It's been almost eight months since they left the farm. Despite Rick killing Shane, Emily and Carl remained the best of friends. This changes when feelings that weren't there before spark up and change their friendship forever.
When the group finds...
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The more Aiden talked, the more I wanted to wipe the smirk off of his chiseled face. His cocky persona grew more and more with each step that he took outside the walls. And my patience wore thinner with each step. I stayed between Tara and Alex as we walked through the tall grass into a patch of woods.
"We've been increasing our radius mile by mile, spreading in a semicircle around the town." Aiden told us. He wanted us to know their procedures for runs and was explaining their system to us.
"We've made it 53 miles out so far." Nicholas added to the information Aiden was giving us.
"We break into two groups when we step outside our vehicle. If shit hits, we fire a flare. One group gets the other."
"Good system." Noah commented.
Aiden turned back to him with a slight frown. "It is. Still, you're standing here because we lost four people last month."
"What happened?" I questioned the man.
He stopped for a moment as he turned to look at me. "We were on a run, roamers came out, they didn't follow the system. They were good people. They were. They were just scared." I nodded in understanding. Aiden continued to lead us forward through the trees. "Look, I can be a hard-ass. And I know I'm a douchebag. Someone's got to call the ball around here and that someone is me. If you're on this crew, you do exactly as I say."
Glenn spoke up, expressing his apologies for the loss of their people. "Sorry you lost your people."
"Yeah. We got ours." Aiden smirked again, sharing the look with Nicholas. I frowned at him, but he didn't notice.
"Managed to snag one of the deadheads that took them down. Strung it up there." Nicholas called to us as he moved to the front of the group.
"What? Why?"
"Now we have a little pregame ritual. Get our heads on straight."
"Remind us what we're up against." Aiden said. I could hear flies buzzing nearby and as we turned past a final big tree, Aiden cursed. "Son of a bitch! Help me find it. Look at this shit."
"Blood's still wet. It's nearby." Nicholas told the other man before loudly whistling. My eyes widened at the stupidity of this man as Glenn ran over and knocked his fingers out of his mouth.
"Shh! Hey-- hey, hey. It's gone." The Korean told the men.
"It took down one of our friends. It's nearby, we're not letting it go." Aiden told us before they continued to whistle and call out for the walker to come back.
I watched as the two men searched the area for the dead being with judging eyes. A pre-game ritual should be sharing each other's underwear or doing a little dance at the gates, but not this. I stared at the bloody chain that hung from the tree. Groans filled my ears and quickly pulled my gun and turned to see the corpse walking towards Aiden, who saw it.
