"He's mine."
"You sure about it this time? It didn't go over so well before."
"Just trust me, hon, I've got this," Lorna reassures him, taking out a hatchet and planting a quick kiss on Derek's lips before sneaking up behind a walker near the creek.
Lilly and I roll our eyes as Derek looks on; blissful obliviousness rubbed on his face.
"I think I'm gonna be sick…" Lilly whispers to me as she sits against the rock while opening her mouth and sticking her finger in it. "How much do you want to bet that she's sleeping with him just to manipulate the guy into doing what she wants?"
"Yeah, well try telling that to him," I respond blandly, watching as he goes over to praise Lorna after taking the beast down. The two of us are sitting a good few yards away from them, so thankfully we don't have to sit and watch Lorna play around with the guy in the palm of her hand.
We're not being hypocrites, having just come off of getting together ourselves, because our relationship actually means something. I'd be willing to put down my life for Lilly, which isn't something that I'd ever normally be willing to do, and I have no doubt that she'd do the same for me. I care too much for her to just toss her aside and break her heart.
Lorna, on the other hand…
One of these days, she's going to make a move against him. Just when he completely, one hundred percent trusts her, that's when Lorna's going to strike Derek down and take over the camp. She practically told us that herself, but the two of us can't just go out and blab this to him openly – then Lorna would blab about us letting the walkers in, and then the whole thing would crumble apart.
"If nobody else will tell him, then it's got to be us," Lilly comments, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as they loot the walker over. "He'll die if we don't do something about it."
"Since when did the plan change to saving his life?"
I'm interrupted by a sharp whistle that catches our attention, as we look down to see that Derek's motioning for us to move up.
"Time to make some magic, I guess," Lilly remarks, picking up her rifle as she self-consciously makes sure that the right side of her head is completely covered up. Despite my reassurances that she looked fine and that nobody would give a rat's ass if her ear was blown off, it pains me to watch as she still doesn't believe it herself. I'll admit, it's nice to know that she's not always the stone-faced, serious, badass that Clem and I often saw – it was actually kind of endearing to know that she's still got her insecurities like the rest of us. But to see it bring her down so much… I'll need to make it a habit of making her damn sure that I'll be there for her, no matter what.
We're out in a tiny forest near main camp in Dallas looking for food and more people to join us, but so far we haven't had too much success. There was a dead fox back the way we came, but the walkers obviously got to it first. I'm hungry, not desperate. That thing barely even looked like a fox after the dead finished with it.
"Looks like we're taking the high ground. See anything yet?" I ask, crouching beside Lilly as we both come to a halt. There's still a bit of a climb until we get to the top, but there's no point in trying to get up there. Better to stick closer to Derek and Lorna.
Squinting her eyes and frowning, Lilly peers out into the distance, trying to find anything that'd be worth our time to chase.
"I think I see a… car?" she mentions, seemingly unsure of herself as I look to where she's pointing. Yep, definitely a car, and if you look closely enough… "Holy shit! It's running?!"
"Could be a trap, Lilly. Who knows what's waiting for us over there?"
"Hey, it's my job to be paranoid around here, remember?" she states, smirking as she quickly kisses me on the cheek. "We'll just take it slow, and watch our corners. Make sure nothing's getting the jump on us."
"If you say so…"
Pulling my pistol out in front of me, I follow in behind Lilly as we make our way down the rocky path; occasionally crunching some twigs under our feet as we move on. Every noise makes me cringe as we try this stealthy approach. Lilly's constantly on the lookout, but it still doesn't put me at ease.
What's even creepier is the fact that there's an older man and a young, teenage boy just sitting there in the front seat; idling the car as they flip through some books.
"Stay on my ass, Jane," Lilly tells me as we go up closer. We're still a bit above them, so if worse comes to worse we still have a height advantage.
"Absolutely."
I give her a goofy-looking smile as she turns around; shrugging my shoulders as if I've said nothing wrong.
"I'll stay on your ass all day long, Lilly."
"Are you trying to flirt with me right now?"
"Well, that depends," I acknowledge, whispering so that we can't be detected. These dudes aren't in a hurry – they can wait. "Is it working?"
"There's a time and a place for everything, Jane."
"Hmm… okay, how about right now? This looks like as good a spot as any!" I comment, patting the ground as her face flushes crimson. "Let's see if Lilly, the tiger in combat, is as wild while she's in – "
"Jane!" Lilly interrupts, glowing bright red from embarrassment. Isn't this just so much fun?
"Come on, it's not as if the walkers are going to care…" I purr, leaning my head on her shoulder as I kiss her busted ear. "You're cute when you get flustered, you know that? I'm just fucking with you, Lilly!"
"Yeah, that's the problem…"
"Ha! There ya go!" I chuckle quietly, calming myself down as we try and focus on the task at hand. One of the guys has his arm hanging out the window in boredom while the older man is leaned back in the seat; still completely unaware that we're here. "How do you wanna play this?"
"…these guys are way too close to our camp. Can't be a coincidence…" Lilly muses, reminding me of just how close by we really are. We're supposed to meet back at the front gates in an hour or so, but we'd better deal with these guys first. "I don't like the thought of people skulking around where we live. We've got the high ground on them, so we could potentially just shoot them from here…"
"No – not until we know they're guilty. We don't kill unless we have to."
"What good is that going to do if we walk up to them? They'll shoot us square in our faces!" Lilly argues, but I've got a bit of a plan set in my mind already.
"Here's an idea," I tell her, glancing over the rock one last time to check if they're still in the vehicle. "How about we get the surprise on them? We can ambush them before they draw their guns."
"Whatever you say, Captain Jane."
"No, it's Queen Jane, remember?" I smirk, reminded of our time spent at Houston Hills. "All hail the reign of Queen Jane! All of my subjects must swear fealty to their supreme ruler!"
"Hmph, you look more like a princess to me," Lilly tells me, rolling her eyes as she softly gazes upon me with those beautiful, chocolate-coloured eyes. "So if you're the queen, then what does that make me? The king?"
"Hell no, fuck the king! Hmm… nah, you can be the knight riding in on your valiant steed!" I dramatize, having a blast as we continue to distract ourselves from the world around us. I wish that I could do this all the time. "I knight you, Ser Lilly the Brave! May your adventures take you far and wide across the land! Now go and slay some walkers or something."
"You're having way too much fun with this, you know that?"
"I take my kicks when I get them," I tell her flatly, breathing in and out as I set myself up. "Let's do this."
….
The two men sit in the car patiently; neither of them moving as the teen lazily drums his fingers along the side of the car. The older gentleman tiredly rubs his eyes as he flips through another page of his book.
"Fucking hell… how long is this gonna take?" the boy complains, groaning as he leans his head back. "If I had known they were gonna be this long, then I would've brought a bag of Doritos or something! How much time is it to take over a small camp?"
"It's not that small, and your whining's only going to make it worse. So shut the hell up, would you?"
"Whatever, asshole… I don't even know why I bothered to come out with you…"
"Because you were told to, that's why," the old man sighs, shaking his head in exhaustion as he scans the pages again. "Suck it up, Todd. Trust me, you'd rather be stuck in here with me than out there scoping out the camp. Hell of a lot safer where the biters can't get to ya."
"I think that I'd rather be monster chow," Todd replies bitterly, opening up the passenger door and stretching his legs as he starts walking away.
"Where the hell are you going?!"
"Takin' a piss! What, did you want to follow me or something?!" he calls out, holding his arms out at his side as he backs into the woods. "Keep your panties on, nutjob! I'll be back in a few."
"God damn it…" the man huffs, shaking his head as he watches Todd until he's completely disappeared. He slouches in his seat as he squirms and tries to get comfortable; doing so until he's all snug. Once the old man's relaxed enough, he picks up the book again and tries to flip to the page that he remembers.
The man nearly shits himself when Lilly expertly jumps and slams onto the hood of the car; danger in her eyes as she holds her rifle warningly in her hands. The hood dents as a few small cracks appear in the windshield close to where she landed.
"Hands up, out of the car. Now," she commands darkly, holding the rifle out in front of her and aiming it directly at the guy through the windshield. Even with the glass between them, at this distance Lilly can't miss. "Don't make me repeat myself, or I'll have to get my backup to come down too."
"What the fuck… are you talking about?!"
Taking my cue, I jump off the rocky ledge and land on the back of the car; almost losing my balance but maintaining my fierceness as the man is startled once again. Seeing as he has no choice but to surrender, the man does as Lilly tells him and opens the side door with his hands held high.
"No need to get violent now, ladies…"
"No sudden moves, and we won't need to worry about that! Understand?!" Lilly snaps, shoving him forward with the barrel of her weapon as he collapses to his knees. "Now, we're going to wait for your friend to come back, and then you're going to answer some questions. If you cooperate, then maybe I'll forgive you for snooping out our camp around here."
The guy's gotta be in his mid-sixties, with greyish-white hair going down to his shoulders, wrinkly skin and a big, scruffy beard to match.
"Any weapons on you?" I ask, turning off the ignition as I place the keys in my pocket. Conserving the environment, you know?
"We've gotta defend ourselves, don't we?" he answers, looking back towards me. "There's a magnum revolver in the glove box, but that's it."
"You're lying," Lilly accuses, glaring a hole in the man as he frantically shakes his head. "There's no way that you'd come that unprepared. What are you hiding, and where's the rest of your group?"
"That's all that I've got, I swear! There's nothing else in that car except some canned stuff and – "
"These guys are packing a punch!" I interrupt, widening my eyes as I look through the trunk of the vehicle. Underneath a blue tarp is a fully-loaded shotgun, four handguns, an assault rifle and… what the fuck is this?!
As I hop back out beside them with some massive weapon with a big magazine strapped to it, Lilly shakes her head in disbelief, before her expression returns to her angered state.
This guy's gonna get a tongue lashing.
"Mind telling me why you'd need a fucking grenade launcher out in the woods?! What did you want to blow up, a fucking cliff?!" she bellows, scaring off some crows as they flee from their roost in the trees. "But you know what, asshole? I think I've already figured out the answer. You and your friend were going to destroy our camp with this thing!"
"We just have one standing by, in case we ever need it for protection!"
"He's lying, Jane!" my girlfriend snarls, and I can't help but agree with her on this one. There's no reason that anyone would be carrying this much artillery on them unless they were trying to attack. "Look at this shit! They're planning a god damn siege!"
"Well, what do you want us to do?"
"Kneel."
Turning our heads towards the noise, Lilly and I stare wide-eyed at the teen, who's shaking in his boots as Derek holds a gun to his head. Lorna's standing right beside him, looking as manipulative as ever (of course).
When he doesn't react straight away, Lorna steps up and kicks the kid at the back of his knees; falling flat on his face into the mud as the crazed woman presses her foot over his head.
"When he tells you to do something, you damn well listen, understand?!" she barks, making shake my head as I try to ignore Kenny's voice saying those exact same words. I have to keep reminding myself that he's dead now, and he can't hurt anyone else with his reckless abandon.
We've got an entirely new problem to deal with now.
"Come on Lor, that's enough," Derek tells her, as she reluctantly lifts her foot up and grabs the kid's collar roughly; yanking him upwards. She's not a very nice lady. "Looks like you guys found some trash lying around. Good work – have they told you what they're after yet?"
"This one won't give me a straight answer," Lilly remarks, nudging the old man with her weapon. "Jane found a whole stash of weapons in the trunk – definitely military standard."
"The name's Bryce, by the way…"
"Fine, Bryce won't give me a straight answer."
Flashing Bryce a dangerous glare, Derek walks up to the guy before bending down to his height and lifting the man's chin up.
"My friend here asked you a question," he barks, surprising me with his choice of words. Friend? When did that change happen, and more importantly, why doesn't he still treat us like a couple of insects as he said he would? I mean, it's only been three weeks or so – we couldn't have moved up that quickly!
"FUCK OFF, YOU STUPID PRICK! WE DON'T HAVE TO TELL YOU JACK SHIT!" Todd yells at the top of his lungs, sounding like a whiny, little brat who just wants some attention from his mommy and daddy.
Knowing that this wouldn't end well if left unchecked, I sternly look towards Bryce before pulling out more of the weapons. They've got all kinds of dangerous shit back here!
"You might want to settle your dog down," I mock, calling from the trunk as I scavenge through their stuff. "I can't promise that they won't put him down if he keeps going at this rate."
"…Todd… just quit it, alright?" Bryce relents, seeing as how there's nearly no possible hope of escape at this point. "Make it easier on yourself, son. Sometimes it pays to know when to give in…"
"Spoken like a true quitter!"
"No, spoken like a true survivor," Derek comments, shaking his head as Todd outbursts once again. "Now tell me, Bryce… Why are you here?"
"…we've been trying to find a new place to stay," he explains, his voice muffled through the side of the car. "Ever since a few months ago, things have just started going downhill – well, more than they were already. We stopped getting shipments of supplies from a prison out in Mexico, but at first we just figured that the roads may had been blocked or something. Three more months rolled by and still there wasn't anything, so we sent out a scouting party of about seven or eight to go through Houston and see what the trouble was. Only one of our guys came back…"
"Who were you getting the supplies from?" Lilly questions, even though I already have an inkling of what the answer might be.
"The guy's name was Sandro," Bryce admits as I bang my head on the roof of the car. "Big, mean-looking guy. Had the eyes of a hawk and didn't take shit from anybody. The way I heard it, he worked his people to the bone out at some prison near the border."
"Well, he's not doing that shit anymore," I say bitterly, rubbing my head as I start to bring out the last of their weapons. Bryce widens his eyes as realization hits him.
"Y-you?!"
Lilly and I just retain our neutral faces as Bryce scoffs in disbelief. He's probably wondering how a couple of women could've possibly even laid a finger on the bastard, but we'd need a whole afternoon to explain every detail.
"What do you mean only one of them came back?" Derek interjects, choosing to ignore the whole Sandro thing – we've been over that scenario with him a dozen times before. "Lurkers? Sounds to me like you people weren't great at defending yourselves."
"No… it wasn't the dead that got them…" Bryce shakes his head. "The man who came back… he died shortly after from bullet wounds. He told us that some little bitch and another guy were sniping at them from the roof. A few more of our guys went into the building to shoot up the place for killing our men, but they never came back out."
Huffing and rolling her eyes, Lorna swears under her breath before forcing the teen to his feet and plopping him right beside Bryce on the ground.
"I think we've heard enough of your ghost stories," she says sarcastically, wanting nothing more than to kill them and be done with it. "If they don't have any useful information, then we should just take their stuff and get back to the base. You don't want to leave it undefended, do you Derek?"
"No, no, please! I'm telling you the truth, and nothing but the truth!" Bryce pleads, not wanting his life to end just yet. I'm sure that he fears for the boy's safety as well. "It was in downtown Houston, and it was HUGE! From what we were told, they had electricity and was high up enough that the walkers would have trouble getting to it! You've gotta believe me!"
"Oh, I believe you," Derek calmly nods, placing a careful hand on Bryce's shoulder. "I also believe that you lied to my friends about your weapons, and that more of you are going to storm our camp."
"They already have…"
"Todd, shut the fuck up…"
Hearing the roar of gunfire and soft screams echoing in the distance, Derek immediately stands up; getting alarmed as Todd chuckles darkly on the ground.
"Better hurry… they won't last too long without the big boss to keep them safe."
"…kill them, or let them live. I don't care," Derek remarks, turning on his heel and starting to sprint away with Lorna hot on his trail. "Just get back to the camp! We need you two!"
This is a bit of a conundrum, that's for sure. No doubt about it, this would be the absolute perfect time to ditch the camp and set off on our own – with nothing to hold us down.
But now that I think about it… there actually is something holding us back.
"We can't…" I groan, getting frustrated as I think about what they've done for us so far. Sure, they might be assholes back at the camp who may have at one point dealt prisoners for supplies… but apparently nobody's innocent around these parts. How many groups there were in this trade exactly I'm not too sure, but out of all the groups that I've met… this one's kept their word.
Despite being taken her against our will, that camp is our home right now. There's absolutely no telling where Clementine might be, or if she's even alive, so going on a wild goose chase trying to find the girl would be stupid. Clem's smart – I've no doubt that she's alright somewhere, safe and sound.
Taking off in a car now… what would be the point?
"You're sure about this?" Lilly asks calmly, not giving the reaction I was originally expecting at all. "Whatever we do, Jane, we do it together. I'll go where you go – it's your decision."
"…let's wait it out a little while longer," I remark, not wanting to just take off without a damn good idea of what's out there. Houston Hills was burned to crisps, so what else could be there? "See how it goes."
As we glance at our captives, I can't help but feel slightly bad for the two of them. Sure, they've got enough weapons to fill a small army, but were they actually doing anything to us? No, they were just sitting put in a car, waiting for their comrades to come back.
"You know where this place is?" Lilly asks pointedly at Bryce, who seems to be lost in his own little world. "Hey, eyes front! The place in Houston, do you know where it is or what?!"
"Umm… I might be able to find it for you. Like I said, it's only based on what our man told us," he admits, glancing over at Todd as he wipes the mud off of his face.
"Good enough for me," Lilly says as she forces the two to their feet, noticing too late that Todd's clenching his fists.
When he's fully upright, the boy uppercuts Lilly right in the jaw before sprinting off into the woods; leaving Lilly on her back as he neglects the weapons in the car. Bryce makes a move to leave as well, but I fire a bullet right at his feet and startle the man into submission.
"Don't even think about it," I order, making him get into the back seat of the car while I wait for Lilly to get up. "You alright?"
"Ugh… fucker's got a mean left hook, that's for sure…" she whines, rubbing her jaw as she shakes it off like the tough bitch I know she is. I mean that in the kindest way possible.
As I slam the trunk closed and hand the keys over to Lilly, I climb into the car and sit right beside Bryce; aiming my pistol at him the entire time as we drive towards the camp. If things go south, then we could at least have some sort of a guide to help us find this so-called magical place out in downtown Houston.
"You're lucky that we didn't kill you today – after lying about the guns," I warn the man, who simply looks down at his lap and says nothing. "But you're smart for keeping your cool. Your friend there was asking for trouble."
As we get back onto the main road and get closer to the camp, Lilly widens her eyes as she glances upon the place.
"Jane… you might want to get a look at this," she tells me, causing me to turn my gaze for just a moment. "We might need to pack our bags after all…"
Bryce looks ahead with a small smirk as I witness the various explosions going on at the front gate, the wooden buildings, everything. It's all getting blown to smithereens. Chunks of wooden support beams go flying as the battle rages on – I can't even tell who's friend and who's foe anymore.
Lilly puts the car in park as our noses are assaulted with the smell of fire – I'm glad that we didn't just abandon these people to their fates. The old me may have done so, but the new me cares about certain people.
Our home is under attack.