There's always a light - Joel Miller x reader

Ep 2- chapter Thirteen

A/N- why hello there! 😭😍

sorry it's a short one but i'd rather release some shorter content for you guys tonight than make you wait until tomorrow x

The four of us walk down a now desolate street, the once busy and cheery atmosphere replaced with lingering danger thick in the air.

Tess practically runs ahead of us, strutting like she's on some sort of mission. Well, technically we all are but you get the idea. She looks back at us with a glare to say 'get a move on' and we speed up our pace just enough to not provoke another argument.

We get to a tall building towering over us that looks like, what, a state building? A capitol building? This is where we were supposed to take her anyways, but it looks somehow even more quiet than normal.

"Where the fuck are they?" Tess whispers as we crouch behind a car incase by some miracle it wasn't completely abandoned, but Joel just turns round to her with an unsure look, nervous maybe even, and shakes his head.

"maybe they ran off into the country side to live a decent life like we all would if we had more than one brain cells." i mutter, my tone slightly sarcastic.

"why don't people just, you know, run away?" Ellie asks with curiosity and a sprinkle of innocence in her eyes that has yet to be lost.

"Many reasons, mostly because of the dangers of getting out of the QZ never mind living by yourself our there. A lot of people are purely brainwashed by FEDRA and the firefly shit going on." i start explaining, still half whispering to not be too loud.

"firefly shit? i wouldn't say that they're brainwashed." Ellie scoffed defensively, a little too defensively although i'm not sure why.

"trust me Elles, if you'd seen what i've seen. what we've saw." i say, gesturing to the two other adults present. "you wouldn't be saying that."

Ellie just nods and goes quiet before Joel coughs impatiently.

"yes sorry, fireflies, right." i mock.

The building and everything surrounding us still looks empty and i stand up to walk closer and examine one of their trucks before Joel puts an arm out to stop me.

"no, i'll go." he grunts and stands up, grabbing his gun tightly in his hand.

I can tell by the way him and Tess eye me up that they still don't trust me. Joel a little more than Tess anyways.

"if i wanted you dead, trust me, you'd all be long gone." i say almost threateningly, which in hindsight probably wasn't the most reassuring comment, but he just pushes past me and ignores my comment.

he creeps over slowly to the truck that is parked next to the building, quickly pulling open the door with his gun raised at inside just incase anyone, or anything was inside, me and Tess both also having our guns raised in anticipation

but there's nothing there. again, our shitty luck striking again.

Joel looks around in mild confusion but still clearly very wary and on edge.

"stay back." he whispers to us with a gesture to stay out and we lower our guns slightly but keep them at the ready.

"joel. what the fuck is going on." Tess marches round to the other side of the truck where Joel is looking into the clearly empty boot of it, me and Ellie following close by.

"I don't know." he admits with just the same amount of confusion and worry as Tess.

Suddenly our eyes lock on the patches of blood dripping down the stairs to the door of the Capitol building.

"They went inside.." Ellie murmurs with an anxious, well more like terrified, expression and i share a shaky look with Tess and Joel.

date finished- 4/12/23
word count- 742 words

A/N-

OKAY GUYS I AM BACK FROM MY LONGGGGGG BREAK

the start of the school year has kind of been rough and i just really needed a mental health break from writing and such x

and we have nearly reached 10k reads!!!!

i know i say this a lot but i generally would never of thought that this fanfic would get this popular!

i only started this because i was bored and i am so thankful for the support even though i've barely fully started the book x

OKAY LOVE YALL AND ILL BE UPDATING TOMORROW! <3