Dax rolled the Jeep to a stop alongside a couple of the others, their occupants spilling out of their ashy vehicles simultaneously as various figures unloaded crates and weapons out onto the pavement of the parking garage. The heaviest loads were carried by two men, while others grabbed what they could and rushed towards the stairwell to the adjacent apartment building.
Calvin watched through the dirty tinted windows as bodies blurred past in motion. He gritted his teeth, sinking lower into his seat as Oliver stowed his weapon in his waistband and reached for his bag down between his legs.
"This is as far as we go," he mumbled, pulling the bag onto his lap and ripping the zipper open. His hand plunged inside sporadically pulling out a few ammo clips, his knife, and a few other random things before zipping the bag shut and tossing it back to Calvin.
"There's enough gas in this thing to get you as far as you need to go... so you wait until the garage is clear -- and you get the hell outta here. You understand?"Calvin slid the bag off of himself onto the seat next to him and looked up, catching Dax' eyes in the rearview mirror.
"You guys are seriously going back in there with that guy?" he asked.
"After all that you know he's capable of...""That's exactly why we have to go in there," Dax insisted, shakily.
"You don't understand this man. You didn't see him when we were all still locked away." His eyes looked towards Oliver's.
"He doesn't let things go..." Calvin's eyes narrowed as he tried to comprehend their sudden irrationalities. When suddenly his mind lingered on something even more complexing. He leaned forwards, grabbing onto the back of the front two seats.
"Were either of you with Sarah when she left?"Dax fidgeted in his seat.
"W-Well-- we walked her to the stairs out in the--""No," Oliver offered, quite bluntly. The notion had started to dawn on him now to. It was just like Bronson to have kept an ace up his sleeve. Nothing was beneath this man.
Dax turned to stare at him, then craned his neck back at Calvin.
"What are you saying?" Calvin leaned back in his seat, rubbing his hands over his face while Dax was still left wondering. Oliver slammed his foot against the dashboard, cursing aloud.
"I have to know," Calvin muttered through strained breaths.
"I know you do," Oliver replied, defeatedly. Of course he understood.
"I gotta know too," he admitted.
"I'd fucking love to know what the fuck you're fucking talking about..." Dax blathered, still eagerly wanting to know what was happening.
"If we're gonna do this, we're gonna play it out then--" Oliver ordered, straightening himself in his seat.
"Open up the bag and grab those handcuffs and a shirt."What are we doing?" Dax asked again, becoming more annoyed by the second.
Oliver grabbed the shirt out of Calvin's hands as soon as he pulled it from the bag and began tearing a thick strip out of it using his knife. He looked up at Dax, knowingly.
"You remember Star Wars?"Calvin marched front and center down the aisle, flanked on each shoulder by Dax and Oliver. Or at least that's who he assumed it was beside him. The makeshift blindfold had been fastened around his one good eye before they had left the Jeep, so he hadn't seen much. They had gone up at least 8 flights of stairs -- which had taken forever and was filled with countless stubbed toes, rolled ankles, and missed steps. More recently though, they had arrived on another flat surface. Carpeted. Hallways, based on the narrow lengthy turns.
"I think I hear him up here," Dax whispered over his shoulder. They continued along the corridor as the raucous shouts of the convicts rousting any squatters in the vicinity echoed throughout the halls. Vacant gunshots and loud thuds rattled off from the floors above. Calvin gingerly stepped across the cluttered floor towards where he hoped Bronson would be waiting.
"This is it," Oliver said, motioning at the door to their right.
"You still sure about this?"Calvin swallowed.
"I gotta see this through. If there's any chance she got out..." "We'll find her." Oliver said, gripping Calvin's shoulder and nodding to Dax.
"See you on the other side."Dax pat him on the back as he ushered Calvin forward towards the door. Oliver grabbed the handle and the three of them passed through the threshold of the doorway. Calvin could already tell there were others inside, because whatever conversation they were having stopped as soon as he entered the room. Bronson's gravelly voice boomed out from the farthest corner.
"Well, I'll be damned..."Oliver shoved Calvin to the center of the room, careful not to send him tumbling too hard.
"Look what I found," he feigned.
"Crawling around in the back of one of the Jeeps." Bronson couldn't believe it. He walked over to Calvin, holding his hands in the air.
"I do have to apologize, dear boy-- for having to leave you behind. I knew you'd be safe locked away in that room though. I wasn't gonna leave ya to no biters."Calvin bit his tongue.
"Gee... thanks.""And now you're here..." Bronson said, pulling the blindfold up from Calvin's good eye. Light flooded back into his vision, even in the dingy and dimly lit apartment he discovered himself to be standing in. Several of Bronson's henchman, including Freddie-- the coward who had taken his eye, lingered around the edges of the room. They each rose to their feet as soon as the newcomers had crashed their party.
Calvin rubbed at his eye with his bound hands, readjusting his sight.
"I am," he replied, maybe a bit too defiantly.
"I could've left. I should have....""Then why'd you come back, Calvin...?"His question hung in the air for awhile as the other shifted in the silence.
"Don't I have a debt to settle?" Calvin said, mockingly.
Bronson shrugged, rubbing the scruff of his greyed beard.
"I thought an eye for my guy made us square?" He turned and walked towards the edge of the room, tearing down the sheet draped over the window as it fell to the ground to reveal distorted blinds.
"Since you're here though, maybe there is something you can do for me...""Haven't I given you enough?" Calvin sneered, tapping his hidden eye.
Bronson grinned, looking past him at Dax and Oliver who both struggled to hold his gaze. Even he could sense the odd vibe in the room. Other convicts stood idly by behind him, weapons dangling loosely in their hands.
"This is about the girl-- isn't it?" he continued, kicking the sheet aside.
Calvin's eye widened as his breath caught in his throat. How could he have known? Calvin turned quickly to look at Oliver-- immediately realizing the trap he'd fallen into. That was the giveaway Bronson was looking for -- his eyes lingering on their exchange as he motioned to his surrounding men. They sprung into action, grabbing Oliver and Dax and dragging them out into the hallway in a flurry of arms and legs.
"They didn't have anything to do with this!" Calvin pleaded, struggling against the men who had come to restrain him.
"It doesn't matter," Bronson grunted.
"They got too close to the girl, and now they're feeling sympathetic. That's when a person starts making the wrong types of decisions." Dax and Oliver's shouts echoed from further down the hall as Bronson's men began working them in.
"What did you do with her!?" Calvin growled. He wished he had dealt with this coward the second he got into the room. It was at the point now where the bastard was preemptively doing horrible things, just as collateral to protect his own ass.
"She's just fine," Bronson replied.
"Or at least she was the last time I saw her...""If you've done anything to her, I swear to God--""Relax, cowboy. She'll be alright, so long as you continue to cooperate for just a little while longer. I'm gonna need one last favor from you, and then we're square." Bronson turned and ripped the last of the mangled plastic blinds off of the window next to him, revealing the distinct form of a charred building through the falling ashy haze -- its burnt facade only a silhouette in the blackening night.
"It's amazing what people will do to protect what they love..." he said-- salivating at the thought as he gazed upon the Capitol, salaciously.
Niobe found herself embedded in a room full of smells and senses she'd long been missing. Accompanied of course with the unfortunate whirring grind of a number of running generators, powering portable electric stovetops, microwaves, lighting, and other such fixtures. Steam coated the ceiling as boiling pots and trays of food were shuffled around the makeshift kitchen in a hurry. All it really was though was a converted back office outside the commons. The tiled floor made it an excellent candidate for the chef and others to setup shop since they wouldn't be dealing with the carpeting.
She suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder from behind.
"Grab and go. Otherwise you might get trampled," Patrick said, handing her a plate from a shelf nearby as Niobe snapped from her food daze. She hadn't seen this much goodness in over a week. Not knowing where to start, she wandered over to the longer portion of the table where several trays of vegetables and meats were organized waiting to go out to the commons.
"Coming back to the kitchen like this-- isn't that kind've like cutting?" Niobe asked, dryly. She grabbed a large spoon from the table and dug into the buttery mashed potatoes in front of her, dropping a large dollop on her plate.
Eli fell in beside her, heading for the greens first.
"We're staff. We were busting our asses gassing up that bus." He said, flashing a toothy grin as he piled a heap of vegetables onto his plate.
"Can you not talk about asses and gas, please. Seems a little pre-mature considering we haven't stuffed our faces full of all this food yet..." Patrick added, childishly.
A large pot of some kind of pasta was suddenly dropped right center on the table by a broad-shouldered man in a fedora.
"Oodles of noodles, mates--" he chimed, tossing the lid off to the side and stuffing a pasta ladle in the pot. A half-burnt cigar tumbled around his mouth as he wiped his hands on his apron and held one out to Niobe stiffly.
"And what's your name, love?"Niobe rose one eyebrow, grasping his hand firmly.
"Niobe."The man spoke quickly, as if the greeting was something he had to get out of the way. But he held her gaze as firmly as their grip.
"Gorgeous name-- beautiful. I love dark meat. Let me know how the potatoes turn out, eh?" And like that, he was off.
Niobe was slightly stunned.
"Uhh-- who was that?"Eli and Patrick both chuckled to themselves, apparently more used to the stranger's antics than she.
"That's Lou," Patrick confessed.
"He's the Cook.""He always that strange?""Think of it as eccentric and be thankful he's a good cook," Patrick advised, giving her a hard pat on the back. She shook her head as she followed the two of them towards the back of office. The door swung open to reveal another hallway. Random stragglers filtered into the commons area where boxes and crates had been pushed together to create small clusters of tables around the floor. Others sat in small groups on the floor or ate on their cots. The heavy din of conversation washed over Niobe as she followed Eli and Patrick through the arched doorway. She figured there had to be somewhere upwards of 60 or so people all collected together-- but it seemed like so many more. The space, though convenient, was not necessarily built to accommodate so many people for such a long period of time.
A hand stuck out of the crowd, waving high and wide trying to get Niobe's attention-- which it had. The arm belonged to Carl, who sat in a circle of cots around a table with Harper, James, and Christopher. The two old men were engaged in conversation over some talking point, but Harper sat hunched over her barely-touched plate of food, resting her chin on one hand as she stirred at the food vacantly. Niobe split from Patrick and Eli to join her friends and crossed over towards them.
"There you are," Carl crowed as she neared their table. She leaned over to set her plate down and lunged over the cot to take the open seat.
"We were wondering what happened to you."Niobe brushed her hands off on her pant legs.
"I was helping Eli and Patrick work on the bus," she replied, not really feeling like she had to explain.
"Those the two that picked us up?" James cut in, switching conversations.
Niobe nodded, grabbing her fork and digging into her food with one huge bite.
"You sure warmed up to these folks quickly..." he finished, his voice ripe with judgement.
Niobe gulped down her first bite with some water and wiped her mouth.
"They saved our lives, James... have some respect.""This seems like a good place to stay if we have to," Carl reasoned, pushing his already empty plate aside.
"They're good people.""What do you mean stay?" James barked from across the table.
"As soon as this dust clears, we gotta get out of here. This city is going to shit, frankly-- and I don't want to be inside it any longer than I have to."Harper sat up, rubbing her temples.
"Don't you think that's a decision we should be making as a group?" she said, voicing her concerns aloud.
James scoffed.
"I'd think we would all have the common sense to see that everything bad that has happened to us has happened because we're still in this giant goddamned city. The bombings, the nuke, all these walkers... we need to distance ourselves from this place fast. We'll have a better shot out there.""Out where exactly?" Niobe asked, challengingly.
James shook his head, slumping back into his chair with his arms folded.
"Anywhere but here...""We still have friends out there..." Carl said, mindfully.
"We can't leave now-- even if we could.""And why not?" James argued.
Harper turned to look at him incredulously.
"Are you seriously this selfish?""Now c'mon you two--" Christopher interjected from the sidelines.
"It's a completely legitimate question. We don't owe anybody anything. Not even El Capital and his Capitols, or whatever the hell they wanna call themselves. All we owe is to ourselves-- to get out of this city while we still can. Do we really have time to waste sitting around waiting to find all these missing people when we don't know where they are or whether they're even alive?""We have to make the time," Harper said, resolutely.
"We're all we have, James. Can't you see that? This is what it takes. This is humanity. What else is worth saving if we can't save our friends?"Jack's bulky frame suddenly plopped down next to Carl as he vault onto the cot between him and Harper, unaware of the conversation he had just interrupted. He turned to Harper, handing her the coffee mug he had borrowed earlier.
"Looked everywhere. Couldn't find any coffee." Niobe laughed at the thought.
"That would be heaven. You should go ask Lou in the kitchen. Nice guy..." Jack's eyebrows peaked in interest.
"Oh yeah?""Forget to grab yourself a plate?" James chided from his side of the table.
Jack looked around at the plates in front of everyone else.
"Oh, I-- uhhh..." he began to bumble, gesturing over his shoulder.
***TING TING TING TING TING TING TING***Silas rapped on his glass with the butt of his fork, silencing the grounds effortlessly as everyone settled into their seats and turned their attention towards the staircase where he stood alone. The soft sound of the generators poured out of the kitchen office behind him as he cleared his throat to speak.
"I, uhh-- never know how to start these kinds of speeches," he began, scratching his head.
"This time last night there were many more of us... and we were thankful that we had been able to endure a week without a night like tonight." Others around the room nodded in silent agreement, lamenting the nights events together.
"I want to welcome our newcomers. Strangers to our home, but brothers and sisters in loss." There was a collective murmur of welcome from scattered individuals. Carl gave a half-wave as the others at the table awkwardly looked around at one another.
"For those of you haven't heard, the surviving bus stumbled across these individuals during their escape. Some of which we've met before..." Stevie suddenly came into view through the back hallway with her plate of food. She snuck along the back aisle as Silas continued, scanning the crowd for familiar faces.
"We all know somebody who is lost out there... somewhere. And we all want to do something about that. I think we can all agree we feel the same way." Harper glanced over at James, who fiddled with his toothpick between his lips as he listened to Silas drone on about salvation.
"But we have to do it in a way where nobody else gets hurt. We have to wait for the streets and skies to clear before we can search for the bus... there's no point making any needless risks."The crowd broke out into hushed whispers as disagreements bubbled up from various corners of the room.
"How do we know they'll last the night?" somebody shouted out from the back.
Silas shook his head.
"We don't. But there's nothing we can do about it right now. If they're still alive now, then they will be in a few days when it's safe to go look for them.""And what are we supposed to go after them with?" another voice cried out.
"We fled the Capitol so quickly, most of our stuff was left behind..."Silas rose his hand in the air trying to settle the crowd so everyone could talk at once.
"One at a time, please-- I understand that a lot was left behind. That is what we are going to spend our idle time preparing for. One of our newcomers, Stevie, has been kind enough to offer up a couple vehicles worth of supplies in exchange for our assistance in providing them with their own search party to recover their losses. We welcome them... and their help... in these dire times. We have a lot of ground to cover, and more bodies now to get it all done. Detailed plans will be made in the following days so that we understand what our priorities are going into this, but for now-- rest, recover, and remember: we are survivors. We've made it this far. We'll make it further yet, OK?" Silas rose his plate into the air.
"Now let's eat! Thank you for the dinner, Lou." The broad-shouldered man waved from his post near the hallway's arch, his never-ending cigar still cradled in his mouth. The crowd applauded his contribution as everyone returned to their place and dug in.
Stevie had just finally reached Carl and the others at the table as Silas spilled the unsettled news of their private conversation. James glared at her from his seat as she set her plate of food down on the table.
"Sneakin' around makin' promises in the dark, are we?" he growled.
"James, cut it out--" Harper wheezed.
Stevie stammered slightly, adjusting her glasses with one hand.
"I didn't mean to speak for anyone... I even told Silas th--" "We just heard all about what you told Silas. What? It doesn't bother any of you that we've been here barely a couple hours and she's already making deals... deals involving us with this so-called leader? We don't know these people..." James balked.
Stevie sighed.
"I know him better than I know any of you..." she remarked, scathingly.
"And those vehicles? They weren't yours to bargain with anyways. They belonged to my people. The one's your people shot at. I wouldn't forget that..." she scooped her food back off of the table and marched off towards Silas and the others.
Carl tapped his foot nervously.
"What the hell man? What's gotten into you?""Nobody seems to have their head on straight around here," James fumed, striking out from the table as well. Christopher watched him go as he took a big fat bite of corn, chewing complacently.
Harper buried her head in her hands, trying to rub away the pain mounting in her forehead. Jack pat her on the back and leaned in to her ear.
"I managed to swipe a mostly full bottle in that coffee mug for when you need it..." he began.
"But you really need to figure out a more long-term solution for this, Harper-- it's getting worse." She nodded quickly, waving him away. That was the last thing on her mind with these new problems at hand.
"I'll be right back," she muttered, forcing herself up out of her seat. She pulled her blanket down over her shoulders as she headed towards where Stevie stormed off to.
Niobe mopped up the last few bites of her food and stood as well, having had enough drama for one day.
"Done there, hotshot?" she asked Carl in his haze.
His attention snapped back.
"Huh? What? Oh-- yeah..." He got up to join her, grabbing his empty plate and following her back towards the kitchen, leaving Jack alone with Christopher.
"One big happy family..." Jack said, mockingly. Christopher simply smiled and nodded, taking another bite of green beans, genuinely unbothered by the goings on of the group around him. Their problems went far over his head-- too far to care about.
Jack sighed, watching his so-called friends disappear into the crowd in separate directions-- and he wondered for a moment if there was such a thing as true happiness left in this world anymore, or if everyday would be a different version of the same struggle. How could they ever be content again? The rest of the Capitols stuffed their faces and corralled in conversatjon and laughter as they ate -- seemingly oblivious to the nightmarish landscape just on the other side of those walls. Feigned normalcy. A true escape. It didn't seem to be enough anymore, Jack thought to himself.
Not while their friends were still out there.
In the distance, Carl jogged a few strides-- catching up with Niobe.
"Things are getting really bad around here--" he said, solemnly-- glancing at some of the Capitols as the two of them weaved between tables towards the kitchen.
Niobe pressed on, not even looking over her shoulder at him.
"We're all handling this shit in different ways, Carl. Some of us better than others." That
was the truth of it after all.
Carl furrowed his brow.
"And how are you handling it?" he asked, sincerely.
That stopped Niobe in his tracks. Nobody had asked her that yet. Hell-- she hadn't even asked it of herself. But she thought about it for only the slightest second, and she didn't like what she found.
"We've got to tell them... y'know-- about what Silas told us about the infection," she whispered, drawing breath.
Carl adjusted his glasses, evasively.
"I-I know, we just h-have to--""They have every right to know. It doesn't feel right keeping that from them. Silas and everyone else in this room knows the truth about infection... they'll find out eventually," Niobe reasoned.
Carl scoffed.
"Were you sitting at the same table I was? That could be the end of us. Just one little secret could undo everything. As far as they're concerned-- what is there to know?"