CHAPTER FOURTY

✧✧✧✧✧

mentions of cannibalism, descriptive murder in flashback

LUCIA HAD NEVER BEEN SO AFRAID. This was a type of fear and pain that was so severe that she didn't think she could ever recover from it. Her wrists were raw and bloody, snot slid down her nose and onto her lips and her chest ached so badly she didn't think she could breathe.

"Shh," It was her brother, Oscar who tried to soothe her in the back of the truck. His own hands bound and unable to give her the comfort she needed. "It's okay, hermana."

But it wasn't okay and Oscar should have never opened his mouth. He had been warned before and he should have been afraid. He was afraid, but his sister needed comfort. The truck came to a screeching halt and before Lucia could scream her protests, her brother had been pulled from the back seat and out onto the concrete of the highway.

"No!" she screamed, trying to frantically free herself. "Please, no!"

Her mind had been blank long after that as she had forced herself to forget the things she had seen and experienced beyond that point. But sometimes they came back, like they did right now as she sat helplessly in a yoghurt shop somewhere in Colorado.

Lucia saw Oscar's murder all over again. How to raiders tore him from the truck, ignoring his helpless cries at the age of nineteen. How they tore of his shirt, not wanting it to get ruined before stabbing him in the chest. One of them had forced Lucia to watch, holding onto her face so tightly it had been bruised for two weeks. The fifteen year old had gone numb after that, staring lifelessly at the scene before her.

Only months later could she grasp the fact what had happened. How his throat had been slit, letting him bleed out on the highway. How he had been stripped off al his clothes so that the raiders could use them for their own group. How one of them had shot another raider in anger because they couldn't use his meat anymore. They had been too far from their outpost and the weather was too warm to preserve him.

It had taken her months after her escape to take a single breath. And now, she had pushed the events so far away that she had difficulty remembering them. But now, as she desperately tried to stop Joel from bleeding to death, it all came crashing back. As if someone hit her over the head with a bat.

"C'mon!" Ellie cried out, rummaging through drawers. "Give me something! Fuck! Anything! Oh, here we go."

The frantic teen came back with a roll of tape, which was all she had been able to find in the shop. Lucia had already rolled him onto his side, whispering apologies as he cried out in pain, barely conscious. As the brunette held onto him, distant look on her face, Ellie wrapped her shirt around his wound and taped it to the rest of his clothes. It soaked through immediately.

"Ellie," uttered Lucia, softly. "we can't stay here."

"I know, I know." she nodded. "This should buy us some time. Are you thinking about that town a few miles up north?"

"It is our best shot." said the woman, not taking her eyes off of Joel who rested in her lap. Her voice was soft, barely audible and the teen had to lean in to hear her. "This mall is dangerous. We don't know what's out here. Could be infested with infected."

"Lucia," muttered Ellie, concerned. "are you okay?"

"We need to get him better. We need to get him out of here."

"Callus, Apple." said Ellie to the horses inside, getting to her feet. "Keep an eye on them. Lucia, i'm going to find something to stitch him up with. I'll be right back."

Lucia just hummed as if she hadn't even heard her. If she had she would have stopped her. Her mind was racing too much to even acknowledge anything. Later, if she had been lucid she would have killed Ellie for going off on her own and then herself for letting it happen.

But all she could do was watch Joel's face, eyes closed tightly in pain and hold onto him until he got better.

✧✧✧✧✧

IT HAD TAKEN LUCIA THIRTY MINUTES TO GRASP THE FACT THAT ELLIE HAD GONE OFF ON HER OWN. Lucia had sobered up, wanting to ask the teen something when she noticed that she was no longer in the room with them. The panic she felt was frantic, and after seeing that Joel had been stable in that moment, she had left the shop as well.

"I'll be right back, Joel." she whispered, brushing a strand of messy hair from his face and pressing a soft kiss on his damp forehead. "I promise I won't leave you."

The woman had barricaded the door as much as she could, just in case. Turning around, she looked at the escalator in front of her and then toward the shops to her left. Lucia had no idea which way Ellie had gone, but she needed to find her and she needed to find her quickly.

The mall was eerily quiet as she slowly made her way up the escalator, taking silent steps as the metal creaked underneath her weight.

It should not have happened like this. They were supposed to find the Fireflies, have them examine Ellie and take some blood or do some tests, then they'd be on their way back to Jackson. Joel should never have gotten injured and she should not have gotten distracted by past memories to not even notice Ellie disappear.

"Fuck," she muttered, not even angry but afraid.

As she rounded a corner, the woman was quick to duck behind an old hotdog stand. Her heart was palpitating and her palms had turned clammy, the gun no longer firm within her grip. If she could trade them for clickers she would. It weren't the same men. Lucia repeated this over and over in her head until she believed it.

"Where's that little bitch?" demanded one of them.

Lucia furrowed her eyebrows and had a gut feeling they were talking about Ellie, but she hoped she was wrong.

"She's already killed Andy and Rick." said another, and Lucia ducked further down as he looked into her direction. "She can't have gotten far."

There were five of them as far as she could see and if she wanted she could have taken them out, but she was cold and tired and she didn't know if there were more of them hiding at the mall so she didn't want to risk it. Not if she had two people depending on her.

It was only a few feet from the hot dog stand toward the next store, and she could easily shuffle her way underneath the shutters if she was quick enough. Lucia peered around the stand and waited, waited until none of them faced her before she crawled away from her hiding spot and toward the store.

Lucia heaved herself to her feet the moment she was through, holding onto her weapon tightly before she was met with a knife against her side that punctured through her coat but not her skin.

"Oh, shit." It was Ellie, who quickly retracted the weapon away from her. "Shit, I am so sorry."

The brunette said nothing as she took hold of the teen's arm and dragged her away from the entrance and toward the back of the store. Ellie winched at the tight grip the woman had on her bicep but said nothing as Lucia led her to the storage room.

"What the hell were you thinking?" she hissed.

"What?" glared Ellie in return. "You didn't stop me."

"I didn't even hear you, Ellie. You knew I didn't hear you and you still left. Do you know how dangerous that was? That group out there, they could have killed you and there was nothing that I could have done about it. You don't ever go off on your own again, understand?"

"You're not the boss of me." seethed Ellie, but she wasn't even angry.

"Ellie," sighed Lucia, rubbing a hand over her face. "please."

The teen blinked up at her and puffed out a breath before rummaging through her backpack, handing the woman an emergency kit. "It's full. We can stitch him up now. There's even disinfectant in there so we can properly clean it."

"Where did you find this?"

"A helicopter." shrugged Ellie, not mentioning the stalkers she had run into just to save Lucia's poor heart. "On the other side of the mall, it crashed into the stores and everything inside was still intact."

"I should be so mad at you, you know." muttered Lucia, but as she held the kit in her hands she couldn't be anything other than grateful. "We have to get him out of here first before we can even attempt to stitch him. This place must be crawling with looters."

"They keep circling this floor and then they're going back downstairs." said Ellie, sliding down the wall and sitting down on the carpet. "They should leave in a little bit."

Lucia let out a long breath and sat beside her, head resting against the wall with the emergency kit held tightly in her hands. Her ears were on high alert and she could hear one of the raiders shout orders at the others, but none that they had to be concerned about right now.

"You know, I got bit in a mall." uttered Ellie, eyes cascaded downward.

"I remember." Lucia peered down at her for a moment. "Are you okay?"

"Did I ever tell you the full story?" Lucia shook her head and Ellie bit the inside of her cheek. "I wasn't alone that night. I was with my best friend, her name was Riley."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, Ells."

"I know." she nodded, playing with the skin around her nails. "Riley, she uh, she had joined the Fireflies. Marlene had recruited her and she hadn't even been seventeen yet. One night, when I was asleep she had come into my room. I hadn't seen her in weeks. As an apology she was going to take me somewhere fun. Just the two of us. Riley knew a way toward the mall and it was pretty easy to get in through the roof."

"Did you know that it is fully powered?" she asked to which the brunette shook her head solemnly. "Well, it was. All the lights were on and you couldn't see it from the outside. It was the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. All the stores were lit up and there was a carousel that played music and the ride still worked. There was a photobooth and the pictures were fun but they never printed."

"That's too bad." muttered Lucia.

"I still have the memories." shrugged Ellie. "There was even a game room where Riley and I played Mortal Combat until our heads hurt. Then after we got to a store and they had all these creepy masks and all these other scary stuff and it was amazing. Halloween stuff I think, i'm not sure anymore. Anyway, we had a fight after that. Riley was going to another city with the Fireflies and I would be stuck with FEDRA and I was just so angry at her for leaving me. She was the only friend I've had in the QZ. I left her there but I don't know why after I was almost back outside I had to see her again. We talked for hours and she promised me that she was going to stay and leave the Fireflies. Riley was going to stay for me."

"Oh, Ellie." Lucia pulled her into her arms as she began to sniffle.

"It was the best night of my life. We found a music store and played so many songs and danced on all the tables and then ... then she kissed me and after everything went to shit. We didn't hear them and we tried all we could but there were too many of them and once we were out we realised that we ... Anyway, we sat there for a while. Just waiting. And then she said 'Let's wait it out. You know we ... we can be all poetic and lose our minds together.' But I never did and I had to ... I had to shoot -"

"Oh, sweetheart I am so so sorry." whispered Lucia, holding the teen tightly as she cried. "I'm so sorry that happened. I got you."

here is the little left behind chapter. didn't feel like writing all the fight/infected scenes in this since there will be plenty of that in davids chapter.