Daughter of the Fallen

Strangers Part 3

I wasn't sure how long I had been asleep when Carl lightly shook me awake.

When I fully came to my senses, I noticed my head was on his shoulder.

My cheeks bright red, I immediately sat up.

"Everything okay?" I asked, slightly worried.

Carl smiled and shook his head. "Everyone's back."

"Already?" I asked incredulously. "How long was I asleep?"

He shrugged. "Hour and a half, two hours."

My eyes widened. "And you just sat there the entire time so I could have a pillow?"

He chuckled. "I didn't mind. I'm gonna go out back. You should help everyone load everything in."

I nodded and went out to greet everyone.

My parents immediately walked forward and hugged me.

"You okay?" my mom asked.

I smiled and nodded. "I basically slept the whole time."

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh."

I stood there playing with my necklace when I saw Rick start to walk out to the back of the church.

"Hey, Rick," I called. "Wait up!"

He stopped and I caught up to him.

He smiled at me. "Hey, Bree," he greeted. "Everything remain okay here while we were gone?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

We walked around back to see Carl. He was staring at something on the wall.

"Hey," Rick greeted. "Tyreese said you were out back. Come on in. We found food. A lot of it."

"Good," Carl replied absently, still staring at the wall.

"Carl, what is it?" I asked, following his eyes.

He pointed to scratches on the wall.

"Those scratches," he explained. "They're deep. Like knives or something. Someone was trying to get in."

Rick looked at the marks in concern.

"I found something else," Carl continued.

We followed him over to another part of the wall.

"And I don't know what happened," he claimed. "But whatever it is, we can handle it."

We looked over to where Carl was pointing.

"Doesn't mean Gabriel is a bad guy for sure, but it means something."

Rick gave Carl a grave look before looking back at the message on the wall.

I felt my heart rate pick up as I saw what it read.

YOU'LL BURN FOR THIS

•••

Later that night, the three of us had pretty much forgotten about the incriminating message.

All of us were having some fun while digging into all the food we had found.

I sat with my mom and Carl, laughing and telling stories.

"I'd like to propose a toast," my dad announced, raising his glass. "I look around this room, and I see survivors. Each and every one of you has earned that title. To the survivors."

"To the survivors!" we all repeated, raising our glasses before drinking.

A small smile crossed my face. My dad was right. We were survivors. And now, we were surviving together.

"Is that all you wanna be?" my dad continued, turning serious. "Wake up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse and repeat?"

"Dad," I whispered, shaking my head. "Stop."

Ignoring me, he continued. "Because you can do that. I mean, you got the strength, you got the skill. The thing is, for you people, for what you can do, that's just surrender. Now, we get Eugene to Washington and he will make the dead die, and the living will have this world again, and that is not a bad takeaway for a little road trip."

I closed my eyes and sighed, so tired of him only thinking about Washington, Washington, Washington.

Carl put a comforting hand on my arm.

"Eugene," my dad still continued. "What's in DC?"

Eugene took a quiet deep breath before answering. "Infrastructure constructed to withstand pandemics even of this fubar magnitude. That means fuel, food, refuge. Restart."

"However this plays out," my dad said. "However long it takes for the reset button to kick in, you can be safe there. Safer than you've been since this whole thing started. Come with us. Save the world for that little one." He motioned to Judith. "Save it for yourselves, save it for the people out there who don't got nothing left to do except survive."

There was a long silence before Judith cooed slightly and Rick chuckled.

"What was that?" he asked in a slightly higher voice. "I think she knows what I'm about to say. She's in, if she's in, I'm in. We're in."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. My dad really did it. I looked over at Carl. He smiled and shrugged.

Everyone started laughing happily as Rick went to put Judith to sleep.

My mom went over and kissed my dad. "Okay," she chuckled. "I'm not letting my brother be the only one that gets to hold that baby."

Rick chuckled and handed Judith off to my mom.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bob start to walk out of the church.

I was confused and almost followed him but Carl started to talk to me again so I decided to forget about it. We both saw Rick begin to talk to Gabriel. We exchanged a glance before deciding to ignore that, too.

It was then that I made my decision. Rick's group and my group. We were family. No matter what we do, we're gonna do it together.

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Author's Note: do you like Bree so far?