The trek back from the Marsh House unfolded in heavy silence, their path illuminated only by the faint glow of Lee's flashlight as they navigated by the map. The night pressed in around them—thick, suffocating—every shifting shadow a potential threat. Lee moved with deliberate care, his grip tight on his weapon, senses sharpened to a razor's edge.
"Not much further now, Clem," Lee murmured, glancing back at her small form trudging behind him. Her face was drawn, eyes distant—lost in memories of what they'd left behind in that room.
"Okay," Clementine whispered. After a moment, her gaze lifted from the cracked pavement to fix on his back. "Do you... do you think Carley really made the pancakes?" The question was fragile, grasping for normalcy.
Lee offered a soft smile, though she couldn't see it. "I'm sure she did. Found some Softee's mix in one of our boxes—bet they're golden brown by now."
A quiet sniff behind him. "...That's what my mom used." Her voice wavered, then steadied. "They're... really tasty."
Lee's smile faded as he peered around a corner, the safehouse finally coming into view. "Well, you'd better eat a stack taller than you, then. What do you say—ten?"
"I can't eat ten. I'm still little," she huffed, but there was the faintest hint of warmth in her protest. One small hand rose absently to touch the necklace at her throat—a weight both physical and immeasurable.
Lee managed a small smirk as he guided Clementine across the deserted street. His hands worked quietly at the gate's latch, ushering her through before securing it behind them with a soft click. The familiar creak of the safehouse door never sounded sweeter—for the first time in a while Lee felt truly exhausted.
"Oh! You're back." Carley appeared from the kitchen, spatula in hand. Her smile faltered when Lee met her eyes with a barely perceptible shake of his head. The color drained from her face.
In an instant, she was kneeling before Clementine, wrapping the girl in a fierce but brief embrace. "I made you a tower of pancakes," she said, pulling back to brush a stray curl from Clem's forehead. "I put my all into them so they should be edible." She ushed her forwards. "They're getting cold, sweetheart."
"Thank you," Clementine murmured, the ghost of a smile touching her lips as she shuffled toward the kitchen. The clink of a fork against porcelain soon followed.
The moment Clem was out of earshot, Carley whirled on Lee. "What happened out there?" she whispered, fingers tightening around the spatula.
Lee sagged against the wall, suddenly exhausted. "We found them at the Marsh House. Her parents... they were turned." The words tasted like ash.
Carley's arms folded tight across her chest like armor. "Jesus... No child should have to see that." Her eyes flicked toward the kitchen where soft chewing sounds drifted through the doorway. "Those better be the best damn pancakes I've ever made."
"Yeah," Lee exhaled, running a hand over his face. "Clem... she couldn't leave them like that. We put them someplace quiet. Together." His throat worked. "She's the one who... finished it."
Carley's spatula clattered to the counter. "She—?" Her voice cracked, rising before she choked it back down. "You let an eight-year-old put down her own—"
"I tried." Lee's voice was steel wrapped in velvet. "But that was her choice to make. However much I wanted to take that weight from her... it wasn't mine to take."
The fight drained from Carley's shoulders, replaced by something worse—helpless grief. Through the doorway, Clementine sat swinging her legs, methodically working through a stack of pancakes with amusing determination.
Carley's anger dissolved like sugar in rain, her face collapsing into sorrow as she watched Clementine mechanically chew a bite of pancake. "My God..." Her voice was barely audible. "How is she even— Christ..." The words died in her throat.
Lee's knuckles whitened as he followed her gaze. "She's tougher than any kid should have to be. But that doesn't mean she isn't breaking inside. She'll need us now more than ever."
Carley swallowed hard, forcing her expression into something gentle before turning toward the kitchen. "I've got her," she murmured. Then, quieter: "Kenny is upstairs. He... needs you."
Lee's jaw set. "Right." One last glance at Clementine—small and impossibly brave in her chair—before he turned toward the stairs. "I'll handle it."
"You should probably change your shirt," she added, eyeing the dried walker camouflage still clinging to him—a grisly mix of blood and guts.
Lee nodded and quickly grabbed a cleaner shirt before heading up the stairs with deliberate, heavy steps, each thud echoing his darkening thoughts. Oberson. After the hellish day he'd endured—after what Clementine had been forced to do—that bastard making things difficult was the last thing he needed.
He hauled himself up the loft ladder, the aged wood groaning under his weight. Dust swirled in the dim light of a single oil lamp, its flickering flame casting elongated shadows across the newspaper-covered windows. The air smelled of mildew and old violence.
"Hey, Lee." Kenny's voice was uncharacteristically subdued. He sat with his back to the entrance, staring intently at something in the corner. "Katjaa told me where you went. How'd... how'd it go?"
Lee moved forward, his boots crunching on loose floorboards. The sight that greeted him was brutal: Oberson slumped against the wall, his face a mess of dried blood and fresh bruises, limbs secured with thick ropes that bit into his flesh. Even unconscious, the man looked like a monster—just a temporarily disabled one.
"It went..." Lee exhaled sharply, rubbing his temple. "About as well as it could've, considering she had to put down her own parents."
Kenny's head whipped around. "She—?" His voice cracked. For a long moment, he just stared at the floor, shoulders hunched. When he finally spoke, it was with grudging admiration: "That kid's got more steel in her than most grown men I know." His eyes flicked to the ladder. "Where is she now?"
"She's downstairs with Carley," Lee said, his voice rough with exhaustion. "Eating pancakes. She's about as okay as... well, as anyone could be after that." The words offered little comfort, even to his own ears.
Kenny pushed himself up from the chair, the wood creaking under his weight. "Duck said Carley's pancakes were amazing so maybe it'll help," he muttered, moving past Lee toward the ladder. "Gonna go check on the little warrior. Mark'll be up soon to babysit this piece of shit." He paused, glancing back at Oberson's unconscious form. "Bastard didn't give us shit for useful info, by the way."
Lee's nod was curt, shoulders rolling like a storm gathering strength. "I'll hold the fort till Mark gets here."
Kenny's grunt faded down the ladder, leaving Lee alone with the dim light - and their prisoner.
Lee's gaze hardened as he studied Oberson's slumped form. The bastard looked almost peaceful in unconsciousness - an illusion Lee was about to shatter. He crouched low, his shadow swallowing Oberson's broken frame. With one sharp tug, he ripped the gag free, letting it fall to the dirt floor.
No warning. No ceremony.
His fist arced through the stale air and connected with Oberson's sternum in a sickening crunch of cartilage. The impact lifted the man's torso clear off the wall before gravity slammed him back. A spray of crimson erupted from Oberson's lips as his eyes flew open - shock and pain fighting for dominance in his bloodshot gaze.
"Rise and shine, you son of a bitch," Lee growled, shaking out his stinging knuckles.
Oberson's groan twisted into a chuckle, though pain laced every syllable. "Christ, Lee. Didn't peg you for a rude wake-up call." His smirk was bloody but intact. "Not very hospitable, wouldn't you agree?
Lee's response was a humorless snort. His eyes scanned the dim room until they landed on the wrench - the same tool Oberson had used to brutalize Vernon in the sewers. As he lifted the cold metal, a dark realization settled over him, twisting his features into something both dangerous and hesitant.
"Beating you gets us nowhere," Lee concluded, adjusting the wrench's jaws with a metallic click-click. His thumb traced the dried blood still crusted on the tool - Vernon's blood. "But this? This might loosen your tongue."
Oberson's smirk faltered. "That's barbaric, Lee. I always made mine quick." His voice carried a new edge. "No drawn-out—"
"Tell that to Vernon."
Lee twisted Oberson's wrist at a brutal angle, pinning his hand flat against the floorboards. The wrench's jaws closed around the pinky nail with mechanical precision.
Oberson's face tighened as he spat. "Vernon? Need I remind you who sold him out? I didn't find him on my ow-"
"Twenty nails," Lee cut him off, his voice dangerously calm. "Then we'll see how many teeth you're willing to lose." He leaned in until their foreheads nearly touched, close enough to see the pupils dilate in Oberson's wide, panicked eyes. The sour stench of fear rolled off him in waves.
For the first time, genuine terror contorted Oberson's features. His gaze flickered between the wrench and Lee's stone-cold expression—finding no bluff, no hesitation, only grim determination.
Lee exhaled through his nose, the moral weight of what he was about to do settling heavy in his chest. "Your choice," he quietly muttered. "But remember—this is just the warm-up."
When no response came but frantic breathing, Lee jammed the gag back between Oberson's teeth, the fabric stretching taut.
Then—with one sharp, practiced motion—he yanked.
---
Mark stretched the sleep from his limbs, blinking against the moonlight. Another shift babysitting their prisoner - not exactly how he'd choose to spend the night, even if the bastard deserved it. The whole situation left a sour taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with sleep.
He eased open the living room door to find Carley slumped on the couch, Clementine curled against her like a fragile shadow. The girl's cheeks still bore the salt trails of earlier tears, her breathing shallow but even.
Mark opened his mouth to speak, but Carley's sharp look and raised finger stopped him cold. He nodded understanding, his boots finding silent purchase on the floorboards as he crept toward the stairs. A wayward pancake caught his eye - cold now, but still edible. He snatched it up, ignoring Carley's exasperated eye-roll.
"Waste not," he mouthed from the landing, shoulders shaking with silent laughter as Carley waved him off with her free hand.
The first bite was nostalgia itself - the sweetness bursting across his tongue like a half-remembered dream. When was the last time he'd tasted anything that wasn't canned or foraged? The world might have ended, but some small comforts remained.
Mark climbed the ladder with leaden limbs, dreading another shift watching over their prisoner. He prayed—for once—to find Oberson asleep. Those calculating eyes always made his skin crawl.
When he reached the top and turned, his breath caught.
Oberson sat bound and gagged, his entire body trembling like a leaf in a storm. Sweat poured down his ashen face, his bloodshot eyes bulging with raw terror. Each ragged breath sounded like it might be his last. And beside him... a small, glistening pile. Nine fingernails, each with a crimson crescent at the base.
"You come for your shift, Mark?"
Lee's voice snapped his attention away. The man sat calmly at a table, scribbling notes on a scrap of paper. He handed it over without looking up.
Mark scanned the page—detailed schematics of Crawford's defenses, armory inventories, even the exact specifications of their escape boat. That was simply a small fraction of the information on the paper. His stomach turned as he connected the dots between the meticulous intel and the bloodied tools nearby.
Mark's gaze flickered between the bloodied wrench and the gruesome collection of fingernails, his throat tightening. "Jesus, Lee." He swallowed hard. "I mean... you got the job done, but... Christ."
Lee dragged a calloused hand down his face, the weight of his actions settling in the lines of his brow. "With men like him?" His voice was gravel. "Pain's the only language they understand."
His gaze dropped to Oberson's ruined hands—nine angry, weeping crescents where nails had been, the tenth finger spared but twitching uncontrollably. A dark part of his mind, newly educated by Vernon's medical knowledge, noted how precise the damage was. He knew exactly where to apply pressure for maximum effect with minimal lasting harm.
The realization turned his stomach.
He could have done worse. Far worse. Understood pressure points, nerve clusters, how to prolong agony without permanent damage. But that line—between necessary evil and becoming what he despised—was one he refused to cross. Oberson tortured for pleasure; Lee would only ever do what survival demanded.
"Every second of this was his choice," Lee muttered, more to himself than anyone. "One word could've stopped it. Now?" He tapped the blood-smeared intel sheet. "This is the difference between walking into that exchange blind... or walking out alive."
A muscle twitched in Mark's jaw as he wrestled with the morality. Finally, he gave a stiff nod. "You're right. Can't afford to walk in blind." He tapped the intel sheet. "We setting up the exchange tomorrow?"
"Yeah." Lee's voice carried the weight of exhaustion. "Everyone needs one last night of peace before this shitstorm."
Mark clapped him on the shoulder. "Then get some rest, brother. You look like shit."
Lee managed a tired smirk, shoving him lightly. "Asshole."
The ladder creaked softly under Lee's weight as he descended, each step lighter than the last. Below, the dim lamplight painted a fragile picture of peace - Clementine's small form curled into Carley's side, her fingers still wrapped tightly around her mother's necklace even in sleep.
Carley looked up at his approach, taking in the exhaustion etched into every line of his face. Without a word, she lifted her free arm in silent invitation.
Lee sank into the embrace like a drowning man reaching shore, his body molding against hers as the adrenaline finally ebbed. The warmth of them both - Carley's steady breathing, Clementine's quiet sighs - should have been comforting. But behind his closed eyelids, the day's horrors played on endless repeat:
The sickening tear of nails from skin.
Brie's accusing glare burning into his soul.
Clementine's hands shaking as she raised the screwdriver-
Lee exhaled sharply, his fingers tightening reflexively around Carley's shoulder. However exhausted his body was, his mind refused to rest—even with such a busy and daunting day approaching them.