༘ ⊹ ࣪ ˖𐙚❙ 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓. the walking dead₁

𝐱𝐱𝐱𝐢𝐱. 𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐜𝐢𝐫𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬

"I know where you stand." Dale narrowed his eyes at her and she took a breath as she looked down at Josh as he tilted his head back to look up at her. Dale looked around the room, his eyes settling on Maggie who stood next to her father, who was sitting on the couch. "How about you? Do you agree with this?"

She hesitated a moment before looking over at Rick, "Couldn't we continue keeping him prisoner?"

"Just another mouth to feed." Daryl added from his spot where he was leaning against the wall and Charlie glanced over at him – she hadn't really seen him much since their talk on the rv a few weeks ago. He had been distancing himself from the group, or at least it seemed that way.

"It may be a lean winter." Herasel told them.

"We could ration better." Lori suggested.

"Well, he could be an asset." Dale insisted. "Give him a chance to prove himself."

"Put him to work?" Glenn questioned.

"We're not letting him walk around." Rick countered.

"Definitely wouldn't be comfortable with that." Charlie shook her head and Josh rubbed his hand up and down her calf as a sort of comfort and she let out a small sigh.

"We could put an escort on him." Maggie offered.

"Who wants to volunteer for that duty?" Shane quipped.

"I will." Dale stated.

Rick held up his hand, stopping the two. "I don't think any of us should be walking around with this guy."

"He's right." Lori agreed. "I wouldn't feel safe unless he was tied up."

"We can't exactly put chains around his ankles, sentence him to hard labor." Andrea looked around the room, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Look, say we let him join us, right?" Shane started. "Maybe he's helpful, maybe he's nice. We let our guard down and maybe he runs off, brings back his thirty men."

Dale scoffed lightly. "So the answer is to kill him to prevent a crime that he may never even attempt? If we do this, we're saying there's no hope. Rule of law is dead, there is no civilization."

"Look around, Dale." Mason sighed from where he sat on the floor, his back against the wall and his eyes closed as he leaned his head back. "There is no civilization anymore." The room was quiet for a moment, Charlie looked over at her best friend and though she agreed with him, it was weird to see him so . . . hopeless. He had always been the optimistic one, he always saw the bright side of things but things changed. The world changed and she knew, as much as he still seemed like the same go-lucky boy, that he had changed, too.

"Could you drive him farther out?" Hershel suggested. "Leave him like you planned?"

"You barely came back this time." Lori shook her head, looking over at her husband. "There are walkers, you could break down. You could get lost."

"Or get ambushed." Daryl added.

"They're right. We should not put our own people at risk." Glenn agreed.

"If you go through with it, how would you do it?" Patircia asked. "Would he suffer?"

"Morbid." Charlie muttered under her breath, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around Josh's shoulders – she didn't like that they were discussing someone's murder like it was a completely normal thing to do. No matter how messed up the world had gotten, and despite the fact that killing Randall meant that her people – her family – were safe, the topic made her stomach churn.