A/N: Hello! Thank you so much to those who have reviewed, favorited, or followed this story! I genuinely enjoy writing so I'd keep writing it anyways; but it's nice to know someone is reading it. Without further ado, here is chapter 5!
Oh, and side note: There are a few references to determinant in-game decisions. In this case, I chose to save Carley at the pharmacy (instead of Doug), and let Lilly back onto the RV after she killed Carley.
"Shh, let's not make too much noise until we have to," Jane advised, pressing herself against the wall.
Clem nodded in agreement, carefully stepping over a broken crate. "Okay, let's go."
The pair cautiously crept through the building, keeping their eyes and ears alert for any sudden movement. They had only seen one person enter, but who knew how many others could be creeping around without their knowledge.
Just as Jane was about to take another step forward, Clem grabbed her companion's jacket and pulled her backwards. "Get down!" she whispered fiercely. She ducked behind a stack of boxes as Jane dove behind a desk. They both peaked around the side of their respective covers and silently watched the intruder pacing around the room, rummaging through various boxes. There was nothing much there aside from a few cans of very expired fruit and a couple piles of two-by-fours. After that asshole family had stolen most of their supplies, they knew better than to leave their means of survival in a wide open room.
"What should we do?" Clem whispered, glancing back up at the intruder—a woman, from the looks of her long, brown hair peeking out from her dark gray sweatshirt.
Jane thought for a moment. They were still a bit too far away to get the jump on the woman, but they had to be very careful advancing any further. There wasn't a whole lot of good cover to hide behind. "Let's try to get a little closer," she suggested, flipping the safety off her gun.
"Okay," the girl agreed, readying her gun in case anything went wrong.
"You cover this side and I'll try to sneak around the side over there," Jane whispered, motioning towards the other side of the room. "Follow my lead."
Clementine looked at her friend, the image of Jane standing with a noose around her neck still vivid in her mind. "O-Okay. But Jane?"
"Yeah?"
"Just... don't do anything stupid."
"I... I won't," she promised, the ghost of a smile tugging her lips upward. "You either."
With that, they parted ways for the time being. Clementine slowly snuck around to the stranger's left, and Jane crept to the right. Once Jane was in a good position, she began to slowly creep out. The intruder's back was to them as she bent over to search through another box of what Clementine knew was useless junk. Clem followed suit, drawing her gun and noiselessly inching towards the stranger.
"Unless you'd like me to splatter your brain against that wall," Jane shouted suddenly, voice dripping with menace, "I would drop any weapons you have and turn around with your hands up."
The hooded figure jumped, clearly startled, and whipped around to face Jane. Her back was still to Clementine, so the eleven-year-old continued to creep towards the intruder, barrell of her gun never leaving its target. The intruder clearly hadn't expected anyone to creep up behind her, because her weapon was still sheathed in its holster resting against her thigh.
The stranger started to reach for her gun and Clem was about to call out to warn her friend, when Jane bellowed, "And don't even think about reaching for that gun. You'll be dead before you can even flip the safety off." The woman froze, clearly realizing Jane was right.
"Okay, okay, calm the fuck down!" the stranger barked defensively, throwing her hands up in surrender. Something about her voice sounded familiar to Clementine, but she brushed it off. She'd met hundreds of people at this point—a few were bound to sound similar.
"I'd watch your fucking tone, lady," Jane growled back, keeping her gun trained on the stranger's head. "Don't think I won't shoot, because I damn well will. You think you can just waltz in here and take shit from us?"
"This shit's all garbage, anyways," the intruder snapped back, motioning towards the boxes of old hardware equipment and stale food. "I don't see any 'us,' either," she added mockingly.
Clementine crept up even farther until she was only a few feet away from the woman. She glanced up at Jane and the latter subtly nodded. With that, Clementine lunged forward, grabbed the woman's weapon from its holster, and kicked as hard as she could at the back of the intruder's knees. The stranger let out a surprised yelp and fell to the ground, now weaponless.
"What the fuck?" the woman yelled, rolling over on her side to look up at her attacker. "Don't fucking touch—"
She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes widening as she looked at the young—well, a bit older now—girl standing above her. She looked so much older and... tougher since the last time she'd seen her. She had lost most of her baby fat, and her scared, innocent eyes were replaced with hardened, fearless ones. "What the... Oh my god."
Clementine stared at the woman on the ground, a thousand thoughts and feelings racing through her mind. Her shooting arm went slack as she momentarily forgot what they had been doing. "H-Holy shit," she muttered in complete shock. "Lilly..."
"Wait," Jane exclaimed, thoroughly confused. "Clem, you know this motherfucker?"
Unable to take her eyes off Lilly, Clementine merely nodded. "Yeah, she... She was with my old group. And she..." Her voice trailed off as her mind tried to keep up with the thousands of thoughts.
Images of a dark, chilly night flashed through her mind.
The RV pulled over on the side of the road. Lilly yelling for everyone to get out. Kenny cursing from the front of the vehicle, trying to get a walker unstuck from the wheelwell. Yelling, lots and lots of yelling. A single gunshot, followed by a brief, stunned silence. Lee slamming Lilly against the RV, forcing her to drop her gun as the latter rambled excuses. Katjaa screaming, asking what was going on, and Kenny yelling for her to keep Duck away from the windows. Ben panicking.
Carley.
Carley, her friend, lying dead on the gravel, a fresh bullet hole oozing blood from her cheek.
Carley.
Snapping out of her trance, Clementine whipped her gun back up, aiming it with a deadly glare at Lilly.
"She killed Carley," the young girl yelled with more force than she thought her little lungs could muster. "Carley was my friend."
Jane wasn't sure what Clem was talking about, nor who the hell this Carley person was; but clearly, something happened between them that had Clem seriously pissed off. She glanced at Clementine but kept her gun pointed at the woman—Lilly, apparently.
"Wait, Clem, please," Lilly pleaded, scrambling to sit up. "Don't shoot me. Please, I... I can explain."
"Explain?" Clementine shouted almost humorously. "How can you explain just... Just shooting someone for no reason?"
"I was trying to protect everyone," she tried to reason, though she realized long ago that it probably wasn't Carley who was stealing from them. Carley cared a lot about Clementine, and she seemed smart enough not to jeopardize the kid's safety. "I thought she... I thought she was a traitor, Clementine, I swear. I—"
"Shut up," the young girl spat, taking a step closer and tightening her grip on her firearm threateningly. She didn't actually want to shoot her, because she knew she wouldn't be any better than Lilly herself if she did. She wasn't sure what they were going to do with her, but she still didn't really want to kill her.
"Clem, just give me a chance. I swear I can—"
"She said shut up!" Jane bellowed, an intimidating look twisting her features as she pressed the barrel of her gun against Lilly's head.
Lilly opened her mouth to speak again, but when she felt the cold metal of a firearm pressed against her skull, she figured she should probably obey. Instead, she looked at Clementine pleadingly, searching the young girl's eyes for any sign of warmth. Coming up empty, she sighed and looked down. What was she fighting for, anyways? She had nobody left. She had been on her own for the better part of the past two years. Her dad was dead; the rest of her family was dead; the few friends she'd had before the world went to shit were probably dead; and she'd left the one person who still might have given a rat's ass about her in the dust when she stole the RV. Lee and Clementine were the only ones she really gave a flying fuck about—the only ones she truly felt bad about leaving behind. She kicked herself night after night for driving off, convinced, at the time, that Lee would alert the others of her plan. She should have trusted Lee, and maybe the three of them could have survived together for a while.
She had always held out a sliver of hope the past two years that maybe, just maybe, the then-9-year-old girl somehow didn't despise her. Maybe she wouldn't really remember what happened, or she would feel bad for her or... something. She wasn't sure what she had hoped, really. She also wasn't sure why she thought about it or why she cared, because she didn't think she'd ever see the girl again. Plus, Clementine clearly didn't care for her anymore... If she ever did at all. Not that she could really blame her. She had, after all, shot the girl's friend in cold blood.
"Do it," Lilly whispered in defeat, her voice thick with regret and poorly-concealed pain. There was no use fighting anymore. "Just... do it. Shoot me."
Jane looked up at Clementine. She would shoot this woman without hesitation, but she didn't think it was her call to make. From what she could tell, this woman did some fucked up things; but Clementine knew her, so it was her decision.
Clem looked up at Jane, meeting her eyes and seeming to search them, as if asking what she should do. "Up to you, Clem," she said calmly. "I'm with you whatever you decide." She nodded appreciatively, then refocused her gaze back on her gun and the woman in front of her. She thought about pulling the trigger, she really did. An eye for an eye, or... some saying that went like that. Lilly had killed Carley, so now Clementine could kill Lilly. They'd be even.
Her mind again flashed back to that dreadful night. Even after killing Carley, Lee let her back onto the RV. It probably wasn't an easy decision, but abandoning someone with a herd of walkers... You might as well just take a gun and spare them the misery of being torn apart by the undead. Lee was a good man, and Clementine wanted to be a good person, too. Like Lee had been.
Clementine stared at Lilly for a moment longer before sighing and letting her arm fall to her side. "Tie her up, Jane. I'll... figure out what to do with her later."
Lilly kept her gaze downward, silently putting her hands behind her back in acceptance.
Jane nodded and glanced around for something to bind her wrists with. Finding nothing, she again looked at her young companion. "Uh, Clem, would you... Go upstairs and uh, get that... rope for me?"
Her eyes met Jane's, and she forced the image of the noose around her friend's neck from her mind. It was not the time to think about that. "Oh, uh, yeah. Sure," she faltered. "Just... watch her."
"I will," she promised. Then, looking down at Lilly, her gaze hardened and she nudged the gun's barrel in between her shoulder blades. "Try anything funny and you're going to be in a lot of pain. And it won't be a quick death."
By the look on Lilly's face, Clem highly doubted she'd try anything. She glanced back one more time before jogging back down the hall and up the stairs. She opened the door to Carver's old office, suddenly remembering AJ was up there. Thankfully, he was still asleep. She looked up at the ceiling, at the noose hanging from a metal beam. She didn't even want to imagine what it would have been like to open the door and find her friend dead... Or worse, a walker. Shaking the image from her head, she climbed onto the desk and untied the rope from the ceiling beam. She quickly undid the Hangman's noose and grabbed AJ on the way out.
"Here," she said flatly to Jane as she tossed her the rope. Jane looked at it for a moment and something in her eyes flashed. She quickly shook it off and tied Lilly's hands behind her back. Surprisingly, Lilly didn't struggle or even utter a curse. She was silent. Compliant. She eyed the infant in Clementine's arms and looked like she wanted to ask about him, but she stayed silent, thinking it better not to talk. She wasn't sure what they were going to do with her, but quite frankly, she no longer cared.
AJ began to squirm in Clem's arms, and a few seconds later, he began crying. "Oh no," she muttered out loud, more to herself than the other two women. "I forgot I never fed him earlier when..." Her voice trailed off and she could feel Jane looking at her, but she couldn't bring herself to look up. "Let's bring her upstairs."
A/N: And there we go, chapter 5 is done. Yep, the old character who's back is Lilly. I know a lot of people hated her, and I was super pissed that she killed Carley; but I always really liked her character. She acts all tough and bitchy which makes everyone hate her, but she has a lot more to her than just that. She's an extremely interesting and well-developed character. Anyways, please let me know what you think!