Part Three

Jesse slept like he'd been awake for years, and it had felt like he had. Every moment, he had to be afraid that Jack or one of the others would be creeping up behind him to punch or kick him, or to say something horrible – sometimes those were the worst, the things they said, the things that they threatened. It made him feel like he was a schoolkid, being teased by some awful bully, but as stupid as Jack's men were they had an uncanny ability to get under Jesse's skin.

He dreamt of being back in the duplex with Jane, of drawing pictures, painting a door again and again. Then he dreamt of sitting on his futon, snuggling with Andrea and playing video games with her and Brock. He dreamt of things he could barely even remember existing; they all seemed like they had belonged to someone else, or maybe that he had seen them in a movie or read them in a book. They were a mystery to him; even in the dreams it didn't seem as if he were really back so much as observing from afar, through a glass.

When he awoke, he found himself staring at the wall, trying to figure it out, trying to see it clearly through the spots that were dancing in front of his eyes. Maybe they had come there because he'd been keeping them open too long, staring at the lab and the candid photo of Andrea and Brock, trying to figure out a way to escape that wouldn't endanger them somehow or even, better yet, a way to warn him. He didn't even care if he ended up dead, as long as the two of them were safe.

Had Mr. White told Jack's crew where they lived? Had he been that cruel? Had he wanted to make sure Jesse couldn't escape from there… or maybe he hoped that he would try, and that Andrea and Brock would pay the price? Jesse remembered what he had said about Jane… maybe he just wanted to take out all the people left in the world who Jesse cared about. Or maybe he was okay with the elimination of the only potential witnesses to his poisoning of Brock.

Maybe… maybe this was all for nothing, and Jack and his men, his crew, had already killed them both just out of spite, maybe right before they decided they didn't need Jesse anymore.

He had to know the truth. Because if Andrea and Brock were gone, if Andrea and Brock were dead somewhere, then there was no point to any of this and he should just give up and put a bullet in his brain the second that he found a gun.

A sudden voice cut him out of his thoughts.

"Morning."

He looked up. It was Daryl; he hadn't heard the other man enter.

"Morning," Jesse mumbled back softly.

"Sleep well?" Daryl continued.

Jesse didn't know whether to nod or shake his head, but it was just as well because Daryl didn't really wait for an answer.

"I hope so," he told him, "Because I need to start training you soon. You need to eat up."

He disappeared to somewhere; Jesse's eyes were too tired to follow to see where he had gone. When he returned, it was with a plate of breakfast – toast and scrambled eggs.

"T-thank you," Jesse stammered. Food again. This man was taking care of him – but why? Wasn't Jesse just a means to an end, just hired help? What did it matter if Jesse had enough to eat?

He wasn't even sure he would be able to eat anymore. This was like a feast compared to what he had been eating.

He slowly picked up the piece of toast and scooped some eggs on top of it, then put another piece on top. He had used to eat this way as a kid – he remembered putting bacon in there too and eating it as a kind of sandwich.

It felt like years since anyone had bothered to make him breakfast. Even before the compound, he barely bothered to eat at all unless he had to.

Jesse opened his mouth and bit in, savoring it.

"Pretty good, huh?" Daryl inquired.

Jesse nodded with a mouth full of egg.


"Guns come in handy, of course," Daryl explained, "But you can't go wrong with a crossbow, either."

Jesse stared at him.

"A crossbow? Yo, you're planning to go after this guy with a crossbow?"

Daryl looked at him like this was a completely natural conclusion.

"Guns attract noise, attentions. Gets the cops involved. I don't want the cops involved."

Jesse cocked his head to the side.

"Any reason?"

"Don't have much luck with cops," Daryl replied simply.

"Yeah," Jesse replied dryly. "Neither do I." He thought of Hank Schrader, forced down in the sand, Jack putting the gun to his head and cutting him off midsentence. The man hadn't been afraid. Maybe that was some kind of prerequisite for being a cop, maybe you had to not be afraid of anything at all, not even death.

Jesse had been afraid, shivering under the car, panicking, hoping that Mr. White would just let him go, that Jack and his crew wouldn't find him. That he'd be safe, that he would get out of that one because what he saw, eyes wide as Hank died… That wasn't what he wanted. He hadn't liked the man, hadn't ever gotten along with him, but he didn't want that.

Jesse didn't want any more cops getting involved. Didn't want the dead bodies to pile up. The bodies always tended to pile up when he was around, like he had the opposite of the Midas touch, like everything he touched fell apart, wrinkled and fell apart like those lepers did in movies.

"A crossbow," Daryl was saying again, and Jesse looked up, gave a tiny little nod, trying to shake off the past.

"I'm going to learn how to shoot a crossbow."