U-turn

Oliver stopped pouting and sighed in a false facade of saddness, which Aiden replied with an extreme eyeroll. He was already used to Oliver being overly sly at tense or awkward times, though it was an aspect he liked.

Aiden crooked his lips up, the first smile that the women had seen, it was undoubtly attractive and softened his sharp facial features. Though, Hillary had remained hopelessly oblivious due to the joy of having a couple of friends going on a little shopping spree, while Shilah was indifferent to his face value. The man was handsome and powerful, but she was more concerned about Hillary wandering off during their supply trip. Even if Shilah knows that Hillary has more experience in this new world, she would never stop worrying for the other.

The four of them hopped into the women's pick-up truck. With Oliver on the wheel (since Aiden drove him last time), they headed towards the nearest solar panel factory. In the past, the factory was a base that traded its goods in exchange for food in the early days. However, whether from negligence or a zombie wave, everyone within the base were infected and were never able to rise up again from the ashes of their mistakes or weakness. Many people had aimed to take away some of the solar panels away, but were never able to due to the items' large size. Thus, only those with strong and fast physiques or ones with the rare spatial ability were able to safetly swipe the few that were there.

Now that it was only the second day of the apocalypse, there would not be a uniformed base there and plenty of solar panels for them to plunder. For that reason, Aiden and Oliver had made the decision to head right on over there.

Oliver happily hummed to himself as he swiftly dodged any crashed cars or lingering zombies. Further down the road, he spotted a few survivors. Shilah opened her mouth to say something, but Oliver had already avoided the group. He remained indifferent to those passerby's cursing, as did Aiden and Hillary. Shilah was tempted to ask why they had so mindlessly abandoned those stranded people, however quickly shut her mouth when she spotted those "stranded" people hopping into a van and driving after them.

The group was quickly catching up to them, being just a few meters behind.

"Ah!" Oliver yelped in a painful tone, Aiden turned his head towards him in concern and was about to ask what was wrong, but was only greeted with his partner's curved eyes. "What a waste of gas, don't you think?"

Aiden scrunched up his face and put blaming eyes on Oliver for scaring him. He patted his rapidly beating heart. He wasn't hurt, he is okay.

The brown-haired man slightly frowned at the other's overly relieved gesture.

"I won't die on you again, calm down..." Oliver mumbled depressedly. He freed up his right hand to hold Aiden's, committing the same actions that Aiden had done the day before the apocalypse to comfort him.

Aiden appreciately tighten his grip, holding the pale hand in his grasp.

"I know."

"Speed up!" Hillary interrupted their moment, to which Oliver replied with a wicked smile coated with malicious intentions towards the other group. Aiden immediately held the handlebar of the car to prepare for the on coming joyride, whereas Shilah hugged her friend to ground her to the carseat. These decisions would prove wise as Oliver sharply turned the car around into a U-turn, before the other group's car could hit them and cause an accident, he simply drove to the side and let the other car pass by swiftly with no time to stop properly in the first few seconds.

Well, they tried. The other initially attempted to also turn, but ended up realizing it was to difficult and tried to push the brakes. Only to result in the car being flipped over.

Oliver lightly hummed in a joyful mood, Aiden only had an expression that had "as expected" written all ovr it. Hillary was having a time of her life, whereas Shilah was gasping in both panic and anxiety.

They calmly went on about their day to the solar panel factory. No one questioned whether they had doomed those group of people to death. After all, they were seeking death when they tried to pretend like people in need of help. Oliver had already saw the perfectly parked car near those survivors, thus, spared no effort to abandon them.

Aiden had no comment on it as he did not exactly favor malicious people (he does not count Oliver as one of these malicious people).

After half an hour, they finally reached the factory. A gray factory that was placed in the middle of the rural area, surrounded by nothing but weeds and dry dirt. An ideal place to put a factory in. Oliver and Hillary had tried to simply waltz in with in preparations, thus held back by their more sensible companions in favor of coming up with a plan.

"We just go in and then go out. Oliver will just pick up the amount we need and leave the rest. We will not pick up any survivors." Aiden stated plainly and carefully.

The last thing they needed were human burdens that only knew how to cling to others. After a year without Oliver, Aiden had learned that leeches could not stay within the group, nor would supporting them help those leeches suddenly learn how to pay their debts back.

No one had an opinion on Aiden's instruction, though Oliver plainly rolled his eyes at the other's wish to leave a few things for any on-coming and desperate survivors. No matter how cruel he acts to outsiders, he will never completely block the way out for them. Always leaving them with a sense of hope.

Though, Oliver crooked his lips, that was what he liked about him.

The group of four prepared themselves a bit and walked into the gloomy factory. The door was tightly locked, which proved not a problem when against Hillary's bobby pin as she managed to pick it open. Earning the glances of approval from her new base leaders and a raised eyebrow from her friend. Which the brunette had responded by embarassedly scratched her head as she had previously used the same skills in the past to barge into her friend's house a few days prior.

Neverthless, when they walked in, they were greeted by the sight of the large arrays of solar panels.