crooked heart → the walking dead ⁵

[ 020 ] to live means to die.

CROOKED HEART.

chapter twenty, the storm.
[ season nine, episode sixteen ]

RETURNING HOME WITHOUT FLYNN is perhaps one of the most painful things Odessa has ever endured in her entire life.

When they walk through the gates, the news had already reached the Hilltop, it's already reached Alexandria and Oceanside. It is known. Flynn Grimes and Prince Henry are dead. Mother's will seek vengeance.

The ones that have known Odessa for years recognize that familiar hunger in her eyes. The hunger of someone who wants revenge for her fallen family. Odessa has gotten her revenge before. She will do it again.

They come home without Flynn, without Tara and Enid, without Tammy Rose, without Addy and Rodney. Friends and families left to mourn those murdered by Alpha.

The Hilltop is angry.

The first thing Odessa does when she gets home is sharpen her knives to their sharpest point. She sharpens them until the barest touch draws blood.

The Kingdom falls barely a month after the gut-wrenching end to the Fair of New Beginnings. Pipes burst at all hours of day and night, Henry no longer here to attend to them. Wood crumbles and rot spreads. Food slowly runs out. The final straw is the fire that spreads through the living quarters closest to the front gates. After this, Ezekiel declares the Kingdom's end. He knows that it time to move on. He asks for help.

The Hilltop, Alexandria, and Oceanside do just that. Each community sends escorts to help those of the Kingdom leave their home of many months or years.

Cori and Odessa decide that it's best for the residents of the Kingdom to reside within their walls, protected by their people. They don't have the room, they don't have the food. They don't have the resources. But Ezekiel has never turned Cori Grimes away. She will not do so now when he and his people need her the most.

Sitting one the steps of the auditorium is a girl reborn. Brielle Grimes stares at the concrete in front of her, her brown eyes full of grief. This is the place where she and her brother were supposed to watch a movie for the first time since they could remember. And then it never happened. It never will.

"Hey," a voice says suddenly. Brielle looks up. In front of her stands Mara. "Can I sit?"

Over the last few weeks, Brielle has confined herself to her room. As she practiced her fighting techniques with her punching bag that hangs from the ceiling of her room and taught herself how to fight better with her throwing knives, she planned how she is going take down Alpha and the entirely of her people. All except Alpha's very own daughters.

Brielle nods, allowing the girl of Alpha's blood to take a seat beside her.

Mara sits. Her blue eyes scan Brielle's face. "I know what you lost. And I am so sorry, Brielle. Never in a thousand years would I want this for you, for any of you. I'm sorry I couldn't do anything to prevent it."

"It's not your fault." Brielle says quietly. "You can't help who your mother is. You didn't kill Flynn yourself."

Brielle knows this because she witnessed the brutal murder of her brother. She watched as Alpha forced him to his knees and used a dull machete to detach her brother head from his body. His eyes were full of fear as the blade sliced into his neck. Blood spilled from him, onto the ground he kneeled on. Brielle screamed, she thrashed in the strong arms of Beta to reach her brother. But she never did. No, because it took three more horrific blows to the neck for Flynn's head to come off of his body.