A/N: I don't think I say this often enough, but thank you to everyone who follows, favorites, reviews, or just reads the story. All of you are my inspiration and the reason I keep writing this; without you I probably would never have made it past the first chapter. Love you all! And without further ado, here is the next part!

Dean looked around in a frantic panic. "He was right over there a moment ago," he said, pointing at a wrecked car in the middle of the street.

"Roman?" Seth called out, trying not to be too loud. When nobody responded, he drew his gun. "Shit. Dean, stay here while Damien and Cody take care of Alicia. Melissa, you're with me."

Dean didn't look happy to be relegated to watch duty again. In fact, Melissa would venture that he looked downright pissed off.

Melissa followed Seth over to the wrecked car, looking on both sides for Roman, both of them now with their guns drawn. Roman was not on the other side of the car. "Where could he have gone?" Melissa asked aloud.

Seth shrugged angrily, looking around. "Maybe he went over there," he said, gesturing to the gas station on the other side of the street. "You go left, I'll go right."

Melissa nodded, crossing the rest of the street to the far left side of the gas station, which was also crowded with abandoned cars. Where did all the people who owned these cars go? She shivered, thinking of the possibility of a very large group of zombies. She made her way along the edge of the gas station, peering down the gaps between cars.

Seth met up with her on the other side of the pumps next to the convenience store. "Please tell me he did not go in there," Seth groaned.

"I sure hope he didn't. I've had my share of dark stores for the day," Melissa muttered. "Maybe the week. Or month." Looking around, she sighed. "He probably did. He seemed worried about Dean being in pain and all, so he may have decided there was extra medicine over here."

Seth sighed. "You ready then?" he asked her.

Melissa nodded.

Seth yanked the door open, gasping in surprise as he opened it to find a figure standing in the doorway.

"You could give a man a little warning," Roman Reigns said mildly.

Seth dragged Roman out of the convenience store, letting the door close behind him. "What the hell do you think you were doing?"

Roman shrugged. "Getting medicine. Dean needs it."

"Melissa and I managed to get some pain killers when we went in with Damien and Cody," Seth growled.

Roman shrugged again. "I made it out fine, didn't I?"

"What if I had my gun out when I opened the door? Melissa or I could have killed you!" Seth nearly shouted.

"Just drop it!" Roman growled angrily. "It's over, it's done with." He pushed past Melissa and Seth, heading back to the car.

Seth looked at Melissa. She shrugged helplessly; she saw both men's sides of the argument—it was dangerous for Roman to go off by himself, but at the same time, they now had extra painkillers.

Seth shook his head angrily, stomping off after Roman. Melissa followed at a slower pace.

When she made it to the Suburban, she saw Dean sitting on the hood of another car, with Roman standing next to him with a bottle of water. Roman was talking in a low voice, and Dean was whispering back angrily. Melissa thought Roman might be trying to convince Dean to take the pain medication.

Seth was leaning up against the side of the Suburban with his arms crossed, glaring at the ground in front of him.

"Are we about ready to go?" Melissa asked him hesitantly.

Seth shrugged. "Roman's trying to talk Dean into taking some meds. We might be here for a while yet." He seemed mildly amused by the fact.

"What about Cody, Damien, and Alicia?" Melissa asked curiously.

Seth motioned towards their car. "You can go ask them, I guess. Stay away from Alicia though. We don't need anyone getting sick."

Melissa nodded, walking over to the brown Ford Edge. She spotted Cody leaning up against the side of the car next to an open backseat door. "Hi," she greeted him cautiously.

Cody looked up from studying his shoes. "Hello. Melissa, right?"

Melissa nodded. "Sorry for pointing a gun at you earlier," she apologized.

"You were doing what you thought you needed to do to protect Dean," Cody said with a shrug. "I can't fault you for that, especially with the way things are now."

"So you're heading to LA?" Melissa asked him.

Cody nodded. He looked into the interior of the car, where Damien could be seen leaning over someone, presumably Alicia, lying on the back seat. He motioned for Melissa to walk with him a small distance away, out of Damien's hearing range.

Cody sat down on the hood of the car, his hands folded in his lap.

"What is it?" Melissa queried, wondering what he wanted to say that couldn't be said in front of Damien.

Cody looked troubled. "We are headed to LA, but I can't help but wonder if we're heading into a death trap," he muttered. "Damien thinks the CDC will have found a cure by now, and that the city will be a safe zone. I'm wondering if it's the exact opposite though, and that it's just full of the dead. There's no way we'd make it out again, especially with Alicia being sick…"

Melissa couldn't find the words to reply; it was the exact argument she'd made to Dean back in the church on that night, trying to convince them to stay. She finally spoke. "I know what you mean. I didn't want to leave my hometown for that exact reason, but I realized that I would probably die if I was all on my own. So I figure that even if LA is overrun… that way we know and can go somewhere else."

Cody nodded morosely. "So you were in your hometown when all this started?" he asked her, gesturing around at the abandoned cars.

"Yeah. We had it a bit easier than most, because it was such a small town and was so isolated. I heard that Sacramento, in a nutshell, went to hell in a hand basket," Melissa said.

"I can testify to that," Cody said with a bitter laugh. "I was in the middle of that."

"Oh yeah, Raw was in Sacramento the night before, wasn't it?" Melissa recalled.

"You a wrestling fan?" Cody asked her. When she nodded he continued his story. "In any case, we had stayed the night. The next morning, we watched a zombie eat a woman on the news and an ambulance catch fire. That was basically how we realized things were going bad."

"I remember hearing something about that. My local news station stayed open a bit longer; they said that at least of half of Sacramento was burning from some car accident fires that hadn't been contained," Melissa noted.

"That's because all the firefighters probably got eaten," Cody said. "Speaking of firefighters, I'm surprised to see that the Shield made it out alive. The fire station got overrun quickly, and the diner where Reigns was at was right across from it."

"I heard a bit about that," Melissa murmured.

"What happened to the Usos?" Cody suddenly asked. "Last I heard, they had been with Reigns at the diner."

"They didn't make it," a voice said shortly. Melissa turned to see Roman standing close by.

"I'm sorry," Cody said genuinely.

"Not your fault," Roman said gruffly. "Melissa, we're just about ready to go now."

Cody suddenly stepped forward. "Do you think you could wait a little longer?" he asked. "We could travel together, since we're headed to the same place anyways."

Roman looked hesitant to agree. "I'd need to talk to Dean and Seth before I agree to anything," he said cautiously. He headed back to the Suburban where Dean and Seth were waiting.

Melissa hesitated to follow. She stayed with Cody, waiting in silence for the Shield's decision.

After a while, Roman came back. "As long as you keep Alicia quarantined, we won't mind you tagging along. It'll give us some time to teach Melissa how to drive."

Cody nodded with a look of relief on his face.

"Darn, I was hoping you'd forgotten about that whole driving thing," Melissa said with a laugh.

Roman cracked a small grin. "Nope."