Disclaimer: AMC owns the story and characters of The Walking Dead, and they are not around in here exactly.
Author's note: it took me almost a year to finish this, damn. I hope y'all like it.
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After
Greenbrier County, WV
Vera sat under the shade of the oak tree in the backyard of the house. She had welcomed the late arrival of the spring after that first, grey and bitter winter.
She tried to ignore the heavy gaze directed at her from inside the house. The sun was nice and warm and the breeze smelled clean. There wasn't even a trace of the nauseatingly sweet smell of rotting flesh.
The mixed group of men that had arrived at her home the previous December had saved her life in every sense.
Vera knew that her health was very frail now, the air made for anasty cold and coughs that lasted weeks. She saw things or heard voices she knew weren't there and her body was still making up for the loss of muscle mass.
Dying was faster than healing -at least it seemed like it to her. Her body refused to respond to her at times, and some others, her mind played tricks on her. Vera hated the feeling of helplessness. Where she had been tenacious enough to survive alone for more than a year. She was now uninterested in keeping herself afloat.
And that's how one of her present predicaments came to light, and his name was Chase Owens.
The former football player -he was fond of his past life and talking about it- was like his own ray of sunshine. It helped that he was so definitely easy on the eye, and that he doted on Vera every minute he could dedicate to her. Vera had a difficult time to accept it at first, when she had been too weak to stay awake for more than a few hours a day, but Chase helped keep the voices inside her head quiet, and ultimately silenced most of the time. She had less incidents with those as time passed, and for that, Vera knew she would always be grateful to him.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
"I'm worried about Tyler." Ben said one night, when he and Chase were on guard together. Double guards weren't needed anymore, if they were completely honest; however, company always helped during night watch.
"Worried how?" Chase asked, frowning slightly.
Ben sighed and threw a look around them to check for listeners to their conversation.
"I've seen him looking at Vee." The lieutenant confessed. "And I don't like the way he looks at her.
A cold feeling settled in Chase's stomach at Ben's words. Ben Barnes was an observant man, if Chase knew one. The fierce lieutenant had taken an unusual liking to Vera, as if she were his younger sibling, and the man made sure to tell Vera about this girl he had known -who he wasn't sure was still alive-, and that she reminded him off. To Ben, that girl had been like a sister, and Vera seemed to like the idea of adopting another sibling to her single fold family.
As such, Ben's observation brought the strange, aloof attitude the soldier displayed since they had arrived made into focus. It made sense, it was a power move.
"What do you mean?" the ex-footballer asked anyway, wanting to know if it was only his paranoia after all, or if there was something deeper behind Ben's words.
The lieutenant racked his hands through his hair.
"Tyler barely passed the psych entrance tests for the army." Ben mentioned, trying to remember the words of his own commanding officer when Tyler had been assigned to Ben's squad, right before the outbreak. "He wasn't deemed a risk back then, but the dead didn't walk back then."
Chase took a sip of his coffee and waited for Ben to continue.
"Tyler looks at Vera like she is…something he wants." Ben paused. "Like prey."
"You think we should tell her?" the blond asked.
Ben's eyes widened comically. "Hell no! She needs stability until she's completely recovered."
Even if he didn't want to admit it, Chase knew Ben was right. Vera was still a bit weak, and the first few weeks after they arrived had been hard. She still had nightmares, tired easily and was wary of them at times. Chase hated when she recoiled away from his touch, when he felt starved for hers; he hadn't known the effect that finding her would have on him, but finding out was hell. So far, Lucas was the only one who knew about him and Vera. Chase doubted he could keep the secret for long.
It was getting a little bit more difficult to stay away. Every day he kept the secret, Chase felt his heart break anew.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Being the only girl living with the little military squad wasn't as hard as she had expected and Vera felt protected even if she had a difficult time talking to the new arrivals. She didn't know them, they didn't know her and she wasn't about to go up to them and talk their ears off. She missed Addison dearly and wondered if the rest of her cousins were fine. Addison was strong, so Vera hoped she survived, even if they never found each other again.
She also thought that, if this had happened before, when she was still doe eyed and naïve, she wouldn't have noticed.
But she did.
The guys watched her.
Ben watched over her like an older brother, and he was going up and above to help her gather survival skills. She now knew how to build a fire, how to shoot a gun -and be good at it- and how to identify some edible plants. Lucas was a good friend, always with a smile in his face and a funny story about his abuelita or his tíos, and he always wanted to eat things Vera doubted he could get in the apocalypse. Tyson cared little for anything that wasn't about keeping them all fed and protected and it was one of the reasons he seemed to spend all his time with Ben. Chase looked at her as if she had hung the moon and the stars and that unnerved Vera a bit, but he was always sweet around her so she accepted his attention with little next to no problem, he was eager for her company and Vera didn't want to be alone.
Then…there was Tyler.
Tyler watched her in the way Vera imagined a spider watches a fly, waiting for it to be caught in its web. It was almost impossible to avoid him in the close quarters they all kept, but Vera did her best, however unsubtle it was.
She fled any room when they found themselves alone and tried to converse as little as possible with him; Vera had the feeling, a sort of unbidden hunch about Tyler. Her mind simply screamed, pleaded for the brunette to get away from him.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
That's how he noticed it.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Vera stepped out of the shower one warm night in May -she loved army guys and their resistant watches that told the hour, day and year-, making sure to dry her hair carefully, to braid it firm and tight, until her next shower.
She put on her pajamas, that were getting to the point of being worn. Not that it mattered, no one ever cared to see her in pajamas.
The distraction of her hair, the towel over her ears and the noise of her own thoughts kept Vera from listening to her surroundings, a basic skill that she thought she'd dominated already. The groaning of the wooden floor and the screeching of the door's hinges were low enough.
Her eyes noticed the invasion a little bit too late; when the reflection in the mirror was already upon her.
"Don't move, girlie." Tyler's slightly raspy voice was right beside her ear, making Vera shudder in fear and revulsion.
It felt wrong.
Tyler was behind her, pressing the length of his body against her back. Cold sweat broke in her hands, forehead and back as she kept still, with a knot where her throat was supposed to be.
Years of lessons and defense classes on what to do during and after an attack hadn't prepared Vera for the cold grip of overwhelming fear. Her throat was closed, her eyes were watering uncontrollably and her body was stiff as a board, as if that would stop the invasive touches and loud, lustful pants coming from behind her.
"You remind me of her." Tyler panted. "The girl with those pretty eyes, before the horde."
What horde?
What girl?
Vera squeaked in disbelief when Tyler's arousal became known to her through their clothes, poking her lower back.
"Are you gonna be a good girl for me, Vera?"
Tyler had a hand inside the robe, making its way over her chest, with a rough touch that almost made her gag. Revulsion notwithstanding, Vera nodded, and Tyler rubbed himself harder on her back, while his other hand made a trail up her thigh, bunching her robe up as he went.
"Good, this is going to feel good, I promise."
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Vera couldn't even scream.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Ben was mad at Chase because the man had made them go back earlier than planned, and without much to show for their exploration of the closest neighborhoods.
Chase was usually obedient and attentive to orders, it made him a good soldier, if a bit improvised due to the circumstances, but today he couldn't be controlled.
Actually, he wouldn't.
The blond went into their home running as if his life depended on it.
"Give him a break." Lucas suggested, eyeing the house with suspicion at Chase's weird behavior.
Ben was about to answer when they heard the screams.
"No! Let him go! Stop!" Vera's frantic voice traveled down the stairs and into their ears with startling clarity. "Tyler, no!"
Something crashed and they could hear the thuds of a scuffle, while Vera kept begging for Tyler to stop.
Without hesitation, Ben pointed his nine-millimeter to Tyler's head, just as Tyler was about to use a piece of glass to cut Chase down. The click of the gun was almost deafening in the new silence. Chase was badly injured, and Tyler wasn't that far behind, but Vera seemed apparently unharmed, save for a little cut in her cheek.
"I suggest we all take a deep breath." Ben commanded coldly. "We're civilized people."
Vera's exhalation became a sob and the young woman fell to the floor, as her knees were unable to keep her upright.
"I'm going to say this once, Tyler, put that down and get away from Owens."
Tyler obeyed, putting his hands up in surrender.
"We were having fun, sir." Tyler inclined his head on Vera's direction. "Then this one," he pointed at Chase. "crashed in where he wasn't invited."
"You were assaulting her!" Chase exclaimed, wincing in pain and touching his side carefully.
"Shut up both of you!" Ben chastised. "Lucas, take Vera to her room."
Lifting Vera in his arms, Lucas cleared the hallway as fast as he could, trying to soothe the petite woman as he walked to her room.
Ben wanted to kill Ross and Tyson for not being aware of this. He wanted to slap himself for being so naïve, after he had noticed the predatory way in which Tyler looked at Vera.
"I'm going to talk to Vera, Tyler." Ben said. "If she contradicts you, I'll take measures."
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Chase knew the scene he had watched in the bathroom would haunt him to his dying day.
Vera's stiff posture and the tortured look in her eyes had told him everything, Tyler had been all over her. Chase didn't want to know how far the man had gone with his soulmate, if he did, there was a very real possibility he would kill Tyler.
For the time being, at least, they didn't have to share a space. Ben had decided to keep them isolated from each other and the rest of the house inhabitants, and Lucas had to take their food to them.
It was the reason he was surprised when, in the dead of the night, someone opened the door to his 'isolation' room.
Light steps and a sweet, floral fragrance invaded Chase's senses as he saw Vera under the light of the moon. His lovely soulmate looked almost ethereal as she sat at his side on the bed.
"Thank you." She whispered, touching his cheek softly with her cool fingers. "Thank you for saving me."
"I will always try to save you." Chase blurted awkwardly.
Vera smiled shyly.
"How did you know?"
"I didn't, I just felt wrong." He confessed. "I had to do something, I couldn't let him hurt you."
Chase didn't know if it was just him, but something must have given him away, because Vera's expression lit up in understanding as her lovely brown eyes fell on her left hand.
"Why?" she asked, even though she knew the answer.
Vera wanted him to say it.
"Because you are my soulmate."
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