Clementine's ears were ringing and her head was throbbing. As she found herself slowly stirring back to consciousness, she could taste blood in her mouth, and when she tried to rub her cheek she discovered her hands had been bound behind her back. Slowly she forced herself to stand up, only to feel something hard strike her from behind, knocking the breath out her lungs and sending her tumbling painfully into the dirt face first.

"Michelle, get over here already!" she heard a man yell.

"I heard you the first time Morgan," a more distant woman's voice yelled back. "One of us has to keep an eye on Cal, and it's never you."

"Because one of us has to protect the family," Clem heard him say as she wheezed for air, her back aching from the blow.

"Protect nothing, you were out watering the… what's that?"

"A thief. Saw her riding up on that bike there and so I took cover in the grass. Little crook was just about to take our corn when I stopped her."

"She's getting up," Clem heard the woman say as she slowly rolled onto her side.

"She ain't going anywhere with those cuffs on," asserted the man. "She ain't ever doing anything again without my say-so."

Clem opened her eyes to see two people staring down at her; a woman and a man. The woman appeared to be in her late twenties, had braided blonde hair, a leather vest, what looked like a long machete strapped to her hip, and an expression that would be vacant if not for the hint of a scowl on the corners of her lips. The man was older, had a shaggy beard, a filthy shirt with a police badge pinned to it, a nightstick in hand, and an odd grimace on his face that made Clem feel sick to her stomach. They both loomed over Clem for a minute, like vultures deciding on what part of a carcass they wanted to pick over first.

"What's this?" Michelle picked up Clem's tomahawk and examined it briefly before tossing it onto the grass. "She have any other weapons?"

"She had a knife on her belt, along with this." Clem watched as Morgan held out her own gun and casually aimed it in her direction. "Little thug was also wearing that raincoat, like post-apocalyptic gang colors or something. Can only imagine whose blood that is."

"It's just—" A swift strike to her side caused Clem to howl in pain as it suddenly felt like shards of glass were stirring inside her gunshot wound.

"Mom? Dad? What's that noise? Why are… who… who's that?" as an agonized Clem struggled for breath, she looked up and noticed a small blonde boy approaching the pair from behind. He was skinny, wearing a shirt that was a bit too big for him and, although she couldn't be certain, Clem doubted he was more than five years old. "It's a kid, and she's hurt."

"Cal, go back to the house," ordered Michelle.

"No, Cal, you stay right here," insisted Morgan as he motioned for the boy to come closer. "You need to see this."

"Oh, what's this?" Clem watched as Cal picked her hat off the ground; she hadn't even realized it was missing until now. He looked at it with a small sense of wonder for a moment and was about to put it on when his gaze was drawn downward to Clementine; it was the first pair of sympathetic eyes she had seen since waking up. "Is this yours?"

"It's—" Clem felt the sting of Morgan's nightstick across her cheek, causing the dull aching across her face to erupt into a horrible throbbing all at once that sent Clem into a hysterical fit. She pulled against the handcuffs in vain while trying to crawl away on her knees, only for a strong hand to drag her back by the collar of her shirt.

"Dad stop!" objected Cal. "You're hurting her!"

"Only because I have to son. She's dangerous."

"But she's just a kid, like me."

"She ain't a child like you."

"She's not?" asked a confused Cal as he looked at Clementine. "But, she doesn't look much older than me."

"I'm ten," pleaded Clem, tasting more blood as she spoke. "Please, I—" Another strike from the nightstick and the dull aches in her side suddenly burst into searing agony, like she had been shot all over again, causing Clem to scream out in anguish.

"Stop it!" pleaded a horrified Cal. "Why are you hurting her?"

"Because she wants to hurt you Cal."

"She does?"

"No, I—" Another blow, this time to the back of Clem's head, adding a horrible pounding pain to her already throbbing head as she was knocked into the ground so hard she could literally taste the dirt.

"She came here to steal our food—your food right out of your mouth."

"No, I—"

"Don't lie to me," commanded Morgan. "I saw you reaching out to take our corn. You have the slightest idea how hard we worked to grow that?"

"Yes, I lived on a—"

Another sharp strike to the side despite Clem's best effort to roll away. The pain had become excruciating as Clem started screaming at the top of her lungs. Her gunshot wound felt like it was on fire now, the cuffs were scrapping her wrists raw, the taste of blood and dirt in her mouth made her want to vomit, and her lungs ached so badly for air she couldn't even scream anymore, only quietly whimper in desperation.

"She's crying," noted Cal in a saddened voice.

"Sure she's crying now, because she got caught. You need to remember Cal, this was her decision," dictated Morgan. "She chose to steal from us, she chose to bring a gun on us, and… Michelle, do you smell that?"

Clem instinctively tried to inch away as Michelle leaned in closer. Her face was still oddly vacant, as if she found Clem's suffering boring. She started sniffing the air in front of her as Clem could only helplessly gasp for breath.

"She's been drinking."

"Drunk, armed, and out causing trouble," listed Morgan. "She's not a good kid like you son, her parents just raised her up to be another drugged up thieving nigger like them."

Clem clenched her teeth as she had to resist the urge to speak out. As much pain as she was in right now, hearing this man talk about her parents like that somehow still hurt worse.

"She's a nigger?" asked Cal. "You said their skin was dark, but her's isn't that dark."

"Darker than ours," said Morgan.

"But not as much as Mr. Derrick's."

"Derrick's just got a deep tan. You get that when you work outside all day."

"What about Mr. and Mrs. Johnson? They work inside and their skin is almost as dark as hers."

"The Johnson's? Son…" Morgan rubbed his head in frustration. "Look, Cal, you see her nose? That ugly pig nose? That's how you know she's a nigger."

"Oh."

"And before you start feeling sorry for this nigger, you think back to that night we had to leave our old home behind, okay son? You think about how scared you were, all those gunshots, all that screaming, how that little girl you used to play with is gone now. All of that happened, because of niggers like her."

"Most of them were Mexican," corrected Michelle.

"Nigger, beaners, it's all the fucking the same," insisted Morgan as he looked Clementine in the eye. "A bunch of bloodthirsty crooks always looking to take from honest people like us. We'd have this country up and running again already if not for the likes of them."

"I'm… I'm sorry," said Clem, realizing she had no chance of reasoning with this man beyond conforming to what he already thought about her.

"She says she's sorry," repeated Cal.

"Of course she's sorry after she got caught," said Morgan. "She didn't care in the least when she was going to steal from us, because niggers like her never care about anyone but themselves." Clem's chest tightened as Morgan aimed her own gun at her head. She closed her eyes and found herself trembling as she wished she was anywhere but here right now. "Only thing to do is put em' down."

"You're going to shoot her?" asked a horrified Cal. "I… I want go inside."

"Oh no, you need to see this," dictated Morgan. "Son, I don't like this anymore than you do, but things are different now. You gotta be willing to make the hard choices to protect your family. It's what I'm doing right now, and it's what you'll have to do someday."

"I… I will?" asked Cal through his choked sobs. "I… I'll have to… to… shoot… kids?"

"Son, have you been listening to a god damn word I've been saying to you? These niggers don't raise good kids like you. Instead, they teach them to steal and kill as soon as they can walk then send them out to rob honest people like us, just like this one right here tried to do."

"I know, but… it's… it's not her fault if she had bad parents." Opening her eyes, Clem could see Cal staring down at her in utter pity, on the verge of crying himself as he clutched her hat with both hands. She didn't dare say anything out of fear of being shot but looked him directly in the eyes, pleading however she could for him to keep talking. "Can't you, I don't know… do something so she'd be better? Make it where she won't steal?"

"Oh no, there ain't no prisons anymore to keep these monkeys caged up, so the only thing left to do is put 'em down," said Morgan as he planted the gun's barrel on Clem's forehead.

"Don't! Can't… can't you… punish her, or something? Like… you do to me when I do something bad?"

"That's not a bad idea," spoke Michelle. "We could send a message back to her people, let em' know what happens if they try to steal from us."

"What makes you think she has people?" asked Morgan.

"One heavily-armed ten-year-old on her own in the middle of nowhere? They obviously sent her out as a scout."

"Huh, I hadn't thought of that." Morgan pulled the gun back, providing Clem with a brief respite from the constant panic she felt, only for it to return in full force as Michelle unsheathed a long sword from her belt.

"We could cut off a hand," suggested Michelle as she pointed the tip of her blade at Clementine. "That's the old school way of punishing thieves."

"Yeah, the Arab way; we're not savages like them," insisted Morgan.

"What about her nose?" Clem started shaking as the tip of the sword was traced just above her chest and stopped a mere inch away from her face. "That way every time she saw her own reflection, she'd remember what's she done."

"And make it even harder for people to know she's a nigger? She's already light-skinned enough to confuse Cal here. Cutting that pig nose off would just be doing her a favor."

"An eye then." Clem became paralyzed in fright as the blade moved right into her line of vision. It was all she could see now, this massive razor-sharp point that was so close she was terrified it would puncture her eye if she so much as breathed out. "You only need one."

"Yeah, but a missing eye doesn't mean you're a thief," mumbled Morgan. "We need something that makes it clear."

"Well in that case, why don't we brand her?" Michelle pulled the sword away and turned to Morgan. "I've got that blowtorch in the garage. If we heat up the tip of my sword, it could cauterize cuts as I made them; we could literally carve a message into her."

"Now that sounds like a good idea," said Morgan with a devilish smile. "We could put a big 'T' on both her hands, let everyone know she's a thief."

"T's could stand for anything and she could always just wear gloves to cover them up."

"Well, what were you thinking?"

"I'm thinking the message we send is more for her and her people than anyone else." Michelle looked down at Clem, her cold blue eyes instilling panic in an already petrified Clem. "Let's write out the entire word 'thief' across her chest."

"No one would see it there," said Morgan.

"She would, and I'm sure she'd show her people too, along with telling them what it was like having it seared into her skin. That might make them think twice about stealing from us again."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good compromise to me." Morgan looked over at Cal. "That sound better to you son?"

"I… I don't know," mumbled a confused Cal. "You… you don't do stuff like that to me."

"You don't need straightening out as bad as this nigger does." Morgan turned to Michelle. "Go get your torch."

"No, no!" Flailing about in desperation, Clem suddenly felt the weight of the gun strapped to her ankle; they hadn't found it. Pulling against the handcuffs again, she also discovered there was a bit of space between her wrist and the metal. Taking a quick breath, Clem yanked as hard as she could against her the cuffs, cutting her wrists against the jagged metal as she did so. If she could just get one hand free, she could grab her ankle gun. It wasn't much of a chance, but it was a chance.

"You see this son?" said Morgan as Clem continued to thrash about on the dirt. "Even when you show them mercy, they don't appreciate it." Clem felt her right hand sliding slightly upward into the cuff. The pain was intense, but Clem took another breath and hoped to yank it free with one final tug, only for Morgan to grab hold of her before she could even try. He forcefully rolled Clem onto her back and then planted the barrel of the gun against her forehead.

"You best behave," warned Morgan in a cold voice. "I might still change my mind."

Clem felt that cold steel being jammed into her face and became deathly quiet. She was forced to lay there in silence as Michelle disappeared from sight. Clem couldn't see Cal anymore either, only Morgan standing over her, utter disgust in his eyes. She had never seen anyone look at her quite like that before, not with hostility or even cold indifference, but with a total revulsion at her mere existence. Somehow, it managed to unnerve Clem even now amongst the pain and panic she was already suffering.

After a few tense minutes of being forced to observe this man's disgust for her, Michelle returned. She was carrying her sword in one hand and a blowtorch in the other. Clem's heart started beating faster as Michelle turned the knob on the torch. She started taking short panicked breaths as the woman casually bathed the sword's tip in that blue flame, causing the metal to glow bright orange. Suddenly, she felt something pulling on her shirt and looked down in time to see Morgan slice it open with Clem's own knife. Before she could react, Michelle knelt down beside her, the searing hot blade in hand.

"Nooo! Stooop! Please stop! Please… please…" Clem closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable burning agony of the red-hot point slicing into her skin, but it didn't come. Opening her eyes, she found both Michelle and Morgan staring at her stomach with a vague curiosity.

"I guess we weren't the first people to try this on her," noted Michelle.

"That doesn't look a burn mark; more like an entrance wound to me." Clem gasped as she felt herself being rolled onto her stomach. She winced as she felt her arms being bent away from her back as her shirt and jacket were pulled up. "Yeah, and that's an exit wound, so… wait, what's that?" Clem groaned as she felt her bound arms being twisted upward further as Morgan examined her back. "Son, you seeing… Where is—are you crying again? Get over here, right now! You're trying my last nerve Cal so you'd better get over here before I drag you over here!"

Clem could only grind her teeth as the pain in her twisted arms grew worse with each passing second she waited for a whimpering Cal to arrive.

"Son, what is that?"

"It's… I… I don't know…"

"Quit your damn crying and answer the question," ordered Morgan. "Now, what do you see on her back here?"

"I… um… a scar?" he mumbled meekly.

"Three scars; a gunshot and two of these." Clem shuddered as she felt Morgan's coarse fingers tracing their way up her back. "Someone's already shot this nigger once, and I'd wager these two were from a whippin' she's been given before."

"Guess she's overdue for another one," concluded Michelle.

"Oh no, it's clear she's been caught up to no good before and never learned her lesson. This is what I get for being nice." Clem felt relief as Morgan finally released her arms, only to press the gun against the back of her head instead. "Any last words nigger?"

"I… I…" Clem tried to think of something to say, anything that would stop him from pulling the trigger. But she couldn't, nothing came to mind as she found herself paralyzed by her own impending death. She could almost see it now, her brains being splattered across the asphalt and her beaten body left to rot on the side of the road. Clem closed her eyes and tried to force the world away, to will herself out of this nightmare, to wake up back in the Brave where she would be safe, but couldn't.

"Actually, Cal, you should be the one to kill her."

"No! I… I don't—"

"Son, this is just what the world is like now; it's kill or be killed," insisted Morgan. "She'd kill you and us if she had been given the chance."

"How do you know?"

"How do I know what?"

"How do you know she'd kill us?"

"Because I know!" dictated Morgan. "This is years of experience talking, trust me I know. I mean for God's sake, look, she was wearing a raincoat covered in someone's blood! You think a good person would be wearing that?"

"No, but—"

"And I caught her in the act of stealing our food. And those scars on her back make it clear she's just gonna steal and kill again if we let her go. Do you want her to kill someone?"

"No, but—"

"Then you need to stop being so selfish and be willing to make the hard choice here, because letting her go is the same as killing someone else, someone who didn't deserve it. You want that on your conscience?"

"No… but…"

"Cal, honey, you don't feel bad when we kill the boogeymen, right?"

"No, because you said they're already dead."

"What are you thinking Michelle?"

"I'm thinking, if she died, then came back as a boogeyman, then Cal could shoot her then, kind of like practice for the real thing. You'd be okay with that, right sweetie?"

"Um… I… I guess so."

"So I should shoot her in the heart." Clem trembled as she felt the gun pressed into her back.

"You could, but it might be better if we kill her in a way the leaves the body intact."

"Why's that?"

"We don't get many opportunities to create our own boogeymen, and Cal's gonna need to learn how to deal with them eventually."

"What are you getting at Michelle?"

Clem felt herself on the verge of fainting as waited for the answer to that question.

"She's not too much taller than Cal, and that... pick-axe thing is about the right size for him too. If we hang her, we'll have a pristine boogeyman already tied up that's just right for Cal to practice fighting against, both up close and with a gun."

"Ha, good god damn thinking," complimented Morgan. "Cal, you go get the axe from over yonder."

"But—"

"No buts, just do it! Michelle, you go get a rope; I'll keep her from running off."

"No!" Clem struggled to stand but immediately felt the weight of Morgan's knee in her back, keeping her on her stomach. She couldn't even move her hands against the cuffs anymore with him holding her in place. Looking up, she spotted Cal not far in front of her. He looked down at the tomahawk for a second, then placed Clem's hat on his head so he could pick up the weapon. Turning around, Clem saw Cal was visibly disturbed at what was happening.

"Please don't kill me!" begged Clem as she looked into his eyes. "I just want to go home to my family. You can keep my gun or whatever you want, just let me go and you'd never see me again, I promise."

"Dad, she—"

"Don't listen to her Cal," instructed Morgan. "This is what they do, try to play on your sympathy after you catch them up to no good. She didn't care when she was stealing from us a minute ago, and she sure as shit doesn't care now."

"I'm sorry!" pleaded a tearful Clem. "I've just been looking all day and hadn't found anything and… I just thought I'd take a couple home so—"

"So you just thought you'd steal the food out of someone else's mouth," finished Morgan. "You not having anything to eat doesn't give you the right to take from others."

"I have food! I can give you some—more than I would have taken."

"Sure, right after you just said you didn't find any all day. You can't even keep your damn lies straight."

"I'm not lying, I have food back home!"

"Sure you do."

"Do I look like I'm starving?" Clem didn't immediately hear an answer to that question and realized she had an opening. "I have food, I could—"

"So you were stealing not out of necessity, but just because you're greedy," concluded Morgan, his voice racked with disgust. "I should have figured. God damn, no wonder you've been shot and whipped before. We're doing the world a favor by finally putting you out of its misery."

"No, I—"

"Save it kid," ordered Michelle as she leaned in close. "We ain't buying it." Clem gasped as she felt a rope being looped around her neck. Before she knew it, the noose had been pulled taut as she was forcefully pulled to her feet by her neck. Finally standing again, Clem saw she was being led to a lone tree standing on the other side of the road.

"No!" Clem tried pulling back against her captors, even throwing herself to the ground. She felt herself choking for air as Michelle pulled her along with the rope, painfully dragging her forward inch by painful inch no matter how hard Clem resisted. Watching the tree—her own death—looming closer, Clem found herself speaking without thinking.

"I'm sorry!" she screamed the second there was some slack in the rope. "I'm so sorry! I'll do anything, please!"

"Daddy, do we—"

"I told you not to listen to her!" barked Morgan. "You listen to me when I tell you she'd kill us all if she got the chance. This here is self-defense son, you'd do well to remember that!"

Clem watched in horror as Michelle tossed the end of the rope over a branch. Clem tried to run but immediately she felt the rope be pulled taut as Morgan grabbed the other end of it. As she was dragged towards the tree, she saw Morgan and Michelle both pulling on the rope together, not a shred of regret in either of their faces.

"I… I'm sorry," babbled Clem as she felt the noose tightening around her neck. "I… I'm sorry Sarah," she babbled as she was pulled to her toes. "I… I… sorry…" choked Clem as she was lifted off the ground. "I'm… so…" she mumbled as she became dizzy from the lack of air. "Sorry… Omid…" Clem croaked before the noose finally silenced her.

As she hung there, choking for oxygen in midair, Clem felt an odd sense of relief as everything just drifted away. Her vision blurred and all the pain seemed to fade with it, and as she felt herself slipping away too, her last thought was wishing she could have told Sarah and Omid she loved them, just one last time, then she felt her head slamming into the ground.

"What the fuck Morgan?" asked an irritated Michelle.

"Did you hear what she said?" asked a panicked Morgan.

"She said she was sorry," spoke a sniveling Cal.

"Not that, she said Omid," said Morgan. "That's the name of that big-time sand nigger who rallied all those fucking wetbacks in Lexington against us."

"I thought that guy's name was Omar?"

"Omar, Omid, they're both terrorist names. If one's not the other than they're sure as shit working together. She's with them!"

Gasping for air on the dirt, Clem rolled onto her side long enough to see Michelle shrugging at Morgan. "Yeah, I thought that was the whole point of sending a message earlier. We were gonna brand this kid and send her back to tell those people from Lexington to keep away."

"I never thought she was with that fucking gang. You did?"

"Well yeah, like I said, they must have sent her out here as a scout."

"You never said you thought she was with Lexington though."

"I figured I didn't have to because it was pretty obvious. Who else could she be with other than them?"

"And you were just gonna kill her?" asked an indignant Morgan.

"Why the fuck do you care all of a sudden?" asked an annoyed Michelle.

"I care because if she's with those fuckers who used to live in Lexington, then she could be our ticket out of this shithole watch and back into the loop with the others."

"So you just want to hand her over to the loop now?"

"No, they wouldn't let us cut out of here ahead of schedule unless we brought them something concrete, like where the Lexington gang ran off to after they pillaged our farms." Morgan marched over to where Clementine was lying on the grass and knelt down. His angry glare horrified her, and the foul stench on his breath made her sick. "Where are they?"

"Who?" Morgan slapped Clem across the face with such force her ears rang and she had trouble understanding what he was yelling at her next.

"Where!" bellowed Morgan.

"Where what?" asked a confused Clem.

"Don't play dumb with me, where are they!"

"I don't know what you're talking—ahh!" Clem felt another sharp blow to head. She rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in the grass as she felt more painful stings delivered onto her back. She started screaming at the top of her lungs in a futile attempt to dull the pain, then kept yelling long after the blows stopped, only stopping once she finally ran out of breath and could only gasp for air instead.

"Hey Morgan," she heard Michelle say. "This bike is hers right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because there's a radio here in the basket," noted Michelle.

"So?"

"So, that means there's someone on the other end she was talking to. If she's not willing to talk, maybe they are." Clem flinched as she was rolled onto her incredibly sore back. She was once again looking up at Morgan and Michelle, the latter of which was holding her radio now.

"I want you to tell your friends you need to meet up somewhere," instructed Michelle as she knelt down, radio in hand. "Tell them… where's close but not to close?"

"Pleasanton," answered Morgan.

"Yeah, tell them your bike got a flat and you need to get picked up in Pleasanton. It's right off the interstate. Do that, and we'll let you go, and they won't be any the wiser. That's a win-win for both of us, right?"

"Yeah, that'll work," said Morgan with a nod.

"Think about it. You really want to die to defend the pricks who sent you out here?" Michelle held down the talk button and Clem refused to say anything, offering only a look of defiance in response. Michelle took her finger off the button and Morgan aimed a gun at Clementine's head.

"Do it or you're dead."

Clem didn't even wait for Michelle to press the button this time. She just closed her eyes and waited for the end, thinking there was no way out for her but at least she wouldn't be made to suffer anymore.

"They train these kids well," noted Michelle.

"Let's just put her down already."

"Weren't you the one getting all bent out of shape about killing her a minute ago?"

"If she's not gonna cooperate then there's no point in leaving her alive," dictated Morgan.

"Yeah, probably," said Michelle as she stood up. "But let me try something first."

"What?"

Clem watched as Michelle placed her foot right on top of the gunshot wound. "What are you doing?" Michelle just pressed the talk button while bearing down on Clem's side with the ball of her foot. "Ahh-God-stop!" Clem shrieked as pain shot through her side so severe she was afraid her wound was going to burst open in a horrible bloody display.

"Clem!" called Sarah's voice over the radio. "What's wrong?"

"Well look that," said Michelle with a grin. "They actually care enough to respond."

"We've got Clem," announced Morgan as he grabbed the radio. "If you people ever want to see her alive again you'll do as I say."

"What! Who are you?"

"I'm the only one who can give you your damn brat back, and only if you tell me everything I need to know," explained Morgan. "First question: where are you—"

"Don't listen to him!" yelled Clem. "They're not gonna—ahh-ha-ahh!" Clem cried out as she felt Michelle's foot collide with the side of her head.

"Don't hurt her!" pleaded a panicked Sarah. "I'm on the interstate, okay? Just don't hurt her."

"Where are your people hold-up?"

"My people?"

"Don't play dumb, we know you're with the gang who came out of Lexington."

"Gang? Lexington?"

"Where did they send you from?"

"No one sent us!"

"Don't lie to me! You want me to blow your kid's brains out across the pavement because I will," threatened Morgan as he jammed the gun into Clem's already throbbing head.

"Don't! Don't hurt Clem! Please! She... she's everything to me," cried Sarah over the radio.

"Then tell me; where are your people?"

"We were staying in Oklahoma, then we were attacked," babbled Sarah.

"What?" asked Morgan.

"That can't be right, that's two states away," noted Michelle.

"Everyone's gone but me and her so please don't hurt her, okay?"

"They practically had an army before, no way there's only two left now," whispered Michelle.

"Are you with them?" asked a sniveling Sarah. "They mentioned a name, Octavius… are you him? Are you Octavius?"

"Who the fuck is Octavius?" Morgan looked at Michelle, who only shrugged in confusion.

"We don't know," said Clem in a quiet voice as Morgan and Michelle looked at her. "We just know that some people attacked our farm in Oklahoma, and they said that name before everything went wrong. We lost everyone we cared about and have been on the run ever since. We only came to Nebraska a few weeks ago. Maybe… maybe those were the people from Lexington? Maybe they came to Oklahoma, and attacked our farm next?"

Morgan and Michelle turned to one another, each looking for an answer the other didn't have. It was then Clem heard someone other than herself crying. She turned her head and saw Cal, sitting in the grass, his knees pulled up to his chest, his thumb in his mouth, and tears streaming down the sides of his face as he sobbed to himself.

"Hey, hey! Knock that off!" ordered Morgan, sounding conflicted. "What'd I tell you about sucking your thumb?"

"I'm… I'm sorry," cried Cal. "But she keeps screaming, and you won't stop, and—"

"Hey, hey, it's gonna be okay, all right?" said Morgan as he placed a hand on Cal's shoulder. "Daddy's gonna make this right, okay?" Michelle came up behind Morgan and whispered something into his ear. He only nodded, then she started moving back towards Clem. Michelle pulled her sword from its sheath and dropped down to her knees right in front of Clem.

"What are you doing? Wait, don't!" Michelle moved the blade right to Clem's chest but stopped just short of cutting her. Instead, she used the sword to slice off fabric from Clem's already torn shirt. "Wait, why—"

"Shhh," ordered Michelle as she tied a big knot in the middle of the strip of fabric. "You've said enough for now." Michelle jammed the knot into Clem's mouth and hastily tied off the gag before Clem could spit it out. Then she cut off another strip of fabric and wrapped it around her face as a blindfold. After that Clem could only hear Michelle and Morgan talking amongst themselves, but not well enough to understand what they were saying.

Eventually, what she could only assume was Morgan picked her up off the ground. What little she could see through the fabric wasn't much help to figuring out what was happening and only as she begun to understand her surroundings did she fell herself being flung through the air. She landed on her side in a hard thud against something cold and metal, causing her to yell out in yet even more pain, or as much as she could through her gag. There was suddenly a deafening bang and what little Clem could see through her blindfold disappeared into pitch darkness.

What followed was the sound of a loud engine starting that caused the floor itself to start vibrating. There was a bizarre metal clanking next and it felt like the entire area was being turned onto its side as Clem felt herself being pulled towards what she assumed was the back wall. Between the gag, pain, noise, and darkness, Clem found her mind drifting back to the night she woke up in Saint Christopher's. She had been bound and gagged then too, but only as a precaution in case she turned and was untied after she woke up. This time she was a prisoner, and no one would rescue her.

The isolation and confusion ate away at Clem's mind with every passing minute. She didn't actually know how much time had passed, it was all just one unending stream of torment as she lay helpless in some metal coffin whose foul stench stung her nostrils with every breath. After a while, Clem thought she heard Sarah whisper in her ear. She turned her head in the pitch black, trying to yell her name back through the gag, but there was no response, and the seemingly unending torture persisted.

I wasn't long after that Clem thought about how much she'd like to be back home with her parents, or Lee at the motel, or Christa and Omid in the cabin, or back on the farm with everyone, or just with Sarah and Omid in the Brave one more time. The more she thought about it, the more real it felt to her. She could practically see Sarah now, sitting on the bed with a smile on her face as she tickled Omid under his chin. She could even picture herself reaching out to touch them, and then a deafening metallic churning echoed throughout the room and Clem felt it tilting again.

By the time the engine finally went silent, Clem had almost forgotten the hell she was enduring, and it wasn't until she felt the stinging agony in her side as she was picked up again that she was lucid enough to wish she was back in her terrible smelling metal prison instead. She was toted away like a piece of luggage for a few seconds before being dropped onto the cold pavement.

Before she could even orient herself, Clem was dragged into a sitting position, then felt a rope being wrapped around her chest. It wasn't as dark now and the cool air made her think she was outside, but that was all she could deduce before she felt the rope being pulled taut. She could hear the engine of whatever vehicle they used start again, then it driving away for a short time before disappearing into a distant silence.

After a few minutes of quiet, Clem struggled against the ropes, only to realize there was nothing she could do. Whatever they had tied her too, they did so securely, and she couldn't move her hands even if they weren't still cuffed, which they were. With no hope of rescue, or even the faintest clue what was happening, Clem started crying softly to herself. Eventually, her nose started to get stuffed up, and with the gag in her mouth, she struggled to breathe. Before long, she was suffocating as she gasped for air through the spit soaked shirt stuffed in her mouth, choking on bits of fabric as she did so.

Yet again, Clem found herself becoming light-headed, but this time she felt content to just slip away. She just wanted the pain to end already, and it wasn't worth the awful sensation of nearly choking on her own shirt while trying to take a partly breath through her gag to endure this misery for a few seconds longer. So she didn't, she just laid back and snorted briefly before her nose was so stuffed up she couldn't breathe through it either, and then there was a blinding light rushing up to meet her.

"Clem!" Clem turned her head as she heard footsteps rushing up to meet her. Suddenly the blindfold was ripped away and Sarah was standing before her, her face a twisted portrait of relief and horror as she hastily untied the gag. "Oh my God, what did they do to you?" Sarah tossed the gag aside and Clem took several deep breaths as her eyes adjusted to the blinding light. After a few seconds, she saw it was the Brave's headlights she was looking at, and in front of it was Sarah, who was hastily cutting away at the ropes.

"Suh… Sarah?" mumbled Clem in disbelief. "Are… are you really here right now?"

"Of course," assured Sarah as she cut through the rope. "Don't worry, I'll get you out of here in just a minute."

"But… how did you find me?"

"That… man on the radio, he told me he'd leave you here," said Sarah, her face scrunching up as those bitter words escaped her lips. "He said he'd leave you tied to a streetlight here, and if I cared I should pick you up before you starved to death."

"He… he what?" asked a confused Clem as she felt the ropes around her shoulders go limp. "He told you to come here?"

"Yeah, he said I could find you in a town called Pleasanton."

Clem felt a chill shoot up her spine as she heard that word. "We have to go, right now!" she yelled as she started struggling against the remaining ropes.

"Just give me a second, I've almost got…" Sarah went quiet as Clem spotted a second blinding light out of the corner of her eye. "Oh God…"

Clem felt sick as she heard a diesel engine starting in the distance, but not that distant. She briefly turned to Sarah, who could only return a look of panic.

"Sarah, just go!"

"No!" yelled Sarah as she knelt down and started sawing away at the remaining ropes.

"Sarah, you've got to go right now!" yelled Clem as she could hear the truck rushing up behind her.

"I've almost got the last rope!"

"Leave me!" yelled Clem as a blaring horn signaled the danger charging towards them. "Just—"

"Got it!" Clem felt herself being yanked to her feet. "Let's—oh God!" There was a terrible crashing sound and Clem turned her head just in time to see a massive garbage truck jumping the curve. She could only stumble away backwards in panic for a few seconds before tripping onto the pavement. There was an ear-splitting screeching sound and Clem watched in disbelief as the truck rolled right on top of her, her legs disappearing into the gap under its chassis as the rest of the vehicle rushed up to crush her.

It didn't, and Clem could only sit there in complete shock for a second as she stared at the worn metal bumper a mere inch away from her face. She was certain it was going to start moving again and finally kill her, but instead of an engine revving up she heard a cocking sound. Clem turned her head and saw Sarah raising her rifle to take aim at the truck's driver, only for a second set of hands to grab her gun.

The rifle was easily wrested from Sarah's grip and Sarah herself was shoved forward onto the pavement. She hastily moved to Clem's side, panic in her eyes as she looked up in terror while a shadow lurched over both of them. Turning around, Clem watched in despair as Morgan emerged from the light, the rifle in his hands, and a familiar look of disgust as he eyed the two girls cowering before him.