"Hey, Carol?" I say to her the next morning, plucking my Vaseline-slick bowstring as my friend steps over Carl and me, who are lounging on the stairs and thinking of reasons why we shouldn't have to clean. "Can I go huntin'?"

"I don't know. Think your dad'd let you?"

"He don't need to know." I'm only half-joking. I'm losing my mind here in the C Block. But Carol just laughs a little and continues up the stairs. I listen to her footsteps until I'm sure she's in the cell she's sharing with Lori, and then my eyes fall to Carl, on the step below me. "I hate this."

"It's like my dad said. If something happens to them, you and me are the only fighters we'll have left."

I scowl. "Nothin's gonna happen to them." Them meaning the five from yesterday, plus Hershel, who insisted he come along as they clear more of the prison, as they find the caf, the infirmary, all the other useful places, if there are any others to be found.

"Something could happen, Syd," Carl feels the need to remind me.

"Yeah, well, it won't . . . Wish you'd quit talkin' like that."

So he drops it, and I cradle my bow, thinking back to just twenty minutes ago, back to watching the six of them equip themselves with the new armor and weapons they'd gotten from around the prison, mostly off the bodies of the guard-walkers. Grenades, helmets. Carl tried on a helmet, actually, only to have Rick take it from him. That's when Carl and I found out that we weren't going. Hershel was going – and Hershel's almost never on the front lines – but Carl and I would be staying here. You ask me, the look that passed between Rick and Lori right before Rick announced this had something to do with it. Those two may not talk much anymore, but they sure look at each other all the time. And a lot of things can come across with just your eyes.

Lori . . .

I crane my head back to make sure she's not hanging over the balcony above us. My voice lowers as I press into a talk neither of us will enjoy. "Talk to your mom lately?

I feel Carl tense. Well, I don't know, feel might not be the right word. We're not touching, but something about him changes, hardens, and a tiny shift happens in the air. And he doesn't answer, Carl. Which means no. And also let's not talk about it.

I talk anyway, in spite of my being not so good with conversations like these. "Probably mean a lot to her if you would."

He pulls his hat down over his face. I roll my eyes, can't help it. "Fine," I say, attempting to tighten an already-tight screw on my bow, "Forget I said anything."

We talk about a lot, Carl and me. But there are tender subjects, and Lori's one of them. And Shane. And that night when we left the farm in flames, the night Rick killed Shane and Carl put down Shane the walker. His first. And how, ever since then, Carl's been distancing himself from Lori more and more, so much that sometimes, and always for just a second, I forget that he still has two parents, and that's one thing he and I just don't have in common. No matter how he feels about her, his mother's alive.

My mother's one of the tender subjects, too.

I raise my bow, pull the string back, feel the tension and the power I hold in my hands. Enjoy it. "Think I might need to bring up my draw weight. Arm wrestle me?"

"No way."

I grin, guiding the string back to its natural position. "Why, scared of the day I beat ya?"

Just under the brim of his hat, I see a smile try to fight its way out. "You're never gonna beat me."

"Then arm wrestle me. I've been doing pushups when I can, I need to see if I've gotten stronger –"

The door in the next room clangs open.

They shouldn't be back this soon.

"He's losing too much blood –"

High pitched scraping from over there, and Carl and me are on our feet, on the floor, and my heart's dropped and racing, Beth's rushed out of her cell –

"Open the door! It's Hershel!"

Rick, on the other side of the iron bars separating the two rooms. Rick, with a stretcher in front of him, a stretcher with Hershel on it, and I'm across the floor beside Carl as he reaches through the bars and unlocks the door with his dad's keys and lets them all in, his dad and Maggie, and Beth screams, and Glenn's here, too, and Carol, and Hershel's on a stretcher, oh Hershel, blood, blood –

I stumble backwards as they wheel the stretcher into a cell, fast, those wheels screeching and everybody talking and yelling, and it's loud. A harsh slam – T-Dog shutting the door, leaving himself on the outside. I open my mouth to ask him what's going on, and where my dad is, but then Dad himself appears at the door just as T-Dog darts away from it, darts around the corner. My fingers go through the bars and grasp Dad's vest. I think I ask what happened, or something. Dad's in a hurry, and I don't know why, I just know his gaze is above me and he squeezes my hand but then pulls it from him, and meets my eyes long enough to tell me to stay here, just stay here, and then he's gone, gone after T-Dog, and I'm alone, alone with some part of the world falling to pieces behind me.

Then I'm by the cell, watching from the outside, seeing what I can see through everyone else. They're packed in there tight. They're moving Hershel to the bed. Hershel's unconscious. Beth's asking if he's going to die, and there's a squishing sound, a red-and-white towel, gasps, Carol by Hershel's legs. Leg. Only one leg. Hershel's missing a leg. A ragged stump where his knee used to meld with his shin is all that's left. A stump and blood. Lots of blood. Carol needs bandages. We've used all we have. Carol says to get more. Get anything. Lori tells Carl to go bring the towels from somewhere, somewhere. Carl nearly runs into me. He says my name. I say I'm fine, I tell him to go, he runs again, up the stairs, and now I can't see Hershel anymore. I've backed up against the wall on the opposite side of the room, far away from the cell, my palms and back flat against the rough wall, because somewhere between this being Hershel and this being an old man covered in blood and this being about a missing limb, things have gotten a little too personal for me and I hate people blood, I hate real, living people blood, I hate it. I want to sit on the ground but don't. Can't let myself sink that low. But I have to fight to keep my legs steady and good, I admit it, I have to fight.

I hear words from the cell. There's talk of starting a fire. Cauterizing, oh God. But no, Carol says no, the shock could kill him and it won't help much anyway. Carol, she knows some of this stuff because she's supposed to help Hershel when Lori has the baby. But what if Hershel can't – what if –

The words too much blood.

There's yelling from the next room and it's not Dad or T-Dog, it's not – that doesn't make sense –

To the stairs, to my bow. My quiver's already on my shoulder, my release on my wrist. The light weight of my weapon in my hand balances something inside of me I didn't know was off. I'm bolting for the door when I hear, "Sydney, no."

I stop automatically, because it's an order from Rick, and I whirl to see him standing just outside of Hershel's new cell, along with Glenn. "What was that?" I ask sharply.

"Prisoners."

"Living ones?"

"Yes." His words are short, and he's speaking to Glenn now. Whispering. "Do not leave his side. If he dies, you need to be there for that."

If he dies. Hershel. If Hershel dies.

Glenn, his face is odd. Not hard, not soft, not sad or anything, really. Not any one thing. A lot of things.

Rick sees. "Think you can do this? Maggie'll be there."

Glenn –

My throat and tongue are dry, but my voice still sounds like me. "I'll do it. If I have to. If he . . ." I can't finish that sentence and so I just nod instead. They'll understand, of course.

But Glenn shakes his head at me. "No, Syd, it's okay." And to Rick: "I got it."

His voice is too raspy.

"I can bring T in here –"

"I got it."

So Rick he runs for the door, and Carl's suddenly behind him with the keys, and he locks the door as Rick disappears around the bend, and I move forward as Carl moves back and I nock an arrow and listen, but not to the too much blood talk, I listen to the yells in the next room. My dad's the first one I hear.

"There ain't nothin' for ya here, why don't you go back to your own sandbox and –"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Rick. "Everyone relax, there's no need for this."

"How many of you are in there?" A strange voice asks. This voice sends chills all through me, and not just because the tone sounds less-than-friendly, but because it's a strange voice. And my ears don't hear those anymore. Ever.

"Too many for you to handle," Rick answers, and that little exchange pretty much sets the mood for the rest of the conversation.

. . . . .

Dad and T-Dog and Rick take the prisoners outside to see the courtyard. To prove this new world's real. When I hear the door shut, I trudge back over to the steps, rubbing my face. Carl steps out of the cell-turned-hospital and together we lean on the stair railing, too amped up to sit down.

"What'd you hear?"

"There're at least five of 'em," I say. "And at least one of 'em has a gun. They've been in the cafeteria for two-hundred-ninety-somethin' days. They didn't know . . . Hell, Carl, they asked for a cell phone." He doesn't laugh and neither do I. "They're goin' out to the courtyard now. Wanna see the walkers, 'cause I don't think they really believe it . . . That's the last I heard."

Beth leaves the Hershel cell. Her eyes are red, her face is puffy, it's the whole works. I lower my gaze when she catches it and I wait until she's gone before I speak to Carl again. "I didn't hear, what – what exactly happened to Hershel?"

"He got bit. My dad cut his leg off. Thought it might keep him from turning . . . But now he won't wake up."

If Rick didn't cut the leg off in time, Hershel will die and become a walker. If Rick cut the leg off in time but the stump bleeds out, Hershel will die and become a walker. If Hershel dies and becomes a walker, Glenn will have to put him down, unless he can't – he says he can, but if he can't – then I will, I said I would. I can't even go into the cell, and yet I've pledged to put Hershel down if it comes to it. Which was stupid.

I brush past Carl. "I'm gonna go read somethin'."

I read and I shoot. Those are my things. I did both before the walkers came – didn't shoot with a bow, but still – but now both practices are lifelines, not just time killers. And since I can't go anywhere to shoot right now, that means my only option is to sink into a storyline that can crash and burn as much as it likes without affecting my life one bit. I'll only be an observer who can close the book and leave the feelings behind whenever she pleases.

In my cell, I unzip my backpack and dig out my books. The number's grown and shrunk over the past months, but I have four at the moment: A novel of Stephen King short stories, a supposed thriller the old world would probably sell for three bucks, On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and a gluten-free cookbook I will never, ever use but can't get rid of because it reminds me of my mother.

I go through each of these books, reading – rereading, really – each one of them for about five minutes, and that's what it takes for me to accept that I will not be able to stop thinking about Hershel, or the prisoners, or my dad, and I need to suck it the hell up and get over to that cell in case the worst happens and I have to be the one to –

My hands crush Plum Creek.

Where the hell are my dad and the others?

I stack the books on the top bunk and press my head into the mattress up there, breathing. In, out, in, out, simplest thing in the world, but sometimes it gets hard, anyway.

Hershel can't die. He can't. I love Hershel, and Maggie and Beth love Hershel, and this group, we don't lose people anymore. Not since that last night on the farm. We've done everything to prevent it and none of us deserve to die.

I hear our door open at the same time T-Dog's familiar voice says, "Food's here," and relief washes over me, but then I come out and see that T-Dog – his arms filled with two packed boxes – is with only one other person, and it's Rick, and I wait for my dad to appear after them, but he doesn't. T-Dog lists the food they have for a damn near drooling Carl and I don't hear any of it, because I've noticed that Rick's hands are covered in blood –

It's Hershel's blood. Hershel's. Not Dad's.

Deep breaths.

"A lot more where this came from . . ." T-Dog promises as he carries the armload across the room, to a cell near the back. Rick, his own hands full with bags of corn, stops to ask Lori and Glenn about Hershel.

"Bleeding is under control and no fever," Lori replies, and she sounds good here, but then her voice turns to a whisper. " . . . But his breath is labored and his pulse is way down and he hasn't opened his eyes yet."

Rick gives Glenn his handcuffs and says to put them on Hershel. Rick's not taking any chances. He hands the corn off to T-Dog and Carl, and I – calmly – ask, "Rick, where's my dad?"

"He's fine, Sydney. He's with the prisoners."

He's fine. Rick and T-Dog left him alone with a group of most likely dangerous strangers, convicts, no less, but he's fine.

"Yeah, uh, what about those prisoners?" Lori's stepped up next to me, and by the way her arm is sort of guiding Rick to the side without actually touching him, I'm guessing I'm not meant to be a part of this conversation. So I step away, and for a moment I'm in between Lori and Rick, Carl and T-Dog, and the cell Hershel's in, and I feel like I'm floating in a dangerous sea and I just want to head for my lifeboat, my cell, the books I don't want to read.

I'm better than that, though. I am. That's why I make my heavy boots move me over to Hershel's cell and I edge into the doorway. Only Carol and Glenn are in here with him right now. Maggie's probably gone to wherever Beth is.

A long time ago, I had a little toy horse made of wax. My mother said not to play with it, because it was pretty fragile, but I played with it anyway and its leg ended up snapping off, and then that horse that had once looked so brave and noble was broken and just not the same anymore. And that's Hershel now. Hershel's broken. Not the same anymore. The towel wrapped around his leg is soaked in blood. He's pale. He doesn't look alive. He's breathing, I can see it in his chest, but like Lori said, it's shallow. Barely there.

I'm overwhelmed by the emptiness in my left hand. I forgot my bow back in my cell, and with each second that passes in here with Hershel, I miss it more. My fingers go to the revolver in my belt, just for a light touch . . .

Breath on my shoulder. Carl's next to me. He gives me a look that says we should talk, and so I give Glenn a parting glance and follow Carl to the cell that I guess is now food storage. We pass Lori on the way, but Rick and T-Dog are gone again.

I look over the two boxes of food, see labels for vegetables and meat and soup, but my stomach's only reaction is to give a little twist that means Food Not Welcome. "What's up?"

"My mom wants us to organize the food."

I sigh. "Oh, good. As long as we're doing something really important."

Carl checks outside the door before stepping closer to me, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to really keep eye contact and the brim of his hat is almost touching my forehead. "Let's go find the infirmary," he says. "You and me."

I shut my eyes. "Carl . . ."

"Hershel needs medical supplies, Sydney. Our dads and T-Dog are clearing a cell block for the prisoners –"

"Wait, what?"

"My dad told my mom that they're helping them clear out a cell block of their own."

I'd assumed we'd make the prisoners leave . . . "They'll be living right beside us? Here in the prison?"

"Look, that doesn't matter right now," Carl says impatiently, and he's wrong, but he doesn't pause to hear my opinion. "Hershel's best chance is if we get to that infirmary and see what we can find."

I shake my head, staring at the ground, playing with my release trigger. Snap, click. Snap, click. I want to say no. We go for that infirmary, we'll meet with walkers. Maybe a few, maybe a lot. Maybe more than we can handle.

But if we don't go and Hershel dies . . .

Dale.

It's different, I know it's different. But then, it's not.

"We can't tell 'em we're goin'," I say.

"Of course not."

I sigh again. "I'll get my bow."