21/10/2014 Note: Sorry for the quality of this chapter. It was written in under an hour without the help of a co-author, so I'll update it later. Thank you for reading!

"Stop! It's over!" Clementine shrieked.
The pair of them, grappling on the ground, did not hear her. That, or they refused to listen. Jane held her own, pinning Kenny down and stabbing her finger forth. The grunts and cries from Kenny made Clementine cringe, and she tried again, more frustrated and in a desperate and high-pitched cry: "Listen to me!"
Jane pushed down forward, receiving an anguished cry from Kenny: "Get 'er off!" He yelled.
Seeing the point where Jane's elbow bent, Clementine jumped at the chance to lunge forward and grab her by the arm, giving a sharp and insistent tug. Jane fell back, gasping and trying to catch her breath. She clutched at her elbow for the moment, and Clementine made the mistake of thinking it was over. Kenny flipped over and, with the knife he still gripped, he jabbed in a quick motion, sinking the blade into Jane's thigh.
"Aiigh!"
The force was enough to strike down the already injured Clementine, and she hit the ground a little ways from the pair. She could hear their struggles, their insults, their swears. "Damn babykiller!" Her vision blurred, and the only thing she could see in front of her...was her gun. Clementine could already feel the cold wetness against her shoulder where Arvo's bullet had struck. And there was only one thing she could do.
"dammit!" Clementine heard Jane yell. Clementine desperately made an attempt to get up, but an overwhelming sense of weakness swamped her. She fell back to the ground, clenching her teeth and gripping her shoulder. But, through the haze, she saw Kenny get the advantage. The bigger man seized the knife and lunged on top of Jane, prepared to stab down. Jane barely managed to bracer herself underneath, fending off his arms with upraised hands. Kenny's hateful words came through bared teeth: "I'll kill you!"
"I...knew you would..."
Clementine summoned the remainder of her strength and weakly grabbed out for the gun. Hesitantly, she seized in both hands and lifted up the point of it so that it was facing the pair. Facing Kenny.
"Please. Please..." Clementine begged. Tears had sprung to her eyes, streaming down her frozen cheeks. There showed no signs of halting.
"Clem...help..."
She couldn't do it.
She couldn't pull the trigger.
She turned her head and closed her eyes, waiting for the end.
And it came, with a sharp cry of pain, and the sound of the blade sinking into flesh. Clementine's shoulders flinched slightly and she trembled, the tears icy cold on her face. After several moments Clementine shakily lifted her head and slowly opened her eyes. Wet tears were already streaming down her cold cheeks, running down to her jaw. They would freeze to her face in a matter of minutes, but that did not matter to Clementine.
Kenny had fallen back, covering his face with his blood-soaked hands. Jane lay a little ways from him, but she did not move. Her hands were thrown out at her sides, and her face tilted up to the sky. Her eyes were thrown wide, and curious. 'Like she was watching a bird.' Clementine could see the hilt of the knife embedded in her chest, and she hardly resisted a cry of distress. How could this happen?
Weakly, Clementine looked at the distraught Kenny, unable to do anything. She still had her gun out, the tip pointed towards the snowy ground.
Jane was dead...because she'd been too afraid to shoot. This wasn't supposed to happen!

Clementine pulled herself up to her feet, glancing at Jane's motionless shape. Her lip quivered slight, and her gaze averted itself over to where Kenny lay. "Kenny!" She whimpered, drawing closer with the gun at her side.
Kenny did not move for several moments. But, when he did, he removed his hand from his remaining good eye and came up into a sitting position. He braced his other bloodied hand against the ground and looked up, up into Clementine's face as she had now gotten to her feet.

"AJ…he's gone, Clem." The man croaked, in a tone as though he could not believe what had just happened. "She…she just…how could she do that? Oh, Jesus…He's gone…He's…"

Without warning, Clementine's expression suddenly faded to an angry grimace. Her eyes filled with despair, the gun was lifted and pointed at Kenny's head. She said no words. Tears were frozen to her face, and her mouth set in an upset and angry grimace. She did not lower the gun, and her intent was clear. Anyone could see it in her eyes.
Kenny knew it. He betrayed no shock, no emotion. A heartbeat passed, and he said in a broken voice: "Do it. Just...just do it."
Clementine, though startled by his reaction, said nothing. Her hand did not tremble. She placed a finger on the trigger coldly and, without hesitation, she slowly squeezed it.
The silence after the noise of the gun being fired was almost peaceful.

It was a start, to awake again. There was the quick feeling of falling and then, heart pounding, Clementine's eyes snapped open.

She was awake—but most startlingly, she was not where she had been before. The first thing she was aware of was that she was not alone. There were voices, and they were certainly not ones she recognized. They were two men's voices, and they were arguing about something.

"Jesus, I knew you were going to be a fuckin' problem."

"Me! You're the one being difficult here."

"She's bit, Sherlock! I don't know how the hell you've made it this long, but…"

Clementine squinted a bit, blinking through the blurry haze that so clouded her sight. She was aware of an extremely heavy pain at the back of her head, though she tried to block it out. Her surroundings came to her, bit by bit at first, then all at once.

She was in a grassy clearing that smelled strongly of fresh pine and dirt, as though it had been recently raining. It was clearly quite early in the morning, though what time Clementine could not figure out. The sun was a round and crisp orb that hung slightly over the tops of the pine trees that surrounded them in a circle.

In the center of the clearing there was the remains of what might have once been a campfire. It had clearly been out for a while, as no sign of heat remained. A single wood log lay in the center, untouched by the flames that had once been.

Clementine herself was leaned up against a pine tree just on the outskirt of the clearing. To her right, there was a woman. And, just before them, the two men that had been arguing. Unlike the woman, they seemed not to notice that Clementine had awoken.

"You're awake," She was knelt at Clementine's side, a respectable distance away. When Clementine looked at her she got an immediate start. The woman looked almost exactly like Bonnie. In fact, so alike to her in appearance, that Clementine had immediately thought she was her. Her hair, like Bonnie's, was a fair red. Her eyes were darkened by the lighting, but it was apparent that they were a crisp blue. Yet, as Clementine stared, it became apparent that this woman was not Bonnie. She was far too thin and too short, with paler skin that was splashed with freckles across her cheek. She stared at Clementine with an inquisitive look.

"Ehr—yeah," Clementine responded rather groggily, straightening herself slightly against the pine she was leaned upon. Her back protested angrily with a sharp stab of pain that jolted the girl slightly. "My head…where's Alvin?"

The woman looked confused and, with a look towards her still-quarreling companions, she stared back at Clementine with apparent sympathy in her round blue eyes. "Sorry, hun. You were alone when we found you…knocked up pretty good. Looks like you took a little tumble down the hill. But don't worry—we found you alright, and it seems as though you're gonna be okay. Might sting for a bit, but nothing that won't heal."

"Alone?" Clementine repeated in a hollow voice. No…then that meant that whatever had taken Alvin…had been real? She lowered her head slightly, avoiding the woman's eye contact.

The woman's lips pursed in sympathy. "Uh, look…maybe it's a good thing. Whoever you were with…well, they could be alive, couldn't they? And you—oh, jeez. Silly me, I guess I forgot to ask. What's yer name?"

"Uhm…Clementine." At least there was no point in hiding it. It was a name—what harm could that do?

The woman's expression turned to a pleasant smile, though she did not offer a hand to shake. She straightened herself up into a standing position. "Clementine. Nice to meet you, Clementine. I'm Riley, and this here—" She gestured back to the two men who had since stopped arguing and now were looking at the both of them with somewhat skeptical faces. "Is Blair and Peg."

One of the men, the one with rather scruffy mouse-brown hair and blue eyes, raised a hand in greeting. "Aye. Clementine. Uh, like the fruit, right?"

"Your name is Peg." Clementine said, almost disdainfully. She had not meant for it to come out rude, but Peg's expression soured slightly.

It took Clementine a few heartbeats to realize it was only in good fun, however, and Peg gave a wounded: "Touché."

"Porter, actually." Riley commented, with a quick glare at Peg. "We call him Peg. It was, uh, something when we found him—"

"Are we seriously doing this?" Suddenly, Blair, the taller man with darker scruffy black hair and a fairly substantial stubble, piped up. His dark brown gaze set upon Clementine with an accusing glare, and he jabbed a finger towards her. "Even if she's not bit, she's a kid. We can't look after anyone else now, especially since we've got this asswipe to deal with still." And Blair cast a look towards Peg.

Peg snapped his attention over to the other man. "Really? I though we—"

"Shut it! Both of you!"

Everyone looked at Riley in a somewhat startled amazement.

"The kid's in bad shape, guys." Riley went on, in a more calm tone. She looked over sympathetically at Clementine, who had sagged back a little against the pine tree. "We can't leave her out here on her own. No doubt it'll be a death sentence, especially with the head wound she's got."

"We're not a charity organization, Riley. We've got ourselves to look out for." Blair responded, slightly irritably. He crossed his arms and slid his dark gaze over to Clementine. She stared back and, just when she'd been about to avert her gaze, he lifted his nose slightly with a huff.

"I'm with Riley," Peg decided, not looking at Blair. "I would've been dead if you two hadn't come along when you did, and I'm grateful for that. I know that we'd be just as bad as the walkers if we left a little kid out here alone."

At this point, Clementine had started to feel awfully uncomfortable. She tried to speak: "I'm not—"

"Then it's decided," Riley said firmly. Clementine caught Blair sending her a glare but, if he'd thought to say anything, he kept his mouth shut.

Clementine looked over at Riley, paling slightly. "What's decided? I-I have to look for my friend. He's still out there! He could be hurt, or worse and I can't—"

"'Fraid you can't do anything right now," Riley sounded genuinely sympathetic, and she crossed her arms across her chest. "You've got a nasty bump; you wouldn't make it two steps. We'll help you 'till you can make it on your own."

No! Clementine reached up and touched her hands to her ears, as though she could not believe what she was hearing. She could not abandon Alvin. He'd been taken by some madman, for all she knew. He could be hurt, and needing saving. Clementine had promised to protect him, so what now? "But he needs my help!"

"If we can help him, we will." Riley assured her. "But for now, you just need to rest, okay? We'll get this all sorted when you're feeling a bit better."

Clementine was torn; she could not just trust strangers, could she? She knew how bad putting her trust into someone else usually turned out, and it was the reason she'd stayed on her own with Alvin Junior for the four years she'd been apart from her late group. She had always considered the option of trying to chase down Mike and Bonnie, but their last meeting had not been a good one. Even now, Clementine retained the scar from the bullet wound she'd received when Arvo had shot her out of panic. It was a fresh reminder that strangers, no matter how innocent they seemed, could always prove a danger. But she did not seem to have much choice. Even the slightest movement irked her. Clementine touched a hand to the back of her head, feeling the bump where she'd hit.

When she looked back up, Blair had suddenly whirled around and turned back towards the woods. His steps were heavy and, quite obviously, frustrated. Before Riley or Peg could say anything at all he'd pushed aside a low-hanging bough and stepped into the woods in a huff, not a word spoken.

Clementine winced, lifting an arm to touch her shoulder. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"

"It's not your fault, Clementine." Riley chided quickly. Yet, her brow knitted in concern, and she glanced over at Peg. "Peg, could you…?"

The man nodded without need for further explanation. He glanced to the woods and quickly said: "I'll get him." And he proceeded to speed after the other man, loose grass and dirt being sent up in his wake.

Once he had gone the woman, Riley, knelt down once again. She settled a little ways from Clementine, resting her arms in her lap. With a look at her and a glance at the woods, Clementine questioned: "What's with him?"

Riley gave something of a brooding expression and she too looked over her shoulder. Peg and Blair had vanished from view. "Oh…don't mind him. He's just in one of his moods is all. Don't you worry, he doesn't mean you any harm. He's all talk. He wouldn't really leave you out here."

"Oh?"

"He's a real sweetheart, really." Riley finished, casting a wistful look at the grassy earth. Then, her blue gaze slowly lifted back to Clementine with an inquiring look. "So, where have you been? I can't imagine a kid like you has been through this all alone."

"No, I haven't." Clementine responded curtly. She didn't really want to be rude, but it wasn't exactly a time to bring up old memories. "Till about four years ago, anyway. Then I was with my friend…he's a lot younger than me, and I don't think he can make it on his own."

"Well, if we can, we'll find him."

No matter what, I'll find him. "Thanks, Riley."

The woman's expression lightened slightly, and she gave a pleasant smile. "Well. Why don't you get some rest? I'm sure the boys should be back soon and, soon as you're all good and rested, we can put some distance between us and these woods. Then you can tell us all about yourself and your friend, aye?"

Clementine could only nod and, as Riley stood up, she leaned back again against the tree. It really was not the most comfortable position but, nonetheless, it was better than nothing. Her head was pounding so bad she figured she'd never be able to get to sleep, but she supposed she had to try. It was better to sleep, anyway, and take her mind off of Alvin's whereabouts. She still clung fiercely onto the hope that he was alive, and had been taken somewhere. She'd seen the lights, seen the man who had taken him. He was alive, and Clementine knew it. But as to why someone would take a child in the woods, Clementine had no idea…

It happened suddenly; her head fell back against the hard wood, her eyes closed, and a great dizzying feeling fell over her. Clementine struggled for a moment but then relented, and the wave of sleep crashed over.