Heartless ➳ TWD² [COMPLETED]

Chapter XXVII ➳ Omega

➳ "PAUL?"

He was pacing from one window to another, glancing through the curtains. I stood up and felt someone place their warm hand over mine, and I looked down. Don had his hand over mine and his dark eyes trying to look up into mine, as he smirked.

"Take it easy on him," he warned, his voice hoarse. "He's under a lot of pressure."

I took a deep breath and slowly nodded, before holding my head back up and glaring a hole through Paul's back. Taking a few easy steps forward, I slowly came up behind him and touched his shoulder. He flinched and quickly faced me, his mouth in an O.

"Paul," I softly called out his name, trying to be gentle with him. "We've been holed up in this apartment for weeks now. When are we going to go?"

He didn't speak, just turned his back on me again and stared at the window. He pressed his hand on the glass and breathed out, his cold breath hitting the glass. We wouldn't survive the winter here.

"Paul, I—"

"You see that, Tess?" Paul asked, cutting me off. I stepped forward, gulping, until I came even closer behind him. He was pointing at something off in the distance through the glass. "It's the mansion that kids used to visit on field-trips. Didn't we go once as children?"

The corners of my mouth started to twitch up into a smile, nodding. I crossed my arms under my chest, tucking my hands under my arms to warm them. "Yeah. We did, actually," I replied, remembering those days of us being careless children; but, then, I remembered something else. "We went right before..."

He spun around in a heartbeat, already knowing where I was going with this. "Don't."

"Paul, I-I..."

He stepped forward and took a deep breath of cold air, which blew right into my face, as he placed his hands on my shoulders. Our matching eyes met in the middle when he leaned in and reminded me, "They're gone, Tess. We can't bring them back. We have to start focusing on the future now."

I blew out a puff of cold air and rolled my eyes. "What future, Paul?"

He smiled and tilted his head; as if, he could see right through me. "The future that we're going to build... together."