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THE FIRST 20 MINUTES of Josie and Ellie hunting is... boring. Josie points out that boring is good, and it means they aren't running into any problems, people, or other things. But Ellie is quick to rebuttal, pointing out that boring also means they haven't found any animals.

"Are you sure there are animals out here?" Ellie asks when another 10 minutes have gone by.

"Yes, look for the footprints in the snow. We can't track them that way since there are so many and they go in different directions, but they're here. Probably hear us coming even though we're keeping quiet. Their hearing is a lot better than ours."

Suddenly, Ellie puts a finger to her lips, a silent signal to stay quiet. She points to the left, and Josie turns to see a white rabbit. She nods, slowly reaching to her back to grab her bow and an arrow.

Their luck ends there though, when the rabbit hears as Josie steps on a branch and it gets away.

After wandering around for an hour, Ellie is about to suggest going back to check on Joel and then coming out again later, when Josie spots a deer.

Quickly, they get down as Josie grabs the rifle and makes sure it's ready to fire. She hands it over to Ellie, whose eyes widen as she asks if Josie is sure. After receiving a nod as confirmation, Ellie positions herself and looks through the scope.

She fires a shot after a few seconds and does manage to hit the deer, but not a kill shot. They watch it limp away before running after it.

They run for a few minutes, stopping when they see the deer laying in the snow, clearly dead. There's no joy or any sort of victory though, when they notice 2 armed men standing off to the side, staring at the deer. Silently, Josie hands Ellie the rifle again and gets her bow and arrow ready.

"Don't even think about it!" Ellie shouts.

Josie walks towards them, and Ellie follows a few feet behind. "Drop your weapons!"

The men slowly do as they say, and turn to face them with their arms above their heads.

"Any sudden movements and we put one right between your fuckin' eyes, you got that? Ditto for buddy boy."

"You two are quite the hunters," the older of the 2 men is the first to speak. "We didn't even hear you guys coming."

Josie ignores them. "Turn around and start walking. Leave the guns, keep your hands raised."

"Okay..."

"Just go!"

"All I ask is ten seconds of your time. I just wanna talks."

Josie can tell Ellie rolls her eyes. "We're not gonna ask twice."

"Please, just ten seconds," the man persists. "My name is David. This is my friend James. We're from a larger group, women, children, and we're all very hungry."

Ellie lies before Josie has a chance to tell her to stay quiet.

"We're from a large group too. Also hungry."

"Even so, you can't drag this thing back just the 2 of you. Not with your weapons, and ours which I assume you plan to take too. We're not asking for charity, we can trade you for some of the meat. We've got boots—"

Josie interrupts him. "Medicine? Like for an infection. Not the bitten by an infected kind, just the... open wound, kind."

David nods. "We do, back at our village. You're welcome to follow us."

"We're not following you anywhere." Josie's arm starts to hurt, but she keeps the arrow pointed at the men.

Ellie points the rifle at James. "Buddy boy can go get it. We'll wait here with you. He comes back, you'll get half the deer. Anyone else shows up we put one—"

"Put one right between my eyes. So you've said."

"That's right."

The men face each other. "Go talk to Howard. He's got a case with some penicillin. Bring two bottles and a syringe."

Josie hides it, but she becomes excited hearing the word penicillin. It's what she and Joel shared a dose of, and what made her healing go a lot faster.

Ellie watches as the James looks skeptical.

"It's not code James. Do as I said."

Josie's arrow remains on David, while Ellie follows James until he's out of sight. Nothing has happened yet to cause it, but Josie gets that bad feeling again. The urge to run and get back to Joel has increased.

"That uh, your husbands gun? Or your dads?" He looks to Josie, then Ellie. "He the one that's sick? That why you guys are out here on your own?" When they remain silent, he chuckles. "Look I'm just trying to make conversation. You know it's a four mile round trip back to our settlement. We're gonna be here a while before James gets back."

Josie whispers to Ellie to keep the rifle aimed at David while she bends down and empties the bullets from the rifles on the ground.

"I have some oil and matches in my pack, we can take shelter." He tries again, pointing to an abandoned cabin. "We could start a fire."

Ellie looks to Josie, who weighs their options for a moment. "Fine. Bring the deer with us. You go first."

To his credit, David does what he says. Once they're in the cabin, he starts a fire. Josie can't push away that feeling of panic, though.

"You know it's not safe for you both to be out here on your own. What're your names anyway?" He sighs when neither of them speak. "I know it's hard to trust strangers. But I honestly mean no harm. And for what it's worth, there's room for you in our group if you want."

Ellie scoffs. "Inviting us to your hunger club? No thanks."

"It's true we are hungry, but we're still here. I'm a decent man just trying to take care of the people who rely on me."

"You're the leader?"

"Wasn't my choice, it was theirs. But... yes."

Josie finally puts her weapon down, and gets a better look at David. "They chose to follow you. You sound like you're the leader of a cult."

"Well you sorta kinda got me there. I am a preacher but just standard Bible stuff."

Josie tunes out a conversation in which Ellie wonders how he can still preach after the world ended. Her attention is caught again at the end of their discussion.

"I believe everything happens for a reason. Let me prove it to you both. We didn't expect this winter to be so cruel. Nothings growing, games hard to find. So I sent four people to a nearby town to scavenge what they could. Only three came back. And the one that didn't was a father to a girl. Her dad was taken from her. Turns out he was murdered by this crazy man. And get this, that crazy man had a girl and woman with him that I think looked an awful lot like you both. See? Everything happens for a reason. James lower the gun."

Ellie and Josie stand up, Ellie pointing the gun at David while Josie's arrow is aimed at James' head.

"James I said lower the gun."

"They're the ones who killed Alec right?"

"Neither of them killed anybody. Lower the gun."

James does as he's told.

"Did you bring the medicine?"

"Yeah but—"

"Throw it to them."

"David..."

"Give it to them James."

Once the medicine is on the ground, Ellie retrieves it, moving backwards until she bumps into Josie. Josie takes the medicine and slips it all into her jacket pocket.

"I know you both aren't with a large group. You won't survive long out there. I can protect you—"

Josie nods to Ellie, and they grab everything and take off running. They're both out of breath, and Josie is in a lot of pain again, by the time they make it back to the house. Josie's hands shake as she tries to put the syringe into the bottle.

"Here, I can do it," Ellie takes them from her. She fills the syringe, then lifts Joel's shirt up. "Where the fuck do I inject it?"

"Maybe the same place as last time? You did it right by our injuries the first time. I know it didn't work for Joel, but it did for me. Maybe with a full dose he'll be okay."

Once Ellie is finished, Josie collapses onto her mattress and fights back tears as she tries to ignore the pain. Only a minute later though, she looks over at Ellie and forces herself to sit up. With everything that has been going on, and still being in a lot of pain, it's easy to forget that at the end of the day, Ellie is still a kid.

"Hey, I really am sorry that you have to do all of this. As soon as I'm fully better I'll go out and get us some rabbits, okay? Since we have enough to get us through dinner, tomorrow morning we'll go raid the other houses and see if we can find any canned goods or even just anything we can use."

Just hearing that there's a plan, even if it's only for the next morning, Ellie feels better.

After they've finished off almost all of their rations, except for a small amount set aside for breakfast, Josie insists that Ellie go to sleep first. Less than 5 minutes later, Ellie is out cold.

Josie removes the blanket and lifts up Joel's shirt. It's only been maybe 6 hours since Joel was given 1 of 2 doses of penicillin, and Josie knows it might just be wishful thinking, but she swears the infected area already looks just a tiny bit less red. As she lays down and waits for sleep to come, all she can do is hope that come morning, Joel finally wakes up.

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Josie.

Josie!

"JOSIE WAKE THE FUCK UP!"

Sitting up so fast that it brings on a headache, Josie looks around, eyes wide. "What happened??" She look at Joel, any hope she had gone when she sees it looks like he hasn't moved since last night.

"They're here."

"Who?"

"David and James. They brought other men with them this time... and they all have guns."

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a/n~ next chapter picks up right where this ends! just didn't want to keep going and have it be extremely long since i wouldn't know where to end it.