Violet aimed down the sights of the handgun, hovering over the bullseye on the target downrange.
Her hand swayed as she held the gun out in front of her.
She glanced at everyone else using their other hand to steady their aim, then down at her left hand, which was in a sling after her fall off the tower.
Violet sighed, closed one eye and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet blasted a hole clean through the paper target. It was high and to the right, but it was within the middle three rings of the bullseye.
"Nice shot." Clementine whispered from her right.
Brody, Clementine, Louis, Marlon and AJ all fired their guns. Surprisingly, AJ seemed to be the best shout out of all of them.
Violet fired six more times until the slide held open, telling her that the gun was empty.
She ejected the magazine and passed the gun into her left hand while she grabbed more ammo. Violet slotted the mag in and gave it a slap before pushing the slide release.
Just as she was about to aim again, she saw someone approach the officer out of the corner of her eye.
Minnie stopped in front of him and exchanged a few muffled words. The redhead reached into her back pocket and produced a folded slip of paper with a wax seal on it. The officer pried it off with his thumb and skimmed the contents, occasionally looking up at Minnie with a raised eyebrow.
"I just need to talk to her, it won't take more than a minute." Violet heard Minnie say.
The officer rolled his eyes and waved her on.
"Alright, fine. One minute." He said.
Minnie approached Clem and tapped her on the arm. The two walked away from the group, out of earshot.
Violet scowled and raised her pistol to the target, squeezing off a round.
Those two have been hanging out a lot.
She shook her head and stopped herself before that train of thought got too far along.
Of course she was still upset about what happened between herself and Minnie, but it wasn't like she had an embargo on who her ex could spend time with.
***
"Hey, what's up?" Clem asked.
"Hey, I spoke to some of the officers and the guards. The night you got attacked, Anderson was in the common room. He had his meal there and played pool until like one in the morning, way after you were taken to hospital. He's innocent."
"Shit. What now?"
At the far end of the field, a lone walker stumbled through the gap between two trees, it's jaws slowly snapping at nothing.
One of the guards raised his rifle, but the officer pushed the muzzle down with his hand.
"Leave it, another perfect teaching opportunity."
The officer turned around and clapped his hands together, getting the attention of the recruits.
"Alright kids, you know the drill. Whoever kills that walker gets to leave early!"
Minnie glanced back at the base before turning her attention to Clem again.
"We'll work something out. I need to go, Lilly will be expecting me back soon. Let's meet later though, come to my place before dinner?"
"I'll be there." Clem replied.
A tiny smile played on her lips. Minnie was inviting her over again, that meant something, didn't it?
Or it could mean exactly what it seemed like, she just wanted to solve the case.
More gunshots rang out from the range behind them as everyone opened fire on the walker crossing the field.
Minnie said goodbye to Clem and began walking back to the base.
As Clem returned to the range, everyone was reloading their pistols.
In the lull that the break in the fire had brought, a low rumble was audible from the woods at the end of the field.
"What the fuck is that?" Violet breathed.
A crowd of walkers stumbled through the bushes and out onto the field. There must have been at least fifty of them, all groaning in unison forming an eerie cacophony.
"Everybody, guns down on the bench!" The officer yelled.
They did as they were told and began backing off. The walkers would be on top of them soon and nobody wanted to be around when they did.
Clem rushed to AJ's side and made sure he stayed with her.
The officer picked up one of the loaded guns from the bench and fired at the first walker that had shown up, it being much closer than the herd.
A shot to the head put it down instantly.
Everyone started jogging away from the range, but the officer put a hand out in front of the two guards.
"Hold on. We can't leave the guns behind, they're too valuable. Roebuck, collect them and put them into the crate we brought them in. Dalton, keep the walkers off him while he does that. When you're done, return to base."
Dalton and Roebuck's faces told Clem exactly what they thought of those orders. Nonetheless, with a contained sigh, the guards agreed and went to work.
Roebuck sprinted back to the guns and began unloading them, stacking the magazines in one pile. Meanwhile, Dalton raised her rifle and began firing into the crowd of walkers.
The officer quickly hurried them along back to the base and the two guards disappeared from view.
Before long, they were back through one of the heavy steel gates of the outer wall.
"Alright, all of you back to your dorm. Don't cause any trouble." The officer said, sounding very irritated.
None of them argued, having the rest of the day off sounded fine to them.
The group made their way back to the building that housed their miserable concrete room. Their every move was scrutinised by the guards, making certain that none of them were up to no good.
"What did Minnie want with you?" Violet asked once they had been lounging in their bunks for a while.
Clem sat up straighter in her bunk and looked at Violet across from her.
Her heart jumped, feeling like she had been caught out doing something she shouldn't.
"Oh, uhh... she said Lilly wanted to see me before dinner." Clem lied.
She didn't know how Violet would react if she knew that her ex was inviting her over to her apartment. They had barely been broken up for two weeks so the wounds were fairly fresh.
"Did she say why?"
Clem shook her head.
"No. She didn't tell me why last time either, not until I was in her office."
Violet nodded slowly and looked down, picking at the stitching on her boot.
"Okay... well, good luck then."
***
Clementine knocked on the door to Minnie's apartment and waited for a response. Music was playing softly from inside.
She heard a lock click and the door opened inwards to reveal Minerva standing on the other side.
"Clem, hey." She smiled.
"Hey, Minnie."
Minnie ushered her inside and closed the door behind her.
The impromptu drapes were on the ground and the window was open, letting in a cool breeze.
Papers with handwritten notes littered the surface of the desk. Clem picked one up and skimmed it. Details about the case, clues and other important things to remember.
Damn, Minnie sure is thorough.
"Sorry about the mess, I've been kind of going crazy trying to figure this thing out." Minnie said, scratching the back of her head.
"It's cool. You know, I never actually thanked you for doing this for me." Clem replied.
She put down the paper and looked at Minnie, who was standing across the room leaning on the wall.
"There's no need to, seriously. I'm helping because I want to."
Clem leaned against the opposite wall, unknowingly mirroring Minnie's stance.
"That's really sweet of you." She said quietly, blushing a little.
A silence hung between them after that. They briefly bet each other's eye before Clem looked away.
Minnie cleared her throat and came closer.
"So uhh, the case..." she said.
"Yeah, the case..."
Minnie sat down on the floor cross-legged. Clementine did the same, facing her.
"So basically, we've got almost nothing to go off of right now." The redhead explained bleakly.
"I thought for sure it was Anderson. It would have made so much sense."
"Yeah, it's never easy. Actually, I was hoping you could sort of head this bit. We need suspects, people with motivation to hurt you. Only you know who'd want to do that."
Clem sat back against the wall, opposite Minnie.
She furrowed her brow, thinking very hard about her interactions with people at the Delta.
The firearms instructor?
No, their minor disagreement when she asked to bring AJ with her to leave wasn't nearly enough to warrant an attack.
One person that sprang to mind was the strange man that had come by their cell on the boat.
"Who was that guy, the one with the different coloured eyes?" Clem suggested.
"Abel? Did you make him mad or something?"
"I'm not sure. On the boat, AJ threatened him, but he laughed it off."
When she said it out loud, Clem realised how flimsy the connection was.
Really, she didn't have any ideas as to who it could be.
"I mean, Abel does enjoy hurting people. But even he wouldn't go behind Lilly's back like that."
"Shit. I don't know then, I can't think of a single other person. Sorry for wasting your time, Minnie." Clem huffed.
"Hey, don't worry about it. We get to hang out, so it's not a waste of time." Minnie smiled.
Clem blushed and sat up a little straighter, tucking one knee against her chest and stretching her other leg out in front of her.
"Hey, so..." Minnie continued, "we've been spending a lot of time together, but I kinda just realised we don't know much about each other."
"Huh, I guess not. Not much time to talk about it when we're on the case I suppose." Clem chuckled.
"Why don't we take turns asking questions or whatever? No limits, anything goes."
Clem's face flushed an even brighter shade of pink.
"Anything goes? Playing a dangerous game here, aren't we?" She joked, trying to sound casual.
"I wanna get to know you, Marsh. What better way than asking slightly invasive questions?" The redhead chided.
"Alright. You're on, Leigh." Clem teased back.
Minnie scooted closer with a smirk on her face. She crossed her legs in front of Clem and took a sip from the mug of water on the floor next to her.
"Okay, first thing I wanna know: where are you from?"
"Georgia, just outside Atlanta."
"Washington. The city, not the state." Minnie said.
Clem thought hard about a good question to ask.
What do I really want to know about Minnie?
"How did you end up here? You used to live with Violet and Louis and everyone before this, right?"
"Yeah, we lived at this boarding school for troubled youth. Before the world ended, my parents dropped me, Sophie and my little brother off there. Unfortunately it was right before the world ended, so they never came back."
"Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-" Clem began.
Minnie stopped her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, relax. It was a long time ago. Also, I did say anything goes, didn't I?"
She stood up and took a jar down from the shelf, opening the lid and passing it to Clem.
Inside were some of the dried fruit that she had made. Clementine took a few and passed the jar back.
"Anyway." Minnie said, "You kind of know the story. Marlon made a deal with Abel and Lilly: they took Sophie and I so that nobody else at the school would get taken."
"Fuck... that's brutal." Clem breathed.
"Is it? I mean, I kind of don't blame him. What can you do in that situation? It was either us or everyone, but they probably would be better off if they lived here. The conditions at the school weren't exactly five star."
Minnie drummed her fingers on the floor while she decided what to ask next.
"What's AJ's story? You two don't really look related, no offence."
"Yeah, no. I knew AJ's parents, they were nice people, for the most part. When they died, I started looking after him. Its been just me and him almost since he was born."
"Huh, I can kind of relate, you know? Sophie and I basically had to raise our little brother too."
"It's... kind of a struggle, huh?" Clem sighed.
"A huge one. But I've seen you with him, you're doing a good job." Minnie smiled warmly.
"Ah, alright. You're gonna hate me for asking, but I've been really curious about it."
"Lay it on me."
"How did you and Violet and up together?"
"Mhm." Minnie mumbled.
She slumped down and lay on her back on the ground, turning her head sideways to face Clem.
"Well, back at the school we used to live at, there were a ton of kids. I met Violet years ago, when this boy was trying to piss her off. He was like, poking her and teasing her and shit. But then he picked up a rock and threw it at her, so I punched the kid's lights out." Minnie chuckled, "I always was stronger than everyone. His friends dragged him away and Violet and I started talking and we became good friends. When we got older we sort of, ended up together. But, uhh... you know how that story goes too."
"Okay, along the same lines: remember when we were in that workshop making bullets and you said you'd never been in a relationship before?"
"Yeah?"
"Why is that?"
"I guess when I was still living in communities, I never met anyone that I felt that way about. That and, since I was thirteen it's really just been me and AJ on the road. There's not a lot of people out there anymore, and if you do meet someone, they'll try to rob you or kill you."
Minnie sat up from her therapy position on the floor and folded her legs beneath her. She gazed intently at Clem while she spoke.
"I guess it's all about finding the right person, huh?" Minnie said.
"Yeah, I guess it is."
"Who would be the right person, for you I mean?"
Clem chuckled nervously.
"I guess I uhh, never thought about it."
The redhead leaned in closer. Clem's heart was beating out of her chest. She dumbly stared at Minnie's face, unable to move.
Clem's eyes darted from Minnie's freckles, to her vivid blue eyes, then to her lips.
"Maybe thinking too much is the problem..." Minnie whispered.
She closed the minimal distance between them and kissed Clem.
The brunette melted into the kiss, closing her eyes and scooting up to put her hands on Minnie's shoulders.
Minerva ran her fingers through Clem's hair, feeling her way through the tangles and knots.
Suddenly, the redhead broke off the kiss. Clementine, her eyes still closed, tried to lean forward to follow Minerva as she moved away.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Minnie with her brow furrowed and her lips pursed.
"...I'm sorry, Clem. That was a mistake." She said guiltily.
"Minnie..." Clem breathed, dumbstruck.
She had no idea what was happening. Everything was amazing, Minnie had even been the one to make the first move. So why was she freaking out?
"I, uhh... could we just pretend that didn't happen? Please?" Minnie sighed.
Clem's heart dropped in her chest.
She had never been so confused in her life. Not only that, but it hurt.
The girl she had feelings for had kissed her, and subsequently asked her to forget it.
The hurt she felt seemed to trivialise all the bullet and stab wounds she had been the victim of.
"Yeah... okay. You're right, this was a mistake." Clem sniffed.
She wiped away the tears that she felt brimming in her eyes and stood up.
Before Minnie could say another word, Clem had already left, closing the door behind her.