OH MY DARLING! || LOUIS

9 | PANDORA'S BOX.

"Creep? What creep?" Brody presses on. Her eyebrows knitting together, the grim look on her face wasn't getting any better either. From where Jamie stood, she could see the way the gears in her mind shifted. Piecing everything together. Which shouldn't be much—since all they know about the creep was that he smoked bible pages and fucked up their rabbit traps.

"Clem say him smoking those nasty ass bible cigarettes." Louis answers.

"He had weird different-colored eyes." Clementine adds.

Brody's eyes wander from the food over to the gate. Jamie quietly makes her way towards Mitch; who was far too busy admiring the different jars to care about what Brody was interrogating the group for. She elbows him lightly, ignoring the glare she got in return.

"Why is she acting like this?" Jamie asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Who cares? Just Brody being Brody." Mitch whispered back, before holding a jar up to her face. "Look, they have peaches. Weren't you craving these a while back?"

Jamie makes a face. Because yes, she was craving them—a few months ago when Louis randomly brought them up. Something about preferring peaches over cantaloupes. She doesn't remember how the conversation was brought up but it did end with Jamie craving peaches for a good while.

"Did he follow you?" Brody questioned, again. It was beginning to sour the spoils but Jamie knew better than to stop her interrogation. And the other kids were doing a good enough job of ignoring her to look through the food.

"No," Clementine's eyebrows knitted together. "I let him have some of the food and then we lost track of him in a swarm of walkers."

Brody lets the words sink into her mind. "You just let him take our food? What the fuck?!"

All it took was that small outburst to stop everybody short. Violet herself startling on her spot. From her spot, she could hear Mitch sigh. His head shaking slightly. He whistles low, catching Willy's attention. The younger boy looks up, with a puzzled tilt of his head. Mitch nods his head towards another table and that's all it takes for Willy to understand.

Jamie spared one look at Brody. There was nothing she can do, anyway. If she tried to interject now, Brody would just yell at her. Like what she did to Clementine earlier in the woods. What was done was done, anyway. There was really no need to fight about the food now.

"Now he knows we're out here, and he'll come back for more!" Brody yells out, as the other kids, Jamie included, wandered off with the others to prepare dinner.

"I feel kinda bad for her." Jamie mumbles under her breath. She felt bad, feeling a tinge of anger at the way Brody was treating Clementine. The girl that kept them from starving the next few days. She could understand the paranoia—since she hated the feeling of being watched when she was out in the woods was enough to drive her mad. "...Why did she get sent here again?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Mitch asks back as he shoves a bowl in her hand. It's warm, already cooked. Jamie's stomach betrays her by rumbling at the mere sight of their dinner. "Just eat your damn dinner."

"Okay, okay. I'm just saying...she doesn't have to be this paranoid." Jamie sighed, settling down beside Willy while Mitch made himself comfortable by sitting on the bench top. Instead of on the bench—like a normal person.

—

"Are you free, now, Jamie?" Clementine asked, as she passed by the trio on her way back to the dorms. Jamie looked at her empty bowl and Mitch's half-empty one that she may or may not have been sneaking small bites out of before nodding stiffly.