Dad leads us through the dark halls. We pass through patches of light now and then, from windows, usually in rooms with open doors, but for the most part it's us and the shadows. I keep my eyes on Dad as we near where the sound came from – I can tell it's where the sound came from, because now there's the sound of a walker coming from the same spot. That snarling, groaning sound that I hear in my sleep. Even on the rare occasions when I have a good dream, I still hear walkers.

Always on our toes, always edging into new rooms, we eventually find the walker responsible for the snarls. Arms outreached and groping, it's pinned to a pillar in the center of the little room. Pinned by an arrow.

"That's yours," I murmur to Dad, as if he couldn't tell.

"Yeah." Then up goes the machete, down goes the machete, there's blood, and Dad yanks his arrow out of the thing with a little explosion of gore. The walker tumbles, I jump out of the way, and –

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!

Gunfire. Close. I jump, we all do, and not just because of the sound, but because walkers don't use guns, humans do, and humans are typically a hell of a lot worse than walkers –

The shots came from close by, and so I follow them, tip-toeing, arrow at the ready, and Dad's on my heels and the others probably are, too – Dad says something, says to get behind him, but I don't –

I don't know why I don't.

I find myself in another hallway. Just another hallway. Only there are two walkers – no, one walker, one human. The human, a young black guy, is fighting off the walker. I step forward, I can't decide to try and get the shot or not, when suddenly the walker is coming my way. Thrown at me. Thrown onto me.

It goes slow, when something like that happens. The fall to the ground, my bow slipping from my hands – it takes a hundred years. The impact with the ground – that knocks the breath from me, plus there's the fully-grown walker landing on my chest, and its snapping jaws? Oh, those go slow. So slow, so why can't I escape them? Because I'm moving so slow, too. It all happens so. Damn. Slow.

The walker's long hair hangs over me. Its breath is awful, and all too hot on my neck when my dad's machete nails the thing in the skull, and blood splatters in my hair, but the walker goes still. Sudden silence. I take a long breath.

"Sydney?" Dad says, bending down, grabbing the walker, his voice gone high like it does when he's scared.

"I'm good."

He hauls the body off of me, and something digs into the back of my neck – then snaps.

My necklace. Carl's necklace.

"Wait –"

I push myself up. I feel around my collar bone, just to be sure, as Dad drops the walker next to me. There's nothing there, though, the necklace is gone, my necklace, which is why while Dad's yelling to Carol It was the kid, I'm crawling to the walker body and looking for something silver, I felt it take it, this damn stupid walker, give it back to me! –

There. In its left hand, my pretty, pretty necklace with its shining rose. Snapped now, but I can fix that, I can fix that – I reach over the walker's torso and carefully remove the necklace from its cold fingers.

Right as I do, Dad shouts Syd, wait!

And right after that, those cold walker fingers lock onto my wrist.

And the snarls, the snarls from my dreams, they echo out through these hallways again.

I turn into an animal in a trap.

I panic first, I flail. I shout. I wrestle, I collect myself enough to maneuver, strategize, and I manage to get my feet over by the walker's head, I press my boots against its shoulder, I feel its muscles, its bones giving way, but not giving way enough. It pulls me and lengthens its neck, its teeth getting closer and closer to the hand it has, my left hand, the hand holding the necklace –

Your hand is in a fist! Let the necklace go and you can slip right away from it!

Of course, of course – I let the necklace drop onto the walker's chest – I'll get it later, Carl, I promise – and loosen my fingers out and try to slip the walker's grasp, only it doesn't work, I can't slip it, I was wrong, its fingers are like iron, the walker's growling, it's snarling – it's pulling – oh my God – kick, Sydney, scramble, Sydney –

Scream, Sydney. Scream, because that's all you can do now.

"No! NOOOO!"

The walker bites off the tops of my index and middle fingers.

I scream. I just scream.

The walker chews.

It's Owen's bullet that finally puts it down. It's Dad who pulls me off the body. His hand takes my wrist as we both topple to the floor, and he and I both watch the blood streaming from my destroyed fingers. My destroyed fingers. Dad makes the same sound I heard him make on the bridge when I put the gun to my head. Maybe a sound even worse.

My necklace. Where's my necklace?

Now I'm on the ground, all the way, lying flat again, I was slammed down onto it, but really it's just my arm that's pinned. My hand. Dad's keeping it there, won't let me move, and I know why, I understand everything, everything that just happened and everything that's about to, and I try to escape from Dad, but he's got me stuck here, and he's crying, and gasping, and I am, too, like father like daughter, and Carol's kneeling next to him, and Owen's kneeling next to me, and Owen presses something in my hand and I look and it's my necklace, it's Carl's necklace, and I hold it to my heart but there's no hand to hold there so I leave the necklace on my chest and grasp at Owen's jacket until one of his hands is covering mine. The other holds my shoulder.

And I hear Carol –

"Daryl, you have to cut from the wrist!"

"No!"

"It's too late to just cut –"

"She ain't losin' her hand!"

"Ah, it ain't that bad, Daryl." Uncle Merle crouches down next to Owen, glances over at Dad and Carol, nods a little, then says to me with a wink, "Little Bit here's tough. She can handle it, can't ya, baby girl?"

"No," I tell him, "I don't want to." I look over at Dad. His face is crumpled, he's sobbing, he doesn't want this either.

He has his Buck knife in his hand.

"Daddy," I cry, "I have to play piano for you."

I can't see him after that, because Owen's head gets in the way. He presses it against my cheek and breathes, "It's going to be okay."

"Stay."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Owen – stay."

"I'm staying. With you, with the group, for as long as you want me, Sydney, I'm staying."

"I have to play – I have to play piano – are they doing it? Are they cutting –?"

"Don't. Don't."

I start to struggle. He and Dad hold me down. "Please!" I cry, not even knowing what I want.

"Sydney," Owen whispers, "Claimed. Hear me? Claimed, claimed, claimed."

God only knows why that makes me go still.

Being still doesn't last for very long. Not after the blinding pain begins, when everything dissolves into an earsplitting white . . . before a sweet, quiet black that smells like leather and cigarette smoke becomes my world, and I'm actually alright, and I sleep.