CHAPTER THREE

˚WELCOME TO WE˚

"I was born in a thunderstorm, I grew up overnight. I survived."

WOODBURY HAD TURNED to a complete war zone, urging the group out of the area before things got worse. The Mystic Falls gang had gotten Bonnie back, and there was no need to stay.

So they found themselves wandering around the abandoned residential streets of Georgia, a couple blocks away from Woodbury. Reign trailed behind the group, not really sure what to say or whether she was really welcome. The only reassurance she had was Bonnie who looked back every once and a while to send her an assuring smile. Once they were a good distance from Woodbury, the group decided to stop just as the sun started to rise.

"Alright, since we all risked our asses back there to save our friends life, I would like to know why you Mulan are still with us," the raven haired man sneered.

"Damon, take it easy," the man with the leafy green eyes said.

"I mean, what do we know about this girl other than the fact she carries a pirates sword?" the man, Damon, questioned.

"Hey! This is not a pirate sword!" Reign argued, defending her cherished weapon.

"Everybody stop!" Bonnie yelled, putting a hold on Damon's rant. "This is Reign, and she was held prisoner in that hell town just like me. She is my friend."

"Bonnie, you were there for two weeks, she was there for one day!" Damon argued, the veins popping out of his neck at his immense anger.

The man with leafy green eyes approached Reign, sending her to her feet in a defensive stance. She drew her sword and held it up, not letting the man any closer.

"Hey, I was going to introduce you," the man said with a kind smile, his hands held up in surrender.

Reign only pursed her lips and held on tighter to her sword as it represented everything she was. Her mother had given it to her when she was sixteen as a decorative gift for her wall, and for two years she had kept it in her room. Secretly she had wanted the sword for her obsession with the supernatural, but now it offered a better usage against a new breed of monsters. It was strong and alone, just like her.

Still on edge, Reign lowered the sword before placing it in the slip strapped on her back.

"I'm Stefan," the man said as he pointed to everyone else. "This is Elena, Caroline, Jeremy, Alaric, and Matt."

They all sent her a small wave along with forced smiles, and even after their attempt of making her feel welcome, she still didn't feel like this group could offer her any good. They were all cleaned and well fed, opting Reign to suspect something more.

Trapped in her thoughts, Reign was taken off guard as Damon grabbed the backpack off her back and dumped all her belongings on the ground.

"Hey!" she protested, but it was no use as he had already begun rummaging through her things.

"You're telling me to trust a girl with three daggers, a half case of bullets with no gun, a half eaten bag of beef jerky, a half snorted bag of cocaine and a sling shot?" Damon asked. "Are you telling me a Disney princess smokes drugs? That's not very inspiring," he teased.

"And you expect me to trust someone who broke through a steel lock with one flick of your wrist?" Reign fired back. She was relying on her eyes more than her mind as she could've imagined him pulling the locks off, but it was a big hallucination if it happened twice.

After Reign called him out on his actions, the argument grew quiet and eventually died out giving Reign the floor. "You people are hiding something from me," she said with a shake of her head.

"Yes, well you don't particularly belong here now do you?" Damon snapped.

At that moment all of Reign's fears sank in. She knew she was a fish out of water, and Damon had practically reeled the truth in for her. She liked Bonnie, but no one else really liked her. Damon had just offered her a way out, so she decided to take it.

"No, I don't" she snapped back as she shoved all her things back into her bag, before walking by herself down the street, away from the group and away from people in general.

"Reign!" Bonnie called after her. "You can't stay out here by yourself!"

"The hell I can't!" she yelled without bothering to turn around. And with that Reign had walked away from the only decent group she had known or seen in the last two months.

She had forgotten what it was like to be around people, and never in her life did she miss being alone so much. She missed doing things her way, she missed being in control, and she missed being alone with her thoughts even though they got the best of her sometimes. However, she would gladly take listening to her thoughts than that smart mouth Damon she had walked away from. He was the exact reason she liked being alone.

In this world, she had almost always been alone, and now with people practically extinct, she was deemed to be alone. It was like she was born to be alone, and Reign Boyd didn't mind it one bit.

The only part about being alone was that she didn't have family. Her family was gone. Her mother was stolen from her, and her brother had just disappeared. He had left before everything went down for the military, leaving Reign alone with her mother.

Her brother Dylan was never really there much in her life as he was usually working, or out with friends. He never failed to make her laugh though, and most importantly he never failed to love her. That was more Reign's father ever did, and some days she found herself questioning whether she really wanted to find him or not.

Still unsure of where she wanted to go, she knew she had to get more supplies if anything else or she'd be dead in a day or so. Reign wasn't any survivalist but she sure as hell wasn't dying from something so bland as hunger. If she were to go, she wanted to go out strong.

Lost and clueless, she found herself back at Woodbury which was surprisingly empty. The streets were trashed and bodies consisting of both human and walkers were laying about. A whole town managed to vanish in one night, as if the people had just disappeared. She didn't trust the Nick Fury guy, but she doubted every single person in this town was evil. That left a mysterious question hanging in the air of where these people went, and most importantly who this other group was that just so happened to coincidently show up at the same time as the Mystic Falls gang.

The town was quiet however, and abandoned which was something Reign could use for her advantage. She began scavenging through the buildings looking for anything that could help her. She found the trashed infirmary and managed to scavenge what was left of it such as bandages, random antibiotics and Tylenol.

Whoever these people were that inhabited Woodbury clearly didn't leave in a hurry as most of the belongings from the apartments were gone. Clothes, pictures, and weapons were all gone. It was if they had moved.

Reign couldn't quite shake the thought that these people that stormed Woodbury were the bad guys. Perhaps they had allowed these people refuge from their monstrous leader Nick Fury. If these people were the good guys, maybe they could help her too, but for now she decided to enjoy her freedom.

After searching the whole town and finding a clean pair of clothes and some bags of dried fruit, Reign sat leaning against a building, staring at the cut on her wrist Nick Fury had inflicted on her.

She managed to wrap it up, but she was still perplexed beyond her wildest thoughts of what they expected to happen once they drew blood. It was like they were waiting for something. The fact they held Bonnie in a cell and called her 'witchy' didn't help drown out her suspicion either, and Damon's immense strength didn't quite add up. That group was hiding something from her and she couldn't help but link it all back to her obsession with the supernatural. She had never seen a mythical creature up close, and she feared she had just walked away from a group of them.

Lost in her thoughts and embarrassed that she would even begin to think about the supernatural in the world she lived in, she pulled out her packet of cocaine to calm her mind.

She never intended to become an addict, nor did she ever want to try the drug in the first place. People teased her for believing in the supernatural, and being the alone and unguided teen she was, she couldn't say no to the offer when someone convinced her snorting the powder was the only way to see these creatures come to life.

So each day she would take a small amount allowing her mind to see what she only dreamed of. She would see the monsters she only read in stories and she would spend hours in the forest practicing throwing daggers, convinced she was throwing them at a vampire. She knew it was a trick and she knew it was an obsession, but to Reign this was her only release. Her release from the pain of not having anyone by her side, by not living by the standards of everyone in her high school, by not having a father.

Just as Reign was about to inhale the sparkling powder, a small incessant whimper coming from around the corner directed her curiosity.

She was about to draw her sword as she rounded the corner, but halted when she noticed it was a small Border Collie, a puppy. It stood there wiggling its tail and pawing at a larger dog faced down, laying very still in a pile of blood.

Reign put back her sword and approached the scene slowly to not scare the puppy. The pup whined and let out a scruffy bark trying to wake the larger dog, presumably its mother. By the way the mother was laying so still, so peacefully, Reign knew this dog wasn't waking up. Soon the little pups' tail would stop wagging as he would realize his mother was gone, just like Reign's was.

"Hey little guy," Reign called gently.

At the sound of her voice, the pup whipped his head around and took a few startled steps back, letting out a cute growl rather than an intimidating one.

Reign cracked a smile before slowly pulling the last piece of beef jerky out of her bag, holding it out to the little puppy. At the sight of meat, the pups' ears perked up and his nose began to sniff rapidly as he slowly approached Reign.

Cautiously the puppy grabbed the dried meat from her hand and gobbled it down within seconds. When he was done he looked back up at Reign, expecting her to give him more. This only caused Reign to laugh and slowly reach out to pet the pup who surprisingly let her.

"I'm sorry little guy, but I don't have any more," she said. "If you come with me, I think I know where we can find more though."

The puppy started wagging his tail again, making Reign's heart warm. She might not like people much, but she liked dogs. If she was able to save this little guy and give him a home, that was all the motivation Reign needed to keep going.

Her next step was to find a home. Her next step was to find this mystery group.

____________________

Please vote, share and comment!

Thank you! :)

-taytaylorabc

xxxx

[EDITED: 07/09/18]