The Purification (From the Ashes We Will Rise: Book One)

Chapter 18

When the time came, we walked up to the house together, and I sent him to our room. Though he's having to grow up fast in this world, he was still only eight years old. He did not need to hear the things we were about to discuss. After watching Lincoln walk up the stairs and hearing the door close, I sat beside my brother on the piano bench. He was a nervous wreck. Glenn was sitting there hunched over, biting his nails. I haven't seen him like this in a long time. Not that I could blame him.

"So how do we do this? Just take a vote?" Glenn asked nervously as he sat up straight.

"Does it have to be unanimous?" Andrea asked.

"How about majority rules?" Lori suggested.

"Well, let's just see where everybody stands, then we can talk through the options," Rick sighed.

"Well, where I sit, there's only one way to move forward," Shane spoke coldly.

"Killing him, right?" Dale spat, filling in the blank. "I mean, why even bother taking a vote? It's clear which way the wind's blowing."

I take it his conversations with the others didn't go very well.

"Well, if people believe we should spare him, I wanna know," Rick spoke firmly, trying not to raise his voice.

"Well, I can tell you it's a small group—maybe just me, Glenn, and Liam," Dale revealed. I let out a sigh as he said it. My brother was on the fence about the whole thing, but Dale must have made him understand. I rested my hand on his shoulder, squeezing it before letting it go. That's when I noticed him looking up at Dale.

"Look," he sighed, and I felt my heart drop, "I—I think you're pretty much right about everything, and by saying this, I'm going against my brother, but this—"

"You're scared," Dale interrupted. " They've got you scared. Your brother's not scared."

"He's not one of us," Glenn argued. "We've lost too many people already."

"I wasn't one of you a little over two weeks ago, yet here I am, safe, not under fear of execution," I argued.

"It's not the same, and you know it," Glenn snapped, ending the conversation, and I rolled my eyes.

Dale turned his attention to Maggie, pointing his rolled-up fishing hat at her, "what about you? Do you agree with this?"

"Couldn't we continue keeping him prisoner?" Maggie asked, doing her best to extend an olive branch.

"It's just another mouth to feed," Daryl sighed.

"It may be a lean winter," Hershel added.

"We could ration better," Lori chimed in.

"He could be an asset, just like Liam turned out to be," Dale argued, "give him a chance to prove himself!"

"Put him to work?" Glenn suggested.

"We're not letting him walk around," Rick said, immediately shooting the idea down.

"We could put an escort on him," Maggie suggested.

"Who wants to volunteer for that duty?" Shane snarked.

"I will," Dale and I spoke at once.

"I don't think any of us should be walking around with this guy," Rick sighed.

"He's right," Lori agreed. "I wouldn't feel safe unless he was tied up."

"We can't exactly put chains around his ankles and sentence him to hard labor," Andrea snapped.

"Look, say we let him join us, right?" Shane began, "Maybe he's helpful, maybe he's nice. But, we let our guard down, and maybe he runs off and brings back his 30 men."

"So the answer is to kill him to prevent a crime he may never even attempt?" Dale pushed. "If we do this, we're saying there's no hope. The rule of law is dead. There is no civilization."

"Oh my god," Shane groaned as if he was above all this.

"Could you drive him further out?" Hershel asked, genuinely looking at Rick. "Leave him like you planned?"

"You barely came back this time," Lori spoke before Rick could. "There are walkers. You could break down. You could get lost—"

"Or ambushed," Daryl added.

"They're right," Glenn sighed. "We should not put our own people at risk."

"If you go through with it, how would you do it?" Patricia asked, speaking up for the first time. "Would he suffer?"

"We could hang him, right?" Shane suggested, looking only at Rick. "Just snap his neck."

"I thought about that," Rick nodded in confirmation. "Shooting may be more humane."

"And what about the body?" T-Dog asked hesitantly. "Do we bury him?"

"Hold on, hold on!" Dale shouted. "You're talking about this like it's already decided."

"You've been talking all day," Daryl snarked, "going around in circles. You wanna go around in circles again?"

"This is a young man's life!" Dale shouted, utterly incapable of understanding the other's thought process. "And it is worth more than a five-minute conversation! So is this what it's come to? We kill someone because we can't decide what else to do with him. You saved him, and now look at us! He's been tortured. He's going to be executed. How are we any better than those people that we're so afraid of?"

"We all know what needs to be done," Shane spoke when no one else would.

"No, Dale is right," Rick spoke, and I sighed in relief. "We can't leave any stone unturned here. We have a responsibility—"

"So, what's our other solution?" Andrea interrupted. "We haven't come up with a single viable option yet. I wish we could—"

"So let's work on it!" Dale yelled.

"We are," Rick growled.

"Stop it!" Carol snapped. "Just stop it. I'm sick of everybody arguing and fighting. I didn't ask for this. You can't ask us to decide something like this. So please decide—either of you or both—but leave me out."

"Not speaking out or killing him yourself—there's no difference," I snapped, unable to take this fighting anymore. Everyone looked at me in shock. I was the new guy, Glenn's little brother. I was here as a courtesy. I'm right about this, and so is Dale. There are no passenger seats on this flight. We're all co-pilots here.