A/N Thanks so much for reviewing! Please keep them coming :)
Rick wipes his forehead when the heavy drizzle flattens his dark wavy hair to his scalp as he watches Michonne and Sasha scurry past Aaron's house to make their way to the townhouse. When they duck out of his sight, he turns back to watch Glenn scale the wall using the thick bolts that someone had inserted into either side of one of the metal beams running vertically up the panel.
Glenn reaches the top and finds a coil of rope tied to an extra bolt just beneath the ridge of the panel. He grabs the loop and moves up to the next step which brings his head just above the fence line. Rick sees him pause to look out across the expanse of grass, trees and distant houses surrounding the safe-haven known as Alexandria. "See anyone?" the sheriff asks quietly, anxiously wanting to get over the wall himself as the sound of shattering glass echoes continuously above the rooftops as their precious solar panels fall victim to the merciless attack.
"No, it's clear." Glenn tosses the length of rope over the edge and pulls his way up and over the wall.
When Rick finally lands on the other side, he watches Glenn and Maggie go off to the right before he and Daryl hug the fence to the left, working their way around the panels and taking cover from the copse of thick trees that stand outside the southwestern end of the sanctuary.
After taking out a lone walker as it shuffled over fallen leaves and dead sticks on the damp ground, they reach a small one-story house set within the trees across the street from the shooter on the roof. Peering around the corner of the abandoned home, Rick sees a woman with long black hair standing on the front porch of the dilapidated house, on lookout with a shotgun in her arms and a nervous swivel of her head.
The man on the roof continues to fire randomly at windows while his partner in the tower wreaks havoc on the solar panels. As he lines up the sight on the shotgun for more target practice with the windows, another crack splits the night and a spray of dirt and shingle bursts off the corner of the roof to the man's right.
"That's it Sasha," Rick murmurs. "Give him something to think about."
"So how'd you wanna do this?" Daryl asks, squatting low next to Rick.
"This angle sucks, we're gonna have to get closer to get the asshole on the roof. But we get him first then sneak around the back of the tower to get his friend."
Though the majority of the building was demolished from fire or walkers or warfare, the tower still stands to provide guardianship over Alexandria. The fact that the survivors hadn't been taking advantage of that in order to protect themselves gets Rick's blood bubbling once again and he pulls a deep calming breath to focus on his objective.
"What about the girl?" Daryl asks as the woman in question flinches severely with her entire body after a flash of lightning is immediately followed by a crash of thunder, causing her to take a step further back beneath the overhang.
"Can you take her out from here?"
"It's been a few days, but yeah, I shouldn't be that rusty."
Rick lets Daryl take his position at the corner and watches the hunter step out from the wall with the crossbow lifted to his eye, his sight on the dark haired girl.
"Shit," Rick curses softly but angrily as he looks back toward the woods they had just come out of.
"What the fuck?" Daryl steps back behind the house without taking the shot.
"Stupid little prick," the sheriff mutters as Aiden Monroe walks out from behind a very old tree, walking tall and cocky with a pistol held casually at his side as he heads toward them.
Rick hears a barrage of gunfire from Sasha's rifle as he walks purposefully toward Deanna's son, pulling a knife from his belt when he nears the young man in a few long, livid strides.
"Woah, man. Take it easy." Aiden lifts his gun toward Rick in a purely defensive stance, the weapon wavering indecisively.
Rick draws his knife back with his strong right arm while his left hand grabs Aiden's wrist and yanks it hard to the side, bringing the young man to his knees as he drives the blade down into the forehead of a badly decomposing female, stopping her mid-shuffle with her bony arms and bloodstained fingers stretched out just inches from Aiden's back.
Turning back to Deanna's son as the young man regains his footing, Rick rounds on Aiden and grabs his tee shirt in one furious fist. "I thought I told you to stay inside!" Rick says in a thunderous whisper, his entire body rigid with restrained anger. "What the fuck are you doing out here?!"
"I can help."
"How? By bringing the walkers right to us? No thanks," Daryl says dryly as he comes up behind his partner.
"I'm a good shot. Let me take him out. That's Zach up there and I hate that son of a bitch." Aiden points to the rooftop across the street as they slink back to the corner of the abandoned house.
Even whispering, the cockiness in the kid's voice grates on Rick but he buries his frustration with an almost audible glower and focuses on the dire situation. "You know him? How can you tell from this angle?"
"That's Lisa on the porch so the guy on the roof is gonna be her boyfriend Zachary or his brother Dillon. I'd put money on Zach 'cause Dillon was afraid of heights, no way he'd get up there like that."
"They're the ones your mom exiled," Rick says, forming his own conclusion at the mention of two men and one woman. Of course they would come back for revenge, he thinks, cursing the incompetent leadership of the community as his thumb and forefinger pinch the bridge of his nose.
"Yeah, Dillon was after the Jensen's daughter and he wouldn't take no for an answer. She lost her boyfriend last year but wanted nothing to do with Dillon or his brother. It got ugly so Mom made them leave," Aiden informs them with a smug gleam in his eye as the rain picks up to soak the earth with a steady shower.
"And she really thought they'd just walk away. Christ," Rick exhales with a shake of his head as exasperation seeps through his pores. "Alright, Daryl, let's do this."
"Wait, what about me?" Aiden asks as Daryl moves to peer around the edge of the house.
"Just stay down, shut the fuck up and be our lookout for more walkers," Rick orders firmly, leaving no room for debate. "Think you can handle that?" he adds snidely with a tilt of his head.
"Fine. Yeah, I can handle it," Aiden replies with a scowl which Rick ignores.
"Daryl, I'm gonna go around that house to get a better angle," the sheriff says with a nod toward the small house to the right of the one they are currently crouching behind. "Count to fifteen then take the shot. I'll run across to get Zach." Rick taps a brotherly pat on Daryl's shoulder then shoots a warning glare to Aiden before dashing to the house next door.
As Lisa falls to the planks of the porch with a solid thud, the slim bolt protruding from her sallow cheek, Rick races into the street and fires his weapon, catching Zachary in his shoulder just a fraction of a second after a small orange light is thrown from the roof of the derelict house. What the fuck?!
Sasha pauses with her finger on the trigger of her rifle as she sees a long flame follow a small object before it lands on the roof of the house across from her. From her vantage point, she watches helplessly as the Molotov cocktail rolls down the pitch of the upper roof and then tumbles over to the first tier to come to rest against the gutter, leaving a trail of burning shingles in its wake.
"Michonne!"
"I'll get them!" the dark woman answers after seeing the quickly spreading flames herself.
A few minutes later the whole roof is ablaze as Sasha fires several rounds at the enemy to cover Michonne as she leads the family of three out of the home that has finally failed to protect them.
As they run toward the safety of the clinic next door, Sasha's breath catches when a shot rings out and she sees Sheila Jensen fall to the wet ground, her husband nearly tripping over her from the sudden interruption of their flight.
A moment later Aaron is at Sheila's side, getting an arm beneath her shoulder as Dean Jensen lifts his wife to her feet while yelling for Michonne to get their daughter Kerry into the clinic.
Sasha can see Sheila's head moving, probably in pain and fear but at least she is alive, though dragging her left leg as a dark stain spreads across the left hip of her white slacks. She sends another barrage of cover fire toward the two shooters, taking pieces of cement and wood until the men have Sheila safely inside the clinic.
Rick hears Zach roll with a shrieking curse down the pitch and over the gutter, landing hard in the litter strewn yard after failing to get a grip on the metal drainage system. He runs past the porch, not sparing more than an ounce of guilt for the dead girl lying at the top of the stairs and focuses instead on the bastard with the shotgun. He rounds the corner cautiously, vaguely aware of movement to his left as Daryl and Aiden fight off a pair of walkers across the street.
Finding the man holding his blood-soaked shoulder while trying to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him, Rick quickly brings the butt of his pistol down on Zach's temple, coldcocking him into unconsciousness and then driving the knife through his forehead to make sure he'll never hurt anyone again.
Two down, one to go. He ducks back to the front of the house to stay hidden from Dillon who seems to be busy shooting at the burning home on the other side of the wall. Making his way around the house to come up behind the tower, Rick pauses when he sees Daryl standing in the road with his crossbow aimed at another pair of walkers advancing slowly toward them.
"I got 'em, go take care of that asshole!" Daryl says as he pulls the trigger to send an arrow straight into the open, putrid mouth of a former surgeon, his ragged scrubs stained with much more vile substance than a single surgery would harvest.
Rick continues on as his partner rips the arrow from the rotting skull of the former doctor and drives it into the cloudy eye of an elderly man whose arthritic hands flail and then fall as his second life is finally snuffed out of him.
Sprinting to the burnt-out structure of what is left of the house on the corner lot, he races past it and stops to take cover behind a rusted old Plymouth lying dormant in the sodden grass. As the rain collects in an opened filthy brown suitcase amid an array of trash and debris, and soaks the stuffing of a ramshackle sofa where it sits upended next to an overgrown hedge, Rick stays low and runs unseen to the edge of the rubble covering the destroyed first floor of the white building directly behind the tower. With the frequent rumbles of thunder and steady hum of the driving rain helping to mask his movements, he steps around a pile of charred beams, bricks and two-by-fours to reach a cleared path leading toward the staircase and up to the lookout. Holding the Colt at eyelevel with a finger on the trigger, he ascends quietly, cautiously.
After only a few steps, he reaches a landing and steps up quickly, straightening his arm out in front of him, elbow locked with his finger ready to fire as his back presses flat against the wall. With no threat directly in front of him, he advances up the taller staircase toward the next landing. When the rain slows momentarily, he hears the clear metallic scrapes of a rifle being reloaded and moves faster to take advantage of the snipers preoccupation.
When Rick steps onto the next landing, he turns to see the gunman standing on the platform at the top of the stairs just as the bolt of the rifle is slid back and locked into place.
In the same instant that Rick is spotted and the muzzle raised at his chest, the trigger of the colt python is pressed and a flash of lightning brightens the gloomy interior of the tower to highlight a thin young man with shaggy blond hair as he is pitched back against the cement wall, his throat erupting with dark red blood that gushes down his wiry chest.
The rifle is dropped to the concrete floor in a clatter to rival the thunder as the gunman claws at his neck and gurgles for breath.
Ignoring the intense burning pain in his left side just above his hip where a twenty-two caliber bullet tore through his jacket and shirt to take a small hunk of flesh from his body, Rick quickly ascends the last section of stairs to finish his job.
Unless the shadows are deceiving as they are sometimes wont to be, the intruder can't be more than eighteen or nineteen years old and Rick feels a sickening twist in his gut as adrenaline churns with anger and pity. Swallowing back a mouthful of remorse, he aims the pistol at the kid's head and pulls the trigger once more, putting him out of their misery for good.
Fuck. With an arm across his abdomen, he leans against the cold cement of the wall and takes a much needed breath, pulling moist air into his lungs and fighting the pain that pierces his side with every breath he draws.
Before he can assess how badly he is wounded, the sound of a painful scream resonates through the pouring rain and freezes the sweat on the back of his neck.
