There was no sound from the car as Martinez drove into the next town. I remembered passing a hospital, a cemetery and a petrol station before it seemed like we were entering another town. Houses and shops were found on either side of the street, all kinds of small town things that seemed to exist everywhere we went. The pawn shop was a little different, though.

The town was pretty quiet for the most part. I had seen the occasional walk in some of the windows, one or two on the streets, but there were very few of them around. Obviously I knew the town could be littered with corpses that we hadn't seen yet, but really I was concerned about us running into a herd or something blocking our path that we hadn't seen yet.

Isaac had been completely silent the whole day before, and only really started to chime into conversations between Martinez and I every so often. I think he was understanding why I made us leave, even if he was still sad or angry, he generally ignored what happened with the claimers to keep the ride as civil as he could. I appreciated it, because it stopped the guilt from bursting out of me in confetti of apologies.

Martinez took the silence as his opportunity to pitch a plan to us, that he was going to stop so he could look around for some food and gather fuel from the cars that weren't completely empty. Just his usual spiel when he thought we'd be able to gather supplies. It was almost like a drill sergeant, which was when I realised that there was a good chance that Martinez had been in the army.

"Just see what's here, keep us in as good a position as we're in," he was saying. "And—FUCK!"

Martinez felt it before I did, but it was seconds before I realised how he had to spin the wheel to keep the car driving in the right direction as we reached a bend. I was thrown against the door, groaning as I hit my arm.

The tyres screeched against the ground and Martinez slammed on the brakes, and my good arm shot out to grip the dashboard to hold myself in place in my seat. My heart was racing, and I looked back to Isaac who had a hold of the bar under my headrest.

Martinez drifted the car to a violent stop just before we ran into a lamppost on the pavement, but I had to admit that I didn't think he'd get it to stop in time. Nothing but the sounds of panicked breathing filled the car.

"What was that?!" Isaac exclaimed after a moment to catch his breath.

Martinez shook his head. "I don't know; felt like one of the wheels just fucking stopped."

"The bearing," I reminded him, clutching my heart as I breathed out the word. "Fuck. It made, uh, it made the wheel seize up."

Martinez gave a nod. "You were right."

"She's always right," Isaac told him, in a duh tone.

We were all silent again, unsure of what to do after almost dying. I knew what questions were coming, but I really couldn't work out an answer that they would have wanted. I looked around at the nearby vehicles to see if there is anything I could scrap for parts, suitable parts at least. We needed a new bearing, but it was hard to tell which ones would be good for what we had now. Not only that, but I was in no position to fix a car right now.

Just as I expected, Martinez was the one to ask the dreaded question, and I was just as stumped. "You think you'd be able to fix it with the cars here?"

I was already shaking my head when he opened his mouth. "I don't know. I'd have to find the right bearings, make sure that they haven't rusted or gotten worse or anything by just sitting here. Do you even have any tools?"

Martinez shook his head. "No."

"I'd have to find tools as well, then," I concluded. "I don't know. I mean, theoretically I could, but it'd be a lot of work to even find everything we need. Even with my arm . . . I'd have to tell one of you how to do it, step by step which would leave us here for hours, most likely."

Isaac gave a nod. "I have the gloves, at least. If it comes down to it, I mean."

Martinez was confused, not knowing about Isaac or why he needed the gloves. He made a face before staring back over his shoulder, directing his questioning look towards Isaac. "Gloves? What do you need gloves for?"

"I have OCD," Isaac told him. "Can't touch anything dirty."

I thought maybe he'd ask more questions, and be a little more curious. It was the first that Martinez heard about it. I was actually surprised that it hadn't come up before because when Martinez attacked Isaac, he was wearing the gloves.

Instead, Martinez sent a glance my way. "Must be a bitch dating you."

"Oh, we're not—" I blushed, clenching my teeth, and looked forward.

Why did I say that so fast?

Martinez stared at me for a few seconds, before glancing back at Isaac who I imagined had the same awkward expression that was written on my face. I needed him to feel as awkward as me. Instead of pushing, Martinez shook his head and got up from the car. I followed him, because I knew that he was probably trying to come up with a different plan.

"Well we can't keep driving this piece of shit unless we fix it," Martinez said, taking a look around at the nearby vehicles. "Almost crashed, can't risk that happening again. I mean, shit, you're already beat up enough as it is."

I shrugged. "We could see if any of the others work, but I doubt we could get many of them started if they have any fuel at all. Even if we could, I'd still probably have to tell one of you how to do it."

"I can hotwire a car," Martinez shrugged. "Merle was useful for some things."

I almost laughed at that. With how little Merle seemed to actually know about mechanics, I was surprised that he could hotwire a car. I was also shocked that he taught Martinez. "Merle taught you how to hotwire a car out of the goodness of his heart?"

Martinez laughed.

Isaac shook his head, holding up a hand. "I'm sorry, who?"

"Daryl's brother," I answered.

"Shithead brother," Martinez corrected.

Isaac frowned. "So, how do you know him?"

"We found him early on," Martinez said.

"Rick handcuffed him to a roof in Atlanta because he was shooting walkers and throwing a fit and they left him behind," I said. "When they went back for him, he'd cut off his hand and left on his own."

"What the fuck?" Isaac cringed.

"He never stopped talking about that fucking officer," Martinez said. "I never expected that same person to show up and attack us."

I raised an eyebrow. "After you kidnapped Glenn and Maggie, you mean?"

"After Merle kidnapped Glenn and Maggie," he corrected.

"I'm starting to see a pattern here," Isaac said.

"Yeah, he was a dick," I said.

"So, what's the plan?" Martinez asked finally, cutting the conversation short. "Do we see what we can pull together, try and fix this? Get another car?"

"We could go on foot," Isaac suggested.

"Not ideal," Martinez shrugged.

I shook my head, "I don't know."

"What's that?" Isaac pointed across the street.

There was a handmade sign with a small cover over the top in case it rained. It was positioned next to the railway track that ran through the middle of two streets with a crossing guard separating the roads. We walked over to get a closer look.

What I was really looking at was the map below the sign that was at my eye level. At the centre of the map was a star with a bunch of coloured lines leading into it from all across the state, and big bold writing that said the word: TERMINUS.

"What's a terminus?" Isaac asked.

"Place where all the trains go," Martinez answered simply.

That made me understand why the coloured lines on the map didn't line up with where I remembered the roads to be in Georgia. It was a railway map, probably for the passengers to see the different routes they'd have to take.

The sign above had more large bold words on, which I read outloud: "Sanctuary for all. Community for all. Those who arrive survive."

Bit on the nose, it seemed. Why advertise your community so loudly for everyone to see. I could see that they wanted to save lives, but we did the same thing. Leaving so many signs would leave the community open to being attacked by anyone who'd seen it. I mean we saw a pretty big group of men yesterday that were willing to fight most people they came across.

"I wonder what a load of shit that is," Martinez said beside me.

"That's if it's still there," Isaac agreed.

"We should go there," I blurted out.

Apparently I had not listened to the complaints around me, because Martinez stepped forward to look me in my eyes to see if I was serious. When he realised that I was being serious, he almost laughed. "Yeah, there's no way we're doing that."

"We have to." I was adamant. "The prison was right next to a railway, you must've seen it because you were right there in the shootout," I reminded him. "That means that there's a good chance that even if a few of them followed the railways and found these signs, they would have seen this and some of them could have gone there."

"It is possible that our people would have seen it," Isaac agreed. "It can't hurt to take a look."

"It can, but I think we should do it anyway," I said.

Martinez was shaking his head, grumbling some things to himself that I couldn't really care to make out. Part of me wondered whether he'd been avoiding groups after what the Governor did to him, but I wondered whether that avoidance was something he'd do until the end. It seemed unreasonable to assume that every group was bad, but with the few groups we'd even come across, maybe there was a point behind his hesitation.

I didn't really care. The only reason I wanted to see if this Terminus place was still there was because I was adamant that some of my people would've seen those signs and followed the train tracks. I had to go there because it was the best option I had for being able to find more of my group.

"You wouldn't have to stay with us," I said. "Once we find out if they're good, you could go."

Martinez gave a nod, coming around to the idea. Really the problem would be finding out if they were good or bad, because it was either going to be extremely obvious or rather something they hid. Either way, he seemed more on board now.

"How long would it take to get there?" Isaac asked.

Martinez sighed, shaking his head. "Couple of days of walking, maybe. Not too far."

"Do we have enough supplies for it?" Isaac asked. "I mean, we have enough for a few days, sure. But rationing is going to be a little harder now if we're going to be on foot for hours at a time. It was easy just sitting around and driving everywhere."

Martinez was quiet for a moment, thinking. Eventually, he gave a nod, "Okay, look. If we're doing this then we start in the morning. Let's take the time to loot this place, sort out what we can take with us because most likely we're going to end up camping in the woods.

"I hate camping."

"I hate camping," Isaac and I said at the same time, and I looked over at him.

Martinez gave us each a look and rolled his eyes before shaking his head. "Well, I hate to break it to you guys, without a car we're not going to have a choice. So what's it going to be?"

My face scrunched up, but I did agree. "Fine."

We spent that night in a bar on the side of the train track called the RAILWAY INN. It was a dilapidated bright orange building with a big poster of a train on the side, and old-timey gaunches on the walls. It was strange, but I was glad this place existed.

Martinez made us stay in one of the rooms upstairs because it was easier than trying to barricade every window on the ground floor, despite the fact that they were all clouded glass and were harder to see through. Martinez left us so he could go back downstairs and lock the doors, allowing us all to be able to sleep that night. We needed it if we were going to be walking all that way.

The bedroom had two single beds at either side of the room, and a very small sofa behind the door. Isaac had already sprawled out across one of the beds, pulling out a pen and his notebook before turning to an empty page, from what I could see from my own bed. I wanted to watch him, see what he was drawing, but when he noticed that I was watching him he glanced over at me.

"Sorry," I awkwardly kicked off my shoes and pushed myself back on my own bed.

Isaac didn't say anything, but pulled a torch out from his bag and just went back to what he was doing, while I settled down and rested my head on the pillow. It was too warm to pull a blanket over myself like Isaac had done, so I just laid down on the mattress and sighed, closing my eyes.

Martinez walked back into the room with a bottle in his hands. "Can you believe this place still has this shit?"

"You shouldn't drink that," I said. "It dehydrates you and slows your senses."

"Oh good," he took a swig from the bottle. "So I shouldn't hear you complaining about it until tomorrow?"

I just scoffed, and settled back down into the pillow. I never thought I would miss the prison beds as much as I had been, and finally being able to sleep on a mattress made me realise how uncomfortable the car and sofas were. It was just teasing me though, one last night of comfort before I had to sleep on the ground.

"What about you?" Martinez held out the bottle to Isaac. "Want some?"

"You've been drinking it," Isaac grimaced.

Martinez was confused for a short second, but then understood what he meant. "Right, well there's more downstairs if you want some."

Martinez turned around, looking for somewhere to sit before dropping down and kicking his feet up onto the sofa. He continued taking swigs from the bottle, scrunching his face up at the horrible taste and then reading the label.

"You know, you guys are the most boring kids I think I've ever met," he said after a while, running his thumb under the words to read them. "When I was your age I was out all the time making fake IDs and trying to get people to buy me beer."

"My mom would've killed me if I did anything like that," Isaac said, not looking up from his book as he drew something. "Not that I ever wanted to, I'm just saying."

I could see that Martinez didn't want to ask more about it, because at this point he knew enough about Isaac and what happened to his mother that he didn't push. Isaac glanced around, wondering if anyone would say anything, and then went back to what he was doing.

"What about you?" Martinez asked me this time. "Strict parents?"

I shrugged. "Not really. I think my dad's plan was to keep me busy at the garage for me to have the energy to do anything like that. After school, work, homework and hanging out with my friends there really wasn't time for acting up."

There was a long moment of silence as Martinez contemplated what I said. "You know, we all thought Rick was your dad before we heard you talking," he said. "It was strange that he just dragged a random kid into Woodbury on a rescue mission."

"My dad is American," I told him.

Martinez grinned. "Oh, and I thought your parents had worked out which was the better country."

"Continent," I corrected him. "North America is a continent of a bunch of states, which every other country in the world, including Britain, would call a group of countries. United States is more like the European Union. "

"You weren't too good when you got your asses kicked out in the 1700s," Martinez commented.

I smiled.

I had been waiting for a conversation like this, because I knew too much about both of the history to have this argument. Really, I thought Merle would be the person to have this conversation with me, but we argued enough that maybe he realised it would be a futile attempt.

"Oh yes, I remember, when you needed help from France to get rid of us," I said, and Martinez rolled his eyes. I continued either way, "You must know that 65 countries claimed independence from the British Empire."

"And you must know how we saved your asses in World War 1," Martinez said.

"I remember," I said. "I remember that you had to join the war late because Germany had an army that was 20 times the size of America, which meant that you had to sit back and watch while more experienced countries took the reins."

"And World War 2," he said, ignoring my small history lesson.

"You did the same thing in World War 2, stayed out because you believed it was better to hide from conflicts, and had the effects of the Great Depression," I smiled. "Besides, I see you haven't heard of project skyshield in the '60s where America wanted to test their air defences that were 99% effective, so they asked the Royal Air Force to pretend to be soviets. Long story short, America tried that again three more times."

Martinez was just staring at me for a second, obviously running out of British vs America facts. "You win."

"As a British person living in America you get a lot of Revolutionary War or World War jokes thrown your way as a claim of saying America is better," I explained. "I just so happened to do my homework."

"I told you she was always right," Isaac muttered from the corner.

"I'm starting to get a feel of that."

I settled my head back down on the pillow when I realised I'd won. It was a good feeling. Isaac smiled at me, obviously happy that I'd shown Martinez up because of how much of a dick he was. I smiled back.

It was nice.

I wished it was just the two of us, just me and Isaac. It would give us some more time, more privacy to have a moment like we did back at the prison before the Governor shot the place up. Since then, my brain had just been telling me what we did was him being friendly, but then there was that nagging part at the back of my head that said maybe. Maybe Isaac wanted to be with me too.

Nothing that I could figure out with Martinez here.

Though, I didn't want Martinez gone either. I fully believed that the things he did, the asshole that he was before was due to the people he ran with. Woodbury was a horrible place that you couldn't leave without getting killed, which meant that he had to act like that to fit in with the other soldiers.

He acted very much like a soldier from the little details I'd seen of him. The way he fought the walkers with Daryl, the way he carried himself and spoke when he let me go. He still had those features about him, but since being with us, there was more of a joking undertone. He was still serious, still trying to keep us and himself alive, but it was different. He seemed almost happier being here with us.

I just hoped that he would stay if we found more of our people.

As we walked along the train tracks, I felt myself starting to slow down. In all honesty, I wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for the fact that the distance was growing between me and Isaac, he and Martinez, somehow managing to consistently stay further and further ahead of me. Neither of them really noticed me falling behind, because I tried to hide the reason I was being so much slower.

My leg felt like it was going to fall off, and I wanted nothing more than to stop. Then I felt the pain growing in my hip. I thought it was better, just a bruise in an awkward place that has healed. Couldn't have been. The more I walked, the more achy my leg became as pain stabbed through the joint. I squeezed my eyes closed and pushed on ahead as my breathing got heavier.

After a while, my legs stopped carrying me all together, and I had to place my hands on my thighs as I panted. I needed to stop, I didn't know if walking on whatever I had done to my leg had was making it worse than it already was. I looked up, expecting either of them to have noticed by now, but they just kept walking onwards.

"Guys," I called out weakly, and surprisingly they both heard me and stopped. "I need to—I need to stop for a little while."

They stopped and turned, immediately walking back to where I was as I moved myself over to the side of the tracks and lowered myself so I was sitting back against a tree. I winced, closing my eyes and breathing out a sigh through my nose as my hip buzzed.

"Are you okay?" Isaac asked.

"Yeah, it's just . . . something's up with my leg, I just need to sit down for a little while," I explained.

Isaac gave a nod.

I tried pushing on, it didn't really work. In all honesty, if Terminus was a good place, then the sooner we got there the better. I could give myself time to heal, more time than I had living on the road. It's what I missed about living at the prison. There was always time to heal, time to rest if something had happened. I wished I had taken more advantage of it.

"How long have you been in pain?" Martinez was next, squatting to sit on the metal of the track in front of me.

I shook my head and shrugged my good shoulder. "I don't know, 45 minutes or so. I just kept walking, hoped we'd find something soon."

"You should've told us something, we would've stopped sooner," Martinez grumbled.

"I just thought I bruised something," I said honestly. "I thought I'd get over it, but it doesn't seem to be going away."

"I bet any money you've fractured something," Martinez said, kicking his legs out in front of him. "We wouldn't have known because you've been off your feet for a few days. It's probably flaring up with all the walking." Martinez breathed out, glancing to the side as he thought. "We need to get you somewhere to rest up before it gets any worse."

I nodded in agreement. All I wanted was for Terminus to work out so I could stop, maybe they had pills, but what I really needed was more time to rest. I was really hot and I'm sure I would have been more sunburnt if we hadn't been walking under the trees.

"I'm just glad we're in the shade. I'm useless walking around in the sun."

Martinez raised his brow. "Hot?"

"A little," I said. "Not quite heatstroke level yet."

"Get it often?" he asked.

"Often enough," I shrugged. "I'm okay for now."

Isaac had taken a few steps away, looking around in all directions for walkers while I had my break. Luckily it was quiet. I hadn't really seen a herd since the one on the way to the university, or at the prison. It made sense, though. All the commotion would've drawed the walkers that way, clearing up the nearby areas.

"I know you need your rest, but we should keep pushing on at least a little while further today," Martinez said. "Especially if we want to make it to that place in the next few days. We don't have the luxury to wait around."

"I know," I nodded. "I just needed a little break."

He pushed himself up, holding a hand down my way. I took his hand, and he pulled me but as I stepped onto my bad leg, I almost fell forwards. Martinez caught my hands, moving to pull one of them up over my shoulder.

"Come on, I'll help you," he said. "We gotta keep moving."

As we took a few steps, I hopped my way forward until I realised that Martinez was helping me keep my weight off my foot, then limping at his side. I winced, but kept myself walking using Martinez to keep myself upright.

I couldn't wait for this day to be over.

"Here, uh," he took a second as he held the SMG out. "Isaac, take that for now, would you?"

"Okay," I could see Isaac scanning the gun for any visible dirt, but he did unwillingly take the gun from him.

And with that, we hobbled extremely slowly down the railway tracks.

As the sun started coming down, Martinez made us stop and start a fire before it was completely night time. He said something about not wanting to be seen if any people or walkers were around, so we should cook something before it got dark.

When he left to get some firewood, me and Isaac picked a clearing off the side of the railway to use as a camping zone. I know I said how badly I hated camping before, but I would have much preferred it if we had tents and sleeping bags, which we did not. I was actually starting to miss the small camp we had in Atlanta. As I kicked in a nearby log for firewood or to be used as a seat, I sat on the ground and waited for Martinez to get back.

Behind me, I heard some shuffling and looked over my shoulder to see Isaac reach into his bag and pull out a thin blanket, before laying it out across the ground. He flattened one side with his foot before sitting down in the centre of it.

"A blanket?" I asked with a small grin.

He shrugged and said, "Be thankful I stuck around to sleep on the ground."

"I've seen you sitting on the ground before," I said, my expression shifting to a small frown.

"Yeah, it's fine if it's a road or something," he said, and then gave a look towards the area around him. "But I'm not sleeping on dirt, not yet, at least."

"I suppose," I said.

As he settled onto the blanket and I sat down on the log, sighing as I rested my leg for what felt like the first time in hours, Isaac got the fire started. He threw small pieces of dried grass into it (wearing his gloves, of course), which made the fire start to grow big enough to let off some sort of warmth.

There was a crack behind me, and I stood up and I spun around holding up my gun. Martinez entered the camp with an arm full of firewood, stopping when he saw my gun aimed directly at him. He stopped for a second, eyeing me with the gun, before walking past and dumping the sticks and branches into the centre of the circle we formed.

"I forgot how paranoid you are," he commented.

"It's called being cautious," I said.

"I know, it's good," he agreed. "To add to the paranoia, I saw some snares when I was walking around. Nothing run into them yet, but I think there's people around here."

People? That could go either way depending on who it was. Most of my people knew how to make snares at this point, and would have come this way because of the Terminus signs that we'd seen increasingly more of on our walk.

Then again, it could be other people as well.

I frowned. "Could it be—?"

"No," Martinez shook his head. "No, I doubt it."

I gave a nod. "Okay"

"I was just letting you know," he said, putting some of the dry fluffy dirt at the bottom of the fire. It caught alight and soon later, the rest of the sticks and logs had caught light as well, warming up the area around us for a second, "keep an eye out."

I nodded, rubbing my hands up and down my arms as Martinez started searching for food. He seemed to notice, because he reached behind him to grab his beige jacket he dumped on the log behind him and threw it my way.

"There," he said. "Wear that for now, maybe they'll have some more clothes when we get to Terminus."

I nodded, taking the jacket, grateful that we were able to have these peaceful moments on the road. Aside from almost dying in a car accident, being with Martinez had been very uneventful, and I hoped it would stay that way.

I meant to be getting chapters done but some of the later ones I had been on for like two weeks and I got so bored of looking at it. It is done now so I can move on, but here is this chapter now. We're getting closer to finding people :)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you thought :)