Amelia watched the bandage roll take lap after lap around her wrist, waiting for Carlos to tie it off now that it covered what would become her newest scar. The gauze he'd used to clean it – nearly an entire roll – lay piled on the tabletop, stained black and rust-red.
He hadn't spoken to her in a while. It left her to her thoughts-
-a dangerous thing for everyone involved-
-and so she'd wandered backwards, back into the first rays of sunlight as she dragged herself out of the back of the truck.
They still watched her. Eyes wide and guns ready. Stiff. Jumpy. Eyes screwed to her like she was going to charge someone at any moment. Like she was already a walker. One that could speak. Run. Make conscious decisions about who to kill.
It could've been the bloodshot in her eyes or her skin – a few shades too pale – or the way her lungs rasped like gravel when the breathed but she knew she looked as out of place there as she felt. Not quite right. A vase that might have been functional, even pretty at one point before it had been fractured beyond repair. Not quite shattered but missing just enough pieces to notice it was no longer whole.
She tried not to glare. Resisted the urge to snap at someone or lunge just for the way it would make them flinch-
-petty revenge was better than none at all-
-because she knew it would just as likely end with her getting shot in the head.
She swept her gaze across cautious, watchful faces and for a reason she didn't understand thought of three words, repeating themselves with each trio her of labored footsteps through the loading bay:
Still. Not. Dead.
She didn't understand why. Comparing herself to Clementine was something she avoided at all costs; the two of them had met plenty of people who did enough of that for them. But there it was, quiet, and persistent, and satisfying.
Still. Not. Dead.
The words didn't carry nearly the same meaning, no. Instead of being laced with hope and resilience they'd been drowned in spite and intent; dripping vindictiveness like she'd dipped them in gasoline so she could set them on fire. She wasn't a kindhearted little girl who wouldn't die-
-not kindhearted-
-not little-
-not a girl-
"-women, Kenny-"
-not a light that refused to be smothered out, but a hazard Carver was about to regret not eliminating upfront. A plague coming to ruin him for everything he'd done. The damage she did on accident was nothing compared to the damage she could do on purpose.
"Amelia."
Carlos' voice pulled Amelia back to the present. The first thing she noticed was her expertly-wrapped hand, the bandage reaching from her knuckles to halfway down her forearm. The second was Carlos, expectant and impatient.
He'd said something while she'd been elsewhere. He said it again while she tried to recall what it was, and of all things, she hadn't been expecting,
"I'm sorry."
She blinked, and considered nodding like she knew what he'd apologized for. She doubted she could get away with it; she'd spent enough time with their group for her new friends to see what she looked like when she hadn't been listening, and what she looked like when trying to pretend otherwise.
The look that crossed Carlos' face said exactly that. When he spoke again she knew he was repeating himself.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice low. "For dragging you and your sister into this."
Oh.
Amelia jumped from phrase to phrase, each one automatic and meaningless - it's okay, you didn't know, I don't blame you – because not one of them was true. All of them were insincere. Ingratiating. Not even close to appropriate for the gravity of the situation they were in.
"I didn't think he would catch up to us." Carlos continued. "I was willing to bet your safety on that."
I understand, it doesn't matter now, things aren't so bad. Amelia couldn't bring herself to use any one of them. She didn't mean it. For a moment she didn't understand why. If every one of those thoughts was false, if it wasn't okay and the danger that she and her sister were in was even in part Carlos' fault, then why, with all the volatile anger boiling in her chest, was none of it reserved for him? She winced at the thought that she'd become so accustomed to mistrust and violence that she become inept at the other feelings that made her human, that she'd almost failed to recognize gratitude when she felt it.
She realized it was because she knew it wasn't Carlos' choices that had brought her and Clem here, and while she'd long stopped prioritizing values like responsibility and honesty-
-things that didn't couple well with survival-
-she knew someone who hadn't, and took comfort in knowing that despite being gone, Pete hadn't left her with nothing.
"We made our choice." She said, for both their benefit. "We could have left."
My choices. My consequences. She was only sorry that Clementine had to share them with her.
She spoke again, if only because she was more than ready for this conversation to be over. "I should head upstairs. If you're done."
She'd been called. Half an hour ago and by a disposable guard with no name, but it was a call all the same. She intended to answer it sooner rather than later. Not because she feared Carver might get impatient, but because she feared she would.
She assumed they were done here. Carlos had already listened to her heart, and her lungs-
-he'd unsuccessfully hidden his grimace at the sounds her chest made when she inhaled-
and taken her blood pressure, twice. When she'd asked he'd muttered something about her vitals being normal; not that it was consistent with the look on his face. She wasn't sure what any of it was supposed to tell him. She doubted an infection that caused the dead to rise had been taught in medical schools, back when there had been schools.
He didn't answer; he only raised a hand to the recent stitches in her forehead. His fingers had barely brushed the skin, but it was enough to make her flinch. She watched, waiting for him to speak until she couldn't take it anymore.
"Is it infected?" she ventured quietly. It hurt enough that she wouldn't have been surprised.
"No." He answered, and offered nothing else. He tilted her head to her left, then guided her until she looked down for a better view. She refrained from asking again, knowing she wouldn't be able to keep the impatient sting out of her voice. Finally, he said, "But it's not healing well."
She decided not to ask. Answers came when Carlos decided to give them. Interrupting his train of thought only made them take longer.
Then: "Recurring damage to the same injury will do that."
He reached into a pocket of his flannel shirt, and pulled out what Amelia had thought was a pen until he pressed down on its top with his thumb-
-click-
-and a light was shining directly into her left eye. Whatever he was looking for, Carlos furrowed his brow but didn't speak. He moved it to her right eye without a word. Then held up a finger and told her to follow it without moving her head. She did it, tracking his fingertip as he moved it up, then down, left, then right, ignoring the way she hurt behind the eyes any time they moved too far in any direction.
She recognized that they were tests, but of what nature, she had no idea. She wondered why he wasn't explaining what they were for – or how she was doing.
"Is something-" she felt stupid asking-
-of course something is wrong with you-
-many somethings, an entire list of somethings-
-but couldn't take the silence anymore. She couldn't tell whether his expression meant she should've been concerned. "-wrong?"
"Hold your hands out." He prompted, demonstrating with his own hands out in front of himself, palms-down. She did it, and again, he watched her and said nothing. "Have you noticed any shaking at all?"
She shook her head. "No."
"Any difficulty hearing?"
That one was harder to answer. She tried to think back, sure it had happened at some point but unable to remember when, and found herself shaking her head again because she worried her hesitation would come across as suspicious. As if it were an interrogation rather than a medical examination. Like Carlos was looking for an admission of guilt rather than ways to help her.
"Have you…" Carlos paused, and Amelia was unsure of why until she caught a rare glimpse of open sympathy in his eyes. "…heard…any sounds that may not have been real? Seen things that may not have been there?"
She didn't answer. After a pause of one, two, three seconds, he moved on, and she knew her silence had answered for her.
"What would it mean if I did?" she asked, as aware as Carlos was that she was phrasing reality as a hypothetical. He let her do it without correcting her. Apparently there was no medical value in forcing her to admit it.
That, or he was being kind.
"It would point to brain damage." It was abrupt enough to make her blink and repeat the two words in her head.
-brain damage-
-brain-
-damage-
-damaged-
"It's-"
-damaged-
-damaged girl-
-damaged goods-
"-that bad?"
"It's cause for concern. I'm certain you have a concussion…" He muttered in a way that made her think he was talking more to himself; she was a bystander to his thoughts, seen and heard only when his mind wasn't hard at work trying to figure out what was wrong with her.
"But your injury, your inconsistent responsiveness…and your…" She spotted the moment he once again started talking to her, rather than about her, when he stopped. Even she knew the hesitation wasn't because he was unsure of how to finish, only unsure of how to do it kindly. "…behavior-"
-Amelia decided that was as gently as anyone could have put it-
"-could also imply lasting damage."
-lasting-
-damage-
-brain-
It explained a lot, actually.
She ventured another question, hesitantly and quietly because every question she asked– since she'd met him, it felt – had had an answer she didn't want to hear. "…permanent?" Injuries heal, she told herself. Everything-
-not everything-
-death is permanent-
-this is how it goes, then-
-heals. Who was to say the damage wouldn't repair itself and take her…behavior…with it-
The hopeful ideas and needling fears began to overlap in a mess of white noise, as if they didn't want her to be able to tell them apart. Lasting and it could heal and brain damage-
-is this who I am now-
It fell to silence when Carlos answered her. "I have no way of knowing. I'm sorry."
She couldn't have expected anything else. He didn't have the fully-equipped hospital he'd have needed to fix her. Hospitals had long gone extinct, and medical supplies were few and far between; she recalled the advice of not one but two people, very old friends in the literal sense, who had warned her about her recklessness and now, and only now, realized that she should have listened.
She flexed her fingers, feeling the way the bandaging tightened around her hand when she did, and fell quiet. She didn't think there was much else to say, nothing else she could ask of Carlos. He'd done more than enough. More than she deserved, in the opinion of many.
She nodded, muttered a quiet thank you and stood to leave. If nothing else, she knew when it was time to remove herself, quietly. Carlos' words stopped her just in front of the door.
"You need to let it heal. Protect it from any further injury." Advice she'd heard more than once and clearly needed to hear again. She didn't turn back, but waited with a hand on the doorknob. She was already kicking herself, telling herself the same and worse. But she couldn't bring herself to walk out while he was speaking. "It will only worsen if you continue…doing what you've been doing."
His next words got her to turn back. "Your sister's safety is more important to you than your own. I understand that."
She watched him over a shoulder, as afraid to turn around fully as she was to let him see the look on her face. "It's not always an option."
"I'm aware of that."
The silence that followed was one of the only uncomfortable ones Amelia would remember for some time. Instead of bringing peace and relief it settled heavily over the room, thick and suffocating. She knew he had more to say and silently begged him to get it over with so she could do with this problem what she did with every other: ignore it.
After an eternity, he obliged her. "If you don't start acting with caution…with restraint…it will defeat the purpose of trying to keep her safe. Do you understand?"
She said nothing. To tell him yes would have been to lie to his face, which she would not do. One of the last signs of respect of which she found herself still capable.
"Amelia, tell me you under-"
He was interrupted by someone opening the door, barking abrupt and impatient orders. Amelia barely listened to them. They wanted answers from Carlos, not from her.
"The infection has passed." He told them, stone-faced. The guards watched her, open wariness on their faces, too heavily armed for a simple escort. "As far as I can tell she is perfectly healthy."
She tried not to, but found comfort in knowing that half-truths came easily to him, too.
Between the medical area and Carver's office, Amelia asked twice to be taken to her friends. The guard, who she recalled was named Troy-
-bits and pieces of the night at the lodge were coming back one at a time-
-she recalled his face as being the one that had knocked the memories out of her head in the first place-
-memories and a whole lot of blood-
-responded predictably to both requests. After the first he told her she wouldn't be seeing them for a while. The second he just ignored.
When they reached the steps leading up to what she assumed was Carver's makeshift office, he paused for a moment, gesturing for her to go first. When they reached the top, he held the door for her. Neither gesture was out of any sense of courtesy, but rather to stop her from bolting. It was obvious in the way he trailed into the room behind her and took up a post in front of the door.
Carver stood in front of a bay window that spanned the rear wall of the office, overlooking what used to be the department store. What he was watching for, she didn't know and didn't care; she only knew that he was watching closely. Like he already knew something was wrong with the camp below, and was only waiting to figure out what. Or, maybe more appropriately, waiting to figure out who to blame for it and how to punish them.
A stretch of gauze ran under his collarbone and disappeared beneath the shoulder of his coat, visible only when he turned to face her directly.
"Have a seat."
She considered complying – it seemed better to choose wisely when she wanted to push him – and chose not to. "I want to see my friends." She more meant sister but thought it better not to single out Clementine in conversation with him.
Troy answered first, forcing Amelia to suppress a wave of irritation too great for words. "You're not in a position to be makin' demands."
Wasn't she?
All three of them knew-
-at least two of them-
-Troy didn't strike her as the sharpest tool in the shed-
-why she was alive and upright, rather than on the other side of the fence with a bullet in her head. A case of immunity – the first they'd seen, she'd have bet – wasn't something they could turn away from. Not until they knew more. It made their threats empty and her life too valuable to throw away, at least for the time being.
She suspected it was why Carver hadn't chosen to speak yet. He needed a new means of keeping her under control. Something beyond threatening her life. It was why she'd requested to see her group again, this time where he would hear.
Troy caught a single nod from Carver and came up behind her-
-she wasn't watching him because she'd been watching Carver-
-her mistake-
-shoving her by the shoulder to turn her toward him, lining her up for-
-crack-
-a backhand across the face.
The taste of blood in her mouth was familiar, hand-in-hand with the urge to break something. Almost immediately the sting was buried beneath a ringing in her ear. Whining and agitating-
"-he said take a seat-"
-prodding at her to send the message she'd failed to send last time-
-tired of people putting hands on her-
-being grabbed and pushed and hit and bitten-
-thinking they get to decide where she goes and where she sits and when she dies-
-and suddenly she was all emotion without words, all rage without reason, consumed completely by the need to do something drastic and mean because she'd had enough of him and-
-deep inhale, fast exhale, pointed with force straight at his chest-
-the tar she'd been coughing up, the thick molasses dragged up from her lungs and into her mouth shot through the air, closing the short gap between them-
-his fault again for standing too close-
-and landing on his jacket, just below the collarbone. It was hard to see against the multicolored green of the camouflage print, but she knew it was black. Might've even been tinged with red.
Troy recoiled, visible disgust mingled with cartoon-like shock on his face. He only remained stunned for a moment, though, and soon turned to swearing and fumbling his arms out of the sleeves in an uncoordinated panic, stripping it off like the fabric was on fire. He flung it to the floor; it laid motionless but Troy watched it like it might start crawling toward him. For a moment Amelia thought he was going to aim his gun at it.
Despite believing up until now that her sense of humor hadn't made it out of the lodge intact, she found it funny. She did not smile.
Carver stayed where he was, sat back in his chair. Amelia couldn't resist watching for his reaction, and was pleased that he didn't look even slightly amused. In a perfect world, her stunt had gotten Troy to embarrass himself and hopefully, by association, to embarrass him. Appearances seemed to matter to him. She couldn't imagine any other reason for the demonstrations he seemed to favor. Breaking Carlos' fingers in front of his daughter. Executing Walter with an audience. Things that made examples out of people to intimidate others into listening to him, by any means necessary because it didn't matter to a man who thought fear tactics and leadership were the same thing.
She hadn't forgotten what she'd said to herself in the lodge, when she'd had a knife to his neck and was moments away from either his death or her own. He wasn't a monster-
-none of them were, come to think of it-
-I know how to be a dad-
-it's how the world works now-
-both died easily, instantly, gunshot and blood splatter-
-she was the one who walked away with her life, not them-
-neither were monsters, both were just men who did monstrous things-
-and men could be killed as easily as she could. If his ability to cause death was the only reason she had to be afraid of him, then she knew a child who was just as dangerous, and was afraid of neither.
The lodge had been dark. Made hazy by panic and open wounds and grieving. The daylight was harsh and unforgiving. Bright enough that neither of them could pretend to be anything they weren't.
Another nod from Carver prompted Troy to leave the room. She watched him fidget his way through a self-conscious pause while he wondered whether he should take or leave the jacket. Apparently he decided on the former, and Amelia didn't at all mind watching him gingerly pick it up with his fingertips like it was radioactive, then leave in what couldn't be called anything other than a walk of shame.
Troy closed the door behind him – Amelia didn't miss Carver's glare as he watched him leave – leaving the room quieter and more isolated than she'd have liked. Carver didn't speak right away, making her wonder if he'd gone back to intimidation tactics and mind games. She waited, not about to be the first to speak. She had all day. Longer than that, thanks to him.
Finally, dismissively: "Just take a seat, Amelia."
She spotted the chair that sat on the other side of his desk, directly across from him. Reminding herself that the sooner this conversation was over, the sooner she'd no longer have to look at or listen to him, she hooked a foot behind its leg and pulled it towards her. Slowly, purposefully, and without moving her eyes from him, she lowered herself into it.
"You and I got off on a…" he paused, making his word choice casually and off-handedly, like someone choosing which pair of socks to wear for the day. "…a rocky start, let's say." Amelia blinked slowly, careful to give away nothing with her expression. She didn't want him guessing at her thoughts. "I want to give you the chance to let go of bygones. I'll do the same. Then we can talk like adults."
Bygones. Amelia had hated the word even before the world changed. Even then it had still been a cop-out, always used by people who'd done something wrong and never by the people they'd wronged. It was convenient. A way to pretend to take the high road without making the sacrifice that forgiveness normally demanded.
He said it so simply. As if choosing to forget about the night at the lodge was as easy as doing it. He didn't know her. He hadn't learned yet that her memories were an iron bear trap, so firmly lodged into her leg that she'd have to cut off a part of herself to go anywhere without them. There was no re-writing them, and so there would be no bygones. Her silence was intended to say as much.
He took it to mean what he wanted it to mean, a habit Amelia was sure he wasn't a stranger to.
"We've devolved. There's no way around it."
For a fleeting second Amelia thought he was talking about the two of them. She felt her eye twitch, and had to bury the surge of disgust provoked by the notion that she and he were any type of pair, regardless of what they may have had in common.
"We've got a long way to go if we're ever going to build anything close to what we had." The seconds ticked by. She was able to count them because the clock in his office worked – the only working one she'd seen in years. She waited, counting seconds while he talked. "A society that's got any chance of making it needs resources. Things that contribute to our survival. No one rides for free."
"You can stop trying to justify your forced labor. It's the least despicable thing I've seen you do."
He chuckled, and she felt her eye twitch again. It was getting on her nerves, the way he seemed to be amused by everything she said and did. It made her want to finish what she'd started, drive a knife through his neck and see if he'd be able to find it funny. "I'm telling you this because I want to be clear. I don't want you thinking there's any other reason you're still alive."
Tick. Tick. Tick.
No shit.
"And I don't want you thinking I'll hesitate for a second to change that if you prove to be more trouble than any immunity is worth."
He stood again and strolled back to the window, looking out over the store. "I've got a community to think of. You've already broken more rules, done more damage than anyone here would attempt. People have faced consequences much worse for much less. I can only make so many concessions for your…situation."
She eyed the door and wondered, if she left quietly while his back was turned, how long it would take him to notice he'd been lecturing an empty chair. She was still looking at the door when he said,
"I had a conversation with your sister,"
She blinked, reeling from sharp, violent left turn into territory that would hold her attention. He'd turned around, and was watching her. Maybe he had been paying attention enough to notice her drifting elsewhere. She wasn't accustomed to that. She was used to bandits and thieves. Almost every of them short-sighted and self-absorbed, existing in a constant state of tunnel vision focused only on what they wanted from her.
-easy, kitty cat-
-too focused on taking her backpack to notice she still had a gun-
-the only reason she buried them and not the other way around-
But Carver had noticed. She told herself not to forget.
"You know what she said to me?"
Her thoughts were clear. She'd expected the ringing to return, or the radio static, or any other of the many white-noise hazes into which her train of thought disappeared during moments like these. But the words came through sharp and lucid, an ominous bell chiming over a deserted city.
Think very carefully about the next thing you say to me.
"She looked me right in the eyes and said she wished you'd killed me." He moved back to the desk, leaning against it without sitting down. Standing over her in a way that she knew was intentional. "'I wish my sister killed you.' Said it just like that. Didn't even blink."
Amelia's hands were starting to itch, buzzing uncomfortably. She didn't like this conversation. She didn't like him talking about her sister after she'd tried and failed to end his life-
-because she'd made him angry-
-and what better way to punish her for it than-
"You think anyone around here would talk to me like that?" Apparently his questions had gone back to the rhetorical. Like the other conversations they'd had, he was more interested in listening to himself than to her. "Not in a hundred years."
Amelia lifted a shoulder in a gesture that could barely have been called a shrug. But it was an act, one she hoped wasn't as transparent as it felt. The tension in her jaw was beginning to ache.
"See, it's nerve like that you don't see anymore. 'Specially not in kids." He went on, tempting her to tune him out and start counting clock ticks. She might have if she hadn't felt the need to watch him for sudden moves-
-as ironic as that was coming from her-
"The next generation has to be stronger than the last. Kids like her, raised the right way. The way my child will be raised."
There it was. Of all the suspicions she'd had, all the ideas she'd kept to herself during the five-day walk through the mountains, there was the one, staring her in the face. She wondered how she'd doubted it in the first place. How could she not have been certain when group members and supplies came and went, but they'd been carrying one thing that was irreplaceable in every sense of the word. Only one thing that would've gotten her to chase people through the mountains, armed or empty-handed, healthy or sick-
-or brain-damaged-
She let herself think about it, so preoccupied with it that she hadn't noticed her façade had slipped. For a moment too long she wore her thoughts plainly on her face, and it didn't go unnoticed.
"They didn't tell you, did they?" He asked, one of his many rhetorical questions that needed no answer because he already knew he was right – even when he wasn't. "I expected as much from them. They're not much for honesty."
Amelia wondered if he saw the irony in his passing judgment on the moral failings of others. She couldn't decide whether he was aware of it and didn't care, or whether he'd listened to his own self-righteous musings for so long that he'd started to believe them. A narcissistic disorder of the most dangerous kind. A man who saw the world as he wanted to see it, who saw his actions as service toward a Greater Good regardless of how reprehensible those actions were.
"They never trusted you, even if they acted like it. But you already knew that."
She wouldn't have admitted it to anyone – least of all to him – but she did. That simple fact had always been there. Sitting comfortably between her and the group during their arguments. Watching beside her horrified friends as she tried to beat Lilly unconscious in the lodge. Standing over the shallow graves they'd helped her dig in the mountains.
"I'll tell you why." He said, not making an offer but informing her of something he'd share whether she wanted to hear it or not.
Truthfully, she already knew why. It had to do with impulsive behavior. Selfish choices. Intentional omission of the truth not because it was hurtful for others to learn but because it served her to keep them in the dark. But she was curious to know what Carver thought the reason was.
"They can tell you're different from them." He told her. "It's not in our nature to trust people who aren't like us."
She bristled again; the comparison of her to him made her skin crawl. He was trying to make a point, that much was clear. One that may have even been truthful, in part. She'd already learned more than once that it didn't help her or Clementine for her to be dishonest with herself. The list of things she had in common with him was uncomfortably long, because of her own actions, and she couldn't change that now. It didn't make every one of his twisted ideas around it equally true. It was the second time he'd implied it, and again she hadn't said much to disagree; he seemed to think it meant something it didn't, in way that Amelia couldn't articulate yet but knew it that made her want to vomit tar onto his desk.
"Most people, they don't resort to murder that fast. They escalate. They look for other ways out because they're too scared to pull the trigger. They'll only do it when it's absolutely necessary. But you…that was your Plan A, wasn't it?"
She waited, working the muscles in her jaw and wondering how much more time he'd spend congratulating himself. You're not like them, she could accept. It wasn't difficult to figure that much out. She hoped he wasn't patting himself on the back for something her friends had known since meeting her, let alone since witnessing her third murder attempt in their first week of knowing her. She could even swallow you're like me, given enough time and alcohol. It was where he was going with it, you're not like them and so they could never trust or care about you that had her minutes away from grabbing a ballpoint pen from his desk and making a fourth.
He paused just long enough that it looked like he was prompting her to speak. She didn't, deciding that if nothing else she could at least keep her thoughts from him. "You know what I'm talking about, Amelia. You know how important this is. Killing one to save many-"
-easy, kitty cat-
-is just a part of survival. It's one of the tough decisions that a weaker person couldn't make."
She eyed him across the desk, now sure beyond any doubt that we was trying to play games with her, not only acting unfazed by her-
-very nearly successful-
-attempt on his life but more or less commending her for it.
She eyed the bandages around his shoulder, and didn't care if he noticed her staring. She fell back into her memories, remembered hooking an arm around his neck and driving the blade into the meat of his shoulder. Her own wound stung beneath the bandages. Small patches of blood were becoming visible through the gauze, staining red across her palm. She wondered how long they could go on like this. Retaliating at one another with escalating vindictiveness, shot-for-shot. She wondered how long it would take for someone to hit an artery, and which one of them that would be.
"We both know Luke is on his way." Carver pointed out, pulling her out of the lodge and back to the present. He noticed again, she realized, that she'd gone somewhere else, and decided to bring her back by throwing out another name she cared about. "At a walking pace, I'd say he'll show up in the next day or two. If he makes it that far. He'd be smart to cut his losses. He'd have to be an idiot to show his face here again, but you and I know that's what he's going to do."
Amelia was silent. He was right, which he did not need her to admit, so there was nothing more to be said.
"There's a reason there are so few people like him left." Carver said. "In a Darwinist system, the only people fit to live are the ones as resilient as us."
Both the reason she was still alive and the reason her list of reprehensible acts was too long for her to remember everything on it. It wasn't just a pattern. It wasn't a coincidence that what was left of the world was overrun with murderers and madmen. The people who didn't make those choices were the people who died young.
It didn't make every one of his ideas true.
She finally responded, despite feeling that even choosing to speak was in a way playing into his game. "We're not animals."
He smirked, and Amelia eyed the ballpoint pen again. He saw her looking at it this time, and made no attempt to move it out of her reach. "Well, that's where we disagree."
"People like us, we have to lead the rest to safety." He explained. "I wish it was different, I do." Amelia doubted that, very much. She couldn't see him regretting any power structure that placed him soundly at the top. No predator would resent a world that let him prey with impunity while calling it Darwinism. "But it's our responsibility to shepherd the flock…to keep them safe."
She wondered if he had even himself fooled. If he'd been dressing vindictive ideas as good intentions for so long that he'd genuinely started to believe it himself. She wondered this while knowing it was unlikely that the both of them would live long enough for her to find out, despite the direction in which she felt him trying to steer the conversation. She knew even with both of them trying their hardest – an effort she had no intention of putting forth – the two of them wouldn't coexist long.
"Every group's got a handful of 'em. They're easy enough to pick out. Rebecca. You and the kid. What's her name…Lilly. Even Kenny, if he can learn to take an order."… "Some people don't break as easy as the rest. Those people are better off leading than following."… "You put someone like Luke in charge and look what happened."
It was intended to get a rise out of her, and for a moment she was angry enough not to care. She stood up from her chair and threw out the words, "You caused what happened-" before catching herself. Before catching the way he smirked at her, and realized that the audacity of what he'd said was a test. To see if he could get her to do exactly this. She stopped, and took her seat again, making his smile fade and his eyes narrow.
He recovered quickly, and by now she expected nothing less. He chuckled. "Here's the deal, Amelia." He strolled back to the other side of the desk and sat down, leaving the pen just in front of her and only three feet of waxed tabletop between them. "You wanted me gone and you did your best to make it happen. I respect the effort, sweetheart, I do. The lack of hesitation. But sooner or later it comes time to fall in line."
Is that what he thought he had? A line for her and others to fall into? She realized he'd cloaked actions in virtuous-sounding language – that he'd renamed his prison camp as a civilization, dressed his executions as some twisted means of maintaining order – and that he'd been doing it for far too long for her or anyone else to talk any sense into him. She couldn't force him to develop a sense of empathy-
-especially not as her own faded-
-but that was another problem for another day-
-but she could at least shoot holes in his plan on another front.
She leaned back in her chair. Crossed one leg over the other. "I've seen this place before. Down in Savannah. They were like you. They had walls. Food. Weapons. Grand delusions about rebuilding society."
She watched his face when she said this, waiting for a narrowing of the eyes or working of the jaw, something to show contempt at her calling him deluded. She watched for it, waiting to see if he was aware enough to be offended by it, and saw nothing.
"They killed their own to save resources. Anyone who needed more than they could contribute was cast out to die. The old. The sick. Diabetics."
But she had his attention, and he was quiet for once. That alone told her he wanted to know what she'd say next. She was about to get to the good part – how it pertained to him.
"It was a graveyard when I found it. It had been for a long time."
Do you understand?
He stared her down without speaking, leaving her with a frustrating itch telling her to spell it out for him.
People have made your mistakes before. They treated their people like they were disposable and eventually they had no people left.
She stopped herself from doing it. Carlos had warned her that he wasn't a stupid man, not stupid or crazy or short-sighted like others she'd met and he wouldn't be as easily killed.
He understood. He didn't care.
He didn't see things going that way, and was willing to bet the lives of everyone in the building that it wouldn't.
"I know what you're about, Amelia."
She doubted that, very much.
"You care about one thing and nothing else matters. You've got your only priority, and you don't care who else lives or dies, and that…" He pointed a finger at her, and waited just long enough that she swore-
-is this fucking asshole pausing for effect-
"-is what sets you apart from the others. People aren't willing to cross those lines, not even for people they love. At least not right away."
Don't use words you don't understand.
She realized only after watching the scowl cross his face that she'd said it out loud-
-something she remembered doing only once-
-but had probably done it more than that-
-but decided after that didn't regret it. She wasn't a stranger to softening the truth, or in some cases telling outright lies. But it served no purpose here. She doubted she was telling him anything about himself he didn't already know. Preaching that anything he'd done was for that baby, that his actions had been out of any form of love made him more of a hypocrite than she could ever be-
-as long as she ignored the prodding voice in her head-
-what was left of her conscience, maybe?-
-telling her that she needed that to be the case-
-because otherwise what else was there to set them apart-
He had no business telling her anything about love, she told herself. He didn't understand anything about people other than what he wanted from them. He wasn't capable of it, and she would hold onto that as the last thing that separated her from him if it killed her. By the way his eyes darkened at what she'd said, she knew it very well might.
"All I want, Amelia…" he said, "…is for you to understand what we're trying to build here, and respect it for what it is. If you show me you have the maturity to cooperate…if you accept that you're a part of something bigger than yourself, you'll make this whole thing miles easier. What do you say?"
What-
-do you-
She considered pretending to agree. She considered saying nothing at all. She knew that he was perceptive enough to know what she did and didn't mean. She'd already set enough of a precedent-
-a rocky start, let's say-
-she saw red seeping into the bandages over his collarbone-
-or thought she did-
-that even he had to know that the two of them getting along-
-bygones-
-was far out of the question.
"You do understand I'm going to kill you, right?" She asked him without a trace of insincerity. "You know that's how this ends?"
She wasn't telling him anything he didn't already know. He didn't know if she would succeed – neither did she, for that matter – but he knew she would at least try. She wouldn't have been able to convince him otherwise if she tried.
There wasn't even a split second of surprise in his face. He barely moved as she made her threat. "Still so angry. And still directing it in all the wrong places. Don't worry. We'll break you of that. Even if it kills you."
She stood up, and slowly made her way to the door. She didn't need him to tell her that they were done here. She closed the door on him and on his words reverberating in her head. Ricocheting around her fractured skull against a background of radio static and familiar voices that made them seem small. Meaningless.
"-we'll break you of that-"
"-we'll break you-"
"-we'll-"
We'll see.
The former department store was next-door to what was once a shopping mall, a lineup of other shops that spanned the rest of the block, which Carver had had fenced in by the camp. Amelia had been walked outside and left more or less alone in the narrow alleyway between the storefronts and the homemade fence that encircled Howe's. Troy still lingered, not close but not so far that she wasn't being watched. She'd caught him staring once and returned his eye contact, uninterrupted until he barked a dismissal at her-
-mind your business-
-but past that, they'd taken to ignoring each other. Probably for the best, she thought. Escalating otherwise small conflicts was becoming so easy even she couldn't trust herself not to do it.
She stooped into a crouch to lift another two-by-four from the bottom. Its full height was twice her own, and it wobbled as she held it vertically and leaned it against the fence, wedging it in next to the last one she'd placed. They had the sense not to put heavy tools or sharp objects in her hands, which ruled out sawing pieces or nailing them down, making this her job for the foreseeable future. She looked over her shoulder, eyes running along the fence, across the boards she'd laid leading up to this one. She'd already lost count.
She'd only seen walls like this pre-apocalypse, and while it didn't come close to the industrial ones made of reinforced steel, it wasn't anything to scoff at. Apparently, it was effective, given that the place was still standing. Between the reinforced walls, the stockpiles of food, the organized work force…she'd had too much time alone, to get to thinking that there were really only a handful of things wrong with this place. One, in particular. That maybe all that needed to change about it was its leader.
Cut off the snake's head and leave the body intact. Replace it with someone who would actually keep its people safe. Someone who listened-
-rules out Kenny-
-someone stable-
-rules out Nate-
-and benevolent-
-rules out Lilly-
-and herself, three times over-
She realized she already knew who belonged in the leader's seat, and that she was looking for any other candidate other because he was on his way here – just like Carver had said – and she didn't want him to be.
But he was. She was sure enough to bet her life, just like he was betting his by coming here.
She was sure that once he showed up, their next move would be to leave. It made sense, given that they couldn't live with Carver, not only for what he'd done but because the man was a time-bomb, whether the rest of his compound saw it or not.
But if she and he couldn't coexist, only one of them had to go.
Distant shouting. A crash reminiscent of metal on metal, loud enough that something had either fallen from a great height or been thrown with intentional force. A very, very familiar voice, especially at that volume and that tone, one that warned everyone in a ten-foot radius to stay back because someone was about to start swinging-
She followed the commotion, moving along the fence until she couldn't any longer, realizing that the voices were coming from the store's backyard and that the fence stood between them. Troy shouted something at her, something she didn't bother to hear as she peered through the fence, trying to spot Kenny and see who else was involved.
"The hell is he doing…?" she muttered quietly. This wasn't a time to draw attention. She'd hate for Clementine to face any consequences of his temper and the infamously poor decision-making it led to.
"Stay there-"
She turned to see Troy already disappearing through the double-doors that led back inside the store. She turned back to the fence that separated her from the backyard-
"I ain't nobody's laborer-"
"-back off-"
"fuck that-"
"-your hands off me-"
-trying to discern words and identify voices through the shouting and swears-
"-ain't gonna force me to do this bullshit-"
She hadn't been alone for more than a few seconds when she realized she wasn't anymore.
She turned quickly, too quickly, she realized, when she made the girl behind her flinch. It was quick and short-lived, but her hands darted upwards, just far enough that she seemed to think she was about to be attacked, a split-second before she realized she wasn't. Even after she dropped them, her caution mirrored Amelia's. She kept a distance just over arm's reach, a precaution Amelia would have taken for her if she hadn't done it herself.
"Um-" the woman started, looking away from her the way Amelia did when she was uncomfortable. "Are you…" The woman crossed her arms, crinkling her leather jacket at the elbows, and Amelia saw that she seemed more irritated than uncomfortable, like the words she was searching for were a formality. Like she was delivering a message she didn't believe in or agree with. Her words were not hers, but she seemed to feel obliged to whomever they did belong to. "How are you…doing?"
Amelia only waited, trying to place where she'd seen her. They were close in height, likely closer in age.
She sighed, and something in her face changed. She dropped her shoulders, and with it all pretense of politeness and tact, and was immediately more comfortable for it. "Look, don't take this the wrong way." She raised an eyebrow at her. "But you look like shit."
Amelia blinked, stunned because for the first time in days she felt the urge to laugh. She felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. It faded as she recalled where she was, and that she was talking to a stranger, regardless of how familiar she looked.
"I don't know you,"
The woman threw a cautious glance over her shoulder, eyeing the doors Troy had left through, and would come back through within a few minutes. "That's kind of the point."
Amelia turned her attention back to Kenny's tirade-
-an abrupt clang that must have been him kicking over a trash can-
-make me, you son of a bitch-
-then back to her, having put two and two together.
"This was planned?" she asked without bothering to hide her disbelief.
"Yeah, and not well. We won't have much time so we have to make this fast." She meant it, Amelia knew, when she moved on without waiting for any response from her. "Your friends have a plan. Um…" She narrowed her eyes at Amelia, watching her for a reaction as if she suspected she'd been lied to, and that her next words wouldn't make any sense to her. "…Luke is here," She phrased it like a question, like she doubted she'd remembered the name right. Luke is here. If that means anything to you.
Amelia's eyes widened. Already? She'd known he was coming, and was hoping to have more time to prepare to help him-
-to come to terms with it, really-
-while at the same time still hoping she was wrong, and that he was nowhere near this place.
She didn't like where this was headed. Again, she found herself looking for threats before they became apparent, turning over stones looking for mines before she stepped on them. She didn't like that a stranger, one she'd seen but never spoken to, knew about his being here, information that could get him killed if her group failed to keep it to themselves.
The woman saw this and, not for the first time or the last, answered her question before she'd asked it.
"Jane."
Amelia watched her too closely, wanting to implore her for more answers than she had. Instead, she settled on,
"What do they have?"
"Not much." She told her. "They're planning on stealing a pair of the guards' radios. Since you work on the wall, they'll get one to you so you can get it to him. So we can talk to him on the outside."
"And?" Amelia prodded.
"I said it wasn't much." Apparently Amelia looked visibly disappointed. She'd either gotten rusty at keeping her thoughts and feelings subtle, or Jane was more perceptive than she looked. "It could be worse. A starting point is better than nothing. Clem is going to do it tonight, after lights-out."
"What? No. Why her?" Amelia heard her own words coming out rapid-fire, too quickly for her to get her thoughts straight between them.
Jane lifted a shoulder. "It makes sense. She's small. Quiet. She's the least likely to be seen."
"She's a kid."
"She volunteered."
"And?"
Jane broke eye contact, arms crossed, and Amelia gritted her teeth and sighed. They had maybe minutes left to set their plan, if they were lucky. It wouldn't help Clementine or anyone to spend it arguing, much less to start shouting and draw Troy back to them then and there.
"Just…" Amelia sighed again, forcing herself to let this go. "I'll get you the radio. Don't send Clementine."
"They're watching you. You haven't exactly kept a low profile since you got here."
Amelia turned away, as if that would stop Jane from out-reasoning her. "I'll figure something out."
Jane arched her eyebrow again. "Great plan." It was a good point. Before Amelia could look for an answer, Jane hit her with another, making Amelia cut her eyes to her in a sharp, frustrated glare. "How are you going to do it? They won't let you out of their sight."
"Give me a minute," Amelia snapped. Give me five seconds without threatening to send my sister into the crosshairs to fix your problems-
"We don't have a minute." Jane said, sharply enough that Amelia turned back to face her more curious than angry. "There's a herd. Luke said it's still a few miles out, but it's huge. It'll hit this place by the day after tomorrow, if not sooner."
Amelia froze, tried not to, really, really tried but still fell back into a frigid pool of memories she hadn't let see daylight in years-
-dark hotel room-
-axe in the chest-
-already submerged and staring upward at the surface-
-intestines and black-red blood soaked into her clothes-
-dragging corpses, ragged breath-
-the stench of death, nowhere to breathe-
-handcuffed to a radiator-
She opened her eyes, the sunlight and outdoor air suddenly returning to her, despite not having gone anywhere. She'd hoped to live the rest of her life without seeing that many walkers in one place. She'd hoped Clementine would be able to do the same.
If it was true, she didn't have nearly as long as she thought she did to do her part for whatever half-baked plan her friends had come up with-
-or better yet, to cut off the snake's head and be done with it-
"People talk." Jane said. "They're saying it might miss the store. Might not be too bad." Amelia wasn't sure if she avoided eye contact because she wasn't comfortable with it, or because she didn't believe what she was saying. It could've been both, she supposed.
"What do you think?" Amelia couldn't put it to words, but something about to way Jane carried herself told her that her opinion was worth asking.
Her answer was immediate and blunt. "They're going to level this place." Amelia nodded slowly. "We don't want to be here when they do."
Fine. They were on borrowed time. It didn't mean Clementine had be involved. "Then have Kenny do it. He can't be okay with this-"
Yes, he could, whispered a part of her. A part that had grown more cynical and more honest in the last twenty-four hours.
Kenny would never put her or Clementine in danger on purpose. That was her belief on paper, where it couldn't be questioned or contradicted. But in her head, when she'd seen it not to be true more than once, she couldn't afford that kind of denial. She'd seen it about the same number of times he'd had to choose between their safety and his intentions.
"It was Kenny's idea," she said. "Wasn't it?"
Jane nodded. Amelia thought she might ask her to elaborate, expected the same invasive curiosity people often disguised as concern. But she didn't seem to want to know, which suited Amelia just fine. She didn't want to explain it, partly because she didn't know how to put it into words without admitting out loud that she'd been in denial about him for some time now.
Fine. Kenny wouldn't be getting the radio. If not him, then who?
Rebecca-
-pregnant-
Lilly-
-hates you-
-mutually-
Carlos-
-no doubt occupied with Sarah-
Nate-
The thought made her pause.
Maybe the idea wasn't as terrible as it sounded. He was disturbed, deeply. Angry, both at the world in general and at her explicitly. But did he hate her beyond any possibility of helping her?
"I'll figure something out." Amelia told her, settling for writing a blank check, good for buying her nothing but more time, and a finite amount at that. "If it can't be me, it…I'll figure something out." She repeated. "Just not her." Anyone but her.
Jane didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice seemed softer. Amelia didn't know where she was drawing her patience from, but made a note to ask her later. "I know it's…hard to think objectively when it comes to people you love. Trust me. But you have to separate yourself. Stop thinking of her as your sister and think of her as the only one who could help us."
Separate yourself. From the only person she cared about in the world, who was her world, given that there was nothing and no one left. As if it were as easy as deciding not to care anymore, a light switch she could flip whenever it was convenient. She couldn't separate herself from something that made up her identity in its entirety. There would've been nothing left.
She didn't try to explain-
-she didn't see it going well or being worth the time trying to get anyone to understand that she couldn't and wouldn't-
-I'm not built like that-
-that to ask her to separate her sister from the many other things Clementine was – it was asking the impossible. She couldn't have done it if she'd tried.
She only shook her head. A familiar sense of dread was already closing in. Storm clouds looming over the horizon. A horde of undead, slowly making their way toward the outdoor yard where her sister slept.
In the silence, Jane spoke again, gently. Again, Amelia hadn't been expecting her to know what she thought or how she felt. But whether she was observant or just a lucky guesser, she said at least one thing that put Amelia at ease.
"If we get caught, she won't the heat for it."
This got Amelia to look at her, finally. "I hope you mean that."
Jane nodded.
A stiff silence fell over them, coming to rest at their feet as it often did on the heels of any intimate moment between two people who barely knew each other.
"So, are you? Okay, I mean?" Jane's visible discomfort had resurfaced. Not that Amelia was one to judge. She hated asking these questions almost as much as she hated answering them. "The kid really wants to know you're okay. I need something to tell her."
"Tell her I'm fine."
"She'll think I made that up."
She would, Amelia agreed. She didn't know how Jane was already so confident of it, but she knew it was true.
"Tell her…" Amelia paused, stringing together an answer she knew her sister would accept. "…tell her that nothing is wrong that wasn't already wrong."
Jane smirked. Amelia swore she'd been close to getting a laugh out of her. "That, she'll believe."
Creaking metal pulled her attention back to the doors, groaning open as Troy pushed his way back outside. Her thoughts stumbled, landing clumsily on any means of drawing his attention elsewhere so he wouldn't see that Jane had been somewhere she shouldn't have been.
She glanced over her shoulder, hoping to spot an exit she could use quickly and quietly-
-and found that Jane was already gone.
Amelia didn't mean to find Nate in the stairwell, but knew that she had before she saw him.
She recalled hearing something about alcohol getting creative in finding its way out of the body, that there came a point when the spectacularly drunk would be exhaling enough of it to light their breath on fire. The sting of the air on the other side of the door was sharp, almost tangible, forcing her to decide that whoever had told her that hadn't been kidding.
She let the door drift shut behind her and took a cautious two, thee, four steps in. As she rounded the corner that would take her up the next flight of stairs, she slowed to a stop, leaning a shoulder against the concrete wall. Nate took another swig straight from the bottle, sitting with his back against the wall and legs laid out across the stairs. One leg dangled onto the step two down from the one he sat on, inches away from kicking an empty bottle down to shatter on the landing. Parsen's Whiskey. Must have been a favorite of his.
Amelia waited with her arms crossed, drumming her fingers quietly over her arm. She didn't have a gauge of his mood yet, and so hadn't yet chosen her first words to him.
Nate sniffed, wiped his nose on the sleeve of his jacket and took another drink. He hadn't looked directly at her yet, which meant he was either ignoring her or he'd been here longer than she'd thought. Maybe he'd passed drunk hours ago and was in a full blackout. She wouldn't know until he decided to speak.
"You looked sick." He said finally, eyes still fixed to the wall. Another drink. He was almost halfway through what she assumed was his second bottle.
Seconds ticked by. She wasn't about to play the guessing game with him. She knew he liked to talk, but suspected he wasn't so much trying to keep her in suspense as he was trying to string a sentence together with brain cells he'd drowned in alcohol. He wrinkled his nose and sniffed again, thoughts moving slowly like someone moving waist-deep through mud.
"Back when. I knew somethin' was wrong with you."
Amelia blinked slowly and waited. He'd talk until he tired himself out. Then she'd make her proposition.
"I thought you were bit. You pulled an empty gun. Didn't care whether I killed you. Nobody does shit that dumb unless they're already dead." He hiccupped. Then he lapsed into a fit of barking laughter. It might have surprised her, another day and a long time ago. But the only reliable thing about Nate was his total disregard for safety, including his own. "I gave you that ride 'cause I wanted to see…" Another giggle bubbled its way to the surface. "…see how it'd shake out. I was waiting to see when you'd turn."
He shook his head. Sighed the way people sigh when winding down from laughing at an exceptionally funny joke. He went back to drinking. When he opened his mouth to speak again his first two words were drowned out by a belch that made Amelia glad she'd remained several feet away.
"That was the first time, right? You were bit."
She didn't answer. She didn't value his opinion enough to try to change his mind. Besides that, he knew what he knew, wrong or right. No input from her, truthful or otherwise, would make him think otherwise.
"Silent treatment again, huh?" He sighed again, and blinked slowly. Amelia thought she saw one eye close just before the other. "That whole…clusterfuck…" He shook his head again. Swig. "…that was fucked up. Even for me."
Amelia felt the corner of her mouth twitch upward in contempt. She curled the fingers of her left hand into a fist, making the bandages tighten and the open wound sear underneath them. That was fucked up. That was what he had to say about his attempt to ruin her life, and then end it?
"You thought it was going to kill me."
"But look how good you did," He smiled, throwing his hands out to either side in a celebratory, if uncoordinated, gesture. Her first thought was that he was mocking her, but a part of her suspected he meant it. A sober man's thoughts, and all that.
"You tried. To kill me."
"I said I was-"
"No, you didn't."
Amelia knew how that sentence would end, and worried that if she let him finish she'd try to kill him where he stood-
-sat-
-hammered drunk-
-wouldn't be a fair fight-
-not that it would bother her-
He leaned further back into the wall, though Amelia had thought he couldn't slouch any more than he already was. He narrowed his eyes at her like she was trying to sell him something.
"Nah. I didn't."
Then he took another drink and Amelia knew he wasn't going to.
Fine by her. Words were cheap. Actions meant more, by a lot.
"I need a favor."
He snorted mid-sip, making him lapse into a coughing fit. "Yeah?" He said when he caught his breath again. "See, the thing about that is, I don't owe you."
"Is that what you think?"
"'Is that what-?'" He'd tried to pitch his voice up high, but it cracked three words in and made him cough again. "I don't owe you shit, Amy."
"How do you figure?" Amelia curled and uncurled her fingers, trying to shake the sensation her heartbeat throbbing in the bite wound on her hand. She told herself she was imagining it.
Nate laughed, a gravelly smoker's cackle. "That's good." He snorted again and managed to force his words out between bursts of laughter. "You're…funny. I didn't know you were funny…"
Amelia stared at him, equal parts furious, disturbed, and confused. However she'd seen this conversation going, this wasn't it.
Finally, she found herself asking, "What do you want, Nate?" What sounded like a negotiation was actually meant in a far more general sense, exasperated and lost. Trying to make sense of a man who made no sense.
The laughter stopped. Immediately.
"Maybe I want a fuckin' apology. Is that so hard to believe?"
Amelia raised an eyebrow, cold indifference being the last defense mechanism of hers that seemed to have any effect on him. "That, I just don't want to give you."
It worked, so clearly that she had second thoughts about it after she'd said it. The corner of his mouth twitched, and for a second so brief she'd have missed it if she'd blinked, he actually looked shocked.
"I knew it when I met you. Stone fuckin' cold."
"Where do you get off judging me-" Amelia heard her voice rising, and didn't have the time to ask what about this had made her so upset. She knew it wasn't because she cared what Nate thought of her-
-but it might be because you know he's right-
Nate raised his voice, drowning her out. "You killed people before we met and you probably killed people after. You tried to do it right in front of me." He went to knock back another sip and muttered into the bottle, slurring enough that she almost didn't understand him. "It's not my fault you're no fuckin' good at it..."
Please. She mentally rolled her eyes, wondering if Nate remembered he was the last person she'd take advice from in a five-mile radius, let alone the last person she'd care if she were judged by. "Save your moral philosophies for when you're not sweating whiskey-"
-at least that's the way it should be-
-he's not the one with shaky hands-
"-we've all dropped a body before and some of us can stand by our reasons-"
"-if you say 'self-defense…'"
Nate straightened up, staring her down with a purposeful defiance that said yes, he was going to say that.
Amelia stared at him incredulously, wondering if she'd misjudged his mental illness completely. He wasn't just reckless and impulsive, not any standard variety of dangerous. Maybe he was delusional. Psychotic in a way that made him capable of rewriting his past and wholeheartedly believing his own lies. "You disarmed them. You could have left them alone-"
"He shot you."
"…" Amelia failed to find words, despite having been ready to fire back only seconds ago. Of all the unpredictable, backwards responses she'd been expecting from him, that hadn't been one of them.
He pointed an accusatory finger at her. "You're telling me if some fucker shot your sister you wouldn't take him out? Even if she lived?"
She couldn't answer, and wouldn't give him the satisfaction of watching her try. He knew the truth, but he couldn't force her to say it. He didn't know her well, contrary to what he seemed to think, but he knew what was and was not unforgivable to her. She suspected it was why there was one line even he hadn't crossed with her. A level he didn't sink to even as he tried to end her life, because just like him, she had offenses she couldn't let stand. His attempt on her life had made her angry. If he'd made an attempt on her sister's life, she wouldn't have rested until he was dead and in pieces.
Their thresholds for What Would Not Stand were very different-
-"fucker shot at us!"-
-"he took my sister"-
-but there all the same. The kind of damage that had to be repaid tenfold, like coming after a sibling-
-or someone he considered a friend-
She stopped herself there because that was enough thought on the subject of what she and Nate had in common. More than enough for her lifetime.
Besides, she couldn't have been right. Nate didn't have friends. He didn't know how to have one or be one.
She repeated the thought to herself while Nate shook his head at her. "I thought we were cool. You pretended we were cool and we were not fuckin' cool." He gripped the whiskey bottle around the neck, and for a moment she thought he might hurl it at the wall.
He doesn't have friends. He doesn't have feelings. He's manipulating you.
"You just needed someone to fix all your problems. You're a fuckin' user, Amy."
Maybe true. He's still trying to play you.The most compelling lies hid behind a little bit of the truth.
Amelia straightened up and crossed her arms, and finally broke eye contact. This left them at an impasse. Stranded at sea, neither of them with an oar. He wanted some kind of remorse he wouldn't get from her. Not in this lifetime.
After a long stretch of silence, he got the picture.
"Let a man drink in peace. Unless 'today is the day.'" The mocking tone crept back into his voice, prodding her to say yes. He'd asked her an honest question, and received an honest answer. "Maybe one day," she'd said, and meant it.
Her silence told him the day was not today.
"No? Then get the fuck gone." He dismissed her with a wave of his hand, vaguely in the direction of the door.
Gladly.
She turned on a heel and disappeared through the doorway before he had time to throw any more barbs – or maybe bottles – at her. She pressed her back against the door once it shut, like he was a monster she was trying to keep trapped in the stairwell. She waited there for a minute, watching the other members of the camp-
-prisoners, whether that was what they called themselves or not-
-hard not to, with the armed guards roaming among the shelves-
-and trying to pull another plan out of the air.
Nate wasn't on her side. She knew from the second he asked for an apology that the conversation wasn't going her way. Whether she thought she could convince him to get her the radio or not was irrelevant now. Letting him in on their plans would've been the biggest mistake she she'd made-
-so far-
-which was saying a lot-
-leaving her at a loss.
She tried to come up with something – more accurately someone – else.
Think like Clementine's life is at stake.
By the time Troy rounded the corner and ordered her back to the fence, she'd come up with no one.
Amelia paced along the fence, back and forth, back and forth, until she thought she might've been wearing a trench into the pavement. They'd thrown her into an outdoor backyard, a closet-sized pocket of what was once a parking lot, fenced in-
-for their protection and hers-
-by the wood fence that branched from the store.
The afternoon had come and gone, as did the sunset and the appearance of the first stars in the night sky. All of it without Amelia being left alone by Carver's people, for any amount of time, for any reason. At least one person, if not two or three, watched her while she laid boards on the wall, switching with a new guard every other hour. When she'd used the last of the boards she'd been given, one guard stayed to watch her while another brought her more. When she'd announced that she needed to piss, a woman named Tavia had followed her into the bathroom and stood on the other side of the stall door as she did. Amelia had been surprised she'd even let her close the door, instead of watching her like she was complying with a drug test.
It had given her all the time in the world to think, and no time to act. For all the good that did.
And now that she was alone, she hadn't come up with anything tangible. The door they'd pushed her out through had been bolted from the other side. No windows. Getting back into the store from here was out of the question. Unless she was willing to take her chances with the walkers on the other side of the fence-
Was she?
It had been the question weighing on her shoulders since they'd bolted the door behind her. A madwoman's idea that started to seem more and more plausible the longer she paced. Because the longer she was locked out here, the longer Clementine was left to do her job, take her risks.
She stopped just in front of the plywood, peering through the small openings made by uneven pieces of wood nailed together. A small, scattered group of walkers dragged themselves aimlessly, one of them dangerously-
-or so she might have considered a week ago-
-close to the fence. Just over an arm's reach away.
She tried to remember to be honest with herself-
-lest she have one more thing on common with Carver-
Her morbid curiosity wasn't solely out of a burning need to protect Clementine. It was the start of it, sure. The kindling, the striking of the first match. But the rest was all her and her incessant need to know more. Her own prodding questions, stirred into a whirlwind by a fact she couldn't ignore any longer, not now that she was alone with her thoughts-
-that the second time around, her body didn't ache as much when she woke up-
-that she could breathe easier and walk steadier and didn't vomit tar this time-
-that, though her perception of time had been skewed to hell and back, that she could've sworn it didn't take as long-
She'd never heard of this happening, but that was because she'd never heard of anyone surviving the virus once, let alone twice. There were no rulebooks, only cause and effect. Bite, infection, death. In that order. Every time, except one.
And if it really were the case, that she was getting better at it, not worse…
How many times could she do it?
She was asking the wrong question, she realized. The right one sat quietly among the rest of her thoughts, more pointed, more tantalizing, more sinister. It sounded insane-
-and her first reaction was to ignore it as such-
-but when she looked closer, it wasn't as easy to dismiss-
-death is permanent-
-the virus kills in 24 hours-
-kills everyone-
-everyone but you-
-it echoed in her head as she slid her hand through the fence, one inch at a time as her rational mind struggled to wrench control back from the rest of her-
-persistent and compelling, an itch in the back of her skull that demanded to be addressed-
How good at it could she get?
-rushing water-
-chiming bells-
-it's here, or nothing-
"What are you doing?"
She turned, her surroundings immediately coming back to her. Night air freezing against her skin. Dim moonlight, faint enough that she could hardly tell the moon had come out at all. Level ground beneath her feet. Crickets in the distance, sights and sounds all flooding back to remind her of where she was, and that she wasn't alone.
Nick had just replaced a loose board in the fence – the one that separated her enclosure from the rest of the storefronts – covering a hole just wide enough for a body to squeeze through. She didn't know how he'd gotten here unnoticed – maybe a trick he'd picked up from the last time he'd lived here – but once she saw a familiar face-
-his especially-
-she didn't even care enough to ask.
"I was…" she trailed off, turning away from the walker across the fence and purposely trying not to look at it. She stopped there. Seeing Nick's face made her recall the last thing Pete had ever said to her, that Nick was not stupid and Nick was not easy to fool, and that if she cared for him in any meaningful way she wouldn't attempt it, because that wasn't how people treated those they had love and respect for. She wouldn't try to convince him that what he'd just seen was anything other than what it looked like, because it had been exactly what it looked like.
Her silence said as much. He stared at her questioningly, and she answered him with a nod. Yeah. I was.
"Why?" He asked finally. She'd expected to see judgment in his face, the way she'd have judged anyone else she caught in her position. But there was none. Only familiarity and concern. A severe lack of sleep. Residual grief that had in no way begun to subside.
She shook her head. She meant it to say that she didn't know, and he seemed to take it that way.
He didn't have anything to add, or any more questions to ask. It didn't surprise her, coming from him. She could only ever remember him prying about her well-being. Checking her over for hidden wounds-
-physical and emotional-
-even as she reminded him she didn't need it. But everything else, he seemed to consider a waste. She never had to explain that to him, unlike the rest of the group.
He didn't speak, but his shoulders slumped under a weight far heavier than they normally carried. After his last 48 hours, she knew its magnitude was more than she could fix. But he'd gone out of his way to come to her anyway. It was a responsibility she was humbled and terrified to accept. He needed help, and out of the friends they had, he'd chosen her. She'd do her best, despite her tendency to dig holes even deeper than they were, feed fires until they were bigger than what she'd started with.
But where to start? Maybe his burden was akin to being sealed away by a cave-in, suffocating under the weight. The only way to get him out was to chip away at the surface, bit by bit, until she reached the heart of it. Or maybe it was more of an avalanche. She could've started anywhere – disturbing a single stone at the bottom would be enough to bring the rest of it crashing down from the top.
She ran through her first choice of words, treading carefully as if Nick were a live mine or a loaded gun or something else to be handled with extreme care. She'd just decided on what to say, barely opened her mouth-
-Nick closed the last few steps between them-
-arms around her waist-
-slowly and cautiously, as if he wasn't sure if they were welcome-
-pulled her up against him, slowly enough that she had all the time in the world to push him away if she wanted-
-wrapped her into a shaky embrace-
-one she returned, and found it lifted a weight from her own shoulders-
-burying his face where her neck curved into her shoulder.
It wasn't right, her thoughts insisted. She was all sharp corners, jagged edges. A steel spine and a stone heart. She did more damage than good. If he needed comfort, kindness, a safe refuge from his grief, then she wasn't the one to ask.
That being how she felt didn't mean it was how he felt. Maybe what she needed was someone whose opinion of her differed from her own. Someone who knew there was still softness inside her, despite what she thought.
They stood there, and neither moved. He didn't speak for a while, and Amelia knew he would share what was on his mind when he was ready. After a long, soft silence, he finally did. His voice cracked as he whispered muffled words into her collarbone. "I just watched. I didn't help him."
"It wasn't your fault." She told him quietly, for once meaning what she said without any uncertainty. "You couldn't have done anything to stop it."
He shook his head, and when he did she felt the skin of her shoulder was wet. "I didn't help him…"
She knew where he was. He was drowning in a repetitive spiral she'd been in herself, more than once. Trapped in the moment that had caused the most pain, unable to move on from it for what felt like an eternity. A frenzy of puzzle-piecing and analysis, each scenario focused on what he did wrong, tailed by the maddening idea that if he'd acted differently, Pete wouldn't have died. It wasn't true, she knew that. He would eventually, even if he didn't now.
She leaned back just far enough to meet his eyes, holding him by the arms as if he was going to slip away. "It wasn't." She said again, knowing he wasn't ready to believe it yet but that didn't mean he needed to hear it any less. "Please take my word for it. Just trust me."
-please, no-
-Uncle Pete-
-a gunshot that she hadn't watched, but Nick had-
Her version of events-
-her memories-
-her nightmares-
-must have been nothing compared to his.
I'm going to kill him for what he did. That much, she kept to herself. He was already carrying enough.
He nodded. It was an empty nod, but Amelia appreciated that he'd tried.
"I have to get back. They count every half hour." He turned back to the fence abruptly, and Amelia wondered if he was in a hurry to get back to the yard or to get away from her.
"Wait-" she called out to his back. "The radio-" She winced at hearing herself bring it up so abruptly, but her last chance to stop Clementine from making a mistake would disappear with him. "I don't want Clementine going after it. Just give me some time and I'll-"
"She already got it," he said.
"…"
Her silence got him to turn back, concern in his eyes again. "She's okay. She got it. She did great. They're working on a way to get it to you tomorrow so you can give it to Luke."
Amelia still didn't know what to say.
She already did it.
Without you.
She should've found it reassuring.
"I have to get back," Nick told her again, as if he were checking to make sure she'd be alright if he left. She didn't say anything to stop him.
He left her with one more thing to say. One of the only things he'd ever asked of her.
"Stay out of trouble. That's all I'm asking you. Please."
He seemed to know he wouldn't get answer-
-making Amelia wonder if she'd grown predictable to everyone or only to him-
-and left before she gave one.
She remembered what Pete had told her. She would not lie to him.
It was why she'd stayed silent.