Alyssa Chávez has felt alone for most of her life. She was never good at making friends. She always felt a distance between her and her family. So when the apocalypse happened, her social life didn't take much of a hit. After losing her family, Alys...
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Chapter Twenty-Six Training
Before Alyssa went home the night of the meeting, she went to Mikey's house. She knocked on the door, told him his dad was back and to meet her at 8 am sharp because training was going to start earlier.
Alyssa didn't really have any kind of plan yet, but she figured she could improvise. Hell, if she could just get him outside the wall it would be an accomplishment. So that's step one and she'd see how to go from there.
Most of what she learned, she learned from Aunt Nia. If she could take what she learned from those lessons and teach it to Mikey, with her own personal brand of humor and a touch of what she learned from the group, she felt like she could really get somewhere with him. Everyone had to start learning at some point, for the Alexandrians it would just be a little late.
After getting dressed in black cargo pants and a blue-sleeved raglan shirt, Alyssa packed a bag with stuff she might need. Knives, a couple of throwing axes, and a book on edible plants. She went downstairs and filled two bottles with water and packed a few granola bars in case they'd be out long. When she left the kitchen to wait on the porch, she found Abraham passed out on the couch. He was lying on his stomach with one arm dangling off the couch.
Alyssa sighed and picked up the half-filled bottle of rum that lay tipped over on the carpet. She went back into the kitchen to put the bottle away. She returned with a glass of water and some aspirin. If her experience with her dad was any indication, he would need it.
Mark Thompson would come home late every friday, sometimes hours after his shift at the pharmaceutical company he worked for ended. Usually stumbling into the living room, mumbling complaints when most of them had already gone to sleep. He'd wake all of them up when he tripped over the furniture and complain that they moved the table. Mark got angry about the little things, like how all of the Chávez children were given their mothers surname at birth and their mother kept hers in the marriage. Their mother usually ignored him or they would fight.
Which was why it was such a big surprise when they were suddenly a big happy family those first few weeks in the apocalypse. Even so, Alyssa was glad some of the last memories of her family were happy ones. And that's what she wanted to remember about this family too. All the good things.
Alyssa sat down in one of the living room chairs to tie the laces of her sneakers. She grabbed her baseball cap on her way out the door. Maggie and Glenn were still in bed, recovering from last night, so she'd left a note on the kitchen counter to let them know she was gonna be hanging out with Mikey. She didn't mention they were going outside the walls for the sake of not getting grounded.
She'd barely taken place on the porch when Mikey came into sight. She met him halfway down the street with her backpack on. "Ready to go?" she asked.
