CROSSFIRE; twd (1)

𝙨𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣

CHAPTER SEVEN
"Hope"

Jane widens her eyes and Rick, Shane and Jane rush over to Carl quickly. "Carl! Carl!" Rick shouts tears automatically rushing from his eyes. Jane takes off her plaid button up shirt and wraps it around Carls body and ties it together.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Sorry! I- I have a friend he's a doctor. He can help! This way!" The heavy set hunter man who has a rifle in his hand says feeling sad he shot someone's child also. Rick lifts Carls in his arms and starts running the direction the man says. Jane and Shane look to each other and start following after Rick with the hunter running behind them.

Rick continues to run relentlessly through a field, Carl unresponsive in his arms. Shane and Jane follow behind with the hunter, who's struggling to keep up. The man shot Carl, and Shane is abusing him for it.

"Shane! Rick's son is need! We need to move!" Jane stops and pulls Shane away from the man. Shane sighs and starts running after Rick and Carl along with Jane. "How far?" Rick yells, turning back around for only a second, and the hunter breathlessly sends him ahead. "Ask for Hershel. Tell him Otis sent you."

Rick crosses a tree line and a farmhouse is visible; he quickens his desperate pace. A young woman with a brunette bob sees him running across the field through a pair of binoculars. Jane squints and sees the woman run in the farm house.

Rick stops when he reaches the front steps of the farmhouse, staring up at an old man surrounded by his family and begging, "Are you Hershel?". He explains that Hershel's man, Otis, shot his son, and Hershel immediately enlists the help of his daughter, Maggie, and another woman, Patricia, to help save Carl.

Otis, Jane and Shane finally arrive at the farmhouse, and Otis is beside himself with guilt while Shane rushes to comfort his stunned best friend, soaked in Carl's blood.

"He'll be okay" Jane reassures as she sits on the porch steps breathing heavily. Jane definitely isn't used to this life. Constantly living in fear. Constantly worrying about other people. It was her and Jenner and that was it, they had a lifetime supply of food and a warm bed to sleep on.

Jane didn't know how she was going to get used to this. She doesn't know how to live like this but she knows she's going to have to learn. Jane was strong minded and also had hope for herself and other people and always wanted to look out for other people because not many people looked out for her growing up or even now.

Back inside the house, Hershel Greene demands to know what happened. "I was trackin' a buck," Otis sputters, seeking comfort in the women named Patricia. "I didn't see him until he was on the ground."

"What's his blood type?" The old man Hershel who looked like your typical farmer man. "A-positive. Same as mine." Rick answers in a shaky voice as he wipes the top of his forehead off with sweat. Hershel looks no less relieved when he replies, "That's fortunate. Don't wander far. I'm gonna need you."

"I say the bullet broke in to pieces in his abdomen, I would likely need to operate to get all of the pieces out" Hershel determines when the dire reality of the situation causes Rick to come out of his trance and remember his wife, and he sobs into Shane's shoulder because she doesn't even know that her son's been shot.

Jane covers her mouth as she looks at the little boy unconscious on the bed. Jane walked back outside to take a breather when she heard screaming coming from the house. Jane rushed back inside pushing past the brunette women named Maggie and seen Hershel pulling a bullet fragment out of Carls stomach and she noticed Carl was the on screaming.  "STOP!!! You're killing him!" Rick screams, as Shane holds down Carl. Once Hershel is done Carl passes out from the pain.

Rick looks at Carl and Hershel stands to his feet. "I've removed one of the bullet fragments but there are still five more" Hershel explains. "So, there too deep to get without Carl waking up. So, you would have to put him under" Jane states as she crosses her arm. She learned about medicine in college since she wanted to become a doctor but turned out she liked learning more about the scientific study of viruses.

"If Carl moved and screamed like he did the first time when he went deeper, he'd sever an artery," Hershel explains. "My wife, Lori. She doesn't know I have to tell her" Rick insists trying to leave the room but Shane stops him from leaving his son's side to search for her on his own because Carl need's more of Rick's blood. "Have the strength of your wife, who kept a bedside vigil for you after you were shot and I'll take care of the rest," Shane promises.

"Carl will need major surgery to remove the last fragments, but that there was internal bleeding and I am unequipped at the farm for such a process" Hershel states. "We need a respirator and more equipment to undergo this operation without losing Carl. These materials are all from the FEMA command post that's set up at the local high school five miles from the farm" Hershel explains and Jane nods her head memorizing Hershel's list.

"I know what all that looks like. I could grab it" Jane states and Otis raises his hand. "The place was overrun last time I saw it," says Otis, but he adds hopefully, "Maybe it's better now.".

"I can go on my own.. for Carl" Shane says and Rick shakes his head feeling guilty for everything. Otis then volunteers to go along to right his mistake.

"I'm going to, do you have any idea what this stuff looks like?" Jane asks and Shane shrugs his shoulders. Maggie, Hershel's eldest daughter, offers to find Lori and the rest of the survivors to tell them what happened.

"Jane.. Thank you, you didn't have to do this" Rick says placing a hand on Janes shoulder. "Don't thank me now. Thank me when I come back with the equipment to save yours sons life. Which I will" Jane states as Rick nods hesitantly.

"We can take my truck" Otis suggest as Shane and Jane nod in unison before walking outside and getting into Otis's truck. Jane hopes everything goes as planned and nothing bad happens.

She hopes...