Lu rode Sprout with Kennedy and his horse Nancy to his super secret fishing spot. He was so clever, even brought two rods and a tackle box to really convince Lu that they were actually going to fish. He seemed calm and collective though when they rode together, a rope still connecting their horses except this time it was a little longer. He must've done this often. Maybe he was the town executer. The one who brings strangers to far off 'secret' places to kill them so they won't stir the neighborhood and the body can easily be disposed of.
She wondered to herself if he'd just dump her in the river and let her body wash into the lake, feed her to the walkers or burn her. He wouldn't have the decency to bury her or anything, surely.
"Do you purposely not give your name to people when you meet them?" She asked.
"I could ask the same for you, Emma."
She ignored him. "It's just gets a little personal, don't you think?"
"It could." He nodded. "I don't think I have to worry about that with you though."
"How do you do it?" She wondered, trying to make him say it out loud. Just tell me that you do it because you have to or because you need to or because you love to you gorgeous son of a bitch.
"Do what?" He replied sharply and looked at her confused face. He got it and sneered at her accusation. "I don't."
"So, you just leave your people in the middle of no where and their fate be decided-"
"No, I mean I'm not your fate. I'm not nothing but a person wanting to go fishing."
"With another total random stranger you just met yesterday."
He reared up on Nancy and brought their ride to a halt, then circled around Sprout so he was on the other side of Lu facing the opposite direction. He lowered his voice. "A random stranger who can tell me what's it's like on the outside now."
"What?"
He sniffled and dismounted Nancy and started leading her through his trail. "I've been in this town since the beginning of July. The farthest I've strayed from it is three miles south here to the lake since then. I'm not one they trust to go out and-"
"Wait." She hopped down from Sprout and pointed her finger at him. "What day is it?"
He shrugged. "Thursday."
Her eyes widened with amazement. "The date?"
"October 22nd I believe." He smiled his cocky smile. "How old are you, Emma?"
Creeper. "Lu is thirty-three."
He shook his head. "I don't believe that. I'm only thirty-two, you're about ten years younger then me."
"Guess." She challenged.
"Twenty."
"Lower."
"Fourteen."
"Higher!" She objected.
He thought for a moment and chewed on the side of his thumb then finally said, "Sixteen."
Lu swallowed. "And a half…"
He just laughed and started walking again. "What's a sixteen and a half year old girl wandering around by herself, now? You got a group don't you?"
"I hada group. We were separated."
"So now you're all solo-gunslinger, lost boy, living off the land with your horse Sprout."
"For at least four months now." She confirmed.
"What about the other refuges? I heard Atlanta was a dead end from the start… D.C was hopeless."
"If you have a town full of fugitives why don't you just ask them? I'm sure they all have their stories."
"None of them would know the world, I understand, the way you do now. I believe you've seen more then they have because you're a single. Everyone we've brought in have pairs or else small groups… Singles don't stay long around here. That goes double for single white folk."
"Okay," she stopped Kennedy. "We both have a lot of questions that need answering. We either argue or we do a question each. I hate to do that because we're both mature adults but I'm afraid it has to come to that."
"Well," he raised his eyebrow and was about to say something pertaining to that but stopped himself. He sighed. "You go first."
She staggered for a moment. She didn't really have a top-priority question, mostly she was just curious about his town. She thought for a moment for a question that could answer more then one in just one shot. "Why don't 'single' white people stay around here very long? You're white."
"Because you're a stone throw away from both Louisiana and Mississippi. Most of this town consists of people from either the African or Hispanic race. I'd like to say people don't stay around because they feel as if they don't fit in but sometimes, like you know, they're just shut out, if you know what I mean."
"You mean they're killed because they're not-"
He hushed her and started walking on again. "Save your question til the next round. Now what I want to know from you is all the refugee camps you've seen and heard of that are overrun including small civilizations such as these."
Lu thought quickly. "Um… D.C. is gone, Fort Benning is overrun, Atlanta was done long before it should've been... The Center of Disease Control. We met a doctor there but he was little help to us. It was a dead end. As for other civilizations it took me to travel over a hundred miles west to bump into you. You were the first living person I'd seen in almost four months."
"And the non-living ones?"
"Ah!" She exclaimed. "Save that question for the next round. I told you what you needed to hear, now I want to know is what will your people do with me when we get back to town?"
"It's hard to say." He replied casually. "They might make you stay with the Bates for a while. They might kill you. They might accept you as a new neighbor. They might make you their pet, give you as a gift to the men on the council … I promise you I'd kill you before I'd let them do that to you though."
"Can I leave?"
Though it wasn't Lu's turn he still answered. He answered all her questions about her life without hesitation. At the moment she can't leave unless she runs on foot. If she tries to overthrow her position no one will hesitate to kill her. If she stays at the Bate's house she's as safe as she'll ever be. If they decide to let her live on her own it'll be sketchy but no one should hurt her, much. If she's made to be basically a prisoner of the town, and Kennedy can't do a think about it, he'll put her down with her permission.
"Can't you do anything about this? You said you were one of the people who helped build this town! Aren't you on the council or have friends there?"
"It's a matter of the color of your skin and ethnic background here, Em." He reminded her. "Me and some neighbors and friends of mine, some of us closer then others, were traveling together and started planting our feet here. Shortly after we were joined by a few more. We lost some of our originals, one by one, and were joined by others… I just try to stay in the back now for fear of my life."
"Why don't you leave?"
"The same reason why you can't, I'll be hunted, probably, and killed." He answered sharply. "What's it like otherwise on the outside?"
"Like Hell on Earth. Who runs the town now?"
"A man named Roger and his friend Carlos. Do you want to run away together?"
"What?" She stammered. "Y-You just said that I can't leave. You can't leave!"
"Do you want to run away together?" He repeated.
"What? Are we going hold hands as we ride into the sunset? Two redneck wanna-be cowboys taking on the undead world. No way, if I'm leaving I'm leaving alone."
"I'm not asking you if you want to elope I'm asking for help." She stopped. "I don't know what's out there. Last time I checked we had people living in their houses up the hill a ways away peacefully, now they're buried in their own yard. Last time I was out everyone thought we had a handle on this, that there's going to be a cure. From what you tell me now, and from what I've heard form others, we've got just as much as a fighting chance as anywhere else."
"You've got the street smarts but you don't have the muscle. You lack fighting skills though you have the know how to survive, but you're still just one little girl. You're an easy victim for someone to hurt, that's why I captured you before anyone else could. I saw a pretty girl whose made it this far by herself with a double barrel gun and knows how to use it, thought you can make it a little farther with my help."
Lu shook her head and gaffed. "You ask what it's like on the outside though. You ask about the dead as if it's the only thing we have to worry about. It's the living too! Take your racist town for example. If I tell you every which way you turn there's walkers, that every one you've ever known is dead and probably still walking around wants to kill you, will you still want to go? Maybe if it's not as bad as you think, huh, you'll go?"
"You're not scaring me away, Emma."
She laughed. "I have seen a man handcuffed to a roof cut off his own hand to escape them. I call him my brother, Merle. You need to have that endurance if you're coming with me. You need to have guts because I've seen a water-downed walker be torn in half and still crawling to it's next meal… and heart, because there is such things as zombie-babies, and I have seen my fair share. It's sad and it sucks."
Lu walked up to Kennedy and leaned into his neck. He turned his head away and tensed up his body. She whispered, "We're all infected. We are the living zombies. Time bombs just waiting to die and turn into monsters."
She then grabbed his hand and folded it between hers to make a his pointer finger and his thumb stick out then pointed his 'hand-gun' to her forehead. "If you haven't learned by now, when you kill the living you got to shoot them in the head. It's so easy for them to just get right back up again and follow you into your town. I've never experienced it but overheard it once from somebody that I used to know. I believe he's dead now too."
Kennedy removed his hand. "So, Georgia, what will it be? East or west?"
"Is that you're final answer for this round?"
He nodded.
"My choice would be east. I would like to go home. If anyone from my group would still be there they wouldn't stray as far as I did without going towards something. The question is now when?"
"You pick the destination I'll pick the moment."
"The moment?"
"Yeah, not like we can just pick up and run off around here. No one's ever left Kallenberg besides laying dead in the back of a truck. It's not smart to leave right before winter either."
"So we're going to stay here, wait out the winter in this hell hole?" She objected. "My life is dangling by a thread. My options are to live, raped and killed and just killed."
"Believe it or not you have more of a chance living here then out there."
She stood back and examined him. "And you're the expert? I understand you must have had to thrive off of survival instinct for some time before ya'll established your little town, how many days have you had to go without the luxuries that one would have in this situation. A running vehicle, more then the clothes that you're wearing right now, a gun that you don't have to reload after shooting it twice?"
He didn't answer, just watched her as she had her minor temperamental freak out.
"The moment they decide either two of my three fates I'm getting my horse, grabbing my gun and taking down anyone who stands in my way. That includes you. Don't underestimate me, Kennedy, I am unarmed but severely dangerous."
"You're severely pissed off too, I can see that." He grabbed her by her shoulders. "The moment they call you on the carpet Emma, I'm going to be there. I'm on your team. You're the only ally I have and I'm not letting anything happen to you."
For the first time since Daryl once said earlier that summer 'I've got your back, Lu,' she believed a man in her life. This one just walked into hers to the day before too. How strange she felt about this Kennedy character but something told her to trust this one. Maybe he'll actually follow through with his promise unlike Daryl.
Lu stopped herself before she could think anymore bad thoughts about her brother(s). They were dead and she needed to honor them, though she still had sour feelings towards the both of them. Same problem, different reasons.
She tried to let go of them for fear that they'd drag her down into another metamorphosis again. If she had to go through another depressing spell again she swore she'd shoot herself in the head. She liked who she was right now, here, standing in the middle of a trail in the forest, with Kennedy.
