For the first time, Ellie gets the edge of a flash of what Dina must've felt, all the times she'd watched Ellie coldly slam a baseball bat, or a hammer, or a piece of rebar into someone's skull while they were begging her for mercy. The holy shit is there on the back of her tongue.

But Ellie's done so much worse, so much more often.

And honestly, this wouldn't have fucked with her past that twinge if she hadn't known this was the first time Clarisse had committed to killing someone.

Ellie's eyes slide over the other corpse on the ground.

No. This was the second.

No, she amends, glancing back towards the gas pumps, where Clarisse had shot the first one. The third.

Fuck.

The man under Clarisse's boot screams again as she presses into his chest, gargling past the blood that's seeping back into his throat- and it's only because Ellie's looking at the gas pump that she catches it.

The movement of a hand, the muzzle of a gun peeking out to point towards Clarisse, to take her in the back. The first guy, who'd been playing possum.

Ellie gets only about an inch of his skull visible before she fires and blows the top of it right off. The man ragdolls on the ground, slowly pumping out blood.