VILLAINESS [TWD]

➴78

When I walked into Hilltop, I was bombarded.

"Where the hell have you been?" Kal asks. "What happened to you?"

"Out. What's up your ass?"

The sun was just barely coming back up. It had to be five am or so. But, I had to walk all the way home from Alexandria. It was hell without a horse or vehicle.

Plus.. there was some trouble on the road.

"You don't know?" Kal questions.

I tiredly run my hand through my hair, pushing it out of my face. "Know what? Dude, I'm too tired for this."

"Ken's dead."

My heart plummets to my stomach.

"What?"

"It happened yesterday. They were trying to get the wagon through a back route.. Ken got bit. Siddiq and Enid were going to amputate, but he also got kicked by a horse. Enid thinks the kick is what killed him."

Instinctively, my eyes trail to the blacksmith table. Earl wasn't there. Alden was, though.

"That's not all," Kal whispers.

I shove the grief aside. "What?"

"Ellie?" mom calls.

My head pounds as I look over to her. She looked just as bad as me.

She had a black eye. A cut on her face.

I had a busted lip. Claw marks on my throat.

"We should talk," mom says.

--

Anna grabs the towel from my hands and begins drying my hair for me.

"Did she tell you?" she wonders.

"Gregory got Earl drunk and they both attacked mom."

"Yeah," Anna sighs.

"She told me about Hershel getting thrown on the ground. Enid's injury. How you, Josh, Alden, and Cyndie helped her before anything went more wrong."

"We were talking about Ken and heard Hershel crying," she reveals. "It was just.. instinct."

"Thank you for being there."

It was like she knew what I was trying to say. What I was trying to do. Apologize for not being here.

"Where were you?"

There it is.

Anna pulls the towel from my head and my half dry hair hangs in strands around my face.

"Ellie," Anna calls.

I stand up and walk around our trailer for a few seconds. "I went with Daryl and Rosita to clear route A.."

"Mhm." Anna sits down where I previously was on the bed.

"And I thought.. Rick and Michonne were going to Sanctuary so.. I had a chance."

"You went after Negan," she figures out with ease.

"I almost had it."

Anna goes quiet. I step back to be in front of her- our positions switched from earlier.

"Rosita and Gabriel stopped me."

"By talking or is that why you showed up with a busted up face?"

It wasn't just the fight with Rosita and Gabriel that left me cut up. But.. I was already walking on a tight rope.