Hello everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful week! Here's a new chapter for you all. Its a small one, but its focused on a new area and some new characters! I love hearing feedback from all of you and to see what you guys think, so don't be shy and drop a review! Enjoy the story! :)
Chapter 9: Anywhere But Here
A soft breeze rolled over the small town of Woodbury. The town's folk went about their day as normal, closed off from the horrors of the outside world, and stuck to their daily routines. It had been a quite morning, not many Biter's roaming around outside of the wall. Although the silence was calming, it was mostly a cover up. People were still a bit frazzled by the invasion they were under just a couple weeks ago. Many were having doubts that Woodberry could undergo another attack and come out okay again. Fear was struck into their hearts by a group the Governor made clear to them that they were never to help or aid under any circumstances. No one dared to mention the word prison, or the name Rick Grimes in town.
No one, except Andrea.
She was busy trying to get the Governor to listen to her, to call off his plans of running Rick and everyone out of the prison. She even tried talking to Milton Mamet, but he only warned her that things would get worse if she persisted the subject with the Governor any further. Andrea's suspicions had grown and she wanted to find Rick. She wanted to find him and see what was going on. She was surrounded by people who had no idea who their "Governor" really was. There was one boy who had his suspicions as well, that Woodberry wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
He wanted out of that town, but he had only one person stopping him.
"Please, can we talk about this?"
"There's nothing to talk about! I told you that!"
"Yes there is! I don't understand why your being so stubborn!"
"I'm not being stubborn, I'm being reasonable."
"You're ignoring me and you're ignoring everything that happened over this past month. I don't know why you don't want to talk about it, why you don't want to do something about it-"
"There is nothing to say, Max!" The young blonde yelled at her boyfriend. "Why can't you just leave it alone?"
"Because I can't! I can't go on living here knowing that Mae is out there somewhere, possibly in danger or dying. I don't know how you can forget her so easily! She's your cousin, Audrey!" Max said.
"I haven't! I haven't forgotten her. There hasn't been a day when I haven't thought about her, and how much I regret sending her out alone in the woods that day. You think I don't regret it? "Audrey said, tears brimming in her eyes as she kept her voice down low so passers-by wouldn't hear her.
"She would have wanted this for us, Max. She would have wanted us to be safe here in this town, safe from Biter's and other gangs."
"You talk as if she's dead. " Max looked at Audrey, appalled that she was speaking in such away. "And do you hear yourself? You're calling them Biter's now?"
"Do you honestly think she could have survived out there by herself? Better to accept it than telling ourselves a lie," Audrey said with a shrug of her shoulders.
Max took a step back, shaking his head in disbelief.
"No, you're the one telling yourself a lie. Honestly Audrey, have you lost all sense of faith? Mae's alive, and she's waiting for us. She's out there looking for us, and you'd rather take the easy way out and stay here and be comfortable while Mae is out there, most likely lost and suffering!"
"Don't talk to me like that!" Audrey said, crossing her arms as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"I don't know how else to talk to you, Audrey! You're honestly starting to scare me, honey. Ever since we've got here, you're ignoring what's really going on in the world. I just don't understand how you could not care anymore," Max said, his voice quivering as he looked at the girl he loved; at the girl he thought he knew.
"It's hard caring anymore. Once you start caring, the more it hurts once that thing you cared about is gone. I don't want to hurt anymore, Max. I've come to face the facts that Mae is more likely dead than alive. I can't believe in a false hope, and I can't have my heart break again. "
Audrey ran off down the street, leaving Max by himself on the sidewalk. He ran a hand through his messy brown curls and sighed, leaning against the brick wall of an old pharmacy. What was he going to do?, he found himself asking over and over. He could leave Audrey here and go look for Mae himself, but he knew Audrey would never forgive him if he returned without Mae, or never returned at all. He couldn't get Audrey to leave, and he didn't blame her. Woodberry looked like a great town, but there was something wrong with it. The entire town felt like a façade, holding some dark secret it didn't want you to know about.
And the Governor just rubbed Max the wrong way. His first encounter with him was the Governor and his men drawing guns on him and Audrey in the woods. It was most likely Audrey's talking that saved them from being shot on sight, but Max had a feeling he'd get more than just a bullet to the head if he tried to leave or confront the Governor.
Max tilted his head up towards the sky and let out a heavy sigh. What was he going to do?
"Hey? You alright?"
Max looked down, finding a blonde woman, perhaps in her late thirties, standing in front of him. He had seen her a few times around town. She had been around before Audrey and him had come to Woodberry. He'd seen her around the Governor a lot lately, which made him think that she might not be so trustworthy.
"Yeah...Yeah, I'm fine..." Max said, looking down the street Audrey had run down.
"Sounded like you and your friend were having a fight," the woman said.
Max looked at the woman strangely and crossed his arms, making sure he kept the distance between them far apart.
"Sorry," the woman apologized. " That's probably personal...I'm Andrea, by the way."
She held out her hand in front of Max, waiting for him to shake it. He slowly took her hand and shook it. Andrea smiled.
"Max," he said with a slight nod.
"You're new here too, right? Thinking of staying?" Andrea asked. "I only ask because you and your friend haven't moved out of the temporary shelter yet."
"Her name's Audrey. She's my girlfriend. And no, I don't want to stay, but she wants to. Her cousin is out there and we need to be looking for her, but she thinks she's dead. I don't know how to get her to listen to me," Max said.
"What's her cousins name?"
"Mae. Mae Greyson," Max said. " Do you know her?"
"No. Sorry," Andrea said. " How do you know Mae is still alive? How do you know Audrey isn't right and that she is dead?"
"She's not dead," Max said, his jaw tightening. "Mae's strong enough to handle herself out there on her own. It's just leaving her alone too long is what I'm worried about."
"Where did you last her?" Andrea asked.
"In the woods not far from here. She was out scoping there area, trying to find food while me and Audrey stayed back at the camp. I shouldn't have let her go alone, but she persisted. An hour later a small group of the dead were passing by us. Once they spotted us, we knew we had to make a run for it. There was too many of them for us to handle and we were too weak, so we headed across the river. We were going to come looking for her the next day, but that's when we ran into the Governor and his guys," Max said, regretting his decisions all the more now that he said them out loud. "We should have never come here. We should have kept looking."
Andrea saw how much this boy was beating himself up as he explained his situation. It sure wasn't an easy one, and it was full of a lot of "what ifs", but Max saw it clearly in one way: Mae was out there, alive, and Audrey had given up on her. She didn't even give Mae a day, already saying her goodbyes once the stepped into Woodbury. Audrey had been through a lot, losing her family and everything, only having Mae left. He thought Mae being the only one, she'd want to fight to find her. Apparently he was wrong.
"Hey, if you still think she's alive then what's stopping you?" Andrea asked.
"I can't leave Audrey. She's all I have left and I love her. But Mae's one of my best friends and if I let her go...well, you see my dilemma now..." Max said.
"Maybe I can ask to have a group go looking around for her. You give me a description of her and I'll tell the Governor-"
"No," Max said quickly. "No, thank you. I'd rather not have him get involved."
"But if she's out there, he can help find-"
"Thank you, Andrea. Really, but I'd rather Mae be out there than in these walls," Max gave the final word and walked away.
