I don't have to go through the living room to enter the kitchen, which means I don't have to see Rick, something I am much more grateful for than I should be. Carl and I do our good mornings, and if he notices me looking sick or anything, he doesn't mention it. I ask about his dad. He says he's awake, which causes me to drop my voice to a whisper, I don't know why. Carl says Rick asked about me. I mumble something meaningless back. He heads for the living room, I tell him I'll be in there in a minute, and I go out to the stoop and take deep breaths. I need some air, grown-ups on TV shows would say when they meant they wanted to leave the room. I used to think it was silly. Why not just admit they didn't want to be in there?

I discover that I only have two cigarettes left. My fingers float over them for a while, touching lovingly on each of them in turn, but I finally tuck the box back in my pocket. Don't know when I'll be able to get any more. Rationing is key, right?

But without a cigarette to relieve me, my headache pounds on, and the loud thoughts pressing in on the edges of my mind don't help at all. Rick's awake. He's alive. Might stay that way. Carl's relieved. Rick's his father, Rick's a real grown-up, Rick's a leader and Rick's an extra gun.

And last night Rick was almost dead, dead from the Governor . . . dead from his son's girlfriend.

I bite my knuckle. I need something, something. So I jump down the steps and jog for the forest, taking my bow from my shoulder and an arrow from my quiver.

It's not bad, this forest. It's not as good as the one at the prison, nowhere near as good, nowhere near as lush and full and familiar, but it's not bad. My boots mesh into the ground as if they're earth themselves. Yes, I can be quiet now, can't I? But when I was younger, it bothered me so much that I couldn't be as quiet as – as them.

It's not easy thinking about them when I'm sober. Not like it was that fun when I was drunk.

Wow. I actually got drunk last night. And that's not even the worst thing I did.

How could I have held that gun up for so damn long?

I pick up the pace. Deeper and deeper I go. About a hundred, a hundred-twenty yards into the woods, a walker stumbles out from behind a tree. It's got its sights set on me, but it's a good fifteen feet off, so it's nothing really dangerous at first. What makes it dangerous is when, after lifting my loaded bow, something goes wrong in my arm and my finger snaps against the trigger before I've aimed, before I've even fully extended the bowstring, and the arrow pops off and flies away harmlessly, I don't check where to, because now the walker's pretty dangerous. I raid my quiver for another arrow, step back, almost fall, nock the arrow and lift the bow again and things go right this time. Right between the eyes.

I yank the arrow from the skull, wipe it on my jeans – they're so bloodstained already, it doesn't much matter – then I look around for the first one. It's amazing how easily they can sometimes hide in the forest, arrows, burying themselves in the soil or just blending in with the leaves, but I find mine after about ten minutes. It's not a happy find. I scowl when I see it and sigh when I pick it up. It hit something it didn't like, and the top few inches have broken off, clinging onto the rest of the shaft by a few measly splinters.

I fling the useless thing into the woods with every ounce of my strength, but it doesn't go very far. Great. I can't throw and I just lost control of my bow. My bow.

I look at my hand. I try to hold it still, can't. It shakes and shakes and shakes until I clench it into a fist. But no, even then it shakes.

Haven't slept much in days. All I got into my stomach yesterday was four or five bites of pudding, with Carl. And vodka. And the vodka chased all of the pudding out.

Sleep? Sleep I wouldn't mind, if my head would let it happen. But food still doesn't sound appealing. My gut is too full of other things.

I should go back. I'm not safe out here, not like this.

But maybe that's exactly why you shouldn't go back.

I close my eyes. Not these feelings again.

But last night – last night, I was going to kill –

God, was I?

Carl's face breaks into my mind. Determined but exhausted, strong but heartbroken. I hear him saying he thought he'd be alright if. I hear him understanding that he was wrong. I also hear him saying he loves me and I hear myself screaming for my mother.

I open my eyes. There's no way in hell I'm not going back to that house.

But . . . something in me I barely recognize won't let me return empty-handed from a hunt for the second time in a row. That's how I end up leaning against a tree, waiting. Hunting has a lot to do with patience. Sooner or later, a squirrel's bound to scurry 'cross your path. Ain't much. More'n nothin'.

Yes, I really should sleep, at least.

Something does scurry across my path, and it's sooner, not later, only around forty minutes after I put the walker down. But it's a raccoon, not a squirrel, and it races in front of me out of nowhere, so close I have to think it didn't notice me. It scampers about three feet up the trunk of a tree. That's as far as it gets.

I don't hit it well. It makes an awful sound and keeps writhing on the ground. I fumble with a new arrow and shoot when I'm closer, and the coon doesn't move after that. I look down at it, the pitiful thing. It doesn't even have much meat on it. May not be fully grown, I don't know, we never hunted coons much. Whatever. It's dead now. Because of me. And I didn't even think twice. Have I ever?

The memory comes like it's a wave and I'm in the ocean, and it's strong enough to hold me under until I drown. A rusting deer stand, a puffy coat, a thermos of coffee to warm my fingers, a rifle sighted in.

"The gun ain't gonna hurt ya, Syd, I promise, I'll keep it still. C'mon. C'mon!"

Yeah, I've thought twice. But it was a long time ago.

"Baby girl, it's okay. Quit cryin'."

That was the only time I've ever cried over a kill. And I ain't about to start up again now, not over a damn raccoon.

I get my arrows back, pick up my prize by its tail, and move. I'm back at our house – or the house we're staying in, I don't know if it's really our house or not – within five minutes. I open and close the back door as softly as I can, but it doesn't matter. As soon as I turn around, my boyfriend is charging in from the living room, and if looks could kill . . .

"Where the hell have you been?"

I'm caught off guard. And a little irritated. "Hunting." I toss the raccoon at him. He barely catches it. "Have a coon."

He holds the catch between his hands like a basketball and stares at me as if I've gone crazy. "Sydney, you can't just disappear like that!"

"I didn't disappear! I went hunting. I am feeding you." I snatch the coon back from him, slap it into a chair, slam my bow and arrows on the table. "You're welcome."

He opens his mouth, but it's not his voice I hear.

"You two are like an old married couple."

At first, it terrifies me, hearing that voice, because I think it must be the beginning of a whole new batch of the bad voices. The kind that only ever happened in lonely rooms at the prison when my pocket knife was in my hand. But no, I realize fast, it couldn't have been one of those – it didn't echo, it wasn't sad or mad or disappointed or betrayed. It was happy. Tired but happy.

It was Michonne's voice. Michonne – Michonne is standing in the archway to the living room.

I feel dizzy.

Her sword is on her back, she's wearing the same clothes she had on when –

She's smiling at me.

That's how I know, that's how I'm sure she's real. She's smiling and it's a nice smile, the feel-good kind, so she can't be anything from my imagination. And I bolt into her arms, wrap mine around her, so I can prove it to myself. She's solid. She's alive, Michonne, my Michonne, she's alive –

"How did you –"

"Stopped at the first house with an empty, gigantic chocolate pudding container out front."

And if she's alive, then –

I pull back. "My – are you by yourself?"

Her smile bends away into a thin line and I fall from the skies. "Haven't seen anyone else."

No, no, I don't fall from the skies, not entirely, that would be silly. Michonne's still here and kicking and well enough . . .

But she's also here and kicking and well enough alone.

I swallow. "It's really good to see you," I whisper. The words aren't enough, they don't begin to get what I feel across, but they're all I can manage.

"Yeah." She squeezes my shoulders. Her eyes tell me she means it, her eyes tell me a lot of things, when she says, "You too."