A longer chapter! Thank you for the lovely reviews containing your predictions and thoughts, I hope this chapter is good and lives to your expectations!

Nightmares plagued my sleep, forcing me to witness every single possibility of what could happen to Clementine.

It was now the fourth day without the little girl, and I could feel my hope of finding her decreasing by the hours. Despite the clues that could be leading us to her, I doubted that she would continue leaving them for so long without us.

I wondered whether Clem was alone. Was she okay? Had she found food, had she found shelter? There were so many questions. Was she looking for Travis and I?

"You're awake," Travis stated, noticing me move.

I sat up and brushed my short hair back from my face. "Day four."

Travis sighed at my comment. Maybe he was thinking about how long we'd been separated from the little girl too.

"Henry heard something a few minutes ago from a distance and he's gone to check it out."

I stood and went to the fire that had the beans cooking over it, warming my hands. "Are you still feeling suspicious today?"

"I don't know. I guess."

I rolled my eyes. Within a few minutes, Henry came back to where we had camped.

"There are a few walkers up ahead. Travis, will you come get rid of them?"

"Sure," Travis said then stood and walked over to where Henry was.

He turned back to me with an expression of neutrality that I couldn't decipher before disappearing into the woods following Henry.

It had been a long time since I was alone. I rarely ever had to be, not in the group that I'd been with. I felt a rare feeling of anxiety at my situation. Being by myself wasn't so much a problem, but being alone and weaponless was. I hoped Travis and Henry would return soon. My senses were on high alert while I stood leaning against a tree, patiently waiting. I counted in my head how long they'd been gone, until a sound of a snapping branch caught my attention immediately.

"It's only me," Henry informed as he approached from the trees, clearly trying to calm me down as I'd spun around rather fast.

"Where's Travis?" I asked, looking behind him.

"He said he could handle the walkers himself," the young man shrugged. "Said we should go hunting for some food. I don't know about you, but we're both sick of just eating beans."

"Okay then," I agreed, though slightly reluctantly.

Henry smiled at me warmly and then we began our hunt. We had one knife between us and Travis had the gun, but I knew the knife would give us a cleaner kill and attract no walkers that could be lingering nearby.

We crept through the trees silently, not wanting to startle any animals that could be around. It was quite an eerie and uncomfortable silence and I just felt like I should be waiting back at the camp for Travis, until there was a moaning sound that redirected my attention away from my friend.

"Walker?" I whispered to Henry.

He didn't speak, but waved his hand for me to follow. We moved around a tree and crouched down to be out of sight.

"You kill this one. I want you to do it."

Despite the odd instruction, I nodded and took the knife tight in my hand. I breathed deeply in preparation to kill before jumping out, weapon ready to go through the brain of the monster- except this was no monster.

Travis lay on the floor, a hand holding onto the back of his head. He opened his eyes and I had never seen him look so frightened.

"Travis?" I gasped, dropping to his side instantly to look at his head. "Henry!"

"No, Marce-" Travis tried.

Henry moved out of cover and walked towards us.

"He's hurt. What happened?" I panicked.

"I hit him. He should have been knocked out."

"What the fuck?" I roared, turning my body to the young man. "Why?"

"He's our prey, Marceline. Don't you get it?"

"You're a fuckin' psychopath!" I screamed. "What do you mean 'he's our prey'?"

Henry shook his head at my words, his face stoic. "How do you think we survive in this world? Where would we get the nutrition in these woods? You didn't really think I lived off beans, surely."

I could feel the tears rising in my eyes, and that was when I realised how terrible the situation was that I was in. Travis was injured, though I found that it was not a powerful strike to leave him with any lasting damage and he would be fine again soon, but that was the least of the problem. Now I was faced with a cannibalistic maniac who had probably planned on killing the both of us with a gun he pulled from behind his shirt. And all I had was a knife.

Henry aimed it at my friend's head, making my brain kick in to full ideas to prevent the death.

"Why did you want me to do it?" I asked calmly.

Henry's eyes moved from Travis to me. "Why? You know why, you gave the reason yourself," he explained, voice growing in some sort of aggression. I realised I was going about this in the wrong way as he shifted the gun to my direction.

"Henry, don't," I pleaded. "I... I understand why you do this to people. The three of us could survive like that. Together."

Henry raised an eyebrow. "Three?"

"Two," I said, giving him the words he seemed to want. "Wouldn't that be good? You wouldn't be alone anymore."

"I... guess."

"But we can't kill Travis with the gun, it's too messy and it'll attract walkers," I sighed, looking down to Travis who looked like a small child suddenly, completely vulnerable and defenceless. "We need to use the knife."

Henry considered this, then to my relief he lowered the gun.

"Can you do it?" I hoped. "Teach me how to, since I've never had to kill a real human."

Henry nodded and I stood up slowly, walking towards him. We exchanged weapons and he gave me a small smile, then he went over to Travis.

As he began to lower to Travis' side, he flicked the knife in his hand so the blade faced the victim.

"You've got to cut here," he moved the knife closer to Travis' neck until it just sat lightly on top of his skin. If this went wrong, my friend would be dead.

Henry looked back to check I was watching, a small smile ready on his face. I didn't hesitate, raising the gun and firing it twice.

My ears rang as the body of the cannibal dropped lifelessly beside Travis, who was breathing heavily and staring at me wide eyed.

I ran to Travis and put a hand on his face. "I'm so sorry, it's okay now. I should have trusted what you said. I promise I will now."

"You had me scared there, Marce."

"I'd never kill you," I replied strongly. "We need to get out of here now, the shots will have drawn attention."

"Yeah," Travis agreed, then forced himself from the ground. I caught a glimpse of the blood on the back of his head and knew I'd have to check that once we cleared the area.

As we walked away from the scene of the killing, I risked a glance back at the dead body of the cannibal, seeing the blood seeping through his shirt from where I had shot, and the sly grin no longer on his evil face.

Once we had moved out of the surrounding area and decided we'd covered enough distance to be remotely safe, I examined the injury Travis had sustained.

"So, what happened?" I asked while moving his long hair out of the way of the wound.

"We were just walking... We'd been walking too long and I asked where the walkers were since I couldn't see or hear any. Then I noticed there was another letter on the ground, but it was fresh... Clem definitely hadn't been there. I realised that he'd been tricking us."

I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. Henry had been fooling us the whole time, putting fake marks on the ground to make us believe we were on the right path. I could have cried. For all I knew, we might've been searching in the entirely wrong direction because of that man.

"So then he dropped the act. It sounds weird, but it was almost like he was a completely different person so suddenly. I demanded he tell me why he was playing with our minds like that, misleading us, then he got angry and pushed me back."

Travis winced as I put my fingers around where he'd been hit. He had a cut that thankfully wasn't too deep, but it would definitely hurt him for a couple of days.

"He basically told me everything that had happened, or implied it at least. He's been killing everyone, Marceline... Groups of innocent people. He made them think he was one of them, then just murdered them to get the food they had collected... just before making them into the food, too."

My hands froze and so did my breathing as a thought invaded. "You don't think..."

"No, he didn't get her. Clementine is safe, I know it," Travis comforted.

I dropped my hands and his hair fell back over the injury. Travis moved to face me and sighed.

"I guess you figured out that he hit me with the gun next."

I frowned, moving my eyes away from him so I didn't have to look at his injuries.

"What's up?"

"We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for my stupidity."

"What d'ya mean, Marcey?" He asked, his voice confused as he drew his eyebrows together.

"I should have been looking out for walkers when Omid got bit, I should have gone with Christa so she wasn't alone, I should have realised the dog was potentially dangerous, I should have said we'd go with Clem instead of fighting those walkers-"

Travis let out an annoyed sound, making me turn to see what he was frustrated at. "You can't keep taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong in the world. You're one person, you can't put all the weight on your shoulders. We're a group, we've all had shared responsibilities and tried to do our best with them. None of this is your fault, do you hear me?"

I bit my lip and nodded.

"I'll take first watch tonight," I volunteered. Before Travis could object, I held a hand up to stop him talking. "You've been hit on the head with a gun, go to sleep."

My friend paused, though couldn't come up with a reason not to sleep. He lay down to the side while I stayed sat up to watch for any walkers that decided to pay us a visit. If walkers could feel regret, they definitely would after crossing me in such a bad mood.

After some minutes of silence and thinking Travis was asleep, his voice startled me.

"What did you mean when you said it would be better if I didn't like you?"

I hesitated, cursing myself for not thinking Travis could have heard me when I said that to Henry. He must have still been awake when I was talking.

"There... uh, there's a lot of stuff we have to deal with now. I can't really put how I feel into words."

"You're scared of losing someone you love."

I stayed silent.

"It's okay, Marceline. 'Night."

I stared at Travis, slightly taken aback by his sudden questions. He was right, though. Losing everyone in the group was bad enough, even those I hadn't known very long. It was difficult losing anyone. I thought of Omid and Christa, knowing that I didn't want to go through a loss like that when I had other responsibilities. But if I did already have feelings for someone, how could I pretend they weren't there just because I was frightened if how it would end?