found lands → the walking dead ³

[ 024 ] not the end.

FOUND LANDS.

chapter twenty-four, not the end.
[ season six, episode nine ]

ODESSA HAD BEEN LUCKY enough to be saved by Cole before any walker could reach her. But she is unlucky enough to be surrounded by the biggest fucking idiots in Alexandria.

Aaron. Spencer. Heath. Cole. And of course herself.

Aaron is the only one that knows how to stitch wounds. When Odessa rolls up her shift, he gags. "What?" She asks. When she looks down at the wound, she can tell it's clearly infected. "Oh."

But the infected area isn't what Aaron or anyone else is looking at. They're staring at her blood. It's still dark in color with specks of black.

"Odessa," Aaron starts. Cole even gapes.

"I was bit early on." She says. All eyes shoot to her. "It wasn't deep enough to turn me but we went to the CDC. The scientist there did blood work and found out that from the bite I have black blood cells. They're slowly turning all my red and white blood cells black. And when they do, I'll die. I'm literally a dead girl walking. By now I assume it's turned at least five percent of my normal blood cells black."

All four men stare at her. They're completely shocked. Cole realizes just how lucky or perhaps unlucky Odessa Winona Grimes is.

"Are you gonna stitch me up or no?" Odessa asks Aaron.

He snaps out of his trance. "Yeah, um," he looks around for a suture kit. "I need to put some antibiotic ointment on it. The infection isn't bad. We just need Denise to treat it."

Aaron does exactly what he says he's going to do. He puts ointment on the wound, he stitches it, then he places a new bandage over it.

Odessa sits up from where she'd been laying on her side. All four men avoid her eyes. "Y'all." They all look at her. "I'm not dead yet. It's gonna take at least a couple years to finally change all of my blood cells. I'll probably even die before that."

She gets up and moves to the window. She gently moved the curtain to look outside. Walkers moan and stumble in the streets of a once safe place.

Her heart is in her throat. "Did any of you see my dad or Carl?" She turns back to the others.

"I think I saw them go into Jessie's house." Spencer tells her. She hopes and prays he's right. She's so worried about her family. "My mom was with them."

"And Theo? The others?" She asks.

"Theo was with your dad. So was Michonne and Gabriel. The others... I don't know." Spencer shakes his head.

In the sea of walkers outside, the living stop. "Alright, new plan." Rick says. "Flares from a few guns aren't enough. Too many walkers, too spread out. We're not going to armory. We need our vehicles back at the quarry. All of us drive. We'll need to round 'em up. We leave, we come back."

"Okay. But Judith... to the quarry and back." Jessie looks to Carl. Rick pinches the bridge of his nose.

"I'll take her." Gabriel steps up. "Keep her safe in my church until you all lead the walkers away."

"Can you do this?" Michonne turns to Gabriel.

"I'm supposed to. I have to." He turns back to Rick. "I will."

Gabriel is determined to make up for what he told Deanna. These are the people that saved his life when they didn't have to. They're the people who cleaned out a store and fed him. They're his family. So now he must regain their trust.