Tacit

by Lilacsbloom

They met outside Savannah thirteen years ago, not long after the world fell apart. Their old lives were long gone, and so were the people they used to be. Just survive and get by for another day, it's all they did now. Walkers weren't so much the problem, the living were and it was foolish to be so trusting, for even the most generous of people still had skeletons in their closets.

2. Carnivores

A/N: When posting this, there's been news on Season 3 in the recent months, and I'm excited. I'm still a little apprehensive on how good the game is going to be, but it's definitely put me in a much more cheerful mood for writing Walking Dead stories, and I'm happy for that. Sooo, I figured I may as well get back to business.

Enough from me now! It's time for a change of perspective to see what's going on in Sweetpea's head, and introduce two people I've dying for you to meet.

Special thanks to Lurker128 for being a beta for this chapter.

---

The Walking Dead
Tacit

Chapter 2: Carnivores

---

It's a white-tailed deer, a young one. It's not so much a fawn anymore and its spots are gone, but not fully grown, with no mother around. Tiny horns protruded through its head, a buck. Clementine wouldn't have known the animal was there, if not for it thrashing about, rattling the barbed wire fence strung between the old wooden posts near the train tracks; so fortunate Clementine was to be sat outside, not far from small depot port building to hear its distress.

A noose to the deer's neck, wrapped around its hind legs and body, the rusted barbed wire cut through fur and deep into the flesh. The young buck must've tried leaping over the fence and got itself tangled up, and so there it was trapped and exhausted, lucky that no walkers or coyotes were here to find it first, or they would have given the thing an unkindly death.

'Just let it go; he might make it,' a naïve voice reasoned inside Clementine's head. The deer thrashed about, spooked by the human presence, its breathing fast, the brown of its eyes wide and open at her where she stood still in place.

All those years ago as a child, sneaking out into the woods at the back of her house…so many times sat quietly there by herself, watching chickadees, pigeons, rabbits and squirrels; only once she saw a doe with her fawn, the pair spooked off into the boscage by Mom calling for Clementine back at the house for dinner. Such beautiful creatures, a beauty traded in for a good meal. It was the way things had to be.

The buck kicked its tangled rear legs, thrashing more erratic as Clementine moved in closer, its freedom driven further from reach by the barb wired tightening in the coil around its neck. The wound oozing fresh blood, the animal's struggles ended as it let out a distressed bleat in likeness to a lamb. Its will to live couldn't defy the impossible, for the deer wouldn't survive. Its injury would become infected and slowly would bring about a fever, and the buck would die. So she's doing the right thing, and food is food she reminded herself.

Her tantō drawn, Clementine chose to end it quickly, striking the buck in the head with that twelve-inch blade a safe distance from those strong animal's kicking legs. A few violent spasms and the deer went still, the blood profound, gushing as the blade became dislodged from the cracked open skull left, brain tissue exposed. It could've been worse, she could've knocked it out and skinned it alive, left the deer to wake strung up before it was beaten and burnt with cigarette butts, slow to die while being laughed and jeered at by drunken men over its suffering. Sick amusement from cruelty, she wished it nonexistent; the human condition awakened too many monsters.

A hand outstretched, Clementine rested it down on the deer's still ribcage, the fur thick and coarse with dirt.

Still warm...

She'd ran her hand along the tail of the red squirrel lying dead on its back on the kitchen counter in the cabin. Fur so fluffy and soft, but the body cold, the critter's mouth slanted half open, front teeth and tongue exposed with tiny eyes wide and dry, staring into nothingness. From the poke of one back leg with her finger, Clementine felt a stiffness to the critter's limb: rigor mortis. Three others squirrels were beside it with one rabbit, all carrying wounds by snare traps around their throats.

"Do we have to eat them? They're so cute."

A gravelly laugh, the old hunter in his old green coat scooped up that dead red squirrel, washing it in a bowl of cold water.

"Don't go bein' a sissy on me now little darlin'. No different to any other meat we've eaten," Pete had said, setting the small mammal down on the chopping board. Like a natural in the skills he'd spent decades harnessing, Pete went about skinning that squirrel, as if every action were written down to muscle memory. "Folks've gotten soft, long did before all this. All fine and dandy eatin' their roasts with their beefs and their turkeys, but kill it and prepare it themselves? Nothin' but a bunch of sissies."

A cute squirrel no longer, a tiny hideous creature of slimy muscles and blood rested on the chopping board. Repulsion flared in her young mind, but Pete went further, cutting off the squirrel's head, and slicing open that tiny stomach to remove those miniature organs.

"Should've seen Luke and my nephew when they were younglings; took those boys out nearly every huntin' season. Got them to hike and camp out in every kind of weather you can imagine too, and you can sure as hell bet they hated me for it, but they did it. Now adventure's' one thing, but surviving's another. If you'd told them to skin and chop up something for a meal, both'd go green in the face every time; couldn't stomach it for years, not even skinning a fish. Took 'em forever to man up and do it without squirmin'."

Clementine's fingers were on the edge of the counter, only tall enough for eyes to peer over.

"Maybe they thought the animals were cute too," she'd said.

"Maybe, but this ain't no world to be thinkin' like that no more, especially when you gotta to keep the old ticker goin'," Pete said with the tap to his chest. The hunting knife set down, the skinned, gutted squirrel was dumped onto a plate, and so was the next one picked up to be washed, and put upon the chopping board. A high stool nearby got pulled up to the counter by the hunter.

"Tell you what Clementine, how about givin' this a go yourself?" Pete had hoisted her up onto the stool, placing the knife in her small hands. "Need to be learnin' this sooner or later; think you got what it takes?"

The deer carcass strung up to the high fence with the legs chopped off at the knees, Clementine dealt with the organs, being sure to hold onto the heart, liver and kidneys before she was to skin the dead buck. The heat of that sun weighing down on her back, she worked quickly, the extra time spent afterwards decapitating the young deer's head and sticking its body on a wooden spit. With a small lightweight stew pot for the organs, all was prepared for the buck to be roasted on a fire contained within a derelict rail yard building nearby. Like previous meals cooked here, the enclosed walls would contain some of the smell from the cooking, lowering the risk of attracting walkers or animals, while that tall collapsed metal roof split open to a blue sky allowed in the oxygen to feed the flames.

However, no ideal place was this to seek shelter. Decrepit, the building was in shambles around her, a common sight like everywhere wasting away from the hands of time. No trains were here, only sheets of metal from the damaged roof, rotting planks of woods, bits of bricks, concrete, rusting barrels and vulgar graffiti. FUCK THE ROTTERS, one wall shouted with skulls sprayed in a shade of deep red. DROWNING IN OBLIVION, shouted another, in the same red with no style. The words around her were wild and manic; the faded messages aged over cracked cement. Nobody had been here for years. No less, Clementine stayed alert as ever as she was always taught to be, her knees drawn to her chest where she sat some distance away from the fire the venison cooked upon, preferring the coolness the building brought after being out in the humidity for so long.

Her empty stomach rumbled, with her troubled mind at unrest. Clementine couldn't relax, nor rest her eyes. The old hunting knife found its way into her hands, being turned over and over within them, the blood of that buck stained dry to the blade. Slowly with one hand, the end of the knife's hilt became pressed against her forehead, and she watched the flames burn, until something was to catch her eye, unnoticed down in the rubble she was to have overlooked in those passing days. It brought her to her feet, wandering over to that far corner of the warehouse.

An aerosol can? Not quite. The can eroded by rust, but the nozzle still worked, confirmed to her when a quick test at arm's length sprayed out a red mist after a few sputters. It was paint. What use did she have for paint? She could give no meaningful answer.

The graffiti spoke to her again, of people vandalizing things nobody gave a shit about. Like messages on trees, carving words into the bark, scarring the names of lovers or dates recorded before she was even born. The human need to be remembered, for somebody to know they were once there, and defy that void that took them all in the end.

Who would remember what was never recorded?

Clementine found a free spot on one of the concrete beams, the weight of that can almost dropped by heavy thoughts to abandon such ideas in her mind of using it. Giving that spray a good shake, a finger briefly poised on the nozzle over that bare concrete, she set out on writing the only thing she was willing to share, should any stumble across this rail yard building too, someday.

The message small and slanted, it said all it needed to.

Can't go back to yesterday

---

The handle pressed down by her elbow, the door was shoved open with her hip thereafter. The resting figure of her friend jolted up from the floor of the train depot, the man reaching for the machete at his side. Sleepy eyes fixing on her, the alarm in them slipped away with his energy, and he was to stiffly lay back down with a relieved breath.

"Didn't know you stepped out," Luke said, draping his forearm over his eyes. Unnoticed by the heavy sleeper, Clementine was gone more than an hour, but she didn't bother explaining. She lugged in that young deer carcass still on the wooden spit, a small pot of organs held in the other hand, all fully cooked. The smell of meat filled the depot building, welcomed by her friend who made an effort not to go drift off back to sleep. He was hungry, just like her.

Three days after the bandit family attack and Luke was still not that much better off. Clementine's injuries were superficial, but not all his were and they were low on meds. With a nose broken, the inflammation hadn't gone down, but would heal of its own accord. The migraines Luke complained of still bit at his brain the last time she checked in, troubling her with unwanted fears of hemorrhages in the body occurring from taking such a battering. He kept needing sleep, and unsure Clementine was if that was good thing or bad. Bruises were scattered all over in odd places too, like hers were, but Luke's were worse. Bruised shadows under his eyes from the broken nose, with one slightly swollen more than the other, the white sclera of the eye having gone partially red. The worse suspects were to be where she'd caught sight of the purple and red patches on his torso when changing shirts, more prominent on the right side.

Broken ribs played him up the most, kept him in constant pain from the unknown seriousness of the damage that might've punctured a lung in a much deadlier scenario. It was out of their hands. The best medical advice they had was for plenty of rest, and for him to keep taking deep breaths among those unhealthy shallow ones to prevent chest infections or pneumonia. Relieved Clementine was, not much else got broken by those bastards.

"How are you feeling?" She asked.

There was laughter, short and wheezing out by its end.

"If I was a broken piñata? P-Pretty good, only hurts when I breathe," her friend answered, enticed enough by the smell of food to sit up on the floor, a head nursed in his hand. "That deer?"

"A buck, a young one."

"How'd you—"

Clementine set the pot down on an old desk, followed by the deer. Her knife out, she cut away at the meat around the shoulder. "It was stuck on a fence and making a lot of noise. It wasn't going to make it."

"You should've woke me," he said.

"You needed to rest, and I needed to think," Clementine told him, almost forgetful to add, "I was careful."

"Yeah well, careful ain't enough these days," drawing a shortened sigh, Luke was to massage his fingers through his hair all way to the very back, those few gray strands visible against colors of chestnut in the light let in through the depot's dusty windows. "So, you up for sharin' any of that?"

Cutting away at the meat, the deer's limb loosened slice by slice.

"No…just, thought I'd stand here and eat it all myself."

"Charmin'."

Clementine saved him the trouble of getting up, still to a wear smile when delivering the front leg of that buck into his open hands, gratitude shown by the man.

"Thanks."

The venison meat was more tender than any other venison Clementine tasted. All those times hunting game and they'd never chosen to kill any young deer or mothers with fawns, even with the world being as it was; it was their conscious choice. There was more than enough meat here for them both, and after days on a diet formed from foraging chamomiles and chickweeds in the woods, to the cattails growing at the local stream, that buck was a blessing. They hadn't eaten venison in over a year.

"Swear, gotta get ourselves a hold of some guns, the workin' kind; damn sure miss eatin' this rich a meat," Luke was to say while tucking into some ribs, tearing the meat off right from the bone. The pair of them were starved carnivores, and nothing could be wasted.

"We could try a bow," pieces of the buck's heart were in Clementine's hands, sticky on her fingers. "Or, go into fence building and catch more deer like that."

"Hah, either'll do long as it fills our bellies," Luke said, with a crooked grin. "Ought to've done some survival 101 on bow craftin' before all this; thought they'd've written the book on it somewhere."

Clementine popped a piece of deer heart in her mouth, chewing away.

"We'll find one, eventually. There has to be some left out there."

"Yeah, agreed."

What was there of the leftovers was cut away from the bone and put into the small stew pot. Some curing salts and sugar poured in with the lid left closed, last of the formula they carried to preserve the meat, allowing it to last long enough for another day, or longer if need be. The remains of deer carcass's bones were taken out of the depot, and dumped inside down a manhole some distance away from the building. Such a bleak sight it was to peer down the bottom of that manhole, seeing those brown picked bones, along with the skinned fur, the hooves and head of that deer to have been dumped down there earlier. Already rats were feasting on it, the eyes gouged.

Clementine couldn't risk burying it. Bears would sniff it out too easily.

"W—what's wrong?" Luke asked, stood nearby. Insistent he was to go along, though little there was that he could do than be an extra pair of eyes and ears. A good motto.

She shrugged it off, and bent down to drag the heavy manhole cover over. She closed the manhole shut permanently this time, the thing thudding as it was slotted into place. Thoughts of a crypt came to mind, and other things…

"Nothing," Clementine said. "It's not important."

In due time the day drew closer to its end, the sun dipped low in the sky, framing itself in one of the train depot building's windows and lighting up specks of dust in the air. Outside it was still, remaining so all that afternoon up until evening's approach. A few hours and it would be night soon, too soon.

Little discussed after eating, her friend resisted the urge for more rest and sought escapism in the book he was reading, titled The Catcher in the Rye. Clementine sought escapism of her own with a rubik's cube, twisting the thing until she managed to make two faces of the cube orange and green, and no more. Years carried with her, and she never figured out how to solve it.

The rubik's cube left to one side, she decided it time to make repairs to her baseball cap. Some old stitches at the back were coming loss in recent days, the fraying D already peeling off again. She needed to fix it, and so into her backpack, Clementine rummaged around for that small tube of glue she kept a hold of for such hat emergencies. In among the few things in her bag she could call her own, photographs were found and brought out instead of glue. The torn photograph of Lee, the man who saved her life, with the opportunity long lost to return this to him. Lee, whatever the time of day he was there, smiling happy and with pride…

She had nothing to be proud about.

The other photos were family related, the first taken by a professional photographer. There sitting on a comfy rug in a studio, Clementine and her parents were lined up for the shot. All staged, just props, cherished to Clementine mostly by her parent's love of it, strong enough to have framed on display in their house; that was only reason she chosen to take it years ago when revisiting the place she once called home, for the memory wasn't a fond one when being frequently told by the photographer to keep smiling when she didn't want to.

The last photo was from her old bedroom, tiny punchers in all four corners from where it was pinned up on the board by her desk. The picture was taken at the beach during summer, in full view of the ocean and a pier in the background; she and her parents were together in it, with the photo having being taken by an elderly couple out strolling that beautiful coast. Mom's arms were folded around Dad, her sunglasses up in her head and Dad's favorite baseball cap on his. Clementine was huddled between him, maybe four or five years of age, a red plastic pinwheel clutched in her small hands, blurred from twirling in the wind. Smiles natural, eyes squinted faintly from the sun behind the camera with all imperfections allowed to be.

Clementine could still smell it, the salty breeze from the ocean, could still feel those cool foaming waves rolling up over her bare feet, her toes sinking into the wet sand. There was a memory of Mom and Dad there in that place, holding both her hands as they walked along the beach, lifting her up every time a wave washed up on the shore. One, two, three, they would count, and up she'd go, giggling as if it were the most fun thing in the world. Her parents were laughing, stood so tall compared to her, her hands small in theirs...

She couldn't hear their voices anymore.

"Can we go to the coast?"

Her friend looked up from his book, brows stitched, eyes seeking an answer.

"When you're feeling better, can we go there?" Clementine said, slipping the photos away into her bag, "Just, you know, somewhere?"

The edge of a page creased, Luke's book closed shut.

"Any reasons to why?" he asked quizzically.

A shrug was all Clementine gave him at first. The tube of glue taken out, her nails picked at the red lid. "I don't know, not really…I just want to see it. It's been a forever since we last went anywhere with a beach," hanging on her friend's silence, she broke it. "Please?"

A warm glow in those eyes, Luke turned to stiffly pull at the strap of his rucksack, dragging the bag of his along the floor over towards him. "N-Never said we couldn't; got anywhere specific?"

"Tybee Island," Clementine said, too quickly.

"So, not just anywhere," Luke lightly answered, taking out that old worn map. "Never heard of this Tybee before; where is it?"

"A little outside Savannah."

Her friend paused. There was a look of surprise. "That's pretty far."

"Yeah, I know."

"Hm…well, pretty far whichever way you look at it in coast terms," scratching at stubble near a scarred cheek, he went on with unfolding that map of the United States, keeping it upright after the pain of damaged ribs were triggered from leaning too far forward to rest it on the floorboards. Clementine scooched on over, that baseball cap left to rest on her lap as so to hold one half of the map with Luke so it could be studied.

The Kentucky state, their current location, she pointed down lower on the map, to the coast right next to Savannah. "It's somewhere around there. I know it doesn't say it, but Tybee Island's there."

Luke nodded acknowledgement to it, focus set on those names of major roads and cities. "Judgin' where we're at, right around here," He pointed up at Kentucky, a hitch in his voice upon drawing a breath, "gonna take a month or so, less if—less, if we stay on the move each day; any detours or hiccups, it'll take longer."

Walker herds, bandits, terrain…nothing new.

"So we can go?" Clementine asked.

Together, they folded the map away.

"Sure. Need to be movin' down south anyways; get to the warmer climate before winter sets in. Don't reckon we ought to go pushin' it, just take our time." A faint looping smile to her, Luke added. "Probably won't make it in time for yer birthday, if that's what you were hopin' for."

The baseball cap held protectively in her hands, Clementine uncapped the glue and went to work repairing the letter D back in its rightful place.

"I can wait," she said, feeling a small lift in the corners of her mouth, and in her spirits.

A goal was set.

---

Communities, large to small groups of people, Clementine hated them all. They couldn't be trusted, however friendly they maybe, or if they had children; the time of trusting others was long over. When it was just her, Pete and Luke at that cabin in Virginia, it was easy to get used to that, being locked in their own small world in those surrounding woodlands, living by their ways, their rules. She missed her socks getting soaked down in the river and how her shoes squelched when pulling fish traps out. She missed sitting on the cabin porch eating wild berries and nuts while she watched for wildlife. She...she missed learning to play chess with Pete, and losing to him, but always trying that bit harder to beat him the next time.

Clementine had good memories there, what few a child could get in these times, and what she had been through up until that point. She didn't know anything about those two men, but they still went out of their way to look after her, just like Lee had done when her parents didn't come home. She had nobody and felt lost, and they took her in. They saved her life.

Years were to pass there, she got bigger, and her clothes shrunk, too small for her frame like the shoes that crunched up her feet. There wasn't anything around for miles; there were no houses or towns to scavenge from, so they made use of the clothes left behind from the cabin's previous owners. Often was it that Clementine would be walking around in teenage pants made for boys, the things cut off at knees so they didn't bundle around her ankles, and with a belt around the waist to stop them falling down. Shirt sleeves were rolled up so she could use her hands, and collars adjusted so they didn't slide over her shoulders. On many days, did Clementine roam the cabin barefoot, big shoes too much of a nuisance, for growing was a nuisance in and of itself.

She looked like a boy.

When turning eleven, after two years of only her, Pete and Luke living alone without any human contact, the increasing walker activity in the area drove them out. They moved on, leaving behind those woods and their cabin to seek someplace else to settle. Many weeks later, they met supply runners, made up of a group of ten or so people that happened to catch them on the road. At first their leader offered to trade, but then they were to offer sanctuary in their community, inviting the trio to come back with them. Pete and Luke accepted the offers, the group's words so persuasive, particularly those from the leader of that community that just so happened to be man leading the supply run that day.

William Carver was not one to sit around in his castle. "So what's the boy's name? Rather quiet back there; not said a word. He hard of hearing? Simple?"

"He's Ethan; picked him up outside Savannah near two years ago now," Pete replied. "And he's alright; noggin's not broken, just not one for many words. You know what kids are like."

The conversation came from the front of the pickup truck, exchanged between Carver driving the truck, and Pete riding shotgun with him making small talk for information. Some days after they had taken off from the cabin, Pete cut her hair short, chopping Clementine's pigtails right off. He didn't say why, not the real reasons for instructing her to disguise herself as a boy, revealing only the half truth which was to be this: that it might work better in her favor.

There they were in that pickup truck loaded with supplies, being driven along a bumpy road to their destination as other group members drove ahead of them and behind…it'd seemed like things were looking up. Yet Pete, he didn't reveal her gender to Carver then, and Clementine couldn't understand why at the time when he and Luke considered those people trustworthy enough to follow.

"Well, can't afford being introverted nowadays, not with the world as it is; child or adult, you have to make of it what you will. We're stronger together as a community, not alone," those were the words William Carver shared to Pete like the dictator he was, as if truly believing in what he spoke and standing by it. Carver looked at her in the rear view mirror shortly afterwards, eyes smiling. "You're among friends, son. You'll see that in time."

Clementine never said anything back, nor to the nameless young man riding in the back seat to her left—one of Carver's own; the guy was too busy flicking open and shut his lighter to give two shits and acknowledge her. Out of Pete's peripheral vision and support, she shifted her focus to Luke sat on her right, an arm propped up next to the passenger window. His face mirrored some of her concerns, and catching each other's gaze, his hand moved away from the window and reached over to straighten up her baseball cap, the action putting to rest some of those troubled thoughts.

'We'll be fine,' Luke had been telling her without any words.

That camp, it was okay enough when they arrived, two hundred strong situated within a cluster of stores, houses and a small apartment block, all protected by high barricades, fences and patrols. Food was well stocked, guns and ammo plentiful, animals, crops even...Clementine had never seen anything like it, nothing like what was in the ruins of Crawford. They were welcomed in almost like family, William Carver introducing them to many people whose names the years had erased. In no time at all they were set up with their own place with their own jobs, all to keep them, Carver's 'new workers', busy. As they'd settled in over the days, got friendly with people and did their duties, Pete and Luke discussed each evening of them staying longer term, believing the camp to hold promise. For Clementine it was nice, nerve-wracking hiding her true identity as a girl and being called Ethan, but it was pleasant somewhat, just being around other living people, being around other children.

That magic didn't last more than for a few weeks. As they became acclimatized to their new environment, they noticed what they didn't before, how tightly run Carver's operation was, how nobody could move freely in and out of the camp, and how those in charge of protecting them revealed more of themselves to be cold, some even sadistic…and much worse. If things at that camp were as good as many spoke of it to once be before, then she, Pete and Luke arrived just before the decline. Clementine saw it for herself in the three months stuck there, attitudes changing, the existence of that community eroding down into nothing more than a prison camp whose leader fell into a downward spiral of his own, absorbed into narcissism and his god complex.

To this day, Clementine wasn't entirely certain of what caused William Carver to become a tyrant, her times meeting him few when boxed inside the walls of that camp, for she was only a child and didn't play an active part in the community other than what she was told to do and the few classes for school she attended. Perhaps those nights drinking alone in his office as the leader was rumored to do in the community's base up in the hardware store…it brought to him some twisted resolution. Their lives were never going to get back to how they were; anybody could see that. And so with that knowledge in mind, Carver decided he would just remake as much of the world that he could claim in his own image. And so it was too, he went about creating his new rules that the community were forced to abide by.

Few spoke up against their leader, and those that did Carver often found a way to punish. Punishment for disobedience or crimes were solitary confinement for days or weeks at a time, but as things got worse, that increased to beating while imprisoned, being starved. Then it became more of a public event, people being beaten with lashes in front of the whole community, leaving many badly wounded and in need of medical attention. And then,., barely a few weeks after that came into effect, 'it' happened.

A teenage boy, he got assaulted by a group of Carver's guys, and the father out of retaliation, killed the attackers, shot all three of them dead after smuggling a gun out from the armory. And what did William Carver do? What did that tyrant do? What anyone expected.

An evening in twilight, Clementine must've looked out there for hours from her window of the small ranch house that was their home, watching people ambling about in that camp with little life in them. The emptiness in her chest felt cancerous, growing vaster the longer she stared at that wooden structure in the heart of their camp. It was the gallows, newly constructed overnight out of tall timber beams, with newly woven ropes tied up to them…two of nooses were occupied.

"Let this be a message to all of you. Insubordination, killing my most trusted men? It won't be tolerated," Carver was to preach to the community hours before as the young teenage boy, the victim, had a noose placed around his neck. Stood up on rickety crates with hands bound behind his back, that teen was only a few years older than Clementine, somebody who she'd only spoken to a couple of times in those months for she hadn't liked him much, but, he wasn't a bad person, and didn't deserve to be up there. There was no courage, he didn't stare death in the face without fear, the boy had been crying for his father for help. His father was bound as well, forced to watch his son be hung before it was his turn on the gallows. The father fought with everything to break free from the guards restraining him, those bastards using violence against the man to keep him at bay down on his knees. Already he'd been beaten so badly, he could no longer stand.

Guns armed, a few warning shots at the sky prevented anybody else rebelling the same way, but the shouting couldn't be controlled. The small restless crowd that was to be their community had given protest, spouting anger and pleas around Clementine and from the beaten father himself for his son to be spared. "Punish me; I killed them! Please just spare my boy!" he had begged Carver, but it fell on deaf ears like all the others.

"You can't do this! This isn't right!"

"Let them go!"

"It's not their fault!"

"Please!"

Lynching, the new method of execution William Carver announced that day, where 'criminals' would be hung by their necks until dead and turned. Their reanimated corpses would be left strung there in the center of the camp for a week Carver warned, for all to see before they would be cut down, and their live walker heads would then be impaled upon a stick outside their gates to ward off outsiders, and serving as a lesson to those inside as well. They were the actions of a madman. The way Carver talked was like one too.

Against Pete's words, Luke had pushed through the few people ahead of them in the crowd, unable to stay silent over the public executions.

"Will, stop this! That's enough!"

The leader had turned attention upon her friend, and hoarse chuckling broke out from the older man. Carver hadn't been the least bit fazed or concerned. "Finally manning up, eh? Get back in the flock with the others, Luke; the act doesn't suit you."

Pete was already there, pulling Luke back, Clementine catching the hunter warning him in a low voice not to do what he was, but again Luke wrenched himself free of the hunter's grip, not backing down.

"And what you're doin' is just hunky-dory? You beat us like dogs, and now this? What's killin' 'em goin' to do, huh? How's killin' a pa and his boy you wouldn't protect gonna to prove anythin'!?"

That's all her friend got out. Shocked cries rang out from the crowd after Carver swiftly went over and knocked Luke down with a punch to the face, delivering a few more upon grabbing her friend by the collar of his shirt. Clementine was stopped from running out there to help by Pete, who stepped in to do what she wouldn't have succeeded with: confronting Carver.

Even as a few guards put him at gunpoint, Pete stood his ground.

"Leave him alone, William! You got a bone to pick you take it out on me!"

It was enough to stop the beatings, more out of amusement than for actions involving mercy. Carver took none of it seriously, leaving Luke on the ground nearly out cold, dumped like trash.

"What is it with you and nobility, Pete? You want to take their place, huh? You and that little brat on gallows?" he'd asked, a shiver going down Clementine spine when Carver pointed at her. "Let's see you do it, either one of you!" up the leader was on his feet, turning to address the rest of the community surrounding them, yelling at the top of his lungs with a cracking in his voice from decades of smoking cigars. "Is anybody willing to take their place? Any volunteers to save the murderer and his bastard son? Anyone!?"

"Plea...please! Somebody help!" the teenage son had cried, snotty nosed and teary eyed with his sobs rising in volume as the crowd had grown quiet. Father and son begged for a savior, but none stepped up. Many people looked at each other, hopelessness on all their faces, none of bravery, not like what Pete or Luke had shown. But even them, they weren't willing to sacrifice themselves to save a life, and neither was anybody else. Clementine was too scared to say anything. She would've been killed too, if she had.

"Just what I thought; bunch of spineless chickens. This is why you need me, this way of life. Out there, you'd all be fresh pickings for the dead," with that message left to sink for a few, Carver shouted out an order to his men at the gallows by the noosed teenager. "Drop him!"

"No!" was to be the word cried by the father and many others, and they were ignored. The wooden crates to have wobbled under the teenage boy's feet were finally knocked out from under him, and Clementine immediately looked away. She couldn't watch.

She didn't have to stay there long, Pete had made use of Carver's distraction in the watching life go out of that boy to hoist a half-conscious Luke up from the ground and helped him leave. Pete had told her to follow them, and Clementine was thankful that she did. They were lucky Carver hadn't done worse, but he would've in time; he never spared anybody for long, and after that incident, for speaking out against their leader, they had become marked. That was the way things had become, wean out the weak and deal with those that caused problems, keeping only those who would obey and conform unwilling or not. They meant nothing.

Back at their 'home' then to be a small ranch house, from her bedroom window she'd watched the crowds disperse, those two bodies hanging from the gallows. Even from such a distance and a few trees blocking the way, she could see them moving, their corpses spinning on those ropes strung up by their necks, unable to get free even in death. Clementine was terrified of the same happening to her.

From a crack in her bedroom door later that night, she was pulled away from the window by Pete and Luke's hushed voices from the living room. Their whispering signaled a conversation between the two men they didn't want her to overhear, the cue Clementine took to sneak out from her room to eavesdrop on the pair.

"This is bone, a lost cause, Luke; there's nothin' we can do for folks here. If it were just you and me I'd've rallied some people together, but there aren't enough brave men and women repellin', and this sure as hell ain't no place for a young girl. You've seen the way they've been looking at her."

"Yeah, I know but…Jesus what the fuck happened? I thought we were doin' right by comin' here…"

Clementine knew what Pete and Luke referred to, those of the strange looks some of Carver's flunkies gave her and others in the community. She'd been passing less for a boy every day, her body beginning to turn against her despite the efforts to cover herself up with baggier pants and jackets. They'd been worried she might start her period anytime too, and that was the last thing they needed happening in their situation.

Her gender never came out because they never got time to reveal it when things started to go south in the camp, believing they would be out of there soon enough after realizing how bad things were. But then they got held up, unable to leave, and then that day with people being executed, and them being on William Carver's impending death list, Pete's old plan of Clementine cross-dressing for the road worked against them like a ticking time bomb. There were few women in the camp and no babies born, because nobody wanted to have families when the dead were walking or when treated like prisoners of war. It all got brought up the week before in a mandatory 'town meeting' Carver arranged, stating that for their community to last, they had to behave like a community and do what was important for the sake of mankind. So aside from scouting for new members to lure in with false promises, he'd encouraged that couples should settle down and have families.

It was all an excuse, feeding everybody bullshit to spark the low mentality that it was a free for all for Carver's men to help themselves to anyone whether they consented or not, and with no consequences to the perpetrators, and so leading to the incident at the gallows. But it wasn't the first, she remembered hearing the odd thing, stuff that'd happened before and how Pete and Luke stopped letting her go anywhere by herself. The way others looked at her too wasn't just suspicion over her gender, there was something predatory in some of Carver's flunkies which didn't make much sense to her then, but she knew she didn't like it.

If they'd found out Clementine wasn't a boy, Carver would've used it as an excuse to kill her friends for keeping a girl on the verge of puberty hidden when there were so few women. It'd made her skin crawl thinking about it. Her time with the stranger in the Marsh House had felt like a goddamn picnic compared to that disgusting place!

Having stood in the hall, she'd watched the shadows move on the floor cast from the living room. Feet padding on carpet, there was the creak of leather and she caught sight of Luke's back from he sat down on the couch, oblivious of her presence. A damp cloth pressed to one side of his face still sore, a black eye partially swollen, he spoke to Pete, the old timer beyond her line of sight.

"So what's the plan?" Luke had asked.

Slow steps paced around in the living room, Pete answered.

"I figure we've got enough rations stockpiled here to get us by a few days between the three of us, a few more if we're careful. I say we pack up and leave tonight, and no playin' with fire tryin' to get into the armory for guns; that buildin' will be too heavily guarded now. Couldn't bribe them to slack off if we tried," the last part failed to come off as a joke. Clementine wasn't sure that it was intended as one by Pete. "We've still got our own gear we smuggled out before security got tight; they'll do us just fine 'til we can get our hands on a rifle or two."

"I hear ya, but tonight?" Luke sounded skeptical. "Pete you sure that's such a good idea after what just happened today? We should prepare—"

"I've been preparin' Luke, long before any of this." Pete had boldly replied. "I didn't take up watch duty in the early days for nothin', like you weren't for keepin' them wire cutters after they made us put up all that barbed wire on the fences. Listen, Carver's organized but he's not as smart as he thinks he is, and neither are his tin men. They've been keeping to the same routines on patrols since we got here, and with the numbers low as they are from that last supply run of theirs goin' to shit, now's the time to go."

Clementine had slipped away quietly while the conversation between the men carried on. Luke argued that a few of families or lone parents with kids more might be willing to escape with them, and that they had a moral obligation to do something to help them. But Pete wasn't swayed. He argued they couldn't afford to stick around, and that having more people with them would only create a bigger target, nor did he trust anyone else to keep their lips sealed on their plans to run.

"We can only hope they have the luck and sense to get out on their own," the old man said with some infliction, yet firm in his words. "Clementine is our responsibility, and I won't let happen to her what those bastards ought to be castrated just for thinkin'."

Shoes on, laces tied up, those words froze Clementine in place from where she was knelt in the darkness of her bedroom, the ajar door creating a beam of light spilling in. 'No,' she'd thought to herself, 'I'm not ending up like that boy.' Her young form rising up, she'd grabbed her backpack to fill with some clothes from the drawers. She left her books, her drawing pad and those coloring pencils behind; Clementine didn't need them. Their time living there was over.

The three went ahead with their escape that night after going through the plan with her a few times. They exited out the backdoor of the ranch house, passing behind the back fences of several houses along the way, those windows illuminated, but curtains drawn. They stayed cloaked in the darkness, timing their runs across the open spaces between buildings. Few were on patrol that night, the numbers short like Pete mentioned. Nobody saw them, the sky was clear, the moon half full but enough visibility was out there for the three escapees not to be running blind. The plan was working.

They reached the high metal fence without a hitch, the thing boarded up with crooked panels of wood nailed crudely into place. Luke went first, climbing up to where he took some painstakingly long minutes cutting away the barbed wire, before pulling himself over and leaping down to the other side. With a whisper from their friend that the coast was clear, so was it Clementine's turn to scale the fence.

"Over you go, kiddo," Pete coaxed quietly, with a pat of support to her shoulder. Being short as she was, Clementine was in need of the old timer giving her a boost up onto the fence; he helped with her footing too, his arms out just in case should she have fallen…

She managed the rest on her own from there on out, until part of the barb wire from the fence caught on her pant leg when going over the top. Slightly panicking, she'd tugged at her caught ankle, tearing the fabric and her own skin in the process. With a yelp, Clementine lost her grip upon her leg coming free and fell, just lucky enough that Luke's sharp reflexes led to him catching her safely below on the other side.

"Gotcha!"

Empty streets, abandoned vehicles, overgrown lawns and houses with broken windows, it was a sight unseen for months as prisoners of the camp. They were the wild lands no longer off bounds, and she had little time to take it all in. Clementine heart was pounding.

"Pete I got her, c'mon," Luke whispered out to the old hunter, the last of the trio to go. Clementine stood there listening impatiently as those wooden panels of the fence creaked and rattled against the metal as the man began his climb up, Pete confirming he was on the way.

Her blood turned to ice when somebody shouted out from inside the camp.

"Hey! What the hell you think you're doing!?"

Lights flashed from the other side, shining through the narrow gaps in the fence. A curse from Pete, the old man had hurried the rest of the way to the top, an arm coming over the fence, then the other. Just a few more seconds…

Deafening shots from an automatic weapon sounded out through the night like loud firecrackers, small chips of wood broke away from the fence in rapid bursts above her and Luke's heads, and they'd duck down for cover. It was then Clementine heard Pete cry out, looking back up just in time to see the man collapse. He'd fallen sideways, landing in the thick nettled nest of barb wire which hadn't been cut. His body became entangled in the mess, trapping their friend up on the fence like a fish in a net.

"Pete!" Luke climbed up there in a heartbeat to reach their trapped friend, wire cutters already in hand to start snipping away the coils of metal. "Hold on, I'll getcha down!"

In the darkness, patches of black stains were spreading on Pete's clothes as he hung there almost dazed on his back from where he was slumped over the fence with his rucksack of supplies tangled up with him. The shots had gone straight through him, puncturing his green coat with tears. Already Clementine had been searching around in her pockets for the bandages the old man had given her, and all on the stupid belief of patching him up from the injuries he had no hope in hell of surviving. She cursed her own naivety.

The shouting from inside Carver's camp grew louder, the sound of boots pounding on the cement coming closer towards the other side of the fence. Her and Luke's side was clear, but wouldn't have been for long; Pete came to his senses on that before either of them could, the long look he shared with her one of a dead man, accepting his fate.

His voice throaty, weak.

"Get her…out of here…"

Luke refused to listen to Pete, still fighting to cut the old man free, reduced to yanking at the mangled barbed wire he was nowhere near closer to getting rid of.

"No, no! I almost got it. You can make it!"

Skin ghost pale, a chesty cough brought up blood to dribble down Pete's bottom lip and over his chin. Gritting his teeth, the old timer had knocked the wire cutters out from Luke's hand, placing in its stead that favored hunting knife of his, the one Clementine always knew Pete for using.

He'd uttered a final plea, the sort never heard from the man.

"Quit wastin' your breath on me, boy. Just go…GO!"

More shouts from those in the camp, the lights on the other side of the fence shone brighter than ever. There were people there, so close Clementine heard them breathing. Their anger was directed on Pete, one even mocking the sight of his legs dangling up there from their side. Nothing but thin boards of chipboard wood nailed to that fence prevented her and Luke being spotted, and prevented their immediate capture.

"There's somebody else with him!" a man had yelled.

"Get the gates open now!"

Carver…

Having heard the leader's orders, Luke at last abandoned his efforts to save Pete. He'd leapt down from the fence, and upon recovering from his botched landing, he'd grabbed Clementine's arm. "We gotta go!"

Clementine had tried digging her heels into the ground to get him to stop pulling her along, but her friend was too strong. "No! No, we can't leave him!"

"We have to Clem!" Luke told her, panic-stricken. "Now move! Don't make me have to carry you!"

She never would've wished that fate on anyone except scum of the earth, but it had to be Pete all of people. The sight of his suffering never left her, of his body strung up there as he was slowly bleeding to death. Helpless he was to watch her and Luke make a run for it, before he'd let out a strangled cry, contorting in agony as Carver's men started to pull on his legs from the other side of the fence, trying to yank him through barbed wired.

That was the last Clementine saw of him.

She and Luke had taken off down an alleyway between two houses, just as the rumble of the gates sounded from further up the road. Running, running, just running that's all they'd done, keeping off the streets as much as possible, and weaving between buildings. The only times they stopped was to catch their breaths, or take out any walkers in their way. Voices shouted from some blocks away, the screech of a vehicle's wheels driving speedily around the town, trying to find them and never did. Ducking down behind a dumpster as a few armed men passed within a yards of them were as close as Carver's people came to catching the duo that night.

They made it to the outskirts a few miles away, out onto some grassy field near some farmlands that'd become overgrown with nobody to cut year in and year out. Exhausted by the distance covered, Luke collapsed over on his back and Clementine had been soon to follow, landing on her knees gasping for air.

Surrounded by the long grass, tall enough to hide them in the dark, the crickets were like old TV static, almost screaming in her ears.

"We should've stayed," She'd cried, raspy and out of breath, her vision going bleary. "Y…you asshole! We could've done something!"

Luke had wiped his brow, having looked ready to pass out. "No, no they'd've caught us for, for sure. I had to get you outta—"

"Liar! P, Pete didn't deserve that! How could you do that to him!?" Clementine had looked over her shoulder, at their trail cut through the field. "We gotta go back there. We can't just leave him!"

"No," Luke said.

"Why the hell not!?"

"Because it's too dangerous, and if Pete's still breathin' then, he...fuck, he ain't gonna be much longer. Carver'll see to that if the old man don't bleed out first; the guy's fuckin' crazy," her friend's voice cracked as he'd shakily sat up. He'd rubbed at his face, his hands cut up and red from the barbed wire. "I should've let him go first; god fuckin' dammit, it should've been me!"

"Then stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something about it, Luke! It's not too late. Why are you, why are you just sitting there!? Pete NEEDS us!" anger brought Clementine to stand, kicking her friend in the leg. He'd flinched, and nothing else, not even looking up. "You're just a big fucking coward!"

"We don't have a choice; we can't go back—"

"Yes we can—"

"No, we can't!" Luke shouted, his voice lacking of strength. In the low visibility the pain was still there to see, his palms wiping at the tears the night kept hidden in its shroud. "You don't, you don't get it Clem, you don't get none of it! We did this for YOU! We did it to keep you safe! If we go back, they'll kill me and do god knows what to…I ain't gonna let that happen!"

Clementine shook her head at the excuses.

"Then I'll go by myself," she retorted. "I'll save Pete on my own!"

"No!"

"I'm not a kid!"

"Yes you are! And even if you weren't, it don't change shit!" his face wiped on his sleeve, Luke struggled up, retrieving that once beloved hunting knife of Pete's up from the grass. "You think I wanted to leave him behind like that for those fuckin' dogs? Jesus Christ, Clem I've known Pete since I was in fuckin' preschool with Nick, over twice yer age! But he ain't comin' back from this…Pete's dead! We CAN'T help him!"

Denial, it could've been her middle name for a time. Clementine simply couldn't bear it, losing any more people after finding her parents dead, after Lee and their whole group at the Motor Inn perished. She'd looked up to Pete for guidance in those years she knew him, and after everything he'd done for her, she was unwilling to accept death could claim him as well. The only mercy he had, was dying before Carver could put him on the gallows.

"No, no you're lying…t-that's a lie..."

Headlights from a truck were sighted, appearing on a far road at the south corner of the field, the beam from the headlights were bright, the vehicle, a pickup truck unidentifiable in the night and distance to see if it's origins was one of those from William Carver's community. The direction drove from town was enough of a warning for that, the way it drove slowly along the road...

"Get down!" Luke was to have hissed, throwing her to the ground to hide with him in the grass. They'd stayed there low and still, listening to the rumble of that engine, praying with bated breath that it didn't stop.

It didn't.

There was no change to the pickup truck's speed. The red glow of its rear headlights became visible through the blades of grass to Clementine as she watched it travel down the road to somewhere at the other end of the field, away from them. The sound of that engine disappeared under the noise of the crickets shrieking all around them, where they'd stayed hidden a few minutes more, but the pickup truck never circled back, and no other vehicles went by. She and Luke weren't spotted.

She'd breathed a sigh of relief when Luke announced quietly they were okay, and she sat up on her knees beside her crouched friend, seeing nobody by the roadside, or anyone in that field in search of them.

By the time Clementine spoke, her voice too was hush.

"Was that them?"

"Probably; wouldn't put it past 'em comin' this far out of town," Luke hadn't risked standing, so neither did she. The man looking over both his shoulders until something caught his attention, he'd tapped her shoulder to point it out the blacken silhouette of pylons going across farmlands into some woods. "We should head over that way; need to cover as much ground while the night's on our side. Gotta put as much distance between us and them as we can so we don't get cut off, understand?"

No going back, no rescue for Pete.

Pete was gone.

"Yeah…I got it…"

In those moments of silence Clementine internally fought to overcome the urge to cry anymore and prioritize on survival, she'd heard the somber voice of her friend, and saw Pete's knife appear in her line of vision.

"Here," Luke had taken her lightly by the wrist and placed the weapon in her hand, closing her fingers around the blade's handle. "Take it; it's yours now."

Carefully Clementine pulled the knife out from its leather sheath, the blade bulky in her small grip. It was a gift she'd wished was bestowed by Pete himself, not on his deathbed by somebody else.

Holding it, gave her some strength.

"But…what about you?"

The sad smile shown to her, Luke had pointed a thumb to the machete on his back. "I'll get by; dontcha worry."

They went cross-country for a few days, stopping off at some stores and houses here and there to replenish supplies they lost from Pete. They never really escaped, just jumped into another lion's den. Still they were to look over their backs for weeks afterwards, expecting to be recaptured and dragged back to that hellhole kicking and screaming, but that was to be the last they saw of William Carver and his camp, and to this day they made sure to stay out of Virginia.

Nearly three weeks later, they met Jane.

---

Electric power cables on pylons, they wobbled in the breeze above their heads; some cables some were detached, lying like long dead snakes among the old railway tracks. No electricity coursed through them, and no trains ran; it was the same story told time and again, yet one railway pylon drew something of interest. There were magpies; a pair of them sat high on their perch next to a mass collection of sticks and feathers to form a bird's nest atop of that metal structure.

Clementine wouldn't call it home in a thunderstorm.

"There's a nest up there."

"Oh?" In a short space of time, her dawdling friend arrived to stand on those tracks beside her, tilting his head upwards to the birds. Knapsack over one shoulder, his posture bore a slouch that couldn't be ignored. Weeks on, wounds were healing, but not well enough. Carrying himself like an injured man, with much more to be concealed by poor efforts, Luke wasn't to full health. They left the station depot too soon, she knows. Dumb Pinocchio and his insistence.

One magpie squawked at them, flapping its wings, with its other mate distracted grooming its own feathers. Their nest was old, sagging against the beams of the railroad pylons on having fallen into disrepair. It wasn't too high up to risk a climb.

"Do you think there are any eggs? Clementine asked.

Luke gave a shake of his head. "Wouldn't reckon so, no; not this late in the year."

Go away empty handed? Not a good enough answer, not to the hungry. Some searching around on the ground, Clementine picked up a fist-sized rock, took aim and swung with her best throwing arm.

CAW!

The magpie grooming itself took flight and fled, the other didn't make such a hasty escape. The rock smashed it on the head and knocked the magpie off from its perch. Down the bird went with the pitiful flutter of its wings, spinning like a broken kite, and was dead before it hit the ground in a twitching feathery ball.

Her friend's eyes were wide in his sockets.

"Oh come on! How'd you even…no fuckin' way!"

Clementine felt herself smile, releasing a chuckle while taking a nonchalant stroll over to claim the prize. The magpie's body was warm, head rolling limply when picked up; a wound was exposed red under those small jet black feathers on its skull, its wings and tails feathers so blue and shiny, soft. Not much of a meal, but it would do.

'Sorry little guy,' she willed it to hear, as if sending the message through the gentleness of her touch.

"We can't eat that," Luke said.

Over one shoulder, Clementine turned to her friend, a good mood snuffed out from the disapproval directed upon her.

"Why not?" she challenged.

The man's jaw tightened.

"The crows, Clem," Luke replied.

Images manifested, black feathery birds with long pointy beaks, pecking at the sockets of trapped corpses in a car wrecks, flesh ripped, organs exposed, and still the dead groaned and croaked, pawing uselessly at the crows devouring them piece by piece. Carriers, tainted meat like rats, like other predators or animals that may feast upon the dead…

Her heart sank.

"I killed it for nothing?"

Those brown eyes softened at her with no answer given. Luke said enough without breathing a word.

Clementine laid the dead bird down, the care in her actions meaningless.

"Shit."

"It's okay, we'll find somethin' else," Luke gave as encouragement, just as meaningless to her. The lone surviving magpie squawked, flying circles above their heads. Some minutes later, while some ways off down the track, a glimpse back resulted in a stab to Clementine's conscience on noticing the same magpie had landed by its dead mate. Guilt wasn't a friend.

Railway tracks that never ended, railroad crossings, train stations as abandoned as trains and their carriages, with creaking bridges, and dingy tunnels…little new appeared in their path other than the scenery. They had followed the tracks down south, to where they led them out of state from Kentucky into Tennessee. Clementine suggested for the time being, her friend not being fit to take on much to do with the dangers towns and cities were often fraught with. Less time to scavenge and more spent foraging, using snares overnight when finding someplace to rest; the best meals they caught were some rabbits, but a few fields by the tracks brought them good fortune. In one instance they found an overgrown orchard with unpicked pears, and in another with corn growing among the high weeds and other wild plants in a long disused field nobody was tending to. She and Luke stocked up on what they could physically carry, and all of it was consumed in those weeks, and so once again hunger drove them. Could a day go by without the thought of food in mind? Cannibals; Clementine was amazed there weren't more.

Fall was now upon them and her birthday not far from it. The trees were beginning to change, bright colors of gold and auburn popping out against the greens on those branches, with a variety of pinecones and dead leaves on the ground. That's where their next food source was to be found, within many of those very pinecones. They cracked them open on some rocks, and ate a small handful of those nuts inside to keep them going, while storing anymore they picked up along the way for later.

Hours to pass, those overgrown railway tracks brought them to a metal bridge built straight over a ravine. It still held up well, both sturdy and safe enough to cross. The sound of running water brought the she and Luke to a stop, the pair leaning over the rivet-steel beams to inspect the river below. With their water supplies near empty, and the river being accessible to reach via a descent down a not-so-steep slope of the valley, it was to be perfect timing.

"What do ya think?" Luke asked, fingers drumming on one of the struts above his head. "Reckon it's worth a dip?"

Clementine pulled out the small hand-sized telescope from her denim jacket, checking one side of the bridge to the other to scope out the tree line of the valley along the ravine. She didn't see any threats, living or dead; all good signs. The water looked clean from up here, but the high slopes of the ravine, with the narrowness of the river, and the surrounding woodland dense with trees and underbrush…the pair would have to be astute.

Her trusty telescope was pocketed away.

"I reckooon, you stink," Clementine said, her boots giving a clunk with every step on that the metal bridge, a brisk walk picking up to a jog to leave her friend in the dust. "But I call dibs first!"

"Hey!"

Their scramble down to the river was one dealt by with little difficulty other than the nettles to sting at their hands and the ferns to get in the way; it would be an easy climb back up the rocks, with nothing to fret about. After better assessing the area ground level and refreshing themselves some water made drinkable, they did what was common practice when washing out in the open. Having called dibs, Luke remained on watch over towards woods on their side of the river, staying some distance away with his back respectfully turned to give Clementine the privacy she needed. While she bathed, she kept an eye on the opposite shoreline, and the railroad bridge suspended high over to her left. Fortunate it was the river was not deep enough to carry walkers in its currents, leaving one less worry off her mind.

The water was chilled as always, the dreams of hot showers and baths nothing but that, dreams. Going weeks at a time without washing, wearing the same clothes until they stunk of sweat, skin grimy and hair greasy, it was the norm. Rejuvenating it was to finally wash all the dirt away, to stop stinking of shit. She could scrub her skin raw.

"So, why Tybee Island?"

Nearly done changing into those clothes to be considered clean, consisting of a shirt and her only other pair of jeans, Clementine stopped in the midst of doing up her belt.

"What do you mean?"

Sat down on one of the large rocks as he'd been for a while, back still turned, Luke was cutting some wire, a small wheel of the material carried on them for snare traps currently being prepared.

"Just curious, why now all of a sudden?" he asked. "And that place in particular? Yer folks take ya to Tybee?"

"A few times, yeah."

"Ah…"

The tantō blade slipped onto her belt, the strings tied around and secured, Clementine retrieved those fingerless gloves. Tugging at the loose thread of stitching holding together the dark leather, words became lodged in her throat.

"They, um….we used to go there the same time as Savannah on vacation. We'd drive out the Tybee Island a couple of days on our trip and just, do what families would do. We'd spend hours at the beach there, sometimes all day; I remember there was this old lighthouse with a museum, and there was this pier too that we always walked to the end of and look out to sea from. It was all open water out there, nothing like Savannah." Clementine slipped her gloves on, the left, then right, pressing the buttons into place with a click. "I used to love the flavors of ice creams they had at this one restaurant in Tybee, or…no, no I think it was a coffee shop, or an ice cream parlor maybe? I don't know, but we always ate outside. They made the best sundaes, like these strawberry and raspberry ones with all these chocolate sprinkles on top; Dad always went for vanilla and cherries, and Mom, she…"

Clementine brought herself to a stop, her enthusiasm dying under how mundane her own words sounded back to her. A hairbrush with a missing handle snatched up from her backpack, she combed through her hair and repeated, nosily breaking the matted strands farther apart each time.

She cursed herself. "It's stupid."

"It's not," Luke said.

"It is. I sound like a dumb kid," rougher brushstrokes, the tangles were pulled away, her scalp hurting. "I don't even know why I wanna go."

"Cause it's important…you wouldn't've bothered mentionin' it otherwise, y'know?" Luke answered, his optimism and empathy too pure. "You need to see it, we'll go. Gone the distance for places before; what's one more?"

So many sights seen, drifting through states and beyond that into Canada; five years going wherever the road led them, with nothing to show for it other than the blusters on their feet and the deteriorating photographs in their memories. And six years before that, were the times rarely spoken of that screamed in her soul to be let out.

A side parting on her scalp made from several comb strokes, her hair was twisted and tied into a bun, low and messy. A few strands set free in front of her ears, Clementine fetched up her baseball cap, rubbing a thumb over the D holding well in its place. She fitted the cap back on, speaking aloud.

"Jane, she'd've said it was stupid," the words were too loud, even for thoughts. Clementine bit her own tongue.

Peace and serenity found in that ravine were an illusion, stretching on for too long. A glimpse over to a friend still to be sat on that rock, still cutting more wire and twisting metal, while his back remained a wall with ears deaf. Faceless and unreadable, what was never chosen to be heard never existed...

Luke said nothing. He always, said nothing.

Turning away, her head slanted sideways to the river, the crystal clear water rippling by those currents doing nothing to cleanse away those frustrations stacked up in her mind. A bag swung over her shoulder, her denim jacket in one hand and boots carried by their strings in the other, she stepped barefoot on rocks and onto dirt, to where her friend resided. His need to wash more potent in the air around him now Clementine no longer carried such an odor.

Belongings dumped, it got Luke's attention, the face to greet her tinged with a sadness he was lousy for masking. She didn't act on it. Ignoring it was what Clementine did best, and what he preferred.

"I'm done. It's your turn," She said.

---

Rivers, streams—they were the lifelines that warded off thirst and dehydration. A person couldn't live without water. A person couldn't live without a lot of things.

Hygiene was a necessity, alongside the need for clothes to be washed. They were to do all that once her friend was done cleaning himself up in the river, with his hair no longer straggly or skin dirty, but exhaustion long set into that gaze of his with few words spoken…the blame hers. The exhaustion would go, but it was still her fault.

The sun held its status in the sky in those hours with little overcast, the day down in the ravine warm but breezy enough that it would in time dry those pieces of clothing left to hang on a tree near the river. Shirts, jeans, socks to even underwear, they flapped in the breeze on those branches like torn sails on a boat, the sight almost giving Clementine some amusement. Once her set were dry, she'd change and wash the clothes she had on next like Luke would with his own, but it would be a few hours yet.

While setting up the snares a little up river, they were fortunate in foraging some wild berries to eat and properly prepared with the last seeds from those pine cones. On seeing a squirrel during their foraging, the thoughts of firearms came to mind again, of the pistol her friend kept on him. They needed ammunition, something to go hunting with properly, and for protection….

Now back at their temporary place of camp, with food now in their bellies, Clementine chose to stand on the rocks, the water from the river feeling cool on her bare feet upon abandoning her boots again. The narrow ravine created almost a tunnel for the wind to travel through, refreshing enough to breathe in the smell of the woods deeply. To be there and taking in the scenery, it was something they didn't do enough of. There were few times outdoors they could truly relax, but it was peaceful along this stretch of the river. No walkers, no stench of death, just fresh air where birds sang their tunes in the high trees, where insects danced over the water's surface. It was a small oasis with nothing to disturb it. Clementine could stand here and never leave, existing in only in the beauty of this place…. but soon the road would call again, and they would move on like they always did, and her joints would ache just a little more answering that call.

Between the rocks a little upstream, Clementine spotted movement. There was a school of small fish below the surface of the water, chords of sunlight reflecting off their scales—trout they looked to be.

"He…hey Luke, Luke over there; there's fish."

With the scrapping of a blade to cease, the machete was sheathed with a whetstone left behind on the ground as her friend got up and strolled over.

"Where?"

Clementine pointed them out as soon as he was standing by the shore with her. "Down over by the rocks there, you see?"

Luke raised his arm up, shielding his eyes from the intensity of the sunlight bouncing off the water. The smile in his voice was welcomed after the previous stark silence between them with little spoken. "I see 'em...hah, shame we don't have those fishin' rods no more; they'd've come in handy."

Like lightning in a bottle it had to be done: to do the reckless and bring him some cheer.

Food was just the bonus.

"Fishing rods are for amateurs," Clementine scoffed and one by one, she rolled up the sleeves on her shirt and the legs on her jeans, and into the water she walked.

"C'mon, not this again," Luke said after a sigh, doing nothing to stop her from wading into the shallow river. "Will ya give it a rest? You can't catch a fish with yer bare hands."

"Pete did it, I saw," Clementine retorted in defiance, moving upstream.

"I don't care if Pete did it; you ain't no fish whisperer yerself," Luke said for amusement. "Proven that time and again."

"Well I'll do better this time, I will," closer Clementine slowly crept in on the unsuspecting fishes like a cat on the prowl, her legs gliding smoothly through the water with little resistance. She spoke in a loud whisper back to shore. "Now shut up. I can do this, you'll see."

"Fallin' down on yer ass and gettin' soaked? Sure, never gets old," Luke debunked, and with not a single break of eye contact from the trout, Clementine flipped him the bird. Laughter was the craved response finally gotten out of him, strained and short, but nothing forced. A knock on effect was brought forth from it from within herself. It cheered her up, and he was more himself again.

Mission accomplished.

Snap

Twigs breaking, somewhere in the woods nearby, it broke all her focus on the fish. Luke heard it too, turning just as she did to the dense underbrush and trees covering the steep slope of that ravine. Near the sound's origins, enough time there was for Clementine to sight a figure stood out by one of the trees, a woman with skin dark, hair gray and with a blue cloth worn over her head…a headscarf?

A bow was raised in the woman's arms, the string drawn back with an arrow pointed directly at—

The projectile sliced through the air at Luke, her friend just narrowly avoiding the arrow as it came inches from impaling itself in his neck. "Holy—the fuck!?"

Slipping on the rocks upon moving, Clementine fell forward in the water, struggling up faster on noticing that woman pulling another arrow out from quiver strapped to her back.

"Luke, get down! Get behind cover, now!"

Her friend hesitated, obeying once seeing Clementine already speedily moving for cover herself. Luke made a run for it too before the female archer could shoot again, cobbles kicked up as he skidded behind one of the stone piers supporting the railway bridge. Two arrows were fired from two different trajectories seconds before he reached safety, one missing Luke by a hair and the other going far off its mark into the water.

More than one archer was out there.

"Shit!"

Trudging in haste through the shallow water, one arrow grazed Clementine's back before she found refuge of her own. There was a slice of pain as it skimmed the skin, but she wasn't to cry out.

Clementine dropped down behind some large rocks at the river's edge, where she sunk her body low into the water. The sound of another arrow whizzed through the air over her head and she ducked down even lower, tucking her arms and legs in to keep herself out of firing range.

The low impact of an arrow clipping off some stone near her friend, a curse rang out from the man.

"Luke!"

"I-I'm okay. Just stay down!"

She couldn't see him from there to be sure on his word. Clementine's common sense to put her gear back on did little in their favor. Blades were no match against arrows, and it was too risky to make a run for it, not enough cover to even try.

Not this again, not so soon.

Somebody spoke out, a woman with a heavy foreign accent.

"You're surrounded! Come out with your hands up, the both of you!"

Luke shouted immediately back at the female stranger. "So you can play target practice with our skulls some more? Forget it!"

"Come out now!" the woman shouted again, more aggressive.

"Leave us the hell alone!" Clementine yelled out, her body shivering from being submerged in the cold water so promptly, while her blood boiled, fuming. "Just let us go, okay? We'll get out of your hair and you won't see us again!"

A different voice answered this time, coming from the archer's side of the river also. It was a man, his tone gravelly, old. "You ain't going nowhere! Just make this easy on yourselves and do what we say!"

Clementine's eyes darted to the trees on the other side of the river, up to what was seeable of the steeps ascent out of the ravine. She searched, waiting for others to reveal or announce themselves, anticipating any moment for an arrow or bullet to end her life. They were sitting ducks out here!

Her heart raced, the blood pounding in her ears. "Surrender? You fucking shot at us!"

"Look it don't have to be this way!" Luke said. "We ain't lookin' for a fight! We've got no quarrel with you or yer people!"

The same tactic as before with the bandits, to talk things out peacefully; rarely did it ever work.

An answer came, the same gravelly voiced man from before. "Too bad! You and your bitch ain't going nowhere!"

Breathing lowered, Clementine listened, the clarity of her hearing disrupted by the chattering of her teeth and the rushing of the river. Her body shook uncontrollably as her mind honed in on memories that couldn't be found in the familiarity of that man's voice she couldn't place.

"Now this is how it's gonna work," the same male stranger announced, "You're gonna throw on over that little peashooter of yours and the other weapons on ya, and then you and your girl are gonna come out here with your hands behind your head, real slowly."

The beretta Luke took from the old bandit bitch, the gun strapped to his leg in the holster without any bullets. A trick once to have fooled them both weeks before, worked here in their favor…for now.

"No!" Her friend yelled from his place of cover behind the cement column. "Just me; leave her out of this!"

"Luke!"

"Throw down your weapons now!" The archer woman with the accent yelled again.

"You first lady!" Luke yelled back. "We ain't movin'!"

"Why can't you just let us go!?" Clementine pleaded, her back pressed closer against the rocks, a sting resonating down her shoulder blade. "We don't wanna hurt anybody! What the hell is your problem!?"

"Our problem? You're trespassing, that's the problem!" was the male stranger's snarky answer. "And if you think we're going to cut you loose so you can bring more of your fucktard friends back here, then you're living in a daydream sweetheart!"

Familiarity again, the past beckoning her, sticking a voice to a face. Her limbs tightened up.

"Who are you?" Clementine called out, "Tell me your name!"

"That's no business of yours; we're not telling you anything!" amusement and anger rolled off the man's tongue. "Now, both of you do as I say or—"

"Kenny?"

No more. The strangers were quiet for a second…two…three. An urgency tearing at her from the inside, Clementine called out again.

"Kenny is that you!?"

"How'd you know that name?" demanded the man. "Oh I see, you've been spying on us, just been waiting around here to pick us off!"

Clementine's heart pounded faster. "No! No, no Kenny, it's me! It's Clementine!"

In silence she waited, and then…

"T-That's a lie! A fucking lie, you hear me!?" The man yelled.

"No, it's not! It's me Kenny, I swear it! IT'S ME!"

"Then prove it! Show yourself right now!" she heard something click, a weapon of some kind. Stones crunched underfoot near to the shore. "Come out! And no funny business, or I'll put an arrow right between your eyes!"

"Clem, no! Don't listen to him! You don't know it's the same guy!" Luke warned. "He's trickin' you! Just stay where you are!"

"Shut it, twinkle toes!" The man shouted, that horse tone cracking. "I give the orders, not you! Now get out here girl!"

"O-Okay, okay I'm coming out! Just don't shoot!" Clementine slid her numb body up to a crouch, her trembling hands raised. Shakily she stood, fearing every passing second to be her last after moving out from cover. 'Please let him recognize me,' she prayed within her thoughts, 'let it be him.'

Her body wobbled from small stones sliding out from under her feet in the riverbed, just able to steady herself each time. Hands remaining held up above her head, slowly did Clementine turn, spotting Luke behind one pier of the bridge, his back against the cement column, eyes wide and fearful.

'Get down!' he said to her desperately, his voice low and barely audible.

She didn't listen.

There was a metallic crossbow aimed directly at her, held in the hands of an old man stood on the shore by her and Luke's stuff. He wore a green plaid shirt, worn and faded from age, with his gray hair long and unruly as his beard, triggering thoughts of the jolly man in a red suit. His wasn't big, not in the least; the man's hands on the crossbow were thin and bony, his body frail, slightly hunch over the weapon. That old orange and white cap was immediately recognizable, as were the features upon his face. Dark eyes squinted at her, or rather one did, for the left glinted with a milky cream color in its lens…cataracts.

The years hadn't been kind, and shock it was to see him this way, who he had become. It was no mistaken identity, and there was no mistaking that old fisherman for somebody else, not in a long shot.

It took Kenny a few seconds, glaring at her with such suspicion, until something registered in his gaze to cause his eyes to grow wide in disbelief. The aggression all but washed away from his face, that crossbow slowly lowered down and nearly slipping from his fingers. His lips quivered, her name breathlessly uttered out.

"Cl…Clem…?

She was speechless no more. She couldn't stay put any longer. Pushing through the water onto the shore with everything she had, Clementine stumbled bare foot onto rocks to stab at her feet. Her arms went around the man the instance she reached him, and her heart burst when she finally did.

"Kenny! Oh my God, Kenny!"

She held him so close, real flesh and blood. The tears fell and couldn't be controlled as the years receded to the Motor Inn, the group of strangers whose names she struggled at times to recall. The boy called Duck and his blonde-haired mother who was always kind, and the man with the funny moustache who once shared some of his rations with her and his son when food was short.

Kenny's body remained wooden as a statue in her arms, but not for very long for whatever trance-like state on him was soon broken, the clunk of the bowgun being dropped on the ground soon to be followed by the warm touch of his arms wrapping around her back. He pulled her towards in a tightly held embrace, as if his life depended on keeping her with him, his frame shaking as she heard those sobs shuddered out against her hair.

"Clem….Clementine…what on God's earth are you doing out here?"

"Me? What are you doing here? I thought you were dead!" Clementine cried freely, her vision blotchy, face pressing against her old friend's shirt. "I tried, tried to look for you, but I couldn't find, f-find anyone! You were all gone! Oh God, I thought I was the only one left!"

"You and me both darling," Kenny replied, voice hoarse and broken. Uncaring of how soaked she was from the river, he still chose to squeeze her tightly, refusing to let her go. "Jesus my eyes, I couldn't…Christ, Clem I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was—"

"F-Forget it; I'm okay," her arms loosened around the old man. She checked over behind her, feeling relief by Luke stepping from hiding, cautious but unharmed. "We're both fine."

"It's a miracle; a God damn miracle, that's what you are!" Gently pulling her away, she saw Kenny's eyes red from crying, the tears falling freely into his unkempt beard. A hand went to her shoulder, the other pawing at her face as he looked her over with the smile of a proud parent. "Look at you, you're all grown up!"

The comment brought laughter out from her. "That's what happens after thirteen years, Kenny."

"That's how long it's been? Hell, you kept track better than us; don't know what year it is no more." Happiness so strong it cracked the lines on Kenny face, those arms encircled around Clementine again, pulling her into the embrace she sunk back into as the man chortled with laughter. "God, it's great to see you again. I feel like I'm in some dream right now."

"Me too," Clementine breathed in the smell of tobacco off the man, his beard tickling the side of her face. Eyes reopening at the sound of rustling leaves, from over Kenny's shoulder, Clementine saw the female archer with the faded blue headscarf slowly making her approach through the underbrush to where they were.

Middle-aged and younger than Kenny, the woman was Indian perhaps, or perhaps not. Clothed black from her sweater down to her boots, that bow of hers was unstrung and held in one hand alone. Awareness was upon the woman's features, remaining guarded in the way that she moved, how she studied Clementine and to Luke slightly further back, with an untrustworthy gaze to dart back and forth between them.

Nobody else emerged.

Clementine withdrew from the embrace, searching Kenny's face. "Wait, what about the others? Lee told me to look for Christa and that man, her boyfriend, but I couldn't track them down. Are they…is Ben…?"

"Haven't a clue where the couple went and got to; didn't see them again after we were separated. That girl, Molly, took off on her own right before you…well…and Ben, he's dead; I had to take care of him myself so the dead didn't get him first," A look spared passed Clementine, seeking more than the lone friend in her company, Kenny's question bore some hope. "What about Lee? Did he make it?"

"It's okay, you can leave me…"

The man so much like her father, dying handcuffed to a radiator in a ransacked jewelry store, the smell of blood on his clothes and of the infection from the stump on his arm. The thought of Lee like that plagued her like everything.

"He's gone. Lee got to me just in time before... I had to leave him, in Savannah." The tears wiped away with the palm of her hand, the words almost lodged in her throat. "My parents are dead too. We found them right after Lee saved me. They were… there wasn't anything I could do. I had to find a way out of the city on, on my own."

Kenny gaze lost its focus upon her, averting away as they filled with the remorse and grief Clementine shared too well with the man in those circumstances they were victims of. Too many were dead, too many good people who deserved better. Life had played a cruel game on them all.

"I'm sorry Clementine, I am. I should've been there for ya, girl; not like I didn't try— I did," the old timer said, crouching down to scoop up his crossbow from the ground with a stiff back. "Made it to that Marsh House once the walkers cleared out in that part of Savannah. Did a sweep of the hotel but I didn't find shit except for corpses and bars of soap. Had no idea where you or Lee were; thought maybe the two of were…shit, you saw how it was Clem, all those dead hanging around."

The streets filled with the dead passing by the window of a speeding car; that hotel room and the voice of that deranged stranger; the pain from her hair being pulled as she was dragged into the bathroom and locked inside…the memories demand it be put away in a box and kept there.

Kenny's hand gently rested on Clementine shoulder, giving it a squeeze. His face wore sincerity, a relieved smile honest in all its truth; it was a stark contrast to the hostility displayed at her from before, yet it was still all the familiar remnants of a man she knew as a child at the Motor Inn.

"You're here, that's what matters now. Can't tell you how happy it makes me seeing you still with the living, darling. I'm glad you made it out."

No words could be found to answer back, for guilt twisted in Clementine's gut. It was all on her, everything that happened in Savannah, she was responsible.

They were things, that were better left unsaid.

"Honey?" the foreign woman stood at a distance, eagle-eyed as ever with her tone unsteady, seeking of reassurance.

"Aw shit, where are my manners? C'mere, come on," grinning, Kenny eagerly beckoned the woman over, wrapping a loving arm around that female archer as she went to stand beside him. "Clem, this is Sarita, my other half."

The woman, Sarita, strained a nervous smile, her shoulders tense from the contact by her partner. "Kenny has…I'm, I-I apologize for how we reacted. We weren't sure if you were good people," she was to say, holding her bow in front of her, knuckles white. "The world's such a dangerous place; it makes us jumpy whenever we see new faces and... I'm so sorry."

Clementine's hand brushed against Pete's knife strapped to her thigh, lightly to stroking at the leather sheath. The sting from fresh tears was fought.

"Yeah, I know."

Peering past her, Kenny's eyes set themselves on the man hanging back from the trio. "Who's your friend there? Luke, was it, I heard ya call him?"

From his name being spoken, Luke was triggered into motion, and so did he close the remaining distance, watchful of the couple and the surrounding ravine behind them.

"Uh-huh. He and a man named Pete found me after Savannah and took care of me; it's just us now. Luke practically raised me." Clementine turned her head towards her friend, giving him the once over with her eyes, relaxing more from finding no noticeable injuries. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Luke assured, his voice expressing coldness within it while his gaze remained directed upon the couple.

Kenny caught it, a squinted look held briefly on the man. "Sorry about all that. Like the missus said, didn't mean to go pulling scare tactics on the pair of you. We've not met any friendlies in a long time; mostly been just ourselves in these neck of the woods," the old timer rubbed the arm of his partner affectionately from where he still held Sarita. "Have it do it though, to protect ourselves; can't blame us being too careful out here."

"Careful, right…"

The urge resisted to jab Luke with an elbow for his behavior, Clementine scoped the ravine they were in and quizzically chose instead to ask: "Just the two of you? You mean there's nobody else here?"

"Hah, no no, just us," Kenny chortled, "It's charade of ours we cooked up to scare off any hostiles; works like a charm every time. Hope we didn't scare ya both too much; know my Sarita can be fierce, a real lioness."

The woman in question responded to this with nothing other than a fragile smile, eyes flicking up on the occasional glance to the pair of travelers, then down again. Sarita remained a mute, a bag of nerves.

"So where're you two hunkered down?" Luke asked. "You just campin' out here or…"

"Camping? God no! We've got a watermill a few miles down river; was a real shanty thing until we fixed it up and fortified the place. Ain't much to look at, but it's our homestead," with a pause, a grin set itself upon Kenny's aged features as he looked towards Clementine with enthusiasm. "Shit, why bother telling you about it? You'll come and see it for yourselves; we've got a lot to catch up on." He chuckled, looking so alive. "Jesus, can't even believe I'm saying that! W-We've gotta celebrate!"

The old man's laughter was contiguous. Clementine couldn't stop smiling, so ecstatic. Surreal...it really was.

"K-Kenny," Sarita rested a hand over her partner's chest, her gaze a searching one held upon Kenny until something registered, an intangible emotion in his eyes. He scratched at his scraggy beard, wiping his lips.

"Right, I…give us a minute, Clementine; need to have a talk with the missus; won't take long."

"Um, yeah sure."

But it did take long. The couple had walked a little up the river and out of earshot to talk, and that they were for several minutes and counting. Clementine couldn't hear what was being discussed, but through the tone of their voices and through body language, it was obvious they were arguing about something. Sarita appeared the most stressed of the pair, the woman pacing and on the verge of tears.

Kenny was right, they weren't used to friendlies.

"This is a bad idea."

The opinion was unwelcomed, as was the skepticism Luke still displayed towards the couple as he watched them.

"And why is that?" Clementine asked defensively.

Luke turned to her, speaking in a low voice as before. "Clem, they just tried to kill us! Don't pretend like that shit didn't happen, 'cause I ain't exactly forgettin' in a hurry."

The dull stinging from the scratch on her back registered again, the fear from their dice with death still in her veins.

"They didn't mean it, okay?" Clementine reasoned, she too keeping her voice down. "Kenny said so, they were trying to scare us; they didn't know who we were."

"Scare us?" Luke repeated. "You call nearly gettin' shot at by arrows tryin' to fuckin' scare us!?"

"They apologized!"

"And that makes everythin' peachy? Clem, somethin's wrong here!"

"There's…will you stop!? It's not like that. They're not shady!" Clementine glanced over at the couple, ensuring they weren't listening. They weren't, the pair still chatting in a heated debate. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the autumn chill more now in that ravine with her being clothes soaked. "You think I wasn't scared? I nearly shit myself…but God— Luke, it's Kenny, Kenny! not some fucking rapist bandit. He's a friend; we can trust him."

"That was thirteen years ago, people change, Clem" Luke argued, a tad restrained. "And you said so yourself, he weren't sound of mind last ya saw of him. How d'ya know it's any different now?"

Clementine held her tongue, silenced by the memory of Kenny slumped drunk on the couch, drinking from a whole huge bottle of whiskey; of the death threats the man threw at Ben in the school as he was restrained like a wild animal. As a child in those times, Clementine was frightened, fearful enough she couldn't speak with the man anymore she once trusted. Seeing him there now, hushing Sarita over something beyond her and Luke's range of hearing while he tenderly cupped the woman's face, Clementine couldn't…

"He lost his family, Luke," she said, rubbing her arms to generate heat. "You and I both know what that's like, what it does."

Luke's jaw tightened, those brows furrowing over the complexity of things he wouldn't share. Instead, the man chose to turn his attention back to watch the couple. Kenny was saying something, but Sarita was shaking her head to it, her grip unyielding on that wooden bow of hers between them. Sympathy for the woman wasn't beyond Clementine's limits.

"I don't know if I can do this again; not after last time." Luke admitted lowly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, they seem alright, but…"

With a quickened heartbeat, Clementine dug her fingernails into the sleeve of her shirt, retracting some digits when she accidentally applied pressure to the sensitive stitching on her arm. "That won't happen again, not with them."

"Maybe you're right on that, but we're better off by ourselves." Luke said, the doubt in his words driving her forward, lightly touching his elbow.

"Luke please, give them a chance. Kenny's not a saint, but he's still a good guy; I'd stake my life on that. And any friend of Kenny's is a friend of ours," Clementine hesitated, racking her brain. "Please, just do it for me. Okay?"

Her pleads had some effect. He pursed his lips, those seeking eyes narrowing thoughtful with the cogs in his head turning. Luke came to his decision, as he'd exhaled a breath, sounding defeated.

"Alright, we'll play it your way."