A/N: My indents are not working properly, so I apologize if some or all of my paragraphs aren't indented.

          Two

         The sound of the ATV fades in the distance much quicker than I expected. Occasionally Jagger will take my hand and help me up the incline that grows steeper and steeper, but it’s easier for the both of us if we walk on the skinny path one in front of the other. Bullet keeps up easily, either following behind me or in front of Jagger to scout everything out, and his courage motivates me to keep going. If a dog can do it, so can I.

         “There was another reason I wanted to walk with you,” Jagger says, falling slightly behind and closer to me. I have to slow my pace to not run into him. “I wanted to know if you wanted to talk about some things.”

         I take a few steps and grit my teeth when my foot slides down on the dirt and rocks. “It’s kind of hard to talk and walk right now,” I say quietly.

         “Okay.” He sounds disappointed. “Later, then?”

         I nod and realize that he can’t see me. “Sure.”

         I don’t know what things he wants to talk about to me specifically, but after everything that’s happened over the last while – whether days, weeks or months; I have no idea – we will never run out of things to talk about. But we might just find things that one of us doesn’t want to.

         The most recent is what Jack said to me, to ask the others about him and that we know each other. I haven’t had a single memory with him yet, and despite being quite devastated that he’s gone, devoured by the zombies to end his life because he was unhappy and also to save the rest of us, I do want to know.

         On top of that there are the memories with Jagger, the connection between us that he never talked about. This entire time I’ve been trying to piece together my life and hoping to remember and he consistently lied to me. It was Emily who gave me the photograph of him and I before the zombies killed her. I had been her friend too, and she lied, but I can’t bring her back from the dead.

         By the time the sound of the ATV returns darkness is beginning to consume the forest. Each shadow made by a tree or bush has grown three times its side and we have to constantly swat mosquitos away from our faces. Bullet bites at them, eating a few, but I’m too tired to explain to him why it’s disgusting.

         We had taken a few breaks to catch our breath and wipe away our sweat, and I had guzzled down the water bottle every few minutes, leaving nothing left. When Reed comes into view, he jerks around from the growth and pulls to a stop in front of us. He doesn’t kill the engine.

         “Are you sure you don’t want to go first?” I ask Jagger over the sound. “I can just wait here.”

         He brushes his thumb across my cheek and wipes the smudge of dirt on his jeans. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re going first.”

         “Do you want to keep Bullet with you?”

         Jagger smirks and pulls a fist out of his pocket. When he opens it, little, cylinder canisters are scattered over his skin. “I already have some.”

         He helps Reed lift Bullet over the walls of the small, metal trailer and I coax Bullet into lying down. His eyes look anxious as he lowers his head onto his paws and looks up at me, and I suddenly wish there was more room in the small container for me to sit with him.

         “Are you sure?” I repeat. Reed is waiting impatiently but he doesn’t say anything though he occasionally revs the engine.

         Jagger places his lips on my forehead. They feel warm. “I’ll be fine,” he says when he pulls away. “I have my gun, I have some energy left. If I need to, I’ll sit down.”

         I frown but squeeze his hand once before moving away.  He watches me climb onto the ATV behind Reed and grip the bars beside me.

         “You should probably hold onto me,” Reed says. I look to Jagger but even though I don’t think he can hear Reed, he nods.

         “I barely know you,” I snap.

         Reed shrugs. “If you want to fall off, go right ahead.”

         I glare at the back of his head and uncomfortably wrap my arms around his waist. I glance towards Jagger who’s staring with his arms folded over his chest. He doesn’t look mad at all – but he doesn’t look happy, either.

         The ATV is a bumpier ride than I anticipated. I try to push memories forward to pass the time, trying to see if I’ve ever been on one, but nothing comes to mind. As soon as we start going steeper uphill I have to grip Reed’s tan shirt tighter to stop myself from sliding back.

         My eyes droop as darkness fills the forest. The bright, orange sun glitters through the thinner brush to the right, but it doesn’t provide any direct light. Reed has to turn the headlights on when we reach a flatter, uphill path. I take my chance to turn around and check on Bullet. Though he looks very unhappy with the situation, he appears to be perfectly okay.

         Eventually I have to rest my head against Reed’s upper back to protect my eyes and face from long branches. They scratch my skin, only bringing up blood in a few places. He doesn’t say anything the entire drive up towards the safe house, but occasionally grabs onto my right wrist when we go over rocks or fallen logs. I don’t thank him for making sure I’m not going anywhere, but I don’t move his hand away either.

         Dim lights come up on the trail in the distance when the ground starts to lower itself. I’m no longer tilting full on backwards and sliding, but rather almost upright. I squint through the dark, trying to see if this is where we’re going when a log cabin comes into view.

         The lighting comes from the three square windows on the front of the log building. There’s a cute little porch that wraps around the each of the walls with a staircase on each side. The trees keep the small area completely secluded, so when we pull to a stop in the dark and Reed cuts the engine, the area is completely silent.

            “I told Cole where everything is in the house,” Reed says, swinging a leg over the ATV so he’s sitting on it sideways. “He can show you what you need and take care of you and your dog.”

            I nod and climb off the vehicle, wobbling on my feet. My head swirls, my vision teetering in the darkness. Reed catches my arm and grabs hold of me before I stumble to the ground, righting me into his side before I can process what’s happened.

            “You’re dehydrated. It’s harder to tell your vision isn’t normal in the dark,” he says, still gripping my arm. His hold loosens slightly. “On top of that, you look like you’ve been walking in the desert for days. You need to take it easy.”

            Reed gets to his feet on the dirt beside me and holds me up by my arm. He lets me go once I’m leaning against the seat of the ATV and then helps an embarrassed, whimpering Bullet out of the trailer. When he comes back for me, the front porch door swings open.

            “Need some help?” Cole asks, leaning his forearms on the wooden railing. For a moment, I squint in the darkness and try to make sure it’s him. He doesn’t look the same.

            “I wouldn’t leave her alone, and don’t let her fall asleep until Jagger and I get back. I need to assess her,” Reed explains. He walks me towards the stairs, his arm around my back to help me and hands me to Cole who meets us at the bottom of the stairs. “You’ll be okay taking care of her?”

            Cole smirks. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

            He replaces Reed’s arm with his own and helps me up the stairs while Bullet trots beside us.  Reed lingers for a moment, and when I don’t hear the engine, I turn around. He’s leaning against the ATV, watching us. For a brief moment our eyes meet, and then he starts it up and takes off., leaving Cole and I outside on the porch.

☣

            I scoop the water into my palm and stare down at it as it quickly spills out of the cracks between my fingers. The droplets fall into the bathtub, creating little ripples in the water. It’s my third bath within half an hour. Without a shower head, the first one was used to get all of the mud off of my skin and completely clean me. The second was to wash the sticks and sand from my filthy hair, and the third, which I soak in now, is simply to enjoy my first official bath since waking up at the bottom of my stairs.

            Someone knocks their knuckles on the bathroom door and I lift my head.

            “Sloane?” Cole calls gently. “Are you okay? I’m not supposed to leave you alone.”

            Bullet pants from the edge of the tub, his nose hanging over towards me. I haven’t washed him but the fur on the top of his head is in spikes from my wet hands giving him a new hairstyle.

            “I’m not alone,” I say back, finger-combing my hair into a braid over my left shoulder. “And I’m okay.”

            “Good.” He’s silent but I don’t hear any footsteps on the floorboards. I let my hands sink into the water and stare down at them, flipping them over and over again, trying to think of how they looked to my old self. “I think I just saw headlights coming through the woods,” he finally says.

            “Could you ask Reed if he has any extra clothes?” I ask him, my gaze trailing over the ripped and muddy dress sitting on the floor. I had noticed that Cole looked different because not only was he clean, but he also wasn’t wearing fabric that hung together by threads.

            “Will do.”

            I listen to him leave down the main room and sink into the bath, lying on my back so that my chin just touches the water. Everything about this cabin seems ancient and put together, being the only thing untouched I’ve seen since the zombie apocalypse broke out. Red and brown rugs cover the wooden floors, matching the couches, the drapes, the blankets – everything. It’s as if someone decorated it perfectly, not putting one thing out of place.

            I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath of air before sinking as deep as I can. The water floats my hair beside me, causing the strands to tickle my skin. For a few moments, everything is quiet. It’s as if I didn’t guzzle down four bottles of water when I arrived and threw it back up, as if I wasn’t lying unconscious in the tunnels, as if none of this really happened at all.

            As I surface, I don’t open my eyes.

            “Sloane!”

            My breath flies out of my lungs and my eyes open as quickly as I sit up, making sure that my head is the only thing appearing above the bathtub’s wall. My heart beats rapidly in my chest as I stare at Jagger, one hand on the door while the other is beside him, each finger spread wide. He looks completely shocked and I can barely hear myself ask.

            “What’s wrong?” I spit out. “Are there zombies? Are you okay?”

            Jagger looks frozen until his wide eyes blink. He shakes his head. “No,” he whispers. “No, I thought something…When I knocked and said your name, you didn’t answer and I thought something happened. To you.”

            My voice is barely audible. “I’m fine.”

            His eyes don’t leave mine until there’s another knock at the door and I do everything I can to not roll my eyes.

            “Can I come in?” Reed’s voice asks from the other side of the door.

            Jagger’s expression hardens.

            “No,” he says, just as I say yes.

            He gives me a look as Reed tries to walk in, but Jagger keeps his hand firm on the wood.

            “Well, I heard a yes, so here,” Reed says, sticking an arm in that’s holding a pile of neatly folded fabric, “are your clothes.” He places them on the counter behind Jagger, not even coming in far enough for me to see his face. The most I see is his shoulder.

            Once he’s gone, I rest my chin on my hand and scratch Bullet underneath his chin. “He could only see as much as you could,” I say as I avoid his eye contact. Between Bullet standing practically in front of me and the wall of the bathtub, the most they could see would be what I saw of Reed.

            Jagger looks even more agitated than before. “That was the problem.”

            He tells me to meet him outside and closes the door tightly behind me. A sigh escapes my lips as I sit in the water, staring down at my hands again. I don’t want to get out but the water is no longer luke warm, and I have questions to ask.

            I dry myself off in towels much too white for me to feel comfortable using after the amount of brown that I washed from my skin and dress in flannel pajama bottoms too big for my legs. The red t-shirt fits me better than I think and I fix my braid before empting the bathtub. Before I leave, I stare at myself in the mirror, blocking out the sounds of Bullet’s panting.

            My chocolate brown eyes look hardened, no longer the same curious, pretty things I had stared at in the mirror of my home the day I woke up. My hair, though mostly clean, is still uncut and unkempt. Instead of asking for a brush I weaved through the knots with my fingers, creating a messy braid that hangs to the bottom of my chest.

            The sound of the screen door hitting the frame tears me away and I head out into the living room, feeling every grain in the wood on my bare feet. Cole and Reed are nowhere to be found as I open the door and head out onto the deck. I find Jagger leaning forward against the railing, staring out into the darkness of the forest. He turns to look at me as I walk over, still shoeless.

            “I’m sorry,” he says as I rest my elbows on the railing. “About earlier. I shouldn’t have barged in. These past few days have been really crazy.” He gestures to the woods around us. “This whole place seems surreal. I feel like I’m living in one of my dreams.”

            I smile a little. “I know the feeling.”

            “How was your bath?”

            “I haven’t felt anything quite like it,” I smirk. “Nothing can compare to the feeling of clean after weeks of being covered in grime.”

            Jagger laughs and turns back towards where he was facing earlier. “I’m looking forward to my own.”

            Still getting back from my dehydration, I lean against the wood for support and resist the urge to sit down and rest. “I want to know what happened,” I start, trying to sort my foggy dreams and barely conscious memories into order. “How did Reed find us?”

            “I think that’s a question for Reed to answer,” he replies honestly, gesturing slightly with his hands just hanging off of the railing. “I don’t know how to answer on my own. He explained a bit, but I still don’t understand completely.”

            “So he saved us,” I state.

            Jagger nods. “He did.”

            I don’t say anything, not knowing what questions to ask for Jagger and not Reed. Despite being skeptical of him, I vow to ask him everything I need to know tomorrow. It seems like he holds the answers to what happened down underground in the tunnels. I also want to know how he survived this long, and what happened to Fort Saunders. This tiny cottage certainly cannot be it.

            “Do you want to talk about what happened in the elementary school?” Jagger murmurs, not meeting my eyes. He knows that whole day is a sore subject to all of us, but it’s something that we can’t just simply forget.

            After getting dressed, I returned my belongings to my new pockets, not wanting to leave them with my tattered dress. I don’t know what part of that day Jagger is addressing, or if he means it all. Between the body, what I said to him and what happened with Jack, there isn’t much wiggle room for non-touchy subjects.

            I pull the photograph out of my pocket and hand it to Jagger without looking. It takes him a second to notice and he grabs it between his thumb and finger, meeting my gaze with cautious eyes, as if he’s asking if he can look. As he holds it in front of him, I turn away.

             I wonder if he remembers that day, or if when I knew who I was, I remembered too. I wonder if it was special, if we had fun and it was a favorite memory of mine or if it was just any old day. Not remembering is frustrating, but after becoming who I am today, I don’t know if remembering would make a difference. I’m a different person now. I’m not going to change.

            Jagger slides the picture across the railing without a word. I return it to my pocket, mimicking his silence because I don’t know what to say. Though I have questions, I don’t feel it’s right to ask them. I feel like I’m looking back on an old life, one that doesn’t matter anymore. Right now, what matters is that everyone lied.

            “Emily gave it to me,” I say quietly, looking out at the trees as if Jagger isn’t beside me. “Right before she died. We had a deal.” Jagger still doesn’t speak, but I can feel him listening. I keep talking, telling him what I already told Cole. “If I didn’t tell anyone she was bit when we raided Wal-Mart, she would give me a piece of my life in exchange.”

            “She gave you a pretty big piece,” Jagger hisses through clenched teeth.

            I turn to him, suddenly confident in myself. “Why are you angry?”

            “I’m not mad.” His voice is just as clipped as before.

            “I didn’t say you were mad,” I state. “I asked why you were angry.”

            “I’m not angry,” he corrects.

            I raise my eyebrows. “Why are you acting this way?”

            Jagger shakes his head, not responding. His fingers grip the wood of the railing so tightly that his knuckles begin to turn white, even in the dim lighting.

            I keep pressing what’s going on with him. “Shouldn’t I be the one who’s acting this way? You lied to me about my old life, you told me you didn’t know me. And in the end? We were together, Jagger. Why are you the one who is upset?”

            Without a word, he rips his hands from their grip and spins around. He ignores me completely, stomping off towards the front door of the cottage. The screen door closes with a bang, and all I’m left with is a foreign photograph and the night.