"How far out?" Rick asked Noah, who leaned over to check.
"Five miles," he said.
Rick used his walkie to call back to the others. "Hey, Carol," he said.
"I'm here," Carol answered, voice filled with static over the walkie.
"We're halfway there. Just wanted to check the range."
"Everybody's holding tight," Carol said. "We've made it five-hundred miles. Maybe this can be the easy part."
"Got to think we're due," Rick replied. "Give us twenty minutes to check in."
"We don't hear from you, we'll come looking."
"Copy that."
He turned off the walkie, returning it to his lap. Noah looked at Tyreese. "I've been wanting to tell you something," he said.
"What's that?" Tyreese answered.
"The trade. It was the right play. It worked. It did work. Just something else happened after."
"It went the way it had to. The way it was always going to."
Noah looked back outside, staring at the road. "I never wanted to kill anybody before," he said.
"I've wanted that," Tyreese answered. "But it just made it so I didn't see anything except what I wanted. I wasn't facing it."
"Facing what?" Noah asked.
"What happened, what's going on," Tyreese said. "My dad always told Sasha and me that it was our duty as citizens of the world to keep up with the news. When I was little and I was in his car, there were always those stories on the radio. Something happens a thousand miles away or down the block. Some kind of horror I couldn't even wrap my head around. But he didn't change the channel. He didn't turn it off. He just kept listening." He glanced at Noah. "To face it. Keeping your eyes open. My dad always called that paying the high cost of living."
"I lost my dad in Atlanta," Noah said. "I think he would have liked yours. Still got a mom and a couple of twin brothers. I hope."
"I hope so, too," Tyreese said.
Noah looked at Rick. "Two more miles," he said.
"All right," Rick said with a nod. He patted Tyreese on the back. "Let's pull into the woods. We'll go on foot. Stay off the road."
"We don't need to," Noah pointed out.
Rick shrugged. "Just in case."
Adalyn glanced at Glenn, who held a CD in his hands. She watched him slowly bend it in half, snapping it into pieces. She didn't ask questions.
They piled out of the van. Adalyn's hand fell to her gun, a precaution. Rick looked back at the van. "This is good," he said. "Through the trees, it might just look like part of the wreck."
Adalyn jumped at the sound of a biter growling. Everyone's eyes fell to a sedan, where a biter hit at the window, trying to get at them.
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