Carol remembers the story from Mr. Peters' sophomore English class. She knows that there's a point the story's trying to make – well, the writer, really – but she wonders, nonetheless: why doesn't the princess intercede on behalf of her beloved? Or plan a great, clandestine escape? She has more power that the lady OR the tiger. She is both, and neither, at the same time.

Yet she sends her lover to his death or into another woman's arms. She chooses to lose him, one way or the other.

While the entire time, she holds redemption in her hand. And not just redemption of her lover, but of herself. If she is only willing to make the difficult choice, and discard the ones others present to her. If only…

oooOOOooo

She surges upwards, driving her knee into Joe's groin and splashing the moonshine into his now-widened eyes. Without pausing, she brings the knife down hard, driving it deeply into the hollow above his clavicle, and he gasps, the stumbles to the ground, cursing her in a spluttering voice.

Using her momentum, she launches herself on one of the lugs crowded behind Joe, splashing the leftover moonshine into his eyes. He howls like a puppy left out in the rain, staggers backwards, and she smashes the bottle over his head. His compatriot, mouth hanging open, stands motionless to his right, shocked by this sudden turn of events.

She moves towards him, raising one booted foot to kick his forgotten rifle out of his hand. She can hear the blunt end of Daryl's crossbow connect with one of the others' skulls just as Tyreese reappears out of the brush, Judith still in her papoose. The baby begins screaming as Tyreese pulls the final thug to the ground, but remains firmly situated in her carrier.

Carol's foot is about to connect with her target when a large hand grabs it, twists painfully, and she's suddenly on the ground, the right side of her face slamming into one of the sun-heated rails. Something in her cheek gives a little, like the earth shifting during a quake, and her vision is reduced to a white starburst for several seconds. She nearly loses her knife, feels it slipping from her fingers, grips at it desperately. Then she brings it back up in an arc, slamming it down almost blindly, contacting the rough material of Joe's pant leg and skimming his calf.

He's less than three feet from her, struggling to clear his vision of the blood from the wound in his neck and the alcohol when her knife strikes him again. His eyes are blazing with fury.

"Bitch," he chokes out. "Stupid bitch." He lifts his gun, trying to aim it at her throbbing face. He's a big man, and strong, driven by pure hate, but the wounds Carol's inflicted slow him down just enough. Just enough to save her life, she knows, because she's not moving so quickly herself.

She pushes herself into a prayer-like position, ignoring the grunts of the other men, ignoring Judith's terrified wailing, ignoring her cheek, which feels like a balloon filled with hornets, stinging from the inside out. She heaves herself forward, brings her knees down on both the gun and his hand, ignoring the pain, and Joe's surprised yells, and throws all of her insubstantial weight onto it, grinding his palm between her knees and the gun on one side, and the gravelly soil on the train tracks in the other.

He's slapping at her with his free hand, trying to buck her off, weakening. She looks down into his face without pity. Puts the knife through his right eye.

One of the easiest things she's done in a long time. A very long time.