Chapter Text
The skin on Abby's hands is rough, probably a result of years spent clutching a gun like a lifeline. It feels oddly scratchy as she rubs her palm on her cheek tiredly. "C'mon, kid. You already had ten extra minutes."
Lev groans and shifts his head on the bunched up hoodie he's using as a pillow. His voice is muffled when he says, "I don't see you moving either." She frowns and nudges his leg in an attempt to spur him on into wakefulness.
It doesn't take long for them to grab their supplies, Lev's bow and Abby's pack and not much in between, then they're back out into the main street. Abby would prefer to travel more discreetly through a back alleyway, but she's already seen how many infected lurk there. They've learnt that California isn't the type of place to let your guard down in.
Outside is already warm, sunlight filtering down through blankets of dead leaves in the trees. Abby squints as she's finally pulled out of whatever sleep trance remained about her, and she sighs at the day beginning.
Lev beside her is silent as he walks, quietly taking in the surrounding area. It's the usual type of street, rust streaked cars lying about and bushes growing all over, boarded up windows in the houses. He's munching on a granola bar they'd snagged from a raider's base a few days back. The packet rustles in his fingers.
"How far do you think we'll make it today?" Lev looks up at her. His eyes shine in questioning through messed hair. It's longer now, his hair, silky fine where it's starting to tumble over his forehead.
Abby shrugs unsurely. It makes her nervous when he looks at her like that, like he's depending on her, like he needs her. She doesn't want to let him down again, but she's goddamn afraid that she will.
"I don't know... hopefully we'll make it out of Santa Barbara. Further up the beach."
They're on their way to Avalon now, to the fireflies, to safety. But that means going back through the danger riddled bowels of Santa Barbara, and Abby's not exactly looking forward to it. She doesn't think Lev is either.
"Do you think we'll run into any more groups?"
They'd discovered in the past few days that this town is overspread with gangs and raiders. Taking them out silently is always their go-to, but more than once they'd had no choice but to shoot it out.
Abby meets his eyes and sighs, "I'm not sure, kid. Hopefully not."
The suburbs are quiet as they travel through, just their footsteps and breathing accompanying them. Lev wanders a few steps behind her, the way he admires everything with childlike curiosity lacing his eyes a harsh reminder of his past. Abby breathes out unevenly and points towards a large house, clearly once the pride and joy of some well-off family. "See that window? In movies, that's where the teenagers always sneak out from."
Lev follows her finger and then glances back to her. "They escaped from their houses?"
Abby nods and tugs the backpack straps further up her arms, "Ungrateful shits." It pulls a laugh out of Lev, he always likes it way too much when he swears. Recently he's taken to repeating a few of her hissed curses, and she's not sure whether she should reprimand him or not. She's not sure about anything when it comes to Lev, really.
He doesn't talk much about his past, he prefers to ask Abby questions about anything and everything to do with her. They haven't spoken about the Seraphites, about Seattle, about anything that happened there. They haven't spoken about Yara— Abby's breath catches in her throat. She's not ready to talk about Yara. She thinks Lev isn't either.
She hasn't thought much about Seattle lately. At first it had consumed her, like everything else was an afterthought and her friends laying in pools of blood was the forefront of her life. Now it's more of a feeling, like, oh yeah, that happened to me. Now she tries to think ahead to the future that's building itself in front of her, fireflies and Lev and happiness.
She hasn't thought much about Ellie either. More than once, Lev has brought her up, and then Abby snaps at him, apologises later and goes to sleep with Ellie's screams echoing around her mind.
They stop off for a break at an old gas station. Dirty windows allow for enough light to leak through inside, Abby's bag hits the floor with a thump as she slides it off her exhausted shoulders. She drops into a plastic chair and stretches an arm above her head in a weak attempt to subdue the muscle pain. Lev stays standing, his feet shifting in anticipation. "Can I look around?" He asks.
Abby smiles at him knowingly. "There's no candy bars here kid. Raiders cleared this whole place out."
They'd found a few expired chocolate bars about a week back, Abby had enjoyed them but Lev had loved it. She guesses he's never eaten anything really sweet before. Must be a Seraphite thing.
His shoulders slump in disappointment, and she nods her head towards the back room. "You could still take a look, I guess. You never know." Lev heads straight towards the door with her calling after him to be careful, his footsteps are quiet in the already silent building.
She drops her head back with a groan. Her back is aching from where she'd landed flat on it after falling through a roof yesterday. They'd been running from clickers, a feat that's become more common for them than Abby would've liked.
Abby cranes her neck to look though to the half darkness that Lev had disappeared into. "Lev, how we doing back there?" Silence. She sits up, eyebrows furrowing. "Lev?" She's on her feet and at the door in seconds, hand on the hilt of her gun ready to draw in a flash.
It's some sort of storage room, utility shelves line one of the walls, stacked up with empty canisters and bottles. Abby's heart is thumping as she creeps further inside, her eyes darting about.
Her body relaxes at seeing Lev bent over some sort of desk, his face concentrated. Relieved, she leans over his shoulder and hopes he can't hear her voice shake. "Whatcha got there?" He points at a crumpled letter written in looping handwriting that Abby would only dream of being able to produce. She skims it, a few words catching her eye, Avalon , Rattlers , Safety. But, it's the sigil scratched onto the bottom corner that catches her eye. "Fireflies." Lev nods.
"There was something over here too."
She stares at the letter a beat longer before following him to where he's crouched at the shelves. He pulls something out of a box and places it carefully in her hand. It's a patch sewn in with the firefly sign. It's worn and fraying, curling relentlessly at the edges, but it stirs warm memories of the identical patch that her dad used to have pinned to his satchel. She pockets it with a mind to further inspect it later.
They leave to find that the morning has already turned into afternoon, harsh California heat heavy in the air. Abby pushes her sweaty hair back. Their boat isn't far from here, if the mental map she's been going by is correct. They step carefully through the tall grass, idle conversations sometimes springing up between them.
It turns out, they do run into another group.
"Abby," Lev whispers, pointing up ahead to a gaggle of men leaving a building. Abby drops into a crouch behind a car, Lev quick to follow. She counts at least ten of them at a glance, and she meets Lev's startled eyes with determination hard on her face.
"Stay here."
She creeps through the yellowing tall grass, it brushes against her skin uncomfortably but she presses on. The street is riddled with old SUVs that have become part of nature, vines and shrubbery growing up their hoods and into the gaps of the tyres. They provide the perfect cover as Abby moves closer, a shiv ready in her hand for the first kill.
A quick glance thrown over her shoulder is enough to affirm Lev's safety. His face is visible in the gaps of the greenery, the head of his arrow glinting in the sunlight. He's lethal with that bow, she knows.
Someone yells out, "—Unit four ain't answering! Has anyone checked in with 'em?"
A man turns to answer, but before his mouth opens her arms are locked around his neck, the blade buried in the soft skin near his pulse. Hot liquid spurts out onto her skin, down his shirt, she drops his body harshly into the bushes. He's still choking blood as she ducks out into the cover of a half-wrecked car.
Her heart is beating up in her head, loud and distracting and fucking inconvenient in a situation like this where hearing is so imperative. She grits her teeth, hand tight on the hilt of her blade.
The building nearest to her is partly destroyed, the front wall collapsed on itself. Someone's clearly blown it up, and she searches the wreckage for a way inside. A gap between two beams looks good enough, she signals to Lev, over here.
They crawl through bushes and grass towards the gap, slipping inside and right through the raider's fingers. Abby claps Lev on the shoulder, he leans into her briefly before taking a step away. It's an office building they've found themselves in. Desks and computer monitors lay discarded about the place, haphazard in the way that lets them know there was a struggle here. A dusty machine in the corner is some sort of photocopier, Abby recalls Manny telling her once about it being able to completely replicate one paper. She'd been amazed.
Something rattles in the distance of the building. Her gun is trained into the darkness ahead of them in a millisecond, but the sounds come from upstairs. The uneven thump of a runners footsteps overhead is easily recognisable to the pair of them. "Demons," Lev hisses, his bow lifting at the ready to fuck shit up. Abby has a better idea though.
She nods towards a small window that's been smashed through. "Over there."
She helps Lev up, pushing his thin body through the space. He grunts and drops down to the other side, Abby following him with ease. A clear path is set out for them, through an alleyway and over a chain link fence, back out into another street.
The surrounding area is pretty wrecked. Gun shells and bodies litter the floor, a sign that it wasn't an infected fight that went down here, it was a gunfight. Bullet holes scatter across the walls of the bricked once-stores lining the road, smashed glass reflecting the relentless sun. "There's a lot of people here," Lev says, his voice faraway.
Abby's quick to reassure him because she's thinking of the same thing he is. Haven, with the Seraphites' corpses spread across the floor in dozens. "Yeah, but check him out," She bumps the toe of her boot against a half decomposed body, "this happened a while back."
Some of them look military-type, if their uniforms are anything to go by. Cold fear settles itself in her stomach at the chance of their being some larger force lurking somewhere in Santa Barbara. Her footsteps quicken.
They make it to the outskirts of town, battle wreckage following them as they go. Blown-up cars, smashed bottles, a machete lodged into a wooden fence. Abby stares at it for a second before Lev calls for her to hurry it up.
The buildings eventually become more spaced out, and it's like they're walking in some sort of cross between civilization and the wild. The afternoon is filled with birds twittering and leaves rustling in the wind, blue sky stretching out at an expanse overhead. Abby can appreciate this, they both can, after being subjected to so long in the dreary bowels of Seattle. They walk side-by-side in what's now become an almost pleasant stroll straight through the woods. It's a mirage of safety that they both buy into far too easily.
They can be idiots sometimes.
A twig snaps somewhere to the right and then the stalker comes barrelling out of nowhere, it's jaws snapping inches from her face. Abby struggles with it, pushing against it's body with enough force to send it scampering back off into the woods. She throws an arm out blindly to shove Lev behind her, her only instinct being to protect him.
They turn slowly in circles, eyes locked on to everything. Each rustle of the thicket sends her senses into overdrive, has her finger twitch on the trigger of her gun. The tang of blood and mangled shit in the air is enough to tell them that they aren't alone. Abby curses.
Then she hears it. It shrieks from behind her, Lev yells out, in surprise or pain she isn't sure, she spins round and fires three rounds into it's fucked up face. It falls to the ground in a slump, dark blood pooling around it's twisted shape. Her ears ring as she stares into it, visions of Owen and Mel and Manny laying in much the same way shimmering in each shade of red. The way they'd been lifeless figures on the floor, destined for nothing more than what they'd already been. How she'd stood there, heart pounding unlike theirs, how she'd stared down into eyes that would never again stare back.
It's Lev's harsh breathing that brings her out of her head. Her mind crashes into the present, realisation of the situation flooding her body. She grabs his shoulders, her wild eyes scan over his body in search of a bite. "Did it get you? Are you okay?" Her voice is high and frantic, too loud for their surroundings but she doesn't give a fuck right now, did it get him did it get him did it–
"Abby." Lev gently pokes her cheek with his finger, and she pauses. "I'm fine."
She releases a breath and stumbles back slightly, hands dropping from his shoulders. Her cheeks burn in embarrassment and relief. "I'm sorry– I was just..." She trails off and meets his eyes, they're blown wide in surprise at her outburst. He shifts his weight from door to foot and gestures behind him as if to say that should probably go. She nods.
The beach is closer now, Abby realises that they've actually done quite well for time today, they've almost reached the boat and the sun's still up. She smiles to herself, but it's wiped from her face when she sees how far away Lev is walking from her. She thinks she unsettled him earlier. Maybe she should apologise again. Would that make him more withdrawn? Is he just shaken up from the attack?
She doesn't have a fucking clue.
Ten minutes pass before she can't take the silence anymore. Abby steps closer to where Lev is. He's deep in thought about something, she can tell, she tries for a light grin to ease the atmosphere around them. "Hey kid, everything okay over here? You look like you're a million miles away."
He frowns up at her. "I'm right here."
Sometimes she forgets how literal he can be. "It's just an expression, it means you look like you're really thinking about something and you're not paying attention to anything else." Lev nods, she practically sees him filing away this new knowledge.
"That's pretty cold." A small smile closes off his sentence, and he looks so proud to be using an expression that she doesn't have the heart to correct him. Abby nods and ruffles her hand through his hair fondly.
Lev stays with her as they carry on towards the wooden stairs that lead to the beach. He walks carefully, she notices, he always has. Like sneaking around is something he's used to. In this world, it is, but Abby's almost certain that Lev has spent his whole life sneaking, hiding. It makes her sad. She never wants to be the one to make him feel like he has to hide.
Lev stops short. Abby turns to ask him what's wrong, but she hesitates at seeing his eyes narrowed towards the left. Abby follows his line of sight and sees nothing but a clearing dotted with a few heat crippled trees. "What's–"
A shriek pierces the air. Abby's head snaps up. Their weapons come up in sync as they both fall into a combat stance, feet readied for fight or flight. She whispers for Lev to stay close. They tiptoe through the dead grass, staying in the cover of trees until they know what they're up against. The clearing is relatively empty though, another wrecked up car abandoned at it's center, sinister looking shadows writhing across red gravel; a result of the trees that line the edges of the area. But it's silent now.
Abby takes a daring step forward into a more exposed position. She points her gun at empty space. Clicks it to the ready. Nothing.
Then, there's another cry. But this sounds different, not menacing or attacking, it's-- "It's in pain," Lev says quietly, Abby affirming with a jerk of the head. She glances around for the cause of the pain, expecting to see a Hunter or a Raider, but still, nothing.
"What the fuck?"
Lev sees her first. Strung up in a tree, held upside down by a rope twisted around her ankle. Her arms are limp, blood streaked, swinging gently in the breeze. Her eyes are closed, her body practically lifeless, but-- that face. Abby would recognise it anywhere.
Ellie.