crooked heart → the walking dead ⁵

[ 023 ] the girl who was death.

CROOKED HEART.

chapter twenty-three, the girl who was death.
[ season ten, episode four ]

THEN.

A WEEK AFTER THE storm passes, Odessa leaves the Hilltop alone. She leaves in a puffer jacket with a hoodie underneath. She has a scarf pulled over her face, shielding it from the still biting cold.

She makes her way back towards the Kingdom, and then she searches the woods until she finds the barn.

She knows she shouldn't be here. This is on Alpha's side of the border. What if something goes wrong? Nobody knows she's here. She's here, risking everyone's lives because she needs closure. She needs it so bad.

When she enters the abandoned wooden building, she doesn't m know what she's find. Will the bodies of her people, her family, still be inside? Will the weapons and blood still be there?

Only one is right.

Scattered around the straw covered dirt floor are several different weapons. A shovel, two knives, a rusty axe. She doesn't expect to find any guns. She knows she won't find Flynn's guns. All she finds of Flynn is his blood and the blood of the rest of her people.

It stains the wooden frames, now a brown color instead of dark red. Odessa takes a shakey breath as she walks further into the barn.

Odessa's brows furrow when the light from a hole in the roof catches on something shiny shoved slightly inside rotten straw.

She walks toward, kneeling down slowly in front of the pile of straw. She reaches out, unsure if her demons will reach out and snatch her back just before she can reach her answers.

They don't.

They just stand by, watching on as the person that keeps them connected to the world from before, reaches out for the closure she so desperately desires.

When she finally reaches the object, she pulls it from the straw. Immediately, she knows what it is. Glaring up at her is a necklace.

The red charm, made of a headlight, is ruthless. The moon reflects off of the necklace. Specks of blood can be seen on the silver metal chain and piece of broken headlight. Odessa stares down at it, her lips slightly parted. Her breathing is heavy, almost as if her heart and lungs cannot keep up with each other.

The very necklace that Abraham Ford made for his final lover, Sasha Williams. And when she went away to the Sanctuary, ready to kill Negan . . . she knew she wasn't coming back alive. She left the necklace to Flynn. The little boy who almost made her stay in the Hilltop. The little boy who was so kind and funny. And even as he grew older, he had his moments of anger with Cori and Odessa, he argued with Brielle, he got into fights. . . he was still just a boy. A fifteen year old kid who deserved so much better.

Odessa doesn't realize she's sobbing until she's wailing. She's been so busy with taking care of her wife and daughter, with helping the Kingdomers adjust to life at the Hilltop, she hasn't been able to mourn her boy, her son.

And now here she is, kneeling in the same place he was butchered by a mad woman. She hasn't had time to realize how bad she's truly hurting.