A/N~~ Delilah's nickname by Emma is Lih, just pronounced "Lie." Like, De-LIE-lah. Lol, just thought you should know. (: And this is a superr long chapter. Nineteen pages, to be exact, but I already warned you guys about a long chapter. PLEASE comment and tell me what you think! I love reading your guy's thoughts and opinions on the story and on the show. Stay awesome!
P.S. I will be writing some stuff while the show is on break. Seven months is a LONG TIME. So I'll do some stuff from the eight month period at the prison. Fluffy stuff, almost death situations, whatever you guy's want. Feel free to comment ideas or anything. (I'll write whatever you guys want, just keep in mind that Carl and Emma haven't kissed in that time quite yet!) Enjoy! (: -Katie
~~~~
I open my eyes, finding myself with all limbs intact, in the front seat of the car.
I move and my stomach hurts like hell, but I ignore it. My eyes shift to the back seat, where Carl's head is laying in Michonne's lap. She sees my movement, apparently awake, and sits up straighter.
She looks concerned. "You okay?" she whispers, not wanting to wake up Carl. I'm in pain, but I'm sure I'm fine.
"Yeah," I whisper back. I point to Carl.
"He'll be alright. He's strong."
"Like father, like son," I say, earning a smile from her. I turn back around and look out the windows of the car. It's still dark outside. Early morning. I reach for the handle but hear a "Hey," being whispered behind me. I look back at Michonne, who is looking for some kind of clarification as to what the hell I think I'm doing.
"I'll be back. Just wanna see Delilah," I tell her. She nods wearily and I turn back, opening the car door. I step out slowly, letting my body adjust to the movement. It hurts.
I walk around the front of the car, seeing Daryl leaned up against a tree off of the road. He notices me and stands up straighter, and I can feel tears prick at my eyes. I remember seeing him last night, although not under the best of circumstances. My feet move on their own accord straight to him, and I wrap my arms around him, my brain not even believing that this could even be him. He is literally standing right infront of me, his arms wrapped around me.
He pulls me in tighter and I can feel his chin rested on the top of my head. "God, I thought you were dead," I say, my eyes shut tight but tears still managing to leave them.
"I didn't like the separation either, kid," he says, and I pull away just a little. His eye is badly bruised and he has cuts all over him.
"Are you okay?" I ask. He shrugs it off.
"I should be asking you that. You got beat pretty hard. Just.. passed out." I guess I did pass out.
"I'm fine," I tell him. I feel myself smile. "God, I cannot believe that you're here!" I say, hugging him again.
"At this point, neither can I."
I pull away from him again, wiping the tears off of my face. He grips my shoulders, leaning down a little to look me in the eyes. "Hey," he says. "I'm here to stay, okay? Nothing else is going to happen." He uses his thumbs to wipe off some of the tears on my cheeks and I smile. "Promise?" I ask. He laughs a little.
"Promise." He's here. He really is here.
"Baby sister!"
I look around behind Daryl and see Delilah running out of the forest. When she reaches me she wraps her arms around me, hugging me so tight it hurts. "Oh, my God. I was so worried. Well, I mean, I knew that you were fine, but I was still worried."
She pulls away and pushes some hair out of my face. "How do you feel? Too badly injured? Do we need to hang out here until you get better?" she asks, though I'm pretty sure she has absolutely no dictation over whether or not that happens.
"Really, I'm fine. We're not sticking around here. It's okay, I'm okay." She still looks concerned, and puts her hands on her hips.
"Emma Scar Peterson, you better not be lying to me because that's just the selfless person that you are." She sees straight through me, I swear.
"I'm not lying. Really," I tell her. She looks me up and down for a minute and she's about to say something else when I interrupt. "I think I'm gonna go and sleep for a little longer." It's still dark, but I can tell it's gonna get light in not too long.
"Okay," she says slowly.
"I'm gonna go see if I can catch anything if anybody needs me," says Daryl, picking his crossbow off the ground and putting it around him. "I'll come with you," says Delilah. He looks at her for a moment, but nods anyway.
"Be careful!" I yell after them, and Delilah blows me a kiss goodbye. I walk back to the car, opening the door and climbing in as quietly as possible."Michonne?" I ask. The door shuts silently to my right and I keep facing forward, not bothering to look at Michonne while I talk to her as it hurts to be at a turned direction.
"Hm?" I hear her say back.
"You said you had a three year old," I say.
"His name was Andre," she says after a moment. "I had a boyfriend named Mike. That was our kid. Andre Anthony." She says his name in the type of slow pride and awe that only a parent would.
"Were you married?" I ask.
"No."
"Who else knows?"
"Only Carl. And my brother and boyfriend. Now you," she says. I'd ask her how he… What happened to him, but I don't want to get into it. It would be too depressing, and I'd prefer not to hear about depressing things at pressing times after near-death experiences.
"What happened to Carol?" I ask.
"You remember Karen?"
"Yeah." I spent eight months with her, of course I remember.
She pauses. "Carol is the person that… burned them." It's silent. She.. the most caring and loving person who would do anything to protect people… burned people to death? It doesn't add up.
"Rick told her that… well, she needed to go in his eyes. So she left," she says. She sighs. "I think that she was just trying to protect everyone in a way. Make sure this virus didn't affect anybody else." I consider this for a minute. It makes sense. "I'm not justifying her actions. I'm just saying that she thought that she was doing the right thing. She wanted to keep everybody safe. It didn't work, but she was trying."
She had totally disappeared and I wasn't even remotely informed about it. I was too busy coughing up blood in a place with a bunch of other people coughing up blood that nobody bothered to tell me that the person I saw as a mother figure in my life was just… gone.
"I'm sorry," she says, sincere.
"Me, too." I close my eyes and try to sleep.
***
"Is she dead?" asks Rick.
"She's just gone. After that, that's when they found me. I mean, I knew they were bad, but… They had a code. It was simple, it was stupid, but it was something. It was enough. Said they were looking for some guy. I was hanging back. That's when I saw it was you four. I hadn't saw it. What they could do," says Daryl from outside of the car. My eyes are open and I'm just sitting there, pathetically in pain. I had to have had some internal bleeding or something. I haven't bothered to look at my side, and I'm kind of afraid to see what kind of a mark that asshole left behind.
He was with Beth. And now she's just... gone.
"It's not on you, Daryl. Hey. It's not on you. You're back with us here and now. That's everything You're my brother."
Daryl pauses. "I know what you did last night. Anybody would have done that."
"No, not that."
"Somethin' else happened."
"Daryl, you saw what I did to that guy. It ain't all that, but that's me. That's why I'm here now, that's why Carl's here. I need to keep him safe. That's all that matters."
I open the car door and get out, interrupting their conversation. It's pretty nice outside, ignoring the constant smell of rotting flesh in the air.
Delilah is sitting on the hood of the car, enjoying the sun it looks like. We lived in Northwest Ohio for a while, where the weather is so unbelievably ridiculous and bipolar that we were never quite sure if it was going to snow in the middle of summer, so it's nice to think that we moved down here when we did. We wouldn't have lasted a day in an apocalypse living up there anyway.
I grab one of Delilah's guns off the roof of the car, given that she has three with her at all times. I have my knife, which I'm pretty happy with, but all necessary precautions have to be taken. I put the safety on and shove it in my boot, Delilah just looking concerned at me the entire time. "I'm fine," I reassure her, but her expression doesn't budge. I see Rick and Daryl stand from where they were seated on the ground. "Hey, how ya feelin'?" asks Rick.
"Just grand," I say, a little too sarcastic. Hey, when you're in pain, you're in pain. There's nothing else you can do except be a little bitch about it, right?
"She's a tough sonofabitch," says Daryl, and I smile at his sort-of-compliment. Both Carl and Michonne emerge from opposite sides of the car. "We gon' get going, then?" asks Delilah. Rick nods.
"We should get to this place today, no doubt, so let's get a move on," he says, picking up guns out of the front seat and putting them in a duffle bag, everyone getting their assets together. I feel a hand grab mine, and turn to see Carl, pulling me farther aside and off of the road. My back hits a tree and his lips make contact with mine for a couple of second until he pulls away, wrapping his arms around me. "I was worried," he says.
"Well, that's the nicest way anybody has said that to me all day," I say, earning a small smile from him. He pulls me into a hug. "Are you alright?" I ask him, remembering him getting beaten last night, but memory driving nails into my skull. "Yeah," he says, but I can tell he's not. "I'm fine."
I pull away, and put a hand on his cheek, trying to scratch off some of the dried on blood with my thumb. His arms are still around me. "Don't look so concerned. At least try to hide it a little," he says, both of us laughing a little.
"Hey, I'm your girlfriend. I'm supposed to be concerned." He just smiles.
"Hey, lovebirds!" I hear Delilah call to us. We both look over. "Time to get going!"
Carl unwraps himself from me and I tuck my long, tangled hair behind my ears. "If you weren't okay, you would tell me, right?" I ask.
He nods a little. "Of course." He doesn't sound very sincere, but I decide not to bug him. He holds out a hand for me to take, and I do. The six of us walk side by side, on our way to a brand new home.
***
He pushes some leaves off of the sign with his foot. "We're gettin' close. We should be there before sundown," says Daryl.
"We'll head through the woods. We don't know who they are," Rick says.
We stray off and eventually find the fence, Rick dropping the bag of guns on the ground. Terminus doesn't look bad, per say. "We all spread out, watch for a wall. See what we see. Get ready. We all stay close."
Carl unwraps his arm from my waist and kisses my cheek before following after Michonne. "You wanna stick with me?" Rick asks him.
"It's alright," he says back. He follows after Michonne, and I'm really wondering if what he saw from his dad last night freaked him out. Delilah had told me he ripped out that gunman's throat with his teeth. Anybody would be scared by that, especially if you were seeing your very own dad do it. But.. he isn't crazy. Not like he was. Like Daryl said. Anybody would have done it.
Delilah walks alongside me, the two of us scouting out the area like everybody else.
"I feel like I've barely talked to you since you got here," I tell her. She chuckles and drapes an arm over my shoulder.
"Yeah, well, I've barely spoken to anybody if it makes you feel any better." It's quiet for a minute. "These people you've got here… I feel like they aren't good." I look up at her and stop walking. Her arm falls.
"What do you mean, 'they aren't good?'" I ask, feeling a little frantic.
"I mean, not that they don't have good intentions. They do, I can tell. But as far as I can see, they've caused you and themselves nothing but harm." She's whispering distressedly so that they others don't hear her. We're pretty far away already, but God knows she likes to be safe.
"They're perfectly fine, Delilah!"
"Well, I know that you think that-"
"You're damn right, I think that! These people are my family. They took me in when I was a wreck, when nobody elsewould!"
"Think about this Emma!" She pauses and I breathe really hard, feeling enraged that she would say something like this. "Since you got with this people, you've gotten crazy sick, almost killed dozens of times, and this prison place that you were at got torn down, right? These people have enemies. God, I just witnessed one of these attacks last night. Don't tell me that they keep you safe. Sure, they gave you a place to crash for a while, but we've found each other now!" She looks at me for some kind of answer, but I just stare at her like she's crazy, my arms crossed. "I mean, your whole goal was to find me, right? You found me. We're here, we're together. We could go. We could be safe."
I can barely even look at her. "What part of 'they're my family' don't you understand?" I say, trying not to yell at her.
"They're not safe."
"Safe or not." She just stares at me. "They are my family. I don't care if they have enemies and I don't care if I've gotten hurt or not. These people… They are here when nobody else was, when you weren't. They were there then, and they are here now. I'm not about to throw that all away just because you think I'm in danger. Wake up, Lih! We're in a damn zombie apocalypse, nobody is safe! But with them, I am. Regardless of what you think."
She doesn't say anything so I walk off in the other direction. "Emma!" she calls after me, distraught, but I don't respond. I keep walking until I come across all of them standing in a group, just about to climb over the fence. "You guys ready?" asks Rick. I hear Delilah's footsteps coming up behind me, and can feel her eyes boring into the back of my head, but she doesn't say anything.
Carl touches my shoulder and I jump. "You okay?" he asks. You must be able to see the steam coming out of my ears. I nod slightly. "Fine," I say, not very convincing. He looks at me and I just stare forward, watching as Rick and Daryl take the lead in climbing over the fence. Everybody climbs over, making tons of racket.
Once on the other side, I reach into my boot and grab my gun, turning the safety off. We make our way around, finding an opening to a giant warehouse of a building. Daryl walks in first, all of us following. "Sanctuary for all, community for all. Those you arrive survive. Terminus," says a lady's voice.
The room is huge like a department store. There are quite a few people working at separate tables in the farther end of the room, making maps it looks like, or at least something of that nature.
We all file in and everyone stares at us when Rick says "Hello."
"Well, I bet Albert is on perimeter watch," says a man standing in the back. He walks over to us, keeping a safe distance. "You here to rob us?"
"No. We wanted to see you before you saw us," says Rick.
"Makes sense," says the guy. "Usually we do this where the tracks meet. Welcome to Terminus. I'm Gareth. Looks like you folks have been on the road for a good bit."
"We have." Damn straight.
Rick introduces us, calling us out down the line. "I'm Rick. That's Carl, Emma, Daryl, Michonne, Lilah." The man waves once to us and it's quiet.
"You're nervous! I get it! We were all the same way. We came here for sanctuary. Is that what you came here for?" asks the man who now has a name.
Rick nods. "Yes."
"Good. You've found it. Alex!" he says, a man, who I would assume to be Alex, walks down to us, a smile on his face. "This isn't as pretty as the front. We've got nothing to hide, but the welcome wagon is a whole lot nicer. Alex will ask you a few questions, but first, we need to see everyone's weapons."
It's quiet for a long moment, all of us looking at Rick out of the corner of our eyes. Sure, it's a democracy, but he calls the shots. Maybe that isn't how it should be, but it's the way that it is. I think he's gained his place. He's gained his self-awareness and saneness back, so that's a good step in the right direction as it is.
Rick nods. "Alright," he says, taking his gun out of its holster and putting his weapons on the ground. I follow suit, as well as everyone else, and reach into my boots to take out my gun and then my knife. "I'm sure you understand," says Gareth.
"Oh, we do," says Rick. Alex searches us down the row, from Delilah to Michonne to Daryl and to me.
"Don't really have that much to search here," he says, giggling a little. I glare off in the other direction, not wanting to make a bad impression. I keep my mouth full of sarcastic comments to myself as he moves to Carl.
"Do you deserve it?" he asks, jokingly.
"Yes," says Carl. I shoot him a look but he doesn't budge.
"Just so you know, we aren't those kind of people, but we aren't stupid, either. And you shouldn't be stupid enough to try anything stupid, either. As long as everyone's clear on that, we shouldn't have any problems. Only solutions. Okay?"
"How can there be solutions if there aren't problems that need them?" I ask rhetorically, the words just kind of sliding out. And really sarcastically for that matter.
Gareth looks at me suspiciously for a second, but nobody responds to my comment.
Alex reaches at my feet and hands me back my knife and gun, and I take them just staring at him. We all can have pretty scary faces if we want to.
"Come on, follow me," says Alex after 'giving' everybody back their weapons.
We follow him through the Home-Depot and out a giant metal door, leading to an outdoor area with pregnant women and healthy men and tables set up in the sun with umbrellas over them and a giant grill with what looks like perfectly edible food on it. I walk alongside Carl, Delilah as far away as possible. If she wants to leave, she can leave. But I'm not gonna fight with her. Especially not over something like this.
Carl wraps an arm around my arm, putting his hands in his jacket pockets so our elbows are looped together. "How long has this place been here?" asks Daryl as we walk towards the grill.
"Since almost the start. When camps got overrun, people started finding this place. I think it was a kind of instinct, you know? You follow a path. Some people were heading to the coast, others out west, some up north. Everybody just ended up here."
We walk up to the grill and I spin my gun around on my free hand. An older looking lady with messy hair speaks up. "Alright. You came in the back door. Smart. You'll fit right in here."
"Hey, Mary. Will you fix these folks a plate, here?" asks Alex. She flips over meat on the grill, and I can't remember being so hungry with food right in front of me.
"Why do you do it?" asks Michonne. "Why do you let people in?"
"The more people become a part of us, the stronger we get," he says, grabbing a plate of food from Mary. "That's why we put up the signs. Invite people in. It's how we survive."
It's how we survive.
I looks around a little more. There's just a few people outside. Three, maybe four besides this Mary girl and Alex. Everyone is at peace. Nobody is frantic. Nobody is freaking out. Nobody is scared.
Alex hands Carl a plate of food and then me. Carl detaches his arm from mine to take the plate, and I have to tell you, it smells like heaven for somebody who hasn't eaten anything except chocolate pudding in the last three days.
Aex holds up another plate for someone to take. Rick walks up and smacks it down and reaches for something in Alex's pocket, before taking out his gun and pointing it at Alex's temple. Daryl holds up his crossbow, Michonne her katana and Carl, Delilah and I our guns.
"Where the hell did you get this watch?" Rick says to a terrified looking Alex. I aim my gun directly at Mary, seeing as everybody else's weapons are at Alex, who does not actually have a weapon on him, but his hands in the air. Mary holds her hand at her belt, fingers lightly gripping her gun. I look over to Rick. He's holding some pocket watch. I squint a little to see through how bright it is out here. His pocket watch is the one that Hershel gave to Glenn.
I click my trigger into its place directly at Mary's head.
Other people that were just sitting so peacefully stand with their weapons pointed straight at us. I glance over to Carl and he glances over to me, and the two of us share a worried look that says 'We're in over our heads.'
There's tons of people here already from what we've seen so far. Who knows how many more there are that we haven't seen? I look up to the roof of the buildings and see snipers and just keep thinking over and over again, "We are so screwed."
"Where did you get this watch?" he repeats again. Michonne, Daryl and Carl face the small crowd of peaceless people to our left, and Delilah and I keep our guns at Mary, who's staring directly at me.
"You want answers? You want anything else? You get them when you put down the gun!" pleads Alex, totally overwrought.
"I see you got a sniper-rifle. How good is his aim?" asks Rick. "Where'd you get the watch?" No answer. "Where'd you get the watch!" he screams.
I look back over at Carl, whose expression has turned from nervous panic to a complete wash-over of calm. Nobody thought. Nobody thinks. We could have asked instead of pulling out our guns. I hate being that annoying voice of reason that wants to solve every misfortune and problem with cupcakes and rainbows, but is this completely necessary? The second we thought something happened to Glenn, that's when we pull out the guns! Nobody here fucking thinks!
"Don't do anything!" screams Alex to his snipers. "I have this! You just put it down! Put it down!" I peek away from Mary to see the sniper's putting their guns down at Alex's request. My heart thumps against my chest and head.
"You people need to listen to me," Alex says to Rick. "There's a lot of us!"
"Where. Did you get. The watch."
"I got it off of a dead one. I didn't think he'd need it!" My eyes rip themselves away from Mary and peirce, wide at Alex.A dead one.
My grip on my gun falters.
"What about the ride gear? And the poncho?" asks Rick. Those were Glenn and Maggie's things. The blood rushes to my face, and I have the overwhelming need to shoot somebody. I never thought that I would feel that way about anybody except for the Governor.
I take my gun off of Mary and point it at Alex, my entire body struck with some weird mix of grief and anxiety that makes my whole body shake. I take a few steps closer to Alex, my mind drowning out the sounds of anybody else. Rick turns to face Gareth, who must be talking or something. I'm about a foot away from Rick and I stay there, both hands on my gun, my legs shaking. "You talk to me," says Rick to Gareth.
"What else is there left to say? You don't trust us anymore." You've got that fucking right.
Gareth holds up a hand as Alex implores him. "What do you want?" he asks Rick.
"Where are our people?" I say, my voice shaking.
"You didn't answer the question," he says, the calmness of his voice contrasting with the terror and anger in mine.
Rick looks at me and nods, just ever so slightly, and I pull the trigger on my gun. The bullet goes straight through Alex's head. Rick throws him on the ground and I stand there, breathing hard as noises erupt all around me, but I can't even move. It's like I'm getting no oxygen or something. I hear yells and gunshots, but don't move. My breath becomes ragged and I feel Carl wrap a hand around my arm, forcing my legs to work. We run and the sniper rifles shoot, missing us. We run back in a different direction, the bullets just making holes in the ground. I grip my gun hard.
We sprint towards the exit, my dress making me run slower than I would like when I'm about to die.
The giant exit shuts before we get there, and we run in different directions around the Depot trying to find somewhere else to go. We find a door with a big white "A" on it, and Rick opens it, Michonne pushing Carl and I through after Daryl. I just chase wherever they go, nobody getting shot regardless of the tons of snipers on the roof. They block another passage with shots. They're trying to take us somewhere. They're missing on purpose.
We run past a giant encasing of rotting flesh and bones. All what remains of people, smelling like what I imagine hell would smell like.
I hear screams of "Help! Help us!" from train cars stacked on top of each other and we run straight past them.
"What the hell is this!" I yell out.
My mind races. Are these people cannibals or something!?
We run into another entrance with the letter "A", opening and entering a room filled with candles. They're all over the floor and on little stands, tons of writing on the floor of people's names with ribbons and flowers and dolls and mementos next to them. It sure smells better in here than out there.
The words "NEVER AGAIN. NEVER TRUST. WE FIRST, ALWAYS." are written across the walls in big, black letters.
"What the hell is this place?" asks Daryl.
I look around me and step over candles. David Connet. Jessie Ogden. Sheila Bennett. Kristen Miller. All names of people that have done what? Died? Been sacrificed? The ones who managed to become a part of this little screwed up town of theirs and lived?
"These people," stars Michonne. "I don't think they're trying to kill us."
"No," says Rick. "They're reigning their feat." If they were trying to freak us out, I'd sure as hell say that they've done their job.
This is sick. "Over here," says Rick, pointing to another exit door. We all follow, but somebody shuts it before we get there. "GO!" screams Rick, all of us piling through another door with another "A".
We all run out, coming onto the train tracks where the snipers direct us. People with weapons emerge from behind bushes, all of them pointing directly at the six of us, who have all stopped any kind of movement except breathing, and even that is becoming extremely difficult.
The six of us stand in a circle, and I just look around at all of the people with their guns pointed at us. We have no chance. This is the last second.
"Drop your weapons! Now!" calls one of the snipers. I look at Carl and he stares at his dad. "Now!" he calls again. We all put our guns on the ground and I take my knife out of my boot, remembering that they saw it earlier. I put in on the ground, letting my fingers linger less than a second on it.
My last chance of survival is just lying on the ground in front of me, mocking me and all of the shit I've had to put up with, and now this. I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask for an apocalypse. I didn't ask for my parents to die. I didn't ask to find another home or to get attached to to feel safe and have it all ripped away from me! I didn't want this! I just wanted to live! And when that was taken away from me, I just wanted to die. Why could I have died while I had the chance!
…I'm not ready.
Not now. Not then. But here it is, staring me straight in the face, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I didn't ask for this. I don't want this.
"Ring Leader! go to your left! To the train car, go!" Rick doesn't budge. "You do what we say, the kids go with you. You do anything else, they die and you end up in there anyway." My eyes bore into Carl, and he just stares at Rick, who's eyes are fixated on Gareth.
Rick nods a little to Carl and walks off towards the train car. I can feel my heart in my fingertips.
"Now the archer!"
I look at Daryl, who looks back at me. He lips the word "promise" to me and I just nod, knowing very well how terrified I look. He looks dead-eyed and Gareth and walks off, following Rick to the outside of the train car. A big, white "A" painted on the side.
"Now, Lara Croft!" Gareth yells, talking about Delilah. She looks at me for a second before walking off, following Daryl.
"Samurai!" Michonne goes, leaving Carl and I just standing without purpose. "Line up in front of the train car! Ring Leader, Archer, Lara Croft and Samurai! In that order!" They all follow his instructions and line up outside the door. My hands ball into fists at my sides.
Carl turns his head and looks at me. He looks more terrified than I've ever seen him be. More than the many times both of us have had death scares. He lips the words "I love you" before turning back around, not giving me a chance to say anything in return.
"My kids!" yells Rick.
"Go."
Carl and I walk, him a measurable distance in front of me. "Ring leader! Open the door and go in!"
"I'll go in with them!" he calls back.
"Don't make us kill them now!" My palms are bleeding from my nails digging in them.
Rick takes his steps up the ones to the train car and opens the door, and I watch all of them file inside. When Carl and I make it to the steps he stops and turns around, and gives me a look of terror. I try to reduce the size of my eyes and nod to him. He turns back and walks up the stairs, entering first. I follow after and the door shuts behind me. I see the figures of other people standing at the other end of the car. That's when I see them. "Rick?"
Glenn. Maggie. Sasha. Bob. People I don't recognize.
I want to run over. Drape my arms around Maggie and cry. She's standing there, right in front of us. Maybe now, everything is just coming together, not falling apart like I think it is.
"You're here," says Rick.
"You're here," I repeat, awe-stricken. I let my nails fall away from my palms, feeling the blood trickle slowly down my fingers.
"They're our friends," says Maggie, referring to the people I don't recognize. "They helped save us."
"Yeah," says Daryl. "Then they're friends of ours."
"For however long that'll be," says a tall, muscular man in the back.
"No," Rick states.
*
"It can be like this all the time."
"No. It's like this now. That's enough."
*
"They're gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out," says Rick, walking over to look through the crack in the train car door.
The muscular man speaks up. "When they find out what?" My hand grips onto Carl's, ignoring the blood and stinging. He holds mine tight.
"They're screwing with the wrong people."
