midnight in the garden of eden - carl grimes

III

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iii.

the killing moon
"fate up against your will"

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The night is cold, but the weight of the blankets does nothing to ease my restless mind. I stare at the ceiling, tracing the dim outlines of beams that run across the roof, try counting back from one-hundred. Nothing helps. My thoughts pull me back to the basement, back to the cell, back to her. Lydia.

The girl still trapped down there, alone and locked away, surrounded by the heavy walls and thick bars. I feel guilty lying here, in a bed with soft sheets in my stupidly austere room, while she's left to sleep on the cold stone. Her words from earlier echo in my head, circling, refusing to fade into the night like everything else.

Her words about van Gogh and survival and... What if there's nothing after this?

I sit up, legs swinging over the side of the bed, bare feet pressing into the cold wood floor. The room feels too small, like it's closing in on me, choking me. I glance at the window—moonlight spilling pale silver over everything—and before I can stop myself, I'm pulling on my jeans and my coat and my boots and I'm moving. Silently slipping out of the door and down the halls of the Barrington house.

The air outside is cooler than I expect. Crisp, biting at my skin as I walk through Hilltop. The compound is quiet, still. The only sound is the soft rustling of wind through the trees and the distant hum of crickets. The crunch of gravel beneath my feet keeps time with the pounding in my chest as I make my way toward the basement.

What am I doing?

I don't know.

Before I can convince myself to turn around, I'm already at the heavy wooden doors that lead down to the cells. My hand hovers over the handle, and for a brief moment, I consider going back to my bed. But then, the memory of her voice—small and raw and human—pushes me forward.

The door creaks as I open it, and I wince at the sound, waiting for someone to spring out of the shadows and demand to know what I'm doing. But no one does. I descend into the dark basement. The air down here is thick, stale, carrying with it the scent of damp stone and rusted metal. I hesitate near the end of the stairwell, lingering in the alcove, unsure of what I'm doing here. What I'm really doing here.

Suddenly, her voice, soft and tentative, cuts through the silence. "Who's there?"

I freeze. My breath catches in my throat, and my first instinct is to retreat, to vanish into the dark before she sees me—before she sees me.

I'm all too aware of this face I've been cursed with and the fear it strikes in those unprepared to be confronted with it. Even with the horrid gaping hole where my right eye should be covered, the subsequent scarring down my cheek gives ominous tidings that hint at how bad the rest is.

But then I hear it. A sniffle. A small, broken sound. She's crying. Or trying not to.

"Who's there?" She asks again, and this time, her voice wavers.

Something inside me breaks. The fear of being seen, of being rejected. It fades. Because it's not about me anymore. It's about her. I step forward, rounding the corner so that the pale moonlight trickling through the high window falls over my face.

I see her now, for the first time.

She's sitting on the floor of the cell, her back against the wall, knees drawn to her chest. She's dirty, disheveled. Her sweater is filthy and riddled with blood. Eyes rimmed pink, glisten wetly at me through the dark. Beneath the grime, her hair is blonde, almost golden in the faint light. Her face, despite the exhaustion etched into it, is kind. Beautiful, even. In a way I hadn't even been expecting. Like it never occurred to me that she'd be so pretty it would make my breath catch in my throat. But here she is.