I'm sitting with my elbows on the mattress and my head bowed against my folded hands – it's the prayer position, the traditional one, I guess, but I'm not praying – and that's when the covers move.

When Carol moves.

My hands fall, my head lifts. She's moving, just a little and then more, moving like she's having a bad dream. Her head is going this way and that, her lips are moving but not making any sounds. I shoot to my feet, get dizzy, stumble against the bed but get next to her pillow. "Carol?"

Her eyes open. They're dazed eyes, but they're open, her name, her name got to her –

"Carol . . ." I breathe. "It's Sydney. You're okay. We're both okay . . ."

And her eyes connect with mine, and here she is, alive full-force, and something else connects between us, clicks, and I grab her hand with my good one. Lord. Even with all of the shit we've been through, we have to have a lucky star somewhere.

"Hi," I say. "Hi . . ."

"Sydney . . ."

I take in a breath, a ragged one, and leaving her is the last thing I want to do but I do it anyway. I back away from the bed, slide my hand from her hand, our fingers touching until the last possible moment, and I feel like a little kid letting go of Mom's – or Dad's – hand. But I'm not a little kid, I have to be grownup right now, so I go for the door. "The doctor. I have to get you the doctor, and Beth –"

"Beth?"

Beth.

I spin around. Carol's trying to sit up, but she's weak, her arms aren't ready for her to be upright yet. I don't think Carol cares what they want, though. Her head is much more awake than the rest of her, and that's useful, but it can also be bad, I know. "Beth," I repeat, because Carol doesn't know, of course she doesn't, she got hit by a car before she could find out. "Beth's alive, and – and she's here, she's fine. We're at that hospital, Grady? The car hit you, remember? People from here were the drivers, they brought us back with them, but – but we found Beth, so now –"

So now we can find a way out. But you can't say that out loud, Sydney Rose.

I shouldn't have said most of that out loud, actually. If anybody just heard that, they now know that Carol and I know Beth, that I've been lying, that's Beth's been lying, and Dawn – she wouldn't like that, would she? Shit.

Carol's gotten herself propped up all the way. "Shut the door."

"I can't, they won't let me."

"Shut the door, Sydney."

"I can't." I glance at the door, then step towards the bed. This time when I talk, I keep my voice nice and low. "This isn't a place where we can break rules. Not even ones like that, not even the little ones."

She tilts her head down and gives me a look that stirs something up in me, a look that says . . . that says I should be braver. That she thought I would be. Or am I reading too deep into it?

She doesn't get it, she hasn't met Dawn, she hasn't talked to Beth. Before I can open my mouth again, she's talking, all business, ready to go.

"Your dad, is he here, is he safe? And Owen?"

"No. I mean, I don't know if they're safe. Probably, though. Probably. They – after these guys got us, I don't know what happened to them. But they're not here. They must have gone back to the church . . . and they'll be coming for us soon. But we shouldn't – we shouldn't talk about that, Carol, they could hear, someone could hear."

She sighs, but there's a shift in her as she studies me. A good shift . . . she's starting to believe I know a thing or two about all this, isn't she?

Don't. Read. Too. Deep.

"Your hand," she says.

I look down at the thing, half skin and bone, half white lump covering . . . well, skin and bone. Just not enough of it. "It's . . . It's not a big deal, really. They gave me pain meds and antibiotics. And . . . and I'm going to be okay, Carol. It's been . . . twelve hours, at least, more, I think, and I don't have any signs. No fever, no – no anything that might mean I'm sick."

"Come here, let me feel your forehead."

I go to her. Her hand is cool against my skin, and that makes me nervous, but after a minute she says, "You feel just right." She takes her hand away, but it floats in the air for a minute. Our eyes lock again and something else locks again, and I get a damn near overwhelming urge to hug her.

But I don't.

"I told the people here that a man named Blake cut my fingers off," I murmur. "He did it because he hated our group and found you and me after we got separated from them, because he – because Blake attacked the farm we were staying at and we scattered."

"How did you say we knew each other?"

"Just that you were part of my group. And that you and my dad were friends."

"Alright. Sounds like you've done a good job."

I smile a little, but it doesn't last. It can't. "Carol, I need to get the doctor in here. And Beth will want to know you're awake, but we have to pretend we don't know her, that's what I've been doing, it's safest." I pull away for the second time and go for the door, babbling over my shoulder as I do. "She was in here for a while, just acting like she was worried about you because you were new and not in great shape, but Dawn – Dawn's the leader here, and she used to be a cop – Dawn said she needed her for something. That was – maybe an hour ago – Hey!" I yell out the door, looking up and down the quiet hallway. "Where's Dr. Edwards? Dr. Edwards!"

From there . . . things happen in a rush. A guard, or an ex-cop or whatever, yells at me to stop yelling, and I yell back that I need Edwards, and he tells me to shut up, and so I yell some more, and finally Edwards himself shows up just as the guard is coming at me with his teeth bared and his hands stiff and ready to grab something. Heads have poked out of rooms by then, bored people eager for a show, but Edwards guides me back into the room and closes the door behind us. That ex-cop comes in, though. He doesn't touch me, just looks like he would like to – he looks like Len, whenever I would piss him off. So I don't look at him for long, not long at all. Dr. Edwards, he talks to Carol in voice that's too nice, I hate that voice, but Carol answers everything sweet as sugar, even though she's still hurting, she has to be, even with morphine . . . but she's tough. She's one of the toughest people I know.

And then, bless here, here's Beth, my Beth. She slips into the room quiet as a mouse, and her eyes meet Carol's, but neither of them give a single sign that they know each other, that they love each other, that they're family. I wonder if I'm that good, if I've been pulling off that lie so well. Even Beth just brushing my shoulder makes me want to throw my arms around her. But I cross them instead.

I only get Beth to myself for a second. When Dr. Edwards realizes she's here, he says, "Beth, good. I need you to –"

But the door opened right when he started talking, and now his voice is cut off completely by Dawn's. Dawn, who for some reason – I think, I think – looks a lot worse than she did this morning. Worse in the eyes, I mean – worse in the head. Worse where it counts. Like in the past few hours she's missed ten days of sleep. "Unless this woman is in immediate danger of dying, Edwards, we have a bigger issue."

Edwards was working his hands along Carol's ribcage, but he stops that. "What?"

And Dawn, she looks at all three of us, all three of us strangers, one by one. Her eyes linger on Beth. "A hostage situation." She tilts her head back. "It seems these three are going home."

. . . . .

Only our people. Only our people could pull this off.

My clothes have been washed and are waiting for me when I get back to the room I slept in. The stains are gone from them, even. I get out of these ugly, scratchy scrubs and pull my stuff on. My hands shake.

Our people got three of their people. Ex-cops, who were out on patrol and somehow got captured by us. I don't know all who's here, all who's come to the rescue, because Dawn didn't give us names. God, she was upset, upset in that tight, hold-it-all-in way. She knows everything now, or most of it. Knows that Beth and me and Carol are together, that we were lying. All that talk of secrecy, and now it doesn't matter. But that's a good thing. We get to leave here. Simple as that.

Except, after spending two minutes buttoning my jeans, I'm one hundred percent reminded that I'm recovering from an unexpected, hasty amputation. And that outside of this hospital, there won't be pain meds or antibiotics. And that's . . . scary. Even with the meds Dawn gave me this morning, my hand doesn't feel all that great. Without them . . .

But I'll just have to get through it. Hershel didn't have much medicine for his leg. God only knows what my uncle Merle had.

Come on, girl, you're tough as nails.

"Damn straight . . ." I murmur.

Even my boots have been cleaned. My good old black boots with the studs. Dad brought them back from one of his trips out with Michonne, way back when the prison was still home and they were always looking for the Governor. These boots, they're like ones Merle would have worn. I pull them on, work to tie them, and then inhale nice and deep.

Why are you still shaking?

Because I'm nervous . . . Because I'm afraid.

Why?

Because of my hand.

It's more than that, though, isn't it?

Can it really be so simple? Can we really trade some of us for them, just that easy?

No.

"Yes, we can," I mutter. "We can do this, we can do this nice and easy. Not everything has to end bloody. Some things end good. Some things end good, Sydney." I grip the rose on my necklace. "Time to go home," I whisper to it. "I'm coming home." I give it a kiss and then let it fall back against my heart.