(Violet's Pov)
I was riding along the road as Delilah playing a small game of Eye-spy with herself as I just kept driving. It wasn't long till we had to make a stop, so we pulled off to the side and I helped Delilah off the bike as she went to her parents to tell her whatever kids tell their parents. I looked over to the truck that AJ, Clementine and Mary were in as they pulled up near my bike. They got out the truck and I helped Clem out as we just take a break. I looked around to see the pit stop that I was at not that long ago after I helped the group that was with Bonnie.
"There is a pit stop over there, we can see if there is any gas in the pumps?" Louis offered and I nod just a bit.
"I was there not too long ago, those pumps you kind of need a key for, I can go and look." I offered.
"We can all head over there see if they have anything, we can use heck even a pot would be good." Aasim says and I nod as we all grab the vehicles and take a quick trip over to the gas pumps and parked there. I got off the bike and looked at the trailers that acted as the barrier or at least a wall, in all honesty it's kind of smart for a short term plan but long term wouldn't be so good, even with Walker herds they would be able to crawl under the trucks if they were smart enough, though I haven't seen a walker in the last time I went in so it could be safe.
"Alright let's try and find the keys." Louis says and I nod as I head inside the wall and I don't see any Walkers, which is good to say the least. I walked up to the store and opened the door to see the Walker bodies from before and I sigh as I grab one of the bodies and pulls them to the side. I want to throw up from the smell, but I don't, and Louis looks a bit sick as I move the second body away.
"Oh god, the smell." He says and I sigh.
"Been so long, you'd think we'd be used to it, but we never can be." I say as I head to the register and look in the back a bit for the keys.
"I don't think anyone would be used to it." He says and I just nod as I look. I see a carton of cigarettes and I decided to grab a pack from it and place the rest in my bag, as I looked more for the keys and I sight as I find a set and hand it to him.
"I'm still going to look if there are any more keys, but I think they might be the ones." I tell him and he nods as he heads out and I watch as he hands the keys to Omar who then tried it on the pump, and it seemed to work as I see Aasim grab a gas canaster. I decided to look around a bit as I grabbed my lighter and opened the pack of cigarettes and took one out and placed it in my mouth a bit. I light the cigarette as I looked at the back door and I walked out to see the back has a dead officer, only identifiable by his uniform. Then I looked to the side as I hear something banging around a bit, probably a racoon stuck in the trash can like they do nothing really new. I don't know why but I decided to walk up to the large garbage bins and looked inside to see nothing, I moved back a bit and as I did so the huge metal object fell back a bit and I tried to catch it before I saw the Walker jump at me, making move the metal junk to the side but I fell backwards as it fell on my leg.
"FUCK!" I watched as the walker climbed on the metal piece putting pressure on it as I tried to back up but ii couldn't. it gripped my shoulder and I grabbed the arm then it's other one so it couldn't try to pull me close to its mouth to chomp on my face. I watched as it snapped its teeth at me. I froze a bit as I remembered Joan leaving me locked in a room with a walker, I didn't have any weapons on me at the time, but right now I can't grab mine without the potential risk of getting chomped on the neck. I couldn't yell I couldn't do anything but keep the walker back as best as I could. My leg was starting to hurt a lot and I tried to throw the walker off, but it was hard to do while pinned down. I looked at the walker as I got so close to my face, I tried to scream but I was to scared to do so.
"VIOLET!" I hear as I see the walker getting pulled off me and I back away as quickly as I could and looked over to see Clementine next to me and Minnie killing the Walker.
"Fuck." I mumbled as I took a few breaths and I look to everyone as they looked to me worried. I look at my leg a bit to see no damage was done, other than it just hurting a lot so everything seemed fine for now.
"Jesus are you ok Vi?" I hear and I nod.
"Yea just uh… I was just spooked, and I couldn't get my knife." I say as I get up from the ground and I looked to them as I nod a bit.
"Where did it come from?" AJ asked.
"By the trash can it was behind this thing." I say as I taped the metal piece of junk with my foot and I rubbed the back of my head a bit.
"Seems they were hiding or something, think they're finally learning?" Aasim asked and I shrugged my shoulders as I just try to calm down as best as I could.
"You sure you're ok?" Clementine asked as I nodded a bit to her.
"Yea I was just scared is all." I tell her and she nods as she looked to the others. They talked a bit on a plan of what we were going to do, and I just looked at the walker. That could have been my end. I sigh a bit as I go, and I pull another cigarette out of the pack I had, and I light it up as I listen in on them.
"We could head more to the highway, but we don't know how bad the backup was when this started." Minnie suggests.
"I know a way to get out, the highway was a bit backed up but not by much since the quarantine was nearby… only issue would be the trucks, but I think we could move some of the cars by ourselves you know." I suggest.
"Is there a back way?" Omar asked and I nod a bit.
"Yea but it's going to be hard for the trucks that way then going on the highway." I admitted and they nod.
"Ok we can do that; the back way will just be a last resort if we run into too many walkers to handle." He says and I nod as we go and fill up more of the gas in the canasters and place half in Aasims truck and half in the one AJ was driving. Once everyone was ready and I grabbed my bag the kids were set in the cars I went and got on my bike and began to drive in the direction of the major highway area. It was a bit of time before we finally got to the worst section of the traffic so I decided to stop and turn the engine off to my bike and I look around to figure out which cars need to move so we don't have to do much work.
"How far out is this?" Omar asked.
"Hmm half a mile last time I checked so we don't have to move a lot of cars, but we can also look through them, find some clothes or survival stuff that people didn't grab yet?" I asked and he nods as we wait for the others to come over. I see that all the kids were in the trucks and I look at the adults.
"So, what are we doing?" Minnie asked.
"We're going to move these cars here to make a big enough path for the trucks, but we also want to look in these cars to see if there's anything we can take, you know clothes and survival gear that was left in a hurry." I explained and they all nod as they get to work. I was helping with the moving vehicles to the side which did take a bit. I looked in one car to see a full family inside, but they weren't looking around like a Walker would do. I looked to see a gun in one of the Walkers hands and I sigh sadly as I just look to the family.
"You ok?" I hear and look to see Clementine and I nod a bit as I rubbed my neck.
"Hmm yea just… saw something sad." I tell her as I move to the next car and get started on moving that. I looked to the side to see Clem looking in the car and I see her shoulders slump a bit as she came over to me and I look to her.
"Told you it was sad." I say as she nods.
"Funny, I don't think I would have felt this way if I was on my own." She says and I look to her.
"Oh?" I asked and she nods a bit.
"Yea when I was on my own, I didn't really have a care for people after how everything happened but when I finally found AJ, I just grew out of it, got scared if he even had a cold." She says and I nod.
"I don't think I would be able to do that though." I say as I look in the other car and I see some water bottles and I pull one out and show her.
"I don't think I could do it either, too scared to do it." She says and I nod as we grab the bottled water and set it to the side as I move the car and look to see how much more we had to do. It wasn't long till I was about three cars away from the trucks before I heard some shuffling and I look around a bit to see a walker so I grabbed my knife but another one came out of nowhere so I stopped my actions to look around and I see more Walkers so I quickly hide under a car and I turn to see Clementine and Minnie also under a car as Minnie covers Clementine's mouth and Clem points down to her fake leg to see it bent weird, so it might be broken when they were trying to hide, I mouthed a later as I watched the Walkers shuffle on by more and I look around a bit to see no Walkers on my right. I know it was a long while I'm assuming five minutes which should have been enough time but then I hear a scream and looked to Minnie and Clem to see them ok, but I hear it again and it sounds like Aasim Jr, and Delilah. I quickly look to see Ruby and Aasim under a car, Ruby trying to leave, and I motion for her to stop as I say I'll go get them. I go past the opening on my right and I see a few Walkers by their truck their hands in the open window and I quickly go over to get to them. I hear them scream again and I grab the closest Walker away that almost had half its body in the car.
"VIOLET!" I heard as I threw the walker to the side and grabbed the next one stabbing it. I then see Omar come to my side and grab the other Walker and he killed it. I grabbed the last Walker and threw it to the ground as I smashed its head with my boot. I took a few breaths as I look to Omar and I patted his shoulder as I looked to the kids.
"You two ok?" I asked as they nod.
"I'm sorry it scared me." Delilah says and I nod.
"It's ok." I tell them.
"It almost got us." Aasim Jr, says and I nod as I see Ruby run up to check on them as I help them out the car to check them as well. Once that was done, I head over to Clementine and Minnie and I checked on Clementine's leg and I sigh just a bit.
"it's bent but I think we can fix it up." I tell her and she nods as I take the leg off, so it doesn't get damaged anymore and I help Clementine over to our truck and helped sit her in the passenger side.
"Everyone ok?" Aasim asked and I look around to see everyone ok and I nod.
"Sorry, I was going to Warn everyone but there was way too many, I didn't want to risk it." Willy says and I nod.
"It's fine, I wouldn't have done the same, but let's hurry and get these cars out of the way, we can't stay here long." I say as I look to the walkers on the ground and I shake my head as we get back to work. It took us a pretty good amount of time to get the cars out of our path, we loaded up the water in each truck, half and half just in case we get separated. I looked to clementine's leg as she held it and took a look to it.
"I'd make it thicker so it wouldn't break, but it looked a bit rusty you know." I say and she nods.
"Yea… should have kept your old one in the truck when… well yea." She says and I nod.
"I can make another one… put that rocket in it." I joked and she laughed as I looked to AJ and he smiled as I took a look at the path and I go and get on my bike and we head out once again. I wanted to get as far away from the city as possible so we drove a good two hours before we took another stop at this old playground and even fule up just a bit so we could drive a little longer.
"Been pretty lucky on the fuel and stuff, know we can't do this for long." Aasim says as he watches his kids and I helped Clementine with her leg.
"Yea, I mean if we find a tanker that would be a God send, but someone might be watching it." I say as Clementine looked at how I was working on her leg.
"Need some extra padding." I say.
"No, it's fine."
"Liar, you don't have anything really protecting your stump, so you need more padding." I tell her and she looked to me.
"We can just use a few socks for now, that was a good call on checking the cars for supplies." Louis says and I nod.
"Besides, I can fix this a bit, got to head to an old metal shop so I can use the tools there." I tell them and she nods as I hand her the leg to get her to try it on and stand a bit.
"Feel good for now?" I asked and she nods.
"Yea, thanks." She says and I nod as I take a look at the playground.
"Where to next?" I heard Minnie say as she grabbed a map and I looked to it and showed the path we would go in a pencil.
"We can hit the docks and see if we can find a boat." I joked a bit.
"Oh, and how would we keep it?" She asked and I thought a bit.
"We can find a boat on a trailer, heck a small canoe would be fine, we could go out in the lake and fish you know." I say as I think a bit and looked to see AJ looking at me. He and I have gotten use to the whole, parental figure and child hunting trip or fishing trip, it's at times where he would tell me things that he couldn't tell Clem, heck imagine how it was when he was hitting puberty, I had to try and give him the talk cause he was wondering. Guess this is how parenting would have been even if the dead wasn't walking around eating people.
"So, you just going to take a boat?" She asked and I nod.
"Why not? No one would miss it, trust me." I say as I look to her.
"I mean you aren't wrong but is it a need?" She asked and I think.
"We could use it as a need, I mean it would help greatly when we go fishing." I explained, we then hear some rustling and I see a deer as it passes by.
"Hm we should keep looking for supplies we can really carry for now, that would be a think to have in mind though when we finally settle down." She says and I sigh a bit as I lean on the truck.
"I had plenty stable places for living before shit happened, but we can't always have a perfect life now, can we?" I asked myself.
"I mean the Delta was ok…. Or at least I thought it was." She says and I look at her.
"Same with Joan's community…. Fucking crazy." I mumbled as I looked to her then I saw Clementine get up and walk over to AJ and the others. I rubbed my neck a bit as I think and looked to the woods more and I pull a cigarette out and light it up.
"When did you start smoking?" She asked.
"don't remember but I know it was when I was in Joan's community taking care of the jobs and people made me smoke more that is…. Shit I know it's bad but the moment I found that carton I just took it." I say and I offered her one and she takes one, I light it up for her and we just watch everyone as we just stay by the trucks and I think a bit.
"So…. Joan did that stuff to you." She says and I nod as I try to forget.
"Yea… I uh… I don't want to remember." I mumbled a bit.
"Yea, I understand… there are things I don't want to remember… like Sophie." She says and I look to her.
"Why did you kill her?" I asked.
"Hmmm, I didn't want to, I wanted to help her leave but… things got to crazy and then I don't know I got so scared, they use to beat us too you know or starve us… my mind was fucked up at that point I didn't know what to do anymore…. Only thing I will say is, I'm glad Sophie didn't have to suffer through all the shit the Delta has done, she didn't have to kill someone at least." She says and I watch her clench her hands into fists as she looked at them. I nod a bit as I take a drag off the cigarette and I looked to the ground as I kicked a stray rock.
"They did those things too at the Delta… what you went through." She says and I looked to her I almost felt my neck snap at the quick movement.
"I didn't deal with that, but others had to, I was pretty lucky I guess." She says.
"You were a kid." I say to her.
"Hmm, true but again I didn't have to go through that stuff, Lilly didn't want anyone near me… you know funny thing she said was that she wanted to raise me right, as if she lost a kid or something." She says and I think.
"You think she wanted to raise Clementine?" I asked as I looked to her, she looked back to me as I said this, and I speak again.
"Clementine told me that Lilly ran off in their RV when this all started, after she killed someone in her group, I think… but Clem said that Lilly kind of looked after her, when she was little." I then took the cigarette out of my mouth and I flick the ashes.
"She probably did regret leaving Clementine, I won't say I know but she probably did…. Regardless by that time she'd changed." Minnie says and I nod as I take another drag of the cancer stick and chuckle a bit.
"What's so funny?" She asked as I lifted the hand holding the cigarette up a bit.
"This shit causes cancer, if I get lung cancer, I'm fucked, no doctor to take care of it, no radiation, medicine, the whole nine yards you know." I say to her.
"Yea, I get it, hell we can't risk our health like we did before all this." She says and I nod as we finish the cigarettes and I snuff mine out.
"Haha, I remember when we took the teachers Alcohol, well now we can drink all we want no one can stop us." I say as I chuckled.
"Hey, we're about to head out you two." I hear AJ say and I nod as I handed Minnie her map and I got back on the bike. Clementine came over to me and gave me a kiss, no that I didn't like it but was a bit shocked that she did this out of random. I shrugged it off as I began to drive in the front of our group, and I didn't stop until we would get to our next location. I kept my eyes on the woods to make sure nothing just popped out at us. It seemed like we were on the right track before we got to a bridge and I had to make a quick stop once I almost got to the edge of the bridges break and I get off the bike to look at the center of it to see the rushing waters. The others stopped behind me as Aasim and AJ came out and looked with me and I looked around.
"Shit, what do we do now?" AJ says and I look at him and I think.
"I would say we could get some sheet metal, real think and some wood and place it down for a quick crossing bridge, but I don't want to risk it with the trucks." I say as I looked to the side of the bridge and then to the trucks and think.
"We can get the trucks to go over the river but getting them up would probably strain them, being so old and not that well fixed up." I say.
"It's worth a try though, unless we have any other options." Aasim says and I think.
"Either we make a bridge or try the waters, but we don't have enough material for it to be good enough to drive on." I say out loud as I think some more and rubbed my neck and I look as AJ goes to the other side of the bridge and I go over to look to.
"There's a path this way, we could go up the hill here, it doesn't look that steep so." He explained and I nod.
"Looks like a path cars would take anyway, plus it wouldn't put a strain on the vehicles." I say and look to Aasim who looks and nods.
"I'm fine with that plan. Easy and simple." He says and I nod as we go tell the others. I let AJ ride the motorcycle down the hill as I drove the truck down the path, and I stopped as I looked up the hill.
"Alright this'll be fun." I mumbled as I stepped on the gas and kind of flew up the hill a bit and landed harshly once up the hill and I smile as I make room for Aasim and the others and I laugh a bit.
"Fuck that was fun." Clementine says and I nod.
"Fucking fun as hell, we got to do that again one day." I say as I get out and see AJ still down the hill as the others had already come up.
"Alright, careful AJ, you could literally fly off that thing if you go to fast." I tell him.
"I know Violet, no need to worry." He says as he gets ready and starts coming up the hill and flies up a bit but not at a dangerous height at least.
"Can I ride in the front now?" He asked and I think and Look to Clementine and Mary.
"Hmm maybe next time, right now I need you to stay with Clementine and Mary." I tell him and he nods as he goes back to the truck and I lead us again from that point. It wasn't long till the sun started to set down, so we decided we all would try and find a place to rest for the night. I looked to the paper to see an old hotel nearby and I point to it.
"Hotels are pretty big and tall, we can stay a few floors up and the fire escapes are good for leaving on, so long as they're not rusted to all hell." I say.
"Hmm, yea seems like a plan, and it's in a wooded area, so if we have to, we can run in that direction, make it hard for anyone to really find us." AJ says and I nod as I pat his head a bit and we all get going to the hotel. It took us a good thirty minutes to get there and it looked pretty abandoned, a few misplaced cars here and there but nothing too bad as we grabbed some things like food and medication, and we brought them inside. We went up a few flights of stairs to the fifth floor and we all went into one room where we all began to work on getting dinner ready. I sat back on the old couch that was in the room and laid my head back as I felt someone sit next to me and I look through one open eye to see Clementine as she gave me a look saying we needed to talk. I nod a bit as I get up and we head to the room and closed the door and I look at her.
"You been doing ok?" She asked, and I nod at this."
"Yea, and you?" I asked and she nods as well.
"That's good." We both say and I chuckle as I watch her go sit on the bed and I go and sit next to her.
"You sure you're ok?" I asked and she nods.
"Yea I guess I'm just starting to get tired of moving around a lot you know? I mean, aren't you?" she asked, and I nodded.
"Yea, it's a bit worse on you cause of your leg, don't worry we'll find a place." I say.
"But even then, we will probably have to move from there." She says and I look at her.
"Did you want to stay at the cabin? I didn't think you would since it was so close to… them." I say and she looked at me.
"No, I didn't want to stay there… I don't know, I kind of wish we could go back to Texas, we spent the most time there." She says and I look at her.
"We can go back, we can just help the others and we can go back, I miss it there too." I say and she looked at me.
"It's where AJ was really a kid, we had birthday parties there, we made a good wall, it was calm and quiet there." She says and I nod as I remember all of it.
"He was so happy when we were able to go fishing again you know." I say and she smiled.
"He likes spending time with you, little hunting and fishing trips do him some good." She says and I nod at this.
"Yea, just peace and quiet, hell like I said with that boat idea we could catch even bigger fish, could stop at one of the old fishing shops and get some supplies, and dig up some worms for bait." I say as I think of all the items we would need if we ever did get a boat for fishing.
"Seems like you'd enjoy this trip too hu?" She asked and I nodded.
"Yea… I always liked those fishing trips we'd have, god when he was little, he would talk up a storm about how he was going to get the biggest fish…. Hell, I remember when he called me mom again." I tell her and she laughed a bit at this.
"Oh really?" She says and I nod at this.
"Oh yea, he was so happy when he got his first buck, was saying 'Look, Look, Mom I got a big buck this time.' God did he turn red after that…. Seems like he thinks he's too old to call me mom." I say as I look to her.
"He's never once called me mom, though I don't mind it, but I guess he looks up to you a lot." She says.
"Maybe I'm the fun parent you know, and that's why he calls me mom." I joked and she smiled.
"Understandable." She says and I nod. It was a while that Clementine and I had gotten in the room; she was laying fully on the bed and I laid next to her, poor woman was so tired she fell asleep as she talked to me. I slowly moved the hair out of the way of her face and then I place my hand on her stomach a bit then looked out the window to see the stars. There was a knock on the door, and I sit up a bit and then head to the door and open it to see Ruby.
"You both doing ok?" She asked and I nod.
"Yea sorry she just fell asleep." I say as I step out the room with her.
"We have dinner ready; AJ and Mary got their bowls." She says and I nod as I follow her to get Clementine a bowl.
"So, we head out this way and we can make stops here, here, and here." I hear Louis saying and I go look at the map and point out to one area.
"Hm, no don't stop there, Walkers got someone there, damn thing was hiding out when it got him, so we don't know exactly how safe it would be for the kids." I say.
"Honestly after today, no place is safe." He says and I look at him.
"I'm just saying, I met with a group of people at that radio station and a boy got bitten there, had to help him with his arm." I say as I look at the map more.
"Well what about making a stop here, it's an open area plus the kids could play at the park a bit you know." Omar says and I look at it. I remember seeing the park on my way out there and I nod.
"Yea, there's a building we can look into, if no one passed by there might be some bandages and stuff there." I say as I hold Clem's bowl in one hand and mark the area as a maybe. I look at Minnie as she looked at me, she motions her head for the door and I nod a bit as I go and set the food in the room and AJ along with Mary go in the room and lay down with their blanket and pillows they brought. I head out the room and go have a talk with Minnie as we each have another cigarette and I light them both up.
"You came up this way?" She asked and I nod.
"Yea, imagine this, these people got the radio tower to work, and I went out to check on them… after an argument I had but anyway the kept heading to tower to tower until I got to them. One boy had his arm bitten by a Walker; shit saw someone that we once had captive after you showed up imagine that." I say as I look to her and she nods.
"You sure they weren't part of Joan's group?" she asked, and I think.
"No, they didn't seem like it, plus I knew lots of people in Joan's community, if they came in after I did, I would know them, and I never saw them traveling near the community walls either." I explained and then thought for a bit.
"Violet, do you think you could ever make the choice to take a life?" She asked and I look at her.
"You are thinking about Sophie again?" I asked her as she looked to me.
"No thinking about other people." She asked and I think.
"I've killed people before, scared the shit out of me, never had to do that before, Delta people that is." I tell her as I looked down the hall a bit.
"Yea… been so long I forgot about that." She says and I look at her.
"Been a long time for a lot of things." I tell her.
"Shit I don't even remember why I was even sent to that stupid school." She says and I look to her.
"You never did tell me why you were sent there, I mean hell Tennessee was four years old, so was Willy, shit they were young kids." I say as I really take the time to think.
"Yea…. Anyway, remember when Lamar would try to impress the girls with killing a walker, thought he was tough shit for doing it?" She asked and I chuckled at this.
"Yea, fucker always had to kill a walker in front of a girl and be praised for it, I remember when he got real mad at me when I didn't tell him he did a good job, you know the same job I had to do." I chuckled at this and shook my head as I finished the one cigarette and took another one out.
"Didn't he call you a dyke?" she asked, and I laughed and nod.
"Then your sister comes up to me and kisses me because she was getting tired of his shit, she used to have a crush on him but after that, she changed her mind." I say as I looked to the wall a bit and sighed.
"I was so jealous of her that day." She tells me and I look to her a bit.
"Eh, but in the end you got the girl." I joked.
"Yea…. You think if nothing changed you and I might still be together?" She asked out of nowhere and I look to the wall.
"Not a clue, wish I could see though." I muttered a bit as I think.
"Marlon fucked things up for a lot of people without thinking of what could potentially happen in the future." I say and looked to her.
"He fucked things up with you and Sophie, he got himself killed, he killed Brody, shit happened, a lot of things happened that went bad… but I will say, had none of that happened, we might not have saved Clem and AJ, I wouldn't be with her, we wouldn't have Mary with us…. Heck I wouldn't want to go back to that school, traveling, though dangerous, has its ups and downs here and there… I mean we can go wherever we want, live wherever we want, not worry about money, politics, all that bullshit… maybe the earth was just trying to reset things for the newer generation to live in and try to sort things out on our own." I ramble off.
"Well that's a weird way of putting it, but it's better than people blaming others for what happened, shit we have no clue how this happened, we were just kids and I got blamed for it." She says and we laugh a bit.
"Oh, no I liked a woman, the apocalypse happened because I liked pussy and not dick." I say and we laughed.
"Dumbest thing I heard for the cause of this… was that the leaders of the world just got bored and wanted everyone to be controlled by the government to do what they want." She says and I chuckled.
"Hmm, had one dude say this while we were high as fuck, but he said that the reason the Dead started walking was because they were horny as fuck and just wanted to get laid." I say as I remember the stupid shit I talked to while at Joan's community.
"People blamed the doctors, then they blamed religion, they'll place blame on things they don't agree with… it just gets boring like come on, we don't care how it happened anymore, majority of the world is fucking dead, just help your people live." She says and I nod as we finish up and I look at the door.
"Well thanks for the talk." She says as she placed her hand on my shoulder and we head back in and I go get me some food since I haven't eaten yet. Once I'm done I head to the room where the kids and Clementine were in, I walk over the kids so I don't step on them and I lay in the bed next to Clementine who then moves closer to me and I place my hand on her waist as I hold her close to me. It wasn't long till my eyes started to get heavy and I finally took that well deserved sleep.