Chapter 3: Blue Eyes
"Wait… Let me see if I got it right…" Inside the yacht, Lev was genuinely surprised by what he had just heard. "She… The person who caused so much harm to you... She'll travel with us?"
"That I don't know yet, but I told her I don't see any problem if she decides to go with us. So, she went towards the beach to think better or something…" The blonde replied as chewed on a bar of expired protein she had found in one of the cupboards.
"Are you okay, Abby?" The boy questioned worriedly.
"I?"
"Yep."
"I'm, I mean… I have several injuries and a lot of hunger too..."
"I'm not referring to that."
"So... How so?"
"That girl… Murdered your friends Owen and Mel… And tried to kill you twice."
"I know."
"And is it okay to call her to travel like this, without more nor less?" Lev asked, visibly intrigued. "I'm just wanting to understand if you want to set up some kind of ambush for her, because if that's what you intend, I don't think it's an honest thing because people have to have the right to defend themselves and fight for their lives and…"
"Lev, Lev, hey, calm down." The woman smiled at him. "I'm not trying to kill her or anything like that."
"So, what do you intend?"
"May you two be friends."
"Both of us?"
"Yep."
"But… She and me?"
"Yep." Abby repeated. "Why the astonishment?"
"Because I don't know if I'm going to be able to be friends with someone who killed people who mattered to you…"
"Lev, listen to me carefully: in this fucking world we live in we can't trust almost anyone, but when this girl chose not to kill me and gave up drowning me so I could take you to the Fireflies, I've felt like I had to pay her back, somehow."
"But… Did she say that?" He asked, surprised.
"Yes. Look, it doesn't mean that I like her or that we're going to be great friends she and I. There's a lot of complex things between us and… I don't know if the two of us are going to be able to talk about these matters with the necessary calm. But... I'd like to try. Because you don't have anyone else in this shitty world."
"I have you." The boy insisted, as if to say that the two of them didn't need anyone else around.
"Yes, you have me until the end." The blonde stated, as soon as she finished chewing on the protein bar. "But I wasn't fast enough to protect you against that Rattlers gang…"
"It wasn't your fault, Abby."
"Stop. Of course, it was. I was so excited because I talked to that man over the radio, I just didn't take the necessary care." She said, as she tried to hold back tears as she remembered what she had suffered at the hands of the faction to protect Lev. "We need someone with us, and even though I think it's risky, I let her live in the theater in Seattle, and she let me live in the beach... I hope that's enough for us to be civilized in living with each other."
The boy was in awe of the attempt made by the former WLF member, who seemed to want, in fact, to seek some kind of understanding with the green-eyed girl, despite the serious events that occurred between the two women, which he still didn't know what it was about. Still, though, he worried about the direction the trip would take, precisely because he didn't know the young woman enough to claim she was a person of complete confidence.
"Okay, we can try if she travels with us." He replied a few seconds later. "But if she tries to hurt you, especially in the state you're in... I'll defend you."
"I wouldn't expect another attitude from you, Lev." Abby responded in a genuine way. "Thank you."
The boy smiled in response, as he fed on more canned food, as the blonde had reached for another meal so he could regain his strength. "But what about Fireflies… Have you given up on going after them?"
"Nope. I just think we need to look for a place so we can improve in the first place." She spoke. "Because I'm not sure if that person who talked to me over the radio really belongs to Fireflies."
"Think it was a trap?"
"It may have been, yep. But we'll see that later. First, we need to find a way out of Santa Barbara."
"Okay."
The boy sat on the bench and remained quiet as the woman walked to the deck of the vessel. After a quick examination he came to the conclusion that they would have enough fuel to go to Santa Monica, so that they could look for some house as habitable as possible. After all, as much as she was willing to make things between the immune girl and herself work, creating a routine could help with the task at hand.
Then she focused on the sound of the waves and took a deep breath, the wound on her left thigh ached like hell, not to mention the various burns from the long exposure to the sun, and all she needed after nearly three months of forced labor and of torture to which she was subjected, was to sleep for more than a day. However, the fact that they would most likely have the company of the green-eyed girl worried her, mainly because Ellie had a backpack with several weapons at her disposal.
"Lev, I'm going out in search of resources, but I won't be slow to get back, okay?"
"But aren't we too close to the Rattlers territory?" He questioned, with visible concern.
"No, not so much. But even so, I need to be alone for a few hours. You don't get off that yacht, please."
"If I go out it's just going to be to fishing. Okay?"
"Okay." Abby agreed, before jumping from the deck into the water in a jump.
She felt a strong vertigo overwhelm her after the jump, but she still ignored the warnings that her body was not in full physical condition, because she needed to find at least one pistol she could use, since she had no item next to her – nor knives, nor weapons, nor even a backpack to store resources.
Not that she believed she was going to be attacked by Ellie; the girl had had a chance to drown her and hadn't, so she thought it unlikely that anything like this would occur. However, because the unresolved issues between the two women were extremely delicate and personal, the former WLF member could not completely trust that a violent turnaround would not happen.
The blonde swam to the shore as she thought about all the facts she had lived through to get there. Since the time her father had tried everything to make the advent of the vaccine come true, a dream that was interrupted by Joel, who saved the immune girl even before the surgery was done, killing everyone in the operating room, as well as so many other Fireflies; she then joined the Washington Liberation Front so that she could train enough to get revenge on Miller, the which came about four years after Jerry's tragic death; nothing, however, had changed in Abby's life after she managed to assassinate Joel, at least not as she thought it would be. When she returned to Seattle many things happened beyond the deaths of her friends—murders she still didn't know if they had been provoked by the man named Tommy or the green-eyed young woman; that, however, wasn't the most important thing now.
She walked along the beach towards the houses that stood by the sea, while also thinking of Lev and the terrible months in which they were kept imprisoned by the Rattlers faction. When she thought she had already experienced all kinds of experiences, the period she had endured in which she had been in their possession proved just the opposite; most of the torture to which she was subjected, however, occurred because no matter how physically strong she was, neither the boy nor she could handle all the work to which they had been exposed, and how little they ate, the situation worsened day by.
However, all Abby intended was to give the boy a chance to be happy, if only for a while, happy as she had been alongside Jerry—who raised her with as much love as possible—and how she still dreamed of being next to someone would never give up.
The blonde was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't even notice Ellie call her more than twice; she continued to walk towards one of the houses that stood on the edge of the beach, entering her. After a quick search of the first floor of the residence, all the former WLF member could find was a pistol that had only four projectiles, plus a knife. What the woman did not expect, however, was to be surprised by two Stalkers – infected of second stage – who because they liked dimly lit environments used the house as a shelter and, when the presence of someone human, attacked her.
Abby reacted as best she could; she didn't have the strength enough to fight back with blows with her bare hands as she used to, because her muscles definitely didn't respond even to the primal instinct to fight for survival. So she resorted to the knife, succeeding in annihilating the first Stalker without much difficulty.
However, the second infected man held her by the short hair and with a strong tug knocked her to the ground, striking her in the forehead with extreme violence, which caused her to open a cut because of the wound. The woman tried her best to push the creature away, but felt that every second her body did not respond nor react to the enemy's onslaughts, and that if she wanted to, the Stalker could bite her at any moment.
Ellie watched the scene from the front door of the residence, not really knowing what to do: should she let Joel's killer finally get the fate she deserved, or should she step in to help her in retribution? After all, if it weren't for the blonde, the green-eyed girl wouldn't be alive; not only on one occasion Abby spared her life, the last occasion being a rescue, since if she continued with the wound in her abdomen opened that way, surely Ellie would die either from hemorrhage or infection.
The woman had also let Dina live and consequently JJ had come into the world. Of course she had only done this after Lev called her name as a way to rescue her from the endless cycle of violence, but still... In case she didn't want to listen to him, Abby had enough strength to kill not only Tommy or Dina in that theater. But she had done neither.
And now here she was, not so hard fighting for her life, probably due to her precarious physical condition, as the muscles she had gained from the rigorous training she had undergone on the Washington Liberation Front would be slow to recover. The green-eyed young woman also noticed only now, that the blonde had beautiful blue eyes and that her hair had been cut, perhaps as a form of torture by the Rattlers. But that wasn't the most important thing.
The important thing was to decide whether to help her or not. The Stalker was about to bite the blonde's arm, and if that happened, all Ellie needed to do was tell Lev something like 'I'm sorry, I tried to help only I didn't make it in time', however it would be was a lie and was all she wanted to avoid for herself and others was something like that.
No. The green-eyed girl couldn't let that happen, not when every death, every new infected person only made their guilt increase, just as it had been with Riley, Tess, Sam and besides them, so many others who decided and who leave Jackson behind and were eventually bitten.
Because even if the vaccine didn't work for some reason, there would always be a chance that it worked in the end, that it got rid of innocent people from the fungus. And as vindictive as she believed Joel's killer to be, Ellie came to the conclusion that Abby didn't deserve this kind of death, if she really deserved to die.
With a shot that sounded loud in the room, the young woman killed the creature that was about to bite the blonde and only after that she began to approach cautiously, while Abby breathed loudly, still lying on the ground.
With an abrupt push, the former WLF member pushed the already lifeless Stalker away from her knees, though she didn't feel able to stand up at first. She just stared at the newcomer girl indecipherably, feeling grateful to have been helped.
"Thanks." She thanked him softly, while seeking support to stand up.
"You're welcome. Let's get back to the boat. This beach is infested with Runners and Stalkers." The young woman replied as she reached out to her. As soon as helped the blonde to her feet, the sensation Ellie experienced was so intense, she didn't feel able to avert her green eyes from her interlocutor's blue orbs.
The women remained there, frozen in the cluttered scene of yet another forgotten residence due to the outbreak caused by Cordyceps, without being able to look away from each other. Abby admired Ellie's posture which, despite being a little girl, made up for this disadvantage by showing great courage and skill in facing enemies; the girl, on the other hand, descended from the blonde's blue eyes to her body which had been well built before and would surely be again, only to return to her eyes once more.
'What the fuck, Ellie, you can't be finding her pretty... Of all the people... Would you really think that of her? !" she reflected in a brief realization with herself, before finally letting go of Abby's hand. 'Nope. That's just gratitude that she helped me before! It's nothing different and... It's also not because I'm feeling alone in a completely in that devastated world... Ellie countered these arguments in her head, because in her heart she had already considered the possibility that she had looked at the other woman for brief moments when they were on the yacht, because only the two of them were at that end of the world besides Lev, which would cause them to unite more and more. However, the young woman was reluctant to believe this, even though her green eyes had a will of their own and weren't able to dodge Abby for a moment.
The blonde left the house they were in always with the smaller woman by her side. The search for items had been successful in the end, but if it wasn't for the help of the girl who accompanied her, the former WLF member knew she would have been bitten by one of the infected who attacked her.
"We have to take care of your forehead."
"What?"
"The cut on your forehead." The young woman repeated. "He's bleeding heavily. After that, let me drive the boat to Santa Monica."
Unable to counter-argue, not least because she continued to feel a bit dizzy due to weakness, Abby just nodded in a slight motion. 'So that's why she's looking at me so much... Now I understand," she thought, noticing that Ellie couldn't stop staring at her.