"H.O.P.E. Hold on, pain ends." - Unknown


Chapter 3: I Can't Do It

Riley gasped, sitting upright as her eyes flew open like a shutter. Wide blue orbs frantically darted around the room to take in her surroundings. A pink couch she was on and an empty fireplace took up the majority of the room. She was back at that little farm house. She was safe, not in any danger. She could breathe. Unsticking her sweat-soaked shirt from her skin, she looked down on the ground, where Carl's sleeping form was. Everything was just as it had been last night before she fell asleep... The small amount of light shining through the curtains meant it was probably still early, around six or six thirty.

Slowly, she got up off the couch, catching herself as her legs buckled from the surge of anxiety she just had. Her head was spinning slightly, but she ignored it and moved across the room to where her backpack sat against the wall. She bent down and began to rummage through it to find one of the cans Carl found yesterday. Her hand found the cool metal and she pulled it out, shooting a glance in Carl's direction. If he didn't wake up soon, she'd have to wake him up herself. They didn't have time to sit around here. They had to go look for Rick and Michonne. If they didn't find the two within a few hours, it would probably be a good idea to look for other places around here that might have food or ammunition.

She brought the can into the kitchen, placing it on the counter and then beginning to look through the drawers for can openers. If she could find one, it would make everything a lot easier. Opening a can with a knife was difficult and it was easy to get cut. Cuts were definitely not good with eaters around. She had learned that the hard way.

Luckily, she found a can opener in the second drawer she tried. Slamming the tool down on the top of the can, Riley opened it up and discarded the scrap metal in the sink. The wolf in her stomach was beginning to growl and snap for the food as its bland smell reached her nose. So not wasting any time, she pulled a fork out of a nearby drawer and began to eat the potatoes. Her wolf-stomach began to calm the more food she shoved into her body, but she had to stop when she was halfway through to save some for Carl. She wasn't used to sharing food, so it was hard to stop eating, but she didn't need him passing out on her from lack of food.

"Save me any?"

His sudden voice sent her reflexes into motion and she couldn't stop herself in time. Riley spun around, her hands immediately flying to the collar of his shirt as she shoved him hard against the counter. His eyes went wide as his spine slammed against the granite and he winced in her grasp. For a moment, she stood there and stared right into his blue eyes. The heat of his skin radiated off onto her hands and arms that were pressed against his chest and neck and both of them remained silent. And then she pulled away.

"Don't do that again," she muttered, turning away so she wouldn't have to look at him.

"Yeah, I got that," he hissed, coming up beside her and rubbing his lower back.

She didn't say anything after that and left him alone in the kitchen to go back into the living room to calm down. All of her behavior had been learned in the past few weeks. She always had to sleep with an eye open and any sudden movement, voice, or noise sent her reflexes into overdrive. Now, she needed to get it in her head that there was someone else with her. She needed to differentiate Carl from the eaters. He was safe - or safer than the undead at least - and the eaters were not. It would take a little while for her brain to make the distinction, but it was a must unless she wanted to go maiming him every five minutes.

A slow movement out of the corner of her eye told her that he had come to stand in the doorway.

"So we're going to go back to those buildings today?" he asked, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice.

Riley turned to look at him as he stuffed the rest of the potatoes in his mouth. "Yeah. And if your dad and Michonne aren't there, we should go looking around other places to try and find food and supplies. If we could find some more ammo, then maybe we could try to hunt."

"I know a bit about hunting."

She rolled her eyes at his confidence, though it seemed more like arrogance to her. "Of course you do. Because you know everything."

Ignoring the look on his face, she picked her backpack up off the ground and slung it over her shoulder. "Now let's hurry up and go do this. We should go back to the creek first. We'll need the water."

She brushed past him, heading for the door and opening it. He followed after her and shut the door firmly behind him. The two made their way through the field and then back to the creek. It was a relatively short trip, but the walk to the buildings was a little longer. It was probably a little before noon by the time they saw the three little buildings through the trees. However, they weren't able to get too close at first. The eaters that were in the parking lot yesterday were now spread out all over the place. It would be suicide to try and wade through the flowing river of walkers. But they still needed to try and find Michonne and Rick somehow. This was their only landmark.

"We should circle around and see if they're somewhere in the area," Carl suggested in a low voice.

Riley nodded slowly, pressing her palms into the bark of the tree next to her. "We'll try that. If we can't see them, we can wait a little while."

Carl took up the lead, which she wasn't too happy about, but since this was his dad they were looking for, she'd let it slide for now. The two began to creep around the lot. He was searching left and right for his father, which left her the task of keeping any eaters at bay. Since they were all spread out, it was a little hard to avoid them completely, so she ended up having to kill three or four along the way. Each were taken out silently with her knife, with not more than a seconds time to do it. However, there was one walker that was being particularly difficult. It mus have been a freshly turned walker because its skull was harder than most of the others. Her knife got stuck in its skull and she had to pull Carl to a stop until she could get it out.

"Hurry up!" he hissed, bending down and putting his hands on his knees.

"Shut up, you're just making it worse!" she snapped, giving the knife a nice hard pull and effectively pulling the blade out of the rotten eater's head.

He shot her a glare, but quickly began to move once more now that she had retrieved her knife. He was moving quite quickly and she found it difficult to keep up with him, which frustrated her. But she wasn't going to admit that she was having trouble. So Riley quickened her pace. Her body began to sweat even more ferociously than it already was with every passing moment, and she was beginning to crave water.

"Hold on a minute," she panted, stopping by a tree and bending down.

She let her backpack slide off her shoulders and she unzipped it to pull out the water bottle. Carl leaned against the tree, scanning the area as she gulped down a few mouthfuls of water. Biting her lip, she glanced over at him and after a moment of hesitation, she nudged him and held out the water for him. He looked down at her, raising an eyebrow.

"Just take it and stop gaping at me like an idiot," she muttered.

He looked down at the water before taking it from her and raising the bottle to his lips. She shifted her attention to her surroundings to make sure that no eaters were lingering around. There were a few a little ways off, but they were alright for now as long as they stayed put.

"It doesn't look like they're here," she whispered, catching his eye as he handed the half-empty water bottle back to her.

"We've only been here for ten minutes. They could be on their way here now," he murmured.

Riley huffed. "Fine. Why don't we sit here for a bit and then we can circle back around to the road over there?" She jerked her head in the direction of the road hidden by the trees to their left. "If we follow the road, it might lead to somewhere we could find supplies."

Carl nodded stiffly. "Alright."

She leaned back up against the tree and slid down so she was sitting on the ground. The eaters wouldn't notice them since they were already a good distance away and low to the ground. He settled down next to her and began to look through the trees at the clearing where they had first met. A silence settled between the two and Riley was grateful for it. Of course, he had to break it to start up a conversation.

"We shouldn't have to wait very long. Hopefully they'll be here soon," he muttered.

She rolled her eyes. "You do realize that they could have run off in a completely different direction. We don't know which way they went. Hope all you want, though if it makes you feel better."

He looked over at her, eyebrows furrowed and eyes narrowed. "No wonder why no one wanted to be with you."

She snapped like a twig. "Hope is stupid! How can you still think there's hope in a world like this?! How is there hope when a snarling monster rips your group apart?! Face it, there's no hope left and your dad is never coming back!"

Riley stood abruptly, shouldering her backpack and glancing around at the eaters that had begun to notice them. "Let's go."

Without waiting for Carl, she began to slip away toward the clear, abandoned road. Her pace quickened to a jog and he soon caught up with her. She couldn't wait to get away from this kid. He was continually evoking these unpleasant emotions that she wanted to forget. It was like every word he said brought her spiraling back to her loss, her own experiences in this darkened shadow of a world... There were reasons why she forgot. She couldn't survive and let her emotions free-roam. She had to lock them away and move on.

Her gaze wandered back over her shoulder, where three walkers were still tailing them. She halted and let her backpack slide off her shoulders, flicking open her knife and making a mad grab at the nearest one. All of the rage and emotion that was making her feel raw and vulnerable went into thrusting the knife into its skull. Her lips curled into a snarl and she lunged toward the other one, twisting the knife into its rotten head. With a final jab, the last one fell lifeless and she sneered down at them. They had taken away everything.

Despite her ferocious expression, her shoulders slumped in defeat and she carefully wiped the knife on her jeans to clean it off. Slowly, she turned back around, her bright blue gaze meeting Carl's. His brow was puckered and his eyes were void of emotion. She didn't have to see any emotion to know he was thinking that she was a psychopath.

Tearing her gaze from his, Riley bent down to retrieve the water bottle from her backpack. After just a little splosh of the liquid on her hand, she wiped off the offending blood and then wiped her hands on her jeans. Tucking everything back into place, she shoved the backpack on her shoulders once more before beginning to walk again. Walking. It seemed like that was all she had been doing since this started. All she did was walk. Try to find somewhere safe to stay. Try to find supplies. Walk.

Carl didn't attempt to make any conversation this time. He was learning.

He was very different than she was, if she were being honest with herself. She was definitely more stubborn and she would have continued to try and pursue conversation if she were him. He was also more unrealistic. Hope. Stupid hope. And finding his dad? One in a million chance. Maybe she was just too far gone. Maybe she just didn't see a good thing left in this world. Maybe it had taken her down with it too. She bit the inside of her cheek. I can never come back from what I've done...

The road began to widen and the trees began to thin out and a small strip mall came into view. It looked abandoned, just like the rest of the buildings now. A few cars were strewn around the parking lot and there were two eaters wandering around. She glanced sideways over at Carl.

"You know how to hot wire a car?"

He rolled his eyes. "No."

Riley sighed. She hadn't expected him to, but these days, kids their age could do a lot of things they hadn't done before the apocalypse. It would have been convenient though.

"We need to take out these two walkers," he muttered.

Her eyes shifted between the two rotting bodies and her head bobbed up and down in an agreeing nod. "I'll get the one on the right and you get the one on the left."

Without waiting for his response, she slipped away from him and toward the one on the right. It was an older man before it had turned. About ten feet away, it noticed her and scrambled over in a flurry of broken arms and rotting fingers. Riley kicked it back hard and while it was dazed, she pulled out her knife and grabbed it by the collar of its shirt. Its snapping teeth ceased as she jabbed the knife into its skull and she let it drop to the ground. Deep blue eyes met hers and she nodded firmly, sparing only a glance at the walker he killed.

Wordlessly, the two joined sides once more and headed right to the convenient store that was just up ahead. She got down low when they reached the window and poked her head up just enough to look inside. Her heart skipped a beat.

Like sloths, at least seven eaters were groaning and shuffling in the aisles. Shelves were overturned, blood was slick on the floors, walls were coated in dust and grime...but she could just make out a shelf full of snacks that had barely been touched. The only problem was actually getting to it. The store was small so it would be easy to get cornered, and with that many eaters, going in and shooting up the place was a bad idea.

Riley's eyes zipped over to the rest of the strip mall, looking for any other store that might be goo enough for them to scavenge through. A salon, pet store, pizza place, karate studio... Nothing that would help them out. This was their only option.

"We have to go in there," she whispered, grimacing.

Carl's eyes widened and then his face contorted into irritation. "Are you serious? We'll get ourselves killed if we go in there! There's gotta be somewhere else we can go."

Riley shook her head. "No other food places besides that pizza place. The food there has to be spoiled by now."

"We can always eat dog food," he muttered, so low that she barely caught it.

"Yeah Fido, why don't you go and get some dog food?"

Riley gritted her teeth and began to slip away, a plan forming in mind. "We need to go around the back. It'll be safer to go in that way and we can scope everything out without being in the open."

The door on the other side of the store wasn't locked and it led to the back office. From there, they could get a better view of the store and any way they could get to the food.

"Help..."

Springs in her feet propelled her backwards out of the doorway and out of instinct, she grabbed onto the closest thing, which just so happened to be Carl's arm. Alert eyes darted back into the office, where a helpless man laid on the ground in the corner. She walked forward slowly, her grip still tight on Carl's forearm until he pried her fingers away. She hadn't even realized she had grabbed onto him until then...

It wasn't even important anymore because she immediately noticed the large bite wound on the man's neck. Dull, lifeless gray skin and bags under his eyes indicated the inevitable: it wouldn't be long before he turned. She was at a loss of what to do. Well she knew what had to be done, but...she only had four bullets left and that would alert the eaters...and she had never outright stabbed a living person in the head. And she couldn't just...not after... This hesitancy Carl picked up on.

"You know what we have to do...," he murmured, his bright eyes darkened in a way she hadn't seen before.

Riley hardened her mask and nodded. "I know."

She took a deep breath, slowly moving forward and crouching down next to the man. His eyes frantically darted all over her face, but he didn't move.

"I c-can't...feel cold...," he blubbered, taking a shaky breath.

"It's alright," she said quietly, fist clenching around the handle of her knife. And she raised it.

But she couldn't.

Stop being a baby. This has to be done. You've killed people before. This is nothing new. Do it before he turns.

A warm hand wrapped around her own and she turned her head to look up at Carl, who had taken the knife from her fingers. She slid back, rising to full height and locking eyes with him. He held her gaze for a moment and turning to do what had to be done.

"Close your eyes," she whispered, the man obeying after a moment.

And then it was over.

A huge cement block lifted from her lungs and she took in the humid air. He handed her back the knife and she wiped it clean before clipping it onto her belt loop. This man had probably died doing the same thing they were trying to do...because that thought made her feel so much better about doing this. Her eyes snapped up to the window that led from the office to the rest of the store. The shades were closed, which was a good thing for them. Time to move on and think about more pressing matters. She moved forward to peek through the shades. The layout of the store was simple and small, which would help when they were maneuvering around the place. If they split off in two, they would be able to get through the place a lot more quickly; however, it would also make them more vulnerable to attack. The only other problem would be predicting the movements of the eaters.

They were all wandering aimlessly around through the aisles and behind the counter. Sneaking through would prove to be most effective, but if necessary, maybe they could use a distraction?

"Got an idea. So for now, the best thing to do would be to not disturb them. But I think that if something happens, we can use those glass bottles to distract them long enough to get what we need and get out of here. Guns only if something goes wrong," she said, glancing over at him as he moved to her side. "If we need to distract, we should throw the bottles by the front door, keep them away from what we need. We be quick. Get what we need and get out of there before they notice us. It won't be long before they smell something different."

"Seems...dangerous," he muttered, watching the walkers twitch and growl to themselves.

"Yeah, well what isn't dangerous anymore?" She crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. With slow movements, she walked over to the door and put her hand on the knob, glancing back at the body of the man Carl had just killed. That could be them if they weren't careful.

The tension began to build as she slowly turned the knob and she bit her lip, feeling a sudden urge to turn away and forget about doing this. They could find food elsewhere, right? Did they really have to throw themselves into a store with ten or so walkers and hope they didn't get eaten alive? Could the two of them pull this off...? Her gaze clouded with uncertainty and she squeezed her eyes shut, exhaling all of the anxiety and worry that was festering in her body. They had to do this. They couldn't go walking around hoping for food to come to them.

Finally, she opened the door a hair, crouching down low and peering through the crack in the door. No eaters were too close, which was good. She shuffled her feet forward, opening the door slightly more and poking her head into the room to look around and see where the eaters were. There was one down the aisle to the right, but its back was to them. Her eyes connected with Carl's and she nodded slowly to assure him it was clear. Time to get this thing rolling.

With quick and silent footsteps, she slipped inside the room, eyes scanning over the shelves for anything that would be of use. Most of it was looted by now, but she did see some food that could be eaten before they entered. They just had to get around the eaters first. The shelves in this aisle were relatively clean, other than a few rags that she pocketed for later and the glass bottle she held onto for a distraction. Since there was a walker to the right side of the aisle, she headed to the left side, Carl right on her heels. She stopped just as they reached the end and did a quick peek around the corner. Rotten flesh caught her eye and she jumped back, bumping into Carl behind her.

Riley grimaced and froze, the sound of the eater growling growing slightly louder. Damn. The beating of her heart grew louder and louder until she could barely hear anything else. Her breath hitched in her throat and she waited for the monster to come stumbling around the corner to sink its teeth into her neck.

But it never came.

Her hand curled around the end of the shelf and she took another peek. The walker had shifted so it was turned away slightly and she let out a sigh of relief. It would be a tight jam to slip by it, but it wasn't impossible if they were quick enough. She turned to Carl, mouthing what she had in mind. 'We're going to slip by the eater one at a time.'

'Are you crazy?' His expression said it all.

'Yes.'

She then turned away, her muscles tensing as she slid out into the open. Her skin began to tingle in anxiety and she held in a breath, the stench of rotting flesh lingering in her nose for a moment before she let out a shaky exhale. And then she went for it. Her legs carried her faster than normal, but that wasn't a good thing.

Riley misjudged how tight of a squeeze it would be to slip past the eater. Her foot caught on the ankle of it and she went flying forwards into the next shelf over, a splitting pain erupting in her forehead as her head collided with the metal shelf.

Well shit.


A/N: Did you really think they were going to get out of there without any trouble at all? :) Yes I know it's been forever. I'm super sorry about the wait! It's been difficult trying to juggle all my stories, but I guess my excuses don't really matter now. I hope this chapter made up for the long wait. I know it may seem like Riley is quite childish and angry, but I promise there are reasons for it. After what happened to her, she has a lot of anger and pent up emotions and it doesn't help that she's still changing into a teenager because that just throws everything out of whack even more. The hope theme also plays an important role, so keep that in mind. I'll try to update a lot sooner so I don't leave you with this cliffhanger for too long ;) Before I end this author's note, I want to thank each and every one of you that reviewed, followed, and favorited! Your kind words mean a lot and I hope that you're enjoying the story so far!