As much as I wanted to get caught up with everybody, we needed to address what was happening now. Jeremy and I had been shot at in the middle of the night yesterday.

"What did Deuce tell you?" I asked Jeremy.

A group of us were sitting around in the common area discussing the event and everything we knew.

"Deuce said that Daniel came running up to the shutters and tried to open them, but when Deuce got in his way he knocked their heads together. Deuce went unconscious and Daniel must have run out." Jeremy explained.

"Wait, Daniel shot at you guys?" Fletch questioned.

The guy had only been around for a few days and suddenly he was shooting at me? It didn't make sense to me either.

"I don't get it, I hardly talked to the guy. Why would he want to kill us?"

Ahren interjects. "How long was he here for?"

Fletch shrugs. "I don't know, maybe three days?"

"Who would want Sasha or Jeremy dead?"

I sigh. We'd had our fair share of encounters with people who'd rather not see me alive... As for Jeremy, I have no idea... Knowing all the things his parents did, I could imagine there'd be quite a few people that might want his head, unless they were all dead. 

"Well, there are the people who killed Trent..." I start to say.

"Sasha, you know what my parents did..." Jeremy starts explaining.

I nod. I knew all too well... I lost my trigger finger over it.

"My parents were horrible people." He tells them. Images of me standing over Coraline's body and kicking Doug's knee in flash through my mind. "There have been people like Sasha, ones who escaped. One of them could have tried getting revenge." He explains.

Jasper interrupts. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened to your parents?"

Jeremy and I exchange a wary look.

I had yet to talk about it. When Jasper asked about my hand this morning, I'd told him I didn't want to talk about it. Ahren had continuously looked at it but every time I caught him, he quickly looked away.

"They're dead." I answer succinctly.

"Like, 'for sure dead' or 'we think they're dead but maybe they'll show up a few years later'?" Jasper asked, his gaze meeting mine.

Was he trying to accuse me of something? Was he mad that I didn't know Graham wasn't dead? Did he think I'd been lying to him this whole time?

Jeremy answers. "They're for sure dead."

"So this Daniel guy, he's just been following you or something?" Graham asks.

His voice throws me off for a second, still seeming so unreal that he was standing among us.

Jeremy shrugs. "I don't know, maybe. It's just a hunch."

"And if he's not by himself, what's the plan? He could be on his way with reinforcements." Frankie pitches.

It was interesting to see her more involved with the affair than she would have been before she was out there for so long. What had she been through that changed her so much?

"We defend this place as always." I assure them.

"What happens if we're not enough?" Jeremy asks.

"Things could go south, we might need another plan." Jasper adds.

Ahren nods in agreement.

Graham speaks up. "You guys have fought groups before, right?"

I nod. "And we can do it again."

"But at what cost? It was twenty-seven lives last time." Jasper says.

What was going on? Suddenly everybody had turned against me.

"We still don't know what this was, it could have been an isolated attack." Fletch interjects.

Well, everybody except Fletch and Graham has seemed to turn against me.

Things go quiet for a moment.

"What did you guys find out there?" I ask, looking between Jasper and Ahren.

Jasper looks between me and Graham. "Why don't you ask your ex-boyfriend?"

What the hell? I squint my eyes and glare at him. What is he so pissed about?

I haven't seen Graham in what must have been years, so what was Jasper going on about?

Graham clears his throat awkwardly.

I turn to face him, my expression going blank. "What did you guys find?"

Graham is staring at Jasper, a numb look on his face before he looks at me. "There's a group of communities in northern Idaho."

Idaho? Who the hell goes to Idaho?

"Last time I was there it was four communities." Graham says.

"How long ago was that?" I ask.

"Maybe two months ago... I floated around there for a while though. I went between the communities, in and out for a few months." He explains. "They fought the dead and the living, and won every time."

"What type of communities?" Fletch asks.

"There's the boarding school community which is mostly younger people. Another in a trailer park, a lot families. One is an enclosed city and the last is a big farm community. They've got farms, water sources, electricity. It's as close to the way things were as I've ever seen. Although your guys'd setup is pretty nice."

"Idaho is about a 9 hour drive away. Maybe 10 days walking?" Ahren adds.

"It's good to know that there are other people building things like us." Frankie says.

I nod. We'd built this up from nothing. It still wasn't much but we had enough rations to last a while and we'd stuck around for this long.

"We'll keep going like we have been. Just post extra guards, we'll shift in pairs now." I announce, making my decision.

"Sasha, you were shot at last night! Don't you think we should do more than nothing?" Jasper exclaims.

I shake my head. "As of right now, this was a one-man job. We can't waste manpower on an isolated incident. If he comes back, there are way more of us than there are of him."

As I finish my sentence, my hand begins to throb. I grab my bandaged hand. "I'm going to get more pain meds."

With that, I leave the group and head towards the infirmary.

I hear someone following me but I don't stop for them. Instead they catch up to me.

Ahren is by my side. "Have you visited Ahri lately?"

I hadn't. With everything else... I'd just been waiting for her to fully recover.

I shake my head.

Ahren sighs. "She was asking about you earlier today."

"How is she?"

"Dr. Kings says she's doing well and she seems to be getting better everyday. She's just so weak right now..." He says, shaking his head.

I don't say anything as we keep walking.

"How did it happen?" Ahren asks, pulling me to the side of the walkway.

I finally meet his eyes and see that he's tearing up. I soften at the sight.

"It started as a few people going to the infirmary feeling sick. In one day things just got horrible." I relay the events to him, reliving it all. "In one day we had upwards of twenty people go into the infirmary. Ahri was one of them."

"She went in there, by herself." I said, starting to tear up. "I couldn't be there for her. I didn't know what was going to happen. I thought she was going to die." I finally admit it to myself.

I didn't think she would make it. The odds of her survival were against her and it scared me.
I threw myself into any distraction I could find. It got me shot in the hand.

Ahren puts his arms around me and suddenly we're both crying.

"But, she's fine." I choke out.

I feel Ahren nod against my shoulder.

When we pull apart and wipe our tears away, Ahren speaks. "Ever since what happened with Cat, I felt like I needed to take care of her."

I felt that way too. Her voice was always in the back of my mind telling me that I needed to take care of Ahri for her.

"I think we need her just as much as she needs us." I say with a short laugh.

Ahren chuckles and nods. "I think so."

A/N: I'm finally back! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I've been super busy since starting volleyball season and school getting back in session. But, volleyball is officially over! I'll have more time to write and I can't wait to get back into it. I've some great ideas but I wanna know what you guys wanna see next! Put in the comments what you'd like to see happen and I'll see what I can do ;) stay tuned for more work coming soon! I may even publish something new... so make sure you're following me for updates on everything!

~Xx THΔT RΣDΠΣCҜ