"What kind of trouble are you in? Where the hell's Tess?"

After they left the bar, Bill began leading them upstairs, which happened to be a few worn-down break rooms or whatever. Maeve didn't know what to call it. It was upstairs, that was it. There wasn't much to the rooms, either. They were mostly empty and musty.

"It's a job. A simple drop-off." Joel answered Bill's questions.

They passed through a broken wall, over a sign, and into another broken wall.

"What are you delivering? Those brats?" Bill inquired.

"Haha. Fuck you, too." Ellie coughed.

Bill hollered out this weird laugh, "Y'know I hope you know what you're doin."

Ellie scoffed, and flipped Bill off, but he didn't see it. Maeve smirked, amused by how drastically this guy changed from the bar. He wasn't so hostile now, just...weird. She could hear him talk to himself, though she couldn't call that weird. She talked to herself sometimes too, for the times she needed expert advice.

"So, where are we goin', Bill?"

"My other safe house. It's more of an armory." The heavy clad man answered.

"Wait, I thought we were gonna fix up a car?" Ellie pondered.

"We? You know how to fix a—"

"Bill, just..."

Maeve rubbed the side of her forehead, a headache brewing. Between the dust and humidity, she was starting to feel snippy. She wanted this over with. She was exhausted, and frankly, she was tired of walking.

"...like I said, what I need is on the other side of town," Bill's voice rattled through the stairwell they descend in. "Now, that side I don't ever go to 'cause it's filled with infected. So, we're gonna need more guns."

They continued into a new building and hear an infected growling out.

Maeve's heart took off for the sky, was there one in there with them?

"Shhh...there's one inside." Joel ducked his head, ready to go stealth mode.

"Oh..." Bill puffed and pulled out his machete as they walked into a cafe-looking place. "I've been meaning to take care of that. Relax, it's nothin. So you didn't answer my question about Tess. I mean, I thought you two were inseparable."

"She's busy."

Maeve's breath caught in her throat when she saw the infected they heard stuck within a window. Its back and torso was pierced by spike trap. It growled and squirmed as it tried to escape the trap, though it only made blood seep from its wounds more. She couldn't help but feel sorry for the infected woman when Bill approached her with his large blade.

"Yeah, sure...busy," he hacked at the infected. "Sounds to...me...like might be trouble in paradise."

"Aw, gross..." the girls made faces as Bill beheaded the infected woman, the head bounced and rolled into the desert display case to the right of the window.

"Yeah, somethin' like that," Joel was quiet.

Maeve didn't blame him. He lost someone who was important to him. Hell, when she lost Jordan...she shut down. And she wasn't able to think straight at least two weeks. Sometimes she thought she wouldn't make to the next day, she still thinks that. She lost a piece her that she could never get back; it's like that with Joel, and she could sympathize with him because of it. The grief she felt could suffocate her.

"Alright..." Bill approached the door that led into a parking lot, which really was a deserted street. He pulled a ring of keys out of his vest and jiggled with the lock. "Here we go."

The afternoon heat engulfed Maeve once again as they exited the building and into the street. It was warmer than earlier, Maeve began to fan herself under the blistering sun.

In the lot, there were several cars that had been left strewn. She figured it was from the outbreak day and the cars were left in a panic. They sat frozen in time, well, not frozen-frozen in time, the vehicles were rusted at the brims and the paint was faded. Their tires rotted and flat. And it's said they're flat, there was no air in them whatsoever.

Maeve wandered over to the nearest car and nudged the front passenger tire. Yep. Definitely flat. Note the sarcasm. She peered around at the other vehicles None of these looked like they could be fixed up or even driven.

"So...why don't you fix one of these cars?" She heard Ellie ask.

"Oh my god, you're a genius," Bill caustically barked. "I mean the whole time, why on earth hadn't I thought about fixin' one of these cars?"

Ellie leered at him. "Okay...don't be a dick."

"Their tires are rotted and their batteries are dead."

"Are you done?" Ellie glared at him now.

"Can't even begin to think what the inside of the engine blocks looks like. Only new ones making new car batteries are the military."

That made sense, Maeve gnawed the inside of her lip. The military was literally the one making new motors, as of now. They needed them to keep their authority, or at least that was how Maeve saw it. The more machinery they had, the better the control over the QZ, and over the Fireflies.

A shrill tore through the air, and before they knew it, several infected swarmed from around the RV that blocked half the street. A few runners and a couple of clickers rushed for the group, hollering out.

"Shit, Infected!" TJ whipped out his pistol.

"Goddammit!" Joel cursed out.

After a few moments of gunshots and thrown bottles and bricks, the Infected were killed.

"Damn..." Maeve rolled her shoulder, trying to relax her muscles after throwing a bottle too hard.

"You okay?" Ellie looked at her, slightly out of breath.

"Yeah, sure." She responded wearily.

"Alright..." the sisters glanced at Bill, who began talking with himself. "You gotta check the barricades again. You neglect the simple shit and now you're paying for it. You know what that means...taking all the supplies from the warehouse and luggin' it to the east fence...again. Then it'll take you—"

"Okay, well now he's talking to himself."

"He does that," TJ followed the estranged man to a small and gated church yard.

"A lot?" Maeve was puzzled.

"Yup."

They trailed after Bill and were led through the gate, which he locked after they entered the narrow yard.

"And up we go." Bill trudged up the grass to a pair of cellar doors.

"You picked a hell of a place to hole up, didn't ya?" Joel grunted.

"You know, as bad as those things are, at least they're predictable. It's the normal people that scare me," Bill grappled the cellar doors and thrust them open. " You of all people should understand that."

"What does that mean?" Maeve and Ellie shared a wary glance.

Joel sighed. "Nothin'. You sure that gate's gonna hold 'em?"

"Well, I locked. They don't have a key." Bill entered the cellar first and TJ followed closely.

Maeve looked around a bit when stepping down from the last step of the cellar entrance. It was dark, and creepy. Nothing spelled horror like a darkened cellar with stocked shelves, and an armory.

"Well, here we are," Bill announced as he sauntered toward the back of the cellar, but he stopped and then pointed at the girls. "You. Don't touch anything," And then he pointed at Joel. "And you close the door. Let's gear up."

As the guys walked toward the armory, Ellie tried to follow.

"Uh-uh." Joel stopped her.

"What? I need a gun."

"No you don't. Neither of you do," He glanced toward Maeve too.

"Joel, we can handle ourselves." Ellie responded, a bit humiliated.

"No," the man said sternly. "Just...stay here."

"Fine!" Ellie grumbled aloud and threw her arms up. "We'll just wait around for you three to get us killed!"

"Easy, tiger," Maeve chuckled and stepped toward a shelf full of magazines and books.

"It's so frustrating!" Ellie turned toward her, balling her fists up. "Why can't they trust us?"

"What do you expect, E? We're a couple of ragtag outcasts."

"Well, they should!" Ellie complained. "We're trusting them."

Maeve didn't know what to say. She was right, about the trust part. She and Ellie had pulled their weight many times since Marlene entrusted Joel and TJ to take them. Not to mention, they saved their asses just as much as they did theirs. The trust should be there, but it wasn't. Not yet, anyways.

"Ooo~" Maeve smirked as she caught a glimpse of a magazine with a jacked and shirtless man posing on the front of it. She picked it up. "Hello!"

"Look, Mae!" Ellie showed her a couple of comics she snatched from the shelf.

"Jackpot! Savage Starlight!" Maeve peeked over her shoulder and peered at the guys, who were still in conversation, not paying attention. "Here, he won't miss a few magazines."

She took the comics from Ellie, along with the magazine she grabbed, and unzipped Ellie's bag, stuffing them inside quickly.

"Oh, neat o! A cassette tape!" Ellie plucked the tape from the second shelf. "Bet you could play it on your Walkman."

"You are a genius." Maeve took the tape and dropped into Ellie's bag and zipped it up before they got caught. She grinned in triumph. That crazy geezer won't know his stuff was missing until they were long gone! What a win-win.

"Hey!" Bill exploded from across the room. "What'd I tell you two when we walked down them steps?!"

The sisters backed away from the pile of comics and magazines.

"We were just fixing your stupid pile!" Ellie shot back.

"Don't touch!" Bill growled.

The girls flipped him off, which caused him to curse and go back to the conversation with Joel and TJ.

"This guy's touchy." Maeve clicked her tongue.

"No kidding," Ellie grumbled sourly and folded her arms over her chest.

"...Nah. Those trucks are like tanks. It's just sitting there." Bill's voice got closer as the guys approached the girls.

Both Joel and TJ were equipped with new pump shotguns, which they holstered on their bags. How comforting to know they have protection when they didn't, Maeve thought almost bitterly. Then again, they could've let Ellie have a pistol or something.

"Actually might work," Joel hummed in consideration.

Bill glared as he passed the sisters. "I swear to god...if you took anything—"

"Hey, man," Maeve put her hands up in surrender. "We don't need any of your shit. Trust us."

"Joel, TJ, you are keeping an eye on them, right?"