wastelands → the walking dead ¹

[ 023 ] death is inevitable.

— CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.
death is inevitable.

mentions of rape

RICK AND SHANE RETURN.

With Randall.

Odessa watches as Shane pulls the boy from the back of the Hyundai with a bag thrown over his head and headphones over his ears.

Rick eyes him for a second before approaching his daughter. Her eyes stay locked on Shane and Randall as she asks, "why didn't y'all take him all the way out?"

"He knows where the farm is," he answers. Odessa looks up at him.

"What? How do you know?" She questions, her heart beat picking up. "Did he say that?"

"Said he went to school with Maggie." He tells her. "We're keepin' him here until we figure out what to do with him."

Odesss nods as she turns her attention back to where Shane leave the barn. He has blood on him just as her father did. "Did you and Shane fight?"

Rick looks at her, not realizing how fast she'd made the connection. "Yeah." Rick decides then he will always tell Odessa the truth. "He tried to kill me."

Her eyes snap to him. "What? He what?"

Rick can sense the anger stirring in his daughter. "I told him that you are my family. Your mother, your brother, you, the baby. You're my family. Not his."

After that, Rick showers. Shane showers after. As the other gather at the camp, Daryl goes to interrogate the boy. Odessa lines what his way of interrogation is.

When Daryl returns with bloodied knuckles he tells them all, "boy there's got a gang, thirty men. They have heavy artillery's and they ain't lookin' to make friends. They roll through here, our boys are dead. And our women," Daryl can't help but cast a glance at Odessa, "they're gonna— they're gonna wish they were."

She shuffles on her feet, looking down at her boots. She knows exactly what he means as soon as the words leave his mouth.

Rape.

They would be raped.

"What did you do?" Carol asks him, eyeing the blood on his knuckles. It's a mix of his own and Randall's.

"Had a little chat." Daryl responds.

"No one goes near this guy," Rick says sternly to everyone.

"Rick, what're you gonna do?" Lori asks her husband.

"We have no choice. He's a threat. We have to eliminate the threat." Rick explains.

He means execution.

"You're just gonna kill him?" Dale steps up, his bushy brows furrowed.

"It's settled. I'll do it today." Rick nods to himself. He turned to walk away, Dale quickly follows after him.

Odessa slows herself to sit at the picnic table. She listens to the distant thunder. She rubs her hands down her face. If Randall has a group of thirty men and they roll up on the farm, they are absolutely and totally fucked.

Odessa doesn't deny that. She hopes the others don't either. It's an ugly truth. The ugliest but in the world now, they have to face the ugliest truths. The bloodiest truths.