Beca took off west on I-24, left alone with nothing but her thoughts as she rode through the night, constantly vigilant of massive potholes and other obstacles borne of several years without any road maintenance. She stopped just outside Nashville at daybreak when the majority of scavs and clickers tended to rest, hiding her bike and supplies in a thick brush and curling up between two large trees to catch a few hours of sleep. Without any travel companions, Beca knew she needed to be more careful about where she took resting breaks, as she knew she was completely vulnerable when she was asleep with nobody watching over her and her belongings. She didn’t hesitate to pull Chloe’s sweatshirt from her bag, hugging it to her chest while dreams took her. She didn’t sleep as well as she had in the safety net of the settlement, but that was to be expected; she’d readjust to catching sleep where she could again soon enough.
After a full day’s worth of travel, Beca made it to St. Louis and had a brief encounter with an older couple who’d warded up their home like Fort Knox with a sign out front that read ring bell for trades. She knew it was risky, but Beca managed to strike a deal with the surprisingly kind folks and offered some ammo and batteries for gasoline, fresh vegetables and some cooked turkey; she didn’t want to risk hunting and starting a fire if she could help it, and she wanted to save her emergency stock of food. It was on that break, when she was perched under a tree refueling her body and her bike, that she turned on her radio, fiddling with the knobs until fuzzy feedback simmered and she caught someone else’s conversation--and what she heard had her scrambling to her feet. Holy shit.
Without hesitation, Beca jumped back on her bike and turned around, heading back east and hoping she wasn’t too fucking late. The entire day, she rode repeating the same mantra to herself. I fucked up. I left too soon. I should’ve stayed. Beating herself up was easier than the coil of worry that wound tighter and tighter inside as she passed back through Nashville. When she was in range, it was three days after she’d left, and she pulled her walkie from her bag, hoping and praying Jesse hadn’t turned his off.
“Jesse! Jesse, come in. Jesse, are you there?”
No response.
“Jesse, Amy--please--I know you’re pissed at me right now, I get it. But there’s a fucking ARMY of scavs plotting an attack on the settlement--they’re hitting hard tonight--please tell me you can hear me.”
Fuck. What if she was too late? Not wanting to waste any more time, she hooked the walkie onto her belt and tore back down the highway. She was still an hour out, and she did all she could to cut that time down.
Jesse didn’t hear Beca’s plea--but Emily did. The walkie startled her out of her book and she happened to be sitting near Jesse’s bag in the living room while he was on shift that night, and she immediately bolted with the walkie upstairs to Aubrey, completely panic-stricken. “Aubrey! Beca--she says there’s an army of scavs coming and they’re gonna attack us!”
*
The last few days had been...tense. The realization of Beca's departure had been swift in coming once everyone in the house began to stir. The truth soon became clear when all of Beca's belongings and weapons were gone, as well as her motorcycle, without any word from the woman herself. Even Jesse, who had tried desperately to cling to some quickly dwindling shreds of hope, didn't seem to believe his own speculation that maybe she'd ventured out on a hunting trip or a supply run and would return later. They knew she wouldn't have disappeared like that without leaving a message if it was something as innocuous as that. Maybe it was what he needed to tell himself in order to cope, so all of the girls gave him space and didn't contend with him on the point.
Chloe knew that they were understandably devastated by Beca's abandonment. She carried the stinging ache of loss and longing around herself all day, so she couldn't imagine what it must feel like after the sheer amount of time they'd spent as Beca's companions. Jesse mostly kept to himself, and everyone seemed to respect his unspoken wishes and gave him space as he went through the motions of his day. Chloe suspected that Amy was dealing with her own sadness, but the Australian was more difficult to pin down on her emotional state. Chloe got the distinct feeling that Amy didn't like displaying her open sadness for people to see, it just wasn't exactly her style.
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In My Blood (Completed)
Fanfiction*ALL CREDIT BELONGS TO THIS AWESOME WRITER CARMA19* I read this story here in wattpad long ago and felt sad because the book was incomplete, until recently, I found this author carma19 at archiveofourown.org (AO3) who owned this book and I felt like...
