#maybe some it accidentally got loose when he was running to the food stalls

[implexedactions]

Do Not Fight Back - Yandere Purge AU

Hey! So this was part of a server wide event I did with other members of Lovesick! They’re all super amazing and you should DEF check out the others who took part! This is inspired by the yandere purge AU created by @yanderemommabean (we have permission to use the AU). Read the linked post to find out more, but to cut things short. Yandere’s are legally free to capture their darlings, and it lasts from 6pm to 6am!

Beta’d by the best person ever: @drxwsyni

This contain YANDERE CONTENT!!!

---

It’s yandere purge night and you’re accidentally outside when it starts. It would be a shame if a certain flame hero was watching...

--- Your job ran late today, because of course it fucking did. It was yandere purge night, not that your boss seemed all that concerned. Although, from the look on his face…well, best not think about that. He probably wasn’t after you, hopefully. You walked down the urban street, past the closed shops and locked buildings. You glanced towards the sunset, the sun's orange glow disappearing over the horizon. Wait, what? It wasn’t THAT late, right? Sure, work ran late, but you finished at 5 PM, not 6 PM?

You opened your phone, you had…a minute before the sirens…fuck.

You dashed into an alley, crouching next to a vending machine, it wasn’t ideal, but staying out there could mean certain death. You’re an idiot for even letting this happen to you. You’re NEVER meant to remain outside during tonight. A yandere could kill you if they even THINK you’re trying to interfere. You rummage through your pockets...nothing except a phone and some loose coins.

The sirens ring throughout the city

No weapon, no quirk, no safety, no chance. You hold your head in your hands, freaking out. No one would think of helping you, you could be a yandere trying to get at them. Your best bet is to stay here until it is over, potentially using the vending machine for dinner.

Your phone buzzes.

---6:01PM---

[HellFire]: Hello.

[HellFire]: You do not know who I am, but I have been keeping my eye on you for a long time.

[You]: Oh god…please don’t say you’re after me…

[HellFire]: I propose a hunt.

[HellFire]: I catch you, the obvious happens.

[HellFire]: You evade me for the next 12 hours? You go free.

[HellFire]: The rules? Always keep your phone on you and online, I will be sending messages. Respond to my messages, or you will pay dearly. Do not worry about other people, if they try to hurt you, I will burn them to ash. If I catch you, no fighting back. Break any of the rules, and there will be hell to pay.

[You]: What?! Can I at least ask some questions? Is my phone bugged? Do you know where I am now? Can I hide or do I have to keep running? Why me?

[HellFire]: Mind, I do not expect you to win. I am the number one hero for a reason.

[HellFire]: The hunt begins. Do try to have fun tonight, my dear.  

…Endeavor?! Enji Todoroki, the number one hero, was after you?! You’d be flattered if you weren’t shaking with fear. You try to take some deep breaths.

---6:03PM---

[HellFire]: I would run, my darling… I doubt hiding behind a vending machine will do you any favours….

[You]: How do you know my location already?!

You run out of the alley; the street illuminated poorly by streetlights. Enji knew where you were, specifically that you were behind a vending machine. He’s either got cameras, or he was right in your line of sight. You sprint down the street, most people aren’t stupid enough to be out, and you give most yanderes a wide berth. You see one with a darling, you force your eyes away and continue to run.

Your lungs are burning, exercise isn’t your strong point, and one can’t operate on adrenaline alone.

---6:09PM---

[HellFire]: Tired already? I did not realise you were so weak…such a pity, I expected a fight from you…

[You]: No one expects to be running down a street from a goddamn villain?!

[HellFire]: …disrespect?

[HellFire]: Unacceptable.

As you’re running, a car behind you blows up, fire scattering onto the street. You still can’t see him.

You notice a mall still open. None of the shops would be in business, but the area might provide a suitable hiding place. You run into it, sliding doors opening to let you into the air-conditioned space. You steal a glance behind you, no one visible on the street or rooftops.

---6:11PM---

[HellFire]: A shopping centre? I hope you do not expect a gaudy fountain to save you.

[You]: Fuck you, honestly.

[HellFire]: That is quite a bold statement for someone in your position.

[HellFire]: Most criminals at this point are kissing my boots, begging for mercy, and yet, you show defiance. Breaking you should be fun.

You run down a corridor, reaching an entirely empty circular food court. Fast food shops line the walls, with two, opposite facing exits to the area, both leading onto streets. Silence is abundant as you run through, dodging chairs and tables, desperate to make it to the other side.

The sound of an electronic sliding door reaches your ears. Panicking, you dive over a business’s countertop, hiding behind it as you try not to breathe too loudly. You hastily switch your notifications off, so him texting you won’t reveal your location.

---6:15PM---

[HellFire]: You know something I learnt from my job?

[You]: What?

[HellFire]: Someone can know they are being hunted, but not know they are already trapped. The villains are overburdened by fear and hope, of both capture and escape. They desperately reach their hands out to touch a goal you know is impossible to reach.

[HellFire]: That feeling… of knowing their entire future is at my mercy…

[HellFire]: is sublime.

[HellFire]: …

[HellFire]: Say, how are you finding that uncomfortable food stall floor?

“Hello, darling…”

“No! Get away from me!”

You bound over the counter, avoiding his hands, and desperately try to reach the exit. You turn around, and he is just…standing there. Looking at you. With a smirking grin on his face. He’s wearing his hero suit, flames dancing up his body. He loves this, he likes thinking you’re some object to be captured. You run out onto the street, cold night air hitting you in the face, the sun has entirely disappeared now, all traces of it gone.

Where the hell can you go that you’ll be safe?! It hasn’t even been 30 minutes of this torture; you’ve got so much time left! Panting, you notice he has exited the building too, but he just stands there, looking at you, grin adorning his face. You spot a train station.

You run towards the train station and don’t look back. You jump the ticket gate, feeling that your life matters more than a civic duty. You run up the stairs onto the platform. The trains won’t be running, but maybe you can run along the tracks if it comes down to it? As you try to catch your breath, you realise something…you turned your phone notifications off in the mall, which means he could be messaging you, and you wouldn’t know.

Scrambling you pull out your phone.

---6:22---

[HellFire]: If I were you, I would not take another step towards that train station.

[HellFire]:  ...?

[HellFire]: Oh, are you not checking your messages now?

[HellFire]: I warned you, remember that…

---6:30---

[You]: I’m sorry! I swear, I didn’t mean to ignore it! It was my phone

[HellFire]: I can not believe what I just saw.

[HellFire]: You leapt over that gate like a common criminal.

[HellFire]: So, now I have to punish you for multiple reasons. You ignored so many rules…

[You]: I didn’t mean to, I swear! I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt me!

[HellFire]: You fought back when you were captured.

[You]: It wasn’t fighting back?! It was escaping, capture would be grabbing me.

[HellFire]: You didn’t check your messages.

[You]: Like I said, my phone was off, it was an accident!

[HellFire]: You IGNORED my commands.

[You]: My phone was off! I didn’t KNOW there were commands!

[HellFire]: You broke the law.

[You]: I was going to go back and pay the $1.50 tomorrow!

[HellFire]: And we are only 30 minutes into this hunt.

[HellFire]: Tell me, darling.

[HellFire]: Did you really think you could outrun me?

[HellFire]: The top hero?

[HellFire]: I knew you were not the smartest person, considering, well, everything about you.

[HellFire]: But this really takes the cake.

[You]: Oh, honestly, fuck you. Why do you even WANT me?! We’ve NEVER met!

 [HellFire]: …you’re quite disrespectful…

[HellFire]: I will have to fix that.

“Face me.”

You whip around to see him staring at you, sadistic grin adorning his face. You turn to run, but his large hands grab your arms, holding you in place. He picks you up and turns you around, so you’re facing him. His hands are noticeably warmer than they should be.

“There. Captured enough for you?” He says with a smirk.

“Please! Just let me go!” You shout, struggling against his arms fruitlessly. You scream and kick, managing to bring a foot against his knee. He noticeably winces.

“I warned you about fighting back, you insolent brat!” His face steels as his hands become warmer. You can now feel his breath down your face as your squirm, desperate to escape the burning hands and singing clothes.

“I…I…Why me?!” Tears start to fall down your face as you realise this might be your fate.

“Because you shouldn’t be anyone else’s. Do you recall that train villain? Such a stupid villain, but I digress. I saw you try to help people, helping people off the train when it arrived at the station and calming that little kid. It was so…kind, so generous. You were a true hero. I need that in my life, so you are mine.” He at least has the decency to not look you directly in the eyes. His hands cooled down a bit while he was speaking. He seems somewhat ashamed by what he’s done.

Somewhat.

“You could’ve just approached me! Hell, I’m not going to turn down a meeting with the number one hero?! You’re a fucking idiot!”

“Attacking someone while they are vulnerable is usually considered bad form, brat. But I see you have no qualms attacking me.” His palms heat up again, but he seems to have a looser grip on you. Maybe if you…

“I’m sorry, okay? This is just a lot to take in. I…I do admire you, as a hero y’know? I always considered you so calming. You made the city feel so much s-safer, you made ME feel safer.” You look him in the eyes, trying to act as small and gentle as possible. His warm breath washes over your body as he seems to re-examine you. Just a little bit further and…

You bring your knee into his lungs as he is breathing in, winding him. He drops you and you turn on your heel and jump onto the train tracks, running off down the tracks.

He shouts after you.

“Bad idea brat! You want to be punished? Fine then!”

You stare ahead, no trains seem to be running, so you won’t have to make a choice between death and getting run over by a train. You follow the train tracks until you reach a tunnel. You turn around and see him merely walking menacingly toward you, not even running. He has such an angry look on his face, flame beard shooting out in rage. The fire touches a signal box, and it melts to the ground almost instantly. Yeah, no, you aren’t dealing with that. You turn and run inside the tunnel, desperate to escape him. You hear a roar from behind you as fire shoots past your head, hitting the cylindrical wall and dissipating.

“I missed on purpose, stop at once! I will not hesitate you ungrateful bitch!”

You stop and turn around to face him, tremors running through your body.

“Stop approaching me, please?! Can’t we just talk?!” You say shuffling back with each step he takes towards you.

He raises an eyebrow, and astonishingly, he stops, about 8 paces away.

“Fine.”

“I…please, just let me go! I don’t want this!” you say, tears running down your face.

“And why would I care what YOU want, bitch?”

“Because y-you love me o-or ..desire me or something?!”

“Pfft. Maybe, but you know how this works by now.” He takes a step forward, you stand still. His flames cast flickering shadows against the tunnel walls.

“I’m sure you have co-workers, family, friends, who disappeared never to be seen again, OR have a pet of their own.” He takes a step forward, you stand still. His feet leave the rocks red hot.

“You know you cannot escape me. It has not even been an hour.” He steps forward, you stand still. You can feel his heat now.

“Do you expect to run all over the city, making daring escapes and just barely being able to stay out of my grasp for 12 hours? To evade capture from the number one hero?” He steps forward, you stand still. His flames die down, but your body feels like it’s overheating.

“You woke up at 5:12 AM today and had a shift from 7 AM to 5:45 PM. You are not going to be able to keep up this adrenaline and energy til 6AM tomorrow. Being awake for 24 hours is not an easy feat, my dear.“ He steps forward, you stand still. Your tears on your face start to evaporate.

“Oh, do remind me to thank your boss for keeping you late. Money does wonders to people's sense of ethics.” He steps forward, you stand still. He chuckles quietly at the situation and examines your body.

“You cannot escape me, you have no quirk, no talents, no skills. This is not a fair fight because it is not a fight, my dear. It is a hunt, and you seem to have this silly notion that the fox can escape the hound.” He steps forward, you stand still. His hand reaches out to grab your arm, and you do nothing to stop it.

“Advice for your new life, when I give a command, my dear, it helps to oblige. So, hear me when I say: Do. Not. Fight. Back.”

You do not fight back.  

[blingywitch]

The First Step - Chapter IV

Omg hi! I am so sorry this took so long to get out. It took me a lot longer than expected to write but anyways, it’s here now!

This chapter is a lot longer than the others I’ve written in this mini series. I had a lot that I wanted to include and didn’t realize how much it was until I re-read this so I hope you like this huge chapter of pure fluff. :)

Finally, this is the last chapter of this story. I had so much fun writing it and it makes me very happy to see that you guys enjoyed it as much as you did. (I may write a mini Sequel with one or two parts. Maybe write the wedding I don’t know yet.) but moving on, as I’ve said before, thank you for all the love, and enjoy. <3

The First Step Masterlist & Full Masterlist

Characters and universe belong to, @lumosinlove

CW: mentions of food.

—

The team had finished practice and were now skating off the ice, tired, sweaty and ready to cool down in the gym and head to the showers. Well, maybe just the Cubs planned on doing that. The rest of the team however, unbeknownst to them, had other things in mind.

Walking into the locker room Finn, Logan and Leo were all grabbed by the shoulders and sat down in whoever’s stall was closest.

“Alright boys, sit the fuck down and tells us how this happened. Details. Go.” James prodded.

“You just sat us down” Logan deadpanned, smirk playing at his lips.

Finn huffed, though he was smiling—still. “Can we at least get out of our gear first? Get a shower-“

“No!” The entire team shouted back.

Finn put his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay we’ll tell you.” He then looked to Logan. “Lo?”

Logan stood up and walked over to join Leo; who had been sat down at the other side of the room— in, from what Logan could see, looked like kuny’s stall— sitting down next to him and intertwining their fingers. Finn wasn’t long joining the two and then Logan took a deep breath, “It wasn’t anything special-“

He was cut off by Leo smacking his arm. Logan rolled his eyes playfully and continued, “Fine. It wasn’t anything big and fancy.”

One week earlier

The sun was streaming trough the blinds of their bedroom window when Logan woke up, sandwiched between his boys. Opening his eyes, squinting slightly from both sleep and the brightness of the room, he looked at Leo and Finn. In the morning sun he could see every little detail of them— every little detail that he loved. Hundreds of freckles adorned Finn’s face, fanning over his cheekbones and nose going all the way down to his shoulders; resembling the thousands of stars in the sky. Careful not to wake him Logan turned over to get a better look at Leo, who had his arm loosely around his waist. He noticed that, in the sun, the younger boy’s hair looked more like the sun than the sun itself. The blonde and white strands glistening and glowing in the light. Logan had to hold himself back from running his fingers through it. He loved these boys so so much and today was the day they would learn just how much.

Today was the day.

Logan peeked over Leo’s shoulder to look at the clock on the nightstand, it read ‘6:15 am’. That was good. Leo and Finn wouldn’t be up for at least another three hours, four if he was lucky— it was Saturday after all and they had nothing they needed to do today. Logan had gotten unbelievably lucky by coach giving them the day off.— he had time.

Sighing to himself he removed Leo’s arm, carefully climbed over Finn and got out off bed. He padded around the house for a little, toothbrush in one hand phone in the other, sending texts and making preparations for the day. After he was finally dressed and ready to go he gave his boys one last kiss on the cheek and he was gone.

—

“Thank you, Celeste, for doing this on such short notice,” Logan said as he sat down at the Dumais’ kitchen island.

“De rien, Logan. You know I don’t mind. But are you going to tell me why I had to cook all this food last night?”

“Well... I can... but you can’t tell anyone, not even Dumo.”

Celeste furrowed her eyebrows but motioned for him to continue.

“...I’m proposing today.” Logan said, his voice barely above a whisper. The rest of the Dumais’ were still asleep but he couldn’t risk anything.

Though his efforts were probably in vain because Celeste let out a very loud gasp at that, quickly covering her mouth and looking towards the stairs, listening for any sign someone had woken up. After the house stayed quiet she looked back at Logan.

“Logan... that’s amazing.” Celeste walked over to Logan and placed a kiss to the top of his head. “I’m so happy to hear that.”

Hearing those words come out of his mouth, Logan couldn’t describe how it made him feel. But he decided on happy for the time being. He was proposing today. “Moi aussi....”

Celeste stepped back and Logan met her eyes, “My lips are sealed.” She said, he just smiled at her.

“Now. You should get going, I don’t know when those boys of yours will be up but I know mine will be soon, so” Celeste pushed the dishes of food towards Logan and poked him in the arm. “Go. Get.”

Logan chuckled. “d'accord, d'accord I’m going.”

—

On second thought maybe Logan had gotten up to early.

He’d wanted to make sure he had enough time to do everything it was he needed get done. And he had gotten everything done, which was good. But it was still only 8:30 am, and Logan was just standing in his kitchen unsure of what to do next. He could wake them up... but he didn’t wanna do that, it was their day off. But at the same time, being here alone and just waiting for them to wake up was driving him crazy.

So Logan decided he wouldn’t wait alone. Taking one last look at the array of food before him, he set off for the bedroom.

Finn and Leo were exactly where they were when Logan left a few hours before, except now Finn was rolled over onto his back and had his arm thrown over his face, Leo laying a bit closer to him than before.

He smiled at how cute they looked and tiptoed over to the bed, dropping himself down beside Leo and waited. Letting his mind run wild with what was about to happen.

—

Leo woke up about an hour later, after rubbing his eyes and stretching he felt a hand on his back and a kiss to his shoulder. Leo smiled softly and turned over. “Hmm, morning.” He said, nuzzling into Logan’s chest.

“Bon matin, mon amour.” Logan greeted him, just as Finn started to stir. He groaned and his eyes meet Logan’s as they opened.

“I’m the sleepyhead s’morning I see.” He said, upon seeing his boyfriends next to him already awake.

Logan huffed out a laugh. “Morning to you too, Harz.”

Finn just smiled and got up on an elbow, leaning over Leo he gave Logan a quick kiss on the lips. “Morning.” He said, pulling away.

He then moved from Logan to Leo, bending down and kissing his jaw, the only part of the boy’s face that was exposed. “Morning Peanut.”

“Hmm.” Was the only response he got.

Finn laughed into Leo’s neck. “You awake yet?”

“Mm’no” Leo replied, word muffled my Logan’s chest.

“Well you can go back to sleep for a little bit, okay?”

“M’kay” Leo mumbled, Finn did not have to tell him twice.

They stayed quiet for another few minutes, enjoying each other’s company before Finn asked, “So what’s on the schedule for today?”

“Nothing.” Leo, who had finally decided to wake up said, rolling onto his back. “I’m staying here. All day.”

“Well as much as I’d love to do that mon chéri, I have something planned.” Logan chimed in.

“And what would that be?” Finn challenged, raising an eyebrow.

“You’ll see.” Logan smirked. “C’mon.” He said, standing up and grabbing one of their hands each.

“Ugh fine.” Leo groaned though he was now curious as to what Logan had in store for them.

“So moody in the morning, Peanut.” Finn said teasingly.

“Oh hush you.” Leo playfully smacked his arm.

That only made Finn smile.

“C’mon,” Logan singsonged, pulling them forward. “you’re so slow.”

Despite all his previous nerves about this day, now that it was here Logan was surprised to find out that those feelings had miraculously disappeared and he felt completely fine. The only emotion flowing through him being pure euphoria. He was everything but nervous and he thanked whatever was responsible for that.

Finn and Leo were finally up and smiling brightly, Logan immediately stared dragging them out of the bedroom, walking backwards so he could catch their reactions.

They had just reached the living room when Leo and Finn froze. From here they could see the arrangement of food that sat in the kitchen. There were trays of cinnamon rolls, fruits and berries and well, anything you could thing of. Logan might have gone overboard, but he really didn’t care at the moment.

“Oh.” Leo broke the silence, staring over Logan’s shoulder.

“What’s the occasion?” Finn asked.

“No occasion.” Logan replied. “I just love you.”

Logan dropped their hands and walked the rest of the way to the kitchen. “Hello? Are you just going to stand there all day or do you want some breakfast?”

The two other boys were moving again and in no time had two plates of food in front of them.

“So, Lo” Leo started, after three had been eating in silence for a while. “Where did all this food come from? Because you certainly didn’t cook it.”

Logan let out a mock gasp at that. “How dare you underestimate my cooking skills!”

“What!? Am I lying?”

“No.” Finn said around a mouthful of eggs.

Logan flicked a blueberry at him.

“Hey!”

Next to them, Leo laughed, “Alright, alright don’t waste the food.”

Finn jerked his head at Leo, “The chef in that one is coming out.” He said to Logan, who laughed.

Finn got another blueberry flicked at him, this time by Leo.

—

Logan had to get the rings.

After the three had eaten breakfast they had all made their way to the couch and were now tangled around each other, relaxing and watching a movie. It was the perfect moment. But of course, Logan didn’t have the rings on him. They were at the end of the hallway, stashed in the back of a closet. The only place Logan could think of where they wouldn’t be found accidentally. He had to get them.

“Finn?” Logan tried to get Finns attention.

Finn hummed showing he was listening, though his eyes were fixed on the tv.

“Can you let me up for a second?” Logan asked. Like always, he was squished between the two of them.

“Mhmm.” Finn replied and stood up to let Logan go.

“Wait!” Leo said Suddenly, arms outstretched. “where are you going? Come back.”

“I’ll be back Knutty, don’t worry.” Logan laughed, walking away. “I’m just getting blankets.”

And in no time Logan was back, with a blanket in one hand and two rings in his back pocket.

“You’re the best.” Finn said as Logan handed him the blanket.

Leo sat up, taking the blanket from Finn and putting his feet in his lap. He motioned for Logan to sit next to him and then put the blanket over them.

“Je t’aime.” Logan whispered pecking Leo on the lips, he reached out and grabbed Finn’s hand. “You too, Fish.”

‘Here goes nothing’ Logan thought. He picked up the remote and turned the tv off.

“Lo, what are you doing?” Confusion laced Finn’s voice

“Do you know how much I love you?Both of you?” Logan was now gripping both of their hands like his life depended on it. The next thing that came out of his mouth even surprised him, “épouse-moi?”

Leo froze.

“W- what?” Finn asked, heart rate picking up.

Logan reached into his back pocket; when his hand reappeared he was holding three identical sliver bands in his palm. “Marry me?” He said again, firmer this time.

When no one said anything Logan continued, “I could get started on all that, ‘oh we’re to young and I don’t know if we’re ready’ shit, but I won’t. If you’re ready I’m ready. And if you’re not, then I’ll be here when you are; Because I love you both so much and I’d wait eternity for you. So... marry me?”

Logan looked back and forth between the two. Leo was first to break the silence, “Yes.” He breathed and Logan finally let his smile show.

He turned to Finn who was still staring at the rings in his hand. “Fish?”

Finn finally tore his eyes away from the rings and when he looked up Logan noticed a tear making it’s way down his face. Logan smiled softly at him.

“Yes. Oh my god, yes!” He beamed and tackled Logan in a hug, only breaking away to pull Leo in as well.

They fell into the couch again, in a puddle of happy tears, kisses and whispered I love you’s. Fully ready to start the next chapter of their lives, being with each other every step of the way.

As Logan placed the rings on their fingers the last thing Finn said before he was tacked by two boys and a bunch of pillows was, “Fuck, I love my life.”

Present day

Logan finished his story and looked around at his teammates, Dumo spoke up first. “Wait. Celeste knew and I didn’t!? Why didn’t you tell me!?”

“Because I wanted it to be a surp- hmff” Logan was hit Square in the stomach by a hockey glove— thrown by Dumo of course.

“Rude.” Logan mumbled.

Leo looked to his left, hoping to find Finn. Instead, something else caught his eye and he burst out laughing, “Potts are you crying?” He asked.

“No!”

[limeyartspinningtales]

Imagine....a game of cat and mouse

Characters: Cad Bane, gn!reader

(can be read as platonic or romantic, reader’s choice)

---

The market-space is rammed full of sound, smell, stalls and, most importantly, people. Dim broken lamps are scattered between the bright white spotlights that cast the constantly moving area into roiling shadows and gleaming reflections from metal and glass, like some backwater ocean. Voices try to clamor out, clambering over each other in a constantly failing race to be the loudest and brash and inviting and come buy, come sell, come listen, listen to me.

You try to block it out as best you can. It’s difficult, understandably. But you have more on your hands than trying not to go mad from the din. Looking over the mug of caf in your hands, you catch sight of a glimpse of blue among the red, green, brown, and gunmetal grey. As you follow the movement, that blue clarifies itself into a face underneath a wide-brimmed hat, with a pair of narrowed red eyes.

Your target had arrived.

Getting up from your seat, you push a couple of credits over the table to the stall-owner for your drink and start to wander into the crowd, making a general direction for the bounty hunter. Cad Bane seems to not be in too much of a hurry, drifting from stall to stall himself. It makes it tricky for you to not make it obvious about your approach. Your own voice rolls back over itself in your head, chastising your haste and reminding you: patience was key here as much as perception was. The crowds themselves aren’t making that easy for you. With half of your attention given to Cad, the other half is spent on making sure you weren’t accidentally swept away by an eager group or that you didn’t end up in the pathway of someone with a disgruntled face and a blaster. With this particular market-space, you aren’t willing to put it past someone to start a fight over literally anything.

Your target pauses, and you step quietly into the small path between a couple of stalls. You swear you can’t have been got already, not so soon. You know Cad’s good, but this good? Five seconds pass, and you step back out, looking to anyone else like you were coming from that direction onto the main walkway. It takes you a cursory glance around for you to see Cad engaged in conversation with a food seller, handing over credits for something wrapped up in foil that he pockets. He doesn’t look around, instead continuing on his way, and you release a breath you hadn’t realised you were holding. Of course he hadn’t spotted you, only stopping to get food. 

Up ahead, Cad now stops by a stall that seemed to be advertising scavenged parts, looking over the items within. You take the chance to duck back into cover of a different stall, trying to appear curious about the wooden carvings but mostly flicking gazes over to Cad’s stall.

For a moment, you think you caught his eye and your heart squeezes itself up in your throat. But it’s just his reflection in a metal panel. You watch as he shakes his head, dropping the part he was turning over in his hands back onto the table, and returns to the milling streams of people. After a couple of seconds you do the same, ducking your head as you step back onto the walkway. A pair of ithorians deep in a strongly-worded debate step up too close for comfort, causing you to duck and weave away. You’ve been knocked into enough times today, you don’t want that count to increase any time soon for fear of a pickpocket. Some hovercart comes whirring past, nudging you off your path once more as a number of others voice their irritation to the droid driving the vehicle. Biting back your own grumble, you glance back over to Cad.

Where Cad should be.

The path ahead of you is crammed with people, but none of them are the blue-skinned durosian you’ve been trailing so far. Someone knocks into your shoulder, and the harsh contact jolts you from the panicked state your mind had frozen up in, reminding you where you are still. It’s difficult to return back to the meandering walk you’d put yourself into when you first started this hunt, seeing as how now you no longer have a destination. You keep looking around as you wander, trying to catch sight of your target, but to no avail it seems.

Wait. No. It takes you a moment to replay the moment, but you swear as you pass by a stall with many hanging glass ornaments, multi-colored reflections of your face glinting back at you when you look over them.....there’s a moment of that strange gut-twist that comes when you make eye contact with someone by accident. You keep going. Another stall hawks its wares of scarfs and shawls, many of them thick and meant for the open road but a few with fine detailing in the stitching along the edges. You step inside the stall space, picking up a scarf of dusty green by with light blue embroidery, and spot a mirror to examine yourself as you try it on. And in the mirror, you look beyond yourself and into the crowd.

Red eyes.

This time it’s not just your heart trying to get out through your throat, it’s most of your digestive system. You congratulate yourself on your poker face as you hand the scarf back, promising to think more on it (you won’t) and that you’ll come back later (maybe). Heading back out, now you spot the nearest and thickest crowd of people, and you beeline for that crowd. It’s hard work to slip among the ranks but you make do, waiting until you’ve reached the other side before speeding up your pace. No running yet, just a faster walk. Part of your brain thinks he’s breathing down your neck and as your back prickles with discomfort, you snatch a look over your shoulder. No sign of Cad. That makes the prickling feel even worse. The market-space around you seems to swell and boom, the noise rushing into your head, too loud all of a sudden. There’s too many people and too many places where the bounty hunter could be hiding, and you need a place that you know it’s only you alone. 

Reprise comes in the form of a partially shaded alleyway, which you find it easy to slip into and find some distance between yourself and the market-space. Compared to the din before, the silence here echoes. Your breath comes back slowly as you squeeze your hand to your forehead, finding sweat beading there. Not successful, not at all. You’d lost your target and no doubt alerted him that someone was trailing him. It’d be harder to find him.

“Nice try, kiddo.” The drawl snaps your attention up, shortly before a hand lands on your shoulder and squeezes uncomfortably tight. You don’t know how Cad had managed to approach so quietly, but in the time where you’d been finding your breath and feet again, he’d approached you in the same alleyway and now he continues to push you further out of sight from the crowds. The telltale bounty hunter smell of blaster oil, leather and iron rolls off him at this distance. Finally he stops, shoving you up at the wall. In the moment, your voice freezes up too, and with the silence his hand traces up to your face, cupping your chin before patting your cheek.

“Don’t know why I keep teaching you to track when you turn into a paranoid kath hound every time you loose your target,” Cad says.

“I was not that bad,” you reply, a pout on the edge of your voice as you bat his hand away. It’s taken you a while to reach this level of comfort when interacting with him. Apprenticing for the famously deadly bounty hunter doesn’t come lightly after all. “When did you spot me?”

“Around the scrap stall. You kept looking over one too many times, caught you then.” Digging into his coat, he hands over the foil-wrapped packet, and the smell of food wipes away any lingering dismay you had left. While you start to dig in, he watches the market-space from where you both lean against the wall.

“Finish up and get ready to go again,” he tells you. “Next time I won’t be so easy on you.” And neither would you, you tell yourself.

[cyberflows-art]

Shoulder Devil

Oof! This sure took me a while! Not really because it’s long (although it kind of is, whoops!), but because I have terrible time management skills XD

I always plan what I’m going to say for this little introductions and then completely forget what I was supposed to say...

Well, this is my fic for the Joey Drew Studios AU at @ask-joeydrewstudios! I knew for quite some time that I wanted to do something for this AU because the characters are very well developed and consistent, the art is fantastic and it’s always a good time whenever I receive a notification telling me there’s a new post! I could spend a looong time telling you why I love this AU so much, but instead I’m just going to recommend checking it out! I wan’t sure whether to draw something, or write something, soooo I did both! Oh! I’m also going to put it over on AO3 and ffnet if that’s more your thing!

I really hope you like it!

Cough Don’t use or repost my drawing without my permission, please! Cough

It had been a very productive Friday in the studio. Most of the animators had managed to get ahead on their work, the voice actors had very smooth recording sessions and Joey found himself praising a lot of people when he checked on them. The ink spills where almost null, the projectors all in outstanding condition, the pipes hadn’t emitted any creaking noises or given any signs of damage. The toy department had just finished some new concepts for a limited edition line of toys that could boost their income quiet a bit. The studio was reveling in a contented mood, and the employees certainly appreciated the relaxed work environment, so different to the usual stress of having to meet an approaching deadline. But that productivity came at a price. 

A price called Sammy Lawrence.

Due to the presence of a certain prank loving toon, people who worked at Joey Drew Studios knew to have spare clothing at hand, even more so if you worked in the Music Department. But that usually meant just an extra shirt for the week. This day? Sammy had already had to change his shirt twice before lunch break. The first time was due to a bucket of ink being dumped on his head; the second because Henry just so happened to be passing through the same hallway as him with a bowl of (thankfully not boiling) soup, and Bendy just so happened to run by them and “accidentally” push Henry. The entirety of the contents of the bowl, of course, ended covering Sammy. From that point on, the positivity in the air was slain by Sammy’s irate aura and the employees instinctively stepped aside whenever he walked by. And now that he had finally been able to eat something and calm himself a little, he sat at his desk and grabbed a pen only to discover half of his stuff was coated in honey. He groaned in exasperation and cursed the substance while trying to detach the pen from his fingers.

Sammy didn’t know why the little brat suddenly decided to focus all of his attention on him, (this considering the music director was a favorite target), but he knew it needed to stop that instant. In fact, it should have stopped days ago. Since wednesday, Bendy had been making his working hours a living hell. It ranged from hiding random ingredients in his food, to messing with the lyrics in his incomplete songs, to hiding every single one his goddamn cigarettes in a different location each. The only reason he had managed to not fall behind was that he locked all of his important documents and work in the upper right drawer of his desk. He bet that the little devil would have turned them all into paper airplanes if he didn’t.

Grumbling, he stood up once again and started walking towards the nearest bathroom to wash his hands. Of course, it would be his luck that said bathroom was the one in the worst condition in the whole studio. The door, specifically, was a bother to open since there wasn’t enough space between it and the floor, making it drag noisily; not to mention the rusty hinges and knob people had tired of reminding Wally to oil. Maybe the fact that it was the bathroom closest to the music department had something to do with that. Sammy wouldn’t put it past the janitor to be petty like that. He would normally go the extra mile to go to a decent bathroom, but he had wasted enough time as it was, so he resigned himself and stepped in, careful not to close the damaged door all the way.

He got as far as rubbing the soap on his hands before the water stopped flowing from the tap. Frowning, Sammy tried opening and closing it, but quickly lost his patience and tried the other two. Nothing. Anger rapidly increasing, Sammy took a moment to count to ten, planning to calmly go to the bathroom in the floor above. But while he focused on counting, he failed to notice the rattling of the pipes in front of him. 5… 6… 7… 8… 9…  The sudden loud creaking finally caught his attention and alarms rang in his head when he saw all three sinks slightly shaking. He managed but one hasty step towards the door before the three taps were sent flying and three forceful water streams drenched him from head to toe. Sammy instinctively covered his face, desperately trying to maintain enough visibility to walk the short distance to the door. Unfortunately, with all the chaos he wasn’t able to notice the bar of soap that had landed on the floor, and thus couldn’t prevent stepping on it. He yelped when he felt himself tripping forward, barely being able to slam against the door with his shoulder rather than with his face.

A dull pain spread through his upper arm but nothing too serious. Sammy rubbed at it and stood up, his mind trying to process what had just happened. If he had had a moment to collect himself, rage and annoyance would have probably consumed him, but he heard something above the sound of the flowing water. Laughter. Really loud laughter. The door of the stall closest to the wall slowly swung open and hanging from the inside was the little devil himself. He obviously couldn’t hang there for much longer, shaking with laughter as he was, so he jumped to the only corner of the floor untouched by the water to continue from there.

“WOW, Sammy! I thought I had something great by breaking the sinks, but you made it even better with that soap bit!!!” he managed to say through his giggles. “You sure you don’t wanna be a toon? You’d make a great target for gags!”.

Sammy remained silent. He remained silent and looked at the mess around him, one of his eyes twitching. He remained silent because even if he was normally able to yell at Bendy for his pranks, he couldn’t believe the absolute stupidity of the whole situation. He remained silent because even if he would usually call the demon a little shit, he still had to remember he was a kid and at the moment he didn’t trust himself to not say something he could regret later. And the absolute least he needed that day was for Joey to visit him to berate him on his conduct. So he bit back the venom that threatened to escape from his mouth and limited himself to glaring at the demon as harshly as he could. Bendy’s laughter did wither under the look that Sammy was giving him (and the lack of an explosive reaction), but he kept a defiant attitude by crossing his arms and returning the stare with a smile. This only further irritated the music director, so he turned around to open the door, not wanting to see the smug brat’s little face anymore. He wasn’t used to repressing his anger, and since he was absolutely furious, he needed an outlet fast. Except… the doorknob wasn’t working. In fact, it felt pretty loose, probably detached from whatever internal mechanism was inside the door. He struggled with it, as if he could force it to work just by violently moving it, but he ended loosening it it to the point it came off. Sammy glared at it for a second before flinging it against the wall. He heard snorting behind him.

“What?” came Bendy’s voice. “Can’t even open a dooooor, Sammy?”

He then started blabbering about how Sammy needed to start lifting weights and eating more vitamins. Sammy sighed in frustration and turned towards Bendy to yell at him to undo whatever he did to the door so he could go tell Joey to ground the demon for the rest of eternity. He froze, however, when he saw the floor of the room. The flow of the water had considerably diminished, but it was still consistently adding more liquid to the floorboards. The growing puddle was silently creeping in Bendy’s direction, but the demon couldn’t be bothered to notice. For a split second, he toyed with the idea of just watching him notice and freak out about his crucial mistake. But a pang of guilt immediately hit him, knowing well that it would be the equivalent of letting a fire get close to a human. He was furious, but not even he was that cruel. Sighing, he sacrificed the one spot on his clothes that had been spared from the water attack to dry his hands. He crossed the distance between them, tuning out Bendy’s incessant rambling, and lift him up before the puddle could reach his shoes. Three seconds later, there wasn’t a dry spot on the floor.

“Hey!” Bendy exclaimed. “Put me down!! I don’t like bein’ carried around, ya hear me?! Let go!”

He then proceeded to poke Sammy’s head with his tail and trying to wiggle out of his hold. Sammy tightened his grip, afraid he might actually drop him and then held the demon to arms length in a way that wouldn’t allow Bendy enough movement to bite him (which he was known for).

“Okay, you little brat. You are going to look down for a single second and then I dare you to say that again to my face,” Sammy deadpanned.

“What, you think I wouldn’t?” Bendy crossed his arms. “Fine! I’ll look down and then I’ll tell you to your face to put me- Oh...”

“‘Oh’ is right.” Sammy glared at him as he stopped struggling to fall to his demise. “Now, if you could stop throwing a tantrum and fix the freaking door so we both can get the hell out of here, that would be great, wouldn’t it?”

“What?! I didn’t do anything to the door!!!”

“Oh, yeah? Then why won’t it open? Can you really not stop playing dumb even when you turned the floor into something you can’t so much as touch without melting?!” Sammy made him face the door, hoping that he would pull out a tool or something that would let them get out,

“Ugh! I told ya, I didn’t break the door! You’re the one that slammed his ugly face against it! Maybe that’s why it broke, huh?”

Bendy stuck his tounge at him and looked away with a huff.

“So what? We’re just trapped here now?!” Sammy looked at the demon incredulously. “Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted? Well, congratulations! I bet Joey will give you a trophy!”

Bendy scowled at him, but quickly looked away under Sammy’s scolding stare and resigned himself to pout in silence. This was doing nothing for Sammy’s mood. Now there was no way he wasn’t going to fall behind in his work. Besides, the water was already up to his ankles and the cold from being soaked was starting to get to him. His arms were also getting tired.

“Why am I even carrying you still?” he said more to himself. The little guy didn’t really deserved the effort after landing them in the situation they were in. He walked towards the stalls, hoping that he could set him down.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Bendy asked once he felt they were moving.

“I’m getting tired so I decided you are going to stand on one of the toilets,” he said matter of factly.

“WHAT? But… but toilets are filled with water!”

If Sammy didn’t fear he would drop him he would have smacked his own forehead with his hand.

“I’m not putting you inside the toilet, you moron! You’re gonna stand on top of the lid.”

“Ew! No way! Joey told me what goes in there and I’m NOT touching those things.” Bendy scrunched his face up in disgust and clung to Sammy’s hands, refusing to be put down. “And the water is rising so fast! What if it reached me if I was standing there? Oh no! What if it goes all the way up to the roof? What if nobody saves us?!”

Sammy rolled his eyes at the toon’s exaggeration. This wasn’t a worrying predicament, only an infuriatingly annoying one. At this point, he would even accept if Joey offered to teleport them out of there.

“Calm down, we are not going to drown,” Sammy told him. “The door isn’t fused to the floor. There’s gotta be some water leaking, and the moment somebody notices they’re going to-”

“WHAT THE HELL?”

Wally’s voice reached them right on cue. Bendy’s face lit up in an instant.

“Wally! Wally, we’re trapped! You gotta save us!” He yelled.

“Bendy? What-? How-? Oh, shoot! Are you ok? You aren’t like… half melted or something right?” Wally’s voice became a bit panicked with the possible implications of what he could find on the other side of the door. They could hear him frantically turning the useless knob.

“Thanks for the mental image, Franks…”

“Wait… Sammy?! How many people are in there?!”

“Oh no, just the two of us!” Bendy exclaimed happily, as if he hadn’t been freaking out just a few moments prior. “I’m using him as my personal island!”

“Uh, yeah, you keep doing that buddy…” Wally said. “How did this even happen?”

“Sammy broke the door!” Bendy immediately answered.

“Excuse me?! You’re the genius that thought exploding the sinks was a good idea!”

“He WHAT?” Sammy could tell by the distress in Wally’s voice that he knew who would have to deal with the mess. He would have found it amusing if his shoes weren’t completely submerged.

“Franks, my clothes are soaked and I am locked in here with a three foot tall nightmare incarnated. How about you get us out, and then you play detective?”

Sammy didn’t doubt the silence that followed was Wally trying to come up with a good comeback to not just accept an order from the music director, but in the end he had to acept this wasn’t a good time for that.

“Fine, fine,” he finally said. “You might want to step away from the door! I’ll get you out in a second!”

The door creaked when Wally pushed forcefully against it, but with no results, A groan of frustration was heard before repeated pounding against the wood, which the trapped pair could only guess was Wally either tackling the door or trying to kick it down. Bendy started cheering him on. After the fifth hit, one of the rusty screws of the upper hinge was sent flying while the other hinge got crooked and Sammy swore one of its sides got lodged into the wood frame. From that point on, nothing else even budged.

“... Maybe I won’t get you out in a second…”

“Wow, it’s almost like it’s important to do your job maintaining the building, huh?” Sammy said bitterly.

“Agh, shut up. Look, there’s an axe somewhere in the studio. Joey told me where it was, but I uh, kinda forgot where it is… I gotta go ask him.” Silence. ”Dammit. He’s not going to like this…”

“I would prefer it if you cut the water first. It’s almost up to my knees already.”

“Uh, right, right. First things first, and all that.”

“Hurry up, Wally! I don’t think Sammy has the strength to carry me for much longer!” Bendy called.

“Wha-? You little-!”

“Try not to shove Bendy into the water while I’m gone Sammy!”

Wally’s voice faded along with his hurried steps. Sammy’s shoulders sagged. Great. More waiting. He guessed he could try doing something productive. Maybe see if he could loosen the hinges. Oh wait! He couldn’t. He was carrying some dead weight. And as much as he hated to admit it, said dead weight was indeed putting a strain on his arms. He let himself lower them just a bit to get his blood circulating better, hoping that the demon wouldn’t notice. With his luck that week, of course he did.

“Uh, you did hear what Wally just told ya, right?” Bendy said glancing down and lifting his feet.

“Oh, sorry! It must be that I’m not strong enough to carry you. I could just drop you any minute now.”

Bendy pouted up at him. Sammy retaliated with a glare, but found that just looking at the demon reminded him of the terrible week he had had. He decided that he had enough of the staring contest soon after and looked around for, well, literally anything else he could do. He spotted the towel that was placed for people to dry their hands, which had miraculously been spared of the shower, and he got an idea for a solution for the tiredness of his arms. He crossed the room towards it and held Bendy in front of it.

“Grab it.”

“Huh?” Bendy gave him a confused look.

“Grab the towel.”

“What? Why?”

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Sammy lifted Bendy up so that they were looking eye to eye. “I despise carrying you as much as you despise being carried. So you are gonna take that towel, put it on my shoulder and sit there until we get out of here.”

“Why don’t you grab the towel if it’s your idea?” Bendy’s cocky demeanor started chipping away at Sammy’s last bit of patience, and he was desperately trying to remind himself he was supposed to be the adult. “Why do I gotta do all the work here, huh? How lazy of you! Are you sure you’re fit to be the director of anything?”

“Ok, that’s ENOUGH! Why are you being such a prick?! This whole situation was YOUR fault! Least you could do is cooperate with something as easy as this!”

Bendy flinched at the louder tone of voice, but he wasn’t deterred.

“‘Why are you being such a prick?’” he imitated in a high pitched voice, using his hand to simulate a mouth. However, he did grab the towel and threw it on Sammy’s shoulder, hitting him on the face (not so accidentally) during the fact. Making sure it was placed well enough that his wet shirt wouldn’t come in contact with the little toon, Sammy let him climb on his shoulder and he finally could put his darned arms down. His relief was short lived, though. Now he had a whining demon right besides his ear.

“That’s it,” he said not even paying attention to whatever Bendy was saying. “I’m quitting the moment we get out of this stupid bathroom…”

“Yeah? Well maybe you should,” Bendy suddenly muttered with a scowl. If he hadn’t been so close, Sammy may not have heard it. “That way you wouldn’t break Boris’ stuff.”

Sammy startled so forcefully he had to quickly hold Bendy in place so he wouldn’t fall.

“Break Boris’- What are you even talking about?” he asked frowning.

“Oh, just admit it!” Bendy turned so he was sitting sideways and could look at Sammy better, He poked his face in an accusing manner. “You broke Boris’ favorite banjo! You know how long he had been practicing a new song to show Joey? Like a month! You even know how long a month is? He had even prepared a mini stage in our apartment, and I was gonna do an opening act and Alice was going to be there too!” Bendy threw his arms in the air as if he could convey the grandiosity of their planned little show by waving them around. “It was going to be great, but then you went and ruined our good time! Boris has been so bummed out since Tuesday he won’t even play with me!”

Sammy was taken aback. Not only could he already feel the headache coming from all the yelling in his ear, but he also realized a very important thing. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Is that really why you have been insufferable all week? Because you think I’m the one who did that?”

“I know you did it! Joey said you are the one responsible of all music stuff, so obviously it had to be your fault! If you are innocent, why don’t ya prove it, huh? Oh right, because you can’t! You’re guilty!”

Sammy gave a big sigh, wondering if he was about to waste his breath.

“Tuesday? You mean this tuesday? The same tuesday I had to leave early?” He narrowed his eyes at Bendy and saw the devil’s confidence falter. “You know what happens on tuesdays? There’s a weekly maintenance of all the instruments. You know what else happens on tuesdays? The imbeciles that conduct those checkups often stay and organize a mini ‘act like an idiot’ party after the oh so hard work that task represents for them, even when repeatedly told not to. So more than likely, it was one of them that broke that banjo, and more than likely, if I find out who did it and made these days hell for me because of it, I’m gonna move heaven and earth to make Joey fire them! So there! I hope you are proud, because not only did you waste my time making me clean after your little ‘revenge pranks’ for hours and then make me lose hours of sleep to catch up on work, you also wasted your own time doing something completely worthless. I don’t think you even wanted to put the effort to find out who it was. I bet you just wanted it to be me, because for some goddamn reason you just want to make me quit. So congratulations! You might have just succeeded this time!”

Sammy took a deep breath once his rant was over and noticed at last how Bendy had gone really quite. He wasn’t looking at him and had his head hung low.

“So you really didn’t do it?” came Bendy’s meager question.

Sammy didn’t even dignify that with the obvious response. Instead, he focused on how the water flow from the sinks weakened until stopping altogether, Took Franks long enough. The silence that followed was tense, but Sammy greatly preferred it to having to deal with more tantrums from the toon on his shoulder. Sighing, he moved to the center of the room and settled for impatiently staring impatiently at the door. A chill went up Sammy’s spine, and he cursed his body’s inability to maintain a decent temperature. He would normally find it annoying, but with all that had happened and his head starting to pound, he had ran out of steam. He shifted his weight uncomfortably in place, his feet already feeling numb in his shoes. If he got sick and Joey didn’t give him some kind of compensation, he would make sure he never heard the end of it. Fortunately, he wasn’t needed the next day. Well, he was always needed since his department was filled with idiots, but they could usually handle by themselves whatever there was to do on the weekends, so he’d be able to rest until monday.

“Soooo,” Bendy’s voice broke the silence. It had been nice while it lasted. “Whatcha, uh, whatcha thinking about, Sammy?”

“Oh, nothing. Just wondering whether it’s worth it to write a formal resignation letter or just use the honey on my desk to paste a piece of paper that says ‘I quit’ to Joey’s office door.”

“O-oh…”

Bendy fidgeted in his place, refusing to look at him.

“W-well. You can’t do none of those!”

Sammy raised an eyebrow.

“Really now? And whose stopping me? Because it’s certainly not you.

“Because, uh, because…” Bendy frowned in concentration, before he snapped his fingers. “Because Boris would miss ya! Yeah! You wouldn’t make Boris sad on purpose, would ya?

Wait. Did Bendy actually think he was going to quit? Sammy threatened to quit almost daily. One would think that Bendy would know better. Nonetheless, Sammy decided to play along.

“Boris would miss anyone that worked here even if they had never talked with him. Maybe if I quit the experience will help him to get over it if it happens again, huh?”

Sammy was aware that sounded harsher than he meant it. Boris was one of the few people in the studio that he didn’t feel like yelling at all the time. But he couldn’t help but smirk when his answer had the desired effect. Bendy was trying to come up with another reason of why he shouldn’t quit. Was it immature of him? Absolutely! But he was standing in a flooded bathroom, clothes soaked, a literal little demon on his shoulder and no cigarettes at all. He figured he deserved to have some petty revenge.

“Uh, A-alice, then! Don’t you think it would be bad luck to upset an angel?”

“I already have to deal with a demon on a daily basis. I don’t think I have the luck of any angels on my side. Besides, I think it would only actually affect her if it was Susie who quit instead of me.”

“Wait, that’s it!” Bendy’s tail briefly formed the outline of a lightbulb. “Susie! You can’t leave her here all alone! That would make you the worst boyfriend in the world!”

Sammy huffed.

“We only spend time together on our break time, which we can still do even if I worked elsewhere.” He hummed thoughtfully. “Actually, she also does some extra work in some other places. Maybe she can recommend me to a boss that doesn’t practice black magic as a hobby.”

“Shoot,” Bendy said under his breath. “But- But you can’t leave because you are already Joey’s favorite director! What if you are not the favorite of your new boss, huh? Maybe he’ll hate you!”

“Oh? So I’m Joey’s favorite now?” Sammy asked in an intentionally bored but fake tone, crossing his arms.

“Yeah! He said that, ah, that you were the best music director in the history of forever! That you were better than Boteevan!”

“Beethoven.”

“That guy! And he said that, um, that he was considering giving you a raise! It’ll be such a raise that you will be on the top floor of the studio!”

Sammy… wasn’t sure Bendy understood what a raise was. But he shook it off.

“So, those were Joey’s exact words?”

Bendy nodded enthusiastically, his usual smile a bit strained and his cartoony eyes unable to hide the alarm he was feeling.

“So, if I were to go to Joey and ask him about it, he would tell me the exact same thing?”

Silence.

“...Yes… Maybe…”

Ok, Sammy had had his fun. Now Bendy’s nervousness and guilt about ‘causing’ him to quit was starting to become too obvious and the hand that he was using to keep himself stable was latching a bit too hard to Sammy’s shoulder. He didn’t want to cause the kid a meltdown (which got a very literal meaning with the toons when they were stressed). He was about to give in and tell him the truth when a loud cracking noise caught their attention. They both slowly looked at the door.

“What was that?” Bendy asked warily.

“I don’t know, but it sure didn’t sound like an axe to me.”

Sammy backed away slowly from the door until his back touched the wall opposite to it. They flinched when they heard the sound again, and a crack cut right through the middle of the door. Then again, and splinters were sent flying everywhere. Once more, and the door was split in two. Sammy instinctively grabbed Bendy to shield him from the raining debris that exploded as a result. All the remaining water gushed out into the hallway, but Sammy didn’t take notice, nor did Bendy. There was something far more important that had just appeared. Right in front of the destroyed door was an enormous mass of ink, so tall and wide that it wouldn’t have been able to fit through the doorway if it tried. It vaguely resembled the top half of a human, it’s hunched torso being its support on the floor. Hollowed eyes looked at them with a dead stare. Sammy didn’t even dare to breathe.

“What are you doing standing there? Move aside!” Joey’s order returned them to reality.

The ink monster immediately obeyed, granting the space needed for a very panicked looking Joey to run into the bathroom. His glasses were crooked on his face, he was breathing hard and he was clutching a book with such force that his hands were shaking. The instant he spotted Bendy in Sammy’s hands, his face flooded with relief. On Sammy’s part, he couldn’t take his eyes off the monstruosity that had just appeared before him, so still petrified in his place, he could only ask:

“What the hell is that?!”

“Oh, well Wally said the door was stuck, so I figured we would need a little help.” Joey answered, waving his hand dismisively. “More importantly, Bendy are you ok?!”

Sammy, realizing he was still holding Bendy as far away from the door as possible, cleared his throat and shoved him into Joey’s arms. He didn’t stay to see Joey smothering Bendy in a hug and checking him for any damage. Instead he headed towards his sweet freedom, giant monster outside or not. He still practically hugged the wall to not come close to that thing, though. He got out just in time to see Wally Franks arrive running and lean against the wall to catch his breath, muttering something about Joey being fast for his age. Sammy didn’t spare him a second before pointing to the ink creature and giving him an incredulous look.

“What about that looks like an axe to you, Franks?!” His voice was just a tad more high pitched than he would have liked, but he ignored it for the time being. Wally looked at him to respond, but couldn’t stop himself from snorting.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said you were drenched!”

Sammy’s death glare shut him up.

“R-right, uh, so I told Joey what happened and I thought he was going to yell at me and then tell me where the axe was, but he just got all pale and then he grabbed that book and started running while yelling some weird crap on another language. Next thing you know, big guy over there is growing out of the ground and following him down the stairs! It was crazy!” Wally scratched his head. “Umm, I also think someone fainted when it passed in front of them…”

Sammy let out a sigh and rubbed at his head. The pain that had been receding was now returning tenfold.

“Sammy!” Joey called out to him while he, too, exited the bathroom. “I’m glad everyone’s ok, of course, but I would like to know… how did that happen?” He pointed at the destroyed sinks.

Nope. He was NOT dealing with that right now.

“Oh, I’m sure little prankster there will tell you what he did with plenty of detail. I’m going home early.”

He glared at Joey, daring him to protest. But just looking at the state he was in, his boss nodded.

“Of course, you need to go get some dry clothes. And I’m guessing I won’t see you tomorrow?”

“You guess correctly,” Sammy said as he walked past his boss, not taking his eyes off the ink beast, just in case.

“See you on monday?”

At that Sammy stopped. That had been Bendy asking. He turned around to look at the demon in Joey’s arms, who was looking up at him with pleading eyes. Sammy remained silent for a moment. He guessed he could just ignore him, but he had punished him enough already.

“Yeah, yeah. See you on monday. Unfortunately.”

At that, Bendy visibly relaxed. Sammy rolled his eyes and kept walking.

Monday arrived way faster than Sammy would have liked, but then again, that was nothing new. What was new, however, was that he found his office exceptionally clean. He hadn’t bothered tidying things up before he left on friday, but now the honey was gone from his desk, and there didn’t seem to be a paper out of place or a speck of dust on any surface. A report of what had been done on saturday and a list of future tasks was already waiting for him, too.

But what caught his attention the most was a colorful piece of paper sitting on the middle of his desk. It was a drawing. It depicted him conducting a band, with random musical notes (some of which weren’t even real notes) forming an arch above his head. He stared at it for a long while,slowly processing the fact that this was most likely some sort of apology. He shook his head. He couldn’t waste more time on this. He had work to do. Sammy was going to just put it away into a random drawer, but looking at it again, he changed his mind. He put it in the upper right drawer instead.

[the-nervous-systemm]

Ocean Eyes

A quick one-shot I did, SeroxChidori, my OC. Sorry its long, I don't think theres a way to add a read more on mobile. .

---

Chidori was bored.  Weekends in the UA dorms weren't all that exciting, especially right after tests and in between lesson segments where Aizawa was surprisingly lenient with homework, and since she had finished hers the day before, it left her with not much to do.  Surprisingly, the rest of her friend group, which the rest of the class lovingly dubbed the 'Bakusquad,' weren't getting themselves into any shenanigans that Saturday, nor was anyone else in the mood to do any training with her; she had asked anyone who she normally sparred with, but they were either taking the day off to chill or spending the day with their significant others.

Except her.  

But was Sero actually her significant other?  Neither of them were sure just yet. Yeah, they had gone on two dates and began spending more time together without the rest of their group, but nothing was official.  They hadn't even gotten to confessing any sort of feelings for each other. Maybe that was because they started as close friends, and Chidori had almost gotten herself stuck in what Darcy called the 'bro zone' with him.  

She sighed, pulling her mess of peach-hued goo she called hair off of her shoulder as she laid on her stomach on her bed, blanket pushed sloppily on her floor and fan running on high in her window.  The summer months were coming in at a steady pace, and with her room being on the fifth floor, it felt like August instead of the spring weather it was supposed to be. While her goo-hair being constantly on the cooler side did help with the heat, especially with it covering her body as she never removed any of it, it still wasn't cool enough to stop the humidity.  The best she could do without stripping completely was a loose tank and shorts, sans a bra of course.

Since she didn't have much to do, she decided to catch up on the movie list her brother had given her.  He was two years older than her, a film student, and a movie junkie, and she had promised him that while she was at UA, she would get through his list of classics so they could talk about them when she came home to visit.  This was movie number four since she started that afternoon, and was surprisingly good, though it wasn't quite up her alley. A romance between two childhood friends grown up, it was normally a film she would categorize as too sappy for her taste.  Maybe it was her current predicament in her own love life, or the weather melting her mind, but she really was enjoying it. The current scene was near the end, the two lovers had decided to be adventurous and snuck away to a lake in the middle of the night to skinny dip, the soft moonlight illuminating their bare figures.

Chidori paused her attention as a dangerous thought came to the surface.  

She could be adventurous, too.

Looking at her phone, she noticed the time - almost midnight.  There was no way that their teachers would be awake right now, right?  And the last time anyone snuck out and got caught was last year, but that was Midorya and Bakugou getting into a loud fight.  If they were quiet, everything would be fine. Chidori was sneaky. There was no way they'd get caught.

Throwing her hair-goo back into a lazy ponytail and putting on a pair of flip-flops, she set out, past her doorway and around the corner to the boys side of the floor, and to her crush's door.  Hesitating for a moment, knowing he was probably asleep by now, she knocked, accidentally a little too hard with her nerves in the way.

A moment passed before a groan and a "Yeah?" sleepily came from the other side.

Clutching her chest, her heart beating hard, she replied, "It's Chidori.  Can I come in?"

"U-uh, hold on a sec!" was heard along with frantic rustling, a thud, and a low, almost inaudible and pained, "fuck".  The door then swung open and a frazzled, messy-haired Sero stood in the doorway, face a shade of pink.  His pajamas were shorts and a loose fitting t-shirt, lazily draped over his somewhat lanky figure, and his hair was seemingly stuck in all directions, his normally shaggy look messed up by his pillow no doubt.  He clearly wasn't expecting company, but despite all of this, he was still an adorable mess anyway.

"I was wondering," she began, pulling the front of her shirt anxiously.  He was also one for adventure and doing something stupid, but she wasn't sure if this was something he'd even consider doing.  "Since it's hot out, and no one else will be there, did you want to go swimming? In the pool, I mean." She waited, anticipating a 'no that'd be stupid' from the mom friend of their group.  

Without any hesitation, he answered.  "Yeah, sure." Wait, what? That wasn't the answer she anticipated. "Just let me grab my bathing suit," he continued, turning to his dresser.  

"Wait," she started, taking his wrist before he got too far.  Her eyes darted to the ground as her face began to burn. Her voice became soft as the grip on his wrist hardened with nerves.  "I-I mean… without that." Her eyes rose again to meet his figure in the darkness of his bedroom.

"Oh."  He hadn't turned back to her yet.  "I-I mean, it is really hot out," he began to reason, finally meeting her gaze.  "It may be uncomfortable for our suits to be clinging to us."

Oh my god.  Chidori's stomach twisted in both joy and fear.  Fear of what? Getting caught? Ruining what they already had by making it awkward?  Knowing that she'd have only water between them while they were out there? A little bit of all of them, she concluded.  It was still processing that he even agreed to it in the first place.

There was an almost uncomfortable air lingering around them before either of them spoke or made a move to leave.  When one of them finally did, it was Sero, slipping on a pair of shoes and grabbing his keys. "Ready?"

She nodded.  "Yeah." That was only half true.

The trek out to the school's outdoor pool was silent, save for some small talk about how their day was going, though they both knew that the idea of what was about to happen was all either could think about.  How far were they going to go tonight? If Chidori was to be honest, she wasn't going to shut down any possibilities, even if her rational mind told her to take it slow.

Once they reached the locked gate, both easily scaled it, landing on the other side.  The pool was almost serene, still in the moonlight. The air was surprisingly cool, nipping gently at their skin and making their burning faces a little more tolerable.  Neither wanted to be the first to strip, but both were anxious at their cores.

In an attempt to ease the tension, Chidori took her shoes off and lowered herself to the edge of the pool, dangling her feet into the tepid water.  "The water's not so bad," she spoke, breaking the silence and kicking herself for the cheesy line. Glancing back at Sero, she patted the cement next to her, motioning for him to take a seat beside her.  He sat close enough for their arms to touch just enough to give them shivers, and took her hand, entangling their fingers. They stayed like that for a while, just enjoying each other's company.

Biting her lip, Chidori made the first move, taking her hand from his and hesitantly peeling her tank up and over her head, tossing it to the side and making Sero look away in reflex, his face becoming more red than it already was.  Revealing her body, especially out in the open like that, was thrilling, sparks of excitement dancing across her now bare skin. She took advantage of his gaze being fixed on the other direction, ridding herself of the rest of her clothing and sinking into the cool water, her toes just barely touching the bottom.  Her nerves seemed to wash away knowing that she had done what she was stalling. Leaning on the edge of the concrete, she attempted to get his attention again. "Hey, you just gonna sit there or are you gonna to join a pretty girl in the pool?"

Without a word, Sero quickly stripped as well, almost too fast for Chidori to sneak a peek at him, and jumped into the pool beside her, making a splash.  She was still wrapping her head around the idea that they were out there alone, breaking the rules, and nude.  At this point, there was no use in regretting now, so they may as well start enjoying themselves.

It felt like they were in a movie, one of those cringy romcoms her brother liked so much.  At first, neither could think of much to talk about, but once they stopped trying so hard to not embarrass themselves, they began to have fun, playing around, splashing, talking about anything that came to mind - bad kaiju ideas, disgusting food combos they've tried (and some they liked), and stupid things they did as kids.  

They had been out there for at least an hour before Chidori decided to change the subject on a whim. Just before Sero was about to send another wave of water her way, she spat out, "I really like you!"  

He halted.

She squeezed her eyes shut, arms crossed over her chest.  "Like, really like you.  Like, it feels so cheesy confessing like this, but I like you so much that my heart feels like it'll escape if I get too close to you.  Like all I want to do is talk about you but I know if I do, I'll just embarrass myself doing it. Like despite my heart aching like it does, I just want to spend as much time with you as possible."  She opened her eyes, her gaze following the water up to his, a crooked smile gracing his lips, showing the adorable gap between his two front teeth.

He approached her, closing the space between them, gently placing his hands on her shoulders, and stroking her soft skin underneath his thumbs.  "I know," he started, planting a pack on her forehead. "It's not hard to tell."

What?  She thought she had done such a good job hiding the full extent of her feelings up until then.  Maybe she was easier to read than she thought she was. "O-oh." She nodded, keeping her gaze to his; damn his midnight blue eyes looked gorgeous in the moonlight, and that big, goofy smile of his just made it better.  A shiver ran down her spine at his next words.

"Can I kiss you?"

She swore she could feel her heart pound against her ribcage as she nodded, unable to find the words to just say yes.  Time seemed to freeze as he held her face oh so softly, pressing his lips to hers, their bodies seeming to melt into one another, skin against skin.  Wrapping her arms around his waist, she held him close, caressing her fingertips along his back, tracing the slick muscles, still wet from the pool water.  

Chidori didn't know how long they had been there, wrapped into each other before they finally parted, the taste of his lips and chlorine still lingering on her tongue.  A sigh escaped her as she laid her head on his chest, closing her eyes for just a moment or two as he brought his arms around her to hold her closer. Sero broke the silence, softly asking, "Did… did you maybe want to be my girlfriend?  Make this official or something?"

"Mmmm," she sighed again against him.  "That sounds like a good idea."

"Hey, how long have we been out here?"

How long had they been there?  She honestly wasn't sure, but it was probably much longer than what they intended.  "We should probably head back. shouldn't we?"

The journey back to the dorms was much less awkward as the trip there, with their anxieties left behind them in the water.  They continued their carefree conversations from before, this time hand in hand. Boyfriend.  It was something she started the day without, but came back with.  Boyfriend was new, different. In her past, she hadn't wooed boys, but she somehow managed to wrangle one anyway.

As they saw the dorms come into view, they both couldn't believe that they had gotten away with what they did without notifying a teacher, especially Aizawa, since he seemed to have senses like a hawk.  

"Where were you two?"

Their stomachs dropped.  Maybe they spoke too soon.

[when-betty-met-juggie]

Riverdale Appreciation Week, Day 1: Teen

Betty x Jughead AU: Good night

Prompt: Archie misses a date with Betty and sends Jughead in his place

The doorbell rang, and Betty took a deep breath before opening it.

This is it, she thought. She had dressed up for this, since he had specifically told her to. Maybe he was taking her to someplace fancy, she did not know.

It was one of the rare times when she and Jughead weren’t off sleuthing and she will not miss this opportunity.

Kevin and Veronica had demanded that she give herself a break, since it had become so blatantly obvious that she was close to working herself to death.

She had enlisted their help in preparation for this, and the two had agreed upon a light blue, knee length, spaghetti-strap dress, just enough to be considered “fancy”, but at the same time allowing for some comfortable movement.

But then, her excitement was wiped away when she saw who was waiting for her on the other side of the threshold.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

It was none other than Jughead Jones, wearing his usual dark clothing, complete with his beloved beanie. She saw his eyes roam over her form, and she felt a slight blush creep up her face at his action.

He must’ve realized what he was doing and looked to his side, and cleared his throat to dispel whatever what was going on in that moment.

“Jughead… what… what are you doing here?” The question wasn’t meant to be rude at all; no, she was just merely shocked at the absence of one very particular person.

His eyes darkened for a split second before returning to its normal deep blue shade.

“Archie said there was an emergency he had to go attend to. Something about his musical career, I think.” He said, shrugging in his usual nonchalant way.

“Oh.” Her expression dropped and she was visibly disappointed at the unexpected turn of events.

Seeing her in that state ignited a cold fury within him, and in that moment he wanted nothing more than to go and knock the daylights out of Archie Andrews, even if they were friends now.  

“Well, I’m here, and I’m not going to let all your effort go to waste, so we better get going.” His trademark boyish smirk was present, and she knew that he was trying his best to cheer her up. It was a sweet gesture, and she would not let her dampened mood ruin whatever Juggie had planned for them.

She forced a smile on her face, and slipped her hand through his outstretched one. She was going to enjoy this, not only for her sake but his as well.

Fortunately for them, Archie was considerate enough to lend them his car at least. She slid into the shot gun seat and let Jughead drive them to their destination.

“So, Juggie, where are you taking me?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise now, would it?”

She rolled her eyes playfully at his smirking face and faced the window.

“Fine. If you say so.”

After a while, she noticed that they were travelling in the direction of near the outskirts of the town, almost at the border.

She started to think of places where he could have planned to take her, because he obviously did not follow Archie’s original plan.

She didn’t need to ask further because soon enough, they finally arrived at….

The fair.

She hasn’t been there in ages; the last time she went there was probably in middle school. The fair holds a lot of memories; memories of better times with her family.

Her eyes roamed around the vicinity; there were a few people there even though it was a weekend, and she was grateful for that. Crowded places weren’t her thing.

“Do you wanna go on a ride, or do you wanna eat first? Your choice.”

She looked up at him, eyes shining bright, and hugged him, burying her head in his chest. She could feel his body stiffen at first, but gradually relaxing.

“Thank you for bringing me here, Jug.”

“’S no problem. Fancy restaurants are boring.”

“Come on, let’s go on rides!” She said excitedly, pulling him along with her.

He smiled when she turned, content on seeing her happy and not stressed or frustrated like she had been these past few weeks.

They went on various rides, including bumper cars, roller coasters, haunted houses, and the like. He actually felt queasy after their third roller coaster (in a row!), but he steeled himself for her.

Finally, they had ridden almost all the rides that Betty wanted to go on, so they went to the huge tent with all sorts of food stalls and took a seat in a burger bar.

“Juggie? Are you okay? You look a little green.” She asked him, concern and worry lining her face.

“Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry about me.”

They placed their orders, and a comfortable silence followed.

“I just realized that I wasn’t appropriately dressed for today.” She said, chuckling at herself.

“That’s okay, it doesn’t really matter what you wear. You still had fun, right?”

Their food arrived just as he said that, and the aroma was so intoxicating.

In fact, it was so intoxicating that her stomach let out a growl.

Her eyes widened with shock and across her, Jughead was barely trying to hold in his laughter.

“Is… is that your stomach?”

She flushed red with embarrassment and looked away.

“Hey… look, you can have the basket of fries if you’re that hungry.”

“Are you serious? But you love your fries! This milkshake’s enough.”

He didn’t listen to her and pushed the tray towards her. His hand accidentally brushed hers and she didn’t know if she was the only one who felt some sort of electricity there.

“No, really, take it. You need it more than I do.”

“Okay.”

They both focused on eating after that moment, neither of them wanting to break whatever spell the moment had caught them in.

This continued all the way to the drive back home, even after he had driven to the Andrew’s construction site and both of them got out of the car and walking with her towards her home and lacing their hands together.

She decided to break the silence that had fallen over them.

“Hey, you didn’t have to walk me home.”

“Uh, there’s a killer on the loose. Remember?”

That statement sent her mind into overdrive again. She started thinking about Polly’s whereabouts, Jason’s murder case, and everything else.

“Besides, isn’t this what… you know…people… like us… who have gone through what we’ve gone through do?”

He gently tightened his hold on her hand and she didn’t have to be a genius to detect his nervousness and awkwardness. Even she didn’t know what to do with this… thing between them. She figured that she could put off the “talk” for when everything’s alright again.

She didn’t notice that her pace slowed down a bit and a look of agitation had crossed her face.

“Hey… what is it? I mean, besides everything.” He asked her gently, his voice soothing yet laced with worry and a hint of sarcasm.

No use lying to him. He was Jughead, her partner, her comrade, her friend… and maybe something more.

“Polly wouldn’t have run away if it wasn’t for me, Jug.”

“Betty, your parents were the ones lying to her and keeping her in the dark. You did the right thing telling her the truth.” There he goes again, always managing to calm her down when she was on the brink of exploding. He looked at the passing cars on the road, and then back at her when she started to speak.

“It’s funny, this isn’t the first time Polly’s run away from home. She was nine, she and my mom got into this huge fight and she disappeared for hours. The whole neighborhood was out looking for her.”

“How far did she get?”

That gave her an idea that completely stopped her in her tracks. Of course!!! She knew where her sister was hiding.

“What?” This time, he wasn’t even trying to conceal his anxiousness. He thought that he might’ve said something wrong and hurt her feelings.

On the contrary, what he did was the very opposite of what he was thinking.

He barely had time to react before she put her hands on both sides of his face, leaning in, and planting a soft kiss on his lips.

When she pulled away seconds later, she saw a surprised look which then gave way to a goofy smile etching itself onto his lips. The euphoria of possibly finding Polly and having one of the best dates she’s ever had made her smile too.

“Thank you, for walking me home. Call you later. Goodnight!” With that, she hastily turned her back to him and almost ran to her house despite the slippery road.

Jughead was still left in his spot, smile getting wider with each second passing by. He willed himself to move backwards, still staring at her retreating form until he was sure she got home safely.

When she was out of sight, he finally turned the other way to go back to his home, thoughts completely consumed by a certain gorgeous, bright, blonde girl named Betty Cooper.

[withlovekth]

Don’t Say a Word (Part One)

Part One - Part Two - Part Three

Pairing: Yoongi/Yoonji (Suga) x Reader Genre: Fluff, Smut (future chapter) Contains: crossdressing, drug mention  Word Count: 3.2k

Author’s Note: This all literally stemmed from the extras of the BTS Run episode where Yoongi pulled out a gun on Jimin... I actually got a little impatient so I decided to post this without actually writing out the full story. I was planning on making this a oneshot but oops. There’s going to be multiple parts (probably not a lot though tbh). (((Btw I love Yoongi in that all black outfit from that Eat Jin vid like what an amazing concept hello.)))

A couple years have passed ever since you’ve last saw your best friend, not knowing your high school graduation ceremony was going to be the day he would have suddenly disappeared from your life without a trace. You only have yourself to blame. Maybe if you had asked him about his plans for his future or if you stopped being so caught up in focusing on your music auditions for the band you had so desperately wanted to join after high school, maybe he’d still be around. Maybe you’d know where he was planning to go and what he was planning to do. Maybe he would have still been in your life.

But being mysterious was just always a part of Yoongi’s personality. He always kept to himself, but whenever he opened up, it was always to you and you alone. You knew he would never tell you the complete story, he had no obligation to. What he wanted to keep confidential was entirely up to Yoongi, and you were understanding of that. But sometimes, you wish you had try to pry information out of him to understand him on an even deeper level. Ever since high school, you would always find yourself wondering what would have happened if you ever tried to push the boundaries a little more. Would Yoongi push you away or would he have taken it as a sign of affection?

That’s all in the past now. The Yoongi you once knew is now nowhere to be found, but lives through your memories. You can’t go a day without thinking about him. He’s the first to come to your mind in the morning and the last before you fall asleep. He’s the one you think about when you get a solo and want to tell someone about your great news and he’s the one you want to call out to when you’re afraid and alone. You didn’t know it back then, and you sure definitely know it now, but he was your everything.

He was always there for you no matter what. He was there for you when you got your first period in the middle of gym class during your freshmen year. He walked closely behind you to the bathroom so no one saw your blood stained sweatpants. He was there for you when you were completely head-over-heels over some guy in your English class during sophomore year, taking each other's first kisses as practice at a real relationship. He was there for you when you had your heart broken by your first boyfriend at the beginning of junior year. He was your shoulder to cry on. He was always there for you, but you consciously didn’t do the same for him, especially at a time when he needed you the most.

Weeks before graduation, you were busy with practicing the piece you were going to audition with to become a percussionist in the symphonic band you had been dreaming about joining ever since your parents took you to see them live as a child. You were too focused on yourself and ignored everyone and everything around you, including Yoongi. Yoongi was a little stressed, just as any senior would be before graduation, and he would reach out to you, but you intentionally pushed him aside so you could worry about yourself. You were going to apologize to him after everything was over and hope he would understand.

The week of graduation, you and a couple of your peers, who were also auditioning for other bands, would stay late after school to work with your band director to practice everything you needed to know. It was a Wednesday night, the night before your graduation. You and the other senior band kids, decided to break into the music building after hours, when there was no chance that there would be anyone on campus, just to continue practicing. That night, a concerned Yoongi texted you. You explained to him you were still at school, which made him worry about your mental and physical health. He decided to surprise you by sneaking onto campus to bring you food, but he caught you at the worst possible time. You were having a breakdown over not being able to play two specific measures with a thirty-second note mallet run. At this point, you were beyond exhaustion and frustration. You can’t remember what you said to him, it was all a blur, but in the heat of the moment, it was probably something bad enough to make Yoongi yell at you in rage for the first time ever in your four year long friendship. You’ve done a lot of terrible things throughout the years, but Yoongi was always patient with you and would never raise his voice at you. After that scene, Yoongi left in a hurry and you had no idea what to do. Everyone realized that they were all probably pushing themselves too hard, so you all decided to go home.

The next day at graduation, Yoongi went on as if everything was fine, like the night before had never happened. As you were leaving campus, he approached you and gave you one of his cute, gummy smiles before hugging you and kissing you on the forehead to say goodbye. Maybe you should have seen that as a sign something was going to happen considering he was the mysterious, unpredictable Yoongi.

You didn’t see him at school the day after graduation, where all the graduated students were going around saying their goodbyes and signing each other's yearbooks. You tried to call him, but his number had been disconnected and all of his social media had been deleted. Many people came up to you to ask about Yoongi, but you had no idea what to say. One too many people had teased you about being a good best friend for not knowing what happened to him. At the end of the day, you found yourself all alone in a bathroom stall, sick to your stomach, spewing out all your anxiety, regrets, and mixed emotions into a porcelain bowl.

With Yoongi constantly on your mind, you found it hard to concentrate during rehearsals. When you first got accepted into the symphony five years ago, you were overjoyed. Everything you were working hard for had paid off and your dream had become a reality, but that high died down fast when your guilt began to consume you. Was it really worth losing the most important person in your life to live out your fantasy? Every rehearsal felt like a punishment, but you never stopped reminding yourself you were here to play and that every practice will lead up to an amazing performance, because this was your career. This is what you lived for. This was the path you chose.

The rehearsal today was no different from the others. It always ended with your palms sweaty from unconsciously gripping tightly to your mallet sticks, body hot from the stage lights, and uncertainty about whether or not your nose was going to start leaking blood. You tried to convince yourself that the conditions on the stage were just harsh on you, but your guilty conscious was probably another factor that contributed to your poor physical state.

You went through the motions of putting your music and equipment away, always mindlessly pushing and rolling the large instruments back into their rooms. Everyone who has been in this band with you all knew to move out of your way while you pack up. If they were new, they’re either told to be careful or learn the hard way.

You were pushing the large concert bass drum with your head in the clouds when suddenly you rammed into something. You stopped in your tracks and peaked around the drum to find you had hit someone. “Oh no, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” You walked over to the other side to help the oddly quiet girl pick up some papers that you had knocked from her person.

The girl had a short, black bob hair cut with a front fringe that stopped below her eyebrows. She was wearing a medical mask and avoided eye contact with you as she frantically picked up the scattered papers.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” You reach out to help her up.

She shook her head and took your hand. Her grip felt too familiar and you froze with her hand in yours, accidentally staring at her for too long. It was apparent you were trying to analyze her. She continued to focus on the floor, to not make eye contact. You instantly let go once she got up. You handed her some of papers you picked up. Her height threw you off. She was very slender and stood maybe around 5’9”, about a head taller than you.

“Thank you,” she whispered in a low tone and nodded her head at you before turning around and quickly walking off. It seemed like she was trying to get away from you, but you easily brushed it off as her probably being mortified about the little incident.

You finally finished putting everything away. You said goodbye to your fellow percussionists and made your way out of the building. Out in the front, you notice the girl from earlier standing under a street light. She spotted you and began to briskly walk towards you. Seeing this suspicious stranger approach you should have made you feel like running away, but her aura was too familiar and you were curious about what business she had with you.

She stopped in front of you. This time you were able to get a better look at her. She was wearing a high waisted skirt that ended at the middle of her thin thighs with a striped, mockneck sweater loosely tucked into the waistband. She was also wearing black over the knee socks and a pair of the all black Puma Creepers which made her even taller. Her outfit was super cute, which made you believe she was probably super cute under the medical mask as well. She tilted her head to the side while finally looking into your eyes with an intimidating stare, her eyelashes fluttered with every blink. Her eyeliner as sharp as her glare, you swore she could probably cut you with them.

You felt your heart race. You weren’t so sure if it was because you were anxious about the unknown outcome of this encounter or if it was because you were totally swooning at this cute girl staring you down.

She suddenly reached her hand out to you. You closed your eyes, bracing yourself for a possible slap across the face for hitting her first. Instead, she brushed the hair away from your face and kissed your forehead. You stared at her in shock, your face turning red. You were in a daze, unsure of what to do or what to say, until you started to make out her facial features. You felt your eyes well up with tears as you cover your mouth in disbelief.

“Now, is that how you respond to seeing your best friend after five years?” That familiar voice, you longed to hear again, escaped from a pair of dark red lips that formed into a gummy smile.

You grabbed Yoongi by the wrist and pulled him into the tightest hug while trying hard not to let your tears fall. “You idiot.” That was all you could mutter while trying to stop your voice from sounding shaky.

He stroked your hair with one hand while holding you against him with the other. “I really shouldn’t be doing this right now,” he carefully whispered, making sure anyone passing by couldn’t hear. “But after you literally bumped into me earlier, I couldn’t help but want to see you again.”

Too much was going through your head at one time and all you could do was hysterically cry into his chest. “Where did you go? Why did you leave me?” You managed to ask in between sobs.

You couldn’t believe this was happening. Why has Yoongi suddenly come back into your life? What was he even doing throughout all these years?

“I can’t answer that right now,” he stepped back so he could look you in the eyes. He pulled his medical mask up to cover his face. “Do you have a place where we can talk in private?”

You nodded your head and wiped the tears from your face. “My apartment.” He held onto your hand to comfort you as you lead him to your apartment complex, which was about a twenty minute walk from the concert hall. The two of you walked in silence until you got into your apartment. You let Yoongi walk in before you so you could close the door behind you. You locked the door.

“I’m sorry,” Yoongi immediately apologized before you could even turn around to face him.

You froze, your hand still on the lock. “What happened to you after graduation?” You didn’t want to turn around, you were afraid to look at him.

“We moved away that night.”

You spun around with anger building up inside you. “And you couldn’t tell me? You couldn’t give me a new number or anything?” You tried to keep yourself from yelling at him. Now wasn’t the time to be getting angry.

He had this pained smile on his face. His gaze drifted away from you. “I didn’t think you’d care.” His eyes became bloodshot.

“What the fuck, Yoongi, we’re best friends for crying out loud.” You felt your eyes start to sting. You didn’t want to cry again, but you were ready to explode at any second.

“You were so focused on your auditions, you wouldn’t give me the time of day… Congratulations on getting accepted by the way. You earned it.” He tucked his hair behind his ear and apprehensively waited for your response.

You threw your arms around him, holding him close against you. “I’m so sorry I made you feel that way… I never stopped caring…” You paused to sigh. “And I never stopped thinking about you… Even throughout all these years,” you confessed. You stepped back from him to watch him wipe a tear that slid down his cheek.

“I’m glad…” He took off the medical mask, which was wet with tears. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand in embarrassment.

The two of you began to laugh. You laughed over how easy it was to explain your feelings and over how stupid you were for living with regret for five years when it all could have been prevented. You felt as if a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. Your Yoongi is now back to you and you couldn’t be any more happy. The both of you sat down at a small table, where you usually ate your meals alone, to catch up over cups of instant coffee.

“I know what you’re probably thinking,” Yoongi paused to take a sip of his coffee. He made a slightly disgusted face, sticking his tongue out at how bitter it was. He reached over the table for the container of sugar and began dumping small tea spoons of it into his cup. Without looking up at you he continued, “You’re probably wondering: Why does Yoongi look like a girl? Right?”

You took a sip from your cup, trying to hide the fact you were actually dying to know why. You put your cup down and tucked your hair behind your ear. “I wasn’t thinking too much about it,” you said, trying to be sly.

He mocked your attitude and gesture, tucking his hair behind his ear as well. “I guess you don’t need to know then…”

You dropped the act and reached out for his hand across the table in defeat. “Please tell me. I need to know.”

His shifted in his seat. “I’m actually under cover right now,” he confessed without missing a beat, as if he rehearsed it in his head over and over again. “I’ve been undercover for about a year.”

You were at a loss for words. You tilted your head at him while making the most confused face possible.

“When my family moved away, I joined the police academy. I ended up getting transferred out here about a year ago, after they had made me a detective after four years of police experience.”

“You’ve been back for a long time and you’ve never dropped by to say hi or anything?” You were genuinely hurt.

“I didn’t want to get you involved…”

“Isn’t it too late for that? I mean, you just straight up told me what you’re doing.” You side-eyed him while mindlessly stirring your coffee.

“Right.” He slowly sipped his coffee, trying to buy some time so he could think of what to say next. “It’s not like I didn’t want to see you. I’ve watch all of your performances ever since I got back. Your skills have excelled tremendously since we’ve graduated.” He smiled warmly at you.

You were flattered. You tried to keep a straight face, but forcing yourself from holding back a smile probably just made you look even weirder. “So why are you undercover as a girl? And what are you undercover for?” You changed the subject to draw the attention away from yourself. After thinking about what you had just asked, you paused to give him a suspicious look. “You’re not wearing a wire right now, are you?”

“No,” he rapidly shook his head and put his hands out infront of him in defense. “I came by the concert hall on my own time, but I wore my disguise just in case I get recognized.”

“So why a girl?” You can’t stop focusing on that detail not because you thought it was weird or wrong, but because you couldn’t help but swoon over the fact he’s actually really cute as a girl.

“I’m undercover to investigate one of your flutists. She goes to the private university in the city and she’s apparently the biggest drug lord on campus. Supposedly her boyfriend supplies the drugs and is tied to a bigger organization. We’re trying to get to him so we can get to the leader of this even larger network.”

You slowly nodded your head, taking in all this information. “But a girl?”

He gives you another intimidating look, “Because her boyfriend won’t let men around her.”

“And they choose you because?”

“Because there aren’t too many women in the bureau. Besides, they’re all off doing other work.” He covered his face with the back of his hand again, dropping his tough look. He always did that whenever he was shy or embarrassed. “Everyone else thought I was fitting for this position.” He mumbled under his breath then timidly raised his lipstick stained mug back to his lips.

“They’re not wrong,” you gave him a smug look and winked at him, causing him to spit out his coffee, his face red with embarrassment.

“Y/N!” He snapped while grabbing napkins to wipe up the coffee he sprayed all over the table. “Don’t tease me.”

You gave him a cheesy grin and sighed, “God, I missed you.”

“Don’t you dare say a word about any of this,” he pouted while threatening you. “My life and career is on the line.”

“I promise.”

[threeorphanpilgrimage]

Chapter 68 - Day of the Living

Clementine took a breath as she examined the instrument in her hands, dreading what came next. She tried to force herself to act, but couldn't summon the will to go through with it.

"Clem?" asked Sarah. "Are you—"

"I'm going to," assured Clem. "It's just… you have such beautiful hair."

"It's fine Clem," assured Sarah. "I don't mind."

"I mind." Clem sighed as she carefully took hold of Sarah's long, dark hair. "I hate this almost as much as I hate cutting my own hair."

"You know I would cut your hair if you just asked."

"You cut it too short," accused Clem as she carefully angled her scissors. "I barely have any hair left when you do it."

"You're the one who told me it's important to keep our hair short," reminded Sarah. "And if there are as many lurkers on the other side of the river as Devlin says there are, we need to be ready for anything."

"Yeah… we do." Clem sighed and made her first of what would be many cuts. She found each and every one of them painful, and it was all made worse that Sarah had asked for her hair to be cut as short as possible. Clem pleaded with her to settle on cutting it just short enough to tie back but she refused, and now she was sitting there calmly as if nothing was happening. After dozens of traumatic snips, Clem found the terrible task finished when she was unable to remove any more hair.

"You're done?" asked Sarah.

"Yeah," said Clem with a sigh. "It's done."

Sarah stood up and hurried into the bathroom while Clem looked down at the piles of black hair at her feet. She moved the chair and started shoveling it all into the garbage back they had set on the ground. Tying off the bag, Clem watched as Sarah returned from the bathroom.

"I'm sorry," said Clem immediately.

"For what?" asked Sarah.

"For cutting it so short."

"I told you to."

"It really doesn't bother you?" asked a surprised Clem. "I mean, you kind of look like a boy now."

"I really don't care," assured Sarah. "I was just making sure it was short enough that it couldn't get grabbed." Sarah walked over to Clem and picked up the bag she tied. "I'll toss this out and check on Patty real quick, make sure her and Devlin don't need anything."

"I'll go get breakfast." Clem headed for the closet and eyed their loose collection of cans scattered across the mostly empty shelves. It was a hard choice, but she eventually settled on artichoke hearts and their final can of beets as the least disgusting foods they had left. Sarah went to collect Omid while Clem cracked the cans open.

The beets were okay, but the artichokes tasted like wet mush mixed with too much salt. Omid didn't like either one, and made it very clear he didn't as well. Some well-executed maneuvers on Sarah's part did manage to get him to swallow a few tiny bites of beets, but not a bit more. Neither of them wanted to even try to feed him the artichokes, so they let him skip to dessert and eat his ice cream.

"Maybe we could borrow a can of fruit from Sin and Jet, or Anthony," suggested Sarah as she fed Omid a tiny piece of ice cream. "They would understand, right?"

"Yeah, I think so…" An uncomfortable hush fell between the two girls as they watched Omid eat. The boy finished his piece and immediately opened his mouth for another.

"Why don't you go get ready? I'll finish feeding him," said Sarah.

"Okay." Clem headed into the bathroom to do her business and brush her teeth. Moving to the mirror, Clem was disappointed her hair was as short as it was, but was grateful she still had some of it. She picked up a worn brown elastic tie and used it to pull her hair into a tight bun. Clem adjusted the bracelet on her wrist, admiring the multi-colored beads briefly before grabbing her hat.

Slipping the cap on her head, Clem couldn't help staring at the bruise on her right arm. It and others on her right leg had formed the morning after she had fallen in the river. They were still sore, but the sight of the blackened marks running along the right side of her body pained Clem more than the bruises themselves. The day before yesterday she had fallen off a bridge, and now she was going to try to do something far more dangerous.

"Clem?" There were a couple of gentle knocks at the door. Pulling it open, Clem found Sarah standing outside. "Are you okay?"

Looking at Sarah, it was obvious she had already noticed Clem's distress, approaching her friend without a word. Clem couldn't think of anything to say as Sarah stared anxiously at her, so she didn't say anything; she threw her hands around Sarah instead.

"I'm scared," Clem whispered into Sarah's ear.

"Me too," Sarah whispered back as she embraced Clem. "I think we have a good plan, but—"

"Something could go wrong," said Clem.

"I was just going to say, we've never tried something like this before. But yeah, something could go wrong."

"Something always goes wrong…"

"Not always."

"Name a time we did something and nothing went wrong."

"Well… the first time Patty helped us and we got all that food from Titusville. Everything went as planned and we got a lot of food."

"Yeah, but this a lot different."

"I know… but we've got a lot more help this time," reasoned Sarah. "We haven't had this many people since… back at the cabin."

"I guess that's true," said Clem, not finding much comfort in that fact. "I'm also worried about what Devlin said, about the power plant."

"Yeah, it worries me too."

"Does radiation really make your hair fall out?"

"I don't know. I wanted to look it up, but our encyclopedias were ruined in the flood. But I was more worried about the other part, about getting sick and dying."

"It's… it's been like two weeks," reasoned Clem as she tightened her grip on Sarah. "If there was something wrong, we would have noticed by now, right? I mean, how long does it take for radiation to make you sick?"

"I don't know," repeated Sarah. "Again, I wanted to look that up, but we don't have the 'R' encyclopedia anymore."

"I… I love you Sarah," professed Clem, suddenly fearful she wouldn't get a chance to say that again.

"I love you too Clementine." Clem turned her head and gently kissed Sarah's cheek, and found herself a little disappointed when Sarah didn't return the gesture.

"Mah-bah!" Looking past Sarah, Clem spotted Omid standing in the door.

"He's still hungry," realized Clementine.

"I'll get his stuff together and take him over to the Sunseeker," said Sarah as she pulled away from Clem. "We were going to keep him there anyway since Patty says it's the only vehicle that hasn't stalled on us."

"Speaking of which, I should bring her what's left of breakfast." Clem left Sarah to deal with Omid while she grabbed the beet and artichoke cans off the table. Looking through the windshield, she could see Patty handing out something to Devlin while Sin, Jet, and Anthony looked on. Stepping outside, she could see Devlin was holding a hand grenade.

"Where did you get these again?" he asked.

"I found them after I left Miami for good," explained Patty as she shut the lid on a green ammo box. "They were in a drainage pipe near a crashed truck. Not sure if they landed there or if someone stashed them for later, but it was the only thing left of value I could find."

"And there were only three left in the box?" asked Sin as he looked at the grenade he was holding.

"No, I used up the others. I'd toss them at old houses; the explosion would set them on fire while the noise would drag walkers in from all over. They'd walk right in and get burnt to a crisp, then I could loot the rest of the area knowing it was mostly clear. I was always hoping I'd just stumble upon another box of them eventually. I don't suppose you have any?"

"Nah, we used up most of our ordnance on the bridges, and the rest not long after that," said Devlin as he clipped the grenade to his belt. "If we get cornered, these will be good for drawing the infected off, but I really hope we don't need them. Y'all remember what I told you about using these things, right?"

"Yeah," said Jet while the others merely nodded. Yesterday, Devlin had explained to each of them how to use a grenade. Holding the handle on a grenade prevents it from exploding after pulling the pin, but once the handle is released they only had five seconds before it blew up. Clem was glad the others were handling the grenades; just looking at them reminded her of the time she accidentally crossed paths with one Patty had thrown in Titusville.

"All right, let's go over the plan one more—"

"We've been over it and over it," interrupted Anthony. "We must have talked about it a dozen times the other day, everything we needed to get from your fancy citadel is already in our vehicles, and we all know what we're supposed to do, so I say we just do it already."

"Yeah, I'm with Anthony," said Patty. "Let's roll."

Devlin looked over the rest of the group and saw a silent agreement in the faces of all of them. Clem herself was anxious to proceed, finding the mere act of planning yesterday stressful enough without reviewing it yet again.

"All right then." Devlin shrugged, then turned to look at the citadel's gate. "If this trick for slipping past the dead you told me about works, then—"

"It does," confirmed Sin. "It doesn't make sense, but it works."

"I hope so, because there's too many over too far an area to ever try walking the food back, so we're gonna need every advantage we can get if we're actually going to clear them out." Devlin looked out at the gate and took a breath. "I always assumed the Bible was talking about people who were already long gone when it said the dead would rise, not the recently deceased. I never thought this is what the end of the world would look like."

"I always assumed it would be a slow collapse scenario brought on by mismanaged resources and short-sighted fools blocking significant progress for quick gains," said Sin. "That or a solar storm."

"Solar storm?" repeated Patty.

"Activity on the sun results in the release of electromagnetism. A strong enough electromagnetic field colliding with the Earth would destroy our satellites, and wipe out most of the world's power grid along with just about everything plugged into it at the time."

"Are… are you serious?" asked Anthony.

"Am I ever not?" answered Sin.

"But that's the kind of thing that won't happen for a billion years, right?" asked Clem.

"Actually, the planet was struck by a major solar storm back in eighteen, fifty-nine. It was so intense that auroras could be seen in the sky from almost anywhere on the planet, and telegraph equipment shot out sparks big enough to start fires."

"Jesus…" said Devlin.

"Glad that happened over a hundred years ago and not now," said Jet.

"There was another solar storm of similar strength a few years before our current apocalypse," informed Sin. "It narrowly missed the Earth, but had it hit us… well actually a worldwide blackout may have better prepared us for what's happening now. At the very least it would have given us a few years to adjust to life without a functional electrical infrastructure, convince us to pursue more self-sufficient alternatives."

"Your old man always this optimistic?" Devlin asked Jet.

"He's my granddad," he answered. "And yeah, he's always like this. He was talking about the end of the world before it happened."

"It's not the end of the world," everyone turned to Sarah as she stepped out of the Brave. She was carrying Omid in her arms and had a backpack slung over her shoulder. "At least not yet."

"Whoa, what happened to your hair?" asked Anthony.

"Clem cut it, so it's safer," explained Sarah.

"Why do you care?" asked Patty.

"I just thought it looked better before," noted Anthony.

"I told you," said Clem.

"And I told you I don't care." As Sarah moved in closer, Clem could see Omid was still upset. She wanted to comfort him, only to remember she was still holding Patty's breakfast in each hand.

"Here," said Clem as she finally handed the beets and artichokes off to the woman.

"Jeez, I was kind of hoping for something a little better for our big day," said Patty as she studied the labels.

"Those are probably the best ones we have left," informed Clem, wishing those weren't the best canned foods they had left.

"Omid wouldn't even eat most it," said Sarah as she cradled the boy. "I was kind of hoping we could borrow a can of fruit from one of you, just so he'd eat something today."

"I'm fresh out," reported Anthony. "Down to just vegetables now."

"I'm sorry," said Sin. "But we don't have any fruit either."

"We've still got a can of corn through," said Jet. "Will he eat that?"

"Yeah, he's had corn before," said Sarah.

"Hey OJ," said Clementine as she leaned in close to the boy. "You like corn right?"

"It might not be the end of the world yet, but it sure feels like it," said Anthony. "I remember not long after this started, how I missed my favorite foods and hated eating out of cans. Nowadays, I'd settle for more cans of sugary mush than salted mush. At this rate, I'll probably be happy just to have salty mush in a few months."

"Kem-men," said OJ with a smile as he looked right at Clementine.

"Yeah, really, it feels like we're all just living on borrowed time," noted a glum Patty. "God knows our vehicles certainly are."

"Ah-sah." Omid started eyeing the sky with a sense of awe.

"Devlin," said Sin. "Did you every hear any news about the rest of the world?"

"I remember hearing news reports of their being signs of the outbreak in England, France, and China before communications went to shit. There were probably some other places mentioned too but I can't remember anymore."

Clem watched with great curiously as Omid start grasping at the air above him. She wasn't sure what he was trying to touch until she looked up and spotted a single puffy cloud hanging in the otherwise clear sky. She couldn't stop herself from smiling as she realized Omid was trying to grab the cloud.

"You said China?" asked Sin.

"Yeah, you got friend's there or something?"

"Not there, but back in Thailand," said Sin, a hint of sadness in his voice. "With news being so scarce, I was holding out hope that maybe some parts of the world had been spared this madness."

"You like being outside, don't you?" asked Clem in a whisper.

"Ow-sah…" awed Omid, revealing his two front teeth.

"We didn't hear much else after that, but what we did hear sounded like whatever this is, it's global," said Devlin.

"There's nowhere to go," concluded a dismayed Jet. "And nothing is ever going to change."

"Don't say that," snapped Clem in a harsh tone as she turned to Jet. "Things will change. That's why we spent all day yesterday planning, and that's what we're gonna do today; change things for the better."

Everyone looked at Clementine for a second, surprised by her declaration.

"Well you heard her," said Devlin. "Let's make this happen."

"Jai yen yen." Everyone looked at Sin in confusion.

"It means stay frosty," translated Jet. "At least I think it does."

"Semper paratus," added Devlin with a smirk.

"Isn't that the Marines' motto?" asked Anthony.

"That's semper fi, the Coast Guard's is semper paratus; always ready. After sitting on my ass and going stir crazy for a couple of months, I think I'm ready for anything."

"Be good for Sarah," whispered Clem before leaning in to kiss Omid on the forehead. "Love you."

"Muh-boo," repeated Omid while trying to reach out to Clem before being carried away by Sarah. She joined Sin and Jet as they all filed into the Sunseeker while Devlin followed Anthony to his truck.

"You ready partner?" asked Patty.

"I hope so." Clem followed Patty back into the Brave and sat down beside the woman as she tried to start the engine.

"Come on dammit, don't make me get out," grumbled Patty as the engine produced only an annoying churning sound.

"It keeps doing that," noted a concerned Clem. "Do you know why?"

"Could be one of a million things. Even if I had time to check, I probably wouldn't have the supplies on hand to fix it," groaned Patty as she turned the key again. "Devlin said they had hoarded stuff for their vehicles at this shopping center, maybe I can give it the tune-up it needs there."

"The shower isn't working that good either," added Clem. "The water only comes out a little at a time, like—"

"The sink," finished Patty as she tried the key a third time. "Yeah, I noticed that."

"Do you think you can fix it?"

"Honestly? Probably not. Just because it's attached to a vehicle doesn't change the fact it's plumbing, and I don't really know anything about that."

Clem sighed. "I guess it's not a big deal. Sarah says we're only supposed to use a little water anyway, so we don't waste it. But—"

"It was great having long showers while it lasted."

"Maybe we can use the other RV's shower sometimes?" suggested Clem.

"It doesn't have one," said Patty. "Just a toilet and a sink."

"And a shower rod they took to hang clothes on," recalled Clem. "But no actual shower."

Patty sighed, then tried the key again, finally starting to engine much to her and Clem's relief. "At least this thing is still working for now, along with the hot water heater."

"And the toilet," added Clem with a grimace.

Patty put the Brave into drive and Clem watched as they pulled past the citadel's gate. Heading north, they passed by more empty buildings, looted stores, and crowded parking lots overflowing with abandoned cars. Clem could also see modest houses complete with humble backyards closed in by a simple wooden fence running alongside the road. Clem would say they reminded her of her old house in Georgia, but she could hardly remember what it looked anymore.

They weren't on the road long before Patty turned the Brave onto a bridge leading over the river. This wasn't the same bridge Clem had fallen off the day before, but it was missing a section in the middle just like that one. The destroyed bridges was a safety measure according to Devlin, allowing them to quarantine the more walker heavy east section of town from its west. But since they did that, the east side had been gradually cleared out while the west had been swarmed by the herd from Oklahoma City. Unfortunately, what they wanted was west of the river.

"All right," said Patty as she put the Brave in park. "Let's go partner."

Patty loaded her shotgun while Clem equipped her pistol and her spare magazines, then collected their raincoats, respirators, binoculars, radios and backpacks. Clem grabbed her tomahawk while Patty strapped a machete to her back. Removing the sheath, Clem examined the weapon's razor sharp edges. She had spent over half an hour carefully sharpening both the axe and knife-edge yesterday, as well as cleaning her pistol in preparation for today.

Clem adjusted her hat while Patty finished tying off her scarf, then the pair turned to each other. There were no words between them, just a quiet look of understanding before they barged outside. It was warmer today, but still cold enough to make Clem shiver. Briefly eyeing the edge of the bridge, Clem felt a chill shoot up her spine as her thoughts suddenly shifted to the icy river churning below, and the bruises on her right side felt a little sorer as she scooted away from the edge.

Scanning the area for threats, Clem found little beyond a mostly empty four lane road that stopped abruptly in the middle. Eyeing a lone derelict car off to the side, Patty raised her gun while Clem approached it. She banged her tomahawk against the side of the vehicle, then checked inside when that failed to produce any results. The front was empty, as was the back and the trunk, likely picked clean months ago.

After that the pair moved towards the end of the bridge. The middle of the road looked as if something had forcibly ripped it away in a flash. If not for some scorch marks near the edge of the concrete, Clem never would suspect explosives were used to do this. The rest of the road past the break was empty, and an abundance of dead trees on both sides of it blocked her view on what lay past the river. According to Devlin, this road led right to the shopping center they used as a base, but if it was out there, Clem couldn't see any clues to its existence.

"Everyone ready?" Clem heard Sarah ask over the radio.

"Me and military man are in place," reported Anthony.

"Give us a minute," said Clem as she and Patty removed their backpacks. Clem started pulling glass bottles out of her bag while Patty unpacked a huge bundle of fireworks. The pair quickly set a rocket in each bottle until they had a row of six set up and ready to be fired.

"All right Sarah, count us down." Patty clipped the radio to her belt and removed a pair of lighters from her pocket, one of which she gave to Clem.

"Okay, get ready." Sarah's words prompted Clem to bend down and position the lighter right by the nearest rocket fuse. "Three, two, one!" Clem flicked the lighter and the fuse almost instantly sparked to life. She hurried to the next rocket, then the third one. After lighting those, she looked to her right and spotted Patty lighting her final rocket, after which the duo took several steps back and waited.

The first pair of rockets took off screaming into the sky and exploded into bursts of smoke, with any colorful lights being invisible against the morning sky. Clem could hear other fireworks in the distance, both to the north and south. The next pair of rockets streaked into the sky followed immediately after by the final set, each of their detonations echoed by two other sets of explosions in the distance. The loud bangs sent some stray birds flying from the trees on the other side of the river, and then there was silence.

"Now we wait and see if that was loud enough for them." Patty reached for her binoculars and Clem did the same. They both scanned the horizon for signs of walkers, but only found only an empty bridge. "We should have taken a bunch of those Saturn missile things instead of bottle rockets."

"A bunch of what?" asked Clem.

"You know, those boxes full of tiny red plastic missiles that make horrible screeching noises when they go off."

"Oh, those… I hate those."

"Yeah, me too, but in retrospect, we should have packed a bunch of them instead of bottle rockets, they make tons of noise and eat up less space. Hell, why didn't we at least pack more bottle rockets?"

"We were going to, but we had to move all your stuff into the Brave, so we could only take as many rockets as we could fit in the closet."

"That's right," recalled Patty with a sigh. "We should have just found another vehicle instead of me living with you and Sarah."

"You don't like staying with us?"

"What? No, I love being around you two and Omid, it makes everything feel less insane, almost normal."

"We like being with you too," assured Clem.

"Thanks, I… I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me before," professed Patty. "Still, we could have found a truck to use for hauling things, and I could have still slept in the RV at night, or—"

"I see them," announced Clem.

"Yeah, me too, on the right side of the bridge."

Clem watched as a rotten corpse stumbled into view on the horizon.

"Is… is that it?" asked Clem.

"Dammit, maybe the rockets weren't loud enough," mumbled Patty.

"Or maybe there's just not that many walkers left," reasoned Clem as she watched the lone walker stumble across the broken bridge. "Devlin did say it's been a long time since he went over there."

"Yeah, but he also said… oh shit."

Clem watched as dozens of walkers sprung into view, like an infestation of grotesque weeds growing out of the horizon. More kept pouring into sight until there was an entire mob of them canvassing the bridge. Clem felt a familiar sense of dread growing in the pit of her stomach as they shambled relentlessly forward, the dull roar of their uneven moans filling the air.

"Jesus, that's a lot of them."

Clem instinctively took a step backwards as the walkers lurched forward, and she found herself unable to breathe until the first walker plummeted off the bridge. It hit the water with a huge splash, which made Clem flinch as her bruises suddenly felt sorer than they did a moment ago. That walker was followed by a dozen more, all diving into the river and creating a series of loud splashes to accompany the non-stop moaning. Some of them thrashed about in the water, others seemed to give up and start floating downstream, while some of them simply didn't come up after falling beneath the water.

"It seems to be working," reported Sin over the radio.

"Seems too?" asked Patty.

"They're coming, I'm just not sure when they're going to stop," he said.

"Like I said, there's hundreds, and that's at the very least," added Devlin.

"And he said it could be as many as thousands," Patty mumbled to herself as she watched the dead pour off the edge of the broken bridge, almost like a waterfall of festering, moaning meat. Clem found herself growing uneasy as the walkers continued to march into view over the horizon without end, and she started to wonder if the next part of their plan was really going to work.

It dawned on Clem there could be walkers on this side of the river as well, and she spun around in a flash expecting at least a dozen of them shambling up to meet her. But there wasn't, and she didn't see any in the distance, only the Brave blocking her view. Walking past it, Clem saw nothing moving at the intersection or beyond it. Devlin had said he hadn't seen any walkers on this side of the river in a long time, but Clem kept searching, just in case.

"Clem, take a look at this." Patty's words sent Clem rushing back to the woman's side. She had moved from watching walkers rushing over the bridge to standing by the edge and looking out north over the river. Clem inched up to the edge, then took a few steps back. "In the distance, I think I can see the ones from Anthony and Devlin's bridge."

Raising her binoculars, Clem spotted another broken bridge north on the river, and just south of it in the water was an uneven trail of what she could only assume were walkers floating downstream. It was hard to tell from this distance, the bodies appearing to be little more than black dots even with the binoculars, but there was no doubt they were floating towards their position, all the while more walkers tumbled off the bridge to join them.

"Devlin, why did you say your people never tried anything like this while you were waiting here?" asked a nervous Patty.

"A lot of reasons," he said. "For one, we didn't like the idea of clogging up the river with these damn things and sending them downstream to be someone else's problem, or polluting our best water supply with rotten meat. But according to you people, there isn't anyone left downriver, and I know there's no one left here needing water anymore but us."

"They seem to be piling up on the ones who sink," noted Sin.

"Yeah, we can see that too." Patty's words prompted Clem to look back to their bridge. Following a couple of walkers as they toppled off the edge, she noticed one of them didn't immediately sink to the bottom. The top of their feet briefly remaining above the surface of the river before falling forward into the water and beginning their trip downstream.

"That's another reason, these things don't drown, so the ones who sink just sit there, until someone is unlucky enough to walk past one of them," said Devlin. "After a nasty drought during the first summer caused the river to shrink, we had people go out to get water one morning, and found out the hard way that some of the infected who fell off the bridge were still waiting there, like fucking land mines that crawled out of the water."

Clem found herself unnerved by what Devlin had just said. When she fell into the river, her only thoughts were of trying not to drown, but seeing the dead pour into the water by the dozens forced her to think about how much more danger she could have been in. Just one of her feet brushing past a walker lying on the river bed could have killed her before she even knew it.

"Mostly, we just didn't have the manpower to deal with what's left," said Devlin. "I really hope this smell trick of yours works as well as you say it does. Even with all the infected we're drawing off now, there's going to be a plenty left waiting on the other side."

"Yeah, we don't doubt it."

Clem watched as the stream of dead continued to flow forward, not unlike the river they were throwing themselves into. Only after several minutes did the mob of dead thin out to just a few loose walkers wandering forward, prompting the group to coordinate another launch of rockets. More walkers came spilling forward in response, less densely packed this time, but still in great numbers as they plunged into the water a few at a time.

Clem divided her time between watching the walkers push forward over their side of the bridge and checking over her shoulder to make sure there weren't any approaching her side of the bridge. It was odd to her seeing walkers by the dozens on one side and empty roads on the other, as if the city had been split into two most common sights Clem had come to expect these days; death or nothingness.

Turning away from the road, Clem saw the walkers were already starting to wane, but only slightly as more kept arriving to replace their fallen kin. After several uneventful minutes of waiting for them to end, Patty fetched a deck of cards from the Brave and sat down to play a few hands of poker with Clem. Clem was grateful to spend some time with Patty, she just wished she wasn't so bad at poker.

"I'll take... three." Clem tossed some cards onto the pile and grabbed new ones from the top of the deck.

"Try not to hesitate," instructed Patty.

"Huh?"

"The way you paused between saying I'll and three cards. It gives away you're not sure about what you're doing, which makes me think you're weighing a couple of options, like you've got two pairs and you were trying to decide between keeping them or losing one to get more cards."

Clem frowned as Patty said that. "Is it that obvious?"

"It was an educated guess," said Patty with a shrug as she tossed out two cards before grabbing more from the deck. "When you get rid of three cards, it's usually because you've got a pair, and since you were thinking about it, I figured you might be deciding between trying for a full house on your next draw, or losing one pair hoping to turn the other into three or four of a kind."

"Well I didn't get either." Clem dropped her cards on the concrete.

"Don't just fold, you can still bluff with a bad hand."

"You always know," argued a defeated Clem.

"Not always, sometimes I bluff about knowing when you're bluffing."

Clem groaned as Patty smirked at her. "How do you do it?"

"I guess I got a lot of practice bickering with my dad. He was always riding my ass about one thing or another, which meant I had to get better at making excuses and looking innocent just to keep him at bay."

"My parents were really nice to me," said Clem as she found herself looking at another terrible hand. "I'll never learn to bluff."

"That's not true, you had me going when I first met you. I never thought for a second you and Sarah were alone in that old RV with a baby."

"That was before I knew you. I guess—"

"It's easier to lie to people who aren't your friend," concluded Patty.

"Yeah, it is…" Clem found her mind drifting after saying that. "How do you lie to me? I mean, you think I'm your friend, right?"

"Of course," said Patty with a smile. "And for you, it's not so much lying as just pretending like nothing is bothering me, like I don't care. I just kind of let the game happen and try to think about something else."

"Like what?"

"Just, boring crap that needs doing. A minute ago when we were playing, I was making a list in my head of stuff we'd need to give the Brave a proper tune-up. It keeps the game kind of distant so I don't look excited if I get a good hand. You could also wear sunglasses."

"Sunglasses?"

"Hide your eyes, make it harder for people to see what you're thinking."

"But you don't wear sunglasses."

"I used to when I was a little older than you," said Patty with a smile.

"All right, they're down to the single digits again," said Devlin. "I'm thinking we should do one more volley then move on to phase two."

"I agree," added Sin.

"Got it." The pair prepared another row of rockets, using up most of their remaining supply. Sarah counted down and they lit the fuses. Soon after another crowd of walkers arrived at the broken bridge. After briefly viewing more of them plummet to their doom, the pair resumed their game.

Clem tried Patty's technique of occupying her mind. She diverted her attention between watching for walkers approaching from their side while thinking about things they needed to be on the look out for. Most of their clothes were showing a lot of wear and tear, Omid was already beginning to outgrown his, and they had been so pre-occupied looking for food lately they hadn't time to look for things like shampoo, soap, or toothpaste.

As they played, Clem noticed she was starting to do better, winning a couple of hands in a row, but noticing that brought her attention back to game itself and she immediately returned to her losing streak. She tried distracting herself again, but between the cold and the distant moaning, she was finding it hard to concentrate on anything anymore, especially a game she wasn't particularly good at.

"I fold," she said.

"You—"

"I know, could bluff, but I think I'm tired of poker," admitted Clem as she tossed her hand onto the pile.

"Yeah, that's probably enough for today." Patty collected the cards and stuffed them into her pocket. "It looks like that's about it for the walkers, at least for now."

Clem looked over to the other side of the bridge, spotting only a couple of lone corpses idly stumbling across it. Moving closer to the edge, Clem saw there was now a long trail of floating bodies that ran the length of the river. There had to be at least a hundred of them, and looking to her right she saw the trail continued all the way from their bridge to the next one north of here, forming a river of dead inside the rest of the river.

Watching another walker fall off the bridge, Clem was surprised it hit not water, but a small island made of corpses. It was tiny, and its most recent visitor immediately slid off the twisted stack of mangled bodies and into the water, but just that there had been enough dead walkers to make a small land mass was disturbing in itself.

So were the many bodies drifting by as Clem got a closer look at them. There had been so many before she had never focused on a single one, but studying them now she could see many of them had snapped legs, broken arms, and necks that had been twisted into unnatural positions. Their badly mangled bodies should have a provided her with some small comfort, reassuring Clem they probably couldn't attack even if they drifted back onto land, but instead it just felt like a series of painful reminders of the fate she narrowly avoided after her own unfortunate plummet.

"I think we've lured about as many as we can off a cliff," reported Patty over the radio. "Everyone ready to move on to the next part?"

"Been ready for about an hour now," asserted Anthony.

"We've only been out here for an hour," reminded Patty.

"Exactly," said Anthony. "I'll take anything to break up all this sitting and watching."

"We ran out of walkers a few minutes ago," reported Sarah.

"We've scouted ahead to the rendezvous point on the other side of the river," added Sin. "It definitely looks like we can use it as a starting point to clear a path to the shopping center."

"We already killed the ones nearby, so as long as we're quiet it should give us time to get ready," said Sarah.

"Right, we'll be there in a minute." As Patty put her radio away, Clem spotted something approaching from the road.

"Look." Clem pointed at a walker clumsy lurching across the intersection and towards the bridge. It looked pitiful even for a walker, its clothes nearly rotted off its body and its face so deformed that Clem couldn't be sure if it was a man or a woman. Whatever it was, it moved very slowly, dragging one of its ankles as it walked. Clem briefly looked past it, expecting more following it, but it was alone.

"I'll take care of—"

"No." Clem removed her tomahawk from her shoulder. "I'll do it."

"Are you sure? I—"

"We're gonna have to kill a lot of walkers today, so I want to make sure I'm ready for it."

"All right, I'll be right behind you." Clem could feel Patty walking beside her, and heard the woman removing her machete from its sheath. Clem took that as her cue to unsheathe her tomahawk, taking a moment to admire its fine edge before adjusting her grip on it.

Despite having done this countless times before, including a few times as she and Patty had explored the outskirts of Tulsa, Clem felt a little nervous as she stepped forward to intercept the lone walker. She had her raincoat, Patty was right behind her, and this walker looked weaker and slower than most, and yet there was still a lingering fear slowly moving up her spine as she approached it, that constant reminder that a single mistake could kill her.

As it moved into arm's reach, Clem swung her tomahawk, slicing the rotting tendons just above the sorry corpse's broken ankle, causing it to collapse onto its side. Clem flipped the weapon over in her hand, then stepped forward to finish off her prey. The walker lay there, thrashing about hopelessly, snapping its deformed jaw full of broken teeth up until the moment Clem brought her tomahawk down on its skull. There was a loud cracking sound, followed by silence.

"You okay?" asked Patty as she moved beside Clem. "You looked kinda nervous."

"Is it that obvious?" asked Clem as she pried her tomahawk free.

"What's got you worried? It looks like you handled that one just fine."

"That one," repeated Clem. "Here's hoping I can do it a few hundred, or thousand more times."

Clem took one last look at the walker she killed, noticing it had long, dark hair. Their hair was stringy and filthy now, but whoever this was probably had beautiful hair before they died.

The pair returned to the Brave and Patty started driving them south. Clem took a moment to clean off her tomahawk, then proceeded to double check all their equipment. Their guns were fully loaded, the radios equipped with fresh batteries, and their raincoats still freshly coated in the stench of the dead from the preparations they made yesterday. Everything she could check was ready and in working order, yet Clem still felt anxious.

"Where you'd say we should turn off?" Clem heard Patty ask the radio.

"The first exit on the right," answered Jet. "Turn right at the end of the ramp and we'll be at the first intersection past it."

"And be careful," warned Devlin. "Most of the infected are a little further north from this position, and we probably drew a lot away from the area, but there could still be some nearby. The ones stuck in buildings probably didn't find their way out when they heard those bottle rockets."

"Don't worry, I'm keeping an eye out for them," reported Jet.

"And we'll be there in a minute to back you up." Patty put her radio down and Clem watched as they drove past the bridge they stopped at the day before yesterday. Just seeing it in passing made her shutter, and she was glad when it was out of sight. Not long after that they turned onto a different bridge, and looking ahead Clem saw that this one was still in one piece.

Looking out at the river as the drove over it, Clem could see more walkers floating downstream, along with a few stranded on a tiny island poking out above the water. Watching them shamble around made Clementine's mostly empty stomach crawl, and seeing dozens more wandering around close to the shoreline didn't help.

Moving a little further inland, the dead thinned out quickly, and Clem realized the gathering near the river was likely what's left of the walkers who went chasing bottle rockets. But occasionally, she could still spot the occasional stray on the road next to the highway, which kept Clem from ever feeling safe.

After a few minutes of drive time, they reached an off-ramp which Patty immediately turned onto. As they rolled downwards, Patty shifted the Brave into neutral and turned the engine off. They were now quietly rolling down the ramp and were less likely to attract attention, but Clem kept a vigilant watch from the windows anyway.

At the bottom of the ramp was an intersection, with the road left leading under the highway and the road right leading to another intersection where Clem could see the Sunseeker parked. After checking for threats from the windows, Patty removed the keys from the ignition and the pair headed back out. Clem felt a tightness in her chest as she moved towards the other RV, fearful that walkers weren't far. She couldn't see any nearby, yet their presence felt obvious to her just the same.

"You two okay?" Hearing Jet's voice over the radio prompted Clem to examine the Sunseeker more closely. Looking up, she almost immediately spotted the boy on top of the vehicle, waving at them.

"We're fine," answered Clem.

"Do you see anything from up there?" asked Patty in a hushed voice.

"Occasionally I can see a walker in the distance," he reported. "Sarah and Granddad already killed the ones nearby."

"And we could use a hand with the barbwire," added Sin.

"Be right there." Clem hurried along with Patty to the intersection and past the Sunseeker. There they found Sarah and Sin kneeling near a street light on the corner. As they neared the pair, they could see they were working together to wrap a spool of barbwire around the base of the light.

"How's it's coming?" asked Patty.

"We're pretty much done with this post," said Sin as Sarah passed him the spool of wire. "Help me carry this to the next light across the street."

"Got it." Patty carefully grabbed the spool's handle and the pair started slowly moving across the road, taking great care to unspool the wire behind them.

"Clem, come on," called Sarah. "We can get started on the other one."

"Coming." Clem eyed the ankle high barbwire running across the road and carefully stepped over it. She hurried after Sarah, following her to a different corner of the intersection where another spool was sitting. Sarah carefully wrapped the wire attached to it around the bottom of the lamppost, then removed a metal clip from her pocket. She quickly threaded the end of the wire through the clip, then attached the clip to the rest of wire to create a loop around the base of the streetlight, just as Devlin had instructed them.

"Okay, now let's wrap it around a few times and then we'll move onto the next one across the street," said Sarah as she passed the spool to Clem.

"Got it." Clem wrapped the barbwire around the post as far as she could, then Sarah took it and wrapped it as far as she could. After a few passes, Sarah moved the spool away from the post. Clem grabbed one side of the handle sticking out of the spool while Sarah held the other, and the pair started walking forward slowly into the road to unspool the wire.

"You said yesterday that Shaffer's did this, right?" asked Clem.

"Sorta, I saw some people there do something like this once," said Sarah. "Before they ever built the wall, I heard someone yelling one day and snuck out to see what was happening. These people pulled up to the parking lot in a truck, then two of them immediately tied a rope between a couple of trees on each side of the road. When some lurkers came up after them, most of them tripped over it."

"And then those people bashed their heads in," concluded Clem.

"Yep, and it looked easy too, probably because most of the lurkers were already on the ground."

"I still remember the look on Devlin's face when you told him that part," said Clem with a smirk. "He never thought how much easier things would be if they only ran barbwire just high enough for walkers to trip over."

"There were only like a dozen lurkers then," said Sarah. "I don't know how well this will work for more than that."

"I guess we'll find out."

Having reached the other side of the street, the pair stopped at the next lamppost and started wrapping the wire around it. They were making good progress, but Clem couldn't help but feel exposed every second they were outside. She still couldn't see walkers, but she knew they were out there somewhere.

"We're almost there," reported Devlin. "How y'all holding up?"

"We're working on setting up the barbwire," said Sarah.

"And there are no walkers close, but I see some a few blocks north of here," added Jet.

"Right, we're almost there. Stay alert."

Clem could hear the distant sound of an approaching truck now, which probably meant walkers could hear it as well. Like Patty had done earlier, the truck's engine shut off as it reached the off-ramp and coasted quietly downward, rolling to a stop near the Brave. As Clem and Sarah finished up with the barbwire, Devlin came rushing up to meet them.

"We can take it from here," he assured as he knelt down to take hold of the spool.

"Sin and I were going to fence in everything but the ramp to get back on the highway," explained Sarah as she removed a few clips from her pocket and handed them to Devlin. "That way if things go wrong, we can just drive out of here."

"Got it." Devlin turned around. "Anthony, give me a hand with this."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," said Anthony as he grabbed the spool.

"Why don't you two take a quick break?" suggested Devlin. "Might be a while before you'll get a chance to catch your breath again."

"Thanks, I had been wanting to check Omid," said Sarah as she took off towards the Sunseeker.

"Wait up." Clem ran after her friend and followed her to the entrance of Sin and Jet's RV. The door had been concealed by an odd tent like addition attached to the side of the vehicle. Looking carefully, Clem noticed there was a retractable awning deployed from the side of the vehicle, and hanging from it were cut up tarps forming primitive curtains. Moving in close, Clem noticed the fresh blood smeared across them.

"You think that will keep them from noticing us?" asked Clem.

"I hope so, it took me and Sin long enough to smear the lurker stuff on it," said Sarah as she gently pulled back one of the tarps. "Ugh, it was so gross."

Clem stepped inside and noticed the iron coat rack sitting by the door, just another piece of salvage they had discovered yesterday. Sarah hung up her raincoat and Clem tried to do the same, but her arm was just a few inches short of reaching the hook, much to her frustration.

"I've got it." Sarah grabbed the coat and hung it up for Clem, then the pair moved inside. The first thing they noticed was the sound of Omid crying. Clem exchanged a brief look of concern with Sarah, then they sprinted towards the bedroom together. Clem threw the door open and the pair found Omid sitting in the corner, crying to himself.

"Hey, don't cry," pleaded Clem as she removed her respirator and gloves. "We're here now and—"

"Nuh!" yelled Omid as he pulled away from Clem's grasp.

"Maybe he's hurt." Omid resisted Sarah as she tried to examine him, constantly pulling back whichever limb she tried to study.

"Nuh! Nuh!" repeated Omid every time Sarah touched him.

"Is he mad at us again?" wondered Clem.

"I put him down for a nap just before I went out to do the wire, that was like fifteen minutes ago at most," said Sarah.

"Come on OJ," pleaded Clem. "Be good, we just—"

"Ow-sah!"

"He wants to go out again," realized Clem.

"Now's really not a good time." Sarah quickly peeked out the window. "I guess we've got a minute before they finish with the barbwire. I'll go ahead to make sure it's safe and you can take him out for a few minutes."

"Got it." Sarah put her gloves and respirator back on while Clem moved in close to Omid.

"Come on OJ, you want to go outside?" Omid stopped sobbing, clearly recognizing that word. "Yeah, we'll go outside, you'll like that."

"Ow-sah," repeated Omid, sounding excited.

"Come on. Let's go out for a minute." Clem picked up the toddler and headed for the door, but stopped short of leaving. She looked at the crude curtains surrounding the space just outside the RV, hesitant to step forward until Sarah pulled back one of the tarps and motioned for Clem to come out.

"Here we go." Clem pinched Omid's nose to shield him from the rancid smell, then wished she had remembered to put her respirator back on as the horrid stench practically burnt her nostrils as she hurried past the curtains. Seeing Sarah standing watch in an intersection enclosed in barbwire gave Clem enough of a sense of security to ease her grip on Omid.

Looking at him, she saw Omid's eyes were wide open in astonishment as he gazed up at the sky. The sense of joy spreading across his face was so infectious that Clem couldn't stop herself from smiling as well. Quickly confirming there were no incoming threats, Clem gently sat Omid on the pavement, where he remained, spellbound by the sky.

He just continued to state up at the passing clouds for several minutes before he eventually stood up. Clem watch closely as Omid would move a few steps forward, then back suddenly as he tried to snatch clouds with his bare hands, only to pull back nothing every time. Clem wished she could enjoy watching Omid try to catch clouds, but all she could think about what was waiting just out of sight.

Anytime Omid wandered too far from the RV, Clem would have to pull him back. Omid didn't like this, and would loudly shout 'Nuh!' every time before resuming his sky gazing. Clem didn't like doing it either, but she had no choice as Omid seemed determined to wander further away from the RV each time. Eventually, he was moving right towards a piece of barbwire while looking straight up at the sky, forcing Clem to grab him with both hands, which just caused him to shout in protest this time.

"OJ, no," pleaded a desperate Clem.

"Nuh! Nuh!" refuted Omid as he tried to wriggle out of Clem's grip.

"Come on, let's take him back inside." Sarah hurried over to the tarp and pulled it back while Clem pinched Omid's nose again, a task made harder by his constant squirming. Clem placed the crying boy on the carpet while Sarah came in behind them.

"Now what?" asked Clem as she realized they were right back to where they started.

"I'll try to get him to settle down," said Sarah as she sat down beside a squealing Omid. "You go help the others, they should be ready by now."

"Okay." Clem slipped her gloves back on and grabbed her respirator when she noticed the coat rack of all things was trying to enter the RV. It fell forward onto the steps and rushing over to it, Clem found Jet outside trying to push it in. "Here, let me help." Clem grabbed the top of the coat rack and the pair carried it into the RV.

"Thanks. Jet closed the door behind him. "Granddad said they're about done with the barbwire, so I need to move the Sunseeker." Jet sat down in the driver's seat and started the engine. Watching the vehicle turn around, Clem noticed the lines of ankle high barbwire now enclosed three sides of the intersection. Jet turned the vehicle to only road still unblocked, revealing the barbwire extended back towards the highway, blocking off access to the underpass and the ramp they had taken to get here.

The only path left open was the narrow on-ramp leading back up to the highway, which Jet maneuvered the Sunseeker towards. He positioned the vehicle so it was aimed straight towards the ramp, then shut off the engine. Jet grabbed the coat rack, prompting Clem to grab the other end of it. They moved it back outside, then Jet moved to the nearest exterior compartment. He removed a pair of rain coats and handed one to Clem, which she put on, then he handed her a large piece of chalk.

Clem took the chalk and headed towards the on-ramp. She moved up to the barbwire and slowly wrote a large '8' on the asphalt. She then moved up to the intersection and wrote a '10' in front of the road on her left. As she headed for the part of the intersection facing north, Clementine paused as she looked out at the street ahead of her. They were far away, but Clem could see the shape of walkers moving about aimlessly in the distance.

"Hey." Clem looked over to see Jet standing next to her. "I saw them too, and I keep worrying they were going to come over here."

"They usually don't go anywhere unless they smell or hear something."

"What about if they see something?"

"I don't think they can see. If they do, they don't know what to look for."

"Granddad says it doesn't make sense they can smell," said Jet as he stared off at the walkers in the distance.

"Nothing about them makes sense," dismissed Clem.

"Yeah, but that means the stuff you know about them could be wrong." Looking over, Clem could see the uncertainty hiding behind Jet's eyes.

"It'll be okay," assured Clem as calmly as she could.

"I sure hope so." Jet knelt down and started drawing with this chalk, prompting Clem to do the same thing. Together, they wrote a big '12' across the pavement, then took a step back.

"Daylight's burning," crackled Devlin's voice from the radio. "We ready to do this?"

"The barbwire is finished," confirmed Patty.

"And I'm ready to knock some heads in," added an eager Anthony.

"I'll get what we need out of the RV," added Sin.

"And I'll be on top of it." Clem was surprised to hear Jet over the radio instead of next to her. Turning around, she discovered the boy had already raced back to the Sunseeker and returned to his position on the roof.

"Omid's still being a… pain," reported Sarah.

"Just stay in there," suggested Clem as she approached the Sunseeker. "One of us is supposed to stay inside anyway."

"Just be ready to hop in the driver's seat on a moment's notice," said Patty. "If this goes badly, we'll need to get out of here in a hurry."

"I will," said Sarah. "And I'll trade off with whoever needs a break first."

As Clem reached the Sunseeker, she could see Sin was removing a long roll of firecrackers from one of the exterior compartments. They had given it to him yesterday to hold onto, another souvenir from their trip to Alabama Fireworks World that they hadn't needed until today.

"Let's light this thing." Patty took the roll of fireworks from Sin.

"Sarah," said Clem into her radio. "Get ready to hold Omid's ears."

"Got it."

Patty unrolled the massive string of firecrackers in the middle of the intersection and Devlin knelt down to light them.

"Fire in the hole!" Devlin lit the firecrackers and everyone retreated back to the Sunseeker as the fuse burned down. Clem found herself instinctively removing her tomahawk from her shoulder, praying she was ready for what would come next. The fuse disappeared into the red paper encasing the firecrackers, and then nothing happened.

"You didn't keep your firecrackers in the outside bins did you?" asked Sin. "Because if they got wet in the flood, then—"

"No, we kept them all inside, along with the bottle rockets, and they worked," said Patty.

"Maybe it's a dud?" suggested Anthony.

"Or maybe it went bad," said Clem. "Maybe fireworks are like gas and—"

Clem was cut off by a series of deafening bangs that made her jump. The firecrackers had finally ignited and a series of tiny explosions were gradually tearing their way through the long strip of red paper laid out in the road. After the initial jolt brought on by the noise, Clem found herself growing more annoyed than anxious as she waited impatiently for the firecrackers to finish. After fifteen long seconds of non-stop explosions, the firecrackers were… about a quarter used up.

"Jesus, did you guys take the mother of all firecrackers!" yelled Anthony over the noise.

"We took them in case we ever needed a distraction!" yelled Patty back. "So we took the second biggest rolls in the shop because they'd make for really long distractions!"

"Let's just cut off a section from the roll next time!" suggested Sin.

"How bout right now!" Clem watched as Devlin removed a canteen from his waist and hurried over to the still erupting firecrackers. He poured water over a section of the strip just ahead of the explosions. The series of loud bangs were suddenly reduced to just a few stray pops.

"Oh thank God," said Patty, sounding out of breath, possibly from yelling.

Clem watched as Devlin removed a knife from his belt and knelt down to cut what remained of the firecrackers away from the section he soaked.

"Jesus, that was the second biggest?" asked Anthony.

"The biggest one was the size of a cake," informed Clem.

"Glad you guys didn't take that one," said Devlin as he rolled up what remained of the firecrackers. "We could probably cut what's left of this one into ten smaller strips, easy."

"And we still got two more full ones after that," noted Sin. "I think it's safe to say, we're well stocked on firecrackers for the moment."

"Hey!" Everyone turned in place and looked up to see Jet staring down at them from on top of the RV. "They're coming, a bunch of them, twelve o'clock!"

"Let's move with a purpose," said Devlin as he set the firecrackers down and removed a removed a nightstick from his belt while keeping a knife gripped in his right hand. Clem followed Devlin along with the others, removing the sheath from her tomahawk's head and placing it in her pocket as she took her place in front of the barbwire. "Kid," said Devlin into his radio. "Be sure to call out the infected as you see them."

"I will," answered Jet. "There's some moving in from two o'clock as well, but they're still far away."

"Let us know when they get closer," instructed Devlin. "And watch our flanks and six, the last thing we need is to get boxed in by these things."

"Got it," said Jet.

Clem watched anxiously as she spotted the walkers. The few flickering shapes she had seen in the distance before had grown into a steady march of withered corpses moaning softly as they drifted ever closer a few clumsy steps at a time. Seeing them approach wasn't what scared Clem, what scared her was that more walkers kept coming into view.

They moved very slowly, but this just made them more unnerving as it gave everyone plenty of time to behold their massive numbers. Every group of them was followed by more, and those followed by more still, until they had formed into a massive mob of deadly ghouls covering the length of the road, all marching towards where Clem and the others were standing, anxious to indulge their never-ending appetite for flesh.

"Jesus there's a lot of them…" Patty whispered under her breath, which prompted Clem to pick up her radio.

"Sarah."

"Yeah?"

"Be ready to drive, in case this doesn't work."

"I will."

"Don't bunch up," Devlin warned the others. "And be aware of your surroundings, we'll have enough to worry about without accidentally hitting each other."

"Why'd you look at me when you said that?" asked Anthony.

"I wasn't," assured Devlin.

"They're almost here." Sin's words brought everyone's attention back to the road. The first cluster of walkers had nearly reached the intersection, and everyone readied their weapons. There was a tense quiet amongst the group, allowing the noise of the dead's march to fill the air. That uneven shuffling that sounded like hundreds of slabs of meat being dragged over asphalt filled Clem with dread. The last time it had been this loud was when they were leaving Shaffer's, and this time they were standing right in front of a herd.

The first walker reached the intersection and snagged its foot on the wire as it stepped forward. There was a loud cracking as its head slammed into the pavement, followed by a louder cracking as Anthony brought his bat down on the bastard's head. It erupted like a ripe melon, sending flecks of blackened blood and bits of brain matter all across the pavement.

"First kill!" cheered Anthony before turning back to the road.

Three more walkers advanced; two tripped on the barbwire while the third managed to avoid it. Clem brought her tomahawk down on the nearest one's head, and Sin quickly eliminated the other one that tripped. Looking up, Clem watched as Devlin attacked the one still standing. The man swung a nightstick in one arm, smashing it across the walker's face with enough force to send it reeling in that direction. Devlin then pierced the walker's eye socket with his knife so quickly, Clem only knew what he had done when he pulled his arm back.

Devlin shoved the now lifeless corpse backwards and over the barbwire with a single mighty push. The body landed on the pavement in front of another walker, who tripped over it and fell face first onto the wire where Patty brought her machete down on it. Anthony kicked the corpse off the wire just in time for another handful of living dead to stumble forward.

Once again, most of them tripped, making them easy targets, and the ones who didn't were quickly dispatched and tossed out of the way just in time for the next set to approach and repeat the cycle. The initial sense of fear Clem had felt was quickly replaced with one of tedium. The raincoats the group wore rendered them invisible to the clueless would-be killers, and the increasing stack of bodies piling up eventually made the barbwire redundant, with walkers constantly tripping over their own fallen comrades.

"Walkers closing in on two o'clock," reported Jet over the radio. "There's also a few at six and ten o'clock, but not many and still far away."

"Me and Clem will handle it," announced Patty as she took a step back from the front line. "We'll call if we need help." Patty looked at Clem and a single nod was all the confirmation that was needed. The duo moved towards the right side of the intersection and readied themselves for the incoming walkers. Clem was relieved to see the walkers approaching from this street were fewer in number and spread out, but was annoyed to see the line of them extended into the horizon.

Much like before, the walkers usually tripped on the barbwire, making them easy to kill, and the few lucky enough to avoid the wire were taken down shortly after. The longer waits between walkers reaching the wire gave Clem more time to observe them. She noticed most of them looked even worse than walkers she had confronted in the past. Clothes so faded and torn they were little more than rags, spindly limbs whose flesh had been whittled away by the elements, and sunken faces that more closely resembled rotten masks ready to be ripped off their skulls.

After several dozen kills, Jet announced walkers were nearly at their six and ten o'clock positions. Devlin ordered Sin and Anthony to cover them, then swapped places with Patty and Clem, saying they could use a break. Initially, Clem didn't understand how covering the main road would be a break, but then she saw the roadblock of bodies that had formed on their twelve o'clock position.

Tackling walkers here became more of a test of patience than endurance. They would trip repeatedly just during their approach and many of them were reduced to crawling over a growing pile of corpses to get to the intersection, with some of them getting stuck along the way. Even if they navigated to the intersection, Patty and Clem would be ready to kill them. Each swing of Clem's tomahawk caused the pain in her right arm to grow a little more. At first, it was just a minor sting, then a constant soreness, then finally a particularly hard swing caused a stabbing pain to shoot up her arm.

"Ow!" Clem dropped her tomahawk and started rubbing her bicep.

"You okay?" Patty rushed over to Clem's side.

"It's just the bruise on my arm," assured Clem.

"Why don't you go take a break?" suggested Patty.

"I'll be okay," insisted Clem as she picked up her tomahawk. "I'll—ah!" Tightening her grip on the tomahawk sent another shooting pain up her arm.

"Go get some rest Clem." Looking around, Clem could see the others all still working to kill walkers in the distance, causing the girl to sigh. "They seem to be slowing down anyway."

Clem sighed. "Okay." The girl slowly slumped back to the Sunseeker. After moving past the curtains, she tried hanging up her raincoat, only for this to strain her already sore arm trying to reach the top of the coat rack. The coat fell onto the pavement and Clementine just shrugged as she headed inside the vehicle and towards the bedroom.

"Kem-men!" Immediately Clem felt Omid hugging her legs. "Muh-boo!"

"I love you too," assured Clem with a weak laugh. She moved to hug Omid, only to realize she was still holding the tomahawk.

"Are you okay?" asked Sarah as she took the weapon from Clem.

"Yeah, just tired," said Clem as she took off her gloves.

"I should go out and help then. I'm surprised they haven't needed help yet." Clem grimaced when she heard that. "I've been watching from the windows; there's so many of them."

"Yeah…" said Clem as she knelt down to hug Omid, wincing a little from the soreness of her bruises.

"But it looks like it's working," said Sarah, sounding enthusiastic.

"How far away is the shopping center?"

"I think fives miles." Clem sighed. "You rest, I'll go help the others." Sarah carried the tomahawk out while Omid walked over to pick up something seated in the corner.

"El-muh!" he said as he held out the stuffed elephant.

"Yeah, I see her." Clem slipped her shoes off and collapsed onto the bed. It was a great relief to get off her feet, but it sadly didn't last. Omid refused to be ignored, so Clementine was forced to find ways to keep him happy. Making Elma dance, doing faces, tickling him, all done for the benefit of keeping Omid entertained. After what felt like an eternity, Omid became as tired as Clem felt and she was able to lull him to sleep with a little rocking.

After tucking the boy into the makeshift crib Sarah had created out of drawer and some blankets, Clem decided to briefly check outside. Jet had made a few announcements a while ago but had been silent since then, and Clem couldn't see much from the windows. Heading out and grabbing her raincoat, Clem was shocked by the massive stacks of dead bodies that had accumulated in every direction she looked.

Twelve o'clock's barbwire was gone now and had been replaced with what was effectively a short wall made out of dead walkers; it would look right at place outside of Crawford. Ten and two featured uneven mounds of bodies that could probably become walls themselves with enough time and corpses. Even the roads near the highway were littered with dead walkers that must have numbered well over a hundred, and loose bodies littered the intersection in every direction Clem looked. Even breathing through her respirator, Clem still got a faint whiff of the overwhelming stench polluting the air, and it made her feel a little like gagging.

"Are you okay?" Clem looked over to see Sarah rushing up to meet her.

"Yeah, I got OJ to take a nap and came out to get some fresh air." Clem looked out at the piles of bodies again. "I think I picked a bad time to do that."

"There's a few more off in the distance at twelve o'clock," announced Jet over the radio. "I can't find any more though, even with my binoculars."

"A hundred and three!" Turning her head, Clem watched as Anthony smashed a walker's head in as it leaned over the wall of bodies. The bat caved in its skull and the corpse fell dead onto the barricade, becoming just another brick in the wall. "How many did you kill?"

"Too many," said Devlin to himself as he shook his head. "I remember them being a lot harder to kill than this."

"The raincoats make all the difference," said Anthony.

"Yeah, it's like they don't even know we're here when we wear these," realized Devlin, as if he didn't believe what he was saying. "But… but it's more than that. I swear, I used to have to hit a lot harder to put these things down. Some of them didn't even need the knife, the nightstick was enough."

"I noticed that too," said Clem as she took a step forward. "The first walker I killed I had to hit a bunch of times in the head. I was smaller then, but I still remember it was much harder to kill one than it is now."

"They're immortal, but not invincible," stated Sin as he and Patty joined the group. "Their injuries never heal, not as far as we know, so every blow and every fall they take weakens them, permanently."

"The weather probably doesn't help either," added Patty. "Spending months outside in the rain, snow, wind, everything; it's gotta take a toll on them after a while. A lot of them looked ready to fall over without our help."

"Wonder how long it'll take until they just finally die on their own," asked Jet from on top of the RV.

"They don't need sleep, or even need to eat even though they want to," noted Sarah. "But they're stupid, and do things that hurt themselves. I saw that some of the lurkers didn't even get back up after they tripped, like they broke their neck. They'd probably just kill themselves chasing things like thunderstorms eventually."

"Yeah, eventually," said Anthony as he wiped the blood off his bat. "But that ain't happening today."

"I can't believe we killed so many though," awed Clem as she continued to study the piles upon piles of bodies. "We probably could have killed all the walkers in Titusville had we thought of this then."

"There were only three of us then," reminded Sarah. "And we've still got a while to go before we get to the shopping center."

"All right then," said Devlin as he removed his gas mask and took a deep breath. "So far the plan is working; we've cleared out most of the infected in earshot of this intersection. I was thinking we take a quick rest then move up to our next target; any objections?"

Sarah, reluctantly, raised her hand.

"What's your objection?" Devlin asked her.

"Well… I… I wasn't objecting," stuttered Sarah. "But I was thinking, for the next area, we should use more barbwire. Run a couple of lines at different heights, that way it's harder for them to avoid it, and also add some barbwire further back from the intersection. It takes them a while to get back up and some of them don't get back up at all."

"That's good thinking, we'll do that. Anyone else with a suggestion?" No response from the rest of the group. "All right, I'll keep watch for stragglers while everyone takes fifteen, after that we'll move out."

"So he's in charge now?" mumbled Anthony as Devlin moved away from the group.

"He asked if you had objections," reminded Sin in-between breaths. "Do you?"

"No, but—"

"Then save your breath," suggested Sin as he staggered towards the Sunseeker. "You'll need it."

Since Omid was still in the bedroom, Clem followed Sin inside, Jet and Sarah coming up behind her as she removed her raincoat. As they all went in, the first thing they noticed was Sin sitting on the couch, rubbing his hands while taking slow breaths.

"Are you okay?" asked Jet as he approached his grandfather.

"I'm fine." Clem noticed Sin suddenly stopped rubbing his hands, as if he had been caught doing something wrong.

"No you're not." Jet's insistence was only answered by a silent stare from his grandfather. "At the next intersection, I'll kill the walkers and you can be on lookout, that way you can rest."

"No, I can handle this," insisted Sin. "You don't need to worry about—"

"I am worried about you." Again, Sin just stared at Jet in response, as if he couldn't think of a retort. "You're the one who keeps telling me these are hard times, and I have to be strong."

"We all have to be strong," corrected Sin. "That includes me."

"Nobody is strong all the time," argued Clem.

"And you won't be strong if you give yourself a heart attack." Sin's eyes narrowed slightly upon hearing that.

"Me and Clem can stay with Jet to help him," assured Sarah. "I know it's scary, but the smell, or whatever it is, means they don't even know we're there."

Sin let out a long sigh, then fiddled with something attached to his belt. "Here." Sin handed Jet a small machete that was still holstered in its nylon sheath. "And I suppose one of you should take this too." Sin shifted in place and removed something clipped to his belt.

Everyone looked at the grenade in the man's hand for a moment, possibly weighing the responsibility or danger it represented. Seeing the hesitation on Jet and Sarah's faces, Clem took the grenade for herself, even though she didn't want it. It felt strange holding something so deadly in the palm of her hand. Clem quickly but carefully secured it, using the safety handle as a belt clip to slid it into place near her holster.

"I'm gonna lie down for a while," said Sin, exhaustion hanging in his voice as he slowly stood up. "Come get me if I'm needed for anything."

"Be careful not to wake up Omid," cautioned Clem.

"I will." Sin disappeared into the bedroom, leaving Clem alone with Jet and Sarah. Turning to Jet, she noticed the boy had a nervous look on his face as he removed the machete from its sheath. It was much different from the one Patty and Sarah shared, appearing more like a long and curved knife that got very thick in the middle, almost like the blade had a fat belly.

"I guess if you two can do this, so can I," said Jet, sounding unsure.

The fifteen-minute break came and went in the blink of an eye. All anyone had any time for was getting some water and a little bit to eat before Devlin was calling for them to pack up and move out. Checking on Omid before they returned to the road, Clem was surprised to see not only was he still asleep, Sin was as well.

Being a grandfather, Clem knew he had to be much older than the rest of them, but he never really appeared elderly to her until just now. The look of exhaustion on his face that persisted even after falling asleep and the small wrinkles on his hand that made it look like the skin had been pulled a little too tight all made the normally tall and proud man look quite frail.

Clem was about to close the door when she remembered Jet's comment about Sin having a heart attack. Looking at the man, then eyeing Omid still asleep next to the bed in his crib, she suddenly had a horrible thought of Sin dying, then coming back and eating Omid. She found herself instinctively moving forward to collect the boy, but stopped herself from going through with it. Instead, she turned to Sin, then gently pulled the blanket over his shoulders before returning to the front.

The group was soon on the road again, maneuvering through an opening in the bodies Devlin had cleared and heading north a few blocks before turning west. The fast food restaurants, single story offices, and other signs of the city outskirts very quickly faded away and were replaced with trees and open land, as if they had taken a wrong turn back into the country.

One thing that didn't change was Clem could see walkers through the window. Few in number and always distant, but they were there, a constant reminder of all the other ones waiting just out of sight. Devlin and Anthony must have noticed them as well since their truck came to a stop not long after Clem wondered if they were moving too deep into unknown territory.

The two men emerged from their truck with their weapons at the ready, prompting Clem to do likewise. Jet had driven slowly so as not to disturb the tarps hanging from the vehicle's awning, meaning they had a safe spot to get ready. Clem, Jet and Sarah moved the coatrack back outside into the tented area and retrieved their raincoats and a spool of barbwire. Patty emerged from the Brave right behind them and grabbed one of the spools and before long everyone was working to booby trap the area.

This intersection was more isolated than the other, with the group having to use phone poles to run the wire since there were no lampposts here, and the only building actually at the intersection itself was a single small gas station. Behind it was a row of houses leading north into the horizon, but beyond that was just open land in every other direction they looked. This made spotting incoming threats easier but made it harder to implement Sarah's idea of additional wires, forcing the group to use street signs, fence posts, and anything else anchored beside the road.

All the time they were working, Clem was still afraid of being attacked. Like before, she occasionally spotted a walker off in the distance, but the only ones that ever got close to them were swiftly killed by Anthony shortly after arriving, and no others drifted closer without provocation. Despite this, Clem worked to finish their defenses as quickly as possible, always fearful of what she couldn't see.

With the preparations nearly done, Clem noticed Patty was struggling to keep pace with the others, hunched over as she moved slowly from task to task. Realizing she had worked through the previous attack with no break except for the one they all received, Clem conferred with Sarah and they both approached Patty with the suggestion of her watching Omid while the others fought this time. She was resistant, but only briefly before accepting the offer. After putting the last of the barbwire up, all three of them returned to the Sunseeker.

"I really appreciate this, seriously," professed a weary Patty as she removed her shotgun and machete before hanging up her raincoat.

"It's okay," assured Sarah as she took the machete for herself. "I didn't even have to kill many of them at the first stop, so I'm not tired yet."

"And my arm is feeling better," added Clem as they stepped inside.

"Just come tag me in the second anyone needs a break, I'll—"

The sound of Omid screaming sent everyone racing towards the bedroom. Throwing the door open, they found Omid trying to pull away from Sin with all his might.

"Mah! Mah!" chanted a determined Omid as he kept trying to yank the sock out of Sin's hand.

"He woke up," said Sin, a bored look etched onto his face.

"Well good news, I can take over as babysitter," said Patty as she entered the room. "We're just about ready to get started."

"You already put up the barbwire?" Clem nodded at Sin. "I guess I should get up top." Sin let go of the sock and Omid fell backwards onto the ground.

"Mah-bah!" he declared as he crawled away with the sock in hand.

Heading back out, everyone assumed their positions as Devlin readied more firecrackers. He used his knife to cut off a section from the big roll and positioned it in the middle of the road. Inching closer to Jet as Devlin grabbed his lighter, Clem could sense the boy's anxiety. The machete was trembling in his hands and even with the respirator on, Clem could tell he was breathing heavily.

"They're slow, you're not," whispered Clem. "And they're stupid, but you're not."

"There's hundreds of them, and only a few of us," whispered Jet back. "And they only have to bite us once to kill us."

"And we know that," argued Clem. "That's why we're wearing these raincoats and why we put up barbwire, that's how we killed hundreds of them at the last intersection."

"Yeah, you're right, it's just…"

"Scary, I know," assured Clem. "The first time I had to—"

Clem was cut off by the firecrackers, which once again filled the air with the deafening sound of a hundred tiny but loud explosions. Thankfully, they only lasted about ten seconds this time, and as the air cleared everyone heard their first update over the radio.

"I can see a large number of them approaching from twelve and nine o'clock," reported Sin. "None elsewhere yet."

"All right, Anthony take her and cover nine o'clock," said Devlin as he gestured to Sarah. "I'll take twelve with them." Clem and Jet stepped forward as soon as they saw Devlin looking at them, taking up position beside the man. It wasn't long until Clem could see another mob of walkers approaching slowly from the front. She tightened her grip on the tomahawk and waited anxiously as they gradually grew nearer.

Before they could actually reach the intersection, the walkers at the front of the mob had to navigate past the additional two lines of barbwire that the group had placed in the road. It was actually comical watching them fall on their face, struggle to get back up, then trip over the next wire. One hit the pavement mouth first, shattering most of its already rotten looking teeth. Another managed to put its arms out as it fell, but instead of breaking the walkers fall, the fall snapped its arm in half instead.

The first walker to finally reach the intersection already had its face caved in from the previous falls, and the second it tripped over the final wire Jet brought his machete down on the back of its head with a sudden and violent swing. There was a sickly cracking sound as the blade broke through the skull, followed by a by pitiful final moan.

"See," said Clem. "You can do it."

"Yeah, I guess so." Jet tried pulling his machete free, but it remained stuck in the walker's skull, and his attempts to free it just moved the corpse instead. Clem put her foot down on the dead walker's skull, which finally allowed Jet to pull the machete out. "Ugh, this is so gross," said Jet as he looked at pieces of sticky and rotten flesh clinging to the blade.

"I know," said Clem. "Before we used raincoats, we just used to put that stuff on our clothes."

"Ugh," said Jet as he shook off the bits of flesh. "I don't know how you did it."

"Most of the time, I was too scared to even think about it," she admitted.

Defending the second intersection went mostly the same as the first, except it was made easier by the extra layers of barbwire that helped to mediate the influx of dead. The injuries brought on by repeated falls made them easier to kill, while others just died from smashing their head on the hard asphalt too many times. Even the lucky few who managed to avoid the wires would usually arrive at the intersection alone and would meet a hasty end from whoever was in arm's reach.

After killing a couple dozen walkers, Clem's arm started bothering her again. It wasn't just the bruise this time, her shoulder was getting sore from swinging her tomahawk so much. After finishing off a couple more walkers, Clem looked for assistance in dealing with the next approaching group. Devlin had been called off to defend their six o'clock, but Jet was supposed to be helping Clem with their twelve. Looking around, she found the boy desperately trying to remove his machete from a downed walker's skull.

"Jet," said Clem. "Do…"

"I'll be right there," he insisted as he placed his foot on the corpse's head. Clem turned around to see a couple more walkers nearing the intersection. One tripped and Clem brought her tomahawk down on its skull while the other managed to shamble over the wire. Turning back to Jet, Clem watched as he grabbed the blade with both hands and kicked off the walker's skull. The machete came out with a sudden jerk and Jet let out a cry of pain as he fell backwards onto the pavement.

As the boy tried to stand, Clem noticed the walker suddenly lurched forward at Jet, prompting him to rush backwards towards the Sunseeker. The walker chased after Jet, hissing loudly as Clem dropped her tomahawk. Jet tripped over his own feet as he tried to back away just as the hungry beast charged forward. Two quick shots sliced through the side of the walker's head and its now lifeless body collapsed onto Jet as Clem holstered her pistol.

"What was that?" asked Devlin over the radio while Clementine rushed to Jet's side.

"Are you okay?" asked Clem as she helped to pull the walker off of him.

"I… I think so," said Jet, his voice still gripped in fear. "Thanks."

As Jet stood up, Clem noticed blood dripping from his right hand.

"Somebody, answer me, what was that shot?" asked Devlin.

"I shot a walker that attacked Jet," reported Clem.

"What?" asked a startled Sin. "Why?"

Clem watched anxiously as Jet removed the glove on his hand, revealing a clean slice running across his palm. Looking carefully, Clem didn't see anything that even remotely resembled teeth marks.

"He cut his hand and the walker smelled the blood, but he's okay." Clem breathed a slight sigh of relief as she put the radio down, only to notice Jet still appeared disturbed. "You are okay, right? It didn't—"

"No, it didn't bite me," assured a still distressed Jet.

"And when it fell, its teeth didn't touch you or—"

"Its head landed on the pavement next to me."

"Good, then—"

Jet rushed into the Sunseeker, leaving Clem to wonder what to do next. Looking at the road she was covering, the stream of walkers had slowed to a crawl and probably any one person could handle it. She then noticed the dropped machete and Jet's glove. Thinking it best not to leave something covered in fresh blood around, Clem grabbed both. As she looked up, she saw Sin moving towards where she was standing.

"Where's Jet?" he asked, unable to conceal the fear in his voice.

"Inside," answered Clem. "I was about to go—"

A loud crack sounded and Clem turned around in time to see a couple of walkers tripping into the intersection.

"Dammit," swore Sin under his breath. "Take care of them, I'll go check on Jet."

"My shoulder really hurts." Clem's words halted Sin mid-stride as he tried to enter the RV. "I can check on Jet for you, if you just—"

Spin spun around, walked back to Clem and held out his hand. Seeing a bit of Jet's blood still on the machete, Clem handed the man her tomahawk instead.

"If there's anything wrong I'll tell you," promised Clem.

"Thank you." Sin rushed past Clem and immediately swung at the nearest walker. He nearly cleaved its head clean off its body, then spun around and jammed the tomahawk's blade right through another walker's face with a surprising burst of speed. Seeing that Sin was sufficiently motivated to kill walkers now, Clem headed into the RV. The first thing she noticed was Patty, who was staring at the bathroom door.

"So what happened?" she asked. "I heard you say Jet cut his hand, then he barged into the bathroom without a word and won't answer me."

"I'll talk to him," said Clem. "Could you keep watch? Sin had to take over twelve o'clock for me."

"Sure thing partner, I'm feeling good and rested anyway." Patty hurried out of the RV, leaving Clem alone outside the bathroom door. Listening closely, she heard Jet groaning in pain inside, which prompted her to knock first. After receiving no answer, Clem cracked the door open. Peeking inside, she saw Jet wincing in pain as blood and water was dripping into the sink from his hand.

"Let me help you," said Clem as she stepped inside.

"I'll do it myself," insisted Jet as he turned away from Clem. "I should at least be able to do that after you had to save me."

"Are you mad at me because I saved you?"

"No… I'm mad at myself." Clem watched as Jet hung his head in shame and clenched his hand shut, as if he was refusing her help. "I'll be okay. I'm pretty sure I can't screw this up."

Clem felt sorry for Jet, having known the painful sting of failure too many times herself. She tried to think of something to say, but then got another idea. Clem rolled up her left sleeve and held out her arm so Jet could see the large faded scar on it.

"How did you get that?" he asked.

"A dog bit me, hard," said Clem.

"A dog?"

"Yeah, I saw one in the woods one day. It walked right up to me and I started petting it, not even thinking it could ever bite me," sighed Clem as she pulled her sleeve back down. "Someone had to give me stitches because of that. If I hadn't let them help me, I probably would have bled to death or gotten an infection. "

"I don't think this is as bad as that." Jet sighed. "But I get the point." Jet opened his hand and Clem grabbed a clean washcloth from the counter and a bottle of alcohol from the cabinet.

"This will hurt," warned Clem as she dabbed the cloth with alcohol.

"Hopefully not as much as cutting my hand like an idiot." Clem started cleaning Jet's injury with the washcloth, prompting the boy to wince in pain again. "I feel so stupid."

"It's okay, we all make mistakes. I've made a ton of stupid mistakes, just ask Sarah."

Jet let out a weak laugh. "She'd just say you're the most amazing person she's ever met."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because that's what she wrote in her diary."

Clem turned to Jet suddenly. "You read her diary?"

"Yeah, I was asking her about where you two had been and she mentioned she was trying to write it all down in a diary, and when I asked her if I could read it, she said yes."

"Oh…" Clem was surprised to hear that, wondering what else Sarah and Jet had discussed while she wasn't around.

"I think it's clean now," said Jet.

"Huh, oh, right." Clem set the washcloth aside and grabbed a bandage.

"I told her she should write more, but she says she hasn't had much time lately with everything that's happened."

"How much has she has written?" asked Clem, genuinely curious to how far Sarah had progressed since she last read her diary.

"The last thing I read was when she met you for the first time. She wrote, 'I didn't know it right then, but I'd find out later that Clementine was actually the most amazing person I've ever met in my entire life."

"She… she wrote that about me?" asked Clem as she applied the bandage.

"Yeah, well—"

Sin burst into the bathroom suddenly, eyes overflowing with fear and concern.

"I thought—"

"Patty agreed to cover for me," said Sin as he marched right up to Jet. "Are you—"

"I'm all right," assured Jet.

"You weren't—"

"He wasn't bitten," answered Clem.

"It's just a cut, and the walker smelled the blood," recapped Jet as Sin knelt down to examine the boy's hand.

"How did you cut yourself?" asked Sin in a stern voice.

"On the machete."

"The same one you were using to kill walkers?" asked Sin, sounding concerned.

"We disinfected the cut," said Clem.

"Was the blade covered in their blood?" Sin asked Jet.

"Probably, I had been using it all morning, why?" Jet's eyes widened in panic as he realized why Sin asked him that. "You think that infected me?"

"It doesn't work like that," assured Clem. "Only bites do that."

"You're sure?" asked a dubious Sin.

"Pretty sure," said Clem.

"Pretty?" repeated a frightened Jet.

"I've covered myself in their stuff more than once, and have been putting in on raincoats for a long time."

"But have you ever gotten any on an open cut?"

"No, but—"

"Oh God…" muttered a panicking Jet.

"But I got it in my mouth once." Both Jet and Sin turned to Clem. "I had a cold and didn't want walkers to hear me coughing, so I covered my mouth. There was still a lot of their… whatever on my hands, and I tasted it."

"But you were okay?" asked Jet.

"I threw up, and I got really sick later and passed out, but I think that was because I was already really sick. But, I didn't die, obviously."

Jet and Sin breathed a sigh of relief almost in sync with each other.

"Thank God," said Jet.

"You need to be more careful," lectured Sin. "How did you even cut your hand on the machete in the first place?"

"I—"

"It was getting stuck a lot," said Clem. "It's probably dull."

"It cut right through my glove," reminded Jet.

"Yeah, near the handle, but you hit the walkers with the end of it, that part is probably dull. When's the last time you sharpened it?"

"Sharpened it?" asked Jet.

"We… we never taught you how to do that," realized Clem. "And… we should have given you a gun too, so you could have killed that walker if you couldn't use your machete."

"I thought you said you didn't have any more guns," said Sin.

"I just remembered, we have my ankle gun. We could have given Jet that." An awkward silence followed as Clem dwelled on her own mistake.

"Somebody report," said Devlin. "We're short-handed and it looks like we're missing our lookout."

"We're okay," said Clem as she picked up her radio.

"And I'll be right out," added Sin. "Jet, stay here and—"

"But—"

"You hurt your hand, and I'm feeling better. Rest for now, please."

"Oh… okay." Clem noticed Sin didn't have her tomahawk; he had likely given it to Patty when they swapped places. Thinking it was better than no weapon, she handed Sin the machete and he left the bathroom.

"Thanks," said Jet.

"For what?" asked Clem.

"Saying it was the machete's fault, and not mine."

"It probably was, it was getting stuck. If anything, it's more my fault for not giving you a gun or teaching you to sharpen things." One look at Jet made it clear he still blamed himself. "I've done so many stupid things. The first time we tried getting bullets, I told Sarah to just park us right next to the gun shop that was surrounded by walkers. We just ran in there, then I spilled a box of bullets and had to shoot a walker, and then they all started coming in. I almost got me, Sarah and OJ killed because I was stupid."

"OJ?"

"Without me and Sarah, he would have starved to death."

"But what about Patty and Anthony?"

"We hadn't met them yet."

"Oh…"

"Kem-men!" called Omid as he came stumbling into the bathroom.

"I'm here, don't cry," assured Clem as she knelt down to pick up the toddler.

"Kem-men," repeated Omid as she picked him up.

"You want me to look after him?" asked Jet.

"I guess you'll have to," reasoned Clem.

"Not necessarily, I could go out and you could stay in."

"But your Granddad said—"

"I can rest on top of the RV and keep watch, that's not hard."

"Well, I could use a break."

"Great." Jet smiled at Clem, which made her smile a little. Jet returned to his position as lookout while Clem carried Omid back to the bedroom, where she soon discovered he needed changing. Despite that, she enjoyed her time with Omid. Looking after him was work, but work she liked a lot more than killing walkers all day. Clem actually began to feel a tinge of guilt for remaining inside so long, and was grateful when Sarah came into the RV desperate for a break.

Heading out, it's clear the bulk of the walkers had been killed by now. There were once again whole mounds of bodies piled up in every direction except for the road they drove in on, which only had a few scant corpses. Looking at twelve o'clock, Clem could see the line of walkers had been spread thin now, and killing what remained was largely a matter of patience. After trading Sarah's machete to Patty for the tomahawk, Clem took up position at twelve o'clock and waited.

As the sun climbed higher in the sky and chased away the chilly morning, Clem found herself annoyed by the relatively sweltering heat. The raincoat, the respirator, even her hat all felt suffocating after a while and it was hard to wipe away sweat when you were wearing gloves partially caked in dried blood and rotten flesh. The piles of bodies had reached a point where what few walkers who remained had to crawl over all those who failed before them just to be easily killed like all the others.

"Two hundred… and twelve!" announced Anthony as he brought his bat down on a walker trying to climb over the pile of corpses at nine o'clock. "It's got… to be… a world record. Most kills… in a single day," said the young man in-between deep breaths. "Clem… how many… did you get?"

"I don't know, a lot," she shrugged before noticing a walker climbing over the twelve o'clock wall of bodies.

"You people… really need to start keeping count." Clementine brought her tomahawk down on the walker's head and killed it. Only as she removed her blade did she notice this walker was a child, a girl that didn't look much older than her. A closer examination revealed large bullet wounds running down both sides of her body. What Clem didn't know if those were there before or after the girl turned into a walker. She assumed after, but only because the image of a little girl being gunned down disturbed her more. "Seriously, it's not fun having the high score if I'm the only one playing."

"Maybe the rest of us don't find this fun," retorted Clem as she walked away from the other girl's corpse.

"Oh come, you guys are always telling me they're not people anymore," said Anthony as he followed after Clem.

"They used to be," Clem said under her breath as she moved towards Devlin and Sin, who were dealing with a couple of walkers at six o'clock. Sin killed one of them as another came tumbling over the small mound of bodies. Devlin raised up his knife, but hesitated to strike.

"What is it?" asked Clem as she approached. "Why…"

Looking down, she saw the walker Devlin hadn't killed was a soldier. They were still wearing a large vest lined with pockets and a thick helmet. Who they were was a mystery, their face had been gnawed down to just a flailing skull held together with the thinest strips of rotten skin. The lower jaw, eyes, and tongue were all missing, and as they reached out their arms, Clem could see their hands were gone. The walker thrashed out at the air with its rotten stumps as its head swiveled back and forth on what remained of its severely gnarled neck.

"Friend of—"

Devlin angrily hammered the walker's head with his nightstick, over and over again, smashing it against the corpse's helmet repeatedly until he finally kicked the head with such force that it knocked it clean off the walker's shoulders and sent it flying across the area.

"So… not a friend," concluded Anthony.

"He's one of the OKC fuckers!" growled Devlin in a way that frightened Clem. "Thought we got all the bastards, but I guess this dumbass got himself eaten before we could shoot him. I hope it was painful you piece of shit!" Devlin kicked the corpse so hard it rolled over onto its back, revealing a rifle still attached to it.

"Well, at least that's one thing this fucker did for someone else." Devlin used his knife to cut off the shoulder strap and then grabbed the rifle. He unloaded and checked the magazine, then rolled the corpse back onto its back. Searching the pockets, Devlin retrieved a couple magazines and stood up. "Let's finish up and get out of here already."

Clem moved over to the soldier's decapitated head, which had rolled out of its helmet after being kicked. She noticed a bit of flesh near its scalp was twitching slightly, suggesting it was still alive, for the lack of a better word. But it was helpless now, its lower jaw and tongue was gone, and Devlin had broken most of the teeth connected to its upper jaw, all it could do is lay there and twitch, so Clem raised her tomahawk into the air and prepared to finish it off.

"Leave him!" ordered Devlin. "He deserves to rot." Clem felt intimidated by the man's stern order, but then he turned away and left her and the others alone to observe the severed head.

"You think if we took his teeth, and cut someone with them, it'd kill them?" asked Anthony

"What?" said Sin.

"I mean, it's bites that kill people, which means it must be something in their teeth right? Like rabies?"

"Rabies isn't spread by bites specifically, it's actually in the salvia." Sin looked down at the head. "I don't think these things salivate anymore."

"Which mean it's in the teeth." Anthony stared down at the head. "Or maybe it's in all the bones."

"That doesn't make much sense, then again, most of what we know about these things doesn't make sense. I suppose it could be something in their bones, reacting to the calcium. If we come back as them no matter how we die, perhaps whatever it is actually triggers the transformation early, and killing us is just a side-effect."

"If you took a femur, and sharpened it into a knife, it'd be like a poison blade that could kill people just by scratching them," realized Anthony.

"Assuming it is something in the bone, and not some other bizarre form of transmission," speculated Sin. "For all we know—"

Clem drove her tomahawk down into the walker's eye socket, finally killing it. "I think we've learned enough about walkers for today," she said as she walked off. "I want to get out of here too."

As it well past noon at this point, everyone stopped to eat lunch after they moved the vehicles away from the intersection. Clem returned to the Brave with Sarah, Omid and Patty for a while to enjoy some time together in their home. But other than Omid loudly demanding something to eat, there was little conversation between the group.

Part of it may have been fatigue setting in from their ongoing task, of which they were only half done, but in any case, none of them felt much like talking right now. Their meal didn't help either. They could only stomach a few canned chili peppers before it made them sick and Clem didn't even want to know what the substance in the can labeled 'tongues' was made out of. Trying to chew her way through that slimy stuff was a miserable enough experience without dwelling on it.

It was so bad, they didn't even offer any of it to Omid. Instead, Sarah took out the can of a corn she had saved from the Sunseeker. It was already half empty from feeding Omid breakfast, and by the time she was done giving him lunch it was completely empty. Their stomachs half empty and half full of things making them sick, the group elected to partake in the jam Winnie had left them. They each took only a spoonful, but spreading that decadently sweet sticky goodness across Clem's tongue was almost enough to make her forget about the rest of their awful meal.

After lunch, the group readied themselves for their next stop. Clem took some time to sharpen Sin and Jet's machete, as well clean off the blood from the rest of their weapons. While she was doing that, Patty retrieved Clem's ankle gun and gave it to Jet, double checking to make sure he knew how to use it properly, as well as apologizing for it being pink, to which Jet said he didn't care. Sarah was preoccupied with Omid's care, tending to his needs and giving him another short taste of the outside world before relocating him back to the Sunseeker for safe keeping.

After that, the group set out for their next destination. They went north for a couple of blocks then turned west until the road became a small bridge running over a four-lane highway. Clem could see walkers both north and south nearby, mostly off in the distance but a few ambling close to the overpass they parked just short of. Everyone got to work, but the geography made preparations more difficult this time.

They could easily run wires through the underpass to create a southern choke point, but the wide open road made it hard to reinforce their northern position. The group clumsily zig-zagged the barbwire between guardrails, abandoned cars, road signs, and anything else they could find to create obstacles for the walkers.

After that was the challenge of blocking walkers coming down the hill to the west of the road. A guardrail running alongside it created one barrier, and running wires from a road sign to the opposite ends of the rail created one more, but there was nothing left they could use to erect further hindrances for the walkers. The east side was left open, both as an escape route and because they had likely killed most of the walkers from that direction at their last stop.

With every reasonable precaution they could take, everyone took their positions before setting off another strip of firecrackers. As before, walkers came slowly pouring into the area, mostly from the north and south, but occasionally stumbling down the hill on the west side as well. Their wire wasn't as well set-up as the previous choke points, but the bigger area gave the group more room to spread out and reduce the chance of being boxed in.

One after another, walkers fell all around them, and more still came to take their places as the sun continued to sink. Clem could tell everyone was getting tired, with each wave of walkers being met with slower and less precise attacks. The raincoats kept them from being detected and their crude but complex web of wires prevented the dead from advancing too quickly, but the heavy burden of this seemingly endless task was beginning to weigh on everyone.

After what at least felt like an hour, the flow of walkers began to slow down, giving everyone much needed pauses in between attacks. The road was now littered what must have at least been a hundred corpses, and Clem could see more approaching in the horizon. They all begin to blur together for her after a while, just becoming a hazy slide show of rotted faces being punctured by her blade.

Then she saw something different approaching. At first she wasn't even sure it was a walker because it was so small, but it was. Waddling forward in a fashion even awkward for walkers was an undead toddler. He was bigger than Omid, but not by much. Clem guessed he couldn't be more than two years old at the most. He was completely naked, skin sickly and pale, only a few teeth in an otherwise empty mouth, stringy hair, and his big eyes covered by a strange white film.

His tiny steps carried him forward so very slowly that Clem could only imagine how long he had been following the noise of the firecrackers to get this far. His chubby arms were extended out in front of his body as he approached the first barbwire. His legs were shorter than the wire itself, so he couldn't trip. Instead, the wire connected with the toddler's stomach, slowly cutting him across his stomach.

Clem felt utterly transfixed at this horrible sight, a lone baby left to die only come back as one of the dead and tear up his body chasing a noise. Watching him rip open his belly on the barbwire, spilling his intestines on the ground, Clementine felt determined to act. She let go of her tomahawk and removed her pistol from its holster, then struggled to line up the sights on the poor child's head, then that head exploded into an eruption of blood.

"Two-sixty-seven!" Anthony had destroyed the undead toddler with a single swing of his bat, leaving just a tiny pair of legs attached to a severed torso with rotted organs spilling out onto the pavement. So sickening a sight to Clem she found herself panicking. Looking around at the massive piles of bodies surrounding her, she suddenly felt like she was suffocating. She put her gun away and ran up the hill towards where the Sunseeker was parked. Throwing off her raincoat, Clem charged through the vehicle and right into the bedroom as fast as her aching feet would carry her.

"Kem-men!"

"Omid," she said as she dropped to her knees and threw her arms around the boy. "I love you, I love you…"

"Muh-boo," said Omid as he hugged Clem.

"Are you okay?" Clem looked over to see an alarmed Jet staring at her.

"Yuh… yeah," stuttered Clem. "Where… where's Sarah?"

"She said she needed a break from Omid, so I came down here and she took my place on watch. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I… I just needed a break," stuttered Clem.

"Okay, I'll go help out; my hand is feeling a lot better. If you need anything, just tell me."

"Thanks." Jet looked at Clem briefly, clearly worried, then left her to be alone with Omid. At first, Clem couldn't let go of Omid, finding the warmth of his body against her skin and the feeling of his heartbeat incredibly calming. Eventually she had to let him go, but she remained close the whole time, and eagerly indulged his every whim. Playing with the toys he gave her, reading any book he brought her, and hanging on his every babbled word; Clem only wished she could give him more. After a while, Omid began chanting 'Wah-wah' and Clem carried him to the front to fetch some water.

"Hey there." Clem looked over to see Devlin seated on the couch. He had removed his helmet, mask, vest and padding. Without them, he appeared a lot smaller. Not skinny, but still thinner than Clem had imagined. He also smelled kind of musky, but she figured that was true for all of them by now.

"Are you hurt?" asked Clem.

"Nah, just worn out," he said. "Needed a break myself."

"Oh, okay." Clem set Omid down and filled up his cup with water. She sat down in a chair behind the passenger seat and invited Omid to join her. After she helped him climbed onto her lap, Clem put one arm around the boy while giving him the sippy cup in the other.

"You took off pretty quick."

Clem was surprised to see Devlin was looking at her. "I… I just—"

"I saw it too. That little boy out there."

"He was just a little baby," said Clem, finding it hard to fight the urge to cry. "I know he was already dead but… it even looked like OJ a little." Clem found herself squeezing Omid tighter after saying that. "It… it—"

"It's horrible," finished Devlin, sounding a little choked up himself. "Because it used to be a little boy." Clem nodded weakly at Devlin. "I may have knew his parents. There were at least a few couples in Tulsa with toddlers. I don't remember all their names, but I know only one couple made it out with their baby. The others…" Devlin covered his eyes with his hand and took a deep breath.

"Wah-wah," said Omid as he shook his empty cup.

"You're still thirsty," said Clem.

"I'll get it." Clem handed the cup to Devlin. He took it to the sink and quickly filled it. "I never got a chance to see this little guy the other day," Clem felt a little nervous as Devlin approached. He stopped in front of her and knelt down to look Omid in the eye. "How you doing there buddy?"

"Wah-wah," Omid told Devlin.

"Here you go." Devlin handed Omid the cup which Clem immediately helped to raise to his lips. "Have you and… Sarah right?" Clem nodded. "You two been raising this boy all by yourselves?"

"Yeah," said Clem with a nod.

"Damn, I'm seeing it and I can still hardly believe it."

"Me too," spoke a weary Clem.

"I've seen too many kids die," said Devlin, sorrow gripping his voice. "Schools were a bad place for kids to be during all this, a single infected gets in there and it could slaughter whole classes of them."

"It was spring break when the walkers came, so I wasn't in school then. But Sarah and I went to a school not long after OJ was born… there were so many dead kids there, and some of them were even younger than me."

"I'm sorry that happened to you, and that you've had to be on your own for so long." There was a sincerity in Devlin's voice that Clem found very comforting. It reminded her of how most well-meaning adults used to talk to children before things changed.

Feeling a restless Omid fidgeting in her arms, Clem set him on the carpet. Trying to think of a way to keep him entertained, Clem untied her shoe and slipped off her sock. Dangling it in front of Omid, the boy immediately took the challenge and grabbed it with both hands.

"Mah! Mah!" he said as he pulled on the sock as hard as he could.

"What would have happened if me and Sarah came to Tulsa before it was attacked?" asked Clem as she watched Omid try to take the sock from her.

"I told what you happened," said Devlin.

"I mean, what would happen to us? If me and Sarah drove up in our RV when Tulsa was still here, what would happen next? Would you search the RV and then tell us the rules?"

"Well yeah, we made people check their guns and ammo before they could come into town, then we'd want to get your names and a little more about you and where you've been."

"Why?" asked Clem.

"There were lots of people looking for lost family or news of other cities, so we made it a point to keep a list of names of everyone coming and going, and what they'd seen. If they got robbed or attacked by someone out there, we wanted to know what they looked like in case they ever came to town themselves. You know, stuff like that."

"That makes sense, but what about after that? Would you have let us in?"

"You guys? A couple of kids taking care of a baby?" asked Devlin. "Of course we'd let you in."

Clem found herself glad to hear that, but still hesitated from smiling. "And after that?"

"I… I guess we'd find someone to help look after you," reasoned Devlin.

"Look after us? Like who?"

"There were some other kids who had been… separated from their parents. We had to put together a kind of orphanage where we had some teachers and other people making sure they were being taken care of."

"Orphanage?" repeated Clem.

"Yeah, I guess that makes it sound like something out of a Dickens novel, but really they were just trying to keep them happy, which isn't easy these days. Sometimes people, usually parents who had lost their own kids, would come by and spend time with the children there, sometimes even adopt them if the kids like them enough."

Clementine found the idea of being adopted strange and uncomfortable to think about. Despite seeking safety for so long, the idea of answering to someone claiming to be her adoptive mother or father after all this time just felt wrong in the young girl's mind. It felt almost incomprehensible to her now even.

"You don't trust us," said Devlin, noting Clem's apprehension. "Or me I guess, seeing as I'm all that's left."

"It's not that, I just don't think I'd want to be adopted."

"We wouldn't separate you from Sarah or your… baby," assured Devlin.

"I didn't think you would, that's just not what I want."

"Well, what do you want?" asked Devlin, genuinely curious. "If you came to Tulsa last year, and you were sitting in front of me then, and I said you could have whatever you wanted, what would you say?"

"I guess… I'd like a house or a room somewhere safe for me and Sarah and OJ to stay… and enough to eat."

"And?"

"That's it really. We would have helped you any way we could have, and…" Clem noticed Devlin was smiling at her now. "What?"

"It's just weird a kid your age, talking about wanting her own house."

Clem frowned slightly upon hearing that. "We had one once, in a little town called Spokeston. We spent six months there, just the three of us, and only left when the food ran out."

"That must have been hard for you guys."

"Actually, that was probably the happiest I've been since things changed," realized Clem. "If we could have just stayed there…"

Clem was a little surprised when she felt Devlin's hand gently set down on her shoulder. "We had plenty of empty houses in Tulsa," he said with a smirk. "I think if you had come here, back when here was somewhere worth being, you could have convinced us to give you one to keep all to yourself."

"Not just myself," smiled Clem. "Sarah and OJ would be there as well."

"Mah!" Clem felt the sock finally be pulled from her grip. "Mah-bah."

Clem picked up Omid and set him on her lap.

"He sure is a cute little thing," said Devlin. "You and your friend are good moms."

"We hope so. We're always worried we're making mistakes."

"Every new parent is."

OJ continued to clutch the sock until he noticed Devlin looking at him. "Hah-dah?"

"Devlin," he said slowly as he gestured to himself.

"Deb-beb?"

"Dev—"

"Ahh, dammit!"

"Deb-bit," repeated Omid as Anthony stumbled into the RV, a look of excruciating pain on his face as he tightly clutched his right shoulder.

"What's wrong?" asked Devlin as Clem took hold of Omid, terrified of what Anthony was going to tell them.

"Are you bitten?" asked Clem as she found herself backing away from a wounded Anthony as he collapsed onto the couch.

"He's not bitten," assured Patty in a tired voice as she stepped inside. "Mr. High Score threw out his shoulder."

"Dammit," mumbled Anthony as he rubbed his shoulder.

"Deb-bit," repeated Omid with a smile.

"I told you should have taken a break," said Devlin.

"Yeah, yeah. It's just… I was so close to three-hundred," lamented a Anthony as he rubbed his shoulder. "Now I can't even hold the damn bat."

"Dab-bab." Clem felt a sudden urge to cover Omid's ears.

"Somebody get me some ice," pleaded Anthony.

"We don't have any, none of us have working freezers," reminded Patty.

"Shit…" Clem managed to cover Omid's ears before Anthony swore this time. "Well then, I guess I'm out of the game."

"Honestly, I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up myself," said Patty, sounding out of breath as she sat down in the nearest chair.

"What's it look like out there?" Devlin asked Patty.

"Jet said there's almost none left. He's helping Sarah and Sin finish cleaning up what's left." Patty turned to Clem "You dropped your tomahawk but Jet said he'll bring it back when he's done."

"So we can move again soon?" asked Clem.

"Yeah, we could, but…" Patty let out a long sigh.

"Yeah, I'm worn out too," admitted Devlin. "And the sun's going down."

"And I'm crippled now," groused a frustrated Anthony.

"It might be best to pack it up and try again tomorrow," concluded Patty.

"Mah-bah." Clem looked down to see Omid looking up at her.

"You hungry?"

"Mah-bah," repeated Omid a little louder.

"I'll try to find you something to eat." Clem looked through the cabinets of the Sunseeker until she found some canned goods. Clem grimaced as she evaluated the small selection of odd and obscure vegetables, trying to figure out which ones Omid would most likely not spit out after two bites. As she pulled back a can to examine it, her hand bumped into her pistol. She didn't even realize she was still wearing it until now, or the grenade.

"Devlin," said Clem. "Our next stop would be the last one, right?"

"Yeah, but there's gotta be a bunch of them still there and I don't know if I've got the strength to hack through another hundred of these bastards."

"Oh, so you were keeping count," noted Anthony.

"I'm guessing, I've had to have killed at least a hundred of them by now."

"What if we just shoot them?" suggested Clem.

"You'd have to loan me a gun," said Devlin. "The rifle I took earlier is effectively ruined. After being left open to elements for so many months, that thing doesn't even cycle right anymore."

Clem thought to herself for a moment, then marched out of the RV. She walked the short distance back to where the Brave was parked and headed inside. She retrieved the automatic rifle stowed in the closet then headed back out in time to see Sarah, Sin and Jet stumbling towards the Sunseeker.

"Clem," said Sarah. "What are you doing with that?"

"Did something happen?" asked Jet.

"No, but maybe something should," she said.

"What does that mean?" asked Sin.

"Come on." Clem motioned with her head and led the others back into the Sunseeker. Once inside, she immediately offered the rifle to Devlin. "This is the same gun, right?"

"Yeah, it is," said Devlin as he took the weapon. "I remember your friend here aiming this at me the day before yesterday; surprised you weren't toting it around earlier."

"It's only got like six bullets," mumbled Anthony as he rubbed his shoulder. "I guess you've got plenty now though."

"We all have plenty of bullets," reminded Clem. "Let's just shoot the walkers and get the food already."

"Is that what we're discussing?" asked Sin as he found a place to sit. "I thought we agreed it'd be a waste of our ammo to do that."

"We've got lots of ammo, what we don't have is a lot of food," stated Clem. "I'm sick of eating junk; junk that's going to run out soon. I want good food, and I want it tonight, not tomorrow when we'll all just be even hungrier."

Looking around at everyone, Clem didn't see any hints of objection in the others' eyes. They likely were all thinking the same thing she was thinking; they didn't want to wait another day for what they had worked so hard for.

"A real meal again would amazing," professed Patty in a quiet voice.

"Fuck it, I can shoot with my left hand if it means I'm not stuck eating canned squash or whatever again," said Anthony.

"If we can drive as far as the shopping center, there's a place where we can bottleneck most of the ones inside," explained Devlin. "A couple of us could keep using melee weapons on them, others could cover the area and thin out their numbers using guns."

"Someone could take our rifle and shoot them from the roof of the RV too," suggested Sarah.

"I could do that," volunteered Jet.

"And we got the grenades if something goes wrong," reminded Patty.

"And if not, we could always just leave and come back tomorrow if there's too many," added Sin.

"Mah-bah!" Everyone turned to see a hungry Omid grasping at the cans in the cabinet, pawing at the lids in a hopeless attempt to open them. This sight saddened Clementine, then angered her as she realized she couldn't give Omid everything he deserved. But she could give him more tonight.

"Don't worry OJ," said Clem as he picked him up. "We're all gonna eat a lot better real soon."

The group returned to their respective vehicles and readied themselves, a renewed sense of determination taking hold as they finally moved towards their destination. As they headed north, Clem couldn't ignore the piles upon piles of bodies littering the road they were driving on. The sun was sinking now, painting the road itself in an orange light while the bodies appeared just as black marks against the concrete; a tally of all the people who had fallen in the time since the world changed.

As Clementine loaded an additional round to replace the one she used to rescue Jet, she realized that she still felt a shred of sadness for the walkers they killed. Even with their faces rotted and misshapen, she couldn't stop thinking about how every one was another person who hadn't survive. And with every corpse they passed, Clem continued to question her own survival. Why had she remained alive, when so many others had died?

Before long they passed another intersection and Devlin told them to slow down. Had they not been so tired, they probably would have stopped and begin the slow process of setting up another series of barbwire traps, but not this time. Instead, they kept going and Clem kept a close eye on the sides of the road. The highway itself had largely been clear of walkers, but there were still occasional ones to be found idling about in the distance.

Clem saw Anthony's truck ahead of them slowing down, prompting Patty to do the same. Until now, the section to the right of the road had been mostly empty space with a few houses sprinkled in. But as they rolled to a stop, Clem spotted a severely mangled chain fence running along the road. Beyond it was a handful of restaurants, and beyond that was a massive building with the words 'Sam's Club' written on the side. It would be right there for the taking if not for all the walkers standing in its parking lot.

"That's our food storehouse," confirmed Devlin over the radio. "Jesus, I never thought I'd see this place again."

"We could reach it easily from here if not for the walkers," said Sin.

"If we just go a little further, I know how we can force a lot of them into a bottleneck, make them easier targets."

Patty followed Anthony's truck as it moved a little further down the road. The broken fence continued past the restaurants and the storehouse, giving way to a massive row of buildings. There were worn logos on the top of the buildings, but no glass entrances or parking spaces in front of them. It dawned on Clem she was looking at the back of these department stores, and as the Brave slowed to a stop, she noticed a sign running over the road just ahead of them.

The original words had been painted over, just leaving "TULSA M.O.B." on the first sign, and a large arrow pointing at the shopping center on the other. Following the arrow with her eyes, Clem saw it was pointed to a gate in the chainlink fence that had long been knocked off its hinges. Beyond that, a gap in the buildings that led to a parking lot nestled inside, and there lay more walkers, just waiting for their prey.

"This is it," said Devlin. "Let's park our vehicles facing back the way we came, in case we need to leave in a hurry, and then meet outside." Patty swung the Brave onto the other road and the squeak of the parking brake set Clem and Sarah into motion. They loaded their guns, packed extra ammo into their bags, donned their raincoats, grabbed their melee weapons, and stepped out to meet the others waiting in the road.

"I still remember what it looked like." The first thing Clem noticed was Devlin staring at the hill across the road from the shopping center.

"Um, you're facing the wrong way," informed Anthony.

"The infected following those troops out of Oklahoma City came in on the interstate to the west of here. Maybe if they had just told us, we could have done something about it," spoke Devlin in a bitter tone through his teeth. "Instead, the fighting dragged them off the road and right to us. Once we finally killed the last motherfucker, we thought it was over, then we saw them come pouring over this hill here by the hundreds."

"That's… comforting," said Anthony.

Devlin turned around and looked at the shopping center. "Let's do this." The man gripped his rifle and took a step forward. "Bottleneck is right there," said Devlin as he gestured to the gap in the buildings. "A couple of us wire it up and get ready to bash some heads in."

"I'll do it," volunteered Sarah. "I've been with Omid most of the day, so I'm not that tired."

"And I'll go with her," added Clem. "I've taken a break every time, so I'm okay too."

"Patty, that shotgun would do a lot of damage at close range, go with the girls and cover them."

"Sounds good," said the woman as she cocked her gun.

"Here's our rifle, and all the ammo we have for it," said Sarah as she handed the weapon to Jet along with a bag. "If the scope feels off, you can adjust it with the little dials on the top and side."

"Wow, you've got a lot of bullets for this thing," noted Jet as he tested the weight of the bag.

"And you've still got the pistol we gave you." Jet nodded at Patty. "Use that in case they get in close and you can't use the rifle."

"And be aware of your surroundings, " ordered Devlin. "Using a scope, it can be real easy to forget what's just past the edge of it. The last thing I want to see happen is one of us go in to kill an infected and get shot in the back because you were aiming for so long you didn't realize where we were."

"I'll… I'll be careful," said Jet as if he was making a promise.

"I'd recommend covering the west hill. There's little chance of one of us wandering out that far in the first place and you'll have an easier time shooting them from up there than any of us."

"Got it!" Jet took off running for the back of the RV.

"You good to use that thing?" Devlin gestured to the machine gun Sin was holding.

"I haven't fired it before, but I trained with larger rifles," he said.

"You a soldier?"

"No, but military service is required in Thailand," said Sin with a hint of derision. "I guess I'll finally get some use out of it."

"All right, well you take the south road. There probably won't be too much on it seeing as we already killed a lot of stuff back that way, should give you time to get used to that gun. Also, watch the side of the buildings, in case any of them try to sneak up on the girls and Patty."

"Understood." Sin nodded at Devlin and marched down the road.

"And any of you ever use this gun before?" asked Devlin as he held up the automatic rifle.

"Yeah, it's loud, and it's impossible for me to hold when it shoots more than one bullet," answered Clem.

"Then it works," concluded Devlin as he examined the weapon. "I'll use this rifle and cover the north side."

"What about me?" asked Anthony.

"Watch the baby," ordered Devlin.

"What? You want me to babysit?"

"The gunshots will wake him up and probably scare him too," said Sarah. "Somebody needs to be there for him."

"But anyone can do that," argued Anthony. "Why me?"

"Because, you fucked up your shoulder from working all day without a break," reminded Devlin. "No good messing yourself up even worse. You get some rest while keeping an eye on the kid. If once of us needs to tap out and you're feeling better, you can switch then."

Anthony stared defiantly at Devlin in response.

"Please Anthony?" begged Sarah. "We can't leave Omid alone."

"You know what, I'll do it since you asked Sarah." Anthony smiled at her, then headed for the Brave.

"All right people, move with a purpose."

Sarah and Clem grabbed a spool of barbwire from the Sunseeker and hurried down the hill and towards the shopping center. There were bodies all over the grass leading up to the building, too rotted to be walkers anymore. Briefly glancing at them, she could see some of them had uniforms on, most of them didn't. There were also stray shell casings scattered across the dirt that Clem preferred not to think about.

Moving in close to the buildings revealed more signs of the battle Devlin mentioned. The concrete exteriors of the stores were riddled with bullet holes and an entire section of the structure on the left had collapsed into a pile of broken concrete from some unseen attack. Nearing the gap, Clem could see a damaged humvee smashed up against the building on the right.

Entering the gap, the scars of battle grew more numerous. There were several wrecked vehicles jammed up against the sides of the building at odd angles, small craters in the dirt path they were walking on, and at the end of the gap a bizarre arch that appeared to be made out of twisted metal. Getting closer, Clem realized the arch was the remains of a semi-trailer, like the ones that made the wall around the citadel, but this one had been torn apart in the middle, leaving an opening large enough to drive through.

Reaching the wrecked trailer, Clem was baffled by the black scorch marks surrounding the punctured metal. The razor wire running on top made it clear this was used as a wall, but Clem could think of only one thing that could have carved an entrance through it. And taking a few steps forward, she saw that one thing sitting in the middle of the parking lot; the remains of a large tank.

"Jesus…" whispered Patty. "It's just like Mobile."

"Except there are walkers everywhere this time," corrected Clem.

"Let's just put up the barbwire before they hear us," insisted Sarah.

The pair worked quickly while Patty kept a lookout. The debris and abandoned vehicles gave them some natural places to anchor the wire. They could hear Jet over the radio reporting about walkers in the distance, but Devlin told him not to shoot until Clem and Sarah finished. After securing their third strand of wire, Clem decided that was enough. They backed away from the gap, then radioed the others to let them know it was time.

A couple of rifle shots sounded, which was followed by more shots from the others, and soon there were walkers moving towards the gap. Clem's tomahawk moved without thinking, by now it was practically a reflex. As the walkers began to swarm, the girls stepped back and let Patty's shotgun deal with them. The deafening bangs drew more, which the girls would cut down with their pistols while Patty reloaded. After their numbers began to thin the girls would reload themselves, then go back to using their melee weapons, repeating the cycle.

The moans and groans of the dead became like white noise before long, and the constant sunken faces of the dead looking in Clem's direction before jamming her blade through their eyes all blended together into a depressing blur of rotted faces who features dimmed with the setting sun. It felt less like battling monsters and more like fighting a force of nature now, like throwing sandbags in the path of a flooding river, hoping you have enough to keep the water out.

The sun had nearly set as the distant sounds of gunshots began to wane. There were still more walkers piling in from the gap, and by now the bodies of the dead had once again formed a pile of corpses, burying the original wire, which just created a marginally more effective barrier. By now, Clem could barely breathe because her lungs ached so badly, yet she persisted.

Watching as another pair of walkers clambered over their makeshift wall of bodies, Clem tried to move forward to kill one, only to suddenly find herself too dizzy to stand. The girl fell backwards onto the dirt, dropping her tomahawk. Watching Sarah, her machete became jammed in the head of the walker on the left, and while she tried to free it the walker on the right was pulling itself over the wall.

Clem drew her pistol and took aim the best she could, but pulling the trigger just produced a click; she had forgotten to reload. Her eyes wandering around for help, Clem saw Patty was still loading her shotgun while the walker's arms started thrashing out towards an unexacting Sarah, whose was still struggling to free her machete. With a sudden wave of terror washing over her, Clem reached for the grenade on her belt. But before she could grab it, a cold but strong hand grabbed her from behind.

"Easy there," said Devlin. "I got you." The man's thick gloves felt coarse against her skin, but there was something gentle in the way he helped her off the ground, as if he was taking great care not to exert too much strength.

Suddenly there was a gunshot and Clem turned her head to discover Sarah casually shooting the walker with her pistol. Feeling a little less dizzy now, she noticed it wasn't quite as close to her friend as she initially thought.

"Looks like you three could use a break." Clem watched as Jet picked up the tomahawk and approached the wall, Sin following right behind with his machete. "The roads are pretty clear now, so we can take take it from here."

"Thuh… thanks," Clem found herself barely able to speak because her throat was so parched. She slowly trudged back to the Brave with Sarah and Patty, both looking only marginally less haggard than herself. Her feet hurt from standing all day, both her arms were throbbing in pain, her hands were incredibly sore, and even with the respirator covering her mouth she knew she must smell terrible.

Returning to the Brave to toss off their stuffy respirators and raincoats felt like escaping an iron maiden for the trio. Carefully removing the grenade from her belt, Clem took one last look at it before placing it on the table, grateful that she didn't need it today. She was about to remove the rest of her equipment when there came a noise from the closet. Without a word, Sarah jumped ahead of the group and threw the door open.

"Ah-bree-mah-bah" mumbled Omid as he chewed his ice cream.

"Omid, no!" scolded Sarah as she pried the boy away from his treat. "He ate almost a whole bag. You're gonna make yourself sick."

"What are y'all yelling about?" asked a woozy Anthony as he emerged from the bedroom.

"Dammit, you were supposed to be watching him," said Patty.

"I was, I just lied down for a minute. What's the big…" Anthony looked down at the mostly devoured plastic bag sitting amongst the remaining unopened freeze-dried ice cream. "Are you kidding me, you people lied to me." Anthony turned to Clem. "You said that bag you gave me to go New Orleans was your last one."

Everyone stared hard at Anthony in response to what he said, except for Omid, who just kept chewing. "Why don't you go help the others clear our what's left in the parking lot?" suggested a worn out Patty.

"All I've got is the one pistol."

"Just take my backpack, its got extra bullets," said Clem as she handed him her bag. "If you hurry, you might still reach three-hundred."

That was enough to get Anthony moving, leaving the Brave to its owners.

"Finally," spoke an exhausted Clem. "I really need a—" Omid spit-up a brown substance onto Clem's shirt. "Shower."

After confirming Omid was unarmed beside stuffing himself with too much ice cream, Clem's concerns were replaced with annoyance in needing to clean up the floor while Sarah had to wash and change Omid; Patty was left to sort out their guns and other equipment in case they needed to go back out. At one point, Devlin requested as many flashlights as they could spare over the radio, and Clem volunteered to take some out, reasoning she was still on her feet anyway. Only after that was she finally able to catch her breath in the bathroom.

Peeling off her gloves, Clem was disturbed to see her hands were bright red and covered in popped blisters. And as she undressed, Clem discovered more bruises and marks all across her body, many of which weren't there this morning. Tossing her filthy clothes in the laundry basket, Clem suspected she could have not used her raincoat at this point and still remained undetected due to all the blood that had splashed onto them, and Omid's puke probably just helped to make them smell even worse.

Stepping into the shower, Clementine felt the hot water almost instantly washing away her fears and concerns of the day along with the dirt and filth, only for the water to stop. It started again after a few seconds, then stopped again. Clem tried fiddling with the knobs and even knocking the shower head, but it didn't fix the problem. It was still a huge relief to wash herself off, but without a steady stream of water it was more like she was getting a quick rinse than a hot shower.

As she stepped out of the bathroom, Clem heard another call from Devlin, this time telling them to try and move the Brave into the parking lot. They had apparently cleared out most of the remaining walkers as well as clearing out some space in the gap, and Devlin wanted to make sure they could drive onto the lot now, saying they could spend the night here. Patty dutifully put up with the Brave's stubbornness until it started and headed for the gap.

The barricade of bodies had been parted down the middle and the wire removed. It was a tight fit, and Patty went slowly, but they managed to squeeze the Brave through without issue. Heading south across the lot, Clem found herself staring at the countless bodies littering the area. The asphalt looked almost like a wide open sea in the dark, and the Brave their ship sailing through these uncharted waters riddled with bodies. Despite what Devlin had said about staying the night, it still didn't feel like they were finished, and that there was some other challenge waiting for them.

Eventually, the Brave's headlights fell on the storehouse's front entrance. It was chained shut, and in the surrounding area, Clem could see Anthony, Sin and Jet eliminating a few lingering walkers in the distance, while Devlin was moving towards the storehouse's front doors. Patty and Clem rearmed themselves and grabbed their raincoats while Sarah tried to get Omid to settle in for the night.

Stepping outside, once again Clem found herself staring at the bodies lying around her. Seeing one walker on the pavement not far from where they parked, Clem grabbed her tomahawk. Her hands and arms ached as she lifted it into the air, but she endured the pain long enough to bring the blade down on the walker's skull.

"I think that one was already dead," informed Patty as she gravitated towards one the Brave's exterior storage bins.

"Yeah, but I wanted to be sure." There was a gunshot and Clem turned around in time to see a walker falling before Anthony, who was wielding a pistol in his left hand. Scanning for further threats, Clem found nothing but Sin and Jet as they moved towards where they were standing. Suddenly, the night seemed silent, free of moans and growls and shambling footsteps that had so followed them everywhere they went, and for the first time today, Clem didn't feel the walkers presence lurking just out of sight.

"Someone I knew once said that in the end, the dead always win." Clementine looked down at the rotten and mangy corpse sprawled out before her. "I think she was wrong."

"Devlin!"

Clem spun around to see Patty rushing towards Devlin, who collapsed to knees suddenly. Looking at the man, he had an almost vacant look in his eyes now, as if his soul had left his body.

"Are you okay?" asked Patty.

"You're not bitten are—"

"I just can't believe it," he mumbled in a barely audible whisper. "With just six of you…" Devlin raised his arm and stared at the dried blood smeared across the sleeve of his raincoat. "We could have taken it back. If only we had known, it could have worked… it all could have worked."

Clementine stepped forward and placed a hand on the man's shoulder, which seemed to bring him back to his senses. "I'm sorry," she said as the man looked into her eyes.

"They didn't even notice us," said Devlin. "How did you figure it out?"

"I was lucky," admitted Clem. "Someone had to kill a bunch of walkers to rescue me, and he got covered in their stuff. When a walker didn't bite him, we figured it out; I'm only alive because of him."

"I guess that means I am too now," realized Devlin as he stood up.

"We all are," said Patty as she approached the man. "None of us would have made it here without you Clem."

"Not me, Lee was the one—"

"You're the one who saved me back in Titusville," reminded Patty. "You wanted to take a chance to help Anthony, came to Sin and Jet's rescue outside Port Arthur, and I think I remember Sarah saying something about you saving her life."

"Well… yeah, I did do all that stuff, didn't I," spoke a surprised Clem, as if this was the first time she had realized this.

"And you're taking care of that baby," added Devlin. "Sounds like you're a real hero."

Clem turned away upon hearing that. "No," she said as she remembered something else she did. "I'm not a hero."

"Well, you're a hero to me," said Devlin with a smile.

"Really, even though I'm a kid?" asked Clem.

"That just makes you more heroic," reasoned Devlin with a smile. "I've known grown men twice your size who weren't half as heroic as I saw you act today."

"Three-hundred and eleven!" announced Anthony loudly as he joined the group. "What's my prize?"

"You get to kill the next three-hundred," suggested Patty.

"Ahh, you know what, I think I'll take the door prize instead." Anthony gestured to the front of the storehouse.

"Is it possible walkers are inside there?" Sin asked Devlin as he and Jet joined the group.

"I severely doubt it. We had the storehouse locked down tight to keep out thieves, and since we were attacked at night, none of us got a chance to open it before we had to retreat."

"How do we get in then?" asked Jet as he looked at the padlocks and chains welded to the door.

"I got it covered." Patty brandished the electric bolt cutter. She went right to the closest chain and pulled the trigger. The blades very slowly closed in on the metal link, but they didn't cut it. The tool just whirred very weakly as it failed to make a dent in the metal.

"Dammit…" Patty pulled back the tool. "What's wrong this thing?"

"We charged it the last time we stopped to get diesel, and we haven't used it since," said Clem. "Maybe the flood wrecked it. It was stored outside."

"How long have you had that?" asked Sin.

"We've had it for months now," said Clem. "Why?"

"It's possible the battery has lost its ability to hold a charge," said Sin.

"It's rechargeable," said Clem.

"Rechargeable batteries eventually lose their ability to hold a charge," informed Jet. "My laptop barely lasts thirty minutes when fully charged at this point."

"What kind of battery is it?" asked Sin. "Maybe we could replace it."

"I don't know, it's some boxy thing attached to the bottom," said Patty.

"Oh God damn it, we cut down an army of the dead only to get stopped by some fucking chains?" asked an indignant Anthony. "Why the hell can't we catch a break already?" A loud rattling caused everyone to spin around to find Devlin pulling the chains away while the padlocks lay by his feet.

"The Chief left the keys with us," said Devlin as he tossed the last chain aside. "In case we ever got back here… never thought I'd actually use them though."

"Just be good, please?" Clem watched as Sarah stepped out of the Brave, Omid cradled in her arms.

"Sarah, why are you bringing him out here?" asked Clem.

"He won't sleep, I think all the sugar from the ice-cream is keeping him up," said Sarah.

"Mah-bah," said Omid.

"And I think he's still hungry too," sighed Sarah. "Except for a bunch of ice cream, which he threw up, he hasn't eaten much all day."

"Well, let's get him something to eat then." Devlin pulled open the doors and grabbed his flashlight. He banged his nightstick against the door frame a couple of times, which produced no response, then he stepped in. Clem looked around at the others, all of whom seemed to be waiting for someone else to make the first move, eventually prompting Clem to do it herself.

She darted inside, past an area full of shopping carts, and into the store itself. Devlin was already far ahead, prompting Clem to remove her own flashlight. Flipping it on, she found she couldn't believe what she was looking at. Stacks, upon stacks, upon stacks, upon stacks of food, as far as she could see. Whole pallets of dried goods, entire shelves filled with cans, jars piled into boxes stacked upon boxes, packets of instant mix goodies laid out like piles of bricks on counters, bottles of sports drinks arranged into displays taller than her, and more food than she ever imagined seeing in every direction she looked.

"Holy shit," said Patty.

"I can only imagine how much more the troops in Houston had hoarded," spoke an astonished Sin as he studied his surroundings.

"Or how much they shipped away," added Jet.

Clem moved to one of the shelves. Reading the labels on the cans, she found fruits, stews, soups, and vegetables of all types neatly lined up for the taking. Removing a can of beef stew from the shelf, Clem discovered there were several more behind it. Moving a little further, she did see gaps and empty spots amongst the aisles, but there were so many aisles with so much food on it that it boggled the mind.

"Mah-bah!" Clem turned around to see Omid trying to grasp one of many plastic containers full of gum balls sitting on a shelf Sarah was walking by.

"No Omid, you've had enough sugar for today."

A loud bang came from behind and Clem discovered Anthony smacking the top of a can into one of the shelves.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Patty.

"Trying to open this, I'm starving," grumbled a desperate Anthony. "Here, you try, both your arms work."

"Put that back, we—"

"Just let him have it," said Devlin as walked back towards where the group was standing. "We were trying to save up enough provisions to last one more winter. What you're looking at, we were hoping to use to build a future for this city, but that's over now. Now, for a small group of people, all this food is just—"

"A jackpot," awed Clementine.

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