As there is darkness, so there is light. ;) This chapter ends on a happier note than the last few - something to look forward to!

Chapter 10

June 18, 2017, Night

"Can I ask you somethin', Tommy?"

Tommy turned to look sideways at Annie, his body heavy with the warm sluggishness of too much alcohol. They sat in separate porch chairs, listening to a summer thunderstorm roll over them. Rain drummed against the roof of the covered porch and every now and again the thunder would boom above them. Lightning lit the sky.

Tommy was not yet properly drunk, but he was happy to let his head rest against the high-backed chair as he absently ran a finger around the edge of his whiskey glass.

"Mm," he hummed, lifting his brows in question. "Go 'head."

Annie had had a fair amount to drink as well, but her expression was far from listless. She was fiddling with a thin black braid that had fallen away from her ponytail and hung beside her ear.

"Who's Sarah?" she asked.

"What?" Tommy replied, the alcohol removing any filter he might once have had and leaving him instead with a dumbstruck frown.

Annie shrugged, not quite nonchalantly. "Joel says the name in his sleep a lot."

Closing his open mouth, Tommy looked away from Annie and cleared his throat. Right. Of course. He knew that Joel and Annie were sleeping together. He had not considered that that meant she too would hear Joel's muttering while he slept, or that she too would see Joel twitch and fidget in his sleep.

"I don't..." Tommy started, feeling his tongue stick lazily to the back of his throat. "I'm not sure it's my place t'say."

"Didn't seem like somethin' he would talk about..."

"No," Tommy said, shaking his head and looking back at Annie with wide eyes. "Don't ask him about it. You'll just set him off." He licked his lips, still absently running a finger around the top of his glass. Yet he pursed his lips and drew a deep breath as he seemed to arrive at a decision. "She...was his daughter."

He was conscious of the fact that his voice had dropped to a whisper, as if fearful that Joel might overhear them. He wouldn't, of course. Through the black rain, Tommy could see the distant silhouettes of his brother and Troy standing watch at the far end of the long driveway that lead up to the brick mansion-turned-bed-and-breakfast. They had been there for an hour already and had made no movement to return to the house. Still, Tommy felt his shoulders instinctively hunch forward like a child telling a deep secret.

Annie frowned. Surprise and pity mixed in her expression, but she quickly pressed her lips together, as if afraid to show her sympathy. "...When?" she asked quietly.

"September 27th, 2013," Tommy said mechanically, picking up his glass and stabbing a finger into the empty air with each syllable, reciting the date that was branded into his memory. He swallowed thickly. "Same day the infection blew up in Austin. Day after Joel's birthday."

"How old?"

"Twelve." She would have been sixteen by now. Christ. "Joel was raisin' her on his own."

Annie leaned forward, propping her elbows up on her knees as she laced her fingers together. "Mind if I ask how she...you know."

"Soldier," Tommy replied, pressing his lips together. "We were tryin' to get to the highway, but they...they weren't lettin' anyone through." God, how long ago that felt. How long since they had dug that small grave with only a knife from the soldier's belt? How long since the moans and cries of that nightmarish triage?

Tommy suddenly felt more sober than he had any right to.

Who the hell was he to drown in his misery when he had never buried a daughter? When he was still alive and good men like Judge and Javier were not? Shit. Even though the miserable self-loathing was the booze talking, Tommy didn't care. He put a hand over his eyes and sighed. When Annie spoke up a minute later, her soft tone made him jump, having almost forgotten she was there.

"I lost my husband," she said quietly. Tommy dropped his hand and looked back up at her in surprise. A flash of lightning briefly lit her face, throwing sharp shadows across her troubled expression.

Tommy blinked slowly, unsure how to respond.

"Teddy was a nurse at Tampa General Hospital," Annie continued, staring blankly into the rain-soaked darkness. "Saw the writin' on the wall sooner than most. Stocked up our apartment and locked the door."

"Didn't last, I take it?" Tommy asked, his tongue thick.

She shook her head. "Coupla weeks and people started gettin' desperate. We were holed up about a month before we started hearin' people breakin' into the apartments around us, the ones our neighbors had abandoned. Finally broke into our place one night. Coupla guys." She paused, licking her lips and breathing deep and deliberate through her nose. "Teddy…Teddy wasn't havin' any of it. He went out to the kitchen."

Her voice caught and she cleared her throat. Yet as she shook her head, the faraway look faded and she sank back into that easy air of indifference.

"They killed him?"

Annie nodded.

Tommy frowned. "But not you?"

She swallowed, dropping her gaze. Her lips pressed together and released a few times, as if she were struggling to form a response. She finally shook her head. "No," she said quietly, staring at her knees. "They found me. But no, they didn't kill me."

The sobering chill stole over Tommy again. "Does Joel know?

She shook her head sharply. "No. And he doesn't need to. Nobody here does. I don't need anybody here thinkin' of me like that. I ain't a victim, at least not any more than anyone else in this fucked up world."

Tommy nodded his understanding. Annie was like that, one moment quiet and speculative, the next spitting out words like she didn't care what others thought. She had a no-nonsense way of simply accepting the way things were without letting herself become a victim of them. Not like Joel. Joel had accepted the way things were too, but he had refused to fight it, instead sinking into the pit that this brutal world had created. For that reason alone, Tommy had been grateful when Annie's attachment to him and his brother had begun to creep towards something more than friendship with Joel. Tommy doubted either of them entertained any particularly romantic notions, but they could depend on one another, and in a world where life could be short and vicious, that was enough.

Yet a question lingered at the back of Tommy's mind as he took a sip of whiskey and let the liquid roll warm and sharp around his mouth. "So why tell me then?"

Annie looked at him with a frown, as if she hadn't considered that, then shrugged and shook her head, looking out towards the long driveway and listening to the patter of rain. "'Cause you aren't like everybody else here. Ain't no black'n white with you. No them or us, or strong or weak. Just…people bein' people. Lotta folks round here, you gotta be careful what you say around them, or else they'll think you can't pull your weight."

"Like Joel," Tommy muttered.

"What?"

Tommy looked up and shrugged as if he had not expected her to overhear him. "Nothin'. Just that you gotta be careful what you say around Joel or else he'll think you're an idiot."

Tommy was surprised by how quickly Annie's expression darkened. She frowned and pursed her lips like a disapproving schoolteacher. "You should give him more credit than that," she said reproachfully.

When Tommy said nothing in reply, she shook her head and looked away, quietly muttering, "You got no idea how much he worries about you."

Tommy narrowed his eyes, frowning at Annie as if trying to decide whether she was mocking him. But when she continued staring at her knees with her brows drawn together, his lips parted and he cocked an eyebrow. "He said that?"

"Not in so many words," Annie answered, shrugging. "But it's plain enough to see if you're lookin'." She paused and sighed, rubbing her eyes sleepily. "He's just tryin' protect you, Tommy."

Tommy pursed his lips. "Ain't the kind of protection I want."

"Ha," Annie suddenly snorted. "Too bad. You think family ever lets us choose what it does or doesn't do for us?" She continued shaking her head like she was dealing with a child. "I grew up with four older brothers. You think I wanted their protection when all four would sit in the row right behind me whenever I went on a movie date? When they pulled me out of the cab of my first boyfriend's truck? Nope. Didn't want a damn thing to do with them. And they didn't care. Family just does what it does."

She lapsed into silence, still shaking her head. Tommy suddenly suspected she and Joel had been talking about him, which caused an awkward mix of embarrassment, irritation, and gratitude to roll through him. He fixed his gaze on the long driveway and responded with only silence.

"Besides," Annie sighed, her voice losing the derisive edge, "if Joel really did lose a daughter, you shouldn't blame him for doin' whatever it takes to protect his kid brother. He's scared to death, Tommy. He won't ever admit it, but he is."

The booze was making Tommy feel sulky and childish and he refused to accept Annie's invitation to acknowledge Joel's humanity. "Seems pretty damn good at killin' people for someone who's scared to death."

"Tommy," Annie said sharply, glaring a warning at him. "If you think a straight face means we ain't all terrified, then you dunno a damn thing. What happened to no black'n white, huh?" She suddenly stood, grabbing her glass and downing the gulp of whiskey that remained. Even with a few drinks in her, her eyes were fiery as she stared down angrily at him.

"Your brother hides it better than most, but he's got just as many nightmares as the rest of us."

And with that she turned and stalked down off the porch and out into the rain, no doubt headed out to join Joel and Troy. Tommy felt the familiar loneliness steal back over him, joining now with a mix of whiskey-induced guilt and irritation.

June 19, 2017, Noon

It looked ready to rain again. The sky was a hazy orange-gray and the air smelled thick with an impending thunderstorm. The ground was still damp from the storm the night before, but misty tendrils rose from the ground as the humid Virginia summer warmed the earth.

They were entering an area of town populated by squat two- and three-story brick houses that had been converted into apartment buildings as the center of Harrisonburg, Virginia had expanded outwards and swallowed the suburbs. Brittle brown grass grew like messy stubble across sidewalks and front stoops.

Tommy could feel the sweat running down from his temples and along the back of his neck, causing his shirt to stick to him. Their party was strung out along the street, all cautiously watching the buildings they passed for any sign of infected or other threats within. Semi-suburbs like this were ideal places to loot: they usually housed more useful supplies than rural areas, but with less risk of encountering the packs of Runners that congregated in areas where buildings were more densely spaced.

Tommy tensed suddenly as Troy, standing at the head of the column, held up his hand. But Troy was cool and collected as he turned back to look at the twenty-some people in their party.

"Alright, folks," he rumbled. "Two to a building. Clear it of infected and any other threats 'fore you start packin' any supplies. Priorities as usual: bottled water, non-perishable food, antibiotics, ammo. In that order." He had held up a finger for each priority, but suddenly held up his thumb as well. "And Big Brian's in sore need of new boots. Men's size 12. Anythin' waterproof."

The others chuckled and began breaking up into pairs, each headed for separate buildings. Joel tapped Tommy's elbow, but before they could turn to start making their way up the street, Tommy felt a hand take hold of his shoulder. He turned to see Troy looking down at him. An ugly red scar twisted across Troy's extended forearm from where the bullet had punched clean through on the night Judge had died, more than a year ago now.

"You gonna be good, Tommy?" Troy asked, his black beard and gravel voice reminding Tommy of a bear, not for the first time.

Tommy nodded curtly, fighting the urge to be defensive. "I'll be fine."

"You had a lot t'drink last night."

"So did Annie."

"Ain't Annie I ever gotta worry 'bout, is it?" As usual, Troy's tone sounded purely factual, like he was reciting from a book. Judge had had a way of sounding concerned about your welfare at the same time that he checked to make sure you were up to a task. Troy just sounded as if he were bluntly holding up a ruler to assess which outcome you were closer to: Success or Failure. There was no in-between.

Tommy bristled. "Nope. Only ever me, ain't it? I said I'll be fine, Troy."

"We'll see," Troy grumbled, frowning.

He turned to leave the two brothers, but he leaned into Joel as he passed him and whispered something. Tommy was quite sure he heard "your responsibility" before Troy started towards a yellow brick house with broken windows on the ground floor. Tommy scowled and began striding up the street before Joel could say anything.

Joel caught up with him as they reached a three-story home with peeling whitewash and red brick beneath. The dusty front windows obscured whatever was within. Neither brother spoke as they waded through the dead overgrown grass that sprawled across the walkway and front stoop. Tommy flipped off the safety on his hunting rifle and Joel swung his up to point at the front door.

The door swung inward when Tommy turned and pushed on the handle. A dark entrance hall opened before them, with an old staircase just inside and a row of mailboxes immediately to the left of the door. Two white metal apartment doors were closed on either side of the hall.

"I'll start here," Joel said, nodding towards one of the apartment doors.

"I'll take upstairs," Tommy mumbled.

Without another word between them, Tommy mounted the staircase and began climbing. A threadbare rug stapled to the steps muffled the sound of his boots. Both apartment doors on the second floor were also closed, so he continued climbing the staircase to the third level, intent upon starting at the top and making his way down. Again, both apartment doors on the upper floor were closed.

He paused at the top of the stairs, listening for the telltale moans or heavy breathing of the tortured infected. But the floor was quiet. Distantly, he could hear Joel's boots scraping around downstairs.

Moving towards the door on his right, Tommy raised his rifle with one hand and reached for the handle with his other. It jiggled and hung loosely from the door as if the lock had been broken. That boded ill. If someone else had already looted this building, then there might be only slim pickings for their party.

Tommy pushed against the door and squinted as the dim natural light of the old building revealed a small living room with a stained leather couch and a dusty flat-screen television. Muddy scuff marks marked the white carpet. Frowning, Tommy stepped into the apartment, swinging the point of his rifle around as he scanned the room.

Suddenly a hand shot out from behind the ajar door and grabbed the barrel of Tommy's rifle. At the same time, a blur to Tommy's right materialized into two fists, one crashing down onto Tommy's trigger hand while the other slammed against his throat, striking his windpipe and making him gag. In an instant, Tommy was rendered both speechless and weaponless, as the person behind the door yanked the rifle out of his surprised grasp. As he staggered back against the wall beside the doorway, gasping for breath, someone quickly closed the door. Five figures suddenly crowded Tommy. Five gun barrels were suddenly pointing straight at him.

"How many of you are there?" someone demanded of him.

Tommy coughed, holding his hands out at chest-level to show he was not a threat. He quickly scanned the faces looking at him. Four men and one woman. Dressed in browns and yellows and grays, muted colors. Dusty and muddy from the road, their faces red from the summer sun. Armbands. Black armbands with white Firefly symbols.

But that wasn't what caused Tommy's mouth to fall open. The woman who stood at the front of the group wore a scowl that dredged up a memory from a hundred years ago. She was thirty-something, short, and square, and kept her black hair tied back in a tight braid.

"Charlie?" Tommy breathed in disbelief.

The woman's scowl faltered and her brows drew together in sudden surprise. The men behind her all looked abruptly alarmed as the woman's mouth formed an incredulous O.

"Tommy?"

"Holy shit!" Tommy whispered, fighting the urge to smile in front of five gun barrels.

Even dour Charlie allowed herself a disbelieving half-smile. Memories of Huntersville flooded back to Tommy as they stood staring at each other with open mouths. It didn't seem to matter that they had stood on opposite sides of the lines that had been drawn in the quarantine zone in the weeks preceding its downfall; the fact remained that they shared that distant history, that memory of sweet security.

As if remembering herself, Charlie suddenly held up a hand. "Put your guns up, boys. I know him." She shook her head at Tommy, voice losing its growling edge. "What the hell are you doing here, Tommy? How'd you even make it out of Huntersville?"

"Hell, I'd ask you the same," Tommy swallowed, lowering his hands. "We jumped the wall. Were workin' there when the infected got in and jumped the wall to get away."

Charlie nodded, then frowned. "Who's 'we'?"

"Joel and Javier and me."

"And they're part of that group down there on the street? We saw you moving in too late to get out of this place. Who's the rest of the people down there?"

Tommy shook his head. "Joel's here, but not Jav…He died a coupla years ago. Infected."

Charlie paled, but pressed her lips together and nodded. "I'm sorry to hear that." When Tommy's eyes narrowed, she continued. "Honest. We didn't get along, but I wouldn't ever have wished him dead."

Tommy nodded. "The rest of 'em are a group we joined up with a few months after Huntersville." Yet he suddenly snorted and gestured towards Charlie. "But what about you? How'd you get out?"

"Captain Hogan," Charlie said. "He ordered the south gate open when it started looking like the military wouldn't be able to hold them out of the Astro. Didn't want people getting trapped inside the walls." She pursed her lips. "Way I heard it, Hogan took a chopper to Austin and convinced the high muckety-mucks there to take in any refugees from Huntersville that made it to the Austin zone."

"So Austin's still standin'?" Tommy asked hopefully.

Charlie's expression darkened. "No."

Tommy felt his heart drop. She continued. "At least not the military zone. The walls are still there and, last I heard, there were still people there, but it isn't military-run anymore. Turned into some Communist-style conclave, run by the riot leaders that were making trouble in Austin before Huntersville fell. I made it there maybe a week after Huntersville, but got the hell out as soon as the military abandoned the zone. People there weren't too friendly to the extra mouths that FEDRA let in."

"The military abandoned the zone?" Tommy said incredulously. Bonnie's last letter from Austin flashed across his mind.

Charlie nodded and quieted, frowning as if the memory was a particularly haunting one. But she shook her head after a second and her expression grew more serious. "But enough history. The people down below – who are they? Will they trust us because we know you?"

A lead weight dropped in Tommy's stomach. He swallowed, eyes widening as he slowly shook his head. "No," he said, suddenly aware of how loudly they had been speaking. "Keep your voices down. They…they ain't good sorts. Not anymore."

Charlie's eyes narrowed and the brief euphoria at seeing a familiar face turned quickly back to wary suspicion. "What do you mean?"

"They don't leave survivors."

"And you're running with them?"

"It's a long story," Tommy whispered, grimacing. "Wasn't always like this. It's just…Listen, it don't matter. Point is you need to beat it. If they find you here, it'll be like fuckin' Christmas for them."

They suddenly quieted at the sound of gunfire on the street below, rapid and frantic. All exchanged alarmed looks before Tommy pushed past Charlie and the other Fireflies and made his way to a window on the far side of the living room. He looked down on the street. Troy was below them, pointing and gesturing at a building across the way, where several people stood looking in through the front door, waving as if shouting to someone inside. Suddenly a gray-haired blur shot out from within – Bruce, by the looks of it – and the people gathered around the door slammed it shut, just as the first boom of thunder rattled the window panes.

Charlie joined Tommy at the window, peering down. "We checked out that building yesterday," she said, watching as several people below began reaching for Bruce as if he had been injured. "Got to the second floor and there was this croaking sort of noise coming from a couple of the apartments. Like a kind of clicking or croaking or whatever. Thought it might just be a bird or something – didn't sound like any infected I've ever heard – but we figured no point risking it. Must not have been good, whatever it was. He a friend of yours?" She nodded as if indicating Bruce.

"No," Tommy muttered. "He's an asshole." He cleared his throat and left the window, starting back towards the door. He held out a hand towards the Firefly holding his rifle, who handed it back to Tommy after a nod from Charlie. "Listen, Charlie," Tommy said. "You need to leave. Joel's downstairs and I don't know…It's just probably best he don't see you. There's twenty-five of us altogether, including me. They'll be checking buildings, but you should be able to sneak out the back of here. You get the hell out as soon as I'm gone, okay?"

Frowning, Charlie caught Tommy's arm as he started to turn to open the apartment door. She looked stern but confused. "Why don't you just come with us? You clearly don't like these people. Why not come with us?"

Tommy hesitated. He felt his lips part as the possibilities flashed before him. No more hunting people. No more Troy and the others acting like he was a weak-willed idiot. No more drinking at night just to go to sleep. Tommy felt his stomach churn with anticipation.

"Have you heard of the Fireflies?" Charlie continued, seizing on Tommy's silence.

"It's a militia or somethin', right?" Tommy mumbled, not expanding upon how he had come by that knowledge.

Charlie's expression twisted unhappily. "No it isn't," she said. "We're fighting to restore order and democracy. If you haven't seen a zone since Huntersville, then you don't know how bad they are now. They're not like Huntersville. Most zones are under permanent marshal law, each like their own authoritarian city-state."

Tommy frowned. Charlie's revolutionary bent had been clear at Huntersville and her big words sounded a whole heck of a lot like they had back then. "That's what you said about Huntersville," he pointed out.

"This is different. Trust me, Tommy. Huntersville was a paradise. I took it for granted then, but I'd give anything to find a zone like that these days."

Again the temptation rolled in Tommy's stomach. It was the open road that Charlie was proposing, gone from this broken no-longer-family that he had wandered with for three years, but if he left now, it would be with these so-called Fireflies. He would not be alone.

But he would not go. And he knew why.

"I can't," he said quietly, shaking his head as he opened the door and gently freed his arm from Charlie's grasp. Sighing, he gave a simple explanation. "Joel won't go."

Charlie's brows knit together in disappointment, but her expression was more sympathetic than Tommy had expected. She nodded her understanding. "Take care of yourself, Tommy." She sounded like she was saying goodbye to a dear friend.

Grimacing, Tommy nodded back at her and left the apartment, closing the door behind him. He stood at the top of the steps, breathing slowly for a second to steady himself. The invisible weight that had settled over his shoulders seemed to have doubled, but he pressed his lips together and cleared his throat. His expression hardened once again.

He started descending to the second level, but almost jumped when Joel unexpectedly exited one of the two apartments on the floor. Tommy swallowed, then jerked a thumb up the stairs. "Somebody's been here before us. Top floor's already been cleaned out."

Only as he started to give his false explanation did Tommy notice the stony look that Joel wore. Suddenly Joel grabbed the front of Tommy's shirt and pulled him into the apartment Joel had just left. He closed the door behind them and pushed Tommy into the center of another living room.

"Tommy, what the hell are you doin'?" Joel demanded in a sharp whisper. He sounded angry, but there a strained, almost fearful edge to his tone as well.

"What d'you mean?" Tommy stuttered with unconvincing innocence, still shocked at Joel's sudden anger.

Joel jerked a thumb towards the ceiling and the apartment above them. "You know what Troy would do if he knew you were lettin' people walk away?"

Tommy immediately felt himself flush with defensiveness and his façade vanished in an instant. "I got some notion," he growled back, likewise keeping his voice low.

When Joel only threw up his hands as if he could not believe his younger brother's stupidity, Tommy suddenly scowled and pointed towards the window and the street below. "He's your fuckin' friend, Joel. You don't ever seem t'have an issue with anythin' else he does. Why stop now? Go on and tell him your baby brother is fuckin' things up again. Let's see how he takes it. Hell, he'll probably let you pull the trigger if you ask nice enough."

Fury flashed across Joel's face as he took a step towards Tommy, then stopped himself as if remembering the Fireflies above might hear them. He pointed an accusatory finger at Tommy. "You know how many times I've had to cover your ass?"

"Yeah, right," Tommy snorted. "Thanks, Joel. I really appreciate you makin' it easier for me to stay with this pack of fuckin' people hunters." Before Joel could interject again, Tommy spread his arms angrily. "Do you even know who they fuckin' are? It's Charlie, Joel. Charlie from Huntersville. Her and a bunch of those Fireflies. You want me to just hand them over to Troy?"

"I know who they are," Joel answered disdainfully, waving the explanation away. "I heard the whole goddamn conversation. And it don't change the fact that Troy'll have every reason to call you traitor if he ever finds out."

"Are you gonna tell him?"

Joel glared at his younger brother, but the look was half-angry, half-offended. "Course I'm not gonna fuckin' tell him," he spat.

"Then we got nothin' more t'say," Tommy growled, pushing past Joel and jerking open the apartment door.

Tommy made no effort to quiet his steps as he pounded angrily down the stairs towards the bottom floor. Behind him, Joel followed him out into the hallway, casting an unhappy glance up the stairs to the top level before turning down. By the time he had caught up to Tommy, they were already outside and back on the main street. They could see Troy and Bruce and the others still gathered in the distance.

Scowling, Tommy turned away from them and started walking towards the next apartment building in the long line of former houses that lined the street. Joel hesitated, but eventually followed Tommy without a word.

Both brothers worked in angry silence as they broke the rusty handle off of the front door of the next building and made their way inside. Indeed, they hardly looked at each other, let alone spoke, as they again split up and began searching separate floors. Upstairs, Tommy could hear cupboards slamming below him and drawers hitting the floor as Joel furiously rifled through the ground floor apartment. Tommy worked with little more decorum, barely paying attention to his search as his temper burned. Their silent tantrum war was cut short only by the crack of gunfire, again out on the street.

Tommy froze in the middle of loading several cans of tomato soup into his pack and stood listening, eyes wide. The shots were erratic and varied, some louder than others as if fired from different guns. It was not the intense gunfire that typically accompanied the discovery and dispatch of infected. It was a firefight, the air punctuated by the unpredictable crack of bullets as people dove in and out of cover.

Heart suddenly pounding, Tommy zippered his pack closed and threw it over a shoulder as he grabbed his rifle and checked there was a cartridge in the chamber. Joel was coming out of the lower apartment with a similar look of alarm just as Tommy came loping down the stairs.

"Gunfight?" Tommy asked breathlessly.

"Yeah," Joel nodded. He held his rifle ready. "C'mon."

Their argument forgotten, the brothers opened the front door and cautiously eased out onto the building's front stoop. In the direction from which they had come, they could see people crouching next to abandoned cars and behind garbage cans. Tommy's heart sunk as he recognized many of their own party, all gesturing and pointing guns towards the building in which he had found Charlie and the Fireflies.

As a second peel of thunder rolled across the orange-gray sky, a figure suddenly rose from beside the corner of the old house. Tommy glimpsed a black Firefly armband. He watched as the man turned and began sprinting for the backyard, while others out on the street rose from crouched hiding places and gave chase. Tommy recognized Troy and two men named Kester and Paul. As they rounded the corner, all three levelled rifles at the fleeing Firefly and fired almost at once. The man with the black armband dropped to the ground.

Beside him, Tommy felt Joel move as if to begin jogging towards the fight, but Tommy grabbed his brother's arm, scowling.

"They're gonna die anyway, Joel," Tommy said darkly. "You really gotta help?"

Joel glared at Tommy and jerked his arm away, but he did at least stop. Tommy returned the glare, but looked back to the distant fight after a second.

An odd sense of detachment settled over him as he watched people dodge and duck in and out of cover, shouting, waving, aiming, sprinting, falling. It was like he was watching a movie, standing there at a distance and observing the "family" he knew trying to kill the strangers in black armbands that he cared more about. Part of him wanted to start running towards the firefight, waving his hands and trying to shout some sense into both sides. Part of him wanted to find Troy and take their fearless leader to the ground, or at least try, since the bear of a man would likely win. Part of him just wanted to sit down and put his head in his hands.

He did none of these things. His face felt dead, his eyes dry and sunken. He could feel his chest rise and fall with each breath, but he felt like he was barely breathing. Bitter irony soured his mouth as he watched the people he had tried to save mowed down by the people he was supposed to be calling his own.

Two hunters broke cover and charged the apartment building, each holding pistols as they leaned into one of the shattered ground story windows and began firing at someone within. Suddenly Tommy saw a figure climb through a window on the other side of the house, fleeing the fire being rained down within. As the Firefly vaulted down from the window and hit the dead overgrowth below, Tommy recognized the square figure and black braid. Charlie.

A salvo of shots cracked across the street. Charlie jerked and tumbled forward into the brittle grass.

Tommy turned from the gun battle and started walking away.

It was a good minute before Joel followed. When his brother did finally catch up to him, Tommy was sitting on the back stoop of the apartment building they had just been searching. A backyard of dead azaleas sprawled around him. He sat with his elbows on his knees, face pale as he stared down at the black pistol he was turning over and over in his hands. He was flicking the safety on and off, his expression wooden and blank.

At first Joel came into the backyard with his lips pressed together and his brows drawn tight as if ready to berate his brother, but his steps stopped abruptly as he caught sight of Tommy. His face slackened and the tension in his shoulders released.

"…Tommy?" Joel said tentatively.

Vaguely, Tommy considered that he could not recall when he had last heard his brother sound so gentle. But he continued staring at the pistol, drawing deep, deliberate breaths.

"Tommy," Joel repeated. He gently lowered his rifle and let the butt drop to the earth, then lay the long gun in the grass. He lifted his hands and started taking slow steps towards his brother. "Tommy. Tommy, look at me."

Flick. Safety on. Flick. Safety off.

"Tommy. How 'bout you give me that, okay? Tommy?"

Flick. Safety on. Flick. Safety off.

The crunch of dead grass caused both of them to look up as Annie suddenly appeared around the side of the building from the direction of the street, as if having spotted them and followed to see what they were up to. Her expression was quizzical at first, then concerned. She looked at Joel, but her eyes flickered briefly to Tommy as if silently asking Joel what the hell was going on. Tommy sighed and returned his gaze to the gun he held.

"Tommy," Joel tried again, ignoring Annie's arrival. "I'm just…I'm just gonna get that gun from you, okay?" He was only a few steps from his brother now.

"Relax, Joel," Tommy said abruptly, his tone like lead. "I'm not gonna shoot myself."

"Okay…" Joel replied slowly, clearly skeptical.

Tommy suddenly shifted and Joel visibly flinched, as if expecting the worst. But Tommy only held up his pistol and popped out the magazine, tossing it at Joel.

Joel caught it as he and Annie exchanged looks. She slowly lowered the AK-47 she held propped against her hip. "What's goin' on, Tommy?" she said.

"I'm leavin'," he replied without ceremony. He was staring at the grass at his feet as he said it, but he glanced up a second later and was surprised by how light the air felt with that revelation hanging over it. He cleared his throat, nodding as if reassuring himself. "I'm leavin'."

"What d'you mean you're leavin'?" Joel repeated, expression confused.

Tommy stood from the back porch stoop, brushing dust from his jeans. "I mean I ain't stayin'. I can't keep doin' this." He paused, frowning as if speaking more to himself than Joel or Annie. "I won't. I could keep on, you know. Just huntin' people like we have been. Hell, I'm a pretty damn good shot. I could keep doin' it."

He shook his head, his expression suddenly serious as he looked at Joel. "But I don't sleep, Joel. I barely eat unless you count the booze. I don't wanna see your face ever and I want to lay into just about everybody else. If I ain't killed by infected or by one of our own people, I'll end up puttin' a gun to my head sooner or later. Or else drinkin' myself into an early fuckin' grave."

He felt the muscles in his jaw tighten. "I won't do it anymore."

Joel blinked, lips parting. He seemed unsure how to respond, which surprised Tommy. Joel's temper was so near the surface these days. Annoyance and anger were all Tommy ever expected from his brother, and when he didn't choose to chase his misery away with the whiskey, Tommy usually returned the sentiment in kind.

Both brothers stood staring at each other now with flinty expressions but haunted eyes. Tommy swallowed.

"I'm leavin'. I'm askin' you to come with me. But I'm tellin' you, I'm leavin' regardless."

Neither moved as they watched one another, Annie forgotten. They had had staring contests before, angry exchanges that involved little more than steely glares and silence as each dared the other to blink first. Joel usually won. But Tommy's expression was not defiant now. It was tired, brittle, pleading.

It was this or nothing.

Joel blinked first. For the first time in a long time, Tommy thought his brother looked weary. Yet in the next instant, Joel turned away and Tommy's heart dropped, the prospect of being alone on the road immediately making his stomach roll with fear. But he pressed his lips together to keep his composure as he began to envision the reality of leaving Joel behind, of abandoning his brother, likely forever.

Joel grunted as he bent and retrieved his rifle from where it lay in the grass. When he straightened, he slung the gun's strap over a shoulder and nodded deftly at Annie.

"You comin' with?" he rumbled.

Her mouth opened and closed, then she nodded slowly. "Guess I am."

It was Tommy's turn to blink now. Through the fog of trepidation that had begun to cloud his thoughts, he looked up and wrinkled his brow at his brother.

"Wait," he said cautiously. "You mean you're comin' with me?"

Joel frowned and fixed Tommy with a look, as if it were a stupid question.

"Course I am, Tommy."

He said it like there could never have been any alternative. He said it like the big brother that Tommy had once looked up to, not like the one he had grown to fear. He said it and Tommy's breath caught in the back of his throat.

And just like Joel, without pausing to dwell on sentiment or expressions of gratitude, he grabbed Tommy's and Annie's shoulders and started pushing them ahead of him. "C'mon. Better get a move on before Troy or the others notice we're missin." Tommy felt Joel press something hard into his palm. He looked down to see the loaded pistol magazine.

"You'll need that, baby brother."

Tommy allowed himself a half-smile and nodded. As all three began jogging away from the bloody hunting ground on the street behind them, the first fat raindrops started pattering across the rooftops and the smell of warm, wet asphalt filled the air.

So passes what I think was probably the darkest period for the brothers, but especially for Tommy. Plenty of trials remain, but as I told one reviewer via private message last week, Tommy and Joel are still many years from their eventual estrangement. In many ways, they are both still figuring out where they fit into this brave new world. Tune in next time as Tommy and Joel re-learn how to depend on one another when they encounter not one, but two new threats. Dramatic enough for you? ;)

As usual, thank you to all my readers and reviewers! For signed-in reviewers, know that I do usually try to reply to reviews, sometimes with extra tidbits of what is to come. ;) Feel the temptation! Follow the story to receive regular chapter alerts and check my profile for status updates between chapters. Thanks!