"I'm going to take a look inside." This was really the only time I felt unsafe around Martinez, when he was gone. I was useless, I could barely stay on my feet long enough to clear out the building, and apart from keeping a lookout, there was nothing I could do in the car. Besides, I've had bad experiences being left in the car.
Today was no different.
He looked for a group of houses together in a small town, driving the car, whenever you have to go more than a couple hundred metres away. Now we were near the edge, a house that Martinez considered ignoring, but decided we'd probably need the supplies. After all, I was taking up more than my fair share.
I stayed in the car with my hand over my gun, not wanting to be in the same situation as winter. It was the only thing that went through my mind. If I was going to get a text again, I was not giving the person a chance to fight back—that was my mistake last time.
My heart was racing so fast, for seemingly no reason. My eyes wandered over my shoulder, peering at the driver side door, and the ones behind me. I could've sworn everything turned silent. There was a wrestling in the leaves and birds chirping with Martinez left, but now I was completely different, like the air had changed.
They were no footsteps or groans from walkers, not even sounds from inside the house with Martinez, was potentially putting down his own corpses. The area seem dead like there was nothing around that could cause any threat.
I almost screamed when the door open next to me, but the hand is quick over my mouth with another press down over my gun, so I couldn't raise it at the person. That was when I realised that whoever it was, their skin felt weird. The surface was completely smooth and pinched awkwardly against my skin . . . like rubber. My eyes shot down to see the familiar, light blue colour of a surgical glove under my nose, and I instantly knew who it was.
"Be quiet," Isaac shushed me, slowly removing his hand from my face.
I looked at him, smiled, and pulled him in with one arm around his back to hug him tight. "Oh my God! You're alive!"
There was a beat of quiet when his arm came around my back, holding me against him. I pressed my head into his shoulder, happy that at least one of my people we're here. I was too relieved to be embarrassed that we were hugging.
"Come on," he finally pulled back, grabbing my hand. "We're getting you out of here."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
Before Isaac could open his mouth to answer, he was yanked back and out of the car and went barrelling onto the ground behind him. Martinez was standing at the open door, looking down at Isaac who was trying to scramble for his weapons.
"You sick fuck!" He yelled at Isaac.
Isaac looked up with fear, his eyebrows shooting into his head. "Me?!"
I didn't understand either of their confusion for a second until I realised that neither of them knew the other. Isaac was not around for the first war, so he probably thought that I'd been kidnapped or something and Martinez probably thought the same thing. All in all, it was a mess.
Martinez reached for his handgun, but I jumped up in front of him. "No! Wait!"
"I'll take care of it."
"No—"
"Ace," Isaac called, reminding me that Martinez wasn't the only one that I had to worry about taking a shot. "Out of the way, I got a clear shot."
I turned to Isaac who had his gun up but uncocked because I was standing in the way. "Don't!"
"Ace?" Martinez questioned, getting both of our attention, but his eyes remained fixated on Isaac as he asked, "Do you know her?"
Oh, thank God. Part of me thought that one of them was going to kill the other before they worked out that they were both my friends at that point, or at least that one of them was my friend and the other was a person who didn't kill me a long time ago.
"Isaac is my friend," I nodded. "He's from my group."
Martinez lowered the gun immediately, still a little confused, but understanding that I didn't want him to kill Isaac. "Sorry man, I had no idea. I thought you were trying to kill her."
Isaac just looked between us like we were crazy, still holding his gun up. "Yeah, I'm still going to need a little help here."
"This is Martinez," I said. "He's been helping me."
"Caesar," Martinez put his hand down towards him to help him up. Isaac looked at his hand but ignored him and stood up on his own. Martinez just raised his eyebrows and glanced at me, "was he at the group when we attacked?"
"Attacked?" Isaac was on edge again.
I shot my head back around to look at him. "No, no. It's not like that. Well, it is, but—"
"He was at the war? Why the hell are you with him?" Isaac exclaimed, cutting me off from my awkward rambling.
I didn't mean for it to happen like this. "He's been helping me, I promise he has."
"But he attacked . . ." Isaac stopped, because he didn't understand, I could see that much. "He—was he there the other day?"
My head was shaking before he could finish the question. "No."
"No," Martinez said at the same time. Isaac glanced at Martinez again, but he just raised a hand in quiet defence. "I didn't get done in the house, I'll just finish up while you two catch up."
Isaac seemed like he could barely wait for Martinez to leave, because before he was even out of earshot Isaac ran his hands over his face and let out an audible sigh. I understood it, I would probably feel the same way if he had done something like this too, but really I had no other option. I just hoped that Isaac would see it that way.
"He attacked the prison and you're just trusting him?" He asked.
"I can explain it, but I would've died without him."
Isaac shook his head. "I don't understand."
"I met him before," I started. "One day, the Governor kidnapped Glenn and Maggie. A few of us went to get them back and I got separated, but I escaped. He caught me as I was getting away, but he let me go. He should have killed me, but he left me escape.
Isaac was just staring at me as I explained the story, and I knew it was probably best to include that detain of what happened in Woodbury because at this point it was one of the only reasons I had any trust for him.
"After the war, the Governor killed his army. I don't know why, but he lived and left the Governor. He made his group, and a few days ago the Governor showed up with a kid and two women so he took him in. He thought he changed but the Governor wanted to attack us again and when he denied he tried killing him."
Not understanding, Isaac was chewing the inside of his cheek. "So . . . The Governor turned on him and used his group to attack us?"
"Yeah," I nodded.
He shook his head, "If it was his group, why didn't he go back?"
"He said something about self-preservation, I don't really get it," I shook my head. "Something about getting beaten half to death and almost thrown into a pit full of walkers. Would you go back after something like that happened?"
"You know you'd never catch me near a pit full of walkers," Isaac almost scoffed.
"I would have died without him," I repeated. "We decided that we'd stay together until we found people from my group. Then when I can kill walkers we'd part ways."
He nodded, now finally understanding. It was still hard for him, I could see that, and I understood it. Martinez had done so much for me at this point but then sometimes I remembered a lot of the bad things he did to us and it took everything not to get upset over what happened. Us being together was just a marriage of convenience—for me, at least. In all honesty, he had no reason to keep me around as long as he had.
"What happened to you?" I asked, changing the subject.
Isaac was quiet for a moment. "I went back to the prison, I didn't know Hershel . . ." He trailed off, closing his eyes for a second. "I didn't know they killed him."
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I would've told you but—"
"No," he shook his head. "It's okay, I saw you there, I know you didn't really have the time. After that, I went to the bus to find the others. But it was just stopped in the middle of a road, and everyone there was gone."
I raised a brow. "They left?"
Isaac shook his head, his eyes falling, and then I got it. Everyone on the bus was dead somehow; maybe someone got shot, maybe one of the sick people died, it didn't matter. It had already happened and there was no one left.
"They . . . They were dead—all of them?" My breath caught in my throat, and I felt my eyes well with tears. "Oh my God, I—Glenn . . ."
"If it helps, I don't think he was there," Isaac added quickly, seeing that I had started to get upset. "I looked as well as I could. There were a lot of people missing. I don't know if that means they got out or just didn't get on in the first place."
Isaac was saying, most of the people I was closest to were unaccounted for. They could still be alive, or they could be dead. It was something I had been through before with my dad, but it wasn't getting any easier.
He was quiet, his eyes on my shoulder for a long time. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, much like before, his expression was a mystery to me. Eventually, he nodded, and said quietly, "I thought you were dead."
My heart twinged when I realised that me missing everyone in the group now was what he must've been feeling for the past few days. I reached forward, wrapping my arm around him as I pulled him into a hug.
"I thought you were, too," I whispered.
Isaac wrapped his arms around my back, leaning his head sideways so it rested on my own. I was too happy that he was alive to think about the fact that we were hugging, that we hugged when he tried saving me from Martinez in the car.
I closed my eyes and rested my chin on his shoulder, breathing out a sigh. Isaac's arms met behind my back, and he held me tight. We stayed like that for a long time, only breaking apart when there was a cough from behind us that made us jump apart.
Martinez was standing on the porch, an eyebrow raised as he looked between the two of us. "I got everything in the house, are we heading out?"
"What about your deal?" Isaac asked, glancing toward Martinez with furrowed brows. Maybe he didn't trust him, understandable, because I still barely trusted him either. The only reason we were together was because he was helping me and hadn't killed me.
Martinez shrugged. "I can go if you want, I just thought it'd be easier because I have a car and her leg still hurts to walk on."
"It hurts to walk?" Isaac and.
"A little, yeah," I nodded. "It's my hip. I got into a fight after we split up."
Isaac was quiet for a moment, contemplating. I supposed he was realising more now why we had been together, because his eyes switched between all of my injuries and to the car behind us. I doubted that Martinez was just going to hand the car over, so staying with him was still the best thing for us to do right now, even if he didn't see it.
Eventually, he gave a nod, "Okay, yeah. It would probably be better if we stick together for now," Isaac said. "Until Ace can travel again."
"Are you sure it's okay?" I asked Martinez.
I didn't want to be around him as much as he didn't want to be around me. Neither of us was happy about the situation but it was going to be difficult for me and Isaac to travel without a car. Not only that, I believed that more of my people were out there, and it would be easier to look for them in a car.
"Yeah, we can keep going together," Martinez nodded. "We ready to go?"
"What's the plan?" Isaac asked. "Where are we going?"
"Nowhere, really," Martinez answered. "Just going to see where we end up."
Martinez groaned as he pulled the car over to the side of the road. There was a grinding or humming sound that apparently I was making up because both Isaac and Martinez were apparently missing. Despite this, I relentlessly nagged him until he pulled the car over so I could take a look.
"I'm telling you, I didn't hear a sound," Martinez called, following me to the front of the car as I opened the bonnet.
"It could be something bad," I told him. "What if the car breaks or seizes up or something while we're driving?"
He just shook his head, and turned away, glancing around for any sign of walkers. "What are you even looking for?"
"I don't know, I was hoping it would be obvious," I said. "It's going to be a bitch to fix anything with one hand, maybe even impossible."
"Then why make us stop?"
"Because it's dangerous," I said. "If you crash because the car breaks on us, we could die."
"I don't wanna die," Isaac raised his hand, but I noticed he was a respectable distance away from the car and greasy engine.
"Exactly."
I raised my hand to show Martinez, but Isaac took a step back, which confused Martinez for a moment. It was at that moment I realised that Martinez didn't really know that Isaac had OCD, and I didn't know if Isaac wanted him to know or not.
"Are you sure you didn't see a warning light or anything pop up?" I asked, getting the attention from Isaac, who glanced around at my raised volume.
"To be honest, I didn't look," Martinez answered.
"Are you kidding me?" I asked, following him around to the front of the car where he opened the door and switched the ignition back on. "Why wouldn't you check?"
"Because you're a kid, I think I'd know if something was wrong," he explained. "Besides, you complain—I mean, worry about a lot of things. It's hard keeping track of all of them."
I frowned, understanding what it meant. There were two options, the first being that he didn't trust my word as a mechanic, which would have made sense if I hadn't wrecked their car at the peace meeting. The other option was that he didn't want me taking the car apart, despite the fact that he knew something was wrong too.
I had to prove that I knew what I was talking about yet again because, despite the fact that he only said kid, I knew the real reason behind it was that I was a teenage girl. The heuristic was to just believe that I didn't know what I was talking about.
"I'm a kid who ripped the spark plug wires out of your car so you couldn't get home," I reminded him. "I am a kid who crafted a smoke bomb out of sugar and gunpowder—"
"There was fucking gunpowder in that thing?" He looked up in an instant.
I bit the inside of my lip and asked, "What does it say?"
Martinez rolled his eyes and looked at the dashboard. "Here, the ABS light is on."
"Oh, shit," I frowned. "Could be the bearings, I guess."
"You guess?" Martinez raised an eyebrow. "What kind of mechanic are you?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Does that light say: 'The bearings are wearing out; you might want to replace them'? No, it says there's something wrong with the anti-lock, which could be anything, but because of the grinding sound I was hearing it's probably the bearings," I said sarcastically, and loudly. "So to answer your question, I am a mechanic with one arm working with a hundred times more knowledge than you have."
"Look, it's been making that sound since I found it—"
"So there is a sound?" I asked sarcastically.
"Yes, there's a sound, but nothing has gone wrong with it," he was saying. "We can't fix it, can we? We don't have any replacement bearings, and besides, you have one arm and by the time you get the wheel out to look at the bearing we would need to use the car."
"It's dangerous, the bearings could stop the wheels from moving and the car just crashes—"
"Ace," Isaac interrupted me, and I heard the click of his gun.
My handgun was out in almost an instant as I circled the front of the car, there was a group of six men standing in front of us. They all had a different array of weapons, some with guns or bats or bows and arrows, but the worst part was that I didn't recognise any of them.
It was different to running across the Governor or his group, these people looked dangerous. I hoped it was like motorcycle men who always looked mean but were sweethearts, but for some reason, I doubted that. Martinez had come around the other end of the car, aiming his SMG at the men who were just staring at us at that point.
"Stay the hell away!" I yelled.
"Oh, come on, sweetheart," one of the men in the back of the group taunted. "What are you gonna do?"
"Two people with machine guns while you have a bow and arrow?" I raised a brow. "How about you take a step closer and find out."
One of the men let out a noise of exasperation, taking large strides in my direction. "Come on, Joe! What are we waiting for? It's just a guy and kids! Let's just take them, take their stuff!"
Martinez cut across me, holding his arm out in front of me protectively and grabbing my opposite wrist to push me behind him. He kept his gun up towards the man with his other hand. "Don't you come any closer!"
"Now hold on there, Len," Joe moved past Martinez, crossing in front of his men. "We have no reason to attack these people. They haven't done anything to us."
Len moved back to the line of his group where he was standing before, with some prompts from Joe.
Joe turned back around, holding his hands up towards Martinez in defence. "I do apologise for my friend's behaviour. We have no intention of hurting either of you. 'Sides, you and the kid look banged up enough as it is."
"Turn around and walk away, and then we don't have to kill any of you," Martinez demanded.
"We heard a lot of fighting is all," Joe, the leader, said as he took a single step forward. "Doesn't seem like you all get along that well."
"We're fine," Martinez said. "There was a war, they lost a lot of people the other day. I'm just trying to help them find survivors from their group."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Joe said. "We understand that we lost one of our own the other day. Our friend Lou. In all honesty, we just wanted to see if your friend here would have wanted to join our ranks," Joe added. "Seeing as it seemed you all don't get along. You two kids could keep the car, we all wouldn't fit in it."
Isaac frowned. "Why just him?"
"We strictly keep our group to just men, son. Easier that way, fewer rules to make if you understand," Joe explained. "They're okay for the moment, but you can't keep an eye on things forever."
I scoffed, actually trying to hide the fact that I was feeling physically sick. It felt the same as with Tony at the bar, but this time I was fully willing to kill these people to stop that from happening. "Excuse me while I gag."
"Thanks for the offer, but I'm good," Martinez said. His tone was even, but there was a hint of anger this time, and I could tell that what Joe was trying to say had also gotten to him as well.
"You sure?" Joe raised a brow, glancing at me and Isaac. "These kids seem like they'd be capable enough, on their own. And we're a good group, we have rules."
There were steps behind me and I glanced back to see Isaac had come around the car to stand near my side. He still had a gun in his hands, but I was the only one that kept my handgun up. Isaac was ready, though. I could tell with his tense stance and the fact that he kept his eyes on the men the entire time.
Martinez rolled his eyes, but I could tell that neither of us knew how to get out of that situation. "What are they?"
Joe was quiet for a second, glancing at the others to decide whether he should even give us the rules. "The main one is that lying is forbidden. If we can't be honest with one another, we can't trust one another, and if we can't trust one another, well it destroys the foundation that this group was built on."
"Right," he mumbled, acting like he was listening.
Maybe he was considering it, but with the look on his face at what they said before, I doubted it. Despite what the Governor had done to Maggie, Martinez didn't seem like the kind to actively be involved in something that horrible himself.
"We always help each other out, walkers, people, doesn't matter. It's how we keep the trust, we got each other's backs," Joe continued. "Any acts against our group we deal with. We're trying to find someone right now, our friend Lou, he was killed, strangled in a bathroom. Got away before anyone even knew he was there."
"How do you know who did it, then?" I frowned.
"We got into a fight," one of the men answered. "I saw him hiding before I lost consciousness."
I wanted to ask who it was, and what the person who killed their friend looked like. It could have been someone I knew because many of my people would kill to save themselves. After what these people have been saying, the fact that he was hiding meant that he wasn't actively attacking the group, but trying to get away.
My mouth remained closed, though. If they thought that maybe I knew the person, or was involved with them or even agreed that they had done the right thing, then there was a chance that they'd just try and kill us now.
"What happens if people break the rules?" I questioned instead.
"Oh, you catch a beatin'," Joe answered. "The severity of which depends upon the offence and the general attitude of the day. But that don' happen much 'cause when men like us follow the rules and cooperate a little bit, the world becomes ours."
"Sounds brutal," I muttered.
"Why hurt yourself when you could hurt other people?" He asked.
I didn't have an answer, because I didn't understand the context of the question. Did he mean hurting his men? Or was it a moral question, why risk something and get hurt yourself when sticking out for yourself meant that someone else would get hurt? Either way, I didn't agree with his premise.
"We do have one more rule," Joe continued. "We claim whatever we want to keep, stops fighting between the guys, most of the time," he glanced back at the two that had been fighting before. "The last thing you want is someone arguing over which can of beans they get. We don't share, what we claim, is what we keep. That's you you mark your territory, supplies, prey, whatever. Just one word: claimed."
"What did you say?" Isaac questioned, but his tone was off. It wasn't because he hadn't heard it, just like he was trying to understand.
"We claim what we want to keep," Joe repeated.
Isaac met my eyes for a second, before asking: "You ever claim people?"
Joe smiled and raised an eyebrow as the men chuckled behind him. "What's this about, son?"
Isaac grabbed my good arm and pulled me away, further from the group and Martinez. "It's them, Ace," he was saying. "They killed her."
"Killed who?" I asked cautiously, thinking I already knew the answer.
"My mom, they . . . Remember her arm?"
I did remember, the carved word that spelt CLAIMED, the fact that they seemed so willing to commit much of the same offences that happened to Isaac's mother. I felt my blood starting to boil as I realised that they were the same people, and I could see Isaac getting upset as he looked at them.
"I'm going to kill them," he muttered.
Martinez had backed himself up to where Isaac had brought me, but he still had his body and gun facing the group of men. "What is it?"
I stepped past him, gun clenched in my hand as I neared the men. "You guys ever pass through Lone Oak?"
Joe's stance changed, and I could tell that he knew why I was asking. He smirked, and nodded, "Once, about five months ago."
"Yeah, we did," one of the guys laughed, and then the chorus of men joined in.
"You sick fuckers!" As Isaac raised his gun, I spun around in his way to block him, but it was too late. Every one of the claimers had raised their weapons towards us at the outburst, and Martinez had his SMG back up. "You killed my mom!"
"Isaac, stop," I tried whispering. "Please, we won't win this."
As Isaac calmed down, the claimers were chiming up again. "You know, I thought he looked familiar," one of the guys laughed.
"Man, I'd never forget a face like hers."
Isaac tried to get around me, but I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him back towards the door of the car. "Please, we have to go!"
"No, they killed her!" Tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he tried raising a handgun over my shoulder, but I grabbed his arm and pulled it back down. "They killed her!"
"Lower your weapons, men," Joe called to his people, and I glanced back to see them lowering their weapons. "Let 'em leave. Least we can do after what happened in Lone Oak."
Martinez had followed us back around to the front of the car where the driver's seat was and got inside. The claimers said nothing else, but I could see the leader grinning at me from where he stood as I tried to keep Isaac calm until Martinez started up the car and we were driving away.
Still, I held onto Isaac, moving myself to sit in the seat next to him as he twisted my body so he was crying into my shoulder. "They killed her, they killed her."
We drove until Martinez was certain that we could not be caught up to by the claimers, and then some. He stopped at a pub on the side of the road that looked like it was the only building for at least a mile. There was a sign that said Roadhouse, which I assumed was some kind of inn.
Martinez left the car, saying that he would give us some time and keep an eye out, and as he left I tried talking to Isaac, who ignored me for the longest time. I tried apologising, explaining why I did what I did, but he wouldn't listen. He just stared down at his hands, and he was so still that he could have been mistaken for dead.
"Please," I begged. "What can I do?"
"Nothing," he muttered. "Just leave me alone."
I nodded, sighed and stood. Him being like this reminded me of how withdrawn he was after his mother died, when he spent time living at the prison and weeks in silence. He didn't speak to anyone, didn't leave his room. Not that I blamed him, and I didn't really blame him for being angry now.
Obeying his wishes, I turned to find Martinez, who was holding his SMG and leaning back against a car that was parked outside of the roadhouse. He glanced over when he saw me and gave me a nod that I returned.
"He alright?" Martinez asked as I leaned against the car beside him.
No, but I never expected him to be. I thought what happened to his mother was bad enough, that it would be hard to get over it at a place as safe as the prison. But coming face to face with the people who murdered his mother and not being able to do anything about it—it was bad.
"He's a little better, I think," was the only answer I could give at that moment. He stopped crying at least, but I could tell that it was from the anger and sadness of being reminded of what happened, reliving the grief all over again. Isaac never seemed this angry last time we brought him back to the prison after what happened.
Martinez gave a nod and glanced back to the car where he was sitting. "What was that about? They killed his mom? How come he didn't recognise them?"
"When we found him he wanted to get back to his mother, by the time we got there she was beaten and . . . she was murdered, and someone carved the word claimed in her arm," I brushed my finger along my forearm to show what I meant. "They were gone, we didn't know who did it. Isaac stayed at the prison after that."
"Jesus." Martinez blew out a long breath. "Must've been rough."
"He hasn't killed anyone before, and I know he's pissed at me for dragging him away, but that isn't a fight we would've won. I couldn't let him . . ." I trailed off for a moment, shaking my head. "I don't know if he even realises that."
"He will," Martinez agreed.
I hoped so because even though he hadn't said anything, I knew that he was angry with me. Maybe he didn't understand that we'd lose, maybe he did, it didn't matter. I was the person who stopped him from getting revenge, I was the one that dragged him away from killing the people that murdered his mother.
The thing was, I didn't know if he'd be able to handle it. I kept going after killing because there was too much going on, I couldn't be upset or sad about it because it would put everyone in danger. It was selfish of me, but I didn't know if Isaac would react the same way if he were able to get over it and realise that we were still always in danger and needed to be alert. Then again, he wasn't alert now. It was a hard situation.
I could see Martinez just staring off for a second like he was thinking. Maybe he was considering their offer, I didn't know him well enough to say that he would go with a group like that. Part of me thought he might because of the things the claimers had confessed to have done, Woodbury had also done a lot of the same and he was involved. Maybe he wasn't as bad, but the Governor certainly was.
"Would you have gone with them?"
"No," he shook his head. "Besides, we have a deal."
"We already found someone from my group," I said, trying to tell him that he didn't have to stay with me if he didn't want to.
"I know," he nodded and glanced my way for a second. "I'm starting to think there might be more."
He still seemed unconvinced that anyone else was alive, or maybe that was just me reading his tone wrong. Martinez had always been against the idea of anyone being alive after the war, but I didn't understand why.
Maybe it was because he had his people die that way, and it was easier to pretend they were dead than to waste all this time trying to find them. I'll admit that when night rolled around and I was still alone, still had no one around, I got sad. I missed my family, and I wanted nothing more than for us all to be together again, but I knew there was a good chance that it wouldn't happen.
Maybe he felt the same way.
Martinez took a breath, and after a beat continued, "Truth is, once our deal is up and you two leave, or we find more of your people, I got nothing waiting for me. I didn't have a big plan, just hoped that I found a place to stay or a group or something," he explained. "But being on my own is better than a group like that, after what they said . . ."
"You were with the Governor and he did the same thing to Maggie," I reminded him.
"I didn't know what he was doing until after I saw her," Martinez explained. "I'm not saying it makes it better; I did a lot of bad shit under his orders. I stayed with him and fought for him. But I didn't have anywhere else to go then, either."
That I didn't understand personally, and I'd like to think that if I was in the same scenario then I would be able to leave the toxic group. However, I knew that the Governor hunted down people who left and sent people out to kill them. If Martinez had left, even if he ran away, the Governor would have sent people after him.
Acting any differently, or like he didn't agree with the methods would put him in danger. Now that I had the chance to think about it, I understood why he followed him for so long, even if I didn't agree with it. He did what he did to stay alive, like he told me.
"What he did that day, it was one of the reasons I let you go," he said. "Killing people for supplies, fine, it was routine at that point. But I'm not going to be the reason that shit happens to a kid."
I only nodded, somewhat grateful.
Because I got separated from the group that night, I could have been killed, or worse. Thanks to Martinez, none of that happened to me. He'd done more for me than I could ever repay at this point. I didn't get it, but I was grateful for everything he'd done. There was something I could offer to repay him, though.
"You could stay with us after," I suggested, "if we find more of my people."
He looked at me before a frown worked its way onto his face and he shook his head. "None of your people would want me there. I'll be alright, I've been through worse than living on the road on my own."
I wanted to ask because he'd lost people, everyone had. I could see the sadness behind his eyes as he stared off into the treeline, the way his shoulders dropped and the gun in his hand just hung at his side. The only thing that made me keep my mouth closed was that we barely knew each other, and I doubted he wanted to tell me his entire life story or what happened to him at the beginning.
We just stood there in silence and stared out past the treeline ahead.
Merry Christmas! A little late on this one, but it is a Christmas present to you all. Hope you all enjoyed and let me know what you thought!
