With silent tears of regret and shame streaming down her pale, tired face, invisible to those around her, Tara Chambler sat on the floor, elbows digging into her own knees, with her back slouched up against the hot metal wall of the nearly pitch black train car. On an endless loop inside of her crowded, dark mind, a single word replayed itself over and over, a menacing reminder of what she truly was: outsider.
It had been two long, seemingly endless, and painful days since Tara had been thrown into that awful death box, along with Glenn, Maggie, and all of the others who had made it to Terminus. Tara was tired, she was hungry, but more than anything else, she had been scared...but what right did she have to be scared? What was she scared of? Dying? No, she couldn't have been scared of dying. She had deserved to die, at least, in her mind she did. She had nothing left to live for anymore anyway, so what was the point?
Tara had been a part of the attack...no, the slaughter that had taken place at the prison: hell, she had been the first person to step up and volunteer to go attack them. And what did it cost her? The lives of her only remaining family and the guilt she had been bearing on her shoulders; knowing that she was a part of the reason that the good people who had lived in the prison (what was left of them anyway) were as good as dead.
A soft and miserable sigh escaped from in between Tara's rough, cracked lips as she let her head fall back and rest against the metal wall, making a soft thumping sound that echoed throughout the small enclosure. She couldn't even bare to look at the other people in the train car, knowing without a doubt that it was only a matter of time before they were all dead because of what she had done; what "Brian" had so easily convinced her to do.
The only thing that Tara had done recently that she felt could be the start of redeeming herself; was helping Glenn become reunited again with his wife, Maggie. After all, it had been Tara's fault that they were separated in the first place. But, Maggie of course, did not know this. She had absolutely no idea that Tara had been a part of "Brian's" army, a part of the people who had decapitated Maggie's father in front of her, a part of the people who had destroyed the prison that was a home to those who inhabited it. Glenn had lied to Maggie and told her that he had met Tara "on the road".
Tara stole a quick glance over at Glenn and Maggie, who had seemed to be the happiest of all the people in the train car. The two of them sat side by side, awkwardly holding hands, as much as the handcuffs they all were forced into wearing allowed them to. Maggie's head was leaning against Glenn's shoulder as he whispered softly into her ear, inaudible to the others in the train car. Every so often, the welcome sound of Maggie's soft giggles echoed quietly in the train car.
Tara shook her head slightly, looking away from the young couple as she raised her restrained, sore hands to her face, covering it, as if to hide herself and become even more invisible to the others around her then she already had been. It wasn't like anyone in that train car ever noticed her anyway...except Eugene, maybe. But, Tara definitely was not interested in him, he was a guy. Tara had made it perfectly clear on numerous occasions by this point that she was gay and had no interest in being with Eugene, or any other guy for that matter.
As Tara began to feel like she was drowning in her own thoughts, a loud clang sounded from over by the door of the train car as it was practically busted open. The bright light that had seeped into the nearly pitch dark train car through the opened door was near blinding. So much so, that Tara hadn't noticed a man step into the train car, closing the door part way behind him, dimming the bright light and allowing Tara the ability to vaguely see him, her dark brown eyes squinted in the harsh light.
Wordlessly, the man stepped further into the train car, his evil eyes beginning to scan the nervous faces of the people trapped within the dark metal walls. He suddenly stopped, frozen, his eyes locked on Glenn and Maggie.
"You two, lovebirds, come with me," he ordered gruffly, gesturing with his hand for the two of them to stand up and follow him out of the train car.
Tara felt her stomach drop considerably when she thought of what the people of Terminus were planning to do to Glenn and Maggie. The people who ran Terminus were sick. From what Tara could gather, they were likely cannibals, and were definitely psychotic murderers, keeping people locked up in a train car with close to no food. Those sick fuckers were probably keeping them all locked up, only to kill them and eat them later on.
Tara couldn't bare to think about what those psychos were going to do to Maggie and Glenn, but she was sure of one thing: that when she watched the two of them step out of the train car behind the man, hand in hand, her heart racing and her sad, wide eyes filling with a fresh set of tears, it was the last time she was ever going to see either of them again.