Two chapters in one day! Things are getting a bit dark in this one again... Let me know what you think!

Chapter 24

-Carl-

Lexi had frozen watching his dad and the others drive away with concern written all over her face. It was a look he was sick of seeing. When he thought about his mom, nine times out of ten she wore a similar expression on her face. He had a hard time remembering her smiling in genuine happiness. Since they left the farm most of the times she'd smiled it had been to try and fake calm for him. He knew it, and he'd been angry at her for it, although honestly now he couldn't think why it had made him so mad. He followed Lexi back inside to the kitchen, where Beth sat holding Judith and Carol stood busily working on lunch for those still left at the prison.

Lexi went over to Beth and Judith, smiling down at the baby. The sight made Carl happy, but also filled him with guilt. How could she possibly not see it?

Judith's skin was a beautiful caramel color darker than he, his mom, and his dad had ever been. Lexi and Shane had Creole blood in them he knew, with a mix of Native American and even some West African blood running through there veins. Hershel had told him her eyes wouldn't be a permanent color until she was a few months older, but they were already too dark to be like him and his dad's.

The adults in his group never talked about it around him, but Carl knew as well as anyone else that the baby was Shane's. He hadn't wanted to admit it to himself for a long time, but he'd known what his mom and Shane were doing when he caught them in his tent, even before his mother had told everyone she was pregnant. He knew his dad knew it too, and that it was the reason he had a hard time taking care of Judith.

"Can I see her for a bit?" he heard Lexi say to Beth, who nodded before handing the baby over.

"You seem to think you've got some kind of a special claim to that baby." Carol muttered as Lexi lifted Judith from Beth's arms.

"Listen Carol, I've had about enough of your passive-aggressiveness. Rick asked me to look after his children while he's gone, which does in fact put me in a special position when it comes to this baby, though it's really none of your fucking business."

Carl felt himself tense. Lexi was not a person you'd want to get into a fight with. She was smart, smarter probably than Carol realized, and she had the capacity to be biting and cutting without letting emotion overrule her logic. It was one of the reasons they all felt she'd make a great lawyer. But she was also not the type to do anything half assed. Carol was in for a nasty surprise if she thought she could pick a fight without Lexi finishing it. In that way her and Shane were very similar.

Glenn and Maggie came into the kitchen just then, which seemed to embolden Carol, because upon seeing them, she shot back at Lexi.

"Oh don't worry, Lori told me all about the 'special position' Shane's younger sister wanted to have with Rick. I suppose now that she's dead you see your chance?"

Carl felt his heart rate rise. Carol was being completely unfair to Lexi and his mother's memory. Lori had never really been worried about Lexi and Rick, so far as he knew, but during the months his dad had ignored her after Shane's death she had brought it up once in a fight, trying to goad Rick into a response more than anything. He was surprised Carol even remembered it, although he'd come to realize some time ago that Carol had a mind like a steal trap when it came to personal information.

Lexi took a step towards the older woman, who shrank back in spite of herself. "Shane's younger sister," she repeated.

Carol nodded stiffly, waiting for the weight of Lexi's wrath to be unleashed. "It's what I said isn't it?"

"How did my brother die?" Lexi demanded in a low and deliberate voice.

"What?" Carol said, her eyes flashing around at the others desperately. Whatever she'd expected to get out of this riff with Lexi this wasn't it. Lexi walked back over to Beth and handed off Judith, motioning at Beth to take her out of the room before turning back to Carol.

"My brother. I know you knew him, or you wouldn't have referred to me as 'Shane's younger sister' in your pathetic attempt to insult me. I also noticed that you stressed that point, as if being his kin is more damning than trying to seduce a married man. So I'm asking you one more time, How. Did. My. Brother. Die." She repeated the question as if all of the words were a sentence of their own, giving them weight as she approached Carol again.

"Fuck you." Carol said, clearly near panic but unwilling to be cowed by Lexi's implied threat.

Faster than any of them could blink Lexi slammed Carol against the wall, her switchblade drawn against the older woman's throat.

"Wrong fucking answer."