digging graves// rick grimes x OC//

Vatos Part 2

Winona wakes up in an unfamiliar place, her head pounding, she notices she's tied up, "Hey! What the hell is going on?! Where's Glenn?! Where's my group?!" She starts thrashing against the rope that ties her.
A man walks in, "Woah lady. Chill out. If you're so worried about the asian, he's fine. He's over there." The man says, pointing over his shoulder where Winona could see Glenn in a similar situation with his mouth duct-taped. "However, your group, that's something I have no clue about. If they were smart they'd bring us the guns, so we can protect our people. They also have one of my men." He goes over and pulls out duct-tape, she tries to pull away, but he holds her head so he can tape her mouth shut. She watches as a different man puts a bag over Glenn's head and then the man puts one over her too. She tries to scream but the tape muffles the sound.
Winona hears the man walk away and doors open. Hearing the conversation from the room, the man begins to talk, "You okay, little man?"
"They're gonna cut off my feet, Carnal."
"𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲," Winona thinks.
"Cops do that?" Her captor, she assumes is the boss, asks.
"𝐇𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐤."
"Not him. This redneck puto here," the teen corrects, "He cut off some dude's hand, man. He showed it to me."
Winona chuckles but it comes out muffled from the tape, "𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐥'𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐨, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐝. 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐓-𝐃𝐨𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡?"
"Shut up," Daryl says.
"Hey, that's the vato right there, Homes. He shot me in the ass with an arrow. What's up, Homes, huh?" She laughs yet again.
"Chill, ese, chill. Chill. This true? He wants Miguelito's feet? That's pretty sick, man," the leader asks.
"We were hoping more for a calm discussion." Winona hears Rick's voice.
"That hillybilly jumps Felipe's little cousin, beats on him, threatens to cut off his feet, Felipe gets an arrow in the ass and you want a calm discussion? You fascinate me." She scoffs hearing this.
"Heat of the moment. Mistakes were made on both sides."
"Who's that dude to you anyway? You don't look related."
"He's apart of our group, more or less. I'm sure you have a few like him."
"You got my brother in there?" Daryl questions.
"Sorry we're fresh out of white boys. But I've got an asian, and a real pretty lady. You interested?"
"I have one of yours, you have two of mine, both of which didn't do anything to hurt your men. Sounds like an even trade."
"Doesn't sound even to me."
"G. Come on, man," the boy starts to plead.
"My people got attacked. Where's the compensation for their pain and suffering? More to the point, where's my bag of guns?"
"Guns?"
"The bag Miguel saw in the street. The bag Felipe and Jorge were going back to get. That bag of guns."
"You're mistaken."
"I don't think so."
"About it being yours. It's my bag of guns."
"The bag was in the street. Anybody could come around and say it was theirs. I'm supposed to to take your word? What's to stop my people from unloading on you right here and now and I take what's mine?" Winona hears multiple guns cock.
"You could do that. Or not."
"𝐀𝐡 𝐬𝐨 𝐓-𝐃𝐨𝐠 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐚 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐮𝐩 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠," Winona realizes after Rick's pause. All of a sudden she's grabbed and slung over a shoulder and taken up to the roof. Hitting the back of the man who was carrying her.
"Oye." She hears Glenn struggling and the man carry her puts her down close to the edge. She starts to thrash, too, trying to get away. The captors rip the bag off of her head and she looks to see Glenn next to her and her group below her. Glenn starts to whimper, obviously scared. She sees Rick and tears start to well-up in her eyes, thinking she might die as they push her closer to the ledge.
The leader, G, starts to speak, "I see two options. You come back with Miguel and my bag of guns, everybody walks. Or you come back locked and loaded, we'll see which side spills more blood." Winona watches as G walks back inside and her group lowers their weapons. The door shuts and Rick gives one last look to Winona before her and Glenn are taken away, she thrashes against the men and tries to yell for Rick, but it's silenced from the strip of tape across her lips.
——
As the two are taken back inside, G comes over to them. "I'm sorry about this," he says taking the tape off and untying the two, "I had to scare them into giving us those guns. Here follow me." He grabs the backpack Winona had on her and her axe. She hesitantly gets up and Glenn does too.
G starts to lead them out of the warehouse and to a small nursing home, "We have a lot of elderly here that we want to protect and some are family to my men. We need guns in order to keep them safe." He turns to Winona, "When you were knocked out, my men went through your bag of medical supplies, and we were hoping if you could help us out, assuming you were in the medical field."
She sighs, "I am. I was a nurse before all this apocalypse shit happened. What's wrong?"
"Our one patient, Mr. Stevens, has a wound that won't close and Felipe can't stitch him."
"Well lucky for you, I'm a pro at closing wounds, I've had practice with that cop that was just here. He's a close friend and was my patient at the start of this shit show. He kept reopening his wound when he woke up from his coma, so I had to keep closing it." She chuckles, reminiscing, "Lead the way." G leads them to a room with an elderly man that had gauze wrapped around his leg. Winona was getting weary that it was a bite.
"Relax it's not a bite, Mr. Stevens tripped and landed on some metal that ended up cutting his leg up pretty badly."
Winona nods and goes over to the man, grabbing her bag. Glenn watches. "Hi Mr. Stevens, I'm Nurse Graves and I'll be taking care of you for today." She opens her bag and grabs out some gloves, putting them on she unwraps his leg and realizes he needs stitches. She turns to G, "You're right, he's gonna need stitched up." She looks to Glenn, "Can you grab the hydrogen peroxide along with the first aid kit in my bag? It should have what I need."
Glenn nods, "Aye aye, Doc." He goes over and pulls out the kit, finding the suture needle and the thread with it. He digs and sees she picked up his shirt and smiles. Finally he finds the hydrogen peroxide, handing it to her he says, "You know, I think Daryl was right." She looks at him confused. "You do have a ton of junk in there."
She swats at him but he backs up and she rolls her eyes, "Yeah yeah whatever. Now let me stitch this poor man up." She turns to Mr. Stevens, "This may hurt a bit, but it should be over quickly." The old man nods. Sterilizing the needle, and cleaning the wound, she begins to close the injury. Glenn and G watch in awe. Soon enough she finishes, wrapping the leg with gauze, and taking her gloves off, she turns to G, "You're gonna want to change that dressing everyday or else you'll end up with a pretty rank infection. I'll give you some of my gauze but you'll have to supply your own after it runs out."
G shakes her hand, "Thank you, I really appreciate this. I was getting worried for Mr. Stevens."
"It's no problem."
G leads them to the main room, Glenn nudging her shoulder, "Look at you, Dr. Graves." He says making Winona laugh.
"I was just doing my job." G introduces them to multiple people, and he shows them the chihuahuas as well. Winona getting excited over the dogs, she rushes over to pet them. G leaves the two and heads to make sure the rest of his base was safe. She also ends up taking care of Felipe's arrow-shot ass, making jokes about it while stitching it.
——
Back at the lab, Rick sets the bag of guns on the desk and starts to go through them. Daryl speaks up, "Them guns are worth more that gold. Gold won't protect your family or put food on the table. You willing to give that up for the kid and the girl?"
"If I knew we'd get them back, I might agree. But you think that vato across the way is just gonna hand them over?" T-Dog brings up.
"You calling G a liar?" Miguel defends.
"Are you a part of this? You want to hold onto your teeth?" Daryl shouts at the boy.
T-Dog turns back to Rick, "Question is, do you trust that man's word?"
"No question is what are you willing to bet on it? Could be more than guns. Could be your life. Glenn worth that to you? Winona worth that to you?" Daryl asks.
Rick puts his gun away, "What life I have I owe to them. Winona stayed back at the hospital to make sure I stayed alive, she sent her own fiancé away to make sure my family would be taken care of. She could've been selfish and left me behind, but she didn't. I was a nobody to Glenn, just some idiot stuck in a tank. He could've walked away, but he didn't. Neither will I."
"So you're gonna hand the guns over?"
"I didn't say that. There's nothing keeping you two here. You should get out, head back to camp."
"And tell your family what?" T-Dog says.
Rick looks at him then Daryl, Daryl nods, "Winona made sure I was alright, I guess I'll return the favor, don't want any debts, ya know?"
Rick starts to hand out guns, Miguel stands up, "Come on, this is nuts." Daryl pushes him back down, "Just do like G says." They ignore him and load the weapons.
——
They tie a cloth around Miguel's mouth and lead him with a gun against his back. G's group opens the door and Daryl pushes Miguel inside, walking in behind him. Rick and T-Dog follow inside. G walks up, "I see my guns but they're not all in the bag."
"That's because they're not yours. I thought I mentioned that."
"Let's just shoot these fools right now, ese. All right? Unload on their asses, ese," Felipe pipes in.
"I don't think you fully appreciate the gravity of the situation."
"No I'm pretty clear," Rick says cutting Miguel's bonds and pushing him forward. "You have your man. I want mine."
"I'm gonna chop up your boy. I'm gonna feed them to my dogs. They're the evilest, nastiest man-eating bitches you ever saw. I picked them up from Satan at a yard sale. I might keep the pretty lady around, she could come in handy. I told you how it has to be. Are you woefully deaf?"
"No, my hearing's fine. You said come locked and loaded." He cocks his gun, everyone else does too, "Okay then, we're here."
"Felipe! Felipe!" An older woman calls.
"Abuela, go back with the others— now," Felipe commands.
"Get that old lady out of the line of fire!" Daryl shouts.
"Abuela, listen to your mijo, okay? This is not the place for you right now," G says.
"Mr. Gilbert is having trouble breathing. He needs his asthma stuff. Carlito couldn't find it. He needs his medicine," she pleads to Felipe.
"Felipe, go take care of it, okay? And take your grandmother with you." Felipe starts to speak in Spanish to his grandmother.
She points at Rick's group, "Who are those men?" She starts to step forward ignoring her grandson's protests, "Don't you take him." She goes up to Rick.
"Ma'am?" He asks.
"Felipe's a good boy. He have his trouble but he pull himself together. We need him here."
"Ma'am, I'm not here to arrest your grandson."
"Then what do you want him for?"
"He's... helping us find some missing people. A fella named Glenn and a lady named Winona."
"The asian boy and the pretty nurse?" They're with Mr. Gilbert. Come. Come, I show you. He needs his medicine."
The old woman starts to lead them through G's group, "Let 'em pass." He tells his men.
The old lady holds Rick's hand as she leads them throughout the warehouse and into the nursing home. Felipe comes up, "Abuela, por favor. Take me to him." Rick sees people taking care of the elderly and the windows boarded up to keep the walkers out. They continue to follow the old woman down the hallway into a large room. Rick sees a group crowding around a man and Felipe.
"Alright. Alright. Nice and easy. Just breathe." Rick hears a familiar voice tell the old man as Felipe gives him the inhaler, he recognizes it as Winona.
He spots Glenn, who's standing next to her, "What the hell is this?"
"An asthma attack," he replies, "Couldn't get his breath all of a sudden." Winona hears Rick and she runs over and gives each of them hugs, ignoring Daryl's protests.
T-Dog starts to speak, "I thought you guys were being eaten by dogs, man." Winona laughs and Glenn glances to the chihuahuas behind them. They start to bark.
Rick turns to G, "Can I have a word with you? You're the dumbest son of a bitch I ever met," he says walking away from the group. "We walked in there ready to kill every last one of you."
"Well I'm glad it didn't go down that way."
"If it had, that blood would be on my hands."
"Mine too. We'd have fought back. Wouldn't even the first time we've had to. Protect the food, the medicine— what's left of it. These people, the old ones— the staff took off, just left 'em here to die." Rick looks around the room, "Me and Felipe were the only ones who stayed."
"What are you, doctors?"
"Felipe's a nurse— a special care provider. Me, I'm the custodian." G leads Rick and his group into a different room.
"What about the rest of your crew?" Rick asks.
"The vatos trickle in to check on their parents, their grandparents. They see how things are and most decide to stay. It's a good thing too. We need the muscle. The people we've encountered since things fell apart, the worst kind— plunderers, the kind that take by force."
"That's not who we are," Rick defends.
"How was I to know? My people got attacked and you show up with Miguel hostage— appearances."
"Guess the world changed," T-Dog states.
"No. It's the same as it ever was. The weak get taken. So we do what we can here. The vatos work on those cars, talk about getting the old people out of the city. But most of them can't even get to the bathroom by themselves, so that's just a dream. Still, it keeps the crew busy, and that's worth something. So we barred all the windows, welded all the doors shut except for one entrance. The vatos, they go out, scavenge what they can to keep us going. We watch the perimeter night and day and we wait. The people here, they all look to me now. I don't even know why."
"Because they can." Rick hands G the gun he was holding, and begins to give a few more over.
——
Walking back to the van, Glenn begins to talk, "Admit it, you only came back to Atlanta for the hat."
"I agree, he definitely just wanted his hat back," Winona says smirking.
"Don't tell anybody," Rick chuckles.
"You've give away half our guns and ammo," Daryl cuts in.
"Not nearly half," Rick argues.
"For what? Bunch of old farts who are gonna die off momentarily anyhow? Seriously, how long you think they got?"
"How long do any of us?" Glenn says, solemn.
They stop and look to see where the van is parked, "Oh my God," Winona says.
"Where the hell's our van?" Daryl asks.
"We left it right there. Who would take it?"
"Merle," Rick states.
"He's gonna be taking some vengeance back to camp."
"Ah great, that means we're walking, right?" Winona sighs.
"Yep. Sorry, Graves," Rick says.
——
The group of five are still on the long walk back to the camp. Winona notices it's getting darker, "Guys, it's starting to get dark, should we stop and continue on in the morning?"
T-Dog looks at her, "With what shelter? We'll be sitting ducks for the geeks if we stay the night."
"Yeah, you're right. We should probably hurry, the others are probably getting worried." Rick nods and they quicken their pace.
They start jogging up the mountain that the camp was on. However, they freeze when they hear gunshots and screams. Rick realizes it's the camp, "Oh my God." He starts to run, fearing for his family, "Go! Go!"
Reaching the campsite, the group sees the chaos and disarray it was in. There were walkers everywhere. They all join in with killing the undead. Winona hears Shane yelling orders, "Come on, make your way up here!" Winona follows the group, shooting any walker in front of her.
When she sees Glenn about to get attacked she shoots the culprit, he turns around to say thank you but suddenly he shouts, "BEHIND YOU!"
Whipping around she sees a walker about to bite her, she holds it back but she's out of ammo and her axe is too long for how close the walker was. She could only get the handle of the axe between the mouth of the walker to keep it from biting her. Winona glances back to Glenn but sees him fighting a walker of his own, she begins to worry. Catching a glimpse of Rick, she call outs, "RICK!! HELP!"
He hears her pleas and quickly rushes over, throwing the walker off her and shooting it. He begins to check her over frantically, "You're okay right? It didn't get ya?"
"Just scared the living shit out of me, but other than that I'm okay."
"Good. Let's keep moving." She watches as he starts jogging away, yelling for Lori and Carl.
They get to the RV and Rick sees Carl, the little boy comes running over to his father, "Dad!" Rick picks him up and they both start crying, he walks over to Lori.
Shane spots Winona and runs over to her, cupping her face in his hands and proceeding to pull her into a hug, "Oh thank god you're alright, Win. I was worried when y'all didn't get back earlier."
Winona pulls away and scoffs, "Oh, so now you're worried? Yeah sure."
"Wait can you please just give me a chance to explain myself?"
"No. I'm tired of this back and forth bullshit." She turns and walks over to Glenn, "You're okay right? That was a close call earlier."
"You're asking me if I'm okay? Dude you literally were so badass saving me, and I couldn't even save you," Glenn sighs, "I'm sorry. I'm just glad Rick was nearby."
Winona hugs him, "Hey if it wasn't for your warning, I would've been walker food. You had another walker to deal with anyways."
They notice Amy got bit and is bleeding out, Andrea sobbing over her and calling her name. Lori drops to the ground upon seeing this. Jim starts to speak to Dale, "I remember my dream now, why I dug the holes."
Winona looks at Glenn, "Holy shit is he psychic? What in the hell happened when we were gone?"
He shrugs, "My guess is as good as yours. Question is; what the hell are we gonna do now?" They look out over the camp, seeing the desecrated bodies of the people they once called friends.
——
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