Dead Man Walking

xliii.

Rick woke up chuckling and Hunter furrowed his brows. His brother caused an entire scene in public in front of the woman who runs this place. He couldn't cost them everything and Rick was laughing about it?

"Why you laughing?"

Rick looks over at his brother, he didn't see him when he woke up, "You were here the whole time?"

"All night," Hunter responds with his arms crossed over his chest, "So I'll ask again, why are you laughing?"

Rick sat up in the bed and looked around the room he was put in, "It's–It's like the train car. After the whole thing, I'm still there."

"Deanna wanted you in here, calm things down. Rosita patched you up. Carl came by for a while. I sent him home. Michonne stopped in to see if you were up," Hunter sat up and moved the chair closer to his brother, "What are you doing?"

Rick sighs and rub the back of his head but didn't answer his brother's questions, "We put Pete in another house. I thought we had agreed we weren't gonna take the guns. I thought we were going to try."

Rick shrugged, "It moved fast. And then Noah. I couldn't tell you about the gun. You were happy with Rosita and I didn't want you to stress about this. You wanted this place."

"We had to stop being out there. If that meant living by their stupid rules then fine. I couldn't last out there another day."

"Well, we're here."

Hunter scoffs, "Well, you just said you weren't."

The door opens and Glenn, Carol, Michonne, and Abraham walked. Michonne was quick to ask questions, "Where'd you get the gun?"

"You took it, right? From the armoury?" Carol asks, Hunter knew they had a plan but he thought they called it quits, "That was stupid. Why did you do it?"

"Just in case."

"Deanna's planning to have a meeting tonight," Glenn tells them, "For anyone who wants to."

"To kick Rick out?" Abraham asks.

"To try," Carol says.

"We don't know that," Glenn responds, "Maggie's with Deanna right now. She's gonna find out what it is."

"At the meeting, you say you were worried about someone being abused and no one was doing anything about it," Carol says, "You say you took a gun just to be sure that Jessie was safe from a man who wound up attacking you. You say you'll do whatever you want them to. Just tell them a story that they want to hear. It's what I've been doing since I got here."

"Why?" Michonne asks.

"Because these people are children and children like stories," Hunter covered his mouth to hide the smile that was spreading across his face.

"What happens after all the nice words and they still try to kick him out?" Abraham asks.

"They're guarding the armoury now."

Hunter shrugs, "We still have knives. And if it comes to a fight that's all we'll need against them."

"Well, tonight at the meeting, if it looks like it's going bad, I whistle," Rick says, "Carol grabs Deanna, I take Spencer, Michonne grabs Reg, Glenn, Hunter and Abraham cover us, watch the crowd."

"We can talk to them," Michonne states.

"Yeah, we will. But if we can't get through, we take the three of them and say we'll slit their throats."

"Like at Terminus?" Glenn asks.

"No, we just tell 'em." Rick says, "They give us the armoury and it's over."