The next night, I lay on the scratchy surface of the wool blankets thrown over my bed and stared up at the ceiling. As much as I pushed it, sleep wouldn't come. Tara was out like a light on the other side of the room, snoring softly every few moments. Since I didn't want to wake her with turning on my flashlight, I instead stood up and left the room for her to sleep.
The cool night air felt better than the, honestly, pretty stuffy motel room. I stared out across the parking lot and into the trees. A few stray biters roamed along the edges of the road and into the ditch, but they were far enough away that we didn't have to worry about them yet. I pulled my sweatshirt around me a bit tighter with a quiet sigh.
"Can't sleep either?" Carl's voice came to me from a few feet away, and when I looked up, I saw him closing the door to his and his dad's room a few doors down. He gave me a two-finger wave and I nodded.
He came over to stand next to me, leaning on the railing and looking down. The level below was mostly concrete, with a few sprigs of weeds and grass poking through the ground as it split to parking-lot pavement. Once he looked occupied, I took a glance at Carl.
He looked a lot different when he was tired. His eyes weren't as bright as they were during the day, and he was only wearing one of his plaid shirts with a grey t-shirt underneath. Neither of us had shoes on, but at least I was wearing socks. Carl rubbed his eyes and stared up at the smoky black sky.
"Hey, want to see something I found today?" I whispered to him, trying to be quiet so we didn't wake anyone else up. He nodded, his movements slower than usual. I knew he was exhausted, but I wondered what was keeping him up.
"Follow me, then." I set off to the end of the hallway, stopping near the stairs. I hopped up and grabbed the second-to-last rung on an old metal ladder, pulling myself up onto it. I looked back down to see Carl giving me a tired smile, running his fingers through his hair. I smiled back before climbing up the rest of the ladder and pushing myself over the edge of the rooftop.
I waited until Carl had managed to catch up, grabbing his arm to help steady him when he nearly tripped on the edge. He looked around, then gave me a skeptical expression. "The rooftop of the lobby?"
I shook my head. "Are you up for some more climbing?"
Even though he confessed that he wasn't, I gave him a pleading, wide-eyed look, and he agreed. Letting out a small cheer, I stepped up onto a few perilously stacked crates and grabbed onto the gutter on the end to make sure I didn't fall. I pulled myself up onto the shingles and hopped over the edge there, to a larger stretch of rooftop, higher up. Carl followed me with a groan, but went silent when he saw what I had my back to, looking at him with a grin.
There was already a few spare mattresses up here, but after killing a few biters and throwing them over the edge, I arranged them into an actual bed-sort of shape. I wasn't going to tell him why the blood was on it, but he seemed impressed nonetheless.
"You planned this, didn't you?" Carl's voice was condescending, but his eyes were smiling. I gave him an innocent shrug and slipped my hand in his, leading him over to the mattresses.
I practically fell onto them, laying on my back with my hand still in his and staring up at him. "Come on, Carl, come lay down with me."
He rolled his eyes and, finally, after a bit more persuasion, he agreed and laid down beside me. I rested my head against his shoulder and looked up at the wispy clouds hiding the half-moon. "It's so pretty and peaceful, especially since there's… you know, an apocalypse."
"No kidding." He squeezed my hand gently and I felt a rush of happiness.
We lay in comfortable silence for what felt like ten minutes. I enjoyed just being there with him, somewhere where we didn't have to pretend we despised each other. With a glance at him, I began to hum softly.
"What're you humming?" Carl turned his head to look at me, and found me staring up at the sky with a smile.
"It's a song my mom used to play a lot when I was little. I don't remember who it's by, but I remember the tune and most of the lyrics."
"You should sing it." I couldn't help but notice that he moved a little bit closer to me. I hesitated, knowing that if I told him I didn't think I was that good he would still insist. So, after a shallow sigh, I began to sing softly.
"From underneath the trees, we watch the sky; Confusing stars for center lights; I never dreamed that you'd be mine, but here we are, we're here tonight…" I tried to keep my voice clear and remember the words, but it was hard to sing while laying on your back. Carl waited patiently for me to recall, and stayed silent until I continued singing.
Five minutes later, after breaks every few lines to remember the lyrics, I finished the song off. I glanced at Carl, and he had his eyes closed with a faint smile on his face. "Are you asleep?"
"Nope." His voice was slurred and he sounded extremely tired. "Just listening to you."
"You're falling asleep." I kissed his cheek and he made a soft sound. Carl looked like an angel lying there, but I wouldn't ever tell him so.
"Am not." He yawned and turned on his side, opening his eyes a little bit to see me and throwing his arm around me. "But you should sleep. Goodnight."
"Shouldn't we go back to our rooms?" I asked softly, cuddling up to him anyways.
Carl was already fast asleep.
"You did not!" I nudged Carl's arm, laughing, and nearly pushed him off the fence.
"I swear I did. You can ask Michonne." He grinned at me, pushing a loose strand of hair behind his ear.
"There's no way you ate a 120-ounce can of chocolate pudding in one go. That's impossible!" Despite my persistent disbelief, I couldn't help smiling. The motel door opened and closed a few feet behind us, and we turned around nearly in unison to see Michonne stepping out and rubbing her eyes in the bright sunlight.
"Michonne," I began, twirling around and hopping off the wooden fence separating the motel from the parking lot. "Please tell Carl that there is no way he could eat one-hundred and twenty ounces- nearly a gallon," I exaggerated the word, giving Carl a deliberate stare. "In one sitting. Right?"
Michonne went silent, her hand going to her face and half-covering her smile. When she put it down and looked up at us, she rolled her eyes. "That's what you kids have been arguing about?"
"Only all morning." Carl pointed out. "Since she woke up and wanted me to tell her a story."
I turned to him to protest, but Michonne spoke before I could. "Yeah, he did do that. Whether or not it should be possible… you'll have to ask health professionals on that one."
Carl gave me a smug grin of "I told you so", earning another shove from me. He grabbed onto my shoulder to steady himself, but only managed to pull me onto the concrete walkway with him. I groaned as he practically landed on top of me.
"Come on, up you go." Michonne grasped Carl by his arm and pulled him up, then helped me back up as well. I cast Carl a playful glare, sticking my tongue out.
"So maybe you were right, this one time. But don't think that means I'll believe anything you tell me, Grimes." I masked a smile with frisky hostility. Michonne looked from me to Carl, her eyebrows raised.
"What?" Carl asked her, giving her a puzzled look. "…Did we do something?"
"No, no, you didn't." Her voice was thoughtful as she peered at both of us.
I felt very uncomfortable with her staring at us, but stood awkwardly still. I exchanged a glance with Carl, who looked just as confused and uncomfortable as I did. Then, in the blink of an eye, Michonne returned to normal.
"Come on, we should go wake the rest up." She set off towards the stairs, pausing on the first step. "You two wake up anyone down here. Then I'm taking you on a run with me."
Michonne pointed at me with a raised eyebrow, and I nodded agreement. Then, turning to Carl, I stated, "I'll get Maggie, Glenn, Daryl, and Carol. You go ahead and wake up Rosita, Abraham, and Eugene. I don't think they like me much anyways."
He only gave me a sideways shrug as a reply, but turned on his heel to go down the right wing of the open-air hallway. Wondering what the attitude was about, I turned and knocked on the first door I found. Glenn's sleepy groan of "We'll be out in a minute," was muffled through the door, but I decided to leave them alone and move onto the next room.
I listened at the door this time, and after hearing silence, I knocked. No response came, so I knocked again. Carol opened the door, looking around with expectancy until she saw me. "Oh…I thought you were Daryl."
"Why?" I cocked my head in puzzlement. "Isn't he in there?"
Carol stepped back to show me the empty room. "I woke up about an hour ago and he wasn't here. I figured he had just gone early-morning hunting. Can't say I blame him; these motel rooms are a little… claustrophobic."
"I agree. I couldn't sleep well last night 'cause of it." I saw the others beginning to group outside from Carl and Michonne's wake-up calls. Glenn and Maggie weren't among them, but I figured they'd come out when they're ready.
"Maybe we'll catch up to him later." I reassured Carol. "Michonne and I are going on a supply run once everyone's up. Do you need anything?"
Carol leaned against the doorframe, staring up at the ceiling in a thoughtful way. After a few seconds, she shook her head. "Nothing I need too desperately. You might want to ask Rick, though, to see if Judith needs anything."
I nodded and moved away from the door so she could join the group, who were beginning to wake up and get going. I met Michonne at the staircase.
"You ready to go?" She adjusted her scabbard along her shoulder. I gave her a gesture for "one moment", and dashed up the stairs to get my backpack and rifle, nearly knocking over a sleepy Tara along the way.
"Woah, kid. What're you so excited for?" Tara righted herself using the doorhandle as I apologized.
"I'm going on a quick run with Michonne and I need to get my stuff." With that brief explanation, I ducked into our shared motel room and nabbed my rifle and slung my backpack over my shoulder. Tara was already downstairs, so I had no danger as I checked the stitches along my scar. It was healing a lot better than it ever did before, and it hardly ever hurt now, not to mention the stitches held extremely well.
"Now are you ready?" Michonne eyed my gun and the knife I was sticking into the sheathe on my belt. I nodded ecstatically.
"Then let's go." Without a word or wave to the others, she climbed over the fence and started around the building to the rest of the small town.
It was halfway to a convenience store that I realized I forgot to ask Rick if he needed anything.
Michonne led the way to the convenience store on the end of a deserted block; all the biters were either strung up gruesomely on chains in front of dwellings or stuck on large wooden picks. Though the sight didn't seem to phase Michonne, I was quite disturbed. Nonetheless, I followed her to the brick building with a dilapidated sign out front, advertising "fresh hot dogs and soda pop". Something told me that the 'Little Champ' store's food was no longer as fresh as it told.
Michonne peered through the glass door before putting her hand on the push-handle. A faint growling came from the inside, and while Michonne had her hand on her sword's hilt, mine had already drawn my knife and was holding it ready by my side. Suddenly, once the growling had died out most of the way, Michonne shoved the door open and ducked along the outside wall, letting the door on its own.
A bell chimed at the top, clinking against the metal frame. At the same instant the bell went off, shuffling sounded from inside and two biters smushed themselves against the glass. Michonne kicked the door open with her foot and the walking cadavers growled, taking heavy footsteps after her in unison. While Michonne distracted the front one, I grabbed the smaller one by the back of the neck and sunk my knife into its brain stem with a satisfying, dull crunch.
The other biter turned around slowly at the new sound, but soon earned a sword stabbed through its cranium for the learning effort. Michonne didn't bother to wipe the mushy brain matter off as I did, only pushed open the door again. The bell chimed, but nothing seemed to dwell inside the musty store that wished to trifle with us now.
"Are we looking for anything specific?" I asked once we had begun to look down the aisles. Michonne's voice came from across the store.
"Any medical supplies, however minor they are, and food." I happened to be down the medicine aisle, and although there wasn't much left, I figured we could survive on three packages of bandage wraps, a box of band-aids, a bottle of Advil, and some tablets that dissolved and cured headaches. After that aisle was pretty much cleared, I ducked into the drinks aisle and took a few bottles of water as well, along with those cheap lighters that last about five flicks before they die.
"Michonne, I got some stuff, but it's not nearly enough for the whole group." I rounded the corner to see her staring at a map on the clerk's counter, tracing her finger along the roads. "Michonne?"
She looked up at the second mention of her name. "What is it?"
"What're you looking at?" I craned my neck to peer at the map. It had circles in black, crosses in red, and check marks in blue. A signature was scribbled at the bottom of the page, but it was smudged and otherwise too messy to read. Michonne folded it up and shoved it in her pocket.
"A map. It had no key, but something tells me that red ex's on places aren't good. We'll avoid those, alright?" She pulled off the bell from the door and set it on one of the shelves noiselessly, then pulled the smudged glass door open. I held it open for her as she left, and slipped through it as it was closing.
"Are we just going to the unmarked places?" I asked as we stepped over the cracked curb. The abandoned cars looked sad and hollow, but I wasn't going to bother with them now. Michonne shrugged.
"We'll see. Let's check there first, though." I followed her point to a police station across the way a bit. The gate out front seemed untouched, but we both knew that it also screamed there were untouched dead inside.
"Lead the way." I gestured in front of me and followed her as we walked across the eerily quiet road. To be honest, biters didn't scare me anymore, but it was the still human-like ones that threw me for a loop. It felt so much like killing a defenseless person, but I always remembered what Becky said.
"There's no such thing as a bad biter or good biter; they're always neutral, because they'll always try to take a bite out of you no matter what."
Becky used to play Dungeons and Dragons a lot before everything happened, and now that we were fighting creatures like she used to in campaigns, she would make light of it by judging each one we killed by skill level. Often she'd call me a Rouge.
I was so immersed in my memory that I didn't hear Michonne ask me a question, and was instead walking silent as she stared at me in expectancy of an answer. I had to awkwardly ask for her to repeat it.
"What do you miss most about before hell broke loose?" We had reached the cross-wire fences as she finished her question. Michonne began to look around, seeing if there was a break in the chains we could take advantage of.
"I don't know exactly, but… I miss a lot of things. Having tea with my mom when I got home from school, playing video games, drawing, feeling calm and safe no matter what…" I trailed off. Michonne gave me a slightly sympathetic look, but I tried to lighten it by saying, "And I know it sounds weird, but I really miss having a pet cat."
Michonne chuckled to herself while she stood back to inspect the entire fence. There wasn't any razor-wire atop it, so we could climb over if we had the skill. "Why?"
"Well, I used to have a cat way back when, and she'd follow me around everywhere." I began my story as Michonne began to climb up the linked fence with minimal sound. "To the bus-stop before school, to my friend's houses, outside, inside, wherever I went, she went too. I don't know, I suppose I just miss her loyalty. That, and her fluffy fur."
I went quiet as I followed Michonne's path over the fence. I dropped down beside her on the concrete, landing pretty evenly for once. She was sizing up the police station, I could tell.
"Let's see if the back way is unlocked; we could get in easier that way." She was surprisingly silent as she made her way stealthily past the side of the station. No growls arose from inside, but it was just likely that they were either stuck or roaming and waiting for a meal to walk right into their trap.
As we went around the backside, I didn't see any sort of a door, but there was a rather large window that seemed slightly ajar. I got Michonne's attention and nodded towards it, putting my finger to my lips. She seemed to understand what I was saying and sneaked over to the criss-cross patterned panes. She stood up slightly and peered in, her facial expression unreadable as to what she saw.
When she ducked back down, Michonne gestured for me to come over to her. I followed, and she spoke her plan to me quietly.
"Just inside there is about four walkers, all scattered around the room. It's dark and messy, but none of them know of us yet. We'll take out the two closest to the door quietly, and if all else fails, lead the last outside before offing them. Don't fire a shot until we know what we've gotten ourselves into, alright?"
I nodded my understanding and Michonne slowly pushed up on the top glass panel of the window. It gave way silently, gliding upward smoothly without making a sound. Michonne hopped up and over the windowsill, and since I didn't hear over-excited growls or her landing, I figured she made it in safely. I followed her, repeating the pattern less gracefully, but I still managed to be quiet enough to where the biters didn't take notice.
I made my way over to where Michonne crouched in a corner of the room. The rank smell proved that these walkers turned a long time ago, and weren't doing their best on their own. We're ending their metaphorical suffering, I figured as Michonne pointed to the one I would take out, a biter who was once a young woman in a police outfit. The pistol on her belt sagged as she stumbled about, dragging her down to where she'd almost trip over her feet. Betsy Bootlace, I decided her new name was.
As Michonne went for her own target, I slid across the floor until I was just behind Betsy. I suppose she heard me, because a low growl interrupted my perfectly placed stab as she tried to turn around. Thankfully, I managed to plunge my knife into poor Betsy B.'s skull, although she didn't seem as content with it as I did. As she crumpled to the floor almost in unison with Michonne's biter, the other two offending cadavers shuffled their ways towards us with their arms outstretched in a grabby-grabby motion.
Michonne and I were too fast for them, unfortunate for the dead. I hardly had to wrestle with the biter that had almost a foot more on me, considering my kick to his knees brought him down sideways. He crashed to the floor in a messy fashion and the next moment, the heel of my boot was coated in gross grey brain matter. Michonne gave me a slightly impressed look, much like the one a teacher would give their student when they get a good enough grade on a test, and I remembered she'd never really seen me kill a biter before.
Michonne made a quick once-over of the room while I watched the door, but the only thing in the room we discovered was a kitchen was rotten or overly-stale food. But, while Michonne searched, I looked through the small window on the door. My stomach turned over when I saw a corpse sawed in half and tacked to a door at the end of the hallway, along with several decaying, disembodied parts strewn across the tiled floor. Still, only three biters in total roamed in the hall. One was chewing on a severed hand, one was crawling around on the floor with one of its legs missing, and the last one was simply aimlessly walking.
"How many?" Michonne came up behind me and startled me, making me jump in surprise. "Think we can take 'em?"
I nodded. "There's only three, and one is busy with a meal. He's got a good handful, I guess you could say."
Yes, making puns about the deceased is alright, kids. Ignoring my joke, Michonne pushed open the door. It made a creaking noise, which instantly alerted all the biters in the hall. All three made their way towards me, and I immediately busied myself with smashing in the crawler's skull. The biter with the snack was too far away to be a threat just yet, but he'd be here in due time. I heard Michonne's sword slice through the cranium of a biter behind me, and I went towards the snacking one. James, he'd be called, I decided in a split second before his face was impaled by my knife.
"Where to first?" I mumbled to Michonne once James lay in a spread heap on the bloodstained tile.
"That one." She pointed to a room labelled 'armoury', and I knew her plan in a heartbeat. We were all running quite low on ammo, considering all the biters we had to chew through to clear out that motel yesterday afternoon before we settled in. Since this place seemed relatively untouched, there was a good chance that the weapons inside were as well.
"Agreed. Want to keep watch, or should I?"
"You can; I'll know what we need, anyway." Michonne crept down the hallway, just in case of more biters that heard our little battle with the hall-dwelling corpses. A quick glimpse in the checkered window proved there to only be one walker in the room, but he just so happened to be fully-outfitted in riot gear. Apparently, Officer Overcompensation didn't learn that police clothing couldn't keep you safe from a biter. But, unfortunately for us, that meant it would take double for us to distract the armoured cadaver.
"I'll distract him, you find the weak spot behind his neck." I whispered to Michonne before slowly creaking the door open, giving her zero time to respond on whether my idea was good or not. Either way, he couldn't bite us, considering that the helmet's shield covered his entire face.
As I slipped into the room, Officer Overcompensation immediately turned to face me. He stumbled clumsily towards the door, where Michonne had managed to disappear from the biter's radar just behind him. It only took me a slight jog around the small room to get him to track me, and allow Michonne to access the back of his head. I didn't stop calling to him for his attention until Overcompensation's body had gone limp, skewered on Michonne's sword.
His body dropped to the ground, and a quick once-over proved that the gear on him was too embedded in him and fucked-up to take with us, which wasn't much of a bummer. It was too bulky, anyway, and wouldn't do so well in transport. Instead, after taking the few cartons of ammunition left in the grimy lockers, we turned our attention towards a door on the left side, leading into what might be some sort of safe.
There wasn't a window on the door this time; it was just a solid piece of steel with a push-type bar on it. After Michonne and I exchanged a 'what could go wrong' look, I pushed the door open.
It didn't budge, but an alarm immediately started blaring. It seemed much louder in that room than others, and my eyes went wide at realization at what that would mean. Any biters we'd managed to outsmart on the road were now going to be drawn to the police station, and in turn, this room. Michonne thought quicker than I did and bolted back to the first room we cleared, practically dragging me along until I found my feet again and ran alongside her. She shoved the door open and nearly slipped on one of the dead biters, ducking out of the room through the window. I followed best I could, tripping and landing awkwardly on my ankle once I had gotten out of the window. Michonne only gave me a glance to make sure I was alright. I nodded, and she ran towards our starting path.
My ankle throbbed in pain every time I put pressure on it, but the adrenaline of the moment kicked in as I saw biters beginning to group behind and stumble quickly towards us and it wasn't hard for me to ignore the pain. Although Michonne was faster than me, she always looked back every now and then to make sure I was still following. I'd nod whenever she did, trying to show her that I was alright. Once we got out of the town and into the woods, however, it seemed that the biters no longer had any interest in us.
I slowed down before Michonne did, putting my hands on my knees and panting. She stopped a few moments after I did, calming herself by leaning against a tree. We both stayed that way until we had caught our breath, and even a few minutes after.
"That… was wild." I couldn't help a little bit of a laugh as I looked up with a smile. "I haven't felt that much of an adrenaline rush in a while."
"It was definitely… something." After agreeing with me, she looked a bit closer at me. "Are you doing okay?"
I nodded. "Probably just cracked my ankle weird or something- no big deal. If I can run that much on a sprained ankle, no doubt I'm fine."
"Good point." Michonne looked around, her gaze sweeping through the trees. "We should get going soon; It's near sunhigh."
I nodded. "Let's take it slower this time, though. I might've made it through over half that town by sprinting, but I don't think my body will thank me if I have to do more fast-paced running too soon."
Michonne started off, following the overgrown trail back to the motel. "We'll walk for now, but keep on your toes. Walkers come from nowhere."
I took a deep breath and began walking after her, matching my pace to hers. We strolled through the patchy woods at a pretty calm pace for about ten minutes, but I knew we still had at least fifteen minutes and half a mile ahead of us to the roadside motel we called home currently.
"So…" Michonne began a little ominously, but her tone was levelled and it was obvious she was trying to sound uninterested. "What's going on between you and Carl?"
She wasn't looking at me, and I'm glad she wasn't, or else she would've caught my blush. I shrugged nonchalantly. "I guess he's okay. I mean, we have our disagreements sometimes, but… he's the first one of my age or mindset I've met in a while."
I tried to sound like I didn't care for him.
"No, that's not what I mean." Although my voice was stable and expression tranquil, Michonne somehow saw through my lie. "How do you really feel about that boy?"
"I told you; I think he's alright!" I might have raised my voice a little too much for the faux air of not caring, but Michonne neither flinched nor brought it up. She only gazed at me with that wise, knowing expression of hers.
"I know there's something going on between you two. I heard you singing to him last night, and the way you spoke to him this morning? You care for him, I know you do." I despised how unruffled she was by everything, hardly showing her emotions.
"How would you know?" I tried to keep back the coldness in my tone, but it somehow found its way in anyway.
Michonne cast me a disbelieving, slightly skeptical glance.
"You're the worst liar I've ever heard." Allowing me protest for a moment, she spoke over me nonetheless. "I won't tell him I asked you this, don't worry. Just try to keep your relationship subtle if you don't want his father to know."
I folded my arms in annoyance, but I knew she was right. I vowed that I would keep interactions with him on the down-low from now on, and I would only steal away moments with him when we were alone. It was too risky otherwise, and I didn't want either of us on the group's bad side, even if Michonne and Tara were in our metaphorical favour.
"Fine." Was all I could hiss back as we approached the motel from the back, circling around to the front. I wouldn't let my irritation show near them, because I knew it would only arise more questions than answers, mostly because I wouldn't be able to answer any of them without lying. So, I put on a relaxed expression as we neared the wooden fence out front.
Michonne hopped over it first and waved me towards the lobby, where everyone met during the day when they weren't on runs to plan. I trailed after her casually as we walked around the group as they talked, heading towards an table by the back of the room. We emptied our packs of all useful stuff in a pile and went to join the group. I noticed that Michonne grabbed the map she found on the convenience store counter and took it over to Rick, distracting him for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, I sat down further away from the group and pulled my knife out of the sheath, wiping it on my jeans. The blood dried on it didn't come off, however, so I poured some of a water bottle on the hem of my sweatshirt sleeve and attempted to rub the blade clean of the blood. I kept my vision focused on the knife, even when Carl broke apart from the group and went over to sit down next to me.
"Are you okay?" He kept his voice quiet. I nodded, but just barely cast him a glance.
"We can't be seen talking anymore." I said softly, pressing down on the knife a little too hard and slicing open my thumb a little bit. I made no sound but opened my mouth in a small gasp, wiping the blood on the damp part of my sleeve.
"Why not?" Carl's tone sounded betrayed and it almost broke my heart to hear it that way, but I understood.
"Michonne heard us last night, on the roof. She told me today that we're… not as discreet as it we think." I kept my eyes on my backpack as I rummaged through, looking for a band-aid.
"So? Michonne's trustworthy, right? She won't tell my dad." His argument was undeniably weak, but I felt too bad to tell him so.
"Maybe so, but someone else might hear us. Someone less loyal to you, like-like Daryl, or Glenn, or… whatever that priest's name is." I fastened the band-aid on my thumb and sucked away the blood seeping around the edges to try and keep it sanitary.
"His name's Gabriel, I think, and I still don't get it. Why does that matter?"
"Because, Carl, I could very well get kicked out of this group if your dad finds out." I finally looked up at him, staring him right in the eyes.
Just then, I noticed Maggie was staring at us with a puzzled face. I guess Carl caught glimpse of this too, because his expression changed instantly to a condescending scowl.
"Well, maybe if you weren't so clumsy, you wouldn't have cut your thumb open." He said, trying his hardest to make it look like he was irritated with me.
"Listen, Carl-" I began in an annoyed tone.
"Carl!" Rick's voice reprimanded his son. "Come over here."
Carl pushed himself up off the floor and started towards his dad, still keeping the irate aura about him. He glanced back to pretend to cast me a glare and hiss a demeaning response, but he instead mumbled. "Meet me in the woods, tonight. After everyone's asleep."
I gave him a glare back just to show that I had understood.
