Reflections - TWD

41. Route Sixteen.

Isabella sat by Daryl as he adjusted his crossbow, some other members of the group were doing stuff too, but Isabella was watching the crossbow since she wanted to learn how to use it someday.

Suddenly, Maggie opened the barn door. "Hey. Everyone..." she began, revealing a nervous-looking man behind her. "This is Aaron."

Everyone sprung to their feet, Isabella putting her hand to the gun on her hip instinctively and Daryl rushing over to the man quickly, checking there was no one else with him.

"We met him outside. He's by himself." Maggie confirmed, her eyes wide. "We took his weapons and we took his gear."

Daryl began to roughly pat the man up and down while standing behind him, clearly not caring if he was being tough or not.

Tara closed the barn door back up and it became dark again. Aaron didn't look like a crazy person, he just looked a bit scared.

"Hi." He breathed out, looking around at the rest of them. Judith began to cry and Rick passed her to Carl, who shushed her gently.

"It's nice to meet you." Aaron began to walk towards Rick, but quickly stopped when the guns cocked. Isabella took her gun out of the waistband and held it up.

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick turned his attention to Maggie and Sasha.

Maggie walked over to Rick and handed him the gun that she'd taken off Aaron. The leader looked at it for a moment before shoving it in the back of his belt. "There something you need?"

"He has a camp nearby." Sasha spoke up. "He wants us to audition for membership."

"Audition?" Isabella furrowed her eyebrows, a more judgemental look across her face now.

"I wish there was another word. Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of a dance troupe. That's only on Friday nights." Aaron joked with a shrug.

Isabella smiled, letting out a breathy, short laugh through her nose. Nobody else did.

Aaron shook his head and took a wise moment to choose his next words to the people who pointed weapons at him. "Um, and it's not a camp. It's a community. I think you all would make valuable additions, but it's not my call...my job is to convince all you to follow me back home."

Everyone gave him a weird look, that sounded sort of like kidnapping to Isabella. Sometimes, the men at the trailer park tried to take Isabella back to their trailers, but usually someone would stop them, usually a group of teenagers that were always hanging outside of their trailers, probably in the same situation as Isabella.

"I know." Aaron tried as the group all stared at him. "If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into." He turned to Sasha. "Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?"

Sasha walked forwards and slung the bag off her shoulder, handing it to Rick while Aaron explained where to look. "Front pocket, there's an envelope."

Rick kneeled to the floor and began to root through the bag.

"There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those." Aaron gestured to some pictures that Rick had pulled out of the bag. "I apologise in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last-"

Daryl interrupted by saying what they were all thinking. "Nobody gives a shit."

Aaron turned to look at Daryl nervously. "You're absolutely one-hundred percent right." He turned back to Rick, who was uncovering the pictures. "That's the first picture I wanted to show you because nothing I say about our community will matter unless you know you'll be safe...if you join us, you will be. Each panel in that wall is a fifteen foot high, twelve foot wide slab of solid steel framed by cold-rolled steel beams and square tubing. Nothing alive or dead gets through that without our say-so. Like I said, security is obviously important. In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival. The people. Together we're strong. You can make us even stronger."