"Knew what?" asked Eskiya as he stood between Clementine and the only way out of the building, one hand firmly on the doorknob and another inside his coat, probably on his gun. It was clear he had no intention of moving.

"You came with me so you could get rid of me," accused Clem.

"I've done no such thing," stated Eskiya in a firm voice. "And Sabriya made it perfectly clear if I came back without you, I shouldn't come back either."

"Yeah, but if you came back with a bunch of food and some story about how that walker bit me and there was nothing you could do to stop it, she probably wouldn't ask too many questions, would she? That's why you were asking if that walker bit me a minute ago, you were hoping it had." Eskiya didn't respond. "Me, Sarah and Omid are just burdens and something like that happening to one of us is just inevitable, right?"

Eskiya's eyes narrowed in anger upon hearing that. "You were eavesdropping on us this morning."

"Why wouldn't I be?" sneered Clem. "So when are you gonna do it?"

"Do what?"

"Ditch us," said Clem. "Or kill us. Which is it even?"

"Neither."

"Bullshit," refuted Clem. "I can't stop you people so you might as well tell me when you're getting rid of us so I can get ready for it. It's a question of when not if, right?

"That is not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

"I meant it's just a matter of time before something kills you, no matter what we do." Eskiya took a breath. "Just like the other children that were with us."

"What children? What are you talking about?"

"Before you, there was a pair of young people, a boy and a girl. I think they were fourteen and fifteen years old. I didn't know them as well as Sabriya and Dilawar did but their deaths… it was a blow for all of us."

"I don't believe you," refuted Clem without hesitation.

"You can ask any of the others, they'll tell you."

"Yeah I bet, you're probably all in on the same lie."

"Do you think Horatio is a liar?"

"He might be," said Clem. "He didn't argue with you when you said us dying was inevitable, just that he didn't want you to talk like that, and Dilawar told him you were just stating the obvious."

Eskiya groaned deeply and rubbed his head. "Look, we're not going to leave you and… I'm assuming you don't want to be left behind." Eskiya looked at Clem, like he was expecting her to answer that.

"Of course I don't want to be left behind!"

"Very well, then we need to find a way to resolve our… mutual distrust."

"Mutual distrust?" repeated Clem in disbelief. "You're the one that literally no one trusts!"

"And you're the escape artist who killed a man while all our backs were turned," reminded Eskiya. "If we're going to be living together, we need to establish some small measure of trust, if just to keep functioning."

"And how we do that? I don't trust you. I don't think I could ever trust you."

"You'd be wise not to." Clem just glowered at him in response, as if telling her he can't be trusted made this any easier. "But is it hard to believe I'd consider you useful to us, and would prefer you stayed with us?"

"Is that all I am to you, useful?"

"If I told you I was also concerned for your well being, would you believe me?" Clem stared at Eskiya in response. "I didn't think so. However, you've already demonstrated you're capable and would be of benefit to us, and that gives me motivation to want you to stay, provided we can trust you."

"We?" challenged Clem. "You're the one who won't let me leave right now. The others—"

"Are less vocal about their distrust of you than myself," said Eskiya. "But they have their own suspicions about you as well. Why do you think Sabriya refused to give you a gun this morning?"

"You mean my gun?" retorted Clem. "The one you guys stole from me!"

"After you used it to kill someone right under our noses."

"You put me up to it!"

"And you went through with it before we even finished discussing it," reminded Eskiya. "Raising not only the question of how you managed that, but why."

"Because you wanted me to!"

"Did you also think we wanted you to free yourself, take a gun, and fire it all while our backs were turned?" asked Eskiya. "What were you thinking when you did that? You must have known it would have made us more suspicious of you."

"I… I was thinking I couldn't risk you changing your mind. The longer you guys talked about it, the longer Sarah and Omid were out in the cold," admitted Clem with a tremble as she remembered sitting there, chained to a bus seat, terrified she wouldn't see them again. "I figured if I just did it already you'd have to help them." Looking up, Eskiya was still staring at her, unmoved by what she said. "Why do you think I did it?"

Eskiya kept staring at Clem, unnerving her. "I think you knew that man," he said. "And you wanted them silenced before they could tell us they knew you."

"That doesn't make any sense—you said the exact opposite yesterday!" yelled Clem. "You told the others you believed me when I said I'd never actually met any of the Vaquero before."

"And I regret letting pity cloud my judgement like that." Clem wanted nothing more than to kill Eskiya right now. Even if any attempt to do so right now would be doomed to failure, she still considered how likely it was she could stab him before he could retaliate. Anything to cause him pain if it would just quell the rising bile she felt in her stomach after hearing this cold-hearted bastard say he pitied her. "I think you were one of them."

"One of what?" asked Clem.

"One of the Vaquero."

Clem's eyes nearly bulged out of her head after hearing that. "That—"

"Or at least amongst them in some capacity," he continued. "In either case, it better explains your survival than anything you've told us so far."

"You're so full of shit," growled Clem through her teeth, barely able to contain her seething anger.

"I don't think so," he said, his self-assured tone grating against Clem's ears. "It could be as simple you being one of the Vaquero's children, like Dilawar suggested. But, thinking about how the one bandit we captured was young, not nearly as young as you but younger than all of us, made me think there could be younger bandits still being trained amongst their ranks."

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I think I do," refuted Eskiya. "Like Sabriya said, people in war zones have used children to do their dirty work since before the outbreak."

"I mean it's bullshit that you think I was with the Vaquero!" yelled Clem. "Do… do you think Sarah was with the Vaquero?"

"Possibly."

"What about Omid?" challenged Clem. "Do you think a fucking baby was a Vaquero!"

"Of course not."

"Then—"

"I think they may have been one of the Vaquero's victims."

"What?" Clem was just baffled as she stared at Eskiya, this unyielding and infuriating obstacle between her and her freedom. "Just… just tell me what you think I am, because I'm sick of this bullshit."

"I think you used to be part of these Vaquero somehow," accused Eskiya. "But you left them sometime ago, and when you saw we had captured one of your old comrades yesterday, you realized you needed to silence them, lest they wreck your chances of coming with us."

Clem groaned as she listened to Eskiya. She knew it was all not true and yet it almost sounded reasonable the way he said it; she just wanted to scream at him to shut-up already. "What about Sarah and Omid?" asked Clem as calmly as she could. "You said you thought Omid was one of the Vaquero's victims? If I was one of them, why would he be with me?"

"I think the baby is the reason you left the Vaquero," concluded Eskiya. "You wanted to save them, and your friend, who might also be a Vaquero, or another one of their victims."

"I—"

"I have no doubt you care deeply about both of them, possibly enough where you'd forsake your own safety to help both of them escape a group of bandits that were abusing them," said Eskiya. "Bandits so cruel they'd throw a baby into a dumpster, fully intending to kill it, so you had to kill them and felt compelled by your guilt to save it, along with a girl who was expecting another baby herself."

Clem felt repulsed by the confident tone Eskiya used when recounting this twisted telling of her own life. He had so casually repurposed the horrors she confessed to him in a moment of weakness to form a false narrative that fit his suspicions. It made her sick and yet it would sound all too probable to anyone who didn't know her, which was everyone on that bus except Sarah and Omid.

"Am I wrong?"

"Yes!" answered Clem without hesitation. "You're wrong about everything."

"Everything?" asked Eskiya. "So, you don't care about your friend or—"

"Of course I do!"

"So that's not wrong," noted Eskiya "So—"

"The Vaquero weren't the ones who tossed Omid in a dumpster!" declared Clem. "And—"

"Spare me," said Eskiya as he held up his hand. "Unless you can prove anything you're about to tell me, it's just your word against my suspicions."

"I—"

"Which I also can't prove, unless you feel like confessing." Clem glared at Eskiya in response. "It's mostly trivial to me. If you had any loyalty left to the Vaquero you probably would have freed the one we captured and attacked us together when you had the chance the other day.

"However, that event has left the others… unsettled, myself included, and you obviously don't trust us either, so I have a proposal."

Clem uncrossed her arms and let out a long, suffering sigh. "What?" she asked, ready to agree to almost anything if it ended this incessant conversation.

"I'll tell you whatever you want to know about the others, help ease your suspicions of them, provided you answer one question for me."

"Why bother?" shrugged Clem. "You won't believe anything I tell you, and you just said I can't prove it anyway."

"This one I think you could."

"Oh?" asked a confused Clem. "And what's that?"

"How did you get those handcuffs off?" Clem scowled at his request. "I know they weren't loose. And I checked them afterwards, they weren't defective. I searched you before and after your escape, and found nothing each time. So how was it possible you got out of them yesterday?"

Clem honestly didn't think she had anything worth giving up besides Sarah and Omid, and yet Eskiya just asked her for the one meager advantage she seemingly had on these people. Clem could tell by the way he was staring at her he was eager for an answer, and it also made her realize if they ever did handcuff her again he wouldn't take his eyes off her long enough to use the lockpick, which meant it was effectively useless as long as Eskiya was still around.

"Fine," she said with a defeated sigh as she reached behind her back, slowly as she noticed Eskiya tense up as she did so. "This is how I got the handcuffs off." Clem held up a severely bent paper clip and Eskiya almost immediately snatched it from her hand. "That's it. Happy?"

"And… where were you keeping this?" he asked as he studied the makeshift lock pick very closely.

"I just clip it to my belt and tuck it under a loop," explained Clem. "You wouldn't know to look for it unless you already knew it was there."

"And you made sure to have it ready when you came to meet me yesterday?"

"I always have it on me. Sometimes I even forget it's there."

Eskiya kept eying the paper clip for several seconds, as if he was expecting it to reveal some hidden truth to him, then finally handed it back to Clem. "It's simple… but very clever."

"Clever?" Clem laughed as she took the paper clip back and hid it away on her belt.

"You don't think so?"

"Maybe I'm just sick of having to be clever all the time," mumbled a tired Clem as she rubbed her eyes. Looking up, she saw Eskiya still staring her, those same cold eyes scanning her behind his glasses.

"Who taught you how to do that?" he asked.

"What, to pick handcuffs?" she asked.

"Yes."

"No one."

"You just figured it out yourself?"

"No, I spent a month practicing until I finally figured it out."

"And you just decided to do this because—"

"Because after the second time some asshole handcuffed, tortured and tried to kill me, I never wanted to be in that situation again!" It was subtle but Eskiya briefly broke eye contact with Clementine. "What did you expect me to say? You still think I'm one of the Vaquero?"

"Perhaps," he admitted. "They could have been the ones who handcuffed you."

"They weren't, and I don't see the point of even telling you anything about me since you won't believe me anyway," dictated Clem as she crossed her arms. "I answered your question; are you gonna answer mine?"

Eskiya looked aside, then gestured to the table nearest the door. "Let's sit down to talk." Clem stood there in defiance for a moment, and when it became clear Eskiya wouldn't move before she did, Clem groaned and marched over to the nearest table. Even after she sat down Eskiya remained at the door for several seconds before finally letting go of the handle and walking over to where she was sitting.

"So," he said as he sat down across from her. "What exactly do you want to know about the others?"

Clem thought carefully for a second before settling on a question. "Horatio said Sabriya chained him to a bed for three days. What was that about?"

"They were being melodramatic. It was just their ankle and the chain had plenty of slack."

"Wow, that makes me feel better," said Clem as she rolled her eyes.

"I'm a little surprised they still blame Sabriya for that."

"Why?"

"Because it was my idea."

"What?"

"Horatio stumbled into the building we were using one night and all of us were naturally suspicious of a lone stranger," recounted Eskiya. "We deliberated and ultimately Sabriya agreed with my suggestion; lock them up and keep them under close observation for a few days."

"Why'd you do that?"

"Although first impressions can be telling, time and carefully applied pressure often reveal more about someone than they'd reveal themselves."

"So… you chained him to a bed to see what he'd do?" asked Clem.

"In essence, yes," said Eskiya. "All of us were worried they were lying when they said they were alone. Keeping them close enough to watch was the best solution."

"And you've just let Horatio think it was Sabriya's idea?"

"Sabriya has never volunteered new information to Horatio about our first meeting, so I haven't either."

"Wow, no wonder everyone hates you," mumbled Clem. "Do you chain everyone you meet to something?"

"How do you treat new people?"

An image of Clem holding a gun to Simon's head flashed into her mind, and suddenly she felt sick. "What else can you tell me about Sabriya?" asked Clem, desperate to change the subject. "Is she your leader?"

"They try to be."

"Try?"

"Well as you already saw, we don't always, or even often, agree," said Eskiya. "But Sabriya is always one to call for us to take action before inaction becomes our decision, so we've gotten in the habit of deferring to them in a lot of these disputes. They also have a blunt way of reminding us of simple facts that occasionally bear reminding."

"Yeah, I noticed that," said Clem as she recalled Sabriya ordering her to eat so she'd be strong enough to make it back. "Horatio also said she shot at kids. What was that about?"

"I wouldn't know."

"You wouldn't?" asked a dubious Clem.

"Not the specifics," he clarified. "Sabriya was a soldier before the outbreak. Not sure in what capacity or for whom, but not long after Horatio joined us they got in a prolonged argument about it once. I'm afraid some of the nuances of old-world politics are lost on me, but judging from Dilawar's uncharacteristically tepid defenses of Sabriya, their time in the armed forces led them to do something… regrettable."

"So, Dilawar was a soldier too?"

"Hmm? No, only Sabriya."

"Then why did you say it was weird he didn't defend her more?" asked Clem. "Is Dilawar her boyfriend?" Eskiya let out a weak laugh. "What?"

"You wouldn't be the first person to annoy them with that question."

"Why would that annoy them?"

"They're brother and sister," explained Eskiya. "Twins, I think."

"Huh, I never had a brother or sister. It must be nice to still have one after all this time." Clem waited for Eskiya to say something, but he was silent now. Looking over, he seemed distracted. Not calculating like he often looked but lost in thought. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he insisted. "You wanted to know more about Dilawar, right?"

"Yeah. What do you know about him?"

"They used to be a firefighter before the outbreak and usually are quite practical, but in the instances they're not it's incredibly annoying."

"When you say practical, do you mean agrees with you?"

"I'm a very practical person." Clem gave Eskiya an annoyed look in response, but he didn't seem to care.

"What else can you tell me about him?" she asked.

"Dilawar tends to bounce back and forth between defending Sabriya and chiding her. Despite their annoyance with people thinking they're a couple, they do almost sound like they're married at times, both in their squabbling and mutual concern for each other."

"I haven't seen much concern between them."

"I think they feel they need to hide it, as if they don't want the rest of us to know how much they care about each other," said Eskiya. "That's what I gathered from what Dilawar was saying to Sabriya last night."

"What'd he say to her?"

"Something about putting on a strong face for the others. I couldn't make out everything they said over Sabriya's crying."

"So… you've been eavesdropping too?" realized Clem.

"I overhear things from time to time," clarified Eskiya.

"Why you'd get mad with me for 'overhearing' you this morning then?"

"That's like asking why a spy would distrust another spy."

Clem raised an eyebrow in response. "Anything else I should know about Dilawar?"

"They have a very strange aversion to guns."

"What do you mean?"

"They absolutely refuse to use them," said Eskiya. "Did you see that bow they were carrying this morning?"

"Yeah, I figured he was going hunting or something."

"No, that's what they use instead of a gun for protection."

"Why?"

"I have no idea," said Eskiya as he rubbed the spot on his nose where his glasses sat. "Like I said, it's incredibly annoying. I think Sabriya knows why, but if they do they won't tell me or even Horatio."

"Maybe he just doesn't like guns," suggested Clem. "I don't."

"But you still wanted yours back this morning," reminded Eskiya. "Wherever this… aversion comes from, it must be from something before the outbreak. Horatio doesn't like guns either, but even they admit to their grim necessity in a world where every corpse can come back and kill more of the living."

"Tell me about Horatio," insisted Clem. "What did he mean when he said he was 'real enough' when I asked him if he's a real doctor?"

"I assume Horatio was referring to the fact they never got their medical degree," said Eskiya. "One of many things they told us when we first met. Apparently, they were two weeks from graduating when the outbreak started, much to their annoyance."

"Is he any good at being a doctor?"

"Horatio's been proficient from what I've seen," said Eskiya. "I might disagree with them on… many things, but I've never questioned their medical expertise."

"What do you question then?"

"Their constant bleeding-heart tendencies."

"Bleeding heart? What does that mean?"

"A bleeding heart is someone concerned with every single person's problems at the same time."

"Is that supposed to be a bad thing?"

"In the wrong place, a bleeding heart can be a very dangerous thing."

"Yeah, well, in the right place it gives you a reason to stay alive," refuted Clem. "If being a 'bleeding heart' means caring about other people, then that makes Sarah one, and I'd be dead without her because she and Omid are the only things left in the world that give me a reason to want to stay alive."

"That's not a healthy way to live," warned Eskiya.

"Should I only care about myself, like you?" challenged Clem. "How do you live? Is there anyone you care about? You don't sound like you care about the others, except for what they can do for you, so what are you living for?" Clem waited for an answer, but Eskiya didn't give her one. "Well? Who are you?"

"I'm just an old man trying to survive," he shrugged.

"Is that it? Just survive?"

"It's all I can ask for."

"Where are you from?"

"Wisconsin," he stated without hesitation.

"Where? What'd you do before all this?"

"I was a bookkeeper, I worked in a small town outside the Milwaukee area."

"I don't believe you."

"Nor should you," he said bluntly. "But it's the only answers you'll be getting on the topic of myself."

There was a harshness in his words Clem found frightening. Normally his voice was devoid of emotion, sometimes he sounded irritated, but right now he sounded angry.

"What… what were the other children you mentioned?" asked Clem, eager to change subjects. "You said they were fourteen and fifteen?"

"When I met them, yes," said Eskiya. "Anwar and Zahra. They never spoke to me much."

"I can't imagine why," grumbled Clem. "What happened to them?"

"That's just it… we don't really know."

"What do you mean? You said they died."

"They did," he said in a weary voice. "We woke one morning to find Zahra had turned in the night, and had eaten Anwar… which caused them to turn."

"Was… was she sick, or—"

"Perhaps, but like I said, we never really knew what the cause of death was. Horatio spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, but they never reached a definitive conclusion. They didn't find any marks on Zahra's body, or pill bottles or anything they could have poisoned themselves with… they were a very happy pair, despite what was happening."

"And then… she just died one night?"

"Horatio said it could have been a rare brain aneurysm or undiagnosed heart defect they never knew about, but admitted those were just guesses." Eskiya sighed. "And it was only a couple of weeks after we learned Zahra was pregnant."

"Wait, the girl was pregnant?"

"They were young and foolish, and thought they were in love," said Eskiya. "They were excited when they found out, the rest of us were just concerned how could we ever take care of a baby under these circumstances, Horatio included when they learned of that fact."

"Wait, so… when I told the others about Sarah and Omid, then—"

"You saying that almost certainly brought back memories of Anwar and Zahra, and seeing your friend and your baby reminded me of what could have been," admitted Eskiya as he took off his glasses. "I can only imagine how Ezina would have reacted had they been here as well."

"Ezina?"

"There was one more of us two days ago," spoke Eskiya in a heavy voice. "Their name was Ezina and… they were an incredibly kind and patient woman, at least for the relatively short time I knew them." Hearing Eskiya talk about kindness as if it was a good thing was very strange. He almost sounded like a different person right now. "I didn't meet them until Sabriya found me in Wisconsin, and after some… debate, eventually brought me back to their people. Like I said, Anwar and Zahra didn't talk to me much, and back then I think Dilawar was watching me on Sabriya's orders. Horatio didn't come until later, which just left Ezina, who was nothing but kind to me… and I never knew why."

Clem resisted the urge to make a sharp remark as she noticed how pained Eskiya looked right now. Instead, hearing him speak so sadly about another person caused a question to form in her mind. "Did… did you love her?"

That question surprised Eskiya; he almost looked human for a moment. "I… I don't know how to answer that."

"I mean… did you have ever have a wife or—"

"No."

"Or a boyfriend or—"

"No, nothing ever like that. In fact, watching my brother go from break-up to break-up when we were young made me realize I could save a lot of time and misery by not pursing such fool-hearty endeavors, " dismissed Eskiya with a weak laugh. "If anything, Sabriya was closer to Ezina than any of us, friends from back in Michigan, but… Ezina had a warmth unlike anyone I ever met."

"What did she look like?" asked Clem, genuinely curious.

"They were an older woman, not as old as me but probably mid-forties, with long hair that looked like… leaves in autumn."

"What does that mean?"

"It was all these different shades of gray and black with all these curls, it was like looking at a tree when the leaves are changing colors."

"So… what happened to her?"

That question drained whatever meager happinesses Eskiya had briefly expressed right off his face. "Ezina was… devastated when Anwar and Zahra died. They had been Ezina's students from before things changed. There had apparently been other students in Ezina's care before, a lot of them in fact, but even with Sabriya and Dilawar's help… they all had died by the time I met them."

"So, when Dilawar said you were stating the obvious…"

"Horatio and myself both asked Sabriya about the other students they had lost before either of us had arrived, and Sabriya… stressed what a long and tragic series of events it had been for them since Dearborn." Eskiya took a breath. "Sabriya told us Ezina always took the loss of one of their children very hard, but to lose the last of them was… different. Ezina stopped talking to all of us and spent most of their days in bed after that… losing Anwar and Zahra finally broke Ezina's heart."

"I'm… sorry," said Clem. "And… I'm guessing the Vaquero killed her?"

"Yes," said Eskiya as he clenched his fists. "We were just settling in to sleep one night when we heard an engine in the distance. We sat there in the dark for what felt like ages, trying to stay quiet, until eventually Ezina crept up to a window, and was shot in the neck almost instantly."

Clem remembered the bloodstain on the mattress they were given and realized it must have been Ezina's. "More shots followed as Sabriya started the bus. One of them, the one we eventually captured, pried open the door and charged inside. While Dilawar was wrestling with the bandit, Ezina turned and attacked me. It was… surreal, seeing that kind face twisted to that of a snarling monster.

"When I pushed Ezina off, they stumbled backwards through the open door and… that's the last time any of us saw them, dead or alive."

"I had no idea," said Clem. "I wish I had gotten to meet her."

"Me too," said Eskiya. "Ezina had a way of getting people to open up to them I still envy. It was very useful when we first met Horatio."

"If that all she was to you? Useful?" Clem turned her head and was surprised to see Eskiya actually looked wounded by that comment. "Was she a bleeding heart?" Eskiya didn't respond. "What would she have said if she heard you saying you wanted me to shoot that man to prove I wasn't a Vaquero, which you still think I am apparently."

Eskiya sighed deeply as he stared down at the floor. "I was going to give you an empty gun."

"Is that supposed to make it better?" challenged Clem. "You ask me to kill someone but you won't feel bad if the gun didn't have any bullets in it when I did it? What if I didn't know that guy, would you still have asked me to kill him anyways? Were you going to ask me to take a gun and point it at someone's head, then when I pull the trigger, all that pain you caused me just goes away?"

Eskiya kept staring at the floor. "Actually, I figured it was safer if you couldn't possibly use a gun against us, so giving you an unloaded one was the practical choice." Clem scowled at Eskiya. She didn't think she could possibly hate this man more than she already did. "Would you rather I lie to you?"

"No," said Clem through her teeth as she turned away in disgust. The pair sat in silence for what felt like several minutes. Clem wished she had just stayed behind like Sarah wanted, saved herself the headaches of trying to deal with this new group, especially its most loathsome member. It's not like Clem had made any particularly important discoveries beyond some trivial details about the others and that Eskiya thought she used to be with the Vaquero. She'd still be hungry and tired back at the bus, but at least she'd be close to the people she actually cares about.

"Is there anything else you wish to know?" asked Eskiya, finally breaking the silence.

"Is there anything else you'll actually tell me?" she answered. "Anything useful?"

"Well… I can think of one useful thing to share with you." Eskiya took off his backpack. "If you're to stay with us, it's in both are interests you know best how to survive, so it's of mutual benefit to let you read this."

Clem looked up and saw Eskiya sliding a very small book across the table. "Now, I know this might look strange," he said as he took his hand off the cover. "But, this has been an invaluable resource to us, especially lately; The—"

"Outbreak Survival Guide?" Clem read in disbelief as she looked at those faded letters drawn in silver marker on a small black notebook.

"I know—"

"Where did you get this?"

Eskiya raised an eyebrow. "Why do you want to know that?" he asked, more curious than questioning for once. Clem answered him by taking off her backpack and digging to the bottom of it. She placed her own copy of the guide on the table next to Eskiya's. "Where did you get that?"

"I asked first," said Clem.

"This isn't a joke," answered Eskiya in a harsh tone. "Where did you get a copy of that book?"

"It's not a joke to me either, so answer me and I'll answer you."

"We traded it for it, back when we were staying in Wisconsin."

"Traded?"

"Now where did you get your copy? Did you see them too?"

"I don't know who they are. I got mine from the boy who wrote it."

"Boy who wrote it?" asked Eskiya in confusion.

"These people you traded with, where did they say they got that book?"

"They… they told us they found it and other supplies in a building people abandoned."

"Fuckers," swore Clem. "They stole that from us!"

"Stole what?"

"We left these books in Tulsa, along with food and other stuff people needed."

"If you left it, then how was it stolen?"

"Because we also left instructions for anyone who found it to wait for us!" yelled Clem. "We put it on signs! That'd we come back and help if they just waited, and they just took everything and left us nothing!"

Clem slammed her fists on the table as she was forced to remember how devastated they had been to discover what was left of Tulsa had been looted when they had returned there.

"What did your signs say?" asked Eskiya.

"What?"

"You said you left signs," he repeated. "What did they say?"

"What does that matter?"

"I'm just trying to understand. You left these guides you made with supplies and signs saying…"

Clem groaned as she tried to recall the exact words. "Help is coming in thirty days, I think. And we left them radios with instructions to turn to a certain channel so we could talk to each other when we came back to check on them."

"Why?" asked Eskiya. "Why leave these signs, or leave supplies at all?"

"It… it was too much to take with us and… we were hoping to find more people to help us start a farm," explained Clem. "So, we left about half of the food in Tulsa and those signs telling them to wait for us."

"Why didn't you leave a person to greet them?"

"We didn't have enough," argued Clem. "There were only eight of us, and one of them was Omid. The best we could do is send one of us back once a month to check to see if anyone was waiting."

"So, they were to wait for perhaps a month and take no action until you, people they'd never met, came to greet them?"

"Why are you justifying what they did?" Clem demanded to know. "Why do you even care?"

"I'm just curious," said Eskiya as he picked up the guide. "I'm also curious, why did you make these books?"

"We… we thought it might help other people survive," said Clem, her head spinning as she tried to process all of this.

Eskiya flipped through the pages then looked over to her. "It worked," he said. "The people we traded with swore by this book. Sabriya and I thought they were just trying to get a higher price for it, but it's been invaluable to us since we left Wisconsin," said Eskiya as he shut the guide. "I dare say… we wouldn't have gotten this far without it. Just the fact you can conceal yourself from the undead has been game-changing. You… you should be proud." His awkward tone betrayed his attempt at encouragement.

"Don't thank me," mumbled Clem. "Thank Lee Everett."

"Who's that?"

"The only reason any of us are still alive right now."

"Were they part of the group who made this guide?"

"No… he didn't make it that far," reported Clem in a sad tone. "But he figured it out, and I've been telling people about it ever since."

"I see," said Eskiya. "I did have another question for you."

"What?" asked a weary Clem.

"If you helped write this, why is there no mention of bikes anywhere in it?" Clem stifled a small laugh, then she looked up to see Eskiya staring at her. "You really want to know?"

"Yes," he answered. "Without them, I wouldn't have been able to bring Dilawar's torch with us today, and we'd have walk back, on empty stomachs, after spending much longer walking out here."

"Oh, yeah," said Clem as she realized how much a difference her insistence had made. "Well, it's just, I didn't learn how to ride a bike until after Jet printed the guides up."

"Jet?"

"Just a boy I used to…" Looking at the pair of guides sitting on the table, Clem wondered what else had made it this far. "Can I ask you some other questions?"

"About what?"

"About other people you've met," said Clem. "That one group you mentioned wasn't the only people you've seen, right?"

"Encounters with other people have become far and few these days, and it always carries a great risk."

"But you have seen some people right?" asked Clem in desperation.

"You're looking for the people who made the guide," realized Eskiya. "Your people."

"Yes," said Clem. "Can you tell me about anyone else you've seen?"

"It… would be easier if you just told me who you're looking for," reasoned Eskiya. "What they looked like, what their name—"

"Patty," she blurted out. "Have you met a woman named Patty, after things changed?"

"I… I might have," said Eskiya. "It's a common name though. Do—"

"Her full name is Patricia Owens. She's got red hair, she was in her twenties, wore black leather clothes, and is really good at fixing cars and stuff. The last time I saw her was this last summer, in the middle of May. Did you ever see anyone like that in the last six months?"

Clem watched Eskiya's face closely. He was clearly considering what she told him very carefully, and so Clem waited for any sign he remembered something, anything that would tell her Patty survived; his face sank.

"No," he eventually concluded.

"Yeah, I didn't think you would," confessed Clem.

"Anyone else?"

Clem swallowed hard. "Have you ever heard of a man named Devlin, or a boy named Jet? They—"

"I've never heard those names before."

"Okay, and I don't suppose you met anyone named Simon in the last few days before you met us, have you?"

"No, the only people in that time were the ones who attacked us."

"Right," said Clem with a sigh. "Have… have you met… Hank Manuelito, or anyone from the Navajo Nation? Or anyone who's Navajo?"

"Navajo?"

"It's an Indian tribe. You haven't met anyone like that, or anyone who called the Osage either?"

Eskiya just shook his head, confusion in his eyes.

"Well… um… what… what about Winnie?" asked Clem. "An old lady, with a grandson named… Aaron, and his girlfriend… what was her name?"

"I'm afraid I don't anyone with those names either."

Clem sighed deeply. "What… what about a Walter, or Matthew?"

"I did know a Matthew, back in Wisconsin before I ever met the others."

"What did he look like?"

"They were a black man, very tall and heavy. They—"

"That's not the Matthew I knew," said Clem with a sigh.

"Anyone else?"

Clem thought long and hard to herself. "Did you ever know anyone named Molly?"

"No, I…" Clem looked up to see Eskiya appeared to be lost in thought again. "I didn't personally know a Molly, but I did know of someone with that name."

"And what did she look like?" mumbled a disinterested Clem. "A really old Thai lady with braided hair?"

"No, nothing like that, they were a young woman."

"Oh?" said Clem. "How young?"

"Not nearly as young as you or your friend, but probably in their early twenties if I had to guess. They were a bit shorter than Sabriya and had short blonde hair." Clem's eyes went wide with shock when she heard that. "Did you know them?"

"Maybe," realized Clem, still reeling from what she had just heard. "Did she have this kind of pick-axe thing—like my tomahawk? Did she say where—"

"I never spoke to them," clarified Eskiya. "I just saw someone call their name and then they walked away."

"Where did this happen?"

"Back in Wisconsin, they were with the big group of people who traded us the guides," said Eskiya. "If you had a photo I might—"

"I don't," said Clem as she buried her face in her arms as she laid her head on the table. "I don't suppose you're looking for that group of people, are you?"

"Well… we were actually," admitted Eskiya. "They didn't tell us where they were going, but with some of the questions they asked us, we speculated they may have been trying to set up a farm and assumed they were going to find somewhere isolated to do so."

"We did that in Oklahoma," said Clem with a shrug. "People found us anyway and it didn't end well."

"These people went west when they left Wisconsin, so we did as well, hoping to find them again."

"Why?" asked Clem.

"We… don't have many options," admitted Eskiya. "When we finally left Wisconsin, after Anwar and Zahra died, we agreed finding them would be our best chance to stay alive. They were a very large group and easily could have attacked and overwhelmed ours, but didn't, and they traded fairly with us, including the guide which made a major difference in our own lives. We reasoned, if we found them again, they might be willing to work with us. Sabriya and I even got the impression they wanted us to join them when we first met."

"Why didn't you?"

"Sabriya didn't like the idea of answering to people we don't know, Dilawar wasn't satisfied with how little they told us about themselves, and I thought it was just more pragmatic to remain on our own. I figured we could handle things just by ourselves."

"Yeah, I thought the same thing once," said Clem, thinking about how she turned down Corporal Cruz's offer to join her town. "It's all just… too much for one person… or two."

"Or half a dozen even," added Eskiya, the exhaustion in his words feeling all too familiar to Clem. "Believe me, we're all too aware of the irony of looking to join people we once already turned down. But like I said, we don't have many options these days."

"Yeah, me either," mumbled Clem. "How many people were there in this group?"

"A lot."

"How many's a lot?"

"Well, we didn't get an exact count," he said. "But they had three semi-trucks and well over a dozen RV's and other vehicles. Even if every vehicle only represented one person, they had to number at least twenty."

"That is a lot of people," said Clem, finding it difficult to envision that many people alive at once anymore. "Did any of them have kids?"

"I don't know, probably. They had so many RV's I assumed at least some of them were families. I didn't investigate further though. We were all nervous when we encountered them. Hearing all those engines approaching all at the same time made us think we were being attacked," recounted Eskiya. "Sabriya and I were fairly tight-lipped with their representative, fearful if they knew how small in number we were they'd just run over us."

"But they didn't?"

"No, they were very amicable all things considered. Ezina actually did want to go with them, as did Anwar and Zahra. But Ezina didn't want to leave Sabriya, and Anwar and Zahra didn't want to go anywhere without Ezina, so in the end they all stayed." Eskiya took a short breath. "I don't suppose you've seen a group like I described? Their representative was a short, heavy-set man named Ollie. Balding, dark-skin, wore these little glasses that were too small for their head."

"No, sorry, that doesn't sound like anyone I've met," said Clem. "So, is that what your group has been doing, trying to find Ollie and his people?"

"We were."

"Were?"

"We got caught in a blizzard in Montana a couple of weeks ago," said Eskiya. "Even with snow chains, salt, shovels and an engine warmer on the bus, we were stuck. It was nearly a week before we could move the bus again and we were on the verge of starvation by then. Afterwards, we had to abandon any notion of finding Ollie's group in favor of surviving the winter. It's not like blindly searching states west of Wisconsin was much of a plan anyways, so we started heading south to hopefully avoid any more snow."

"Into Wyoming," added Clem. "And then you got attacked by the Vaquero, and then—"

"We met you," said Eskiya. "And now we're here, in Utah." A long silence followed his words as Clem's head felt like it was spinning from all this new information. She still couldn't trust Eskiya, she still didn't like him either, but hearing the history of his group had dispelled a lot of the mystery. He could be lying about everything he told her, but she doubted that just because it all sounded too probable to her ears.

Discovering the people who looted Tulsa thrived on what they took infuriated her, but hearing about how Jet's guide had found its way to other survivors, including the people who'd recently found Clem left her conflicted. She wanted to stay mad and think of those people as thieves, but she couldn't hold onto that anger, especially after Eskiya put the image of Ollie into her head, some short friendly man whose group may have had children of their own.

And then hearing that Molly may have been with them shocked her. Not that she knew for sure it was the same Molly, but after years of giving people names of those she had lost and never getting an answer, discovering at least one of those people, one that cared about her, could still be out there, gave Clem a shred of hope, only for it to be dashed as Eskiya told her they had to give up their pursuit of Ollie's group.

"I'll stay here." Clem turned to Eskiya. "You can go back and tell the others, I'll guard the food we found in the meantime."

"You're sure?" Eskiya nodded at Clem. "Why now? What changed your mind?"

"Because it's practical," reasoned Eskiya. "If you prefer to go back so strongly, it'd just be faster to let you. We're burning daylight, as Sabriya would no doubt tell both of us."

"I don't know why you just didn't let me go in the first place," mumbled Clem as she tossed her copy of Jet's guide back into her pack. "What do you think could happen if I left first?"

"You could have gone back, told Sabriya I attacked you or make up any story you want, and they'd have justification to abandon me; they were practically inviting you to give them cause to do so earlier." Clem hadn't even thought of that, and watching Eskiya's face subtly twitch with alarm as he stared at Clem, he probably could tell from her face she only just now realized that was an option. "You… you could still do that," he said in a quiet voice, tinged with a hint of fear.

"I won't," assured Clem while the idea planted itself firmly in her mind. "I'll… I'll be back with the others," she said as she stood up, Eskiya watching her as she headed for the door. "As soon as I can reach them on the radio."

"Of course," said Eskiya as he finally stopped staring at her and turned away. "I'll be right here." Clem kept her eyes on Eskiya as she backed into the door. She couldn't shake the feeling this was a ploy on his part, a trick to get her to lower her guard, even as he sat there with that familiar absent expression on his face again.

Feeling the door move behind her, Clem spun around and hurried outside back into the cold. She hastily put her gas mask back on while her eyes adjusted to the light. Spinning around in place, terrified Eskiya would come running out after her, she saw no movement from the restaurant's door. Turning her head, she spotted her and Sarah's bikes where they had left them, and wasted no time rushing over.

Clem pedaled as hard as she could, still terrified Eskiya was following her. It wasn't until she had gotten back to the main road did she stop to finally look over her shoulder, fearful she'd see the glint of a rifle scope in the distance. No signs of Eskiya or anyone aiming a gun at her, or anything at all behind her. In fact, she had traveled so far she couldn't even see the restaurant anymore.

Seemingly alone now, Clem turned her bike back the way they had came. She shivered as she felt the wind blow her by and dreaded the long ride she had back. Picking up her radio, she found herself tracing her finger across the talk button briefly. Clem didn't know how far she'd have to go before she could contact the others, and now she didn't quite know what she was going to say when she reached them either.