She'd been a fool. Carol had been a fool to believe Morales and let this truck inside without inspecting it. Morales had played on her emotions, knowing she, too, had a twelve-year-old daughter, and recalling their old friendship around the quarry campfire. Her emotions, and that blood splattered on his face and shirt, had sold her on his false story.
Where had that blood come from, anyway, if not the Savior Shane had purportedly shot? And where were Eliza and Louise? In the bed of that truck like he claimed? Or somewhere else with the missing Savior Molls? Was Molls watching the kids somewhere outside Fun Kingdom, ready to kill them at a single word from Shane if Morales didn't cooperate? Or was that the female Savior's blood on Morales's face? Had Molls objected to the plan and been shot for it?
These and a hundred other questions shot like sparking firecrackers through Carol's mind in just a matter of seconds. One of the new soldiers came to stand beside Morales. She was a blonde woman in her fifties. "I'm Mary," she told Carol. "You know, the mother of Gareth and Alex. My two dead boys." That explained the other seven soldiers. They were all from Terminus. "Fun Kingdom is under Shane's rule now. Because unlike Woodbury or you people, Shane knows how to keep a community alive."
"I just want to protect my daughter," Shane told Carol. "And Carl. If you people don't fight, and you cooperate, we won't have to kill anyone. I will have to keep you all disarmed, though, for a month or two maybe, until I'm sure you can cooperate and sure that you all know your place in the new order. So right now, I'm going to need you to take the rifle off your shoulder, very slowly, and – "
A crossbow bolt shot out from the narrow alleyway between the warehouse and the next shop. The arrow penetrated the neck of Morales and lodged in it with only the steel tail feathers pointing out of the left side of his neck. He gurgled, and his grip on the handgun slackened. It clattered to the ground as Carol freed her throwing knife from its sheath. She could get to it and release it more quickly than she could remove and aim the rifle on her shoulder.
As Morales dropped, Carol flicked her wrist. The knife spun twice in the air and lodged in the chest of the armed soldier who had been standing directly behind Morales. He dropped his gun to clutch the knife. Meanwhile, four soldiers swiveled and opened blind fire on the alleyway. As Carol swept her rifle from her shoulder, Mary aimed her gun at her. Before Mary could pull the trigger, however, she was taken out by a single rifle shot.
For a split second, Carol thought Daryl must have dropped his crossbow and switched to a firearm, but then she realized the gunfire was coming from Maggie on the castle tower slides. Maggie had that ultra-long-range rifle with a night vision scope up there. Yet another Savior dropped to the ground from a bullet to the back of his head even as a Terminus soldier was taken out by a second crossbow bolt that flew clear through his neck, in one side and out the other, before glancing off the trailer of the truck and clanking to the ground. By now, Carol had the safety of her rifle released, and she dropped one Savior and then a Terminus soldier as she walked backward to get behind the hood of the truck for cover. Meanwhile, Maggie sniped two more soldiers who were shooting into the alleyway where Daryl was hiding.
As Carol sought cover, a Savior who had also taken cover behind the truck when the gunfire erupted lunged at her. He knocked the rifle from her hand while another soldier grabbed her from behind around the waist and stuck a handgun to the side of her head.
"When your people are all dead," he hissed in her ear, his breath reeking, "Donnie and I are going to have a real good time with you."
Donnie, who had knocked her rifle to the ground, was dropped suddenly by a gunshot coming from between a pretzel stand and a fortune telling booth on the other side of the pathway. When the man holding Carol let go to swivel and shoot back, Carol drew her jasmine knife, whirled around, and thrust it up and through the back of his neck.
As yet another soldier rounded the truck and took aim for Carol, Sasha emerged from between the pretzel stand and the fortune telling booth and took him out. Carol ripped her knife back out of the neck of the man who had been holding her hostage, and he fell forward, face first, on the pavement. Gunfire pop-pop-popped like fireworks, some of it from quite a distance it seemed, as blood dripped from her knife. Carol sheathed it, still wet, to reclaim her rifle.
Sasha jogged the rest of the way to the truck as the gunfire began to peter out. "Cover me," Carol said and put a hand on the passenger's side door of the truck. Sasha moved back and raised her rifle as Carol jerked the door open. Sasha swept inside. Eliza and Louise weren't there. Neither was anyone else.
The two women now crept alongside the back of the trailer of the truck and cautiously eased around to find twelve bodies littering the ground. Shane was not among them. "Daryl?" Carol called frantically into the night between the warehouse and the shop.
Daryl emerged from the shadows, crossbow in hand. He jogged to her and held a hand to cup her cheek, which she hadn't realized until he touched it was splattered with blood. "You a'ight?" he asked.
She shook her head numbly. She wasn't all right. She'd made a terrible mistake. And how many men had she just killed?
Daryl swept her into a hug and kissed her forehead and then abruptly pulled back. "Sorry. My twenty-four ain't up yet."
"I doubt you're contagious," Sasha told him. "We all know it's just a precaution. How are you here?"
"Was listenin' to Glenn talkin' on the walkie to Maggie 'bout lettin' that truck in. Didn't sound right."
"It didn't sound right to me, either," Sasha agreed. "So I high tailed it over here."
"It shouldn't have sounded right to me," Carol admitted guiltily. "I'm so sorry."
"Ain't got time for sorry," Daryl said. "Shane's still out there."
"And three other soldiers if my count is right," Carol said.
Dixon's voice crackled through the walkie talkie on Sasha's hip: "Somebody, come in! Over."
"It's Sasha," Sasha replied after pulling the walkie talkie from her belt. "We just took down a bunch of invaders. Shane and three more are loose in the park. Over."
"Beth and I just took out two outside the Royal Banquet," Dixon said. That explained the more distant-sounding gunshots Carol had heard earlier. "They ran up to it, rifles in hand, and tried to open the front door. I think they were planning to hide in here and didn't know people were in here. We shot them through a window. Over."
Now Glenn, who had apparently been listening to the chatter, came on the same frequency: "I got one, too. I ran toward the warehouse when I heard the gunshots, and I saw one of the soldiers running between a couple of rides." He was panting from the effort. "I'm almost to the warehouse now. I'm so sorry, you guys. I should never have let him in. Over."
"That just leaves Shane then," Sasha said into the walkie talkie. Now that everyone was listening to the same channel, she addressed them all: "Maggie, stay where you are and keep doing a visual sweep of the park. Fire on sight if you see him. Beth and Dixon, remain guard where you are. Fire on sight."
"Shane has a grenade," Carol said. "I saw it on his belt."
"Be warned that Shane has a grenade," Sasha said into the walkie. "Over." She looked Daryl over. "How did you survive all that gunfire in the alley?"
"Metal dumpster back there. Used it for cover." Daryl looked in the back of the open trailer now. "At least they didn't have time to take out any of these RPGs before they all got shot. Wonder what they did with all the Woodbury loot?"
"Maybe it was never in there," Carol said. "Maybe that part was a lie from the very start. Maybe they had this all planned out since the morning."
"Doubt that," Daryl muttered.
They all caught their breath as they waited for Glenn to arrive. Then they would regroup and look for Shane. Just as a panting Glenn ran to a stop behind the truck, Rosita also arrived on a Segway. She stepped off it and swiveled her rifle from her shoulder into her hand. "The shots woke me. Michonne and I have been listening to the chatter on the walkie. When I heard you say Shane had a grenade, I sent T-Dog and Patricia to guard both ends of the tunnel where the oil tankers are. Not that Shane knows they're there, but if he finds them and throws a grenade at that, it could set fire to the tracks and field and trees and burn up half the park. Michonne is on guard at the house. Mika, Sophia, Andre, and Judith are all in Sophia's room. The house is locked up tightly."
"We need to get back there! Now!" Carol shouted with sudden realization. "Shane knows it's where we live. That's where he'll go looking for Judith!" She ran and leapt on the Segway and took off at the full twelve miles an hour she could push it. Rosita followed on foot, and the truck started up behind them.
The Sanctuary
10:50 PM
Gavin had fallen asleep on the couch in his little Sanctuary apartment. A knocking at the door awakened him. He got his handgun and opened the door cautiously. It was Alden, who had been on night watch on the factory floor. Gavin's eyes flitted left and then right. "What is it?"
"I just put another surrender Savior in a cell for groping one of the female workers in her sleep. There's only two surrender Saviors who have been cooperating down there today and working well with the other workers. The other six are all back in the cells now, and you haven't addressed what we're going to do with them yet."
"I'm working on it."
"And the woman who got groped said – This never would have happened under Negan. And she's right. Men were too afraid of Negan to grope women. He would have stuck a knife immediately through their throats. I just smacked this guy across the face with my rifle and took him down to the cells. Not that I'm saying Negan's approach was a good thing, but if the workers don't feel safe, you're going to have a problem on your hands."
"I've got a problem on my hands. I've got a dozen."
"I'm going to bed for three hours. J. Money and I are guarding the factory floor in shifts. You've got to get someone else on this job. We can't cover the floor twenty-four hours a day, just the two of us. And I can't get DJ to help because he's been switching out with one of the Hallowbrant volunteers to guard the fence."
"I'm working on it. We're going to train new guards." Gavin stepped out of his apartment. "I'll go stand night watch on the floor from now until 6 AM so you and J. Money can both sleep."
"Then when are you going to sleep?" Alden asked.
"I'll sleep when I'm dead."
Fun Kingdom
10:55 PM
Carol was right about where Shane would go. Maggie hadn't seen him from the castle tower slides, slinking and dashing and hiding behind objects and melding to walls. Michonne hadn't seen him until she'd gone to investigate the shattering of a window in the dining room. Shane had thrown a brick through the window, but he wasn't out there anymore when, rifle ready, she looked.
He wasn't out there because he was coming through the front door. And he was coming through the front door because all he had to do was unlock it. Shane had the universal key from the park's security office. There were two such keys, and he'd had one in his pocket when he left Fun Kingdom. It didn't open the front gate, which was padlocked and chained, and it didn't open every shop and office, but it opened a lot of them – including the front door of the House of the Future.
They'd all forgotten he had that key. Shane had a gun to the back of Michonne's head before she even heard him come in. She was too busy investigating the broken window. He disarmed her, and then he demanded to see his daughter. "Take me to her, or I'll kill Andre."
Shane had cracked. There was no other way to put it. Something inside his brain had simply snapped. He wasn't the same man who had left Fun Kingdom four and a half months ago.
He heard Judith crying in Sophia's bedroom, and he led Michonne up the ramp with a handgun to the back of her head, telling her to open the door and get the baby for him. Michonne moved as slowly as she could, hoping to bide time. She turned the knob, but the door was locked.
"Tell Sophia to unlock it," Shane hissed. "Or I'll shoot your right through the back of the head right now."
"Sophia, Sweetie," Michonne called through the door. "Shane's here to see baby Judith." Sophia knew Shane was a threat, and maybe the warning would cause her to bide time as well. "I just need you to unlock the door please."
But Sophia didn't bide time. The lock clicked almost immediately. The door swung suddenly inward.
Mika was the one opening it, because Sophia was standing in front of it with her wakizashi drawn. The instant the door was open, Sophia thrust the small, sharp sword forward, just to the side of the slender Michonne's hip, and buried it almost up to the hilt in the left side of Shane's stomach. He lowered the gun in shock, cried out in pain, and stumbled back as Sophia ripped the sword out again. Michonne whirled and kicked the handgun out of Shane's hand and into the hallway. Then she ran for the weapon.
When Carol burst through the front door, rifle leveled, she heard Sophia screaming some kind of high-pitched battle cry as the girl lunged at Shane again and drove the sword into him a second time, this time straight into his chest. Sophia tried to pull it back out for a third thrust, but it was stuck, lodged in his sternum.
Shane grabbed at the sword while gasping. Blood trickled from his mouth. He stumbled back against the rail of the balcony and then slumped down into a sitting position on the carpet. Michonne had by now scooped up the handgun and leveled it at him. Andre, always a heavy sleeper, was still dead to the world, sound asleep in the trundle bed. Meanwhile, Mika walked with a shocking calm to the pack and play and reached down to comfort the crying Judith by sliding a pacifier into her mouth.
When Daryl entered the house behind Carol, Sophia ran down the ramp to him. She threw her herself against him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and buried her face against his chest. He hugged her back tightly, looked at Carol, and then looked up at Shane gasping and bleeding on the balcony, the hilt and part of the blade of Sophia's wakizashi protruding from his chest.
Glenn turned the truck off outside. Sasha and Rosita had already spilled out and were sweeping the left and right side of the house, not knowing Shane was inside.
Shane groped lamely for the hand grenade attached to his belt, but Michonne crouched down and quickly disarmed him of it. When she stood again and stepped back, Shane pleaded, "Let me see her! Just let me see her once before I die. Let me hold her. Just once. Please. I'm her father. Please."
Carol thundered up the ramp to the balcony. "Where are they? Eliza and Louis? Where are they?"
Shane closed his eyes. He was breathing hard. He would die of blood loss in a matter of minutes, Carol was sure. He opened his eyes again. He coughed up blood and then rasped, "I'll only tell you if you let me hold her."
Carol caught Michonne's eye. Michonne shook her head. Mika shut the bedroom door. The lock clicked. Carol crouched down beside Shane and put her hand on the handle of the wakizashi. "You'll tell me now." She twisted, and Shane screamed. "No?" Carol asked. "Then now." She twisted the other direction, and Shane screamed again and then spat, through the blood in his mouth, "Okay, okay, they're in the park. With Molls. Briar Creek park. Eight miles down the road."
"On it!" Glenn, who had come inside a moment ago, called.
"Take Maggie with you," Daryl told him. "Dixon, too. Don't let that Savior bitch get the drop on you."
Glenn nodded and rushed from the house.
"Let me see my daughter," Shane pleaded again. "Let me see my baby girl."
"You're not her father," Michonne lied. "You never were her father. It turns out she has Rick's blue eyes. She even has the exact same strawberry birth mark."
"What?" Shane gasped, turning his eyes up to Michonne. "No – "
Michonne leveled Shane's handgun at his temple and pulled the trigger. His head snapped sideways, and blood splattered the railing of the balcony.