Alright, guys, it's a bit of an angsty chapter, hope it's not too terrible. In all seriousness, I'm gonna have a trigger warning for it (suicidal thoughts) although I don't think that will come as too much of a surprise considering Mason's previous battles with depression. On a lighter note, thank you so much for your reviews! They keep me inspired. Today's chapter title is "Pork Soda" by the wonderful, incomparable Glass Animals. It is an AMAZING song and you should listen to it sometime. Anyway, hope you enjoy, let me know what you think.

18. Pork Soda

There were days when Mason rose with the sun, to sharpen her knife and the end of her iron over wet rocks, to run until she couldn't breathe and then push herself even further, to set up traps around wherever she was calling camp. She rarely stayed in one spot for longer than a day, long enough to scour her surroundings for tracks. There were never any aside from those of the typical fauna- deer, squirrels, rabbits, walkers.

Then there were days when the pain overwhelmed her, when the despair crimped her like a withering leaf and every breath was a fight in its own right.

Today it was the latter. As soon as she opened her eyes she knew it. The forest was grim, the overcast sky tinting everything gray. She breathed in and felt her whole body wilt.

She lay there on her bed of leaf mulch all morning, unmoving. Still. The forest was silent as though out of respect. As though in mourning. She didn't cry. She hadn't cried since that first night without Beth and Daryl. But sometimes she wished she could.

A little after noon, hunger roused her out of her stupor. There was a very loud, very adamant part of her that maintained that there was no point to eating. Everything had been taken from her, and everything always would. But she was able to drown it out with the rage, the vivid winter that completed her. It had driven her this far. She would continue to let it.

She caught a bird with the bow and arrow she'd fashioned and cooked it over a sullen fire. It was tough and small, but it gave her enough energy to get to work on the traps.

They were basic hunting traps, modified to catch larger prey. She used scavenged rope to construct them. She took the time to make them right. They were strong enough to hold a great deal of struggling. When she was done with each one, she cut her palm and scented the trap with her blood.

At the completion of the fifth and final noose, she hesitated. The rope was rough in her hands, grimy from previous use. It hung now from a stout tree branch, forlorn and grim against the backdrop of the darkened woods.

She studied it for a long time, riveted by the shape of it. When Daryl had first started teaching her his hunting methods he had been surprised by her aptitude for tying nooses. She'd fallen silent, ashamed to tell him that she'd done it before. But of course when she'd looked up, his eyes had been soft with understanding. She hadn't had to say a word.

Silent now, she balanced herself on her toes, lifted the noose and hooked it gently, gently around her neck. She held her arms out at her sides like a bird taking flight and closed her eyes.

She tamed her breathing. She didn't move. She could do it. She could sever everything, absolutely everything, right now. It took tremendous strength not to. She was afraid, but in complete control.

A distant snarling woke her slowly from her trance. Her eyes opened, unhurried and frigid. She lifted the noose from her neck and patiently completed her trap before heading for the sound.

The walker kicked and struggled against the rope around its neck. At the sight of her, it revitalized its efforts, enough so that the twine impaled its flesh.

Leisurely she wrapped her hands with torn cloth and tied them off at the wrists. Then she stood, breathed out, and began.

The walker was fresher than some of the others she'd captured, and stood up longer against her well-aimed blows. Her fists moved rhythmically, interspersed with kicks that became more and more limber with each session. By the time she'd worn down to its bones, her muscles burned. She dispatched the walker and checked the rest of her traps.

She'd caught two others, not bad for half a day spent wallowing. She followed the same procedure with these, utilizing them as her own personal punching bags before stabbing them in the head.

Back at camp, she added pine needles to a tin of hot water and ignored her grumbling stomach. She leaned her back against a tree and sipped her tea, relishing the ache of her overworked limbs. Despite the unreliability of her meals, she was getting stronger. She could feel it each day, in direction proportion to the cold fury brewing in her belly.

She fell asleep mechanically that night. There was no gentleness about it, no drifting or dreams. Just the disciplined closing of eyes and darkness.

~m~

Determined to cover as much ground as possible, she moved on early the next morning. She stopped midday to eat from a can of watery corn. She traveled parallel to the highway but always within the shadow of the trees.

She saw no tracks, no evidence that another living person had passed by.

By the time she chose a new camp, night was descending. She tried her luck at hunting but came back empty-handed. She decided against fumbling with her traps in the dark. Instead she climbed into the gloomy nest of a tree, hung by her hands from a sturdy branch and pulled herself up again.

Four chin-ups in, she paused at a familiar sound.

The walkers converged quickly, zeroing in on her dangling feet, ten in all. Jaw set, eyes blazing, she completed her fifth chin-up as the dead ones pawed at her legs. Then she swung forward and leapt from the tree.

One of the walkers cushioned her fall. Her feet sunk deep into its belly. She rolled with the impact, dragging intestines after her, and turned to stab it in the head.

The other walkers snarled their frustration and stumbled after their prey. Mason held her iron at the ready and waited, her whole body a live wire with anticipation.

As they descended she burst into movement, steered by the graceful strokes of her weapon. Her face was a mask of bleak satisfaction. She relished the warm splash of their blood, the thud as their bodies hit the ground. She was almost disappointed when there were no more left.

~m~

Mason startled awake the next morning, yanked from a dreamless sleep by a sound she could hardly believe she was hearing. She sat up breathlessly among the roots of a tree and listened.

It wasn't her ears playing tricks. It was the growl of an oncoming vehicle.

She scrambled to her feet as the noise drew closer and sprinted toward the edge of the trees. A green behemoth barreled past before she was halfway there. By the time her shoes hit the pavement it was already disappearing up the highway.

She stood for a moment in the middle of the road, watching the leaves settle as the breeze from the truck's passage died. Her mind was a wind storm, tossing thoughts around like leaves of its own.

There was no way of knowing who was on that truck, no way of knowing who was driving it. It could very well be someone she wouldn't want to meet.

Or it could be Beth. It could be Daryl. It could be Maggie or Glenn or Rick or Michonne or Sasha or Tyreese.

She couldn't risk not finding out. She darted back into the trees.

Hastily she gathered up the old bedsheet she'd been using as a blanket and headed for the place where she'd dumped the walker bodies. Dragging one out, she gutted it with her fire poker, then covered the sheet in its viscera until it reeked. The nights were getting warmer. She could find another sheet if she needed to.

She draped the fouled sheet over her head. A bit of twine tied around the neck turned the ensemble into an effective cloak. She needed to travel quickly, without the distraction of fending off walkers. This would have to do.

The journey put her months of conditioning to the test. She ran without stopping, steady but quick, keeping the highway on her left shoulder. Walkers ignored her like she'd hoped, put off by her dead scent. She lost track of time as the sun moved with her, across the sky.

It was around noon when she saw the car, parked at the side of the road. She flitted toward it and ducked into the driver's side, hotwiring it in record time. It grumbled reluctantly to life. She glanced at the fuel gauge and cursed, but a quarter of a tank was better than nothing.

~m~

When the gas ran out, she hopped out of the car and started running again. It was only a little past noon. She was making good time, but she was losing hope of catching the truck.

Half an hour later, the trees came to an end, bordering the golden expanse of a cornfield. She ran on without pause, though the dried leaves cut at her face. From here she could no longer see the highway, so she kept the sun on her left instead.

Gunshots brought her up short.

She paused in a straggle of walkers, who all turned toward the sound. Her iron was in her hand in a second. Heart fluttering, she took off toward the sound.

Her stomach clenched with nervous anticipation as the truck came into view above the cornstalks. She skidded out of the field and onto the edge of the highway, eyes flickering to take in the scene before her.

Her first thought was mullet. The man standing by the truck sported an impressive one, as well as a vest with an excess of pockets and a large automatic weapon.

Her second thought was idiot, as he clearly did not know how to use said weapon. He fired haphazardly at the walkers emerging from the cornfield, backing away with a panicked expression.

She almost turned away. She was so disappointed by the sight of this clumsy stranger that she very nearly left him to his fate.

But as she was turning away she caught another glimpse of his face, and somewhere amid the storm of her ceaseless ire a part of her softened.

"Fucking Christ."

Barreling through the horde, she ran her poker through the skull of the walker closest to him. Its blood splattered the back of his neck and he turned.

Their eyes met. His widened with shock. Hers narrowed with exasperation.

"Move, dumbass."

He obliged in a daze, backing up against the truck to give her room. She whirled back and forth in front of him, cutting down walkers as they came. More and more of them emerged from the field, but she felt only a grim satisfaction at being outnumbered.

Then suddenly there were gunshots, and walkers collapsing all around her, and she thought maybe Mullet Guy had gotten a clue until a group of people flanked her. In the brief respite, she caught Mullet Guy staring at her with something like awe. She threw him a look of pure scorn in return.

Everyone waited a moment as the smoke cleared, guns raised in case there were more headed for them. But when it was clear the only rustle among the corn was that of the wind, they all turned to look at Mason.

She tensed, glaring suspiciously at each of them.

A tall, muscular man hovered closest to her, his ginger hair and beard spotted with walker blood. On her other side a pretty woman with dark pigtails returned her glare.

"Mason?"

She turned suddenly at the familiar voice, unable to believe it was really him. But there he was, decked out in riot gear from the prison. Her knees wobbled.

"Glenn." She stumbled over and wrapped her arms around him.

"Oh my god, I can't believe it," he murmured. "You made it."

She just nodded, too choked with disbelief to make a sound. She was dimly aware of the strangers around her, that one of them had crawled under the truck and was cursing rather creatively. Apparently the behemoth was out of commission.

Mason opened her eyes and saw a fifth person standing a little ways off, looking severely uncomfortable.

Her spine went rigid as she recognized the girl from the prison, the one who had stood with the Governor.

Sensing the change in her posture, Glenn pulled away and followed her death stare to the girl.

"Uh, Mason, this is Tara. She's helping me look for Maggie." Suddenly he grabbed her arms, his expression wild with hope. "Have you seen her?"

Mason swallowed and shook her head. "I'm sorry."

Glenn's eyes dimmed. "Did you make it out alone, or…?"

"No. I was with Beth and Daryl at first…"

She trailed off as the anguish seized her throat, scorching her words to ash. Glenn's face pinched with pain.

"Are they-"

"No," she cut in fiercely. "We were separated by a herd and I didn't see what happened. They're alive until I see otherwise."

She thought Glenn might try to argue, talk some sense into her, but he just nodded. That light was returning to his eyes.

"We'd be safer together," he said. "And maybe Beth and Daryl have found some of the others. Maybe they've found Maggie. You should come with us."

It was her best shot at finding them, Mason knew it. And in truth, now that she had found another member of her scattered family, she didn't want to let him out of her sight.

So she nodded. "Okay. But you'll have to introduce me to your new friends."

Glenn frowned. "Hold that thought."

Mason watched him stride over to the big redhead and hand over his semi-automatic.

"Good luck. I hope you make it to Washington."

Washington? What the hell is in Washington?

But Mason kept her mouth shut, following Glenn to a backpack lying in the middle of the road. Tara trailed after them and Mason narrowed her eyes. Did Glenn know that she'd been at the prison? What was this girl's motive? Was she some sort of spy?

Before her paranoia reached an apex, the redhead called out.

"Wait!"

Glenn looked up at the sky as if appealing to God, and then turned around. Redhead and Pigtails converged on them, and Mason stared them down without flinching. She tried to ignore the fact that Mullet Guy kept looking at her, but it was making her self-conscious.

"Don't make me hit you again, man," Glenn said and instantly Mason tensed, ready for a fight. Eager for it.

"I'd be happy to exchange blows with you, partner, but if you will remember I am on a tight schedule," Redhead said. "Now we can help each other."

"No. I can help you. You've already made it clear that you think my wife's dead. Didn't my right hook make it pretty clear what I think?"

Redhead's nostrils flared, like a bull ramping up to skewer his next victim. Mason felt her blood boil in response. She stepped in front of Glenn and stared the redhead down, her expression an obvious challenge. Though he towered over her, she felt no fear. She wanted to fight.

"I don't know what you think you're gonna accomplish, Little Miss Riding Hood, but it'd be best if you step out of the way and let the men talk."

He was goading her, and she knew it. He wanted to fight, too. Her fingers twitched into a fist. She was a heartbeat from taking the bait when Mullet Guy stepped between them. He pointed in the direction Glenn wanted to go.

"That way's clear. Who knows what's north. We'll find another vehicle, we'll go with them until we do."

Redhead stared in disbelief. Mullet Guy just smirked.

"Trust me. I'm smarter than you."

Mason blinked, exchanging a glance with Glenn. He looked uncertain, and the redhead looked uncertain right back at him, but finally he nodded.

"Okay. I'll get the bags from the truck."

Mason was floored. Just like that? He gave in just like that to a man who couldn't aim a fucking gun? While Redhead climbed into the bed of the truck, she turned back to Glenn.

"Who are these people?" she murmured.

Glenn pointed to Pigtails, whose expression was still sour. "That's Rosita. The big, cuddly guy is Abraham. And that's Eugene."

"And why do they want to get to Washington so bad?"

"Because Eugene is a scientist. And he knows how to fix all this."

Mason was silent for a few seconds. Then she scowled, incredulous, at Eugene with his mullet and vest and his too-many pockets.

"Him?"

"I didn't want to believe it, either," Glenn said. "And right now, I can't think about it. I need to find Maggie and you need to find Beth. We can think about it then."

Mason nodded, but her face stayed fixed in a frown. She didn't like these strangers and she didn't want them around. But there didn't seem to be any other choice.

She and Glenn took the lead, with Tara a few feet behind. Their three new friends shadowed them.