WHITE FLAG

chapter sixty : the three questions
[ season four - episode thirteen ]

THE MOMENT KLOE'S eyes shot open, she sat up so quickly that it made her dizzy -- but she didn't care, not in the slightest. Absentmindedly, her mouth mumbled out 'no' repeatedly.

A hot tear escaped her left eye as she stared into space, seeing nothing but a wall made out of wood. A wall. Out of wood. Every muscle in her body tensed up as she realized she wasn't where she had passed out the night before.

The morning light seeped through the windows. She figured she had slept through the entire night -- but that wasn't the case. She looked down to what she was laying on, and it was a couch.

The couch was made out of brown leather, and it was the type where you'd stick to it if you wore shorts. She hated that feeling. Kloe released a small sob as the memory of Vickie dying in her arms came back to her.

"I got you water," a voice that Kloe didn't recognize said as she entered the small living room that had been abandoned. Kloe snapped her head over to the person, her hand subconsciously reaching down for her knife. Her heart sank when she noticed that there was nothing to grab -- not even her thigh holster.

The person was a girl, possibly in her early twenties just like she was, maybe younger. She had dark brunette hair that draped down to just below her shoulders. She wore a forest green long coat that stopped at her thighs. Underneath her coat, she wore a plain, rusted white tee. For pants, she had black leggings.

In her right hand, she held a cup of water. "You should really drink this. You're dehydrated." As she went to place down the water, her body tensed up when she saw the cold glares the other woman sent her.

"Who the hell are you?" Kloe seethed. "How did I get here?"

"You were out cold near the creek and a dozen roamers were on their way to eat your ass. I had to drag you here," the girl responded truthfully. "You were very loud, by the way. Anyone could've heard your screams from a mile away."

"Okay..." Kloe said, still not daring to look away from the unknownst girl. "Who are you?"

"Uh-- sorry, I'm Reina...Salazar," the girl, Reina, answered. She shifted weight onto her other leg as she awaited for what Kloe had to say next.

"Alright, Reina Salazar, I want you to answer these three questions, then you can talk about anything else after," Kloe told her, sticking to one of the main rules the prison council had made after Rick suggested it. The Salazar girl nodded in return, waiting for the questions Kloe had for her. "Okay,

How many walkers have you killed?"

"Oh-- Um-- I don't usually keep count... but maybe twenty? Maybe a bit over twenty," Reina responded truthfully while Kloe kept her hard gaze on the girl's expression, making sure to spot the change in her face if she lied or something.

"How many people have you killed?"

Reina's eyes widened ever so slightly, her lips parting as she immediately avoided eye contact, looking down at her black converse sneakers. "One. Only one."

"Why?"

Her breath hitched in her throat, catching onto the lump that formed. She tried her hardest to swallow it down, but she just couldn't. "Um...because-- because she shot herself in the shoulder... And while she was sleeping, I--" She cut herself off, biting down on her bottom lip before she looked back up at Kloe. "She wasn't going to make it, and we couldn't risk going to sleep that night in case she turned. So I was the one that had to put her out of her misery..."

Sympathy and sorrow instantly flooded Kloe. As much as she was one of the reasons why she and her group asked the three questions, she hated asking them. But she knew she had to -- she knew she had to know if Reina was a supposed serial killer.

"I'm sorry," Kloe muttered out. "How long was I out for?" she questioned as she hesitantly reached for the water. She nervously took a sip, being cautious. But once the liquid reached her tongue, she no longer was hesitant and began to drink mouthfuls of it.

"About three days."

Kloe felt herself choke on the water as her eyes broadened. After two seconds of mildly choking, she swallowed the liquid and stared across at Reina. "Three days?"

"Yes, three days. I've been giving you water and stuff. But I don't know how to feed an unconscious person, so..." she trailed off, taking a moment's pause before continuing. "I think it's from that bullet wound in your arm... It got infected. I gave you some medicine and stitched it up, and I think it worked since you're up and haven't commented on it yet."

Kloe's eyes traveled down to her, seeing how the hole on her arm was no longer a hole -- but a wound that was stitched and healing. She lightly grazed her fingers over it before looking back up at the girl. "Thanks..."

Reina pursed her lips and nodded. They both sat in silence for a few moments before the fact that Kloe had been out for three days. Three days. She still had to find her family. Her group. Her sister. Her brother. Her husband.

Kloe felt her heart pick up its pace as she stood up hastily, stepping over to the front door where she spotted her belongings. "Where are you going?" Reina asked from behind her.

"I need to find my group. My family," she answered honestly as she tied her thigh holster around her leg. "I really hope you're not gonna be one of those who try to stop me."

"No... I'm not going to stop you," Reina stated. "Can I come with you?"

Kloe froze, her eyes staring solemnly at the ground beneath her. She gulped as she finished adjusting her holster. She turned around to face Reina and she vividly shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea..."

"Why?" Reina wondered, her brows brushing together with confusion. "The more people, the more chances we have of surviving this hell-like world."

"No-- I'm not having someone else die because of my relentless acts again," Kloe shakily reasoned, a lump now forming in her throat. Before, Kloe couldn't stand the feeling of being alone. It was as if the tables had been flipped. Now, she couldn't stand the feeling of being with someone.

Perhaps she was better off alone.

"Sure, I've been taking care of your ass for the last few days just so you can walk out and pretend I don't exist. Hell, I don't even know your name. Just-- please. You may like being alone and doing things independently. But me? I'm just some reckless twenty-year-old that lost her family not so long ago and has been alone since. Then I find you and possibly have a chance of finding a new family. And you're just gonna up and leave?" Reina ranted, a pure sense of sadness filling her eyes as they glossed over.

Kloe only watched the girl, feeling the pity begin to flow through her veins within every second. Kloe had no idea what losing her entire family felt like -- she never wanted to feel it either. So seeing this girl in front of her who had saved her life begging, almost on her knees, put her in a sticky position.

She either had to take the risk and allow the Salazar girl to join her in her search for her family, or she had to be heartless and leave the poor girl by herself.

She couldn't bear the thought of being heartless.

"I guess I have to pay you back somehow," Kloe mumbled, giving in. Reina sent the other woman a genuine and thankful smile before Kloe added,

"And it's Kloe. My name's Kloe Rhee."

...

Five hours had passed since the pair started their long journey. The majority of the time Kloe had been silent. She led the way, so she was in front of the other girl.

The first few hours were a lot for the Rhee woman. She silently cried, not daring to look in any other direction other than in front of her. Half of it was from the sadness and grief of losing Vickie Parson -- a woman she had known all of her life and saw as a second mother. But the other part was the horrific nightmare she had.

It was a memory but twisted into a nightmare. It was one of her happiest memories -- the day Vickie and her family surprised her with her signature bow. But now, whenever she thought about it, all she could see was the snippets of the corrupted dream.

She saw how her father laid there, lifeless, just how she imagined him to look like when he died when she was younger. She saw her mother, sick, dying, fragile. She saw things she wished she never saw. Things that traumatized her.

The way the two closest people to her were ashamed of her. Disappointed in her. And the way four people appeared out of nowhere, one of them being someone who was close to her, another two being the men she never wanted to face again, and the other being someone she had no idea what he looked like.

It all hit her like a ton of bricks the second she woke up. She had bottled it inside, only letting a small part of it out as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. After an hour of it though, she went back to being solemn.

Her brain begged her to let it all out, but she couldn't. There was too much of it, too much for just one day of tears.

Currently, the pair were walking along train tracks, seeing that they were the only chance they had unless they walked into roads that led to the places they didn't need to go.

Kloe knew deep down that no one in her group would've left Georgia -- not without knowing if there were still others alive. Kloe stared down at her ground, watching her shoes step forward subconsciously.

She heard the footsteps of Reina Salazar behind her, but she couldn't find the gut to speak. That was until the younger woman decided to start a conversation. "Who exactly are we looking for?"

Kloe snapped her head up to the side to face the girl, and Reina swore she could see puffiness in the woman's eyes. "My group. Didn't I already say that or was I dreaming?" Kloe replied simply, ignoring the concerned gaze Reina held.

"Yes, you did say that..." Reina returned, "but I can tell that you're looking for some of them in particular." Her eyes dropped down to the woman's right hand and pointed at it, "The ring."

Kloe's brown eyes lowered down to her hand, the shimmery jewel wrapped around her ring finger reflecting off the light from above them. She felt her heart sink as she imagined Glenn saying the exact words to her in her dream.

"You're more determined to find whoever you're married to first before the rest of your group, aren't you?" Reina wondered, guessing correctly with every word she said.

After a few seconds of nothing but silence, Kloe nodded solemnly. She felt the sadness threatening to spill out of her eyes, but she somehow managed to push it back down again as she looked back up at the girl. "I know he's alive. I can feel it."

"We'll find him, alright?" Reina said supportively, sending the woman a small smile.

"I know. I promised him I'd find him the last time I saw him. He was on a bus with other members of our group. Me and... the woman I was with found the bus and everyone was...dead. But he wasn't in there," Kloe explained, and it felt like a hammer had slashed down onto her heart the second she mentioned Vickie.

"The woman," Reina started, causing Kloe to seal her eyes shut as she battled the tears in her eyes, "is she the person you were with before you passed out? The reason you didn't want me to come with you was because something happened to her?"

Kloe nodded instantly, opening her eyes again as she turned back to face the girl. "Yes. Yes, it is. Now can we please not talk about that?" Kloe pleaded.

Reina's face fell into a look of sorrow. "I'm sorry. I get carried away sometimes..." she apologized, turning her head to the side as she looked ahead of her.

"I'm also looking for my brother... and my sister," Kloe added, also looking ahead of her as they continued to walk along the rails. Reina turned her head back to the side to face her. "Right now, the main priority for me is to find them three. After that is when I'll look for the rest of the group if they haven't found them already."

"So, we're looking for your husband, brother, and sister? What are their names?"

"My brother's Zayn. My sister's Brianna. And my husband's name is Glenn," Kloe responded, a small smile unnoticeably plastering her lips as her husband's name left her lips.

And then again, the pair were back to being quiet. There was nothing to be said. Nothing to be asked. Reina knew everything she needed to know currently, and didn't feel the need to press on.

She knew Kloe was going through enough sadness over the loss of someone she knew, and with the thought of not knowing if her family were still breathing added fuel to the fire.

It was only then that while looking forward, something caught Reina's eyes. "Hey, what's that?"

Kloe's head snapped up, her eyes meeting a sign that was put up unprofessionally. Or at least a sign that covered one that was professionally done.

She immediately felt her pace quicken as she grew curious as to what the sign said, and once she was close enough, she soon made out the thick black letters that were written onto it with a marker.

SANCTUARY FOR ALL. COMMUNITY FOR ALL. THOSE WHO ARRIVE SURVIVE.

Below the rusted sign was a map of the route the rail tracks led. And in the center was a drawn star with more letters. "Terminus..." Reina read out loud.

All of the sudden, Kloe felt an unexpected amount of hope to fill the pit in her stomach. "We- we should go," she stated as she looked down at Reina beside her.

"But I thought you said we were looking for your family?" Reina questioned, her brows knitting together with slight confusion.

"No... I know him like the back of my hand. I'm not so sure about Zayn or Brianna, but if Glenn saw one of these, he would go looking for me just like I'm looking for him," Kloe clarified her sudden sense of hope. "Look at this map," she told her, pointing down at the map as she crouched down slightly, "All these tracks from different directions that lead to the exact same place. Terminus."

"Isn't it kinda far, though?" Reina wondered, then grazing her own finger over the track that they were both currently on. "We're probably around here." Where Reina held her finger was yes, quite far, but Kloe couldn't care less. "And besides, how do we know that this isn't the only one? What if there aren't any other signs...?"

"You think this is the only one? Reina, this is the best lead we've had. It says sanctuary. And I know that anyone in my group, not just Glenn, will go here just to find one another," Kloe reasoned. "Sure, it sounds too good to be true, but it's worth a shot."

"What if-- what if Glenn saw one of these, but thought differently? What if he thinks that you're not stupid enough to fall into a trap like this?" Reina added on. Of course she wanted to help Kloe find her family, but going into something that was dangerous was a stupid idea.

"I know. But he knows that I know that I would do anything to look for him. And if it means going to a place like this, then so be it." Reina could read the determination the woman had dancing in her eyes, and it made her give in. She turned her body and started to walk in the direction where Terminus was with defeat, which made Kloe plant a grin on her face as she soon followed her.

She knew she was going to find them.

...

She stared up at the sky, the colors of the sunset painting onto the atmosphere with majestic colors. It wasn't like she could see much -- considering the woods' trees her and Reina had chosen to stay in for the night were tall and extensive.

Despite the fact that Kloe had roughly three days of sleep from the infection from her arm mixed with the exhaustion she had gained, she still felt tired. She intended to get to sleep just after nightfall so she could wake up early in the morning.

Her eyes caught onto one bright star that managed to show up first, noticing how it shimmered. Her consciousness was instantly brought to her ring. She gazed down at the jewel around her finger, and she soon recognized the similarities they held.

The star was just as bright as the small diamond on the ring when it faced any source of light. She absentmindedly smiled to herself as she examined the ring.

"It's a pretty ring," Reina spoke up after catching the woman smiling to herself. Kloe's head whipped over to the younger woman, and still kept her smile etched on her lips. "Did you get married before or after?"

"After," Kloe answered, the small smile turning into a regular grin. "About six or seven months ago."

Reina's brows instantly raised into her forehead. "Wow. I was really expecting you to say before. I never would've guessed someone would get married after."

"Trust me, if I told myself two years ago that I would get married during a fucking apocalypse, I wouldn't have believed myself in the slightest," Kloe chuckled.

Reina chuckled along with her. "When did you meet?" she asked, growing intrigued with Kloe's love life.

"The day it all started," Kloe snorted, still remembering the first time she met Glenn -- he was at her doorstep alongside her brother at her dorm. "If it wasn't for my brother and Glenn, I would one hundred percent be dead right now."

"Was it a love-at-first-sight sorta thing or...?" she trailed off, squinting her eyes as her grin grew wider. "Or was it like took-a-few-months-to-figure-out-the-obvious?"

"Woah, very specific," Kloe snickered. "The second one... except we kinda always knew, you know? I felt connected the second we had our first conversation together in the woods one day... and it was actually the day I got with the group I'm with now. It's just with new people... most of the people from my first group are gone now..."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Reina said sympathetically. "Anyway, let's not make this morbid. What was the convo about?" She smirked as she watched her new friend, who continued to slightly laugh.

"It was my young bratty self complaining about my brother protecting me all the time. Glenn managed to change my mind on that. This was twenty days after the outbreak -- twenty days I went without barely speaking to either of them. And for the first time... I think I genuinely smiled.

We got together about two months later. Usually I regret everything I do in my life... But getting with Glenn and marrying him was the best thing I've ever done."

Reina's hand flew to her chest, and a warm smile grew on her lips. "Possibly one of the best short stories I've heard in a while."

Kloe chuckled again, "Ever since we got married, it felt like we share the same soul. Like, when he's with me, I feel whole. But when he's not, I just feel empty and half of my body just aches constantly..."

"Soulmates," Reina said simply. "You said it yourself. Sharing the same soul equals soulmates. But I get you. Man, I really wanna find him now too. I just wanna see the reactions on your faces when you see each other. I'd smile like a kid on christmas..."

Kloe nodded in agreement, "That'd make the both of us."

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words: 3439
7th february 2023
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OKAY THIS CHAPTER WAS ACC FUN TO MAKE LMFAO- also, do u guys want the next chapter to be about glenn and brianna about how they're doing? or would you like it to continue with kloe and reina?
ALSO reina is played by emmy rossum!