Time seems to slow when there's no human interaction. It could have been only hours, but it feels as though days, even weeks had passed before the sound of the lock on my door is thrown and the door opens. I scramble to my feet, weak and dizzy. Food had been slipped to me a handful of times, at least six or so meager meals, but there was no real way to gauge how much time had passed, how many days we lost. I had fallen in and out of a restless slumber, only able to stomach less than a handful of food at a time, and even then, my nerves threatened to reject what I had eaten.

My wrists were raw from where the cuffs had been chafing my flesh, and scabby abrasions formed, itching and burning at the same time from the sweat that collected there. Phillip stood in the doorway, his shoulders squared and his jaw set as he looked me over, his expression unreadable.

"Your friend is awake, but she won't talk to us," he says, his eyes hard.

I gulp. "She's safe?"

Phillip nods. "Get up, we're taking you to her."

My heart leaps to my throat. They're going to take me to see Dani? I swallow the hope that bubbles in my chest as I remember why I was here in the first place; the Widow mark between her shoulder blades. I stand, my legs protesting as I do so, and I carefully approach him at the doorway. He places his hand firmly on my shoulder and closes the door behind us, steering me through the stale hallways back into the maze, taking so many turns that I feel myself go dizzy.

"Why are you-" I start, trying to break the silence, but Phillip's grip tightens.

"She won't talk to us," he answers, his voice thin.

Head throbbing with a building headache, I blink, stumbling down the hall. Won't talk? Are they torturing her for information? Do they intend to torture me in front of her to get her to talk?

"So, what?" I say. "You want to use me to get her to talk?"

Phillip's grip slackens slightly, and I glance back at him, observing his pained expression. "Something like that. Here," he abruptly stops me in front of a set of locked double doors and unlocks my cuffs. "If you truly didn't know about her past as you claim, then get her to talk. There may be hope for the two of you yet."

With that, he unlocks the door and shoves me inside, closing and locking it behind me. I stumble into a brightly lit sterile smelling room that must have been used for surgeries at one point, but instead of the medical equipment I would expect to see, there is a large metal table and a folding chair in the center, where Dani sits.

Her hands are cuffed, with the chain welded to the table's surface to prevent her from moving anywhere. She's staring at me with wide gray eyes, dark circles weighing under them, and her wrists look rougher than mine as if she had been struggling against them for some time. She sits up a little straighter as she watches me, her eyes roaming over me in the way they do when she's checking for injuries. When they settle on my wrists, her brows furrow and I glance away, shoving my hands into the pockets of my bomber.

I can still feel her gaze on me as I take in the rest of the barren room, though the most notable part of it is the strange arched mirrored ceiling above us. A suspicion in my gut tells me that they aren't mirrors, and I suppress a groan as I slowly step toward the table Dani had been forced to sit at.

"Cass," Dani says, her voice cracked, and I can tell she's parched. She clears her throat with a small cough that makes her wince, and she sits up a little straighter. "Did they hurt you?"

I can't meet her eyes as I sit at the table before her, sitting back as she leans forward.

At my silence, she tries again. "Are you okay?"

I close my eyes as if it'll drown out her voice, and I have to know.

"Cass, please-"

"Why?"

She pauses, and I can feel her eyes on me.

"What?"

Her voice is small, and I feel as if I'm scolding a child who didn't know any better, but I swallow my pity for her and press on.

"Why did you lie to me?" It takes a while before I'm able to meet her eyes, and my breath catches in my throat when I do. She's pale, her skin almost translucent, and up close, it looks as if she nearly flayed the flesh from her wrists in an attempt to slip from the cuffs. She sits awkwardly, favoring the side she had been shot on, and her eyes look sunken, defeated. Worst of all, they look wet, and on the verge of tears.

"I..." Her voice cracks as her brows furrow further, pain etched into her face and laced through her voice.

"When we first met," I say, my voice thick, and I have to swallow a lump in my throat before continuing. "When we first met, you told me that your group was hiding from the Widows. You said that you had nothing to do with them, that they had just been hunting for other survivors."

"I-I... I didn't..."

"And again," I press, an edge in my voice I don't recognize in myself, "when you were... injured at the gas station, and Jessica asked for you by name." A flicker of confusion crosses Dani's face, and I glance up at the mirrored ceiling, hoping she gets the idea. Her eyes follow, widen, and flick back to meet mine, confused for another reason entirely now. "You and Josh told me that you had come from the same outpost, but left when it got overrun. You lied to me. Both times. Why?"

Dani searches my eyes for an escape I can't give her, and sighs, hanging her head.

"I was scared..." Her voice is barely over a whisper, but the weight it carries slams into my chest. Dani? Scared? The words don't fit together in my head. "I had to, at Cottonwood," she continues, her voice small. She clears her throat again, picking at her hands. "Leon told us - Josh and I - to keep our history to ourselves."

"So Leon is a Widow, then," I growl, my lip curling.

"No, he's not. He... He never was one. Not that I knew."

"What do you mean?"

Dani sighs, one of the scabs on her wrist starting to bleed as she picks at it. "Josh was... sort of right. When the outbreak first began, we found ourselves at a refugee center in Atlanta. Me, Josh, and..." Dani makes a face, as if saying her name would evoke physical pain. "And Jessica." She sniffles, finally looking up to meet my eyes, and a hollow, defeated look overtakes her expression.

"Leon and his crew, they were in charge of the refugee center. We were only there for six or so months, and we weren't the only ones," Dani said. "A small group of people calling themselves the Widows were too. They were military vet activists, pressing to get our retired military troops who were tossed on the streets into homes and back into normal lives. They weren't evil when they started..."

I remembered hearing about the activist group in the news every once in a while at work - back before the world took a shit on itself - about how much they were fighting to get the homeless military retirees off the streets, and homeless people in general into homes. How they devolved into the ruthless widespread marauders they are now, however, is a mystery I don't care to solve.

Dani takes a labored breath before continuing. "They worked pretty well with Leon's group, getting people evacuated, helping them out in the med tents, keeping watch on the perimeter. A lot of people joined them to help make a difference, including Josh, Jessica, and me. We just... we wanted to help..." She squeezes her eyes shut as if the memory burned her. "It didn't take long before shit hit the fan, of course. The head of the group in Georgia was there, too, and he was murdered by the current leader."

I watch her as her mouth twists, and I swallow. "And the marks?" I ask. "What happened with that?"

Dani's silent for a long moment, and I almost think she won't answer, but she sighs eventually. "The new leader decided that he wanted the loyalty of those in his group to be shown with the tattoo, but he wanted people to earn their spots, so he decided to have an initiation. Everyone who pledged themselves to the Widows had to kill someone in front of him or those loyal to him to prove that loyalty, and he would tattoo them. The first weeks of his takeover were..."

She doesn't need to tell me; I can picture quite a bloodbath judging from the look on her face.

"A lot of people were scared," Dani says. "They just wanted someplace to survive. A lot of people in Leon's squad refused, and they... well, they became the marks of a lot of those who thought they had no other choice."

"There's always a choice," I growl.

"Not when you have everything on the line, Cass," Dani bites back, fury flashing in her eyes like a thunderstorm. "When they came to us, demanded that we prove ourselves, Josh and I declined. We wanted to stick with Leon and wait for the rest of the military to finish evacuations. I tried to sway Jessica, but..." Her fury melts into pain once more, and her fingers work at the scabs on her wrists. "She had already been marked... I... I don't know when it happened, who she killed, but..." She grips her hands tightly as she takes a deep breath. "She advocated for our imprisonment instead of having us killed.

"Josh and I weren't the only ones who refused, either. Leon went to ground shortly after Josh and I were imprisoned, and there were just so many of us. Alison and her family, Butch, Doc... The Widows decided they still had a use for people like us, and decided that the best way to show the world their new property was to brand us."

I wince, my chest tightening. "Property..?"

"Yeah," Dani growls, her anger simmering. "The Widows used us like slaves, forced us to do the dangerous task of scavenging Feral infested areas, gathering supplies, securing the wall. When one of us died, it wasn't a big loss to the Widows, but there was always a chance one of us could prove ourselves and join their ranks if we wanted freedom."

"How long?" I ask, my voice quiet as my mind attempts to comprehend the torture Dani and Josh must have gone through.

Dani watches me for a long moment, her eyes never leaving mine as she answers with, "Three and a half months." Her voice cracks at the confession, but she doesn't waiver.

"Then... How did you and Josh escape?"

Dani gives a humorless laugh at the question. "Dumb luck, really. A lot of the Branded were planning on escaping anyway, and when a hoard blew through in the dead of night, we took advantage of the chaos and fled. A lot of us didn't make it, but Leon had come to help with some of the other people from his squad the Widows didn't kill. There were maybe forty or so of us who managed to get out, but by the time we made it to Cottonwood and established it as a safe place, there were less than fifteen of us."

It makes sense, now. Everything the Cottonwood survivors did during the Widow attack, I can't blame them anymore. I thought I knew what the Widows were like with the instances my family and I had dealt with them on our journey, but using people as slaves? As expendable resources? 

The image of Jessica's savage grin flashes in my mind, and I want nothing more than to put an arrow in her eye. She advocated for Dani and Josh to be used like that, to be cast into danger like live bait. Whether it was to save them from being murdered, or for her own twisted games, I don't care.

"Dani..." I don't know what to say to her, but I find myself leaning toward her, and my hand finds hers. She flinches, and I wince, but she settles, glancing up at me with defeated eyes. I hope she can see the apology on my face, the one that words can't seem to carry. Her lips quirk up in a feeble attempt of a smile, one that dimly conveys her understanding, and she gives my fingers a small squeeze in return.

"I tried to tell you, you know," Dani says, her voice barely above a whisper. "A few times. When I got... hurt at the gas station... when we were heading back to the farmhouse after your dip in the pond..." She squeezes my fingers a little tighter, as if I'll disappear if she lets go. "I wanted to tell you, I just... didn't know how to... I was scared..."

I open my mouth to respond, but the sound of the door being unlocked catches our attention once more, and I quickly stand, my chair nearly clattering to the ground as I ready myself to be hauled away once more. However, when the door opens, Phillip is there with Skye behind him, but in front of him is a stalwart woman in a pressed Valkyrie long coat, her reddish-brown sepia skin smooth and marred only on her face, where a large old burn marks her. Her hair is closely shaven and neatly kept, and she wheels herself in on a sporty-looking wheelchair, her legs hidden by a thick blanket.

The woman pauses in front of me and gives a small professional smile in greeting. "I think we have the information we need for now," she says, her voice deep and smooth, how I imagine a queen would sound when addressing her courts. "Thank you for your cooperation, Cassandra, Dani. I believe we may be able to help one another. My name is Valerie, and I am the head of the Valkyrie."