The wall loomed over Alex like an impatient figure awaiting her decision. Behind her, the town was abandoned by anyone she was supposed to look to for direction. Beyond the wall, the unknown.

Alex hadn't been left on her own before. Something must have gone wrong.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

"What are we going to do? They wouldn't have just left us here by ourselves," Alex said at last.

Ace's calloused fingers massaged the wrinkles that formed on his forehead. He dropped his hand back to his side and shrugged, tucking the pistol into his waistband.

"I'm going to try to sleep off this hangover," Ace replied.

Alex turned and looked at Ace with her jaw slacked open.

"Go back to sleep? Cicero and Rollo could be out there dying for all we know, and you're going to go to sleep?" She took a step toward him.

"What else is there to do? We're trapped here. They must have had their reasons to leave us alone."

"Not alone," the familiar voice of Rollo snapped both their heads around to the left.

Ace wobbled on his feet and bent forward, his hands on his knees. "Ugh, I turned too fast."

Rollo tittered as she flipped a water bottle in her hand. "I stayed behind in the town while the others went out to investigate. I just finished my lap of the perimeter. Just in time, too, it seems." She shuffled to a halt a few feet away from Ace and drew a look up and down him before parting her lips.

The man raised his hand before Rollo could speak. "Don't mock me."

"I would never," Rollo sneered. She held out the water to him. "Go on, you need it more than I do. You look like you're about to spew all over the sand."

Ace took the water from her and sipped on it, standing up slowly as he did.

"So, if you stayed behind to watch over us and the town, then Cicero went out with the others?" Alex asked.

She wasn't sure if she was angry that he'd left her, or relieved to just know where he was.

Rollo bobbed her head. "You know how stubborn he can be. After seeing the state of everyone, Cicero basically led the charge out to make sure the situation was handled the correct way. He didn't trust anyone to do it right."

Sounds like Cicero, Alex thought.

"Anyways, I should help you get back to bed. What kind of Keeper would I be if I let you bake out in the sun with a hangover? Look at you, you've already gone pale," Rollo said. She actually sounded concerned, looping her arm through Ace's elbow.

"Will you be alright?" Rollo asked Alex over her shoulder.

"I'm going to stay out here a little longer," Alex said.

Truthfully, she just didn't know where else to go. She watched the two of them shuffle back to the building; Rollo tucked in close to Ace's side to support his weight. They acted like children—giggling and whispering jokes to one another. Their roars of laughter were silenced when they finally disappeared through the door of the building.

After standing in the blazing sun for another few minutes, Alex walked off in no direction in particular. It felt like she had already slept away enough time, and the last place she wanted to be was in a room surrounded by the stench of alcohol.

Her back was to the wall, eyes forward, and mind going thousands of miles an hour. The last thing Alex would have noticed was the sound of boots lightly touching the asphalt behind her. It wasn't until the taps turned into loud thuds did she turn around.

The sight of a rope ladder dangling off the wall barely registered in her mind.

A man running full speed in her direction snapped her out of her thoughts.

Major deja vu, and it wasn't the good kind.

An involuntary reaction made her throat tighten. The feeling of hands squeezing the life out of her made her choke out a breath.

Not again.

Eyes darted around, quickly looking for a place to go. The small building to her right appeared promising. One story, two windows, a wooden door. Simple.

Alex ran for the entrance, slipping on the sand that scattered the ground as she scrambled for safety. She flung the door open and slammed it shut.

"You have to be kidding me." Hands fumbled around for a lock, but there wasn't one.

She took in her surroundings hurriedly for something, anything, to block the doors. There were chairs, sofas, and a television mounted on the wall. Of course, she found an entertainment room.

The sofa would take too long to move, but maybe she could prop a chair under the handle.

Quickly, Alex grabbed the nearest chair and turned to tuck it under the handle. The man on the other side of the door moved faster than she did. Her lungs hitched as the wood cracked, the door swinging open from a swift kick.

She wanted to scream and yell and at least try to get Rollo's attention, if she hadn't already heard the commotion. In her attempt for safety, Alex had found herself literally with her back against a wall.

"What do you want?" Alex demanded. Knuckles tightened around the back of the chair.

"Will wants you to come home. I'm here to bring you back with me," the man replied. His voice was deep, rigid, and sent a chill down Alex's spine.

 Alex raised the chair a little higher as the man took a step closer to her. "What the hell does that mean?"

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, there was something familiar about what he'd said. Was it the name?

I can't think about that. I have to survive this first.

 "He's been looking for you, for a long time now."

Another step closed the distance between them even more. Alex stood her ground, palms sweating against the chair. The stranger had a good foot on her and looked like he could throw her over his shoulder and walk away easily.

"Your friends outside the wall told us who you were," he went on.

Something flashed to his right, reflecting the sun just enough to catch her eye. He was holding a knife in his hand. Alex could tell that it was sharp and ready to use.

He took another step, and another, and kept walking until he was closing the distance between them with each stride. Alex suspected he thought she would cower away, and it took every ounce of strength she had not to. Instead, she raised the chair over her shoulder and cracked it across his chest as hard as she could.

Wood splintered everywhere, raining around them with hollow thuds across the concrete floor. The Vagabond stumbled back, dazed by the blow, and raised the hand he had clutched around the knife.

Alex didn't have much time to think. She couldn't consider the consequences of her actions or think about another strategy. At the moment, she reacted on pure instinct. The weight of a broken piece of chair in her hand became a viable option.

A metallic taste flooded her tongue. She took a moment to register the sudden sensation. Had he struck her? No. That was something she would have remembered.

Alex's vision focused, a red color taking the place of the grays and whites that had flooded her line of sight.

Blood covered her hands. Her shirt. She could feel it on her face, her arms and neck. It was everywhere around her. Alex hadn't noticed her fingers were trembling, and as she looked down to them, she saw the body on the ground. She had driven a piece of splintered wood right into the man's jugular.

The tears in her eyes felt like fire.

What if I got blood in them?

Alex scrubbed away at her cheeks, subsequently smearing the blood across her face like she was painting it.

 Frantic steps outside turned to a halt once they met the concrete of the floor. "Alex? Jesus," there was a pause, "what happened?"

A gentle hand grabbed Alex's elbow. She looked up into Ace's wide eyes and yanked her arm away.

"What the hell do you think happened?" Alex's words burned her throat as they spilled out.

 "I-" Ace reached forward, but she pushed him back. Red handprints imprinted on his clean, white shirt.

 "Don't touch me!" Alex shouted. "Don't touch me."

She brushed past Ace, momentarily bending down to grab the knife the man had been holding. Once armed, Alex kept walking. She stormed past the silent Rollo, who'd been keeping an eye from the doorway.

Alex trudged down the street back toward the wall, and both Ace and Rollo followed closely. The latter tailed further behind, her head on a swivel, more watchful since her hearing wasn't as attuned as other Keepers.

"Alex, where are you going?" Ace jogged behind her to keep up. "Alex, stop!"

She wheeled around, arms thrown out at her sides in complete frustration. "What do you want me to say? I just killed someone!" The words were sour in her mouth. "I just killed someone," Alex repeated. "I just killed..." Laughter replaced the ending of her sentence.

Am I going insane?

"You're in shock. You're not thinking clearly right now," Rollo said calmly.

Alex snapped her attention from Ace to Rollo, and pointed back toward where the body was.

"He said our friends told them who I was. That Will wanted me home. I've heard the same thing before. I want to know what the hell is going on."

She turned back around and continued toward the rope ladder she had seen earlier. Her steps halted as Ace yanked the knife from her grasp. Alex spun around, eyes wild.

Ace held the knife up well out of reach.

"I'm not letting you go out there," Ace said.

It didn't matter that he might have been right. Alex wanted to know why the Vagabond had tried to kill her, and why she had to kill him.

Alex clawed out for the knife, but Ace easily held it out above her. All she wanted to do was go beyond the wall, but there was no way she was going to go out unarmed. She wouldn't be caught like a rabbit in a trap. Desperation had its hold on Alex, and it would not go away so easily.

She did the one thing she never thought she would do, other than killing someone. She hit Ace, intending to harm him.

A forceful punch to Ace's ribs sent the knife clattering across the asphalt. Sore knuckles bore the result of her action, but she didn't care; not at that moment. Blind anger and rage took over every muscle as she dove for the blade.

Ace recovered from the punch and he caught her right before she reached it. His arms wrapped around her waist, pinning both her arms to her sides. With one swift movement, he threw Alex up and over, body slamming her into the ground.

Alex felt the road rash forming on her cheek as he pinned her to the ground. She could barely breathe. There was no use trying to squirm her way out. Ace had her completely immobilized, and she felt more helpless than ever.

Rollo watched the two of them, observing the friends scuffle from a safe distance. She could have easily intervened, but the only time she even flinched was when Ace threw Alex into the ground. It was like she didn't even believe for a moment her own Designation had been in danger.

"If you go out there, you're going to die. And you're going to get everyone else killed, too." Ace was right next to her ear, but his whisper sounded like a shout.

Tears stung the edges of her eyes. Alex wiggled her fingers, but it was all she could manage. He even had her legs pinned to the ground.

"That's my decision to make." Bloody spit smeared across her chin as she talked.

He didn't respond to her.

"Ace, let me go." Alex struggled against his vice-like grip.

"Ace!" Her pleas went unanswered, so she resorted to the last thing she could think of. She started screaming. Screams turned to uncontrollable sobbing.

Everything about how things were, no longer existed. The world had taken things that made her life hers. People she cared about were keeping her in the dark and hiding the truth. Pretending like she wasn't capable of the answers to her questions. She had killed someone; taken a life and drenched in blood she could never fully clean off.  

Ace eventually rolled over onto his back and sat up, but kept his arms tightly wrapped around her.

"Does it ever get easier?" Alex asked through a sob. She looked up to Rollo. Her head rolled back into the crook of Ace's neck.

Rollo looked down at her with a sympathetic, soft expression. "I can't say. But you're not alone in any of this, you know."

Alex did know. But, in that moment, at least, she couldn't help but feel like she'd started a journey she'd have to take on her own.