Waking up was becoming easier, and at the same time, more difficult than I remembered. First there was the usual process, which was coming to terms with the fact that I was no longer in my absurd dreams (in which I was able to fly the night before, but not very well) before my body realised the immense pain it was in and shot me out of my slumber almost immediately. Which meant that I felt very awake, and still tired at the same time.

Martinez said that he was getting us up early so we could get walking again, a point I would have relented if I thought I could get back to sleep. It would have also been quickly rejected by the fact that coming to Terminus was my idea, so my new want for sleep was not going to stop him from carrying out a plan he never wanted to follow in the first place. How very insistent he was in my imagination.

Isaac had actually stirred from his sleep in a very peaceful manner, something that had been robbed from me only a few minutes prior. He covered his face with his hands and rubbed the sleep from his eyes in a few up and down motions, before breathing out.

"Everything's packed up," Martinez announced.

"Packed," Isaac echoed tiredly, his arms dropping to his thighs. It stared into the distance for a few seconds, before meeting Martinez's eyes. "Are we leaving?"

Martinez shrugged. "If we wanna get there in the next few days we should probably head off soon," then he looked at me. "How are you feeling?"

"Hurt, but fine," I frowned, taking a moment to sit with my injuries. "I think."

"If it gets as bad as it was, we'll do what we did yesterday." How thoughtful. "If this place is legit, then we'll want to get there ASAP."

"And if it isn't?" Isaac asked. "If we show up tomorrow and they're bad and she still can't walk, how are we going to get away?"

"It's not something we can plan for until we see this place," a beat. "The people." Martinez thought still, despite his disregard of Isaac's concerns. "We'll work something out, even if we get there and scope the place out for a few days until she's doing better."

"I love when I'm the main point of the sentence without ever being addressed once," I told them. "If something happens while we run, I'll manage for a mile or two. Supposedly adrenaline kicks in and distracts me from the pain long enough to get away."

Martinez tilted his head, the corners of his eyes creasing as he frowned. "If you're sure."

It was only a few more minutes before we were walking again. My leg was a little better, along with my shoulder, the act of actually sleeping more than an hour gave my body time to rest (which was its main purpose, so props).

Martinez kept more of an eye on me as we followed the tracks, making sure I didn't fall behind without them noticing. If I slowed, they slowed, an act that I found extremely comforting. I did love the attention, obviously.

The track came to this area where it ran side-by-side with the road, with only a short line of trees separating the methods of travel. We continued along the tracks, and I hoped that we'd cross over to the more even ground at some point, with the fear of my leg bucking out from under me at the cracking of the wrong plank.

"Glad we ditched those walkers," said a faint male voice.

Walkers?

The remark was followed by two smaller agreements, humming that I was close enough to hear, but had not registered since the only people I knew to call the dead 'walkers' were my own people. Were they here?

I stopped, my eyes whipping around as though the voices had been inside my own head. Martinez and Isaac stopped when I did, however, by the expressions I realised that they didn't hear the person that sounded oh-so familiar.

"What?" Martinez asked quietly.

"We killed most of them," a woman's voice came.

"Yeah."

"It's talking," I said, trying to listen again. "People."

My people.

Up ahead, on the road, I saw them. Rushing into the treeline, the three figures became clear; a man, a woman and a boy. The woman had a samurai sword on her back, and the boy was wearing a blue denim coat, with a brown sheriff hat.

It was them.

"Rick!" I screamed, running out from the treeline. "Carl! Michonne!"

They spun around, confused at first, until they saw me. Each of them had the biggest smile on their face as they started running back to meet me. Carl was the fastest, sprinting over to me as he yelled my name. "ACE!"

He slammed into me, his arms wrapped around my waist and he almost knocked me over as he hugged me. I winced as he moved my arm and I put my weight on my bad hip, but none of that stopped me from hugging him back, and not letting go as I rested my head on top of his own, squishing a part of the hat.

"You're alive."

"Yeah, I'm alive." Carl reluctantly let me go as I gently pushed him away by the shoulder. "I'm okay."

I didn't get much chance to breathe before I was engulfed in another hug, pulled into Rick's chest as he planted a kiss on the top of my head. I wrapped my arm around his back and hugged him tight. I didn't realise how much I'd missed them until I had them again, and I never wanted them to go.

There was a hand on my shoulder that I assumed to be Michonne, which was confirmed when she called out, "Isaac?"

Rick turned with me for us to see him awkwardly walking over to where we were crowded. He pulled his hand from his pocket and gave a small wave to them, very happy to see them, but not being close enough to rush over and hug them as I had been.

"I can't believe it," Rick said, finally releasing me from the hug. "How'd you get out?"

"Isaac helped me after I got shot," I said. "We got separated, but we found each other a few days ago."

"Shot?" Rick asked worriedly, until he realised the sling that cradled my arm, and he nodded. "I'm glad you're okay." He squeezed my good shoulder and pulled me against him again, before giving Isaac a single nod. "Both of you."

Michonne turned around at the sound of footsteps behind me and I realised that they had no idea that Martinez was with us. When she pulled out her sword I also remembered that she was in a position to have met Martinez before when she lived at Woodbury for a few days, so she would recognise who he was.

She stepped ahead of us to keep him at bay. "Why is he here?"

"Ah, hell," Martinez grumbled, raising his hands. "Nice to see you again."

"I can't say the same," she snapped.

"I've seen you before," Rick said. "You're from Woodbury, one of the soldiers."

"He's been helping me," I promised them, stepping away from them to stand in front of Martinez. "When I got separated from Isaac I was going to die, but Martinez found me. He's been helping me look for you guys."

Isaac gave a nod. "It's true."

"It doesn't matter," Michonne hissed. "He was there when Her—"

Martinez interrupted her, "I wasn't, actually."

"Those people who attacked us were Martinez's group. The Governor almost killed him and he got away," I added. "He used his people to attack us."

"Bastard showed up with a new girlfriend and a kid," Martinez said. "Couldn't turn them away."

"I saw a woman," Michonne said cautiously. "I don't remember seeing a kid."

"Jesus, Meghan . . . fuck . . ." Martinez trailed off and breathed out. I noticed Michonne lowered her sword beside me. Martinez continued, "She had a sister too, Tara. She was probably with the people that attacked, she got pretty close to one of the women in my group. Maybe even dating."

"Short brown hair?" Rick asked.

"Yeah," Martinez gave a nod.

"I saw her there, she didn't seem like the soldier type," Rick said. "I tried convincing your people to join us, that they could live there with us at the prison. She seemed like she wanted to. She was scared."

"I bet," Martinez said. "From what I gathered they never did anything like that before meeting us."

"I'm sorry about your group," Rick said.

"Yeah, me too," he gave a nod in return.

There was a moment of silence where Michonne was glancing at me, a silent way of asking if I was sure about him. I understood her hesitance, it was a mild version of the reaction I had with him when I thought he was going to drug or kidnap me. Though, maybe I shouldn't have been too trustworthy of a person I thought was going to drug or kidnap me.

Problem for another day, I guess.

"Well, I should take off," Martinez said, "find somewhere before it gets dark."

"You're leaving?" I asked.

I didn't expect that it would make me as sad as it had, which I found a little strange. This was the deal, this was what we decided. But it was wrong. Martinez should stay with us, he was alone and had nowhere else to go. I struggled living on the road with a whole group of people, and he was going to attempt to do that himself. I know he was a dick, and he did bad things, but a lot of it was because of the people he surrounded himself with.

"That was the deal, wasn't it? I help you find your people and then we go our separate ways," Martinez reminded me. "I am sorry about what happened to you guys, I tried stopping him from doing it. I get that it's not the only reason you have to hate me, so I'll see you around."

As he walked away, I watched Rick and Michonne share a glance. It was almost like they were wordlessly having a conversation that I couldn't understand, but I waited quietly, hoping they were discussing what I thought they were.

I didn't want him to go.

Everyone here would be mad if he stayed, and he wasn't particularly fond of our presence either, but when we got to Terminus he could just go off by himself. At least then we would all have people around us that weren't our enemies.

"Okay," Michonne agreed quietly.

Rick nodded and took a step forward in the same direction Martinez was heading. "Hey, we're heading to Terminus. You could come with us, I doubt we'd get in each other's hair."

Martinez stopped and turned.

He was quiet for a second, thinking about it. I'm not surprised; Martinez had been saying for days how he thought there was going to be something wrong with the Terminus, or that it might even be gone by the time we got there.

Eventually, he gave a nod, "I could come check it out with you guys if you're sure."

Carl was surprisingly silent beside me, I noticed. It was strange, seeing as this was the same boy who wanted to turn away the elderly and the children from Woodbury after the first war. He didn't trust them, but he was just okay with this now? I hadn't been around for the past few days to know what Rick, Carl or Michonne had been through, so I didn't question his change in attitude.

"We are," Rick said.

"I don't know what that place is gonna be about though," Martinez said. "Don't know if I trust it."

"Yeah, me either."

We walked some more, joy. I could tell Rick was curious about my injuries but decided not to ask as we plodded down the road in the same direction that Rick and the others had been taking. They said that they had been coming this way for days, sleeping in houses around the tracks. It made me realise that there were probably more of us out there, maybe coming to Terminus as well.

Michonne told me what happened to her, that she remained around the prison for a while, passing that she must have been seconds away from missing Isaac when he was there. Isaac gave a quiet response of agreement, saying that he didn't see her there either.

Carl told me what happened to them since the prison, leaving out precious details about people I thought he should know about. Judith was mentioned once in passing, but the look on the Grimes' face told me something terrible happened.

I didn't ask, I wanted to keep this moment as happy as I could. No crying.

"Thought maybe there'd be some houses down this way," said Rick as he led the pack. "Maybe even a store. There's got to be some food around here somewhere."

"We have food," Martinez interrupted.

Rick looked back, almost shocked. "How much?"

"Enough for all of us for a few days, I guess," Martinez waved a hand back toward me and Isaac. "They have some in their bags too. We can stop somewhere before it gets dark, cook it up."

"That's what's different about you!" Michonne exclaimed out of nowhere, stopping as she turned to me. "You changed your bag!"

"I didn't change it," I said and pouted quietly. "I left it at the prison."

"Bag?" Martinez asked.

Michonne laughed, shaking me as we walked with my good shoulder. "You don't remember seeing it?" When Martinez was still confused, she added, "In Woodbury!"

"Oh, fuck, yeah! You mean that bright yellow beacon strapped to her back?" It was his turn to join in with the laughing as he looked at me. "I remember now; decked out in this all-black riot gear with a yellow fucking bag on."

"I can't believe you had to leave it there," Michonne said. "Bag as bright as the sun."

"You're one to talk," I gestured to the corduroy button-up she had on now which was the same colour mustard my bag used to be.

Michonne smiled. "I missed you, wanted something around to remind me of you. I was carrying the essence of you in my heart. I think—"

"It's okay, you don't have to sell me on it," I interrupted her before any rambling could continue from it. "It's lovely."

"Ohh, lovely," she said. "Posh."

"I'm not posh," I rolled my eyes.

"Must be the accent then," she shrugged.

"Hey, look!" Carl interrupted us, pointing forward.

Farther up the road was a broken-down blue truck left on the side of the road. The grill was falling off the front, with some of the doors left open randomly around the car. Off to the side, I could see a walker reaching up toward us, but it was not moving from where it lay on the ground.

We walked over to the truck, Michonne going to take out the walker that was flattened to the ground. I checked inside one of the doors with Isaac, pulling the netting on the back of the front seat out to see if any water or anything had been left inside.

"We should probably stop here," Rick said as he walked around the car, glancing at me. "You've been limping, what's wrong with your leg?"

I leaned back on the car, shaking my head. "I got caught on the way out of the prison, some guy stamped on my hip. I'm okay for now."

"I think she fractured something," Martinez said. "We had a car for a while, I just made her sit in it while I looted the buildings. But now we've been on our feet for a few days, it's starting to come out. Flare up, or whatever."

"If you need any help walking tomorrow then let me know," Rick said. "We'll be at Terminus tomorrow but I don't want to push you to get there for us to have to leave if these people are bad."

I nodded in agreement.

"We can stay here for the night," Rick said. "Car will give some shelter for the kids to sleep. We should start a fire and get this rabbit cooking."

"Rabbit?" I asked. "Did you set snares?"

"Yeah."

"I saw them last night," Martinez said. "Thank fuck it was you guys."

"We only got the one rabbit," Carl said.

"Something's better than nothing," Martinez told him. "Besides, we have more food now anyway."

Rick nodded. "I'll take a look at it all, ration it out. We don't want to waste it all tonight for Terminus to be gone."

"I'll get some firewood," Martinez said, dropping his bag on the ground next to the car. "Foods in there."

"That was one small rabbit," Rick acknowledged, maybe half an hour after we'd finished eating.

Carl had resided to sleep in the car while the rest of us sat on the side of the road. I was glad that we found them when we did because it was a small rabbit. It seemed like it was the only food they had before we found them.

I leaned into Rick's side, closing my eyes tiredly as I rested my head on his shoulder. One of his hands came up and gripped my opposite arm behind my back as he pulled me closer to him, careful not to push against my shoulder.

"It was something," Michonne said beside us. "You gotta hand it to the thing, it travelled well."

Rick chuckled. "Have you noticed? It's all we talk about any more: food. I forgot what this feels like."

"Me too," Michonne said. "I can't wait to forget again."

"We're close, just have to make it through another day." Rick tapped my arm for a second to get me to move while he stamped out the fire. I sat up and he pushed his body off the ground to put the fire out with his foot. "Folks there are taking people in, they have to be strong, they have to have a system."

"I wonder if the whole thing's legit," Michonne said.

There was a snap from the woods that made Michonne turn around and Rick stand up. Martinez was also quick on his feet, staring at the treeline in the same direction as Rick for a long moment. I had my hand on my gun ready, wishing there was any way of telling if the sound was made by a walker or an animal.

"We let people in," Rick answered, sitting back down.

"We did." Michonne added quietly, "So did the Governor."

Martinez chuckled to himself, taking a seat back on the ground. "You knew that was a fucked up system when we took Merle in. You guys had to take him, he had family there."

"We didn't," I said. "We sent him away and Daryl went with him. He came back after."

"Yeah," Rick nodded, the smallest smile on his face. "Yeah, it's always the thing, isn't it? Don't get to know until we know. Maybe this place isn't even there anymore."

There was a click above my head, I shot around to see a gun aiming at Rick next to where I was leaning against him.

"Oh deary me," a familiar voice came next. "You screwed up, asshole. You hear me? You screwed up."

I jumped back and reached for my gun when I saw two men behind Isaac and Martinez, and then back to see one behind Michonne, there was another outside of the car watching Carl. We were outnumbered, and there was nothing I could do.

"Oh, look at who it is, Joe," one of the men grabbed Isaac by his shoulder and shook it. "It's the momma's boy."

Joe chuckled but looked at me instead of Isaac. "When I told you about the person who killed our friend, I didn't realise y'all knew each other. Solves a lot of problems for us, we felt really bad about what we did to his mom, but now, we don't have to! He's siding with a murderer."

I couldn't hold myself back. "If you think what Rick did is anywhere near as bad as what you did—"

My sentence was cut short when a hand gripped the back of my hair and yanked it backwards, making my face hurt as I winced. I clenched my teeth and breathed heavily through my nose. He was now behind me pulling my things away from my holster. He kicked the axe into the centre of the group they'd formed.

I had nothing.

"Leave her alone," Rick snarled.

"Oh, Rick. You probably didn't know this, but her boy toy there had all these issues with us, too," Joe sounded almost proud as he aimed the gun at Isaac for a second, returning his aim to Rick's head. "Very cryptic about it. But from what I gathered, we came across his dear ol' mom in Lone Oak."

Isaac's jaw tightened. A knowing look settled in Rick's eyes when he heard the name of the town, and he was now also looking at him.

Whether Isaac was silent because talking back would make the situation worse or because he was scared shitless was not something I could read in his expression. I took it into my own hands, standing up for the Wright family that the Claimers had wronged.

"I should've fucking killed all of you," I spat out, and the man threw my head forward again when a gun was placed at the back of my head.

"You know," the guy behind me said, and he knelt down to talk to Isaac, "it's nice that I get to kill a mom and her son, something poetic about it. Might even give you the same marks I gave her before you go. Hell, I might even do the same to your girl, here."

The gun tapped against the back of my head again.

"Now that is good!" Joe exclaimed. "I think her death should be a show, hurt her daddy and her boyfriend at the same time, kill two birds with one stone!" Joe clapped his hand against his leg and then flicked the gun in my direction. "Drag her out to the middle."

"Don't touch her," Michonne snapped.

They didn't listen. One of the men grabbed my good arm and dragged me out to the middle of the group before throwing me onto the ground. I groaned, but tried moving to get closer to my weapons. The plan didn't work, because a second later I was yanked up to my knees with a knife pressed against my cheek.

"She didn't do anything," Rick begged. "None of them did, it's me you want."

"That's right, Rick. Maybe you should've thought about that before you killed our friend," Joe said, and the man chuckled. "This is on you."

I glanced back at Martinez, who was pissed. He met eyes with mine, and I knew that he wanted to be able to do something. But there wasn't going to be a fourth time between us, Martinez was stuck saving my life three times before watching me die. Third time's a charm, and all. Wouldn't want to make it any less special.

Rick was in the same boat as Martinez, his wet eyes staring helplessly into mine. The voice near the car reminded me of the man watching Carl, making faces at him through the side window as Carl pushed himself as far away as he could in the small space.

"Today is a day of reckoning, sir!" Joe yelled out. "Restitution; a balancing of the whole damn universe. Shit and I was thinking of turning in for the night on New Year's Eve," there was a laugh amongst the crowd. "Now who's gonna count down the ball dropper with me, huh?"

There was a pause, before:

"Ten Mississippi!"

As Joe started his countdown, the knife was pushed closer and closer against my face. We were going to die here. I was going to die here, and there was nothing any of them could do.

"Ace," Rick started, but he didn't even know what to say or do.

I gave them a nod and smiled through my tears. "It's okay."

"Nine Mississippi! Eight Mississippi—"

"Joe!" A voice called from the tree line, and I could just look back enough to see Daryl. His eyes were on me as he walked over, and I begged silently that he would be able to do something. But he called Joe like he knew him, and none of the Claimers held their guns to him. They had met each other before, had enough respect for each other that they trusted Daryl to walk in on this. I hoped he hadn't been manipulated, or whatever these people were capable of. "Hold up."

Joe gave a fed up look. "You're stopping me on eight, Daryl."

"Just hold up," Daryl said again.

The other Claimers seemed annoyed at the interruption of my death too, because the guy watching Martinez and Isaac spoke up. "This is the guy that killed Lou, so we got nothing to talk about."

"And her?" Daryl gestured to me. "She kill Lou?"

The man behind me squeezed my good shoulder harder. "No, she's just got a mouth on her."

"Don't you fucking forget it—!"

The knife on my face slid down, cutting just a centimetre or two—until Joe held up a hand to stop him—but it hurt so badly after a second that I cried out in pain. (So this was what it felt like to be cut, different from accidentally cutting myself when cooking or working). I breathed deeply again when the man moved the knife down to my neck. The breath jutted out of my mouth as the tears mixed with a trail of blood that rolled down my face.

"The thing about nowadays is we got nothing but time," Joe said. "Say your piece, Daryl."

Daryl was standing near me now. "These people, you're gonna let 'em go. These are good people."

So they hadn't brainwashed him, not that I knew what they could have done to stop Daryl from trying to help us. Pessimism was just not something I could have shaken at the time of my death, as much as I hated my glass being half empty.

"Now, I think Lou would disagree with you on that," Joe said. "I'll, of course, have to speak for him and all 'cause your friend here strangled him in a bathroom."

"You want blood, I get it," Daryl said and dropped his crossbow to the ground beside me, holding out his arms. "Take it from me, man. Come on."

Joe was quiet for a moment, staring at Daryl. Part of me thought that maybe he'd gotten through to him, but of course, nothing ever went our way.

"This man killed our friend. You say he's good people. See, now that right there is a lie," the claimers were slow to react to their rules, none of them moving until Joe looked over at them and repeated, louder, "It's a lie!"

"No!"

"Daryl!" I went to move, but the grip on the back of my head tightened, and the knife returned to my throat, holding me in place. I could hear the grunting as the one man who was standing behind Martinez and Isaac started beating him. The man pulled my hair back so I could watch as tears rolled down my cheeks, stinging in my wound.

"Teach him, fellas! Teach him all the way!"

I was suddenly aware when I heard the car door squeak open, and I looked over to see the bigger man dragging Carl out of the truck as he struggled against him. "Come here, boy."

"You leave him be!" Rick went to stand, but Joe shoved him back down by his shoulder.

"Carl!" I screamed. "Leave him alone!"

"Shut up!" The man gripped my bad shoulder and pressed his thumb down onto my wound, making me scream and close my eyes. When he stopped, and I tried to move, he pressed his gun down against my temple. "Shut up unless you wanna join him!"

Carl was crying as the man held a knife to his throat, making creepy shushing noises as he continued to struggle away from him. As Michonne went to stand, the man holding a gun on her pushed her back. "You'll get yours. You just wait your turn."

"Listen, it was me," Rick looked back at Joe over his shoulder. "It was just me.

"See, now that's right, that's not some damn lie. Look, we can settle this. We're reasonable men. First, we're gonna beat Daryl to death. Then we'll have those guys," he aimed his gun at Isaac and Martinez behind me. "You're friend here," then Michonne. "Then the girl," his gun aimed at me. "Then the boy. Then I'm gonna shoot you and then we'll be square."

There were more sounds, more of Daryl getting beaten. The man on Carl had thrown him on the ground and was over him, and I couldn't see what he was trying to do through my tears. I didn't want to know, I just wanted to help him.

"Let him go," I heard Rick growl.

"Stop your squirming," the man was saying to Carl.

When I tried to move to help him again, he slammed the handle of the blade into my face and I fell back to the ground. Everything faded, and I felt dazed as Michonne called out to me. I squeezed my eyes closed and opened them again when everything started coming back together.

"Let him go," Rick growled.

I looked over to him and saw his face twitch as he slammed his head backwards into Joe. The gunshot rang off and landed on the ground so close to me that I could have screamed, but my voice caught in my throat. Joe gripped his bleeding nose and stumbled away in pain.

Rick shook his head, his eyes dazed from the gunshot being so close to his ears. He took a second, and I watched as he stood up and turned to Joe who was holding his nose as blood poured out. He punched him, and Joe turned around to hit Rick back, making him fall over.

"I got him," Joe said and kicked Rick. "Oh, it's gonna be so much worse now."

Rick struggled on the ground in front of me, Michonne slapped the man's hand away from her which also went off and landed on the ground about a metre away from me. The man slapped her and she fell back onto the ground.

As I went to push myself up, the man kneeled on top of my waist, and I reached forward to grab anything that could help. He grabbed my arm and pulled it back, shifting my body so I was on my back and pinning my arm to the ground with his free hand.

I struggled but no matter how much I tried to move, I couldn't get the man's knee off of me to free myself. The gun clicked next to my head, but I didn't stop. I was last on Joe's list, and he didn't seem to be changing his mind. When there was no bullet in my brain, I realised I had a bit of freedom to fight back for now.

"Come on, get up!" Joe yelled. "Come on! Let's see what you got!"

I could see Carl had now been pushed onto his stomach, and the man was holding his head down against the ground. I wanted nothing more than to help him, and I was cursing myself so badly for not being able to kill the man who had him.

"Leave him be!" Rick stood up and was now shoving Joe who held onto him, and they grappled close to each other, but neither of them really had much of an opportunity to get a hit in. My eyes were on Rick, hoping he could get into a better position.

"Hey, right over here!" Joe said. "What the hell are you gonna do now, sport?"

I watched Rick swing his head forward, biting into Joe's throat. I was staring at him, mouth open as he ripped his head back, blood spurting out of Joe's neck, as he tried to gasp for air, but Joe fell to the ground.

Michonne had grabbed the man's hand and pushed it back away from herself, before grabbing it and aiming the gun at the man kneeling over me. Before she could fire it off, the man was yanked away, and dropped on the floor a metre or so away.

Isaac had rushed him, cutting the man's hand so he dropped the gun. I grabbed the gun the man dropped and aimed it at the man but Isaac had already knocked him over and was slamming his knife into his neck again and again and again.

I looked at Martinez who was staring at him for a second, but when we heard the sounds of grunting I looked to Daryl. Martinez rushed over and pulled the man away as Daryl punched him off. They punched him, stamping on him as he hit the ground.

"Ace!" Martinez called.

I aimed my gun and fired a shot down into his body. I looked at him for a second before I remembered the last man, the one I wanted to kill more than any of them. Michonne turned her gun and aimed it at the man, who had a knife to Carl's throat, and so did I.

"I'll kill him! I'll kill him!"

"Let the boy go!" Michonne said.

Rick stood up after grabbing a knife, a wild look on his face as he passed Michonne. He had blood covering his face, a dazed look in his eyes like he could only think about killing someone. And then he marched towards the man.

"He's mine," he growled.

The man let Carl go and dropped the knife, but Rick stabbed his knife into his chest and started ripping it upwards. Carl ran to Michonne who hugged him and Rick stabbed the man over and over and over again.

I could see Carl staring at him from the hug, and I couldn't read his expression. Part of me thought he'd be scared of seeing his dad do something so brutal, but even then, Rick had just saved him from something worse than death. And really, he didn't look very scared, he wasn't even crying.

When Rick was finally done, he stabbed it into his head.

He looked back over his shoulder at the rest of us, which was when I finally looked around. Martinez was staring at Rick, eyebrows raised as high as they could go. It made sense, as much fighting as we did, no one had ever seen Rick do anything like that. It shocked me that Isaac was able to go through with it.

Isaac . . .

He'd moved himself away from the body, just kneeling on the ground again looking at nothing in particular. He had blood covering his hands, which he didn't seem to even notice. If he did, he probably didn't care about it at all.

Rick nodded and waved for me to help him, before looking at Daryl and Martinez. "Make sure to put down the bodies."

I knelt next to Isaac, wondering if he was freaking out about the blood on his hands—he didn't seem to notice anything, not that I was surprised. I'd killed before, but I'd never done anything that close and personal, and I certainly hadn't killed many people who had specifically done something wrong to me, it was always just war.

Whether that made it better or worse, I didn't know.

"Isaac." I put my arm under his and pulled his elbow ever so slightly. "Come on."

When I stood up, lifting his elbow, he followed me. I walked him back to where our bags were left on the ground. When he was far enough away I glanced back to see Martinez pick the knife up from the ground and stab the claimer in the head, stopping him from being able to turn.

Isaac just stood there, not looking at anything. I opened my bag and pulled out a spare t-shirt Martinez had found for me, it would make a good enough rag for the moment. Someone had to clean the blood off his hands before he realised or freaked out. Then again, it wasn't like he could draw in any more walkers.

I walked around to stand in front of him, but he seemed to realise at this point. He was just staring down at the blood on his hands, turning them over. He wasn't freaking out, even then. I think if this had been anyone he'd killed then he wouldn't be as calm as he seemed now.

"Give me your hands," I said quietly.

Isaac gave a nod, holding them out.

I started wiping the blood away with the t-shirt, getting as much off as I could. When the majority of his hands were clean, I opened the bottle on the ground and tipped water on a clean part of the fabric to get the blood that had smudged there.

Isaac was silent the whole time.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He shook his head, and I could see him holding back tears in his eyes.

I didn't know what to say that would stop him from crying; killing those people was getting revenge for what happened to his mother five long months after he lost her. He'd already grieved, and the claimers making fun of it the way they did would have just brought all of those feelings back up.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I don't—" he stopped himself, shaking his head before he could cry. "I should feel better. Why doesn't it feel better?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly.

Revenge shouldn't feel good, normally. But the Claimers were a group of sick, evil people. I felt bad after killing some of the Governor's soldiers because most of them probably hadn't done that much wrong, at least not to us.

Part of me thought that maybe he would feel better if he got the chance to kill them, and he even did kill the person who had done the most damage to his mother. But then, before that, we were going to die. Those feelings of fear, the sadness of not wanting it to be the end could have overcome the revenge for the claimers.

"You just have to keep telling yourself that it was unavoidable," I started, "that if we let them go then they would have hurt other people in the same way. Maybe it's not what your mother wanted for you, but in this case, I don't see a future where they could have lived."

Isaac wiped the corner of his eyes with his sleeve. "I can't believe they did that to her."

"It's not fair," I agreed quietly.

Isaac shook his head. "My mom . . . she used to make the beds of the houses we left behind, so if anyone ever stayed in those houses, they wouldn't have to clean up or anything. They could just go there and rest for a while without having to worry about anything. She did a lot of stuff like that. And they killed her."

I didn't want to bring it up, but it reminded me of when I lost my mother. She died of cancer when I was ten, leukaemia. My mother was one of the nicest people I knew, and she died because of some disease.

That's why I wasn't religious, why I didn't believe in God. People would tell us that God had a plan and she's in a better place now, but it didn't make sense that God would kill one of the nicest people alive, just as it didn't make sense that he'd let the Claimers live after what they'd done to Isaac's mother. If a God like that existed, I wished he didn't.

"I'm sorry," I said again because it was all that I could tell him. "She sounded lovely."

There was a long moment of silence where I could see that Isaac's hands were now finally clean, with some splotches of blood on his clothes that he either didn't care about or hadn't noticed. "It doesn't get easier, does it?" He asked finally.

I shook my head. "Not as far as I can tell, it's just . . . You just have to live with it. Maybe someday it'll get easier, just a bad memory, but I doubt it."

Isaac didn't look happy at my answer, but he gave a nod. We'd talked about the war and the things I had done before, and Isaac knew that even after time had passed it was still eating away at me. I wished I could tell him something different, but I didn't have another answer.

"Then again," I said, "maybe it'll just become normal."

Isaac has his justice, all is right with the world.

Sorry if the claimer part seems really jumpy or I keep saying the same thing by accident. I haven't looked at this chapter in a little while and it needed a lot of editing this morning.

Hope you enjoyed and let me know what you thought :)