-Rhys-
"It's too dark to go after them now..." Maggie's watching me pack a bag, Sasha's knife, that she left before she went, hanging from my belt. She's stood by the trailer door and not making any attempts to stop me. "Daryl's waiting till mornin' 'cause he knows he won't be able to track 'em."
"They're going to get Negan. Carl pointed out where he lives to us when we were on the road."
"You won't catch up to them."
"I could take Downy-Beardy."
She nods at me the smallest bit. "I understand why you want to go. But don't be impulsive. In the mornin', Daryl and Jesus are going after them. They'll find 'em."
I finish packing, swinging the pack over my shoulder and smiling the smallest bit back.
"I'm not going," I tell her.
"Why're you packing a bag then?"
"Gregory said there are too many of us in here."
"Don't worry about that idiot," she chuckles. Then her face falls a little. "Why don't you wanna go? It's not like you."
"Sasha made a promise before she left, and I believe her."
The morning comes, and I'm helping Daryl get his bike ready to go since he doesn't have the same faith in Sasha and Rosita as I do. I'm about to ask him if he doesn't believe they can do it or if he doesn't think they should, but we hear a sound we both recognise that makes us stop. Maggie and Enid run out of our trailer, hearing it too. Other people are looking at us funny because they don't hear the same thing.
They hear a choking engine that sounds ready to give up, approaching the walls.
They hear rusted breaks squeaking as the gate opens.
Then they see what we heard.
The RV.
Carl laughs as Enid and I race to him. Enid wins the race and jumps into his arms, both of them screaming when I do the same thing and knock the three of us to the ground in a heap of aching limbs. We Savour the moment of happiness before we all have to tell each other whatever bad news we're bound to have.
Maggie and Daryl follow us down — Jesus too after he appears from Barrington house.
A lot more Alexandrians are here than I thought. Rick, Tara, Michonne, Tobin, Scott, Minnie, and Francine all clamber out the RV. Aaron and Eric, too. Then Father Gabriel.
Enid tells them all about Mikey. Carl goes pale. Then she tells them about Rosita and Sasha. Father Gabriel gives me the queasy kind of side-eye that I don't quite get.
Then they tell us their bad news... only it's not.
-Carl's POV-
We have to take an extra car when we leave Hilltop again. Because this time, Rhys, Enid, Jesus, and Daryl come with us.
Before we left, Rhys told me that Tara had already told him about Oceanside. When I asked why, Tara said my sister is not the best person she's ever vented to.
"I've never been to the ocean," I say out loud, watching through the window as we drive past a forest where all the trees look crooked.
Dad's driving. Michonne's sitting in the front passenger and has her knee up against the car's dash. Rhys is beside me in the middle seat, Enid on the other side of him with her eyes fixed to the road out the window. Everyone else took the RV.
"Yeah, we meant to take you. Me and Mom," Dad says. "Guess we just never got 'round to it."
"My parents took me once," Enid says, head rested on her hand as she smiles fondly.
"Lucky," Michonne chuckles, twisting her head against the headrest to look back at us. "My folks— we were too far and too busy to ever get out to it. Never saw the point when I got older... and Mike hated the water."
"How about you?" Enid asks, staring at Rhys.
He looks at his lap.
"What?" she asks.
I laugh because I already know why he's not answering.
"What?" Enid presses when he doesn't speak and starts staring at his feet now.
"He definitely did," I answer for him when his cheeks go crimson red. "Rich kid alert."
He punches my arm hard.
"OW!" I cackle. "Why?!"
"Come on," Enid says. "Can't be that bad."
Rhys glances at her through his fringe. Then he looks at me with this face that says, "Please, god, open the window so I can jump out."
I just smile.
He sighs. "We had a beach house. Well... two, actually."
"Oh," Enid gasps, smirking. "Like a rich—rich kid. I forgot."
"Yikes," Michonne laughs, sucking in air through her teeth. "Can anyone else smell braggadocio in the back?"
Dad chuckles.
"Seriously, guys?" Rhys groans at them.
"I'm sorry, did someone speak out of turn, your highness?" I giggle. "Man, no wonder you like the Kingdom so much. Must feel at home in a castle."
Rhys punches me again.
"Hey, no fighting!" Dad calls back, grabbing a pretzel from a bag Michonne opened and tossing it in his mouth. "And Rhys, stop braggin' about being rich."
"Oh my god!"
We arrive just after Daryl does — he's already working on his bike under the shade of a willow tree by a wide river that seems to go on forever. The RV pulls up a little after us.
I stand with Enid and Tara on the lake's edge, keeping watch while Rhys takes a leak behind a tree and the others go to find some boats that Aaron spotted on the drive over, down a nearby road.
Enid asks me something that feels soberingly gloomy after the car journey.
"Do you ever think about who you've killed?"
I nod slightly. "Yeah."
"I'm worried about Mikey," she tells me quietly.
"Negan was relatively good to me... considering." I feel bad after saying it, but I guess it's true. "I think he won't hurt kids."
Tara must hear what we're saying because she glances at us, but she keeps quiet.
"Are you not worried?" Enid asks me.
"I'm more worried about Sasha."
"Yeah?" Enid glances over at me. "Any particular reason?"
I look over my shoulder to the tree Rhys wandered off to, making sure he's not coming back yet.
"We're all family," I finally say. "Started small, and now we've got the biggest family in the world."
The corner of Enid's mouth twitches to a smile.
I go on. "But sometimes I think about Dad and Michonne— if I lost them. What that would do to me." I shake my head. "There's family, and then there's family."
Enid nods, her smile fading when she understands. She looks like she might speak, but Rhys comes back, and her smile does too.
When the others return with two small row boats, we manage to get everyone across the river in one trip. This side is thick with woodland, and Tara tells us we're officially in Oceanside's territory now.
Much to Dad's discomfort, Tara's plan is to talk to the leader of Oceanside alone, with no bullets in her gun. But she tells us to trust her, and we do.
Before Tara goes, Dad and Michonne ask Rhys to follow them, I tag along and after a minute or two of walking through the trees, we're standing under a particularly tall tree. Rhys is sweating bullets as Dad hands him a sniper rifle.
"I don't know..." Rhys hums absentmindedly, looking up at the tree.
Dad pats his shoulder. "With Sasha gone, you have the most experience using one of these."
"I'll be in the tree just over there." Michonne points a few trees down, a similar rifle over her shoulder.
"I'm not that good," Rhys says, slowly trying to hand the rifle back to Dad.
"Rhys," Dad says quietly, pushing the rifle back into his chest. "I would not let you do this if I didn't think you were the best option."
Rhys nods a hundred times before he lets Dad and I hoist him up into the tree branches, where he awkwardly swings his legs until he finds a foothold.
"Once you're up, watch for the signal," Michonne tells him.
"Yes, Ma'am," Rhys grunts as he climbs higher.
"Repeat it to me," Dad says.
"You guys set up the dynamite. Tara goes in, and we give her ten minutes before you blow up said dynamite to scare Oceanside's people away from their gun shed..." Rhys stops climbing halfway up, out of breath, his voice getting hard to hear. "Michonne covers the shed. I cover you guys and the crowd once you get them under control."
"And if any of them makes a run for the shed or tries something stupid?" Dad calls up.
"Shoot at their feet!" Rhys calls back.
"At their feet!" Dad repeats loudly. "Once we've got them under control, you'll keep your eyes out for walkers or other surprises."
"What time does the clock start?" Rhys hollers back down, checking Glenn's pocket watch in one hand while simultaneously clinging to a branch with his other for dear life.
"Soon as Tara's in," Dad shouts up. "You got this."
Rhys has another nodding fit, going back to climbing. "I got this. I got this. I've got this." His voice fades out as he gets higher.
"Good luck," I whisper.
My finger keeps twitching over the trigger of my rifle. I count the minutes in my head.
"Eight left."
If Tara doesn't talk them round... everything's about to get real loud.
"Three minutes."
We lie in wait.
"One minute to go," dad whispers at his wristwatch.
"Fuck Tara," Enid mutters.
"C'mon... c'mon." I breathe.
"Four, three, two, one..."
Dad nods at Gabriel without any hesitation or leeway.
Gabriel flicks a red switch.
Fire volcanos up between the trees on the far side of Oceanside, the explosives we got from the highway booming. People scream, running out of huts and small cabins. Then another plume of fire and smoke rumbles, closer this time, stones and dirt showering from the sky. More screaming. Women drop nets and baskets of shells as they run in the opposite direction.
I hear a gunshot from the direction of their gun shed.
I clench my gun tighter.
A third explosion lets off, dirt from this one showering our hiding spot it's so close.
The people of Oceanside come running in our direction as we planned. Shielding their heads and carrying children.
On cue, a shot from the trees makes the forest floor in front of them kick up dirt and halt them in their tracks.
With Rhys' shot fired, we jump out of the bushes with guns up.
"Everybody down!" Francine yells.
"Hands on your heads!" Tobin shouts.
"Everybody stay calm," Scott instructs them as they get on their knees.
"We don't want anyone to get hurt," I say. "Stay down and listen to what we say."
"We want this to go as simply and as peacefully as possible," Gabriel seconds, standing beside me with his gun trained on them. "All of you can make it that way."
Daryl, Jesus, and Dad appear with two more women at gunpoint and their hands tied. They must have gone for the guns.
They tried.
Dad waves his arm up at Rhys' tree, and I see the glint of his scope start to scan the forest for anything we missed.
"Now we made a lot of noise," Dad tells everyone, hanging his gun from his back. "We want to wrap this up quick so you can send people to redirect anything comin' this way. Tara said your forests are relatively clear, so we won't take any chances."
They all stare up at him. Some look angry, but most are confused.
"No one needs to get hurt," Dad prefaces. "This is just about what you have... what we need."
Then Tara appears. But it's not like we planned. The one thing that always has to go wrong. She's marched up to us at gunpoint by an older-looking woman that I assume is the leader. A girl with long dark hair is behind her.
"Nobody's taking anything!" she barks. "You need to let everyone go and leave... right now. Just walk away, or this one dies."
"Yeah, we'll leave you alone," Dad nods. "But we're taking your weapons with us. That's not gonna change."
The older lady pushes her gun into Tara's temple, snatching a handful of her jacket collar to keep her still as she looks around.
"It's Natania, right?" Dad asks, taking a diplomatically softer tone. "Put the gun down, and let's talk about what we can change."
"No, leave." Natania shakes her head. "Leave right now."
I glance up at the tree Rhys is in, and buried in the leaves, I spot the glint of his scope facing our direction.
"Rhys, don't!" Tara shouts, obviously noticing his aim, too.
"We just wanna be left alone," Natania tells us, peaking over Tara's shoulder.
"Yeah, we'll leave you alone," Dad tells her and points. "Just let go of her. Now. Or... we'll kill you. None of us wants that."
"They want us to fight the Saviors," the girl with Natania tells everyone on their knees.
Murmurs spread through the huddle of women.
"We tried that," Natania barks, tugging on Tara's collar when she struggles. "We lost... too much. We're not gonna lose anymore. Not our guns, not our safety. Not after everything we've done to get here!"
"We're gonna win," Tara speaks suddenly, eyes wide, "with your guns... with or without your help."
"Natania..." Dad says, "put the gun down."
"You kill me and you die," Tara says to her captor. "And my people take the guns and nothing changes."
"Maybe we should try," a woman with short black hair sits up in the huddle. A few others nod.
"Grandma, stop," the girl with the dark hair behind Natania whispers. I realise that's Cyndie. Natania's granddaughter. "It's over. Just talk to them, okay?"
"It's not over!" Natania yells at her people. "They've forgotten. You've all forgotten! Some of you actually want to fight them? After everything? We can lose our guns, but us leaving this place to fight? After everything? I have to remind you! Yes. I am gonna do this... and then I'm gonna die. But it's that important. This is your life. All of you! Remember what it looks like. Remember what they did to us! You need to see this. Open your eyes!"
I see Enid... she's snuck around them. She's behind Natania. Her gun is aimed at her head. I wait for the pin to drop. For the bodies to drop.
"Rick!" Rhys screams from the trees. "Walkers!"
Then Cyndie throws her whole body into a punch that connects with her grandma's cheek, knocking the woman out cold.
A horde of walkers stumbles and weaves its way towards us through the trees.
I join a line beside Gabriel, Daryl, and everyone else. The Oceansiders are behind us.
Dad marches up to them.
"Everybody up!" he orders. "Get the children behind us! They're coming."
The closest walker's face is waterlogged and bloated. Barnacles climbing up its neck. A shot from the trees splits its head open and kills it instantly. Rhys picks off two more while we form a firing line on the ground.
The Oceanside girl with short hair that spoke up first throws orders to her people. "First shift, join them on the line! Knives out. Dead only. Dead only!"
Dad cuts her wrists loose and hands her his knife.
"Don't go anywhere," he tells her.
She nods and joins the line.
"Everyone..." Dad yells, pulling his machine gun off his back and chambering a round as he runs to stand beside me, "shots within ten feet of the line. That's it. Rhys, keep the crowd thinned out towards the back!"
Rhys opens fire, and when they get within ten feet, so do we. Seaweed-draped corpses fall. Michonne turns up with her sword when her position doesn't do much good. One of Rhys' shots punctures a walker's face and rips off its jaw, missing the brain. I put it down, well aware that he'll give me shit about it later. Then one staggers close to me, tripping over a branch. I hit it with my gun and pull out my knife. A flash and a bang from the trees sends the walker to the ground dead before I can kill it. I smirk and shake my head.
"Proud asshole," I grunt to myself.
We clear the dead, and the girl with short hair hands dad his knife back. "Beatrice," she says, nodding breathlessly. Dad extends a hand, and she shakes it.
"No," Natania hisses, getting to her feet with a red cheek and walking away with bruised pride. "We're not fighting them with you. So take your damn guns and go!"
Michonne goes to get Rhys while the rest of us raid Oceanside's weapon shed for everything it has to offer. Every gun, every bullet, every extension. The RV sags a little from the weight of all our good as gold spoils.
Enid helps me carry an especially heavy crate.
"It's not just the ones I killed," I tell her.
She glances over her shoulder at me.
"I think about the people I didn't kill, too," I say.
She doesn't say anything, but I know she's thinking about Natania. I saw it in her eyes. How she almost pulled the trigger back there.
After we've loaded the crate into the RV, I spot Rhys galloping towards us, Michonne following behind.
"I did it!" He grins as he jumps into my arms.
Enid laughs at him.
"Sasha taught you well, I guess," I laugh, smiling at him as he pulls away.
His face falls for a moment.
"She'll come back," I tell him. "Rosita, too. And we'll get Mikey and Carson back. These guns will let us do it."
He and Enid nod in agreement.
"We're gonna bring them back when it's all over," I overhear Tara telling the Oceansiders as she carries the last couple of guns away. They're all sitting together on benches and in the sand, watching us rob them. Most of them want to come. Cyndie tells Tara as much. But she also says it has to be all of them, and I get that, too.
A small girl chases after Tara and calls after her. "You're not leaving us any?"
"Nope," Tara says quickly, slinging her the middle finger over her shoulder. "See you later, Rachel."
On the drive back, I'm thinking and staring out the window. Rhys knocks on my knee with his and asks what I'm thinking about.
"Wish I had my poetry book," I whisper.
He smiles a stupid and goofy smile at me.
"What?" I ask.
"You called it a poetry book," he says.
"So?"
He shrugs and puts his head on my shoulder. He takes so long to answer that I begin to wonder if he's fallen asleep.
"You used to hate calling it poetry," he tells me, and I can still hear his smile.
I hmm at him.
"What were you going to write?" he asks quietly.
"You know the sign outside the gates at home? The one you guys made?"
He nods. "Mercy for the lost. Vengeance for the plunderers."
"I think we're both now," I tell him. "The lost and the plunderers."
It's dark when we get back home. Rosita opens the gate. Rhys jumps out of the car before it stops moving, dad yelling at him. He bolts into her and holds on to her tighter than I've ever seen anyone hold anything.
When the rest of us get out of our vehicles and reach them, Rhys is crying quietly. My chest caves because I can tell it's not because Rosita's back. It's not a good kind of crying.
"Hey, are you okay?" Enid runs up.
"Where's Sasha?" Jesus asks.
Rhys suddenly kicks the side of the RV as hard as he can. Rosita flinches a little at it. I've never seen her flinch before.
"She..." Rosita gulps, her chest rising and falling as she watches Rhys. "She went in alone... to stop me. She saved me."
We're all quiet. Only Rhys' heavy breathing and flaming eyes exist to light up the night.
"There's someone here," Rosita says then.
"Who?" Rhys barks. He doesn't get angry like this often. But I guess when your family is left behind, and someone else is brought in their place, you can change like that.
Rosita looks at him for a long and terrible time before she tells him and the rest of us. "Dwight. Dwight's here. In the cell."
Rhys' eyes turn from a flickering flame to a roaring blaze. He starts running towards the Brownstone apartments. Dad's quick enough to grab him.
"Rhys. Stop."
"No!" Rhys screams. "He killed Denise. He took Glenn. He has to die!"
There's a throbbing in my chest that sucks up all the air around me. I can see it in Enid and Rosita, too.
Dad says no, about to disagree and tell him why, but Daryl speaks up.
"Nah, Rhys is right."
"Yeah," Tara says calmly, almost scarily. "Yeah, he dies."
"You're gonna want to hear him out first," Rosita, of all people, speaks up for Dwight.
Michonne tells Enid and me to stay outside. I think she considers saying the same to Rhys but realises there's no point trying.
We listen on the steps under the cell window as the others go in.
We hear the gate click open. Silence. Then the sound of Daryl grunting and charging. People are holding him back.
"He says he wants to help us," Rosita says.
"Bullshit!" Rhys yells.
"Rhys!" Dad barks, and the cell falls silent. "That true?"
It can't be.
"You want to help?"
Rhys is right.
"I do," a voice I assume must be Dwight's says. It's not one of us. I only heard him speak once. Just before Glenn and Abraham had their brains beaten into the dirt.
Rhys is right.
I hear Dad pull his gun out. "Get on your knees."
I hear shuffling as Dwight must do it.
"Screw this," Enid whispers. "Gimme your shoulders."
I kneel and she clambers up my back, standing taller on my shoulders, peeking through the cell bars.
"Your dad's pointing his gun at him," she whispers down.
"Look at me," I hear dad order. "Why?"
"'Cause I want it stopped," Dwight answers. "I want Negan dead."
"So why don't you kill him?"
"Can't just be me. They're all Negan."
"That girl you murdered," Tara speaks, "she had a name. Her name was Denise and she was a doctor. And she helped people."
"I wasn't aiming for her."
I hear running. Struggling. Grunting and heavy breathing.
"What's happening?" I ask up to Enid.
She's silent, her eyes wide.
I squeeze her ankles and ask again.
"Daryl's holding him against the wall," she whispers. "He's got a knife like an inch from his eye."
"Do it!" I hear Tara yell. "Do it."
"You wanna end it this way... you go ahead," Dwight says in a low rumble. His voice vibrates in his throat. "I'm sorry. I am. I know you want to."
"He could just be here to see if you were here," Dad says, talking about and to Daryl.
"We can't trust him," Michonne adds.
"He owned me," Dwight tells them, his voice changing, shaking. "But not anymore. What I did, I was doing for someone else. She just got away. So now I'm here. So are you, Daryl, because of her."
"He's not moving the knife," Enid tells me, her trainers shifting uncomfortably and nervously on my shoulders.
"Do it!" Tara barks again.
"There's another choice..." Dwight says.
"Daryl," Tara says breathlessly. "Daryl, you knew her."
"Negan trusts me," Dwights says. "We work together... we can stop him! You knew me then, and you know me now, Daryl. You know I'm not lying. I'm not."
"Do it," Tara says again. "Rhys, tell him."
There's a small quiet I feel like I can hear, the kind Rhys makes when he's thinking hard.
"Is Mikey alive?" he asks.
"He is," Dwight breathes. "Negan doesn't kill kids. He's a bargaining chip. People are a resource. My plan will get him back alive."
"Rhys!" Tara snaps.
There's another Rhys-filled silence.
Then he doesn't speak.
Suddenly Enid lets out a deep and stressed breath that I didn't know she was holding. "Daryl put the knife down," she tells me.
"Dwight could be our only chance to get Sasha and Mikey out alive," Jesus says.
"I don't trust him," Rosita says, sounding like she's sucking on her teeth. "But I trust Daryl."
"Negan's coming soon," Dwight tells them. "Tomorrow. Three trucks, probably. Twenty Saviors and him. I can slow them down, bring some trees down in the road... buy a little time for you guys to get ready. If you can take them out, that's where we start. You kill them, I'll radio back to the Sanctuary."
"The Sanctuary?" Dad asks.
"Where Negan lives," Dwight explains. "That's what they call it. I can radio back to them and say everything's okay. You drive the trucks back... I can lead you right inside, and with the right plan we can wipe out the rest. Check to see if your friends are still alive. Then we get the workers on our side, build our numbers up, and go from outpost to outpost and end this."
"Keep talking," Dad whispers.
We hear the cellar door open and slam then. Enid jumps at the sound, slipping off my shoulder and falling on top of me. Turning us into a heap at the bottom of the cellar steps.
"So you guys were listening, huh?" Rhys' voice comes from over us. He stands in the doorway looking down at us, smirking out his cheek.
He helps us up and then leads us to the gazebo, beating our path through brambles and reeds.
We sit.
Enid sniffs the air.
"What?" I ask her.
She shrugs. "Thought I could smell Mikey."
"Smell him?"
"Yeah, y'know, like jumpers and applesauce."
Rhys chuckles. "He does smell like applesauce."
We sit for a while until the sound of a car starting by the gates wakes us from our ever-so-close to falling asleep state.
When we get there it's gone, and Jesus tells us that we're going with Dwight's plan and that he just left.
"Why are you holding Judith?" Rhys asks when he notices my sister asleep on his shoulder.
"I spoke with your dad about it, and I'm taking her to Hilltop... in case the fight goes... not our way. Enid, Rhys, you two should come."
Enid nods in agreement. "Maggie needs us, too." She looks my way. "I don't want to kill anyone."
"I'm staying," Rhys tells them. "I need to be there when we rescue Sasha and Mikey."
Jesus pulls a face.
"They're alive," Rhys tells him. "I know it. They can't—" he stops. "They're alive."
"Okay," Jesus nods.
I hug Enid and my sister. Rhys hugs the three of them.
Rhys pushes Glenn's pocket watch into Enid's hand.
"Give this to Maggie for me?"
Enid looks like she gets the why. "I will."
Then we watch, holding hands as the three drive out the gate.
"This is it," Rhys says quietly. "The end of the world."
"What do you mean?"
He comes out of his own head. "Nothing."
Someone comes up behind us. We turn. Rosita's standing there. Only, she's not standing like Rosita. Her hands are holding each other by her middle. Her eyes brows arched, and her eyes on Rhys.
"Rhys..." she says quietly. "I'm sorry."
I feel like I shouldn't be here. Like I'm reading a love note over someone's shoulder that was never meant for me. But when I try to move, Rhys holds my hand tighter.
"I should have known she would..." Rosita says. "She told me what she promised you."
Rosita's not herself, vulnerable and small. But Rhys seems to have shrunken, too — back to his normal size. The wolf has gone from the voice in his throat.
"It's not your fault," he tells her. "It's not."
Rosita's exhaling is shakey. She nods.
"We'll get her back," Rhys says.
She nods again, standing up straighter with a light in her eyes. Like that mission, that idea of how to move forward fuels her back to herself.
Rhys is good at that when he can be. Sharing his fuel. His sunshine.