THE DIXON TWINS KNEW DISAPPOINTMENT. It greets them like an old friend. A welcomed intruder into their lives in which they have learned to live. So when their father stormed into their shared room on the day the world ended, telling them to pack the...
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". . .I would have traded places with him right now because . . .I love you. . ."
". . .took my ear and put it to his chest. . ."
"—No, no, Shane, you're drunk—"
". . .no way you could have been with me if you that way if you were. . ."
"You love me—"
"Shane! Stop! Stop it, Shane!"
"I love you. There's nobody else—"
"Get your hands off of me!"
Munching on the tip of her thumb as if it were the last meal she might ever get was Finch, the fresh taste of iron flooding her mouth when she pulled back the skin next to her nail far enough to bleed. In hindsight, it wasn't the smartest move during the end of the world, not when the risk of it becoming infected was higher that it normally would have been, but Finch cared very little for that fact. They had nowhere else to run to and were more likely to die looking for the same safety that the CDC offered them. To conserve on gas, Shane offered to leave behind his jeep, handing the gas over to whoever needed it the most, and Daryl said they could leave behind the Dixon's truck, the same one he taught her and Ace to drive in when they were going for their license. That same license seemed useless now in this new world and the picture on it was taken after school, when her hair had been still greasy from missing a shower and she had worn a large, bright pink sweatshirt because it was the only thing she could find that morning. It was after she got her septum piercing and the spot where the body piercer placed it was still red.
Daryl had taken Merle's motorcycle that was sitting in the bed of the truck, leaving Ace and Finch to ride in the RV with most of the others who lost their vehicles.
And Shane.
Being trapped in the same vehicle as Shane for who knows how long made Finch feel ill, made her stomach twist and turn and wanting to throw back up T-Dog's powdered eggs and the red wine from the CDC even when she forced herself to keep it down.
Every time she looked at Shane, she saw the CDC, how he's been unraveling ever since Rick returned to his family. She didn't see it that night, but she saw it now. It wasn't much of a secret that Shane and Lori had been seeing each other during their time in the Atlanta camp, and Finch wasn't one to judge Lori for it. She believed her husband dead and Shane's eager and awaiting arms were the only place she could find comfort in. It was never Finch's business to know what happened when Rick returned that day with Glenn and the rest when she was too wrapped up in her brother's return to care for their love affair. But she saw it that night at the CDC and everything else began to unravel afterwards.
The truth was that Finch hadn't meant to be walking the halls of the CDC, not when she was stumbling around with alcohol still running through her body. She had thought that there might have been a book in the recreational room like Jenner told them, maybe so she wouldn't be stuck reading the same books she had been these past few months. She didn't mean to overhear them, she didn't mean to see him forcing himself onto Lori while she begged him to stop. And Finch hated that she stood there, did nothing, and hoped that it was a trick of her mind, the wine messing with her brain and making her see something that wasn't actually happening. But when Shane walked into that cafeteria the next morning, there was no doubt in her mind that those events that night happened, because where else would he have gotten those three long scars?
