A/N: It's been a while but I decided I wanted to write it so I did. Thank you to my lovely beta, LeMasquerade, for everything she has done and continues to do. This chapter is dedicated to Swinging Cloud, who hates when authors deviate from their main stories to write something else, which is partly why I did it. Stop being a bitch and maybe I'll write some more Battlesong xoxo

To everybody else, enjoy!

Chapter 5

They do end up sleeping with you, their bodies sprawled over the dry carpet with a thin blanket between them and the still powerful stench of ammonia that comes in bursts. You've developed a constant headache that slowly gnaws away at your reasoning and common sense; Tina says it's from overexposure to the fumes, and it will fade in time. You've taken to going outside into the back courtyard in an attempt to banish the ache. It pulses behind your eyes and sometimes you even lose track of whole conversations, only coming back to yourself when they snap their bony fingers in front of your face. Shadow watches you with this stare that's so terribly concerned in all the ways she tries not to be. She's convinced its partly because of your hole and believes you should ask Tina to look at it. You disagree.

"Why?" You ask her, scrubbing dirt from under your nails. Until you can unlock the upstairs you've taken to making a tiny garden in plastic pots, coaxing little green shoots to life in such a dangerous place. Each and every one of you must always go in pairs to ensure you're not taken by surprise—the pharmacy made sure of that. "It's not like she can help me."

She leans against the next sink, the sharp bone of her hip resting against the porcelain. She's too thin, like you, but the muscle under her skin ripples out when she moves like a panther.

"Maybe she can try." She argues back, crossing her arms. "Stitch it or something so that it's not just a gaping wound."

You sigh and give up on your nails, gripping the sink with both hands and turning to face her. You're confused by her concern, surely, but a part of you likes it. Living so long on your own where you didn't even care about yourself makes it a nice change. "Why do you care?" You challenge her, having long given up on the nuances and subtleties of human interaction. They notice you are blunt, achingly so, and always ask for your opinion on matters that deserve nothing but the truth. "When you first got here you wanted to shoot me or kick me out. You're still mean to everybody else. What's changed?"

Her face pales slightly and she looks away brusquely, but you've already seen the downturn of her lips and the twitch of her eyebrows drawing together. She doesn't know either, you realize suddenly.

"I don't care about you," she snaps, too harshly to be natural. "We don't need weak links in the group if we're gonna survive." But you watch her unwaveringly with that inhuman stare of yours, staring and staring until her shoulders hunch and she crumbles under your scrutiny.

"... and you saved Tina. That was pretty cool."

You try to smile but another spike of pain behind your eyes warps it, tilts it off-kilter and makes you stagger momentarily. Your fingers pinch the bridge of your nose, and it's not until a few minutes later that you register her voice and remember you were in the middle of a conversation. Clearing your throat, you cautiously meet her eyes and note the frown sitting twisted upon her brow.

"Sorry. I, uh, my head hurts." It seems like a lame excuse after all she knows, but she simply nods silently and waits for your pain to pass. (Sometimes you think about calling her Santana, but she has not yet earned that title. There are other games to play before she can regain her name.) You rub your temple and catch a glimpse of your face in the mirror, but the stranger that always stares back makes you look away.

"You think she could help?" You ask quietly, tucking your hair behind your ear. Her gaze automatically travels to the glimpse of the hole before she nods, fixing her gaze over your shoulder to the wall.

"Yeah. You said she had... what was it, good hands?"

Good hands. Maybe you don't understand the way your mind works anymore, but you know enough to realize that Tina isn't the one you should be wary of. (Not with the way some of them look at you.)

You nod and the pain passes; maybe she could help. Anything is better than this unrelenting agony. "Okay." You mutter, crossing your arms tightly over yourself. "But only my head."

She looks at you curiously and you curse your stupidity. "What else would she be looking at?"

"Nevermind. Let's go." To distract her you grab her wrist and tug her along, through the corridors and into the kitchen that is now the base of operations for the group. Her body stiffens and you feel it travel through her arm, infecting you like a virus until all you can focus on are the muscles under your touch. Once or twice you almost run into a wall. Eventually you spy Tina, talking quietly between herself and Mercedes—you study her intently and decide once and for all you can trust those hands, circled around a steaming mug of herbal tea. Mercedes notices you both, rakes her eyes over the way your hand is still gripping so tightly to Shadow's wrist before getting up with a cocked eyebrow. Shadow wrenches her arm away, and you feel a profound sense of loss before sitting down in a nearby chair.

"We need you to check Brittany out, Asian Number One. Something's up with her head."

Puck, from the distance, coughs something you think is insulting, but you're done being bothered by boys who will never be men.

Tina comes over and once again you find yourself surprised and how much you like the way she speaks—her timid demeanor does little to hide the powerful voice you know lurks in the depths of her lungs (something tells you that you never had anything like that). She straddles the chair in front of you and asks before she puts on a pair of medical gloves she found in your bathroom, and that pulls the second crooked smile from your lips in a week. Small miracles.

"So, what seems to be the problem?" She asks, checking your forehead with the back of her hand, pressing her fingers against your pulse. She frowns and digs in harder, searching for something that seems so hard to find. Eventually she reaches it, nods slowly, counts the times. It's so slow that she barely feels it against her fingertips. Your temperature is normal, at least.

"Her head's been hurting more than usual. Says there's a hole in her mind." Mercedes says for you, privy to the restless nights rolling about on the floor, pretending not to watch Shadow watch you. Her gaze is the one that makes you shift in your seat, the intensity of it from across the room smothering.

"A hole, hm? Where'd it come from?"

Your shrug tries to be nonchalant, but they see the beginning of upset along the ridges of your shoulders. "It was there when I woke up."

"Okay, let me take a look." Her hands part the curtain of your locks, trace the short, coarse hairs still growing back. When her fingers brush across the wound she squints like she can't quite believe herself, using both palms to smooth away your hair and expose it to the open air. You wince as it tugs upon your broken flesh. "Oh my god... is that... what is that?"

Her thumb traces over the imperfection carefully, getting up to peer into it. Tina flails impatiently for a flashlight and shines it in, only to recoil after she does. "I... I can see her brain." She turns to you, then, face ashen. "How did you survive that?"

You smile sadly, your eyes bitter. "Sometimes I don't think I did."

They all begin to gather around but Tina wards them off, sensing the knotting of your wasted muscles. "Hold up." She says at once, getting impossibly closer to you. "I think there's something in there."

At this the chatter starts, thousands of miles a second, but you stiffen abruptly and do the best you can to turn to her. "There's a thing in my head?" You whisper hoarsely, eyes so wide the eyelids almost threaten to peel back. Your body begins to shake and you remember the cloudy dreams of somebody messing with your insides, shifting your organs around and sticking their sterile hands into the very depths of you. You try to raise your fingers to your temple but Shadow has somehow materialized from thin air and pins them to the arm of the chair, only making you strain harder in panic.

"You need to take it out." Mercedes insists, caught in a battle of wills with Tina. "Who knows what's gonna happen if you leave it in there."

"If I leave it in there? What happens if I take it out?" Tina retorts, gesturing to you. "This isn't something in the leg that I can do a few little cuts and then bandage up, 'Cedes. This is her brain. Do you know what would happen if something went wrong?"

"Not much else." Puck says from his corner, but the withering glare received by all other occupants in the room shuts him up. You're too busy writhing in your seat to pay much attention, fighting as hard as you can against Shadow's iron grip. Mike has come over to help pin you down and there's too many hands on you at once, too much unknown, too much noise and it's not stopping and you hear their heartbeats and it's all so loud—

They're so caught in their arguing that your screaming startles them, Mercedes clutching at her breast and Tina almost dropping the little flashlight she was waving around in the air. You feel possessed, a trapped and cornered animal, thrashing from side to side with your face turning red from the strain.

"Take it out!" You think you're saying but you're not sure; it's inhuman the way your voice cracks and grates and some of the newcomers flinch back. The edges of your nails split and bleed from how hard you're clamping onto the chair arms, every tendon in your neck popping from under your skin. They're saying things and holding you down and you scream and scream until you forget your own name. All you know is that you feel whatever it is inside your head and you need it out now, even if it's going to hurt so much that you think you're dying all over again.

Tina's face swims into your vision and you realize you're crying, sobbing, begging with her to do it. She calmly holds your face in her hands and says okay despite the shaking of her fingers against your cheeks and you nearly retch in relief, letting out a broken gasp of air.

"You gotta be still, okay?" She says, tweezers miraculously appearing in her hand from where Mercedes found a pair in the drawer. "I'm not gonna do it unless you're still."

You take what she says seriously and stop, Mike almost pitching forward without your resistance. Your lungs take a deep breath and hold it, chest stilling, feeling the cold metal pressing upon your scalp. The first prod is gentle, probing, and you grit your teeth as she forages deeper into the wound, wiggling the tweezers past the jagged bone that gapes open like a mismatched mouth. A deep throb starts up inside your head and their breathing is so loud and intrusive that you screw your eyes shut; Mike is whispering at you to breathe but you don't want to breathe, all you'll smell is their sweat and skin and all the things that are too sharp and sincere like this. You whimper as Tina finds the object and the clang of metal on metal echoes in your head.

Shadow's saying something, and you latch onto the sound of her voice like a greedy newborn aching for the comfort of their mother, falling into the rough rise and fall of her tone as Tina begins to pull the object out. It doesn't hurt until she passes through the entrance where it jams and doesn't budge, the broken pieces blocking her exit. She bites her lip and ducks her head to look at you. "I'm gonna pull, okay?"

If you were breathing it would hitch; Mercedes wipes under your eyes with a little cloth and you try to fight through the searing pain in your skull. You think you've cracked a tooth.

Tina anchors her other hand against your shoulder, steadying herself. Santana and Mike lean their full weight against you and they are smothering, their body heat scalding in a way that temporarily distracts you from the metal emerging from your head. All of a sudden Tina gives a mighty yank of her arm and it scrapes half way through your wound before getting stuck.

You scream.

Vaguely somebody's saying almost there, Britt and you can do it but it's a tunnel of pulling and wiggling and bleeding and screaming until with a chilling scrape it's pulled free from you and your mind is blessedly empty.

You don't even have time to register she's holding a little copper bullet with a horrified expression before the pain lances behind your eyes, so sharp and hot that everything falls away and you're left with nothing at all.

"Tell me again, Brittany." The man in the white asks and you sigh, cradling your head petulantly in your hands. Everything is scalding and bright and loud and you just want to go back to bed, to be given the clear liquid through the tube in your arm and sleep for a long time.

"I don't want to." You say grumpily, flinching as the needle retracts with another vial of your red, red blood in its chamber. You've lost track of how much they've taken over these past couple days.

The man sighs and shuffles his clipboard, bouncing it upon his knee. "Brittany, don't be stubborn. It's just a few memories."

"I said I don't want to!" You yell, throwing the plastic cup of water at him so that it soaks through his little doctor coat. He blinks for a moment before wiping the spray off his glasses, murmuring to the nurse that watches you with a wary expression.

"Easily agitated and refuses to co-operate." He says in a slow, steady voice, and her hand loops around and around as she writes down what he says; you are captivated by the smooth flow of her letters and watch it without a sound. The world only comes back after he calls you and you look at the clock—seven minutes have passed.

"Why did you do that, Brittany?" He asks you in that same voice and you deflate, shrugging at the wall. To be honest you don't know much of anything recently, except that Christmas just passed and you were stuck here without your friends or family to spend the holiday. Even Jake hasn't come back yet and you find yourself missing his voice.

"I don't know." You mumble, crossing your arms over your chest. Antonio said you look like a junkie, all those needle marks in the soft crooks of your elbows making them inflamed and red. They don't hurt. Not really. "I get mad a lot now. I don't like it."

He pauses, studying you intensely before continuing. "When did this start?"

"I dunno, a few weeks ago?" You catch the small furrow of his brow before he murmurs again to the nurse, but everything flares so loudly for a moment that you miss what he says. You just want to go home.

"... is she—"

"I think I—"

"—there's her pulse!"

"Oh thank God, I thought—"

"Britt, can you hear us?"

Air rattles through your throat and the noises stop momentarily as you moan in pain, trying to roll onto your side and failing. Everything is so hot; you feel bathed in sweat, that feral fever making its reappearance for all of them to see. Your eyes open slightly but they're no more than blurs on a bright canvas so you squeeze them shut again and try to remember where you are.

"Dude, she looks fucked up."

"Let me take a bullet out of your head and then see how you feel."

"What if she dies?"

"She isn't going to die, Rachel."

"I dunno, she looks sick."

A rough hand grabs you by the shoulder and you groan, weakly trying to roll yourself back onto the cool floor where you have some modicum of relief. His skin grates upon yours and the dryness is excruciating. You'd panic if you weren't so tired.

"Leave her alone, Fuckerman. She always looks sick."

A softer hand pries the other one off you and you fall limply to the ground, spreading out your limbs in an attempt to absorb the temperature of the tile. More hands, so many hands, one lifting your chin and another pressing to your forehead and a third smoothing back your hair. Somebody's holding a cloth to your temple, stained red and dripping all over your scalp.

"I don't feel a fever."

"Maybe it's all in her head?"

"You're hilarious."

"Can we feed her some aspirin or something?"

"Somehow, I really don't think something wimpy like that is going to help."

Strong arms pick you up and you recognize Mike's distinct scent as he cradles you to his chest. "I think we should put her to bed." He says and there are various murmurs of agreement as you travel through the compound, one arm limply hanging towards the ground and the other curled close to your body He lays you down upon the desk and pushes a pillow under your head, crouching down and using his thumb to lift your eyelid so you're forced to look at him. He searches for something for a moment inside of your gaze and sighs when you evidently lack what he wants, rustling in his pocket.

"Open up." He whispers, pressing a little pill to your mouth. "I think you need this more than any of us." You swallow weakly and it sticks hard in your throat until he helps you take a drink, the chalky coating leaving a bitter taste in your mouth on the way down.

Not long after he leaves you feel that familiar feeling of floating invade your limbs that you remember despite not possessing the memory to make it click. You sigh in relief and let it bring you back to a world that's slowly, over the course of weeks, beginning to take tangible shape. (If only it could tell you what you left behind.)

"You're leaving again."

"I'm sorry. Work needs me."

"Where are you going this time?"

"New York. I should be gone for a few months."

"... are you going to stay there?"

"No, of course not. I'm always going to come back to this family."

"..."

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You want to ask me something."

"I don't—"

"You do."

"Come with me."

"W-what?"

"Come help me. You said you want to help people when you get older, right? Now's your chance. It'll be life changing for the whole world."

"But school—"

"You could save lives. I'm sure they'd understand."

"I could do that? Me?"

"You'd be a hero, Britt."

"I don't care about that, I just want to help. But... mom and S—"

"I could talk to them. It would only be for a few months and then we could come home again, together."

"Are you sure?"

"You're the perfect specimen, baby girl."

You bolt upright with a gasp, as if underwater, disoriented for a moment by the utter darkness in the room. Your hands smooth over every inch of yourself; your prisoned ribs and your swan neck and your sharp jaws, fingers brushing over the sides of your head and feeling bumpy stitches upon your temple where there was once only a hole. Tina's expression before you passed out comes back to you and you would feel guilty if you could, but you think you lost that emotion a long time ago.

Your three roommates are sprawled over the floor in various stages of disarray—Mercedes hogs the blanket while Mike and Tina curl together, winding their limbs until they are one connected being. They look vaguely like a monster, if all you can see is that long shock of black hair covering both their features.

Elsewhere in the compound your steps echo as you inch your way out the door, taking care not to step on any toes. Every part of you aches, right down to your fingertips, but you feel strangely good—free of a burden you didn't know you had. Your head feels lighter somehow and you try a smile, noting how it stretches less awkwardly over your mouth. (Small victories.)

But despite that, there is the hunger. Your head still hurts, but for once it is overwritten by the aching gnawing in your belly, reaching up with greedy fingers and trapping every part of you in its want. One of your arms circles your stomach and you jog (really it's more of a stagger) to the kitchen where your eyes glance over your little stash of food. Meal time must have passed, for it seems smaller than you remember, a few precious cans glinting in the tiny bit of moonlight that leaks through the boarded windows and spills out onto the tiled floor like the blood of a mythical beast. You debate taking some to satiate your ache, but some part of you knows that it won't go away, not like that. You need something else.

Maybe that's the reason you find your keys and walk towards the courtyard. Inside, you know it's not a great decision; over and over again they've drilled into your head to never go outside alone despite the sick people never seeming to pay you much mind. It's dangerous, they said, it'll kill you. But you're tired of letting everybody other than you decide what's good or bad, so you shove the key into the heavy lock, letting it slip away soundlessly, catching it in your fist before you drop it.

But what happens if one of the sick people find their way into the compound when the others are sleeping? You bite your lip. Maybe they like you but they most certainly don't like them—you know the feeling, the hands that reach to curl around their hearts and still the constant beat that drives you crazy at times, too. So you take your chances and pull it shut, hearing the internal lock click by itself and essentially closing you out from the inside world. Oh well, you're sure you can get in from some other direction.

Outside is nice, and you're relearning what the night air feels like on your skin. It brings with it the faint scent of rot, but you're so used to it that it doesn't bother you, stepping over the bodies that putrefy in rows upon the concrete, wandering out into the street. A straggler or two shuffles mindlessly over the cracked and broken roads, not at all mindful of the way their feet catch into potholes and they fall on their faces, teeth scattering over the ground. You look around at the derelict buildings and wonder where you should go first.

Signs of raiding are still evident in the broken windows and burnt out husks—you don't bother to go in those buildings, knowing you'll find little of use. Maybe they'll be less angry at you for sneaking out if you bring them back something they need. Food, medicine. You suddenly wish you brought a backpack.

As the buildings get more clumped together and the devastation grows in volume, you start to wonder if they're telling the truth. There's a man lying on the ground next to you... well, you can't really call him a man anymore. All that's left is a torso and the shattered spine that sticks from the meat of his flesh, scraping along the ground whenever he drags himself forward. He ignores you as you walk by, the wheezing sounds of his breath altered by the way his right lung trails behind him as he crawls. Would something like this really happen if it wasn't... what they said it was? People can't survive things like that. You don't hear his heart beating in his chest and wonder why sometimes you can't hear yours, either. Maybe your thoughts drown out the sound.

You halt yourself next to a camping store, eyeing the bright sign that still clearly spells Way of Life despite the few bullet holes that blasted out part of the F. They sell survival stuff in here, right? This is what you need if you're going to make it through this nightmare city. You cautiously enter the store, eyes casting from side to side, alert for any signs of trouble. A few rattling lungs but no hearts. It seems safe enough.

People have gone through here and looted until barely anything remains, but a lot of them didn't make it back out alive. You pull a nice looking backpack, black and blue, from the corpse of a woman whose leg looks like somebody mauled it with a lawnmower. A clean shot to the back of the head reveals her exact fate—her body murmurs to you as you gingerly worm her arms out through the straps, lungs letting out an unanticipated sigh as you lay her back down. She could be thanking you, it's a pretty heavy burden.

Peering into the sack, she'd managed to get a pair of sturdy hiking boots, a compass, and a weird little filter thing that looks terribly fragile to be in a survival store. You turn it over in your hands a few times before returning it to the bag carefully—you tend to break things. Maybe Artie can tell you what it does.

Deciding to begin with the bodies, you murmur apologies to them as you delve your hands into their pockets and zippers, pulling out as many useless personal trinkets as you do actual items. Some of these are pictures, echoes of a better life—you talk to them about it sometimes, smooth your thumb fondly over the face of an adorable little child, ask their name. These things are always returned to their proper places after you're done your investigation. You don't find much, maybe a few pieces of weather resistant clothing and some iodine tablets. One man, however, had a scary looking respirator with a whole plethora of straps and buckles slung over the back that you hasten to stuff into your own pack, wondering if it'll stop your head from hurting next time you clean.

The things left here are the useless stuff that people would have gladly carried away in a former life. Kayaks, snowshoes, expensive but ultimately pointless spandex gear. You rub the fabric between your fingers, captivated by how it feels, and even more so by the entertaining notion of how good it would look on somebody you know.

A quiet groan of pain pulls you from your thoughts. You glance through the ruined store, scanning the shelves for the culprit, but all the sick people stagger around as usual with no change in temperament. You're about to shrug it off as your (increasingly wild) imagination before it happens again, louder and achingly real. It piques your interest enough that you follow it carefully, not daring to breathe lest you lose the noise.

When you round the corner to the back of the room you smell it. Fresh blood.

The scent is so different, so distinct, that you nearly take off into a run, only reigning yourself in when your excitement covers the sound. It's when you're nearly on top of him do you pick up the flutteringly weak thud of his dying heart, barely pulsing where it pushes out its precious charge onto the cold floor. You halt and stare down at the body that you realize is a man. A once handsome man in his mid twenties with a ragged beard and piercing blue eyes.

He looks up at you, resigned to his fate, but his breath hitches when he sees the curiosity on your features. "You... you're not... one of t-t-them." He gasps out, the wheeze of his punctured lung making him struggle for breath.

"No." You say flatly though it sounds distinctly like a lie. You bend down to a crouch so you can see him better, looking over the wound hidden by his ripped shirt. A clean, long cut, peppered with little deeper ones. One of them didn't do this...

"H-help... me." He begs, his hand latching around your ankle. The heat of his skin startles you and makes you flinch back, snarling as if a wounded animal and drawing into yourself. He poses no threat, but is a stranger, somebody without good hands that tries to touch your flesh.

This wound is permanent. The smell of death has already begun to creep upon him, cloaking him like a shroud, slurring into his words. There is nothing you could do (would do) to help him now, and he must see it in your expression—tears spring to his eyes and he chokes down a sob, reaching for you again though you have shuffled from him.

"P-please, I-I don't... wanna d-d-die!" He whimpers, another spurt of blood pumping from his wounds. Some part of you must take pity on him, surely, for you lean so close to his face that you can smell his sweet, iron breath, face blank.

"It's okay." You say, reaching over and covering his mouth with one of your hands. "It won't hurt." Almost in a trance you pinch his nose with your other hand, squeezing hard and fighting for control as he thrashes weakly upon the floor. Once or twice you see the dull glint of bone from under the layers of his flesh and it makes that ache in you grumble in feral anticipation, knowing something your mind evidently does not. His body eventually goes still, twitching once or twice before deflating with a solid huff of air.

You know death is messy, but you crinkle your nose as the distinct scent of piss lingers in the room. The blood doesn't bother you, nor does the thick slobber he's smeared all over your palm, but somehow this taints the moment. You wipe your wet hands on his shirt, mumbling a quiet sorry when it leaves a stain. He doesn't mind.

Part of you wants to get up, to move on before the first light of dawn breaks through the city, but a greater portion of you is entranced by the way the dim lights of the overhead bulb flicker on his wound and makes it glow ruby red, just like you as you bled and bled and bled today. You reach out and dip your fingers in the great cleave, smearing it all over your fingers, bringing it to your lips to taste. It is coppery and tangy in a way that you can't explain but the ache inside you quivers in delight so you stuff your fingers into your mouth, laving your own tongue greedily over your fingernails to suck up every last bit. All too soon it is gone and you're left with nothing but the distinct want for more.

Without thinking you get down on your hands and knees, your tongue licking a long stripe up the length of his weeping wound. His cleaved flesh is still hot on your tongue, the skin salty and damp, and a wave of chills lance up your spine to your neck as you force yourself in deeper, spreading his side for better access. Your tongue touches bone so you retract, moving outwards to the meat over his ribs.

Your teeth anchor before you think about it with any rationality of a human being and you're pulling, gnawing on the tough flesh, using your hands to push back so that your jaw can clamp on properly and rend. It separates from him with the sound of tearing wet cardboard, its warmth invading your mouth, chewing desperately past fat and cartilage until your stomach receives its first bite.

What seems like moments after your belly is full and satiated, your face and hands covered in blood. It has dripped down onto your shirt and speckled upon your ill-fitting jeans, slimy and warm to the touch. You sit on your haunches and stare wordlessly at the gaping hole in his side; almost black flesh in some places contrasting with the nubile-white gleam of his bone, marks from your teeth creating ragged holes into his body. The sickly gleam of his organs can be seen now, poking out through the weakened wall of his muscle, bloated and wrong with the strain. His essence sits heavily in your chest, taunting your gorge.

You retch.

Well, you try to. You heave and heave and make wet, choking sounds but nothing comes out. Your body has clamped onto the first bit of true sustenance you've had in weeks (months?) and refuses to let it go no matter how much your mind screams at you now that you have given it back its rightful place upon its broken throne. You even stick your fingers down your throat, but they just taste of blood, and nothing happens—it all reminds you of him—and it hurts in your head, all this thinking and hating and guilting. (You thought you lost that feeling. You don't want it back.)

After a while you drag yourself up from the floor, holding your hands out in front of yourself like they are some diseased animal, seeking running water. You find it in the dingy little bathroom where a woman stands facing the wall, making wounded little noises and mindlessly scratching at the plaster. You ignore her and desperately scrub at the red that has sunk into your skin, pumping all the soap in the world until the tile is a mess of pink bubbles, doing the best you can to pick it from under your fingernails. Then you dunk your head under the scalding spray, filling your mouth with soap in an effort to wipe away the taste of him. Little shreds of his skin are still stuck in your teeth and you dig out the knife you found earlier to get them out.

In the end, you find a better fitting pair of pants—black, cargo, with so many pockets you don't know what to do with yourself—and a long sleeved shirt with a simple tank underneath it. Your arm has healed enough that you don't need endless acres of bandage anymore, just a few winds around that don't show under the sleeves. It still hangs awkwardly from you in places, but at least it doesn't drown you. Your bare feet are now covered by a brightly colored pair of running shoes, tightly laced and comforting. Looking at them makes you feel good, normal. Free of the invisible blood you bear.

Dawn has broken, for you spent more time on that floor than you thought, and you hesitate only a moment before pulling a bike from the racks and breaking the clamps that wind through the spokes with a heavy weight. It's too late to try and get back on foot—since some of them wake with the sun, they'll have known you've been gone for ages. Less time gone means less panic. (The fact they worry at all is nice.)

You sling your heavier backpack onto your shoulders—the lighter one you picked up along the way hangs from your front. It's awkward, maybe, but as you start those first wobbly feet through the store, you know it's the best thing that's happened to you in a while.

The wind whips through your hair and produces the first genuine grin that you can remember, standing up from your seat and using your wasted muscles to propel you further through the streets. It burns in a good way, a healthy way, something you can be proud of as you weave past the dead bodies and potholes that litter your new existence. In the reflection of the little bell attached to your bicycle you can see that a healthier flush has returned to your cheeks, your eyes appearing brighter than they were a few hours ago. You know exactly why that is but steadfastly ignore it, instead peddling faster and faster until all you can focus on is the brutal thump of your heart, leaping through your ribcage and out into the open air.

You screech to a halt by the compound, almost tipping over as your wheels bite into the ground and send you skidding for a few feet. On the outside it seems unassuming, just another grey building in a sea of similar looking complexes, but you know it hides secrets from you. Sometimes you will suddenly remember doing an action before in another life, whether it be brushing your teeth or sweeping the floor or simply staring at the ceiling. The nuances of the reason are still hidden to you, and you're not sure you ever want to know.

Leaning your bike up against the wall, you quietly push on the door that you left through, cursing when you remember you locked it. All the windows are boarded up on the bottom floor and the noise will draw the sick, while the top windows are much too far out of your reach. Maybe if you were feeling a bit more daring you could try and crawl into one of those open ones at the very top, but there's no way up save for a broken drain that's so rusted it seems to be hanging on despite gravity saying otherwise. You decide to risk your life another day, instead resigning yourself to knocking on the front door.

The first time you do, nothing happens. You sigh and tap louder, glancing around suspiciously for any signs of movement. No breathing. Now you pound on the door, nearly leaping back when the frame rattles and you hear a hissed Brittany? come from the other side. As soon as you affirm the clinking lock is thrown to the ground and you're yanked inside, coming face to face with Mercedes, her expression so furious you think she'll combust.

"Brittany S. Pierce!" She yells at you, no longer caring about being quiet now that you are firmly inside and Sam has relocked the door. "What in God's name do you think you were doing? We've been worried sick about you!"

Ghosts appear out of the woodwork, their eyes peering accusingly at you, and you shrink a little in your spot.

"I'm sorry, I needed to go out."

"You coulda looked out a window or something!"

"All the windows are boarded—"

"Not the point." She snaps angrily, prodding your shoulder with one outstretched finger. You resist the urge to flinch. "Especially after passin' out on us, too! What were you thinking?"

Your mouth works soundlessly for a moment before you find your voice."I needed to go outside but the door closed on me so I started walking and it was really nice, and then I found this cool store and it had a lot of stuff in it that I wanted so I took it, and then I biked back. And there was a guy, too. I hurt him." She obviously didn't want your literal thoughts because her face remains unimpressed, so instead you pout sadly and mumble out another response. "I wasn't thinking?" you ask, more as a question than an answer.

"Damn right you weren't!" Mercedes takes you firmly by the shoulders, leaning in so close you can see the veins in her eyes. You hold your breath to erase the tangy scent of blood. "Never do that again, you hear?"

She seems mildly appeased by your nod, too nervous to do anything else. (You don't want to tell her you probably will, again and again, so you stay quiet and feel comforted by her concern.)

"Now," she rubs her hands together, staring at your backpack, "what did you bring home?"

You shrug off the front bag and both her and Sam descend on it, yanking out energy bars and leg pouches and rolls upon rolls of duct tape. Sam takes an energy bar and stuffs the entire thing in his mouth in one go, earning irate shouts from the others who have come out to see your spoils. Your boots are handed off to Rachel with a stern "mine" when she hugs them close to her chest, and you gingerly take out the strange looking filter and hand it over to Artie.

"Do you know what this does?" You ask him, walking over to where he's perched upon the desk at the front. He takes it carefully from you, turning it over and over in his hands, bringing it close to his face to read the fine print before his face lights up in a boyish smile. "You found a water filter!"

At your blank stare, he elaborates. "It purifies the water we drink." He says excitedly, bouncing in his seat the best he can. "It might not matter right now, but when we have to start finding our own or this water gets tainted, it might literally be the difference between life or death. You found a good one, too! Mike! Bring me to the workbench!"

Mike appears, shooting you a smile, and bends down, allowing Artie to sling his bony arms over his neck. They disappear down the stairs together, Artie dwarfed by Mike's broad shoulders.

Shadow materializes beside you, watching the others bicker over your spoils. "You said you found a bike?" She asks curiously; though her eyes are elsewhere, the rest of her body is tuned to you in the tilt of her head and the slant of her bones. You're not used to somebody paying so much attention and try to mimic her stance.

"It makes going anywhere a lot faster." You affirm, already missing the feeling of air flowing across your skin. "Dawn came really fast."

"Well yeah." She says, munching on an energy bar thrown to her in the chaos. "You were out for two days and woke up in the middle of the night."

You turn to her in alarm, jaw dropping slightly. "Two days?"

Shadow hums in confirmation. "Tina was beside herself. Thought she'd killed you. I said you were too fucking stubborn to die like that, and look at that, I'm right again. Fuckerman owes me a massage."

You're not entirely sure how to feel that they're taking bets on the stability of your heart, but you shrug it off anyway. Seeing them so happy for a change is nice, despite that primal instinct within you that snarls as they touch your things.

"I dunno how you do it, blondie, but keep doing it." Shadow continues. "We might actually survive this fucking nightmare if we keep getting hauls like this." She's found the survival pack that you crammed between the waistband of your cargo pants, and as her fingers brush the small of your back your whole body shudders, a small squeak escaping your mouth as her fingernails accidentally trail over your spine. She looks closely at you, studying the deep flush of your cheeks as you try to regain composure.

"You hungry? It's been a long time since you woke up."

You bite your lip, managing an ironic little smile that you somehow turn genuine. "I already ate."