around maintaining control. Over myself. Over my squad. Over the chaos that constantly threatens to engulf us.

But even as the denials screamed in my head, a horrifying, sickening flicker of truth in her words wormed its way into my consciousness. It was as if she’d peeled back my skin, my armor, all the carefully constructed layers of discipline and control, and laid bare the raw, aching, secret part of me I never allowed myself to acknowledge. 

The part that, in the desolate wasteland of a life that had offered no easy choices, no safe harbors, sometimes… sometimes yearned for a firm hand. For guidance. For someone else, just for a moment, to bear the crushing weight of responsibility. Isaac. He’d always provided that, in his own way. A steady, unwavering presence. A purpose. A leash, yes, but a leash that kept me from spinning off into the abyss.

How could she know that?

Ellie must have seen something in my face – shock, confusion, a horrifying flicker of recognition – because her expression shifted, the feral anger replaced by a look of cold, profound disgust. She lowered her own knife slightly, her eyes never leaving mine.

"Thought so," she said, her voice flat, dismissive.

That look. That disgusted certainty on her face. It was more than I could bear. It shattered the last, fragile vestige of my self-control.

With a roar, a sound ripped from somewhere painfully deep, I lunged.

Before Ellie could fully react, before she could bring her own blade up to defend, I was on her again. I moved with a brutal speed and precision I usually reserved for the infected, for Scars, for enemies who needed to be neutralized, permanently. A vicious twist of her wrist, and her switchblade went clattering across the dusty concrete floor, skittering into the shadows. She cried out, a sharp yelp of pain and surprise.

She went down hard, the air knocked from her lungs. I followed, my knee driving into her stomach, my weight pinning her to the floor. One hand shot out, grabbing both her wrists, slamming them to the ground above her head, my fingers digging into her flesh with bruising force. With my other hand, I pressed the cold, flat edge of my combat knife hard against her throat, tilting her head back, forcing her chin up, exposing the vulnerable, pale line of her neck.

Her eyes, wide and blazing, stared up at me, a mixture of fury, pain, and a dawning, terrifying realization.

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up." I growled, my face inches from hers, my breath coming in harsh, ragged gasps. The earlier confusion, the unsettling heat, it was all gone now, burned away, replaced by a clean, efficient, all-consuming rage. This, I understood. This was control.

"Now," I snarled, my voice a low, deadly whisper in the suffocating silence of the records room. "I'll ask you one more time. Who the hell are you, and what the fuck are you really doing here?"

Chapter Text

Ellie

Stupid. Fucking stupid. That’s what I was.

The cold, hard reality of it pressed into me almost as insistently as the edge of Abby’s combat knife against my throat. My own damn fault. I’d pushed her. Poked at that raw, gaping wound of her control issues, the one she wore like a second skin, tight and suffocating. But it had been just so obvious , hadn’t it? 

The way she carried herself, that rigid discipline, the body built like a goddamn fortress, the blonde hair scraped back with a severity that could crack stone, the voice that never, ever wavered. It all screamed of a desperate, clawing need to keep every single piece of herself locked down, battened tight against some internal hurricane.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this fucked-up world, it’s that people who try that hard to be one thing, who build their entire existence around a single, unyielding pillar of identity, are usually terrified of the person they actually are underneath. They construct these elaborate facades, these impenetrable defenses, not to keep the world out, but to keep themselves in . To protect that fragile, messy, terrified core from the crushing weight of their own truths.

Abby Anderson, Lieutenant Prude Bitch, was a goddamn master architect of such fortifications.

Her obsession with control, her almost pathological emotional regulation – it wasn’t strength. It was a symptom. A defense mechanism cranked up to eleven. Isaac, that manipulative old bastard, he probably saw it too. He kept her on a tight leash, not just because it made her an effective, predictable weapon, but because, deep down, in that secret, shuttered part of herself she probably didn’t even acknowledge, Abby wanted it. Craved it. That external structure, that guiding hand, that absolute certainty of command – it was the only thing holding her together. Take that away, and who knew what kind of monster would crawl out from the wreckage.

And I, like the goddamn idiot I was, couldn’t resist rattling the bars of her cage.

Above me, Abby was a storm of barely contained fury. Her breathing was harsh, ragged, each exhale a plume of hot air against my cheek. Strands of her blonde hair, silver in the thin, watery moonlight filtering through the grimy window of the records room, had escaped her usually immaculate braid. One such strand, long and surprisingly soft-looking, had fallen over her shoulder and was now brushing, light and entirely unwelcome, against the bare skin of my chest where my tank top had slipped down during our brief, brutal struggle.

The weight of her body pinning me to the dusty concrete floor wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should have been, considering she was holding a fucking combat knife to my throat. Her knee was still digging into my stomach, a dull, insistent pressure, and her grip on my wrists, pinning them above my head, was like iron. I could feel the dense, packed muscle of her thighs bracketing mine, the surprising, almost shocking, warmth radiating from her body, the coiled, vibrating tension in every line of her. This was a woman on the absolute verge of snapping, a tripwire pulled taut, and I knew, with a sudden, chilling clarity, that I needed to be very, very careful if I was going to get out of this without a permanent, bloody smile slashed across my throat.

Sure, Isaac was definitely grooming me for something, playing some long, fucked-up game with his new favorite toy. But Abby… Abby was his original creation. His most reliable instrument. His attack dog, like I’d so helpfully pointed out. If she killed me here, in this forgotten, dust-choked room, she’d probably get a slap on the wrist. And knowing her, she’d probably enjoy the goddamn sting.

“Okay, okay, easy,” I said, trying to inject a calmness I was miles away from feeling into my voice. My own breathing was shallow, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I subtly tested the grip on my wrists. No give. Fucking death grip. “I’ll tell you, Anderson. Just… get the fuck off me before I start to enjoy this.”

It was a gamble. A stupid, reckless, Ellie-brand gamble. But it was the only card I had left to play, other than trying to bite her fucking nose off.

And, holy shit, it worked. Or maybe it just horrified her enough to break the spell.

Abby recoiled as if I’d suddenly sprouted a second head and started singing opera. She scrambled off me, her movements jerky, uncoordinated, a stark contrast to her usual controlled grace. A deep, angry flush, visible even in the dim moonlight, crept up her neck, staining her cheeks. Her eyes, those glacial blue-grey pools, were wide with a mixture of shock and utter revulsion.

“You’re fucking sick, you know that?” she growled, her voice thick with disgust, though the hand holding the knife, still pointed directly at my chest, was surprisingly steady. Good old Abby. Always in control. Mostly.

Not taking her eyes off me for a second, she crouched, her free hand sweeping across the dusty floor, searching. Her fingers closed around the hilt of my switchblade. She pocketed it without a glance.

Great. Just fucking great. Disarmed and at the mercy of my homicidal, possibly sexually confused, CO. My life was a goddamn comedy.

I slowly, carefully, propped myself up on my elbows, then pushed myself to a sitting position, still on the floor. The concrete was cold and gritty beneath my bare legs. I kept my hands visible, palms up. A gesture of surrender. Or at least, a gesture that said, ‘Hey, look, no more knives, let’s all just calm the fuck down before someone loses an eye.’

“I’m looking for something,” I stated, my voice carefully neutral, trying to project an air of weary resignation rather than the frantic, adrenaline-fueled terror that was currently doing a tap dance on my internal organs.

“No shit,” Abby replied, her tone laced with enough venom to curdle milk. “Didn’t figure you were in the restricted archives for a late-night snack, dumbass.”

A hysterical bubble of laughter threatened to rise in my throat. I choked it back, hard. Now was definitely not the time. Abby wasn’t fucking funny. She was one hundred and seventy pounds of pure, Grade-A WLF muscle, a mountain of unresolved trauma, and currently holding a very large, very sharp knife that she seemed more than willing to use to redecorate my face.

“Like I was saying,” I continued, forcing a calmness I didn’t feel, trying to keep my voice even, reasonable. “I’m looking for… information.” I paused, the next words catching in my throat, the old, familiar ache tightening my chest, making it hard to breathe. This was the part I hated. The part where I had to crack open that carefully guarded vault inside myself, expose the raw, bleeding wound that never seemed to heal. 

“My dad,” I said, and my voice, to my eternal shame, was unexpectedly thick, choked. I cleared my throat, furious at the weakness. “He was… he was killed. When I was a teenager.” The words felt like stones in my mouth, heavy and rough. “And I’m just… looking into it. Got some leads that pointed to Seattle.”

To the WLF. I didn’t need to say the last part. It hung in the air between us, heavy and unspoken, a silent accusation.

For a split second, a heartbeat, Abby’s expression changed. The murderous rage in her eyes flickered, softened, replaced by something else, something unreadable that almost, almost looked like… understanding. Recognition. Just as quickly, it was gone, the mask of cold, hard fury slamming back into place. But I’d seen it. That tiny, almost imperceptible shift.

And I remembered. The overheard conversation between Manny and Owen, weeks ago. “…still torn up about her dad.” Abby’s father was dead too. Another ghost haunting the ruins of this broken world.

A desperate, reckless idea sparked in my mind. A long shot. But what the hell did I have to lose at this point? My dignity was already a distant memory, and my life expectancy was currently hovering somewhere around ‘slim to none.’

I slowly, carefully, got to my feet, my hands still held out, palms open. A universal sign of non-aggression. Or at least, that’s the theory. With Abby, all bets were off.

“Look,” I said, my voice earnest now, trying to bridge the chasm of violence and suspicion that separated us. “I’m not trying to fuck up your squad, or your precious WLF. I’m not a Scar. I’m not a spy. I’m just… I’m just trying to figure my own shit out.” I watched her intently, trying to gauge her reaction, trying to read those unreadable eyes. Was she going to run to Isaac? Slit my throat right here and claim self-defense? She could. Easily. No one would question Lieutenant Anderson.

I played my last card, a desperate, hopeful gamble, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “I… I think maybe you, of all people, can understand that.”

Abby visibly recoiled, as if my words had been a physical blow, a fist to her already bruised side. Her face closed off, becoming a hard, impenetrable mask of stone. The brief flicker of understanding, if it had ever even been there, was well and truly extinguished.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” she said, her voice flat, devoid of all emotion, colder than the grave.

Oh, but I do, Abby. I really, really do. The thought was a bitter, silent triumph in my mind. We were two sides of the same goddamn broken coin, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Haunted by dead fathers, driven by ghosts, drowning in a sea of unanswered questions and unexpressed grief.

She glared at me, her expression a maelstrom of disgust and something else… weariness? A profound, bone-deep exhaustion that seemed to age her years in the span of a few seconds. She let out a long, slow breath, a sound like air leaking from a punctured lung. Then, with a sudden, almost dismissive gesture, she tossed my switchblade onto the dusty concrete floor between us. It landed with a sharp, metallic clatter that echoed in the oppressive silence of the records room.

“Fine,” Abby said, her voice rough, raw, like she’d swallowed broken glass. “Push your luck, see where it gets you.” She took a step back, then another, retreating towards the door, her eyes never leaving mine. “You think you know Isaac?” she scoffed, a humorless, almost pitying sound. “You have no fucking idea what he’ll do to you if he finds out about this.”

The unspoken words – and when he finds out – hung in the charged air, a silent, ominous promise.

A strange, dizzying mix of exhilaration and dread coursed through me. It shouldn’t have been that easy. Or maybe it wasn’t easy at all. Maybe I’d just struck a nerve so raw, so deep, so perilously close to her own carefully guarded pain, that Abby couldn’t, or wouldn’t, press the issue further. Not right now, anyway. Maybe, just maybe, that shared, unspoken grief, that invisible wound of a dead father, had bought me a reprieve. A temporary one, at best.

Abby reached the door, her hand resting on the cool metal of the handle. She paused, her back to me for a long moment. Then, slowly, she turned, her face shadowed, her eyes dark and intense in the sliver of moonlight, burning into mine with a chilling, unforgettable intensity.

“I catch you doing something like this again, Ellie,” she said, her voice a low, deadly promise, each word precise, deliberate, a nail hammered into a coffin lid. “I swear to God, I’ll kill you myself. Isaac or no Isaac.”

Then she was gone.

The door clicked shut behind her, plunging the records room back into near-total darkness, the silence broken only by the frantic, ragged rhythm of my own breathing and the wild, triumphant, terrified pounding of my heart.

I stood there for a long moment, shaking, the ghost of Abby’s knife still cold against my throat, the imprint of her body still warm against mine.

Alone in the dusty, silent records room. With a whole new set of fucking problems.

And a very, very dangerous secret.

Chapter Text

Abby

Sleep hadn't come. Not real sleep, anyway. Just a series of violent, disjointed images that had chased each other across the backs of my eyelids, leaving me exhausted and raw. The glint of a knife in moonlight, too close to a pale, defiant throat. The raw, untamed desperation in a pair of too-green eyes. The sickening lurch in my own stomach as I’d realized just how close I’d come to… to what? Losing control? Killing her?

And then… other things. Stranger things.

The dreams had shifted, morphed. The adrenaline thrill of combat, the familiar, almost comforting surge of power as bodies collided, had twisted into something else. A deep, pulsing warmth spreading from my core, a phantom sensation of a body, lean and surprisingly strong, warm and demanding, pressed against mine. The thrill of the fight, the cold edge of violence, had twisted into a different kind of pressure, a different coiling strength that built a steady, insistent heat inside me until I was overcome by a wave that left me breathless, gasping in the dark.

I had awoken with shame burning my cheeks. My skin was flushed, clammy. The thin WLF-issue sheet, a shroud tangled around my legs. In the hazy, half-awake hours of the early morning, the remnants of the dream still clung to me like sweat. That insistent pressure returned, a physical ache low in my belly. Before I was fully conscious of what I was doing, my hand slipped beneath the waistband of my sleep shorts. Fingers tracing hesitant, then more urgent, patterns against my own heat.

Rolling onto my stomach, I pressed my face into the thin, lumpy pillow, muffling the short, sharp breaths that escaped me, the low cries I couldn’t quite suppress. My mind swam with those half-remembered dream images – that insistent pressure building, the phantom memory of that warm body, lean and strong, moving with mine, building a desperate, driving rhythm until…Until the world dissolved. Shattered into a series of shuddering, blinding flashes.

Afterwards, I lay there, limbs trembling, skin slick with sweat. A profound, mortifying embarrassment washed over me, hot and swift, quickly followed by a familiar, biting frustration. It was because I hadn’t had sex in forever, I told myself, fiercely. Years, probably. Because the job came first. Always. And relationships, sex, all of it… it was a distraction. A weakness I couldn’t afford.

The pre-dawn gloom of my small, coffin-like room offered no comfort. Today was technically my "day off." A loose, almost laughable concept in the WLF. It usually just meant a different kind of grind – a mountain of paperwork, catching up on equipment maintenance for my squad, mandatory leadership training sessions with other lieutenants, or, if Isaac was feeling particularly generous, a few hours of blessed, uninterrupted quiet. Actual rest was a luxury few of us could afford, or even remembered how to indulge in.

My body ached as I swung my legs over the side of the cot, the cold concrete floor a familiar shock against my bare feet. My side, where that Scar’s blade had found its mark weeks ago, still sent a dull, protesting throb through me if I moved too quickly. I ignored it. Pain was a constant. It was the other aches, the ones that had no physical source, that were harder to dismiss.

I dressed in the dim light, my movements stiff, automatic. Clean fatigues, sturdy boots. The uniform of this life. Standing before the cracked, silver-streaked mirror nailed to the back of my door, I began the ritual of braiding my hair. My hands moved with a practiced efficiency, gathering the long, thick strands of blonde hair, pulling them back from my face, weaving them into the tight, practical braid that was as much a part of my armor as the Kevlar vest I wore on patrol.

The familiar, repetitive motion was usually calming, centering. A small act of order in a world of relentless chaos. But today, it brought an unwelcome ghost.

My father. He’d taught me how to do this. This braid. Back when I was a gangly, awkward teenager, all elbows and knees and a simmering, unfocused rage I didn’t understand. I’d just started running drills with the Fireflies then, eager to prove myself, to be strong, to be… something other than the scared, motherless kid I felt like most of the time. My hair had been shorter then, an unruly blonde mop that was always falling into my eyes. I’d had no mother to teach me the simple, feminine arts, no older sister, no aunts. Just my dad. And he, bless his awkward, loving, brilliant surgeon’s heart, had tried.

He’d sat me down on the worn rug in our small, sterile apartment, the air always smelling faintly of antiseptic and the old books he loved, and his large, gentle hands – hands that could perform miracles with a scalpel, that could coax life back from the brink – had fumbled as he guided my own through my hair, teaching me the discipline of the braid. “Practical, Abby-girl,” he’d said, his voice soft, a rare smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Keeps it out of your face. Important when you’re focusing.”

The memory was a sudden, sharp ache in my chest, a familiar, crushing weight that never truly lessened, no matter how many years passed. I shoved it away, hard, blinking back the unwelcome sting in my eyes. Weakness. Can’t afford it.

And then there was Ellie.

Her words from last night, choked with a raw, undeniable grief that had mirrored my own too closely for comfort. “My dad… he was killed.”

The confession had been a shocking revelation, a crack in her own carefully constructed armor of sarcasm and defiance. It had pierced through my anger, my suspicion, and struck a chord of unwelcome empathy that still resonated, a low, vibrating hum beneath the surface of my carefully controlled composure.

Ellie, too, was haunted by a dead father. Ellie, too, was adrift in a sea of unanswered questions, searching for something, anything, to anchor her. It was a wound I understood intimately, a raw, festering thing that time didn’t heal, only… scabbed over, leaving you to pick at the edges in the dark, quiet hours.

I could see it now in Ellie, that haunted, hunted look in those too-green eyes, that feral edge to her survival instincts. It was a mirror of the darkness I often saw reflected in my own eyes, in the dead of night, when the walls were down and the ghosts came calling.

I didn’t want to admit the similarity. Didn’t want to feel this… connection. It was a weakness. A vulnerability. And vulnerabilities got you killed in this world.

I stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror, really looked at myself for the first time in… I didn’t know how long. Broad shoulders, a body honed by years of relentless, brutal training into a weapon. Every muscle, every sinew, sculpted for strength, for endurance, for killing. A strong jaw, usually set in a firm, unyielding line. A mouth that rarely smiled, that had forgotten how, mostly, the full lips set in a slight, almost permanent pout. Blue-grey eyes, the color of a stormy Seattle sky, eyes that most people found cold, intimidating, unreadable.

A face my father had loved. He’d cup my chin in his warm hand, his gaze soft, and call me his "brave girl," his "Abby-girl." A face Owen had sometimes, in softer, long-ago moments, before the world had hardened every soft edge in both of us, told me was pretty. His voice husky with an emotion I hadn’t understood then, and had ruthlessly stamped out when I did.

What would Ellie see?

The thought was unwelcome, intrusive, and yet… it lingered. Did she see the soldier? The monster? The "barely controlled attack dog," as she’d so accurately, so cruelly, thrown in my face last night? Or did she see something else entirely? Something I didn’t even see in myself anymore?

The air in my small room felt suddenly suffocating.

I needed to move. To hit something. To sweat until the turmoil inside me was drowned out by the clean, uncomplicated burn of physical exertion.

The gym. It was still early, but the WLF gym was already thrumming with a low, guttural energy. The clang of iron, the rhythmic thud of fists against heavy bags, the grunts and hisses of men and women pushing their bodies to the breaking point. My sanctuary. The one place where the noise in my head could be silenced, at least for a while.

Jordan and Manny were already there, set up in a corner near the squat racks, their usual boisterous banter echoing off the high concrete walls. Jordan, a grin splitting her scarred face, was loading an obscene amount of weight onto a barbell. Manny was leaning against a stack of plates, nursing a canteen of water, his eyes already scanning the room, assessing, always assessing.

“Morning, Lieutenant,” Jordan boomed, her voice cheerful despite the ungodly hour. “Sleep well?” The question was innocent enough, but her eyes, sharp and observant, took in the faint shadows under mine, the slight tightness around my mouth that even I hadn’t been fully aware of. Jordan could see the evidence of a night spent tossing and turning, wrestling with more than just the thin WLF blanket.

“Like a baby,” I lied, my voice flat. I started my warm-up routine, stretching, loosening my stiff muscles, trying to ignore the dull ache in my side and the even duller ache in my head.

They made small talk for a while as I moved through my stretches – upcoming patrols, rumors of increased Scar activity near the old shipyards, the ever-present grumbling about ration quality, the usual WLF bullshit that filled the empty spaces between moments of sheer terror. I offered curt, noncommittal responses, my mind still churning, replaying the events of the previous night, Ellie’s face, her words, the feel of her body beneath mine…

Then, inevitably, the conversation turned to Ellie.

“Seriously though,” Jordan said, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand after a heavy set of deadlifts that would have crippled a lesser woman. A smirk played on her lips. “That new girl, Ellie. Got that feral fire, you know? Makes you wonder if it translates to… other physical activities.” She winked at Manny.

Manny let out a bark of laughter, a crude, appreciative sound. “Yeah, man, she’s a little spitfire, that one. Bet she’s a goddamn tiger in the sack. All that pent-up rage…”

A hot, unexpected wave of anger washed over me, so intense it almost made me dizzy. My hands clenched into fists at my sides.

“That’s enough,” I snapped, my voice sharper, colder than I intended. The gym around us seemed to fall silent for a beat, the usual cacophony of grunts and clanging weights momentarily subdued. Jordan and Manny stared at me, their grins faltering, replaced by expressions of surprise, then a dawning, wary caution.

“She’s a soldier in this unit,” I continued, my voice low, dangerous. “My unit. Keep your locker room bullshit to yourselves. And remember the rules. Relationships within the squad are off-limits.” My gaze, hard and unyielding, swept over both of them. “Am I clear?”

Manny, to his credit, had the good sense to look chastened. He muttered a quick, “Yes, Lieutenant,” and suddenly found something fascinating to study on the floor.

Jordan, though, just raised an eyebrow, that trademark smirk back in place, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes this time. “Crystal, Lieutenant,” she said, her tone a little too light, a little too challenging. “Wouldn’t want to upset the delicate… professional balance.”

They exchanged a look then, Jordan and Manny, a quick, almost imperceptible glance that spoke volumes. A look that said, What the hell is her problem? A look that made me feel like I was the one being unreasonable, irrational. Crazy, even.

The air in the gym suddenly felt thick, suffocating. The earlier turmoil, the confusion, the unwanted empathy, it was all now compounded by a fresh layer of irritation, of a strange, almost possessive anger I didn’t understand and definitely didn’t welcome.

I finished my workout in a foul mood, pushing myself harder than usual, seeking oblivion in the burn of overtaxed muscles, in the metallic taste of exhaustion at the back of my throat. But it didn’t work. Ellie’s face, her defiant green eyes, her taunting words, they were all still there, imprinted on the insides of my eyelids.

I sulked off to the main command office after, a cramped, noisy, perpetually chaotic space where I had a small, shared desk piled high with flimsy printouts and stained coffee rings. I tried to lose myself in the mind-numbing drudgery of paperwork – after-action reports for the last three patrols, equipment requisitions for my squad that would probably get denied anyway, ammo expenditure logs that never seemed to add up, upcoming training schedules that needed to be revised for the third time this week. It was tedious, soul-crushing work, but it was a familiar kind of misery.

And it was, I reminded myself, better than some of the other tasks Isaac had seen fit to assign me on my "days off" in the past. Like the time he’d had me… interrogate … some terrified, fucked-up teenage Scar they’d captured near the Wall. The kid couldn’t have been more than fifteen. His eyes had been wide with a terror so profound it had almost been a physical thing in the small, windowless room in the stadium’s makeshift dungeons. That task had left a sick, metallic taste in my mouth for days. A taste I could still sometimes conjure if I thought about it too hard.

Paperwork was definitely better.

Later, feeling even more isolated, frustrated, and still haunted by the swirling vortex of emotions the previous night's events had churned up, I returned to my room. The silence was oppressive, amplifying the noise in my own head. I needed an escape. Any escape.

I grabbed the book I’d been slowly, painfully, making my way through for the past few weeks – a tattered, pre-outbreak paperback copy of Alias Grace. Atwood. Owen had found it on a scavenging run months ago, in the ruins of an old library. He’d given it to me, saying it seemed like “my kind of light reading.” Asshole.

I headed to one of the communal lounge areas – a slightly less depressing section of the stadium’s upper concourse that had been furnished with a few mismatched, scavenged armchairs and a couple of flickering oil lamps. A large, cracked window, reinforced with welded steel bars, overlooked the desolate, rain-swept practice fields below.

I sank into one of the armchairs, the worn fabric sighing under my weight. I stared out at the grey, dreary view for a long time, watching the rain lash against the cracked plexiglass, the wind whistling through the gaps in the stadium’s decaying facade. Then, with a sigh, I forced myself to open the book.

My eyes fell on a line, a passage I’d read before but hadn’t really registered until now:

"When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood."

The words were just ink on a page. Meaningless. I refused to let them dig in, refused to let them echo in the empty spaces inside me. It was just a book, a stupid, pre-outbreak relic filled with the ramblings of a dead man.

I slammed the book shut, the sound sharp and sudden in the empty lounge, making me jump. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, stupid rhythm. Annoyance, hot and quick, flared through me. At the book. At the silence. At Ellie. At myself.

There were patrols to plan. Gear to maintain. A war to fight. That was real. That was concrete.

The rest… the rest was just noise.

Chapter Text

Ellie

A week.

Or maybe it was a lifetime.Time had a funny way of stretching and snapping back in this shithole, especially when you were actively trying to avoid the goddamn Walking Fortress of a Lieutenant who also happened to be your CO, the one who’d had you pinned to the floor with a knife at your throat just a few short eternities ago.

The air between me and Abby Anderson had been… well, ‘thick’ didn’t quite cover it. It was a goddamn physical presence, a suffocating, invisible wall that vibrated with unspoken threats and a tension so acute it made my teeth ache. We were avoiding each other. Or, more accurately, she was avoiding me with a pointed, almost theatrical, indifference, and I was doing my best to return the favor by making myself as small and unnoticeable as possible. Which, for me, was a new and deeply uncomfortable experience.

That laser-focused, often critical, always unnerving attention Abby used to bestow upon me – the kind that made me feel like a bug under a microscope, every twitch and flaw magnified – had vanished. Poof. Gone. Now, her eyes, those glacial blue-grey chips of ice, just… slid over me. Like I was a piece of furniture. A particularly uninteresting smudge on the wall. When she gave commands, her voice was flat, impersonal, utterly devoid of that extra, biting edge of demand she usually reserved just for me.

It was… unsettling. And for some goddamn, infuriating reason, it made my chest feel tight, a weird, hollow ache that I refused to examine too closely. Whatever. I didn’t want to be special. Didn’t want to be targeted by her insane control-freak, dominance-play bullshit. I was fine sinking into the background, becoming just another grunt in her well-oiled machine.

Right?

Right.

Except, of course, Isaac, in his infinite wisdom and with his uncanny knack for fucking with my life, had decided that Abby’s squad was the perfect instrument to clear out a significant Scar infestation from a derelict theatre district on the outskirts of WLF territory. A lovely little vacation, he’d probably called it. A chance for some team bonding.

It was a meat grinder.

For three days, we’d been camped out in the dusty, rat-infested backstage area of what had once been a grand, opulent theatre. The plush velvet seats in the auditorium were ripped and mildewed, the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling was crumbling, and the stage itself looked like a bomb had gone off. Our world had shrunk to this decaying mausoleum, a labyrinth of darkened corridors, trapdoors, and forgotten dressing rooms that stank of decay, old greasepaint, and the ever-present metallic tang of fear.

We pushed into Scar-held buildings during the day – mostly collapsed apartment blocks and gutted storefronts surrounding the theatre – then fell back to our makeshift command post at night, licking our wounds, re-supplying ammo, and snatching a few hours of fitful, nightmare-ridden sleep before the whole goddamn cycle started again.

The endless, exhausting grind of urban warfare – the sudden, deafening roar of firefights in crumbling auditoriums, the heart-stopping tension of sweeping through darkened corridors where every shadow could conceal an enemy, the constant, gnawing threat of ambush – it was a grim, familiar counterpoint to the new, unresolved, and deeply uncomfortable tension simmering between me and Abby.

She was all business, of course. Lieutenant Anderson in full effect. Her commands were precise, her tactical decisions sound, her movements economical and deadly. She pushed us hard, relentless, demanding nothing less than perfection. But the personal animosity, that specific, targeted venom she usually reserved for me, it was gone. Replaced by this… blankness. This utter, infuriating indifference.

It was almost worse.

The current objective was a heavily fortified Scar observation post in a ruined multi-story office building that overlooked a key intersection. Taking it was crucial to securing the entire district. Abby had briefed us just before dawn, her voice a low, gravelly rasp in the pre-dawn chill, her face illuminated by the flickering, unreliable light of a single gas lantern.

“Alright, listen up,” she’d said, her eyes sweeping over us, not quite meeting mine. “Taryn, Ellie – you’re on overwatch. Rooftop, building alpha-three, across the plaza. Scoped rifles. Your job is to neutralize any sentries, provide sniper support for the assault team, and call out enemy movements. Jordan, Manny, Owen – you’re the main assault element. Breach, clear, secure. Mel, you’re with them, medical support and rear security. I’ll lead the assault. Questions?”

There were none. We were a well-oiled machine, after all. Even me, the rusty, unpredictable cog, had learned to fit in, more or less.

Taryn and I made our way to the designated rooftop as the first, faint streaks of grey began to lighten the eastern sky. The building was a gutted shell, its windows blown out, its interior a chaotic mess of overturned desks, scattered papers, and the skeletal remains of whatever pre-outbreak business had once thrived here. The rooftop was exposed, windswept, offering a commanding view of the target building and the plaza below.

Taryn, our resident ghost, set up her sniper nest with her usual quiet, unnerving efficiency, her movements economical, her focus absolute. She was small, wiry, with a tangle of dark, braided hair and eyes that missed nothing. Her wit, when she chose to deploy it, was as sharp and dry as old bone. I liked her. She didn’t say much, but when she did, it usually counted.

I settled in beside her, my own scoped rifle feeling cold and heavy in my hands. The wind whipped at my face, carrying the scent of rain and distant smoke. Below us, the plaza was a kill zone, a wide, open space littered with burned-out cars and debris. The target building loomed, a dark, silent sentinel.

“See anything?” I murmured, my eye pressed to the scope.

“Two on the third floor, east-facing window,” Taryn replied, her voice a low whisper. “Another one on their roof, looks like he’s got a bow. Probably more inside.”

“Copy that.”

We waited. The silence stretched, taut and heavy, broken only by the sigh of the wind and the distant, mournful caw of a crow. My stomach was a tight knot. This part, the waiting, was always the worst. The anticipation, the not-knowing…

Then, Abby’s voice crackled in our ears, low and calm, devoid of any emotion. “Assault team in position. Overwatch, you are clear to engage targets of opportunity. Initiate on my mark.”

A beat of silence. Then: “Mark.”

Taryn’s rifle cracked, the sound sharp and sudden in the morning air. Across the plaza, one of the figures in the third-floor window crumpled, disappearing from view. My own target, the archer on the roof, was already moving, alerted by the shot. I tracked him, breathed out, squeezed the trigger. The recoil slammed against my shoulder. He staggered, clutched his chest, then pitched forward, tumbling off the edge of the roof with a sickening, almost comical, flail of limbs.

One down.

“Nice shot, Ellie,” Taryn murmured, already acquiring her next target.

The plaza below erupted into chaos. The assault team – Jordan, Manny, and Owen, with Abby at their head – burst from cover, laying down a hail of suppressive fire as they charged across the open ground towards the target building. Arrows and bullets whizzed past them, kicking up dust and debris.

From our vantage point, Taryn and I picked off Scars as they appeared in windows, on balconies, trying to get a bead on the advancing WLF. It was a deadly, intricate dance. They moved, we fired. They fired, we ducked. My heart hammered against my ribs, adrenaline a sharp, metallic taste in my mouth. This was what I was good at. This, I understood. The clean, brutal simplicity of kill or be killed.

The assault team breached the ground floor, the sound of an explosion – probably one of Jordan’s charges – echoing across the plaza. Heavy fighting erupted inside, the muffled roar of gunfire, the shouts of men and women locked in desperate, close-quarters combat.

We were gaining the upper hand. I could feel it. The Scar resistance was faltering. Taryn took out another one, a clean headshot. I nailed a guy trying to set a dot on Manny in a second-floor window.

Then, the hunting horn.

That eerie, mournful cry, a sound that always made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It echoed through the ruined cityscape, a harbinger of doom.

And then they came.

A fucking horde.

Drawn by the prolonged gunfire, the scent of blood, the sheer, unadulterated chaos of our little party. They poured into the street from a network of side alleys and collapsed buildings – Clickers, their fungal plates grotesque in the grey morning light, their chattering rasps a soundtrack to a nightmare. Runners, their movements jerky and unpredictable, their guttural shrieks tearing at the air. And then, lumbering into view, its massive, spore-spewing form a testament to nature’s fucked-up sense of humor, a goddamn Bloater.

“Infected! Multiple contacts, approaching from the west!” Owen’s voice, tight with alarm, crackled over the comms.

Chaos. Absolute, unmitigated chaos. The carefully orchestrated assault dissolved into a desperate, three-way free-for-all. WLF, Scars, Infected. Everyone fighting everyone.

The rooftop suddenly felt a lot less secure. A guttural shriek from behind us, too close. Taryn whirled, her rifle barking, taking down a Runner that had somehow scrambled up the fire escape. "They're on the roof!" she yelled, just as another one lunged at her.

I switched to my pistol, firing point-blank into the face of a Clicker trying to claw its way over the parapet. The carefully planned overwatch was shot to hell. We were in it now, street level shitshow part two.

"Fall back to street level! Regroup with the assault team!" Abby's voice, still impossibly calm amidst the bedlam, cut through the noise. How did she do that?

Getting down was a nightmare. The fire escape was compromised, swarming with Runners. We had to fight our way to a different access point, a crumbling section of wall that led to a lower roof, then a rusted drainpipe that groaned ominously under my weight as I shimmied down, Taryn right behind me. We landed hard in a debris-strewn alley, the sounds of the battle – gunfire, screams, the wet tearing of flesh – echoing all around us.

The street was a vision from hell. WLF soldiers were locked in desperate combat with Scars, while the infected swarmed both sides indiscriminately. I saw Jordan, a berserker with her shotgun, blasting a path through a knot of Runners. In the distance, through the smoke and chaos, I caught a glimpse of Owen and Manny, back-to-back, fighting off a wave of Clickers.

And then I saw Abby.

She was a whirlwind of controlled fury, her assault rifle spitting fire, her movements economical and deadly as she cut down infected and Scars alike. She was trying to rally a few scattered WLF soldiers, to form a defensive perimeter. She was close. Too close.

A Scar sniper, perched precariously on a burned-out bus, took aim. Not at Abby. At Manny. He was exposed, reloading, Owen trying to cover him.

“Manny, sniper, bus, nine o’clock!” I screamed, my voice raw, barely audible over the din. My pistol was useless at this range. I needed my rifle.

Taryn was already engaged, her own rifle cracking, trying to suppress a group of Scars advancing on their flank.

The Scar sniper on the bus loosed an arrow. It thwacked into the metal side of a car Manny was using for cover, inches from his head. He was nocking another.

No time. No goddamn time.

I spotted the sniper, but I was in the middle of the goddamn street, no cover, no stability. The wind, funneled between the tall buildings, was still a problem, whipping debris and smoke into my eyes.

“Ellie, that sniper! Take him out! Now!” Abby’s voice roared, not in my ear this time, but right beside me. She’d somehow materialized at my side, her face grim, her eyes blazing with a fierce, almost terrifying, intensity. She’d seen the threat.

I scrambled, my heart hammering against my ribs, trying to find a stable firing position amidst the chaos, the bodies, the debris. There was none.

Then, Abby. Without a word, she dropped to one knee in the middle of the goddamn street, bullets and arrows whizzing past, infected shrieking all around. Her back was to the bus, her broad, armored shoulder a solid, unyielding presence in the swirling madness.

“Use me,” she grunted, her voice tight, strained.

My breath hitched. For a split second, I just stared at her. This was insane. Utterly, certifiably insane. But there was no other option.

Instinct took over. I rested the long barrel of my rifle on her shoulder, the cold metal a stark contrast to the surprising warmth I could feel radiating from her body, even through her tac vest. The proximity was intense, disorienting, a repeat of that moment in the records room, but amplified a thousand times by the sheer, unadulterated chaos surrounding us. The smell of her – sweat, gunpowder, rain, and something else, something uniquely, infuriatingly Abby – filled my senses, a strange, unwelcome anchor in the storm, making my head spin.

I forced myself to focus. Sighted down the scope. The Scar sniper was a clear, sharp image in the crosshairs. I breathed out, slowly, steadily, just like Joel had taught me. Squeezed the trigger.

The rifle bucked against my shoulder, the report deafeningly loud, even with Abby’s body absorbing some of the recoil. Good thing she was wearing her fucking tac vest and helmet, I thought again, the hysterical, irrelevant detail flashing through my mind. Otherwise, I’d have blown her eardrum clean out.

Across the plaza, the Scar sniper crumpled, his bow clattering to the ground.

A clean shot.

“Target down,” I gasped, my voice shaky.

The tide turned. With the sniper gone, and Taryn and I continuing to lay down suppressive fire on the infected, the assault team managed to fight off the remaining Scars and push back the bulk of the horde. It was bloody. It was brutal. Rodriguez didn’t make it. A couple of others were wounded, Mel already working frantically to stabilize them. But we’d taken the objective. Secured the intersection.

For now.

Back at the theatre, the air was thick with the smell of blood, antiseptic, and exhaustion. The adrenaline had faded, leaving behind a bone-deep weariness and the dull ache of overstressed muscles. The squad was tending to wounds, cleaning weapons, the usual post-combat rituals. The atmosphere was subdued, heavy with the weight of another loss, another brutal reminder of the price of this goddamn war.

I couldn’t sit still. The image of Abby, kneeling before me in the middle of a fucking firefight , her shoulder a steady anchor in the chaos, kept replaying in my mind. Her words, that guttural command – “Use me” – echoed, a strange counterpoint to the roar of gunfire and the screams of the dying. The unexpected, almost shocking, intimacy of it. The way her body had felt, solid and warm, against mine. It was… a lot. Too much.

Restless, I started exploring the labyrinthine backstage areas of the theatre, needing to put some distance between myself and… everything. The place was a time capsule, a forgotten world of dusty velvet curtains, peeling paint, and the ghosts of a thousand long-forgotten performances.

In a small, cluttered storage room tucked away behind what had once been the main dressing rooms, I found them. A collection of old musical instruments, covered in a thick layer of dust, their strings broken, their wood warped. Most were beyond repair. But then, tucked away in a battered, moldy case in the corner, I found it. An acoustic guitar. Old, definitely. Scratched and a little beat up. But the wood was still solid, the neck straight. Just a few broken strings.

A wave of something sharp and painful, something that felt a lot like grief, washed over me. Joel. His calloused fingers on the strings, his rough, gentle voice, the way music could, just for a little while, make the world outside disappear.

I found some spare strings, almost miraculously intact, in another decaying guitar case. My fingers, clumsy at first, then more sure, worked to replace the broken ones, to tune the old instrument. The familiar ritual was a small comfort, a connection to a past that felt a million miles away.

Joel had never had enough time to really teach me, not properly. He’d shown me a few chords, a few simple songs. But then… then everything had gone to shit. Again. Tommy, though, back in Jackson, he’d picked up where Joel left off, patiently guiding my fingers, teaching me new chords, new melodies. Others in Jackson had helped too, sharing their knowledge, their music. I wasn’t great. Not like Joel. But I could play. Enough.

I settled onto an overturned crate, the guitar resting comfortably in my lap. My fingers found the strings, picking out a soft, melancholic tune, a mournful old ballad I’d heard someone play once, a song that felt like it belonged in a place like this, a place full of ghosts and forgotten dreams.

The lyrics came, half-spoken, half-sung, my voice low and raspy in the dusty silence.

"When I was a young girl, I used to seek pleasure… 

When I was a young girl, I used to drink ale…

Right out of the ale house and into the jailhouse… 

Right out of the bar room and down to my grave..."

I got lost in the music, the vibrations of the strings against my calloused fingertips a soothing balm, the sad, simple words a strange kind of comfort. For a few precious moments, the war, the WLF, Abby, all of it, faded away. It was just me, the guitar, and the ghosts.

I was so engrossed, so lost in the melody, that I didn’t hear the footsteps until a shadow fell over me.

I looked up, startled, my fingers fumbling on the strings, the music dying with a discordant twang.

Abby.

She was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, her arms crossed over her chest. Her tactical gear was gone now, replaced by a plain black WLF tank top that showed off the sculpted, almost terrifying, muscle of her arms and shoulders. Her blonde hair, usually a fortress of discipline, was a mess from the fighting, still damp with sweat, a few errant strands stuck to her forehead, framing a face that was smudged with dirt and what looked like dried blood. Little flecks of it, not her own, I realized with a jolt, freckling her cheekbone, stark against her pale skin.

My heart did that stupid stop-and-start thing it seemed to reserve exclusively for her unexpected appearances. That lurch, that jolt, that unwelcome awareness.

I waited for her to say something. To bark an order. To criticize me for slacking off, for indulging in such a frivolous, useless activity when there was a war to be fought.

But she just stood there, silent, her expression unreadable, those glacial blue-grey eyes fixed on me, on the guitar in my lap. And for a moment, just a fleeting, almost imperceptible moment, I thought I saw something different in them. Something… unguarded. Almost soft. As if the music, my clumsy, heartfelt rendition of a sad, old song, had somehow, impossibly, managed to penetrate that ironclad armor she wore.

Then, just as quickly, it was gone. The usual mask of command, of cold, hard indifference, slammed back into place.

The silence stretched, becoming thick, uncomfortable, charged with all the unspoken things that lay between us. The fight in the records room. Her threat. My defiance. The dead fathers. The shared, unwanted, undeniable connection of grief.

I, as usual, couldn’t stand it. My mouth always did run away with me.

"Need something?" I asked, and even to my own ears, my voice sounded too sharp, too defensive. That familiar, defiant edge, I just couldn’t seem to keep it out, not even now, not even after she’d threatened to kill me if I stepped out of line again. Old habits, I guess. They died harder than most people in this world.

Abby’s eyes, which had seemed to soften for that brief, almost hallucinatory second while I played, closed off again, becoming flat, opaque. "No," she responded, her voice devoid of any inflection. She pushed herself off the doorframe, her movements economical, controlled. "We're heading back to base at 0600. Be ready." She turned to go, already dismissing me, already moving on to the next objective, the next task.

As she was turning, her back to me, something made me speak. A reckless impulse. A stupid, inexplicable need to… what? Acknowledge what had happened on that rain slicked street? Break through that wall of indifference? Or maybe just to see if I could get a reaction from her, any reaction, other than that cold, dismissive glare.

"Wait."

Abby paused, her hand on the doorframe, her back still to me. She didn’t move, didn’t speak. But I knew she was listening.

I stood up, carefully setting the guitar down on the dusty crate. My heart was hammering against my ribs, a wild, frantic beat.

"Thanks," I said, the word feeling awkward, foreign on my tongue, almost physically painful to get out. "For… for helping me out today. With the rifle." I gestured vaguely towards my shoulder, where her own had been a solid, unyielding anchor just a few hours before.

Abby remained still for a long, agonizing moment. I could see the tension in her shoulders, the rigid set of her spine. I thought, for a second, that she was just going to ignore me, to walk away.

Then, slowly, she turned back to face me.

And the air in the small, dusty storage room crackled.

It wasn’t just the usual animosity, the simmering resentment that always seemed to hum between us. This was different. Something hotter. Fuller. It felt like a fight about to begin, the violence of the records room still a fresh, raw wound between us. Or… or something else entirely.

Fine, fuck it. 

I could name it, at least to myself. It was arousal. A sick, confusing, deeply unwelcome heat twisting in my gut, spreading through my body like a fever, making my palms sweat and my breath catch in my throat. I didn’t know if I wanted to fight her or fuck her. Or maybe, just maybe, both at the same damn time. The thought was a jolt, terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

I saw Abby’s eyes, dark and intense in the dim light filtering in from the corridor, flick down. Down to my mouth. Just for a split second. Then back up, locking with my own gaze. Her lips parted, as if she was about to say something.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a wild, frantic, terrified beat.

Before she could speak, before I could do something incredibly, monumentally stupid, like lean in, like close that charged, impossible distance between us, I pushed past her. My arm brushed against hers, a brief, searing contact that sent a jolt, like a live wire, through my entire system.

I practically fled the room, my boots echoing on the grimy floorboards, my mind racing, my body thrumming with a confusing, chaotic mess of emotions I didn’t understand and definitely didn’t want.

Because… like…

What the fuck was THAT

Chapter Text

Abby

The debrief with Isaac was a blur of tactical jargon and casualty reports. Standard procedure. But even as I delivered my customary short, precise answers, I could feel it – that loosening thread. The one I hadn’t even known I was pulling on, threatening to unravel the entire goddamn tapestry of who I thought I was.

My voice was steady, my posture rigid, the model of WLF efficiency as I stood before Isaac’s scarred metal desk in his cramped, smoke-stale office. "Sector Four, the theatre district, is secured, sir. Scar presence neutralized. We sustained three KIAs, five wounded, two critical." I rattled off the names, the numbers, the cold, hard facts of the operation. Ammunition expenditure. Structural integrity assessments of the key buildings we’d taken. Projected timeline for full fortification of the new perimeter.

The usual litany. The grim accounting that followed every goddamn push, every inch of blood-soaked ground we clawed back from the Scars or the infected.

Isaac listened, his eyes, like chips of old flint, narrowed, assessing. He was a man carved from the harsh realities of this world, his face a roadmap of old battles and hard decisions. He nodded slowly, his gaze never leaving mine. "Scar morale in that sector?"

"Broken, for now," I replied. "We hit them hard. Their main observation post was eliminated. They’ll regroup, but it’ll take time."

"Any sign of their leadership? Anyone who looked like they were calling the shots?"

"Negative. Standard fanatics. They fought to the last man, mostly." The image of a young Scar, no older than sixteen, his eyes wide with a terrifying, empty zeal as he’d charged me with a rusty pipe, flashed in my mind. I’d put him down with a single, efficient shot. Another ghost for the collection.

"Infected patterns?" Isaac continued, his voice a low rumble.

"The prolonged engagement drew a significant horde. Primarily Runners and Clickers, one Bloater. Contained, for now. We cleared the immediate vicinity, but the surrounding blocks are still hot."

He grunted, a sound of grim satisfaction. "Good work, Anderson. Your squad continues to deliver." A rare compliment, if you could call it that. More like an acknowledgment of a tool performing its function.

But then his focus shifted, his eyes sharpening with an intensity that made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. "And the new recruit? Ellie? How’s she performing?"

The question, the way he said her name – that almost proprietary interest in his tone – it sent a jolt of something cold and unpleasant through me. I remembered my own early days with the WLF, Isaac’s unwavering, often unnerving, focus on me. Molding me. Shaping me.

"She’s… effective," I said, choosing my words carefully. "Reckless at times. But she follows orders, eventually. And her combat skills are… notable." Understatement of the goddamn century. The girl fought like a cornered viper, all speed and venom and a terrifying, almost joyful, ferocity.

Isaac leaned forward, a faint, almost predatory gleam in his eyes. "Notable, you say? I’ve seen her file. Her tryout. She’s got initiative, Anderson. Thinks for herself. And she’s not afraid of violence. Not afraid to get her hands dirty." He paused, his gaze unwavering. "Those are qualities we need. Qualities I value."

Suddenly, I saw it. With a sickening, dawning clarity. He was doing it again. Just like he’d done with me, all those years ago. He was grooming her. He saw that same raw, untamed fire in Ellie that he’d once seen in me, that same desperate, grief-fueled rage, and he was planning to forge it, to shape it, to turn her into another one of his perfectly honed instruments of war.

And for some inexplicable, deeply unsettling reason, the thought of Ellie being subjected to that same process, of having her rough edges ground down, her spirit broken and remade in Isaac’s image, it bothered me. Immensely. An odd, unwelcome surge of something almost… protective… tightened in my chest. A feeling I hadn’t experienced in years, not since… not since my father.

It was absurd. Ellie was a pain in my ass. A disruption. A constant source of irritation and a deeply confusing, unwelcome turmoil in my own gut. But the thought of Isaac getting his claws into her, of twisting her into another version of… me… it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

"She’s still green in some areas, sir," I found myself saying, my voice tighter than I intended. "Needs more time under direct supervision. My supervision." I met his gaze, holding it, a silent challenge passing between us. "She stays with my squad."

Isaac raised a skeptical eyebrow, a faint smirk playing on his lips. He knew me too well. Knew my aversion to coddling recruits, my usual impatience with anyone who didn’t meet my exacting standards. My sudden, uncharacteristic defense of Ellie wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. But he didn’t push it. Not yet.

"Very well, Lieutenant," he said, his voice smooth as silk, but with an underlying current of steel. "Keep me appraised of her progress." He leaned back in his chair, the moment passing, the focus shifting back to the broader strategic concerns. "For now, your squad can stand down for a couple of days. Rest, re-arm. You’ve earned it."

Dismissed.

I left Isaac’s office with a knot of unease tightening in my stomach. The conversation had left me feeling exposed. And the realization about Isaac’s intentions for Ellie… it was a new, unwelcome weight on my already burdened shoulders.

That night, there was an almost celebratory air in the WLF barracks and the communal areas. News of our squad’s success in the theatre district had spread like wildfire. We’d pushed the Scars out of another key sector, secured a vital strategic hold. Lieutenant Anderson’s squad. The best. The most brutal. The most ruthlessly capable unit in the WLF. I saw the familiar mixture of fear and respect in the eyes of other team leaders as I walked through the crowded mess hall, the way recruits hurried to get out of my path, their eyes downcast.

I usually relished this feeling. This tangible evidence of my power, my control. It was a validation of everything I’d worked for, everything I’d sacrificed. Tonight, though, it felt… hollow. Empty. Like a beautifully crafted mask with nothing behind it.

After the debrief, after forcing down a tasteless plate of protein and vegetable slurry, I found the rest of my squad already several drinks deep, socializing in one of the larger communal lounges. It was a repurposed stadium bar, the faded logos of forgotten sports teams still visible on the grimy walls, now filled with scavenged, mismatched furniture and the raucous, echoing noise of off-duty soldiers letting off steam. The air was thick with the smell of cheap moonshine, stale sweat, and desperation.

I saw Ellie almost immediately.

She was lounging on a battered, stained couch tucked into a shadowy corner, a bottle of something that looked suspiciously like the WLF’s notoriously potent homebrew clutched in one hand. Jordan and Manny were flanking her, their faces flushed, their laughter loud and unrestrained. Ellie… she looked different. Relaxed. Almost… happy. Her dark auburn hair, usually scraped back or hidden under a beanie, was loose, falling in soft waves around her face. A faint flush stained her freckled cheeks, and her green eyes, usually so sharp and guarded, were bright, almost sparkling, with a reckless, alcohol-fueled light.

As I watched, hidden in the shadows near the doorway, Manny said something, leaning in close, his arm brushing against hers. Ellie threw her head back and laughed, a low, throaty sound that was surprisingly… musical. Not the sarcastic bark I was used to. This was genuine. Unguarded.

And it did something strange to my insides. A weird, unfamiliar tightening in my chest. A warmth that spread, unwelcome and confusing, through my limbs.

Our eyes met across the crowded, noisy room. Just for a second. A fleeting, accidental connection. But it was enough. Her laughter died in her throat, her smile faltered. That familiar, wary defensiveness slammed back into place, her eyes narrowing, the light in them dimming, hardening.

I remembered the low, husky timbre of her voice as she’d sung that sad, old song in the theatre, her fingers moving over the strings of that battered guitar with a surprising, almost heartbreaking, tenderness. I remembered the dark, challenging heat in her eyes as we’d stood too close in that dusty, moonlit records room, the air crackling with a tension so thick you could taste it. I remembered the almost unbearable intensity of that moment in the theatre storage room, just yesterday, before she’d shoved past me, her touch like a brand against my skin.

That same feeling – low, warm, deeply confusing, and undeniably, infuriatingly present – twisted in my gut again.

I needed a drink.

I didn’t usually drink. Not really. I didn’t like the feeling of being out of control, the way alcohol fogged my thoughts, dulled my edges, made the carefully constructed walls around my emotions feel… porous. It made it harder to get up for 0500 drills, harder to push myself in the gym with the relentless, punishing intensity that was my usual escape.

But tonight… tonight, the potent cocktail of relief from a successful, brutal mission, the stress of my unsettling conversation with Isaac, and the weird, chaotic, utterly unwelcome feelings Ellie Williams ignited in me… it was too much.

I pushed my way through the throng to the makeshift bar – a couple of planks laid across some empty oil drums – and grabbed a bottle of something harsh and unfamiliar, the label long since peeled off. The liquid burned as it went down, a welcome, numbing fire in my throat.

“Well, well. Lieutenant Anderson, imbibing with the common folk?” A familiar voice at my elbow. Owen. He was smiling, that easy, gentle smile that always seemed to reach his kind, tired eyes. He held up his own glass, half-filled with some amber liquid. “Loosening up for once?”

It had been years of this. This strange, hesitant, undefined dance between us. His gentle kindness, his quiet, unwavering loyalty, his open, almost painful, willingness for whatever scraps of affection or attention I’d be willing, or able, to give. Which was often nothing. Or, years ago, before… before everything, brief, meaningless, desperate sex that had left me feeling emptier, more alone, than before.

Now, though, he was just… Owen. My friend. My oldest friend in this shithole. He clinked his glass against my bottle, his eyes searching mine with a familiar, gentle concern. We made small talk for a few minutes, the usual WLF gossip, the endless speculation about Isaac’s next move, the ever-present threat of the Scars. His presence was a familiar, almost comforting weight beside me. A small, steady anchor in the churning sea of my own internal chaos.

Eventually, inevitably, we gravitated towards the couch where the rest of my squad – Manny, Taryn, Jordan, and now, apparently, Ellie – were embroiled in a loud, boisterous game of what looked like poker, or some bastardized WLF version of it, played with a greasy, worn-out deck of cards and a pile of scavenged bottle caps for chips.

Ellie looked a little drunk. More than a little, actually. There was a definite red flush high on her freckled cheeks, a wild, reckless light in her green eyes. But there was a confidence, an almost unnerving ease, to the way she dealt the cards, her long, nimble fingers flicking them across the low, makeshift table – a sheet of plywood balanced on some cinder blocks – with a practiced, almost predatory, grace. She was bantering with Jordan and Manny, her voice a low, smoky laugh, leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, her gaze sharp and focused as she assessed her hand, then her opponents.

I watched, a strange, tight feeling coiling in my stomach, as Jordan’s arm snaked casually across the back of the couch, her hand resting dangerously, possessively, close to Ellie’s waist. Something tightened, hot and involuntary, deep inside me. I took another long, burning swig from my bottle.

Manny, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of excitement and trepidation, started telling Ellie about the illicit fight ring. The one that popped up every now and then in the stadium’s dark, forgotten underbelly, in one of the abandoned storage levels. Unsanctioned. Brutal. Body on body, no weapons, just raw, desperate, animalistic violence until one person was left standing, usually dripping blood, often with broken bones. Soldiers needing to get some extra aggression out, to feel something, anything, other than the endless, soul-crushing grind of war and the constant, gnawing fear of death.

I’d never participated. The thought of losing control like that, of surrendering to that kind of raw, mindless fury, it was… terrifying. But I’d watched a few times. From the shadows. A detached, clinical observer of the raw, primal savagery.

Manny shoved Ellie’s shoulder playfully, his voice a low rumble. "You should come tonight, Spitfire. Show ‘em what you’re made of. Level Three, storage bay seven. Midnight."

Jordan, her arm now firmly around Ellie’s waist, pulled her closer, her expression a mixture of pride and something else, something possessive that made my teeth ache. Ellie whispered something in Jordan’s ear, her lips brushing against Jordan’s skin, and Jordan threw her head back and laughed, a loud, triumphant, almost proprietary sound that grated on my already frayed nerves like nails on a chalkboard.

I got up abruptly, the legs of my chair scraping harshly against the concrete floor, the sound jarring in the sudden, awkward silence that fell over their little group.

"Need another drink," I muttered, though my bottle was still nearly half full.

My control. It was slipping. I could feel it unraveling, thread by fragile, treacherous thread. I was drunker than I’d intended to be, my head swimming, my thoughts a chaotic, jumbled mess. And I was so fucking, unreasonably, inexplicably pissed off. At Ellie. At Jordan. At Manny. At Isaac. At the whole goddamn world.

But mostly, I was pissed off at myself.

Later, much later, after most of the crowd had dispersed, the cheap moonshine still burning in my veins, blurring the edges of the world and leaving a dull, throbbing headache behind the gnawing, restless emptiness, I found Manny leaning against a crumbling concrete wall outside the lounge, smoking a scavenged, hand-rolled cigarette, the tip glowing like a malevolent red eye in the darkness.

"Manny," I said, my voice rougher than usual, harsher.

He looked up, surprised to see me. "Lieutenant? Everything alright?"

"That fight tonight," I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. "I’m in."

Manny stared at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and a dawning, almost fearful, excitement. He took a drag from his cigarette, the end flaring brightly, illuminating his face, his confusion. "You, uh… you wanna watch, Lieutenant? I can get you a good spot, up close…"

"No," I cut him off, my voice flat, devoid of emotion. "I don’t want to watch." I met his gaze, my own eyes probably looking as wild and unhinged as I felt. "I want to fight."

The confusion on Manny’s face morphed into stunned comprehension, then a slow, wolfish grin spread across his features. The Lieutenant Anderson. Isaac’s top enforcer. His right hand. His goddamn ice queen. In the ring.

"Holy shit, Abs," he breathed, the nickname slipping out, a relic from a time before I was just ‘Lieutenant,’ before the walls had gone up, thick and impenetrable. "You serious? You actually want to… fight?" He shook his head, a low whistle escaping his lips. "Everyone’s gonna lose their goddamn minds. They’ll be lining up around the block to watch this. You, in the pit… Jesus Christ."

I just nodded, my jaw tight, a cold, hard certainty settling in my gut.

Control.

It had always been about control.

And if I couldn’t control the chaos Ellie Williams stirred inside me, if I couldn’t control Isaac’s unsettling, predatory interest in her, if I couldn’t control the goddamn world from falling apart at the seams…

Then I would control this.

I would step into that ring, into that crucible of sweat and blood and raw, unadulterated violence. And I would unleash the storm that had been brewing inside me for too damn long. I would fight. And I would win. And in the blood, in the pain, in the brutal, undeniable, absolute victory, I would find my center again. I would reinforce the walls. I would reassert my dominance. My control.

I had to.

It was the only way I knew how to survive.

Chapter Text

Ellie

I wasn’t unaccustomed to violence.

Sometimes it felt like I’d been born into it, baptized in blood and gunpowder. Still a child, watching Joel’s body move with that relentless, brutal force that always meant something, or someone, was about to die. The memory of it was a visceral thing, a phantom ache in my own muscles, the echo of his grunts, the sickening thud of fist meeting flesh, or worse, the wet, tearing sound of his machete finding its mark. He’d tried to shield me from the worst of it, in the beginning. But in this world, innocence was a luxury no one could afford for long.

And later, my own self, knife a familiar, comforting weight in my own hand, blood a warm, slick glove to my elbow as I learned Joel’s grim trade. The first time I’d killed… The thought, a shard of ice, pierced through the usual armor. I shoved it down, hard, before it could take root. The first man I’d killed, a raider who’d tried to ambush us outside Pittsburg, the shock of it had landed like a cold, hard fist in my gut. But Joel had been there, his hand on my shoulder, his voice low and steady in my ear. “You did good, kiddo. You did what you had to do.” And so, I’d learned. Learned to compartmentalize. Learned to survive. Learned that sometimes, violence wasn’t just an option; it was the only goddamn answer.

So no, I shouldn’t have been as shocked as I was, watching Abby fight.

But there was something different about this. Something… performative. Something that went beyond mere survival.

The illicit fight pit was deep in the stadium’s underbelly, in what might have once been a vast storage area or a loading dock. The air was thick, almost unbreathable, a noxious cocktail of stale sweat, cheap moonshine, blood, and the raw, animalistic scent of a hyped-up WLF crowd. They were packed tight around a makeshift ring – a roped-off square of bare, stained concrete, illuminated by a few flickering, jury-rigged floodlights that cast long, dancing, grotesque shadows on the damp walls. The roar of the crowd was a physical thing, a wave of sound that washed over me, vibrating in my bones.

I’d found myself drawn there, a moth to a goddamn flame, after Manny’s casual, almost taunting, invitation. Jordan had tried to convince me to stay, her arm still slung possessively around my waist, her eyes gleaming with a mixture of booze-fueled bravado and something else, something that made my skin tingle. But I’d untangled myself, muttered some excuse about needing air, and slipped away, following the growing stream of WLF soldiers heading down, down, down into the guts of the stadium.

And there she was.

Abby.

In the center of that makeshift ring, a gladiator in a stained tank top and worn cargo pants. Her blonde braid, usually a fortress of discipline, was already coming loose, tendrils of sweat-plastered hair escaping to frame a face that was set in a mask of cold, focused fury. There was a dark smudge of what might be blood, or just grime, high on her cheekbone. The tank top, which might have been white at some distant, forgotten point in the past, was now just a butcher's rag, soaked and smeared with patches of darker, wetter crimson that looked alarmingly fresh, stark against the pale skin of her shoulders and arms. It wasn’t all hers, I knew that much. But some of it probably was.

She’d already been fighting. Three men – big, brawling WLF grunts, the kind who probably spent their off-hours beating the shit out of each other for fun anyway – had already gone up against her. And three men had already been dragged, or had crawled, out of that ring, nursing broken noses, split lips, or clutching their throats where her forearm had connected with brutal, disabling force.

Abby, ignoring a trickle of blood that oozed from a fresh cut above her eye, looked no different than she did during one of her grueling gym sessions. Focused. Powerful. A goddamn machine, built for one purpose: destruction. She was working hard, her chest heaving, her muscles bunched and coiled, but I could see it in the way she moved, in the almost contemptuous ease with which she dispatched her opponents – she could still work harder. Push further. There was a reserve of strength there, a deep, untapped well of violence that was terrifying to behold.

I found myself standing near the edge of the crowd, pressed close to Manny, Owen, Jordan, and Taryn, who had apparently followed me down. The air thrummed with a primal, almost sexual, energy. Manny was yelling, his voice hoarse, his fist pumping the air with every blow Abby landed, completely, utterly invested in the spectacle. Jordan was watching with a predatory gleam in her dark eyes, a hungry, appreciative smirk playing on her lips. Taryn, as usual, was quiet, her expression unreadable, but her gaze was fixed on Abby with an unnerving intensity.

Owen, however, looked… disturbed. His face was pale, his usually kind eyes clouded with something that looked a lot like pain. He kept running a hand through his already disheveled blond hair, his knuckles white. I remembered again, with a jolt, what Manny had let slip. That he and Abby used to date. A weird, unwelcome pang, something that felt suspiciously like… jealousy? No. That was ridiculous. It was just… curiosity. Yeah. That was it.

Was Abby gentle with him? The thought, unbidden, unwelcome, slithered into my mind. Did she ever let down those iron guards? Did she ever… beg him to—

I cut off the thought, a hot flush creeping up my neck, disgusted and embarrassed by its intrusion. What the fuck was wrong with me?

In the ring, Abby took a solid punch to her stomach, right on her previously injured side, from a burly, red-faced WLF soldier who looked like he wrestled bears for a hobby. It was a brutal, sickening blow, hard enough to make me flinch, to send a phantom ache through my own ribs. I saw Abby’s breath hiss out between her gritted teeth, saw her stumble back a step, her face momentarily contorted in a mask of pain.

But only for a moment.

Then, with a guttural roar, she was on him, a whirlwind of controlled fury. She didn’t just absorb the hit; she seemed to feed off it, to channel the pain into an even greater, more terrifying, strength. A vicious elbow to his jaw that snapped his head back with an audible crack. A knee to his groin that made him double over, gasping. Then a final, brutal, fight-ending combination – a left hook, a right cross, another left – that sent him sprawling to the concrete floor, unconscious before he even hit the ground.

The crowd roared its approval, a wave of raw, animalistic sound.

Owen muttered something beside me, a low, pained sound. He was clearly drunk, his eyes unfocused, his movements unsteady. He swayed slightly, then leaned closer, his gaze still fixed on Abby, who was now standing in the center of the ring, her chest heaving, blood and sweat plastering her hair to her face, looking like some kind of avenging goddess from a forgotten, blood-soaked mythology.

"She wasn’t always like this," Owen slurred, his words seemingly directed at me, though his eyes never left Abby. "Before… before her dad, I mean."

I felt a wave of discomfort, a sudden, intense urge to be anywhere but here, listening to the drunken ramblings of Abby’s ex-boyfriend. I wasn’t sure I wanted this conversation, not with a drunk Owen, not about Abby . It felt… too intimate. Too raw. Like trespassing on sacred, or at least deeply fucked-up, ground.

But my curiosity, that damn relentless, self-destructive itch, it got the better of me. As always.

"You dated, right?" I asked, trying to make my voice sound casual, indifferent, like I was just making polite, slightly morbid, conversation.

Owen struggled to focus on me, his eyes bleary. "Yeah," he slurred, a sad, lopsided smile playing on his lips. "Yeah, we… we did. Years ago now. Back when we were… basically kids. Just… kids trying to survive, you know?" He swayed again, then seemed to remember something. "When we first got here from—"

Before he could finish, before he could spill whatever secrets were bubbling up from the depths of his alcohol-soaked memory, Manny let out a triumphant roar. He was dragging a bloodied, sweating, but undeniably victorious, Abby into our small group, holding up her arm like a goddamn trophy.

The crowd surged around us, a wave of bodies and noise. People were congratulating Abby, slapping her on the back, their voices loud, excited. Talking at her, mostly. Touching her. Their hands, rough and eager, reaching out, trying to get a piece of the victor, of Isaac’s right hand, of the legend.

Up close, Abby was… overwhelming. The sheer physicality of her. The sweat that slicked her skin, making the muscles in her arms and shoulders gleam in the harsh, flickering light. The way those wild blonde strands were plastered to her temples, to the strong column of her neck. The dark, angry flush that stained her cheekbones. The faint, almost imperceptible tremor in her hands.

And her eyes. They were darting around, a trapped, almost panicked look in them, as the bodies pressed closer, as the hands reached out. She was getting overwhelmed. Uncomfortable. I could see it. That carefully constructed wall of control, it was starting to crack.

Jordan’s hand was on my lower back, a warm, possessive pressure that, if I was being honest, I didn’t entirely mind. It had been a long fucking time since anyone had touched me with anything other than violence or pity. And so what if Jordan was on my squad? So what if she was built like a goddamn tank and probably had a dick bigger than most of the men in this shithole? No-strings-attached sex was no big deal. A way to blow off steam. To feel something other than rage and grief and the constant, gnawing fear.

But Abby…

Something snapped inside me. Some weird, unwelcome, fiercely protective instinct.

I untangled myself from Jordan’s surprisingly gentle grip, ignoring her questioning look. I pushed my way through the throng of grasping hands and adoring, slightly terrifying, fans, my voice cutting through the noise, sharper, louder than I intended.

"Okay, damn, you guys are all so fucking obsessed! Let the woman breathe! Jesus Christ, give her some space!"

The onlookers, startled by my sudden, aggressive intervention, actually looked a little chagrined. They shuffled back a step, their eager grins faltering.

I reached Abby’s side, grabbed her wrist – her skin was hot, slick with sweat, her pulse thrumming a wild, erratic beat beneath my fingers – and started pulling her out of the crowd, towards the relative quiet of the exit. The contact, her skin against mine, sent a jolt, like a live wire, up my arm, making my own heart skip a beat.

"Aww, come on, Ellie, you’re no fun!" Manny complained, his voice slurred, his face flushed with booze and excitement. "Let Anderson enjoy herself for once! She earned it!"

"Fuck off, Manny," I retorted, not even bothering to look back.

Abby was silent beside me, her breathing ragged, her body surprisingly pliant as I pulled her along. She was dripping sweat and who knows what else, the metallic tang of blood sharp in the air around her.

As I pulled her into a more secluded spot near a rusted, grime-covered service exit, she leaned heavily against the cold concrete wall, her chest heaving, her eyes closed.

"I think…" she said, her voice tight, strained, almost a whisper. "I think I’m gonna throw up."

A beat of silence. Then, her eyes snapped open, wide and unfocused, a look of dawning, horrified realization spreading across her face.

"Why is the room… spinning?"

My own breath hitched. "Are you kidding me?" I grounded out, staring at her, at the blood, the sweat, the undeniable, almost terrifying, power that still seemed to radiate from her, even now, even as she swayed unsteadily on her feet. "You’re DRUNK?"

My mind flashed back to the fight. The clean, precise, brutal movements of her body. The way she’d absorbed those bone-jarring hits and just kept coming, relentless, unstoppable. How the hell was that even possible? How could she have fought like that, won like that, while drunk off her ass? It didn’t make any sense.

Unless… unless she wasn’t as in control as she always pretended to be. Unless that ironclad discipline was just another mask.

I dragged Abby outside, the cold, damp Seattle night air a sharp, welcome contrast to the hot, fetid, blood-soaked atmosphere of the fight pit. The moment the cold air hit her face, Abby doubled over, one arm braced against the grimy brick wall of the stadium, and started to vomit. Her body heaved, again and again, a series of violent, racking coughs that sounded like they were tearing her apart from the inside.

I was disgusted at first. Because, ew, vomit. It wasn’t exactly my favorite bodily fluid.

But then, as I watched her, as I listened to those wretched, gasping sounds, a different, even more repulsive feeling washed over me.

Pity.

Concern.

Goddammit.

Against my own will, against every instinct that screamed at me to keep my distance, to protect myself, my hand came up. My fingers, hesitant at first, then more sure, brushed against Abby’s sweat-soaked hair, pulling her disheveled braid further back from her face as her body convulsed again. The strands were surprisingly soft, despite the grime and the blood.

"I don’t… drink," Abby managed to get out between heaves, her voice a miserable, choked groan. The words were almost a plea.

"Yeah, I can see that," I replied, and for once, there was no bite in my tone, no sarcasm, just a weary, almost reluctant, resignation. "Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up."

I half-dragged, half-carried a very drunk, very unsteady, and surprisingly heavy, Abby back towards the main stadium structure, her arm slung over my shoulders, her body leaning heavily against mine. She smelled of sweat, blood, stale moonshine, and something else, something uniquely, infuriatingly Abby, a scent that was becoming far too familiar for my own peace of mind.

As we were approaching our usual C-block barracks, Abby suddenly stopped, her hand, surprisingly strong despite her state, gripping my arm.

"Wait," she slurred, her eyes unfocused, darting around nervously. "Don’t… don’t want them to see me like this."

Them. Her squad. The people who looked at her like she was some kind of god. As if being seen as human, as vulnerable, as drunk , would somehow shatter her carefully constructed image of command and control. Of infallible strength.

Jesus Christ, Abby. Sometimes, the sheer, suffocating weight of her bullshit was almost too much to bear.

"Okay," I said, my sarcasm returning, though it was tinged with something else now, something I didn’t want to name, something that felt dangerously close to… understanding. "So, where to, your majesty?"

"Officer… lockers," Abby mumbled, her head lolling against my shoulder. "Showers."

Right. Of course. Commanding officers had their own facilities. Probably cleaner. Probably had actual hot water, the mythical unicorn of WLF existence. And since there were very few female COs in the WLF, it would likely be empty. A private, secluded place for Lieutenant Anderson to pull herself back together, to reconstruct her shattered armor, to pretend that this moment of weakness, this humiliating loss of control, had never happened.

The trouble was, I had no fucking idea where the officer’s locker room even was. I wasn’t exactly on the VIP tour list.

Abby, with a groan, started to stumble hesitantly in what I hoped was the right general direction, her body swaying like a tree in a hurricane.

I sighed. I could just leave her here. Prop her up against a wall, let her sleep it off. Go back to my own bunk. See if I could grind out a quick, unsatisfying, solitary orgasm before the rest of the drunken, rowdy crew returned from their post-fight revelries. Alone time, actual alone time, was a precious, fucking scarce commodity these days. And God knew, I needed the release.

But…

I looked at Abby. At the vulnerability in her usually hard face, now slack with alcohol and exhaustion. At the way her body sagged against the wall, all that formidable strength momentarily, shockingly, absent. At the faint tremor in her hands.

Goddammit.

With another sigh, a sigh that sounded suspiciously, horrifyingly, like resignation, like I was surrendering to some force I didn’t understand and definitely didn’t control, I followed her. I pulled Abby’s surprisingly heavy arm around my own shoulders, taking on most of her weight, my side protesting where her body pressed against mine.

"Okay, big girl," I muttered, more to myself than to Abby, my voice rougher than I intended. "I’ve got you."

The words felt strange in my mouth. Too soft. Too… something.

And as I helped the stumbling, incoherent, and infuriatingly vulnerable Lieutenant Anderson navigate the darkened, echoing corridors of the WLF stronghold, a place that was supposed to be her fortress, her kingdom, I couldn’t shake the deeply unsettling feeling that I’d just crossed some kind of invisible line.

A line I hadn’t even known existed until I was already, irrevocably, on the other side.

Chapter Text

Abby

The world swam back into focus through a thick, throbbing, nauseating haze.

My head felt like it had been used for target practice by a Bloater, each pulse of blood a fresh hammer blow against the inside of my skull. And my stomach… Christ, my stomach was staging a full-scale, violent rebellion.

Memories of the night flashed before my eyes, disjointed and horrifying, like shards of a shattered mirror reflecting a scene I desperately wanted to forget. Jordan’s hands, too low on Ellie’s narrow hips during that stupid, drunken card game, Ellie’s head thrown back in a laugh that had somehow, inexplicably, grated on my nerves like sandpaper.

The fight pit. The roar of the crowd. The raw, brutal thrill of fist meeting flesh, of bone jarring against bone. The deep, aching pain of being hit, again and again, a pain I’d welcomed, craved almost, a physical agony to drown out the other, less definable, aches inside me.

And then… Ellie.

Her face, pale and set in the dim light of the stadium’s underbelly. A cool hand on my wrist, surprisingly strong, surprisingly steady, dragging me out of the suffocating, adoring crowd. Her voice, sharp and impatient, cutting through the haze of alcohol and adrenaline.

My own body heaving up the cheap moonshine and whatever else had been in my stomach, the humiliation of it a burning, physical thing. Horrible, humiliating images that make me want to sink into the concrete floor and disappear. Memories that made me want to just lay down and die from embarrassment.

And it wasn’t over. Oh no. My torture, my utter, complete, and apparently ongoing humiliation at the hands of this… this woman … had just begun.

Because now, as more coherent thought began to filter through the fog in my brain, I could feel it. The tight muscles of Ellie’s shoulders under my arm as she supported me, half-carrying me, through what I vaguely registered as the darkened, echoing corridors of the stadium, finally stopping before a door I dimly recognized as leading to the officer's locker room. I could smell the cloying, disgusting scent of sweat, vomit, and old blood clinging to my own body, a repulsive miasma that made my stomach heave again.

"Jesus fucking Christ," I heard Ellie murmur from somewhere beside me, her voice a low sound of pure, unadulterated disgust. And for once, I couldn’t even blame her.

"Shower," was all I could manage to get out, my voice a raw, broken croak. The word itself felt like a monumental effort.

Ellie seemed to hesitate. I felt her body tense beside me. Then, a quiet, resigned, almost inaudible, "Goddammit."

The blessed sound of water running. Hot water. Actual, honest-to-God hot water. Steam began to fill the small, tiled space, a welcome, cleansing cloud. She was guiding me, half-carrying me still, towards one of the private shower stalls. I should probably get in, wash off the grime and the shame, but my body felt heavy, unresponsive, like it was filled with wet sand, my limbs refusing to obey even the simplest commands from my alcohol-ravaged brain.

Then, gentle hands were on my shoulders. Shaking me slightly. Insistently.

Ellie’s face swam into my blurry vision, those intense green eyes surprisingly large, focused, almost… concerned? No. That couldn’t be right. Not Ellie. Not towards me.

"Hey," Ellie was saying, her voice softer than I had ever heard it, a strange, almost gentle timbre that was utterly out of place, utterly… confusing. "Water’s ready… if you, you know, want to get in."

It shouldn’t be weird. It wasn’t weird. We were soldiers. Bodies were just bodies. I’d seen plenty of naked, battered bodies in my time, both in the infirmary and on the battlefield. I’d stitched up gaping wounds, set broken bones, cleaned filth and gore from skin that was barely holding together. I was sure Ellie had seen her share of horrors too. This world didn’t exactly breed shrinking violets.

So it shouldn’t feel this… strange, this intensely, horribly uncomfortable, to get undressed in front of her.

But it did.

Because Ellie had already seen me at my absolute worst. Vomiting my guts out like a goddamn amateur. Losing control in a way no one, no one , ever saw Lieutenant Anderson lose control. How was this, this simple act of shedding dirty clothes, somehow even more humiliating? More exposing?

My voice, when I finally managed to force some words out, sounded small, pathetic, even to my own ears. A humiliating crack in my usual armor of command.

"Can you… can you help me?"

My whole body ached. My muscles screamed in protest with every tiny movement. My head throbbed with a relentless, punishing rhythm. And I was so, so fucking dizzy. The room, the steam, Ellie’s too-close, too-focused face – it was all tilting, swaying, threatening to send me crashing to the cold, unforgiving tiles.

Ellie seemed to sigh, a deep, weary sound that spoke of resignation, or maybe just profound, utter exasperation. "Yeah. Okay. Great fucking idea, Anderson," she said, her voice dripping with a sarcasm that, for once, I didn’t have the energy, or the will, to retaliate against. I just wanted the world to stop spinning. I just wanted to be clean.

She moved out of my direct field of vision for a moment, and a ridiculous, inexplicable pang of… abandonment? Panic?… lanced through me. Don’t leave me like this. The thought was a silent, desperate plea.

But then she returned, a clean, rough WLF towel clutched in her hands.

"Hands up," Ellie demanded, her voice back to its usual brusque, impatient tone.

For a stupid, drunken, disoriented second, I thought she was telling me to surrender, to lay down arms. My brain, still pickled in cheap moonshine, struggled to process the command. But I didn’t have any weapons on me. Just the aches, the bruises, the shame.

Ellie raised her eyebrows, a look of impatient disbelief on her face. Then she gestured, a quick, sharp movement of her chin, towards my blood-soaked, sweat-stiffened tank top.

Oh. Duh.

I slowly, painfully, raised my arms. Each movement sent a fresh wave of agony through my battered ribs, my protesting shoulders. Ellie grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled it, surprisingly gently, over my head. Her fingers brushed against my skin, a fleeting, feather-light touch that sent a strange, unwelcome jolt through my system.

I was left in just my sweat-soaked sports bra. I could see the dark, angry bruises already blooming on my ribs, on my stomach, a grotesque, colorful roadmap of the night’s brutality. I poked at one experimentally, a dull, throbbing ache radiating outwards.

"Ow," I said, the sound small, childlike, pathetic.

Ellie slapped my hand away, her touch surprisingly light, almost… protective? "Stop that." Then, she grimaced, her gaze flicking down to my pants, then quickly away, a faint flush rising on her own cheeks. "Uh, pants," she said, her voice a little strained, almost… shy?

Right. Pants. My filthy, WLF-issue cargo pants, stiff with dried blood and God knows what else.

I fumbled with the buckle, my fingers clumsy, uncooperative. The simple mechanism seemed to have transformed into an impossibly complex puzzle. I managed to unfasten them, finally, and started to push them down my legs. And then, of course, because my humiliation apparently wasn’t yet complete, I got tripped up in the goddamn things, my balance, already shot to hell, abandoning me completely.

I was about to fall, to eat concrete, to add a concussion to my growing list of injuries and indignities, when suddenly Ellie was there. Her smaller, wiry body was surprisingly strong, a solid, steadying presence as she caught me, her arm snaking around my waist, preventing my ignominious descent. She helped me step out of the tangled mess of fabric, her touch surprisingly gentle, almost… careful.

Ellie’s cheeks were flushed, a dark, hectic red, as if she’d been running. Her green eyes were wide, darting away from my half-naked form, refusing to meet my gaze.

"Okay," Ellie said, her voice a little too loud, a little too forced, as if she was speaking more to herself than to me, trying to convince herself of something. "Shower. Let’s go."

I let her maneuver me, stumbling, into one of the private shower stalls, then she quickly stepped back, retreating. The room itself was dim, only a sliver of weak moonlight penetrating the high, grimy window in the outer locker area; here, inside the stall, it was nearly pitch black, the shadows thick and close. The water was hot. Incredibly, blessedly hot. I gasped as it poured over my body, washing away the grime, the blood, the sweat, the lingering stench of vomit and stale moonshine. It sluiced over my aching muscles, my bruised skin, relieving some of the sharp, throbbing pain, the deep, bone-weary tension that had settled into every fiber of my being.

I reached back, my fingers clumsy, and undid the rest of my braid, letting my wet, heavy hair hang down my back, the water plastering it to my skin.

Soap. I needed soap. I fumbled for one of the generic, unscented WLF bottles that lined the narrow shelf, squeezing a dollop of the thin, watery liquid into my palm. I soaped my hands, then started to rub them over my aching body, wincing as my fingers brushed against a particularly tender bruise on my ribs.

I realized then, with a jolt of drunken, disoriented confusion, that I was still in my bra and underwear. Weird. Stupid. Why hadn’t I taken them off before? My brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Or any cylinders, for that matter.

I peeled them off, the wet fabric clinging unpleasantly to my skin, letting them fall to the shower floor with a sodden, pathetic sound.

Then I was washing myself, leaning heavily against the cool, tiled wall of the shower, the smooth, slick surface a welcome support for my unsteady legs. The hot water felt good. Really, really good. The alcohol, still thrumming a chaotic rhythm through my veins, mixed with the adrenaline crash from the fight, and now this, the scalding heat of the water, the steam filling my lungs… it had created something else. A heightened sensitivity. A raw, exposed nerve ending that seemed to cover my entire body.

My own hands, slick with soap, moving across my skin… it felt amazing. Too good. Dangerously good.

I slipped a hand over my own breasts, cupping their weight, a low, involuntary sound escaping my lips. Then lower, my fingers tracing a path down my stomach, over my hip bones, dipping into the heat between my legs.

A deep, pulsing warmth spread through me, a desperate, undeniable, almost unbearable need.

I lost myself in the sensation, my breath coming faster, harder, a low moan escaping my lips, echoing softly in the small, steamy space. My fingers moved, building a rhythm, a desperate, driving friction, until the world dissolved, shattered into a series of shuddering, blinding flashes, a release so intense it left me gasping, trembling, clinging to the tiled wall for support.

I stood there for a long moment, the hot water pouring over me, sluicing away the last vestiges of… everything. Letting my mind clear, or at least, attempt to clear through the fog of alcohol and exhaustion and shame. Trying to piece together the fragmented, humiliating memories of the night.

And then, an even deeper, more horrifying realization crashed over me, dousing the lingering embers of that shameful, desperate release with a fresh wave of ice-cold mortification.

I looked towards the entrance to the shower area – a small, tiled alcove, secluded and separated from the main locker room by a partial, flimsy wall. The open doorway was dark. Empty.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Did I just… did I just drunk masturbate in the officer’s shower?

And Ellie… Ellie had been there. At some point. Just outside the stall. I could almost still smell her, that faint, distinctive scent of woodsmoke and something else, something wild and green, that always seemed to cling to her. But she had left me in the shower, still mostly clothed in my bra and underwear, and then I had…

Oh, God.

I slammed my hand against the control, running the water cold. Really fucking cold. The shock of it was a welcome punishment, a brutal, physical jolt to my senses. I gasped, my teeth chattering, and slapped my own face, hard. Once. Twice.

Wake up, Anderson. Get a fucking grip.

I turned the water off, my body trembling, not just from the cold now, but from a fresh wave of shame so profound it felt like it might actually consume me, drag me down into the grimy drain at my feet. I grabbed the towel Ellie had left for her on a hook outside the stall, the rough fabric a welcome abrasion against my skin.

I was suddenly, intensely, overwhelmingly grateful that Ellie had clearly wanted to avoid me, per usual. That she had left. That she hadn’t seen… that. At least some things in this fucked-up world were consistent. Ellie Williams wanted nothing to do with me. And right now, that felt like the only goddamn blessing I had left.

When I finally, shakily, managed to towel myself dry and step out into the main locker room, it was empty.

Thank fucking God.

The thought of facing anyone, especially Ellie, after that… it was unbearable. I quickly, clumsily, dressed in a spare set of clean fatigues I always kept stashed in my locker for emergencies – though, admittedly, this particular brand of emergency hadn’t exactly been on my contingency planning radar. My hands were still trembling, my face burning with a shame so absolute, it felt like it might actually consume me from the inside out.

I needed to get out of here. Needed to be alone. Needed to somehow, someway, regain control.

But the image of Ellie’s face, her green eyes wide and surprisingly focused in the steam-filled shower stall, the memory of her reluctant, almost gentle, unexpected assistance… it was seared into my brain.

And it was a new kind of torture. A fresh hell.

One I had absolutely no idea how to escape.

Chapter Text

Ellie

I had a pretty good sense of when to ‘get gone,’ if you would.

Let’s call it a sixth sense, a little internal alarm bell forged in the fires of a childhood spent dodging infected, FEDRA patrols, and the general, garden-variety assholes that this fucked-up world seemed to breed in abundance. It was a sense that had kept me alive more times than I could count, a prickle on the back of my neck, a sudden, gut-deep certainty that said, “Danger. Time to fucking evaporate.”

Helping a drunk, half-clothed, and thoroughly humiliated Abby Anderson into the officer’s shower shouldn’t have triggered that sixth sense. Logically, the danger had passed. She was incapacitated, mostly. I’d done my reluctant, deeply weird, Good Samaritan duty. Dragged her sorry, muscular ass to the CO facilities – a surprisingly clean, almost sterile, oasis of functioning plumbing that was a world away from the mildewed, overcrowded shit-holes the rest of us enlisted grunts had to endure.

I’d even helped her get most of her filthy, blood-soaked clothes off, an experience that was… something else entirely. A confusing, unwelcome, and altogether too-intimate inventory of bruises, sculpted muscle, and the surprisingly soft skin beneath the grime. I’d even gone so far as to practically shove her into the actual shower stall, leaving her there in her soaking wet sports bra and underwear to figure her own goddamn shit out. 

My job was done. Right?

I’d been sitting on a cold, metal bench in the outer locker room, the air still thick with the steam from Abby’s shower and the faint, lingering scent of her – sweat, blood, and that weird, almost metallic tang that was uniquely Anderson. I was waiting for… I don’t know what, exactly. A call for help? A grunt of acknowledgment? A request for… further assistance? My mind was still reeling from the whole bizarre, humiliating (for Abby, mostly, though my own dignity had taken a few hits too) ordeal.

Then I’d heard it.

A sound from the shower stall. A soft gasp. Followed by a low, almost inaudible moan. Then another, this one a little louder, a little… throatier.

And that sixth sense, that trusty old internal alarm bell, it didn’t just trigger. It went into fucking overdrive.

A flush of heat, mortifying and intense, had flooded my cheeks as the implication of those sounds, those soft, broken, undeniably female sounds, crashed over me. Lieutenant Abby Fucking Anderson, Isaac’s right hand, the WLF’s resident ice queen, the woman who was currently making my life a living hell, was, in all likelihood, having a private, steamy, and very personal moment in her exclusive officer’s shower stall. The almost indiscernible sound of something wet, a rhythmic splashing that wasn’t just the showerhead, a quickening of breath that had nothing to do with exertion from a fight…

I’d gotten gone.

Fled that locker room faster than a bunker full of Clickers with their asses on fire.

But it couldn’t just end there, could it? Oh no. Because this was my life. A never-ending series of awkward, uncomfortable, and deeply fucked-up encounters, usually involving people who wanted to either kill me, dissect me, or, apparently, get off in close proximity to me.

I was walking back to the C-block barracks, my mind still a chaotic jumble of Abby’s drunken vulnerability, the unexpected, unwelcome intimacy of helping her undress, and the deeply unsettling, and frankly, none-of-my-goddamn-business sounds from the shower, when I ran into them.

Jordan, Manny, and Owen.

They were loitering in one of the dimly lit, echoing corridors of the stadium’s lower levels, clearly still buzzing from the fight night, their voices loud, their laughter a little too forced. The air around them reeked of stale moonshine and cheap WLF cigarettes.

They stopped when they saw me, their expressions a mixture of surprise and a drunken, leering curiosity.

“Well, well, well,” Manny said, his eyes, bloodshot and a little unfocused, raking over me. “If it isn’t Little Miss Spitfire. Thought you’d tucked yourself in for the night.”

“Just stretching my legs,” I said, trying to sound casual, indifferent. My cheeks were still burning, and I had a horrible, sinking feeling that they somehow knew . Knew I’d just had my hands all over Lieutenant fucking Anderson’s nearly naked, and surprisingly soft, body. Knew I’d been a surprised, and then very willing, eavesdropper on her private… activities.

But then I realized they were just looking at me with that usual mixture of WLF suspicion and a grudging, post-combat camaraderie. They were checking in on their commanding officer. Their friend. Their… whatever the hell Abby was to them.

“So,” Jordan said, her voice a low, rumbling purr that usually made my skin tingle in a not-entirely-unpleasant way. Tonight, though, it just made me feel… twitchy. “How’s the Lieutenant? She, uh, make it back in one piece?”

“Yeah, she’s fine,” I said, my voice coming out a little too quickly, a little too high-pitched. “Just… needed to clean up. She’s at the CO facilities.” I waved vaguely in the direction I’d just come from. “Probably passed out by now.”

They seemed to buy it. Or at least, they didn’t press. Manny and Owen exchanged a look, then Manny clapped Owen on the shoulder. “Come on, man, let’s go find another bottle. This night ain’t over yet.” They grinned, then stumbled off down the corridor, their laughter echoing in the oppressive silence.

Jordan, however, lingered. She pulled me aside, into the deeper shadows of a recessed doorway, her eyes, dark and gleaming in the dim corridor light, fixed on mine with an unnerving intensity. She’d been flirting with me all night, for weeks, really. It had been… not unwelcome. Jordan was strong, funny, confident. And hot. Definitely hot. In that raw, unapologetic, ‘I could break you and you’d probably thank me for it’ kind of way.

Now, she leaned in close, her hand finding my waist again, her thumb brushing against my hip bone, sending a jolt of pleasure through my system. Her breath, warm and smelling faintly of moonshine and something minty, fanned across my cheek.

“So,” she murmured, her voice a low, husky invitation. “The Lieutenant’s all tucked in, huh? Means you’re free for a little… after-party?”

My residual desire, the leftover thrum from the fight night’s raw energy, the confusing, chaotic mess of my own complicated reactions to Abby, it all flared, a sudden, unexpected heat in my belly. I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself, because it felt wrong, predatory, deeply fucking weird, but Abby’s body, even half-clothed and covered in grime and bruises, had been… something else. A landscape of pure, terrifying, undeniable power. And the sounds she’d made in that shower…

I wanted to burn that image, those sounds, from my mind. Exorcise them from my very soul. And Jordan, right here, right now, warm and willing and undeniably, uncomplicatedly present , seemed like the perfect distraction. The perfect antidote.

So I kissed her.

Hard.

I pushed her against the cold, damp concrete wall, my mouth crashing against hers, a desperate, almost violent, attempt to erase Abby from my thoughts, from my senses. My hand snaked up Jordan’s arm, then to her throat, my fingers pressing lightly against the strong, steady pulse there. A mirror image of Abby’s hold on me in the records room, but this… this was different. Or it was supposed to be.

Jordan made a low sound of pleasure, a guttural moan deep in her throat, her body molding against mine, pliant and eager. She slotted one of her powerful thighs between mine, grinding against me, and the friction, the heat, it was… good. Simple. Easy.

I let myself just relax into it, just for a moment. Lose myself in the sensation of a warm, willing body against mine, the soft, yielding pressure of Jordan’s breasts against my own chest. It felt good. Uncomplicated.

I tried not to remember the soft, broken sounds Abby had been making in the shower. Tried to block out the nearly indiscernible sound of something wet, rhythmic, intensely private…

But the memories, the fantasized images, they intruded anyway. Unbidden. Unwelcome.

Abby, vulnerable, her usual iron control shattered by alcohol and exhaustion. Abby, exposed, her body a roadmap of old scars and new bruises. Abby, touching herself, her head thrown back, a silent, desperate release…

As the image of Abby in the shower – naked now, in my mind’s eye, her powerful body slick with water and sweat, her hand pressed between her spread legs, her fingers moving with a desperate, urgent rhythm, her head thrown back in a silent, almost painful, release – flashed, vivid and unwanted, in my mind, I moaned, a raw, broken sound tearing from my own throat. My body thrummed with a new, unexpected, and deeply, horribly, confusing pleasure.

Jordan, mistaking my moan for a sign of approval, of encouragement, groaned against my mouth, her hands moving up to cup my breasts, her mouth leaving mine to trail hot, wet kisses down my neck.

It felt good. Objectively. Really, really fucking good. The kind of good that should have been simple, easy, uncomplicated.

But it wasn’t.

Because as I started grinding harder against Jordan’s thigh, which was pressed firmly, invitingly, between my legs, as I heard the soft sounds of my own moans, felt my own body arching, seeking… it wasn’t Jordan I was seeing behind my closed eyelids.

It was Abby.

Abby, in the shower, her body slick, her eyes closed, lost in her own private, desperate pleasure. Abby, vulnerable. Abby, exposed. Abby, a mess of contradictions and raw, untamed power.

Fuck.

I orgasmed. Unexpectedly. Rawly. A sharp, almost painful, gasp tearing from my throat as my body convulsed, as I pressed hard, desperately, into Jordan’s unyielding thigh.

Then, just as quickly as it had come, the pleasure receded, leaving behind a cold, sickening wave of shock and horror.

I pushed myself back, away from Jordan, creating a sudden, awkward space between us. My mind was whirling, a chaotic, nauseating vortex of confusion and self-loathing.

What the fuck was that?

I’d just come, grinding against Jordan like a goddamn animal, while fantasizing about… Abby. My commanding officer. The woman who hated my guts. The woman I supposedly hated right back.

Jordan was flushed, her dark eyes still half-lidded with pleasure, a satisfied smirk on her lips. "Everything okay, Spitfire?" she asked, her voice husky, as she leaned her head back against the cold concrete wall in a silent, clear invitation for more.

My mind was a chaotic mess. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"Yeah," I managed, my voice shaky, unconvincing even to my own ears. "I uh… I can’t do this," I said, pushing my messy, sweat-dampened hair back from my face with a trembling hand. Awkward, considering I’d just, you know, impromptu orgasmed against this woman’s leg while thinking about someone else entirely. 

Jordan seemed disappointed for a moment, her smirk faltering. Then, to her credit, she just laughed, a low, throaty sound, and pushed herself off the wall, her usual easygoing swagger returning. "No worries, no worries," she said, her tone casual, easy, as if my whole world hadn’t just fucking imploded in a mess of confusing, unwanted desire. "Some other time, maybe." She noticed the look on my face then, the lingering shock, the dawning horror, the sheer, unadulterated panic. "Hey, Ellie," she said, her voice softer now, a hint of genuine concern in her dark eyes. "Don’t get weird on me now. It’s not a big deal. Just… a little fun. No harm, no foul."

I wanted to scream. No, it’s not that! It’s about the fact that I’m apparently, horrifyingly, attracted to the most infuriating, insane, psycho control-freak I’ve ever met, and it’s making me lose my goddamn mind!

But I just forced a laugh, a weak, unconvincing, slightly hysterical sound, and clapped Jordan on the back with a familiarity I definitely didn’t feel right now. "Hey," I said, trying for a casual, devil-may-care tone that fell spectacularly flat. "What’s a little foreplay between friends, am I right?"

Jordan, thankfully, seemed to think this was hilarious. She threw her head back and laughed, a loud, booming sound that echoed in the empty corridor. "That’s the spirit! Knew you weren’t a prude."

Great. Just fucking great. Now I was not only a confused, possibly perverted, mess, but also a liar. Fantastic.

That night, sleep was a distant, mocking dream. I lay in my bunk, staring up at the cracked concrete ceiling of C-block, the distant, familiar sounds of the WLF stronghold – the hum of the generators, the occasional shout of a guard, the mournful sigh of the wind – a muted, oppressive hum. My body still thrummed with a confusing mix of leftover adrenaline, unspent sexual frustration, and a deep, unsettling unease that had taken root in the pit of my stomach and showed no signs of leaving.

Finally, in the cold, lonely darkness, surrounded by the snores and muttered sleep-talk of my squadmates, I admitted it to myself. For the very first time.

There was something there. Between me and Abby.

Something more than rivalry. More than a grudging, hard-won, tentative trust. More than a reluctant, almost hateful, and deeply confusing, attraction.

I wouldn’t name it, though. Couldn’t name it. Because to name it would be to make it real. 

And that was a truth too terrifying to face.

Chapter Text

Abby

A week.

A week of shoving memories so far down they almost choked me. The fight. The goddamn fight pit, the roar of the crowd, the slick feel of blood – not all of it mine – on my knuckles. The shower. Ellie’s too-observant, too-green eyes watching me, the steam, the humiliation, the mortifying loss of control. Her goddamn help , as if I were some pathetic, drunken fool who couldn’t manage to stay upright on her own. Which, admittedly, I had been. But she didn’t need to rub it in with that infuriating, almost gentle, competence.

I’d spent the past seven days in a state of self-imposed lockdown, burying the images, the sensations, the shame, under a mountain of relentless work and punishing gym sessions. I’d drilled my squad until they were ready to drop, pushed myself until my muscles screamed and my vision blurred, anything to silence the relentless, replaying loop of my own failures. Ellie’s face, too close in the steam. Her voice, too soft. Her touch, too… present.

It was a relief, a brutal, necessary distraction, when Isaac’s new assignment came through. Anything to stop thinking. Anything to feel the familiar, clean burn of purpose, of control.

The theatre district operation had been a success, a bloody, hard-won victory that had solidified my squad’s reputation – and mine – as Isaac’s most effective, most ruthless, instrument. So, naturally, he’d rewarded us with something even harder. Something that reeked of a high probability of not coming back in one piece.

Deep reconnaissance. Downtown Seattle. The old financial district, a labyrinth of crumbling skyscrapers and flooded streets, an area long since abandoned by any sane faction. Rumor had it, the Scars were using the network of underground maintenance tunnels and half-submerged parking garages as a major transit route, possibly even a hidden stronghold. And, as an added bonus, the entire goddamn district was supposedly teeming with long-dormant infected, recently disturbed by a series of minor seismic tremors that had been rattling the city for weeks. High risk, high reward. Isaac’s favorite kind of gamble. Especially when he wasn’t the one rolling the dice.

“Alright, listen up,” I’d barked at my squad during the pre-dawn briefing, the map of the target zone spread out on a makeshift table in our C-block barracks. “This is a ghost town. Unstable structures, limited visibility, and God knows what kind of shit crawling around in the dark. Our objective is threefold: identify primary Scar movement patterns, locate any potential fortified positions or supply caches, and assess the current infected threat level. We go in quiet, we observe, we get out. This is recon, not a goddamn extermination mission. Understood?”

A chorus of, “Yes, Lieutenant.” Their faces were grim, but there was a familiar, almost eager, light in their eyes. My squad. They were the best. They thrived on this shit.

Even Ellie, standing at the back, her arms crossed over her chest, that damn defiant set to her jaw, had a flicker of something that might have been anticipation in her too-green eyes. Or maybe it was just the reflection of the flickering gas lamp.

Despite my best efforts, despite the walls I’d tried to rebuild around myself in the past week, I was now achingly, infuriatingly aware of her. It was no longer just the background hum of annoyance at a disobedient, often insubordinate, recruit. It was something… more. Something sharper. More focused. I found myself tracking her movements during patrols, noticing the way her eyes constantly scanned our surroundings, the almost preternatural way she seemed to sense danger a split second before anyone else. That feral alertness, which had once just irritated the piss out of me, now sparked a reluctant, almost grudging, respect.

And something else.

A disquieting pull. A strange, unwelcome awareness of her physical presence – the way she moved, the way she held herself, the way her damn auburn hair always seemed to catch the light.

It was throwing me off my game, this new awareness. Making it harder to maintain my usual icy composure, my absolute, unwavering control.

The mission started, as these things always did, with a tense, silent infiltration. We slipped into the flooded, decaying heart of downtown Seattle like ghosts, the skeletal remains of skyscrapers looming over us like ancient, forgotten gods. The air was thick with the smell of stagnant water, mildew, and something else… something old and rotten that spoke of things best left undisturbed.

We moved slowly, methodically, through the treacherous, debris-strewn streets, the water sometimes up to our knees, cold and brackish. Every shadow seemed to writhe with unseen threats. Every distant creak of settling debris, every splash of water, sounded unnaturally loud in the oppressive silence.

Ellie was on point, her smaller frame an advantage in navigating the narrow, cluttered alleyways. She moved with a disturbing, almost unnatural, grace, her senses cranked to eleven, her eyes constantly scanning, assessing. I watched her, a knot of something tight and unfamiliar coiling in my gut. Respect, yes. But also… something else. Something I refused to name.

We encountered Scar patrols, as expected. Quick, brutal, close-quarters engagements in the echoing canyons of a dead city. Ellie fought like a demon, her movements a blur of deadly efficiency, her knife a silver flash in the gloom. She was a goddamn force of nature, a whirlwind of controlled violence that was both terrifying and… undeniably impressive.

During one such encounter, in a collapsed, multi-story parking garage that stank of piss and old oil, Ellie, with her almost uncanny ability to squeeze through impossibly tight spaces, had scouted ahead through a partially collapsed ventilation shaft. She’d returned a few minutes later, covered in dust and cobwebs, her face grim.

“Tripwire,” she’d announced, her voice a low murmur. “Pressure plate. Looks like they booby-trapped the main access tunnel. Would have taken out the whole damn squad.” She’d disabled it, of course. With a casual, almost dismissive, efficiency that was both infuriating and admirable.

“Took you long enough,” I’d grunted, my voice harsher than I intended. Old habits.

Ellie had just smirked, that familiar, sarcastic glint back in her eyes. “Yeah, well, some of us don’t have muscles the size of a small Bloater to get stuck in air vents, Lieutenant.”

Manny and Jordan had snickered. Even Taryn had cracked a rare, almost invisible, smile. I’d glared at them, a silent warning, but there was no real heat in it. Just a strange, unsettling awareness of the shift in the dynamic. Of Ellie, somehow, impossibly, becoming part of the team.

Later, we were ambushed by a pack of Stalkers in the darkened, echoing lobby of what had once been a grand, opulent bank. The things were fast, silent, their clicking calls bouncing off the marble walls, making it impossible to pinpoint their location. One of them, a grotesque, chitinous horror, lunged at me from my blind side, its claws extended, its fanged maw gaping.

I didn’t even have time to react.

Then, a blur of motion. Ellie. With a shouted warning, a raw, desperate sound, she’d tackled me, her smaller, wiry body slamming into mine with surprising force, sending us both sprawling to the cold, unforgiving marble floor. The Stalker’s claws had raked the air where I’d been standing a split second before.

I recovered first, my rifle already up, putting a burst of rounds into the Stalker’s grotesque head, sending it collapsing in a twitching, gurgling heap.

“Thanks,” I’d said, my voice curt, as I helped Ellie to her feet. Her hand in mine was small, calloused, surprisingly warm. “Didn’t see it.”

Ellie had just nodded, her face pale, her green eyes wide and a little wild. “Yeah, well,” she’d said, her voice a little shaky, but with that familiar, defiant edge already creeping back in. “Try not to get your pretty braid eaten next time, Lieutenant.”

The words, the casual, almost intimate, insolence of them, should have infuriated me. But instead, they’d sent a strange, unwelcome jolt, something that felt dangerously close to amusement through my system.

We set up a temporary camp in a relatively secure, multi-level parking garage, its concrete ramps offering a defensible position and a commanding view of the surrounding streets. The air was cold, damp, carrying the faint, metallic tang of rain and the ever-present stench of decay. We ate cold rations in silence, the only sounds the drip of water from a leaking pipe and the distant, mournful howl of an infected.

I was tending to a shallow gash on my arm, a souvenir from a close encounter with a particularly enthusiastic Scar earlier that day. Manny was helping me clean it, his touch surprisingly gentle for such a loud, abrasive asshole.

He was still buzzing from the fight pit, his eyes gleaming with a vicarious excitement. “Seriously, Abs,” he said, his voice a low, conspiratorial rumble. “You were a fucking animal in there the other night. Never seen anything like it. I bet even Isaac would’ve been impressed. You gotta do it again, man. For the morale, you know?”

I just grunted, a noncommittal sound. The memory of the fight pit, of the shame, the loss of control, it was still too raw, too close to the surface. “Not gonna happen, Manny,” I said, my voice flat. “Forget it.”

He grumbled good-naturedly, then, apparently trying to change the subject, to lighten the mood, he said, his voice laced with a knowing, locker-room smirk, “Well, hey, at least Jordan finally got lucky the other night, right? Been chasing that new girl’s tail for weeks. About damn time.”

I froze. My hand, holding the blood-soaked rag, stilled. The world seemed to tilt on its axis.

“What,” I said, my voice dangerously quiet, “are you talking about?”

Manny, oblivious to the sudden, icy storm brewing in my eyes, just laughed, a loud, booming sound that seemed to echo in the oppressive silence of the parking garage. “Ellie, man! After you, uh, took off from the party the other night? Owen and I, we left Jordan and Ellie to it. Figured they had some… unfinished business, you know?” He winked, a lewd, suggestive gesture.

The pieces clicked into place in my mind with a horrifying, sickening clarity.

Ellie. After she’d helped me, after she’d seen me at my absolute, most humiliating, weakest. After she’d practically carried me to the officer’s shower, stripped me down. She’d left me there, vulnerable and humiliated. And then she’d gone straight to Jordan.

And fucked her.

A hot, sick, violent twist of something that felt terrifyingly, undeniably like jealousy clenched in my gut, so intense it almost made me gasp. My hand, the one holding the rag, tightened into a fist, my knuckles white.

What right do I have to be jealous? The question screamed in my head, a mocking, accusatory voice. Ellie was nothing to me. Less than nothing. A recruit. A problem. A goddamn thorn in my side. Her sex life, or lack thereof, was none of my fucking business.

It was bad enough that she had helped me, seen me at my weakest, witnessed my utter, complete loss of control. That was a humiliation I would carry with me for a long, long time. Better that she’d left. Better that she’d… found her own distractions. Moved on. Forgotten about it.

But the image that flashed, unbidden, unwanted, in my mind – Ellie and Jordan together, Ellie’s back arched, her freckled cheeks flushed, those too-green eyes dark with pleasure as she moaned under Jordan’s touch, Jordan’s strong, scarred hands tangled in Ellie’s auburn hair…

It was vivid. It was unwelcome. And it was deeply, profoundly, unsettling.

I shut the thought down, hard, my face a mask of stone, my carefully constructed walls slamming back into place, thicker, higher, more impenetrable than ever.

I stood up abruptly, my movements stiff, jerky. “We move out in ten,” I barked at the squad, my voice harsher than necessary, cutting through the sudden, awkward silence that had fallen over our small group. “Gear check. Now.”

I retreated to a dark corner of the parking garage, ostensibly to clean my weapons, to check my ammo, to prepare for the next phase of the mission. But really, I just needed to get away. To try and regain control of the sudden, chaotic, violent storm that was raging inside me.

Later, much later, we were navigating a flooded, collapsed subway tunnel, the only viable route through a section of the city that had been completely leveled by bombs or earthquakes or God knows what else. The air was thick with spores, a choking, acrid miasma that burned our lungs and made our eyes water, even through the inadequate protection of our gas masks. The only light came from the narrow beams of our flashlights, cutting through the oppressive darkness, illuminating a nightmarish landscape of twisted metal, crumbling concrete, and the skeletal remains of long-dead commuters.

An unexpected tremor, a low, guttural rumble from deep within the earth, shook the tunnel. Dust and debris rained down from the already compromised ceiling. Then, with a deafening, terrifying roar, a section of the tunnel roof collapsed, tons of concrete and twisted rebar crashing down, splitting the squad in two.

Ellie and I on one side. Manny, Owen, Mel, Taryn, and Jordan on the other. Separated by an impenetrable wall of rubble.

We could hear muffled shouts from the other side, frantic, panicked. I managed to get through on the radio, my voice tight with a dread I refused to acknowledge.

“Manny! Report! Status!”

His voice crackled back, distorted by static and the thick concrete between us. “…alive… all alive… shaken… way back is… blocked… completely blocked…”

“Can you find another way through?” I demanded.

“…negative, Lieutenant… tunnel’s… unstable… looks like… too dangerous… without… your lead…”

Fuck. Fucking fuck.

We were trapped. Both groups. The way back was gone. The way forward, for them, was suicide without experienced guidance through this deathtrap.

“Alright,” I said, forcing a calmness I didn’t feel into my voice. “New plan. We can’t regroup here. Too risky. Both units will proceed independently to the emergency rendezvous point. The old aquarium, on the waterfront. You know the location. We’ll meet you there. Understood?”

It was a long shot. A desperate gamble. The aquarium was miles away, through some of the most dangerous, uncharted territory in the city. But it was the only option we had left.

“…copy that, Lieutenant… Aquarium… see you… there…” Manny’s voice, then a burst of static, and the radio went dead.

Silence.

A heavy, suffocating silence descended in the tunnel, broken only by the drip of water from the ceiling and the ragged sound of my own breathing.

I was left staring at the impassable wall of debris, the dust still settling in the narrow beam of my flashlight.

Alone.

Alone with Ellie.

The one person in this goddamn world who seemed to see right through me, right through the armor, right to the raw, bleeding, terrified core I tried so desperately to hide. The one person who made me feel more out of control, more exposed, more… vulnerable … than any Scar, any infected, any goddamn nightmare this broken world could throw at me.

And now, we had to rely on each other to survive.

Chapter Text

Ellie

Well, fuck.

Stranded in a collapsed subway tunnel with Lieutenant 'Control-Is-My-Middle-Name' Anderson. Just when I thought this week couldn't get any weirder, the universe decided to up the ante with a goddamn earthquake and a side of forced proximity. My life was a fucking punchline.

The air was thick with dust, so thick it felt like I was breathing in powdered concrete and the ghosts of a thousand dead commuters. The narrow beam of my flashlight cut a swathe through the oppressive gloom, illuminating a chaotic mess of twisted rebar, shattered concrete, and the gaping maw where the tunnel roof had caved in, sealing us off from the rest of the squad.

For a split second, a wild, almost hysterical, laugh bubbled up in my chest. Of course. Of fucking course. Just when things were starting to get… complicated, just when that fragile, unspoken truce between me and Abby felt like it might actually be leading somewhere other than mutual annihilation, the world decided to literally drop a ton of shit on us.

Abby, a few feet away, was already moving, her flashlight beam sweeping across the debris, assessing the damage. Even covered in dust, her face streaked with grime and what looked like a fresh cut above her eyebrow, she radiated that infuriating, undeniable competence. Her military training, that ironclad WLF discipline, had kicked in instantly. Me? My first instinct was to find the nearest dark corner and have a good, old-fashioned panic attack. Or maybe just start shooting at the shadows. Old habits.

“You hit?” Her voice, when it came, was rough, gravelly, but surprisingly steady. No trace of the panic that was currently doing a frantic tap-dance on my own internal organs.

I did a quick mental inventory. My shoulder throbbed where I’d landed hard after the initial tremor, and I was pretty sure I’d scraped my knee to shit, but nothing felt broken. “Nothing broken,” I managed, my voice sounding a lot shakier than I wanted. “You?”

She grunted, a noncommittal sound, already probing the edges of the cave-in, testing the stability of the remaining structure. “Minor contusions. We’re alive. That’s a start.”

Yeah. A start. Trapped in a collapsed subway tunnel, deep in Scar territory, with a dwindling supply of ammo, no medic, and Abby Fucking Anderson for company. Living the goddamn dream.

After a few tense, futile minutes of trying to raise the rest of the squad on the radio – nothing but static and the faint, mocking echo of our own desperate calls – Abby made the decision.

“This way’s blocked solid,” she stated, her flashlight beam playing over the mountain of rubble that separated us from Manny and the others. “No way through. And this whole section feels unstable. We need to find another way out. Head for the aquarium.”

The aquarium. On the waterfront. Miles away. Through some of the most dangerous, uncharted, and undoubtedly Scar-infested territory in this goddamn city. Joy.

She took point, naturally. Lieutenant Anderson, always in charge, even when the world was literally collapsing around her. I followed, my rifle held at the ready, my senses cranked to eleven, every nerve ending thrumming with a mixture of adrenaline, exhaustion, and a deep, bone-weary resentment.

Navigating the ruins of downtown Seattle was a special kind of hell. The streets were flooded, the water a murky, stagnant soup that probably harbored more diseases than a pre-outbreak hospital. Buildings leaned at precarious angles, their shattered windows like vacant, staring eyes. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the drip of water, the creak of settling debris, and the distant, mournful howl of the wind. And, of course, the occasional, bloodcurdling shriek of an infected, a sound that never failed to send a jolt of ice-cold fear down my spine.

We moved slowly, cautiously, Abby’s strength and tactical knowledge a grudgingly admitted asset. She found paths through the rubble I would have missed, identified potential ambush points before they became actual ambush points, her movements economical and precise, even in the treacherous, uneven terrain. I, in turn, used my smaller frame, my agility, my knack for squeezing through impossibly tight spaces, to scout ahead, to check for tripwires, to listen for the tell-tale sounds of Scars or infected.

We were a team. A reluctant, dysfunctional, and thoroughly pissed-off team, but a team nonetheless. Forced cooperation. Forced trust. It was a new and deeply uncomfortable dynamic.

The dialogue between us, when it happened, was sharp, sarcastic, a verbal sparring match that barely masked the underlying tension, the unspoken things that hung heavy in the air between us.

“Watch your footing, Williams,” Abby would grunt, as I navigated a particularly precarious pile of rubble.

“Yeah, well, try not to trip over your own giant ego, Lieutenant,” I’d shoot back. “It’s a fucking tripping hazard.”

Or, after I’d disarmed a particularly nasty Scar trap involving a tripwire and a rusty bear trap: “Took you long enough.”

“Sorry, were you in a hurry to get yourself impaled? My bad.”

It was exhausting. The constant vigilance, the physical exertion, the never-ending rain that had started up again, a cold, relentless drizzle that seeped into our clothes and chilled us to the bone. And then there was Abby. Her presence, a constant, infuriating, and undeniably… compelling … force beside me.

As night began to fall, painting the already grey cityscape in even darker, more menacing shades, the rain intensified, lashing down with a cold, brutal fury. We were both soaked, shivering, our supplies dwindling, our energy reserves hitting rock bottom. We needed shelter. And soon.

Abby, her flashlight beam cutting through the driving rain, spotted it first. A relatively intact high-rise apartment building, one of those luxury condo monstrosities from before the outbreak, its upper floors less likely to have been picked over or heavily infested than the street-level ruins.

“There,” she said, her voice rough with exhaustion. “We’ll try for one of the upper floors. Better vantage point. More defensible.”

Getting up there was another fucking ordeal. The lower floors were a deathtrap, a maze of collapsed ceilings, flooded corridors, and the occasional, unwelcome, surprise party of infected. We cleared them cautiously, floor by agonizing floor, our movements slow, deliberate, our senses on high alert.

Finally, near the top, we found it. A corner apartment, its heavy wooden door still surprisingly intact, though the lock had long since been busted. Inside, it was a ghost of a life interrupted. Dust-covered furniture. Framed photographs on the walls, smiling, oblivious faces from a world that no longer existed. A child’s teddy bear, forgotten in a corner, its button eyes staring blankly into the darkness. It was… unsettling. A stark, painful reminder of everything that had been lost.

We barricaded the door with a heavy, ornate dresser, the sound of its scraping legs loud and jarring in the oppressive silence. The apartment was dark, the power long dead. We relied on the weak, flickering beams of our flashlights, which were also, I noted with a fresh wave of anxiety, starting to dim.

The city outside was a chorus of distant screams, the eerie howl of the wind, and the relentless, drumming beat of the rain against the shattered windows. We were alone. Trapped. Exhausted. And the next day… the next day was going to be a special kind of hell. Trying to make it to the aquarium, through what was now essentially uncontested Scar territory, on our own, without backup, without a medic… the odds weren’t exactly in our favor.

We were both wounded, too. Minor cuts and bruises, mostly, from the tunnel collapse, from the various tumbles and scrapes we’d taken navigating the ruins. But even minor wounds could turn septic in this shithole. Infection was a slow, nasty way to die.

Abby, wincing, shrugged off her tactical vest, then her damp, grime-stiffened shirt. She was examining a nasty gash on her side, just below her ribs, where a piece of rebar or something equally unpleasant had apparently tried to make her acquaintance during the tunnel collapse. It was bleeding sluggishly, a dark, angry red against the pale skin of her stomach.

My breath hitched.

It shouldn’t have felt weird. It shouldn’t have. I’d seen Abby practically naked in the officer’s shower after the fight night, hadn’t I? Seen the bruises, the scars, the sheer, undeniable power of her body. So why did this, this simple act of her removing her shirt to tend to a wound, send a jolt of something hot and sharp and deeply, profoundly, confusing through my system?

But it did.

Seeing her again, like this, in the flickering, unreliable light of our dying flashlights, the play of muscle under her skin as she moved, the stark, almost shocking, vulnerability of her exposed torso… it brought back all those unwelcome, confusing physical sensations from the shower, from my own fucked-up dreams, from that goddamn fight pit.

I was deeply, uncomfortably, infuriatingly aroused. An unwelcome heat pooled low in my belly, a tight, coiling knot of something I refused to name.

I watched, a silent, unwilling voyeur, as Abby struggled to clean the wound with a piece of her torn shirt and some brackish, questionable water from her canteen. Her movements were clumsy, hampered by the awkward angle, by the pain that was clearly radiating through her side.

“Let me help you,” I said, my voice coming out rougher, huskier, than I intended. The words were out before I could stop them, before I could remember that I was supposed to be hating her, avoiding her, maintaining a professional, if not actively hostile, distance.

Abby glared at me, her blue-grey eyes cold, hard, suspicious. “I don’t want your fucking help,” she snapped, her voice a low, dangerous growl.

I could tell she was still pissed off, still sensitive, about that night after the fight. About me seeing her lose control. About me… helping her then. The memory of it, the shame, the humiliation, it was probably still a raw, festering wound.

“Fine,” I snapped back, stung despite myself, my own anger flaring in response to hers. “Bleed out then. See if I fucking care.” I turned away, pointedly, taking inventory of my own battered body. I had cuts, bruises, a throbbing ache in my shoulder where I’d landed hard during the collapse. My clothes were stiff with dried blood, grime, and God knows what else. I felt disgusting.

The apartment, despite its air of dusty neglect, was surprisingly well-preserved. In what had once been a bedroom, I found a stack of old, folded clothes in a dresser drawer – t-shirts, sweatpants, mostly too big for me, but clean. Ish. And on the small, precarious balcony overlooking the storm-lashed city, I found a plastic bucket, half-filled with fresh, clean rainwater. A small miracle.

I scavenged an old, relatively clean-looking dishcloth from the ransacked kitchen. Stripping down to my boxers and sports bra – no point in being modest now — I began to wipe myself down, the cool rainwater a blessed relief against my hot, aching skin. I cleaned the grime, the dust, the dried blood from my wounds, wincing as the cloth passed over a particularly nasty scrape on my forearm.

When I came back into the main room, drying my hair with the damp cloth, Abby was just… staring at me. Her cheeks were flushed, a dark, angry red in the dim, flickering light of our flashlights, her eyes wide, almost… shocked.

I realized, with a jolt of something that might have been amusement, or maybe just profound irritation, that Abby Anderson, Lieutenant Badass, was deeply, profoundly, uncomfortable with my partial nudity. Even though I was still wearing more than she’d been in that shower. The irony wasn’t lost on me. It was almost… funny. Almost.

“Need something, Lieutenant?” I asked, my voice dripping with a sarcasm I didn’t even try to hide, my own defensiveness flaring up in response to her obvious discomfort.

Abby just glared at me, that familiar, icy mask slamming back into place. She quickly turned away, resuming her search through the ransacked apartment kitchen, her movements stiff, jerky. I pulled on the scavenged clothes I'd found – a soft, faded band t-shirt that smelled faintly of cedar and mothballs, and a pair of too-big grey sweatpants I had to roll at the waist. I tossed the remaining items, another t-shirt and a pair of drawstring shorts, towards where Abby had returned from the kitchen. She found a couple of dented, unlabeled cans of something that might have once been food, and brought them back to where I had settled on the dusty, threadbare rug, my journal open on my lap, the stub of a pencil clutched in my hand.

I needed to write. To process. To try and make some kind of sense of the chaotic, confusing mess that was my life, my feelings, my… whatever the fuck this was with Abby.

The city outside, a wound. Inside, this breathing silence next to mine, I scrawled, the pencil scratching against the rough paper. Saw her armor crack tonight. Not metal, but flesh. The strong fall. A body, after all. Just a body, trying to mend itself in the dark. These walls she builds – are they to keep things out? Or something in? And this small, bitter seed in my chest – is it pity? Or just recognition? The heart, a stubborn, stupid animal.

Abby, having changed into the clothes I’d tossed her – the loose t-shirt and shorts making her look younger, softer, less… imposing, without the rigid lines of her WLF uniform – returned, her face still set in that familiar, stony mask. She pushed one of the dented cans towards me with a noncommittal grunt.

It was clear she was still upset about something. The tension from the previous week, it was still simmering between us, a thick, unspoken miasma. I broke the silence, the words tasting like ash. "Hope the others are okay. Manny, Owen… all of them."

Abby’s head snapped up, her eyes narrowed, that familiar icy mask firmly in place. "Worried about your new girl-toy, Williams?" she sneered, the venom back in her voice, sharp and cold. "Missing Jordan already?"

Her words, the dismissive, almost contemptuous way she said Jordan’s name, it scraped against something raw inside me. It wasn’t just about Jordan. It was about the assumption. The judgment. The way Abby always seemed to reduce everything, everyone, to some kind of strategic calculation, some potential weakness.

"What the fuck is your problem, Anderson?" I snapped, my voice rising, sharper than I intended. The exhaustion, the fear, the constant, grinding tension of the past few days, it all just… boiled over. "Yeah, I’m worried about them! They’re our squad! Or did you forget that in your little power trip?"

Abby’s control, the one she clung to with such ferocious, desperate tenacity, finally snapped.

"I thought I’d made myself clear, recruit," she snarled, her voice low and dangerous, like the growl of a cornered animal. "But I guess I need to say it again, just to make sure it manages to penetrate that thick fucking skull of yours." She took a step closer, her shadow falling over me, her eyes blazing with a cold, hard fury. "No relationships in the squad. Our lives, the mission, they aren’t worth some emotional train wreck I’m sure you’ll cause when you’re done playing your little games with Jordan."

I bristled, my own anger flaring in response to hers. "Wow, thanks for the fucking lesson in team building, Lieutenant," I retorted, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "But for your information, Jordan and I? We’re just friends." True, mostly. Or at least, a gross oversimplification. But Abby didn’t need to know the messy, complicated truth of whatever the hell had happened between me and Jordan in that corridor. Especially since I wasn’t even sure I understood it myself.

Abby scoffed, a harsh, humorless sound. "I don’t think ‘just friends’ are pulling each other behind closed doors to fuck after a night of heavy drinking, Ellie."

The use of my first name, the way she spat it out like an accusation, it stung. "Yeah, well, like you’d know anything about that," I shot back, the words out before I could stop them, fueled by a sudden, inexplicable surge of defensiveness, of… something else.

Abby’s eyes narrowed, her expression darkening. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," I said, though it was clearly not nothing. My mouth, as usual, was running away with me, digging me into a deeper and deeper hole. "Maybe you should try it sometime. Letting off a little steam. God knows you need it. I mean, when’s the last time you got laid, Anderson? Or do you just get off on bossing people around and making their lives miserable?"

Abby’s jaw tightened, and she looked away for a beat, a flicker of something unreadable – discomfort? – crossing her face before she met my gaze again. Her voice, when she spoke, was quieter, a defensive edge to it. "What makes you think I’m not?"

I raised an eyebrow, my voice dripping with a sarcasm I didn’t quite feel. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. Seriously," Abby said, but the anger felt forced, like a poorly constructed wall. "My sex life isn’t up for debate, recruit." Her voice was tight, strained.

"Great," I snapped, pissed off now too, though my anger felt muddled, confused by her strange reaction. Why the fuck were we even talking about this? What did it matter? "Well, then neither is mine, Lieutenant ."

An awkward, charged silence descended between us again, filled only by the sound of the rain lashing against the windows and the distant, mournful howl of the wind.

I, still annoyed, still feeling that weird, unwelcome thrum of… something… in my own gut, couldn’t resist one last jab. Because apparently, I had a death wish. "Well," I said, my voice deliberately light, casual, "if whoever you’re supposedly fucking isn’t working out for you, I’m sure Owen would be happy to help you out. God knows he’s practically drooling every time you walk into a room."

"What makes you say that?" Abby asked, her voice suddenly quieter, a flicker of something unreadable, almost… vulnerable?… in her eyes. She sat down on the floor then, opposite me, her scavenged shorts riding up a little as she leaned back against a dusty armchair, stretching those long, ridiculously muscled legs out in front of her. My eyes snagged on the powerful curve of her thighs for a fraction of a second too long.

"Hmm, I don’t know," I said, dragging out the words, enjoying, just a little, the crack in her usually impenetrable armor. "Maybe the fact that he’s always staring after you in that sad, slightly obsessive, puppy-dog way of his?"

Abby sighed, a heavy, resigned sound, the anger, the defensiveness, draining out of her, replaced by a familiar, bone-deep weariness. "Yeah," she said, her voice barely a whisper, so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. "Yeah, I guess he is." She looked away, her gaze distant, lost in some memory I couldn’t access.

"So…" I said, unable to stop myself, my curiosity, that relentless, self-destructive itch, getting the better of me again. "What happened there? With you and Owen? I mean, no offense, but he doesn’t really seem like… your type. Or, you know, a best fit." Not that I knew a damn thing about what kind of fit would be best for Abby. Nope, not going there.

Abby glared at me, that familiar, icy mask slamming back into place for a moment. Then, just as quickly, it softened, her expression shifting, becoming… something else. Something almost sad. As if she was remembering.

"We, uh…" She paused, as if grounding herself, forcing the words out. "We grew up together. In the same community. Since we were kids." Her voice was low, quiet, almost gentle. A tone I’d never heard from her before. "He was my first… well, my first everything, I guess. Best friend. Then I guess, boyfriend, for a while." She hesitated, the old pain, the raw, unhealed wound of it, clear on her face, even in the dim, flickering light. "After my dad…" she paused again, her voice catching, her eyes clouding over. "After some shit went down… we just kind of… grew apart. Or, I guess, I did. Isaac… he was asking a lot of me. And I just… I didn’t have anything left to give. To anyone else."

I was silent for a long moment, listening, the raw, unexpected honesty in Abby’s voice, the glimpse of the vulnerable, grieving girl beneath the layers of muscle and ice and WLF discipline, it was disarming. Unsettling.

"Yeah," I said finally, my own voice quiet, subdued. "Yeah, I can understand that."

And fuck. Now I felt like I had to reciprocate. Share a piece of my own fucked-up, grief-soaked past. Fair’s fair, right? Or maybe I just… wanted to. Wanted her to see that she wasn’t the only one carrying around a goddamn mountain of ghosts.

"Back where I came from…" I started, the words feeling awkward, foreign on my tongue. "I, uh… I had a girlfriend."

Abby looked up, startled, her eyes widening slightly, that unreadable expression back on her face. "A girlfriend?" There was an odd note in her voice, something that sounded almost like… interest? Surprise?

My defensiveness, always lurking just beneath the surface, flared. "Yeah," I snapped. "You got a problem with that, Anderson?"

"No," Abby said quickly, shaking her head, her gaze surprisingly steady. "No problem."

"Anyway," I continued, the name a familiar, bittersweet ache in my chest. "My girlfriend, Dina… she was great. Smart, kind, funny… beautiful." I looked up then, met Abby’s gaze. There was a weird expression on her face, one I couldn’t quite decipher. Not disgust. Not judgment. Something else. Something… softer?

"So…?" Abby prompted, her voice quiet now, almost gentle. It was obvious the story didn’t have a happy ending. They rarely did, in this goddamn world.

I shrugged, a bitter taste in my mouth, the old, familiar guilt and self-loathing a heavy weight in my chest. "So. I just did what I do best. I fucked it up. And then I ran away." I finished, pushing my hair back from my face with a trembling hand, slouching against the dusty wall, the admission leaving me feeling raw, exposed, utterly, completely, drained.

Abby made a noncommittal sound, a low hum in her throat that could have been agreement, or sympathy, or just… acceptance. An awkward, charged silence descended between us again, filled only by the sound of the rain lashing against the windows and the distant, mournful howl of the wind. I broke it, my voice a little too loud in the sudden quiet. "We should probably get some sleep. Long day tomorrow."

There was only one bed in the small, dilapidated apartment – a dusty, queen-sized mattress on a broken, lopsided frame. No couch. Not even a vaguely comfortable-looking chair.

Abby, after a long, tense moment, gestured towards the floor, which was warped and still slightly damp in places from the never-ending Seattle rain. "I'll take the floor."

"Don't be stupid," I said, my voice rougher than I intended, the words out before I could stop them. "The bed’s more than big enough for two people. And there’s no point in posting watch. We’re so high up, if anything tries to get to us, we’ll hear it coming a mile away." It was true. The apartment was on one of the upper floors of the high-rise, the lower levels a deathtrap of infected and crumbling, unstable infrastructure. We were relatively safe here. For now.

Without waiting for a reply, I climbed into one side of the bed, the springs groaning in protest. I pulled my journal and a stub of a pencil from my pack, needing a distraction, any distraction, from the sudden, intense, almost unbearable awkwardness of the situation.

Abby seemed deeply uncomfortable. She hesitated for a long, agonizing moment, her gaze fixed on the bed, then on me, then back to the bed again. Finally, with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the entire goddamn world, she climbed into the other side, keeping as much distance between us as the sagging mattress would allow, her back pointedly turned to me.

I tried to focus on my journal, on the blank page, on the words I needed to find to make sense of… everything. But I couldn’t. I was too aware of her. Of Abby. Lying beside me. Close enough to touch.

I couldn't help but watch as she started to undo her braid, her movements slow, tired, almost… pained. She grunted softly, a low sound of discomfort, and I realized her shoulder must be hurting from the fight, from the fall in the tunnel, from the general, all-around shittiness of our current situation.

I groaned internally. Fine. Fucking FINE. My own stupid, traitorous empathy was going to be the death of me.

"Let me help," I said, the words out before I could stop them, before I could remember that this was Abby, my CO, the woman who probably still wanted to slit my throat. I shifted in the bed, sitting up, moving closer, until I was kneeling behind her.

My hands, almost of their own accord, replaced hers on the thick, blonde braid, my fingers brushing lightly against hers, a fleeting, electric contact that made her stiffen, her whole body going rigid, her back still to me, the muscles in her shoulders and neck tight as coiled springs.

I ignored it. Or tried to. My fingers, surprisingly steady, worked to loosen the intricate weave of her braid. Abby’s hair was surprisingly heavy, and unexpectedly, shockingly, soft, despite the grime and the dried blood I knew was still tangled in it. As the braid came undone, it tumbled down her back, a thick, flaxen sheet of pale gold that reached almost to her lower back. It was so much longer than I’d imagined. And it… it seemed to soften her, somehow. Humanize her. Without the severe, militaristic braid, without the armor, without the weapons… Abby looked… younger. Different. Almost fragile.

Just a woman. Probably only a few years older than me.

The thought was a disquieting, unwelcome intrusion. A crack in my own carefully constructed walls.

I quickly, almost too quickly, moved back to my side of the bed, my heart pounding, my mind racing. I snatched up my journal, using it as a shield, a willing distraction from the storm of weird, confusing, and deeply unsettling thoughts in my head.

I scrawled a few lines on the page, the words a vague, desperate attempt to capture the maelstrom of my complicated feelings about the woman lying beside me. 

“River of gold in the dark, unbraided her tonight,

Found not a soldier, but just a girl,

What do you do with a truth that has soft hair?"

Chapter Text

Abby

The silence in the small apartment was a thick, suffocating blanket, punctuated only by the relentless drumming of rain against the boarded-up windows and the soft, surprisingly steady rhythm of Ellie’s breathing beside me in the dark. Sleep was a distant, mocking stranger, a luxury I hadn’t been afforded in what felt like a lifetime. My mind, a goddamn racetrack of anxieties and unwelcome images, refused to power down.

It had been hours since Ellie had finally closed that battered notebook she’d been scribbling in, her pencil scratching against the page with a quiet intensity that had somehow managed to both irritate and intrigue me. Hours of me lying ramrod straight on my side of the sagging mattress, feigning sleep, every muscle in my body screaming in protest, every nerve ending thrumming with a raw, exposed awareness.

It wasn’t unusual for me to be up all night. Sleep had become a fickle, unreliable companion these last few years, especially since I’d moved into my own small, solitary room back at the stadium. It had been easier, somehow, when I was a kid, curled up on the lumpy couch in our tiny Firefly apartment, my dad’s steady, reassuring presence in the next room a bulwark against the nightmares that even then had tried to claw their way into my subconscious. Later, for a while, there had been Owen’s warmth beside me, his arm slung carelessly over my waist, his quiet breathing a soothing counterpoint to the chaos that always seemed to be raging just outside our door, and often, inside my own head.

And now… Ellie.

Her breathing, slow and even in the darkness, was an odd, unsettling counterpoint to the frantic, chaotic race of my own thoughts. Ellie, who was a walking, talking, infuriating disruption to every carefully constructed wall I’d ever built. Ellie, who had seen me at my absolute worst, my most humiliatingly vulnerable. Ellie, who had, with a few carelessly aimed words, managed to peel back layers of my armor I hadn’t even known existed.

I remembered my embarrassment, hot and sharp, when she’d called me out on my (lack of) sex life. That sarcastic, knowing little smirk on her face. I hadn’t thought she’d bought my bullshit lie. And why the fuck did it even matter what she thought? Why had I even engaged? She was my subordinate. A recruit. Her opinions, her observations, they should have been meaningless.

But they weren’t.

And then she’d started talking about her ex-girlfriend. Dina. A woman who sounded too good to be true, all smart and kind and funny and beautiful. A woman who, in Ellie’s soft, almost wistful, telling, had represented a life, a possibility, that had been snatched away, or perhaps, more accurately, thrown away. It had confirmed what I’d already suspected, from Ellie’s own guarded body language, from Manny’s unwelcome, leering remarks after the fight pit, from the way her eyes sometimes lingered on Jordan with an intensity that was anything but platonic.

Ellie was a lesbian.

Which, again, shouldn’t matter. Didn’t matter. Her sexuality was her own goddamn business. It had no bearing on her ability to follow orders, to fight, to survive. It was just… another piece of the puzzle. Another layer to the enigma that was Ellie Williams.

Beside me, in the sagging center of the old mattress, Ellie started to shift, a restless, twitching movement. She let out a small, distressed gasp, then another. A wounded sound, soft and broken in the darkness.

My own breath caught in my throat.

Then, her voice, almost a whisper, a raw, broken thread of sound: "Joel…" Or maybe it was "Joe"? I couldn’t quite make it out. But the name, whoever it belonged to, was clearly a source of pain, of terror.

She was having a nightmare.

A familiar ache, a pang of something that felt dangerously, terrifyingly like empathy, twisted in my gut. I knew about nightmares. Oh, I knew about them. They were my constant companions, my unwelcome bedfellows. The faces of the dead, the screams of the dying, the endless, replaying loop of my own failures, my own losses…

I rolled over, slowly, carefully, trying not to make the ancient springs of the mattress groan in protest. I reached out, my hand hesitant, almost of its own accord, and pushed gently against her shoulder.

"Hey," I murmured, my voice rough with sleep I hadn’t actually experienced, and a lifetime of unshed emotions. "Wake up, Ellie."

I could feel the surprising heat of her skin, the wiry strength of her shoulder beneath my palm. Her skin was so soft. Unexpectedly so.

Ellie let out another little gasp, a broken, vulnerable sound that made something clench, hard and painful, in my chest.

"Ellie," I said again, my voice a little louder this time, a little more insistent. "You’re just having a nightmare. It’s okay."

I didn’t know why I said it. It was a lie. A stupid, pointless lie. Nothing in this goddamn world was really okay. Not anymore. But some part of me, some deeply buried, long-forgotten part, some traitorous, sentimental fool I thought I’d killed off years ago, wanted to comfort her. Wanted to chase away the demons that were clearly tormenting her.

Ellie startled, a sharp, convulsive movement, her eyes still closed, her body tense, coiled like a spring. She was half-waking, caught in that terrifying, disorienting space between nightmare and reality.

"It’s okay," I repeated, my hand still resting on her arm, my thumb stroking, almost unconsciously, against the soft skin there. "It’s gonna be okay. It was just a dream."

And then Ellie did something truly terrifying.

Something that shattered my carefully constructed composure into a million goddamn pieces.

Still half-asleep, lost in the dregs of her nightmare, her body seeking warmth, comfort, some anchor in the terrifying darkness, she rolled over. Towards me. And curled up against my stiff, unyielding, and suddenly, shockingly, receptive form.

Her eyes stayed closed, a faint frown creasing her brow, her mouth parting slightly as she nestled into my side, one arm thrown carelessly across my waist, her leg tangling with mine, her knee nudging against my hip.

My heart hammered against my ribs as if I’d just sprinted a mile, as if I were back in the fight pit, adrenaline coursing through my veins, every nerve ending on fire. The length of Ellie’s warm, half-clothed body was now pressed fully against mine. I could feel where her thigh had shifted to cover my own, the soft, almost unbearable, tickle of her loose auburn hair against my shoulder and neck, the faint, clean scent of her skin, mingled with the woodsmoke and something else, something wild and green, that always seemed to cling to her.

Should I push her off? Shove her away? Tell her to get her goddamn hands off me?

Should I… hold her closer?

I had no fucking idea what to do. My mind was a blank, screaming void. Every instinct, every ounce of training, every carefully constructed defense mechanism I possessed, was screaming at me to retreat, to re-establish control, to put distance between us.

But my body… my body, that traitorous, disobedient, and apparently, deeply lonely thing… it finally seemed to have gotten what it needed. The warmth. The closeness. The simple, uncomplicated, almost unbearable, human contact.

I could feel my own tense muscles starting to relax, the frantic race of my thoughts slowing, the sharp edges of my anxiety, my anger, my confusion, beginning to soften, to blur.

Against my will, against every instinct for self-preservation I possessed, against every goddamn rule I’d ever lived by, I fell asleep.

I woke slowly, reluctantly, to a feeling of warmth, of… comfort. A feeling so unfamiliar, so alien, it took me a long moment to place it. My body felt heavy, relaxed in a way it hadn’t in years, maybe ever. I remembered the soft heat of another body pressed closely to mine, a steady, reassuring presence in the darkness. I turned in the bed, instinctively seeking that warmth, that comfort, my hand reaching out…

And found only the cool, dry, empty sheets.

Consciousness crashed back, hard and unwelcome, a brutal, sobering slap to the face.

Ellie.

I remembered her body, pressed flush against mine in sleep. Remembered the surprising softness of her skin, the way her hair had tickled my neck, the steady, even rhythm of her breathing against my chest. Remembered my own body’s involuntary, deeply shameful, and utterly, completely, terrifyingly, welcome , response.

I sat up abruptly, pushing myself out of the now very empty, very cold, bed, my heart pounding with a fresh wave of mortification.

The room was empty. Sunlight, weak and watery, was just beginning to filter in through the grimy, boarded-up apartment window, painting stripes of pale gold across the dusty floor.

Ellie was gone.

I undressed quickly, my fingers fumbling with the stiff, unfamiliar fastenings of the scavenged pajamas I’d worn, my skin crawling with a mixture of embarrassment and a strange, lingering warmth that I refused to acknowledge. I pulled on my old, stiff WLF fatigues, the familiar weight of the uniform a small, welcome comfort, a return to a semblance of order, of control.

I braided my hair back, tight, so tight it pulled at my scalp, trying to forget the feel of Ellie’s fingers, surprisingly gentle, almost tender, against my head last night as she’d undone my hair. I tied my boots, my movements jerky, efficient, checked my weapons with a practiced, almost obsessive, thoroughness, as if I needed to be prepared for battle before even exiting the small, confining space of the bedroom.

Who knows, maybe I did. The battle raging inside my own goddamn head was already threatening to consume me.

In the small, cluttered living room, it was clear Ellie had been up for a while. Her own uniform was back on, every strap and buckle perfectly aligned, her weapons laid out on a dusty, overturned crate, cleaned and ready. A few empty, dented cans on the floor beside her showed she’d already eaten.

She didn’t look at me when I entered, her focus entirely on a water-stained, pre-outbreak map of downtown Seattle spread out on the floor between us. She just gestured with her chin towards the two remaining cans of what looked like congealed, vaguely meat-like, food.

"Breakfast," Ellie said, her voice flat, devoid of its usual sarcastic bite, utterly, completely, unreadable. "And then we need to make a plan."

We ate in silence, the air thick with the ghosts of the previous night – the shared confessions, Ellie’s nightmare, the unexpected, unwelcome, and deeply, profoundly, confusing intimacy of the shared bed. The silence was a living thing, a suffocating presence that pressed down on me, making it hard to breathe, harder still to think.

Then, we got down to business. The map. The route. The objective. The aquarium.

The conversation was all business, clipped and professional, each of us falling back into our familiar roles – me, the Lieutenant, issuing orders, assessing risks, formulating strategy; her, the subordinate, offering surprisingly astute observations, pointing out potential ambush points, her knowledge of the city’s ruined landscape, gleaned from God knows where, proving invaluable.

But underneath the tactical jargon, the curt exchanges, the carefully maintained professional distance, there was something else. A new, heightened awareness of each other. The intensity, the violence, of our previous interactions – the fight in the records room, the confrontation in the alley, the constant, simmering animosity – it had been… softened, somehow. Tempered by the odd, unexpected intimacy of the previous night.

I found myself looking at Ellie differently. Seeing not just a reckless, insubordinate, and deeply infuriating recruit, but… a girl. A young woman, barely out of her teens, haunted by her own ghosts, her own nightmares. Just like me.

The thought was… unsettling. But not entirely unwelcome. It was a crack in the wall. A tiny, almost imperceptible, shift in the landscape of my own carefully guarded emotions.

And it terrified me.

We made it. Against all odds.

After a grueling, terrifying, and almost suicidally dangerous trek through the flooded, treacherous, and relentlessly hostile ruins of downtown Seattle – a journey that involved navigating unstable, creaking office buildings that threatened to collapse at any moment, avoiding numerous Scar patrols that seemed to materialize from the very shadows, and fighting our way through several pockets of particularly aggressive infected drawn by the recent seismic tremors – we finally reached the old Seattle Aquarium on the waterfront.

It was a familiar landmark for me. A place Owen and I had explored in the early, almost idyllic, days of the WLF, back when we were younger, more hopeful, before the world had quite so thoroughly, so brutally, kicked the shit out of us. We’d even cleared it out once, used it as a temporary HQ on a long-range patrol, back before the Scars had become such an entrenched, fanatical threat.

The main exhibit hall, where we found the rest of the squad holed up, surrounded by the ghostly, empty tanks and faded, peeling murals of a long-dead aquatic world, was a scene of chaos and relief.

The reunion was loud, emotional. Manny, his face split by a wide, relieved grin, clapped me on the back, hard enough to make my teeth rattle. "Lieutenant! Holy shit, you made it! We were starting to think you were Bloater food!"

Mel, her usual calm composure slightly frayed, rushed over, her eyes scanning me, then Ellie, for injuries, her hands already reaching for her medical kit. "Are you two okay? Wounded? We heard the collapse, thought…"

Taryn, our stoic sniper, just gave a rare, almost imperceptible, nod of approval, her eyes, for once, holding something other than their usual cool, detached assessment. Relief, maybe. Or just surprise that we hadn’t managed to get ourselves killed.

Owen… Owen pulled me into a tight, almost crushing, hug, his relief a palpable thing, his body warm and solid and overwhelmingly familiar against mine. "Abs," he said, his voice thick with emotion, his face buried in my hair. "I was so worried. We all were. When the tunnel went down, when we couldn’t raise you on the radio…"

I was so touch-starved, so confused by Ellie’s unexpected closeness in sleep and her careful, almost pointed, distance now, that I found myself leaning into his touch, just for a moment, allowing myself to feel the simple, uncomplicated comfort of his embrace. I could feel his surprise, the slight tensing of his muscles, that I hadn’t already pushed him off, hadn’t immediately refocused on the mission, on the tactical situation. His hands, which had been resting on my waist, slid lower, to my hips, pulling me a little closer, his hold becoming… less platonic. More possessive.

I felt a low, familiar heat stir inside me as his hands rested on me, a warmth that was both comforting and… empty. My eyes, almost of their own accord, were drawn across the crowded, noisy room.

To Ellie.

Jordan had her pulled into an equally tight, equally emotional, hug. Jordan’s hands were cupping Ellie’s face, her thumbs brushing away smudges of dirt from Ellie’s freckled cheeks. Jordan was laughing, her relief loud and unrestrained, her eyes shining as she checked Ellie all over for injuries, her hands lingering a little too long on Ellie’s arms, her waist, before pulling her back into another fierce, almost desperate, embrace.

The moment was… intimate. Undeniably so.

I looked away, a stupid, inexplicable ache tightening in my chest. My earlier anger, my jealousy, over Jordan and Ellie, it had shifted, morphed into something else. Something… softer. More complicated. It was clear the two women cared about each other, in their own way. Or at least, Jordan cared about Ellie. And Ellie… Ellie looked… not entirely unhappy to be the recipient of Jordan’s enthusiastic, and very public, affection.

And a small, treacherous part of me, a part I didn’t understand and definitely didn’t want, maybe… maybe wanted Ellie to have something nice in her life. Something good. Even if watching it made my own heart hurt in a strange, unfamiliar, and deeply unsettling way.

Ellie, as if sensing my gaze, looked up then, her eyes meeting mine across the crowded, noisy exhibit hall. For a split second, something passed between us. Something hot, confusing, a shared spark of… desire? Confusion? Recognition? Then it was gone, as quickly as it came, Ellie’s expression shuttering, her gaze dropping, as she turned back to Jordan, a forced, slightly too-bright smile plastered on her face.

I quickly regained my own composure, pushing Owen gently away, stepping back, re-establishing the familiar, necessary distance. "Alright," I barked, my voice louder than necessary, cutting through the lingering emotion in the air. "Enough of the goddamn reunion. We need to secure this position. Set up a watch rotation. Check supplies. Manny, Taryn, take the north perimeter. Jordan, Mel, south. Owen, you’re with me. We’ll take the main entrance."

Orders. Discipline. Control. My familiar, reliable armor.

We settled in for the night, finding places to rest amidst the ghostly, empty fish tanks and faded, peeling exhibits of the old Seattle Aquarium. The place, once a source of wonder, of childhood fascination for me and Owen, was now just another decaying monument to a dead world, another temporary, precarious shelter in an endless war.

It seemed Jordan and Ellie had found a secluded spot together, tucked away behind a large, cracked diorama of a kelp forest, their hushed voices and occasional, soft laughter a distant, irritating murmur in the darkness. I felt that same deep, frustrating heat, that familiar, unwelcome tightening in my chest, but I pushed it down, hard. Fine. Ellie can do whatever the fuck she wants. I don’t want to fight about it anymore. It’s not my business. It doesn’t matter.

Liar.

It was dark in the aquarium, the only light coming from a few strategically placed, battery-powered lanterns and the faint, eerie glow of the emergency exit signs, casting long, dancing shadows on the massive, algae-covered glass of the central tank. I was checking the perimeter near the main entrance, my rifle held at the ready, every sense on high alert, when Owen found me.

I was standing near the darkened shark exhibit, its thick, reinforced glass reflecting our distorted, ghostly images. "Place still gives me the creeps," Owen said, his voice soft, nostalgic. "Remember that time we snuck in here after curfew? Before all this shit with the WLF, before… everything." He gestured vaguely. "Thought we were so badass. Then we heard a noise and nearly pissed ourselves." He chuckled, a low, sad sound. "Simpler times, huh? We even… God, remember that old supply closet back by the otter tanks? The one with the broken lock?" His voice is a little too forced, a little too sad.

I blushed, remembering the way the flimsy door of that supply closet had rattled when he’d pressed me against it. We’d been all clumsy hands and stifled sounds, adrenaline from the trespassing mixing with a different, more potent thrill. A moment of stolen heat in the cold, damp air of the aquarium, a moment before everything got so goddamn complicated.

Ellie’s voice, sharp and sarcastic from our night in that goddamn apartment, cut through the memory then: “…if whoever you’re supposedly fucking isn’t working out for you, I’m sure Owen would be happy to help you out…”. She’d been right, of course. Owen was still interested. Pathetically, transparently, so.

We found ourselves alone in a small, secluded alcove, a former staff break room. Owen was being sweet, tender, his usual gentle, unassuming self. He reached out, his fingers brushing my hair back from my face, his eyes full of a soft, hopeful, almost painful, light.

"You okay, Abs?" he murmured, his voice husky, his gaze searching mine. "You seem… different. Since the tunnel."

I leaned into his touch, a sigh escaping my lips, a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of years of exhaustion, of loneliness, of a bone-deep weariness I rarely allowed myself to acknowledge. I was so tired. So fucking tired of having to be strong all the time, of having to be in control, of having to carry the weight of everyone else’s expectations, everyone else’s survival, on my own goddamn shoulders. I both craved control, needed it like air, and hated, despised, the constant, crushing, unrelenting need for it.

Until sleeping in that bed with Ellie last night, until feeling the unexpected, almost shocking, comfort of another human body pressed against mine in the darkness, I hadn’t realized just how much I missed being touched without violence. Touched with gentleness, with intention, with… something other than pain or duty or the brutal necessities of survival.

And now Owen was here. With me. Wanting to give me that. Offering a moment of simple, uncomplicated, familiar human connection.

I didn’t stop him when he leaned forward and kissed me.

His lips were soft, hesitant at first, then more insistent, as if he couldn’t quite believe this was actually happening. His hands slid down my back, pulling me closer, then lower, cupping my ass, pressing my body against his. It was… nice. Familiar. Comforting, in a way. A known quantity.

And then, the door to the small room creaked open.

Ellie.

She was standing in the doorway, her eyes wide, her face a mask of shock, of… something else. Disappointment? Disgust? I couldn’t read the expression in those too-green eyes, but it hit me like a physical blow, a cold, hard fist in my gut.

"Oh, shit," Ellie said, her voice low, flat, devoid of its usual sarcastic bite. "My bad."

Then, just as quickly, she closed the door, plunging us back into near darkness, the sound of the latch clicking shut echoing in the sudden, suffocating silence.

Owen, oblivious, or perhaps just choosing to ignore the interruption, nuzzled back against my neck, his lips trailing hot kisses down my throat, his hands returning to their eager exploration of my body.

My heart was pounding, a frantic, panicked rhythm against my ribs. I felt deeply, profoundly, uncomfortable. Embarrassed. As if I’d been caught doing something wrong, something shameful. And something about it being Ellie who’d seen me, who’d witnessed this moment of… weakness? Desperation?… it was so much worse. So much more humiliating than if it had been anyone else. 

I pushed Owen off me, roughly, creating a sudden, unwelcome space between us.

"Owen, I’m… I’m exhausted," I said, my voice shaky, as I fumbled to fix my shirt, which he’d managed to push halfway up my torso, exposing the bruised skin of my stomach. My body was thrumming with a strange, confused, and undeniably potent arousal. 

But it wasn’t Owen I wanted.

And that, more than anything else, was what terrified me. 

It was the unraveling of everything.

Chapter Text

Ellie

I have a long list of things I’d love to never see again in my life. 

It’s a pretty comprehensive list, honed by years of experience in a world that specializes in shoving horrors down your throat whether you’re hungry or not. Starting close to the top with the sight of a Bloater’s fungal ass charging at me, and ending somewhere around watching a dude slowly bleed out from a gut shot while he begs you to make it stop. It’s a goddamn depressing list, if I’m being honest.

Nowhere on that list, not even in the fucking footnotes, did I think I’d need to add: ‘walking in on Abby Anderson, Lieutenant-Control-Freak-Extraordinaire, getting hot and heavy with Owen Moore in a dusty, cobweb-infested supply closet at the ass-end of the world.’

But hey, life’s full of surprises, right? 

Even as I stumbled back down the darkened, echoing hallway of the old Seattle Aquarium, away from that closed door, away from the muffled sounds of… whatever the fuck was happening in there, the image was burned into the back of my eyelids. Seared there, probably for all eternity. The warm, almost feverish, flush on Abby’s usually pale, freckled cheeks. The surprised, almost guilty, look in her desire-hazed blue-grey eyes as they’d met mine for that split, horrifying second. Owen’s hands, possessive and urgent, on the bare skin of her waist where he’d managed to push her shirt up, revealing a glimpse of those ridiculous, sculpted abs.

Horrifying.

More horrifying than most things I could imagine, and trust me, I had a pretty damn good, and thoroughly fucked-up, imagination. It wasn’t the sex part, necessarily. People fucked. It was a biological imperative. A way to forget, for a few fleeting moments, that the world was a raging dumpster fire. I got that. But Abby ? And Owen ? It was like watching two particularly angry, incompatible species try to mate. Unnatural. Unsettling. And for some reason I refused to examine too closely, deeply, profoundly, irritating.

I found the rest of the squad – Manny, Jordan, and Taryn – huddled around a pathetic excuse for a fire they’d managed to coax to life in a rusted-out oil drum in what had once been the aquarium’s main lobby. The massive, darkened tanks loomed around us, their glass thick with algae, the ghostly, skeletal remains of long-dead fish and coral formations visible in the flickering firelight. It was a suitably grim, post-apocalyptic setting for my current mood.

I settled down on a cracked plastic crate between Jordan and Manny, trying to act normal, trying to erase the image of Abby and Owen from my brain. I’d stupidly, stupidly , been the one to volunteer to go find them, to see if they wanted first pick of the meager rationed food we’d scrounged from a collapsed convenience store on our way here. A job I now deeply, profoundly, and with every fiber of my being, regretted having accepted.

“Find ‘em?” Manny asked, his voice a low rumble, oblivious to the internal shitstorm currently raging inside me. He was poking at the fire with a piece of rebar, sending a shower of sparks up into the cavernous, shadowy space.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice coming out a little too high-pitched, a little too strained. “They’re, uh… busy. Said they’d eat later.”

Jordan, with her usual sharp, almost unnerving, intuition, seemed to sense my discomfort. She shot me a sideways glance, her dark eyes gleaming in the firelight, a knowing, almost predatory, smirk playing on her lips. She nudged my shoulder playfully. “Busy, huh?” she said, her voice a low, suggestive purr. She looked at Manny, then back at me, her smirk widening. “Betcha Spitfire here walked in on something she wishes she hadn’t. Our esteemed Lieutenant getting reacquainted with an old friend, maybe?”

The way Jordan said it, that casual, almost bored, tone, it made it seem like this was something that had happened before. A known quantity. A recurring, and apparently, not entirely unwelcome, theme in the Abby-Owen saga.

Manny let out a bark of laughter, a crude, appreciative sound. “Oh, shit, for real?” he said, his eyes lighting up with a lewd, gossipy interest. “Well, hey, good news for us then, right? At least Abby won’t be such a goddamn hard-ass for the next five hours or so. Maybe we’ll even get to sleep in past 0400.”

Jordan laughed again, a low, throaty sound that usually sent a pleasant shiver down my spine. Tonight, though, it just made my skin crawl. “Thirty minutes, tops, Manny,” she said, shaking her head. “You know how she gets. She’ll be twice as unbearable tomorrow, just you wait and see.”

I couldn’t make sense of my own feelings. My stomach churned with a confusing, chaotic mess of emotions – disgust, anger, a weird, unwelcome pang of… something that felt dangerously close to jealousy. And underneath it all, a simmering, undeniable, and deeply, profoundly, infuriating, arousal.

On one hand, this was Abby. My CO. The woman who had been making my life a living hell since the day I’d stumbled into this goddamn WLF stronghold. The woman who had threatened to kill me, and then almost actually done it, several times. The woman whose icy control and brutal, almost inhuman, efficiency were both terrifying and, if I was being brutally honest with myself, a little bit… impressive. Fascinating, even.

On the other, stupider, and far more confusing, hand… this was also the woman whose rare, almost imperceptible, glimpses of vulnerability seemed to incite some insane, unwelcome desire in me to… help her. Protect her, even. After the fight in the pits, when she’d been drunk and sick and utterly, completely, out of control. Last night, in that abandoned apartment, when I’d unbraided her hair, felt the surprising softness of it, seen the exhaustion, the pain, in her eyes. 

And… and this morning. 

Waking up in Abby’s arms, the shocking, undeniable, and deeply, profoundly, confusing realization that I must have climbed into them in my sleep, seeking comfort, warmth, some kind of human connection in the terrifying darkness of my own nightmares. And then having to quickly, awkwardly, detangle myself from that warmth… a warmth I’d wanted so badly to just sink into, to lose myself in. I could have just moved closer. Could have rested my head against her chest, listened to the soft, steady, surprisingly gentle, sound of her heart against my ear, felt the surprising, almost shocking, reassurance of her strong arms around me…

The thought, the memory, sent a fresh wave of heat, of confusion, of self-loathing, through me.

Abby’s obvious heterosexuality, her history with Owen, it shouldn’t matter. But it did. The image of Abby with Owen, of anyone with Abby, it sparked a possessiveness, a territoriality, that I didn’t understand and definitely didn’t want. It was a sick, twisted knot in my gut, a confusing mix of jealousy and arousal and a profound, self-directed disgust.

Abby and Owen eventually re-entered the main exhibit hall, their faces flushed, their hair slightly more disheveled than usual. Abby’s eyes, those damn unreadable blue-grey pools, studiously avoided mine. Owen, on the other hand, looked… smug. Satisfied. Like a cat that had just devoured a particularly plump canary.

Manny let out a low whistle, which was met with a glacial, death-promising stare from Abby that could have frozen hell over. She barked a few curt orders about setting up a watch schedule, about rationing the last of our meager supplies, her voice even colder, even more devoid of emotion, than usual. Her eyes met mine for a brief, charged, almost unbearable, moment, and I saw another wave of that dark, angry blush creep up her neck before she quickly looked away, her jaw tight, her expression unreadable.

I found a relatively soft patch of floor near a crumbling, algae-covered diorama of a coral reef, pulled out my journal, and pretended to write, my mind still racing, my body still thrumming with a confusing, chaotic mess of leftover adrenaline and unwelcome desire.

I fell asleep, eventually, to the sound of the rain lashing against the aquarium’s massive, reinforced windows, the image of Abby’s face, flushed with pleasure and surprise as I had opened that supply closet door, burned into my memory like a goddamn brand.

The journey back to the WLF base at the stadium the next day was tense, fraught with danger, and punctuated by a series of near-death experiences that left us all exhausted, on edge, and thoroughly sick of each other’s company. We encountered two Scar patrols, a nest of particularly aggressive Stalkers in a collapsed office building, and a goddamn Shambler that had decided to take up residence in a flooded underground parking garage we’d been forced to navigate. Fun times.

I, having had a night to process the… events… of the previous evening, and the subsequent, deeply disturbing, realization about my own fucked-up, traitorous emotions, had decided on a new course of action. Avoidance. Pure, simple, and hopefully, effective. I was just going to give Abby space. A lot of space. An entire goddamn continent of space, if possible. I needed to stop thinking about her, stop obsessing over her, stop analyzing every goddamn micro-expression on her stupid, infuriating, and occasionally, surprisingly vulnerable, face.

Frankly, I was becoming just as pathetic as Owen, mooning after someone who clearly wasn’t interested. Or, worse, interested in all the wrong, and potentially lethal, ways. But at least Owen was actually getting some, apparently. I, on the other hand, was frustratingly, and entirely of my own volition, not. And the one person I was apparently, horrifyingly, starting to want … well, let’s just say that wasn’t exactly a viable option.

Back at the WLF base, the familiar, oppressive routine of debriefs, resupply, and endless, soul-crushing WLF bureaucracy began. I was in the C-block barracks, trying to clean the grime and the lingering stench of swamp-ass from my rifle, when I heard it. Isaac’s voice, curt and commanding, crackling over the comms system. Asking Abby to bring "the recruit" – that would be me, lucky fucking me – to the command room. Immediately.

My stomach clenched with a familiar, sickening dread. I hadn’t spoken face-to-face with Isaac since that first, unsettling interview after my ‘audition,’ since being officially, and much to my chagrin, transferred onto Abby’s team. And I was suddenly, overwhelmingly, terrified that Abby, in her infinite wisdom and with her well-documented penchant for making my life miserable, was going to tell Isaac about my little late-night excursion to the records room. About my snooping. My insubordination. My general, all-around, pain-in-the-ass-ness.

I hadn’t found anything conclusive that night, or any of the other nights I’d snuck out, a desperate, hopeful ghost haunting the WLF’s archives, searching for answers, for some clue, any clue, that might lead me to the truth about Joel’s death. But I was still searching. Still digging. And I was slowly, reluctantly, coming to the realization that the clues I needed, the answers to the questions that haunted my every waking moment, and most of my sleeping ones too, were probably hidden not in some dusty, forgotten archive, but in the heavily guarded, metaphorical luxury box of WLF command itself.

A place I was now, apparently, about to enter.

Isaac’s office, or "command center" as he liked to call it, was on one of the upper levels of the stadium, overlooking the main training fields. It was a large, utilitarian space, dominated by a massive metal desk, a wall of flickering monitors displaying security feeds and tactical maps, and a general air of grim, military efficiency. Isaac was seated at his desk, his back to us, staring out the reinforced window at the soldiers drilling on the field below, a king surveying his bleak, brutal domain.

Abby stood at attention beside me, her face a mask of stony indifference, her posture rigid, every inch the perfect WLF officer. She gave a concise, professional rundown of our latest mission – enemy contact, intel gathered, supplies expended, casualties sustained. The usual grim accounting.

Isaac listened impassively, his gaze unreadable, his fingers steepled before him. Then, without turning, he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble, "And you, recruit? What are your thoughts on the operation? Any… observations?"

Why the fuck did he want to know what I thought? I was just a grunt. A pain in his top lieutenant’s ass. But this was Isaac. And you didn’t ignore Isaac. Not if you valued your continued ability to breathe.

I paused, my mind racing, trying to formulate an answer that was both intelligent and non-committal, something that wouldn’t piss off Abby and wouldn’t make Isaac think I was a complete idiot.

"The Scars… they’re more organized than we thought," I said finally, my voice surprisingly steady. "Their defenses in the theatre district were layered. Chokepoints. Ambush sites. They’re learning. Adapting." I hesitated, then added, "And the infected… the tremors seem to be driving them out of the older, more unstable structures. Pushing them into new territories. Could be a problem if we don’t factor that into our patrol routes.".

Isaac actually looked… impressed. Or at least, as impressed as a man like Isaac Dixon ever got. A faint, almost imperceptible, smile touched his lips. He praised my insights, his words a little too effusive, his gaze a little too sharp as it flicked between me and Abby. He was pitting us against each other. I could feel it. A sick, familiar game. Abby stood beside me, tense and uncomfortable, her jaw tight, her eyes fixed on some distant point beyond Isaac’s head.

I was suddenly worried that Isaac was going to take me off Abby’s team, to separate us, and a strange, unwelcome pang of… something… twisted in my gut. I was about to say something – offer some praise for Abby’s leadership, some expression of gratitude for being on her squad, anything to diffuse the tension, to show a united front – when Isaac spoke again, his voice smooth, almost purring, like a goddamn cat toying with a mouse.

"Anderson," Isaac said, his gaze still fixed on me, but his words directed at Abby. "I want you to start training Williams. For a leadership role."

My blood ran cold. What the fuck?

"Have her shadow your every move," Isaac continued, oblivious, or perhaps, more likely, deliberately ignoring, the sudden, palpable tension in the room. "Weekly reports on her progress. And I want you to personally oversee her physical conditioning. Private sessions. Push her. See what she’s made of."

He wanted a second Abby. That’s what this was about. Someone intelligent, someone violent, someone… controllable. Someone he could mold, shape, turn into another one of his perfectly honed instruments of war.

Just like he’d done with Abby.

Abby and I stood side by side, the unspoken words, the unspoken history, hanging heavy in the air between us. I could see the play for what it was; I wasn’t stupid. Isaac was trying to drive a wedge between us, to create a rivalry, to further isolate Abby and to mold me into his own image.

Beside me, Abby was radiating a furious, barely suppressed anger, but her voice, when she finally spoke, was carefully, chillingly, neutral. "Understood, sir."

Outside Isaac’s office, we were walking down the long, echoing corridor together, the silence between us thick with unspoken words. Abby was clearly furious, her movements stiff, her jaw clenched so tight I was surprised her teeth didn’t shatter. I wanted to say something, anything, to break the tension, but I didn’t know what. What could I possibly say? “Hey, sorry your boss is a manipulative asshole who’s trying to turn me into you? My bad?”

Abby finally stopped, pulling me into a shadowed alcove, her voice low, quiet, urgent, her eyes boring into mine with an intensity that made my breath catch in my throat.

"Look," Abby said, her voice tight, strained. "I want this just about as much as you do, which is to say, not at all." Her gaze flickered away for a moment, then back, harder this time. "But we can’t directly disobey Isaac. It would be… suicidal." She hesitated, her jaw working, as if she wanted to say something more, something important. Then, her expression softened, just a fraction, a flicker of something that might have been concern, or maybe just weary resignation, in her eyes. "Just… be careful with him, Ellie," she said, her voice barely a whisper, so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. "Be very fucking careful."

The message was there, unspoken but clear as a goddamn bell. Abby had experienced Isaac’s manipulations firsthand. She knew just how dangerous he could be. And she was… warning me? Protecting me? The thought was so absurd, so out of character, it almost made me laugh.

Almost.

I wasn’t sure how to respond. The prospect of shadowing Abby, of being in even closer proximity to her, especially now, after everything that had happened, after everything I was starting to feel… it was frustrating. Terrifying. Confusing as hell.

And yet… a small, treacherous part of me, the part that was still desperately, obsessively, searching for answers, for the truth about Joel, recognized the opportunity. If anyone in this godforsaken WLF stronghold could get me closer to the information I needed, it was Lieutenant Abby Anderson. Isaac’s golden girl. His… creation.

Abby was staring deeply into my eyes, as if looking for something, waiting for me to say something, to react, to fight back.

All I said, my voice carefully, deliberately, devoid of all emotion, was, "Confirmed, Lieutenant."

If I was going to survive this, if I was going to survive Abby , if I was going to survive Isaac , I needed to start learning to build some impenetrable walls of my own.

And I needed to learn it fast.

Chapter Text

Abby

0400. And there she was. A goddamn shadow at my heels before the sun even thought about cracking the horizon. Ellie. My new, Isaac-mandated apprentice. 

I hadn’t slept. Not really. The hours after Isaac’s pronouncement, after Ellie’s curt, unreadable “Confirmed, Lieutenant,” had been a special kind of hell. My small room in C-block had felt like a shrinking cage, the silence amplifying the chaotic roar of my own thoughts. The memory of Ellie walking in on me and Owen at the aquarium… it burned like a fresh brand. Hotter, somehow, more humiliating, than even the memory of her dragging my sorry, drunken ass to the officer’s showers after the fight pit. That had been a physical vulnerability, a loss of control I could, eventually, chalk up to bad judgment and too much cheap moonshine. But this… this was different.

Ellie seeing me with Owen, in that cramped, dusty supply closet, his hands on me, my shirt ridden up… it felt like she’d seen something else. Something I didn’t want her to see. Something I didn’t even want to see in myself. Had she thought I was… easy? Desperate? Or worse, had she seen the flicker of something else in my eyes, that brief, shameful moment of wanting, needing , some kind of human contact, even if it was just the familiar, uncomplicated comfort of Owen’s touch? The thought that she might have misinterpreted it, or, God forbid, interpreted it correctly in a way that exposed some hidden, unwelcome truth about my own confusing, fucked-up desires… it was a knot in my stomach, tight and cold.

Those were the questions that had kept me tossing and turning all night, the questions that still echoed in the pre-dawn gloom as I stalked through the silent, echoing corridors of the stadium towards the gym.

At least now that we were back at the WLF base, back in the familiar, brutal rhythm of training and patrols and the constant, grinding preparation for war, I had plenty of things to focus on. Plenty of ways to distract myself from the unsettling, infuriating, and undeniably… present … enigma that was Ellie Williams.

Except now, that enigma was walking two paces behind me, a reluctant, resentful shadow in the darkness.

"Why so fucking early?" Ellie grunted, her voice thick with sleep, as she stumbled along in my wake. She rubbed at her eyes, her movements jerky, uncoordinated. Even in the dim, flickering emergency lights of the corridor, I could see the dark, bruised shadows under her green eyes. She looked like shit. Good. Maybe a little sleep deprivation would take some of the fight out of her.

"Sun waits for no one, Williams," I said, my voice flat, devoid of inflection, as I pushed open the heavy steel door to the gym. "Neither do Scars. Or infected. Or Isaac, for that matter." I glanced back at her, my expression, I hoped, conveying the appropriate level of Lieutenant Anderson-brand disdain. "You want to lead? You learn to operate when you’d rather be dead." Or, you know, just really, really tired.

Ellie just groaned, a low, guttural sound of pure, unadulterated misery. For once, she was too tired, or too surprised by the ungodly hour, to even offer a sassy, insubordinate comeback. Small mercies.

The gym was practically empty at this hour, which was precisely why I’d chosen it. The air was cold, still, smelling of stale sweat, old iron, and something vaguely antiseptic. The usual daytime cacophony of grunting, clanging weights, and shouted encouragement was absent, replaced by a heavy, almost reverent, silence. Perfect.

I led Ellie to a secluded, separated area in the back of the vast, repurposed basketball arena, a section where the floor mats were slightly thicker, slightly less stained with old blood and God knows what else, less likely to result in a concussion during the hand-to-hand combat training Isaac had so thoughtfully, and so infuriatingly, mandated.

"We start with basics," I said, turning to face her, my arms crossed over my chest. My voice was all business, crisp and professional. The voice of command. The voice of control. The voice I used to keep the world, and my own goddamn emotions, at bay. "You’re fast, agile. I’ll give you that." A rare, almost unheard-of, compliment. Though, knowing Ellie, she’d probably find a way to twist it into an insult. "But you fight like a cornered rat – all instinct, no technique. All teeth and claws and desperate, flailing fury." I saw her jaw tighten, a muscle twitching in her cheek. Good. Let her get pissed. Anger was a motivator. "That’ll get you killed against someone who knows what they’re doing. Someone bigger. Stronger. Someone who isn’t surprised by your… enthusiasm."

I started by demonstrating basic stances – a solid fighting stance, balanced, ready to move in any direction. Then blocks – high blocks, low blocks, parries. Then strikes – jabs, crosses, hooks, uppercuts, the brutal efficiency of an elbow strike, the disabling power of a well-aimed knee to the groin or thigh. I showed her basic chokes, and more importantly, how to release from common grabs – a wrist grab, a chokehold, a bear hug from behind.

My movements were precise, honed by years of relentless, brutal training. By necessity. By survival. I was a machine of controlled violence, every motion stripped down to its most effective, most lethal, components.

Then, I made Ellie run through them. Again. And again. And again.

My feedback was constant, critical, brutally impersonal.

"Lower your center of gravity, Williams. You’re too upright. Too easy to topple."

"More power in that strike. Don’t just tap him. Drive through the target. Imagine your fist going through his goddamn skull."

"Protect your head, for fuck’s sake! You leave yourself that open, you’re asking for a concussion. Or worse."

"No, not like that. Pivot your hips. Power comes from the core, not just your arms."

"Again."

"Again."

"Sloppy. Again."

I knew Ellie would never be able to overpower an opponent the way I could. She didn’t have the mass, the raw, brute strength that I’d spent years cultivating, building, layer by painful layer, like a goddamn fortress around myself. But there was a lean power to her, a surprising, almost shocking, explosiveness in her compact frame. And a speed, a dexterity, a fluid, almost feline grace, that I myself lacked. My strength was in direct, overwhelming force. Hers was in speed, agility, surprise.

If I could train her to use that, to combine that natural, almost feral, ferocity with actual technique, with discipline, with control… Ellie Williams would be… unstoppable.

The thought was both intriguing and vaguely unsettling.

As the training progressed, as the first, faint, grey light of dawn began to filter in through the grimy, boarded-up windows of the gym, I had to physically correct Ellie’s form. More and more often. Adjusting her stance, my hands on her hips, her shoulders, feeling the surprising solidity of her small frame. Guiding her arm through a strike, my body close to hers, too close, the scent of her – sweat, sleep– filling my senses, making my head spin. Demonstrating a grapple, a takedown, our bodies tangling, limbs brushing, the contact sending a jolt, like a live wire, through my system.

Each touch was professional. Impersonal. Detached. Or at least, that’s what I told myself. That’s what I tried to project. But the air between us crackled with an unspoken, unwanted, and deeply, profoundly, confusing tension. I was acutely, painfully, aware of the feel of Ellie’s body against mine – the lean, hard muscle, the surprising heat of her skin through the thin fabric of her tank top, the way she moved with that almost feral, untamed grace.

I remembered the feeling of Ellie pressed against me in that sagging, dusty bed in the abandoned apartment, the surprising softness of her hair against my skin, the way her body had molded against mine in sleep, seeking comfort, warmth.

I shoved the thoughts down, hard, ruthlessly. 

Ellie, despite her initial, sullen resentment, despite her muttered curses and her glares that could have melted steel, started to respond to my instruction. She was a fast learner, her body adapting quickly, almost instinctively, to the new movements, the new techniques. Her focus, when she wasn’t being a sarcastic little shit, was absolute. Her determination, a raw, burning fire in those too-green eyes.

There were moments, rare and fleeting, when I found myself offering an almost imperceptible nod of approval. A curt, "Better." A grudging, "Not bad, Williams." And each time, I saw something flicker in Ellie’s eyes – surprise? Confusion? A tiny, almost invisible, spark of grudging respect?

It was… unsettling.

We moved to grappling on the mats. The real test. Up close and personal. No room for error. No room for anything but the fight.

I demonstrated a basic takedown, a hip toss, sending a phantom opponent crashing to the mats. Then, I had Ellie try it on me.

“Alright, Williams,” I said, my voice a low growl. “Your turn. Show me what you’ve learned.”

She came at me, fast, low, her movements surprisingly explosive. I let her get her grip, let her try to execute the takedown, my own body tensing, ready to counter, to absorb the impact.

We were a tangle of limbs, sweat, and strained, ragged breathing. Her body was pressed tight against mine, her face inches from my own, those green eyes blazing with a fierce, almost desperate, concentration. I could feel the strength of her, the surprising power in her body.

I was correcting her hold, my voice low, close to her ear, my breath stirring the damp tendrils of auburn hair plastered to her temple. "Shift your weight here… use your hips… drive through…"

And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, she moved. A swift, surprising, almost serpentine, reversal. She used my own momentum, my own superior weight and strength, against me. One moment, I was in control, guiding her, correcting her. The next, the world tilted, and I found myself on my back, the wind knocked from my lungs, the rough texture of the mat scraping against my skin.

Pinned.

Ellie’s body was a surprising, unyielding weight on top of me, her legs bracketing mine, her hips pressed tight against my own. Her face was inches from mine, those green eyes blazing with a mixture of triumph, surprise, and something else… something unreadable, something that made my breath catch in my throat.

She was panting, a faint, triumphant smirk playing on her lips. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple, tracing a path along her sharp cheekbone.

"Not bad, Anderson," Ellie said, her voice a low, husky purr, echoing my own earlier, grudging praise. But the words, now, in this position, with our bodies pressed so close, so intimately, they had a distinctly different, charged meaning. "Not bad at all."

My breath caught in my throat. My heart hammered against my ribs. I could feel the heat building inside me, a low, insistent, undeniable thrum that had nothing to do with the exertion of the fight, and everything to do with the woman currently straddling me, her eyes burning into mine, her body a warm, solid, and deeply, profoundly, confusing presence against my own.

I looked at Ellie’s parted lips, slightly swollen, flushed. At the way a stray bead of sweat trickled down the delicate curve of her neck, disappearing beneath the collar of her sweat-soaked tank top. At the rise and fall of her chest, her breathing as ragged, as unsteady, as my own. 

Then my body, that goddamn traitor, betrayed me. A raw, coiling heat tightened low in my belly, and before I could stop it, my hips pushed up, just a fraction, instinctively seeking the searing friction of Ellie’s weight against mine, desperate for a pressure, a heat that had nothing to do with the fight training. I saw her pupils flare, those sharp green eyes going dark and wide, her mouth parting in a soft, sudden gasp.

And then, just as quickly as it had happened, it was over.

Ellie pushed herself off me abruptly, scrambling to her feet, her back to me, her shoulders heaving as she struggled to control her breathing. She pushed her hands back through her short, damp auburn hair, keeping them there, clasped behind her head, as if trying to physically restrain herself, to hold herself together.

I could see that her hands were shaking slightly.

I got to my feet, slowly, my own body thrumming with a confusing, chaotic mix of adrenaline, arousal, and a profound, unsettling awareness of the line we had just, almost, irrevocably, crossed.

I cleared my throat, forcing my voice back to its usual, detached, professional tone. Or at least, I tried to. It came out a little rougher, a little shakier, than I intended. "Good first session, Williams," I said, the praise dry, noncommittal. Safe. "You learn fast."

Ellie just shrugged, still not looking at me, her expression closed off, guarded, unreadable. "Whatever," she muttered, her voice tight.

We were both sweating profusely, our tank tops clinging to our skin, outlining every curve, every muscle. The air in the gym was thick with the smell of our exertion, a heady, almost intoxicating, mix of sweat and something else, something… raw. Primal.

Ellie grabbed the hem of her tank top and, without a word, without a glance in my direction, used it to wipe the sweat from her face, her movements quick, almost jerky. As she did, her shirt rode up, exposing a flash of her toned stomach, the long, lean line of her abs, and just the hint, the tantalizing, infuriating glimpse, of a tattoo wrapping around her ribs, disappearing beneath the fabric.

The sight did something weird to my insides. Something hot and tight. A jolt of pure, unadulterated, and utterly, completely, unwelcome desire.

"We should go clean up," I suggested, my voice rougher than I intended, my mind on fire from the image of Ellie’s body, from the memory of our too-close grappling, from the lingering, undeniable heat still coiling, low and insistent, inside me.

"Yeah, sure," Ellie replied, her voice still aloof, distant. She didn’t meet my eyes.

Should I suggest the CO lockers? The thought flashed, unbidden, unwelcome, in my mind. The image of Ellie in there with me, in that private, steamy space, potentially naked… it brought a new, unwelcome flush of heat to my skin, a fresh wave of that confusing, infuriating desire.

But before I could even begin to process that thought, before I could even consider voicing such a monumentally stupid, and potentially disastrous, suggestion, Ellie was already heading in the opposite direction, towards the main barracks showers, towards the crowded, public, and blessedly, mercifully, impersonal facilities the rest of the enlisted grunts used.

"I’ll meet up with you after lunch," Ellie said over her shoulder, her voice flat, dismissive, already putting as much distance between us as possible. And then she was gone, disappearing through the heavy steel door, leaving me alone in the secluded corner of the gym.

Sweaty. Aching. Every nerve in my body felt live-wired; a restless, burning energy was coiling tight and low in my gut, making my hips ache with a completely different kind of tension, a desperate need for a friction and release no amount of training could ever satisfy.

Chapter Text

Ellie

Two weeks.

Two goddamn weeks I’d been Abby Anderson’s shadow, and it had been hell. No, worse than hell. Because if I was in hell, I’d probably get to see Joel again, share a lukewarm pre-outbreak beer and listen to him grumble about something stupid I’d done. That, at least, would have a certain grim, familiar comfort.

But here? Here, stuck with Abby, all I had was the uncomfortable, undeniable, and often far-too-close, truth of reality. Usually in the form of her muscled, sweat-slicked body pressed so tightly against mine during our ‘training’ sessions that I could feel her goddamn pulse.

“Good,” Abby grunted, her voice a low, gravelly rasp that still managed to send an unwelcome shiver down my spine. She rolled off me, leaving me sprawled on the thin, worn mats in the secluded corner of the WLF gym, my lungs burning, every muscle in my body screaming in protest. We’d been practicing another one of her complex, brutal takedown moves – some kind of vicious bullshit involving a lot of joint manipulation and a distinct lack of regard for your opponent’s continued ability to walk. Or breathe.

It had been two weeks of this. This slow, agonizing descent into a special kind of madness. This torture of proximity. Every morning, 0400 hours, dragged out of my bunk by the sheer, unadulterated force of Abby’s will, and subjected to hours of grueling physical conditioning and hand-to-hand combat training that left me feeling somehow both wound up like a goddamn watch spring and utterly, completely, exhausted at the same time.

My distant, almost laughable, dream of creating space between us, of building walls, of just… not having to deal with her, was just that. A dream. A dream Isaac, that manipulative old bastard, had shattered and then stomped on with his steel-toed WLF-issue boots when he’d tasked me with shadowing Abby, with becoming her goddamn apprentice. Her Mini-Me. As if the world needed another Abby Anderson. One was more than enough, thanks.

“Again,” Abby said, her voice devoid of inflection. She was already on her feet, towering over me, her expression unreadable, those glacial blue-grey eyes fixed on me with an intensity that still made my skin prickle. She reached a hand down to help me up, a gesture that was probably meant to be… helpful? Efficient? But all I could focus on was the size of her hand, the calloused skin, the surprising warmth of her grip as I, reluctantly, grasped it..

We’d stripped down to our tank tops an hour ago, the oppressive Seattle summer heat, a rare and unwelcome visitor in this usually perpetually grey, drizzly shithole, already making the WLF gym feel like a goddamn sauna. The air was thick, humid, tasting of stale sweat, rust, and desperation.

Abby’s tank top, a faded, WLF-issue grey that had probably seen better days, was plastered to her back, outlining the sharp, sculpted lines of her shoulders, the powerful curve of her spine. Her sports bra, a utilitarian black, did little to conceal the sheer, undeniable, and frankly, intimidating, musculature of her chest and arms. 

She was a goddamn walking, talking anatomy chart. Or one of those ridiculously ripped athletes from the old world, the kind whose pictures you’d see in faded, water-stained magazines, looking both terrifyingly powerful and… undeniably, infuriatingly, impressive. Sweat slicked her skin, making the muscles in her arms and shoulders gleam in the dim, flickering light of the gym’s emergency lamps.

I tried to focus on the training, on Abby’s curt, precise instructions, on the mechanics of the moves she was drilling into me with a relentless, almost obsessive, intensity. But my eyes, those goddamn traitors, kept betraying me, snagging on the way a bead of sweat trickled down the strong column of her neck, on the flex of a bicep as she demonstrated a block, on the surprisingly vulnerable curve of her collarbone where it disappeared beneath the strap of her tank top.

“Stance, Williams,” Abby barked, her voice yanking me back to the present. “You’re too open. Exposing your center line. Again.”

I got back into the defensive fighting stance she’d been drilling into me for the past two weeks – a stable, grounded stance, hands up, elbows tucked, ready to deflect or strike, to move, to survive. I was about to make a move, to try the counter she’d just shown me, the one that involved a lot of painful-looking joint manipulation and a distinct possibility of me ending up with a dislocated shoulder, when a figure appeared at the edge of our secluded sparring area.

A WLF soldier. One of Isaac’s sergeants. Older, stiff, his eyes darting between me and Abby as if he wasn’t sure which one of us was more likely to bite his head off.

Abby stood at attention, her expression unreadable, her body instantly shifting from ‘brutal drill sergeant from hell’ to ‘impassive WLF Lieutenant.’ She clearly figured the message was for her. Isaac rarely summoned grunts like me directly.

But, to both our surprise, the soldier, after a moment of awkward hesitation, turned to me.

"Williams," he said, his voice a little too loud in the sudden silence of the gym. "Isaac wants to see you. Now."

I was shocked. My heart did that stupid, lurching thing it always seemed to do when Isaac’s name was mentioned. I glanced at Abby, saw my own surprise mirrored in her usually impassive blue-grey eyes before they quickly shuttered, becoming cold, distant, unreadable. That familiar, icy mask slamming back into place.

It was clear Isaac was still playing his little games. Still pushing his agenda to pit us against each other, to test our loyalties, to see who would crack first.

Abby became completely closed off, her face a mask of stone, her arms crossed over her chest. I remembered her warning, weeks ago, after Isaac had first assigned me to shadow her, her voice a low, urgent whisper in that shadowed alcove: "Just… be careful with him, Ellie. Be very fucking careful.”

Good advice. If only I knew how to follow it.

“I’ll be up soon,” I told the soldier, trying to sound casual, unconcerned. “Just gotta grab my gear.”

But he just stood there, arms crossed, waiting, his expression impatient, a silent, unnerving echo of Abby’s usual stance. The message was clear: now meant now .

My internal monologue, that constant, chattering companion, kicked into overdrive. What the fuck does Isaac want? Is this about the records room? Did Abby rat me out? No, she wouldn’t… would she? After… after everything? Or is this something new? Some fresh hell he’s cooked up just for me?

I wiped the sweat from my face with the hem of my tank top, the fabric rough against my skin, then pulled it back over my head, trying to buy myself a few more seconds, trying to get my own racing thoughts under control. I turned for one last, furtive look at Abby. Her face was still guarded, unreadable, but I thought, just for a split second, that I saw a brief, almost imperceptible flash of something in her eyes – fear? Anger? Concern? – before she turned away, dismissing me, her attention already refocused on some distant, invisible point across the gym.

Great. Just fucking great.

I followed the soldier, my heart pounding a nervous, erratic rhythm against my ribs, through the labyrinthine corridors of the stadium, up a series of grimy, echoing stairwells, to Isaac’s office. His goddamn throne room.

The scene was depressingly familiar. Isaac, seated behind his massive metal desk, looking out over the stadium training fields below, a king surveying his bleak, brutal domain. The air in the room was thick with the smell of stale cigarettes, old coffee, and something else… something that always reminded me of power. Cold, hard, uncompromising power.

Isaac turned, slowly, his eyes, those chips of old flint, fixing on me with an unnerving, predatory intensity. He gestured towards the empty chair in front of his desk. "Williams. Good of you to join me." His voice was soft, almost gentle, but with an underlying current of steel that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

This was it. The Isaac Test. Round two. Or maybe three. I’d lost count.

He started by asking me basic, almost paternal, questions about how my training with Abby was going. Was I learning anything? Was Lieutenant Anderson pushing me hard enough? Was I… adapting… to the WLF way of life?

I gave him the answers I thought he wanted to hear. Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir. Learning a lot, sir. Abby’s a great teacher, sir. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Then, he shifted tactics. He started confiding in me about Abby, as if he and I were old friends, co-conspirators, sharing a secret understanding. He positioned Abby as an outsider, a valuable but perhaps… limited… asset.

"Abigail’s a good soldier, Ellie," Isaac said, his voice still soft, almost purring, but with that unnerving, manipulative edge that always made my skin crawl. "Maybe the best. Loyal. Strong. Gets the job done." He paused, a faint, almost imperceptible, smile playing on his lips. "But her methods… sometimes too rigid. Too predictable. She lacks a certain flexibility. A certain creativity." He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. "You, on the other hand… you bring a different perspective, a different kind of fire. I see that. I value that."

It was clear what he was doing. He knew how tough Abby was on new recruits, how demanding, how… Abby. He was likely assuming, or hoping, that she’d made me dislike her, that she’d alienated me, and he was trying to exploit that perceived animosity, to drive a wedge between us, to isolate Abby and to draw me further into his own sphere of influence.

I, despite the revulsion coiling in my gut, played along. It made more sense, strategically, to build some kind of rapport with Isaac, to gain his trust, to make him think I was on his side, than to pretend to defend Abby, a woman I was still not sure I could trust, a woman who was, in many ways, still my enemy. My rival. My… something.

"She’s definitely… thorough, sir," I said, choosing my words carefully. "Demanding. But I’m learning a lot."

Isaac’s smile widened, a cold, predatory thing. "Good. Good." He leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled before him. "Because I have special plans for you, Ellie. You’re a unique asset. You have a… a certain spirit. A certain will. It just needs to be channeled. Pushed harder. To realize its full potential."

His voice, still soft, still gentle, sent a fresh wave of nausea, of cold dread, through me. It reminded me, chillingly, horrifyingly, of David. Of his calm, persuasive, utterly manipulative tone. The way he could make commands sound like reasonable requests. The unnerving, almost unbearable, undercurrent of menace beneath the surface of his soft-spoken words. Isaac didn’t need to raise his voice to command respect, or at least, absolute, terrified obedience. He radiated power, control, a quiet, confident lethality that was far more terrifying than any shout.

And I realized then, with a cold, hard certainty that settled like a stone in the pit of my stomach, what he was really saying. What he really wanted.

He wanted me to break.

He saw that spirit, that will, that untamed, rebellious fire in my eyes, and he wanted it broken. Diluted. Extinguished. He wanted me malleable. Controllable. Another one of his perfectly honed weapons.

Just like Abby.

"I need you to do something for me, Ellie," Isaac confided, his voice dropping even lower, becoming almost intimate, conspiratorial. "Something that will prove your loyalty. Something that will gain my trust." It wasn’t a request, I understood that. It was a command, wrapped in the guise of a friendly, confidential chat.

Just then, the soldier who had escorted me to Isaac’s office, the one who had been standing silently, impassively, by the door, re-entered the room. He didn’t speak, just stood there, a silent, ominous presence.

Isaac gestured towards him with a curt nod. "Sergeant Smith here will lead you to the task I’m requiring from you." He paused, his gaze locking with mine, his eyes cold, hard, unyielding. "Don’t disappoint me, Ellie."

I felt sick. A cold knot of fear and disgust tightened in my stomach, making it hard to breathe. But I also felt a flicker of something else. A desperate, almost reckless, resolve. This was it. This was the price. The price for Isaac’s trust. The price for access to his resources. The price for the information I so desperately needed about Salt Lake City. About Joel. About my father.

This was the only way.

I followed Sergeant Smith out of Isaac’s office, my heart pounding a frantic, terrified rhythm against my ribs, my mind racing, a chaotic jumble of fear, disgust, and a grim, reluctant determination.

He led me down, down into the bowels of the stadium, through a series of dark, damp, echoing corridors I’d never seen before, corridors that seemed to lead to the very heart of the WLF’s darkness. The air grew colder, heavier, thick with the smell of mildew, stale fear, urine, and old, dried blood. The only sounds were our footsteps, a hollow, rhythmic counterpoint to the distant, unsettling drip of water from unseen pipes, and the faint, almost inaudible, scuttling of rats in the walls.

I could feel the dread coiling in my gut, a familiar, unwelcome sensation. The WLF’s prisoner cells. I’d heard rumors. Whispers. None of them good. Stories of Scars, of traitors, of anyone who dared to cross Isaac or defy the WLF, disappearing into these depths, never to be seen again. Or, if they were seen again, they were… changed. Broken. Empty shells.

We arrived before a heavy, reinforced metal cell door, its surface scarred and dented, stained with rust and God knows what else. Sergeant Smith fumbled with a set of heavy, clanking keys, then unlocked it with a loud, grating, almost deafening, clang that echoed in the oppressive, suffocating silence of the corridor.

He swung the door open, revealing a small, dark, windowless room. A single, bare bulb, hanging from a frayed wire in the center of the low ceiling, cast a harsh, unforgiving light on the scene within.

And a figure.

A Scar.

Beaten. Bloodied. Bound tightly to a rusted metal chair in the center of the room, his head lolling, his breathing shallow, ragged. His face was a mess of cuts and bruises. His clothes were torn, stained with blood and filth. He looked… young. Too young. Barely older than me.

My stomach churned.

Sergeant Smith gestured towards the prisoner with a curt, dismissive nod. His voice, when he spoke, was flat, devoid of all emotion, as if he were discussing the weather, or the price of rations.

"Isaac wants to know what he knows," Smith said, his gaze cold, empty, as he met mine. "Get the information." He paused, his lips twisting into a cruel, almost lipless, smile. "Then… dispose of the trash."

He didn’t wait for a reply. He just turned and left, the heavy cell door clanging shut behind him with a sound of absolute, irrevocable finality, plunging me into near darkness with the bound, terrified, and probably dying, Scar.

The click of the lock, as it engaged, was the loudest sound I’d ever heard.

I stood there, in the cold, damp, suffocating darkness, the only light the weak, flickering beam of my own dying flashlight, the only sound the ragged, shallow breathing of the prisoner and the frantic, terrified pounding of my own heart.

I realized then, with a fresh wave of nausea, with a cold, hard, sickening certainty, what Isaac was asking of me. What he was demanding of me.

He wanted me to torture this Scar. 

He wanted me to break him.

And in doing so, he hoped, he expected , to break me .

To turn me into another one of his monsters.

And the most fucked-up part? The part that made me want to scream, to rage, to tear this whole goddamn stadium apart with my bare hands?

I knew, with a sickening, self-loathing certainty, that I was going to do it.

Because this was the only way.

Chapter Text

Abby

The gym was a tomb after Ellie left. The silence, usually a comfort, a space where I could exorcise my own demons in a ritual of sweat and pain, now pressed in, heavy and suffocating. Isaac’s ‘request.’ I knew what it meant. I’d walked that path. Each step a betrayal of something I once was, or perhaps, more accurately, something I’d foolishly hoped I could be.

My own early days with the WLF, after my father… after Salt Lake had ripped the world out from under me and left me hollowed out, a shell filled with nothing but grief and a rage so vast it threatened to consume me. Isaac had seen it. That raw, untamed strength born of pure, unadulterated agony. And he’d made his ‘requests.’

Small at first. A particularly brutal patrol into Scar territory, a test of my nerve, my ruthlessness. An ‘example’ to be made of a disobedient soldier, a public display of WLF justice that had left a sick, metallic taste in my mouth for days. Then, the interrogations. The first time he’d asked me to get information, any way you can, from a captured Scar, a young woman, barely older than I had been then, her eyes wide with a terror that had mirrored my own… a part of me had died that day. Shattered. Been irrevocably broken.

Each task, each ‘request,’ had driven me further from my friends, from Owen – who had started looking at me with a horrified pity I couldn’t stand, a silent accusation that had felt like another knife in my already bleeding gut – from my own dwindling sense of self, until I was what I was now: isolated, violent, controlled. A tool. Isaac’s most effective, most reliable, and most broken, tool.

I’d known, the moment Sergeant Smith had come for Ellie, his face a mask of impassive WLF obedience, what Isaac was up to. He was testing her. Trying to break her. Just like he’d broken me. The thought of Ellie, with her defiant fire, her sarcastic wit, her surprising, almost shocking, vulnerability, being subjected to that… it was a cold, hard knot in my stomach.

Torture was different from the clean, almost impersonal, kill of combat. It was intimate. Personal. It stained you in ways that never washed off, no matter how hard you scrubbed, no matter how many showers you took. It burrowed under your skin, into your bones, into the very marrow of your soul, and festered there, a permanent, ineradicable infection.

I stood in the empty sparring area, the sweat from our earlier session cooling on my skin, dripping from my tank top onto the worn mats. My breath was still ragged, my muscles aching, but it was a different kind of ache now. A deeper, more insidious one.

What was I supposed to do?

Go stop it? Storm into Isaac’s dungeons, those reeking, lightless holes in the bowels of the stadium, and demand he leave Ellie alone? That was suicide. Isaac didn’t tolerate insubordination. Especially not from me. He’d made me who I was. He owned me.

And why should I even care? Ellie was a pain in my ass. A constant challenge. A walking, talking, infuriating reminder of everything I’d lost, everything I’d become. She was a disruption, a chaotic force that threatened the fragile, carefully constructed order of my life, my squad.

But the thought of Isaac, with his cold, manipulative hands, his soft, persuasive voice, his unnerving, predatory gaze, shaping Ellie, breaking her, turning her into another one of his… trophies… it filled me with a sudden, white-hot, almost uncontrollable rage.

If anyone was going to break Ellie Williams, it would be me. On my terms.

Not Isaac. Not like this.

The possessiveness of the thought was shocking, but undeniable. It wasn’t about protecting Ellie’s soul, I told myself, fiercely. I wasn’t that altruistic. I wasn’t that… soft. It was about Isaac. About him overstepping. About him trying to take something that I, for some fucked-up, inexplicable reason, felt was mine to… manage. Or break. Or… or something. Something I didn’t want to name. Couldn’t name.

I decided to wait. To see. Maybe Ellie would crack under the pressure. Maybe she’d prove too weak, too soft, too… human. Then Isaac would lose interest. He only valued strength, after all. Cold, hard, uncompromising strength. The kind he’d beaten into me.

I forced myself through the rest of my workout, my movements jerky, inefficient, my mind a chaotic jumble of conflicting emotions. Then, I headed to the mess hall, needing the noise, the distraction, the mindless routine of a midday meal.

The squad was already there, huddled around our usual table in the far corner – Manny, Owen, Taryn, Jordan, Mel. Ellie was conspicuously, unnervingly, absent.

Owen, damn him, tried to be… attentive. Since that awkward, mortifying kiss at the aquarium, the one Ellie had so inconveniently, so accusingly, walked in on, he’d been hovering, his usually kind eyes full of a hopeful, pathetic light that just made me feel… tired. And vaguely nauseous. I ignored him, pushing my tray of tasteless food around with my fork, my gaze constantly flicking towards the mess hall entrance, listening with half an ear to Jordan and Manny’s usual bullshit banter.

Jordan, perceptive as ever, her dark eyes missing nothing, caught my distraction. "Looking for someone, Lieutenant?" she asked, a teasing, knowing note in her voice that made my skin crawl. "How’s that special, one-on-one training going with Spitfire? She giving you a run for your money yet?"

The casual way Jordan talked about Ellie, that almost proprietary interest in her tone, it grated on my nerves like a rusty saw. "It’s going," I said, my voice flat, noncommittal.

Jordan smirked, that infuriating, confident smirk that had recently made me want to punch her in the face. "You seem… distracted, Abs. Got something on your mind?"

I sighed, rubbing at the dull, throbbing ache that had taken up permanent residence behind my eyes. "Ellie got called in by Isaac," I admitted, reluctantly. "Private meeting."

The atmosphere at the table immediately darkened. A sudden, heavy silence fell. They all knew what a "private meeting" with Isaac usually entailed. Nothing good. Nothing clean. Nothing that didn’t leave a stain on your soul.

Owen looked pale, his earlier, hopeful attentiveness replaced by a familiar, worried frown. Manny’s usual boisterousness deflated, his expression becoming grim. Even Taryn, our stoic, unreadable sniper, seemed to tense, her gaze flicking towards the mess hall entrance, then back to me, a silent, questioning look in her eyes.

After lunch, which I barely touched, Ellie still hadn’t shown up. She was supposed to continue shadowing me for the rest of the day, Isaac’s orders. But there was no sign of her.

I told myself it was none of my business. Told myself I didn’t care. Told myself that whatever Isaac was doing to her, she probably deserved it. She was a pain in the ass, after all. A troublemaker. A potential threat.

But the knot in my stomach tightened, a cold, hard fist of something that felt dangerously like… concern. Worry.

Against my better judgment, against every instinct for self-preservation that screamed at me to stay away, to mind my own goddamn business, I went looking for her.

I started with the barracks. C-block. Our shared, miserable little corner of the WLF stronghold. Ellie’s bunk was empty, the thin, WLF-issue blanket pulled up, messily made just enough to pass a cursory, and very generous, inspection. Her meager belongings – a spare set of clothes, a few scavenged trinkets, that worn, leather-bound journal she was always scribbling in – were neatly stowed in her footlocker.

The top drawer of the footlocker was slightly ajar.

And there it was. The journal.

I remembered her writing in it that night in the abandoned apartment, her expression fierce, intense, her pencil scratching across the page with a furious, almost desperate, energy. I remembered wondering what secrets, what dark, twisted thoughts, she was committing to those pages.

The temptation, the sudden, overwhelming, and utterly, completely, inappropriate need to get a glimpse inside Ellie’s mind, her personal thoughts, her secret self… it was too strong to resist.

Before I could stop myself, before I could think about the implications, the violation of privacy, the sheer, unadulterated fucked-up-ness of what I was about to do, I quietly, stealthily, opened the drawer further. My fingers, trembling slightly, brushed against the soft, worn leather of the journal. I pulled it out.

It felt… warm. Almost alive in my hands.

I flipped it open to the most recent page, the one saved with a faded, pre-outbreak bookmark – a cheesy, brightly colored picture of a cartoon dog with a goofy, slobbering grin.

The first line, scrawled in Ellie’s messy, almost illegible handwriting, hit me like a punch to the gut.

The mat, a prayer rug for a god I don’t know. Her sweat. Mine. A shared oblivion. 
We map each other’s limits with blunt force. A language of impact. Thud. A verb. Grasp. A question. 
Her shoulder under my hand, a stone warmed by some inner sun. 
This heat. Not fever. Or, a fever of a different order. 
To break a thing. To know its pieces. Is that not a kind of love? Or just its ugliest twin.

My heart started pounding, a frantic pulse against my ribs. My breath caught in my throat. I kept reading, my eyes devouring Ellie’s raw, and surprisingly beautiful words.

Again. The word she uses. A small, hard stone. 
Each repetition hollows me a little more. Or fills me. With her. The way a tide fills a cave. 
The rhythm of it, push and yield, strain and fall. 
It is an old rhythm. Older than cities, older than us. This conversation of bodies. 
The only honesty left, perhaps. Because words are for liars. She never says much. And I say nothing of this. This burning.

And then, an entry from a few days ago, after one of our particularly brutal sparring sessions:

Tonight. A bruise blooms, violet. 
Proof. Of what? Her nearness. The way a furnace is near. 
Sometimes, I think, the consumption has already begun. 
This ache, not just muscle. This ache, a hollow carved out, burning with her name.

I snapped the journal closed, my hands shaking, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps. I shoved it back into the drawer, closing it quickly, the sound loud, almost deafening, in the oppressive silence of the empty barracks.

The lines from Ellie’s journal, they were swimming in my mind, burning themselves onto my consciousness, searing themselves into my soul.

They were about me.

About my violence. About our training.

And undeniably, terrifyingly, about Ellie’s desire.

A deep, warm, heat flooded my stomach, a confusing, almost sickening, echo of the feelings Ellie had so starkly, so beautifully, so painfully, described. Those raw words, her words about me, acted like a brand, searing away any pretense of indifference I’d clung to. 

The gnawing unease I’d tried to dismiss all day sharpened into an acute, undeniable compulsion. My need to find Ellie, to see her, to… what the hell was I even hoping to achieve?

The question still flickered, a frantic moth against a hot lightbulb, but it was overshadowed by the sudden, fierce urgency to act, to go. 

I’d been avoiding it, trying to deny the pull, trying to convince myself that I didn’t care, that it wasn’t my problem. But that flimsy wall of denial had just been obliterated by the force of Ellie’s scrawled confessions. And I already knew, with a sickening certainty, where she’d likely been taken. Where Isaac sent all his… special projects. The only question now was what I’d find when I got there.

My feet, moving almost of their own accord, carried me down into the bowels of the stadium, towards the holding cells, those dark, damp, forgotten corners of the WLF stronghold where the air always reeked of old blood, stale fear, and fresh, unimaginable pain.

Will she do it? The question, a cold, hard knot in my gut. Will Isaac break her?

A small, sick, twisted part of me, a part I despised, a part I wanted to carve out of myself with a rusty knife, almost hoped that Ellie would. That she would succumb. That she would shatter. So I wouldn’t have to be so alone in my own violence, my own carefully constructed, and increasingly fragile, monstrosity. If she was broken too, then maybe… maybe we could be broken together.

The thought was a fresh wave of self-loathing, so intense it almost made me stumble.

I found a guard, a young, pale-faced kid named Baker I vaguely recognized from one of the perimeter patrols, on duty outside the interrogation rooms. He looked shaken, his eyes wide, haunted, his skin a sickly, greenish hue under the harsh, flickering fluorescent lights of the corridor.

"Anderson," he said, his voice trembling slightly as he snapped to a semblance of attention. "Lieutenant."

"Williams," I said, my voice curt, all business, betraying none of the turmoil raging inside me. "Where is she?"

Baker swallowed hard, his gaze flicking nervously towards one of the closed, reinforced metal doors, the one with the fresh, dark stains splattered across its surface. "She, uh… she was here, Lieutenant," he stammered. "With the Scar prisoner. Isaac’s orders." He paused, then added, his voice dropping to a low, almost reverent, whisper, "She was… efficient. Real efficient, Lieutenant. Both in her… methods… and in her, uh… disposal." He shuddered, a full-body tremor that made his rifle clatter against the concrete wall. "She left about ten minutes ago. Before you got here."

My blood ran cold. "Efficient." The word hung in the air, heavy and obscene.

"Where did she go?" I demanded, my voice a low growl, the knot in my stomach tightening, twisting, threatening to suffocate me.

Baker just shrugged, his eyes still wide with a mixture of fear and a horrified, almost grudging, respect. "Didn’t say, Lieutenant. Just… said she needed to clean up." He licked his lips, his gaze darting away from mine. "She was… she was covered in blood."

Covered in blood.

Ellie.

My mind raced. She did it. She tortured and killed the Scar. Isaac got what he wanted. Another broken soldier. Another perfectly honed weapon. Another… me.

But what did it mean for Ellie? For the girl who wrote those raw, burning, beautiful words in her journal? For the girl who had curled against me in sleep, her body small and warm, seeking comfort from her own nightmares? Had that Ellie, the one with the defiant fire in her eyes and the surprising softness in her touch, been extinguished? Replaced by something harder, colder?

The thought was a cold, sharp fist clenching around my heart. The unraveling I’d felt in myself, that terrifying, exhilarating loss of control, that unwelcome, undeniable pull towards… something… had I just witnessed the final, brutal severing of Ellie’s own remaining threads?

The fight I’d been so determined to pick, that night in the pit, the one I’d sought out to reassert my own control, my own sanity, it suddenly felt… insignificant. Trivial. Meaningless.

Because the real battle, the one for Ellie’s soul, or what was left of it, might have just been lost.

And I, for reasons I couldn’t begin to understand, for reasons that terrified me to my very core, felt a devastating, soul-crushing sense of responsibility.

The monster in the mirror was no longer just my own.

It had company.

Chapter Text

Ellie

The water scalded, but I let it. Needed the burn to chase away the other sensations. The phantom grit of something under my nails that wasn’t just dirt. The metallic tang of blood, too much blood, that still coated the back of my throat. The hollow, echoing silence in that concrete box after the last, gurgling breath had rattled out of the Scar kid’s ruined chest.

Isaac wanted a monster.

Joke’s on him. 

This world ran out of innocents a long fucking time ago. And I was never one of them to begin with.

I stood under the scalding spray in the officer’s shower – a place I’d only known existed because I’d had the distinct displeasure of hauling Abby’s drunken ass here a few weeks back – and scrubbed at my skin until it was raw. It wasn’t just the physical grime I was trying to wash away. It was the stench of what I’d just done. The stench of duty. The stench of Isaac’s will.

Killing the Scar prisoner. It had been… a job. A simple, brutal, soul-crushing math. He was going to die. Either by my hand, or by someone else’s, someone probably far less… efficient. And what kind of hypocrite in this fucked-up, blood-soaked world could snipe a Scar from a rooftop and not lose a wink of sleep, but then balk at a knife to a bound man's throat in a dark room?

Violence was a currency. The only one that seemed to have any real value anymore.

I’d been killing for a long, long time. Since I was a kid. The first time… the first time had been Riley. The thought, a shard of ice, sharp and cold, pierced through the usual armor I wore around that particular wound. I shoved it down, hard, before it could take root, before the image of her, turning, her eyes wide with a mixture of love and terror and the dawning, horrifying realization of what was happening to her, could fully form in my mind. No. Not now.

After Riley, the others… they blurred. Each one a necessary horror, a step taken on a path I hadn’t chosen but couldn’t seem to leave. The shock had faded, replaced by a grim, weary acceptance. I’d learned. Learned to compartmentalize. Learned to survive. Learned that sometimes, often, in this world, violence wasn’t just an option; it was the only goddamn answer.

It never got easier. Not really. Each death, each life I took, it left a mark. A scar on whatever was left of my soul. But, like Joel always used to tell me, his voice rough with a weariness that I was only now, years later, beginning to truly understand, “If you’re willing to get the job done, you might as well do it right.”

So I had. I’d killed the Scar kid quickly. Efficiently. As painlessly as death in this world could be, anyway. A swift, clean cut across the throat. No hesitation. No fanfare. Just… a job.

Then I’d done the worse part. The part that made my stomach churn with a self-loathing so profound it was almost a physical ache. I’d made it look like something more brutal had happened. A few extra cuts. A broken finger or two. Enough to satisfy Isaac’s expectations of my savagery. Enough to sell the lie.

A dead body is a dead body. This world made monsters of everyone. It was just a matter of degrees.

Of course, I knew, this would haunt me. They all did. Every person I’d had to kill this way, every face, every last, ragged breath, they joined the chorus of ghosts that lived in the dark corners of my mind. I could still sometimes feel the grit of David’s skin under my nails, the coppery, cloying smell of Riley’s blood – iron and cordyceps, a scent I would never, ever forget.

I didn’t live in a world that afforded me the luxury of not knowing. Of looking away. I lived in a world where heavy prices were paid for equally heavy needs. Like retribution. Vengeance. Answers.

Now, in the relative sanctuary of the CO showers – chosen specifically I’d known they were private and, more importantly, almost always empty – I was shaking. My body was sick. My mind was sick.

It was necessary, I kept reminding myself, the words a frantic, desperate litany against the rising tide of nausea and self-disgust. It would have been worse if it hadn’t been me. Someone else… they would have made him suffer. I didn’t. I was… quick.

Lies. All lies. But sometimes, lies were all you had left to cling to.

The water was no longer running red down the drain. It hadn’t been for a while now. But I was still scrubbing anyway, my skin raw, letting the blissful, scalding heat of the water try and relax the now constantly tense, aching muscles of my back and shoulders. I was trying to let my mind completely zone out, to find a moment, just one goddamn moment, of peace, of silence, in the relentless, screaming chaos of my own head.

When I heard the outer locker room door creak open.

Shit.

My whole body tensed. I hoped, with a sudden, desperate fervor, that whichever high-ranking WLF asshole it was would just go about their own business, ignore the occupied shower stall, and leave me the fuck alone.

But of course, I was never that lucky.

"Ellie."

Abby’s voice. Surprisingly soft, almost hesitant, echoing slightly in the cavernous, tiled space.

My heart lurched, a painful, sickening thud against my ribs. I turned off the water, the sudden silence deafening, broken only by the drip, drip, drip of the showerhead and the ragged sound of my own breathing. I stood completely still, water sluicing off my body, plastering my short auburn hair to my scalp.

I was totally naked. Which, whatever. Bodies were just bodies in this world. We’d all seen our share of them, in various states of undress, of decay, of brutal, violent disarray. But the raw, exposed, emotional vulnerability I was feeling right now… that felt like a worse kind of nakedness. A kind I couldn’t just cover up with a towel.

"Ellie," Abby said again, her voice closer now, just outside the thin, flimsy curtain of the shower stall. She seemed to hesitate, then, "I just… I just wanted to see if you’re okay."

Stupid. Of course I wasn’t okay. What did she think? That I’d just skipped down to Isaac’s murder-dungeon, done a little light torture and a quick execution, and then whistled my way up here for a refreshing spa day?

I had no doubt that Abby knew exactly what Isaac had asked me to do. It was probably a routine task for her, just another Tuesday in the life of Lieutenant Anderson, Isaac’s attack dog, his most trusted enforcer. What was it she’d said to me, that first godawful morning in the gym? "You want to lead? You learn to operate when you’d rather be dead." Seemed like advice Abby herself would live by. Had lived by. Probably still did.

I grabbed a towel, a thin, scratchy WLF-issue thing that smelled faintly of mildew, and wrapped it around myself, tucking the end in tightly. I didn’t want to face her. Didn’t want to see the judgment, the pity, the… whatever, in those unreadable blue-grey eyes. But hiding out in the shower stall like a scared, cornered animal was its own kind of death. A slow, suffocating one.

So I pushed the curtain aside and walked out into the main locker room, squeezing the water from my short hair with one hand, trying to project an air of nonchalant, fuck-you indifference that I was miles away from actually feeling.

Abby was standing there, still in her workout clothes from our session earlier that morning. Her blonde hair was pulled back in that severe, militaristic braid, though a few errant strands had escaped, softening the harsh lines of her face. And her face… there was a pained, almost worried, look on it, an expression of something that looked dangerously close to… concern? Which didn’t make any goddamn sense.

"I didn't know where else to go," I said, by way of explanation, my voice rougher than I intended. I gestured vaguely back at the showers. "It was… messy."

Abby seemed to startle, just a fraction, as if surprised by my bluntness. Or maybe by something else entirely. Did she think I wouldn’t do it? I wondered, a bitter, cynical amusement twisting in my gut. Did she think I was too soft? Too… good? Lady, you have no fucking idea.

She came towards me then, slowly, cautiously, as if she were approaching a feral, wounded animal that might bite, or shatter, or both. Her hands, those big, strong, capable hands, were held slightly open at her sides, palms up, a gesture of… peace? Appeasement? It was so out of character for her, it was almost comical.

"Are you okay?" Abby asked again, her voice low, quiet, almost… gentle.

It was a stupid question, and we both knew it. No, I wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay in this fucking world. Not anymore. Probably never had been. But what use was there in complaining? In whining? In showing weakness?

"It’s done," was all I said, my voice flat, devoid of emotion. For now. The invisible words hung heavy in the air between us. We both knew Isaac would ask again. Would push for something more. He always did. That was his way.

Abby watched my face carefully, her gaze intense, searching. Then, hesitantly, almost reluctantly, she reached out, her thumb brushing lightly against the skin of my cheek.

"You have some…" she started, her voice a low murmur.

Her thumb came away streaked with red. Not my blood. The Scar’s.

And for some reason, that small, almost gentle, gesture, that smear of another’s blood on Abby’s skin, that’s what finally broke me.

I could feel my body start to shake, an uncontrollable tremor that began in my hands and spread, like a virus, through my entire system. A full on fucking panic attack. A feeling I knew all too well. The room started to tilt. My breath hitched in my throat, a ragged, tearing sound. Tears, hot and stinging and utterly, completely, unwelcome, welled in my eyes, blurring Abby’s face into a distorted, wavering image.

The memories, the ones I’d tried so hard to suppress, to bury, they came flooding back, a tidal wave of horror and grief and self-loathing. David, his face a mask of leering, predatory hunger, his hands on me, his breath hot and foul against my skin. Riley, her eyes wide with a mixture of love and terror, the bite mark on her arm a death sentence, the feel of her blood, warm and sticky, on my hands. Joel, his face pale and still, his eyes empty, lifeless, an echoing scream in the silence of my mind. And the Scar kid. His face, what was left of it. The feel of my knife, slicing through flesh, through bone…

I swayed, the tears coming now, hot and fast, streaming down my face, my breathing a series of ragged, uneven, choking gasps. The floor seemed to rush up to meet me.

And then Abby caught me.

Her arms, strong and solid, wrapped around me, pulling me against her, her body a sudden, shocking, and entirely unexpected, anchor in the swirling, nauseating chaos of my own internal storm. Her body, so well known now, so familiar after so many hours of brutal, intimate combat, of forced, unwelcome proximity, felt… different. New. Not a weapon. Not an enemy. Just… warm. Solid. Real.

She held me, not with force, not with violence, but with a surprising, almost shocking, gentleness, a quiet, steady strength that somehow, impossibly, managed to shatter the last, crumbling remnants of my carefully constructed resolve.

I wrapped my arms around her neck, clinging to her like a drowning person to a piece of driftwood, my sobs echoing in the empty, tiled locker room, my body shaking uncontrollably against hers, the thin, scratchy towel the only barrier between my naked, trembling skin and the rough, damp fabric of her workout clothes.

"Shh," Abby’s voice was gentle, low, a surprising, almost soothing, rumble against my ear. Her hand, large and warm, came up to cradle the back of my head, her fingers tangling in my wet hair. "I know… I know. I’m sorry," she said, the words a soft, almost inaudible, breath against my hair.

I couldn’t imagine what she could possibly be apologizing for. It was my choice to obey Isaac’s orders. My choice to get my hands dirty. My choice to be… this. There was nothing Abby could have done. Nothing anyone could have done.

Abby’s other hand was rubbing my back, slow, soothing, almost hypnotic circles. I could feel the heat of her hand against the bare skin of my back where the towel had slipped, a startling, unwelcome, and yet, undeniably, comforting sensation. 

I wanted to sink into that warmth, to lose myself in it, if only for a moment, even if it made tomorrow, the next day, the rest of my goddamn life, unbearable. Even if it broke something irreparably.

What is even left to be broken? I wondered, a hysterical, broken thought.

One of my hands, of its own accord, found its way to Abby’s hair, my fingers tangling in the damp, blonde strands at the nape of her neck, pushing up against her scalp, holding her there, anchoring myself to her. My other hand moved across Abby’s neck, her shoulders, feeling the texture of her skin, the faint, raised lines of old scars, the hard, unyielding muscle beneath.

Abby let out a small gasp, a sound of surprise, of… something else? Her arms tightened around me, pulling me even closer, until there was no space left between us, until I could feel the frantic, unsteady beat of her heart against my own.

My face was pressed hard against Abby’s shoulder, my lips brushing against the bare skin of her arm. I could taste the salt of her sweat, the faint, metallic tang of old blood. A deep, welcome, and utterly, completely, terrifyingly, new heat was building inside me, a slow, insidious burn that chased away the cold dread, the nausea, the self-loathing. My breathing, ragged from the panic attack, began to slow, then deepened, quickened again, but this time with something else… something that felt dangerously like desire.

I could feel Abby’s hand move up my back, strong and sure, to rest at the nape of my neck, her fingers gently, almost hesitantly, tracing the line of my hair, sending a shiver down my spine.

I moved back slightly, just enough so that I could look up at her, my vision still blurry with tears, my body still trembling, but with a different kind of tremor now.

Abby was only a few inches taller than me, but in this moment, she seemed to tower over me. Her pupils were blown wide, dark, almost black pools in her blue-grey eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, a warm blush that somehow made her look… younger. More vulnerable. Her mouth, those full, usually set, lips, was slightly parted, her breathing as ragged, as unsteady, as my own. Little golden wisps of hair, escaped from her usually severe braid, framed a face that was open, exposed, almost… shy.

Abby’s eyes, those intense, unreadable eyes, flicked down. Down to my mouth. Just for a split second. Then back up, locking with my own gaze, a silent, unspoken question hanging heavy in the air between us.

She started to lean forward, her head tilting slightly, her gaze fixed on my lips…

The door of the CO locker room banged open, the sound deafening, explosive, in the charged, almost unbearable, silence.

Multiple voices, female voices, loud and laughing, echoed from the adjacent room, shattering the moment.

Abby quickly, almost violently, turned away from me, her face a mask of sudden, cold fury, or maybe just profound embarrassment. Then, without a second glance, without a single word, she fled the room, leaving me standing alone, wrapped in a damp towel, my body trembling, my heart pounding, the ghost of Abby’s touch, Abby’s warmth, Abby’s almost-kiss, a burning, undeniable brand on my skin.

The world, once again, had tilted on its axis, leaving me adrift in a sea of confusion and a dawning, terrifying desire.

Or maybe it was just the same old damnation with a new, cruel twist: Abby. Still infuriating. Still terrifying. And now, somehow, everything I fucking wanted.

Chapter Text

Abby

The stale air of my room was a poor substitute for the steam-filled heat of the officer’s showers, but at least it was private. At least Ellie wasn’t here, her too-green eyes seeing too goddamn much, stripping away layers I hadn’t even realized were still there to be peeled. My cot felt like a slab of ice beneath me, offering no comfort, no escape from the relentless replay in my mind.

The almost-kiss.

It flickered behind my eyelids, a broken, stuttering film reel – her scent, that strange, intoxicating mix of rain, sweat, and something uniquely, infuriatingly Ellie . The surprising softness of her skin beneath my calloused fingertips when I’d brushed that smear of blood from her cheek. The raw, unguarded vulnerability in her eyes, those green pools that had looked so haunted, so lost, just moments before she’d shattered in my arms. And the way my own goddamn body had betrayed me, leaning in, drawn by some invisible, irresistible force…

What the fuck did that mean?

I’d never kissed a woman before. Never even seriously contemplated it. My experiences, few and far between as they were, had always been… straightforward. Male. Owen. Predictable. Safe, in a way. This… this was something else entirely. And why Ellie ? This insufferable, stubborn, willful woman with too-green eyes that saw too much and a smart mouth that cut like a razor. This thorn in my side, this constant disruption to my carefully controlled existence.

My mind drifted back to Ellie’s state in the showers. The blood that wasn't hers, smeared on her cheek like some grotesque war paint. The haunted, hollow look in her eyes after Isaac’s… “task.” I knew what Isaac did. What he made people do. I’d walked that path myself. Each step a betrayal of something I once was, or perhaps, more accurately, something I’d foolishly hoped I could be, before my father’s death, before Salt Lake, before the WLF had become my only refuge, my only purpose.

And now he was doing it to Ellie. Trying to, anyway.

It was a stupid, hypocritical moral math that everyone in this world played. We killed indiscriminately under Isaac’s command in the streets of Seattle, a necessary brutality in the face of Scar aggression, and no one batted an eye. But when Isaac asked someone to do the same damn thing in the quiet, desperate darkness of a basement cell, suddenly that was different. That was monstrous.

I wished it didn’t make me a monster, truly wished it, but sometimes, late at night, when the walls felt like they were closing in, I had to admit the horrifying truth. It wasn't just being forced down a path. It was that the clean, cold efficiency of a kill in the chaos of combat sometimes felt chillingly close to the detached focus needed for torture. When the stark difference between the two began to feel less like a universe apart, when the revulsion dulled into a grim acceptance of the task, that’s when the fear set in. 

That numbness, that terrifying lack of a profound internal shift between the two, that’s what whispered I was the monster. And I couldn't help but wonder if Ellie felt that same erosion.

And then the confusing part. The part that kept replaying in my mind, a scene I couldn’t fast-forward, couldn’t erase. Ellie’s panic, that raw, animalistic terror, it had… shifted. Turned into something else entirely when I’d held her. The way she’d clung to me, her lean body trembling against mine, her hands, those surprisingly strong, calloused hands, running fire along my skin, tangling in my hair. My own control, which wasn’t good these days, not by a long shot, and especially not around her , had just… disappeared. Vanished. Evaporated into the steam and the shared, desperate heat of that moment.

I’d wanted to.

Fuck. I’d wanted to.

I’d wanted to taste that mouth, the one so often twisted into a sarcastic smirk, or spitting defiant, insubordinate retorts. I’d wanted to feel those surprisingly soft lips on mine, to run my hands through her short, wet auburn hair, to pull down that damn towel and explore the lean, scarred, undeniably alluring lines of her body.

Even now, hours later, lying alone in my cold, empty cot, my body was flushed with heat, burning with a desire so potent, so insistent, it was almost painful. I kept my hands locked behind my head, staring up at the unseen ceiling, fighting the urge, the desperate, humiliating need, to touch myself, to seek some kind of release from this torturous, relentless desire. Not wanting to think of Ellie. Not like that.

Ellie, whose pain so closely, so terrifyingly, mirrored my own. Ellie, who’d looked at me with something like raw understanding, and an undeniable, reciprocal desire, in those haunted green eyes.

A soft, hesitant knock at my door shattered the oppressive silence of the room.

Rare. No one usually disturbed me after I’d closed my door for the night, especially not this late. My heart lurched, a sudden, inexplicable tightening in my chest. The barracks outside would be quiet, the other women in C-block long since asleep, or at least pretending to be.

I got out of bed, my body still thrumming with that strange, restless energy. I padded, barefoot, to the door, my hand automatically reaching for the combat knife I kept tucked under my pillow. 

I opened the door a crack.

Ellie.

She was standing there, a ghost in the dim, flickering emergency light of the corridor. Her auburn hair was mussed, sticking up in odd angles, as if she’d been running her hands through it, over and over. She was wearing a thin tank top and those same sleep shorts she’d had on in the records room, the ones that did little to hide the lean strength of her legs. Her green eyes, usually so sharp, so defiant, were wide, shadowed, haunted.

Clearly, sleep had eluded her too.

"I couldn’t sleep," she said, her surprisingly low voice rough, almost a whisper. It scraped against my own raw nerves like sandpaper.

I didn’t know what to say. What could I say? “Yeah, me neither. Been too busy replaying our almost-kiss and contemplating the existential dread of our shared monstrosity.”

So I just opened the door wider, a silent, reluctant, and probably monumentally stupid, invitation.

Ellie slipped into the small room, her presence immediately filling the confined space, making it feel even smaller, hotter, more… charged. My room was spartan, utilitarian. My cot, pushed against one wall. A small, scarred metal desk, piled high with after-action reports and training schedules. The cracked, silver-streaked mirror on the back of the door, a constant, unwelcome reminder of my own tired, haunted face. A stack of books – Alias Grace still on top, its grim pronouncements a little too close to home tonight – on a makeshift shelf of scavenged wood. 

My clothes, what few I possessed, folded neatly in my footlocker. And, tucked into the corner of the desk, a few faded Polaroids Mel had taken years ago, back in the early, almost hopeful, days of the WLF. Pictures of me, Owen, Manny, Mel, looking younger, less… broken. Almost happy. A different lifetime. 

Ellie’s gaze swept around the small space, her eyes lingering on the photos for a moment, then on the single, narrow cot. There was nowhere else to sit.

She perched on the end of my bed, her head bowed, her shoulders slumped, looking small and lost and so goddamn vulnerable it made my chest ache with a strange, unfamiliar pang.

I sat on the other end, a chasm of a few feet between us that felt both impossibly wide and terrifyingly, suffocatingly, small. I watched her for a long moment, the silence stretching, thick with the ghosts of the night, with the raw, exposed nerves of two people who had seen too much, done too much, lost too much.

"Do you… do you want to talk about it?" I asked finally, the words feeling clumsy, inadequate, almost… pathetic, even to my own ears. 

Maybe it would help. The thought was a foreign one, unwelcome. Talking never worked for me. Not that anyone had ever really offered, not in a way that mattered. 

The first time Isaac had made me… interrogate … someone, the first time I’d crossed that invisible line into true, soul-staining darkness, I’d thrown up for hours afterwards. Owen had found me, had held me, his touch a desperate, fumbling attempt to coax my body back into reminding itself that it still existed, that it could still feel something other than revulsion and self-loathing. But I’d never confided in him. Not really. Not about the darkness Isaac had planted inside me, the darkness he had so carefully, so expertly, cultivated.

Ellie was silent for a long, agonizing moment, her head still bowed, her fingers picking at a loose thread on the thin WLF blanket that covered my cot. Then, she spoke, her voice low, raw, almost a whisper, but filled with a desperate, aching intensity that resonated deep within my own hollowed-out core.

She didn’t talk about the Scar, not directly. She didn’t need to. I already knew. I’d seen it in her eyes. I’d smelled it on her skin.

"It’s like… every time, I think, ‘Okay, this is it. This is the last one’," Ellie whispered, her voice cracking. Her gaze finally lifted to meet mine, those green eyes—haunted and searching and so, so tired—fixed on my face. "This will make it make sense. This will be the thing that… that makes it clean . Worthy, even.”

She paused, catching her breath.

“Like if I just push a little harder, go a little deeper into the shit, then the answers will be there. Something real. Something I can hold onto and say, ‘See? This is why. This is what it was all for.’ But..."

Her voice broke on the last word, a raw, ragged sound that tore at something deep inside me.

"But what if there is no clean line, Abby? What if there’s no path that leads forward out of this? What if it just… what if it all just keeps going around and around, like a goddamn circle, going nowhere, just digging a deeper and deeper trench with every step, until you’re so lost in the dark you can’t even find yourself anymore?"

Her voice broke again, a raw, ragged sound. "Can you… can you understand that?"

I was silent, shocked into a rare, almost absolute, stillness. My breath caught in my throat. Because Ellie… Ellie had just articulated, with a raw, brutal honesty that stole my own breath, the very essence of my own existence for the past… God, how many years? Since my father died. Since I joined the WLF. Since I became Isaac’s weapon. Since I started down this dark, bloody, and increasingly, terrifyingly, pointless path.

I was speechless for a long moment, Ellie’s question hanging heavy, almost unbearable, in the air between us. Then, I realized she was waiting, her gaze fixed on my face, a desperate, almost pleading, hope in those haunted green eyes.

My response, when it finally came, was short, rough, almost a gasp. 

"Yes."

Just that one word. But it felt like a lifetime of unspoken truths, of shared darkness, of a terrifying, undeniable, and deeply, profoundly, unsettling connection, was packed into that single, ragged syllable.

"Yes," I said again, my voice stronger this time, more certain, though my heart was still hammering against my ribs. "Of course, I understand."

And how could I not?

We were looking at each other now, a new, dawning, almost terrifying understanding passing between us. An acknowledgment of our shared darkness. Our symmetry. Our reflection in each other’s broken, jagged pieces.

The desire from earlier, from the gym, from the shower, from that almost-kiss that still burned like a brand on my lips, it resurfaced, hot and undeniable, a tense, coiling heat building low in my core, spreading through my limbs like wildfire.

Ellie was so close. So goddamn close. And yet, in this moment, with her raw vulnerability laid bare, with the ghosts of her past, her pain, her fear, so clearly visible in her eyes, she looked so fragile. So breakable.

I knew, with a certainty that ached in my own bones, the relief that simple human touch could bring. The desperate, fleeting solace of another body in the darkness, a temporary anchor in the relentless, churning storm of this fucked-up world.

But I was terrified of speaking. Of saying the wrong thing. Of shattering this fragile, unexpected, and deeply unsettling connection that had, somehow sprung up between us in the ruins of our broken lives.

I shifted uncomfortably on the cot, the springs groaning in protest. I wanted to be closer to Ellie. Wanted to reach out, to touch her, to let my hands, my body, speak the words I couldn’t find, the words that screamed in the silence of my own head: Yes, I understand. I see you. I’m here.

Ellie shifted on the bed then, turning to face me fully, her legs tucked beneath her, her scavenged sleep shorts riding up, exposing the long, lean line of her thighs. My eyes snagged on the pale skin there, on the faint, almost invisible, network of old scars.

My hand, which had been resting on the thin WLF blanket between us, moved. Almost of its own accord. As if guided by some unseen force, some desperate, undeniable magnetism I no longer had the strength, or the will, to resist.

I watched my own hand, as if from a great distance, as it reached out, as it touched Ellie’s thigh. Her skin was surprisingly soft, warm beneath my calloused palm.

I heard her sharp intake of breath, a small, almost inaudible gasp, as my hand slid slowly, hesitantly, upwards, over her hip, my fingers brushing against the thin fabric of her tank top.

Ellie’s eyes fluttered closed, her long, dark lashes a stark contrast against the pale, freckled skin of her cheeks. Her mouth parted slightly, a silent invitation, a silent surrender.

Her hands, small and calloused, found mine, her fingers lacing through my own, then holding my wrists, drawing my hands against her body. She gently, insistently, guided them higher, up over her taut, muscled stomach. It was a body I’d come to know so well over countless hours of sparring. I knew, intimately, the feel of her skin, the hard planes of her muscle, but never like this, never with this soft, aching tenderness. She guided my hands over the soft, small curve of her breasts beneath the thin, worn cotton of her tank top.

I groaned, a low sound ripped from somewhere deep inside me, a sound of terrifying need , as I felt Ellie’s breasts, surprisingly soft, cupped in my hands.

Ellie’s eyes were still closed, her head tilted back slightly, the pulse fluttering, visible and frantic, at the pale, vulnerable skin of her throat. Her breathing was short, shallow, almost a pant, each exhale a warm puff of air against my cheek.

I gently, experimentally, squeezed Ellie’s breasts, my thumbs brushing, almost reverently, against her now erect nipples through the thin fabric.

Ellie let out another low groan, a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure, and held even tighter to my wrists. She pulled my hands up, over her breasts, guiding them, with a surprising, almost desperate, strength, until my hands were resting on her throat, my thumbs brushing against the frantic pulse there.

I felt Ellie push my hands into her own throat, a silent, desperate plea. Her eyes fluttered open then, those haunted green pools locking with mine, blazing with a raw, desperate, almost terrifying, intensity. They were dark, swirling with a storm of conflicting emotions – desire, frustration, regret, and a desperate resolve.

We were sitting closer on the cot now, our legs tangled together, my hands resting on Ellie’s throat, her hands holding them there, pressing them with a soft but demanding pressure.

Ellie leaned forward slightly, her gaze flicking to my mouth, then back up to my eyes. A silent question hung there, a question I was suddenly, desperately, aching to answer.

In one fluid movement, a movement that felt both terrifyingly new and as old as time itself, I shifted my hands from Ellie’s throat to cup her face, my thumbs brushing against her cheekbones, my fingers tangling in the soft, damp auburn hair at her temples. I drew her forward, slowly, deliberately, my heart hammering against my ribs, my breath catching in my throat.

And then I kissed her.

Gently at first. A soft, hesitant press of lips against hers. It was my first time kissing a woman, and the simple reality of it—the surprising softness of her mouth—was a quiet revelation. For a few heartbeats, we just stayed there, learning the feel of each other. Then, a low, deep heat began to build in my core, a demanding warmth that wanted more.

I pressed harder, tilting my head, and felt her lips part beneath mine in a silent surrender. My tongue tentatively traced the seam of her mouth, and a small, broken sound escaped her throat. That was all it took. The gentleness was gone, obliterated by a raw, desperate hunger. I slanted my mouth over hers, kissing her with all the unspoken pain and terrifying need that had been simmering between us.

A moan tore from her throat, a sound of surrender and need, of a pain so profound it felt like an echo in my own soul. In the next moment, she pushed me back onto the cot, her body following to press down on mine. The weight of her was both a shock and a relief. I gasped, overwhelmed by sensation—the searing warmth of her skin, the frantic beat of her heart against my chest, the undeniable rightness of how our bodies locked together. Her legs slotted between mine, and the friction of our bare thighs brushing was an exquisite, almost unbearable, heat.

My breath hitched as Ellie started to grind against me. It was a slow, deliberate pressure, and with each push of her hips, something inside me finally broke. That simmering, desperate need that had been building between us for weeks, for months, maybe even from that very first, unsettling moment when I’d first seen her, became a raging fire. My hands were no longer mine to command; they slid down the long line of her back, discovering the surprising curve of her ass, pulling her hard against me. A sharp gasp from Ellie was all the encouragement I needed. I thrust my hips upward, meeting her rhythm, and the world narrowed to the raw, undeniable pleasure of our bodies moving together.

I looked down at the point where our bodies met, tangled together. The thin fabric of our shorts did little to dampen the heat, the direct friction of our bodies rubbing together with every movement. My own shorts had been pushed aside in the motion, revealing a dark hint of hair where I was pressed flush to her, and the sight sent a fresh jolt of heat through me. Above me, Ellie’s eyes were closed in concentration, her freckled cheeks flushed, her mouth parted in an expression of intense, almost painful, pleasure as she gasped—those low, rough sounds no longer muffled, but raw and real and undeniably, terrifyingly, hers.

Ellie leaned down then, her gaze locking with mine for a searing second before capturing my mouth again. It was a deep, bruising kiss. A low moan tore from my throat, vibrating against her lips as we kept moving, this primal rhythm of our hips grinding together, a friction that was both agony and ecstasy through the thin barrier of our shorts. This wasn't sex, not yet, not really. It was something... rawer. Almost more dangerous. This close, this exposed, it felt frighteningly intimate, like we'd stripped away skin and were down to pure, aching nerve.

Every instinct screamed at me – to stop, to run, to take – but I was lost, my own body a traitor to any sense of command. I couldn't stop the motion, couldn't break the kiss, couldn't breathe, yet couldn't push it into anything more. Just this relentless, desperate pressure, suspended in a place where I was utterly, terrifyingly, out of control.

Ellie’s breath hitched, a ragged sound against my neck. "I’m… gonna…" she choked out, the words a broken promise against my skin. A fresh, wild surge of desire, hotter and sharper than anything before, ripped through me. I could feel the damp heat blooming between our thighs, a slick warmth seeping through the thin fabric of our shorts as we ground relentlessly together. 

My hand shot to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in her short, damp hair, and I pushed my hips up, hard, chasing that feeling, chasing her. 

“Ah… I’m…” Ellie gasped, her voice tight, strangled against my pulse point. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” she whimpered, almost a sob, her face burying into the curve of my neck as she shattered. Ellie moaned, a low, restrained sound vibrating against me, her body convulsing, shaking and trembling against mine in a series of small, exquisite shudders that sent another wave of pure, unadulterated need crashing through my own system.

Then, Ellie’s hands, surprisingly strong, moved to my breasts, sliding under my tank top to find my bare skin, her thumbs rubbing, almost bruisingly, across my already hypersensitive nipples. She kissed me again, a deep, desperate kiss. 

Every point of contact was pure fire. Her mouth devouring mine, those relentless thumbs sending shockwaves straight to my core where the need from watching her, from feeling her come, had pooled into a raging storm. The pressure inside me intensified, coiling tighter and tighter. 

This was Ellie – all lean strength and surprising softness pressed flush against me, the scrape of her shorts against mine, the heat of her skin. So fucking wrong, a betrayal of every goddamn rule, every instinct I'd lived by, yet her body moving with mine, this illicit, shared heat, felt impossibly, terrifyingly right. 

My hips began to buck of their own accord, a helpless, instinctual rhythm, chasing something I didn’t want to name but desperately needed. A low moan from my throat as the world narrowed to that searing friction, the insistent press of her body, the burn of her touch everywhere. My back arched off the cot, every muscle in my body clenching, and then, release – a shuddering, overwhelming wave that crashed through me, so potent, so all-consuming, it bordered on pain, stealing my breath, my thoughts, everything. It wasn't just sensation; it was oblivion, a raw, tearing pleasure that blotted out the world. 

Ellie, her own body still trembling, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, pressed a hand over my mouth, her eyes wide, a mixture of alarm and a dawning, almost horrified, amusement in them.

"Shhh," Ellie whispered, her voice low and rough against my ear. "Shhh, they’ll hear."

I suddenly realized, with a fresh jolt of panic, a cold wave of mortification washing over the lingering heat of my release, that we’d been… panting. Groaning. In a very small, very not-soundproof room, with a very thin door, and on the other side of that door, just a few feet away, were the rest of my squad. 

Fuck.

I was still breathing hard, my body slick with sweat where Ellie had been curled into my side. The space beside me was already cooling. She was sitting up, her back mostly to me, small, jerky movements as she tried to pull her tank top straight, tug her shorts back into place where they’d ridden high on her thighs. Her auburn hair was a disaster, sticking up in wild tufts where my hands had been. 

When she shifted, just enough for me to see her profile in the dim light, her cheeks were flushed a deep, burning red, but her eyes… fuck, her eyes were still just as haunted as before, maybe more so. The vulnerability from earlier was still there, raw and exposed, but now overlaid with something new – a kind of dawning shock, maybe regret.

What the hell was I supposed to say? ‘We shouldn't have done that’ ? True, probably. 

‘That was the most intense fucking thing I’ve ever felt’ ? Also true.

It was so wrong, a line crossed that could never be uncrossed, but God, it had felt so devastatingly right. My head was a mess of contradictions, a chaotic jumble of pleasure, panic, and a terrifying, fragile hope I didn't dare name.

Before I could string a single coherent thought together, let alone speak, Ellie scrambled off the cot. Quick, almost furtive movements, like an animal escaping a trap. She was at the door in two strides, her hand reaching for the tarnished metal handle. She paused there, just for a second, her shoulders hunched. Then, slowly, she looked back at me over her shoulder. Her face was a battlefield of conflict, those green eyes wide, filled with a storm of emotions I couldn't decipher – confusion, fear, maybe even a flicker of that same desperate need that still thrummed through my own veins.

Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper, rough and broken. "I should go." She shook her head, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, her gaze dropping for a second before flicking back up to mine, sharp and pained. "Abby…this doesn't... it doesn't change anything."

And then she was gone. The door clicked shut behind her, a soft, final sound in the sudden, suffocating silence of the room. Leaving me alone, aching, the imprint of her body still warm on the cot, her scent clinging to my skin, a ghost in the stale air. 

Chapter Text

Ellie

I’d had to say something. Anything, really. To shatter the goddamn silence. 

Abby had been looking at me with an expression I’d never seen on her face before, not in all the weeks of her glares and grunts and general Lieutenant-Anderson-brand intimidation. It was… soft. Hazy-eyed, her cheeks flushed a dark, almost bruised, red, a dazed relaxation in the usually rigid lines of her body. As if she’d really, truly, for one terrifying, mind-bending moment, let her guard down.

All it had taken was me spilling my guts about the goddamn abyss I was staring into, and then dry-humping each other into a sweaty, desperate oblivion on her narrow, WLF-issue cot. 

Yeah. “This doesn't change anything.” Sounded about right. Sounded like the kind of bullshit lie I was getting pretty good at telling myself.

Abby’s door was already closed behind me by the time the words fully registered in my own ears, the soft click of the latch echoing in the pre-dawn quiet of C-block like a goddamn gunshot. I stood there for a second, my bare feet cold against the gritty concrete floor, the thin sleep shorts and tank top doing little to ward off the chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. My body still thrummed with a strange, unfamiliar energy, an ache that was both pleasure and pain, a confusing cocktail of shame and a desire so potent it left me breathless.

Back in my own cold, empty bunk, sleep was a distant, mocking dream. My mind was a goddamn hurricane, spinning and lurching, replaying every touch, every gasp, every stolen, desperate moment in Abby’s small, suffocating room. What did it mean? What the fuck did any of it mean?

It meant nothing.

That’s what I decided. It had to mean nothing. It was a fluke. A moment of shared, desperate, trauma-fueled insanity. Two broken people, clinging to each other in the dark, trying to outrun their own goddamn ghosts. That’s all it was. It couldn’t be anything more. Because if it was… if it was something more… then I was well and truly fucked. More fucked than I already was, which was saying something.

So, yeah. Nothing. 

I was going to do what I did best. Not talk about it. Bury it. Shove it down into that dark, crowded basement in my mind where all the other unspeakable, unbearable things lived. Joel had taught me that little trick. 

Some things were better left undisturbed in the dark earth of your memory. You just kept moving. Kept fighting. Kept surviving. Until you didn’t.

Simple.

Except it wasn’t. Not anymore.

The next morning, or what passed for it in the perpetual grey gloom of a Seattle summer, I skipped the 0400 “special training session” with Lieutenant Anderson. Too soon. Way too fucking soon. The thought of facing her in the gym, of our bodies colliding in that practiced, brutal dance after… after last night … it made my stomach churn. I needed space. I needed distance. I needed to scrub the memory of her skin, her scent, her goddamn softness , from my brain.

I was on my way to the mess hall, hoping to snag some stale bread and a cup of something vaguely coffee-like before the morning rush, when Sergeant Smith, Isaac’s messenger, intercepted me. I was walking with Jordan and Taryn, Manny and Owen already a few paces ahead, their voices a low rumble in the echoing corridor. Abby, thankfully, was nowhere to be found. Probably already in the gym, punishing some unsuspecting punching bag for her own confusing, fucked-up emotions. Or maybe just avoiding me. A girl could hope.

“Williams.” Smith’s voice was flat, devoid of inflection, his eyes raking over me with a look that made my skin crawl.

“Sergeant,” I said, my own voice carefully neutral.

Jordan and Taryn exchanged a look, that silent, squadmate telepathy that I was still, apparently, on the outside of. “We’ll catch you in the mess,” Jordan said, her usual boisterousness muted, her eyes narrowed with a hint of concern. Taryn just gave me a curt, almost imperceptible, nod.

“Isaac wants to see you,” Smith said, his gaze unwavering. “Now.”

My stomach dropped. Here we go. Round two of Isaac’s mind games. I knew another ‘request’ was coming. Another test. Another opportunity for me to prove my… usefulness. My loyalty. My willingness to wade knee-deep in whatever shit he decided to throw my way.

“Great,” I said, my voice dripping with a sarcasm I didn’t even try to hide. “Lead the way.”

I followed him, my heart pounding a nervous, erratic rhythm against my ribs. Jordan and Taryn watched me go, their expressions a mixture of concern and something else… pity? Yeah, probably pity. They knew what a summons from Isaac usually meant.

Isaac’s office was exactly as I remembered it: cold, utilitarian, smelling of stale smoke and unspoken threats. And, to my complete and horrified surprise, Abby was already there. Standing ramrod straight at parade rest in front of Isaac’s massive metal desk, her back to the door. 

Every line of her uniform was WLF perfection, every strand of her blonde hair ruthlessly scraped back into that severe, militaristic braid. Those carefully constructed walls, the ones that had seemed to crumble, just a little, in the darkness of her room last night, they were back. Higher, thicker, more impenetrable than ever.

She didn’t turn when I entered, but I saw her shoulders tense, just for a fraction of a second. Then, she made a brief, almost imperceptible, turn of her head, her eyes, those glacial blue-grey pools, meeting mine for a split, charged second. And then, just as quickly, she looked away, her gaze fixed on some distant point beyond Isaac’s head, as if she’d been burned.

My own cheeks flushed, a hot, unwelcome wave of… something. Shame? Embarrassment? A weird, lingering echo of last night’s illicit heat? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.

Isaac, however, seemed oblivious to the sudden, almost unbearable, tension that had just slammed into the room. He greeted me with that same soft, almost paternal, smile that always made my skin crawl, gesturing towards the empty chair beside Abby.

“Ellie. Good of you to join us.” His voice was a low, purring rumble. “I was just telling Lieutenant Anderson here how successful you proved to be yesterday.” He leaned back in his chair, his gaze flicking between me and Abby, a sly, knowing amusement in his eyes. “Efficient. Decisive. Qualities I value highly in a soldier.”

He was praising me for what I’d done to that Scar prisoner. For the torture. For the kill. For the goddamn performance I’d put on for his benefit. And he was doing it in front of Abby. The implication was clear. See, Anderson? This is how it’s done. This is the kind of soldier I need. The manipulative old bastard.

Abby didn’t react. Her face remained a mask of stony indifference. But I saw the almost imperceptible tightening of her jaw, the way her knuckles whitened where her hands were clasped behind her back. 

Isaac continued, his voice still soft, still reasonable, still utterly, completely, terrifyingly, like David’s. "Abigail tells me your training is progressing well. That you’re adaptable.” He paused, letting the word hang in the air. “She says you have a certain… unorthodox… approach to problem-solving. But that you get results.”

I glanced at Abby. Her expression was still unreadable, but I could see the faint tic in her jaw, the almost imperceptible flare of her nostrils. Oh, she was pissed. Really pissed. And I couldn’t entirely blame her. I’d been a pain in her ass since day one. And now, Isaac was rubbing her face in it.

“Which brings me to why I asked you both here,” Isaac said, his gaze settling on me, his eyes sharp, assessing. “I’ve been re-evaluating our current tactical deployments. Our resources. And I’ve decided to make some changes.”

He paused, letting the silence stretch, a master manipulator building the tension. My stomach clenched. Here it came. The other shoe.

“Williams,” he said, his voice dropping even lower, becoming almost confidential, as if he were sharing a secret with an old, trusted friend. “I’m taking you off Lieutenant Anderson’s primary fireteam.”

My breath hitched. Relief? Disappointment? I didn’t know. My emotions were a goddamn tangled mess.

“Effective immediately,” Isaac continued, “you’ll be given command of your own specialized reconnaissance and asset acquisition unit.” He smiled then, that cold, predatory smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “A small team. Two, maybe three, operators. You’ll choose them yourself, from the available pool. You’ll report directly to me.”

My own squad? Reporting directly to Isaac? What the fuck?

“Lieutenant Anderson’s team,” Isaac went on, his gaze flicking to Abby, then back to me, “will continue with their current operational tempo. However, I have a special assignment. For both of you. A test, if you will.”

He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. “Intel suggests a significant Scar presence in the old port district. Two key locations. A suspected weapons cache in the derelict ferry terminal. And a makeshift command post in the old public library, a few blocks inland. Both are heavily defended. Both are rumored to hold valuable assets. Either high-level Scar prisoners, or documents detailing their upcoming offensive strategies.”

He paused, letting the implications sink in. “Your squads, Anderson, Williams, will infiltrate these locations. Simultaneously. Team Alpha, under Lieutenant Anderson, will take the ferry terminal. Team Bravo, under your command, Williams, will take the library.” He smiled again, that cold, chilling smile. “Secure your objectives. Acquire any assets. Minimize your own casualties. And may the best operative win.”

The unspoken words hung heavy in the air: And the one who fails, or disappoints me, will face the consequences.

This was it. The catalyst. The game changer. Isaac wasn’t just pitting us against each other anymore. He was throwing us into a goddamn arena, forcing us to compete, to fight, not just for survival, but for his favor. For his resources. For our very lives.

And I knew, with a sudden, sickening clarity, that I had to win. Not for Isaac. Not for the WLF. But for Joel. For myself. For the answers I so desperately needed. This was my chance. My only chance. To get closer to the truth about Salt Lake. To find out who was really responsible for Joel’s death.

And Abby… Abby was standing in my way.

I glanced at her. Her face was still a mask of stone, but I could see the fury in her eyes, the almost imperceptible tremor in her clenched jaw. She knew what this was. She knew Isaac’s games. And she knew, just as I did, that this wasn’t just a mission. It was a declaration of war. Between us.

She was vicious. Disciplined. Ruthless. She would do anything to ‘win’ this little competition Isaac had orchestrated. Anything to maintain her position, her power, her control.

And I… I would have to be just as vicious. Just as ruthless. Just as willing to do whatever it took.

Isaac, seemingly oblivious to the storm of unspoken emotions raging in the room, leaned back in his chair, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. "You have the rest of the day to select your teams and formulate your plans. Report back to me by 1800 hours. Dismissed."

We left his office in silence, the unspoken challenge, the undeclared war, hanging heavy between us. As we walked down the long, echoing corridor, Abby didn’t look at me. Didn’t speak. Her walls were back up, higher, thicker, more impenetrable than ever.

The line had been drawn. And this time, there was no turning back.

I remembered that first day, seeing Abby across the field. Even then, a cold certainty had settled in my gut. 

In this world, forces like that didn’t just exist; they collided.  

Now, standing outside Isaac's office, the echo of that thought was a deafening roar. The game was on. And I had a feeling it wasn’t going to end until one of us was broken. 

Chapter Text

Abby

The air in the WLF armory was a familiar ghost, cold and metallic, tasting of gun oil and the faint, lingering copper of old fear. It settled in my lungs like grave dust. Isaac’s parting words – “May the best soldier win, Anderson. Don’t disappoint me.” – were a ricochet in the hollow chambers of my skull, each repetition a fresh, stinging impact. 

Disappointment, in Isaac’s calculus, wasn’t a minor setback; it was a terminal diagnosis. 

This whole twisted “competition” he’d engineered felt less like a sound tactical exercise and more like him yanking hard on my chain, just to see if the links would hold, or if I’d snap at the other dog he’d just thrown into the pit. To see whose teeth were sharper, whose will was more ruthlessly aligned with his own. He was testing Ellie’s breaking point, certainly, but mine too. Always mine.

My jaw was a knot of aching muscle. I’d been grinding my teeth in my sleep again, the sound like stones grating together in the dark. A phantom warmth, unwelcome and insistent, ghosted across my collarbone, the memory of Ellie’s desperate heat, the surprising fragility of her small frame pressed against mine in that cramped cot, a rogue current I tried to ground with every controlled breath. 

Last night… it was an anomaly, a stress fracture in the war’s unending pressure, born of exhaustion and shared trauma. Nothing more. It had to be nothing more. The alternative was a descent into a kind of chaos I couldn’t map, couldn’t control. And control was the only god I still prayed to.

I slammed a fresh magazine into my rifle with brutal, practiced efficiency. The sharp, decisive thwack-click was a satisfying punctuation to the denial I was trying to hammer into my own thick skull. Thinking about last night , about the raw, unspoken thing that had pulsed between us in the dark of my cell, was like staring directly into a flashbang – blinding, disorienting, and profoundly, dangerously, stupid. Anger was safer. The cold, clean burn of mission focus, that was my sanctuary.

This mission. The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone – the CHAZ. A name that tasted like ash and old rebellion on the tongue. Now, just another festering wound in Seattle’s decaying corpse, a contested labyrinth of crumbling cafes, bookstore barricades, and makeshift Scar fortifications. Isaac’s intel, always a carefully curated blend of truth and strategic omission, suggested a significant Scar tactical cache hidden somewhere in its guts. Intel, routes, supply points. A prize worth bleeding for. A prize worth pitting his two most… interesting assets against each other for.

My first stop was the mess hall, a cavernous, echoing space that always smelled of stale coffee, boiled vegetables, and the faint, underlying tang of desperation. I found Manny hunched over a chipped enamel mug, nursing a cup of what looked like yesterday’s sludge, its surface reflecting the flickering, unreliable light of the emergency lamps like a pool of oil. He looked up as I approached, his usual boisterous grin faltering slightly when he saw my face. Even Manny, for all his crude jokes and carefully cultivated air of idiot bravado, could read the storm signals when they were this obvious.

“Morning, Lieutenant,” he said, his voice a little too loud, a little too forced. He gestured vaguely with his mug. “Heard the news. So, the new girl gets her own hunt, huh? Isaac playing favorites, or just trying to light a fire under your ass?” His gaze was too knowing, a greasy finger prodding at the sutures of my composure.

“It’s a revised tactical deployment, Manny,” I said, my voice flat, devoid of inflection. The cold, professional tone I used to keep the world, and my own goddamn emotions, at arm’s length. “Objective priority. Resource allocation. Standard WLF procedure.” Bullshit, of course. We both knew it.

Manny snorted, a sound of disbelief. “Right. Standard procedure. Like giving a rookie command of her own snatch-and-grab unit and sending her head-to-head against his best goddamn lieutenant is just another Tuesday.” He took a long, noisy slurp of his coffee, his eyes still on me, sharp and assessing. Manny’s skepticism was a familiar irritant, like grit in my boots, annoying but usually manageable. Today, though, it felt heavier, laced with something I couldn’t quite name, something that made my skin prickle with unease.

“We move out in two hours,” I said, cutting him off before he could dig any deeper. “Ferry terminal is our primary. Intel suggests heavy Scar presence, possible secondary supply cache. Standard loadout, but pack extra for sustained engagement.”

He nodded, his earlier smirk fading, replaced by the grim, focused look of a soldier preparing for a fight. “Understood, Lieutenant. Owen know yet?”

“He’s next on my list.”

Owen was in the med bay, a quiet, almost reverent space that always smelled faintly of antiseptic. He was hunched over a small, makeshift desk in the corner, sketching in a worn notebook, his brow furrowed in concentration. The lines he drew were stark, jagged, mirroring the skeletal skyline of the ruined city visible through the grimy, reinforced window. Mel was nearby, meticulously organizing medical supplies, her movements economical, her presence a quiet, steadying force in the WLF’s chaotic orbit. She glanced up as I entered, offered a small, almost imperceptible nod, then returned to her work.

Owen looked up, his pencil stilling, his eyes, usually so placid, the color of a calm sea before a storm, now clouded with a quiet concern that pricked at my skin like a rash. He knew. Of course, he knew. Bad news traveled fast in the WLF, a contagion of rumor and speculation.

“Abs,” he said, his voice low, the sound barely carrying over the hum of the failing generators. He gestured towards the empty stool beside him. I ignored it, remaining standing, my arms crossed over my chest. 

“This doesn’t feel right, Abs,” he said, his gaze searching mine, trying to find a crack in the armor. “Isaac… pitting squads against each other like this? Especially… her squad against yours?” The unspoken hung between us, thick as spore-choked air from a deep basement. Her. Ellie. The name itself was a raw nerve.

“It’s a mission, Owen,” I said, my voice clipped, all business. I refused to let him see the turmoil churning inside me, the sickening knot of dread and a strange, unwelcome flicker of… something else. Anticipation? “We execute the objective. We secure the assets. We win. That’s all that matters.”

Owen sighed, a heavy, weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of years of unspoken words between us. He ran a hand through his already disheveled blond hair, his knuckles white. “Is it, though, Abby? Is that really all that matters anymore?” His eyes, filled with a familiar, painful kindness, held mine for a long moment. 

“Yes,” I said, my voice harder than I intended. “It is.” I turned to go, the conversation, the unspoken accusations, the weight of his concern, too much to bear. “Ferry terminal. We move out in ninety minutes. Be ready.”

Back in my stark, coffin-like room in C-block, the silence was a physical presence, pressing in on me. Spread across the scarred metal table that served as my desk was a map of the targeted sector. The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. A name that now felt like a cruel joke, a bitter reminder of a world, a time, when people had actually believed in things like autonomy, like freedom. Now, it was just another Scar-infested shithole.

My finger, calloused and scarred, traced the infiltration route I’d already mapped out in my head. Through the flooded, treacherous streets of the International District, then north, using the collapsed freeway overpass as cover, approaching the ferry terminal from the west, where Scar patrols were reportedly thinnest. Every street corner was a potential ambush, every darkened window a sniper’s nest, every pile of rubble a possible IED. 

My mind, a finely tuned engine of war, calculated angles of fire, fields of engagement, fallback positions, contingency plans. This meticulous planning, this ruthless attention to detail, it was my armor. My way of imposing order on the relentless chaos of this world. My way of keeping the other, more dangerous, chaos – the one Ellie Williams seemed to ignite inside me with infuriating ease – at bay.

I laid out my gear with the precision of a surgeon preparing for a critical operation. My rifle, cleaned and oiled until it gleamed dully in the weak, flickering light of the emergency lamp. My pistol, snug in its holster. My combat knife, its edge honed to a razor sharpness. Extra magazines, grenades, a medkit. Each piece a familiar weight, a testament to years of brutal necessity, of survival bought at a cost too high to calculate.

An image flashed, unbidden, unwelcome: Ellie’s hand, surprisingly small but strong, gripping my wrist, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and defiance. The unexpected softness of her skin. The way her body had trembled against mine when she’d finally shattered.

I gritted my teeth, shoving the memory down, hard, into that dark, crowded basement in my mind where all the other unbearable things lived. Control. Focus. Victory. These were the only constants. The only things that mattered.

The squad moved out under a sky the color of a fresh bruise, a sickly purple-grey that promised more rain. And Seattle, true to form, delivered. A cold, persistent drizzle began to fall as we slipped out of the stadium’s west gate, slicking the already treacherous streets, turning the ruined city into a glistening, monochrome nightmare. The air was a cocktail of wet decay, distant woodsmoke from Scar fires, and the faint, unnerving sweetness of the infected, a perfume this dead city wore with a grim, almost coquettish, indifference.

I moved with a coiled intensity, every sense straining, every shadow a potential threat. Owen was to my right, his earlier unease now hardened into a grim, focused resolve. Manny, on point, moved with a surprising stealth for a man his size, his usual boisterousness replaced by a low, simmering aggression. We were a unit. Forged in fire and blood. Isaac’s best.

The weight of his expectation was a physical pressure on my shoulders, a hand pressing me down, urging me forward. And beneath it, a different, more volatile pressure: Ellie. Somewhere out there, in this same urban graveyard, in this same goddamn rain, she was moving too. A rival predator. Driven by her own ghosts, her own furies.

We navigated the flooded, treacherous streets of the International District, the water sometimes up to our knees, cold and brackish, reeking of sewage. Buildings leaned at precarious angles, their shattered windows like vacant, staring eyes, silently judging our trespass. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the drip of water, the creak of settling debris, the mournful sigh of the wind through skeletal trees, and the squelch of our boots in the mud.

As we neared the designated perimeter of the CHAZ, the atmosphere grew heavier, the sense of menace palpable. Fresh Scar markings – territorial slashes of white paint, crude, unsettling effigies fashioned from bone and rags, hanging from lampposts like grotesque Christmas ornaments – were everywhere. This wasn’t just a supply cache they were guarding; it was a statement. A declaration of war.

Manny, on point, suddenly froze, holding up a clenched fist. He crouched low, his rifle sweeping the street ahead. I moved up beside him, my own senses on high alert.

And then I saw it.

A fresh boot print in the mud, partially obscured by a piece of fallen masonry. Too clean for a Scar’s wrapped foot. WLF issue. Small. Almost delicate, if anything in this goddamn world could still be called delicate.

Ellie’s team.

A cold knot tightened in my gut, a feeling dangerously close to anticipation, sharp and unwelcome, like a shard of glass under the skin. The air crackled with an unspoken tension. The hunt was on.

The city held its breath, a fragile glass orb, balanced on a knife’s edge, waiting for the first gunshot to shatter the silence, to unleash the storm. And I knew, with a chilling certainty that settled deep in my bones, that the storm, when it came, would be bloody. 

And that Ellie Williams would be right in the goddamn eye of it. 

Chapter Text

Ellie

The CHAZ. Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Sounded like something out of one of Joel’s pre-outbreak history books, a footnote about a bunch of idealistic dreamers who probably got their asses handed to them by reality. Now, it was just another pockmarked, shit-stained hellhole in the sprawling corpse of Seattle, a testament to how quickly dreams could rot. 

Rain, the city’s goddamn lifeblood, hammered down, turning the cracked asphalt into slick, treacherous mirrors reflecting a sky the color of a week-old bruise. We were ghosts in this machine, me, Jordan, and Taryn, slipping through the skeletal remains of what some sign, its letters mostly shot out, proclaimed was once a “vibrant community marketplace.” Vibrant now with rats the size of house cats and the ever-present, cloying perfume of decay.

Isaac’s “competition.” What a fucking joke. Like we were dogs he was siccing on each other for a scrap of rancid meat, just to see who’d draw more blood. 

May the best soldier win.  

His words, slick and cold as a freshly sharpened blade, still echoed in my ears. I could practically taste the satisfaction radiating off him, the sick thrill he got from pulling strings, from watching his puppets dance. But the thought of her – Abby – out there in this same urban graveyard, moving with that terrifying, predatory grace, gunning for the same prize… that lit a fire in my belly. A furious, exhilarating blaze that had fuck-all to do with Isaac’s bullshit games.

Last night…

The memory, unwelcome and sharp as a shard of glass, jabbed at me. Abby’s body beneath mine, her breath hot against my ear, the desperate, almost brutal, collision. It was a wildfire, a goddamn conflagration that had seared itself into my brain, and the feel of her skin, the surprising vulnerability beneath all that muscle and armor, the raw, undeniable need that had crackled between us… it was like an ember still glowing under my own skin, a dangerous, infuriating hum threatening to reignite with the slightest provocation.

I shoved it down, hard, into the same dark, cluttered space where I kept Joel’s face, his voice, the phantom feel of his hand on my shoulder. Compartmentalize. Survive. That was the fucking mantra. Channel the burn into focus. Into the cold, predatory calm that settled over me before a kill.

Anything, Williams?” Jordan’s voice crackled in my ear, the frustration clear even through the shitty WLF-issue radio. She was a bundle of nervous energy, a firecracker with a faulty fuse, and I knew this whole situation grated on her. 

Going up against Manny and Owen was a shit sandwich, and facing Abby was something else entirely. Neither Jordan nor Taryn liked it, but when I’d pulled them aside and asked, Jordan hadn’t even let me finish the sentence before she’d said yes. That immediate, almost aggressive, loyalty was exactly why I’d chosen her. Her rifle was practically an extension of her limbs; she probably slept with the damn thing.

“Just the ghosts of a thousand shitty lattes and bad poetry slams,” I muttered back, scanning the crumbling facade of what looked like it used to be a coffee shop called “The People’s Grind.” Cute. “Keep your eyes peeled, Jordan. Scars ain’t exactly known for their subtlety, but they’re not stupid either.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill,” she grumbled. Her loyalty, however crudely expressed, was a solid, if sometimes annoying, thing. 

Taryn, on the other hand, was a fucking rock. She moved with a quiet, deliberate grace, her combat shotgun held low, her dark eyes missing nothing. She was the calm center of our particular hurricane, her silence more reassuring than any of Jordan’s constant chatter. She didn’t need pep talks or atta-girls. She just was . A goddamn anchor in this sea of shit. Right now, she was covering our six, a silent, watchful presence at the mouth of the alley we’d just slipped into.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Jordan whispered, kicking at a pile of sodden, unidentifiable debris. “Smells like ass”

“Smells like Tuesday in Seattle,” I retorted, not bothering to lower my voice. “Let’s move. Intel said the co-op. That’s where the good shit’s supposed to be.”

The “good shit” was a rumored Scar tactical cache. Maps, supply routes, maybe even leadership rosters. Enough to give Isaac a serious hard-on, and maybe, just maybe, enough to give the WLF an edge in this never-ending meat grinder of a war. And, incidentally, enough to win Isaac’s sick little game. To shove it right down Abby’s perfectly sculpted, infuriatingly competent throat. The thought brought a grim smile to my lips.

We pushed deeper into the CHAZ, a labyrinth of narrow streets, barricaded storefronts, and rain-slicked alleyways. Every shadow seemed to writhe with unseen threats, every gust of wind carried whispers of old violence. The graffiti here was different from the usual WLF or Scar tags. Faded murals of raised fists, peace signs, and angry, hopeful slogans, now scarred by bullet holes and stained with something that looked disturbingly like old blood. Ghosts of a different war, a different kind of desperation.

We reached what looked like a collapsed section of an old indie bookstore, “Revolution Reads” proclaimed a faded, peeling sign. The front was impassable, a tangle of twisted metal and fallen masonry.

“Dead end?” Jordan asked, her voice tight.

“Only if you’re not paying attention,” I said, pointing to a narrow, jagged hole in the brickwork near the foundation, half-hidden by a pile of rotting sandbags. “Looks like our way in.”

It was a tight squeeze, a claustrophobic crawlspace that smelled of moldering paper, damp concrete, and something else… fresher. Sweeter. The unmistakable, cloying scent of spores.

“Fuck me,” Jordan hissed, recoiling. “Spores. We gotta find another way.”

I pulled my gas mask from my pack, the rubber cool and familiar against my skin. “You two find another way if you want. This is faster.” I didn’t wait for an argument, just wriggled into the opening. My immunity. My goddamn curse and my secret weapon. A skeleton key in this rotten, spore-choked world, a dirty little cheat code that opened doors others couldn’t, or wouldn’t, dare to try. Sometimes, it was the only fucking advantage I had.

The crawlspace was dark, tight, and crawling with things I didn’t want to identify. I could hear Jordan and Taryn muttering on the other side, probably trying to find a less… fungal route. Good. Let them. This was quicker. The air was thick with spores, a visible, swirling haze in the weak beam of my flashlight. They tickled my nostrils, a dry, dusty sensation. For anyone else, this would be a death sentence. For me… it was just Tuesday.

I emerged into the bookstore’s ruined interior, coughing the dust from my lungs. The place was a wreck. Bookshelves overturned, their contents strewn across the floor like fallen birds, their pages swollen and waterlogged. The air was heavy with the silence of forgotten stories, forgotten voices. And spores. Thick as fog.

Jordan and Taryn finally found their way in through a back door that Taryn, with her usual quiet efficiency, had managed to pry open. Jordan looked pale, her eyes darting around the spore-filled space.

“Jesus, Spitfire,” she said, her voice muffled by her mask. “You’re fucking crazy.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I grunted, already moving towards what looked like a connecting doorway at the far end of the room. “Public Library should be next door. Let’s go.”

The old public library wasn’t just wrecked; it was a fucking statement. Some pre-outbreak architect’s wet dream of a glass monster, all sharp angles and diamond-shaped panels, now looked like a skeletal cage of rusting steel and shattered, grime-streaked glass. Inside, the place was a cavernous shithole. The floor in the main atrium was painted a color that might’ve been cheerful once—some kind of bright, obnoxious red. 

Now it just looked like a giant, dried bloodstain, scarred with mud and debris. A whole sloping floor of what must have been bookshelves had collapsed in on itself, creating a waterfall of rotting paper and pulpy, waterlogged stories that slid down into a massive, moldy pile in the center of the room. The air was thick with the smell of a million damp, forgotten words turning to mulch and the faint, lingering metallic tang of old blood.

“Intel said back office,” Taryn murmured, her voice calm, steadying. She was already scanning the layout, her shotgun held at the ready.

“You two cover the front,” I said. “I’ll check it out.”

The back office was a disaster. Filing cabinets overturned, their drawers hanging open like broken jaws, spilling their contents – yellowed papers, moldy ledgers, useless pre-outbreak bureaucracy – onto the floor. A cheap metal desk lay on its side, its surface scarred and dented. And in the corner, tucked beneath a pile of debris and what looked like a collapsed section of the ceiling, was a heavy, bolted metal footlocker. Bingo.

“Taryn, Jordan, get in here,” I called out, my voice low. “I think we found the jackpot.”

It took all three of us to drag the footlocker out from under the rubble. It was heavy, solid, and clearly built to withstand more than just a casual looting. The lock was a thick, no-nonsense steel mechanism.

“Stand back,” I said, pulling my trusty shiv from its sheath. Not exactly a lock-picking tool, but it had gotten me out of – and into – tighter spots than this. I worked at the lock, jamming the shiv into the mechanism, trying to find purchase, to force the tumblers. Sweat trickled down my temples, stinging my eyes. The metal groaned in protest.

“Come on, you stubborn bastard,” I muttered, putting more pressure on the shiv.

With a satisfying, greasy click , the lock gave.

Jordan let out a low whistle. “Nice one, Williams.”

I ignored her, my heart hammering against my ribs. This was it. This was what Isaac wanted. What Abby wanted. I threw open the heavy lid.

Inside, nestled on a bed of what looked like moldy canvas, were rolled parchments, tied with string, and a thick, leather-bound ledger. My fingers, trembling slightly, reached for the ledger. Its cover was worn, stained, the leather cracked with age. I opened it.

Spidery, unfamiliar script filled the pages. Lists of names. Locations. Dates. Diagrams that looked like patrol routes, guard schedules. My pulse quickened. I unrolled one of the parchments. It was a hand-drawn map of Seattle, marked with symbols I didn’t recognize, but the implications were clear. Supply lines that snaked through the city’s underbelly like diseased veins. Weak points in WLF defenses. Hidden outposts. And on another, larger map, what looked like coordinates. Coordinates for a major Seraphite gathering place, their primary hidden temple, according to the scrawled notes in the margins.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

This wasn’t just intel. This was a goddamn map to the Seraphites' heart. A silver bullet aimed right between their crazy, ritual-scarred eyes. Enough to cut the head off the snake, to finally break their fanatical resistance. Enough to change the tide of this whole goddamn war.

Taryn’s eyes, when they met mine, were wide, a rare show of emotion from her. Even Jordan, for once, was speechless, her mouth hanging slightly open.

“Jackpot,” she finally breathed, her voice filled with awe.

Before I could even properly process the magnitude of what we’d found, before I could even allow myself a flicker of triumph, a mournful cry echoed from the street outside. A sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, a primal warning that bypassed thought and went straight to instinct.

A Seraphite hunting horn.

It was answered almost immediately by a fresh wave of gunfire – the distinct, heavy crack of WLF rifles – and the guttural, inhuman shrieks of the infected. A goddamn symphony of violence, erupting just outside our doorstep.

“Fuck!” Jordan yelled, scrambling towards the blown-out front window of the co-op, her rifle already up. “They drew a horde!”

Taryn was already moving, her shotgun booming, adding its voice to the chorus of chaos. “They’re trying to flank us! Box us in!” she shouted over the din. “Ellie, get those damn papers and find another way out! We’ll cover your ass! Go!”

There was no time to argue. No time to think. Just react. I snatched the precious ledger and a handful of the maps, stuffing them haphazardly into my pack. The sounds of Jordan and Taryn’s desperate firefight, the screams of dying Scars and the relentless shrieks of the infected, were already becoming a chaotic, deafening roar, a wall of sound pressing in on us.

I was left alone in the cavernous, suddenly too-quiet back office, the sounds of my squad’s battle a terrifying, visceral drumbeat outside. Alone with our prize. My fingers, slick with sweat, fumbled with the straps of my pack. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

A floorboard creaked in the narrow, debris-choked hallway that led deeper into the library, away from the front where Jordan and Taryn fought.

It wasn't the frantic, light-footed scuttling of a Scar. It wasn't the lurching, uncoordinated gait of an infected.

It was heavy. Deliberate. Disciplined.

WLF.

My blood turned to ice. A cold, sickening dread washed over me, so potent it almost buckled my knees.

Abby.

I didn’t even have time to curse before the double doors at the far end of the room, the ones leading to that hallway, swung inward with a violent crash.

She stood there, framed in the doorway like a goddamn omen of destruction, her rifle held low, rain plastering her blonde braid to her shoulders. Her squad was nowhere in sight. She’d come alone. A lone wolf, smelling blood, smelling victory.

For a frozen eternity, a single, stretched-out heartbeat, we just stared at each other across the cavernous, ruined space. The office's ceiling had partially collapsed at one end, near where the footlocker had been, creating a gaping wound open to the storm-tossed sky. Rain poured in, drumming on the warped linoleum floor and turning scattered papers into a soupy, illegible pulp. 

A low rumble of thunder shook the very foundations of the building, causing dust and small bits of debris to shower down around us like unholy confetti. The air was thick with the smell of rain, damp plaster, old decay, and something else… the sharp, metallic tang of adrenaline. Hers. Mine.

Her eyes, chips of glacial ice, hard and unyielding, locked onto the documents clutched in my hand, the ones I hadn’t managed to stuff into my pack. Her gaze was a physical weight, a cold, heavy pressure.

“The intel, Ellie.” Her voice was a low growl, almost lost in the storm, but it cut through the chaos, through the drumming rain, straight to the marrow of my bones.

A bolt of lightning flashed, a sudden, brilliant, retina-searing explosion of white that illuminated the ruins in a stark, skeletal glare. In that split second, frozen in time, I saw the exhaustion etched on her face, the deep, dark circles under her eyes, the fresh, angry cut above her left eyebrow that still oozed a trickle of dark blood. But beneath the weariness, beneath the grime and the blood, was a raw, furious determination that burned like a cold fire in her gaze. A mirror image of my own.

“You want ‘em, Anderson?” I shouted, my voice raw, ragged, barely audible over a deafening clap of thunder that seemed to rip the sky in two. Adrenaline, pure and potent, surged through my veins, a live wire igniting every nerve ending. “Come and fucking get them.”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I bolted. Not for the main doors, where Taryn and Jordan were still locked in their desperate, unwinnable fight. No. I dove for a narrow, debris-choked service corridor I’d spotted earlier when we first entered, a dark, uninviting passage that hopefully led deeper into the guts of this godforsaken building. A rat hole. My specialty.

She roared my name, a sound of pure, frustrated fury, a scream that seemed to shake the already crumbling walls. And the chase was on.

I crashed through the narrow corridor, a maze of overturned metal shelving, scattered, forgotten office supplies, and god knows what else. It was dark, cramped, and reeked of stale cigarettes and something else, something fouler, something dead. My shoulder slammed into a jutting pipe, sending a searing bolt of pain through me, but I didn’t slow down. She was right behind me, her heavy footfalls echoing ominously on the slick, unseen floor, a relentless, unstoppable force. A goddamn terminator in a tank top.

I burst out of the corridor and into what must have once been a grand, circular archive room, its high, domed ceiling now mostly a jagged, gaping hole open to the tempest. Rain hammered down, pooling on the cracked marble floor, reflecting the strobing, disorienting flashes of lightning. 

It was a dead end. A fucking arena.

I spun around, my switchblade, my only friend in moments like these, already in my hand, its familiar weight a small comfort. My back pressed against a cold, damp marble pillar, the water seeping through my thin jacket, chilling me to the bone.

Abby appeared in the archway, blocking the only exit, her chest heaving, her rifle still held at the ready, though its barrel was pointed slightly down. She was breathing hard, her breath misting in the cold, rain-soaked air.

We circled each other like wolves, two apex predators trapped in the same cage, the rain soaking us to the bone. The only sound for a long moment was the incessant, drumming rain, the distant, muffled echoes of my squad's increasingly desperate battle, and our own ragged, amplified breathing. The air crackled with a tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. 

What was she waiting for? An opening? An apology? A fucking invitation? I wasn’t going to stand here and wait to find out.

I lunged first. A feint to the left, trying to draw her off balance, then a quick, low slash, aiming for her thigh, trying to cripple that goddamn relentless advance. She was too quick, too strong. She parried with her forearm, the one already bearing the scar I’d given her weeks ago. 

“Ellie, wait,” she said, her voice strained, a plea that was drowned out by the roar of the storm and the blood pounding in my ears.

But I didn't wait. I ignored her, spinning and bringing my knife around in a wide, sweeping arc aimed at her ribs.

My blade scraped against her bracer with a sharp, jarring shriek of metal on metal. The force of the block, the sheer, unyielding power behind it, jarred my entire arm, sending a shockwave of pain up to my shoulder. She used her size, her raw, brute strength, to shove me back. I slid on the wet, treacherous marble floor, the water splashing around my ankles, but managed to catch my balance, my boots finding purchase on a stray, half-submerged book.

Another flash of lightning, even brighter this time, followed almost instantly by a deafening clap of thunder that felt like the sky itself was collapsing on top of us. I used the blinding light, the momentary sensory overload, to move, a silver flicker in the ensuing darkness. My knife found a home, a shallow, stinging cut along her bicep, drawing a fresh line of crimson against her already bloodied skin.

She gasped, a sound more of annoyance than actual pain, and her hand shot out, faster than I could react, faster than I thought possible for someone her size. Her fingers, strong as steel bands, closed around my left wrist, the one holding the knife, in a grip of pure, crushing iron. 

“Ellie, just fucking stop!” she shouted, her voice a ragged bark over the storm, a desperate command trying to cut through my rage.

I heard, and felt, the bones in my wrist grind together, a sickening, wet crunch. A gasp of pain, sharp and involuntary, escaped my lips as my fingers went numb, spasming uselessly. My switchblade, my faithful companion, clattered to the wet marble floor, skittering into the shadows like a frightened roach.

Disarmed. Defeated. Fucked.

Now it was just her strength against my speed, and in this flooded, debris-strewn arena, with my primary weapon gone, her advantage was absolute. She didn’t hesitate. She tackled me, a full-body slam that felt like being hit by a runaway truck. The impact knocked the wind from my lungs in a painful whoosh and sent us both crashing into a deep puddle of murky, debris-filled water. 

The cold shock of it stole what little breath I had left. Stars exploded behind my eyes. The stolen documents, the precious ledger and maps that had cost us so much, flew from my grasp, scattering across the waterlogged floor, the ink on the maps beginning to bleed and run, dissolving into the grime like fading ghosts.

Before I could recover, before I could even register the loss of the intel, before I could even draw a proper breath, she was on top of me. Her weight was a crushing, suffocating force, pressing me down into the cold, hard marble, the filthy water seeping into my clothes, into my hair, into my mouth. She pinned my arms with her knees, her muscles like coiled steel, unyielding, unbreakable. I struggled, a caged animal thrashing in the mud and water, fueled by a desperate, primal surge of adrenaline, but it was useless. I was utterly, completely, hopelessly overpowered.

A brilliant, prolonged flash of lightning illuminated us, freezing the moment in a horrifying, almost beautiful, tableau. Abby's face was inches from mine, a mask of rain, sweat, grime, and a terrifying, almost broken, fury. Her eyes, those chips of glacial ice, burned with an intensity that seemed to suck all the air from my lungs. 

One of her hands, rough and calloused, went to my throat, not choking, not yet, just pinning my head to the cold, unforgiving floor, the gritty debris digging painfully into my scalp. With her other hand, she reached for something on the ground beside us, something half-submerged in the dirty water.

My switchblade.

She picked it up, her fingers closing around its familiar, worn handle. She flicked it open, the shh-click sharp and obscenely final in the momentary lull between thunderclaps, the sound louder than any gunshot, louder than any scream. She pressed the cold, familiar edge of my own knife against my throat. The metal was icy against my skin, a stark contrast to the heat of her body pressing down on me.

My body went rigid beneath hers, a coiled spring of pure, unadulterated fury. The fight, the desperation, it didn’t drain out of me; it ignited, burning away everything else, leaving only the white-hot, singular need to rip and tear and break the thing that was holding me down.

Rain dripped from the ends of her blonde braid onto my face, and I snarled, trying to twist my head enough to bite the hand that pinned me. The sounds of the battle outside were a distant, meaningless chaos. The only reality was the howling storm above and the war happening right here, in the mud and water. 

Her chest heaved, her breath coming in ragged, shuddering gasps as she fought to control my thrashing. The pressure of the blade at my throat was an unwavering, cold promise against my skin, but I slammed my hips up against her, again and again, trying to break her hold.

"Jesus Christ, Ellie, stop fighting me!" Abby's voice was a strained gasp, her control fraying not against my will, but against the sheer, mindless force of my struggle.

I stared up into her blazing, furious eyes. The ghost of last night flashed in my mind—not as an irony, but as a source of revulsion, a weakness she had exploited, a moment of oblivion I now wanted to claw back from her with my bare hands. 

This wasn't the end of the line. It was just another goddamn cage, and she was the one holding the key. And she would use it. Of course, she would. Anything for her fucking control. Anything to win. Anything to be Isaac’s best.

My voice, when it finally came, was a choked roar, the words tearing from my throat, raw and broken with frustration and hate.

“Just fucking do it!” I screamed, bucking uselessly against her weight, the gritty water splashing into my mouth. 

A bolt of lightning lit her face, a mask of strained, savage fury. The blade pressed harder, silencing the words in my throat. I choked, glaring at her, my vision blurring with tears of pure rage.

My voice dropped to a strained, venomous hiss, a dare that was also a condemnation. 

“Do it.”

Chapter Text

Abby

The words, a ragged whisper against the howl of the storm, “Do it. Just fucking do it.”

Ellie. Pinned beneath me, the cold steel of her own switchblade pressed to the fragile skin of her throat, and that’s what she gave me. 

Not a plea. Not a curse. A dare. A goddamn invitation. 

This wasn’t what I wanted. I hadn’t followed her into this goddamn ruin to hurt her, to end up here, with my hands on her, with her own knife at her throat. It felt too neat, too perfect, like a stage set for a familiar tragedy. 

But she’d run. And then she’d attacked, all teeth and fury, and something inside me, some last, fraying thread of restraint, had just… snapped. The control I fought for every goddamn second of every day, the control that already seemed to turn to smoke whenever she was near, it had slipped. And this, this brutal, ugly dominance, was all that was left in its place.

Her eyes, those too-green pools that had haunted my waking thoughts and stalked the edges of my nightmares, were wide, dark, blazing with a defiance that seemed to burn away the rain and the grime and the blood. She thought I was going to kill her. Expected it. Maybe even, in some twisted, broken part of her, wanted it. An end to whatever agonizing road she was on.

My hand, the one holding the knife, trembled. Slick with rain, with the water from the flooded marble floor, with something else – Blood from the gash on my arm? My own sweat, cold and clammy despite the exertion? 

The metal felt alien in my grip, an extension of a will that wasn’t my own. Isaac’s face flashed in my mind, cold, calculating, a flicker of something that might have been approval in those dark eyes. This is what he wants. Proof. Dominance. The taming of the wild thing. The final, brutal assertion of control.

But I didn't want his control. I didn't want the ‘intel’ or his goddamn test. I just needed her to stop fighting, to be still long enough to actually listen. But she couldn't. The fire inside her was too hot, a forge of pure rage. A knife to the throat should have been the end of it. For any sane person, it would have been a moment to pause. For Ellie? It was just another opportunity. A new angle of attack.

Her pulse, a frantic bird trapped beneath the blade, hammered against the steel. I could feel the surprising strength of her body beneath mine, tense, coiled like a spring, even in surrender. Or what passed for surrender with Ellie Williams, which looked suspiciously like a prelude to one last, desperate, suicidal attack.

“I don’t want to fight you,” I choked out, the words hoarse, raw, ripped from somewhere deep and torn inside me. It was the truest thing I’d said in weeks, maybe years. A confession that tasted like self-betrayal on my tongue.

Ellie spat, a small, contemptuous sound, a fleck of bloody saliva landing on my cheek. “Too fucking late.” Her voice was a venomous hiss, filled with all the rage and pain and fury she’d been carrying. “You already started this. Finish it.”

Terror, cold and sharp as the blade I held, lanced through me. I could do it. A part of me, the part Isaac had so carefully, so ruthlessly, cultivated over the years – the part that had survived the loss of my father, the endless, brutal grind of this unending war – she could do it. It was a dark, seductive whisper in the back of my mind. End it. She’s a threat. A weakness. End it now, before she ends you.

And the soldier in me, the one who had completed far worse tests at Isaac’s command, almost listened. But the woman whispering back was Ellie—all sharp edges and surprising softness, the fire in her dark eyes a reflection of a new one in my own, the ghost of her touch a shield against the blade in my hand.

I felt myself teetering on the edge of something monstrous, a precipice overlooking an abyss of pure, unadulterated violence. Is this who I am? Isaac’s attack dog? A monster in human skin? Violent? Desperate for control?

All the accusations Ellie had hurled at me in the past, the words that had once been taunts, insults, now echoed in my ears like horrifying, undeniable truths. I was everything she said I was. And worse.

With a guttural cry, a sound ripped from the very core of my being, I shoved myself away from her. Hard. Scrambling back, the switchblade falling from my numb, unfeeling fingers, clattering onto the flooded marble with a tinny, insignificant sound. The air rushed back into my lungs, cold and sharp, burning.

The building groaned, a deep, tortured sound, and then shook violently as lightning struck terrifyingly close, the concussion wave hitting us like a physical blow. The already shattered skylight above us, a gaping wound in the library’s heart, groaned again, a sound of tortured metal and stressed concrete, and then a fresh torrent of rain, glass shards, and debris cascaded down, crashing onto the floor around us with deafening force.

The few remaining emergency lights, which had been flickering erratically, died completely, plunging the vast, circular archive room into near-total darkness, punctuated only by the strobing, disorienting flashes of lightning from the raging storm outside.

Ellie scrambled to her feet, a feral shadow in the gloom, quick and agile despite everything. Her dark auburn hair was plastered to her face and skull, water streaming down her sharp, angular features, making her look younger, more vulnerable, but her eyes… her eyes were blazing with an unholy, almost incandescent, light. She was drenched, shivering, but her stance, even without a weapon, was pure, unadulterated aggression.

"Fight me!" she screamed, her voice cracking, raw with fury and adrenaline. She was a cornered animal, wounded but still dangerous, ready to tear me apart with her bare hands if she had to.

“No,” I said, the word heavy, definitive, tasting of a finality I wasn’t sure I understood, or even wanted. No, I won’t be his tool. No, I won’t be part of this endless, brutal violence he perpetuates. 

But in Ellie’s eyes, illuminated by another jagged fork of lightning that split the sky outside, I saw my refusal misinterpreted. Not as a stand, not as a desperate, last-ditch attempt to reclaim some sliver of my own shattered humanity. But as weakness.

Oh, Ellie, I thought, a wave of sadness washing over me. You just don't get it. And I hope you never do.

Just as she gathered herself to lunge again, her small body a coiled spring of desperate, reckless fury, a new sound ripped through the storm – a horrifying, tearing groan of tortured metal and collapsing stone from the far side of the rotunda. A huge section of the outer wall, weakened by years of neglect, by the relentless Seattle rain, by the fury of the storm, and undoubtedly by the ongoing battle raging just outside its crumbling facade, gave way with a deafening, apocalyptic roar. Dust, debris, and the relentless, driving rain exploded inwards, a chaotic, choking cloud.

And then they came.

A tide of infected – Runners, their movements jerky and unpredictable, their guttural shrieks echoing in the sudden, stunned silence. Clickers, their fungal plates grotesque and alien in the strobing flashes of lightning, their chattering rasps a soundtrack to a nightmare. And then, lumbering into view through the gaping hole in the wall, its massive, spore-spewing form a testament to nature’s fucked-up sense of humor, a goddamn Bloater. They were frenzied, agitated by the storm, by the gunfire from the street, by the fresh, intoxicating scent of blood – ours, theirs, it didn’t matter.

“Shit!” I screamed, pure instinct taking over. All thoughts of Ellie, of Isaac, of the mission, of the goddamn competition, vanished. Survival. That’s all that mattered now. That was the only thought my brain, suddenly cold and clear and brutally efficient, could process.

"Get behind me!" I yelled at Ellie, spinning, my eyes frantically searching the flooded floor. My rifle. I’d lost it in the struggle, but there it was—half-submerged near the base of a pillar. I dove for it, snatching it up, its familiar weight a sudden comfort in my hands. My back was now to the girl who, a second ago, I was about to either kill or be killed by.

A flash of movement at my side. Ellie. She was there, not attacking me, not running, but facing the new, overwhelming threat. In the dim, strobing light, I saw her snatch her fallen switchblade from the flooded floor with her right hand. She then stepped directly into my space, so close I could feel the warmth radiating from her small frame. 

Her eyes, burning with a furious challenge, never left mine as her left hand reached down. I saw her fingers deliberately wrap around the handle of my hunting knife holstered on my thigh and pull it slowly from its sheath, the look on her face a clear dare for me to try and stop her. Dual-wielding, she was a vision of desperate, deadly defiance.

My eyes snagged on her left hand – the one I’d crushed in my grip just moments before – it was shaking violently, her wrist already turning a bruised, ugly purple beneath the grime and the blood. A sick jolt, cold and sharp, went through my stomach. I did that. I didn’t mean to… I just wanted to stop her. To make her stop. The thought was a splinter of ice in my gut, quickly overwhelmed by the immediate, pressing need to fight.

We fought back-to-back, a desperate, unspoken truce forged in the face of overwhelming, impossible odds. My rifle roared, taking down Runners with brutal, practiced efficiency, each shot a carefully aimed burst to the head or chest. Ellie was a whirlwind of flashing steel, her smaller frame and almost preternatural agility allowing her to weave through the chaos, her two blades a silver blur, gutting Clickers, hamstringing Stalkers before they could even get close. 

The air filled with the stench of gunpowder, infected blood, ozone from the storm, and the sharp, coppery tang of our own fear. We moved like a well-oiled machine, covering each other’s blind spots, two soldiers united by a single, primal purpose: survive. It was terrifyingly natural, how we fought together. As if some dark, bloody part of us recognized a kindred spirit in the other, a mirror image of its own desperate, violent will to live.

“There's too many!" I shouted over the din, my voice raw, my throat burning from the gunpowder and the screaming. I shoved Ellie towards a narrow, debris-choked archway, a dark, uninviting opening in the far wall of the rotunda. "We gotta move! Now!"

We fought our way out, through that narrow passage, emerging onto a rain-lashed side street, the main battle between WLF and Scars still raging a few blocks away, a hellish symphony of gunfire, explosions, and screams. The infected were everywhere, a relentless, swarming tide drawn by the sounds of combat.

I fumbled for my radio, my fingers slick with rain and blood. Nothing but static, harsh and unforgiving. "Comms are down! Storm's too bad!" I yelled at Ellie, who was trying her own radio with the same, fruitless result. She nodded, her face grim, her eyes darting around, assessing the new, even more fucked-up situation we found ourselves in.

"We need to keep moving!" I said, grabbing Ellie’s uninjured arm, pulling her along. We sprinted through the storm-ravaged streets, rain blinding us, thunder shaking the ground beneath our feet, the infected a relentless, snapping, shrieking tide at our heels.

We finally found temporary shelter in the back room of a collapsed bookstore – "Seattle Books & Bindings," a faded, peeling sign creaked mournfully above the shattered, boarded-up entrance. The place smelled of mildew and wet paper. We managed to barricade the sturdy oak door, what was left of it, with a heavy, overturned bookshelf and a rusted, dented filing cabinet. The sounds of the storm and the distant, hungry infected were muffled now, but still present, a constant, unnerving reminder of the thin, fragile line between survival and whatever came after.

The small room was lit only by my flashlight, its beam dancing nervously over water-damaged books, their pages swollen and warped, and cobweb-draped shelves that reached up into the oppressive darkness. I stood at the barricaded door, rifle ready, my ears straining, listening for any sound, any sign of pursuit. Behind me, I could hear Ellie pacing like a caged animal, the squelch of her wet boots on the rotting floorboards the only sound for a long, tense moment.

I finally turned, my flashlight beam finding Ellie. The girl was a wreck. Drenched to the bone, her whole body trembling uncontrollably from cold and pain, mud-caked from our fight in the archive room, her dark auburn hair plastered to her skull, revealing the fierce, almost feral glint in her eyes. She ran a hand through her hair, then yelped, a sharp, involuntary sound, clutching her left wrist.

"God damn it !" Ellie hissed, her face contorted in pain. "You broke my fucking wrist." She cradled her hand, her glare pure venom. She looked like a cornered, wounded animal, all bared teeth and bristling fur, her clothes torn, blood from various cuts – mine, hers, the infected’s – staining her jacket. 

Her face was pale under the grime and the rain, accentuating the dark circles under her eyes and the feverish, almost manic, intensity of her gaze. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, running on pure, undiluted rage and adrenaline.

I was silent for a beat, the accusation hanging heavy in the damp, claustrophobic air. "I'm sorry," I said, the words feeling inadequate, hollow, almost meaningless in the face of the damage I’d done. "I didn't mean to."

Ellie laughed, a harsh, bitter sound that held no humor, only a raw, biting contempt. "What the fuck does that even mean? Didn't mean to crush my hand while you had my own goddamn knife to my throat? Bullshit." She took a step closer, her body language screaming aggression, still spoiling for the fight that had been so rudely, so violently, interrupted.

Fine. If she wanted a confrontation, she’d get one. Just not the one she expected. I turned to face her fully, lowering my rifle slightly, my stance weary but resolute.

"I'm done," I said, my voice quiet but firm, cutting through Ellie's simmering fury. "Done with this. Done with Isaac’s fucking games. Done with you."

Chapter Text

Ellie

Abby’s words hung in the damp, shitty air of the ruined bookstore like the sudden, ringing silence after an explosion. “I’m done.”

Done with what? Fucking what ? Done with trying to bash my skull in? Done with me ?

I just stared at her. She was a fucking mess. Drenched to the bone, her usually sculpted muscles visibly trembling under the soaked fabric of her tank top, which clung to her like a second skin, outlining every damn ridge and curve. Her chest was heaving with each ragged breath she took, like she’d just run a marathon through hell. 

Which, okay, maybe she had. We both had. Her rifle was still held low, ready, but there was a weariness in her posture, a slump to her broad shoulders that I hadn’t seen before. It was like watching a goddamn mountain decide to take a nap.

Her usually perfect blonde braid, that tight, militaristic rope of hair she wore like a goddamn crown, was a wet, unraveling mess down her back. Strands of it were stuck to her face, plastered to her forehead by the rain and sweat, making her look… younger. More human. Less like the WLF’s attack dog and more like someone who’d just been dragged through a fucking meat grinder. The cut on her arm, the one I’d given her back in that crumbling archive room, was still oozing, a thin trickle of dark blood making a path through the grime on her arm.

But her eyes were different. That cold, hard, unyielding blue-grey that usually made me want to either scream or punch something, it was still there. But it was… fractured. Like looking at a frozen lake after something heavy and brutal had smashed right through its surface. The fury, the murderous intent that had been blazing there just minutes ago when she’d had my own goddamn knife to my throat, it was banked. Replaced by something that looked terrifyingly like exhaustion. Maybe even… defeat?

The thought sent a jolt of something ugly and triumphant through me, quickly followed by a wave of confusion so profound it almost made me dizzy.

“You don’t get to just decide that it’s over,” I snarled, the words tasting like battery acid in my mouth. It was still there, that familiar, white-hot rage, the one that had been my only constant companion for years. It didn’t care that she’d just had a knife to my throat; it only cared that she was choosing to disengage. Anger was the only language I knew, and she was walking away from it— from me , leaving my rage to echo in an empty space between us. 

My left wrist throbbed, a deep, sickening, relentless ache that radiated all the way up my arm, each beat of my heart sending a fresh wave of fire through it. I cradled it against my chest, the movement sending another jolt of agony through me. Fucking Anderson.

One minute she’s trying to cave my face in, the next she’s… what? Giving up? It didn’t make any goddamn sense. This wasn’t how it worked. Not in this world. Not with her.

“Yes,” Abby said, her voice quiet, almost too quiet to hear over the drumming of the rain against the boarded-up windows, but with an undercurrent of steel I hadn’t heard before. Not Isaac’s borrowed, brittle steel, but something forged in her own fire. Something that sounded like… finality. “I do.”

She actually lowered her rifle then, just a fraction more, the barrel pointing towards the rotting, water-stained floorboards between us. Internally, I could almost see the shift, like watching a crumbling building finally decide to give up the ghost and settle into its own ruin. Is she serious? Is she actually fucking serious?

“I don’t want to be his…” Abby’s voice broke, just for a second, a tiny, almost imperceptible crack in the armor. Her face, already pale under the dirt and blood, seemed to drain of what little color was left. Then, her jaw tightened, and her eyes, those fractured pieces of ice, filled with a new kind of resolve. Hard. Brittle. Desperate. “I’m done fighting you, Ellie. Not like this. And not for him .”

Frustration, hot and sharp and bitter, clawed at my throat. "You don't get to just wake up and stop being a shitty person!" The venom in my own voice shocked me, but I couldn't stop the words, couldn't stop the poison from spilling out. It was easier than feeling the other things. The confusion. The isolation. The tiny, traitorous flicker of something that might have been relief. I saw a flicker of pain cross Abby’s face, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by that stony, unreadable mask. "Not killing me doesn't make you a good person, Abby. It just makes you weak."

Abby didn’t say anything. She just stared at me, that exhausted, fractured look still in her eyes, her clothes still dripping water onto the floor, creating small, dark pools around her heavy WLF boots. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, broken only by the drumming of the rain and the distant, mournful howls of the infected. It felt like an eternity, like we were trapped in some fucked-up, waterlogged snow globe, just the two of us and all the unspoken, unexploded shit between us.

“I’m going to make sure the rest of this place is secure,” Abby said finally, her voice flat, devoid of emotion. She turned, her movements stiff, like an old machine grinding back into motion, and disappeared into the gloom of the bookstore, leaving me alone with my throbbing wrist, my pounding heart, and a whirlpool of confusing, contradictory emotions.

I leaned against a damp, moldy wall, letting out a shaky breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. My whole body ached, a symphony of bruises and strained muscles and the deep, sickening throb from my wrist. My tactical vest felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, the straps digging mercilessly into my shoulders. My pants were soaked through, stiff with mud and god knows what else. My boots squelched with every slight movement, a disgusting, swampy sound.

I glanced down at my left wrist. It was already swollen, a grotesque, puffy, discolored mess, the skin stretched tight and shiny. A dark, angry purple was beginning to mottle the back of my hand where Abby’s fingers had dug in, her grip like a goddamn vise. 

Doesn’t know her own goddamn strength. The thought, unwelcome, unbidden, surfaced again: the brief, almost imperceptible flicker of something that looked like shock, maybe even regret, on Abby’s face in that archive room when she’d realized how badly she’d hurt me. I shoved it away, hard. 

I needed to splint my wrist. Needed to clean myself up. Needed to get the fuck out of these soaked, filthy clothes. But I could barely move my fingers, let alone unbuckle the complex straps of my own gear with one hand. The thought of trying to manipulate the tiny, unforgiving clasps and zippers with my throbbing, useless left hand was enough to make me want to scream.

I managed to wrestle my backpack off, my teeth gritted against the pain, and let it fall to the floor with a wet thud. I pulled out the rolled parchments, the Scar intel. Half of it was a sodden, illegible mess, the ink bled into watery, abstract patterns, the paper itself starting to disintegrate in my hands. 

Fucking perfect. The irony was a bitter pill, so sharp it almost made me laugh. If we hadn’t been at each other’s throats, if Isaac hadn’t set us up like a couple of goddamn fighting dogs in a pit, we could have salvaged all of it. This crucial, game-changing intel. Now… now it was mostly just expensive, waterlogged kindling. His mistake. 

Or was it? Was this part of his plan all along? To see who’d break first, who’d sacrifice the mission for personal victory?

What did it even mean for Abby to be “done”? Would she desert? Just walk away from the WLF? Start pushing back on Isaac? The thought was almost laughable. Abby Anderson, defying Isaac Dixon? It was like imagining a Clicker taking up knitting. And yet… there was something in her eyes when she’d said it, something that wasn’t just exhaustion. A flicker of something new. Something broken, maybe. But also, terrifyingly, something that might have been free.

Abby returned then, a silent shadow in the doorway, her boots making no sound on the rotting floorboards. She was still a complete wreck, soaked through and covered in grime. The rain had plastered her clothes to her skin, and her damp hair was beginning to escape its ruined braid, framing a face that was pale and strained. The angry red slash on her arm stood out starkly. She looked like she'd been through a war, which, I guessed, she had. We both had.

“There’s an apartment upstairs,” she said, her voice still flat, stripped of its usual authority. “Through that collapsed section in the main room. It’s empty. And it’s dry.”

The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in another confined space with Abby Anderson. The memory of that narrow cot, of the suffocating heat between us, was still too fresh, too raw. But my teeth were chattering, my clothes were soaked, and my wrist was screaming a silent, agonizing symphony of pain. I just nodded, a curt, jerky movement, not trusting myself to speak.

We navigated the rubble of the collapsed bookstore, Abby effortlessly clearing a path through the debris that I struggled to follow with my one good hand. The apartment was small, surprisingly intact, tucked away above the main shop floor, accessible only through a jagged hole in the ceiling where a staircase had once been. Dust motes danced in the weak, grey light filtering through a grimy, boarded-up window. It smelled of dust, old perfume, and something else… something vaguely sweet, like dried flowers and old paper.

There was a faded, brightly colored woven tapestry on one wall, depicting abstract, swirling patterns that looked like intertwined rainbows. It was beautiful, in a strange, faded kind of way. 

On a dusty bookshelf, nestled amongst a collection of worn paperbacks with cracked spines and dog-eared pages, was a framed photograph: two women, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders, smiling, their faces alight with a joy that seemed alien in this dead, broken world. One had short, spiky dark hair and a mischievous, almost challenging, grin. The other was taller, with long, flowing hair that cascaded over her shoulders, her expression softer, more serene, a gentle smile playing on her lips. They looked… happy. Carefree. Like they belonged to a different universe.

I wandered into what must have been the bedroom. More books. A small, cluttered wooden desk, covered in what looked like old sketches, charcoal drawings of faces, of hands, of the Seattle skyline before it had become a jagged, skeletal ruin. On it, tucked beneath a chipped ceramic mug filled with dried-up pens, was a single sheet of faded blue stationery. A love note, written in elegant, looping script, the ink slightly blurred in places, as if by tears, or maybe just time.

"My Dearest Anya," it read. "Even when the sky is grey, and the world feels like it’s ending, you are my sunshine. My anchor. My home. Meet me by the water, where we first danced under the stars, and I’ll tell you again all the ways I love you. Forever and always yours, Clara."

I picked it up, my fingers tracing the faded ink, the delicate curves of Clara’s handwriting. Anya and Clara. A whole life, lived and loved in this small, forgotten space. What must that have been like? To love someone like that, openly, without fear, without the constant, gnawing threat of infected, of Scars, of the goddamn WLF? To have a “forever”? In a world without the outbreak, without this endless, soul-crushing cycle of violence and grief… who would I have been?

A phantom version of myself took shape in my mind—the Ellie I could have been if the world hadn't ended. In that other life, maybe I’d have been a musician, like Joel. Playing my guitar in shitty dive bars, writing sad, angry songs about lost girls and broken hearts. Or maybe an artist, like Clara, sketching the world in all its messy, imperfect beauty. Maybe that Ellie would have had a small apartment, filled with guitars and books and too many damn plants. Maybe she’d have had someone to share it with. Someone to write stupid, sappy love notes to. Someone to hold her in the dark when the nightmares came.

The fantasy was a sharp, painful ache in my chest, a longing for a life I’d never known, a future that had been stolen before it even had a chance to begin.

In a dresser drawer, beneath a pile of neatly folded, sensible clothes – soft, worn sweaters, faded denim jeans, practical-looking flannel shirts – I found a stash of what I could only describe as cool shit . A couple of faded band t-shirts, a pair of ripped, black denim jeans that looked like they’d actually fit my skinny ass. 

I was struggling to get out of my soaked tactical vest, my left hand a useless, throbbing, swollen weight, the buckles and straps an impossible, infuriating puzzle, when there was a soft knock on the bedroom door. I sighed, exasperated. My whole body was one giant, aching bruise, and my patience was worn thinner than a threadbare WLF blanket. "What?" I snapped.

Abby pushed the door open a crack, her head appearing in the opening. "Need help?"

I glared at her. "What do you think?"

Abby stepped into the room, her presence filling the small space. The awkwardness was a tangible thing in the dusty silence. "Your wrist," Abby said, nodding towards it.

I shot her a look that I hoped conveyed a silent, sarcastic, “no shit. ” My frustration, a sharp and bitter thing, was still simmering just below the surface.

It was an almost perfect, fucked-up inverse of that night after the fight pit, when I’d reluctantly, and with a whole lot of internal cursing, helped a drunk, vulnerable, and surprisingly pliant Abby. Now, the roles were reversed. The power dynamic shifted, warped, twisted into something I didn’t understand and definitely didn’t like.

"Fine," I muttered, turning my back to Abby, a gesture of reluctant, resentful surrender.

Abby’s hands were surprisingly gentle as she unfastened the heavy buckles of my vest. Her fingers brushed against my soaked shirt, sending an unwelcome shiver down my spine. The proximity was… too much. Too close. The residual anger from our fight was still there, simmering beneath the surface, but it was now tangled up with this strange, unwanted intimacy, this forced reliance.

Abby helped me shrug off the vest, then the soaked layers beneath, until I was standing there in my sports bra and underwear, shivering. She didn’t say a word, just grabbed a surprisingly clean, fluffy towel from a pile on the bed and started to dry my hair, her movements methodical, almost tender. 

It was so jarring, so completely at odds with the brutal violence we’d just inflicted on each other an hour ago, that I almost laughed. I could feel the warmth of Abby’s body behind me, feel the ghost of her breath on my neck. I could tell she felt bad about injuring me; there was a hesitancy in her touch, a carefulness that spoke louder than any apology.

Once I was mostly dry, Abby helped me into the clothes I'd found. She started to retreat back into the other room then.

I sighed. "I'll be in the living room," I told her. "You should probably do the same thing. Dry off and get dressed in the leftover clothes."

In the living room, I sat on the couch, the worn velvet surprisingly soft against my new-to-me jeans and t-shirt. I propped my throbbing wrist on a dusty cushion, trying to ignore the fire that still licked along my nerves. The new clothes felt good, though. Soft. Like a forgotten comfort.

I looked around at the signs of Anya and Clara's life – the rainbow tapestry, the smiling photograph, the books that lined the shelves – and wondered how the fuck I'd gotten to where I was now. Trapped in a ruined city, in a ruined world, with the woman who had, just hours ago, been at my throat. The woman who, for some inexplicable reason, had decided not to kill me.

The only light in the room came from the weak moonlight filtering in through the surprisingly intact, though grime-streaked, windows, and the twin beams of our flashlights, which lay on the scarred coffee table, casting long, dancing shadows on the walls.

I heard a floorboard creak in the hallway, and then Abby was there, pausing in the doorway.

My breath caught in my throat.

Her blonde hair, free from its usual severe braid, was down, still damp, falling in soft waves around her shoulders, framing a face that looked… different. Softer. Younger. Stripped of her WLF armor and fatigues, dressed in a pair of dark, loose-fitting sweatpants and a tight, grey long-sleeved thermal shirt that clung to her torso and chest, outlining the powerful muscles of her arms and shoulders.

It was a weird moment. Like I'd stepped into someone else's life. Like this wasn't a bombed-out apartment in a city tearing itself apart, but just… a room. And the woman standing in the doorway wasn't Isaac's top lieutenant, wasn't the monster who haunted my nightmares, but just a woman. The woman who shared this apartment with me. Like we were in some fucked-up, pre-apocalyptic movie.

Abby tucked a stray strand of damp hair behind her ear, a small, almost hesitant gesture. Her eyes found mine across the dimly lit room. She just stood there, watching me, her expression unreadable.

And I was just staring back. Staring at Abby Anderson, the woman I was supposed to hate, the woman I did hate, and yet… And yet there was this other feeling. A feeling I couldn’t name, wouldn’t name, a tight, confusing knot growing in my chest, spreading warmth through my veins despite the chill of the room.

She took a tentative step into the living room. Then another.

"So," she said, her voice low, a little rough. "What now, Ellie?"

Chapter Text

Abby

My question hung in the dusty, charged air between us, heavy and fragile and utterly, terrifyingly, open-ended. “What now, Ellie?”

I watched her from across the small, shadowed living room. She was curled on the worn velvet couch, her small frame still racked by a fine, almost imperceptible, tremor. She was wrapped in clothes that weren’t hers, scavenged from a life she’d never known, looking like a lost kid playing dress-up in a world of ghosts. 

The ferocious, almost feral, fire that usually burned in her eyes, that defiant light that had both infuriated and fascinated me since the day I’d met her, it was banked. Leached out of her by the storm, by the fight, by the goddamn infected, by the cold, brutal truth of whatever Isaac had forced her to do in that dark, reeking cell. Now, she just looked… small. Exhausted. The fight was gone, replaced by a wary, bone-deep weariness that mirrored my own so perfectly it was like looking into a goddamn warped mirror.

And I was so fucking tired.

Tired of fighting. Tired of leading. Tired of the constant, crushing, unrelenting weight of responsibility, of command, of being Lieutenant Fucking Anderson, Isaac’s right hand, his most reliable tool. Tired of having to be in control, every goddamn second of every goddamn day.

If Ellie wanted to win this stupid, bloody game Isaac had set up, if she wanted the prize, the glory, the crushing weight of Isaac’s favor… fine. Let her have it. Let her wear the collar for a while. I was tired of mine. It was starting to chafe.

“How the fuck should I know?”

Ellie’s voice, a low, rough rasp that was startling in the quiet room, broke the silence. She glared at me, a flicker of that old fire returning to her too-green eyes. “You’re the senior officer here.”

I sighed, a heavy, weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of years of unspoken exhaustion. She’s right, goddamn it. I ran my hands through my still-damp hair, the gesture feeling foreign, almost wrong, without the familiar, restrictive tightness of my braid. I sank into the other armchair, the one opposite the couch, the worn fabric sighing under my weight. Leading was the last thing I wanted to do right now, but it was all I knew. It was the only thing that kept the chaos at bay. The only thing that kept me from… from what? Falling apart?

“Okay,” I said, forcing the Lieutenant back into my voice, forcing the familiar, comforting armor of command back into place, piece by painful piece. “Okay. First, we try the radios again. See if the storm’s let up enough to get a signal through.” I picked up my radio from the scarred coffee table where I’d left it, the cool, hard plastic a familiar weight in my hand. I cycled through the channels, the hissing static a familiar, frustrating symphony of isolation. 

“Still nothing,” I said, setting the radio back down with a quiet click. I looked at Ellie, really looked at her, and a new, unwelcome, and deeply confusing, curiosity took root in the pit of my stomach.

“My team… Owen and Manny… they were heading for the library after we got separated in the CHAZ,” I said, the words feeling strange, like a confession, like I was offering some kind of… olive branch? Or maybe just trying to fill the suffocating silence with something other than the ghosts of our shared, fucked-up night. “They probably linked up with your squad. Fought alongside them.” I let the implication hang in the air between us, a silent counterpoint to Isaac’s manipulative bullshit. Our people wouldn’t have fought each other. Not for real. Not for his goddamn test.

Ellie had the grace to look chagrined, her gaze dropping to her injured wrist, which was propped carefully on a dusty cushion. Good. Maybe she finally understood. Maybe she finally saw the game for what it was.

“Why?” I asked, the question surprising even myself, slipping out before I could stop it. “Why do you want to win so badly, Ellie? This… ‘competition’?” 

I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, my voice dropping, becoming softer, more… intimate than I intended. “Let me tell you something about being Isaac’s ‘favorite’. It’s just a different kind of cage. A fancier collar. It doesn’t get you answers. It doesn’t get you peace. It just gets you more isolated. More… alone.”

Ellie was silent for a long moment, her guard still up, her expression a mask of wary defiance. Then, something seemed to break inside her, a subtle shift, a crack in the armor. 

“When I was fourteen,” she began, her voice low, almost a whisper, so quiet I had to strain to hear it over the drumming of the rain, “my dad… he was murdered. I’m still not sure how… or why. My aunt and uncle took me in, but there were things… connections to his past that led me here. To the WLF.” 

Her eyes, sharp and intense, met mine across the small, cluttered space. “I think Isaac knows something about it. About what really happened.” She took a shaky breath, her small frame trembling slightly.

“I need this, Abby. I can’t just ‘be done’.”

Her words were a punch to the gut, a cold, hard fist clenching around my own hollowed-out heart. I saw my own reflection in her desperate, obsessive quest. The same drive for answers, for vengeance for my own father, was what had led me to Isaac, to the WLF, all those years ago. 

And in all that time, in all those bloody, brutal, soul-crushing years, had I gotten any closer to the truth of what had really happened to him in Salt Lake?

No.

“Well, whatever it is you’re looking for,” I said, my voice rough with an empathy I despised, an understanding I didn’t want to feel, “I hope it’s worth the cost of your soul. I know Isaac… he…” I cut myself off, the words catching in my throat. I couldn’t expose myself like that. Not to her. Not now.

“I still have to try,” Ellie said, her voice a stubborn, defiant whisper.

The silence descended again, heavier this time, filled with the ghosts of our dead fathers, with the weight of our shared, unspoken grief. I tried the radio again, a desperate, futile gesture. Still static. 

Restless, needing a distraction, any distraction, from the suffocating intimacy of the moment, I got up and scanned the dusty bookshelf, my fingers tracing the cracked spines of forgotten stories. Poetry. Old fiction. I pulled down a few worn paperbacks, the paper soft and brittle with age. I was about to slip them into my pack, a small, selfish act of preservation in a world that seemed determined to erase every last vestige of the past, when Ellie spoke again.

“What are those for?”

I looked up, surprised by the question, by the genuine curiosity in her voice. “They’re for reading,” I said, a hint of my old defensiveness, returning.

Ellie made a noncommittal sound, a low hum in her throat. “I didn’t know you read.”

“Surprise. I’m not illiterate.”

To my absolute, utter shock, Ellie laughed. A real laugh. Soft and genuine. It did something strange and warm to the tight, cold knot in my chest.

A small smile touched her lips. “That was almost funny, Anderson.”

“Well,” I said, trying to sound gruff, trying to rebuild the walls that had, somehow, impossibly, started to crumble, but failing miserably, “you don’t know anything about me.”

The truth of it hung in the air between us, a stark, undeniable fact.

“Okay,” Ellie said, leaning back on the couch, her voice a soft, almost gentle, invitation. She winced as she jostled her injured wrist, then looked up at the water-stained ceiling. “We’ve got all night. Tell me something I don’t know.”

The offer of intimacy, coming from her, from Ellie, it was startling. I saw her shiver again, a fine tremor running through her small frame. On impulse, a stupid, inexplicable, and probably monumentally ill-advised impulse, I went back to the bedroom and retrieved the thick, hand-knitted blanket I’d seen earlier. I walked over to the couch and draped it over her, my fingers brushing against her shoulder, a fleeting, electric contact that made my own breath catch in my throat. Ellie looked up, surprised, her green eyes wide, questioning, but she didn’t pull away.

I retreated to my armchair, the worn velvet a small, inadequate barrier between us. “Okay,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended. “When I was a kid… before… all this… I used to collect state quarters. Had this big map of the country. Pinned them on. Wanted to get one from every state.” The admission felt strange, foreign on my tongue, a ghost of a girl I barely remembered.

Ellie smirked, a faint, almost gentle, echo of her usual sarcastic grin. “That’s… impressively nerdy.” She shifted under the blanket, pulling it up to her chin. “I used to collect trading cards. Savage Starlight . Had almost the whole set. Traded a pristine copy of Issue #3, the one with Dr. Daniela Star, for a week’s worth of chocolate rations once. Best deal I ever made.”

We talked, then. The conversation hesitant at first, then easier, flowing with a surprising, almost shocking, naturalness. We talked about things we’d been interested in as kids, ghosts of past lives, before the world had ended, before we had become… this. Two broken soldiers, hiding out in a dead woman’s apartment, surrounded by the ghosts of a life we’d never get to live. It was a moment of shared humanity, fragile and unexpected and so goddamn precious it made my chest ache. 

The air between us was still charged, but it was a different kind of charge now. Not the raw, violent tension of a fight about to begin, but something… softer. More intimate. The memory of her body against mine, the taste of her mouth, the desperate, almost painful, heat of our shared release… it was still there, a low, insistent hum beneath the surface of our conversation, but now, somehow, it felt less like a threat and more like a promise.

Suddenly, the radio on the coffee table crackled to life, a burst of harsh static, then a voice. Owen’s voice. My heart lurched.

“Abs? Do you copy? Please come in, Abs. Over.”

I snatched the radio, the sudden intrusion a jarring, unwelcome shock. “Owen, I copy. What’s your status? Over.”

“Abby! Thank God! We linked up with Jordan and Taryn at The Crocodile, the old music venue on 2nd. We’re holding here. No sign of Williams. Over.”

“Copy that, Owen. She’s… with me. We’re secure. Over.”

A sigh of relief from Owen, so audible it was almost a groan. “Okay, good. That’s good. Listen, the whole squad’s pissed, Abs. This test… it’s bullshit. Risking our lives for what? Manny and Jordan are banged up, but they’ll live. We’ll rendezvous in the morning. Where are you? Over.”

“We’re holed up in an apartment above the ‘Seattle Books & Bindings’ on 5th. We’ll meet you at first light. Over.”

“Copy. And wait…Abs, before you go… I was just thinking about what happened at the aquarium…” His voice dropped, becoming intimate, familiar, a private conversation broadcast for an intended audience of one. My cheeks burned, a hot, mortifying flush. I was acutely, painfully, aware of Ellie lying on the couch just a few feet away, her expression suddenly, chillingly, unreadable. “I miss that, Abs. I miss–”

I cut him off, my voice sharp, curt. “Copy that, Owen. Maintain radio silence until 0600. Out.”

I set the radio down, the silence in the room suddenly deafening. I looked up. Ellie was staring at the ceiling, her face a mask of stony indifference, but I could see the almost imperceptible tightening of her jaw, the way her good hand was clenched into a white-knuckled fist at her side.

“What?” I asked, though I already knew.

“Nothing,” Ellie said, which, with her, never meant nothing.

I waited. I knew her well enough now to know she wouldn’t be able to stop herself.

“Seems like you and Owen are getting… along … again,” she finally said, the words clipped, precise, each one a tiny, poison-tipped dart.

I flushed again, a fresh wave of heat flooding my face. “What you saw… that was a mistake.”

“Yeah, well,” Ellie shot back, her eyes still fixed on the ceiling, her voice dripping with a sarcasm so cold it could have caused frostbite. “You seem to be making a lot of those recently.”

The implication, the unspoken reference to our night in my room, was a slap. A low blow. And it hit its mark.

“There’s nothing going on between me and Owen,” I said, the words sounding hollow, defensive, even to my own ears.

“You should probably tell him that,” Ellie said, her voice still cold, still distant. 

“Why the sudden interest, anyway?”

"No interest," she lied, her voice flat. "I'm just trying to follow the lecture you gave me. So, what's the official policy? Are we not allowed to have relationships on the squad, or is hooking up with your ex-boyfriend and your subordinate a privilege reserved only for senior officers?"

I was furious. Embarrassed. Because she was right. It was a goddamn mess. And she was a part of it. A big, confusing, and deeply, profoundly, unsettling part of it.

“I thought it ‘didn’t change anything’ ,” I said, my voice low, throwing her own words back at her, a desperate, last-ditch attempt to regain some semblance of control, of footing, in this conversation that had gone so spectacularly, so horribly, off the rails.

Ellie was silent for a long, agonizing moment, still staring at the ceiling as if it held the answers to all the universe’s fucked-up, unanswerable questions. When she finally responded, her voice was a quiet, almost broken, whisper.

“It doesn’t.”

Liar. We both were. And the truth of that, the shared, unspoken, and deeply, profoundly, terrifying truth of it, hung in the air between us, a ghost we could no longer ignore.

Chapter Text

Ellie

Okay. So I was bitter.

So what.

So what if I didn’t like listening to Owen’s pathetic, lovesick voice going on and on about whatever the fuck they’d gotten up to at the aquarium, his words reaching for something that was clearly long dead and buried . So what if the sound of Abby’s voice, tight and strained and colder than a Seattle winter as she cut him off, had sent a vicious, satisfying little thrill through me. 

Seemed to me like Abby Anderson was just a walking, talking, ridiculously muscular mess of contradictions these days. Mistakenly holding a knife to my throat only to say she didn’t want to fight—a claim that, to my own disgust, I was starting to realize might just be the truth. Mistakenly making out with her ex-boyfriend... mistakenly grinding against me into a panting, shuddering heap on her goddamn cot. 

I stopped myself there. No point going down that particular, treacherous memory lane. Not now. Each time my terrible, beautiful brain recalled the memory, it somehow got worse. Or better. Depending on which particular brand of self-loathing I was indulging in at the moment.

Across from me, I could still see the faint blush on her cheeks, a dark, angry red that was visible even in the dim, flickering light of our flashlights. 

The fucking prude. The hypocrite. 

I was still unreasonably, incandescently, pissed off, mostly at myself. And cold. So fucking cold. I was shivering so hard my teeth hurt, a deep, bone-rattling chill that had nothing to do with the damp Seattle air and everything to do with… well, everything. 

And I was lying through my chattering teeth. “It doesn’t.”

My words hung in the air, a clear ‘fuck you,’ to anyone with two ears and a brain. Abby… I had no idea what she made of it. She was just sitting there in that ridiculously oversized armchair, her stupidly long blonde hair, free from its usual tyrannical braid, fanned out over her shoulders like a silken cape, looking like some kind of tragic, battle-worn princess from a forgotten, fucked-up fairy tale.

I looked back up at the ceiling, my trusty companion in this terrible, unending conversation. The water stains were starting to look like a map of some strange, unknown continent. Maybe I could go there. Start fresh. Build a little shack. Adopt a cat. Seemed plausible.

I heard her shift in the chair, a low groan as she rolled her shoulders, her hand coming up to massage the tense cords of her neck. Even her signs of exhaustion were graceful, damnit. Infuriating.

I wanted to write. I wanted to be warm. Warmer than I was under this heavy, hand-knitted blanket she’d brought me, an act of kindness that made no goddamn sense coming from the woman I thought I knew. But as she’d so helpfully, so frustratingly, reminded me… I didn’t know her at all.

A little more now, though. I could imagine her younger, those hard lines of her face softened, that constant, wary tension absent from her shoulders. I could picture her collecting coins, her brow furrowed in concentration, meticulously pinning them to a map. I could see her with her dad, a ghost I now knew she carried too, his presence a warm, steadying anchor in her young life. The thought was… unsettling. It made her too real. Too… human.

I sat up on the couch, pulling the blanket tighter around my shivering shoulders. "Can you help me with this?" I asked, my voice rough, raspy. I gestured with my good hand to my injured wrist, which had turned a nice, dark plum color in a perfect, ugly bracelet of bruises where her fingers had dug in. It wasn’t actually broken, just badly sprained, but it still hurt like a bitch every time I moved, a sharp, stabbing reminder of our fight, of her strength, of the moment I’d lost control.

Abby seemed startled, yanked from whatever dark, brooding thoughts she’d been lost in. "Yeah, of course," she said, her voice a little too quick, a little too eager. "Let me get my med kit."

She retrieved the kit from her pack, then disappeared into the apartment’s small, grimy bathroom, probably looking for water. Her pack was slightly open, revealing the books she’d hoarded from the shelves. My curiosity, that relentless, self-destructive itch, got the better of me. 

I got off the couch, my movements stiff, my wrist protesting with a fresh wave of pain. I pulled out the book on top. The Price of Salt . I read the back cover. Something about two women, a forbidden love affair. My cheeks flushed, a hot, mortifying wave of heat. 

Weird. Stupid. 

I shoved the book back into her bag just as she returned with a damp, slightly-less-grimy-than-everything-else cloth. By the time she turned around, I was back on the couch, wrapped in the blanket, holding out my wrist, glaring at her as if I hadn’t just been snooping through her shit.

Abby knelt on the floor in front of me, her med kit open beside her. The proximity was immediate, overwhelming. I could smell the faint scent of her skin under the grime, feel the heat radiating from her body in the cool, damp air of the apartment. Her hands were incredibly gentle as she examined my wrist, her calloused fingers probing the swollen, discolored tissue with a surprising, almost surgical, delicacy. Her focus was absolute, her brow furrowed in concentration.

I found myself staring, unable to look away, cataloging the details of her face up close, in the intimate, flickering light of the flashlights. The spray of pale freckles across the bridge of her nose and her shoulders, usually hidden by gear or grime. The way her lips, when not set in a hard, grim line, had a natural, almost pouty fullness. And her lashes… they were blonde at the tips, catching the light, so much longer than I’d ever realized. It made her look… softer. Younger. Frighteningly, undeniably, human. The feeling in my chest was tight, hot, confusing. A different kind of fever.

She looked up then, her eyes meeting mine. We were so close. I could see the flecks of gold in her stormy, blue-grey eyes. The tension, that familiar, infuriating, undeniable pull, was back, coiling tight in my stomach. A violent shiver wracked my body, my teeth chattering uncontrollably.

"Fuck," I groaned, pulling my wrist from her too-warm hand.

Abby reached forward, her brow furrowed with what looked like genuine concern, and pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. Her touch was a jolt, a brand. Hot and surprisingly soft. "Jesus, you’re freezing," she said, her voice low. 

"Yeah, no shit, Anderson."

She looked around the apartment, as if searching for a solution that didn’t exist – more blankets, a fireplace. Her eyes landed on the bedroom door, then flicked back to me, her expression hesitant. "We should get into the bed."

My brain came to a full, screeching halt. The last five minutes of conversation, the fight, the tension—it all vanished, replaced by a wall of white static. The only three words that registered, repeating on a broken loop, were get into bed .

"Body heat," she said, a little too fast, a faint blush returning to her cheeks. "Shared body heat. It'll… it'll warm you up." There was no innuendo in her voice. It was a genuine, practical, almost clinical, offer. And I was so fucking cold.

"Fine," I spit out, the word tasting like surrender.

The bedroom was dark, the one window obscured by ancient, heavy curtains that blocked out what little moonlight was filtering through the storm clouds. I climbed into the old bed, the springs groaning in protest, and faced the wall, not wanting to watch her, feeling that same odd sense of unreality, like I was living someone else’s life, playing a part in a play I didn’t understand. I heard the creak as she climbed in behind me. A moment of hesitation, then the mattress dipped as she moved closer, a few inches of cold sheet separating us.

She moved closer still, until her body was flush against mine, spooning me from behind. The warmth was immediate, shocking, incredible. A full-body sigh of relief escaped my lips, a sound I hadn't intended to make. I couldn’t help it; I leaned back into her, into the heat. The press of her soft breasts against my back, the solid wall of her stomach against me, her long, powerful legs tangled with mine. It was… a lot. Overwhelming. Grounding.

Hesitantly, one of her arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me even closer, her hand resting on my stomach. I could feel her face pressed into my hair, her steady, even breathing a warm puff against my neck. It was like that morning I’d woken up in her arms, but now we were both awake. Aware. The memory was a hot flush against my skin, a prickle of something that was equal parts shame and a sharp, sweet longing.

I was still shivering, but for a different reason now. I could feel the hard press of her groin against my ass, a detail my body registered with an alarming, immediate clarity. I couldn’t stop myself. I pushed back, just a little, a subtle, testing grind, a silent question.

Abby let out a sharp, surprised gasp against my hair, a sound that was half protest, half… something else. Her arm around my waist constricted, her fingers digging slightly into my stomach. I relished the sound, the reaction. 

Okay… so maybe, just maybe, I liked making her uncomfortable. It was nice to turn the tables for once, to be the one in control of this weird, chaotic energy that always seemed to spark between us.

I squirmed again, as if trying to get comfortable, grinding myself back against her more deliberately this time. I let out a little sigh of my own, a sound of pure, feigned contentment, though the feeling churning in my gut was anything but.

"Stop moving," Abby's voice was a tight, strangled whisper against my ear, a desperate plea that held no real authority.

"Why?" I whispered back, my own voice coy, teasing, a dangerous game I couldn't seem to stop playing. "Is it turning you on or something, Anderson?"

Abby was silent for a long, agonizing moment. I could feel the heat radiating from her body, feel the frantic thrum of her pulse where her arm was wrapped around me. I could almost feel her blush in the darkness, the heat of it against my hair.

"Why are you like this?" she finally said, her voice tight with a desire she was clearly, and very poorly, trying to repress.

"Like what?" I asked, my voice a soft, innocent purr. I knew exactly what she meant. I wanted her to lose control. I wanted to see that carefully constructed fortress of hers crumble, just for me. Fuck it.  

If she wasn’t going to stab me, she might as well put something else inside me.

"It doesn't have to mean anything," I whispered, my voice dropping, becoming intimate, serious, a promise and a seduction all at once. "It can just… feel good." 

I started to slowly, deliberately, grind against her again. I felt her hands slide low on my hips, holding me there, her grip firm, possessive. I heard her low moan as I pushed my ass back against her groin, a sound of pure, unwilling surrender.

"Ellie… fuck ," Abby gasped, pressing her face into my hair, her body arching into mine. Her hands were firm on my hips, pulling me tighter. I could feel the firm press of her body against me, and I leaned my head back, a silent invitation, my own body aching, wanting to spread my legs, wanting to feel her strong, capable fingers parting my thighs, pushing inside me, taking me, erasing everything else, just for a little while.

And then, just as suddenly, she pulled away.

The loss of her warmth was immediate, shocking. A physical ache. I could feel her body behind me, shaking. I turned in the bed to face her.

Abby was lying flat on her back, staring at the ceiling, one arm thrown over her eyes, the other gripping the edge of the mattress, her knuckles white. In the dim, grey light from the window, I could just make out the taut line of her jaw, her parted lips as she panted, her eyebrows drawn down in an expression of intense, almost painful, concentration.

Her voice, when she spoke, was raw, broken, a ghost of a sound in the darkness, each word a betrayal of the desire that still thrummed, a palpable, living thing, in the air between us.

"Ellie… I can't."

Chapter Text

Abby

I can’t.

The words were a final, desperate plea from a part of me I thought was always in charge. The sensible part. The part that had built these walls, brick by painful brick, and still screamed about survival, about discipline, about the cold, hard calculus of staying alive.

It was a desperate, clawing thing inside me, trying to retake the fortress from a mutiny it couldn't stop, screaming about the sheer, suicidal foolishness of letting this girl, this girl , get any closer. Every instinct I had honed for years was at war with the undeniable, terrifying truth of my own body’s treason.

I was holding onto my control by a single, fraying thread, and I could feel it about to snap.

But fuck… I want to.

The desire was a physical thing, a living entity coiling hot and tight in my gut. My body, that goddamn traitor, was still thrumming with the aftershocks of her. The phantom press of Ellie’s ass against me, a searing brand that sent waves of fire through my system. My clit was throbbing, an insistent, almost painful, pulse against the rough seam of the scavenged sweatpants. Every nerve ending was screaming, aching with a need so profound, so absolute, it felt like it might tear me apart from the inside out.

Ellie was small and still in the bed beside me, her back to me now, the blanket pulled up to her chin like a shield. Was she asleep? Angry? Disgusted? I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that my entire body was a live wire, humming with a desperate, unfamiliar, and deeply terrifying, need. The air in the small, dark bedroom was thick with her scent, with the lingering heat of her body, with the ghost of her touch still burning on my skin.

This is what I was afraid of. This had always been what I was afraid of. 

The floodgates. The loss of control. 

I’d spent years building these walls, brick by painful, bloody brick, reinforcing them with discipline, with training, with a ruthless, almost monastic, denial of any softness, any weakness, any… desire. I’d built myself into a fortress, impenetrable and cold, because fortresses didn't feel. They didn’t break. They just… stood.

Owen… that had been different. It had been… a contract. A transaction of bodies. Often initiated by me, controlled by me. I’d tell him what to do, when to do it. It was about power, about release, about asserting a kind of dominance that felt safe, predictable. It was a physical need, met with clinical, almost detached, efficiency. A pressure valve for a body pushed to its absolute limit. 

It had never been about this… this all-consuming fire. This overwhelming, terrifying, and exhilarating need to just… let go. To surrender. To drown.

Ellie… she didn’t just knock on the door of my fortress. She fucking blew it off its hinges with a goddamn rocket launcher. She lit a flame inside me, a wild, uncontrollable wildfire that was burning up everything I thought I was, everything I thought I knew about myself. And I was terrified of what would be left in the ashes. Terrified of the person I might become if I let that fire consume me completely.

I could feel her looking at me. That lambent, almost nocturnal, gaze. I could feel it on my skin, a physical touch, a silent accusation.

"Okay," she said simply, her voice quiet, almost devoid of emotion, muffled by the pillow.

As if it was that simple.

As if the choice between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ wasn’t a choice between self-preservation and utter, complete, soul-shattering annihilation. 

As if one of those choices didn’t completely shatter my entire identity, my entire sense of self, the carefully constructed persona of Lieutenant Anderson that I’d worn like armor for so long. 

It was bad enough, the other night in my room. I could almost justify that, twist it in my mind as an act of service, of command—that I was helping her, providing a release she needed, a lie to shield myself from the truth that I was helpless to my own body's response.

But this, this conscious engagement, to just listen to Ellie’s whispered, seductive advice – “It doesn’t have to mean anything…it can just feel good” – and to actually, consciously, choose to let go… that was a surrender I couldn't rationalize.

Could anything just… feel good? Be meaningless? I wasn’t sure I could even imagine what that would be like. Everything in my life, every action, every decision, was freighted with meaning, with consequence, with the crushing weight of survival.

I had to say something. Explain. Apologize. Justify. 

"I just…" I started, my voice rough, strangled, the words dying in my throat before they could even form.

"It’s fine," Ellie cut me off, her voice flat, dismissive. "I misunderstood… I thought… never mind."

Her words were a fresh twist of the knife. It was clear she’d taken my inability to let go, my retreat into the cold, familiar prison of my own control, as a rejection. A lack of interest. A judgment on her. Which was so far from the goddamn truth it was almost laughable.

"No… you didn’t," I said, the words a quiet admission, a confession whispered into the darkness. The air was tense again, charged with a new, almost unbearable, awkwardness. The arousal, the raw, aching need, was still thrumming through my body, a painful, insistent reminder of my own hypocrisy, my own cowardice.

I turned my head, looking at her from beneath the arm I still had thrown over my eyes. She was watching me now, her cheeks flushed a dark, angry red in the dim light, her mouth parted slightly, her chest rising and falling with each shallow, quick breath. Ellie’s own words from before, that soft, seductive whisper, echoed in my head: “It doesn’t have to mean anything…it can just feel good.”

"Ellie," I said, my voice a quiet plea, a question.

"Yeah?"

"After the fight… in the shower." I stopped, embarrassed, unable to continue, the memory of my own drunken, humiliating breakdown still a raw, open wound.

Ellie made a noncommittal, ‘mhmm’ sound, her gaze flicking up to the ceiling.

"Did you…were you…?" I asked, the broken question a desperate, humiliating whisper, needing to know, needing to understand the full extent of my own mortifying loss of control, and her… her reaction to it.

"Yeah," she said, her voice flat, unapologetic.

A fresh wave of shame, warring with a hot, undeniable surge of desire, flooded my body. I flung my other arm over my eyes, wanting to blot out the world, my shame, my desire, my goddamn confusion. "God damn it. I’m sorry," I groaned, the words torn from me, a raw, ragged sound in the quiet room.

Ellie was silent for a second, then, "Don’t be."

I could feel her looking at me again, that burning, intense gaze. I lowered one of my arms, looked at her. In the half-light, her eyes were dark, huge, her mouth parted, her chest rising and falling with each quick breath.

She repeated it, her voice softer this time, almost… gentle. "Don’t be."  

And then, to my absolute, utter shock, she blushed. A dark blush that spread across her freckled cheeks. Ellie. Embarrassed? I never imagined I could make Ellie of all people blush.

Unless… unless she liked it. The way she was always teasing me, pushing my buttons… "this turn you on or something?" “Get the fuck off me before I start to enjoy this.”

Was this all just… a game to her? A way to get under my skin? To assert her own kind of dominance?

A new thought, a new possibility, sparked in my mind—a way to have it all. A way to give my body the release it was screaming for, not as a surrender, but as a calculated move in her game. It was a dangerous, and deeply exhilarating idea: if she wanted to see me lose control, then I could use that very loss of control as a weapon, a way to give her exactly what she wanted while getting everything I was desperate for. 

"Yeah?" I asked, my voice dropping, becoming lower, huskier, enjoying, just for a second, seeing her a little flustered, a little… off-balance. Liking the shift in power, the flicker of uncertainty in her usually so-certain green eyes.

Ellie went completely still. The blush on her cheeks deepened, but the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes was replaced by something else. Her gaze became half-lidded, her eyes darkening with unspoken invitation. Slowly, she shifted in the bed, turning her body to face me fully. The change from her earlier squirming to this deliberate, watchful stillness sent a fresh jolt of pure, unadulterated lust through my system. She just watched me, waiting. For me to do something. Anything. To take the lead.

Fine.

I shifted my arm from over my eyes, my hand moving slowly, deliberately, down over my neck, then tracing a path lower, over my chest, my fingers brushing against the rough fabric of the scavenged t-shirt, before slipping between the worn sheets of the bed, my fingers brushing against the waistband of my sweatpants. I maintained eye contact with Ellie, a silent, daring challenge.

And then, I repeated her own words back to her, my voice a low, husky purr I barely recognized as my own, a sound that felt both foreign and thrillingly, terrifyingly, authentic.

"This turn you on or something?"

Chapter Text

Ellie

Oh. 

Oh.

Not what I was expecting after she’d said, “I can’t.”

There I’d been, wallowing in my own self-loathing, embarrassed for even pushing, for even thinking that casual intimacy, that simple, uncomplicated human contact, was something Abby Anderson would be capable of providing. Or accepting. All the hints were there—the other night in her room notwithstanding. 

Maybe she was bisexual and just ridiculously, pathologically, repressed. Or maybe she was just… broken in a way that resonated with my own fucked-up, shattered pieces. But then she’d pushed me away, leaving me aching, hollowed out, and not in the way I wanted to be.

And now, across from me, her fingers were trailing lazily over her own body, a slow, deliberate exploration that was both a performance and a confession. Slipping lower and resting just under the waistband of her sweatpants, her dark, stormy gaze meeting mine with a question, a challenge, a dare.

Okay, so sex was off the table. Fine.

I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, whatever the fuck that meant. My body thrummed with a sudden, vicious pleasure, a little gasp escaping my throat as my eyes locked on Abby’s fingers, just brushing against the bare skin under her pants.

I’d imagined this. More times than I’d like to admit. 

After hearing her in the shower, those soft, broken sounds that had sent a jolt of something hot and confusing through me. And again, the other night, when she’d been under me, her body responding with that surprising, almost shocking, mixture of heat and muscle and unexpected softness. 

She really just needed someone to fuck her into submission, and god only knew I was offering, but if this is what she wanted, if this was the invisible fucking line she wanted to draw between us, then fine. I could play this game.

Her voice echoed in my mind then, throwing my own taunt back at me: This turn you on or something?

“Yeah,” I said, my voice husky, thick with a desire I was no longer trying to hide. My eyes flicked up to hers, a silent acknowledgment of the shift in the air, before being drawn, irresistibly, back to where she’d pulled the blanket down just enough to let me watch. “It really fucking does.”

Abby leaned her head back against the pillow, a low moan escaping her parted lips. Her long neck, the strong, clean line of her jaw, the almost regal, aquiline slope of her nose, all limned in the dim, flickering half-light. She slipped her hand fully under the waistband of her pants then, her hips arching up slightly, a silent sound of pleasure tearing from her throat.

Holy fucking shit.

I felt a phantom throb of arousal through my own body, so potent, so immediate, it was as if I’d just come, just from watching her. Her other hand, the one not busy under the fabric of her sweatpants, slid up her stomach, pushing up her shirt, exposing those insane, sculpted abs. 

I could just see the hint of fine, dark hair low on her stomach where her sweatpants had slipped below her hip bones. She pushed her shirt up more, a slow, deliberate, almost taunting, gesture, revealing a hint of the soft, full peaks of her breasts. I could see where her nipples had already hardened, pressing against the thin, worn fabric of her shirt.

I wanted to bring my mouth to her breast, to take one of those sensitive, hardened nipples in my mouth, to suck, to tease her with my tongue until she was moaning my name, begging me to stop, begging me not to. I wanted to feel her powerful body arching beneath me, to hear those soft, broken sounds she made when she thought no one was listening.

I resisted. Instead, I just watched as she gasped a little, her hips arching into her own touch, her eyes squeezed shut, her eyebrows drawn down, her freckled nose scrunched a little as she moaned again, a surprisingly feminine sound, high and sweet and utterly, completely, wrecked.

My body responded as if I was the one touching her, as if she was the one touching me. I gasped from the spike of pure, unadulterated pleasure. 

Fuck it. 

I unbuttoned my scavenged jeans and slipped my good hand, my right hand, under the hem of my underwear. I was already soaking wet, my clit hot and swollen and aching under the press of my own fingers.

Next to me, in the dim, flickering light, Abby opened her eyes, her gaze dropping, locking onto where my hand had slipped beneath my pants. She let out another little moan, a sound of pure, unadulterated approval. She was clearly enjoying this as much as I was.

Should I say something? What would I even say? Hey, me too! Small world, huh?

Her face crumpled with pleasure as she watched me, a fresh wave of heat flooding her cheeks, and she let out another little moan, her own hand moving with a new, more urgent, rhythm beneath the fabric of her pants.

I pushed my jeans down with my good hand, lifting my hips a little to free them, kicking them until they were tangled around my ankles, leaving me in just my thin underwear. I wanted her to see my hand working beneath the fabric, wanted her to see the effect she was having on me.

Abby, her eyes still locked on my hand, followed my lead, as if we were engaged in some silent, deeply fucked-up, and intensely arousing game. She undid the tie on her sweatpants and pushed them down, pulling her long, ridiculously muscled legs out of them, kicking the blanket further down the bed. 

Now I could see the powerful curve of her thigh, the sharp, almost severe, arc of her hip bone leading to the deep V of her abdominal muscles where they disappeared beneath the hem of her underwear. Her shirt had ridden up a bit more, and I could see the small, perfect curve of her breasts, each movement from her hand causing them to jiggle a little with the motion.

Abby’s cheeks were flushed a dark red, throwing the pale freckles across her nose into stark, beautiful relief. She panted, her undone blonde hair tangling around her head like a wild, chaotic halo as our gazes locked in a silent dare. 

My focus narrowed entirely to her hand as it slipped lower beneath her underwear. I heard the wet, slick sound of her touch as she pushed inside herself, her back arching off the bed with a sharp, surprised gasp.

I moaned, involuntarily, at the sight, felt my own body respond in an insane, almost telepathic, way, as if she were touching me.

I’d never experienced anything like this before. Sex, when I had it, was usually pretty good. It was hard for it to be bad, honestly. Maybe a few fumbling, awkward early times with Cat, but then with Dina… with Dina it had been good. Really, really good. A warm, easy, comfortable pleasure. But I’d always gotten what I wanted, when I wanted it. I’d been in control.

But this… this was a torture of a different kind. This parallel pleasure that felt so, so unexpectedly good. Almost better, with the denial. With the wanting. With the not having .

“That’s right,” I said, my voice low, a rough, husky sound I barely recognized as my own. I couldn’t stop myself. I never could, not when I wanted something this badly. And now, with her, with this strange, intoxicating power I suddenly seemed to have over her, I was helpless. “Fuck yourself like that for me,” I commanded, the words a delicious, forbidden ecstasy on my tongue.

Her eyes popped open, locking on mine with something like shock, and a deep, deep, almost bottomless, desire. Her eyebrows pulled up, her lips parted in a silent, pleading O, and she bit down on her lower lip, a tiny, almost imperceptible, nod as she followed my direction. I could hear the rhythmic slapping of her own knuckles against her body, a wet, desperate sound that sent a fresh jolt of pure, unadulterated lust through my system.

I rubbed slow, lazy circles on my own clit, my body thrumming with a pleasure so intense it was almost unbearable.

“There you go,” I said, half whispering, my voice a low, encouraging purr. “That’s a good girl.”

Abby moaned, a high, choked sound, her head thrashing on the pillow as she spread her legs wider, then, in one quick, almost desperate, movement, she pushed her underwear down, hooking them on her thumbs and pulling them away, tossing them onto the floor. She spread her legs again, wider this time, letting me see all of her.

Her body was slick with desire, the hot, pink, swollen curve of her sex glistening in the half-light. I could see where her two fingers disappeared into the dark, wet heat inside her, watched them sliding in and out, in and out, as she moaned, a low, almost animalistic, sound. I could see the sweat glistening on the sharp, defined lines of her muscles, the soft, surprisingly delicate, thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs.

I wanted to taste her. I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to shatter that goddamn control she clung to so desperately. 

I moaned again, slowing my own fingers, edging myself, keeping myself from reaching that peak. I was so fucking close, teetering on that precipice, about to tip over. The image of Abby’s body, Abby’s pleasure, the raw, unguarded expressions on her face, the soft, broken sounds she was making, all of it pushing my own body closer and closer, making it impossible to stop.

“Good girl,” I repeated, the words a husky, breathless mantra, having seen the clear, devastating effect they were having on her.

She arched into her fingers again, her moans running together now, a string of soft, broken, desperate sounds, her cheeks and breasts flushed a delicious pink.

It was taking everything in me not to cross that small, insignificant distance between us and replace her fingers with mine, to not bring my mouth to her swollen clit, to taste her, to claim her, to swallow her fucking moans.

“Come for me,” I demanded, my voice rough. I could tell she was so close, her whole body was tense, every muscle outlined as she flexed, her powerful thighs quivering. “Come on your fucking fingers. Now.”

Abby cried out, a loud, sharp, almost painful, sound, her toes curling, her legs shaking as she came, her whole body tensing, arching up off the bed, then relaxing back into the mattress with a shuddering, boneless release. I saw the liquid, her wetness, glistening on her fingers, dripping onto her stomach, onto the sheets.

“Holy shit,” she said, panting, her chest rising and falling, her eyes half-lidded, unfocused, a dazed, almost delirious, look on her face.

“Ah… fuck,” I cried out, my own orgasm finally taking me, a sudden, explosive, blinding, white-hot flash, a wave that crashed over me, leaving me trembling and breathless and utterly, completely, wrecked. It wasn't the slow build of my own touch, but the violent, percussive impact of watching her come apart at my command. The sight of her, so strong, so in control, utterly broken by her own pleasure, by my words… it was the most intense fucking thing I’d ever felt.

When I surfaced, my vision still blurry, my body still thrumming with the aftershocks of my own release, I could see her looking at me, her eyes half-lidded, her mouth still parted. Her hair was a wild, tangled mess, stuck to her cheek and forehead. She was still lying on her back, her legs spread, her hand, still wet, resting gently between her legs. I could smell the sex, smell her , the sharp, salty, musky scent of her arousal filling the small, dark room. And even in the aftermath of my own orgasm, it did something to me, rebuilt a fire I was helpless at putting out.

Abby reached down and felt the bed between her legs, the wet patch her own climax had made on the thin, worn sheets.

“What the fuck,” she said, her voice a low, dazed, almost wondering, sound, before laying back down, returning her arms to cover her eyes, as if she couldn’t bear to look at me, or maybe, at herself.

I wanted to go to her, to feel the mess she’d made on the bed, to taste her on my own fingers, but I knew, I just knew, that if I moved any closer, that invisible, stupid, and now utterly, completely, meaningless line she’d drawn would dissolve. And then… and then I didn’t know what would happen.

With my one good hand, I pulled up my damp underwear, my equally damp jeans. I lay on my side, not facing her, listening to the soft, rustling sounds of her doing the same. I felt her pull the blanket back up, covering us both, the worn, hand-knitted fabric a flimsy, inadequate barrier between our two bodies, both still thrumming with a shared, unspoken, and deeply, profoundly, terrifying, new intimacy.

Something inside me, something I hadn’t even realized had been cracking, had completely, irrevocably, shattered. I tried to slow my breathing, to regain some semblance of control, but I couldn’t. I was helpless to this feeling, this horrible, desperate, aching feeling, this need to be close to her, to touch her, to comfort her, to lose myself in her.

In Abby . The woman who had almost killed me, the woman who had made my life a living hell, and now… now I was desperate to cross that line.

An intimacy I didn’t even realize I’d wanted until I’d seen it written across her startlingly beautiful, and currently, very, very, flushed face.

Her voice, when it came, was quiet in the darkness, a ghost of a sound, tentative, almost… pleading.

“It doesn't have to mean anything.”

I didn’t answer. I just lay there, my back to her, my heart hammering against my ribs, the silence between us a living, breathing thing, filled with the weight of a shared, unspoken, and deeply, profoundly, terrifying, new truth.

It already did.

Chapter Text

Abby

The first light of dawn was a knife’s edge, a thin, merciless sliver of grey slicing through the grime on the apartment window, painting the dusty room in cold, simple shades that felt at odds with the tangled, confusing heat of the night.

I hadn’t slept. How could I? I’d spent the night lying ramrod straight, listening to the soft, even rhythm of Ellie’s breathing beside me, the ghost of her voice still a live wire in my mind. The memory of what I'd done at her word, for her gaze, was a brand on my skin. Hot. Indelible.

Her words… “Fuck yourself like that for me.”

A command. An invitation. An unraveling.

And that sickening, thrilling praise… “good girl.”

It had hit me like a physical blow, a dismantling of every defense I’d ever built. Shame and desire, a toxic, intoxicating cocktail, still churned in my gut. I had never, not once, surrendered control like that. Not to Owen. Not to anyone. Not even to myself. 

And to have done it for her , under her command, her gaze… it was a new kind of terror, a new kind of fire.

She had always done this. From that first, violent confrontation in the archives, her taunts about my leash, my control… she’d gotten under my skin. She saw me. Sometimes I felt like Ellie didn’t know me at all, was just projecting her own brand of fucked-up, grief-fueled rage onto me. But other times… other times it felt like she knew me better than anyone ever had. Better than Owen. Better than my father. Better, even, than myself. She had a terrifying, almost preternatural, ability to find the cracks in my armor and pry them open with her sharp, sarcastic, and often brutally honest, words.

I rose from the bed, the springs groaning in protest, the movement stiff, painful. My body ached, but it was a different kind of ache than the usual post-combat soreness. This was a deeper, more profound exhaustion, a weariness that had settled into my very bones.

In the pre-dawn chill of the small, dusty apartment, I began the familiar ritual of gearing up. The weight of the armor, the cold steel of my weapons, it was a comfort. A return to order. I paused, grabbing the radio. My voice was clipped, all business, as I confirmed our position with Owen's team and got a brief sit-rep. The routine of it was grounding. Then I returned to my task, tightening the final straps on my tactical vest, my movements precise, automatic, a desperate attempt to reconstruct the fortress that had been so thoroughly, so spectacularly, breached last night.

I could hear Ellie moving around in the bedroom, the soft rustle of clothes, a muted curse as she probably jostled her injured wrist. A part of me, a part I ruthlessly, violently, stamped out, wanted to go to her, to offer to help her with her gear, knowing she’d struggle with one hand. But I couldn’t. The thought of being that close to her again, of the heat that still lingered on my cheeks from the memory of last night, of the scent of her, of sex, still clinging to the air in that small, dark room… no. I couldn’t bear it.

Ellie emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later, fully dressed, her pack already slung over one shoulder. I noticed it looked a little fuller, and I guessed she must have taken the clothes she’d found. She seemed small and hard and closed-off, her face a blank slate, those too-green eyes giving nothing away. But I saw the faint, dark circles under them, the slight tremor in her good hand as she adjusted the strap of her pack. She hadn’t slept either.

"Make contact yet?" she asked, nodding at the radio on the coffee table. Her voice was cold, distant. Professional. It surprised me. I’d expected… something. Taunts. A smirk. Some acknowledgment of my utter, humiliating capitulation. But this unnerving silence, this cold professionalism… it was worse. It was a wall. A new one, built between us overnight.

“Yeah,” I said, my own voice rough, gravelly. I cleared my throat, forcing the Lieutenant back into my tone, the familiar armor of command. “Made contact. They’re holed up at The Crocodile, that old music venue a few klicks from here. They’re waiting for us. We’ll head back to the stadium as one unit.”

She just nodded, her expression unreadable.

The journey across the broken city was a tense, silent affair. We moved with the practiced efficiency of two soldiers who have learned to anticipate each other's movements, to cover each other’s blind spots. But the air between us was thick with the unspoken, with the memory of shared sweat and ragged breaths and a raw, desperate intimacy that had left us both shattered.

We found them in the cavernous, echoing shell of The Crocodile, the faded, peeling posters on the walls advertising bands whose names were long forgotten, whose music had died with the world. The reunion was awkward. The two teams, once set up as rivals in Isaac’s sick little game, now just looked tired, battered, and overwhelmingly relieved to see their comrades alive. It was clear no one had any interest in Isaac’s competition anymore. They were just soldiers, trying to survive another day.

I gave a short, clipped speech, my voice all business, forcing an order onto the chaotic mix of relief and exhaustion. "The test is over. From here on out, we are one squad. We look out for each other. We get each other home. Understood?"

A chorus of weary, grateful agreements.

Ellie remained aloof, letting me take the lead without comment, melting into the background as if she were just another grunt. Jordan immediately gravitated to her, her arm slinging around Ellie’s shoulders, her voice a low, sweet murmur as she checked a fresh cut on Ellie’s cheek. It sparked that familiar, ugly jealousy in my gut. But it was different now. 

It wasn’t just anger that Jordan had her attention. It was a deep, aching envy for the ease of their intimacy, the simple, uncomplicated way Jordan could touch her, comfort her, without it being a declaration of war or a prelude to… whatever the hell last night was.

Owen was doing the same to me, his hands patting me down, checking for new wounds, his eyes full of that familiar, tender, almost pathetic, concern. Ellie’s words from the other night, from the apartment, echoed in my head: “There’s nothing going on between me and Owen.” "You should probably tell him that." And I realized, with a sudden, sharp clarity, that she was right.

I’d been selfish. Keeping Owen tethered to me with the ghost of a past that no longer existed, because I was afraid to lose my oldest friend, because his familiar, uncomplicated affection was a comfort, a known quantity in a world of terrifying unknowns. But after last night, after the way my body had responded to Ellie, to her touch, her commands… I knew, with an absolute, irrevocable certainty, that there was nothing left for Owen and me.

There never really was. Not like this. The companionship, the easy, transactional sex… it was a placeholder. A comfortable lie I’d been telling myself for years. The fire… the fire was somewhere else entirely. And it was threatening to burn me alive.

As we approached the main gate of the stadium, the familiar, grim fortress looming out of the grey Seattle drizzle, I pulled Ellie aside, my hand brushing her arm, a brief, electric contact that made her flinch, her eyes widening for a fraction of a second before her face closed off again, becoming a mask of stony indifference.

"Let me do the talking with Isaac," I said, my voice low, urgent.

She looked at me, her eyes narrowed with suspicion, trying to figure out my angle, my play. But after a long, tense moment, she just shrugged, a flicker of that old, familiar defiance in the gesture. “Whatever, Anderson. It’s your funeral.”

Inside the stadium’s infirmary, the air thick with the smell of antiseptic and the sound of suffering, Mel was already fussing over Ellie’s wrist, her face etched with worry. "What the hell happened here, Ellie?" Mel asked, her fingers gently probing the swollen, bruised flesh.

I braced myself, ready to take the blame, ready to be the monster Mel, and probably everyone else, already suspected I was. But Ellie spoke first, her voice flat, emotionless, her gaze fixed on some distant, unseen point beyond Mel’s shoulder. "Infected. One of the bastards got a good grip on me in the library."

She lied. For me. I didn’t know why. But a wave of something that felt dangerously like gratitude, a warm, unwelcome, and deeply confusing sensation, washed over me.

I checked in on Manny and Jordan, my voice all business, Lieutenant Anderson back in full effect. They were warm, receptive, their trust in my leadership a familiar, comforting weight. I was talking with Jordan, discussing the extent of her injuries – a nasty gash on her leg that would probably need stitches – when Ellie appeared at my side, her face a pale, set mask.

"Let's get this over with," she said, her voice a low, quiet challenge.

The tension between us was different now as we walked to Isaac’s office. Not violent. Something else. A strange, almost reluctant, sense of being on the same team. Of being… aligned. I found myself wanting her to get the answers she was seeking, the answers that had driven her here, to this godforsaken city, to me. But a small, protective part of me, a part I didn’t understand and definitely didn’t want, was terrified of the price she’d have to pay, the price I knew Isaac would demand.

Isaac was practically buzzing with excitement, like a man about to find out if he’d won a bet on a dog fight. He turned his predatory gaze on us as we entered his office, his eyes gleaming. "Report."

Ellie started to speak, to explain that the intel was lost in the fight, but I cut her off.

"It was a bust, sir," I said, my voice steady, betraying none of the turmoil churning inside me. "Both locations were dead ends. The intel was bad. Scars must have cleared out weeks ago."

I lied. A direct, blatant, and potentially suicidal, lie. To Isaac. It was terrifying. And exhilarating. I described the firefight, the infected horde, the collapse of the library, framing the mission not as a competition, but as a brutal, unwinnable survival scenario, a clusterfuck from the word go.

Isaac's face fell, a flicker of profound disappointment in his cold, flinty eyes. He looked from me to Ellie, then back again. Ellie was staring at me, her mouth slightly agape, a look of utter, stunned disbelief on her face. She looked… betrayed.

But I wasn’t done.

"However," I continued, my voice firm, resolute, "we wouldn't have survived without Williams. Her team reached the library first, neutralized multiple threats before the horde hit. Her actions under fire were exemplary. She won, sir. By any metric."

I’d just handed her everything. The victory. Isaac’s favor. The keys to the kingdom. Or the keys to the cage, depending on how you looked at it.

Isaac’s focus shifted entirely to Ellie, his disappointment replaced by a new, calculating interest. He dismissed me with a wave of his hand, his eyes never leaving Ellie’s face. "Leave us, Anderson. I’ll deal with you later."

I turned and walked out of the office, the door closing behind me with a soft, final click. I could hear Isaac’s voice, low and persuasive, beginning to speak to Ellie, his new prized asset. His new weapon. His new… me.

As I walked down the long, empty corridor, a single thought echoed in the sudden, ringing silence of my own mind.

I hope this is what you wanted, Ellie. I hope it’s worth the cost.

Chapter Text

Ellie

The heavy oak door of Isaac’s office clicked shut behind Abby, the sound echoing in the sudden, tense silence. It felt like a gavel falling, a judgment passed. But on who? Her? Me? Both of us?

I was left standing there, alone with the devil himself, the metallic tang of fear and confusion coating the back of my throat. Isaac’s predatory focus, that cold, appraising gaze that always made me feel like a specimen pinned to a board, was now entirely on me. He gestured towards the chair Abby had just vacated, a warm indentation still marking her presence.

“Sit, Ellie,” he said, his voice dripping with a soft, manipulative praise that made my skin crawl. “We have much to discuss.”

He welcomed me into his inner circle. He spoke of my potential, my “fire,” my future with the WLF. He laid out a vision of power, of influence, of a purpose I could carve out for myself under his guidance. It was everything I thought I wanted. Isaac’s trust. A direct line to the man in charge. The “win.”

But it all felt hollow. A bitter ash in my mouth.

My mind was a whirlwind, replaying Abby’s lie over and over. Why? Why did she take the fall? Why risk her own neck for me? The question was a constant, nagging counterpoint to Isaac’s monologue about my bright, bloody future. I realized with a jolt that I held Abby’s life in my hands. The water-damaged, but still partially legible, intel was still in my pack. One move, one word, could expose her lie and sign her death warrant. The thought was a cold, hard stone in the pit of my stomach.

“I’m placing my full resources at your disposal,” Isaac was saying, his voice a low, seductive purr. He was offering me the keys to the kingdom. Access to archives, personnel files, anything I needed for my new “specialized unit.” Anything I needed to find the answers I was so desperately searching for. “Just ask, Ellie,” he said.

But all I could think about was the look on Abby’s face before she left—that mixture of fury, betrayal, and something else… something that looked almost like resignation. Like she had expected this. Like she had known this was the cost.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, my voice sounding hollow and a million miles away. My mission, once so clear, so singular, was now a tangled, chaotic mess. Find the truth about Joel. That was still the goal. But now, tangled up in that quest, was a new, equally urgent, and far more confusing, mission: find Abby.

I left Isaac’s office in a daze, his words, his promises, already fading into the background noise of my own internal chaos. As I walked through the echoing, concrete corridors of the stadium, my thoughts were a storm. Last night, the raw intimacy of it, the way Abby had shattered under my commands, the power and the pleasure of it all, was still a burning, confusing heat in my veins. And now this. This… sacrifice? It made no fucking sense. The contradictions of Abby Anderson were a puzzle I couldn’t stop trying to solve, a confusion of violence and vulnerability that I kept twisting and turning in my mind, getting no closer to a solution.

Instinct took me to the gym first. The familiar smell of sweat and rust and stale adrenaline did nothing to calm the frantic pounding of my heart. It was mostly empty, just a few grunts going through the motions, their faces grim, their movements sluggish. No Abby.

Then, the mess hall. The noise, the crowd, the smell of boiled vegetables and coffee, it was almost overwhelming. I spotted my new squad—Jordan and Taryn—and some of Abby’s team, Owen and Manny, huddled at a table in the corner. They saw me, and their faces broke into a mixture of awe and congratulations. Jordan, her dark eyes gleaming, beckoned me over.

“There she is!” Jordan boomed, her voice echoing in the cavernous space. She clapped me on the back, hard enough to make my teeth rattle. “Isaac’s new golden girl! Heard you officially got your own squad, Spitfire. Fucking badass.”

Manny, his face split by a crude, knowing grin, chimed in. “Yeah, you got Isaac wrapped around your little finger.”

I ignored the jibe, my eyes scanning the crowded room, searching for a flash of blonde hair, for a pair of broad, unforgiving shoulders. “Have you guys seen Abby?” I asked, cutting them off, my voice sharper than I intended.

The table went quiet. The easy camaraderie of a moment ago evaporated, replaced by a tense, awkward silence. Owen shifted uncomfortably, his kind eyes clouded with a familiar, weary concern. “She’s… uh… she’s probably best left alone when she gets like this, Ellie,” he said, his tone hesitant, protective. “She needs to cool off.”

The response irritated me more than it should have. As if he knows her better than I do. Which, fine, he probably did. They had history. A long, messy, and apparently, still ongoing, history. But the thought, the casual, almost proprietary, way he spoke about her, it was a sharp, unwelcome jab.

After a lunch I barely touched, I continued my search. I was leaving the mess hall, my mind still a chaotic jumble of questions and confusion, when Owen caught up with me. His face was etched with a concern that I knew, with a sickening certainty, was not for me.

“Ellie, wait,” he said, his voice low, earnest. He looked… sad. Pathetic. “Just… take it easy on her, okay? This is a lot for her. She puts on a brave face, but she’s… she’s more sensitive than she lets on.”

This unsolicited, misguided, and frankly, insulting, advice made me feel slightly sick. The chasm between what Owen saw, what he thought he knew, and what had actually happened between me and Abby in the dark, desperate intimacy of the past few days, was vast and dizzying. He thought I was here to gloat, to twist the knife, to continue our little psychodrama of antagonism and rivalry. He had no idea.

My internal monologue, already a screaming vortex of confusion, spiraled into a new, more frantic, orbit. First Abby kisses me in her room, then she acts like it doesn’t matter. Then last night happens, and she says that doesn’t mean anything either. Then she risks her life, lies to Isaac, and hands me this fucking ‘win’ on a silver platter. It doesn’t make any sense.

I was good at pushing things, at poking at wounds until they bled, at demanding answers until something, or someone, broke. And I had reached my breaking point. I needed answers. Now.

I found Manny near the armory, cleaning his rifle with a practiced, almost meditative, focus. He looked up as I approached, his dark eyes sharp, perceptive.

“Where is she, Manny?” I asked, dispensing with the pleasantries.

He gave me an odd look, a slow, appraising stare, as if he could see the storm brewing behind my eyes, as if he sensed this was more than just a squad rivalry, more than just me looking to rub Abby’s nose in her defeat. He hesitated, then sighed, a long, weary sound.

“Look, Ellie,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “She has this spot. Top of the stadium, one of the old, unused skyboxes. The ones that haven’t collapsed yet. She goes there sometimes… to read. To be alone.” He scrubbed a hand over his tired face, his expression grim. “Seriously, just leave her be. Let it go for today. For your own good, and for hers.”

But I couldn’t. I had to know.

I found the room, just as Manny had described. Up a series of grimy, echoing stairwells that smelled of damp concrete, at the very top of the stadium, overlooking the dead, grey city. The door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open, my boots loud on the gritty concrete floor.

Abby was there. Sitting in a worn, overstuffed armchair, her back to the door. She was reading a book. The Price of Salt . She didn't flinch at the sound of my entry.

Her voice was quiet when she spoke, still looking at the page. "How was it possible to be so afraid and so excited at the same time?"

At first, I thought she was speaking to me, the words a perfect, shocking articulation of the turmoil in my own heart. Then I realized she was just reading a line from the book.

She marked her page with a faded, pre-outbreak bookmark, slowly closed the book, and set it aside on a dusty, overturned crate. She turned in her chair then, her face a mask of weary resignation, seemingly prepared for the confrontation she knew was coming.

I was panting slightly from the climb, my chest tight, my mind a screaming vortex of questions. Why? Why did you lie? Why did you risk your life for me? Why did you try to kill me? Why didn’t you?

“Why?” was the only word that came out, raw and choked and full of a hundred other unasked questions.

Abby was silent for a long moment, her lips turned down in a slight frown, her brow furrowed. She sighed, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of the entire goddamn world, and leaned back in her chair.

“I already told you, Ellie,” she said, her voice tired, so tired. “I’m done.”

She paused, her gaze distant, lost in some memory I couldn’t access.

“You know, I came to the WLF looking for answers too. Vengeance. Understanding. For my father.” She looked at me then, her gaze sharp, intense. “And in all the years I’ve been here, the only thing I’ve learned is how far I’m willing to go, how much of myself I’m willing to sacrifice… and for what?”

She met my gaze, her own eyes hard, shadowed. “I don’t… I don’t fucking know who I am anymore,” her voice choked on the words, a raw, painful vulnerability in her tone that I’d never heard before. “But… I think I want to find out. And I can’t do it while wearing Isaac’s collar.”

She shrugged, a small, almost helpless, gesture of profound, heartbreaking surrender.

It was an echo of our earlier fight in the old public library, in the bookstore. The same words. The same sentiment. And it ignited a surge of white-hot rage inside me. How dare she? How dare she just… let go?

The anger, I knew, with a sickening, self-loathing clarity, was really at myself.

At my own inability to release the fury, the grief, the all-consuming need for vengeance that had been my constant companion for so long. Abby’s surrender, her willingness to walk away from the darkness, it felt like another abandonment, leaving me alone, isolated, in my own self-made world of pain.

I stepped forward, grabbing Abby by the front of her shirt, trying to force a reaction, trying to drag her back into the familiar, brutal dance of our antagonism. Abby’s body stiffened, her muscles going taut beneath my hands.

Good. I want her mad. I need her mad.

“‘I give up.’ Yeah, fucking right, Abby,” I taunted, my voice low and sharp, full of a venom I didn’t know I possessed. “You haven’t given up a day in your life. You can’t even give up your own control for five fucking seconds. You can’t even admit to yourself what you want.”

Abby’s temper flared, just as I’d hoped. That old, familiar defensiveness reared its ugly head.

“You don’t fucking know me, Ellie,” she snarled, her hands gripping my wrists, fingers digging into my skin.

“Actually, I think I do,” I said, ignoring the voice in my head that screamed I was just talking to myself. “Anyone who talks that much about ‘letting go’ is just trying to convince themselves. Mark my words: by tomorrow you’ll be putting that collar back on. Begging for Isaac to take over.”

I leaned in, dropping my voice. “Because deep down, you’re terrified of who you’ll be without it.”

Abby looked like I’d struck her. She shoved me back, hard, the force making me stumble. Her face was now flushed a dark, angry red. She snarled, stepping forward, hands clenched.

“Fuck you, Ellie.”

“If only you would,” I retorted, my voice a venomous whisper—a taunt, a dare, and a desperate plea all at once. “But you can’t, can you? You’re too much of a repressed control freak.”

I took a step closer. “What did you think was going to happen, Abby? That we’d just keep doing this… then pretend it never happened? Is that what you really want?”

She was panting now, her chest heaving, her stormy eyes wide with fury, frustration, and fear. Hot, angry tears welled in them, threatening to spill.

“I don’t know,” she choked out, her voice a raw, broken ghost of a sound. “I don’t know what I want.”

“Yes,” I challenged, stepping closer until our bodies almost touched. The air crackled. “Yes, you do. Just fucking admit it.”

My voice dropped to a low, hypnotic purr—the same one I’d used last night. The one that had made her shatter.

“Tell me, Abby,” I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Tell me to stop.”

Chapter Text

Abby

Tell me to stop.

The words hung in the dusty, charged air between us, a final, brutal test. Not a question, but a command. An ultimatum. And I knew, with a certainty that was both terrifying and liberating, that this wasn't about my obedience. It was about my honesty.

She was offering me an out, a return to the cold, familiar prison of my own making. All I had to do was say the word.

Control. It’s the only currency that matters. Lose it, and you lose everything.

The mantra, the one I had lived by, bled for, killed for, the one I had built my entire goddamn existence around, it was nothing now but a hollow echo in the ruin she had made of me. I could feel that control, a concept that had evolved from a shield to a cage, now shattering completely. The thread I'd been desperately holding onto since she’d walked into my life, it snapped.

Her words, the ones she'd hurled at me just moments ago, were fresh wounds, still bleeding. “You’re terrified of who you’ll be without it.”

Hot, angry, shameful tears traced paths through the grime on my cheeks. She was right. I was terrified. And Ellie, with her infuriating, all-seeing green eyes, she knew it. She knew I had no desire for her to stop. She knew this final command was a mirror, forcing me to look at my own fractured, wanting reflection.

My whole life, I’d been fighting the wrong war.

It wasn't the Scars. It wasn't the infected. It wasn’t even Isaac, with his manipulative games and his suffocating expectations.

The enemy was me.

My fear. My repression. The ghost of a promise I’d made to a dead father, a promise to be strong, to be unbreakable, a promise that had turned me into this… this hollowed-out thing.

Ellie hadn't broken me. She had forced me to see the parts of myself I’d tried so hard to kill, the parts that yearned for something other than the crushing weight of command, the parts that were undeniably, terrifyingly, drawn to this chaotic, infuriating, beautiful girl.

My voice, when it came, felt like it was being dredged up from underwater, from a part of my soul I didn’t know existed. My body felt loose, heavy, boneless. A whisper. A plea. A final, absolute surrender.

"Don't stop."

The air shifted. The power dynamic, that invisible, constantly shifting force between us, it didn’t just invert. It shattered. Remade itself into something new, something terrifying, something I had no map for.

Ellie’s voice, when she responded, was that same impossibly low command, that hypnotic, rough caress that unraveled me completely. It was the voice that made me feel like I didn’t know myself at all and was also, somehow, finally being the truest version of myself.

“You want this?” she asked, her voice soft, but the question was an order.

"Yes."

The word was a brand, a release, a prayer. An admission that cost me everything I thought I was, and in return, offered… what? Oblivion? Freedom? I didn't know. Didn't care.

Ellie relished it. I could see the shift in her, the absolute confidence that settled over her, the dark, satisfied gleam in her eyes as she watched my control shatter like glass.

A small smile played on her full lips as she leaned forward, her green eyes flicking to my mouth, my flushed cheeks, then back up to my eyes, a slow, deliberate, almost lazy assessment. Her hands came up then, not with violence, not with anger, but with a surprising, almost shocking, tenderness. She gently, almost reverently, wiped away the tears that, to my utter humiliation, were now streaming freely down my cheeks.

"Shh…" Ellie whispered, her gaze soft as she studied my face. "It’s okay. You’re okay."

Her words were a soothing balm, pulling me back from the brink of my own internal chaos, grounding me in the present, in the heat emanating from her body, a heat that was lighting a fire deep inside me.

"I want…this," I admitted, the words torn from me, the final wall crumbling into dust.

My legs felt weak, boneless. I want you , the thought a silent prayer as I sank to my knees on the gritty concrete floor, the rough texture a stark contrast to the sudden, overwhelming vulnerability I felt inside. Ellie didn’t let me fall. Her hands stayed on my face, guiding me down, holding me there. She was towering over me now, a dark, powerful silhouette against the single shaft of grey light from the window.

"I know," Ellie said, her voice a low, husky murmur, her eyes dark with a fierce, possessive light. "I know you do."

She leaned down then, holding my face firm in her hands, her grip surprisingly strong, her thumbs stroking gently against my cheekbones. She stopped, our mouths just inches apart. The space between us sparked with a desperate, almost unbearable heat. I could feel the firm grasp of her long fingers on my jaw, could see her parted lips, the way her pupils had consumed the green in her eyes, leaving only dark, swirling pools of desire.

Desperate, I tried to lean forward, to close that final, torturous gap. Ellie moved back slightly, maintaining that impossible distance, a small, dark, knowing smile playing on her lips.

"Hmm," she mused, her long, dark lashes sweeping against her freckled cheeks. Her green eyes, sharp and knowing, glanced down at my lips before meeting mine again. "A little desperate?"

I felt a fresh flush of hot humiliation and tried to pull back, a flicker of my old pride, my old defenses, rearing its ugly head. Was this just a game to her? A power play?

“Don’t you dare,” Ellie commanded, her voice a low order, her grip on my jaw becoming firmer, not painful, but absolute, forcing me to look up at her, forcing me to meet her dark, intense gaze.

"I want to hear you beg."

She demanded it, her voice a low, commanding whisper that sent a jolt of pure, unadulterated lust straight to my core. Keeping her hand on my jaw, she straightened up slightly, so that my face was now inches away from the space between her legs, from the undeniable, almost suffocating, heat emanating from her. She looked down at me, a slow satisfied smirk spreading across her face.

"Once you beg..." she trailed off, letting that slow, dark smile finish the promise. It did something devastating to my body, to my soul.

The sheer, unapologetic dominance in her voice, in her touch, in her gaze, it shattered the last vestiges of my resistance. I felt helpless to it, and I didn’t want to fight it anymore. I wanted to dive in. Deeper. To drown in whatever this was, whatever she was.

She leaned down again, her lips almost brushing my ear, her voice a hot, ragged whisper that promised both damnation and salvation.

“Then, I’ll give you everything you’ve ever fucking wanted.”

Chapter Text

Ellie

The image burned itself into my mind, a fantasy I’d imagined a thousand, thousand times, and yet, before me, the reality of it was even more shocking: Abby on her knees, looking up at me.

Her control, that ironclad, suffocating fortress she wore like a second skin, was utterly, completely, shattered. Her face, usually a mask of stony indifference or cold, hard fury, was open, raw, a landscape of conflicting emotions.

Her eyebrows, those sharp, expressive dark arcs, were drawn together in a silent, desperate plea. A dark, angry blush spread across her cheeks, a stark contrast to the pale skin, the spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose that I’d only ever seen up close in moments of violence or forced, uncomfortable intimacy.

Her lips, so often twisted into a sneer of contempt or a tight line of command, were parted, panting. Her whole body was tense, a coiled spring of need and fear and a desire so profound it was almost a physical thing in the room, a palpable, vibrating heat.

Her chest rose and fell with each ragged, shallow breath, as if she’d been fighting, which, I guessed, she had. A war against herself. And she had lost. Or maybe… maybe she had finally, blessedly, won. I could see the echo of that internal battle still raging in those stormy, beautiful blue-grey eyes.

She’d had an out. I’d given it to her.

A chance to retreat, to rebuild her walls, to slam the door shut on whatever this was, this terrifying, intoxicating thing that had been sparking between us since the day we met. But she hadn’t taken it. Instead, she had surrendered. To me. That mantle of command had fallen from her shoulders, leaving this panting, wide-eyed woman, her gaze a war between desperation, desire, and shame.

Abby’s lips pressed together in a little pouty frown, and the look, so vulnerable, sent a fresh jolt of something hot and sharp through me. She looked down at the gritty concrete floor, as if seeking answers there, then back up at me, her eyebrows drawn together, shame blushing her cheeks a deeper shade of red.

“Please,” she begged, her voice low, a ghost of a sound in the quiet, dusty room.

She closed her eyes then, as if she could shield herself from the truth of her own desire, from the shame of her own surrender.

“Please.”

The sound of it, that single, broken word, that raw, desperate plea… it broke something inside me. The dam of my own carefully controlled, fiercely guarded desire, it didn’t just crack; it shattered.

In one swift, almost violent, movement, I pulled her up by the front of her shirt, dragging her mouth to mine, my hands forceful against the back of her neck, my fingers tangling in the messy, undone strands of her blonde hair.

Abby made a choked sound, half gasp, half moan, as her arms came to wrap tight around my body, fusing us together. Her hips were already grinding into mine, thrusting up against me with a desperate, almost frantic, energy. Something inside her had broken, and all her pent-up desperation and desire, all of it, was culminating in this moment of complete, unadulterated release.

“Please,” she begged again, her voice a muffled, desperate sound against my lips, her hands pulling me harder against her, as if she was trying to absorb me into herself.

She pulled me with her as she seated herself on the dusty, scarred surface of the old wooden table in the center of the room, her legs spreading, pulling me tight between them. One of her hands, warm and frantic, was already fumbling with her own belt buckle.

“Just fuck me,” she gasped, the sound a raw, broken plea against my mouth, as she drew me harder against her.

That whine in her voice, her begging, her clear, desperate, almost animalistic, need… it sent a hot bolt of desire through me like a branding iron through clay. I was pinned by my insane, all-consuming need for this woman. I gasped at the sensation, a low moan tearing from my own throat as I pressed myself hard between her spread legs, my hips finding a rhythm against hers, a desperate, grinding friction.

Abby was leaning back on the table now, supporting herself with her arms, her skin flushed, her hands working her belt, then the zipper of her cargo pants. One hand snaked out, grabbing my hip, pulling me closer.

“Fuck me,” Abby demanded, gasping again as my own hands found her hips, holding her tight as I ground into her, hard.

“I want these off,” I said, my voice a low, rough command as I started to pull down her pants. “Now.”

Abby obeyed immediately, her movements a little clumsy, a little desperate, as she shimmied out of her pants and boots, then returned to her position on the table, her legs spread in a silent, open invitation. I could see the darkened, damp spot on her grey underwear where her desire had already soaked through, and I pressed my hand there, feeling the hot, wet heat of her through the thin fabric.

Abby moaned, a low whine, thrusting her hips up against the pressure I was exerting on her clit, her face contorted with pleasure, her mouth open in a silent, desperate gasp.

“Is this what you want?” I asked, my voice a low, husky purr, the same voice I now knew drove her crazy.

Abby almost glared at me then, her eyes sex-hazed, a silent, frustrated demand. I started rubbing her swollen clit through her underwear, slow, torturous circles, watching as her toes curled in her socks as she lay back on the table, gasping, her whole body trembling. With my other hand, I pushed up the hem of her shirt, revealing the taut, scarred skin of her stomach, the dark band of her sports bra.

“Off,” I demanded, my voice a rough command. “I want to see all of you.”

Abby seemed shy for a moment, a flicker of that old, familiar self-consciousness in her eyes. Then, with quick, almost jerky, movements, she removed her shirt, then her sports bra, throwing them to the floor with a soft, almost soundless, thud.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, looking down at her.

Abby was lying on her back on the dusty table, her legs spread, in nothing but her underwear, her long, blonde braid a golden rope pushed to the side. Her body was glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, warm, flushed. I could see the faint, silvery lines of old scars crisscrossing her stomach, the pale spray of freckles across her chest and shoulders, the soft dark hair under her arms. Her small breasts, with their tightened nipples, the way her skin flushed a deep red with desire. Abby was looking at me, waiting…

“You’re beautiful,” I gasped out, the words a surprise even to my own ears, a raw admission I couldn’t stop myself from making.

It was the truth. Abby undone, Abby with her eyes dark and hazy with desire, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, Abby wrecked beneath my hand. It was insane. Impossible. The most earth-shattering thing I’d ever seen.

Abby seemed almost surprised by my statement, as if no one had ever said that to her before. As if the concept of her own beauty was a shocking, foreign idea.

“God damn,” I repeated, my voice a reverent whisper, my right hand running up her inner thigh, over the hard, flat plane of her stomach, coming to cup her breast, squeezing it gently, my fingers brushing against her hardened, sensitive nipple. Abby gasped, a sharp, surprised sound, her head tilting back, exposing that long, strong, vulnerable throat, her eyes still fixed on mine.

Abby moaned, thrusting her hips up again into my hand, which had returned to its slow, torturous circles against her clit through her underwear.

I hooked a finger in the seam of her underwear, tugging at it experimentally.

“Think we should take these off?” I asked, my voice a low, teasing purr.

Abby’s reply came in a little gasped, “yes,” as her cheeks flushed.

I stepped back and watched as she brought her legs together, her hands tugging down her underwear, over her knees and ankles. Then she spread her legs again, an invitation, an offering. I could see all of her now, the slick, pink curve of her sex, the soft, dark thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs, the invitingly warm, wet space between them.

I wanted to taste her, take her, make her scream. But I drew it out, stopping myself, reminding myself that this was Abby’s first time with a woman, probably her first time ever relinquishing control like this.

I started to take off my own clothes, my movements slow, deliberate, enjoying the way her eyes were locked on my body. I pushed down my jeans, stepping out of them, then pulled my shirt over my head. I watched Abby’s fixed gaze as I removed my sports bra, then my own underwear, letting her eyes rake over my naked body, my own lean muscle, my small breasts, my tattoos, my scars.

I returned to the space between her legs, my hands finding purchase on her surprisingly soft hips, pressing my naked body against hers, feeling the brush of her hair, her heat, against me. Abby gasped as I started to grind against her, rubbing my own clit against her slick, wet heat. Abby’s hands reached down and grabbed my hips, then my ass, pulling me harder against her.

“That feel good?” I asked, my own voice thick with a desire so potent it was almost a physical ache.

“Yes,” Abby choked out, her voice a raw, broken sound. I could feel how wet she was against me, could see her pink, swollen clit, glistening, hidden between her folds.

Fuck, I couldn’t stop myself anymore.

Her thighs were now pressed against my bare chest, her knees resting on my shoulders. I kissed my way down the surprisingly soft skin of her inner thighs, biting gently as I went. Her powerful legs trembled and settled their weight on me. My hands wrapped around her, guiding my face between her legs. A shudder ran through her as my hot breath ghosted over her sensitive skin.

“I’ve wanted this for so fucking long,” I gasped, a low, dark, and utterly, completely, honest admission.

Then I started to taste her, running my tongue in a hot, wet line up her center, lapping at her clit before swirling my tongue there. Abby let out a long, shuddering moan, her thighs tightening on either side of my face where I was kneeling on the floor. She tasted fucking amazing, salty, musky with her own desire, which was already dripping down her ass cheeks, onto the dusty table.

“Fuck,” I moaned against her skin, my tongue working her clit, then lower, pushing against her entrance. Abby gasped again at the pressure there, bucking her hips against my mouth. I moaned against her, letting the vibrations seep into her body.

I continued to lap at her, to lick her, using the heat of my tongue to run slow, torturous circles on her swollen clit. Then I brought my right hand up, my left still holding hard to her hip and thigh. My right hand slid between her legs, finding her entrance. She was so hot, so deliciously wet. She tried to push herself onto my fingers, desperate for the pleasure she knew she’d find there.

I teased her, running my fingers through her soaking wet cunt, brushing up against the hair at the apex of her thighs and then down again, pressing against her entrance.

“Fuck, Ellie… ” Abby groaned, thrashing, her legs starting to shake. “Please just fuck me…”

I pushed inside her, slowly, two fingers, letting her feel every inch, loving the sensation of her stretching around me. She was so fucking tight, so hot, her internal muscles constricting around my soaking wet fingers as I started to fuck her, slowly, deeply.

“There you go,” I said, my voice low, encouraging. “That’s it. That’s what you need.”

Abby looked down at where my hand was disappearing between her legs, then threw her head back in pleasure, drawing me closer until I was half kneeling over her on the table. She dragged my mouth to hers, her tongue hot as she licked against mine, our saliva mixing. I moaned into her mouth as I felt her clench, another low moan escaping her.

“That’s right,” I said, my voice rough. “Take it.”

Abby was panting, gasping. She nodded, her eyes squeezed shut, her freckled nose scrunched up as she moaned again.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she whimpered, a broken sound. Then, “fuck…” a long, drawn-out cry as I curved my fingers, pushing up against that sensitive place inside her. I felt her body constrict, and then she flooded my hand, the slick heat dripping over the table and onto the floor.

I looked down, shocked, watching my slicked fingers continue to pump inside her, the new wetness making a slick sound as I fucked into her.

“Holy shit,” I said, shocked, turned on.

My left hand reached up and grabbed the back of her blonde braid, pulling her head back gently. Abby gasped, arching her back, my fingers moving faster, harder inside her.

"Good girl," I rasped.

A choked sob escaped her lips at the words. Abby gasped, her eyes squeezed shut. The praise seemed to spur her on; one hand dug into my hip, while the other moved to rub frantically against her own clit.

I watched her small breasts bounce with each hard press of my hand, her whole body glistening with sweat. Her chest and cheeks were flushed a deep red, the inside of her thighs chafed raw from my hands. I could tell she was so fucking close.

God damn it, I was so fucking close and I hadn’t even touched myself. Just the view of Abby, of her pleasure, was enough.

I leaned down and kissed her, grabbing the back of her neck, hard, my fingers continuing to pump inside her.

“I want you bent over the table,” I gasped, a low, rough growl, my voice thick with a desire so potent it was almost a physical thing. “I want to see you fucking come like that.”

Abby let out a low whine, thrusting against my fingers, even as I pulled them out, dripping.

“You heard me,” I said, my voice a command. “Bend over.”

Abby obeyed immediately, climbing off the table, her legs shaky, before leaning over it again, legs slightly spread.

Her ass was fucking amazing, soft and muscular and flushed red where it had been pressed against the table. I ran my hands over it, marveling at how insanely fucking soft her skin was. I smacked it lightly, watching it ripple beneath my hand. A startled cry escaped her lips at the sudden pain.

My palms smoothed up her sides, over the solid curve of her hips to the incredible breadth of her back. It felt like running my hands over sculpted rock, warm and alive. I could feel every corded muscle, every defined ridge under my touch. My thumbs pressed into the grooves alongside her spine, and she shivered. This was the back that carried the weight of the world, and I wanted to map every inch of it.

"Fuck," I groaned, my hands sliding back down to grip her ass with both my hands, pulling at her hips, pushing my groin up against her, watching how her ass pushed up a bit, ridging against the taught muscles of her lower back as I pressed harder against her. Abby moaned, spreading her legs a bit more, an invitation.

Looking back over her shoulder, her face was a mask of raw pleasure—eyes half-glazed, swollen lips parted, little bits of hair stuck to her cheeks and forehead. She braced herself on the table with one arm while the other snaked back to grip my hip, her fingers digging in to pull me closer. Her body rocked harder against the table as she gasped, matching the rhythm as I pumped against her.

“You want me to fuck you like this?” I asked, my hand sliding between her legs, feeling her slick entrance before pushing in slightly.

Abby’s hips jerked involuntarily as I pressed in, and a tremor rippled through the muscle of her ass. I moaned, low in my throat, watching her. Then I pushed inside her fully, adding a third finger, stretching her, and was rewarded with her gasp of pleasure.

“Spread your legs a little more for me,” I demanded, pushing against her thigh, then returning my hand to the curve of her ass. I leaned down a bit, needing to watch where I spread her, seeing my fingers disappear into her.

My fingers pumped into her, a steady, driving rhythm. My left hand, which had been resting on her ass, snaked up the sculpted landscape of her back and wrapped around the thick base of her blonde braid. I tugged, hard, pulling her head back. Abby gasped, her own back arching deeply as she shifted her weight forward onto her hands, her long, vulnerable throat exposed. A perfect, beautiful arc of submission.

“Be my good girl,” I rasped, my voice low and rough against her ear. “Give it to me.”

I felt her muscles clench around my fingers, a reflexive tensing against the sheer intensity of it all.

“Shhh,” I murmured, my voice softening, a stark contrast to the firm grip I had on her hair. “Just relax into it. Let me have all of it.”

She let out a shuddering breath and obeyed, her body going pliant beneath my hands. The moment she surrendered, I curved my fingers up inside her, pressing hard against that same sensitive spot.

Abby cried out, a raw, sharp sound as another gush of liquid soaked my hand, dripping between her legs onto the floor. Her whole body convulsed around my fingers. The sight of her, the sound of her, the absolute control I had over her body—it sent an insane wave of pleasure through me, so potent it was almost dizzying.

“Come for me,” I demanded, my voice a low, rough command as I pumped harder, deeper, her earlier moans dissolving into a single, continuous sound. “Come on my fucking fingers.”

I felt her tighten around me, all at once, heard her cry out, her thighs shaking as she came. She shuddered beneath me, completely undone, completely devastated.

I drew my fingers out of her slowly, my hand and forearm soaked and dripping onto the dusty floor. My wet hand came to rest on the inside of her leg, chasing the path of the liquid heat down her inner thigh. I smoothed my palm over the sensitive skin, spreading the slickness, and watched her whole body shudder at the touch.

“Come here,” I said, my voice gentle, low. 

She obeyed, rolling over on the table to face me, and I got my first real look at her in the aftermath. Her whole body was glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, the powerful muscles that were usually coiled so tight now seemed heavy, boneless, and completely relaxed. Her cheeks were flushed a deep, rosy red, and little strands of blonde hair were stuck to her damp skin. Her lips, swollen and a little pouty, were parted slightly.

But it was her eyes that held me—those stormy blue-grey eyes were hazy and unfocused, lost in a dazed, utterly satisfied bliss. I pulled her against me, feeling the last of the tremors run through her, her breaths coming in little, shuddering gasps against my neck.

“You okay?” I asked, brushing her hair back gently, holding her close while my hand rubbed slow circles on her back. She just buried her face deeper into my shoulder, and I felt her tears on my skin as her body started to tremble.

She let out a little choked sound, half sob, half laugh. 

“Yeah,” she said, pulling back a bit to look at me, her eyes still a little hazy, a little wet with tears. “That was… fucking insane,” she admitted.

“Insane in a good way?” I asked, needing the clarification.

She kissed me then, gently, her lips warm and soft. “Yeah, in a good way,” she said. Then she pressed her forehead against my shoulder again, her breathing slowly returning to normal.

My heart was still racing – from the intimacy, from the desire, from the image of her shattering beneath my hand, an image burned into my mind, a feeling twisting inside me, one I was unwilling to name.

“Let’s get cleaned up,” I said. “You definitely need a shower.”

I wasn’t lying. Her thighs were still dripping wet, her whole body glistening with sweat. The small room smelled strongly of sex.

“Yeah,” she replied, her voice a rough whisper.

A dark blush crept up her cheeks as she avoided my eyes and started to pull on her clothes. I did the same, a strange, electric hum still singing through my veins. The slight ache in my wrist from the awkward angle was a distant, unimportant thing, completely overshadowed by the raw, buzzing aftermath of what had just happened. The air in the small room was thick, heavy with the scent of us, of sex, a smell that was musky and salty and so intoxicating it made my head spin.

We dressed in a new kind of silence, one charged with a tension that was different from before. Not the sharp, violent edge of a fight about to break, but something deeper, more complicated. A shared, unspoken truth.

I watched her, the way her hands fumbled slightly with the buckle of her pants, the way she refused to meet my gaze. She tucked the book she’d been reading under one arm like a shield. We were both fully dressed, standing in the aftermath of the storm we’d unleashed, the air still crackling.

I opened my mouth, feeling the reckless urge to finally give this a name, to say something, anything, when the knock came.

A sharp, loud rap on the heavy wooden door.

“Abs?” Owen’s voice, muffled but unmistakable, cut through the quiet. “You in there?”

Chapter Text

Abby

The knock on the door was a gunshot in the quiet, dusty room, shattering the fragile, charged silence that had settled over us.

Owen’s voice, muffled but unmistakable, a harsh intrusion from a world I no longer felt a part of. My mind was a chaotic mess, still reeling from the most intense, vulnerable, and earth-shattering experience of my life. The lingering scent of sex, of Ellie, musky and salty and so intoxicating it made my head spin, was thick in the air. My body still thrummed with the aftershocks, a strange, electric hum singing through my veins.

I had just completely, irrevocably, lost control. Surrendered it. To Ellie. The thought was a terrifying, exhilarating freefall. My lifelong mantra—Control is everything—had been obliterated, reduced to ash by the wildfire she had ignited inside me. I was terrified. And I had never felt more alive.

And now Owen, my oldest friend, a ghost from a life I was no longer sure I was living, was right outside the door.

I looked at Ellie. Her cheeks were still flushed a deep red, her green eyes wide with a mixture of shock and something that looked almost like… embarrassment? In that shared, awkward glance, a new, hesitant trust was forged. A silent acknowledgment. We were in this together. Whatever this was.

Owen knocked again, more insistently this time. “Abs? Everything okay in there?”

Before I could move, before I could even think, before I could try to paste my usual, impenetrable mask of command back onto my face, Ellie opened the door. She leaned casually against the doorframe, a perfect picture of nonchalance that I knew, with a sudden, almost fond amusement, was a complete and utter act. Her hair was a sweaty, sex-messed tangle, but she ran a hand through it with an unselfconscious air that made my own cheeks burn.

She looked at Owen with a bored expression on her face, an expression that was pure, undiluted Ellie.

“What’s up?” she asked, her voice a low, rough rasp, as if she hadn’t just completely shattered my whole world, owned my entire body, with nothing more than her voice, her touch, her goddamn infuriating, intoxicating presence.

Owen was clearly surprised to see her, a confused frown creasing his brow. “Uh… you know where Abby is?” he asked, his voice a little uncertain.

Ellie sighed, a theatrical, long-suffering sound, as if she were dealing with a particularly dim-witted child. She opened the door wider, revealing me standing in the center of the small, dusty room, probably looking as dazed and shell-shocked as I felt. I realized then, with a jolt, that she’d been giving me a moment. A moment to collect myself, to put my own mask back on.

Her eyes met mine across the small space, and the raw, electric chemistry between us sparked again, a silent, undeniable current. “I’ll see you later,” Ellie said. Her voice was casual, almost dismissive, but directed at me, the words were a clear promise—a quiet claim on what had passed between us. Her declaration sent a hot, tight clench deep through my gut.

Then she was gone, slipping past Owen with a final, almost imperceptible, smirk in my direction, disappearing down the corridor, leaving me alone with my oldest friend and a silence that was thick with unspoken questions.

Owen watched her leave, a confused frown still on his face. He turned to me, his expression shifting to one of genuine, almost paternal, concern. “So,” he said, his voice low, gentle. “She lay into you?”

My hearing turned to white noise. Every thought vanished, replaced by a single, pulsing wave of heat that flooded my face. My heart, which had just started to slow, kicked violently against my ribs.

“What?” I asked, my voice coming out as a strangled whisper.

Owen looked just as confused as I felt. “She was asking about you all afternoon,” he said, his brow furrowed with concern. “Trying to figure out where you’d gone. I bet Manny finally told her where to find you. I figured she came up here to rub your face in it. After Isaac’s… announcement.”

A choked, slightly hysterical laugh escaped my lips. Relief, so potent it almost made me dizzy, washed over me. He didn’t know. Of course he didn’t know. But the relief was quickly followed by a fresh wave of shame, of embarrassment. The memory of what had just happened in this room, of my own raw, desperate, and very loud, surrender, was still a burning brand on my skin.

I brought my hands to my temples, rubbing at the sudden, throbbing headache that had taken up residence there. “No,” I said, closing my eyes for a second, trying to force some semblance of composure back into my voice. “No, she just… she just wanted to talk tactics.”

The lie was weak, pathetic, and I knew it.

“Huh,” Owen said, his voice laced with a skepticism he didn’t even try to hide. He clearly wasn’t buying it. He just stood there, in the doorway, his gaze sweeping around the small, dusty room, his eyes lingering on the table, on the single, worn armchair, on me. He knew something was off. He knew me too well.

“Was there something you needed, Owen?” I asked, my voice a little sharper than I intended. I suddenly wanted to get out of this small, suffocating space. Wanted to take a shower. A very long, very hot shower. And then maybe… maybe find Ellie again.

“Abs,” Owen started, his voice soft, gentle, full of that familiar, weary concern that always made me feel both cared for and suffocatingly trapped at the same time. “What’s going on with you? Seriously.” He came a little closer, his hand reaching out as if to touch my arm, to comfort me.

I stepped back, instinctively, putting a safe, necessary distance between us.

He stopped, his hand falling back to his side, a look of hurt flashing in his kind, tired eyes. “I’ve known you for most of my life,” he said, his voice a low, sad murmur. “And I’ve never seen you this… unsure.”

I was exhausted. From Isaac's political games, from the raw, soul-baring confrontation in this room, from the earth-shattering sex that followed, and from the endless, suffocating weight of Owen's unrequited affection. I just… I couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't keep up the pretense.

"Look, Owen," I said, my voice weary, all the fight gone out of it. "I've just got a lot on my mind."

"Okay," he replied, his voice soft, understanding. "You know you can talk to me, Abs. About anything."

"I know," I said, moving to the door, holding it open for him. It was a clear, if not exactly gentle, invitation for him to leave. I couldn't have this conversation. Not now. Not when the scent of Ellie was still on my skin, the taste of her still on my lips.

"Got it," Owen said, getting the hint. The hurt was back in his eyes, deeper this time.

"Was there something else you needed?" I asked, already starting to move past him, down the hallway, needing to escape the claustrophobic intimacy of that room, of this conversation.

"No," he said, his voice awkward, strained. "Just… wanted to check in on you. Make sure you're okay."

"I'm fine," I lied, my voice flat, dismissive. "Just tired."

"Alright," he said, his voice a quiet resignation. "Well, I guess I'll see you later at mess."

"Sure," I replied, but my mind was already elsewhere. A long, hot shower. That was the first priority. And then… then Ellie. The thought of my own room, my own private space, suddenly felt like an incredible perk, a dangerous, exciting possibility. I found myself strategizing, a familiar habit, but with a new, unfamiliar target. How to sneak Ellie in. Or how to sneak out to find her.

I was so distracted by this new and exhilarating line of thought that I almost ran into Sergeant Smith as I rounded a corner.

"Ah, Lieutenant Anderson," he said, his voice flat, his face a mask of impassive WLF obedience. "I've been looking for you."

My WLF persona, the armor I wore to survive, snapped back into place instantly. "What is it, Sergeant?"

"Isaac would like to see you," he said.

My heart sank. A cold, hard knot of dread formed in the pit of my stomach. Fuck. No reprieve.

I’d known it was coming. Isaac wouldn’t just accept my lie about the mission. I had taken the blame to keep his attention on me, to keep him from looking too closely at Ellie. It was a simple, desperate move to protect her from becoming another piece in his games.

I followed Smith to Isaac's office, my mind racing.

Isaac was standing by the window, staring out at the rain-lashed training yard, a king surveying his bleak, brutal kingdom. He didn't turn as I entered.

"You let me down, Anderson," he said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "That intel was vital. Our best lead in months on the Scars' central command. And you let it slip through your fingers." He finally turned, his eyes, those cold, flinty chips of grey, fixing on me with a look of profound, almost paternal, disappointment that was far worse than any shouted reprimand.

He was waiting for me to grovel, to make amends, to offer myself up for whatever penance he deemed necessary. Fine. It was a familiar dance.

"How can I make this up to you, sir?" I asked, my voice dead, resigned, the words a familiar, bitter taste in my mouth.

It was a line I’d recited a dozen times before.

This was his process—the gears of his machine of control. Set up the failure, feign the disappointment, then offer the punishing path back to grace. It was how he’d ground down my pride over the years, how he kept my collar tight.

The slow, predatory smile that spread across his face was the sound of the cage door swinging shut again. "Well," he said, his voice a soft, almost gentle, purr that sent a fresh wave of cold dread through me. "Since you've asked..."

Then he laid it out for me. A new mission, but the same old test. A high-risk solo operation to hunt a single man. Another defector to be made an example of. He was hiding out on a small island, practically in the Scars' backyard. My job was to deliver the lesson personally.

It wasn't a "redemption" quest; it was a demonstration of what happens to those who betray the WLF—a lesson he made sure I learned by heart, and one he was now reminding me was meant just as much for me as for my target.

Fine. I would walk the leash one last time. For her. For Ellie.

Let him think he was still in control, let him have his "test." It was the only way to buy her time, to keep her from becoming his next target.

When I get back—if I get back—I'm leaving. But the thought of leaving Ellie here alone in his grasp… it was unbearable. This is the last time, I swore to myself. One last mission, and then I'm done.

"When do I leave, sir?" I asked, my voice flat and devoid of emotion.

Isaac’s smile widened. "Tonight."

Chapter Text

Ellie

I walked away from the skybox, my body a live wire, humming with a frantic, exhilarating energy. The memory was a brand on my skin, a searing heat that had nothing to do with the weak late afternoon sun trying to burn through the perpetual grey gloom.

My mind was a dizzying, replaying loop of raw power and stunning vulnerability. The way Abby had shattered under my command, the desperate, pleading sounds she’d made, the way her powerful body had surrendered completely, coming apart for me.

I was buzzing, high on the adrenaline and the sheer, unadulterated power of it. The chemistry between us was explosive, undeniable, a force of nature that had left us both wrecked and reeling.

I couldn’t wait to have my hands on her again. To feel her touch me, fuck me, to lose myself in that chaotic, terrifying, and utterly intoxicating storm that was Abby Anderson. The thought sent a fresh jolt of arousal through me, a low, coiling heat in my gut that was becoming a familiar, almost constant, companion.

I headed to the mess hall, suddenly, ravenously, hungry. Sex always made me hungry, and with Abby… I was left starving. I grabbed a tray, my movements confident, a smirk playing on my lips that I didn’t even try to hide.

I found an empty table in a corner, wolfing down a plate of something that was probably protein and probably vegetables, my mind a million miles away, replaying every detail, every gasp, every moan, every broken, whispered word.

I thought about the inevitable, awkward conversation now happening between Abby and Owen in that dusty skybox. Good. It’s about fucking time.

I felt a strange, possessive satisfaction at the thought of their fragile, on-again-off-again history finally being put to bed. Owen was a nice enough guy, I guessed, in a sad, slightly pathetic, puppy-dog kind of way. But he wasn’t for Abby. Not anymore. I wasn’t sure I was for Abby either, but I knew, with a certainty that was both terrifying and exhilarating, that Owen definitely wasn’t.

For a moment, I considered my new position as Isaac’s "favorite," his new prized asset. I’d won his stupid game. I was one step closer to the answers I so desperately needed about Joel, about what really happened in Salt Lake. But the thought of it, the "win," it felt… secondary. A distant detail in the grand, chaotic, and infinitely more interesting, scheme of whatever was hopefully going to happen tonight. My game was my own. And right now, Abby was the only goddamn game I wanted to play.

After eating, I decided to take the rest of the day off. A little reward for a job well done.

Or, you know, a job brutally, violently, and soul-crushingly, completed.

I showered, the hot water doing little to cool the fire still simmering under my skin, then headed back to my bunk in C-block. I pulled out my journal. If I couldn’t stop thinking about her, I might as well write about it.

My pencil scratched against the rough paper, the words a jumbled, chaotic mess, a desperate attempt to capture the storm raging inside me.

On Surrender: A Definition
    The sound a fortress makes when it gives up its ghost.
    The look on her face when the begging began.
    Her body a text I was finally allowed to annotate. With my mouth. With my hands.
The air thickened. It grew a body of its own, made of sweat and want. We were building a new world.
Then the old world knocked. Demanding a verb tense. Past? Present?
Absurd.

Later, restless and buzzing with an energy I couldn’t seem to burn off, I found the rest of the crew – my squad and Abby’s – playing cards in one of the common areas, a repurposed stadium bar that smelled of stale beer and old cigarettes. Abby wasn’t there.

A flicker of disappointment, sharp and unwelcome, shot through me. I quickly suppressed it.

Okay, weird. But she's a Lieutenant. She's busy.

I was confident Abby wouldn’t be rebuilding those walls, not after today, not after the way she’d looked at me before I left the skybox. There was a promise there. An unspoken agreement to… figure this out. To dive deeper.

I joined the game, sliding onto the bench beside Jordan. The air was thick with the smell of cheap moonshine and easy, post-mission camaraderie.

“Well, look who it is,” Manny said, his dark eyes gleaming with a mixture of awe and a lewd, knowing amusement. “Isaac’s new pet. Find Abby okay? She seemed… tense.”

“She’s fine,” I said, my voice a little too casual.

Jordan let out a short laugh. “Leave her alone, Manny. You’re looking at the only person I know who can stand up to Abby and still be breathing the next day.”

I wanted to ask if they’d seen Abby, but I didn’t want to seem desperate. Pathetic. So I played cards. I laughed at their stupid jokes. But my eyes kept flicking towards the door, waiting, hoping…

As the night deepened and the group started to break up, a seed of unease, a cold, hard knot of anxiety, began to sprout in the pit of my stomach. I stood to leave, making my excuses.

"Leaving already?" Jordan asked, a note of genuine disappointment in her voice.

I just shrugged, forcing a quick smile before heading back towards C-block.

I snuck to Abby’s room, my heart pounding a nervous, erratic rhythm against my ribs. I knocked softly. No answer. I knocked again, a little louder this time. Still nothing. I tried the handle. Unlocked. I pushed the door open, my breath catching in my throat.

The room was empty.

It was the first time I’d ever been in Abby’s room without her there. It felt… smaller. Sadder. More spartan than I remembered. A cot. A desk. A few stacks of books. A cracked mirror. I took a moment to look around, to snoop a bit. I ran my hand over the stack of scavenged books on her small, metal desk. Poetry. Old novels. History.

The book Abby had been reading in the skybox, the one she’d taken from Anya and Clara’s apartment, The Price of Salt, it was missing.

My heart did a weird, sickening stop-start. Maybe she never came back here. Not after her talk with Owen.

My mind started to race, a frantic, spiraling vortex of possibilities, each one worse than the last. Did she stay with Owen? Did they make up? Did she leave? Did she fucking desert?

I tried to calm myself, to breathe, to think rationally.

Abby's a big girl. She can take care of herself. She doesn't owe me anything. She doesn't have to explain her schedule, her presence, her absence.

But the missing book, the implied promise in her eyes this afternoon… it nagged at me. Something was wrong. I could feel it, a cold, prickling certainty in my gut.

I told myself to go to sleep. To let it go.

What was I going to do? Go looking for her in the middle of the night?

I was just about to leave her small, empty, and suddenly, profoundly, lonely room when my gaze snagged on the old Polaroid photos tucked into the corner of her desk. I’d noticed them before, of course, but I’d been… distracted then. By her. By the heat between us.

My eyes scanned the collection. There was one of her and Owen, looking like actual kids, teenagers smiling without a care in the world. Another of Mel, her arm slung around Abby's shoulders. A group shot where Manny was mugging for the camera.

I hadn't realized they'd all known each other for so long, a whole lifetime lived before I ever showed up. But then again, I'd never really asked, never really pried into her past. I was always so focused on the present when she was around, on the chaotic, all-consuming now between us.

My gaze settled on one photo in particular, and I reached out, my fingers tracing its edge. It was a picture of Abby, younger, maybe late teens, her braid shorter, her face less hard, but still undeniably, recognizably, her. She was wearing a uniform I didn’t recognize, not WLF, not military, not FEDRA. Something else. Something… familiar. There was a dark scrawl of words at the bottom of the picture, too faded, too messy, to make out in the dim light.

My heart started to pound, a slow, heavy, ominous drumbeat of dread. Fear, terror, anxiety, a sickening, suffocating premonition, filled me.

I pulled the photo from the desk, my hands trembling, bringing it closer to the weak, flickering light from the corridor.

The handwriting wasn’t Abby’s. It was older, more parental, a neat, confident script.

The words, scrawled at the bottom of the faded Polaroid, were suddenly, horrifyingly, clear. They hit me with the force of a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs, the world tilting on its axis, the floor dropping out from under me.

“Like father, like daughter. Abby joins the Salt Lake Fireflies.”

Chapter Text

Abby

The engine of the small motorboat was a low, guttural rumble against the oppressive quiet of the pre-dawn water, a sound that felt profane in the stillness. The air was cold, thick with the salty spray of the Puget Sound and a mist so dense it seemed to swallow the world. In the distance, the island loomed, a dark, jagged silhouette against the bruised purple of the horizon—the board for Isaac’s final game.

The war within myself was over, but the entire trip across the water was a grim reminder of the treaty I’d just signed. I knew exactly what this was. A test, a leash, and a potential execution order, all wrapped in the guise of a mission. It was a familiar move, one designed to reinforce my chains. But this time, I had put the collar on myself. For her.

Everything came back to Ellie.

The thought of leaving her behind, in Isaac’s grasp, under his predatory gaze… it was a physical ache in my chest. He saw her now. He saw her fire, her rage, and he wanted to use it, just as he had used mine.

My compliance was her shield. My walking this leash was the only thing keeping his attention focused on me, away from her. That knowledge, that simple, undeniable, and utterly insane truth, was the only thing giving this suicidal mission a shred of purpose. This was the price of her safety.

The memory of the previous day was a brand on my skin. Her voice, her body, the way I had shattered from a pleasure so profound it felt like its own kind of breaking. That exhilarating, terrifying freedom was still a live wire in my veins, a promise of a future I now had to fight to earn.

Survive this, I promised myself, the words a silent echo in my own head. Play his game one last time. And when you get back—if you get back—you get her, and you get out. Together.

I beached the boat in a secluded, rocky cove. I dragged it further inland, hiding it. The island was unnervingly silent, a place thick with the smell of pine, damp earth, and rot. This was Scar territory. Every shadow could hold an enemy. I moved with the practiced stealth of a predator, but my focus was sharper than it had been in years. Survival wasn't just instinct anymore; it was a prerequisite.

I found the first sign of the defector after an hour: a discarded WLF ration wrapper. He was here. The game piece was real. He was sloppy, or desperate. It didn't matter.

The trail led me to an abandoned fishing village. From the crude sigils carved into the rotting wood and the spiked effigies hanging from posts, I knew it was now Scar territory. My training kicked in, a familiar rhythm. I found a concealed position on a ridge, my binoculars pressed to my eyes, assessing the village, counting sentries, noting patrol routes.

This was what I was good at. The cold, hard calculus of violence. But it wasn't a place to silence the noise in my head anymore. It was the tool I would use to get back to her. Every weakness I spotted in their defense was a potential pathway home.

The memory of Ellie intruded, but it wasn't a distraction. It was fuel. Her face, flushed in the dim light. Her voice, a low command. For her, Anderson. Focus.

I bypassed the village, following the faint tracks deeper into the island's interior. The trail led me to a small, secluded clearing. And there he was. The game piece.

A WLF soldier was tied to a large, moss-covered tree, gutted in the signature Scar execution method. The sight was horrifying but familiar. So this was the defector. The loose end Isaac wanted tied off. The Scars had found him first.

My mission was technically complete. I had my proof. All I needed were his tags, the grim token to bring back to Isaac to prove I’d played my part. A year ago, I would have done it without a second thought. But now, looking at the dead soldier, I didn’t see a traitor. I saw a warning. I saw what Isaac did to those who tried to leave his game.

What was the point of taking the tags? To prove my loyalty to a man I planned to betray? To feed his machine of control, the one that would chew up Ellie next if I let it?

But I had to finish the game. It was the only way. My compliance was the cost of being underestimated, of being allowed back inside the gates where she was. With a deep, shuddering breath, I steeled myself. My fingers closed around the cold metal of the tags.

The forest exploded.

It was a perfectly executed ambush. Arrows flew. Scars emerged from the shadows, their eerie, whistling calls echoing through the clearing. I reacted instantly, diving for cover, my rifle already spitting fire.

I fought with a cold, focused fury. This wasn't a desperate struggle for survival; it was a violent, single-minded drive to complete an objective. Get home.

Every bullet I fired was a promise to a pair of green eyes. Every kill was one step closer to the boat, to the stadium, to her. I was a force of nature, a whirlwind of violence, my body moving with a brutal efficiency born not just of training, but of a purpose so fierce it burned away fear.

But even a fortress can be overwhelmed. A heavy hammer blow crashed into my side, sending a blinding flare of pain through me. I stumbled. An arrow hissed past my thigh, close enough to tear my pants and leave a searing sting, making my leg buckle.

I went down, hard. The world tilted, a chaotic swirl of green and grey. I tried to push myself up, to keep fighting, but a heavy boot slammed into my head.

Darkness rushed in, a welcome, suffocating blanket. My mission, the promise I had made to myself, it was failing. My last conscious thought was not of my father, not of Owen.

It was a flash of green eyes, a sarcastic smirk, and a voice, a rough, husky whisper in the dark. Her name, a silent, broken prayer on my lips as the darkness consumed me.

Chapter Text

Ellie

I was standing in Abby’s empty room, the old Polaroid clutched in my shaking hands. The world, which had already felt fragile and uncertain, had just tilted on its axis, sending me into a nauseating, vertigo-inducing freefall.

The words, scrawled in a neat, confident script, were a brand seared into my brain, a permanent, indelible scar on my soul.

“Like father, like daughter. Abby joins the Salt Lake Fireflies.”

My mind was a snake twisting in on itself, a chaotic, suffocating mess of denial and a horrifying, dawning certainty.

It could mean nothing. A coincidence. There were hundreds of Fireflies.

It could mean everything.

Abby’s words from our night in Anya and Clara’s apartment, the night that felt like a lifetime ago, a different universe, echoed in my mind, now twisted with a new, sick double meaning: “Whatever it is you’re looking for, I hope it’s worth the cost of your soul.”

Isn’t this what I wanted? The truth?

Now I wasn’t so sure.

I felt sick, betrayed, terrified. The simple, clean line of my anger, my quest for vengeance, the one thing that had been my North Star, my anchor, in the raging storm of my grief, had become a tangled, ugly knot.

There was only one place I could get the answers I so desperately needed. From the devil himself.

My original plan to slowly and subtly interrogate Isaac now felt like a naive joke. The game had changed. The question was no longer a vague search for truth, but a singular, sharp point, and I needed to know the answer, even if it killed me.

I walked through the dark, empty halls of the WLF stadium, clutching the Polaroid behind my back. Each footstep was a hollow, echoing thud in the oppressive silence, a drumbeat counting down to… something.

The end of the world, maybe. Or at least, the end of mine.

I found Isaac’s office, a sliver of light glowing from beneath the heavy steel door. He was still awake. Of course he was. Monsters didn’t sleep.

I knocked, my hand trembling so badly I could barely form a fist.

“Enter,” his voice, calm and unsurprised, drifted through the door.

The fact that he wasn’t surprised to see me in the middle of the night was enough to make my skin crawl, a fresh wave of cold sweat trickling down my back. I pushed the door open and stepped inside, my heart hammering against my ribs.

He was seated at his massive metal desk, a half-empty glass of amber liquid in his hand, a thin plume of smoke rising from a cigarette smoldering in a nearby ashtray. He welcomed me with that same soft, almost paternal, smile that always made me want to claw my own skin off.

“Ellie,” he said, his voice a low, purring rumble. “I had a feeling I’d be seeing you tonight.” He gestured towards the empty chair in front of his desk. “Sit. Make yourself comfortable.” He offered me a drink, as if it wasn’t the middle of the night, as if I hadn’t just burst into his office looking like a goddamn ghost.

I ignored the chair, the drink. I remained standing, the Polaroid a burning, accusatory weight in my hand.

Isaac took a slow sip of his drink, his eyes, those cold, flinty chips of grey, never leaving my face. He started talking about Abby then, as if we were continuing a conversation we never had, as if we were old friends, co-conspirators, sharing a secret understanding.

“She was so full of promise, you know,” he mused, his voice soft, almost regretful. “When she first came to me. All that fire. All that rage. A perfect instrument. But even the best tools break, Ellie. Especially when they start to think for themselves.”

He looked up at me then, his gaze knowing, hard, and took another sip of his drink. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, Ellie, it’s apathy.”

He smiled, a cold, humorless thing that didn’t reach his eyes. “Your little mission to the library… I’m sure you’ve already figured it out, haven’t you? A stupid trap for a stupid animal.”

He leaned back, taking a drag from his cigarette. "It was a test for Abby. I had to see if that fire was still in there. You, my dear, were simply the perfect opportunity to heighten the stakes."

My heart hammered in my chest, my hands slick with sweat. A sickening realization washed over me.

Abby had known all along.

I was the one who had believed it, the one who’d fought her for that intel like a rabid dog, even as she pleaded with me.

“Ellie, stop fighting me,” Her words echoed in my head now, no longer the sounds of an enemy trying to trick me, but of someone desperately trying to save me from myself. And she just… let me. She took the fall. For me.

And I had played right into his hands. I’d seen the mission as my chance. A way to prove myself, to get the answers I wanted, becoming the violent, obedient tool I’d always accused her of being.

Her words after our fight—I'm done with Isaac—they echoed in my mind, no longer an excuse but a desperate plea. The memory of her face in the apartment when I pushed her, the way it went pale, the crack in her voice... I don't want to be his...

It all crashed over me at once. This was the game he played with her. And he had just used me to make the final move.

“And our dear Abby was caught,” he concluded.

Isaac repeated Abby’s own words from our debriefing, his voice laced with a mocking, contemptuous pity. “‘The intel was bad.’” He sighed, rubbing his face with one hand, a gesture of performative weariness. “Like I said, apathy. It’s what loses a war.”

He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with that predatory, manipulative light. “You, though, Ellie. You have the opposite problem. You have too much… too much anger, too much pain, all of it needing to be channeled into something… productive.”

The implication, the praise for my ‘torture’ of the Scar prisoner, was clear and sickening.

“Sir,” I interrupted him, my voice breaking. I couldn't stand another second of his voice, of his twisted praise turning my pain into something useful, my stupidity into part of a game he played with Abby's life. None of it mattered anymore. Only the single, horrifying question that was eating me alive. “Abby…”

“Ah, yes,” Isaac smiled at my interest, a fatherly, encouraging expression that made me want to vomit. “‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles,’” he mused, taking a slow sip of his drink.

I was playing his game, and I hated myself for it, but I had to know. “Before the WLF… do you know where she came from?”

Isaac was quiet for a long, agonizing moment, watching me, assessing me. “Why of course, Ellie,” he said finally, his voice smooth as silk, each word a nail hammered into my coffin. “Abby was a Firefly. She came from the old Salt Lake base, stationed at St. Mary’s with her father. A surgeon. A real tragedy, what happened there.”

My heart was in my throat, the truth too terrible to conceive. It couldn’t be. It just… it couldn’t.

“But don’t worry, Ellie,” Isaac continued, mistaking my horrified silence for rivalry, for ambition. “I’ve let Anderson off the leash, so to speak. Sent her on a solo mission deep in Scar territory.” He paused, letting the implication hang in the air before adding, “We’ll see if she limps home this time.” He smiled then, a humorless, conspiratorial expression, as if sharing a secret only the two of us could understand. “Never do a job yourself when a lesser beast will do it for free.”

I wanted to cry. To scream. I wanted to launch myself across the desk and claw his fucking eyes out. The impulse was so strong it made my muscles twitch, a red haze clouding my vision.

I could kill him right now.

But the cold, hard reality cut through the rage like a blade. I had nothing but my bare hands, and this wasn't some soft politician; he was a killer. The fight would be over before it began. A more urgent need, a more important target, took precedence. I needed to find Abby. Now.

“Thank you, sir,” I managed to get out, the words a choked, strangled sound, my face a mask of stone, betraying none of the raging, chaotic storm inside.

He just watched me with that same cold, appraising gaze as I left his office. I walked through the echoing, concrete halls, but it was no longer a daze. The implosion of my world had left behind a cold, hard singularity of purpose. My mind was already a checklist. My pack. A rifle from the armory. Extra ammunition. Medical supplies I'd have to steal. I was going after Abby, and nothing and no one on this earth was going to stop me.

My logical mind was screaming at me to go to the armory, to get ready, but my feet carried me back to Abby's door. But first... first I had to know. I needed to stand where she had stood, to breathe the same air, to somehow make sense of the woman I now realized I knew nothing about, the woman I was suddenly desperate to find.

The small, empty room was a silent testament to the lie I’d been living. Inside, it looked the same, but I had changed. Everything was colored with the same unanswered, horrifying question: Who? Why?

Without conscious thought, my hands, trembling, started to look through Abby’s things, a frantic, desperate search for a clue, a sign, anything that would redeem her, damn her, make any of this make sense.

It was a game. It had always been a game between her and Isaac, and I had been the pawn he used to declare checkmate. And she had seen it. She had known he was using me to corner her, and instead of fighting back, she had protected me. Shielded me. The realization was a sickness in my gut.

Who was she? Was she the predator I’d seen in the field, the one they called Isaac’s best soldier, a woman who moved with a deadly grace and commanded with absolute authority? The invisible killer who had been there, in Salt Lake?

Or was she the woman whose surprisingly gentle hands had touched me, whose body had come apart for me, whose first instinct, even at her own expense, had been to protect me from the very monster who had made her?

The two images wouldn't fit together; they kept tearing each other apart in my mind, and I needed something, anything to make it stop. I needed the truth, no matter the cost.

And then I found it. Tucked under her cot in a small, dusty cardboard box.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely work the lid free. When it finally gave way, I saw it. The thing that stopped the war in my head. The answer that fused the two women into one, single, horrifying truth. An answer that destroyed my world, shattered my soul, and broke me in a way I hadn’t thought was still possible.

Inside, resting on a piece of worn, folded fabric, was a watch.

The silver bezel, scratched and dented in those familiar patterns from years of hard use, of fixing things, of fighting. The dark, worn leather band, softened with age, molded to the shape of a wrist I knew better than my own. The crystal face, cracked but still intact, the hands frozen.

It was the watch that had once covered a pale strip of skin on the left wrist of the man who’d been my father in every way that mattered. The hands were frozen, a permanent record of the moment his world ended, and in its cold, dead face, I saw that mine had ended too.

The truth was no longer a question. It was a cold, hard, undeniable object in my hands.

The air left my lungs. The two halves of my life—the hunt for Joel's killer and the storm that was Abby—they slammed together, a silent, blinding explosion that vaporized my entire universe.

The faceless ghost I'd been hunting for years wasn't a ghost at all. She had a name. And with that name came a face I knew with a sickening intimacy; freckled cheeks, scars I could trace from memory, a mouth I had kissed. The face I had watched come apart.

I clutched the watch, the cold metal biting into my palm, the sharp edges a welcome, grounding pain in the overwhelming, suffocating sea of my grief, my rage.

The world, my world, my quest for vengeance, my understanding of everything, had been completely and irrevocably destroyed.

The killer and the protector, the enemy and the lover. They were all the same person.

The rage didn't vanish. It settled. Cooled from a white-hot explosion into the cold, hard weight of a dark promise. One thought, repeating in the ruins of my mind.

Find Abby.

Not to save her. Not to understand why.

But to finish what she started.

Chapter Text

Abby

Pain was the first anchor.

A white-hot, explosive throbbing behind my eyes, a brutal symphony conducted by the boot that had slammed into my head. Then came the cold. A deep, seeping dampness that clung to my skin, the rough, sucking drag of my body through thick, unforgiving mud.

I fought my way back to consciousness through a thick, nauseating haze, my thoughts sluggish, disjointed. The world was a chaotic swirl of darkness and motion. Flickering, orange light danced at the edge of my vision, casting long, grotesque shadows that writhed and twisted like living things. The air was thick with the smell of wet earth, pine, and something else… something coppery and rank that made my stomach heave.

Isaac’s mission. The island. The ambush.

The memories crashed back, fragmented and sharp. The dead WLF soldier tied to the tree, his guts a grisly, steaming offering to the indifferent sky. The hiss of arrows. The guttural war cries of the Scars. The searing pain in my thigh, the crushing blow to my side. The boot. And then… nothing.

Now, this.

My hands were bound tightly behind my back, the rough rope digging into my wrists, chafing them raw. My body felt heavy, unresponsive, a dead weight being dragged through the storm-lashed night. Thunder boomed in the distance, a low, guttural rumble that vibrated through the ground, through my very bones. A flash of lightning ripped across the sky, illuminating a scene from a nightmare: towering, ancient trees draped in moss like old men’s beards, their skeletal branches reaching for the bruised, churning clouds.

I tried to fight, to get my bearings, but my head screamed in protest. I hadn’t slept in days, not really, my mind a chaotic swirl of the last 48 hours: the raw, soul-baring confrontation in the skybox, the earth-shattering intimacy that followed, and Isaac sending me away on this suicide run. The failure. The promise I had made to myself to get back to Ellie, now a cruel, mocking joke.

I was tossed onto the ground in a clearing, the impact jarring my already aching body. I was helpless, my strength, my training, all of it useless. I tried to turn my head, mud and grit scraping against my cheek. Rough hands grabbed me again, hauling me up, my feet scrambling for purchase on the slippery ground. My shoulders screamed in protest as I was dragged by my arms, still bound behind my back, towards the center of the clearing. A large bonfire roared there, its flames leaping towards the dark, angry sky, casting a hellish, orange glow on the scene.

And then I saw them. WLF soldiers. Or what was left of them.

They were hanging from a large, twisted tree, their bodies eviscerated, their intestines dripping a mixture of blood and rainwater onto the ground below, onto me as I struggled beneath them. The stench was overwhelming, a thick, sweet, metallic smell that made me gag.

A rough, scratchy noose was tightened around my throat. The world, which had already felt distant and unreal, began to tilt on its axis. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped animal. This was it.

This was my nightmare. Bound. Unable to move. Helpless. The loss of control was absolute, a terror more profound than any physical pain, a violation of the very core of my being.

Rough hands were on me, hoisting me up. The pressure on my neck became unbearable as I was lifted, choking, into the air, my legs swinging wildly, finding nothing but the cold, indifferent night. I couldn’t breathe. My vision began to tunnel, the flickering firelight and the grotesque, swaying bodies above me blurring into a chaotic swirl of orange and black.

Just as the world started to fade, just as the darkness began to claim me, I felt something solid beneath my feet. A bucket. Kicked into place just in time. It was just tall enough to let me stand, to draw in a ragged, desperate, life-giving breath. I still couldn’t speak, the noose a tight, suffocating collar, but I was alive. For now.

A woman stood before me, her face a roadmap of ritualistic scars, her dark hair braided in an intricate crown. Rain dripped from her chin, tracing a dirty path down her face. Her eyes were dark, fanatical, burning with a cold, righteous fire that sent a fresh wave of terror through me.

“They are nested with sin,” the woman said, her voice a low, guttural chant, the words almost lost in the roar of the storm. She pulled out a long, dull knife, its blade stained with old blood. “We must free them… that they may know my mercy—”

I twisted, struggled, a scream caught in my throat, but I was helpless, a puppet on a string. The woman grabbed my shirt, pulling it up, exposing the taut skin of my stomach. The tip of the knife was cold, sharp, against my skin. I knew where the cut would be. A vertical line down the center of my abdomen, along the fibrous tissue connecting the muscles. It was a precise, almost surgical cut, designed to spill my guts without piercing them, to let me die slowly, agonizingly, a sacrifice to their savage prophetess, my sins literally laid bare for all to see.

Just as the woman applied pressure, just as I felt the sharp, searing cut of the blade, the hot trickle of blood down my stomach, a sharp whistle cut through the night.

The Scar leader paused, her head snapping up, her expression a mask of pure, unadulterated annoyance. A Scar warrior ran into the clearing, his eyes wide with alarm, shouting. “A Wolf—”

His words were cut off as his head exploded in a spray of blood and bone.

Chaos erupted. The remaining Scars, their eerie, whistling calls now laced with panic, scattered, trying to find the attacker. A sniper. Somewhere in the dark, rainy woods.

A flicker of hope, a stupid, irrational flicker, sparked in my chest. WLF? Did Isaac send a rescue party?

The Scar leader, her face contorted in a mask of rage, turned back to me. With a guttural roar, she kicked the bucket out from under my feet.

The world dissolved into a choking, suffocating darkness. I was hanging, my body convulsing, my vision fragmenting into flashes of light and shadow. The rope bit deep into my neck, cutting off my air, my life.

Through the haze, through the encroaching darkness, I saw a figure move like a dark wraith through the clearing. A whirlwind of brutal, efficient violence. A flash of a blade. A gurgle. A thud. Another. Then another. The Scar leader went down, her throat torn open, her fanatical eyes wide with surprise.

The world was fading. This is it. The end.

Then, a body was beneath me, holding me up, a low, rough voice cursing, a sound so familiar it cut through the haze like a blade. The rope around my neck was cut, and I fell to the muddy ground, gasping, choking, air flooding my lungs in a painful, searing rush.

Hands were on me, but they weren’t gentle. They were rough, impatient. They didn’t untie me, leaving my hands bound behind my back.

I looked up. A figure was standing over me, dripping with rain, her cheeks and clothes splattered with blood that wasn’t her own.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the face fully. And my world, what little was left of it, shattered.

It was not the face of a savior. Not the face of a friend. It was the face of a reckoning.

She looked like a demon conjured from the storm. Her green eyes were blazing with a white-hot, almost incandescent, fury that was terrifying in its intensity. Her face was a mask of pure, unadulterated rage, streaked with mud and blood. Her switchblade, held in a white-knuckled grip, was a silver flash in the torchlight.

This was not Ellie the reluctant soldier, not the woman I had held in my arms, not the girl whose laughter had somehow, impossibly, managed to breach my defenses.

This was a stranger. A monster.

“You,” Ellie said, her voice ragged, broken, filled with a grief so profound it was almost a physical force. 

“You killed him.”

Chapter Text

Ellie

The world ended in the dim, flickering light of Abby’s empty room.

It didn’t end with a bang, or a whimper, or the guttural shriek of an infected. It ended with the cold, unforgiving weight of a broken watch in my palm. The world, my world, the one I had built on a foundation of rage and grief and the singular, burning purpose of vengeance, it just… collapsed. Vaporized. Leaving behind a silent, screaming void.

The air, which a few hours ago had been thick with the scent of sex, of our sweat, of her, a heady, intoxicating perfume that had made my head spin, was now thin. Unbreathable. I stood there, in the quiet, dusty aftermath of my own life, and felt everything inside me turn to ash.

The memory was a brand. The skybox. The raw, desperate collision of our bodies. The way she had shattered under my voice, my touch. A grotesque betrayal. Not just of Joel, whose face, whose voice, I could barely summon through the fog of my own self-loathing, but of the very grief that had defined me, that had been my only constant companion for years. I had let his killer touch me. I had touched her back. The thought was a physical sickness, a sour, coppery taste in the back of my throat.

The confusion, the burgeoning… something… for Abby, it was incinerated in the white-hot flash of understanding. All that was left was a clarity so sharp, so cold, it felt like a shard of ice in my heart. A singular, burning purpose.

Find Abby. Finish this.

The mantra was a relief. A return to the clean, simple purity of hate. A mission I understood. A path I knew how to walk. I thought of Jackson, of the suffocating peace, the ghost of a life I could have had with Dina. I had crushed it then, for this. For the hunt. The pattern was clear. I always chose the hunt. And now, my purpose here, in this godforsaken WLF stronghold, was complete. I had the name. The face. The truth.

It was time to leave.

My hands, surprisingly steady, began the familiar, methodical ritual of preparation. There wasn’t much I needed. Joel’s jacket, once a comfort, was now a crushing weight on my shoulders, a physical manifestation of my failure, my betrayal. His watch, a cold, hard accusation, I tucked carefully into an inner pocket, a constant reminder against my ribs.

The armory was quiet in the pre-dawn gloom. The quartermaster, a grizzled old WLF lifer with tired, bloodshot eyes, looked up as I approached. He recognized me. Isaac’s new favorite. The golden girl. The lie slid from my tongue with a chilling, newfound ease.

“Isaac’s orders,” I said, my voice flat, devoid of emotion. “Solo recon. Long-range. Needs to be off-book.”

He didn’t question it. Just grunted and started pulling what I asked for from the shelves. A scoped rifle, its barrel cool and heavy in my hands. Boxes of ammunition. A fresh hunting knife, its blade gleaming dully in the weak, flickering light. Med kits. Another pistol, just in case. I wasn’t coming back. Not soon. Not ever.

A fleeting moment of hesitation. A flicker of Jordan’s easy grin, of Taryn’s quiet, steady presence. A ghost of a thought of Owen, of the small, fragile connections I had, almost accidentally, forged in this shithole. I dismissed it with brutal efficiency. What was I going to say? ‘Hey guys, thanks for the laughs, gotta go murder your lieutenant now. Catch you on the flip side.’

No. There was nothing left to say. There was only the hunt.

The perimeter guard was even easier. A few casual, expertly aimed questions. “Lieutenant Anderson headed out already? Isaac had her on a solo mission, right? North?” The kid, eager to please, practically drew me a map. The island. The deserter. It was more than enough. I’d traveled across the whole goddamn country on less.

I stole a boat from the waterfront, the small motor a low, guttural rumble against the oppressive quiet of the pre-dawn water. The journey across the churning sound was a physical manifestation of my internal state—stormy, chaotic, relentless. The rising sun was a harsh, unwelcome light on my grim purpose, painting the bruised, churning clouds in shades of angry orange and purple.

Then the storm broke in earnest, the rain hammering down, the wind whipping the waves into a frenzy. The world dissolved into a maelstrom of grey and black.

A flash of lightning, brilliant and stark, illuminated the island ahead. And I saw it. A horrifying tableau, a scene from a nightmare made real.

Abby.

Hanging from a thick, twisted branch of an ancient, moss-draped tree, a noose tight around her neck, her body twisting, convulsing, like a fish caught on a line.

Something inside me, something I didn’t know was still there to be broken, shattered. A surge of white-hot, possessive rage, so potent it almost blinded me, washed over me. This was my kill. My vengeance. No one else got to take that from me. The thought was a singular, burning obsession.

Mine.

The world dissolved into a red fog.

I don’t remember beaching the boat. I don’t remember the frantic, desperate scramble through the dark, rain-lashed woods. I remember the sounds. The hiss of arrows. The guttural, whistling war cries of the Scars. My own ragged, ragged breathing. The roar of my rifle. The wet, tearing sound of my knife finding flesh.

It wasn’t a rescue. It was a reclaiming. I wasn’t saving her life. I was preserving my right to take it.

And now… now she was here. Beneath me. The rain and the blood and the mud a slick, cold paste between our bodies. The storm raged around us, a symphony of chaos, a fitting soundtrack for the end of the world. My world. Hers.

Her eyes, those stormy, blue-grey pools, were wide, dazed, blinking up at me. The dazed relief of a survivor, of someone snatched from the jaws of death, was slowly, horribly, morphing into a dawning, confused terror as she recognized the monstrous fury in my own eyes.

I was not a savior. I was a reckoning.

My voice, when it came, was a raw, broken thing, a sound I barely recognized as my own, torn from some deep, hollowed-out part of me I didn’t know existed.

“You.”

The word was a judgment. A death sentence.

“You killed him.”

Beneath the cold steel of my knife, Abby twisted, a small, desperate movement, her throat working, trying to form words, a sound that came out as a choked, hoarse gasp. A dark, ugly line of bruising was already forming a ring around that long, strong throat, a testament to how close she had come to the end. Water and blood dripped from my hair onto her face, tracing paths through the grime. Her eyes, wide and terrified, searched mine for an answer she couldn’t comprehend.

She tried to speak again, her voice a raw, broken whisper, shredded by the rope. “What?”

My anger, a caged animal, clawed its way out of my chest, a physical force that was so much easier, so much simpler, than the grief, the betrayal, the horrifying, confusing desire that had been tearing me apart. I welcomed it. Let it take me.

“You know what,” I growled, the words choked, torn from me on a sob I refused to fully release. Hot, unwanted tears streamed down my face, mingling with the rain and blood. I hated them. I hated myself for this weakness, hated Abby for making me do this, for twisting everything inside me into this ugly, unrecognizable shape.

I hated the sick, twisted universe for conspiring to push us together only to catalyze this horrible, broken end. I pressed the knife harder against her throat, the tip of the blade breaking the skin. A thin line of fresh, bright blood welled up, stark against the bruised, pale flesh, a final, terrible punctuation to my rage.

She went still then, the fight draining out of her, her body going limp beneath me, her expression shifting from confusion to a look of shattered, uncomprehending trust. As if she couldn’t believe this was happening. As if she couldn’t believe it was me.

With my free hand, I reached into the inner pocket of Joel’s jacket, my fingers closing around the cold, hard weight of the watch. The storm raged, a deafening clap of thunder shaking the very ground beneath us, the flash of lightning illuminating the scene in a stark, skeletal glare.

My hand was shaking so violently I could barely hold it steady as I shoved the watch in her face, the water dripping from its cracked crystal like tears. The sense of vindication, the righteous fury I had expected to feel, it was absent, replaced by a cold, sickening dread.

“This,” I snarled, the sound ripped from my throat, a raw, ragged, almost inhuman sound. “You killed him. And you took your fucking prize.”

Abby stared at the watch. The look of guilt, of recognition, of confession I had expected, it never came. Instead, her expression morphed into one of utter, profound disbelief.

It was the look of someone seeing something so completely, so fundamentally, out of context that it shattered their entire understanding of reality. Her brows drew together, her mouth parting as she struggled to breathe, to speak, past the blade at her throat.

“That’s…” she choked out, her voice a strangled, breathless whisper, her eyes, wide and terrified, flicking from the watch to my face, then back again.

“That’s the watch… of the man who killed my father.”

Chapter Text

PART II

Five Years Earlier

Abby

The sun was a warm, heavy hand on the back of my neck. It was a rare, almost shocking, sensation in a world that had seemingly forgotten how to be anything but grey and cold. Here, in this strange, forgotten pocket of Salt Lake City, the world felt… alive. Lush, impossibly green grass, thick and soft under the worn soles of my boots, tickled my ankles. In the distance, the lake was a placid, shimmering sheet of silver, reflecting a sky so blue it hurt to look at.

And then there were the giraffes.

They moved with a slow, dreamlike grace, their long, impossible necks swaying as they nibbled at the leaves of the overgrown trees. A new calf, all spindly legs and wide, curious eyes, stuck close to its mother’s side, occasionally letting out a soft, bleating sound that was both comical and heart-wrenchingly sweet.

It was a scene from a different lifetime. A different world. A world that shouldn’t exist anymore.

“She’s getting stronger,” Dad’s voice, a low, gentle rumble beside me, pulled me from my thoughts. He was smiling, a rare, genuine smile that crinkled the corners of his kind, tired eyes. His gaze was fixed on the young giraffe, but I knew he wasn’t just talking about the animal. He was talking about me.

I just rolled my eyes, a playful, familiar gesture. “She’s a giraffe, Dad. They’re born strong.”

“So are you, Abby-girl,” he said, his smile softening, becoming something more… poignant. He was looking at me now, really looking at me, and I felt that familiar, uncomfortable squirm of being scrutinized, of being seen too clearly. “How’s the training going?”

It had been a year. A whole year since I’d turned eighteen and Dad had finally, reluctantly, given his permission. For years, I’d begged him to let me start Firefly training, to let me learn how to fight, to be useful, to be… something other than just a surgeon’s daughter, tucked away and protected while the world burned outside our door. But he’d been obstinate. “When you’re an adult, Abby,” he’d say, his voice firm but with that underlying note of weary sadness that always made me feel small and selfish. “Then you can make your own decisions.”

I’d teased him then, called it an "old-world" idea. Eighteen wasn’t a demarcation of adulthood anymore. In this world, turning eighteen just meant you’d managed to survive another year. It didn’t magically grant you wisdom, or strength, or the right to decide your own fate. Survival was the only currency that mattered.

But he’d held firm. And so I’d waited. And now, for the past year, I’d been training. With Owen. With the other recruits. Learning how to handle a rifle, the heavy, unfamiliar weight of it in my hands slowly becoming a comforting, almost natural, extension of my own body. The endless drills, the punishing workouts that left my muscles screaming and my body aching in a way that was both painful and, to my surprise, deeply satisfying.

I was surprised by how good it felt. The control.

It was like slipping on a new skin, a tougher, more resilient one. A version of myself that was harder, more capable, less… afraid. When I was running drills, my mind would go quiet, the constant, low-grade hum of anxiety that had been my companion for as long as I could remember, fading into the background. There was only the task at hand. The target in my sights. The satisfying thud of a bullet hitting home. The clean, uncomplicated burn of muscles pushed to their absolute limit.

I saw how hard the other recruits worked at it, the way their hands trembled, the way their focus wavered under pressure. But for me… for me, it felt almost natural. Like I was finally becoming the person I was always meant to be. It was a strange, heady, and vaguely unsettling feeling.

“It’s fine,” I said, shrugging, not wanting to get into it, not wanting to see the worry that always clouded his eyes when we talked about my training. “Owen’s a good teacher. And I’m getting stronger.”

Dad just nodded, his gaze distant now, lost in some thought I couldn’t access. “Strength isn’t always about control, Abs,” he said, his voice soft, almost a whisper. “Sometimes, true strength lies in knowing when to surrender.”

The words felt… strange. Poignant. Confusing. I didn’t understand what he meant. How could surrender be strength? Surrender was weakness. Surrender was death. In this world, you fought, you controlled, you won. Or you died. It was that simple.

He reached out then, his hand, large and gentle and infinitely capable, playfully tugging on the end of my new, severe braid. I’d started wearing my hair like this a few months ago. It was practical. Kept it out of my eyes during drills, didn’t get caught on branches during patrols. But it was more than that. It was part of the new skin. The new me. 

“This, though,” he said, his voice laced with a sadness I couldn’t comprehend. “This makes you look like a soldier.” He was silent for a long moment, his thumb tracing a gentle, almost reverent, circle on my cheek. “You look so much like your mother.”

The mention of my mother was a familiar, dull ache in my chest. I barely remembered her. Just fleeting, fragmented images—a soft voice singing a lullaby, the scent of lavender and sunshine, the warmth of her hand in mine. She’d died when I was just a little girl, another casualty of this broken, brutal world. Dad rarely spoke of her, the pain of her loss still too raw, even after all these years. But sometimes, in moments like this, when he looked at me with that heartbreaking mixture of pride and sadness, I felt her presence, a ghost between us.

Before I could respond, before I could ask him what he meant, his radio crackled to life, a harsh, intrusive sound in the peaceful afternoon quiet.

“Jerry? It’s Marlene. We need you back at the hospital. The new arrival… they’re here.”

Dad’s whole demeanor shifted, the weary sadness replaced by the focused, almost clinical, calm of the surgeon. He keyed the radio. “Copy that, Marlene. I’m on my way.”

Owen, who had been standing a few feet away, his gaze fixed on the shimmering expanse of the lake, immediately came over, his expression serious, professional. “We’ll come with you, sir,” he said, his hand automatically going to the rifle slung over his shoulder.

I started to move too, ready to fall back into the role of escort, of soldier. But Dad stopped us. He put a hand on my shoulder, his touch surprisingly warm, his eyes soft again. He looked from me to Owen, then back again, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips.

“No,” he said, his voice gentle. “It’s fine. I can handle it. You two… you two should stay. Enjoy the day. It’s too beautiful to waste.” He gave me a look then, a look that was full of a father’s love and a quiet, almost teasing, acknowledgment of the unspoken thing that had been growing between me and Owen for months. “Be safe,” he said, the words a soft blessing.

I felt a hot flush creep up my neck, a mortifying, tell-tale blush that I knew Owen wouldn’t miss. “Dad…” I started to protest, but he was already turning away, his long strides carrying him back towards the looming concrete and glass monument of St. Mary’s Hospital.

I watched him go, a strange, unaccountable feeling of unease settling in the pit of my stomach.

“So,” Owen’s voice, a little too loud, a little too cheerful, pulled me from my thoughts. He was grinning, that easy, boyish grin that always made my own lips twitch in response. “I, uh… I found something on patrol the other day. A waterfall. It’s not far. If you, you know… want to see it?”

I should have said no. I should have insisted we go with Dad. The unease, that cold, prickling premonition, it was still there, a faint, discordant note in the otherwise perfect, sun-drenched afternoon.

But Owen was looking at me with those kind, hopeful eyes, his grin a little lopsided, a little nervous. And he was so… nice. He was always nice to me. He brought me books he found on scavenging runs, precious, pre-outbreak relics with cracked spines and dog-eared pages. He complimented my hair, told me my new braid looked “cool,” not like a soldier. He was patient with me during training, his instructions always gentle, encouraging, a stark contrast to the harsh, unforgiving demands of the other instructors.

Manny, one of my other friends in this isolated, insular world of the Salt Lake Fireflies, always teased me about it. “He’s got it bad for you, Abs,” he’d say, his voice a low, conspiratorial rumble. “When are you gonna put the poor bastard out of his misery?” He’d tease me about being a prude, too, about being too serious, too focused, too… private. With my heart, with my body. But it wasn’t that I was a prude. It was just… sex had always been something abstract, something known but not particularly interesting. Something I didn’t have the time, or the energy, or the desire, to pursue.

But with Owen… with Owen, maybe it was different. We’d kissed a few times. Fumbled around a bit in the dark, quiet corners of the hospital, our hands hesitant, our breath catching in our throats. And each time, I’d felt a low, pleasant warmth in my body, a strange, fluttering sensation in my stomach, like a small match had been struck somewhere deep inside me. I didn’t know if it was love, or even lust, but it was… nice. And nice was a rare, precious commodity in this world.

So I pushed the unease away, chalking it up to my own overactive, anxiety-ridden imagination. “Yeah,” I said, a small smile touching my own lips. “Okay. A waterfall sounds nice.”

The walk was quiet, comfortable. Owen took my hand, his palm warm and slightly sweaty against mine. He talked about his patrol, about the infected they’d encountered, the supplies they’d scavenged. I listened, offering a quiet comment here and there, but mostly, I was just enjoying the feel of his hand in mine, the warmth of the sun on my face, the illusion of normalcy, of peace.

The waterfall, when we finally reached it, was… a little disappointing. It was more like a pathetic stream that happened to have a small, three-foot drop over a moss-covered ledge. Owen looked crestfallen.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, a gesture he always made when he was nervous or embarrassed. “It looked bigger from a distance.”

I laughed, a genuine, unguarded sound. “It’s fine, Owen. It’s… charming.”

He grinned, his relief palpable. He pulled me closer, his arms wrapping around my waist, his body warm and solid against mine. “You’re tense,” he murmured, his fingers starting to massage the new, hard muscles of my neck and shoulders. “You’ve been training too hard.”

I leaned into his touch, a sigh escaping my lips. It felt good. So good. To just… let go. To let someone else take care of me, just for a moment. I let my head fall back, my eyes fluttering closed, my mind going blessedly, mercifully, quiet.

He kissed me then, his lips soft, hesitant at first, then more confident as I responded, my own mouth opening beneath his. The low, pleasant warmth from before, it was back, spreading through my limbs, making me feel soft and pliant and strangely, wonderfully, alive. I let myself relax into it, into him, surrendering to the simple, uncomplicated warmth of the moment. It was a new kind of surrender, not of weakness, but of trust. 

Our movements were fumbling and gentle on the soft grass by the ledge, a quiet exploration in the sun-drenched afternoon. For the first time, maybe ever, I let the walls down completely, letting the quiet after settle over us, peaceful and easy.

Later, we were walking back to the hospital, hand in hand, laughing at some stupid joke Owen had just told, when we saw it.

A thick, black pillar of smoke, billowing from one of the hospital wings, staining the perfect, cloudless blue of the sky.

Then, the sound.

A distant, muffled pop-pop-pop of gunfire. Followed by a scream. A human scream, thin and terrified and abruptly cut off.

The blood drained from my face. The warmth from a moment ago vanished, replaced by a sudden, sickening, ice-cold dread.

“Dad,” I whispered, the word a choked, strangled sound.

We ran.

The peaceful afternoon shattered into a million sharp, jagged pieces. The world dissolved into a frantic, chaotic blur of green and grey. My lungs burned, my heart hammered against my ribs. Owen was yelling my name, his voice a distant, panicked echo behind me, but I couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down.

The hospital doors were open, swinging creakily in the sudden, violent gust of wind that seemed to follow us inside. The lobby was a scene from a nightmare. The emergency lights were flashing erratically, casting long, dancing, grotesque shadows on the walls. Bodies. Fireflies. Lying in pools of their own blood on the sterile, white-tiled floor. The air was thick, cloying, with the smell of blood, cordite, and something else… something scorched, like burnt plastic.

I didn’t stop. I ran through the chaos, my boots slipping on the slick, bloody floor, my mind a blank, screaming void. Down the long, familiar corridor, towards the surgical wing, towards my father’s operating room.

The doors to the main operating theater were ajar. I pushed through them, my whole body trembling, a silent, desperate prayer on my lips. Please. Please, no.

And there he was.

My father.

Lying on the floor, his body twisted at an unnatural, impossible angle, his white lab coat stained a dark, obscene red. A pool of blood, black in the dim, flickering light, was spreading out from beneath him, a grotesque, blossoming flower on the sterile, white tiles. My eyes snagged on his hand, still sheathed in a surgical glove now painted a sickening, uniform red. A few feet away, a scalpel lay discarded, its small silver blade glinting in the gloom. 

I heard a sound then, a high, thin, keening wail, a sound of pure, animalistic agony. It took me a moment, a long, stretched-out, horrifying moment, to realize that the sound was coming from me. From my own throat.

I couldn’t breathe. The world rushed away, tunneling into a single, unbearable point of focus. His face. Pale. Still. His eyes, those kind, gentle, tired eyes, open, staring blankly at the ceiling.

I fell to my knees beside him, the impact jarring, painful, but I barely felt it. My hands reached for him, touched the blood-soaked fabric of his coat, the sticky, cooling wetness of it seeping into my own clothes.

“Dad?” I whispered, the word a raw, broken thing. “Dad, wake up.”

But he didn’t move. He would never move again.

A sob, a raw, ragged, tearing sound, ripped from my chest. I was screaming now, a continuous, unending scream of pure, unadulterated agony, of a grief so vast, so absolute, it felt like it was tearing me apart from the inside out.

Owen was there then, his arms wrapping around me, trying to pull me away, his voice a low, soothing murmur in my ear, but his words were just meaningless sounds, a distant, buzzing noise against the roaring, screaming chaos in my own head. I fought him, my fists hammering against his chest, my nails digging into his arms, clinging to my father’s still, silent body.

It’s my fault.

The thought was a cold, hard, undeniable certainty in the midst of the swirling, chaotic storm of my grief.

It’s my fault. I should have been here. I should have been with him. I was off with Owen, laughing, letting my guard down, not here to protect him. 

I should have been here.

I was choking on my own sobs, my vision blurred with tears, the world a distorted, wavering nightmare. Owen was dragging me away now, his grip firm, insistent, pulling me from my father’s body, from the scene of my own unforgivable failure.

I was half-lying on the floor, my body limp, boneless, all the fight, all the strength, gone out of me, when I saw it.

A long, dark smear of blood across the sterile, white-tiled floor. A red road, leading away from my father’s body, leading to… something.

A watch.

Half-hidden behind a dented, metal trash can. It was an old thing, the silver bezel scratched and dented, the leather band dark and worn, cracked with age. The crystal face was shattered, a spiderweb of fine, delicate lines across its surface.

Ignoring Owen’s protests, his attempts to pull me from the room, I scrambled towards it, my hands slick with my father’s blood. I snatched it up, the cold, hard metal a shocking, grounding weight in my palm. It was still warm. Still slick with blood. Whose, I didn’t know. 

The world had gone silent. The screams, the smoke, Owen’s voice… all of it faded to a dull, distant hum. There was only the weight in my hand. A promise. A map.

I clutched the watch, so tight the sharp, broken edges of the crystal dug into my palm, drawing blood, a welcome, grounding pain in the overwhelming, suffocating sea of my grief. The path ahead, which moments ago had been a terrifying, empty void, was now terrifyingly, singularly, clear.

This object, this watch, was more than a clue. It was a promise. It belonged to the man who left my father a corpse on the floor, and it made this tragedy something new. 

Not a loss, but a debt.

My father was wrong about strength. Surrender was death. True strength was absolute control, and collection was now my only purpose. I would hunt the man who wore this watch.

I would find him, and I would make him pay.

Chapter Text

Five Years Earlier 

Ellie

Joel was trying to cheer me up again.

It was like watching a violent predator try to play house. He’d point out a bird, its feathers a flash of impossible, pre-outbreak blue against the grey skeleton of a collapsed office building. He’d hum a few bars of some sad, twangy guitar song he couldn’t remember the words to. He’d even tried to tell a joke earlier, something about a horse walking into a bar, but he’d forgotten the punchline halfway through, his voice trailing off into a gruff, awkward silence.

Anything. Anything to fill the silence I kept throwing at him like a wall.

I knew he meant well. I knew he was trying. But his attempts at normal, at cheerful, they just felt… obscene. A violation of the new, sharp-edged quiet that had taken up residence inside me, a quiet that tasted of iron and old fear.

“Look, Ellie,” he said now, his voice a low rumble, trying to cut through the thick, dusty air of the derelict apartment we were holed up in. He was pointing through a shattered window, his finger a dark, accusatory line against the pale, washed-out sky.

In the distance, I could just make out its sterile, imposing outline. Saint Mary’s Hospital. A clean white promise in a world of grey decay.

He’d been extra gentle today, extra careful around me. His movements were slow, deliberate, as if I were a spooked animal, liable to bolt or bite. Which, in all honesty, I was.

He’d woken me up again this morning to his hands shaking me, warm and gruff on my small shoulders. “It’s okay, baby girl,” he’d said, his voice rough with sleep. “You’re safe now. It was just a dream.”

Oh, if only that were true.

But it wasn’t a dream. It was worse. It had been a memory. David, again. His face, that calm, reasonable, fatherly mask he wore, twisting into something else, something hungry, something monstrous. The smell of the fire, of roasting meat, a smell that now made my stomach heave, that now made me think of things I didn’t want to think about.

This time, in the dream, I just kept running, opening doors that led back to the same small, blood-spattered room, and when I struggled, he only pressed harder, his voice a soft, persuasive whisper in my ear, his weight a crushing, suffocating thing.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice flat, dead. I tried to put some effort into it, to make it sound normal, but it felt like trying to lift a collapsed building with my bare hands. “I see it.”

I see it. The finish line. My chance at redemption. The place where the lives of Tess, and Sam, and Henry, and Riley… my whole goddamn party of ghosts… will finally mean something. Where my life, this stupid, stubborn, and now, undeniably, cursed life, will finally mean something.

The weight of it, the hope of it, was a physical thing, a crushing pressure in my chest. This had to be it. It had to work. Otherwise… otherwise, what was the point of any of it? The running, the fighting, the killing. The surviving.

Only to get there, we had to cross half a city of infected. Whatever. We’d survived worse.

Joel seemed to take my monosyllabic response as a victory. A small, almost imperceptible, sigh of relief escaped his lips. He started to sling his rifle back over his shoulder, the worn leather strap groaning in protest. “Alright then,” he started to say, “Let’s–”

A sound from the floor below. A clatter of loose debris. A muffled curse.

Instantly, the clumsy, house-playing predator was gone, replaced by the other Joel. The real one. The one I knew. The one that terrified me and made me feel safer than anything else in this goddamn world.

His body went still, coiled, every line of him screaming a silent, deadly warning. He brought up his shotgun, the movement fluid, terrifyingly practiced. His face became that familiar, terrifying mask, the one that promised death, the one that had stared down raiders and Clickers and a thousand other monsters, both human and not.

I didn’t need to be told. My own hand was already moving, my fingers closing around the cold, hard grip of the pistol he’d given me. The grip was still a little too big for my hand, a constant, uncomfortable reminder of just how small I still was. But my hand was steady. It was always steady now.

We faced the doorway, two silent, breathing statues in the dust-filled apartment, waiting. The only sound was the distant, mournful howl of the wind through the skeletal remains of the city and the frantic, hammering beat of my own heart against my ribs.

The silence was broken by a voice from the stairwell. A voice that was tired, rough, and so familiar it felt like a punch to the gut.

“Don’t fucking shoot unless you wanna be an only child.”

Joel’s whole body sagged. The tension, the coiled violence, it just… drained out of him, leaving him looking older, wearier, more human than he had a moment before. He lowered the shotgun, a look of profound, stunned disbelief on his face.

“Tommy?” he whispered, the name a raw, broken question.

Tommy appeared in the doorway then. He looked like shit. Thinner than I remembered, his face gaunt, covered in a scruffy, untrimmed beard. There was a new scar on his cheek, a pale, jagged line against the sun-weathered skin. His clothes were ragged, stained with mud and God knows what else. He was carrying a scoped rifle, its long barrel glinting in the weak afternoon light. But his eyes… his eyes were the same. The same shade of weary blue-grey as Joel’s, the same tired, haunted look in them.

The brothers just stared at each other for a long, silent moment, a universe of unspoken words, of shared history, of pain and grief and a fierce, complicated love, passing between them. Then, in one swift, almost violent, movement, they were hugging, a rough, emotional, almost desperate, embrace, their arms wrapped tight around each other, two drowning men clinging to the same piece of driftwood in a raging, merciless sea.

I watched them, a strange, unwelcome pang of something that felt dangerously like envy twisting in my gut. I felt a flicker of relief, too. Joel’s intense, worried, suffocating focus was off me, for now. He had his brother back. He had someone else to worry about. Someone else to try and save.

Tommy explained it all in a torrent of words, as if he’d been saving them up for weeks, for months. He and Maria, they’d gotten into a huge fight after we’d left Jackson. A real blowout this time. He couldn’t stand it anymore. The walls, the rules, the pretense of a normal life in a world that was anything but. He couldn’t just let us go, let Joel handle this alone.

He’d followed us, tracked us from Jackson. Plus, he used to be a Firefly. He could make the introductions, smooth things over, make sure they listened, make sure they understood how important this was. How important I was.

The relief on Joel’s face was palpable. He looked, for the first time in weeks, almost… hopeful. Tommy had a car, a beat-up but still functional truck, stashed a few miles away. We wouldn’t have to fight our way through the rest of the city on foot. A small, simple miracle in a world that had seemingly run out of them.

The journey through the city was a blur of grey and brown and the relentless, oppressive weight of the past. Every collapsed toy store was a ghost of Sam, his bright, curious eyes, his infectious, innocent laugh. Every faded movie poster for some stupid, pre-outbreak romance was a sharp, painful reminder of Riley, of the stolen, secret kisses in the flickering light of a photo booth, of the bitter, coppery taste of her blood in my mouth.

I found a waterlogged copy of a Savage Starlight comic in a rusted-out car, its pages swollen and stuck together, the colors bled into a muddy, unrecognizable mess. I tucked it into my pack anyway, a small, secret comfort, a fragile link to a time before, to a girl I barely remembered being.

We finally reached a deep, flooded subway station. A dam had broken years ago, Tommy explained, turning the tunnels into a fast-moving, subterranean river. The only way across was a narrow, submerged ledge of concrete, slick with moss and God knows what else.

I froze. The sound of the rushing water, a dark, hungry, roaring sound, filled my ears, drowning out everything else. I couldn’t swim. Another secret, another weakness. I looked at the dark, churning water, and all I could see was a gaping, hungry mouth, ready to swallow me whole.

Joel saw the fear on my face. He put a hand on my shoulder, his touch surprisingly gentle. “I got you,” he said, his voice low, steady, a familiar, comforting anchor in the swirling, chaotic storm of my own terror. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

I believed him. I always believed him.

We started across, Joel and Tommy bracketing me, their bodies a solid, protective wall against the relentless, pulling current. The water was cold, shockingly so, seeping into my boots, into my pants, chilling me to the bone. The concrete ledge was slick, treacherous. I took a step, then another, my hand clutching Joel’s, my knuckles white.

And then I slipped.

My feet went out from under me, the world tilting, the dark, churning water rushing up to meet me. The last thing I heard was Joel screaming my name, a raw, terrified sound that was ripped from his throat. Then my head hit something hard, a blinding flash of white-hot pain behind my eyes, and the world dissolved into a cold, roaring darkness.

A slow, groggy return. The feeling of being moved. The low rumble of an engine. The smell of gasoline and wet wool.

Am I in the hospital? Did it work?

My head throbbed, a dull, insistent ache. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt heavy, glued shut. I was in a car. I could feel the gentle, rhythmic vibration of the road beneath me.

“Joel?” I managed, my voice a dry, raspy croak. I thought he was driving. He was always driving.

Tommy’s voice answered, thick and strained, a sound I didn’t recognize. “Hey, Ellie. You’re awake.”

Tommy was driving. The passenger seat beside him was empty.

“Joel?” I asked again, the name a question this time, a plea. My heart started to pound, a slow, heavy, ominous drumbeat of dread. I pushed myself up, my head swimming, my vision blurry. I saw the tears then, tracking clean paths through the grime on Tommy’s face.

My arm brushed against something in the seat beside me. Something cold. Firm. Unyielding. A body. 

No.

Denial, sharp and absolute, a physical thing, a wall slamming down in my mind.

It’s not Joel. It can’t be. It’s a trick. A dream. Another nightmare.

Then the smell hit me. Woodsmoke and old coffee. His smell.

A wave of nausea, so profound it buckled me in half, rose in my throat. I retched, vomiting onto the floor of the car, my body wracked with sobs, a series of violent, tearing spasms that felt like they were ripping me apart from the inside out.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Tommy was saying, his voice a broken apology, a ghost of a sound against the roaring in my own ears. “I’m so sorry. I just… I couldn’t put him in the trunk.”

I grabbed the sleeve of Joel’s jacket, the familiar, worn flannel rough against my fingers, pulling at it, as if I could wake him up, as if this was all just some terrible, fucked-up dream. My hand brushed his wrist. It was bare.

The watch was gone.

“What happened?” I whispered, the words barely audible, my throat raw, constricted.

Tommy was silent for a long moment, the only sound the steady, relentless rumble of the engine, a pounding in my head like a drum growing louder, and louder, and louder.

When he finally spoke, his voice was thick with a grief so profound it was a physical thing in the small, cramped cab of the truck. He gave me the story in broken, fragmented pieces. After we’d arrived at the hospital, the Fireflies had taken me straight to the operating room. Joel had gone to talk to Marlene, their leader. Tommy had been catching up with some old friends, other Fireflies he’d known from before, when he’d heard the gunfire. He’d run, found Joel dead on the pavement just outside the hospital, with me unconscious beside him. He’d fought his way through the chaos, dragging both of us to the car.

The story didn’t make sense. It was full of holes, of gaps, of unspoken, unanswered questions. There was no real answer. Just the two facts that would become my new religion, my new reason for breathing, for surviving.

Who?

Why?

The drum in my head was a deafening roar now, the world starting to go grey at the edges. I couldn’t hear what Tommy was saying anymore, his words just a meaningless buzz against the rising tide of my own grief.

I fainted, collapsing against Joel’s still, cold body, the last thing I registered the familiar, comforting smell of his jacket.

His words from that morning, a cruel, mocking echo in the darkness.

“It’s okay, baby girl. You’re safe now, it was just a dream.”

If only.

Chapter Text

Abby

My words hung in the air, a final, devastating blow, lost to the howl of the storm. 

“That’s the watch… of the man who killed my father.”

My head was a throbbing, chaotic mess, the world a blurry, painful smear of mud and rain and the sputtering, hellish light of the bonfire. I was pinned beneath Ellie, the cold, sharp edge of her knife still a phantom pressure against the raw, bruised skin of my throat. I could feel her breath, hot and ragged, against my cheek, could see the frantic, terrified rise and fall of her chest.

Then, I watched her face collapse.

It wasn't a shift, not a change in expression. It was a complete and utter structural failure, a demolition of the very foundations of her being. The white-hot fury, the righteous, burning rage that had animated her just moments before, it didn’t just fade. It imploded, leaving behind a void so vast, so absolute, it seemed to suck all the air from the clearing, from my own lungs. It was like watching someone pry open a coffin, only to find not a body, not an answer, but a dark, bottomless abyss.

The pressure at my throat disappeared. The knife, her knife, it fell from her hand, a small, insignificant splash in the mud beside my head. She sat back, still straddling my hips, her body starting to shake, a violent, uncontrollable tremor that racked her small frame.

I knew this. I’d seen it before. In the officer’s showers, after Isaac’s… task. The panic. The terror. The grief so profound it was a physical thing, a storm she couldn’t outrun, couldn’t fight.

My first instinct, a stupid, inexplicable, and utterly insane impulse, was to reach for her. To offer some kind of comfort, some anchor in the hurricane. But I knew. I knew my touch would only burn, would only be another betrayal, another wound in a night that had already been filled with so many.

My own memories, the ones I kept locked away in a dark, dark basement of my mind, they came flooding back, a tidal wave of blood and grief. The feel of my father’s cooling skin beneath my hands, the slick, coppery warmth of his blood on my fingers, the long, dark smear of it on the sterile, white-tiled floor of the operating room, a red road leading to the watch, to the answer, to the beginning of this endless, soul-crushing quest.

“I found it,” I choked out, the words ripped from me, my own voice shredded and raw from the noose, a ghost of a sound against the roar of the storm. “In the operating room. On the floor.”

I was babbling, my concussed mind struggling to form coherent thoughts, to make sense of the impossible, horrifying truth that was finally, finally, taking shape in the darkness between us. “That man… he killed my dad.”

Ellie let out a choked, ragged sob, a sound of pure, animalistic agony. She scrambled off me, crawling on her hands and knees in the mud, her body convulsing as she stared at the watch, then at me, her face a mask of dawning, world-ending horror.

“No…” she whispered, the word a denial against the impossible truth. A scream of pure agony ripped from her, not a word, just a sound of a world ending. It broke abruptly, and the name came out on a choked, shuddering sob.

“Joel.”

The name echoed in the clearing, a sound of pure, shattered grief. And it was the same name. The one she’d cried out in her sleep, in the dark of that abandoned apartment, her body trembling against mine. 

Joel.  

The ghost that haunted her nightmares was now a ghost standing between us, a horrifying, undeniable link. She collapsed then, her breath coming in short, sharp, desperate gasps.

I didn’t know what to do. My head hurt so fucking badly, a sharp, stabbing pain behind my eyes that made my vision swim. My throat was an agony of raw, bruised tissue. My body had become a prison of pain, each injury another bar in a cage built by the night's brutality.

In the distance, I heard them. Whistles. High-pitched, eerie, cutting through the storm. The Scars. They were coming back.

The instinct for survival, that hard, cold, and blessedly simple thing, kicked in, a jolt of adrenaline cutting through the fog of my concussion.

“Ellie,” I said, my voice a raw, desperate rasp. “Ellie, we have to leave. Now.”

She didn’t respond. Just knelt there, in the mud, her head bowed, her shoulders shaking, her green eyes, when she finally looked up at me, overflowing with tears, her skin a sickly, ashen color under the grime and the blood. She was gone. Lost in the abyss.

I struggled to my feet, my body screaming in protest, my legs shaky, unreliable. I grabbed her arm. She flinched, a violent, almost convulsive, movement, as if she’d been struck by lightning, but she didn’t pull away. I pulled her up, her body stiff, unresponsive, a dead weight. I don’t know how I did it, how I found the strength, but I started dragging her out of the clearing, away from the fire, away from the hanging bodies, away from the ghosts of our dead fathers.

We stumbled through the dark, rain-lashed woods, a broken, stumbling unit, two halves of a single, shattered whole. We had no light, no weapons, no sense of direction. Lightning struck terrifyingly close, a brilliant, blinding flash that illuminated the skeletal, reaching branches of the ancient trees, followed by a deafening clap of thunder that shook the very ground beneath our feet.

This is how we die , the thought a cold, calm certainty in the midst of the chaos. My concussed mind struggled to form a coherent plan, to strategize, to find a path to survival, but there was nothing. Just the darkness, the storm, the relentless, driving rain.

I tripped over something in the underbrush, a gnarled root, a forgotten log. My body, already pushed past its limit, finally gave out. I went down, hard, the cool, soft mud a welcome, if temporary, relief against my cheek. I couldn’t get up. I tried, my muscles screaming, refusing to obey.

And then, I felt hands on me. The hands themselves were shaking, yet their hold was surprisingly firm. Pulling at me, dragging me. Ellie. Somehow, she’d pulled herself back from the brink, her survival instincts, that raw, feral will to live that I had both admired and despised, kicking in. She got me to my feet, her small frame a surprising, unyielding anchor in the storm. We leaned on each other, our bodies a tangled, broken mess of shared pain and a desperate, unspoken need to survive.

I had no idea where she was going. I didn’t care. I just followed, my feet moving automatically, my mind a numb, empty void.

Eventually, through the haze of pain and confusion, I heard a new sound. The roar of an engine. Ellie was pulling me into a boat, the small vessel rocking violently on the churning, black water. We were moving, escaping the island, the darkness, the ghosts.

The motion of the boat, combined with the concussion, was too much. I leaned over the side and vomited, the acidic bile burning my already raw, shredded throat. The pain was so intense, so absolute, that for a moment, the world simply went black.

I don’t know how long we were on the water. It could have been minutes. It could have been an eternity. The world was a blur of grey and black, of driving rain and the relentless, roaring sound of the engine.

And then, lights. Through the rain and the mist. And voices. Shouting my name.

Mel’s voice, frantic and sharp. “Abby! Oh, my God, Abby!”

I felt her soft, familiar fingers at my throat, checking my pulse, her touch surprisingly gentle. Then, the blinding, sterile lights of the WLF infirmary. The room was so clean, so bright, so obscenely, violently, white. A stark, shocking contrast to the mud and the blood and the chaos of the island.

I looked down at my arm, a grotesque roadmap of bruises, mud, and dried blood. A rough hand found mine, the short nails, the dark, twisting tattoo instantly, achingly, recognizable.

“Ellie,” I gasped, the name a raw, broken plea, a question, a prayer.

The hand in mine tightened, a small, desperate squeeze.

“Stay with me,” I whispered, a final, desperate command, not as a lieutenant, not as a soldier, but as something else, something new, something terrifyingly, undeniably, human.

Then, the darkness, which had been lurking at the edges of my vision, finally rushed in, a welcome, suffocating blanket. I succumbed to it, my last conscious thought a single, devastating realization that twisted the last five years into a sickening knot.

The ghost I’d been hunting, the faceless man who owned that watch… he had a name. And Ellie, with her grief and her rage, had just screamed it.

It was the unraveling of everything.

Chapter Text

Ellie

I looked down at Abby, and her face was so calm it was as if she could have just been sleeping. The usual hard lines of her jaw had softened in unconsciousness, the tension that always seemed to pull at the corners of her mouth, gone. She looked younger. Almost peaceful.

But then I saw the ring of bruises, a dark, grotesque collar blooming around her throat, a testament to the rope that had so nearly ended her. I saw the faint, angry red line where my own knife had pressed against her skin, a mark I had made, a final, brutal punctuation to a conversation I no longer understood. And I was suddenly, sickeningly, glad that her consciousness had pulled her somewhere she couldn’t wake up from.

I wished my mind could have done the same.

I was stuck there. Painfully, achingly, present. Her hand, limp and surprisingly heavy without its usual clenched-fist tension, was still gripped in mine. The last echoes of her broken, whispered plea were a frantic loop in my head.

Stay with me.

The words were a brand on my soul, a ghost in the sterile, too-bright, too-clean air of the WLF infirmary. The smell of antiseptic was sharp, clean, a violent contrast to the mud and the blood and the stench of death that still clung to my skin, to my clothes, to my memory.

Mel was at my elbow, a constant, nagging presence, her face a mask of worried, professional concentration. She was checking Abby’s vitals, her fingers gentle against the bruised skin of Abby’s throat, her gaze flicking from the monitors beside the bed to my own face, her brow furrowed with questions. Questions I had no answer for.

“What happened, Ellie?” she asked again, her voice low, insistent. “Where were you? Why did you leave the base?”

The words were just a meaningless buzz against the roaring in my own ears. I felt a strange, dislocated sense of empathy, a flicker of understanding for Tommy, for that long drive from Salt Lake City after Joel’s death.

Was this how he had felt?

The questions were a pointless, cruel assault on a grief too vast, too absolute, to be articulated. The words stuck in my throat like stones, the silence a suffocating blanket, the screaming in my head the only real sound.

I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t speak. The truth was a shard of glass in my throat, threatening to shred me from the inside out if I tried to force it out.

The world was a distorted, wavering blur. Other bodies were in the room now, their presence a vague, unsettling pressure at the edge of my vision. I felt hands on me, trying to pull me away from Abby’s bedside, from the one, single, horrifying anchor in this swirling, nauseating storm of my own making.

The touch ignited a surge of the old, familiar rage, a white-hot, cleansing fire that burned away the confusion, the fear, just for a moment. My first instinct was to fight, to lash out, my hand instinctively going for the knife that wasn’t there.

Then the fog cleared slightly. I recognized Jordan’s large, warm, familiar hands on my shoulders. I saw Owen’s face, pale and shocked, his kind, tired eyes wide with a mixture of horror and confusion. Everything reached me as if from underwater, the voices distorted, distant, dreamlike.

My mind was a broken record, a stuck, skipping track, replaying Abby’s words from the island, over and over and over.

‘I found it on the floor. That man… he killed my dad.’

I shook myself free from Jordan’s grasp, pushing past Owen, my body moving on pure instinct, back to Abby’s bedside. The pull was magnetic, undeniable.

Abby, not Joel’s killer. Abby, the only person in the world who could possibly understand what I was feeling right then, the agonizing, soul-crushing weight of this impossible, shared truth. And the last person on earth I could possibly confide in.

The irony was a bitter, coppery taste in my mouth, the taste of blood, of betrayal, of a grief so profound it had no name.

I could hear them talking around me, their voices a low, urgent murmur.

Mel’s voice was sharp, frayed at the edges. “She’s in shock. She just showed up twenty minutes ago, dragging Abby’s body… No, Owen, I have no fucking idea why they were out in the storm. Do you?..."

Jordan’s voice was lower, rougher. “Should we tell Isaac?”

A tense, heavy pause. Then Manny’s voice, accented, exhausted. “No. Not if he doesn’t already know.”

Mel was in front of me now, her hospital uniform so clean, so white, it was almost blinding. But her hands… her hands had blood on them. Abby’s blood? My blood? It was all just… blood.

“Ellie, you need to sit down,” she said, her voice calm but with an undercurrent of authority, a command I was too tired, too broken, to fight. “You can stay right here next to Abby, but you’re in shock and I need to stitch your arm before you lose any more blood.”

My arm?

I looked down, a slow, dislocated movement, as if my head belonged to someone else. My right arm, the one with the moth tattoo. A long, red line, like a parted mouth, ran through the swirling ink, parting the fern fronds, tearing the moth in two. I hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t felt it. But now I saw the blood, dark and thick, coating my hand, my fingers, dripping onto the clean, white floor.

“Oh,” was all I could manage.

I allowed Mel to help me into a chair at Abby’s bedside, my body moving like a puppet on a string. I wouldn’t leave her. I couldn’t leave her. Then a sharp, welcome pull as Mel started to stitch my arm, the needle a small, bright point of pain in the overwhelming, suffocating sea of my own internal agony.

“Abby,” I choked out, the name a raw, broken thing, a question and a plea and a curse all at once. “Is she okay?” 

It was a stupid question. A pointless question. Abby was not okay. I was not okay. Nothing was okay. But I needed the temporary comfort of a lie, the brief, hollow illusion of hope.

“She’s pretty beat up,” Mel said, her eyes meeting mine, her expression a mixture of clinical assessment and a deep, weary sadness. “But nothing external looks life-threatening.” 

She finished the last stitch, tying it off with a practiced efficiency. Then, her voice softened, became something other than a medic’s, something like a friend's. 

“What happened out there, Ellie?” she asked again.

The question, the quiet, insistent presence of the rest of the squad gathering around me—Owen, his face pale and drawn; Manny, his usual boisterous energy gone, replaced by a grim, quiet anger; Jordan, her dark eyes sharp, watchful, her arms crossed over her broad chest—it snapped me into a cold, clear focus. I looked at their faces, at the concern, the anger, the fear etched there. And I realized, with a sudden, sickening clarity, that their anger, their fear, wasn’t directed at me. It was directed at Isaac.

I told them a story. A carefully edited version of the truth. A lie built on a foundation of shared, brutal reality.

“She was captured by Scars,” I began, my voice gaining strength, each word a carefully placed brick in the wall I was building around the real, unbearable truth. “Isaac sent her on a mission, and I… I followed her.” I described the horrifying scene at the clearing—the hanging tree, the ritualistic torture. “I stopped them. I killed all of them.”

I omitted the part about the confrontation, the knife to the throat, the watch, the truth that had shattered both of us. That part was mine. Ours. A secret too raw, too monstrous, to share.

I concluded simply, my voice flat, devoid of emotion, “And then we came back here.”

“God damn it,” Owen cursed, the words a low, vicious snarl, his face contorted in a mask of rage so profound it was almost shocking on his usually kind, gentle features. “His stupid fucking tests.”

It became clear then, in the shared, grim silence that followed Owen’s outburst, that this was a pattern. That Isaac sending Abby on suicide missions, pushing her to the brink, testing her loyalty, her strength, her very soul, had been a game he’d been playing for a long, long time. And they had all known.

Manny put a hand on Owen’s shoulder, a gesture of quiet, weary solidarity. “That motherfucker,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.

Mel looked at me, her face exhausted, her eyes filled with a sadness so deep it seemed to have no bottom. I remembered the old Polaroid of a teenage Mel and Abby in Abby’s room, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders, smiling, two girls in a world that hadn’t yet completely broken them.

“Thank you, Ellie,” Mel said, her voice filled with a simple, profound gratitude that felt heavier, more damning, than any accusation. “Thank you for bringing her back.”

They continued to talk amongst themselves in low, furtive voices, their words a quiet, angry buzz at the edge of my hearing. And I realized, with a slow, dawning, and deeply unsettling certainty, that I had stumbled into something bigger than my own quest for vengeance. I had inadvertently become part of an illicit, unspoken rebellion.

Abby’s squad wasn’t loyal to Isaac or the WLF. They were loyal to Abby.

The unconscious woman who lay beside me, her eyelashes flickering against her freckled cheeks, her face a pale, bruised testament to a night of unimaginable horror. The woman who was inextricably, painfully, tangled with my past and, terrifyingly, my future.

The battle lines had been redrawn, and I was standing on a side I never chose, a side I didn’t understand, a side that was defined by a loyalty to the one person in this goddamn world I should hate more than anyone else.

And I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to feel. All I knew was that the world, my world, had ended, and I was left standing in the ruins, holding the hand of the woman who’d destroyed it.

And I couldn’t let go.

Chapter Text

Abby

My first coherent thought was of her. Ellie.

The memory was a chaotic, fragmented film reel, playing on a loop against the backs of my eyelids. The boat, lurching on the black, churning water. The blinding, sterile lights of the infirmary. Her hand, small and calloused and surprisingly steady, gripping mine. And my own voice, a raw, shredded, pathetic thing, begging her, Stay with me.

I tried to call her name now, to see if she had listened, to see if she was still there, but the sound was trapped, a strangled, agonizing knot in my throat. The noose. The memory of it, the rough, scratchy rope biting into my skin, the suffocating, absolute loss of control, it was a fresh wave of nausea, of terror. All that came out was a pathetic, rasping gasp, a sound that sent a fresh wave of fire through my bruised larynx.

Then, a hand found mine. It squeezed gently, a warm, reassuring pressure. My heart lurched, a sudden, illogical, and profoundly stupid, surge of hope.

She stayed.

A voice cut through the fog then, gentle and familiar, but it wasn’t the one I was so desperate to hear.

“Abs? Hey, I’m here. It’s okay.”

Owen.

His face swam into my blurry vision, his kind, tired eyes etched with a concern so deep it was almost painful to look at. He was smoothing the damp, dirty hair back from my forehead with a tenderness that felt like an intrusion. His touch, usually a familiar, if complicated, comfort, was a sudden, unwelcome shock against my skin.

The sight of him, the feel of his gentle, loving hand, it didn't soothe me. It shattered me.

The memory, the one I had suppressed for five years, the one I had built a fortress of discipline and denial and rage around, it came crashing back with a horrifying, renewed intensity. It was like a dam I’d spent my entire adult life building, patching every tiny crack, reinforcing every weak point, had just been dynamited at its foundation. The flood was unstoppable, a tidal wave of grief and guilt and shame, and it was drowning me in the blood-soaked waters of that day.

That last, stolen afternoon. The sun on my face. The taste of Owen’s kiss. The easy warmth of his body above mine. My own surrender to a moment of simple, uncomplicated pleasure, a moment where a sharp, fleeting pain softened into something new, something profoundly, unexpectedly tender.

If I hadn’t been with him… if I hadn’t let my guard down… if I’d just stayed in control… I would have been there. 

I could have saved him.

The logic was insane, I knew that, even in my concussed, fractured state. But it was a truth my traumatized mind had clung to for five years, a secret, self-inflicted wound that had festered in the dark, poisoning the very idea of intimacy, of love, of surrender, equating them with catastrophic failure, with unforgivable loss. It was the genesis of my obsession. The reason for the walls. The reason for the monster I had so painstakingly, so ruthlessly, become.

Tears, hot and silent and unstoppable, began to track paths through the grime on my cheeks. I was crying, a deep, wracking, soundless sob that felt like it was tearing me apart from the inside out. I couldn’t stop them. The dam had broken, and I was helpless against the flood.

Owen, seeing my distress, started asking gentle questions, his voice a low, soothing murmur, trying to understand what had happened on the island, trying to coax the story from me. He told me what little he knew—that Ellie had brought me back, that she had told them some story about a Scar ambush, about saving me from a hanging tree.

The details were a distant, meaningless buzz against the roaring in my own ears. My mind was still trapped in that sterile, white-tiled operating room, the smell of blood and antiseptic a ghost in my nostrils.

I ignored his questions. The mission, the Scars, the island, all of it was secondary. A footnote to the real, devastating truth that had finally, finally, been dragged into the light.

I managed to force out a single, raw question, my voice a shredded, barely audible whisper.

“Where’s Ellie?”

Owen looked hurt by my singular, obsessive focus, but not surprised. He sighed, a heavy, weary sound, and his hand, which had been resting on my forehead, fell away. “She was here all night,” he said, his voice tinged with a weary sadness, a familiar resignation. “Wouldn’t leave your side. She… she looked like she’d seen a ghost, Abby. Fought Jordan when she tried to pull her away from the bed.”

He looked at me then, his expression turning grim. “She’s debriefing with Isaac right now.”

The words were a jolt of ice-cold dread, cutting through the fog of my grief, my pain. I knew what this meant. I was sent on a suicide mission. A test. A loose end to be tied off. Ellie’s ‘rescue,’ her stubborn, infuriating, and undeniably, incredibly, brave refusal to let me die, had ruined Isaac’s plan. And now… now there would be consequences. Not just for me. For her.

A new, urgent terror cut through the suffocating weight of my own grief. He'll turn on her now. He'll use her. Hurt her.

I tried to get up, a surge of adrenaline, pure and potent, momentarily overriding the pain, the exhaustion. I had to go to her. I had to protect her, to warn her, to stop this before it was too late. But my body, that goddamn traitor, it betrayed me. The room spun violently, the blinding, sterile white of the infirmary walls tilting, rushing up to meet me. The pain in my head, in my throat, in my ribs, it was a white-hot, blinding agony. I collapsed back onto the cot, helpless, a prisoner in my own broken body.

I have to stop him. I can't let him do to her what he did to me. But I can't even stand.

The frustration, the sheer, impotent rage of it, was a fresh wave of tears, hot and angry and utterly, completely, useless. I was a soldier without a weapon, a commander who couldn't act. A fortress with its walls breached, its defenses shattered.

“Mel!” Owen’s voice, sharp with alarm, cut through the haze. “She’s in pain!”

Mel was there then, her face a mask of professional concern, her hands gentle but efficient as she checked my IV, my pulse. “This will help with the pain,” she said, her voice a soft, soothing murmur as she administered an injection into the port in my arm.

I felt the cool flush of the drug spreading through my vein, a dulling of the sharp edges of my physical agony. The morphine was a welcome lie, a temporary truce with the fire in my muscles, the screaming in my throat. But it couldn't touch the other thing. The real pain. The one twisting in my gut, in my soul. The one that wasn't made of torn muscle but of memory. 

It was a shard of glass lodged in my soul, and the truth was the hand just beginning to twist it.

Chapter Text

Ellie

The air in the skybox tasted like ash and stale hope. It clung to my tongue, a constant reminder of the screaming chaos we'd barely outrun. Every shallow breath I took felt gritty, dragging the night's horrors deeper into my lungs. I slumped onto the grimy concrete floor, the cool rough texture doing little to ground me. 

Joel's watch, a cold, leaden weight, sat nestled in my trembling palm. Its silver bezel, once gleaming, was caked with island mud and a deeper, more sinister kind of dirt—blood. Mine, Abby’s, the blood of the men I’d left behind, the ones who’d almost hung her, the ones I’d cut down to reclaim my right to vengeance.

I lifted the hem of my jacket, the fabric stiff with my own dried sweat and that unsettling, deeper stain, and rubbed furiously at the cracked crystal face. My movements were desperate, almost frantic. But all it did was smear the old gore around, grinding it deeper into the fractured glass, a perverse kind of cleansing that only made the grim reality more stark. The fractured lines in the crystal spread like a spiderweb, a chaotic map mirroring the fissures tearing through my own understanding. Every crack, every smear, a new testament to the brutal, undeniable truth.

My fingers ached around the watch, the cold metal biting into my palm, but I clung to it like a drowning woman to driftwood. A ghost of warmth, faint but insistent, spread through my hand. It didn’t come from the inert object itself, of course. It came from the memory it stubbornly refused to let die, a sharp, clear vision burning behind my eyes: Joel, after David.

The way his massive, familiar body had been an unyielding fortress against the gnawing terror that had tried to consume me. His grip, warm and rough on my shoulders. The unfamiliar, guttural sounds of comfort that rumbled from his chest, a low, steady vibration that had been the only thing that ever truly made me feel safe.

That expression on his face, the first time I’d ever seen it—a raw vulnerability, a silent testament to a love that had always felt too fragile for this brutal world. A fierce protectiveness, an unyielding willingness to raze the world if it meant keeping me breathing. 

A monster, yes, but my monster. 

The image caught in my throat, a choked sob clawing its way up, tasting of ash and betrayal, both mine and his.

Joel, my reluctant father, my unwavering protector. Joel, the undeniable killer of Abby’s dad.

Every atom of my being knew it was true. Not a single part of me doubted it. That grim certainty, cold and sharp as a surgeon’s blade through the heart of my disbelief, sliced clean through the fog of my denial. I’d seen Joel move through violence like water over stone, effortlessly. He dispatched threats with the chilling efficiency of an apex predator claiming its territory. A single doctor, unarmed and pleading, wouldn't have even registered as a ripple in his deadly current. Not for Joel.

He wouldn’t have hesitated. He wouldn't have paused to question the morality of it, not when faced with what he perceived as a threat to me, or to what he considered his own. He wouldn't have debated ethics; he would have simply acted, his body a perfect instrument of survival. A doctor’s life, a single life, would have been a negligible cost in his unyielding calculus of protection, a mere drop in the ocean of blood he’d shed for me.

No, I didn’t doubt that Joel most likely killed Abby’s father, not for a second. But the other questions now crowded my mind, sharp as splintered bone, each one a fresh agony, a relentless assault on my already fractured soul: Why? Why would Joel, the man who’d shielded me from the world’s worst, end a doctor’s life? What was the context? What happened that day in Salt Lake that painted Joel with the blood of a healer?

And how, in the twisting labyrinth of hell, did Joel die? 

The man who could gut a Bloater with a rusty machete, who killed with the effortless grace of a born storm. Joel, who’d faced down armies of infected and hordes of desperate men, who had walked through the valley of the shadow of death and emerged, scarred but unbowed, still standing. How could he have fallen?

It made no sense. No goddamn sense at all.

A small, dark whisper, like a parasitic tendril of cordyceps, began to course through my veins, infiltrating every thought, every memory, obliterating all else. It twisted around my heart, tightening its grip, a cold, hard truth that anchored itself deep within my psyche, burrowing into the very marrow of my bones. 

The only way Joel could have fallen was by guarding me. By that distracting, paternal devotion that splintered his focus, stole his attention, and finally, consumed his life.

He died because he loved me. He died protecting me. 

That was the only narrative that fit.

The only explanation that made any sense of the brutal, chaotic end to his story, and to mine. It felt like the infection itself, a cold, relentless certainty spreading through my entire being, leaving no room for doubt, no space for alternative truths. It was a truth that offered a perverse kind of comfort, even as it tightened its hold.

The skybox's faded tranquility became a sudden, unbearable weight. I'd been here for maybe twenty, thirty minutes, a mere blip in the unending nightmare, but the silence felt like a heavy shroud, a suffocating blanket pressing down on my chest.

I’d left Abby in the infirmary, sunk into a restless sleep, a pale, battered shadow of her former self. Her face, in sleep, held a vulnerability I hadn't realized I was capable of seeing. The thought of her waking, of her eyes flickering open to find me there, of the pain that would undoubtedly mirror my own, was a raw nerve, exposed and screaming. I wasn’t ready to witness that. Not yet. I needed this solitary moment, drawn back to the only place where our two discordant lives had ever truly, terrifyingly, converged. The site of an intimacy I now understood had been an act of profound, sickening irony, a dance with the ghost of my vengeance.

I wondered now at that connection, that unsettling pull that defied every ounce of logic, that spat in the face of my every reason for living. The shared breath, the tangled limbs, the whispered commands, the explosive pleasure—what would become of it? Would it burn up like mist under the forge of our dual griefs, vaporized by the sheer heat of our intersecting betrayals, leaving nothing but dust? Would it shatter beneath the crushing weight of the truth that now suffocated us both, leaving behind nothing but jagged shards and bitter regret, forever scarring the landscape of my soul?

I didn't know. All I knew was that the ground had shifted beneath my feet, the world tilted on its axis, and the familiar landscape of my purpose had dissolved into a swirling vortex of confusion, leaving me adrift.

I rose, the phantom scent of old coffee and dust clinging to the air around me, a ghostly embrace from a life that no longer existed. My muscles protested, stiff and aching, but I ignored them. My feet, as if guided by an unseen current, began to carry me away from the fragile solace, back towards a conversation I didn’t dread for its lack of answers, but for their terrifying abundance.

Isaac.

He’d orchestrated Abby’s death. He’d used me as a pawn in his brutal game. He was the architect of our suffering, the puppet master pulling the strings of our rage. I had defied him, saved her. The consequences would be brutal, a storm of his carefully controlled fury, but I was ready. More than ready. I tucked Joel's watch deep into the pocket of my jacket, its familiar weight a cold, steady pulse against my hip, a grim comfort, a heavy promise. Whatever came next, whatever fresh hell Isaac had planned, I would face it. For him. For Abby. And for the raw, unyielding questions that still bit at my soul: Who? Why?

The heavy steel door of Isaac’s office was already ajar, a gaping maw waiting to consume me. It beckoned, a silent, insidious invitation. I didn't pause at the threshold, didn’t flinch. Instead, I stepped directly into the room, forcing my shoulders back, my chin high, focusing on the slow, deliberate rhythm of my breath, a silent ritual of control. Every muscle in my body braced, a coiled spring. 

I had to embody it now, this new persona: Isaac's chosen, the cold, calculating strategist he believed me to be. The unfeeling tool, honed to his specifications. If I played this precisely, if I measured every word, every glance, I might just navigate the treacherous currents of his rage. And if I didn't, well, I’d be another broken piece on his chessboard.

Isaac sat hunched over his desk, poring over a faded map, his back to me, the picture of a man absorbed in his grand designs. The air was thick with the stagnant scent of old smoke and the subtle, cloying tang of Isaac’s power, a noxious perfume that always made my teeth ache. He didn't acknowledge my entry, didn't even twitch. The air crackled with his annoyance, a palpable hum of controlled fury that resonated in the hollows of my bones.

The silence stretched, deliberate and heavy, a power play designed to grind my composure to dust, to make me squirm, to force me to break it. I remained a statue, my gaze fixed on the back of his head, unwavering, my face a blank canvas. He would not see the storm raging inside me. He would not taste the bitter ash in my mouth. He would only see what I allowed him to see.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity carved out of the very fabric of time, a stretch of silence so vast it threatened to swallow me whole, he turned. Slowly, deliberately. His eyes, sharp as broken glass, raked over me, a slow, predatory assessment that stripped me bare.

"So," he drawled, his voice a low rasp, a sound that seemed to scrape against my raw nerves, "I heard you went on your own little solo mission last night. Off-book, my orders. " A cruel smile touched his lips, a fleeting, almost imperceptible twitch. The words, a chilling echo of my own lie from the armory, made my skin crawl. He knew. Of course he knew. He always knew. He just wanted to see if I’d admit it.

My gaze remained steady, locked onto his, betraying nothing. Not the tremor in my hands, hidden by my clenched fists, not the frantic thrumming of my heart against my ribs. 

"I’d been thinking about what you said, sir," I began, my voice calm, almost detached, as if discussing a recent weather pattern, a triviality in this world of blood and dust. "Apathy loses a war."

Isaac’s hand, reaching for a decanter on his desk, froze mid-air. He studied me for a long moment, his eyes narrowed, calculating, trying to peer into the depths of my intent. Then slowly, deliberately, he sat down, the heavy leather creaking under his weight. The chair groaned, a deep, resonant sound in the quiet room. He poured himself a generous measure of amber liquid, the scent of it, sharp and sweet, thick and cloying in the air, filling the oppressive silence.

Then, to my surprise, he reached for a second glass, filled it, and pushed it across the polished wood towards me. It was a gesture of perverse camaraderie, a twisted invitation to his inner circle. As if we were two commanders, sharing a casual drink after a successful campaign, not a condemned soldier facing down her executioner.

I met his gaze, my hand steady as I picked up the glass. Its cool surface was a small anchor in the maelstrom raging beneath my skin. I took a long, slow sip. The liquid burned, a welcome fire in my throat, a momentary distraction from the deeper, colder burn in my soul.

"See, that's where I think you’re wrong," I stated, my voice still quiet, almost conversational, yet with an edge of quiet conviction that I knew would catch him. It was a challenge, laid out like bait.

Isaac’s eyes widened, a flicker of startled surprise replaced almost immediately by something sickeningly akin to delight. 

This was his weakness. The intellectual sparring partner. The one who pushed back, who challenged, who dared to disagree. He appreciated it, craved it, even as he crushed all dissent, leaving a trail of broken wills in his wake.

The realization made my stomach churn, a bitter awareness blooming in my gut: that very obedience in Abby, that desperate willingness to follow orders, that desire to be his perfect soldier, was what he truly despised, even as he brutally enforced it.

He didn't want compliance; he wanted the illusion of it, the thrill of breaking another's spirit, the satisfaction of watching them twist themselves into knots to please him. And Abby, in her desire to be "useful," to be "in control," to find purpose in the ruins of her grief, had given him precisely what he wanted.

"Lieutenant Anderson," I continued, allowing a knowing glint into my eyes, meeting his gaze with a frankness that bordered on insolence, a calculated risk. "She’s not apathetic. Not at all. She just needs to be directed. Given purpose. A new purpose, perhaps."

My voice dropped, a low, intense murmur, designed to draw him in, to make him believe I was truly sharing a secret, a profound insight into his own dark craft. "Killing her would have been a waste. A waste of a good leader. A strong soldier."

I paused, letting my words sink in, watching his face for the slightest tremor, measuring his reaction. "You test the iron too frequently, too early, it shatters. But allow it to cool, to be reforged, and you have a weapon."

Isaac’s gaze sharpened, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow, his eyes never leaving mine. He took a long swallow of his drink, the ice clinking softly in the glass, the sound echoing unnaturally in the quiet room.

"Perhaps," he mused, his voice surprisingly soft, a low rumble that was almost a purr, a predatory sound that set my teeth on edge. "Perhaps you are correct. A regrettable loss, indeed. And Abigail... I’ve always pushed her hard. Even the sharpest blade can dull, if not handled with care. Or if it has too many... distractions."

He took another slow sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving mine. 

"So, Williams," he continued, a subtle shift in his tone, now more probing, "what do you propose to do about Lieutenant Anderson? How would you, in your unique assessment, 'reforge' her?"

I leaned back in my chair, the leather groaning softly in the oppressive silence. I took a deliberate sip of my drink, letting the burning liquid coat my throat, buying myself a precious second. This was it. My final card. If I played this wrong, it would mean both our deaths. I met his gaze, allowing a calculated glint of ambition to enter my eyes.

"She needs a handler, sir," I began, my voice low and confident. "Someone who understands her drives. Someone who can channel that... intensity. I propose you place her under my command." 

I watched him closely, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. "I’ll re-spark that drive. I’ll give her purpose. A new purpose, perhaps, that aligns with your own objectives."

Isaac studied me, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow, then a slow smile, cold and predatory, spread across his face. It was a look of pure satisfaction. He saw my ambition, my cunning, my willingness to seize control. He liked that. He liked it very much. He gave a sharp, decisive nod.

He leaned forward, clinking his glass against mine, a chilling parody of a toast, his eyes holding mine with a terrible, knowing glint.

"But understand this, Williams. As much as I appreciate an intellectual sparring partner, someone who sees the chessboard as clearly as I do, I have no need for a wild card. I need predictable pieces. My interest lies in a war won, not philosophical debates. If you disobey again, if you stray from my direct command, if you make another 'off-book' decision, I’ll have you killed. Do you understand? It won't be a test. It will be a consequence."

The threat was delivered with the casual air of a statement of fact, devoid of malice, which only made it more terrifying. It was the absolute authority of a force of nature, chilling in its simplicity. 

I met his gaze, my own unwavering, a steel trap snapping shut around my resolve. The cool glass felt like a small, smooth stone in my palm, my anchor in the storm. I took another casual sip of my drink, letting the burn spread through me, anchoring me further, searing away any lingering doubt.

"Understood, sir," I said, my tone as smooth and unburdened as if we were discussing the weather, as if this wasn’t a conversation for my life, and for Abby’s. The words were simple, but beneath them lay a silent, burning promise, a defiance he couldn't see.

"I’ll win you one."

A war. But not his war. My war. And the fight, I knew, had just truly begun.

Chapter Text

Abby

By the time I was released from the hospital, I feared I was already too late.

The infirmary had become a purgatory of sterile white and dull ache. A week, maybe two, had bled into a single, agonizing stretch of time where the days dissolved into the nights, marked only by Mel’s quiet competence and the constant, dull throb behind my eyes. The concussion, a brutal reminder of the island’s cold mud and the unforgiving boot that had found its mark, had clung to me like a parasitic twin.

It left me perpetually off-balance, my thoughts as sluggish as old oil, each attempt at clarity met with a fresh wave of nausea. The ring of rope-burns on my throat, a grotesque collar I couldn’t shed, had deepened from angry purple to a bruised, sickening green, then to a faded, jaundiced yellow. Each swallow brought a fresh torment, a phantom sensation of glass shards grinding against my throat. My voice, when it finally returned, was a raw, broken croak, alien to my own ears.

But the physical pain, the nagging discomfort that anchored me to the cot, was a lesser misery. The true torture was the silence. The suffocating absence of her . Ellie hadn’t returned. Hadn’t come to see me.

Owen had confirmed it. She’d been there, he’d said, in the raw, immediate aftermath, a desperate, feral thing refusing to leave my side, fighting Jordan even. But then Isaac had called. And she’d gone. Since then, she’d been a ghost, a whisper, a constant, unsettling ache in the hollow space she’d carved out in my mind. Her absence, sharper than any blade, almost made me crave the oblivion of the morphine, the dull, comforting haze of unconsciousness. Almost.

Owen, Manny, Jordan – they’d all come to visit, their faces etched with a weary concern that both soothed and suffocated me. Owen’s kind eyes, swimming with unasked questions, were a constant, soft accusation. Manny, stripped of his usual bluster, would just sit, polishing his rifle, his silence heavy with an unspoken anger he didn’t quite know where to aim. Jordan, boisterous and blunt, would talk, filling the quiet with stories of the outside world, of the WLF, of Ellie.

It was Jordan who had sketched out Ellie’s new reality, her words painting a stark picture of Isaac’s insidious influence. Ellie had been almost perennially busy, her newfound status with Isaac keeping her in nearly constant action. Isaac was working her, forging her, just as he had done to me. He was pushing her into high-value scavenging runs into zones that most squads wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. He was sending her to lead security details for supply convoys through heavily contested territories, using her as a blunt instrument of his will. He was even tasking her with covert infiltration missions into Scar strongholds, the kind that screamed 'suicide run' to anyone with half a brain.

"She’s like a goddamn phantom, Abs," Jordan had grumbled one afternoon, sprawled in the uncomfortable plastic chair beside my bed, meticulously cleaning her shotgun. "Isaac’s got her chasing ghosts, putting out fires he probably started himself."

I pictured it then: Ellie, in the labyrinthine wreckage of the old Boeing Field, her smaller frame an advantage in navigating the skeletal remains of the downed military transport. The air, thick with dust and the smell of ozone, of desiccated oil, of metallic tangs I didn’t want to name. Her movements, quick, precise, that feral efficiency I’d witnessed firsthand, now honed to a finer edge by Isaac’s relentless demands. She’d be a blur of motion in the half-light, her eyes, those too-green pools, constantly scanning, assessing, missing nothing. And Jordan, always at her side, laying down covering fire with a terrifying, almost joyful abandon.

Jordan had laughed then, a low, throaty sound that was still so capable of grating on my raw nerves. "She made me climb through a ventilation shaft that smelled like a dead bloater, Abs. Just because it was 'quicker.' Fucking maniac." She’d shaken her head, a smirk playing on her lips. "But she found it. A whole crate of advanced comms gear. Isaac nearly had an orgasm, I swear to God."

The thought of Ellie, crawling through some putrid ventilation shaft, her hair plastered with grime, then emerging triumphant, that sarcastic smirk on her face, sent a familiar, unwanted pang through my chest. That same twist of complicated jealousy I'd felt in the stadium mess hall. But now, it was deeper, sharper, complicated by a fresh, painful ache. A connection, forged in the storm and the horrifying revelation of our shared, twisted past. It was like watching a mirror image of myself, a younger, wilder version, being systematically broken and remade by the same hands that had molded me. And I was helpless to stop it.

My own driving question of five years, the singular, burning purpose that had consumed my very being, had been brutally, painfully answered. 

Joel, Ellie’s father, had killed my own. 

The cold, hard reality of that truth sat in my gut like a stone, a weight that eclipsed all other questions. The rest, the how and the why of their paths intersecting, I didn't even care to uncover. That truth alone was enough to break me, to leave me hollowed out, drained. The vengeance I had lived for, bled for, killed for, had been a misdirected fury. My fathers killer had been dead since the beginning.

Isaac had come to visit then, a few days before my release. His face, usually a mask of weary command, was paternal, almost forgiving. He sat by my bedside, a familiar charade, and the infirmary air, already thick with the scent of antiseptic, seemed to grow heavy with his carefully crafted sincerity.

He reminded me how important I was to him, how brave I’d been in the field, how essential my ruthlessness was to the WLF’s ongoing war against the Scars. His voice, a low, seductive purr, wove a narrative of my past obedience and my recent failure, designed to re-ignite my loyalty, to make me crave his approval again. He was carefully stoking the embers of my ambition, subtly shaming me for my perceived "softness" in the field, for my "distractions," while simultaneously praising my raw talent, my "fire."

He spoke of Ellie, of her own fierce, untamed spirit, how much she reminded him of me when I was younger, before he had, in his own twisted way, systematically broken me down and rebuilt me in my image. He spoke of Ellie’s unwavering loyalty, of her willingness to get her hands dirty, to make the hard choices. He wished I could find that fire again, he’d mused, that relentless, singular focus, the one I’d fed for the last five years, the one he’d so expertly stoked and, in the process, stomped out. 

It was a subtle, insidious manipulation, weaving praise with thinly veiled disappointment, a carefully constructed guilt trip designed to reinforce my dependence on him, on his approval, on the structure he imposed. Then, with a casualness that chilled me to the bone, he delivered the final blow: he was placing me, temporarily, under Ellie’s command. It was a test, I knew. Not of my obedience, but of my broken spirit. He was waiting to see if I’d push back, if I’d fight for the scraps of my former position in his brutal army.

This wasn’t the first time we’d had this exact conversation, not even the second. I’d played this particular game with Isaac a dozen times before. The script was rote, the lines familiar. I played my part, a hollow performance. Apologizing for my perceived failure, promising to do better, be better, to regain the edge I’d supposedly lost.

The first time I’d played it, years ago, after my first truly dirty task, it had felt real. The crushing weight of his judgment, the searing shame of my failure to meet his expectations, a desperate need for his validation. But now, it was just routine. A sterile, meaningless exchange. I was a puppet, and he pulled the strings. I could never truly get out from beneath his thumb, could never escape the cycle that I hated, yet paradoxically, still needed, even found myself clinging to.

It made me sick. It made me almost hate Ellie for seeing it, for seeing me so clearly stripped bare of the illusions I clung to. Ultimately, it made me hate myself.

Now, I was making my way toward the C-block barracks, my body still a little shaky, a residual tremor in my limbs, but my head finally clear of the morphine haze that had blurred the edges of my world for days. It was mid-afternoon, Wednesday, Mel had said when I’d asked. The stadium’s concrete corridors, usually thrumming with the restless energy of soldiers, were eerily quiet. I secretly hoped that the rest of my former squad were out on patrol or drills. I wasn’t ready for the continued questions, the lingering sad looks from Owen. The quiet, simmering anger in Manny’s eyes that spoke volumes about Isaacs most recent ‘test.’

When I entered my room, the Spartan cot and scarred metal desk were exactly as I’d left them, yet I couldn’t help but see it through Ellie’s eyes. The way it must have looked when she’d inevitably gone searching, a desperate ghost haunting my meager possessions, looking for a truth I hadn’t even known I’d possessed, let alone guarded. On my desk, Mel’s old photo was still there. The one from when I’d turned eighteen, finally started my training, my dad’s fine handwriting beneath. ‘Like father, like daughter.’

If only that were true.

I ran a hand over the photo, a phantom ache in my chest, a longing for a different path. If only I could be like my father, someone driven by idealistic hope, by a belief in a better world, a world worth saving for its inherent beauty, not just for the ground we could claw back from the dead. His concerns about my newfound militaristic control, his hope for my ability to "surrender"—words I'd once dismissed as naive weakness—now echoed in my mind with a bitter irony. They were a fresh pain, twisting a knife in the wound of his absence. I pushed the thoughts down, my heart, the fractured, shriveled thing, unable to continue the painful onslaught of memory.

Sitting on my bed, as if waiting for me, was the small cardboard box. The one that had once held the watch I’d found in Salt Lake. Joel’s watch, I now knew. A cold, hard fact that still felt impossible, a cruel joke played by a malicious universe.

Why had Ellie’s dad been in Salt Lake? The questions had been coalescing in my concussed mind for days, each one a stake pinning me beneath a painful truth. I remembered Marlene’s voice, all those years ago, ‘The new arrival… they’re here.’

Had it been Joel, Joel and Ellie who’d arrived? And if so, why? What purpose could Joel have had in a Firefly hospital? Was he a patient? A prisoner? A Firefly? The thought sent a jolt of cold dread through me.

Too many unanswerable questions, too many answers that offered no peace, only more wounds.

I was exhausted by it, by the relentless churn of my mind, by the weight of a truth that offered no solace, only deeper despair. My fingers skimmed over the other contents of the box, the ones beneath the small, folded piece of my dad’s lab coat I’d kept. Other old photos of my mom and dad, smiling, their faces soft and unburdened, before the world broke. A few state quarters, the really new shiny ones I’d kept before leaving Salt Lake, before the world turned to ash, before I found the WLF.

And a note from Owen, nearly six years old now, asking me to be his girlfriend, his hesitant, hopeful scrawl a ghost on the page. Pieces of a fractured past, of a girl I no longer recognized. I closed the box, a lid shutting on a tomb, returning it to haunt beneath my bed.

Shower. Then food. Then rest. Small, grounding structures in a life of chaos. A desperate attempt to impose order where there was none, a futile effort to reconstruct a semblance of control.

The CO locker room was blissfully, thankfully, empty. The silence was a balm to my frayed nerves. The water, scalding hot against my tight muscles, eased some of the physical pain, sluicing away the grime of the island, the dust of the infirmary, the lingering scent of failure. I used the last remaining bit of the special pine soap I hoarded when available, inhaling its clean, sharp scent. I loved the smell, the cleanliness of it in a world that so often smelled of blood, decay, and the metallic tang of fear. It was a fleeting moment of sanctuary, a fragile illusion of purity in a world irrevocably stained.

I was just starting to lose myself in the sensation, my mind finally, blissfully, starting to go blank, the constant noise quieting, when I heard the door of the locker room open. A low, instantly recognizable voice cut through the steam, pulling me violently back to the present. The walls I’d tried so desperately to rebuild, the brief peace I’d found, shattered.

“Abby?” Ellie called out, her voice closer now, just outside the shower stall. A familiar mix of dread and a new, unsettling warmth twisted in my gut.

Chapter Text

Ellie

Over the past two weeks, my life had settled into a routine. Not a comfortable one, but a routine nonetheless. 

Isaac was testing me, pushing me, each day a fresh horror. For the last fourteen days, my life blurred through high-risk tasks, a brutal and relentless new routine. Isaac had sent my unit on countless scavenging runs, security details, and covert infiltrations. And then, once I’d returned, relatively intact – though often bleeding, or covered in someone else’s blood – I’d check on Abby. Never in person, never physically.

I’d usually seek out Mel, finding her in the infirmary, hunched over her meticulous charts or sterilizing her precise tools. I'd ask the same questions, my voice carefully casual, almost bored: “How is she? Anything new?” And once I’d received an answer that wasn’t necessarily satisfying but at least eased my unwelcome anxiety, I’d do the whole thing all over again.

This afternoon, when I’d returned from a solo run – a high-stakes recon into the old downtown financial district, where recent seismic tremors had stirred up pockets of long-dormant infected – I found Mel in the infirmary. She was meticulously re-stocking her trauma kits, her brow furrowed in concentration. The air was thick with the sterile tang of antiseptic, a violent contrast to the salt, fear, and blood still clinging to my own clothes.

“Rough one?” Mel asked, her voice calm, professional, as she glanced up, her eyes flicking over the fresh mud on my boots, the tear in my sleeve.

“Yeah,” I grunted, shrugging off my pack, letting it thud to the clean floor. “Ran into a pack of Stalkers on the way back. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Mel just nodded, her gaze returning to her neatly organized rows of bandages and syringes. “Glad to hear it. Isaac’s been pushing you hard.” Her tone held a quiet understanding, a thread of something beyond simple professional assessment.

I just hummed noncommittally. My gaze drifted to the row of empty cots. Abby’s cot had been the first on the left, near the large, reinforced window. It was empty now. Neatly made.

A fresh wave of unease prickled at the back of my neck. “She, uh… she still in here?” My voice was tighter than I intended.

Mel paused, her fingers stilling over a box of pain meds. She looked at me then, her eyes soft, tired. A flicker of something passed through them – pity? Recognition?

“Abby was released this morning,” Mel said, her voice gentle, almost a whisper. “An hour or so ago. She’s fine. Mostly. Concussion’s cleared. Throat’s healing. She should be back in C-block.”

Back in C-block. The words landed with a dull thud. My cot, where the silence amplified the screaming chaos in my head. Her room, where I’d found Joel’s watch. Where our two lives, two separate, brutal realities, had irrevocably collided.

I knew it. I knew I should've left the WLF already. The same damn questions had been burning a path through my mind: What now?

Should I leave? Flee the WLF with this newfound, horrific burden, currently weighing heavy in my jacket pocket—another line on a map that ultimately led nowhere? The identity of the 'who' in this tangled mess, was still an open wound. The 'why' behind it all was even more vague. And ultimately, something inside me had fractured, that cold, hard purpose that had led me here, to Abby, to the WLF.

It had shattered beneath the truth that so often accompanied death: it was senseless. 

There was no clean answer to be found in a world that offered none. And worse, I wasn't even sure if I wanted, if I could handle, any more truths.

This circular thought always, inevitably, led back to Abby. The source of the pain, the only means of ending it.

Should I stay, push for more information? Or leave, ultimately damning her to Isaac’s manipulations which I now knew with a cold, hard certainty would eventually lead to her death? I felt trapped, unable to leave, unable to stay. And so I'd completed Isaac’s tasks, checked in with Mel, all with the desperate hope that upon waking, Abby would somehow give me an answer.

I left the infirmary, the silence of the corridors closing in around me. My mind was a maelstrom, each thought a fresh onslaught: The island, the rain, the mud, the horrifying tableau of Abby hanging from that tree. My own frantic, desperate scramble. The cold steel of the knife. The moment I’d seen her face, the dawning, terrifying recognition in her eyes. The truth. Her truth. Joel. 

I needed to see her. Needed to see if the woman from the island, the one I couldn't leave behind, was the same one who had nearly shattered my world in that skybox. Or if she was just… Abby.

My boots echoed on the concrete, carrying me almost instinctively towards the CO locker room. It was private. Quiet. A place she’d seek out to rebuild the walls she’d built so carefully. A place where I'd previously caught a glimpse of a different Abby, one less guarded, more vulnerable. I found the door, the heavy steel cool beneath my trembling hand.

I heard the shower running in one of the stalls, a steady, rhythmic hiss of water. Relief, hot and sudden, washed over me, so potent it almost buckled my knees. I’d guessed correctly.

“Abby?” My voice, thick and muffled through the steam, was like a cry lost in a dream.

I could almost imagine the intake of breath from behind the shower curtain. In my mind’s eye, I saw the clean, hard lines of her body. The subtle ripple of muscle beneath wet skin. The faint, silvery tracks of old scars that mapped a lifetime of violence. Both irrelevant, and utterly consuming. Before she could respond, I entered the stall next to hers, separated by a tall wall. My clothes were stiff with dried mud and splatters of blood from the patrol earlier that day. The grime and the stench of the outside world clung to me like a second skin.

From the stall next to mine, Abby said nothing. Her silence as damning as any words she could have said. How did we work through this? What was left to say? Hey, I’m sorry my dad most likely—no, definitely—killed your dad.

And the more painful thought: How does anyone work through this, Abby? Can you ever look at me without seeing him? 

And so we were silent, letting the water run, a symphony of white noise in the small, steamy space. The distance between us was more than a wall and a few feet; it was a chasm forged by violence, by truth, by the ghosts that now bound us. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to breach that barrier. Wasn’t sure if I could face her, not after everything.

But I’d been drawn here, the same way I’d been drawn to her side upon arrival, her broken words on the island a brand on my skin, ‘stay with me. ’ I was just about to say something, anything to break the unbearable silence when she spoke.

“Ellie.” My name sounded broken, her voice, still injured, low and rough over the sound of the running water. She cleared her throat, a soft, wet cough. “Do you need soap?”

My mind went blank. What?  

Of all the questions to ask, after all this, that was what she chose? It was so mundane, so utterly, profoundly out of place, it almost made me laugh. Or scream.

“Uhm, yeah, actually I do,” I said, realizing, stupidly, that there was no soap in my stall. I heard the curtain move, a soft rustle, then her hand appeared just outside the gap of my own stall. It was a familiar hand, burned into my memory from countless hours of combat, from shared, illicit intimacy.

The knuckles were calloused, scarred, crisscrossed with a roadmap of old battles. Her nails were brutally short, practical, but her fingers were long, surprisingly slender at the tips, capable of both brutal force and unexpected tenderness. I reached out, my fingers brushing hers, slick and warm from the soap, from the water, and even then, even with the past hanging over us like a goddamn storm, I felt the heat rising, low in my stomach. I heard her quick intake of breath as I took it from her, and I drew back to my own shower's stream. The soap smelled like pine, clean and sharp, and I realized, suddenly, it smelled like her. Like Abby.

I lathered it between my hands, the warm, fragrant suds a strange comfort. I started to rub down my body, scrubbing at the grime, the blood, the lingering stench of fear. My heart beat a little faster from the exchange, the memory of her submission in the skybox warring with the violence and pain of the last few days, a sick cocktail of desire, shame, and anger.

“It smells like you,” I said, the words out before I could stop them.

A pause. A beat of silence, broken only by the hiss of water and the distant echo of stadium sounds. “Yeah,” her voice, a low murmur, “it’s my favorite.”

I suddenly, insanely, wanted to break down the wall, physical and metaphorical, and go to her. To reach out and pull her to me, to feel the warmth of her skin, the solid press of her body, to drown out the screaming in my head with the undeniable reality of her presence.

I wanted to flee. To run as far and as fast as I could, to outrun the ghosts, the truth, the terrifying, overwhelming complexity of her. The same questions bubbled up again in my mind, choking me.

The water in Abby’s stall shut off, the sudden silence deafening. Then, the soft rustle of the shower curtain. I had a sick, nervous thought – would she come into my stall? Find me under the water? Would she reach out, her strong hands finding me, pulling me close, or pushing me against the wall?

Then the sound of her receding footsteps, followed by a weird hollow feeling inside me, like I’d lost something I hadn’t even known I’d wanted. I finished up, turned off the shower, wrapped myself in my towel and took a deep breath.

Outside, in the locker room, Abby was seated on a bench, her towel wrapped around her body, the white fabric a stark contrast to the yellow bruises still blooming on her throat. She was squeezing the water out of her hair, her movements slow, methodical. She was facing away from me, and I could see the muscles in her bare back constrict as she wrung out the last drops, letting her blonde hair fall like a heavy, dark curtain behind her shoulders. She turned then, at the sound of my footsteps.

Her eyes, those stormy blue-grey pools, were wide, tired, and held a terrible, quiet understanding. The faint spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks stood out against skin that was still a little pale, still bruised. Her mouth, those full, usually set lips, were slightly parted, a lingering trace of exhaustion and pain etched around them. That hard-won control, usually an impenetrable mask, was utterly shattered, replaced by an open, vulnerable sadness that mirrored my own.

“Heard Isaac’s been pushing you hard,” Abby said, her voice quiet, still recovering from the ordeal on the island. She started brushing out her hair with a comb from her locker, her movements surprisingly gentle, almost domestic, as if they were just two women sharing a casual moment after patrol.

“That’s an understatement,” I replied, sitting next to her. Not too close, but close enough that I could feel the lingering heat of her skin, smell the pine soap, a scent that was becoming inextricably linked to her. I set the soap down next to her, careful to not let our hands touch again. 

“Thanks,” I said. A meaningless, trivial phrase. It didn’t cover a fraction of what I needed to say, what I wanted to know.

Abby reached out, touched my hand where it lingered on the bench between us, her fingers on my wrist were warm, heavy, her touch sending a jolt through me that had nothing to do with pain. She met my gaze and my breath caught, my heart ratcheting in my chest.

“Ellie, we need to talk,” she said, her voice low, a raw thread of sound, holding my wrist, holding my gaze.

Yeah, we need to fucking talk.  

But the thoughts in my head, the ones that had been burning circles in my mind – Joel, her father, Salt Lake, the watch, the lies, the betrayal, the intimacy, the sickening truth – they felt distant, fuzzy. The physical reality of Abby, the sheer complicated force of her presence, her touch, her shattered vulnerability, was enough to silence them.

I think I nodded. Then a louder sound from the entrance of the locker room: Jordan’s voice, loud, cutting through the moment, shattering the fragile tension between us.

“Yo, Ellie, you in here?”

I stood, pulling my hand from Abby’s grasp as if burned, the warmth of her fingers lingering on my wrist like a brand. “Yeah,” I called out. “Just gimme a second.”

“No rush, no rush.” Jordan replied, her voice echoing from the corridor. “Burritos for lunch today, if you don’t hurry the fuck up you’ll miss it.” The door swung shut again, once again leaving Abby and me alone.

I looked down at Abby. Her wet hair had fallen over her shoulders, like thick, wet, golden ropes. She was looking at the floor, her gaze distant, but not closed off. Not like I’d expected it to be. The mask hadn’t returned. Not fully.

“Tonight,” I said. An answer to a question she hadn’t asked. “I’ll find you tonight… and then… we’ll talk.” I wasn’t sure what I’d say, what I wanted to know. What could be said, really? But I had to try.

She looked up then, her grey-blue eyes searching mine, for what, I didn’t know. Understanding? Forgiveness? Condemnation?

“Tonight,” she repeated back.

It sounded like an ending. Or just maybe, a beginning. 

Chapter Text

Abby

My room was a cage.

Two steps, turn. Two steps, turn. The concrete floor was a gritty, unforgiving track, and I was wearing a path into it, a restless animal pacing the confines of its own making. The door wasn’t locked. I could have left anytime. Could have sought the familiar, mind-numbing oblivion of the gym, the noisy distraction of the mess hall, the simple, uncomplicated emptiness of the stadium’s upper decks.

But I stayed. I waited. I hoped.

Ellie’s words from the locker room were a brand on my mind, a constant, echoing loop against the frantic thrum of my own pulse. Tonight.

It had echoed with the finality of a closed door. A definitive punctuation to the storm that had raged between us since the moment she’d walked into my life. But it had also sounded like a promise. And that promise was a hook in my gut, pulling me, keeping me here in this small, stark room, a prisoner of my own desperate, terrifying anticipation.

The sun had sunk hours ago, swallowed by the perpetual grey gloom of the Seattle skyline. The emergency lamps in the corridor outside cast a weak, flickering, artificial twilight through the small, high window of my door, painting the spartan contents of my room in shifting, unreliable shades of light and shadow. My cot, a thin mattress on a metal frame. My desk, a scarred sheet of steel, piled high with the grim, endless paperwork of a war that had no end in sight. And on the wall, the cracked, silver-streaked mirror that reflected a version of myself I no longer recognized.

I’d tried to read. Had picked up the book I’d taken from the apartment, the one that had belonged to Anya or Clara, a ghost of a life lived and loved and lost. The Price of Salt. I’d managed a few pages, my eyes scanning the words, but my mind refused to absorb them. They were just ink on a page, meaningless shapes against the roaring chaos in my own head. Then, a line had snagged me, had pulled me under, its meaning too sharp, too close to the bone.

“Perhaps it was freedom, to be out of the protection of his rock-like, immutable love.”

I’d slammed the book shut, the sound a sharp, jarring crack in the quiet room. My father’s love. It had been a fortress, a shield against the horrors of the world. And after he was gone, my quest for vengeance, my grief for him, had become its own kind of fortress. A prison I had built around myself, brick by painful, bloody brick. It had protected me. It had defined me. But freedom? I didn’t know what that word even meant anymore.

And now, there was Ellie.

The truth of our shared, twisted history was a violent, chaotic earthquake in my soul. For five years, there had been only a single, unyielding landmass of my grief, my rage, my righteous quest. Now, Ellie, her desire, the terrifying, undeniable connection between us—had slammed into it, and the friction was tearing my world apart, leaving nothing but fault lines and rubble. How did you build a life on such fractured ground? How did you reconcile the two halves of a truth that should not, could not, coexist?

The man who killed my father was her father. The monster I had hunted for years was the ghost that haunted her nightmares.

A sharp, sudden knock on the door shattered the oppressive silence, shattered the spiraling chaos of my thoughts.

My heart lurched, a sudden, painful, hopeful thing. I was across the room in a single stride, my hand on the cold metal handle, my breath catching in my throat. I pulled the door open, my whole body thrumming with a nervous, electric energy.

It was Jordan.

The disappointment was a physical blow, so sharp and unexpected it almost made me stumble. She stood there, a half-empty bottle of WLF moonshine clutched in one hand, a wide, easy grin on her scarred face. Her dark eyes, sharp and perceptive, slid over me, a slow, appreciative assessment that made me blush with a sudden, horrifying self-consciousness.

I looked down at myself. The thin, worn tank top. The soft, faded sleep shorts that ended high on my thighs. It was the most revealing clothing I owned, a pathetic, almost laughable, admission in a world where armor was the only fashion that mattered. I had put them on hours ago, after my shower, not for sleep, but in a subconscious, desperate hope that Ellie would come. That she would see me out of uniform, stripped of my rank, of my armor. As just… Abby. And now Jordan was seeing it, and the look in her eyes, that familiar gleam, made my cheeks burn with a hot, mortifying flush. I cleared my throat, tugging reflexively at the hem of my shorts, a useless, pathetic gesture.

“What’s up?” I managed, my voice rougher, harsher than I’d intended.

Jordan’s smirk widened. “Whoa there, Lieutenant. Didn’t know you owned anything that wasn’t standard-issue grey.” She took a swig from her bottle, her gaze still lingering on my legs, on the bare skin of my arms. “A few of us are celebrating not being dead. Someone, uh, mysteriously left a fresh stash of booze in our block. Ellie mentioned you were out of the infirmary. Figured you might want in on the victory party.”

The casual mention of Ellie’s name sent another jolt through me, a fresh wave of confusion.

“Thanks, Jordan,” I said, the words stiff, formal. “But I’m exhausted. Think I’m just gonna crash.” It wasn’t a lie. The emotional toll of the day, of the truth, of the waiting, had left me feeling boneless, hollowed out. But the disappointment was a heavy, bitter pill in my throat.

“Suit yourself,” Jordan said with a shrug, her easy grin returning. “Feel better, Abs.” She gave a casual wave and disappeared down the corridor, her heavy boots echoing on the concrete, leaving me alone in the doorway, the hope draining out of me, leaving a cold, empty ache in its place.

After closing the door, I leaned my forehead against the cool, hard metal and flicked off the single lamp. Near-darkness enveloped the room, pierced only by a sliver of grey, bruised light from the high, grimy window. Every muscle aching, I got into the bed, the thin mattress offering no comfort. My gaze settled on the ceiling, a cracked, water-stained expanse of concrete I knew by heart as my mind became a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. Sleep felt like a distant country, a place I couldn’t find on any map.

Just as I began to surrender to the swirling chaos of my own thoughts, to the ghost of Ellie’s touch and the memory of her body above mine, the sound came.

A soft, almost imperceptible, creak.

My door.

My body went rigid, every muscle tensing. My hand, moving on pure, ingrained instinct, was already under my pillow, my fingers closing around the cold, familiar hilt of my combat knife. I sat up in one fluid, silent motion, my back pressed against the cold concrete wall, my eyes fixed on the doorway, my heart hammering a frantic, wild rhythm against my ribs.

A silhouette was framed in the opening, backlit by the dim, flickering light of the corridor. It was a small, wiry frame, but it filled the entire space, radiating a nervous, coiled energy. Lean muscle in the arms, the sharp, almost delicate line of a shoulder. The chaotic, beautiful mess of short auburn hair.

Ellie.

My breath caught in my throat, a choked, soundless thing. The knife in my hand felt suddenly heavy, alien, obscene. I let it fall back onto the mattress with a soft, muffled thud.

“You came,” I managed, my voice a choked, raw whisper, shredded by a relief so profound it felt like a physical blow.

“I said I would,” Ellie replied. Her voice was quiet, a low murmur that sent a shiver of pure, unadulterated want down my spine. She closed the door softly behind her, enveloping us in near-total darkness, a shared, intimate space that felt both terrifying and sacred.

I started to get out of bed, fumbling for the light switch, needing to break the spell, to return to the world of sight, of reason, of control. But in the dark, my movements were clumsy, disoriented. I collided with her body, a sudden, shocking impact. She was warm, solid, real. Her hands came up to steady herself against me, one on my hip, the other on my shoulder, her touch a brand on my skin, searing through the thin fabric of my tank top, igniting a fire I had no hope, no desire, to extinguish.

The darkness made it easier. It stripped away the ranks, the uniforms, the history, the crushing weight of our shared, fucked-up past, leaving only this: a raw, terrifying want. My desire, a live wire I’d been trying to suppress, trying to control, it sparked at her touch, a blinding, and utterly devastating current.

“Whoa, steady,” Ellie said, her voice a low, husky sound against my ear. “I got it.”

Her hands were gone, but the ghost of their heat remained, a tingling, burning sensation on my skin. I reached out into the dark, a desperate, instinctual movement, my hand finding her shoulder, the lean, hard muscle beneath my palm.

“Wait,” I whispered.

Words failed me. What could I possibly say that could bridge the chasm between us, a canyon carved from the bones of our shared, violent history? There was no rationalizing the past, no combination of words that could possibly contain the violent, jagged truth of what we were to each other. So I chose a different language, the only one that made sense when everything else was noise and chaos.

My hands found her other shoulder. I guided her back towards the cot, my own body moving on instinct, on a need so profound it had overridden every ounce of my training, every carefully constructed defense mechanism. If I couldn't find the words, maybe my body could speak for me. I felt her breath hitch, a small, sharp sound in the darkness.

She didn’t resist. She leaned into me, her arms wrapping around my neck, her face burying into the curve of my shoulder, a silent, absolute surrender. I held her, my own arms wrapping around her small, surprisingly solid waist, pulling her flush against my body, a perfect, impossible fit. She felt… right. Terrifyingly, undeniably, right. Her hand came up, her fingers tangling in my loose hair, a soft, exploratory touch that made my whole body tremble with a pleasure so intense it was almost painful.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words a broken sound against her hair. “I’m so sorry, Ellie.”

I was sorry for everything. For the pain, the lies, the watch, for this impossible, terrifying thing between us. For the war I had waged against her, and against myself.

I felt her body shaking against mine, a fine, almost imperceptible, tremor. My hands slid lower, over the curve of her hips, my thumbs brushing against the waistband of her jeans. I felt her shift, her hips pressing forward slightly, a silent, answering pressure. A small gasp of breath escaped her lips, a sound of pure, unadulterated want. It stoked the fire low in my body, a raging, uncontrollable inferno.

Her hands were at the back of my neck now, her gaze searching mine in the dim, almost non-existent, light.

“Is this okay?” she asked, her breath warm against my cheek, her voice a quiet question, a final offer of an out I no longer wanted, no longer needed.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice a low, rough growl, the sound ripped from somewhere deep inside me.

I slipped my hands under the hem of her shirt, my fingers finding the warm, soft skin of her back. Heard her low moan, a sound of pure pleasure, a sound that was a mirror image of the one that was building in my own throat.

“Just kiss me,” she demanded, her voice a raw, desperate plea, a command I was more than willing, more than ready, to obey.

I did.

It started gently, a soft press of lips, exploring, questioning. The warmth of her mouth, the surprising softness of it, the way her body seemed to melt against mine. Then the desire, a flash flood, a tidal wave, overwhelmed me. The kiss deepened, became hungry, desperate, a fusion of two broken, wanting souls.

Ellie pushed me back onto the cot, her weight a welcome, grounding force, her body a perfect, almost painful, fit against mine. I pulled her down on top of me, my legs instinctively parting as she ground into me, the friction of our clothes a delicious, almost unbearable, torture. A sharp moan escaped me, and I tried to bite it back, my body going rigid with the sudden, panicked memory of where we were—the other soldiers just outside my door, their presence a world away a moment ago, now terrifyingly close. I turned my head, trying to bury the sound of my own unraveling in the thin mattress.

Ellie felt me tense, my panicked attempt at silence. “No,” she growled, her voice a low, rough command against my mouth that was also a form of permission. “Let me hear you.” Her hips pressed harder between my legs, a steady, driving rhythm that dared me to disobey.

“But the squad…” I gasped, the words a weak, pathetic protest against the rising tide of my own desire. Ellie’s hands pushed beneath the hem of my tank top, her fingers finding my breasts, squeezing them, pushing them together, her touch sending a fresh jolt of pleasure through my body.

“What do you think took me so long?” she said, her voice a low, dangerous purr against my ear. “Someone needed to get them out of here.”

The realization hit me then, a dizzying, exhilarating shock. The booze. Jordan’s invitation. It was all her. A plan. A seduction. A game she had been playing, a game I hadn’t even realized I was a part of, a game I was now, apparently, more than willing to lose.

I moaned again, a high, whiny sound of helpless pleasure, a sound that would have once mortified me, but with Ellie, it was just… honest.

“God, I want to fuck you so badly,” she growled, her hands relentless on my breasts, pinching, teasing my nipples until they were raw, aching, hypersensitive. Her hips were still pressed firmly between mine, a steady, driving rhythm that was pushing me closer and closer to the edge. I had a fleeting, insane thought, a flash of pure, unadulterated fantasy: I wished she could fuck me like a man, could be inside me that way, the force of her hips driving into me, claiming me, erasing everything else.

“I need you to,” I gasped out, the words a raw, broken plea.

The thought was a revelation, a release. I wanted the submission. The oblivion. I wanted her. All of her.

I took one of her hands from my breast, my fingers trembling as I brought it to my mouth. I looked up at her, at the dark, powerful silhouette of her leaning over me, her face a mask of raw, undisguised desire. I took one of her fingers into my mouth, my tongue lapping at the skin, a silent, desperate act of worship, of surrender.

My mind, a traitor to any sense of reason, conjured the image—her, but different. Her body, lean and hard, but with her filling the space between my legs, pressing against me, taking me. I wanted her to pin my wrists above my head, to own me, to fuck me with a force that would erase my own name from my mind. The image of her, pushing into me, stretching me, claiming every inch of me, made my own body arch off the bed, a desperate, silent plea for more.

“Fuck,” Ellie gasped, a choked, ragged sound. She pulled her hand away and kissed me passionately, climbing fully onto the bed, pressing between my spread legs, grinding our bodies together in a desperate, frantic rhythm that was both a punishment and a prayer. I gasped, my hands clawing at her back, my fingers digging into the lean, hard muscle there.

I pulled off her shirt, my eyes devouring the lean, scarred landscape of her body in the dim, almost non-existent, light, the dark ink of her tattoos a stark, beautiful contrast against her pale skin. Her hands were on my shirt then, my back arching as she pulled it over my head. The world narrowed to the point of contact: the searing, skin-on-skin press of our chests.

Her body was so soft, her breasts a welcome weight settling against mine. Then I felt it—a conscious shift, an almost imperceptible angling of her torso. She purposefully brushed her hardened nipples against mine, a slow, deliberate tease. The targeted friction was a delicious, maddening torture that made my toes curl.

“Abby,” she panted, her voice a raw, broken sound against my lips, her hips still moving, a relentless, driving rhythm against my own. “I just need to fuck you with a strap.”

My mind, already a chaotic mess of desire and sensation and a dawning, terrifying emotion, came to a full, screeching halt.

“A what?”

Chapter Text

Ellie

Abby’s question, a soft, confused whisper in the dark, hung in the air between us. "A what?"

Her innocence was a bucket of ice water, a sudden, shocking splash of reality in the middle of the firestorm we’d ignited. I was pressed between her legs, my body a live wire, still thrumming with the aftershocks of watching her come apart at my command. Her breath was coming in short, sharp pants, her cheeks and breasts flushed a soft red in the dim, flickering light from the high, grimy window. My own clit was a second, frantic heartbeat against the rough denim of my jeans.

I’d almost come just watching her suck on my fingers. The image was seared into the back of my mind: her huge, desperate eyes looking up at me, coy and a little pleading, lashes fluttering closed against her freckled cheeks, her full lips slick with her own saliva as she’d hollowed out her cheeks and sucked.

Fuck.

The raw submission in that single act had put the thought in my head instantly. The strap-on. The one I’d found tucked away in a bedside drawer in Anya and Clara’s apartment. I’d known, the second I saw that rainbow tapestry, the love notes, that those two knew how to live, how to love, and probably how to fuck. I’d been right. It was a beautiful piece of pre-outbreak engineering, a testament to a time when people had the luxury of prioritizing pleasure.

Now, beneath me, Abby looked like a startled deer, her eyes wide, her body tense. A part of me, the part that was still buzzing with an unfamiliar tenderness, knew I should slow down. That I should be gentle. But the other part, the part that was high on the sheer, intoxicating power of her surrender, just wanted to push harder. To see how far she would let me go. To see her break.

I ground my hips down between her legs, a slow, deliberate movement, letting her feel the damp heat of my own arousal through my jeans.

“A strap-on,” I repeated, my voice a low, teasing purr, grinding into her again as if to make my point.

Abby let out a little, surprised “oh,” and squirmed a bit beneath me, a sudden, almost shy, nervousness in her movements. And fuck, if that didn’t do something to me. That flicker of vulnerability in the walking, talking fortress that was Abby Anderson… it was like a drug.

“You know what that is?” I asked, leaning closer, my voice dropping to a whisper against her ear, my hands returning to rub at her already overstimulated nipples. The peaks were hard, pebbled, against my palms.

Abby gasped as I rolled one of her nipples between my thumb and forefinger, a little too hard, a little too rough.

“I…” she started, her voice a strangled, breathless sound.

“What was that?” I asked again, my voice a low command, my hips thrusting down against hers, a silent, punctuating emphasis. “Come on, tell me.”

I felt her tremble beneath me, a full-body shudder. She bit her lip, her stormy, blue-grey eyes wide with a mixture of embarrassment and a dawning, hungry curiosity.

“Yeah,” she gasped out, blushing furiously, a wave of heat so intense I could feel it radiating from her skin. “I know what it is.”

Her face was a battlefield. The shame, the desire, the hunger.

She wanted it. She wanted it as badly as I did.

I smirked, a slow, satisfied smile spreading across my face. I leaned down and kissed her, a quick, hard, possessive kiss, before getting off the bed.

Okay, so I’d brought my pack with me. And I’d made sure the rest of C-block was otherwise occupied, thanks to a few strategically “discovered” bottles of WLF’s finest moonshine. If there was one thing I was good at, it was getting what I wanted, even if it required some… planning.

I’d been thinking all day about what I would even say to her. After I’d said tonight . After I’d promised I would come. What combination of words could possibly hold the weight of everything between us? The rage, the grief, the violence, this new, terrifying, undeniable want. There were no words. But there was this. A different kind of conversation. A connection I could make, a way to let my body speak for me when words would only ever fail.

I could feel Abby watching me from the bed as I rummaged through my pack. She’d sat up, her long blonde hair, a chaotic, beautiful mess, hanging in front of her shoulders, partially obscuring her breasts. The sight of her waiting for me was a fresh jolt of pure, unadulterated lust.

I pulled it out. The harness was black leather, thick and heavy, the silver O-ring gleaming dully in the dim light. The dildo itself had made even me blush when I’d first pulled it from Anya and Clara’s bedside table. It was long, thick, with a flared head and a pronounced texture. And it was purple. A deep, royal, almost obscene, shade of purple. It seemed like just the thing Abby would enjoy.

I held it up, watching as Abby’s gaze locked onto it, her mouth opening a little, her cheeks flushing an even deeper shade of red. I saw her press her thighs together, a subtle, almost involuntary, clenching, as if to relieve some of her own aching pressure.

“What do you think?” I asked, standing up and coming closer, the harness making a low, heavy clinking sound as I let her take a closer look.

Abby reached out, her hand hesitant at first, then more confident as her fingers wrapped around the base of the dildo, feeling its heft, its weight.

“I…” she started, then, “Oh…” as her thumb brushed against the flared head. She looked up at me, her eyes wide, almost innocent, but with a playful, almost knowing, glint underneath. “I don’t know if it’ll fit.”

The words, the look on her face, the sheer, unadulterated want in her eyes, it sent a surge of arousal through me so intense it almost made me gasp. The thought of how tight she must be, of pushing inside her, of stretching her, of claiming her… fuck .

“We don’t have to,” I forced myself to say, the words a test, an out, a final chance for her to retreat back into the cold, familiar prison of her own control.

But Abby surprised me. A small, slow smile spread across her lips, a look of pure, unadulterated mischief. She lay back on the bed, her eyes locked on mine, and then she slowly, deliberately, started to pull off her shorts. She pushed them down her long, ridiculously muscled legs, over her ankles, before letting them drop to the floor. Then she opened her legs, a clear, undeniable invitation.

“Only one way to find out,” she said, her voice a low, husky challenge.

I moved to the foot of the bed, never breaking eye contact as I began to undress for her. First my jeans; I hooked my thumbs into the waistband and pushed them down, slowly, watching her eyes track the movement, the way her pupils dilated when the denim slid past my hips. I kicked them off. Then my underwear; for a beat, I let her look before peeling those off too, tossing them onto the growing pile of our clothes on the floor.

I stood before her naked for a moment, then strapped the harness on like a soldier arming for a different kind of war, the leather tight and biting against my bare hips, a welcome friction that focused the chaos of my desire. The process was familiar, a ritual, but under Abby’s watchful, hungry gaze, it felt new. Charged. I stood before the bed, fully naked save for the harness, letting her watch me, letting her see the weapon I was about to wield.

Abby was supine on the bed, one hand sliding lazily between her legs, her gaze fixed on me, on the thick, purple cock now strapped to my hips.

“Let me get warmed up,” she said, her voice a low, husky murmur. She arched into her own hand, spreading her thighs a little wider. It was a performance, a deliberate, slow seduction, and I was completely, utterly, captivated.

Watching Abby touch herself was an exquisite torture, just as it was an insane pleasure. I reached down between my own legs, using my own wetness to slick the dildo, and started pumping it in my own hand, a slow, steady rhythm, my eyes locked with hers. Abby moaned at the sight, her own fingers moving lower, spreading herself open. I could see the slick, glistening heat of her arousal, could see her pushing one finger, then two, inside herself. The angle was perfect. I saw everything. The way her body clenched around her fingers, the way her hips bucked, a way her face crumpled with pleasure.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I moved to the bed, pushing between her legs, leaning over her, kissing her passionately, our tongues hot and insistent, a sloppy, desperate kiss.

I broke the kiss, my mouth trailing down her jaw, over her throat, leaving a trail of wet heat across her collarbones. Her whole body was trembling, a bowstring pulled taut. I moved lower, my hands pinning her thighs, pushing them wider apart. I wanted to taste her. I wanted to map every inch of her with my tongue. I buried my face between her legs. The scent of her—musky, sweet, overwhelmingly female—filled my head, a potent intoxicant.

She was already so wet for me. I licked at her, a slow, deliberate sweep of my tongue, and was rewarded with her sharp gasp. Her hips jerked, a desperate, involuntary movement. I gathered spit in my mouth and let it fall, a thick, deliberate drop right over her clit. Her eyes shot open, wide with shock and something else… humiliation? Arousal? Both.

I watched the saliva trail down, mixing with her own wetness, before I lowered my head again, lapping it all up. I was merciless. I used my tongue, my lips, teasing her sensitive clit until she was writhing beneath me, her pleas dissolving into incoherent moans. Her fingers were fisted in the thin mattress, her back arched off the bed. I felt the tell-tale clench of her muscles, the way her whole body tightened. She was close. So close.

"Please," she begged, the word a ragged, broken thing. "Ellie, please, I'm gonna…"

I pulled back. The air filled with the sound of her ragged, frustrated pants. Her body was still trembling, caught in the aftershock of a pleasure denied. She looked wrecked. Beautifully, utterly wrecked.

"Please," she tried again, her voice thick. "Just... fuck me. Please, I need you inside me."

I just smiled, a slow, cruel curve of my lips. “I think you’re plenty warmed up now.” I pushed myself up, crawling back up her body until I was kneeling between her thighs again, the pressure at my hips a stark promise. I looked down at her, at the raw hunger in her eyes.

“Still want me to fuck you like this?” I asked, my voice a low, rough growl, as I lined the head of the dildo up with her entrance. My hips ached to push forward, to fill her, to take her.

“Yes,” Abby gasped, her hands tangling in my hair, pulling my mouth harder against hers. “Fucking give it to me.”

And I did.

I pushed inside her, slowly at first, letting her feel every inch. Abby moaned, a loud, unrestrained sound as her body stretched around the thick, purple cock. She was so tight, so hot. I moved gently at first, a soft back-and-forth rhythm, but even that was pushing me close to my own edge. The pressure of the harness against my clit, the feel of Abby’s body beneath mine, her muscles clenching around the dildo with every small thrust… it was almost too much.

“Harder,” Abby gasped, reaching back, her hands grabbing my ass, pulling me in. “I can take it.”

“Yeah? Can you?”

I increased the tempo, the depth, pushed all the way to the hilt, feeling a slight resistance from her body as she took all of me. She gasped, her eyebrows drawing together as she squeezed her eyes shut.

“That okay?” I asked, my voice a mix of concern and command as I started to fuck into her, a steady, driving rhythm. “I know you can take it for me.”

She just nodded, a series of short, sharp movements, her hands tangling in my hair, pulling me down to kiss her again, her mouth hot and wet and desperate against mine.

“That’s my good girl,” I gasped out against her lips, and I was rewarded as her hips bucked beneath me, a clear, undeniable surge of pleasure.

Looking down at her was like staring into the heart of a storm. Her face, flushed and beaded with sweat, was a portrait of raw, unguarded need. Her blue-grey eyes were wide, hazy, fixed on mine. The dim light caught the moisture on her skin, making the freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks stand out like tiny, forgotten constellations. Her powerful legs, corded with muscle even in surrender, were locked around my hips, her heels digging into the backs of my thighs, pulling me deeper with every thrust. 

Fucking her like this was an act of pure, brutal worship. Her body was a landscape I wanted to ruin. I braced my hands on either side of her head, feeling the wild energy radiating off of her, and drove into her harder, faster. She met every push with a desperate, upward thrust of her own. 

This wasn't just about my power anymore; it was about the collision of ours. 

I wanted to see her break, I wanted her to break me. The sight of her, so strong, so completely undone beneath me, was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. But it wasn't enough. I wanted to see it all.

“I want you straddling me,” I demanded, my voice a low, rough whisper against her ear. “I want to watch you fuck yourself on my cock.”

Abby whined, a low, frustrated sound as I pulled out, leaving her empty, aching. I climbed onto the bed then, laying on my back, and guiding her on top of me.

She was a goddamn goddess. Her silhouette in the dim, flickering light was a study in raw, untamed power. The muscles of her body, the hard planes of her stomach, the powerful curve of her thighs, all outlined in shadow and pale, grey light. Her hair, a wild, chaotic halo around her face. Her face, flushed, her lips swollen, her eyes dark with a desire so profound it was almost terrifying.

“Like this?” she asked, her voice a coy, breathless whisper as she reached down and lined herself up with the strap-on. The deep V of her abdominal muscles flexed as she moved, her small breasts, their nipples hard, dark peaks in the half-light, shifting with the movement.

My hands found her hips, supporting her as she leaned forward slightly, allowing the tip of the dildo to press against her entrance. She moaned, a low, rough sound, as she sank down on it, just an inch or so, letting me watch as it disappeared inside her.

“Oh, fuck,” she moaned again, looking down at where our bodies were joined. “Your cock feels so fucking good.”

I groaned, repressing the urge to just push up into her, to take control. But this was her show now. And I was a captive audience.

Abby lowered herself another inch, her nose crinkling a bit as she gasped at the newfound pressure of the position. Her hands dug into my shoulders, supporting her weight. She leaned back a bit, her hair falling against her chest, and then she lowered herself completely, until our bodies were flush, until I could no longer see the strap-on, but could feel it, buried deep inside her, the base of it pressing hard against my own aching, desperate clit.

She started to move then, slowly at first, rising up a bit before driving back down, letting me watch as she began to ride me, to fuck herself. My hands held her hips firm, supporting her, letting her set the pace.

“That’s my good girl,” I gasped out, watching as she increased the tempo, each rise and fall causing her breasts to bounce, her whole body stiff with tension. “Just fuck yourself like that. Just fucking take it.”

Abby was gasping now, her movements becoming less controlled, more frantic. “I’m gonna…” she gasped, her voice breaking with each thrust. “Holy shit…I’m gonna…fucking… come.”

“Hold it,” I demanded, my own voice a tight, strangled sound, feeling my own orgasm building, hot and insistent within me. I started to push up, meeting her thrusts with my own, staggering the tempo until our bodies slammed together. The wet smack of our skin, her ragged gasps, my own low moans—they were the only sounds in the small room.

“I can’t,” Abby cried out, her head lolling forward, her damp, messy hair brushing against my face.

“Yes you can,” I moaned, my own voice a desperate plea. “I know you can.”

“I can’t…please,” Abby gasped, her whole body tight, trembling. “I need it.”

She moaned again, louder this time, her nails digging into my shoulders. I was so close, my own orgasm a blinding, white-hot flash just behind my eyes. I knew this final act would take us both over the edge.

“Then come for me.” I gasped, the words a final, brutal command. “Let me see it. Show me.” I reached up, my hand grabbing the back of her neck, forcing her head up so her wide, blown-out eyes met mine. “I wanna feel it. Squirt on my fucking stomach, Abby.”

At this, she shattered completely. A raw cry ripped from her throat as her body convulsed, hot liquid dripping across my stomach, a visceral, physical release that sent me over the edge. My own orgasm tore through me, a blinding, white-hot wave of pleasure so intense it was almost painful. I pulled Abby down against me, burying my face in her sweaty neck as the aftershocks ripped through us both.

She shifted then, the strap-on slipping out with a wet, sucking sound. She collapsed against me, her weight a welcome, grounding presence, and I buried my face even deeper into her shoulder, a desperate need to disappear entirely into her, to lose myself completely.

Our breathing slowed, but the electric charge between us hadn't dissipated; it had only changed shape. I turned my head, and our mouths found each other again. The kiss was different now—slow, wet, tasting of sweat and her and a desperation that had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with not wanting to let go. 

My hand came up to her throat, my fingers tracing the faint, yellowing bruises there, a ghost of a pressure. I felt her pulse hammering under my thumb. Her eyes were closed, her face completely unguarded, her lips swollen. Completely and utterly undone. The sight was a different kind of desire, quieter, deeper.

Then she moved, her mouth leaving mine, trailing kisses down my chin, my throat, my chest. I gasped as her lips closed over one of my nipples, sucking hard. My hand went to her hair, bunching the thick, soft strands in my fist. It was heavy, a silken weight. I held her head, guiding her, watching as she continued her slow, deliberate path downwards. Abby knelt between my legs, on the bed that was now our entire world. She looked up at me, her eyes dark, bottomless pools of shy, hungry arousal. I couldn't look away.

Abby leaned forward, her lips parting. She never broke eye contact, her gaze a challenge, an invitation, an encouragement for me to just watch . 

It wasn't about any real pleasure I was getting from this, not directly. It was about this . The sight of her. The absolute power in her surrender. And yet, my body responded as if she were touching me, an insane, physical reaction.

I watched her mouth, pink and wet, close around the head of the dildo. She took it slowly at first, her head bobbing, her cheeks hollowing out. Then she drew back, a thick strand of saliva connecting her lips to the dildo, stretching and glistening in the dim light. I watched as she used her free hand to slap the head against her outstretched tongue before taking it back in. She moaned around it, a low, pleased sound.

Her eyebrows furrowed as she pushed herself, taking it a little deeper, pressing it against the back of her throat. She gagged, a wet, choking sound that sent a fresh wave of heat straight to my core. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes watered, threatening to overflow as she gasped for breath. Spit dripped from the corner of her mouth, trailing down her chin.

The sight, the sound of her complete submission, was dizzying. I watched her, mesmerized, as one of her hands came up, wrapping around the base, stroking it in time with the movement of her head. Abby pulled back just enough to speak, her voice a low, throaty rasp. 

“You like fucking my mouth?” 

All I could do was moan, my hips pushing up, the friction of the harness against my clit nearly driving me over the edge. I used both my hands to hold her head, my fingers fisting her hair as I started to fuck into her mouth, gasping. She took it, her free hand sliding up my thigh, then under the leather harness. I felt her hesitate for a second, a silent question, before her fingers found me.

There was no resistance. I was open, aching. She pushed two fingers inside, and the world dissolved into pure sensation. The feeling of her fingers moving inside me, stretching me, stroking that spot that made my toes curl, combined with the sight of her mouth working on my cock, was too much. Pleasure, so sharp and absolute it bordered on pain, flooded my system. I wanted to beg her to stop, to draw it out, but I couldn't form the words. Tears pricked my eyes, blurring her image into a swirl of pale skin and blonde hair. My hips bucked, my body betraying my mind's desire to make this last forever. My orgasm crashed over me, a violent, shuddering wave that left me gasping, my vision whiting out at the edges.

“Holy fuck, Abby,” I breathed out when I could speak again, my voice a raw, shredded thing. I tugged on her hair, pulling her up, guiding her body flush against mine.

Abby shifted again until she was lying next to me, still completely wrapped in my arms. Our shaky breathing, the frantic, unsteady beat of our hearts, the only sounds in the small, dark room. I still had no idea what to say, what words could possibly follow that . But listening to her breathe, feeling the solid, real weight of her next to me, I had a feeling we’d figure it out.

Before I could try to form a single coherent thought, I fell asleep, not slowly, but all at once, as if a switch had been flipped. I was exhausted, drained, but wrapped in Abby’s arms, a feeling I couldn't name coursed through me, a fragile, terrifying, and undeniable sense of closeness, of… something . 

Something I couldn't afford to lose. Something I wasn’t ready to name.

Chapter Text

Abby

I woke first.

The weak, grey light of a Seattle dawn filtered through the high, grimy window of my small room in C-block, illuminating dust motes dancing in the still air like tiny, silent ghosts. The world outside was beginning to stir—the distant, familiar rumble of the stadium generators, the faint clang of metal on metal from the early shift in the armory—but here, in this small, concrete box, there was only a profound, almost sacred, quiet.

The room had always been an echo of the woman I forced myself to be: functional, spartan, stripped of anything soft. The scarred metal desk was a monument to a duty that had consumed me, the cracked mirror a merciless reflection of a soldier’s fatigue. It was a space designed for solitude, a cell of my own making. But this morning, the grey light wasn’t bleak; it was soft. The concrete walls weren’t a cage; they were a sanctuary.

My body, for the first time in five years, didn’t feel like a coiled spring of tension. I was lying still, tangled with Ellie in the narrow cot, a space not meant for two people but that now felt cavernously empty wherever her body wasn’t touching mine. She was curled against my chest, her breathing a soft, even rhythm against my skin, one of her arms slung possessively over my waist, her hand resting on my hip. The constant, gnawing ache in my shoulders, the one that came from carrying the weight of command, was gone. I felt… light. The surrender to her last night hadn’t been a breaking; it had been a release. The fortress of “Lieutenant Anderson,” that cold, hard prison I had built around my heart brick by painful, bloody brick, had crumbled. And in the ruins, I felt a terrifying and exhilarating freedom.

The silence wasn’t empty. It was full of her. The scent of her was on the sheets, on my skin—sweat and rain and that clean, pine-soap smell. My soap. The bar I’d passed to her through the steam in the showers yesterday, a small act that had felt loaded with a significance I hadn’t understood then. Now the scent of it, my favorite scent, was tangled up with the scent of her, creating something new, something that was just… ours. 

I spent five years building a wall around my heart, and she tore it down in a single night with nothing but her own broken pieces. And I’d let her. Fuck, I’d wanted her to.

I turned my head on the pillow, allowing myself to truly look at her for the first time without the lens of animosity or rivalry. The pale dawn light was kind to her, softening the hard edges, catching the fiery auburn strands of her hair where they stuck to her cheek. A spray of freckles dusted the bridge of her nose and her cheeks, stark and beautiful against her pale skin. Her lips, the ones that so often spit sarcasm and defiance, were slightly parted in sleep, surprisingly soft.

The dark, intricate lines of the moth tattoo on her forearm peeked out from under the blanket, a secret script I was just beginning to learn how to read. I saw the vulnerability there, the absence of the usual guarded tension in her face. This was the girl who shattered my world. The one who held a knife to my throat. The one I held a knife to. And the one who commanded me to come apart with a single, rough whisper.

How could she be both the storm and the quiet that follows?

She began to stir then, a soft sound in the quiet room, a small murmur as she burrowed closer, seeking warmth. Her eyes fluttered open, hazy with sleep, and they found mine. For a long, silent moment, we just looked at each other. The air was thick with the unspoken, with the raw, charged intimacy of the previous night, with the ghosts of our fathers hanging between us.

Breaking the spell, I reached out. My movement was slow, hesitant, full of a terrifying, newfound tenderness. My fingers, calloused from years of holding a rifle, gently brushed a stray strand of hair from her cheek. The touch was a question, an offering, an apology.

Ellie flinched, just slightly, her eyes widening with surprise. She was used to my touch being about force, about combat, a correction in the gym. This gentleness was disarming, foreign. But she didn’t pull away. She leaned into my hand, just a fraction, a silent acceptance.

My voice was a low, rough whisper, still raw from the night before, from the pleasure. "Morning."

Her own voice was quiet, a little shaky. She was still processing, still wary. "Hey."

My heart hammered a nervous, unsteady rhythm against my ribs, a traitorous drumbeat in the quiet room. I leaned in, my movement slow, hesitant, every instinct I’d honed for years screaming at me to maintain distance, to re-establish control. But the pull towards her, this terrifying, undeniable magnetism, was stronger. 

The first touch of our lips was a shock, a jolt of heat that shot straight to my core. It wasn’t the bruising, desperate collision of the night before. This was slow. Tentative. A question. For a split second, she was stiff, her body a coiled spring of that old defensiveness, her hands gripping my shirt like she was about to shove me away. I felt a flicker of my own uncertainty, the fear of rejection a cold stone in my gut. 

Then, with a soft, shuddering sigh that I felt more than heard, she melted against me. The tension bled out of her, out of me, replaced by a different kind of heat. A slow, deep, undeniable hunger. Her lips parted beneath mine, a silent invitation, and her own hunger rose to meet mine. It was no longer a battle. It was a conversation, whispered in the language of touch, of breath, of a shared, terrifying surrender.

My hands, which knew only the cold weight of a rifle, the brutal economy of a takedown, were clumsy navigators in this new territory. This wasn't a mission brief. This was... discovery. My objective wasn't submission; it was her undoing. The power in that, the tight, coiling heat that bloomed low in my stomach at the thought of being the architect of her pleasure, was a drug more potent than any adrenaline I'd ever known. 

My fingers traced the faint, silvery lines of old scars on her stomach, the hard, unyielding muscle beneath. I moved lower, to the shocking softness of her inner thigh, the skin there so smooth it made my own breath hitch. My touch was a question. Her response, a sharp, sudden gasp against my neck, was the answer. It sent a jolt straight to my core, a feedback loop of pure, unadulterated want. My own hips pushed forward, an involuntary echo of her pleasure, a silent, desperate demand for more.

We were still tangled in the thin WLF-issue sheets, the air in the small room growing hotter, thicker, with our shared breathing. Through the haze of desire, a sudden, cold thought cut through, a jolt of pure, tactical reality. I remembered where we were. Remembered the thin walls of C-block, a pathetic shield against the ears of my squad, sleeping just a few feet away, probably still in a moonshine-induced stupor thanks to Ellie’s strategic generosity. 

The risk of it, a fresh spike of adrenaline shot through me—a fear so sharp it was almost indistinguishable from excitement. But the danger didn’t dampen the fire; it fed it, the low, coiling heat in my gut tightening into a knot of desperate, thrilling urgency. 

“Ellie,” I whispered, my lips brushing against her ear, my own voice a low warning that was also an invitation. “We have to be quiet.”

She pulled back just enough to look at me, a wicked, knowing smirk spreading across her face. “Are you gonna be quiet?” she challenged, her voice a low, husky purr that sent a fresh jolt of desire straight to my core. Her hips pushed against mine, a slow, deliberate grind, a silent, mocking punctuation to her question.

Fuck. No. Probably not.

Her question, the slow, insistent pressure of her hips against mine, sent a fresh wave of heat pooling between my own legs. I felt my own arousal grow, a slick warmth that was both a surrender and a demand. I didn’t answer with words. My body answered for me. My mouth moved down her body, my tongue tracing a hot, wet path over her collarbone, between her breasts, tasting the salt of her skin. She gasped, a sound of pure, shocked pleasure, her fingers tangling in my hair, her body arching beneath me, a silent offering.

I hesitated for a fraction of a second when I reached the waistband of her sleep shorts, my hands hooking in the worn elastic. My heart hammered, a frantic beat against her stomach. My hands, which could field strip a rifle in the dark, trembled slightly. This was new territory. Uncharted. I looked up at her, my own breath coming in short, sharp pants, my gaze a silent question, a raw plea for permission.

“You want this?” I whispered, my voice rough.

Ellie’s eyes, bright with a desire that had softened her usual confidence into something low and demanding, almost needy, fluttered closed. “More than anything,” she breathed.

That was all the permission I needed. My hands, still trembling slightly, found the worn elastic of her shorts. I pulled them down slowly, deliberately, the soft, thin cotton whispering against her skin. The warmth of her body radiated up at me, a shocking, intimate heat that made my own skin flush. I watched as the fabric slid down her thighs, revealing the pale, almost luminous skin there, the lean muscle, the faint tracery of old scars. Then, finally, all of her was laid bare. The dark, soft thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs, a stark, beautiful contrast against her pale skin. The pink, swollen curve of her sex, already slick and glistening with arousal. My mouth watered. I’d never seen a woman like this, so open, so vulnerable, so completely, devastatingly, ready for me.

My mouth hovered over her, the heat from her a physical presence against my lips, making them tingle. My own heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, wild drum against the quiet of the room. This was an uncharted territory, and I felt a tremor of fear, of exhilarating uncertainty, run through me. My tongue, hesitant, touched her first. Just a gentle lap against the slick heat between her legs. 

Her whole body jolted beneath me, a sharp gasp tearing from her throat, a sound that was half pain, half raw pleasure. It vibrated through her and into me, a current that lit a fire deep in my gut. Her hands, which had been fisted in the sheets, shot up, tangling in my hair, gripping me, not pulling me away, but holding me there, anchoring me to her. Her thighs, those lean, powerful muscles I knew so well, clamped on either side of my head, a warm, possessive cage.

Her soft sounds were my guide. I followed them, my tongue becoming bolder, tracing the sensitive swells, learning the terrain of her body. Each soft gasp, each hitched breath, was an encouragement, a demand for more. Then I found it—the source of her pleasure, and I pressed my tongue against it, a slow, deliberate circle. She cried out, her hips bucking up against my mouth, a desperate, involuntary rhythm.

“Abby,” she gasped, her voice tight with pleasure. “Just like that…”

She ground herself against my mouth, and I followed her lead, learning what she liked, what made her break. Her hand reached down, her fingers tangling with mine, guiding my free hand to her entrance. “Just… oh, fuck, ” she gasped as my fingers, slick with her wetness, instinctively pushed inside her.

A low moan escaped my throat, a sound I tried to swallow, but it was lost in the wet sounds of my mouth on her. The feel of her, so hot and tight around my fingers, sent a jolt of pure, unadulterated pleasure straight to my core. A deep, aching need began to build between my own legs, a desperate thrumming that made my hips grind instinctively against the rough sheets of the cot. The power she usually held so tightly was shattering, and in its place was a raw, vocal need that was setting me on fire. Her moans dissolved into a series of low, gasping sounds that vibrated through my skull, a symphony of pure, desperate pleasure. I sat up slightly, pushing my own weight into her, my fingers pumping inside her as she gasped, holding on to me.

"Right there," she choked out, her voice ragged. "Don’t fucking stop."

She bit down on her own lip, her dark eyebrows drawing together before looking up at me, her green eyes hazy with pleasure, her pupils blown wide. Seeing her like that, so completely undone by my touch, sent a fresh wave of heat through me. I held her hip with my free hand, pushing her legs open a little wider, and drove my hand harder against her. I felt her muscles clench around my fingers, a reflexive, internal tightening that was a shock to my system.

A fresh wave of my own arousal, sharp and immediate, crashed over me. She was close. The thought was a jolt of pure desire. My fingers moved faster, deeper, a steady, driving rhythm. I watched her face, the way her expression crumpled with pleasure, the way a single, perfect tear escaped the corner of her eye, and drove her over the edge, her whole body convulsing around my hand as she cried out, a raw, broken thing against the thin walls of my room.

I kept my fingers inside her, a slow, deliberate pressure that made her gasp. I leaned down and kissed her, my mouth slick with the taste of her. Her body was boneless, wrecked, a beautiful, devastating ruin. But the floodgates were open now. Giving her that pleasure had stoked a fire in my own body that was now an inferno. I wanted more. I wanted her to feel what I was feeling, this desperate, aching need. Her body was still shaking, her breathing shallow, but her eyes fluttered open, finding mine. Her hand came up, her fingers tracing a line from my knee up the inside of my thigh. I shivered at the touch, a jolt of pure, electric want.

"Come here. Just trust me," she whispered, her voice a rough promise against my skin. 

She guided me with a gentle tug on my arm, shifting her body, turning me sideways on the narrow cot until I was lying flat on my back. She rose up, her body a dark silhouette against the grey light, and in one fluid motion, she turned, her back to me for a moment. Then she lowered herself again, swinging one lean leg over my shoulder, positioning herself so that her hips settled by my face, her own head now between my thighs.

I understood instantly. My own body responded with a surge of heat so potent it was almost painful. I pulled her down, my hands finding her hips, her lean body a warm, welcome weight. Our bodies were a perfect, inverse mirror, her hips settling over my mouth, even as I felt her tongue, hot and demanding, between my legs. The heat of her body pressed down, a warm, suffocating weight that made my own hips buck, searching for that pressure. I heard my own muffled gasp against her thigh. "Please..." The word was a desperate, broken prayer.

I felt her fingers, teasing at first, then a soft, deliberate pressure against my entrance. Then two of them pushed inside, and the world dissolved into pure feeling, a sensation so intense it was almost painful. The quiet room filled with the slick, insistent rhythm of Ellie's fingers inside me. Her hips, just above my face, began to move, a slow, deliberate grind that intensified the pressure of her against my lips, her warm, wet heat blooming against my mouth. I tasted her, and my tongue, no longer hesitant, met her movement, mimicking the movement of her fingers inside me. A low moan built in my chest, a sound I barely recognized as my own.

Her breath hitched above me, a ragged gasp that vibrated against my inner thigh. I felt the clenching of her muscles, a desperate tightening, as if she were trying to pull me deeper into her. My own hips began to buck, an involuntary response to the escalating intensity, pushing upwards, demanding more of the exquisite friction.

"Fuck, Abby," she gasped, her voice thick with a pleasure that mirrored my own. Her fingers inside me quickened, a frantic, urgent tempo that propelled me further, higher. Her hips pressed down, a relentless, intoxicating weight that stole the air from my lungs and left me with only sensation. I could feel the tremor starting in her body, a subtle shiver that built into a violent quake. Her moans became a broken chorus, a wordless plea that echoed the frantic pounding of my own heart.

A sharp, electric current shot through me, vibrating from my core outwards. I felt Ellie’s hips convulse, a shuddering release against my mouth, even as my own body coiled, straining for the edge. Then, with a shattering cry, my body convulsed around her fingers, echoing the tremor in her hips. The world fractured, then dissolved into a warm darkness, leaving only ragged breaths and the lingering, sweet taste of her.

Our ragged breaths were the only sound in the aftermath, a frantic counterpoint to the quiet dawn seeping into the room. We lay tangled together, our bodies slick with sweat, the air thick with the scent of us. The frantic energy slowly receded, leaving a deep, bone-weary exhaustion in its wake. There was no awkwardness, no tension. The silence that settled over us was easy, sated. Comfortable. I pulled the thin blanket over us, a small gesture of domesticity that felt both foreign and profoundly right. Ellie curled into my side, her head resting on my shoulder, and for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, the room didn’t feel like a cage. It felt like home.

Ellie broke the quiet, her voice a wry, sarcastic murmur against my shoulder, but with an underlying tenderness that was so new, so fragile, it almost made my chest ache. “Well… that was… efficient, Lieutenant.”

I laughed, a real, genuine laugh, the sound surprising even to my own ears. “Shut up.”

I pulled her closer, my arm tightening around her, the easy warmth of the moment a fragile shield against the cold reality I knew was waiting for us. I could feel her relax against me, a soft sigh escaping her lips. But the quiet couldn’t last. I felt the shift in myself, a new weight settling in my chest. It wasn’t the crushing burden of command. It was something else. A responsibility. I sat up, pulling her with me so we were facing each other, cross-legged on the narrow cot, the thin blanket pooled around our waists.

"Ellie," I began, my voice quiet, serious.

She cut me off, her own voice startlingly clear, devoid of the hazy, post-sex languor. "I know." 

She met my gaze, and the look in her eyes was sharp, intelligent, and so far ahead of me it was almost terrifying. The soft, needy girl from a moment ago was gone, replaced by the survivor, the strategist. I had expected to have to convince her, to explain the game Isaac was playing, to fight through her own walls of rage and grief. But she already knew. She’d been watching, analyzing, waiting.

"He’s trying to break you," she said. "To isolate you. Using me as the hammer." She took a deep breath, her own resolve hardening before my eyes. "I’ve been waiting for you to wake up, Abby. I already have a plan. But it doesn't work without you."

I stared at her, stunned. The realization sent a new kind of heat through me—not of lust, but of a profound, almost staggering, respect. That untamed fire, that fierce intelligence, it wasn’t just a weapon to be aimed. It was a force to be reckoned with. And for the first time, it was aimed with me, not at me.

Her eyes, those sharp, green pools, held a dangerous, determined gleam. “We can’t just walk out the front gate,” she said, echoing my own thoughts. “He won’t let us. He’ll hunt us. He’ll send his best. He’ll send… your squad. And I don’t know if they’ll—” She cut herself off. The admission was a stark, brutal acknowledgment of the pieces on the board. "No. There's only one way out. For both of us."

I knew what she was going to say before the words even left her mouth. I could see the cold, hard certainty in her eyes, a reflection of the same terrifying resolve that had just crystallized in my own heart. I nodded, a single, sharp movement.

“We kill him,” I finished for her, the words a quiet, deadly promise in the grey light of dawn.

Ellie didn’t flinch. She didn’t look away. She just nodded, a single, sharp movement that sealed the promise between us. Then her hand, small and calloused, moved across the thin blanket and took mine. Her grip was firm, a steady, unwavering pressure that spoke more than words ever could. It was an alliance forged in the wreckage of our pasts, a silent declaration of a new, shared war.

A war, that for the first time, I wasn’t fighting alone.