Safe haven | Rick Grimes

091. SNOW STARTED FALLING

Chapter ninety one

"Snow started falling."

It was worse—so much worse. Ten people had been murdered that night, their severed heads left on pikes to mark a horrific border. Among the dead were DJ, Enid, Tara, and Henry.

But the most sickening part of the tragedy was the thread that connected the massacre to the terror Scarlett's family had just endured. One person had a hand in all of it, and yet he was still walking around Alexandria, alive and breathing. Siddiq had not only gotten her oldest son Carl killed years ago, but he was the traitor who had lured her four children into the woods, buried them alive, and left them to suffocate in the dirt.

In the immediate aftermath, convincing her terrified children to return to Alexandria without her had been agonizing, but they finally went under heavy guard. Scarlett refused to leave. She stayed behind at the Kingdom as the harsh autumn air began to turn, but the broken community was failing rapidly. The pipes burst, the fires couldn't keep the cold out, and the kingdom had fallen apart beyond any hope of repair. The only choice left was to migrate the entire population across the dangerous, frozen roads to Hilltop.

For Uncle Daryl, the weight of the tragedy was suffocating. Trapped between Carol's hollow grief over Henry and Scarlett's simmering, lethal rage, he didn't know how to help either of them.

He walked up to the main council building, his boots crunching on the frost-dusted ground. Inside, Aaron stood in silence, keeping a watchful, worried eye on Scarlett as she sat at a wooden table, staring down at Rick's Colt Python.

The heavy click of the metal cylinder echoed sharply in the quiet room as Scarlett loaded the final brass bullets into the chamber. She snapped the gun shut with a practiced, seamless flick of her wrist and slid the heavy silver revolver back into its leather holster.

She stood up without saying a word, her expression completely hollowed out by a thirst for vengeance. Aaron immediately fell into step behind her, mirroring her movements as they headed down the stairs and out into the biting winter wind.

They made it to the main courtyard, where the massive migration line had finally formed. Carol and Ezekiel stood side-by-side at the front, their shoulders braced against the cold as they threw their weight against the iron levers and opened the massive gates.

Scarlett and Aaron marched out into the open winter wilderness first, flanking the vanguard with two armed guards beside them. Behind them, the long caravan of wagons groans to life, followed by a sea of people walking on foot or riding on horseback, leaving the ruins of the Kingdom behind as they headed down the frozen road into the unknown.

They continued down the frozen road, the biting wind whistling through the barren trees. A few yards ahead, Michonne kept a steady pace, talking quietly with Yumiko and Magna to keep their spirits up.

Scarlett walked in silence, her boots crunching in the frosty dirt right beside Aaron. She flicked her gaze to the left, peering out into the wide, snow-dusted field where a small cluster of walkers was shuffling through the weeds. Her hand instinctively hovered over the grip of Rick's Colt Python, her knuckles white, but the dead kept their distance and never drifted toward the line.

"You wanna kill him, don't you?" Aaron whispered, leaning in slightly so his voice wouldn't carry to the wagons behind them.

"I've wanted to kill him before," Scarlett whispered back, her voice dropping into a flat, lethal register. "But this... this is different. He lied to my children. He told them I was hurt, used their love for me to trap them, and then he buried them alive in the dirt. He is just lucky that none of them died, or I would've walked right onto that podium and shot him in the head in front of all of you. Still might."