ThirtySeven - Ella

The door swung open surprising everyone in the living including the man coming toward me with a syringe full of zombie virus. Jane, the woman who'd been sent outside to wait for the return of Kyle, Joel and Miles came panting through the door. She looked like a mess, graying hair flattened to her head with sweat. Her eyes were wide, brow wrinkled. Scared.

"He has Sammy."

The man paled, stopping dead in his tracks. Sammy must have meant something to him. I bit back a relieved smile. I didn't need any more context than that to know my calvary arrived.

"I don't know their fucking names. One of her friends." She gestured toward me with the nozzle of her gun, a move I did not appreciate considering how much her hand was shaking.

"Lance?"

Jane shook her head. Either she had lost track of her friend, or he was dead. I hoped for the latter and did my best to push away the awful feeling in my gut that came with realizing I was hoping someone was dead.

"They know we have their bitch."

My lips pursed as the third joined in on the argument. "Take her outside and kill her," he suggested.

"They'll kill Sammy if you do that," Aiden said. My brow drew together. Was he trying to keep them from killing me, or keep his person alive? I wasn't sure. I also didn't think it mattered because at this point the end result was the same. I didn't say what I was thinking which was they would kill all of them anyway. That was what they were trained to do. Find a threat and neutralize it. And maybe they had a little desire for vengeance too.

A window in the room shattered and everyone went on guard as a good sized rock landed on the floor.

"Do I have your attention now?"

I didn't think I'd ever be so relieved to hear the sound of Joel's voice shouting from outside of the house. Aside from sounded pissed off - which seemed fairly normal for the guy - he sounded relaxed, even a little cocky. David walked toward the shattered glass. He drew his weapon and pointed it through the hole, firing. I flinched at the sound.

"Seriously?" Joel asked sounding more amused than shaken by the shots fired. "How stupid do you think I am?" He paused then, not to give them a chance to answer but to make sure he had everyone's attention. "Here's the deal. My boy Hunter out here— You remember him. You tied him to one of your crosses. He has your girl and since the first words from her mouth were 'My dad's gonna kill you.' I'm guessing she means a little something."

Hunter? He wasn't upstairs with Zero? I didn't bother to hide my smile, even when the asshole in charge turned his glare to me.

"Keep smiling, bitch," he said, threatening.

"Don't get all nervous. Hunter doesn't like killing girls. Me? I don't mind. She tried to shoot me so I'm all out sympathy. But I'm not the one holding a knife to throat. Here's what we're going to do. You leave the fucking house and no one has to die. You so much as put a bruise on Ella and I will scalp you."

Maybe it was the way he said, not deep and threatening, but matter-of-fact as if it were just the way the world worked, that had Aiden loosening his grip around my arm. He was still holding me, but he shuffled back a little, putting some space between us. Yeah, Joel was a little scary.

"Get out there David. Find them."

"What?" The guy was taken aback by the idea, and obviously not a fan.

"Go through the back."

"You fucking do it."

They weren't paying me any attention.

"You could just let me go," I said quietly so I wouldn't pull their attention toward us. "You could come with me."

After a moment, his head gave the slightest nod and together, we inched toward the kitchen. If we could get just there, we'd be able to turn and run out the back door. We just had to get close enough to turn and run before they noticed. Before we reached where we were going, Miles and Kyle appeared in the doorway. Miles winked a cocky grin on his face, but Kyle was far more serious. They eased through the doorway, commanding attention as they raised their guns. Jane and David were quick to point their guns right back toward Kyle and Miles. Their leader, however, didn't do the same. While the four were in a tense stand off, he leisurely lifted his gun and pointed it across the room at me.

Kyle switched direction, his arm swinging so that his aim was now on the man who was threatening to shoot me.

"One move boy," he warned. I could see in his eyes that he thought he had them. Kyle and Miles were out manned and out gunned at the moment. "Lower the gun, son."

I don't know if he actually expected Kyle or Miles to lower their guns, but that didn't happen.

"Little help in here, Joel," Miles shouted.

A minute later, he carefully walked through the front door. He had a gun in his hand, but he didn't immediately join the standoff by raising it.

"I'm seeing a bit of family resemblance," he said to the man pointing a gun at me. "Guessing that makes you 'daddy,' so I shouldn't have to remind you that if you pull that trigger, my friend opens your daughter's throat."

Joel had gotten through to the man who started to lower his weapon and nodded for his people to do the same. The tension in the room started to dissipate. They may have shown up looking to kill us all, but they wanted to get home alive. Kyle and Miles didn't lower their guns, not trusting the group for a second.

"Let the girl go, Aiden."

He wasn't really restraining me anymore. His grip around my wrist stopped holding me back a while ago, now it was there more out of stress and fear than anything else.

"He's going to stay with us," I said earning similar looks of surprise from everyone in the room.

"Boy, I picked you up from the streets. Get your ass over here."

He was quiet for a moment and then shook his head. "No—" If he was going to say to more, it was ended with an echoing gunshot. For a split second the world stopped. Everyone froze, staring at each other. And then it started again. My focus was suddenly on the gun once more pointed at me. It went off an I fell to the ground.

All I could hear for a moment was the shouting and the guns firing. One after another. Pop. Pop. Pop. My eye's squeezed tightly shut. I was in shock, I thought. Sure the bullet hit me but adrenaline and panic blocked my brain from noticing the pain. It wasn't until I pried my eyes open that I realized the blood soaking through the clean shirt wasn't my own.

I think I screamed then, but I can't be sure, as I tried to push my way out from under the body that had fallen on top of mine.

I skittered away, crawling backward on my hands to get away from him. But I couldn't lift my eyes off of the body. The body of a boy who pushed me out of the way and put his own body in front of bullet. I didn't know him. Not how old he was or his last name. Not if he had any people that were really his. I guess I knew enough. I guess I knew all I would ever know about him - all I would ever need to know. He saved my life.

"Ella! Are you okay?"

"I'm-" I looked down at myself. Whole. Alive. I nodded my head. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

Nodding, I took Kyle's hand and stood to my feet. It was mess. Bodies laid out in the living room floor, puddles of blood growing around them. There was so much—

"Oh my God." I climbed rushed to the opposite side of the room, dodging both furniture and bodies to where Miles was sitting leaned against the wall.

Noticing me, he smiled. "A scratch," he said but the restrained tone and contorted expression on his face said otherwise.

"You killed them." The words came from behind me in a strangled scream. I twisted, looking over my shoulder to see a girl I didn't recognize, but assumed must be Sammy, and Hunter.

"What the hell happened?" Joel asked half curious-half pissed. "We almost had them talked down until you fired your gun."

Hunter shook his head. He didn't seem too torn up about the scene. "Wasn't us."

"Then who—ah, shit, I'll be right back." Kyle didn't give any further explanation before jogging out the front door. I watched Kyle go, curious, but didn't follow after him.

"Are you just gonna kill me now?" Sammy asked the quiet room.

"Do you want us to kill you?"

"Isn't that what you people do?" She spit out. "Come into our city and just start killing our people."

"Whoa there, sweetheart," Joel said condescendingly. "No one just started killing your people," he mimicked her voice. "Your guys kidnapped and tortured two of us. Unprovoked. Then, some of your drunken idiots started shooting at our girls and they defended themselves. And finally you fuckers break into our home. Care to explain why? Because to my untrained eye it looks an awful lot like you assholes came here with intention of killing us."

He listed each transgression on his fingers and then stood, waiting for some sort of response. We were all sort of interested to hear, I think.

"Whatever." She crossed her arms over her chest unable to come up with a better response to all he'd said. "Might as well," she added bluntly. "Not like I won't bring others back here."

We all just sort of looked at her. She wasn't even trying to get out of this. She didn't attempt to lie and tell us she'd leave us alone if we left. The opposite actually, the bitch told us if we did that she'd make sure we all died.

The guys all looked between each other. No one wanted to kill an unarmed girl. Even if keeping her alive meant trouble for us. I couldn't hold it against them, I wasn't exactly stepping up to kill the girl either. Instead, I ignored her, turning back to Miles.

"Let me see."

"I'm fine," he gave a half-hearted attempt to swat me away. "Not the first time I've been shot. Don't waste your time."

I tried not to let the shock of that comment show on my face. I could he wasn't just saying it. I knew what he did when he was overseas came with a certain amount of being shot at, but actually being shot seemed different. It seemed like something that's a big deal. You don't just get used to it like it's some daily occurrence.

"It'll make me feel better," I said and he finally gave in. Scooting close, I lifted the bloody sleeve of his shirt up and out of the way. Blood oozed out of the wound, but he was right, it wasn't something to worry over. The bullet grazed his arm, leaving a nasty gash behind but nothing life threatening. Still, it needed to be cleaned and covered.

"Let me just go find something to clean this up, okay?"

He rolled his eyes like my attention was nothing more than an annoyance, but I didn't miss the way his lips twitched. He liked being fussed over.Standing, I moved for the stairs, hoping we had some antiseptic left - we had used a ton on Zero - left. Hunter stopped me, leaving Joel to guard the very pissed off girl. I wasn't sure it was the best idea because Joel seemed most likely to kill her and she wasn't afraid of him, at least not enough to keep her mouth shut.

"Ella." I turned to face Hunter. "Thanks for what you did."

With a half-shrug, I smiled. "Thanks for not leaving— wait, where's Zero?"

A panicked look replaced the easy smile on his lips. I would have been worried except that he didn't look panicked in a way that made me think she'd gone missing. "She's gonna kill me."

"Why?"

"Uh," he said looking behind me up the stairs. "I locked her in the closet."

My lips pursed. Yep. I was not even going to mess with that. Stepping to the side, I let Hunter get up the stairs first. The tiniest part of me felt guilty, like I should have offered to get Zero, but the girl scared me a little. I had only just gotten on her good side. I followed up after Hunter, and turned toward the closet. I grabbed a handful of towels before returning. I tossed one to Miles, kept one in my hands and set the rest on the couch. Spreading the towel out, I laid it over Aiden's body. His feet stuck out from under the bottom of the towel but, his face, at least, was covered.

"Guys, this is Shauna," Kyle announced walking into the room, I paused in my efforts of covering the dead bodies to give him my attention. An unfamiliar woman stood next to Kyle. "I found her out scouting for their location."

"Scouting?" The word popped out of my mouth before I could even think to stop it, laced with more hurt than I wanted anyone to hear. Kyle's eyes snapped to mine.

"Didn't mean to startle everyone," Shauna said and looked gravely around the room. "All of you okay?"

"Yeah," Kyle said. "We're all fine."

"No." I shook my head, pulling my eyes from Kyle to Shauna. "No. We're not. Miles was shot and Aiden is dead."

"Miles is fine," Miles said, probably in attempt to lighten the tension.

Kyle took a step toward me. "We didn't know him."

"Aiden," I said because his name was all I knew and I thought it should be remembered. "He saved my life."

Even I could hear the accusation in my tone which was wrong. I knew it was wrong. Kyle wasn't responsible for anything that happened and a part of me knew that if he'd been here there's a chance they would have been killed. But it's there. I can't keep it from my voice anymore than I can keep it from my heart. He left. Not to search for food and water - necessities. He just left. And he didn't even tell me. I had no right to be upset. Hadn't I done the very same thing?

But I hadn't told him that protecting him was my priority. I never made him believe those words.

It sucked. It hurt. And I hated that it hurt. When did this become something that could hurt me? That's not what it was meant to be between us.

An escape.

It was supposed to be an escape.

Hell, two weeks ago that's all it was. God, had it really only been two weeks? It felt like that day spent on the shore of the river was so long ago. So much had happened since then. And sometime amidst... all of it that changed.