"This looks like the place, but where the hell is that bunker?"
Several minutes of searching turned up nothing. The town was a ghost town twice over—abandoned, then burned. I checked the map again, folded it away, and crouched to listen for anything moving underground. A long shot. Worth it anyway.
Nothing. Either the bunker was buried too deep, or there was no one left down there to hear me.
I was ready to call it when I caught a faint banging coming from somewhere beneath a collapsed house.
I moved toward it fast. The closer I got, the louder it became, until it was practically screaming at me from beneath a pile of debris. I tore through the rubble and found a metal hatch, padlocked shut.
"Hey...hang in there. I've got you."
The banging stopped dead.
No answer.
I ripped the lock apart and hauled the hatch open.
Empty.
"Why were you looking for the bunker?"
A girl's voice. I didn't bother turning around—I'd already clocked the footsteps behind me.
"You're alive. Good start."
"Just answer the damn question. Who are you, and why are you here?"
I turned around slowly. A girl, maybe ten or eleven, had a pistol trained on me, her hands shaking just enough to notice. Behind her stood a much smaller kid—six, tops—gripping a kitchen knife in both fists like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
I raised my hands, trying to look like less of a threat than I probably was.
"Name's Max. I'm here to get a six-year-old girl out."
I looked past the gun at the little one.
"That you?"
"Doesn't matter who she is. Answer me, or I shoot."
"With what?"
She blinked.
The handgun she was holding was knocked aside by the knife, crashing onto the ground and breaking apart. Even from where I stood, I could see the magazine was empty.
"You're threatening me with an empty gun. Where's the ammo, genius?"
She didn't answer. She just stared, jaw tight. Point made, I didn't push it. They were harmless either way had been since before I showed up.
Finally, through gritted teeth:
"I'm Sunny."
She lowered the gun an inch and pulled the smaller girl half a step behind her, protective, like I might lunge.
"You know where Diana's parents are?"
"Dead. Both of them. Her mother asked me to come get her daughter before she died. Said Diana was hiding in a bunker somewhere around here."
I nodded toward the hatch.
"So here I am, keeping a promise."
Diana understood before Sunny could translate. The knife slipped from her hands and hit the dirt, and she started crying—the kind of crying that's been held in for a long time.
Sunny dropped beside her immediately, murmuring something too quiet for me to catch.
So this was Diana.
I stepped closer, slowly.
"I know the timing's bad, but we need to move."
Sunny's head snapped up, all suspicion again.
"We don't need your help. You can go."
I didn't budge.
"Wasn't asking permission. I came a long way for her, so she's coming with me. You're welcome to tag along too, but she's coming either way."
"We've survived a year without you," Sunny said. "We don't need you now."
Stubborn. Fair enough. In this world, trusting a stranger on sight was how you ended up dead. I couldn't fault the instinct, even with a gun pointed at me five seconds ago.
"I'm not going to hurt her. And yeah, a year's impressive. Doesn't mean you'll get a second one alone."
I nodded at Diana.
"I didn't come here for you. I came for her. So let her decide."
"She can't."
"Why not?"
"She doesn't talk."
Diana, quiet now, lifted her hands and started signing. Sunny answered in kind, her fingers moving fast, the two of them having an entire conversation I couldn't follow.
Great. Add that to the list of things I apparently needed to learn.
Sunny turned back to me.
"She says if her mom sent you, she trusts you. She'll go."
I nodded.
"And you?"
"Obviously I'm coming," Sunny said, as though the question itself were insulting. "Someone has to make sure you don't get her killed."
Almost half an hour of riding, and neither of them had said a word. The silence was starting to itch, so I broke it.
"How'd you two meet?"
Sunny answered from behind me.
"Almost a year ago. I was hurt, running from a herd, and Diana found me. Pulled me out of it. We've been in the bunker together ever since."
"The main entrance was sealed shut. How'd Diana get out in the first place?"
I'd seen their tracks leading away from the bunker but never bothered looking for the exit. Wasn't my problem at the time.
"Food started running low," Sunny said. "So she dug a tunnel out herself. Took her three months. Diana's tougher than she looks."
I glanced at the kid sitting in front of me. Her eyes were still swollen from crying, rimmed red.
Both of them were skin and bone, collarbones sharp enough to cut, wrists thin as kindling. No adult. No supplies. A year and a half in this world. By any reasonable measure, they should've been dead a dozen times over.
They weren't.
That counted for something.
Another half hour on the road, and the prison finally came into view.
That should've felt like good news.
Instead, I counted heads. More than forty of them, spread along the gate, each one armed, most of them leaning against cars parked in a loose, deliberate line, like they'd been expecting company.
Great.
Just great.
"There's a lot of people out there, and they don't look friendly. Drop us here and go get yourself killed somewhere else."
Sunny, from behind me, dripping with sarcasm.
In front of me, Diana's hands flew frantic, urgent signs I couldn't read. Whatever she was saying, it must've meant shut up, because Sunny went quiet a beat later.
"Well," I said, "if I'm dying today, I'm not dying alone."
I gunned it straight toward the group, grinning like an idiot who'd already made peace with dying.
"You crazy motherfucker—you're gonna get us killed! STOP! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just STOP!"
Diana was screaming too now, both of them in full panic behind me.
Honestly?
Fair reaction.
Still... it was kind of fun watching it.
==
"We meet again, little girl."
Clementine and the others looked at the woman standing at the gate, a jagged scar splitting one corner of her mouth.
"You know this crazy woman, Clementine?" Carol asked.
Maggie looked over too, waiting for the same answer.
"Yeah. Molly and I ran into her before. Almost got killed. Barely got out."
Clementine's eyes stayed locked on the woman, anger sharpening every word.
"I've got a score to settle."
She raised her rifle, leveling it with the woman's face.
"What is wrong with you people?" Maggie snapped, frustration cracking through her voice. "Trouble's followed us since the day you showed up.... the Governor, now her. Same story, different face, same damn door."
After unloading the medical supplies, they'd thought they could finally have some peace. Instead, they found more than forty strangers camped outside their gate, uninvited and demanding the prison be handed over. No wonder Maggie was ready to put a bullet in something.
Daryl checked his crossbow.
Empty.
Same as everyone's magazines. Same as everyone's strength...running low and wearing thinner by the day, especially with five people in quarantine and their numbers smaller than they'd been in weeks.
"We hold 'em off till Max or Rick gets back," he said. "Just gotta hope they're quick about it."
Handing over the prison had never been an option. Fighting was the only one left.
"Well. That's the plan, then. Let's hope nobody dies."
Chicken looked at Clementine.
"Lady, please...go inside. It's not safe out here."
He knew what would happen if anything happened to her. Chaos nobody wanted—least of all him.
Before she could argue, he added,
"Think about your baby."
That stopped her cold.
"Brother's right," Jerry said. "If anything happens to you, none of us wants to explain that to the Lord. Go on."
Clementine's jaw tightened, but she nodded, furious, and pulled Molly back inside with her.
"Everybody stay covered," Michonne said quietly. "Let them waste their ammo shooting at nothing. When they're running dry, we hit back."
"Not to be rude," T-Dog muttered from behind the wall, "but Scarface out there doesn't look dumb. Crazy, sure. Not dumb."
He glanced back and found Beth and Carl crouched behind him.
"What are you two doing? Go back inside. It's not safe."
He tried to sound authoritative.
Neither of them moved.
"We're helping," Carl said, chin raised, gripping his handgun like it settled the argument. "We're part of this community too."
T-Dog looked at the two of them—stubborn, scared, and determined anyway—and let it go.
Not worth the argument.
Not now.
"Talking to you people is useless," the woman at the gate called out, sounding bored more than anything. "Bring me your leader."
Silence answered her.
"I said bring me your leader. Now. Unless—"
Carol stepped out from behind cover.
"I'm the leader. Talk to me."
"What the hell are you doing?" Maggie hissed.
"Buying us time," Carol said without turning.
She kept walking steadily toward the gate.
The scarred woman studied her, then laughed.
"A middle-aged woman who can barely lift a kid, and you're telling me you run this place?"
"I am the leader. Ask anyone here if you don't believe me."
"Listen."
The woman's smile stayed in place, but her eyes didn't.
"You look like you could gut a man in his sleep. You look like a snake—the kind that hides and waits, not the kind that leads the pack. So go get me your real leader before I put a bullet through your skull."
Carol gave up. It was obvious the woman wasn't going to believe the lie.
"If I see one more fake-ass 'leader' step up in front of me, I'll kill every last one of you. So I'll ask nicely one more time...let me talk to whoever's actually in charge."
The scarred woman's voice never wavered.
No smile this time.
After a beat, the priest rose to his feet.
Her smile returned the second she saw him.
This one, finally.
"So you're the leader."
"Nope."
He said it with an easy smile, like the question amused him.
It threw her off the first time all day her read on someone had been wrong.
He carried himself like a man who'd led hundreds. Calm. Steady. Unbothered. Every instinct she had screamed leader, and every instinct was apparently useless today.
"If you're not the leader," she said, "where is he?"
The priest looked past her shoulder and pointed.
A motorcycle, closing fast, its engine screaming louder than the rider.
"That's him," he said, grinning now. "Our leader."
Everyone turned to watch it race in—too fast, weaving through the road, absolutely not slowing down and over the roar of the engine came a very different kind of screaming.
"I'M SORRY!!! PLEASE STOP, I DON'T WANNA DIE!!!"