All the Dead Lie Down

by ForeseeObstacles

Amelia and her sister Clementine escaped Savannah two years ago, and have been alone since. They're still haunted by the memories of their first group when they meet another group of survivors in a cabin in the woods. A complete rewrite of Telltale's TWD Season Two, from the perspective of Clementine's older sister. All reviews are welcome.

10. Red Dirt

"You said it was up here?"

"Yeah. Just a little further."

Fifteen minutes of silent walking had brought the group back to the clearing Amelia had thought she was going to die in, more than once. In a few minutes she and Luke would walk right over the spot she'd stopped to look back for Nick. Where she'd let her guard down and let a walker catch her by the legs. Another mistake that almost killed her.

It would have. But someone bailed her out, and might have paid for it with his life.

She couldn't help but think he'd been severely short-changed.

Most of the herd had moved on in the time she'd been gone. Isolated walkers got in their way here and there, and each time someone stepped in to put it down. But by now the area was littered with the dead – the truly dead – that she and Nick had left behind. Amelia didn't remember killing this many.

Nick must have done a number on the herd after you left him.

She looked over the bodies, sweeping over their faces and hoping she wouldn't recognize any of them, and noticed Luke doing the same. She counted the hollow-eyed corpses and imagined Nick's open-fire was a struggle for survival. A refusal to resign himself to death while bullets-

-cartridges-

-were still in his gun.

It wasn't a last-ditch effort to kill as many walkers as he could out of spite…before he died. Not a final middle-finger to the creatures that killed his mother and ruined his life. Not a time-bomb finally going off as he was always meant to, because there was only one fate that awaited people like him-

-us-

-and trying to damage everyone and everything he could on his way to his grave.

She couldn't claim to know much about Nick. But if she were to ask Luke, who knew him very well, which was more likely…she had an idea of what the answer would be.

She didn't ask him, of course. She walked alongside him at the head of the group, leading what was left of the party out into the woods with no intention of going back the way they came. Clementine trailed behind them, followed by Carlos and Sarah, then by Alvin and Rebecca. This was it. They'd been chased out of their home – not that it had been Amelia's or Clementine's to begin with – and were back to wandering the forest with everything they owned on their backs.

Luke carried two backpacks. Amelia didn't share his optimism, but she understood it.

Amelia had borrowed a spare, which she used to carry her and Clementine's things, despite the two of them not having much to put in it. She and Clem had left everything they owned at their campsite up the river. Clem had a better excuse for leaving it than she did; her own excuse amounted to head trauma and lapse in judgment, which she didn't consider good enough. Regardless, it was gone by now. Amelia hoped it was picked up by travelers. Good people who deserved the change of clothes in her bag and the weasel she and her sister had caught. Thinking about a hungry family finding her things was more pleasant than imagining that it was picked up by bandits, which was much more likely. In the new world, the bad people far outnumbered the good.

Their new bag held two bottles of water, and Amelia and Clem's combined share of what food the group had left: a bruised green apple and a vanilla protein bar. She'd tucked the gun into the waist of her jeans. The group had found her a full magazine in their ammo supply, and Carlos had given it to her with a warning that it was the only one they could spare.

Clementine fell back to walk with Sarah. Amelia was proud of her for it; the girl was still shaken by Carver's visit. She stared at the ground as she walked, without responding to much. Clementine would ask her how she was doing, what she was thinking about, and was lucky if she got a nod in response. All of this from seeing a man who didn't even see her. It made Amelia think of questions about him that she didn't necessarily want answered.

She heard Clementine start another one-sided conversation with Sarah, and took advantage of the newfound space. She turned to Luke as they walked. She had a question for him, and she asked it quietly, not wanting it to become the start of a group discussion.

"Why did you leave Carver's camp?"

"Tell me again how far we are?" Luke asked, looking straight ahead and picking up his pace. Amelia started taking bigger steps to keep up with him.

"Less than five minutes. Why did you leave?"

"Look…I just…" he seemed frustrated. He focused on the path in front of them; Amelia could see him trying not to stare at the walkers scattered across the ground. "I can't get into it just now, alright? You sure we're headed in the right direction?"

"Positive." The area around them looked far too familiar to her. Brighter. Quieter. The sky wasn't as pretty. But it was the same place. After the events of that morning, she'd have been able to pick it out anywhere.

"Amelia." He said, something different in his voice. Her first thought was that he didn't believe her, that he'd heard sarcasm in her answer that wasn't there, or at least that she hadn't meant to put there. She looked at him, about to insist that she meant it, that she had her…issues but she wouldn't be insincere to him. Not right now. "Be honest with me."

I am. "I…"

"What…what kind of shape was Nick in when you got separated? Did it look like he might be okay?"

This kind of thinking was useless-

-that's funny, you do it all the time-

Whether Nick was alive or dead, it was already done. It occurred to her that she might've been telling herself that because she felt guilty – or was guilty, it had become hard to tell the two apart – and wanted to avoid answering for her own reasons. For herself. She thought about lying to him but couldn't bring herself to do it. False hope was tempting, and deceptive. It made it easy for Amelia to feel like she was doing the right thing. At the time.

Luke's face fell into an expression she could only call heartbroken. It was a look she didn't like seeing on him. "It's alright." He looked back to the path. "You hesitated too long for the answer to be anything good."

"I'm sorry."

"Whatever we find, I want you to know I don't blame you for what happened."

Even if it was my fault? She avoided meeting his eyes and immediately kicked herself. Act guiltier, idiot.

Luke shook his head, and for a moment she wondered if it was at her. "The, uh…the stuff with Carver. It's complicated. And it ain't completely my business to tell."

Clementine spoke up from directly behind Amelia, where she'd crept up with footsteps so light her sister hadn't heard a thing. "What are you guys talking about?" She looked between the two of them, blinking with wide amber eyes that suggested she had no idea what she'd just done, when Amelia knew she was much, much smarter than that.

Crap.

Amelia cleared her throat, then regretted it. It was something she did when she was stalling, and Clementine knew it.

"You're talking about Carver, aren't you?" She raised an eyebrow at them, unsmiling.

Amelia waited for Luke to say something. He didn't offer an answer. More than that, he didn't seem to be looking for one. This one was on her.

Amelia tried to avoid lying to her sister whenever she could. She'd decided long before that if she started lying to Clementine when she was too young to know, it wouldn't be long before she was old enough to know every time. The two of them didn't have much. If they couldn't trust each other, they wouldn't have anything at all.

"Yes. But…"

"Did you wait until I couldn't hear you on purpose?"

"…yes."

Clem got a look on her face that was as unwelcome to Amelia as it was familiar. "I'm not a little kid, Amelia. You don't have to hide things from me. Why don't you just let me help-"

Luke stopped short and put a hand out – it was so abrupt that Amelia walked into his outstretched arm – stopping Clementine, and in succession the rest of the group. He pointed out to the shed, just a short distance off the path.

"There."

A small group of walkers lingered around the doors, which as far as Amelia could see, were closed. Nick could have made it back inside. She hoped he did, but by now knew the dangers of letting her hopes get too high.

Amelia was about to direct the others to stay back. They didn't need the entire group getting into the scuffle. That would turn into a mess, quickly.

"Stay-"

"Nobody move," Luke raised his voice just enough to carry to Rebecca and Alvin in the back. It was fine by her. The leadership role was a problem more than a job. More trouble than it was worth, every time. She was relieved it hadn't fallen to her by default. For her own sake and the others'.

Carlos put a protective arm around Sarah, who still watched the ground, digging the heel of her shoe into the dirt. She didn't look like she'd noticed the walkers yet, and Amelia knew as well as everyone else did that it was a good thing. And that it would be even better to keep it that way.

"You can handle this?" Carlos asked carefully.

Amelia didn't answer because she assumed he was talking only to Luke. He nodded to the stragglers and asked her in a low voice,

"What do you think? I'd rather not use the guns. If there are any more close by, it'll draw'em out."

Carlos had been talking to both of them, she realized. She looked to the shed and counted the bodies. Three, hovering around the shed doors. Maybe one or two in the brush surrounding the shed, but she wouldn't have to worry about them if she handled this quietly.

She drew Hilda from her back and took three steps into the clearing before Luke caught her by the arm.

"where do you think you're going-"

"-you get the fuck back here-"

"-stop fighting-"

She stopped short, pulling her elbow out of his grip as she turned around abruptly. She could've sworn they'd already done this once.

She bit the word out like it tasted as bitter as it sounded. "What?"

"What are you doing?"

Amelia frowned and studied his face. Her irritation gave way to genuine confusion. What do you mean, "what am I doing?"

"What you just asked me to do…?" she said slowly, trying to figure out what she'd missed, what it was she wasn't understanding. Carlos had made himself pretty clear.

"Um…" Clementine spoke slowly. Amelia could tell when her sister's words were more directed at her than at anyone else. "Maybe it would be safer if more than one person goes?"

Amelia shifted her stance, and crossed her arms. "Oh." Safer…probably not. Faster, maybe. "Um. Sure." She looked back to Luke and nodded toward the shed. "I'll go left." She moved toward the doors, steering away from the cluster of three to flank the walkers from the left. It didn't occur to her to wait for confirmation that Luke understood until she was already there.

She whistled, and all three of them turned to look in her direction. They started toward her in a dragging shuffle that seemed menacing when she'd been surrounded by them. Now, her people outnumbered them, and the sluggish way they moved only made her impatient.

She closed the gap between them and took one swing, then another. The first struck one across the forehead and knocked it back without killing it. The second hit another and pierced it through the temple, taking splash of blood and brain matter with it as the pulled the blade out of its head. She could see Luke through the bodies; he came at them from the other side, machete in hand, and brought the blade down onto the third walker's head hard enough to split its skull down the middle. Amelia took another swing, one with too much force and not enough precision, and caught the last one in the mouth. The blade lodged itself behind its jaw, and Amelia cursed internally when she found she couldn't pull it out.

Damn it, she thought, trying to pull it loose while the corpse reached for her. Too low for the brain.

Luke finished it for her, hitting it upside the head with enough force to shatter its skull and break Hilda free.

"Thanks," she muttered, swinging her ice pick toward the ground and flinging blood into the grass.

She expected him to say something consistent with his usual manner. Something friendly and modest. A no problem or don't mention it delivered with a charming Southern lilt. She didn't expect him to look – and sound – irritated with her.

"Didn't know you were just gonna run up on 'em like that,"

"I said, I'll go left." That meant he was supposed to go right. He'd obviously understood, since he did it.

His frown deepened. "That doesn't mean-" He stopped himself, looking to the ground and shaking his head. "Forget it." He headed for the shed without putting his weapon away. Amelia followed him to the doors, knowing without looking that Clementine was close behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see that she was right, and gestured to Clem to take a step back, which she did.

Luke pushed the doors open easily – they glided across the wood floors with a light creak – showing everyone immediately that they hadn't been barricaded from the inside.

"Oh, no…" he muttered.

The stench of death rolled out and hit them. It was enough to make Luke recoil and Amelia cover her face with her sleeve. She could see the walker she'd…disemboweled, laying right where she'd left it, and hoped it was the only source of the smell. They stared into the shed for a silent count of five; nothing and no one inside moved, making them think it was empty until a single walker stirred somewhere on the floor inside. It was tangled in the mess of trash bags and empty jars Nick had slept in the night before. It sent jars rolling here and there across the floor as it lumbered to its feet. The way it wheezed and growled assured them it was unmistakably dead. They waited for it to stand, to turn around and show its face, to show them if their fears were true, and when it did…

It wasn't Nick.

It had once been a woman, wearing a filthy pink blouse. But it certainly wasn't Nick.

It started toward them. Amelia kicked an empty crate into its legs, tripping it. It hit the floor, and Luke stepped into the shed and put it down with a single blow to the head.

He straightened up and didn't waste any time asking questions, scanning the shed wall-to-wall when he already knew it was empty.

"He's not here," he turned around, desperate enough to look to Amelia for an explanation everyone here knew she didn't have. "He's not on the path between here and the house. It doesn't make any sense. Why would he go anywhere else?"

Amelia didn't have anything to say. She couldn't think of anything to tell him that would make the situation better.

She could think of plenty of things to say to make it worse.

Luke swore. Then ran a hand through his hair and swore again. "This was it. He was supposed to be here. Why isn't he…" He left the shed, looking around as if Nick was going to come wandering out of the trees at any second.

"Luke." Amelia got his attention. "This is good. I don't see his body. That means he got away."

Or it means he turned and walked away with the herd.

Shut. The fuck. Up.

She didn't have any patience for her inner pessimist. Not today. Not when Luke was two steps away from a tragedy he might never recover from. She'd seen it happen over, and over, and over. And she never once met anyone who came back from it, at least not completely.

Luke thought about what this meant, putting his machete away in the sheath on his back. "Alright…alright, say he's alive. How the hell are we going to find him?"

The rest of the group continued to hang back, except Carlos, who came forward to join them. "What's going on? We don't have time to wait around here."

"Nick should've been here." Luke told him. "But he can't have gotten far."

"You know we can't stay here, Luke. We are not safe out here."

"I do, and we'll move out as soon as we can."

"'Soon' isn't good enough," Carlos said. "Carver's men are not far behind us. We're all in danger as long as we are not moving."

"I understand, Carlos. Believe me, I do, but we can't just leave him!"

Amelia knew that wasn't going to get him anywhere. Not with Carlos. He had a daughter. She wasn't sure what the rest of the group thought that meant. But to Carlos, it meant there was one person in the group who was miles more important to him than anyone else. He would've abandoned the entire group to keep her safe, let alone one person.

You should know.

She could see Luke losing his patience. Fitting, since Carlos' was long gone, far before this argument had started. "If we just take a few minutes to look for him-"

"It will not be a few minutes!" Carlos raised his voice. To his credit, if Luke was intimidated by it, it didn't show on his face. "It will be a waste of time we do not have!"

Clementine approached the three of them, and her voice was so small when she said, "Hey, I…" that almost no one heard her, and Luke and Carlos continued to talk over her.

"This isn't how we do things, Carlos. We stick together."

"We will not sacrifice the entire group for one man."

"No one's sayin' anything about sacrifices!" Luke turned to Amelia. "What do you think?"

And there she was again, frozen, wide-eyed, and staring down headlights that always had a way of sneaking up on her. She knew the dangers of taking sides, even – especially – when she was asked to. She'd watched enough fighting between people whose names pained her to think about-

-or made her angry, very, very fucking angry-

-to know that these arguments were all the same. Different fights between different people, all with the same script.

And, in all likelihood, the same ending.

She glared back at the both of them in silence long enough for them to know they weren't getting an answer from her. Truthfully, she didn't think either one of them was completely wrong. Of course, she'd never say that, either. Taking the middle was just as dangerous. Once upon a time, she'd tried. She'd thought she'd found a safe option, a way to skirt responsibility, when dodging blame was and always had been a game no one ever won.

No one likes a tie-breaker who can't handle the job.

"Guys," Clementine spoke up, more insistent now. "I think-"

Carlos had lowered his voice, which to Amelia was much more intimidating than his yelling. Shouting was easy. Speaking calmly despite intense anger was more difficult to do, and more rare to see.

"I won't have this, Luke." He said. He turned away from him and look a long breath before speaking again. "I'm sorry. But the group is moving on, whether or not you stay with us."

Luke's eyes went wide in disbelief, then narrowed again in anger. "You can't be serious."

"What?" Clementine said, loud enough to be heard this time. "You can't do that, Carlos!"

Luke looked past Carlos to Alvin and Rebecca, knowing they were listening despite their distance from the shed. "And what about you? Y'all are okay with this?"

Rebecca looked up at her husband, then back to Luke with pity on her face when Amelia expected cold indifference. "Luke…he found the cabin. He found us. We can't…" She didn't finish, and Alvin put a hand to her back.

"I'm sorry, man. I really am, but you know what we have to do."

"I can't believe this," Luke crossed his arms. "After all this time, everything he's done for you, you're just gonna hang him out?" Amelia could hear his voice rising, and she stepped up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. She could see him digging his own grave, making it worse with every word, and she wasn't trying to comfort him so much as trying to make him stop talking. "He doesn't deserve-"

She squeezed, and wasn't gentle about it. Please. Shut. Up. He cut himself short, and when he looked at her she could see the anxiety, the fear, the crippling worry, buried somewhere beneath the anger. His eyes could've given Clementine a run for her money; they were too big and too brown and when he was upset they made him look like a puppy someone had kicked. She resented the way it tugged at her heart to see him like this, when he had treated her so kindly despite all the reasons she gave him not to. More than that, he'd been nothing but wonderful to her sister, which to Amelia said more about him than he realized.

"Carlos," she said carefully, walking toward him. "Just hear me out."

Scolding them over this wouldn't shame them into doing the right thing. It would only make them feel guilty and defensive. They already knew Nick deserved better. They already knew this was wrong. And they were doing it anyway for entirely different reasons. His group was afraid, and trying to protect people they loved, and those two things in combination could get a person to do much worse than leave a friend behind. Especially when there was a good chance that friend was already dead.

She doubted she would be able to get Carlos to listen, but small hope was better than none at all.

"I know all you want is to keep Sarah safe. Everyone here wants that. But the most safety any of us can have is in numbers."

Carlos watched her stoically, arms crossed.

"If you leave now, my guess is Luke is going to stay and look for Nick. And then Clementine is going to follow him, and I go where she goes. You would be down to four people."

He seemed to take this differently than she'd meant it, and he frowned disapprovingly. "This isn't a negotiation, Amelia."

"I'm not trying to make threats." She insisted. "It's what will happen if you don't let us look for Nick. I don't want it to, but it will."

Carlos looked over Amelia's head to Luke, waiting for him to disagree. He didn't, which told Carlos all he needed to know. He turned and looked back at Alvin and Rebecca, who didn't offer anything to disagree, and at Sarah, who still stared at the ground, hugging herself. Amelia knew he was at least considering it, even if he didn't look like it.

She waited, and the amount of time Carlos took to speak gave her the answer in itself.

Maybe a 'please' will help.

Shush.

He shook his head, the look on his face making it clear he knew he was cutting his group in half and it was something he took no pleasure in doing. "We are not safe out here. I'm sorry. We don't have any other choice."

Clementine stepped it, raising her voice above the level she was comfortable talking. For a moment she was the loudest person in the conversation, and Amelia knew she hated that. "If we know where he is now, will you come with us to go get him?"

All eyes were on Clementine.

"Clem…" Amelia asked carefully. "How could you know where he is?"

---

"Through here," Clementine called back, though her voice didn't quite carry to everyone in the group. Really, it didn't reach past Amelia and Luke, who covered her right and left sides while they pushed through the woods.

They'd crossed the river a few minutes ago. They led the group to wade knee-deep through the water to the other side, where Amelia had watched Pete get bitten, and then watched her sister leave with him. The bodies were still there. Amelia didn't know why she hadn't expected them to be. She was thrown off, seeing them again, stepping over them. Carlos did his best to keep Sarah from looking at them. There were dozens, and it was easier said than done.

Amelia and Luke had been pushing ahead of the group, killing walkers as they appeared, but they were few and far between. Carlos and Sarah followed, leading the way for Alvin and Rebecca. The group had taken a sharp turn and cut further into the woods, away from the cabin but in the opposite of the direction they'd wanted to go. The detour was going on thirty minutes now, and from the look on Carlos' face, he was about to draw a line and insist they get back on the planned route.

Luke knew this. He picked up his pace and walked ahead of Clementine, scanning the trees and looking for the truck she'd said would be here.

When it came into view between the trees, he broke into a sprint. He covered ground fast, and Amelia jogged to catch up with him while trying not to get too far ahead of Clementine. The three of them had left the rest of the group further back, and she wasn't about to leave Clementine alone in an open space. She slowed to a stop by the truck's front bumper, after Luke had disappeared around the other side. He was somewhere around the truck's rear doors, and she expected to see him come back any moment, shaking his head because there was nothing and no one inside.

She hoped. If Pete and Clementine had hidden out here for the night, there was a chance he was still here. And she hoped, for Clementine, for everyone's sake, that he wasn't.

She turned to Clem, who'd stopped by her side and waited nervously with crossed arms.

"Should we…go over there?"

Amelia shook her head, looking to the back of the truck and trying to think. "Look, Clem," she said gently, turning to her sister. "There's a chance we're going to find…" She trailed off when Clementine widened her eyes, blinking. She opened her mouth to say something, and Amelia was happy to stop talking and let her. She never liked breaking bad news to her. "What is it?"

"I think Luke just called you,"

Amelia frowned, confused. "I didn't hear-"

"Amelia!"

It was loud and sudden enough to make her jump, her heart pounding in alarm because hearing anyone scream anything was never good. The fact that it was her name only made it worse. When the screaming was directed at her, something was either her fault or her responsibility to fix. The former happened more often than the latter, but both terrified her equally.

She rushed to the rear of the truck, imagining the worst, prepared for blood and mangled bodies and agony of every kind, hoping that having all of these things in mind would mean whatever she was about to see wasn't nearly as bad as she was expecting.

She caught up to Luke and saw what he was looking at, and remembered that expecting the worst and preparing for it were very different things.

The blood covered the entire floor of the truck bed, in a gargantuan puddle that was at least half an inch thick. It ran down in a thin, steady drip over the bumper, pooling in a puddle that was sinking into the grass by the left rear tire. She smelled rust and rotting flesh and in the seconds she had to take it all in, she found herself staring at the blood, and not at Nick. He was on his knees in the truck bed, blood covering his arms up to the elbow and soaked into his pants up to his thighs, hovering over his uncle while he did frantic, arrhythmic chest compressions but there was just so much blood…

"Get Carlos," Luke couldn't hide the way his voice was shaking, and Amelia worried that if she tried to speak hers would do the same thing.

Clementine caught up with them and gasped, her voice small and terrified in a way Amelia hadn't heard from her since she was eight years old. "Oh my God…"

"Get Carlos," Luke ordered again, to no on in particular.

Amelia looked to her sister. "G-go. Now."

Clem immediately turned around and took off in the direction the group had come. Amelia could see them, just now coming into view on the other side of the clearing. She was trying to gauge how far they were when Nick spoke, acknowledging they were here for the first time.

"Somebody fucking help me!"

"We're right here. Hold on, it's gonna be…" Luke climbed into the truck, and after kneeling on Pete's other side he was already near-covered in his blood. "…it's gonna be fine…" He looked up at Amelia, and whether or not he was trying to send her a message by trailing off and freezing with his blood-stained hands over Pete's body, she saw it and understood.

He had no idea what to do, and apparently hoped she did.

He was going to be disappointed.

She dropped Hilda and her backpack into the grass and climbed in. "Move," she said quietly, almost at a whisper, taking Luke's place when he slid out of the way.

Fuck. She tried to remember something, anything from the first and only CPR class she'd ever taken. Nick was in front of her, pressing hard into Pete's chest and she didn't think he was doing it right but she couldn't remember how it was done and his blood was fucking everywhere, she didn't know this much blood could come from one person…

Her eyes trailed down to his legs, and she had to look twice, three times to understand what she was seeing. One of this legs ended just below the knee, wrapped in a wet, dark red cloth that had once been the white thermal Nick wore under his T-shirt.

It was gone. Missing.

"Amelia,"

This from Luke, who crouched behind her and watched her and Nick prepare to attempt something that was beyond them. Way out of their league and far over their heads.

"Uh…" Amelia stuttered. Shit. Say something. Make a choice. It was too crowded in the bed of the truck. Not because of the people in it, but because it was loaded with whatever crap the truck had been transporting before it broke down. "Get those boxes out of here. Carlos is going to need the room." She thought he might question it, but Luke immediately started pushing stacked cardboard boxes out of the truck. They tumbled over the bumper, their contents spilling out onto the ground.

Getting words out seemed to make more come easier, even just in her head. She could hear herself think and she remembered an acronym, that stupid fucking memory tool they'd used to teach her basic emergency response. ABC's, right…? Fuck.

She reached down with both hands, gently gripped Pete's head just under his jaw, and tilted his head up. A stood for airway…she wasn't even sure.

"Clear the…airway…" she muttered to herself, hoping the rest would come back to her.

Nick looked up at her, eyes wide and bloodshot, and his voice shook through his compressions as he said, "You know how to do this?"

B stood for breathing…wait. That wasn't right. Airway and breathing sounded like the same thing. Shit…

Hands still under Pete's jaw, she felt something jump beneath her index finger. She realized her fingertips were right over the giant artery in his neck.

"Stop," she put a hand on Nick's arm, and he ignored her. "You can stop, Nick, you can stop. He has a pulse."

"No, I can't," Nick shook his head, and if anything he started pressing faster. "He doesn't…if-if I stop he'll…"

Luke gripped Nick by the arms, restraining him and making it harder for him to keep the chest compressions going. "Nick, listen, listen-"

"He's fucking dying, man!" Nick tried to shout at him but his voice cracked somewhere in the middle of his sentence, and everything that came out after was barely more than a whisper. "I can't stop, I can't…he can't die, Luke, he-he…"

"Nobody's gonna die, but you need to calm down," Luke gripped his arms tighter and gave him a light shake. "Let us help him, alright?"

Nick stopped, and Amelia couldn't tell whether Luke's words had convinced him, or Nick had just given up on what little hope he had left. He slowly took his hands off of Pete's chest. From the way his shoulders sank and he hung his head, she was inclined to think it was the latter.

Amelia felt again along Pete's neck, hoping she hadn't been wrong when she'd thought she felt something. There it was again. It was weak, but it was there, steady and repetitive. She moved her hand so it hovered over his mouth, waiting to feel-

"Look," she said to Nick, who slowly lifted his head to look at her. "He's breathing." She took one of Nick's hands and placed his palm flat on Pete's chest. "His heard is beating."

"Why won't he wake up?"

The next thing Amelia heard was a familiar voice, deep and severe, and it couldn't have made her feel more relieved.

"Get out of the way," Carlos said as he climbed into the truck. Amelia and Luke moved, pressing themselves against the wall and trying not to take up space Carlos would need to word. Nick didn't move, and Amelia got the feeling even Carlos hadn't expected him to.

Amelia expected him to ask questions. She was already scrambling for answers, trying to come up with the right ones but Carlos only rolled his sleeves up over his forearms. He put two fingers under Pete's jaw, and when he found the pulse he held them there and looked down to his watch.

If he was shaken by the amount of blood, by Pete's missing limb, by the disturbing pale-grey shade of his skin, he didn't show it in the slightest. "Why did he do this?" he demanded, specifically from Nick. It seemed like he already knew. But Amelia understood why he wanted to hear it.

"H-he got bit,"

He lowered his watch and looked up. "When? Tell me when it happened."

Nick didn't answer, and while only he and Amelia knew why, Carlos had no patience for the delay.

"Nick,"

"Yesterday. Yesterday morning. But he did this because…you have to help him," Nick pleaded. "Please, Carlos,"

Whatever went through his mind, Carlos made the decision quickly. He looked back to Pete, "How long has be been like this?"

"I don't know." Nick wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve. "I-I don't know, I found him like this,"

"How long ago?"

"Half an hour? Fuck, I don't know. I'm sorry,"

Carlos didn't acknowledge the apology. He seemed to have stopped listening after he'd gotten an answer. He tilted Pete's head back again, clearing his airway, and without words or warning or hesitation he raised a fist and brought it down hard onto the center of Pete's chest.

Pete's eyes were open instantly, the shock forcing him to inhale hard and fast. His breath was forced and ragged and he spit it back out in a violent coughing fit. He tried to sit up, as he hacked through the stubborn breath sticking in his lungs, and Nick tried to hold him down.

"Holy shit-! Uncle Pete," he said, knowing as well as everyone else that Pete wasn't listening to a word he said. "Uncle Pete, just-"

"Shit…" Pete muttered, coughing through the last of whatever was keeping him from breathing. Even when he did, his breathing was…wrong. Sometimes it was too shallow and sometimes it was too deep, and it was never in a consistent rhythm. "Nick?"

"Yeah, I'm right here." Nick told him. "You're gonna be fine,"

"Don't lie to me, boy," Pete grunted, unable to catch his breath. He lifted his head, getting a brief, limited glimpse around the truck. "S'that Luke?"

"Right here, Pete," Luke said, despite being on the other end of the truck and knowing Pete couldn't see him well. "We're gonna help you, alright?"

"You can try-" he lapsed into another coughing fit. "Carlos…"

"Try not to move," Carlos told him. He'd moved on to assessing the damage to his leg. He started working out the knot Nick had tied in his sleeves, to keep the shirt wrapped around…

The stump. Amelia had been staring at it for the slowest two minutes of her life, and still couldn't wrap her mind around it. It was a stump. Pete's leg was gone because he'd cut through it, through the muscle and bone and blood vessels with the bloodied handsaw sitting in the corner, not five feet from her at the moment.

Carlos nodded to the belt that had been tied around Pete's lower leg, tightened around his calf to lessen the bleeding. Not that it was doing much. "Move that. It should be higher. Above the knee." Nick fumbled with the knot in the leather. His fingers were slick with blood and they kept slipping while he cursed under his breath.

"I, uh…" Pete winced, his entire body flinching as Carlos pulled the shirt from his leg and set it aside. "I fucked this one up pretty good, didn't I?"

"I'm going to do everything I can, Pete."

"That's what you say to people who are about to die, isn't it?"

Amelia wondered how Carlos kept his head clear. There was urgency in his eyes, even fear, if she looked closely. But none of it forced him to shut down. If anything, it made him faster, more alert, more decisive. She wondered if his years as a surgeon made him this way, or if people who were born this way decided to become surgeons.

Though the real question she wanted to ask was how she could do the same.

"Amelia," he said abruptly, giving her a sudden, irrational fear that he knew what she'd been thinking. "Get out of the truck."

She didn't understand. She was torn between her insistence on being there to help and the sheer terror that pulsed through her heart at the thought of arguing with him, now of all times. Before she had to make the decision, he said,

"Hand my medical bag in to Luke. I need you to start a campfire. Tell Rebecca and Alvin to watch for lurkers, and keep Sarah away from the truck." He raised his voice when he didn't get an answer; Amelia realized she'd been nodding silently, which he hadn't seen because he was busy trying to control the damage to Pete's mutilated leg. "Can you do that? Tell me you understand."

A campfire?

"Yes-" Amelia cleared her throat when the word came out pathetic and small. "Yes. I-I can…" she trailed off, making her way out of the truck, sliding her way past Nick and creating ripples in the puddle of blood they all sat in. "I can do that…" By the time she got the full sentence out, she was outside, blood soaked into her socks and dripping from her fingertips while she blinked in the sunlight and breathed air that didn't reek of iron. She joined Alvin, Clementine, and Sarah on the outside, and looked across each of their faces without really seeing them.

She looked over both shoulders, then turned around, looking for a bag that wasn't there. "The bag…?" She muttered, looking at Alvin, who she already knew was only carrying his and Rebecca's. "Where is-?"

"Here," Rebecca said from behind her, handing her a duffel bag that, Amelia found when she took it, was much heavier than it looked.

She gripped the handles with both hands and hoisted it up to her chest to hold it from the bottom. "Watch the trees…? And Sarah,"

"We heard," Rebecca turned her around to face the truck again. "We've got it. Don't worry."

Luke was waiting with a hand out for the bag when she got there; she pushed it up into his arms and turned around without waiting to see what they'd do with it.

A fire. Something to burn, something to light it with. I can do that. She jogged away from the truck – what she hoped was a safe distance – to an area of the clearing where the brush was dry and the ground was hard-packed dirt. She knelt down and used her hands to claw leaves away from the ground, trying to clear a space to start a fire that wouldn't spread out of control.

Another pair of hands joined hers in raking leaves and pine needles out of the way.

"Why did he tell you to start a fire?" Clementine asked her, looking over her shoulder to the truck. Amelia thought she knew. But she was still holding out, waiting for Carlos to tell her it was for something else. "Amelia?"

She shook her head, throwing leaves out of the way until they were sitting in a large clearing of dirt and pebbles. "Let's not…I need you to get me firewood. Sticks, tree branches, anything."

Clementine nodded, and was on her feet, beelining for the trees before Amelia was finished.

"Watch for walkers!" she called after her.

Amelia stood up. She looked around herself, at the dozens of rocks scattered around the clearing and started picking them up, gathering them into a large armful. Out of nowhere, Pete screamed, and it scared her enough to make her jump and drop every one of them.

While she gathered them back up, she heard Nick stammer an apology and Luke say something generic and reassuring, maybe telling Pete he was going to be alright…she didn't know. She heard Carlos' voice fading in and out, the truck being too far for her to hear every word. "No more, no less…" he said. Nick said something that was meant to reassure either Pete or himself. "Going to be okay…" Luke cursed and apologized three times in a row.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, shit – I'm sorry, hold on,"

Looking over her shoulder, she saw him lean across the truck bed, reaching for something small that had fallen and landed in the blood. He picked it up, and Amelia realized it was a glass vial of medication when Luke stuck a syringe into the top and held it up to his eye level, trying to draw out a precise amount.

She'd just finished arranging the rocks into a circle when Clementine came back, stumbling as she approached Amelia and throwing and armful of knotted sticks onto the ground in front of her.

"Sorry," she said, hands on her knees and out of breath.

Amelia didn't answer. She bit into her shirt sleeve, into a small hole that she'd had for a long time, and tearing it until the fabric hung off in shreds. She ripped it from her shirt completely, wadding it up in her hands while Clementine arranged and rearranged the wood in the circle, no doubt trying to find something, anything to do to help.

Amelia took the lighter from her pocket, the one she'd stolen from the man at the river-

-is it stealing if he's dead-

-and lit the fabric in her hands. She carefully slid it under the wood, trying not to listen to every word coming from the truck. She waited for the fire to catch, and once it was big enough she threw a handful of leaves and pine needles over it. She looked around and noticed Alvin, hunting rifle in hand, standing with his back to her while he watched the trees. She had to look a little harder for Rebecca, who'd taken Sarah and the other rifle away from the clearing, still within shouting distance but nowhere near the disaster they were trying to fix.

Can this even be fixed?

Amelia sat back on her knees and splayed her hands out, palms down on her legs. She felt like there was more she should've been doing. She got up and turned around, and muttered to Clementine,

"Keep an eye on the fire. I'm going…" but trailed off when she saw Luke, getting out of the truck bed and walking toward them with purpose…and his machete drawn. She tensed up at the sight, and knew what he was going to do with it the moment she saw it. He had his weapon in one hand and Nick's once-white shirt in the other. He used it to wipe the machete from the handle to the tip of the blade, leaving it streaked with blood that pooled in little red drops but otherwise clean.

He didn't speak to Amelia or Clementine as he stopped, laid his machete on the ground, and slid it into the fire until half the blade was submerged in the flame. And he left it there.

The pit of Amelia's stomach ran cold. Luke looked over at her in a way that said he felt the same. He flexed the fingers of his right hand, bending them back with his other hand until they cracked loudly. He took a deep, uneven breath before he stood upright.

"Come on. We have to…" He shook his head, and headed back for the truck. "Just come on."

Amelia ordered herself to breathe, and think, and do something other than freeze. She shook her head and looked back to Clementine. "Keep it lit." She tossed her lighter, which Clem caught in the air, sandwiching it between her palms. Amelia followed Luke to the truck before her sister could ask her any questions that would force her to lie.

Nick was upset – angry, even – when they got there. Pete was unconscious again, and Nick hovered over him protectively. He raised his voice, panic and desperation making his tone sharp, as she she knew it was prone to do with her. "I don't-fuck, fuck, I don't know,"

Carlos wasn't deterred by the volume, or the aggressive tone. "I need you to think, Nick. Try to remember." He'd fashioned something familiar out of a long piece of cloth, wrapped around Pete's severed limb and twisted around a short wooden stick. The more he turned the tick and twisted the fabric, the more it constricted Pete's leg. Amelia had forgotten the word for it, and was trying to remember but was distracted by the deep shade of purple Pete's lower leg had turned.

"I…I have no idea," Nick looked to Luke, who'd picked up Pete's leg and holding it up, keeping it elevated. "Luke?"

He shook his head, eyes wide and sympathetic. "I'm sorry, I got no idea…I don't even know my own…"

"Try to remember something. Anything." Carlos said, still calm for reasons Amelia didn't understand but envied all the same.

"I don't…" Nick tightened his fists in frustration. "I don't think I ever knew it in the first place. I'm a blood relative. Isn't there a good chance…?"

"It's not guaranteed. We can't just take a guess." Carlos answered. "The wrong type will clot in his veins and kill him."

"He's already dying! We have to try something!"

"Amelia," Luke shifted his grip, pushing Pete's leg up higher. "What's your blood type?"

"B-negative," she answered, knowing it wouldn't be any help if they didn't know Pete's.

A tourniquet. That was it. She watched Carlos tighten it and remembered hearing something about tourniquets being dangerous. That they stop bleeding but there was a chance of…

Losing the limb.

Yes, that was it. A last resort. Sacrifice the limb so you don't bleed to death.

"Carlos, please," Nick urged. "There's got to be something you can do,"

But Amelia knew there wasn't. If they didn't know Pete's blood type, no one there could give him back any of the blood he'd lost, not unless one of them was the universal…

"Clementine…" Amelia turned to call over her shoulder. "Clementine!"

She heard and came running, and Amelia knelt down to meet her, and talk to her and her level. She lowered her voice, knowing the others had already guessed why she'd called her over but hoped she could at least make Clem feel like this conversation was between them. She didn't want to put any pressure on her, even though she knew her sister was already under so much pressure she likely already felt that she wouldn't have a choice.

"Pete needs blood. You're O-negative."

Clementine blinked, looking nervously around the truck bed, from Carlos to Luke to Pete's dying limb.

"I'm sorry," Amelia told her, hoping the way she was rushing though her words didn't make Clem feel they were insincere. "I don't want to put you on the spot, but…I would do it but I'm not-"

"I can do it," she said quietly.

"Clem," Amelia didn't get to finish her warning before Carlos gave her one of his own, one she hoped her sister would take seriously.

"Are you sure about this, Clementine?"

She nodded, and this time when she spoke it was louder, and more sure. "I can handle it." Before Amelia could ask her again, and a third time and a fourth, she was climbing into the truck bed, taking Luke's hand as he helped her up.

Amelia followed her, struck again with a sense of dread so familiar she should've given it a name by now. She slid her way past Luke and Carlos trying not to disturb either of them, to be next to Clem as if she could do something to help if…if it went wrong.

"Take this," Carlos gestured for Amelia to take the tourniquet. Moments after he handed it to her his hands disappeared into the duffel bag, returning with medical tubing, cased needles, and an empty IV bag. His hands worked quickly, gently uncoiling the tubing and handing the rest of the supplies to Clementine to keep them off of the floor. "Hold these..." He looked over to Pete, who'd gone from grey to pale since he'd last been awake. "…roll up your sleeve."

Clementine did, and Amelia knew the worried look in her eyes and the nervous way she curled her lip couldn't have been obvious only to her. Amelia watched, just as nervous as her sister, while Carlos ran one end of the tubing through the IV bag and the other into a needle so wide she could see inside it.

She didn't know much about blood transfusions, or the dangers involved. She knew Clementine could die, worst came to worst, if he took too much. If it came to that, she'd rip the needle out herself. But a part of her had already decided she wouldn't have to, that she could trust Carlos not to do anything that would hurt her.

She was watching, and she'd be there if he did.

He wrapped a long piece of cloth around her upper arm, bunching both ends in his fists and pulling it tight until Clementine objected.

"That's…that's really tight,"

"It has to be. I'm sorry, Clementine, but this is going to be uncomfortable," he told her as he pulled the cloth tighter and knotted it twice.

"Is it going to hurt?"

Carlos was honest with her, and while Amelia expected nothing less from him, she'd have preferred that he lied. "Yes, a little. I'll try to make it as quick as possible."

"Clem, are you okay?" Amelia asked, keeping both hands on the tourniquet despite wanting to reach for her sister's hand. Clementine only nodded, staring down at her inner elbow while Carlos sanitized it with a packaged alcohol wipe.

"Relax your arm." He moved her arm until it was resting face-up in her lap. "It's very important that you stay relaxed, and don't move."

"Okay…" Clementine stared at the needle between his fingers, curling her other hand into a tight fist and…Amelia had seen her look like that before. She was holding her breath.

She let go of the tourniquet with one hand and put it over her other arm. "Breathe, Clem. You have to breathe."

She let out a long breath, nodding and staring at the needle getting closer and closer to her vein.

A second before it pierced her skin she looked over in Amelia's direction, who was surprised – stunned, really – at the name that came out of her mouth.

"Luke…?" she squeezed her eyes shut, letting out a squeak while Carlos pushed the needle deeper into her arm.

"I'm right here, Clementine," he said. "It's-"

"Ow!" She cringed, and other hand started to shake when Carlos adjusted the needle, tilting it one way, then the other because no blood was coming out.

Amelia tried to reach for her again, but the tourniquet started to come undone in her hands and she had to use both to tighten it again. "Clementine-" She stopped when her sister made a sound, a half-sob that Amelia had heard before, and knew it meant she was about to cry.

Amelia looked to Luke. "Here. Let me…" She slipped a hand underneath what was left of Pete's calf, holding his leg with one hand and the tourniquet in the other. "Go." She nodded toward Clementine and Carlos. "Please,"

Luke moved without hesitating, making his way around her and over to Clementine with soft, reassuring words. "Hey, hey, Clem, you're alright…"

"Elevate the leg," Carlos said.

Amelia noticed Clem reach for Luke's hand, and started trying to remember the last time Clementine had held her hand. It took conscious effort not to pay attention to it-

"Amelia," Carlos pulled her attention elsewhere. "Elevate the leg." She realized what she'd been doing and lifted Pete's leg, hoping she hadn't made a mistake that would kill him.

It's going to take more than that to kill him. And it's going to take a hell of a lot more than this to save him.

If he could be saved. Amelia had heard talk of cutting off limbs, to keep the infection from spreading. She didn't know how valid it was. No one did. For all any of them knew it was horseshit, meaning Pete had only made his own death longer and more painful.

"See? Look at that. It's working." Luke said, drawing Clem's attention to the blood running down the tube and into the IV bag. "Does it still hurt?"

"Um…" she hesitated, tilted her head to one side. "Not really."

"Well, that's 'cause Carlos knows what he's doing,"

Maybe it was the way he talked, or the way his words made Clementine relax and breathe, but Amelia was reminded that optimism wasn't useless. It was difficult to remember, and always felt out of place. But it had potential to mean something, if she let it.

Maybe Pete could live through this. Thinking that he could was better than insisting he wouldn't.

You know why he won't.

Minutes crawled by, and Carlos picked up the bag and disconnected it from the needle in Clem's arm sooner than Amelia expected. He carefully pulled the needle out, without hesitation despite the way she winced, and pressed a gauze pad to the puncture site.

"Do you think you got enough?" Luke asked.

Carlos had turned around, already putting a clean needle on the end of the IV and looking for a vein in Pete's arm. "It will have to do. Take Clementine out of the truck and go get your machete."

"Let's go, Clem."

Clementine mumbled something that didn't quite form words, then she cleared her throat and tried again. "Okay…"

They moved behind Amelia, who knew Carlos hadn't told her to leave but was getting too anxious at the thought of Clementine leaving her sight. She'd never heard her slur words like that…

"I'm going to check on her. Nick?" Amelia said, hoping he would take over for her. Nick stared down at his uncle, and didn't look up or move.

Carlos' answer was a cement block, dropped abruptly on the floor with no intention of being moved. "No."

"She's-"

"I promise you, she will be fine. She needs a bottle of water and a nap." Carlos lifted the IV bag, which was about three quarters full with Clem's blood. He handed it to Nick, and watched the tube run red all the way down to Pete's vein. "Keep it up high. Squeeze it gently." He addressed Amelia without looking at her. "You need to stay. I'll need you to help hold him down."

Amelia heard his words and found herself mimicking her sister, mumbling a non-word as she understood what they meant.

"Oh...sh-…"

Luke climbed back into the truck, using one hand to steady himself because the other held his machete; he held it blade-up, handling it carefully because the blade was searing hot and glowing orange. He was here, and he had the machete, and this was happening despite the fact that she wasn't ready, would never be ready to do this.

How do you think Pete feels?

Pete didn't feel anything. But he would.

"Are you serious…?" Nick asked, hands on the IV bag. "Are you fuckin' serious?"

"Nick, calm down, please," Luke said.

"Don't tell me to calm down!" he snapped. "Carlos, please! There has to be something else!"

"There isn't. This will help disinfect the wound and we have no other way to stop the bleeding." Carlos took the machete from Luke by the handle. "Hold him there," he told Amelia, who put her hands over his right shoulder and pinned his arm to the floor with her knee. "Make sure you don't interrupt the transfusion. Luke, keep his other leg down."

"Carlos, don't…don't do this to him," Nick said.

"This is what needs to be done if you want him to live." Carlos said, cold and direct as he got to his feet and took the machete from Luke. He stepped around Pete and knelt down by his leg. "I'm sorry, Nick."

Amelia didn't mean to, but she looked up, right into his face. His eyes were wide and sad, the same puppy expression in a different color, which Amelia guessed he didn't wear often.

"Don't look," she muttered. He broke eye contact and looked down at his uncle.

Carlos pressed the blade against Pete's open wound, starting at the edge and moving clockwise, working his way in. He didn't hesitate and he didn't stop, even when Pete started to stir. Amelia looked down at his face, watching it contort in pain even through the drugs he'd been given. It would've be long before the pain became too much and he-

Pete opened his eyes. Gritted his teeth. Tried to move his arms but Amelia and Nick wouldn't let him. He tried to form words and failed, throwing his head back and starting to shake.

Then the screaming started.

Time became hazy. Seconds blurred into minutes blurred into hours, maybe. She didn't know. People around her shouted to be heard over Pete's screams, and all the voices tangled into each other and became impossible for her to understand. Can you sedate him again and I can't give him anymore and Pete please stick with us please and I'm sorry I'm sorry until Amelia shut her eyes and did the one thing she'd been told to do: lean all of her weight on Pete's shoulders and keep him from sitting up. She tried, and after a point she couldn't tell if it was her strength or Nick's keeping him down; the likelihood that it was the latter was more than she wanted to admit. She didn't want to be useless. She wasn't the one experiencing pain that could make a person want to die. The least she could do was not be useless. But the longer this went on, the closer Amelia got to giving out, to accepting that she couldn't do this anymore.

He managed to lift his back about an inch off the ground, and she realized they should've had him pinned by the chest and not just the shoulders. She shifted and put a knee over his chest for more leverage against him. She tried to ignore the sickening smell of burning flesh, but that and blood was all she could smell when she breathed, indescribable agony was all she could hear and she was wondering if Pete would've asked for this. It was easy to say yes, to assume that Pete would've wanted to live if the choice had been left up to him.

But that was before they'd started this. Five minutes in, Amelia wasn't sure it was a deal she'd take herself.

Her train of thought had run away, and she was tempted to let it take her far away from where she was. She was asking herself if this was right – there was that word again, that stupid fucking word that was supposed to be simple but didn't mean anything anymore – if it was a good thing to put a man through excruciating pain, to essentially torture a human being to save his life. More than that, she found herself thinking about people who had once been in her life; people who were long gone but still took up a painful amount of room in her heart, whose opinions still mattered to her more than they should've. She wondered what they would think of this, which was a way of sugarcoating her real question.

What would they think of her for doing this?

The worst was over for Pete when he fell unconscious again. Suddenly the carriage of the truck was eerie and silent, save for the labored breathing of everyone in the room and the sound of Carlos searing the last of the wound shut.

Finally, he put the machete down. Dropped it, filling the truck with sharp clang of metal hitting metal. He reached into the medical bag for antiseptic and gauze. He didn't speak right away, and the room stayed silent. Amelia wondered if everyone was afraid to speak, or if she was the only one. She slowly pulled her knee from Pete's chest, and Nick did the same on his other side. Once they were off, she could see his chest rising and falling, slowly, gently.

"You all can go." Carlos said solemnly, unraveling a long roll of bandages, white and pristine. "I'll finish things here and call you if you're needed." Luke slowly, shakily got to his feet, stooping down to pick up his weapon from the floor. "Leave that."

After a slow count of three, Luke let go of the handle, setting it back on the floor, close enough for Carlos to reach. He turned around and jumped out of the truck, stumbling into a crouch when his feet made contact with the ground. He put his hands on his knees, took a breath, and pushed himself back up. Amelia thought she saw him put a hand to his face and shake his head has he walked away.

"You can go." Carlos repeated himself, more sternly this time.

"I'm staying." Nick said.

"I need you out of the way more than I need your help. Both of you, get out please."

"I'm staying. If he's gonna…if he's gonna turn and you have to kill him, I'm gonna be here for it."

Carlos didn't seem to like it. Maybe he was as exhausted by this as the rest of them were, maybe he was just choosing his battles. He sighed and gave Nick a nod and started using a medical rag to disinfect what was left of Pete's wound.

Amelia looked over Pete's face. He was frighteningly pale and drenched in sweat. In her experience, people tended to look peaceful when they slept. But even unconscious, Pete still looked like he was in pain. He would be for a long time, if he was lucky enough to live through the rest of the day…

"Amelia," Carlos said, wiping gently at the seared, blackened skin. Between the last time he'd spoken and now, something had softened his voice. "You've done more than enough. Go check on your sister."

She left, and immediately understood why Luke had stumbled when her own feet hit the ground. Her legs felt weak and soft, virtually useless after spending so long in an unnatural, uncomfortable crouch.

She looked out across the clearing, still uneasy about…about something. She couldn't name it. Something wasn't sitting right, and the more she thought about Pete's situation the harder it became to pinpoint what it was. There was at least one piece that wasn't fitting with the others.

He was in that truck for a long time. Overnight. And Nick said he'd only found him recently. This morning. If he sawed off his own leg, there was no way he'd still have been alive when they found him unless he'd only done it recently. After he'd been bitten for over a full day. Carlos knew this. He knew more about the way infections spread than anyone else in the group. He knew and he still tried to save his life, which meant Pete had to have a chance. Carlos wouldn't have wasted the supplies otherwise, as callous as it sounded. He wouldn't have drawn blood from her sister and delayed their escape into the mountains for nothing.

Carlos was a doctor. A surgeon. He knew everything about diseases. She could trust the choice he made. Everyone else did. But she knew about this disease. More than she'd ever wanted to learn. She crossed her arms, suddenly worried that if she couldn't figure out what was bothering her, someone around her was going to pay a price for it-

"Amelia!" Clementine had raised her voice to a shout, waving at her from the campfire. She gave Amelia a full-armed wave, trying to get her attention. She and the others were seated around the fire, which someone had put out. It was smoldering, giving off only a thin trail of grey smoke.

She crossed the field and joined them, taking a seat by Clementine while Rebecca wrapped a light bandage around her arm. She was using a cross wrap, shaping the bandage so into an X over Clementine's inner elbow. Alvin held something small that crinkled in his hands. When he unwrapped it Amelia could see it was a tiny plastic straw. He punched it through the seal in a juice box, and handed it to Clem.

"Here, Clem,"

"Thanks," she said gratefully, reaching with her free arm.

Luke sat with his elbows propped up on his knees, staring into the remains of the fire as if there was still something to look at. He didn't move, or look up, or speak when Amelia sat down between him and Clementine, and she knew what it looked like when someone was far away, mentally. She also knew when it was better to let them come back on their own time.

"Can I have one, too?" Sarah asked quietly. She sat next to Clementine, her back to the truck. Amelia could see it over her shoulder, in the distance. She had a feeling Rebecca had chosen her spot for her, and had been insistent on keeping her there.

"Alvin," Rebecca said, tying off Clem's bandage.

"Yeah, I got it right here…" Alvin trailed off, rummaging through his backpack for another.

Clementine carefully set her juice box on the ground, and Amelia noticed that she'd picked up her backpack, and Hilda. She threw the zipper open and took out one of their two water bottles.

"Are you okay?" she asked Clementine, uncapping the bottle and handing it to her. She nodded but didn't speak, which told Amelia no, she wasn't quite okay. Clementine almost always reverted to silence when she was upset.

Rebecca straightened up, sitting back on her heels. She raised an eyebrow, and her tone wasn't sharp but wasn't friendly when she said, "We should be the ones asking you that." She looked between Amelia and Luke; both were covered in blood that wasn't theirs and neither of them quite met her eyes. "You two are a mess," she sighed, getting to her feet and gesturing specifically to Amelia. "Come on. Bring the bag."

She had questions. A lot of them. But she listened. She got up and followed Rebecca away from the fire pit, to the other side of the clearing. She remembered their last conversation. She knew Rebecca did, too. In a way, it was a relief to have it be overshadowed, made completely insignificant by something bigger and more important than their fight in the kitchen.

Amelia just wished it hadn't been this. She'd have taken anything over this.

They walked until they passed the truck, and stopped when it stood between them and the rest of the group over by the fire.

"You need to change," Rebecca told her when they reached the front bumper. "You still have those clothes?"

Amelia was slow to answer. "…yeah." Rebecca was right. Her clothes were soaked through. She felt morbid and wrong knowing she looked like she'd been caught in some kind of massacre. In a way, she had, albeit all she'd seen was the aftermath. She took the shirt and jeans Rebecca and Alvin had given her, still neatly folded. She stared at them in her hands for just a bit too long.

"Go on," Rebecca turned around, looking out across the clearing. She didn't sound impatient despite the words she chose. "No one's watching."

It was true. No one was watching. But Amelia changed with her back against the truck all the same. She pulled her shirt over her head and dropped her pants, holding the truck's rearview mirror for balance and kicking them off when the wet fabric clung to her ankles. Looking down at her own body, she realized for the first time how unfamiliar it had become to her, given how infrequently she actually saw it. The years of scavenging and fighting the dead-

-and the living-

-had added up to a visible patchwork, a road map of mistakes and injuries, each one a permanent reminder of the person or thing that gave it to her. A deep slash across her hip, claw marks left by fingernails on her ankles and lower legs. A graze, burned into her upper arm by someone who intended to shoot her and only barely missed. A former bullet wound in her shoulder from another someone who'd had better aim. Two punctures in the center of her right palm. Endless cuts and scrapes that should've gone away but never really did. She had a story for every one of them; stories she would never tell because she wasn't cruel enough to burden others with the disgusting and horrific details involved.

Contrary to what the people who knew her believed, she didn't have any misgivings about being caught in her underwear. Being seen nearly naked by the wrong person, the awkward confrontation that would likely happen after…it used to scare her. The idea was humiliating. The the world had changed, and with it, her threshold for embarrassment. If getting embarrassed was the worst thing to happen to her all day, then it had been a good day. She wasn't bothered getting undressed in an open field, and she certainly wasn't bothered by Rebecca being there. What bothered her was the thought that Rebecca, or anyone, could catch sight of her back, and ask her questions about the one scar she couldn't explain.

When she was dressed, Rebecca asked for an all clear and turned around again. "Hand me that," she said, pointing to the top Amelia had left on the ground. Again, she did what she was asked, bending down to pick it up and tossing it to her, underhand. Rebecca dropped her own backpack on the ground, took out a bottle of water, uncapped it, and poured it over what was left of Amelia's shirt.

Amelia found herself talking. If she'd thought it through beforehand she would have kept her mouth shut. "You shouldn't…waste that."

"You wouldn't say that if you could see yourself." Rebecca dumped another splash of water onto the shirt until her bottle was half-empty. "You saw Luke?"

She nodded. Luke looked like he'd killed a large animal with his hands. The blood was splattered across his shirt, soaked into the front of his jeans from top to bottom. His hands were red from his fingertips up to his forearms. Amelia wasn't as worried about that as she was about the look she'd seen in his eyes.

And Nick…she didn't know where to start.

"It's even worse on you." Rebecca said. "So you're going to take this…" She held the shirt out to her, and Amelia took it, confused but not opposed to the sudden gentle tone of her voice. "And you're going to clean up,"

She hesitated, not because she was unsure but because all of her movements and thoughts were…slow. The inside of her head was a slideshow of blood and suffering. Processing thoughts was like trying to swim through sand. A lot of mental effort, spent to get absolutely nowhere.

The thoughts about Pete…those came through crystal clear. She was trying to remember how much blood was in the human body, and how much a person could live without when Rebecca put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her back to the present.

"Now's not the time to keep thinking about it. It's out of your hands now."

"He just…"

"It's out. Of your hands." She said again, her voice soft. "There's nothing else you can do. This isn't on you anymore. Understand?"

Amelia found herself nodding when she didn't mean it. "Yeah…yeah." She wrapped the shirt around her hands, trying to wipe away some of the blood. She could see the natural color of her skin here and there, starting to show in streaks beneath the red.

Rebecca crossed her arms. "Pete's tough. Never thought anything could take that man down. I still think that."

Amelia was listening, but she didn't do much to show it. She put the shirt up to her face and took a few blind swipes at the blood on her face, down her neck, over her collarbone.

"I know you know how to keep your head on straight. I've seen you do it." Rebecca said.

Amelia frowned, looking around as if someone else were there to explain to her what that meant. "My head is…" she shook her head, feeling petulant and awkward arguing with her. She tried to come up with something other than Rebecca's own words to say back to her, and came up with nothing. "It's on. Straight." She shook her head again, aware that she sounded like an idiot and frustrated with herself for it. "What does that even mean?"

"It's not. If you need a minute to get yourself there, that's fine." Rebecca rested a hand over her baby bump. "It's going to take all of us to recover from this. And something tells me you're going to come back faster than the others."

"What…tells you that?"

"It's just what I think. We need everyone's help." She held a hand out for the shirt, seeing that Amelia was finished with it. "So you do what you need to do, and I'll see you back over there."

She didn't leave any room for arguments or questions. Amelia watched her turn and start back toward the campfire and understood the message, very clearly. It wasn't a request. It wasn't a demand, either. It was an expectation, one that, for once, someone seemed to believe she could meet.

Rebecca stopped, and looked back to her. "I know this wasn't your fault, Amelia. So do the others."

And just like that, Amelia was alone. And for the first time in…years maybe? It was up to her to decide when to change that.

Actually, it's been up to you for a long time.

---

Amelia came back to the group a few minutes later. Back behind the truck, she'd taken a seat on the ground. After several deep breaths, she counted to twenty. Then she took another and counted to fifty. She got up and joined the group when she realized she would keep doing this, adding time to keep avoiding them.

On the walk over, she could see them at a distance. Alvin and Rebecca were busy, trying to occupy Sarah on one side of the fire pit. Clementine and Luke sat on the other. Amelia went to them, knowing Clem needed to eat something if she was going to replace the pint of blood she'd lost and regretting taking the bag that held their only food supply.

Luke was talking when she got there, telling her something about blood drives while he ran Amelia's shirt around his hands and over his wrists. He'd cleaned up, between Amelia leaving and coming back – she guessed Rebecca had had something to do with it – and now the worst of it was on his clothes. Amelia sat down with them to see Clementine already had an energy bar, open and half-eaten.

"Where'd you get that?" Amelia asked, hating the way she sounded when she asked questions she already knew the answer to.

Clementine was chewing, so she nodded toward Luke, refusing to speak with her mouth full despite the fact that neither of them had used table manners in years.

"Figured she should eat something," Luke said. "I got another one if you need it."

Amelia shook her head, and avoided his eyes, involuntarily going back to a moment in the truck that she knew he'd noticed as well as she did. She wondered how long he would pretend he hadn't.

She'd learned a long time ago that the decisions people made when they didn't have time to think were the most honest. They left no choice but to tell the truth, even if the person didn't mean to. In one way, Amelia wasn't upset. She always preferred the truth to a lie. Even if she didn't like what she heard, she was glad she'd heard it. In another…

They'd known him for two days. Two days. Amelia knew he was kind, and generous. He was gentle – a quality that she'd always gravely under-appreciated, until she spent time around people who were not – and optimistic, which must have been a pleasant change for Clementine after spending all day, every day with her for the last two years of her life.

She knew all that and she couldn't argue with it. But she couldn't shake a vicious, persistent need to remind Clem that she barely knew Luke, that…

He wasn't actually her brother. Clementine had one sibling. And it wasn't him.

"Anyway…" Luke laced his fingers together, un-laced them, cracked his knuckles. Tried to smile but only half-succeeded. "They used to bring this bus onto campus. And if you donated there they'd give you pizza."

Clem frowned, tilting her head. "You gave blood in a bus?"

"It was a…medical bus." Luke scratched the back of his head. "Hell, I don't know."

"That's weird."

"Yeah, I guess it is."

Amelia looked at her sister and decided no, she wouldn't do that. Ever. It wouldn't be difficult; she was no stranger to keeping things to herself. Luke noticed Amelia looking at the truck, trying to see inside and get an idea of what was happening.

"Couldn't get him to come out," he said. "He won't leave until Carlos is done."

Clementine lowered her energy bar into her lap, and started fidgeting with the wrapper. "Do you think he's going to be okay?" She didn't ask anyone in particular, so Amelia stayed quiet. She already had a feeling she knew whose answer she'd prefer anyway.

"Of course he will, Clem." Luke said. "We found him just in time, and…" He trailed off when she started to look upset, more so than she already was. "What's wrong?"

"I didn't know he…did that. I would have said something if I did."

Amelia shook her head, amazed at her sister's ability to take blame for things that had nothing to do with her. "We know that, Clem."

"Nobody here thinks that, Clementine. This wasn't…"

Behind her, Nick stepped out of the truck bed; his knees buckled underneath him immediately, Luke got up to meet him there, pulling him to his feet while Nick barely cooperated.

"Come on," Luke breathed. "You're okay, Nick, you're-"

Nick broke out of his friend's grip, and Amelia caught a very specific look on his face, one she was ashamed to say was familiar to her. Luke didn't get another word out before Nick made the for the bushes, stumbling back to his knees and throwing up into the brush.

Luke moved to follow him, and Amelia caught his attention. "Luke." When he looked, she gave him a slight, almost imperceptible head shake. She wasn't about to claim she knew Nick better than his best friend did. But she spent a full day locked in a room with him, with nothing to do other than talk to him. From what she'd gathered from that time, she was willing to guess he didn't need anyone hovering around him right now. He needed time. Time wouldn't necessarily make anything better; it would just make it hurt less. Eventually.

Amelia stood up when Carlos followed Nick out of the truck, slowly stepping down onto the ground. Amelia came closer to see Pete, lying motionless in the truck bed behind him. She waited, knowing better than to push for news from a doctor covered in his patient's blood.

Carlos crossed his arms, and Amelia didn't like the look on his face. "He's stable, for now. He lost a lot of blood, but the bleeding has stopped and he doesn't have a fever."

"So, that means…?" Luke didn't smile. But his face brightened in a way that made Amelia sure he was getting his hopes up. She wanted to tell him not to but couldn't place why.

"If he were going to turn from the bite, he'd have done it by now." Carlos said. "The amputation saved his life. It gave him a chance, at least."

It should've been good news. It was. But it was to be closely followed by more that would keep anyone from celebrating. News that wasn't really news at all because everyone in the group had been thinking it for a long time now.

Carlos knew this, and it was clear from the look on his face that it made him uncomfortable to be the one to say it. He looked to Nick, who was too far away to hear anything. He'd stopped retching but he remained doubled over in the bushes.

"I…Carver is still on his way. And Pete is in no condition to move."

Amelia didn't have to look or listen to know Luke would be the first to object. The others were in the same position they'd been in an hour ago, with Nick. Now they were left to decide whether they were willing to make the same choice, twice in a row, this time with two of their friends instead of one.

"Carlos," Luke said, a hint of warning in his voice.

"It won't take Carver's men long to come this way, once they've been to the cabin." Carlos said. "They have ways of tracking us. They will find us unless we leave now."

Clementine joined the group and stopped by Amelia, her shoulder pressed into Amelia's hip. Amelia noticed, and knew this was much closer than she normally stood. She hoped that if her sister's usual resilience and independence had been shaken, that it wouldn't stay that way for long. But Amelia would be there to lean on for as long as it took to come back.

"No." Amelia said, maybe taking courage

-stupidity-

from knowing that Clem was quite literally by her side, maybe just tired of pretending to take the middle when she had something she felt was worth saying. "We're not leaving him. Not after all that."

"It's not up to you, Amelia." Carlos responded.

"It's not. It's up to your group, which Pete is a part of. What's the point of this-" She waved a hand between herself, across Luke and Carlos, over to Alvin and Rebecca and Sarah. "-if you just…I thought the point of doing this was so you have people who won't leave you behind. Even if they have a reason to."

"Thank you," Luke said. "This isn't right, Carlos."

Carlos shook his head. Amelia expected frustration from him, maybe anger. But Carlos seemed drained in more ways than one. "I never said it was." His voice was low and solemn, and Amelia felt that despite the argument she'd given, all the arguments she could give, he'd already made up his mind and neither Rebecca or Alvin would fight him on it. None of them wanted this, she knew that. But it was happening anyway.

"No." Amelia said again, hoping staunch refusal would do in place of logical argument.

"No?" Carlos asked. She got the sense that, given his years working on operating rooms, he was unaccustomed to the word.

"No. We can find some other way to do this."

"And what would you suggest?"

"…" Her mind raced through a sequence of ideas, shooting them down as quickly as they occurred to her because each one was more ludicrous than the last. Getting the truck working and driving him out of here

-no-

sending a small group to divert Carver's men away

-no-

finding a fucking wheelbarrow, for God's sake anything

-no-

She had nothing, absolutely nothing but an infuriatingly soft heart and an obligation to a man who saved her sister's life, something she wouldn't be able to forget. She fell back to her last resort, one that lacked sophistication and tact and for the most part wasn't even useful, at least not for anything other than delaying inevitable failure.

Stalling.

"Give me ten minutes."

Carlos sighed, exhausted, and she was sorry to keep dragging him over the coals for trying to protect his daughter – she felt they were similar, that she understood him in a way the others didn't – but she had a debt to repay.

"Give me ten minutes to figure something out." She looked to Luke and put a hand on Clementine's shoulder, knowing that as long as Nick was…unavailable, they were the only two allies she knew she'd have on this. "If I don't have anything by then, we'll leave."

Amelia got an answer from a voice she didn't recognize right away, because she hadn't been expecting to hear it. To tell the truth, she hadn't been expecting to hear it ever again.

"That won't be necessary." Pete was struggling to push himself into a sitting position. "We're movin' out now."

"Pete," Luke rushed to the edge of the truck bed, reaching in to stop him. "Woah, hey, take it easy."

Pete's words hit Luke like he'd fired them from a nail gun. Hard, sharp, pointed, and they seemed to stab him right in the chest.

"When I want your help, I'll ask for it."

Luke pulled back, retracting his arm like Pete had bitten him. "I'm sorry, it's just-" Luke looked over his shoulder. "Carlos, he can't be doin' this so soon,"

Amelia was dumbstruck. But...he is.

Carlos crossed his arms, his face impossible to read as he watched Pete sit up, push himself to the edge of the truck bed, and put his only foot down on the ground. He steadied himself on the truck's bumper, clinging to it for balance as he slowly put weight on his good leg. The other hung above the ground, ending in the middle of his shin and wrapped professionally in clean, white gauze.

"Pete…?" Rebecca was as speechless as Amelia.

"You're…sure you can do this?" Carlos asked him.

"I ain't bleeding anymore. You said so yourself." Pete grunted, his face contorting in pain he couldn't hide, as much as he wanted to. "I'm awake, I can walk, and I'll be damned if Carver catches up to us because'a me."

Amelia tried to think back to the last time she'd been this shocked. Nothing stood out as something that could be compared to this. He was ready to walk, after what she'd just finished doing to him…

Wow.

He was still pale. There was still a grey-ish tinge, spread across his cheeks and neck that Amelia didn't like-

-because you've seen it before-

-but he was conscious and had the strength to stand up. That had to be a good thing.

"Nick!" Pete snapped. His voice was hoarse but it carried all the way across the clearing. Nick sat upright and twisted around, likely wondering if he was really hearing his uncle's voice or going insane. "Quit pissin' in the woods and get your ass over here!"

Nick ran back to them, nearly at a sprint. "Uncle Pete?" He stuttered, out of breath and nearly speechless. "What-? What the hell are you doing? You're okay…?"

"No, he isn't," Carlos said. "But if he can walk for now, we'll stop to rest down the road." He turned to address Pete directly. "You need to promise me that you're going to take it easy. You've lost blood, which means you can't handle physical activity as well as the rest of us for the next few days."

Pete shook his head, looking more irritated than anything else. "You don't need to worry about me. What we need to do is haul ass. I don't know what we're still doin' here talking about it."

"Let's go, then," Nick moved to his side, ducking beneath one of his arms to help him walk. The rest of the group seemed to agree, though no one said it. Maybe because no one knew what to say to Pete. Thanking him, and apologizing to him seemed like a good start to Amelia. She had the feeling everyone would be doing it later, when they'd put some distance between them and Carver.

The thing tagged along with her. Whatever it was that she swore wasn't right about what happened to Pete. She kept thinking it was nothing, that she was making something out of nothing, but she knew she wasn't. The group had missed something. She pushed it away, telling herself that they had bigger problems than that. A small part of her knew she was ignoring it on purpose. As long as she couldn't figure it out, she couldn't be held accountable for it. Because something told her, that when and if she did, she would be the one answering for it.

Things tended to work out that way.