ONE RULE • THE WALKING DEAD

chapter one - partners

Tap, tap, tap-tap-tap!

The light pattern on my door stole my attention from the array of papers scattered across the coffee table.

I tried to scan the last sentence of the page quickly.

Suddenly, a loud TAP!

"Delivery!" A high-pitched tone squeaked from the other side of the door. I grinned down at the document and rushed to open the door. I heard someone clear their throat and opt for a more caveman-like growl. "DELIVERY—"

I laughed, swinging the door open and narrowly avoiding my best friend's fist. If I'd taken any longer, he would've banged the door down with his knocks alone.

I went for the box of pizza in his grasp and placed a fleeting kiss on his cheek before rushing over to the kitchen island.

"Wow, no 'hi? How are you? How was work?' Is this what society has come to?" I heard the door shut and a flurry of movements. I didn't bother to look up from my current task.

"Glenn Rhee," I began in the sweetest voice I could muster. "Hi. How are you? How was work?"

"Great! Got cursed out by some asshole for doing my job today," said Glenn pleasantly, accepting the beer I held out for him.

I smiled at him through my mouthful of pizza. "That's fun. What was it today?"

"Got to this dude's house 29 minutes after he ordered," he chewed on his slice aggressively. You'd think he would hate pizza from the amount of shit he has to go through at work.

"You're an expert at what you do, Rhee."

"That free pizza comes out of my paycheck," Glenn scoffed. He clearly took the 30-minute rule very seriously.

"Did he leave a tip?"

"No."

"What an asshole."

Glenn nodded at the mess on our coffee table. "Looks like you've had a busy day."

I rolled my eyes at his dramatic cringe. "'Member the car chase that was all over the news last week?"

Glenn nodded.

"Got assigned to the case. The cop that got shot, he's not doing too hot right now," I told him, grabbing my second slice. I picked off a pepperoni and shoved it in my mouth.

I resisted the strong urge to eat the rest of the pepperoni on my half of the pizza. I eyed Glenn's half distastefully—I would never, ever appreciate pineapple on pizza. I'll die on that hill.

He took a large swig of his beer. "That's a pretty big upgrade from petty theft, Daph."

"Yeah, I guess it is." I tried not to focus on the subject of my investigation, gulping down a large amount of beer.

"Have you made any progress?" I appreciated Glenn's interest.

"Well, it's definitely not the officer's fault. They had every reason to believe that there was only two people in that overturned car." I eagerly crossed the living room and snatched up my half-written report. "The KCPD failed to inform the responding officers so I mean, technically Grimes can sue."

"Grimes?" Glenn raised his eyebrows in recognition. "You mean super hot hip-swaying cop?"

My ears felt hot. "That's the one."

My heart pummeled to my chest the more I thought about it. Out of all the people that could've been wounded on the field, it had to be Officer Rick Grimes, a coworker of mine that I saw pretty often around the precinct. I was fully convinced he had fully forgotten about my existence seeing as our respective lines of work didn't cross paths too often. We'd only interacted a handful of times in the last three years I'd been working at King County PD, but that didn't stop me from noticing him as soon as I got hired.