Never Close Your Eyes

ZBD ✨ : C. 10

|| Chapter Ten ||

To see her face, drain of what it once was, they'll never see the film we had seen. Feeling her last breath fall upon their chest, isn't a curse they'll feel every time they take a breath.

The worst part? Looking into the eyes of someone who only wanted to protect you, but end up killing someone you both adored greatly.

10K's eyes were so broken, they're still broken once they reminisce what they saw, what they did.

The way he looked so lost killed me faster than anything, because out of the both of us, he is suppose to know what he's doing; he's suppose to lead, to guide me.

"Don't try to make me feel better about it." 10K growled at a person who had no clue how bad this felt.

His fists laid by his side, clenched to nothing but his own flesh as anger replaced his depressive mood, "I don't want to feel better about it. There's nothing to feel better about. Nothing, that's what I want to feel."

And he will. Soon, he'll become numb when the stages of mourning phase through the both of us. We'll be empty shells at least once a day, knowing what happened on this particular event.

Then, when he thinks about her, he'll feel numb too. He won't remember the sadness he felt, but he'll remember the actions he made while feeling that long feeling of depression.

When he thinks of Her, he'll think of the bad ones before he even realizes that there were more good memories, because that's the way we function; the people we want to forget, we think of the bad in hopes to rid ourselves of the guilt we feel.

Finally, we'll both come to the terms that it really was out of our control. We didn't force her to become a monster; we didn't force anything.

We'll be able to see her smile, her laugh from her vocal chords whenever Doc and Murphy would be going on about something. He'll have her scent already locked in a vault so when he's ready, he'll be able to familiarize it with something new.

Her laugh will be the one pre-Z; her smile will be pre-zombie virus with no hints of infection.

I know for his nightmares, he'll remember the blood she ripped out of victims for Murphy's sake. He'll see her coming after him, or maybe me, and be reminded why she isn't here anymore.

Seeing as he knew 10K needed more space than he did comfort, Doc saw it fit to shuffle to my vulnerable side as I breathed out of my mouth softly.

"Kiddo, let me see that nose." He didn't want to risk upsetting me as he had done 10K.

Carefully, like I was awaiting my punishment for taking a sweet treat from a baker, I lifted my head up to face him with a ghostly look.

"We've got to reset it."

Before anything could be said or done to me, a familiar voice eched from behind the small group we built up over the months, "What's going on here?"

When no brunette came rushing to his side, snitching on everything bad we had caused to her world, or when he didn't hear her groans of struggle, he reacted properly, "Where's Cassandra?"

Taking back leadership role 10K and I swapped between us like volleyball, Warren was the second person to break from the quiet pack, standing up to Murphy, who looked around us for his slave.

When Warren approached him, he finally focused on her figure. All Cassandra ever was to Murphy was a slave--someone trapped in his mind control that would never leave him no matter the request.

There was no love connection with them, only control and management.

"She's dead." Warren took a deep breath for her next sentence, not knowing how he's taking the news, "I'm sorry."

"Dead?" Murphy questioned as if it was only a theory, eyes wide as a deer in headlights.

I knew he wondered how one of us, mere humans, could kill something as great and deadly as his creation, "How? What happened?"

What happened? What fucking happened?

"You." Anger now replaced the urgency when realization hit at the sight of 10K and I standing in front of Cassandra's grave, pointing a nasty, discolored finger in the direction of 10K.

He didn't even know that "I" mercied her. Both men took a step up, challenging the other's alpha motives. Doc and I got in front of our man while Warren was the only one to hold Murphy back.

Rage burned inside both of these heartbroken individuals, who had different loves for the decease.

"It wasn't him! I did it!" I screamed before the shit-pot stirred itself, turning my body sideways so my back wouldn't be to 10K.

I trust him, but I don't trust what he'll do if he thinks my guard is down. The right hand that laid on top of 10K's chest, that felt the fast rhythm of adrenaline pumping through him, was grasped by the man himself, as if it was a way to assure me in my lie.

He didn't ask me to lie, but I knew shit would go down worse if I didn't take the blame.

"I mercied her! I put the knife in the back of her skull while she had 10K against the ground, banging his head against a rock!"

More details than I cared to share, but if I didn't give something they'd question. It didn't matter who really killed her, but if Murphy had true hatred for 10K? That would be a messier situation.

I'll take the complete blame.

Murphy sneered at me, like he was almost disgusted at the thought I'd off him, "You would ne--."

"But I fucking did. Because of you." I interrupted him, knowing he, and I bet most of the group, could smell my bullshit even in this hard time.

"I was the one to give her this life; you had no right to take that way."

"You really want to talk about taking souls away, Murphy?" I dared him to go the length I was begging to cleanse my soul from.

10K squeezed my hand, but said nothing to me.

"You were mad at me, never at her! You had no reason." He still tried to find reason when it came to the subject of me murdering Cassandra. 

Is it really murder when the person is already dead inside?

"She wasn't human; that was not humane. Not since you bit her." 10K took a step forward, now wanting to argue and release tension in his body. 

He deserves this too.

"What do you know what is humane? You kill these people and give them a number. What was her number, 10K? Hmm? She was more of a human than all of you!"

I said no words as my feet moved themselves away from Doc and 10K, but two arms wrapped around my waist. They dragged me back against a familiar place and back behind the invisible line we had created.

"She was never human, because of you! She should've died a respectful death instead of acting like a cannibal for as long as she did!" I seethed, anger burning me up, "Fuck you!"

"Fuck me? I gave her a new meaning to being alive, for you. This is how you thank me? Your anger was for me, never for Cassandra or Lucy!"

"The baby." I heard Addy gasp on the sidelines after Murphy was done, "Where's the baby, Murphy?"

"Where is Lucy?" Warren whipped back around to focus on the man of the fucking hour, now coming back to her senses.

I was breathing out of my mouth harsher than I was before the group, shaking like I was freezing in Antarctica.

"Breathe." 10K's voice had zero sympathy, zero comfort as we both raged and steamed with anger.

I wanted nothing more than to rip Murphy's neck out of his body.

"You don't have to worry about the baby anymore."

The only thing any of us could do at this point was stare at him in shock and confusion. He really done something we didn't think he'd do.

He got rid of his own blood--whether if it was to protect her from us or keep her safe from human destruction, he actually did it.

|| The endings won't end you ||