Kace groaned as he awoke from the so called 'experiment' he had just gone through. He felt... different, however he couldn't put his finger on it. He reached over to his left arm to scratch it. Wait... it was itchy? Kace shot the upper half of his body upward and glared at his arm. It was there, and he was able to move it. A smile crept across his face as he curled his fingers up and down. Just then, the door opened.

"You're awake." Dr. Carter exclaimed in shock as he set his clipboard down on the table. "My god! I finally did it!"

Kace looked at the doctors childlike excitement and rolled his eyes.

"Your arm?!" Carter continued. "It works?!"

Kace raised his left arm and gave the doctor a middle finger. "Yeah it works great."

"I'll ignore that gesture, I'm far to happy to get caught up in your games." He turned and quickly began to write something done as he muttered happily to himself.

Kace began to struggle silently against the handcuffs that bound him to the medical bed. The metal of the cuffs slowly began to bend against his new arm. Whatever this prosthetic was made of, it was strong. After thirty seconds, the gap was wide enough for Kace to slip his hand through, freeing himself. He rose to his feet and crept up behind Carter, who was still busy with his notes. With a quick lunge, Kace pinned the doctor against the wall and held his prosthetic against the mans throat.

"Listen, Carter." Kace growled. "It's your lucky day. Do you know why?" Under usual circumstances, kace would never act like this, but after everything he had been put through, this reaction felt appropriate.

Dr. Carter gasped out his words, "N-No... What the hell are... y-you doing...?"

"I don't believe in killing, otherwise I swear to god I'd have your blood cascading across this room." Kace grabbed dragged Carter of to the bed and threw him onto it.

"What are you doing?!"

Kace ignored the mans question and strapped his arms down with the leather bindings on the arms of the bed. "I could've killed you, remember that." Kace opened up the closet on the other side of the room, the place where Ra had placed his signature bo staff. he was relieved to see it once again, its dark metal cold against his hands. Kace made his way towards the only window in the room and slid it open. It was pitch black outside and raining very slightly. From what kace could tell, he was on the first floor, so he could exit through the window without risk of harming himself. However, before he did, he turned back towards Carter and gave him an intimidating glare. "Which way is the school you took me away from?"

"Ericson, right? It's just north of here, thirty miles."

"Ha... You tell Ra that I went south, got it?"

"What makes you think you have any jurisdiction about what I say when you aren't here?" The man scowled.

"I don't. But I can tell you're not a bad person. You're just trapped in a situation that would turn even the brightest of people dim. Take this time trapped on that bed to think about yourself, and really wonder if you are who you want to be... Think on that." Kace slide through the window and closed it, leaving Carter to his own thoughts.

Ohio

Clementine's eyes glared over the ridge of the mountain top at the tall skyscrapers that peaked just barley above. "How long till we get there?" She asked Willy, who was currently in charge of steering the boat.

"Not sure." Willy squinted at the tops of the buildings and tried to gauge the distance with his sense of direction. "We'll probably get there in a few minutes. Cities are always build along rivers."

"Ok. I'll go make sure everyone is prepared."

"Prepared for what?" Willy asked before Clem could leave the room.

"I don't know. Who knows what's in that city. We can't just park the boat, there are no docks. And we can't just turn around, the river is pushing us towards it."

Willy sighed and looked out the window and the flowing water. "It's like the city is calling to us."

Clementine stared at the back of his head with a confused face and shrugged. "Sure, Willy." And with that she left. Back in the main room, everyone was scattered around, talking, laughing, joking. It made Clementine smile.

"Hey." A quiet voice said to her left. It was AJ, he had been coloring on the wall of the boat with Tenn and Tatum.

"Hey, goofball." Clem knelt down in front of him. "You having fun over there?"

AJ nodded and smiled. "Tenn taught me how to draw a dog. You wanna see?"

"Sure, buddy."

AJ grabbed her hand and pulled her over to the corner where he had been drawing. "Look." he pointed at a crude drawing of a dog colored in blue crayons.

"Wow, AJ." Clementine praised. "This is really good."

"T-Thanks! Tenn taught me." He reiterated in excitement.

Clementine glanced over to Tenn and smiled. "Thanks for teaching him, Tenn."

He gave a small nod, remaining stone faced. "No problem."

Clementine got to her feet and turned to talk away, however before she could, Tenn also got up and grabbed her wrist. "Wait."

"W-What?" She replied.

"I know where we're going." He said vaguely.

"What do you mean?"

"We're heading right towards a city." When he said this, everyone in the room fell silent, and glared at the two as they talked.

Clementine nodded nervously and turned to address everyone. "It's true. Willy said we'll probably be there in thirty minutes."

"Well what the hell are we suppose to do? Cities are dangerous." Ruby asked, the others mumbling in agreement.

"We decided that we are going to try to sail through without bringing attention to ourselves. Maybe if we're quick, no one will see. i mean who knows, maybe the city is totally empty."

Louis approached her and stood to her right, arms crossed. "Clem." he said softly. "That's unlikely. Cities are always dangerous."

"I know!" She nearly yelled. "What else are we suppose to do? We have no other choice. Everyone just stay low and make any noise. This river is wide enough, if we all just stay calm no one will know we're even here."

Everyone in the room fell silent once again before slowly inching back into their previous conversations. "Do you really believe it's gonna be that easy?" Louis whispered into her ear.

She exaggerated a shrug. "I don't know, Louis. Maybe. Let's not go into this with a preconceived notion that we're about to be in imminent danger." With Louis seemingly unconvinced, she though about what Kenny or Lee would have done in this situation. "We all just need to be calm." She forced a smile. "We'll be okay, I promise."

Her boyfriend crossed his arms and tapped his foot slowly on the wood beneath him. "I-I trust you, Clem."

"Good... Could you uh... do me a favor and keep an eye on AJ, I'm gonna go wait with Willy so I can what's happening when we get to the city."

"Yeah, no problem."

"Thanks." Clementine tried as hard as she could to look confident in front of him, even going so far as to give a sly thumbs up before exiting the main room and climbing the steps to the helm.

Ericson Boarding Academy, West Virginia

"Stupid fucking bushes!" Kace used his staff to shove any shrubbery out of his way as he neared Ericson. He had been on the run from Ra's encampment for a few hours now, and already he recognized that he was on the path Aasim and Willy had let him and Tatum down when they first met. Once he cleared the treeline and was now in on the open path, he sped into a light jog. "Just a little further." The dirt still had tire marks from where Ra's wagon had been dragged. Eventually, he could see the walls of Ericson through the trees. "Finally." He smiled and jogged a little faster. The gates were all wide open, and he couldn't see anyone sitting in courtyard as they usually were. Maybe they were all just inside. Kace entered and glared around. It was barren. The picnic tables still had bowls from when they were eating before Ra attacked.

"Hello?!" He called out, his voice echoing off the concrete walls. No answer. The doors of the dorms were wide open, prompting Kace to approach. Once again, there was no sounds, no sign of life anywhere. Have they really left? "No..." Kace sighed. This group was his only chance at happiness, and they just left. Could he blame them? After all, Ra was planning to attack again, perhaps it was best they had avoided it, even if that meant totally ditching the school, therefore leaving Kace abandoned.

An idea suddenly appeared in Kaces head, a light in the tunnel he was trapping himself in. "Tatum." He mumbled and peered out the window at the admin building. She had to have left something to tell him where they were going. She was smart, it's what she would have done. When the doors of the admin building creaked open, Kace immediately sharpened his gaze at the area where she used to sleep against the left wall near the staircase. Nothing but old papers of a schools past and dust.

Kace pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "This is my fault." He groaned and began to walk towards the exit, ready to delve back into his life of constant loneliness and moving, always under the threat of other people. Perhaps this is what he got for trusting people, but would the world really be that cruel towards him after he has given so much and suffered through even more?"

As he left the admin building, his eyes were pulled towards an empty space next to the gates of Ericson. "The wagon." He gasped. It was gone, vanished into thin air. He ran towards it surveyed the dirt. "Tracks." he smiled. They had escaped, and now he could find them. "Thank fucking god."

Cincinnati, Ohio

The river was tainted with a murky brown, no doubt the result of pollution from the preceding civilization. Clementine had never seen buildings so high in her life. As they sailed seemingly undetected through the center of the city, she gazed up, having to angle her head almost 180 degrees to be able to see the tops.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Willy, who was at the wheel said.

"Yeah." Clementine said back. "I grew up near the Atlanta, but I've never been so close to anything like this."

"Well... don't get used to it. Looks like we have a straight shot through the-" He cut himself off and peeled his eyes directly forward, slightly leaning upwards in his chair. "Do you see that?" he asked

Clementine matched his eyes and nodded. "Mother fucker." She mumbled. Nearly a few hundred feet ahead stood a large blockade of what looked like wood debris that spanned the whole length of one of the bridges that stood a few stories over the river. "It's huge."

Willy nodded, eyes wide. "Someone's been busy."

As the boat moved closer, the two teenagers were able to gauge the magnitude of the challenge ahead. The wall was built out of scrap wood, and was as tall as the bridge, almost as if it was the side to an overtly large building, totally blocking the path of the group's boat. "Damn." Willy sighed.

"We're gonna have to leave the boat and continue of foot." Clementine concluded with a confident nod. "I'll go let everyone know to get ready, you find a place to dock this thing."

"Uh... Clem." Willy mumbled. "We're kind of stuck."

Clementine rolled her eyes and was halfway out the door. "I know Willy, just dock the stupid boat and we'll go on foot."

"No... no look." he insisted.

"Ugh! Fine." Clementine peered out the front windshield and scanned the area in front of her. About fifty feet off to their north west were three speed boats, barreling towards them at extremely fast rates, the propellers creating small riptides as they bounced on the water.

"What do we do?"

Clementine thought. There was no way for the groups boat to back up due to the conflicting current, and they had no weapons in case things got threatening. "We're sitting ducks."

The unidentified boats got to within twenty feet and curved to a stop, slowly floating by the helm. For the first time, Clementine could see two people on each of the three boats. She opened the door that led to the front part of the boat.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Willy yelled, grabbing the sleeve of her jacket.

Clementine shooed his grip off of her and stepped out onto the bow. "We have to choice. I'm gonna try to reason with them. Go into the main room of the boat and tell everyone what's going on.'

With that, Willy gave a worried nod and ran.

Clementine was now at the full mercy of the strangers before her. Everyone of them had military grade guns ranging from assault rifles to shotguns. She glared at one man in particular who was standing with one foot up on the edge of his boat smiling curiously at her. He waved at his men to lower their weapons. They complied with a huff of disappointment. Clementine tried to look as intimidating as possible in the sight of this stranger, however he saw right through it. The two just stood there, starring daggers at one another.

"Round them all up, bring them to the levee." The man said. The two other speed boats sped around to the stern of Clementines paddle streamer.

"Wait! No!" She yelled in protest. "We're just passing through! Don't hurt them!"

"We aren't gonna hurt them." The stranger replied. It sounded genuine enough. "But you're in our territory, and your leader promised he wouldn't send anyone this way ever again."

Clementine was baffled. "What? We don't have a leader! We came here from West Virginia!"

"That's not for me to decide, you'll have to answer to the judge."

"Judge? What the fuck are you talking about?" She balled up her fists and clenched her teeth.

The man looked over and saw his men escorting the kids onto their boats one by one. "I'll show you, but you may not like it. Come with us."

Clementine's breath was rapid and full of hatred, however when she saw AJ on one of the boats with those strangers, she melted on the inside. With a scowl, she looked back at the stranger and sighed. "Fine."

A/N - It seems they are all more split up now more than ever. How are you all liking it? Review and let me know.