When I reach the compound, it's silent. A fence surrounds it — a colossal area of industrial scrap. Nine or ten silos stand tall against the blue sky, a few creaking in the wind as their blackened bones show from under paint peeled away by some long-ago fire damage. All of them surround an enormous office building in the middle.

This must be Gavin's outpost.

I don't find any cars like Jenny mentioned. I consider using my radio, but the fear of tipping off any more Saviors keeps me quiet.

I take cover beneath a tall water tower outside the perimeter to catch my breath, running a hand through my dripping hair when it clumps against my face, drops of sweat running down my hot cheeks. Past the tree line I see a field with guns scattered across the ground. There's blood in the grass but no bodies in sight. They must have walked away.

Maybe Jenny and Alvaro left?

I hear the distant but unmistakable sound of machine-gun fire coming from inside.

I hear Carl's voice inside my head.

There's more gunfire.

"Fuck it," I hiss, pulling out my radio and holding down the button. "Any Big-Kats on the air?"

I bite my nails as I wait for a response. I know the Kingdom is out of range, so if anyone hears this, they should be nearby.

Just when I'm about to switch it off, the radio crackles. "Dude?"

"Jerry?" I grab the walkie with two hands, holding it tight. "I'm here. Where are you? Is anyone else with you?"

There's a long pause.

"Carol went to check inside... then Saviors on the top floor opened fire on us with the M2..."

I guess he's past the point of speaking covertly.

"Don't say too much," I interrupt before he gives away our losses. "Where are you?"

But I get nothing back.

A few more shots come from inside the building.

"Jerry?" I squeeze the button until my finger hurts.

Nothing.

I spot a pair of walkers pushing their way past the perimeter through a hole in the chainlink fence. I follow them, clubbing the two over the head with my hammer as I overtake them. I recognise the Kingdom paintball armour they're wearing.

Jerry said Carol made it inside.

I stay low as I sneak past stacked chemical crates and exposed red and blue pipes that snake together below and above grated catwalks.

I find a pair of blue doors open and leading inside the plant, the lock blown out by a bullet.

Keeping my rifle up, I find a stairwell and make my way to the top floor like Jerry said. I have to take a second to breathe when my hands don't stop shaking.

I turn a corner to find a rife in my face.

It's lowered by someone I know.

"Fuck, Sasha," I hiss at her, watching her eyes narrow with confusion. Mine do the same when I remember she's not supposed to be here either.

"Rhys?" she whispers, pulling me to one side of the hallway. A yellowy and green light reflects off the walls through a frosted window and splits across her brow.

"How'd you get here?" I ask.

"Enid told me that Carl said Ezekiel needed backup. I drove from Hilltop."

We hear heavy footsteps coming down the hallway. Sasha raises her suppressed rifle, but I tug her into a room behind us. We wait until the footsteps fade.

"Did you see anyone?" she asks quietly.

"I spoke to Jerry on the radio a second ago," I whisper back. "Jenny and Alvaro might be okay, too. Carol's in here somewhere. Was all the shooting you?"

"No," Sasha says, peeking out the door. "I came to check it out and find those guns."

I nod at her. "Okay, let's find them."

"Hell no," she hisses at me. "You get out of here and see if you can find Jerry or anyone else that made it. I'll find the guns."

I bite my tongue and nod. Sasha gently opens the door and pulls me in the direction of the stairs, pushing me downwards as she heads up to the next floor. I follow the exit signs until I'm back at the fire escape I came in through. Before I can leave I hear more footsteps coming from the stairs behind me. I raise my gun, but a hand grabs me from around a corner, pulling me out of sight.

I'm about ready to bite whoever grabbed me until they spin me around to face them and it's Carol looking back at me. She's wearing full Kingdom body armour and holding a finger up to her lips.

I stay quiet as the footsteps charge out the fire escape around the corner. I peek my head out to see five Saviors fleeing the building carrying two heavy-looking crates.

"Those are the guns?" I ask her when they're gone.

Carol nods, waiting a few seconds before she gestures for us to follow.

She doesn't ask me any questions, even though I can see them all swimming behind her grey eyes.

"Sasha's clearing the top floor," I whisper.

"No time to get her," Carol says, pushing the exit door open and sweeping her gun to every corner of the courtyard outside. "Can't let those guns go."

We trail the Saviors through a maze of stacked chemical crates until they stop at a makeshift car park, loading the crates into the back of a sandy-coloured truck. I spot the gate behind them, a horde of walkers rattling it from the far side. The sign next to it reads 'Gate 04.'

I raise my rifle, but Carol stops me.

"Ammo's in the truck," one of them yells.

"There's enough to free up the Sanctuary and then some," a guy with a bushy beard and ponytail says.

Carol silently gestures to the magazine in my rifle.

"Full," I tell her.

She unloads her rifle and hands me the empty magazine, pulling a new one from under her belt and locking it into her gun.

"Is Ezekiel dead?" I ask, carefully setting the empty magazine on the floor.

She gives me a look that makes me drop it.

Once the Saviors have finished loading the gun in the sandy truck, Carol starts to count down on her fingers.

Three—

Two—

One...

We both turn the corner to a hail of bullets being slung our way. They must have known because two of the Saviors fire from behind another car before we even see them. Carol grabs my jacket and pulls me onto the floor and into cover behind a pickup truck as the side of it is riddled with Savior bullets. She tries to lean up and shoot, but I pull her down by the straps off her armour as the window above our heads explodes.

When the storm of bullets finally stops. Carol grits her teeth and reaches a hand out to me.

"Gimme your guns," she says.

"What... why?"

"Please."

I push my head back into the car door and curse as I hand them both over.

Carol hangs our rifles on the wing mirror by their straps, then slides our pistols under the car and into the open no-mans-land between the Saviors and us.

"We can tell you where the others are," Carol yells out to the Saviors in her most pathetic voice. "Just let me and my boy live!"

I grit my teeth and shoot her a look of, 'you know I hate this.'

She bites her lips and sends me one back of, 'It's all we've got.'

I slowly nod.

"They're hiding out, waiting for other Saviors to show up!" she calls out then.

"Nice and slow," one of the Saviors barks.

'Stay down,' Carol mouths at me, unclipping the clasp on her knife sheath before she puts her hands above her head and stands up inch by inch.

"I'm unarmed," she tells them, spinning on the spot. "Look."

When she's facing away, I notice her staring at a big red button in the open on a wall a few feet from where we are.

The label reads 'Gate 04.'

One of the Saviors flanks his way around the side of our car, his gun switching between Carol standing and me crouched on the floor as he creeps closer.

"The boy, too," the first Savior yells.

"He's no threat!" Carol yips, her voice all high and fake. "We didn't have a choice—"

"Where are they?" The original Savior asks with a deep and gravelly voice. I peek up to see it's the guy with the beard and ponytail.

"You can't tell them we told you," Carol pants, her eyes flickering to the flanking Savior as he steps closer to us. "My boy, he's only fourteen... you have to promise. Please!"

"Hey, do you wanna die?" Ponytail barks at her. "I asked you where your people are—"

The second he's close enough, Carol shoves the flanking Savior towards me as he reaches for her knife. I snatch the gun out of his hands, and Carol pulls him back by his hair, putting her knife to his throat and screaming for the others to drop their guns.

I poke my head up, aiming the rifle between them all.

Ponytail looks beyond pissed.

"Yago," the Savior Carol's hiding behind begs the ponytail, "please, man."

Yago shakes his head. "Joey just pooched it. Light 'em up!"

I duck as bullets rain back down on us. Carol pushes her human shield forward and hits the gate switch as his body vibrates from bullet fire before dropping at my feet. Carol jumps back into cover, taking the Savior's rifle off me and handing me back my own.

I stab my knife into the back of the dead Savior's head to stop him from turning. And when the walkers from gate 04 reach the Saviors, they turn their guns away from us. I watch under the car as two of the four are swarmed.

Carol snatches up a satchel of ammo from the Savior's riddled body and a ring of keys off his belt. She pokes her head up from cover and fires on the two Saviors that survived the walkers. The other two are already half-consumed on the baking concrete, screaming for the dead to stop.

Yago and another Savior fire on the walkers and the two screaming Saviors until they're all gone, then they scurry into cover behind the sandy truck with the guns in it.

Carol nods for me to come out.

"We need to end this," Carol yells at them.

"You were lying to us about your friends, huh?" Yago's grizzly voice answers.

"Yeah, I was," Carol says coldly. "Now, we need to end this."

"Okay," he calls back. "Walk away, lady."

"We can't let you have those guns," I shout, trying to see their feet but swearing as they shuffle behind the wheels.

"Nah, kid, we are takin' 'em. They got someplace to be."

"We've got your pal's ammo," Carol tells them, the satchel draped over her shoulder. "how many bullets you got left after all those walkers? Three? Four?"

"Why don't you come at us and find out? We're right here!"

Carol motions for me to stay as she steps around the truck.

But she stops.

Her steely eyes see something through the gate we just opened.

I follow them until I see it, too.

Outside the perimeter fence's gate, Ezekiel and Jerry fight against a horde of dead Kingdom soldiers.

"Honey, let's keep talking," Yago says from behind the sandy truck. "We've got all the time in the world."

Carol looks at me with this desperate glare. Like she needs me to give her answers that I don't have. I don't talk, so she tells me to follow as she runs for the gate.

I shoot at the walkers as Carol fumbles with the ring of keys, trying each one on the padlocked gate.

I hear the rumble of an engine, spinning around and shooting at the Saviors as they drive away with the guns. My bullets seem to bounce off the vehicle.

"Are you okay?" Carol asks.

Ezekiel shoots me a confused glare before turning to Carol. "Did they get the guns?"

"Nothing we can do about it now," Carol tells him breathlessly, still struggling with the lock.

Carol swears at the padlock, trying the sixth key out of what looks like hundreds on the ring.

"Move," I hiss, pointing my rifle at the padlock and pulling the trigger, shielding my eyes from the exploding metal.

Jerry shoulder-barges the gate open and helps the King through as I keep shooting walkers, and Carol closes it behind them.

Ezekiel's leg looks shot, blood oozing from under his torn pants.

"We have to get word to Rick! If they ferry those machine guns to the Sanctuary..." Ezekiel groans as I get under his other arm; the four of us limping away from the walkers as they push open the broken gate behind us. I recognise all of them.

"Carl's already on it," I tell the King.

As we slowly move away, I swear I can hear the sound of a motorcycle in the distance. The smirk on Carol's face tells me I'm not crazy, and I sigh in relief knowing that Rick and Daryl are in pursuit of the guns.

"They're not getting them to the Sanctuary," Carol tells the other two when they look confused.

"Shit," I hiss when a particularly fast walker sneaks up on us. I reach for my hammer, but its head explodes from nothing. Then the one behind it. And the next.

We dart our eyes up to the chemical plant and see Sasha leaning out a window with her rifle.

"I cleared the rest of the Saviors inside," she yells down. "Get out of here! I'll cover you, then make a run back to Hilltop!"

I lead the others back to the hole in the fence that I guess Sasha must have made when she got here.

Sasha gives us time to breathe but eventually the breaths run out, and the walker herd catches up.

We move towards the woods. Ezekiel trips as we cross over a train line outside the factory, clutching his leg and hissing through his teeth.

"Your Majesty!" Jerry tries to pick him back up.

"This ain't gonna work," Ezekiel pants, his royal mask slipping as the re-animated corpses of his subjects close in. "You gotta leave me. I'm slowing you down."

"No," Carol says, firing at a group of walkers in front of us. "You don't get to do that."

She pulls Ezekiel up. "Come on. I'm almost out of ammo. Rhys, how are you looking?"

"Same," I tell her, checking my gun.

We make our way into the forest, Carol and Jerry carrying the King as I clear the walkers in front of us.

Jerry grabs my collar when I trip on a red barrel half-buried in the ground and saves me from a painful fall into a ditch of walkers. The barrel has a warning —

DANGER! CORROSIVE AGENT.

The walkers in the water-filled ditch look revolting, with pale-white skin that drips from their bones. Their faces sag like water balloons filled with rotten milk. They look like they're melting.

But it's the only way forward.

Ezekiel shakes his head, stuttering. "I can't— you can't... you three have to just go."

But we don't.

Jerry lowers the King down to us before the four of us cross the ditch together. Carol uses the last of her bullets to pop the closest walkers' heads like watermelons. Most of them are stuck, feet sunken in mud and chemical waste.

Jerry pushes me up the other side of the ditch first. Carol takes my hand and lets me pull her up next.

Ezekiel grabs his sword from Jerry and starts to kill the walkers behind us.

"Ezekiel!" Carol yells.

"Just go," he barks, "I'll hold them off!"

"We can get you out," Carol says.

"You can't!"

A few walkers hear us on this side of the ditch now. Carol and I take them out quickly.

"I can't leave you, Your Majesty," Jerry says, grabbing the King's arm.

Ezekiel doesn't listen, slashing and slicing at the endless walkers as they start falling into the ditch from the other side now, filling it up slowly.

"C'mon, man, just go!"

"You're my king!" Jerry roars like I've never heard from him.

Ezekiel whips around to face him, dreadlocks flying, blood staining his face and hands.

"NO, I'M NOT!"

He screams it in Jerry's face loud enough that he staggers back.

"I'm not your King."

He slices another dead Kingdomer to the ground.

"I'm not Your Majesty!"

He points at the fallen.

"Look at what's in front of us..."

Their pale hands reach for him.

"That's what's real!"

He slumps into the side of the ditch, leaning in the mud and copses he's cut down.

"Go," Ezekiel groans. "I ain't no King... I ain't nothin'. I'm just some guy. Some guy who found—"

But he's wrong.

He's wrong because the ground shakes at his command.

The world rumbles as he points at the dead.

Orange and black roar to his authority.

Shiva pounces from the trees. She lands between the dead and us, tearing walker after walker apart, tossing one a million feet into the air before mauling another until its face is not but a stain on her chin.

Jerry doesn't hesitate in grabbing Ezekiel and throwing him up the bank, scrambling out of the ditch after him.

We watch as Shiva howls and snaps and bite and tears, but more of the dead rain down on her, and she cries out.

We all grab Ezekiel when he tries to go back.

Ezekiel cries.

"Shiva.

Shiva!

Run, girl!

Please, Jerry!

Dammit, let me help her..."

She slips and collapses under the horde.

Jerry's face is tears and cuts and a deep sadness you can't imagine until you see it like this. "You can't..." Jerry whispers.

I feel my eyes welling as I watch the cat disappear, its blood slipping away in the water.

Ezekiel groans out a pained cry.

"We have to go," Carol mutters.

I tell Carol that I'll help them get back to the Kingdom, but she shakes her head, taking a notepad out of her pocket and scribbling something down.

"Get this to Alexandria," she says, tearing it out and shoving it into my hand.

I nod, glancing at Ezekiel as Jerry wraps his leg with a torn flannel shirt on the side of the road.

"We'll be fine," she says. "Jerry broke his radio. Can I use yours?"

I hand it over.

She holds it up to her mouth. "Convoy, this is Big-Kat."

"Are you okay?! Alvaro went to look, and I thought you guys were—"

I recognise Jenny's voice, feeling relieved that she's okay.

"Not too much over an open channel," Carol says, taking a second to clear her throat as she looks over the map I brought. "Can you pick us up on the corner of forty-two?"

Jenny pauses a second. I hear paper rustling.

"I can be there soon."

Carol switches off the radio and hands it back to me. "See?" She turns to look at me. "We'll be okay."

I'm frowning at her.

She frowns back, eyebrows furrowing. "What?"

"You know I'm sixteen, right?"

Carol's eyebrows let go of each other, raising a little as she nods.

"Only, you told that guy I was fourteen—"

"Rhys..." she sighs. "I know you're not fourteen."

I wrinkle my nose. "I know... but, like, why didn't you say sixteen? Do you think I look fourteen? I'm not that short."

Carol's face goes blank. I realise I sounded more self-conscious than I wanted to. I'm not sure if it was real or just to get Shiva out of my head.

"Sorry," I grunt, rubbing the back of neck and looking away. "I noticed the other day that Carl's gotten a few inches on me."

The run truck with the faded eagle on the side is still parked where I left it.

On the walk back I heard Rick and Daryl confirm in code over the radio that they got the guns.

"Missing payload has been recovered. Well done, Big-Kat team."

Carl jumps when I open the passenger door, lowering his gun and hissing at me.

"Christ, man."

He looks me up and down as I get in and shut the door.

"You're covered in blood..."

I press my head into the seat and let out a long breath.

"How long was I gone?" I ask after taking a moment.

Carl starts the engine and looks at the digital clock on the radio.

"Less than three hours," he says.

I press my head back further and hand him the note Carol wrote.

He reads it out loud, even though I've memorised it by now. Read it over and over on the walk back.

"We took the outposts bit by bit. We thought we'd won. We were gathered up in the open when they ambushed us. It was over in seconds. Sasha and Rhys came to help. But from Kingdom— Ezekiel, Jerry, Jenny, and me. We're the only ones who made it back. Carol Peletier, Kingdom."

Carl squeezes my hand and tells me to get some sleep.

"We'll be home soon."

A/N

RIP Shiva, now Pumpkin is the biggest cat in the Kingdom.

This chapter is competing for my favourite title.