We keep to the forest for the whole morning. I walk ahead of Dad and Merle, who mutter back and forth with each other but don't bother trying to talk to silent me, except for when Dad says to turn a different direction. I keep my head low and mind but never say anything back. And then there's also the couple of times Dad calls me to them and makes me drink from his canteen. I don't say anything then, either. I'm not talking to Dad. I may never talk to him again. I may never talk again at all, because why should I?

The trees give pretty good shade, but it's still hot. Bugs bite me all over, and my hair sticks to my neck and on my arms because I don't have a ponytail holder. That's irritating, I guess, but everything like that, it's still distant in that strange way. The only things really close to me are my fury at Dad and Merle and the devastating hurt in my chest that doesn't let me forget for a second that I'll never see the prison again. Or anybody in it. These are the only things really here with me as I trudge through the forest, and all the rest of life is just background noise.

The sun's almost straight above us when a whistle comes from behind me and I look back to see Dad holding the canteen out. I obediently go back and don't look at him or Merle and take the canteen and lean against a tree and take a few gulps and give it back. I mean to go on ahead, but Dad and Merle haven't started moving again yet, they're talking – arguing – about the houses in this direction and the holler in that direction, and I slump against the tree and let 'em talk, because I couldn't care less. But then there's a hand on my chin and Dad's making me look up at him. He's frowning. "What's wrong?"

I shrug, shake my head.

"You're shakin'. Barely on your feet, pale –"

Hm. Yeah, my muscles don't seem to be holding up very well. Didn't notice. Dad presses his palm to my forehead. "Can't tell if you got a fever . . ." But then he remembers something, recognizes something, I see it flash across his face, but it doesn't make the worry go away. "When's the last time you ate?"

I shrug again.

"Sydney, answer me."

Fine. But I look at the ground and mumble as I do. "Yesterday mornin'."

"What, back at the prison?"

I nod. Dad takes his backpack off, glaring over his shoulder at Merle as he does. "What, you couldn'ta fed her?"

My uncle holds up his hand defensively. "Hey, man, she was in my apartment all day. Coulda made herself somethin' at anytime."

Dad's got the backpack on the ground and he's digging through it with fast hands. Finally he shoves it away disgustedly. "No food in this thing . . ." He stands, surveys the area, and says, "We should just rest here for a while. Good a place as any. Even got that stream a ways back. Get a fire started, we can boil some water . . ."

"It's barely noon. You wanna tuck ourselves in already?" says Merle.

"I said rest, not camp. I need to dig those splinters outta her arm anyway."

Just when I thought my day couldn't get any better.

Merle scowls, but then he eyes me and doesn't say anything about it anymore. I want to tell them both that I'm fine and that I could keep walking for as long as they want to, shaky or not, but that would mean talking, and I ain't doing that, so I'll just let them do whatever they want.

"You should go huntin'," says Dad. "You get somethin' soon, we can eat, rest . . . Still have a few hours 'fore nightfall we can use to move. Here." He takes the crossbow from his back, holds it out to Merle.

Merle takes it, but he says, "The only thing you've ever done better'n me is use this thing. Why don't you go huntin' and I'll stay here'n take care of Little Bit?"

And now I have to meet Dad's eyes, I just have to, because I need to tell him there's no way he can let that happen, he can't do that to me. But he's already shaking his head no, and I feel a tiny speck of gratitude inside of me before I remember that I'm mad at him and I have to swallow that gratitude down to nothing. "Nah," Dad's saying. "You go. Syd and I need to have a talk."

Well, he's wrong about that. Unless he's going to tell me we're heading back to the prison, there's nothing to talk about. And I know he's not going to do that.

"Mm, can't argue with ya there," Merle says, probably because he thinks Dad's going to chew me out for calling Merle an asshole, or something. But even if that's what happens, I won't care. Doesn't matter.

Merle takes Dad's gun from his belt and hands it back over. I don't have a gun. Or any knives. Thanks to Merle. "Keep an eye out, little brother," he says now, and then he heads off, though he pauses next to me to say, "Sydney Rose, if you straighten up by the time I get back, I might just give you a scrap of meat or two . . ."

I ignore him. He says hmph and walks on. I listen to his footsteps fade away behind me while Dad pulls out a tiny little bottle of what I guess is some sort of disinfectant from the backpack. He jerks his head at a row of big rocks nearby. I follow him over, sit down next to him, shrug off my backpack, and prop my bow up on a rock before letting Dad go at my arm with tweezers in a little pocket knife I didn't know he had. I do my best not to wince. Dad said he wanted to talk, but he's mostly quiet for the whole time it takes him to get the splinters out.

"Alright," he eventually says, ten painful minutes after we started. "This one's gonna be the worst, but it's the last one."

I nod. For two more minutes he slices at and burrows under my skin, and I grind my teeth but don't flinch, don't make a sound, and finally Dad flicks the tiny sliver away. "That's my tough girl."

I still say nothing and he sighs. He pours some of the disinfectant on a rag and wipes my arm down with it. "So how ya think this is gonna go, Syd?" he asks. "You keep on not talking to me, pretty soon I throw up my hands and take us back to the prison? Leave Merle behind?"

Of course I don't answer.

"I think you know better'n that." He stands, stuffs the rag in his back pocket, tosses the bottle back into the backpack, does a scan of the woods, and then crouches down in front of me. I try staring at the cut he got on his cheek sometime at Woodbury, but that's still too close to his eyes for me, so instead I watch a pebble between my boots.

"Baby girl . . . I know this sucks. And I'd change things for us if I could. But you heard Rick. He wasn't gonna let Merle into the prison, he was gonna leave him out here on his own. And I know enough about what happened at Woodbury to get why you're not feelin' too fond of your uncle right now – hell, I'm kinda pissed at him myself – but Little Bit, other'n me, nobody else in the world loves you more'n your uncle Merle."

And I can't hold my tongue now, no matter how much I might want to. "That ain't true."

He knows how I mean, I can see it, and he sighs again and looks out into the forest. I wait, but he doesn't say anything back, and something about that hits me hard and all of a sudden it's like a dam bursting and the words come flowing from me and I couldn't stop them if I tried with all my might.

"How could you tell me Carol's alive and then say I can't go see her? That I'll never see her again?"

"Sydney –"

"I'll never see any of them again! Carl, Dad! I'll never see him again! He's gone! Carl's gone!"

"Babe, quiet down . . ."

I stand, though, and I don't quiet down, not at all, I get louder. "We left everyone! Everything! The motorcycle, and my picture of Mom! We left my picture of Mom!"

Dad touches my face and I slap his hand off, whirl, move away. I don't want to be close to him, or see him, or talk to him, but of course he won't give me that.

"Hey! Hey! Don't walk away from me!" And for the first time today, at least as far as him talking to me goes, anger's in his voice. And so I have to stop. I hear him come up behind me and then he spins me around. "You think this is easy for me?" he hisses. "You think I like this? I didn't have a choice!"

"Yes, you did!"

"Damn it, Sydney, stop yellin'."

And so I bring my voice down, only because of the walkers, but I'm hissing, like him, all the energy I was putting into loudness now going into making sure each word cuts as deep as I can make it cut. "You did have a choice! Go to the prison or go with him, and you chose him! It was me that didn't have a choice! You didn't let me have a choice!"

"That's 'cause I'm your father –"

"Well, you ain't a very good one!" And then I have to stop because I'm out of breath and gasping because I'm crying now. I sit on the ground right here, Indian-style, and cover my mouth and gulp down sobs. My dad stands over me. He doesn't move or say anything for a very long time. I don't want to see what his face looks like and so I don't check. I cry for a while. A long while. When the tears finally slow down and I can breathe okay again, and I'm bothering to wipe my face off, that's when Dad finally speaks. Very softly.

"You done?"

I nod, sniffling.

"You ain't changed my mind, Sydney."

I press my fists into my eyes.

"You ain't gonna change my mind. So you can keep actin' like this, but it ain't gonna do none of us any good. Least of all yourself. And sooner or later, I'ma have to stop lettin' you get away with cussin' at your uncle and talkin' back to me, so keep that in mind."

I want Carl. He'd understand this.

"But think what you want, Sydney Rose, go right ahead. Hate me, think I'm a shitty dad, whatever. But don't expect it to fix nothin'."

I just look at my hands, all clamped together, and think what I want.

"You need to cry some more?"

I shake my head.

"Fine." Dad moves back to the rocks, then to me, and now my bow's in my lap. "Then get up. We're goin' to get some water, then we're comin' back here and you're gonna take a nap. Don't tell me you don't need to."

So I wipe my nose and rise and don't tell him I don't need to but don't look at him, neither. All the way down to the stream and back, I don't look at him, don't talk to him. Can't. But that means I don't talk back, and Merle's not around to cuss at, so I don't get in trouble, at least. Dad said I could keep acting like this, and so I'm going to. There's no other way to act. This isn't right, and I'm not going to pretend that it is. We get back to where we were before and as Dad starts a fire I use my backpack as a pillow and pretend to sleep. Only I don't pretend. I mean to just pretend, but sleep overcomes me and I'm woken up by the smell of cooking meat. Rabbit. Dad gives me a piece and I even thank Merle, which I soon regret because he makes a huge deal out of it, and I don't say anything else to him. To either of them. I live in my head and eat my first piece of meat and then my second piece of meat, slowly, because it's likely I might throw it back up like I do sometimes when I'm sad. But it all stays down. And then Dad picks up his bag and makes me let Merle carry mine and we walk for a few more hours, leaving the woods only once to cross a road, and there's a house at the corner of the road, like one we might have hunkered down in back before the prison. I make myself meet Dad's eyes and he shakes his head and we go into more woods. Right before nightfall we stop and Dad sets up a very small tent and I eat the last piece of meat because he makes me and then I go into the tent and curl around my backpack and my bow and even with my uncle and my dad talking outside I feel very, very alone. For a long time I drift in and out of sleep, and at one point when I'm in the drift-out part I hear my name and can't help but tune into the conversation outside.

"What'd you say to her today anyways? While I's huntin'?"

"Lotta things."

"You tell her if she ever swears at me again I'ma give her what-for?"

"Man, just shut up. That ain't your job."

"Well, someone's gotta do it. You know I love that little girl, Daryl, you know I do, but it's pretty clear to me she's sufferin' from a severe lacka discipline."

Silence.

"Oh, what, you think I'm wrong?"

"I think you ain't been around in a long time."

"Yeah, well, I been back around long enough . . . Look, little brother, the sooner you start treatin' her like this is all the new norm, the sooner she'll accept it. She'll start smilin' again, quit bein' that sour little thing in there."

The thump-crackle of a log hitting the fire. Then, "Wake me up in a few hours." The tent flap opens and my dad steps in and even after he lies down just a couple of feet away I'm still lonely deep down, where it counts.

I was wrong when I told Dad earlier today that I didn't need to cry anymore. Turns out I was just saving it for now. And when Dad hears, he reaches over to me and tries to rub my neck, starts to say something in his special gentle voice, and I roll away from him. He falls silent and doesn't reach for me again. I cry and cry and cry and then I sleep and dream of Carl somewhere in the prison corridors, alone like me, being attacked by walkers. No one has his back. And when I wake up and there's my dad, sitting next to me with his hand on my arm, I give in to a moment of weakness and pretend to fall back asleep right away so he doesn't know I know he's here, because then I'd have to pull away and the idea of being alone for another second is terrifying and cold.