Chapter 106-Tracking them
Deacon's P.O.V
Deacon stares at the woman as Charlie, Rachel, and Lilly look at him soon asking sternly."Did you get a look at any of them?"
"A few, the leader mainly, he had cuts all over his face. He had R.I.P written on his forehead." She tells them. Deacon frowns, looking down in worry, turning around and leaving with Charlie and Rachel behind him.
"Deacon, do you know who these people are?" Rachel asks Deacon, confused, who nods as he shuts the infirmary door.
"About two years ago, Boozer and I were riding and tracking down a man named Leon for a bounty. He hit my bike, so we had to go to an old bike shop to get a new part. While I was grabbing it, a few men attacked Boozer and burned his arm, that's why he lost it. They were part of a group that we called Rippers." Deacon tells them, causing their eyes to cloud in worry over that ominous name. "After they attacked Lost Lake, Boozer and I went after them. We blew up a Dam and drowned them beside the leader and a few who had fled, his name was Carlos. He was part of our M.C before the fall. We kicked him out, and he held a grudge ever since. We haven't seen many since I killed Carlos. They must have been gathering more people to come to kill me, I didn't expect them to follow me all the here." Deacon explains.
"Okay that's my next question, how the hell did they find us?" Charlie asks him in disbelief.
"A few people from Lost Lake stayed behind, didn't want to leave their home, and were pretty pissed that we were. My guess is that they attacked and got the information out of them." Deacon says as he sits down and runs his hand over his face.
"You think they'll have a lot of people?" Charlie asks.
"I hope not." Deacon says with a sigh. "We'll talk with the others when they get back."
Daryl's P.O.V
Daryl climbed out of the MRAP as they got back to Alexandria, saying to the others "OK the rest of you, meet me inside, we'll see what Dea-"
A loud slam got their attention and Daryl turned, seeing Negan slamming his car door with force, hunched over with Laura looking at him concerned, talking lowly to him.
Daryl walked up to Negan, nodding at Laura who followed the others to the infirmary after a last worried look. "You okay?" Daryl asks Negan, who shakes his head, looking at the car still with a stone look, hands on top of it.
"I shouldn't have let her get to me, but she did." Negan says. "Those kids... they don't know who I was, what I've done."
"We've all done bad things, Negan. None of us are innocent. You have a lot of blood on your hands. So do I, Rick, Carl, Maggie, Alicia, and Shane. We all have blood on our hands. They'll care about who you are now, not who you were. You're their uncle Negan."
Negan blinked, then laughed and nods. "I bet you hated saying that."
"Getting shot was better. Now, come on," Daryl says as he walks towards the infirmary. Negan nods and follows him. They stopped in front of the others who were looking at Deacon, Charlie, and Rachel. "What's wrong?" Daryl asks. They all listen to Deacon as he explains what the woman has told them, and he tells them about the Rippers.
"I'm sorry, they came here because of me."
"It ain't your fault. You couldn't have known. We'll deal with them." Carl tells them. "We've dealt with people worse than these assholes."
"We'll talk more about this tomorrow. We'll meet at Hilltop. Hopefully, we can deal with this quickly."
"I'm just impressed they followed you all this way, I'm actually kinda impressed." Stopping, they all gave Negan looks, who just shrugged "What!? I respect that kind of commitment."
Rolling his eyes, knowing he was somewhat back to normal if he was making stupid jokes, Daryl turned back "What about you?"
"I'm going to stay here. I'll explain everything to Rick and go to Hilltop with Carl." Deacon tells them. They nod as Daryl walks towards his truck with the others.
Deacon's P.O.V
The next morning
Deacon walks up to Rick's door and knocks on the door. He waits a few moments, and Judith opens the door. "Hi, Mr Deacon!" She chirps.
"Hey, sweetie, where's your Daddy at?" Deacon leans down, asking the young girl.
Judith smiles as she walks away from the door calling out "DADDY! It's Mr Deacon!"
A few moments later, Rick walks up to the door, soon seeing the look on his face, saying "Thank you sweetie, go inside." He shuts the door and follows Deacon onto the porch.
"Carl explained everything to me last night." Rick tells him. "We know they were near the outpost. When the meeting is over, you should take a small group out there and see if you can track them down."
"I will." Deacon tells him.
"Don't beat yourself over this, Deek." Rick reassured Deacon, putting a hand on his shoulder in comfort, who nods as Carl walks up to them.
"See you later, Rick, we'll get ready." Deacon says to the man, who nods as Deacon leaves.
Negan's P.O.V
Negan stood outside of Barrington house as they waited for Carl, Deacon, and Ezekiel. He looked at the door as it opened, and Maggie walked out, stopping seeing him. For a long moment, they stared at each other.
Soon she walked up to him and stops beside him. "You did good yesterday." She says after a moment.
"Thanks, how much of that did you hear?" Negan says as he stares at the sky.
"Enough."
Negan gritted his teeth, and started to say "Maggie look-"
"You were right about what you said. I will never forgive you for what you did to Glenn, to my family. And when Hershel does find out, he won't either. But I don't hate you, and you are one of us, so I'm going to make you a promise," Maggie says as she turns to look at the large man. "When you die, It won't be who does it, and it won't be my son. We don't kill our own. Show those kids the Negan that blew a truck up even though he knew he might die, and they'll love you just as they do now." Maggie says before she walks away, leaving Negan alone.
Looking after her in disbelief, he blinked then muttered "Maybe I should take up Gabe's offer to go to Church. if a Damn miracle like that happened."
Daryl's P.O.V
Daryl, Deacon, Alicia, Alden, Negan, Maggie, Beth, Tara, Carl, Javier, Reilly, Rikki, Boozer, Addy, Ezekiel, and Boozer stood in Beth's office and listened to Deacon as he explained everything to them. "Lilly has a radio and will tell us if any of them remember anything else about the group." Carl tells them.
"We'll try to find them before they find us. Ambush them." Daryl says.
"I want to take a group out to the outpost and see if we can track them," Deacon says.
"Fuck yeah I'm in!" Boozer says, making Deacon look at him. "Don't Deek, I helped blow up that dam."
"Me too." Rikki says.
Javier looked at them wide eyed, having just arrived from Richmond "Ok I have to hear that story about a dam being blown up."
"Alden and I will join you," Daryl says as he looks at the former savior, who nods resolute, clearly also blaming himself for leading them here. "The rest of you go home. We'll tell you when we find something," Daryl says. Everybody nods as they slowly leave. Daryl follows Alicia out to the truck, and he turns to look at him.
"You sure about this?" Alicia asks Daryl, who nods.
"Don't worry. I'll be home by dark. Tell Ofelia and Merle I'm helping Deek." Daryl tells her. Alicia nods as she kisses him and climbs into the truck.
"Good luck, boss," Negan says as he climbs into the passenger seat, and they leave. Daryl goes to his bike and climbs on as Alden climbs on behind him, and Deacon and Rikki get on their bikes with Boozer riding on the back of Deacon. They start their bikes and leave.
Rick's P.O.V
Rick sat on his porch, watching the people of Alexandria as they walked around. He looked at Enid as she walked up to him and sat down. "Where's Arya?" Rick asks Enid curiously, who smiles.
"With Jesus." She says with a smile. Rick chuckles and nods. "Soooo...yesterday I saw Daryl after he left your house. He looked pretty happy."
"I told him a secret, nothing important," Rick says guarded, now having an idea why Enid was here.
"You didn't tell him about your leg?" Enid asks with a smile. Rick looks at his future daughter-in-law with wide eyes.
"Enid how-"
"I work with her, Rick. She told me."
"You haven't told, Carl, have you?" Rick asks Enid warily, who shakes her head with a laugh
"Don't worry. I'll let you do that when you feel the time is right. I'm just letting you know, so if you need someone to talk to, I'm here." Enid tells Rick, who nods.
"Thanks, honey."
Enid nods as she pats his shoulder and asks "So gonna take up the reigns again?"
"Hopefully not, I think I have enough grey for a lifetime."
Deacon's P.O.V
Deacon, Daryl, Rikki, Boozer, and Alden walk through the woods, following tracks they had found behind the house, Daryl and Deacon in the front. "Seems like there will always be groups like this." Daryl says. Deacon looks at him and nods, resigned to that fact it looked like.
"Well, like you said. Hopefully, we can deal with them quickly." Deacon says.
Daryl nods as they stop by a campfire that is still smoldering. "This had to have been their camp, looks like they left in a hurry."
"It was." Boozer says as he points to a corpse that was pinned to a tree. "We're coming, Deacon St. John." Daryl reads as he stares at the message craved on the body's chest. Deacon walks away from them and stops by the edge of the camp.
"Got some more tracks." Deacon called over. They nod as they follow him through the woods. "What do we do when we find them?"
"We go back and get some more people." Daryl answers.
"What if they move while we are gone?" Boozer asks.
"We'll only be going back to the bikes. I'll radio some of the others to grab some weapons. When we find them, they'll be dead within hours." Daryl tells them.
Boozer mumbled "Hopefully."
Alicia's P.O.V
Alicia climbed out of the truck and looked at Shane as he walked up to them. "Where are the others?" Shane asks them.
"They're tracking down the rippers." Alicia tells them as Merle and Ofelia run up to their mother and hug her.
"Where's Daddy at?" Ofelia asks.
"Daddy is helping Mr Deacon. He'll be home soon." Alicia tells them softly.
"Is he going to be safe?" Merle asks.
"Yeah, he'll be safe. He always is," Alicia tells him as he kisses his head. "Now go on and play."
The two kids nod with a smile as they run away.
"We can talk inside," Negan tells Shane, who nods as they walk away.
Deacon's P.O.V
The group walked through the woods for an hour until they heard talking. They bend down behind a tree and look at the camp, see the group walking around. They watched the group for ten minutes before they started to move away from the camp. Standing, the duo slowly walked away from the camp, and once they were far enough away, Deacon spoke. "I counted 25 of them."
"So did I. Let's get back to the bikes," Daryl says. They nod as they walk through the woods. Daryl pulled out his radio. "We found them," He says into the radio.
Thanks for reading. I'm sorry that it is taking me so long to post. Things have been crazy. I lost a good family friend, that and college have been a lot. But hopefully, soon, we can get back to the regular schedule. As always, suggestions, ideas, and feedback are welcomed. Until next time.