† "Your sons have fainted, They lie helpless at the head of every street, Like an antelope in a net, Full of the wrath of the LORD, The rebuke of your God." - Isaiah 51:20 †

When the rain began to fall, they'd checked four snares with nothing to take.

The sour mood never lost on Hannah, she knows Fisher is treading lightly around her with each empty snare they find. He's keeping his peace, as she's lost to the turmoil in her mind.

Like everyone else, she's lost everything, she understands that. Surrounded by others, true, yet there's not one among them she can trust. She'd tried, she'd let them in on the surface, just to find herself a pawn in all their games.

Ethan, her best friend, left her for the cult in the mansion.

Dalton and Nick used her to gain information on Russell, to get closer to helping their own group in.

Her brother, murdered.

They all might have their friends, their surviving family even if they're lucky enough, but Hannah knew she had nothing. Her rage, she knew, readied to snap at any given moment. She rebuked it, yet welcomed it all the same. The anger kept her warm, kept her from feeling nothing at all.

In one word, one sound, she felt what's left of her sanity might slip. She feared for what she could do, what she'd be capable of. She thought she hit rock bottom before, but scraping the bottom of the barrel still left something to crave. When the barrel ceased to exist, she no longer knew herself.

She's the first to speak as they kneel over the last empty trap.

Hannah says, "It would be hard enough to feed anyone if all of 'em were full. We wasted bullets today, risked our lives, and for what?" She tosses a rock and adds, "Nothin'."

Fisher scans his eyes around the trap, noting a set of footprints that are not their own leading to it. Nick's traps weren't unsuccessful, but someone else was dipping into what's theirs. They were courteous enough, at least, to reset it.

Keeping the news to himself, Fisher offers up instead, "Could always track somethin' down. Might do us some good to look around. Saw some deer tracks a half a mile back."

Hannah looks to him, making eye contact for the first time in a long time.

She replies, "Yeah. Might not be back until after dark though. I'm not returning to the colony empty-handed."

"So we're in agreement then?" Fisher asks.

Giving a few nods, Hannah didn't think it could be so easy. That she could be heard, agreed with, relieved her.

With each step back, the cold sets into her bones. The rain, the dying days of autumn, meant winter would soon greet them. All Doyle was doing out in the crops, would mean nothing when the frost came. They could only hope that the greenhouse could give them something worth eating in a couple months time—if they all survived that long.

Her own weakness kept her slow. Fisher, too, showed it in his stride. They're both rendered half of the use they once were. While some were quick to blame Doyle, Hannah saw the fault in everything Russell planned to set up for them. Doyle's efforts would take months to find fruition. Where Russell relied on the aid of District 4 and in his excessive show of force, their new leader did things differently. Doyle tried to put the responsibility back where it belonged—in themselves.

Moving through these woods, Hannah felt useful again. She faced the fears that others avoided. The infected made these woods, this world, their playground and each step she took, she knew she was buying borrowed time.

When the growls rattle in the woods, they both see the zombie ahead. Neither of them draws, or prepare their blades since the zombie's stuck on a fallen branch. The splinter pierces through its neck, protruding through it like a speared fish. It's left alive, but trapped forever with the brain untouched.

This was no accident.

"We're not alone in these woods," Hannah says and it's here where Fisher decided to tell her what he found.

"I know," he replies, "Found some tracks back there earlier near one of the traps."

He points down to the fresh indent of boots next to that of the zombie and says, "These prints don't drag like theirs...look."

As Hannah notices the difference in the tracks, she then glares his way.

"Were you just goin' to keep this news for yourself?" She accuses.

"Listen, girl," Fisher starts, "I understand you're doin' the whole 'me against the world' thing right now, but I'm gettin' a little sick and tired of your attitude. Either you cut the shit or your cruisin' for a world of pain out here in the world alone."

"I'm already alone and I kinda like it that way." She grits out between clenched teeth, taking one bold step toward the male.

Fisher takes a step forward with her and embraces the confrontation no one else took.

He yells, "You think you're alone now?! Do ya?! All you've known since all this is cushy high wills of colonies and groups of people to feed ya. Not this, out here is the real world! If ya keep it up, this is where you'll be...but you'll be by yourself with nothin' else to fall on. You think you know being alone? Well, you don't know shit little girl!"

"Maybe that's what I want!" She replies, spinning on one heel to get the hell away from anyone like Fisher who dared challenge her.

On her trail, he follows, hot and fast as he speaks, "You think you know what you want, what it's like, what you deserve?! Ain't nothin' in this life promised to nobody. You gotta make the most of what you got and right now you got me! You got Nick on your side too and Dalton, who would probably saw his hand off right now just for you to look his way again! I know that all this is probably about Ethan—"

She spins, her face flushed red as she screams at him, "It's more than that!"

"Then what the hell is all this about, Hannah?! Tell me!" Fisher screams back and in the silence that passes between them, Hannah's frustration turns into an outburst of tears. Into the chest of the man with her, Hannah falls and sobs.

Since day one like Russell, like Ethan, Fisher was around. Though they were never close, they knew of each other, survived together, broke what bread was left together. For him to even notice her suffering, that she struggled, actually meant something to her. Since he among them all, is the sole witness to her tragedies.

"Everyone I love leaves. They die, or they leave on their own. Anything they can do to get away, they do it." She whispers her coldest truth, then stares into the face of the reaching infected as she anchors to the older male.

Through his chest, she hears him sigh and when his arms come to gently wrap around her, her tears stop as the rustling of leaves picks up behind her.

As she turns, Fisher pulls her down with him.

Over the fallen tree a pair of deer graze.

A doe moves ahead. Behind, a buck lifts its head toward the growling sounds of the stuck zombie. A foe, they all shared. This animal, surely, has witnessed the hunger of zombies more times than any human alive.

It stomps one hoof and then the other. A warning to the creature beyond them, to stay back or face the violence of a charge.

Eight points count on the antlers, a trophy her father would have spent weeks tracking. And on its crown, the flesh of whatever zombie it killed hangs from the longest points.

To her right, Fisher aims up the shotgun. Balancing it on his shoulder, just above the wide trunk of the dead tree.

She knows this would feed the colony for the day. For the first time in weeks, they wouldn't feel the pains of hunger. Yet, when no other deer pass into the crossing, it's the doe that Hannah transfixes on.

"No," she whispers, pleading with Fisher not to take his shot.

He looks her way, confused.

To which she explains, "If you kill him she'll be on her own. Who will protect her?"

Though she doesn't look to Fisher, she feels his eyes on the profile of her face. As he pulls back his gun and readies to rise, a shotgun blast rings out from a gun beyond.

Both are thrown back from the sound and Hannah watches as the buck falls. The white flash of tail flags when the doe flees.

The zombie on the tree reaches for her, entangling the exposed bones of his fingers into her long braid. In a single breath, she winds up and plunges her blade into its temple and takes her braid from the limp fingers.

To the slain deer ahead, she can see it kicking out, struggling to stand against the bullet that will take it to death. Soon, it will die and Hannah, returning to her rage, is propelled faster when Ana Maria and Nick make their way to the deer.

Nick holds the gun, undoubtedly taking the shot, but it's to her greatest enemy that she rushes toward. Running with what her anger gives her, Hannah tackles Ana Maria to the ground.

Hannah's blade is wound up and gives a lunging strike.

//Author's note: How do you like it so far? What animal, if any at all, would you have a hard time killing in the apocalypse?

Don't forget, reviews/comments have a good chance of making it into the next trailer for the next book!