Michonne kept both hands on the wheel, guiding the car slowly across the broken bridge. She kept checking the map in her lap, the one the Blood Angels had given them.
The headlights barely reached ahead, illuminating a narrow stretch of cracked asphalt before the darkness pressed in from every side.
"We shouldn't be driving at night," Michonne said, her eyes never leaving the road. "It's not safe. We need to stop."
"She's right," Molly said, pulling her knees up and crossing her arms, making herself smaller. "We can't see a damn thing out there."
Clementine leaned forward from the back seat, close enough that her breath fogged the gap between the headrests. "We're not stopping." Her eyes stayed fixed on the windshield. "Max could be in trouble right now. I'm not sitting on the side of the road waiting for sunrise."
She settled back, only slightly. "The base got hit. Whoever came for us—they might go after him too."
Jane looked at her. "Max is tough. You know that better than anyone."
"I know," Clementine said. Her voice didn't waver. "That's not what I'm worried about." A beat. "That wasn't a small group...it was an army. Helicopters, tanks, RPGs. We lost almost two hundred people. We need him." She let the words hang. "And I still can't reach him on the radio."
The car filled with the low hum of the engine and outside, nothing moved.
Since the attack, Clementine had been watching Molly, the way she'd gone quiet, the way her shoulders stayed hunched, the way she hadn't once turned around.
"You know something."
Molly's head dipped. Not a nod, just weight.
"Molly."
"Max told me not to—"
"I'm not asking Max," Clementine said flatly. Controlled. "You've been like this since it happened. Just say it."
Molly's jaw worked. She stared out the window at a wall of black. A long moment passed...long enough for the silence to feel heavy.
"You remember that base we cleared a while back?" she finally said. "The one I said was empty?"
Clementine frowned. "Yeah."
"It wasn't." Molly's hands tightened on her knees. "It belonged to a group called CRM. They were packing up and moving out when we showed up. We basically walked straight into the middle of their operation."
No one moved.
The car felt smaller. The silence grew heavier.
Michonne said nothing. Her knuckles whitened on the wheel.
"So we hit them," Clementine said.
"Yeah."
"And Max knew."
"…Yeah."
Clementine absorbed that. The hum of the engine suddenly felt louder.
"Why didn't he tell me?"
Molly finally looked at her in the mirror. "He didn't want to stress you out. Not with everything else going on."
"I know what he was trying to do," Clementine said, her voice dropping—not softer, just quieter. "But it wasn't his call to make. It was mine." She turned toward the window. The darkness gave nothing back. "I'm not fragile. I don't need to be managed. I can take care of myself."
A pause stretched between them.
"I just need him to be okay." Without thinking, her hand drifted to her belly, moving in slow circles.
"Clementine," Michonne said carefully, "I don't think they're going after Max."
"How do you know that? He was gone when they hit us. That's not a coincidence."
"I don't know it," Michonne admitted. "But that's what I think."
Clementine opened her mouth to respond—
The pain hit without warning. She sucked in a sharp breath, one hand pressing flat against her stomach. Her shoulders locked, eyes squeezing shut.
"Clem," Jane said, gripping her arm. "Hey. Right here."
Clementine didn't look up. She focused on breathing, slow in and slower out, her head tipping back against the seat.
Jane pressed a water bottle into her hand. Clementine took it automatically, fingers curling around it like an anchor.
"He's going to be okay," Jane said quietly. "Don't stress yourself like this."
In the mirror, Michonne held her gaze.
"There's a straight stretch ahead. We're pulling over." Her tone left no room for argument. "Don't fight me on this."
Clementine hesitated. The darkness pressed against every window, the road ahead was swallowed before the headlights could reach it.
She closed her mouth and nodded once.
---
Dee studied the people around her, and her worry and suspicion hardened into something colder. The place felt too good to be true.
Children darted through the firelight near a small bonfire, laughing as they chased each other through the cold. Their parents stood nearby, talking easily relaxed in a way Dee hadn't seen in a long time, maybe ever. Somewhere deeper in the settlement, music drifted through the air: an actual guitar, someone playing a slow, unhurried melody as though the world hadn't ended at all.
Are they not worried?
The smoke alone could carry for miles and the light would be visible long before that. Any scavenger group or bandit could be drawn in, even a small fire was a risk.
Yet no one here seemed concerned.
That unsettled her more than anything else.
She pulled her daughter closer without thinking. The girl stayed close, speaking quietly, her eyes flicking to every stranger they passed. Dee kept her gaze forward and tightened her grip.
Stay small. Stay quiet. Don't draw attention.
That had always been the rule. It had kept them alive.
These people seemed never to have learned it.
At the front of the group, the man they called the Governor led them through Woodbury. The settlement was larger than it had looked from the outside... a main road lined with lanterns, crates stacked neatly against walls, people moving with purpose rather than fear. It felt established. Structured.
A heavyset man leaning against a truck called out as they passed.
"Governor! You're back late... we were starting to think you'd gotten yourself killed."
The Governor laughed, easy and warm. "Not tonight, Curtis. Takes more than a few dead ones to keep me away."
Curtis grinned and raised a bottle. "Saved you one."
"Hold onto it. I'll find you later."
A woman stepped out from a doorway, wiping her hands on a cloth, her face breaking into a relieved smile. "Philip...thank God. We heard that—" She stopped herself, then shook her head. "Never mind. You're here."
"I'm here, Martha." He touched her arm as he passed. "Everything's fine. We picked up some travelers... good people. Make sure there's something warm waiting for them."
Martha studied the group with a practiced eye. Her expression was guarded but not unkind. "I'll see what we've got."
Two children ran past, nearly colliding with him. The Governor caught one by the shoulder, steadying her with a laugh.
"Whoa.... where's the fire?"
The girl looked up at him, breathless and unafraid. "Tommy said the supply truck came back with candy."
"Did he?" He raised an eyebrow theatrically. "Well. Can't argue with that. Go on."
She bolted. He watched her go with something like fondness.
Dee observed it all.
Everyone here seemed to trust him, easy to see in the way people greeted him as he passed. He moved with an ease that didn't match how they'd first found him: sprinting out of the treeline, firing wildly into a crowd of walkers, pulling every one of them straight toward their position.
They'd had no choice but to fall back and bring him with them.
He'd been grateful. Effusive, even.
And before the dust had settled, he was already offering them Woodbury.
When they pressed him on why so many walkers had been after him, his answers came loose and unfocused. An ambush. Runners. Bad luck. He smiled as he said it.
Dee hadn't believed a word.
She kept her distance.
Andrea didn't.
Even now, she walked beside him near the front, their voices low and private. They even laughed once or twice. Dee watched from behind, irritation tightening in her chest.
Andrea had pushed for the rescue in the first place, against Chicken's better judgment and Dee's silence, which had amounted to the same thing.
Dee hadn't forgotten that.
And watching her now, she wasn't convinced Andrea had learned anything from it.
Her daughter tugged at her sleeve.
Dee glanced down, then back toward the Governor's easy smile and the way Woodbury seemed to move around him, as if he were the lungs of the place and told herself to stay sharp.
Something here wasn't right.
She just hadn't figured out what yet.