Chapter 2 – Oregon (part II)

Portland

Year 2049 – four hours before

Abby

Being alone on a mission was a hard thing to get used to, especially after everything I'd experienced alongside Lev and Megan Robinson – someone we were lucky enough to meet five years ago. But I knew it was necessary for us to take different paths, especially after we learned that hordes of infected people were organizing in the Portland area. For this reason, Lev and Meg remained in the coastal area of the state, while I went to venture out own my own.

I had information that the immune girl named Ellie resided in a community in the area, because after the destruction of Jackson, with the high number of dead and with several people contaminated by bites, unfortunately, no one else could continue to live in that territory of Wyoming.

The three of us had arrived too late to assist them, and all we could do on occasion was to annihilate as many infected as possible, so that we could set fire to the place in order to consume any trace of the fungus we knew, especially the spores.

Megan would burn the areas that Lev and I had staked out as soon as we exterminated them and the three of us would watch from a safe distance, as the flames consumed everything around them, so that little by little we could gradually begin to quell the conflagration and cleaning everything up, which took days and more days of exhausting work.

These were the worst missions for me – because my life purpose as soon as Lev and I abandoned the Firefly cause, which had long since strayed from its real goals and we found what we intended to fight for alongside Megan, my idea was to save as many people as I could.

By the time we'd reached places where hordes had already laid waste to everything and everyone, turning entire locations into horrific scenarios filled with red painted destruction, however, I had to bury the pain deep enough to stay focused, because as we fought stronger and stronger enemies, we knew that one day we would fail not only as a trio, but mostly as human beings, increasingly threatened by a potential adversary.

Our species had failed in the post-outbreak period — and maturity made me understand that, in addition to the many conversations I had the opportunity to have with Megan on the subject over the years we worked on missions together; we were more concerned with turf wars—like the one between Washington's Liberation Front and the Seraphites, for example —, and we didn't pay attention to the bigger enemy: the fungus.

Lev also thought like me, and because of that still in Santa Barbara, even after an incessant fight with the Fireflies to defeat the rest of the rattlers, we both decided to leave, in the year 2044, although we did not know exactly where we would go.

He and I were already aware that the infected were beginning to act differently, but we didn't have the real extent of the problem. We only realized this, because when we arrived in Oregon after months of traveling on the yacht that Owen repaired – more specifically Cannon Beach – we were totally surprised by a numerous horde of more resistant, agile and fierce runners.

We thought we would die that day, yet we were helped by a woman we didn't know, as strong as I was, whose name I've already mentioned here: Megan Robinson.

At first I feared the worst: I thought we would be enslaved, because I had been left with quite evident traumas since the episode in which he and I were captured by the Rattlers, but all she did was take us to a local community run by another girl, named Emily Gray, so that we could receive medical care and proper food.

Since then, the few people who reside next to Emily are constantly trained by Megan and herself in the incessant fight against all those infected. We have formed a paramilitary group affectionately called the soldiers of the coast, although I think we will need a more assertive name soon. But for now, the denomination was not the most relevant. We needed to warn travelers and communities that we knew existed that the infected were beginning to organize as a group to kill us as a species, which meant something threatening because they acted in a meticulous and highly fatal manner.

During the five years that the three of us traveled through countless territories – from Utah to Seattle, from Wyoming to Oregon – we witnessed violent deaths, families torn apart by the pain caused by losing more than one of their members, people desperate to have lost the desire to continue living… But we also note that many individuals drew strength from who knows where, in order to help someone, they didn't even know.

That was what moved me, what made me have the strength to keep going, just as I believed it was what made Lev hopeful that we could at least try to believe in a slightly better future, as long as we cleaned up and fortified specific sites for survivors' dwellings. We weren't yet sure where we would establish self-sustaining communities, but we figured Oregon wasn't a conducive state for that — even though it was the most populated by groups today.

Unfortunately, however, most of the leaders of these communities were unaware of the threat that lurked against them; It was the case of the group the immune girl was in. Lev had asked me, before I traveled, if I felt good to carry out this important mission alone, due to the history of mutual violence that existed between the girl and me. I assured them that I did, because I did not intend to find her, I only intended to dialogue with the leaders of the community to warn them of the imminent danger they were running.

Before I could follow the route, I set out to take, I made sure to find out from Emily the names of the commanders of the place, so that I could locate them more easily. During the trip, which I did on a motorcycle for about an hour and a half—since Meg repaired vehicles and got fuel whenever she could in the leisure time we had—I found myself with a few infected, which could mean two things: either the tougher hordes had changed their route, or they had already arrived in Portland and destroyed everything. All I knew was that I couldn't wait for information; I needed to take action and try to find where the enemies were, because most likely there would be humans in trouble.

I left the motorcycle in the vicinity of a house in a more distant neighborhood—a residence that had high walls and an electric fence; I had a habit of occupying places like this and graffitiing the initials of my name on the door of the house, because if Lev or Meg came looking for me, they would know where I had solidified my personal base.

That was exactly what I did. I entered the house, searched it, grabbed everything that could be useful for the journey I set out to take, organized my backpack by removing what I didn't need to carry, cleaned the guns and left after hanging the rifle on my shoulder and backpack on my back, as well as putting my pistol in the holster attached to my thigh.

If everything went as planned, after the mission I would return to the site and erase my initials before leaving. That was the code that had worked between the three of us so far when we parted ways to accomplish tasks, which I hoped would continue to work for a long time.

I walked through the streets on a gray morning, which made it difficult to better see, plus the dense vegetation that covered just about everything. As I started to walk with some speed, it didn't take long for me to remove my jacket and put it away in my backpack, leaving only a blue tank top and black sweatpants, in addition to my usual pair of brown military-style boots.

As a few feet ahead I began to hear grunts and screams, I put on my mask and the rubber gloves I was carrying next to me. Until we were sure that we could kill these infected with our bare hands without contaminating ourselves, just as it was with the other stages except bloaters and shamblers, I would take extra care, just as Megan had instructed me when Lev and I met her.

I also heard the unmistakable and harrowing sound of flesh being torn, which unfortunately became familiar to me from having witnessed several deaths. So, I ran until I could see with absolute horror two guys being torn apart by infected while another shouted the names of his friends, but the runners didn't seem to be in much of a hurry to kill them.

I crouched near a partially destroyed dumpster that was leaning against a tree and slowly lay down on the ground so that I could crawl along without drawing the attention of the group of about twenty infected men who were now setting out on top of the remaining men. If I didn't do anything quickly, they would be no match for the group, which now barely grunted; It was as if the runners watched the two boys who survived, while I adjusted the best angle so I could shoot them from a distance, just as we had trained to exhaustion.

However, one of the subjects who survived, a short man brunette who was crouched next to the blond on the opposite side of the street, believed he could annihilate runners as he had previously, which led him to pick up a knife; Little did he know that, lately, few were the early-stage infected who exhibited naturally aggressive behavior and who were executed with ease, much earlier on the contrary; They weren't predictable targets, and while I wanted to warn the two guys about it, if I spoke loudly, I could end up killing them.

I didn't move; The two men also didn't even dare to make a single sound, because the blond fellow held his colleague's arm before the worst happened, and to make everything even more unpredictable, the various infected looked at them with interest, while a small group them — maybe five — had walked away to protect the hunt they had just obtained, that it was the two other dead boys. It was as if everyone feared that a movement would put everything on the line.

"Shit, either I shoot and kill those five who have the corpses, or else I'm not going to stand a chance", I thought, before adjusting the weight of the rifle better, supporting it as best I could.

I knew I needed to be agile and exact. I had to fatally hit the five enemies closest to me because otherwise the situation would not only be untenable for the boys, would I also have serious problems. Since I knew that the more attack-resistant runners had improved hearing over the old ones, I took a deep breath so I could shoot, and when I did, I tried to be as quick as possible, because I hadn't encountered any silencers makeshift for ranged weapons so far.

Fortunately, because of the constant training I was subjected to me did not miss a shot and watched them fall one by one, which made the other infected agitated. This was the right time for me to run and look for a place to hide, but abandoning the two guys there alone didn't seem like a good option.

It was then that I arose and shot two other enemies, while the blond man and the brunette also fired their projectiles, though they carried ordinary weapons, which only delayed and wounded the runners in a non-mortal manner; If they wanted to kill them with pistols, they would need to spend a lot of ammunition, which proved to be an ineffective strategy.

I jumped into the top of a half-wrecked truck and, from above, hit the opponents one by once again, reducing them from twenty to eight, which already meant a victory in the delicate situation in which I found myself. So, when I saw one of the infected turns around to grab the brunette man by the back I jumped with the gun in my hands, however I didn't get a good angle to shoot.

"Watch out!" I shouted in the hope that he would understand the warning, but it was too late.

The runner bit his arm with such ferocity that blood immediately splashed out, staining the floor and clothing of his colleague as I fought hand-to-hand against two other enemies, and because I was wearing gloves and receiving constant training not only in shooting but also in fighting, I knew exactly how to annihilate them. First, I gathered a brick and crouched down, to throw it in the opposite direction in order to ward off the other opponents of the blond man and only then did I turn my attention to the two infected who were trying to hold me.

I grabbed a hammer from my backpack and, in possession of the object, struck them extremely the forehead, just as Meg had instructed me. As soon as I knocked them out, I struck them repeatedly, while with my other hand, I used the rifle to hit the rest.

"Die at once!" I exclaimed after taking a deep breath, noticing that the last opponent had held the blond man to bite him, which caused me to run in an agile manner.

I tucked the rifle into my backpack somewhat flusteredly as I walked slightly, only to be knocked down by the runner, who attacked me by hitting me with a creep. But it was exactly what I intended, that he would leave the guy that until then I didn't know the name aside, because I had a better chance of beating him in a fight. The man looked terrified to witness that I was in hand-to-hand combat with a runner who, if he belonged to an old batch of newly tainted people, would surely have died by now from the violence of my punches. However, this infected man wasn't like most newly contaminated; he was dizzy, but he had enormous resistance, so much so that I had no choice but to step on his head still alive, to crush him and only then fire a pistol shot into his chest, just in case.

"Fuck…" I gasped, before standing and running towards the survivor who had not been injured. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think… I am, yeah." He replied, as he looked at his still-living friend who was lying on the ground, not intending to do what he knew he needed to do. "Alan…"

"You're going to have to kill me, Chris."

"What the fuck are you saying?!"

"I don't want to turn into one of those things!" He countered. "They look stronger..."

"Yeah, they are infected stronger." I said, approaching respectfully.

"I won't be able to do that..." The blond I found out that was named Chris replied, visibly startled and devastated. "But thank you for helping me, young lady."

I nodded in a slight motion, and as I realized he was out of ammunition for his weapons, I put my gloves away and pulled out of my backpack a pistol and a spare knife I had. It might not be enough if case he encountered other runners like the ones we had just faced, but it was much better than returning disarmed to the community in which he resided.

"Hey, here." I offered, reaching for the objects for the blond. "You're out of ammo, aren't you? So, take it."

"Okay... Thank you very much." He handed me his pistol and walked out, because he certainly knew what I was going to do with his colleague.

I put away the gun I had received and made a mental note of looking for more ammunition than I had in the house that served as my base; Then I grabbed the rifle, adjusted the position, and took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Alan." I called him by name.

Although I didn't know him, my tone was one of enormous regret. He looked at me as if he understood that this wasn't the first or probably the last time, I'd do that and nodded in a slight motion before I fired. As soon as the gunshot echoed down the street, I stood waiting for some infected person nearby who might have heard the noise, which fortunately did not happen.

Finally, I dragged his body near the house where I had left some of my belongings and the motorcycle in order for me to pick up the items needed to cremate him. Since it was contaminated, although it had not transformed or released spores, I preferred to fulfill the modus operandi that Meg always stressed: kill and burn.

Hours later, when I had finished organizing my belongings, re-equipping my weapons, and getting ready to leave again — after all, I had to clean up the killing outside on the next street —, I hung my backpack on my shoulder and my rifle so that I could continue on the mission I set out to do.

However, as soon as I reached the street where the fatality had occurred, other infected people tried to attack three people, two of whom were unknown to me, but I assumed they belonged to the community of boys I had met early in the morning. But one of those people in particular I recognized right away. Seeing her I fixed my eyes on what was about to occur and acted quickly; she had taken me out of the pilaster — though she had fought against me, she had saved me from certain death; I couldn't allow a runner to tear her apart in a stupid way. So, it only took one rifle shot for me to save her.

As I had my doubts whether the infected had been killed, I rushed to crush his head with my boot and, reflexively, took the knife that belonged to the immune girl. As soon as I observed the gun, I remembered our last encounter in Santa Barbara nearly ten years ago, when I was forced to fight it. Maybe I should say something or maybe I just needed to get away from her, but I didn't do one thing or the other; I limited myself only to reaching for the sharp object that belonged to her in a clear gesture of peace.

"Your knife."

"So, it's you?"

I heard her inquire in an angry tone and sighed heavily, as if preparing for the worst, even though there was no way to avoid it. I looked at the other two women accompanying her, who had just unloaded their pistols on the infected, and when I turned to her, I simply replied, still with my hand outstretched reaching of achieving for the object that belonged to her, "Yes, it's me."

Moments later she set out to assault me, which didn't really surprise me. We fought for a few seconds, because my interest was not to have successive clashes against her, whether physical or emotional. I felt the knife scrape my wrist and crouched down instinctively to avoid the next blow that could cause further damage, which caused my rifle to fall to the ground.

"Fuck, that's how you thank me, girl!" I said, in an unsuccessful attempt to lighten the mood, as she uttered a few expletives, and it seemed that although we had survived for a decade without meeting each other, the hatred she felt for me had not diminished at all.

I watched the other two women calm her down and the one who was probably the leader of the community said that Ellie could do whatever she wanted to me as soon as I finished instructing them as to the infected. I didn't like what I heard, and despite my slight protests, I had to agree with the brown-skinned woman, who replied that she had gotten this kind of truce because, if given the chance, the immune girl wouldn't hesitate in finish me off right there.

So, in the face of that I knew I would be killed if I tried any reaction, not least because they were now at five — two men and three women. Moreover, my main goal was not to hurt any human being, I would only take such an action if I was forced to do something that I did not agree with or that put someone's life at risk.

I answered all the questions asked by the woman named Ellie, as absurd as they were, as patient as I could without facing her directly, even though I didn't want to talk to her, precisely because of the terrible track record we had. But from what it seemed, if I was understanding my current condition of survival well, as long as I was in their community, I would be constantly watched by her, at least that's what the brunette woman had said.

As I tucked the rifle into my backpack and reached for the brunette woman as a guarantee that I wouldn't try anything, I thought that what none of them imagined was that their days of prosperity in Portland were about to end. All I expected was that they would believe me, that they would listen to me, and that they would not relegate me to the status of a mere prisoner, because if so, I would have to devise a plan to save them.

All along the way I felt the tension in the air, especially emanating from the immune girl. But the others also looked at me with some indifference and why not say contempt, after all most likely she had taken it upon herself to tell what I had done ten years ago.

It didn't matter anyway; I had a mission to complete, and unless my life was threatened, I needed to fulfill it as a soldier, doing whatever it took to help these people face what was to come.

We arrived at the locality sometime later, and as soon as the gates were opened, the two men, who were still guns in hand, approached to lead me to another place which was referred to by the brunette woman. I offered no resistance and just accompanied them without being handcuffed, although I knew that with the constant training I was subjected to, I could easily disarm and murder them. However, years had passed, and after the deep disappointment I had in allying with the Fireflies, I had a new purpose in mind, along with Lev and Megan.

As soon as I was left alone, I took a deep breath and looked around. I was in a small one-room house, which they probably used to interrogate prisoners, and as I imagined that the two men were still outside watching for any attempt I might make to escape, I remained quiet, sitting in one of the five armchairs that were arranged around the room. I had already suffered a lot by the time I was captured by the Rattlers, so the treatment they gave me there was even good, if I were to weigh the circumstances.

I heard the door open and three people entered the room: the brunette woman I had seen before, who appeared to be the leader approaching, a guy somewhat like her who held a pistol in his right hand sat next to me, and finally the blond man that I had helped hours ago.

"Is that the woman you say saved your life, Chris?"

"Yeah, Alexia." I smiled slightly as I listened to his answer, because at least now I could call her by name. "If it wasn't for her, I would have been slaughtered by a runner."

"You didn't try to react… You didn't fight him, did you?" The man holding the pistol asked visibly tensely. "We cannot lose men who go out on patrol to enemies like first stage infected."

"I know… I swear I tried everything, but he was too strong…" The blond replied.

"All you're not facing runners like the ones we encountered before." Even though none of them had spoken to me, I thought I needed to make them aware of my presence.

"That's what I'm trying to say." Christian spoke. "In addition to being very strong, the enemies did not act insanely." He added.

"You seem to have a great sense of observation, Chris." I said, before I got to my feet, which made the guy with the pistol in his hand get up soon after, afraid that I would try something abrupt.

"Alan had too, even more than I. He commented that there was something wrong, but Bobby and Edgar didn't listen to him."

"I feel sorry for your colleagues." I said it again, without really facing them at first. "You all need to listen to me carefully: this city is no longer safe. More lethal and more resilient runners are clustering around the localities where there are communes of survivors in order to raze everything they find along the way."

"How the hell do you know that?" Asked the guy holding the pistol.

"Because I've been on a mission to regroup survivors for over three years, as well as undergoing constant training to take on these creatures."

"Like a soldier?" The guy I helped questioned.

"Yeah."

"So, you really were wearing gloves when you punched that infected one?" Chris again asked.

"Exactly. To this day we have no way of telling if physical contact could contaminate us, although from the tests she has done, Megan is almost certain that there are no risks. Either way, her guidance is clear… We need to take care of ourselves."

"And who is she, one doctor?"

"No, Alexia. Doctors like Dr. Jerry Anderson are gone." I replied, as I struggled to put aside the memory that no longer haunted me so often, of my father lying in a pool of his own blood in the hospital in Salt Lake City. "Meg has been around longer than Lev and I, along with a small community of one hundred fifty people established in Newport, studying significant changes in runners' behavior. She even considered the possibility of not calling them that anymore, because she understood that the stage of infection, they are in is superior to the newly transformed ones, but it doesn't get to be a Stalker." I explained as I watched the door open.

It was the immune girl, who entered the small room and occupied the armchair that was closest to the exit. When she came in, we made eye contact briefly, though it was much more the work of chance than something we had premeditated.

It was only in that moment that I could realize how beautiful her eyes were, even if they shone in a predatory way for me. Yet they were mesmerizing green, even if I couldn't focus my attention on her orbs for long.

"Do you want her to repeat the whole explanation, Ellie?" Alexia asked.

"No, I was outside listening to everything. I just don't believe Christian gives such credit to someone like her."

"Okay… So, what you're saying is we have to leave Portland?" The man still holding the pistol, whose name I did not know, asked me.

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Not fucking we're going to abandon our territory."

I listened to the immune girl speak in response and sighed heavily as I looked for a better way to change my line of approach. "This isn't about the two of us, Ellie." I crossed my arms in front of my chest and continued my reasoning. "How many people do you have here, over five hundred? How many are children or elderly people who do not have the strength or even guidance to fight? If you all insist on staying in this city, just the training or guidance you want me to give won't be enough for you to defeat the infected."

"Then we don't need the shit of your help." She spat out, before pulling out the knife she carried with her.

However, because I had a lot of field experience, I was able to anticipate the blow she would deliver and held her arm with some force, which made the guy with the pistol cling it and pointing it at me. "Listen here, girl… I'll only say it once…", I growled, feeling the anger begin to take some control over me. "I've been fighting this shit for over three years and saving people, so if I came here, it was because I decided, because I think this community is worth helping. But if you all give me just one reason, I'll just walk away from here and let them become food for the infected!" I was already impatient with her childish behavior, as much as I knew there were reasons for her to hate me, it was a survival situation that, like it or not, I had a knack for dealing with.

Suddenly I let go of her and she dropped the knife, visibly stunned that my reaction wasn't fully aggressive because she probably expected me to try something that would eventually kill me.

"I hate to say that Ellie, but she's right. We know absolutely nothing about these new infected, so we need to enlist her help because the situation seems much more complex than we thought." The brunette woman spoke cautiously.

"So… You mean I won't be able to get rid of her anytime soon?"

"Yeah, exactly that. We need not only her to instruct us, but to help us get out of here alive."

"Fuck, Alexia... You promised!" The girl spoke a little louder. "I don't believe you feel good about keeping an assassin in your community any longer than necessary!"

"Of course not, but we have no other alternative, she knows a lot more than I imagined…"

"And you can all go to Newport, to a safe place to be guided by someone else; the sooner you cooperate you will get rid of me sooner than you think, when Megan and Lev, plus the others, start instructing you."

"Just wait a minute... You said you only worked with your two little friends."

"Yeah."

"But just now you just mentioned another community... How will we know that these people are upstanding and not murderers like you are?"

I took a deep breath at that interrogation. "Lev, Meg and I are responsible for helping communities elsewhere in the United States, while the group led by Emily is restricted only to the Newport and Cannon Beach regions."

"And you happen to be going from place to place, is that it?" Continued to ask Ellie, suspiciously.

"Exactly. Why the question, do you want to come with me, by any chance?" I returned the question in the same tone.

"Funny…" She grumbled and I chuckled lightly, before Alexia resumed speaking.

"So, Abigail…"

"Abby." I hastened to correct her as I interrupted her speech.

"Abby… What do we need to leave this place?" The brunette woman questioned again, after she gestured for the guy next to me to lower his pistol.

"I need to go out in search of cars and fuel. We need the largest vehicle fleet we can get – preferably buses –, only then will we be able to get everyone out quickly. But before that, I have to mentor specific people and deliver the proper material so we can fight these damn runners should they show up."

"How do you know when it's them or not?" Ellie asked, looking a little calmer.

"Well, first there's a simple rule: early-stage runners like the ones we saw years ago are increasingly rare, because due to food shortages the newly infected feed on them as a way of survival." I explained, as I noticed the people around me show dread and disgust.

"Hey, how it is? Are you saying that these disgusting people feed on other infected people?"

"That subspecies yes, Ellie." I replied. "I've even seen such crap."

"Heck!"

"Well, maybe the fungus has found a way to make natural selection after almost forty years of infecting humans, maybe it has learned that it wouldn't be productive to continue to produce such fragile runners, but that's a hypothesis; We can no longer do any kind of test to prove it, because I do not think it is necessary. No one is creating a vaccine, just trying to survive."

"How come I haven't seen any of this so far?"

"Because these infected hadn't tried to take Portland before. I believe the fact that we kicked them out of Newport made them look for an alternative route."

"And even with such danger... Are you not willing to create any immunizers?"

"Nope."

"Not even to go in search of the cure or someone who is immune like me?" She asked again as she pointed to herself.

"Much less that. My mission is to save people and help them understand how to defend themselves. I have never had nor have any interest in healing."

"Not even when you went looking for the Fireflies in Santa Barbara?"

"Nope. I never even had the intelligence for that." I retorted.

"Then why did you kill Joel?!" She asked, her tone showing irritation and hurt.

"We can talk about it later if you want, because we're going to have a good time in each other's pleasant company..." I spoke sarcastically.

"Don't think I'm happy about it." She returned; her tone aggressive.

"I less." I retorted, before turning my attention to Alexia. "The selection of people who can accompany me is up to you, but I would like you to be one of them."

"Hey, why the fuck?" Ellie asked again.

"Because she's the leader of the community." I replied as if it were obvious. "If something happens to me, it's important that she knows everything so she can better guide you in my place." I paused briefly and looked at the people staring at me. "Once we can train enough to get what we need and get all the fuel we need, we'll go to Newport."

"Your plan sounds good, but... I have a question." The blond boy spoke.

"What is it, Chris?" Alexia wanted to know.

"Isn't Newport territorially very close to Portland? What guarantee do we have that these infected wills do not follow our tracks later?"

I looked at him with increasing attention, because I had not the slightest doubt that he was a very valuable man for the mission. "Your question is excellent." I started, before looking at the community leader again. "But I can't answer without having my backpack in hand, because I have a map with some markings. Anyway, what I can say is that Newport is a starting point for a safer place. Megan, Lev and I are looking for a location where we can stay, where we have a good enough structure to take as many people as possible and thus rebuild society."

"In the midst of infected? Oh sure, it's going to work out pretty well." Ellie scoffed.

"When I start training you, you will eventually understand that the logic is to kill and burn. All infected release spores, and if we want to prevent this from occurring, we need to clean the areas where they are annihilated. It takes work because we need people to set on fire and others to put out the flames, but over time and with more soldiers, the tendency is that there is not an overload of functions."

"Just wait a minute… You and your two friends… What are they even called, sorry?" Alexia asked.

"Lev and Meg."

"Okay... Only the three of you do this work all over the country?" She wanted to know, visibly incredulous.

"Yeah… In small areas for now, because we can't cover ground as quickly as we should. We rescued people and took them to Newport to train them. Now the two of them are helping a small local community, which is why I came here alone. Because I knew she was here, I didn't want to involve either Lev or Meg in this." I clarified as I looked at Ellie in the green orbs once more, this time premeditatedly. After moments of silence in which I stared at her, I averted my eyes from hers and continued to speak. "Now the decision is up to you. If you want my help we'll be in this together; if you don't want to you can kill me, but probably either Lev or Megan will come looking for me." I commented, as I paced back and forth across the room, under the watchful eye of the man who looked a lot like Alexia. "And if you choose to murder me in cold blood, none of them will like it."

"Just like I didn't like it when you murdered Joel in cowardice."

The instant I heard the immune girl's voice, I even opened my mouth to retort that I had only done it because my father had been cowardly killed before in the Firefly hospital, yet I did not consider it salutary to bring up such complex and personal issues to the attention of individuals who did not even trust me. If I had to solve any outstanding problem with anyone, no one but Ellie would listen to what I had to say, even if I understood that, more than ten years after my father's death, there was no reason to dig it up.

I stood in a corner of the room, arms crossed in front of my chest as I watched them leave one by one, and just as the leader of the group was about to follow them, I made a gesture with my hand as if to indicate that I wanted to talk to her. I informed her, then, that the first measure to be taken, should they accept my help, would be for me to be released to go to the house I had made as a base, in order to pick up the supplies I had stored since I left Newport. She told me that she would meet with the other leaders of the community to decide which way they would go, including her father, and then come back to me with the decision already made.

As soon as practically everyone left the room, I noticed that the immune girl was still there, standing in the opposite corner, as if standing guard so I wouldn't run away. I avoided facing her this time, because until then it hadn't bothered me that I had found her again, due to the relevance of the mission. However, now that we were alone our entire background came to the fore in my mind.

"If you're looking for redemption or forgiveness … It's not going to happen." She began speaking minutes later, the coldness expressed in every word.

"Do you really think that if I wanted to get something like that, I'd just come to the community you're in?"

"And why not? You claim to be a trained soldier, you even want to instruct people who have already survived year after year after the outbreak... You may find yourself so arrogant as to want to get something like that, but I keep saying that... That's not going to happen." She repeated.

"Whatever, I don't need your approval or your consent. You're not the leader of this community, and if Alexia and the others decide to accept my help, there's nothing you can do to stop them."

The instant I finished speaking I predicted that an aggressive reaction was coming, but I could not allow Ellie to make unreasonable assumptions about my stay in the locality; I had a purpose to fulfill not only there, whether she believed my words or not. The next moment she ran towards me I felt the blow of her fist against my face, hard enough to cause my head to hit the wall and my lip to bleed.

Just as she was about to strike me again, I managed to grab her wrist in a timely manner, pushing her aside sharply. However, she was quick to hold me by the tank top, to kick me hard in the left thigh and we both went to the ground. While she did everything to try and hit me, I blocked her blows as best I could.

I didn't intend to fight Ellie, just like I had done on the beach in Santa Barbara years ago, except that now Lev wasn't here for her to threaten him and force me into something I didn't want.

"Why are you here, fuck?" She asked, after punching me already without much force, as I could hold her without difficulty due to the difference in size between us.

"To help all you leave Portland!" I replied, taking some trouble in restraining her as she insisted on wanting to stand on top of me to punch my face and I pushed her as hard as I could.

"That's not the fucking answer!" the immune girl retorted, pulling away sharply. "You came because you knew you would find me here. Otherwise, any of your little friends could have come."

I got up and took a step forward. "What if it's true?"

"Sorry... How is it?"

"If I came for exactly that, what are you going to do?"

My question caught her so off guard that I didn't get an answer, at least not in words. Ellie had just left the room and slammed the door with extreme violence as she passed. I knew that I would have difficulties in living with her and the others, but I didn't imagine that we would have the first physical confrontation so soon.

All I had left was to wait, in that room with only a lamp from a table lamp lit in a corner to illuminate the room – which indicated that they had electricity –, what would be the response of the people who ran the community.