Author's Note
Here's the next installment! I know it's a little boring, and I'm sorry, but the next part should be better.
Hope you enjoy!
It was nightfall by the time that they finally made it to Woodbury. The first impression was that it was well guarded, with sentinels on every wall. They had spotlights, which meant that they weren't going to sneak in through the gate. As Caterina squatted behind an abandoned car with the rest of the group, she couldn't help but be impressed. It was a nice set-up.
Footsteps sounded from behind, and Caterina turned as the woman who'd brought them there broke away from the group.
Rick spotted her. "Hey!" he called after her in a whisper, but she didn't respond. She just followed the train tracks away from them. "Damn it…" Rick turned back to the rest of the group, and Caterina could practically see the gears turning in his head. "All right, we need to downsize."
Everyone put aside their bags, placing them among the brush, and started rifling through the duffel bag that Rick had brought, choosing from the guns there. Daryl kept his AKMS, strapping it to his back so that he could wield his crossbow easier. Caterina chose her Armalite as her primary weapon with her throwing knives as a secondary. Gabriele and Michele grabbed the Colt SMG and Beretta M12 respectively, while Rick took his Mossberg 590 and Oscar readied the M4A1 carbine.
"Ain't no way we're gonna check in all them buildings," Daryl said, "not with all them guards."
A twig snapped behind them, alerting them to a new presence. They spun around, expecting either a sentinel from Woodbury or a walker. Luckily, it was neither—the woman had returned from what she had left to do. This didn't make them lower their weapons, however. None of them really trusted her, not even Michele, who had encouraged them to follow the woman's lead in the first place.
The woman mouthed for them to follow her before she took off again.
Rick glanced over at Caterina, who simply nodded. "All right, let's go," he ordered.
The woman had apparently gone off to find a way in to the town without alerting the guards. Some of the metal that made up the barriers had become loose enough that they were able to pull it away, allowing them to slip through. When they did, they suddenly found themselves standing behind the buildings in a back alley. It worked to keep them shielded from view as the group of seven moved through the town.
They ended up breaking in to some building, where the woman said that she'd been held when she had been a guest there. Part of the back door was boarded up, so all they had to do to get inside was duck underneath it. Not much of a security measure, but Caterina supposed it would work against walkers, if any managed to get inside the town.
The group slowly made their way through into the front part of the building, checking every room that they passed for anyone that was still inside. When they finally made it to the front, the look of the room revealed that they were in some sort of infirmary. There were all sorts of medical supplies lying around and hidden behind glass cabinets. There were even a few beds lined up along the far wall.
The woman had brought them there thinking that maybe Glenn and Maggie were being held there, as she had been. However, looking around the room, it was obvious that they had come to the wrong place. There was nobody there.
"This is where you were held?" Rick asked as he observed the room.
"I was questioned," the woman corrected him almost harshly.
"Any idea where else they could be?"
While the woman thought of other places to check, Daryl elbowed Caterina in the arm, getting her attention. He motioned over to the windows, covered with makeshift curtains. Caterina nodded and followed him to the front of the room. They knelt on either side of the doors, and Caterina pulled the curtain back just enough for her to look outside at the street. When she did, she saw a group of civilians walking past, chattering away happily, as if they weren't in the middle of an apocalypse.
"I thought you said there was a curfew," Daryl called back to the woman.
"The street is packed during the day," the woman replied. "Those are stragglers."
"If anyone comes in here, we're sittin' ducks. We gotta move," Rick decided.
They fell in to a shortlived silence while the woman continued to think of other places to check for Glenn and Maggie. Meanwhile, Daryl and Caterina kept an eye on the outside, making sure that no one was heading towards the infirmary.
"They could be in his apartment," the woman finally said.
Daryl turned away from the window then. "Yeah? And what if they ain't?"
"Then we'll look somewhere else."
Caterina and Daryl finally left the windows to go join the rest of the group, where they stood at the back of the room. They positioned themselves so that they were essentially surrounding the woman, each one staring at her expectantly.
"You said you could help us," Rick reminded her.
"I'm doing what I can," the woman insisted.
"Then where the hell are they?" Oscar challenged.
Rick stared at the woman before motioning for his people to follow him as he moved towards the back of the room. They quickly gathered around him, closing in so that they could hear each other without the woman overhearing them.
"If this goes south, we're cuttin' her loose," Rick said.
"You think she's leading us in to a trap?" Oscar wondered.
"Right now, it's the blind leading the blind," Daryl said. "Let's split up."
Michele nodded. "I think that would be wise. We are a large group. We could be spotted if we are not careful. If we split up, it would give us a chance to search the town more thoroughly."
Rick looked thoughtful, probably going over the pros and cons. Before any decision could be made, however, there was a knock. Everyone turned towards the door, startled by the sudden interruption. It took a moment for them to gather themselves but, once they did, they quickly moved to the back room, each person ducking in to a hiding space.
Caterina listened as the door unlocked and someone came inside, closing the door behind them.
"I know you're in here," a male's voice called out. "I saw you moving from outside."
There was a pause as the man waited for a response
"All right," he called when he received none. "You're not supposed to be in here and you know it."
Caterina could hear him moving towards the back room where they were hiding. She looked across the way to where Rick stood behind a curtain just outside of the archway. He locked eyes with her, and she nodded, silently telling him to lead the attack. Rick nodded back, saying that he understood.
"Who's in here?"
Just as he passed through the archway, Rick jumped from his hiding place. He knocked the man in to the wall, his arm pressing against his neck, keeping him in place.
"Shut up," Rick quickly ordered him. "Get on your knees."
As Rick forced the man down on to his knees, Caterina came out of her own hiding spot and moved behind the man. Rick kept place in front of him, holding him at gunpoint to make sure that the man didn't try anything. Michele stepped out from behind a corner as well, holding a few zip ties. Where he'd gotten them, Caterina had no idea.
"Hands behind your back." He glanced up at Michele, spotting the ties in his hands. "Zip tie him."
Caterina knelt down quickly to grab the Beretta 92FS Inox that the man had in his grasp before she moved aside, allowing her father to take his place.
"Where are our people?" Rick asked while Michele tied the man's hand behind his back.
"I don't know," the man replied. "I don't know."
"You are holding some of our people," he growled. "Where the hell are they?"
"I don't know," the man insisted.
Rick fell silent, realizing that the man truly didn't know anything. He sighed in disappointment before reaching in to his pocket for a rag. "Open your mouth," he ordered the man, before he stuffed it in to his mouth to keep him silent.
The man grunted, trying to speak through the rag.
At this point, Michele had finished tying him and had retrieved his M12 from where he'd placed it on a nearby counter. At Rick's nod, Michele slammed the butt of his submachine gun in to the back of the man's head, knocking him out cold.
After hiding the man where they hoped no one would find him, the group left the building, staying together as opposed to what Daryl and Michele had suggested. As soon as they did, gunfire sounded from somewhere on the other side of town. Sentries shouted from their perches, responding to the noise. When they started climbing down from the barrier walls and running to somewhere in town, Rick decided that they needed to follow them, so they fell in behind the sentries, with enough distance between them that they wouldn't be spotted.
The sentries ended up leading them to a warehouse as far back in the town as they could go before reaching another wall. While the sentries ran in through the front, Rick and his group snuck around to the back. There was a door at the back of the warehouse, so they entered through there.
It was quiet when they made it inside, but a heavy sort of tension hung in the air. This was definitely where the gunfire had sounded from. The only question was who fired? And why?
Rick led the way through a short hallway, while everyone else followed in pairs of two. At the end of the hall, Rick peaked around the corner to check the way. When he quickly ducked back around, Caterina took that as a sign that the coast was not clear.
They waited for a moment before Rick led them around the corner and down another short hallway, until they hit a wall that separated them from the sentinels. The wall was made-up entirely of sheet metal, and there was a small, dirty window about four feet up. Everyone ducked beneath it, to keep themselves out of sight.
"It was nice to see you again," a muffled voice spoke from the other side of the wall. "Glad that we could catch up."
"Just keep looking at me," another voice urged someone. Although it the voice was muffled, Caterina knew straight away that it belonged to Glenn.
"I love you," a female voice replied. Definitely Maggie.
Silence fell, and Caterina could feel herself tense up. Now that she knew who had been responsible for the gunfire, she worried about what would happen next. She was sure that the townsfolk would kill them. If the "Governor" was every bit as unstable as her family said, then he surely would want them dead. That meant that they needed to hurry it up with this rescue mission.
"On your feet," yet another voice ordered. "Move. Let's go, come on."
"Shit," Rick muttered.
They quickly started rifling through the duffel bag that they had thought to bring with them, looking for anything that they could use to stop them. Rick and Daryl pulled out a couple of smoke grenades, and they exchanged looks before nodding to each other. The other five of them quickly moved back around the corner that they had come from while Rick and Daryl tossed their grenades around that second corner, hopefully in to the path of the men who had their people.
There was a muffled explosion, and Caterina glanced around the corner to see smoke billowing up from where they had thrown the grenades. She motioned to the others to follow her before running straight in to the smoke. Rick followed her, and they hurried up to where Glenn and Maggie were standing, bent over, coughing from having inhaled the smoke. They grabbed the two and started leading them out of the smoke.
As they led Glenn and Maggie out of the smoke, the guards seemed to recover from the attack, and they started firing. They ducked behind the wall of sheet metal to where the rest of their group was waiting for them. Gabriele and Michele took over leading Glenn and Maggie out of the warehouse while the rest of them followed behind.
Gabriele and Maggie had to support Glenn as they ran through the streets, trying to avoid any more of the town's guard dogs. They could hear them in the town, although they couldn't see them. They had apparently figured out what was going on, and Caterina could hear someone telling the others to "shoot to kill."
This day was just going fantastically.
"Inside, quick!" Rick called to the group.
They turned to the nearest building, knowing that they had to get off the street quickly, so they did not have any time to get back to where they had broken in to the town. Daryl burst in first, clearing it while the others quickly fell in behind him. Gabriele and Maggie led Glenn over to a spot where he could lean up against a random desk, so that he could rest. While they did that, Caterina followed Daryl to the back of the building, to see if they couldn't find a way out through the back.
"Damn it," Caterina muttered when they didn't find anything.
Daryl squeezed her shoulder briefly as he passed her, heading back to where the others were. "Ain't no way out back here," he announced.
"Rick, how did you find us?" Maggie wondered.
Instead of answering, Rick just asked, "How bad are you hurt?" He was looking pointedly at Glenn, who looked like he'd gotten a beating. The skin around his right eye had turned an ugly purple, and his nose was bleeding. There was some dried blood on his chin and neck, possibly from a busted lip or a cut. He even had a few light bruises on his torso.
"I'll be all right," Glenn grunted.
Caterina looked to her brother, who was knelt at Glenn's side along with Maggie. Gabriele met her gaze and shook his head subtly.
"Where's that woman?" Maggie asked as she looked around the room.
Rick glanced around as well, just now noticing that the woman was missing. To be honest, Caterina hadn't noticed that she was gone either. She had just assumed that she would be standing in a corner away from everyone else. The woman's absence worried her. Not because she feared for her safety, but because she could've gotten spotted, which would give away their position.
"She was right behind us," Rick said as he moved over to one of the front windows. Oscar was on the other one, keeping an eye out for anyone coming towards them. Rick pulled back the guilt that covered the window, doing the same.
"Maybe she was spotted," Oscar said.
"Should I go look for her?" Michele offered.
"No," Rick replied as he turned back to them, allowing the quilt to fall back in to place. "We gotta get them outta here. She's on her own."
Oscar abandoned the window as well, going over to where Glenn, Maggie, and Gabriele were knelt. He removed his over shirt and handed it to Maggie, earning a muttered "thanks" as Maggie set to work getting it on Glenn.
Glenn leaned forward slightly to look at Daryl. "Daryl," he called out to him. "This was Merle."
Daryl paused, looking down at him in shock. Caterina did the same. She thought that she recognized the first voice from the warehouse, but she hadn't put much in to it. What she had heard before had been muffled, so it was hard to identify it positively. But for it to have belonged to Merle… She had thought that they would never see him again, whether he was dead or not.
"It was," Glenn said. "He did this."
"You saw him?" Rick asked.
"Face to face. He threw a walker at me. He was gonna execute us."
Daryl finally seemed to snap out of his shock, and he stepped forward with a confused look on his face. "S-So my brother's this Governor?"
"No, he's somebody else," Maggie replied. "Your brother's his lieutenant or somethin'."
"Does he know I'm still with you?"
"He does now," Glenn said. He turned to look at Rick guiltily. "Rick, I'm sorry. We told him where the prison was. We couldn't hold out."
"Don't. No need to apologize," Rick assured him. He patted Glenn on the leg before moving back to one of the windows to look outside again.
Caterina stepped over to Daryl's side again and placed a hand on his arm. He looked over at her, a frown on his lips. She could see the gears turning in his head. The guilt that he had felt back when they hadn't been able to find Merle before was coming back to him (it was coming back to Caterina as well). She lowered her hand down to Daryl's and grabbed hold of it in. His gaze fell to their hands before he looked back up at her. He gave a thankful nod.
"They're gonna be lookin' for us," Maggie pointed out.
Rick nodded as he turned back to the group. "We have to get back," he agreed. He turned to Glenn, whom he was most concerned about at the moment. "Can you walk? We got a car a few miles out."
"I'm good," Glenn replied.
"All right." He grabbed one of Glenn's arms, and he and Maggie helped him to his feet.
Daryl quickly stepped forward, bringing Caterina with him when he didn't release her hand. "Hey, if Merle's around, I need to see him," he said in an almost desperate tone. He moved to go towards the door, still dragging Caterina with him, but he stopped when Rick stepped out in front of him.
"Not now. We're in hostile territory," Rick reminded him.
"He's my brother. I ain't gonna—"
"Look at what he did!" he snapped in a quiet tone, motioning to Glenn and his injuries. "Look, we gotta—we gotta get outta here now."
"Maybe I can talk to him," Daryl tried again. "Maybe I can work somethin' out."
"No, no, no, you're not thinking straight." He glanced behind him at Maggie, Glenn, and Gabriele, who had taken his place in supporting Glenn. "Look, no matter what they say, they're hurt. Glenn can barely walk. How are we gonna make it out if we get overrun by walkers, or if this Governor catches up to us? I need you."
Daryl stared at him, obviously torn. Caterina felt his grip tighten around her hand, and she returned the pressure, squeezing his hand.
"Are you with me?" Rick asked.
Daryl nodded. "Yeah."
They stood gathered around the door, their weapons held at the ready. Daryl had grabbed a pair of smoke grenades from their bag, and Rick nodded to him after waiting a few moments, to make sure that no one was moving around outside the building that they had been holing up in. Daryl nodded back and pulled the pens to both grenades, though he didn't let go of the levers.
"On three," Rick said. "Stay tight. One, two, three."
Caterina opened the door, allowing Daryl to throw the grenades out on to the street. People shouted as smoke began billowing out, providing the perfect cover for Caterina and her group.
"Let's go!"
Everyone walked out of the building cautiously, ready to start firing if they needed.
"There they are!" a voice called out, just before gunfire started sounding from the other side of the smoke.
The group quickly raised their weapons and fired on the people that they were able to see through the smoke. Caterina noticed a few that were simply running away from the fight, so she just ignored them, focusing only on the people with weapons. This all reminded Caterina of her war days, even the smoke cover. They had used this technique quite a few times, when they had to run out in to enemy territory to reach a safe haven. What was more, there had been a few times her team received orders to escort civilians out of the line of fire. At the moment, both Glenn and Maggie were weaponless, and the rest of them stood around them, covering them, in case someone decided to target them.
"Behind you!" Daryl yelled.
A pained grunt sounded from somewhere at the front, and Caterina turned at the same time that her father did, firing at a couple of men that had snuck up behind them. Michele shot them both in the head, directly in their third eye, and Caterina was about to turn her attention back on the rest of the enemies when she noticed the blood on Michele's shoulder.
"He's been hit!" Caterina shouted to the rest of the group.
"Get to cover!" Rick called back. "Over there!"
Gabriele moved up to his father's side, covering him as they hurried across to the other side of the street, where they took refuge around the corner of one of the buildings. As soon as they were safe, Michele collapsed against the wall, clutching at his bleeding shoulder.
Caterina joined her father at the wall. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"I'm fine," Michele panted. "The bullet…went clean through…"
She looked to her brother, who had set to work examining their father's shoulder. Gabriele nodded.
Satisfied that the wound wasn't serious, although still very worried for her father, Caterina returned to the rest of the group by the corner.
"How many?" Rick asked.
"I didn't see," Oscar said.
Daryl shook his head. "Don't matter. There's gonna be more of 'em. And now we've got two people who ain't in any condition to fight 'em off. We need to move." As he said it, he knelt by next to the duffel bag and started pulling out clips for their weapons, handing a clip to everyone. While he was down there, he grabbed a Walther P99 and an AKM and handed them to Maggie and Glenn, respectively.
"Any grenades left?" Rick asked.
Daryl nodded. "Uh-huh."
"Get 'em ready. We gotta gun it to the wall."
He grabbed the last smoke grenade and stood up, moving back to the corner where Maggie stood. "You guys go on ahead," Daryl suggested. "I'm gonna lay down some cover fire."
Maggie shook her head. "No, we gotta stay together."
"Too hairy," Daryl said a little too quickly. "I'll be right behind you."
"I'll stay with him," Caterina offered, earning her a look from Maggie that clearly said that she did not like it. But Caterina knew what Daryl was planning. There was no way he was leaving without getting the chance to see his brother. And there was no way that she was going to leave him on his own.
Rick nodded, ending any further arguments.
Maggie turned around the corner and fired a few blind shots, just to cover Daryl as he jumped back out on to the street, smoke grenade in hand. He pulled the pin, tossing it to the side, and reared his arm back to throw it. "Ready?" he called back to the others. Without waiting for a response, Daryl threw the canister out to the center of the street.
Once the smoke had accumulated enough to cover them, Maggie and Glenn started across the street towards a bus which had been parked along the barrier behind them. Michele and Gabriele went with them, the later of the two going to support the other. Rick and Oscar walked out with them to provide the cover fire, while Daryl and Caterina moved to crouch down behind a nearby bench. They fired over the back of it, using the bench to cover themselves.
"This way!" Oscar's voice called from behind them.
Across the street, Rick had hunkered down behind a solar panel. It didn't give him a lot of cover, but it was at least something. A shotgun fired from that direction, and Caterina glanced back at the bus when she heard a pained yell, worrying that her father had been hurt again. Instead of her father falling off of the bus, however, it was Oscar.
"No!" Glenn cried.
Caterina quickly turned her gaze back through the smoke, focusing on the matter at hand.
Maggie shouted for Rick, whom Caterina saw move from the corner of her eye. He fired off a few shots from his Python as he started moving back to the bus, where Caterina guessed the others had made it over the wall.
"Cat! Daryl!" Rick called for them.
Instead of moving from the bench, Daryl and Caterina continued to fire on the town. Daryl waved an arm at Rick without looking away from the scene in front of them. "Go!" he shouted back. When he noticed that Caterina wasn't moving, he added, "That means you!"
"I'm not going anywhere," Caterina replied firmly.
"Cat, go with them," Daryl snapped, apparently thinking that it would be that easy to talk her in to leaving him behind.
"I'm not leaving you to get captured your own," she barked back.
Daryl was silent for a moment before Caterina barely heard him mumble, "God damn it…" He fired a few more rounds in to the smoke before he motioned again for Rick to go on.
"Caterina!" Gabriele called over the sound of gunfire.
"Let's go!" Rick said as he apparently climbed over the barrier to join the rest of them.