Walls

"Lourdes, bebita." The sound of Liza's trembling voice broke the silence that hung almost like a spell over the room, bringing everybody back to life, the stench of death acrid in the air. Within moments, mother and daughter were in each others' arms, Lourdes burying her face in Liza's shoulder, the tears running down her cheeks. "It's okay, baby girl," Liza soothed, running her hand over Lourdes's tangled dark hair, "I'm here now." In her touch was silent apology for attending to the Salazar family's needs before those of her own children, the act almost serving as penance for being prepared to leave the Salazars' behind, even after they had given her and hers shelter. But Lourdes understood; that her mother had always been a healer at heart, putting others before herself, expecting her offspring to do the same.

"Timmy," Lourdes then said brokenly, raising her head as she spoke, Liza cupping her chin, "he's - he's all torn up" -

- "I'll take a look at him," Liza said firmly as Chris collapsed down onto the sofa, Alicia slowly rising to her feet, pushing the tumbled hair out of her eyes, "see if I can patch him up" -

- "We've got more things to worry about than a damned dog," Madison snapped, startling Liza and Lourdes, ignoring Travis's restraining hand, "there's a passel of strangers seemingly on my neck now and a corpse in my living room to boot - where the hell is Nick!?" she suddenly demanded, rounding on everyone, eyes wild. "Where the fuck is my son!?"

"I'm here, Mom," Nick said in a dead voice as he stepped through the French doors, "so don't create."

Madison rushed forwards, followed by Alicia, the two of them throwing themselves on top of Nick, sending him almost reeling. But he awkwardly regained his balance, just standing there, almost enduring their embrace, Madison exclaiming loudly over his bloodied nose. "What the hell happened to your face, Nick!?" she said in disbelief. "Did someone attack you!?"

Nick didn't look at Lourdes. "It's nothing, Mom," he said in the same dead voice, before deliberately detaching himself from her arms, heading out into the hallway instead, Madison making to go after him, Alicia stopping her, shaking her head wordlessly.

As Madison then went over to inspect the corpse, Alicia hanging back, wrapping her arms around herself, Travis nervously went over to Lourdes, feeling like a thousand years had passed since he had spoken to his daughter in the truck. Like Liza, he had prioritized the Salazars above his own family, only ensuring his son and daughter were safe with his step-children, before dealing with the most pressing problem at hand. "Lourdes," Travis said anxiously, hesitating before drawing him to her, careful to keep her at arm's length from his bloodied clothes, "I'm sorry - I'm sorry I couldn't'" -

- "Don't," Lourdes whispered, "don't - don't talk about it."

As she spoke, Madison turned around, brow furrowing, looking at Lourdes as if she had never seen her before, Travis having not told Madison what had happened to Lourdes in the barbershop. Madison raised a questioning eyebrow at Alicia, who once again shook her head, all but saying for her mother to butt out. As Travis pressed his lips to Lourdes's forehead, he saw this bit of byplay, Madison's gaze immediately meeting his, almost demanding an answer, Travis shooting her a warning look in turn, silently saying, not now. He glanced over at Chris sitting on the sofa, shoulders hunched, head bent forwards. Sensing his father's stare, Chris looked up, the expression in his eyes one of turmoil, defiant and vulnerable all at once. Travis jerked his chin, holding his other arm out, Chris remaining rooted to the sofa, before suddenly flinging himself forwards, clinging to Travis and Lourdes, a little boy once again.

Lourdes flung herself into her bedroom, pressing her back against the wooden paneling of the door, the silence shoring her up like a lifebelt. After the teens had told of the other dead swarming the sidewalk; of the lone one outside Susan's house, as well as Susan herself now haunting the fence that divided the properties, Travis and Madison had gone outside to see what the score was, Madison armed with the shotgun, Travis with the baseball bat. In their absence, Chris, Lourdes and Alicia had helped Liza patch Timmy up, Lourdes keeping the dog calm, holding his head in her lap, Alicia assisting Liza with a deft hand, helping Liza disinfect and then dress his wounds with clean bedsheets Chris had cut up. Despite appearances, the injuries were thankfully superficial, but Liza warned they would need to change the dressings daily, as well as checking to see how it was healing to ensure there was no infection.

Timmy was now shut up again in Travis's study, Lourdes having made a lame attempt to tidy up her father's papers and books, Alicia constructing a bed for Timmy out of Nick's old Batman duvet, before giving him a bowl of water and some doggie treats that they kept on hand for whenever Timmy wandered over for a visit. Liza had then gone upstairs to check on Griselda, Alicia and Chris going outside despite Lourdes warning them not to, the teens arguing they were going to help Madison and Travis secure the property, arming themselves with a kitchen knife apiece. Lourdes had watched from the window as Chris and Alicia had then closed and locked the driveway gates, Travis keeping careful guard, Madison standing at the fence, studying Susan with disbelieving eyes, the shotgun hanging uselessly from her hand.

That's when the full impact of Susan's new state of being had hit Alicia, making her cool and collected exterior finally crack, her wild incoherent cries shattering the silence outside, Lourdes managing to make out 'Matt' being screamed several times. Now Lourdes was here, half closing her eyes, willing what was left of the world away, Madison and Travis now shouting at each other from downstairs, arguing about what they were going to do with the dead body decomposing on Madison's best rug. The last time Lourdes had heard her father sound like that had been the day he'd announced he was leaving Liza, that he'd had enough, Liza sarcastically echoing his sentiment. Her parents had filed for divorce soon after that, Madison appearing on the scene around about the same time, Lourdes wondering even now if her father had been having an affair with Madison whilst he'd still been married to her mother. Yet somehow Lourdes's suspicions weren't edged with resentment, only a faint pity for her father failing his usually staunch principles, supposing he could only go where his heart led him.

Exhaling sharply, Lourdes reasoned none of it mattered, that nothing really did, not now. She glanced around at the glaringly pink and white walls, yet another reminder of the past, embodying what she had once taken for granted. Before Lourdes had moved into Madison's house, Madison had went overboard in her attempts to make Lourdes feel welcome, turning the spare room into Lourdes's bedroom, painting it hot pink and blinding white, hanging up matching curtains and bedding, unwittingly becoming the architect of Lourdes's worst nightmare. But Lourdes had hidden her horror, for her father's sake at least, and over time, she had become used to being in Barbie hell.

Pulling the sleeves of Chris's hoodie over her hands, Lourdes tiredly guessed the subject of bedrooms would soon become a sore point. Where Liza and Chris would sleep, as well as the Salazar family, Lourdes could only theorize. Plus, with four of them already fighting for bathroom supremacy, adding six more people to the mix, including Nick, Lourdes figured full scale war would soon break out. There was only four bedrooms to be had in Madison's house including Lourdes's own, Alicia possessing the biggest, her room a mixture of sleeping quarters and a study, whilst Travis and Madison had the second biggest bedroom, Nick's the smallest, barely big enough to swing a cat in. But he'd hardly ever been home, always seeking sanctuary on the streets, exiling himself into obscurity, Madison turning his room into a shrine, as if he were already dead.

But now Nick was back, and already Lourdes could sense the strife his return had wrought, disturbing the precarious peace that had sprung up during his abrupt absences, and Lourdes knew she had to make her own peace with him, in order to find peace within herself. After Tobias, Nick was her only other ally, and soon he was going to be family, Travis and Madison all but engaged, marriage the next natural step. Yet it was more than easy for hatred to ferment in her heart towards him, the emotion exacerbated by the memory of his indifference earlier, even as he'd apologized afterwards. Tobias had once described Nick as kind, but for all that, Lourdes had never known anybody as self-centered as Nick, only caring about scoring his next hit, no matter how much it hurt the people who cared about him the most. Nick was broken, and now he was breaking his family, smashing what they shared to smithereens.

As she sat there, Lourdes could feel that familiar anger beginning to stir like a storm within her, the same anger she felt when she had play peacebroker, feeling like she was being dragged in twenty different directions by the fractured fragments of her family. She was meant to be the generic good girl; a diligent student and dutiful daughter; the child undamaged by divorce. Lourdes didn't like seeing herself through the eyes of an audience, feeling hemmed in by their high expectations, putting even more pressure on her shoulders.

Lourdes bowed her head, closing her eyes, struggling to subdue the storm in her heart, to curb it before it blew out of control. She knew she should be glad that her family cared; that Madison cared, that she wasn't the stereotypical wicked stepmother, but Lourdes had seen firsthand the harm the pursuit for perfection caused; from those who expected it and those who pretended to possess it, Alicia being a prime example, every emotion reined in, dissected and dismantled; edited before being exhibited; always too aware of the image she presented to the world, from the brand of sneakers she wore to her school grades.

Travis had blindly believed the two girls would be good friends; both high achievers, enrolling in the same college; both perfect daughters who made their parents proud. Alicia had consequently viewed Lourdes as competition, a threat to her throne, and so she'd actuated attack after attack, launching lies defaming Lourdes's character. But as the world began to slowly unravel, fiction was in danger of becoming fact, Lourdes threatening to be all Alicia accused her of, Madison more than noting the material change in Lourdes. Yet her rebellion had begun before the flu outbreak, Lourdes acquiring a taste for crossing lines thanks to Tobias, even as she'd almost pissed her pants when she had nearly been caught smashing up Dominic Fratto's prize Porsche with a baseball bat, Tobias taking the rap.

For the past few hellish hours, Lourdes had experienced every emotion going, holding nothing back; saying what she wanted to who she wanted, doing what she wanted, disobeying direct orders, and deep down, she knew she'd enjoyed finding freedom in doing what the fuck she wanted. She had become Nick, and now she was blaming Nick, centring on him all the suffocation she felt, holding him wholly responsible, even as it was illogical, Lourdes's tangled train of thought becoming caught up on itself, losing any essence of sense. But at the back of her mind, she knew fate had failed Nick, and now she was paying for his failure as Alicia had, Madison trying to save them from themselves, only to damn them to their downfall.

If I don't get high
I won't get low
And I find her strange
She wants to climb up
But she could fall…

"Come to finish off what you started?" Nick said sarcastically as Lourdes edged her way into the tiny utility room, shoulders hunched, hands curled up in the sleeves of Chris's hoodie. "My nose not enough, huh? Want to break some more bones while you're at it?"

"Your nose is broken?" Lourdes said stupidly, reaching out to his face, only for Nick to flinch back from her fingers.

"It goddamn feels broken," Nick flared up, turning back to the mirror, tentatively touching his swollen nose, blood now crusting his nostrils.

"Then let me goddamn check!"

"You!?" Nick said in disbelief. "Okay, maybe I deserved a slap for being such a tool earlier, but out there, I was helping you, Lourdes, and you just flip out on me, man!"

Lourdes looked away. "Didn't you ever think why I flipped out?" she said through gritted teeth. "Especially after what happened? You – you were on top of me" -

- "What, you'd think I'm actually capable of doing that!?" Nick said incredulously. "I know I'm not up to much but there's a line I would never cross, Lo, never!"

Lourdes just stood there, fists clenching by her sides, fingers curling uselessly into claws. "See, this is what you do, Nick," she then said slowly, turning to face him, eyes suddenly exhausted, "you make it about you – the spotlight always has to be centered on you. When you were away, we would always be waiting for that call to say you'd been found – we were always waiting to drop everything for you. We couldn't live our lives because of you. But shit started to change, we started to live again, slowly but surely, and then the world suddenly went to pot, with the dead walking, but again, none of that matters, because again it always has to be about you!" -

- "Yeah, well, it doesn't give you the right to deck me, Lo!"

"No, it doesn't," Lourdes snapped, "and I'm sorry - I'm sorry I hurt you, but I just can't take anymore, Nick, okay!?" She turned away from him, fighting the furious tears threatening to fall. "I can't... I can't do this, I just can't," she said, gripping her hair between her hands, remembering everything that had led to this moment, the detritus of destruction, her life lying in ruins at her feet.

Half closing his eyes, Nick bowed his head, a boy trying to bear a man's burden, Lourdes suddenly out of his reach, her agony isolating her further from him. He had his own demons to wrestle, but chaos had always been his constant companion, becoming an old friend, Nick never far from a fresh fall of grace. Yet at the back of his mind, her ire irked him, Nick becoming pissed at her self-pity since she wasn't the only one suffering, that they had all been through hell and back, and that the experience would probably be repeated often in the days ahead. But even as he thought this, guilt and rage coursed through him again at what Lourdes had undergone, making him want to punch the wall, his knuckles still badly scraped from striking the wooden post outside.

As the silence stretched out between them, Lourdes impatiently pushed the hair out of her eyes, flinching at the sound of her father shouting at Madison again, the two of them still fighting over the corpse lying in the lounge. "Jesus Christ," Lourdes muttered, "Jesus fucking Christ" -

- "Lourdes" -

- "I'm sorry, okay?" Lourdes cried, flinging her hands up, startling Nick. "Now can we just forget about it!?"

"Sure, whatever you want," Nick said sarcastically, half turning from her, wishing she would just leave, "consider it done."

Again, Lourdes just stood there, jaw clenching painfully, fighting that familiar angry frustration now rising afresh in her again. She had sought out Nick to restore her troubled spirit to some sort of order, only to find herself in further turmoil, and somehow the blame now lay with her rather than Nick. "Let me see your nose," she said abruptly, making Nick raise his eyebrows in disbelief, lending him an almost comical look. "I'm not going to keep asking."

"Maybe you will," Nick snapped. "Why the hell would I unleash you on my nose again? Anyone in their right mind would keep their hooter well out of your hands!"

"You're insane, you know that!?"

"So is everything else around here in case you haven't noticed" -

- "Nose now, okay!?"

At this, Nick just rolled his eyes, before unwillingly surrendering, tensing up under Lourdes's tentative touch as she brushed the hair out of his eyes. "Chris got his nose bust last year," she said to break the awkward silence, standing on tip-toe, before placing two fingers either side of Nick's swollen nose, gently pressing the pads of her fingertips against its bridge, making him hiss slightly, "some guys outside the convenience store near our mom's apartment – one of them walked into Chris, and Chris overreacted, completely flipping out" -

- "Ath alwaths," Nick said, his voice now bizarrely pitched, "tell me sumthin' new."

"Anyways," Lourdes said as though he hadn't spoken, "he didn't want to go to hospital to get checked over, so Mom patched up him, and she taught me how to check if a nose was broken or not. So there endeth my story."

"Well, God bless your healing hands," Nick said, jerking his head out of her hold, "that's all I can say."

"Whatever," Lourdes said, making for the door as she spoke, "don't say I'm not good to you."

"You're nothing but utter beneficence," Nick retorted, following her out into the hall, "did I ever imply otherwise?"

"Shut up," Lourdes snapped over her shoulder, "and go and wash your face."

"That's top of my list of priorities," Nick snapped back, "above clean underwear and avoiding being eaten by the dead" -

- "Yeah, yeah" -

- "How's Timmy?" Nick cut across her. "Your mom sort him out?"

Lourdes ran her hand down the side of her face, the mention of Timmy instantly sobering her up. "Yeah," she said, her voice cracking, "we helped my mum patch him up. He's resting in my dad's study right now."

"Good," Nick said, exhaling sharply, his shoulders slumping with relief, "that's good." He hesitated before briefly clasping Lourdes's shoulder, nodding at her as he did, Lourdes nodding back, not flinching from his fingers, some restrained modicum of trust momentarily restored. Letting go of Lourdes, Nick glanced up as Liza came into the hall, followed by Daniel Salazar, the two of them contrasting strongly against the other, Liza the epitome of exhaustion, Daniel cool and collected despite everything that had just occurred, as if he hadn't just blasted a man's brains out.

"Is everything okay?" Lourdes asked anxiously, glancing between her mother and Daniel, brow furrowing.

"I was just going to ask if there was anything stronger than aspirin in your bathroom cabinet," Liza said, impatiently pushing the hair out of her eyes, the gesture forcibly reminding Nick of Lourdes. "I've been through every goddamn cupboard in this house and can't find it, nada."

"No, there's nothing," Nick said nonchalantly, "and believe me, I've checked."

Liza exhaled sharply, tilting her head back and half closing her eyes, before turning and heading back up the stairs, but not before shooting an accusatory glance over her shoulder at Nick, her lips thinning in disgust. In order to relieve Griselda's pain, she needed strong analgesics, and with none at hand, she was helpless to help her patient. Nick watched her go, forcibly reminded all over again of Lourdes, the slam of a door upstairs loudly announcing Liza's anger more than words.

"I suppose you can't shoot up on aspirin," Lourdes snapped, rounding on Nick, ignoring Daniel who was watching them with deliberate disinterest.

"Been there, done that," Nick snapped back, "got totally grounded – can't get high on freaking aspirin, man." He then shuffled off, hands thrust into the pockets of his slacks, shoulders hunched.

"Who's Edward Scissorhands, huh?" Daniel asked, making Lourdes glance up, jerking his head at Nick's retreating back as he spoke. "Your brother?"

"No," Lourdes said tiredly, "that's Nick, he's Madison's son."

Frowning, Daniel then looked up the stairs, eyes narrowing, jaw working. "Your mother's attempts to atone are amusing to watch," he said, startling Lourdes, "for a woman who was prepared to throw us to the wolves, she now can't do enough for us." He raised his eyebrows at Lourdes, almost daring her to challenge the truth, even as she had been the one to stop her mother from doing the very same thing he spoke of.

"She didn't do it though, did she?" Lourdes said slowly, evading giving an outright answer, the ground suddenly unsure beneath her feet. She remembered all too vividly the hooded men who stalked the chaotic sidewalk, their hands on her, and suddenly she was sure of where she stood, understanding why Liza had acted so, trying to protect Lourdes from the darkness, and in that moment, Lourdes loathed Daniel for trying to make her doubt her own mother.

"She is a fierce woman," Daniel said, holding Lourdes's gaze, his eyes almost onyx, "and she will do the wrong thing for the right reason" -

- "She didn't leave you behind, did she!?" Lourdes suddenly snapped. "I goddamn made sure she didn't!"

"But what happens when she leaves you behind?" Daniel said, shrugging his shoulders, stunning Lourdes. "Who will stand up and stop her then?"