The breeze fluttered nicely against her skin as she gazed at her father. His once luscious reddish-brown hair had turned a thin, silvery grey. The dark bags from sleepless nights hung low under his eyes. He looked physically and mentally drained, and looked as if he had aged well beyond his years; but his eyes were alight with awe and love as he looked at her. 9 years, 9 long years it had been since she was her dad. Several hours had passed since they first laid eyes on each other and after all of the tears, hugs, and rejoices, he still looked at her as though he was a small child on Christmas morning gazing at all the presents under the Christmas tree. He reached up to touch her face for what seemed like the hundredth time, but again he was too quick with his actions. Isabelle flinched away from his oncoming hand. A normal reflex she had adapted to over the years.

"Sorry, sorry," she mumbled, embarrassed at her overreaction. She knew he wouldn't hurt her.

He sighed, ignoring her retreat and rubbed his thumb against her cheek thoughtfully. "It's okay, munchkin. It's understandable, considering." His eyes visibly grew darker whenever her past was mentioned. Shaking his head free of the memories, he moved his hand to tug on a few strands of hair lightly. "Why on earth would you ruin your hair?" he chuckled lightly, knowing well enough that she didn't do it, her captors had. She could see it written plain as day all over his face. She smiled a little and shrugged. Her once long, curly blonde hair had been cut short, the ends jagged and layered. They had also decided to dye it a bright copper red, a color she knew would never come out. They had stopped cutting it over the past couple months and now her bangs hung low, hiding her soft green eyes.

"I decided I wanted to be a little rebellious," she joked half-heartedly, playing along. "You still haven't told me who all of those people in the house are though, dad." She said, quickly changing the subject.

"Most of them are neighbors with nowhere else to go, along with a few friends and some stragglers we found caught in the city." He said, turning his face away from her towards the towering skyscrapers that loomed in the distance. "We couldn't just leave them there. They'd die. That would be cruel." He whispered softly. She followed his gaze towards the city sky line, thinking of her boys who were all alone out there. She hadn't mentioned them to him yet. Now wasn't the time. If he knew they had defiled her like that, she didn't know what he would do. It would break him.

While staring out into the abandoned city, an extremely loud explosion came from the center of the city, followed by a thick white mushroom cloud that loomed over the tall buildings. The house began to shake at the shock of the explosion, glass shattering and falling around her feet. "What was that?" she asked her father, who had now stood up trying to see the massive explosion from a different angle.

"I don't know." He mumbled softly, just as confused as she was. "But what I do know is that the noise is going to attract every walker for hundreds of miles closer to the city." Isabelle shuddered visibly at the thought of thousands of corpses making their way towards them. "I hope Jill and Dean are okay." Her father muttered to himself quietly. "Let's go back inside, just in case." Quickly helping her stand up, they rushed back inside, firmly shutting the door behind them. The rest of the group were huddled in the living room. Clearly, they had all felt the explosion too.

"What was it?" a frantic female voice rose out of the many whispers as Isabelle and her dad entered the room.

"We don't know." Her father said, speaking calmly though his eyes betrayed his gentle façade. He was frightened of the unknown like everyone else.

"What about Jill? And Dean?" another voice asked. "Where are they?"

"Jill and Dean are still out there as of now." Small gasps of distress filtered around the group of people as they thought of the fact that they might lose two of their own. "They usually are always back before nightfall when they go on runs. We will wait until then to know their fate." Her father said, pulling up a wooden chair for him to sit in. Isabelle walked over to where Karen was sitting against the wall on the floor; a little ways away from the rest of the group. She sat down beside her silently, just glad to have someone else beside her. Karen squeezed her hand comfortingly.

"And if they aren't back?" an older man with an angry look on his face asked with annoyance. "What then? Will you risk more lives to go and recover them? Or will you just sit around and do nothing?" His dirty blonde hair was extremely messy, as though he had just woken up from a very rough sleep.

"We'll decide when the time comes." Her father replied stiffly, glaring at him. The man grumbled angrily to himself and brushed past her father, bumping into his shoulder as he made his way to the stairs. A woman and a young teenage boy followed right after him, quietly apologizing to Isabelle's father.

And so they waited. Minutes quickly turned into hours as everyone remained huddled in the same spot they started in, murmuring softly to one another to pass the time. Karen and Isabelle talked about a lot of things, but mostly about Karen. She told her about her family, which consisted of her three dogs and her son. She told her about her job selling house insurance over the phone, and all about how she missed the simplest of things that had long disappeared since the apocalypse had started; like ice cubes in her iced teas, and soap operas on Sunday mornings. As they chatted, the time flew by, day quickly becoming night. The room had grown dark and the voices slowly trickled to a stop, enveloping the room into total silence. Isabelle turned to look at her father. He was staring at the ground solemnly, his eyes closed. It was time. Slowly, he stood and everyone else turned to watch him, already knowing what his verdict was.

As he started to stumble through the painful words, a loud thunderous thud came from the front of the house, followed by quick and heavy footsteps moving through the hallway. By this point, everyone was on their feet, craning their necks to see what was going on. A woman rounded the corner quickly with a man glued to her side. His arm was slung around her shoulder as he tried to keep up with her. One of his legs dragged behind him lifelessly as he hobbled on one leg towards the group. They were covered in pitch black soot that was smeared all over their faces and angry red burn marks ran the lengths of their arms.

"Please, help me!" the woman grunted. Isabelle's father rushed to her side, swinging the other man's arm around his neck as he led them towards the worn down sofa in the living room. The crowd parted to let them through. Both of them slumped into the soft cushions, breathing hard.

"Jill, what happened out there?" her father asked softly after letting tem catch their breath. The family of three that had gone upstairs found their way back and stood at the edge of the group.

Jill shook her head. "They're everywhere, Tim. After that explosion hit, they began to descend upon us like wolves." She breathed, staring off into space. "We barely made it out. The blast was so huge it knocked us off our feet. Unfortunately we were too close to the explosion. The fire scorched everything we found. I'm sorry." She sighed, looking guilty.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." Isabelle's father, Tim, smiled softly and patted Jill's back. "We're all just glad you're safe. Both of you." Jill nodded, still staring off into the distance, remembering the day's painful events. "Jill, one more thing." Tim asked calmly, as if the answer didn't matter much to him. "What exploded? What caused all of this?"

Jill was quiet for a moment, and then looked at her father straight in the eyes. "It's gone." She whispered.

Isabelle's father stared at Jill in confusion. "What's gone?"

"The CDC."

...

So, what do you guys think so far? Chapter 3 is complete! I know I haven't added any of the walking dead characters in yet, but they're coming, I promise. I love back stories though, so I'm putting one into this story (: Do you like Isabelle's character so far? Too much? Too little? Please leave me some reviews on what I can do to fix things, or add things. BE CRITICAL; BE YOU. The next chapter should be put up in the next few days. Until then, thanks for reading (:

The Book Thief.