I groaned at the pain from my left eye, flinching when I went to grab it. 'Ow.' I thought to myself. I opened my right eye slowly, and saw that I was looking right at the night sky. 'Where am I?' The last thing I remembered was Christa having her stillborn baby, and then... "Christa?" I asked, coughing a little to clear my throat. It had sounded like I had not talked in a week. I sat up, and got a good look at my surroundings. Christa was nowhere in sight, but there was 8 people around a small campfire. We all seemed to be trapped in a well made cage. It would be hard to get out, that was for sure. I could not recognize any of their faces from where I was - on a mattress that was next to the only entrance and exit that I could see.
I slowly got up and began to walk to the people that I saw - they clearly were not walkers, as they were eating from cans, sitting down, and talking to each other. The more I crept forward, the more I could understand. "If she does not wake up soon, Bill is going to kill her!" A woman, who seemed extremely pregnant, was obviously concerned for someone. "She is going to wake up!" A very familiar voice shouted out angrily. "Like hell she will." Some other guy said, gloomily. "Bill took out her eye entirely! I don't think that anyone here could give through that, let alone a little girl!" "A little girl that's walking toward us?" I turned to my left to see that a woman was staring at me, in clear surprise. Shouts of "Clementine!" rang around the cage, and I was gathered into a group hug. I blinked, not hugging any of them back, when a shout of "Everyone step away from her, so I can give her a look." made them all leave me alone for a few seconds.
A guy wearing a plaid shirt walked up to me and knelt down to my level. I back away a bit, not trusting the stranger in front of me. "Clementine, I have to check your wound." The guy said again, this time with some force. "Clem, is something wrong?" Some other guy asked me. He was wearing a blue shirt and looked pretty beat up himself, but right now, I did not care. "Let me talk to her." A woman's voice rang out. I was gently pulled away from the group by a clearly heavily pregnant woman. She led me back to where I woke up, and sat down on the mattress. "Clem, I know you just took that beating, and I know you are in pain, but please tell us what's wrong?" She asked of me. I blinked (which probably looked like a wink, with only one eye) before responding. "I don't know any of you."
The woman looked a shocked "Oh my god... You lost your memory." She said, covering her mouth, guilt and pity in her eyes. I had no idea what to say, so I stayed quiet again. "Clem, I'm calling Kenny over here-" I was sure my eye had widen at that.'Kenny?! Kenny is alive?!' "to see what he can help you out with. You two have known each other the longest of us all." She finished, getting up and walking back to the group. 'He was the familiar voice!' I thought to myself, rather excited. Christa had told me that Kenny was lost to a herd of walkers, so how was he alive and well? "Hey, Clem. Rebecca didn't say what was urgent but-" I hugged him before he could continue. He hugged me back. I was a little bit amused by his new beard to match his mustache.
"Clem, not that I am not grateful, but you are acting like you just found out I am alive all over again." He said, as he let go of me. 'Rebecca' must have come back over, because she said "Because right now, it is." Kenny looked over at her, confusion in his eyes. "What do you mean?" "She has some memory loss, Carlos said she might, but I have no idea how bad it is for her." Rebecca (For some reason I put Christa here at first?) said, looking down at the ground. I looked from Kenny to Rebecca. "Where are we right now, and where is Christa?" I asked them, hoping to find out she and her baby were alive and well, even though it was probably a stupid hope. "Clem, when Luke and Pete found you in the woods, you said you had gotten separated from her." Rebecca said, not looking up. "And we are at some shitbird's camp where we are being kept prisoner, he's the reason you can't remember any of that." Kenny added. I nodded, not 100% trusting Rebecca on 'Luke' and 'Pete' 'finding' me in the woods, knowing that I can trust Kenny, and knowing that Rebecca would likely give birth any day now, I knew that she would most likely do anything to keep her baby safe. "Okay." I said, sounding skeptical to my own ears. "I know it's a lot to take in, but-"
Whatever Kenny was going to say was cut off by the sound of the gate opening. We all turned to see that a smaller group of people had entered the place, one with blood staining his coat over his left shoulder, who was clearly the leader of this group. He held himself straighter than the rest of them, and was clearly confidant in what he was doing. "Hello." He said, in a deep gravelly voice. "I was just here to personally check up on Clementine." I blinked at that. All of the people in his group had guns and knives visible on them, so maybe they had expected that I would have died because of my injury. It annoyed me but it was necessary for protecting his own group, so I couldn't fault him. I could still be annoyed though. Yup, really annoyed. Even now I was getting underestimated.
I was broken out of my thoughts by the sound of someone saying "Holy shit!" I turned and saw that the one who had spoken was the guy closest to the door, gate thing. I wanted to glare at him. I have had enough attention today already, and he just wasn't helping. "Clementine. Glad to see you are finally up." While it was nice to hear someone had some faith in me, it was weird that everyone who had not been staring at me sure was now. I could feel all their gazes watching me. I had no idea what to say, but I was spared from having to talk when Bloody Shoulder gestured for me to go over to him. After a second of hesitation, I walked over to him, ignoring everyone in the cage giving me scared or shocked looks.
"See? This girl has lost an eye and still has more balls than all of you combined." Bloody Shoulder was addressing everyone in the cage group now. "You need to learn that survival in this group does not always mean things will always turn out the way you want them to. Sometimes, I have to do things for the good of the group that I do not like doing." Bloody Shoulder was glaring at them all now, rage burning in his eyes. "But this little girl has to take a beating before you can even stand up for her?" He gently put a hand on my shoulder. "What if she had died? What would that make any of you? All of you had the ability to stop it. Some of you were right next to her." I blinked again in shock. What exactly had happened that caused my beat down? What had caused me to lose an eye? Frustration was building up inside of me, none of them were denying his claims, yet none of them looked happy with them either. I looked into their eyes and saw mixtures of guilt and anger, which only helped to prove Bloody Shoulder to being the right one. 'But Kenny wouldn't let anything bad happen to me.' I thought to myself. 'Right?'
"Clementine is getting the day off." Bloody Shoulder finally said. "And Rebecca is on light duty. The rest of you, prepare to work until nightfall." With that said, he walked out, gesturing for some other people in his group to walk in and start listing everyone off for jobs that sounded... Easy. Though I was still annoyed at not being able to do anything outside of this place, I decided to use my time here wisely.
I looked around and saw that someone had actually broken something wooden, and had stashed it away under their pillow. A hidden weapon in case of an emergency. I liked the idea of that, especially when it seemed that everything that I had had from the very begining of all of this was gone, both weapons and personal items... It was not fun to think about.
But I eventually found, by around midday, that there was nothing else that I could use as a weapon or as a way to escape. I was now more annoyed then ever.
A few moments after I discovered that there was only a single weapon that would only be useful to me in close combat, Rebecca walked back in, with a guard in tow holding a tray with two cans of food with a can opener. Rebecca sat down close to the fireplace and the guard gave her the tray, before looking over at me. The look he gave me was one of pity, which made me angry, and a look of fear, which made me feel slightly uncomfortable. He gave me a small wave before rushing out the door again, another guard shutting it behind him.'What was that about?' I wondered.
"Hey Clem. You coming to eat?" Rebecca asked kindly. I nodded, the thought of food made my stomach growl. I walked over to her, and she handed me one of the cans. Thankfully she didn't treat me as an incompetent child, and let me open the can myself. We ate in silence, with nothing but the low sound of the wind to listen to.
"So, I know things must be very overwhelming right now, and I know that you must be very confused, but we do have a very good reason for not speaking out against Bill." "Is Bill the one with the bloody shoulder?" I asked, feeling rather stupid. "Yes he is. And don't let him fool you, he is a highly dangerous man. He's the one who beat you until you lost your eye, and if Bonnie hadn't stopped him..." She trailed off, suddenly looking pained and distant, like she wasn't even here anymore. The unspoken 'you'd be dead' was obvious, but I couldn't help but think if she really meant it. I felt like I should trust her, but I had no idea what to base it on. And on that, how could I trust any of them? Kenny was the only one that I knew, and even he was known to try and get his own way, though it was always in an attempt to save someone he cared about. But even before now, I had always shied away from him when he became especially dangerous, even if I knew he would never hurt me. But that only raised more questions than it answered. If nothing Bill had said earlier was true, then why didn't Kenny speak up? He was known to be loud and obnoxious when it came to proving Lee or Lily wrong back at the Motor Inn, and even more so to Lee after Duck had died and Lily left with the RV. What had changed? Not even cannibalistic, revenge bent maniacs could get in the way of Kenny before. Nothing was making sense!
Sometime during my thoughts, Rebecca had wrapped an arm around my shoulder and had pulled me closer to her. I had to stop myself from flinching when I finally noticed, and I almost slammed my hand over my face in anger. Staying undistracted around people you didn't trust was a given, even before the dead rose. Now it was basic survival! But even as I sat there, halfway leaning onto Rebecca, and I felt slightly comforted. The last time I had ever done anything like this was with Christa and Omid before Omid was killed, before I learned that even when I felt safe someplace I should keep all my weapons on me at all times. It was strange, yet nice. And suddenly I felt a sensation in my head that felt like a small headache before I was put into a memory.
It had been a long three days, and there were at least two more until they had reached the mountains. There were only enough sleeping bags for everyone to share with someone else. I had been told to go with Rebecca, because I was the smallest and the youngest. The 'youngest' part still made me angry to think about. But it was fine, it wasn't the most comfortable but it was better than sleeping on the rocky ground. One person kept watch at all times...
Looking for someone... Specifically.
And just as fast as the broken memory appeared, it was gone. But one thing I had learned from it was that I had trusted Rebecca enough to be completely vulnerable around her.
And that someone had been coming after me and her. And whatever group we had been with.
But that fact was filed away as important. For now, I was just happy that I could actually remember trusting one of the people I was now stuck with.