A/N: This chapter is a bit dark in some places. Scroll to the end for a summary if concerned on triggers.
July 21, 2010
Shane watches dispassionately as the body of the fourth bandit is tossed off the roof of the sheriff's department into the fenced area teeming with about two dozen walkers. They know what happened to a portion of this county's law enforcement, because four of the ravenous dead below wear their uniforms still.
The area shows signs of being set up as a refugee camp of sorts. Tattered and collapsed tents line the far side of the chain linked area. The walkers are a mix of civilian and first responder. Shane shivers at the sight of one smaller walker, no older than Carl.
"Think they would appreciate being used like this?" Merle drawls beside him as the older man cleans his hands with a wet wipe.
"Personally, I would prefer to be put down. But if I was already roaming, I don't think I would mind still dispensing justice."
"Real justice would be tossing the bastards down there still alive."
"True, but we're not that far removed from cruel and unusual, are we?"
Merle sighs and shakes his head, spitting over the edge of the roof. He's quiet for a minute as Daryl and Andrea leave the roof to help gather supplies. Jacqui and Glenn were left below after the interrogation, content to strip the sheriff's building of anything they can use.
"Can't let them catch onto us just yet. Can't believe they talked so easily with women doing the questioning."
Shane nods, still watching to note that the walkers are certainly covering the tracks of those hunting the bandits. You would never know the men died before they hit the ground now.
"Andrea did say she was a lawyer before, and Jacqui's damned smart."
They spotted the group leaving the furniture store and followed, easily kicking in to the plan to pick them off in small groups if needed. The four men headed north, never noticing they were being tailed. Taking them down was easy once they bashed their way into a food bank building down the street from the sheriff's department. Dragging them to the holding cells in the building's basement just seemed best for keeping the interrogation hidden.
Rick's conscience should set easy after these four deaths, too, once Shane tells the folks back at camp. Two of the four were monstrous enough to need little coaxing to confess their guilt. Andrea interrogated them anyway for what Shane thinks is the opportunity to visit well-deserved pain upon them. She needed little guidance from Merle on the pain points to press knife and baton.
The other two broke eventually, the youngest weeping pitifully, but unable to keep a sickening admiration out of his voice as he described the group's predatory nature. Even if the young man, no older than Glenn, didn't actually participate in the rapes and murders of teenage girls, it was only a lack of opportunity.
"Least we got more detailed information," he says.
"Twenty-four men is still a lot to hunt down." Merle looks thoughtful as he watches the carnage below. "How far are you willing to go?"
While Merle's toned down the asshole redneck a bit now that there are no divisions within the group, Shane's opinions are colored by quiet stories shared by Quinn under the guise of their continued 'relationship'. The man will never be truly stable, not in the way society expects him to be. There's been too much trauma, physical and otherwise, compounded by past self-medication.
But there are shifts like today, where Shane sees the Marine looking back, and wonders if the man's mind first shattered in his abusive childhood or under the duties asked of him while wearing military rank. He knows whatever suggestion is coming will not be considered humane.
"What do you mean?"
"There's no honor to it. No individual questioning of guilt or innocence. Even a risk they've brought in an innocent we don't know about." Merle doesn't turn away, expression intent on Shane's. "Take out their guards and block the exits. Building they're in is old and the windows boarded up. It'll go up like pine kindling."
Shane feels sweat trickle down his spine in the late July heat, but he doesn't feel the heat now. It feels like he's been doused in ice water instead.
"You're suggesting we burn them alive."
"Easiest way to take down those numbers and not risk our own people."
Shane takes a deep breath. They've held onto a sense of justice by questioning all these men before killing them. What Merle proposes crosses that line. But they aren't intending to let any of the men go free, and the bastards certainly tortured their victims.
It's simpler for Merle, Shane thinks. His view of the world is wrapped in us versus them. The group is lucky that Merle's shifted his definition of 'us' to include everyone now, not just his own family and the children of the rest.
"If Quinn agrees."
Merle's smile is grim, even as he reaches for the water bottle from his pack. "She will."
Shane doesn't doubt it. She's been on edge since they saved Maggie. Staying behind today is as much about keeping a close eye on the more innocent women and girls of their group as it is splitting their leadership up in case of a problem.
"Might as well get back to the farm. No sense alerting anyone we exist," Shane says at last.
Merle crumples his now empty water bottle and tosses it into the crowd below, bouncing it off the head of a male walker in a once expensive suit. Whether he was a refugee or detective, who knows? The virus is a leveling field like no other.
"Might as well." The burly man heads for the roof access door, leaving Shane to his thoughts.
If they do this, he's not sure they can be honest with the group. Many aren't yet to the place where they could cope with a preemptive strike, especially one that will deliver an especially horrific death. He won't take Glenn. The kid's lost enough innocence as it is.
Merle's suggestion is logical, even if diabolical. It could even be done with a very small group of people. That thought shifts him into hesitant agreement. If they shelter as many as possible from their plan, the fire can be seen as a horrific visitation of karma.
Rubbing at the back of his neck, he sighs deeply and goes to rejoin his group. Quinn will help him analyze it and see if it's just that one step too far.
The drive back isn't a long one, although courtesy of the maps at the sheriff's department of surrounding counties, they can now take circuitous routes they might not dare with just a state map. There's never a sign of being tailed. The only movement is the occasional walker and loose livestock.
When they pull in at the farm, the others pile out of the Expedition with eagerness to check on those they're closest to, carrying bags of supplies. Shane takes a minute, sitting behind the wheel, noting the champagne colored Mercury Sable he saw on the Greene Farm is here. At least Maggie didn't try to ride.
Merle taps at the driver window, making Shane jump. From the smirk, he meant to startle. Instead of rolling down the window, Shane pockets the keys to return to Quinn and opens the door.
"Listen, Walsh. What I suggested? It don't have to involve you. Could be done with two or three men, and give you plausible deniability with your family. Me, Daryl, and Morales can take care of it."
Merle's offering him a technicality to avoid getting his hands dirtier, but Shane won't take it. He can't ask others to cross lines he won't, and he suspects hiding from it now will only make it worse later when he does have to redraw the lines between good and evil. That day is coming, he feels it in his bones. There are no jails to house the wicked anymore.
"No, if we do this, I'm part of it. Why Morales?"
"He's ex-military, so he's trained to understand the necessity. He served in the desert, and you don't come back clean from that. Plus he's got a daughter."
Shane looks to where the Latino is sitting on the porch steps, Eliza next to him with a book she seems to be reading aloud from. The man's military background is part of why Shane left him behind today, but he hadn't considered what the desert military service would mean for the limits the man might have.
"Alright. Let me talk to Quinn."
Shane shuts the door and matches pace with Merle. Despite the heavy bag of salvaged ammunition from the sheriff's department, the man moves like he's much younger than the near fifty he is. Merle splits off near the big cargo truck, obviously going to sort out the ammo, while Shane continues on to where he can see Quinn and Maggie sitting on a couple of old stumps near the border between farmyard and crop field.
Beyond them, he's a little surprised to see the teenagers from the Greene Farm. Both are working diligently in the field to gather food alongside a half-dozen of Shane's own people. Quinn has a basket of field peas beside her and a huge plastic bowl in her lap, shelling the peas methodically as she speaks to Maggie.
Maggie is crying, so he hesitates to approach, but his halt in progress actually calls both women's attention to him.
"Come update us on what you found today," Quinn calls out. Maggie scrubs at her face with the tail of the plaid overshirt she's wearing over a white tank top and manages something close to a smile when he nods her way.
He sits cross-legged on the ground beside Quinn's basket, gathering his thoughts. "We caught four more. Confirmed their numbers and location."
Quinn deftly slides a thumb along a pea pod, ejecting the contents into the bowl. They're crowder peas, he notes idly before stealing a pod and popping it open to snack on the peas inside. He isn't sure he should bring up Merle's suggestion in front of Maggie.
"You look uneasy. More than the first two said?" Quinn asks.
"No. There's only about two dozen left, but Merle had a suggestion to reduce risk to our people."
Quinn hums softly, letting that settle in and looking between him and Maggie. "I'm guessing from the guilty expression you're wearing that it involves something gruesome."
Since Maggie seems even more intent at those words, Shane sighs. "He thinks we should take out the guards in the night and bar the doors. Set the place on fire."
The farm girl's expression turns darkly triumphant. "That's perfect."
It takes Quinn longer to answer. She's gazing off in the distance, fingers still busy. "I'll bow to his analysis of the strategy being possible. The group won't support it."
"It's what they deserve," Maggie objects, voice heated.
Quinn refocuses on the young woman, expression stern. "I didn't say we wouldn't do it "
Maggie's righteous anger deflates. "Sorry."
The apology is waved off. Quinn looks to Shane. "You aren't arguing against it, so I assume you just want my approval?"
He nods, taking another pea pod and playing with it more than eating the contents. The slickness of the peas distracts him from the fact that he's planning a slaughter. "Merle thinks we should use a small group. Me, Daryl, Morales, and him."
"That could work. Miranda will notice her husband leave, but she's pragmatic and won't oppose it. Same for Carol. I'll adjust the watch roster to put Andrea on your watch shift. I think she can handle knowing but not knowing, too. Take my truck and be back before dawn watch."
Shane suspects T-Dog's also capable of not inquiring further, but he understands the protection Quinn extends to the man's conscience. Adapting too fast could break the sweeter natured among them. After today, he knows Andrea won't break.
Just like that, the fates of twenty-four men turned monsters are sealed.
Later, as the night shifts toward day instead of dark, Shane strips off all his smoke scented clothing, pushing it away and as close to the exit as possible. He can still hear the screaming of the trapped men like an echo, and if he closes his eyes, he can see the flames.
The two guards were no trouble at all, half drunk and inattentive. Knocked unconscious, they were left inside the doors Shane and Daryl jammed shut. Morales and Merle used the water tank on a truck from the fire department to soak the ground around the furniture store so the flames didn't spread.
The four of them watched the building burn from a nearby roof for two hours, with Daryl and Merle picking off walkers attracted to the noise with crossbows. Once no more dead seemed to converge so it was safe ro be on the ground, they doused the embers with the remainder of the truck's tank.
The screams stopped long before the flames did. The phantom smell of burnt flesh and kerosene makes his stomach roil.
Shane stumbles out of his tent, not caring that he's clad only in boxer briefs. He makes it to the draped area designed as the latrine before he retches painfully.
There's a gentle hand between his shoulder blades, rubbing softly. When he can raise his head, Quinn's expression is compassionate. "Rinse."
He takes the bottle of mouthwash and does as directed, feeling the harsh burn of Listerine remove the lingering taste of sour in his mouth.
"Let's get you back to bed."
Her arm around his waist is a damned lifeline, warm skin against his. Shane lets himself be guided onto the air mattress that replaced the one he lost at the quarry. It's a single, normally barely wide enough for his shoulders as he sleeps on his back. But tonight, he's manipulated onto his side, with Quinn folding herself against him. The soft cotton of her pajama pants against his bare legs is soothing
She presses a kiss against his forehead. It's as sweet and platonic as all of their interactions have been, despite most of the camp thinking they're lovers. He suspects Merle knows differently. There's nothing about Quinn the older man doesn't catch.
"Don't want to sleep," he mumbles against her shoulder. "Need to, though."
Quinn's fingers comb through his hair. "I'll be here. Sleep."
The scent of her perfume drives away the phantom scents. She hums quietly, a song he vaguely recognizes as a hymn from a long ago childhood spent next to his grandmother in church.
The combination of touch and scent and sound eases his mind and settles him to sleep.
A/N: For anyone needing a summary: After capturing and interrogating four more of the bandit group, Merle proposes to Shane that they lock the bandits in and set the building on fire to reduce risk to their people. The plan is carried out without the entire group's knowledge or input.
I know I tagged the story as Shane/OC in my profile notes because it was begun as a Rooftop draft. But the more that I write Shane and Quinn together, the more they feel platonic and almost sibling-esque in their interactions. I'm pulling the tag for now, with no concrete plans for either of them romantically. It'll come naturally as we progress, hopefully.