AN: I have no excuses. Thanks for sticking around! I appreciate feedback/criticism and feel free to shoot me a message if you have any comments/questions/ideas to share!
"…anyone…anything sharp…"
"…what good…that..."
"…what do you mean 'like what'?"
Beginnings and ends dissolved into radio static and empty syllables. They sounded farther away than Amelia knew it was possible for them to be.
"...fuckin' precarious position…"
"…get the fuck outta here…still have the chance…"
She opened her eyes just enough to see light and-
-her head-
-the headache was fucking murder-
-pounding away like a fucking power drill behind her eyes-
She was on her back. The floor moved beneath her – not the slow, gentle movement she felt when the world was about to go dark, but short, rough jolts that rattled her brain around in her skull. Sudden lurches, to one side, then the other. Broad turns. Tires on gravel.
She pressed her palms flat over her eyes and tried not to groan. Refrained from asking anyone in the truck to do the merciful thing and knock her unconscious again. It was like a hangover worse than any she'd ever had in her life. The kind she'd expect from a night of binge drinking battery acid rather than alcohol. She released a slow breath through her teeth and slowly, carefully, sat up. She let her hands down into her lap, palms up. The pain was slow, creeping. Even the low light was unforgiving but the worst of it had passed.
She knew people were looking at her. Keeping that in mind kept her eyes pinned to the floor. Maybe she'd start counting the screws holding the metal paneling down.
A hand smaller than her own came to rest in one her of her open palms. Of all things, they drew her attention to the blood. Dried and thin, spotting her skin here and there from her forearm to her fingertips. She'd have bet money that she'd find it reached further down her arms if she pulled up a sleeve. She'd have bet more money that Carlos' hands and arms matched her own. She had fractured memories of his voice that she was glad were incomplete.
"Amelia?" Clementine asked carefully, drawing her sister's attention from the floor.
Clementine wore her bruises with the quiet defiance she'd had since she was too young to need it. The difference between a person broken on the outside and one broken on the inside could always be found in the eyes, and Clem's were alive and familiar. Damaged – there was no way to avoid that – but if Carver wanted to smother out the light behind them he'd have to try harder than that.
Sadness and hope. Clementine in two words. Amelia noticed, but couldn't pay more attention to it than to the angry swelling of her cheekbone. The darkening purple that had spread over the corner of her mouth, reaching as far as her chin.
"I'm sorry…" Amelia's voice cracked, and she wondered how long it'd been since she used it. She didn't remember; she couldn't recall anything other than the lodge. Nothing but a failed attempt to protect her that came far too late. Just her failure to keep the one promise she'd ever made to Clementine, again. "I'm sorry, Clem, I tried…"
Knifed him right in the back. Just like someone had warned him she would.
"Are you pleased with yourself?"
She hadn't stopped to remember everyone who would be here. She swept the truck for familiar new faces and familiar old ones. She spotted Lilly across the floor, back against the wall. Hands bound like everyone else's – bar Amelia's – and a glare that would put her worst one to shame. The only bright side in having Lilly here meant she was as screwed as the rest of them. Amelia tried to hold onto the thought for the next time Lilly spoke.
Amelia straightened her back and hardened her face. "Something to say?" Her voice cracked, and she swore internally.
Kenny's voice cut across the truck. "Lilly…" The warning drew a line across the floor, one Amelia knew either she or Lilly would overstep. Which of them would go first, she didn't care. He looked to Amelia, and she didn't miss the way his voice softened just a touch. "You did more than enough, darlin'."
Lilly's voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. "You could say that."
"Yeah, well, it's too fucking late, isn't it?" Amelia bit the words out, trying to forget the last place she'd heard them and hoping they would make her point. What was done was done. Death was permanent.
"We could have stayed hidden. We'd be following this truck instead of sitting here, tied up in it."
Amelia shook her head and let her eyes trail elsewhere in the dark. She kept quiet, her only response being a chaotic intersection of you're right and I don't care.
Kenny's answering for her was the only thing that stopped her from saying it out loud. "She did the right thing, Lilly,"
She didn't. She knew she didn't, and didn't care. Clementine had been a hostage; she couldn't have cared about anything else if she'd tried. Asking her to care about strategy or Not Escalating or even who else in that room lived or died would have been asking the impossible. Lilly should have known better than to attempt it, she thought. Lilly knew her well enough to have realistic expectations of her.
"What she did-" Lilly's eyes cut to Kenny; it was only for a split second but no one in the truck could miss how sharp they were. "-almost got her killed. And now we're all screwed without numbers on the outside."
She regretted nothing. More than that, she wasn't sure she could've controlled herself if she'd tried. She thought back to the moment she watched Carver put his hands on Clementine, recalled with lazy clarity the way the world blurred and slowed. She didn't remember much else, save for the burning in her chest and the knife in her stomach, and none of it made her confident that she'd have been able to hold herself back had she stopped to think about her actions.
No. She couldn't have done anything different.
That didn't mean there were no consequences.
Lilly's bruises were easy to see, even in the low light. She sat directly across the floor from Amelia, back pressed against the wall and elbows propped up on bent knees. Amelia finally met her eyes and Lilly stared back with no discomfort to be seen, only bitterness and indignation. Amelia ran her eyes over the deep shades of purple and red. Lilly had made her choice, just as Amelia did. It was probably the reason Amelia was still alive.
She wasn't about to thank her. Or agree. Or apologize. She'd throw herself under the truck they rode in before taking lectures from Lilly – Lilly – on anything regarding careful thought and self-control. But respecting a favor didn't require that she show gratitude for it, or even acknowledge it. Her fingers curled into fists in her lap, then unwound and laid themselves flat. She'd hold her tongue. And her hands. This one time, and never again.
Clementine's voice gave her as good a reason as any to stop dwelling on it. She held the saline bag out, lifting it up to the level of Amelia's shoulder to keep the fluids running down into the IV. "Carlos said this has to stay up."
Amelia tried to nod and ended up dropping her head back against the wall of the truck. Close enough.
Even before he spoke, she knew Kenny wasn't done; he was never done. Even – especially – confined to the cargo hold of a truck he needed something to do. Grasp at plans that had next to no chance of working. Run in some direction even if it got him nowhere. A hamster on a wheel.
"How am I the only one who wants to get the fuck outta here?"
"You don't understand." Rebecca stared at the paneled floor. "He's different. He's…" Whatever word she'd been about to choose, she gave up on it. "…worse."
"Worse…than what…?" Amelia lifted her head, immediately felt the off-kilter weight and the blood rush of moving it too quickly. She eyed Rebecca across the truck, hoping she knew that the time for secrecy had long passed. Look where it's gotten us. "What can he possibly do to us that he hasn't already?"
"Is he going to kill us?" Clem asked.
There had been a time – one Amelia missed – before Clementine had learned what death was. An age during which murder had been a foreign concept. And when it wasn't anymore, when she was aware of what it meant and that it was the reason they were so careful around strangers, Clem had at least thought of it as a distant possibility. Something that Amelia wouldn't let happen to her. Amelia couldn't make her forget the death she'd seen but she'd at least had that.
Or so she used to. Now that Clementine was old enough to know her sister didn't have all the answers like she pretended to. Now that she'd seen her – more than once – broken and bleeding and needed to be saved rather than the other way around, Amelia knew she didn't believe that anymore. Amelia's thoughts wandered backwards without warning and without stopping – all the way back to I know how to be a dad and everything could'a worked out okay for y'all and where's the rest of your group – and wondered if Clem had ever believed it in the first place.
"I don't think so." Rebecca shook her head. "He wants to punish us." That, Amelia believed. A sadistic streak like Carver's was hard to miss. She didn't doubt that Carver wanted to punish someone. How he intended to do it was left to her imagination, and she wished it wasn't.
"All the more reason to do somethin' while we still can-"
"You can't reason with him."
Amelia agreed, knew that once he started on this road there was no convincing him to hit the brakes. The realization was slow, a pinball bouncing along every bumper and light making its way to the bottom, finally falling into place as it occurred to her that Rebecca hadn't been talking about Kenny.
"Y'all don't know what you're talkin' about. We get cooped up in some kennel like a bunch of fuckin' dogs, it's over."
Rebecca barely got the words out- "You don't know that-" before Kenny plowed over them, louder and more insistent.
"Maybe you ought to listen to the people here who've been in this situation before. Tell 'em, Lilly."
Lilly raised her voice, but not by much. "Kenny." Amelia knew what it sounded like when she was trying to stay patient. She figured she'd heard Lilly sound like that more than she'd heard her speak normally. "For the last time, you are not helping."
Like everything else Kenny didn't want to hear, it went unacknowledged. Bounced around the walls of the truck and disappeared, heard by everyone but him. "The needle," Kenny pointed to the tube running over Amelia's shoulder and down into her arm. "That should be sharp enough to do it,"
Amelia stared at him and blinked, slow to realize what he meant. Parts of her brain hadn't quite woken up yet, she hoped. Clementine's free hand came to rest on her forearm, creeping closer to needle's point of entry into her vein, covering it up as if Kenny would forget about it if he couldn't see it.
He watched her expectantly, and thrust his hand out further like the reason she hadn't ripped it out and thrown it to him was because he was too far away. His tone was making a familiar crawl towards impatience – a scale she'd watched him climb many times, some days in record time – when he said, "Amelia, come on, we don't have all day,"
"Don't suggest that, Kenny," Lilly said, her voice a scornful eye-roll. "She'll do it." It was one thing to scold her for doing something even she knew wasn't smart; talking to her – about her – like she was a child was something else entirely. It pissed her off so soundly that Amelia was sure she was doing it on purpose; it didn't surprise her that even after all this time Lilly still knew which buttons to push.
"That's the point." Kenny seemed to think that was the end of it. He looked back to Amelia, hand out. "Come on. Give it here."
"Amelia, would you like to go into shock again?" If Lilly was trying to mask her irritation and disbelief, she was doing it poorly. "Was it fun the first time? If so, by all means take it out."
She moved her gaze over to Kenny, resolving silently that from that moment on she'd pretend Lilly wasn't there. She shook her head, well aware that the expectancy in his face was about to morph into disappointment. "We need to be smart about this." More than one other person in the truck muttered an exasperated thank you. Kenny's brow furrow in confusion, or maybe frustration, and she fought the urge to apologize to him. For what, she had no idea. "We should bide our time. Wait."
"You too?" Kenny straightened up, ignoring the way standing upright made it difficult to balance every time the truck ran through a pot hole or swerved on the road. "You're the one person I knew I could count on."
"Kenny. Don't you put that on her." Rebecca's tone was one Amelia would have expected to hear from Lilly. She matched the dismissiveness and warning perfectly; Amelia didn't think Rebecca had known him long enough to spot his tactics like that, but the woman had learned fast. Faster than Amelia had herself. "You're being unfair."
"I couldn't be more proud of you for what you did back at the lodge. That's the girl I know." Amelia couldn't tell whether or not he meant it. She wanted to believe he did, if only because she wanted to think at least one person in the room understood her enough to empathize with choices that didn't make sense to most people. Choices she'd made before and would again, if it came to it. Her mind was pulled back to the mountain woods, back to Del and Louis and she had an absent thought that if Kenny had been there he'd probably have shot them faster than she did. Maybe on sight, with all he'd seen and lost. "You're tellin' me you're just gonna sit here and wait to get shot?"
"That's not what I'm saying-" She shook her head. She wished for sharper words, a more compelling point. Thinking was like trying to do hard math half-drunk. Walking waist-deep through sand. Her head was all feelings – all you're disappointing Kenny and you almost failed Clementine again and you've got a bullet with Carver's name on it. Just anxiety and suppressed fear and deflated anger.
"Come on, Amelia, we need this," Kenny pressed. Clementine tightened her grip on Amelia's arm, her small fingers spreading out over her inner elbow and pressing just too hard on the needle. "If you can't do it, I'll-"
"Take that out of her and I'll put it in your fucking eye."
Amelia blinked. Her thoughts were still slow. It took a drawn-out five-count for her to realize where it had come from, despite the familiarity of the voice. She knew it well, both the sound and the contempt behind it.
Kenny slowly turned his head to face Nick, who'd been sitting so still and silent in his seat that Amelia was sure she wasn't the only one who'd forgotten he was there. He was hunched in his seat, hands bound at the wrists like the rest of them with elbows resting on his knees; she could have picked him out by his posture alone. The threat had been quiet, but that didn't make it hollow. Actually, it inclined her to think he meant it. She wondered if Kenny heard it the way she had, and when he answered she was sure he hadn't.
"I'd stay out of this, boy."
Nick only stared at the space between his shoes. From her seat on the floor, Amelia was low enough to see his eyes were bloodshot and dark. His voice was low. Just as quiet as it had been when he threatened him.
"I ain't a boy."
It made Amelia ache somewhere in her chest. She could hear it, each of his words a bare footstep over the jagged remains of something that had broken inside him. He was bleeding out, even if no one in the truck could see it. It would only get worse with every second that ticked by, with the rage and grief building in pressure until-
-fragile like a grenade-
Again, it went over Kenny's head. The face value was enough for him, all he was ever interested in. He dipped his words in blatant sarcasm and flung them across the truck. "No, right, you're a man."
He didn't need this. She couldn't stand sitting and watching anyone make it worse, even Kenny, who'd been there, who'd taken the same spiral Nick was now in the middle of and still couldn't recognize it on him. "Kenny-" Amelia barely got the warning out before-
"Don't." Nick's eyes – deep red and deep blue at the same time – were on her. Not Kenny. This warning was for her, and she knew why despite wishing she could pretend she didn't. He stared her down until she stirred in her seat, driven to fidgeting and silently hoping someone would interrupt. Finally, he sat upright, leaning back against the wall and breaking eye contact. Amelia almost audibly released a breath when he did. If she'd questioned where they stood before, she knew now. Thin ice. Shaky ground. New but not new.
Nick went back to Kenny. She looked between the two of them and waited. If she knew the both of them as well as she thought she did, they weren't far from escalating things. "You're one to talk."
Kenny's response was quick. Empty and confrontational. "What did you just-"
"I said you're one to talk." Nick scowled openly and unapologetically. The anger had built up, searing, volatile, and eating him alive for as long as he didn't have anyone or anything to take it out on. Amelia could've warned Kenny not to make himself a target, if he'd been one or ask or one to listen. "You call yourself a man and you're gonna put her in danger for your own bullshit reasons. Clem almost took one in the head because you wouldn't give yourself up. Do you even care about either of them?"
"You shut your mouth before I shut it for you," Kenny growled, his hands already making fists despite being tied together.
"Stop it." Clementine urged them. "We can't fight right now. We need each other."
"We still have Luke," Rebecca suggested.
"If he was gonna do something he'd have done it by now."
Amelia wasn't surprised at how quickly he'd dismissed it. Luke couldn't offer them another plan, not to him. There was Kenny's plan or nothing. She could've told them his answer before the idea had been pitched.
Rebecca still seemed to think it was worth trying to convince him. "Who knows what he's dealing with? Anything can happen out there and he's completely alone."
Clementine crossed her arms and drew her knees up. As close to pouting as she'd seen her sister get since she was eight Disdain sounded out of place coming from her. "We made it alone." She looked up just far enough to notice Amelia staring, and after recognizing her confusion, said, "I'm just saying. We did it. Maybe he's not here because he doesn't want to be."
"Why is it the kid's the only one with any sense around here?"
Rebecca challenged him again, making Amelia wonder whether she was arguing for the sake of arguing. Kenny was an immovable object; everyone in the truck knew it by now. Maybe Rebecca was just looking for someone to throw words at, something Amelia wasn't unfamiliar with. "You don't know what happened to him."
"I know he ain't here," Kenny raised his voice, still holding onto some unconscious belief that volume made him more persuasive. Amelia wanted to tell him to take it down, but settled on,
"Not yet."
Kenny turned his attention to her. "He got you fooled too?"
"You think you know him, Kenny. You don't." She couldn't claim to be an expert – maybe Nick, but not her – but she knew enough to be able to tell Luke apart from the many, many people who, were they in his situation, they would never see again.
People mattered to him. Too much, in her opinion. He cared too much and took on too much responsibility because of it. Luke was coming, even if it was just to alleviate the burden he'd placed on himself. The one he'd shouldered when he decided he'd keep everyone safe, as if he were a hundred men instead of one. If he never showed up it would be because he died trying. She tried not to think too hard about it; not that trying ever worked. "I think he's coming for us. If what I think means anything to you anymore." She leaned back against the truck wall. "He wouldn't just leave us."
"Yes he would."
There it was again. Barely more than a mumble, something Amelia had only heard because she was right next to her, and listening.
She needed Clem to fill in the blanks. The truck groaned to a standstill before she got the chance.
She'd hoped that the truck coming to a stop, the sounds of footsteps and voices outside would make Kenny realize the absurdity of what he was about to do. That getting closer to the moment after which his actions couldn't be taken back would scare him into sitting back down. But she already knew Kenny didn't care about the permanence of his actions; he didn't see past the problem immediately in front of him, and didn't see any way to solve it other than his own.
Immovable object. Whatever was going to happen now would happen. It was why she stayed quiet while Rebecca tried again to make him rethink it. "They have guns. What exactly do you expect to do?"
"I'm gonna punch the first son of a bitch I see. Then-"
"-Kenny-" Amelia tried to cut in, clenching her fists, eyes darting to the truck door as she recalled that he had no volume control.
"I'm gonna take his gun and use it to shoot the next son of a bitch I see-"
Amelia's swear of choice overlapped with Lilly's; if she'd known it was going to happen she'd have kept it to herself.
"You're fucking joking-"
"For fuck's sake, Kenny-"
Kenny steadied himself on the railing. "I don't know what happened to you, Amelia," The words were heavier than she'd been expecting, and they surprised her into silence. "But you're either with me or you're not."
She'd heard that before. The ultimatum wasn't new. It was what he gave to anyone who didn't think the way he did, anyone who didn't live in Kenny's world where there was no compromise and the middle ground was just a hiding spot for traitors afraid to identify themselves.
They'd already been here. She tried not to remember the way it'd ended the first time as the truck's rolling door slid up and open. By the time Troy was barking orders at them, she was already replaying the memories in full swing.
"We've got some familiar faces back with us tonight. Now, I understand some of you are confused as to why we'd bring these people back after they left us as they did…"
Amelia tuned it out as she walked, single file. Behind Carlos and in front of Kenny. Clem had wedged herself into the same spot in line, trailing just behind Amelia and occasionally bumping a shoulder into her hip. Amelia clutched her IV bag in one hand, holding it – at Clementine's insistence – against her chest with her free hand to keep the fluid draining down into her arm.
"…time will heal these wounds..."
She took in the shelves. Wall-to-wall. Some of them lined with food from top to bottom. Sacks of rice and beans too large for Amelia to lift. Enough cans that they could actually be sorted by their contents.
"…these feelings you have of anger…betrayal…hate..."
Many of them were topped by an armed guard, as if even the people inside the camp couldn't be trusted not to steal. It wasn't the first settlement she'd seen where the people pointed their guns at each other and not at the dead. All they were missing was the barbed wire and a fence made of sharpened spears; Carver's camp was just short of doing a perfect impression.
"…find it in our hearts to forgive them."
Carver's voice gave way to silence, and Amelia almost sighed with relief. Listening had been causing a ringing in her ears. High and grating at the same time. Something about the crackling and static of the PA had been hard to listen to. Borderline unbearable.
Their line stopped short – causing a domino chain of bumping shoulders – just in front of one of the loading bay doors. From her place in the middle of the line, Amelia leaned past the people in front of her and looked through the opening. There was an enclosure. The barbed wire she'd thought of but hadn't actually meant to wish for-
-for keeping people in, not walkers out-
Bare cots and a wooden picnic table. Bonnie stood to the side; the way she kept her gun low so as not to point it directly at them didn't make it seem like any less of a threat.
"Make sure you stay off the fence. Bill can see if you're messin' with it."
She was marching them outside at gunpoint, regardless of where she aimed. She seemed to know it, and seemed uncomfortable with it. Amelia felt nothing for her, and hoped that it was Bonnie who'd chased away her empathy; she didn't want to walk into the territory of wondering whether she'd thrown it away herself, and whether or not it would return.
She fell into step behind Clementine and stopped when-
"Not you."
She looked to Troy, the rest of her group trailing past her. He nodded toward one of the storerooms, not far from the loading bay.
"Come on. You're goin' this way."
Amelia looked over her shoulder, watching her group file out. Clementine had stopped, standing near Bonnie and watching the two of them while everyone else was ushered outside. Amelia nodded to the door with an expression she hoped was reassuring. The least the rest of the group could do now was stay together.
She'd expected him to follow her in. Instead he shut the door on her. It was for the best. If he'd come in with her, stopping herself from trying to kill him would've taken more restraint than she trusted herself to have. She heard tumblers shift somewhere behind the doorknob and thought that he might've guessed the same thing.
She took in her surroundings. She'd been hoping for weapons, tools, anything other than walls lined with buckets filled to the brim…
He'd left Amelia in a room full of bullets. No guns, but buckets of bullets.
She wasn't sure if it was an oversight or if the irony was intentional. If it was the latter, it'd come from Carver. She doubted Troy was smart enough to see the joke, unfunny as it was.
She should've guessed they were going to separate her from the rest. Carver had so many reasons to that she didn't even bother to speculate as to which one had made him do it. Still, she'd thought it was coming time for the group to talk. For her to explain. Finally see the reaction she'd dreaded enough to hide the truth from them until the last possible moment. It wasn't going to happen yet, it seemed, and she couldn't help but feel relieved.
Maybe it was better this way.
It's better this way.
I'll fix it.
I had it under control the whole time.
She paused for a moment, trying to remember who had told her to lie to others if she wanted, but not to lie to herself.
"It's no longer enough to survive…it is our obligation to make this community a beacon of hope. To provide a light…a bright light. Bright enough to shine in all this darkness…"
She tried to roll her eyes; she only half-succeeded when it caused a needling pain in her head. "Then again, no one keeps him around as a motivational speaker…" she muttered to herself.
Even as she said it, she knew Carver was the one who did the keeping. He decided who would stay and who would starve. There were worse fates than starving, and she was sure he made the decisions regarding those, too.
Amelia looked down at the tube in her vein, and decided like the flip of a light switch that she was tired of it. Her fingers had gone jittery again, her breathing just a touch too fast. She was irritated, and too hot, and suddenly sympathetic to Kenny's claustrophobic behavior in the truck. She blamed it on the IV. When the next person or thing to make her uneasy came along, she'd blame them, too.
The door opened and closed again while she was getting a grip on the needle; she looked up to see Nate meandering in without stopping what she was doing-
-you'll do-
-and winced as she pulled it, probably too fast. Blood pooled in the hole it left behind as she crumpled the tubing around the bag – not even half-empty at this point – and threw it. It landed splap on the concrete.
Nate didn't have anything to say yet. Fine by her. She'd have killed for him to stay quiet for once. She swiped the bleeding away from her skin, leaving only a bruise-like tenderness she could feel when she bent her elbow.
"He's going to do something to me, isn't he?"
He shrugged, as if Amelia didn't want to kill him enough already. "You're good at pissing people off."
I didn't do anything he didn't ask for.
More silence. She wasn't about to ask what he wanted. Asking would imply that she cared.
"Come on. No more bullshit. You serious about the immunity?"
"What about me makes you think I'm not serious?" The words tumbled out before Amelia had listened to them herself. By the time she did it was too late; she was already picturing Pete, as unamused as she'd ever seen him with a hand out waiting for her to hand over Hilda because it was a time before she'd lost that, too. Their makeshift camp out in the mountains bled to the lodge, warping the way metal warped on a totaled car into a crime scene piled with bodies, including his.
She felt one of her eyes twitch. Nate either didn't notice or did and considered it normal.
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Are you really asking me that?"
"Shut up about the truck." She wouldn't have bet an arm on it, but she was sure enough to say it like she meant it and hope for the best. She'd said it once before and Nate hadn't denied it. "It wasn't even yours in the first place."
"Says the girl who drove off in it." It was almost like he knew how close she was to an edge they were both familiar with. His words were an antagonistic nudge, and whether it was intentional or something he did unknowingly, she couldn't tell.
She was trying to keep herself calm. She was. Not "trying" the way she pretended to when she needed to ease her own conscience, but really, truly, trying not to attempt a second murder in as many days because it could only make things worse for her, for Clementine, but-
-what you did can't be undone-
"You want me to pay for stealing your truck?" She tried to stop her voice from shaking, and when that failed, lowered it so the trembling could barely be heard. "Congratulations. You killed two people who had nothing to do with it." She knew he hadn't answered because her question was rhetorical, knew that even if he did try to answer it would only infuriate her more. "Does that make sense to you?" Her hands shot out before she thought to stop them – not that she would've if she had – ramming into his chest hard enough to knock him back a step. "Do you feel better?"
For a long stretch of heated seconds, she thought she might hit him. Something inside her screamed to ignore the assault rifle in his hands and take a swing because he deserved that and more. Worry about the consequences later. What was deserved was always more compelling than what made sense. To her, it was more important to repay pain with pain ten-fold. Just like it was to him.
"Do you?" He asked her without a hint of a smile.
Her voice came out quiet. Not unlike Nick's had been the last time she heard it. "Get out of my face-"
"Or what? Huh?" His voice changed in the time it took to flip a light switch. The shift was immediate and drastic and suddenly she was looking at the same expression – fucking identical – he'd had when he asked whaddya say, Amy, with his eyes just a hair too wide and a smile someone had sliced into his face with a razorblade. "You gonna try to kill me, too?"
She kept her eyes on his, both to watch him for sudden moves and because she couldn't look away for the same reason she'd never been able to look away from a car wreck. Say it. It was the truth, for once. But something held her back. She was already knee-deep in gasoline; she knew better than to flick the lighter again just because Nate dared her to.
"…"
"'Cause I'm all yours, Amy. Go ahead." –let's just kill 'em and take all their- "Go on."
Did she want that? She'd been the one to start shoving. She didn't know much about Nate but one thing she knew well was his violent streak. Two things, if she counted that face. He'd do it, if she pushed for it. She'd only have to give permission as a fist in his teeth; he'd hit back and he'd do it over and over again. She wondered how close to unconsciousness he'd bring her, and whether he'd stop when she got there, and asked herself again if a fight like that was what she wanted.
She looked back far enough to realize she'd started too many fights for every one of them to be accidental. She didn't even do it to win, either, now that she was being honest with herself. She'd thrown hands – or knives – with people she could never match up to physically, people like Carver and Lilly, and now Nate – and she knew that going in. Grief and loss and sacrifices seemed to funnel together until it all looked the same, until she could call it rage and nothing else. It was a part of her now, sitting heavily in her veins. It left her tight in the chest and short in temper and anxious, always desperate for some outlet to vent it from her insides before it swallowed her completely. Something about exhaustion seemed to drain the anger. Throwing punches or taking them, either worked just as well for her. Staying angry, staying miserable took energy. The only peace she ever seemed to find was when she had none of it left.
"Maybe one day." She admitted. She meant it.
"That's what I thought." As easily as that, the light switch was flipped back. Suddenly he had a new face, one stable and well-adjusted enough to fool any naïve hitchhiker into thinking he didn't kill as easily as he tied his shoes. No ma'am, this was just a man with a baseball cap and a gun for self-defense and an irreverent sense of humor that made him seem charming as long as no one looked too closely. "Least when I off somebody I get the job done."
Amelia wanted to scoff and held it in, unsure if it would be enough to set him off. His threshold seemed to vary from day to day. Still, she was hot in the chest and red in the face and shaky in her hands. She'd started a game of chicken with a man she knew wasn't sane and was somehow surprised that she'd lost; it didn't do any favors for her temper. She needed something to throw back and settled for words. Nate wasn't one to be hurt by words, sure, but it was worth taking a stab to see if she could hit a soft spot.
She took a breath and a step back. Sharpened her words into a razor's edge and then aimed for his jugular. "You can run back to Carver now. Tell him I meant what I said. While you're at it, tell him we're not friends." Nate's face changed. It was almost imperceptible and she only saw it because she was watching for it, but his eyes widened a fraction and then narrowed. "Next time he wants information from me he should send someone I can stand to look at."
She waited while he nodded like he was mulling the words over. It was hard to gauge how much damage she'd done – if any – to someone who hid the wreckage well.
"Keep talking. I'm keeping it all up here." He tapped an index finger to his temple, reminding her of a favorite spot to drive weapons through the skull. She used to tell herself that was only for walkers, until she stopped. "Something tells me if you knew what was coming you'd be nicer to me."
"I promise I wouldn't." She shook her head. She wasn't about to ask the question he'd set her up for. He'd only ignore it, and she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction.
He grinned like she'd asked anyway.
Nate lead her back the way she'd come in before steering her into a hard right, straight into the storeroom. Of all the things and people in the room to look at – it was more crowded than she'd expected – her eyes were drawn to the truck she and her group had arrived in. The rolling door was still open despite there being nothing inside.
"Nice of you to join us, Amelia," Carver greeted her from the loading bay door. She suspected it was meant to sting, talking to her like she had a choice. It might've, if she hadn't been distracted by the loading bay door, which had been left open.
She'd have stopped in her tracks if Nate hadn't been dragging her along by the elbow. He didn't stop until they were well into the center of the room, and so neither did she. She pulled her arm out of his grip, taking in the people she now faced. Carlos and Lilly stood out. She looked to Carver's other side and recognized Troy. Another woman and another man whose names and faces Amelia didn't have any interest in; all that mattered to her were the guns they carried and the allegiances they held.
Carver held a long-handled fire axe, the red and silver head resting over one shoulder.
She didn't like it when things didn't make sense, when pieces didn't fit together. Carver was sensible enough - something she could accept because common sense and mental stability didn't always occur together – and yet the massive, rolling metal door that spanned most of the wall and normally closed off the entire building to threats outside…had been left wide open. A draft rolled in and hit her in the legs, crawling its way up her body. She told herself it was the cold that made her shiver.
Something was coming, hurdling down the tracks headed straight for her and there wasn't a thing in the world she could do to avoid it. It left her with nothing to do but cross her arms – a poor boundary but better than nothing – and watch with caution. She wasn't about to be the first to speak, so she waited.
When Carver spoke again it was quieter than she'd been expecting. Something about it made her more uneasy than she'd have been if he shouted or made threats. "I suppose you're wondering why you're out here."
"You sound excited to tell me." Amelia bit the words out, low and bitter. She knew what quicksand felt like, and knew that since she'd been thrown into that truck she was in waist-deep-
-maybe Kenny was right-
-and had only sunk deeper since. There was no crawling out. Even if someone had a rope to throw her, she doubted it would do her any good. She decided she may as well say what she felt with as much venom as she wanted; it was a rare day that her mouth couldn't make her situation any worse than it already was.
Carver chuckled a throaty rasp of a laugh, and it irked her more than any threat ever would have. She wasn't here to entertain him. "Just don't know when to stop, do you?" He shook his head like he was letting the joke roll from his shoulders. "Was she always like this?"
Amelia followed his eyes, turning back over her shoulder when she realized he was addressing Nate. She waited for an answer – one that was snide or spiteful or at least clever – but he was quiet.
She frowned, watching more pieces of the broken picture fall out of place. Nate liked to talk. He liked to take cheap shots and laugh at others' – or maybe just her – expense. She lowered her voice so that Carver couldn't hear. She wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of hearing her ask,
"What is he doing?" Something inside her began twisting into knots when he wouldn't look at her, let alone answer her. She knew he was the last person in the room who would, but she asked again. "Nate?" He gripped his gun and looked forward with a set jaw and an otherwise unreadable face, leaving Amelia to look back to Carver. He grinned at her again, something that made her sick to see on someone she'd made as angry as she'd made him.
She looked to Carlos, then to Lilly, back and forth between the two of them for anything that would let her out of the dark. Neither of them would look at her, only over her shoulder or to the other side of the room completely, their faces set in stone and disgust and…she thought she recognized helplessness, and the anger and pity with which it went hand-in-hand.
She looked back to Carver and waited. She wasn't about to ask. But she knew her face was giving away too much; the satisfaction was written all over his. If he'd meant to shake her – and she was sure it had been on purpose – he'd done it.
He seemed to agree. He glanced over his shoulder, out the open bay door, and called, "Bring it in."
She heard it before she saw it.
It was held at a distance by some type of rope collar at the end of a rod, the kind she imagined were once used for animal control. She recognized the rotting flesh and gnashing teeth almost immediately, but past that froze without a single thought in her head or impulse to move.
She understood, slowly.
"See, I was thinking about what your sister told me yesterday."
The guard handling it struggled to keep it moving in the direction he wanted. He spaced his feet further apart, planted them down and pulled, jerking the walker back into line when it strayed off-course. Away from her. They really should've had more than one person on it, she thought absently. Someone was going to get infected.
"I was thinking about how to handle it. I can't just dismiss something like that, now, can I?"
She could barely hear him over the growling. Strangled screaming and ragged breathing. It an open hole rotten in its chest and limped along on a severely broken ankle, arms out and hands open to catch anything unfortunate enough to get too close. Amelia was vaguely aware of people in her periphery – she noticed Troy flanking her left and felt someone come up behind her – but couldn't look away. As they got closer Amelia realized even the handler was afraid; his eyes were wide enough for her to see the whites around his irises and she could see the alarm that kicked up every time the walker threatened to get out of his control.
"That'd be downright irresponsible, wouldn't it?"
Every exit was blocked. Guarded by men and guns. Her thoughts were caught in a bottleneck again, blocked first and foremost by the disbelief that any human being would see fit to do something like this-
"You made one hell of a claim, missy. And I owe it to the people of my camp to investigate it fully."
She was in the dead center of the tracks. Time was running out for her to get off and if she waited for someone else to move first she'd have waited too long.
punch first punch hard
Troy tried to close a hand around her arm. Without warning and without remorse she pulled it out of his grip, raised it, and threw an elbow into his face. He stumbled and swore, and in the next second Amelia's arms were caught in front of her by a woman taller and larger than her, enough that even Amelia's scrambled train of though knew she'd have to fall back on fighting dirty-
-she clenched her teeth and lurched forward, sending her own forehead straight into the woman's mouth-
-crack-
-she let her go, the pain in her head dull and distant as she was grabbed again from behind. The panic began to set in. Put two down, two more come in. She was outnumbered by too many for any fighting on her part to make a difference. It didn't mean she'd stop. But it meant she needed a better plan-
-something more than hurt someone haphazardly etched across her brain-
-and had no time to come up with one. She couldn't think, not with-
-Troy made a dive for her legs. Her arms were useless, trapped against her sides by the arms wrapped around her so she jumped, arched up and back trying to make the person behind her stumble, kicked blindly at Troy once, twice until she landed one square in the middle of his chest. He stumbled back, but not far.
"Goddamn it-"
She'd hoped he was swearing in pain, but it was all frustration and impatience. This is taking too long, just fucking get it over with-
He hesitated, then lunged again, catching one of her legs but not the other-
-she remembered being here-
-she reached down, clawing at the belt of woman who had her from behind but she wasn't dense enough to keep a gun within her reach-
As Troy struggled to keep her off the ground by one leg, she spotted Nate over his shoulder. Armed and still. Not participating but doing nothing to stop it, which was the same thing to her. She held eye contact with him while she kicked, wanting him to know that she'd remember he did this because promising to him and to herself she'd hold a grudge was all she had left.
"Bill," Carlos spoke up. It was quiet, but Amelia was shocked and flattered he decided to do it at all. "Please…reconsider this. This is-" He met her eyes for a split second as he waved a hand in her direction. "-barbaric. There's no need-"
-Amelia took a swipe for Troy's face, her nails whiffing past his nose since he'd gained the sense to lean back out of her reach-
"Oh, don't worry about her, Carlos," Carver waved him off with a grin made of malice and spite. "She tells me she's done it before. She'll do it again, no problem. Isn't that right?"
-she stabbed her heel out, aiming for his face but catching him in the shoulder but she had no feet on the ground and no leverage and it barely made him flinch-
-there's fucking poison in this room and it's not the walking corpse-
She heard it dripping from every word, making it abundantly clear he was humoring her, and intentionally doing it in a way meant to kill her slowly. The words tumbled out, forced out unexpectedly by her own dawning realization. "You don't believe me…" She said, staring into the walker's face as if there was something inside it could stare back. She knew she was talking to herself. Everyone here already knew; she'd been the last to figure it out. He wasn't conducting any kind of experiment. Only making an example.
"If what you tell me is true, then you have nothing to worry about." Carver dismissed her, strolling past Lilly on his way to the truck. He slapped a hand flat against the carriage, rattling the open door in its frame. "You can have yourself a nice nap in the cargo truck."
Amelia, breathing hard enough to be hyperventilating, steadied herself just long enough to say, "What if you're wrong?"
"What's that, sweetheart?"
"I said…" her words grew loud and sharp. She paused and calmed her own voice, . She didn't want him knowing how rattled she was on the inside. A poor job of hiding it was better than no attempt at all. She asked it slower the second time. "What if…you're…wrong?"
Carver chuckled at her again, no doubt dismissing it as a desperate attempt to go down kicking. "Well. That'd be something else, wouldn't it?"
He paused, as if he'd been expecting something else from her. She glared in silence, intentionally signaling that she had nothing for him.
"Do the arm. Low."
Someone closed a hand around her forearm and pulled, forcing her to extend it out toward the walker. She pulled back, as hard as she could for as long as she could keep it up. Somewhere in the chaos of the growling corpse and the smell of death and the swearing and struggling her sleeve was pushed down to her elbow.
This couldn't be about to happen. Something would intervene. A guard with a conscience or a god who had finally deigned to prove its existence. This was the moment Nate would reveal he only meant to scare her, set this all up as some revenge plot only he was sick enough to come up with, but here was where they would call it off. This was where Luke would break in through the loading dock, armed heavily enough to put a stop to this.
But she watched it close the final inches between it and her hand and she realized again she was left with nothing. Nothing but anger and threats that would remain empty until she could act on them. She saw Carver's face behind the walker's and almost spit the words out, I'll kill you for this-
-you've already tried that-
-it means nothing to him-
Breaking skin. She couldn't close her eyes or look away; she watched what remained of a broken and rotting set of teeth disappear into her hand, felt the grating feeling of teeth against the array of bones that made up her hands below the knuckles. She shuddered at the disgusting slick feeling of blood and toxic saliva running from her hand and dripping from her wrist. She forced herself not to scream and settled for cursing through the pain, gritting her jaw hard enough she'd later worry she'd cracked her own teeth.
Carver finally ordered his man to pull the walker back. They gave it a tug, and it wasn't even fazed enough to loosen its grip on her. It only growled, leaving her to grit her teeth and scream at the people around her to make it let go. She was about to snap at them, you got what you wanted now put me the fuck down so she could do it herself when Nate approached, fast and quiet, and stuck a blade into the head with a broad swing of one arm. In. Out. The walker dropped dead.
They stood in silence. Amelia found her feet placed back on the ground but the group that had swarmed her didn't immediately let her go. Her arms stayed caught behind her; if anything, the woman held them tighter. The other three remained at her sides and just in front of her; a barrier between her and Carver he didn't even have to tell them to make.
She was out of words. There weren't any to describe what he'd just forced on her, save evil. So she screamed. Not in horror or fear but in undiluted, unbridled rage, lunging at him-
-he didn't flinch-
-from where she stood hard enough that her captors had to dive to catch her again, tightening their grips around her arms and waist. Don't cry.
Carver turned to Lilly. "You'll stay with her." He told, not asked. He held the axe out to her horizontally, gripping it by the wooden handle. "Handle it for us if it gets…messy."
Lilly glared at him as she took it.
For a moment she thought – pictured, in vivid detail – Lilly might heft it and bury the head in Carver's chest. Do it. Do it. If you've ever cared about me, do it. Amelia asked herself if she could forgive Lilly for Carley if she ended Carver here and now, and couldn't honestly say she wouldn't. It didn't work like that, she knew it didn't, she couldn't pay back an innocent life with a guilty one, but maybe she could make it work that way this one time-
Amelia looked down to her hand. An indentation of teeth was barely recognizable between the torn flesh and the swelling. It had made a half-moon across her palm, mirrored on the back of her hand. It was already starting to blacken at the center; she wasn't sure whether the substance had been left by the walker or if it was coming from her.
"Is there anything you want to say?" Carver interrupted her thoughts, taunting her more with words he didn't say than with the ones he did. Anything to ask your friend, here?
He'd like that, she knew. He got more of a kick out of breaking people than killing them, and he hadn't made any secret about it. He meant to make her choose between life and limb. Probably would've like to watch her ask to be cut into pieces, and then watch it happen. She looked between him and Lilly, who was holding a blade plenty sharp and more than heavy enough to do the job.
Carver grinned. You've got a few more seconds left to do it.
Finally, Amelia kept her mouth shut, if only out of spite.
Nope.
The moment the cargo door shut, they were in total darkness. It didn't take long for the voices and footsteps outside to quiet, then fade into nothing. Of all the thoughts she could've and should've had at the moment, Amelia only lingered against the door and considered herself lucky she wasn't claustrophobic. She couldn't see her own hand in front of her face.
She felt it throb in time with her pulse, felt the blood dripping between her fingers and wetting her palm, and decided that was a good thing.
She took a single step further into the truck and knocked her shoulder into Lilly's. She stepped away from her, not caring whether she'd end up on the bench or on the floor; it didn't matter to her, so long as Lilly was more than an arm's reach away.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck-
Her heart was pounding already. It had no reason to yet – the fever took at least a few hours to heat up – confirming that it was just her. Just nerves and jittery panic setting in.
"Amelia."
Amelia ignored her, feeling along the wall trying to make her way to a seat. She stopped only when Lilly's hand closed abruptly around her arm, giving it a pull without any real force behind it. "Amelia-"
"What?"
"Is it true?" Amelia didn't have to see her face to guess how intently Lilly must've been staring, and not just because she was waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark.
"I said it so many times…" Amelia muttered, knowing that the irritated mask she'd slapped onto her anxiety was transparent and tissue-thin.
"You know what I'm asking." Lilly's voice was low. "Are you-" She seemed to look for a different set of words, but gave up not long after trying. "Are you going to turn?"
"I don't know." She snapped, loudly enough for anyone in the loading dock to hear her from outside the truck. Not that there was anyone out there. No one to hear them. No one to let them out. "Okay?" She felt herself quiet down and told herself it wasn't because she was already running out of energy. It wasn't that the sickness was already draining her just like it did the first time. "I don't fucking know."
Amelia surprised herself by answering truthfully, and a bitter part of her mind wondered if she'd finally chosen to care about honesty. She knew what had happened the first time. She could guess. She could think as wishfully as she wanted. Optimism had never solved any of her problems; the best it could ever do was make her feel better about them for a short while.
"Is it true?" Lilly said, one hand still holding fast to her arm, just below the elbow. She wasn't sure if it was Lilly's rigid attempt to comfort her or just her only way of keeping tabs on Amelia's whereabouts in the truck. "It happened before?"
Amelia reached out with her free hand, following Lilly's arm up to her shoulder. In the dark, she took a blind guess as to where her other arm was, reaching across her body and making a grab for the fire axe. By the time Lilly realized what she was doing she already had a grip on the wooden handle. Lilly had barely begun to fight back when Amelia threw a knee into her body – she'd been aiming for her stomach but wasn't sure what she'd hit – and ripped it from her hands before she recovered from the shock of a blow she couldn't see coming.
"You didn't need to do that." Lilly didn't reach out to grab or strike back. Even in the dark she seemed to know Amelia was already out of arm's reach, retreating further into the truck.
"You don't believe me." Amelia felt her way along the wall until she found the bench seat. Clumsily lowering herself down, she pressed her back against the wall, crossed her legs, and held the axe across her lap. She tried to ignore the nauseous twinge twisting around in the pit of her stomach. It was just nerves, she told herself again. "No one believes me." She glared at what would've been the floor, were she able to see, gripping the axe just below the blade. Cold metal pressed against her curled fingers. "I don't want you amputating my hand in my sleep."
Lilly didn't answer, and the amount of time she stayed quiet told Amelia she'd been right to take the axe. Not for the first time, Clementine was the only person she knew without doubt was on her side. She wasn't here, which meant, for all intents and purposes…Amelia was on her own.
Then, finally: "I'll do it. Take the hand off. If you need me to."
Amelia knew she would. She might have even thought she was helping, too.
"I don't need you for anything."
Amelia ran a finger along the blade, top to bottom. She pressed into the beveled edge and stopped just short of slicing the pad of her finger open.
"When did it happen?" Lilly broke the silence, one that had lasted hours. Amelia could only say hours since she'd lost track. "The first time."
"Savannah." It was as specific as Amelia intended to get. She didn't mind letting Lilly know why. "After you took everything and left. So it's really none of your fucking business."
"What else do you have to do right now?"
It'd worked for Nick. It wouldn't work for her. Amelia preferred silence to Lilly's voice. Lilly's presence was not a distraction from the wrenching pain and twisting sickness of her insides. It was the other way around.
Amelia had laid herself across the bench, staring at the ceiling to avoid looking at Lilly, who'd taken a seat in the corner by the door. Apparently she preferred the floor to the other bench, which wasn't more than an arm's reach away from Amelia's. Of all the things Amelia had said about her, she'd never called her stupid.
It was too dark to count things.
The bench was damp beneath her head. She felt sweat running down her neck and wondered if it was getting hot in the truck. She wanted to believe it was, despite the weather outside and despite that the truck was parked an uninsulated garage. She watched Lilly in the corner – or the featureless shape that she knew was Lilly – as if it would give her a hint. Even if she could see her, she knew she wasn't about to learn anything about what Lilly was thinking or feeling just by looking. She didn't operate like that. She walked through each day with a stone face and squared shoulders, without giving away anything to anyone, as if composure was all she had left.
Until it wasn't.
"You'll pay when Mama and Danny get out here," he shouted. Screaming against the thunder and the wind.
Kenny was bleeding out. She'd left Lilly in the meat locker. Carley could've been anywhere. She'd never wanted to be any line of defense, let alone their last. They needed a cavalry, and all they had left was her.
God help us, she thought.
"They're both dead, Andy." She said, trying to keep her voice even despite shivering violently. She had a single idea, and used it only because it was better than nothing. She spoke without thinking, well aware that it was the last thing anyone should do in a hostage situation.
"…Mama- and…" he trailed off, his grip on Duck's collar still tighter than she'd hoped it would be. Something changed in his face. It shifted from disbelief, skipped any sign of grief and went straight to rage. His accusation was quiet, but she heard it clearly over the rain. He pointed the barrel of his shotgun at her."…you?"
-she recalled the ease with which Kenny put bullets in both of them-
-Danny in the barn and Brenda in the house-
Amelia forced an expression made of steel. She nodded.
Andy St. John stood still for the longest five seconds of Amelia's life. She silently hoped he wouldn't turn the gun on Duck-
-silently because she knew saying it out loud would get him to do exactly that-
-but he let him go. The kid ran, and Andy didn't even watch him go.
Then he dropped his gun.
He charged her. She tried to move and wasn't fast enough; more than that she had nowhere to go. He crashed into her like a train, knocking her onto her back with enough force to create a body-sized crater in the mud beneath her. She tried putting up hands, tried protecting her face with her arms but it didn't seem to do anything. He landed punch after punch into her eye, her mouth, her cheekbone, her eye again. Another filled her mouth with blood; she turned her head to spit and found herself coughing, choking on it. As if she'd given him the idea, he closed his hands around her neck and squeezed. She stared up at the night sky, feeling her head go light and knowing her blurry vision had nothing to do with the rain falling into her eyes.
Something swung through the air at exactly the level of his head, far too fast for Amelia to see it coming or tell what it was. She heard the unmistakable sound of a blunt object making an impression on a human skull, and the grunting and heavy breathing she'd been hearing as Andy swung at her came to an abrupt stop. His weight lifted from her and she rolled, inhaling and coughing, spitting blood. On all fours, she looked up to see him pinned into the grass by a figure she couldn't mistake for anyone else, watching her throw merciless punches into his face over and over and-
"Lilly!" Katjaa shouted to be heard over the rain.
Lilly heard. Amelia was sure she did, but it didn't stop her. Again. Again. Blow after blow. Andy's legs convulsed beneath her, and were starting to kick less the longer she went on.
Katjaa shouted again. "Lilly, please!"
She stopped, a fist cocked in the air. Her knuckles were coated in blood, and the rain began to run streaks in it as she kept it there.
"Ken needs help," she pleaded as she held pressure on the open wound in his gut. "Please, help me move him,"
Breathing hard enough that Amelia could see her shoulders rising and falling, she looked down at him one last time. She stood up, and began to walk away. She stopped by Amelia, taking a knee to help her back to her feet.
"Come on," she said, her tone surprisingly gentle. She was exhausted. That much, Amelia could tell.
She supported Amelia under one arm and turned her toward the remains of their group. Clementine waited for her, crouched by Katjaa and Kenny, pale and soaking wet.
And then Andy St. John made a noise. Something like trying to speak with a mouthful of blood. He twitched and rolled over, spitting and repeating what he'd tried to say the first time. "Don't you- don't you dare walk away from me, Lilly-"
Lilly stopped in her tracks, forcing Amelia to stop with her.
"Get back here and-" he spat blood into the grass. His voice was strangled, as if he was the one who'd just been choked. "-finish this, Lilly!"
Lilly was still stained head to chest with her father's blood. If it hadn't been the case, she might have chosen differently.
She let Amelia go, leaving her to stand alone as she walked, calmly and slowly, to the shotgun he'd left on the ground. She cocked it, striking the air with the mechanical sound of the action shifting out, then back into place. She met him before he'd been able to get to his feet; he was braced on his forearms, trying to push himself up when Lilly put a foot against his shoulder and pushed. He rolled onto his back, too beaten to move, barely holding onto the strength to grab at the foot she planted on the center of his chest to keep him there.
"If you insist." Lilly said.
The shot was swallowed by a roll of thunder, but Amelia knew it had happened.
Lilly's knuckles were purple and black for weeks after that. Something Amelia wasn't able to look at without remembering she owed her friend – then, her friend – quite a debt.
Like a bomb. Counting down silently. Not about to make any noise until it detonates.
Lilly didn't show the cracks in her floor. Not until they'd become to many and too deep to stand on, when it was far too late to start fixing them and the floor fucking caved in beneath her.
Something in the back of her mind whispered to her, low and spiteful.
Who else does that sound like?
Impact shocked her from head to toe, sudden and solid, her entire body all at once. Amelia rolled, shoulder blades pressed to the cold metal beneath her and hands up in front of her face – not that she could see them or anything else in front of her – breathing too hard and too fast, deeply enough to hear the rumbling of something wet and heavy deep in her chest.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
She'd fallen off the bench in her sleep.
Lilly said nothing. Amelia knew she'd been watching, listening. She wouldn't have slept under any circumstances, were she in Lilly's shoes. She hadn't meant to fall asleep herself. She didn't remember doing it.
It took her until then to realize the axe wasn't in her hands, and hadn't been for some time.
"I think about her sometimes." Lilly said, into the darkness as if she was talking to no one in particular. When Amelia didn't answer, she spoke again. "I know it's not enough, but I regret it."
Amelia sat up and propped herself against the wall. "You'd be a sociopath if you didn't." She coughed. It was ragged and wet and scratching her throat raw, but she preferred it to the conversation. She felt a draft when she knew there couldn't be one, and realized she'd soaked through her shirt with sweat.
"They never really leave you. The people you…" Lilly trailed off, and Amelia considered reminding her that she was talking to herself. Amelia didn't want to be a part of this conversation. It was making her sad, and angry, and a handful of other emotions that made her feel volatile and powerless.
She gritted her teeth, unafraid to admit the bitterness the idea made her feel. The idea of the dead following their killers around, rather than their loved ones. She thought of the people she'd put in the ground often enough not to dismiss it out of hand. She thought of all the times she'd have liked Carley's advice, or just to hear her voice again, or-
To say goodbye.
If any afterlife existed, it'd be a cosmic irony just cruel enough for Amelia to believe it to be true.
"Why did you-" Amelia spoke up suddenly and loudly, willing to say anything to stop Lilly from going any further. Anything to get her to talk about someone else. "-group back up with Kenny?"
Lilly was quiet. Amelia was grateful. But she found herself talking again, not immune to her own curiosity. "You hated him. You never stopped arguing." Something inside her needled her to make her last point because it would be hurtful and satisfying. He killed your dad in front of you. Amelia ran her good hand over her face-
-crushed his skull right in the middle of my fucking chest compressions-
-the headache seared behind her eyes–
-blood everywhere, Lilly screaming-
-and threw the opportunity away before she was tempted to take it. "Why would you trust him again?"
"I never said that." Lilly said, her voice low. Amelia could make out the silhouette of the axe laid across her knees. "Not to him. Not to you."
Amelia coughed again, raspy and loud, stirring a backed-up sink drain that was never going to clear. She tasted metal and dirt.
Eyes open. Eyes close. Couldn't see. The light was too bright. Painful to look at. Look away.
"-said, move aside,"
"-wait, okay, just wait-"
A hand shaking her body, jolting her back and forth by the shoulder. She thought she might have heard her name.
"Amelia…" the voice faded. "Amelia, wake the fuck up-"
"-move aside, unless you want to get shot too, lady-"
Amelia opened her eyes again-
-the light hurt-
-and took in the ceiling, and Lilly's face. She was hovering. She looked pissed. Nothing new.
"…" Amelia tried to speak and her mouth didn't cooperate. She mumbled a non-word that didn't come close to what she'd tried to say.
"Wake up," Lilly hissed. "You need to say something, right now,"
Amelia squeezed her eyes shut-
-the voices were louder. Clearer. Harsh against her eardrums-
and opened them again to realize Lilly was crouched between her and the open door. Troy barked orders from somewhere behind Lilly. Amelia couldn't see with Lilly blocking the way…
Not blocking.
Shielding.
Confused and slow-thinking, Amelia propped up on her elbows and tried to sit up to see. Her shoulders were barely off the ground when Lilly's hand came down onto her collarbone and pushed her down flat. Amelia realized she'd been about to put her head right into the open window left by Lilly's shoulder.
"I said, she's alive," Lilly called over her shoulder. "Amelia, say something."
"I'm gonna start shootin' at three," Troy shouted. "You best be outta the way before I get there. One-"
Amelia looked from his silhouette against the sunlight, to Lilly, then back again, trying to force her brain and her mouth to work-
"-Two-"
"-Amelia-"
"Don't shoot."
It took her a moment to realize it had come from her. Flat against the floor, she shook her head and tried to breathe in again.
Clear. Easy and smooth, all the way down to her lungs. Deep breath in, deeper breath out.
Immediately put on edge by Troy's silence, she spoke again, louder. "Don't shoot."
Lilly turned her body, moving just enough that Amelia could see past her once she sat up. Troy, who'd been aiming down his sight at them, had let the barrel fall, pointed toward the floor. Amelia knew it wasn't intentional.
"Holy…shit…"
There were others behind him, now that she could see past the glare. Two, maybe three. No one she recognized. None of them spoke. Amelia knew better than to try to move before they did.
Finally, though she couldn't tell which one of them it had come from:
"Get Bill."