The drive down to the river takes too long. Danny is almost glad that Perry is the one behind the wheel; she probably would have just driven right over the edge by now, if it meant she gets to Laura quicker. She clenches her fists on top of her knees, resisting the urge to just yank hold of the wheel. 'Kirsch is with her' She keeps telling herself over and over again, hoping to make it down to the riverbed without driving them straight in to the water. Usually this thought would do nothing to settle Danny's nerves, but she knows that for all his many faults, Kirsch would do anything to protect Laura - They all would.
"I see Kirsch!" LaF sits up in their seat, pointing at a hunched over figure by the waterline. It's the first thing either of them have said since Perry floored the gas pedal. Danny feels her stomach drop. Her eyes are glued to Kirsch. He's on his knees, staring at something down in front of him, Danny can't make out what it is; his hulking great form is blocking her view. His shoulders are shaking. His head is bowed – Danny can't breathe.
The truck has barely skidded to a stop on the dirt road when Danny is jumping out. She sets new land speed records as her long, powerful legs propel her towards the water; towards whatever it is Kirsch is hiding from her. "Danny!" LaF and Perry both call after her, having already spotted what their fearless leader fails to see. There is blood everywhere. A trail of it runs from the bottom of the cliff, where Laura fell, all the way to the water's edge. LaFontaine has to look away from it as they spot what looks suspiciously like a spleen, laying on some of the jagged rocks. They stop running, tugging on Perry's hand with a shake of her head. They all know how this is going to play out; Danny's the only one who hasn't figured it out yet.
LaF and Perry's warning shouts startle Kirsch, kicking him in to action. He stumbles to his feet with red, bleary eyes, like a drunk on a Friday night, and holds his hands out to stop Danny in her track. "Lawrence, stop!" He goes to grab at her, but Danny has seen him playing plenty of times. She fakes to the left, then shoulder checks him on the right, knocking him off balance. He drops to the rocky ground, mud and clay staining his already ruined jeans.
As quickly as he falls, he's back on his feet again, grabbing at Danny's waist. The screaming starts just before he spins her around, pulling her in against him and wrapping his arms tightly around her waist. She struggles at first, pounding her fists down against the back of his broad shoulders, but by the time Perry and LaFontaine reach them, Danny's rage has subsided and grief has completely overcome her. She slumps against Kirsch, his arms around her waist the only thing keeping her up.
"Don't." Kirsch's voice is stronger this time as the others approach the scene of devastation that Danny has just ran head on in to. "You don't want...you don't want to see her like that." Through all of this, Kirsch has prided himself in having a pretty strong stomach. He saw his kindergarten teacher, Mrs Shaw, ripped in to four separate parts, her eyes still blinking and her mouth open in a silent scream as walkers tore her apart.
Laura had taken that pretty badly. She'd still been puking all down the back of his football jersey as he'd given her a fireman's lift to his truck. He closes his eyes, trying to breathe through his mouth. He tries to think of happier times, to block out the last image of Laura he will ever have. He thinks of the first day she moved in to the street, how his mother had dragged him over to meet the new neighbours. An eleven year old Kirsch hadn't wanted to go over and play with a girl; girls were boring and stupid.
Laura had been anything but.
A whimpering noise reaches his ears, and it takes Kirsch a moment to realise it's actually coming from him. Danny Lawrence has her arms wrapped so tightly around the back of his neck that it's a miracle he can still even breathe. Danny is the last person on earth that he would ever turn to for comfort, but his knees give way and they both slump to the ground, quietly crying and holding each other. Perry goes to them, while LaF takes a deep breath and summons the courage to walk towards what Kirsch was guarding.
LaF can see the whole scene clearly. They can carefully analyse it in their mind, from the blood trail at the bottom of the cliff, to what they're looking at right now, to the two walkers that are lying dead nearby. Their skulls have been caved in, probably by the heavy bloodstained rock sitting beside one of their heads. There's not doubt the walkers are truly dead now. Nothing remains of their faces; and Kirsch has blood and guts all over his hands and clothing. LaF feels a little numb as they carry on staring at the mess in front of them. They just can't connect Laura (cute, funny, loyal, tiny gay Laura) with what they're seeing. If it wasn't for the remaining shreds of Laura's sky blue, button down shirt, then LaFontaine would refuse to believe it; Laura Hollis is dead.
They feel the contents of their stomach threatening to make a reappearance, but shouting from behind them startles LaF. They turn around to find Danny standing there, slapping Kirsch around the head and screaming at him. He's still on his knees in front of her, putting up absolutely no defence at all. "Hey!" LaFontaine shouts as Perry gets in the way and Danny pushes her. LaF sees red. They have few triggers, but one of their best friends is dead and the other just pushed their girlfriend, and none of this is cool. "What the fuck, Danny!" The Amazon like girl stumbles back, almost shocked that LaF has managed to move her.
"He fucking let Laura die!" It doesn't take long for her to recover. Danny isn't great at expressing her feelings, she never has been; only Laura had the privilege of seeing her softer side. She doesn't do grief and sadness, she does anger; lots of anger. The teen makes a move to go for Kirsch again, who is still kneeling pitifully in the dirt, but both LaFontaine and Perry get in her way this time.
"Not cool, Danny! Kirsch did his best...we all did." They add the last bit in a softer tone. This isn't so much about Kirsch. Danny blames herself. She blames herself for Laura going over the edge, for letting kirsch be the one to climb down the side of the cliff face; for not being there for Laura when the walkers came.
"His best wasn't good enough, was it?" Danny spits, glaring daggers at the football player. They've never been that close. Laura might have been the thing that brought them together, but at the same time she was the source of their bickering; each jealous of the attention that Laura paid the other. Danny knows she doesn't need to push the knife in any further, Kirsch is beating himself up about it enough; but it feels easier to blame him than to own up to her own shortcomings. She should have made Laura stay in the car. She should have taken better care of her.
"Danny!" Perry chastises, playing her part as the voice of wisdom. She's upset too, but as the one who knew Laura the shortest (and the only one not to catch sight of her remains), she's handling her grief a little better than everybody else. She places a hand on LaF's shoulder, needing the physical contact to keep her voice strong and steady. "This isn't anybody's fault. It was a terrible, and horrible, accident. Laura wouldn't want us arguing like this. She would want us to come together and-"
"You know what Laura would want, Perry?" Danny snarls at the other girl, getting right up in her face. "She'd want to be a-fucking-live!"
Pain. Immense, searing, pain all over.
Laura preferred it when there was no pain. When there was nothing but the darkness. Everything hurts. She tastes blood at the back of her throat, and her stomach lurches. Her eyes open, but the darkness is still there; and the pain. So much pain. It feels like she fell from a cliff. Something about that registers as funny with her. She tries to laugh, but the sound comes out gargled and choked. She coughs, some of the blood going down the back of her throat. The taste is vile, like she's swallowing old pennies; though that's hardly her biggest concern right now.
She's lying on her back. Her sense of spacial awareness has flooded back to her and she realises she is no longer lying face down in the mud, the heavy scent of clay in her nostrils. Laura doesn't know why she thinks she should be lying in the mud. She can't think of much right now - other than the pain. It's mostly centred in her chest. It feels like her ribs are broken and each laboured breath she takes sends out a wave of pain throughout the rest of her body. The blood is still dripping slowly down her throat. Laura doesn't know where it's coming from, but she knows it's going to choke her if she doesn't do something.
The tiny teen tries to roll on to her side, but she doesn't get very far when the pain stops her. There's also the soft pressure against her chest, which seems to work in tandem with the hand at the back of her neck, as she's laid back down. "Easy, Cupcake. Got to take your medicine." The foreign voice is a soft purr beside her ear. Laura doesn't have the first clue what is going on. All she knows is that, as the blood carries on seeping past her lips, the pain is finally starting to ease off.
She stops fighting and gives in to the darkness; it pulls her under before she can question why she has blood on her lips.
"This looks as good a place as any." Perry stops the truck outside a hay barn in the middle of nowhere. It's the only building they've passed in over an hour, and it's getting dark again. They haven't made much progress. It was late afternoon before they even left the river. Danny had sat by the water's edge all afternoon, practically catatonic and staring at nothing. Kirsch had eventually trudged over to the truck to fetch a collapsible spade.
It took him hours to dig a hole in the hard, southern clay. He was sweating and panting by the time he had a hole deep enough to count as a grave. There wasn't much left to bury, but Kirsch had to the decent thing; he owed Laura that at least. Once the makeshift grave had been filled in, he went off in search of some flowers to put by it.
The gentle giant had still been in shock for most of the afternoon, and in no fit state to drive. Perry had jumped in the truck and took them in search of somewhere to spend the night. She and Danny are sitting up front, with Kirsch and LaFontaine in the back. Barely a word has been spoken between any of them in hours. "Good job, Perr." LaFontaine gives her shoulder a squeeze of encouragement. "Why don't me and Kirsch go clear it?"
"I've got it." Danny has the front passenger door open before any of them can answer. She's gripping the iron crowbar in her hand so tightly that her knuckles are going white. Nobody tries to stop her. Kirsch and LaF just file out after her, trudging towards the barn. The light is already fading overhead, casting an ominous shadow over the teens and the truck.
There are chips in the paintwork of the old barn, with some bits completely faded from years of bathing in the scorching Alabama sun. The scent of manure and decay assaults Danny as she reaches the door. There's a rusted padlock and chain holding it shut. Danny imagines some ancient farmer locked inside – Shut in by a family who love him, who were praying for a cure right up until the end. She almost hopes there's something inside as she smashes the lock open. Danny Lawrence is itching to kill something.
"Fuck..." The second the lock is broken Danny realises her mistake. The smell she picked up on earlier overpowers her as the door begins to creak open from the inside. Inside, there is indeed the corpse of an old withered man, who probably owned the barn at some point before all of this started. The corpse starts lumbering towards her. His arms are outstretched, his pale, rotting skin, stretched tightly over his old bones, is the colour of off milk.
The man's fingers are knotted, and curled over like claws as he swipes at the air where Danny had stood half a second ago. The old man's movements are slow and jerky, his arthritic joints struggling to support the extra fifty or so pounds he's carrying around his waist. Danny takes him out with one clean strike to the head. He goes down, but the crowbar gets stuck. His sheer size almost takes Danny down with him, and she has to put a boot to what's left of the dead man's face to pull the weapon free.
The crowbar finally gives, just as the second walker reaches her. She can feel it's clammy fingers wrapping around her wrist, and hear the guttural groan coming from the thing's throat. Danny can't work out whether the corpse was male or female when it was alive. The body is so decayed that it's impossible to tell. Another swift blow of the crowbar and the walker's head comes free from it's shoulders. It bounces grotesquely along the ground, it's teeth still gnashing together.
"Sick." Kirsch finds the sight of the decapitated head so disgusting that it breaks his silence. He slams the sole of his hiking boot down against it, grimacing as his foot goes through the thing's head like a knife sinking through hot butter. He doesn't have long to dwell on it. The barn door swings fully open, and a stream of hungry walkers start shuffling towards the teens. "Shit, Bro!"
The battle is a complete slaughter. There are at least a dozen walkers, and Danny has already taken out five by the time LaF and Kirsch have dealt with one a piece. Danny's jaw is clenched shut, her expression one of grim determination as she eviscerates the torso of a man twice her size. She's not even aiming for the head. She's taking her anger out on these things and they all know it.
There's too many of them for Danny to be playing games, and too much at stake. LaFontaine looks back at the truck, where Perry is anxiously hunched up in the front seat; probably thirty seconds away from having a panic attack. "Danny! Stop messing around!" They snap at her, just as the sumo that she's taking on knocks the crowbar from her hand.
"Fuck!" Danny snarls. It's the only word they've gotten out of her all day. Ignoring the discarded metal bar, she starts pummelling the thing with her bare hands. By the time the others have taken care of the last few walkers, Danny is straddling the dead man she was wrestling with earlier, smashing her fists over and over in to his face. He's long past dead, but Danny doesn't stop. It feels good to let it all out. Not even the pain of the fresh cuts in her knuckles, or her aching muscles cramping up, can stop her. Her fists are hitting right through to the ground by the time Kirsch grabs hold of her waist, trying to pull her away.
It's a stupid move. She swings around and one of her fists lands a blow to the side of his head. With the weight of the struggling girl in his arms, and the shock of the sucker punch, he goes down hard. Danny doesn't stop there. Consumed by grief and anger, she brings her knee up, viscously striking him in the chin as he tries to get back up. Kirsch's head reels backwards and slams back against the compacted dirt in front of the barn. A grunt is ripped out of his throat as Danny's boot connects with his stomach. He curls up, bringing his knees up to his chest to protect himself. The sight of the six foot footballer player curled up on the ground would have been laughable, if it wasn't for the fact that Danny was trying to kick the crap out of him.
"Hey!" LaF grabs on to Danny's arm, knowing they don't have the height advantage that the other teen does, but they've got to do something to try and stop her. Kirsch tries to block her attack, but he doesn't raise a hand to strike her. LaF has seen him take out guys the size of professional football players before. He could easily stop this with a couple of punches of his own, but he doesn't even try. He's barely even defending himself. "Danny, stop! You're hurting him!" LaF's voice goes shrill as they scream at their friend to stop, but her pleading falls on deaf ears as Danny pulls free and carries on with her assault.
"Why. Aren't. You. Fighting. Back?" She punctuates each blow with an attempt to kick him. Kirsch blocks most of them, but one gets through, connecting hard with his ribs. The blow winds him a little, and it's harder for him to react when he gets to his knees and Danny starts slamming her fists down against his shoulders. Eventually something snaps inside of the gentle giant. His lip curling back in a snarl, he pushes past the pain he's in and lunges at the girl. LaF screams for Perry to come help. They have no idea what they're girlfriend can possibly do that they can't, but the sight of Kirsch body slamming Danny to the ground has them hyperventilating.
Danny isn't fazed, even when the back of her head hits the ground hard enough to rattle her brain. She actually seems happy that she's finally gotten a rise from him. Kirsch doesn't strike her though. He straddles her waist, pinning her arms across her chest in front of her and using his superior weight to keep her down. "I'm not going to fucking fight you, Bro! You're a girl! It's totally against the bro code!" Danny laughs in his face, still writhing beneath him in an attempt to tip him off her. It's a lost cause. Kirsch is over six foot of solid muscle and his knees are planted firmly on the ground, while he holds on to Danny's arms like a football he just can't afford to fumble and drop.
The struggling pair are illuminated by the headlights of Kirsch's truck. His short cropped hair is slick with sweat from taking on the walkers, and there's a cut above his eye that's dribbling blood down the side of this cheek (thanks to Danny). He's breathing hard as he tries to compose himself. He would never let a dude lay in to him like Danny had. Hell, he isn't certain he'd be able to stop himself hitting back if any other girl tried to beat the crap out of him; though he's pretty sure he doesn't know any girls that even could.
Danny has always been important to Laura though, and that makes her important to Kirsch too; even if he can't stand her. He let's out a shaky sigh, his ribs groaning in protest. "Laura's gone, and that's my fault! I wasn't quick enough...I couldn't save her... You can blame me for that as much as you want, you can even beat the snot out of me, but I won't hit you back, Danny! And I'm not going to let you go off and get yourself fucking killed, either!" The others wait with baited breath as he eases back, letting go of Danny's wrists. She closes her eyes over and gives him a small nod. It's the closest to a truce she'll offer.
Kirsch is silent as he gets to his feet and walks towards his truck. Perry and LaF offer to help Danny up, but she brushes their attempts off. Getting slowly to her feet, feeling a little dizzy and possibly concuss, she stumbles inside the barn, looking for a place to lie down. "Danny! Danny, we don't even know if it's clear!" Perry shouts after her. She's answered with a loud grunt and the sickening squish sound that can only come from piercing a walker's brain.
She drags the now still walker, an elderly woman with only one leg, outside the barn and drops her next to the other bodies. She bends down to pick her discarded crowbar back up from the ground.
"It is now."
Danny stomps back inside. Perry gives her partner a knowing look and trails after the other girl. LaF is left to check on Kirsch. He's fussing about in the trunk of the car when LaFontaine puts a weary hand on his shoulder. They have to stretch a little to make it. "How you doing?"
"All good, bro." Kirsch answers with his usual boyish smile, his eyes are dull though, almost as lifeless as a walker's. He turns back to the first aid kit he's been rummaging through and pulls out one of those ice packs that activate when you squish the bag up, along with some sterile wipes and butterfly stitches. His hands are shaking as he tries to unwrap the antiseptic wipe. LaF takes it from him and goes about playing doctor. "Thanks, dude."
LaFontaine shrugs it off. They've gotten quite good at providing first aid in recent months; though they're pretty sure this isn't what Perry had in mind when she suggested they take that course last year. Kirsch winces as they drag the alcohol wipe over the gash above his eye. There's dry blood crusting over his eyelid, and his ribs feel like someone's taken a sledgehammer to them. Once LaF finishes with the butterfly stitches, closing the mostly superficial cut over, he tugs his bloodstained shirt over his head. He's already changed once today – he just couldn't stand walking around in a shirt covered in Laura's blood.
He wraps an ace bandage around his ribs and pulls his shirt back on. It's covered in blood and soaked in sweat, but it's not like he smells any worse than the walkers that litter the ground around the barn. He catches LaFontaine looking at him funny, and shoots them a curious look. "What? Bro, do I smell that bad?" He raises his arms, to sniff at his armpits, but regrets it as he feels a painful tug on his obliques.
"No, dude. It's just..." LaF runs a hand through their hair, brushing it back in a messy quiff. "You're like my hero, you know that, right?" Kirsch gives them a puzzled look. He isn't known for being particularly intelligent or anything, and he and LaF aren't that close; so he's struggling to figure out what they're talking about.
"Huh?"
"I've seen you take out two-hundred and forty pound quarterbacks without breaking a sweat! You could have stopped Danny from hitting you at any time...you could have hit her back; but you didn't." There's immense pride shining through LaF's eyes, and Kirsch feels himself starting to flush. He gives them another shrug as he kicks at the dirt.
"Mom always said not to hit girls." There's something so bashful and childlike about the hulking football player. They love that about him. He picks up the icepack and shoves it in to his front pocket. After that, he and LaF climb in to his truck and drive it on in to the barn for the night. The farmland is quite open and exposed, and the navy blue truck would still out like a sore thumb in the surrounding landscape. None of them want to draw any unwanted attention to themselves; or wake up to find their ride has been jacked.
Kirsch backs the truck up against the barn door, which is the only way in and out, save for the hatch up on the second level. It should keep them safe for the night. They all start unpacking their over night bags, pulling out sleeping bags and looking for spots to sleep, except for Danny. She sits up in the hay loft, her legs hanging over the side and her eyes glued to her hands. The skin over her knuckles is cracked and raw, marred with dried blood; some of it hers, some of it not. She's so absorbed by the sight that she fails to notice Kirsch dropping his stuff by the truck and climbing the wooden ladder that leads up to the loft.
The first time she realises he's up there, he's sitting down beside her, letting his long legs dangle over the edge next to her. She tenses, expecting him to start calling her out for being such a bitch earlier. Kirsch surprises her by pulling out the ice pack from his pocket. He crushes it in his huge hands, activating the pack and then offering it over to Danny. She takes it without a word, pressing it against her swollen right hand. The pain is excruciating, but somewhere at the back of her mind she knows she deserves it. She has no idea why Kirsch is being so nice to her.
In typical Danny Lawrence fashion, she asks him right out.
"For Laura." He answers in a quiet voice. The sound of her name stings them both.
"She's dead, Kirsch. Like dead, dead. It's not like she cares." Danny lets out a huff of air, wishing he had just left her alone to brood. Laura has been gone for less than twelve hours, Danny still hasn't had a chance to grieve properly.
"But...maybe she's still with us. You know, watching over us...in heaven."
Danny lets out a scoff. "What are you, five?" She scowls at him, finding his childlike faith more annoying than endearing. "She's not in heaven, Kirsch. What's left of her is in the ground. There is no heaven! And there sure as fuck is no God either! If there was some almighty deity up there, then they would never let someone like Laura die like that! ...He would have taken me instead." There it is. The thing that's eating her up inside. Why couldn't it have been her?
"Maybe not." Kirsch shrugs again, and she really wants to sock him in the arm to stop him doing that. She doesn't though. She can see from the way he's holding himself that he's already in pain, and the cut above his eye is a glaring reminder of what she's already done to him. Danny hangs her head in shame, wishing the ground would just open up beneath her and swallow her whole.
"But maybe there is. I guess my Mom made me go to Sunday school, and I'm not like super deep, bro...but what's the harm in thinking that, like, just maybe, there is something better when we die? Hedge your bets, you know?" It's hardly the philosophising of Descartes or Kant, but Danny's got to admit, it's a pretty good way to think.
"I guess you're right." She pulls her knees back up to her chest, holding her injured hand and the ice pack against them with her good one. It kills her to say the next part, but she knows it's the least she owes him. "And I guess you're mom did a pretty okay job with you. Most guys would have lost their shit with me." Kirsch chews at his lip, seeming to ignore Danny as she tries to extend an olive branch towards him. She can hardly blame him.
After a beat, he lets out a sigh. "Yeah, well...my dad was a real ass. That kind of helped too."
"Oh..." Danny has had heard stories of Kirsch's dad, though Laura always scorned her for listening to gossip. Carl Kirsch was a mean drunk, and rumour has it that his wife was a dab hand with a tube of foundation. Danny doesn't know what to say. Everything she thinks of sounds clichéd, or just plain bullshit. She settles for offering the icepack out for Kirsch to share with her; that cut on his head really does look sore. He accepts it with a small 'thanks'.
She gives his fingers a gentle squeeze, starting to see why Laura is always defending him. "You're a good guy, Kirsch."
The second time Laura regains consciousness, the searing pain has dulled to a constant ache. This is only marginally better, but at least when her eyes open she can actually see something this time; and what she sees is breathtaking. The young woman leaning over her is all pale skin and dark curls. Laura thinks she might still have some kind of concussion, because she almost can't resist the urge to reach up and run her fingers along the girl's sharply defined jaw. Her eyes are so dark that they're almost black, though they soften a little once they notice Laura's own eyes are open. "Hey, looks who's finally awake."
The stranger takes a seat on the stool that sits beside the cot Laura is lying on. It looks like they're in some kind of small hunting cabin. Made up of only one room, there's the door at the front and a single window on the opposite side of the room from where Laura is lying. Light streams in through the window, filtered by a length of camouflage netting that's stuck to the window frame, casting strange patterns of light on to the floor.
The metal cot creaks in protest as Laura tries to sit up. She instantly regrets it as her vision starts to blur and her head feels like it's been put in a blender. "Whoa, easy, Cupcake. No sudden movements, okay?" The other girl moves the threadbare pillow, which had been supporting Laura's head, and places it against the wall to help prop her up.
"Thanks." Laura closes her eyes over again, trying to wait out the dizziness. Her lips feel dry and cracked, and her throat is bone dry. She opens her eyes again as she feels something cold press against her lips. The stranger holds an open bottle of water out for her, and helps Laura to take a few sips. "Thank you...uh, not that I'm not really grateful, but who the hell are you?"
Laura's memory was a little fuzzy when she first woke up, but bits and pieces are starting to come back to her. She remembers the rail crossing and the cliff, missing the fence post and tumbling down. She remembers lying at the bottom of the ravine, her body cold and numb; Laura shudders at the memory. She's pretty sure she should be dead right now.
"Carmilla." The other girl answers, her lips curling up in to a confident smirk as she looks Laura up and down, like she's some kind of prize steak. Laura shifts a little uncomfortably, looking around the small cabin again, and wondering where the hell Danny and the others are. "I'm the person who saved your life, Sweetheart." Laura's sense of discomfort isn't going away. There's something about the way the girl, Carmilla, had announced that; with an air of expectation.
"Well...thanks for that." Laura nervously pulls the thin blanket that's lying over her legs up to her chin, suddenly feeling the chill in the air. Her shirt is missing, and she's sitting in just a tank-top and her jeans. "Um, the people I was with...my friends. Are they here too?" Laura doesn't have the first clue where 'here' is. She feels a lump forming in her throat as Carmilla looks away, and down at her hands. She waits a beat, just long enough for Laura's heart to start pounding in her chest, and slowly shakes her head from side to side.
"You were alone when I found you...There was a big guy beside you-" Her voice is soft, laced with unspoken pity.
"Kirsch!" Laura's eyes widen and her heart sinks at the implication. She can feel tears pricking at her eyes as she chokes back a strangled sob.
"There were walkers all around the two of you. I think he was bitten, he must have..." Carmilla doesn't finish. She doesn't need too. Laura gets the picture. One of her oldest friends is dead because of her; because of her stupid clumsiness.
"What about the others?" Laura manages to pull herself together enough to ask. She's met by a small shrug.
"It was dark when I found you, Creampuff. I didn't see anybody else. If you fell from that crossing up top, then the road down is pretty long, it's easy to miss the turn-off for the river." Carmilla is well versed in lying, the words come as easily to her as breathing – She'd been lucky to smuggle the broken girl in to the woods, and cover up her tracks, without any of her friends ever noticing.
Carmilla had made sure to make it look like walkers had reached the girl before the lumbering gorilla that had been climbing down to her rescue. It had been easy enough. Of the three walking corpses stumbling towards them, one had been a small blonde girl; it was hardly a perfect likeness, but Carmilla hadn't left enough of the body for it to be suspicious. The pièce de résistance had come from Carmilla ripping up the fallen girl's shirt, just to make sure there was no doubt among her friends that the remains were hers. Carmilla had tossed the rest of the walker in to the river, letting the water wash the evidence away for her.
Carmilla's new acquaintance is none the wiser to what she's done to get her here; or what she'll do to keep her.
"They could still be looking for me... I need to get back there! I need..." Laura tries to get out of bed, and ends up almost face planting the floor. Carmilla catches her with ease before she can do any real damage. Laura's legs feel like jelly, her head is still spinning and her her whole world has just come crashing down around her. Kirsch is dead. Danny is gone. "I have to go..." She's still fighting to sit up as Carmilla places her back on the cot. The other girl is deceptively strong, having taken Laura's weight like she was nothing more than a ragdoll. She has no idea where she is, how for it is from the crossing, or even where the crossing was, but she needs to get back there; back to Danny – and Perry and LaFontaine too.
"Easy, Sundance. This cabin is five miles out from where I found you...besides, you've been out for like three days." Carmilla dashes any hopes Laura might have about finding her friends again. There is no contingency plan for if they get split up; none of them ever even thought to consider it.
"No, no, no..." Slumps forward on the cot, cradling her head in her hands. This can't be happening. She can't have lost the only people she's got left.
Laura stiffens as she feels a hand on her shoulder. "Look at it this way, Cupcake. You're still alive. That's got to count for something these days, right?" It's hardly the most comforting thing Laura has ever heard, but she has to nod in agreement. She's still breathing, that's something.
"It's Laura, by the way." She sniffles as she rubs at her eyes, wondering just how many tears she's got left in her.
"What is?" Carmilla frowns as she takes her post back on the stool by the cot. She's wearing a khaki button down shirt, over leather pants and biker boots. She doesn't look like any survivor that Laura has ever met; the striking young woman doesn't look like anyone Laura has ever met.
"Uh, me...my name. I'm Laura. Laura Hollis." She feels a little silly as she holds out her hand to the other girl. There isn't exactly a manual that covers introducing yourself to the person who saved your life. Carmilla struggles to hide an amused smirk as she leans in to take it. Instead of shaking the teenager's hand though, she brings it up to her lips, her dark gaze burning in to Laura's shell shocked face. Humans are so amusing to her. She's glad she decided to save this one; instead of draining her dry like she'd first contemplated. She thinks this Laura Hollis could be an interesting distraction on her way back to Silas; back to Mother.
"Pleasure to meet you, Cutie."