𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚, 𝘤. 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴¹

𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠

"You know his blood type?" Hershel asks. "A-Positive. Same as mine." Rick answers. "That's fortunate. Don't wander far. I'm gonna need you." Hershel nods. "What happened?" "I was tracking a buck. Bullet went through it." Otis informs. "The deer slowed the bullet down, which certainly saved his life. But it did not go through clean." Hershel sighs. "It broke up into pieces. If I get the bullet fragments out, and I'm counting six."

Hearing that broke my heart into tiny little pieces. "Lori doesn't know." Rick sobs. "My wife doesn't know. My wife doesn't know." Shane hugs Rick to calm him down, while I just stand there, not even knowing what to do.

***

𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐮𝐬 to sit in the living room outside, Rick and Shane did that, I however went to sit outside near a tree. I know this is a cliche thing to say in these situations, but it should have been me that was shot. And now, all I could about was the beauty of the young girls with the necklaces.

One had pink hair, still in this apocalypse, another had chocolate brown eyes, another with the most gorgeous auburn hair ever and the last one had radish earrings, maybe crafted herself. I see the one with the earrings charging out of the house and to me. "You'd better come." she urges, I get up and follow her back into the house.

As soon as I enter, all I could hear was screaming and groaning, Carl! I rush in, guns almost blazing, and see Shane trying to hold him down. "Stop! You're killing him!" Rick screams. "Jade! You're singing calms him down, sing something!" Shane demands. I nod coming to Carl's side.

"Come to me." I begin over his screaming. "In the night hours, I will wait for you. And I can't sleep, 'cause thoughts devour. Thoughts of you consume. I can't help but love you, even though I try not to. I can't help but want you, I know that I'd die without you-" I can't tell if he fell asleep from the singing or from passing out.

"He just passed out." Hershel assures. He takes out one shell. "One down... five to go." He carries on picking out pieces of the broken bullets out of Carl's side, until he got every bit he could out, in other words, just that one. "Pressure's stable." he says after taking his blood pressure. "Lori needs to be here." Rick says.

"She doesn't even know what's going on. I've got to go find her. Bring her back." "You can't do that." Hershel warns. "She's his mother. She needs to know what's happened. Her son's lying here shot." Rick argues back. "And he's going to need more blood." Hershel tells him and turns to Shane and I. Rick stands trying to steady himself with the help of the older lady and Shane.

"I'm all right." Rick dismisses. He and Shane leave the room, me tailing behind. "He's stable for now." Shane breathes leaning against the wall. "Lori has to be here, she has to know." Rick insists. "Rick, Shane and I will go back to the highway and bring her here." I promise. "Yeah, but Rick you need to deal with your end." Shane nods.

"My end?" Rick questions. "Shane's right. You need to be here for Carl, he needs your blood. Even if he didn't, there is no way Shane and I would let you fifteen metres away from this house, because you need to be here for your son in general." I explain. "If something happened to him, and you weren't here, you would never, ever forgive yourself... my family and I know how it feels."

Rick nods at me after raising his head. "I never knew I'd agree with a twelve year old." He, Shane and I chuckle. "I think you'll find I can get away with words." I grin. "Rick, you know when in that hospital, the one you were never supposed to leave, man, you should have seen Lori. She was like...the strength of that woman..." Shane tells Rick.