Chapter 55:
When all hell breaks loose
...So... Yeah, all hell broke loose. I never thought I would hate someone so much before Mandy. The only other person I would ever truly hate was Daryl's father and maybe a few others, but that's a different story for a different time.
And no, I was not the one who blew up into a reasonable yet unwise rage – actually, it was the three men in my life whose opinions mattered most to me who did.
Immediately after Mandy admitted to Michonne's murder, Dad raised a gun tucked under his shirt and pointed it at Mandy's head. Every part of me wanted him to pull the trigger.
Max stood between the gun and Mandy, shoving her roughly as he did. She gritted her teeth and whipped out her own hand gun, pointing it at my Dad over Max's shoulder.
It was a combination of both instinct and anger that made me raise one of my throwing knives over my shoulder, aimed for between Mandy's catlike eyes.
Carl stood in front of Dad and me and pointed his sword not at Mandy, but at Max. Daryl strode in front of me with his crossbow raised too, and once again, for a moment, I wanted him to pull his own trigger, but then I realised he was also aiming his weapon at Max.
I saw Abe and Tara raise their weapons towards other tables.
The sounds of people cocking their guns was like a loud symphony. Had they been pointed at Mandy or at walkers and not pointed at us, it would have been music to my ears. My family stood away from the table and we all centered each other with Beth and her baby in the middle, looking outwards with our weapons raised.
We were surrounded by over fifty people with guns, while we remained grouped together in a small little circle. It wasn't until now that I realised how little man power we had left—especially since most of us were injured.
"Judy, stay close to me," Carl told me, his eyes trained on Max. I finally pulled my eyes away from my target to the three men that had moved their way in front of me: Daryl, Carl and Dad.
"Judy!" Carl snapped protectively, and my hand clenched tighter around my knife. Carl kept his hateful eyes on Max like he was shit to be wiped from the bottom of his shoe. "If you thinking you're getting anywhere near her..."
Max raised his hands in the air, still in front of Mandy. "I wasn't. Just trying to keep the peace." The look of vulnerability in his eyes wasn't there. Max's eyes seemed calm and it reminded me of the last time I he and I were in this courtyard together after I threw my food in Mandy's face. I could remember the way he mediated the situation and the way he kept Mandy tamed, the way he tried to make me understand, the way he shoved me into that wall to knock some sense into me.
He looked now like he did then.
"Bullshit!" Carl spat. "You see how he's protecting her, don't you?" Carl glanced back at us before turning his glare back on them. "You heard what she said; she killed Michonne. This little bitch killed Michonne! And he's protecting her."
"What I'm more concerned about is what she said," Dad spoke.
"Somethin' 'bout being Maggie an' Glenn's son," Daryl growled from behind his crossbow. I frowned. Huh... Hadn't picked up on that.
Max seemed to be annoyed by this as his jaw clenched and his chin lowered so he sort of glared a bit. "I'm not their son—look, can we discuss this rather personal issue another time, perhaps when—hmm—maybe there isn't an entire community with their guns aimed at you?" He shrugged, his hands still raised and Mandy's gun still aimed over his shoulder. "Besides, I'm in your way, and I'm not entirely interested in getting shot." His eyes glanced to my newly bandaged up leg. "Looks painful."
...And now my father turned his gun on Max with this tempted look in his eye like nothing was stopping him from pulling the trigger, only now I really didn't want him to, though I suppose it would make me and Max even in a way.
"You look at my daughter again, boy, and I will kill you." His even voice and threatening raise of his brow is what worried me.
Then I heard Dad cock his gun.
"Wait—!" I snapped before I could stop myself. I felt Daryl's, Carl's and Dad's eyes all shift on me a moment longer and more dangerous than they have. "Shit," I breathed to myself, quiet enough that they couldn't hear it. From the look my brother, my father and my—um—Daryl, anything I said would be seen as disloyal and I couldn't really afford that.
Max's eyes were no longer on the gun pointed at him, or the sword or the crossbow, but were on me. He turned his big brown calculating eyes on me and that hopeful glint returned to his eyes making me feel even more uneasy and agitated.
"Judith?" Dad's eyes were still cold when he looked at me, but almost calculating like Max's, like he was trying to figure out what I was doing.
Then I glanced back to Max, who shook his head ever so slightly as a warning.
"You got something you wanna say?" Dad asked me rather more aggressively than I knew he intended.
"No. She doesn't. Do you, Judy?" Carl said, also with a warning tone. I clamped my mouth shut. Don't be stupid, don't be stupid.
Don't be a coward.
My eyes shifted from my dear brother to Max's hopeful eyes and I sneered. "Why do you always have to get in the middle of everything?"
Max flashed me a momentary smirk.
"Whose side are you on, Judith?" Daryl growled.
That was a good question. I wanted to instinctively say 'yours', but my actions begged to differ. Clearly protecting Max was disloyal, but I couldn't just do nothing. But clearly loyalty to my family was the right answer, so why was I having doubt about saying it? Shit. Guilt. Ew, I can feel it in me! God, I hate guilt. It's such a tedious emotion...
"I'm on yours," I said coldly to Daryl hoping he wouldn't tell I was lying. But there was hesitation in my answer and he noticed. So I cocked a darning brow and hooked my thumbs in the loops of my belt. "We're outnumbered. An entire community has their weapons pointed at us. Not to mention the agreement Dad and Glenn made. We have to obey."
"We don't gotta obey no one," Daryl growled.
I jerked my head towards the center of our little circle. "Bet Beth Junior would disagree."
Daryl blinked in that anxious, doubting way he did before lowering his crossbow down an inch. At least now his arrow wasn't aimed for Max's head.
"What's the matter, you don't think you're strong enough to take us? Or are you just a coward?" Mandy scowled from behind Max, her gun pointed at me.
I snorted. "Ooh, big talk from the girl using a teenaged boy as a shield."
Mandy's face scrunched up like she sucked on a lemon, and for a moment – a brief one, mind you – I was proud. But then the sound of her cocking the gun filled the silence, and that seemed to cause a second uproar.
Daryl raised his crossbow up an inch and took another step closer. Dad turned his gun on Mandy, but Carl's blade still remained connected to Max's throat. When he gulped, his adam's apple bobbed against the blade, which may have explained the new layer of sweat on his skin.
"Tell her to drop the gun," Carl said slowly and carefully with that flaming look in his eyes. He gritted his teeth and pressed the blade further against Max's skin. "Now."
"Carl," I warned.
"Judith, be quiet," Carl ordered.
"You be quiet. And really, we should leave. I don't want yet another bullet wound."
"Listen to your brother, Judith," Dad said evenly, his eyes never leaving Max's.
"Listen to your daughter, Dad," I snapped back. Even with guns aimed on us and his own pointed between someone's eyes, Dad still had the time to give me a look of annoyance and tiredness.
The sounds of more cocking of guns filled the air and I could see people with the bigger guns edging closer to us. My hand instinctively reached for my chest where the strap to my bow usually was, but I was an idiot who left it in the hospital wing. Slowly I lowered my hand to my thigh where my throwing knives were strapped.
"Ugh," Mandy grimaced, "You openly admit to having her as a daughter?"
I laughed. I couldn't help it; this bubble of laughter just formed in my stomach and needed an escape – so I laughed. I also couldn't help lunging at her, managing a single clean punch into her jaw before Max forced me away by the shoulders while Dad tugged me back with his spare arm wrapped around my waist.
Meh. I didn't care.
In fact I laughed (quietly so no one could hear) even more because all I could see, other than the entire community with guns pointed at me and Dad, Daryl and Carl glaring at me was Mandy with her hand clamped over her face, tears falling from her eyes. Unfortunately there was only a small trickle of blood. I wish I had thought to aim for the nose.
But the laughing stopped when Dad threw me aside and I staggered behind him, my eyes connecting with Beth's naturally wide ones and the sweet baby girl she was cradling in her arms.
This feeling of dread and guilt formed in my gut and I turned around, looking back at Max and Mandy. Things apparently had gotten worse; Dad now had the barrel of his gun pressed directly against Max's forehead and his nose wound was bleeding openly again. From the state of Carl's once again bloodied hand, it was his fault.
"What did I tell you about touching my sister?" Carl growled while Dad just remained silent, which was more terrifying than saying anything at all.
I saw the pain Max was feeling as he tried stoically to hold back tears. He tried to act strong but he wasn't. And my family was. No matter how badly he wanted to do something, he kept his hands clenched into fists by his sides.
Don't be stupid, don't be stupid, don't be stupid.
But don't be a coward.
"Alright, stop!" Daryl, Carl and Dad all turned to stare at me with a mixture of emotions, all cruel ones that made me feel guilty. I tried my best to ignore them and looked to the people surrounding us. "We're leaving. We didn't mean to upset the peace or whatever, and I'm sorry we did. So. Me and my people are going to walk on outta here, no shots fired."
I slowly turned my back to the people to look at Beth and the baby; the most vulnerable. Turning my back to the Termites was harder than it seemed, because it meant trusting my life in the hands of strangers. Strangers who hadn't been particularly kind to me.
"Come on." Ignoring every feeling of doubt I had, I placed a hand on Beth's shoulder and directed her towards the warehouse.
The sounds of slow, reluctant footsteps behind us told me that our group was following suit, which was good. I stopped and let Beth walk ahead with the others, Tara and Abe on either side. The only people who hadn't followed were three people; the three men in my life who mattered more to me than anyone. Dad. Carl. And Daryl.
Those three boneheads (whom I love dearly) remained with their weapons stiff and raised in their hands, all pointed at Max. I made a note of the fact that Mandy had stumbled away into the crowd of Termites.
Walking over to them, I shoved a hand at Daryl's crossbow so it pointed to the floor and not at Max's eye, elbowed Carl away by the arm, making him grunt, and then stood directly in front of Max so Dad had to look at me instead of him. Immediately, Dad lowered his gun and stared me down. I just stared right back.
I held out a hand, my palm flat facing the sun and after a moment, Dad placed the gun in it. He bobbed his head and walked with the others with Carl and Daryl behind him.
I didn't even look back at Max when I began to go after them, but I barely even made it a step before Max's hand gripped my arm and tugged, forcing me to look at him.
Max's wide eyes didn't look hopeful anymore, or at all grateful. They were filled with warning and an unsettling grimness. "Don't be stupid," was all he said.
