Casually Cruel - TWD

7. He ain't here anymore.

It was only a few minutes before the church doors opened. Carl held his gun up immediately.

"Well, I guess you know we're here. And we know you're here. And we're armed. So there's really no point in hiding anymore," Gareth said, and then there was a small pause. "We've been watching you. We know who's here. There's Bob, unless you've put him out of his misery already. And Eugene. Rosita. Eliza. Martin's good friend, Tyreese. Carl. Judith. Rick and the rest walked out with a lot of your guns. Listen, we don't know where you all are, but this isn't a big place. So let's just stop this now before things get more painful than they need to be."

After a second, the door handle started to rattle and Rosita got her gun at the ready. There was another moment of silence before Gareth began to yell again.

"Look, you're behind one of these two doors and we have more than enough firepower to take down both. Can't imagine that's what you all want," there was a sharp sound of a gun cocking. "How about the priest? Father, you help us wrap this up, we'll let you walk away from this. Just open the door and you can go. You can take the baby with you. What do you say?"

Eliza looked over at Gabriel, she was expecting him to speak up and walk away, sacrificing everyone else. But surprisingly, he stayed quiet. Her mouth widened when Judith started to cry. Carl rushed to her and covered her mouth.

Eliza started to hear his voice again. Not Gareth's. Her dads. "Eliza, come on out. Everything will be okay. Just come out here, baby girl."

"No," she whispered to herself, keeping her eyes shut tight. This had happened before when she was out on her own. "No."

"Eliza...come on," he prompted her.

Rosita looked over at Eliza with furrowed eyebrows and then gestured for her to sit down next to her. Eliza sat down, bringing her knees up to her chest and her face into Rosita's shoulder. Rosita didn't know what was going on, but Eliza needed to stay calm right now.

There was two silenced gunshots. Eliza flinched, but the door didn't budge. Then she heard Rick's voice.

"Put your guns on the floor."

"Rick, we'll fire right into that office. So you lower your gun-" there was another silenced gunshot and Gareth cried out in pain.

There was another moment of silence before Rick's voice could be heard again. "Put your guns on the floor and kneel."

There was a few words exchanged. Eliza couldn't hear them, maybe it was her head trying to work out if her dad was really there or not. Or maybe it was just the distance and how quietly that they were talking. But she heard the slashing. It went on for what felt like minutes. Just slashing, grunting, stabbing, screaming.

People started to exit the office, but Eliza just stayed there. Her legs were shaking, she couldn't stop them from shaking no matter how hard she tried.

"Hey, hey," a gentle voice interrupted her. Abraham's gentle voice. Rosita was gone. She hadn't even noticed her leave.

"They're gone. You're fine. They're gone," he nodded to her and put a firm hand on her shoulder.

"He- he was here," Eliza mumbled. Abraham just thought she meant Gareth. But she didn't.

"I know, I know," he muttered back and rubbed her arm gently. He thought that she was talking about Gareth. "But he ain't anymore. I promise."

Eliza just nodded and leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder. He was tense for a moment, but then he gently rubbed her back and gave a slight chuckle.

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In the morning, everyone had said goodbye to Bob and Sasha had just buried him, tying the twine around his grave marker.

Eliza was ready to get on the bus now. She didn't have the burden hanging over her head of leaving a dying man behind, something about that just wasn't right.

Eliza gave Carl a quick hug. If she had a friend in this group, it would be him. He'd been nice and he spoke to her a lot.

Abraham was talking to Rick and Michonne, he was handing them a map.

Carl's face turned red when Eliza hugged him, but she couldn't see it. Glenn could, and he gave a slight chuckle, making Carl flip him off.

"Let's go," Abraham raised his voice after a moment. Eliza smiled at Carl and he smiled back. Then, she got into the vehicle and sat between two rows behind the drivers seat, in front of Tara but behind Rosita. The bus started to drive off. Eliza felt sad, but she also felt happy. They were going to save the world.

Glenn leaned his head around Maggie and looked at Eliza. "You know Carl? You know he likes you, right?"

Eliza's face contorted into disgust and confusion. "What? No he doesn't."

"He does," Maggie laughed. "Was as red as a tomato when you hugged him."

Abraham started to chuckle from the front. "So, what do we think? Do we like him back?"

"Oooh," Rosita and Tara both put on a high pitch voice to tease Eliza, making her scoff.

"No, and he doesn't like me. So, stop," she rolled her eyes and turned to the window. This felt awkward now.

She didn't like Carl. Sure, she liked him as a friend. But, ew, she didn't want him as a boyfriend. She'd never really been interested in dating, maybe it was that she'd never met the right person, or maybe it was just her.

She never had much time for dating anyway. Most nights after school she'd be at soccer practice, and she used to go to see Lucille a lot more often when she was diagnosed with cancer. She couldn't go out or do much anymore, so Eliza wanted to cheer her up while Coach Smith was working or training the other teams.

"Okay, okay," Tara laughed and put a hand on Eliza's shoulder, seeing that she was getting embarrassed and pissed off. "Let's stop annoying her for now, huh?"

"Yeah, thank you," Eliza mumbled into her hand and huffed.

"Aw, okay," Maggie smiled sweetly. She had a nice smile, Eliza liked it. "But he does."

"He doesn't. He's just my friend," Eliza shook her head. "You can't like someone you've known for two days."

"I liked Rosita from the moment I met her," Abraham winked at Rosita in the rear view mirror, making Rosita giggle and Eliza cringe.

"That's so gross."

"Although, it is mighty true. I had observed Abraham watching Rosita's every move since the day that we came across each other," Eugene nodded from his seat. Eliza found it confusing how he always spoke with no emotion and a straight face, you could never really tell what he was feeling.

Rosita covered her face in her hands and let out a playful sigh. "Okay, stop."

"Now who's embarrassed?" Eliza narrowed her eyes and lighthearted punched Rosita's shoulder from behind.

Everyone except for Eugene started to laugh at the situation. Maybe this trip wouldn't be so bad after all, as long as they didn't keep on talking about Carl.

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