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. . . . . . . . .
I wake up to an empty room. Dad, Carol, Owen's beds – all slept in, all empty.
I'm up like a shot, and I fall. Well, almost. I catch myself on Owen's bed and then lower myself to sit on the bottom bunk, seeing stars, seeing stars . . . I lower my head, squeeze it between my hands.
Last time I ate . . . Yesterday, noon. A little squirrel, a few pecans.
I let one hand off my head so it can go inspect my ribs, just to make sure they're still jutting out so horribly. Good news. They are.
Up, you starving little thing. Up.
I get to my feet, steady myself there. I'm alright, once I do that – get steady the first time. My body's no stranger to deprivation, after all. It can run on just a little fuel.
I get my bow, my quiver. The bags are still here. Dad's crossbow and Carol's rifle are gone. I snap my trigger onto the string and move to the door. Stop three steps from it. Then I whistle, a simple two-pitch thing, low enough that a walker probably wouldn't care. Probably.
I don't get a whistle back from Dad. I don't get anything back from Dad. It's Owen's crackly morning voice that responds.
"Out here."
I relax. Sort of. I pad down the hall, checking the doors, until I come to a living room sort of area, and that's where I find Owen. He's sitting on a window seat, one leg tucked into him, one leg stretched out.
"Where're my dad and Carol?"
He jerks his head at the window. That's when I notice the smoke billowing up. I rush over and climb onto the window seat, supported by my knees, and I don't know what I expect to see, but what I see doesn't surprise me. Not really. Once I take it in and know for sure what it is, it fits in just right with our lives.
Dad and Carol are below, side-by-side, facing away from Owen and me. They're out in this courtyard sort of thing, but – no, it's not really a courtyard, it's more like this part of the building needed to be here and another part needed to be there and that slab of cement was just left over, good for dumpsters and cigarette breaks. But now it's for a funeral. I hate funerals.
I can see the two bodies, wrapped in something white, burning, melting together. One body is big. One body is little.
If Owen has questions, he doesn't ask them. He just sits with me on this window seat and we watch the fire burn and the smoke rise.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Got us a couple bags," Dad says, tossing one to me. "Just in case we find somethin' worth keepin'."
I examine the miniature backpack in my hand. Decent material, denim, or something like it, but . . . "It's purple." Bright purple, to be exact.
"Pretty sure that's the color of royalty, or somethin'. C'mon, beggars can't be choosers."
His own bag is a nice brown color, but I don't point that out. I just drop the bag on the window seat Owen and I spent so many silent minutes on and look around this room one more time. Between the four of us, I'd say we've swept the place pretty clean.
But there's a bookcase over there, Sydney. And you haven't looked through it.
Am I still the reading girl?
My feet carry me over, so I guess they think I am.
It's a little bookcase, maybe three-and-a-half feet tall. I kneel down and run my finger along the spines, stealing their dust. No novels. A few children's books, but nothing for my age, or even for grownups. No, these are all self-help books.
Breaking Down, Breaking Out: How I Finally Gained the Courage to Leave my Abusive Marriage.
Positive Coping Mechanisms.
Meditation and Why You Should Be Doing It.
Alcoholism: The Real Story.
Seeing Red: The Reasons You Self-Harm, and How to Stop.
Surviving Sexual Assault.
"Grab a couple, if you want."
Dad. How is it that he can still sneak up on me like this? And he's using his special gentle voice, which might mean he saw my fingers linger on a certain few of those books . . . but not that last one. I made sure no to let my finger linger there. But I should never, ever take privacy for granted, I know better.
Dad kind of shrugs. "Might be good to read up on some stuff . . ."
I stand. "I'd rather read novels." And I go back to my empty purple backpack, to the window seat where I can see the simmering remains from that fire, and I close my eyes and take a breath and when I open my eyes again, I make sure to keep them from drifting down to those remains, that pile of bone and ash and horror. I look up at the sky. The clouds. God's painting.
Hey, God. That's pretty and all, but do you think you could take a quick break? Just to check in on us, see how we're doing? Maybe give us a hand?
"That car was headed downtown." Dad's talking behind me, talking to all three of us, I guess, but I keep watching God paint. "I say we get up in one of the tall ones, get ourselves a view, see what we see."
"Stay close to the buildings, and keep quiet, but sooner or later . . . we're gonna be drawin' 'em." That's Carol. I wonder how she felt out there this morning, exactly, in front of the fire. I wonder if it was a feeling any softer than the feeling she sounds like right now. Like a teacher, talking history facts or special math formulas.
"Let's head out," says Dad.
I let Owen stay behind me again.
We navigate back through the building, our one-night safe haven. Through the office, down the hall – not so scary anymore – and over the still-shiny tile. Then out. Back to the real world.
. . . . . . . . . . .
My mother used to take me to Atlanta a few times a year. Sometimes because she had to make a trip for work anyway. Sometimes just to shop. But no matter what, we would go at Christmas. Atlanta, it was beautiful in Christmas. There was this one huge Christmas tree always in this one part of the city, I guess the most important part. But really, the tree was just one thing thrown in the mix, the awesome holiday mix. Lights would be all over, people would stand in front of stores wearing red hats and ringing bells, and there would be a Santa at every mall. Mom and Dad never did the whole Santa thing with me, but there used to be a picture, probably rotted somewhere now, with me smiling on a Santa's lap. Nana really wanted a picture like that. I didn't want to pose for it. I was scared of that Santa.
It's too early for Christmas, but Nana always complained that they put up the decorations too early these days. So, were the world how it used to be, this street we're on now would probably be littered with pieces of wreath and ribbon, instead of plain old trash. The broken, dirty windows would be intact and squeaky clean and have tiny reindeer and snowmen and awesome, awesome gifts on display. There would be lights, there would be garland. Lots of shoppers.
Instead, we have walkers.
We run along the side of a building. Pass a few abandoned, looted cars – that's old stuff now, just typical scenery. We get to the corner of the building and Dad stops. It's pretty clear on this side, but I can hear lots of walkers on the other. Dad peeks out at all that, and after a minute, says he sees a bridge connecting some building to some tall, tall other building. The kind of building we need to scope out Atlanta, I mean really scope it out.
Dad pulls a yellow notebook he took from the shelter out of his bag. Out comes his lighter, and he tries to set the notebook on fire.
The lighter sparks, but no dice.
Dad tries it again, holding the lighter right up against the paper – the lighter tries its best, makes that high-pitched scraping noise, but all it gives is another spark, and not a big enough one. I think it was actually smaller than the last. "Aw, you gotta be kiddin' me," Dad mutters.
A short whistle from behind me. Owen tosses Dad a lighter, which Dad snags from the air without even dropping his own. He looks from Owen's lighter to Owen himself, thinks about saying something. Owen blinks at him, slowly, calmly. But Dad ends up just lighting the notebook on fire without a word. It's not like he's never seen Owen smoking, anyway. Wonder if he cares.
The papers all go up in flames, and just when they're about to reach Dad's fingers, he rears back and flings it all out onto the street, a good ways away. I lean a little to look around Carol. Walkers are coming into view now, coming to investigate the bright new thing. Maybe it's something they can kill.
We wait, just a little, just a little. I'm not sure exactly where we're going with this, but Dad can see out to the street, he must have a plan. He's got to.
Unless this whole thing with Beth has his mind messed up.
No. Not Dad.
He begins to move, so we all do. Around the building, still sticking to the wall. A group of walkers have their backs to us, limping to the burning notebook.
Like I said – like I knew – Dad's got this figured out. There's a parking garage on this side of the building, and it only takes us a few fast strides to reach it. Now, when we get to the entrance, a walker's there to snarl at us, but Dad shoots it down easily. And we go in.
Our footsteps echo in here. It's not dark, there are plenty of places in the wall for the sun to shine through, but it's darker than it was outside, naturally, so that puts me a little on edge. We run through here, quiet as we can be. Dad and me are the best at it, being quiet. We don't see any more walkers, just a few lonely cars, and then Dad's leading the way into a door next to a big arrow painted on the wall that reads SKYBRIDGE.
Stairs, just a few sets. Two walkers together once, one walker alone a little later. I take out one of the first two. None of them are too scary. But walkers are almost never scary, when they're alone. Power in numbers, after all. Numbers either kill you or save you.
And then there's a door that also has SKYBRIDGE written on it, and here we are, on the skybridge itself. And this is where things get weird.
It's a campsite. Seriously. It's like someone took everything we had in Atlanta – except for Dale's RV – and shoved it all onto this short little skybridge. Laundry hangs on lines hooked to the windows, extra clothes sit on the sill. There are sleeping bags, there are tents.
All of which are filled with walkers.
"God," I breathe.
The sleeping bags, they're the mummy kind, the kind for when it gets really cold. They're like cocoons, barely letting you move your arms. Dad had me try one of them when I was five or six, and I hated it, being all trapped like that. But I'm grateful for the damn things now, because the four sleeping-bagged walkers – all they can do is wiggle like worms.
Dad and Carol stab the couple nearest to us. While Dad rips open one of their sleeping bags, I shoot the third bagged walker, and Owen, he steps around Dad and me to get to the fourth. That one, its sleeping bag isn't even unzipped for the head to poke through. But it's writhing as hard as any of the others were. Owen watches the bag for a minute, then starts feeling around it with his boot, and, eventually,stomps down. There's that soft but loud crunching sound. The bag stops moving. Owen turns back around and I pretend I wasn't watching.
Dad's searching the walker he put down, looking for anything useful, but I guess it's useless. He stands up on his knees. For a second, he just stays there, watching the two tents move around. Hands reach out for us, but we're protected by a thin film that could be opened with a dull knife, a pull of a zipper. But walkers are dumb. And they're trapped in there, because of their own stupidity.
I hate them. But I feel sorry for them, too. Or, for the people they used to be.
My dad gets up. "Some days I don't know what the hell to think."
We don't put down the walkers in the tents. We leave them be. One of them tips down as we slide past, but it gets back up quickly, its guests starving. I glance out the window, at the city, scorched, torn, and broken by the bombs. On a building across the street, there's a tarp with the word HELP hanging from two windows.
The door at the end of the hall is actually a double-door set. Chained together, because that's just our luck. But, really, it's not that bad, because the chains are loose enough that the doors open enough for us to slip through. Well, Carol and me slip through, though she has to slide her rifle and bag through first. Owen has a little more trouble, and Dad has the most, but we all make it out of the skybridge and away from its campers.
More stairs. No walkers this time, even though we cover more ground. Walkers, they don't get too high too often. Unless they were people who died up high. But no, not here, not on this particular stairwell. We got lucky.
When Dad decides we're high up enough, it's after I don't know how many sets of stairs – enough to make my legs burn and my head kind of swim. We find ourselves in an office kind of place. It looks very much like my mother's firm looked, only fancier. The floor is a cool wooden design, the walls are white and scattered with paintings of things I can't really see, things with lots of color and maybe no shape at all. Heavy doors line the hall, and we turn a corner and heavy doors line this hall, too, but one – well, it's another double-door set, so I guess two – is heavier than all the rest. Dad pushes them open.
Office of a rich guy. I pick that much up right off. Clean green carpet, fancy chairs tucked in an alcove, with a lamp carved into a shape of a fancy-looking man sitting on a table in between them. A gigantic desk, which my dad walks behind. He picks something up and examines it, and oh, how out of place he looks here. Almost makes me want to laugh.
The wall past the desk is mostly glass. And God, we're high up here. Got just the view we were looking for. Dad and Carol step up to the middle of all that glass, and I hear her whisper something, but then there's a shuffling behind me and I turn to see Owen raiding a coat rack. He catches my eyes on him and waves a white hat. I can't remember the name of this kind of hat, but I've seen it before, mostly in old movies – it's like a cowboy hat, but with a much shorter brim. "I'm tempted," Owen says.
And I hear myself say, "Go for it."
He half-smiles – genuine, how rare a sight – and flips the hat onto his head. I pull my lips into my mouth and hold up a hand, blocking most of his body from my line of sight. "Neck up, you almost look not hideous."
"That's the single nicest thing you've ever said to me." His expression is dead serious, and out comes my smile.
But damn him. Damn him for never letting me know if he wants to be my friend or not. Damn him for giving me a spark of happiness when we both know, if anything, that we need to distance ourselves from each other.
Because he's leaving. Maybe after we come across a working car somewhere in the city. Maybe after he helps us get Beth. Maybe after we make it back to the church. But he's leaving. At some point. And that's what matters.
I think we remember this at the same time. Our smiles fade at the same time, that's for sure. He puts the hat back on the rack, and I readjust my bow and head over to Dad and Carol.
Before I can get around the desk, I hear her. And how she sounds – it makes me stop. That's how bad it is. Not outright, not breaking down. But under the surface, her surface – something awful.
"You still haven't asked me about what happened. After I met up with Tyreese . . . the girls."
The girls.
Oh my God.
It doesn't matter, suddenly, how awful she is under the surface. Maybe because I'm awful under the surface, too. "Lizzie and Mika?" I blurt.
Both of them turn, these grownups in charge. Their faces are dark, left in shadow, the sun abandoned behind them as the much as the city was two years ago. I stare at Carol. She stares back, mouth kind of open, then not. She blinks three times, takes a breath, does she have something to say?
I can't wait that long.
"You were with Lizzie and Mika?"
If she was with them, and they aren't here now – it means she probably watched them die. Or saw them dead. Maybe even saw them turn.
Like the Walker Without a Doll, stumbling from the barn.
"Sydney." Dad. "Don't."
He means it. Not in a harsh way, not in a You'd best watch it, kid, way – in a Trust me way. Trust him. Trust him about what? About – about Carol not being able to handle it if I push this further, if I ask her what happened to them? These kids I knew? These kids that belonged to us?
"They were my friends."
"No, they weren't," mutters Carol, matter-of-fact. She's turned back to the window. "One of the last interactions you and Lizzie ever had was a fist-fight, and I can't remember you ever even talking to Mika."
It's like she hit me. Really rammed me with her best shot. Not even because of what she said. How she said it. So cold, so . . . and the fact that she said it at all . . .
God, maybe she really doesn't give a shit about me anymore. So much that she's blocked out who I am. Who she knows – used to know – I am.
"The last thing I ever said to Lizzie," I say, "Was that I forgave her for calling my uncle a killer. No, sorry, it was – it was admitting to her that I already knew that."
Dad starts to say my name, doesn't get it all the way out.
"And Mika? She had a guinea pig named Stormy, before the turn. She liked science, she liked reading, and she adored Judith and all the other little kids. Her favorite movie was The Lion King. She couldn't play sports worth a damn. That's one of the reasons I liked her."
"Stop," says Carol.
"And she had this weird relationship with Lizzie. I mean, Mika was the younger sister, but she would get kind of . . . I don't know, protective –"
"Stop! You've made your point!"
She shouted. It's free game now. "Then tell me what happened!"
Okay, Sydney, we're gonna go there? Really?
"Maybe they weren't my friends, but they were part of our group! That means something – or do you remember that?"
"That's enough!"
Dad, yelling. Siding. With her. She hasn't turned around. I wonder what her face looks like. Dad's looks mean. No, not mean. Not really. Stern? That's closer. Afraid? Maybe a bit. My dad, afraid. There was a time I didn't think that was possible, oh, what a long time ago that was.
"She don't wanna tell you," Dad tells me, "She don't gotta tell you."
"That's just – that's just fantastic." I laugh a little. Like Owen would. "Yeah . . . Don't tell Sydney how Tyler died. Don't tell Sydney how Lizzie died, how Mika died. Why does she deserve to know?"
Dad's gotten around the desk by then. He reaches for me. He gets my shoulder, but I shove his arm away and dart back, almost tripping. "Don't touch me." I can't get my breath, not quite, but his fingers burned.
And his face – still stern? No. I don't know what this look is. It's just another serious expression created special for a world full of death and sorrow and danger. "Let's you and me go for a walk."
"No."
"I ain't askin'."
"Then I guess I ain't listenin'."
He steps towards me. "Girl, you listen to me –"
A tall figure comes between us. "What're you gonna do, make her talk? She ain't gonna say anything she don't want to by her own free will, that's for damn sure. So leave her alone."
Oh, Owen.
Finally, my dad has gone all the way and looks flat-out mean. At least it ain't at me. "What you just say?"
"Leave her alone." Simple as that, Dad, didn't you hear him the first time?
A step closer. "I'm her damn father, boy."
Look at me, with my arms crossed like this. Defensive position. What do I think is going to happen? Do I think this might end bad? Oh, no. There's no chance of that. It's just Dad and Owen, facing off. What could possibly go wrong?
"Yeah," Owen says, smooth as silk, "And what a great one you've been these past few months."
Once, on a rooftop, Dad got up in Bob's face until Bob shied away like a beaten dog. Dad does that to Owen now. Now, Owen's a few inches shorter than Dad. A lot lighter, even if he is muscular for his age. But Owen doesn't move back a hair. Owen doesn't flinch. Owen stands nose-to-nose with my dad, like a man.
Carol's watching from the window. She's tense. No heartbreak now, no, now it's all adrenaline, and she knows what I know, that this could spiral down so fast and crash, burn, boom. Should we step in now? Could we? I wait for her eyes to meet mine so we can figure it out together, but that's a waste of my time, and then Dad's talking. Half-yelling.
"Who the hell you think you are?"
Owen's teeth flash. They come out of nowhere, and not for a smile. He bares them, a wild dog. "I think I'm the guy who saved your daughter from walkers a hundred times, from a rapist at least twice, and from her damn self every single day while you were off somewhere – doin' what, exactly?"
That final part, it kind of gets slurred, because just as Owen says it my dad grabs him by the collar of his jacket and slams him against the glass.
I shouted Dad. Carol shouted Daryl. She took a step closer. I pulled my bow from my shoulder.
Owen has his chin up. Ready.
Silence. Silence.
Then, "Rapist?"
The coldest chill runs through me. Freezes my eyes open. Freezes all of me, a statue, here I am. Break me.
Dad lets go of Owen, his fingers snapping off of the jacket collar, straight as arrows. His arms fall like sacks of sand. Then, then, he looks at me. Oh. "Rapist?" He sounds like he hasn't had anything to drink in a year. He looks like it, too. Dried up. Desperate. It's happened just that fast. Because of just one word.
Owen. Sweaty hair clinging to his forehead, eyes tired and on me and –
"Sorry."
Little shakes of my head. To get all the ice off.
You little bitch.
"Sydney?"
Dad. Begging. Dad never begs.
Am I thawed? My foot moves. Good foot. My legs, I swear, they're the best part of me. They always know what's going on. Come on, body. The rest of you, come on. Get in the game.
I spin. Something falls. My bow. Now my bag. Doesn't matter. As a matter of fact, it makes it easier for me to shove my hands into my hair and push them so my head, my brain is all squeezed, it feels very full now, my brain, but maybe I can pop it like a grape, force some stuff out.
I'm through the double doors, legs, ah, moving fast, God love them. My name chases me. I outrun it.
Safety, safety, where is safety? All I really know is that somewhere, maybe anywhere, that is not that room will be better, yes, away from them will be better, away from those words and the glass that shows the ruins of the city and the coat rack with the fedora – yes, that's the word! – and the dad who shoved the boy against the glass and the woman who used to be a mother but now isn't and the man with the beard and the wild eyes who threw my body around like it belonged to him.
This door is locked, that door is locked, why would people have locked these doors? Ridiculous!
Turn a corner, look, another wall mostly of glass, and a new hall, I stride down it, hands still in my hair, I rake them down –
Scream, bitch.
The young ones make the best noises!
Scream and I'll kill you and I'll kill your daddy, I swear to God.
"Shut up, shut up . . ."
No walls, no broken city. Just a hall, a hall with white walls, and I'm alone. You're alone, Sydney. Breathe. Carl's kiss, Judith's little fingers, Glenn conflicted – beautiful things, things you have –
You and me, we're gonna have some fun now.
I take fistfuls of my hair and pull and I can't get enough air, I can't, and I hear him, I hear him so well, and I know why when I raise my eyes from the wooden floor with the pretty design and see him standing by a water cooler, grinning.
"Ever had a man inside you, little girl?"
I stop, stumble, stare. "No. No, you're not here." I point at him, so he knows I'm serious. So I know I'm serious. "You're not here –" I whirl and I'm in his arms, trapped, because he is here and I don't know where here is but it's with him and he is going to do things to me that will make me want to kill myself, so – "No! Let go of me!" I ram my fists into his gut, as hard as I can, he laughs that laugh that makes me want to rip out his throat, he picks me up off the ground, I hit and kick, I'm dropped –
Fight or flight, Sydney Rose –
I scramble away on the rocking floor until my back's against the wall, stand, you idiot, get on your feet and fight, but when I get on my feet, all the fight I have in me can do is screech, "Get the hell away from me! You son of a bitch!" Then, of course, he must be around, and he has to have forgiven me, so –
"Rick! Rick –!"
"Claimed!"
The floor is suddenly stable. Kitchen floor. Boiled water? Right? Or – grass? Ground? Dark night? I roll my eyes around in my head, everything – everything is everything.
"Claimed . . ."
The voice is close. It's not a bad voice. Owen. That's Owen. Tyler's brother, my Tyler, my Owen. My Owen? What the hell?
I feel behind me and find something smooth to grip. I let it hold some of my weight. Stable ground. No, floor. It's a floor.
"You're safe, Sydney. They can't touch you. Len can't."
"Len . . ."
"He can't touch you. He can't hurt you. He can't do a damn thing to you. Claimed."
"You . . ."
"Yeah."
"I . . . I don't . . ."
"Len isn't here, Sydney. Len is gone."
Then it comes back to me, like a cloud, floating in at its own pace. A knife through an eye. Blood on my hands, shining. I remember. "Len's dead."
"That's right. Sydney. Look at me."
I do. I see soft brown eyes. The color of chocolate, the color of Mom's hair. Owen, Owen, Owen Wells. Crouched, three feet away, one hand back, one hand kind of out, palm up.
"Look where you are."
I'm in a white hall and there are strange paintings on the wall, but I like the design of the floor. Dad and Carol are here. We're in a tall building . . . yes, that's right. We're looking for Beth. We're in Atlanta, where Mom used to bring me, especially for Christmas. It's ruined now, but it's Atlanta. And there's no Len here. Len's dead. And the smooth thing holding me up is a windowsill.
Owen gets closer. Closer. Do I trust him? Yes. He touches my arm. He touches my other arm. My hand goes to his shoulder and he's steadier than the windowsill, so my other hand goes to his chest and I feel around until I get to the thump-thump, thump-thump.
I don't know if he pulls me in or if I fall in. I just know that we get to where he's holding me. "You're okay," he says softly, hand open on my back. "You're okay."
And, for just that moment, I believe him.
"Claimed," I breathe.
"Claimed."