Stephanie Gotts:
"WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT LOCKING THE DAMN DOOR!" A man with a scruffy voice yelled while he pounded on the door.
"Go away..." A girl sitting inside of a pillow fort that she made with nothing but a small lamp on it to illuminate the room that she was in, while hugging her legs tightly, spoke in a very low voice.
"WHY CAN'T YOU STUPID BRAR JUST DO WHAT I SAY FOR ONCE!?" He continued to yell as he continued to smash the door. "YOU'RE JUST A PATHETIC LITTLE BITCH, JUST LIKE YOUR DAMN MOTHER!"
The girl continued to shake, as the door seemed like it was going to break at any and she had nowhere to run.
"ALWAYS CRYING AND HIDING JUST LIKE HER!" The man began to hit the door even harder. "WHY DID I HAD TO GET STUCK WITH A BUNCH OF WORTHLESS WOMAN THAT CAN'T KEEP THEIR MOUTH SHUT AND DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD!" He gave one last pound on the door before stopping.
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After a short silence, the girl stared at the door for a bit, before taking a deep breath and standing up. She was still shaking, but she wanted to make sure that he left.
Taking very slow steps, the girl walked by a dark room that was pink with images of little bunnies drawn on the wall, the furniture was simplistic, but what really stood out was the fact that the room was filled with stuffed animals around her.
After walking a bit, she accidentally looked at the mirror. She was a pre-teen girl wearing childish looking pajamas that had unicorns in it and her blond hair were in pigtails.
The girl was still shaking, but continued to move towards the door anyway. Eventually, she reached it and stared at it for a few seconds.
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She bit her lower lip and approached the door. Placing her ear on it in order to try to hear something.
"What are you looking at, are you looking at women!?" Fortunately or unfortunately, the voice was far away, but the man found a different target.
"Ted, ple-" She heard a woman's voice, before she heard the sound of something being smashed.
"Shut the fuck!" The man yelled at her. "What did I tell you about letting her out without my permission, huh?!"
"AH!" The woman screamed. "I didn't!" Before denying that she did such a thing.
"You wanna let her be a fucking whore?!" The man yelled at her. "Well, too bad!" The sound of smashing was heard once again, which only made her shake even more. "That whore in the making is mine and she's gonna do as I say!"
"AAAH!" That was followed by a loud scream and the sound of things falling on the floor.
"Now, clean up this fucking mess!" That was the final shout that she heard, before the very loud sound of a door being smashed closed.
After a few more minutes, the sound of a car speeding out was also heard by her. Making the girl sigh in relief because that meant that the man was gone.
Despite the fact that she was still shaking, she slowly opened the door and stood out of it. Encountering a trail of destruction in the corridor right outside of her room. She followed all the way to the living room and later to the kitchen.
Where she saw a woman, slowly picking up things from the floor and putting them back in place.
The woman turned around and it was a woman with very short blond hair, fair skin and vivid blue eyes. She was in her thirties but she looked a little older with heavy looking bags under her eyes, wrinkles in her forehead. She was wearing a very simplistic blue dress that matched her eyes.
"Mommy?" The woman turned around. Her lip and nose were bleeding, and part of her dress was ripped.
The moment her mother saw her there, she approached.
"I told you to tell me when your sister sneaks off." The woman angrily reminded the girl. "Now your father is mad at me because he thinks I let her."
"I-I-I didn't know, I swear!" The girl really didn't.
"Then why did you lock the door?" Her mother asked. "Your father told you to not lock the door, yet you did it anyway."
"H-he was going to hurt me again!" The girl yelled in response.
"You were being a bad girl, so you deserved it." Her mother declared, to the girl's horror. "Now, go back to your room and wait for your father to come back, so you can be a good girl and apologize to him."
"Bu-" The girl tried to tell her that she didn't want to apologize.
"Now, Stephanie."
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"Stephanie?" A familiar voice was heard by her. "Stephanie." Her vision was blurry and she felt some strange vibrations, until her vision became a little clearer. "Can you hear me?"
"Catherine?" Stephanie realized that it was Catherine that was speaking to her. "What...." She was about to ask what was going on, only to widen her eyes and immediately sit up after remembering. "Fucking Chris!" Only to feel a sharp pain on her cheek. "Ssss...." She tried to touch it and realized that there was a small bandage on it.
"I never liked Chris, but to think he would do something like that." Catherine spoke, showing a clear disgust with what Chris did. "He opened up a small cut on your cheek, so don't touch it.
"What happened?" Stephanie doesn't remember anything after the punch.
It was then that she realized that she was on top of a soft bed that had red sheets on it and three Pokémon plushies next to her. The strange vibrations that she was feeling was because the entire place was moving as she could see it from a window right behind Catherine.
"Are we in that RV?" Stephanie asked despite the fact that it was obvious.
"Yes." Catherine, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, confirmed. "After you and Chris went through the backdoor, that guy dressed in black showed up and unlocked it for us. "Then he went to the back alley to pick you and Chris, but he only came back with you."
Stephanie widened her blue eyes. "Is he here?" The girl asked anxiously, since she has been watching him from afar for a while and really wanted to know what he was like up close.
"Well... This is his home by the looks of it." Catherine stated the obvious. "I think he is in the bathroom." She pointed towards a closed door that was on their left.
"Where is Jonas?" Stephanie asked in concern.
"He's the one driving." But thankfully, he was okay.
Stephanie sighed in relief because the last thing she wanted for someone else to be dead. Todd, Neil , Nora and even Chris. She really didn't want any of them to die, especially in the gruesome way they did.
"The guy... Didn't tell us his name yet or even spoke much." Catherine informed her. "He just told Jonas to drive and for me to keep an eye on you."
"So?" Stephanie didn't know where this was going.
"Steph, we don't know anything about this guy and he honestly had no reason to help us." Catherine was clearly suspicious of the guy.
"Cat, come on." Stephanie didn't share her suspicion. "He saved our lives and is letting us stay in his home."
"I am aware of that, but..." Catherine seemed to be worried about something.
But she didn't have the chance to express it since the door in their left opened. Both women moved their heads to see what it was, and they caught the sight of him.
Stephanie was a little startled, because she was finally seeing him up close. He was wearing a baggy black T-shirt and black sweatpants. It's clear that he just came out of the shower since he was drying his hair with a towel.
He ignored the two of them and moved towards a small cupboard that was right beside the bed to grab something, once he did, he placed the towel on the back of his neck and Stephanie finally saw his face.
He was a young guy, around his early or mid twenties, with very fair skin, a sharp jawline, a straight nose and nice looking full lips. He had medium length hair that was parted on the left side with long fringes that were falling on his face due to his hair being wet, but she also noticed that the sides of his hair had an undercut that was hidden under the hair. His hair color was dark but she couldn't tell if it was dark brown hair or dark blonde hair.
To be completely honest, it was not at all what Stephanie was expecting... In a good way.
She imagined him to be a rugged and gruff looking tough guy. Instead, he looked like a cross between Clark Kent and Harry Potter. All he needs is a pair of glasses and the look would be perfect.
In a case of pure irony, the moment Stephanie thought that, it turned out that what he had picked up from the drawer was a pair of black rectangular glasses that he put it on. Before moving his head to look at them, where she saw that he had beautiful green eyes.
"Ummm..." Stephanie was having difficulty speaking. "H-hello." So she ended the greeting with a stutter.
"Hi." He bluntly greeted her back before turning around and moving back to the door.
"Umm..." But before he could leave the room, Stephanie ended up speaking up. "Does your name start with the letter G?" Only to randomly say what was on her mind for a while.
"What?" Catherine was predictably confused with that question.
"I... Saw a G on his backpack, so I thought-" Stephanie explained her question.
"Just call me Gabriel." Before she could finish, she actually got confirmation of what she suspected. He was quite soft-spoken in Stephanie's opinion.
Yes! That was the first name she guessed and it turned out to be the right one. Not to mention that it really suits him.
Before they could ask anything else however, he passed through the door frame and closed the door behind him. Leaving the two women alone once again.
"See what I mean." Catherine spoke up right after, clearly finding his behavior odd.
"He doesn't even know us yet, so it's understandable." Stephanie didn't really share Catherine's suspicion at all. Especially when she adds the fact that he actually saved her from being mauled by those monsters. "By the way... Where are we going?"
"No idea, though... I'm pretty sure that Jordan is driving north." Catherine theorized as she looked at the window. It was morning already, and there was some fog outside, but thankfully, the interior was really warm and cozy.
Suddenly, Stephanie's stomach began to growl. Not exactly surprising since she didn't even eat the previous day since she was busy watching Gabriel from afar.
"I'm gonna see if he has something for you to eat." Catherine told her as she stood up and made her way to the door.
Once she left Stephanie alone there. The girl just wanted to do one thing, which was bury her face on the pillow. Gabriel... Being quite overjoyed to finally know his name and to finally see his face. This is his bed... She then began to sniff his pillow, it smelled just like the handkerchief that he left. His smell is so... Nice...
Of all of them, she was the one that spent the most time observing Gabriel from afar. It started off as nothing more than a way of passing the time and distracting herself from the precarious situation that she found herself in with the others. However, doing that day after day after day for hours on end. She oddly began to enjoy it and actually looked forward to it because she always wondered what he was going to do that day. Before she even knew it, she began to dream about him and somewhat became fixated in finding out his name.
He knew we were following him and that I was watching him... Stephanie realized that and smiled. Did you watch me from afar as well? She wondered. Were you wondering who I was and why was I watching you? She asked herself. Were you considering taking me away and keeping me for yourself? A blush appeared on her face when she thought of that.
Before Stephanie could continue her internal rambling. The door was opened again, revealing Catherine with a small plate.
"What are you doing?" And she noticed that Stephanie had her face buried on Gabriel's pillow.
"Ummm...." Stephanie was quick to lift her head up and desperately come up with an excuse. "It's been a while since I laid on an actual pillow." It was true, since she mostly slept on the ground or on a sleeping back. "It's so soft." Also true.
"Okay..." She seemed to have brought it. Then she approached the bed with a plate and a cup that she placed on top of the drawer.
"Is this..." Stephanie recognized what was in there right away.
"Grilled peanut butter sandwich with hot chocolate." Catherine confirms it.
"Holy..." Stephanie wasted no time in taking a bite of it since she hasn't tasted that in almost two years.
"I know right?" Catherine seemed just as surprised as Stephanie. "His fridge is filled with food in it."
The door was open and Stephanie realized that there was electricity as well, because she actually heard the sound of a television.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Heroes in a Half-shell Turtle Power
"Wait, he's watching TMNT?" Catherine asked with a weirded out face.
"TMNT?" She asked in confusion.
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, my brother loved that show." Catherine explained. "
"I don't even remember the last time I watched anything on TV." Although there were TVs back on the base, there was not really anything to watch on them.
"I never watched much TV myself since I am more of a book person." Catherine explained. "My brother on the other hand..."
Stephanie sighed and took a sip of her hot chocolate, which actually tasted great. "You think..." She didn't know how to ask that. "That the ones that made it out are okay?"
"Ummm..." Catherine looked away, clearly not happy to hear that question, but that was because she was worried about her family. "I... I saw that they entered the military car with those two soldiers, so..." Her brother and nephew have a considerable chance of being okay since they were with the soldiers. "And..." She looked at Stephanie with her single eye. "I'm sure your father, mother and sister are okay since they managed to get into the evacuation bus."
I don't care, I hope the bus crashed or something. "I... Hope so..." In reality, Stephanie was happy that she was away from them and definitely won't mind if they don't find them again.
"Look, just eat up and rest okay." She gently touched her face before standing up. "I'm going to see if Jonas wants me to take over the wheel."
Stephanie just nodded before watching Catherine leave her there again.
Once she was alone, she simply ate her grilled peanut butter sandwich and drank her hot chocolate. Taking her time of course since she hasn't had something like that in a while. Back in the base, they only eat the kind of stuff you would get in a cafeteria. At first, it was okay but after a while it became really tasteless and there was a certain rationalization so they could only eat the essential.
As soon as she finished, Stephanie only had one thing that she wanted to do. Leaning a bit to the right, she caught a glimpse of Gabriel's feet once again. Despite his black clothing, he was wearing navy socks,
Not being able to resist the urge, the blond girl slowly stood up from the bed with the plate and cup at hand and quietly passed through the door frame. There was a bathroom right outside of the room that had a shower, a toilet and a sink inside. It only took her three steps for her to reach another part. On her left there was a small kitchen that had a stove, a microwave, a sink that had a window. On her right, there was the fridge.
Right besides the stove, however, there was a blue couch. Where Gabriel was sitting with his feet on top of a coffee. On the opposite end, there was a large trunk that had a medium sized television on top of it where he was watching a cartoon on it. And also there were two, three drawer dressers on each side of it. The right dresser was normal but the left one was actually filled with plants on it. She also saw the black backpack that Gabriel was carrying yesterday with a medieval sword strapped to it.
Gabriel moved his head to look at her, and she stood there awkwardly in response. "In the sink." Before telling her to put the plate and cup inside the sink, he returned his gaze to the cartoon.
"Umm..." She simply obeyed and put the plate and cup inside the sink that had a few plates inside already.
"Shit." Suddenly, she heard Jonas's voice. "Are you alright baby girl?" He asked her right away.
"Yeah, mostly pissed off." She moved her head and saw Jonas driving the RV and Catherine sitting on the passenger's seat beside him. But then she looked at Gabriel again since she had a question. "What... What happened to Chris?"
"I did to him what he was planning to do with you, and let us just leave at that." Gabriel responded without taking his eye off the TV.
"You just used him as bait?" Catherine asked, in a somewhat apprehensive tone of voice.
"I was going to help the two of them, but I didn't really feel like helping a guy that sucker punched a girl in the face and then ran away like a little bitch." Gabriel was quick to rebuff with a lot of sarcasm.
"Good riddance." Jonas on the other hand, approved of what he did. "I never liked that little shit, always whining, complaining and slacking off while we did all the work."
It was true, Chris was actually kind of useless and didn't contribute in any way. He also went on random rants where he would complain about something, usually minor. So Stephanie genuinely had no hard feelings over what happened to him, especially with what he did to her. "Well... Thank you very much for... Saving me." She was, on the other hand, very grateful for what Gabriel did for her.
"You can thank me by answering my questions, if you don't mind?" He didn't even look at her, he just continued to watch the cartoon about a turtle with nunchucks. "Why exactly were you people following me?"
"It was accidental." Catherine was the one that answered. "We were going in the same direction as you and we decided to follow you quietly from afar in case of any monsters showing up."
"Well, you did a pretty bad job since I noticed you guys following me right away." Gabriel confirmed their suspicion.
"How?" Jonas asked him in curiosity.
"The binoculars that you were using glinted multiple times." Gabriel revealed to them.
"If you knew we were following you, why the hell didn't you do something about it?" Catherine asked in visible confusion since it didn't really make any sense.
"I contemplated, but after observing you people for a bit, I came to the conclusion that you weren't really worth the struggle." Gabriel confessed in a somewhat condescending tone of voice.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jonas noticed too.
"It means, none of you seemed to be planning to attack me or anything, so I saw no point in doing anything about you people despite the fact that I could." Gabriel then reached for something on the couch. "I think this belongs to you." That he tossed to Stephanie.
"My wristband?" Stephanie wore two wristbands each arm, but the one that she wore on the right disappeared a while ago and she couldn't find it. "You... You snuck into our camp?"
"While that guy named Chris was on watch." He didn't even try to hide it.
"Fucking useless..." Jonas was about to insult Chris again, but was interrupted.
"Okay, okay, so why exactly did you help us anyway then?" Catherine decided to ask the important question.
"It was a spur of the moment decision to be completely honest, and I really hope you people don't make me regret it." Gabriel confessed. "Speaking of which, who are you people anyway?"
"What do you mean?" Jonas asked in confusion.
"I mean, you people seemed to be completely clueless of what you were doing and there is absolutely no way you all survived this long like that." He was absolutely right.
"We..." Stephanie decided to be the one to respond to that one. "When all of this started, we were all evacuated by the military into a base."
"Basically, their plan was to holed up in there until all of this blew over, but it never did." Catherine continued for Stephanie. "So they eventually moved everyone to an old fallout shelter and we practically lived there for three years."
"Not anymore by the looks of it." Gabriel pointed out the obvious. "What happened?"
Jonas and Catherine looked at one another with very uncomfortable looks. But Stephanie decided to be the one to speak up. "There was a power failure that left us with no energy for about five days, which wasn't much of a problem but a lot of meat that we were storing for the winter became spoiled."
"Yeah," Jonas decided to continue. "So when the power was fixed we pretty much ended up with a food shortage on our hands, so we had this large group of volunteers go out to see if they could maybe hunt for food or something to avoid having to rationalize what we had." There were still vegetables and grains but not nearly enough, so some would have to go on without food and that was something to be avoided if possible.
"Let me guess." Gabriel leaned his head on the couch. "This large group attracted some unwanted attention." It seemed pretty obvious to him where this story was going.
"We didn't actually see it, but the soldiers told us that we needed to evacuate and there was a lot of gunfire." Catherine confirmed Gabriel's assumption.
"Probably wondering Raiders or Bandits looking for supplies to steal and women to assault." He spoke with a very morbid tone of voice.
"Probably." Jonas agreed. "We had some cars stored there for emergencies but everyone was so hysterical that some ended up crashing or just drove off by themselves."
Stephanie still remembers the screams and loud gunfire.
"Us and the others... " She meant Neil, Todd, Nora and Chris. "Got inside a SUV and just drove as fast as we could but..."
"The battery died three days later and we had to continue on foot." Jonas finished.
"Continue where, exactly?" Gabriel asked. "I assume you actually had a destination in mind."
"A month before that, the soldiers called up a meeting informing that they had been communicating with a different base and that they were actually contemplating on going there to check it out ." Jonas explained as his eyes were still on the road.
"How do you know that?" Gabriel asked. "I know you're not a soldier, so how exactly did you get that kind of information?"
"How do you know that I'm not a soldier?" Jonas was quick to ask, despite the fact that he was right.
"Buddy, you're using a USAS-12 as your primary weapon with no sidearm." Gabriel was quick to respond. "That could be excused by a lack of options, but since you clearly got that from the military's armory, it just tells me that you actually choose that gun because it seemed powerful and nobody that actually received combat training would take that if they had better options available."
"Why not?" Stephanie asked in curiosity since it was a pretty powerful weapon.
"Where it has raw firepower, it lacks versatility." Gabriel explained. "With the military, shotguns are largely used for door breaching because they lack the versatility to quickly adapt from a close-range to medium-range threat like a rifle or carbine " He gave a pretty detailed explanation. " Besides, it has a large recoil and high mass of both ammunition and weapon itself - and the kind of people capable of accurately firing them are better off using belt-fed machine guns since they have more fire rate, range, are better against armor, and are overall more practical."
"You're right." Catherine confirmed. "Jonas used to be a security guard, he's never been in the military."
"Which brings me back to my question." Gabriel continued. "How did you acquire such information?"
Jonas sighed. "My girlfriend's father is a vet, and he often helps soldiers there however he can."
"Your ex-girlfriend's father, you mean." Catherine corrected him.
"For fuck's sake, we didn't broke up!" Jonas yelled defensively.
"Jonas, don't be like that." Catherine spoke to him apprehensively. "You already made a scene that day and embarrassed Monique in front of her family."
"Can we please not turn this into a conversation about relationships?" Gabriel was quick to change the subject. "Where exactly is this base that you are all looking for?"
"We don't have an exact location unfortunately, we only know that it's located near a small town north of here." Catherine continued with her explanation.
"What is the name of this small town ?" Gabriel asked.
"Daleberty." Catherine responded. "But it isn't located on the map for all we know, so..."
"So basically you're all just blindly searching for it." Gabriel with a face that pretty much meant that he probably thought they were all a bunch of idiots.
"What else is there to do?!" And Catherine didn't like it. "We all have family and friends that are heading there as well, so this is the only way we can hope of finding them."
Stephanie scratched her head awkwardly because she would actually be more than happy to not find her family.
"How do you know they are heading there?" Gabriel asked her in curiosity. "For all you know, they might have realized that blindly searching for something wasn't a good idea and decided to find shelter elsewhere."
"Maybe, but this is the only lead we have and I need to find my brother and my nephew." Catherine was determined. "There are also Stephanie's parents and her sister."
I don't care! Stephanie yelled internally.
"Alright, I get your reasoning but without a clear location, it's basically blindly searching for something that might not actually be there." Gabriel pointed out the obvious reason why this is a bad idea and Stephanie agreed with him. "Speaking of which, why were you not with your brother and nephew during the evacuation?"
That was a pretty good question and Stephanie herself wondered why she came with them instead of her family.
"They went into a military vehicle that two soldiers were driving, but there wasn't any space left, so I just ran and went with Jonas, Stephanie and the others." She explained and it actually made sense.
"If they were with soldiers that actually had the location of this other base, then you probably had the right idea." Gabriel seemed to agree with her reasoning now that he had some more context. "But..." He moved his head to look at Stephanie. "Her, I get it but... Why didn't you go with your parents and sister?" He asked her.
Catherine and Gabriel were now looking at her, Jonas would probably be as well if he wasn't driving. "Well... I..." In reality, Stephanie did not want to be alone with her family, which was one of the few good things about living in a shelter filled with people. So when it came time to evacuate, Stephanie simply moved away from them on purpose and entered the first car that had people she could find. "I ended up getting lost during the tumult, and because of the gunfire... I just entered the first car that had people on." She didn't like lying to them at all, but it was better than explaining why she wanted to get away from her family.
Gabriel just stared at her with his green eyes. With the look he had , it seems like he didn't actually believe her. "Okay..." But he let it slide.
"Alright, since we're on the subject." Thankfully, Catherine spoke afterwards. "What exactly were you doing?"
"Excuse me?" He didn't seem to understand the question.
"If you had a working car, why the hell were you wandering around on foot?" That was an excellent question that Stephanie also wanted to know.
"I was actually looking for my RV." But he gave them a vague answer.
"What?" That just made her confused.
"I don't really know what happened to me." He removed his feet from the coffee table and leaned forward. "I was watching a movie, suddenly I heard a noise outside, I went outside to check with my M4A1 and next thing I know, I woke up in a room alone several miles away from where I originally was."
"Someone probably knocked you out and took your RV." Jonas gave the most logical explanation.
"That's what I thought originally." Gabriel leaned back again. "But why the hell would they leave me with my guns, sword and backpack?"
"Maybe they just wanted the car?" Stephanie suggested.
"I also considered that, but why leave the RV behind when it was still drivable?" Gabriel expressed his confusion. "I was actually following the road in hopes that the RV would run out of gas, but the tank was full when I found it and they didn't take anything."
"Yeah, that doesn't make any sense." Catherine agreed that it was quite odd.
"You would have to be bat shit crazy to just leave a working car behind that actually has electricity and food on it." Jonas expressed the same confusion.
"They also left my other guns and ammo behind, so honestly, I don't know what this shit was about." He was visibly annoyed by all of that and she can't blame him.
"At least you got your car back, so there's no point in getting angry about it." Catherine pointed out that at least things worked out in the end.
"Angry, no." He shaked his head. "Very annoyed at the inconvenience, yes." He nodded. "The weeks that I wasted trying to retrieve my RV could have been better spent on stocking on food and gas or finding a place to stay for the winter."
"If you actually need a place to stay, then why don't you help us find the base?" Catherine suggested.
"I am not going to waste my time, energy and resources helping you people look for a place that you have zero clue of where to even begin to look." Gabriel was quick to shut down that idea by presenting a very good reason why.
"Yeah... I agree with him." Stephanie decided to speak up.
"Stephanie!" Catherine was quick to yell apprehensively.
"Cat, we don't have any idea where this base is other than it's north from here. " Stephanie presented the problem. "Hell, is Jonas actually driving somewhere?" That was a serious question.
"Nope, he's just driving down the main road and I don't really know where it leads to." Gabriel answered for her.
"Then what exactly are we going to do?" Stephanie asked. Finding her family was not on her list of priorities but she would probably end up just following them anyway, so she really wanted to know what she was getting into.
"I don't know!" Suddenly, Catherine yelled in response. "Fuck!" The poor woman was visibly clueless, but she refused to give up. "But we have to do something."
Gabriel rolled his eyes and placed his feet on top of the coffee table again. "Okay, when you were all evacuating, did they all go in the same direction?" He asked.
"No." Jonas responded. "Some idiots just drove away as fast as they could." A lot of them actually crashed as a result of it
"What about the soldiers?" Gabriel asked .
"They actually all went in the same direction, they were following a road that was located near the shelter." Jonas informed.
"Okay..." Gabriel rested his head on the couch, by the look on his face, it seems like he was in deep thought.
Stephanie just looked at him for a bit, before she actually approached him and sat beside him. "What are you thinking about?"
"There is a map on the glove compartment, could you pick it up." He asked Catherine.
She obeyed right away and opened the glove compartment and pulled out a map.
"Do you know where that bunker or whatever was located?" He asked her.
Catherine nodded and opened the map to see. "Here." It took her a few seconds to find it and pointed on the map with her index finger.
Gabriel then picked up the map himself and checked. "This is the road that the soldiers took?" He pointed at a road that was near the base.
"Yes." Catherine confirmed.
Stephanie just leaned her head forward to check the map.
"This is the road that we are currently on." He pointed at a road that they were currently taking. "They both lead to the same spot." The spot in question seemed to be a city.
"So maybe we can catch up with the soldiers." Catherine suggested.
"I doubt it. " Jonas pointed out.
"Yeah, we're better off looking for clues and trying to establish where they went from there." Gabriel presented the actual reasoning behind his idea.
"Okay, sounds like a plan." Catherine seemed to be on board. "Does that mean you're gonna help us?"
Stephanie looked at Gabriel's cute face in hopes of hearing a yes.
"For now. " Not really what she wanted but good enough. "If it turns out to be a dead end, I'll be on my way." And Stephanie really prefers to go with him if that ends up happening.