A.N.: Hey, guys! I know it's been a while, but a lot of (happy) new developments in my life have occupied me lately. I'll start trying to update at least weekly again, but please bear with me if you have to wait a bit longer than usual for the newest chapter. Thank you all so much for staying loyal to the story during my absence. I think most of you will decide it's worth it - have some BIG things planned for Sydney, and you guys won't have to wait very long for at least one of them . . . Enjoy!

. . . . . . . . . .

Leaving my dad and Owen alone feels like leaving Carl with a walker. And I don't know which would be which, who'd be who. Dad won't hurt Owen, I know that. I think I know that. Owen? He won't throw the first punch, but –

Wait, there'll be punches?

Well, there already was one.

I flex my hand. My thumb's killing me.

I follow Carol at a nice safe distance of about four feet, down the hall from the skybridge, into a stairwell. I've taken three steps when light spills around my feet, and I turn to see Carol propping open the door with a bag.

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting for your dad and Owen," she tells the door. She looks up to the top of the set of stairs I'm on, just in case I've missed a walker hanging out there. No, wait. Right. She just can't stand to look at me.

"We need to find an exit," I say.

"We need to be at full strength when we do whatever we do." She bends to the bag and unzips it, searches for something. I watch her, still on the third step. Higher ground. Soon, she pulls out a canteen and comes over to the stairs and actually looks me in the eye. "Here."

I hold her gaze, since it's so precious now. But I don't move, don't take the canteen. I'm not thirsty. I'm not hungry. I'm starving, I can say that with certainty, but I'm not hungry and I'm not thirsty.

Carol purses her lips and rattles the canteen, the water sloshing around like acid in a nervous stomach. "Drink it now, your dad'll make you anyway."

"He won't think about it." Like he hasn't thought about the bullet wound in my side, like he didn't think about me on my own after the prison –

I don't know that, though. I don't know anything about that, what he thought, what he felt, what he wanted, or –

I know he was with LC.

Carol is still holding out the canteen. Still staring.

I take the thing and unscrew the lid and drink. Only then am I aware of my sandpaper throat. I drink more than I should, but not enough, and when I lower the canteen from my lips I run my wet tongue around my mouth and say, "I'm not sorry for asking about Lizzie and Mika."

Carol is back at the door, looking through the opening. She doesn't say anything back. She doesn't look at me again.

. . . . . . . . . .

Dad and Owen meet us here before even five minutes have passed. Carol sees them coming and opens the door all the way, pulls up the bag. Dad comes in first, then Owen. No blood – other than that slight slit on Owen's smiling lips. Beyond that, there's no feeling, nothing to tell from either of their expressions. And hell, let's be honest. Nine times out of ten, even Owen's smile might as well be a blank face.

. . . . . . . . . .

Carol is much readier to talk to Dad than she was to me, of course.

We move across a big empty space in another part of the floor. There's no paint, no tile or wood or carpet laid down, no ceiling tiles or anything – it was supposed to be a brand new office space, I'd guess. Just another project that'll never get finished, more jobs that'll never get done. That'll never need getting done. No one needs a lawyer or a stockbroker when the dead are running around hungry, especially since most of the lawyers and stockbrokers are some of those dead. The system would just fall apart.

I picture my mother defending a walker at trial and I almost smile.

"We're in the middle of the city," says Carol, ahead of me, behind Dad. Dad's walking so fast, I have to try kind of hard to keep up, but the movement's good. Keeping the heart rate up, keeping focused, that's good. I think. Carol's speaking low, I doubt she wants me or Owen to hear what she's saying. "He was stealing our weapons . . ."

Dad doesn't answer, keeps going, looking for a door that can get us down to the city where everything wants to eat us. But we need to get there, I know that, for Beth. It's all so insane, but it makes perfect sense.

"What?" Carol snaps after too much of Dad's silence. "Did you think I was gonna kill him? I was aiming for his leg. Would that have killed him? Maybe, but he was stealing our weapons!"

That simple, that easy . . . I was standing behind that door with Owen, listening to the stranger threaten and steal, and I was ready with my bow. Ready, ready, always ready. I get it, Carol. Got your back, buddy.

We've found a door. It says EXIT, it's on one of these two walls at the end of the office, walls facing each other, creating a sort of mini-corridor. I wonder what's behind the other doors, sort of, but not enough to check. Probably don't want to know.

"He's just a damn kid." Dad rattles the doorknob of the EXIT door, then reaches into the bag slung over his shoulder. He has plenty of room on his shoulders, now, without his crossbow.

"Sydney and Owen are just damn kids!"

Me and Owen are standing to the side of them, with a nice amount of space between the two of us. I look at him, kind of just out of curiosity, to see if he wants to protest the label. But his head's tilted down, his eyes are sliding back and forth between the adults. Calmly, calmly. But ready, like me. Ready for what?

Ready or not, here they come . . .

"Without weapons, we could die," Carol says to my dad's back. "Beth could die."

Dad's pulled out a knife and is using it to work at the door handle. "Well, we'll find more weapons."

Almost makes me smile again. Just that easy.

We could die!

Nah. We'll just find more weapons. They're all over the place. That's why no one dies anymore, haven't you noticed?

Sydney, Sydney, calm down. Come down.

This isn't me, no. Get my thoughts under control . . . Be me, the good is still a good me. I want it to be the only me. That me is smart and steady and sane.

I'm sane.

Carl's hands keep me sane. Judith's smile. Rosita cutting my hair, and Maggie brushing it back, and Rick telling me I'm like his own daughter. And Beth being out there and needing me. Those things keep me sane, because they're more real than anything could ever be.

Deep breath, girl. Deep breath.

Carol is talking about dying again.

"I don't want you to die," she tells Dad. She says that quietly, but her voice comes up for the rest of it. "I don't want Sydney to die, I don't want Owen to die, I don't want Beth to die, I don't want anyone back at the church to die, but I can't stand around and watch it happen, either!"

I tuck that last sentence away in my mind, because it sort of makes me do it. It slides into my ears and won't stop echoing, until I promise it can stay.

"I can't!"

Who could?

You could.

Dad's thrown the bags to the floor, he's kneeling down, knife bullying the doorknob, probably breaking it forever.

"That's why I left," Carol says, and is she talking to us, really? Or is she just talking? She's sort of pacing, she's not waiting for answers anymore, I don't know what she's doing.

"I just had to be somewhere else –"

My dad jumps to his feet and turns on her. "Well, you ain't somewhere else! You're right here!" Hard stare, the kind he's good at, the kind that really gets into you and tugs stuff around. "Tryin'!"

I look at Owen. He looks at me. I look away, then wish I hadn't.

Dad, teeth gritted, is back at the door. Carol, mouth open, is back to looking at his back. "You're not who you were," she says, "and neither am I. None of us are."

A squealing, cracking noise from the door, and it opens. Sometimes it's like my dad can do anything. Used to think that. Kind of miss thinking that. Really miss thinking that.

Now Carol says, quickly and with a sharpness to her, "I don't know if I believe in God anymore, or heaven, but if I'm going to hell, I'm making damn sure I'm holding it off as long as I can." She reaches down and jerks up one of the bags – the bag Dad got the knife from. I guess he left it open, because some things fall out. One of the things is a book. The title is Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse: Psychotherapy for the Interrupted Life.

I duck my head, turn away, walk in a little circle. Put my fingers to my lips and pretend I have a cigarette. Then I bite my wrist, and when I turn around, the book is gone. And Dad pushes through the door and disappears from me.

. . . . . . . . .

I don't mind long walks in the woods. I love them, actually. But long walks in the city, it's different. See, in the woods, I'm hidden, surrounded by trees that can be shields, masks. I can sneak and spy and relax as much as I can ever relax alone. Here in the city, I'm out in the open. The sky above me is huge and ready to swallow me up, and the buildings, they – the word, the word – loom over me, and I feel so small, and vulnerable, and I want to duck into every store we pass, every dead car we find. But I can't, because Beth. And because I won't let myself crack that much more anyway.

But I pop my knuckles, curl and uncurl my fingers, bite my wrist.

I miss Carl.

We're going to that white van hanging from the bridge. Dad can get us there, because he's amazing at that. Navigating, I mean. Even in places he doesn't know. He saw the van, he saw the city below us, and it sunk into his brain and arranged a map for him. Yes, he's amazing. Amazing.

Early on in the walk, before we're even two blocks out of the building, I see Dad – walking ten paces ahead of me with Carol – turn his head, find me, mutter some words to Owen, who is three or four paces behind him. And then Owen slows, and he's walking next to me.

"Okay, don't be pissed," he says as I stare at the back of my dad's head, "but he doesn't want you walking alone."

I'm not pissed. But I'm not ready to talk.

. . . . . . . . .

It's an hour-and-a half-later, actually, when I'm ready to talk.

We're on the bridge. That's what urges me into it, because I know I may not get a chance to talk to Owen alone again for a while. Or ever, because that's the life we lead. It's a huge bridge, long and covered in garbage and corpses (moving and not), and I know it'll give me enough time, this good bridge, to say what I need to say to Owen before we're at the white van. But not enough time that he can say too much back, hopefully.

He hasn't said a word this whole way. He's been patient.

Or he doesn't care anymore.

No, he's been patient.

"What did you and my dad talk about?" My voice cracks, the way voices do when they haven't been used in a while.

"Ah, I asked for your hand in marriage. But he couldn't offer me a good enough dowry, so – sorry."

I don't know what a dowry is. "I would be a terrible wife."

"Don't doubt it for a second."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't."

No, I don't.

"I shouldn't have hit you," I say.

"The first or second time?"

"Definitely not the second. Probably not the first."

"Yeah, well . . . don't worry about it. You're not very good at it."

"What?"

"You don't hit well. Your technique's terrible. You should have your dad teach you how to do it right."

I drop my eyes to my boots, kick a can away from me. It rolls in the direction of a walker, which lumbers to its feet and snarls as our group edges in. Dad gets it with his knife.

"I probably should," I admit. Then, "I need to thank you. I mean, I do. Thanks, for . . . calming me down. Back in the tower."

He takes a breath, and I more or less expect a smartass comment. I deserve it, I punched the guy. But he says, "No problem."

Damn it.

My uncle, he used to call squirrels spazzes. He was right. You can never tell what a squirrel's going to do, and maybe it doesn't even know what it's going to do. When something spooks it, a car or a stick snapped under a boot, it'll take off and dart all over the place. Up this tree? Up that one? Into a hole? Under a log? Back to the first tree? You just can't tell. Owen's like a squirrel. I kind of want to tell him that. It would make him smile a little real smile and then he would call me a bunny rabbit or a chipmunk or something. But I open my mouth and what comes out is a simple "Hey."

He looks out over the city under the bridge. It's a really boring bridge, because there isn't even a river under it – just more asphalt. "Yep?" He's all casual and easy. Soothing.

"Why did you say claimed?"

He shakes his head. Brushes it off . . . "Ah, just came to me . . ." He works his jaw for a minute, then, and maybe he hasn't brushed it off, after all. "I figured you were thinkin' about Len . . . I just remembered that first day. Getting him offa you."

But he's misunderstood me. "I'm talking about that first day. Why'd you do it? Why'd you claim me, why'd you bother?"

"'Cause I saw it was you."

"If it had been some random girl, would you just've let Len have her?"

Silence for a while. It weighs heavy on me. I hope it weighs heavy on him. It should.

But anger at him doesn't come, oddly enough.

Eventually, he says, "Think of a wolf pack. Do you think a young wolf, like, a year or so old, is gonna go head-to-head with a full-grown wolf for a piece of meat?"

"A piece of meat –?"

"It's a metaphor – The point is, the answer's no, with the exception of bizarre circumstances. You were a bizarre circumstance. I'd never claimed anything before without Joe there to witness it." Owen rubs his hand over his mouth, lightly, then rougher, and when his hand drops there's a fresh drop of blood on his lip. "He always made sure they'd follow the rules with me."

He says that in a way that makes me think it's not really meant for me, like Carol back in the building, talking about all of us dying.

I can see the white van now. If I stopped talking, it would be okay, the silence would be too short to be awkward.

"How often did you guys run into women?" I ask. "Or girls?"

"Every now and again."

"And did you always –"

"Mostly."

Len, on me, You little bitch, you little bitch –

And Dan on Carl. Carl screaming.

"Boys, too?"

"Only Dan. He'd go after the women too, though. That's the only reason he didn't end up like Frank."

Frank . . . it takes me a minute, but I remember the story of Frank. He got killed the same day I met the group, right in the house, because Len thought he was gay. I swallow. "Oh, so it's – it's bad to like other guys, unless you're a rapist, and you like women, too."

"You actually wouldn't be gay, then. Bisexual, would be –"

"Did you ever rape any of them?"

"No."

I don't talk. But he sees my sideways glance, my little sharp inhale, because he sees everything, and he says, "Your surprise is noted."

"I'm surprised because you answered." That's true.

"The only answers I don't give are the ones you wouldn't like."

"I don't like that. I'd rather have specifics and know what I'm workin' with, not just have a thousand different horrible ideas of what you might not be telling me."

And we walk, and we walk. So do Dad and Carol. The van grows and grows, a clue, hopefully, like in Scooby damn Doo.

"You still leaving?"

He doesn't reply.

And me, I smile. "Answer I wouldn't like?"

No speaking, no speaking, just our feet crunching over trash.

"I don't know if I still am or not," he says soon enough. More time with just the crunching, before, "I worry about you."

"You said you didn't."

"What?"

"Outside of the church, when I asked you the questions and you said you were going, you said Don't worry about me, I won't worry about you." I know, Owen, because I thought it was such a good line that I used it on my mother just minutes later.

"That was dumb," he says. "I shouldn't have said that."

"Nope."

"You can hit me again, if you want."

"I'm sure I will at some point. If you stay."

He huffs out a breath.

"So you worry about me?"

"Yeah, brat, I worry about you. Don't let it go to your pretty little head."

"If you worry about me, it means you care about me, right?"

"What do you want, a hug? We can hug. We'll hug it all out."

"I don't want a hug, I want you to stay."

And there it is. Out in the middle of us, like a whole new person. I want you to stay.

It takes him a bit to answer, but we're a minute's walk from the van, at the most, so I think that probably speeds him up. But, no. No, he cares too much about thinking things through. The important things. When he's sober. And no, because he stops here in the middle of the bridge, leaving the van to wait. I can't exactly keep walking. So I stop, and I look at him, and he looks at me and nods tiny nods. Thoughtful eyes. "I've been wonderin' somethin'," he says, voice rasping. "I told you I killed five people."

I can still see his hand, every finger outstretched, white and dark in the moonlight, tinged with living red from the candles in the church.

"The only one of those people you seemed shook up over," Owen says, "Was the fifth. Why?"

And this conversation, I know it's important. I know – I think I know – I wanted it to happen. I damn sure know it needs to.

Doesn't make it easy.

"That was the only one you seemed shook up over," I say.

"The other four people are still just as dead. And every one of them was innocent, for all you know."

This is a sort of standoff, here. I turn and square my feet, so I'm facing him straight-on. But . . . standoff, that might not be the right word. We're not fighting. Not outright, maybe not at all.

But we're trying to pry the truth from each other, and that might be even bloodier.

"Lots of people are dead," I say. "And were innocent. And lots of people have killed lots of people."

Oh, Owen, the list I could show you.

The list you could show me.

We've both done it now, Carl says.

"But . . . not all of them are still killers."

Owen's eyes narrow. Not in a mean way. He's searching through me, and it makes me want to shift my weight, shake him off. "You agree with your dad."

"What?"

"He says we all get to start over. I heard him tell Carol that. But see, to quote this pretty cool chick I know – we are who we are."

I shake my head, then turn around, look at Dad and Carol. They're realized they've lost us. They've stopped, they've turned, they're watching. But they're not coming over. I wave a hand at them, not really sure what I mean by it. But then I give my attention to Owen again, because he's it, he's the fish I'm reeling in.

I hate fishing, it hurts the fish –

"That's exactly it though, isn't it?" I say. "We are who we are, not who we were. Who we were, we can't change who we are? We decide that, right now. Every day."

I sound like Carl when I talk like this. I sound like Carl talking to me, and I love that, even though it makes the hole in my chest ache for him even more.

"And so everything we've done before doesn't matter if we promise not to do it again?" Cue Owen's grin, his stupid, meaningless grin. "C'mon, you don't believe that. I know you don't believe that."

"I think I do now."

Really?

Oh, my God.

My eyes float past Owen, back to the city. The shining, looming buildings, the ruins. I hear me say it. I hear me say it, and good God, I might actually believe it. "I think it's how it has to be."

"Why?"

The truth now, Sydney. What is the truth?

It flows out with my next breath, that easy. That instinctive. "Because otherwise most of the people I know would deserve to die."

Otherwise, I would have to let myself slip into the quiet.

Shh.

"Think you would?" Owen asks. So quiet.

My eyes snap open. "You sure you wanna start tossin' personal questions back and forth?"

His smile is gone, but his face still shows nothing – no, there's something in his eyes. I can't tell what. But there's something there, and maybe, with time, I can learn . . .

Time, time, time.

"Sorry," I murmur. "I'm tryin to . . ."

You're right here! Tryin'!

I reach under the sleeve of my shirt, find a scar, not healed. Press into it. But just for a second, and then I reach up and cling to the rose on my neck. One hand on the rose, one hand on the bow. "We're good people, Owen. We're good. My group." I study him, and he seems so much older than me, than even himself, and so tired, too, but he wipes all of that away when he realizes I'm watching him. I nod. "You."

I believe that, too.

And Owen lets out a long breath. And he lets me see it, he decides to, I don't know why, but the exhaustion flows back over him, sinks in, becomes him. "You callin' me good . . ." he says in the kind of voice that could easily break my heart, "Sydney, that's not me starting over. That's you being ignorant. Or stubborn. I could pretend the past doesn't mean a thing, but I can't make anyone else stop carin' about it." Smile. A strange kind. It is genuine. But it's very, very sad. And I feel like I'm standing with a stranger I know everything about. "Can't even make you, can I?"

My throat swells up, just that fast. I tear my eyes from him. Some walkers are coming for us from down the bridge, a spread-out herd. Chasing after us, always chasing, no, we're never left alone, are we?

Always finds you . . .

"C'mon, I'm not stupid," Owen mutters. "Neither are you."

I said this conversation had to happen. I think I was right. I also think it had to end this way. That this moment had to come.

The lump in my throat breaks and hurts like hell, and my eyes are full of water, and the walkers keep on walking.

"Did you kill Tyler?"

We are still. We are stone. Stones among dead people – so, gravestones. Gravestones, gravestones, silent as the grave.

"You really want me to stay?" he whispers. "You really want me to give this starting-over thing a shot?"

All I can do in answer is look back at him, because words would mean tears. And a stare does the job better than words could, anyway. Owen's eyes – I can understand them now, like they're a little movie – no, a book, his eyes would be a book – and something raw, suffering, is shifting around, moaning. It's part of a story, written on the page in blood . . .

"If you want me to stay," Owen says, "You never ask me what happened to Tyler again. Or – do. And I'll tell you everything. Every how, every why. But then I will leave. No hesitations, no detours. Those are my conditions . . . Your call."

He blows past me, rubbing his eyes.

"My –?"

Breathe, Sydney, yeah, that's it –

I spin, I shout, why the hell shouldn't I? The dead are coming anyway! "It isn't my call!"

He stops, runs his hand through his hair, half-turns, head hanging over his shoulder, a sort of patient, condescending mask slapped on over his eyes, oh, but his eyes, all that suffering, that's all I can see, because I know now, I know it couldn't have been him, because of that suffering, it's real, I know Tyler couldn't have been number five, I know it, and –

But then why would he leave if he told me the story?

"Owen – you can stay! If – if Rick signs off on it, and he will, if I talk to him, he'll be okay with you staying, and you can decide once and for all if you want to!"

"No. You tell me what you want."

I throw down my bow, because it's the only thing I have to throw down. "Why won't you just tell me about Tyler?"

His step brings us nose-to-nose. "Why do you think I won't just tell you?"

I hit him twice. Before. And now he's hit me back. In a much worse way. The kind of hit that doesn't leave a mark, but that knocks the breath out of you. Cuts. Scars. The kind of hit that knocks you from hope, from false belief, and down into reality. I'm such a fool. I'm such a fool.

"My God," I whisper into the black, "You did kill him."

A tear escapes him. I didn't see it coming. I only noticed the darkness and the blood, not the water. He smirks as he wipes it away, and it's one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen.

"Careful, Sydney. You're talkin' like you think the past matters."