Chapter 20 – Cigarettes

Dinner devolved quickly from Kenny's outburst and Clem and I ventured out to the back of the lodge, leaning against the deck railing and staring into the darkness of the treeline. A gazebo stood a few yards away to the left, the wind turbine hummed just opposite on the right, and the night air bit at the skin uncovered by our upturned jacket collars. I reached into my pocket and withdrew a cigarettes. Clem flipped open her lighter and the tip ignited, warming our palms for a moment.

I exhaled deeply, the smoke mixed with the cloud of my breath.

"You know that I wouldn't stay without you," she whispered. I sunk a little, sighing and looking at her. In the near-pitch darkness, the only light was the reflection of the cigarette's glow in her eyes, and the effect was chilling.

"Clem... I have to tell you something."

"I already know," she tore her eyes away from mine, staring into the woods again. "Matthew... he was the one on the bridge."

It wasn't my most pressing thought, but her attention on this I considered a blessing in disguise. "They're expecting him back," I continued. "They'll go look in the morning."

"They won't find anything. His body's either sunk or halfway to the next state by now."

"Walter will figure it out."

"Maybe we can explain it to him. It was an accident."

"Clementine," I reasoned. "When they find out what we've done... Walter... he won't let us stay."

"Maybe Kenny and Sarita could come with us, then. Kenny was talking about moving on-"

"Carver-"

Clem pulled away from the railing, startling me. "We don't even know if that was Carver down there. It could have just been more travelers, staying in the station tonight. He could have made it up here by now if he wanted to."

"He's not stupid, Clem," I retorted. "He's not just going to try and jump us."

"How do you know?"

"He doesn't know how many of us there are now. Ah!" I gasped as the cigarette burned down to the last nub, singeing my fingers. I dropped it on the deck, squashing it out with a booted toe. "Clem, in the morning, we should tell Walt the truth. He won't want us to stay and you have to convince Kenny to go with you. And when you're safe, leave the group. Carver's catching up, if not tomorrow then the next day. We're not stuck with them anymore now that you have Kenny back."

"You don't even like Kenny and you want to group up with him?" I dropped my head, pushing my hands into my pockets before looking up again, and then, Clem understood. She nodded once, slowly, exhaling so deep it was as though the very breath was leaving her soul and she looked at me and said, "you're leaving, aren't you?"

"It's...time," I forced out quietly, guiltily.

"I don't understand," Clementine whispered, her voice cracking and eyes reddening. I sighed, shaking my head and staring at the ground. My muscles ached and trembled, and I unclenched my fists, running my fingers over the thin indentations of my nails in the flesh. "Scout... why won't you tell me what's going on?"

Dad? Daddy!

My chest burned.

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know," I whispered. "I thought Macon at first but-"

"Lee came from Macon. I was there. It's a ghost town." She was desperate now. Anything to make me stay.

"You've said," I whispered sorrowfully, staring into the darkness to avoid her gaze.

"Then where?" she pressed. "Where is better than with people you know and trust?"

"Trust?" I could have laughed at how sour the word tasted, turning to glare at her as if it offended me. "I'm not like you, Clem. I can't just look behind me and see someone there. There isn't a line of people waiting to take care of me, not like Kenny wants to take care of you. Even Nick and Rebecca, when she's not bitching about something. Even Pete." I swallowed, wringing my hands against the railing. "There's something about you."

"What?" she begged.

"I don't know." I admitted. "But it makes you easy to love. And I'm..." I hesitated, only then hearing how the words spilled forth in precise, robotic tempo, the way I had rehearsed them in my head. Now they ruled me but I had paused long enough to think it through one more time, what I wanted so desperately to tell her. How many times had I told Clementine this story in the back of my own mind? How many times had I spared her from it?

"I'm just not like you," I finished.

"What if Carver comes for you? What if he comes for us when you're gone?"

"He won't come for you," I breathed.

"How do you know?"

I looked at her, exhaling slowly. "Because I'll ask him not to."

Clem's brow furrowed and I stilled my tongue, turning inward again. "Scout, I don't-"

"Hey, Clem!" someone shouted, making us both turn. Walter was at the back door, wielding a lantern. "Can you help me with something out front?"

Sighing, she turned away, heading toward him. "Clem," I whispered. She looked over her shoulder at me. I faltered. "I'm sorry you're involved in all this."

"You're not my keeper, Scout."

I swallowed, dropping my head as the words attacked my gut. Clem sighed and approached me again, speaking softly so Walter wouldn't hear. "You act like you're the only one who has any control over anything. I know I can't expect you not to keep secrets from me but I wish you wouldn't. I've known Kenny for a long time but I don't want to do anything or go anywhere without you. You can't stop me, just like I can't stop you."

I met her eyes, glistening even in the blackness, and nodded once. She returned it, stony-faced, and turned to leave me there in the dark. I leaned back against the railing, facing the lodge. It loomed over me, its peak jutting obstinately into the black sky as the clouds began to obscure the stars.

Just as I thought to breathe out again, a twig snapped somewhere to my right and I whipped around, crouching low and reaching for my knife, which as I'd forgotten, wasn't there. I clenched my empty hand and squinted against the darkness. A figure emerged from the treeline, moving on a trajectory perpendicular to me, toward the lodge. I couldn't tell if it was a walker or not, so I crept closer, skirting across the deck and flattening myself against the wall of the lodge. The figure disappeared from view and I approached the corner, peering around. In the light of Walt's lantern I saw her, a woman, her face was gaunt and ghostly beneath a tight ponytail of red hair, but she was alive. With Kenny's rifle on her gut she had her hands up, looked every bit the stray she was, probably hoping for a handout. I started forward, but didn't get far. Something rough clapped over my mouth and I was yanked backward into someone's arms. The hand against my face pressed the cloth closer – I could taste the chloroform on my teeth.