THE VOID

TWO: The truth comes out

EVER SINCE SEEING Camila and Jim in the tent, Carl began worried. Back in second grade one of his friends dealt with an abusive father. Whenever he came to school he had cigarette burns on his arms and slight bruises that were noticeable. He never knew what happened to that kid.

But something he knew for sure was that something fishy was going on. By how tight he gripped her arm and how he looked...Carl was scared of the man himself. And ever since they joined the camp Carl never liked Jim. He was always so strict and rude to Camila. He ignored but now it really started to bother him.

Lori was giving him a hair cut as she normally did because his hair was getting longer. So, sitting there in pure silence really gave him time to think. And he couldn't stop thinking about Camila.

Carl saw Camila talking to Jacqui, Dale, Glenn, Merle, Andrea, and T-Dog then ran towards The Dixion tent where Jim was.

"Hey mom?" He started the conversation.

"Yeah baby?" Lori asked.

Carl inhaled deeply. "Remember that boy in school, with the abusive dad?" He started, not really knowing how to start this type of conversation.

Lori licked her lips before combing the boys hair that was currently wet. "Yes, why?" She asked, curious and worried about this topic and suddenly sparked Carl's interest.

Carl looked down. "Yesterday I opened Camila and her dad's tent to talk with Camila and" He paused. "I saw something"

Lori took in that information for a moment, inhaling. "What did you see baby?"

Carl saw Camila running back to the group she was originally talking to. "I saw Jim gripping her arm tightly. Very tightly. And the way he looked, he looked so mad it even scared me and I don't know. I felt something bad was going on" Carl explained, hoping talking about it it'd leave his mind.

Lori looked at Camila who was wearing a sweater in this hot weather. "What do you think was happening?"

Carl turned to her and met her eyes. "I think he was gonna hit her" He whispered to her.

"Thank you for telling me baby, I'll keep an eye out" Lori told the boy, hoping it'd relive his stress.

But his stress was like a disease because now Lori was stressed and she didn't know what to do with this information. Normally she would've talked to the school or the police. But with no school or police she had no idea what to do.

Yesterday, Shane was talking about how worried he was for Camila because apparently she was hallucinating her dead brother. So, Lori knew something was going on. But abuse? There could be no such thing. Right?

*

Camila was coloring in her notebook, sitting on a crate they had everywhere in the camp. She was wearing a sweater because Jim had bruised her wrist when he gripped her and it was very noticeable. And having no bracelets the only thing she knew to cover it with was a sweater.

But wearing a sweater in the middle of summer was a horrible mistake but she was sweating.

"Hey!" Carl called out to Camila. "We need to talk"

Camila turned to the boy. "About what?" She asked.

Carl looked at the man that was ten feet away from them talking to Merle. "Not here"

Camila nodded as she made a 'follow me' motion with her hand as she began walking towards the forest, which Carl followed.

Once they were deep enough in the forest, Camila turned to Carl. "What did you need to talk to me about?" She asked the boy.