At the Hour of Our Death

A booming voice came from the other side of the room. "You want us under heel?" Lightning blazed outside like punctuation for Hugh's question. All eyes were on him. He was done reading the room. He knew the end of this story.

"We're outnumbered here, like we've always been in this country. But it doesn't matter. Winning's never about the numbers."

Recognition filled Negan's face. "Your father," he asked Michonne, making the connection. He spoke to Hugh now. "We've been watching you, mandingo… your wife and your daughter. I assume she learned how to handle herself from you?"

Hugh didn't reply, he just stood there, jaw clenched.

"Never would've guessed in a million years we'd have to contend with a Japanese Shaquita," Negan mocked Michonne and her sword. "But it looks like you taught her well. You as good as she is with a sword?"

After a pause to wrestle with his loathing for the man and lingering resentment of his father, Hugh answered Negan. "Swordplay was my father's thing. Not mine."

"Oh, no?" Negan was curious. "What's your specialty, big boy?"

Michonne's father pulled off his holsters. His shoulder harness, the one on his hip, the one on his thigh. He was armed to the teeth, but he calmly laid everything on the floor in front of his feet with a determined face.

All the Saviors watched him unarm himself. They looked to Negan, unsure of what to do. They were confident that they could take the Marine down now that he'd dropped his weapons, but Rick still held all the cards with their commander as his hostage.

"These are my specialty." Hugh raised his hands, his wide, calloused palms and long fingers on display. He made two fists and opened them again. "Do what you want with Grimes. We're gonna settle this now. Send your best man outside. One on one. Last man standing. For my daughter's safety. I win, she walks out of here."

Negan watched Hugh turn his back on them all and head outside into the downpour of rain. He called after him, "And if you lose?" Hugh stopped and turned back to the crowd of white faces.

"I'll be dead. String me up in a tree if you want." He resumed his saunter through the door with a shrug, "Fuck do I care?"

The deputies were armed with handguns, fifteen rounds and an extra clip. The ground was turning to mud under their feet. They had finally made it to the stables across the yard from the house, but now they were out in the open, in a vulnerable position.

The ranch sat on a hill and the Saviors advanced from the high ground. No need for a perfect aim. All they had to do was spray rounds down on the deputies like a garden hose.

Rosita's heart dropped when she saw no less than twenty long neck barrels aimed at her and her team. And more Savior's were pouring out of the armory just behind the west wing of the house with assault rifles with double the round capacity of KC's finest.

"Find cover!" Rosita shrieked and they all retreated to the cars and SUV's of VIPs parked in rows and columns between the house and the stables, though they would never make it there in time.

"Hail, Mary, full of grace," she mumbled breathless as she turned to run. "The Lord is with thee."

The sound of the storm intensified like the bass of her racing heart. Though she was running as fast as she could in the suction of the wet ground, time seemed to slow in a supernatural way. In front of her, she could see Jerry.

He had been bringing up the rear but now he tripped over his feet as he turned about. Falling sideways, he caught himself on a muddy left hand and scrambled to his feet again.

"Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed…" Rosita chanced to look back over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of a Savior aiming at them with glee under the bluish glare of a security flood light, "…is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."

She wondered how bad it would hurt for bullets to enter her back and pierce her lungs. T-Dog was to her right, running at her side and beyond him, she could see young Noah. The skinny kid was standing his ground as his gun popped spent shells one after the other.

Her eyes blurred with tears and she let herself smile proudly at his courage in his final moments. She prayed for him especially. He was so green. He'd barely seen the world.

As for herself, she'd lived a good happy life and as far as last looks went, she could do a lot worse than the sight of her little brother in arms going out like a warrior in a blaze of glory. It was enough.

"Holy Mary…" But all she really wanted to see right now were Daryl's pinched, puffy eyes. He was stingy with the blue of them, always avoiding eye contact. He'd toss his gaze past her when she'd catch him gawking. As much as she would have liked him to just openly stare and admit how he felt. Those awkward moments made her love him even more. She hated to be kept waiting, but she knew she would have waited for him forever.

"Mother of God…" She was here to back him up and instead of her life flashing before her eyes, she played out a sad afterlife scene of him finding her there in the mud and whispering 'I love you', cursing himself for not having the balls to tell her while she lived.

"Pray for us sinners…" That'll teach him to keep me waiting, she thought with a tearful chuckle alongside her prayer… "now and at the hour of our death."

She was still running, but she slowed when she heard the simultaneous click of cocking rifles. "Amen," she finished, turning back to the firing squad behind her.

But instead of hearing rapid fire through the falling rain, she watched as the wall of armed terrorists started dropping as their weapons exploded in their hands. It was as though her sense of hearing was failing her at first, but gradually it came back as she stood there stunned.

Like an echo underwater she heard someone behind her calling her name. She had no time to turn around before her gun arm was being coaxed up by a hand she didn't own.

"Don't stop shootin'!" Daryl's voice shouted as he demonstrated his command, taxing the wounded men ahead with bullets until they dropped. She turned just long enough to see his wet cropped sandy hair, his adolescent jawline, budding attempt at a beard and ancient eyes.

The cacophony of rain, thunder, gunfire and shouting was no match for her pounding heart and hyperventilating breaths. The sight of him reignited her fire and she bit her lip as she let bullets fly, aiming and firing until she emptied the clip.

"I don't understand." Rosita said as she took in the scene and clumsily reloaded. "What happened?"

Through the storm and all the commotion Daryl answered her loud enough to make her smile, "Those were the guns they were stockpiling for their lil' race war. Fuckin' Saviors in the streets with military grade weapons? I wasn't lettin' that happen," he shouted. "So I fucked up some of the internals and switched the ammo to something big enough to clog the barrel."

T-Dog overheard and threw his head back to the falling rain on a boisterous laugh. "Hahahaha… my nigga, Dixon!" He began a jog toward the lineup of blinded, bewildered and bloody men. He didn't get more than four steps when he doubled over with a horrific groan.

Seeing their comrades' faces filled with shrapnel when they fired, alerted the less trigger happy Saviors that someone had sabotaged their armory weapons. Rosita could see over the bodies of the fallen, they threw the large guns down in the puddles where they stood and those who had backup handguns used them.

"T!" Rosita screamed. Staying low, she moved over the slick, sharp gravel and got to his still body. "Theo!" Rolling him from his side to his back, her shaking hands moved over the bulletproof vest strapped to his upper body, scrambling to find an entry wound.

It was hard to tell with his saturated clothes, but there was a slightly darker spot near the front pocket of his jeans that looked like blood. She applied pressure there and when she did, T-Dog came alive roaring in pain. "Noah! Noah! Help! Help me with him!"

The novice deputy was there in an instant, kneeling over their injured partner. Daryl came closer, too and Jerry was approaching from the line of cars behind them, both of them sending cover fire ahead.

"Get him outta here," Daryl hollered through irritation and anger that one of his own was down.

Noah took up firing and Jerry took his place with T-Dog, grabbing the man by the straps of his vest and helping Rosita pull him out of harm's way to the carline. T-Dog kicked with one leg, pushing himself over the ground. With the effort of all three, they got him away quickly and propped him up against a back tire.

"T, are you okay," Rosita asked through a choked sob.

"It went in and out… my groin… I can't get up." he winced and replaced Rosita's small trembling hand with his own. "I got it, Espinosa." He pushed down and grit his teeth. "I'll be okay. I popped more than a few of those bitch ass white boys," he bragged through a sawdust chuckle. "I'll be okay. Y'all go. Go 'head!" He insisted, "I'll be alright. I'm okay. Pop a few more for me." He tried another chuckle. "Imma send the ancestors. Imma send the ancestors, Espinosa. We got scores to settle with these mayo mutherfuckers."

Daryl advanced, hitting another two Saviors. Noah matched his stride and got one between the eyes. They were still outnumbered but the enemy was in tatters. Daryl spurred the bony young marksman, "Don't give 'em a second! Keep 'em running."

They went charging, Rosita and Jerry at their heels, four against a dozen or more. They broke over the weakened Saviors, up close and personal. A steady high hat of fists, elbows, knees and feet in the battle's rhapsody with the offbeat background of a random weapon's bass.

The fight went on, two to one, and Daryl could look around him and see the fat lady was just about to clear her throat. The Saviors in the yard were all but vanquished. And not a moment too soon, his lungs burned, his muscles were pumping acid and his clip was almost empty.

Jerry had a man's arm pretzeled between his shoulder blades in a bear hug. The man let out a guttural howl when the big guy squeezed and the man's bones broke up in his embrace. But two more Saviors saw the giant and teamed up. His ribs were being battered by punches before the crushed man hit the ground. Noah was on his way to help him when a two by four plank cracked against his skull.

Rosita was on her back, pinned to the ground by a man twice her size. Her skinny legs scraped through the rocky earth as he straddled her middle with his hands around her throat. She kept trying to lift her shoulders.

"Go to sleep, bitch," the man was saying above her through a horror of brown teeth. He was laughing a gruesome laugh that made her blood boil.

She kept trying to find momentum to roll over and reverse the scuffle. But he was too heavy and she was going dark. Tears fell from the corners of her eyes, but she pretended they were only rain.

She heard Daryl's voice, distant and muffled. One more time, she mustered up everything she had and tried to roll. It still wasn't enough to flip them.

It was enough, however, for her to reach the loaded gun at her back. She brought it up and improved her attacker's looks by removing his face with the pull of the trigger. He fell back limp and she clambered away from him, holding her throat and gasping for air.

Daryl reached her then and pulled her to her feet. Rosita was so wozy, she could only lean against him. But Daryl came to a sudden halt and stiffened.

She lifted her head on a bruised and unsteady neck. She must've been hallucinating. She saw two tall, muscled black men walking out to the middle of the open yard. Twins she thought for a second.

Double vision made her blink and she found her focus turning the two men into one. Looking to the direction of the house, she thought she saw the large porch filled with what looked like half a hundred hitmen dressed in black. More than they could ever fight. The rain was letting up some, clearing her view but she still couldn't trust her eyes.

She thought she saw…

It was impossible, but she thought she saw Michonne August. Rick's meek little lamb of a woman. The dark beauty in a blood-splattered sweater seemed to be holding a samurai sword. All her innocent energy replaced with a bias for annihilation. A

nd Rick was behind her with a hostage. But the crowd of men in neckties and tailored suits seemed unconcerned with the sword wielding woman or the sheriff's captive. All eyes were on the black man standing defiant before them all between the stables and the house.

The mash of people on the porch parted and another man descended. A tattoo-covered member of the SOC with a wide handlebar mustache and a balding head approached the dark-skinned stranger. No one else moved.

Rosita was warm in Daryl's arms but she felt a chill go through her as she watched the men squareup. It felt like a vision. Some divine clarity at the moment of death.

"Ayuadame, dios mio." She murmured, so afraid.

But she was safe. Somehow, of that she was sure.

She couldn't have explained it if tried. But what she saw, she saw plainly. Both men, smoldering in puffs of shadow, like rivers of lava in the face of dark mountains.

"El Diablo," Rosita exhaled on a shaky, terrified whisper. "Dos diablos."