No Rest For the Wicked ~ A Walking Dead Fan Fiction

Chapter 32: Growing Pains

Chapter 32

Growing Pains

Third Person~

That night the group huddled around a little campfire Daryl was stoking.  No one could relax, everyone just waiting on edge for something to happen. Kate was next to Glenn with Elsie huddled under her arm shivering away, and Daryl on her other side. Everyone was cold but didn't want to risk drawing attention to themselves by making a larger fire.

"We're not safe with him." Carol hissed, in reference to Rick who was the only one not there since he was on watch. "Keeping something like that from us. Why do we need him? He's just gonna pull you down." Kate glanced from Carol's face to Daryl's, one terrified, the other blank.

"No. Rick's done all right by me." He drawled.

"Rick's done alright by us all, seeing as we're alive here tonight." Kate added coolly, watching a white cloud form on her breath and wishing she had a cigarette.

"Not all of us." Olivia, who'd been abnormally quiet, muttered.

"We deserve better." Carol insisted.

"Than being alive? That's about as good as it gets now-a-days." Kate pointed out.

"Aren't you mad at all?" Olivia asked, looking curiously at Kate who was absently drawing in the dirt with her finger. Kate glanced up, her eyes startlingly intense for how mellow her body language was.

"Rick had his reasons to keep it a secret. I don't blame him."

"Of course you see it that way, having your own the size of Texas." Olivia growled miserably, poking the fire with a little twig.

"You bring that up every damn time we talk!" Kate growled right back, making sure to keep her voice low. "How long until you let it go?"

"For God's sake Olivia, you even voted to keep her around." Lori sighed, tired of the arguing.

"Yeah, well, I only did that because I thought she could help keep us safe. Do the heavy lifting.  Instead Eric and Justin are dead!"  Olivia did shout now, throwing the burning twig at Kate across the fire.  She was quickly shushed by several people as Elsie stomped the stick out, which hadn't actually hit them, staring at Olivia in shock.  It was a small twig and the whole thing had been rather anticlimactic but she'd still thrown something burning at them.  The woman ignored the little girl's stare, above caring about a child's judgement. 

Kate stiffened as she considered what Olivia was actually saying.  Was it her fault?  She'd been the one to make the call that they would stay and fight.  Would Eric ever have been out in that RV if she hadn't told him to be?  She knew he wanted to save Rick and Carl, but, she thought slowly, feeling like coldness was suddenly in her fingers and toes and slowly working it way inwards, if she'd told him to leave, that's what he would have done. 

"But I'm alive.  I wouldn't be if it weren't for her."  Carol said quietly, as Kate sat there still as a statue, eyes frosted over.

"Yeah well no offense but I'd rather have Eric and Justin."  Olivia sneered.

"Alright!  That's enough!"  Kate broke out of it and didn't yell, but her voice held enough power and venom that nobody dared continue arguing.   "We're what's left, like it or not.  And we're just gonna have to get over our differences and work together if anyone wants to make it."

"Kate, I think we should take our chances."  Maggie spoke up, thinking it would be herself, her father, her sister, Glenn, Kate and through Kate, Elsie.

"No."  Kate said stubbornly, not even taking time to consider as her fingers tightened around Elsie's hand, which she had already been holding, like a metal vise.