Carrying the Fire

“I said drop it!”

The girl barked back vehemently from behind the man I recognized had stolen my bow by the waterfall weeks ago. It wasn't hard to pick up on her southern drawl and imagined I'd run into another native Georgian of these parts. She was young. Younger than I, with short-cropped, brunette hair tucked behind her ears and wide, bright eyes that glared at me underneath dark furrowed brows. I took notice to all this in the foreground of the gun she threatened me with. My gaze flickered from between the girl to the much older man who practically shoved his way forward from the doorway. Besides our last run in, I'd never really seen a crossbow in person and I'd only ever read about a crossbow's origin while studying the Mongolian Empire briefly, I recalled it was a weapon nomadic tribes of northeast Asia most notably used to overthrow empires of Central Asia and China in their invasions. If I wasn't in such a predicament, I would probably snort at the ridiculousness of the weapon in my studies in the hands of some hick wearing a bright, Tijuana-style poncho that looked almost obnoxiously large on his frame, the stock loaded and raised out from under the thick wool blanket over his shoulders. His jaw was set firm and I could visibly see him grinding his teeth while his eyes seemed to flash around the room.

I could hear how rasped and petrified my breath had turned at being cornered and outnumbered. There was no running this time. My hands shook something terribly when I refused to lay down my only chance.

“Lady you bes' put it down if ya don't wan' an arrow between yer eyes,” he hissed quietly. His voice was much more coarse than the younger girl's southern twang. More rough, like the dirt that crackled under the roll of heavy tires on a graveled back road of Georgia. I found myself traveling more often down those trails these days.

“Who else ya' with?”

My eyes narrowed and I recalled my attacker from earlier. You with them?

“'Ey!” His voice was best described a growl as he sharply startled my attention when I hesitated in silence. “I asked ya' a question. Who ya' with?”

While glaring down at me, I watched his eyes flash around in a complete scan of the room and it dawned on me he believed I couldn't be here alone. I had no idea what response I should give, so I could only think to remain stoically silent in the face of these intruder's questioning.

In frustration, he advanced so abruptly I involuntarily flinched and recoiled back as he shoved the stirrup of his crossbow with an already nocked bolt threatening down at my face. “Ya bes' spit out if ya' got buddies 'round we outta know 'bout.”

My back remained flattened against the mirror and I could hear tiny cracks crawl up the bloodied reflexion behind me. My body threatened to wither in on itself under the weight of my predicament; I tried to breathe through the ache I felt pulse throughout my whole arm and down into my fingertips, but every bone-rattling breath pulled despairingly at my shoulder while I tried to keep the rifle perched on my knees. Remembering the source of my injury, I decided to approach this in a different course than my last escape. I had no idea what kind of man this was, an judging by my last experience, I didn't expect just because I was a woman he wouldn't lay his hands on me. Or more precisely, put an arrow through me.

“Yeah,” I croaked, trying to sit up a little straighter. “I've been gone awhile. They'll be looking for me.”

The man tilted his head back for only the briefest of moments to exchange a synchronized look between him and the girl before his eyes quickly flicked back. His aim still never left my head. I tried keeping my body from sliding back down the mirror that had become splattered with my own blood, and stretched a leg that wasn't supporting the barrel of my gun out in front of me to help scootch back since my arms were already shaking much too weakly. But that was also when I saw him beginning to take the time to access the mess of the room. I choked back a hollow gasp from behind my lips when his eyes grazed over the rifle, then down to my abdomen. The double-take was so fast, I would have missed the glimpse of azurite widen under his down-turned brows that slowly furrowed as I watched him comprehend what they'd walked in on. I jerked my leg back up in panic, but not before I saw the girl take notice to where his gaze fixed so intently.

“We ain't gunna tell you again,” the girl warned a bit more darkly. “Put your gun down.”

The room waited on each others moves with a thick tension. The convulsing organ thumping against my ribcage shivered as I could practically read his eyes traveling from the floor where my boot had stretched out, then to the bullet shells I'd kicked. His eyes followed the two halves of the bullet I'd pried apart earlier and had rolled across the wood floor to skitter by the discarded lighter and first-aid kit I'd completely forgotten about after I cauterized my shoulder. Then to my dismay, I saw the two strangers from the doorway halt over my horridly burnt and bloody shoulder. I could only imagine what a sight I must be with almost half my shirt sliced open in blood-soaked tatters from where I'd torn it earlier from my collar all the way down my sleeve and had yet to see what my wound now looked after it's incineration.

“No.” I swallowed and inhaled a quiet, shallow breath to try and tame the pounding rhythm of trepidation that threatened to burst from my esophagus and roared through my ear drums. “You see I can't.”

I could feel my eyes still watering from the raw ache of my burnt flesh and see the very visible shake from the barrel of my gun that I refused to lower. My voice had probably only barely been above a whisper, a plea, and it seemed to startle the girl as her wide bright eyes gave away her initial shock before she remembered herself to steer her expression back.

I wasn't an idiot and I wasn't foolhardy; I was painstakingly aware I was outgunned and outnumbered, half-bled out and freshly awake from unconsciousness. Especially after what transpired just earlier today, I wasn't naive to the evils and cruelty the living could bring with them. I couldn't afford to trust these people and surrender, leaving myself bare. I'd learned you could never really know what a human's humanity is capable of, courage or of corruption. Even the people you love the most are the furthest from who you thought you knew. To be completely and totally honest, I had once loved Philip. And I had once loved Merle. Todd hadn't been the only man in my life at the end of the world. Yet no matter how much I had thought I'd known men throughout this epidemic that bonded us all. But blood stained Woodbury's snow in December until no man's hands were clean anymore. And I had been too disgusted by everyone's dirty hands, with my own boyfriend's blood, to bear living beside the man who's corruption was the most revolting. Now Todd was dead, and the Governor and Merle are murderers; there was no chance I would relinquish myself under anyone.

My legs huddled against me, the only barrier other than my gun I could offer between these strangers' shot and the light I'd been trying so inexperiancely to keep burning in this world. Swallowing back a fear that threatened to overwhelm me, I steeled my resolve to try to sit up straighter and forced my hands to hold the rifle still. The girl's gun seemed to waver in her hands as she almost gaped down at me with an almost disbelieving stare. She didn't completely take her aim off me as they both stared incredulously; like the way I must have looked when I'd come across the heavily pregnant woman in the woods.

The two shared another look and I felt my shoulder twitch under their none-to-subtle cautious scrutiny of my wound from the doorway.

“Were you bit?” the girl asked carefully from behind her friend's shoulder, her aggression diffused and voice taking a much quieter, almost permissive tone. I felt my heart hardening, loathing if it was pity this stranger was feeling. I was pathetic; a pitiful, bloody sight. And I saw the look in their eyes that only confirmed my fears. I almost wanted to look down and see what they must be seeing, but I felt my head frozen in place, only able to creak my neck enough to shake my head, but my eyes never wandered far from the man's bolt tip, or the girl's gun barrel.

“Jumped,” I rasped. “Some douche came at me.”

I tried my hand at a semblance of truth. “It wouldn't stop bleeding,” I breathed. “Had to do something...”

Their stares reminded me of how I had ever met Merle; I had been so dismayed, like one was aghast when the madness that becomes of an animal is revealed after it's chewed off its own limb to escape a snare. Back then, I hadn't understood such logic and now shied away from the girl's thunderstruck stare in particular, wondering if they thought me deranged. I especially avoided meeting eyes with the man who's stare I saw taking in the mess across the room floor.

It felt like the ball was waiting to be dropped between the three of us after a long moment of silence. I knew how this young woman felt, but I felt on the precipice watching the man blink slowly and observe the room without much of a readable reaction behind the unkept mop of hair of his that looked neglected of a proper trim.

“Listen,” the girl interjected. “We'll lower ours if you lower yours.”

“Like hell.”

The man was the first to huff an objection and she shot him a look that he shook his head towards. Despite his disapproval, slowly turned her aim up to relatively relieve the tension of gun-point, raising her other hand in a gesture of good faith. Relenting to be the first to compromise, she gave her gruff tempered companion a reproachful stare. This didn't seem to put him at any more ease as he just glared right back, holding her gaze for a moment before he scoffed and glared back down.

“Well?” he spat, lashing his reluctance at me and glared expectant.

I battled within myself, every sensible instinct screaming at me that this could be a deadly mistake. Searching this girl, I tried recognizing any subtle hint that she was being deceitful, but was met with a surprising reflection of my own anxiety. At a snail's pace, I lowered my rifle, my eyes rapidly darted back and forth between the two watching intently for any sign of rebuttal. Lowering the barrel half ways, my eyes locked with the crossbow-wielder and fixed him with a long, hard stare I refused to back down from, demanding he lower his weapon before I moved another inch. If his eyes could possibly narrow anymore at me, he eyes would practically be closed as his teeth continued to gnaw behind a tense, clenched mouth.

He billowed scathingly under his breath before dropping his arm. Without his weapon raised up at his sight, his body looked all the more ready to spring like a startled feline if a wrong movement should occur. It pulled at my panicked heart, but I finally layed the rifle down beside me and forced my fingers to untangle themselves from the trigger. I still kept my hand beside it in quick reach, my pinkie touching the trigger. With my other stained dark, copper hand from dried blood, I shakily raised it in a weak attempt. My chest heaved as I tried breathing past the whimpers that threatened to escape me when I tried to straighten back up.

There was a heavy, uncomfortable silence again before the man whirled around out the doorway, without another word behind him, clearly pissed, but the the girl just stared back and trusted her partner to check their safety while we could hear the faintest of footsteps echoing through the hall against the wood floors. I suspected he was doing a sweep of the daycare, obviously very skeptical about me being here alone. Doors were being opened and footsteps paced further down the hall, leaving just an even stare down between my gun and hers. If he looked outside, all he would find would be the hot-wired Dodge I'd bled all over on the way here.

Even though I knew his search would come up empty, I still felt on edge about his return. Never taking my gaze off the girl left in the room, I felt myself subconsciously sizing her up. She was a pretty thing, quite a cute southern belle, all tall and bright-eyed. Her long pant-legs were laced up in knee-high boots, heavy looking and noticeably worn. I watched her swallow heavily as we continued to watch each other and took in how exhausted-like she looked. She held my gaze firmly, waiting to hear the slightest noise from down the hall from her partner to indicate if she needed to raise her weapon back up. But I noted her aggression wasn't as volumed after my leg slipped. I considered she might regard me with more sympathy for my situation than the man who I'd already had a rough encounter with. I recalled their whispers I'd heard before they barged in on me.

“Formula?” I inquired quietly. She seemed startled at my voice and I supposed her confusion kept her response delayed.

“The pregnant woman in your group,” I clarified. “She have her baby?”

Remembering very well how far along she'd seemed the day I'd ran into the prick near the waterfall, I felt especially curious to hear what had become of her. An intuition of dread daunted my heart and I wondered if I really wanted to know why they were scavenging for baby formula. Her brows furrowed, disturbed by my observation.

“This that lady who came up on Lori off the 65.” The guy crept back into the room, throwing me a disdainful glare before lowering his crossbow back down when he strode back in, having kept our conversation in earshot while checking the house over.

“Kick some other guy's nuts in for that?” he snorted, nodding his head down at my wound

My eyes narrowed into their own slits and I couldn't help but snap back incredulously “You came up on me.”

I returned my focus to the girl for an answer, wanting to avoid saying what I'd been wishing to do to the bastard who took my bow for weeks. She hesitated apprehensively, studying me in her bright hazel-gaze before flickering back down to what I'd curled my knees in front of. Chewing her lip for a moment, she shook her head. Swallowing a sudden knot in my throat, I could only nod back and didn't need her to explain.

Combined with the persistent pounding in my shoulder and an unexpected weight from the news about this woman I only met for a moment overwhelmed me. I felt winded, the breath in my lungs wrenched from me.

“I'm sorry.”

It was quiet, weak-sounding, but sincere. I couldn't be any sorrier. Like hearing about an abandoned kitten, I felt myself grimace and felt it's fragility wouldn't last when comprehending there was a newborn somewhere in this world without it's mother.

Their odds were stacked quite impossibly against them. And mine felt to have plummeted.

I couldn't think about leaving behind such a helpless life in this world. Sighing, I couldn't help but feel my own condolences for their lost member. I'd be lying if a secret part of me wasn't astounded at this group's actual attempt to support such a new addition.

“You're... you're all planning to raise it?” I gawked, not sure if I was so speechless from shock or such an amount of blood loss.

“Well can't exactly 'spect her to fend for herself now can we?” the man snarked and I felt myself bristling again under his harsh attitude.

“Could've fooled me,” I snipped back coldly. “Wouldn't put it past someone who steals and puts their hands on a woman.”

The man's expression looked like he'd could've been sucker-punched, but only for a second before the next moment his face twisted in a cold fury. “Listen lady, I didn't raise my hand at ya' for that cheap shit'a yours now did I? And I ain't stole nothin' a yours you didn't leave behind.”

“Whatever. What Mexican you steal that off of?” My back was slipping down the mirror again and I silently groaned and hissed while trying to support weight off my arm. My mood was already in turmoil and my body pulsating in pain, and this unpleasant, begrudging backwater redneck didn't seem to have as big of a heart as his partner to lay off. I wished for nothing more but to curl up and tend to my shoulder in solitude, but now for a second time I had to ward off a crossbow in my face.

Instead of allowing a no doubt colorful retort from her friend, the girl stepped closer to interrupt. “This group of yours, they be able to tend to that shoulder of yours?”

I had to pause and deliberate what would be best to say before I played along. “I was an EMT before all this. I'll manage til they find me.”

“Yer group always send out their pregnant women alone?” the man interjected condescendingly beside the kinder of the two.

The way they looked at me, I shouldn't have been so startled and gaped to hear it said aloud so outright. It was all I could do to restrain myself from curling my legs up further to myself and continue to yield anymore words as it felt my mind threatened to spin off it's axis in ways I could get out of this one.

It was strange that more people knew my condition today than over the whole span of four months. The man who had slashed open my shoulder had been the first person I'd ever told, let alone said to aloud. Now it seemed I hadn't needed to speak in order to reveal the responsibility I carried; the evidence of my still small, but the pronounced bump seemed crept under the stretched shirt enough. In another life that was only a year ago, yet felt like a lifetime ago, I could have smiled, maybe beamed. In the life I had taken for granted, I could have assured without caution; yet back then, I had felt almost as fearful as I do now. How I wished now I could have shared our news with Todd, who had desired the family I had so adamantly been against.

Now here I was, pregnant anyways and alone. I had to beware what I revealed and wished now more than ever I could crawl under Todd's oversized jacket.

“Look,” I groaned. “I know I'm not in the position to make you people leave. But how bout we bargain?”

I tentatively reached over the the bag beside me, my eyes darting back to the two that tensed but paused and assured them in good faith as I urged them to let me continue.

The man exclaimed and stepped forward to leer his quarrel at the ready. I hurried to flick out the canister I had previously stuffed in my bag, letting the aluminum fall to the floor in a dull thud and caused the other two to jump. I caught the can under one of my boots as I stared down the bolt-tip that had made it's way across the room in the next moment, stilling me for another moment to breathe past fear and pain in the face of his arrow. I found myself staring up into dark, cobalt eyes just beyond his crossbow's draw as I prayed he'd refrain from shooting and just take what I was willing to offer.

I raised my boot and softly nudged the can to roll across the wood floor, quietly pattering until it bumped against the girl's feet. She eyed it with incredulous uncertainty, recognizing my bargaining token and bent down cautiously to pick up the can to examine.

“Take it.”

I could see the man's own gaze flick back to look over the can of powdered baby formula, an eyebrow creeping up when he glanced back. But his gaze quickly refocused warningly as I reached to rummage and toss out two more cans before I returned my hand hastily back in the air against my chest, not finding the strength to hold it up past my shoulders, even the uninjured one.

I licked my dry lips anxiously. “I'll give you a cut of what was here.” You need it more than I do. “Just leave me be.”

I felt like I was pleading for any mercy I thought he and the other men that had been with him had shown that day they spared me to the rapids. His eyes searched mine, probing like I had done trying seek out his friend's intentions. I found they familiarly reminded me of dark shards of lapis stone, hard like the brassy, metallic pyrite, but mottled with an intense blue. I held his gaze like I had the day we first stumbled across each other in the woods, before I had flung myself to the water.

I understood his foreboding; desperation was awful dangerous and could cleverly disguise deceit.

“We could do that.” The girl looked ambivalent when her partner shot her a leery, disinclined look at her agreement. But if he opposed too strongly with this exchange, he held his tongue and let his friend do the talking and listened skeptically instead. I rolled the other two over, my movements slow to keep from provoking any brash confrontations but partially because of the ache radiating from what almost felt like the whole right side of my body rather than just the shoulder. The girl collected them off the floor and hurried to sling the bag from over her shoulders, wasting little time unzipping the bag and stuffing in the canisters. A part of me felt defeated to see them secured and hauled back over her shoulders but reminded myself it wasn't for them but a motherless infant somewhere.

A token of condolence to the woman I would never meet again.

“I can take a look at that arm.” My brows furrowed and faintly heard the mirror behind my back crack a fraction more. “You look like you've been bleedin' a long while.”

“I said I got it.” I instinctively felt myself recoiling, immediately scared of what more these people might want.

“You can barely keep yourself up,” she outed. “I can help bandage you up 'til your people come for you.”

She was right. It would be agony trying to bandage it by myself, but was another trial I had been anticipating to endure alone. I could barely stay conscious trying to ward away intruders let alone going through more treatment to my shoulder. However it had to be done, and soon or else I risked an even greater danger of infection.

“We ain't got time for this.” At last his grumble chimed in at this extra extension, his sigh heavy and reluctant.

“It won't take long,” she persuaded, looking back at me expectantly. “We'll make time if we hurry.”

“I don't need anyone's charity.”

I grew cold at how pathetic that sounded. All these months of finding my own dependent strength, it felt defeating how low and helpless I was brought back to.

“Ya' hear what she said?” I blinked up at the man's embittered growl after he huffed his exasperation. “Ain't got time for'a discussion, take it or leave it.”

I bridled my misconceptions and let myself relent, slowly nodding a small reluctance.

“There's some bandages in my bag,” I murmured.

Sliding her gun in her belt, she approached slow as if cautious not to startle a wild animal, her boots wearing steady thuds across the floorboards. I kept the guy in my peripheral as he side-stepped towards the room's window to glance through the curtains, still trying to maintain a watch over the activity happening outside. Despite their apparent need to hurry, she took her time easing down beside me, eying my blood she had to step on before she reached for the thrown first aid kit I'd used earlier but shook my head.

“I used all those ones. The others are in my bag.”

She opened the bag and I held my breath at seeing her pause when she saw all the bottles and baby clothes I'd stuffed inside. However, she came around and didn't miss another beat as she began to rift through the bag to find the spare roll of gauze I carried with me. When she finally pulled loose the roll from the bottom of the bag, I reached up to softly still her arm when I saw her reach for the still-open bottle of peroxide.

“I already did that before.” I gulped, looking down and finding it hard to say before what. “The best to do for now is just wrap it loosely.”

Nodding, she took another moment to examine my charred shoulder, seeing how best to approach this I figured. When the brunette brought her fingers up, I forced myself not to flinch back, but couldn't suppress a breathless hiss when she gingerly began to peel back the flaps of fabric I'd torn open, hurting terribly at the pull of dried blood crusted under a few parts of fabric. I saw her own expression wince and she flashed me an apologetic grimace as she tried to hurry for my tolerance sake. I had succeeded searing closed any bleeding blood vessels, that was for certain; parts of my flesh were charcoal-colored and the blister that had become of my laceration was ashen and an angry fuchsia. Just looking at it sent my head reeling and my stomach curling.

While grinding my teeth, I rested my head back against the mirror and tried to take a soothing, shuddering breathe against the jack-hammering of my heart. My gaze flickered back behind the girl's shoulder and caught the man's attention on my wound now rather than the window. I felt myself shy away from the stares I anticipated to judge me. How could you do this? But when we held gazes for another moment, I was tentatively surprised to find his stone-like eyes weren't as harsh. His bow was still ever-poised at the ready, prepared to aim but his hackles visibly eased and his constant, fidget-like strides almost slowed as he waited for his partner.

“You burn it yerself?” I could only stare and try to bat back watering eyes while she pulled the tatters of my sleeve completely from my shoulder to fall down across my chest. I needed a moment but eventually was able to comprehend what he seemed to ask, more in the form of a statement.

I affirmed his studious stare with a small nod while I tried not to fidget, but even the slightest touch seared at my tender flesh so it was hard to stay still as his friend slowly grasped below my elbow to raise it up so she could aid me to lean forward. I felt hesitant to unglue my back from the mirror, but was in too much pain to protest past a small groan as it took all my energy to lean forward and allow the tattered sleeve of my shirt to fall down my back. I could hear my breathing was ragged and short-winded trying to bear past my discomfort, so I tried to control myself and take deep breaths, refusing to allow myself slouch into her arms and keep some degree of dignity in front of these strangers

“I'd' have- I would've bled out,” I winced. My head felt a little unscrewed and lulled on my neck as I endured this girl's amateur bandage, a heavy sweat beginning to bead above my feverish brow. The trembling of my limbs intensified against the strain of holding myself up and was frightened to consider these might be signs of shock threatening my consciousness.

“You don't have to explain that to us,” the girl said from beside me, bringing me back to the room.

I turned to the girl with my blood now staining her fingers, she looked back at me with a sad, forlorn look that told me she understood desperation. Unable to stand her sympathy, I glanced back up into the indigo-stare boring down at me still. But he just nodded as well and lowered his eyes down for a moment before shifting back up to peer through the slits of the room window's curtain to recheck the outside. Neither seemed too phased by the hideousness of what I had done.

I couldn't grasp what about their approval meant to me. I was grateful I didn't appear as mad as I thought I was to other conscious living-beings.

“This blood,” the girl started, keeping her eyes on wrapping the roll of gauze around my shoulder but I caught her gaze look down at the crimson still wet and smeared across the wood floor under us. She seemed unsure how to continue and met my eyes to pause. “Is this...just your shoulder?”

It was another topic I felt too afraid to speak about out loud. I shifted awfully uncomfortable in my puddle of blood and took a moment to look down, assuring myself I hadn't felt anything that could hint to a miscarriage and there wasn't anymore blood than what I'd spilled before passing out. It was just from my shoulder, that's all this was from. That's all.

“I-I've never felt it move,” I blurted and cringed at hearing myself say it. “But I haven't felt anything like contractions...” Just saying something like contractions this early, already, made me about to heave.

I was well aware it could take days after a miscarriage to pass a fetus far along as mine. “It's just my shoulder.”

She only nodded back again, her own thoughts withdrawing again while her slender fingers continued to roll the gauze over my crisped lesion and eyes far-away in deep thought. They must love each other, I thought when considering these people were stepping in for this infant for her lost mother. Her. Another little girl for the world to scorn. And here I was, another knocked up woman thrust in their laps.

Now that was a horrible thought.

There were ways I would've wrapped my arm differently, but she seemed to get the jist and was efficient enough in wrapping up my shoulder.

“What's your name?” she asked between another wince of mine.

I'd broken so many rules today, a lot of my personal, private life revealed to strangers that had already demonstrated they were dangerous. I still wasn't even positive these people weren't from Woodbury; the Governor could have taken in new strays and it was all I needed them to go back reporting about an Olive injured in Griffin. But this was pretty far past their their range, well past the red zone and it would surprise me to discover they had branched this far out.

This was another stand-off of trust and she seemed to recognize it. “I'm Maggie,” she offered.

“Ain't gotta get chummy with each other now.” The girl, Maggie's partner grumbled from pacing back to the doorway. “Said her group's comin' for 'er and ours is waitin'.”

I had to admit, I concurred and was thankful for the interruption.

Looking back at the impatient man, she frowned but didn't protest as she finished up and ripped the gauze from the roll and tied her bandage off. Examining her quick work, she eased me back against the mirror and I literally expelled an exhausted exhale of relief. I rested my head back as it seemed the pain absorbed in a collective pulse throughout my body and I had to force myself to keep blinking my eyes awake.

“You think you'll be alright 'til your group comes lookin'?” she asked and placed the roll of gauze back in my bag. I stared at that for a moment before I remembered she asked me a question.

“Yeah.” My group was looking for me alright, I thought a bit sarcastically, my sad lies turning my mood cynical. “I'll be fine.”

And with that, she stood back up unceremoniously, brushing my blood off on her hands onto a rag tied around her belt and shouldered back on her bag. The man who hadn't offered any introduction was already on the balls of his feet and ready to leave, checking the hallway ahead of Maggie before he gave the go ahead. They were about to pick up and leave, just like that. I had at least expected her to request more cans of formula and was choked that she hadn't even brought up the numerous bottles she'd seen in my bag. I'd kept waiting for that window when strangers turned shady that when I found them about to leave without so much as a barter I was startled.

“Hey Maggie.” I couldn't help but stop her before she left. I'd probably never see this woman like many others that had passed through my life, but a flicker of something apart of me couldn't let her leave that way.

She turned and her companion paused with his stride already out the door to look back at what I had to say. I reached in my bag, grabbing the disposable baby bottles and tossed them on the floor to brandish before sliding them across to them. Maggie looked down in confusion and looked up to see my hand outstretched offering up a few of the baby clothes I'd come up on in the daycare. I didn't want to stain the pastel pink already. The two observed me wordlessly for a moment, but she bent down and retrieved the bottles, taking a couple steps back to reach out and take the clothes. Before she pulled the clothes from my grasp, we met eyes again and I saw she was just as tentative about this exchange that appeared just as foreign to her.

“Keep her safe,” I whispered, unable to talk any louder as my throat threatened to choke. I released the clothes to her and retreated my hand back.

The girl glanced down at the onesies, fingering the soft material of tiny beanie before returning my gesture with a meaningful nod and hurried to add it to her bag. I looked over at the man to read his reaction and his impatience seemed momentarily stilled at my words.

Situating herself to leave back to her group that was waiting for her, her gem-like eyes reflecting a garnet hue that shared a world of meaning with me.

“You too,” she said before following her friend out into the hall.

I was breathless and watched the two leave with nothing else to say.

The retreating of the footsteps pattered down the hall and a door quietly creaking shut to leave silence behind it. My body's consciousness seemed to finally buckle under all it could take as I felt myself fading back out now that I was alone. I could feel my lashes twitching rapidly to try and stay awake at the sound of a loud mechanically roar coming somewhere outside, but my lids shut much to heavily and I found myself pulled back under another wave of darkness.