Daryl had gone to talk to Randall a little over an hour ago like he offered to do the day before. I knew very well that it would be less speaking and more of Daryl trying to make him talk, which made me slightly apprehensive. Everyone was standing around the fire in the middle of camp, anxious for him to come back with some answers.

I felt sick.

If it was bad news, then there was a good chance that Rick would kill Randall, but after everything that happened back in the town, I wasn't completely against it. I thought about it all night, but the only thing that crossed my mind was how scared those people made me, the way Dave had looked at me.

I hated it, but my mind was settled, and if Rick decided that the best option was to kill Randall, then I wouldn't complain or step in because part of me believed it was the right thing to do.

We were all standing around the middle of the camp, anxious for answers. Lori, who was kneeling over the fire, looked up at Rick as she said, "So, what you gonna do? We'd all feel better if we knew the plan."

"Is there a plan?" Andrea asked.

"We gonna keep him here?" Glenn asked.

"We'll know soon enough."

Rick's gaze moved past the group, looking at Daryl, who was walking over to join us. He held onto his crossbow strap with a bloodied hand, which confirmed in my mind that he had definitely beaten, and tortured Randall for information. I didn't agree with the methods, no matter how much I wanted to know about Randall and his group.

Daryl stopped in front of us, "Boy, there's got a gang, 30 men," he said. "They have heavy artillery, and they ain't looking to make friends. They roll through here, our boys are dead. And our women, they're gonna . . . They're gonna wish they were."

"What did you do?" Carol asked.

Daryl looked down at his hand before saying, "Had a little chat."

A silence fell among the group, a silence that Rick broke by barking out his new demands about the prisoner, "No one goes near this guy."

Lori stopped him. "Rick, what are you gonna do?"

He was quiet for a second, but a nod of his head meant that a decision had been made, "We have no choice. He's a threat. We have to eliminate the threat."

"You're just gonna kill him?" Dale asked.

"It's settled," he nodded. "I'll do it today."

Rick walked away from the group, and Dale followed after him, leaving everyone in awkward silence as we thought about what he said. He was doing it, he was actually going to kill Randall. As much as I didn't want another person to die, I would go along with the decision.

I was glad it was over now, we would kill Randall, and the problem would go away. The only thing now was that we needed to be more careful on runs because the group was still out there, and one of the men that night managed to get back to his people, saying that we were there and killed their men. So by now, they definitely knew there were others.

Everyone dispersed now, knowing that the decision had been made and that there was nothing else to be done about it, and so I walked away to my tent.

I was confused when I saw Daryl walking over. Didn't he want to get away from us? I stood up and waited for him, crossing my arms around my body.

Daryl stopped in front of me and simply said, "Your dad ain't with 'em."

I frowned, having to wonder what he was talking about for a second until I remembered the conversation I had with him yesterday, how I wondered if my dad would have found Randall's group.

"You asked?"

Daryl gave a nod. "I asked, he said he didn' know any mechanic."

"Oh," I breathed out a sigh. "Thanks, anyway."

Part of me was relieved, having met these people and seen the way they worked. I was glad that my dad hadn't come across those people. Maybe if he had, he would have felt obliged to stay with them, and maybe they would have threatened him. Either way, Randall didn't know of my dad, and that meant that they had not come across each other, so all the worries I had built up were nor fading away.

Then I continued thinking of the conversation me and Daryl had yesterday, remembering that my dad was not the only one I was curious about, "Did you ask about Merle? Maybe Merle is with them?"

In reality, I assumed that he only asked Randall about my dad because he asked about Merle, but the way he looked past me, his shrug, told me that he had not done that.

"I didn' ask," he said.

I felt my eyebrows knitting together as I frowned, "Why?"

"Cuz I don' care," he said, repeating the same reason he used yesterday. "Bastard got what he deserved. He shoulda jus' waited for us. We came right back for 'im."

Daryl sounded betrayed like he was angry that Merle didn't wait around for him. Betrayed that Merle considered that he wasn't coming back to help him. The way he scoffed as he talked about Merle and how he left the roof told me that much.

Then I considered what if Merle had found Randall's group, whether he would have stayed with him. I didn't know a lot about Merle, but he was very abrasive, which was one of the qualities I had seen in Dave, but that didn't seem to be the only requirement for accepting what their group had done.

And so I asked, "Do you think he would be with them?"

Daryl hesitated, staring at me for a moment. He knew what the question meant. I was sure it was clear enough from the look on my face and my uncertain voice. Daryl then shook his head, "Nah, he ain't like that."

I assumed as much, as I didn't know enough about either brother to know what they were really like, but I knew Merle least of all. Even if he was easier to read than Daryl, he had only been around for a short period of time, and then he was gone.

Daryl was still staring at me while I thought, "You thought your dad would be with 'em?"

I understood why he asked because I wanted to know whether my dad may have been there, but I in no way thought that he would have stayed there with them by choice.

I shook my head, "No. I just . . . needed to know," I said. "I needed to hear it, I guess."

Daryl nodded in understanding. "I get it."

The fact that my dad was gone let my mind run rampant with any and all ideas of what could have happened to him, and with Randall and his people being the first group we had come across since the nursing home, my mind latched onto the fact that he may have found other groups of people. I just needed the reality to show me that my dad had not—would not be with these people.

I spent a little while outside my tent, flipping through the pages of the book but not actually reading any. It was quiet around camp, barely anyone stayed in one place like they were all nervously trailing between different areas of the farm for something to do. I didn't know when they were supposed to be executing Randall, and so I wondered whether everyone was in the house, waiting for it to be done.

I couldn't tell how long I had been there, but it was long past noon because the sun had moved almost all the way around. I hadn't realised how long I had just sat here, dissociated as I pretended to read my book, which made me wonder whether they had actually done anything about Randall yet.

Footsteps alerted me to Dale, who was walking over with his rifle over his shoulder, "I want to speak to you," he said.

My head tilted to the side as I pushed myself to my feet, "About?"

"Randall."

I frowned, "Why?"

Hadn't Rick already come to his decision?

"I managed to talk Rick into letting me speak to everyone," Dale answered. "Try to convince them to keep him alive; we'll be meeting at sundown to talk about it," he told me. "We can't just kill him, not without some kind of a discussion."

I felt bad, but part of me was upset about this news. Now I had to contemplate what was right in my head for the rest of the day, and maybe even longer if the final decision had been changed. The uncertainty made me feel awful, and at this point, I just wanted it to be over.

"I'm not sure you should be trying to convince me," I crossed my arms as I looked at him, "the group doesn't listen to what I have to say."

"But Glenn listens to you," Dale argued. "I know he told you about the barn. And you have Rick's ear," he said. "And I want to have an adult conversation with you now. You're a clever girl."

I don't really see what being clever has to do with it. My head was shaking before I spoke, "I'm sorry, I . . . I can't."

Dale frowned like he had been expecting a different answer from me, "What?"

"I just . . . I don't want him here, and if we can't get rid of him, then this is the only other option."

"Did Shane speak to you?" Dale asked.

"This isn't about Shane," I argued. "I'm scared. I'm scared of him, scared of his group."

"Think about this from his perspective," Dale said. "He's been locked away and beaten—"

"—What about my perspective?" I cried desperately, interrupting him. "You heard what his group does to women, girls. They could come here and do that to us. If Rick hadn't done what he did in the town, that could have been me," I said truthfully. "And I'm not just saying that because of what Daryl said; I was there, Dale. This man kept looking at me, when he got mad, he said that he would kill the other three. Not me, them."

I couldn't really tell what kind of tone I was using with him, whether it was desperate or harsh, but I felt really frustrated. Even if saving him was the right thing to do in the town, it didn't feel right now, and in my mind, Dale seemed like he was fighting harder for Randall's life than the group's safety.

I buried my head in my hands, dragging them down my face as an effort to stop myself from crying, but I was fed up, and trying hard to hide it. "I don't want to see him die, I don't. But if that is the only way we can make sure that his people don't come here, then I'm sorry, but I have to go with it."

Dale was quiet, as though he was mulling over some other option in his head. "What if he helped us? He could stay here and be a member of this group."

My stomach flipped at the idea, and I shook my head. "We have no way of telling whether he would do the same things as his group. He said he wouldn't, but we don't know whether he is just saying that so we don't kill him."

"Or he could be an asset," Dale chimed.

"I don't think I'd be comfortable with it."

"Please just think about it," Dale said. "This is a young man's life, he's only a little older than you are."

A heavy sound of frustration left my mouth, and I lowered my head, running my hands through my hair, "You think I haven't been thinking about it? We're about to kill a man, and you think that I'm not thinking about it?" I questioned, looking him in the eyes. "I really don't mean to sound rude, but I feel like you can't get it. You're a . . . a man. The worst they would do to you is kill you. You don't have to worry or be scared of . . . other stuff. You said you wanted to have an adult conversation, that I'm clever, so don't treat me like I'm some naive teen that hasn't seen the whole picture or-or understand the gravity of the situation. Believe me, I do. Maybe even more than you do."

Dale let out a sigh before nodding at my answer and turning to leave. I could barely remember the conversation to remember how harsh I was, but I didn't really want to know if there was the chance I came off as a complete bitch.

I ran my hands over my face, digging my palms into my eyes and exhaling a long breath. Footsteps continued, which I assumed was just Dale as he left, but it wasn't.

"You're doing the right thing," I heard Shane say.

I let out a heavy sigh, not really sure that I wanted to talk to Shane at that moment. All of our discussions ended in an argument, and even though I believe that killing Randall was the best option right now, Shane would act like I was having no second thoughts on the matter.

"It doesn't feel right."

"You were there, Ace," Shane said. "You know more than anyone what his people are like, how dangerous they can be. Rick or Glenn or Hershel, they were there but wouldn't have seen it the way you did."

"It feels like we're killing him because it's the easiest thing to do," I cringed. "It feels wrong."

"We're killing him because there's no other option."

"I really don't want to talk about this anymore, Shane," I snapped. "I'm on your side, if we have to kill him, we have to kill him. You can stop trying to convince me now."

Instead of saying anything else, Shane left me outside of my tent, so I could get back to what I was doing. Except I could barely think about what I wanted to do because, again, my mind was filled with questions, like it had been all night.

I wanted to clear my mind of Randall, just for a moment, so I reached inside my tent and pulled out my iPod. The screen lit up as the device turned on, and I had to wait for a moment for it to start up, as it had been off for a little while.

29%

I wished I had brought my charger. It was an old iPod, so the battery was ruined, and if the percentage got much lower, the device would just die whenever it felt like it. The decreasing number gave me so much anxiety, but I pushed those thoughts to the back of my head and listened to my music.

I had been listening for almost an hour before I saw another person, Glenn walking over to me. I sat up a little, giving him a smile as he stood over me. I made sure to pull out my earphones before he actually started talking, though.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

I sat up a little to look at him, my arms still behind my head, "Listening to music," I said, holding out an earpiece to him. "Want to join me?"

He shrugged, sitting down on the ground beside me, laying his head on the ground next to mine and taking the earpiece. I'm not sure if Glenn was a fan of Guns 'n' Roses, but it was basically all I had, so he would have to listen either way.

We sat in silence for a while, but I did eventually get bored. My head turned to the ground to look at Glenn, and I asked, "Did you talk to Maggie?"

"Why?" He frowned.

"You were supposed to say you loved her when you got back," I reminded him, thinking back to the car ride where he was talking to Rick, saying that Maggie said she loved him.

He probably forgot I was even there because he awkwardly got out, "Oh . . . I— no."

"Glenn!" I exclaimed, my head falling back on the ground.

"I've been busy," he exclaimed.

"Doing what?" I questioned.

He was quiet for a moment, thinking of an answer. "I just haven't said it yet, okay?"

"Why didn't you say it when we got back from the town?" I asked, remembering that Rick told him he could just say it when he got back. He'd felt so guilty about not telling her when she said she loved him, so there was no reason for him not to do it now, especially after we all almost died.

His eyes moved up, so he was looking at the tree above us, the leaves only letting through thin rays of sun. He was quiet as he thought of how to answer, but he eventually managed to say what he was thinking.

"I felt too guilty."

Guilty? I thought with a frown, turning my head to him again. "For what?"

"I just . . . can we talk about something else?"

"I guess, but I'm not very happy with you," I turned the music off after, not wanting to waste what little percentage I had, and sat up. Glenn also sat up with me, and I said, "I'm bored."

"I think they have a pack of cards in the house," Glenn said. "We could play cards?"

"Poker?" I grinned.

"Funny," Glenn stood up, pulling me to my feet. "Come on."

We walked over to the house together after I put the iPod away in my tent. The doors were propped open by a chair, allowing a breeze to enter the house as we walked in. It was very quiet, and I didn't really know where anyone was.

Glenn walked over to the mantlepiece, grabbing the small cardboard box. "I got the cards," Glenn said, throwing the packet over to me. "But, before we play, I just want to check on Beth."

"Okay," I nodded, catching the box.

He entered the bedroom where Beth had been resting that week, and I walked past him in the kitchen to the table with the pack of cards. I pulled them out of the fraying cardboard box and shuffled them on the table while I waited for Glenn.

He emerged seconds later, saying, "Well, I'll be with Ace in the other room. Let me know if I can do anything."

Hershel followed him out of the bedroom, which stopped Glenn's path back to me, and spoke to him in the living room, "Where's your family from?" Hershel asked.

"Michigan," Glenn said and continued. "But-uh . . . before that, Korea."

"Immigrants built this country," Hershel said. "Never forget that."

I felt awkward for Glenn. Did he just call him an immigrant? I mean, he was an immigrant, technically, but why bring it up? Was this just a way to be nice? An immigrant was just someone who went to live in another country, so I guess, technically, I was also an immigrant.

"Our family came from Ireland," Hershel continued.

Glenn nodded. "Maggie Greene, I kinda figured."

"My grandfather brought this over from the old country," I couldn't see what Hershel was talking about, but I didn't try to look. This just seemed like a conversation between those two. Hershel continued, "He passed it on to my father, who passed it on to me. I pawned it to pay for a night of drinking I no longer remember."

"You bought it back," Glenn said.

"My late wife did—Josephine," Hershel corrected. "Maggie's mother. She gave it back years later when I sobered up. She was a good woman, my Jo. Maggie's a lot like her," Hershel said. There was a beat before he spoke again. "When we were in that bar, and afterwards, I thought about a lot of things. You become a father someday; you'll understand. No man is good enough for your little girl . . . until one is. Go on now before I change my mind about you."

Glenn entered my frame of view, holding a small, silver pocket watch in his hand. The same pocket watch I had seen Hershel with the other week when he was checking Beth's pulse. He looked down at the item in his hands before standing in front of the table where I was sitting.

"Did he just call you an immigrant?" I questioned, smiling a little.

Glenn hummed in response, rubbing the back of his head and looking back into the other room, "I think so."

He sat down in the seat opposite me,

"You know what this means, right?" I questioned, still shuffling the cards in my hands.

"What?"

"Hershel likes you," I said. "He gave you his watch and permission to go out with Maggie. You have to tell Maggie you love her, no—"

Glenn shushed me loudly, stopping me in the middle of my sentence. "Just . . . just deal the cards," he ordered, looking back over his shoulder.

"Okay," I droned out, rolling my eyes. "What do you want to play?"

Glenn shrugged, "I don't know many card games."

"We can play rummy," I said. "Do you know how?"

He shook his head, "No."

"Well, it's pretty easy," I said before explaining what the game was about. "You have to get three of one number and four of another. Or, you can get a straight of three or four, so you can have ten-jack-queen-king, but they have to be in the same suit."

I dealt out seven cards each as I spoke, placing the deck on the table and flipping the top card over. The flipped-over card was a three of hearts. Glenn grabbed his hand, looking down at the cards I had given him.

"So, you can start because I dealt," I said, grabbing my own hand, but I didn't look at it as I began explaining how to play. "If you want that card, then you can take it. But if you don't want it, you have to take one from the deck," I said. "If you want it, you keep it. If you don't want it, you put it on the second pile, face up. You always need to have exactly seven cards in your hands, so if you take one from either deck, you have to put a different card down."

"Okay?" Glenn still seemed unsure but reached for the three of hearts anyway. He replaced the card with one from his hand, putting down a seven of clubs.

I looked down at my hand, organising the cards I had. It was a terrible hand, with only one of each number in my hand, ranging from a four to a kind, and some random cards in between.

"You can also try and trick people," I said, putting my cards in order of number. "So, like, now I know that you want three for some reason, so you can try picking up random cards to throw me off or holding ones that I need. You may not be too good at trying to throw me off, though, because you actually need to be able to bluff."

"Yeah, I get it," Glenn rolled his eyes, a smile on his face. "It's your turn."

I grabbed a card from the deck, taking it because it was a five, to match with the five I had in my hand. I then put down a king from my own hand, putting it face up in the second deck.

Even with this new distraction, I found my mind wandering back to Randall and what Dale asked me to think about. I didn't want him living here, but I didn't want to see him die either. It would probably turn out that killing him was the only option because I doubted that many people would be convinced to think the other way by Dale.

I looked at Glenn as he added a card to his hand, "Are you going to the meeting later?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "just to see what's going on."

"Did Dale talk to you?" I only wondered because he said he was trying to convince everyone, and I wondered how many people he had actually gotten around to asking.

Glenn shook his head, putting another card down, "No, why?"

I frowned but took my turn anyway, "He said he was trying to convince everyone that we should keep Randall alive and came to talk to me earlier. I wonder why he didn't try asking you."

Glenn was quiet for a moment, contemplating both the situation and the cards in his hands as he thought about his next move, "Maybe he thinks I want to keep Randall alive."

"Do you?"

Glenn swallowed but reached out to take a card I had placed down. "I don't want to risk anyone in the group."

I nodded, accepting his answer and choosing not to speak about it anymore. Glenn didn't seem pleased with my topic of discussion, so I didn't bring it up anymore and continued playing the game.

We were in the middle of one game for around ten minutes, and when it came to the end, I placed my final card face down onto the second deck, signalling that I had won.

"There," I said, laying my hand down on the table for Glenn to see. "I got three tens and four fives. I won."

Me and Glenn played cards for a little while, waiting for sundown and the rest of the group to enter the house for the meeting. When we heard the first few people coming inside, we finished the game early and joined them in the sitting room.

I stood next to the piano, just behind where Glenn was sitting, leaning back against the wall as I waited for the rest of the group.

When we were all here, I expected Rick to begin talking, but as he opened his mouth, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. I leaned over and peered around the wall, seeing that Carl was standing on the other side of the room, waiting to hear the discussion.

When everyone looked at him, he muttered something to himself and walked away into a different room of the house. Jimmy wasn't here, so I wondered whether Lori asked him to watch Carl while we spoke.

"So, how do we do this?" Glenn asked. "Just take a vote?"

Andrea was next to speak, standing across the room from me, next to Shane, "Does it have to be unanimous?"

"How about majority rules?" Lori said.

"Well, let's—" Rick trailed off, thinking about how he would come to a decision. "Let's just see where everybody stands, then, we can talk through the options."

Shane straightened up, still leaning against the mantelpiece above the fire, "Well, where I sit, there's only one way to move forward."

"Killing him, right?" Dale asked, his voice wavering as he spoke. "I mean, why even bother to even take a vote? It's clear which way the wind's blowing."

Rick raised a hand as he spoke, leaning against the sofa in front of him. "Well, if people believe we should spare him, I wanna know."

"Well, I can tell you it's a small group," Dale said. "Maybe just me and Glenn."

I cringed when Glenn's eyes moved to the ground, and he remained silent for a moment. When Dale looked at him, his face softened in confusion, and Glenn had to look back up.

"Look, I . . . I think you're pretty much right about everything, all the time, but this—"

"—They've got you scared," Dale interrupted him.

"He's not one of us," Glenn exclaimed. "And we've . . . we've lost too many people already."

Dale was quiet for a beat, and then his gaze moved across the room to Maggie, who was standing in front of a sofa by the window, "How about you? Do you agree with this?"

Maggie glanced down and then turned to Rick, "Couldn't we continue keeping him prisoner?"

"Just 'nother mouth to feed," Daryl said. He was standing through the archway behind me, leaning against the frame, his arms crossed. I was honestly surprised he was even here, with how much he wanted to distance himself from the group, but I felt comforted that he wasn't completely isolating himself and helping out with the current problems.

"It may be a lean winter," Hershel added.

"We could ration better," Lori suggested.

"Or, he could be an asset!" Dale exclaimed, waving a hand downward as if to get his point across. "Give him a chance to prove himself."

Dale asked me earlier in the day how I would feel if Randall was a part of the group, and even after thinking about it for a while, I still didn't feel like it was a good idea.

"Put him to work?" Glenn asked, looking back over his shoulder at Rick.

"We're not letting him walk around," Rick shook his head.

"We could put an escort on him," Maggie suggested.

Shane scoffed. "Who wants to volunteer for that duty?"

"I will," Dale said immediately.

"I don't think any of us should be walking around with this guy," Rick said.

"He's right," Lori agreed. "I wouldn't feel safe unless he was tied up."

"We can't exactly put chains around his ankles, sentence him to hard labour," Andrea said, shifting her weight on her feet as she turned to Lori.

Shane shifted his weight on his feet, "Look, say we let him join us, right? Maybe he's helpful, maybe he's nice," he said. "We let our guard down, and maybe he runs off, brings back his 30 men."

"So the answer is to kill him to prevent a crime that he may never even attempt?" Dale asked, his voice straining as if it were getting harder for him to talk like he was going to cry. "If we do this, we're saying there's no hope. Rule of law is dead. There is no civilization."

"Oh, my God," I heard Shane mutter to himself.

The room fell into an awkward silence, giving me a chance to clear my head and actually think about what we knew about Randall. He said he knew who Maggie was, and Hershel, and maybe he knew where the farm was. But did he know where he was at this moment?

"Does he know we're actually on the farm?" I glanced between Rick and Shane and then looked over my shoulder at Daryl. He was the one to get the information out of him that morning. "He said he knew Hershel and the farm, but does he actually know he's on the farm? Most people had to abandon their homes now, so he would have no reason to think we're here."

"I don't wanna risk finding out whether he actually knows where we are or not," Shane shook his head. "Besides, he's locked in a barn behind the house, you don't find many of those in the suburbs."

"If he doesn't know, you could just drive him out?" Maggie asked, working off my own ideas. "Leave him like you planned?"

Lori was already shaking her head, "You barely came back this time. There are walkers, you could break down, you could get lost."

"Or get ambushed," Daryl added.

"They're right," Glenn nodded. "We should not put our own people at risk."

Patricia, standing next to T-Dog, spoke next, "If you go through with it, how would you do it?" She asked. "Would he suffer?"

Shane turned to Rick, his voice quieter now he wasn't arguing with Dale. "We could hang him, right? Just snap his neck."

Rick was nodding as he spoke, "I thought about that, but shooting may be more humane."

I didn't know whether Rick actually believed that shooting was more humane or whether he was trying to hide the fact that all of us were infected with something that would turn us into walkers. Randall would turn if he were hung, and Rick knew that. He couldn't just hang him and shoot him in the head without the group asking questions.

Luckily for him, they seemed to accept his answer when T-Dog asked, "And what about the body? Do we bury him?"

"Hold on, hold on!" Dale yelled, interrupting any answers. "You're talking about this like it's already decided."

"We've been talking all day, going around in circles," Daryl waved his finger around, straightening up and shifting his weight as he said, "You just wanna go around in circles again?"

"This is a young man's life!" Dale argued. "And it is worth more than a five-minute conversation! Is this what it's come to? We kill someone because we can't decide what else to do with him?" He turned to look at Rick, then between me, Glenn and Hershel. "You saved him, and now look at us. He's been tortured. He's gonna be executed. How are we any better than those people that we're so afraid of?"

"We all know what needs to be done," Shane said.

Rick shook his head. "No, Dale is right. We can't leave any stone unturned here. We have a responsibility—"

"—So what's the other solution?" Andrea interrupted him.

"Let Rick finish!" Lori scolded.

"We haven't come up with a single viable option yet," Andrea continued, "I wish we could."

"So let's work on it!" Dale said.

"We are!" Rick yelled.

"Stop it!" Carol interrupted them, standing in the doorway next to Lori. "Just stop it. I'm sick of everybody arguing and fighting. I didn't ask for this, you can't ask us to decide something like this. Please decide, either of you, both of you. But leave me out."

"Not speaking out," Dale said quietly, looking Carol dead in the eyes, "or killing him yourself—there's no difference."

"All right, that's enough," Rick said, facing Dale for a second. He then looked between the group as he said, "Anybody who wants the floor before we make a final decision has the chance."

The room fell silent again, but I had no way of helping Dale out of this one. It seemed like there were no other options, and I was scared of letting Randall go, the things it could bring to the group.

Dale was quiet, looking between the group in hopes that they would change their minds, that I would change my mind, but I couldn't. Not after everything that happened.

Dale turned to Rick. "You once said that we don't kill the living."

"Well, that was before the living tried to kill us."

"But don't you see? If we do this, the people that we were, the world that we knew, is dead. And this new world is ugly. It's . . . Harsh. It's-it's survival of the fittest. And that's a world I don't wanna live in, and I don't . . . And I don't believe that any of you do. I can't. Please. Let's just do what's right. Isn't there anybody else who's gonna stand with me?"

I wished, I wished things were different. I wished that I hadn't been there that night, and maybe then I could see things Dale's way and stand with him, but I couldn't. I would be ignoring the blatant dangers to the group, my people—to myself. After everything I had seen and done just to get out of the town alive, I couldn't change my mind about this.

The only other option was to take him out, but even then, there was always the risk of him coming back with his men, like Shane had said. There was no way of knowing if he knew where we lived if he would tell his group, and the fact of the matter was that keeping him alive, letting him go, would only bring more harm than good.

"He's right," it surprised me when Andrea spoke. "We should try to find another way."

Rick looked around the group. "Anybody else?"

Again, silence.

Dale's eyes were wet, and he asked, "Are y'all gonna watch, too? No, you'll go hide your heads in your tents and try to forget that we're slaughtering a human being," he said, shaking his head, his voice quiet as he breathed out a Woah, "I won't be a party to it."

He turned to leave the room, signalling what Rick's final decision was. He would kill Randall.

He stopped when he neared Daryl, grabbing his shoulder and saying, "This group is broken."

I frowned.

Daryl had once told me the group was broken, and I wholeheartedly believed it. I never actually knew where he stood on the Randall debate, but apparently, the question of leadership was a topic of discussion for Daryl to tell Dale that the group was broken. Yet I'm not surprised that the hierarchy was mentioned because I knew for a fact that Dale looked more to Rick than Shane.

And yet this discussion over what to do with Randall today showed me how broken the group was. Nobody thought the same way, and even though everyone should have their own opinions, it should be down to the leader to come up with an overall solution, at least with the way it had supposedly worked so far. The only problem was that Rick and Shane fought for leadership, which meant it was much harder to get to an actual decision.

"I'm going to get Carl," Lori whispered, walking into the other room to fetch her child.

Everyone else from the group left the house, walking back out to the camp.

Maggie asked me to stay at the house with her, I guess because she didn't want me alone while the execution was going on, or maybe she didn't want to be alone. Either way, I accepted her offer and sat with her on the porch as the sun went down and the farm was encased in a deep blackness.

The nights were definitely getting colder now, and I knew that when I got back to my tent later that night, I would need to wear my hoodie to bed to keep warm. I wasn't sure how long staying in the tents would work because they didn't exactly protect us from the weather, especially not if it snowed.

Rick, Shane and Daryl went to take Randall to the barn where they could shoot him, and this thing would finally be over. We could finally leave this behind,

Glenn was also sitting outside with us, waiting on the porch step a little bit away but still close enough so that he wasn't alone. He had been a little upset since the discussion, and I guessed that it was because he couldn't agree with Dale because I felt the same way.

Maggie didn't speak as I sat with her, but she kept her hand on my arm as we all waited around for the shot. But it never came.

What shocked me was when Rick and Shane walked back to camp, accompanied by not Daryl but Carl. If they came back without Daryl and no one heard the shot, that meant Randall had been killed, I was led to believe that it didn't actually happen.

They didn't do it.

I felt my head lower automatically, and I stood up, "I'm going to bed."

Neither Glenn nor Maggie said anything as I walked past Glenn down the porch and back towards my tent in the camp. I walked past everyone sitting around camp, along with Rick and Lori, who were standing outside their tent whispering to each other. He was probably telling her why he couldn't kill Randall.

Then I heard a scream.

I looked around quickly, my head snapping from side to side to look for the immediate danger, but I couldn't see any. The screaming continued, and now I could hear that it was coming from across the field off to the side of the house.

Ignoring the calls of Rick as he barked out orders for the others to get guns and weapons, I took off as quickly as I could, my legs barely keeping up with me as I sprinted to the gate and out onto the field.

The cold air burnt my lungs, but I kept pushing myself to run faster and faster. I heard the onslaught of footsteps behind me but just kept running, the cold air burning my lungs as I panted.

"Help!" I heard Daryl yelling, and I followed the sound of his voice. "Over here!"

I made it there first, and I felt like the air was knocked out of me when I saw him, Dale. He was laying on the ground, blood pouring out from his stomach. He gasped for air on the ground, shaking and twitching.

Daryl stood over him, still yelling out to the group, yelling at me to get someone or do something, but I didn't hear a word he said. There was a walker on the ground next to him, now dead, presumably from Daryl.

Rick, who had now caught up along with the rest of the group, was now kneeling down next to Dale, his hands on his face as he spoke to him. "It's okay, Dale. Listen to me," he looked up to the group and yelled out. "Someone get Hershel! We need Hershel!"

"Dale, we're here," I heard Andrea say. "We're going to help."

I couldn't move. Everyone was working around me, trying to reassure Dale until help could arrive, but I couldn't do anything. My chest hitched as I breathed in, and tears curled down my chest, but I tried keeping it together, holding out hope that Hershel would be able to do something to help him—he had to help him.

Hershel ran over, stopping just before Dale, "What happened?"

"What can we do?" Rick begged, his voice cracking.

"Dale, it's gonna be okay," I heard Glenn try to reassure him.

Hershel knelt down, inspecting Dale's wound across his stomach.

"Can we move him?" Rick asked.

"He won't make the trip," Hershel said.

"You have to do the operation here," Rick stood up, yelling out. "Glenn, get back to the house!"

"Rick!" Hershel yelled, stopping him. He grabbed his shoulder, shaking his head.

Rick yelled out. "NO!"

I sobbed.

My hands flew up to cover my tear-ridden face, and I stumbled backwards. I felt a hand on my back, pulling me closer to whoever it was until I was enclosed in a hug. Glenn had tears running down his cheeks, but he continued looking at Dale.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rick pull the gun from his holster, running his hand over his face. I turned my head away, pressing the side of my face against Glenn's chest.

Further away from the group, I noticed Carl.

He can't see this.

I pulled myself away from Glenn and moved towards Carl to stop him from getting any closer. I planted my hands on his shoulders and stopped directly in front of him, blocking his view from Dale and the group.

"Stop," I managed to choke out, my voice breaking. Carl didn't say anything, but his eyes filled with tears when he looked up at me. He knew what was going on, "Come on."

I turned him around and started walking him back towards the house, keeping him in front of me to shield his view. I wanted to get as far away as I could before—

BANG!

My feet froze, and Carl stopped in front of me. And I cried.