( gif by ; -tzarrion )

━ CHAPTER SIX ...

' infected , part. 3 '

The window to the top of the roof was slid open, as the wind was blowing outside, and Joel was the first to hop onto the roof, with the sisters and Tess following soon after.

Tess grunts as she pulls herself out of the building, and sat down against the floors roof as she catches her breath. Joel kneels down next to her, grabbing his bag to try and find something for (Y/N)'s wound.

"Put this around your arm." He hands a white material to her, as she grabs its with a small thanks, and looks down when their fingers brushed again.

Ellie taps her sisters arm, gaining her attention as the younger sister motions to the long wooden board that was making a pathway across the two roofs, "Over there?"

"Yeah, I know. It looks scary." Joel answered the younger sister, as they both had walked up to the edge where the wood started.

"That was scary." Ellie corrects the older male, as she gets helped onto the wood by (Y/N)'s arms, "This is wood."

(Y/N) watches her sister walk across the wobbly board, relaxing a little bit when she made it to the other side, and she takes a step, standing on the wood as she makes her way over also, trying not to look down.

"Just wait there. Give us a minute." Joel calls out to them, as (Y/N) looks over her shoulder and gives him a casual thumbs up, before going to join Ellie looking at the scenery.

"It's really pretty." (Y/N) comments in awe from beside Ellie, blinking rapidly slightly as the sun was shining in her face and continued to gawk at the view of the broken city.

A presences coming up beside her has her tilting her head left, spotting Joel strolling up to where they were lazily, and stopped on the other side of (Y/N).

"Is it everything you hoped for?" Joel questions his half joke, eyes flickering down at (Y/N) and Ellie briefly.

Ellie purses her lips a little, tilting her head side to side for an answer, "Jury's still out. But, man, you can't deny that view."

As she said this, Joel's gaze shifted to (Y/N) as he took in her peaceful look under the morning lights. And the girl felt the stare, making her look back at him but he turned his eyes back in front before she could notice.

"C'mon, let's get there before its dark." Tess' voice comes through, as she walks right by them with a fast pace and swings herself around the ladder that was leading down to the ground.

(Y/N) frowns to herself a little bit seeing this, sensing something was wrong but didn't voice it, as Joel motions with his head to follow Tess down the ladder to the siblings.

...

Once they all had gotten to the bottom of the ladder, the group walked along the leaf infested ground as Tess once more leads them through the quiet city.

(Y/N) and Ellie were a bit behind her, as the older woman was walking at top speed, and they couldn't keep up with her.

Joel, who was walking similar pase to them, looks down at the bandage around (Y/N)'s wrist, furrowing his brows deeply and didn't say anything as they continued to walk silently.

...

After some more walking through the streets, the small group had arrived where they were supposed to go, and they all hid behind a car that was in front of the old building.

"Where the fuck are they?" Tess asked softly, not wanting to be heard by others as she was behind Joel, and spotted no Fireflies around.

Joel shakes his head silently, looking around at the area as he turns back to Tess, communicating with her through looks as he goes to stand up and walks up to the abandoned truck outside of the building.

He reaches his hand out, grabbing the door handle and swings it open as he aims his gun inside, but spotted no one in there, only a lot of blood everywhere.

He turns back to the other three, hand out to signal what he meant, "Stay back."

Tess was standing up in front of the sisters, gun in hand and ready, as they all stayed back away from the truck as the male searched the area.

Joel moved around to the other side of the truck, gun still aimed up as the sound of insects buzzing reaches his ears, and came across some dead people, who were in pretty bad shape from underneath the truck.

He makes his way to the back of the vehicle, leaning his side against it as he listens for anything inside. Once he knew it was clear, he opened the back door and saw only containers, no people in sight.

"What the fuck is going on?" Tess exclaims her question, coming around to front towards where he was with (Y/N) and Ellie.

"I don't know." He shortly replies, having no clue what had gone down here as he continues to glance around.

(Y/N)'s eyes narrow down on something on the steps, as she takes a few steps forward with Ellie already following, and both saw the blood trail leading up, "They went inside."

Joel and Tess span around at her words, looking at where she was pointing and Tess marched forward, grabbing (Y/N)'s wrist, "Come on."

She pulled her forward quickly, causing (Y/N) to yelp a little bit and Ellie to scramble after them. Tess ignored Joel's calls for them to stop, as she continues going up the stairs and opens the massive doors, pushing (Y/N) inside with her gun raised.

Joel was inside the building straight away, as the four walk more inside and spot the mess of dead fireflies, and where their base of operations was.

(Y/N) curses under her breath realising the plan wouldn't work, as she steps towards one of the dead bodies, but Joel's strong grasp on her upper arm stops her.

He gives her a look, gently pulling her back away from it as she nods her head in understanding, and goes to grab Ellie's hand in hers, who was frowning at the scene.

"I mean, there's gotta be a," Tess stammers out her words, currently in the middle of the room as she stride over to one of the tables, "fuckin' radio, or somethin' right?"

"Who killed them? FEDRA?" Ellie questions to Joel beside her and (Y/N), as Tess frantically searches for something usefully to help explain this mess.

"No." Joel answered her, stepping on the dead male near some moss as he uses his boot to flip the firefly over, and spots the bite mark on him, "One of them got bit. The healthy ones fought the sick ones. Everyone lost."

At the noise of banging, and stuff being thrown around has Joel turning his attention back to Tess, "What're you doin'?"

Tess was knelt down as she scanned through the equipment, but stood up as the sisters moved more towards the centre, "Where did Marlene say that she was taking you two?"

(Y/N) swallows the lump in her throat, blinking fast at the frantic woman's question, "Uh, I don't know. Just west."

Tess curses under her breath at her answer, throwing her hands up a bit as she turns back around towards the fireflies laying on the ground, "Well, I mean, one of them's gotta have a map on them, right?"

She squats down next to the dead male, trying to find something useful on him as she spots Joel not moving from where he stood, "Joel, can ya help me?"

"No!" Joel exclaims firmly, finally looking up from the ground towards his partner in crime, "Tess...it's over." He starts to walk towards her, "We are going home."

Tess snaps at his words, and spins her head around to him and yells loudly, "That's not my fucking home!"

Everyone went quiet at her sudden yell, as (Y/N) and Ellie share a small look with each other, feeling something was up with Tess.

Tess scoffs to herself seeing Joel's surprised face, somewhat hurt expression as she recollects herself before standing up to face him, "I'm stayin'. I mean..." She trails off into a smaller voice, "our luck had to run out sooner or later."

(Y/N)'s heart dropped with realisation hearing Tess' confession, and grips Ellie's hand tighter in her own, "Oh no. She's infected." She breathes out, causing Joel to look at her with confusion.

Tess scoffs once more with a tight smile, staring at the two sisters who had their arms around each other, and then back to Joel, who's eyes were wide.

"Show me." His gruff voice demands, taking a tense step back when Tess went to walk forward to him.

Tess' eyes closed momentarily at this, clenching her jaw and opens her eyes back up as she reaches for her jacket, pulling it to show her neck and where the bite was, "Oops, right?"

She lets go of her jacket, and it falls back into place as she looks at the upset (Y/N), "Take your bandage off."

The (H/C) haired girl sighs heavily, removing a hand from around Ellie as she unwraps the material on her wrist, exposing the now healed bite mark.

"Look. Joel?" Tess starts off as she goes over to the girl, gently picking up her arm and showed the male her healed bite, "This is real. Joel, she's fucking real."

(Y/N) frown sadly seeing how Tess' hand was trembling, as she removes the hold on her arm. Tess also notices the tremble coming from her, and she knew she was going to turn soon.

"I need you to get her and Ellie to Bill and Frank's." Tess demands this of Joel, who shook his head and muttered his disagreement, "They'll take them off your hands. They'll handle it from here."

"No, no, no, I can't." Joel continues to deny strongly, his voice wavering a little, "They won't take them, they're not gonna take her."

"They will. They will." Tess interrupts the male, giving him a determined look, "'cause you will convince them."

She sees him shaking his head again, a hand running down his face, and she goes to plead once more, "This is your chance. You get them there.. you keep them alive...and you set everything right." She gestured to the quiet sisters, and looks back at Joel, "All the shit we did. Please say yes, Joel, please."

A loud gasping noise from behind the sisters, has them spinning around sharply and (Y/N) exclaims loudly seeing the once dead male alive, and an infected. She quickly acts, and pulled Ellie by the arm behind Joel, who reached for his smaller gun and shot him in the head.

The infected male was now laying flat on the floor, as little tendrils came out from the mossy ground and started to go inside his skin. As this happened, it was alerting and waking up the swarm of infected a couple miles away from them.

Joel, who knew what this meant and could just barely hear the incoming swarm, ran up to the front door, pushing it open and heard the distant snarling coming their way.

"How many?" Tess questions the male making his way back towards them.

"All of them. Maybe a minute." Joel tells her as he rushes past the girls, scanning the room frantically for the safest way out of there.

Tess picks up the gun laying on the floor, using the blunt end to knock open some containers, as she grunts and pushes over the big oil drums, making it spill all over the floor.

(Y/N)'s eyes go big seeing her doing this, as Ellie grips her sister shirt sleeve, having a similar expression, "What are you doing?"

"Making sure that they don't follow you." Tess simply answers her question, grunting again as she pushes over another drum onto the floor. She flips over a container, and out came many grenades that landed into the oil.

Tess now walks up towards the frozen male in the middle of the room, "Joel...save who you can save."

Joel continues to stare at the woman, different emotions flickering in his eyes as they glance at the teary eyed (Y/N), and right then and there, his mind was made up.

He quickly moves, reaching out to roughly grasp (Y/N)'s wrist in his hand, while his other grabbed Ellie's, and started to pull them away from Tess.

"Wha-" (Y/N) stammers out, tripping over her boots as she takes a look back at Tess, and spots her slight smile she sent, and a head nod for reassurance.

"No! We can't leave her-" The girl cries out, trying to fight against Joel's hold, but he just grips tighter and pulls more, until the sound of her yells weren't heard anymore in Tess' ears and the back doors slamming shut.

As the three were still running outside, behind them the explosion went off with glass shattering everywhere, and Joel pulls the sisters in front of him, using his body to shield them from the explosion.

(Y/N)'s hands reach out for Ellie's, who grasped them tightly in her own and the youngest sent the oldest a reassuring look, as they both turn back to the fire and heard distant snarling.

Joel breathed heavily as he lowers his aimed gun, the situation hitting him full force. Tess was gone, forever. And she gave her life for the cause of believing in (Y/N). To safe them so they had a chance.

The (H/C) haired girl herself knew that, as she glances down at her arm and saw the scars of the bite marks. Another death to the list which she couldn't prevent, nor stop from happening.

A single tear runs down her cheek, guilt entering her heart as she feels Joel's arm brush up against hers, when he turns to walk away from the place where Tess took her final breath.

( gif by ;
sporadicstarsx )