Chapter 8 – Deny Thy Father, Refuse Thy Name
They'd thought she was joking.
They'd thought. She was. Joking.
About walkers coming out of the trees.
Stevie didn't know whether to laugh or cry or kick someone in the nuts.
She might've spent the rest of the morning cycling through all three options (interspersed with the type of profanity that would make Lori and Dale clutch their matching pearls) if the sound of an approaching vehicle hadn't pulled her out of her impending rage.
Within minutes, a sleek black Mercedes SUV sped into camp, not bothering to navigate around the rotten bodies in its path. Thanks to her own foray in vehicular corpse desecration, Stevie was quite familiar with the putrid explosion of a mowed-down geek, but the rest of the campers clearly weren't. And some of them got sprayed. She couldn't fault them for their vomitous reactions, even as she struggled not to laugh.
But then the SUV stopped, and a statuesque Black woman leapt out. With a lithe, athletic build and thick locs almost down to her waist, she was as beautiful as she was murderous, which was to say very. "Where is my son?" she demanded in a dangerous calm. "Where is Andre?"
Well, she knew the kid's name, and—yep—that was an unsheathed sword clenched in her trembling hand. A katana, if Stevie wasn't mistaken. (Way cool.) Reasonably satisfied that the right person had found her note, the teen waved the woman over and called into the RV, "Andre, buddy, your mom is here."
A dark-skinned cannon ball with a puffy little afro and a T-shirt nightgown launched himself through the door but got to take only a handful of barefoot steps before being scooped off the ground by his relieved mother. "Mommy!" he greeted happily, soon dissolving into sobs. "Monsters came, Mommy! Daddy and Unca Terry got- got eated!"
"I know, Peanut," the woman choked out, pressing kisses all over the little boy's head. "But you're safe. That's all that matters."
"Was scary an' loud!" Andre sniffled. "An' the monsters a'most broke the door! Stevie saved me! She got a big doggie! He's nice! An' Stevie, too!"
"Is she?" the woman mused indulgently, juggling her son to stow her sword on her back. "Perhaps you should introduce us." The last part was said in a way that was somehow sweet to the toddler and threatening to the person in question.
(As said person in question, Stevie did her best not to react to the justifiable hostility.)
Andre flailed in Stevie's direction, forgetting his upset to chirp, "That's Stevie! Stevie, this my mommy!"
The woman's dark gaze swept once more around the trashed campsite before settling on the teen, probably only because Bruno had lumbered up to stand ready at her hip in all his fluffy, bulky glory. There was a flicker of surprise and skepticism from the woman, but it was quickly smothered under a blank mask.
(Stevie knew that she wasn't exactly a physically impressive specimen, a few inches over five feet in height and slender bordering on willowy. Despite a bit of RBF, her freckles and pouty lips and button nose and pronounced cheekbones made her kind of look like a doll—though at least a creepy or maybe even possessed one. The big blue eyes and shaggy strawberry blond hair didn't exactly scream badassery either, but she did boast an impressive scar from hairline to jawline bisecting her left eye as well as thick, expressive eyebrows that would let her blend in with most cartoon supervillains, while the tiny cleft in what she called her "heroic chin" would let her similarly infiltrate a meeting of cartoon superheroes. She liked to think that in some far-off universe, some alternate version of herself got to do both and play the good guys and the bad guys off each other while she sat back with a bowl of popcorn.)
As Stevie approached, the woman held out a hand and coolly greeted, "Michonne Hawthorne. You saved my son?"
"Stevie Malone," responded Stevie, accepting the very brief handshake and then hiding her shaking fingers in Bruno's fur. She wouldn't admit it out loud, but the woman was kind of viscerally intimidating. "Yeah. I happened to be nearby and heard the commotion. By the time I got there and got through the geeks, it was just him and two others left. Sorry about sorta kidnapping him. I wasn't in any position to stick around, and I figured taking him with me and hoping you'd find us was a lot better than leaving him and hoping he'd survive on his own for however long it took you to get back."
Michonne didn't look happy but also didn't seem to have any rational complaint or criticism. Instead, she let out a ragged, trembling sigh and squeezed Andre tighter, making him squirm and whine in protest. "He's safe," she repeated. "That's all that matters."
"Mhmm," Stevie hummed noncommittally. "Well. There is another thing that matters… Can Andre maybe go back in the RV while we discuss it?"
From the narrowing of the woman's dark eyes, she wanted to refuse. Understandably, of course. But she didn't, peppering a few more kisses onto her child's cheeks before setting him down and murmuring, "Go inside for me, Peanut. I'll be there in a few minutes, and then we can get you dressed. I brought your clothes."
"K, Mommy," the boy replied cheerfully, turning and toddling back up the steps and into Amy's waiting arms. The blond had been listening, clearly, but didn't say anything, merely looking back and forth between Stevie and Michonne and then closing the door with a quiet click.
For a long moment, the pair stared blankly, not quite sizing each other up but certainly not embracing friendship and sisterhood.
Eventually, Stevie sighed, "Look, you saw those two dudes in the front room, right? And all that drug shit they had lying around?" Her long friendship with Dave had definitely given her plenty of knowledge about controlled substances and their accompanying paraphernalia, and "Daddy and Unca Terry" had been dabbling in the hard stuff. She wasn't the type of judgmental bitch to scold someone for getting high, especially as civilization crashed and burned, but it was one thing to endanger yourself and quite another to endanger anyone else, especially a helpless three-year-old.
Michonne tensed further, her jaw clenching like a vise as she nodded brusquely.
"You're getting the benefit of the doubt that it was their shit," the teen explained, squaring her shoulders and holding her ground, "Not your shit. If I thought otherwise, I wouldn't have gone back to leave that note. But, y'know, apologizing for sorta kidnapping your kid doesn't mean I won't do it again if I think there's something or someone he needs saving from."
Fury and fondness warred on the woman's flawless face. But after a few moments of terse silence, she nodded again. Just once.
Beaming, Stevie did her best to shake off the heavy subject by offering, "Super. So. Uh. Since you don't have a group anymore, how do you feel about sticking with us? Andre'll have other kids to play with, and a competent adult is sorely needed around here. I mean, not that we'll be staying here, here. We had a herd blow through last night and snack on a bunch of dumbasses who didn't understand that when someone yells, 'Walkers coming out of the trees,' it's probably best to get up and grab a damn weapon instead of baselessly assuming that it's just an unruly teenager pulling some Boy Who Cried Wolf stunt. So, yeah, definitely time to move to greener pastures and make smarter friends."
Michonne looked around, her gaze flat and unimpressed. Still, she drawled, "I will consider it. Who is in charge?"
"Jeez," Stevie chuckled bitterly, "Ain't that the billion-can question? Shane's got seniority, but Rick's somehow winning the popularity contest. They're both prancing assholes with barely a brain cell to share between 'em and a vapid shrew actually shared between 'em. But no one else is interested in taking on any real responsibility, so…" After pointing out each man in turn, she trailed off with a shrug, eventually flashing a grin and offering, "Wanna join me in staging a mostly bloodless coup? I need an adult figurehead for my master plans."
There was a distinct twitch in one of the woman's cheeks, like she was suppressing a smirk as she repeated, "I will consider it."
xxXxx
The genius campers weren't going to burn all the bodies, only some of them.
That was stupid, for many reasons.
A few squirts of lighter fluid and a match took care of the issue.
And made poor sweet Glenn cry, unfortunately.
Well, he'd kind of been crying already, so it barely even counted in Stevie's Times I've Made a Grown Man Cry tally.
Which was up to twelve, eleven-and-a-half if she was getting only a partial point for Glenn.
Anyway, better to ask forgiveness than permission.
Especially when biohazardous waste and delusional idiots were involved.
xxXxx
Upon finally waking, after nearly forty-eight hours of unconsciousness and somehow sleeping through the entirety of the geek attack without a scratch on him, Merle groaned and smacked his lips and grumbled, "Damn. Hate fruity lube."
"It's Gatorade," Stevie lied. She and his brother had actually been force-feeding Merle small sips of pink Pedialyte, but she didn't want him to have a cringy masculinity crisis about being rehydrated with a substance usually reserved for keeping diarrheal children from shitting themselves to death. "And ew."
The man cracked one bleary blue eye and squinted at her and then around the tent in confusion, muttering, "Ain't no damn kiddie-diddler. Run back to yer mama, girlie."
Gagging theatrically, Stevie kicked him hard in the thigh (one of his few non-sunburned areas) and insisted, "I'm not here trying to seduce you, asshole. I'm just making sure you don't die while Daryl is out catching dinner." He wouldn't have trusted anyone else to supervise his brother, she thought, and no one else would've volunteered, she was pretty sure.
Merle's other eye opened, the pair seeming to struggle to work together as his scabby scarlet brow furrowed. "Ain't nothin can kill ol' Merle but ol' Merle," he groused. Awareness reentered his gaze, like he'd finally remembered how he'd ended up in his current condition.
"Agree to disagree," Stevie quipped. She rifled through the bag at her feet and produced a slightly melted chocolate bar, which she plopped onto his chest. As he tore through the wrapper with his teeth and then took surprisingly small bites to savor the treat, she declared, "You must have a lot of faith in your brother."
The man's chewing slowed, and his somewhat obscene noises of enjoyment stopped. He regarded her suspiciously, like he knew there'd been an insult or trap in the bland statement but wasn't quite sure where. "Do," he grunted, licking a streak of chocolate from the cracked corner of his horribly chapped lips.
"Yeah," Stevie agreed. "Maybe it's different when you're both adults, but I can't imagine a time when I wouldn't care about watching my sister's back, even if I did trust that she didn't actually need my help." Ignoring the answering snarl, she flashed a wide, wry smile and motioned to her scarred face as she added, "It was the worst part of recovering from this bullshit. Took half a year until I could even wipe my own ass again, let alone do anything to really comfort her past just still being alive after she watched me get my head smashed in. And that doesn't even count the multiple surgeries and the month spent in a medically induced coma."
Merle went still and quiet, wind taken right out of his sails.
"She's always been sweet," Stevie continued. "Too sweet, probably. Not like me. Only reason dear old Dad didn't end up with rat poison in his coffee was that I was too worried Mama would get blamed for it. Had to think of a way to get rid of him that wouldn't get pinned on her and get me and Soph sent to foster care. Worked, too. His fat ass was locked up and should've stayed that way for at least twenty years. Unfortunately, barely a year into his sentence, the illiterates in the corrections system accidentally released Edward Peletier when they were supposed to release Edward Pelesier."
"Said yer last name was Malone," Merle pointed out, perhaps attempting a swift subject change.
Chuckling, Stevie agreed, "It is. Now. I begged Mama to change it. I was mean, too. Said I didn't want to end up like her, marrying the first piece of shit to compliment my tits just to get away from my family name." Adding a much more genuine laugh, she continued, "Of course, Mama's maiden name was Gutermuth, so I can't totally blame her. We had to go three generations back for Malone. It was the only decent option that wasn't just randomly picking something new. Would've ended up as the Panda family if Soph had gotten her way."
Grunting and wincing as he tried to settle himself on the dusty old cot, Merle muttered, "Point to this?"
"Just making conversation," replied Stevie. "You're boring when you're unconscious."
"Most folks are, Angel," he argued wearily, with all the dignity of a boiled lobster.
She decided not to tease him about bestowing her with a new nickname. Instead, she tried to think up something new to call him.
xxxxxxxxxx
Michonne has arrived, and Amy has not died. (Did you guys catch that in the last chapter? Or in this one? Who else did I save? Hint: there's at least one more.) I was in a frenzy this month and wrote… a lot. Hyperfixation for the win! So, assuming I don't forget, you'll get another update in probably two weeks (though an abundance of reviews could convince me to shorten that to one). I have a good buffer of chapters, but I'm trying to pace myself so that I don't get overexcited and post all of them at once and then fail to update again for years. Yes, I know myself well.
Anyway, what did you think of the interaction with Merle? He's a charmer, isn't he? And how'd I do with the description of Stevie? Oh, and how about that little piece of the backstory regarding Ed's fate? The full thing will be revealed in similar drips and drabs as the chapters continue, so stay tuned!
*The chapter title is a line from Romeo and Juliet.
**RBF is short for resting bitch face. There's a Wikipedia article for those who don't know what that is or are just curious about and amused by said article's existence.