"What's going on?"

"Who are these people? Why did you bring them here?" 

"Are they with the Widow's? Are they planning an attack?!"

"Has Leon decided what to do with them?"

The cacophony of worried shouts and inquiries assaults my ears as we're led through camp. A particularly large group of survivors had gathered around my little escort line, blocking us off from our destination. With Danielle in the lead trying to wedge us through and Josh behind us doing what he can to give us space from being poked, prodded, jabbed, and potentially stabbed by concerned survivors, Danielle finally takes a deep breath, and I brace.

Voice ringing out loud and clear, Danielle shouts, "Alright, that's enough! Get back to work, everyone; your questions will be answered once Leon decides what to do!" The survivors mutter amongst themselves as Danielle starts to shoulder her way through them, my siblings and I close behind. "Go on; I'm sure there are plenty of chores around camp that still need to be done!"

As the campers slowly disburse, Josh steps up beside Danielle once he's sure we won't be accosted from behind and whispers something in her ear that makes her sigh. "It should be fine as long as he lets them stay," she replies, glancing back at us. "And as long as they're willing." 

I narrow my eyes at her, bristling when neither comes clean about their quiet conversation. 

"Go ahead and let Butch know to prepare the deer for dinner," Danielle continues. "Let him know our guests get the first pick since the girl was the one who tracked it. I'm sure they're rather hungry." Josh nods, glancing back at my siblings and me and casting a friendly smile before splitting off from his companion and skittering away towards a rickety old smokehouse.

Though dozens of the campers are still eyeing my family and me, Danielle does a decent enough job acting as a buffer between us and some of the concerned onlookers as she leads us to a large utility shed with reinforced iron bars on the windows. 

"You know," I start as we approach what looks like a tiny prison cell, "I can patch myself up if you have something better to do."

"Right," Danielle sighs, "Because you've been doing such a good job of that so far today." 

I glare at the back of her head, which she pointedly ignores. 

"Orders are orders," she continues. "Take it as a gesture of good faith on our behalf and as an apology from me for hurting you like that." 

"Apologies are only sincere if you do it of your own free will," I quip. "Not if someone orders you to do it." 

Shoulders tight, Danielle pauses next to the reinforced building, turns, and watches me as though she wants to say something. She slowly closes her eyes, takes a breath, and gestures to the side of the shed, where an assortment of empty crates are neatly stacked against the structure. "Your bags," she orders. 

Casting cautious glances at me, my siblings carefully remove their bags and place them in the crates while my hands fiddle with the straps of my own bag. 

'Okay, Cass, don't be suspicious,’ I think. 'They probably won't go through our bags, and even if they do, they likely won't even know what the locket is any more than we do. If we're really lucky, maybe they'll just think it's an ugly memorabilia from before societal collapse.' I cast a glance back at Danielle, who looks at me expectantly. Gulping, I carefully remove my bag and set it on top of my sisters, looking back at Danielle and returning her expectant look. 

Rolling her eyes, she opens the door to the shed and ushers us inside, and the first thing I do is wrinkle my nose at the smell of stale hay and musk that assaults my senses. I sneeze as I enter, the dust being kicked up seeming to find its way directly into my nose. Inside the shed is a cot tucked into a corner with a dusty pillow and blanket neatly folded at the foot, a lawn chair and a stool, a small dirty bucket that had been rigged up as a makeshift toilet - my sister gags at the sight - and a larger covered barrel that seems to be leaking water from somewhere at the top. 

Closing the door behind us as she follows in, Danielle gestures to the lawn chair in the shed and orders me to sit. 

Reluctantly, I do as she says as she pulls out a small red bag from a locked compartment just inside the shed, my siblings taking careful seats on the cot to watch. Danielle pulls up the stool to sit in front of me and begins to dig out cloth, rubbing alcohol, septic wipes, and gauze. 

Breaking the silence, I ask, "Why are you patching me up first?" 

"Because you've already lost a lot of blood from that cut on your neck," she says simply, wetting the cloth with rubbing alcohol. "And because I've already set my nose." The look she gives me is a significant one that almost makes me feel guilty, though she looks almost impressed before her mask of indifference falls back into place, and she starts to clean the blood from the gash in my head, holding my chin still with her free hand.

Watching carefully, my sister fidgets with her hands before asking, "What are you gonna do with us?" 

Danielle is silent as she works, concentrating on not irritating the head wound anymore than it already is. "That depends on you and your siblings here," she eventually replies. 

Octavia sighs. "Well, that's not very helpful…"

Danielle sits back from my face as she examines the cut, wetting her cloth once more. "Just answer Leon's questions honestly, and you'll be able to collect your items, have a hot meal, and be on your way soon." Once she finishes cleaning the wound, Danielle pulls out an adhesive bandage and carefully uses one of her sanitation wipes to clean the wound before applying the bandage, careful not to get my hair stuck in the adhesion. I wince at the pressure but remain quiet as she works. 

This time, she pulls out a suture kit and places it in her lap before pulling a clean cloth, wetting it, and sets to work on cleaning the cut on my neck. Her eyes narrow in concentration as I take a peek at our surroundings, trying to memorize the layout of the camp as we had entered. With the shed as small as it is, and considering she sits here outnumbered, my siblings and I could very easily rush and overpower her, knocking her out long enough to grab her keys and escape. There's a chance that the walls of their camp exclude the river as they use it as a natural border, so it could be a potential escape route. The only issue on hand would be that we would then be unarmed in the middle of a forest with the Widows and them and have no way of defending ourselves. Making a new bow and some arrows would not be too much of a hassle, but Felix would lose his machete, and Octavia would lose her bat. 

However much I dislike the odds, I hate the idea of being indebted to these people for cooking our deer and patching us up. On top of that, their leader, Leon, simply rubs me the wrong way. Something about his demeanor reminds me too much of Father, and I would much rather avoid any and all individuals who so much as emulate the rotten man. 

A breathy laugh pulls me from my thoughts, and I realize that Danielle has finished cleaning and stitching my neck and is watching me with an amused look in her eyes. "You wouldn't make it very far, you know," she notes as she cleans her hands and puts away the leftover medical supplies. I blink at her, raising an eyebrow and feigning ignorance. "Sure, you could knock me out and run, but you would get swarmed by the guards before you could make it past the greenhouses. Even if you do manage to get beyond the river, our patrols will pick you up rather quickly." She stands, zipping up the medical bag and placing it back in the locked compartment in the wall. "If you really aren't with the Widows, and if you really aren't a threat, trust the process. Only the guilty run." 

I shrug. "Then it's a good thing I'm being cooperative, isn't it?"

Danielle eyes me, not buying my 'nice captive' act at all. "Look, I don't know what your deal is, but you seem to have a good head on your shoulders. Don't go and lose it because you want to be some sort of hero, alright? You'll lose everything that way."

"Why do you care about what happens to us?" The words are out of my mouth before I can filter them out, and they impact with much more bite than I intended. Danielle and I sit in tense silence as she watches me with calculating eyes. Eventually, she shrugs.

"I don't," she finally says. "You can run and risk the lives of your family here, or stay, answer Leon's questions, and possibly have a safe place to rest for the night before moving on to wherever you seem to be headed. If I were you, the choice would be obvious."

"If you were me," I reply slowly, choosing my words carefully this time, "you would feel as though there was no choice. I just want to keep my family safe." 

Danielle's expression is unreadable as she rests her hand on the knob of the shed door. "All the more reason to wait this out then. Leon is being incredibly lenient with the three of you, but if you decide to fight the system and fuck this up, that's on you." She opens the door and steps out, turning back once more to say, "Your lip is going to have to heal on its own. There's fresh water in the covered barrel over there you can use to finish washing up and drink if you're thirsty. I'll be back with Leon shortly."

With the click of the door closing and the heavy clank of the lock being thrown, she leaves my siblings and me alone in the shed at last. The three of us collectively sigh, slumping where we sit as we take in our situation. 

'She's right. I hate that.' 

As we entered their camp, it was easy to note that nearly everyone was armed in some way or another, either with a small side-arm or a melee weapon of some sort. Attempting to escape and getting our weapons back from the armory would only lead to one or all of us dying or getting seriously hurt should the campers feel compelled to recapture us. These survivors seem more paranoid than normal about the Widows, and while I understand that the Widows are a horrible group of 'shoot first, ask questions later' sort of bandits, they tend to stay away from large established camps like this unless there's something here they want that they would be willing to sacrifice some of their own to get. 

My sister sighs, breaking my train of thought. "At least she's hot." 

I blink at her, narrowing my eyes. "What the Hell, Octavia?" 

"What? I'm just saying what we're both thinking!"

"She smashed my face in and locked us in a shed!"

"And you're not denying that you think she's hot, either." She gets a dreamy look in her eyes that only fuels my irritation. "Kinda wish I had an injury; she could patch me up any day."

"I can give you one if you want it that badly," I growl. 

My sister rolls her eyes, leaning back against the wall. "God, Cass, I was just kidding," she mumbles. "Mostly, anyway. Lighten up, would you? You're acting like this is the first time we've been captured."

Felix's eyes go wide as he watches my face redden. "Cass," he tries, but it's too late.

"'Lighten up'?" I demand, standing from my chair and towering over my sister. "Fucking ‘lighten up,' Octavia? Really?" She flinches on the cot, but I'm too angry to care. "These people are dangerous. They could decide at the drop of a hat that we're too much trouble to keep around and too much of an unknown to send off into the wilderness and decide that killing us is the best way to keep themselves safe. Then what would happen, huh? The locket," I gesture to the wall where our bags are leaned up against just outside, "is not in our hands. There are only two things Uncle Tommy asked of me before he disappeared, Tavia. Do you remember what they were?"

She sits silently on the cot, refusing to look at me as she shrinks under my stress-induced breakdown. 

"He asked me to keep you guys safe," I hold a finger up to demonstrate my point, "and to take the locket to Mom," I continue, raising a second digit. "I can't very well do that if we're all dead because of these psycho's!" 

My anger deflates as Octavia slumps further into herself, tucking her knees into her chest. She's quiet for a long while before she finally mumbles out, "I said 'lighten up,' not 'be a bitch’…" 

Sighing, I run my fingers through my short hair, scratching my scalp in a desperate attempt to calm myself down. "I know," I mutter. "I'm sorry." I slouch back in the lawn chair, pinching the bridge of my nose. "It's my fault we're in this mess to begin with anyway. If I had just been more careful, we never would have been caught in the first place, and we'd be feasting on venison for breakfast." 

Felix pats my knee, offering a tired smile. "It's not your fault, Cass," he soothes. "There was no way for us to know that we were so close to their camp, to begin with; we've been lost and following what few legible road signs there are for the past several weeks."

Octavia sighs, lowering her legs to dangle over the edge of the cot. "I was the one who lost our map, to begin with…" she mumbles. 

"It's not lost," I try. "We know exactly where it is. We just…" I try thinking of a way to explain the situation without pissing myself off further or blaming my sister, and my frazzled brain settles on, "Can't get it right now." 

"It's lost," Octavia reiterates firmly. "The lumber mill was crawling with those freaks; there's no way we'll be able to get it back. Or my book…" 

"Both are replaceable," I point out. "You guys aren't."

"And neither is the locket," Octavia adds. 

I smile. "If I had to choose between the locket and my favorite siblings, I would choose you guys every time." 

Octavia rolls her eyes, her smile creeping back to her face. "We're your only siblings, dumbass," she breathes.

"And that's what makes you my favorites!"

Octavia refuses to look at me, grinning softly at my weak attempt to cheer her up, and Felix simply chuckles. It didn't take long for the smile to slide off my sister's face, and a serious expression made itself known. 

"What happens if they let us go?" she asks slowly. 

"Then we keep heading south," I reply simply. "To Mom."

"Do you think…" she pauses, choosing her words carefully, and I brace for where the conversation is beginning to head. "Do you think they'd let us stay here?" She asks, finally looking up at me with imploring eyes. "You know, with them?" 

"Tavia…" I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. 

"Come on, Cass," my sister pleads. "We've been on the road for four years trying to get to Mom. We don't even know if she's, you know…" She pauses, glancing away. "Still alive." 

"You know why we can't do that," I remind her. 

"Not this shit again…" she grumbles. 

"We have people counting on us," I press. "Uncle Tommy disappeared and left the locket for us to deliver, and Mom is just waiting for us." 

"They're both dead, Cass!" Octavia growls. "I know it's not what you want to hear, but every time you say that Uncle Tommy 'disappeared,' it does nothing but get my hopes up! And Mom? She sent us on a suicide mission. I just want us to be somewhere safe."