Every sentence out of this kid's mouth dropped her blood pressure at least two points; by the time he was done speaking, she wasn't breathing, and a lot of the color had drained out of her face. There's no fucking way he could've made that much detail out of nothing. There was no other explanation for it. This kid... was apparently her brother.
A brother she never knew about, because the man who raised her neglected to ever mention it. Sure, he'd mentioned Rick, her biological father- an inept dickhead who supposedly wasn't worth his weight in shit. But never a brother.
Somehow she managed to keep her expression stone cold, set like rock in everything except her eyes. They held the recognition of all the things he described- she couldn't hide that. The dog at her side remained dutifully poised, ready to strike if he was given the signal, but nothing came. It felt like forever after he asked the question before she pulled in a breath, before she blinked for the first time in too long.
"Fuck me-" she exhaled for her own benefit, dropping the gun to her side- her thumb automatically clicked the safety on. She looked at him long and hard for another thick pause- unable to really find the right words. He obviously just showed up- learning about the hotel would be enough of a mind-fuck on its own. Now he had this to deal with, too.
"Look- this is gonna be the most fucked up thing you've probably heard in a while- and I get that's hard to believe, but you ain't heard half of it yet..." she explained flatly, but there was no room for humor. She was as dead serious as this was going to get. "This place- this hotel takes people from all different places, and times."
She took another breath, holstering the gun on her hip- Vlad took this as a signal to sit by her foot, but his eyes were still on Carl.
"I'm Judith," she finally disclosed, serious as a fucking heart attack. She unhooked the old hatchet from the loop on her belt, opposite side as the Eagle, her hand wrapped around the handle near the head- it was Rick's, but it was old, more banged up than Carl had ever seen it- but it was definitely his.
She showed it to him, reluctant to actually hand it over, but if he needed to see it that close, she would relent.