— Beca —

I watched with a mixture of shock and awe as Bumper fought with my torturer. It was clear to me that they were both desperate to be the one to kill me, so much so that it was driving them to madness. I thought it was over the moment he got his hands around Bumper's throat, and I took the opportunity to fire at his back, hitting him just on his right shoulder-blade. He turned almost immediately, firing quickly with a gun now in his left hand, his right dangling at his side. The shot missed, and I ducked momentarily before firing again. What seemed like mere seconds later, Bumper was standing again, this time aiming his gun at the man from behind, a determined look on his face. He was going to kill him just so he could then kill me? One of the remaining soldiers behind them gave a shout, and the man spun again, confronting Bumper head on. After that, it really was over, and fast. As he leapt forward I heard several shots, muffled by the man's body, and he fell right through the motion, slumping unconscious onto Bumper, who stumbled back. These last few moments seemed to stretch out impossibly, and then all at once they were falling, backwards over the edge of the Dam and down, hundreds of feet to the craggy shore of the river below. I couldn't believe it. The shooting stopped on both sides as we stared in astonishment at the space where our two enemies had just been stood, now empty. The remaining soldiers decided that they had no reason to stick around now that their leader was dead, and they turned and retreated back to the vans. My friends beside me half-heartedly raised their weapons as they retreated, but I quickly waved them down. It was over.

"Was that… the guy we had to leave behind?" Cynthia-Rose asked quietly. I nodded. It was surreal. We waited until the vans had disappeared from sight before emerging fully from behind the trees. The Dam was littered with bodies of the soldiers we'd struck down. I felt sick, looking at their faces. Thankfully most of the dead seemed to be the adult commanders. It was a small mercy - at least I could assume that they knew and consented to what they had been doing. Chloe took my hand, squeezing it encouragingly. Everyone was in a state of shock. It was one thing to have had to banish Bumper from our group, but seeing him die, right in front of us… that was something else. I could hardly get my head around it. I peered cautiously over the edge. Thankfully, dusk was fast approaching, and I couldn't make out more than a pair of vague forms lying all that way down by the river. It really was over. Nobody spoke as we gathered what ammunition we could find left by the soldiers along with a couple more handguns, and then turned our backs on that Dam, and our final standoff with those particular avenues of our past, for good.

— Chloe —

We trekked into the deep forest until night fell, and then made a hasty camp. None of us were hungry. It was one thing killing the infected, things in human form, but to kill actual other living human beings… I was sure that I'd not fired any fatal bullets, but I still couldn't shake whatever it was I was feeling in the aftermath of the encounter. I think what drove it home was seeing Bumper die. The soldiers, nameless and faceless, merely represented an enemy that we new to fear and defend against. It wasn't hard to understand that after what their leader had done to Beca. But when we saw someone we knew, someone we used to trust…. it was just a lot to take in. It wasn't until the next morning that we finally began to break the silence, one by one voicing our thoughts and bringing our emotions into the open. It started with Amy, as it so often did. She stood up, and folded her arms, her expression unreadable.

"I just want you all to know that I did that for all of you." We gazed up at her, and I felt tears forming. She looked sorrowful and uncertain, for the first time since I'd met her. It was almost as shocking a sight as what we'd seen last night. Suddenly Aubrey stood too, and burst into tears, reaching over and drawing her into a big hug.

"You did amazing Amy! You saved us!" She sobbed, and I found myself jumping across the circle to join her in squashing Amy into a hug.

"You did so great." I said, soothingly. Everyone was agreeing now.

"Y'all, that really was the wildest though." Cynthia-Rose laughed, wiping away a tear as Stacie squeezed her arm, nodding.

"It was you guys, but damn we freaking did it!" Jesse was smiling, and threw his arms around Donald and Benji, who were sat either side. Even Donald looked relieved, though I knew it must have been especially hard on him. Beca spoke up now, and we all turned to listen.

"That was… truly insane. I'm sorry to all of you about what happened with Bumper, and the guys from the hospital. It's hard for me to open up about shit like this but… I didn't think I was ever getting out of there. That was why I tried my absolute hardest to piss that guy off as much as possible and make it hard work for him, and I guess it worked a little too well. I've been… I've been scared of seeing him again ever since, and I-" I could see she was fighting back tears, and losing. But for the first time, she wasn't turning away to hide them from the group, or from me. They began to stream down her face, and she laughed, wiping at her face.

"I just wanted to let you guys know how grateful I am for everything you've done for me and all of us as a group since we've been together. I don't know what I'd do without you all." She sniffed, and I caught her eye, suddenly starstruck. I loved her so much I could hardly stand it. The both of us had really grown since we first started out on this crazy journey. In fact, all of us had.

"Aw we love ya short stuff!" Amy screeched, grabbing Beca into a friendly headlock and laughing madly. It was good to get it all out in the open, and the atmosphere of sorrow and worry lifted from the group as our tears fell together and finally dried up to be replaced with genuine happiness. The sun was finally poking through the thick canopy above us, and we had a little further to go before we could call our journey finished, but although in part it was only just starting I felt a heavy chapter closing behind us as we set off one more time, tied together by something we could never put into words.