Gunshots and snarls continued to increase around our train car as more time passed by. Screams and cries for help of the Terminus people echoed, but if they wanted our help they wouldn't have done this to us. Karma. I grit my teeth and scraped my wooden knife harder onto a metal groove in the floor to make it sharper.
"What's the cure, Eugene." Sasha asked slowly, completely out of the blue. Her eyebrows knit together as she crouched down next to Eugene who was still trying to break the hinges with a shotgun shell.
The longer we had been stuck in here the more aggravated we've all gotten. Sasha decided she needed answers right at this time as if we weren't on edge enough. But the word cure piqued my interest. Was that what the whispers of DC was all about?
"Not right now, Sash." Noah spoke for the first time. He didn't look at her as he moped in the corner. He sounded tired, defeated almost.
Eugene answered regardless. "It's classified." He stated in his monotone voice not bothering to look at the woman behind him.
"You don't know what's going to happen." Sasha tried again in a stern voice and I rolled my eyes. If he really did have a cure for this fucked up world I doubt it was easy to explain. If she wanted answers we could get them later despite her threats.
"You leave him be." Abraham chimed from behind her while wrapping a wooden dagger to his fist. It wasn't a request.
"We need to keep working." Maggie drawled pointedly to Sasha while walking toward the three of them with another piece of sharp wood in her hands.
"Yeah, but it's time to hear it. 'Cause we don't know what's coming next." Sasha spoke quickly while keeping her eyes locked onto the back of Eugene's head. Her brows were high on her forehead testing his patience.
"What's next is we get out of this." Tara insisted. She looked down at Sasha with her own eyebrows raised asking for her to try him again. I did my best to contain my smirk.
"Even if I told you all, even if I provided step-by-step instructions complete with illustrations and a well composed FAQ and I went red-ring," Eugene paused to look over at Sasha. "The cure would still die with me."
"I'm not gonna let that happen." Abraham chimed admiring his new dagger. They looked at each other for a moment, you could see how strong their bond was.
My face fell, if Eugene really was the only hope of a cure I now understood why Abraham protected him so much. I could see how Abraham was threatened by me those few days ago. If they had just brought home a stranger that had ill intentions to hurt them, they could've possibly killed the man with the cure and not even know it. That same fear was playing out as we spoke, locked inside a crate waiting to be made into burgers. Nevertheless, I didn't care what Sasha was attempting. We were all getting out of here in one piece, and Eugene was getting to Washington.
The man with the cure continued. "The best case scenario; we step out into a hellstorm of bullets, fire, and walkers. I'm not fleet of foot. I sure as hell can't take a dead one down with sharp buttons and hella confidence." Eugene explained quickly how he couldn't fight, especially with our makeshift weapons. He said it in his funny lingo but I got the gist of it all. I glanced down at my pointed plank of wood and sighed.
"Yeah, but we can and we will." Michonne said from his left.
I couldn't quite see from the corner of the room but she created some sort of long weapon, a mimic of her katana. I lifted my own knife up to the light streaming in from the corner behind me. I did my best to examine it through the dark and began to scrape out a large bump in its side.
"You don't owe us anything. Not yet." Sasha told Eugene. She rose up tall and looked down at him sternly. "But we just want to hear it."
"You don't have to." Rosita's quiet voice stood up for Eugene, which was a first. They exchanged a look before Eugene dropped his head in defeat. He squeezed his eyes shut in a moment of frustration before rising.
I had never seen that side of him even if it was only for a second. He faced Sasha now eye level with her. His expression was cold as he scanned around to the rest of us, then he began to speak over gunfire.
"I was part of a ten person team at The Human Genome Project to weaponize diseases to fight weaponized diseases." Eugene let out a huff. My jaw opened slightly while Michonne straightened and crossed her arms. She looked skeptical but he continued unfazed. "Pathogenic microorganisms with pathogenic microorganisms. Fire with fire. Interdepartmental drinks were had, relationships made, information shared. I am keenly aware of all the details behind fail-safe delivery systems to kill every living person on this planet. I believe with a little tweaking on the terminals in DC, we can flip the script. Take out every last dead one of them. Fire with fire." He said again.
Abraham nodded his head, Eugene's words only strengthening their bond and his need to survive. Carl's eyes were absolutely glowing from the other corner of the train. Another scream sounded beyond our cart, but Eugene continued again.
"All things being equal, it does sound pretty badass." He chimed proudly, a huge smirk gliding across his face.
I snorted at his last point but quickly covered my mouth once nobody else giggled.
Sasha's angry expression hadn't even changed with the information, however she did seem to have stopped breathing.
"So let's get back to work." Maggie said plainly.
Before we could turn back to our preparations rustling from the train car door sent us all into the air, caught off guard. Carl scrambled to his feet and so did I.
Suddenly, the door slammed open and my heart dropped, but this time in a good way. Rick stood in the door frame, to our rescue. He looked angry and fierce and completely drenched in sweat, and I had never been more happy to see him.
However, behind him was a war zone. Debris filled the air from the multiple roaring fires and the rain of bullets. A massive horde of walkers swarmed the warehouse behind him. Daryl, Glenn, and Bob all fired stolen rifles into the undead while bearing determined faces splattered with blood. Despite their tattered appearance, they were all here and they were all alive.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rick and the boys came to save the day! Seems pretty risky though. Anyways, I wanted to make these few chapters a bit softer than the previous ones. All that chasing and fighting and running and bleh. Exhausting! Lol.
Now Avery knows about the cure and that's pretty exciting. What do you think is gunna happen next? Will anyone get hurt? Will Carl have to sweep Avery off her feet to safety? That would be cute lol. Let me know what you predict and what you think so far!
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Love you all, happy reading.