Running in Circles

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

You skulked around the outside of the mansion but had come across nobody, and despite trying to convince yourself that maybe Ellie had found Joel, you had yet to see the two.

Sighing, you decided you should stop trying to avoid your sense of dread and went inside to investigate. It was likely that there was someone here and, Joel or Tommy had gotten injured whilst finishing off the assailant. Ellie was probably helping the-

Or not.

You could hear scuffling, grunting, and demanding voices that vibrated through the thin walls and swirled around the interior of the mansion.

Steeling yourself, you followed the voices.

“Joel, fucking get up,” Ellie’s desperate voice flooded through the house and set off some trigger in you, because in the next second you were barging through the house, trying frantically to find where she was.

“Please stop!” Ellie begged desperately, her voice hoarse.

You could see the girl pinned under two people as you hurriedly descended the stairs.

“Please don’t do this…”

Ellie’s broken voice plucked at your heartstrings and when you burst through the door, a muscular alpha was raising a golf club above her head. It was when the mangled sight of Joel registered in your vision that you went cold.

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

“NOOOOO!” Ellie cried, but it wasn’t because Joel was hit. It wasn’t because his head bounced off the ground as blood spouted from an irreparable wound that would’ve spelled inevitable death.

No.

It was because you were hunched over Joel, your back snapping violently as the club was harshly brought down upon you.

You hacked up blood, adding a new layer of dirt to Joel’s sullied jacket. Your chest was heaving, white pain flooding your senses, and limbs shaking with the effort to keep your weight off of Joel.

“Why you—”

The club was brought down again and again and again, and all Ellie could do was watch as you curled protectively around Joel’s head. It was then that the scent started to flood the room.

“Wait-! Abby stop!” A woman yelled, grabbing the woman’s forearms and stopping her from continuously bringing down the club.

“What, Mel!?” Abby snarled.

“What’s that smell?” Someone asked.

The air was tense as a cloying scent heavily filled the room.

Ellie started to struggle anew. She knew that scent, it was one of the first things she encountered when meeting you. You couldn’t – Ellie couldn’t let that happen to you. No she just – Not you too. She can’t sit here and watch two of the people she loves suffer.

“I think- that’s an omega…” Mel said in awe, staring down at you as if you were a fucking scientific miracle.

“No way! I thought they were extinct!”

Ellie blocked out the noise as she tried to struggle out of the grasp of those pinning her down, a million thoughts flooding her mind as she tried to think of how to possibly escape.

It wasn’t until the man on top of her moved and she could feel his member brush against her, that she focused back into their discussion. Disgusting.

“We should bring her back to base! Omegas are s’pose to birth some really powerful alphas!”

The suggestion made Ellie growl, the sound vibrating through her being.

“Don’t you fucking touch her!”

“What’re you gonna do about it?” The man that she had cut beforehand teased, walking up towards you and Joel.

“Wait! You’ll hurt her if you do anything right now!” Mel cried out.

“C’mon man, that’s not cool,” someone said as bitch-face leaned down and grasped your shoulder – eliciting a low, gurgled growl from you.

“Just get her to fucking move so I can finish him off!” Abby demanded, finally wrenching her arms out of Mel’s grasp.

“Owen!” Mel called out, looking pleadingly towards the man that had told Abby to finish off Joel beforehand.

“Enough!” Owen snapped, his pheromones rising threateningly. Ellie briefly wondered why he seemed so unaffected by you – perhaps he was mated to that ‘Mel’ person.

“We can take her back to base, but don’t touch her otherwise. We need to get her to Isaac first - he may want her.”

“Not cool dude!” The man that still had his hand on your shoulder whined, “I bet she’s a slut anyways, won’t hurt to go for a round or two,”

“How about we just get her patched up first? That scent is really strong,” a large man with his hair tied back into a bun said, gently holding his nose as if it would dissipate the overwhelmingly syrupy scent.

“She looks to be in heat, that scent won’t go away, Manny,” Mel warned, “if we take her in, in this state we’ll just attract the infected.”

“We can just cover her in our scent that should dull it enough to not attract any attention,” the girl that was also pinning Ellie down said, “besides, we’ve got quite a few alpha’s here so we should be able to cover it completely…but her being in heat does make that harder.”

“Jesus! Just get her to a place and fuck it out of her then we can go back,” Abby growled, “He’s still fucking alive, so let’s get this shit over and done with!”

Bitch-face shoots Abby a sickening smirk as he goes to pull you away from Joel, only to cause you to whimper in pain.

“You’re going to hurt her,” Mel fretted.

“She can handle it,” bitch-face waved Mel off, continuing to pry you off of Joel.

It was when your eyes met Ellie’s with such a fiery tenacity that Ellie saw your ‘limp’ hand grasp onto the handle of Joel’s knife (that you must’ve grabbed from his hip somehow). In a flash, you had spun around and aimed the knife to lodge into the man’s throat. Unfortunately, bitch-face managed to pull himself out of the way, just enough for the blade to bury in his shoulder, just below the collarbone. An ungodly scream filled the room and the man pushed you off of him - you narrowly avoided falling on Joel.

You spat in the direction of the man as you eased yourself onto your elbows, scowling.

“I like her,” Manny said.

“Shut up!” Bitch-face snapped. Manny just shrugged.

Ellie watched as you panted with the exertion it took to move, with both your wounds and your heat. Ellie watched as you crawled back over to Joel and wrapped yourself around his head – protecting him in vain.

“Alright that’s it!” Abby exclaimed and went to obviously throw you off of Joel, until multiple people stopped her.

“Hey, hey!”

“You can’t just fling her aside!” Mel argued, “she’s probably one of the last remaining omegas!”

“So what!?” Abby spat.

“She could be helpful to us,” Manny supplied.

“This bitch is nothing but a fucking toy!” Bitch-face spat.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?” Owen said as he jerked his chin in Mel’s direction and soon bitch-face and Mel were hobbling out the door.

“What’re we gonna do Owen!?” Abby spat the man’s name out like it was toxic.

Ellie let the rest of the conversation filter out through her ringing ears as her eyes met yours once again. For some reason, your (e/c) irises held an incredible amount of sadness, and it wasn’t to do with your current situation. Ellie felt her brows furrow as you quietly mouthed ‘sorry’ to her before-

“Abby,” you rasped out, not looking away from Ellie, “you really think Anderson would appreciate this?”

The room went deathly silent.

“What did you just say?” Abby’s voice was dangerously calm despite the rising growl at the back of her throat.

The ginger-haired girl stormed over to you, her hand fisting into your hair before jerkily pulling your face up to meet hers.

“Holy…”

Abby’s awe soon morphed into rage, hurt, and disbelief.

“What the fuck! (Y/n)!?”

You smiled, blood coating your teeth and making it a gruesome sight overall as your back arched unnaturally to help keep your torso up off the ground.

“Hey Abs,” you greeted, before coughing and leaving a smattering of blood across the girl’s cheek.

Abby let you drop harshly to the floor - she looked mildly horrified.

“You’re supposed to be dead!” Abby yelled.

“Yeah, heard that one before,” you choked out.

“And why the fuck are you defending him!?”

You leveled Abby with an unimpressed glare.

“Because we’re compatible,” you state firmly.

“Bullshit!” Abby snarled, “You don’t believe in that crap!”

“Hey, hey,” Owen said as he pulled Abby away from you, “calm down.”

“(Y/n), what’re you doing here?” Manny asked, a deep-set frown marring his features.

“I don’t particularly feel like you deserve an answer to that,” you shot back, causing pretty much everyone in the room to cringe.

Ellie was confused. Did you know these people? Did you know they were coming? Did you- No, Ellie shook her head, you wouldn’t have put yourself in that position for Joel if that were the case. But what would happen now?

You curled around Joel, cradling his head to your stomach and covering him with your arms. The man was bleeding profusely and your only hope of saving him would be to protect his head.

His leg was blown to bits and you knew that he would never be able to properly walk again. You couldn’t believe it when you recognised the voices around you; faces that were familiar but aged with time.

“We didn’t know it was you,” Nora said softly.

You just shot her a sickeningly sweet smile in return.

“So you’d just beat anyone to a pulp with a golf club? Nice to know,” you drawled, the words grating on your throat and pressing awkwardly around your damaged ribs.

“That was because you were protecting him,” Abby sneered as she pointed the golf club in your general direction, causing you to flinch back – she looked a little guilty by eliciting such a reaction.

You just sighed.

“Look I’m tired and sore – and not in the good way. So can y’all leave?”

“We ain’t leaving until we get what we came for,” Manny stated firmly, crossing his arms against his chest.

You huffed, should’ve known they weren’t just gonna back down.

“Alright then,” you said as you shakily pushed yourself upwards, drawing your knees in and maneuvering so you were in front of Joel. Your breathing was labored as you stumbled to your feet, wincing as pain shot up through you damaged spine and caused you to slouch awkwardly.

“You’re gonna hurt yourself,” Nora’s voice filtered through your ringing ears. You chuckled.

“Ain’t any worse than what you’ve done,” you shot back darkly.

You surveyed the group through hazy eyes, trying to decide who to take down first. The man Ellie had cut would’ve been preferable, you had never seen the man before and he already grated on your nerves.

Owen just sighed, “What’re you really doing here (y/n)?”

You shrugged, “Don’t have the answers you want to hear.”

“Isaac misses you,” Owen said softly.

Ah, you thought, gonna try and appeal to my emotions.

Owen was always one of your favourite kids. He was smart and compassionate, but unfortunately for him, you had taught him most of what he knew.

“He’d just shoot me on site and you know it,” you scoffed.

“I think we’re at a bit of a stalemate here,” Leah pointed out.  

“Well,” you drawled, “that’s just because you don’t want to murder me in cold blood.”

“We didn’t know it was you!” Abby snapped.

“Oh? And that makes it completely acceptable to go beating dents in every other persons’ skull does it?” You snarled, your voice dripping with venom.

“Why the fuck are you so against this!?” Abby yelled, exasperated, “He practically killed off the rest of your pack!”

You flinched and shoved down any unwelcomed memories.

“I fucking know that!” You growled, low and dangerous, “but that doesn’t give you a right to go off and kill him! You would’ve done the exact same thing if you were in his position. Hell! Your fucking father would’ve!”

“Don’t drag my Dad into this!”

“You dragged him into this yourself!” You let your shoulders hunch, feeling your fingers brushing again the holster of your pistol, “You dragged Jerry into this the moment you decided to turn to vengeance like a fucking child!”

You slowly drew your gun, watching as everyone’s eyes flit to it in concern. Lazily, you let it spin around your index finger.

“So… How are we gonna do this?”

“We ain’t gonna kill you,” Manny scoffed exasperatedly.

“Yeah? Well, unfortunately, there ain’t any other wa—”

You stopped short when you felt a tug on your pant leg. Looking down, you saw Joel’s hand weakly grasping the fabric of your jeans.

Disregarding everyone else in the room, you shakily dropped to your knees and took Joel’s hand in your own. You were pretty sure they wouldn’t stab you in the back (literally).

The man tried to talk around the blood clogging up his throat, but you just shushed him whilst letting your fingers lightly brush through Joel’s matted locks.

“I’m sorry we didn’t come sooner,” you rasped out. There were hushed murmurs behind you, but you ignored them.

“El-…” Joel gasped, spluttering around the blood in his lungs, “Ellie,”

“She’s safe,” you whispered, tears gathering at your eyes, “She’s okay, I’ll make sure of it.”

Joel seemed to relax a little at that.

“Let’s go.”

You turned to see Abby’s face contorted in a display of emotions you couldn’t figure out.

“He’s practically dead anyway,” the girl huffed, “We’re done here.”

And with that, Abby walked out of the room – the other’s eventually followed, shooting you awkward looks and waves of goodbye.

The moment Ellie was let go of, she came tumbling towards Joel.

“Joel!”

Her hands grasped at his face, making sure that he was here, that he was still breathing – as if she was afraid that he would slip between the gaps of her fingers if she let go.

Tears ran down the girl’s freckled face and you gave her a pat on the back before hoisting your body up off the ground.

“Where are you going?” Ellie asked. She tried to keep the suspicion out of her voice, but you heard it loud and clear.

“To say thank you,” you said simply.

“What’s there to fucking thank!?” Ellie yelled.

You leveled her with a look.

“This could’ve ended a lot worse,” you said ominously before limping out of the room.

Ellie scoffed at your answer, but she knew you were right. But she still couldn’t believe you were going to thank these people.

You ignored the pain that flashed through every step you took and just braced yourself against the wall as you came to stop in the doorway of a room that the group were bustling around in.

“Abby,” you called out, immediately garnering the girl’s attention. “Thank you,” you said sincerely.

Abby just scoffed, “There’s nothing to thank me for.”

You let a small smile grace your features.

“I beg to disagree,” you said simply before going to turn away and go back to Joel-

“Wait! (Y/n)!” Mel called out to you, and when you looked back to her in questioning she continued, “We can patch you up.”

You just shook your head with a small chuckle.

“I’m not the one that needs medical attention right now, and I’m sure you won’t want to be giving Joel any, anytime soon.”

From the looks of guilt and unease on the group's faces, you’d guessed right.

“Will we see you again?” Owen asked.

You just shrugged, “Who knows?” You said before fleeing the room and hobbling back to Ellie and Joel.

Ellie was hunched over Joel, her hands hovering over the beaten man, unsure where to start addressing his wounds.

You kneeled down next to her.

“They’ve tourniquet his leg, so we don’t have to worry about that now,” you said softly as your eyes scanned Joel’s form.

“He…He’ll need to be amputated?” Ellie’s statement came out as more of a quiet question.

“Yes,” you nodded, “but that’ll have to be done later, may have to cauterise it, since he’s already lost a lot of blood.”

Ellie nodded quietly, before digging through her pack for a med-kit.

“Where do we start?” She questioned.

You just sighed before guiding her through bandaging up Joel, careful not to jostle the man too much. This was going to be a long recovery… That was if Joel even made it back to Jackson.