Eugene gapes at Lupe. He quivers from head to foot, soaked in flop sweat. "The Human Genome project -,"
Lupe smacks him across the face with her open hand, but it's hardly a tap. Eugene blinks and she has a gun pressing into the center of his forehead.
The barrel of a hand cannon comes into Lupe's peripheral vision. "Put the gun down," Rick demands. "I will kill you."
"Then you're killing an honest person over a liar," Lupe spits, her gun doesn't waver an inch. The only thing she has to do is force herself to ignore Alma's screams as she gets held back by Noah. The ginger recovers from the tap and storms over with Rosita. Lupe raises another gun and points it at them. "Don't. You'll want to hear this."
Lupe faces Eugene again and he's shaking like mad and sweating profusely. She glares at him. "Tell. Them. The. Truth," she bites out. "Or I will, you fucking hack."
Eugene's eyes stay wide. His mouth flops open and shut, wordless. Not a sound comes out.
Lupe sighs. "Viruses can't be cured." She immediately lowers her guns and everyone stares at her in confusion. She turns to face Abraham, his face pinched up in a furious confused frown. "Viruses. Can't. Be. Cured," she emphasizes.
"What the fuck are you on about?" Abraham snarls.
Eugene quivers behind Lupe, his eyes roving and shifty. Lupe shakes her head at Abraham. "I'm sorry, but he's been lying to you this whole time. The CDC would have been working on a pre-emptive vaccine or an anti-viral at best. But even those wouldn't be a sure thing. The virus acts too fast."
"What are you saying?" Glenn asks from the other side of the fire. "There's no cure?"
Lupe sighs. "No. There's no such thing as a cure for a virus." She looks around at the confused faces of the group. "Is there a cure for the flu? No, we can inoculate and hope or we can treat the symptoms. That's because a virus attacks our cells from within and alters our DNA."
Lupe turns back to Eugene with a serious glare. "The best option would be a vaccine with the dead virus in it. Our immune systems would fight that off and become stronger against the live strain. That's if our immune system can react fast enough. Which, if you've ever had a cold or flu, you know healing isn't instantaneous."
She looks around, beseeching, but it's tainted with her overwhelming anger. "That's only if we can actually get the virus to die. Problem is, in order for a virus to die, it has to be self-limiting. But I don't see any of the walking corpses out here dying off on their own after the virus runs its course. That means we'd have to engineer something to kill it, with tools and a team we don't have. That still can't account for mutations that occur outside of vaccinated populations."
Lupe glares at the man with a mullet, cowering against the bus. "Do you have any idea how complex this virus is? It literally restarts the nervous system! Or have you just been too busy bullshitting everyone and getting people killed?" She shakes her head and her lip curls in disgust. "There is no cure." She moves towards him, stalking like a wolf towards its prey. She grabs onto his shoulder and snarls, "You lied to all these people, you spineless piece of shit!"
"You don't touch him!" Abraham snarls. He grabs onto Lupe roughly, yanking her away from Eugene. She smacks his hands away and lands an open palm across his face. Abraham reaches his boiling point. He pulls back a punch and hits Lupe in the jaw. She falters and the second after she regains her feet, she charges at him. She moves like she did against Daryl, low and tight. She gets him in the gut hard. Using her momentum and rage she lifts him off his feet and then drops Abraham into the ground spine first. Lupe scrambles on top of him. He gets a hand around her throat, but she punches the inside of his elbow and his arm buckles.
The group screams at each other, all frantic and trying to pull the fighters apart. They can't be stopped. Lupe wails and lands several punches on Abraham's face. Abraham jams his other elbow hard into her ribs and manages to scramble himself on top of her. It's a bad choice.
Alma comes tearing through the discombobulated group, escaped from Noah and Beth's clutches. She rams into Abraham's side and tackles him to the ground with a scream. Lupe is up and she scrambles over to make sure her sister stays safe from the toxic man. Abraham is roaring and shouting and swinging like a madman. He strikes out and hits Alma.
Lupe's vision shrinks to a pinpoint as her sister topples over. Abraham wavers to his feet but Lupe kicks him hard in the gut and he flies back down onto his back. She climbs on top of him, pinning his elbows under her knees, and pulls out a knife. It's at his throat in a blink. It digs hard enough into his skin that a trail of blood winds down through his stubble like Plinko.
Everyone roars at each other, butting heads and squabbling, trying to get Lupe to stop. She can't hear them over the blood pumping through her veins. Her heartbeat hammers in her chest, sending shockwaves out into her limbs. She's ready to kill.
Eugene's voice finally rises over the din. "I'm not a scientist! I'm not a scientist!"
The chaos stills into silence. Lupe waits for Abraham to process the words. His face goes slack. Lupe climbs off of him. She only sheathes her knife to pull Alma away from the ginger man she's desperate to smother into the dirt. She puts Alma behind her back and holds her hand. From the ground, Abraham huffs and shakes with rage as he sits up. He stares at Eugene with a frown, but his eyes sit with a broken hope behind them. Everyone looks at Eugene with the same grieving rage and disgust.
Eugene curls in on himself, muttering to the group, "I'm not a scientist. I don't know how to stop it," he grumbles with a weak, warbling tone. "I'm not a scientist."
"You are!" Rosita insists, her eyes watering as she stares at him. "I've seen the things that you can do."
Eugene can hardly look at her. His face twitches with uncontrollable fear and shame. "I just know things."
Glenn steps forward, his eyes narrowing and his tone scathing, "You just 'know things'?"
Eugene replies in a quavering monotone, "I know I'm smarter than most people. I know I'm a very good liar. And I know I needed to get to DC."
"Why?" Maggie asks, breathless and hopeless.
"Because I do believe that locale holds the strongest possibility for survival. And I wanted to survive," Eugene continues. "If I could cheat some people into taking me there, well, I just reasoned that I'd be doin' them a solid too. Considering the perilous state of the city of Houston, the state of everything..."
Rosita stares at him, deflated and disgusted. "People died trying to get you here."
Eugene straightens. "I'm aware of that…" He chokes on his words, "Stephanie, Warren, Pam, Rex, Roger, Josiah, Dirk, Josephine... And Bob." He looks away with a pained grimace. "You see, I was losing my nerve as we grew closer," his voice cracks, "for I am a coward." He looks around at the disappointed faces. "The reality of getting to our destination and disclosing the truth of the matter became some truly frightening shit." He looks around and shakes. "But at this moment, I fully realize there are no longer any agreeable options. I was screwed either way."
The group lets out a unanimous shuddering breath. They look around at each other. Lupe glares at Eugene with a tempestuous wrath.
"I also lied about T. Brooks Ellis liking my hair," Eugene supplies the worthless addition. "I do not know T. Brooks Ellis. But I did read one of his books, and he seemed like the type of guy that wouldn't blink twice at a Tennessee Top Hat." He shakes and finally turns to look at Abraham who hasn't moved a single inch. "Again I am smarter than you. Now, you may want to leave me here -,"
Abraham leaps up and punches Eugene right in the face. The man with the mullet falters back. Rick, Glenn, Maggie, and Rosita all clamber after Abraham and try to pull him off Eugene, but he lands a second punch. Eugene stumbles back into the bus, dazed. The group yells at Abraham but he's on a warpath. Abraham lands one more punch to Eugene's face.
Mullet first, Eugene smacks back into the metal siding of the bus with a gong. The throng of people finally pull a snarling Abraham back. But Eugene's eyes roll back into his head, he goes ramrod straight and falls face first into the forest floor.
"Oh shit," Maggie mumbles and goes right for Eugene with Tara.
Abraham fumbles away from the hands that hold him back and he pushes straight through again. Rosita steps in front of him, breathing hard with her hand on her gun. Abraham freezes and looks down at her. The pinpoint of his rage widens and he finally starts to breathe again. He really sees her this time, tears welling in her beautiful brown eyes. She shakes her head at him, clueless to what she should do. They both know she won't let Abraham kill Eugene.
Abraham huffs, breaths uneven, staring down at the blood on his hands. He flexes his knuckles and grits his teeth with the pain of his reopened stitch. His face twitches and his eyes go deep and sorrowful. Without looking at anyone, he storms off into the woods.
"Abraham!" Rosita says, almost charging after him.
Glenn stops her. "Give him a moment. We'll go get him in a bit."
Rosita sighs and goes back to help Maggie with Eugene. They roll him over and his face is a swollen mess of blood and a burgeoning black and blue.
Daryl returns right about then. The group is all whipped up in a somber disarray. He has a few squirrels on his shoulder and a couple of birds in his bag. He sees Lupe and Alma standing close together, glaring at the group helping a knocked out Eugene. The sisters curl up, clothes disordered, looking like they got caught in a scramble. Alma hovers behind Lupe, gripping the back of her shirt. Lupe seems like she's teetering near the edge of a murderous agony. He goes to Carol who watches on, her rifle in her arms, but relaxed.
"The hell did I miss?"
Carol looks over at him with a sad smile. "Lupe accused Eugene of being a liar. Threatened him and made him tell us the truth. Not before Abraham manhandled her and a fight broke out. Alma jumped in too." She sighs. "Eugene was lying about the cure. He made it up to get himself protection on the way to D.C. He just... guessed it'd be safer there."
Daryl glares over at the unconscious form of Eugene. The guy's face was a wreck, but Daryl figured he deserved worse than that. "Where's the ginger?" He asks with a damning tone for the red-haired man.
"Stalked off into the woods. He's the one that banged up Eugene after he told the truth," Carol supplies.
Daryl's face pinches into a snarl. He had a mind to beat some fucking decency into that red-haired asshole. He looks over at Alma and Lupe, retreating to their truck to be alone. He wants to follow after them, make sure they're okay, but he doesn't know if it's his place. He's surprised by the fact that he wants it to be.
"Give'em a minute," Carol says, guessing right to what Daryl's thinking, as always. Daryl turns back to her as she takes off her gun and sets it down. "I think Abraham really scared Alma when he went after Lupe. She got smacked around too."
"Should track that asshole down and string him up by his innards. What's he thinkin' hitting a woman and that girl?" He growls.
Carol's smile pinches a little. "Lupe gave as good as she got, maybe even better. Don't you worry."
"Ain't that," Daryl grumbles, "he shouldn't be attackin' women at all."
Carol sighs. She knows. She knows that all too well. She knows that Daryl does too. She watches him as he stares at the bulbous green truck. His eyes narrow, fury shakes into his fingertips as they flick at his sides. She gives him a warm smile and reaches for his arm. He jumps at her touch.
"Let's go clean and prep your kills. We should try to get everyone to eat before we head out." She taps him gently on the elbow as a reassurance.
"So where we goin' now?" Daryl grumbles.
Carol sighs, her lips pursed and tilted to the side. She gazes up at Daryl with a soft and possibly scared smile as she shrugs. "Richmond..."