COLLAPSED ᵀᵂᴰ¹ ✔

84. judge, jury, executioner

'Maggie's with Deanna right now,' Glenn added, 'she's gonna try and find out what it is.'

'At the meeting you say you were worried about someone being abused and no one was doing anything about it,' Carol said, her gaze focused on Rick. 'You say you took a gun just to be sure that Jessie was safe from a man who wound up attacking you. You say you'll do whatever you want them to. Just tell them a story that they want to hear. It's what I've been doing since I got here.'

He turned to look at her while he crossed his arms over his chest, confusion waving through him. It hadn't go unnoticed by him that Carol dressed in the most ridiculous clothes or that she was being friendly with the people of Alexandria but he hadn't thought any of that to be just a story she wanted to sell.

'Why?' Michonne asked, not seeming able to grasp it either.

'Because these people are children,' Carol replied. 'And children like stories.'

'What happens after all the nice words and they still wanna kick him out?' Abraham questioned.

'They're guarding the armory now,' Glenn weighed in.

'We still have knives,' Carol replied, 'that's all we'll need against these people.'

Her words were true but didn't make Milo feel any better. All he had tried to do since he got here was make peace with these people. He tried to bring their two groups together because if they wanted to survive, they had to work together, as a community. And now it just felt like it was all slipping through his fingers.

Rick sighed deeply and then spoke up. 'Well, tonight at the meeting, if it looks like it's going bad, I whistle. Carol grabs Deanna, I take Spencer.' He pointed at Michonne. 'You grab Reg, Glenn, Abraham and Milo cover us, watch the crowd.'

'We can talk to them,' Michonne protested, her voice stern while her usual deadly scowl was painted on her face.

'Yeah, we will,' Rick countered, clearly not intimidated by her. 'If we can't get through, we take the three of them and say we'll slit their throats.'

Milo felt himself tensing up at those words, flashes of his blood stained hands and bodies covering the church floor bounched through his head. The words he spoke next barely made it out of his throat: 'Like at Terminus?'

Rick turned his eyes towards him and his gaze softened a little bit. 'No, we'll just tell 'em. They give us the armory and it's over.'

Silence filled the room as everyone played out the scene in their heads, knowing that it wouldn't be as easy as Rick was describing it to them now.

'Did you want this?' Glenn finally questioned softly, his eyes looking infinitely sad for his friend, so hardened by the world.

'No,' Rick spoke firmly but it was getting harder for Milo to believe him with each passing hour. 'I hit my limit,' the man continued, 'I screwed up. And here we are.' He looked around and then shifted on the matress, laying down on his side. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm just gonna sleep some more.'

He shared a small glare with Glenn before following the rest of the group out the door. It was hard to find words but even harder to say nothing at all. He wanted this place to work, with every bone in his body he wished for it but finding it, after having to live without it for so long, turned out to be a lot harder than he could ever had imagined.

'I'm gonna find Maggie,' Glenn said to him, 'see how things went with Deanna.'

Nodding he walked after him. 'I'll go with you,' he replied. He couldn't sit around and do nothing for the next few hours.