The Third Dixon [The walking dead OC x OC]

Chapter thirteen

Alexandria had gone back to pretending it was normal.

That was always the strangest part. No matter what happened, no matter how much blood was spilled or how close they came to losing everything, life inside the walls always seemed to slowly rebuild itself. People returned to their routines, doors opened again, voices carried between houses, and children still found ways to laugh.

Measi never understood how they did that.

Maybe because she didn't know how to.

Instead of going inside, instead of sitting with everyone and pretending the night hadn't changed something, she climbed the watchtower. Nobody stopped her. They rarely did anymore. Everyone knew she was better up there than most people, knew that if something came toward the walls, she would be the one to see it first.

It was useful.

And being useful was easier than being around people.

The rifle settled into her hands like it always did. Familiar. Predictable. Something she understood. She looked over Alexandria through the scope, watching the streets below, the houses, the people moving around safely because of walls they had built and people who were willing to defend them.

She was supposed to feel proud.

Sometimes she did.

But lately there was something else mixed in with it.

Something heavier.

Not the rifle.

Not the exhaustion.

Something she couldn't put down.

Measi had stopped counting the people she had killed because at some point the numbers stopped feeling real. In the beginning, every person had stayed with her. She remembered faces, voices, the moments before and after. She remembered how hard it was the first time she had taken a life, how much she hated that her body could do something so terrible and still keep moving afterward.

Then there had been more.

And more.

Until remembering every single one became impossible.

Everyone else saw the result. They saw the shot that landed, the enemy that dropped, the person who kept them alive when things turned bad. They saw the skill, the steady hands, the fact that she rarely missed.

They didn't see the part afterward.

The quiet.

The moments when she was alone and there was nothing left to distract her from the question of how much of herself she had given away to become this person.

She looked through the scope again, following the edge of the wall out of habit.

Empty road.

Trees moving slightly in the wind.

Nothing.

Still, she didn't lower the rifle.

Because she knew what everyone expected from her now.

If something happened, they would call for her.

If someone needed a shot, they would look for her.

And she hated that part of her understood why.

She was good at it.

That was the worst thing.

It would have been easier if she was bad. If she missed. If she froze. If she couldn't be the person everyone depended on.