DEVILS ? C. G. 〖 #wattys2018 〗

T W O / T H R E E

"Wait, there are other groups?"

April narrowed her eyes in a sarcastic tease. "No, the only people that survived the apocalypse were those of a measly suburb and a militarized factory building." She scoffed. "Yes. There are probably five or six other groups in the immediate radius alone."

Carl looked down, halfway shocked. He guessed it made sense. If Hilltop and Negan had existed without their knowing, then there could be countless others.

April took a breath. "So Oliver came home with us. Lived in this room, slept in your bed. And every day, I would take him to my dad's room.

"The whole time, we were trying to unhinge him. Get him to the degree of no return, so that when he finally went back to his group..."

"Fear tactics," Carl surmised.

"Yeah. Exactly. My dad would tell him to sing songs for him. Read books out loud. Brought him out to the prison yard in front, and made him work alongside the others.

"And it worked, we did unhinge him. Day after day, his eyes would dull, until it seemed like there was no life force there at all. It was... disturbing, but we knew that our plan was working, and that Oliver was the key to breaking this group entirely.

"But three things happened that fucked everything over.

"The first—he was too smart. He was good at manipulating his demeanor to fit what we wanted, but we never truly tamed what was inside him. Instead, he grew angrier, rather than hopeless.

"The second..."

She let a gap of silence into her story, skin pulsing with adrenaline. "I was so fuckin' gullible, Carl. You gotta realize that. I was stupid. But, uh..."

"You let yourself think he had feelings for you."

April looked up. "It was that obvious?"

A scoff. Carl even smiled a bit, emanating amusement. 

She grit her teeth, to bite back a retort. "We fucked every couple days, if not every day. I hate that it happened that way. I was so dumb."

"You were, what, fourteen? Fifteen? You felt lonely, and that blinded you to the details. I feel that. You don't need to blame yourself for this, especially since you know better now."

April blinked. "Does that come from experience?"

"Somewhat." The edge of Carl's mouth twitched. He pictured the way he'd depended on his family the past few years, and the small ache in his chest when he first met the other teenagers at Alexandria. That was something he understood—a need companionship, insatiable once starved.

Carl took a breath, erasing the painful images of home from his brain. "Now, what was the third thing?"

The sun had dipped low under the horizon, and the air was beginning to take on that nighttime crispness that April liked so much. The words from her mouth seemed more thunderous now that there was less space in the room to fill.

"Two months ago, maybe. It was past midnight, and we had just finished, and I was drifting off to sleep. But then I heard him get up, and I looked in his direction, and I was met with the barrel of a gun pointed straight at me. I think it was my AK-47, he must have taken it off the wall.

"He forced me up, and prodded me into the bathroom, and locked me in. I was yelling at him that this wasn't funny, that I wanted him to open this door right now and we could talk, but then he told me to be quiet, and to listen.