Texas is warm – like, really warm, especially considering that we're most likely at the beginning of summer at this point. It's as if the sun is purposely trying to scorch us out here; laughing as we fruitlessly try to keep cool out in these harsh conditions. The porch that I'm sitting on has a roof that provides a little bit of comfort from the boiling heat, but only by a tiny amount. Still though, as always, I try and make the best of things.

I don't need a patio chair like the ones that rest unoccupied beside me, since I've basically brought my own. Being in a wheelchair is tough, especially when you're living out in a world of the dead, but I've made do for the past four months that we've been at Houston Hills. Once you accept the fact that you can no longer walk properly, and you get used to moving around in this thing, then it's not too crappy of a life out here – especially considering all the BS that we had to go through in order to take over this place.

Sometimes I still think about that, about the people we met along the way… Molly, Etrius, Dominic, Mikael, hell I even think about Sandro from time to time; wondering how a person could've possibly turned that evil in that amount of time.

They might be all gone now from my life, with some good and some bad. But each experience has made me stronger in a way – I'm much more well-rounded than I ever was before all of this stuff happened. I could probably write a book about all of the stuff that we've been through, but I doubt that many people are left alive to even read it. Besides, who would ever believe that we took down an entire house-full of armed guards, travelled through a flooded New Orleans on a makeshift raft, broke out of a prison, escaped a massive herd of walkers from a hardware store, all the while trying not to rip each other's heads off along the way?

If there was ever an inspirational story of overcoming the odds, then this has got to be it.

A walker makes his way down the long dirt road that leads up to the house; seemingly very out of place as he's the only one you can see in any direction. With how few of these things that we get around Houston Hills, you'd think that my mind was just playing tricks on me or something – a walker? Around here? That can't be right!

But it is – jaws snapping and groaning hungrily as his deceased form wanders over to me. His eyes are glazed, pale and empty of any life whatsoever, and if you look closely you can see that he was bit right on the neck. His stomach is cut open as well, as you can clearly see his intestines dangling carelessly out of his system. A part of his skull is cracked open as black ooze pours all over him, but somehow he's walking towards the house. It still amazes me sometimes how the dead are able to walk around – it's like something that you'd hear about in a teenage boy's sci-fi book, never in real life.

Yet here it is… kind of makes all other bad stuff seem irrelevant in a way, doesn't it?

Hearing the screen door open, I don't need to turn my head to know who it is that's joining me out here. Lilly Caul: one of the crankiest, bravest, angriest, most loyal people I know, and all that I had to do to see the better sides of her was to give her a chance. I did, and she did not disappoint… for the most part.

Nobody's perfect, and Lilly definitely helped me to see that.

Narrowing her gaze as she shields her eyes from the sun with her hand, Lilly grunts in annoyance as she too notices our guest coming up the stone driveway. Leaning against the railing, Lilly wastes no time in taking the rifle off of her back, holding it out in front of her, taking aim and… stopping.

Confused (and slightly concerned that she hasn't killed the thing already), I move the chair closer to her as I catch Lilly's gaze landing upon me. With complete silence, Lilly holds the weapon out towards me, as I stare at the gun as if it's a foreign object.

Wearily, I eye the hunting rifle and graze my hand over its cold texture, silently asking Lilly if this is such a good idea. She nods once, indicating that she has full confidence and trust in me to get the job done and to do what is necessary. It's this level of trust that makes our group more tightly-knit together than most.

I take the weapon out of her grasp while trying to get used to the weight of the thing. A hunting rifle's certainly a lot heavier than my pistol, which probably would've been my go-to choice for taking this guy down. But I suppose it's better for me to learn this now, as I turn the chair facing forwards and cradle the back end of the gun against the side of my chin.

Taking a deep breath, I close one eye, aim the barrel a little lower due to the kick, and fire it right into the walker's brain; causing me to snap back in the chair and the walker's head to explode in a shower of blood and guts. It collapses with a thump onto the driveway, as Lilly takes the gun back and nods in acceptance. I've done my job, nothing more, nothing less. Any potential dangers to this place or to the group have to be eliminated, without any hesitation.

It's how we've survived for this long, as I watch Lilly start to drag the dead body away for decomposing.

Seeing that the problem has been taken care of, I give a satisfied nod and roll back into the house. Jane's probably taking a nap or something right now, so I'll try not to disturb her. Instead, I roll into the living room and pull out the stash of comic books that I had found while scouting the place a little while ago. Neither of them suspected that they'd be stashed away in between the couch cushions, not that I think they'd really care anyways.

Duck had unknowingly gotten me hooked on Batman, and I hadn't been able to read one until now.

That little thought makes me smile sadly as I flip through to the last page I had been on. Hmm… the Joker's planning to blow up a bank this time around…

….

"Alright, this house meeting is now in session," Lilly announces, causing me to smirk as Jane rolls her eyes. Lilly in turn shoots her a glare. "We haven't even started yet, and you're already giving me attitude!"

"Would you cut the crap, drama queen?" Jane retorts, leaning her elbow on the counter as she rests her head in her palm. "This isn't an executive board meeting or some shit – lighten up a little bit!"

"Fine, whatever…" Lilly huffs, folding her hands together on the kitchen counter and not willing to start an argument about something this late in the evening. "Let's just get this done. No need to beat around the bush here – our food supply isn't going to last forever, but we all know that we won't find a place like this again. Any suggestions on what to do?"

"What about the city?" I suggest, both pairs of eyes turning towards me. "Maybe we could scavenge some stuff from there – maybe there are some places we haven't looked at yet. Or maybe there are some abandoned camps that we could check out somewhere."

"I like that camp idea more than going into Houston, for obvious reasons," Jane explains, giving me a curt nod. Being "sisters" with her has seemed to actually help her out a lot – I think that talk that we had helped to soothe her a little and make her feel better in some ways. "There's gotta be others like us surviving around out here, right? And that means…"

"No, Jane," I interrupt, seeing where she could possibly be going with this. "We're not stealing anything – we've been through this already. Remember what happened with…"

"Yeah… that Russian fuck proved his point," Jane says, still feeling bitter about the whole thing. I'm not entirely sure why she still holds a grudge, especially since Lilly killed Arvo a while back.

Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Lilly tries to collect herself as she drums her fingers along the kitchen counter in deep thought. After Jane and I wait patiently for her to come up with something we can actually use, she has a eureka moment and snaps her fingers.

"The vegetables!" she exclaims, getting weird looks from Jane and I.

"Well, yeah," Jane remarks, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "that's the problem – we don't have enough!"

"No, no. I mean that we need to take care of the waste after we finish using them – keep the seeds that we find and then just replant them out back somewhere."

"You want us to do… farming?" I ask, not really familiar with how to do it. Cutting off branches and putting tobacco leaves into a bag doesn't exactly count as being a farmer. Lilly nods in affirmation.

She goes into her elaborate plan – talking about dumping all of the seeds that we find into a bowl, having one person go outside to plant them every three days or so, and checking over the crop every single day to make sure that it's working.

Jane seems pretty sceptical of the plan.

"Seems like a bit of a chore to me, and besides, how do you know this'll even work? I mean, where are we gonna find the water for this?"

"Well, we can just use some of the water we've got – it won't take that much," Lilly reasons while shrugging her shoulders, not seeing anything wrong with the plan. Jane doesn't like this.

"This isn't like the greenhouses back at Howe's, Lilly!" Jane argues, bringing me back to the first day that we had returned there. "We don't have the soil for this stuff, and taking away our water is just gonna kill us! I'm not giving it up just so that you can try to play farmer out back!"

"Well, Jane," Lilly sighs as she stands up to leave, "if you want to starve yourself, then by all means go ahead. I for one ain't just gonna sit around here and not try just because you're scared. I'll be outside if you need me. Clem, are you coming?"

Looking over at Jane for a brief minute, who seems pretty indifferent about it, I nod to Lilly and tell her that I'll just be a minute or two. There's something I've got to say first.

Watching as Lilly turns on a dime and heads out to the back fields, I watch as Jane slumps in her seat and rubs her face tiredly with both hands.

"This is familiar," I quip, crossing my arms across my chest as I hear her groan in annoyance. "I thought we were past this stuff, Jane."

"Not with shitty reasoning like hers, we're not," she mumbles, glancing over at me. I know that look – she wants me to be on her side again. Damn it…

"Please don't make me choose again," I complain with a sour face. "One of you always get pissed off whenever I do."

"Alright, alright. Just… think about it though. You know the score; you're a smart kid."

"That's what you told me after you left…" I remind her solemnly, and for a brief second I see a twinge of regret appear on Jane's face. She shakes it off immediately afterwards though, probably not wanting to dwell on that too much. So much went wrong back then…

"We need that water, and throwing it away to feed some fucking plants isn't the answer to our problems. Like you said, we should scout out some camps and scavenge again."

Well, you guys can go out scavenging anyways, I think to myself with a grimace, my eyes wandering down to my useless legs with sadness. Jane seems to understand what I'm getting at, so she sighs and just ushers me to go out and help Lilly.

I am officially sick of this wheelchair.

….

Thankfully for me, Lilly and Jane decided that it'd be a good idea to install some kind of wooden board out back so that I could use it as a ramp to get down. This has given me access to a lot more of the house that I hadn't been able to before, which makes things around here a little less boring at least.

That's the other problem that I had failed to bring up during the meeting – boredom. Honestly, I don't know what it is about this place, but sometimes it just sucks all the fun right out of your system after you've stayed here for long enough periods of time.

Don't get me wrong – I'm glad that there aren't many walkers around to fill up our time, and it's awesome that we've found a place as untouched as this one is.

But would it really kill someone to, I don't know, spice things up a bit around here?

You can hear me coming from a mile away with all the racket that this chair makes as it rolls down the board, so Lilly glances back to me and nods before returning to… whatever it is she's doing. I can't honestly tell from over here.

As I head over to the field where she is, my ears perk up a little bit and I cock my head to the side. I could've sworn that I just heard a noise from somewhere… and it sounded pretty suspicious, like a gargling sound or something. But there aren't any walkers that I can see from around here, and there's nothing really out of the ordinary besides the cellar entrance which we keep locked up tight, so I shrug it off and head towards Lilly.

Must've been nothing.

"Need any help?" I ask, growing slightly worried as Lilly shoots me a suspicious glance.

"Why didn't you say anything when we were inside?" she asks, an accusatory tone in her voice. "You and Jane are always on each other's side – whenever I say something different, suddenly I'm the odd one out. You could've stepped up, Clem. You know this is the best idea we've had in a while – I could see it on your face."

"I'm not on anyone's side!" I exclaim, sick to death of this us vs. them mentality going on around here. "Geez, Lilly! I just talked about this with Jane! We've been together for almost a year now – we're in this together! There's no need for all the fighting anymore!"

Giving me a hard glance, Lilly pulls off the tiniest of smiles before shaking her head; leaving me even more confused as to what's going on.

"Two years ago you would never have stood up for yourself like that," she comments, taking a handful of dirt and placing it in a pile beside her. "I guess you're right – I shouldn't try to pressure you like that. All that I'm saying is that I want what's best for the group, and Jane… she's not thinking straight. Going off to raid somebody's camp won't make us any better than the guards at the prison."

Not saying anything, I roll up beside her and try my best to start making my own hole in the ground so that we can start planting as soon as we get the seeds ready to go. This is probably gonna take a lot more work than I had originally thought it would, but it's gotta get done. Making sacrifices and doing the hard thing is what gets you through each day out here.

Giving my legs a sideways glance, Lilly sighs heavily and stops what she's doing as I wipe the dirt off on my jeans.

"You shouldn't have to be in this thing…" she remarks, looking over at me with sadness and regret. "I'm so sorry, Clmentine. I should never have forced you to get into that stupid truck…"

"Lilly, I was the one who didn't put a seatbelt on – "

"It was still my responsibility – I should never have put you in that position," she interrupts, catching me off guard about the whole situation. In my mind, it wasn't anyone's fault but my own, but I suppose that everyone's got their own perspective. "I was just so caught up in killing those assholes… and I brought you down with me. I don't know how or why you were able to forgive me after all of that, but I just want you to know… I promise that I'll never put you in danger like that again. You can count on it."

I give her shoulder a squeeze in support, and she seems a little bit more grateful as she turns back towards her work. Even the often cold-hearted Lilly can have some soft spots from time to time.

"Phew… alright, let's get this shit done before Jane over there throws a hissy fit."

"Lilly…"

….

Once we finish digging up enough holes, Lilly decides to call it a day and tells me to head on back inside. When asking if she's coming as well, she just tells me that she needs a little while to be by herself, so I respect her wishes and turn back towards the house. Everyone needs a little "me time" now and again, although Lilly seems to have it in spades.

I struggle to make it up the slope in this wheelchair, but somehow I manage to pull myself up the ramp with a whole lot of effort involved. I'm just about to open the door and head on inside, when I hear it again. Growling, it sounds like – I'm telling you, there's something fishy going on around here!

"Lilly!" I call out; no doubt annoying her as she slowly turns around to see what the problem is. "I think I heard a noise somewhere!"

"So?" she replies simply, shrugging as if there's nothing wrong. "It's probably just the wind, Clem – no need to get all jumpy. That's my job!"

"It's definitely not the wind…" I mutter, suddenly seeming unsure of myself as Lilly continues to brush it off. My eyes glance over to the cellar door for a second, but I shake my head and snap myself out of it. Lilly and Jane have been down there dozens of times with no issues before.

"Maybe your mind's just playing tricks on you, Clem. It happens to me sometimes, too," she reasons, causing me to second-guess myself as I reluctantly open the back door. I can't be going crazy yet though! I'm almost certain that something's moving somewhere around the house – maybe it's a ghost!

Hey, if the dead are up and walking around trying to eat your brains for dinner, then a ghost doesn't seem quite so superstitious now, does it?

Once I enter the house and allow Lilly to go about her business, I notice a pretty big surprise – a funny, kind of nice surprise.

"Jane?" I call out, startling the woman as she scrambles to put the book away and hide it. "What are you doing in here?"

"Umm… nothing!" she tells me, trying her best to cover up her embarrassment. "Just, uh… looking around to find anything interesting, yeah! Anyways, how's it looking out there? Did Lilly manage to build a barn and find some animals to raise while she was at it?"

"You don't have to be ashamed, you know," I smirk, yanking out the comic book from behind her back as she bites her lip in defeat. "We're all adults here."

"Hmph… reading comic books kind of proves otherwise, don't you think?"

"What's wrong with Batman?" I question, flipping to the page where she left off and widening my eyes in surprise. "How long have you been reading these for now? I only ever got through the first half!"

"About two weeks now…" Jane admits sheepishly, refusing to meet eye contact as she grows more and more humiliated at being caught with this thing. "I'd usually read them after you went to bed, and sometimes I'd bring them out on watch with me."

"Does Lilly know?" I ask, raising an eyebrow as she snatches it away and shoves it back into the couch.

"No, and I'd prefer that it stay that way," Jane snaps, huffing as I laugh at the childishness of it all. Not the fact that she's reading these, but more to do with the way she's acting about it. "This doesn't leave the room, alright? I don't need to give Lilly more ammunition against me."

"You think she'd shoot you over this?!" I exclaim, not understanding the concept as Jane rapidly shakes her head.

"Never mind… just please don't say anything, Clem? It can be our little secret or something."

"Well, we are sisters, after all," I smirk, giggling slightly as she leans back on the couch in relief.

Suddenly, the both of us turn to see that Lilly's returned to the house, but she's scratching her head and scrutinizing over some kind of old, slightly ripped up paper that she's holding.

"What's that you've got there?" Jane asks, shuffling over on the couch in case that she sees one of the books sticking out. Oh Jane… what are we gonna do with you?

Lilly doesn't answer, instead going over to the kitchen counter and laying it flat before studying it again. Confused, I look over to Jane as the both of us move over to see what all the fuss is about. It's just a piece of paper, so what's the problem?

"Got it from the cellar," she explains shortly, shaking her head as I'm about to ask my question. "No, I didn't see or hear anything in there, Clem. I made sure of it, trust me. But this paper fell onto the floor while I was rooting around."

"What do you think it is?" I ask with curiosity, glancing at the various lines and diagrams that cover the surface of it. Whatever this thing is, it must've been really detailed before sitting there collecting dust for so long.

"Looks like a map to me," Jane comments, not seeing what the big deal is with this thing. "You can barely make anything out from it though. What's so special about it?"

"They've got a whole shelf full of books and shit down in that cellar – maybe there's some kind of meaning behind it. Who knows, really?" Lilly shrugs, shaking her head before getting back to the task at hand. "Anyways, that's not the important thing. I just checked the cellar, and at the rate we're going, we'll starve by the time winter rolls around."

"There isn't a winter down here, genius. It's hot almost all year round," Jane snipes, but Lilly doesn't seem to pay her much mind. It's a good thing that I had the no-fighting talk with both of them earlier now, isn't it?

As Lilly goes into her speech about what our next steps should be, I take the map and head over to the couches; managing to plop myself down on the leather seat to try and make heads or tails of the thing.

Maybe there's no real significance to this thing… but something tells me there's more to it than that. What could this possibly be a map of? Buried treasure? A scavenger hunt? A map for freaking Santa Claus to find this house and come deliver presents?

Whatever it is, it's got me more than a little intrigued. Perhaps things won't be quite as boring around here as I had originally thought they would be.

These thoughts and more circle around in my mind, as once again I'm the only one to hear those strange noises coming from outside.

AN: Howdy, folks! Welcome to the sequel for this! If you're confused about how they got to Houston Hills or why it's Jane, Lilly and Clem travelling together, then go back and read the first part of this thing – it'll make way more sense that way. Anyways, things are going to pick up in the next few chapters, so I hope you guys are enjoying this so far! Please drop a review, they're much appreciated XD