The first thing the men wanted was a drink, asking Rick to grab some glasses and a green bottle from the shelf behind me. He placed each item on the nearest table, pouring the golden-brown liquid into the shot glasses.

I wanted to say something, do something that meant we could leave. Hershel was ready to go now—so why was Rick entertaining these men? Couldn't we head back to the farm? I wrapped my arms around me, clutching my shirt so tight that my fingers slipped into the woollen holes that ran down either side. The sun shone through the dusty windows, giving the room an eerie glow that sent uncomfortable tremors through my body every time one of them looked at me.

The smaller man dragged out a chair, the wooden legs scraping along the floor as he turned it to face the bar. "I'm Dave," he said. "That scrawny-looking douchebag there is Tony."

"Eat me, Dave," Tony chuckled, leaning forward to take a glass from Rick.

Tony had seated himself on one of the stools next to Hershel, leaning back against the long edge of the bar. He was the one that scared me the most. The way he glanced over or stared at me sometimes made me feel dizzy—I wanted to be sick.

"Hey, maybe someday I will," Dave glanced down at his glass before he tilted his head back, looking up at Rick. "We met on I-95, coming out of Philly. Damn shit-show that was."

Glenn had moved, so he was standing next to me, leaning forward against the bar. "I'm Glenn," he gave a small wave and smiled. "It's nice to meet some new people."

Rick, who placed a shot glass in front of Glenn, also introduced himself, "Rick Grimes."

Dave took his own drink in his hands, flicking the glass with his nail as he stared on, his gaze resting on Hershel for a moment. "How about you, pal? Have one?"

"I just quit."

"You have a unique sense of timing, my friend," Dave said.

Rick sat down on one of the stools in front of the bar in front of me. "His name's Hershel. He lost people today, a lot of them."

Dave was quiet for a moment, turning back to Hershel. "I'm truly sorry to hear that," he said. "To better days and new friends. And to our dead, may they be in a better place."

Dave tapped his drink on the wooden table beside him before each of the men raised their glasses and gulped down the liquid in one go. Even Glenn joined in on the toast, hesitant, but after a second, he knocked back what I assumed to be whiskey. His face scrunched up, and he shook his head before coughing at the strength of his drink.

Then Dave turned to me. "What about you, honey? How old are you?"

"Not old enough," Rick told him.

Dave raised a hand. "My apologies, it just seemed like the kid could use a drink," he then turned back to me. "What's your name?"

I found Rick first, looking back at me over his shoulder like he was expecting an answer, but I couldn't say anything. My heart was pounding so hard against my chest that I thought it might jump out, and if I opened my mouth to speak, I wasn't sure my voice would even carry across the room. Rick seemed to understand because he answered for me.

"Her name is Ace."

"Your daughter?" Before Rick could correct him, Dave said, "I can see the resemblance."

Resemblance?

It was probably an easy explanation for why a random teenage girl was travelling around with these guys. Rick didn't try to correct him, which told me one thing: he didn't trust these people. I wondered why he was letting them believe that I was his daughter. Still, I found it comforting that Rick had also been put off by their presence because it meant my fear of these men was justified.

The only issue now was that I couldn't talk—not that I wanted to. But me speaking now, with my accent, would show that I was not Rick's daughter. We didn't know how these guys would react if they found out that we were lying, even if the lie was based on something they fabricated themselves.

Dave leaned over to put his glass on the table, but when his body twisted to the side, I noticed a gun in the back hem of his jeans. He seemed to notice my look because he reached behind him and pulled the gun out, holding the barrel as he sat back down in his seat.

"Not bad, huh? I got it off a cop."

"I'm a cop," Rick said.

"This one was already dead," I didn't like the smile on his face when he said that.

There was an awkward moment of silence as Dave slid the gun back under the material of his jeans. Part of me forgot that they even had guns, even with the shotgun lying across the bar behind Tony. Everyone was armed, nowadays, they had to be to defend themselves against the walkers, but with these people, it felt dangerous.

Rick stretched his arm behind him, placing his glass down on the wooden surface of the bar, "You fellas are a long way from Philadelphia."

"It feels like we're a long way from anywhere," Tony agreed.

"Well, what drove you South?"

"Well, I can tell you it wasn't the weather," Dave said. "I must've dropped 30 pounds in sweat alone down here."

Tony scoffed, "I wish."

Dave continued, "No, first it was D.C. I heard there might be some kind of refugee camp, but the roads were so jammed we never even got close. We decided to get off the highways, into the sticks, keep hauling ass. Every group we came across had a new rumour about a way out of this thing."

"One guy told us there was the coast guard sitting in the Gulf, sending ferries to the islands," Tony said.

"The latest was a rail yard in Montgomery running trains to the middle of the country," Dave added. "Kansas, Nebraska."

Glenn straightened up a little, his face contorting in confusion. "Nebraska?"

"Low population, lots of guns," Tony said, his eyes wild.

"Kinda makes sense," Glenn nodded.

"Ever been to Nebraska, kid?" Dave asked. "There's a reason they call 'em flyover states."

The only thing I heard about a way to get out of here was the QZ in Atlanta, but Atlanta was overrun almost immediately. If there were these other places where people could go to look for safety, why hadn't these people tried going to any of them?

After a moment, Dave looked back at Rick, "How about you guys?"

"Fort Benning, eventually," Rick answered with a shrug.

"I hate to piss in your cornflakes, officer," Dave said, sitting up in his chair. "But we ran across a grunt who was stationed at Benning. He said the place was overrun by lamebrains."

I hoped that this was some sick joke Dave had thought up. Fort Benning couldn't be gone, not now. If Hershel was going to make our group leave the farm, then we had nowhere to go.

Glenn was no longer smiling, looking at Rick. "Wait, Fort Benning is gone? Are you for real?"

"Sadly, I am," Dave said. "Oddly, the truth is there is no way out of this mess. Just keep going from one pipe dream to the next, praying one of these mindless freaks doesn't grab a hold of you when you sleep."

"If you sleep," Tony added.

"Yeah, it doesn't look like you guys are hanging your hats here," Dave pointed out before asking, "You holed up somewhere else?"

Rick shook his head. "Not really."

That was a weird change of topic, and I wasn't sure what Dave was trying to ask. Did they want to know where we were staying? Why? I had been staring across the bar for a long time but barely remembered seeing anything. All these possibilities came to mind of what they wanted, and none of the outcomes were good.

When I came back around, I saw Tony looking at me. It gave me an awful feeling in my stomach, making me grip the bar so tight that my knuckles went white. I could feel the colour fading in my face.

Dave nodded, seemingly accepting Rick's answer. At least that's what I thought until he asked, "Those your cars out front?"

Glenn nodded his head slowly, "Yeah. Why?"

"We're living in ours," Dave shrugged. "Those look kinda empty, clean. Where's all your gear?"

"We're with a larger group out scouting," Hershel said, his eyes never leaving the man. "Thought we could use a drink."

"A drink?" Dave exclaimed. "Hershel, I thought you quit."

Rick and Hershel shared a look, but neither of them answered Dave. They knew as well as I did that Dave had been digging for information. Rick was a cop; he would know how to answer the questions vaguely.

"Well, we're thinking of setting up around here," Dave said. "Is it . . . is it safe?"

"It can be," Glenn shrugged. "Although I have killed a couple of walkers around here."

"Walkers? That what you call them?" Dave nodded his head, his lips tightening, seemingly impressed. "Yeah, that's good. I like that. I like that better than lamebrains."

The only other thing I had heard the walkers be called was the sick or sick people, and that was only because I had used those phrases many times myself. I hadn't even thought that other people would have their own names for the walkers, but the Atlanta camp had called them geeks until Rick joined the group with the new term "walkers".

"More succinct," Tony said.

Dave stared at him for a second before saying, "Okay, Tony went to college."

Tony held up two fingers and said, "Two years."

I was apprehensive about the American education system if he only learned the word succinct in college.

"So what . . . so what, you guys set up on the outskirts or something?" Dave asked. When nobody answered him, he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, saying, "That new development?"

Tony stood up from his stool, walking across the bar to the other side of the room. "Trailer park or something?"

"A farm?" Dave asked and sang out. "Old McDonald had a farm."

Tony laughed from the other side of the room, and that was when I heard a zipper. The sound that followed disgusted me when I realised that he was taking a piss on the ground in the same room we were in. I lowered my head to look at the table, blocking any view of the room with my hands.

"You got a farm?" Dave asked.

I wondered how he landed on that idea unless farmland was more common in this area. Either way, he seemed to have found the answer he was looking for, and even though I couldn't see his face, I could picture the same smug smile.

"Is it safe?"

"It's gotta be," I heard Tony say.

"You got food, water?

"You got cooze?" Tony asked. "Ain't had a piece of ass in weeks."

"Listen, pardon my friend," I heard Dave say from across the room. "City kids . . . they got no tact. No disrespect," I imagined him turning to look at me as he said the last part. And then he continued trying to ask about the farm. "So listen, Glenn—"

"—We've said enough," Rick stopped him.

"Well, hang on a second," Dave said quickly, "This farm, it sounds pretty sweet. Don't it sound sweet, Tony?"

"Yeah, real sweet."

The sound had stopped, and I heard Tony doing up his zipper again, indicating that I could finally look up. He moved around the wooden column towards the side of the room.

"Yeah, how about a little Southern hospitality?" Dave asked. "We got some buddies back at camp, been having a real hard time. I don't see why you can't make room for a few more. We can pool our resources, our manpower."

Rick shook his head. "Look, I'm sorry. That's not an option."

"Doesn't sound like it'd be a problem," Dave shrugged.

"I'm sorry," Hershel said. "We can't."

"We can't take in anymore," Rick agreed.

"You guys are something else," Dave said, his voice lower like his feelings were now hurt. What did he expect? That we were just going to tell him where we lived. "I thought . . . I thought we were friends. We got people we gotta look out for too."

"We don't know anything about you," Rick said.

"No, that's true. You don't know anything about us," Dave's voice was low, dangerous, trying to play it off as though he was upset. "You don't know what we've had to go through out there, the things we've had to do. I bet you've had to do some of those same things yourself. Am I right? 'Cause ain't nobody's hands clean in what's left of this world. We're all the same. So come on, let's . . . let's take a nice friendly hayride to this farm, and we'll get to know each other."

Rick was quiet for a moment, looking down at the glass in his hands. He shrugged his shoulders, glancing back at Dave, "That's not gonna happen."

"Rick—"

"—This is bullshit!" Tony exclaimed.

"Calm down!" Rick demanded, looking over at him.

"Don't tell me to calm down! Don't ever tell me to calm down!" Tony exclaimed, stepping closer to Rick. "I'll shoot you three assholes in the head and take your damn farm!"

Three? There were four of us . . .

Dave stood up, stepping between Rick and Tony, holding his hands up to stop any fight from happening."Whoa, whoa, whoa. Relax, you're scaring the kid. Nobody's killing anybody, nobody's shooting anybody, right, Rick?" He turned around, jumping over the long end of the bar. "We're just friends having a drink. That's all."

Dave leaned under the bar, causing Rick to tap his gun and Tony to reach for his. Dave pulled his own gun out of the hem of his jeans, placing it gently down on the bar.

"Now, where's the good stuff, huh? Good stuff, good stuff, good stuff, let's see," He leaned down again, which made me take a step back into Glenn. When Dave straightened up, he had another bottle in his hands, and Rick moved his hand away. "Hey, look at that; that'll work," Dave said, and placed a glass down on the bar in front of him and poured the liquid into the glass. "You gotta understand, we can't stay out there. You know what it's like."

"Yeah, I do," Rick said. "But the farm is too crowded as is. I'm sorry. You'll have to keep looking."

"Keep looking. Where do you suggest we do that?"

"I don't know," Rick shrugged his shoulders. "I hear Nebraska's nice."

"Nebraska," Dave chuckled. "This guy."

Dave leapt for his gun, but Rick beat him to it, pulling his gun on Dave and shooting him in the forehead. The scream rocketed out of me, and when Tony reached for his shotgun, Rick shot him, hitting him twice in the chest.

Blood pounded in my ears, and my heart slammed against my chest. I could feel my hands shaking as I reached over to grip the bar, trying to feel something, anything. The air was knocked out of my lungs, and I struggled to get it back. My other hand came to wrap around my stomach, my chest growing tight as I tried to suck in a proper breath of air.

I didn't even realise I was crying until I felt the warm tears running down my neck.

"Holy shit," I heard Glenn whisper from across the room. Apparently, at some point, he walked across the bar to stand next to Rick.

"You all right?" Rick asked him.

"Yeah."

"Hershel?"

"It's not me you should be asking," I heard Hershel say.

I knew he was talking about me because I had not moved from my keeled-over position. If I could have caught my breath, I would have tried saying that I was okay, but at that moment, I felt I could throw up.

Rick was at my side, leaning over next to me, his hand on my back. "Ace, you know I had to do that, right? You saw, they were gonna kill us, maybe even worse to you."

I nodded, "I know, I just—fuck . . ." I choked out. "I just need a minute."

"Panic in the car," Rick patted my back, straightening up. "Those gunshots probably drew every walker for miles."

All I could do was nod because as much as I wanted the time to calm myself down, I knew that I would never be able to do it before the walkers came. I straightened up, holding my hand over my chest and gripping my shirt. Still shaking, I took a deep breath and edged toward the middle of the room.

Rick grabbed the shotgun from Tony, reaching into his pocket to pull out two shells. Glenn walked past me behind the bar, leaning down to grab what I assumed was Dave's gun.

I walked around the front of the bar, but when I reached the middle of the room, a white light shone through the window and straight into my eyes.

"Car, car!" Rick whispered, grabbing my arm and dragging me to the window. "Get down!"

Rick left me in the corner of the room, out of the way of the window, barely visible with the curtain in the way. The window was so tall that we couldn't try hiding in front of it because they would see the curtain move or something that would draw the people to our location.

When I looked up, I saw Dave's body lying on the ground, unravelling all my progress of trying to calm myself down.

It only got worse when I heard the first person call out. "Dave? Tony?" He then spoke to some others. "They said over here?"

"Yeah."

They're Dave and Tony's friends! My mind was screaming at me. The sight of Dave's body in front of me, mixed with the appearance of their friends, gave me a terrible feeling that made me bury my head between my knees, trying to focus on breathing deeply and ignoring the fact that I was still crying.

"I'm telling you, man, I heard shots," the final man spoke.

"I saw roamers two streets over," the second man said. "Might be more around here."

"It's hot; we gotta get out of here."

The first man started calling out again, much louder this time. "Dave! Tony!"

"Shut up, you idiot! You wanna attract 'em? Just stick close; we're gonna find 'em."

"Dude, he said to stay close," the other called him.

They all seemingly left, walking away in the same direction. I lifted my head a little, wiping away the tears from my eyes. I was no longer crying, but my breathing had now slowed, and I still felt very dizzy.

I felt like I was dying.

There were footsteps outside the window directly behind me. My hands moved up to grip the hair on the back of my head. Whoever had been walking past the window behind me seemed to stop, and I grabbed my hair so tight that I thought some of it might come out. When the person made no effort to leave, small noises left my throat as I cried quietly between my gasps.

"Ace," Rick whispered, "you gotta be quiet."

My head was shaking side-to-side, still hidden down between my legs. I didn't trust my ability to keep quiet when I barely had control over my own thoughts.

Rick stepped across the window, still crouched down. He knelt next to me, reaching his arm around the back of my head. His hand covered my mouth, quietening and pulling me against his side. While my breathing was a little louder like this, any sounds from crying could not get past Rick's hand.

I leaned closer to Rick, closing my eyes, so I didn't have to look at Dave's body anymore. Even with Rick covering my mouth, it was actually comforting to have him next to me, and I hid my face in his side.

I listened for the man's footsteps to signal that he was leaving, and when the gravelly steps began walking away, Rick loosened his grip over my mouth.

"I think he's leaving," he said.

He leaned back, pulling the curtain away from the window, glancing outside. I had thought that Rick being next to me would help my panic attack, but it didn't, and even with him sitting next to me, I was still struggling to breathe.

"Out of my way," I heard Hershel before he knelt down in front of me.

Hershel being in front of me blocked my view of Dave's body, which helped. He placed a hand on my knee, sitting against one of the walls to get further away from the window.

"I need you to breathe."

I shook my head.

"Ace, I need you to breathe."

"I-I can't."

Hershel placed his hand on my knee, "Here, squeeze my hand."

I did as he was told, squeezing his hand as tight as I could. I wondered whether Hershel had some kind of experience dealing with this, but neither Maggie nor Beth seemed like they would have had panic attacks. I had one or two before, but they were never this bad.

My breathing slowed a little, and I felt a little steadier now, but my mind was still foggy. I was staring at Hershel, but I don't even remember seeing him there, not until he spoke again.

"Try tapping your foot," I lifted the front of my foot to tap it against the ground, but Hershel stopped me. "Quietly."

I nodded again, quietly tapping the front of my foot against the ground.

It took a little while, but I finally could breathe long uninterrupted breaths. I didn't feel like I was dying anymore. When I thought I could keep myself calm without Hershel's help, I let go of his hand but kept tapping my foot against the ground. Hershel placed his hand on my shoulder, nodding when I had been dragged out of my panic attack.

Rick nodded for us to join him and Glenn across the room, at the doors, so we walked over to them, keeping as close to the ground as we could to avoid being seen through the windows.

"Why won't they leave?" Glenn whispered.

"Would you?" Hershel asked.

"We can't sit here any longer," Rick said. "Let's head out the back and make a run to the car."

The second Rick went to stand up, there were gunshots outside the door that made us run back to our original hiding spots.

There were some footsteps outside, as one of the men called. "What happened?"

"Roamers," the second one answered. "I nailed 'em."

"They disappeared, but their car's still there," the third man said. I winced, knowing there was no way these men would leave now they knew that Tony and Dave's car was still there. "I cleared those buildings."

"You guys get this one?"

"No."

"Me neither," the first guy says.

"We're looking for Dave and Tony, and no one checks the damn bar?"

My eyes widened, knowing that they were coming straight to us. When the door started to open, Glenn leapt across the open doorway and slammed himself back, closing the door on them.

"Someone pushed it shut; there's someone in there," one of them whispered to the other, I'm assuming the one that tried opening the door. The same man loudly said, "Yo, is someone in there? If someone's in there, we don't want no trouble. We're just looking for our friends."

"What do we do?" Another asked quietly. "Bum-rush the door?"

"No, we don't know how many are there; just relax," the same guy yelled out again. "We don't want any trouble. We're just looking for our friends. If something happened, tell us. This place is crawling with corpses. If you can help us not get killed, I'd appreciate it."

"Dude, you're bugging. I'm telling you, nobody's in there."

"Someone guard the door," the man whispered quieter. "If they're in there, they might know where Dave and Tony are."

There were footsteps as someone walked away, and I was worried that whoever was walking away would be coming around the back of the bar to get in.

After a moment of silence, Rick called out. "They drew on us!"

The man came back to the door, and I could see their shadows on the curtains behind Rick. "Dave and Tony in there? They alive?"

Rick squeezed his eyes closed, lowering his head to his gun, "No."

"They killed Dave and Tony," the man whispered.

"Come on, man, let's go."

"No, I'm not leaving," he argued. "I'm not telling Jay. I'm not gonna go back and tell them that Dave and Tony got shot by some assholes in a bar."

"Your friends drew on us!" Rick yelled out. "They gave us no choice! I'm sure we've all lost enough people, done things we wish we didn't have to, but it's like that now. You know that! So let's just chalk this up to what it was . . . Wrong place, wrong—"

Shots flew through the windows in the door, and glass flew across the room, which made me flinch, burying my head in my legs and covering the back of my head. Out the corner of my eye, I saw Rick stand up, firing his gun back out of the now broken windows.

"Get outta here!" He yelled. "Go!"

I ran back, rushing forward in a straight line, ducking down just in time for bullets to whiz past my head, breaking the mirror behind the bar. I fell to my knees next to Dave's body, but I had to push it out of my mind as I continued running towards the back of the room and hiding behind the short end of the bar.

Hershel was behind a wall in the middle of the room, and I saw Glenn behind a table, flinching at each shot that thudded into the ground next to him. Hershel slid a shotgun across the floor, over to Glenn, which reminded me of my own gun. I pulled it out from my jeans, gripping it tightly in my hands.

When I tried peeking around the bar, a bullet whizzed past my face and landed in the shelves in front of me, and I flinched back behind the bar, covering my ears. I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to focus on my breathing and keep myself out of another panic attack. I couldn't get scared, not now.

I needed to find my switch.

Rick, still standing by the door, yelled out to the men, "Hey! We all know this is not gonna end well! There's nothing in it for any of us!" He said. "You guys just . . . just back off; no one else gets hurt!"

There was a clanging noise from the back of the building like someone had kicked a bottle along the ground. I leaned my head out from around the bar, but I couldn't see through the back door to see if anyone had gotten inside.

Rick nodded to Glenn, who held his shotgun tightly as he ran down the stairs and into the back room. I gripped my gun in my hand, waiting to hear from Glenn, but he didn't say anything to indicate that everything was okay.

And then I heard the gunshots.

"Glenn!" I screeched.

He didn't answer me.

Rick ran back through the room, ducking behind the column where Hershel was hiding. "Glenn! Glenn!"

"I . . . I'm all right!" He called back finally. "I'm all right."

Rick sighed, his head falling into his hand as he wiped his forehead in relief. I kept myself ducked down behind the bar, waiting for some kind of instructions, but none came. Not for me, at least.

"We'll hold 'em here," I heard Rick say from across the room. We'll hold 'em here; I assumed he meant him and me, but how much help I would be for Rick was a whole other story. "You cover Glenn. See if you can make it to your car. Tell him . . . tell him to pull up back. We'll run for it; get the hell out of here."

"You want me to cover Glenn?" I heard Hershel say.

"You missed all that gun training," Rick pointed out. "It could've come in handy now."

"Nah, I can shoot," Hershel cocked his gun. "I just don't like to."

Hershel walked through the door and down to Glenn's room. Rick walked over to me, and to my surprise, no bullets came through the front window, which meant that anyone outside at that moment couldn't see us.

I stood up, still very cautious of being shot, as Rick joined me, standing behind the bar, "Are you okay?"

"Kind of," I nodded.

"It's okay; we'll be out of here soon," Rick said. "Glenn will bring the car around, and we can go."

"Okay."

Something in the room caught my eye, bringing my gaze to where Tony was lying. I hoped it was a rat or something because what happened next was so much worse than being in the same room as a rat.

Tony's fingers twitched, and his body jolted in inhuman ways. He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked at us with dead, glazed-over eyes. He snarled at me and Rick, like a walker. Tony was a walker.

"Uh, Rick?"

Rick had already seen it, staring with the same fear and confusion I felt. "Holy shit."

"Why is he awake?"

How could he be a walker? Rick shot him! Was he infected when he came in? As all these questions ran through my mind, I remembered the night at the nursing home, how Jacqui had turned even though she had no bite marks. How I suggested that maybe you don't have to get bit to turn, and this had really confirmed it.

Tony stood up, which made me grip my gun together in my hand. When he noticed Rick and me across the room, he snarled and growled at us more and more, and as he rushed over to us, he shook and jerked.

Rick didn't have his gun at the ready, which meant that this was up to me. I pulled back the slide quickly, holding up the gun and shooting before I could even think about aiming. It surprised me when the bullet landed right in the middle of his forehead.

Tony fell over, his body still as he lay over the bar, blood seeping out from his head and over the wooden surface.

"What the hell's going on up there?" I heard Glenn yell.

Rick opened his mouth, but I beat him to it. "Sorry! I thought I saw something!"

Rick looked at me with confusion, but when there was no answer from either Hershel or Glenn, I knew I was in the clear.

I turned to Rick. "I don't know whether you want to tell them yet, but if there is the smallest chance that you don't, I wouldn't tell Glenn about it; he can't keep a secret. And it would just worry them right now. If you decide that you want to tell them, do it later."

Rick nodded after a second, seemingly agreeing with me.

We stood in silence for a minute or two, waiting for Glenn and Hershel to bring the car to the front. While waiting, I heard three more gunshots behind the bar where Glenn and Hershel were. I wanted to call out, but I didn't know where any of the other men were, so I kept myself quiet.

Rick looked as worried as I felt, "Stay here, cover the front. I'm going to see what's going on."

He ran through the back door and to where Glenn and Hershel were. Like he said, I walked down through the main room to the front of the building to find the locations of the other men.

I was standing next to the broken front door, and I couldn't see any of them in the streets, but the moment I peeked my head further out, a shot whizzed down and slammed into the wooden frame next to my head.

I ducked down quickly before trying to take another look. That was when I saw one of the men standing on the roof with what I assumed to be a rifle. He shot at me some more, and I ducked back behind the wall to keep myself hidden. I couldn't cover the front if I was always under fire, so there wasn't much else I could do to help the others.

The next thing I heard was a car engine. One of the other men had driven around in the car they brought, driving it over and stopping in front of one of the buildings across the street. This distracted the one on the roof enough for me to see what was going on.

The man from the car started yelling, "Let's get out of here!" He called. "Roamers all over the place! Hurry up! We gotta get out of here!"

The one on the roof stood up. "What about Sean?!"

"They shot him! We gotta go; roamers are everywhere."

"We're leaving?"

"Jump!" The man in the car demanded. "Hurry up, jump already."

The one on the roof walked to the edge and leapt across, reaching out for the other roof that was lower than the one he was standing on. But he didn't make it. He slid down the slope of the tiles, falling off the roof of the building.

It was the screaming that made me sick.

"Help me! Help . . . help me!"

"I've gotta go," the man in the car called. "I've gotta go. I'm sorry!"

The one that fell begged him not to go, and I could hear him sobbing as he called out to his friend. But his friend didn't try to help him; he drove away, leaving the guy crying.

As I was looking, I saw someone run across to him. Rick. He ducked behind one of the cars and ran over to the person who jumped. It was only a moment or two later before I heard Glenn, his voice catching me off guard and making me jump in surprise.

"Ace! Come on!" I ran out of the building to join them, seeing Glenn and Hershel in front of the bar.

Hershel went to open the car door, but when he looked around, he said, "Where's Rick?"

"He ran across," Glenn said.

I nodded and pointed to where I had seen Rick a minute before. "I saw him, too."

Hershel stood by the car for a second, "Ah, hell. We can't go without him," he ran off in the direction I pointed out. "Rick!"

When I saw the boy, his leg, I almost gagged. The wound was worse than I could have imagined. I knew something awful had happened when I heard him screaming, but I never would have guessed it would have been this bad.

The boy who had jumped from the roof landed on a wheelie bin and impaled his leg on a barbed metal fence. I winced, almost able to feel the pain myself.

Hershel grabbed Rick's shoulder, "We have to go now."

"No!" The boy cried.

"I'm sorry, son," Hershel placed a hand on his uninjured knee, then turned to Rick. "We have to go."

"No, no!" Randall screamed. "Don't leave me, please!"

"We have to go."

Rick shook his head. "We can't."

"He was just shooting at us!" Glenn yelled.

"He's a kid!"

"Please help me!"

"This place is crawling with walkers!" Glenn yelled.

Rick turned to him. "We can't leave him!"

Hershel had inspected the wound while they argued and turned around to face them. "The fence went clean through," Hershel said. "There's no way we can get the leg off in one piece in the time we have."

The guy cried out as Rick looked at the wound, placing his hand on the fence. He waved his gun at the boy, "Shut up, or I will shoot you!"

"That may be the answer," Hershel pulled Rick away. "We're not gonna get that leg off without tearing the muscle to shreds. He certainly can't run. He may bleed out."

"Shut up!" Glenn said, grabbing his foot, but this only made the boy cry out. "I'm sorry. Shh . . . shut up. Shut up."

"Maybe we should put him down," I heard Hershel saying. "I don't wanna see any more killing, but this is cruel. I can't get his leg off in one piece; I don't have enough time. He may not survive an amputation, and leaving him with one leg may be a death sentence anyway."

I looked around at the vehicles nearby, the ones we brought, the one Tony and Dave must have been driving. I could buy Hershel more time, but I don't know if it would be worth it. Rick wanted to save the boy, so I would have to tell them, but my plan would not be easy to execute.

"I might be able to buy you more time, but it won't be perfect."

Rick raised an eyebrow. "How not perfect?"

"I can start a car alarm, leave the car behind those buildings. The only problem is—"

"—Walkers from behind us will still come here," Rick finished.

"Yeah," I winced. "There'd be less walkers, and we'd only have to really kill the ones from this direction," I pointed down the lane past Randall and the fence, "but the alarm should mask the gunshots from most directions."

"Okay, what else?" Rick asked.

I nodded, continuing my plan. "I need your help to get back because some walkers will still be around. I'd have to do it over there."

Rick looked at Glenn, "Like we did back in Atlanta. Stay with Hershel, don't start until the alarm goes off, and keep him quiet."

Rick jogged away, shooting some of the walkers as he passed. I followed after him, holding my gun out, but there weren't too many walkers for me to kill behind Rick because he cleared the path all the way to the bar.

"We'll use their car; it's the least those bastards can do for us."

He checked Tony's body first, and when he couldn't find any keys, he walked over to Dave. I heard the jingle before Rick straightened up, holding the keys in his left hand on the gun in his right.

"Got 'em," he said. "C'mon."

I followed him out the door and over to Tony and Dave's car. Rick got in, started the engine and drove the car around the back of the bar, where we could set off the car alarm. It would be the best place to draw all the walkers to.

When we made it around the back of the bar, there were some walkers eating a coloured man who was dead now. The third of the men who were shooting at us. I didn't remember seeing him, so he must have been the one Glenn or Hersher were shooting at out the back of the bar. I wasn't there, so I didn't know what had happened.

"Open the windows; the easiest way to start an alarm is to open the door from the inside."

Rick and I left the car with the two front windows open. He locked the door but decided it would be best to deal with the three walkers eating the man first. In the distance, I could see more coming, but these ones were in my way, and we could start the alarm before any of the farther ones made their way over to us.

After shooting down the walkers, Rick reached inside the car to open the door, but when he pulled the handle, the door swung open, but the car alarm didn't start. It was utterly silent.

Shit.

"The alarm isn't starting," Rick said.

He tried locking the car again and opening the door from the inside, but none of the security systems started. No lights. No siren. No nothing.

"They might have disabled it," I suggested.

"Shit," Rick muttered to himself. "We'll have to get back to Hershel, tell him to amputate because we don't have a distraction. The minute we get out of this town, we need to start a fire to cauterise the wound—"

"—Rick," I stopped him. "I can enable the alarm; I just need some time."

"What?"

"Some cars have controllers to arm or disable a car alarm, but this one wouldn't, so there should be a button that will enable it and then we can start the alarm."

I could feel Rick staring at me as I walked to the driver's side of the car, "How do you know that?"

"I'm a mechanic . . . kinda," I said, opening the door. "I worked in my dad's garage; not important right now."

Rick nodded. "Okay then, do it."

"Just take care of the walkers, I need to find the button, but it's too dark."

There were multiple shots, and not all were from Rick. Some came from across town, where we left Hershel and Glenn. I needed to start the alarm quickly because every walker from miles would be drawn by the shooting and straight to the boy who was screaming on the wheelie bin.

When I looked up, I realised that the walkers in the distance were getting closer and closer, drawn in by Rick's shots. I stuck my arm under the dash, feeling around the side of the car for a small button. It had to be somewhere, but I had no torch or light to be able to see what I was looking for, so it was making finding the tiny button almost impossible.

"How long, Ace?" Rick called back.

"Hold on!" I yelled at him. "This is easier when I can see!"

There were more and more shots from Rick, which didn't fill me with confidence. The walkers were getting close, I could tell.

As I ran my hand along the smooth plastic surface under the dashboard, I finally found the texture I had been looking for. A small metal square and a small plastic circle button. I held it in for three seconds before standing up.

"I did it!" I yelled, closing the door. "Lock the door."

Rick did as he was told, running back to me to escape the walkers. I reached inside the window, opening the door. This time the car alarm started, blaring straight into my ears.

"Okay!" Rick yelled over the alarm. "Let's go!"

When we returned to the others, Hershel had already started trying to get the boy's leg off the fence. From what I could see, he had taken off his button-up shirt to use as a tourniquet, leaving him in a white t-shirt.

Glenn was shooting down the lane where Rick and I said that the walkers would still find us, but all the other directions were empty because all the walkers were going to the car alarms. There were already so many bodies around the lane where Glenn was shooting, which made me wonder how much ammo I had next.

"What took you so long?!" Glenn yelled.

Rick ran over to join him in shooting the rest of the walkers. "Ace had to enable the alarm," he said and called back. "How's it going, Hershel?!"

"I need more hands!"

I ran over to help Hershel. I still wasn't the best shot with a gun, and I didn't want to waste any ammo by missing my shots. It was too important right now. If the walkers became too much for the others, I would try and step in, but at that moment, Hershel needed help.

"What do you need?"

"Hold him down," Hershel told me. "If he moves too much, he's going to tear the ligaments, and he won't be able to walk properly again."

I climbed up on the bin next to the boy. He was still crying, but it was quieter, with all the other sounds masking his sobs. I held him down by his shoulder, allowing him to squeeze my other hand as tight as he wanted. I hated it because he had just been shooting at us, but Hershel was cutting at him with a knife, and his leg had been impaled, so he needed it right now.

"Please be quiet."

"We don't have a lot of time!" I heard Glenn yelling.

"Hershel!" Rick called.

"Almost there!" Hershel called.

I looked back at the lane, seeing it was starting to crowd with walkers. It looked like so many that I considered jumping down and helping them.

"Please don't leave me here!" The boy cried and begged, squeezing my hand so tight that my fingers started to numb. "Please don't leave me here!"

"We're not going anywhere," I tried to reassure him as he sobbed out different strings of requests. With the sheer number of walkers, I didn't know if I could keep that promise of not leaving him here. I looked over at what Hershel was doing, but I didn't know how far he was into this makeshift surgery, and I had no idea how long it would last.

"I'm out of ammo!" Rick yelled.

I held my gun to him, holding Randall down on the bin with one hand. "Rick! Here! Take mine!"

After seeing the number of walkers piling through the lane, I looked past Hershel to see if anymore had gathered in the streets. If there were at the sides, they would be able to see Hershel and may be more interested in him than the car alarm.

I was glad I looked because three were heading down this way, so I called out, "Glenn! Behind Hershel!"

He nodded, leaving Rick in the lane by himself and killing the three in the street with his shotgun.

The boy was still jerking and crying, which made me wonder how well I was actually doing my job of holding him steady for Hershel, because Hershel looked like he was having a rough time. There wasn't much else I was able to do for him, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep him still.

"I need some help here!" Rick called. Glenn rushed back to help him, and Rick said, "Ace, keep an eye on the streets!"

"I can't see anything else!" I called back.

The shots were getting louder and louder, and I saw from the corner of my eyes that Rick and Glenn were getting pushed back a little until they cleared a few walkers and could move forward. It was a constant cycle, but I knew that the ammo wouldn't last forever, and Hershel had to finish what he was doing soon, or we would have to leave the boy.

"Hershel!" Rick yelled as he and Glenn rushed back to stand with us. "We don't have any more time! How you doing back there!"

"Got it!" Hershel yelled, slowly lifting the boy's leg up and over the fence, ignoring his screams of pain as he did so. I could see how careful Hershel was as he placed the leg down on the fence where there was no spike.

"Get him down!" Rick yelled. "Get him in the car! We need to go! now!"

He helped Hershel lift the boy off the wheelie bin and carry him over to the car Hershel had driven. They placed him down on the back seat, and Hershel climbed in after him. Glenn sat down in the back with Hershel, in the opposite seat to the boy, leaving me the front passenger seat.

Hershel threw the keys to Rick over the seat, and he drove off as fast as he could away from the town. The town that we would probably never be able to come to again.

The car slowed down like fifteen minutes later when we were long clear of the town and walkers. Hershel said he needed to stop soon to check how much Randall was bleeding and whether he'd have to try to plug the wound up.

We stepped out of the car, opening the door to where the boy was sitting. He was awake, but barely: his eyes were slightly open, and he was leaning his head back against the top of the car seat.

Hershel leaned down to check his knee before doing anything else, looking at the blood that had seeped into the car seat or had run down his leg.

"What's your name, son?" Hershel asked.

"Randall," he was barely able to say anything.

Hershel straightened up and tapped his shoulder. "Don't worry, Randall. We'll get you fixed up."

We took a few steps away from Randall, so Hershel could tell us the plan.

"I'll stop the bleeding as best I can here, or he may not make it back to the—'' Hershel stopped himself before saying where we came from.

I hated to ask what I had been thinking, but I knew I had to. "Should . . . should we let him know where we live? I mean, he was with Tony and Dave, right?"

Rick nodded his head, running his hand down his face, "Yeah, you're right."

"So, what?" Glenn asked. "We blindfold him?"

"It's the only option," Rick nodded.

"There's some rags in the back of the car, I need some for his leg, but I can save one," Hershel said.

"What about rope?" Rick asked.

No one needed to ask what the rope would be for because, in all honesty, we didn't know if Randall would try and kill any of us in the car. He was barely awake, but maybe it was an act; if Hershel stopped the bleeding, it would give him a second wind. We just didn't know what to do with him. We also had a lot of guns between us.

Hershel nodded. "There's some in the trunk. Just wait until we're leaving, so we don't scare the boy for too long," he then turned to Glenn. "Glenn, help me a second."

While Glenn and Hershel were digging through the boot to get what they needed to help Randall, I walked around to the front of the car and sat down on the bonnet. Mainly I was going to keep an eye out for walkers, but I needed a break after everything that happened that day.

The sun was coming up; I could tell because the sky was so light now. I had been awake for over twenty hours, and I didn't get much sleep the night before because I was too busy thinking about the walkers in the barn.

Rick came over and sat beside me, holding my Beretta in his hands. He was also looking for walkers. After a few moments of silence, he looked over at me. "So . . . A mechanic, huh?"

I knew this conversation would come up eventually; I had been hiding my previous job for practically no reason. No reason that would make much sense to the rest of the group, at least.

I nodded my head, glancing over at him. "Yeah, my dad was a mechanic. He taught me what he knew, then he let me work in his garage . . ." that was when I realised that I told a police officer that I had been working in a garage but was too young for a licence, so obviously my rambling had kicked in to make everything better. "But I didn't fix the customer's cars—"

Rick chuckled, which stopped me from speaking. "Ace, it's fine. There were a lot of garages with unlicensed mechanics. We normally overlooked it."

"I guess," I shrugged. I knew that it was typically overlooked, but being unlicensed was tricky at my garage. "Nobody wants a teenage girl fixing their car, so my dad normally used to teach me with old cars that he was planning to sell on."

Rick nodded, his eyes still focused on the road in front of us. I could hear some noises from behind us and realised Randall was groaning as Hershel tried to stop the bleeding with Glenn. I was glad; I thought it was a walker.

I looked back at Rick, "I can do more than what I did with the car alarm, though. That was easy and would have been quicker if I could see," I said. "All I had to do with that was hold a button, but I can fix cars properly."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Dale knows a lot about fixing cars, and Daryl too," I shrugged. "I knew the minute it came out, all I was gonna do is fix cars, and trust me, it'll happen. Now that you know I'm a mechanic, you'll be asking me to fix something soon," I joked, and Rick chuckled a little. "Besides, Glenn knows, and Daryl . . . Long story."

"I thought Glenn couldn't keep a secret."

"He can't normally," I said. "The trick is not letting him know it's a secret."

Rick was quiet for a second, the joking look disappearing from his face.

"About that, I don't think we should tell anyone about Tony yet," he said. "The group isn't going to be happy with keeping Randall around, and I don't want to add another problem on top of that."

I frowned. "I don't know if keeping it a secret is the right thing, but if that's what you want to do, I won't tell. I only said not to at the bar because Hershel had only recently found out that the walkers were dead, and I didn't want to drop the 'you turn no matter how you die' thing onto him as well."

"I'll wait until everything calms down," Rick said finally.

I nodded. "It's up to you."

Rick nodded his head like his mind had been made up. I didn't mind keeping the secret if he asked because whenever he decided to tell the group, all the questions would be going to him.

"You were right about Jacqui, though," Rick said, interrupting me from my train of thought. "That she wasn't bitten or anything, and she just turned when she died."

I cringed. "Yeah, but it's happened twice now," I said. "People are just dying and turning into walkers. Does that mean that it can happen to everyone? How does that even work? Are we . . . does that mean we are all infected with something that is making us turn when we die?"

Rick hadn't been expecting my onslaught of questions, but I had to get them out. They were all that was on my mind since Tony woke up, and knowing that anyone who dies just becomes a walker was the worst kind of wrong.

"I think so," Rick said quietly. "I guess we're all infected."

"How?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

When I looked at it like that, I suddenly didn't know whether it would be better to tell the group or not. If they knew we were all infected, then they may not put themselves in any situations where they could die or they would turn.

People aren't generally in those situations, though, ignoring what happened today at the bar. Telling them would only worry them, and the last thing I wanted was everyone in hysterics about being infected with something that only took place after we died.

The car door slammed closed behind us, and I saw Glenn and Hershel coming around the front of the car to speak to us.

"He'll need surgery when he gets back," Hershel said. "But I've stopped the bleeding for now. I'll have to stay in the back with him and keep pressure on his legs; it'll be a good idea to keep an eye on his vitals too."

"Okay," Rick nodded, "I'll blindfold him, tie his hands."

I waited in the car for Rick to do as he said, grabbing a rag and some rope from the boot of the car to secure Randall. Hershel and Glenn took their seats in the back of the car like they had done before, only now Hershel was keeping pressure over Randall's wounds as he groaned.

Rick tied a red piece of cloth over his eye and tied his hands with some rope. He told everyone to keep their guns to one side so that he couldn't reach for any of them. Randall's head fell back against the seat, and it looked like he would pass out within a minute.

I sat down in the front, waiting for Rick before he drove us back to the farm.

I was really proud of this chapter when I wrote it, so be gentle. As I said, I loved the Nebraska episode and just wanted to try to write this one as best as I could while still giving Ace a reason to be there. I know in the show they get Randall's leg off the spike anyway, but they had more time and bullets because Ace was there, so Rick didn't just give up after 30 seconds.

Anyway, let me know what you thought, and I hope you all enjoyed.