Captive | The Walking Dead |

57

Isabella and Rick soon left the house to go check the communities condition.

"The lab Rick, I need to check the lab,'' Isabella gasped when she realized it was possible the people who attacked could've destroyed their progress.

"Want me to go?" He asked.

"No, go check on the people, they're still reeling from what happened and need a leader, I'll go there right after I make sure everything is intact."

"You're their leader too," Rick told her before walking to meet the group.

Isabella stared at him at the comment, did the others really begin to see her as a fellow leader? She almost scoffed at the idea; she'd come so far in the group. Who knew she could go from being their prisoner to their leader in a year and a half.

She hurried to the lab, praying nothing was destroyed. She swung the doors to the lab where she and Eugene had been working and saw Eugene, crying in the corner, where a dead person lay.

"Eugene!" Isabella hurried to him. "Are you hurt? What happened here?"

"I let him in, I let him in," Eugene repeated and Isabella reeled back.

She turned to look at their vials of half completed progress and her heart shattered when she saw them all over the ground. None of the machines seemed to be damaged but all their work, all their mixtures and samples were gone.

All their hard work had been destroyed. Isabella didn't have a clue how they even reached most of the results they did and she knew she wouldn't be able to do them again in a short time.

"Why? Why would you do that? We were this close, this close to getting a chance at peace! And you just-" She cut herself off, shouting in anger as she walked away from Eugene, knowing if she stayed near him she'd hurt him.

She noticed an unbroken vial under the table and she slowly grabbed it. She sighed in relief at seeing it was a piece that had been extremely difficult to yield, and she was glad she had something.

Still, she knew she would have to spend endless hours at the lab once more, all in hope in finding a cure for this mess.

"Get out," Isabella finally said, turning to Eugene with a harsh glare.

"What?" Eugene looked up at her, wiping the tears from his eyes.

"I should've never trusted you. Get out."

"You can't do this without me, you're making a mistake-"

"Maybe, but I don't want or need you in here. So please, leave. And if I ever see you in here again..."

Eugene didn't need to hear her finish her sentence as he hurried out the lab and Isabella sighed.

She hated being mean to Eugene, she could tell he was trying half the time but he... sucked at it. He was an idiot who thought he could do everything but obviously couldn't.

She didn't want to spend much more time in the lab than needed today so she locked the remaining vials in a safe before heading to the Alexandrians listening to Rick as he talked to them.

"We keep this place quiet. Close the blinds at night, actually, just leave the lights off at night. We try and make it seem like a graveyard to keep them from coming back."

"This is a graveyard," Isabella heard one of the townspeople retort.

"The gates right over there if you want to leave so badly," Isabella snapped as she stood next to Rick.

"This isn't their fault," Aaron stepped up, not wanting to see any more fighting go down. He explained to them that they trapped him out there and while running home, they probably followed his tracks. He blamed himself for this.