When the dead roam - (Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 93 - The priest

If there was one thing Lou hated about cars, it was how claustrophobic they made her feel. No matter how locked in she had once felt at Alexandria, it didn't compare to the horrible sinking feeling she felt when she had to sit in the backseat of a car...but Gabriel was missing and if finding him meant spending hours locked in the back of the tiniest vehicle Rick could've possibly picked out, then she knew she had to suck it up. The priest was meant to spend the night on watch, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious around the community but when it was time for a shift change, he was nowhere to be seen. All the food from their pantry was missing, everything they had to survive on, gone. Though Rick didn't want to admit it, there was a very real possibility he had just taken their things and gone but the sheriff was adamant that the Priest's selfish days were behind him...and nobody was willing to disagree with him.

Louise was sitting next to Aaron, cramped together in the tiny leather exterior where there was barely enough leg room for a small child, let alone a grown woman. Aaron could tell she was highly uncomfortable and if he was totally honest, he wasn't the most content either.

"So, he's alright, Daryl?" he asked, a smile on his lips as she struggled to alter her position on the seat.

She nodded at him and turned, adjusting her legs and moving so she was sat at an angle. "Yeah, yeah, he's alright"

"Good"

"Eric will be too, y'know" she said, noticing the sad look that he had been trying desperately to hide. "He'll come around. He can't be mad at you forever. Fighting the Saviours is the right thing"

"I don't think he'll let me back in the house, let alone forgive me" he sighed.

"Well, I live here too, so I'll be sure to leave the door unlocked"

Aaron chuckled softly. "Gee thanks"

"And besides, he barely helped clean up the Simon's mess so if anything...we get to be mad at him" she winked, trying her hardest to make him smile.

The second Rick pulled the car to a stop, the two friends dived from the vehicle, thankful to finally have space to stretch their legs. She grabbed her bag from the middle seat slung it over her back as the rest of the group gathered around them.

"Did you have to choose the smallest car known to man?" Lou asked, smirking over towards Rick, who returned it.

"Any excuse to cause you misery"

"Alright, what's the plan?" Michonne asked, fixing the strap on her katana and moving towards the small cluster of people.

"We go in slow, keep the element of surprise" he instructed. "If Gabriel's still alive, we need to make sure we don't give them a reason to kill him before we get him back"

They nodded towards their leader, all equally ready to take on the task at hand but none of them realizing the horror that was waiting for them. The small, cluttered field just outside of the junk yard was completely devoid of another human – dead or alive – and nobody was on watch above the large storage containers, yet Lou had a nagging feeling in her gut that they weren't alone. She trod carefully, each footstep quieter than the last. Though her group was scattered compactly around her, she could already tell sense the additions making their way towards them.

The group surrounded them quickly, an arson of weapons aimed in their direction as their own collective stopped walking. Louise looked towards Rick, who had a smile on his face despite the rifle that was barely four inches from his forehead. Her eyebrows furrowed as he turned towards her, a small almost inaudible chuckle escaping his lips.

"Move" a blonde woman dressed head to toe in black instructed as she shoved the end of her shotgun into the lower half of her back. She huffed under her breath and shuffled forwards, following Rick through an old, dirty storage container and into a hollowed out garbage dump.

Louise honestly didn't know how somebody could call a place like that home. If they weren't put off by the mountains of junk and mould covered scraps of food, the smell should've taken the last straw and yet, these people happily lived there. Once they were all inside the 'walls', the garbage people once again surrounded them, making two concentric circles.

"Are you a collective or does one lead?" A woman asked as she stepped through her people and into the centre. Before anyone could respond, someone grabbed Rick by the collar of his shirt and forced him forwards.

"This one"

The short haired woman continued her walk towards him, halting a foot away from him and smirking. "We own your lives. You want to buy them back? Have anything?"

"Well you have one of my people. Gabriel. I wanna see him first" Rick stated. "Then we can talk"

Lou watched as she nodded towards a member of her group and signalled for them to retrieve Gabriel from wherever they had hidden him. It only took a few short minutes before they returned with the barely dressed priest who was obviously distressed. He was wearing his boxers and a tank top that had been drenched with his sweat and given that the air wasn't enough to cause increased respiration, she could only imagine the conditions he had been kept in in the hours prior.

"The boat things you took got taken. Saw them, so took the rest and then we took him"

"So then you know we have nothing left to buy back our lives with" Rick said. "That's what you'll have soon. Nothing. 'Cause me and my people already belong to that group who took those supplies from the boat. They're called the Saviours. They own our lives and if you kill us, you'll be taking something from them and they will come looking. You only have two options when it comes to the Saviours. Either they kill you or they own you. But there is a way out. Join us. Join us in fighting them"

Rick waited patiently for her to respond. He kept his eyes fixated on her, noting every movement she made until a smirk appeared on her slim features and she responded with the one word he desperately hoped she wouldn't.

"No"

Quickly, his eyes widened as Gabriel dragged away from the group and several members approached their own. A dark haired male made a b-line for Rosita, who threw her head backwards and connected it with his nose before Aaron tried to intervene. He shouted her name, asking her to stop before a cane connected with the side of his face, splitting his skin and resulting in fresh blood dripping down from his forehead. Louise grew angry. She clenched her fists at her side, marched towards the attacker and connected her knuckles to the left side of his jaw. He stumbled backwards, clutching at his face.

"Everybody stop!" Rick shouted at his friends but nobody listened. They continued to fight back, landing punch after punch and hit after hit until the sound of Gabriel's quivering voice echoed above them.

The priest held a nice to the throat of a woman, his body shaking. "Let us go or I will kill her"