39 people had died, and it had only been 56 hours since Patrick had killed almost everyone in D. Rowen and Carl had talked a lot over the past couple days. The other children were all way younger than them.
For the first few hours Rowen tried to convince herself that she was only speaking to him because she had nothing else to do.
She's still trying, just not as hard.
As hours in the old wardens office passed, the lower the number of children there became. People Rowen knew, people she had personally helped at some point or another.
Out of the original 36 children that stayed in the prison, 16 were dead, 8 were sick, and 12 remained in the old worn down office.
Rowen had spent more time outside on the veranda, in 56 hours, than she had spent outside the entire six months she'd been at the prison.
"Carol just brought in some food." Carl stepped outside, it was early in the morning, the Georgia heat gone due to the approaching winter.
"Okay, I'll be in soon." Her eyes never strayed to Carl, they stayed glued to the pages of Romeo and Juliet. The girl had read it so many times she could probably recite the entirety of it.
"You need to eat, you haven't eaten since we got here." The boy pushed, Rowen finally closed her book and looked at him.
"I said I'd be in soon." She looked down at her shoes, they stood like that for a few moments, him staring at her while she stared at her shoes. He ultimately decided to walk away, leaving the girl outside in the cold.
She followed shortly after, scooping some warm soup into a bowl for herself. She found herself sitting on the ground, her back rested against the cold concrete walls.
The girl barely took two bites before she felt the sting of bile in her throat. Dropping the bowl at her side she rushed out into the cool morning air.
The two measly bites of the soup, along with whatever stomach acid she had, came up, burning her throat raw as her knees dug into the hard concrete flooring. Her hand curled into her jacket, as she gagged.
Relieving her knees of the hard pavement below them, she sat back, directly before a water bottle was planted in front of her face.
She looked up, Carl stood with his arm extended and his eyebrows raised, "are you okay?" She grabbed the bottle, taking a few small sips of the liquid.
"Yeah," she huffed a breath "I just haven't eaten in a while so-" she didn't finish her sentence, her face burning with embarrassment.
Her dad always told her that being sick made you weak, that being sick was shameful, but she wasn't sick, she couldn't be.
Carl nodded slowly, he turned, walking back into the building. Leaving Rowen and her vomit outside.
☆
Rowen had sat outside alone, and at some point, fallen asleep. When she woke up, she was hot, and sweaty, but cold at the same time.
Her head was pounding, the sun was to bright, and she could barely stand. Eventually she gained her footing and made her way inside. The second she was enveloped in the stale air of the building she was sent into a fit of coughing.
Bent over at the waist, her arms squeezed her torso. She heard loud footsteps, she couldn't tell if they were coming towards her or not. Her senses were all messed up.
"Rowen?" She heard his voice long before she saw him, he rounded the corner that lead into the front hallway, where she stood, coughing up a lung.
When her coughing subsided, she stood straight. The boy looked at her with furrowed eyebrows, "I fell asleep, I think I just got to cold." She brushed him off.
She started to walk, she stopped a few feet away from the boy before she coughed, a chest rattling cough that went on far too long to be normal.
"Are you sick?" Carl stared at her, She removed her arm from her face slowly looking up at him. He took a step towards her, placing the back of his hand to her forehead, he looked down to her arm, the fabric laid on the inside of her elbow coated with a thin sheen of blood.
"Shit, Rowen." The girls eyes followed his to her arm, and shortly after they shut, with her hands rubbing at her face. She let out a huff.
"I'll get my stuff and go to A block." She moved past him, their shoulders brushing as she did so. She grabbed her blanket and her book, and left the small building.
She couldn't walk more than a few feet without being sent into yet another round of coughs. By the time she made it too A block she was pale, and weak, and coated in sweat.
Knocking on the door to A was harder than knocking had ever been before, and after a short while of standing outside the door, she was let in by Hershel.
"How are you feeling?" Hershel asked as they walked to an empty cell.
"Like shit." The short two-word sentence caused the girl to double over, blood splattering on the floor as she coughed.
"Let's get you settled, hm?" He phrased it like a question, but it was more of a demand. Rowen fell into the bottom bunk, Hershel placed a warm rag on her head before handing her a cup of tea.
Rowen took a sip of the disgusting tea, then left it to turn cold on the floor. Her entire body hurt, she felt like she'd been run over by ten cars and drown a couple dozen times.
After laying there, staring at the underside of the top bunk for what felt like hours, she eventually fell asleep.
★
Rowen left the office before he had the chance to say anything. She could die, she would die. Everyone who went into A block, didn't come out. He should have stopped her, made her stay in the tiny filing room, anything to keep her from dying.
He had to tell Daryl, he would keep her alive, Daryl kept everyone alive.
So instead of following the orders of his father, and the council, Carl left the office building, and began searching for Daryl.
He found him in the guard tower after searching for hours. "Daryl," Carl climbed the latter, pulling himself up from the hole in the floor.
Daryl only grunted in response, "Rowen's sick, she went to A block." Carl stood facing Daryl's back, as the older man stared at the fences below.
"And?" He turned to face the boy now, a cigarette hanging from his lips.
"You gotta help her." He took a drag from the cigarette,
"I ain't gotta do shit. She's not my daughter, why should I care what happens to her?" With that the man left Carl alone in the tower.
Daryl did care what happened to her, but Carl didn't know, and he didn't want to admit it.
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[EDITED]
-Sadie⭐️
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