Clementine felt herself tensing up as her locked her fingers behind her head. The girl fell to her knees and tried to control her breathing as her thoughts turned to the gun strapped to her ankle. In a flash, her hand went for the weapon and she pulled it from its holster with incredible speed only to fumble it as she aimed it forward, causing the gun to slip out of her fingers and bounce across the carpet.

"Shit…"

Clem picked up the gun and returned it to the holster on her ankle. She assumed the position with her hands on her head and tried drawing again. This time the gun got stuck on the holster, and then again next time. Sometime after a dozen attempts, Clem found herself able to at least reliably remove the pistol from its holster while in this position, although not nearly as quickly as she would have liked.

"Mah-bah." Clementine looked aside to see Omid was staring at her.

"OJ? When did you wake up?"

"Mah-bah," repeated Omid as he reached one of his arms through the bars of his crib.

"You want something?" Clem searched around for whatever Omid was reaching for, but didn't see anything between him and where she was sitting.

"Mah-bah," repeated Omid as he kept stretching his fingers out towards Clem. Following where his hand was pointing, she realized Omid was reaching for the gun in her hand. "Mah-bah." Clem hastily holstered the gun and stood up.

"No, you don't want to play with that," insisted Clem as she approached the crib. "Here, just play with your rattle or Elma," said Clem as she pushed the toys in Omid's crib closer to the boy. "Okay, just play with them and—"

"Mah-bah." Clem felt Omid tugging on her pant leg and immediately jumped back a few steps.

"No!"

Omid flinched in response to Clem's outburst, then started crying softly right afterwards.

"I'm sorry OJ, I'm so sorry," said Clem as she moved to pick up the boy. "I didn't mean to yell, I just—"

"Dah-buh-mah-dee!" cried Omid as he crawled away from Clem.

"I'm…" Clem watched as Omid hid under his blanket, sobbing softly. "I'm sorry." The girl sighed to herself, then left the bedroom. Heading back to the front, Clem grabbed the stool and returned her ankle pistol to the cupboard. She checked to make sure it was unloaded first, fully aware it didn't even have a magazine in it.

"Everything okay?" Clem saw Sarah staring up at her.

"Not really," admitted Clem as she put the weapon away. "OJ tried reaching for my gun. It wasn't loaded and he didn't get it, but it scared me and… I raised my voice, and now he's mad at me."

"What were you doing with it again?" asked Sarah.

"I just wanted to… practice something with it," said Clem as she removed the holster from her ankle.

"Practice what?" Clem found herself unable to answer Sarah, instead she quietly turned away from her friend. "I'll go check on Omid." Clem watched as Sarah stood up and headed for the bedroom. "If there's anything else wrong, you can talk to me about it, both of you." Clem looked over at Patty in the driver's seat, who had no reaction to what Sarah said. The older girl left the room and Clem sat down in the passenger seat.

"Hey Clem…" Patty said in a quiet voice without taking her eyes off the road.

"Hey Patty," said Clem in an equally quiet voice as she looked out the windshield. There were dead trees on both sides of the road and little else. "See anything?"

"Passed some little piss ant town a few miles back," reported the woman. "It didn't look all that promising, so I figured it probably wasn't worth stopping to check out."

"Don't we need diesel?" asked Clem.

"Not urgently. I figured it'd be better waiting for some gas station right off the interstate than bothering going into some town," reasoned Patty. "Less chance anything would…"

The woman trailed off as her eyes drifted towards the side mirror. Clem couldn't see what Patty was looking at from her seat, but she could safely assume she was eyeing Anthony's truck following behind them.

"So, how'd your practice go?" asked Patty half-heartedly.

"Okay, I guess. Did you ever practice pulling out your gun?" Clem waited for an answer, and felt a little unnerved when the woman didn't even seem to notice the question. "Patty?"

"No," she answered in a quiet voice. "Never thought about practicing something like that before…"

"Yeah, me neither." Clem sighed and looked out the window. She sat in silence, just quietly watching the leafless trees pass by for she didn't know how long. Sarah came back at some point, informing Clem she had successfully settled Omid into a nap, then quietly took a seat on the couch. Eventually, Clem spotted a gas station approaching on the horizon and felt the Brave slowing down soon after.

"This looks like as good a place as any," reasoned Patty as she slowed the down. The group briefly eyed the building from the windows, seeing just another gas station sitting on the corner of a not-at-all important intersection on yet another long stretch of interstate.

"Me and Anthony will go check it out," said Patty as she parked the Brave besides the gas pumps. "You two wait here."

"I want to come with you," insisted Clem.

"Clem, you know that's not a good idea."

"Why not?" Patty and Clem turned to Sarah, surprised to hear her ask that; neither of them really had the courage to answer her right now.

"How about… you take the telescope and watch from up top?" suggested Patty. "While me and him make sure the gas station is empty?"

"Okay." Clem stood up and went to retrieve their equipment. Passing Sarah, she noticed the older girl appeared not only bothered, but perhaps a little angry even. Clem felt guilty for ignoring Sarah's questions and wasn't trying to hide the truth from her; she just hadn't found it in herself to think about what happened yesterday just yet. Instead, the girl kept her focus on the present, collecting her gear and equipping herself like she had done dozens of times before.

Going to retrieve Patty's shotgun from the closet, Clem couldn't help but stare at the machine gun lying next to it. Just the sight of it was hard for Clem to bear, and the girl found herself turning away from it in response. She hurried back and handed the woman her gun, which she seemed reluctant to load. For every shell Patty feed into her shotgun, she paused a little longer before loading the next one. Eventually, they were dressed in their raincoats with everything they needed and facing the door.

"We'll… we'll be right back Sarah," assured Patty.

"I hope so."

Clem cringed upon hearing Sarah say that and suddenly had doubts about going out. But as soon as Patty opened the door, Clem's instincts took over and she rushed outside. It was another cold day and even the noon sun did little to change that. Climbing on top of the RV with one arm while carrying a telescope in the other didn't do much to improve Clem's outlook either.

Upon reaching the top, Clem surveyed the area like she had done so many times before, and like so many times before she just found trees lining desolate and forgotten roads in every direction while yet another deserted gas station was lying before them; one of a handful of buildings broke open and the left to rot long ago. They were sights so common to Clem that she couldn't even bother to estimate how many times she had seen them by now.

"Hey, Anthony?" Clem looked down to see Patty knocking on the door to the young man's camper. "You ready? We—"

Clem felt her heart skip a beat as she saw Anthony barge outside with a long black rifle clutched in his hands. "Time to get gas, right?"

"Diesel, but yeah," said Patty. "Come on."

Clem watched closely as Anthony followed Patty. She was supposed to be watching the road, yet she found herself unable to look away from the pair as long as Anthony was holding that gun. They disappeared briefly behind the building before returning, and Clem still couldn't take her eyes off that rifle. Anthony looked so comfortable carrying it, moving it about with ease as he surveyed the area; it appeared almost weightless in his hands. Clem didn't know why, but she found it worrisome.

Anthony suddenly looked up at Clem and she panicked, clumsily spinning around and pretending to be using the telescope. It took her a few seconds to calm down, and a few more to try to understand why she felt so scared just now. Eventually, she mustered the nerve to turn back to the gas station only to find Anthony and Patty were gone now, likely searching inside. Clem stood watch quietly on the Brave, constantly looking over for signs of the pair before finally hearing a familiar voice on the radio.

"Okay, it looks all clear, both of danger and anything useable," reported Patty over the radio. "Let's get started."

Clem climbed down off the RV and began gathering gas cans and bottles of fuel stabilizer while Patty broke into the nearest diesel tank. As Clem set out their tools, Anthony set his own empty fuel cans next to theirs. Clem brought the pump over while Patty started the generator, and Anthony just hovered around the diesel tank, as if he was waiting to be told what to do. Clem didn't say anything to him and after Patty started the generator, the pair began working together in silence.

"So, what's the plan now?" asked Anthony, breaking the silence. "Where are we off to next?" Clem and Patty exchanged glances briefly, then went back to filling fuel cans. "What's this? The silent treatment? You two mad at me or something?"

"We don't have a plan yet," said Patty as calmly as she could. "It's got nothing to do with you."

"I think it does," accused Anthony.

"You always think that," retorted Patty.

"You both look at me like I've done something wrong, or think I'm about to." Clem swallowed hard when she noticed Anthony was looking at her.

"We just want to get the diesel and go," insisted a nervous Clem.

"Go where?" asked Anthony.

"Further the fuck away from New Orleans," grumbled Patty as she moved a hose to a different fuel can. "Let's leave it at that. We really don't feel like talking about it right now."

"Well maybe we should." Everyone turned to see Sarah standing at the door to the Brave, an irritated look brewing behind her glasses and a baby monitor clipped to her belt. "What happened yesterday?"

"You two haven't told her what went down?" asked a surprised Anthony.

"No," Sarah answered for them.

"Well, they—"

"We'll tell her," insisted Patty before taking a deep breath. "Sarah… yesterday… we… that warehouse…"

"We found two people in it," blurted out Clem without thinking. "And then we killed them."

"What?" Sarah's eyes went wide with shock. "Why?"

"Because they were going to kill Clem and Patty," informed Anthony.

"No, they weren't," asserted Patty. "Clem and I were talking to them, and they sounded like they were going to see reason, and then that's when Anthony shot one of them."

"I guess I couldn't see all that reason over the guns they were shoving in your faces."

"You didn't really stop to check."

"I didn't have the luxury of—"

"Stop it." Everyone watched as Sarah marched over to the generator and shut it off.

"Sarah, what are—"

"If we're gonna talk about this, then let's do it right," insisted the older girl as she walked back. "Clementine, tell me what happened."

"Why me?"

"Because…" Sarah's voice suddenly became much softer. "I want to hear it from you."

Clem found herself touched by the sincerity in Sarah's voice, yet also ashamed to have held back answering someone who clearly trusted her so deeply.

"Well, we went to check out that warehouse," said Clem. "Patty wanted Anthony to stay outside to keep watch, and she gave him a gun so if something happened he could protect himself. We went inside, and we didn't find any food, but just as we were going to leave… they found us."

"Who?"

"Two men, with big guns," said Clem. "They took our guns, and made us get on the ground, and started asking us weird questions."

"What kind of questions?" asked Sarah.

"They wanted to know where the troops in New Orleans went and said something about a shipment," answered Patty. "It was all pretty confusing. They looked like soldiers themselves, so I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. I think maybe they were deserters or something. One of them mentioned seeing… planes."

"What?" Sarah's eyes nearly bugged out of her head upon hearing that. "Like, in the sky?" Patty and Clem nodded at Sarah. "When?"

"He said three days ago, and that was yesterday, so now I guess it's been four days," figured Clem.

"Said he saw a formation of five of them flying west," added Patty. "He seemed to think going after them was the only thing that made sense."

"You sure he wasn't making shit up to fuck with you?" asked Anthony. "For all you know, he was just saying that so we'd wander west through God only knows what just to fall into a trap, or some other ghost town like New Orleans."

"I doubt he was trying to trick us," said Patty. "The other guy with him didn't even seem to think the planes were real."

"So he might have been just crazy, or seeing things," concluded Anthony.

"But he may not have," said Sarah. "If there are planes, that means there has to be somewhere for them to land, and to get fuel, and people who fly them, and all kinds of stuff… we gotta go west."

"Those planes could have taken off from anywhere, and been going anywhere else. Even if they went west over New Orleans, they could have changed directions right afterwards," reasoned Anthony. "That's assuming they're even real in the first place."

"Yeah, after thinking about it for a little while, I'm not sure if I'm too keen on trying to follow something we didn't even see," said Patty. "They talked about Saints Louis a lot, like it had other troops there, maybe it's like Miami or something. I was almost thinking we should go there."

"What? You want to head towards a place with more goddamn troops?" asked a stunned Anthony.

"You'll just have to resist the urge to kill them this time," growled Patty.

"Why do you want to go to Saint Louis?" asked Clem. "I thought you hated living in Miami when the military was there?"

"It's dawning on me that I hate wandering around with no idea where to go slightly more," confessed Patty. "And no one in Miami ever knew about using the walker smell to sneak past them. If there's still people in Saint Louis, and we told them that, maybe that'd be enough to, I don't know, get their shit together or something?"

"Or something? That sounds like a great plan," noted Anthony.

"Those two guys didn't even believe us at first when we told them about the raincoats," said Patty. "They acted like we had just told them how to perform magic. With a big enough group of people using the smell, maybe we could take back whole cities or something; you and I were clearing out whole neighborhoods in Hattiesburg."

"What makes you think they're gonna listen to us? Or that Saint Louis will even have anyone left alive there by now?" asked Anthony. "If New Orleans is dead, then Saint Louis couldn't have been far behind."

"Well, what's your brilliant idea?" asked Patty.

"You said it yourself, we were doing fine in Hattiesburg; let's just go back there."

"Are you serious?"

"Well not just there, that's just where we'd start," explained Anthony. "We keep looking for little nobody cities that got swarmed with dead people, leech food off them for as long as we can, then move onto the next one."

"We went over this, we told you that's not going to last," said Patty.

"Yeah, and then you talked me into going to New Orleans, which was a worse idea," reminded Anthony. "I think we'd last longer with my plan."

"We're not doing that," insisted Patty.

"Oh, you just get to decide for all of us?" asked Anthony.

"No, we…" Patty suddenly turned to Clem. "Clem, what's your vote?"

"Vote?"

"You want to go west, to Saint Louis, or back to damn Hattiesburg?"

"Not just Hattiesburg, any small city we can loot," corrected Anthony.

"Or maybe you even have a better plan," suggested Patty.

"I don't really have a different plan," admitted Clem as she looked out at everybody. "But… I think we should try to find out where those planes were going."

"Which we do how?" asked Anthony. "Just drive west and hope we run into wherever they were going?"

"We need to keep looking for somewhere to stay, so why not go west?" shrugged Clem. "It's not like there's any reason there won't be small cities we can search for food there too. And Sarah's right, you'd probably need a lot of important stuff to make planes fly. We can't even use gas anymore, but there's somewhere that still has stuff that lets planes work? It's gotta be better there than… here." Clem gestured to the derelict gas station.

"Exactly, we just have to find it," beamed Sarah. "Planes have to land somewhere; we should check the airports and runways to the west of here."

"Listen to yourselves," said Anthony. "We're gonna run around checking airports on the word of a couple of assholes who were trying to kill you?"

"That's two votes, and I'll change mine to make it three, so that's what we're doing," declared Patty. "And maybe if you hadn't of killed those guys, we could have asked them more about what they had seen right now."

"Or you could be dead right now," retorted Anthony.

"Clem, what happened?" asked an anxious Sarah. "Why did Anthony… kill the people you were talking to?"

"It didn't look like they were talking from where I was standing," said Anthony.

"I'm asking Clementine," snapped Sarah.

"Well, after they took our guns, they made us stay on our knees the whole time while they asked us questions, and they never stopped aiming guns at us," recalled an unnerved Clem. "And they were getting really mad when we didn't know how to answer their questions. They… they put the barrels right up to our faces and told us to stop lying and don't fuck with them and… they sounded so angry."

"Oh God… I'm so sorry." Clem suddenly felt Sarah's hands around her shoulders. Her friend's touch made Clem feel safer, prompting the girl to cross one of her arms across her chest so she could hold Sarah's hand. Sarah then pulled free of Clem's grip and moved to Patty, who was clearly grateful for the comfort as well.

"And yet they're both acting like I'm the bad guy for saving them from those two thugs," said Anthony.

"It's not that simple," retorted Patty. "We had just about talked them down, and that's when you killed one, they… they weren't going to shoot."

"Why is it every time you say that, it doesn't sound like you believe it?" asked Anthony.

"Why is it you never sound like you're bothered in the least by killing a man?" retorted Patty.

"Clem," said Sarah. "Do you think they were going to shoot you?"

"I… I don't know, it all happened so fast," confessed Clem as she shook her head. "I don't think they wanted to; they said they wanted to believe us, but… I'm still not sure if they did or not."

"Maybe if Anthony hadn't come along when he did," grumbled Patty.

"You're the one who begged me to come with you to New Orleans," reminded Anthony.

"We didn't bring you along to do that."

"Then what the hell was I supposed to do then? Why'd you give me a gun if not for that exact kind of situation?" asked a baffled Anthony. "I pulled back a curtain and found the two of you, on your knees, begging not to be killed by a couple of guys in uniforms pointing guns at your heads. Tell me, what should I have done?"

"You… you could have just waited a second," suggested Patty.

"From where I was standing, it looked like you only had seconds left to live," said Anthony.

"We were talking to them," repeated Patty.

"Well I didn't get there in time to hear them talk. I heard angry yelling, and was afraid of getting shot myself as I started moving through that warehouse. By the time I found you, I just heard her say 'You don't have to kill us." Anthony gestured to Clementine. "And you keep acting like I'm the only one who did the shooting; you killed the other one."

"Patty, you killed one of these men?" asked Sarah.

"After Anthony killed his friend!" snapped the woman. "He started shooting and I just… reacted."

"That's all I did," said Anthony.

"Bullshit, you… you could have said something."

"And get shot myself by a couple of trigger happy jarheads who had no problem threatening to kill a woman and a little girl?" said Anthony. "Why is it you're madder at me for killing that man instead of them for taking you hostage? I mean Jesus, you keep acting like I shot up a tea party they invited you to; they had you at fucking gunpoint, even after all your talking. I mean, were you two really not scared for your lives?"

"Of course we were," said Patty. "But we weren't going to just shoot them because we were scared."

"You were thinking about," reminded Clem.

"What?" asked Patty.

"Remember, when they were… looking at my back, you were going to get the gun on your ankle until I shook my head not to." Looking at Patty, Clem was surprised she looked angry now.

"Are you kidding me?" asked Anthony. "You were planning on killing them yourself and you're still giving me hell over this?"

"I obviously didn't go through with it, not until you showed up and gave me no choice," growled Patty through clenched teeth.

"Probably because you weren't sure if you could get them both yourself," said Anthony. "Hell, I couldn't, and I had the element of surprise. Fucker with the machine gun would have probably killed us all if you didn't stop him when you did."

"Or you could have just done what I did and resist the urge to shoot first," said Patty. "You shot his friend, what did you think was going to happen?"

"They had you on the ground at gunpoint, I thought an execution was about to happen, that's what I think," answered Anthony. "You keep making excuses for these two people who attacked you, but they could have let you up anytime, they could have stopped aiming at you, they could have done anything at all to make it clear they didn't intend to kill you, but they'd didn't. Why the hell should I have gambled with my life and yours that they were suddenly going to have a change of heart?"

"Because we did it for you," reminded Clem. "You wouldn't put your gun down, even after I told you there were no bullets in it, and I didn't shoot you."

"Would you had done that if Patty hadn't broken in when she did?" asked Anthony. "Because before that, you were saying you were going to kill me."

"You… you said that?" asked a surprised Sarah.

"I… I didn't know—"

"What was going to happen," finished Anthony. "And right then, it was just on you to deal with, an admittedly, not entirely straight-thinking me; shooting me would have been the safe bet."

"But if Clem did that, you'd be dead right now," said Sarah.

"And I'm glad she didn't, but that was just me with what she knew was an unloaded gun, and then Patty backed her up," said Anthony. "But two guys with automatic weapons while the pair of ya were on your damn knees? I didn't like those odds one bit, so I went with the safer bet, and even it was a risk.

"I mean, if that's not what you wanted, next time I see the pair of you being held up I'll just not shoot, would that be better?" Patty groaned as she rubbed her forehead. "Yeah, I didn't think so. I get what happened wasn't ideal, but it could have been a lot worse. Seriously, I saved your lives, why am I the bad guy?"

"It's just… don't you feel bad at all?" asked Clem.

"God knows I do," admitted Patty as she reached for her cigarettes.

"Even if you were right and you had to… kill them," spoke Sarah in a sad voice. "Doesn't it bother you that you had to do that?"

Anthony thought to himself for a moment, then shook his head. "I can't pretend to feel sorry for people like them."

"Like them?" asked Sarah.

"Assholes with uniforms and big guns who feel like they can do whatever the fuck they want with us," spoke Anthony with a hint of anger. "I've had enough of them to last me a lifetime."

"I thought you said you never saw the military in Mississippi," said Clem.

"Not after shit went wrong, they had better things to do apparently, but I had plenty of run-ins with assholes in uniforms before that," said Anthony. "Who do you think ran that military school I ditched? And even after I ditched that place, I had the police harassing me all the time, occasionally throwing in a beating when they felt like it because they knew I never had anyone to call or anywhere to go."

"That's terrible," said Sarah.

"Tell me about," shrugged Anthony.

"Still, does that mean you killed those soldiers because you wanted to?" asked Clem. "Not because you had to?"

"I did what I had to," insisted Anthony. "Them being what they were just made it a little easier."

"So it's easy for you to kill people," said Patty, more accusing than asking as she lit her cigarette.

"I said it was easier, I didn't say it was actually easy," retorted Anthony.

"You just make it sound easy."

"Well if it is easy, it was only because people like them told me it should be," retorted Anthony. "I was only at military school for a few months, but they made sure I knew that you look out for your 'squad' first and foremost, and that thinking of anyone else is just selfish."

"That makes no sense," said Sarah. "Thinking of people you don't know is the opposite of selfish."

"I was more hung up on what the hell made someone 'my' squad, like I wanted to protect the same bunch of assholes who made my life miserable," said Anthony. "Like I said, it's hard for me to feel sorry for people like that."

"There anyone else you have trouble feeling sorry for?" Patty took a long drag off her cigarette as an awkward silence fell over the area. Clem found herself tensing up as she watched Patty and Anthony stare at each other, quietly judging one another.

"Whatta ya want from me?" asked Anthony in a stern voice. "You just want me to leave?"

"Would you?"

"Patty!" exclaimed Sarah. "Don't say that."

"I'm just asking," shrugged Patty in a casual manner. "Because I don't think you would if we asked you."

Clem watched Anthony carefully, finding the hints of anger in his eyes and the way he tightened his grip on the rifle alarming. Clem almost felt herself reaching for her own gun when she suddenly noticed the signs of hostility had vanished from Anthony's face and had been replaced with a look of disappointment.

"Jesus, I save your life and you then tell me you don't want me around?"

"She didn't say that," said Sarah.

"Well is she going to?" asked Anthony.

"She's not," insisted Sarah.

"I'm not?" Patty asked Sarah.

"So you are asking him to leave?" asked Sarah.

"I… it just seems like it's always the same shit with me and him, and now there's what happened in New Orleans and…" Patty groaned to herself. "I just don't see it getting any better between us, and you can't be enjoying this either. I mean, I figured you maybe even wanted to leave."

"Well I don't," said Anthony.

"Really?" asked a skeptical Patty.

"Yeah, I don't want to leave."

"Why not?" asked a sincere Clem.

"I like being around you people," admitted Anthony.

"Really? You're mostly around Patty, not me and Sarah."

"Well, Patty doesn't seem to like the idea of me being around you two all that much." Patty just sat there quietly as she smoked her cigarette. "Still, before New Orleans, I figured I just had to hang on long enough to find somewhere else to live, maybe another Gulf Port, except without the assholes. But now… shit, I don't know if there's anyone else still out there to find these days."

"And that bothers you?" asked an unconvinced Patty.

"Um, yeah, an eternity of loneliness bothers me. Maybe you didn't notice, but I wasn't exactly enjoying my time as king of an abandoned gas station before." Anthony looked over at the gas station behind him. "I'd really rather not go back to that life."

"What about what we want?" asked Patty.

"What do you want?" asked Anthony.

"I want you to stay," interjected Sarah.

"Well I don't think Patty feels the same way Sarah."

Clem and Sarah looked at Patty, who took a long drag off her cigarette before turning to Clementine. "What do you want?"

"Me?" asked Clem.

"Yeah, just, honestly, what do you want to do?" asked Patty.

"I'd like for us to stay together, but…"

"You know what?" Clem watched anxiously as Anthony approached her. She flinched as the young man thrust the rifle forward, only to realize he was offering it to her. "Maybe I've been around assholes for so much of my life that I just forgot how decent people were supposed to act."

Clem looked at the rifle, unsure of what to do.

"You sure you're not gonna ask for that back the day after tomorrow?" asked Patty.

"Not as long you're watching my back," said Anthony with a smirk. "And you can probably do that better with this."

"Well, I would like for us to stay together." Clem slowly took the rifle from Anthony, the weapon weighing heavy in her hands. "But we're not a 'squad' that only cares about ourselves; we need to help people if we can, and not kill anyone if we don't have to."

"It's still not clear to me when killing someone is okay around here," admitted Anthony.

"It's never okay," said Clem with no sense of uncertainty. "But sometimes you have to do it anyway, or something worse will happen."

"Well, then I guess that particular line isn't clear to me then," shrugged Anthony. "But it's more in your hands now than mine, literally."

Clem looked down at the rifle in her hands, a swell of guilt washing over her as she remembered where it came from, as well as the weight of the responsibility of using it causing the weapon to grow heavier in her hands. It occurred to the girl, the line Anthony mentioned wasn't clear to her either.

"All right, we still need diesel," said Patty as she put out her cigarette. "So me and Clem will—"

"Let me handle it," offered Anthony. "I got nothing else to do anyway."

"You don't know the measurements for the stabilizer, or—"

"I'll show him," offered Sarah in a cheerful voice.

"Yeah, me and her can handle it," asserted Anthony.

"No, you and I—"

"Always seem to get into the same shit when we're together," reminded Anthony. "Come on, what's gonna happen if you leave me and Sarah alone for five minutes?"

"You two could use a break," suggested Sarah. "You do everything."

"They would just be outside," said Clem to Patty.

The woman rubbed her forehead for a moment, like she had a headache. "Just call us if anything happens."

"We will."

"Here." Clem took off her raincoat and handed it to Sarah, while Sarah passed the baby monitor on her belt to Clem. "And take my gun too," said Clem as she gave her pistol to the older girl. "And… be careful."

"I will." Sarah set the raincoat on the ground and moved in close to hug Clementine. "Just rest for a while, you and Patty."

"We'll try," assured Clem as she hugged Sarah back.

"You'd better."

Sarah let go of Clem, put the raincoat on, then hurried over to the generator with Anthony to start it. With nothing left to do outside, Clem collected the rifle and returned to the Brave with Patty. The pair quickly stored their gear, Clem making sure to unload the new rifle before setting it in the closet with their growing collection of large guns.

It occurred to Clem that all of these weapons had been retrieved from the bodies of people they had killed. The only possible exception was Patty's shotgun, and Clem was afraid to ask where the woman had gotten it. Just looking at it, it clearly wasn't the same kind of shotgun people used for hunting, being more elaborate looking and painted a solid black.

Clem quickly slammed the closet door shut, feeling a slight tinge of relief as she did, if only for a second. Hurrying into the bedroom, Clem found Omid was still napping. With nowhere else to go, Clementine returned to the front. She set the baby monitor on the dashboard, then took a seat across from Patty, who was quietly staring out the window.

"You okay?" asked Clem.

"I guess," shrugged Patty.

"You guess?"

"There's just… a lot on my mind right now."

"Like what happened yesterday?"

"That's in there."

"What else?"

"Anthony, if it wasn't obvious. And anything coming at him and Sarah while they're out there. And… just everything I guess," said Patty as she turned away from the window. "I hated living under martial law, and at Valkaria, but it was… simpler than this."

"Simpler than what?" asked Clem.

"Trying to do all this on my own," said Patty. "Figure out what to do, where to go, what's fair…"

"When you have to kill people," Clem whispered to herself.

"Like I said, it's just everything."

"I know how you feel."

"You shouldn't—I shouldn't have put it on you where we go next or what we should do about Anthony," realized Patty. "I'm—"

"It's fine Patty," assured Clem.

"It's really not. God, now I'm wondering what happens if we actually find out there's still a city under control of the military. If they found out what we did, would they, like, put me and Anthony on trial for… murder?"

"I don't know," said Clem. "What did they do in Miami?"

Clementine watched as Patty's face grew increasingly forlorn before the woman turned away. "I'm… I'm sorry Clem, it's just—"

"Patty, why don't you go lie down?" suggested Clem as she approached the woman from behind.

"What? No, I need—"

"I'll wait up here in case anything happens," said Clem as she placed her hands on Patty's shoulders. "You should take a shower, then just go rest in our bed. I'll take care of things for a while."

"I'm the adult, I—"

"You're the only adult here," reminded Clem. "And adults need rest too, especially when they don't feel well."

"I… I guess I could do that. It's just… I keep thinking about that man's face. I close my eyes and I just see it, and then I hear the gunshot."

"I… I know how that feels. I… I killed someone once because I thought they were going to attack me, but afterwards I found out their gun wasn't even loaded." Clem was shocked when she realized she had just said that out loud instead of thinking it.

"That's horrible Clem," said Patty in a soft voice as she crossed one of her arms across her chest in order to hold the girl's hand. "I'm so sorry."

"Ever since then, I keep wondering if that'll happen to me someday," said Clementine in a quiet voice, unable to stop herself from confessing. "That someone will think I want to kill them, and just kill me first. I thought it was going to happen right there in that warehouse yesterday."

"Yeah, I did too," said Patty before taking a deep breath. "I hated shooting that man… but I'm glad you didn't have to."

"Part of me is glad I didn't," said Clem. "But then another part of me feels like I messed up when I couldn't get my gun out, and that I almost got us killed because of it."

"I wish you hadn't told Anthony I was trying to get my gun before he showed up," admitted Patty in a weary voice.

"I'm sorry, I—"

"You were just being honest," consoled Patty. "It's just, I know he's going to bring that up anytime he wants to win an argument now."

"I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to say what you did was wrong," said Clem. "The only reason I shook my head was I didn't think there would be time for you to even get the gun. That's why I was practicing earlier, in case we ever have to do something like that again. But then I accidentally yelled at Omid when he wanted the gun and I… I don't know what to do."

"Yeah, me neither. It bothers me Anthony can just think he's so right about what happened, but now I'm thinking if that's because he went to military school for a few months, how bad would actual soldiers feel about killing us?" Patty took a deep breath. "Most of the ones I met in Miami didn't really seem like they cared about killing, some of them enjoyed it."

"I'm always worried we'll find someone like that," whispered Clem.

"I'm sorry, I just need to suck it up already. I can't take back what happened, so we just need to keep going forward and hope those two didn't die for nothing." Patty took another breath. "And to think, I always wanted to travel across the country; I just never thought it'd be like this."

"When we first got to New Orleans, Sarah looked at the odometer and said we had driven over a thousand miles since we left home," said Clem. "We've come so far, but things still look the same."

"Tell me about it. And it never seems to get any easier to deal with, it actually gets harder," said Patty. "New Orleans wasn't the first time I had killed someone, but… fuck."

"I drank some whiskey afterwards when I…" Clem felt herself biting her lip before repeating that dark memory again. "It at least help me forget about it for a little while, even though I drank too much and got sick."

Patty let out a weak chuckle. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh; there's nothing funny about a ten-year-old drinking to forget something terrible."

"We still have some whiskey," said Clem. "We're saving it for birthdays, but you can have a little if it'll make you feel better. It's in the cupboard next to the one with our guns, all the way in the back. Sarah doesn't think I know where it is, but I found it anyway."

"You haven't been hitting it yourself, have you?" said Patty with a weak laugh.

"No, but you can," offered Clem with a smile.

"I think I'll take you up on that, and the shower, and getting to sleep in your big comfy bed for a while," said Patty.

"Go ahead," said Clem as she let go of Patty's shoulders. "I'll come get you if anything happens."

"Thanks Clementine," said Patty as she stood up. "You're a little saint, you know that?"

"I… I don't think I am," admitted Clem. "I've made some bad mistakes."

"Yeah, me too, but I think I'd make a lot more if you weren't here constantly talking some sense into me." Patty smiled at Clem, which caused Clem to smile. "Come get me if you need me." Clem watched as Patty retrieved the whiskey she had mentioned, then headed into the bathroom.

Alone now, Clem turned back to the window. She briefly watched as Anthony and Sarah worked on filling fuel cans, talking about something with each other she couldn't hear from inside the RV, then looked out on the road. She couldn't see the end of it, she never could, but she knew it had to have one; if only they could find it.