Chapter 43

- Xenon -

"Other than Merle, what else happened?"

"Apart from the incident this morning, I can't think of anything..." Amy said pensively.

"What incident?"

"Oh right!" She hit herself on the head. "You just came, you wouldn't know of that. It's an ugly story, really... You know, Carol's husband is a bit intense, right?"

"Intense?" I looked at her incredulously. "The word you're looking for 'douche-bag', and that's putting it nicely."

"Touché." she conceded. "Well, he gets a bit... violent with Carol every now and then..." she said vaguely.

"He what?" I said angrily, and even though I was acting, mostly because I should not be aware of that. "You mean he beats her?!"

"Well..." Amy was very uncomfortable at this point.

"Yes." Andrea confirmed my "suspicions". She then proceeded to recount what happened this morning by the lake, when they were trying to do the laundry, when Ed tried to play the "I'm the man here" card, but ended up getting his ass handed to him by Shane.

"We were talking about Shane before you came here, actually." She admitted in the end.

"He does seems a bit angry." I commented. "Angrier than usual, I mean." I added.

"We think so too." Amy nodded. "For some reason he'd been different since this morning."

"I'm not surprised." I said, regretting it immediately. They both looked at me questioningly. "Boy is it hot today! Well, see you ladies later!"

"Not so fast!" Amy held my arm as I was getting up to run away. "You know something!"

"Yeah, it's all over your face!" Andrea added, placing her hands on her hips. "Spill, what is it?"

"Well, err... I don't think I should tell you." I brought this on myself.

"Why not?" Andrea frowned. "You seem to know what it is, why shouldn't we?"

"It's a suspicion more than anything else, but most importantly, it's none of our business." I shook my head.

"I'm counting on it. Now speak, what is it." Andrea nodded gleefully. I took a moment to consider my options here.

"Sorry, if I tell you, I might as well tell everybody." I eventually shook my head.

"Come on, we promise not to tell anybody!" Amy added.

"No can do." I shook my head again. "That's a risk I'm not willing to take. Especially because of how devastating it would be to the concerned parties." I could see the disappointment, and the bit of anger in Andrea's face at my refusal.

"Can we please drop this? Trust me, nothing good will come out of knowing." They eventually relented.

I didn't have much to lose from telling them really, and I'm sure this little scene soured our my relationships with them a bit, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Why kick a man when he's down at his lowest. Shane made a mistake, sure, but you can't blame him for doing what he did. He believed Rick was dead, and rightfully so. If it wasn't for his ridiculous luck, he'd be dead by now.

I wasn't sure how things would turn out this time. It's not fair of me to judge him based on his TV show persona, when there is a lot of room for changes. Besides, I'm sure he can be a valuable ally given enough time. In the TV Show, he made a lot of good points, but the group was too dumb to listen to him at the time, not to mention his very poor execution.

We had lunch with the rest of the group, speaking about insignificant things. Not that there was much to talk about.

"We'll go fishing by the lake, see if we can catch anything." Amy said, after we were done. "You wanna come with us?" Andrea was giving her a look, saying 'what the hell are you doing?' with her eyes, probably.

"Thanks, but I'd rather not intrude on your sister bonding time." I joked. Fortunately, I could take a hint. "Have fun."

"You too." Andrea said. "Have fun reading your magazine." She smirked. I didn't understand what she meant at first, but then my eyes widened in surprise. How the fuck did she see it? Wasn't it hidden in the glove compartment... Okay, maybe it wasn't hidden after all, but hey, there is nothing wrong with a teenager watching porn... right? Fuck me, she's gonna tell Amy, if she hasn't already...

- Xenon -

Today was a very hot summer day, and there wasn't much to do. I remember something was supposed to happen that involved Jim. He had a dream, about what would happen to them that night. I'm not sure if he's getting the same dream again, if the events of the show will repeat themselves... But so far, there was no indications of that happening.

"You need some help there?" I asked Jim, as he was fixing something on the RV. It was apparently a very old model, which is why it needs constant maintenance for some reason.

"I'm almost done." He answered, getting back to his business. "I can't help but notice, you acquired a very interesting set of knives." He commented, referring to the set of throwing knives I had on me when I arrived.

"Yeah, I found some kind of throwing knife enthusiast. His room had a few of these, so I took them." I answered the unasked question.

"You know how to throw knives?" He asked.

"Not to brag, but I killed quite a few walkers with them." He boasted. I was obviously bragging, but as far as my knife throwing skills were concerned, I had nothing to hide, except the fact that I pull them from my inventory when I'm alone.

Jim stopped as my words registered with him. "Are you telling me you can kill a walker by throwing a knife at it?" He frowned. "I don't think it's that easy to penetrate the skull, especially not when throwing a knife of all things." He obviously didn't believe it, but I didn't particularly care.

"Maybe I'll show you when the opportunity presents itself." I shrugged.

"How about now?" He said, as he suddenly turned to me. "I'm done with the RV."

"Sure." I saw no harm to it, and to be fair, I didn't have anything better planned.

We went and fetched them from my backpack; I gave him a sample of each to examine because he seemed interested.

"This one is quite big, and heavy." he commented about the last type of throwing knives I obtained.

"Yep, that one's my favorite."

We went to a nearby tree, a bit away from where the children were playing. Jim drew a few circles with the knife I gave him.

"Let's see how good you are." He gestured to it, and I just smirked.

My throwing knife skill is the living proof that my system is a cheat. Knife throwing was a pretty hard skill by itself, especially when the distance is variable and the throwing force is at its maximum. You could could throw and focus on making sure it sticks to the target, and even that would take a significant amount of time.

But me? I managed to learn the skill to a level where I could throw from anywhere ( < 20 meters ), and hit my target with all my strength. And it only took me two weeks to reach this level.

I took one of my heavier knives, and confidently stretched my hand, as I activated [Empowered Strike], and threw it with all my might. The result was stunning. The knife buried itself deeply within the tree, almost half of it. But to be fair, it was only a 5 meter distance.

"Bull's eye." Jim whistled. "You weren't joking." His eyes widened as he tried to take it out of the tree. "Holy fuck." Yep... Holy fuck indeed.