Tell me if the ending was cheesy, because reading it now… It kinda sounds cheesy. :I
(BLD)
She kept her weight mostly on her uninjured leg, leading Nick to believe her injury was recently achieved. There were a few fresh scratches on her arms, and then scabs of scratches, and even scars of already healed scratches. Her goggles, on closer inspection, were cracked in one corner, and covered in God knows what. The pads that decorated her knees and shoulders were covered in dirt and blood; with her ratty combat boots that fit the same description.
Her eyes, though, unsettled him.
They shifted back and forth between the two of them, twitching, really.
That's what snapped him out of his moment of exhilaration, that moment of excitement from meeting another living, breathing human being. He had to keep his mind straight, he had to stay focused.
Nick silently started a list in his mind, consisting of all the things he found… unsettling about her.
He wasn't going to mention it to the hick, or probably even have time to, but he had a feeling this girl was going to be a big bag of fucked up.
When she suddenly laughed a bit nervously he realized none of them had said a word for a few minutes.
"I'm going to take a wild guess and say there's no evacuation here anymore…?" It didn't really come out as a question, but it was implied that way. Her voice stayed mostly monotone, not a hint of desperation or weariness Nick would expect from someone like them, looking for evacuation only to get denied.
Ellis seemed to finally snap out of it, and slowly took his hat from his head to hold over his chest, "Well, I'm sorry to be the one'tuh tell'ya… But, yea. There ain't no more evac in New Orleans…" Nick watched Ellis' expression, but what he might've wanted to come out as an apologetic smile came out more like a grin you got when you were dying to give away a secret.
Giddy and excited.
Of course Ellis would be. He didn't have the skills Nick had to pick a person apart just by looking at them.
The girl sighed heavily, though her gaze never left them, and her expression stayed in its state of small amusement and quizzical, "I had a feeling…" she said it in an almost whisper.
"Hey, don't feel too bad! We were comin here for the same reason and when we finally got here, the military bombed it right in front of us!" Ellis offered, though whether it was meant to cheer the girl up or try and out do her, Nick couldn't tell.
Her smile turned into a smirk and her eyes squinted in the slightest at Ellis. Apparently she had the same thought.
"Anyway…" Nick piped up, speaking for the first time, "I'm Nick. This is Ellis." He pointed a thumb to Ellis in a stiff motion. After the initial shock and amazement of finding out that there were still others roaming around, Nick went into defense mode.
Last time they came upon a survivor, the man nearly killed them for their supplies. He'd even warned Coach about that one. He could just see it in the guy, how he walked, how he kept glancing back out their book bags. He had it written all over his face.
But no.
Coach was dead set on accepting the guy into their group, already introducing themselves to him and practically telling him their life stories like they had done when the four first met up.
Nick was the only one who saw it coming when the guy held a knife to Rochelle's throat and demanded firearms and food.
That's why the guy barely got a "Give it to me now, or the girl-" before Nick sent a bullet in his head from behind.
After that, the others started looking at him differently. He didn't mind it, they had a right to feel what they felt for him. Just as long as they didn't treat him differently.
This was bringing back memories of that situation, though the girl was definitely younger, maybe a little younger than Ellis, and she didn't look that bad. She had weapons and looked like she had medical supplies. The bandages proved that.
But she was giving them that look, like she were sizing them up in preparations to kill them, or something.
"I'm Raven." She gave her name in return, tugging the glove off her right hand then stuck it out for a shake.
Ellis eagerly accepted, scooping up her hand in a firm shake, "Nice'tuh meet'cha." He greeted, a lopsided grin adorning his face.
Raven hummed a soft laugh and shook back, though it lacked the enthusiasm Ellis' did. When their hands finally came apart, there was a moment where it seemed Raven wasn't even going to acknowledge Nick.
He suddenly prickled when the girl held eye contact with Ellis for just a second longer than he would've liked. Her smile was warm, but had an edge of smoothness to it, like it were nothing for her to meet survivors every day.
Nick roughly stuck out his left hand, demanding her's in return.
That's when that smile finally faltered. She gave him a skeptical glance before she slowly let her left hand lift, not bothering to unglove it.
As Nick took her hand with a quick smack of skin on leather, blood and pure sludge smeared on his palm, but he sucked back his disgust and gripped her hand, shaking only twice.
Before she could pull away though, he pulled then twisted it slightly to get a better look at the cuff attached to her wrist.
"Sweet accessory you got there." He commented, smirking slightly as she yanked her hand from his inspecting eyes.
She didn't seem as perturbed as he wanted, but she gave him an annoyed glare, though a laugh bubbled from her, "Yea, had to get myself out of a couple situations. Couldn't find the key, so I guess its stuck there." She explained, subconsciously spinning the metal around her wrist.
"Oh man, that sounds like a cool story!" Ellis chirped, seeming oblivious of the electricity between the two.
Nick was suddenly aware that one way or another, this girl would be coming into their temporary home. A seething anger rose up inside him. He mentally cursed and bit his bottom lip for just a second, silently contemplating.
"We'll have time to be all buddy-buddy in the house. Let's get going." Nick roughly barked to them, already stepping around Raven and headed back for the house.
That's when Ellis noticed Nick being an ass. He hadn't acted that way since… The bridge.
Lately, he'd been relatively nice compared how he'd usually be. Ellis figured Nick was starting to finally simmer down. Those first couple days of the apocalypse, Nick had hardly been bearable, complaining, arguing, and cursing them out every chance he got. It had gotten better over a couple of weeks until his attitude plateaued to mostly grouchy.
But now, it seemed they were about to start back at square one.
It was probably because Nick barely trusted anyone, so with Raven popping up… He did have the right not to trust her, though; having gone through what they did with the last survivor they met.
But Ellis had a good feeling about her. She wasn't hostile, wasn't asking a lot of questions about their supplies, and she didn't look crazy, like the last guy had.
She ran her ungloved hand through her short black hair and stared at Nick's back. "Is he always like that?" she asked gently, not looking too upset, but concerned none the less.
Ellis chuckled, "Nah, he's just a little cynical. When he gets to know you a little better, he'll calm down." He assured her.
Raven huffed a laugh and began after him, "Where'd you guys come from?" she asked conversationally.
Ellis perked, eager to start dialogue, "Well, I'm from Savannah Georgia. Don't rightly know where Nick came from, but we met up at this hotel. Oh man! Wait, I gotta tell you about the hotel!"
Nick let a sigh escape him, not the least bit excited to hear this again. Especially retold with color commentary by the hick.
He had walked with such a quick pace he had a few yards gained in front of them before he got to the house.
Nick growled to himself as he finally climbed into the window, deciding to roughly drag everything from in front of the door away. Those two had talked the entire way back to the house, and every time Raven would laugh or congratulate Ellis on something stupid, it made his annoyance grow just a little more. To prevent himself from doing something irrational, he lifted the heavy kitchen table and hauled it into the center of the kitchen floor, quickly grabbing the matching chairs to set around it. He made sure not to even look at them as they climbed through the window, Raven first, then Ellis.
"So, this guy, Coach, gets attacked by a Witch but is still able to carry you, unconscious, to a safe room?... No way." Raven scoffs, stretching her back then gingerly sat each of her weapons on the table in the living room.
"M'serious, man!" Ellis dropped the baseball bat he'd found in the corner, letting it slide down to the floor.
"Bullshit!" she laughed, shoving Ellis lightly by the shoulder. That's something Ellis noticed about her, there was a lot of gentle punches to the shoulder and soft shoves.
"Ask Nick, he was there too!" Ellis suddenly tried to get the busy gambler in on the conversation, but he hadn't been listening to a word.
"What?" came the annoyed response from the kitchen. He'd heard his name somewhere in there and wanted to know what was possibly being said about him. He was now separating the canned goods by what they could eat, like corn and peas and cans of condensed milk and heart of artichoke.
"Tell Raven Coach really did get attacked by that Witch in the sugar mill and he really did carry me to the next safe house!" Ellis yelled back, not bothering to actually go into the kitchen to speak normally.
Nick sighed, deciding not to respond.
Ellis continued on anyway, "It was crazy! After I woke up, Rochelle told me all about it. She said he was huffin'n puffin, and he didn't care that he was bleedin all over the place."
When Nick was satisfied with the few things he had done to calm himself, he decided to gradually step from the kitchen, walking into the living room to see the two hadn't taken but a few steps away from the window.
"If I can have your attention for a second…" he interrupted, his tone not at all apologetic.
Ellis had to abruptly stop his dialogue to listen and he soon took a seat on the couch, patting the cushion next to him in a friendly gesture to Raven.
Nick distinctly ignored that and went on, "So Raven. Ellis has been talking non-stop about our little adventure, but I haven't heard a single word about yourself." Nick used the most un-hostile tone he could. Though his narrowed gaze didn't help.
Raven smirked, "It's a long and boring story, really, but I'll give you the basics." Ellis snorted, apparently thinking otherwise, and without breaking her locked gaze with Nick, gently elbowed Ellis' side.
He snickered and shoved her arm away.
When did they get so chummy… Nick thought bitterly, borderline jealously.
Raven cleared her throat after that, "Well, I'm originally from Iowa. And let me tell'ya, the trip down was a bitch." She frowned subtly, eyes drifting just slightly to the right of Nick's head.
"Iowa?" Ellis suddenly spoke up, voice considerably confused, and as Raven glanced back at him from her lean forward, he looked incredulous.
"Yea…?" she answered slowly, not quite understanding what he was getting at.
"Why would you be comin to a New Orleans evac from Iowa? Ain't Iowa supposed to be infection free?" Ellis asked, suddenly very concerned, his body drawing up in a tense pose sitting up.
Nick's brows drew down, "Are you saying up North is infected?" he asked, arms crossing over his chest.
Raven looked between the two, now thoroughly confused.
"Unless we're talking about something other than the green flu, then yea. It's pretty infected up there." She answered, head giving a slight bob.
"Damnit…" Nick cursed, a hand going to thumb at his chin. He'd expected it to spread, but not like that. He'd expected some sort of containment effort from someone, if not CEDA then maybe the military.
This was bad.
"Hey, explain this to me. We were kind of shaken rattled and rolled up there. There was talk of all sorts of shit, and yea the word zombie was tossed around, but no one took it seriously." It looked like she were grasping for answers, her eyes darting between the two of them frantically, "But, it was on us so suddenly, people barely had time to react before neighbors were tearing each other apart. And this CEDA I've seen floatin around these parts... Yea, never got any of that where I'm from." She explained, a bitter edge to her tone, obviously still angry.
"Fuck, we didn't even see any military! It was every man for himself up there! I don't even know how I survived that shit, people were just shooting people, whether they were infected or not, nobody wanted to risk it! They didn't want it turning into New York… God, I hid in a kid's tree house for who knows how long… I waited till I stopped hearing gun fire… Found a working car and just… left." She finished, eyes settling into a stare at the carpet.
Her jaw kept clenching and unclenching, her hands adopting a firm squeeze on the edge of the couch. It was undoubtedly a tender subject for her.
Too bad Ellis didn't know any better.
"…Where's yer car now, Raven?" though he was visibly itching for more of her story, he contained his enthusiasm well with a gentle voice.
Surprisingly, she smirked and gave a soft exhale of breath that couldn't have been considered a laugh.
She shook her head slowly, "I should've looked at its plates… or the gas needle. It ran dry about half way into Des Moines." She smiled though it lacked any good feeling, "The damn car came from Pennsylvania."
It didn't come as a surprise as Nick took in a secret satisfaction from her misfortune, eyes narrowing slightly with a hint of a smirk.
"Damn, that sucks." Ellis commented, face screwing up in sympathy for her.
"So," Nick prompted, "If you didn't have any evac up North, how'd you know about this one?" he let himself lean up against the wall beside the window.
Raven looked up at him, "I was following a lead from a relative. She lived in Shreveport, heard about what was going on up in Waterloo, told me to come to New Orleans. It was one of the last phone calls I had." Her voice trailed off for a second, her eyes going unseeing as memories floated across them.
"When I tried calling her a day later, it went straight to voice mail. The next day, there was no service at all." She finished.
Nick nodded slowly. "And how long ago was that?"
"Heh…a month? Can't really tell." She smirked, relaxing back into the couch.
"It only took you a month to get here?" Ellis was shocked, though he was probably expecting her to have been on foot most the time, like they had.
"Well, I mean, I did find other cars…" she explained, gesturing a hand around loosely.
With the way her arm shifted around, it left a smear of blood over the surface of the couch. She suddenly eyed it with a frown, "Ya'know, I don't even know if that's even my own blood or not anymore."
Nick sighed, not liking this situation at all. He was a second away from telling her to take a shower, but that would be a form of acceptance of her. Like it would be official, like she were part of their unit now.
But no, it was different now.
Nick and Ellis weren't a unit.
They were just Nick and Ellis. He didn't know how he could explain it any better to himself, but they had become a part of each-other's lives. Honestly, Nick couldn't think of how it could've been without meeting Ellis. He suddenly didn't want to think about it at all.
As his gaze drifted to Ellis, he silently wondered how Ellis felt about it. Well, he obviously didn't feel the way Nick felt about it.
To Nick, it wasn't just letting a stranger in to their group… It was like she was intruding on them. Nick felt like somehow, someway, she was going to mess up what they had. And Nick didn't want that.
Whatever it was that they had, it was special to him.
It wasn't like they were a unit.
It was like they were-
"Good thing is about this place is it's got runnin water, so you can go wash up if'n you want." Ellis told Raven, giving her a pokey grin.
"Oh my God, a shower." Raven's voice took on a gravely tone at the thought, "I don't even know how long it's been."
Nick took the opportunity to break his mind from its previous train of thought. He had told himself before, he was going to just observe that little aspect about him and Ellis, and that whole realm.
But even as he led Raven to the down stairs bathroom, he couldn't stop himself from finishing the thought.
Like they were partners.