Child Of The Future

Episode 13: This Is Who I Am

-Several Minutes Prior-

               "Carl?" I keep my hands still, pointing his gun away from our feet while he strengthens his hold on me so that I can't walk away. "What are you doing?" I begin to turn my head.

               "I don't know." Really? "Just- Just let me stay like this for a minute." He nearly asks, but it finalizes as an instruction which, for the first time in a long time, I find I don't care if I obey. Funnily enough, I don't in this instant even hear an echo of Estela's voice in my head.

               I just act on my own accord, feet planted in front of Carl's larger shoes, the wind rustling the trees, but the dead aura of this place is looming large above us both. I don't feel confident enough to drop his gun; so instead, I drag a free hand up to my waist, and slide my fingers over his somewhat rough knuckles, his palm wrapping around my nails at contact.

               I have no fvcking clue as to what's going on, but, this may be the first time I've felt safe since I stopped feeling...free.

               I just want to know why.

               Why is Carl making me feel safe?

               Wh-

               "Fire! Fire at the church! Come on!" Rick's voice snaps us both to the road leading towards these houses, my vision confused at first but when I see a tower of black smoke rising up like the whole forest is being consumed by Hell, it's smooth as silk how we all know exactly what to do next.

               Which is run our as$es off in the direction of these people's home, nothing being said between us, Carl and I. Nothing to explain what we were just feeling towards each other. Nothing to explain it. Nothing at all.

__________________

-Current Time-

-Spes' P.O.V.-

               "You want to start from the beginnin'? Both of you?" Rick stands in front of us as Jesse joins me in sitting down on the ground next to Beth's grave, my mind blank and destroyed with the realization that I've been followed.

               My gosh. Everyone was lucky that they didn't get burned to death. I'm guessing the men my father sent to find me were just trying to smoke out the people inside, see if I was there, and when they saw I wasn't, didn't see the need to stick around, unless they're still here. Hiding somewhere.

               The thought already has me on some sort of tense alert, but it's broken when Jesse addresses the situation to the ex-cop in front of us.

               "Rick, we aren't responsible for this." Jesse begins but I sigh out my defeat before clenching my jaw, and hold my cameo necklace for a second until I get my guts back to own up to the responsibility I owe to these people. There's no use in trying anymore. Is there?

               "Well you may not be. But what about little grey wolf over there?" Abraham stands tall and unmoving against the thought of being wrong, that I might not be responsible for Gabriel's house of worship going down in spiteful flames. But I know he knows that I'm related to the problem.

               And by the way Rick's looking at me, he knows it too.

               Sh1t.

-Third Person P.O.V.-

               The truth Spes Trinity Markasson regrets to own up to, finally urges itself to surface as a result of necessary guilt to confess why she's related to the church burning, still smoldering its final goodbye, while everyone awaits to hear what she has to say.