𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐒 | 𝐭𝐰𝐝 ²

31.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE,
for whom the bell tolls.

━━━━

There comes a time in everyone’s life where you had to rely on others to survive. It’s just an underlying fact of the world from now and before. Nicole knew that she was going to have to rely on her family as the Governor’s men pulled up to the prison fence. Her family was going to have to get her out of this, seeing as how her hands were literally bound behind her back. She was at the mercy of a lunatic, and she was helpless to do anything but sit it out.

When the ground shook at the sound of a guard tower exploding from a tank missile, she continued her best to strain against the rope cuffs tied around her wrists. They were loosening slightly, but at the rate all hell was breaking loose, she wouldn’t break free in time. She could hear the Governor calling out to Rick, but she was focusing on the ropes. Nicole could feel the burning she was getting from the friction, but this was her only shot at this. She didn’t want to die here.

She suddenly stopped as Hershel was yanked from the vehicle, then Michonne and then her. “Is Nicole on the council too?” the Governor taunted as she was forced onto her knees beside Michonne and forced to stare up at the faded figures in the distance.

“I don’t make the decisions anymore!” Rick’s harsh but dim voice echoed through the yard, just loud enough for her to hear. It made her heart hurt at the thought of never getting to see her family again.

“You’re making the decisions today, Rick,” The Governor insisted as the barrel of an assault rifle set itself against Nicole’s neck. She tensed at the cool metal, letting out a shaky breath and stopping her subtle wrist straining. “Come down here. Let’s have that talk.”

Nicole watched as Cheyanne’s blurry figure pressed against the fence - it made her breath hitch and tears want to spill from her eyes, but she pushed them back. She couldn’t show weakness right now. Rick began making his way down to them, but Nicole whispered out a small prayer, wanting nothing more than to keep her family safe.

“Let ‘em go, right now,” Rick pleaded. Nicole wanted nothing more than to hug him at the sight of his obviously worried and stressed expression. “I’ll stay down here. Talk as long as you want, but let ‘em go.” Nicole’s eyes met his - they shared a scared expression as Rick became more desperate. The cold nozzle from the rifle slipped off, which Nicole took the opportunity to wiggle her hands a little more. “You have a tank; you don’t need hostages.”

“I do,” the Governor announced. “This is just to show you that I’m serious. Not to blast a hole in our new home.” Nicole strained a little more, feeling the way the ropes were starting to loosen more as the rope burn got harsher. “You and your people have until sundown to get out of here or they die.”

Rick shifted nervously. “It doesn’t have to go down this way,” Rick’s voice wavered at the thought of his family getting slaughtered right in front of him. Nicole heard the man behind her shift in the grass, and she quit straining the ropes until she was sure he was settled.

“I got more people, more firepower.” The Governor tried to assert his dominance. “We need this prison. There it is.” Nicole could feel her anger building inside of her as he tried harder and harder to prove that he’d win, and maybe he would. “It’s not about the past. It’s about right now.” Nicole bit back her sarcastic remarks.

“There are children here,” Rick announced. “Some of them are sick. They won’t survive.” The blonde woman could see the saddened frustration that crossed his face; he didn’t want his children back out on the road like that. Neither did Nicole. Carl, Cheyanne, Arabella, Zach, Judith. They’d been through enough; their kids deserved a place where they could be kids. This harsh world would never give them that.