Dead love in my hands (Troy Otto story/ Fear the walking dead/ ftwd)

Clara

I ran out into the stairwell and, pointing the gun at the men, started screaming:

"When and where did you see her?! Answer me! Now!"

"Who?" one of the company asked, raising his hands.

"The one you were just talking about, Clara!"

Only now did I realize that Troy was standing next to me, also pointing a gun at them. I felt calmer and more confident

"A couple days ago seen here, but she escaped!"

I was furious and at the same time I was filled with hope.

Suddenly I saw one of them raise his gun. Immediately I fired, hitting him in the leg. He fell down the stairs and howled in pain. Two of the men closest to him rushed to examine the wound. The others stared at us, their eyes expressing fear and anger.

"Get out of here, we won't hurt you," one of them began to babble in a prayerful voice.

"Disperse!"

They rushed to the wall. We started down the stairs. I passed by, shifting my gun from one to the other. Suddenly, the dark-haired man pulled out a knife and grabbed Troy by the hair and held it to his throat.

"Put the gun down, chick! Otherwise..."

He didn't have time to say anything else. I shot him in the head. Then I pointed the gun at the second one, a redhead, tall and quite young. He raised his hands.

"What kind of car do you have?!" - I said.

"A black one... Standing at the gate," he answered in a trembling voice.

"The keys, quick!"

Red rushed to the corpse of the dark-haired man. With trembling hands he pulled the keys from his jacket pocket and held them out to me.

"Don't follow us!"

I ran down the stairs, followed by Troy. When I got to the gate, I saw the black Benz Truck that hadn't been there when we arrived.

Tossing the keys to Troy, I yelled:

"Take the wheel!".

He caught them on the fly, but didn't say anything.

When we drove a decent distance away, he stopped and got out of the car. I decided to do the same.

Troy threw his head back and took a deep breath. Then he exhaled noisily, turned to me, gave me a dazed look, and asked:

"What the hell was that?!"

"What was that?"

"You killed a man!"

"He could have hurt us, there was no choice."

In fact, I didn't want to kill anyone. But when I heard about Clara, something inside me shifted, and the knife at Troy's throat added pepper. I was just furious that someone want taking him away from me.

"You killed a man because of me!"

"Troy, not because of you, but for you."

"Who cares!"

"You also killed, don't brand me an executioner now!"

"I wasn't going to! I just didn't expect this from you! Counted on me having to kill someone when you came out of the storeroom, but I didn't think you were capable of it yourself..."

"I wouldn't have killed if he hadn't attacked.... Really."

In fact, I hadn't yet realized the fact that I had killed someone. It was like that the first time and the second time. You kill, and then you walk around for a couple hours like nothing happened, not even realizing what you did. Of course, it's the instinct of self-preservation: you have to save yourself - your brain turns on the animal and turns off the human - you kill. It comes back the next day. Yeah, that's when you realize it. You remember how you pointed the gun, shot him, or slashed his throat with a knife... And you start to question the hopelessness of the situation. Surely I couldn't have done it any other way? You have to convince yourself that you couldn't. Because you didn't. Unless you're a bloodthirsty killer, and normal person who values life, of course.

"At least now we have a new car," I said with a semblance of a smile.

"Yeah, we should get gas and look for your sister. I hope those guys don't follow us again."

"I hope so."

Reaching our hiding place, Troy loaded the gasoline into the car. I rummaged through the glove compartment: there were a couple protein bars and nuts. We still had water in our backpacks, too.

When Troy returned to the car, I handed him my edible find. I wasn't hungry myself. I just drank some water.

We got to Michael's house pretty quickly. We walked for at least an hour and a half. As we entered the yard, I started to remember how we'd gotten here with my sister after the airport. Looking at the mugwort-covered flowerbeds, it was as if I heard her voice in my head again: "I'll do them after the wedding." Clara had always loved fiddling with flowers. Unfortunately, the garden remained dull.

As I crossed the threshold of the house, the ringing silence began to awaken unpleasant feelings in me. The first time I was here, music was playing. Pushing away the unpleasant thoughts, I started looking for Clara. Troy followed, I asked him to check the basement, and I went upstairs myself. After a couple minutes of wandering around, when I was about to come downstairs with the message that I had nothing, I heard screams downstairs and then a gunshot. I flew downstairs to the first floor.

Troy and my sister were standing there, pointing guns at each other. As I looked around them, I realized that no one was hurt. Apparently, Clara had fired and missed. Afterward, she and I met eyes and stood dumbfounded. She stood like that for half a minute, and then she put her arms around me.