Julie's eyes flicked open and she gasped, grabbing for her throat as the dream fell from her, of drowning and being unable to breathe.
Then the pain hit and she moaned and squirmed against the hard trunk, her whole body alight with sharp hurts and deep aches.
And she was cold. Terribly cold. As she blinked, trying to understand where she was, it slowly came back to her with the burbling chatter of the stream. A stream she could barely see now, because it was dark. Night had swallowed the world, and her with it, stolen the warmth of the sun, made her stiff with pain and the deepest chill.
Moaning again, she tried to get up, remembering her failure from earlier. So much earlier it seemed, what had happened? She'd only meant to close her eyes for a few minutes...
At least she was still alive. They hadn't found her, hadn't killed her.
But was Rowan still alive?
Jesus, don't think like that. Of course he is.
Nodding to herself, Julie gave herself no more time to think and tried to get to her feet again. The pain roared up within her, and cursing, she pushed through it and the exhaustion, and curled up onto her knees, then up to her feet.
Head swimming, surrounded by the darkness of the forest, Julie just stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. A deep shiver gripped her and she gasped with the motion as her ribs and arm spat back in pain.
Back to the town, get Rowan, get away.
Nodding again, Julie felt for the gun at her belt, and then stared into the woods, waiting for her vision to open up a little. The moon was out, the thin crescent shedding very little light, but the stars were blazing. A brilliant sea of shimmering haze above her head, and for a minute she stared up at it, wavering on her feet, her eyes bright with wonder. She'd seen them like this before of course - another benefit of the apocalypse - but it never got old.
Distantly, through the trees, she could see the flickering light of fires, and knew that's where she had to go. Releasing a sigh, she kept her gaze to the forest floor and walked forward.
And kept walking, even when thorns pulled at her jeans and she tripped a few times on rocks and branches she'd missed in the dim light. Even when everything had started to run together in her head, and she wasn't even sure where she was anymore, or how long she'd been moving, she kept walking, till the fires stood tall on the terrible wall, and the skeletal, pecked and stripped remains of the corpses hanging above almost seemed to move in the harsh, dancing light.
Her body wasn't even hurting anymore, but she was having trouble feeling her fingers, they were chilled to numb stumps.
Following the wall around, Julie came to the gate. The town was quiet inside, but she could hear someone shuffling on the other side, a guard, possibly by himself, keeping vigil.
Blowing a not-so-silent raspberry, she moved back to the forest edge, and grabbed a branch as thick as her arm and about as long. Then she returned to the gate, and threw it as hard as she could across the width of it. The branch gave a satisfying crack as it fell, and Julie pressed back against the wall, in the deepest shadow she could find, and waited.
And out came the soldier - the thin kid she remembered from the hillside after Rowan had been taken. What was his name... Bill? Bobby?
She watched him move toward the branch for a second, still trying to remember his name, before she jerked, realizing she was supposed to be acting, not thinking, not wasting her time on a name... what the hell was wrong with her?
With two quick silent strides, she crossed the ground to the armed kid, and brought the butt of her gun down hard on the back of his head.
With a small surprised noise, he fell to the ground and lay still.
Blowing another raspberry, Julie grabbed the kid's hand, grunting with pain as she bent over, and tried to pull him away from the gate, out of sight.
It hurt too much, and she stopped, gasping.
Then she leaned over again, and pulled the rifle from underneath him, moaning as her ribs complained again, before slinging it over her shoulder.
When she found Rowan, he could use it.
Too tired and sore to do anything more to the kid, she turned and forgot him, and headed through the gate, keeping the Ruger out before her, and watching for any movement in the pools of light surrounding the flickering torches.
Then she looked up, at the woman on the cross who'd made such terrible noises only hours before.
The woman was dead. Julie's heart fell hard, feeling as if she'd failed, that she should have acted sooner, should have ended her pain when she'd had the chance.
With another sigh, she shook her head. There was nothing she could have done.
And at least the woman wasn't suffering any more.
Turning away, Julie kept to the dark shadows, moving from building to building, to shed, to cart, to an outhouse that stank so bad she actually dry heaved, her body having nothing to give back up.
Until finally, she made her way to the bunker.
There were people moving around. Armed men she found easy to avoid, as they walked down the main street in pools of flickering light, casual and chatty.
She was just about to try the door on the bunker when she heard voices from within, and the sound of footsteps approaching.
Julie slinked back into shadow, and waited, and almost cried out as she saw Rowan walking from the doorway, limping, followed by another man she recognized immediately, whose rifle was pointed before him.
It was the guy who'd knocked Rowan out, back in the forest. What was his name?
God, not important!
Heart pounding in her chest, her skin flushing with the sudden rush of blood, Julie followed them, silently, waiting for the moment when they were in shadow and she could act.
And the moment came, and she rushed forward, hoping to strike the armed man down as she had the kid, but he turned, alerted at the last minute, so she had to adjust her plan.
"Don't move," she snarled in a low voice, and held the Ruger steady, aimed for the man's head. Rowan stopped ahead of her and put his arms up, and she wondered if her voice had been so strange he hadn't recognized it.
The man stared at her, in complete astonishment for a moment, before he opened his mouth.
"You're Julie..."
His hands tightened on the stock of his rifle then, and she shook her head.
"Don't even. You'll be dead before you swing that thing around." Without taking her eyes off of the soldier, she moved over to Rowan, who'd turned around to face her, and shrugged the rifle off her shoulder. "Rowan, take this."
"Thanks..." Rowan said softly, and bent over to pick it up.
Julie kept the Ruger trained on the soldier, and spared a quick glance over at Rowan, eager to see his face again, his smile. God, this was going to work! They were going to get out of here! Maybe she could...
The thoughts fell from her mind as Rowan drew the rifle up, cocked it, and swung the muzzle directly at her chest.
"Drop it," he said.
Julie's mouth fell open, and she swayed on her feet, shocked to the deepest part of her being by what Rowan had just done.
"Rowan? W-what?" she whispered, and shuffled back from him, her gun still pointed at the other man, though her hand was starting to waver and shake.
"You heard me girl, drop it now," the man she loved said, low and sharp, and with sudden clarity she realized... the vocal pattern, the look behind his eyes...
It wasn't Rowan anymore.
No... nono... no..
"I... who..." she whispered, through a throat dry as dust, as the world started to feel unstable around her, and something closed tight around her chest like a vice. Why couldn't she breathe properly? Where was the air going?
Rowan stepped forward then, and closed his hand over the gun in her hand, and pried it free. With a quick flick, he put the safety on, then walked over to the other man, holding it up.
"Ruger," Rowan said, and ejected the magazine before closing it back in again. "Nice. Sixteen rounds still. I call dibs."
The soldier snorted, his eyes still fixed on Julie as she stood there, arm falling slowly to her side.
She couldn't move? Why couldn't she move? She needed to run... back beyond the wall, get away...
Rowan...
"I'm the eldest, Caleb," the soldier said with a smirk. "I get first dibs."
"By six minutes Josh, that don't count."
Julie made a small sound then, a sound of utter bewildered pain and disbelief, and she staggered back a half step, trying to feel for her knife... where was it?
Boot.
Reaching down was impossible. It was too far away, and everything moved suddenly, the buildings, the street, the flickering unsteady lights, the men in front of her, both watching her with impassive faces.
Rowan - no, Caleb - was walking towards her, his eyes distant and unfamiliar, as Julie's legs finally gave up and folded, sending her speeding to the lurching ground. She hit hard, and as her eyelids slid shut she saw Rowan's dark sneakers come to a stop just beyond her outstretched hand.
"She's hurt," he said from somewhere far away.
"Yeah, that's what he said," the man named Josh answered. "Make sure she's not playing around."
There was a distant sting on her cheek.
"Nope, she's out," Rowan's voice came again, and it pulled at her, made her want to rise up out of the dark. She moaned, and whispered his name.
Someone spoke somewhere. "... back... bunker..."
Hands grabbed her roughly, and her ribs and her arm started screaming, and she drowned in the agony of it, till it snatched away her thoughts, her mind, and left her with absolutely nothing at all.
—-
Okay, I know that ended badly, but Julie is seriously awesome. I have a feeling that if she hadn't been running around with a broken rib and arm, she would have just kicked everyone's butt, and sat on Samuel's face as she waited for her dad to find her. %) Anyway. Two more harsh-ish chapters, then something lighter (with Marcus!) Much needed. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think in a comment, if you can. :D