*Kind of a short chapter*

"Wow, look at that."

After navigating the hotel, the group came to a large room with a set of tables. There were still plates and silverware on them. Everything looked like time just...stopped. It was like nothing had been touched since Outbreak Day.

The deserted ballroom couldn't have looked any more depressing—was that a backdrop? Maeve eyed the torn beach background. Of course, it was. And she thought it couldn't get any more cringing. Or at least the beach photo was, what were they trying to go for? If she had lived before the Cordyceps, she would've liked to slap them around a bit for using the most outdated, overused backdrop photo.

It was so tacky.

Somehow, she couldn't imagine anyone posing in front of that train wreck of a picture, much less smiling in front of it.

Joel, acting as if everything wasn't all awkward and tense, stepped beside Ellie as she observed the damaged picture set, "That's a backdrop. People would take their pictures in front of it."

Maeve couldn't help but roll her eyes. He wasn't helping even a little bit with the awkward and intense air. Maybe he was feeling a bit guilty about earlier, trying to ease his way to an apology. For the most part, she understood Joel's frustration, taking a life wasn't easy and did serious mental damage to the person behind the gun, well, if they're weak-hearted. And second, she also took Ellie's side. She saved Joel's ass from a hunter, and he didn't act the slightest bit grateful. It felt rather rude.

"Yeah, I know what it is."

"Okay, then," Joel lightly rolled his tongue. Something on your mind, Ellie?"

The younger girl sighed loudly, crossed her arms over her chest, and faced Joel. "I wasn't trying to "disobey" you back there. You guys were taking a really long time and I thought, maybe you'd gotten into trouble."

"It don't matter what you thought. I need you to listen to me."

"I do. It's just that..." Ellie's nose screwed up. "Whatever, Joel."

Now that it was awkward again, Maeve decided to take a look around, even though there wasn't much. Empty cups, dusty plates. She cast a glance at the stage; it had this old, grand piano in the center of it. The gears in her head turned and she approached the stage, climbing on it. The second floor had wooden railings, but there was a part of the wall and floor that seemed to be rotted down enough, that if maybe someone was boosted up, they could totally lift each other up. Easy peasy.

But...the guys probably would be less than keen to lift up either her or Ellie, and then get pulled up, and then repeat. Yeah...she didn't want to do that either. She barely had the upper body strength to do twenty push-ups.

"That door looks like a way out. See any way to get up there?"

"Nope."

"Oh!" Maeve glanced the old piano, an idea blipping into her mind. "How about we use this to climb up there?"

"Out of all of your ideas, that one isn't all that bad."

The auburn-haired girl blew a raspberry at TJ and his snide comment. She resisted the urge to just whack him upside the head. Her arm itched and her fingers barely twitched. Her ideas were just fine! It was his decision to be distrustful! And it wasn't like he was coming up with anything to get them out of the dreadful hotel!

Even if he meant it as a compliment, it sounded sarcastic. Whatever the case, he had a serious case of roadkill up his ass.

"Okay..." Maeve huffed and smacked her hands on the side of the piano and tried to push. "Huh! Damn this thing won't budge!"

"Try harder."

"I am!" Her biceps cried out as she attempted to push against the unmoving force, futilely, it was like a huge boulder, too heavy for her to move. Her shoes skidded against the frictionless stage ground as she continued to try and push the piano. "Fucking hell, this thing is heavy!"

"How can you knock a grown man out, but not move a piano?" TJ gave her a weird look.

"Excuse you?"

He huffed. "Nothing. Move over."

TJ replaced Maeve, taking her spot, pushing on the old piano with just as much as trouble Maeve had.

"Having trouble there?" She coyly taunted.

"Shut up," he growled in annoyance. "This thing's probably been sitting here for years!"

"Uh-huh."

Scoffing, the blond glared at her from over his shoulder. "Joel?"

"Telling on me now?"

"Just shut up and help us with this."

Ellie crossed her arms over her chest and eyed them as they tried to push on the piano. "You sure you can trust us with that?"

Joel sighed, "Ellie...just push."

"Okay, jeez...!" The sisters get alongside the guys, using whatever strengths they had to veer the piano toward the slumped wall.

Together, the four of them managed to push the piano toward the broken wall, but just barely. The instrument wasn't very light, in fact, it was like a tank embedded into cement. The piano creaked and groaned, resisting against the forces that pushed against it, its wheels finally breaking into a roll and the body rushed for the wall, bumping against it in a way that the keys inside it made noise.

"There we go."

As always, Joel and TJ took the lead, climbing onto the upper floor first. Once the sisters caught up to them, they went around the balcony and into a small dining hall with a bar.

"Hey look," Ellie snatched an empty bottle from the countertop. "Hey, Maeve, do you have enough alcohol?"

"I think so," the older girl took the empty bottle from Ellie and went to work with creating a new molotov. With those hunters out and about, they surely would need them, since they're brutal and clearly won't show mercy.

After she's done, she handed the arsenic to Joel, who took it and stashed it in his bag. Her eyes surveyed her bag for anything she could potentially craft, but it seemed she was low on supplies. She zipped up her bag as the others headed for a window with a scaffolding outside it.

"Oh, shit." Joel ducked behind the wooden planks, hiding from whatever was below.

What? More hunters? Infected? Maeve crouched behind Ellie, barely able to see over her, but she could tell there were hunter down there. They were talking amongst themselves, unaware of the four of the scaffolding. She easily counted ten in the square alone, but there could've been more hiding around and about.

"Alright..." Joel wiped his mouth, peeking over their hiding place. "TJ and I are gonna jump down their clear ourselves a path."

"What about us?" Ellie and Maeve both looked at the older man.

"You stay here."

"This is so stupid," Ellie argued. "We'd have more of a fucking chance if you'd let us help!"

"I am."

What did he say? He was willing to let them help? Maeve watched as he twisted around to a skeletal corpse that laid on the scaffolding. A rifle was on its lap, and Joel grabbed it and handed it to the sisters.

"Ellie?" Maeve cringed, feeling uncomfortable about the rifle that was placed in her hands and handed it off to her sister.

"Really?" The younger sister stared wide-eyed at her older sister.

"You're a better shot."

"You two seem to know your way around a gun. You reckon you can handle that?"

Ellie grasped the rifle in her hands, shifting the long arm to her shoulder. "Well, uh, I sorta shot a rifle before...but it was at rats."

"Rats?"

"With BBs."

Joel shook himself of the disbelief and showed her how to hold the rifle properly, pressing the stock against her shoulder, aiming the barrel down at the hunters.

"Well, it's the same basic concept. Lift it up. Alright now, you're gonna wanna lean right into the stock, 'cause it's gonna kick a hell of a lot more than any BB rifle."

"Okay," Ellie nodded.

"Go ahead and pull the bolt back. Grab it right there. Just tug it. There you go," Joel watched as Ellie tugged the bolt, now it was ready to use. "Now as soon as you fire, you're gonna want to get another round in there quick. Listen to me — if we get in trouble down there, you make every shot count, yeah?"

"I got this," she reassured him.

"Alright," the guys began to lower themselves down the square hole near the corpse, TJ slipped down first. And as Joel was halfway down, he paused and looked at Ellie. "And just so we're clear about back there...it was either him or me."

And then he dropped down into the plaza.

"Is that his version of "thank you"?" Maeve glanced back at Ellie.

The younger girl shrugged and focused on the plaza, where the hunters roamed, a few gathering in a small circle, conversing with each other.

"They're all dead!" A voice shrilled out. A hunter, seemingly out of breath and scared shitless. "They're all fucking dead!"

Maeve peeked over the scaffolding, the hunters seemed alarmed now, but some of them didn't believe the panting one.

"The hell's he yappin' about? Take a breath," one of the hunters stepped toward his freaked out fellow. "Who's dead?"

"The whole crew. The 76 lookout guys. Some fuckin' tourist killed 'em, killed all of 'em!"

"Shit. Have you talked to the boss—"

Maeve caught sight of Joel sneaking around a rotted van, TJ began to sneak into the coffee shop. She assumed he was going to take out the hunters inside before getting to higher ground.

It wasn't long before one of them were spotted, which turned the plaza into a war zone. There were hunters everywhere, like ants. They came out of the bank and the coffee shop and another shop next to the coffee shop building.

Ellie, despite being so nervous, thinned their numbers. She was an immaculate sniper, as morbid as it was. Any hunter she saw, she shot. They went down without much trouble, and they bled out on the ground.

A few minutes later, the plaza was eerily quiet. The hunters were all dead, or at least the ones that were stationed there. Joel and TJ came out their hiding places, looked around at the work of Ellie's sniping skills, and flagged the girls to come down.

"How'd I do?"

"How 'bout something a...little more your size." Joel had taken a pistol off one of the corpses strewn around the plaza.

Maeve swore the shock and delight on Ellie's face was like her seeing a whole set of Savage Starlight comics. Her eyes lit up and a smile blossomed across her face.

"It's for emergencies only."

"Okay," she took the gun.

"Now, the safety's on. Do you know how to switch it off?"

"I do."

"Okay, you just...you gotta respect it. This is not—"

"Joel, I'll be careful."

The older man sighed and nodded. "Okay."