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     IN THE BEGINNING, JOEL DIDN'T TRUST JOSIE. But how could he? He thought the way that he and Tess were doing things was just fine. Then (to him) out of nowhere, Tess approached him and mentions that she knows someone who might be a good fit to work with them. The fact that she said it so casually was part of what angered him. Sure, she started the whole thing, but it would've been nice to be consulted first.

After the first time they worked together, he was a little less skeptical. Josie clearly knew what she was doing. But he was still nowhere near ready to trust her with their operation, much less with his life. Once she went back to her place, Joel all but interrogated Tess on her new friend.

"She's not a new friend, I've known her about six months," Tess confessed one morning when Joel asked how she was able to trust someone she just met.

"But—"

"And before you ask, I didn't tell you about Josie right away because I needed to see for myself without your judgements and criticisms. If I didn't think she would be a good fit, then I wouldn't have to worry you. But I'm telling you, Joel, she knows what the fuck she's doing. We could really use someone like her. Besides all of that shit, she's genuine and good. You know how hard that is to find these days."

Despite all of that, it took Joel a long time to be comfortable around the woman Tess quickly grew fond of. For a while, Joel wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to trust her. He realized he was being unreasonable, after all like Tess said, Josie clearly knew her shit. And she hadn't done anything to warrant his skepticism.

The first big turning point in Joel's feelings towards Josie came one evening when he was walking home. He turned a corner and immediately stepped back out of sight when he saw Josie talking to a girl.

Joel swore his heart would beat out of his chest right then and there. From the back, the young girl looked nearly identical to Sarah.

"You take these, okay? Make sure you and your mom get some extra food," Josie slipped some ration cards into the girls backpack. "Promise me you'll go straight home. Don't stop and talk to anyone, alright?"

The girl held her pinky up, and Josie's face lit up as she held hers up too, the girl making a silent pinky promise that she'd go straight home.

Whenever Sarah suspected he wasn't telling the truth, she'd make Joel pinky promise. So it was in that moment that his feelings towards Josie shifted ever so slightly.

After witnessing that, Joel stopped bugging Tess. He decided then that she was right. Josie was good. Not just in their little operation, but a good person.

The second big turning point came just a few months later. It was late at night, and Joel was sneaking back to his place after selling a few pills to one of the guards. He heard a man talking in practically a whisper, but could tell by his tone that it wasn't a pleasant conversation. He planned to keep his head down and walk by, and pray to God that it wasn't a guard.

As he walked by, he let out a small sigh of relief as he saw it was just a regular guy. But that moment quickly vanished when he saw who the man was talking to. Josie.

The man's hand was tightly gripping Josie's left wrist, and all Joel heard was him ask for some extra free pills.

"I don't —"

"Hey," Joel quickly approached, shoving the man backwards. His next sentence sent chills down even Josie's spine, despite his calm tone. "Do we have a problem?"

The man turned towards Joel with an angry expression on his face. It disappeared once he saw who was speaking to him. A second later and the man held his hands up as if to surrender, as he slowly backed out of the alley. "We're cool man, we're cool." Once he was out in the open, the man turned and took off running.

"You alright darlin'?" The pet name slipped out of Joel's mouth.

"I'm okay, thank you."

Joel noticed Josie moving her hand this way and that, as she held her wrist in her other hand. Without thinking, he gently grabbed her injured hand, and almost instantly saw red when he saw the bruises already beginning to form. He turned to go chase after the man. "That motherfu—"

"Joel," Josie spoke softly. "I'm okay, promise. Just really wanna go home."

His expression softened when he saw the way she was looking at him. "Follow me," he led her to his apartment without even really thinking about it. He knew Tess was waiting there to count the extra ration cards they'd gotten the previous week.

Once they got there, Joel told Josie to go sit on the couch and he'd get her some ice for her wrist. While she was distracted, he motioned for Tess.

"The hell you got her doing deals at night for??"

Tess sighed as Joel explained what he witnessed, "he's one of our regulars, alright? I didn't know he'd get like that."

"What's his name?"

"Joel it—"

"What. Is. His. Name?"

"John," Tess relented, knowing how stubborn the man standing in front of her was.

"Last name?"

"The fuck do you need that for? What're you gonna hunt him down or something??"

Joel threw his hands up, "just tell me his damn last name."

"Walker, alright?"

"You go ahead and tell him I'll be doing his deals from now on. And don't send Josie on any more night runs. If I hadn't shown up who knows what he would've done."

"Since when are you such a softie? You saved her, she's fine. But you're right. Maybe we should all stop doing deals at night. It's risky enough during the day. Plus you know what'll happen if we're caught even just walking back at night. How many hangings have we witnessed just in the past month? And that's just for breaking curfew. God only knows what the punishment would be if we were caught dealing too."

The conversation came to a halt when Josie spoke up and asked if everything was alright.

After that night, there was just one more incident before people in the QZ learned not to mess with her.

Every once in a while a random guy would try to flirt with Josie during the day. When Josie was working, that was pretty much all she wanted to do, work. Finish her tasks, get her ration cards, and go home. So the attempts at flirting were often shut down almost immediately. She was always polite about it, and they usually huffed before returning to their tasks.

But sometimes they didn't like hearing "no" as an answer. Last time, the guy got so angry he gripped Josie's arm, leaving bruises around her wrist. Joel and Tess repeatedly asked who did it, but in fear of some sort of retaliation from the guys end, she said she didn't remember.

A week later after the alley altercation, Josie and Joel were on burning duty. When Josie flinched as someone walked by, Joel immediately noticed.

"That him?"

"Joel it's —"

"Josie. Is that him?"

She nodded, "but he hasn't bothered me since."

Despite her reassurance that he was leaving her alone, it was only 2 days later that the guy was seen sporting a black eye and his arm in a poorly made sling.

Guys left her alone after that. And this might've annoyed anyone else, but Josie was actually grateful. Any attempts at a relationship since the outbreak had always ended badly.

Guys were usually just looking for a quick fuck. Or there was the couple of them who would pretend to want something more, but would go radio silent after sleeping together a few times. She'd long since decided that she wasn't interested in just casual hookups.

Josie didn't know if she'd ever find a significant other. She used to dream about what the future might look like, what her wedding might look like. Now she just took things day by day, but every once in a while she couldn't help but wonder if someone special would ever come along.

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