Are We Alone

A Clean Slate

Aubree lit a fire in the living room while Lexi headed to the kitchen to make everyone noodles on the stove.

Leather and Lilah headed around the house and made sure it was all secure. Leather needed this time to try and make things right with Lilah.

"Look.." Leather said as he checked a bedroom. "I'm sorry about what happened to Jack."

"No you're not." Lilah snapped back.

"I really am Boo, I shouldn't have run into mumblers." Leather sighed.

"You had Perri. You should have known better." Lilah turned away from him and walked to the next room.

"I would have done the same for you, or Jack, or even Aleah." Leather followed her. "I forgot I had Perri, I just knew Quinn was going to die.. I had to do something."

Lilah bit her lip and crossed her arms. "And what if Perri got hurt? I just don't understand what possessed you to run into a heard of mumblers with a baby."

Leather secured the windows and lit a smoke. "I've never looked after a baby in my life Lilah. She was sleeping and she is so light, I forgot she was on me.. I would never intentionally hurt anyone in the group and Quinn would have died if I didn't help her.." Leather looked out of the window as he remembered that day.

"I forgive you.." Lilah said with a sigh and went to leave the room.

"Wait.. you do?" Leather asked feeling confused.

"I do.. because we need to find whatever it is my mom left for us and to do that we have to work together, we could save the world Leather, and we can't do that if we're fighting." Lilah looked at Leather for a minute and then turned away to leave.

"Wanna hug it out?" Leather called over her.

Lilah just grinned. "Don't push it!" She shouted back as she headed down the stairs.

Lilah went to the dining room and just sat on here own for a few minutes, she missed her brother and her sister but now wasn't the time to fall apart.

Lilah was the most fortunate of the group, when the world was normal.
She was educated privately, holidayed abroad 3 times a year with her family, she had married parents who were very much in love. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a doctor, Lilah always wanted to be a doctor when she grew up, her mother was her idol.

She remembered a week before the adults disappeared, Savannah had told her that something was wrong.

Savannah had said to Lilah that if anything ever happened then there was plan in place to keep Lilah, Jack and Perri safe. Of course, this plan had obviously failed because Lilah and her siblings ended up on the streets, alone, with all the other children.

The weak children were gone within an hour.. Lilah didn't see others around anymore, not like she did in the first week of the pandemic.
Lilah had taught herself to be strong, she knew she had to be for Jack and Perri, she wouldn't have been able to keep them alive otherwise.

What her mother had left for them though she didn't know, she had never been tempted to go to coordinates her mother had wrote down. Until now the world wasn't all that bad, the adults were walking around as zombies or something yes, but there was power, internet, food, it wasn't all that bad.

But now it was different. Now everything had turned to shit.

"Boo, Savage wants you." Lilah was distracted from her day dreams by Bruce's voice.

"Okay.. I'm coming." Lilah said with a smile.

Once they got to the living room Quinn looked at Lilah and then spoke to the rest of the group. "Could every go chill elsewhere for 10 minutes. I need to speak to Boo. Lone Wolf and Brit could you watch the door?"

Aubree looked at Bruce and smiled. She had been waiting for some time alone with him. "Sure thing boss." She headed out with Bruce.

Sasha, Lexi, Leather and Blake headed into the kitchen to sort our supplies.

"I want to talk to you about.. what happened." Quinn said with a sigh.

Lilah looked at her and took a seat on the sofa. "Which part?"

"All of it, kidnapping Jack, shooting him, getting him killed.. we need to clear the air before we continue." Quinn sat next to Lilah and offered her a smoke.

"I'm 13." Lilah said with a frown.

"Okay..." Quinn lit her smoke and bit her lip. "When I met Jack I was happy to have someone, it had just been me since all of this started. And when I found out he lied to me I just flipped, I never wanted to kill him, I was just angry."

"I get angry. You don't see me shooting people do you?" Lilah rolled her eyes.

Quinn grabbed a pistol and held it out to Lilah. "You get a free shot, the arm, the leg.. just not a shot to kill, only a shot to wound." Quinn looked at Lilah.

Lilah looked at the pistol and then looked at Quinn. "As much as I didn't like you to begin with, you have took the group in the right direction. I don't want to hurt you."

"And about Jacks death, I never meant for that to happen, I was very fond of Jack." Quinn began to tear up.

Lilah knew she was being sincere but she had never blamed Quinn at all. "You were saving the group, if you didn't sacrifice yourself everyone would have been dead including the little kids. It was Leather that—"

"That put himself at risk to save me?" Quinn cut her off. "Okay so he had Perri, but did you ever leave the house with your moms phone or keys by mistake?"

Lilah did a lot, she frowned. "But that's not the same as—"

"It is Lilah." Quinn cut in again. "You forgot the phone or keys were in your pocket, because they were so small and light.. Dexter.. Leather, is a big guy, he forgot Perri was strapped to him because she's small and light. He saw someone in danger and helped.." Quinn looked at Lilah.

Lilah had never thought about it like that. She has seen Leather as selfish but now she understood. "You really are a good leader Quinn. The group voted well."

Quinn half smiled. "I just need everyone to be on their A game and we can't have a feud in the group it will kill us all.."

Lilah nodded. "Leather and I are okay now. We talked it out." She got up to leave and Quinn called after her.

"He would do the same for you, you know? Run into a heard of mumblers to save you.."

Lilah just kept walking, she knew Quinn was right and Leather was a good guy really.

With all the supplies packed ready for the day ahead, a 15 mile walk.. the group sat around the fire in in the living room and talked about the days before the world ended, they knew they were risking so much by travelling across Miami but they didn't have a choice, they needed to know what Savannah's life line was.