Notes: Very important please note the POV change for this chapter! :)

Thanks to all the readers and reviewers out there!

Typos fixed 7/11 :)

Chapter Twelve

(Bryn's POV)

He's such an asshole. Fuck.

The second the door clicks shut between them Bryn presses his back to the wall. Torn violently between getting into his truck and just driving off, to going back in to do he's not even sure what—comfort her? Like he even could, Fuck. Girl's either a complete basket case—which he doesn't believe—not completely at least, or she's been holed up in some government research facility where they've been doing god only knows what.

She's been hurt and used, that much he can easily believe—there's no way to fake the memory of pain and anguish like he sees in her eyes, the way her hands noticeably shake when she thinks about going back...

And he just took her virginity like a total asshole. How could he screw something up so badly?

She wasn't someone's run-away slut; she hadn't bolted from some ham-handed husband or lover. If he can believe her words now, she escaped from a fucking hole in the ground. He can think of a lot of places in this world that fit that description, figuratively and a few even literally. Course now that he thinks about it she never specifically admitted to exactly where she was from before, just let him answer the question himself.

Just what the fuck has he gotten himself into?

He curses, pushing away from the wall grateful he thought to put on his pants at least before leaving the room. He needs space, he needs to think, he needs to get his God-Damn Geeked-Out head on straight. Something about Charlie makes him go completely lame-brained.

Touching her was such a mistake…it was always going to be a mistake; not because he didn't want too. Fuck no, just the opposite. But it wasn't right. Not before when he thought she'd escaped years of abuse and torture as essentially a sex slave, and it wasn't anymore right knowing the truth now. Knowing she'd escaped from some, some…he doesn't even know what to call it.

The Hell was he thinking back there on that highway?

Bloodied up girl standing in the middle of the road, no name, no weapons; not even a knife, and he takes her home like some lost puppy dog without a tag. How stupid is it that he's surprised to find she's completely capable of biting off his hand? It's his own damn fault for touching her with it in the first place, and there's the healthy dose of self-loathing again, he scowls.

He'd put her in the truck that night mistaking her to be about twelve in those sagging pale blue pajamas. It wasn't until he got her home and walked in on her stark naked he'd realized the boxy fit of those clothes had hidden a lot. Twelve Charlie was not. Short yes, twelve no. Bryn doubted she was as old as he was, but she certainly wasn't a child that's for damn sure.

He'd told himself over and over again not to notice her that way, a task that quickly became impossible. But her past was constantly on his mind, anytime he felt himself slipping he'd remind himself all the shit she'd probably been through; how many men had used her against her will and he couldn't…wouldn't be one in just another long line of assholes incapable of keeping his hands to himself because she was a beautiful girl.

He left himself with no other choice but to go quietly insane nearly every day. Charlie didn't have to try to be alluring. Charlie didn't have to flirt or bat her eyes. Charlie was simply Charlie, and even talking in circles and tripping over every other word in one of Libby's crack-pot sentences she was simply devastating.

It didn't matter how many times a day he reminded himself that his feelings were wrong, that the tightening in his groin when she looked at him made him a total dickhead and an asshole…it happened anyway. He could almost ignore it, avert his eyes and try not to notice the perfect freckles on her delicate skin, and those impossibly long lashes so long that on occasion when she was near him, like the time she'd cried in his arms had tickled his skin. She made his heart race and his chest hurt and his mouth dry while he fought his stupid brain not to stumble over his own words because wouldn't that just make them a pair?

And then she'd almost gotten eaten by that god damn dead guy in the fucking yard while he was only a few hundred feet away and finding her whole and alive was such a relief he'd done the stupidest fucking thing in his god-damn life. She was safe and somehow he'd missed her even though it'd only been a freaking day, and suddenly there she was, practically in his arms staring up at him with those wide eyes he couldn't decide whether to classify as green or blue so instead of puzzling that in his head some more he'd kissed her.

But she'd kissed him back. And wasn't that just the final nail in the coffin of his sanity? Wanting her might have been torture, but realizing she might want him back only made it worse.

He'd tried to write it off as adrenaline and nerves, the relief at finding her alive and nothing more; but then she'd blown that away by telling him how he made her nervous. At first he'd thought it was because of her past and that she thought he was going to use her…that way. He cringes realizing the truth of his situation now hits a little too close to that very nightmare scenario.

And then the barn. Fuck me, he all but grinds his teeth with the fierce set of his jaw. It was the yard all over again, only this time she reached for him first and he'd temporarily lost his mind and touched her right back because God damn he was nothing if not a glutton for punishment. If Ethan hadn't come around the corner and snapped him out of it he might have tried peeling her out of those tight jeans right there on the dirt floor.

And it's official, he realizes. He really is a shameless asshole. He should send her away, someplace safe from his wandering eyes and inability to keep his damned hands to himself…after what just happened. Whole world be damned it wasn't like anyone else could do much more damage. He should have sent her home with Libby the very first day…or the second. He definitely should have sent her back with Libby after the disaster in the barn when she wouldn't even come out of her room to talk to him for over a day.

Then she crawls into his bed.

So much of her mannerisms fit into the story he believed that when some things didn't exactly flow, when her words failed to mesh with what she should or shouldn't know he'd let it go. Choose to write it off as odd and that was that, he didn't ask specifically where she'd come from. He didn't ask many questions at all; because part of him honestly didn't want to know. Couldn't handle hearing her say those kinds of words, not just because it was morally repulsive and vile to think of one human doing such terrible things to another—but because it was Her.

Charlie, sweet, beautiful, tangle-up her words Charlie.

Knowing would only fill him up with even more rage then already seethed through his insides burning and rolling in his gut anytime he thought of her being used so brutally and thoughtlessly by anyone, especially the name-less face-less men his brain tortured him with. Images that made him want to fill up one of the giant white drums with gas they didn't have to waste and drive to the closest playhouse dousing the sagging boarded up structure from end to end until it soaked into every weathered and warped board of that nightmare place and throwing in a match watching with vehement satisfaction as it burnt to the ground. And then he wouldn't be able to stop himself from driving to the next one, and the next.

Burn them all to the fucking ground; just like Libby was always saying.

If only the world worked that way. In real life the managers would simply run, leaving the girls strung out and half naked in the dirt; if they bothered to get them out of the house at all. Trying to pull them out himself would probably just result in a few lead rounds to the head.

Deader than Dead, that's what he'd be for his troubles, and what good was that to Charlie? None, he told himself.

They'd simply start up another one. Even at the end of the world scum survived. Bryn scowls moving through the front room and out onto the porch, the sun is almost up, the sky lifting to a pale sick looking grey through the heavy cloud cover. The grass around the house partially trampled by their overnight traffic and curling with thick tendrils of mist. At least it's finally cooler.

He leaps off the porch skirting the two walking dead guys in the yard moving swiftly toward the barn with them lagging after him. The thunder's died down, and the lightening is long gone like the pounding rain he'd woken up to beating on the roof with Charlie by his side all soft pale skin like satin and wide frightened eyes and…no.

He closes his fist around the handle of a shovel wrenching it up out of the bucket beside the open barn door with strictly more force than really necessary. Then he rounds on the guy making his way through the doorway behind him lifting the blunt instrument in his hands. He's got some serious frustrations to work out.

Both of them downed in moments he tosses the shovel to the dirt stalking toward the back of the barn to retrieve a fuel can so he can burn them off. He's in the back filling one of the faded red canisters when he hears the muffled sounds of a truck pulling up. Probably Ethan coming to drop Libby off so they can take their delivery to the other side of the district. Outside Libby is yelling something, now Ethan is too. He straightens up moving toward the barn doorway listening intently for the tell-tale crack of gunfire or snarling. Certain that the rest of the Geeks had moved on chasing the storm long before he left the house.

Libby reaches the open barn door just moments before he does her eyes wide, her words flooding the pit of his stomach with dread.

"Bryn! Charlie just ran into the woods naked!"

"She what?!" He's going to kill that girl. He leaves her alone for a second…

Libby's staring at him still. Her eyes narrow suddenly and her cheeks flush a little pink. "What did you do?" She snarls sounding a little scary for someone half his size.

"Nothing!" He snaps feeling his cheeks flush bright red defying his defense. "Which way did she go?" She's glaring at him still hands clenched into fists at her sides like she might hit him. "Libby! I killed two Geeks this morning just in the yard, where did Charlie go?!"

She's been so preoccupied glaring at him she almost trips over the first dead corpse before she notices it, her eyes go wide again. "Oh my….This way." She turns and bolts, and he forgets sometimes being almost a foot shorter then him that Libby can really run.

They take off towards the woods, Ethan right behind them shouting a quick, "What the hell is going on?" while they run. He doesn't answer, no time to explain, and they'll never find her if Libby's punching him in the face. He'll let her have at it later, it's no less then he deserves.

She would run right into the woods, he thinks, no clothes, no weapons…damn girl is going to get herself eaten.

"Charlie!" Libby's frantic voice wafts back to him through the trees as they run, the direction she took all too obvious with the deep furrows and heavy prints in the muddy churned up earth.

How far could she have really gotten? And then he knows when Libby slams to a stop just in front of him. He has to dart to the side to avoid running right over-top of her. Then he stops too.

"Charlie?" Libby's voice shakes.

And no. Just no. His eyes are seeing it, but his brain is telling him he's wrong. It can't be. Everything about the picture before him is too violent, too horrific…too bloody and gory, un-earthly still and just wrong to be Charlie…

She's just staring at him.

Only staring isn't the right word. Glaring falls frighteningly short as well. Her eyes are cold and flat, her lips pull back from her teeth in an expression he can only call a snarl. The noise that follows is something the human throat was never meant to make.

Whatever that thing is hunched over the eviscerated corpse of a Geek, hands still buried in its ruined throat coated to the elbow in slick gore…it's not his Charlie.

He's never been so certain of anything in his life as he snatches Libby's arm in a vice grip shoving her roughly behind him watching her stand with a surreal liquid slowness. She moves on the balls of her feet. Each step powerful and assured like the silent glide of a jungle cat; all of Charlie's characteristic grace with an edge of promised violence.

Beside him Ethan has his gun out, but he hasn't raised it, maybe he can't, his mind no doubt struggling with what their all seeing. Trying to equate the idea of delicate gentle Charlie with the blood coated creature now standing before them. He has no idea whether the thing before them is alive or dead, but how can that be? People don't turn that fast, and corpses that rise to terrorize the living don't glide; they certainly didn't pin people with all-out hostile withering glares sharp enough to chill blood.

"Charlie…" he's got his hands up he realizes, palms out, but he doesn't remember raising them. Just like he doesn't remember taking that first staggering step backwards, or the second until Ethan takes one hand off his gun to jerk Libby to the side, putting her behind his back instead. It looks like this is a fight Ethan's decided he wants nothing to do with.

Bryn backs away another two steps, Charlie still advancing on him.

And looking like she just might eat him alive.

His eyes leave her face, dart to her fingers curled into vicious looking claws, flexing and tensing her fingertips dripping dead black blood onto the dirt. How is that possible, only Geeks rip into people with their bare hands… He feels dizzy, and suddenly ill. "Charlie…what?"

She growls flashing her teeth at him again. "I'm not Charlie." She hisses.

Then she launches herself at him in the blink of an eye, faster then he'd have thought possible. And if Ethan were going to shoot her he should have done it before now, Bryn realizes. Because it's too late now to separate one from the other with them both tangled up and fighting for control on the muddy ground. He's desperately trying to get a grip on her slippery gore slicked skin, his fingers not helped by the mud rapidly added to the mix. She's hissing and spitting and landing more painful blows then he'd have given her diminutive frame credit for.

"Fuck, Charlie! I get it you're pissed off but that hurts!" He has to turn his head to the side and spit blood from busted lip out of his mouth but he considers himself pretty lucky so far, he's alive. The same certainly can't be said for the other guy on the ground.

"Good!" She snarls. Then she hits him again. And okay then. He cringes a little but this time he hits her back. They grapple in the dirt, occasionally landing painful blows that have him grunting and hissing and her snarling at him eyes flashing viciously promising more violence. Twice he almost gets the upper hand, but she's too god damn slippery and wiggly to get a good grip...

"Stop it! Both of you!" Libby somewhere off to their right sounds close to tears.

She hesitates for a just a moment but it's sufficient to get her pinned. Right before she gets her legs up against his chest in a move he vaguely recognizes for a brief flash but not before she launches him off of her and through the air about ten feet. He lands on his ass, more than mildly winded, lurching almost drunkenly to take his feet with his head sorta ringing from the last blow. Half wondering why she hasn't killed him yet, and where the Hell Ethan is? Some best-friend letting him wrestle his naked bloody sorta-girlfriend-kinda-loony-roommate all by himself. Who it turns out is somehow completely feral, crazy strong and also clearly kicking his ass.

She's already moving towards him again expression deadly clearly intent on finishing this, to what level of severity he's not entirely sure. "Charlie…" He warns gasping for breath the forest tilting a bit cock-eyed on its side.

Snarls reach his ears then mixed into a heavy guttural moan off to his left and then too many things happen at once for his tunneling vision to un-ravel.

Libby screams. Ethan curses and shouts. A shot goes off. Then another. He turns in time to see some half-rotted dead guy that must have stumbled out through the trees drawn by the commotion. He's got his skeleton like hands locked around Libby's arms while she struggles pushing him back frantically fighting to keep snapping teeth off her throat.

"Libby!" But it's not Ethan or him screaming her name.

Charlie's changed direction in the blink of an eye, like a cat one minute she's advancing on him like she's going to rip him to shreds and then she's just gone. She veers to the side shifting on a single planted foot. Judging by the howl of outrage, she's clearly intent now on hunting something else. She races straight towards the new struggle. Ethan is desperately trying to pick off the few Deadies stumbling towards them through the trees, but he's only got a few bullets left and he'll never get the Geek off Libby in time. Then in the next instant he doesn't have to.

Charlie slams into the corpse ducking under Libby's arm driving it down to the ground with her shoulders and head, an animalistic snarl that sets his teeth on edge, has all the hairs on the back of his neck prickling like pins rents the air. She's reaching forward and up as she drives him to the ground sinking those claw-like hands into the skin of his skull even as he tries to sit up; to sink his teeth into her…right before she rips his head clean off.

She simply drops it snarling and leaping onto the next dead corpse ambling towards them driving it to the ground. All of them frozen in horrified fascination as she's snatching its waving arms in her own, planting her feet in its chest and simply rips those off to, right below the elbow. Then she swerves and dives and ends up right under the throat of another which she impales through the chin with the snapped jagged forearm bone of her previous victim. Then she's twisting and growling and proceeds to beat the armless guy back to dead with his own severed arm.

Nobody says a thing. He's not even sure he's capable of speech. It's a nightmare, it isn't real and yet somehow it is…

It's over in minutes leaving her crouched forward panting heavily, nearly every inch of her skin coated or flecked in some kind of mud or black sick. Her eyes dart to his still standing frozen not twenty feet from the closest limb. He flinches back from her but her eyes slide off him again just as quick, the furious heat in her glare strangely gone leaving her normally expressive green eyes oddly flat and extraordinarily sad.

She licks her lips eyes landing on Libby, the only one who doesn't flinch under her gaze still sitting where Charlie's attack on the first Geek knocked her to the ground. "Are you alright?" she wheezes.

Libby nods weakly then lurches forward in the next split second one hand thrown out but still falling several feet shy of touching her as Charlie crumples boneless to the ground.

Libby crawls forward towards her silent form voice wavering and small. "Charlie…?"

Ethan dives forward snatching her around the waist and dragging her backwards to stand closer to where his feet are still firmly planted to the ground of upturned dirt and gore. He still can't seem to move, he keeps tell his feet to do something, anything, and they completely refuse. But he hasn't fallen backwards on to his ass, so that's something.

"The fuck was that?!" Ethan starts demanding.

Libby raises her hand to Ethan's face curling her index finger as she speaks in a gravely demonic voice. "Charlie's not here right now." Ethan pulls her hand down, his normally calm expression looking more than a little freaked and a touch pale.

"So, not helpful Libs."

"Just trying to lighten the mood." She tells Ethan eyes comically wide but her cheeks are ghostly pale and her hands shake as she clasps them before turning back to stare at him again. "What the Hell did you do to her?" She demands once again. Like before in the barn, only now he's even less sure what the Hell to say.

Did he do this? When he left her in his bedroom she'd looked upset…but this? Is this why they had her locked up? Just who the fuck did he bring home that night?

"I didn't sleep with her." He finds himself mumbling, at a loss for what else could cause such a change. She went from crawling into his bed and kissing him, moaning his name to trying to claw off his face…

Libby rounds on him completely shoving out of Ethan's grasp completely ignoring the girl that just ripped six bodies limb from limb lying not twenty feet from them her expression outraged. "Hold up, you did What?!"

"Drop it Libs, please." They have bigger problems obviously. Like what the Hell is he supposed to do now?

"Do we…do we leave her here?" Ethan is apparently reaching the same conclusion. Whatever Charlie is it's obviously dangerous. He's suddenly starting to wonder about all those reports of shredded corpses and whether there ever were any wild dogs to begin with…his brain stumbling repeatedly over the violent visual of sweet wide-eyed Charlie venturing out in the middle of the night to rip and shred dead guys in her sleep…

"The Hell do you mean leave her here?!" Libby snarls at them backing towards Charlie, moving faster when Ethan moves to snatch her back.

"Libby, don't—"

"Don't what? Help my friend? Charlie's never done anything to hurt me, or you! And as far as I can tell the only reason she wanted to bust Bryn's face in is because he apparently turned into a total dickhead overnight!" She dives around him avoiding Ethan's arm again just to smack his arm hard enough to sting. Like he hasn't been hit enough. "The Hell were you thinking!" She shouts. "Charlie's sweet and innocent and all head-over-heels for you and you have sex with her!?"

"I didn't, look it's not…Can we fucking talk about something else right now?!" He snarls back certain that even Ethan is giving him a less then friendly look over this.

She glares at him crossing her arms. "We're not leaving her here. She's Charlie, and she just saved my life."

"Libs…"

"No! She just saved my life! I was about to be corpse chow and you know it!"

"And what if she wakes up and tries to rip off Bryn's face, or mine or yours?" Ethan's tone is low like he's afraid their shouting might do just that.

"She's Charlie," Libby pleads rounding on him again ignoring Ethan's frustrated sound. "Bryn, please…its Charlie…please, if she meant to hurt me, or you or Ethan she'd clearly have done it by now…she just, she got upset and who could blame her with where she came from and what you did." She narrows her eyes again.

"I didn't sleep with Charlie." He drags a hand over his face feeling immensely tired with the adrenaline let down causing his hands to shake.

"You're damn right you didn't! She's not ready for that kind of heavy shit yet!" Libby tells him smacking his arm again. She has the uncanny ability to always hit the same spot. His fingers are starting to go numb.

"Charlie's not from a Playhouse." Libby just stares at him. "She told me this morning after…" he winces and looks away from her expression reminding himself he's not out of the woods yet. After Libs drags the whole story from him chances are she'll murder him so Charlie doesn't have to. "She's from some kind of research facility. Some military test site."

"Great," Ethan mutters, "Well I feel so much safer bringing her home after hearing that…"

"So they screwed up Charlie's head." Libby says turning back to stare at Charlie's bloodied form lying in the dirt. "God. Poor Charlie. What the hell did they do to her? We have to keep her safe."

"Safe?! She just slaughtered six walking corpses with her bare hands Libs! I think Charlie's capable of defending herself!"

"Not against the people that did this to her!" Libby turns to her brother who quickly shuts up taking in her expression, though he doesn't look happy about it. Libby turns on him again, expression pleading. "You know I'm right. We have to do something. We have to keep her hidden. She was fine before this, and she can be fine again…Bryn please…"

"We'll get her back to the house, and we'll figure something out."

Ethan grumbles something about them all having lost their damn minds, and he isn't sure he disagrees with him. But he moves towards her slowly glad that at least his head is feeling semi-okay now that she's no longer punching it. He hesitates only a moment before he bends over to pick her up again. She's limp and her bare skin feels clammy in his arms, her only movement the occasional shallow intake of breath.

"So…" Libby starts as they all move back towards the house leaving the corpses where they lie. "Any idea if Charlie will be Charlie when she wakes up?"

"No idea, let's just hurry up and get her back to the house."

Hopefully she'd wake up sane, and soon. He wanted some answers. Now.