Chapter 26:

We all have jobs to do

"Um... Everyone! I have to, uh, tell you something," Glenn called out as he stood in front of the grill looking out at the people gathered around the tables. People had finished eating and were now doing their whole bonding over coffee thing, minus the coffee.

With Maggie by his side, he spoke. "Earlier today two outsiders broke into Terminus."

The murmurs among the people started.

"One of them escaped, but we have the other one here," Maggie said. She looked like herself; cool and stoic, but with a heart of gold. Glenn couldn't show emotion, or he'd break.

"Are they still alive?" One of the women asked. She was a skinny brunette in he twenties with a large mass of brown curls who sometimes manned the entrance. Her name was Mandy.

Glenn raised his chin. "Yes," he said simply.

"Why the hell ain't they dead yet?" She sneered, and Maggie noticed the way Glenn gritted his teeth.

"Because we don't know for sure why she is here," Maggie growled, and he could tell she was more irked by the woman than he was.

"She?" Mandy repeated, then snorted. "No wonder she got caught..."

Maggie chewed at her lip, and Glenn spoke instead. "The girl is a teenager, but she's tough. After... interrogating her, I still do not know what she came here for."

Then another person spoke up. A familiar drunk man in a dirty wifebeater shirt. "She a Royal?"

Glenn stared at him a long time, swallowing hard. "I don't know." When Glenn stared down at his hand which he began to flex, people noticed it was swollen and covered in blood and scratches.

More murmurs started.

"She's not a Royal," the drunk said with a strong Irish accent. People called him many things: the drunk, the asshole, Dude, but most called him Doc. To this day, no one knew his real name.

Maggie frowned. "How d'you know that?"

Doc chuckled slightly to himself and slumped onto the table, putting his booted feet up on the seats. "For starters, she didn't tell you she was... You know of any Royals who can hold out that blimin' long?" Glenn and Maggie waited, knowing there'd be more. " The code of the Royals is mostly pride. Not loyalty. If that little darling with a mildly irksome personality was a Royal, she'd be not only admitting it, but shouting it from rooftops."

Glenn frowned. "Unless she values her life."

"Hm..." Doc looked up out the corner of his eyes in contemplation. "Nope. I can tell," he said with a smile through his scruffy facial hair.

Mandy gave him a snide look over her shoulder. "Didn't the bitch shoot you?"

His smile naturally left this face, and he shrugged a brow. "I consider that foreplay."

"Alright," Glenn said with a mild grimace and a dismissing wave of his hand "I think Doc may be right about the girl not being a Royal."

Maggie gently held onto Glenn's arm and took a small step forward. "We think she has her own people somewhere around here."

Glenn nodded. "These people could be dangerous. They could want what we have, and try and take it."

Mandy snorted rudely again. "Please... If the girl had a community, don't you think she'd scouted the place out with more people? Can't be that many members, then..." Mandy smiled arrogantly. "We could take 'em."

Other than the fact that Mandy was extremely unlikeable, she had a point. Glenn bobbed his head. "That is true, but if that happens, the man who escaped will be getting his people ready."

Maggie spoke up again. "We are here in front of you for two reasons," she looked over towards the table surrounded with the main guards. "We want people surrounding the fence 24/7 until this all blows over."

"What's the second reason?" Someone else called out.

Maggie glanced at Glenn first. "This girl is a liability. We cannot trust her to let go, or keep with us... By tomorrow, we will kill her. For the safety of Terminus," she said, and felt Glenn's hand reach for hers.

Everyone went completely quiet. It was an uneasy tension among everyone because the majority of them all felt the same way. That it was wrong to kill someone. Especially a teenaged girl. But for the safety of Terminus...

"But you can't," someone said and all eyes turned to Max. He stood at the back like he'd just arrived with his hands stiffly by his side and concern in his eyes. For once he wasn't awkward.

What would Rick do? Glenn nodded and said, "Speak your mind, Max."

"She's just a kid. And she's a good person! With the same baggage as all of us," he said to everyone. "It's not her fault she arrived during a war!"

"But we can't risk it," Maggie said and Glenn could see the guilt in her expression. "I mean, she's a stranger..."

Max gave a bitter snort. "So was I, but you accepted me." He shrugged, making a moderately flamboyant gesture with his arms. "Why, because I came through the front entrance, I'm safe?"

Mandy turned her body around, now to look at Max and give him a sneer. "You're defending the bitch who broke your nose?"

Max glared at her momentarily, then gestured to Doc. "Foreplay." Then Max gave her a more narrow glare before looking back to Glenn and Maggie with those hopeful and naive eyes.

Like there was a chance.

He smiled brightly. Hope. "She could be one of us!"

Maggie's grip around Glenn's hand tightened and he gave her a comforting squeeze. He knew she was remembering the same thing he was: it was Randall all over again, and Max was the new Dale.

Maggie's free hand wrapped around her stomach. "I wouldn't feel safe. None of us would."

Max frowned in confusion. "Do we ever feel safe?" His brown eyes went wide as his enthusiasm kicked in. "Come on!" He hopped up and down like a kid for a second. "If you knew what Judith's been through, you'd never even consider killing her for a second!"

Glenn's hand slipped out of Maggie's and her heart sank. She pressed her fingers against her forehead and shut her eyes while Glenn took the charge. "You know her name?"

Max didn't shrivel away like a coward. He looked back into Glenn's eyes sternly. "Yeah. She told me."

Glenn pressed his lips tightly together, and stared back at Max. Then he took Max by the arm and headed away from the courtyard towards the warehouse with Maggie by his side.

I was alone again. And I was okay with it. I guess the fact that I was going to die hadn't truly sunk in yet. And that was the truth: I was going to die. But even so, I wasn't afraid, because some naive part of me thought I wasn't—like I would get out of it somehow.

Then I realised something.

Either I could spend my last moments alive accepting my fate and thinking about the good things and the regrets, or I could spend that time fighting. The fighting thing seemed more my style, regardless of the fact that I could barely move my right leg and my face was so beaten to shit, I couldn't even see through both eyes anymore. And my arm was still in pain, but at least it was a... blunter pain than the rest.

I laughed bitterly. "Don't be such a pussy," I told myself and Daryl came to mind. Then I grinned because if I got out of this, then I could tell Daryl that we both had been impaled by an arrow. Cool.

Daryl.

No, I couldn't let myself think about that if I wanted to keep fighting. Memories make people emotional. Emotions make people weak, and I didn't have that luxury. So I didn't think about the memories, but there was one person that came to mind and I couldn't help it.

Max.

I didn't realise I was smiling at the thought of him, and I shook it away. But then I had a thought. Maybe I could use him, somehow. Maybe he could help me escape. I guess you can't help who you trust. It just happens.

"Ow, hey – watch the shirt!" Max grunted and Glenn shoved him away when they got into the wide, open spaced warehouse. They were the only people in there. "What?" Max asked with wide, anxious eyes.

Glenn stared at him with his hands on his hips and cold, angry eyes. "How did you know her name?"

The realisation that he'd slipped up was noticeable on his face. He tapped the tips of his fingers together nervously and glanced down at his shoes. "Um... She told me," Max said through squinting eyes like it was a daunting suggestion.

Glenn gritted his teeth. "You talked to the prisoner?"

Max stood tall for Judith's sake. "Yes. I did." He raised his index finger momentarily. "And I'm not bragging or anything, but I did learn more in twenty minutes than you did in like five hours without my hand swelling up afterwards," he said with a quick smile as to lighten the mood. In which it did not.

"What else did you learn?" Glenn asked sounding a little desperate because despite himself, he saw a way out.

Max scoffed. "I'm not telling you jack-shit," he said, folding his arms tightly across his chest stubbornly.

Glenn frowned at him in confusion over his logic. "Then she'll die."

Max remained quiet, conflicted by his choices. The choice turned out to be easy. "She isn't a Royal."

"How can you be sure?"

Max rolled his eyes. "She isn't! I can... I can see her," he told Glenn, and the naivety in him showed. "She's tough and brave and loyal... I know she's a good person," Max said with a smile curling onto his lips, unaware that he was actually smiling. Then he shrugged. "She's also a bit of a snarky jackass, but worth keeping alive."

Glenn forced himself to remain logical; to ignore the emotion in this decision. "I meant more like if you found out about her people."

Max noticeably blushed. "Oh." Then Max looked into Glenn's chilling eyes anxiously. "But I could find out."

Glenn's teeth clenched even more that his jax flexed. "No."

Max made a suggestive hand gesture. "Just hear me out—"

"No."

Maggie then finally spoke up. "Do it." She looked to Glenn. "We've all got jobs to do. Right?"