"Hey. You okay?"

The words breeze through me, soothing bad emotions and riling up strange other ones. I'm still getting used to Carl being with me again, watching out for me again. A week ago, the only person who might have asked me if I was okay would have been Owen, and, unless I looked ready to die, he would have twisted his concern into some sort of teasing comment and I would have responded with a snap, and he would know that I wasn't about to break down or fall over. But Carl, Carl asks me with his hand rubbing over my arm, with his voice soft and good. And warm. I want to get used to him being here again.

But oh, he could be gone so fast.

Can't think that way.

"Yeah," I answer, because, like my dad said just this morning, I'm always fine if you ask me. But now my head is shaking back and forth, just a little, then more. "No."

Carl's hand goes all the way up my arm and stops on my shoulder, close to my neck. "They'll come back."

"I know."

He lowers his head, draws my eyes in. Solemn look. The kind that digs into me and searches. "Do you?"

I twist my head, look out of one of the splits in the wall. I see concrete, a fence, another boxcar. Just tiny bits of all of those things, though. I can't tell what's going on. Sure as hell can't tell . . . can't even think about where my dad and Rick and Glenn and Bob are. Or, I don't want to, I shouldn't. Because that only leads me to bad places.

I have a makeshift knife in my hand. We all made weapons out of what we had in here – we used our clothes, whatever we had in our pockets, pieces of the wooden parts of the wall that we sawed out with zippers and jewelry chains. Mine's a long wooden triangle with a torn piece of the jacket Carl gave me wrapped around it to make a hilt. My dad helped me tie it on so it wouldn't come off. I rub my thumb over the fabric. "What do you think they're doing to them?"

"I don't know."

At least he didn't try to lie. There have been too many lies in my life lately.

"Look, it doesn't matter what they're doing," Carl says. We're whispering, this talk is just for us. "You know them. They'll get out of this. They always get out."

Everybody makes it, Bob said once, Until they don't.

"I know," I say again, and it's a lie, because, no matter how sick of lies I am, they're a habit I fall back on too much now. I need to stop it, just . . . because. But right now, I just need to stay alive. That's what I have to focus on. I lift my chin up, let some sun land on my forehead. It helps the chills some. I take a deep breath, and that's when Carl tugs on my arm.

"Come here. Let's sit down."

I follow him, I sit with him. We position ourselves in the center of the far right wall and pull our knees to our chests. I watch the rest of our group. Owen, LC, Michonne. Maggie, Sasha, Abraham. The army girl, and the girl with Glenn, and the scientist, Eugene. I wonder who they'll take next. Abraham, probably. Eugene, maybe Michonne, maybe LC. The strongest, I bet. Get the ones they worry about most out of the way first, so the rest are easy. Fish in a barrel.

Abraham and Owen are finishing up that cigarette. I kind of want to help them. LC looks like she might, too, but she turns away after a few seconds of staring and stands where Carl and I stood a minute ago, looking out at the little bit of Terminus in view and, I know, getting no new info. But it's something to do. I can understand that. But I don't want to understand anything about her, so I rub my eyes and then lift them to the ceiling, but before I can grab my own thoughts and take them somewhere else, Carl does it for me.

"You want to talk about it?"

"What?"

"What happened out there. What it was like. What . . . you did. You and those men."

I stare at him. "I didn't do anything awful, if that's what you mean."

"No, I – I didn't think that. I just meant . . . how did you get along with them?"

I slide one hand over the other, find a stiff knuckle, pop it down. "We just survived. I was with them, but I wasn't . . . with them. Being there just helped keep me alive long enough to find you."

A long pause. Carl's boot scrapes against the floor as he readjusts, sighs. "Did they hurt you?"

"Not until we met up with you guys, no." And now I'm aware of the burning in my side. And the throbbing in my face, where, as my dad put it, I have a hell of a bruise.

"Not at all?"

I wonder what he would do if I said yes. If I told him about Len. Should I tell him about Len?

"No. I just . . . We raided houses, I hunted a lot, some of them did too, and we camped together and shot walkers that got close. It wasn't anything like what we have here. It was . . . business. There were rules, and you had to follow them, or –"

Teach him. Teach him all the way.

And I don't want to, but I have to think about what happened on that road a night ago, the last night of Joe's life, of all of their lives, that group of thugs. When blood and gore and fury and love all spilled out and kind of took over, too many fierce things at one time. I swallow. "I didn't know how bad they were."

"You didn't have a choice." Carl leans closer, and like a magnet, his shoulder pulls my head in, and I'm resting on him with my eyes closed. But then Carl asks, "What about him, though?"

I open my eyes back up, even though I know who he's talking about. The him in question has one foot propped against the wall, has his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the roof that could open up and spill in a new threat any second now. Cool as a cucumber, asmy Papaw used to say. Nana might have said that, actually. Maybe they both said it.

God help me, they're fading.

I crack another knuckle. "Owen's not like them."

"Was that guy really his father?"

"I guess so. He never told me . . . I thought his dad was someone else. A nice guy. And Owen called that guy Dad, I just . . . I don't know the story. I mean, Owen, he's not my . . ."

But the hell if I know what Owen is to me. I know he took care of me. I also know he's a – what's the term? – juvenile delinquent, yes, oh, I caught those words in my mother's mouth on occasion, as she narrowed her eyes at a pile of papers in front of her, a mug on one side, a bottle on the other.

"Do you trust him?"

I push myself up from Carl to get a better look at him. The scattered light lands on his face in a pattern, dark-light-dark. He's solemn. Cautious. Strong. And it comforts me to see him like that. Especially considering how he was the last time we were together, before we got separated, when he was playing on the edge of his breaking point, fragile and my responsibility, my one last responsibility. Before I thought I lost him, before I thought I deserved to lose him, and before Owen, for better or worse, became my lifeline.

Huh. I guess that's what he is to me. Or was. My damn lifeline, who saved my virginity and more than likely my life, who risked his neck and lost standing with his now-dead father – a dick, but still his father – to get me back to my people.

"Yeah," I murmur. "I trust him. You can, too." When Carl doesn't answer right away, I put my chin on his shoulder, so I can still kind of see his face. "Trust me?"

Our eyes come together again, and I really see him seeing me, which I guess always happens when people look at each other, so maybe it's a stupid thing to say. But it feels different with us. "Yeah," Carl says, brushing hair off of my face. "You're sweating."

I roll my neck and press my head into that soft spot between his head and shoulder. "It's hot."

"Not that hot." His hand lingers on my forehead. "I think you might have a fever."

"I don't. Even if I did, me having a fever is the last thing we would need to worry about." I run my hand along the edge of my wooden kind-of knife. Sharp. Sharp enough? My left hand itches.

"If you're sick, you don't need to fight. You need to stay with me when we get out of here. I'll keep you safe."

"I'm supposed to keep you safe," I mutter without thinking.

"No, we talked about that, remember? Back at the prison, the first night we . . . We keep each other safe. Like we've always done. Except, now . . . I'm your boyfriend. I'm supposed to protect you."

I laugh into his shirt. Maybe I do have a fever. "That's sexist."

"No. That's just how I want it to be." His head tips onto mine. The brim of his hat shields us, so we're almost alone. Not really. But it feels like it, a little. It's good. I almost forget that we might be about to die. Then again, after you get in so many situations when you're about to die, it just sort of loses its impact. Until the teeth are on your arm or the gun is in your face. That's when you start taking it seriously again.

And now I see my dad's face, with a gun pointed at it, Rick next to him –

A new chill comes across me, the kind that has nothing to do with a fever I may or may not have.

Carl's hand goes up and down my arm some more. I play with his shirt. We sit, just sit and be with each other and listen to the others whisper, and I consider things, try to plan. If they come again – when they come again – they might try something different, to confuse us. But what else can they do? No, they'll keep using a smoke bomb, I think. Our best chance then, mine and Carl's, would be to hunker down over here and cover our faces as best we can, and slice and stab and bite and kick anyone that comes close. But our chances of winning that battle are slim. These people, they must have gas masks or something. They'd come out on top in a fight. I mean, they got my dad. But maybe, maybe when they open the doors again, Carl and I and someone else small, maybe that army girl or maybe Sasha or maybe both, could be on the shoulders of the other people. We could jump out when they open that door on top, and fight like hell, and –

– and see how long it takes them to shoot us down.

Stupid idea. Stupid idea. But I don't have any others. Think. Have to think. Maggie, I should talk to Maggie. Michonne, too, and Abraham, hell, he's an army guy, he should know something about strategy, right? And the girl, too?

Have to stand up, break away from Carl. Have to. Have to think about him, and us, long-term –

Gunshots crack through the air.

Carl goes tense, and I do too, like deer jerking to attention when they catch a predator's scent. It's not just us, though. Everyone is very still, looking at one another without blinking, but the gunshots keep going for a while, bang bang bang, and Abraham eventually breaks gazes with the army girl and steps up to one of the slits. Michonne goes to one, too. They both stand to the side of their openings, shielding themselves with wall, and watching.

"Our people?" asks Maggie, standing behind Michonne, still gripping Glenn's watch.

"I don't know," Michonne answers, lowly. "Can't see anything." A moment, and then, "People are running. Towards the center of the place. Away from the fence, at least."

When the explosion comes, it makes us jump, like explosions typically do to anyone. I guess it's an explosion. No, I know it is. The ground shakes, I swear, and I might even feel a wave of heat, and I get up, so fast that I stumble a bit. Chaos has jolted through the car, everyone's moving now, shouting, and I run to one of the free slits in the wall, and I catch a glimpse of those running people before I'm pulled back, and I whirl to see that it's LC and I shove her hand away. She gives me a look that's dangerously close to one she would have given me in the old world, a Listen to me right now look, and in spite of everything, the anger that spikes in me shoots to the top of my heart for just a second, only a second, and then there's some more banging, more gunshots, and screams and shoes pounding on cement, and LC's stupid look drops in priority. It's frantic outside, and we're trapped in here, and it's a horrible feeling. Getting rid of that, that's the first priority. That and Carl, Owen, Maggie, the rest of them, too. And me. Yes, I want to get out of here, I want to live to see another day.

Abraham pounds both fists into the wall. "What the hell is goin' on?" he growls. He's a big man, bearded and dirty, and I don't get the vibe that he's very patient about things like this, which is good. Patience is not a virtue right now, I don't think, no, we need action, fast, because that's what you do when shots are being fired, you act fast –

"Someone hit 'em," Michonne says, in that way she has, the way that makes you certain she's right.

"Maybe our people got free," Sasha says, and that has to be it, nothing else makes sense, my dad –

Eugene brushes past Sasha with a mutter and bends down to the bottom of the car, where the floor meets the wall. He has something silver and round in his hands. The bomb, or whatever it is, the thing that sent out the smoke. "What the hell are you doing?" snaps the army girl.

"I might be able to use this shell to compromise the door. By the sound of things, there might not be anyone left to open it."

"Eugene, I'm sorry, but – shut up," says the girl Glenn met. Good for her. Eugene says okay and keeps doing whatever he's doing, because he thinks everyone out there might die soon. Everyone.

I never stepped back up to the slit, and Owen's by it now. A cigarette dangles from his mouth, not lit, just dangling. He watches the action outside. His eyebrows are close together. He used to get that look playing video games, when he would make one of his rare appearances that lasted long enough to grind his brother or me into the ground. "Something wicked this way comes," he murmurs, before removing the cigarette and saying, louder, "Hey, Bill Nye, you got a percentage on the likelihood of you bustin' open that door?"

Eugene doesn't get to answer, because there's another "Hey" from behind me. Carl. And that Hey, it demands attention, the same way his father's Hey would, and has. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever heard that voice from Carl before, not quite like that. I turn to him, just like everyone else does. And we listen as he says, without a trace of doubt in his words or his eyes, "My dad's gonna be back. They all are."

Maggie's behind him. She nods. She looks as certain as Carl. Sounds as certain, too. "They are. And we need to get ready to fight our way out with them when they do." She steps away, to the wall. She looks at the face of the pocket watch and then stretches out the chain, kneels down, begins to saw at the wood. Making another weapon. More weapons, better chances.

I have to be as sure as Maggie, as Carl. Have to have faith. If you believe it, you can achieve it – that was on some poster in some classroom in my past. That's what I have to go on now. Faith. Faith and love. They're odd things in this world, but they still matter. They have to still matter.

I kneel down near Maggie. I pull a zipper out of my pocket, another tool scavenged from Carl's poor jacket, and I start sawing away at my own piece of wood. It's not that hard. I might be undernourished, but if there's one area of me that's strong, it's my upper body – arms, chest, back. I have my bow to thank for that. Wherever it is now. Thinking of it makes me ache.

Only moments after I start carving, Owen steps over me and says, "Don't."

I glance at him, with his chewed cigarette, his calm face. It's not the Carl and Maggie kind of calm, it's the barely-give-a-shit calm, and it pisses me off. "Why not?"

"What's your goal, two stabbers? No. You'll want a free hand. You'll want to grab a head and hold it if you need to. Think, you know that."

"He's right, Sydney," Maggie says, flexing one of her hands before sawing some more, back and forth, back and forth, building up a sweat to rival mine. So who is she making her weapon for? Does she just want a better one? Mine's already pretty good, I think, but . . .

I look at my new work, the damage I've done to the wood, and bite the inside of my mouth.

"Save your strength. You'll need it." Owen nudges me with his boot. "I told you once, I'll tell you again. You're tiny."

"I told you once, I'll tell you again. I ain't tiny." I yank the zipper from the wall and stand. "And you're an asshole."

"You've told me that?"

"Every time we talk. In my head."

"Oh, you should hear the things I say about you in my head."

Then Carl's here, to my right, a half a step in front of me. "Don't talk to her like that," he says, in an entirely different voice I've never heard before. My eyebrows go up and so do Owen's. A corner of his mouth twitches.

I edge closer to Carl. "He's just joking," I tell him. "We insult each other pretty much all the time."

"Mmhmm. And hey, man – she started it." That twitching mouth breaks into a full-on smile, and Owen ducks his head away as his teeth begin show. I could throw something after him and hope it comes out witty, but I'm distracted by gunshots, gunshots, gunshots. Shouts.

And there they are. Moans. They always come.

I let my eyelids fall. I wasn't at the prison, not during the worst of the attack. But I heard a lot running through the woods. And this, this must have been what it sounded like to be in the middle of it all. It hurts. I snap-click my trigger, still on my wrist but very lonely, and I miss, I miss my bow. Because this weapon in my hand, this shitty pointy stick, does not know me. I don't know it. And I need something I know right now, because it's happening, it's hitting me. The impact that we might be about to die, I mean.

Carl chooses that moment to take my hand. I hold it tightly.

Yes, I'll let him protect me. I'll let him be the big strong boyfriend. But he said it himself, we keep each other safe. So I'm sure as hell protecting him, too. No matter what.