Seth started off in the direction of the car, leaving Melissa on her own in the orchard. She was still feeling shell-shocked from Seth's words. He had shot Jimmy Jacobs? She hadn't even been watching wrestling when he'd teamed with the indie wrestler, but she had read online that they had been tag team and faction partners for quite a while. It made her feel ashamed of herself—here she was moaning over how she'd killed David, and yet he'd been silent about having to kill one of his friends.

Standing up, she slowly headed back to the car, mulling over Seth's last words. He didn't want her to tell Dean or Roman? Okay, she could deal with that. She was more worried about how to respond if one of them ever asked her about it. She had the worst poker face imaginable; she literally couldn't lie to save her life. As she made it past the edge of the trees, she decided to deal with it if it ever happened; she'd just add to her stress if she thought about it.

She found the trio standing by the back of the car, Dean now fully bandaged and with a clean shirt on. He was leaning against the car, and his face was more peaceful than it had been before; Roman must have managed to get him to take some pain medication.

All three of them looked over as she approached. "There you are," Roman said. "We're ready to go."

"Alright," Melissa said. As she headed around to her side of the car, Roman stopped her briefly.

"You okay?" he asked her. "Seth said you were crying earlier."

"It's nothing," Melissa said, brushing it off. Seth's tale of what he'd done had effectively dealt with her guilt, at least for the moment. She was certain it'd come back to bother her later though.

Roman let her go, letting her get into the backseat of the Suburban. She buckled herself in, waiting while Seth went over and told Damien that they were ready to leave. Dean meanwhile slid into the passenger seat, immediately falling asleep again. Roman slid into the backseat next to Melissa, leaving the driver's seat open for Seth, who got in after talking to Damien.

The next several hours of driving were spent in silence. They made decent time, since most of the highway had enough lanes that the wrecks could be easily avoided. The sun started setting, prompting Damien to pull over. It was decided that they could set up camp here, which was fairly open, so they would be able to see any zombies coming. Though Melissa was concerned about the potential for fog; her mom had always demanded that they make it home from Disneyland before the valley fog rolled in—it supposedly made it impossible to see your own hands in front of your face, it was so thick.

Melissa was still debating whether or not that was true while she sat up her sleeping bag inside the tent the members of the Shield had already put up. She had looked up the fog online once, and if she remembered correctly, it was usually only problematic in the late fall to early spring. She was silently glad it was still the middle of summer; it meant none of the fog, if she was right, and it gave them plenty of time to prepare for winter, in case things didn't go back to normal. At this rate she was thinking it wasn't going to.

She joined Dean and Roman, who had gathered around a small fire that one of them had built. They had opened a few cans of food to share, and Roman handed her one as she sat down.

She had just found the silverware she carried in her backpack when Damien, Cody, and Alicia came over, sitting down around the fire as well.

"Where's Rollins?" Damien asked curiously as Roman reluctantly handed him a can of food.

"He's on watch," Dean said, reclining back against a large rock behind him.

"Oh."

"How are you feeling?" Melissa asked Alicia, who was sitting close to the fire, holding her hands out to warm them up.

Alicia looked over at her. "Better now that I've had some medicine. I heard you had a hand in that."

Melissa shrugged. "I just helped out when they were in the store. Nothing major."

"Thank you anyway," Alicia said. "I'm Alicia, by the way."

"Melissa," she replied, giving the other woman a smile. She took a moment to eat a bit from the can of food. She was put off for a moment when she realized it was beans—she'd never been fond of them, but after a moment her stomach reminded her that she was hungry enough to tolerate it.

Alicia backed away from the fire for a little as Damien handed her a can of food. "So how long have you been traveling with the Shield?" Alicia asked Melissa. "I don't think you knew them before all of this."

"I didn't," Melissa affirmed. "We met five days ago."

"Seems like a lot longer," Dean observed from his spot across the fire.

Melissa nodded, staring at the fire for a moment. "A lot's happened since then."

"I wouldn't mind a few days of quiet," Roman said as he sat down between Melissa and Dean.

"It would probably end up causing us to feel safe again though," Damien reasoned. "And I'm assuming that isn't a good thing at the moment."

Melissa nodded in agreement. "Though being on my toes all the time isn't exactly fun."

"I don't think any part of the apocalypse qualifies as fun," Damien pointed out.

"That's true," Melissa conceded. "I did have a book that I was reading, but I noticed that Dean took that."

Dean shrugged, indicating that he didn't really care. "You left it in the back with all the other stuff. And I got bored, seeing as no one would let me do anything."

"It's a good thing I didn't," Roman spoke up. "How much worse would you have been if you hadn't just waited and watched the cars?"

"What's wrong with Dean?" Alicia asked curiously. "Are you sick?" she asked him.

Dean shook his head. "I was…attacked yesterday and I suppose I should have let them clean me up sooner. It was just messy. Nothing that some painkillers and bandages didn't fix."

Melissa stared at the inside of her can of food, surprised Dean was willing to admit he should have let them clean him up earlier. She didn't comment though.

"So why did you decide to travel with the Shield?" Alicia asked Melissa. "Didn't you have family that you could travel with?"

Melissa wanted to respond that a lot of people had lost their families in the initial outbreak, but refrained, remembering that Alicia probably hadn't been exposed to a lot of it. Melissa found herself envious of the woman's innocence. "My family left for LA right after the outbreak," she said after a moment. "I stayed behind, but when the Shield arrived they convinced me that it probably wasn't a good idea to stay by myself, that there was too much that could go wrong. So I asked if I could go with them and they agreed."

"So will you find your family in LA?" Alicia queried.

Shrugging, Melissa stared at the fire for a little. "If LA is even a safe zone it doesn't mean they made it." The thought of her family not making it gave her chills; she'd refused to think about it up until now. "There's a lot that could have gone wrong in between my hometown and LA."

"Is it really that bad?" Alicia questioned. "I haven't really seen much because I've been sick."

Dean snorted. "Consider yourself lucky."

Damien and Cody looked uncomfortable as Alicia looked at them sideways. "What's happened?" she asked. Melissa wondered just how much Damien and Cody had told her. Obviously it hadn't been much. Either that or they'd flat-out lied to her about what was going on.

Damien cleared his throat before Alicia interrupted. "You said it wasn't that bad," Alicia accused. "You just told me that most services were shut down." Melissa watched as Alicia stood up. "You lied to me, didn't you?" she asked angrily, her voice rising. "How bad is it?"

Seth appeared out of the darkness. "Keep it down!" he hissed. "I can hear you clear out there!" He motioned further out into the darkness, where he apparently had been keeping watch.

Alicia glared angrily at Damien and Cody, shaking slightly, her weakness from being ill apparent. "How bad is it?" she repeated, turning to look at the members of the Shield and Melissa now for answers.

"Bad," Roman replied calmly as Seth disappeared back into the dark of the night.

Alicia took a step forward, her expression now seeming more frightened. "How bad are we talking?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"We're talking collapse of society bad," Melissa spoke up, gazing up at the taller woman from her seat on the ground.

Alicia spun to face Damien and Cody again. "Why would you lie?" she asked the tag team.

"We were just trying to make sure you were safe," Cody started.

"You were in ill health already," Damien added. "We didn't want to have you frightened as well."

Alicia stomped off to the cars, her steps wavering. Damien and Cody both hopped to their feet, intent on going and talking to her.

Dean and Roman also got to their feet. "So what about when she finally did get better?" Dean asked. "Were you still going to keep her locked in the car?"

"We were hoping we'd be to LA by then," Damien said, his gaze flicking back and forth between the cars and Roman and Dean. "And we'll be there soon. There's no reason to worry her."

"I'd say it's a little late for that," Roman noted.

"You didn't have to dump it on her like that," Cody said angrily. "We were hoping to break it to her gently."

"Breaking it to her gently?" Dean asked. "What if you'd been attacked by zombies? Or other people?"

"It'd be better if she was prepared for that," Roman added.

"Other people wouldn't attack us," Damien said dismissively.

Melissa stood up as Dean spoke. "How do you think I got injured?" he demanded angrily. He gestured to the knife strapped to Melissa's leg. "Do you think a zombie can use a knife?"

Cody glanced at the knife. "Are you saying she attacked you?" he asked in confusion.

"No. She just killed the son of a bitch who did," Dean said.

Damien and Cody both looked at Melissa again, and Melissa tried not to quail under their judgmental gazes. "You killed a man?" Damien asked. "Not a zombie?"

Melissa felt her guilt boiling back up. "Yes."

"Why would you do that?" he questioned, his gaze now clearly stating that he was disgusted.

Melissa's anger rose up; she was angry that she had to explain herself when the evidence of 'why' had already been explained. "Are you deaf?" she said angrily. "Dean practically spelled it out. The guy attacked him."

"We were driving and there were people who looked injured," Roman interrupted before Melissa's anger could get out of control. "We stopped to help them and they took us hostage."

"He decided to interrogate us," Dean added. "By slicing me up like you saw earlier." Damien's wince showed that he remembered the extent of Dean's injuries, though his gaze was still judging.

"After that he came and saw me," Melissa said. "He offered to let me stay in his camp. But I told him I didn't want to. He was a fucking monster—he'd staked all the kids and old people out on a hill by their camp." A shudder ran through Melissa as she remembered the sight. "He gave me two choices: stay or I could leave… if I killed CM Punk."

Cody blanched. "I thought you said Punk was alive."

"He is," Melissa said angrily. "At least last I saw. This guy, David, handed me a knife to kill Punk. I killed him instead."

The brutal bluntness with which she said it seemed to frighten Damien and Cody. "You didn't try to talk it out with him?" Damien asked.

"He was fucking crazy!" Melissa spat out, trying to keep from yelling. "He was ready to use us as zombie bait!"

"That doesn't excuse you," Damien said. "You murdered another human being!"

"Do you think I wanted to?" Melissa said, her voice rising. "I'm going to have to live with that until the day I die! You think I wanted that?!" she shouted as she took a step towards the tag team. "I did what I had to. I wasn't going to lie down and let him kill me!" She was surprised when Roman pulled her back, pushing her back behind him and Dean.

"Go watch for zombies with Seth," Dean told her, obviously hoping it would calm her.

Melissa sighed in frustration, not wanting to tell Dean that she really didn't want to talk to the third member of the Shield. She slowly took a step back anyway, knowing if she stayed near the fire with the others she'd keep yelling, and that would bring in any nearby zombies.

"Are you telling me you wouldn't do the same thing?" she heard Roman ask coldly as she walked away from the fire, heading into the dark. "You'd choose to die?"

She literally ran into Seth after a moment, not seeing him in the dark. As her eyes adjusted to the dark and faint light of the rising moon, she saw him look at her. "What was going on?" he asked. "I heard you yelling."

Melissa kicked a small rock angrily, watching as it bounced off into the dark. "Dean mentioned how I killed David because Damien and Cody didn't think other people would attack them. They didn't understand why I killed David though."

"Oh." Seth didn't push further, and Melissa didn't offer up any more information.

It wasn't long before they heard movement behind them, from the direction of camp. Melissa spun around, expecting to see Dean or Roman and was surprised to see Alicia instead.

"I want to know," Alicia said hesitantly. "I need to know what's happened."