Malevolent. The Walking Dead

[ 017 ] days of illuminations and fevers

017: days of illuminations and fevers

The silence was so loud, Joey's ears were ringing, and it felt like she was crawling in her own skin. It didn't seem like anyone was breathing at first, and she had to focus on everyone's chests to make sure they were heaving. They were plentiful, and Joey was too scared to say anything. At first, she thought there were tears in her eyes, but it was just sweat dripping from her eyebrow ━ she took the sleeve of her shirt and wiped off her forehead. The sweat stung her eyes and she had to press into them with her grimy fingers to get it out. After moments of silence, Rosita spoke up. "You are a scientist. I've seen the things you can do,"

"I just know things,"

Bill shook his head. "That isn't good enough, Eugene,"

Glenn looked at the ━ not so ━ scientist in disbelief. "You just . . . know things?"

"I know I'm smarter than most people, I know I'm a very good liar, and I know I needed to get to D.C,"

Joey ran her hands over her face, and winced at the contact ━ she realized she probably had sunburn. It wasn't exactly a surprising revelation, but there was a ping in her chest that made her feel guilty. There was no reason for her to feel guilty, though, which made things ultimately worse, and her back ached from standing, so she crouched like a frog over the concrete. For a moment Joey thought she was going to vomit, but only spit up yellow bile onto the tar that had been placed to cover up cracks in the road.

"Why?" Maggie questioned, and Finn had crouched down next to Joey, rubbing her back, as if she was crying and needed consoling. She knew he was just trying to comfort her, but felt stupid, and gave him a look that may have been mistaken for a death glare. He didn't seem to reciprocate.

"Because I do believe that locale holds the strongest possibility for survival, and I wanted to survive. If I could cheat some people into taking me there, well, I just reasoned that I'd be doin' them a solid, too, considering the perilous state of the city of Houston, the state of everything,"

Joey saw Abraham lower to the ground through her peripheral vision, and she couldn't tell if it was getting blurry from angry tears or the sweat as she got lower to the ground. Her feet were cramping and she settled to sitting on her butt ━ although, it felt almost surreal. Joey would even admit that she had a slight glimmer of hope that perhaps they could find some sort of stable environment, maybe even a community, and they wouldn't have to be on the run anymore. Joey was tired of running, almost as tired as she was of killing, over and over and over. "People died trying to get you here," Rosita whimpered, and Joey didn't have to look at her to see the tears in her eyes and the emotion plastered on her face.

"I'm aware of that ━ Stephanie, Warren, Pam, Rex, Roger, Josiah, Dirk, and Josephine. And Bob. You see, I lost my nerve as we grew closer," his voice quivered, and Joey kept her hands on her face. She tried to mask her angry tears because she felt it made her look as though she had any emotional connection to this man, which she didn't. Or with any of these people. She didn't. She didn't want to.

"For I am a coward . . . and the reality of getting to our destination and disclosing the truth of the matter became some truly frightening shit. I took it upon myself to slow our roll,"

Finn removed his hand from Joey's back and fiddled with his pockets. It was true that most of them really didn't know what to say. "Find time to finesse things so that when we got there . . . But at this moment, I fully realize there are no longer any agreeable options. I was screwed either way,"

Joey threw her knife down on the ground, and it clattered against the hot cement. "You are screwed? You were just going to let us die for you too, weren't you?" she yelled, face contorted into somewhat of an angry and upset grimace. Eugene kept his gaze down on the ground. "You're right. You are a coward. A stupid, selfish, fuck up,"