The Warrior Within

Gates of Hell

Chapter 17

~Charlotte~

I stand there, completely still, my mouth wide open. My mind can't form any sentences to represent my shock. I set my gaze on my feet, processing what Glenn has just told me. I then look at the large barn, not too far away.

"How many?" I ask quietly.

"I dunno." he murmurs.

"Well, how many did it look like? Five? Ten?" I snap.

"I think it was over ten. There were a lot."

I look back at the barn, seeing if it looks secure.

"You need to tell Rick."

"No. I can't. I promised Mag-"

"So, you would rather our safety be at risk, just so you can keep on banging Maggie?" I hiss at him.

He looks at me with shock, his mouth open and eyes wide. "Please, just keep it a secret for now. Please. I can't handle keeping a secret, I'll probably end up telling them tomorrow."

"Why not now?" I say spitefully and turn to make my way to the group.

"No!" He grabs onto my shoulder painfully, his fingers digging into me.

"Ow!" I yell, turning back around to face Glenn. I punch his arm to get him to let go of me.

"Charlie, I'm sorry. Please, I need time to think this through, okay?" He tells me.

I bite the inside of my cheek and look away from him. I stare at the ground, at the grass, not wanting to look at him. I think it through, the thoughts processing through my head.

I take a deep breath in and look at him. He stares at me, waiting for an answer.

"Your secret is safe with me." I mutter in a somewhat sarcastic tone.

"Thanks, Charlie. You and Dale are the only ones who know and he is keeping it a secret, at least I think he is. You'll be doing me a huge favour by not telling anyone."

"Whatever." I say as I roll my eyes.

The rest of the day went by fast. I continued to read, sitting up in the massive tree at our camp, listening into the conversations that people were having. Everyone was still excited from the gun training. Andrea and Shane were out for most of the time, trying to find Sophia and I couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous when Andrea got to go. I know she is a better shot than I am, she showed that at the gun training, but I wanted that excitement of going out. Just like my time out with the group in Atlanta.

Glenn kept on looking at me, as if I was going to tell someone at any time. He asked me at one point if I had and I reassured him that I didn't tell anyone. Even though I wanted to so badly. I wanted to shout down from the tree and tell everyone about the walkers in the barn, but something was holding me back.

I couldn't get the words to form into sentences. And the group may want us to leave if they knew about the walkers and I like it here. I don't want it to be a CDC.

I ended up getting a lot of sleep that night. I ended up falling asleep whilst reading the book, so I woke up with my head on the pages, accidentally creasing one of the pages really badly and drooling on it.

When I woke up, there was only a couple of us up. Carol was wandering around camp, getting items of food ready for breakfast. Andrea was sitting on a log, fiddling with her knife. Glenn was hanging up some washing and Dale was coming out of the RV.

"Good morning." I whisper to Dale as I make my way past him.

"Morning, Charlotte." he replies, "Good read?" he gestures to the book in my hands.