ILLICIT AFFAIRS || 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒅

𝟢𝟽 || 𝚂𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚠𝚒𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚁𝚎𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚜

It slightly hurt to hold her still but positioning her on my good arm helped ease the pain... slightly at least.

"It's nice to meet you," he took a step forward towards Rick, but as he did so the others all took two towards him.

Rick didn't even acknowledge Aaron's presence, looking past him to Maggie, "You said he had a weapon?" Maggie walked over and handed him a small revolver, which he quickly pocketed, "There's something you need?"

"He has a camp, nearby. He wants us to audition for membership," Sasha explained.

The man smiled, "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," the silence was so loud you'd think the cops would've been called to complain.

He cringed, "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 you all to follow me back home."

I could feel a tingle in my knees as the red flags started to wave in the distance. A place that led with how safe it was made me think of Terminus. We were all promised that place was safe but look how that turned out. If it weren't for Carol we'd all literally be food.

"I know. If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into. Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?" He asked the girl.

"Front pocket, there's an envelope," Aaron told our leader once he received 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. I apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last-"

"Nobody gives a shit," Daryl cut him off.

The clean stranger looked like he was about to shit himself when he saw Daryl's glare. Moving his hands slightly he nodded, "You're absolutely one hundred percent right," he stuttered as Rick pulled out the pictures.

He stood up and begin to go through them as the stranger continued his pitch, "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."

Rick and Michonne shared a glance as he handed the pictures to her, while Aaron went on, "Together we're strong. You can make us even stronger. The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construc-" Aaron never got to finish as Rick stomped forward and sent the stranger to the floor with a hard right hook.

A few others' jaws dropped as Aaron hit the dirt. Michonne looked rather pissed off as Rick shook his right hand. I wasn't surprised by the action though. I've seen Rick do much worse to much worse people and from what we've felt with I didn't blame him.

Even if it was a little extreme.

"So we're clear, that look wasn't a 'let's attack that man' look. It was a 'he seems like an okay guy to me' look," Michonne sneered at our leader as he walked back over to us.