thirty six - supply closet.

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The refuge in the supply closet lasted for a while longer than Bentley thought it would've. She had fallen asleep in there, making it to the next day in the dimly light, closed door room.
She had been in there for longer than she should've, and now she weren't sure when she should come out.

Bentley didn't know what time it was, what day it was, or if it was night. She didn't know if anyone else had died, if they got sick, if someone was looking for her.
Chances are, looking for her would be a small priority right now. And even if there wasn't a sickness, everyone knew she could hold her own, and everyone knew she weren't outside.

Bentley had a lot of time to herself in the supply closet. And that allowed Bentley to take a moment and just think. Think about David and Karen, and who could have possibly killed them.

Bentley didn't know David, but she knew Karen to a degree. They were good people, always making others smile or enjoy the chaotic world she lived in. It wasn't out of hate.
They were both sick, so the person that killed them had to have only done it out of care for everyone else. 
In their own, slightly sick way.

There would only be a few people who would kill others for the safety of everyone else. Carl did do it, but he couldn't do it for someone in the group. He couldn't have killed them. Glenn would for Maggie, but the girl knew this wasn't him. There wasn't any danger striking Maggie specifically. Rick might have, but the way he acted and the way he spoke told Bentley he didn't do it. The same goes for Daryl.
Michonne had a possibility of doing it as well, but she was injured, so it couldn't have her. And if it was, she wouldn't go back to Judith. She would have told Rick what she did.

As the names crossed off Bentley's list, there was one name she couldn't cross off.
And Carol was very quiet when Tyrese found Karen.




As time went by, Bentley heard more people stroll pass the door of the supply closet. She heard them coughing, groaning, complaining about how they felt. They were sick. The illness was spreading, and she just started to read each little out of date cleaning supplies in the closet.

Bentley didn't really want to go back out there. She didn't want to see how her face looked, and she didn't want Rick's apology. Because he would say how sorry he was for hitting her, and she would forgive him.
Then, Bentley would forgive him for everything else.

She'd forgive him for letting her go on supply runs. For letting her fight the walkers. For letting her go and save Maggie and Glenn. For letting her go back to Woodbury. For letting her go out into the woods alone, looking for food. For letting her go with him and that lady that killed herself. 
For letting her be the way she was.

Bentley was good at those things, but she wish she weren't. She didn't want to be the person that just did things in the group. Bentley didn't want to be there, simply because she could fight, and she weren't afraid to kill.
Bentley wanted to be there because she mattered. And the punch to the face said otherwise.

So Bentley wanted to feel angry, just for a little bit longer.

And that little bit longer last for another day. Bentley were angry, and she had every right to be mad. she didn't want to be the mindless puppet that would go along with everything and every task that needs to be done.
Bentley didn't always want to be out there.

While Bentley were in the cell block, locked away from everything else. Safer than everyone else, she felt like she were safe. She knew she were, she knew she weren't going to die, and that in itself scared Bentley.
She didn't want to get comfortable being safe, because there is nowhere that is safe. At least not for long. She was never good with the emotional stuff. But anger? Anger she were good at. Bentley could hold anger like she could hold a hand.

          

Bentley had a stomach full of blood, a head full of blood. All of it, a burning red. And she could feel all of it, all this rage that had been brewing for a long time. Something inside her seethed. Inside her, some feral animal clawed at her ribcage, trapped.

Bentley breathed as calmly as she could, running her fingernails over her knuckles in an attempt to calm down.
Today, she hadn't heard anyone cough or go by the door. Today, she felt the supply closet.

Bentley decided to go outside, smell some fresh air, possibly come to her senses from being trapped in a room full of expired cleaning products.
And when she got outside, the last thing she wanted to do was run with fear pumping in her veins as she watched a herd of walkers start to bend the fence.

There was no one on the fence line. No one in the yard. No one in sight.
There was no one protecting the fence. Bentley grabbed a crowbar and she started to jam it through the holes of the fence, not really caring how well she scored through the eyes of the walkers. She just had to get rid of them as quickly as she could.
Bentley jogged down the fence line, hoping to get them away from the bending part.

It had worked, but they started to pile up on the area Bentley were now. She shoved the crowbar through the faces of the dead as quick as she could. She didn't want to look at their faces, trying to see who they once might have been. They were dead, and it was either going to be them, or her and everyone in the prison.

Bentley had been going at it for a while. Being in the blistering sun didn't help, but when she heard the sound of footsteps running towards her, and Bentley saw Maggie with an almost smile on her face, it felt like the job got that little bit easier.

"What happened to your face?" Maggie asked, her eyes shifting over in worry as she saw whatever mark was on the young girl's face.

Bentley blinked, unsure of how to answer that question. She just stabbed a walker. "Doesn't matter, we need to get rid of this, now."

"They've been showing up like for for a while. They won't spread out anymore." Maggie informs her as she raises her own crowbar, stabbing a few walkers. "Daryl, Michonne, Bob and Tyrese are out looking for medicine..."

Bentley stabbed another walker, peering over at Maggie for a moment. "...Who else is sick?"

Maggie was the only person she's seen so far. She told she the names. Glenn, Hershel being the ones were her voice wavered a small bit. Two people she cared so much about, and they had the threat of death over their heads.

"Where have you been?" Maggie asked after a while. "I didn't see you go into quarantine with the others. Rick was looking everywhere for you."

Rick was looking everywhere for her.

"You know about David and Karen?...I was there...Tyrese was...he was really upset...I...I don't..." Bentley weren't sure where she were going with the rest of her sentence, but she finished it off by killing two more walkers.

"Did Tyrese do that to your face?" Maggie asked, a voice of firm concern in her tone.

"No!" Bentley said quickly, not wanting her respect on Tyrese to crumble over a lie. "He didn't...Rick didn't mean to."

"Rick-"

"He didn't mean to." Bentley looked away from Maggie, going back to focus on the walkers. "He didn't mean to."
That's what she told herself every time she drove the crowbar into the skull of a walkers. Every thought she had for next hour was that rick didn't mean to and it was she thought. Even though she spent that last day or so in the closest for her anger, she still told herself that Rick didn't mean to

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