The single-family house reeked of burnt cigarettes. Everyone except Jerry had crowded into one room, and with no beds to speak of, they'd settled on the floor. Dee and Andrea were laying out blankets while Lydia moved quietly nearby, a piece of candy tucked into her cheek.
By the window, Chicken stood with his rifle slung across his back, safety off. His eyes stayed fixed on the people outside, the adults talking among themselves, children running loose circles around the fire. A spear leaned against the wall beside him. His brother Jerry had gone to walk the settlement at Chicken's request, though whether out of genuine curiosity or a need for eyes on the place, Dee hadn't asked.
"What've you got in your mouth there, Lydia?" Andrea asked, shaking out a blanket.
Lydia stiffened.
"Hm?" She looked up too quickly, eyes too wide. One hand flew to her mouth before she caught herself and tucked the candy behind her back. "N-nothing." She swallowed. "Do you need help?"
The tremor in her voice was small but unmistakable.
From her corner of the room, Dee watched without turning her head.
Andrea offered the girl a quiet smile. "Hey. Relax. I'm not going to take your candy."
Lydia said nothing. She took a small step back, shoulders drawing inward, fingers curling tighter around whatever she was hiding. Her eyes cut briefly toward Dee, then back to Andrea.
Andrea caught the glance. She looked toward Chicken, then toward Dee neither appearing to notice and stepped closer, dropping her voice.
"Are you worried your mom might see?"
Lydia lowered her head.
"I won't tell her," Andrea said softly. "Promise."
The girl shifted her weight from foot to foot, one ankle rubbing against the other. Her breathing had gone shallow. Every few seconds her eyes drifted back toward her mother, watching for something.
Slowly, she shook her head.
Andrea frowned. "Hey. Talk to me."
A long pause. The candy wrapper crinkled in Lydia's fist.
"Mommy doesn't like Lydia eating without asking first," she whispered.
"So you're scared she'll catch you?"
Lydia nodded fast. "Please don't tell her." Her voice was barely there. "I don't want to be hungry again."
Andrea's smile didn't so much fade as disappear.
The words came faster then like pressure releasing.
"She gets really mad when I eat without permission."
Andrea looked at the child. Lydia was trembling, knuckles white around the candy, the wrapper crackling with every small movement of her hand.
"If Mommy gets angry," Lydia whispered, "sometimes Lydia doesn't get to eat for days."
Andrea stopped folding the blanket.
For a moment the room seemed very quiet. Then, almost without meaning to, her eyes moved to Dee who sat with her back half-turned, smoothing the same fold of fabric with slow, deliberate hands.
Something cold settled in Andrea's chest.
When the Lord had first told her that Dee was an abusive mother, she'd been skeptical. After spending nearly a week with the woman, she'd had no cause to think otherwise. Dee was fierce about her daughter constantly attentive, never far from her side. She'd read it as protection.
Now those two images crashed together, and she couldn't tell which one was real.
She crossed the room. Dee was finishing a blanket, pressing out its wrinkles with careful hands, as though she hadn't heard a word.
"Stop pretending," Andrea said. "Was what Lydia told me true?"
Dee's hands paused for only a moment.
"It's true," she said flatly. "What are you going to do about it... kill me?"
The casualness of it hit Andrea harder than anger would have. She opened her mouth, then stopped.
Dee's head was bowed over the pillow. Her hands had gone still. And on the fabric beneath them, a small damp stain was spreading not from any wound, but from her face. She wasn't making a sound.
Andrea stood there a moment, not speaking.
"I don't understand you," she said finally, quieter than she'd intended. "Which face is the real one?"
Dee's hands slowed. The repetitive smoothing stopped. "You're stubborn about what you believe," she said. "You decide what you want to see, and then you see it. That's all."
"What does that mean?"
"It means look at the Governor." Dee turned to face her, and her expression left no room for interpretation. "Not who you want him to be. Who he actually is."
Andrea held her gaze. "Not everyone hides behind masks the way you do." She folded her arms. "And I don't need a lecture on what I believe... not from you."
Without a word, Dee reached into her coat and pulled out a pocket knife. Andrea tensed her body had already started to react but Dee simply tossed it across the space between them. Andrea caught it badly.
Near the window, Chicken's hand had moved to the spear. Then he let it go, his attention drifting back outside.
"Tomorrow," Dee said, "when you have coffee with him... take that with you."
Andrea looked at the knife in her hand. Then she tossed it back.
"Keep it," she said. "You need it more than I do."
She turned and walked out of the conversation, leaving Dee alone with the blankets.
Dee didn't move for a long moment. Then she pressed the back of her hand against her face, quietly, and went back to smoothing the wrinkles out.
Chicken had been watching from the window. He'd caught enough without meaning to hear any of it. When Andrea's footsteps approached, he turned.
He didn't say anything. He didn't need to.
Andrea hesitated. With the Lord absent, Chicken was the one in command, and she knew it. Taking a quiet breath, she steadied herself.
"The Governor invited me for coffee this morning. He wants to talk about the community." She kept her voice even. "I think it's worth taking a chance to understand what Woodbury really is. Maybe it lays the groundwork for an alliance. Trade, at least, I'm asking your permission."
Chicken looked at her. His body remained perfectly still, the rifle slung across his back, one hand hanging loose at his side. But his eyes were another matter.
"Half an hour," he said. "That's all."
Relief moved through Andrea before she could stop it. Half an hour was enough. She opened her mouth to thank him.
"Don't tell him anything about Angel Blood." His voice never changed still calm, flat and unhurried. "Not our numbers. Not our location. Nothing about the Lord. We don't know enough about this place, and I won't have it compromised because someone decided to be friendly."
He paused.
"Don't give me a reason to call you a traitor."
Andrea clasped her hands behind her back, hoping he wouldn't notice their trembling.
"Yes, sir."
She turned and left before he could say anything else.
Within Angel Blood, there was only one punishment for traitors. Everyone knew it. Everyone had seen it at least once, the public square, the rope, and the silence of a crowd that knew better than to look away.
A knock rattled the front door.
Chicken signaled Andrea; she moved to the door while he kept one hand loose at his side. The knock had been slow and unhurried. That alone told him something.
The door swung open.
"Brother…" A familiar voice, thick and dragging. "How are you?"
Jerry filled the doorway a beat longer than necessary before stepping inside. Andrea shut the door and threw the bolt. The smell reached the room before he fully crossed the threshold, something sharp and fermented beneath the sweat and road dust. Lydia wrinkled her nose. Dee said nothing, but her eyes tracked him with quiet concern.
Jerry slid down the wall in the far corner, back hitting the plaster with a dull thud, and looked up at his brother with the careful, deliberate focus of a man trying very hard to appear sober.
"Brother," he said, "I got some information."
Chicken studied him for a moment. "Then tell me."
"Right." Jerry waved one hand vaguely. "Met a fella. Guy named… Merle Dixon." He paused as if waiting for the name to mean something, then shrugged it away. "Good fella. Anyway, that's not the important part. What matters is they've got communication with the prison, regular contact." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Also, while we were… talking, I found out the Governor's apartment is restricted. His own most trusted people haven't seen all the rooms. He lives there alone." A beat. "That's suspicious."
He blinked at his brother as if proud of the conclusion. "That's everything, bro."
Chicken moved toward him and crouched to eye level. "Good work. That information was valuable." He kept his voice even. "Don't drink on a mission."
Jerry's expression shifted into something wounded and earnest. "Brother, I barely had any. Just enough to loosen the fella up.... it was tactical."
Chicken put a hand on his brother's shoulder.
"I understand." His tone didn't change. "Go to sleep."
Jerry blinked. "Yeah." He glanced around the room with the slow, searching look of a man cataloguing his needs. "Brother… is there a pillow? So I can sleep?"
"You won't need one," Chicken said.
"What?"
Jerry looked up at him, confused.
Then the lights went out.
Chicken straightened and caught his brother before he could slump sideways, lowering him the rest of the way to the floor before dragging him by the collar onto the nearest bedroll. He dropped a pillow onto Jerry's face and stood, glancing at the red impression his palm had left on his brother's cheek.
"Goddamn pig," he muttered.
No one in the room made a sound.
He turned to Andrea. "Put a blanket on him. You and I are splitting the watch tonight."
Andrea nodded once and moved to do it.
The room settled into the quiet business of sleep — bedrolls unrolled, boots set aside, breathing slowing. Lydia pulled Dee close and went under fast, her grip tight even in sleep.
But Dee stayed awake.
She stared at the ceiling and turned Jerry's words over in her mind: restricted apartment… alone… even his most trusted people. The Governor was careful and deliberate. The kind of man who kept rooms no one was allowed to see.
She thought about what might be inside them.
She couldn't stop thinking about it.