A walker on the dirty carpet is grasping at a machete like it might actually know what it is. Dad sweeps down and snatches it from him, brings the machete up, brings it back down – splat. Splat? No, that doesn't do the sound justice. I don't think I'll ever think of a word that mocks the sound of a walker's head being bashed in.

We're in another office building, this one close to Grady Memorial Hospital. Possible home to Beth. Or prison to Beth. Or tomb to Beth –

Stop it.

It's a tall building, the one we're in. Tall enough that, when we get to the right place and find a good window, we should be able to check out the hospital from a safe enough distance. See what we can see, and such.

Carol leads, for the most part. Dad hangs a little behind her, stealing looks at me every chance he gets. I guess that's okay. And Owen . . . Owen's always behind me. But more than he usually is. And the space between us is cold and empty. And that makes everything, everything, off-balance. Even more than it would have been.

He slit his wrists! He slit his wrists and he turned, and he goddamn waited for me!

I bite my knuckle, hard, too hard. Tyler? My Tyler did that? How far gone was he, how could he have –

Where am I? In a building, some strange building, but with people that matter. People I love. Love, Sydney, love. There's still love in this world, it can't be all that bad. Not bad enough that dying is better than living.

But Owen keeps his distance. Owen is going to leave.

And the thought nearly makes me lose my breath. Because at some point – maybe after he claimed me, or saved me from Len the second time, or got me back with my group, or claimed me to save me from the Len in my head, or screamed at me when I threatened to kill myself – I started to need him. I do need him. And now I might have lost him, and I can't – I can't let him go –

A room. We're in a room. Brightly lit, by big windows. A lot like the windows in the building we were in when I had my breakdown. But the room's smaller, and there are two walker bodies on the floor. Dad swings his machete around, ready, but no new walkers appear. As Carol walks over to one of the windows, Dad picks up a full plastic bag next to one of the bodies.

"It's them," Carol says from the window. I look, and beyond her, I can see a massive building that must be the hospital. Beth.

Dad pulls out a handful of brightly-colored somethings – bags of chips, the little kind you could always get from vending machines. His eyes leave the window to meet mine. He hands me two of the bags – Lays. He and Merle used to keep those around. "Eat 'em both," he says.

"That's too much."

"You need it."

"You really think I can keep it down?"

"We ain't leavin' till you keep down somethin'." He doesn't say it in a demanding way, because he knows that how my body can't take food after horrible things happen isn't my fault. But he also knows what I know – I'm starving to death. And it has to stop.

Dad tosses a bag behind me, Owen catches it. "You fill up, too," Dad says – kindly, in his way – before he goes over to the window to join Carol, popping open his own bag of chips as he does.

Kindly. Dad said that to Owen kindly, not in a way like it was out of obligation, but in a way that said he actually didn't want Owen to starve. Like he actually . . . likes him.

Or pities him.

Or understands him.

He slit his wrists and turned.

And he goddamn waited for me.

So did Owen find him?

I press my palm against my temple, roll my head around.

Did Owen put him down?

Owen, Owen, Owen's right here. He doesn't go to the window like Dad and Carol. He walks to the corner of the room, pulls open his bag of chips. His back is to me. He pulls out a single chip and bites into it, chews slowly, I think just staring at the chip while he does it.

My steps are light and careful as they take me closer to him. I get right behind him, and then I don't know what to say.

He finishes his chip and goes for a new one.

I look at the two bags in my hands, crinkle them in my fingers, to make sure he knows I'm there. It doesn't seem to affect him, so I guess he does know. I can hear Dad and Carol murmuring behind us. They can talk. I can talk.

Man up, girl.

"I wasn't myself," I say quietly.

Owen digs his hand in for another chip, not being quiet about it.

"I . . . lost it. For a minute. I just . . ." I rub my forearm, with all the scars hidden by Carl's jacket. "I just needed to know."

"You didn't need to know anything."

I take a deep breath, shake my head once or twice, my mouth is dry – "He was my best friend –"

He faces me. "He was my brother."

Those eyes of his, with so much story to tell, could crush me right now. I swear, if he wanted them to, they could destroy me. And I'm so afraid, looking into them, that he's only holding himself back.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" I whisper.

He throws the bag of chips aside. It lands on the floor and chips scatter around like shards of glass. "Why didn't I just tell you?" And now Owen is close to me, close enough that I could grab his shoulders and shake them if I wanted to, shake them and beg him like I've never begged before, because I'm Sydney Dixon, and I'm not supposed to beg. "Because I didn't have to. Because I had no obligation to tell you, because I never wanted to tell anyone, because I wanted to forget every damn thing about that day, about what happened, about him, and then what do you do, Sydney? You put a loaded gun to your head and start screaming that you'll blow your brains out unless I tell you my most personal – my – my rawest secret, the one that I have to wake up and feel – oh, damn do I feel it! Every. Single. Day. You ripped it out of me, and now I can't even hide it anymore. Now it's out for the world to see. For the world to tear it up as it will. And me? I'm left with a bloody black hole that will never, never heal. Never. Because you needed to know. Well, now you know. You feel better?"

He didn't yell. Not once. His voice never went above a whisper. The room stays still, nothing out of the ordinary happens, but I would give anything to wind back the clock and say something, something different, that would make him blow up. Yell, scream, shout, kick things, break things. I can deal with all that. I grew up with all that. But this? I don't know this. I don't get it. I don't know how to deal with it.

"No," I rasp. "I don't feel better."

"Well, damn," he says. "All of the trouble you put me through, and neither one of us got anything out of it. Life's a bitch, ain't it?" He turns away.

"Owen."

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"Ah, that's sweet, Sydney. That makes everything okay. You're forgiven."

"I don't mean I'm sorry for what I did on the bridge," I say. "I mean, I am sorry for that, because Carol was right –" Oh, look at that, my eyes are watering – "but I know you won't forgive me for that, because I won't forgive me for that, because I don't deserve to be forgiven for that."

He's leaning against a desk. Eyes like coal.

Having these chips in my hands seems ridiculous, so I drop them. "I mean I'm sorry about – Tyler."

Eyes. Like. Coal.

"I'm sorry he did that. I'm sorry you had to go through that." I'm choking up, of course I am, and I stare at the chip bags, so normal, old-time normal, I mean. From a thousand years ago, when I was younger and I didn't understand life, and what people are, and what they do. "I'm sorry I forced your hand."

"I thought you weren't going to apologize for that part."

"I changed my mind."

"Why?"

"Because even if you can't forgive me, I'm still sorry." I lift my eyes to his. His head is inclined. I can't read him. I can't read a thing about him, and that scares me. "I'm so sorry."

We stay there in silence.

I wipe away the first tear to fall. He watches. Then he says, "You never chose."

"Chose what?"

"If you want me to stay and never talk about my brother or if you want me to go and know the whole story."

I blink at him. "But I thought – I thought after, after what I – after what I made you say on the bridge, the deal broke. I thought I broke it, I thought you would go."

Owen runs a hand through his hair, shakes his head at the ground, then at me. "No. I mean, you didn't break the deal. You made a new one – I could tell you . . . what happened with Tyler – part of what happened, at least – or you could blow your brains out. I chose the former. But you never said stay or go. And I didn't tell you everything, so the original deal's intact."

I stare at him. He stares back, blandly. But there's something there. Something.

"Why are you doing this?" I say.

"What?"

"We both know you could go and call our deal good. No matter what you say, you could call our deal good and leave and never have to deal with me – with any of us again. So why are you doing this? Why are you staying?"

"I never said I was." He straightens off the desk, pops his eyebrows. "I said the deal's still intact. You say stay or you say go. Ball's in your court, Sydney."

My mouth opens, but I can't talk. The ball's in my court. It's in my court, and all I have to do is say one word, one word, Stay, and all of this, the touch-and-go, the back-and-forth, it will end. Just say the word, Sydney. Say it –

There's a noise. Somewhere deeper into this building, but not deep enough – it bangs and echoes in here, and puts all four of us on our toes. Dad's already moving by the time I process the sound, he's slinging a bag over his shoulder and holding that machete like he was born with it in his hand. I jog to catch up with him, brush some hair behind my ear. "Did you and Carol see anything? That might mean Beth's there?"

"No. But we'll keep at it." He glances down at me. "Till sundown."

That should make me feel guilty. I mean, extremely guilty. Because what if we could find Beth, help her, save her by spending one more night, working one more day? That's a possibility, but we'll never know how that would have played out, because we're going back. At sundown.

But God help me, the way Dad looked at me just now . . . the way he looked at me like I mattered . . . more than Beth, that's bad . . . but, just – well, like he loved me more than anything.

I can't help but want to hold onto him and never let go.

We're starting to get good again and that's amazing.

And we have until sundown. That still gives us time. We could still win today. I touch the rose on my neck, and I let myself have a little hope. God, what a turnaround . . . but Owen's here, Dad and I are talking, and, yes, Carol slapped me, but we can work on that. The point is . . . right now, this moment, even with us chasing down a random sound that could end up with us fighting some monsters . . . this moment is good. And I am going to enjoy it.