THE MASQUERADE BALL-141
"Whatcha doing, Aunt Carol?" Carl asked, startling his aunt who was hiding behind a sigh, looking at something. "Are you playing hid and seek?"
Aunt Carol glanced at him before looking back at two people standing on a porch. "More like spying."
"Oh. Is it good spying or bad spying?" The boy asked, looking where his aunt was watching a woman in a pink dress and the man who came to his home, Carl couldn't remember his name. "Because you shouldn't do bad spying. It's not nice."
"It's good spying." Aunt Carol lied, watching Hornsby throw away a box. She hurried over to the trash can and looked inside as Carl climbed onto it and also looked inside.
"Ew." He muttered, shivering in disgust. "Why are we lookin' in a trash bin?"
Aunt Carol reached and pulled out a bottle causing a reddish-purplish liquid to spill out. "Hornsby throw this away."
"Why? What is it?" Carl asked, hopping off the trash can.
"He needs it for the party that they're hosting tonight and it's a drink you can't have." She explained, putting down the bottle and walked away with him following.
"Where we going?" He grabbed her hand as they walked down the street.
"I'm gonna get on his good side." She answered.
"Why?" He asked for the eighth time.
Aunt Carol looked down at him with a bit of an annoyed expression, yet had a smile on her lip. "You ask a lot of questions."
Carl looked up at her with a smile. "I know."
The woman shook her head as they got to a shop with a name Carl couldn't read but his aunt could. Vincenti's Fine Wine. Carol looked around before she opened the door and ushered her nephew in quickly. "Don't touch anything."
Carl nodded, looking around at the dusty old shop as his aunt went behind the counter. She picked up a set of papers and started reading them. "Gotcha."
After getting out of the shop, Aunt Carol told him to go look for his sister and headed off somewhere. He didn't listen and followed after a bit behind her, where she led them to a house outside the community's gates.
Carl's heart pounded in his chest, jogging to catch up to his aunt as she walked into the house. He followed her inside and down into the cellar where he stayed on the stairs as she looked around. Aunt Carol was looking at the bottle on a rack when a monster growled and reached out for her from behind the shelf.
He flinched when the shelf fell taking the monster with it. His aunt stabbed it in the head before she was blindsided by two more. Carl shot out of his hiding place and over to one of the monsters and pushed it backward with everything he had in his tiny body.
"Get away from her!" He yelled as the unstable monster stumbled backward.
"Carl!" Aunt Carol shouted, hurrying over to him and pushing the monster away, shoving it into one of the shelves and stabbing it in the head. She rounded him with an angry expression. "What are you doing here—"
The woman was tackled by the other monster and fell to the ground. Her knife was knocked out of her hand, causing her to use her hands to keep the Walker from biting her. Carl made a split decision and picked up her knife and stabbed the monster in the head.
He immediately dropped the knife as his aunt pushed the monster off her before standing up. "I told you to stay—Carl, hey, it's alright."
The little boy had tears running down his face, his whole body shaking and his hands covered his ears as he repeated 'I'm sorry' over and over again. Carol immediately took him in her arms, hugging the boy tightly.
"It's okay, Carl. Shh, it's alright, take a breath." He didn't seem to hear her as she tried to pull his hands away from his ears. "C, look at me. Hey, it's alright, baby boy. I'm here. I'm here."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He whimpered, clutching his ears.
"I know, you are. I'm not mad." Carol tried to console him by running his back and muttering comforting words. When he was calmer than before, she managed to pull his hands from his ears. "It's okay, Carl. I'm not mad."
"I'm sorry, aunt Carol. I wanted to be brave like sissy and Maxie and Daddy." Carl confessed, hugging his aunt like a lifeline. "I'm not."
Carol smoothed back his curls, pressing her lips to his head. "You are. Just in your own way. But I don't want you to follow me out of the gates again. Okay?"
"Okay." He nodded as she picked him up.
***
Max followed Mercer and the Governor of Commonwealth's son, Sebastian Milton, who was a preppy poster boy and an entitled pain in the ass. He carried a bag filled with weapons while his dad carried the other one.
Rosita, Violet, Alice, and surprisingly Sally walked up behind him causing Mercer to turn around and say. "Espinosa, Dyer, Jackson, Allen, we don't need you for this."
The four women shared a look before Sally spoke. "We volunteered."
Before Mercer could speak, Sebastian smirked at the woman. "Give her a bag. I love volunteers. Especially ones that look like that."
Without seeing Sally's full face, you could tell that she looked disgusted and spoke in a language nobody could understand. "Vous êtes un cochon." (You are a pig)
She took the bag out of Max's hand and walked over to the table, tossing the bag onto it. Max watched as she opened the bag to reveal weapons, more like their weapons.
"Alright. Let's see that Santa brought me." Sebastian says as Daryl scoffed.
"This supposed to be funny?" He sneered, looking at Mercer.
"He gets the newest ones for his drills." The man replied as Sebastian shuffled through the bags.
"Advanced military training, Mercer." The boy spat, glaring at the dark-skinned man.
Mercer's lip curled as he corrected himself. "Advanced military training."
Sebastian looked through the weapons before picking up Judith's katana, making Daryl say. "Hey, careful with that one."
"This toothpick?" The boy looked at him before tossing it aside. "Yeah, it's not worth my time. Neither is this one." He picked up Cassie's bow and tossed it near the katana.
Max placed his hand on his dad's shoulder as anger and annoyance grew on Daryl's face. Sebastian then proceeded to try all the weapons before picking up Violet's sword and whistling.
"Look at this!"
He swung the sword, wildly and without any care causing him to lose his grip several times and dropped it. Violet pressed her lips into a thin line and closed her eyes, trying to hold her anger in.
"Alright. Release the rotters." Sebastian order Mercer, who seemed to hold back an eye roll.
"With me," Mercer said, causing the four women and the Dixons to follow him. "Two at a time, on my count. Three, two, one."
Alice and Rosita pulled out the container and let out two walkers, before closing it again. Max watched as the older boy took at the first pretty easily before the second one came and he stabbed it in the neck, shrugging with it.
Max noticed Govonor Pamela Miltion coming back from what looked like a hunting trip with serval of the mercers and standing at the end of the path, watching her son wrestle with the walker. Daryl picked up his crossbow and shot the walker, causing it to fall on the ground and Sebastian to look at his dad with anger.
"Why did you do that? You--" He cut himself off and stormed over to Mercer. "Are you serious? This is the future soldier of the Commonwealth?"
Sebastian stopped when he caught sight of his mother who looked at him disappointed and walked away. He pressed his lips and glanced at Mercer before following his mother, shoving his shoulder into Max's as he walked passed. The four women and the Dixons looked at each other with the same expression before Max and Daryl started to clean up the weapons.
"You shouldn't have intervened. He wouldn't been fine." Mercer says.
"Did I fail another team-building exercise?" Daryl grunted, zipping up a bag.
"You're used to handling things on your own. I get that. But that's not now it works around here. Sometimes we have to set each other up to win." The dark skinned man replied.
"What does that have to do with that little prick's ego?"
"This place...is as good as anything I've seen. It'll give you a decent life if you can cut it. And I want you to succeed. But you gotta get out of your own damn way."
***
Cassie was laying on the makeshift bed in their apartment, waiting for her dad to get home from work. RJ, Carl, and Judith were coloring when the door opened, revealing her dad who was holding containers of food.
Her siblings started to eat some of the food while she didn't move from her position causing her dad to say. "Come on, Cas, eat up." She did what she was told, grabbing a plate of food from Judith. "How was your day?"
"What?" Judith asked, she couldn't hear over the loud music and shouting coming through the walls.
"How was your day?" He repeated louder.
"It was great." The youngest Grimes girl says. "Cassie and I made a new friend."
"Oh, yeah." Daryl hummed, glancing at his daughter who was uncharacteristically quiet.
Judith pulled out the record she got. "She got me a record. You ever heard of Motörhead?"
"That's good stuff. What about you, Cas?" He asked his daughter as he motioned for his dog to come to him.
Cassie didn't respond for a moment before she said quietly. "Harry got me a record too."
"What record?"
She leant back, grabbing her record and showed her father. "Tears for Fears."
Pain flashed in his face as Daryl pushing Dog away from the food. "That's was your mom's favorite band."
"Really?" Cassie put down the record and started eating.
"Yeah, told me it after she would sing it on the supplies runs we did." Daryl answered, helping his son plate some food. "Everybody wants to rule the world was her favorite song."
Cassie smiled as she looked on the back of the record and saw the songs list. "It has it on here. But we don't have a way to listen to it."
"That's what I wanted to ask." Judith says. "Can Cas and I get an allowance?"
"Can we wait a little while til my job settles? Then we'll talk about it again?"
"So, we can stay?" She asked.
"You wanna stay? Even after Alexandria is all cleaned up!"
RJ and Carl perked up and said together. "We do!"
"Yeah?"
"It's nice." Jude says.
Cassie looked down at her food. "I don't."
Daryl looked at her. "Why not?"
"What if all this is too good to be true? It's too nice. I just don't have a good feeling about this place." She explained, pushing her food around on her plate. "What if mom, grandpa, and Mich comes back home and we're not there?"
"Well, whoever is still at Alexandria will tell them where we are, Cassie." Jude tried to reassure her. "They will find us. And I want to stay."
Cassie didn't look up from her plate as they eat their dinner before she pushed her own plate away and crawled onto the bed again and laid, facing the wall.
***
Max stood next to Rosita and across from Alice and his dad, each other them wearing their best looking shirts. Sally stood a couple of stairs down from them and was standing across from Violet and the male Dyer who looked to be in a conversation.
Sebastian walked up the stairs after a few important people before he stood in front of Daryl with a tight lipped smiled and fixed his collar. When the boy disappeared inside, Max rubbed a hand over his mouth to hid a amused smile as Rosita says.
"Wow. He hates you. That was a hate smile."
The crowd stared to cheer as Hornsby started up the stairs who through the cheer were for him, but instead they were for Mercer who came behind him. The man was stopped by Princess who started to talk with him, before Mercer opened up the red rope and let the woman in.
"Name?" The bouncer asked, looking at Princess up and down.
"She's with me." Mercer says, standing beside her.
The bouncer looked at Mercer with a incredulous look and said with a snark. "There's a dress code."
Mercer didn't say any more, just holding out his arm for Princess and led her inside the place. Once all the important people were inside, Max and Rosita spilt from Alice and his dad walking around the outer circle of the party.
As Pamela started her speech, Alice walked a few paces behind Daryl when she bumped into someone and immediately apologized. "Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't—" her mouth fell out and her eyes widen at the person standing beside her. "Hudson?"
Her brother smiled as she throw herself in his arms. "Hey, baby sis."
"I didn't recognize you before." She muttered into his shoulder. "I thought I lost you. You never come back."
"I know." Hudson replied, placing her on her feet. "I taken by these people. They wouldn't let me go, no matter what I tried. I'm sorry, baby sis."
Alice wiped a stray tear that escaped. "It's okay. I'm just glad you're back."
"Hey, baby Dixon over there is staring at us." Her brother pointed to Max, who was frowning at them.
"He's my brother." She sighed, nonchalantly.
Max furrowed his brows in confusion. "What?"
"I'll tell you later." She replied before switching to speak for her brother. "His name is Max and he's my boyfriend."
Hudson's brows shot up. "Boyfriend?"
"Yes, boyfriend. Don't go all protective big brother on me." Alice dismissed him before she hurried over to Daryl.
"I wasn't." He defended himself.
"Sure, whatever you say."
Max looked away from his girlfriend and the tall red haired mama who is apparently her brother as jumped when a hand laid on his shoulder. "She's right, you know."
"Huh?" He turned to Sally who moved to stand next to him.
"You're girlfriend. That's her brother, Hudson." Sally says, lacing her fingers in front her. "I can read sigh language, by the way."
"Oh, um, thanks." He said, awkwardly. He glanced at her bandaged left arm. "You okay?"
Sally nodded as they walked. "Yeah, it's just an old wound. It's nothing—"
The woman was cut off by a man slamming down glass and shouting. "Billshit! This is bullshit!"
"Sir, that's enough—" The Governor's assistant tried to say but the man cut her off.
"Does anyone here really believe the Commonwealth cares for all its citizens? Do you know who I am?" He walked through the crowd and pointed at Pamela.
"Sir, this isn't the time. You need to stop." The assistant says before she was pulled into the man's arms with a knife pressed against her neck.
Max, Rosita, and Sally moved closer the screen as his dad, Alice, Violet, and Hudson did. The man shouts. "Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer' I just want to talk. Will you please just talk to me? I would've died for this place. What's my name?"
"I don't know. But I'd like to." Pamela spoke.
"Tyler Davis. I was a trooper. I tried, and I tied to reach you. One mistake and I lost everything. I came here to talk to you, to make you listen."
"Tyler. I want to listen." The woman says. "Let's talk, just the two of us—"
"Don't lie!" Tyler yelled. "This is what you care about. Fancy parties and paintings." He used his knife to slice the painting. "Not people like me. We're nothing to you. Disposable."
Pamela stepped towards him. "You're wrong, Tyler. I see you. I see you're hurting, and I want to fix that. But first, you have to promise not to hurt anyone else. Please put don't the knife...and let my assistant go. Her name is Maxxine."
Maxxine whimpered as Tyler started moving backwards towards the red curtain, causing Mercer to move towards him. He let Maxxine go, she fell to floor as Tyler fled. Daryl hurried after the man with Sally hot on his heels.
The pair hurried outside and caught a glimpse of Tyler running into the haunted house. Sally and Daryl ran over to it, headed inside and searched the place. Halfway through the house, they found Tyler who was boxes himself in a corner.
"You have nowhere to go." Daryl says.
"You two taking me in?" Tyler asked, looking between the pair.
"You gonna give us a choice?"
Tyler let out a sob and throw up his hands. "Shit, I didn't mean to—I just wanted to talk to her. To get her to understand. But that was never gonna happen."
"No!" Sally shouted as the man went to slice his throat open. "Please, don't do that."
"I screwed up protocols with a prisoner. I got beat up. Lost my apartment, my spending card...I have no way to help my sister or kids."
"You got a sister?" The woman asked, taking a cautious step towards the man. "Which means you've got a family. A lot of people don't have that anymore, myself included. You shouldn't take that away from her. It's not fair. Now give me knife."
Tyler nodded, his chin wobbled violently as he gave the knife to Sally. Daryl motioned for the man to turn around so he can cuff him. The woman felt sorry for Tyler as they walked towards the door but then was stopped by Sebastian.
"You caught the bastard." The boy says, leaning against doorframe, smugly. "Finally did something right."
"No." Daryl says, pushing Tyler towards Sebastian. "No, you caught him. Go ahead. Take him to your mom."
"Why did you do that?" Sally asked, standing next to the redneck after Sebastian.
"Stroke his ego a bit. Might help improve the little prick's ability to like me." The redneck answered, looking at the woman. He couldn't see her face fully, but there was something about her eyes that seemed to be familiar.
Sally nodded in understanding. "A bit of self preservation."
Daryl analyzes her for moment before following after Sebastian. "Exactly."