Last Day on Earth, Part 3: Let's See Who Wins, Bitch.

-Rhys' POV-

I figure this town must have delt in livestock because after taking a few turns down side alleys and through empty streets to hopefully throw Morgan off our trail, we're at another farm.

"You can go now."

Carol winces as she says it, the corners of her eyes wet after clenching them for so long from the pain. She's clutching her side where the exploding glass from our car caught her skin, it's not bleeding, but her clothes are still red from when it was.

"Go?" I ask.

"To find Tara and Heath," Carol says like she's reminding me.

We're wading our way through a tangled pasture of overgrown grass that has sprung up between a jumble of cattle barns. I lose my feet a few times, still distracted by nightmarish images of hidden walkers biting my ankles. I try to focus on not losing my balance.

"We're heading in the same direction," I tell her. "You're going east... Tara is east. It'll work out."

"That wasn't the deal," she grumbles, waiting while I open a rusting and whining metal five-bar gate in our path. "I give you a lift... you leave me alone. That was the—"

"Well, we didn't shake on it," I cut her off abruptly and stubbornly.

Carol chews on that bitterly for a second before taking her revolver out and shoving it into my hands. Her way of giving in.

The farm turns from rows of dead crops and collapsing barns to a disused factory as we trudge on, the tall grass trading out for a concrete platform that makes me feel a little safer. We cut around a tall brick building with trucks outside marked as 'Stanton Quilting co'. As we walk down a short ramp and into an open exterior loading bay, we pass a blue shipping container, and a walker inside must catch wind of us, banging its way alongside us on the inside. I put the revolver in the front of my jeans and ready my hammer that reflects the sun on its silver head, but Carol beats the walker to the container door and slams it shut, trapping the growls inside with a deep and resonant clang.

"Why not just—" I start, but before I can finish, another walker lurches from around the side of the container, surprising and grappling Carol to the ground. I run to help, but something else grabs me, something stronger than a walker, more human in the way it keeps my arms pinned to my side. A walker would have just bitten my neck, killed me here. But I'm thrown to the ground, my hammer spinning away and out of reach.

A man with blood oozing from his shoulder jumps on top of me, snatching my wrists and pinning them by my head. I kick at him, but he's too big, too strong for me as all his weight crushes down. His knee comes over my waist and pins me to the floor under him. I look desperately to Carol for help, but she's still on her back and struggling with the walker. The skin on its face is stretching away from its skull as Carol's hands fumble to keep teeth from her face, unable to reach her knife with the snapping jaw getting closer.

The man on top of me gets distracted by her struggle too. I seize the moment and manage to slip a hand free from his sweaty fingers that grip ahold of my wrists. I lurch as much of myself into a punch across his jaw with all my strength. His head jolts back slightly, but from my trapped position under him I can't do much more before the guy hits me back, and I let out a throaty yelp I've never done before. Agonising bolts of electricity shoot through me as he clips my still-healing, broken nose. It's worse than it was in the slaughterhouse, like the difference between cutting open a new wound and squeezing fresh lemon juice into an old one. I make a frantic attempt to jam my fingers into the bullet hole gaping from his shoulder. He shrieks from the pain but manages to wrestle my wrist back to the floor, keeping it by my head with the other.

Carol finally shoves the walker off her and to one side, rolling on top of it and sticking her knife up through its nose. She pulls the rifle off her back, but with me still pinned to the floor, my hands secured in one of his giant hands, the man quickly steals the revolver in my jeans, putting it to my temple and pulling back the hammer with a smile.

"Uh-uh-uh," he tuts at her. "How 'bout you put the gun down, Nancy?"

He's one of the assholes from the road. Shoot him.

Carol raises the gun a little higher, gritting her teeth. She pulls back the bolt, checking the bullet is in the gun. It is.

There's no threat here. He has nothing. It's just me. You don't care.

The guy on top of me digs the gun deeper into my forehead, pushing a crushing dent in my skin, my temple throbbing as blood pulses around the pressure.

Carol just stands there, aiming the rifle.

"Carol, what the fuck are you doing!?" I scream at her from the floor. "Shoot him!"

But Carol lowers the rifle, letting it clatter to the concrete.

"Carol?" the guy winces, his shoulder clearly hurting, blood from it dropping onto my cheek as he leans over me. "You mean to tell me Nancy and Noah from Montclair was a lie?" He howls with laughter, sounding deranged. "Now that's just rude." He suddenly fires a shot into Carol's leg from the revolver, grazing her thigh and sending her crumbling to the floor. She manages to stay up on one knee, hissing through her teeth.

The bleeding man stands up, keeping the gun pointed at me as he does. He breathes wheezy and tight. He kicks my boot with his. "Stay down, kid."

I watch as he moves to stand between us, taking a few wobbly steps back and watching us with the eyes of a hawk, waiting to see what we'll do. We do nothing.

"Each breath," the man squints, moving the gun to Carol, stepping closer again, "is getting harder." He strikes her across the face with the barrel, watching as she hits the ground beside me, clutching her leg as blood squirts from the shot. "I probably don't have too many left in me. So I'm gonna make each one count."

I try to sit up, but the gun is shoved back in my face, the man kicks my side, and it feels like my healing ribs are sent back to square one. I stay down, not really out of choice after the kick from his steel-toed boots.

Carol glances at me, lying beside me. A spot on her face is puffy and red from where he hit her, silent tears streaking across the bruised skin.

"This is how it's gonna go," the bleeding man points the gun back at her. "You're gonna lie there and I'm gonna watch you die slow, just like my friends did back on that road. You're son's gonna watch... he'll watch you die, just like I'm gonna die. Let's see who wins, bitch."

He fires a round into her arm, and Carol screeches beside me as more blood splatters the concrete.

"You see that?" he grins at me. "That's a pretty good start, huh?"

"What about me?" I choke, my nose throbbing.

He shakes his head. "The guy I work for? Shit, I reckon he'd bring me back from the dead and kill me again if shot a kid like you. Only... he'd kill me worse than this."

I don't know how long we lie there for. The sun rolls behind clouds, and Carol's breathing turns from stressed panting to strained wheezes. The blood pooling from her arm and leg has reached me, staining my jacket sleeve and jean leg. The dying man stays over us, hovering like some vulture with his crooked neck. I stare at him, confused when his grin, that's been persistent, turns sour.

I follow his eyes, turning my head to Carol. She's smiling up at the sky. Like she's somewhere else. Somewhere far and happy.

"What do you got to smile about, bitch?" He points at her with the revolver. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

"There's nothing wrong with me," Carol tells him, happy and staring through glassy eyes. "I'm gonna die, so... there's nothing wrong with me anymore."

The man from the road lowers the gun, a glare tinting the lack of colour on his face to a shade of red. It's like Carol just sucked all the fun out of this. He thinks for a second, then his eyes light up, and he steps on Carol's shot arm, grinding it down under his boot and grinning at her screams.

He takes his boot off her arm, leaning over her. "You think you've suffered enough now?" he asks.

"No," she whines, shifting her head slowly, looking at me with tears streaming down her cheeks. "Probably not."

I shake my head, not sure why. Is it disagreement? I don't care. I don't care if Carol's suffered enough or if she gets what she deserves. I don't care.

The man's face is pale again, a ghost after vengeance that Carol continues to deny him. He turns his back on us, walking a few paces away like she's defeated him. I gaze at the rifle a few feet past Carol. I consider crawling over Carol to get it when—

"What, are you done?" Carol yells after him, calling him to face us. "Unless you kill me now, I'm not gonna die!"

"What are you doing?" I hiss at her.

She ignores me, still talking to him. "You decide! The world doesn't decide! You decide! You don't get to walk away— and get what you want!"

The man rolls his head to one shoulder, cracking his neck. The exit wound in his back has stained through his shirt, a trail of blood leading to the hem. He turns, marching to Carol with the gun up. He pulls the hammer back a final time, only he's pointing it at my head.

"How about this?" he yells. "Huh?!"

Carol's writhing and groaning at him between her clenched teeth. I'm waiting for her to say do it. Waiting for her to look away. But she just watches me with those steel silver eyes, wet and round.

"Tell him," I whisper.

But she doesn't.

"Stop!"

The voice comes from my other side, Morgan standing a few feet away, on the ramp we came down, his horse behind him.

He's pointing the gun I gave him at the bleeding man.

I realise this must be the day of bluffing. Carol pretending she cares if I get shot. Morgan, threatening to kill someone. Today is just a lie, all of it.

"Drop it," Morgan says calmly. "You can survive this."

The man moves his gun to Carol, looking up at Morgan, then back to Carol. He tightens his grip on the gun, hate bubbling under his fingers. I can see it in his eyes. If he dies now, Carol's going with him.

"You can!" Morgan tells him. "Drop it. Please."

"No," the man breathes. One breathe. On that breath, he dies as his friends did, shot after shot hitting him as Morgan unloads the gun into his chest. The final round hits between his eyes. The bleeding man stumbles back, bleeding so much more as he falls to the floor.

Morgan checks me first, and I tell him I'm fine, despite almost vomiting over him when he hauls me to my feet. He kneels beside Carol, putting pressure on her arm.

She's sobbing, curled up and broken on the ground as Morgan tries to help.

"Would you please just let me go?" she whines, desperate sobs caught in her throat. "All of you just go..."

"Hey," Morgan whispers, "it's not your time. You are gonna come back from this." He looks at me as I stand away from them. "You both will."

I hear hoofbeats behind us. I spin on the spot, snatching up the rifle and pointing it at anything and everything. There's a man at the end of my sights with short red hair and paintball armour strapped to his chest. There's another guy behind him on horseback, a long spear in his hand that's not holding the reigns. It looks like a Hilltop spear. They look like soldiers.

The man on foot holds up a hand in peace.

"What happened here?" He asks.

"I found your horse," Morgan tells him. "Found my friends, too. They need help."

The soldier looks back to his friend on the horse, they share a quick nod before he turns back to us, nodding at us next.

"Then let's get you some help," he says, extending his hand to Morgan, who shakes it cautiously.

He shakes mine next, and at that moment I realise we have no choice but to trust them.

A/N

Sorry (again) for the wait. Wifi did not return to me when I'd hoped for it :(

Alas, it seems to be working now, and I wanted to get a chapter out this week for you guys, even if it's super late! I'm still gonna post on Monday like normal... so you guys almost get two chapters in a row! Bright side and all that.

Hope everyone enjoyed!