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Saff exhaled, shaking her head slightly. “I didn’t want to, I just—“
“Did they make you?” Maddie asked, her voice holding a fraction of anger.
Saff shook her head again. “No.”
For some reason, her thoughts drifted back to her childhood. They replayed certain memories, all leading up to when she’d finally left for college. When she finally escaped the dark shadow of her father’s seemingly endless presence.
“It took so long,” she started, so softly it was barely even a whisper. “It took everything I had to get away from it all when I was a kid—to leave.”
She looked down at her hands, feeling far away from herself.
“When I left for college, I didn’t even tell him. He knew I’d gotten in, but we didn’t talk about it. And when I finally left, I didn’t—“ She shook her head, frustrated with herself—with the weakness she felt every time she thought about it. “I just packed a bag and left. I thought that was the end of it. The end of him—us.”
She swallowed, her throat feeling dry and tight.
“And then he showed up,” Maddie said, more a statement than a question.
Saff nodded slowly. “I didn’t want to go,” she whispered. “I should’ve said no—should’ve gone off on my own, but..” shetrailed off, taking a second to regain herself. “I don’t know why I just—couldn’t.”
He’d never asked her to come. He just told her. And even after all those years, she still couldn’t stand up to him.
She ground her teeth, ignoring the pain it brought through her jaw and head.
After all that time, all those years, of thinking she’d grown to be strong—stronger than him—in the end, she wasn’t. And when it really counted, she’d failed.
Maddie was quiet for a few moments, before asking, “What happened after that?”
Saff released a breath, rubbing her palms against her thighs.
“We traveled around, never really staying in any one place longer than a few days. We scoured towns and cities for a while until most places had been picked over and there wasn’t much left. Then,” she paused, reluctant to say the next words, “that’s when they wanted to start taking things from other groups.”
She could feel Maddie’s body tense slightly beside her, but she pressed on, knowing that Maddie would want to hear it—that she deserved to hear it.
“It wasn’t bad at first. Small stuff and small groups. They—we—had never been actively trying to hurt anyone unless someone went after us first. We were hunted down just like everyone else was. But eventually, even those smaller groups sort of ran out.” Saff paused, running a stiff hand down her face. “When things started running low, something—I don’t know—changed in them.”
She remembered the first time she’d seen it. They’d raided a small settlement, and afterwards, the look in Mike’s eyes was just—different. It was in her father’s eyes, too. Like they’d begun to lose their ties to the order and humanity from before. Not that there was a whole lot in them to begin with.
She sighed. “I never hurt anyone who wasn’t coming at me first. And I never saw them do it either until,” she paused, remembering the last raid she’d been a part of. “The last one I was with them for. It was messy. Careless. It was like they didn’t even want the supplies we were supposed to be going after. They just—I don’t know. They just wanted to hurt people.”
She took a deep breath. “It wasn’t even over before I’d decided I needed to get away and go out on my own.”
Maddie had gone still beside her, but Saff couldn’t bring herself to look and see what emotion was flickering over her face.
“Zombies had made it into the camp at some point during the fighting, and I went looking for my father.” She swallowed down the thickness in her throat. “I saw him fighting with a woman, probably just barely my age. I saw him hit her and—I don’t know. Something just snapped.”
Maddie placed her hand in the small space between their legs on the bed, her finger grazing her thigh.
“I got between them and I—I hit him—hard.” She squeezed her eyes closed, reaching a hand up to press against her closed lids. “He fell to the ground, and I—I saw the zombie coming up behind him.”
She could see it all so clearly in her mind. As if she’d traveled back in time. Like she was standing there, frozen, watching it all play out.
“There was enough time. I could’ve said something, or done something, but I just—didn’t.”
She shook her head, opening her eyes again.
A sick feeling rose in her throat as the scene played out in her head for the thousandth time. She didn’t want to tell Maddie about the hours after, when he started to turn. She didn’t want her to know that even in those last moments, she’d been too weak to immediately pull the trigger. Even when he screamed at her to do it.
“After he died,” she continued, “that’s when I left.”
