Chapter 26: Westbound

"Stop struggling, or I'll break your other hand." Julie growled at Meli, who was thrashing against her restraints and shouting curses into her gag while Julie crammed her into the rusty trunk of Sophia's junkyard-style roller.

Meli had regained consciousness shortly before dawn, during Vivi's watch, and had the stupid idea of escaping. She must have assumed that because it was too dark in the room to see anything, she had the perfect chance to untie herself without getting caught. Vivi noticed immediately, of course. Meli's screams when Vivi methodically broke every finger on her right hand woke everyone in the room.

Figuring they might as well get started on preparations to leave, they split up the tasks and got to work. Vivi and Sophia packed away their supplies, including the cases from the adjacent room, and Julie got the weapons and prisoners ready for transport. Eli carried Lauren's body, which was wrapped in the blood-soaked bedding she'd died on, out to the trailer. Despite all the shit she'd done, Sophia wanted to take her home for a burial instead of letting the body rot behind the motel with Valentina and Rin's corpses. He also hooked-up their car to the caravan's portable charging station, which was essentially just a big-ass battery built into the front of the trailer.

While waiting around for the charge to transfer, eating a chalky brick of oatmeal breakfast rations and watching the sunrise, he recalled the wolf pelt he'd laid out behind the motel. After tossing the empty food packaging into the back of the car, he slogged across the muddy ground to see how the pelt had fared in the rain.

It was gone. Blown away by the storm, no doubt.

He sighed, breathing in lungful's of the crisp, clean morning air, then moseyed around to the front of the building, just in time to find Julie shoving Meli head-first into the trunk and threatening to break her hand. Vivi, in a similar fashion, coerced Maria into the cramped luggage space together with Meli. She slammed the lid shut on their captives with a smirk of grim satisfaction.

"Hey." Sophia huffed while loading a supply case into the back Eli's roller, "Take it easy on Rico."

"Rico?" Vivi raised an eyebrow questioningly at Eli, who shrugged it off with a grin.

"Alright." Julie clapped her hands. "Let's go over a few details before we leave."

"Like what?" Sophia asked as they all grouped up in front of Rico.

"Like our destination." Julie said. "We can't very well go tracking down JSU scouts while babysitting two prisoners, so we'll be going directly to Mist Haven. Agreed?" Eli and Vivi both nodded their confirmation. "How long will it take for us to get there?" She asked the green-haired woman.

"Uhh, it's normally about a six-hour drive from here, but it could take longer after last night's storm. If any trees fell onto the main road, we'll have to find a detour, which could add a couple hours to the trip." Sophia absentmindedly put a hand to her bandaged hip and leaned against the front of her car while answering Julie's question.

"Then we'd better leave soon; I want to reach the settlement before nightfall. How much longer until our roller's charged up?" She asked Eli.

"Uhhh..." He jogged over to lean through the driver side window and read the digital gauges on the dashboard. "It's at...sixty-four percent. Plenty charged-up to get us there. I'd say we're good to go as soon as we get everything loaded up."

"There's only two cases left to grab. Everything else is already loaded." Vivi chimed in.

"Well, then...." Eli unplugged the power transfer cable and began rolling it up for storage. "Who's driving which vehicle?"

"Dibs on the caravan!" Vivi threw her hand up excitedly, then ran into the room to get the remaining luggage.

"I'll take Sophia's roller." Julie said, holding her hand out for Sophia's keys.

"You don't trust me to not help them escape?" Sophia sighed and looked down at her feet self-deprecatingly.

"You're bleeding again." Julie pointed at her hip. "And you took a nasty beating last night. Look at yourself, you're leaning  against the roller just to stay on your feet. I don't want you driving if there's even a small chance you could lose consciousness during the trip."

"....fine." Sophia tried to sound tough, but a small smile tugged at her lips.

She dropped her keys into Julie's hand before circling around to Rico's passenger door.

"You're riding with Eli." Vivi told her.

"Huh?"

"He'll be taking the lead position; testing the road conditions and scouting for us. You said the roads could be bad after the storm, right? Well, his roller's just better than yours, so he goes first. I'll take the middle position, and Vivi will bring up the rear. You're our navigator, and the navigator rides in the lead vehicle."

Sophia took a deep breath and sighed. She didn't say anything, but she relented to Julie's solid reasoning by begrudgingly shuffling to her assigned car. Easing herself into the passenger seat, she held a hand protectively over her wounded hip, and carefully leaned over to pull the door shut. All without ever looking at Eli. She'd been avoiding him all morning. Not in an angry or spiteful way; more like an awkward, absentminded, distracted way. She had an emotionally draining, shitty night, so Eli gave her space to process her thoughts and feelings.

For the most part, anyway.

He still changed her bandages when they woke up and gave her a few after-care instructions. Don't bend over too quickly, don't do any strenuous lifting, don't twist too far at the waist, and a few other restrictions. Basically, he warned her to avoid doing anything that could break her stitches open, and she'd been faithfully following his advice.

"Eli. Vivi." Julie waved them over.

"Yeah?" Eli asked as he locked the trailer and crossed the parking area.

Vivi tossed the remaining luggage into his roller's back seat before meeting her mother and brother by the prisoner transport car.

"We're a good distance from Lancaster, but we still need to be extra cautions on the road. Keep your radios on. Vivi, you're at the back of the convoy, so watch our ass. If you see anyone, or anything, coming up behind us, call it in immediately." Julie instructed.

"And if that does happen," Eli interjected, "You both need to keep going west. I'll double-back, lead them down a side road, and go off-road to lose them before catching up with you."

Vivi looked like she wanted to argue with his plan to be their decoy if necessary, but seemed to realize it was their best option in a bad scenario. "Okay. Got it." She nodded stoically.

"Are you both ready to move out?" Julie asked.

"Hell yeah." Eli said. "All the shit that happened here? In just two days? I'm starting to think this damn motel is cursed or something."

"Hey." Vivi pouted. "It wasn't all bad..."

"No." Eli smiled, held her hand, and squeezed it affectionately. "It wasn't."

Leaning down, he brought his face close to hers and gently kissed her soft lips. She place a hand on his chest, grabbed his shirt, and tip-toed to return the kiss with even more passion; parting his lips with her tongue, breathing heavily, and moaning with desire.

Her lips abruptly fell away from his, and their bodies were separated.

"We don't have time for that right now." Julie playfully scolded. She pulled Vivi away by the shoulders, then steered her toward the SUV. "Go on. We're leaving."

"Yes ma'am." Vivi giggled and trotted to the armored caravan.

Julie turned around to talk with Eli, but he took her by surprise, pulling her into a deep, passionate kiss. She moaned against his lips the same way her daughter had done just moments before, even mirroring the way she'd grabbed his chest and rose to her toes, seeking more pleasure.

"Mmm..." She pulled away from his lips, breathless, and gazed into his eyes while still clinging to his shirt. "I love you."

"I love you." He softly kissed her once more. "Now, let's get out of here."

"Right." She patted his chest. "We'll follow you."

She turned to walk away, and Eli just couldn't resist. He gave her round, firm ass a teasing little slap. She yelped and glared over her shoulder at him, but her sultry smile told him she liked it.

A goofy grin was plastered on Eli's face until he settled into his car's driver seat.

"I'm guessing you saw that?" He asked Sophia and pressed the button to start the motor.

"What?" She asked. Her long ears blushed all the way to their pointed tip. She'd definitely seen everything.

Eli pulled the shifter into gear and drove out of the muddy parking area, making sure Julie and Vivi were following along as he departed.

"It's fine if you saw." He reassured her. "I don't want our relationship to be a secret forever. Hidden romances are just tragedies waiting to happen, after all. I knew you'd see us, or hear us, and I wanted to get your thoughts on it. Will the people of Mist Haven be open to our relationship?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, Mist Haven." She cleared her throat and straightened up in her seat. "It's a little, um, unconventional back home, but no one'll make a big deal about it. We're a small community, after all, so that sort of thing happens from time to time. There's no law against it, but men are required to take at least three wives from outside their own family."

"Required? Uhhh, does that also apply to refugees?" He asked, pointing at himself.

She nodded. "Every adult male resident."

"And by 'adult', you mean...." He prompted.

"Over the age of fifteen."

"Haaaah." A deep sigh involuntarily escaped his lungs.

"Actually..." Sophia held onto the door handle to brace herself as Eli swerved to avoid a broken section of highway. "The previous governor would have assigned wives to you, as a condition for allowing your family to stay in the settlement. I don't think Equoni will do that, but it's a possibility you should be prepared for."

"I thought you said the governor was too kind for his own good. I wouldn't exactly call trading women for citizenship 'kind'." The morning sun glared off the rearview mirror, causing Eli to reflexively scowl. Though, the idea of forcing anyone, man or woman, into a contractual marriage would have soured his expression anyway. 

"He is kind." Sophia said. "And that's exactly why he might do it. He's got seven granddaughters without husbands. If any of them take an interest in you, he'll try to give them what they want. To him, giving you one of his cherished granddaughters and welcoming you into his family would be a huge act of kindness for everyone involved."

An uncomfortable silence followed. Seconds stretched into minutes, with the only noise being the hum of the car's electric motor and the patter of mud being flung onto the exterior panels by the oversized tires. Sophia eventually became too uncomfortable to let the quiet continue.

"Hey." She murmured.

"Mhm?" Eli glanced sideways at her.

"Thank you."

Confused, he tilted his head and looked into her green eyes. "For what?"

"For everything." She shrugged. "For believing me, for helping me, for....my sister. You couldn't save her life, so you chose to save my conscience by killing her yourself, right?" She held up a hand to stop him from responding. "I'm not a child; it's not like I didn't understand what was happening."

"Right, well, you don't have to thank me for anything." He said awkwardly. "Actually, I should be the one thanking you. You really helped us out of a tight spot. So, thank you." He gave her his most gracious smile, then his expression shifted into a look of sympathy. "And, I'm sorry about Lauren. Not for what happened to her, but for your loss. She might've done horrible things, but she was still your sister, and losing a sibling is....well, it's fucking awful." He sighed, and Sophia's eyes were filled with conflicting emotions when she nodded back at him. "So, how're you holding up after last night? You've never killed anyone before, have you?"

She cleared her throat and blinked the hint of grief away from her green eyes. "Um, no, I haven't. And, honestly? I had nightmares last night where I watched myself killing Val and Rin. Over, and over, and over. But when I think about it now, I don't really feel.....well, anything about killing them. I mean, I don't feal bad, or guilty, or sad, or anything. Is that fucked up?"

"Not at all." Eli shook his head. "They'd have killed you if you hadn't killed them first, and they absolutely deserved their deaths. This world is undoubtedly a better place without them. It would only be fucked up if you enjoyed the killing." He looked into his mirror to do a visual check on the convoy behind him. "Did you enjoy it?"

"No." She squinted and frowned.

"Then, you're not fucked up." He grinned at her, then turned his sights to the thickening tree line on the western horizon.

The sparse vegetation was gradually becoming more abundant, more green, and more full of life. Tufts of dark green grass, taller than Eli's legs, swayed lazily with the wind. The occasional trees seemed to get larger the further west they drove. Clusters of massive burdock plants were spread out along the roadside ditch, with their wide leaves sprawling greedily outward like they were trying to claim the land for themselves. Their fuzzy, vividly purple blossoms were the most colorful, most beautiful piece of nature Eli had seen in too many years.

For the first time in what felt like forever, an intense, almost overwhelming sense of nostalgia filled his chest. Burdock root was one of the many wild plants his grandfather would eat on their camping trips. The old man made a surprisingly tasty stir-fry from their long, brown roots and freshly-picked fiddlehead fern sprouts. 

Reminiscing about the woodland excursions of his previous life, he didn't quite hear what Sophia was trying to tell him.

"Huh? Sorry, I wasn't listening." He admitted, bringing his focus back to the present.

"I said there's a collapsed overpass coming up. We need to take the next right and go around it."

"Ah, got it. You mind relaying that to the others?" He passed her the radio.

She forwarded the directions over their convoy's shared channel while Eli looked for the turnoff. He couldn't stop grinning as he took in the sights of thriving plant life. Sure, he'd grown accustomed to the desolate, barren, red desert of the Wastes, but when he looked at the large trees and lush greenery in the distance, he felt strangely surreal, like they were driving out of a bad dream and back into the world he knew.

They still had a long trip ahead of them, and danger was likely following, but at least the scenery was getting better.