"FRIENDLIES COMING THROUGH! WE'VE GOT FRIENDLIES!"
"PASSWORD?"
Having to think it over for a second, Emily picks her brain until she snaps her fingers and bellows out once again. "BADGER! BADGER DON'T CARE!"
"It's honey badger, but fine! Let 'em through!" shouts a lady looking to be around Jane's age, though it's a little difficult to tell since it's so hard to see in here. Clearly they don't have electricity like our place does, but it's still pretty impressive with what they've come up with.
As two of the guards let us through to the front, Nikita mentions how she's going out back to join the rest of their brothers and sisters – causing Jane to quietly whisper to me, asking if this is some kind of fucked-up cult or something.
It takes some heavy willpower for me not to even let out a snort at that.
The shelves that used to house various types of food have been either overturned and set up as barricades, or chopped down to use as firewood or for boarding up windows. A small fire rests in the center of the grocery store, and the smoke rises up through a large, open skylight that stretches up high. They have some kind of animal roasting on a spit over the fire, with a kid looking around my age to be rotating it every once in a while.
Looks like they know what they're doing around here.
"Mind telling me why the bloody hell you've brought a group of strangers into our home, Em?" the lady I saw earlier asks.
"Don't look at me! Wasn't my idea!" Emily insists as she turns back towards us. "Elliot and Nikita picked them up from the truck again and – "
"Stop, just stop… I get the picture," she says, rubbing the bridge of her nose with a tired sigh. "Fuck, man… I thought we gave up that gimmick already! We can't keep trying to reel people in with an abandoned food truck! That's just for the little fish – you need a net in order to bring in the bigger ones…"
Looking uneasily at the woman, Emily pops out her collar as she shifts a little bit. "Uhh… sure, whatever you say, Racheal. Anyway, these folks are saying that they're willing to deal, if we're willing to listen."
As Racheal sits there in silence for a moment, scratching her chin in thought, Jane slowly and unnoticeably inches closer towards me; putting a hand on my back for some reason. Is it for protection? Is that what she's worried about?
Because if it is, then I'd be hard pressed to believe that the two of us alone could stop a small base full of people with big guns. Know when and where to pick your battles – that's what Lilly drilled into my head before, back when we were at that prison out in Mexico.
I figure that the same rule would apply here, too. This is a battle that we definitely wouldn't be able to win.
"I don't really see the point of all this," Racheal admits, watching as the boy continues to twirl what appears to be some kind of cut-up deer over the burning embers. "What I mean is, we have pretty much everything we could ever want right here. Plenty of food, room to grow and safety in numbers. I don't think you've got much to offer us Miss…?"
"Clementine, and this is Jane," I point to the both of us, feeling a little off-put by her behaviour right now. "And we're trying to boost our numbers. We're at a camp not too far from here – it's a huge place and it's safe."
"Pshh… you're gonna have to do better than that, sugar," Racheal mocks, checking her nails disinterestedly. "I've been at this game for a long time, friend – a very long time. I know every trick in the book, and you think that offering us some kind of safe haven is gonna win us over? Ha! Well, I'm sorry to say that that's not good enough."
My eyes widen in alarm as Jane pulls her knife out of its holster, and before I can say anything to stop her, she slams the blade into the wooden table right in front of Racheal; clearly pissed off before negotiations have even begun.
"Listen up, you little shit," she growls, trying to intimidate the woman and succeeding by a tiny fraction. Jane's certainly scaring the shit out of me – I don't usually see her this way. "My friend here has been through fucking hell and back to get here, and could've easily gotten our group to blow each one of your group's brains out one by one. But she didn't – Clem came here peacefully to talk to your lame ass. So show my friend here some fucking respect."
As all eyes in the room turn towards us, probably shocked that somebody stood up to this girl, Racheal smirks before lifting up a finger and coming back with a few folding chairs – one for each of us. "You've managed to capture my attention," she tells us, as if this is some glorious accomplishment. She then gestures for me to make the first move; unfolding the chair as she sits down comfortably. "Emily, have a seat. Let's get this thing started then, shall we?"
Lilly's POV
"You worried about 'em?" Bo asks me casually, trying to strike up a conversation in order to break the ever-increasing silence out here. It's not as if I was enjoying the quiet or anything. "'Cause you look worried, to me at least. You've got those stress lines going across your forehead. You know the ones – those that you get after years of biting your nails over the simplest of things. It's probably not great for your heart, you know."
"Do you ever stop talking?" I question as James sits off by himself a few feet away from us. Bastard had it coming from a mile away.
Shrugging his shoulders, Bo twirls a piece of straw between his teeth as he tries (and fails miserably, might I add) to look like a stereotypical southerner. Where did he even get that anyways? There aren't any hay bales in sight!
"It's not as if we've got anything better out here than each other's company," he remarks, closing his eyes as the wind brushes past us and cools us down temporarily. Heat is the one thing about Texas that I still haven't gotten used to yet. "I always thought that the best cure for boredom is telling jokes. Wanna hear a good one? Of course you do! So, a guy walks into a bar late one night, and he goes up to the bartender. Orders a drink for himself, and the bartender says – "
"I think it might be a degenerative disease or something," I interrupt, glancing over as he looks at me in annoyance. "I honest to god don't think your gums can stop flapping! Is it hereditary, or did you contract it after trying to pick up chicks in high school like all the other little boys?"
"That's not what the bartender says…"
"I'm sure it would be if he ran into you."
Sighing in discontent, Bo leans up against the wall of the grocery store near me as I try to nurse my aching head. Migraines are a bitch, and this has been one hell of a long day. From getting into my fair share of shouting matches, to trying to wrap my head around this whole Firefly bullshit to even the physical violence that I've mainly dished out, you can say that my day's been nothing if not eventful.
And when I say that this whole thing is bullshit, I truly mean it. Not only is trying to find a cure a complete shame – mainly because I'm convinced that it can't be done – but also because I don't believe in big groups. Large crowds draw way too much attention, and that's one of the last things that you'd ever want when you're trying to survive.
It's bad enough that I have to live under the same roof as these two clowns, but to actually work with them, too?! Sheesh… if it wasn't for Clem, I'm sure that Jane and I would've packed up and left two nights ago.
…okay, fine. I suppose Ellie's not so bad to have around, either. I'll admit it – the kid's pretty cute for a six year old.
"You don't like me much, huh?" Bo asks, causing me to chuckle mirthlessly as I glance out onto the road.
"Gee, what gave it away?"
"Well, your constant bitchiness, for one thing."
"You weren't the first to tell me that," I mention, barely even fazed by these types of insults anymore, "and you certainly won't be the last. Come on, what'cha gonna hit me with next, Bo? I can take anything you dish at me."
Listening to the calls of a small flock of birds and watching them take off from the trees, I stifle back a yawn as the mid-afternoon sun hangs low in the sky. You know, as shitty and miserable as everything might seem with all of the dying and everything going on all around us, the planet itself doesn't actually look too bad. Before all of this, back when I was working at Warner Robbins out in Georgia, I hardly ever left the base at all. Never went to the Cherry Blossom Festivals that they'd have once a year, never went on hikes out in the fall when all the leaves would turn different colours. Nope, usually this was my schedule – wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, work all day, hit the little gym that they had there, go home, and then repeat the process the next day.
Sounds like a pretty boring life, doesn't it?
"Well," Bo continues, startling me out of la-la land, "there's also the fact that you've hurt and/or killed people that I used to live with. So there's that…"
Flinching at that one a little bit, I almost for a second think that he was talking about Debbie of all people, but I just play it off the way I usually do – glaring. Glaring and total indifference, I think those should be my go-to tactics.
"I did what I was told to do," I respond with stubbornness. "Nothing more, nothing less. Don't forget – you were the one who fired the first shot."
"It was actually Clementine, but fair enough," he admits, which really surprises me. You're telling me that fucking Clem was able to snipe at us from the rooftop? Wow… could've fooled me. "Hmm… maybe? Nah, never mind… You'd probably just shoot the thought down anyways…"
"If you're going to insist on being the biggest idiot around, then you might as well keep it going."
"Here's the thing – there's one, little detail that's been bugging the hell out of me. I can't imagine what it must feel like for you," Bo drags on, as if he's trying to be the most annoying person left on the planet. "You know what I think, Lilly? I think you're lonely."
Snap.
"Shut… up…" I glower in a dark, warning tone; haunted by memories of when I was a kid growing up near Atlanta. I've buried those constant years of bullying and teasing under a blanket of discontent and misery, but Bo has suddenly dusted that off and revealed the wounds again.
Realizing that he's most likely hit the nail on the head, Bo – with a stupid, smug look that makes me want to tear his face off – places his hands on his hips as everything tightens within me.
"It's true, isn't it?" he questions, getting his answer as I let out a low growl through my teeth. "Sure, you and Jane might seem pretty close, but who else is left over? Clementine? Perhaps, but she's gonna grow up one day and move on. She'll be the bird leaving the nest for the first time, and then you'll still be standing there watching her take flight."
Hearing more than enough of this asshole, I turn around and try to punch him right in the face, but he ducks just in time as I painfully smack my fist against the brick wall of the grocery store. Nothing's broken, I hope, but I barely register the fresh cuts on my knuckles as I seethe with white-hot rage.
"Whoa there! Just take it easy, would you? I'm not trying to offend!" he says as I take a few steps towards him. "All I'm saying is that maybe, just maybe, you'd be better off letting more people into your life! There's no need to rush to instant violence all of the time!"
"You're trying to provoke me!" I accuse, jabbing a finger in his direction as my breathing becomes raspier. "You're deliberately trying to piss me off, you sack of shit! Well let me just say that you've done a good fucking job of it, because here I am! You've just woken up a sleeping fucking giant!"
"Don't even try talking to her, Bo – the most you could hope for is getting chopped up into tiny pieces," James spits lazily, not even bothering to look up as he sits on the pavement absentmindedly. "She's going to get everyone she cares about killed, and everyone here knows it. That temper's going to be the death of them all, if there's anyone actually left who'd be stupid enough to get close to her."
I'm so mind-numbingly enraged at this point that I don't even notice when three pickup trucks slowly make their way down the road, heading straight towards us as the dust flies behind their wheels. My attention is far too focused on these two men – I knew from the start that we wouldn't be able to get along! I just knew it!
Instantly pulling out my pistol, I aim it towards James as Bo readies his weapon towards me. "Lilly, he didn't mean that, I'm sure of it! Just put the gun down, okay? Don't make me do something that I'm not gonna like!"
"I meant every letter," James remarks quietly, finally having the stones to look at me with hate-filled eyes. "You're a fucking disgrace to this group, and I should've gutted you down when you and that whore invaded the station. We'd all be better off!"
Feeling whatever self-control that I had left suddenly break within my mind, I subconsciously place my pistol back into my pocket and give James my full and undivided attention. Bo eyes the trucks wearily as they approach the grocery store; urging us all to go back inside.
But I'm not going anywhere. Not today.
"How's about I tell you a story, James?" I propose, feeling gutsy as he glances over at me with mild curiosity. "I think it's something that you're really gonna love."
Clem's POV, five minutes earlier
"So, what do you think so far?" Emily asks her friend, who's sitting there and stewing over all of this. I think Jane must've really struck a chord in these two. "This place does sound pretty nice, you know. Electricity, glass windows and a whole lot of space. Think about it – how much longer are we gonna be able to stay cooped up in here for?"
"It ain't just up to you or me, Em. This is a group decision," Racheal points out, turning back around to the young boy fixing up dinner over the fire pit. "Zayne? Yoo-hoo? We need your opinion on something!"
Turning around, the guy stops what he's doing with a hint of annoyance on his face as he wipes the grease and grime off on his black pants.
"What about the deer? It'll burn if I leave it for too long!" he protests, groaning when Emily insists that he take a break and come over to the table to talk amongst themselves. "This better be good… I was almost finished with the food back there…"
Jane has, thankfully, pulled her knife out of the table and kept it sheathed ever since that little outburst she had back there. I knew she could be feisty, but I wasn't exactly expecting that. Usually she just comes up with some sarcastic response or just rolls her eyes and says that we should just leave, but nope – this time she just went with a full-on threat right off the bat.
Wanting to hear her thoughts on what we've proposed so far, I turn towards my honorary older sister expectantly.
"What do you think? Did we do well?"
Mulling it over for a seconds, Jane scratches her head as she addresses me. "Maybe we could've offered a little bit less, and we'll have to see what they're offering us, too," she tells me, but giving a smirk as she looks at me fondly. "But for your first time, I'd say you killed it, Clem. Hell, we wouldn't even be here if you hadn't tried to talk your way out of that mess. Things got pretty intense back there – I wasn't sure how long I could keep Lilly on the leash!"
"Ha! Yeah, no kidding…" I trail off, still feeling kind of crappy about the way I've been treating her recently. Within the past few days, I've yelled at her to mind her own business, kept my distance from her and nearly shot her when she and Jane came with that group they were in before. Not exactly a great way to start again, is it?
Jane, basically reading my mind as per usual, pats my shoulder in an attempt to cheer me up a little bit. "She knows you care about her, and she cares about you, too," she tells me. "Lilly just… has a hard time of showing that side of her. Like, a lot. Almost all the time, actually. You guys will be back on the right track in no time."
Twirling around in my chair, I decide to drop the conversation entirely for fear of confessing far too much. It's bad enough that I actually did shoot Jane back at the station, and the way that she instantly forgave me just made my insides hurt.
This place isn't the worst I've seen, but it's definitely in need of repairs. Clearly this grocery store was old enough to begin with, as the wood is rotting away in some places and there are various grimy, bullet-ridden and shattered windows stretching around the place; with armed guards up top to keep things running smoothly. Various advertisements that once showed special deals on food have largely been ripped or torn apart, but a bunch of the scraps have been left hanging on the wall. I'm not exactly sure where they'd keep the food, but I'll just let them sort that kind of thing out for themselves. As long as we get a nice, big share of it, then that's all that matters. I won't let this group go hungry any longer.
"Jane?"
"Hmm?"
"…your friend Tommy," I question, still feeling a little unsure even after we left, "he's a good guy, right? You can trust him?"
Nodding her head slowly, Jane furrows her brow in slight confusion. "As far as I know, yeah," she tells me as I twiddle my thumbs. "Why? Was he doing anything suspicious before we left?"
"Not that I saw, no. It's just that…" I sigh, staring at the table as I go over every horrible possibility in my head, "we've all got something there that isn't just going to be replaced."
Knowing exactly who it is that I'm speaking of, Jane sits back in her seat as their conversation comes to a close. "I've actually been meaning to talk to you about that…" she says, but is interrupted as Emily, Racheal and Zayne face us to come up with their own proposition.
Clearing her throat, Emily is the first to speak as she folds her hands together.
"We're thinking around a quarter of the food goes to you folks," she offers, which causes Jane to twitch a little bit. I don't think this is gonna go over very well. "In exchange, you let us move into this place and give us some guns to protect ourselves with. We're running low on ammo as it is. Sound fair?"
"No!" Jane immediately disagrees with fury. "Are you people off your meds or something?! One fourth of the food?! You haven't even shown us how much you actually have! One fourth could just be a few cans of beans, for all we know!"
"We've got lots of food!" Zayne insists, not wanting to miss out on a good opportunity for him and his buddies. "It's all in the back – canned stuff and plenty of meat that hasn't gone bad yet! I can show you all, if you want?"
Knowing fully well that Jane's not just going to take his word for it, I nod as I stand up to follow Zayne and Emily back to their food storage area. Racheal doesn't say a word to any of us; instead heading on over to Elliot to check and make sure that he hasn't toppled over from his injuries just yet.
I can't help but shudder as she watches me head down the hallway, but I give her a calculating stare back before taking a look at all of the food. Looks to me as though they weren't lying to us after all.
Curiously, I frown in concentration as I hear a small commotion going on outside. Is it just my imagination?
Lilly's POV
I'm about to yank the rug out from underneath James' feet. Enough hiding and running away from the truth – I'm not afraid of what he might do any longer. No, that fear has been replaced by uncontrollable rage and anger.
I want this fucking cocky prick to get a taste of what real pain feels like.
"How's about I enlighten you a little bit?" I tell him, completely ignoring Bo as he continues to aim his gun towards the trucks stopping nearby. "I bet it stings, doesn't it? Knowing that you couldn't save her; knowing that no matter what you did, it wouldn't matter. You let Debbie down, James – I know you did."
"…what the fuck are you saying?" James asks, most likely starting to clue in but needing to hear the truth for himself.
Holding nothing back, I stare him down with a demented satisfaction as I rock his insignificant world.
"I killed Debbie," I confess openly to him. "That's right – it was me. She attacked me in the office, so I grabbed a thermometer and jabbed it right through her neck. I watched her bleed out like a stuffed pig."
"This isn't the time, Lilly!" Bo calls back, concerned that nobody else is out here to help him.
But I simply shake my head and keep on going.
"Debbie tried to murder my ass, but I got to her first. There's only one thing that was really missing from this whole thing – you," I taunt, watching as he stands up with unrelenting hatred towards me. "If you were there, then maybe you could've stopped me. Maybe none of that could've happened if you had been just a tiny bit quicker. But no, you failed – just like you always have."
As he clenches his fists and starts to shake in bubbling rage, I take one last shot for a chance to add even more salt to the wound.
"But you know what would've made that so much sweeter?" I ask, having never felt this way since I killed Carley back in the day. "If you had been there to see it for yourself. I would've loved to have seen your face as I killed the very last person you gave two shits about. Considering of course, if anyone cared about YOU."
I'm pretty sure at this point, I've almost completely lost my mind.
"YOU FUCKING BITCH!" James roars, bowling me over as he tries to get the advantage over me. "YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD, YOU HEAR ME?! DEAD! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
Getting a couple of good ones right across my chin, James lets his weak side open as I punch him square in the throat; giving me an opening as I throw him to the ground off of me. Kicking him repeatedly in the side, I try my best to subdue him before he can grab onto a gun – assuming, of course, that Bo gives it back to him.
Standing up, James tries once again to tackle me to the ground, but I trip him up and send him straight towards the brick wall. I manage to block a punch to the head, but in a cowardly move, James bites onto my forearm and rips a thin layer of skin away in his teeth; sending white-hot pain coursing up my arm as I slam his head against the wall.
Doing that twice more, I fall backwards as James gets knocked completely unconscious onto the pavement. I clutch my arm and struggle not to scream out loud as I keep pressure on the wound. God fucking damn it – he bit me!
"Well, that was quite the show," comes a new, more sinister voice behind me. Turning around, I notice that the voice belongs to a woman – eerily reminiscent of Lorna in the way that she carries herself. I can't help but feel a little put-off by the slow clapping that she's doing as a gang of thugs comes out behind her. "I was worried that we may have come at a bad time, but it turns out that this as good a time as any! Y'all are a couple of fighters, aren't ya?"
"There's nothing for you here," Bo states darkly, more than likely pissed off about Debbie and the fact that I damn near killed James as well. "I suggest you turn around and leave before things get violent! This isn't what you want!"
Scoffing, the woman shakes her head in amusement before pulling out a pistol and shooting Bo right in the leg; sending him down to the pavement as her followers rush over towards him. I go to pull out my gun, put a swift blow to the head by a little girl with an eye patch has me seeing stars.
"There's violence almost everywhere – what harm is a little bit more gonna do?" the older woman says, towering over me as I slowly start to lose consciousness. "You, my dears, are going to make excellent bargaining chips for this place. Maybe Emily, Racheal and the rest will finally take my offer seriously, now that we've got hostages thrown into the mix. Time to add you two to the collection…"
Clem's POV
"JANE, WAIT!" I bellow after her, but cursing under my breath as she takes off through the front doors. I definitely wasn't imagining anything this time – if that gunshot was any indication, then something bad is going on outside. The grocery store group follows after me as I swing open the doors outside; watching as Jane tries running after a trio of vehicles that have already sped away in the distance. "Jane, you can't go after them! There's no chance!"
"THEY'VE GOT LILLY!" she shrieks, slamming her fist against a broken-down car as the trucks drive off. Seeing that a young girl is trying to run away from the scene after getting left behind accidentally, Jane roughly tackles her to the ground as I rush over to the scene. "Oh no, not today! You're not going anywhere!"
"Mmph… Get off me!" she struggles, but there's no escaping the angry clutches of Jane. She has the kid pinned down with both of her arms being held above her head, and I come to a stop as I kneel beside her. "Grr… LET ME GO!"
"Not happening," I snarl, getting pissed off and incredibly worried about Lilly and Bo's safety. How could they have possibly been kidnapped?! What would anyone have to gain over this?! "Let's go – we're bringing her inside for questioning. Emily, do you guys have a room where we could go?"
"Umm… yeah, there's one in the back. It's usually pretty cold, though…"
"Even better," I nod, watching as Jane forces the girl to her feet and holds her collar in a death grip. The girl looks to be Japanese-American with black hair and one blue eye – the other one is covered by an eye patch. "Let's see if she talks under pressure…"
"If she wants to live," Jane comments as we head back towards the grocery store, "then she fucking better."