Frankie's POV
The car ride was long and depressing. The guilt had become a lingering taste on her tongue. Bitter and gross, making her gag and filling her with the desire to puke. She slams the heavy truck door shut and steps down onto the gravel road. Jake's voice is heard up ahead by the front cars, off of Otto's porch.
"Congratulations, you just declared war on Walker's nation." He sarcastically shouts. "Joe, call the patrols! Watch for perimeter breaches! They could be right behind you." He walks down the wooden steps off the deck and glares at the twenty militia men before him. Rage flashes behind his eyes. He was so close to making a deal to end the conflict, but Madison had other plans. Troy struts past Frankie up to Jake, slightly brushing her shoulder.
"They weren't, and the mission was successful. We got the girl." He points to Alicia nearby. She just glances back and forth uncomfortable with the plan she was dragged into. She goes up to Madison.
"I can't believe this was your idea." She says and sighs annoyed. A look of betrayal is placed across her face. Madison tilts her head.
"You were in danger." Of course Madison's motherly instinct to protect her kids takes over. She did what she thought she had to, but that still may have been the wrong decision.
"Not till Troy showed up and started killing people!" Alicia raises her voice. Jake places his hands on his hips and stares at the ground. He heavily exhales, disappointed but not surprised.
"How many?" He asks.
"Eh, four, five." Troy estimates shrugging. Troy didn't seem to care about the bodies they left behind. He never really did.
"It wasn't just Troy killing." Alicia steps forward and points back to Frankie in the crowd of people. They all turn their heads to examine her. She's covered in blood and grime. Her mouth partially opens, trying to find the right words but nothing comes out. She's hurt by Alicia calling her out like that, in front of everyone. Like she wasn't embarrassed enough.
Instead of keeping her attention on Alicia, Madison, Troy, Jake, the crowd, she turns her head to the side, to Nick. He's standing a few yards away with his arms crossed and a glare directed at her. Her eyes widen and she shuffles backwards, trying to escape her situation. She hated the expression planted across Nick's face. And the soul crushing part is that it's meant for her.
She turns herself around entirely and runs away down the road, disappearing into the darkness of the night. The rest of the conversation was most likely just going to consist of Madison and Jake arguing and it would go nowhere, so she might as well leave. Frankie rushes to the public bathroom building near the center of the community. She sprints inside and grips the edges of the nearest porcelain sink.
Her breathing accelerates quickly, and her fingers squeeze the white shiny material harder. Her head lifts and her eyes meet with her own in the mirror across from her. She sees herself. More than she has in a long time, maybe even the first time she ever has fully. The thought of that breaks her.
She sobs uncontrollably, wailing out to god or anyone who will listen. Not a word is made but the sounds of a screaming child form from the depths of her own throat. A child who's terrified from the monster they've just seen. The monster who's been hurting them, taking their life. The difference for her is her monster is herself.
"Please, I don't want it." She yells. "I don't want this to be me. Please, please." She loosens her hold on the sink and slowly falls to the ground. Her body scrunches into herself as the weeping gets more intense. Curling up into a small ball on her side.
One of her hands gently places itself on the white tile floor, to keep herself grounded. The room is getting dizzy from her bad breathing pattern and her vision blurry with warm tears. Her head aches and her body shakes uncontrollably. "I don't want to be like this." She whispers.
The lights flicker, and the whole bathroom shakes like an earthquake is upon her. The stall doors rattle and the sounds of people screaming outside of the building echo off the walls around her. She sits upright and rapidly glances around the room, confused about what's happening.
"Go away!" She pleads. "GO AWAY! GO AW—" A voice interrupts her.
"LOOK AT YOU!"
—----------------------------------------------------
Troy's POV
Nick sits down on a picnic table with his feet propped up on the bench of it. He's a few yards away from the tarped area with a small portion of the militia located under it. Far enough it's hard for them to see him in the unlit darkness, but close enough he can still hear them.
They're all laughing and joking around, while Nick stares off into space, engrossed in his own depressing thoughts. He was over there not too long ago to get some food, but he could only manage to swallow a little bit of it. He isn't very hungry at the moment.
"We should take the fight to them, man, not sit and wait for it. I'd say offense is the best defense." One of the guys says to the rest, and takes a sip of coffee.
"Yeah, well, that's not what Otto wants right now or Jake." Troy shuts that idea down immediately and begins to walk out from the tented area. He didn't want them to run off with their ideas and get the whole community in trouble. Nick breaks his own silence and asks him something.
"So, what happens if Walker attacks while we're on the perimeter? Because it's a long haul back to the ranch." He shrugs. Troy shuffles closer to him, and places his hands on his hips.
"Well, there's only two roads he can use, and we'll be on both of them with fast trucks. We stop him, we leave a suicide note, we fall back, and we defend the camp." He sits on the table next to Nick, examining him. He seems off to Troy, which is concerning.
"Suicide note? What? One of our guys stays behind to fight to the end?" Nick questions and finally turns his attention away from the empty space in front of him to look to Troy. That exposes his fearful expression to him. He crosses his arms, but it ends up just looking more like he's hugging himself. Why does Nick look so frightened? Troy thinks to himself.
"Well, yeah. Yeah. We're all willing." He gestures with one hand back to the group of soldiers without breaking eye contact. Nick softly nods then goes back to his depressing psyche, trapped in his own head. It's like he's not actually there, in a type of shock.
"Well, if it does come to that, I'll do it." He mutters quietly. Images of what Frankie did flash across his mind. He flinches and inhales sharply, scared. Troy tilts his head at the sudden flinching.
"You feeling blue, Nicky?" He chuckles in hopes to lighten the mood. Nick's gloomy tone doesn't shift in the slightest. And to make Troy even more anxious and worried about him, he doesn't answer his question. "Well uh..." He tries to think of something to say. "I think you're gonna stay within the fence anyway. You can go kamikaze another day." Troy slowly places his palm onto Nick's back. No response.
Nick remains entirely still, trying to hold back from entirely breaking down. In the last few hours ever since what Frankie had done, he's been so close to letting the tears fall from his eyes. That puts him into a lingering state of constant panic, flight or fight. Troy begins to rub his hand slowly in circles in hopes to comfort him.
That breaks him.
Nick begins to cry uncontrollably, his whole body convulsing with each breath. He tries to keep himself quiet by choking back his cries, making them muffled whimpers. Troy's eyes widen, almost in shock at the amount of unexpected emotion pouring out of the man next to him. He scoots closer to Nick.
"Hey, hey, Nick what's wrong?" He whispers. Nick wraps both his arms around him and leans his head into Troy's chest. His whole body becomes limp in his distraught state.
"I'm-I'm scared." He confesses into the shirt material. Troy hugs him back and runs his fingers in Nick's hair to soothe him. He has no clue on what to do. No one has ever been emotionally vulnerable around him before. He suddenly becomes very aware of the group of men behind the two, making him feel a jolt of adrenaline shoot through him.
"C'mon, let's get you somewhere more private." He hushly suggests. Nick nods and stumbles to his feet, with Troy helping him. He sniffles and wipes his nose with his elbow's sleeve. God I hope the guys don't notice us, Troy thinks. I don't want Nick to get bullied behind his back more than he already does– His thoughts are abruptly cut off.
"Hey Troy, where you going?" A man asks, stopping them both in their tracks. Troy rolls his eyes. He pats Nick on the back and gets closer to his ear.
"Don't turn around, they'll know you've been crying." He says so quietly it's barely audible to Nick. Nick nods and puts his focus to the ground, to drown out the whispers behind them. "He just wanted to go for a walk." Troy explains and spins around to the guys.
"Oh yeah? Just you two? What for?" Another soldier steps forward and asks more questions that Troy doesn't want to answer. He shakes his head, and doesn't respond. This is not the time for me to be answering stupid questions—---- "You two queers or something?"
"What did you just call us?" Troy tilts his head and widens his stance to make himself steadier, in case of the situation elevating to violence. He absolutely did not like what the man had just called them. His heart burns in rage, and before he even realizes it he's reaching for the gun in his holster. He yanks it out and points it at the man in front of him. He desperately wants to click it, his finger is aching for it. The rest of the men look at Troy nervously, wondering if it was a bluff or not.
"Troy...." Nick calls out to him. His voice cracks halfway through, exposing that he had been crying to the rest of the group. The way he said his name.............he was begging him, pleading. Troy turns his head back at him, without lowering the gun away. "Don't do what she just did. Please, I don't want you to." His voice is scratchy, but strong in what he has to say.
Troy thinks to himself for a moment, staring the man down at the end of the metal barrel of the gun. This fucker should die. He deserves it, but Nick doesn't want me to? I mean this piece of shit deserves it. He doesn't want me to do what Frankie did though. But what Frankie did, isn't it justified? That man was going to kill Nick. But if me killing this asshole isn't what he wants I probably shouldn't do it. Could send him thoroughly over the edge.
He lowers the gun and slips it in his belt. He lets out a frustrated breath and goes back over to Nick. The gun in one of the guy's faces should have scared them enough to leave them both alone. He grabs his hand and leads him to the Otto house.
Once they reach Troy's room, Nick fully loses all composure he had left, and sobs. He grabs onto the edge of Troy's dresser to hold himself upright as his legs collapse below him. Troy guides him over to his bed and sits him on that, opposed to the floor. After successfully moving him he looks around the room. Why is there an empty ziploc bag on the floor?
He crouches down and picks it up, examining it curiously. Shit. He realizes. Frankie broke in for the rest of her drugs. She's probably getting high off her ass right now. He crumples the bag into a small ball in his fist and turns his attention back to Nick.
"What was that bag?" Nick asks between breaths. Now this is where the decision came in. He could be honest with Nick, tell him the truth. He deserves that. But.....it would break him right now. He's already crying his eyes out. Finding out about Frankie's relapse would make it worse.
"Nothing." He brushes it off. "Nothing to worry about. Right now what matters is how you're feeling." He sits down on the edge of the bed directly next to him. He grabs both of Nick's hands and holds them in his. Nick's crying dies down, an intense silence starts to encompass them.
Their eyes meet.
Seconds turn into minutes turn into hours.
Nick presses his lips against Troy's.
Troy's whole body freezes up for a moment. He doesn't know what to do. His heart rate speeds up faster than it ever has. He moves his hand to Nick's chest and he places it there. His heart is just as quick. After comprehending the moment, he gently moves his lips back against Nick's. He begins to speed up and become more aggressive with it, more needy.
Nick cups both his palms around Troy's face. Gentle, but still with a force behind it, holding him there. Troy had never been touched before, he's never kissed anyone. Then Nick pulls away. He looks to the floor, ashamed.
"I'm sorry. I can't do this. I can't go behind Frankie's back." He gets on his feet and wipes the tears out of his eyes. Ironic. Troy thinks. Frankie had just gone behind yours. He keeps his mouth shut anyway. "I need to speak to her, but I'm afraid to." Nick explains.
"Why are you scared? She's your wife isn't she? Aren't you in love with her?" Troy gets on his feet next to him. What Nick is saying, didn't make sense to him. Nick avoids eye contact and stares at the wall.
"I do. I love her more than anything, but..." He pauses and looks for the right words. "...right now she's scaring me. When we first showed up here, she tried to kill me. You remember that." He turns himself to Troy. Their eyes meet again.
"I do. You never told me why." He briefly mentions. He always wondered what the lead up to that interaction was. He was too far away to hear the conversation, but he saw the gun being pointed.
"She thought I was already dead. That I was one of the dead that needed to be put down." The tears in Nick's eyes begin to resurface as he recalls the traumatic memory. He chokes them back not wanting to fully break down again. "She obviously doesn't believe that anymore, but now she's killing people she very well knows are alive. And when she does it she's out of control. She's.........." He pauses, while images of what happened flash across his mind. "...........scary."
"You still need to talk to her. You need to talk about what happens next between you two." Troy gives a small smile. He hates seeing Nick so upset, so he hopes the faster they fix the problem the faster he can get back to his normal mood.
"What do you mean what happens next?" Nick squints confused on what Troy is implying. Troy rephrases himself in a more brutally honest way.
"Are you going to break up with her, or work it out?"
—-------------------------------------------------------------
Nick's POV
Nick strolls between the militia's tents near the outer layer of the community. He fixed himself up a few minutes ago, in hopes of making it less obvious that he had been previously crying. It's still night, so he can't see as well in the darkness but he's searching for Frankie. He suspects her presence to be in the area where the soldiers have set up the mini camp, but he doesn't know for sure. She could practically be anywhere. But he did know one thing.
He had come to a decision.
He spins around, looking for her familiar face. Troy isn't too far away, he's just on the other side of camp, in case something happens. Nick prayed to god nothing bad would happen.
"Hey...." Frankie solemnly greets, just a few feet away. She leans against a picnic table and crosses her arms. She stares at the ground and mindlessly kicks the rocks in the gravel. She seems nervous too. Why? He thinks.
"Hey..." He quietly responds. "I've been meaning to find you. We kind of need to.....talk." Shit. Did I make that sound too depressing? He takes the sight of her in. Even now in the dead of night, after the brutal violent acts she's committed—- She still finds a way to look beautiful.
"I figured." She turns her head to the side, gazing at the place's entrance. She's avoiding me. Why does she not want to look at me? Then her eyes widen. She's terrified. Chaos breaks out around them. People screaming and running every which way.
The militia men are turning. They're all dying. Why?
Frankie turns her attention back to Nick, and grabs his arm, pulling him off to the side of the main road they were standing on. She pulls out her knife and holds it at the ready, while the other arm puts itself in front of Nick, protecting him.
"What's going on?" Nick says to her loudly, over the noise of the crowd.
"I don't know." Frankie replies. Madison comes into view with Alicia by her side, both in panic.
"Mom! Alicia!" Nick yells to them. The four circle up trying to understand the situation. "Do you know what's going on?" Ofelia rushes past them out the entrance gate. Madison meets with her eyes as she turns back, sprinting away. She seems to come to a realization as she begins to run after her, shouting her name.
"Ofelia! Ofelia!" Gun fire goes off, shooting at the turned militia men. Nick's vision becomes blurry. His whole body goes shaky and weak, and he falls to the ground. Frankie kneels down next to him, terror surges through her whole body.
"Nick! Nick. It's gonna be ok." Her voice gets softer. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He pukes uncontrollably, then starts choking on it. Frankie rolls him onto his side to stop him from suffocating on his own vomit. Alicia gets down next to her, unsure of what to do. She realizes what conclusion Madison had come to about Ofelia.
"It was Ofelia. She poisoned them." Frankie glances back over her shoulder at Alicia. "Frankie, what have you eaten in the past few hours?"
"Nothing. I haven't eaten anything." She answers while wiping throw-up from his face with her hand. "I'm sorry Nick, it's going to be ok. Just keep breathing. Please." His body goes limp and he blacks out.