The Walking Deth - Part III
Where We Belong - Chapter IV
Austin
I woke up with a raging boner that was hard enough to drill through diamond. I lay on the sofa staring up at the ceiling, and trying to think of something other than Beth's soft and sweet smelling body curled up beside me. Dead cats in a puddle of fur and guts on the road side, chunks of walker brain, wobbling like Jell-O on the hilt of my Busse, Grandma. Nothing helped, my eyes kept being drawn like iron to a magnet, to her tight waist exposed under the twisted fleece of her sweater, and then down over her smooth rounded rump, exposed by her panties caught between her cheeks. I wondered if she would be ready yet. It had been a few weeks at least since we had last tried, and her night time kisses had been getting heavier and wetter.
I gingerly put my hand across her belly and stroked downwards, slipping my fingers under the frilled elastic band of her too small panties. I worked my way down through the soft curly hair, and to the silky smooth skin on the hood on her clit.
"Stop." She gasped as she pushed her hand on top of mine, flattening it against her belly.
I drew my hand away and out quickly, feeling like a fat kid caught touching the sweet rolls.
"Sorry…just thought you might…"
"I'm bleedin'."
"Oh." So it had been at least a month since it had all happened.
I leaned down and nuzzled into her neck, inhaling the vanilla scent of her. She had found some perfumes in the lockers and had been experimenting with all the different scents, but Vanilla was my favourite so she wore it most often.
"We could go take a shower." I murmured in her ear.
She drew in a quick sharp breath and held it for a while.
"Not yet…soon…just not yet."
I held back a groan of frustration and kissed her behind her ear.
"Whenever you're ready."
I guessed it would probably take more than a month; which did disappoint me just a little. It's not like I hadn't had my dry spells before I had been with Beth. But now that I knew what I was missing out on, my mind was on it all the time.
I wriggled out from behind her and climbed over the arm of the sofa that made up half of our bed, trying to avoid stepping on the guitar she had rested against the sofa so she could practice at night.
I stretched out and cracked my back with a groan. The sofa was the most comfortable thing I had slept on in ages, but old men─ like myself ─ still woke up sore.
"You're gettin' up early." Beth said as she sat up and stretched.
"Yeah, gon' take a shower before I head out. Might try out Roanoke."
I had been venturing further and further away from the school in search of cars, or car batteries seeing as that was what we most needed. We had only found one running car in the whole of Green mount, and it was only a tiny Honda hatch. I had considered trying to squeeze all those kids in there. I thought it might be doable, if I took one or two on the bike with me. But sometimes those kids could get so rowdy and restless, they would drive Beth insane on that four hour trip. Beth still liked to drive the Honda around the parking lot. Said she had nearly forgotten how to drive during that time on the run and then at the prison, and needed the practice.
Beth was watching me collect up my boots and clothing, with a pout on her lips
"I don't think you should…it's probably swarming with walkers."
"I'll be careful. I'll scope it out first and I won't go too far in."
Beth looked down to her bare knees.
"You wanna get back to the others, right?"
She looked up at me, and shrugged.
"I guess so."
"Well we might have to take a lil' risk."
Beth frowned at me and then crawled out of bed and picked up her guitar and started strumming it while humming a tune I didn't recognise.
"Still workin' on your song?"
"mmm." She mumbled.
She had been trying to write a song over the past few weeks, but she kept complaining that something was missing in the lyrics. I knew nothing about music, so I wasn't about to be any help to her.
"Gon' take that shower."
"You've been takin' a lot of showers lately." She said while eyeing me up and down with a furrowed brow. "We won't have so much water come summer."
"It's okay, I won't take long."
I left her there frowning at the strings on her guitar while I went downstairs. That shower drain was taking my load whether Beth was gonna be a part of it or not.
The weather was starting to heat up now as we moved into spring, and the children were restless about being cooped up inside the gym to play. It seemed every time they went to the outside play equipment we would wake up the next morning with half a dozen walkers pawing at the gates, so I had told them they could play out in the courtyard that attached to the cafeteria in the centre of the school. That was where I found Beth and the kids that morning after I had showered and gotten dressed.
I was wearing my usual vest and button up and my new pair of jeans. Well, newish, second-hand jeans. Beth had tricked me into thinking she was going to fix my old pair for me, and she had ended up trashing them. My new pair I settled on after finding several pairs of skin tight, new age shit that kids wore before the world went to hell. I wouldn't be buried in them. These were the only ones that fit and I could run in. They didn't stay in their newish condition for long, running through the woods, killing walkers and skinning game, weren't work for new clothes.
The eleven kids we had taken charge of were playing on black and white tiles laid in a checkerboard pattern amongst the grass, while Beth sat on the loose gravel next to Mix, scrubbing clothes against the washboard. The kids giggled and squealed in delight, as they jumped from tile to tile trying not to fall off their specified colour.
Beth eyed over the stains on my jeans as I approached her. She looked to my face and I avoided her gaze, not wanting to lose another item of clothing I liked, and I looked to the kids playing.
"I think it's supposed to be a chessboard you know." Beth commented, as she watched me examining the board.
I scratched my chin thoughtfully. I had walked past those tiles a dozen times, but never thought you could play anything on it until now.
"You know, I think I saw some big-ass horse heads in the groundskeepers shed. Maybe they were chess pieces."
Her eyes lit up. "You should get them. I would love to beat you in a game of chess." She winked at me teasingly.
That was unlikely. Merle had become quite the master at chess while he was locked up, and he had taught me all the sneaky and successful tips of the trade.
"You're on." I challenged.
"Awse, Marie, Tomsee, Nate, Laws, come give me a hand." It had taken me a few days to learn all their names, and a few weeks to come up with nicknames for them.
The kids left their game and followed me, around the side of the building to the groundskeepers shed.
The horse heads had been poking out from under a dark tarp, and when I pulled it away I found pawns, knights, bishops, castles, queens and kings. The kids all grabbed two pieces each, and I filled my arms with as many as possible. Not wanting to make more than two trips if at all possible.
As I walked back around to the courtyard, I dropped one of the pawns and it rolled on the gravel and stopped in a dark ring of dried up oil that had been left by a car. It seemed quite long for your average car. I looked overhead to the high patio roof, whatever car had been here, it had been big…big enough to fit a shit-ton of kids…something like a school bus.
"Hey Awse." I called over to the blue eyed boy, who was trying to carry four pieces as if to prove something to me. The kid was always trying to impress me in some way. He had grown quite solid over the last month, being fed right and getting lots of sunshine and exercise. He was always telling me that his aim was to have guns as big as mine someday.
He looked up at me, while trying to balance his pieces, and waited for me to continue.
"Your old school…did it have a school bus?"
"Well it was a school." He replied smartly.
"Alright smartass, do you think you can remember where they kept it?"
Austin pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Yeah probably, if I was there."
"You wanna come on a ride with me today?"
Austin dropped his load of chess pieces to the ground. "On your bike?" He asked excitedly.
"Yeah."
"Hell yes!" His bright blue eyes filled with hope and enthusiasm.
"Alright eager beaver, you gotta pick up them pieces and take 'em over for me first."
Austin scooped up the pieces and juggled them in his arms as he raced back towards the courtyard, and I picked my pieces up and followed.
I couldn't leave without kicking Beth's ass in chess at least once. She pouted and accused me of cheating. I may have taken advantage of her rusty knowledge about the rules, but that wasn't cheating, just taking opportunity. We played another game and I let her win just for the sake of peace.
After that I collected my back pack, Airborne and the camera I had taken from the media room a few weeks back. I had never owned a camera before, except the crappy little one that was on my cell that I had before the turn. I liked to take it out with me and take snaps of what I found while out hunting or while on the road. Finding something pretty in this shit ugly world was my favourite subject, and every now and then I had the chance to capture it. I had to read a book as thick as my thumb to figure out how to use the thing and Beth had wanted me to teach the kids how to use it, along with painting after seeing my piece on the gym doors. She said with her teaching them music we could raise some real arty kids. But I refused both. I didn't have the patience she had.
Beth followed Austin and I around to the front gate, making a big fuss over me taking him out of the safety of the school. Saying he was too young and inexperienced, and he had chores and lessons to do, and so on. Austin and I rolled our eyes at each other and smirked in mutual understanding.
I climbed on to the bike that was parked by the entrance to the school under the steel and glass canopy. Austin jumped up on the bike behind me, carrying his backpack, and began fidgeting impatiently.
"You make sure you hold on to me tight, boy." I told him over my shoulder.
"You ride real careful." Beth insisted.
I looked back to her.
"I ain't never put my bike down, and there ain't any competition out on them roads anyways."
"Well…You be real carful at that school too. We haven't been around that part of town much."
"I got my knife." Austin said as he dug into the leather sheathe I had fashioned for him out of deer hide using the tools from the workshop, and tanning it by boiling the deer's brain up in Beth's big pot…which she was not happy about.
Austin held up his knife, and I laughed to myself imagining little Austin taking on a walker with his tiny blade.
Beth glared at me, not finding anything humorous about Austin's ballsy attitude.
"You should take Mix with you." Beth suggested.
Mix happily bounded towards me at the mention of his name and stood at my feet begging to get on the bike.
"Nah. You know I like him to stay with you and the kids." Poor Mix looked like he desperately needed some time away from the women and children.
Beth smiled and gave Mix a rub on the head, and Mix licked her affectionately.
"Well...you take good care of each other, boys."
"We will…mom." I teased as I kicked the bike into action.
"Yeah…mom." Austin mimicked, I glanced over my shoulder at him disapprovingly. It wasn't the first time one of the kids had called her mom, and it irked me every time.
"I mean Miss Beth." Austin lowered his eyes to the bike below him.
Beth pouted at his response. I don't think the kids calling her mom bothered her as much as it bothered me.
Beth opened the gate for us, and then she waved us away as we rode down the hill and into town.
Austin had gone to the Benjamin Franklin Middle School before the outbreak. I had ridden past it a few times while going on supply runs, but I had never stopped in that area. It was made up of two separate buildings on the one site. Both built from terracotta coloured brick. The west building was a single story older looking building and the east was double story and newer. I parked the bike at the entrance to the west building, and took my camera out to take a snap of the two flag poles that were flying two tattered flags at half-mast.
I was a little wary about entering unknown territory with so few weapons. I had left the M16 at the school with Beth and had only taken my Airborne, Busse, and Austin's little knife. I hadn't come across anymore firearms on my travels. The Walmart and hunting shops had all been cleared out long ago. But I did manage to find some ammo for the M16, some crossbow bolts and I had also managed to work up some new arrows in the workshop at the school, and I kept them in my extra quiver I had made there. In a month of staying in Green Mount I had only come across a few dozen walkers, and no humans, so I hadn't the need for any extra firepower just yet.
I figured the school had been evacuated early, just like the town, as it was as quiet as a corpse in a library, but I still banged on the glass doors to see if anything stirred inside. Austin waited by my side with his fingers tapping on his blade at his hip nervously.
"You know if many kids were sick at your school when you left?"
"Yeah some were sick, and were sent home. My mom pulled me out of school as soon as all this stuff went on the news, so I don't know how many still came in after that."
There was no movement inside so I figured all the kids must have been brought home early. I picked up a loose brick from the wall of the garden bed and smashed the glass pane on the door so I could unlock it, and then we both made our way in.
The entrance hallway was really dark and dank, and foul smelling. It was nothing like the school we were staying in. Even the paintings and photographs on the walls were dull. It kind of reminded me of the school I went to as a kid…when I went to school. At the end of the entry way was a fire hose and a fire axe in a red cabinet. Austin opened it and pulled the axe out. It was only a small axe, more like a hatchet really.
"We need more weapons, right." He asked as he held it out in front of him.
"Can you swing that thing?"
Austin started twirling the axe using both hands like it was a samurai sword.
He smiled up at me, and I smiled back.
Austin led me through a series of dark hallways, littered with chairs and tables and torn up books. It was so dark down there that I had to get my flashlight out. I held it between my teeth while I kept my bow drawn, just in case.
"It's kinda creepy here, when it's all dark." Austin whispered.
"Always this dark in 'ere?" I mumbled around the flashlight.
Austin pointed up to the ceiling.
"They're usually lit up."
"Looks like no-ones been clearing the gutters." I said removing the flashlight and looking up to the skylights covered in dirt and leaves and other filth. "that's a fire hazard right there." I chuckled, and Austin screwed his face up, not getting my joke.
After getting near lost in a maze of black hallways we came to two large double doors that were heavily chained and padlocked. I put my Airborne under my arm and examined the lock. It was thick and locked tight.
Austin went to swing his axe at it and I stilled him.
"That ain't budgin." I mumbled with the light between my teeth.
Austin pouted and lowered his axe.
"Another way out back?" I asked Austin, taking the flashlight out of my mouth, and shining it on his face.
"Yeah, through the cafeteria, it's on the other side."
Austin waved for me to follow him, and I did, shining the light ahead so he could see where he was going.
We made our way to the other side of the building and down more winding corridors. Austin stopped in front of one of the doors, and I shined the light on it to see that it had a black '32' painted on it.
"That was my old classroom." He said pointing at the door. I tried looking through the tiny window, but it was so dusty I couldn't make anything out.
"You wanna take a look?" I asked him, and he nodded in reply.
"You open the door real slow like." I told him, as I put the torch back in my mouth and directed the beam of light at the handle. I drew back on my Airborne and then nodded for him to go ahead.
The handle turned easily and Austin slowly pushed the door open letting off a small squeak as it moved on its hinges.
The room was much brighter than the corridors. A whole wall was covered in dirty windows. The classroom was also filthy. Pens and pencils and papers were thrown all over the floor and several desks and chairs were upturned. The teacher's desk was leaning up against the blackboard, and someone had scrawled 'None are spared' over the board again and again.
I took a picture of the board, while Austin poked around the room. He shoved some books and things into his backpack and then he turned over a desk and chair and sat at it facing the front of the classroom.
"This was my spot."
I turned around and looked at the bright face, bright eyed youth sitting amongst a disaster zone.
"Stay right there." I told him as I took a few snaps of him. I picked up a pencil and some paper from the floor and placed it on the desk in front of him.
"Make like your writin' somethin'."
Austin started scribbling across the page and I took a few more snaps of him.
"Best move on now." I said as I searched through the display looking at the snaps I had taken.
Austin took out his knife and started scratching into his desk. When he stepped away I looked at what he had done. It read 'Austin waz ere'.
"That'd get you a detention, defacing school property like that." I said with a smirk. Austin smirked back, then sheathed his knife and picked up his axe and backpack and made his way back into the dark corridor.
The cafeteria was at the end of the corridor behind two large glass doors. It was dark inside, but there was a square of sun lit white on the opposite side of the room by the outside doors. It cast enough light into the room to reveal that it was swarming with walkers.
I put my finger to my lips to tell Austin to be quiet and he nodded.
"Is there another way out there?" I whispered.
"Only if you want to climb a barbed wire fence."
I frowned and then sidled up to the glass to assess our options.
There were a heap of tables and chairs in there that could provide good cover and the walkers were mainly little ones and all skin and bone. They had probably been rotting away in here since the beginning of the outbreak.
"If we're real careful, we might be able to avoid them." I whispered. "You stay right on my heels. I move you move. I stop you stop. I run you run. Got it?"
Austin nodded, and held his axe up on his shoulder.
I switched off the flashlight, tucked it into my pocket next to the almost empty pack of Marlboro lights, and carefully pulled down on the door handle. I eased it open inch by inch, trying to avoid any creaking, and trying not to gag when the smell of rot escaped. I motioned for Austin to go in and I followed him closing the door gently behind myself.
Once inside I dropped to my knees and crawled behind a table, trying to hold my Airborne off the floor so it didn't scrape and give away our position. We waited for a little girl with pig tails to shuffle past, before crouch running over to the nearby servery. We followed that along the length of most of the room and waited at the end, for another small group to shuffle past.
I mapped out my route to the door. Three tables to hide under, then I would have to rush at the door, get out there and close it behind us before the walkers could get to us. I pointed to the three tables and door indicating my plan and Austin nodded.
When the coast was clear we crouched over to the first table, and then we waited a moment before moving to the next. I made it over easy and turned back to watch Austin. On top of the table was a lunch tray. It had a fork hanging off the end caught under a plate. As Austin passed it the fork caught in the loop on his backpack and he started dragging it along. I tried waving to him to tell him to stop, but his eyes where fixed on the nearby walkers.
The fork fell to the floor bringing the tray and plate with it, and landing with a clang, bang and shatter to the floor.
"Shit." Austin hissed.
"Run." I called.
I stood up and shot the walker that was about to pounce on Austin, and Austin dodged away from its falling body and then raced over to me with his axe raised. I backed towards the door while firing arrows into the groaning, moaning and stumbling walkers who looked at us with empty sunken eyes.
Austin started fumbling at the lock. He clicked it open and pulled on the handle, while I emptied my second quiver.
"It's jammed." He cried.
I lowered my Airborne, turned my back to the walkers and slammed down on the handle trying to get it to turn.
I heard a battle cry from behind me and turned to see little Austin swinging his axe wildly around into walker skulls, sending black tar like gunk over the linoleum in long splatters. I watched him in awe as he dodged and weaved and spun, splitting skull after skull. The kid was a natural, I didn't even think he needed my help, but I pulled out my Busse and went to his aide anyway.
I grabbed hold of two tables at once and dragged them back towards the door to form a barricade around us, and from our safe position behind it we hacked, stabbed and slashed our way through what was left of the walkers.
"This is…kind of…fun, hey?" Austin called between hacks.
"Killing them…is not…supposed to… be fun." I replied, while stabbing.
When we were almost done the bodies of a few dozen walkers piled up in front of the tables. There was one walker left. It was small and slow and moaning weakly as it fell to the table and tried reaching towards us. It was just a kid. A little smaller than Austin, dressed in shorts and a striped tee and with only one jogger on his feet.
Austin stood before him with his axe raised, hesitating to take the swing.
"What's the matter?"
"It's…my best friend… John Clarke." He muttered.
I looked to the John's face, grey and drawn under a mess of blonde curls. There was something in his eyes, that I hardly saw in a walker. A flicker of emotion. Sadness, and hopelessness. I took my camera from my back pack and walked over to him and knelt so I could snap a close up of his face.
"Why are you taking its picture?" Austin asked with a raised eyebrow.
I pointed to the still struggling kid walker. "He was once a living person…I want to capture that."
Austin frowned at me and then looked back to his friend. I pulled out my Busse and ended the kid as humanely as possible.
"He never did like school." Austin muttered as he looked down on the corpse, finally at rest.
"Well, I just sent him home." I said as I dropped a comforting hand on his shoulder.
We checked the cafeteria kitchen after that. I figured it would still have some stock in it if it hadn't been touched in years. I found a few cans of beans, spam and tuna. And a few pounds of bread mix and sea salt. The mix was probably riddled with flour bugs, but it had been years since I had eaten bread, and the bugs would only add extra protein anyway.
The cafeteria door opened after a few firm shoves and we made our way to the back of the school and to a long patio area that sheltered the school buses. There were two big yellow things, and one smaller bus that looked like it might have been used for small group field trips. I tried them all out, but none of them kicked over. I had a feeling they would be no good. Batteries weren't made to sit around for years.
I popped the hood for the smaller bus and checked out the engine and battery. It looked like the same kind of battery you might have in a truck. I placed my palm against it, trying to measure it up, and took mental note of its type and then closed the hood. All I needed was to find a truck with a working battery of the same size and then we could pile the bus up with the kids and head into Washington.
We left the school feeling a little deflated about not getting the bus, but it was a relief that we weren't going to have to get rid of the bike just yet. Austin posed in front of the wall of the building for me to take one last snap and then waved goodbye to the school. He dropped his new axe into his backpack head first and pulled the zip up around the handle. Then we hopped back on the bike and I gave it a kick and let it roar to life.
"Hey Daryl?" Austin called over the bike.
"Yeah?"
"Can we go to my house? It's not far from here, just over on Trail Drive."
"Sure kid."
I applied the throttle and took off from the school car park and down the main road. Austin pointed out the way for me, and we came to a small single story home on a property a few minutes later. I parked the bike in the drive, grabbed my Airborne, just in case, and headed to the front door. The place was open and it looked as if it had been home to a family of goats the way everything was thrown about and torn to shit.
Austin walked through the house like it didn't bother him and went straight for his bedroom. I walked behind him and stopped and waited outside his door while he grabbed some toys and clothes. My eyes were fixed to a nail in the wall by his door and what was hanging from it. A thick, black leather belt.
Austin came out of his room and looked at me while I stared at the belt.
"My dad put that there to scare me." Austin explained pointing at the belt.
"He use it on you?"
"Yeah a couple of times."
Austin lifted his backpack and sweater and showed me a thin silvery line just above his backside.
"Left this once. Pretty cool huh?"
"No it ain't." I said as I pulled his sweater back down.
"I was kinda a shitty kid. I probably deserved it."
"No. You didn't." I snapped.
"Whatever." Austin said with a shrug and sauntered off down the hall.
We passed an open door into an almost immaculate nursery. It looked like it had never been touched. It probably hadn't. Austin's mom most likely had Jamie over at the school after the outbreak.
"You know, I coulda gone...to the capitol. I was old enough. But I stayed 'cause they wouldn't take Jamie."
"You did good kid. That's what a big brothers is supposed to do. Stay."
Austin frowned at the room and continued down the hall. I reached in and closed the door hoping to preserve it in its current state.
I followed him down into the dirty master bedroom, littered with clothing and trash and I watched him as he sifted through his parents belongings.
He went through the drawer by the bedside and pulled out a white pack with a coloured line on the side.
"Here you go." He tossed the pack towards me, and I looked it over.
"Virginia Slims?"
"Yeah my mom used to smoke 'em all the time. You ran out right?"
"Yeah I did…but these are kind of girls smokes."
Hell, I wasn't gonna be fussy. I pulled one out of the half full pack lit it and took a long drag. Austin smiled at me, and I thought about what Beth would say about me smoking around a kid. I put the cigarette out in the ashtray by the bed and then put it back into the pack, and put the pack in my pocket next to the Marlboro lights packet.
Austin sifted through the draw again and pulled out a pair of shades. He tossed those over to me too.
"Awesome, Awse." I flicked them open and slipped them on, and looked around the now dark room. It was just what I needed for riding the bike.
"They were my dad's." Austin said with a grin.
I took the glasses off and threw them on to the dirty ground.
"Don't need 'em."
There was something about this place that made me feel unsettled. His mom smoked the same cigarettes as the ones that killed my own mom, his dad used to beat him, and sometimes the things the kid said and did reminded me of myself. I wondered what would have happened to him, if the world hadn't gone to shit. Would he better or worse off?
"Let's get out of 'ere, kid. It's givin' me the creeps."
That night back at the school after the kids had been fed and washed and tucked in to bed, Beth sat on the arm of the couch strumming on her guitar and humming. She looked super cute sitting there in my old sweater, that was so large it slumped off her shoulder, and the guitar across her lap. Every now and then she would stop and then scribble into her journal and then go back to strumming and humming.
I pulled off my clothes and boots, and climbed into my sweat pants that I had taken a favour to sleeping in.
"Finished yet?" I asked when I was ready for bed.
She frowned. "Almost."
I gave a long sigh and then climbed into the bed and looked up at the ceiling fan. Beth put the guitar down and slid in beside me and put her head on my chest.
"You disappointed about today?" She asked.
"Yeah a lil'."
"You shouldn't be." She stroked gently over my chest.
"Jus', it's been a month since we seen the others. Got no clue what's goin' on over there. If they ever made it. If they're all okay…"
"They are." Beth said surely.
She took in a deep breath as if the was thinking something over.
"You know…even if you find that battery…I'm not so sure we should leave this place."
I glanced down at her and she looked up.
"I mean…it's got everything we need here. It's quiet and safe…And Washington is where the other adults went…They said there was no place for them…what if they don't let the kids in? It's not like we can leave them... You know back at the prison? I was meant to get the kids on the bus, and I couldn't find them...and then we found that shoe on the rail tracks..."
She paused to take in a gulp of air. "...I gotta make up for failing them. We gotta do right by these kids."
"What about Maggie and the others?"
Beth frowned and looked to my chest.
"I miss her. I miss everyone…especially Judith. But David said somethin' about Mix always going where he was needed, and he led us here. I think we should stay…I think this is where we belong."
My guts grew tight in anxiety as I thought about staying here forever just me and Beth and the kids. I wasn't ready for that kind of commitment and responsibility.
"I ain't Rick." I said looking down on her bright blue eyes. "I ain't no Gareth or Joe…I ain't even the governor…and I certainly ain't no lord of flies."
"Lord of flies?"
"Yeah it's in a book I read in high school…these kids get stranded on an island and they have to do all crazy shit to survive and…never mind. What I'm tryna say is, I would be the only adult and I ain't a leader."
Beth sat up and looked down on me with a wry smile on her face.
"only adult?"
"You know what I mean...the oldest. The one with the responsibility. I'm no good at all that."
"I'll help you, you know the other adult…and you are good at it. You've done an amazing job with these kids so far, and I remember what you did back at the prison for Rick…after Lori died."
"That was different, I had the others there…we had the council…your dad."
Beth frowned at the mention of her dad, and dropped her head back to my chest.
"I just wanna stop runnin' you know?"
I was used to running. I ran my whole life. But Beth…and these kids, deserved some stability. I let out a deep resolved sigh.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"We'll stay."
Beth shot up and flashed me a wide grin, before leaning forward to give me a heavy wet kiss, which was going to haunt me all night.
AN: Those new chapters are up at the very start of the story. Check them out if you like. Hope the chapter shuffle didn't confuse you too much.
Please go ahead and review/favourite/follow/share. Every time I see those numbers change I feel motivated to write more and better. :)