Every Bond You Break

"I don't motherfucking believe this."

Kenny leaned out the window of the pickup, gazing down the mile-long line of cars crammed together like cattle. He slammed his hand on the horn. "Where the fuck are y'all going?" he shouted, earning a chorus of honks and some nasty rebuttals in return.

"Um, Ken," Lee said, flashing Clementine a glance. She was strapped into the backseat, eyes wide. "Maybe ease up on the swearing a bit."

Kenny revved the engine impatiently, forcing the truck forward until he was almost grazing the bumper ahead. The road trip from Macon to Savannah was not supposed to last longer than two hours, but the weary travelers had been crammed into Ken's air-conditionless truck for at least five, inching along the rain-soaked freeway and ready to scream from exasperation. Even with the warnings of pre-evacuation chaos from both Lee and the news, Kenny still acted surprised with the state of the roads. Even the path to get into the city was packed.

Clementine sat snug between her backpack and a few boxes of fishing equipment, playing idly with the dials on her walkie-talkie. The closer they came to the seaside city, the harder she clutched the tiny grey box, occasionally leaning down to listen into it. She was so engrossed that she hardly seemed to mind the droplets of rain pattering in through the cracked window. She wiped the moisture off the walkie with her jacket sleeve and continued in its adjustments.

"Well, finally!" Ken said as the cars ahead sprang to life, leaving an open stretch of road. He stepped impatiently on the gas, only to balk as a cloud of greyish smoke burst out from under the hood. "No…" Kenny muttered, stepping once again on the gas pedal. The engine roared angrily, and another puff of smoke burst in front of the windshield.

"Ken," Lee warned, "take this exit."

"That's a back road, it'll lead us to fuck-all nowhere," Kenny insisted as a line of horns blared at them from behind. The car jerked forward, speeding along and leaving a trail of dark smoke to evaporate into the humid air. "FUCK!"

Clementine let out a small, fearful noise from the backseat, and that sent Lee over the edge. He yanked the steering wheel out of Kenny's grasp, sending them careening down the exit ramp, off a dirt road, and through a row of prickly shrubs before Kenny slammed on the breaks. Everyone jolted forward, seatbelts straining against their chests, and Kenny finally regained the sense to wrench the key out of the ignition.

Once the car was stopped, Lee wasted no time pulling Clementine out of the backseat and giving them plenty of space away from Ken's ticking-time-bomb of a vehicle. Lee and Clem took shelter from the rain under a rotting lean-to nestled between a group of beech trees. Ken remained at the car, head shoved under the still-smoking hood.

"Ken, get away from that thing!" Lee called above the downpour. Kenny either hadn't heard Lee, or he was pretending not to.

"Is the truck going to blow up?" Clementine asked, shaking some water out of the ends of her pigtails.

"No," Lee said, concerned about that exact thing happening. "Ken?"

"Keep your shirt on!" Kenny growled, shutting the metal hood and stalking over to the wood shelter, drenched and seething. "Shoulda known something like this would happen."

"It's going to be fine," Lee said, determined not to let Kenny spiral. "We'll call a tow."

"Great. That'll take another five hours of waiting around with my thumb up my ass."

Lee clenched his teeth. The entire trip had been filled with nothing but Kenny's incessant complaining, and all Lee wanted to do was drop his role of peacekeeper and give him a good slug in the face. "You haven't even got a house to put all this shit—sorry, Clem—this stuff," Lee said. "So I think you can survive a few more hours without seeing the ocean, okay?"

Kenny gave him a particularly nasty glare. He ripped off his cap and threw it into the mud. "I am not waiting for a tow truck!"

"Fine! Then we'll just sit out here until the hurricane blows by to fuck—fuck, sorry Clem—to mess us up. You're really thinking Ken—!"

The quarrel was suddenly punctured by the sound of tires crunching on gravel as an old cattle truck rounded the bend and stopped in the middle of the clearing, right in front of the lean-to. Kenny and Lee shut their mouths to watch as a stocky man in a weathered coat dropped down from the driver's seat, wrinkled face contorted in a glower. He lumbered over, not seeming to mind the rain pelting against his ghostly-white hair.

"You folks touch my shed?" he asked, voice a slow, deliberate drawl.

The three were rendered speechless at his sudden appearance, and accusation.

"Uh," said Lee.

But in a moment, the man's sternness ebbed away, replaced with humor glinting dully in his eyes. "Relax. I saw y'all veer off the road and could hear you spattin' a mile away."

Kenny—now hatless and soaked like a drowned rat—crossed his arms stubbornly. "And you are?"

"Name's Chuck," said the man. "Charles, if you're fancy. I own a car shop up the road a ways. On the hill." He craned his head around towards Kenny's overstuffed, slightly smoking vehicle and scratched the stubble on his chin. "Y'all ain't getting out of the city in that thing."

"We're not getting out of the city, we're getting into it," Ken retorted.

"Into it?" Chuck raised his bushy eyebrows in mild surprise, scratching the dark stubble on his chin. Thankfully, he didn't press for details—seeing as Kenny still seemed ready to blow his top—and instead offered to take a look at the vehicle. Because Ken showed zero signs of welcome, Lee spoke up instead; anything to maintain that peace he'd almost disrupted.

"Thanks, Chuck. We could use the help."

The downpour lightened and a weak, pale sunlight peeked through the trees as Chuck began his examination of Ken's pickup, worn toolbox sitting in the mud by his boots. Since the truck was no longer in immediate danger, Lee took this as an opportunity to grab the backpack full of snacks out of the backseat, knowing that he would have completely forgotten about eating food if Clementine hadn't mentioned that she was hungry. Kenny had wandered off down a dirt path alone before Lee had time to offer him a sandwich, but it was just as well. Lee was not eager to continue their conversation. After making sure Clementine was fed with an apple and half a peanut butter sandwich, he headed back to see Chuck under the hood and up to his elbows in grease.

"What's the diagnosis?" Lee asked.

Chuck shrugged, extracting himself to wipe his blackened hands on his jeans. "Worn spark plug. Easy enough fix. Oil was leaking, too. I'll see to that. Nothing's exploding today."

Lee sighed with relief. "You're a lifesaver."

"Y'all moving or something?" Chuck asked.

"Not me. Kenny." Lee hesitated, before adding, "He's been through a lot recently. Needs a fresh start, I think. Clementine and I will help him unpack, then take a bus home."

Chuck made a hm sound. "Timing's not so great, but I can understand that. As for you and the girl, there ain't much public transportation out of the city at the moment. Most folks are heading to safe zones."

"What about you, then?" Lee asked, unable to keep the challenge out of his voice. "You look like you're ignoring the evac notice, too."

"Not ignoring. I've been weathering the summer storms out here for more'n a decade." Chuck dropped a blackened screw into his pocket before fishing out a clean one to replace it. "My cabin's set up on a hill. I've got generators and food, and a plan in case the tides really turn."

Chuck cast an easy glance towards Clementine, who was sitting by herself under the beeches, munching on her apple and twisting those walkie dials. "Who she hoping to talk to on that thing?" he asked.

Lee's spirits were rapidly ebbing away as the reality of the hurricane came upon him, and he wasn't sure he wanted a stranger telling him what he already knew—that surely he must know the danger he was putting Clementine in just by being here, that surely her obsession with finding her lost parents was anything but healthy. But either because Chuck had a face he could trust or simply because Lee had no one else to confide in, he relayed his condensed version of the story: Clementine's missing parents, how they came together, and how Clementine was certain Ed and Diane would pick up their walkie-talkie at any moment to confirm their aliveness. Chuck listened in silence, tinkering with the engine as Lee felt himself talk longer than he did during his Civil Rights lectures at the college. When he'd finished, Chuck gave no real indication that he'd heard, but Lee almost didn't care.

"There's no way her parents are somehow still wandering around down here," Lee said at last, leaning his back against the car so rainwater soaked through the back of his jacket. "It's crazy. Right?"

Chuck hmed again and reached into the toolbox to rummage noisily around for something. He didn't speak for a minute, and Lee didn't prompt him even though deep down, he longed for some kind of sage advice.

"So this girl ain't really your daughter," Chuck said at last.

It was a statement, not a question, and Lee couldn't help feeling slightly betrayed. "She's my girl," Lee replied.

"But you ain't her real dad. She's been trying to get her real dad's signal since I got here." Chuck ripped off a square of duct tape, ignoring the heat radiating from Lee's direction. "And you brought her along into the heart of a storm knowing she'd get her hopes crushed."

"What would you have done?" Lee hissed, checking his volume even though his blood was beginning to boil. "Should I have told her that her parents are rotting in a ditch somewhere?"

"Have you had an honest conversation with the girl? Are you really going to help her look for them?" Chuck asked.

Lee paused, letting the questions hang like steam in the air for a minute. Everything Chuck had said so far was right, although it pained him to hear it. "She's just a little girl," he retorted weakly.

Chuck stopped his fixing to turn and face Lee; watery eyes tired but firm. "Look, I'm certainly not the one to ask about raising kids right. Trust me." He dropped the roll of tape back into the box with a frown. "All I know is that when you bring a kid into uncharted territory, you gotta prepare her. You gotta treat her like a person, not some fragile thing. She ain't little, she ain't a girl, she ain't a kid. She's a person who needs to know the hard truths about her situation, not whatever sugar-coated nonsense you've been feeding her."

Lee shut his mouth, chewing on the wisdom and fighting the urge to retaliate. He hadn't told Clementine that her parents were definitely still alive or anything of a falsely hopeful nature. But then again, he couldn't remember having a candid conversation with her about the trip—about her own thoughts. Why was she so sure that her mom and dad were alive? He was so certain that Savannah would give her the closure she needed to come running into his arms. Perhaps his intentions, while not innately bad, sprouted from a manipulative place. He didn't like to entertain the idea that Clementine would be taken from him—or worse, that she would reject him.

"A conversation would be a start, then," Lee said. "It's...good advice."

"I don't mean to tell you how to do your job." Chuck shut the metal hood of the car so droplets of water sprayed in every direction. "But sometimes you don't know you're pushing someone away until they're miles gone, y'know?"

Clementine only sat ten feet from him, but the distance seemed much further. "Yeah. I do."

"Especially someone you care about more than you do yourself. I can certainly see that."

Lee didn't ask how Chuck personally knew the depth of this feeling, or how he seemed to be able to read Lee like a book. But the understanding that passed between them was as tangible as the mud seeping into the bottoms of Lee's shoes.

Lee insisted on paying Chuck for his work, but the old man wouldn't hear of it. "Y'all just stay safe out there," he said, gripping Lee's hand with his calloused fingers. "You and that girl of yours need a place to weather out this storm, you come and find me. Don't you go being polite about it, y'hear?"

Lee shook his head, almost reluctant to welcome the gratitude washing over him. "Thanks. For everything," was all he could say.

Chuck extended his hand in Kenny's direction, so he would have to take a step closer to shake it. With his opposite hand, Chuck removed a worn little card from his jacket pocket and handed it over. "You need a mechanic again, you gimme a call."

Kenny uttered a noncommittal sound of assent, but Chuck would not release his hand, staring intently at his face as Kenny refused to make eye contact. "We're neighbors now, y'know," Chuck said with finality.

With a sort of agitated nod, Kenny took the card and tucked it into his back pocket. "Thanks," he mumbled.

Even Clementine approached Chuck to shake, and a glimmer of amusement passed over his wrinkled features as her tiny fingers disappeared in his large, leathery hand. He bid them all "so long" and lumbered back to his truck, disappearing behind the bend as curiously as he had come.

"Right. Let's get this show on the road," Kenny urged, and everyone was ushered back into the pickup, which started up with no problem. They merged back onto the crowded highway, and this time Kenny kept every comment to himself as the truck purred along the asphalt. At some point as they were inching along, Clementine dropped asleep against Lee's backpack. He watched her breathing in the rearview mirror, her flushed face gleaming with a sheen of sweat, and for some reason the serene picture made his chest tighten with anticipation for the heavy conversation that was to come.

"Hey, Lee? You and me, we...uh…" Kenny began, keeping his eyes carefully on the road. He searched for the right words, mouth opening and closing with what seemed like intense effort.

"We're good," Lee said, and Kenny visibly relaxed into the driver's seat, fingers loosening on the wheel. They sat in comfortable solitude as a few raindrops broke through the humid atmosphere and drizzled into the open windows, ushering a brief coolness into the hot car. Lee closed his eyes and welcomed the rain, even knowing that the storm couldn't remain dormant for much longer.

Then, amongst the sound of the engine running, the Atlantic crashing in the distance and the telltale roll of thunder, there was a noise like a radio broadcast from a nonexistent station. Lee was just reaching for the volume dial on the dashboard when,

"Hel...lo...Helloooo there?"

The sudden voice came from the backseat, veiled by a layer of crackling static. On shocked impulse, Lee reached around and grabbed Clementine's walkie-talkie, careful not to disturb her sleep. She had always put batteries in the thing, and since he'd known her Clementine played with it and talked into it, but he'd never heard someone talk back.

"Is it picking up a stray signal?" Kenny suggested.

Before Lee could respond:

"I can't wait for you to get to Savannah, Clementine. I've got your parents right here. They're so excited to see you."

"Who the fuck?"

"...and you be sure to find me at the Marsh House, whether Lee wants you to or not, okay? Don't want to spoil anything. Now, what I need—"

Static suddenly washed out the audio, and the radio signal went suddenly dead.

The two looked at each other, and Lee could see his own horrified expression reflected in Kenny's brown eyes. Seeing Clementine whisper into her walkie-talkie had become as normal as drinking coffee at breakfast. What he'd never thought to ask was if anyone was whispering back.

"Can't I just hold it?"

Lee set down Kenny's fishing gear on the front stoop of the small house and grazed his hand over the walkie, which was clipped securely on the outside of his jeans. It looked so innocent when it was quiet: worn and grey and peppered with pink and white flowery stickers. It was as well-loved by Clementine as any Harry Potter book or stuffed animal. To think that she had been talking to a strange man for all these months through it made Lee's stomach churn so much he was sure he would vomit.

"I promise I won't use it," she pressed, but one hard look from Lee and she knew the answer was "no".

Kenny had made some fervent phone calls while sitting in traffic, and luck finally turned as he contacted an old fishing buddy, Mark, whose family had evacuated for good. "Feel free to use the house for a bit," he'd said, "if you have a death wish." The truck had carried them through the steadily flooding streets into the heart of Savannah, and they had begun to unload in front of a rather large ranch-style house with all the doors and windows boarded up. Kenny had found the key shoved under a flowerpot and thus they began the hurried process of unloading in the ankle-deep waters in the streets.

All Lee wanted to do was contact the police—and even then, he wasn't sure how they could help him catch whoever was luring Clementine into the city. The best thing he could think to do was haul her back out of the dangers of Savannah, but that option looked less and less probable as the storm intensified and the flood waters rose in the lower elevations of town. He seethed quietly as he dropped the last box in the damp entryway, and Kenny locked the heavy doors behind them. The wind whistled through the cracks, the ceiling groaned with the weight of rain, but otherwise the sturdy house provided some shelter from the encroaching storm.

"No power," said Ken, flicking a light switch. "Figures."

Lee peeked through one of the wood slats hammered to the bay windows and searched for any signs of life moving in the sheet-like rain. He wasn't sure what he was expecting—someone to emerge from the shadows to snatch Clementine by her collar, maybe—but something familiar and angry was pounding against his temple, and he knew he could get no rest from it until she was safely out of Savannah. "How long is this storm supposed to last?" he asked.

"Dunno," said Kenny, poking his head into every room and frowning. "Probably a few days, at least. Look, all the furniture is covered up. Mark really hauled ass out of here—place looks abandoned."

Indeed, every chair and couch had been draped with a white sheet, so the first floor looked inhabited by misshapen ghosts. Kenny sank onto the shape of the sofa, his glassy eyes staring past the beige floral wallpaper. After a moment, he reached into his pocket to hand over the old-fashioned silver phone.

"Not much charge left," Ken said. "But see if you can give the cops a call."

Lee took the cell phone, turning it over once in his hands. The battery in the corner glowed a warning shade of red. "Thanks," Lee said, to which Kenny simply touched the brim of his cap in weary acknowledgement. Leaving him alone with his thoughts, Lee retreated back to the front hall where he flipped open the phone and began to dial.

"You can't call the police!" piped Clementine, who Lee had hardly noticed sitting amongst the luggage and crates of canned food.

"Hush," Lee said, straining to hear ringing on the other line.

"But you can't! He said he'd hurt my parents if I told anyone!"

Lee lowered phone from his ear. "Who is 'he'?"

Clementine visibly faltered, then quickly continued with the same feverish gusto. "Please, Lee! I have to know where they are."

"No, you don't have to anything. I can't tell the police anything if you don't tell me anything."

Clementine leapt up and grabbed the ends of Lee's jacket, yanking hard, eyes blazing in a way that Lee had never seen from his quiet girl. "He's the only way I can see them! You said you would help me get them back! You promised!"

His patience tested, Lee snapped the phone shut. "Now you listen to me: I can't even begin to express how dangerous it was for you to be talking to a stranger in the first place without telling me. This man might want to hurt you! Do you understand me?"

"But—"

"I said do you understand me?!" Lee's voice rang through the cavernous hall like a crack of thunder. "This is a job for the police, not a little girl. We are not staying in this godforsaken place one second longer than we have to. Do you hear me, Clementine?"

Clementine stared at him for a few full seconds, and Lee could almost hear Chuck's words echoing through his head—his sage advice that had gone sailing out the window. Clementine's fingers loosened on his jacket, her face scrunching up as she tried not to cry and failed. As hot tears rolled down her cheeks, she flashed Lee one venomous look before turning on her heel and disappearing into the bathroom, slamming the door and locking it with a spiteful click.

There wasn't time to entertain the feelings of contrition that had crept up during his outburst, so Lee channeled his fury into slamming the phone buttons and waiting for an answer. He paced the hall as the emergency hotline transferred him from line to line, every robotic voice told him the same thing:

"We're sorry. Safety officials are not currently responding to emergency calls during mandatory evacuations."

Lee kept at it, hoping to speak to a real person, hoping to reach some sort of service that would carry him and Clementine back to Macon. It wasn't long before the dinosaur phone flickered and died in his hand, and Lee could hardly be disappointed as he went to hand the phone back to Kenny, who raised his head curiously from his resigned spot on the sofa.

"There's no transportation heading out of the hurricane zone," Lee said in response to Kenny's wordless question. "I never should have brought her here."

"Shit, Lee, take my truck," Kenny replied, resting back against the couch with his hat over his eyes. "The streets are bad, but after getting you both stuck here, it's the least I can do."

Lee nodded, too tired to refuse. He sank next to Kenny, limbs groaning with fatigue. "I keep thinking back to all the times I saw her playing with the radio...all those times when she'd whisper into it or ask me for new batteries. I remember thinking I heard someone breathing out of it once."

"This ain't your fault. None of us saw it. I bet Duck didn't even know, and those two were thick as thieves."

"And then, that night when that burglar broke into the house—" He suddenly vividly remembered the thin figure slinking up the staircase and remembered seeing the flash of whites in the stranger's eyes. An icy pang of realization sliced through Lee's insides as the pieces fell together. "Oh, fuck…"

"Uh, Lee?" Kenny said in a tense voice. "Where is it?"

Instinctively, Lee's hand went to his hip, where the walkie-talkie had been moments before. He leapt up from the couch and practically sprinted to the bathroom door, where he slammed on the wood with his fist. "Clem? Clementine open this door now!"

No response. Lee jiggled the doorknob, but it wouldn't budge. Blood coursing like lava through his veins, he took one step back before aiming a kick right below the old-fashioned lock. The wood splintered, and the door shot away from the frame, swinging open to reveal an empty, dark bathroom glistening with rainwater that poured in from the window, open just enough for a small girl to squeeze through. Lee sloshed through the puddles forming on the green tile to wrench open the window the rest of the way.

"CLEMENTINE!" he cried, but his voice was lost on the wind. "No, no, no!"

A flash of white caught his eye, and before he could draw breath, Lee darted to the front door and flung it open, ignoring Kenny's shouts of protest. Lee raced along the grass skirting the house and waded through the ankle-deep flood waters towards the side yard, where he fell to his knees and picked up Clementine's white and purple baseball cap. He gripped the fading fabric, fingers grazing the familiar stitching as he felt sobs threaten to choke him.

Then, above the shrieking winds and downpour, the sound of static creeped up from somewhere nearby. Lee inclined his head slightly to the left, where he could see that small, sinister grey box sitting in a box of storm-ravaged petunias. Lee grabbed the walkie, as though watching himself from afar, pressed the button and said, "Where the hell did you take her, you sick sonofabitch?!"

He hadn't expected a reply, but when one came, he didn't jump:

"I took her where you can never hurt her again, Lee," said the voice.

Lee gripped the walkie in his fist. "You lay a finger on her, and I'll kill you. Do you hear me? I'll fucking kill you!"

"Lee, what's going on?" Kenny had rounded the corner of the house, and his eyes shot open wide as he laid eyes on the walkie-talkie clutched in Lee's fingers. "Where's Clem?"

Lee had either lost the signal, or the stranger had decided the conversation was over. Lee clicked the button a few more times but knew it was useless. "She was taken. He took her. That sick bastard took her."

He could feel Kenny staring at the back of his head for a long while as Lee ran his thumb over the torn purple brim of Clementine's cap. It was odd how calm he felt, how his hands didn't shake as he clutched her possessions—as though the surging, rioting haze of fear was suddenly cut by one ringing thought, one objective. He had blood in his heart and blood in his brain, and every molecule of his being felt it like the roar of the churning ocean behind them.

"What do you need?" Kenny asked, his voice low and resolute.

Lee exhaled the breath he'd been holding and squared his shoulders, turning to face his friend. "Help me get her back."