The Wolves continue their attack by coming inside the walls of the ASZ.
Warnings: Minor character death; discussion of sexual assault including graphic language.
Royal Flush
"Perhaps we've grown so used to horror we assume there's no other way." Lord Varys to Tyrion, Game of Thrones
"Hey, this one's already missing an arm!" said one of the men carving the four quick slashes into the foreheads of the new walkers before they were put onto the trucks parked just inside the main gates of the ASZ.
It was the second part of the mop-up operations following the initial assault on the compound with the walkers two days earlier. All of the "surviving" dead had been herded into pens and then the new kills separated out in preparation for branding.
"Just do it and shut the fuck up." His partner was holding it by the back of the neck with a veterinary capture stick as it snarled and tried to grab at him with its remaining hand.
"Damn—used to be a looker too..." the first man said, pushing the bloody matted shoulder length blonde hair back off its forehead so he could see the face of the woman who used to be a wife to an abusive man now dead and a mother to two boys called Ron and Sam.
"You ever fuck one?" the second man asked with a leer.
"Shit no." the first man said with disgust. "Ain't never been that hard up."
"Fresh-uns 'bout the same as a livin' bitch–fight ya so ya tie 'em down—so you can do whatever ya like to'em." the second man shrugged. "Fight ya too much and bam! Right between the eyes!" he cackled.
"You are one sick asshole." the first man grimaced, cutting the first diagonal line into the pale forehead as the walker snarled at him, baring its teeth.
"Right—n' yer pure as the driven snow." the second man gave a grunting laugh of derision.
"Just like stickin' my dick into somethin' closer to 98.6." said the first as he finished the fourth line completing the W and motioned for the stick man to release the walker onto the chute leading up to the truck.
"Bound to be a few survivors cowering in there somewheres." the second assured him, dragging the walker backwards slowly. "We do our part, we'll get our share of pussy n' ass."
In the pack, sex was a perk, bread and circuses to keep the members happy and loyal. Those with the highest status got first dibs, but eventually everyone had a turn. That the stick man had practiced necrophilia meant that at one point he was the Omega, lowest ranking in the pack.
There were only two women in the group, both of them under explicit protection of the Lupus Dei, not to be touched except by him. One was his mate, Circe, the female alpha and as vicious as him. The other, Erin Yang, was a physician, her abilities too important to let her be used by the entire pack.
When Erin was first captured she had tried to object to the treatment of the other prisoners, using her medical skills to help them when they were returned to the capture pens, bloody and abused. She'd argued long and hard, protesting the inhuman conditions. When she refused to be quiet, Davidson had used other ways to break her spirit but keep her working.
The unblinking ability to commit ruthless acts to enforce his will had made the man banished from the ASZ the uncontested leader of the pack. In his world it was black and white, you were predator or you were prey. They took what they needed and wanted with no guilt or regret.
And what the Lupus Dei wanted here at the Alexandria Safe Zone was revenge.
The Wolves charged with looking for survivors and plunder reached the inhabited houses around the same time as the men doing the branding worked at their task. The first home they came to was Aaron and Alec's.
When they stepped up onto the porch the trip wire they broke sent a dozen condom balloons filled with the pulpy juice of cayenne and Ghost peppers, grown right in the ASZ gardens, down on them, bursting and burning their eyes, mouths and any exposed skin. Water only made the pain intensify, which they found out when they tried using their canteens to wash away the stuff. Their angry screams and profanity filled shouts echoed down the street.
At the same time, four houses down, the place where Carol and Daryl had finally found a sort of peace in each other's arms, the lead man stopped at the top of the steps, having spotted the trip wire, and stepped high, over it, smiling back at the rest of his raiding party.
"Mat says welcome!" he grinned and when his foot came down on the door mat his momentum carried him forward, both feet impaled on the sharpened rebar spikes in the pit underneath the mat, screaming in agony.
The two men behind him fell backwards; stopping themselves from falling in after, but in the process broke the trip wire. More of the skin burning prophylactic vessels fell, dousing them in liquid fire.
At every house they tried, the Wolves encountered similar non-lethal but extremely painful booby trap measures put in place by Morgan and his crew. Their shouts and screams joining in chorus finally reached the notice of the main group at the front gates.
"I told those assholes to watch out for traps." the leader said, sounding annoyed. He gave a silent command and was immediately flanked by four men, his toughest fighters and his personal guard, who kept a watch out for any movement in the surrounding houses. He started forward, headed for the home he knew Deanna shared with her sons and husband.
As they moved further away, Sasha must've known she was losing her chance to take him out. A silenced shot dropped one of the guards who stepped into her line of fire after she'd pulled the trigger.
All three remaining men surrounded the Lupus Dei and rushed him to cover behind the red car Aaron used on his forays outside, looking up to see from where the shot had come. One of them pointed at the church tower and a group of five men was sent to go take out the sniper, who continued to fire. His guards kept the leader covered, returning fire.
There was no pause in the volley of shots coming from the tower; Spencer reloaded the rifle for Sasha each time she handed it off and took up the other he'd already prepared. She was able to take out two more of the ones sent after her before they broke through the doors of the abandoned church and pulled them out.
"I have your son, Deanna!" the Lupus Dei shouted, pushing Spencer ahead of him as a human shield. "And the pretty little sniper bitch you sent to kill me!" Like Spencer, Sasha was gagged and bound with her arms behind her back and was forced down the main street towards the center of town.
The door of the town chapel opened and Father Gabriel walked out.
"Ah shit." Daryl said from his vantage point at the spy hole in the Armory basement window. He'd insisted on taking a turn, propped up on a high stool.
The priest had come down strongly on Morgan's non-lethal deterrent side in terms of how they decided to defend the Zone from the Wolves. He had accepted weapons training, only as a defensive measure, and had become proficient at killing walkers. Killing humans? He refused to even discuss it.
"What is it?" Carol asked, coming close.
"They got Sasha and the kid outa the tower." Daryl explained, then growled, "Damn priest..."
"What's he doing?" Rick came forward, handing Judith off to Rosita.
They watched as Gabriel held his Bible up before him like a shield and approached the men who held Sasha. He got as close as they would allow and then stopped and started to speak. He was too far away and spoke too softly for the watchers in the Armory to make out what he was saying.
"Too soon." Daryl muttered. "It's too soon—what the hell is he doing?"
"Trying to save them," Carol said, sighing at the foolish bravery of the timid man. He was visibly shaking but holding his ground.
The Pack leader looked amused at the priest's plea. Sasha was shaking her head at Gabriel, trying to stop him, but he persisted in his argument.
"I don't have a clear shot." Daryl said, watching through his rifle sight, trying to get a bead on the leader, but his men kept him well surrounded.
"You can't –you'll give our position away." Carol said, with quiet urgency and regret, putting her hand on his arm.
The Lupus Dei listened patiently, tilting his head to the side and nodding every now and again. He thanked the priest and then calmly took out his pistol and shot Father Gabriel through the heart.
"Aw no..." Daryl said as the shot echoed down the street.
Sasha screamed and lunged forward, but Spencer blocked her with his shoulder before she could be knocked back by any of the Wolves.
"Deanna?" the Pack Leader shouted. "Is this what you do? Rely on a priest to spew his platitudes? Do you think I care about the wrath of your useless god? I am a god!"
Daryl fell back, almost off the stool, looking sick. The rest of the group were equally shocked and bereft to different degrees.
The priest had overcome a lot since they'd met him, and had finally started to find his place in the community through his friendships with Sasha and Maggie in particular, who had been the core of his new parishioners. The man who had cowered in his church while his old congregation had died had just given his life to try and save two of his flock.
"We need to get ready." Carol said gently, sliding her hand up to Daryl's shoulder. He looked back at her, his eyes tired and sad, and nodded.
Out on the street the group continued their march to Deanna's house, leaving Gabriel lying in the middle of the pavement. Sasha's tears turned to icy calm fury. If the Wolves had any sense of what their leader had just unleashed they would've fled in terror, for these people, Sasha's people, who had come in from the road still reeling from the depth of their losses to find a chance at a life here in this place, would hold on to it in any way they had to.
Deanna was waiting for them, her hands behind her back, standing on her high porch, flanked by Abraham and Maggie, rifles trained on the approaching party.
"Davidson. You were warned what would happen if you came back." Deanna said, her jaw tight, her tone formal.
"Upon pain of death, wasn't it?" the self-style Leader of the Wolves asked. "My, 'oh so official' banishment?" he craned his neck down the street to the dead man that was just starting to stir, smiling in sick satisfaction. "That's not exactly what you meant, was it?"
The newly made walker lurched to its feet, tripping a bit on the slippery blood soaked Bible at its feet before righting itself and scenting the air. The small crowd in front of the house drew its attention and it started forward with that unerring instinct even the freshest of them had for potential victims.
Before anyone else could react Maggie fired a clean head shot and the body flew back and down.
Deanna's eyes shifted to Maggie and gave her the barest of chin tilts. Maggie blinked away her tears and chambered another round and nodded back, returning her aim to the Pack Leader.
The guards reacted by all aiming their weapons at Deanna; Abraham cocked his shotgun and pointed it directly at Davidson in return.
"Now is that anyway to welcome home the prodigal?" the Pack leader said mockingly.
"You broke the bonds of trust and community. For that you were exiled." Deanna returned coldly.
"You threw me out because I had the balls to take what I wanted." Davidson made a rude scoffing noise.
"I threw you out because you're a liar and a rapist." Deanna said flatly. "You aren't fit to be a member of this or any other community. We have order here—"
The four men surrounding the Pack Leader barked and howled, drowning her out.
"What do you have? I have my men inside looking for your people and outside overlooking Reg's lovely walls. I saw some nifty little party tricks from your hidden Joker and heard a touchingly heartfelt plea from that poor priestly Jack of Spades back there. But I know you, Dee. You always have an Ace in the hole. So let's lay our cards on the table here and now—shall we?" Davidson asked and then he repeated, "What do you have?"
"What do I have?" Deanna asked thoughtfully. "I have a group of people all working together to make a decent life here—every man woman and child ready to defend each other and this place with their lives." Her voice rose, elocuting as if she was addressing the entire body of the Senate. "It beats anything you and your pack of murderous thugs bring to the table. We follow suit, Alex, it's a Royal Flush."
His guards and the men guarding Sasha and Spencer suddenly dropped without a sound, falling hard, boneless to the ground, their weapons clattering uselessly down next to them.
The Lupus Dei spun around in confusion and then reached for the gun at his hip.
"Don't." Deanna barked, pointing a large pistol at him. "Now put your hands up."
Davidson raised his hands and smirked at her.
And then she shot him.
Davidson looked down at the tranquilizer dart sticking out of his chest and grabbed it, ripping it away from his body, fumbling for his gun, but it had already started to numb his extremities and the dart fell from his hand. He looked up at her, grunting as he fell,
"You should've killed me."
"It may yet come to that." Deanna murmured, dropping the tranq. gun back to her side.
She hurried down off the porch, followed by Maggie and Abe. Deanna released Spencer from his bonds and hugged him tightly to her. Maggie helped Sasha; they hugged as well and then started down the street towards the body of their fallen friend.
"Did we get'm all?" Abe wondered, looking up and down the street. The others were coming out of their hiding places to check on the prone bodies of the Wolves they'd taken out with the tranquilizer guns, both pistol and rifle styles, gathered from a veterinary supply warehouse where they'd gone looking for drugs and medical equipment on earlier runs. That they were useless against walkers may have been why earlier scavengers had left them behind, but they'd been essential to Morgan's plan.
After researching the best combination of compounds to render someone unconscious quickly, the community worked day and night synthesizing it and loading the darts. Each safe house had been supplied with both the tranqs. and live ammo as a secondary option.
Citing the example of what had happened when they'd left Terminus without making sure any survivors were dead, Rick had made the argument to the Council that lethal force was necessary. Morgan had countered that they had no way of knowing which of the group were traveling with them because they were captives and which were the kind of men he'd met up with in the woods. Maggie agreed, reminding Rick that they had taken in the people spared the Governor's wrath at Woodbury on his recommendation.
The compromise was to set the booby traps and try the tranqs. They wouldn't work on everyone—different body masses required different dosages; too little meant they'd not go down, while too much could kill—but it was their best chance to take the raiders out quickly with the minimum number of casualties.
When they saw the rest of their pack, including their leader, go down, most of the remaining Wolves simply surrendered. They weren't used to encountering much resistance, preying on smaller communities or small groups of travelers. One or two who'd been concealed behind the trucks or pens tried firing into the houses, but were quickly taken out when their shots gave away their positions.
The only ones to escape were Circe and her guardsmen, who'd been up on the truck still parked outside the wall at the back of the compound acting as spotters. When they saw everyone fall at almost the same moment the guards dragged her, kicking and screaming for her mate, down off the vehicle and sped away, doing their job of protecting their mistress.
"We've got two to three hours before they start waking up. Need to get them to the holding areas as quickly as possible. Let's move." Morgan said in a strong voice to the people of the ASZ assembled in front of Deanna's house.
As the people went off to do their assigned tasks, one man remained standing still until he was the only one left. Rick narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to the side, staring up at Morgan, who remained unmoved. After almost a full minute, Rick finally shook his head from side to side and turned to walk away.
Carol, Maggie and Rosita were already working on assessing the fallen Wolves as the crew bound their hands behind them with zip ties in preparation for moving them. So far all of the Wolves had been rough looking men, their thinness, long unkempt hair and beards and strong stench reminding Carol of what they'd looked like just a few short weeks before. The difference having a safe haven made couldn't be more apparent.
The group they went to first was the ones injured by Morgan's traps. The man who'd fallen on the welcome mat spikes had bled out and turned, but someone had already ended him with a head shot. Carol was assessing the extent of the chemical burns on another when Rosita drew her attention.
"Carol!" Rosita called, making the other woman raise her head from taking the pulse rate of the bound man she'd knelt beside. Rosita was holding up a khaki Army issue shoulder bag with a red cross on it. She pulled out gauze, alcohol and other medical supplies and gave Carol a questioning look.
"Could be their medic." Maggie said, coming over and kneeling down beside Rosita. She pushed the tangled russet hair back off the face of the person who'd been carrying the bag. The "W" carved into the forehead was partially obscured by unevenly hacked off bangs, but underneath it they were startled to see delicate Asian features with a light sprinkling of freckles.
"It's a woman." Rosita said, looking up at Carol who had come to join them, "First one I've seen."
Carol looked thoughtful and then knelt to roll up the sleeves and then the pant legs of the woman. Raw looking bruised skin around her wrists and ankles showed evidence she'd been regularly tied up and had fought against her bindings. Carol stood and motioned to Carl and Spencer, who had been helping move the unconscious Wolves as stretcher bearers.
"Take her to the Clinic, please." Carol asked, but Spencer gave her an uncertain look.
"We're supposed to take them all to—" Spencer started to argue, but Carl interrupted him.
"We're supposed to follow Carol's orders." Carl said in a firm voice, sounding very much like his father, staring Spencer down. Finally the other man shrugged and lowered his end of the stretcher as well, preparing to move the young woman.
"What's the final tally?" Daryl asked. He and Carol were back in the Clinic, its wooden storm shutters pulled closed over the windows broken out by the walkers. They sat at the small table in the galley kitchen area with his injured leg propped up on another chair.
The woman they'd found among the Wolves was laying in one of the cots, still out. She was malnourished and dehydrated, so after stripping, bathing and treating her injuries, Carol had started an IV to get some fluids into her. At Daryl's insistence, she was in restraints, strapped to the cot until they could question her. He was taking no chances.
"There were only eighteen of them. All that mayhem and that's all the more of them there were." Carol said, shaking her head.
Their tactic of releasing the dead first to do their dirty work must have been working quite well for them as a strategy. They were able to take over most places with relative ease and used the traps, like the one that had almost gotten Aaron and Daryl, to replenish their stocks of walkers.
"Mighta been more outside got away." Daryl reminded her, "Might be regroupin' right now. Some stubborn lone wolfie bitch even... Mountin' some crazy, balls to the wall rescue attempt..." and then he side-eyed her, serious and teasing all at the same time.
"We're doing everything we can." Carol replied, but then narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips at him for teasing about her role at Terminus and he chuckled.
"Yeah—between the Mullet and the Watch not much else we can do now but wait." Daryl nodded. Finishing Eugene's surveillance system was top priority, and one which was being supplemented with around the clock live guards stationed at regular intervals around the walls atop the trucks confiscated from the Wolves.
The pit for walkers inside them wouldn't be ready until morning, along with the graves for the Zone family they had lost.
"And bury even more of our dead." Carol murmured, crossing her arms over her chest, looking down, closing in on herself. She was frustrated, distressed that even though overall the plan seemed to have been a success, they'd still lost people—Tobin, Jessie, Gabriel and the others.
"Hey." Daryl reached out his left hand, palm up, sliding it across the table towards her, "We're still here."
Carol's downward gaze shifted to his hand, open, beckoning to her, asking her to hold on; to stay with him. Her arms slowly loosened until her right hand was free to find his and closed over it, fingers intertwining, holding on tightly.
"Deanna still set on starting the interviews tomorrow?" Daryl asked, pushing her to think about what was next.
"She agrees with Morgan that some of them may have useful skills and just fell in with Davidson out of necessity." Carol said, looking over at the woman on the cot. If she really had medical training, they could definitely use her.
Daryl nodded pensively, thinking back on his time with the Claimers, wondering if he'd have given in and become like them if he'd never found Rick and the others. It was something he didn't let himself consider too often.
"You think that's likely?" Daryl asked.
"If not, then what do we do with them?" Carol asked, looking at Daryl, her expression troubled, both of them knowing what the alternative would have to be, the same fate that almost certainly awaited the Lupus Dei.
"You're going to have to kill them all." The young woman on the cot said, giving voice to their dark thoughts in a soft weary monotone.
AN: The kind of ethical dilemmas that TWD brings up are often centered around the quandary facing the ASZ in this story on how to deal with the Wolves. Just as Ty and Daryl overruled Rick's more cut throat plan at Grady, the Council backs Morgan over Rick and uses non-lethal measures to defend the community. It seems to work, but as Carol asks at the end of the chapter, (and as Rick silently asks Morgan) now what do you do with them? It's the same question going back to the Farm with Randal & his group. How can you let a band of sadistic rapists and murderers live?
Thanks for hanging in there. This one took a lot of thought. Sorry I had to go so graphic with the opening conversation, but I really wanted to establish just what kind of people they are dealing with in the Wolves.
And by the way, a condom can hold a gallon of liquid. See other uses for them at:willowhavenoutdoor dot com