Oh Eric my boy, Dana murmured. Please, please be telling the truth.

She pushed the door open with a weary hand and lay her eyes on his; they peered up, frightened and wide, and they seemed to glow in the dark light of the room. The way he sat, leaning on his knees as they bounced, atop a bag of cement, reminded her that this was morally wrong, and that Rick was being pushed to the limits. Sure, one of his people had been taken, in the words of this man. He was desperate, acting on the good of the group. In the hours he'd been kept here, however, he had held true to his word. He gave absolutely no reason for a normal person to doubt him.

"Did she warn you about him?" Dana asked. Eric, and his eyes, hesitated before a smile broke out. "She described a calmer person, but yeah. I guess he's what I expected."

"Did she only mention the dangerous ones, then?"

He nodded. "Yeah, but somehow she made them sound like good people. I…I didn't believe her 'til I got here."

"What are your people like?"

"Oh, pathetic cowards," he confessed as he rested back on the wall. "I didn't want to be there any more than her. It's…its why I'm here."

"She was lucky to have a friend like yourself," Dana assured him, still leaning in the doorway. Then she checked behind to make sure no one was around. In the evening, people were using the last of the sunlight to their advantage by hunting, or building, or washing and drying and killing the walkers they could in time for dinner. She guessed it wouldn't hurt to let a little in for a boy being held outside the walls.

"I don't know, something tells me she didn't trust me fully. She didn't say there were people kind as yourself, ma'am."

Dana grinned in spite of herself, and folded her arms around her chest. "She never knew me, dear boy." Then the smile faded, and the reality became as clear as it always was around her memorial. "I'm the reason she's lost, I've been here as long as she's been gone."

Eric bowed his head, his face disappearing beneath his cap. "We need to save her." he looked up with pleading eyes. "I want to speak to Daryl."

Dana raised her brows. "That's not possible."

"Is he here?"

She nodded. "I just don't think its wise telling him this." Her eyes hesitated on his, but she snapped them away. Too late.

"That's not what you think. He needs to know shes alive. Rick, he still thinks it's a trap. But you don't, you can see it. I'm telling you the truth, and the longer we delay this the more at risk she is."

"What made you come now, Eric?"

Richard and Eve had never met, officially. She heard his voice bounding and bouncing between the walls beneath, and he was most likely the arms beneath her that carried her from the car to the cage that day. The day they did meet, she knew that some way or another, she'd not be returning to that place again.

"Girl! Get up, its time to pay your dues!" A rough hand tapped her cheek a little harder than was probably meant, and Eve woke to the dull morning air. It was the first time she'd slept outside, and her skin burned with overexposure to the sun.

Eric's stiff frame was already poised for shooting on the edge of the roof. Eve then looked up to the map-like face facing her, and then looked for cues as to who it was.

"Come on, girl. Earlier we get out, earlier we get this job done."

"Where are we going?" She asked, her voice groggy and rough and she cringed at the taste in her mouth. She clicked her neck, and stood on weary feet. He said, "We are going for a much needed supply run. I hear you're good with a gun and ain't afraid of close combat. You might be more useful than you look."

"Well, thanks. Let me just grab my stuff." She located her rucksack just around the corner, and met Eric's frowning eyes.

"So, how'd you know I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty?"

"Saw your little display down there with the new walkers. I don't know how that hole got to being, but if any more got in this place could've been seriously compromised."

Eve smiled and nodded graciously. "No problem. Similar thing happened in my old place, one of the walkers managed to gnaw his way through. Maybe we should think about reinforcing the gates," she offered.

Richard watched her as she spoke, not keeping an eye on the stairs as he stepped on them like she was. She looked up at him, to see his moustache was bristling with a keen smile. "I see you're thinking about staying, then. No more episodes like last time?"

She shrugged. "No point, I guess I was focused on getting home so much I didn't pay attention to here. But," she said, and stopped mid stride, "You need help. People are starving and you have terrible sanitation. I think, with a lot of effort, we could save a lot of people here. My old place didn't need work, this one does."

Richard stared long at her, not moving an inch as she spoke. Then, something switched on, and he nodded gently. "You got no idea how long we've needed someone to say it. Ain't enough people to execute the ideas I've had for this place-"

"Or enough strong people. The ones you have here are scared, and untrained, and unfit to survive when they need to. And they will need to, one day."

"How do you suppose we carry this off?"

The outside was hot, and misty with dirt blowing in the wind, and strong with the stench of the corpse-strewn road outside the gates. Each one was as dead as it could be, no walkers to be seen. That was Eric. Eve smiled to herself at his work, but avoided looking up incase it triggered any suspicion. And she remembered that she'd b been asked a question.

"Lets start with making this run, and we go from there."

Richard let her to a car, and threw his things in. The plan was going a lot swifter than expected. Of course, he drove, but Eve had anticipated that part.

In the space of an hour, not word passed between the two, and he drove like a maniac toward the city in sight. They entered, and it was baron. Lifeless, save for two loners in the street. Everything around was abandoned stores, trash cans rolling about and depositing packets and bottles everywhere, body parts, and debris. The car jolted and bumped if it ran over something at its agonizingly slow pace.

"Grab anything you find useful, I doubt much is left to choose from."

"Okay." Her voice was nervous and strained. The car jolted to a stop, and, in silence, the pair opened the doors.

The smell was worse here, and the lack of noise only made it seem louder. The shot gun creaked as she pulled it from the back seat, and her steps were unusually audible.

"Stay close, don't wander."

"Sure thing."

Somehow, she got in front, and lead the way deeper into the waste land. "It's been this way for a while," she observed, and looked around to find the man holding his sleeve to his mouth. "What makes you say that?"

"No flies." She approached a pair of legs still attached to their hips. "Completely dried out. Flies and insects take what they want, and theyre gone. See?" She pointed out the leathery thin flesh, all the fluids gone and bruised legs left behind from livor mortis beneath cropped trousers. Then she frowned, after giving it closer attention.

"What is it, girl?"

"This guy was killed. Not by a walker."

"How'd you know?"

She felt as though she needed a pencil or a pointed, because she didn't want to actually use her own finger. "The bruises are on the backs of the legs. It died like this. It was never a walker. The wound looks like it was a knife, not teeth."

She stood up straight, and it was her time to hold a sleeve to her nose and mouth. Looking actually in the wound, she gagged.

"How do you know all this?" Richard asked. She didn't know if he was weirded out or impressed, but she answered anyway. "I read a lot back home." Then she began scanning the area. "The walkers should've had this by now." Something had been either keeping them at bay, or it hadn't been around long enough yet. Days, maybe.

Then she looked again, because of what she saw in her periphery.

"Richard!" A gunshot burst out and his face fell blankly.

It happened a lot more slowly to her eyes than reality, because the way the blood splattered was too slow, the way he fell was too controlled. The way she moved, it felt sluggish compared to how she felt she was doing things. But somehow, her feet began running. She located an alley way, and slammed her back against the brick wall. Groaning emanated from above, and a window smashed. A body fell and splattered itself on the tarmac.

"Shit," she scorned in a forced whisper, and edged closer to the entrance. Whatever killed Richard came from the ground, and that was all she could manage through the terror and the tears she only just realised were falling frantically. Richard's face stuck in her mind vividly, and she squinted her eyes closed.

This wasn't how it was meant to go. It was just meant to be a case of taking Richard or Daniel back, knocking them out, and Eric would get in and they'd be away. Plan B was never formulated, because he didn't think it'd be needed. Worst case scenario, that was this. But before anyone realised they'd taken too long, she'd be dead upon their arrival. And their rescue wasn't something she counted on.

No voices taunted, nothing called out to her for her to come and show herself, but she wasn't taking any chances. Eve made her way to the end of the alley, and found her way to a ladder leading up to the roof. Before she began climbing, she closed her eyes and took in two deep breaths.

At the top, she lowered her head and took out the pistol she'd not removed since Eric gave it to her when they started planning. Then she peeked over, and scanned the buildings around her. Nothing on the roofs, no one keeping watch. Nothing. So she slowly climbed over and kept low while she made her way to the edge of the roof. She peered over, and in the next alley way, stood on a pile of crates, was a man, a gun resting on the wooden gate he was hiding behind.

She aimed the gun, and then her vision seemed to tunnel.

Could she truly find it in her to kill another human?

Then, once again, Richards face came into view. And Eve realised that, despite what she'd thought about him, Eric was right. He was an okay person. And he listened to what she had to say, even if it wasn't entirely true that she'd help.

Her finger pressed down, and the crates collapsed beneath him as he fell to the ground. That's when the real shooting began, and she fell down to take cover on the gravel. Voices called frantically around.

"Dumb bitch shot him!"

"Tim! Tim you alright?!"

Then a bullet ricocheted off of a piece of rubble next to her hand, and Eve aimed the gun before she even knew the shooter was standing on the building across. He fell to his knees, grabbing his stomach in pain. Then Eve crawled to the very edge and looked over. A figure raced to the body of their friend and rattled the door in panic. "Tim! Get up!"

Eve's heart raced frantically as her chin pressed against the gravelled surface, the dry scent of it filling her nostrils. She tried so much to focus on finding a way out, on focusing on that only two voices called out below, but all that filled her mind was that she was trapped and she only had a couple of bullets left. Eric wouldn't know what was happening, and when he did act, it might be too late.

Then she heard a crash down below, and inched closer to peak. The wooden gate was swinging open, and the crates were strewn in a mess of splintered wood. Eve craned her neck along the path, and then a movement caught her eye to her left. A woman was half way up the ladder, paused.

"Shit! Shes here! I got her!"

Eve sprang up and raised both her hands, shaking as they aimed the pistol in the very direction of the ladder, blood filling her ears.

I might die, she realised. I might die up here on a roof, and no one would know.

Using the time she had she checked for bullets. Three. Would that be enough? Her aim could be so off that the woman might shoot her before she had time to react. Her hands were shaking so fast, it might completely miss anyway.

The woman was so frantic in getting up the ladder, and a couple of times Eve heard a clang, presumably a foot slipping off its rung, but that only made the wait harder. But she could bring herself to kill another human. Using this would be an opportunity, the target without a weapon and her concentration on something else. No, it would be wrong. She'd already done it once.

A head popped over the edge of the roof, followed by hands in the shape of claws and a ragged face torn with fury. Soon enough, the woman was standing on the roof, shaking with anger and sweat pouring down her red face, drenching her blond cropped hair.

"You gonna shoot me, too?!"

Eve stood, helpless, staring wide at the woman who seemed by be paralyzed by her own rage. Eve noticed something about her hands, about the way she aimed at the woman. Suddenly, she'd become steady.

As she watched the woman, breathing heavily like a rabid animal, and as she picked up on the clothes that had random stains of blood and something else patterning them, Eve sighed. She dropped her gun to her side.

"I'm…I apologise for…that man."

Her face contorted, and went to a transition of confusion, frustration, something like understanding, and then back to blood red and pissed off.

"W-what…" she growled. Then she launched from the spot, straight into Eve, and she screamed. There was a gunshot somewhere in the distance, and Eve ran to the side, covering her head as she fell back down to the ground. Another scream rang out, just as the scraping on the gravel ceased. As she raised her head, something smacked on the ground below.

Removing her head, Eve slowly checked the roof for any sign of the woman. But there was no one. And she knew exactly what had happened, and she had no desire to take a look. Sickness filled her stomach, and she felt as though she were suffocating for a small moment. Then she breathed, and her head cleared.

The other man still lingered, but, strangely, Eve wasn't bothered about him. She found she wasn't much bothered about anything, other than getting home, and, in this place, it seemed further away than when she was at the factory. It all seemed so far. And encountering that woman didn't help. Eve thought about that, about how, suddenly, her fear seemed to go away at the sight of her, about how the way she looked, acted, seemed to shut off that part of her. The blood, the clothes, the animalistic way she held herself, the rage in her small eyes.

For some time, she dwelled on that, and came to the conclusion that it was pity she felt. Pity and loss, and, along with it, a sense of pride. Pride that she'd managed to make it with her humanity more or less intact. That woman brought it home to her.

After a few more minutes waiting, Eve decided it was time to get out, and get back home. The sky was grey with bleak cloud, and rain began to patter against her arms, darkening the beige pebbles at her feet.

On the ground, she felt more exposed to whatever was out there, but that was okay. She could see the car beyond the bashed open gate, and the body was still laying across the planks off wood. Soon, he would change. So she shot it. One less walker to worry about. As she made her way out, her gun was raised and both checked for any signs of that mysterious third person. But he wasn't anywhere to be seen, and Eve made it to the car and its warmth in safety. She waited only a second for breath, and then she turned the car so fast that it skidded.