I can't sit still. As long as I keep moving, the cloud of anxiety in my chest can't keep up with me. It falls behind and I feel a little better. But as soon as I stop, it catches up and takes me over, reminding me that yesterday was real and if I look around, not everyone will be here, and there's nothing I can do about it. So I pace.

We're having breakfast, a late breakfast. Everyone left is in the dining room, except for Rick and Axel – the short, white prisoner. He's in a place called the generator room, fixing things, if he can. Rick's still gone. My dad sits on the steps leading up and outside. The second prisoner, Oscar, stands against some railings close to him, and the others are all around one table, eating oatmeal. Except the baby. She's sleeping in her crate, just inside the cell block. Quiet, for once. And nobody's talking, not the way we can on a good day. There are no sounds but the clacking of plastic spoons against plastic bowls. The sounds of mourning.

There's an open spot next to Carl with a half-full bowl of oatmeal and a drained glass of milk before it. The oatmeal's probably still warm. I don't want anymore. Barely wanted what I had. What do I want? I want to pace. So I pace. Snap, click, goes my release. Snap, click, snap, click. Probably gonna wear the trigger out.

Carl's not eating. He's staring at his bowl but not really seeing it. I grimace as I turn away from him, continuing on my path, not wanting to draw attention to the boy with the dead mom. I'm learning fast that when Carl doesn't have the baby in his arms, his head's right back to yesterday, in the room with the pipes –

"Everybody okay?"

I spin on my heel. Rick, behind the door Lori and Maggie and Carl and I fled through yesterday. He pushes the bars away from, opening the door, as everyone stares at him. Carl twists all the way around to do so.

"Yeah," Maggie answer steadily, "We are."

"What about you?" asks Hershel.

Rick walks in. I lean against the staircase that goes up to that little glass room I still haven't been in. Rick, he seems confused by Hershel's question. Sleeplessness is all over his face, in his voice. "Cleared out the boiler block."

"How many were there?" Dad asks.

"I don't know. A dozen. Two dozen." Rick's arm drifts down to his son. "I have to get back." Pat, pat. "Just wanted to check on Carl."

He says nothing about the baby.

Glenn stands as Rick heads for the door again. "Rick, we can handle taking out the bodies. You don't have to –"

"No, I do." Then something snaps on in Rick, and he turns, and his pace is faster as he passes Glenn by, passes me by, over to my dad. "Everyone have a gun and a knife?"

"Yeah. Runnin' low on ammo, though."

Glenn's still on his feet. "Maggie and me were planning on making a run this afternoon. Found a phone book. Someplace we can look for bullets and formula."

"Cleared out the generator room," Dad adds. "Axel's there tryin' to fix it, in case of emergency. We're gonna sweep the lower levels as well."

Nods from Rick. "Good, good." Across the room. Through the door. Bye, Rick. Don't worry, we'll take care of your kids for you. Hershel calls his name over the squeak and clang of the door as he shuts it behind him. Then he's gone again. Back to the darkness.

Rick and Lori were barely speaking before she died. I don't understand how he thinks he can mourn like this. And there's an ache in my hand, I have a fist grinding into the stairwell. I snort, rub that fist across my eye, start across the dining room again. Hunting this morning was a relief, a small taste of what I can only describe as safety – surrounded by walkers or not – but between rising early and going to bed late, I missed out on some sleep I needed very much. I'm at the other end of the room now. I stand on my tiptoes and peer out the window, at the courtyard. We'll have to clean out the bodies sometime today, probably before we sweep out the lower levels –

The baby starts crying. Loudly, the only way she knows how.

Like I said, her makeshift cradle is in the cell block, to the left of the door, but I can see her from where I am. And I'm the closest to her by far. I can feel the others' eyes on me, so I step tentatively into the doorway and look down at the baby. "What?"

She wails on. I blink down at her, completely out of my element.

After a while, "Gonna pick her up?" My dad, still sitting across the room. Just watching.

I'd rather hug a walker. ". . . I can't."

Carl appears in front of me. "It's easy, look . . ." He bends over the crate and scoops her up, carefully, slowly, tucking her into his chest. He smiles at me. "See?"

"She's still crying," I say, as if he couldn't hear.

"She's probably still hungry . . . Her last bottle might still be warm enough. Can you go get it?"

And so I walk back in the dining room, where Beth's already standing up, the bottle in hand. I take it from her with a muttered thanks and return to Carl. He's sitting cross-legged next to the crate now, rocking the baby. The baby doesn't like it, not enough to shut up. I sit beside Carl and pass him the bottle. He sticks it in the baby's mouth, and apparently it's plenty warm enough for her taste. The bottle plugs up her crying, at least. I've had more than enough of that, from her and me and everybody.

"Yeah, there we go . . ." Carl murmurs. He lifts her a bit, bottle and all, towards me. "Wanna do it?"

"No."

His smile lessens, and he lowers the baby back into his lap. We watch her drink for a minute. "You haven't held her at all," Carl finally says. "Don't you like her?"

I look down at the baby, all content with her bottle and her big brother and one of the soft little outfits Maggie and Dad brought back yesterday. She cries all the time. Hogs Carl. Gets called sweetheart by my dad. And we had to tear open her mother to get her out. Lori would still be alive if not for this baby.

It's not the baby's fault, I know that. But I still can't help but think of it whenever I look at her.

"She's fine," I tell Carl. I can tell by his face that that's not the answer he wanted. But it's all I got.

Then, softly, softly, "Syd. What happened to your mom?"

And why, Carl, why, why, why?

I check the doorway. No one's there. They're still right in the next room, but for all intents and purposes, Carl and I are alone. And he wants to know what happened to my mom. My mom. Whose name he somehow knows.

"Walkers," I say. "I've told you that."

"Yeah, I know, but . . . just . . . how?"

"She-she was bit, Carl. She – we were holed up at our house – and – and I can't, I –" My feet are tangling together but then they're under me. I'm moving. I'm in the doorway by the time Carl says my name and I have to turn and look at him, I have to, because his tone is so intense. Confused. The look he's giving me pisses me off and makes me hurt all at once.

"You saw what happened to my mom! I'm just asking for you to tell me what happened to yours! It's important!"

"Why? What do you think you'll get, tips on how to get through it? Here's a tip – you don't!" I run, away from him, through the dining room and past my dad and Oscar on the stairs and outside. Onto the asphalt, over the bodies, across the courtyard. I kick the bleachers before I climb onto them. From here, I have a lovely view of those three crosses that scream of death and heartbreak, and I put my head against my knees and wrap my arms over my head.

A few days ago, I told Beth she couldn't snap at Carl. I just snapped at him about ten times worse than she did. God, I'm stupid. Stupid, a terrible person, stupid.

But I'm afraid that telling him what he wanted to know would have been harder to bear than this.

The footsteps near. Three guesses who it is. He jumps up onto the bleachers, light as a feather. Sits down beside me.

"He needs you to be there for him right now, Sydney," my dad says. Gently.

I don't care how gentle he is about it, though. My head snaps up at the words. "I have been there for him!" I snarl, scooting away and off the bleachers, gripping the hot metal with my hands as my feet land on the ground. "Every step of the way! When Lori was cut open on the floor, when someone needed to –" No. No. My words catch in my throat, and I won't talk about that. My chin falls against my chest and I huff out a breath, and I wait for my dad to scold me, to tell me not to talk to him like that, but he's quiet. So I go ahead and let it pour out of me, what happened. "He asked about Mom. How she died. I-I couldn't . . ." And the air's gone again, like last night, and I have to stop talking to wrestle for it back. Because that day is still so fresh in my mind. The bite and the yelling and Merle hauling me away from my mother . . . "And I know I saw Carl's mom die and it ain't fair of me to not even tell him about mine, but I don't care," I choke out. "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want him to know about it. I don't."

Because those are my memories. Not Carl's. Mine. Mine and my dad's and Merle's. Merle's dead, though. Probably. So it's just me and my dad. And how does he not get that? That it's private?

Dad, he slides across the bleachers, so he's closer to me, and he reaches through my hair and to my neck and he massages it until I'm breathing okay again. I wait for him to tell me it's alright. But he says nothing. And that's how I know he doesn't get it. He doesn't get it, he doesn't agree with me on this. And that makes the air even harder to gulp down.

But screw it. I don't need his approval. Anger courses through me now, anger at my dad, at Carl, at the nameless baby, at Rick, at Lori, at the prison. The prison. Still managing to lock people inside even when all of society has fallen apart.

Not me. It can't have me.

"I-I need to get away from the prison, for a little while. I want – can I go with Glenn and Maggie today? When they go on the run?"

I've raised my head at this point, and I see Dad's lips tighten, like he's just tasted something bad.

"Dad, please. I've gone on runs before." Never without him, but I don't point this out.

Dad thinks for a while, and I'm pretty sure he's going to say no, and I'm already preparing myself to argue when he says, "If they're alright with it, yeah, you can go. Just be careful."

He acts like it's a big deal. Really, it's not. In all of the runs our group's made, one's never gone all that wrong. This one won't be any different.

Damn it, I can't leave it like this.

"You think I should've told him about Mom."

"That's your call, babe." Which isn't a straight answer. But he kisses my forehead, so I guess things aren't that bad between us. That's good, since I really don't think I could handle it if that was the case. Not right now.

. . . . .

Maggie and Glenn hold hands during the drive. My Nana and Papaw used to do that. It's sweet. And neither of them ask about this morning, or Carl, so God bless them for that.

The place we're going to is just five miles away. I enjoy the ride. I watch out the window as Glenn drives along, and I realize I've missed being in a car. Never thought I'd say that, but it's true.

The place we go to is called Southern Discount, a store I've never heard of before. COLD BEER AND ICE is written on a green sign in front of it. We roll into the parking lot, still filled with lonely cars, and I jump out before Glenn finishes parking. My boots crunch on trash. As Maggie opens her door and steps down, my bow and I move forward, and I scan the lot and the road, as well as the forest beyond that. Finally I say, "I'm clear."

"Yeah, me too," Maggie agrees. To Glenn she calls, "Clear outside!"

"Alright. Let's take a look . . . Syd, stay by the hood, keep watch."

"Got it." I step to take Maggie's place as she walks around the station wagon. I don't try to listen, really, but it's not like they don't know I'm here as they kiss each other, as Maggie tells him it's a beautiful day.

And I guess it is.

I hear Glenn grunt, hear the harsh sound of him cutting through the chain someone's locked on the door. I resist the urge to look behind me. I do my job, raking my eyes over the lot. At one point, I think I see something move behind a car at the lot's edge, and I get so far as to connect my release to my bowstring. But the lot's as still as stone after that, so I relax. Sort of.

Glenn opens the store's door, and there's a flapping noise that makes all three of us start, and I have to look over my shoulder now, and I see bats zooming out of the door and over Glenn's head. Just bats. Not walkers. I hate walkers. Glenn holds up a flashlight and steps in, and I go back to watching.

"Glenn," I hear Maggie say after a moment. "Get that duck."

"What?"

"Get that duck."

"You serious?"

"Yeah. Kid growin' up in a prison could use some toys."

Glenn's inside for about fifteen minutes, Maggie standing at the doorway, me keeping an eye out. Things are nice and quiet, and finally I hear Glenn return. "We just hit the powdered formula jackpot."

"Thank God."

"Syd, I got you a book. Don't know if it's any good or not, but it's here."

"You're awesome, Glenn," I tell him.

"Yeah, don't forget it. I also got beans, batteries, cocktail wieners, honey mustards . . . It's a straight shot back to the prison from here. Probably make it in time for dinner." I hear him open one of the station wagon doors, set something inside.

"I like the quiet," Maggie says. "Back there, back home? You can always hear 'em outside the fence, no matter where you are."

Yes, you can. They're always there, the walkers, they're always –

"And where is it ya'll good people callin' home?"

That's neither of their voices and it's followed by a gun cocking and a lot of things happen inside of me.

First, there's the instinct to rush around the car, aim an arrow, and I stop my body from doing that just in time. That would only get one of us killed. Next, the instinct that I actually go with, the instinct to drop to the ground, use the car as a shield, a shield I can hide behind and listen from. And finally, after my back's against a tire, instinct disappears and it's just me inside my mind, and it hits me – I know the new voice, it's been a long time, but I know it, and oh my God, oh my God, it can't be –

Instinct kicks in again, this time with a very different opinion. I scramble up, I scramble around the station wagon. Maggie and Glenn have their guns raised and aimed at a man in front of me. A man with a shirt over his arm and a gun resting on that shirt. A man with grey hair and light blue eyes that click onto mine right away.

Something bursts open inside of me. A strangled cry is the result. "Uncle Merle?"

He lowers his gun immediately. "Little Bit?" he says, in a voice like a whisper but louder. Disbelieving. Then a slow grin breaks out over his face, which is covered in blood, but I couldn't care less, mine's been like that plenty of times. It's my uncle. It's Merle, it's really Merle. He's alive.

My bow clatters to the ground as I run to him.