#i was not expecting clem to be so violent in wooden willie

[ashenlion]

Some sketches from the other night

[the-walking-memelords]

Allegiances: Chapter 12

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 |Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 13

Series is rated M

Word Count: 3003

Louis and Clementine accompany Mitch and Willy to scout out the Delta's ship before breaking off on a side mission in an attempt to track down an acquaintance of Clem's. Their progress is delayed, however, when they become confronted by a familiar face.

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Within the hour Clementine found herself hiking through the forest along with Mitch, Willy, and Louis. Mitch lead the way, map in hand, guiding the four of them towards the river where the boat was docked. The silence between them was deafening. The shaken trust left a gap that made her feel isolated from the rest of them. Every time she glanced over at Louis, he always had his eyes trained forward, concentrating on the path ahead, as if he was struggling not to look back at her. Louis claimed he forgave her, and maybe he wanted to, but Clementine could see a darkness in his eyes that held some semblance of coldness.

He hates me.

Clementine bit her lip and tried to focus on the task ahead of her, following along without a word.

“There it is.” Mitch picked up the pace as they entered a clearing above the river.

The four of them ducked low as the boat came into view. Clementine retrieved a pair of binoculars she’d looted from Yonatan’s body. She scanned large vessel, noting the guards patrolling both the pier and top deck.

“This is it.” Clementine confirmed. The rusted sheet metal haphazardly welded on hardly made the ship look seaworthy, it was honestly a miracle the thing could float.

“Prisoners are kept on the second deck. I know the way, it’s where I was held when they brought me here.”

“Why did they put you in a cell?” Willy asked.

“They always told me I was one of their people but it was never true.” She spit, holding but the memories of the shit Lilly had put her through.

“They treated me like an animal, kept me in a kennel. I wasn’t allowed in general population.”

Four blank walls and only my thoughts to keep me company.

Hell.

“I only went along with it to keep AJ safe. I’d never met a group that seemed worth the risk of fighting back before.”

“Well, I’m glad we had that effect on you.” Mitch said almost jokingly.

Movement caught her eye on an opening of the third deck. The woman she’d pinned with the couch escorted a young blonde girl at gunpoint. Clem spotted the girl’s head turn in her direction, taking a fleeting glance at freedom before disappearing back into the boat.

“I saw Violet!” Clementine gasped, her friend within sight but out of reach.

“We really found them.” A glimmer of hope shined in Louis’ eyes at the prospect of successfully bringing everyone home.

Finding them would be easy, actually getting onto the boat in the first place was another story. The pier itself had been messily lined with crates, creating a decent amount of cover, but the only way to actually reach the pier was to walk through a wide-open path. Absolutely no cover.

We’re going to need one hell of a distraction.

A loud shout from one of the raiders on the pier caused them all to jump in surprise. They froze for a moment before realizing they weren’t the cause of the alarm. Three active corpses stalked their way towards the guard. He didn’t even have a chance to fire his gun before each walker dropped to the ground in front of him, each picked off by Dorian from the top deck.

If she spots us we’re dead.

There wasn’t a better sniper within their ranks.

“So what, all we need is like, a dozen walkers?” Louis chimed in, only half amused.

“How hard can that be?”

“Maybe not as hard as you’d think.”

“Hey guys, check this out.” Willy called to them in a hushed voice.

A few more docks lined the riverbed, each loaded with crates of furniture and building materials. Nothing but a few ropes prevented the wooden platforms from floating away.

Spoils from the train station most likely.

“We should have that stuff.” The young boy’s tone was filled with frustration.

“I could build traps, weapons.”

“That could work as part of our distraction.” A plan was starting to form in her mind.

“I saw some horses tied up down the path.” Mitch pointed out.

“We could use the torches to burn the hay and the cut the rafts free, divert their attention in as many directions as we can.”

“Sounds like a plan, now all we need is a shit-ton of walkers to get us right to the boat.” Clementine was starting to feel confident in their odds.

We’re smart.

Smarter than all of them.

“How exactly are we going to lead a herd of walkers to the boat without getting chewed up?” Louis was understandably skeptical of the idea.

“Where the hell are we even going to find that many walkers?”

“I think I have a way.” A previous encounter sprang to her mind. A boy in the woods who might be willing to lend them a hand. Clem didn’t know how much their brief meeting was worth, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.

Right?

Clementine couldn’t really say she trusted James. He saved her life once, sure, but Clem knew the stories that surrounded the group that wore walker skins. Ruthless bastards who believed fiercely in survival of the fittest. She wondered how much of that mentality stuck with him since his escape. Clementine would lead with caution around him. The last thing she needed was to lose someone else because of misplaced trust.

“I… snuck out. About a week after I showed up here. I ran into a boy in the woods who used to be part of a group that could control walkers.” Clem felt best to leave out the gory details of the Whisperers.

“He lives somewhere in the area if we can track him down maybe I could convince him to help us lure enough of them to the boat.”

Honestly, any plan was better than no plan at this point.

“Why the hell would he help us?” Mitch’s disapproval was clear on his face.

“He wanted to help me when we met in the woods. Offered to let me stay in his camp for the night. If all I’m asking is for help moving some walkers, he might be willing to lend a hand.” It couldn’t hurt to ask, right?

Mitch crossed his arms as he considered bringing in a stranger to help them.

“Fine, but you’re not going alone.” He wasn’t a fan of the idea but it was as good a bet as any.

“I’ll go.” Louis piped up, stepping forward.

“You two go back and tell the others about what we saw, I’ll go with Clementine to find this guy.”

Clementine flashed him a small smile which he only briefly returned.

“Fine, but be careful around this guy.” Mitch bid them good luck as they split into two groups and headed in opposite directions.

As the two of them walked the trail alone, Clementine struggled to find something to say. Anything to fill the silence. She didn’t have to though, because Louis decided to speak first.

“Why did you sneak out?”

“What?” Her voice caught in her throat for a moment.

“You said you met James on a night you snuck out.” He glanced at her nervously but spoke as if the question had been eating at him.

“So… why uh, why was that?”

Raider business.

Clementine would rather not let him know she had been spilling all their secrets, but how could she keep lying to him?

“Part of my mission was to check in with Lilly and Abel. Tell them what I’d learned.” The memory made her sick to her stomach. Willingly going back to her captors like an obedient animal. Telling their enemy everything they wanted to know.

“I’m really sorry.”

“O-oh.” The look on his face told her that was the answer he was hoping not to get.

“That was… the morning we ran into each other. Before the hardware store.” Clementine felt

chilled in comparison to the warm memory of falling asleep in Louis’ arms.

Will we ever be the same?

She guessed it was too soon to tell. Maybe after all the bullshit with the raiders. Maybe then, they could figure out what they were now.

A loud chop echoes through the trees as they made their way down the path. They froze in place, readying their weapons.

“A raider?” Louis whispered as they ducked behind a moss-covered tree.

Clementine carefully peeked around the tree. Another chopping sound guided her eyes to a girl with flaming orange hair. The girl held an axe high above her head before bringing it down on a small log, splitting it in two. She didn’t seem to be a patrol unit, which gave Clementine some hope that Mitch and Willy wouldn’t encounter anyone this far into the treeline on their way home.

A soldier.

“Stay here, I’ll see if they know anything we can use.” Clementine flipped her knife around in her hand.

Louis nervously glanced between her and the raider before giving her a determined nod. A silent message to be careful.

Clementine tread carefully over the fallen leaves, leaving not a single crunch to give her away before she stood only a few feet behind her.

“Rockingham.” She said with conviction, causing the redhead to flinch mid-swing, missing the log in front of her.

The soldier spun on her heel towards Clem, expecting one of her comrades but instead getting her axe violently ripped from her grasp. Clementine kicked out the girl’s leg, sending her to her knees with an arm twisted behind her back and a blade pressed to her throat before she had a chance to cry out.

“The people you stole.” Clementine spoke with words laced with venom.

“Did Lilly hurt them?” She knew Lilly’s tactics. Inducing fear early on to break any will to escape.

“I-I don’t know what you’re-” The girl’s words were cut off by the knife being pressed harder against her skin on the verge of slicing it open.

“I’m not fucking around.” She growled. She held no sympathy for any of these people.

“N-no. They’re fine.” The redhead claimed though Clementine wasn’t too convinced.

“Clem! Stop!” Louis rushed over, keeping his voice low.

The Delta soldier took the moment of distraction to wrestle her way out of Clementine’s grasp, sending the smaller girl backwards with a shove. The girl eyed the axe laying in the dirt for a moment though she never dived for it, instead freezing when she saw the boy who stood next to her attacker.

“Hi, Minnie.” Louis said in slight disbelief.

Clementine looked back and forth between the two past friends.

This is Minerva?

He slowly approached her, pulling her in for a brief hug. Minerva rested her head on Louis’ shoulder, lips slightly parted in shock at the chance encounter. She buried her face into the fur of his collar before pulling away.

“After the attack… I wasn’t sure. I mean, I heard they burned half your school down.” Minerva spoke in a soft, slightly gravelled voice.

“Who survived? Marlon? Ruby? Tenn?”

Her little brother.

“Tenn’s fine, so is Ruby, b-but Marlon…” Louis’ words faltered as he bit down on his lower lip.

“He didn’t… didn’t make it.” His voice grew soft as his gaze fell to the grass below his boots.

Minerva seemed to share his moment of grief, Scrunching her nose in not disgust, but sorrow at the news of her betrayer’s death. Disgust eventually did cross her features though, but only when she had Clem in her sights.

“Clementine.” She spit, crossing her arms.

“You’ve got some fucking nerve showing up around here after the shit you pulled. Fucking traitor.”

“I never wanted to be a part of the Delta. I saw a way out and I took it.” Her loyalty had always been empty. Reinforced by fear instead of respect.

“‘A way out’? By turning my friends into an army and leading them into battle?” She raised her scar-crossed eyebrow.

“It’s a miracle Marlon was the only one who died from your dumbass idea. You ruined our whole plan.”

“That is some grade-A horseshit.” Louis countered.

“Clem saved us. Lilly would have taken us all.”

“And you all would have survived it.”

“You really think it would have been better if we’d just given up?” Clementine challenged.

“You really think it would have been better for your little brother to be caught up in all this? It’s bad enough they’ve already got Violet.”

Tennessee deserves better.

No one deserves to be a slave to the Delta.

“At least we’d be together as a family again.” The stoic girl’s demeanour cracked with a hint of emotion at the mention of her younger sibling and former girlfriend.

“Unlike you. Your little boy is fucked because of what you did. At least at the Delta, he has people who care about him.”

“You shut your fucking mouth!” Her voice began to rise. This was all for AJ. Why was that only apparent to her?

“Easy.” Louis put his hand on her shoulder, attempting to deescalate the situation.

“Minerva, where’s Sophie?”

Minnie’s eyes widened before being squeezed closed. The girl hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath before responding to his question.

“Sophie…” Her voice wavered at the mention of her sister.

“Sophie died protecting the Delta. A hero.” The amount of pride in the way she spoke of her sister’s demise made Clem’s stomach twist. Lilly had dug so far into this girl’s head she wasn’t sure if there was anything they could do to undo it.

Louis let out a fatigued sigh, emotionally exhausted from losing so many of his friends. Old wounds no doubt reopened from lost hope of bringing both of the twins home.

“You could still come home, Minnie.” Louis pleaded.

“Disappear right now, help us get the others back later. We can do this.”

“I can’t. Someone would get hurt if I up and deserted too.” The taller girl cast a sharp glare at Clem.

“I can take care of myself, Louis.”

Clementine knew it wouldn’t work. Minerva had clearly completely drank the kool-aid. The collar she wore wasn’t coming off anytime soon.

“Minerva!” A sickening older voice called from the path ahead. Clementine practically shoved Louis into cover as a sharp burst a fear shot through her chest.

“Rockingham!” The girl called back, finally retrieving her axe.

We’re fucked.

Clementine’s nails dug into the leather of Louis’ coat, prepared to drag him away from this place if Minerva showed any sign of giving them away. Both teens held their breath, not daring to make the slightest sound as they sat at the mercy of whatever bond she still valued with her former friends from the school. Minerva cast them a side glance, pursing her lips together as Lilly appeared at the end of the trail.

“Finish up your work. I want to be in before dark.” The evil woman ordered with annoyance in her voice.

“Yes, ma’am!” Minerva didn’t immediately out their presence to Lilly, but once the girl was out of sight down the trail she wasted no time dragging Louis away from that place.

---

Clem spent a decent portion of their walk filled with paranoia, shooting a glance over her shoulder twice a minute for any sign of pursuers. Each peek coming up empty but doing nothing to calm her nerves.

“Do you really think Minerva would tell Lilly that she saw us?” Louis didn’t seem willing to believe it.

“She’s not the same person that you knew, Louis.” Clem knew Minerva was too far gone to be trusted.

“Those people brainwash you into believing what they do. It doesn’t take long to lose who you used to be.”

“Shit.” He tried to focus his attention on the path ahead, his shoulders drooped and Chairles swung loosely in his right hand. Suddenly his pace shifted, the space between them closing as he walked by her side.

“It doesn’t change anything. We still need to get onto that boat.”

Even the heat of the afternoon sun couldn’t warm her skin. Her body constantly felt cold. As if liquid nitrogen ran through her veins. But standing so close to Louis she could practically feel the warmth radiating off of him. She swung her hand out a little father than her natural pace dictated, her fingers just barely grazing his. A simple, fleeting touch that sent electricity through her arm, feeling it deep in her heart. Louis didn’t seem to respond to her touch, but the concentrated expression across his freckled face made it difficult for her to read his thoughts.

Her eyes fell closed as she walked next to him. Piano notes danced through her mind on repeat.

Clementine.

The song he named for her. The song he poured his heart and soul into.

The song played vividly in her ears as if they were back home, sitting in the piano room. The music swirled through her, her heart fluttering with every gentle press of the keys. The feeling of his lips against hers was something she’d never forget, and something she feared deep down that she wouldn’t feel again. The time they spent together the night before was the happiest she’d been in longer than she could remember.

Last night.

All of it, not even twenty-four hours ago. God, how could everything become so fucked in just a short amount of time?

A sudden jolt broke her out of her own head as she stumbled forward a little. Her ankle stung slightly from the impact of the root she’d tripped over.

“You alright?” Louis shot her a quick concerned look.

“Yeah, I just tripped.” Clem brushed it off, speaking slightly out of breath. She hadn’t realized how unsteady her breathing had become.

“Let’s just find James.” Her limbs felt heavy as the beginnings of her exhaustion clawed at her heels.

Clementine was just eager to get this over with before the thumping ache in her chest sapped away the rest of her energy.