stone cold |twd|

chapter 113

Two men approached them, one of them Vivian recognised from the gate a few days ago. The other one looked like a military wannabe, with the way he was holding himself and the way he dressed,

"Glenn, Tara, Vivian, and Noah?" The other guy asked as they approached, pointing at each of them to assign the names, "Nice to meet you. I'm Aiden. You met Nicholas pulling gate duty."

The curly haired man gave them a small nod, "Hey."

"You're Deanna's son?" Glenn asked, sizing the man up,

"That's right." Aiden nodded, "I hear you got experience making supply runs."

"I saw your pantry. You guys seem to do pretty well." Glenn stated,

"Yeah, well, had some training before this. ROTC. Was nearing lieutenant when this shit blew in." Aiden explained,

"My dad did ROTC." Noah commented, 

Vivian gave him a comforting squeeze. She knew family was a sensitive subject for him since Richmond. Since Tyreese.

"He didn't make it?" Aiden asked,

Noah shook his head, "Nah."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry a lot these days." Aiden cleared his throat before walking towards the gates, "Come on, I'll show you the ropes."

Tara shared a look with the others, "We're doing a run today?"

"Just a dry run." He explained to them, "Show you the terrain outside the walls, see how you do. Weigh each other's sack a little, you know?"

Tara raised her eyebrows, "No, I don't, but cool."

Vivian smiled and bumped shoulders with her before asking, "What about weapons?" They took their guns when they walked through the gates. Vivian wasn't going out there without something to protect herself,

"Oh, yeah. We pulled out some sweet-ass biscuits for today." Aiden pointed to Nicholas, who pulled out a few pistols.

Vivian stared down at the hand gun, wishing it was hers. Instead, it was some random gun they pulled from the pantry. 

The two of them led them out into the woods, "We've been increasing our radius mile by mile, spreading in a semicircle around the town."

"We've made it 53 miles out so far." Nicholas started,

"We break into two groups when we step outside our vehicle." Aiden explained, "If shit hits, we fire a flare. One group gets the other."

"Good system." Noah commented,

"It is. Still, you're standing here because we lost four people last month." Aiden added.

Vivan exchanged looks with the others, four people? That was a lot. Either they were dumb and dangerous or it was a really big herd that they couldn't escape from.

"What happened?" Glenn asked,

"We were on a run, roamers came out, they didn't follow the system." He answered,

"They were good people." Nicholas added,

"They were." The other man agreed, "They were just scared." He turned to the four of them, "Look, I can be a hard-ass. And I know I'm a douchebag. Someone's got to call the ball around here and that someone is me. If you're on this crew, you do exactly as I say."

"Sorry you lost your people." Tara spoke up,

"Yeah. We got ours." Vivian furrowed her brows, trying to understand what he meant by that before Nicholas spoke,