RIVER FLOWS NORTH

PART 1

The gunfire above had stopped as soon as the C4 was detonated and the cracks appeared, but Troy couldn't look away, transfixed on the figure glued to the fence with desperation—peering down at what and who Troy knew was his family—willing him to run.

There was time.

The bridge, however, hadn't broken apart as of yet, an opportunity the Proctor and those few men the snipers hadn't nailed had taken immediate advantage of.

Troy turned the barrel on the fleeing duo and pulled the trigger. They unintentionally invaded—help that came in form a manmade earthquake as the structure peeled apart with the force of the water—and disappeared where he couldn't see them anymore.

Had they fallen? Had they made it to safety? He couldn't tell and nor did he care.

He pushed off the ground, indifferent to the fact that the Indians could shoot him in the back as he'd considered only a couple of minutes ago, and ran for the Jeep.

He twisted the scope off the gun and used it as a binocular, observing first as the rush of water that had built like a tidal wave swept up the zodiac and deposited it upside-down angrily.

The occupants were nowhere in sight and nor was the lone figure that had been on top of the bridge – a bridge that, too, had disappeared.

Troy tossed the scope onto the passenger seat and jumped into the driver's, taking off toward the rising waters edge, getting as close as he possibly could despite the iffy terrain.

He threw the Jeep into park, hopped out and fell once as he scrambled down the side of the embankment, immediately met with water that rose to knee level and then began to fall, steadying out in seconds until everything was being pushed down into the dregs and taken downstream.

There was so much rubble, so much dirt, that for a time, as he skimmed the water, hopeful to see Nick's familiar head of ratty hair bopping by, he temporarily felt overwhelmed.

He reacted to the first thing he saw, scrambling into the depth of the water, swimming against the force as best he could as it threatened to push him along with the rest of the junk. He caught a hold of a person, yanking them to him by their clothing and an arm, thankful in part that he could still stand and anchor himself and that the figure had been pushed close the bank's edge, realizing only after he'd managed to pull them to the safety of the shore that it was in fact Alicia.

She was unconscious, and with a quick check, he could tell she wasn't breathing, either.

Shit.

He fixated on the flow of water for what felt like an eternity, aware that Nick had been nowhere close to where their boat had gone down, but that the water might have pushed him along, anyway.

Fuck.

If he tended to her now, focused on trying to get her to regain consciousness, he might miss Nick. It was a tossup. He'd save her and hope for the best or he'd let her die and hope for the best. His mind reeled maddeningly, back and forth, obsessive in its need for a choice before his hands eventually found their way to her face to open her airways, steadily beginning compressions and mouth to mouth.


How long Alicia was suspended in the darkness seemed impossible to figure out, but it felt like no more than a few seconds. Like the blink of an eye. But that was the thing in the realm of unconsciousness – time moved differently there.

Pain was the first sensation that made its presence known. Uncomfortable pressure on her chest that grew in intensity. She didn't have much time to ponder and explore said pain before her body convulsed. Instinctively, she struggled to turn onto her side as she coughed up mouthfuls of water, fingers clawing feebly at the ground beneath her as she tried to catch her breath in between.

New pain surfaced. A grim throbbing in her head, much like the headache that had accosted her in the ranch pantry a few days earlier, when she was inhaling more carbon dioxide than oxygen. But there was a slight difference, the pain focused mainly on the right side of her forehead now.

Alicia fell back after a few moments, inhaling air in gasps, teary eyes squinting up at the bright sky. Someone was looking down on her. It wasn't until he leaned closer and his familiar features came into focus that she recognized him.

Oh no. I died. I died and some higher power sent me to Hell. With Troy Otto.

That seemed highly unfair.

She blinked a few times, and when she finally managed to speak, her voice came out raspy and tired.

"Troy?"

As soon as she responded to his efforts and started coughing up liquid, he briefly helped her onto her side to make it easier and returned his gaze to the fast flow of water.

His hands moved at their own accord, falling away from her body the more lively she became and the less inclined she was to need him anymore.

He saved her and his job was done.

"One and only," he retorted without any of his usual wit, a mere fact to put her at ease as he gave her a quick onceover and headed toward the stream.

There were more bodies in the water now, a lot he recognized as the dead.

"Nick!" he called, trying to shout above the noise, above everything going on around them, hopeful he was out there somewhere—somewhere Troy couldn't see—and would hear.

"Why?" Alicia murmured, a question that went unanswered as he left her side. It didn't make sense. A cacophony of blurry memories and thoughts swirled around her brain, and the more she tried to grasp each and every one, the more they seemed to slip away. Until she heard Troy calling for Nick.

Nick.

He'd been on the bridge when it collapsed.

Oh my God…

Alicia pushed herself up to sit, swallowing a groan of pain as she did so, reaching for the throbbing in her forehead. Her fingers came away wet with blood. She wiped them on the thigh of her jeans, her gaze seeking Troy in the too bright light of the sun. He was down by the water's edge.

She struggled to her feet and immediately lost her balance, falling onto her hands and knees with a pained whimper that morphed into something angry and determined. She tried again, pushed up and fought to hold herself in an upright position so she could see the river that now rushed past them better.

There were so many bodies.

"Nick?" she murmured feebly, inhaling deeply so she could next expel his name in a loud call. "Nick!? Mom!?"

Despite the whoosh of water and his focus, Troy heard Alicia get to her feet, heard her fall and then get back up again.

"I'm going to head up higher along the embankment, try to get as close to the dam as I can," he stated, making his way along the sleuth, assuming she'd either catch up or wait. "Nick!" he called, cupping his hands around his mouth, indifferent that the noise from the explosion would bring every single dead in the neighboring vicinity.

And then, as if by magic, or some magnetic force this family had – there he was. In the middle of the lake, arms semi-wrapped around something indistinguishable.

The boat? A rock?

Alicia looked after Troy as he made his way up the embankment, following the trail of the river back towards the broken dam. He moved far too quickly for her to keep up, but she followed nonetheless, stumbling along behind him and out of breath.

After about a minute she fell to her knees, doubled over and vomited the water she had unintentionally swallowed when the currents had carried her away. It made her stomach clench painfully, the pressure in her ribs agonizing, either from having been thrown around in the boat or from Troy's earlier compressions.

Troy scrambled into the water like a practiced lifeguard, swimming hard when it became too deep, ignoring the scrapes, cuts and what he could only assume were grabs as he made his way toward Nick.

When he got closer, Troy recognized he wasn't holding on at all, that the water pressure must have pulled and pushed him, and inevitably thrown him onto part of the zodiac that hadn't been submerged, probably caught between fast moving rubble and the dead below after it had capsized.

Troy kicked out at the bottom and anything trying to snare him as he circled up behind Nick, taking a hold of his shirt, jerking him back so he could snake an arm around his friend's upper body as securely as possible, and then swam back to the embankment. Back to Alicia.

The task wasn't easy and it was hard to judge the depth below. When he could, Troy lowered his feet into the muddy sand and hauled Nick out of the water as he'd done his sister, immediately beginning compressions and trying to clear his airways.


He's back in the hot box and he's dying. It seems to be getting smaller, hotter, and it's filled with water. Nick can't breathe, and he can barely see through the murky veil - the window is open and there's the farm field outside. There's no one there, no one knows that their punishment has turned into execution.

He slams his hands and feet against the walls to no avail. There's no strength left in his limbs, he's worn out completely, and the water feels so thick. His seconds are running out, he physically feels the life seeping out of his every pore.

Something flickers outside the window. His lungs are busting, making it hard to concentrate, but he tries. Someone's outside. A face appears in the window, filling up the space.

Troy. He's grinning.

"Hey, buddy, been there too long. Shame, man. The door was open."

His face disappears. Nick groans, willing him to get back and open the damn box. He can hear Troy call from the outside.

His chest feels like a balloon about to bust with excessive air, his lungs are filled with fire.

Nick gathers the last of his strength left, and pushes at the door. It budges; the water twirls around him like a vortex, pushing him out...

His chest exploded in strained coughing, desperate for air. Someone helped him on his side. Nick felt sand and dry grass under his palms. Once all water was gone from him, he gasped, panting, trying to get his heart to stay inside as it strained to jump out of his mouth.

Troy' face was the one he saw hovering over him. The vision was still fresh on his inner screen, it took a bit to readjust to reality.

The dam. He blew up the dam. And didn't die.

His eyes closing, Nick lay down on his back, waiting for the pain in his lungs to ease.


When Alicia managed to lift her head, her gaze sought Troy again and found him further up ahead, dragging someone out of the water. She forced herself back to her feet and ran as quickly as she was able, her heart exploding in her chest when she realized who Troy had caught hold of and was now coughing up water like she had earlier.

"Nick!"

Getting Nick to respond took a little longer than it did with Alicia but when he did, Troy repeated what he'd done for her and helped him onto his side.

Another voice calling his name startled Nick. He snapped his eyes open, squinting against bright light. It took efforts and a groan to sit up, but it didn't matter as soon as he made sure Alicia was real. She was here and alive.

He locked her in a hug, inwardly thanking whatever higher force kept her safe. She had a significant gash on her forehead, still oozing blood, but seemed to be fine in general. Just a thought of how much worse it could have been made him nauseous.

Alicia fell to her knees beside her brother, her hands and eyes searching him for outwardly injuries but finding none. Once he wrapped his arms around her, she could no longer keep the tears at bay, and she cried silently into his shoulder, relief and fear and exhaustion mingling in a confusing swirl of emotions.

When Nick, too, no longer needed help and eased onto his back, Troy relaxed to catch his breath and let Alicia tend to her brother, a small smile gracing his lips in gradual victory.

His smile dimmed as Troy observed the damage to the bridge and comprehended how close Nick had come to being permanently one with nature.

What an idiot.

He glanced at Clark and then at his sister, the two looking woozy and out of sorts. They needed medical attention. Or the closest thing he could get which was medicine.

"We need to get going," Troy stated as he pushed off the ground, glancing behind him, peering at the dead that were starting to migrate and double up. It wouldn't be long before the dam was overrun.

Nick acknowledged Troy's suggestion with a nod, and looked at his sister with cautious inquiry. "Mom and Strand?"

Alicia gave him a helpless, worried look. "I don't know. I don't know where they are. We have to find them."

It wasn't a plea but a demand, one she assumed Nick would agree with. They couldn't leave this place until they knew their mother was safe.

Twenty minutes had passed since the bridge collapsed, and neither Madison nor Strand had reared either ugly head. Troy could only assume the rush had taken them and had either pushed them toward the city channels or down into the actual depth of the risen lake where the infected were grappling for scrapes.

"Fine," he retorted, gently nudging their family reunion apart, taking an arm of each in order to help them off the ground. "But we're targets out here and you two aren't up to fighting form."

Nick grunted at the newly discovered pains as he stood, and doubled over, propping his hands against his knees, wondering if he had any cracked ribs. It wasn't getting much better, and Troy had a point - they were sitting ducks considering the proctors that could have gotten away. Proctor John wouldn't be lenient with Alicia the second time around.

"We gotta find her, Troy," he said, wincing as he straightened up. "Drive and search along the river."

Some sense came rushing back to Alicia as Troy pointed out what should have been obvious, and once she was back on her feet, her hand automatically reached for her back pocket. For her knife. It wasn't there. The Proctors had taken it from her, and never gave it back. Same with all of her other belongings.

She felt strangely naked without her loyal weapon, and though finding Madison was still her number one priority, she accepted Troy's concerns.

"You've got a car?" she asked them, brushing her wet hair away from her face, wiping gently at the bloodied gash with the sleeve of her denim jacket.

Troy gave them space, hovering close in case either were to take a tumble and God forbid knock themselves out.

"We'll do what we can. And the car's back that way," he said, guiding the two in the right direction with a light nudge before scrambling ahead.

He picked the scope he'd abandoned on the passenger seat, scanning the water's edge in search of Madison and Strand. Bodies had inconveniently littered the canal like trash—still moving in most cases—but none that resembled the two. That was the good thing about it and what would make this task easier. Blond and pitch black were hard to come by in this area.

Troy pocketed the instrument, removed the rifle from the front seat, and snuck it back into hiding where he could reach it, clearing up the seat to make space for whichever sibling chose to sit in the back.

The sight of the river carrying bodies with it was sickening. It filled Nick with sudden chill of fear to see the familiar blond hair and denim shirt of some face-down and clearly dead figure. It didn't come, and he forced himself to look away. It was no use. Too much time had passed, and they must be too far from here.

He nudged Alicia to follow Troy's lead while he peeled the wet uniform off and discarded it on the ground.

He cast the last look at the water, at where the bridge had been, then followed. Thankfully, it wasn't a long walk. He was having issues breathing and walking, like something was messed up inside. He had a similar feeling many years back when Alicia talked him into horseback riding with her.

She had her jacket over the saddle because it was hot that day, and then it dropped right under the nose of Nick's steed. It spooked and reared and dashed sideways while Nick went down because he had lost a stirrup when the horse reared. He felt broken from the inside for a week.

But it had been a milder discomfort than this. Falling off a horse couldn't equal going down with a crumbling bridge made of cement.

Nick claimed the shotgun seat and stilled, catching his breath.

"Thanks for saving my hide and my sister," he told Troy when Otto got behind the wheel. "For sticking around, after all."

Troy presented Nick a 'think nothing of it' smile in respects to his thanks and turned on the ignition, pulling away from the embankment to slowly follow along it.

Did Nick really think that he'd take off and abandon him to deal with everything alone? That wasn't Troy's style and had never been. Not where any of his friends or family were concerned.

And Nick was family. Whether he knew it or not.

Alicia slumped against the comfort of the backseat, a concerned frown claiming her features.

"The water was deep," she murmured once the two in the front fell silent, staring out the window in thought. "I couldn't get to the surface. What if she's just...What if she's stuck under there?"

Now, that was an alarming thought to mull over. It made Nick's heart beat faster, a trickle of cold ran through his spine.

"The current's too strong," he said eventually, unwilling to give in to her suggestion for her own sake. "It's hard to stay stuck in it. It'll carry her up. It probably has, just not here. It must be further."

"Here," Troy said, raising the rifle scope he'd been using as a binocular between them, offering it to either of the two to get a better look at the newfound river. He'd do it himself but driving—no matter how slow—wasn't conducive to watching for stray wasted as they piled into the road because of the noise created by the Jeep's engine or knocking them out of the way. There was only so much he could do.

Alicia didn't respond to Nick's words. Most of what she had to say would not be comforting. She couldn't help but remember how trapped she had felt, how hard she had fought. And clearly, she had made it to the surface at some point since Troy found her, but she knew for certain that did not happen while there was still breath in her lungs. When she stopped struggling.

What if it was the same with their mother? What if she hadn't made it out until it was too late? Or what if by some miracle she did make it out and was met with an assault by the infected? What if one of them was chomping on her flesh right now?

It was enough to make bile rise in her throat again. Alicia shifted to the other side of the backseat where the collisions with walking dead were less frequent, and rolled the window down in case she was going to be sick again.

They sat in silence as Troy steered. Nick took his scope, but had a hard time concentrating on searching. His mind had been assaulting him with all the what-ifs and maybes, all the regrets he had of pulling it the way he did. A part of his mind still felt a bit unreal. Like he had been feeling all the way on the bridge.

There was no sign of either. They stopped a few times, pulled out a few corpses. Three of them had milky eyes and snapped their teeth at them. But none of those were Madison or Strand.

Every failure made Alicia's face go darker. Nick could sense she was already grieving, unbelieving she'd ever see her mom, whether alive or dead or reanimated.

The sun was tipping toward the horizon more and more. Nick hated to voice it, but Alicia's gash needed to be cleaned, and they all were exhausted. Even Troy looked tired.

"It's gonna get dark in three hours or so," Nick said, lowering the scoped gun to his lap. "What if she got out and it's among the people we should look?"

"The people?" Troy asked, confused as to whether Nick was referring to those they'd been picking out on the side of the water's edge or those trying to grab as much of the liquid they could from the broken dam before it would all evaporate or seep away into the dirt.

It wouldn't take long in this heat – a few months – in reality and days for it to be considered contaminated by the rot buried beneath its depth.

"Where are you thinking? The trading post?"

"We can't go back there," Alicia said. "The Proctors, the ones who didn't come with John, will still be there." Besides, the thought of leaving this place behind didn't sit well with her. There was no way Mom could have made it all the way back to that old bullfighting arena. She had to be around here somewhere.

Alicia's gaze fixed on the back of Nick's head. "Proctor John… did he make it? Did the bullets get to him?"

She'd heard gunshots while in the boat. Had that been Troy? Or someone else?

"I couldn't tell you," Troy responded. "I took a couple of shots at him but so much was going on that it was hard to tell."

Nick took a deeper breath, put the scope back up and looked at the water, then at the people coming up with buckets, bottles and anything that could hold water.

"John and a couple of his men were still alive when I blew it. They were trying to get away. I was watching you guys… then Daniel came out of nowhere and pulled me away. We were almost off the bridge when it collapsed. I've no idea if he made it. But I would bet John did – they started running before me. They had time to escape."

There was no one familiar in the crowd, and it was getting more frustrating. Nick lowered the scope again and thought about Troy's question.

"Trading post is not the place," he said, half turning with a wince to look back at Alicia. "If she survived it and climbed out of water, she wouldn't leave the river side, just like us – she'll be searching around the river for you. For days if she has to. She won't leave until she exhausts all her hope to find you, and that takes a while."

A new sense of dread crept over Alicia at the likely possibility John was still alive, out there somewhere, maybe even looking for them. For Nick, who royally screwed up his plans.

"And you," she insisted, having seen firsthand the panic overwhelming their mother every time Nick went missing in the past. She'd search for him tirelessly day and night, even enlist the help of family-friends and neighbors if needed.

She'd never leave him behind if there was another option.

Nick looked to Troy, then out at the Mexicans scooping dirty water from the stream.

"We will have to stick around, drive back and forth until we exhaust our own hope. But no extremes: it gets dark, we find shelter and continue with daylight. Alicia needs her wound cleaned, means we gotta make a stop."

"It's just a scrape," she said, despite having no true knowledge of how the wound looked. It had stopped bleeding, though. That was good enough for her at the moment. "And all this driving's getting us nowhere. I'll go down, ask around if anyone's seen her. Or Strand."

Her high school Spanish would be enough to make herself understood. Even Nick had learned more phrases recently after staying with Luciana, and could probably help, too. Troy – she didn't know. But considering the strong level of racism she had seen in Jeremiah and what had trickled down to his youngest son, she assumed he'd never bothered with the language.

"You are both probably suffering concussions," Troy reasoned. "If anyone is going down there, it'll be me. You fall in and I doubt any of the people are going to scramble to get you out."

He drove for a while longer and then stopped.

"If you want to be helpful and think you can manage, you can drive for a while and take it slow. No more than twenty miles," he added for weight. He climbed out the car and peered between the Clarks. Then reached into the back, claimed one of the handguns that had fallen to the floor and checked how many bullets it had before slipping it into the waistband of his pants. "Are you two going to be okay?"

Unless most of the people down by the river spoke English, and Alicia doubted it seeing as many of them were children, sending Troy didn't make much sense. She didn't have to argue that, however. Nick did it for her.

He couldn't keep back an ironic smile. "Don't be stupid, Troy, your Spanish's good for nothing. Get back in, do the driving."

He put the scoped gun on the dashboard and pushed the door open, stepped out. He was steady enough on his legs, he found. His head ached a bit, the inside of his ribcage ached a lot, but there was nothing he could do about that one aside from trying to not let it show.

"My Spanish gets me by," Troy contradicted as he walked over to their side and started down at the people below. Just the idea of communicating with them was exhausting.

This whole thing was.

Nick rummaged through the bags and things Troy had stored in the back of the car, found the med kit, and pulled Alicia's door open. He placed the kit on her lap, turned to Troy.

"Do we have water or better some alcohol among the shit you piled up here?"

Alicia instinctively took hold of the kit, her gaze roaming the parts of Nick she could see. "Are you hurt?"

"Stay here and tend to your sister," Troy said. "The water's in the bag, along with some medical supplies but no alcohol. I didn't really figure we'd need that after—"

Troy didn't go into detail about what they'd been doing the night before. It wasn't necessary.

"Maybe the culos will be able to provide me with some," he murmured, walking away from the two, using the fact that they were injured to his advantage, putting quick distance between them.

Nick regarded him a moment, then reached in the back, rummaging some more until he got the half-full bottle of water.

He unscrewed the cap and gave it to Alicia: "Drink and wet a gauze." Then turned back to Troy: "You have fifteen minutes. If you're not back in fifteen, Alicia and I leave this awesome packed car of yours and go do it our way."

Nick smiled at him, translating that he totally meant every word, then took the gauze from Alicia and started to clean her gash gingerly.


Troy waved off the time frame, carefully trekking down to the water's edge, wondering if the people scavenging so desperately for water knew they were making themselves easy pickings for the infected.

They fought them and successfully killed the few that got too close, but the noise the kids made when scared only made it worse. Why would they even bring kids out here? Why not hole them away?

"Hola," he greeted, raising a hand to awkwardly wave.

The tanned woman knee deep in the water momentarily halted what she was doing and looked up at the American, confusion and suspicion written on her face.

At least in that essence she's smart, Troy thought.

"I—I'm…" He begun to lose her and he'd only just started talking. He took a step closer, trying to funnel the words together in his mind in a way that made sense. "Estoy… buscando ah..a alguien."

She looked at him and then continued her task, ignoring him as she attempted to heave it out of the stream and onto the embankment. A voice that sounded distinctly like Madison reminding him for a second time that day that he was in their country and not the other way around.

He got closer to her and forced a friendly smile onto his face, pushing aside her hand to grab the container and to lift it.

She reacted immediately, shoving him, rattling off in Spanish so quickly that he only caught one or two words while he tried to defend himself.

"Calm down! Calmese! I only want to help. Ayuda. I don't need your water."

All eyes had turned toward him, and most had begun to drag their stuff away.

"I'm looking for someone. A woman, moonar… mujer, color de pelo… blonde, rubia," Troy continued, scrabbling for every word he could remember, indicating to his head, growing more frustrated as she inched away, dragging her kids with her.

He let them go. He didn't have much of a choice.

He glanced at the water, wishing the woman would rise up already, and then moved to the next individual, repeating his former phrases, doing his utmost to stay polite and friendly.

He could do this. He would.


"You have the nicest friends," Alicia murmured in the wake of Troy's departure, following him with her gaze while she opened the med kit and located a piece of gauze. She wet it with the water Nick gave her and allowed her brother to take it from there, trying her best not to flinch as he went to work on her wound. "You didn't answer my question. Are you hurt?"

Nick smirked at her comment on Troy, but there was a bitter taste to it in his mouth. He screwed her over for him. And he still wasn't sure whether he'd want to go back and do it differently. Let Jake kill him. Nick wasn't sure he would. Less so with every passing hour since he made that choice.

Pushing the thought away, he shook his head, swiping the blood off around her gash the best he could to not hurt her.

"I don't think so. Aside from having gulped a lot of filthy water, I'm fine. You feel dizzy? Headache? Anything else that hurts?"

"Better now." And she was. The vertigo seemed to have calmed sometime in the last ten minutes, and she was no longer feeling nauseous. As for her ribs, she expected they would be sore for a while. It wasn't uncommon in cases where CPR had been administered. Sometimes the ribs even broke under the pressure of chest compressions.

She poked around the medical kit, eventually finding some closure strips. She assumed she didn't need stitches and that the delicate band-aids would do.

"I should have hurt him while I had the chance," she murmured, eyes on the package she was slowly unwrapping. "Proctor John. I could have. I just...I didn't know what he was planning."

An excuse that didn't exactly hold up. Not in her mind, anyway. She could have bought everyone time to get away had she made sure John never got up off that operating table.

Nick put the gauze down and took her chin to make her look at him. "Hey, don't do this. None of it is on you in any way, okay? This is just… what always happens. With places like that dam, like the ranch – it's a matter of time. We've learned it all the hard way. And you could've done absolutely nothing aside from getting yourself killed or abused by that man."

He poured some more water on the gauze and went on with finishing touches.

"It wasn't my decision to blow it, but I… I just… Strand told us he made a deal with John – he was a Trojan horse for them. He said that deal was gonna save mom and us. He just had to kill Daniel and that woman with him. I coulda let him do his shit, but I just didn't trust him more than I could trust myself. Maybe I was wrong to screw up his plan with my no-plan prank, but I wasn't prepared for another of his affairs that'd probably go sour. I shoulda let you guys go further, but there was no more time.

"If there's anyone to put this on, it's me. It's the goddam truth of it. I pressed the button before you got away."

He took the band-aids from her and applied them, gently making the gap on her skin close to prevent the scarring.

This was rare. Alicia didn't blame Nick for anything that had happened here, the thought hadn't even occurred to her. But it surprised her he was willing to share such self-reflection with her.

In the past, before the infection broke out and the world fell apart, when Nick was still highly addicted to heroin, he never would have admitted something like this. He would have found a way to explain it away, excuse himself of any and all responsibility. At least until he went back to rehab, and was able to see things more clearly.

She smiled, the notion she was getting her big brother back piece by piece briefly pushing through the general fear and grief of the day. "If I'm not allowed to wallow in self-hatred, neither are you."

She waited until he fixed the strips to her forehead before she grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him in for another one of those rare embraces that she sorely needed.

Nick reciprocated her embrace, nuzzling in her hair as his eyes closed to savor the moment, to let himself draw gratitude for her being alive and relatively well, here and now with him. He couldn't have hoped for more, or even that – he was a dead man on that bridge, no matter Troy or anything else that saved him by pure chance.

"What if we don't find her? What will we do?"

He reflected on her question. It pained him, but because of her. It had been more or less clear to him before Troy dragged him to the dam.

"I walked away from her," he said quietly into her wet hair, and pulled away from her, lowering to squat at her feet, wincing briefly. "I was already out, leaving her behind with all that C4 business… Troy stopped me by telling me she could die."

He forced himself to look her in the eye, wondering if she could possibly understand it. It might be the wrong time to stir it, but it was gnawing at him for a while. He felt tears sting the back of his eyes, but he knew hardly any would spill now.

"I went back to help, to make sure she wouldn't get killed while I wasn't around to do anything about it. I did, but… not because I wanted to… you know? Because it was some duty, something I had to do."

He shrugged as if to express how he didn't know why he even said it. He truly didn't know exactly why. Like he needed to hear himself speak it out in order to understand what it all meant.

He sought Troy out with his eyes – Otto wasn't doing so well with the locals, it seemed. The comedy of it didn't hold Nick's attention, however. He let his gaze drop to the ground, the image of his mother in the tunnels with that hammer in her hand heavy on his mind.

Alicia frowned, her confusion increasing the more he tried to explain. Her hands fell to her lap as she looked down to meet his gaze. She felt small, like a child being told something highly important by an adult, and they already knew she would struggle to understand. Similar to when Mom had informed her of Dad's 'accident'.

A few days ago, Nick had asked Alicia to come with them, and he seemed to have every intention of joining Mom, Strand, and Ofelia here at the dam. What had changed to make him want to leave as soon as he got here? And why had Troy of all people insisted they stay and help? He'd always seemed to have some weird obsession with their Mom, but still…

For a long, long moment, Alicia said nothing.

"What do you mean you didn't want to?"

Nick drew in a long breath, frowning as it hurt his chest, then looked up at her wearily.

"I just didn't. I guess it was something similar to why you left on your own. I was too damn tired of it all. Every place we went ended up in ruins, and every new place we found, she wanted to take over. She just always wants to take over. And whenever she has me around, I feel she needs to keep me in line, as well. As soon as I make a step sideways, there's the old mom with that cold you're-using-again look. I was planning to stick around the outpost before Troy told me proctors were going to attack. He brought me here to warn her, and the first thing she said to me was I hope you're using clean works."

Her brow remained furrowed. Not from anger or sadness, but further confusion. The more Nick told her, the more questions popped up that needed to be answered. Because most of this still didn't make sense to her.

It wasn't surprising he'd felt suffocated by their mother's 'love'. Mom would constantly hover over him like a nurse on suicide watch. This was nothing new. It had been like this ever since it first became clear Nick had experimented with drugs. Not that it helped any. If anything, it seemed to have driven him further down the path of self-destruction.

But ever since they left Los Angeles, Alicia hadn't gotten the sense Nick's addiction was high on the list of Mom's priorities anymore. And as far as she knew, Nick hadn't even indulged in alcohol, making Madison's comment all that more random.

He sucked in another deep breath, feeling sicker every moment the truth – at least a chunk of that truth – stayed buried and rotting inside him, and he made himself meet her searching gaze again.

"She almost killed Troy down there," he confessed. "Over the ranch and the horde. I stopped her and… walked away with him. She took over the whole world that he knew, he lost everything, then I had to tell him I killed his father so she could make a deal and lie about it, and then he got exiled because I didn't let him get himself shot that night in that damn house. When he came to warn me about that horde, he was out of his mind, he hadn't slept for days, almost raving. But he still came to warn. I don't justify him – not in a million years – but I…"

He threw his hands up and sat down on the ground against the side of the car.

"I don't know what to tell you. I just couldn't be there standing between them, anymore, and scratching my head trying to pick sides where there weren't any. I couldn't let her play god's punishing hand to him, so I took him like my eternal fucking sin, and left."

His confession about Troy did take her aback, however. They'd all wanted him dead at one point or another. Their initial meeting had made Troy their enemy. Even Nick, who didn't really approve of violence, had pulled a gun on him. And Troy Otto wasn't exactly the epitome of mental stability.

But Alicia didn't understand why, after she chose to send Troy away instead of having him killed, Mom now wanted him dead. For what?

The horde and the ranch, Nick said.

The horde and the ranch.

And just like that, little puzzle pieces clicked into place, painting her a very clear picture.

She had asked them that day after the little group got her out of the pantry. She had asked Nick and Troy both: Where did the horde come from?

And they had lied.

Alicia sat very still for the next few seconds as Nick propped his back against the car and sunk to the ground, thoughts and flashes of memory swirling wildly in her head. Something inside her snapped.

Her gaze fell on the medical kit and the pair of silver scissors that glinted up at her. Before she knew it, her hand closed around them, and she shot out of her seat, vision blurred by angry tears as she moved through a small group of women carrying their newly collected water, heading straight for Troy.