LEAVE
I can't count the hours I sat in my own blood with a broken wrist, incapable of protecting myself. Rosita and Tara came back, two hours after they said they would.
When they pulled up, Rosita jumped from the car and was at my side instantly, cursing herself for taking such a long time to get back to me.
"Carajo!" Rosita swears in Spanish.
"I'm fine, just get me home," I manage to say as I pull myself off the ground.
Rosita helps me back to the car I sit down carefully, "Hey, just letting you know I'm bleeding from my back so, uh, might get some blood on the seats. I know there are dead people walking and blood on the seat isn't the biggest concern but I thought I'd let you know."
Tara chuckles, "Oh it's fine we'll just make Carl clean it."
Rosita gets back into the car after picking up some of my lost loot. "Alora, what the fuck happened?" Rosita says, throwing the car into drive to get me back to Alexandria.
"Negan was trying to get information out of me so I slashed his arm and he broke my wrist," I tell them, cradling my wrist in my other hand.
"You seem awfully chill for having a broken wrist," Tara comments.
"Oh yeah, my dad use to beat me and I've had quite a few broken bones. Plus I don't think the adrenaline has run off and it's been like three hours."
"Sorry we took so long we had another run-in with those Whisperers," Rosita tells me. I shrug, nothing I could do about it now.
"Carl's gonna be pissed, huh?"
"Oh yeah, for sure. Good luck ever getting him or Rick to ever say yes for you to run again."
I frown, "Aside from getting the shit beat out of me, I enjoyed this run. I won't enjoy all the poking and prodding that the fucking doctor does when I get back though."
I can see Tara make a face in the mirror, "You haven't been to the doctor in a while, huh? We had one come over from Hilltop, you might like her you might not. She and Carl had a past."
I squint and look at her, "A past? Carl has never mentioned another girl to me."
Tara shrugs, she knows something and she's not sharing it.
We pull up to Alexandria and instantly it feels like the first day I showed up here, I was swarmed by people. One of which being Carl, who looked significantly less than happy. He should be happy I'm alive, to be honest. His eyes were dull with worry, how long has he known about my injury?
"Alora, what the fuck? What the hell happened?" Carl helps me out of the car, I glance back to see blood on the back seat, yeah I'm sorry about that.
"Carl, not right now, get her to the doctor," Michonne says, joining him by my side.
They walk me to the doctor's office and a young girl, about my age, was there, she glanced at Carl once and made a grossed-out face. This has to be the girl they were talking about.
"Enid..." Carl says quietly.
She huffs a harsh chuckle before walking away from him, I'm not so sure I feel comfortable with my boyfr- my close friend's ex-girlfriend doing surgery next to my spine.
"You can leave, Carl. This is between me and my patient, I'll let someone know to grab you after," Enid tells him.
Carl huffs and walks out of the room, Enid is silent until he leaves.
"I should have stayed in Hilltop, it really isn't worth it coming back here," Enid says under her breath.
"What happened to you?" She asks while washing her hands and leading me to a familiar chair where I was recent with a broken ankle.
"Negan, I had a knife and it slipped its sheath and managed to get me deep. Then Negan broke my wrist with his foot," I tell Enid.
She nods, and she motions for me to lift up my shirt, it was stained with blood, guess I'll have to toss this one officially.
"Oh yeah, pretty deep. It's under your shoulderblade though so honestly, I'm not sure how efficient stitches are gonna be to fix this."
I sigh as Enid helps me completely take my shirt off, "Yeah, I figured. I guess that's what I get for talking back to that shithead."
She chuckles and tells me to lie down on my stomach. "You remind me a lot of Carl, not in a bad way. Word of you has traveled to Hilltop so I already knew who I was working with."
I smile and shake my head, "Can I ask you something?"
She hums as I feel antiseptic hit my skin, it burns and I inhale a deep breath.
"What happened between you and Carl?" I ask, I watch her shadow on the wall slightly shake her head.
"Time, time is what happened. Carl came to Alexandria when he was 16, God that was like 4 years ago...anyways, there were a lot of conflicts. There was this boy named Ron, you may have heard of him. He's the one who shot Carl's eye out. Ron and I had a thing, it was brief but he was the first boy I had seen since this started. Michonne killed Ron, but after that Carl was different. Then people like Cleo came in, she was obsessed with him. But uh, Carl and I were kinda a thing, nothing ever happened but y'know it's awkward."
I could tell she was trailing off as she remembered the bad details.
"So why'd you leave?" I ask as she pulls tight to a stitch in my back.
"I was asked to, they told me I was a distraction to Carl."
I narrow my eyes at her shadow, who asked her? Was it Cleo, she never tried to make me leave, other than trying to kill me.
"How long was your knife? Do you know if it went all the way in?" Enid asks, getting back on track with the procedure.
"It's a standard 13-inch but the blade itself is 2 inches. I don't think it went all the way in."
She nods, Enid leaves my side to get a water bottle. She returns back, "This is gonna hurt, a little bit."
She sprays a large amount of the liquid into the gash, it wasn't hydrogen peroxide but something close to that or diluted. I hiss in pain and clench my good wrist.
I hear the door open behind me, Enid turns towards the door.
"Oh hey," Enid says nonchalantly before returning back to my wound.
"How's she doing?" I can hear Michonne say.
"Hurts like a mother," I murmur, biting back all the swear.
Michonne joins my side so I can actually see her, suddenly I feel too exposed. I was completely topless laying on my stomach so Enid could work on my back.
"It's just me and Rosita in here," Michonne tells me after she sees me clench up.
Why is Rosita here, she doesn't like me. I hear someone, presumably Rosita, join Enid in looking at my back.
"Rosita, can you look at her wrist?" Enid asks while patching up my back with some dressing.
"Alora, sit up," Michonne motions. I hesitate, I don't like being nude, especially around people who I'm not super close to.
I sat up and instantly covered my bare chest with my good hand. Michonne helps Enid wrap my back and double-wrapped it around the front. Once they were done with that, Enid passed me a new baggy shirt that Michonne or Rosita must have brought.
They help me put the shirt on and Rosita takes my broken wrist in her hand, it already hurts.
"I mean...could be worse I guess," She says.
"Just splint it, cast it for a few months, and if there are any deformities we'll address it then," Rosita says and nods. My wrist looked pretty bad, it didn't look like it was gonna fall off but regardless it did not look super good.
Enid and Rosita put my wrist in a cast and Michonne went to grab Carl. Rosita left with her too so it was just me and Enid.
"Enid, who asked you to leave?" I ask her while examining my new makeshift cast.
"Rick and Maggie."