Alright ladies and gentlemen we are back again! See, I promised I would try and bring you updates quicker, I'm doing my best. Enjoy my friends!
Emberka-2012: Yes, Daryl knows the character of Fox and what she is capable. Good thing they listened to Rick. The appearance Michonne I did not expect, but it's good news. The group is small, and another person with her skills can not hurt. At least now they know where to look for girls. And where to find those responsible for kidnapping.
Daryl does indeed know what Fox is capable of. He's always known and in what she is capable of he sees similarities between the two of them, and that's part of the reason they're bonded the way they are, because they can handle each other, but despite that, it is a good thing they have Rick there to keep them both in check. Ahh Michonne, I love her character to pieces but I wasn't as familiar with her when I was writing Wildflower, so I held back from using her, but I have plans, oh I have plans for her in Wolfsong. They do indeed have a heading as it were, a dangerous heading…
Brittney: Another great chapter! I loved how you put Hershel's line of getting a drink first in the story. You are a great writer and keep up the great work, you have a lot of loyal fans! :)
Hah, you know, when I wrote that line in there, I had /completely/ forgotten Hershel had said that, I was using it more along the lines of just somewhat random mumblings, but then as soon as I read your review I was like "Oh yeaaah! He did say that didn't he!" Well I don't know about a lot of fans, but I know the ones I have are very loyal, and that's incredible and I love you guys for it =D
FanFicGirl10: Yay Michonne! She makes me so happy :) Well at least they know where the girls are and hopefully they find them soon. Thanks for not giving up, Update Soon!
I know right! I love Michonne too. I wanted to use her in Wildflower but I wasn't familiar enough with her character when I started and then by the time I was it was kind of too late, but I definitely have plans for her for this story so I am so excited to bring that to you guys. You know I really did almost give up on this…I just couldn't bring myself to write anything, and then one day I sat down and said "Come hell or freaking high water, I'll get past this block" And now everything comes easy. This is part of the writing process I'm still learning, and I'm glad I have you guys to back me up, you're amazing.
rosemarycr: Aw, I'm so excited to see where this is going! I really like how you balance it all, sometimes focusing more of Luna and Judith, and other times on the rest of the group. And Michonne... BRILLIANT, I'm so glad you decided to add her to this story. I think I'm convinced we'll be seeing Merle again.
I was inspired to do the divided attention style of story from a recent marathon of Lord of the Rings, and also I have several adventures and challenges to be faced not only by Luna and Judith, but also by the remainder of their family as they struggle to reunite. I hope I can keep the balance going, some chapters there will be both sides and some, like the last two, will just be one or the other, we'll just see how it goes. As for Michonne, I was so not leaving her out a second time, she's too bad-ass for that. And as for Merle…we definitely haven't seen the last of him ;)
RedneckBunny: WHOO-HOO, MICHONNE! I love that woman. But seriously... I NEED TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON WITH LUNA AND JUDITH! Please tell me that'll be within the next chapter or two? More amazingness that was, as always, worth the boiling over anticipation, excitement and wonder! You really do put 99% of all the other fanfics I've ever read to shame. So happy you made this sequel.
Michonne indeed, I was soooo happy to be able to bring her into this story. She's far too kick-ass to leave behind yet again. I can't wait to see where they go with her charrie in Season 4 of the actual show. As for Luna and Judith, never you fear my friend, answers to your questions are coming. And I thank you most kindly for your words, I really try to write with a caliber that I would want to read, and whilst I tend to be gentle in my criticism of most books (most, not all) I still hold myself to a high standard, and I try to write the stories that I'd love to read over and over again.
The darkness was more than dark, it was strangling, throttling Luna's eyesight with a vise-like grip that would not ease up. Her breath came in fractured pulls as she struggled to fight down the panic. There was very little Luna was ever afraid of in her life, but darkness like this was one of those things. She was so dependent on her eyesight that to be without it made terror rise up like bile in her throat and she struggled to even draw a breath properly. She choked out a strangled sound, trying to say Judith's name, blindly scrambling, groping in the darkness, fear weighing down every twitch and yet spurning on her frantic movements just as strongly.
"Luna!" Judith yowled her sister's name, hoping that she might hear some semblance of it and turn towards her. She twisted and turned, stone underneath her feet gritty and wet and she flailed wildly, bumping this way and that trying to get her bearings in the darkness. Above them she could hear the scraping and snarling of the Walkers, trying to reach down into the manhole that they had slid into to escape. She had no doubt that if they lingered long enough the creatures would make it inside and so moving away was the safest bet, but she had to find Luna first. She had grabbed her sister by the foot and yanked her inside but in the darkness she could no longer find her.
Luna felt vibrations through the ground and twisted, pausing, forcing herself to stop shaking and breathe to try and determine what was happening. She still had a hold of her homemade knife and this she grated against the wall she felt near her left side in order to hopefully give Judith a clue as to where she was. She tried her best not to breathe in, the smell down here was horrible, something like rotted flesh and bones mixed with filth and vomit, rank with ammonia and dispersed by acidic water. It was acrid and choking, so strong that she almost gagged when she accidently breathed in through her nose.
"Luna!" Judith called when her hand finally closed on her sister's shoulder. Luna recognized her by touch alone and grabbed her, pulling her in and hugging her fiercely, coughing at the horrible smell but so grateful they were both still alive.
"Are you alright? Are you bit? Scratched?" Judith frantically signed, tracing the message into Luna's arm.
"No, I'm ok. Are you ok?" she asked. She could feel herself still shaking and while she was now ashamed of her fear she couldn't repress the tremors entirely.
"I'm alright," Judith assured her. "We have to move," she insisted.
Luna nodded, unsure if Judith could see it or not. She could not hear the scratching of the biters overhead from the manhole entrance but she knew that they were damned determined when there was food around, and as such, they would find their way inside eventually.
There was no way to orient herself by sight, the darkness was too thick. She tried to remember the direction she'd been facing when she'd gone down the manhole but she had spun wildly so many times that there was no way to tell which way she was facing anymore. She shrugged her shoulders, resolved to deal with it when there was a way to figure it out and not before and grabbed Judith by the wrist and pulled her away from the manhole where the biters were already reaching through, some of them beginning to slither inside, their bodies dangling like worms on hooks as they struggled to all fit down the hole at the same time.
Judith stuck very close to Luna, knowing that in order for them to stay alive in this crushing darkness she was going to have to be able to hear every tiny sound. There was no way to know if there were Walkers in these tunnels already, and robbed of sight, sound was the only way to judge for sure.
"Now of course would be when I remember Dad's stories about lurkers," Luna signed bitterly into Judith's hand. Judith shuddered and invisibly glared at Luna.
"Oh thanks for reminding me," the older remarked, nicking Luna with blunt nails to show her displeasure. Luna ignored the chastisement, knowing it was merely based in fear. Lurkers were biters that had become so deprived of nutrients that they stayed still as stone wherever they lay, appearing truly dead, but the moment they sensed food approaching they could come to life and strike with all the deadly accuracy of a poisonous snake. Her father had told her a story of how her mother's life had almost been claimed by a lurker within the first year of the outbreak. She shivered unpleasantly at the thought.
They crept along the passageway very slowly, feeling their way through by the walls, and wonder of wonders the darkness began to ease up. Every so often their were grates in the street above them that would allow very weak filters of moonlight to pass through and thus illuminating the tunnels by the most meager of means. Luna's eyes soaked up the light like dry ground absorbs water and she felt the film of darkness obscuring her vision begin to ease by the smallest amounts. It was not enough to truly be useful, but it quelled some of the still rising panic in her gut.
At one such grate they attempted to escape from the tunnel, trying valiantly to push it out of the way and thus climb back onto the street but they were met will failure. It was difficult to tell if it would have even been safe to emerge there in the first place. Resigned to keep trying they stumbled along, sticking to the walls, the curved wet stone underneath their shoes affording them little by the way of grip. As they continued stumbling and fumbling their way along panic began to rise in Luna's throat. She had a terrible fear they were going in circles, unable to get any sense of direction at all and struggling to find out how far they'd gone in the twisting turn of the passages.
Eventually pain began to spread through both their feet and legs and their backs from being partially hunched over to avoid scraping their heads on the top of the tunnel. "How long have we been down here?" Judith signed to Luna as they stopped to take a breath and rest their legs.
"Long enough that I will smell like a mule's asshole for at least a week," Luna signed back. They had stopped beneath one of the grates in the street and so the thin shafts of moonlight coming down into the tunnel afforded them enough visibility that Luna could sign without having to touch Judith's skin. They leaned against the stone, too tired to care about the wet gritty texture smearing against their clothes and skin. It had been at least five miles just getting to the city, let alone their mad dash scrambling as they tried to escape the hordes, and now this whole time wandering down here, no wonder they were exhausted. Luna sank down to the floor of the sewer and leaned against the wall and Judith did the same, fighting to keep her eyes open.
"We can't stay here," Judith eventually said, knowing the reality but physically resisting it.
Luna didn't respond at first. She was struggling to keep all of her emotions from welling up and overwhelming her self-control. Her body burned with various aches and pain, her stomach growled with want of food, and her brain desperately needed rest. She touched Judith on the arm to get her attention before signing "I want to go home."
Judith nodded, misery and pain washing over her. She wanted her father's hand through her hair, her brother's playful love taps on her shoulder, enticing her into a wrestling match. She wanted the softness of her bed, the smell of clean sheets pressed all around her nose as she relaxed after a hard day in the fields. She could feel the tears stinging at her eyes as she thought of her family and how worried they had to be. With every fiber of her being she desperately hoped that they were ok, that they had found her message, that they were unhurt and coming for them. She shivered with cold and Luna pressed closer to her, comforting her in her silent way as she was ought to do.
"We have to move," Luna urged softly with her signs after an immeasurable amount of time passed. When Judith did not respond it was then that Luna realized she'd fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. The cognitive knowledge that they needed to get up and keep moving rattled in her brain like a stone in a tin can but Luna couldn't find the force of will to get up. She resolved herself to staying awake and keeping a watch as best as she could to allow Judith to get some much needed sleep. In her mind she replayed memories of home in her head, the emotions welling up hard and hot in her throat and helping her to stay awake. Silent tears slid down her cheeks as the loneliness and unfamiliarity crashed over her like the river rapids after a heavy rain. She scrubbed at her face, refusing to give in to such despair. They would get out of here. One way or another they were going to make it out, and they were going to go home, and she would see her family again.
She had just settled back down into her skin when she saw something twitch out of the corner of her eye. Startling she jerked herself upright and grabbed Judith by the shoulder and shook her firmly. Her other hand clenched hard on her homemade knife.
"What, what is it?" Judith asked blearily. Luna didn't have to watch her lips move to judge what the question had been. She pointed down the tunnel towards the next bend where she thought she'd seen the movement.
Judith's eyes strained against the darkness. How long had she been asleep? Had the sun risen? She glanced up at the grate, trying to see if there was any change to the outside world but from her vantage point it was impossible to tell. She forced her breathing to slow down so she could hear. Faintly, ever so faintly, she thought she heard the scrape of shoes on rock.
"Come on," she hissed to Luna. Luna kept her grip fixed on her knife and Judith took the lead, creeping forward carefully, minding the very slick portions of concrete to avoid having them step into the narrow cannel where water for the city had once run.
"Biters?" Luna drew into Judith's arm, asking the fearful question as she shifted her grip on her knife. Judith paused around the bend and then Luna came up to her shoulder, expecting a response but instead she saw something moving fast directly ahead of them at the next bend. Something moving too fast to be a biter. Something else.
The last bit of Luna's control snapped and she kicked started into a run, resolved to chase down whoever was ahead of them. She didn't know what else she might encounter down here, and she really didn't care. If there was someone…anyone…then maybe they would know the way out. Judith ran after her, her feet slipping on the slick stone and having to catch herself repeatedly as she chased down Luna who by now had jumped into the cannel in order to be able to run on flat ground and pick up speed. The water had long since dried up but the stone was still damp, but Luna kept her feet placed carefully, just as she had when free running through the woods at home, and pursued the now clearly fleeing figure. Judith called out to them as they ran, darting through the tunnels which had begun to grow considerably warmer, the air much more musty and smelling of earth rather than stone and water. Luna noticed this as well but shelved it in the back of her mind for now. She was less than fifteen feet from the fleeing figure, the sound of scraping shoes and heavy breathing lost to her. The thrill of the hunt poured over her veins, renewing her strength and determination. She drove her legs even harder as she had when they fled the biters and on the next bend she launched herself at the person who was running from them. She cut the corner with her jump and snagged a fistful of shirt and hung on for dear life. The weight of her dragged the person down and they clattered to the stone floor, rolling and scrabbling. The person cried out in surprise and terror but Luna snarled in her throat, the rush of fight or flight raging through her and right now she would fight. She fisted both hands into the person's shoulders and slammed them down hard, their head knocking hard on the ground. She could tell they cried out in pain and the sound reverberated around the stone walls, rattling against her ear drums with a buzzing sensation that merely annoyed her. She clapped a hand over the person's mouth, her knees pinning their shoulders back as she rested her weight mostly on his chest to stop them from drawing a proper breath and whipped her homemade knife forward and laid it against the trembling throat beneath her.
"Well done, Luna," Judith panted as she caught up. Luna did not look up to see her sister's comment, she kept her gaze focused on the squirming body beneath her. She had pulled the person down underneath another grate and so the thin shafts of moonlight afforded her the ability to see a few details.
He was a boy, around their age if the smoothness of his cheeks and the gentle curve to his jaw was any way to judge. She started when she saw the slant to his eyes and the shape of his nose.
"Like Glenn," she hissed, daring to look into her sister's face, her voice rasped and grated between her vocal chords. The boy was squirming underneath her, trying to speak against the pressure of her hand on his mouth. She leaned her homemade knife down a little harder on his throat and nodded to Judith for her to do most of the talking.
"Ok listen kid, don't scream and my sister here will let you breathe," Judith explained, crouching down near his head, pushing the pieces of her long hair that had slipped free of her pony tail away from her face. The boy nodded frantically and Luna carefully removed her hand.
"Jesus Christ, what the hell are you doing?" he whined. Luna fisted her hand into his hair and pulled back hard, forcing his throat to arch and to prevent him from struggling much more. "Let me go!"
"Quiet!" Judith snarled. "Are there biters in here?"
"What?" he panted weakly, trying to twist to see Judith but Luna would not allow him to move more than a fraction of an inch.
"Biters. The dead things that eat us," Judith elaborated, frustration leaking into every syllable.
"Walkers? Yes! Yes they're inside, we have to keep moving or they'll catch up!" His delivery was fast and rushed, nervous sweat pouring over his face.
"Not until you show us the way out!" Judith demanded. Luna leaned further against his chest and increased the pressure of her knife on his throat.
"Way out?" the boy croaked. "There is no way out! The city is overrun! We have to turn around, go back to the CDC where it's safe!"
Luna snarled and knocked his head back hard against the stone. "We're not going back!" she growled. Her words were so thick it must have been a challenge for him to understand her, if he did at all.
"You!" he accused, twitching underneath Luna. "You're the ones who escaped! I heard about it before I came down."
Luna shot a look at Judith. "Heard from who?" the elder of the girls asked.
"Milton and the rest of course. You two are the only ones who ever jumped off the roof. Fucking stupid you know, I'm surprised you weren't ripped to pieces. How did you get down here in the first place?"
"The rest?" Judith questioned, looking over at Luna and then back down at the boy.
"Yeah, the others. There's a big group of us. Did Milton not say anything?" His tone suggested to Judith genuine confusion and she blinked once to Luna and she eased a little of the pressure on his throat.
"No. He didn't say much. Just that Jenner needed us," Judith offered. She kept both ears pricked for any sounds of incoming biters but for the moment they appeared to be alone.
"Well he does. We're gonna help him make the cure." His eyes gleamed in the low light and Judith twitched, as did Luna.
"Maybe you are, we're not!" Luna growled. "You're going to show us the way out of here!"
"I told you, there is no way out!" he whined. "The tunnels don't extend far enough to get out of the red zone, and you'll never make it through there without getting killed. Plus the Walkers are getting inside the tombs, they sent me down to check and see how bad it was, if it can be patched, they're expecting me back soon!" He scrambled underneath Luna and she tightened her grip on his hair and knocked his head down hard again.
"We can get out," she hissed in his ear. "And you're going to show us the path."
"You might as well kill me, I'll be dead anyway if I go out there, and so will you! The city is overrun. Every Walker from within a hundred miles is here in the city! You'll never make it!"
"Yes we will," Luna snarled. "Just take us to the edge," she grated between her teeth, coughing from the extended use of her throat.
Judith twitched and was about to say more when she heard the softest of growls coming from down the tunnel. The kid heard it too and began to struggle in earnest, making a racket as he scraped the stone. Luna hauled him up to his feet and kept her grip on his hair and the homemade blade at his throat, the curved metal fitting nicely over his neck. She leaned down into his ear and hissed, "Either get us out, or I'll cut you open and leave you for the biters as bait!"
"No, please, please, but I can't get you out! I don't know the way out of the city and even if I did, like I said, it's overrun, you won't make it, I swear on my life, please, let me go, please!"
"Oh for fuck's sake, stop whining like a dying cow," Judith snapped, slapping him upside the head which silenced his whimpering cries. "Jeeze, even Benjamin has more of a spine." She turned to Luna and gave her eye contact so she could read her lips.
"If he won't get us out, we only have one choice, to go back with him."
"Are you crazy?!" Luna grated in her throat. "Go back? After all of this?"
"Luna we don't have much choice!" Judith's voice was rising with panic. The growls were getting closer, she could already see the faintest of shadows oozing across the wall, a predecessor to an untold number of Walkers come to rip them limb from limb.
"I'm with her!" the kid panted, still faintly struggling against Luna.
"Take us with you, wherever it is you're going," Judith urged, grabbing Luna's wrist and pulling her knife away from the boy's throat. Luna glared and bared her teeth at Judith as the kid extricated himself from between them.
"We'll never get this close again," Luna snarled, her eyes blazing with an anger rivaling even that of her parents on their worst days.
"We don't have time to argue," Judith snapped. She turned to the boy who was squirming, trying to brush the debris and ick off of him from having been shoved to the sewer floor.
"She's right, we don't, we have to go, now, come on!" the kid took off running again as a group of biters rounded the corner and laid eyes on them, their hissing breaths filling the narrow stone tunnel. Luna growled angrily but chased after him and followed his lead with Judith right at her shoulder as the kid navigated them through a dizzying series of twists and turns, quickly leaving the first horde of biters in the dust but when they rounded a larger corner they were confronted with five more. The kid froze and skittered back, a panicked shriek rising in his throat but Luna quickly knocked him out of the way and plunged forward. She swung her knife and stabbed one in the skull cleanly, dropping it like a ton of bricks. Judith snatched up a piece of rock that had long since fallen from the wall and bashed another in the head repeatedly until it dropped back. Luna whirled and swung her blade and cut another biter through the skull, wrenching back hard when the ragged piece of metal snagged on fragments of bone and flesh. She kicked an approaching biter away and Judith rushed forward and smashed the rock into its temple. Luna spun and jammed her knife underneath another biter's chin, the tip of the narrow curved piece of metal sticking through the top of the skull. She yanked it free, a spray of acrid blood covered her hand and wrist. They stood still, panting for a moment as they caught their breath, the five biters laid out dead.
"Holy shit," the kid whispered as he saw the carnage wrecked in less than forty five seconds by the two girls. "Where the fuck did you learn to do that?"
Luna grinned at the backwards version of flattery. Like her mother, her pride and her ego was susceptible to being stroked as a way of soothing her riled temper. Judith on the other hand was paying more attention to the kid.
"What's your name?" she asked as she stood straight and wiped her palms on the knees of her jeans.
"Leland," he answered quietly, still looking at the bodies strewn across the floor and then at the two girls.
"I'm Judith Grimes, this is Luna Dixon," the elder explained as she finished recovering her breath.
Leland tilted his head and stared. "Dixon?" he asked, focusing his attention on Luna.
She twirled her knife in her palm and nodded. "What of it?" she demanded.
"I've heard some of the older guys tell stories about someone named Dixon. That he broke into one of our camps and killed a bunch of people."
Luna grinned and licked her lips and was about to answer but Judith cut her off. "We'll have time for spooky campfire stories later. I believe you said you know the way out?"
Leland nodded, urgency once again taking over his features. "This way."
He took off running again but more cautiously this time. Luna thought she recognized a stretch of tunnel here or there but really it was all one greenish, grayish, blackish blur. The smells were different though. Where they'd found Leland the air had been much warmer and smelled of moist clay and not quite as much water and stone. Now where they ran was all rock and slimy dampness that cloyed her nose in a bad way. The darkness was still suffocating and oppressive but she had no choice but to endure as Leland led them through a twisting labyrinth. The ground began to slope up and they approached what looked like a dead end but as they came closer Luna realized it was a T-junction, and situated on the wall was a ladder. Leland now paused and extricated a flashlight from his belt and aimed it at the wall. Painted on it was a large white check mark. He flicked the light between both girls and took a deep breath in.
"Alright, when we come out, we have to run the Gauntlet and then the yard. Once we clear those I have a key to get us into the CDC building and once there, well, we're home free." He grinned a little but Luna could see the stress in his face despite it. With the flashlight she could see the resemblance he bore to Glenn again and she nudged Judith, pointing this out.
"But only half," Luna added. "Not exactly like Glenn."
Leland stared at the two of them as they signed back and forth to each other. "What are you doing?" he demanded.
"She's deaf, this is how she communicates," Judith explained.
"So that's why her voice is all weird, I wondered," he responded. He opened his mouth to say more but paused when he heard rasping snarls coming from both ends of the intersection. "More on that later," he amended. He scrambled up the ladder and flipped a release lock on the underside of the trap door at the top of the ladder and quickly pushed the door open and disappeared into the outside world.
"After you," Luna hissed towards her sister. She kept a firm grip on her knife as Judith scrambled up the metal ladder and Luna followed right behind. They emerged onto the street in the middle of an intersection and as soon as Luna was clear Leland shut the trap door and then turned to them.
"Right, come on. Gauntlet first," he said hurriedly.
Luna gulped down as many breaths of the fresh air as she could, so grateful to be out of those cursed tunnels. She gripped Judith by the wrist to get her sister's attention.
"Come on, we have to try!" she hissed, trying to pull Judith away from where Leland was heading towards a swath of buildings and twisted streets.
"Luna, look!" Judith urged. She pointed to the skyscrapers and the surrounding cityscape and Luna felt a sharp sinking in her gut.
"We're back where we started. We'll never make it, not without a map or something to help us navigate. We haven't eaten and you haven't slept. You're shaking right now," she said, pointing out the obvious tremor in Luna's fingers and hands. "We don't have a choice."
Without another word Judith took Luna by the wrist and pulled her along after Leland who was already making his way up the street. When they caught up with him he was crouched behind the remains of a small convenience store that had long since been raided of anything of use. They saw what was indeed aptly named the Gauntlet; a half-mile stretch of straightaway pavement that was lined with buildings but directly beyond it was the lawn of the CDC and then the building itself. The entire road was crawling with biters, dozens, maybe even hundreds of them, ambling and shuffling about like oversized ants.
"How do you get through?" Judith asked, her breath forced through her clenched teeth to keep them from clattering together with fear.
"You run," Leland responded. Luna tilted her head and surveyed the situation carefully.
"Follow my lead," she whispered. She could already see the path of least resistance and she wasn't about to wait for it to fill with more corpses.
"Wait, you don't know what you're doing!" Leland angrily whispered as Luna darted into the street.
"Yes she does, trust her!" Judith urged. If anybody was going to see the best way through a sticky situation, it would be Luna, especially in the dark. She quickly followed her sister, moving swiftly to catch up, hearing Leland curse with fear and aggravation before following.
Luna plunged forward, not wasting time on trying to be subtle or quiet. She instinctively guessed that regardless of how much she tried to sneak past or blend in the biters would smell her and know she was live prey. Her best weapon was speed. She could feel her body shaking with the physical stress she'd put it under and she knew if it came down to a fight she wasn't going to last for long. She darted between three biters and skirted around a deserted car, scrambling up over the hood to avoid grabbing hands.
"Come on!" she urged, snatching Judith by the hand and hauling her up as Leland tried to dart around. She didn't wait for him but instead kept going, running the length of the car and jumping off before the biters could circle around to the trunk. She rushed forward, jumping and slashing with her knife just like her father had taught her when a corpse blocked her path. She darted right out into the middle of the street and bolted forward, her shoes scraping gritty pavement as she barreled ahead, trying not to squeal and cry out with fear when hands reached for her. She ducked through a horde of arms and shoved a biter out of the way violently and dared to glance a look back over her shoulder. Judith and Leland were right behind her, following her every step.
She suddenly swerved out of the main road towards the sidewalk. It was a risky move, she was chancing being penned in up against the buildings, but the path was clearer there than it was on the other side or in the street. Her legs burned for want of rest as she pushed forward, almost tripping as her legs struggled to keep pace with her feet. Her stomach clenched with severe nausea as physical exertion made her feel sick, coupled with the smell of the rotting corpses in their path. She bit back her gag just barely and ran, stabbing a biter through the forehead and casting the body aside as she veered away from a group of five and flung herself over the hood of another car and tumbled back into the street.
"Come on!" Leland urged, having been able to dart around the group when Luna had distracted them. They had reached the end of the Gauntlet and now had a mostly clear shot straight across the lawn to the CDC. Luna mustered the last of her strength and when Judith came and pulled her along she kicked her feet against the concrete for the last leg of their run.
They fled for their lives as the horde turned and converged on them. Every muscle in Luna's body burned and she was sure Judith was in a similar state judging from the sweat and anxiety soaking her face. Flashes of her family whipped across her mind's eye making it almost impossible to think straight as she staggered forward. Her grip on her homemade knife slipped but she managed to hold onto it as she followed Judith and Leland up the steps of the CDC to a side door where Leland was already working a key into the lock. They dove inside and Leland slammed the door shut and locked it tight just as the horde following them reached the steps of the great glass building.
Luna collapsed to the ground, trying not to groan as her body shuddered from exhaustion and pain. She curled in on herself, doing her ultimate best not to puke all over the floor.
"Luna, get up," Judith's signs against her arm were stiff and shaking, almost un-intelligible. Someone was coming down the hall quickly but if Luna understood , she either did not have the strength or the desire to get up.
"Ah Leland, I'm glad you made it back, and what's more, you brought back our newest guests."
Judith whipped her head up and saw Milton and a few other men standing over them. She picked herself up off the floor and forced Luna on her feet too. When Luna caught the scent of soft cotton and warm flesh she lifted her head and saw Milton standing there she bared her teeth.
"Still alive," she growled.
"Come on, we can discuss what happened downstairs. And you two can get cleaned up, you reek something awful." Milton wrinkled his nose in distaste and Luna had the desire, but not the energy, to crush the bridge of his nose a second time. Milton twisted to look at one of the men behind him. "Mal, why don't you take them down to the cells and get them settled in."
"Not the dorms, sir?"
Milton shook his head. "After the ruckus they caused, they need some time to cool down I think. Besides, the doctor is going to want to take a good look at them." He eyed Luna especially when he said this and Luna felt a thick coil of cold dread settle in her stomach.
Milton stepped aside and allowed the one he'd been speaking with to come forward. Luna kept her gaze fixed on him and was revolted to find that he was around their age, armed with a gun, and taking orders from a spineless coward like Milton.
"Traitor," she snarled in her throat.
The man paused for a moment and watched her closely. He reached forward and with strength that made Luna recoil he easily took her homemade knife out of her hand. He twirled it in his long fingers and then looked down at her and smirked.
"Nice job," he said, and Luna didn't need to hear his voice to hear the scathing tone in it.
"I'd like to see you do better," she growled. She was aware by now of course that her shirt was ripped to pieces and she was sure she had mud and grit and blood streaked all over her skin, her hair was a matted tangled mess, and she probably wouldn't have had the strength to fend off an angry cat but she would be damned if she lost face now.
He tilted his head, obviously noticing the difference in her speech. She took him in, even in the low half light of the dark hallway, noting the features in him. His grey eyes sparked like steel being struck with a sharp edge. Layers of shaggy sable brown hair framing his face which balanced right on the edge between boy and manhood. A thin trace of stubble dusted over his chin and jaw. He had enough sharpness in him to remind her of a coyote, but there was a smoothness that soothed the edges and kept him from looking pinched. He had a touch of Benjamin's upper crust pedigree, but she could see the shadows underneath his cheekbones, around his nose, and eye sockets that made him look almost haunted. He was taller than her, just as tall as her father, and built like him as well, broad in the shoulders and tapered in the waist and hips. She glanced up and down his arms and noted the lithe muscle of his arms and shoulders that moved with lazy grace underneath his shirt. And as she watched him, he watched her, and she had the distinct feeling of being sized up as well. It set her teeth on edge.
"Here it's not necessary," he said and she kept focused on the movements of his lips, which seemed permanently fixed in position to convey languid amusement and something just a little more sinister. Luna watched his long fingered hands very carefully as he moved towards her. Judith tensed next to her but Mal merely slid her home made knife into his belt and let his grip begin to close around Luna's upper arm. "Come on, you can barely walk."
Luna shoved him away with the last bit of her strength. The moment his vise like fingers began to close over her arm she internally began to panic, like a wild animal about to be touched, and she had reacted with as much force as she could muster. He took a step and a half backwards from the strength of her blow but she staggered as well and hit the wall with her shoulder. Judith darted in and helped to keep her from falling over. Luna resented it but she knew that she needed help to stand up.
"Go on then," Judith muttered, nodding towards Mal who rocked lightly on the balls of his feet as they all began to move away from the hallway and towards the more open atrium towards a more spacious hall that would take them deeper into the CDC. It was Leland who took the lead, Milton having caught a hold of Mal's eye and silently asking him for a word. When the others had pulled away sufficiently (and Milton blessed the fact that Luna was deaf and unable to hear their conversation anyway) he spoke in low tones towards Mal.
"Do me a favor would you, keep an eye on them, but especially Luna." The scientist's eyes were dark as he kept his gaze fixed on Luna's hunched over back.
"The one who can barely speak?" Mal questioned softly. Milton nodded and Mal offered up a questioning look. "Why me?"
Milton's lips tightened and he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I think you will have a better chance of getting through to her than anybody. Her and her sister have done an awful lot of damage already, I'd like to keep them from tearing the whole place to the ground."
"I don't have time to babysit the two of them, me and the others still have a lot of work to do on the tunnels…" he would have continued but Milton cut him off.
"Don't worry, it won't be forever, just until she learns to trust us. She will in time, and I want you to help with that. It will make everybody's lives easier, trust me," Milton urged.
"It'll make your life easier." Mal delivered this with tones that bordered on icy, yet they bit like fire. It was one of those uncanny things about Mal that he had to learn to live with. Milton shook it off as best he could.
"If she finds out our weaknesses, she could destroy everything we've built, and I wouldn't put it past her to do it out of pure spite." Milton's tone was serious enough to have Mal lower some of his sarcastic defenses.
"You're not worried about her sister? Isn't she the one who broke your nose?" This was spoken with poorly concealed amusement, which Milton glared at him for.
"Be that as it may, Luna is the one who will cause trouble. Judith has more sense than to go down in a blaze of glory as it were. The fact that they're here rather than being ripped to pieces right now in the city is proof of that."
Mal nodded and watched as Leland skittered off down another hall and Milton made to follow him. The scientist nodded once and then followed Leland, leaving Mal facing Luna and Judith. If the two girls had been up to speed rather than half dead with exhaustion and hunger he would be worried that they might try and overpower Mal, but even if they were at full strength, they would have a hard time managing Mal. Mal was like them in a way…he wasn't quite as feral as they were but he understood that mindset, and was easily able to react to it. Milton retreated down the hall with Leland and quieted the nervousness in his mind, resolved that even if somehow the two girls put up a fight, they were not going to be able to make it out of the building again.
Mal turned to the two girls and surveyed them carefully. From what he knew about them, even when it looked like they'd had just about all they could take, they should still be watched carefully. The fact that they had survived twelve plus hours away from the CDC deep inside the red zone of the city told him a great many things about them. He was curious about Judith who up to this point had said relatively little. It told him that she was probably more analytical, more likely to use her brain to figure a way out of a situation. It also told him that most likely she'd be more likely take a pause and wait to see what her opponent would do or was capable of before making a decision on her own. From around his neck he removed a long chain that held several keys, one of which he used to unlock the door to a flight of stairs.
"Come ladies," he said, holding the door open for them. Judith made to pull Luna along towards the step but Luna balked and extricated herself from under Judith's arm so she could stand on her own.
"We're not dogs to come as you call," she growled. Mal watched her blue eyes, bluer and sharper than any he had ever met before, and felt the tingle of a shiver go down his spine. Good lord if looks could kill he would have been incinerated. He flicked his tongue behind his teeth and summoned the necessary courage (or stupidity) to smirk at her.
"We're all animals," he said coolly. "And all animals can be domesticated."
Luna's fingers curled into fists and for a moment Mal wondered if she was foolish enough to try and hit him. It wouldn't have provoked him, she looked about as dangerous as a drowned sheep right now, but a different gleam was in her eye now. A stubborn, relentlessly tenacious, spiteful, loathing light that had every fiber of her anger directed straight at him, and as weakened as she was, it was still a powerful look.
"You'll die before you will collar me."
Mal tilted his head and watched her for a long moment. The way she drew herself up to her full height, the way she met his gaze with steady eye contact and did not even so much as blink or flinch away from him, the posture of her shoulders and the twisted expression on her mouth told him that unlike Judith who would temper her reaction to that of her opponent, Luna was so confident in her own capabilities that she didn't feel the need to make allowances for the situation at hand. There were two reasons for this- either she was blinded by the skills she thought she possessed, or she really was that experienced. Looking at her, Mal was inclined to believe that the truth was somewhere in the middle, but that light in her eye whispered of a wildness, a sharpness that he must not underestimate. If he did he knew instinctively that he would pay a steep price for it, others already had. Milton had told him about the two men she had brutally stabbed in trying to escape, and Mal had no doubt that if he gave any opportunity she would take advantage of it.
Judith turned to Luna and signed something to her and Mal watched with fascination at the quick, graceful movement of her fingers. Whatever it was she said Luna seemed discontented with the answer but she said nothing else. Judith took Luna under her arm again and together they made their way slowly down the stairs and Mal had to wonder if perhaps it would not have been better that they simply let this pair go. He did not doubt his words when he said that every animal could be domesticated, but he had to wonder if perhaps some of them just weren't worth the trouble.