Feels like we've been walking for a million years now. My legs are really starting to feel like jelly and my stomach is starting to get that throw-up-y feeling. We need to find something to eat real soon, or at least some water or something. I just need my stomach to feel a little bit full or I'm scared I'll pass out. 

Passing out is the least fun thing in the whole world, I think. I passed out sometimes over the winter when we were running low on food. It always made everyone worry so badly. Especially Dad. I'd wake up with my head in my dad's lap and everyone would be standing around, staring at me with those anxious looks on their faces. I bet they were all thinking about how sick I was, and maybe even feeling guilty about it, which I hate. 

But it's not my fault. It's not my fault, it's not my fault, it's not my fault.

"Daryl, we need to find some water soon or I'm gonna keel over out here," Momma complains with her hands on her hips. 

Dad and Merle have been walking a little bit ahead of us for most of the time we've spent walking, and I've been sticking by my momma's side. Sometimes she holds my hand, which makes my heart feel warm. 

"Lucky for you, Bird, the air's smellin' to me like the Sawhatchee Creek," Merle says, glancing back at me and Mom. 

Mom scrunches her nose up. "You sure? Smells normal to me."

"Nah. We didn't go west enough," Dad murmurs. He's been murmuring a whole lot more than he's been actually speaking ever since Merle's been here. I really think Uncle Merle makes him a little nervous. Dad pushes a branch and holds it out of the way for me and Mom to pass, and then he keeps walking. "There's a river down there, it's gotta be the Yellow Jacket."

"You have a stroke, boy?" Merle rolls his eyes. "We ain't never even come close to Yellow Jacket."

"We didn't go west. Just a little bit south. That's what I think," Dad disagrees. 

I really don't know who is right because I don't know which way is which. Apparently, I don't even know my right from my left, so I guess I'll have to work on that before I can learn north, south, east, and west. Anyway, I think my dad is right because he's right a lot of the time, plus I'm still annoyed at Uncle Merle. 

Merle sniffs and itches his nose as he shakes his head. "Know what I think? I may have lost my hand, but you lost your sense of direction."

"Yeah," Dad says in his sarcastic voice. "We'll see."

"What? Do you wanna bet?" Merle challenges. 

"I don't wanna bet nothin'."

"Oh, my God. Can you two quit it with the bickering?" Mom complains with a huff. 

Dad keeps going, though. "It's just a body of water. Why's everything gotta be a competition with you?"

Walking ahead of all of us, Uncle Merle holds a hand out at Dad. "Woah, woah. Take it easy, little brother," he says. My dad ain't doing nothing, though. Just saying something Merle does that bothers him, which, in my opinion, is better than keeping it to himself and letting it stew inside him till he pops. Merle, though, will never ever admit to being in the wrong. "Just tryna' have a lil' fun here. No need to get your panties all in a bundle."

I don't fully understand that phrase because how does having your underwear bundled up have anything to do with being annoyed? It really doesn't. Either way, I know what it means. It means that someone is annoyed or mad about something that isn't that big of a deal. Merle likes to think everything isn't a big deal, though. 

"You hear that?" Dad suddenly asks. He holds a hand out, stopping me and Momma from keeping on walking. That makes me really nervous at first, like I'm about to hear the echoes of a heard coming our way or something, but then, when I really listen, I hear it. A baby is crying. 

"Yeah. Wild animals gettin' wild," Merle says.

"It ain't animals," I argue, my eyebrows pinching together with worry. "It's a baby. What if it needs help?"

"Oh, come on," Merle dismisses me, rolling his eyes like it's impossible for it to be a baby. 

"She's right," Dad tells him.

"Yeah? Why don't you just piss in my ear and tell me it's rainin', too?" Uncle Merle replies. I have no idea where he gets these weird sayings from. I just know that sometimes they make me uncomfortable, like that one. It's just so weird. Either way, I can hear the baby. It is a baby. "That there's the sound of a couple of raccoons makin' love, sweet love. Know what I mean?" Merle lets out a laugh, all full of himself and everything. 

Dad sighs and puts his hand on my back, letting me know that I can start walking again, so me and Momma and him walk ahead of Merle. 

Mom huffs and shakes her head. "Feels like I'm talkin' to a middle schooler with you sometimes, Merle," she says. "Except you're a grown-ass man who never matured."

Momma and I follow Dad through the trees, following the sound of the crying baby. And, although he doesn't really want to, Merle follows, too. The closer we get to the edge of the forest, the louder the crying gets, but there's also a few other voices, too. They're shouting and yelling, sounding all panicked. I can't tell what they're saying, though. It doesn't sound like English. 

When we get to the edge of the woods, we step out into a muddy little area at the side of the river. Together, we look up at a bridge. That's where the crying and yelling is coming from. Even some gunshots, too. 

If I squint my eyes, I can see a man standing on top of something, and then a whole lot of walkers heading his way with snapping jaws. There's a mom, too. I can't see her, but I can hear her panicking. 

Merle whistles loudly, but I don't think they hear it. "Hey! Jump!" he shouts, laughing like it's the funniest thing in the world. 

But it ain't. It isn't funny at all. Dad doesn't think so either, I'm pretty sure, because he shoves past Uncle Merle and starts rushing back up in the woods. Me and Mom follow him. 

Merle, though, furrows his eyebrows and watches us. "What?" he asks. "Hey, man, I ain't wastin' my bullets on a couple a' strangers that ain't never cooked me a meal or felicitated my piece! That's my policy. You'd be wise to adopt it, brother!"

My mom and dad are running now, towards the trapped family on the bridge. That leaves me with annoying Uncle Merle. So I turn to him, putting on my brave self. "Shut up, Merle!" I shout, very bravely. "You're selfish and careless, and my parents aren't. If you wanna go be a jerk and refuse to help, then do it, but don't be yellin' at them for tryin' to be good people and save a little baby's life!"

"God damn, you are one obnoxious little girl," Merle groans, rubbing his hand on his face. 

"It's a baby, Merle! It's a baby," I remind him, two times for extra emphasis. 

Shaking his head to himself, Merle starts running up after my mom and dad, too. "Fine, damnit!" he huffs. 

When me and Merle get up to the bridge, Mom and Dad are already up there fighting. Dad's shooting bolts through walkers' heads while Momma's sticking a knife through the brains of each one she passes.

"Come on, man! We're tryin' to help you out. Cover me!" Dad shouts to the man who I saw standing on top of a truck. He's got a younger boy with him, too. Maybe around Beth's age, I think. 

I look over at Uncle Merle to see if he's going to do anything, but I can't tell. He's got a gun out, ready to use in his left hand, but he ain't using it. He's sort of just watching while my parents do all the work. 

Bouncing on my toes impatiently, I look around at everything to see what he can do to help. And that's when I spot the walker crawling in through the trunk of a car. In the front seat of the car is the mother with her baby, screaming and crying.

"Merle, the baby!" I shout, tugging on his arm.

"Hey, I'm here to protect my family. Not a bunch a' strangers, like I said," Merle tells me. He's got his eyes following my dad. He's only here to back up his family. Because, apparently, he only helps the people he's obligated to.

I'm Merle's family. I'm his niece. I've got the same last name as him. He's obligated to help me. 

So, again, I've got to be brave. Brave like I was with Carl, Maggie, and beautiful Lori when the walkers got into the prison. Because what if that baby was Judith? I would want some kind stranger to save Judith's life if she was trapped in that car. That baby deserves just as much of a chance at life as anyone else. So I have to be brave and save it. 

Before Uncle Merle can catch me in the act, I swipe his hunting knife from the sheath on his belt and run as fast as my legs will let me toward the car. My head feels heavy and my heart feels like it's gonna pop whenever it beats, but I rush towards the trunk of the car with the walker in it. 

"Juni! Hey, no!" Merle screams at me. 

But I keep going, anyway. I get to the trunk of the car and grab at the walker's leg, pulling on it as hard as I possibly can. It hardly even budges, and when it does, I don't think it's the walker moving. I think it's just the leg being pulled out of its socket, which is really, super gross. Either way, it tells me that I ain't getting that walker to move myself.

I need a different idea. And it comes to me quickly. It's a bad idea, but if I can't kill the walker, then Merle will, and the mom and her baby will be saved. So I follow through on the idea anyway. 

With shaking muscles, I climb into the trunk of the car. It's full of all sorts of boxes and bags, and I have to climb over them to get to the walker. I keep Merle's hunting knife in my right hand as I shuffle in beside the walker. 

The mom is screaming even louder, now. Maybe she thinks I'm a walker, too, but that doesn't matter. I just need to kill the walker. It's really hard, though, because it feels like my muscles are working against me. They want me to start running in the opposite direction, but I know I have to do this, so I keep screaming at them, in my head mostly, to keep going forward. 

"Come on!" I scream at my muscles without thinking much about it. 

I pull myself forward until I'm practically face-to-face with the walker. Immediately, its teeth start snapping at me, and without me even telling my arms to do so, they shoot out in front of me and start holding the walker back, so it can't chew my face off. 

Looking at this thing makes bile rise to my throat, making it burn real bad. It's so, so gross, and I am so, so scared. 

I think I dropped the knife. 

When I look at my hands and see both of them pressing against this walker's shoulders, I know I dropped the knife. 

"No!" I hear myself shouting in a terrified, scratchy voice. I bring my knee up to my chest and start trying to kill the walker by kicking its head really hard, but it doesn't work because I'm not strong enough. I keep kicking at it, though, and probably screaming, too. 

Next thing I know, the walker is being dragged out of the trunk by the back of its shirt. I bring both of my knees up to my chest, keeping myself as far from the walker as I can get right now. I see it get pulled out of the trunk until just its head is resting at the edge of it, and then the trunk door is slammed shut. 

Blood splatters the whole trunk as the walker's head is completely crushed. It's all over my clothes, it's splattered across my cheeks, and it's drenched the whole back window. 

The door to the trunk is pulled back open again, and then I see that it's Merle who did the skull-crushing. He grabs the walker by its shirt and tosses it off to the side, and then he looks at me. 

Merle looks furious. 

"Get your ass out here, now!" he shouts at me. 

My stomach churns, but I do what he says. I crawl back over the suitcases and boxes, even though they're getting even more blood all over me, until I get close enough to the edge for Merle to grab me and practically toss me onto the pavement. Luckily, I get my footing right and land on my feet rather than my knees or something like that. 

"What the hell is wrong with you?! You got a death wish or somethin'?!" Merle yells in my face with a tight grip on my upper arm. 

I feel like I'm gonna be sick. My whole body feels like it's spinning and my eyes start seeing little sparkly bits floating around Uncle Merle's head until he, along with everything else, melts into one big, black splotch of nothingness. 

♡

"Hey. You're okay, angel girl."

When my eyes open back up, I know it's only been a minute or two that has passed, but it feels like it has been a lifetime. 

My dad's sitting with his legs straight out on the ground and his back against the edge of the bridge, and he has my head resting on his leg. Mom's at my side, kind of sitting by where Dad's feet are. She's tucking stray hairs away behind my ears with a soft look on her face. 

"Hey, Bug," Mom says in her sort of whispery type of voice. 

I rub my eyes real hard and sit up, leaning against my dad's side. When I look at him, he's already looking at me, and he looks really exhausted. "You were very brave, June. You saved that baby," Dad tells me, squeezing me tight for a second. 

"Are they all okay? Where'd they go?" I ask. Their car is gone, and I can't hear them at all, neither. 

"They're all good. They left," Dad answers. 

"Yeah. Your asshole uncle scared 'em off," Momma tells me, shooting Uncle Merle a glare. 

Merle is pacing around impatiently, peeking in through abandoned car windows to see if there's anything good inside. He scoffs and turns to look at us all. "The hell are you hasslin' me for? Your daughter's the one who just did the stupidest shit in the world, crawling into that car like that,"  he spits. 

"I wouldn't have had to if ya would've just helped," I tell him, crossing my arms over my chest. 

"I ain't wastin' my energy on some random baby, Juniper. It's gonna die any day now, anyway. Ya can't have a goddamn baby in the apocalypse," Merle argues. 

"Fuck off, Merle," Dad spits. He gets up and pulls me up with him, keeping me beside him as we all start walking back towards the woods. I'm still feeling a little dizzy, but that's what happens after you pass out, so I'm not too worried about it. 

Uncle Merle follows behind us, stomping all angrily. "The shit were you doin', pointin' that thing at me?" Merle asks my dad. I don't know what he's talking about, though. It must have happened after I fainted. 

"They were scared, man," Dad says in a tired type of voice. I think he's already getting real sick of having Merle around, even though it hasn't even been a full day yet. 

"They were rude is what they were. Rude and they owed us a token of gratitude," Merle says. 

From that, I can probably guess pretty confidently that Merle must have tried to steal from that poor family. He really is the most selfish person in the whole world. 

"They didn't owe us nothin'," Dad says without looking back at Uncle Merle. 

"You helpin' people out of the goodness of your heart? Even though you might die doin' it?" Merle scoffs. He lightly shoves my dad's back. "You turnin' into your daughter now?"

"Where do you think she gets it from, Merle?" Mom asks exasperatedly. 

"Sure as hell not from my brother. You're smarter than this shit, Daryl!"

Dad stops in his tracks, letting go of me to turn around and shout in Merle's face. "There was a baby!"

"Oh, otherwise you would have just left 'em to the biters, then?" Merle asks, raising his eyebrows like he's got everything all figured out. He doesn't, though, and I don't think he ever will. 

"Man, I went back for you. You weren't there," Dad tells Merle. I don't know why the conversation switched to this topic, but I can tell that it bothers Uncle Merle. His face loses its mask for just a second, and his eyes switch from anger to hurt, before flicking back to anger. Dad keeps going, though, because he deserves it. "I didn't off your hand, neither. You did that. Way before they locked you up on that roof! You asked for it."

Merle starts getting all squirmy. He laughs like it doesn't matter and looks away from my dad. He can't seem to keep his feet in one place. "You know- you know what's funny to me? You and Sheriff Rick are like this now." Merle holds his hand up with his fingers crossed. "Right? I bet you a penny and a fiddle of gold that you never told him that we were plannin' on robbin' that camp blind."

That isn't fair, though, because if Daddy was really planning on robbing the camp, it was only Merle's fault. Because once Merle left, the idea was reduced to nothing. Dad never even mentioned it. I bet because he didn't want to do it in the first place. 

"It didn't happen," Dad says. 

"Yeah, it didn't 'cause I wasn't there to help you," Merle tells him. 

I want to interject and say that it's not because he didn't have help, it's because he didn't want to. But before I get the chance to say anything, Dad does. 

"What, like when we were kids? Huh? Who left who then?"

I take a step closer to my mom until I'm leaning against her and her hands are on my shoulders. I'm sick of all the fighting. This never would have happened if we had just stayed with Rick. But maybe it's good that we didn't because then we were there to save that family. I don't know. Maybe this is the best way. It's just so hard because Merle makes it that way. 

"What?! Huh?" Merle shouts. "Is that why I lost my hand?!"

"You lost your hand because you're a simple-minded piece of shit!"

"Yeah?!" Merle yells. Dad tries to keep walking again, but Merle grabs him back the back of his shirt, tugging him back. "You don't know!" he growls. And just as he does, Dad's shirt tears and he falls to his knees, his back left uncovered for Merle to see. 

And Merle freezes completely. His eyes get all wide and he takes a step backward.

Dad scrambles to get his shirt back on right, his eyes getting all watery. 

Me, though— I'm just staying by Momma's side. I didn't know that Uncle Merle didn't know about the scars on Daddy's back. I know about them, and Mom has always known about them.  And Merle has known Dad longer than either of us have, so why didn't he know? 

"I- I didn't know he was-" Merle murmurs. 

"Yeah, he did. He did the same to you," Dad says in a weak voice as he gathers up all the things that dropped, like his crossbow and bolts. "That's why you left first."

"I had to, man. I would have killed him, otherwise."

When Dad gets up, he comes straight over to me and Momma, and he runs his shaky hand through my hair, taking a deep breath. Then, "C'mon," he says very quietly. And we start walking away again. 

"Where you goin'?!" Merle shouts after Dad.

"Back where I belong," Dad tells him. 

"I can't go with you," Merle says. His voice is getting wobbly, too, and he has a desperate look on his face that makes me feel bad for him, even though I know that I shouldn't. "I tried to kill that black bitch. Damn near killed the Chinese kid."

"He's Korean," Dad corrects.

"Whatever!" Merle yells. His eyes are getting watery and I have to turn my head so that I can't see it. "Doesn't matter, man. I just can't go with you."

Dad has to look away, too. He runs his hand through my hair again before saying, "You know, I may be the one walkin' away... but you're the one that's leaving— again."