I went back to the tent, "You done getting dressed?" I heard a quiet yes and came into the tent. I saw Kira holding her dirty clothes, "What do we do with these?" I grabbed them from her, "I bet there's somewhere where I can wash em', so don't worry, Monkey." Kira and I left the tent and went down to the quarry where everybody was. Kira began to pull at my shirt. "Yeah?" "Can I go be with Shane and Carl? " I nodded, "Yeah, but stay within my sight." I watched her as she ran over to them. I couldn't help but smile, I'm so glad that Kira was still herself at heart after all this time in this even more messed up world.

I walked over to the group of women who were washing clothes. "Hey," I started messing with the clothes in my arms, "Mind if I sit with you guys and wash some clothes?" They all nodded and I sat next to Carol. I took a piece of clothing and started rubbing it against the washboard. The other began to talk about the things they missed as they were cleaning the clothes. "I miss my Maytag," Carol said

"I miss my Benz," Andrea said, "My sat-nav. ."

"I miss my coffee maker," Jacqui added, "With the dual-drip filter and built in grinder, honey."

"I miss my computer. . ." Amy sighed, "Texting. ."

"I miss my vibrator," Andrea blurted out.

"Oooo. . . !" Everyone said and began laughing.

Carol looked around the group and whispered, "Me too."

We all lost it and began laughing uncontrollably.

A man walked over to us, "What's so funny?" He asked.

Andrea sighed, "Just swapping war stories, Ed."

Ed walked around while eyeing us.

Andrea looked at him, "Problem, Ed?"

"None that concerned you," He paused. "You oughta focus on your work. This ain't no comedy club."

I looked around at the other women, was he serious? I sighed loudly and kept doing the laundry.

Andrea got up, holding a piece of wet clothing, and went up to Ed, "I'll tell you what. You don't like how your laundry's done? You are welcome to pitch in and do it yourself. Here." She threw the wet piece of clothing to Ed.

Ed threw it back at her and you could hear her make a disgusted noise. "That ain't my job, missy."

You could tell Andrea was about to blow. "Andrea, don't," Amy said.

"What IS your job, Ed? Sitting on your ass and smoking cigarettes?"

Ed took the cigarette out of his mouth and pointed it at Andrea. "It sure as hell ain't listening to some uppity, smart mouthed, bitch. I'll tell you what." He motioned Carol at him, "C'mon let's go."

Carol started to stand up from her seat. "I don't think she needs to go anywhere with you, Ed." Andrea snapped.

"And I say it's none of your business." He motioned Carol at him again, "Common, you heard me." I heard Carol and Andrea arguing whether she should go or not. "Hey, don't think I won't knock you on your ass. Just 'cause you're some college educated cooze, alright?" He motioned Carol towards him once again, "Hey, you come on now. Or you gon' regret it later.

Jacqui glared at Ed, "So she can show up with fresh bruises later?" Ed started to laugh. "Yeah, we've seen them!" She stated.

Ed exhaled,"Stay out of it, now come on." I inhaled and exhaled slowly as I stood up while he kept talking. "You know what? This ain't none of your business. Now I'm done talking." He was about to grab Carol's arm but I stood in between them.

I crossed my arms, "You're not taking her."

"Or what?!" He yelled as he slapped me.

I froze for a minute and everything became quiet. I snapped my head towards him, burning with rage. "Or this," I said as kneed him in the junk. He kneeled down to the ground, I picked his head up and headbutted him. When he was lying on the ground I started kicking his stomach over and over again until the girls pulled me back. When I cooled down I noticed that Shane also started whaling on him too. My heart was still racing with adrenaline. I felt Kira by my side and heard the women begging for Shane to stop.

I pushed Kira's face into my chest, covered her ears and rocked her back and forth to try to distract her from everything. After everything was all over and Ed was helped back to his tent by Carol, the others went back to washing clothes in silence. I broke the silence, "Could you guys do our clothes. . ? I need to talk to Kira." Andrea nodded as I handed her the clothes. I took Kira's hand and we started walking to our tent, on our way to the tent I stopped for a moment and heard digging, "Go on ahead and wait for me in there. She nodded and I went up to the noise to find a guy digging holes, there were about ten. "Hey, what are you doing. . . ?" No response. I moved closer to him, "Hello?" Still nothing. I sighed in frustration and headed to my tent.

I zipped up the tent and sat in front of Kira, "I'm sorry you keep seeing me lash out like that. . ."

She shook her head, "It's fine, you're just trying to protect people. She paused for a moment and crawled into my lap, "I just wish we could back to the way things were. ."

I looked around the tent," Say. . . how about we have a little pillow fight like we always did?" I looked down at her, smiling.

She squealed, jumped out of my lap and grabbed two pillows for the both of us. We began to hit each other over and over again as we giggled. "Mind keeping it down in there" We heard a voice say. I peeked out the tent to see it was Dale, "Yeah, sorry." Dale shook his head, "It's okay, we just have to keep noise to a minimal. . We never know when they'll show up, you know?" I nodded, "Yeah. ." I looked at Kira and we smiled at each other. I ruffled her hair and we got out of the tent, "Why don't you go play with Carl and Sophia?" She nodded and I watched as she ran towards them.

I sat next to Carol who was sitting in a removed seat of a van, "Do you need any help sewing?" All she did was nod and hand me a piece of clothing with a needle and thread. I began to sew and it was all quiet between us, after a few minutes Carol broke the silence, "Why did you do that for me. . . ?" I focused on the clothing for a moment and then looked at her, "I know what it's like to be abused. . . To be hurt constantly and having no power against them and I couldn't stand by and let that happen to someone else.

Carol looked shocked for a second, "You don't seem like the kind of person to take that. . What made you change?"

I stared in the direction of Trevor's tenet, it was farther than the others. I sighed, "Kira had told me that Trevor left her behind while a group of walkers were around and after that I just knew that I had to be strong for both Kira and myself. We have to survive. We just have to. . ." I looked down at my lap. I thought I had lost her and I didn't know what I would do if something like that were to happen again. . .

Carol put her hand on my shoulder and smiled at me, "You're brave, Jade. I hope someday that I'll be strong enough to protect myself and the ones I love. ."

I smiled back at her, "You will, everybody has the strength to change but they have to make that decision for themselves." I grabbed her shoulder and gently squeezed it. We smiled at each other again and went back to sewing.

I looked up and in the distance I saw Andrea and Amy carrying some fish, you could hear everybody applauding them. Carl and Kira ran up to the fish and began to examine and poke at them, "Woah! Can you teach us how to do that?!" They asked. "Sure!" Amy said, smiling. "We can teach you a whole bunch of things, if that's alright with you guys." Lori and I nodded, "You don't see us complaining," I grinned, "It would be a valuable skill to teach them." Dale came up to us, "I don't want to alarm anyone but. . we may have a bit of a problem. ." He turned around and pointed in the direction of the guy who was digging on top of the hill.

Everybody followed Dale up the hill, "He's been out here for hours. . ." He said. When we got up there we just stared at him digging for a moment. "Hey, Jim," Shane said, breaking the silence. He ignored him and kept digging. "Why don't you hold up, alright? Just give us a second, please?" Jim sighed in frustration and stuck his shovel into the ground, "What do you want?" "We're all just a little concerned, man. That's all." "Dale says you've been out here for hours," I spoke up. "So?" Jim asked, annoyed with us. "So why are you diggin?" Shane asked as he crossed his arms.

Jim just stood there.

"You headin' to China?" Shane joked.

"Doesn't matter," Jim started digging again. "I'm not hurtin' anyone."

"Maybe yourself," Dale said, "It's 100 degrees out. You can't keep this up. ."

"Sure I can! Watch me."

I stood next to Dale and began to speak, "Jim, they're not going to say it so I guess I will. You're scaring people, Jim. You're scaring Carl, Sophia, and even Kira."

"They got nothin' to be scared of. ." He stopped digging for a moment and looked up at us. We stared at him in silence until he broke it, "I mean, what the hell people? I'm out here by myself why don't ya'll leave me the hell alone." He started digging again.

"We think you need to take a break," Shane said, getting closer to him. "Okay? Why don't you get yourself in the shade, some food. I'll tell you what, in a little bit I'll come out here and help ya myself."

No response.

"Jim? Just tell us what it's about. Just give me the shovel."

Jim stuck the shovel in the ground again, "Or what?"

"There is no 'or what' I'm asking you. I'm coming to you and I' asking you, please. I don't want to take it from ya."

"If I don't. . . then what? Then you're gonna beat my face in like Ed? Y'all seen his face, what's left of it." There was silence. "See that's what happens when someone crossed you." He began to dig again.

"That was different, Jim."

"You weren't there, Jim," I said. "Ed was out of control. He would've hurt Carol badly."

"That is their marriage! Not ours!" He yelled at us. "You are not judge and jury." He pointed at Shane, "Who voted you king boss, huh?"

"Jim, I'm not here to argue with you, right? Just give me the shovel." Shane tried to get the Shovel from Jim, but he keeps it away from him.

Jim pushed Shane away from him and started swinging the shovel at him. Shane had had enough of Jim and he tackled him, pinned him down and put cuffs on him. Jim struggled under Shane and began to panic. "Jim, no one's going to hurt you," Shane said as he was putting the cuffs on him. "It's lies!" Jim said, "That's the biggest lie there is. . I told that to my wife and two boys. I said it a hundred times. . It didn't matter." You could tell by the tone of his voice that he was about to cry. "They came out of nowhere, there were dozens of em. The only reason I got away was that the dead were too busy eating my family." We all stood there for a moment in silence. I was shocked to hear what he had to say, does it really get out of hand that quickly. . ? Shane stood up, grabbed Jim by the wrist and headed him down the hill. We all broke up and started doing our own thing.

I've been looking around the camp for something to do. I saw Jim sitting in front of a tree, he looked sweaty and overworked so I decided to go over there and see how he was doing. I went over by his side, there was a bucket full of water with a little cup inside of it. I kneeled down beside him, "Hey, Jim. You look exhausted. . Do you need some water?" He just stared at me for a moment, "Sure. . ." I dipped my hand into the bucket to fish out the little cup and began to tip the cup into his mouth slowly so he wouldn't choke on it. "Can you pour some on my head?" I nodded and got more water from the bucket and poured it all over his head.

"Do you know how long they're going to keep me like this. . . ?"

I shook my head, "I'm. . . I'm not sure. You'll probably have to ask Shane, I'll send him over in a little bit."

He looked over at Lori, Carl, Carol, Sophia, and Kira. "I'm sorry If I scared your little boy or your little girls.

Lori looked up from the homework Carl was working on, "You had sunstroke. Nobody's blamin' you." She continued to work on the homework with Carl.

"You're not scared now are ya?"

Sophia looked over at him, "No, sir."

I patted Jim on his shoulder reassuringly and stood up, "Can you tell us why you were digging?" I asked. He looked up at me with a puzzled look, "I had a reason. . . don't remember, " he paused, "something I dreamt of last night. He started talking to Carl about Rick and I started to think about what he had said. That the only reason he got out alive was that the walkers were eating his family and how out of hand it got. . . Jim seems like a good guy from what I could tell. Could I have misunderstood the situation with Trevor? No. He's a horrible person who didn't care about anyone but himself. I decided to talk to Kira about what it was like those first few months of this mess while I was out in the hospital, I don't know why I didn't ask her about it earlier.

I walked over to Kira, "Can we talk about something important?" She put down the pencil she was using to doodle, nodded and followed me back to the tent. We sat down on the ground and got comfortable, I looked at her for a moment, ". . . Can you tell me what had happened while you were with Trevor? Before he left you? If you're comfortable with it that is." She nodded, you could tell it troubled her a little but she began to tell me everything. me what had happened while you were with Trevor? Before he left you? If you're comfortable with it that is." She nodded, you could tell it troubled her a little but she began to tell me everything.