Author's note: I know it's been a long time since I posted a chapter. Due to IRL distractions and business, and what seemed like a lack of engagement, I had given up on this story at least for a time.
A recent comment piqued my interest and made me realize that not only do I still have time for this story, but I still care about it.
I'll try to go back to a regular posting schedule. Weekly if possible. The imminent release of TLOU season 2 on Max is relevant, and bound to inspire me as well. To reiterate, this fic is based on the games, not the show. But still.
Last note; a single comment can make a big difference in a writer's feelings about his work and is relation to his audience. Positive or negative, they are appreciated.
Enjoy.
The breakdown was worth than they thought. The radiator crack was bad, and they spend hours fixing that. They kept thinking they had it, then they would test it and it would leak more. Parker seemed to be growing redder by the hour.
It was around noon that they discovered another failing part, and Parker had it. He put some guy named Hae in charge of the repairs and stomped off to his humvee. They'll be here for the day.
"We should scavenge, or something," says Ellie.
Abby looks at her sharply. They'd been half-heartedly trying to skip stones across the sandy dirt between scrub brush. "Don't work like that, Ellie."
"What else are we supposed to do out here?"
"Be patient," says Abby with emphasis.
"Oh, brother," Ellie replies.
The orders come in around four. They're sending out parties. Apparently they're not out of wire spool but they're lower than they want to be, so people are being sent out to get more.
"Us too, right?" asks Ellie.
"Easy," says Abby. She's been the liaison for… pretty much everything since they joined the column. "And I wouldn't count on it."
"Come on, dude, we're wasted out here."
"Not up to us, Ellie."
"Hey," says a girl with ear-length brown hair, appearing around a humvee suddenly, "you two."
Abby stiffens. Ellie picks up.
"You're with us, come on."
"Hell yes," says Ellie, jumping off the fence she'd been sitting on.
There's some lively discussion with Blake–the girl's name–but she agrees to let them bring the horses.
"Come on, that's what they're for!" Ellie said.
Three or four different parties break off from the train, heading in different directions. On the outskirts of Laramie, there are actually quite a few splotches of civilization in the miles of plain around them. Truck stops and railyards and small warehouse blocks.
Infected, too.
The first three runners come charging out from the flattened chain link fence behind the warehouse strip they're approaching. The humvee makes a devil of a racket after all.
Ellie doesn't understand the shouting coming from the vehicle, but she understands line of sight. She produces her single-shot rifle and signals for Barthas to slow. They're fifty yards out and closing. She lines up a shot and breathes out.
There's a lightning crack. One goes down.
She chambers, and fires again. A second one goes down but it went into his shoulder, he'll be back up. She fires again, hitting the third one in the heart.
She brings Barthas back into a gallop, circling away from them. The runners will never catch her and are no threat. The second one gets back up and she crosses his path, striking him in the forehead with a rifle round from twenty feet. Her line of fire never crosses the rest of the party.
She rolls up behind Abby, who looks scared and angry, again.
"Did you not hear her?" Abby says between her teeth.
"Honestly, no."
Blake is leaning out of the driver's seat of the humvee, fifteen feet away.
"Was that wrong?" Ellie asks.
Blake considers her, but shakes her head. "Crack shot, Ellie."
"I try," she replies, chambering another round, flipping the safety and returning the rifle to the long gun holster on Barthas's saddle.
Barthas seems pretty pleased with himself.
They rummage the warehouses on foot, blowing the roll-up doors with some kind of powerful jack device Ellie's never seen before and would want herself if it didn't look like it weight a hundred pounds and took two people to operate.
They encounter six more runners and a clicker. Unfortunately, it's crowded, and Ellie doesn't get so much as a bullet into any of them before they get mowed down by Fireflies.
Neither does Abby, but she doesn't look as disappointed.
They encounter a five-hundred-pound spool of wire in one of the warehouses, and no one seems to find Ellie's jokes about it funny.
One of the guy comes back with a twenty pound spool from some crate. They throw it in the back of the humvee and head back to the train.
"I thought scavenging was supposed to be fun, you know?" says Ellie alongside Abby on Starbeam.
"This is fun," says Abby.
Ellie screws up her face.
"Firefly fun."
"Right."
When they're a couple hundred yards from the train, the commotion starts to become visible.
There's a group of Fireflies all standing around Roy, and Ellie's brow twitches. What's going on?
Abby doesn't say anything but her face says similar thoughts are going through her head.
Blake eyes it, too, but she just throws Ellie and Abby a peace sign and steers the humvee back to its place in the column, leaving Ellie and Abby to approach the situation themselves.
The Fireflies are surrounding someone, and Parker himself is there, doing some kind of questioning with his hands on his hips. No weapons are drawn.
"Is that right," Ellie hears Parker say. Parker turns around at the sound of their hoofbeats, eyeing them sharply, brows knit under the midday sun. "You two know this clown?"
It's then that Ellie looks over his shoulder and sees Wyatt.
Her face goes straight like a whipped blanket, but her stomach twists into a knot.
"The fuck?" she hears Abby mutter. "Where are the rest of you?" She asks Wyatt, pulling Starbeam up alongside the crowd and dismounting.
"Just me, blondie," says Wyatt. His hands are in the air but he's got his characteristic half-smirk.
Ellie feels a painful urge to intervene but she's also afraid to speak. She catches Wyatt giving her a sly little look.
Abby pushes through the bodies on the outside, but she turns to Parker, not Wyatt.
"Who is this?" Parker asks her.
Abby screws up her face, looking at Wyatt. She chews on her words. "Some free trader came through Jackson a few months back."
"And what the hell is he doing on my train?" Parker continues.
"Honestly, sir, I have no–" Abby hesitates, quarter-turning toward Ellie.
She'd seen them together. She'd seen her talking to Lyle, and the other guys. Ellie'd been seen with him at the firing range, too. Ellie doesn't know what Abby knows. But too much, apparently.
Missing nothing, Parker turns to Ellie with an appraising look. "Well, Ellie, do you know this guy?"
With care, Ellie keeps her breathing level, looking at Wyatt. His eyes dare her to try something.
"He and I had some dealings at that time, in Jackson, yeah."
"And why is he here?"
She left that letter at the farmhouse a few days before they left is all. A week before they were supposed to come. They must have come early for some reason. And he must have set off hard after her, considering the distance they already traveled. Not that they would be hard to track, even over paved roads.
"That is a question I can't answer," says Ellie. "Why are you here, Wyatt?"
"Those 'dealings' we had are hardly complete, Ellie," says Wyatt. He lies like it's nothing. Just like her. "I believe you know what you owe me, and if you're going to San Antonio–well, don't you think I might want a piece of that myself?"
The skin around Ellie's eyes tightens.
"And I wouldn't mind keeping an eye on you, either. Till I get what I'm owed."
Ellie draws a long breath.
Parker looks between the two of them like a couple of ugly dogs. "Ellie, what the hell is this? This is not the Oriental Express here. And I'm to understand this guy is part of some band?"
"He came alone," says Ellie. She knows that. She just knows.
"And what? Now he wants passage, too?"
Wyatt starts to stay something, but Parker interrupts, stepping closer to him.
"Why don't you forget about what she owes you, Wyatt," says Parker. "Why don't you tell me what I owe you? Cause I don't allow just anyone on this column. What you see here–" he gestures to Abby and Ellie, "is something of a special arrangement. A favor. And I don't even think you three are friends."
Wyatt's smirk grows, glancing at Ellie. "You'd be right about that."
"So it seems to me like you ought to be on your way," says Parker.
"Well, now, I would plead with you, commander. Captain?"
"Captain," says Parker.
"Circumstances may be odd, that's true… but I don't take up much space, do I?"
"Space is not my concern."
"What is your concern?"
"Security."
"I can offer that, too."
Parker snorts, turning around.
"I got intelligence."
Parker's brows twitch. He looks over his shoulder. "Oh? Is that right?"
"On San Antonio, thereabouts."
Parker frowns, looking at him more intently. "Explain."
"I only lived there for near on ten years, sir. Right there in the city, under FEDRA. Got to know all about that city and its workings. Not to mention certain… factions in the surrounding area. Terrain, routes, passages, all that."
Parker, whose mouth had been hanging open in a sarcastic loll, presses his lips together. "Well, how'd you get out, then?"
Wyatt's hands are still hanging in the air. He shifts his feet. "Routes, sir."
"Routes." Parker stares a second longer then rubs his lips with his hand. He scoffs. "Routes." He cranes back looking at the sun in the sky as if gauging the time of day. "Of course." He looks back at Wyatt. "Produce your weapons and give them over to Tulane. Join me in my car for a few minutes. We'll chat. The rest of you get back to your places, this ain't no fuckin' circus."
He stomps off up the train. He stops by Ellie, prodding her chest. She flinches.
"And you," he says, "you and I are gonna have a little talk later."
"Wh–" She doesn't know what else to say, but she doesn't have to worry about it, because Parker's already gone.
She looks in confoundment at Abby, but Abby's also pissed-off looking.
The rest of the soldiers are breaking off now, chatting amongst themselves, now that the 'excitement' is over.
"I told you not to embarrass me," says Abby, stiff-necked.
"What the fuck did I do?" Ellie asks.
Abby shakes her head with barely contained frustration. She walks up to Ellie and leans into her ear. "Tell me, how the fuck did Wyatt know where we were?"
Ellie's stomach twists again. Her letter. Of course.
Wyatt is being so good as to relieve himself of all his weapons, Tulane next to him tucking them under his arm. Wyatt's eyes are on Ellie.
Tulane tells him to follow Xu, which he does, albeit in a slow sort of swagger. He pauses for a moment beside Ellie. "You didn't think you'd get away that easy, did you?"
Feeling out of control, Ellie just stares back. But Wyatt just moves up the column.
Ellie would contest Parker's definition of a 'talk.'
He hardly let her get a word in. He just lambasted her for ten minutes. It was humiliating. At least she had the decency of them being alone.
She confessed to him that she had had correspondence with Wyatt and she had confided in him where she was going and how.
"Do I need to define 'operational security' for you?" he had jabbed at her.
He told her that kind of shit gets people put in the brig, or kicked out of the Fireflies. And if any more intel flies from her lips into the hands of the 'enemy'-his words–he would gladly take such action.
"What did I say, Ellie?"
He's not scared of her at all. It pisses her off, but she would be lying if she said she didn't find him intimidating. "Handcuffed in the back of the truck."
"Very good."
He'd walked out just like that, leaving her to her shame.
She'd been pissed, but not just at Parker. Parker's not the liar in the situation.
She winces thinking of Wyatt, and Lyle, and all the lies she had to tell to make it this far. That could have gone worse, a lot worse. Say Wyatt does show up with some more of those guys, even Lyle. Fire could have been exchanged.
She's feeling tired. Her head hurts from worry. This has gone far, too far. She needs to wrap this up. She needs to get to San Antonio and back. Quick as can be done.
Worsening the new arrangement, Parker had indeed been convinced by Wyatt that he was useful. He would be joining the train–riding with Ellie and Abby. His horse barely fit in the trailer, but it would work.
That night at the fire, Ellie ate her soup in silence, seated next to people she didn't know. Abby was having lively talk with a couple people she knew back from Catalina. Ellie's not sure if she's mad at her or not, but she's appreciating the time alone. She's not feeling particularly jovial.
She'd been staring at her empty tin bowl of fatty soup when she felt the tap on her shoulder. She looked up to see Wyatt standing over her.
"Evenin', Ellie," he says. "How about you and I have a little chat?"
She stares up at him, unamused. Without word she drops her bowl and spoon onto the ground and stands up to follow him out into the dark prairie away from the fire.
He leads her out a good ways, maybe a hundred feet. Out here the firelight is only a suggestion on his back and shoulders, the moonlight dominating the landscape around him. They've walked far enough.
"What do you want, Wyatt?" she asks him, stopping.
He stops as well, half-turning to her. "Well, a little trust from my dear sister would go a long way."
"You ain't done anything to earn my trust."
"I was born, wasn't I?" he asks her. He faces her now, hanging his wide-brimmed hat down over his back. He takes a step toward her, putting his hands in his pockets. "Don't you think family deserves better?"
She eyes him with dissatisfaction. "Better than what?"
His tone finally changes. "Better than you running out after my family without my permission, and apparently without my knowledge as well."
"I left you a letter."
"A letter you expected me to receive long after you were gone."
"I did."
"You see why that might make me cross?"
"I guess I figured if you had any interest in this mission you would have undertaken it yourself long ago."
Wyatt's face isn't pretty when the smirk finally disappears. There's a gaunt hunger in his hard eyes, and a viciousness to the curl of his lips, like a restrained animal. "I've cut you an awful lot of slack, Ellie. Your smart mouth. Don't get too far with me, not generally. I don't have much tolerance for that. And outside your little utopia, it gets a lot of people killed."
"Don't ever threaten me," says Ellie.
"Oh, I wasn't–"
"I'm just telling you, Wyatt," she says. Her tone is neutral. "It won't get you anywhere with me."
He stares.
"You're not scary, not to me. And I do not tolerate bullies."
In fact I've put a lot of them in the dirt.
He stares for a second longer, then he looks down, his eyes obscured in the night. She sees him smirk again, though. "No, you don't, do you? Shit." He looks up at her, searching her face, an ounce of curiosity there. "Look at you, sis. Look at you."
"Why you bring me out here, Wyatt? Wanna chastise me? Tell me how it's gonna be?"
He tilts his head, still smiling.
"Cause this is my train, as far as your concerned, Wyatt. This is my mission. In fact, given how you left San Antonio, I have no clue how you expect to even get back inside. But I will."
His eyes harden.
"And I will find Adeline, with or preferably without your help. And I will bring her back alive, because that is what I do."
"Is it now?" he asks her, just a whisper.
Her brow twitches. "It is."
He bites his lip. He wears a sort of smug, satisfied look. He nods. "Okay." He looks down again. "Okay, sis. But listen here. You just don't know. You still just don't know what you're talking about."
"How?"
He scoffs. "You don't know me, Ellie. You don't know Lyle. You don't know nothing. And you sure as hell don't know Adeline."
Her brow creases.
"Ellie why are you here? That's what I came out here to ask you. Answer me that."
Ellie breathes a few breaths. Anger bubbles in her gut, below the surface. Given a little thought, his question is not unreasonable. Alright.
She looks off over the plain. They're half bright, little mounds of snow casting up silver waves of light that almost hurt the eyes.
"The day you and Lyle came to town, I asked someone important to me about family."
Wyatt stiffens, just a little.
"They told me it's about as important as anything, even when you disagree."
"Well, that's sweet."
"I resolved then to get to the bottom of it. You and Lyle. If there was anything there… anything there worthwhile."
He says nothing.
"I wasn't sure, but one thing led to another, and you two didn't leave. Not altogether." Ellie meets his eyes. "Did you?"
"Not for lack of trying." His heart's not in it.
"And then Lyle goes and tells me about Adeline." She falls silent after that, and she stays silent for a while. There's something she's not saying. About how the minute her name left Lyle's lips a shape took form inside Ellie and it feels real even if she's never met the girl before. The idea of her. Like a living person, or the outline of one. A depression in an empty chair where she's meant to sit.
"It's what I'm trying to tell you, Ellie, make sure you understand. You don't know the first thing about Adeline."
It's like he's reading her thoughts and he hates them. She looks him in the eye. "Wyatt, do you comprehend that before you and Lyle came to Jackson, not once in my life had I ever known blood family?"
He stares back, his left eye tightening.
"And I've resolved to find out what that's like."
He snorts softly.
"I've made sacrifices."
"Yeah?" he whispers.
"And little enough in this world would stop me, and it's certainly not going to be you."
He smirks again. "But I am blood family, Ellie."
"So where's the issue?"
His smirk weakens.
"Figure you'll keep what you have to yourself?"
The last of his false humor falls away and he scowls at Ellie. He walks up to her, crunching through the snowy grass. He stops at her side, shoulder to shoulder with her. "That's beautiful, Ellie. Real beautiful. Just understand this, Ellie. You may be quite confident in yourself. But I am not. And I won't let anything in the world bring harm to Adeline, intentional or otherwise. And that certainly includes you."
Her cheek twitches, but he carries on and walks back to the camp. Angry words die in her throat.
The moon is bright like a night-white sun, but it carries no warmth down to her skin.
What day is it…? November… 17th. Wow. We're outside Lamar, Colorado.
I can't believe the time we're making. These Fireflies do not fuck around.
Abby was right, fuck driving every day. I actually prefer the passenger seat. It's hard to draw, cause of the bumping and everything, but there's so much to look at. It's a lot of flat, but you can still see the Rockies in the distance. Big and beautiful. Covered in snow. I always kinda wanted to check them out, but it's hard travel and it never made sense. Doubt many people stay up there now. Just hard, country folk. People who can survive tough conditions of nature to avoid infected and other people. I could be one of 'em. Maybe.
Nah, I'd get lonely.
Really I'm just trying to avoid Wyatt, which is hard when he lives in our back seat now. Fucking prick.
Even his good moods are petulant. His bad moods, I have to intercede to keep Abby from beating his ass. Big fucking mouth. He's gonna get us kicked off the train.
Abby won't complain up the chain because 'you don't do that' I guess. I know it was a long shot that Wyatt even get on the train as it is. And believe me, if it were up to me, he wouldn't have.
Parker must like him. Well, as much as he likes anyone, I still have yet to see him smile even one time. He calls Wyatt out of the car on stops sometimes and they talk for a half hour or so. About San Antonio and Texas region, I suppose. Anyone's guess if Wyatt is just lying his ass off, but it seems to satisfy Parker so far.
After getting used to the robo-brained leadership structure of the Fireflies, it's not so bad. Just stick to the schedule and don't cause trouble, ever. Still leaves some room for enjoyment, it turns out. And they don't give me chores or anything. They just tell me not to wander off or I get thrown in the 'brig.' And some of these guys actually have personality.
Ross is cool. Perry is cool. Leonard is alright. Sashka is hot. And I mean, like, obviously not, but, just saying, whatever.
She brushed up against me at supper last night and I was like 'okay.' Then I saw how she was looking at me and I was like 'UM OKAY.' I got the hell out of there.
She probably thinks I'm… anyway, doesn't matter. That's not why I'm here.
Wyatt hasn't said shit to me since that night. Not about Adeline, anyway. I hate to admit it, but he made his point. That's 'his' sister. He won't let anything happen to her.
It's to his credit, really. But if he thinks I'm a threat somehow, or a danger to her… I can't have that. I can't have Wyatt getting in the way like that. He's not smart. He's rash. He's exactly the kind of person who could get himself killed in a delicate situation. I honestly don't know how he's survived for so long. Probably because he had Lyle to balance him out.
But now there's no Lyle. Just me.
November 19th, 2024, 1832
We crossed into Texas today, technically. Texas is insanely huge and we just got to the top… the top, hat, thing. The top of it. The flat part. Wow I sound stupid.
Ellie's drawing again. She's kinda like, the perpetually distracted person. When she pulled out her notebook in the passenger seat and started drawing, I figured it would buy me like thirty minutes of peace, tops. She drew in it for hours. Page after page. Looked like she was drawing the mountains. Not a lot of other features to draw, really. Just nearly flat plains, the Rockies in the distance, and the sky. Mostly overcast, we've had the sun come out here and there. Damn cold, but Roy's heater works fine.
This… I'll just say it, this is going a hell of a lot better than I thought. But then again, that's the advantage of hitching with the Fireflies.
That being SAID, I'll get to why I pulled this thing out to begin with.
Parker sent out scouting parties yesterday, before supper. Most came up empty, but Diego and Anya came back with word of an actual encampment. All the hallmarks of raiders. They were undetected. That being said, they left tracks, so…
Parker rallied the entire caravan, and had us carry on into the dark, even though he's avoided doing that this whole time so far. We didn't stop until we got to the top of his low hill with rocky outcroppings. A one way up, one way down kind of situation. He posted up the fifty cals at the front and back and had someone man them all night. Which, that fucking sucks, it got well below zero I think, but I get it.
And it turns out his ass was dead right because at 0043 these bastards come right up on our tail with a beat-up Chevy and a couple quads. They were armed, but they stopped about a quarter mile down the hill and I guess they had binoculars or something because they scoped out what they were up against and turned the fuck around.
No shots fired. And let me never say Parker doesn't know what he's doing cause that could have gone a lot fucking worse.
Ellie slept right through it and I gave her so much shit the next day. It's funny cause she's, like, one of the most neurotic people I've ever met. But that didn't stop her sleeping like a baby last night! Under the protection of the Fireflies. Imagine that.
And speaking of the protection of the Fireflies, Wyatt is well on his way to figuring out that we do not fuck around. If he lets slip a couple of the things I've heard him say around the wrong person, he's getting chained up or worse, I don't know. Still, it has not escaped my notice that Parker is giving him rather preferential treatment for an… interloper. He must have credible intel.
Regardless, it's a testament to my dad that I've held my peace this long with Wyatt. I can't even say anything, because that's exactly what that asshole wants. I think he wants to fight me, prove his the badder of the two of us, or something. Little does he know that I would rather take his crap than suffer embarrassment in this company.
Ellie's amazingly cool with him, considering. Not that she likes him or anything. Last night she called him a sourpuss.
Hah.
The question that it raises over and over is what kind of deal he and Ellie struck back in Jackson that could possibly explain this absurd situation. 'Guns,' she said. Like that explained anything. She owes him, I guess. But why the hell would she tell him where she's going? She on some kind of favor for him? Only if it's as important as life and death, no way she does something like that for this clown.
She skipping town? No way. No fucking way. If she ever for a second thought she could get away from Jackson like that she would know better than to let me come.
That's obviously not it. This just stinks. This whole thing just stinks.
Wyatt knows something about Ellie that I don't know. I don't like that. Ellie and I [several scratched out words] If it's of any significance to Ellie and anyone should know it, it should be me. Why would he know something I don't? Why would she keep something from me? Is it bad? Is she in danger? Cause I need to know that, too.
I should ask her, right?
It's hard [more scratches] It's hard caring about someone like Ellie. Flighty. Impulsive. Not that
Not that I would trade her for anything in the world. Not after everything that happened. Not after she's the only person on the planet who understands. Like that.
I wish she would just be honest with me.
Ground so dry it's hurting for snow. A landscape of low ridges, red dust, and scrub grass. Goes on forever. And you can't see the stars at night when it's overcast all the time.
Um… wait a second. It's November 21st now. We're probably a day from Texas.
Insane. We left Jackson barely a week ago. I never would have thought… I mean I guess it's been a while since I traveled by car. Anywhere. Not since Joel out east of Philadelphia. You do make good time, don't you. These guys got big trucks and good gas, these things make time. Only thing that stops us is pile-ups and that's usually not for long. Only once a couple days ago did we run into a mess so bad we had to back up and go around the town altogether, but out here on the flatlands that's about as easy as anything.
We're gonna be in San Antonio soon. Insane. I think I needed more time to digest this whole… situation.
I could be seeing Adeline soon. I hope… I hope I can.
Could be tricky. Don't know what kind of ties she has down here. And Wyatt… now, he should have no way into the city, so maybe he won't be such an issue. Still, I don't like having him around in the area. And we have to get home somehow.
No. Too much to think about. Too many unknowns. Fretting over it ain't gonna accomplish shit. I need to do this one day at at time.
Ride's done for the day. One more day after that, maybe even tomorrow night we get to the gate. Hopefully they don't blow us up with RPGs.
No, but seriously, I hear they got some kind of line of comms with FEDRA there and we'll probably be let in with open arms considering what we're packing. The cure. Yeah, crazy to think about, but I haven't even spent an hour contemplating the significance of that.
We got scouted earlier today. There was one truck on a low hill, I heard later they were marking us through binocs. I bet money there were more vehicles behind the hill. Much like our previous speculators though, they decided not to engage. They sure as hell weren't FEDRA, though. Worst case, they call for reinforcements.
To be honest, I'll be somewhat relieved once we pass behind FEDRA walls. This caravan is tough but draws a hell of a lot of attention. Not really my style.
Caravan's on high alert, but it would take an army to break our defenses. Only half the train is ever asleep at one time. Except us. But we're not, you know, rank-and-file I guess. I'm not complaining.
Something weird with Wyatt. He changed his tune today. Cut back on the snark, started acting friendly. He's got some motive. I don't know. Maybe we're getting close to San Antonio and he figures he might need our help or something. I'm sure as hell not getting him into the city, though. And I sure as shit doubt Parker is.
Abby's been cool with me. Like, it's almost not noticeable. It's not like she's not talking to me. But something's different. I can't seem to get her to laugh. That's always a sign something's up. But I'm XaXpieceXofXshitX afraid to ask.
So I guess I'll just pretend I don't notice. That'll fix it, right?
I figured out Wyatt's angle.
Early afternoon he finally lets the cat out of the bag. He wants to meet up after we leave the city with Adeline. Putting a lot of faith in me, aren't you? He knows he can't get in which means he's dependent on me for that part.
I told him not to count on it and he asks me how I'm planning to get back to Jackson. I showed him the map of the region I got from the Fireflies. With terrain. I explained that we would follow the terrain where possible, minimizing sight lines down to like zero, until we're out in the cuts, we hoof it over the empty plain and hope for the best.
We get rode up on, I give them what I have. I don't care about gold or whatever. If they press I might even give them my guns.
They want more than that from me or Adeline or anyone and I'll just kill 'em. But it don't matter cause no one will see us and we'll be off scott free and out of Texas.
He laughed that off and said I was kidding myself. That if I wanted to get out of Texas safely I needed his help. I didn't offer much credence to that.
And those are the terms we left on. Cause the train stopped randomly in the middle of nowhere, and Wyatt got his ass escorted out of the truck by Fireflies and he took his horse and fucked off down a gully. I guess that's what he and Parker agreed on?
I don't like it. I don't like it because I know that's not the last I'm seeing of him, and like it or not his words got under my skin. I don't know this country. And I saw that truck on that hill. It's no man's land outside FEDRA walls as far as I know.
I traveled Texas once but I was alone and XnotXkeenXonXlifeX reckless. This time I'm going to have… precious cargo.
Did Abby realize that? About how her coming would change things?
And of course there's Adeline…
But I'm getting ahead of myself again.
I can see the walls now. We stopped a quarter mile out. Some kind of radio conversation is happening.
It's almost time.