AN: Thank you to everyone who reviewed my last chapter. It means a lot to me when people take the time to read my story, so it's especially wonderful when people let me know what they think of it in the review section. All opinions are welcome and constructive criticism is always appreciated.
This project has become very important to me, more so than I was expecting it to when I started it last year. I promise everyone reading that it will be finished, even if the updates are somewhat irregular. In the past, updating has taken longer than I would have liked, and I'm hoping that from now on I'll be able to write them faster with more free time than I had then.
If you're still here, reading my story, thank you. Really.
She executed the walker with a single, point-blank shot to the back of its head. It dropped dead, pinning Amelia under its weight, but before she knew it the woman had thrown the corpse off of her. She bent down, grabbed Amelia's hand before she offered it, and hauled her to her feet. Amelia looked over her shoulder for Kenny and his family, worried they'd be lost in the mob while she and Clementine ran to safety. She pushed her sister into the security gate that barred the walkers from getting to the front doors, looking back to see the woman whose name she didn't know, holding it open for them while the people who'd followed her out screamed at her to close it-
"Keep moving."
Amelia stood, cheeks red in the cold and blinking through her confusion. She met the eyes of the woman in front of her, regarding her with caution and disdain, hands on the assault rifle she had pointed at the space between their feet.
Then she understood. She'd stopped walking, let the rest of the group get too far ahead while she relived the last time she could remember someone coming to rescue her.
She went back to walking quietly.
The walk was longer the second time. And colder.
A jacket would have been nice. She didn't regret giving it up. She had to repeat that to herself a few times, when the cold biting through her thin black sleeves was particularly harsh.
She wasn't sure why she was still alive.
Carver seemed like a man who favored sense. Killing her would have made sense. One less loose end. One less person walking behind him who he knew would knife him in the back if she got the chance, if he believed Nate. She'd had the last forty minutes – and at least another forty to go – to come up with a reason. So far she had nothing.
The upward incline of the mountain path had gotten progressively steeper. The higher the angle got the closer they were getting to the lodge. Amelia didn't share this with them. They seemed to know already. Flashlights stayed aimed at the ground for most of the walk, watching for half-buried rocks and patches of ice. Occasionally someone slipped. Bonnie, Troy, the third guy whose name Amelia's mind had already buried. Every time it made Amelia jump, suddenly shot with adrenaline and urgency at her chance to get an upper hand. Every time was short-lived. They still had five more guns than she did.
Four, if she could get her hands on that flare gun.
She hadn't decided what she'd do with it yet. Maybe she'd fire it into the air to make sure her group knew Carver was coming. Or fire it into the small crowd her captors had made around her, to use the shock and chaos to get away from them. Maybe she'd shoot Carver in the back with it and take what would likely be her only chance to kill him before he did something that couldn't be undone.
She dwelled on the last one, imagining the flare, red, incandescent, furious as it soared straight into the back of his head. It would probably light him on fire. The image was still in her mind when someone fell into step beside her. His light faced forward, so she couldn't make out much about him in the dark aside from the rifle he carried pointed toward the ground.
"Amy. Boss man wants me to ask you how many people are up in that lodge."
Amelia listened and waited for the smug undertone, for the setup of a joke leading up to her being the punchline. Something about karma, maybe. Anything to remind her that she was the one caught by a firing squad and he was the one holding a gun. She didn't hear any of it, for reasons she couldn't come up with. It sounded like a simple question and nothing more.
She ignored him for a long pause, and they walked in silence before she answered. She shook her head and hesitated like she was doing mental math. "There's got to be at least three."
He snickered, quiet either because it was all the thought the joke was worth or because he didn't want to be heard. Amelia leaned toward the first. She waited for him to ask again, since she hadn't made any effort for subtlety when she sidestepped the question. He didn't. Amelia was surprised he'd cared enough to ask the first time.
Amelia forced herself to look straight ahead as they walked, knowing he'd only need to catch her making one glance at the the flare in his jacket to guess what she was thinking. She would've bet that he'd see it, even in the dark. She kept her eyes up while he chuckled again like he was stifling laughter at a joke he'd told himself.
"Nice bruises, by the way," he snorted. "Someone finally kick your ass for talkin' shit? Or was it for stealing?"
There it was. She'd wondered when he was going to sound like himself again. He'd admitted to her once that it was a coping mechanism. She knew he held his as closely as she held her own, and that it wouldn't take long for it to come back.
Amelia didn't know what to think of Nate anymore. Then again she never had in the first place. Since the world had changed, her new reality had been defined by her ability to anticipate. To guess when dangerous things were coming so she could quickly and quietly step out of the way before they reached her. Then Nate drove up alongside her and crushed her favorite coping mechanism in the grille of his truck. He threw her off from their first conversation and she never really set herself right after. She'd thought she knew how to read strangers, how to guess what to expect from them. Until she didn't.
She searched him for the familiar, something that would give her an idea of what he was thinking. Part of her knew it was pointless. His thoughts could have been anywhere. The inside of his head could have been a warzone, like hers, unstable and violent. It could have been a playground of guns and freedom, a place where he wasn't in any real danger because unlike her he didn't have anything to lose. It could have been a desert. Barren and empty, where he and the people around him could have been and probably were the only people left. Amelia would have bet that it had been all three, at one time or another.
"I knew you were a thief, but kidnapping?" He lowered his voice, something she'd never known him to care enough about what others heard to see him do. "From that guy?" He shook his head, not in disappointment as she'd seen so many people do it. He almost looked impressed. "I thought you might be the death wish type, back when we met."
Amelia didn't answer. She stared ahead, straight into the space between Carver's shoulder blades as she turned the word over and over in her head. Kidnapping.
She'd had her ideas. One in particular had stood out among the rest. She tried to ignore the irony of the fact that the person to finally tell her the truth hadn't been any one of the people who called themselves her friends.
Nate looked over her face and took a guess at her thoughts. Again, he was right. "You didn't know?" he shook his head again, this time feigning disappointment that she could tell from the smug edge in his voice he didn't really feel. He was mocking her. Poking and prodding with words, waiting for her to snap again. The walk had been too quiet so far. "Just joined up with a group of strangers and believed everything they told you?"
"Isn't that what you did?" Amelia muttered, eyeing Carver up ahead with a creeping feeling he could hear them despite the distance. "What did he say to get you to help him at the river?" She finally turned her head to look directly at him as they walked. He didn't do the same. "You did help him slaughter those people, didn't you?"
He didn't hesitate for a second. "Yes, ma'am."
On another day, maybe a long time ago, his nonchalance over a dozen human lives would have made her genuinely angry. Tonight, for reasons she could have guessed but didn't want to think too hard about, the outrage she hoped she'd feel didn't come, leaving her to fake it. She sped up for a few steps, just enough to get in front of him and turn to face him. She shoved him. Two-handed, open-palm, right into his chest.
"Fuck you."
She didn't send him back far – half a step. A part of her expected it to set him off, which would serve her purpose just as well. She recalled, with more clarity than most of her buried memories, the look that came over his face back in the roadside diner. How easily he made dark threats with every intention of following up on them-
-two gunshots in rapid sequence, barely time for a scream in between-
But it didn't. He looked confused. Mildly irritated.
"Fuck me?" He repeated in a tone that suggested he was about to put his hands up in exasperation. "What did I do?"
The most convincing lies began or ended with a little bit of the truth. Maybe both. She couldn't have said she didn't mean it when she shook her head and asked him, "What's wrong with you?"
His answer was easy, tossed out like he couldn't believe she didn't guess it on her own. "I don't like getting shot at, that's what."
She knew that. She'd only remembered just now. She'd put those memories to bed a long time ago, only to have them resurface unexpectedly and without warning-
"-we've got to get in there. Fucker shot at us-"
-to remind her the past would always be there, no matter how far she was from it. It wasn't over when it was over, not with Nate. It was over when he returned fire, when bullets were exchanged for bullets and pain was repaid with pain to balance scales that only existed in his head. She didn't envy anyone who had a score to settle with him, even as a voice somewhere in her mind told her not to forget that she was on the list.
Sincerity washed over his face and looked so glaringly out of place there that it made Amelia think of dirt on a white rug. Blood splattered in snow. As misplaced now as it was the first and only other time she'd ever seen him try it. It didn't belong. It didn't make sense.
"You weren't there, Ames. They fuckin' started it."
Like the old couple started it? Amelia held her tongue, already knowing the words would be useless, especially words he wouldn't even consider an insult.
She hadn't reached for the flare gun yet. Even pressed for time and anxious to catch up to Clementine, she wasn't stupid enough to make it that obvious. But it didn't need to be obvious for Nate to notice. He'd already shown her that impulsivity and unintelligence weren't the same thing. Something she wished she'd remembered after the first time.
"See…takin' shots at me, trying to steal my shit right out from under me…" His face changed. Hardened back into cold distance in a split second, making Amelia realize too late that she was standing far too close to him. "That's the kind of shit that's gonna get somebody hurt."
She thought about going for the flare anyway. Maybe he'd move fast enough to stop her, maybe he wouldn't. But how long after that would he shoot her in the head?
Of all the things she'd been expecting to hear from him, she wasn't anticipating quiet disappointment. "You haven't changed, Amy."
If he'd been expecting otherwise, she didn't understand why. She was the same person she'd been eighteen months ago, maybe with more body scars and less patience-
-higher body count-
-but still the same person who would choose her sister over any stranger she'd meet. She'd called him insane when they met, then second-guessed whether he was as crazy as she'd thought. If he was the type to run in circles, to repeat the same mistakes and expect change, then maybe she'd been right the first time.
She was busy trying to guess the next thing he had to say to her, when he chose not to speak to her at all. He looked past her. "Bonnie." He gave her a shove she didn't see coming, almost hard enough to make her trip in Bonnie's direction. "Do me a solid. And if she talks, don't fuckin' listen."
They made it to the lodge long after the sky had gone black. They stepped out of the trees and could tell from the edge of the forest that the lodge was dark. Lights out, outside and in. Amelia realized they'd cut the power, and chose to take it as a good sign. She hoped they'd already cleared out and taken Clementine with them.
If she'd even made it back.
She'd been thinking and rethinking, analyzing and overanalyzing, with nothing else to do with the time but hike uphill and wonder if Clementine had made it back first, or at all. Maybe she'd been too slow and was right behind them, about to be caught. Maybe she was stuck somewhere on the hillside, or lost far from the lodge in the dark without supplies and without the knife Amelia should have left her with.
Carver walked over the front lawn without words, looking over the wind turbines that dotted the front lawn; Troy and the guy whose name Amelia had heard twice but still didn't care to remember followed him. She was left with Bonnie, who lingered behind and gestured for Amelia to do the same. She had taken her gun off of Amelia's back twenty minutes ago.
"Look, we don't have to walk like this if you promise not to try anything."
"What do you think I'm going to do?"
Since then, Bonnie had walked next to her, her gun pointed at the ground at Amelia's feet in a quiet, constant warning. There hadn't been any incidents, despite the many that went through Amelia's thoughts. Bonnie seemed to think they'd reached an understanding, and she wasn't wrong. But she also seemed to put it past Amelia to do something violent and nasty the moment she thought she could get away with it.
"Bill said you have a little sister?" Bonnie asked quietly.
Amelia considered talking to her, asking her what she was doing here, prepared to answer the same question herself. She might have done it if she thought the conversation would result in anything that might help her. Bonnie had come this far with Carver. Killed people for him, a number she could only guess. A single conversation with her, even if she drenched it in forced patience and false solidarity between the only two women present, wouldn't change her loyalties that easily. So she stayed quiet.
Instead, she watched Carver. The discomfort she felt when she saw him was nothing compared to the unease she felt when she couldn't see him. He ran his flashlight over the closest turbine, pointing it at the metal panel sealed shut on his side. Troy began prying it open without anyone asking him to.
What does he want with…
"I'm askin' because this could get…real ugly if it goes bad." Bonnie said, making Amelia wish the woman had learned when to stay quiet as painfully as she had learned it herself. "And if you get the chance to tell your friends to come peacefully, you really should take it."
She nodded and kept her voice low so only Bonnie could hear. "You want to take your hostages alive. Got it."
"This is not a joke, Amelia," Bonnie turned to face her. She was closer than Amelia would have liked, leaving Amelia to glare silently, trying to tell her without words to back out of her personal space. "If people just start shooting, there's no telling who could get caught up in it. Including your sister. I don't want to see that."
"Then-" Amelia's response, one that would have been sharp and venomous and judgmental as hell, died mid-sentence she she looked back to Carver, saw him with his hands inside the control panel and put two and two together far, far too late. She saw where this was going, and the idea had her hands shaking with adrenaline before the threat was even here. "You can't do that," she said it once, then said it louder. Sharper, despite the way everyone around her carefully watched their tone when speaking to him.
Bonnie interrupted from behind her. Amelia barely noticed. "Don't-"
"Hey. I'm talking to you. You can't do that." She found herself walking toward him in a rush, and came up in an abrupt stop when Troy leveled his gun at her chest. Carver hadn't acknowledged her, or paused in what he was doing. Maybe he'd been trying to show her that she was wrong. Gravely incorrect in assuming there was anything he couldn't do. She mentally amended her complaint. He could do this. He couldn't do it without consequences. Consequences that would involve someone's death, on his side or hers. It didn't seem to make a difference to him, or to the people holding guns on her so she couldn't stop him from doing it.
She planted her feet into the soil and tried not to look at the gun nearly pressed into her sternum. The turbine would make noise, enough noise to lure everyone outside to shut it down, but it would also-
"That'll draw every walker for-" she stopped, and looking at the people around her she realized she'd been the last one to cross the finish line.
Carver finally acknowledged her. "Something you want to say, Amelia?" She noticed for the first time that he'd already drawn his gun. The six-shooter was hanging by his side in his left hand. He didn't need to point it at her to make his threat clear. "Maybe something you want to do?"
She looked from the barrel of the rifle aimed at her body, up to the man behind it and the man behind him. She understood now. She'd been in a hurry to prevent risk he was well aware of. The hazard she'd been warning him about was the precise reason he was doing it. She'd been wrong to think he didn't anticipate casualties. She'd been wrong to think the chaos he caused was anything other than intentional.
Carver grinned a snakebite of a grin that made her sick to her stomach. "I didn't think so."
His free hand disappeared into the darkness of wires and switches inside the panel, shifted something mechanical and then threw the panel door shut despite the both of them knowing she would never get close enough to undo it. The turbine roared to life, its engine filling the air with mechanical screaming even from underground. The blades cycled by far above their heads, gradually picking up speed that threw second layer of white noise over the first.
Despite the time she'd had to brace herself, the turbine was out of control before she was ready.
The dead crawled out of the forest like cockroaches scared out of bathroom tile. Slow and rotten and hollow and in numbers far higher than Amelia ever would have faced on her own. They'd only just emerged and she could already see, twisting to look over one shoulder, then the other, that she and everyone else were surrounded at a distance. The space between her and the walkers on all sides was shrinking with each second that ticked by.
The gunfire was immediate and ear-splitting. The rifles spat out a constant train of heavy fire, which she almost couldn't hear over the wind turbine, each cycle of the blades pounding in her chest cavity like the bass of a stereo turned up too loud. Amelia found herself crouching, since she could only see two of the five guns and didn't know where they were shooting from, and backed herself against the picnic table, Far past the wind turbine, she could see the nearest wall of the lodge, the windows low but boarded up with wood and nails. The front door was a long shot, between the walkers and the firing squad, but that window, she could do. She already knew where the weapons were inside. The constant gunfire was all noise and confusion, a thundering auditory fog that laid perfect cover – or the closest thing she would get – for her chance to make it there. She knew she wouldn't get another. The question was when to run.
The walkers were closer than she remembered.
Blood flew as bullets landed in their heads, in other areas of their decaying bodies. Some dropped face-down, others kept coming. It looked like for every one that was put down three more came out of the woods to take its place. She looked left, then right, saw two more fall and-
An unmistakably strangled growl screamed to life not far behind her, almost right into her ear. She jumped and forced herself away from the table, trying to watch her back and every other direction at once while trying to understand how she'd let one of them get so close. She couldn't hear herself think over these gunshots, let alone distinguish distant noises from the ones that were right behind her.
It came for her, reaching with bloodied hands missing fingers, the skin rotting away to show her the array of bones inside. It wasn't alone. Four more had followed it, and it had taken her too long to see them as well. They were close. Close enough not to leave her any time after killing the first; she'd either have to go in swinging and hope for the best or run and hope for the best for completely different reasons.
She forced herself to wait, let it come closer until it was within her arm's reach. She kicked out its knee and heard bones crack, watched it bow inwards in a way the joint wasn't meant to go. It dropped to the ground, hobbled in one leg but not the other, still consumed with intent to rip out her throat and eat what was inside.
She buried Walter's-
-Mathew's-
-knife into its temple down to the handle. It dropped, taking the knife and her along with it since she refused to let it go. She wasn't about to lose her only weapon, not thinking about the walkers but about the next threat that would demand she use it. She'd only fought walkers bare-handed a handful of times before, but she was more willing to do it than to try the same with Carver.
She dropped to a knee over the fallen corpse at her feet, a fist still closed firmly around the blade's leather handle. She gave it a pull, then another; it held fast, the suction too much to be overcome by what upper body strength she had. She started to breathe faster and growl swear words, one half of her shouting at the other that she had to let it go, there was no more time-
The knife came loose, slick and dripping with blackened blood. She stood upright, the walkers within arm's reach, close enough to grab or be grabbed, and took a step back. She turned the knife blade-out in her grip, holding it close and waiting for a clean shot to the neck or head-
"Move-" For a split second, Nate's voice was louder than the gunfire as his shoulder crashed into hers hard enough to force her to stumble into the table. She steadied herself with her free hand down on the tabletop, looking back to watch him fire round after round, dropping corpses one after another.
One, two, three, four. Dead. More than that were already on their way to replace them. By the time she turned around Nate was on the tabletop, rapid firing a hailstorm of bullets in one direction, then the other, then back again and-
Was he smiling?
The dead fell in front of her, collapsing one after the next in a domino chain. Blood flew, intestines were pierced, skulls shattered to pieces. Some dropped to their knees and fell face-first, others were blown backward, necks broken as they stared up into the sky. Nate held his fire when there was only one left in front of them, leaving Amelia to clinging to the table and wondering what the hell he was doing while he carefully lined up his shot and-
Broken skull. Flying grey matter and a dark red bullet hole in the dead center of the walker's forehead.
"Boom. Headshot!" He didn't wait for a response from her – Amelia thought he might have been expecting applause, and wouldn't have put it past him – but he'd cleared a path for her, whether he'd meant to or not. The field between them and the near side of the lodge was-
-littered with bodies-
-empty, and she wasn't about to run out there and be the only thing in his scope.
She acted without thinking, a habit that had saved her life as many times as it had nearly ended it. Nate was armed and she wasn't trained the way Lilly was, she could never match his muscle like Kenny could, but she was fast and vindictive and no one had ever made any rules about cheap shots from behind. Before she could think something other than it needs to be done she was stepping up on the bench, then behind him the tabletop. She hooked her fingers into the collar of his jacket and pulled down hard and fast, bending him backward without warning and forcing his gunfire to a sudden stop. He fell into the bench, landing on his neck as he tumbled back, letting out a short, guttural sound that didn't make it into coherent words as he fell hard on his shoulder and rolled into the dirt. He'd barely started to pick himself up when she was gone, only one thought in her head don't walk in front of me while she ran for the window in a full sprint.
She fought the urge to stop where she was and drop flat, convinced the gunfire from the rest of Carver's people was aimed at her. Even hurdling the bodies strewn across the field and trying not to trip, it would only take one of them to see her and one bullet to put her down with the rest of the corpses. She didn't stop to think and didn't stop to look, sprinting across a highway hoping not to get crushed by the cars speeding by in both directions.
The inside of the lodge was darker and quieter than she'd been hoping for. She couldn't recall how long she'd gone from window to window in the back, looking for a weak spot in the boards nailed to the frames; she could only guess how long it had taken her to pry one of them loose with her hands, pushing with a foot braced against the building until she fell flat onto her back when it finally came out. She'd crawled in feet-first through a space just large enough for her to fit through, running into the center of a dark and empty lobby hoping to run into someone, anyone who could tell her where to find her sister.
The whir of the turbine had gone quiet, now that she was alone to listen for it. Someone had shut it down. She glared at the front doors, knowing she hadn't gotten in fast enough. She could shout it to the empty room all she wanted; it wouldn't change what it was too late to change. Carver's trap had worked on at least one person. Maybe all of them.
What if you're the last one?
What now, Amy?
"Amelia-"
She whirled at the sound of her name in a familiar voice, reeling with shock-
-relief-
-when she recognized Lilly halfway up the stairs to the second floor. Amelia was on her way up before she finished, taking the steps two at a time before Lilly could tell her to hurry. She tried to find the right questions to ask; Lilly was already there.
"Tell me you have a gun," her voice was low and calm. It could easily have been mistaken for anger by someone who didn't know her better.
She shook her head, lifting the knife that hung in her right hand. It was still coated with blood down to the handle. "Just-"
She heard her name again, this time the voice was much smaller and much more familiar. "Amelia,"
Amelia audibly gasped and dropped the knife to the floor thud, she knew it was a stupid thing to do but she was knocked sideways by relief she couldn't put into words. Clementine met her halfway with open arms. Amelia hugged her too tightly and picked her up even though she was a little old for it and they hadn't done that since Clem was nine years old, thinking about how happy she was to see she'd made it and how sorry she was to send her away in the first place but keeping the thoughts to herself because she was afraid that if she tried to put them into words she'd cry right then and there.
Clem said it for her, whatever joy she might've felt masked by worry. Amelia didn't blame her. "You made it," she said as Amelia set her back down on her feet.
"Are you okay? Did anything happen-"
"Amelia." Lilly pulled her attention back, making her straighten up and turn around.
Amelia knew she knew better than to ask. They didn't have the time. But she searched Lilly's face for something to give away the answer to her question and didn't see it. She had to know. "Why isn't she outside with everyone else?"
"We don't have time-"
"Lilly told me to stay." Clementine said, coming in close enough that her shoulder pressed into Amelia's hip.
"Now isn't the-"
The front doors dragged open, sending a cold breeze drifting through the lobby and the three of them down to the floor. They crouched behind the balcony's safety railing and waited in silence. Amelia was positive someone had seen them, and was about to tell them to come down before they start firing into the banister. Lilly reached across the floor for the knife Amelia had dropped, moving fast and staying low as she did.
At first there were no voices, only footsteps and a sharp, high whistle.
"Look at this place…"
Amelia flattened her back against the safety rail, inching toward one of the gaps between the panels to risk a peek down into the lobby. They were here, the front doors left wide open. Bonnie. Troy. Nate. The bruise coloring his forehead and the restless, agitated look on his face made her think of some phrase she couldn't recall. One about consequences, something about laying in the bed she'd made.
Shit.
They came in behind a group of people she recognized, all walking quietly and single-file with a gun in their back. They marched her friends through the center of the lobby and sat them down up against what used to be the concession stand, one after another. Nick, next to Pete, next to Walter and Sarita, Carlos and Sarah. Like a lineup for a group execution. Amelia told herself that wasn't where this was headed. She was unconvincing.
"Can you believe this fuckin' place, Bonnie?" Johnny swept his gun across the lobby as he did a full turn to take in everything around him. "Power and everything."
"Yeah, it's somethin'," Bonnie agreed. "A lot of windows, though…"
"The rest of them could be anywhere. How are we going to cover these guys and look for them, too?" He paused, glancing down at the people on the floor and back up, and even from the balcony Amelia could see him consider whether or not to have this conversation in front of them and then decide it didn't matter. "Bill's going to be pissed when he finds out we lost the girl."
Nick looked up, having heard them from his place at the end of the counter. He looked between the two of them. "Are you talking about Amelia?"
She thought Troy had been too far to hear, but he did. He joined them at the counter, making Amelia wonder what about him gave him a need to mock and belittle; she'd seen him do it twice already. She knew the things that triggered her own mean streak. Others', she didn't understand as much.
"No one's talkin' to you, Nick,"
Bonnie didn't seem to want to engage either of them, and answered Johnny instead. "There's only a handful of places she could'a gone. We'll find her when we round up the rest."
"No you won't." Nick scoffed, louder this time, as if he was challenging Troy to make him stop. His face was hard, simmering with anger and nowhere to put it other than into antagonistic words.
Amelia could tell from the way Troy grinned that he thought he was smarter than Nick. It was in the smug edge in his voice, the way he walked. The mistake would only do him favors; Nick wasn't in a hurry to correct it and neither was she. "Yeah? That'd mean she hung you out to dry." He gloated. "If we don't find her it means she's long gone."
"Damn well better be."
The door opened again and the room went colder than it already was. Amelia tensed, and put a hand out to make sure Clementine stayed below the railing despite knowing she would.
The words "This is it?" broke the silence in the room between heavy footsteps.
Carver stopped in the middle of the room, looking over the people they'd caught but likely dwelling on the few he knew they hadn't. Amelia risked a peek through the paneling; he was looking up, sweeping over the entirety of the second floor. She didn't like the look on his face. It sent a silent message he didn't need to put into words. It was a chance to come out before he did something to make them.
Amelia's breathing had gone so quiet even she couldn't hear it. The idea of giving herself up willingly and quietly, to him, make her mouth twitch in contempt. You're going to have to make me.
Be careful what you wish for.
Carver fixated on Carlos, pulling him out of the lineup with a hand under one arm. Amelia knew the choice wasn't random. She didn't know the story behind it and didn't need to. She knew what a personal grudge looked like.
She expected words. A warning, a threat, a demand, something other than immediate violence. She wasn't expecting a piston punch straight to his gut. Amelia heard the heavy sound he made as he doubled over, and was shocked he didn't throw up on the spot. Instead she only heard him cough and draw a long, ragged breath to take in the air Carver had knocked out of him.
"Listen." Carver said, from behind him, towering over him while Carlos refused to turn around to look at him. "I'm only going to ask you once. Where's Rebecca?"
Carlos was silent.
He stayed silent until Carver forced one of his hands into the air and snapped his index finger at a clean break, a ninety-degree angle. Amelia dropped her head against the railing, pressing her forehead into the paneling and closing her eyes, searching for thoughts to drown out his screaming, Sarah's crying. She almost couldn't hear Lilly when she leaned in to whisper to her.
"Who did you see out here?"
"No one," she hissed back.
Lilly turned to her, hitting her with the same intimidating eyes she'd had the day she and Clementine first met her. "I need you to be sure. Did you see Kenny? Or Luke?"
Amelia wished she'd had another answer. "Neither."
"Rebecca. Our baby deserves to be raised in a place of safety." Carver announced to the room, speaking to the people who weren't there rather than the people who were. "I know you're out there. And Alvin. Luke. Amelia. And the girl. This is real simple. You want this over quick, you all play nice and show your faces."
On her other side, Clementine whispered into her ear. "We have to do something," she pleaded. "He'll kill him,"
Lilly had heard. Amelia wasn't sure how. "Don't move."
"Amelia, he'll keep hurting people. Sarah's down there, and Nick-"
"Clem, just-" She knew that. She knew it and didn't need to hear it repeated. She looked over to Lilly, who didn't move her eyes from the lobby. She seemed to consider what she'd already said to be enough. Amelia shook her head, unsure and frustrated and already feeling herself moving backwards. Retreating back into the first line of defense she'd ever developed, one that had been with her since Macon, since the Motor Inn, since the day she met Kenny, and Lilly, and Carley-
Just do what Lilly says. She almost said, it, and stopped herself just before it came out.
Clementine tried again. It was something Amelia envied about her, that even at her age she was willing to argue and stand for her choices when the adults around her disagreed. "But Carlos-"
Amelia looked over her shoulder, eyeing the long, horizontal window, guessing it had been too high up to board from the outside.
"Clementine and I will get out through the window and find Kenny," she said to Lilly, hoping for one response in particular. Lilly didn't answer right away. She'd trapped the handle of the knife beneath her palm, flat against the railing, as she watched what was happening below them.
Carver snapped Carlos' second finger, forcing another blood-boiling scream out of him. Sarah tried to cry out; she might have been pleading with him to stop but by now she was crying so hard her words had dissolved into unidentifiable sobs.
"Is that what you want?" Lilly's question was stern, and if it was meant to make Amelia second-guess her choice, she wouldn't have been surprised.
She turned on her knees to make her way toward it, pushing it open and looking outside to the porch below. A cold breeze brushed across her face as she took in a drop that was small enough to land without getting hurt, but just high enough to be a one-way trip. She leaned out of the way, holding it open for her sister and nodding toward it.
"Stay under the windows and wait for me."
Clementine moved across the floor in a crouch and stuck both legs out first, perched in the open window like she was about to go down a slide, one with nothing to catch her at the bottom. She hesitated there, and looked to Amelia.
"Need help?" Amelia asked when it occurred to her that Clementine was waiting for something. "I'm right behind you." Amelia said again. Clem nodded carefully, then slipped out the window and down to the first floor. Amelia watched just long enough to make sure she landed safely and crouched below the boards.
She shut the window. Latched it for peace of mind, since she knew her sister wasn't a bad climber, and rejoined Lilly under the banister.
"Don't feel guilty." Lilly told her. "That was the right thing to do." It was a relief to hear, even from her; Amelia never would have admitted it, and was grateful that no one would ever ask her.
"We're coming in," Amelia was so surprised to hear Rebecca's voice she doubted she'd really heard it. She'd considered Rebecca and Alvin gone. Not seeing them here had made her think they were on their way back down the mountain. She'd hoped they were. Instead, she watched the both of them walk in the front doors with their hands over their heads. They were met with guns and caution, and directed toward the concession stand to sit the everyone else. They tied Alvin's hands but not Rebecca's, and each took their place in the lineup.
That left them with Kenny, and with Luke. She didn't want to admit she didn't have much faith in either, looking at the guns around the room and the deep colors of the bruising in Carlos' face.
"Lilly?"
"We're going to have to follow them."
Amelia wanted to object. The last thing she'd wanted was for this to end with Carver getting what he'd come here for, with her friends tied up, beaten, and taken away. But Lilly's words repeated themselves in her head and she realized the second time around that she was right. Carver had too many people and too many guns. If someone started shooting, her group had more people to lose than his did. Something told her he was more willing to give up his than she was to give up hers.
She nodded her agreement. "They'll probably follow the river back down. They said he has a camp, not far from the bottom of the mountain. It can't be hard to find. If they take a car they'll leave tracks…" It wasn't the best plan but they could've had far worse. She was only glad Clementine would be kept out of the crosshairs. No one had to die if they did this right.
"Exactly." Lilly muttered. "We'll pick up Clementine on the way out. Try to find Kenny, too-"
A single gunshot went off, coming from a direction she couldn't point out. Even in the midst of the screaming and shattering glass, it was hard to miss the sound of a body falling, hitting the floor hard and heavy because there was no one left inside it. It took her a few seconds of searching the lobby through the paneling. She spotted it as someone called out Johnny's name, just beneath the front window, which was now blown wide open. He was laying motionless and facedown in a mess of broken and scattered glass, a growing puddle of blood pooling beneath his head.
Lilly found words before Amelia did. "Damn it…damn it, Kenny,"
Amelia didn't like the sound of that. She didn't like feeling Lilly tense up beside her, hearing her swear under her breath. If Lilly was alarmed, then Amelia's friends were more fucked than she'd thought.
Cries, protests, pleading overlapped one another from the concession stand. All Amelia could see was that Carver had gone that way, gun in hand. She had to take a step to her right and press her head against the railing to watch, and wished she hadn't when he approached the hostages and picked Walter up by the collar of his shirt.
What…
He moved with a purpose she didn't like seeing. Her stomach tied itself in uneasy knots waiting for what she'd already anticipated, but stayed frozen, watching, just in case she was wrong. She wanted to be wrong.
He dragged Walter through the lobby and put him on his knees in front of the open window. Amelia was numb, watching him put the gun to his head and waiting for the threat, the final warning, but knowing that Walter had a chance, if Carver had been doing it for any reason other than to make a point he wouldn't have already been pulling the trigger.
Walter fell forward. The only thing Amelia could see from where she was-
-from where she was hiding while other people got shot-
-were his hands, still zip-tied behind his back.
Carver backed himself against the nearest pillar, taking cover from the shooter despite only having a vague idea of where he'd hidden out. He shouted, directing his threats outside. "That's for our man. Now I didn't want to do this, but you ain't leaving me much choice. So here's what's gonna happen-"
Amelia was busy arguing with him silently, the words white-hot and vengeful fucking bullshit, because she knew and he knew that no one could execute another human being that easily unless they were happy or indifferent to doing it.
He looked back to the lineup of hostages, scanning easily across each of their faces. "I'm gonna march another one of your friends out here and I'm gonna put a bullet in the back of their head. Or you can give up now. Your choice."
Lilly muttered through gritted teeth, despite the fact that – maybe because – Amelia was the only one around her to hear. "Come on, Kenny…don't be fucking-"
Another shot flew through the broken window and lodged itself in the pillar, not far from Carver's head but not nearly close enough. It happened again a second later, carving a deep groove into the wood and sending a small cloud of sawdust floating into the room.
"-damn it." Lilly seethed. Amelia felt her own fury building right along with her. She looked down at the hostages, watching them watch Carver as he came back to pick another victim; this was as close as she'd ever wanted to come to gambling with other peoples' lives. If Kenny insisted on taking the risk the least he could have done was not fucking miss.
"Hi, Pete."
The next voice she heard was Rebecca's, tangled with Nick's, each one getting louder and more desperate the more they talked that Amelia struggled to tell the two apart, despite how different they were.
"Bill, no! Tell him to stop-"
"No, no, wait, please-"
"-Kenny, stop!"
"Don't do this-"
Like a child watching a horror movie, Amelia turned around and pressed her back to the railing. As if closing her eyes would stop time, make it any less real than it was. She called herself a coward a dozen times in a row for trying anyway. She stared at the wall so she wouldn't have to watch Carver drag Pete into the center of the lobby. She almost covered her ears, started muttering nonsense words to herself to drown out Nick's shouting, which turned to screaming, which turned to pleading-
"-we'll do whatever you want, don't-"
"-don't do this-"
"-Uncle Pete-"
-all the way up until the gunshot. Then there was crying.
You should have killed him on the way up.
Now look what he did.
She stared ahead at the wall, choked by tears that refused to come. She stayed in the middle ground between crying and not crying, a fist around her windpipe making it impossible to calm herself as she listened to Nick's pain from only ten feet above him. Close enough to hear every sob.
Something in her had a habit of burying grief in the ground, leaving it there until it became something else like a flower that had to be suffocated in order to grow. Something volatile and toxic that couldn't be contained, something that demanded she let it out into the world before it ripped her open to get there. Lilly's hand over her own got her to look, and when she did, Lilly's face didn't look like her. Her voice didn't sound like hers, either.
You know what to do.
It was a voice she'd heard before.
"What?" Amelia heard her voice crack, even at a whisper.
"I said, keep it together." She pointed back behind them to the window, the urgency in her voice disguising itself as anger. "Get outside. Find Kenny and tell him to give himself up. Don't get caught. Now, Amelia."
Amelia moved for the window, and the moment her fingers touched the glass she heard another sound that made her feel needles piercing her insides.
"There! Outside-" Troy shouted over white noise of shouting and crying. He sprinted outside, rifle up and loaded.
She turned back, staring through the railing out into the lobby, thinking they'd seen Kenny, reminding herself it had to be Kenny, while knowing that if she truly believed that she wouldn't have come back to look. She repeated it to herself a dozen times over in the time it took him to come back, dragging Clementine by the arm.
The ringing was back. It drowned out whatever Lilly had to say to Amelia, numbed her body so she barely felt Lilly's hands trying to pull her away from the balcony and push her outside. Something about Kenny, about surrender, about go now. It all faded into nothing as Amelia hooked her fingers over the top of the railing preparing to stand up. She wouldn't leave her down there alone, she would die before that happened. Lilly forced her back down with hands pressing down on her shoulders,
"Hey-hey! Amelia-" Lilly hissed into her ear. At some point she'd covered Amelia's mouth with her hand, something that only made her think good idea because if she could have screamed her lungs raw then and there, she would have. Lilly was talking to her but she wasn't listening. Not while she was watching Troy handle her sister like an animal, dragging her by the arm to the concession stand throwing her into the counter. Rebecca moved to catch her just a second too late. "Stop. Calm-" She tightened her grip when Amelia struggled again. "-calm down." Finally, when Amelia stilled, breathing hard through her nose while Lilly held her mouth shut, she said, "Just wait. Be smart about this. You're going to do something you regret."
If Carver threatened her sister she was going to do something everyone would regret.
She watched it unfold in front of her like a train wreck in slow motion. Every shard of broken window, every inch of warped and ripping metal crawled by so she could take in, every casualty, every horrifying detail. She swore she could see into his head. Even watching them from above and behind, she watched Carver consider it, then decide it would send the exact message he wanted it to. She watched each of his steps connect with the floor as he took Clementine by the arm, about to walk her out to the center of the room, where the bodies were piling up. Where she would become the fourth in as many minutes.
Amelia tried to breathe and found she couldn't, she had no air, just high-pitched ringing and a slow heartbeat in her ears-
b o o m
-she reached blindly and clumsily for the knife in Lilly's hands-
b o o m
-Lilly didn't let it go, Amelia grabbed it by the blade, there was a sharp sting in her hand and she threw her head forward, launched her own forehead in to the bridge of Lilly's nose and the knife was hers-
b o o m
-it made sense somewhere in an absent part of her head, halting an unstoppable force required an immovable object, avoiding indescribable pain required uninhibited rage-
b o o m
-she stood, climbed up onto the banister until she was perched on the railing, staring down at her sister and the monster who had her in his jaws-
b o o m
-a jaw she intended to break with her hands-
-you know what to do-
-show us what's in the bag-
I love you…so much
She was able to breathe again on the way down.
Her entire body made contact with his; it felt like landing on jagged stone, the impact shocking her from her face to her knees. She expected – she wanted, hoped for more than anything she could remember – him to fall on impact, and screamed in frustration when he only went down to one knee, his gun flying from his hand and clattering across the hardwood. She'd wanted him flat on the floor, as defenseless as his victims, face-down so she could lift his head and cut his throat without a fight, but he stayed upright, forcing her to start clawing for his jacket, his hair, something, anything to grab onto. She hooked an arm around his neck and wrapped her legs around his ribcage to keep her feet off of the floor.
He tried to shout something, but she intentionally laid pressure on his throat, choking him to the point that he could only manage a strangled growl. He hooked both hands into her forearm, trying to pull it down to give himself some breathing room. She raised the knife in her other hand and brought it down into his shoulder, deep. The noise was wet and satisfying in a way she knew then she would never admit, even if she replayed it over and over in hear mind just to hear it again. He screamed despite the lack of air, a throat-ripping howl that didn't sound human.
She expected him to fall, and felt her own eyes go wide when he stood upright, growling and struggling as he lifted her weight despite the deep wound in his shoulder
-no-
He bent forward once, then again, making her tighten her grip around his neck when she realized he was trying to throw her off. He stood upright again, stumbling further into the lobby until she realized he wasn't stumbling, but running her toward the pillar so he could-
He turned, sharp and fast, slamming her into it with momentum and vicious intent, rattling her teeth, knocking her head, shoulders, and back into it all at once. She pulled the knife out, ripping another scream out of him, and tried again, this time going for his neck.
"Dammit!" Troy shouted, gun raised, eyeing them down the sight. "I can't get a shot!"
"No-" Carver spat, reaching over his own head to claw for Amelia's face as he slammed her into the pillar a second time. WHAM. Ringing. Lightheaded. Weak arms and legs."Idiot-"
She dug her hooks in deeper, crossing her ankles around his torso and hoping he couldn't tell that she wasn't sure she could take it if he did that again. The knife handle was slick with sweat from the palm of her hand-
-or maybe his blood-
-and she was terrified it would slip out of her grip and leave her with nothing. She turned it so the blade pointed toward him – and past that, toward herself – and pulled it in, trying to bury the blade in his chest. If she pushed hard enough it could've gone through him and into her, which would have been fine by her so long as he bled out first. He caught her wrist, and when she realized it was his arm shaking, not hers, she felt real, palpable hope, for the first time she could remember.
She could do this.
She could do this.
"Fucker-" Carver shouted through gritted teeth. Amelia heard her own breathing – hyperventilating, nearly – over the shouting in the room.
"I got her, I fuckin' got her-" Troy stopped mid-sentence, shouting in what she hoped was pain. She didn't look, didn't get the time to look, couldn't look anywhere other than the back of Carver's head as she tried with everything she had to pull the knife toward the both of them-
-she heard gunfire, just one or two shots that ricocheted from the ceiling. Shouting, struggling, punches landing, swearing that sounded very familiar, since she'd heard the woman swear many times in the months she'd known her-
"I'm gonna-" Carver let out a low, angry sound when she sunk her fingers into his wounded shoulder and squeezed. "-gonna fucking kill you-"
You first.
She felt him giving out, knew that the both of them could only keep this up for so long and he was the one losing blood, knew she only had to outlast him by a second but then he finally caught hold of her hair, reaching up and back until he trapped her ponytail in his fist and threw himself forward with more force than he'd used before, pitching her over his back with an infuriated scream-
-in the next second she was on the floor, square on her back with no air in her lungs. The knife wasn't in her hand anymore, having slid across the floor when the landing knocked the wind out of her. She struggled to breathe, struggled to think, finally forced herself to move, fucking move-
She dragged in a fast, desperate breath of air, rolled and started scrambling to her feet just as he was close enough to tower over her. She knew she shouldn't have turned her back on him, but she needed the knife, she needed it as much as she needed him dead-
-more screaming, swearing, the sounds of a struggle that involved more than two people. She recognized Troy's voice, crying out in pain and calling for help-
-so she reached out for it without looking back. She could hear heavy footsteps coming in her direction, labored breathing, a voice that was unmistakably Carver's all from behind her but she needed the knife first.
She got her hand around the grip, turning just in time to watch Clementine dive from her seat in front of the counter, throwing herself directly under his feet curled into a ball with her head tucked under her hands. Carver wasn't expecting it any more than she was, wasn't even looking down, and she watched his feet try to move with her in the way. His eyes went wide for a split second without losing any of the rage, making his face more terrifying than it already was. He went down hard, catching himself with his forearms flat on the hardwood.
Amelia moved, hoping that if she didn't have time to think then neither would he, coming for him when he'd barely gotten up on his knees, when one hand was still on the ground and he didn't have his balance yet to shove him back down. He hit the floor on one shoulder and Amelia found herself moving, clawing her way on top of him until she'd sat herself square on his stomach. She'd meant to pin his arms but there was no time so she fell back on leverage and pressure and unapologetic intent to kill. The knife's point hovered inches above his neck, about to sink into the soft spot between his clavicles if she just pushed that much further-
-somewhere behind them, the sound of crashing furniture and a scream that was unmistakably Lilly's-
She wanted to scream again when she realized Carver was holding her off. Holding her up using only his arms and a wounded shoulder, even when she pushed harder, even as she leaned forward to use her body weight the force the knife lower.
Give up, just give up, just fucking-
For all the times she'd called him a monster in her thoughts, she realized now, up close and sharing what she hoped were his last moments, that he'd only ever been a monster only in her head. Only in her imagination was he some creature who could see where he wasn't looking, who knew her thoughts and fears, who was somehow more capable of killing her than she was of killing him. He wasn't invulnerable, and she would never costume him or anyone else that way again. When he was stripped of his guns and reinforcements, he was just a man with a jugular as easily pierced as her own.
The shaking in his arms got more severe, more violent as the seconds ticked by, making the corner of Amelia's mouth twitch upwards in a cruel smirk that didn't belong to her-
-until now-
-as she stared into his face, ugly and twisted in rage and cruelty knowing it likely matched her own. She'd sink it down to the handle, any second now, maybe even pierce the wood floor on the other side-
She saw motion in her peripheral, felt someone coming up on her, looked up and over her shoulder just in time to watch the stock of Troy's rifle collide with her head. The world went dark. A shotgun blast of stars on a black canvas. They were pretty, she thought, the way they sparkled and simmered in the midst of nothing, until they fizzled out and left her in darkness.
easy kitty cat
he drew first
that's for our man
if you insist
if anything we should take you out for that
it's here or nothing
it's how the world works now
i was trying to protect all of us
"Hello, Amelia."
The voices started to fade in, distant and underwater.
Bonnie's was hesitant, cautious. "Is she…is she dead?"
Nate's was dismissive. Callous. "Nah. Look. She's breathing." A boot prodded her in the ribcage. She didn't move. Wasn't sure if her limbs would've listened if she tried. So she stayed where she was, her cheek flat on the floor while her brain swam circles in her skull.
Carver answered, and the calm in his voice made Amelia realize how badly she'd fucked up.
"Don't worry. She'll get there."
She recognized Kenny's, somewhere in the room. She didn't make out what he was saying. She heard words. The heavy, sharp sound of a fist hitting his face, or maybe a gun. Sarita cried out his name. That much she understood.
She lifted her head, propping her forearms underneath her body and looking down at the floor beneath her for the first time to see the blood. A lot of it. She realized her hands and her face were wet with it. Her fingers went absently to her stitches, and she felt wet, open flesh. Her hand dropped clumsily back to the floor, leaving her unsure if it was actually numb or if she just thought it was.
She should've had something to say about it. Nothing came to mind. Her own inner voice was silent, and staying that way.
Nick said her name. Twice. Then three times. His voice was shaking and she wanted to tell him it was okay, that his pain wouldn't last forever, but none of it came out. She looked over to him, slowly, slowly, spotting him on his knees with his hands bound in front. He was blurry but she could still tell it was him. He felt familiar, even an arm's reach away. He stared back at her like he didn't recognize her.
"Oh, God…"
"Something you want to say, Nick?" Carver rasped.
Amelia didn't think he was going to answer. She stared at him hard enough for her vision to clear up just a little, so hard it was giving her a headache-
-that's not why you have a headache-
-but she was able to see the whites of his eyes had gone red. He looked…wrong. Darker. He was radiating anger and misery in a way that could only be caused by a constant train of morbid and volatile thoughts. It was familiar, but not on him. She knew the sandpit he was sinking into. From the way he looked, she wasn't sure he'd ever come out.
"I'll kill you for this." His voice shook. "Just wait. I'll put a gun in your mouth and blow the back of your fucking head out."
Carver didn't answer right away. Amelia listened to his footsteps as he sauntered one, two, three steps across the floor. Then:
"That's one hell of a threat, son. I can't wait to see you follow up on it. It would mean you've done something in your life."
By the time he turned away from Nick and addressed the group, the world was starting to clear itself up again. The gravel in his voice gradually became clear as he said,
"Where's Luke? Finally cut and run, huh? Why am I not surprised?"
She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. Things stopped blurring into each other as much. Colors didn't quite look right. She turned her head, heavily, slowly, and saw Lilly, sat on the floor, hands tied. There was blood on her face and clothes but Amelia couldn't tell from here if it was hers.
"I warned you. I warned you not to follow him. And look where he's led you. But you're safe now. Everyone's coming home. As a family…"
Amelia tried to push herself up and semi-succeeded, spreading her fingers out in the blood puddle beneath her. Nick told her something urgent, his voice low and broken, "Amelia, stay down-" The blood trickled down to the pool on the floor, dripping from her chin, from her lips, off of her nose. Not in drops. In thick, slow trails. She tasted it in her mouth, and spit it absentmindedly into the space where her head had just laid.
"Almost everyone." Carver finished, turning back to her. "You awake now, Amelia?" Even in her broken mind, she recognized the sound of a six-shooter being loaded, bullet-by-bullet. She wondered faintly why he'd reloaded all six. He'd only need one. She almost asked him. "I really wanted you to be here for this."
Rebecca's voice reached her harder and louder than the rest. "Bill, no-" It was overlapped by others, by something from Nick and something else from Bonnie but again, she heard Rebecca over the rest. "Don't you hurt her. I'll kill you for this, Bill! I'll kill you,"
"No you won't," Carver said, as condescending as he was cruel. "You're all bark and no bite, Rebecca. But you…" Even standing behind her, Amelia didn't need to look to know his next words were for her. She got the same chill running up her spine every time his attention was on her. Especially when she couldn't see him. "…you've got one hell of a bite, don't you? And no warning that it's coming. Quiet riot."
Amelia put weight on her hands, trying to stand. Her palm slipped in the blood and she went back down, leaving a long paint streak of red across the floor for as far as her arm reached.
"Under other circumstances, I'd respect it," she heard metal sliding against metal as he slid the action into place and pushed the hammer down. Click. "But you really…really piss me off, sweetheart."
Even if she'd managed to stand, if she'd been coordinated enough to make a grab for a weapon, what would she have done? She started to ask herself the question and forgot what she was thinking halfway through. The thought trailed off into nothing, then into something about Clementine, something about how she had no regrets, not the first time and not the second time.
"-I guess that's how it goes, then-"
She'd tried. She did everything she could. She'd decided a long time ago that this wasn't a game she was set up to win to begin with.
Carver went on, bringing her to the slow realization that she was only going to live for as long as he wanted to hear himself talk. "I got a feeling when I met you that you'd be far more trouble than you're worth. And look what you went and did. I'm never wrong about these things."
She closed her eyes and waited, thinking of all things that killing her was the smartest thing he'd do in his life.
She didn't want that to be her last thought. She shifted her thoughts to her sister, thinking it better to die dwelling on someone she loved instead. She tried to recall fuzzy memories of Christmas mornings and pillow forts and a treehouse, but didn't quite get there. They seemed far away. Incomplete.
She thought about Clementine, but didn't expect to hear her voice.
"She's immune."
The room went silent. Amelia half-expected to hear Carver's gun go off, sending a bullet into the back of her head regardless.
Amelia didn't want her getting his attention, regardless of the reason. "Clem, don't-"
"Shut your mouth," Troy shouted at her. "Or I swear to Christ I'll-"
"Enough," Carver silenced him with a hand in the air. He fixed Clementine with a puzzled, calculating stare that made Amelia want to stab him again. She didn't like him looking at her like that. She didn't like the two of them being in the same room. "What did you just say?" Amelia looked back to see Clementine fidgeting uncomfortably in the silence he left. "Think real carefully before you answer."
She hesitated, and Amelia could see her hands shaking. Rebecca put an arm around her, gripping her shoulder tightly in a way Amelia would remember. Now that she was looking closer she could see that Clem had been crying. She saw the red in her eyes, heard the sniffle in her breathing.
"She's immune." She spoke so quietly that she could be heard because the room was dead silent. "To the virus that makes you turn."
The room stayed that way. Behind him, Carver's people exchanged looks that ranged from confused to skeptical to dismissive. Amelia found herself looking for Nate's reaction. His face was unreadable.
Finally, Carver answered. He didn't put his gun away, or even lower it. Maybe a warning to Clementine that he'd execute Amelia on the spot if he decided she was lying. "Is that so?"
"Yes." Clementine drew a shaky breath. Even held eye contact, the way she did when she was trying to look like she was telling the truth. "She was bitten once. A long time ago. It didn't turn her."
She fidgeted uncomfortably in the silence, and took it to mean now was the time to volunteer more information. Amelia would have done the same in her sister's place; now wasn't the time to try to leverage what they knew.
"It's on her back." Clementine said carefully. "On the left."
"Well then," Carver slowly shifted his eyes down to Amelia, not far from his feet. "If you don't mind."
Amelia looked for Nick again before she moved. Again, he was staring like he didn't recognize her. She knew it was for a very different reason. She reached across her own body, right hand slowly and clumsily searching for the left side of the hem of her shirt.
The murmurs and questions from Carver's people overlapped. Her brain was too slow to single out any one of them and separate it from the rest. She heard a swear word she quickly forgot, someone said not real and another said ain't possible. She remembered what it looked like, even unable to see it. Deep, blackened, permanently disfigured skin. A gnarled patch of death just beneath her shoulder blade.
Carver didn't say a word. The longer he stayed quiet, the more she thought he was reconsidering his decision not to shoot her in the back of the head.
"Amelia, is your sister telling me the truth?"
Is my answer going to mean anything? Anyone in her situation would've said yes no matter what the truth was. She couldn't quiet gather the words to ask; something in her told her it wasn't a smart idea anyway. She dropped her head so it hovered above the floor between her elbows, unable to stomach looking at his face any longer, and nodded. Finally telling the truth she'd gone out of her way to hide only to have everyone around her doubt it.
"Then this is either the best day of your life or the worst."
He said it like she didn't already know.
He raised his voice. If she'd been sharp enough to pay more attention at the time she might have jumped. "Round 'em up. We're going back to camp."
She didn't move, vaguely aware that the people around her were being picked up by the arms and collars and walked out of the lodge. Seconds went by that might have been minutes. She wasn't sure. Eventually a pair of hands found her shoulders, grabbing her by the shirt; whoever it was made no secret of their disgust at all the blood she'd spilled.
"Come on…shit…get up," Troy cursed as he forced her up to her feet. "I don't have all day,"
She knew she'd been cold to her. Dismissive and sarcastic. But the blood loss and strange pressure in her head had forced her to let go of her pride enough to admit she'd been hoping for Bonnie.
He swore again when her knees buckled, moving to catch her with both hands taking careless fistfuls of her shoulders. "God damnit…are you…" He grunted as he roughly forced her back to standing. "You tryin' to fuck with me?"
"Why would you try to fuck with me?" Amelia mumbled, frowning and genuinely confused at the question she thought she'd heard him ask.
"Fuckin' smartass…" he scowled at her. She thought they were going to start walking, was busy coordinating which foot she was going to put in front of the other since the ground was still tilted beneath her, when he held her – pulled her back, even – with a rough hand under one arm. "I could'a shot you, you know." He lowered his voice. "You owe me. You remember that."
She was slow to understand, trying not to sway too far to one side over the other knowing it would send her back to the floor. It took longer than it should have, but she got what he meant. Again, last to cross the finish line.
She remembered him punching her in the mouth, and remembered wanting to spit blood in his eye.
She didn't remember doing it. By the time Troy was running a hand over his face, streaking his cheek with bright red and swearing at her in outraged disgust, she'd only just finished thinking about how much she liked the idea. He grabbed her by the collar, yanking her in and holding her there when she expected to be hit or thrown.
"You went and fucked up here. You think you saved yourself?" His voice shook, tightening his grip on the neckline of her shirt. "You're going to wish I killed you."
Amelia glared back directly into his face, with unfocused eyes and a quiet mind fixated on the bodies strewn about the room, empty corpses that an hour ago had belonged to people she liked very much. "You're going to wish you killed me, too."
"Troy." Bonnie's voice tore his eyes away from hers and made him look to the front door. She looked cautiously between the two of them in a way that told Amelia she already knew what had been going on. "What's the holdup?"
He let her go with a shove, one that almost sent her flying back to the floor. "Nothing." He leveled his rifle at her, motioning with the barrel for her to walk to the door. "Move. Now."
Amelia took one step toward Bonnie, then another before the woman crossed the floor to meet her. She slipped an arm around Amelia's waist and guided her toward the door, leaving Amelia to wonder whether she planned to help her like this for the entire walk back to the foothills.
Going home. As a family.
She wondered what that meant to a man who didn't understand either word.