Guest: Sorry, that happened in chapter 8. I got ahead of myself.

other Guest: Thanks for the review!

Ok readers, Lily is mine…the Walking Dead is not, but these next few chapters are mine.

"Hershel?" Rick asked to see if he was ok. He knew Glenn was ok because Lily had already checked. Hershel nodded that he was ok.

"Let's head back," he said. Lily cast her eyes up to the door and saw it was dark outside. Getting Hershel to come home had taken longer than she expected but at least they'd done it. Rick bent down to pick up the shotgun Tony had, then reached into his pockets to pull out the extra rounds.

Glenn walked over to Dave behind the bar and grabbed the pistol he carried. He also took the rounds in his pocket.

Glenn placed his hand on Lily's back because he could see she was still shaken by the events which had just taken place and escorted her to the door.

"Sorry for the short notice," Rick apologized to Lily.

"Nah, it's fine," she waved him off. "Glad you did it. We'd be dead if you didn't and I'd be stuck with them."

"I know what you mean."

"You know, before the world fell to pieces, I'd have been flattered to have a guy look at me that way. Now it just makes me want to puke."

"Strength in numbers. Here." He tossed her his gun keeping the one he got from Tony. "I never asked if you know how to use it. Do you?"

"Yeah. I may have missed your lesson, but I learned another way. Thanks."

"Don't know why we didn't arm you earlier. Sorry."

She was in the process of telling him she had a knife so she wasn't completely defenseless when a car engine approached the bar.

"Car. Car." Rick told them to crouch down. They threw themselves on either side of the door and heard not one car pull up, but two. People stepped out of the cars and began to approach the bar. Glenn rested his hand on her shoulder more trying to comfort himself than her, but she enjoyed the closeness regardless.

"Dave? Tony?" a man said. "They said over here?"

"I'm tellin' you, man, I heard shots."

"I saw roamers two streets over. Might be more around here."

"It's hot. We gotta get outta here."

The men walked up onto the porch and knocked on the door. "Dave? Tony?"

"Shut up, you idiot! You wanna attract 'em? Just stick close. We're gonna find 'em."

At least three different men were outside the bar stalking around.

One of the men walked off. "Dude, he said stay close."

Rick stood quietly and peered out the window.

"Why won't they leave?" Glenn whispered when the four of them huddled.

"Would you?" Hershel asked.

"We can't sit here any longer," Rick said. "Let's head out the back and make a run for the car."

They got up to run for the back when two shots filled the night air. They threw themselves against the wall again unable to reach the back door.

"What happened?" a man asked outside.

"Roamers, I nailed 'em."

"They disappeared, but their car's still here."

"I cleared that building. You guys get this one?"

"No."

"Me either."

"We're looking for Dave and Tony and no one checks the damn bar?"

Footsteps approached the entrance to the bar and Rick slid to the floor out of sight of the windows.

Rick cocks his gun and the door opens. Glenn threw himself in front f it slamming it closed. Lily had reached out for him and was trembling. 'What the hell? He's not dead.'

"Someone pushed it shut." The men spoke outside. "There's someone in there."

Lily covered her mouth for fear she was breathing too loud and Glenn reached out to her. 'It's going to be ok,' he mouthed to her.

"Yo, someone in there?" one of the men shouted at the bar. "Yo, if someone's in there, we don't want no trouble. We're just lookin' for our friends."

'Why did I come out here? This was so stupid. Now we're gonna die out here. What would Carl do with his father dead? What about Maggie and Beth? Maggie would lose her boyfriend and her father. And Daryl? He doesn't care. I'm better off without him.' She could have told herself that a million times and still never believed it.

"What do we do?" one asked quietly.

"Bum rush the door?"

"No, we don't know how may are there. Just relex." Louder. "We don't want any trouble. We're just looking for our friends. If something happened, tell us. This place is crawling with corpses. If you can help us not get killed, I'd appreciate it."

The groups silence split up the men to explore the bar and see who was inside.

Rick spoke. "They drew on us!" Hershel sighed with disappointment knowing something as going to go wrong.

"Dave and Tony in there? They alive?"

Lily watched the bead of sweat drip down his forehead as he continued to think about how to respond.

After thinking for a long time he said, "No."

"They killed Dave and Tony."

"Come on, man. Let's go."

"No. I ain't leavin'."

Lily locked eyes with Glenn pleading him to get Rick to stop talking. After her judgement on the previous situation, Glenn was going to trust her judgement, but that didn't mean Rick would.

"I'm not tellin' Jane. I'm not gonna go back and tell them that Dave and Tony got shot by some assholes in a bar."

"Your friends drew on us!" Rick shouted at them. "They gave us no choice!"

She took a deep breath to give herself courage. "Shut up!" Lily hissed at him. "Don't make it worse."

"I'm sure we all lost enough people. Done think we wish we didn't have to, but it's like that now. You know that! So let's just chalk this up to what it wa-wrong place, wrong-"

A bullet shattered the window above Glenn's head. Rick jumped to his feet and fired a shot out the window.

"Get outta here! Go!" Glenn took her hand and dragged Lily up making his way for the back door. A bullet shot past her head so she threw herself to the ground pulling Glenn with her.

Hershel slid the shotgun over to the two of them giving Glenn something to shoot with.

Silence.

"Hey!" Rick shouted. "We all know this is not gonna end well! There's nothing in it for any of us! You guys just-just back off, no one else gets hurt!"

Lily was beginning to become angry with Rick and she was forgetting her fear. "Rick," she hissed and he locked eyes with her. "You just shot their friends. What would you do if someone said they shot Lori or Glenn and said it was just an accident? You'd react well wouldn't you? We have to kill these men too. Don't you see that? That's the only way we're getting out of here. They aren't just gonna walk away!"

Bottles clinked together behind the bar, so Glenn ran to the back door and walked down the abnormally creaky stairs to investigate. Seconds later, a shot rang out.

"Glenn! Glenn!" Rick ran after him.

"I-I'm all right. I'm all right!" he shouted to them. Lily released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

"I'll hold 'em here," Rick told Lily and Hershel. "Hershel, you cover Glenn. See if you can make it to your car. Tell him-tell him to pull up back. We'll run for it. Get the hell out of here."

'Now we're running. Great. If he'd just stayed silent there wouldn't be this problem...'

"You want me to cover Glenn?"

"You missed all that gun training. Could have come in handy now."

"Nah, I can shoot. I just don't like to."

Lily followed Hershel into the back room and watched as Glenn ran out into the alley to go get the car. A man jumped out and shot at Glenn. The second that man was down on the ground groaning in pain from being shot, Lily ran out after Glenn.

"You ok?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

"Not shot?"

He shook his head.

Rick joined them asking the same questions she had.

"It's all right. The car's right there. We're almost home. You good?"

"I'm good."

"I'm fast let me go for it," Lily offered.

"You sure?" Rick asked.

"Yeah, keys." She took the keys, a few deep breaths and ran for the car. Shots echoed behind her but he didn't stop. She couldn't.

The button to unlock the doors wasn't working so she had to run to the drivers side in the line of fire of the sniper on the roof. She jammed the key in the lock and heard tires scream behind her.

"Come on, man! We're leavin'!"

The two men shouted back and forth for a while before she heard. "Look! By their car!"

"Grab her! Go!" A car door opened and she looked behind her to see a man coming straight for her.

"Rick!" Lily screamed. Running back around the car. She didn't get far before the man grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her back. "Rick!" She threw her head back and brought her foot up between his legs and was able to pull herself free, but somebody else grabbed her.

Next thing she knew, she was thrown into a vehicle. Someone crawled in next to her and the car took off before he could close the door. She punched him in the face so hard she heard his nose break. Moving faster than she'd ever moved before in her life, she jumped from the other car door and threw herself to the ground.

"Shit, man! We lost her!" one of them shouted as the car sped off.

"We have to keep going."

She launched to her feet and made for the bar.

"Lily!" Glenn screamed looking for her.

"Glenn!" she returned the call.

Another car skidded to a stop right in front of her. There was no time for her to turn around because the door opened and a man shot out after her. She was grabbed and dragged in the car.

"Glenn!" she shrieked.

"Shut up, bitch!" the man shouted clapping a hand over her mouth as the car sped off.

"Lily!" Rick shouted from the bar. "Lily!"

She watched from the windows as Rick chased down the car for as long as possible then he, Glenn, and Hershel faded into the night, most likely for the last time.