𝐎𝐍𝐄, 𝐓𝐖𝐎 & 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 || ᴇʟʟɪᴇ ᴡɪʟʟɪᴀᴍs

Chapter 17 - Fate is Fate I guess

It was spring now. We've been walking for so long in almost silence, which has brought us increasingly closer to the Salt Lake City hospital. It hadn't been too awkward, but none of us wanted to speak, especially about what had happened.

My body had pretty much recovered from all the hits I took, and Joel had even managed to find more medicine that we used for my shoulder wound. It had stopped hurting now, so that was good. The whole that was left from the pole he landed on was healing nicely too.

I slunked behind Ellie, who was walking slowly behind Joel. We were coming down a highway, it was pretty quiet and every now and then we were raiding cars, trucks and other vehicles. My legs were starting to get sore from all the walking, and my shoulders were too from carrying my bag.

"Let's stop here for a bit, you guys can go sit up in the boot of that truck." Joel spoke, turning his head to look at us as he walked, motioning to a blue truck.

I nodded, and so did Ellie as we began to make our way towards the truck. "I'm just going to check inside this caravan" Joel spoke, walking off.

I unlatched the back of the truck and pulled it down, hoisting myself up and throwing my bag into the boot. I settled down on the edge, dangling my feet over. Ellie quickly followed, doing the same.

I lowered my head, looking down as I fiddle with my hands in my lap. I didn't really know what to say, like I said, we had both been so quiet lately. "Are you low on ammo? I've got some spare" I piped up, looking to my side to catch hers eyes. "No. I have enough." She replied. "Oh, alright." I spoke.

I turned my head back down to my hands again. Whenever I thought about David my stomach churned. And what was worse was that I couldn't stop thinking about it. I felt terrible for Ellie. David had been on top of her, he had tried to undo his belt. I couldn't even imagine what happened when I wasn't there. A hint of guilt continued to flood my body, like perhaps if I had been more careful I would've of gotten so injured, and then I could've protected her.

"Ever played this before?" Joel's voice boomed, causing me to jump slightly. My head snapped up to see him stand to the side of Ellie, and he was holding some time of box. "Boggle?" I questioned, reading the words that were written on the side of the yellow cardboard. "Yeah, it's board-game." Joel explained. I shook my head, I had played board games before, but not this one. Ellie shook her head too, but took it from his hands and placed in it her bag. "Maybe we can play it later, once we're at the hospital." She spoke as she zipped up her back, then slipping the straps over her shoulders. "Let's go though." She then added.

Joel nodded. "Right, you're right. We should go." He replied, helping Ellie off the back of the truck, then me. I grabbed my bag from the truck and threw it on, and then followed Ellie and Joel down the road.

A few minutes of walking and we had found ourselves in some sort of medicine place, I forget what Joel had called it. There were tents lined up, and it was severely overgrown. "I wound up here after Sarah, got treated for a wound." Joel spoke. "What type of wound?" Ellie questioned. Joel pointed to his head, at the scar we had made fun of, the bullet scar of the side of his head. "Oh, right, the guy that shot and missed" Ellie replied.

Joel took a deep breath, "I'm the guy that shot and missed." He said. Both me and Ellie stopped in our tracks, as Joel walked on. He turned back to us and stopped. "Oh" I managed to slip out, confused yet I still understood what he meant. He nodded at us, motioning that we follow him. "It was a dark time. But you always find something worth fighting for." He spoke, looking at us as we wound up walking beside him again. "So time heals all wounds, huh?" Ellie mumbled, walking in between both me and Joel. "It wasn't time that did it." Joel replied.