Running in Circles

It was cold when you woke up.

The warmth of Joel was missing from his bed and you missed it.

Shrugging it off, you padded downstairs, yawning as you entered the kitchen.

There was no sign of Joel and you felt your brows furrow in confusion. Something… didn’t feel right.

A piece of paper caught your attention. It was lying on the kitchen bench and had neat letters scratched hurriedly across the page.

Picking it up, it read;

‘Sorry, got called on a patrol with Tommy.

Should be back soon. Help yourself to some cereal.”

Joel,”

Your hands were shaking.

You couldn’t get rid of the feeling that something was wrong. It just didn’t sit right with you. Your omega was pawing at your consciousness, calling out words you couldn’t comprehend.

Frowning, you shoved it down.

It took you a moment before you found the cereal Joel was talking about – took you even longer to find a fucking bowl. But eventually, you settled down onto a table shoved against the wall and slowly ate, trying to keep your mind off of… Well, you weren’t sure what it was, but it seemed to have something to do with Joel. You decided you’d ask Maria about it.

The longer the day went…the more wrong it felt. Your skin was crawling, your head was screaming nonsense at you and you just had this innate instinct to run.

You were pretty much a wreck by the time you had found yourself in front of Maria – hands trembling, heart throbbing, and gasping for breath you didn’t need.

“Holy- (y/n)? What’s wrong?” Maria was immediately on alert.

“Whe-where’s Joel?”

The alpha’s eyes narrowed slightly at that.

“He was sent out on a patrol—”

“With Tommy, yes, I know,” you snapped before sighing, “Sorry, I just- I need to know.”

“They haven’t come back yet… But if that was the case, they’re supposed to meet Jesse at one of the checkpoints...” Maria trailed off, her eyes widening in some sort of realisation. “You’re feeling it, aren’t you? You’re feeling the bond…”

The bond.

The bond was where an alpha and omega could instinctually feel a dawning event, whether it be good, like a safe pregnancy, or bad, like the death of a friend. It was stronger between mated pairs, but it could also be felt between those that are very compatible.

The bond… it wasn’t something that had crossed your mind and now that Maria had brought it up, it left you completely floored.

“I need to go,”

“You can’t go outside!” Maria said firmly, resting her hand on your shoulder in what was, seemingly, a comforting gesture, but it wasn’t, it just made you feel trapped.

Panic was flooding through you and you couldn’t stop it.

“Just try to stop me!” You snarled, baring your teeth.

Maria’s alpha acted in kind, snarling, and snapping her teeth threateningly, scent heightening to aid in her threatening aura.

“You would just put yourself and every other person out there in danger if you go outside!”

“I have survived on my own for seven fucking YEARS!” You yelled, “ You don’t get to fucking decide for me!”

“You’ll be putting Joel in danger if you go out there smelling like pre-heat!”

“YOU’LL BE PUTTING HIM IN MORE DANGER IF YOU DON’T LET ME FUCKING GO!” You roared.

Maria quietened, and although you felt a stab of guilt, you held your tongue because like hell she was going to fucking stop you.

“Fine,” she snapped, “you can go with Jesse, but if he can smell even an ounce of omega on you, you’re out.”

You scowled but agreed nonetheless – you could do that. Fucking easy.

Jesse didn’t even notice your approach as you were doused in Joel’s scent (from some of his clothes) and herbs that thickly covered your neck in a greenish-paste.

You were tense and didn’t speak a word to the alpha as the two of you made your way to the checkpoint.

Your omega wasn’t settling down at all, and really, that just caused you to panic even more.

A storm had flown over your heads, and Joel had yet to turn up at the checkpoint.

Jesse had dragged you away from the post and soon you found yourself pushing your way into a library.

“Ellie!?”

Jesse’s worried call brought you back to yourself and suddenly you felt your omega worry over your pup, as you rushed in front of the alpha to check that everything was okay.

“Ellie? Din- Jesus,” Jesse quickly turned on his heel as the two girls scrambled to get dressed. You, on the other hand, just sent the two a smirk.

“Stop looking!” Ellie cried.

“Nah, I think I’ve won that bet for sure now,” you teased, relishing in the blush that spread across the alpha’s cheeks despite her scowl.

“What bet—”

“Enough!” Jesse snapped.

Dina just sighed, “Why are you here?”

“People are counting on you, you get that!? What we do matters!” The raven-haired man scowled as he turned to face Dina.

“Well, then why aren’t you at the fucking look-out?” Dina snapped, hackles rising.

“Because Tommy and Joel didn’t show up!”

The sentence caused an unsteady silence to pass over the four of you.

“What do you mean?” Ellie asked, concern starting to mar her features.

“He means, that we’d been waiting for them for an hour. We were looking for their horses till Jesse saw lights,” you said, your voice was calm, falsely so – your mind was a screaming mess.

“What are you doing here?” Dina asked you, though not unkindly.

“From what I gathered, she was basically ready to threaten Maria to let her go,” Jesse supplied oh so helpfully.

You rolled your eyes.

“You can’t smell me anyways. Like I told her, I’ve been on my own for seven years, I can fucking handle myself,”

“But- why now?” Ellie asked, her face was set into a blank mask, but you could see how she wasn’t looking forward to the answer in the concern and hurt that shone through her eyes.  

“It’s the bond,” you stated simply, before elaborating at all three confused glances (Jesse hadn’t managed to pry anything out of you), “to put it simply, I can instinctually feel that something is wrong; more so than all of you, and I know that I am, without a doubt, most likely fucking right,”

“Would explain why you were so fidgety,” Jesse muttered, earning an elbow to the ribs from you.

“What’s wrong with Joel!?” Ellie demanded.

“I can’t tell you that because I don’t know,” you snapped.

“Maybe they just went back to town,” Dina suggested softly – trying as hard as all of you to deny the unease you all felt.

“No,” Ellie breathed, shaking her head, “Without being replaced? No way. How much of their region have you covered?”

“Not much,” Jesse conceded.

“Then we split up. Go at it from different sides. We can cover the whole thing in a few hours,” Ellie was quickly slipping on her jacket and grabbing the rest of her gear, as was Dina, as they got prepared to leave again.

“I don’t like you riding solo, we don’t know what’s out there,” Jesse argued.

“Exactly! What if they need help?”

“She’s got a point there Jesse,” you called out from where you were leaning against a post.

Jesse just sighed, “I can’t leave (y/n) alone, not whilst she’s in pre-heat.”

“Hey!” You squawked indignantly. Honestly, you’ve been through much worse, why were they babying you?

“Fine, she can come with me,” Ellie snapped.

God, why were they acting as if you were a child!?

“Okay, I’ll head West, Dina can take South, and you two come from the East. But be smart about it, yeah?”

“Yeah,”

The four of you filed out, a weight settling into each of your chests as you mounted your horses and took off in your respective direction.

“JOEL! TOMMY!”

The constant screaming was grating on your vocal chords as you and Ellie tried to be heard of over the wind that was whipping past you as your horses’ hooves thundered against the snowy terrain.

You had been searching for approximately half an hour and eventually, Ellie had pulled her horse to a sudden halt, causing you to quickly bring your own horse to a stuttering stop to avoid colliding with the other two.

“Oh shit,”

You craned your neck to look at what Ellie was seeing, and upon laying eyes on the burnt corpses of the infected at the front gate of a mansion, you felt dread flow through your veins. Inhaling sharply, you reluctantly tore your eyes from the sight.

“How do we get down there?” Ellie murmured.

“There may be an opening in the fence,” you suggested softly.

Ellie nodded before the two of you dismounted and tethered your horses to a nearby tree.

Upon finding a big enough opening in the fence, after jumping across ledges and ducking under trees, the two of you squeezed through.

Ellie sighed, her shoulders relaxing, “ah, there it is.”

You, however, felt your chest squeeze and your head throb, your vision blurring along the edges before focusing again.

Snatching Ellie’s sleeve before she could volt over onto the front deck, you tugged her down into a crouch.

“Something’s not right,” you said seriously, ignoring the incredulous look Ellie shot you.

“We need to find them!” Ellie insisted pulling herself out of your grasp.

“There’s no point in dying whilst doing so!” you snapped.

“What is with you? I’m sure they’re fine if you’re so worried go secure the area or some shit,” Ellie huffed, exasperated, before throwing herself over the small fence line and jogging off inside, calling for Tommy and Joel on her way in.

Ellie felt her relief at potentially finding Joel, disappear into thin air the moment she heard the screams when she walked through the glass door.

“Where is that coming from?” She asked herself, brows furrowed as she tried to push down the sense of dread that was bubbling up.

Ellie quickly made her way down the stairs before hesitating when a cry of pain sounded an awful lot like-

“Joel?”

She was panicking now.

Chest constricting and contracting abnormally, hands shaking, eyesight starting to focus in and out. Her heart was rattling against the cage her ribs formed and her stomach churned at the sounds of complete and utter agony.

“Oh shit,” Ellie breathed as the sight of sleeping bags entered her vision.

Others were here.

Other people were here and they were hurting Joel.

What about Tommy!?

Ellie couldn’t hear anything coming from Tommy. Did they-? Was he- No! Ellie shook her head and willed herself to focus on the grunts that filtered through the room.

“Fuck!”

Ellie found herself in front of a door.

It was at the bottom of a set of narrow staircases that was flanked by pale walls. It felt like a nightmare.

Quietly opening the door, Ellie was greeted with the sight of Joel.

The man was hunched awkwardly over the ground, blood pooling around him and covering almost every inch of his swollen being.

An alpha girl stood in front of him, looming over Joel with a golf club held in a white-knuckled grip.

Ellie saw red.

Shouldering the rest of her way through the door, she curled back her lips, showing off her teeth, took aim and-

Someone grabbed her wrists, slamming her against the open door, and tumbling to the ground.

Ellie swiftly grabbed her pocket knife once her gun was forced out of her hands. Quickly changing the momentum of her body and striking the man across the face with her blade.

Hands came from behind her and shoved her onto the ground, turning around Ellie tried to fight off the other, before a woman joined the struggle.

“Pin her down!”

“Get off me!” Ellie grunted.

“Get her hands!”

 Hands wrapped tightly around her wrists, pinning them to the small of her back and she struggled on the ground before her shoulder was forcefully slammed against the ground and held in place.

“Get the fuck off me!”

“Bitch!”

Soon a boot was kicking her back and forth. Ellie coughed, blood filling her throat.

“You got her!” Someone called out and pulled the boot away, “Look, you got her! Okay?”

Ellie wasn’t paying attention to the muttering around her, she could only see Joel. Broken and battered on the ground. Covered head to toe in blood. His face so smashed in, it was barely recognisable. But-but that was Joel.

Joel who had stayed by Ellie’s side. Joel who had saved Ellie again and again. Joel who refused to let her throw away her life, whether it was for a good cause or not.

It was Joel.

An animalistic scream tore through Ellie’s throat, as she snarled at the red-headed woman standing atop of Joel.

“You’re gonna fucking die!” Ellie screamed, grunting with her continued effort to try and escape the many hands pinning her down.

“What’s going on?” A voice demanded.

A man walked through a doorway, looking between the woman and Ellie.

“Let him go!” Ellie grunted.

“Who is that?” A woman behind the man asked.

“She snuck in,” the feminine voice behind her supplied.

“Why aren’t you posted up outside?” The man accused.

“We didn’t think anyone would show up!” The woman pining Ellie down argued defensively.  

“The hell did you expect!?” The man sneered, before turning so his back was facing Ellie, “we gotta get outta here before the whole town’s on top of us.”

A small part of Ellie questioned how and why they knew that Joel was a part of Jackson, but it was quickly swept away with the all-consuming rage and terror that flooded Ellie’s system.

The man turned to face the woman with the golf club.

“You’re done,” he stated firmly.

The alpha female sneered, walking up to get into the other man’s face.

“You want what I want, right?” Her voice had a hint of desperation tinging it, her clenched hands shaking with the amount of force she was hold them with.

“End it. Now,” the man demanded.

Everyone backed off. Their feet parting so Ellie could see Joel fully.

“Joel. Get up,” Ellie pleaded through ragged breaths, “Joel, fucking get up!”

Ellie could see a flicker of movement from Joel’s eyes and she wondered if he could see her – suddenly she couldn’t handle that thought. She couldn’t handle the thought that she couldn’t save Joel, even though he had saved her so many times. She couldn’t handle the thought of losing the man in front of her.

“Please stop!” Ellie begged desperately, her voice hoarse. “Please don’t do this…”

Her begging landed on deaf ears, however, as the muscular woman started to raise the club.

“Joel! Please get up!” Ellie begged just as the golf club rose over the woman’s head and was swung down –