Beth Greene.

Merle Dixon.

Henry and Molly Cartwright.

Tyler Wells.

Rebecca Wells.

Hershel Greene.

Lori Grimes.

Bob.

Andrea.

Dale.

T-Dog.

Sophia.

Patrick.

Joe.

. . . . .

I quickly scribble that last name out. Then . . . then I circle it. And add a question mark at the end, larger than any of the letters.

"Hey."

I look up from the notebook – well, down from it. I'm actually sitting in a tree. Dad's below. It's a little hard to tell through the branches, but I think he's squinting in a way that means he's not happy. Not that that's unexpected. "What're you doin'?" he calls.

"Writin'."

"I mean what're you doin' away from camp? Without telling anyone anything?"

I pinch my lips together and nod off into the only-sort-of distance. "I can see camp." Kind of. "I could spit and hit it." Kind of.

"Sydney, you step two feet away, you let someone know. I'm gettin' sick of you wanderin' off. Got it?"

I take a deep breath. "You want me to come down?"

He pushes a fist into the tree and looks around him. I think he shakes his head. I think he sighs, too. "What're you writin'?

"Nothin' much."

"What, is it like a diary, or somethin'?"

"Or somethin'."

"Any dark secrets I should know about?"

"It ain't – it's not a diary."

The birds sing then, just the birds for a while. Morning birds. They're always happy. Like I should be, happy, happy Sydney, look-on-the-bright side Sydney, because, hey, someone has to.

"They left," Dad says.

I swallow. "Yeah. I heard."

"Rick asked about you."

"Tell him I'm fine?"

"You ain't. You're . . ."

"I'm mad," I say, because what's the point in hiding it? "I don't think splittin' us up is a good idea." I shift around, and I'm suddenly wondering how bad it would hurt to fall the twenty or so feet to the ground. "But I said that. No one listened. Big surprise."

"No one likes us splittin' up, but it makes the most sense –"

"When have we split up without somethin' goin' wrong? When?"

"Today," he says, with a little less edge to his voice.

I roll my head back, look up through all the branches at the sky that can't decide if it wants to be cloudy or not.

"Everything'll be alright," he says in the way someone says something they think they're supposed to say.

I tap my pen on the notebook.

"I'm goin' huntin'," he says after a minute, and my pen stops mid-tap.

"Can I come?"

"Not this time."

And now this conversation is dead.

"Hey, don't roll your eyes at me."

"I didn't." He can't even see my eyes from all the way down there. I did roll them, though.

"You know I want you to rest. Heal up."

I look at my mangled hand. Yes. Maybe if I rest long enough my fingers will grow back. Maybe I'll be able to shoot my bow as well as ever. Maybe I'll grow wings while I'm at it. Discover the power to heal the dead, even.

"Fine," I say shortly.

"Yeah," he says, copying my tone. "Fine." I hear him step away. "I'ma tell Carol where you're at, then I'm headin' out."

I listen to him go. His footsteps don't take long to get lost in the sounds of the forest. He might as well be a ghost.

. . . . .

BETH GREENE.

I'm writing about Beth first because this book is partly for her, or because of her. She's the reason I'm able to write it. If not for Beth, I might be dead. She probably saved a lot of lives, including mine.

Beth was eighteen when she died. She was murdered by a woman named Dawn, because Dawn didn't want Beth to save Beth's friend, Noah. Beth risked her life to save him. She lost her life to save him.

Beth grew up on a farm in Georgia. She liked to ride horses and sing. She was a good singer. She still sang, even after the turn. It helped us feel better sometimes. She loved Judith and took care of her after

. . . . .

"Hey."

The pen nearly falls out of my hands. Hell, I nearly fall out of the tree. That voice is Carl's. I look down, and there he is. I half-wonder if my head is making him up, but I shoot that idea down pretty fast. I tend to only fake-see dead people. "Hey."

He looked down the second my eyes found his. No, I can't have his eyes anymore. "Leah wanted me to come check on you."

I take a deep breath. An icy block forms in the center of me. "You aren't here because you want to be. Got it."

"That's not – I mean . . . Yeah, you're right."

I lean against the trunk and wait for him to go.

"Sydney –" He moves around, paces? "I know I'm being a jerk."

What? I don't move, but – is this progress?

"I know I should be . . . sensitive, and – and I guess forget about Atlanta –"

My anger with him – no, frustration, frustration is a more accurate term – my frustration with him spikes, hits my throat, my tongue, the ice block expands in all directions and cuts mercilessly. "Forget about what in Atlanta, Carl? Forget about what?"

"You know what –"

"About me going to Owen instead of you? That's what you want to forget about?"

"That's what never should have happened!"

I swing my legs over the branch I'm on. I get a good grip on a different one and start the climb down. Meanwhile –

"I'm your boyfriend! I'm the one who has been there for you all this time!"

This is good, says a voice inside me, We need to do this.

"Where have you been lately?" My boot touches a lower branch, I swing onto it all the way.

"That's not fair."

My left hand is on fire. It isn't ready to climb trees, or do much else. "I was bit," I remind Carl as I press the hand against a branch, because I have to. "I lost two of my fingers, and then you act put out. That's not fair."

"You think that doesn't kill me? I would do anything to get you your fingers back! To change what happened!"

My boots are on the branch closest to the ground now. Getting up on it an hour ago was a chore, it took ten minutes just to do it, and it's a decent drop, maybe five feet.

"I should have been there! You should have told me you were going! I should have been with you!"

I jump. I land. I let my knees dip me close to the ground and my fingers brush soil, but I don't stumble. "No."

"We're better as a team. We've proven that so many times. Why do you still try and do stuff alone? Why do you shut me out of everything important?"

"You're important! I just want to keep you safe!"

"I'm sick of you trying to keep me safe! I'm two years older than you!"

"I know." I try to hang onto my voice, because it's like a balloon fighting to get out of hand and soar off, go where it will, and I'm afraid I'll lose it, because I always lost balloons, eventually, and because Carl isn't concerned about noise, or how calm we are, he's already out of hand.

"It's because you don't trust me," he says.

"What?"

"You don't trust me to have your back!"

"Oh, my God –"

"You don't trust me –"

"That's bullshit, Carl, that's complete –"

"You don't trust me like you trust Owen."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"It's true!"

I rub my head. It's starting to feel crowded. "No. It's not."

"I don't –" He sighs. No, it's more like the breath is yanked right out of him, so fast his voice gets all cut up and bleeds. "I can't believe you. After . . ." He shakes his head. "You went to him, Sydney –"

I stomp my foot. "That's enough!"

So much for control. So much for holding onto the balloon. I felt that shout all the way down in my chest, though really, in there, it felt more like a roar. I caught Carl mid-word, and he's still open-mouthed, trapped between letting it die and pushing it all the way out into the real world between us, and it's a hell of a big world.

"Owen is my friend," I say into that world, "and he and I go way back, we've been through a lot, before and after the turn, and I do trust him. And maybe I did need him then, comin' out of the hospital. I don't know why I would need him and not you, but maybe. Or, maybe . . . maybe I had just watched Beth die! Maybe I had just seen my dad shoot her killer in the head point-blank! Because he did that, you know, and I still don't know if it was right, and I would love to – I need to talk to you about it, but we can't, or at least we haven't, because we've been too busy doing this shit here, where you treat me like I'm dirt and I let you, but I am done, because I don't deserve it!"

I hear leaves crunching too late, and turn my head away right as Leah, Carol, Glenn, and Owen appear in front of us, splashing onto the scene like raindrops, cutting me off from Carl and him from me. Leah touches my arm and whispers my name, and honestly, I think I would jerk away no matter who it was, unless it was Carl, and that just seems like such an ungodly possibility right now, particularly because I'm screaming, so suddenly I barely believe it's me, "I got my fingers cut off, you idiot!"

"Sydney, that's enough," says Carol. Leah takes my arm and starts to lead me away. The next thing I know, Carol's hissing Carl's name, and Leah and I both turn around, her hand still clasped onto me. Owen's hunched over some, his arm pressed against his face, and Carl's gone from staring at the ground to staring at him, and Glenn's in between the two, pressing a hand back on Owen while keeping his other palm open to Carl.

Owen's sleeve is flooding with blood. I move closer to him, closer to them both, but Leah still has hold of me and keeps me from going far. "Why," Owen mutters in a voice verging on dangerous, "does everyone keep hitting me?"

"Don't talk to me about her like you know her!" Carl yells as Carol takes Owen and guides him away from Glenn, who starts pushing Carl back. "She's my girlfriend !"

Owen's red-washed face flashes up. "Then treat her like it, asshole!"

"If you don't all shut the hell up, I'm gonna shoot all three of you," Glenn swears, strands of hair sticking on his forehead, eyes bloodshot and fierce in a way that almost makes me believe him.

The blood pours from Owen's nose and over his mouth. Carol gets him to lean against a tree, and I realize that I'm cold and my overshirt is in a bundle in my hand. "Here," I say, holding it out to Carol, in a daze, "To – stop the bleeding."

She takes it and gives it to Owen, who takes it, too, and tilts his head back for a second with the shirt in a ball on his nose, but he stops that just as fast as he started, ducking his head down and letting some fresh blood gush out as he removes the shirt to say, "Take my jacket."

"It's okay."

He spits some stray blood and starts to shrug out of the jacket. "Take it."

And I won't argue with him more, but as I take the heavy coat, drape it over me and slide the sleeves over my arms, I look over to where Glenn has Carl, good and far and out of earshot, and hope – or do something like hope – that he doesn't see me in this. "I'm sorry," I say as Owen balls the shirt up again. "He was mad at me, but he – he thought it had – something to do with you . . . He must have just lost it –"

"What did you say to him?" Carol asks, and I start to answer, but, wait – she's asking Owen.

"You said something?" I say faintly.

He grimaces around the shirt. "Doesn't matter."

"Why would you – how much did you hear?"

"Enough."

"Too much," says Leah. "Hang on." She leaves us, and a twist of my head shows where she's going: A walker's found us, found my peaceful tree, and Leah strides up to it drives her machete into its skull like it's cookie dough. She walks back, flicking the blood from the blade, right when Glenn comes up, too. He gestures over his shoulder. Carl's where he was put, his head bowed. His hands are in fists. "I'll keep him out here for a while," Glenn says, tired. "You should get Owen back to camp."

I'm hit with a deep need to tell Glenn I'm sorry, so much so, for this, for . . . Beth, for how Maggie has been completely broken since Beth, but the hurt I feel for him right now is too strong for me to begin to put into words, at least – at least without crying.

"Get him away from this spot," Carol says. "There'll be more walkers coming."

Glenn starts to go, but then pauses and eyes Owen. "Why didn't you try to hit him back?"

Owen doesn't answer right away. That's how I can tell he'll be serious when he does. "I don't know."

Glenn doesn't press him. He rests his hand on his shoulder, though, before he heads back to Carl. Owen's eyes follow him over there. I don't recognize the look in them. They're softer than usual, though. He'd hate to know that, but it makes my heart ache worse, only – it's sort of a good ache, if that makes any sense. Maybe it doesn't.

"Let's go," Carol murmurs, putting a hand on Owen's back as he steps from the tree. Leah follows them as they move, realizes I'm not in step with her, and turns back.

"Sydney. Come on."

I'm having trouble going. My adrenaline was through the roof, but now – I'm crashing. And my mind is rushing back over the past two minutes, and I can't be sure if it really happened or if it was all made up, but remember, I usually only fake-see dead people.

"Sydney. Hey." Leah comes back to me. I'm suddenly aware that she only has three or so inches on me now. I'm growing. I'm getting older, always, every second, aging on. Becoming an adult in more than just spirit. I don't . . . that's too exhausting of a thought to dwell on. "Let's go back to camp," Leah, my old mom, says. Gently.

I go to push my fingers against my eyes, but realize that I don't have those particular fingers anymore.

Leah takes my arm and leads me back to camp. Carl . . . Carl, I leave behind.