Shambles- The Walking Dead [Alden x Maggie] [1/2]

11- Breaking point

The bullet whizzed through the air and buried itself into Lucille. Before Alden had even realized what had happened, Arat tackled Rosita to the ground and pinned her down. She pressed her knife against her throat tightly.

Negan's anger rose and stormed forwards. "Shit! You just- you tried to kill me!? You shot Lucille!" he bellowed into Rosita's face. He was flustered. For the first time ever Alden saw that Negan didn't feel in control of the situation. This was erratic, even for Negan.

Alden couldn't quite follow everything that was said because he was standing too far back. A pool of Spencer's blood had pooled around his feet, slowly seeping towards the drain on the side of the road. But from where he stood he could read the terrified expressions of the people in the crowd. His eyes met with Olivia, standing on the porch of Rick's home, and she looked just as frightened as before. Carl stood beside her and he was probably the reason she was keeping it together because she didn't want to scare him further.

This situation was horrible. But all Alden could think about was how easily it could've been avoided if only they had followed the rules. The rules kept people alive. He watched as Arat whipped her gun out.

"No, it was me! No!" Rosita cried out, trying to wrestle the gun away from Arat.

Arat simply ignored and turned around. She fired one single round. A shock traveled across the group of onlookers and Alden took a startled step back. His knife, still slick with blood, slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground. Olivia was dead. She hadn't even done anything wrong. She hadn't broken the rules. She didn't deserve to die.

Alden bent down, picked his knife back up and slipped into its sheath. The blood dripping from it soaked into his pants. Aaron and Rick arrived hastily, both alarmed by the gunshot. Eric reached for Aaron and held him up as Rick let go of him and went to Negan.

"We had a deal!" He snapped.

"Rick!" Negan's voice was hoarse. "Look, everybody, it's Rick. Ah, your people are making me lose my voice doing all this yelling. How about a thank you? I know we started our relationship with me beating the holy shit out of your friends and because of that, we're never gonna sit around and braid each other's hair or share our deepest, darkest secrets, but how about a little credit? I just bent over backwards to show you how reasonable I am. Your kid-" He pointed to Carl, who was standing on the porch, next to Olivia's body. "He hid in one of my truck's and machine gunned a bunch of my men down, and I brought him home, safe and sound, and I fed him spaghetti."

Rick looked at Carl with shock and horror. He'd been gone for two days and in that time seemingly all had gone to hell.

"Another one of your people–" Negan continued after a pause, pointing at Spencer's body. "Well, he wanted me to kill you and put him in charge. Al took him out... for you."

Rick looked at Alden first, and then to the pool of blood he was standing in. He trailed it to Spencer's corpse that lay motionless in the street.

"And another one, here–" Negan continued as he pointed to Rosita. "She shot Lucille, trying to kill me just now, so I gave you one less mouth to feed."

Rick stayed quiet. He'd lost all his bite. He straightened his back and looked up at Negan, trying to make himself appear less broken than he was. "Your shit's waiting for you at the gate. Just go."

"Sure thing, Rick," he replied. "Right after I find the guy or gal that made this bullet." He showed the casing to Rick. Then he looked back at Arat again. "Arat?"

She immediately aimed her gun at the next random victims without hesitation. This time it would either be Aaron or Eric that died for something they had nothing to do with. They panicked and tried to back away, which was made difficult by Aaron's limping.