For all that the ambush on the Quiet Valley had been a storm of hellish noise – a frenzy of panic and terror almost too great to bear – the moments after were silent and strangely empty. The triumph of Rick's rescue had fizzled out to a vague sense of disappointment.

The Harrowers lined up to dump their weapons in a pile, while some of the women of the valley tried to negotiate keeping a handgun apiece for Walkers. Carol could sense something brewing among the victors – an uneasy tension that she recognised from years of settling petty disputes among her people.

As she approached Daryl, she could tell that he was similarly discomfited.

'This ain't good,' he muttered. 'They're all itching for revenge.'

'I know.' Carol folded her arms and faced him. 'I'm one of them.'

Daryl gave her a look that said everything – he shared all of her pain and rage, but he understood that they had a greater responsibility here. As much as the instinctive, primitive part of his brain yearned to tear every one of these bitches to shreds, the secret, thoughtful part of him that he only shared with Carol actually emphathised with them. He knew what it was like to be on the outside, to be driven to the edges of humanity by the savagery of the world.

Seeing them now, stripped of their guns and their arrogance, they appeared to be exactly as were – women who had been violated and exploited beyond breaking point. In their eyes, he saw himself, crouched on his knees in the dirt all those years ago – listening to the whistles and cackles of Negan's men as they watched him beat Glenn's brains out. He felt their fear and their humiliation.

He knew that they couldn't mete out the justice that everyone was seeking – but they had to be seen to do something.

'Hey, Rick.'

The other man was deep in conversation with Michonne, and from their body language he could tell that they were talking about Carl. There was a distant look about the younger Grimes, as if he was grasping for some invisible object just out of reach.

Daryl felt for the kid, but there were more pressing matters at hand. He strode over to where Rick stood and whispered, 'What are you gonna do with Cheryl?'

'That's what we were just talking about,' Michonne replied. 'We can't leave her here – before long there'll be a lynch mob forming.'

'I promised we wouldn't hurt them,' Rick drawled, his jaw tensed.

'We don't have to hurt her to teach her a lesson.' Daryl thoughtfully rubbed the back of his neck. 'We take her as a hostage – as surety for good behaviour. Make sure the Harrowers don't start arming again.'

Michonne raised an eyebrow. 'Think your people will be satisfied with that? Or Hilltop? A lot of people died on account of those women.'

Abraham approached them at that moment, a grim look on his face. 'Just thought I'd give you a head's up. I've been hearing some disturbing whispers among the troops. I'd advise taking some pre-emptive action before we get the bum's rush, you hearing me?'

Daryl looked around and saw a group of people from the Kingdom speaking intently. There was a frenzied energy to their movements that he had learned to associate with impending violence. They needed to do something quickly to alleviate the atmosphere before it all descended into a massacre.

Something caught his attention in that moment – a burred motion in the corner of his eye. He spun around – his hunter's instincts ever alert. Carl seemed to be moving in slow motion – almost floating towards where Cheryl knelt with a pistol clutched tightly in his hand.

Daryl felt as if his whole body was frozen, dream-like. He opened his mouth to alert Rick, but he suddenly heard someone shouting Carl's name and then a curtain of hair swept past.

'Enid?' Carl's expression changed from one of intense concentration to immediate recognition. 'Enid, is that you?'

Fifteen years had not diminished Enid's beauty in his eyes. The only difference was the smattering of crow's feet at her temples and the grey strands in her abundant hair. He felt her delicate fingers clutching his wrist and suddenly all thoughts of revenge were banished. His mind was consumed with the discrepancy of her being there. The last time he had seen her was that day, so many years before, standing with his sheriff's hat in her hands as she pleaded with him not to leave.

'Just survive somehow,' had been the final, pathetic words that he had spoken to her. 'Where have you been?' were the next he said.

'The Kingdom,' she replied, smiling as if to underline the absurdity of the situation. Their reunion was taking place in front of a huge crowd and Carl barely noticed. Without another word he pulled her into a hug, trying to convey everything that he felt in that moment. There would be time enough later for lengthy discussions.

Daryl noticed a change in the atmosphere – Carl's sudden, reckless act and the sweetness of their reconciliation seemed to have calmed the general mood. He realised that even that small change may have made all the difference.

He saw a woman hobble towards Rick, her back stooped with age. 'Were you straight with us, sir?' she asked without preamble. 'Do you mean us no harm – even after how we treated you?'

Daryl snapped his eyes over to Rick. If ever he needed his old friend to be the bullish, arrogant blowhard that he had come to know, it was now.

'I was straight with you.' Rick addressed all the women. 'We mean you no harm.'

There was a rumble of discontent from somewhere among the rescuers, and above that, and audible hiss of relief – or perhaps disbelief – from the Harrowers. 'We want to live in peace with you.'

The elderly woman gripped his arm. 'Then stay here with us. This is good land with clean water nearby. We can grow crops and raise animals. We can protect each other.'

Daryl knew the hidden meaning behind her words – she was begging for protection from the Harrowers. He felt a sudden pang of regret when he realised that they were abandoning the innocent women to retribution for their surrender.

'That's not possible,' Rick replied. 'This valley isn't defensible. We snuck up on you in broad daylight, and believe me, there are much worse people out there than us.'

'So what – we just leave?'

Daryl recognised the voice of Seb, a carpenter from Fort Sophia who had lost his best friend Bill in the attack. 'We rescued you from these murderers, and you just let them go unpunished?'

Voices raised in agreement, and Daryl knew that before long, they would become vociferous, howling for blood. Something would have to happen – someone would have to do something to stop them.

And then he realised that there was only one person who could stop this. Once upon a time, back in Sunday school, Mrs. Phillips told him the story of the Sin Eater. The Sin Eater took on the transgressions of a community – consuming of the ugliness. He made a sacrifice for the greater good.

And then he saw the gun in Rick's hand and the look of grief in his eyes and instantly knew what was about to happen.

Rick raised his voice so that everyone could hear. 'In the name of the people of Alexandria and the federated settlements of the southern states, I find you guilty of murder in contravention of common law. I hereby pronounced a sentence on death on you, Cheryl. If you have any final words, speak them now.'

As he held the gun to Cheryl's temple, he looked from Daryl to Carol, from Michonne to Carl. He silently challenged each of them – begged them – to object – to save him from what he knew he must do.

Daryl knew that Rick was trapped – that he had started down a path of no return. He needed to show that he would not allow the Harrowers to go unpunished, but in doing so he was going back on his promise to spare them from further violence. He was turning back into the ruthless version of himself that he despised.

At the same time, Daryl knew that he was protecting them, just like he always had, which was why he didn't make a move to stop him as he pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot reverberated around the valley and a hundred faces reacted with shock as Cheryl slumped face-first in the dust.

The convoy moved out of the valley at sunrise. Rick watched the countryside flash past with a sense of quiet dread and foreboding. He thought that he had washed his sins away in the valley. He had been foolish enough to think that his confession had erased all the wrongs he had caused. He had thought they could move forward and live free from all the pain of the past. More than that, he had hoped that Daryl and Carol and all the people who had suffered by his actions would hear his words and believe that they came from the heart.

All of that was wiped away the moment he killed Cheryl.

He noticed that the mood of the assembled group had changed – the tension dissolved and was replaced by a nervousness that was all too familiar to him. They were afraid of him, and he liked that. He knew that they liked it too – they had needed someone to do the unthinkable in that moment.

They had confiscated all of the women's weapons – aside from knives and side-arms – and their vehicles had been commandeered. When they left, their spirits were high and Rick felt a wave of optimism sweep over the entire convoy. He wished he could join them in their jubilation, but he felt sick inside and filled with a sense of unease that he could not shake off.

It was something akin to fear – that old enemy that he thought he had defeated forever. It invaded his body like cancer, robbing him of the arrogated self-belief that he mistook for peace of mind. He shuddered as he recalled the last time he had felt this way – it was that horrible night all those years ago when Negan introduced himself.

For the first time since then, Rick allowed himself to relive the utter humiliation and terror that Negan made him feel. His heartrate escalated and a cold sweat broke out all over as the adrenaline pumped through him, and for a moment he wondered if he was about to have a heart attack. He was suddenly flooded with all of the intense emotions that he had suppressed for so long. More than anything, he remembered the sense of violation that he had experienced that night. Everything he knew about himself – everything he held as sacred – was stripped away.

He had failed to protect his people. He had failed to save Glenn.

He had sworn never again to feel what he had felt that night, and everything that had happened since was a product of that decision.

The panic began to slowly drain away and he was left with a profound sense of regret. He turned his head and stared out of the passenger window so that Abraham would not see the tears gathering in his eyes. He had no idea what the future was going to bring – all he knew was that what had happened in the past few days had changed him forever.

He breathed deeply, drying to calm himself down, and that was when he smelled something rotten on the air. It was an overpowering sickly-sweet stench that was once all-too familiar to him. The moment his brain registered the truth, he saw the convoy grind to a halt ahead of him.

'Smell that?'

Rick could see the tension in the other man's posture. 'Uh-huh.'

'That there is a fair-sized herd a' Walkers, like of which I ain't smelled these ten years.'

Rick opened the door and climbed out, seeing anxiety written in the faces of the passengers of the convoy. He glanced at Carl, seated high stop his horse and smiled reassuringly, despite the creeping fear that gnawed at his bones.

Michonne climbed from the cab of her truck, her shoulders set with determination. 'That what I think it is?'

Rick nodded tersely and glanced upward, spotting Daryl slowly climbing the gentle slope of the valley on his motorcycle. 'Try and keep people calm. I'm gonna get a better view.'

He clambered up the rocks, feeling the ache of rheumatism in the shoulder as a sharp reminder of his age. When he finally reached the top, he found Daryl waiting there with a look of fierce concentration on his face. He stood beside the other man and stared out over the landscape, and what he saw nearly made his heart stop.

A sea of Walkers spanned the horizon. He silently cursed his own negligence – after years without a major incident, he had concluded that the Walkers had either been hunted to extinction or fled the southern states.

'Where the hell did they all come from?' he breathed.

'Dunno,' Daryl murmured. 'Haven't seen half so many since we left Alexandria. Think the drought musta drawn 'em together, made 'em wander.'

Rick turned to his old comrade. 'Think we can escape 'em?'

'Probably. If we turn south, we might be able to skirt around 'em. But that won't stop 'em from heading straight down the valley.'

A vindictive thought entered Rick's mind: Let 'em, he thought. Let the Harrowers get a taste of terror for once. The moment the words flitted through his mind, he knew that he could not let that happen.

'So what do we do?'

Daryl fixed him with a challenging stare. 'You're the man with the plan – you figure it out.'

Rick's brain ticked over, the disparate elements of a strategy coming together. 'We send out your men on horseback – they'll divide the herd into smaller groups. They can try and split the herd in two and send one group north. Then we'll focus on keeping the other group away from the valley. We use the fire truck on them, burn them up and finish off any stragglers.'

Daryl stroked his chin thoughtfully. 'That's hopin' we manage to split them off. Meantime, we should send a car back down the valley to warn the women to get outta there just in case.'

Rick recognised the dark implication in his words. He realised that even with their numbers, their chances of defeating a herd of Walkers were not very good. At the same time, he felt that this was the culmination of something – that he was finally coming face to face with an enemy that he had shirked for far too long.

He looked down and saw Daryl's outstretched hand and grabbed it firmly. 'Let's do this.'