Daryls Sister {Book One}

97

We were all soon awake and I was playing with Judith while Rick was with Carl, watching.

"Where are you Judith? Where'd my Judith go?" I said, covering my face with my hands. She made a little happy noise and I opened my hands. "Peek-a-boo." I said, making her giggle. "You're such a cutie pie Judith. You stole everyone's heart, you know that?" I asked, with her grabbing my fingers and started playing with them. "You love my fingers, don't you?" I asked, laughing.

"Hey!" We heard Maggie yell. We all turned to see her opening the barn doors. "Everyone...this is Aaron." She introduced him. I stood up holding Judith while everyone else was aiming their guns at him. "We met him outside. He's by himself." Maggie told us. "We took his weapons and we took his gear." She said, while Daryl searched him.

"Hi." Aaron said, looking at us. Judith started crying and I started bouncing her up and down to calm her down a bit. "It's nice to meet you." Aaron said.

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asked Maggie. She walked over and handed it to Rick. He took the bullets out and put the gun in the back of his pants. "There something you need?" He asked Aaron.

"He has a camp nearby." Sasha said. "He wants us to audition for membership." She added.

"I wish there was another word." Aaron said. "Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of dance troupe." He said. "That's only on Friday nights." He added. "And it's not a camp. It's a community. I think you all will make valuable additions. But it's not my call." He said. "My job is to convince you to follow me back home. I know. If I were you, I wouldn't go either." He said. "At least not until I knew what I was getting myself into exactly. Sasha, can you hand Rick my bag?" He asked her.

Sasha thought about it at first before giving Rick the bag.

"Front pocket, there's an envelope. There's no way I could convince you all to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those. I apologize in advance for the picture quality, we just found an old camera store last-" He said, before Daryl interrupted him.

"We don't give a shit." Daryl said.

"You're one-hundred percent right." Aaron said, looking at Daryl then back at Rick. "That's the first picture I wanted to show you because nothing I say about our community will matter unless you know you'll be safe. If you join us, you will be. Each panel in the wall is a 15-foot high, 12-foot wide slab of solid steel framed by cold-rolled steel beams and square tubing." He told us. "Nothing alive or dead gets through that gate without our say-so." He added. "Like I said, security is obviously important. In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival which is the people. Together we're strong. You can make us even more stronger." He told us.

I feel like the community will be safe for all of us and safe for when I go into labor but what Rick says, we do.

"The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construc-" He began to say as Rick made his way over to him then punched him across the face, most likely knocking him out which took us all by surprise.

"So we're clear. That look wasn't a let's attack that man look. It was a he seems like an okay guy to me look." Michonne said. I was still shocked at what happened to even say anything.

"We got to secure him. Dump his pack." Rick said. "We need to see who this guy really is." He added.

"Rick." Michonne said.

"Everybody else, we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us. We might not know how or when, but they are." Rick said.

"Me and Sasha didn't see him. If he wanted to hurt us, he could've." Maggie said.