Disclaimer: They don't belong to me, which sucks; but I'm gonna to take them out of the box and play with them before their creator gets home shhh don't tell!

Notes: HUGE thanks to the readers! Can't believe we've almost got 100 reviews already, everyone of them is a joy to receive you guys are awesome, thank you so much!

This is a short chapter, so I'm going to give you this one and Chapter 16!

Chapter 17 wont be up till at least Wednesday at least;

it got a re-write and had to go back to my lovely beta! : P

I'm working on the second half of NV now and it's starting to come together. ; ) I hope that by the time I post chapter 20 I'll have 21-30 done and the updates can continue regularly. As always if your not sure when an update is coming or what's going on with a story you can check my profile page on here where each story is listed with notes.

Thanks to my Beta, the ever awesome Angelinaa! Am I 3/3 yet dear?! Muhahahaha!

Now, On with the story!

Chapter Fifteen

(Fin's POV)

The house is still asleep as I make it home—but just barely.

I leave my car in the driveway remembering not to block Phil even with the throbbing agony I'm in. I manage to stumble up the walkway, keys clenched in my fist to the front door.

Mr. Anders who's lived down the street from us for over fifteen years is walking his wife's dog down out sidewalk, it's one of those little hairy breeds the size of my mom's outdoor cat. It yaps at me like we don't meet like this at least three times a week.

He waves to me and I half raise my hand trying to appear normal, gritting my teeth against the pain. I watch him for half a second longer carrying on down the road feeling surreal after the morning I've had.

If it wasn't for the pain, the distinct damp cling of my fleece to my shoulder blade and down my arm I could believe standing here on the steps to my childhood home that this is just another early morning weekday. That my mom will be up any moment if she isn't already starting coffee and telling us how in May the kids are already bitten with summer fever…

Bitten.

I shudder the EMT staggering towards me dragging his intestines beneath him flashes over my vision—for a split second I am back there screaming and back pedaling from them both.

The doorknob twists under my palm, I leap back with a shriek barely managing not to actually scream seeing it's Phil. He stands on the other side of the door cocking his head down at me while I stare wide eyed at him, breathing too hard.

"Honey? Why are you just standing on the porch? Last night so bad you can't remember which key goes to the house?"

"Uh, Yeah. Something like that."

He steps aside watching me closely but lets me slip past him into the front hall without further comment. Then he moves out onto the sidewalk behind me walking out to retrieve the paper; just like every morning. He stops mid-return to wave and say good morning to the neighbors just leaving for work.

I can smell coffee and toast. My stomach turns as I move toward the stairs.

I start down the upstairs hall past Tobin's bedroom. His door is open about a foot I catch a glance of my not-so-little-brother still sprawled in sleep. The digits flashing on his clock tell me he's already hit the snooze button more than once.

He surprises me as I pass; one eye popping open rolling a bit in his head to focus on me in the hallway where I've stopped seeing that he's awake.

"I had a bizarre dream about you." He sounds half asleep still.

I scrunch my nose frowning down at him. "Should I be hearing this?"

He snorts. "Don't be a Perv Finny, it's a sin you know." He rolls off his stomach half sitting up scrubbing a hand over his face etched with sleep lines.

"Says the guy with girly magazines under his mattress…"

"Hey! Appreciation for the female form doesn't make me a Perv. It makes me seventeen."

"Tell that to Mom."

Tobin levels a still half asleep glare at me. "You're sour. Rough night?"

My shoulder throbs. "Yeah," I don't elaborate. Tobin is staring at me again gaze oddly serious for my usually jovial crack-up of a little brother.

"What?" I shift my feet. I need to get to the bathroom and deal with the wound in my arm before I pass out or bleed right through this jacket…Mom will skin me alive if I get blood on the rug…

"Dunno, I just know it was the weirdest dream…and I can't remember it all now…it's going kinda…fuzzy…" Tobin waves a hand vaguely in the air between us.

"Alright, well I'm going to take a shower and get some sleep while you ponder the wonderful weirdness that eating a whole bag of Doritos before bed gives you."

I continue down the hall Tobin's call of: "It was Captain Crunch!" following me to my room. I pause just outside my door when Tobin calls my name again.

"Finny?"

"Yeah?" He's standing one hand on his door wearing a rumpled high school band t-shirt and south park pajama pants our mother hates.

"Are you sure you're okay? You look…" He pauses tilting his head. "Freaked out."

I swallow. "Yeah, just…rough night."

He looks ready to say something else but Mom's voice floats up the stairs cutting him off.

"You'll be late, you should go eat."

"I'm a Senior!"

I snort rolling my eyes. "You'll still be late!"

I shut the door behind me dropping my bag onto the carpet. Then I move into the bathroom Phil added to my room when I was fourteen. The roof is a little too sloped in some places since he had to use part of the eave of the house to add it; but it was mine.

I haven't appreciated it quite as much recently; especially with my own apartment closer to the hospital…maybe I should have gone there; but I drove here on autopilot…This is still home; my apartment feels…Spartan; empty.

I strip off my bloody jacket to stare at the raw skin underneath.

I'm not dreaming. Standing in a yellow and sky blue accented bathroom with the muffled sounds of my mother downstairs staring at the blood dried on my skin… it's somehow more real…and yet distant at the same time; like it happened to somebody else despite the marks on my skin…the pain throbbing right through my bones.

It really happened, I turn and open the closet yanking out medical supplies that have made it home in my pockets on accident or that my mother has purchased over the years because growing up with Eric and Joe and Luke I've always been a banged-up bruised tom boy with more than one or two cuts and scrapes needing care.

I take the bottle of hydrogen peroxide twisting off the cap and turning on the shower, I set the bottle inside out of the spray of water, stripping off the rest of my clothing hissing in discomfort as pulling my tank top off pulls at my shoulder; makes it start bleeding a new…displays the long angry red scratches against my abdomen.

I step into the shower picking up the brown bottle and pouring a steady stream of clear liquid over my shoulder. Biting off a shouted curse gritting my teeth and locking my jaw. By the second and third pour I give up trying and just curse like a drunken angry sailor.

Dropping the F-bomb under my mother's roof makes it feel somehow even more taboo and satisfying. There's a muffled knock on my door, I can just barely make out a voice over the running water.

"I'm fine!" I grit my teeth, desperately trying to believe that watching the pink tinted water slide down the drain between my toes.

I pull my eyes open stare unfocused in the direction my face is turned for a few moments slightly disoriented at this angle. The world broken up into multiple green and brown diamonds of pale tawny mesh. I lie still listening to birds call back and forth to each other in the trees thinking of Judith…and then Maggie an infinite sense of loss stabbing at me just behind my ribs. I suck in a deep breath and shove those thoughts away, bury those emotions down deep so I wont have to deal with their fallout just yet...if I'm clever maybe not ever.

I'm not even sure where I would start.

I raise a hand rubbing at my eyes carefully holding the netting against my hips as I sit up, bracing my hands now against the tree limb I hung my hammock from last night to sleep.

It was dangerous to stop; but I was too exhausted to keep going. I can't waste any time getting down from here though. It's precious time I now don't have to spare; especially if he pressed on through the night…and I know him…I know his determination…his grit. I doubt he stopped for even a few moments even as futile as tracking in the dark can be. There will be very little distance between us now.

I have to move, and quickly if I'm going to avoid him; I don't want to be forced to defend myself against him…I already know I can't do it.

If he catches me out here he'll just have to kill me…

I can't hurt him.

Even with my life hanging in the balance… it's not possible. Even thinking it fills me with an emotion that nears hysteria. I shift up over the branch straddling it feeling it pull and pick at my thin scrubs bottoms instantly missing my sturdy and thick cargo pants…I miss the pockets too.

I untie the hammock wind it up as fast as I can and shove it into my pack before shimming down the tree branch towards the Vee in the trunk it juts out from, no time for grace or theatrics today-it's all about safety and speed. Once there I brace my weight and hook the harness I never removed through the rope I looped over the thickest section of the trunk yesterday and quickly propel myself down as fast as I dare. I stop just short of the bottom before dropping the last bit—I don't want to risk jarring my ankles knowing I'll have to run most of today to get ahead of him again.

I need to circle out to find a car; get to a hardtop road that doesn't leave tracks or a body of water; a stream, or creek that feeds into one of the nearby rivers I can force him to lose my trail in.

I've never felt more hunted.

Because that's what he's doing following me out here: he's hunting me like it's a game.

They have Carl now; the only reason to continue out here is to hunt me down.

I don't know if the rest of them are still with him or if he's alone. It's far worse for me if he is—he can move faster alone, knows my tricks and how I move from so many long days spent in the woods together.

Hunting; camping; goofing off in the short days of fall gathering berries and seeds, enjoying the cool afternoons in winter in the woods behind the warehouse; the long bright green early days of summer spent near the lake where I first found Carl so long ago…

It never occurred to me he might use those long hours spent in each other's company, all our time lost together in the trees to track me down…

Those stolen moments alone used to feel like such a blessing; a minute foray into a world that no longer existed

It's too late now that I realize my mistake; in lowering my guard with him completely-spending every waking moment with him over the last year I've taught him all my tricks, every skill I know-I even started teaching him martial arts...and he'll use them all against me-already is in pursuing me.

I've created the path and instrument in my own destruction.

I stuff the last of the rope into my pack zippering it shut and slinging it over my back; stomach growling in empty protest that I have to ignore. I have to run if I want to live.

So I run.

:: Walking Dead ::