Chapter 196: Carmen and an Invitation

I turned and saw Shannon waving at me energetically, her face lighting up in a broad smile when our eyes met. She was walking carefully with the help of a stick, her injured ankle still bound, her steps cautious.

She wasn’t alone.

Beside her walked a woman in her late twenties, maybe early thirties, with the same flaxen hair and clear blue eyes as Shannon. The resemblance was immediate and striking—the same jawline, the same tilt to the smile, the same way they held their shoulders when they moved.

“Shannon, slow down,” the woman said, her voice tinged with worry. She lengthened her stride, one hand half‑extended as if she expected her daughter to topple at any second. “You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep limping like that.”

“I won’t, Mom. Stop treating me like a child already,” Shannon said.

“A child would be more sensible than you’re being right now,” her mother shot back. “Do you actually want to tear that ankle again and spend another week stuck in bed?”

Shannon made a grumbling sound that could have been agreement or just noise, but she did slow down. The stick under her hand took more of her weight, and the exaggerated bounce in her step eased into something more careful. Planks creaked softly under their feet as they closed the distance between us.

They reached us within a few seconds: Shannon, flushed and bright, and her mother, composed but obviously tense.

“Carmen,” Marlon said, giving the woman a small nod.

“Marlon,” she replied, returning the nod before her expression immediately shifted into something apologetic and slightly embarrassed. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have let Shannon out of my sight, not even for a moment. I honestly didn’t think she would actually leave the safe zone, not with everything that’s been happening lately, but I should have known better. She’s always been stubborn when she’s upset, and I should have anticipated—”

“Don’t worry about it now,” Marlon cut in. “What matters is that she’s still alive and standing here instead of lying dead in some alley. And that she’s learned something valuable from the experience—I certainly hope that’s the case.”

He shifted his gaze directly to Shannon as he spoke the last part, letting the weight of his attention settle on her like a physical thing. The implied warning was clear without being explicit: Don’t make me regret being understanding about this.​

Shannon lifted one shoulder in a shrug that tried to project casual indifference but didn’t quite succeed. There was a flicker of guilt or embarrassment in her expression, quickly hidden but not completely suppressed. “You weren’t the one who saved me anyway,” she said bluntly, deflecting from Marlon’s pointed look by tilting her chin toward me instead.​

Carmen followed her daughter’s gesture. Her eyes landed on me, swept quickly over the dried blood stains still marking my jacket and shirt despite my ocean washing, noted the bandages visible on my forearms, took in the exhaustion that must have been written clearly on my face, and then widened slightly as understanding clicked fully into place.​

“Could it be…?”

“He’s the one who found Shannon and got her out of there,” Molly supplied helpfully, stepping slightly closer with a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “If he hadn’t shown up exactly when he did and intervened, your daughter would be shuffling around with the infected right now instead of standing here arguing with you about taking care of herself.”

The blunt statement hit Carmen visibly. Color drained from her face for just a moment, her eyes going distant and haunted as she clearly imagined exactly that scenario. It was the nightmare every parent in this new world carried.​

Then she shook herself slightly, as if physically pushing away the dark thought, and moved toward me with sudden urgency. She crossed the last couple of steps quickly, stopping just shy of my personal space, close enough that her body language screamed the desire to grab my hands or embrace me, but she held herself back through what looked like considerable effort.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much for saving my daughter. I don’t—I don’t know what I would have done if something had actually happened to her. I can’t even…”

She trailed off, unable or unwilling to finish articulating the thought. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears that she was clearly fighting to contain .

“It’s alright,” I said, suddenly hyperaware of everyone watching this exchange—Marlon staring, Molly smiling knowingly, Rico somewhere behind us probably still irritated about earlier, and various other community members whose attention had drifted toward us. “The important thing is that she’s alive and safe now. That’s all that really matters.”

“See?” Shannon said brightly, apparently interpreting my discomfort as modesty rather than simple awkwardness. A wide grin spread across her face as if she’d just won an argument. She reached out and wrapped her hand around my forearm without warning or hesitation, fingers closing over my sleeve and using me as both an anchor and support. “Ryan doesn’t act like saving someone’s life is some huge heroic deed. He’s not making any big dramatic speeches about it.”

Carmen’s brow creased when she saw her daughter grab onto me so familiarly. It wasn’t anger exactly, more a flash of protective maternal wariness—the instinctive bristling of a parent watching their injured child attach herself to a stranger who’d literally just walked out of the wasteland covered in blood and exhaustion.

Before Carmen could verbalize whatever objection was forming, I decided to redirect the conversation into something more productive.

“Regardless of how it turned out,” I said, angling my head down to look at Shannon directly, keeping my voice firm but not harsh, “you absolutely cannot do that again. Going outside the safe perimeter alone, especially at night, especially after an argument—it’s not just reckless, it’s potentially fatal. And not just for you.”

Shannon’s shoulders hunched slightly at the serious tone, some of the brightness fading from her expression.​

“Even if you’re furious at your mother, even if you’ve had the worst fight of your life and you can’t stand to be in the same room with her for another second, you find safer ways to deal with it. Leave the room, yes. Go somewhere private inside the safe zone, absolutely. Write angry letters and then tear them up. Scream into a pillow. Whatever helps. But walking out past the barricades alone?” I shook my head slowly. “If something happened to you out there, your mother wouldn’t just ’feel bad’ or ’be upset.’ She would carry that pain every single day for the rest of her life. That weight would never leave her.”

The words landed heavily. Shannon’s gaze dropped to the weathered wooden planks beneath our feet, and I saw her throat work as she swallowed hard .

“It’s not like I went out there because I wanted to die or anything,” she muttered sulkily.

“Maybe not consciously,” I agreed. “But you still put yourself in mortal danger over an argument. So from now on, you need to find less suicidal methods for giving your mom the cold shoulder. The apocalypse provides plenty of ways to be angry without also being stupid about it.”

I risked a brief glance toward Carmen and immediately caught the tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth—the beginning of either approval or amusement, hard to tell which, but definitely accompanied by that particular quality of sharpness that suggested I was walking a very thin line between helpful and overstepping .

“Of course,” I added quickly, recognizing the warning sign, “the absolute best option would be actually listening to your mother in the first place and not having these kinds of blowout arguments to begin with.”

“You changed your tone really fast just then,” Shannon observed, squinting up at me with sudden suspicion. “Did Mom give you that scary smile she does when she’s pretending to be nice but is actually two seconds from losing it?”

“I only said what I genuinely think,” I replied, attempting to extract my arm from her grip with a gentle but insistent tug. “Now, can you please let go of my arm and use the walking stick like you’re supposed to..”

I tried to take a careful step away, intending to put some physical distance between us and hopefully redirect everyone’s attention back to more practical matters .

“Hey! Wait—!”

Exactly as I’d predicted, the moment Shannon loosened her grip on me to make a grabbing motion, her weight shifted entirely onto her injured ankle. The joint buckled immediately, unable to support her, and her whole body pitched forward in that horrible slow-motion way where you could see the fall developing but couldn’t quite prevent it fast enough.​

I moved quickly.

My left hand shot up and caught her shoulder before she could complete the fall, fingers tightening with just enough pressure to arrest her momentum without causing additional injury. Simultaneously, my right hand darted down and snatched the walking stick that had clattered to the boardwalk, then pressed it firmly back into her now-empty grip .

“Try not to move so suddenly,” I said, making absolutely certain she’d planted her good foot properly and had solid purchase on the stick before I slowly released my steadying grip on her shoulder. “You’re going to undo all the work put into treating that ankle if you keep jerking around like this. Healing takes time and care, not enthusiasm.”

I started to turn my attention back toward Marlon, ready to finally move past this extended introduction and get to whatever practical matters needed addressing, but Shannon’s fingers caught my sleeve again with surprising quickness .

“Wait,” she said, and there was something markedly different in her voice this time.

I turned back, half-expecting another protest or attempt to prolong the conversation. Instead, I found her staring directly at my face with an intensity that was frankly uncomfortable. But she wasn’t looking at my scars from various close calls, or the exhaustion written in the lines around my eyes, or even my overall appearance .

She was staring directly into my eyes themselves.

“Y…You…” she stammered, seemingly having trouble finding words. “Your eyes… they’re gray. Really gray. I’ve never seen eyes that color before.”

She said it almost fascinated.

Genetically uncommon, sure—something about recessive genes and low melanin concentrations, if I remembered random pre-collapse trivia correctly. I’d gotten occasional comments about them growing up in New York, mostly from people who got close enough in good lighting to notice. In the ruins of the world, eye color felt like one of those completely irrelevant luxuries that survival had rendered meaningless. But apparently Shannon found it noteworthy enough to forget everything else happening around us .

“Inherited from my mother,” I said simply. “Just genetics. Nothing particularly special or meaningful about it.”

“Wait, Ryan—” She started, clearly intending to pursue this new tangent.

“Enough, Shannon,” Carmen cut in decisively, exasperation finally breaking through her earlier composure completely. She wrapped her hand firmly around her daughter’s upper arm and physically eased her back a full step, creating clear separation between us. “He’s not a museum exhibit for you to study. And he’s certainly not a support structure for you to hang off of whenever you forget how to use your walking stick properly.”

I seized the opening gratefully and turned my full attention back to Marlon, hoping we could finally move past personal dynamics and into practical matters.​

“If that’s everything you needed to discuss for now,” I said, “I’d like to request some food for Clara before we make any decisions about leaving. She regained consciousness this morning, but she’s weak from blood loss and hasn’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours. She needs solid food and rest before we even consider trying to move her anywhere.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Marlon said with a short, decisive nod. “We’ll make sure both she receives proper meals. We’re not monsters here, despite what circumstances might suggest.”

“I—In that case!” Shannon blurted suddenly, jumping in. “You should eat with us! With me and Mom! As a proper thank you!”

“Shannon,” Carmen warned, turning a genuinely stern look on her daughter.​

“What?” Shannon shot back with zero repentance, meeting her mother’s stern gaze stubbornly. “He literally saved my life—pulled me out of a situation where I would have died or worse—and you’re going to give him a quick ’thank you’ and send him away with a bread roll? Is that seriously how you think we should treat someone who kept your daughter from becoming one of those infected things, Mom?”

“N…eNo, that’s not what I meant at all,” Carmen protested, the sternness cracking immediately under a wave of embarrassment that colored her cheeks. “I wasn’t suggesting we just dismiss him, I only meant that he might have other things he needs to do, and we shouldn’t presume to take up more of his time when he’s clearly exhausted and has responsibilities to his own people and—”

She cut herself off, seeming to realize she was rambling. She glanced at me, face still flushed, clearly caught between maternal pride, social embarrassment, and genuine obligation. After a moment, she let out a resigned sigh, her shoulders dropping slightly as she surrendered to the inevitable.​

“Alright,” she said quietly, meeting my eyes. “Please… eat with us. As a proper thank you, like Shannon said. It’s the least we can do after what you did.”

“No, there’s no need for that,” I said, the words coming out more awkwardly than intended.

The idea of sitting at a family table with strangers, being watched and thanked and fussed over, made something in my chest tighten. What I wanted was simple: get food into Clara, eat something myself without an audience, then get back with the others to discuss our future plans.

Shannon either didn’t hear me or chose not to.

“Yeah, let’s go, Mom!” She said, already half‑turning. She grabbed Carmen’s arm with both hands and started tugging. “We have to get dinner ready right now. We’ve got fish, right? We can cook those!”

Carmen stumbled a step after her, more pulled than walking. “What do you mean we?” She asked, exasperation creeping back into her voice. “You never help me cook. Not once.”

“Then I’ll help you now!” Shannon declared proudly. “You can show me. It’ll be fine.”

“I’d rather you stay put and not burn the place down,” Carmen muttered, but Shannon was already dragging her away along the Boardwalk, limp and stick and all, waving back at me with her free hand as if everything had been settled.

I watched them go, not entirely sure what I was supposed to do with any of that.

“Sorry about her,” Molly said as she stepped closer, following my gaze toward the retreating pair. “Shannon is… well, she’s a bit of a handful. But she’s also a ray of sunshine for this place. Her energy lifts people up whether they want it to or not.”

“I can see that,” I said, and it was true. For better or worse, the girl’s liveliness cut through the constant gray weight hanging over this city.

I turned back toward Marlon.

He was still watching me, unreadable, arms loosely folded now.

“Need anything else, boy?” He asked.

“Nothing,” I said, keeping my voice curt but not hostile.

There was nothing more to say that wouldn’t drag me deeper into their orbit, and I already felt its pull more than I liked.

I gave Molly a brief nod of thanks and turned away, heading back toward the Emerald Hotel.

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