Safe Zone

Chapter 2

~Kaysie's P.O.V.~
   I sat on the front porch, my back up against the wood siding that made up the wall of the living room. Carl was beside me, his hand on mine, fitting like a glove. He twitched his leg nervously, causing his gun holster to make cracking noises on the hardwood deck. It was funny to think about how only a few years ago we were sitting in front of a fire outside of Atlanta, Carl having no muscle mass, let alone any experience with weapons. But now we were always armed, thanks to Rick convincing Deanna to give us our guns back. Carl had grown so much, so had I. Puberty was doing nothing but good for that boy.
   "What are you looking at me like that for?" He raised a brow, tilting his head more in my direction.
   "I was just admiring how handsome you are, and thanking puberty in the process."
He giggled, and his cheeks turning pink, "Shut up. I could say the same for you."
   "Yeah that's true" I admitted. At age twelve, I was no beauty, but I grew my hair out and you know, boobs happened. There was a long pause, Carl and I must have been thinking the same thing.
   "Do you think Sasha will make it?" Carl asked quietly, looking straight ahead. I shrugged, she was pretty beat up when Daryl brought her back. She had fallen from a tree branch, and landed on a sharp stick, which had gone threw her side. She had lost a lot of blood, but by the looks of it, the wound would be easy to patch up.
    I tried not to think about loosing someone else. Death had become a regular thing now. I think I got pretty used to it, never cried over it, not that I cried about anything anymore. I had only lost one person that I truly cared about, and I hadn't found out that he was dead until long after it actually happened. My brother was an asshat that probably deserved the death he got, but I still missed him. I got one brother left anyway, he's a piece of shit too, but he's my peice of shit.
   My thoughts were interrupted by Carol, who was walking up to the deck holding a food covered Judith on her hip. Carl got up and took Judith from Carol, he stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth and crossed his eyes, making Judith light up with joy.
   I looked up at Carol, "How is Sasha doing, do you know?" I asked, trying to sound caring.
Carol nodded, "She's stable, but weak. She'll be on bed rest for the next week, and you'll have to fill in her shifts at the guard tower."
   "Okay. That's fine by me." I said, and Carol gave me a thankful look. I didn't mind the guard tower, it was peaceful being up there away from all the dramatic people running around. I didn't really like being around others anyway. I was a loner, but I enjoyed it. I guess it runs in the family.
   Carol left a short while later with Judith again. Carl would have kept Judith with us, but he wanted him and I to spend some time together beyond the walls before his dad or my brother came looking for us. In the backyard of the house there was a tree that scaled up the wall, tall enough to reach the top. Sometimes if we didn't want to get asked questions before going off, Carl and I would use that tree as a way to get out of Alexandria. Carl and I got up from our spots on the porch, and walked through the house to the back door. Carl went to open it, but it was jammed.
   "Here, sometimes the latch gets stuck in the groove, a knife helps." I took the knife out of my belt and ran it up the opening of the door, unjamming it." Carl opened it and we walked out onto the grass, looking up at the tree.
   "Here, i'll help you up-" Carl started to say seeing that I was pretty short, and the first branch was pretty high up. Before he could help me, I took a few steps back, and then ran full speed at the tree. Once I got to it, I ran-climbed to the first branch. Carl looked up at me, and grinned, then easily hopped up to where I was.
   Once we had climbed the tree, we sat at the top of the wall, looking over into the woods. In the distance you could see roof tops, ones that hadn't held lives underneath them for years. I made a huffing noise, and leaned my head on Carl's shoulder. After a few moments of admiring the beauty of D.C. in the winter, Carl tensed up and acted as if he wanted to start climbing down the wall to the other side.
   "Come on, let's get away from this hell hole for a while." I said as I prepared myself to flip over and grab the metal bar below.
Carl stopped me before I did so, "You say 'hell hole' as if it's worse in there than it is out here." He looked at me, confused.
   "The only difference between Alexandria and the outside world is that your death is quick out here," I said pointing to the trees, "and in there, you die slowly." With that I pointed inside the walls towards Deanna's house, then jumped down and grab the metal bar, ready to get away for a while.
~Carl's P.O.V.~
   It astounded me that Kaysie could say such a thing. After everything we had witnessed out there before coming to Alexandria we finally had a place where we didn't have to board up the doors and windows. A place where we could go on walks at night without carrying weapons and looking over our shoulders.
It seemed that all Kaysie saw this place as, was nothing but a stop along the way before we found our deaths. I on the other hand, saw this place as home. A home where we could grow up and get married in, a home for our children, and a home we could grow old in. A home where we could die of old age, and not by the hand of an undead monster, or someone wanting revenge.
Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do or say that would change the way Kaysie viewed this place. That was the way she was. She was stubborn, and with most things it was her way or the highway. Her brothers were like that too though, everyone around them just had to get use to it and realize there was no changing them.
   We had climbed down the wall and began to walk into the trees. It was early evening, and the bare trees allowed us to see the sky begin to change from blue to the wonderful colors that made up the sunset. No matter how bad things got down on earth, the sky had no idea the hurt we were going through. It changed colors no matter how brutal it got down here. The evening sky was the only piece of sanity I had left.
   As if she had read my mind, Kaysie gave me a concerning glance and grabbed my hand, I smiled at her and she looked down at the wet leaves we were walking over. We never really talked much out here. We didn't need to, Kaysie did all the talking with her eyes. Kaysie's eyes were icy blue. The blue that you could look into forever and never get bored of. The blue you never really got over, and her long brown hair and messing bangs she had cut herself made her look imperfectly put together. Kaysie was an organized hot mess. The way she walked made me think that maybe she knew she was driving me crazy, I think she knew exactly what she was doing to me, but then again, Kaysie was always aware of what she was doing.
   Her abrupt stop make me come out of my dream land. She put her hand on the hilt of the knife on her belt and looked off into the distance.
   "Come on." She hissed through her teeth, grabbing my arm and yanking me to the nearest tree. She began climbing, jumping from branch to branch mindlessly. I made my way up the tree after her, and once we got about ¾ the way up, she stopped and pulled the compound bow off her shoulder.
   "What is it, what do you see?" I whispered to her, trying to find what she was looking at. She pointed to a small clearing about 20 yards away. There were three men that looked like they hadn't showered in years. Each of them had a sniper rifle slung across their shoulder, and they looked like trouble. I looked over to see Kaysie drawing the string on her bow back, aiming at the head of one of the men. "No Kaysie, you can't just-" She let go, and the arrow flew. The man in the middle dropped to the ground, and the other two men looked around, panicking. "What are you doing?!" I hissed. She drew her bow back and shot an arrow at the man farthest from us, it hit him in the face and he dropped too. The last man standing began to fire aimlessly in every direction.
   "Dumbass." Kaysie sighed as she let go of the string one last time,  hitting the man in the side of the head.
   "What was that for? They could have been good people who needed a place to stay!" I exclaimed.
   "You can't trust no one no more. You know that, Carl." She had a point. "Don't be a hypocrite and get mad at me for killing innocent people, I was there, I saw you shoot that boy in the head." She said as she began to climb down the tree, probably wanting to pickpocket those men. I didn't say anything back, I had nothing to say.
   Once we had reached the men, and Kaysie pulled her arrows out of their heads, and began pulling the rifles off their back..
    "We better be going soon, those shots he fired are gonna attract the walkers-" I paused. It was too late, we were being closed in on by a large herd. The game was 2 against more than I could count.

Hello! So I wanted this chapter to be more of just Kaysie and Carl. Kaysie is pretty mysterious, but now you know a little bit more about her and her family! Thanks for reading! Please vote
and comment, it really helps :)