Prologue
“Did you kill her?”
Rain pattered steadily against the windows. Ellie ran her thumb along the rim of her mug, letting the warmth from the tea chase away the chill in her hands. A droplet of water trembled on the end of a strand of her soaking wet hair, then a second later fell into the tea. She leaned back in her seat and slowly lifted her eyes to meet Tommy’s. One ruined.
“Yes,” she said.
Tommy made a sound like he was deflating. He ran a hand through his hair – messy and loose, a strange sight from his usual ponytail – and was quiet for a moment. Then he leaned forward and there was a sudden light in his eyes that she hadn’t seen since the day he’d come to tell her that he’d found Abby.
She wished he’d never come.
She wished she hadn’t been so goddamn weak.
“Well,” he said, excited now, “tell me what happened! How it happened.”
She didn’t want to, but did at the same time. She knew fully well what she was getting into when she had set herself on Tommy’s doorstep. Wanted to talk about it, needed to talk about it, and yet this was Tommy. That sudden change in him, shifting from tender caution to a ferocious yearning, that was what she had been afraid of. She needed someone who would understand, and it wasn’t him.
But he deserved something, even a lie – especially a lie. He was Joel’s brother. She was here out of obligation more than anything.
She told him everything. She hadn’t planned on it, but the moment she opened her mouth it all came pouring out, every little detail. He was, at least, a captive audience. She told him about how she found the boat Abby had left Seattle in, how Abby was, as always, not there. She told him about how she had the unfortunate pleasure of running into another fucked up militia group by stepping straight into one of their traps and spending a whole day hanging from a tree by her ankle while blood from a wound on her side trickled down her body. She told him about the two Viper men who had found her and tried to scare her with a Clicker that had been hanging beside her, and which ended up being the death of one of them. She unwrapped the bandage on her hand and showed him the bite, and he sucked his teeth and shook his head.
Fighting through the Vipers to find Abby was a blur; she told him everything, but seemed to speak faster than the memories appeared in her mind. Before she knew it, she found herself back in that place they had called the Pillars, standing in front of Abby who’d been strung up by her wrists.
God. She hadn’t even recognized her at first. In that moment Ellie had even felt bad for her, and that alone had made her stomach turn in on itself. And yet she’d cut her down.
Tommy, at least, stayed quiet.
Ellie told him about who she’d followed while Abby carried the unconscious body of the boy she’d been traveling with to the shoreline where two boats had been waiting. She didn’t tell him that she’d thought about just leaving, just for a moment. Instead she said that she’d just waited for Abby to put the boy down before fighting her. Forcing her to.
She hesitated at the memory of holding a knife up to the boy’s throat, just so Abby would fucking fight her. She would have killed him. She really would have.
Fuck.
Ellie flinched when Tommy’s hand came down on her shoulder, though his touch was gentle, reassuring. Or it tried to be.
“Take your time,” he said, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. She just nodded.
No, Tommy didn’t need to know about that. He wouldn’t have judged her, but that was part of the reason why she didn’t tell him.
Instead, she skipped to the fight, and she let him hear all of that, though her voice sounded very far away. Her mouth was moving, she just wasn’t there.
“And just as I got her down, she bit my fingers off,” she said, flexing the stumps her her left ring and pinkie fingers which had begun to sting at the memory. “I punched her again, forced her back under the water, and I…”
Her eyes trailed over to the scar on Tommy’s face.
“I drowned her.”
She let her go.
The tea had gone cold. Ellie dropped her eyes and stayed quiet, waiting for Tommy. She imagined that he could see right through her, that in just a second he’d call her out on her bullshit.
“And what about the kid?” was the first thing out of his mouth. She bit the inside of her cheek.
“I left him,” she answered. Tommy frowned.
“You left him? What if he comes after you?”
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know –”
“He won’t,” she repeated firmly, meeting his eyes again with an icy cold stare. “He was barely awake for more than two seconds when Abby got him down, I don’t even think he saw me. He’ll probably just think it was some Viper.”
It was a weak excuse and they both knew it, but Ellie kept that hard glare on him and refused to back down. In the end, Tommy was the one to look away.
“You know what? I don’t even want to think about that right now.,” he muttered. “You got justice, that’s what matters. I think Joel can rest easy now.”
‘Justice’ was a bitter word. She raised the mug to her lips to hide her frown and swallowed down some of the tea to chase the taste away. Didn’t even want to consider the last part.
Tommy settled back in his chair, turning his head to stare at the empty living room. He muttered something, maybe a “Jesus” or “Goddamn”, but Ellie wasn’t paying attention; she’d found herself listening intently for signs of life from upstairs, and wondered if Maria still lived here anymore, though she doubted it. But, this wasn’t the time to ask about that.
There was only a little bit of tea left in her mug, but she didn’t think she could stomach any more. “I should probably get going,” she started, pushing away from the table. Tommy turned to her again.
“You sure? You could stay here tonight if you wanted. The couch is pretty comfortable – you can trust me on that one. I’ve slept on that thing more times than I can count.”
“Thanks, but I’ve been missing my own bed for a while,” she muttered, though almost felt guilty for it. Once, she wouldn’t have minded a sleepover at Tommy’s, would have even been happy for the offer. She used to be so comfortable around him, sometimes more than she had been with Joel. When had that changed?
“I get it. At least let me walk you to the door,” he said, slowly rising from his seat. Ellie stood as well and pulled the towel he had given her from around her shoulders, draping it on the back of the seat. Her hair had only just stopped dripping.
“Um, hey, do you know where Dina is?” she asked as they headed for the door. “I saw she left the farm.”
“Oh, yeah, she moved back into her old place. Though, I think she spends a lot of time at Jesse’s parents’ anyway.”
She sighed. Yeah, that made sense.
They stopped in front of the door. Tommy opened it, filling the house with the sound of the downpour outside, and stood waiting while Ellie zipped up her damp jacket. She turned to him and opened her mouth to say something, but the only sound that came out of her was a sharp intake when he pulled her into a sudden hug.
“Sorry for being a dick last time we talked,” he said. He straightened up but left his hands on her shoulders. “You did the right thing, Ellie. Thank you.”
She wanted his hands off of her.
“Yeah.” She stepped away and grabbed her backpack that had been laying beside the door, slipping it over her shoulders. “Thanks for the tea,” she muttered before pulling on her hood and hurrying out of Tommy’s house.
The rain was coming down harder than before, so hard that she could barely see, but she knew the way. She kept her head down, nearly jogging to put distance between herself and Tommy’s place as fast as possible, and was thankful that there weren’t many people out tonight. Only Tommy and the few people posted at the gate knew that she’d come back, and she wanted to keep it that way for now.
With just one exception.
A house appeared out of the darkness in front of her, all lit up inside. As she got closer, careful to stay out of sight, she could start to make out figures moving around in one of the rooms on the first floor. She saw Jesse’s parents first, sitting at the dining table, and then JJ appeared, being handed off to his grandfather who immediately tossed him into the air. Oh, man. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed the little guy. She couldn’t help but smile at seeing JJ’s giant grin, and at the same time felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. She’d been gone for so long. She’d missed his first birthday.
And then Dina came into view, smiling and laughing, and that feeling of guilt threatened to pull her into the ground.
She almost turned around and left right then and there, and it took all her might to make her feet take her to the porch and all the way up to the front door. She stood there, soaked to the bone and trembling from more than just the cold, and for a moment just listened to their muffled voices on the other side of the wall. She raised her hand, then hesitated and instead pinched the bridge of her nose, hard, so her hand stopped shaking. Fuck. Should she leave? What would they even say when they all saw her? Jesse’s parents probably hated her now, and Dina… She held onto her other hand, covering up the stumps. Did she want Dina to see her like this? Did she want Dina to see her at all?
The answer was yes, desperately. But she didn’t want to hurt her again.
But God, she had missed her so much.
Ellie took a deep, shaky breath. Another. Slowly, she raised her hand, and she knocked.