Tavia
Beneath a blood-soaked dressing of bandages, Hank's wound had begun to blister over, the skin around it starting to swell.
"You always were a tough bastard to kill," Tavia told Hank. It was true. During his time serving in the Marine Corps, Hank had suffered two gunshot wounds and a stab wound to his abdomen. Compared to that, the bullet he'd taken last week must have been nothing.
Luckily, the bullet had also passed straight though him, damaging no major organs on the way out. His only fear would have been blood loss, but the others had gone as far as to donate their own blood so that that didn't happen.
Hank had been slipping in and out of a deep sleep for the past week. Right now, however, he was awake. He winced as Tavia rubbed disinfectant over his wound.
"Do you remember everything this time?" Tavia asked him. For the past week, every time Hank had awoken, he would have no recollection of what had happened the night he'd been shot, and would need reminding all over again. It was not a story Tavia enjoyed telling.
"I got shot," he recalled, searching his hazy memory. "Who shot me?"
"Alvin," she answered. "Rebecca's husband." Tavia's blood boiled at the mere mention of their names. "He's dead, thanks to you." She squeezed Hank's hand. "Do you remember anything else?"
"Walkers," he growled in a raspy voice. "They surrounded us." Tavia watched as the stocky man slowly sat up from his chair. He was weak, she could see. His wide eyes scanned the room around him until he recognised it to be Carver's office. She knew the question that was coming before Hank even asked it. "Where's Carver?" Hank asked her, his jaw hanging open.
Tavia sighed a weary sigh. "He's dead," she told him. But the way the news barely seemed to even faze Hank made her suspect that he'd already worked that part out. "They killed him."
"They?" Hank scratched his beard as he tried desperately to remember what Tavia had already told him many times before. "You mean Luke and the others?"
"Bonnie's with them too," she explained. "Some of them didn't even make it past the herd, though," she explained, as though the news was supposed to somehow be reassuring. "Russell swore he spotted Carlos being devoured by a bunch of walkers. They're probably all dead by now." She paused, looking down at her feet mournfully. "No one lasts long out there."
Hank took a moment to process everything he'd just heard. The group had been at their strongest when they were all together. But, ever since Luke and his group had first betrayed them, the cracks in their community had begun to show. "Did we lose anyone else?" He finally asked. Tavia could tell by the way he avoided her gaze that he was afraid to hear her answer.
"A couple of the newer recruits," she answered. "Lowell and Tyler also found Troy's body outside one of the gates, but it wasn't the walkers that got him."
Hank rubbed his forehead. So much had happened in the little time he'd been out of it. "So," he began, "if Carver's gone, who's been keeping this group afloat?"
"Vince," Tavia responded, less enthusiastically than she perhaps should have.
"He doing a good job?" Hank asked her as she covered his wound with a fresh bandage.
She gave him and uncertain glance, which was enough of an answer for Hank. She was about to open her mouth when another voice cut in. "Hell no," the voice answered from across the room.
Lowell entered the office with a misplaced swagger that was humorous for a man of his height. "In fact," he continued as he approached, "if he keeps going on like this, he's gonna get us all killed."
"Lowell, what the hell are you talking about?" Tavia asked him as he approached her and Hank. Tending to Hank had taken up many hours, meaning she attended almost none of Vince's meetings.
"I'm talking about that stupid kid's so called 'plan' to leave this place," Lowell replied furiously.
"Has he not seen the enormous herd of walkers out there?" Tavia asked curiously.
"I'm starting to think he and Bonnie orchestrated this whole thing together!" Lowell suggested, as ridiculous a claim as it was. It was not, however, completely beyond belief. "Either way, the kid has to go," he declared. The words sent a cold shiver down Tavia's spine.
Hank scanned the tall, skinny, pale man stood in front of him from top to bottom, as though he was uncertain whether or not he even remembered him. His words, however, had swayed him. "If you don't think this boy is fit to lead our group, who do you suggest instead?" Hank asked.
Tavia turned to Lowell. The tall, unsightly man in the beanie hat had his eyes fixed on Hank. The stocky thirty-something year-old sat up in his chair, scratching his black beard.
"I'm looking right at him," Lowell answered in a cold, raspy voice.
With those words, an idea was planted, and a revolution had begun.
Next time: Russell makes plans to leave Howe's Hardware, only to uncover a new threat about to emerge from within the group.