EXTINCTION EVENT | CARL GRIMES

t w e n t y - s i x ↣ flight risk

"Are you sure?" I ask her, sitting up from my tangled bedsheets.

"Yeah. Saw him leave a few minutes ago." She shrugs nonchalantly, the situation clearly rattling me more than her.

"Why didn't you go after him?" I nearly shout, causing her eyebrows to furrow. She then carelessly shrugs.

"I just thought I'd come by and let you know." Her monotone voice making it clear she couldn't care less. I couldn't blame her, because sometimes I know exactly the way she feels. "So now that that's off my conscience, I'll be g—" The girl turns on her heel, ready to exit through the doorway to my room.

"Enid." I start, rolling my eyes and pushing myself to sit up. My sore muscles nearly fail to do their simple job. The girl stops in her tracks. "He's in danger. He doesn't know how to handle himself out there. You know that." I say.

"How come?" She starts. "I know you've been taking him outside the walls."

I sit in silence for a few moments, taken aback by Enid's knowledge of something that I thought was a secret. "He's never been out there alone. And he's never seen a walker."

"Not even one?" The girl asks with a smirk as if she thinks I'm joking.

"No, Enid. Not even one." I state, getting more annoyed.

"Well—What do you think you're going to be able to do about it?" The girl says, clearly talking about my obvious hindrance.

She then hesitantly rushes to my feeble side, realizing my determination to get out of my bed.

"I have to do something." I say. My arm wraps around her shoulders as I lean most of my weight on her. "I don't know why you're not doing anything. He's your boyfriend."

"He's like your brother." She mutters, her hair swaying from side to side as she helps to pull me off of my bed.

I suck in a breath, adding Ron to the list of people that have now been referred to as my various adoptive family members.

"Then we should both bring him back." I state.

"Look," She starts. "I care about Ron—I do. But not in the same way you do. You are who he needs right now, not me." Her words make their way into my ears, bouncing around in my head as I take a few moments to process them.

My body takes a pause, just before I take my weight off of her.

In a way, she is right. She's completely right. But that doesn't keep me from resenting the simple fact that she didn't stop Ron from going outside the walls in the first place.

"Nothing I can say to him will help." Her voice starts again, noticing the far-away look in my eyes. She then sighs in defeat. "The most I can do is help you, help him."

"Oh? Would that ease your conscience?" I mockingly ask the girl, still angry at her blatant selfishness.

She chuckles a bit at my hostility, her body vibrating underneath my arm. A certain warmth comes from her smile that catches me off guard, as I didn't expect that sort of response from my snarky comment.