Francis Originally Valve intended Zoey and Francis to have a romantic attraction but this was deemed to be "distracting" by play-testers and was subsequently removed.Her tone is also notably more commanding and assertive than at any other time previously and this, together with the deference displayed by Louis and Francis, suggests that she has at least partially occupied a team leadership role in the immediate aftermath of Bill's death.
Her aggressive and abrupt way of dealing with the Left 4 Dead 2 Survivors also hints at an innately warm-hearted young woman's struggle to cope with Bill's demise, the guilt she may be experiencing in relation to the events leading up to it all on top of post-combat stress. She rarely speaks of it and takes on an uncharacteristically serious demeanor when she does so. In The Passing, unlike Francis and Louis, she shows how badly Bill's death has affected her. Since they cannot save everyone, the Survivors must save themselves: to which end she adopts Bill's plan, and together with the others, sails to The Keys. Thereafter Zoey takes up Bill's principle of "We look after our own". While not altogether swayed, she finally understands how much Bill cared for her and the others through the act of sacrificing his life to give them a chance to escape from a land overrun with Infected. However, Francis has the insight to explain to Zoey that Bill does these things for the right reasons: the welfare and survival of the four of them. She accuses Bill of being capable of cold-heartedly leaving his companions in the lurch if it suited his selfish interests, a charge that taciturn Bill is unable to refute in words. She questions his motives and harbors doubts about the trust she has placed in him. However, for a while before this event, Zoey is estranged from Bill when she is shocked by how easily he left the Doctor, Jeff, and Annie to die back at Millhaven. The Sacrifice comic exposes the underlying strength of Zoey and Bill's relationship when he willingly sacrifices himself to keep Zoey and the other Survivors safe. She also seems to reciprocate by caring about his well-being at all times. Bill generally seems to be slightly more emotional when Zoey dies compared to the others. When the tragedy of her parents' deaths is revealed, she hugs him for comfort and later she is seen resting on his shoulder in the evacuation vehicle.
Fortunately before she could reach Zoey, Wade shot her in the back of the head.
Zoey came back to witness her father being mauled by her mother, who then noticed her daughter's presence and quickly lunged at her. Holding Carolyn in his arms, Wade commanded Zoey to call for an ambulance. Her father was able to kill the Infected but not before it savaged Zoey's mother. The argument was short lived however when an Infected suddenly found his way into their living room and attacked Zoey's mother, Carolyn. These actions caused tension between her divorced parents one night and started a heated argument between the two regarding their daughter's future. Her father, Wade, wished for her to become a police officer like himself, often taking her to shooting ranges to get her into some practice. She got her love for this film genre from her father who introduced her to movies featuring zombies, slasher murderers and extraterrestrials at a young age. Zoey was once a student at Aldrich in Philadelphia under a scholarship to become a filmmaker but instead of attending classes, she spent her time watching horror films and justified this to her upset mother as doing some "research". Now that the planet's overrun with murderous zombies, and all of her professors are dead, Zoey at least has the cold comfort that she's been studying up on the right subject after all. After spending her first semester holed up in a dorm room watching old horror movies, Zoey was given a choice: Stop fooling around and get her grades up, or drop out.