THE CHOSEN ONES — PART 8 (season semi-finale)

Nick's blood turned to liquid ice when Alicia appeared on the steps and froze there, eyes wide and locked on the shivering pagan. There was a dresser partially shielding her, but that didn't give him much relief.

The girl shook harder, but this time it was a little laughing fit. She looked mad like a hatter, both angry and scared, undecided which direction to pick.

"You…" she growled, shooting glowers at Alicia while steadying her gun better, her fingers straining on the handle. "Spirits chose you. They chose you! And you just couldn't do it right! Jack… and Matt… they… they…"

She gave a whimper, then shook her head as if to shed the grief for later, her eyes narrowed at Nick with ire.

"You had no right," she said. "You had to—"

"Die for you?" Nick asked. "Is that it? Because you people believe some things, others should die for your pleasure?"

Her fingers tightened on the trigger, pushing it a tiny bit. She glared. "It was a great honor! You would be one with… with everything! You'd become the power! The grace! Everything! There's nothing higher than that!"

"Why wouldn't you do that, then? Why pick people who don't care or know about that everything of yours?"

"Because this is how you know! This is why we all are here! To make you see!" Her eyes glistened with tears of rapture. "Mother Elise said it had to be this night. The ritual should be completed. This is why I'm here. It makes sense now." A smile bloomed on her face unexpectedly. "Thank you, Mother, you always guide me."

She was fucking crazy. That was Alicia's first thought as she listened to the girl's verbal assault, and it worried her. Crazy people were unpredictable. They were capable of anything.

It also made Alicia angry. The entitlement in the girl's voice, as if these people had a claim to her life. To Nick's. As if they had done them some great injustice by not allowing them to murder people for their beliefs.

At the same time, something in Alicia stirred when she talked of the spirits, some strange longing to be back in that place in time where everything was beautiful and sparkly. Instead they were all stuck here in this cold, grey reality.

Nick inched sideways, away from Alicia, guiding the muzzle with him. And then, it was as clear as a ray of sunshine in your eye: she was going to shoot.

She did.

It deafened him as he jerked to the side and launched at her before she could fire again.

She gasped as her back hit the floor. Nick heard the click of the trigger – that girl knew how to shoot, for sure – and grabbed her by the forehead, smashing her head into the floor. Her eyes rolled, her hand loosened, and Nick felt that the muzzle of her gun was pressing under his ribs. Where it would have fired next.

Alicia jumped when she pulled the trigger and watched in horror as her brother launched himself at the girl as she was about to fire another shot. Alicia raised her own gun, squeezing it so hard she could feel the stitches in her hand strain from the pressure, and pointed it at her.

Nick scooted back, pulled the gun from her hand, and felt the burning sting in his long-suffering shoulder. Liquid heat was soaking the sleeve.
"Dammit," Nick breathed, and checked on her. She was out cold, but alive.

As Nick pulled the gun from her limp hand Alicia slowly lowered her own, dashing into the trailer and kneeling at his side. He was bleeding again.

"Are you hit?!"

Nick pushed the confiscated gun into her free hand and touched his shoulder. His palm came away bloody.

"This one will probably need stitches," he said, trying to examine the extent of injury.

It wasn't through-and-through as they called it. Just a deep gash where the bullet nipped him. It bled worse than the arrow scratches, though.

"You okay?" he asked Alicia, scanning her. "She didn't get you with that?"

"Of course not." Once again her big brother had taken the brunt of the damage. She was getting really tired of people trying to kill the person she loved most.

She got to her feet, shoved one of the guns into the waistband of her pants, and opened the nearest cabinets, rummaging through them until she found a towel that looked clean. Returning to his side, she pressed the towel to his wound to staunch the bleeding, an apologetic look ghosting across her face at his obvious pain as she did so.

"Keep pressure here," Alicia told him, urging his other hand to take over. "We need to restrain her before she comes to."

Troy had been in the middle of rummaging through drawers and putting together his loot when the distinct sound of a gunshot rang out. He stilled and his blood turned cold.

He anticipated another shot, an indication that maybe the dead had caught up finally but it didn't come.

He shoved open the trailer door with a bang, appearing in the open doorway, scanning the line of trailers and area in search of the commotion before hastily heading for the opposite side. It wasn't hard to find what trailer they were in as it was the only one squeaking with motion as they moved around inside.

He yanked open the door and climbed inside, catching the tail end of Alicia's suggestion, it taking him literally two seconds to piece together what had happened and to snap the safety off his handgun.

"Forget it. We shoot her and be done with it."

Before Nick could retort with 'What then', Troy pushed into the trailer with his usual opinion.

Nick half turned to him, still keeping his body between Troy and the girl.

"She's got no weapons left, she's unconscious - it's murder," Nick stated, locking his eyes on Troy after shooting a glance at his sister, wondering whether she shared the sentiment.

Troy's forceful suggestion didn't surprise Alicia, but it still put her on edge, and she was glad Nick had stayed close to the unconscious girl's body. She knew Troy wouldn't shoot Nick. It'd be very hard to maintain a friendship after that.

But saving the girl still put them in a bind. What to do with her?

Leaving her here bound and gagged would condemn her to a slow death. A bullet would have been kinder. But simply leaving her didn't sit right with Alicia, either. She'd be able to stir up more trouble for them before they left.

"We take her to the ranch," Alicia said eventually, moving back to the cabinets to tear the other towels into strips like Troy had done the night before when the suggestion of tying her up had been on the table. "We take her to the ranch, explain the situation, and hope they have enough kindness in them to want to help her. She's young. Like that Katie girl."

Like them.

"She might still be able to let go of her… spirits, if someone kind enough shows her the way."

"And what she did to you was an intended love tap?" Had they learnt nothing from Proctor John? From Walker? From Troy himself? What about the damn pagans the day before?

If there was a way to save people or hand them over to some higher law where you knew it wouldn't come back and bite you in the ass, Troy would do so and gladly step aside but there wasn't.

The choice was you or them.

Nothing more and nothing fucking less.

"Where are they going to keep her?" Troy inquired. "I never saw a prison cell around there and I'm pretty sure they aren't equipped to deal with that kind of crazy. They barely contained their own. It's best to just end her. It's easier on everyone involved."

"Jeez, Troy, you can't murder people for your own convenience! It's not self-preservation anymore, it's fucking murder. It shouldn't be like that, it shouldn't be all there is - there's no reason to live if all you are is a machine for murder." Nick glanced at Alicia and shook his head. "We're not bringing a crazy to the ranch. She's out, she has no weapons. We can just leave her here. If no one else survived, she'll leave, too, because there's nothing left here for her. Let's leave and let her be. We can't be the ones to choose between her life and death. We can't be that. I don't wanna be that."

"It's the smart thing to do, Nick," said Troy.

They both had a point, Alicia reckoned – the ranch may very well not be equipped to deal with a prisoner, but what was to stop her from going after them should we simply leave her here? Crazy didn't need weapons to attack. They only needed enough conviction that what they were doing was the right thing.

She looked between the three of them, thinking, considering. "Fine. But we warn the people at the ranch of her existence. We don't know if she'll go after them, after Henry."

There was no upside to leaving her alive. None. Not for Troy, not for Nick, not for the people that would actually be staying here or anyone else that came across her senselessness.

"You're willing to save this one crazy and sacrifice a possible dozen Alicia's of this world fighting for survival when she gets into the next impressionable youth's head? Crazy breeds crazy. There's only one way to end it and that's to extinguish the source. You know that, I know that, and no amount of handing out warnings or pretending that this is a moral battle is going to change that. It's not, it's necessary – it's a necessity."

"No, it's not!" Nick yelled. "If I believed that, you'd be dead! This is not the way. We can't be the judges here to send her to death when she's not even the one who started the whole damn sect! That leader is dead, and this one is just another fucked-up girl with no one to back up her crazy. She can't die just because you're afraid of what she might or might not do."

"It's one thing to kill in self-defense, another to do it preemptively," Alicia said, a whole lot calmer than her brother who seemed to be on his last nerve. As if all the horror and hardships of the past few days were finally catching up to him. And he was still bleeding, not taking care of himself like she had urged him to, too preoccupied with protecting the girl.

Alicia swooped in to press the towel to his wound again, looking up at Troy.

"Can you please grab the bandages from the car? The stitches can wait until we're out of here, but we need to stop this bleeding."

And that was the thing wrong with this state of affairs. Troy should be dead. Madison knew that and had been prepared to fix her mistake. As much as Troy hated her for it, as much as it made him revaluate what he knew about her and what he liked about her – she was right. In this world, in this ongoing battle for existence, it was the only solution and the only prevention there was.

Faith was futile and a waste of energy.

Troy slipped the safety back into place, lowered the arm that had been poised and seeking a space between the two to shoot the girl and holstered the weapon.

"Let's just get him to the car. The sooner we're out of here the sooner crazy pants can go about establishing her merry fields of sacrificial lambs."

Troy stepped around them, over the girl and took a hold of Nick's shoulder to help him get to his feet, assuming that Alicia would know to keep pressure on the wound.

Nick raised a hand to stop Troy, refusing his help. "Go to the car, I'll follow. I'm serious. Start the car. Please."

Satisfied once Troy put his gun away, Alicia gave a nod of acknowledgement at his suggestion to get Nick to the car, preparing to help support Nick her side while keeping the towel in place.

They didn't even get him off the floor, however, her stubborn brother refusing his help for some reason. She frowned, trying to understand his reasoning. "Nick… come on."

Nick was peering at Troy knowingly. "I'll go once he's out of here and back in the car."

Here he was shot and even more injured than he was yesterday and he was rejecting Troy's help? Alicia aired Troy's incredulity. Nick had to be kidding.

Only he secondary proviso assured Troy he wasn't.

Troy laughed, sound laden with disbelief and exasperation and stepped over the girl again, kicking the trailer door open as he exited, snarling at the dog as it appeared to defend his territory again.

"Fuck off!" Troy growled.

If it were close enough Troy'd have kicked it square in his stupid teeth. The dog detected the danger and scuttled away, disappearing beneath the trailer, barking at him annoyingly as he headed for the Sedan.

Alicia half-expected Troy to knock Nick out, at least judging by the unamused look on his face. It seemed he, too, had his patience stretched thin, and Alicia knew sooner or later there would be an altercation between the two.

Not something she had time to consider now, however, as she draped an arm around her brother's waist to steady him so they could make their 'escape'. "You okay to walk?"

Satisfied that Troy left without any further arguments, Nick let Alicia help him up.

"It's just my shoulder, not my spine," Nick retorted with fleeting amusement. "I can walk, I'm fine. Let's just go."

He ushered her out of the trailer before him. He closed the door and followed Alicia to the car.

Nick's amusement, however fleeting, annoyed her. Alicia had come far too close to losing him too many times these past few days, and it was wearing her down. It didn't help that her body seemed to be growing heavier by the minute and that the mere walk from the trailer to the car had left her slightly winded.

"Let's get your rifle," he told Troy when they got in.

Troy didn't have to wait long for them to catch up, stopping Alicia before she got in next to her brother, keeping his voice intentionally low as he handed her the Sedan keys.

"Take your brother back to the cabin and get him stitched up. Don't let him be a sacrificial idiot. I'm going to get my rifle and I'll meet you guys back there in an hour or two."

Troy wasn't going to argue the logic of numbers or debate putting them in harm's way anymore – not for his needs. Troy didn't wait for her response or for him to realize his intention before jogging away from the Sedan toward the densely packed hillside.

Alicia pushed Nick's good hand to the towel to keep the pressure steady as they were forced to part, blinking up at Troy as he intentionally blocked her access to the car. She frowned, clenching the keys in her hand, not really comfortable with the idea of him going off alone. But she wasn't going to run after him like an idiot, either.

Alicia got into the driver's seat and started the car, glanced over at Nick to make sure he was still all right, and pulled out of the clearing.

It's not a mystery to Nick what Troy was trying to pull when he trotted away toward the woods. It made Nick curse. Why did he have to be so tiring?

"Drive back to the road and turn right on the fork. We'll meet him halfway, otherwise he'll be out there for hours we don't have. And in danger."

His command didn't come as a surprise, but it still made Alicia want to slam her head against the steering wheel.

"You two disagree on absolutely everything," she murmured, taking them through the forested area on the way back to the main road. "You clearly don't trust him."

And he shouldn't, in her opinion, but it had been somewhat of a shock to discover.

"Why were you so insistent on staying with him?" Had it simply been to get away from Mom? Alicia was genuinely curious.

"He doesn't take chances with people he doesn't know. He doesn't even want to bother and try to know them when he makes up his mind about them. Perhaps it's safer from a survival perspective, but what does it make me if I do the same or stand by enabling him? I don't trust him with people he deems dangerous. But I trust him with my life and the lives of those I love because he proved it to me. He's not an angel, but he's not hopeless. Never has been. I felt better with him than ever before with mom. He's honest, he doesn't manipulate me, or judge me for anything."

Nick shrugged, as if to rely that he didn't know what else to say, and pressed the towel tighter to his shoulder, wincing.

"There's the turn."

Alicia was grateful for his honesty and the fact he hadn't simply brushed her question aside like Mom would have. She knew that as the older sibling it would be hard for him to ever see her as anything other than his kid sister, but it was important to her, to our relationship, that he didn't treat her as a child. She was young, but she hadn't been a child for a very long time.

She nodded, taking the turn as it came up, vigilant in case they'd run into the dead or God forbid, the living.

"You love him?"

Nick looked up at her from his shoulder with surprise turning into confusion. "What do you mean?"

Alicia would have thought her question fairly obvious, but his gaze reflected heavy confusion.

"Do you love him?" she asked again, briefly meeting his eyes, unable to keep from smiling at the look on his face. "Like a friend," she clarified. "He's important to you? You care about him? You love him?"

Nick sighed, averting his eyes to the road as he debated it. Troy's face came to mind when he told Nick he loved him in the Jeep while Alicia was talking to mom at the river.

"I care if he lives or dies," Nick responded. "I wouldn't stick around if I didn't. And yes, I guess he is my friend."

He cared if Troy lived or died? That wasn't much to go on in Alicia's book. He could say the same about Miss Crazypants back at the trailer.

Admitting they were friends rectified that, though. It was good for Alicia to know. Troy hadn't hesitated to admit he cared for Nick. But, of course, Troy didn't seem to be bothered by labels or how others perceived him. There was a freedom in that she envied.

"Okay," she said. "Let's go get your friend."


There was freedom in knowing that Alicia would take care of Nick and that he actually trusted her to do so. Troy wondered sometimes if he'd gone from one extreme to the next. He'd put so much energy into the ranch, into keeping it together, afloat, and had redirected all of that onto his friend.

Troy was smothering him.

At least when he stopped to analyze things did it feel that way.

Maybe Nick considered him a carbon copy of his mother – with a dick.

Troy grimaced at the image, enjoying the climb the more intense it got, feeling a sense of satisfaction creep in that he hadn't this morning when he'd first needed the release.

Troy approached the road on the other side of the hill ten minutes later, being careful to stay among the trees so that he wouldn't be spotted when the sound of an engine stirred his into motion. Troy ducked behind a tree, peering in the direction the noise was coming from to see who'd be happening along, scowling in recognition the closer the vehicle got.

"Fuck sake."

Troy stepped out, easing onto the road and made a simple hand gesture to wave them down.

A small smile crept onto Nick's mouth as Troy signaled for them to stop. He didn't seem happy, which amused Nick more.

"We might need to go on foot soon enough," he told Alicia when she was slowing to a stop. "The woods get thicker at the top of the hill."

"I remember," Alicia said, and strangely she did.

She didn't pull over to the side of the road. What was the point? But she stopped just beside where Troy was waiting, allowing him to get in. He was clearly pissed.

"My brother's stubborn," she said with a shrug of explanation.

Troy glared at Nick in the front seat and remained silent as they drove the rest of the way.

When they reached the bend in the road and Troy knew they'd have to stop to hike up the side, he gestured for Alicia to pull over.

"If you have to be here, Nick, then you stay in the car."

"Fuck you, Troy," Nick tossed the towel on the dashboard and pushed the door open, climbing out of the car.

Alicia pulled the keys out of the ignition and looked back over her shoulder at Troy as Nick climbed out.

"He's not good with orders," she said. "Never has been."

She opened the door her side and headed outside, pulling the gun from her waistband to keep it at the ready.

Troy rolled his eyes skyward and slammed the door, curling his hands into fists. He wanted badly to punch something. "Whatever."

He was done trying to talk sense to Nick. Troy only hoped he wouldn't end up getting himself injured any further than he already was. Otto walked ahead of them and followed the same track he had the day before, steering only a little off course until the sounds of the dead started to beckon and easily show the way.

There weren't as many as there were the day before but they were everywhere, immediately reacting to the trio's presence. He picked up speed and removed his knife to begin dispersing them.

Nick let Troy take the lead. He was pissed, Nick saw it clearly. Troy needed an outlet, and he had it fully when the dead started to pop up between the trees. Alicia and Nick barely had any strays to pick up after him. He could wear himself out pretty quickly, but, as Nick recalled from the ranch days, he had a long-running stamina when it came to slashing the infected.

The closer they got to the clearing, the more were coming their way. Nick took out a few and felt the fresh warmth soaking into his sleeve. It stung, but not too badly yet. He could still ignore it, and he did.

The red tent was still standing. The bonfire that could have gotten out of control hadn't because of how well it was constructed. Big boulders framed the ashes, still seeping smoke. He bent and picked up Troy's rifle lying a couple of feet from it, and waved it at Troy.

"It's here."

Not too many dead were on the ground. Nick didn't remember the night all that clearly, but he recalled those Troy had killed in his frenzy, and they were the ones down. The rest were wandering like ghosts until they saw the living.

The red tent looked more frightening to Alicia now than it had the night before. It could have been the corpses sprawled out all around the clearing, accompanied by more of the walking dead, but she thought it was rather the realization of how close she had come to losing yet another part of herself. Lose was the wrong word. Taken. They would have taken a piece of her she would never be able to get back. Just like Troy had taken something from her by sending that horde to the ranch.

They looked around for a bit, in search of Troy's rifle, and it wasn't too long before Nick called out he'd found it. She let them go to claim it and crouched down on the ground next to a dead body in a white gown. The old woman. Mother Elise, Alicia thought they'd called her.

The sacrificial knife lay next to her and Alicia picked it up. It was beautiful really. Like a piece of lethal art. Even if it was currently covered in dried blood.

She decided to keep it. Just like she'd kept Jack's knife. They'd been trying to take something from her. She would take something in return.

Unlike when Troy would stop to check the random dead and see if they had anything of use on their bodies, he didn't bother with these people. He'd cut through them and moved on.

Troy headed toward the area he'd been taking pot shots from the day before and found only the man who'd been tussling with him, his arm and part of his face missing.

The dead companions had done a number on him.

Troy headed deeper off into the incline of forestry in case the dead or someone had pushed it off while they were fleeing and scrambling around for eats and stopped when Nick called to say he'd found it.

It was all the way at the bonfire.

Had someone picked it up and tried to make use of it?

Even if they had, they didn't get very far.

Troy grinned and made his way over, reaching out to take it from him, slinging the strap over his head where it could rest against his back like an old friend once Nick gave it to him.

"Thanks," Troy said, gaze flitting between the two and the few dead that remained in the distance, swaying toward is, struggling with the natural dips of nature and feeble obstacle course provided by rocks. "We done here?"

Nick didn't answer, approaching Alicia and the leader's corpse. He didn't linger, merely taking note of his sister picking the knife he remembered from last night's festivities. He went toward the tent, listening for any movement.

There was a lot of blood and a few bodies inside. All of them wore dresses that used to be white. A guard woman lay in the corner, shot in the face. Her weapons belt was still on her, so Nick crouched and pulled it off.

A sob.

He froze, surveying bodies. Was it his imagination?

She was hiding behind the altar table, shaking with tears and shock and apparently fever. Not all of the blood on her arms belonged to other people.

She was in a bad shape, but her eyes sharpened when they landed on Nick.

"They'll take you," she croaked. "They'll take you anyway, because you're marked. You're theirs. Theirs!"

Alicia gave Troy a nod, then followed her brother with her gaze, hesitating when he entered the red tent. She didn't want to go in there, didn't even really want them in there. She remembered the altar, the restraints… just more proof of what they'd intended to do to her had Nick died. Is that what would have killed her, she wondered? Would they rape her to death? It wasn't impossible. I'd seen rape-victims come in at the hospital, bleeding and broken beyond belief.

Would that have been me?

"Nick, can we just go, please?" Alicia said, loud enough for him to hear her, not loudly enough to attract more of the dead in the area.

Troy trailed after Nick since he didn't response and there was nothing else to do. Otto had what he wanted and what he desired now was to get out and go.

The dead, too, had lost their appeal.

Troy slipped between the two siblings, unsure of what he was looking for inside the tent and lingered in what was assumed was the makeshift entrance way to provide support.

"They're fucking cockroaches," he commented with a whisper of irritation when the shaky girl revealed herself and her ominous reprisal. She didn't appear to have a gun like the previous survivor they'd run into but that didn't mean she was defenseless or without a weapon. "Let's move, Nick, Alicia's getting antsy."

The bitten girl didn't seem to notice Troy or Alicia, her red, tearful eyes never wavered from Nick. There was everything in them, fear and ire, and hatred, and accusation.

He fully accepted the latter because it was the tree of them who broke down their house of cards here.

"You'll be sorry when they get you," she kept hissing as if in trance. It seemed to be adding her a bit of strength. "You'll regret you didn't let it happen when it had to. You will regret it."

The gun felt like a bag of bricks when Nick leveled it on her.

"They'll get you," she promised, her eyes glistening. "They will. Soon."

Her head jerked back when he fired, a spray of red got lost on the tablecloth behind her.

Nick turned and walked out past Troy, shoving the gun back in his belt, feeling sick to his stomach.

Alicia jumped at the sound of a gun going off, the image of Nick lying dead inside the tent of doom burrowing itself into her mind and had her rushing for the entrance. She didn't make it there before Nick walked out, looking no more wounded than when they'd come here, but seemingly reluctant to meet her gaze.

Troy lingered at the entrance and she pushed herself forward to see what had happened, to understand.

Troy peered at the scene Nick left behind with as much disbelief or curiosity as Alicia and a deeper sense of aggravation than ever before. Troy couldn't believe he'd done that. Not because he'd killed the girl—although that was a mystery on its own—but because less than forty minutes ago he'd spurned Troy for wanting to do just this.

Troy'd have laughed, too, if he wasn't angry.

He whirled around and slipped all the way out of the tent, noting that the noise had made the dead on the outskirts more vigorous in their attempts to get to them.

Troy didn't care about that.

"What the fuck was that, Nick?"

Another one of the girls was creeping toward Nick nearly tripping over her innards.

She gifted him with another jolt of pain when he held her to stab his knife into her brain.

"What did it look like?" He turned to Troy, sheathing the blade.

Alicia watched the woman a brief moment, wondering if she had tried to attack Nick or if she had possible already turned. She couldn't quite see from this distance. She didn't stay long to watch what had happened inside, not because the dead bodies bothered her but because the tent itself did. Alicia's heart was pounding rapidly, her palms felt sweaty, and she knew if she spent much more time beneath the red canopy, she'd soon struggle to breathe. That in itself pissed her off, but she forced it aside, following Troy back out to her brother who put his knife into another woman. She'd already passed before they came here.

And she wasn't alone. More were coming their way.

Another "discussion" was about to break out between Nick and Troy, but Alicia didn't have it in her to pay it much mind at the moment, instead using her newfound knife to dispose of a few dead that no longer had the ability to walk and lay about the campsite like flopping fish.

Troy scarcely reacted as Nick took out a walker, side-stepping her as she fell down, unintentionally stepping on some of her squishy guts. "It looked like you killed an unarmed woman running her mouth. Is that suddenly a thing now? Or do the rules of morality only apply from minute to minute and how it suits the Clarks?"

Nauseous and a little woozy, Nick forced himself to look at Troy, his face reflecting nothing. Nick didn't know what he felt aside from exhaustion, anymore.

"She was bit in several places and running a fever. What would your morality code suggest to do about that?"

It felt like they were close to a breaking point with all the arguing they were doing, and Alicia couldn't tell for sure if this would become a serious problem, or if they were both just tired and unable to keep their emotions in check. Right now it didn't much matter.

They needed to get back and take care of Nick's injury. Not to mention they still had the horse to think about.

She started off in the direction of the car, assuming the two of them would fall into step behind her soon enough.

"In that case, she was going to die anyway. You can't pick and choose when you want to play God or the morality police, Nick. You either kill people or you don't."

Alicia's movement caught his eye and after a second's thought Troy followed her, pushing down the impulse to help him since he looked weak, assuming that Nick would be right behind them.

Nick heaved a ragged sigh, staring at the ground when he started away. Helpless anger, disgust, and a bottomless, impossible weariness sloshed together like tidal waves, draining the life out of him.

Maybe Troy was right, and Nick no longer saw anything in the right light. It was the worst that could happen to him, and he failed to evade it.

Before one of the still walking corpses gained on him, Nick started to move away from the clearing.

Alicia took care of the few dead in their way this time, but luckily there weren't too many of them. Most who remained seemed to be trailing behind them.

Alicia unlocked the car, but waited until Troy and Nick joined her before thinking about getting inside, handing the keys to Troy because he seemed to know the roads better than she did.

"You okay?" she asked Nick, one hand on his good arm pause him long enough for her to get a look at him.

Nick nodded in response to her question, and slipped in the passenger's seat.

Troy was eager for the distraction of driving and happily took the keys from Alicia, removing his rifle to hand it to her to put into the back with her, and slipped into the driver's while they exchanged a few words, waiting until both were seated and securely inside before easing the Sedan into reverse and heading back to their temporary home.

The drive was short and the roads empty of any more pagans lurking in the bushes.

He parked the Sedan beside the jeep so that it would be easier for them to transfer their stuff, suddenly exhausted and done with this day.

They needed a restart.

"Before we start transporting our shit from car to car, you need to get stitched up, Nick." A job Troy assigned to Alicia with a glance since she no longer appeared to be high. "Good?"

Alicia nodded, climbing out of the car and unlocking the jeep so she could put Troy's rifle away and retrieve the med kit, along with Troy's new sewing equipment. Like they'd already established, her needle-work wasn't all that great, at least not back in sixth grade. But her brother was not a pillow, and she would not have to embroider him with flowers. She could do this, had watched the procedure done a hundred times at the hospital. But it would still hurt him, and that was the part that made her nervous.

Nick grabbed the towel from the dashboard, the belt he took from the fallen guard in the tent, and stepped out of the car. He tossed the belt into the back of the Jeep, past Alicia, and went for the cabin's porch. He desperately wished for a drink or five.

Alicia followed in her brother's wake when she had what she needed, climbed the steps to the porch and dragged one of the chairs over to the other so she could sit beside him. Opening the med kit and the bottle of water she'd brought, she removed some gauze and wet it, carefully rolling the sleeve of his shirt up so she could get access to his new wound. It looked worse than the other had, but at least it was just a graze as well. No bullet.

Alicia cleaned it as gently as she could. The bleeding had stopped, but started up a little again with the friction of the gauze. Still, it was manageable.

"You okay with me stitching you up?"

Nick did his best to gnash his teeth together and not let the pain onto his face, for Alicia's sake. She didn't have to suffer through that, and he knew he would.

Nick shook his head at her question, made himself smile a little. "Who else would I trust with that?"


Troy climbed out of the Sedan and decided to stay with the vehicles while they headed inside to get him fixed up, rearranging the stuff inside to make space for what they'd taken. He didn't look and see, assuming that everything they'd taken was of value and necessary and stuffed it into the back of the car.

It didn't take him long.

When Troy was finished, he shut the door and leaned against it, eyeing the garage where the horse was waiting on them. It couldn't wait to come out.


"Troy did a decent job with me yesterday," Alicia murmured, holding up her bandaged hand before getting started on the needle and thread. "Though to be fair, I've been told I was high as a kite when that happened, so who knows what it really looks like under there."

Said with dark humor in a faint attempt to make them both feel better as she pinched his skin together in order to stitch it up, trying not to put too much focus on his pain. She knew it hurt like hell, but it had to be done.

Nick set his jaw, focusing on keeping from wincing, but it was a big test of tolerance. Even though he could remember his withdrawals that had been dozen times worse than this, it still was bad enough. Now that he felt like just lying down and not getting up for a week.

"So you don't even remember how bad it was?" he managed through gritted teeth, sneaking a glance at her. "Your hand? How much do you remember?"

Alicia worked carefully, finding the process easier than she would have expected and eventually her nerves abated.

"When he stitched me up?" she shrugged. "No, it hurt. But probably not as much as it would have if I'd been, you know… normal me. No pain when it happened, though. When I grabbed that knife. Guess that's one of the dangers of drugs, hm?"

Six stitches seemed to be enough. It would hold the wound closed, and might not leave too bad a scar. Though she doubted Nick would care much about that. He'd never been vain.

Alicia put the needle away and cleaned blood off his wound again before drying and dressing it in fresh bandages, rinsing his own hands shortly after.

"Not all drugs," he said. "But mescaline is a tricky thing. It can take you on a wildest trip and show you impossible things, make you feel things you'd never feel otherwise. At least how I know. Never tried it. And no, I meant what you remember from all that night. How much of it? If anything?" It occurred to him it might be a sensitive topic, making him wince. "Or if you don't wanna talk about it… it's okay, too."

Alicia hesitated a little, drying her hands on the thighs of her jeans, thinking it over.

"I remember bits and pieces. Some larger than others. Got to admit I'm still not quite sure what was real and what I just imagined.

"I saw Dad," she admitted, glancing over at him. "In the tent. He was all… messed up."

Nick frowned to herself, looking down at the wooden floor. "Well, that one wasn't real. You… think a lot about him?"

He looked back at her.

"Not as much as I should, probably." Alicia rinsed the needle they'd used and put the thread back in the kit. "But ever since Mom told me–" Alicia hesitated, briefly recalling she'd also told her Nick could never find out. But Alicia suspected he already knew. He'd understood it, even if it had gone over her head at the time. "You know… that it wasn't an accident."

The two were in deep conversation and it didn't take Troy long to join them, not conversationally, but physically. He sat down on the top step and leaned back on his elbows.

It was one thing to believe something was this or that way. The other thing was to get a confirmation. It somehow still stung Nick deeply, somewhere he didn't think it could.

"There is no 'should' in that, Lisha," he said. "It's not a duty to think of people or miss them. It's just… what is or isn't there, is all."

"I guess," she said, leaning back in her chair. "I thought of him a lot before the world went to shit. Lately, I've been distracted. "I saw other people too. Travis, Chris, Liza, Matt, Jake, the people from the cellar. They were all there, like freakin' ghosts. Guess I'm not handling my guilt as well as I thought."

She shrugged.

"It felt very real. They could touch me and I could touch them."

"When you lose people, you get endless what-ifs, and you keep wondering what you could've done differently, and whether any of that difference would matter and change the outcome. It's not easy to get over it, not for a while. Even if you know there was nothing you could do that would change anything, you still wonder. You still wish for a second chance you'll never get.

"The hardest thing is to forgive oneself, harder than forgiving others. You'll get there. Because there was truly nothing you could've done differently in that cellar. You did the best you could with what you got."

Nick glanced at her.

"I don't doubt it was real to you. Our dreams are, too, until we wake up."

"Yeah." Alicia reached over to briefly squeeze his hand, appreciating his words, his support. "Just gimme time."

She paused, looking from to Troy and back again. "Did I try to hurt either of you last night? In the clearing, I… that part's fuzzy."

"No," he responded. "You tried to save me, and you did."

Troy remember walking into the storage basement, seeing all those familiar faces scattered around the inside like dead insects and the strange clarity that had swept through him.

He had wanted to punish them for their betrayal, for their ingratitude and for surrendering to the Indians so easily when they should have stood their ground as a group and he'd wanted Jake to witness it.

All of it.

The latter hadn't gone according to plan and for that he was sorry.

Troy didn't want him to die, he hadn't intended to get Jake killed, and if there was one thing about that day that Troy could change, it would be that, and only that.

The rest got what they deserved. They were weak, anyway.

Or was it he that was weak?

Troy turned his left hand over and scrutinized the wound, the scar he'd been gifted from Mad Dog while trying to save Nick and flexed his fingers. It had healed well enough but there was a lingering of damage – an ache – that was new and imbedded beneath the skin.

"You didn't hurt me either. I can't say the same for the line of women that were around you, but that was all in self-defense, you shouldn't beat yourself up about that."

Alicia couldn't help but smile at Nick's revelation, though she felt a little sad for not remembering that moment. It would be nice to add some good with all the bad.

"I don't," she told Troy moments later. She knew she had hurt someone other than the Leader-woman, but there had been so many people running and screaming and pushing at her, she hadn't quite caught on who'd been in line of her knife. Alicia was grateful it was neither of the boys.

Nick wondered whether she remembered anything from their conversation last night, but didn't want to ask.

He picked up the towel and looked between them. "We ready to go?"

"Unless either of you want to take a time-out and get some rest, I'm ready."

They were the ones that needed it.

Alicia because she'd spent the night supercharged on artificial energy and only had so much rest, and Nick because being shot or even grazed took it out of you.

He could say and do what he wanted to demonstrate the contrary but Troy knew better.

"I'm good," Alicia said, handing the medical kit to Troy as she stood and walked off the porch. "I'll get the horse out."

They could rest in the car later. Right now that seemed like a damned deserved treat.

Troy accepted the medical kit and slipped it into his pants pocket, leaning to the left slightly so she wouldn't accidentally tread on him as she headed for the garage.

Nick rose from the chair and walked off the porch stairs.

Alicia opened the garage, and the horse trotted out, immediately taking care of its impending business.

"Perhaps you better wait in the car with Troy while I take him?" he suggested, approaching Alicia.

The horse still had the saddle and bridle on from the day before, and she could tell it was annoyed by that. Alicia couldn't blame him. Though she preferred to keep the saddle for her ride, she could remove the bridle. Or at the very least the snaffle bit, to give its mouth a break.

She looked back at Nick over her shoulder as he approached, then turned to him with an arched eyebrow, a look of challenge.

"Perhaps you better wait in the car?" Alicia flashed him a small smile, trying to reassure him. She knew he was worried. "But we deliver him together, okay? I don't really want to meet with those people alone."

"You don't have to because I will," Nick said. "I promised them, so they expect me. Look, I don't wanna believe that Troy might be right and some of them knew about the sect. But if by any crazy chance Troy's paranoia isn't unfounded, I'd rather you stayed in the car. Just to be safe."

"I know you do," Alicia said, closing the distance between them and laying a hand on his good shoulder, somehow hoping what she was saying would help sink in better then. "But Nick, you can't hide me away whenever there might be danger. This is the world now, this is our life. And I promise you, I am actually quite decent at taking care of myself. I have been for a very long time.

"So I'm going to ride that horse back to the ranch, get some fresh air, some sun, clear my head. And you and Troy will have my back, just as when we travelled here. And then you and I hand the horse over together."

"I know you can take care of yourself, but not against a bullet when you're on a horse and such an easy target. Who knows if there are more crazies with guns around."

"And have you suddenly become a bullet-dodger?" Alicia arched a brow again, releasing him from her hold and moving towards the horse to take care of that snaffle bit.

The horse didn't run from her, too preoccupied trying to get at the grass. But she did have to struggle a bit to lift its head up enough to detach its mouthpiece. It came away slimy and with traces of grass.

"Well," Nick chuckled, following her, "it could be not just my shoulder and it wasn't her shitty aim that helped. Besides, if something happens, it better be me than you."

Troy sat with the medical box in his lap, eyeing the two as they followed the horse around, discussing who should ride it and the minor details in between.

He could have offered to do it himself but considering the disclaimer stipulations not to show his face in fear of offending the ranch peoples delicate sensibilities, he thought it best not to bother.

That would just start up a whole new fight, anyway.

"That's your opinion," Alicia countered, throwing the mouthpiece aside and checking the saddle before she climbed up and onto the horse, taking hold of the reins and turning around so she could look at Nick again. "It's decided. Let's get this over with so we can get the hell away from this place."

"Don't linger by the trailers, ride past them faster," Nick asked. "We don't need any more surprises."

He looked back to see where Troy was, and went for the Jeep.

Alicia nodded in response to Nick's request, trying to reassure him she would be careful. And she had every intention to be. She was not eager for another meeting with the crazies who might still linger out there somewhere.

Troy reached for the backdoor, slipped the medical box inside and climbed into the driver's seat, waiting until Nick had gotten into the passenger's before twisting on the engine and followed Alicia slowly.

The same way and with the same pace as he did when they first got here.

The horse walked at a normal pace for about five minutes before switching into a trot. It seemed eager to run, probably had some pent-up energy from being inside for so long, and she didn't discourage it from doing so.

Riding was less painful today than it had been when they first traveled here, and while Alicia still kept a close and wary look at her surroundings it also allowed her to enjoy their little trip.

When they got close to the trailers, she threw a glance over her shoulder to make sure Nick and Troy were paying attention, and sped up, allowing them to do the same. They got past without further incident, but she still felt a sense of unease until they had put them behind.

Nick couldn't get rid of the worry wiggling in his gut until they went past the trailers that looked as abandoned as they had before. He wondered if the girl went away or was still cowering inside one of them, wallowing either in grief or hate, or both.

When they turned off the road for the ranch, a couple of riders headed from the distance their way.

"Stop here," he told Troy, and when he did, Nick stepped out. "We'll be a few minutes, watch out for shit just in case."

He went for Alicia where she held the horse back waiting for him. The two riders trotted toward her. George and Matthew, like the night before.

"Howdy, fellas," George touched his hat, stopping in front of Alicia, and slipped off the horse, holding the reins to Matt. The young man took them and kept a bit behind while George approached them.

"Like we promised," Nick nodded at the horse. "Will you take him?"

"Of course," George said, stroking the steed's muzzle. "If you decided to leave, there's no place for a horse on the road. We'll take good care of 'im." He studied them in turn, his face getting a bit morose. "We tried to talk to Katie. She's just crying, not telling much, especially 'bout your other boy there… Troy." He stepped closer to Nick, his eyes searching Clark's. "Can you swear to me he didn't do anything…"

"He didn't," Nick said, holding his gaze like he did with Daniel. Only this time Nick felt he wasn't lying. Troy was many things, but a rapist he was not.

Alicia wasn't sure how she felt about hearing Katie had still not recovered from her time spent with Troy, but guilt was definitely not something that came to the surface as George spoke. For all Alicia knew, her crying could be a plot to make her own crimes seem less horrible, to make her people take pity on her. It was a clever move if it worked, but didn't particularly fill Alicia with sympathy. She wasn't able to forgive Katie. Not yet. The wound was still too raw.

"He wouldn't," she supplied when Nick fell silent and George still didn't look thoroughly convinced. "We wouldn't be with him if that was something he was capable of."

"All right," George said finally, and shrugged. "It's confusing when she doesn't talk, 'specially to her parents. We're all worried, she's such a cheerful girl."

He glanced between the siblings, then set his eyes on Alicia.

"I heard Nick's story last night. I'd be much obliged if you told me from yer point, you know? What has actually happened?"

"She'll bounce back," Alicia said dryly, feeling George's eyes on her as he asked for her version of the yesterday's events. Part of her didn't want to share, didn't want to divulge on the things that had happened and would have happened had things not turned out differently. But they did deserve to know, at least in part, who those people had been. Especially if some of them still remained.

"They took me from your guesthouse during the night and brought me back to their trailers. They believed in some sort of spirits and intended to kill Nick in their name, and rape me to commune with them. They made a game out of it, sent Nick out into the forest to hunt him down, while they fed me peyote."

Or at least that's what Nick assumed.

"Whoever managed to catch him, got to take their turn with me first." She was blunt and precise, because it was the only way she wouldn't become emotional. "But since Troy managed to find his way to us, he got to Nick before they did. Or Nick got to him. And they intervened. We managed to escape."

George's face was a show of emotions, most of them closer to disgusted disbelief. He shook his head, heaving a long exhale.

"Boy… What a mess," he uttered, pulling his hat out and running a hand nervously through his hair. "What a mess. And you say Katie – our Katie – was a part of it? That she's… one of them?!"

"She was the one fixing them with a prey," Nick said. "We're not blaming her as if she came up with it – I'm sure it's not coming from her. If you had these people around for a while, they got to her somehow. Maybe not just her. So how deep her beliefs in any of their spirits is, or whether she was merely scared and tried to protect all of you by playing along – it's up to you to coax out of her. We're just glad she did tell Troy the truth in the end, so he got to us."

"I'm sorry it all happened, you guys," he said. "I never thought any of that was possible. Even though so much bad stuff's happening everywhere, we don't get that in our ranch here, we've been that lucky. Darn."

He shook his head again, than stroke a hand over his head and put the hat back on.

"Let's do this: you come with me a minute, we get your horsie settled, and then we give you something nice for the road, okay? Lemme do this for ya, it's only fair. It's a great shame to my family home here when bad things happen to my guests under my roof. Let me at least try to make it up to y'all. Seriously, come with me a minute."

He made a welcoming gesture and started away. They followed with the horse.

Every instinct Alicia possessed screamed at her not to follow George into the ranch, but Nick was already on his way and there was not chance she'd let him go on his own. She didn't hand over her weapons this time, but nor did anyone ask to do so. It made her feel somewhat more at ease, knowing she could pull the gun from her waistband if someone suddenly jumped them.

Rosemary smiled and made them feel very welcome as she hustled around the kitchen with a white cotton bag, shoving bread, apples and pie in it. She handed it to Alicia, then added a bottle of cider, then went to the pantry and came out with another cotton bag. She opened it to show them.

"Dried meat," she said with a proud smile. "An old recipe to keep the Wild West rangers and Native worriers alike fed and strong out there in the prairies. It's a real treat these days. Takes a few bites to keep one strong."

"Thank you, it's very generous," Nick said.

"Aw, it's nothing."

She bound the bag and gave it to him, smiling as she looked between them.

"It's sad that you leave, but I wish you to be safe. And maybe you'll return sometime, we'll be always happy to see you. Take care."

George saw them to the place where he picked them up, then mounted and waved before turning his horse and trotting to where Matt was waiting.

Alicia didn't get to say goodbye to the horse, but it was okay. She saw it in the stables as they passed, having the saddle taken off and its mane brushed. It had probably been quite some time since someone last did that. The horse would be fine here. Would thrive, even.

She hooked her arm in Nick's as they walked away, the cotton bag slung over her other. She wanted him close. She still felt like someone might jump out at any moment to take him away from her again.

"Think they're sincere in not having known?" she asked once they were close to the truck. "Or are they pretending?"

Nick had always been better at reading people than she was.

Nick shook his head. "I can't be certain, but I feel George and Rosemary didn't really know it went so far," he said. "They had talked to the trailer people. They might have suspected they were bad news. But I don't think they knew exactly what was happening. And when their guests went missing – they didn't want to get into it. They just went with Katie's 'they left' theory. Because it's hard to imagine the truth, and hardly a way to find out when it's a discreet operation like they had."

"Maybe," she concurred, though she still didn't understand how it could have gone over their heads. At least if it had happened several times. Maybe they didn't pay close enough attention to the people they let in.

Troy watched Nick and Alicia meet up with the riders outside of the ranch, exchange a few words like old friends and then enter a few minutes later. When they returned, they weren't emptyhanded and looking a little exhausted as if the last task had taken it out of them and was reflected on their features.

They needed to find shelter and settle for at least two straight days.

Troy turned on the engine and mashed a hand against the hooter to give a single honk to hurry them up.

Alicia removed two apples from the bag and handed one to Nick, got into the back of the jeep and handed the other up front to Troy.

"So, anyone got an idea of where we should go? I'm going to assume that my seeing Troy blow Proctor John's head off last night was not real, and that he and his men are still very much a threat?"

Troy took the offered apple as she got in, thanking her quietly, scrubbing it on the front of his shirt while he waited for Nick to hop in beside him, and then slowly turned them around.

He didn't want to loiter outside of the ranch any longer than was necessary. He was officially done with them and their pagan bullshit.

"You saw me do that?" he asked bombastically, tickled, smirking at her through the rear-view mirror. "Maybe that shit you were on gifted you a premonition."

He assumed it was answer enough. He bit into the apple, toyed with the gears to sweep it into second so that they didn't waste fuel on pushing the engine on first and waited on the whereto, following the road out the way they'd come.

"I did," she briefly met Troy's gaze in the rear view mirror before turning to locate the pillowcase of loot she'd found at the trailers. She removed her boots and her bra, putting the latter on without even removing her shirt. One of those talents all girls seemed to possess that men could never figure out.

"I'd rather we didn't check it out," Nick put in, tossing up the apple and catching it. He wasn't really into chewing anything right now, as weird as it was.

Or, perhaps he was more into trying out that meat. The way she described it was tasty enough to crave to try.

"I vote for Arizona as our next pit stop," he added. "Some nice sightseeing is in order."

"It's a good a place as any." Like Alicia said before, this world was now just different circles of hell. Didn't really matter where they went.