One Day Before the Mission

Zoey's hands chased Francis as he stood from the bed, but he didn't notice her feeble gesture. She didn't want him to leave; it had been weeks since she felt the warmth of an embrace or the comfort of a shoulder to cry upon. For the short moment that she wept in his arms, she felt… safe, as if the cold world around her ceased to exist. But just as quickly as she had escaped, she was thrust back into her Hopeless world as her once-true friend departed. The broken girl fell face-down onto her bed, her body the victim of her own convulsive sobbing.

With a weak moan Zoey lifted her trembling head, watching through tear-blurred vision and messy bangs as the biker took one last glance behind him before opening the door. His face twisted painfully before he averted his attention from her unfamiliar form and disappeared from the entry.

No matter how hard she tried to call for him to come back, her words crumbled beneath bitter weeps. She was alone again, left to her self-imposed exile without a clue of when companionship may again grace her.

A head startingly revealed itself outside her left-open door, abruptly replacing Zoey's whimpering with a gasp. A wide pair of blue eyes, shaded by the bill of a dirty ball cap, wandered curiously around the room before falling to rest on her. Zoey hard blinked twice to clear her vision and found herself locking stares with Ellis, whose face was gradually flushing.

"Umm…" he stuttered, "h-howdy Zoey." An uncomfortable pause passed before he blurted, "I'mma be going now."

The boy disappeared behind the doorframe, but Zoey's curiosity didn't. The men were acting so vague and shifty; what was going on?

With a deep breath Zoey pushed herself off the bed and up to a shaky stand, taking a pause to regain what composure she could muster. She slid to the doorway and cautiously poked her head out, ensuring that Ellis had gone around the corner before she took her first step in weeks outside the safety of her room for any other reason than a slog to the water closet.

Ellis's hasty footfalls echoing through the hallways made it easy for Zoey to follow the boy at a safe distance. Two corners were turned before the sound of a door creaking bounced around the walls: he had been living in the same complex as her all this time and she had no idea.

The girl quietly leaned around the corner of the wall to see Ellis just outside his room. Zoey sprung from her cover, but her body was no longer familiar with the urgent pace: she tripped on her own feet and had to jerk her leg forward to stop from tumbling over completely, her shoe slapping loudly against the vinyl ground.

Ellis's ears perked as he spun on his heel. The two locked gazes, their eyes wide in anticipation of the others' next move. Only when the boy's eyes darted to the ajar doorway did Zoey carefully bring herself back to a stand.

"Ellis," she cooed to the timid rabbit, "Can we talk?"

Swallowing a hard lump, he began to reach towards the door handle. Surely speed was his enemy; the slower he moved, the more invisible he was… right?

Wrong.

Zoey took her chance and leapt forward, catching him off guard for only a second before Ellis tore the door open and scrambled inside his personal Safe House. As it began to swing closed, Zoey braced her shoulder: she would not be denied.

The tiny "click" of a door latch just kissing its plate preceded the thunderous boom of a human Charger that found its mark. Seething pain tore through Zoey's arm on contact and radiated through the rest of her body, but she refused to yield. A mixture of agony and rage blinded her, and it wasn't until she blew past the door and sandwiched Ellis against the opposing wall did her legs give out from underneath her, dropping her to the floor.

The sounds of Ellis's desperate gasps were muddied by Zoey's throbbing shoulder. If she was lucky enough not to have broken it on that stupid stunt, it was certainly dislocated.

"God… dang it… Zoey," the boy groaned between wheezes.

Zoey hazily gathered her bearings and used her good arm to push herself to a clumsy stand. She stumbled towards the adjacent wall, leaned into it, then jerked her injured shoulder forward. A yelp broke through a cage of clenched teeth as her joint popped back into place, only then allowing the girl to finally succumb to dizziness as she slid down the wall and into a weary sit, her legs sprawled before her. Keeping one eye closed, she watched Ellis get to his own two wavering feet and limp to the door that had blown off its bottom hinges, precariously hanging like the jaw of a Spitter.

"Nothin' to see here folks," he addressed his unseen audience, though Zoey could just imagine their faces. "Just ah…" he rubbed the back of his head, "ate too much of the stew, toilet emergency and whatnot. Ya'll stay away from that now." Ellis spun on his heel and threw the door closed, only to have it snap off its last hinge and come to rest partially leaned against the doorframe. With a possibly unintentional trip he crumpled to a knee before Zoey.

"Well shit Zoey," he drawled, "you still got it in you after all. Now c'mon, let's give your arm a look."

Zoey shook her head, dismissing the small talk as she steadied her breathing. "The boys," she muttered, her head low but her conviction resolute. "What are they doing? What are you hiding?"

The question visibly caught the boy off guard: his maw flapped silently and his eyes darted around the room. "I-I-I don't know about nothin'," he stuttered, spastically shaking his head. "I don't know 'bout no plan to go nowhere."

Zoey narrowed her eyes. "No one said 'plan' but you, Ellis."

Ellis's eyes popped open, and more than just his lips fiercely puckered.

"What plan?" Zoey demanded, her focus restoring. She lifted her head to address the accused. "Where are they going?"

"There ain't no plan," he denied. "Ain't no nothin'. They were just… just askin' Francis 'bout what… 'bout what shampoo he uses."

Zoey had to quickly shake out the thought of where shampoo may have needed to be applied on the gruff yet bald biker. "Stop lying to me. Something is going on and you clearly know what it is. What are they planning and why are you all hiding it from me?"

"Ain't no plan girl," Ellis repeated with emphasis, his loyalty steadfast. "Ain't nothin' goin' on."

"You're lying." Zoey's voice raised. "Tell me what the plan is. I'm not playing around, Ellis."

"I ain't playin'," Ellis groaned, his volume matching hers. "You gotta let it go."

"I'm not letting it go! None of you have a right to hold out on me like this, so what the hell is going on?"

"I keep sayin', ain't nothin' goin' on, now quit it!"

"That's bullshit! Tell me, now!"

"Just leave it Zoey!"

"Ellis!"

The heat of the moment caused a lapse in Zoey's memory and her right hand shot out, aimed at seizing the boy's collar. However, only an inch of progress was made before her shoulder cruelly reminded her of the brash encounter with a steel door. She let out a yelp and fell back against the wall, clutching at her injury and groaning through clenched jaw.

"Jesus, girl," Ellis gasped as he slid close next to her. His hands frantically hovered around her, unsure of what he could do to provide any comfort. "We gotta get you some pain meds, the infirmary's gotta have some. You just stay put right here, I'll go grab-"

A soft sob stole the rest of the words from his lips. He paused to make sure he didn't mishear the sound, but a second sob followed by a sniffle confirmed the suspicion.

Ellis looked to Zoey's head, hung in defeat. Minute spasms shook the girl's limp body with every subsequent sniffle and whimper. The thighs of her jeans became spattered with tears, and just as quickly as the strong, stubborn Zoey he remembered had returned… she disappeared.

"C'mon… c'mon now Zoey," Ellis begged, his heart dropping lower with her every tear. "I can't… say nothin'—I'm sorry. It's not that I don't want to say nothin', I just told 'em that I wouldn't and they said its for your own good-"

"Please."

Zoey's face slowly lifted to him. Tears streamed from eyes stained red with suffering, cascading down a hopeless expression.

"Please," she whispered desperately. "I have nothing."

Her gaze became glazed and unfocused as it broke away from his and returned to the ground before her. "Nothing. I lost the girl I love… and now I'm losing my friends."

"Now that's just not true," Ellis stated with gentle resolution. "We're all still your friends. We all care about you, and want what's best for you."

Zoey sluggishly shook her head. "You all just… pity me. Keep things from me because you say you don't know how I'll take it. Rochelle was the one who betrayed us all, so why does no one trust me?"

The question stunned Ellis. His eyes darted around the frayed carpet, searching for differences in how the two girls had been treated since their arrival in Camp 17. However—as much as the underlying reasons were completely opposite—both had been socially isolated since they had touched down in Camp 17. Truth was a luxury neither had been afforded.

"Look…" Ellis sighed, his internal turmoil dancing visibly on his face. "We care about you Zoey, and we know you're hurtin' and stuff. You just ain't been the same, and it's hard to tell how you're gonna react to anything now. Like a raccoon in a dumpster, you know? Just gotta be safe, for us and you."

However, Zoey was absent to his message. "You know, I could never get rid of the one percent of me that held onto Hope. Every logical part of me knew that she was…" her jaw tightened, "gone. But I could never really accept it, and I don't think I ever will until I see the truth for myself. That hope is all I have; it's all that's keeping me from giving it all up. Hope became my life, and I'm holding onto the last bit of it as tightly as I can." She turned her attention to Ellis. "But you and the others, you're not letting me fight for that. So, tell me Ellis: is there really anything left for me to fight for?"

"You want me to what?"

Zoey nervously pivoted from side to side on the swiveling seat behind the radio tower's main controls. She repeated, "I need you to get me on that flight back to New York tomorrow, but the guys can't know it's me."

EZ LZ's head shook. He leaned back in his radio co-operator's chair, lacing his fingers behind his messy bronze faux-hawk. "And here I was hoping I just needed hearing aids."

After Ellis had spilled the beans on the radio signal that had come in the day before, it took every bit of Zoey's self-control to not storm out and chase Bill, Nick, or Francis down for answers. It was clear they didn't trust her with the information and—while Ellis was hard enough on his own to disclose the intel—she knew they would be impossible to convince. With the lead she had, she needed to play it smart: wait until the morning of the flight after Francis's daily failed attempt to serve her breakfast, track down EZ LZ, and persuade him to let her join the flight under anonymity. However, the pilot's heavy sighs served as a reminder that she hadn't thought the last part through very well.

"Look, I like you," he stated bluntly. "You're cute and all, but you need to realize what you're asking me. You want me to bypass all standard flight and passenger registration protocols so I can get you on a helicopter to go on a rescue mission you're clearly not supposed to know about. That means it's my ass on the line if the Colonel finds out-"

"He won't find out."

"No, we hope he won't find out. And sure, I don't know your friends all too well, but it's pretty clear to me they're trying to protect you. You want me to lie to their faces and somehow pass you off as a ride-along so I can throw you back in harm's way?"

Zoey tried to hide her hard swallow. He was right to ridicule her request: why would he put his entire career on the line for someone he could barely pass as an acquaintance? Did she just throw away the one shot she had to find out the truth for herself because of some poor planning?

"Yes," she blurted out, feigning confidence to suppress any further second guessing. She must have been convincing: EZ's eyebrows drew together, giving her the courage to drive it home by locking stares with his deep seafoam pools. "I will do anything—literally anything—you ask me to do to get on that flight. What is it going to take?"

"It's not that easy," he said, breaking eye contact.

"What do I need to do?" Zoey interrupted, disallowing any further denial. "Do I need to sneak on without you knowing? Do we need to make it look like you had no idea what was going on and I was just a stowaway?"

"A stowaway on a helicopter? What, are you going to ride on top of the bird? Get some rope and tether yourself to the roof on a two-hundred-and-seventy-mile flight?"

"If that's what it takes."

"You're clearly not thinking straight. You're making stupid decisions without any caution, and that zeal is going to get you killed."

"I'm just looking for options, okay? And if doing some crazy stunt is what it takes then you're damn right I'm going to do it! So, you can knock it off with the condescending bullshit and just be helpful!"

"You need to cool it!" EZ finally lost his composure, jamming a rigid finger only inches away from Zoey's nose. "Get off your white horse and breathe in the fumes! You're not even trying to save whoever the hell is back there now; you're just throwing your life away trying to prove to yourself that you'd do anything. News flash, Zoey, and apparently one that's been long overdue: martyring yourself doesn't help your friend in any way."

Zoey bolted upright, the fire in her stomach searing hatred onto her features. She bared her teeth, primal instinct driving her to tear the man's flesh apart with tooth and nail until he was nothing more than blood and regret. But EZ's composure remained stalwart, and he met her bloodlust-filled gaze fearlessly.

"You don't know anything about what happened that day," she snarled. "You don't know anything about me, or her, or what we went through to get off that fucking roof while you and your pals sat on your asses behind this God-damn console and lied to yourselves that you're doing something useful. You don't get it because you wouldn't die for anyone; so long as you have your bed and your paycheck, you couldn't give a shit about anyone else."

EZ shook his head as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Think what you want, I don't have to defend myself against you. But I'm not going to contribute to your death, whether that be through some stupid stunt or dropping you off in that shithole with an inadequate mental state. All you're going to do is get yourself and your friends killed. The answer's no."

The girl wanted so desperately to lash out and tear EZ's defiant face right off his skull. Her nails bore holes into her palms and her body trembled violently as she channeled every atom of her being into self-restraint. There would be no point: despite the skin-crawling itch of adrenaline pumping through her veins, she knew she would be overpowered if things became physical. The only option she had left was to put her life on the line right there, right then.

Zoey's hand slithered up her leg and to the small of her back, her fingers constricting around a 9-millimeter bluff. EZ's eyes narrowed in response to his imagination filling in the blanks of what he could not see.

"You're not authorized to carry a firearm," he declared, though the minute shift in his posture belied his confident tone. "Yours was confiscated on landing and you haven't been cleared for its return since."

"Mine was, but Ellis's wasn't," Zoey hissed.

A tense frown crept over EZ's lips as the silence ensued. He may not have been fully convinced yet, but the tiny muscle spasm of the leg that he kept his 1911 thigh-holstered to made it clear he wasn't far off. "Walk away, Zoey. We can pretend like this never happened, and in your position, that's a favor you'll want to cash."

"I get on that helicopter today, or neither of us do."

The ensuing silence was deafening. Zoey could practically hear both their heartbeats racing against one another, each pump of blood daring someone to make a move. Her muscles ached under the tension of remaining a statue, and her hand cramped as it tightened around her imaginary defense.

"I've been military trained for over fifteen years," EZ broke the silence. "Everything you know about shooting a gun either came from your daddy or shooting zombies, and they don't shoot back. You really think you can win this?"

Zoey's heart skipped a beat. If he had bought into her bluff and was ready to act on it, it was all over: she'd be shot dead where she stood, gunned down without a fight like some common infected. But if she didn't get a seat on that flight, would she have let herself walk away?

"One way to find out."

EZ couldn't figure the girl out. There was no way she had a gun, right? Ellis wasn't so stupid as to leave his firearm out somewhere it could be easily stolen and not even realize it, right?

The pilot mentally rolled his eyes.

If his life was dependent upon Ellis's intellectual capacity, he was screwed the moment Zoey walked through the radio tower's doors.

EZ wanted so badly to find some kind of tell behind the girl's demeanor, but she only continued to glare back at him with dauntless resolve. Zoey was either a one-of-a-kind poker player, or mentally unstable to the degree of accepting death as a viable outcome.

But with each passing second in their mute standoff, EZ became increasingly reluctant to dismiss her actions to mental instability. The focus and intent in Zoey's eyes were far too present. Her expression was sharp but calm… defiant yet controlled… hauntingly beautiful. An unfaltering drive was what brought her there, and the only alternative to success truly was death.

EZ's shoulders separated from his ears and he took a deep breath. The emotional ground he ceded did not go unnoticed: the veins in Zoey's neck faded and the trembling of her arms came to an ease.

"What is it with you anyways?" he breathed out, his lungs burning from the prolonged lack of use. "I've seen people with family get left behind and they didn't put up even a quarter of the fight you're giving me." EZ pivoted away from her and interlaced his fingers behind his head, physically demonstrating disengagement.

In turn, Zoey's concealed hand returned to her side. While they had returned to the same place they started in temperament, a mutual acknowledgment of the unknown brought them closer. "The… person," she began with a curious inflection on the word, "that got left behind the day you saved us means so much more to me than family. I…" Her hesitant pause displayed a vulnerability that EZ had never seen before. "I don't know how to describe it, because I don't think there are words for it. But I lost my hope."

"Lost your hope in what?"

The question initially seemed to confuse her, but then she hastily dismissed it. "Oh… nothing. Never mind."

Perhaps Zoey was partially right in her initial accusations. Her raw emotions and uncensored vulnerability led EZ to believe there really was something he may never understand. Not a bond, but a unification of two broken souls where one could no longer exist without the other. Judging by the hollow shell that had simply occupied space within the Camp since her touchdown, he felt as though he had finally found the tip of the iceberg.

Despite her emotional duress, could EZ really allow her to put herself and her friends in danger just to satiate her ravenous hunger for answers? He wouldn't just be condoning a possible suicide mission, but enabling it; contributing to the deaths of the men that would then be responsible for keeping her emotional unpredictability in line.

Internal turmoil clouded EZ's mind like the fresh corpse of a Smoker. However, as he looked back at Zoey, one thing was certain: her. The timid, vulnerable girl in his company just moments ago was gone, replaced by a determined young woman who tensely awaited the possible reassessment of his initial decision.

It was a reckless rescue mission with minimal chances of success and—even without her participation—an even smaller chance of survival. Though EZ didn't know the specifics of the mission or who exactly they were looking for, he was oh-too familiar with the area and knew how long ago the call that prompted this mess had come in. But if there was one person with enough relentless determination to pull it off, it was Zoey. And based on her friends' willingness to put themselves through the exact same fight, it may have been them as well.

"Listen to me," EZ commanded. He was met with nothing less than Zoey's fullest attention. "I don't know what I saw or didn't see the day I picked you all up from that Boomer's asshole of a city. But that person that was left for dead? If you do end up bringing them back and the Colonel doesn't like them… let's just say going down in the city to those infected freaks would have been a mercy."

"I know," Zoey confirmed. "All I can do is cross that bridge when I get there."

"Assuming there's any concern of that in the first place of course," EZ quickly interjected, committing to his ignorant alibi. "If I change my mind—and that's a big 'if'—I don't want to know or hear about anything on the flight there or the flight back. You all keep your damn mouths shut about the new passenger and I'll be too busy flying the bird to look into the cabin. You got that?"

Zoey's mouth and eyes widened before she vigorously nodded, though it was clear she was biting back the question that was desperately trying to pry its way out of her lips.

"You guys have four days on the ground and pickup is scheduled at fourteen hundred hours. If I come in and I don't see you guys on the LZ, I couldn't give less a shit what happened at that point, so set your alarm clocks nice and early. If you're late, I'm not staying a minute over; you guys will have to find another way out, and let me tell you it won't be coming from Camp 17."

EZ found some much-needed humor in the fact that Zoey's nods were becoming so aggressive he was sure her neck would be sore the next morning.

"Flight leaves at zero nine hundred hours, that's forty-five minutes from now so we don't have much time. Let's go, we need to get you a disguise."