About an hour later we get to the TV station. We ran into a ton of WLF patrols on the way here and it's getting exhausting. On the way over here the WLF set up a ton of traps which slowed us down since we had to watch out for them. I'm keeping a closer step with Dina and I think she's grateful for it. Ellie's noticed that I've stayed closer to her, but she hasn't said anything about it. It's the first time I've seen Ellie really in action fighting and I'm impressed. I always knew she could fight, but to fight next to her is a whole new experience. The WLF also have dogs with them which makes trying to stay stealthy a real pain in the ass.
"My dad told me that when my mom was younger she used to want to work in a building like this. She wanted to be on TV and she thought the best way to do that was through being a news reporter. Said she always would have liked the attention." I tell Ellie and Dina as we look for a way into the TV station.
"So that's where you get it from." Dina tells me with a smirk on her face.
I roll my eyes at her, "Haha." Dina smiles at me and I look over at Ellie to see her walking towards the TV station ledges. I furrow my eyebrows and catch up to her, Dina following behind. Ellie doesn't say anything when we reach her and we climb up to find the entrance to the station. We come across a dead body before we enter, it looks recent.
"Oh Fuck. Tommy do this?" Dina asks.
"Maybe. Let's just head inside." We follow Ellie into the building by climbing up a rope to enter through a broken window. We get into a room with a bunch of tables, fridges and couches. More dead bodies appear as we make our way through the TV station.
"I don't see the appeal that my mom apparently saw in places like this."
"It was probably better before the infected." Dina tells me and I nod. Ellie continues to be silent as she watches us. We climb through a window into a new room where we find about 4 dead bodies hanging from the ceiling.
"Holy..." Dina starts saying before Ellie finishes her thoughts, "This is definitely not Tommy."
I walk closer to the hanging bodies until I'm at the edge of the top, "Maybe it isn't just the Wolves here. There were guys talking about Scars earlier, maybe they're the other guys." I tell them. They stay quiet as I think back to all the 'Share her love' messages. I look around the walls and see the same symbol, "Maybe they're like a cult. You know like the Haros. They have their own messed up views and worshippers."
Ellie walks up next to me Dina not far behind, "You think?"
"It would make sense. The Haros had a leader who made people think that fertility and making a new era of people would save you. Maybe whoever the wolves are fighting believe that whoever that women is will lead them into a new and better life. Look there's that symbol again. This here, this is a message." I point over to the symbol on the wall. Both Ellie and Dina look at each other after I finish my theory.
"Lets just go look for Wolf Leah. And be careful." Dina says and we all nod and start to search. I stay near Dina because I know that all of this is starting to take a toll on her. Just a few hours ago she was throwing up from when we found Tommy's dead horse and she's constantly holding her stomach. I look over at Ellie and see she's already looking over at Dina and I with furrowed eyebrows, but she's not saying anything as she turns around and continues searching the building. Once we've found supplies we go out on the balcony. Ellie walks over to the edge and starts shimmying across.
"What are you doing?" I ask Ellie.
"We got to get in and there's a broken window."
"Just be careful."
"I will." Ellie slowly walks along the edge and I watch her with worried eyes. She reaches the broken window and gets through. I motion for Dina to start heading towards the window the same way Ellie did and when she's over I do the same thing. Once we are in I look around to see we're in an office space. The atmosphere gets a lot more eerie- the office area is extremely dark and we move slow throughout it in case anyone is here. More dead bodies litter the area. We hear a noise in the distance.
"You hear that?" Dina says. Ellie nods as I continue looking around. I start to walk away from them but I hear Ellie call me back. When I reach the office space they're in they're standing in front of a dead body with three arrows sticking out of it.
"That's her." Ellie says, "Leah."
"You sure?" Dina asks.
"Yes." Dina starts to walk over to a noise- the one we heard earlier and picks up a radio. As she is doing this I pat down Leah's body and look for anything on her that could give us a lead on where to go.
Six, this is Two, do you copy? Six, acknowledge, over. I look over at Ellie and Dina to see them looking at the radio. Ellie has a stack of photos in her hand that she's examining, "Guys." Ellie says as I walk over to her and look at the photo in her hand, "that's her." Ellie tells us and we look at the photo. There's a blonde girl with a braid next to a guy with brown hair and stubble. The bottom of the polaroid says "Abby and Owen." We look through the photos to find more of the guys that killed Joel.
"Three down right?" Dina tells Ellie. I look over at Ellie and her expression breaks my heart. I grab onto her hand.
"Three down." Ellie sighs. Six, this is Two, do you copy? Support unit en route to the TV station. Repeat, support unit India en route-
"Shit" Dina sighs, "We should get going." Dina looks over at Ellie, "Well... she's dead. How do you feel?"
"I'm pissed we couldn't talk to her."
"But she didn't hurt Joel. It would've been pretty fucked up to make her talk." Dina says.
"She travelled thousands of miles just to torture him. I don't care who held the club." Dina looks at me again worried. I shake my head at her signalling her not to say anything else.
"Keep your eyes open!" We hear. 'Shit'I mutter and pull Ellie and Dina behind a ledge. I peer over and see WLF soldiers here, "Scars killed them! Spread out. We still could have Scars in the building. Watch each other!"
"How are we getting out of here?" Dina asks.
"We either sneak past them or fucking kill them." I tell her, "just stay close." Dina rolls her eyes at me and Ellie just watches us. I crouch down and grab my knives so I can take out as much as I can without alerting the others. When I'm moving the first people I see are in a pair. I look down and see I have five knives with me so I take out two and throw the first one at one of the guys. It lands in his eye and he drops dead, "Shit!" his partner exclaimed, but before he could alert anyone else I throw my other knife and it lands straight into his forehead, killing him instantly. I quickly retrieve my knives before the WLF see me.
"Shit Lia." Dina whispers, "I've seen you throw them before but damn." I look at Dina and she has an astonished look on her face. I peer to the other side of the room and see Ellie grab the WLF soldier and stab them in the neck. More WLF soldiers come, "God fucking dammit," I whisper as we go to get them. This time we are not as lucky when they spot us and start shooting. There's double the amount of people now and all of them have their attention on us. I put away my knives and replace it with my pistol. There's a WLF not too far from me who I shoot and with two shots he's down. There's a girl not too far so I shoot her as well. I don't notice a guy come up to me until I hear the shot and gagging noise. I whip my head around to see the guy drop dead and Ellie on the other side lowering her gun. There's only three more guys left and we all take them down.
"You think we got them all?" I ask.
"Think so. Let's go before more come." Dina says and I nod while Ellie leads us to the exit. We don't get far when we hear more WLF and they start shooting at us from above us.
"Run!" Ellie exclaims and we book it. More shots fly at us until Dina points out a window for us to jump out from. Ellie jumps first and I motion Dina to go before I jump. When I hit the ground I wince and hold onto my stomach. Before Ellie and Dina can notice I quickly lift up my shirt to see the wounds on my stomach from the explosion is starting to bleed through the wrapping. I just ignore it so we can keep moving. We run through the forestry trying to dodge the bullets that are shot at us.
"Don't stop!" Dina yells.
"No shit Dina!" I exclaim as Ellie tells us that we got to lose them. We turn left and right trying to lose the WLF. Ellie motions us to follow her into a building and we run in to lose them. She drops a vending machine in front of the door so they can't follow us. We move through the wrecked building trying to maneuver to find a way out.
"Spores ahead. Masks." Dina says and we all reach to put it on. I turn on my flashlight to help guide us. We push through the old building. I don't like spaces like this- one's that feel like they could collapse on me or make me feel small. I go closer to Ellie and grab her hand lightly. She looks at me confused but doesn't question it. As we're walking through the small space there's a hole in the wall and we have a clear picture of a clicker down below.
"Masks on! Sweep the entire station!" We hear a WLF soldier say in the distance. We find cover and look around to see how many there are. We see both WLF and infected, the room is all red from the lights. Both Ellie and Dina step forward ready to take them out but I grab them.
"What?" Dina asks and I turn to Ellie, "You still got that bottle?" I ask her. She nods her head and hands it to me. I look around to see the best spot to throw it and decide near a WLF. After I throw it I alerted him, but I also alerted the nearby clickers. The horrifying clicking begins before they start charging at the WLF soldiers. They start shooting at the clickers and I motion for Ellie and Dina to follow me and we quickly run away from the scene making sure to stay away from the infected and WLF. We reach a train car and shut it before a clicker can get in.
"Shit." Ellie says.
"Are you guys okay?" I ask them. Ellie nods and Dina turns to me.
"Yeah, thanks. Smart move using the clickers on the WLF." I nod with a sigh, "Lets go. I'm fucking tired." Dina says and we all agree as we start to find our way out. Dina and I talk about how fucking psychotic this city is when we hear distant screams.
"We're never gonna catch a fucking break are we." I say as we start walking towards the screaming. We can't really see much so it makes the scene even worse. We have to go through a few obstacles but after some time we finally reach a vent. As we're crawling through it we get a look down below to see some WLF killed by a giant infected. Shambler.
"I've never seen one of those." Dina says.
"Me neither."
"I have. I'd rather avoid that if we can." I tell them as we continue to crawl through this shitty place. When we finally get down the vent we jump down and there are two shamblers and two runners, "fucking great." I sigh and we get ready to kill them. I craft a few Molotovs and throw them at a shambler while Ellie does the same with the other. Dina handles the runners while one shambler chases me and the other Ellie. I throw another molotov at the shambler and pull out my rifle to shoot it. Once the shambler is down and the rest of the infected is taken care of I go over to Ellie and Dina so we can keep moving. When we keep moving we find a gate to get through. Ellie pulls the chain to lift the gate while Dina and I go through to get something to hold it up. Dina finds a tool shelf that she pushes under the gate so Ellie can come. Once she's through, it immediately breaks. We move through the building and scavenge any more supplies we can find. While Ellie looks around and finds a door she can put a key code into I lean against the wall and hold my stomach. I've been able to fight through it a lot but it's starting to catch up to me.
"You okay?" Dina asks me. I nod at her. She isn't convinced and walks over and pulls up my shirt to see my wound, "shit Lia why didn't you tell us you were hurt?"
I yank my shirt down, "I'm fine. I can make it to wherever we rest but lets just fucking get out of here." Dina starts to open her mouth but I don't let her speak, "seriously. I'm fine, just don't tell Ellie yet she's already stressed being in here. I'll let her know when we're out." Dina sighs and nods and we look around until Ellie signals us to go. We continue going through the building when we reach a new room where there are even more infected. I sigh and clutch my stomach.
"Stay with me this time." Dina tells me and I nod at her. We move with Ellie and work our way through the infected. We try to do it so the Shambler is last, but as we take out a runner and a clicker the shambler spots us. I throw my last molotov at it and it screeches in pain as Ellie shoots it with her shotgun. When we take out the last infected we're all wiped and we keep moving in hopes that soon we will be out of this shithole. We finally find a door that will hopefully lead us outside. I help Ellie barge it open and when we're through Dina puts a pipe through the handles to keep whatever is in there, in there.
"Smart." Ellie says as we start to move towards the stack of old cars and busses. While we are making our way out on top of all the busses Ellie suddenly falls through.
"Ellie!" I yell as I jump down to help her. I shot the infected on top of her, "You okay?" Ellie nods, "Shit Ellie your mask!" Ellie then notices her broken mask as Dina jumps down to meet us, "Here Ellie we can share mine-" before I could finish my sentence Ellie freaks out telling me to stop.
"Ellie it's okay!" Dina says but Ellie is still freaking out and takes off her mask, "Ellie no!" We both shout."
"Stop! I'm not infected, I'm immune. I'm not coughing see." Ellie says as she is holding onto my hands.
"Fuck." Dina says. I don't reply as I just stare at Ellie. Her question from earlier, about the possibility of being immune, she already had her answer.
"Lia." Ellie asks me softly. We hear screeches of infected in the distance. Ellie and Dina whip their head towards the sounds, but I stay staring at Ellie. Why didn't she tell me? I've told her everything about me. Even the bad and the ugly.
"Can you run?" Ellie asks me and Dina.
"Yes. Yes." I don't reply still shocked, but I give her a slow nod.
"Let's fucking go. Go!" Ellie pushes me slightly in front of her as I start running.
Why did she never tell me this?