Buck. My dead dog Buck. My dead dog Buck, who has been dead longer than just about anyone I loved. He died nearly a full year before the turn. We're walking again and it's good to walk, because that means getting away from where that scene played out. But the dog flesh is still in my stomach, my body is dissolving it and using it to fuel itself, I know because we watched a cartoon about it at school. But in the cartoon it was an apple and a turkey sandwich and some milk in the stomach, not the charred meat peeled from the bones of a dog that looked like mine.

Once upon a time, I never would have been able to eat something like that, and once upon a different time, I at least wouldn't have been able to hold it down. I should be throwing up just because that's my thing, that's what Sydney does, she can't hold down food when she's upset, but that Sydney is back in Atlanta . . . I don't know this Sydney. She tries to hope and trust and not dwell, never dwell, but she's also crazier than the old Sydney, yes, old Sydney may have starved to death, but at least she had a clearer view of things. This new one might be dangerous. Me. I might be dangerous. To the people I love. I'm definitely making things harder. So is my father, where our relationship is concerned, but the demons in his head are at least real. Demons. Remember those, Bob? I look up and around for him, daring him to appear and strike up a conversation, but all I see is Owen drifting back to walk in step with me.

"Carl finally let you breathe," he says. "Thank God for Judith."

"Don't start. He's got every right to worry about me."

"We all do." There's a pause, a heavy one. "Are you okay? And don't brush it off, don't say you're fine, because you're not."

"Why do you still ask questions if you know everything?"

"Good manners?"

"I'm not about to break down or explode or something, if that's what you want to hear."

"No one thinks any less of you, you know. Not if they have any sense. And most of these people love you too much to think any less of you, anyway."

"They should think less of me, Owen, you saw me. I lost – I wasn't me, like I am, like I should be, I was back to being a stupid little girl who missed her dog. And if I do that at the wrong moment, someone could die. So of course they should think less of me, I don't care how much they love me, they can't trust me, they have to know that . . ."

My voice almost broke on those last couple of sentences, but I'm not sure he noticed. After a few more seconds, a few more steps, he says, "I trust you. So deal with it."

I sniff. "Well, you're an idiot. But we've covered that."

"Your dad's goin' off."

"Of course he is."

We watch as he breaks from his place ahead in the group. He glances back and checks my boots and then all but dives into the forest. I don't blame him. If I could go, I'd rush. There's nothing quite as calming as being alone in the forest. Or even with people, one or two, if you really love them. Maybe if you have something really important to talk about with them, and you decide to, because you know you'll have to eventually and now is probably the best time, because no matter how bad the conversation is at least there will be a silver lining in the fact that it's a distraction, and maybe it will even help everything else get better, because maybe things are only bad because that one issue is the root of the trouble, or at least some of it, because life and minds are like that.

I press my knuckles into Owen's shoulder. "Stay."

"What . . . ? No. No, no, no, Sydney, don't put me in that position . . . "

"You don't have to lie to anyone. Just don't tell them I'm gone until they notice. Then tell 'em all you want. C'mon . . . Don't you trust me?"

"I – that's not fair. This isn't . . . Damn you."

He keeps muttering behind me as I step into the forest and let it swallow me up. It's almost as sweet as I'd hoped. How sad that it can't last. It never lasts.

. . . . .

I'm no stranger to sneaking behind Dad through forests, but this is the first time I've done it during the day in a while. Makes things easier. I can stay further behind him. I lose sight of him more than once, and I can never hear him – though, to be fair, half the time I can't hear him when he's five feet away. And I have a clear idea of how things will end this time, because I'm planning it.

When we're a fifteen minutes' walk or so from being back on the road, I'll let Dad know I'm here and he can get pissed off and then I can yell back, too, and ask him about Beth, and why he's been pushing me away, and anything else that comes to mind. And even if he wants to drag me back to the road, he'll have to deal with me shaking him down or challenging him or whatever for a good few minutes, and that can make all the difference.

What I didn't count on is that the more we walk, the more brush I kick through and branches that snag at my face, the more nervous I become. No, nervous isn't exactly the right word. Just uncertain . . . and worried, more with every step, that I made a bad call, and not because I don't want to deal with my father. That's too important to regret. The problem is that I'm not as capable of protecting myself as I was a month ago. I'm still not used to that, I still sometimes forget it when I'm with the group, but when I'm alone it's impossible not to be so incredibly, awfully aware that I'm weak again. I have a little revolver in my back pocket and I have a six-inch hunting knife, but I can't use the revolver unless things go really wrong and the knife is a far cry from my bow and arrows. By far cry I mean farthest possible cry. Just like I'm the farthest possible cry from the old me.

I'm vulnerable.

When a walker stumbles out from behind a tree, snarling and groping and coming straight for me, I get scared. Not ready or hyped up, but scared. The kind of scared that makes me have to remind myself to get my knife, when used to I would have already had an arrow through the walker's eye by the time I realized the thing had come to eat me. But I draw the knife, and I wait for the walker to come at me, and then I shove my forearm against its chest and jump and drive the knife into its skull, and all's well. And I feel a little better as it topples over. But nowhere near better enough.

When we find a place where we can rest, where we can have some free time, I'm learning how to use my bow again. Hopefully my hand will be healed by then, and if not, while I'm waiting, I'll get good with the gun, really good, as good as I used to be and better than that. I won't be weak. I won't be someone who has to be protected. I'll do the protecting.

I keep on after Dad. He vanished while I was dealing with the walker, but that's good – lucky, really, that he was that far away. He has no reason to cover his tracks, so tracking him's easy. I follow his trail to a break in the woods. I freeze when I realize how big of a clearing it is, because I should be able to see him and I can't. There's a big span of field, big enough that it has a barn, but I don't see Dad around it. Could he have gone inside? Or could he have realized I was following him and circled around to catch me? No. He would have just confronted me outright.

I take two more steps, feeling a little sun on my face, not even breathing, and I see him. I feel relief, I feel fear. He's sitting against a tree, looking out at the barn. It's a nice view. A hill slopes down from the forest, there's wide dirt path leading to the barn, and it looks like the kind of barn you'd see in calendar or something, maybe for October or November. But Dad doesn't need a rest. Dad doesn't like to rest. He's lit a cigarette. I don't move. It's sooner than I would've liked – I may have been procrastinating – but this is about the best chance I'll have.

Dad holds the cigarette in his fingers for a second, kind of fiddles with it, puts it back to his lips. I try to make myself move, speak, now I'm all of a sudden nervous, but I swear I'm about to go forward, reveal myself. But then Dad takes the cigarette and puts it out on the back of his hand. The smoke rises as the ash crumbles onto his burning skin, and I'm not in a forest, or outside, or in Virginia itself, no, it's all fake, an illusion, and really, I'm in a cold, dark room fit only for dead people, and they scream in here, and I sit and play with flames and sharp edges and all the ghosts, and look, look, here my father is to join me. Demons, Bob. You want to talk about demons? I bring them and welcome them to my family, because maybe I am just a demon myself –

"Stop."

Dad jumps. He sees me, I hate his eyes, they don't look like Dad's eyes. My eyes? He drops the cigarette, I'm relieved but not enough, Dad ducks his head into his hands. "Ah, Jesus –"

"It won't help anything. I mean, it feels better, in that moment –"

God, it does. Can I borrow the lighter? I'll show you.

"– but it just keeps – it keeps dragging you down this really horrible road, a dark road, until you – you can't work through anything unless you're in pain. You work through it by being in pain. You have to hurt yourself, punish yourself, that's – that's what starts to make sense. Did you know that? Have you done it before? Had you done it before and never told me, when I was – when we were at the prison and you found out?"

Beth found out first.

"Did you understand and never tell me?"

He's still on the ground, but he should be up and talking to or comforting or fighting with me, I'd take fighting, hell yeah, let's fight, let's hash it out, but his arms are on his knees, his hands are in fists, his head loose and his eyes ahead. "You shouldn't be out here," he says, so goddamn tired.

"You shouldn't be runnin' from me!"

He flinches, because I'm starting to cry. If he only knew how far I am from done. Things need to be said, and I need to destroy something. Even if it's a part of him. Part of me. Something is terribly wrong, and maybe something else needs to be destroyed, you know, To make an omelet you gotta break a few eggs, my Nana used to say that, so let's do it, let's break eggs, let's break whatever the hell needs to be broken because a hell of a lot already is.

"From the start of this, it's been you and me. We lost Mom and we lost Merle, but it was always you and me. Everyone else we had, we had. Together. But when we lost the prison, we lost somethin' else. And we don't do good without it. But you won't talk to me. And you keep me at arms' length. Because you feel guilty about not looking for me, because of Beth, I don't know, but when you don't talk to me, I assume it's because you don't care, and I know, really, that that's not true, but I feel like it is anyway, I don't know why, and you – you end up here, I guess, and it's just – this not being, not being on good terms isn't working for either of us! But you're my father! You know best, ain't that what you've always told me? Then do what's best! Stop shuttin' me out! Stop shuttin' yourself out! I need you! And you need me!"

I'm shouting by the end. And panting. And pouring tears. My frustration blew up to rage, and now it fades as quickly as it came, dies, and I feel empty. I wipe sweat from my face. "Hold the lighter to your knife, if you really wanna forget about things for a while," I say. "Just for ten or twenty seconds, then press it against your skin. Doesn't really compare to feeling the blood come out of you, though. That's the best."

"Sydney, stop," he says, and he's crying, too.

"Promise you'll never do it again," I hiss, so damn angry. "If you ever do it again, I'll start doin' it again, I swear to God, I'll rip myself open –"

"That's it!" He shoots to his feet, finally. His hair falls in his face and he points at me. "You ain't the boss here! That's me!"

"Then act like it!"

He almost says something but doesn't. He almost takes a step but doesn't. We stare at each other from too far apart for too long, until he lowers down. Sits. Drops his head. A man who's been through too much.

In a strange way, I understand him more than I ever have. I've felt, I feel, as done as he looks.

"I'm sorry, Syd," he whispers, sounding so unlike him.

I can't help but remember how he was – how I thought he was – before the walkers. Unbreakable. All-knowing. Fierce. Kind of mean. Distant. Never happy for more than a flash. And I dedicated myself to giving him a reason to be happy for those flashes, and praying to God that one time or another it would stick. It never did. Never has.

I wipe away tears and walk to him. Take up his limp hand and look at the burn. It'll leave a scar. These things always do. "Why am I not enough?" I sound as empty as I feel.

"Baby girl, you've always been enough. It's me. I ain't enough."

I sit and hold his hand in both of mine, studying scar after scar, callous after callous. I tell him all I can tell him. "Yes, you are. You're enough."