The afternoon sun beat down on the group of five as they dropped into a back ally. It had been several hours since their "tour" of the museum. That was almost disaster, but Maeve was glad it was over now. They evaded narrow death just by a hair.

"Whew..." the older auburn-haired girl sighed as she fanned herself a little. "It's a little warm, isn't it?"

"It is summer." Ellie chuckled, skipping down a set of metal stairs.

"I almost forgot," Maeve murmured.

Right. Seasons were still a thing in an apocalypse. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter. They should add rain for a season since had rained its ass earlier.

"Look at this!" Joel called, getting the group's attention.

He crouched over a dead body. Seriously, how many bodies would they discover today?

"Firefly." Maeve scrunched her face up, spotting the logo on the sleeve of the guy's jacket.

"Shit..." TJ groaned, rubbing a hand over his mouth.

"So what if they're dead by the time we get there?" Ellie asked, her brows furrowed together in worry.

"They won't," Tess replied, maybe a bit too desperately.

"How do you know?"

"I just — I just do."

Joel left the body hidden between the stairs and building. Like the person could stay hiding in his place of death. Poor dude. Now no one would know he was missing, and dead. What an unfortunate fate he was given.

"Yo, Maeve!" Ellie called, breaking the girl's prolonged stare of the body.

"Sorry. I'm right behind you." She twisted around when Joel took a dumpster from one of the corners of the empty area and rolled it over to the alleyway, which was overtaken by a locked fence and a scaffolding built over it.

"Up and over, Tess."

"Yup!"

They climbed the dumpster to get to the street. Frogs and crickets sang as if it were some kind of swamp party. Speaking of a swamp part, it basically could have been. The street was flooded. Car were half drowned in the greenish water. Lily pads and duckweed dotted the surface with algae.

"Um..." Ellie began nervously. "Just so it's out there...I can't swim."

That caused a chain reaction between the three smugglers. They sighed and looked between each other.

"It looks like it's shallow on the right side," Tess entered the water, keeping close to some of the vehicles to the right.

"Can you swim, or are you a sinker, too?" TJ asked Maeve, probably a bit too rudely as he entered the water behind Joel.

"Oh, shove it!" she glared at him and took her bag and held it above her head before she entered after him. "I can swim."

"I'm glad Marlene hired you guys." Ellie said wistfully.

"What do you mean?" Tess replied.

"I know you guys are getting paid for this — but I'm trying to say thanks."

"Yeah," Tess let out a breathy chuckle. "Sure thing."

The Capitol Building was huge, though Maeve thought it would be bigger. It reminded her of some more important buildings in Washington, but with a golden dome on the top.

"Here it is, E," Maeve exited the water and climbed the stairs to the building. Sher shook her lower body of the swampy water, dotting the dry concrete stairs. "You ready?"

Ellie looked a bit breathless, especially with each step they took closer to the large set of doors. It seemed exhilarating for them. They were there, and almost completely ready to be handed off to the Fireflies.

"I think so. It feels surreal." Ellie breathed in and out heavily.

"I know what you're saying," Maeve nodded. "Want to hold my hand?"

"I'm good, thanks." Ellie rejected her sister's offer.

"Okay, kid," Joel approached the door and reached for the handles. "Moment of truth."

The entrance was pushed open, but instead of getting greeted by Fireflies, they were greeted by their bodies strewn out along the floor in bloody puddles. They had been shot by someone, or by several people.

"No, no, no!" Tess entered, rushing to the first body and kneeled beside it.

Any ounce of hope and giddiness Maeve had, vanished. It was like she could cry in frustration, of course it couldn't be this easy. Ellie looked absolutely lost, her expression was about how everyone felt.

Maeve's shoulders slumped in defeat. Well, dammit.

"What happens now?" Ellie shuffled to the side, looking between the smuggled for guidance. Any guidance, really.

That was when Tess began patting down the bodies, leaving no no pocket unturned.

"What you doin', Tess?" Joel asked and ran a beefy hand through his graying hair.

"Maybe they, ah, maybe they had a map or something to tell us where they were going," Tess rolled the first body over to check his coat pockets.

"How far are we gonna take this?" Joel gestured to the empty air.

"As far as it needs to go!" Tess said desperately and then looked at the sisters. "Where was this lab of theirs?"

Maeve and Ellie shared a look, "Oh—she never said. She only mentioned it was someplace out west."

Now that Maeve really looked at Tess, she realized the woman was considerably pale and clammy, with a distant haze to her eyes. Something was...off about her. She seemed completely different to what Maeve felt first meeting Tess.

"What are we doin' here? This is no us." Joel said, which caused Tess to stand up.

"What do you know about us? About me?"

TJ stood off to the side with the sisters. It was clear to Maeve this was something between the adults and didn't involve him, or at least at the moment.

"I know that you are smarter than this," Joel responded.

"Really?" Tess looked at him. "Guess what, we're shitty people, Joel. It's been that way for a long time."

"No, we are survivors!" Joel argued.

"This is our chance—"

"It is over, Tess!" The older man burst, and then he lowered his voice some. "Now we tried. Let's just go home."

"I'm not — I'm not going anywhere," the woman's face fell. "This is my last stop."

"What?" Joel said in confusion as the woman began to pace around a little.

"Our luck had to run out sooner or later," Tess turned away from Joel only for him to try and grab her.

"What are you goin' on about—"

"No don't — Don't touch me." The woman freaked at his touch and smacked his hand away from her. She looked down at the floor.

Then it clicked.

Tess's desperation. Her constant reassure about the Fireflies being alive. Why she looked so dazed and clammy. It all made sense now. Maeve felt a cold burn flood through her veins.

"Holy shit..." Ellie somehow voiced Maeve's thoughts, which Joel and TJ to look at her. "She's infected."

The man stepped away from Tess, disbelief painted his features. Maeve watched TJ pale in realization too. This seemed so sick to watch.

"Joel..." Tess tried.

"Let me see it."

"I didn't mean for this—"

"Show it to me." Joel demanded, cutting Tess off.

Her lost and scared expression turned into a void one, hard, cold, and serious. She grabbed her collar and pulled it back to reveal a fresh bite wound. The meat of her collarbone protruded out of the wound and swelled up.

"Oh Christ!" Joel gaped.

"Oops, right?" Tess covered the bite mark back up and suddenly trotted to Ellie, "Give me your arm." She grabbed Ellie's arm and forced the sleeve that concealed Ellie's bite mark up. "This was three weeks. I was bitten an hour ago and it's already worse! This is fucking real, Joel." Tess let Ellie go, who hovered back to the safety of Maeve's side while she pulled her sleeve back down. "You've got to get this girl Tommy's. He used to run with this crew. He'll know where to go."

"No, no, no," Joel shook his head. "That was your crusade. I am not doin' that."

"Yes, you are!" Tess got closer to the tense man. "Look, there's enough here that you have to feel some sort of obligation to me. So you get her to Tommy's."

Maeve tenses at the scene before her, feeling an odd sense of Deja vu. It triggered her heartstrings. The pain Tess must've felt was the same pain Maeve felt when she lost Jordan. The pendant that hid under her shirt suddenly burned against her skin.

Clench.

Nope! No, no! Don't think about him! Not now! Maeve tried to shake the tears back into the dam behind her eyes.

They heard a noise outside.

"Shit," TJ peered out of the window as a military vehicle rode up outside.

"They're here," Tess brought her pistol out and checked the magazine briefly before clicking it back inside the grip. "I can buy you some time, but you have to run."

"You want us to leave you?" Maeve asked, cold.

"Yes." The woman squared up her shoulders and face the front entrance way. She twisted around to face the guys.

"Bullshit! We're not leaving you!" TJ disagreed.

"There's no way that—"

"I will not turn into one of those things!" Tess exclaimed, her voice high from emotion. She calmed herself quickly and glanced between the guys again. "Come on...make this easy for me."

"I can still fight—"

"No, just go!" Tess exploded as she pushed Joel the opposite direction the front building. "Just fucking go."

The man stepped back, not breaking eye contact with the woman.

"Kids." Joel said, his voice hard.

"I'm sorry, I didn't — I didn't mean for this." Ellie apologized to Tess.

"Get a move on."

Maeve reluctantly moved to the other room, Ellie too. TJ stormed past them, red in the face but he didn't say anything. In the next room, there were two sets of marble stairs. One to the right, which was all blocked off by furniture and such, then the one to the left. It was a clear sign which one they would be going up.

Behind them, Joel shut the door. He grunted as he locked the bolts and stood there clenching the handles as if he were telepathically sending Tess an informal farewell. Her heart hurt for him. It was clear how much Tess meant to him, and TJ.

"What the fuck! I can't believe we did that!" Ellie expressed her bewilderment.

"Stop." Joel said.

"But we just left her to die!"

"Stop," Joel repeated, a bit louder this time. "You two stay close to us. We need to move."

As they headed up the open staircase, they could hear a fierce battle, the shooting of firearms bounced off the walls in a terrible echo of reality.

"Oh man..." Maeve grimaced.

"Just keep pushing forward." Joel bit.

Somewhere in the firing, Maeve heard a scream and she knew it was Tess. They had gotten her.

"Oh my God..." Ellie whimpered when they sneaked onto a balcony overlooking the are they left Tess in. Her body lifelessly laid near the Fireflies and a few feet away, there were two dead soldiers by the front entrance. They bled out from where Tess shot them.

Soldiers filed into the building, aiming their assault rifles around robotically.

"Target neutralized. She took out two of my men," one of the soldiers spoke into a hand radio. "Copy that. You, take out that door. You, with me."

The quartet hurried into another room. It was one of those press rooms. Maeve had seen old news channels, er, videos, she should say.

"They're gonna be here soon."

Yes, Ellie, we all know this. Maeve practically gnawed her fingernails as they rushed around the room like chickens with their heads cut off.

"Here," Joel reached a hole in the side of the building, a board conveniently stuck out so they could jump to another part of the building.

One by one, they entered the new wing.

"Oof, buddy!" Maeve clicked her tongue at a decayed corpse that leaned against a middle arch that led to a long hallway. The skeletal corpse wore a shit ton of protective wear, and its bony hand clutched a hunting rifle.

"Hm." Joel snatched the gun and checked the stock for bullets.

"Got any lead in there?" Maeve asked.

"Enough." He merely replied.

That didn't answer her question, but hey! Maeve screwed her nose as he passed through the arch, ducking behind some clothed boxes.

"Down!" She and Ellie were dragged into cover as a few soldiers filed in from the other side of the hall.

"What do we do?" Ellie asked the guys. "Joel?"

"...I got this. Stay put." He crept around the art and cover.

Maeve's heart hammered in her chest, hoping to not hear any gunfire. But u=instead, there was just silence. After a frighteningly long moment, Joel called out to them.

"Alright, let's go."

Thankfully enough, Joel knocked the soldiers unconscious, that's why he was taking so long. Huh. How incredibly responsible of him.

"Wow, how clean of you, Joel," TJ made the jab at the older man, who just scoffed his words off.

"Let's go before any more of them show up."

They left the hall, the group dropped into the ground floor from a broken staircase.

"...come through here. Comb the area."

"Shit! Get down, get down!" The four took cover behind a fallen display.

Two soldiers conversed in the small hall leading to the larger room. They were ready with their firearms just in case they were jumped.

"They still haven't found the last four."

Unlike their other friends, these guys didn't seem to have been blessed with helmets or thick bullet-proof wear. Maeve guessed the vests were under their uniforms, like how the soldiers were supposed to wear them.

"I hear one of them is just a kid," the second guy replied.

"Does it matter? They took out a bunch of our guys."

"Jesus," the second guy clicked his tongue. "Well, hey, after today this whole Firefly bullshit will be behind us."

They entered the room the group was hiding in and separated to search both ends of the room. Kind of stupid to search an empty room, but hey. Joel and TJ sneaked up on the guards, easily knocking them unconscious and pulling their bodies into the stairwell so they wouldn't be discovered by other unsuspecting soldiers.

"There's the exit," Ellie pointed out, the said exit being so far, yet so close.

"I see it," Joel hummed. "Stay down, I don't know how many more there are."

"So, are we gonna wait til all of them scope this floor and knock them unconscious?" Maeve lifted an eyebrow. "Do things quietly?"

"No, no," TJ shook his head. "That'd take too long. We gotta keep moving."

"Sure, sure," she saluted lazily.

"We're gonna split," Joel said finally and motioned to Ellie. "We go left, you go right."

"What? No!" Maeve snapped her attention to Joel, her brow furrowed. "I'm staying with Ellie."

"A big group will just attract their attention quicker. Go around and meet us at the exit."

Maeve went to argue, but close her mouth into a thin line. "You stay close to him."

"Ditto." Her sister saluted her with two fingers and a wink.

The shit I get myself into. Maeve rolled her eyes and followed after TJ.