Reviews:

valxra- Thank you very much, and I'm so happy to hear that! Glad you liked the ending, it took forever to find a way to tie off that argument, so I'm glad as hell! Hmm, very interesting thoughts indeed, we will see... we will see :D

RHatch89- Thank you :)

The RV horn starts to howl out once the vehicle stops, echoing through the trees and fields around us. I follow Glenn, Maggie, Rosita, and Daryl out of our car, stepping onto the desolate country road we've chosen to park on. The RV has been leading our convoy of three vehicles. Michonne, Rick, Sasha, Carol, Jesus, and that guy from the Hilltop- Andy -they all climb out of the RV.

"Ready?" Glenn asks me.

I look up at the rapidly darkening sky, then at the car behind us. Gabriel, Heath, Aaron, Abraham, and Tara climb out.

"Have to be," I nod back.

"Aaron, Rosita," Rick calls down the line of vehicles. "You start here. We'll peel off every quarter mile, meet back here in a couple of hours."

"You're with Heath and me," Glenn slaps my back supportively, apologising when I almost trip.

"I thought I was staying back with Maggie?" I ask, trying to sound cool and veer away from terrified.

"You will be... when we start the assault tonight. Right now, we're just looking for heads."

"Right."

I'd forgotten about that part. Rick explained the plan before we left home. The Saviors want Gregory's head, so we're going to give it to them. Or at least, a walker that looks like Hilltop's leader.

Glenn pats my back again when he sees me staring at Maggie as she stands over the hood of our car, loading bullets into magazines.

"She'll be okay," he says.

Glenn's always been the sort to back-pat when he wants to reassure you, which has me worried since he won't stop doing it today.

"Carol insisted on staying back to keep an eye on her anyway," Glenn adds.

I nod, and I keep doing it until Glenn is sure I'm okay.

"Gear up," he tells me. "We're heading off in a few minutes."

Then Glenn walks off to talk with Heath. I grab my berretta from the backseat, holstering it behind me like I have a hundred times before. I've lent Gabriel my rifle since he asked me. And I said yes since I think I'll be too nervous to even use it accurately. Instead, I grab the assault rifle that Sasha picked out for me.

I swing the car door shut and head towards Glenn and Heath as they accept homemade sandwiches that Aaron is handing out.

Jesus stops me halfway down the road.

"Can I ask you something?" he asks, running a hand through his neatly trimmed beard.

"You can," I nod slowly, not sure where this is going.

"You asked me what my community was called. Why?"

"I was curious..."

Jesus nods like it wasn't the answer he wanted.

"Why do you ask?" I frown.

"I told you guys that your world was going to get bigger," Jesus hangs his head, sounding like he's regretting a lot today. "I didn't expect it to get bloody so fast."

"You didn't answer my question," I point out.

Jesus bobs his shoulders at me. "I wanted to know because I'm worried the next time I'm asked that question, I'm going to have to answer differently."

"What do you mean?"

"If this goes wrong tonight... Hilltop won't survive."

Glenn whistles at me from the side of the road, calling out that it's time to go. Jesus doesn't say anymore. He just smiles like he's ready for whatever happens next and disappears behind the RV.

I keep tripping on scattered sticks and loose rocks as we make our way off the side of the road and through the forest. Heath keeps looking over his shoulder at me, breaking his gaze away seconds after, playing it off by adjusting his thick-rimmed spectacles. I'm about to ask him why, but Glenn speaks to me first.

"You guys having trouble?"

"Huh?" I dart my eyes to Glenn's as he walks beside me.

"You and Carl," he clarifies.

"Oh..." I nod, rubbing the back of my neck, feeling put on the spot. "So you guys heard that shouting last night?"

Glenn tries not to sound too obvious. "Only a bit..."

Our conversation takes a break when an old looking walker comes out from behind a tight cluster of trees. Glenn gets its attention while I bury the claw end of my hammer into its temple, trying to avoid its key features.

"What do you think?" Heath asks us, staring down at the dead walker with a disgusted look, covering his mouth behind his jacket. "Does it look like the guy?"

I hmm at it. "The nose is off..."

Glenn agrees. "I think Gregory's head was rounder. And his hair was... I don't know... shorter?"

I hmm again.

"We can cut the hair..." Heath rolls his eyes.

"Not this one," Glenn leads us on.

I step over the dead body, still deciding if I agree as we leave.

"So?" Glenn asks once we're back on the move.

"Carl's pissed about me coming here. He was kind of an asshole about it for a while."

Glenn chuckles at me. "Like I was with Maggie?"

"No. You let Maggie come," I argue.

"He let you come, too."

I shake my head. "I came anyway."

"You think Maggie wouldn't of?" Glenn smirks.

"I suppose."

"What about him worrying makes him an 'asshole,' anyway?" Glenn asks with his fingers curling around the word.

I sigh, feeling like I should be angrier in this conversation than I am. "Nothing," I admit. "He's not. I know he was only angry because he cares... it's just... I'm worried that he thinks I enjoy killing."

Glenn looks more serious after I say that. Heath turns to look at me too, clearly listening in, almost looking like he might speak, but walkers appear before he can. Three of them approach.

Each of us takes out one.

Glenn's standing over his. "This one!" he prods it with his foot. "Definitely."

"What do you think?" Heath asks as Glenn squats to get a better view.

"Maybe," he grimaces, less confident now. "If we, um, cut the hair... trim the beard... If it's dark."

I shake my head again, my lips curling into a frown. "The nose still isn't right."

"We're going to kill those people... tonight," Heath says, clutching his bloody knife. "I've been lucky," he goes on, glancing at me. "I haven't had to do it before."

All the shifty stares make sense now. I'm the freak that's killed before.

The monster.

"I've been lucky, too," Glenn speaks before I have to, and I'm grateful for it.

"You nervous?" Heath asks him.

Glenn stares off into the trees, getting lost in them for a few seconds before he has to answer.

"What's it like?" Heath asks me hesitantly. I can tell asking a sixteen-year-old what killing feels like isn't something he's comfortable with.

"It's... um..." I get lost in thinking about it, tied up in how it feels. Not sure it has a feeling. Not sure I can describe it if it does. Not sure I want to.

Again, Glenn steps in and saves me by answering for me. "Have you ever seen something that, afterwards, you didn't want to sleep, and you weren't hungry because when you closed your eyes, you could see it? And when you tried to eat-"

"Yeah," Heath cuts him off, swallowing uncomfortably.

Glenn nods. "Me, too."

Neither of them manages to meet the other's eyes.

"I'm guessing killing someone is worse than that," Glenn says, looking at me with a sympathetic stare, like he's apologising for it all. Like he could have stopped it if he'd just tried harder.

I feel like an oversized tiger locked in a tiny cage, fangs and claws waiting to draw blood and impress.

"So, yeah," Glenn clears his throat. "I'm nervous."

Without saying another word, Glenn starts to decapitate the Gregory-looking walker at his feet. Heath and I grimace and focus on keeping watch.

We get back to the convoy an hour later. Heads are already lined up along the yellow lined tarmac road.

Jesus and Andy take a couple of minutes to pick the best lookalikes, ours amongst the three finalists.

While Rosita tidies up their hair, Rick gives the rest of us the rundown of tonight.

"We're gonna take a look around. Try to get a feel for how many people are in there. We like how it looks- we go in. A couple of hours before dawn... the guards outside will be tired... everyone inside will be sleeping. We don't like what we see... we head back and make a new plan. They don't know who we are. We'll keep Jesus in the shadows. This is how we eat."

Everyone nods, none of us looking thrilled with what we're about to do. None of us disagreeing all the same.

"This is how we eat," Rick repeats himself. Reminding us what we're fighting for. "We roll out at midnight."

I'm listening while sitting next to Daryl on the hood of one of our cars. Rick goes to inspect the three final heads, Andy points to the best one. I can't see which.

"It's good we're doing this at night," I hear Jesus comment.

"Something wrong with it?" Rick asks, picking it up by the hair.

I see that our head won.

"The nose..." Jesus frowns, looking all crooked at it. "Gregory's is a different... shape."

Daryl and I watch unfazed as Rick begins to punch the severed head with his free fist.

"He fought back," Rick tells them, gesturing to Andy's bandaged hand. "He broke your hand, right?"

From what I remember, Abraham was actually the one that broke it.

"Guess, there's no reason to be subtle about it," Jesus folds his arms, nodding at Rick's handy work.

Andy stares at Rick.

"What?" Rick asks.

"The Saviors," Andy shrugs, "they're scary, but those pricks got nothing on you."

Heath ambles up alongside the car that Daryl and I are sitting on.

"Was Rick just..." Heath trails off.

"Told you the nose wasn't right," I tell him.

I try to sleep for the couple of hours we have until midnight- but I end up tossing and turning in the back of the RV to no avail.

I head outside.

Sasha is sitting on top of the RV, keeping watch with sharp eyes. I join her, letting my legs hang off the side like she is. The RV roof is cold on my palms when I lean back on them.

"So... Abraham," I clear my throat, an awkward lump trying to stifle the much more awkward conversation I'm starting.

Sasha clearly notices this going in a direction that neither of us are looking forward to because she just raises an inquiring eyebrow at me.

"Rosita told me that he, erm... he left her... last night?" I barely make it to the end of the sentence.

Sasha shrugs, looking off down the dark road. "I wouldn't know."

"Right," I nod profusely. "Right."

Deciding to shut up, I join her in staring along the dark roadway ahead of us. The two yellow strips down the centre of the road are swallowed into looming shadows a few trees down. Anything from the dead to these Saviors could be beyond it. I swallow loudly, tightening my grip on the hammer under my belt.

"I'm glad he's not here for this," Sasha whispers.

I let go of the hammer when my knuckles turn white, running my thumb gently over the head. "Why?"

I know she's not talking about Abraham.

"My brother had a big heart," Sasha sighs. "That's not how we'll get through tonight."

"If Tyreese was here, he'd do what any of us would."

Sasha only shakes her head a little, but her disagreement is coming through a lot. "You know when we first got to the prison, we had three other people with us."

"You did?"

"One of them... Donna, she got bit. My brother put her down with that." Sasha gestures to my hammer. "He felt like he killed her after. She was already gone, but my brother, that weighed on him long after I forgot about her."

"What are you getting at?"

"Donna's husband and son, they wanted to take the prison by force. We stopped it, me and him. Made sure they didn't. Kept everyone breathing. Kept our hands clean."

I realise she's not saying his name on purpose. I'm still waiting for the point, and Sasha senses it.

"My point," she sighs. "If I was in that position again? If I had a chance to make everyone safe, and all I had to do was take out a few people I didn't know? I'd do it. I'm doing it now. We all are." Sasha clicks the dial of her scope. "If my brother was here? He would do the same thing he did back at the prison. He would have stood up in that meeting and argued against this." Sasha stares at me, void of sentiment. "Ty would keep his hands clean."

"What about me?" I ask.

I desperately want to be like she just described. Every word of it.

She shakes her head. "You're here, aren't you?"

Maybe Carl is right to worry. Maybe there's something dark inside me.

Michonne whistles at us from the ground below.

Time to go.

It's Carol, Maggie, and me. We're left alone, watching concerned as the others leave for the Savior's compound. I count along with my watch's hands for five minutes, just like Rick told me to before he went with the others. When the five long minutes are up, we drive the RV to a clearing on the south side of the compound, just like Rick told us to. We keep our eyes peeled on the compound, hidden behind strategically picked trees.

We wait.

Carol and Maggie are standing boots on the ground. The mud's thick and deep here, so they keep to the edges of the old woodland trail we parked by. I perch on the RV roof, watching through binoculars that Michonne gave me.

Everything is black. Even the stars seem dark. I can't find the moon... maybe it's hiding too. The only thing I can see is our target.

The Saviors live in some satellite station. I only say that because two giant dishes grace their roof, stark white against the black sky.

I keep breathing names under my breath.

"Sasha- Rosita- Glenn- Tara- Daryl- Rick- Michonne- Abraham- Aaron- Gabriel- Heath. Sasha- Rosita- Glenn- Tara- Daryl- Ric-"

"You okay, Honey?" Maggie's voice turns my attention, her head sticking up over the RV ladder. "Did you say something?"

"I'm fine," I smile at Maggie's head, not answering her question on purpose, the answer too cheerless to think about.

"Aaron made everyone sandwiches," Maggie goes on, handing me one. Tomato and canned bacon.

I thank her.

"Tomatoes came from Hilltop," she points. "Think the bacon was somewhere in the pantry."

Once I've eaten the sandwich and Maggie's forced me to finish the crusts, I climb off the RV, Maggie taking over the watch.

Carol's smoking one of her cigarettes again.

"It's bad for the baby," I tell her without looking at her.

She takes a long drag, letting it out with her words. "If Maggie comes down, I'll put it out."

I find myself staring at the smoke between her fingers. A warm light in the darkness.

Carol manages to finish the smoke before Maggie comes down. I imagine that maybe Maggie realised and stayed up there longer to be kind. I sit down with my back against the tree we're posted under. The smell of the smoke isn't reaching me so much down here.

Suddenly, an alarm starts to blare from the compound, and the night sky glares a furious red.

A terrifying shade of red, like it was stabbed and the sky is starting to bleed.

I jump to my feet, frozen when I reach them, not sure what we do now.

That's not part of the plan.

"They're in trouble. Stay here," Carol scrambles for her rifle before making her way towards the terrifying sound.

"I'm going with you." Maggie follows her, and I follow Maggie. Not out of bravery or the need to help. Just the fear of being left alone.

"I said stay here," Carol barks over her shoulder.

"No."

"Damn it, Maggie," Carol spins on the spot and catches her by the wrist.

"I have to!" Maggie argues.

"Guys, stop," I hiss, looking around nervously. Gunshots are ringing out now. Inside and out.

"No, you don't. You don't have to!" Carol lets go of Maggie's wrist. No one's listening to me, so I just listen to them.

"Yes, I do!" Maggie says.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"What am I supposed to do?"

"You're supposed to be someone else!"

Maggie's eyes jump to me, then back to Carol.

"They need our help," she says sternly.

A walker stumbles from the underbrush behind Maggie, Carol pushes her aside and brings it down.

"You are staying here," Carol tells her again when the walker is dead and face down in the mud. It feels like a plea this time.

"Maggie..." I start.

A bush rustles behind her. It sounds different from the walker. More accidental and like it tried to stop.

A man rushes out, pulling his gun up as he does. Carol shoots him. I don't even see her draw the gun. She hits his arm, sending him crashing to the floor with a yell.

"Damn it, Maggie. Let's go!" Carol hisses after Maggie as she hurries to the man and points her gun at his head. Carol follows behind her.

"Not till it's done," Maggie cocks the hammer of her pistol. The man's panting heavily, grunting as he grips his bleeding arm.

I feel ice-cold iron push to the side of my head, the click of another hammer.

"Stop! Or he's dead."

Carol spins around. Maggie, looking over her shoulder. By the time they do, guns are on them too. Two more people appear from the woods.

"Guns, knives- on the ground right now," the voice with the gun to my head says. I can't see her, only knowing it's a woman from the tone.

Maggie and Carol both comply.

The gun presses deeper into my skull.

We're helpless.

A/N

Thanks for reading, and all y'all support :)

Next Time- Separated from the group that's kept him safe, Rhys has to fight to stay alive.