Author's Note: Wow, been quite a while since I updated this, huh? I'm sorry to all those who have followed, but I hope the chapters that will follow will be worth the wait. A couple of things: I'm currently working on a Tomb Raider fanfic(two, really), so updates will be slow, depending on if I want to focus more on this one or not. Also, I have gone back and updated/rewrote every other chapter, which is why this one is so short.(But there is more coming, promise!) So please, take a look through the old chapters, they are much better now. Thank you all for your PMs about this story in the absence of updates, you guys rock. Enjoy the read! -Foxinstrazt Update(2/20): Fixed a part where Morgan and Joel are talking to make more sense. Update(2/22): Fixed a continuity error of how long they had been following Damian, and what city they are in so it doesn't conflict with Chapter 11! Update(2/23): Hermanadi pointed out that I had Ellie screaming that Ian should untie her..after he had cut her loose. This was a conflict between the various drafts that part went through, and I've done my best to fix it.

Chapter 10

-Vengeance-

Riverton, Wyoming

January, 2035

Ellie's thoughts came into focus slowly, muddled after the blows she had taken. The first thing she became aware of was the pounding in her head, and the bruise that felt like it ran all the way down her back. Next came the sensation of lying on something hard, like wood. It was a strange feeling, like her entire body was slack, dead weight against the floor.

Ow, what the fuck? Her head hurt to move, even the smallest movement causing a flash of pain just behind her forehead. It was worse than the night Charlie had snuck a couple of bottles of alcohol from the restaurant, and she had discovered that drinking too much was a very real possibility. The rest of her senses seemed to turn on as she heard the gruff voices all around her, unfamiliar and nothing like what she had grown used to in the months since she arrived at Jackson.

Jackson.. Her memories came flooding back of the previous night, the attack on her home and the men who had come for her and Kayce. Ellie's eyes shot open, drawing in a breath as she was pulled to full awareness, her head roaring in defiance of being antagonized. She was on her side, facing a wall, the wood stylized to look like a log cabin, now dirty and rotting away after the passage of time. Panic began to accelerate her heartbeat, trying to force her into a state of fear and away from any rational thought, but she fought it off.

Mentally checking to see that everything was attached and working revealed that her hands were bound behind her back, the hard edges of a rough rope biting into her wrists. She could feel her ankles grinding against each other, bound in a similar way, the small comfort of surprise at being alive faded away instantly as she took stock of the situation. My knife, maybe.. Just as her fingers slipped over the rim of her back pocket, someone very close spoke, startling her.

"Looking for this?" The element of surprise had never been on her side, and Ellie knew it, as she tried her best to roll onto her back and into a sitting position. The man who had spoke was crouched in front of her, patient as she hopped her way up against the wall, ignoring the torn muscles that screamed at her efforts. He twirled the switchblade in his hands, taunting her with it, a wide smile on his face. "Do you know why you're here?"

It was the man who had taken Kayce's gun from her, the one with narrow eyes and a vicious grin. Her only answer was a glare to match the cruel look in the man's eyes as the Hunter took a step closer, still crouched to be at the same level as her. There was movement to the side of her, and a quick glance over told her that her friend was still alive. The other girl was obviously terrified, blue eyes wide as she crawled back away from the man, her hands and feet bound just like Ellie's.

The Hunters around them in the cabin had stopped whatever they were doing, from playing cards to simply talking, to watch what was happening. The one in front of Ellie, their leader, let out a dark laugh at her confused glare. "You don't recall what you did? Don't worry, I can refresh your memory." Reaching out, he clamped a hand down on her right leg, just above the knee.

She made a few futile attempts to pull her leg away from him, but the hand kept her pinned as he flipped open the knife in his other hand. "Go to hell!" The insult, weak at best, drew another laugh from the man.

"Did you know, there is this artery in your leg which, when severed.." Sawing for a second, he cut the ropes binding her legs, only serving to increase her confusion as she watched him warily. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kayce being freed as well, the girl rubbing her wrists while looking as lost as she was. "..Causes you to bleed out in minutes?" Ellie maintained her glare, despite the rising lump of pure fear that was clawing its way up her throat. "Of course, if it were up to me, I'd just kill you and get it over with quick and clean like. I'm nothing if not merciful."

The Hunter paused to smile kindly, as if that would be doing her a favor, as if mercy alone redeemed him. It faded a second later, replaced with a weary sigh. "Unfortunately for you, minutes won't satiate my people." Without any indication of what he was about to do, he stabbed the blade of her knife down into her leg, into the muscle of her lower thigh.

A scream escaped her as the pain hit, rolling waves of agony that seemed to amplify the pounding in her skull and the tearing sensation coming from her back as she squirmed and tried to get away. Ripping the blade free, the man's hand left her leg as well, letting blood begin to darken the fabric of her pants around the wound. Gritting her teeth and attempting to blink away the tears, Ellie focused on his face. "Fuck you, you chickenshit! How about you untie me and we'll see how much of a man you are?!" She fought a fight against the ropes binding her wrists with no luck, only managing to cut the strands into her skin with every new movement.

His hand returned, gripping the wound on her leg as he leaned in, a delighted grin playing over his lips. "Oh, you've got spirit. I can see why he liked you." The pain left for a split second as her mind raced to solve the unasked question. "Figure it out yet, hmm? No? Well, my name is Ian, and I believe you met a very good friend of mine. After all.." Raising his hand to pat her cheek, Ellie could feel the wet of her own blood on her skin. "You did leave a machete buried in what was left of his skull." Cold filled her entire being as what Ian was saying to her set in, throwing her into a memory she had tried, for a year, to bury in the darkest recess of her mind.

"You think you know me? Huh?" Dirty, rough hands close about her throat, crushing her windpipe closed as he leaned in close. "Well, let me tell you somethin'." Struggling for air, Ellie frantically tried to reach for the handle of the machete. It was so close, seeming like a cruel trick of fate that she couldn't reach from here. "You got no idea what I'm capable of!"

Her fingers touched the bottom of the hilt, slowly stroking it down into her hand as her lungs begged for relief from their struggle, already singed by the acrid smoke and bruised from the vicious kicks she had received. Gripping the machete, she swung with all she could in her weakened state, slashing into the wrist of the man on top of her. She felt the blade collide with the bone beneath the skin, cutting clean through the flesh.

The pain shocked him enough that he rolled of off her, crying out in pain as the positions were suddenly reversed. She moved quickly, desperation and instinct guiding her as she leapt onto him, rearing back with the blade held in both hands. The man beneath her made one final, desperate cry as the machete came down into his skull, tearing away the skin just above his left eye and burying itself within. She ripped it out, sending blood flying up in the air in a macabre dance before the blade came back down.

Ian's grin only grew as she put the pieces together, feeling the terror on her own face as the memory replayed itself again and again, everything she had tried to shut out since that day. ..David. The Hunter rose up to his feet, closing the bloody switchblade before sliding it into his pocket. "Now, you try to escape, I catch you, because good luck running with that leg slowing you down. And I kill your pretty friend here slower than my people want to kill you, okay?"

The man smiled down at them before moving off, and Ellie was left clutching her leg, the tears that had welled in her eyes spilling over and running down her cheeks. She tried to keep the sobs down, to deny the Hunters the satisfaction of hearing her cries, but they still came out in the form of strangled gasps.

Lost in the worst of her memories, she jumped when she felt Kayce slide against her, looking over at her friend. Despite the fear evident in her bright blue eyes, the other girl pulled her close and held tight, one hand gently running over her back. After what seemed to be hours of finding what little comfort she could in that she wasn't alone this time, she felt the all-to-familiar feeling of unconsciousness rise up as the pain overwhelmed her.

Two days had passed since they had followed after Damian, and hopefully, the girls he was tracking. Two fucking days. Stops had been few and far between. Food was eaten while moving, sleep was shutting their eyes for a moment in a saddle before being woke by the movement if the horse beneath them. Zac knew it was running the rest of the group as ragged as it was for him, but he refused to let up his pace, knowing his daughter was somewhere out there, captured by the worst humanity had to offer in the world they lived in.

They had been forced to stop, close to passing out from lack of any real sleep, and still he couldn't shut his eyes. The sounds of the fire crackling were the only indication of the rest of the group behind him, huddled around the campfire in their crude camp for the night. A sigh came to him, sounding more like a growl as he ran his hand over the rock that was marked with a design of a 'Z'. Left by Damian, it was the trail they had used for years growing up, a way to find each other in the mountains when they went hunting.

The sounds of branches snapping brought his attention to the young man who joined him. "You want some of the stew?" Dusty, one of the former Fireflies who had followed Madison to Jackson, was a spitting image of his father. It had taken a few hours, where the urgency to find Kayce had slipped for a moment that allowed him to place his recognition of the man. His stare answered the question posed to him well enough, before he looked back to the forest. "Alright, shitty lead. I'll ask what I really want to, then: How is my father, after all this time?"

Closing his eyes for a moment, Zac gathered himself. The boy deserves to have his questions answered. "Damian? He's been.. Angry. Vengeful with any Scavengers we've come across. The loss of your mom, your brother, and you, it left him unhinged." The memories of Alice, Jeremy, and of his best friend being happy brought a hollow ache to his heart. He longed for that to be restored, a single ray of hope that pierced his bleak outlook as they tracked his daughter's captors: The chance that Damian could be reunited with his son. "Dustin, I have to ask.. What happened that day?"

"I remember running into the forest to hide, and the fire cut me off from the camp. When I finally managed to get back, everyone was either dead or gone." Dustin, his shaggy hair a visible outline against the night, shook his head. "I wandered for days afterwards, and a group of Fireflies saved me. Not much else to tell but that. Kept this though." The younger man opened his pack and pulled something from it, offering it to Zac. Taking it, it was clear it was a photo. His eyes searched it for a long second before handing it back, unable to face the past contained within it.

Joel stoked the fire with a stick, revitalizing the blaze before sticking the branch back into the wet dirt, dousing the flame that had taken hold on it's tip. Morgan sat next to him on log, redressing the knife wound she had taken to her arm. It wasn't as deep as it had originally seemed to him, but it was easy for anything to become infected on the road. Their quick pace hadn't given her enough time to properly care for it, but no complaint had come from the young woman, her resolve in finding the girls as hard as his own.

Bouncing his leg quickly as he watched the flames dance before him, his annoyance grew within his chest as every second they weren't going after Ellie agitated him further. Finally, the woman next to him was fed up with the movement, her low voice sounding out. "Can you stop? You're rocking the log."

Glancing over, he met the gray eyes with a soft sigh, nodding after a moment. "Sorry. I just.."

"I know, I feel the same way." She met his gaze for another second before returning to working on her arm. "I love both those girls, and I want to find them too, I really do." He returned his eyes to the fire, offering no response as his thoughts seemed to race their way through every worst scenario there could be upon finding the girls. "They're both extraordinarily tough, they're survivors, and Ellie's proved she can fight through worse. They'll be fine, and we'll.. We'll find them."

Scoffing at the way the woman sounded like she couldn't even convince herself, Joel shrugged his shoulders, not committing to hope or despair. "No matter what, we're gonna kill every single one of those bastards." Nodding, he found some comfort in her words, that everyone who had harmed his girl would find their lives shortened.

Morgan was quiet for a few minutes after that, putting the roll of bandages back into her pack before replacing her arm into the sleeve of her jacket. When she spoke up again, her voice was quiet and contemplative. "What did they come for?"

Looking over, Joel could see the woman was staring into the fire, her pupils flitting as she thought through whatever it was that was on her mind. "Huh?"

She looked up at him, her expression near to pleading for an answer from him. "What did the Scavengers come for? They didn't move into the city, they didn't target any stockpiles. They set fire to the buildings near the town square to cover them in the firefight, and ran down the back alleys to spread into the town, but they never pushed forward."

Morgan continued, working through her thoughts as he listened. "Then they retreated as soon as they had the girls.. Why would they be after Kayce and Ellie?" Joel was forced to look away from her expectant gaze, as he couldn't fill in the blanks for the woman. There was only one truly defining thing he knew of that the girls had in common.

Kayce's dreams were filled with rampaging shadows and fire that leapt from place to place, chasing her through the darkened walls of Jackson. It was almost a relief to be pulled from them as she was hauled to her feet by the Scavengers, a relief that turned into terror as Ellie cried out in pain, having been awakened the same way and forced up onto her injured leg. "Get the hell off of her!" Her screams brought a round of laughter from their captors, but also the attention of the one who led them, Ian.

The slim man approached her with narrowed eyes, studying her features with a curious gaze before he spoke. "Why are you so familiar?" She shrunk into the hold of the two men holding her, wishing only to get away from his prying eyes as he advanced.

His fingers touched her chin, to tilt her head up so he could get a clearer look, and it was that contact that set her off. She flailed against the men who held her, trying to tear her arms from their grasp to break free. Finally, the wasted effort culminated in her yelling at the man who had touched her, her face mere inches from him. "Go fuck yourself!"

The amused smile Ian wore for a moment faded quickly as his eyes took a ponderous gaze again. "Is your father's name Zac?" Kayce ceased her struggle immediately, shocked out of any thought of escape as the guess was correct. In response, the man began laughing, even looking like he might cheer. "Oh, what luck I have!"

Before she could react to the revelation, the Scavenger holding Ellie cried out in pain while he was sawing at the ropes around the girl's wrists, her friend throwing an elbow into his face to push him off of her. For a split second, Kayce had hope that the other girl might be able to get them out of this, but that hope was dashed as Ian pulled his pistol from it's place on his belt. The man spun, the barrel in his hand as he brought the grip down on the girl. Tossing the gun up to correct his grip on it, the man let out another laugh. "Get her up, we're moving out." He then turned to give Kayce a wide, appraising smile. "And you, you're going to be useful in settling some debts I have with your father."

Despite the words that should have filled her with terror, Kayce found her eyes glued to Ellie, renewing her struggle to break free as she wanted nothing more than to run over and make sure the prone girl was alright. From here, she could see the gash that had opened above her friend's left eye, already bleeding out onto the floor as she was picked up by two of the Scavengers. "Ellie.. Ellie!"