Melissa's P.O.V.

Everything was easier now that Steve was in my life.

Getting out of a hick infested radio station that was being used to lure travellers to a very inconvenient death had never been easier. Granted I had never had to do it before, but I have a feeling being able to jump out a window and into Steve's awaiting embrace made it a lot easier.

It also meant we weren't chased.

We gathered supplies faster, hell we made it back to Toronto in record time, I mean, we were actually in the outskirts of Pickering but since the Shady house was in between Vaughn and Richmond Hill we were pretty much almost home.

Steve had dropped us off when the sun started to set.

I asked where he was going but Evelyn only shrugged and said something about how he was probably going to go hunt or something like that and then she immediately went about finding us a place to camp out for the night as I wouldn't be able to walk back to the Shady house in the state I was in.

She started by breaking into a house through a broken side window, opening up the front door and then disappearing in the shadows again. Within minutes zombies were fleeing the premise, skirting around me, ignoring me completely even though I was a prime target, injured as I was.

Once she got me inside and she thought me as safe as she could make me, Evelyn left again. She was going hunting for something for us to eat. And while I was left alone in the silence I got to think about my current predicament. Evelyn had taken me this far, but I had heard her on the Radio. She could be taking me back to sell to Jack, or to Dorian. Even though there was bad blood between them since the Fodder Flats incident, she had let him live.

Letting him live didn't mean she was working with him still, but I didn't know the status of her relationship with him yet.

I guess it depended on how mad she was with me, she hadn't mentioned anything about it, but it had been pretty hard to talk when we were travelling back with Steve.

If she was going to use Steve to evict the others in the house then they were as good as dead.

Would she sell them too? Or would she just feed us to her zombies?

These were questions I wanted to ask but I didn't want to at the same time because I was afraid of the answers. I wouldn't be able to fight her, not with Steve within calling distance. At least... I thought he was in calling distance, I was still more than a little upset that he hadn't stayed with us.

For about an hour I sat in the rapidly darkening shadows, jumping at every movement and sound, and while I saw zombies, in ever growing numbers shuffling out in the street, none of them ever approached the house, they wouldn't even walk on the lawn.

When Evelyn came back, she broke up a few chairs and, by the broken window she climbed in through in the first place, she made a fire. She helped me to the fire, and then she showed me what she had found.

Canned foods, mostly stews and soups, but the highlight was the fruit cocktail for dessert.

She pulled an old looking skillet out of seemingly nowhere and then put the unopened cans on it. She shoved the makeshift hotplate into the embers and then left it there to heat up before going about emptying her pockets. She had a can opener and forks and spoons, all of which looked like they had recently been cleaned, and then four water bottles appeared from inside her jacket which explained the clean utensils.

"I had to go through, like, the whole block to find all this," she said. "Everything was spoiled and rotten, zombies breaking into fridges to get to the produce. I hate the suburbs."

"You live in the suburbs," I reminded her and she laughed.

"Yeah, but I spend most of my time in the business district or out in the country," Evelyn replied. "I don't like the reminder of families, most of the times the zombies I find out here are the ones who lived there in the first place and I hate having to off a child, even if it's a zombie."

"You've offed a living child?" I wondered and since she pointed out the distinction.

"Only once," she replied. "She was seven, she had been bit, was about to change. Her mother begged me to."

We sat in silence, watching the fire roar and listening to it crackle. It was a good thing she lit it as the nights were getting cold and we'd need it tonight.

"I am unreliable," Evelyn suddenly said breaking the silence.

"What?" I asked almost breathlessly.

"I've been thinking a lot about why you said you tried to kill me. I am unreliable," she replied. "But you must have realized that upon following me for weeks. I'm rarely home and my house takes a lot to run it. I'd blow a lot of fuses all the time if I had everything running while I was gone. Why didn't any of you take that into consideration?"

I sat there listening to her and realized that she was right. We hadn't considered that.

"I, also, barely know you people, so handing you guys over the access to my system is a very stupid move. I would have shared once you proved yourselves to me, but you only proved to be greedy. Now I can't trust any of you."

"You're going to use Steve to evict them, aren't you?" I wondered.

"No," she replied. "The system was set up to shut down if I didn't log in within 24 hours. No functions, no locks, all doors open, and an alarm blaring attracting everything in range. If they're smart, they'll have abandoned it by now. Wouldn't be safe to stay there anyway."

She must have noted the look of horror on my face because she just scowled at it. "Seriously. You guys thought it would be easy to off me and get control of my house? Like I haven't had time to design a way to save my house from people like you?" she asked.

I sighed. "I didn't think it would be easy, but I didn't think you'd have back up plans for back up plans," I shot back. "You most definitely thought of everything."

Evelyn shrugged. "So, I'm paranoid, it's kept me alive," she replied and I nodded because paranoia had saved me several times over the years too.

"So, what are you going to do with me?" I asked her softly, figuring now would be the best time to see what she would be thinking and maybe see if I had softened her up into letting me stay even if the others were removed.

Evelyn tilted her head to the side before as if she didn't understand the question or were thinking about it before turning her attention to the fire and pulling the frying pan out of it. "I think they're ready," she told me and I took that as she was unwilling to talk about it now. I hope it meant that she was just undecided still. She went about opening the cans using my coat as an oven mitt.

"Why can't you use your coat?" I grumbled at her as she scorched burn marks and minor holes into my leather coat.

"Explosives don't do well around extreme heat," she replied absently as if without thinking.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "You have explosives on you?"

This seemed to get her attention. She turned wide eyes to me which made me think that she had no intention of telling me that she had explosives on her.

Instead, she asked: "Which do you prefer? Hearty chunky beef and vegetable stew or beans?"

I took the opened can of stew and the spoon she provided and she went about devouring her can of beans. We didn't talk again until we were passing the fruit cocktail back and forth between us.

"I am sorry, you know," I told her. "I didn't really want to, but I'm their leader so if it was going to be anyone it would be me that had to do it. I honestly understand you better then I understand them. Me and you, we're kind of the same, except I'm good with people and I do better with responsibility."

"Doesn't change the fact that you tried to kill me," Evelyn reminded me.

I tried not to groan, because that wasn't what was important right now. I was going to argue, I had my mouth open and everything but I was suddenly stopped when Evelyn sat straight up, and turned towards the front windows.

I was going to ask her what her problem was, except that as soon as I turned, I saw a light, kind of like a search light, dart past the window, the light sweeping through the living room illuminating all the shadows before moving on.

I could barely move on my own so I could only watch as Evelyn got up quickly and rushed to the windows. It took two seconds of scanning to see what was going on, and whatever it was, it freaked her out. I could tell by the way her nostrils flared out in alarm and her eyes widened.

She rushed back to me and pulled me up before I was ready. "What's going on?" I asked her as she dragged me towards the stairs.

"Drifters, everywhere. Combing the streets," she answered as she helped me hobble up towards the second floor.

"Are they looking for us?" I asked her in a timid whisper afraid of being heard, remembering the King of the Drifter's threats.

It seemed like so long ago that I had been outside the Zoo wondering how to off Evelyn successfully, when really it had only been a few days ago that I had heard his voice for the first time.

"I don't know," she said. "But I'm not taking the chance."

She shoved me into a dark room and shut the door and before I could say anything else, she was gone.

I knew that she had to go downstairs to get rid of the fire, the thing was basically a giant flashing we're in here.

I heard her boots on the stairs and then scraping and then the door flew open. I heard a lot of things at that point. Scraping, scrambling, the huffing of someone out of breath and a lot larger than Evelyn and then a sickening metallic bang.

The following five seconds of silence weighed heavy on me as I sat in a musty closet in the dark waiting for any sign of what had happened downstairs. Who had gotten hit? Was Evelyn okay?

What shattered that fear was a familiar voice breaking into the silence saying: "Ev?"

I hesitantly opened the door and hobbled out onto the landing. I hesitantly peaked over the banister just to see what we were dealing with and I found Godrick and Evelyn standing over a body limp on the floor hugging each other tightly.

Evelyn seemed to be whispering: "It's alright, I'm okay," and then one: "Why are you so sticky?"

Godrick had his face pressed deeply into her shoulder and her hand stroked the back of his head. For the first time I wondered if maybe there was something more going on between her and Godrick.

"Well, I'll be damned!" Jack said appearing in the doorway. "Look at what we found."

Evelyn launched herself at Jack and wrapped her arms around him. "You have no idea how happy I am to see someone I know!" she cried. My eyebrows shot up in surprise, I had never seen Evelyn display that kind of excited emotion before. Usually she hated it when people touched her. I did note that while he got that hug from Evelyn Jack's eyes stayed on me.

Evelyn cleared her throat eventually and pulled away. "What are you guys even in the area for?" she wondered.

"How did you get back from Ottawa so fast without a car?" Jack shot back.

Evelyn's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "Steve brought us back," she replied.

"Shit! Is he still in the area?" Godrick asked. "You know he hates Drifters."

"How close are we to the Zoo?"

"About 15 minutes for him," Godrick replied with a shrug. "Give or take."

"Then he's gone home."

"Well thanks for not calling him," he said. "We both know he'd come if you screamed for him."

"Wait, wait, wait," Jack said. "Steve hates Drifters? Godrick's met Steve? Fucking Melissa has met Steve? When the hell do I get to meet Steve?"

Evelyn ignored the outburst and turned a pointed glare at Jack. "Why are you guys out here? What were you searching for if it wasn't for me?"

"Him," Jack and Godrick said together pointing to the body laying prone on the floor. As I attempted to hobble down the stairs, I noticed that the person on the floor was either male or a very very butch lady.

I was gonna go with male just on clothes alone.

His glasses were askew on his face, his brown hair was limp and dirty and there was a trickle of blood dripping down his face from the blow that Evelyn must have landed with the frying pan she still held in one hand.

I wobbled on a step and Jack started towards me. The look of alarm must have been apparent on my face, as Evelyn grabbed the collar of Jack's jacket as he passed and tugged him back causing him to topple to the floor.

She then joined me on the step I was standing on and let me put an arm around her neck. Together we made it the rest of the way the down and by then Jack was standing up and glaring at us.

Once we were level with everyone, I expected Evelyn to let me go, but she let me lean on her. She pointed to the kid. "What did he do to you guys to piss you off so much?"

"You mean other than jumping Godrick?" Jack asked.

Godrick scowled at him and Evelyn turned her wide blue eyes at him and looked him up and down. "You got jumped?" she hissed. "Haven't I taught you better?"

Godrick scuffed his boots against the floor like a reprimanded child. "He surprised me, alright? I wasn't expecting him to lash out seeing as I had the weapon!"

"Cornered animals always lash out. I've told you that a million time!" Evelyn cried.

"Okay, enough with the lecture don't you want to know what else he did?" Godrick shouted and Evelyn huffed and gestured for him to go on. "He stole your jeep."

Both Evelyn and I exchanged glances before looking down at the man at our feet and at the same time we came to the same decision and kicked the man square in the gut. Me with my good leg, of course. The man grunted in pain, but otherwise he stayed down.

"Fucking Asshole," Evelyn spat out. She craned her neck to look out the door. "Where's my car?"

"Not here, it's a few streets over," Jack explained.

Evelyn's eyes narrowed at him. "Why did he leave the jeep?" she asked.

Jack avoided her eyes briefly before saying: "Well... he kind of crashed it."

Evelyn stood there stiffly, just staring at Jack with an unwavering gaze that made the man nervous until her darkened glare turned to the man at her feet again. She began kicking him, each kick punctuated with a single word.

"You. Fucking. Sonofa. Bitch."