"I don't want you to go."
He says, taking the bag from my hands.
"Well, that's not fair."
"Yes, it is."
"No, it isn't."
I shake my head.
"You always get to do stuff that you wanna do."
"I don't know him."
"It ain't like you know any of the people that are going, except for Miss Alexa, and you barely even know her."
"Sage, I said no."
"I know what you said, Carl!"
I squeak, grabbing my bag back from his hands.
"I already told Aspen that I would go, and Addalyn is already packin' up stuff for the six of us. I told you that you could tag along."
"I don't want to tag along."
He groans, sitting down on the bed, picking at one of my shirts.
"I don't trust Aspen, he sounds like trouble."
"Please stop doin' that, you'll put a crease in it."
I sigh, taking the shirt away from him.
"Aspen is a nice man."
"Do you know what happens when grown men take fifteen year olds in the woods?"
"Oh my god, please do not go there!"
I gasp.
"You are unbelievable!"
"I'm unbelievably realistic."
"Two weeks ago, Enid asked me to go on a jog with her, but I turned her down because you didn't want me to leave you alone while you cleaned your room -- which still looks bad, by the way."
I huff.
"A couple of days after that, Jesus wanted to raid one of those trucks down the road, but I didn't want you to go because I was still really scared, but you still went."
"What's your point?"
"How is that fair to you?"
"It was one time."
"It's happened numerous times over the past two months, Carl Grimes."
"What about him, Sage?"
He asks, placing his hand on my stomach.
"You can't go, I'm not going to allow it, it's not safe out there."
"It's safe in here, though?"
I raise my eyebrows.
"Yeah."
He nod.
"Where were you when you lost your eye?"
I ask.
"Where were you?"
"Inside the walls."
He huffs.
"But you can't include that, because we got overrun."
"If I can get overrun inside forty foot walls, I can get overrun surrounded by thick trees."
I breathe out, voice shaky.
"Your argument can no longer be considered valid."
"You haven't spoken to Shane since before you even took the test, what is he going to think about you leaving?"
"Carter knows."
I reply.
"And Carter trusts Queen, a lot."
"Okay."
He mutters.
I lean over, attempting to kiss him on the lips, but he doesn't purse his lips out when I try.
"Carl, give me a kiss."
I bite my cheek.
"I can't leave when we're like this, please give me a kiss."
"I'm still trying to wrap my head around the concept of the baby, and you want me to kiss you goodbye before you leave after I've told you multiple times that I don't want you gone?"
He says, tone cutting like a knife, before he pecks my lips, just barely and stands up.
"There, we're made up, have a good time."
I swallow loudly, chest aching as I fought back the tears that wanted to come through.
"When I come back, I promise I'll give you, like, two blowjobs."
"If you come back, it's gonna have to be closer to five."
Ouch. His words hurt a lot, and it didn't help that I wasn't going to be able to see him for a little while.
His double-standard wasn't fair, so I wasn't going to back down. It's not okay that he gets to do whatever he wants with free reign, but I always have to go to him before making any decisions. He doesn't own me, he's dating me.
"Will you help me with my bags?"
"I actually have stuff that I need to do."
He says, just barely patting my tummy.
"Bye, Walsh."
Allowing a few tears to fall down my cheek, I walk down the stairs, say goodbye to Carter, and meet Queen outside on the porch.
"Hey, sport!"
"Carl is so mad."
I cry.
"Little Walsh, you are an independent young man."
He kneels down, hands on my shoulders.
"Do not let him take away your power, you are not his bitch. He can't handle the fact that he's not the only one with a pair of balls."
I nod, sniffling.
"But between you and me... yours seem to be bigger."
He teases, ruffling my hair.
"Come on, sport, lets get going."
Grabbing my bags, he slugs them over his shoulder and begins to walk me over to the car that we'd be taking. When I was little, I had tiny toy cars that I would get for my birthday and Christmas, so I was familiar with the model.
A 1999 Ford Expedition.
"You can sit in the back with Aspen."
Queen orders.
"Buckle up."
"Yes, sir!"
Saluting, I nod and hurry into the very back seat, buckling the seatbelt before waiting for the rest of the crew.
"Bluebird!"
Aspen smiles, grabbing me into a suffocating hug.
"I'm so glad you could make it!"
"Passing this up didn't feel right."
"I'm happy you're tagging along, bunny, I mean it."
We were only in the car for a little while, maybe two hours at the most. It was a bumpy journey with a lot of snapping twigs and branch scraped windows.
Commander Queen sang Bon Jovi to himself while he drove, Miss Alexa navigated, Addalyn and Kenna clean their knives, and Aspen and I chatted about whatever.
He told me about the time he almost accidentally drove his car into the ocean, I told him about my relationship with Carl, he explained his childhood, and as soon as I was about to announce my pregnancy to him, we pulled over.
"What was that?"
He asks, leaning towards me to hear me better.
"I'll tell you later."
I say.
"I promise."
Once we're all out of the vehicle, I stretch my arms out.
"Queen, may I ask you something?"
"What is it, sport?"
"What are we doing?"
I ask.
"Like, I know we're exploring, but... the woods? It's just trees."
He's silent for a moment, licking his bottom lip.
"There's a bandit in Alexandria."
I tilt my head to the side.
"We've been robbed on several occasions."
"But the walls are so tall!"
"I think Enid has something to do with it."
Addalyn speaks.
"I think it's that Grimes kid."
Kenna says.
Aspen shrugs next to me.
"Stop it."
Queen scolds.
"If anything serious, it's one of Negan's men. We can take him out with no problem."
"Let's set up camp."
Miss Alexa orders.
"We'll keep watch and patrol, waiting is all we can do at this point."
"I can't wait to put my ax in that asshole's throat."
Aspen smirks.
"Lex, you go with Addie. I'll take Kenna, and you two will go together."
Queen says, pointing towards me and Aspen at the end.
"Spread out, but don't stray too far from the car."
"Yes, sir."
I nod.
As we all began to spread out, Aspen looks down at me, fingers gripped tight on his ax.
"What were you going to tell me, bluebird?"
"Oh!"
I gasp, realizing I totally forget.
"...I'm having a baby."
"Really?"
He raises his eyebrows.
"Congratulations."
"It wasn't planned, but I'm happy."
I say.
"I think he's really going to light up my life."
"Is the dad around?"
"Carl."
He nods, biting his teeth into his bottom lip.
"How does he feel about it?"
"I think he's happy."
I reply.
"He hasn't snubbed me or anything."
"You trust him, though?"
"Of course, I trust him. We've known each other since we were little!"
"You trust him with the life of a child?"
I stop walking, crossing my arms over my chest.
"Am I missing something?"
"No, I'm curious."
He says.
"I'm curious, bluebird."
"You seem like you have a problem with him."
"I'm genuinely happy for you."
He rasps, beginning to walk again.
"I am."
"So, you don't have anything against him, then?"
"I think he's an absolute piece of shit."
He sneers, immediately jerking his head towards me and relaxing his face.
"That was out of line, I'm sorry."
"I like Carl."
I say.
"He might be a little mean to people sometimes, but that's not really his fault. He had to grow up in this situation, constantly being betrayed by people he trusted."
"You're fifteen years old, you were, what, ten when this all started? Nine, maybe?"
"I was young, yeah."
"Why aren't you like that, then?"
I shrug.
"I don't know..."
"He's pitiful."
He says.
"He lets himself be that way."
Nodding, I just look around, trying to give him the hint that I didn't wanna talk about that anymore.
"I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings."
He rasps, wrapping his muscular arms around my small frame.
"Your relationship is none of business, I'm sorry."
"Did you see that?"
I ask, peeking my head around his bicep.
"Aspen, did you see it?"
"I didn't see anything."
He answers, backing up a few steps.
"Heard it loud and clear, though."
Crouching down, I look down at the crunchy leaves beneath me and try to focus on the sounds that were going around.
"Okay, motherfucker, let's rumble!"
Aspen yells, chuckling as he extends his arms out, basically asking for a spear through his chest.
"What are you doing?"
I whisper, furrowing my eyebrows.
"He's clearly--"
He gets cut off by a grunt, back slamming down into the ground as a muscular man lands on top of him, hands around his throat.
Shocked, my eyes go wide and I take some steps back, shaky hands reaching for every kind of weapon I had on me.
"Get off of him!"
I yell, grabbing my pocket knife.
The two men were rolling around, becoming dirty and scratched up as they choked and punched at each other.
Not quite knowing what to do, i book it out of there, running as fast as I can to find one of the others.
"Queen!"
I screech, desperately turning around every corner whenever I heard sounds that weren't my footsteps.
My lungs hurt, my breathing wasn't leveled, and I felt like I had gotten completely lost.
"You called?"
Screaming, I jump out of my skin and fall to the ground when I hear the intimidatingly deep voice behind me.
"Aspen is in trouble!"
I shake, standing back up with his help.
"He's in trouble!"
It was a long way back for me. To be honest, I didn't even make it back to Aspen and the mysterious man, I had to sit down on a log and take deep breaths, because I could not get any air functioning through my body.
Miss Alexa and Queen walked past me, man tied up and gagged between them as they dragged his feet back to where we were camping out.
Aspen limps over, sitting down next to me with bloody scratches on his cheek and crumbled leaves in his hair.
"Are you okay?"
I ask, sighing.
"You could've fucking shot him, y'know."
He chuckles.
"I've never shot anyone before."
I admit, pouting my bottom lip.
"Mister Negan or Daddy usually did the dirty work and I cried into Carter's shoulder."
He puts his hand on my back, gently rubbing up and down before his eyes catch mine.
"At least I didn't die, though."
"Luckily!"
I squeak.
"Come on, let's get back to camp before we miss all the fun."
He orders, nodding his head towards the direction the others went.
I walked back slowly, Aspen's leg was really bothering him and I didn't wanna walk too fast and leave him behind.
We made it back finally, closer to sundown, but we made it, nonetheless.
"Oh my god! Aspen!"
Kenna gasps, running over to give him a big hug.
"I'm okay."
He rasps.
"I'm fine, okay? I'm fine."
"Thank you for walking back with him."
She speaks, looking at me.
"It's no problem at all."
I say.
Aspen smiles, ruffling my hair.
"We're pals, he would never leave my crippled ass."
The tied up man was placed next to where Addalyn was starting the fire for tonight. As we all settled down and clean ourselves up, he spent a majority of the time glaring at us and muttering things that were unrecognizable through the gag in his mouth.
I was close to falling asleep beside Aspen, if I'm being honest. All the running had really taken a toll on my body, and I felt physically sick. My muscles and bones needed rest, anything that would calm my brain down for a little while.
Miss Alexa told stories about her time in a community by the name of Prescott. She talked about a boy named Codie and a woman named Emmy, and how she was with them when it all began to fall apart.
Apparently, they had all scattered around and were miles away from each other before Prescott's leader, Tripp, was able to bring them back together with a man named Javier.
I threw up during the rest of her story, so I'm not quite sure what happened or why she's not with them anymore, and by the time Queen was ushering me to go sleep in the tent, my ears had blocked out any sound coming from next to the fire.
After a few moments of sitting down on the blankets in the tent, heavily breathing, the tent unzips and Aspen comes in, closing the entrance behind him.
"Hey, just wanted to make sure you were doing okay."
"I'll probably be dead in the morning."
I joke.
He chuckles, kicking off his shoes and socks before carefully lying down next to me.
"Is it the baby?"
"I think I over did myself today."
I speak, pulling my sneakers off.
"Death is upon us."
"Quit it, bluebird."
He sighs.
"Nothing is going to happen to you, I'll make sure of it."
Once my socks are off, I climb under the covers and lie down on my back.
"Where are you from?"
"Vermont."
He rasps, yawning.
"Stayed there for a little while before making my way down here."
"I was born in Louisiana, but I grew up in Georgia."
"You've certainly come a long way."
"Even though I have to do it so much now-a-days, I can't help but love traveling."
I say, beginning to yawn myself.
"It's sorta like drinking fresh cold water on a boiling hot day..."
"Refreshing."
"Yeah!"
I nod.
"Refreshing."
Turning on his side, he slowly places his hand under my shirt and gently begins to rub my tummy.
"Is that okay, love?"
"That's okay."
I whisper, finding warmth and comfort under his touch.
"Goodnight, bluebird."
He coos, kissing my forehead before I close my eyes and let out a small sigh.
"Goodnight, Aspen."
❈ ❈
Hi, loves!
Let's chat for just a quick moment. I know you guys are probably like, "Oh my god, Kenz, why are you making him pregnant????". To answer your question, there's a certain plot line that I made up before I even started writing this book, and I'm determined to stick to it rather than changing it, because then it would defeat the whole purpose of how things have happened so far. If you're not interested in Sage being pregnant, please do not feel obligated to read this, I completely understand!
Thank you for 900+! I'm so happy with how this has turned out so far!
A very special happy early birthday to my angel, PrinceMicaiah! It's not until the seventeenth, but since this is the only update this week, I thought I'd go ahead and say it. Happy birthday, love, I can't believe you're already turning sixteen! Every moment I'm able to spend with you is absolutely magnificent and not a day goes by that I don't wanna hear all your cheesy jokes! I love you so so much... to the moon and back... and then some, baby bear. ♡♡
Kenna is pictured in this chapter. A true princess.
Lots and lots and lots of love,
x x Kenz 🖤