Chapter 23 – Death and Life

Maybe if I had a clear head, I wouldn't have done it, but the moment I saw that hand poking out of the dirt, I immediately began digging. It was almost a reflex. I just had to get to the face to make sure it wasn't Edward.

"Bella, stop!" Rosalie cried as I unearthed the body with my bare hands. I got to the decaying torso, and the stench was beyond anything I had ever smelled before. Being pregnant, I was sensitive to smells anyway, so I had to pull away long enough to vomit besides the body. "Bella," Rosalie repeated as I went back to digging.

"I need to see the face," I said, refusing to stop.

The corpse was clearly male, and even without seeing the face, I just somehow knew it had to be one of my guys. The body type and size was too big to be Seth, but too small to be Emmett, which only left two possibilities….

"Edward," I murmured as I began sobbing uncontrollably. I still hadn't reached the face, but I was close, and desperately trying to get there. I didn't care what state the body was in, if it was Edward, I was going to hold him.

Rosalie must have realized she wasn't going to stop me, so she pulled herself together and proved to be a real friend by digging with me. With one last brush of my hand, the facial features were finally uncovered, and I gasped.

"Oh my God!" I screamed. I cried harder than I ever had before, and Rosalie could do nothing but hold me through it. I cried out my grief, and I cried out my guilt over the relief I felt from seeing sweet Pete's face there in the dirt. It was devastating because he was such a nice man, and yet, I could only be grateful it wasn't Edward.

I should have controlled my emotions more than that because it wasn't long before Victor came strutting out of the house to see why I had been screaming.

"I see you found our fertilizer?" he asked emotionlessly. "Now, didn't I tell you not to go digging around there? What is a lion supposed to do to his disobedient lionesses?"

"You're a fucking murderer!" Rosalie stood and said aggressively. She held up a pickaxe as if she was about to strike him with it.

"A murderer? No. The old man died in his sleep. I would have told you we buried him there if I thought it wouldn't freak you out."

"He was my friend. You could have told me he died!" I shouted emotionally. I chose to pretend to believe his story because what other choice did we have? He was either telling the truth, or he was homicidal – both of which would be better to stay on his good side.

"My apologies, kitten, but I was concerned with your fragile state. Didn't want to create too many unnecessary emotions. Things like that can harm the little cub."

"Whether it was natural causes or not, why the hell would you bury him in the garden?" Rosalie asked him irately. "There are a million better locations for a burial than where our food is growing. And I'm sure you could have gotten a coffin in town somewhere for him, or even made one yourself with all that lumber. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Victor's eyes crossed in a weird way, and he almost looked like he was going to snap on her, but thankfully, he backed down. "When my momma died, we buried her under a tree so that her body could turn into the soil and her spirit could live on in the branches. Same concept. Flesh is a great fertilizer. In a world like this one, we can't afford to waste it. Not only does he get his proper burial, but his body gets to do us some good. I'm sure the old coot would have wanted it that way. Now, Blondie, you best gets him reburied before his stink disrupts my lioness and makes her sick again. If she loses my cub because you're being disrespectful to the dead, heads are going to roll."

"I can't do this," Rosalie said the moment he walked away. "He murdered Pete, and…"

"We don't know that for certain," I tried calming her, even though I was the one grieving the loss of a friend. "He was older," I added while tearfully removing my sweater to use it to cover Pete's face. Then I achingly pushed some of the disturbed dirt back over him. As much as I wanted to give him a proper burial, not aggravating Vic was currently more important.

"You can't be serious!" Rose groaned. "This is disgusting, and those people are wackos. We shouldn't be staying here."

"I have to!" I shouted out of frustration, sadness, and fear. "I can't leave here. Edward will come back for me."

She shook her head at me incredulously. "I should have never brought you back here. I may be paranoid, but you are incredibly naïve, and it's going to get us and your baby killed!"

"Edward will be back soon," I reiterated, mostly trying to convince myself.

"Bella, look around. We live in a hostile world where monsters hunt us and the people who survive are even more terrifying. The likelihood of Edward making it back isn't very high. We could wait around here forever for him and he might never return. This Victor guy is going to hurt us. In one way or another, we are going to wish we had run when we had a chance."

I sighed. "Well, run then, Rose. I'm not Irina. I'm not going to force anyone to stay or go anywhere against their will. Really, just leave. I will always be grateful for your help in getting me home, but I'm here now, and I'm not leaving."

She considered it for a moment, and then shook her head no. "I'm not leaving you, but I'm also not going to stop trying to convince you to leave," she said before dutifully helping push more dirt over my fallen friend.

I had been so intent on trying to prove to Rose that not all men were bad, but now it seemed I was putting my foot in my mouth. Not even a week later, Victor proved to be the very same type of guy she had feared Edward and the others to be.

"So, I've found this little handy contraption in town," he said one morning while pulling out an odd little device. It looked almost like a radio, but it had a stick thing on the end. "Which one of you is a nurse?" he questioned us.

Rosalie and I exchanged looks.

"Oh, come on! One of you is bound to be a nurse. Everyone was becoming a nurse before the virus. So, which one of yous is a nurse?"

"I'm not old enough to be a nurse. Technically, I should still be in high school," I told him, hoping to avoid whatever the hell he wanted us to do.

"No shit. You're still a kid?" he questioned.

I nodded. "Technically."

He smiled his greasy smile and then reached his nasty hand up to my face to stroke my cheek with his dirty fingernail. "I like that."

"I'm a nurse," Rosalie spoke up, clearly trying to divert his attention away from me. I was grateful. "Why?"

"Do you know what this is?" he asked, holding up the little device in his hand.

"A fetal doppler heart rate monitor," she answered easily.

"Great, now I want you to find my baby's heartbeat. Jamie, get out here, woman!" he shouted into the house.

Rosalie rolled her eyes, knowing damn well the woman wasn't pregnant, but she complied regardless and instructed her to lie down on the porch chair.

With the machine on, Rosalie moved the stick around Jamie's abdomen, and then looked up at Victor and hesitantly shook her head no.

"Maybe you ain't doing it right!" he shouted at her unexpectedly.

"I'm doing it just fine. She is not pregnant."

"Why the hell ain't you pregnant?" he screamed at Jaime.

"Because she is sterile, just like me," Rose answered for her. "The virus seems to have made us that way."

"Bullshit!" he roared. "I had the virus and I'm shooting just fine. If she can't give me a cub, maybe you can," he said to Rosalie.

"I just told you, I'm sterile too. I haven't menstruated since I was infected."

If looks could kill, Rosalie would have been dead by Victor's glare ten times over, but I was so incredibly impressed when she didn't back down. She kept her head up high and refused to be the one to break their aggressive stare-down.

When Victor finally broke, his head turned directly to me, where he clearly looked me up and down and let his eyes linger on my stomach.

"You know, Bella, tomorrow simply isn't guaranteed," he said as he began circling me slowly. "If this was a normal world, I could just find someone else. If we didn't have zombies hunting us, I could wait until you birthed that baby before putting mine in you. But I simply can't wait that long," he said before pulling a gun out of his pants and holding it to my head.

"Vic!" Jaime screeched at the same time that Rosalie shouted for him to "Stop!"

"You fucking bastard!" Rosalie added.

"Here's the deal." He grabbed me in a choke hold and then pointed his gun at Rosalie. "You, get this baby out now, and if it survives, I'll be charitable and let it live as long as it doesn't take any of my resources. Meaning, you find it some bottles and some powder and feed it things I don't want to eat myself."

"The baby will need to nurse. All of the formula in the stores has expired," Rose said quickly.

"No! If she nurses her body won't be ready for my baby. I'm a lion, and this is how lions do things. You're lucky I'm even allowing you to attempt to keep the bastard alive in the first place. Chances are the thing won't survive anyway, but if it does, there will be no nursing. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Vic," Jamie replied, but Rosalie just glared at him, and my entire body seemed to be going numb. Was he really serious about taking my baby right then? I couldn't even comprehend it, and I was suddenly faced with the horror of the absolutely worst thing imaginable.

"How long after this thing is out of her that her body will be ready to carry my child?" Vic then asked Rose.

Rose scowled at him, and shook her head no, which only pissed him off even more.

"How long?" he repeated himself but moved the gun back to my temple.

"If you kill her, you will never have a child of your own," Rose pointed out.

"You're right, but I can kill you and take care of it myself. I'm sure there is a book on ceaser sections in the town library. I can do it, but I won't save the baby. You want it alive; you better stop mouthing off and tell me what I want to know!"

She huffed. "It could take anywhere between a couple weeks, to a couple months. Every woman's body is different."

"Well, let's hope it's the weeks one," he said darkly.

He then pulled me into the house and forced me to lie on the bed in the bedroom. He tied my hands and feet to the bedposts so I couldn't move, and no matter how much I tried to kick and punch him, he was stronger. It was like a terrifying deja vu to the time Jimmy had tied me to his bed, but this time it was so much worse. My heart was racing faster than it ever had before, but I was still in such a state of numbing befuddlement over the entire thing that I couldn't fully comprehend what was about to happen.

Once I was secured to the bed, he instructed Jamie to go clean some kitchen knives. He grabbed a bottle of half drunken vodka by the bed and lifted my shirt before pouring it all over my belly.

"No!" I screamed and reflexively attempted to lash away from the liquid, but it was of no use; I was completely helpless from my position. When he was done pouring it on my stomach, he grabbed another bottle and began pouring it on my face.

"I bet you like that, don't you," he said as I coughed and gagged on the alcohol. "Little girls like man drinks. Drink up as much as you want; it will help with the pain."

I managed to spit most of it out, but for the five to ten seconds he had been pouring it on me, it honestly felt like I was drowning. It stung my eyes and nostrils, but the physical discomfort was nothing compared to the sheer terror I was feeling.

"Stop!" I managed to gargle out, but it was of no use.

Victor cocked the gun at Rosalie's head and told her to get cutting.

"We need something to stitch her back up before I cut, otherwise she is going to bleed to death," Rose told him in a rush.

"Jamie, go get the medical kit," he said without taking his eyes off of Rose.

She rushed back, so Rosalie directed her to get more things she would need. She came and went over five times, but Victor grew restless. "Enough stalling. Now cut!"

Rosalie looked down at me and whispered, "I'm sorry," as tears flowed over her cheeks. "I'm going to get you through this, okay?"

Every muscle in my body tensed for the onslaught of pain. I had never experienced that level of fear before, but I didn't have a doubt Rose would get me through it. If it was possible to survive such a thing in that environment, I knew I would. My only concern was for my baby. I had lost track of time over the months, so I wasn't sure exactly how far along I was, but I knew I wasn't far enough. The baby wasn't ready, and all I could do was hope Rose had enough knowledge from her NICU nursing background to save it with the limited equipment that came in the ambulance.

"Bella, just keep breathing," she instructed as she brought the knife to my lower abdomen.

I nodded, and then reflexively squeezed my eyes shut. I felt the knife push into my skin, but shockingly, there was no pain. What happened next was pure chaos…

What sounded like a punch, was followed by a deep grunt, which forced my eyes to pop open. To my relief and horror, I focused in on that same knife, now stuck deep into Victor's neck.

He was in shock, and when he reached for the knife handle, Rosalie grabbed the gun out of his hands and pointed it at him. "Oh, I wouldn't pull it out if I were you," she warned him. "The moment you do, you'll bleed out and die. Now, here is how this is going to work. You and Daisy Duke over there, are going to leave here and never come back, or I'm going to kill you. Either way, if I ever see your face again after today, I'm going to put this bullet right into your brain. Agreed?"

Victor nodded his agreement, so Rosalie instructed him to go outside for the removal so they wouldn't get blood all over the room.

She quickly untied me and handed me the gun. The four of us then made our way out front where Rose instructed him to lie down. She removed the knife as he screamed noiselessly, and she immediately tended to the wound. As soon as he was bandaged up, she told them to get moving off the property.

Vic didn't have the ability to speak, but he understood, and the two of them began walking slowly towards the road.

"He, he, won't make it," Rosalie said, her voice suddenly shaking. "His wound will get infected, and without antibiotics, he will die. I know he deserves it, and I don't regret it, but as a nurse it's still hard for me to do something to someone that I know will kill him."

"He won't even make it long enough to die of an infection. It's almost nightfall," I told her, still shaking from the sudden and abrupt way the situation was changed. The entire thing was surreal, and I still wasn't sure how it all happened.

She looked up at the sky, and then trembled. "They're cured. They can't be turned again."

"No, but they can still be zombie food. Then we will have new cured strangers to contend with," I pointed out while rubbing my belly and reassuring myself that it was still there. I could feel the baby kicking away, and I was overwhelmed with gratitude, but we couldn't focus on that just yet.

"If there are even any zombies left in this area," Rose countered.

"With our luck, there probably are."

"They're going to come back for revenge, won't they?" Rose asked. "They can make an army out there with their blood's curing ability."

Rosalie was right – it was too dangerous letting them go. Victor was exactly the type of evil person she had been scared of, and she was also right when she said we should have left when we could. Rosalie had been right about a lot of things, but I also had made her a promise. I had promised her that if anyone messed with my baby, I'd shoot them in the face.

Without even taking another moment to think it through, I lifted the gun in my hand, took my aim, and fired. Edward had trained me well, and my father had trained him. It was a perfect shot.

Rosalie yelped at the unexpected bang and Vic's subsequent collapse, but I didn't even bat an eye. Perhaps something in me snapped when he threatened my baby, but I refused to feel even a fraction of remorse for my killing.

"We should probably bury him before dark," I said emotionlessly.

Rose looked at me in shock, and I looked back at her completely calm. "I told you I wasn't going to let anyone threaten us. He was dead anyway."

She gulped, and then nodded. "What about the woman?"

We both turned to see her running off into the distance, but we ultimately decided to let her go. She was completely dimwitted, and we figured the harsh elements of the barren location would cause her demise without our intervention.

Rosalie and I began digging a hole close to where Vic fell. It was far enough from the house that it wouldn't bother us, and we wouldn't have to drag it anywhere. We were running out of daylight and needed to dispose of it as quickly as possible.

We dug fast, and surprisingly, it was almost therapeutic and even a bonding experience. We would shed no tears or waste a moment with regret or remorse for him, and I sure as hell wasn't going to lose any sleep over it. Life during the apocalypse was hard, and I came to realize it really was a dog eat dog world. Kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest – and we were going to survive.

That night, without even discussing it, we slept in the ambulance again. It had become our place of safety since we had been back, and that's what it remained. The following morning, however, we got to work making the house ours again. We washed the bedding, tore down the ugly wall decorations, and trashed the stupid knickknacks they had placed everywhere.

As I was cleaning the huge mess they had left in the kitchen, I just happened to look out the window and something made my eyes zero in on that mound in the garden.

"Hey Rosalie," I called to her.

"Yeah?" she asked as came into the kitchen.

"I think we need to move Pete. He deserves better than to be in a shallow hole in the garden."

"And it's creepy," Rose agreed. "But let's wait until tomorrow. We should do it right, and there aren't enough hours of the day left."

I nodded in agreement.

We both slept in the bedroom that night, but when Rosalie rolled over and spooned me in her sleep, I was surprised by just how soothing it felt to be close to her. Unlike when I shared a bed with Irina, I knew Rose did it innocently and completely unconsciously, and our new bond was so much deeper than I had even realized. I never had a sister before, but that was how I imagined it would feel, and I sincerely found comfort in her arms.

When we woke up still tangled together, there was no awkwardness and no apologies from either of us. We both needed that physical closeness at that time, and there was no reason to feel uncomfortable about it.

After finally dragging ourselves out of bed, we rummaged the pantry for some breakfast, and then we went right outside to get to work. We found some garden gloves and began digging a hole under a big tree about an acre away from the house. It was a nice spot, and I did remember Pete going out there to smoke cigars on occasion.

"You know, this would be a good spot for a graveyard," Rosalie mused as we continued to shovel through the hard dirt. "It's far from the house, but still close. You know?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Hopefully, we won't have to add to it anytime soon."

"Bella…. If something happens to me, will you bury me here? I really like this location."

I sighed. "Rose, are you still worried about the guys coming back and hurting you? I promise, nothing is going to happen to you."

"I kidnapped you. I would be more surprised if they just forgave me. Hell, I wouldn't forgive me if I were them. I probably deserve a bullet in my head just as much as Vic did."

"Don't say that! You are nothing like Vic. You brought me home, and you saved me and my baby."

"If I didn't help Irina take you, she wouldn't have been able to pull it off, and the guys would still be here instead of out looking for you. Pete would be alive, and Vic never would have been able to get anywhere close to you. This was all my fault."

"Irina was crazy. She would have found a way to separate us with or without your help," I argued.

"I doubt the guys will agree with you," she said quietly.

"Even if they were angry enough to hurt you, I wouldn't allow it. I promise you, you're going to be fine."

"Maybe they won't hurt me, but they won't want me here either. I guess I can always go back to the Amish and convert. I was planning to do that before I was bitten anyway."

"To get away from your boyfriend, not because you wanted to," I pointed out. "No, you can stay here, and you will. I promise."

She was quiet for several long moments, and then she huffed. "Okay, but accidents do happen, so please just tell me you'll bury me out here if and when I do die. Even if it's years from now."

I hesitated but nodded. "I will bury you here, or you will bury me here, and this will be the cemetery for all of our loved ones. We will all be buried here eventually… And my baby will be left alone to die alone and never be buried by anyone because there won't be anyone left," I said, suddenly getting emotional as the reality of my child's grim future hit me.

"Oh Bella," Rosalie cried with understanding and shared concern. Even if we all died of natural causes at an old age, my baby would still always be alone. It would never know romantic love or the joy of becoming a parent itself. There would be no dating in its future; no making friends or going to the mall or school dances. My baby was going to be lonely, and that was a devastating thought.

I broke down and dropped to the ground as I wept for the world that my baby would never know, and I kept crying until Rose and I suddenly weren't alone anymore. Something warm and wet slimed my face, and I was absolutely flabbergasted to see my best friend there, smiling at me.

"Sam!" I shouted. My tears of sadness and grief immediately turned into happy ones as I hugged my pup and let him lick me all over my face. "Where did you come from, boy?" I asked as I looked around and still didn't see a vehicle anywhere.

After my face was sufficiently slobbered, I hugged him again and patted his head, before standing to look for any kind of hint as to where he came from.

"Bella, no one is here," Rose said as she looked as well. "He must have come from the hills, but why wouldn't the guys have taken him when they left here?"

"Maybe he stayed with Pete, and then Vic ran him off when he died," I figured.

"That is probably very likely," Rose agreed, but then she noticed something. "Bella, look at his leg."

I looked down, and that was when I noticed the fairly clean white bandage wrapped around his hind leg.

"There is no way he could have kept this clean unless it was done within the last couple of hours," I said to Rose.

"Someone is here," she told me with a mix of excitement and fear.

I looked down at my pup and then sunk to my knees so I could be at eye level with him. "Sam, who are you with? Can you show me?" I asked him, hoping he would have a flicker of understanding.

He barked at me once, and then he ran off into the distance.

"Well, he's gone," Rose said as she helped me up.

"No, he will be back," I said confidently, and sure enough, he came right back and barked at me again. "I think he wants us to follow him."

"Oh, come on, he's not Lassie," Rose said in disbelief.

"Close enough," I said with a laugh.

We started following him, but Sam was so excited that he kept running ahead and had to continually double back to wait for us.

"I'm coming, boy, I'm coming," I said as I tried to pick up the quickest pace my oversized body would allow.

We must have walked over two miles, and eventually we found a cave in a cluster of hills. We followed him into the shallow cave, and that was when I was stopped dead in my tracks.

"We need to get out of here," Rosalie hissed at me.

"We're okay," I said carefully, unsure if I believed the words myself. Sam came and rubbed against me, so I pet him and bent down to his level. "You're a papa," I told him as the female feral dog in the corner kept growling aggressively at us. She was lying with a litter of pups, and Sam couldn't have looked prouder.

"As a responsible dog owner, you should have had him neutered," Rosalie told me as we noticed the female beginning to calm. The more I pet and loved on Sam, the calmer she became.

I giggled. "He wasn't my dog to neuter."

"Oh, yeah, you said he was some psycho man's guard dog or something, right? A lot of people don't fix their guard dogs because they think it makes them more aggressive."

"Yeah, that was probably Jimmy's reasoning," I said, thinking back on the vile old man. "He was not a nice person."

"Bella, why do we keep running into evil people?" Rose asked, becoming emotional. "Are the evil ones just better at surviving, or is this harsh world making them that way?"

I sighed. "I wish I knew, Rose. But look, even in a world full of evil and death, there is still the beauty of new life," I said while pointing to the litter of brand new little innocent pups before us. Sam had found a way to make a life for himself, and we would too. Even if my child would eventually grow up to be alone, all of us left would make sure he or she would have as good of a life as possible with the time we had together.

"Hello?" a voice called out unexpectedly, making both Rose and I jump.

"Who the hell is that?" Rose asked as she began to visibly tremble.

I had my gun on me, but I knew immediately that it wouldn't be necessary. Even without seeing the person's face, I knew who it was.

"Seth!" I cried with relief as I ran to him and hugged him tightly. "Thank god you're okay," I told him.

"Bella, you're back! Did one of the guys find you? We were waiting for them to come back, but then that nasty piece of work went all wacko and killed Pete," he said in a rush.

"So he did kill him? He told us he died of natural causes," Rose interjected.

"Nothing natural about a bullet in the chest," Seth told her. "Right after Emmett left last time, Vic told Pete and me that he was going to try for a baby with his wife and that he was a solo cat, or something. He said he didn't trust us around his woman, and we needed to leave. Pete challenged him, so the woman hit him in the back of the head, and Vic shot him. Bella, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have run away, but I was scared. Sam tried to attack him to defend us, but I called him back and we just got out of there. We've been living in this cave ever since. I hoped Emmett and Edward would be back soon and help me deal with those two, but they have been gone so long now. I'm starting to worry something happened to them."

"It's all going to be okay now," I assured him. "Vic is dead, and the woman is probably dead by now too. It's safe to come home."

"Thank God," he said with relief. "Sam has done a good job hunting rabbits for us to eat, but I'm actually starting to miss mushy canned veggies."

I laughed. "Okay, let's get you home and fix you some canned green beans."

"But what about Emily?" Seth questioned.

"Who is Emily?" Rose asked confused.

"Oh, that's what I named his bitch."

"Excuse me?" Rose asked, unsure if she heard him right.

"Sam's girlfriend. Female dogs are called bitches, right? Whatever. Anyway, she is pretty feisty still. She let me pet her once, but when she had those pups, she only got worse. How will we get her back home?"

"We're not," I told him. "Sam knows his way home. He can go back and forth and maybe when the pups are bigger, he will lead them there for us to meet them. Until then, we need to let them be."

Seth and Rose agreed, so the three of us headed back to the house, with Sam trailing behind. He followed us all the way home, and when he saw we were safe, he barked once, and then disappeared again. I knew he would be back, and I couldn't help but feel proud of him for being such a good protective daddy, both to the pups, and to Seth.

Once we were back at the house, Seth seemed to be on a mission as he went straight for the kitchen. I assumed he was going for food, but then he surprised me by digging for something under the sink and pulling out an ancient looking machine of some sort.

"Is that for radiotelegraphy?" Rose questioned in awe. "Where did you find it?"

"It was in a little museum in the next town over. Pretty cool, huh? Emmett has the other one," he explained as he set the thing up. Once it was ready, he began tapping on the button in a weird way, but then he paused. "Arrgg! What's the code for B? I guess I should have paid more attention. Oh wait, I remember."

"Are you doing Morse Code?" I asked impressed.

"Yep. Old is new again. I just hope I'm writing 'Bella is home' instead of something super wrong like 'Bella is dead'," he joked, but sounded rather serious. "I'm not too good at this. Pete was supposed to be the one to do it."

"So, you really think the guys will get the message?" I asked hopefully.

"Emmett should. The plan is for him to wait for a message, and then to find Edward. They have long-range walkie-talkies. Hopefully, they didn't lose each other along the way."

We were all quiet as we listened for a response, and then like music, we heard the miraculous returning pings.

"I think they're saying someone is dead," Seth said as he listened.

"What?" I gasped.

"Maybe they're saying they're coming back. Gosh, why can't I remember this?" he asked as he smacked himself in the head.

We couldn't be sure if they were even the ones who got the message, or what either message said, but the only thing left to do was wait.

…

Over the next few days, the three of us quickly settled into a new routine. I slept in the bedroom, which was greatly welcomed with how big and uncomfortable I was getting, and surprisingly, Rosalie insisted on sleeping in the living room.

"Why aren't you coming to the bed with me?" I questioned her confused.

"Well, hopefully Edward will be back soon, and I'm sure you will want to be together."

"Yeah, but we can figure something out then. I don't want you to be uncomfortable; Seth will be sleeping out here too," I reminded her.

"He seems harmless," she told me with a shrug.

Seth had already proven himself to Rose when he spent his first day back dutifully finishing Pete's burial. He completed the hole we had started digging and moved our old friend all on his own. It was absolutely heartbreaking watching Seth cry and beg him for forgiveness for not doing more to fight Vic off.

"You did the best you could," I assured him gently.

We wanted to have a little service and say some words of remembrance for Pete as he was laid to rest, but it just felt wrong to do it without the other guys there, so we decided to wait.

In addition to the burial, since his return Seth also spent countless hours in the garden, trying to get it back in shape. He really was showing his newfound maturity, and it was nice to see. Most importantly, he proved himself to be a gentleman to Rose, and showed her that he didn't have a mean bone in his body. She quickly became comfortable with him in a way that Irina had never allowed when we were all together before. A few days in and they were already razzing each other like family.

"Oh Seth, this one looks like you," Rose giggled at an odd-looking tomato from the garden.

"That's funny," he laughed. "I bet I can find one that looks like you," he said excitedly before going on the hunt.

Sam kept showing up periodically. He would come to be loved on, circle the property to make sure everything was in order, and then he would disappear again to be with his little family. As heartwarming as it was to see him be such a dutiful dad, it did make me miss Edward all the more.

Exactly six days after Seth sent out the Morse Code, we finally saw a truck approaching in the distance…