Ellie didn’t know what she was stepping into.

She thought she was chasing Abby.

But she didn’t realize she’d taken the one person the entire Salt Lake crew would burn the world down to get back.

You weren’t just Abby’s girl — you were the princess of the WLF, the one the whole crew protected like a pack does its cub. And when you were gone, it wasn’t just Abby who snapped. It was all of them.

No one fucks with Abby’s girl.

Not after everything.

⸻

Abby had warned Ellie once.

She let her live in that theater, despite every instinct telling her to finish it. Despite the blood still wet on her hands, her father’s ghost clinging to her spine.

She left Ellie alive because you asked her to. You told her to let it go. That it wasn’t worth it. That you just wanted to go home.

And Abby listened.

Because for you? She would’ve listened to anything.

She remembered that moment now as she stormed through Seattle, gun slung low, jaw clenched so hard it ached. The rain was relentless. The city pulsed with tension. But Abby wasn’t afraid. Not when you were missing. Not when she could feel it in her gut that something was wrong.

She’d torn the city apart looking for you.

It was Nora who found the first lead — a Firefly tag you used to wear, ripped and discarded in a puddle outside an abandoned safehouse. Abby picked it up with shaking hands. Ellie had seen it. She knew.

“She’s using her,” Abby growled. “Bait.”

⸻

Meanwhile, in the city’s shadows, the Salt Lake crew moved like a storm front.

Manny had one hand on his rifle, the other on his radio. His smile was gone. This wasn’t time for jokes. He was on the roof across from Tommy — waiting. Watching. Calculating the shot. “One inch off and that cowboy bastard’s gonna regret ever picking up a rifle,” he muttered.

He still called you “her majestad” when the tension dropped — but right now, his entire focus was on getting you back safe. No one makes the queen cry and lives.

Owen, the gentlest of them, had pulled himself from his grief and guilt the moment you went missing. He remembered the way your eyes lit up the first time you caught a fish. Remembered your giggle when he’d faked almost falling in. “I’ll take a bullet if I have to,” he told Abby. “She’s family.”

Mel, quieter but no less fierce, kept her med bag close and her knife closer. She didn’t just want to patch you up — she wanted to end whoever made you bleed. “That girl’s got more heart than any of us,” she told Nora. “We protect her. Period.”

Nora had already broken a man’s jaw in an interrogation. “I’ll find her,” she told Abby, her knuckles bloody. “And if she’s hurt? I’m going to make that bitch wish she never left Jackson.”

And Abby… she was no longer human.

She was wrath.

The WLF had seen her like this only once before — after her father was killed. But even then, even with Joel’s name branded on her soul, she hadn’t looked like this. This… this was different. This was personal.

“She took my girl,” Abby said, voice hoarse from screaming your name into the empty streets. “She took my girl.”

⸻

When they found the hideout, it wasn’t some loud siege. It was surgical.

Tommy never saw the shot coming. Manny didn’t blink.

Dina and Jesse were flanked — outnumbered and outmatched. They surrendered before anyone could get hurt.

And Ellie?

Ellie was alone.

Bloodied. Tired. Eyes wide as Abby walked in — face bruised, fists clenched, chest heaving.

“You thought killing Joel was the worst thing that ever happened to you?” Abby whispered, storm in her voice. “You took her.”

Ellie tried to speak, but Abby was already on her — a blur of fists and fury.

It wasn’t about revenge anymore.

It was about you.

They found you locked in a basement, wrists bound, lips cracked from dehydration. But when Abby knelt beside you, hands trembling as she cut the ropes, your first word was her name:

“Abigail…”

She hated that name. Always had.

But from you?

It made her whole again.

“I got you,” she whispered, cradling you against her chest. “I swear, baby. I got you.”