We Continue On

Abhorrent First Day

In the armory, Lee and Bonnie were loading up magazine rifles. It had been less than twenty-four hours, and already Lee hated it here. The leader was a tyrant, that much was obvious. Now he knew why Carlos and the others had escaped from here.

Bonnie had apologized for the events at the ski lodge, but Lee was pretty skeptical when it came to accepting it or not. If she hadn't shown up, then the group might have still been safe at the ski lodge. Matthew and Pete would have still been alive.

"I was supposed to go, when Luke and Carlos and all of them left," Bonnie pointed out as she loaded up another magazine. "I was plannin' on leavin', too."

Lee frowned. "Why didn't you leave?" he inquired. Surely there was no good reason to want to stay in this horrible camp.

Bonnie shrugged. "I guess if I'm being honest, I chickened out," she answered. "I justified not going by telling myself it's easier to try and change somethin' that's broken than to start all over," she continued to talk. "But Bill...he keeps things in line, he's got a lot of this stuff figured out. I don't know, I guess I just wanted to be comfortable somewhere for a while."

"What changed?" Lee questioned.

"Nothin' changed," Bonnie answered after a short pause. "We've had herds come through before, but we've come out on the other end all right. It ain't easy keepin' a group this big fed and protected. I don't envy his position, it'd make anyone a littled stressed. I'm not defending what he did. That was-"

"He killed Matthew and Pete!" Lee interrupted, glaring at her now.

"Only to defend his people!" Bonnie cried defensively. "Kenny could've killed us all."

"But he didn't."

"Bill overreacted; he stepped out of line, and he overreacted." Bonnie paused, and grabbed another magazine. "Luke and Lilly had ideas about how things should go, but they didn't line up with what Bill wanted. They butted heads, then Rebecca started showin', and that only made things worse...I just hope Luke is safe."

Typical Lilly, always wanting to be the leader, Lee thought. Out loud, he said, "I'm sure he's still alive out there, somewhere."

There was a pause, and Bonnie stood up and walked away for a moment. She returned with a blue ski jacket with a rainbow on it. "Give this to Clementine, okay? I found it back at the lodge, and it looked to be about her size."

Lee was a bit astonished for a moment, but then he looked back at Bonnie. "Thanks. I will."

Meanwhile, Sarah and Clementine were in the greenhouse, waiting for Tavia to bring Reggie in. Sarah was still shaken up about being slapped.

"You okay, Sarah?" Clementine asked, trying to make conversation with her friend, but received no answer from the teen.

Finally, after a moment of silence, she finally spoke. "My dad's never hit me before...even when I was really bad."

"He didn't want to do it," Clem replied, "Carver made him. In a weird way, it's like Carver hit you, not your dad."

"Yeah, I guess..." Sarah trailed off. "Well, then Carver hit me super hard, because it still hurts really bad."

"Yeah, it looked like it," Clem said.

"I don't know why people have to be so mean; even when I'm really mad, I still don't want to hurt anybody," Sarah continued to talk.

Clementine shrugged. "Because we're the good guys," she answered. "That's what Lee told me."

Sarah smiled, if only slightly. "Well, he's probably right."