I step into the cold and close the church door behind me.

Owen's not on the steps. He's standing over by the fence, staring at the sky. It's running out of sunlight, the sky is, and all it can manage now is a deep blue, dull shine, with just the moonlight being of any real use. And even that's not too much help. No, the sun will soon be too far gone to even give out that blue shine, and Owen will be left, essentially, in darkness. If I stay out here too long, I will be, too.

I come down the steps, sliding my hands into my pockets – or, Carl's pockets. This is still his jacket. Still kind of smells like him. My bow tilts awkwardly on my shoulder but my forearms pins it in place as I walk across the yard to him. Owen Wells. Next-door neighbor. Bully. Savior. Criminal.

I stop about six feet behind him, and I take a deep breath. Then I talk.

"You gonna eat?"

He turns easily and falls back against the fence, moving loosely. There's a bottle in his hand. Wine. Churches like this, they use wine for something. I don't think they use it for what Owen's using it for. "Nah," he says, holding up the bottle. "I've got all the nourishment I need right here." He takes a good swig and wipes his mouth with the sleeve of that abused leather jacket of his. "I'm not much of a wine man, truth be told, but, you know – take what you can get."

I look at the bottle, gleaming just a little from the moon, and then back to Owen. He isn't drunk. I know what drunk looks like. But he's talking all slow – I think he wants me to believe he is. But I'm smarter than he thinks. Or he's dumber than he knows.

Or maybe we both just want things to work out in the easiest way possible. With me walking away. With him getting wasted, and maybe stumbling out into the woods to die.

But I don't want Owen to die. That's one of those facts you find deep inside you, embedded, and you know you're stuck with it. Unless something really, really drastic happens. Then that fact will be ripped from your gut and, oh, how blood spills then.

He holds out the bottle to me. I shake my head. He laughs. "Yeah. Figured."

"I prefer vodka."

"You serious? No, dumb question, no one prefers vodka."

I don't, that's for sure. But it sounded like something cool to say.

He drapes one arm over the fence. I can't see him well, not with night edging in all around us, and I don't like that. I have my bow, of course. But it's not walkers I'm afraid of. And I'm not afraid of Owen, either.

I'm just afraid. The way I always kind of am. Only it's different this time, out here, with him.

"What can I do ya for, Sydney?"

Like I said, there's not much light to see by, but there's enough that I can't help thinking about how much he looks like Tyler. Same hair, same eyes. But somewhere in there, under the blonde locks and past the brown gaze and inside the scarred skin, is Joe. Joe, in Owen's blood, in his flesh, his genes, his brain, his heart, his soul. But I can't see him. And that helps me now.

"My dad just asked me if I trusted you," I say. "I told him I don't know."

"How brutally honest of you."

"It wasn't honest."

"No?"

"No. I do trust you. With my life. But it's not about my life anymore." I point at the church, glowing so dimly, but glowing, like the sun's setting inside of there instead of somewhere out where the forest won't let me see. It was warm in there, and looks even warmer from out here. My home's in there. My family. "It's about their lives. And I don't trust you with their lives, Owen. I just don't. But I want to."

"I'm flattered."

"Earlier today, when we met Gabriel. Rick asked him three questions. Do you remember what they were?"

Owen lifts the bottle to his lips and pops his eyebrows, eyes somewhere overhead. "Vaguely."

"They're the questions we always ask people before we bring them into our group."

"That right?"

"I never asked you them."

"No. But in your defense, you were too busy getting me to save your life. Again and again."

"Owen. I have thanked you and thanked you for what you've done for me. And I've vouched for you. But I can't keep doing that. Not when you won't tell me anything about anything, because it isn't about just me surviving now –"

"Yeah, I know, it's about them." He tilts the bottle at the church. "The cop who left you for dead, the mother who faked a bite, and the father who may or may not have looked for you."

"You really want to compare notes on fathers?"

And that is what it takes, apparently, to wipe a smirk from Owen Wells's face. A half-thought through comment spat into the air like it's nothing.

"You like to hit back, don't you?" he asks after a stretch of incredibly delicate silence, the kind that makes you feel like the next word you say could shatter something very important. But Owen doesn't shatter a thing. He just drinks again, easy, and goes on, "That's admirable. Until someone hits you so hard you can't get back up."

Darker, it's getting darker. But my eyes are adjusting, and I don't like what I see, even though his walled-off face is exactly what I would have expected. "It hasn't happened yet."

"It always does."

I wonder if he's right. I wonder if he thinks it'll be him to hit me that hard. I wonder if he wants it to be.

"I need to ask you those three questions."

He considers this. Considers me. Then up comes one corner of his lips. "Tell you what, Miss Dixon. I'll answer the questions if you answer them, too."

I inhale.

"Only seems fair, right? You learn shit about me. I learn shit about you. Everyone goes home a winner."

"Fine."

"Fine." He folds his knee and props the heel of his foot on the fence. Jerks his chin up. "Hit me."

I've never asked these questions before. Not on my own. But I know them, know them well, and I'm old enough to handle this. Every part of this.

I square my feet and begin.

"How many walkers have you killed?"

"Four thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two. You?"

"About the same."

"Mm." Drink. "Let's see, the next question was, God, I know this, uh – oh, yeah, yeah. How many people have you killed?"

And me, well, down memory lane I go, fast, speeding on a motorcycle. There's the Governor spitting up blood. There's Len twitching on his side.

"Two." Not long ago, I would have said three. But I'm better.

Owen folds his bottom lip out and nods to himself before holding up his free hand, fingers spread. Five. That hand killed five people, and can even represent them all. They were living, beating hearts, and now they're just someone else's fingers.

"Why?" I whisper. Last question. Hardest question.

Owen doesn't move. I wait. Wait.

"Why?" he finally says back, just as softly. I gaze at his hand.

"I was defending myself," I say. "And before that, I was defending someone I love."

Maybe I shouldn't have obliged him, shouldn't have answered first. He could shut up now, not tell me a thing, leave me to wonder about the whys and wonder what I'm going to do with the giant void where the most important answer of all should be.

But Owen, he's a man of his word. That's what he told me the first day we reunited. And, for better or worse, I believed him. I still do. I believe him when he pushes off the fence, curls his little finger down, and says, "Because Joe told me to." I believe him when he flips his ring finger down and repeats himself – "Because Joe told me to." I believe him when his middle finger goes down and he says, "Because Joe told me to," and I believe him when his index finger goes down and he says, "Because Joe told me to."

He's been coming towards me all this time, moving a step for every finger brought down, and I can smell the wine on his breath. Only his thumb is still up, jutting out to the side, not up, not down, just there, stuck to a hand that jerks a few times, like Owen's trying to shake the thumb right off, but then he finally says, with lips so close I can damn near taste the wine, and eyes wide and wild –

"Because I am a bad person."

The words are like rocks tumbling down a mountain. As rough and as deadly. His thumb folds down and the now-fist falls. He doesn't back up. I can't.

"I'll be gone by mornin'."

I stare at his fist.

"You go back inside, sweetheart. Eat, drink, be merry. Screw around with your skinny boyfriend. Don't you worry about me . . . I won't worry about you."

I lift my eyes to his. They're not wild anymore. They're just dangerous. The candles from the church turn them to embers. How badly they burn.

"I see it now," I murmur.

Gritted teeth, slow words. "See what?"

But I just shake my head. I just shake my head, turn away – turn my back – and walk to the church. It's totally dark out here now. I wanted to get inside before the dark came. But better late than never.

"See what?" he shouts from behind me. Wild, wild. "Sydney – damn it, what?"

I'm at the top of the steps when I stop. I don't stop for him. It's a selfish stop.

I whirl and take the steps fast, until I'm feeling soft soil giving under my boots, and I plant myself and turn my hands to fists just as good as the one he still holds, and I demand the one answer I'm truly entitled to.

"How did Tyler die?"

The wine bottle, it shines. Shines with Owen's eyes. What a pair. But the bottle is mostly catching the moonlight, and Owen's eyes are catching the candlelight. The bottle gleams, the eyes simmer.

And he snarls, "Slowly."

The word crushes my chest.

"You're a son of a bitch."

Owen laughs. "No. I'm a son of a dick." His arm swings up in a graceful arc and releases the wine bottle to its moon. Before long, gravity remembers that bottles are better at falling than flying, and so it makes the bottle fall, and oh, how fast the fall is, and how terribly it ends. There's an explosion of glass and wine. It's a waste. And Owen laughs some more.

I climb up the steps and let the darkness have him. If anyone inside takes a look at me, and asks why I'm crying, I don't know what I'll tell them. Because, even as the first tear slides down my cheek, I honestly don't know why myself.