The Girl Next Door • Carl Grimes

Chapter 85: Am I Dead Yet?

Grace

I looked over to Carl in disbelief and he seemed to be just as shocked and scared as I was.

"Go. Go!" Rick shouted as he pointed to a small clearing in the trees.

We started to run ahead, the others carrying Maggie were still behind us. The whistling continued and only grew louder.

"Grace, if you have a chance to run, take it. Leave us behind. Just run." Carl said to me.

"No. I am not leaving you guys." I said back to him.

"Grace-" Carl started to say when a bright light began to shine in our eyes.

I squinted and held my hand up to my eyes in pain. I looked around and we were completely surrounded by people and cars. This was a trap, and we'd fallen right into it. Our RV was right in front of us, which meant that they had found Eugene.

A large group of men stood around the cars and us, continuing to whistle. It was so eerie. I held my gun up at the people and aimed it, moving from person to person. They didn't do anything. They just kept whistling. We were wildly outnumbered. There were only seven of us, well, really six because Maggie was barely concious right now.

They didn't seem to care that we had our weapons up. Almost like they knew that we wouldn't make it. They all just stood there so calmly and quietly, the only sounds being our heavy breaths and their whistles.

I looked to the right and noticed a man knelt down on the ground in front of the headlights of a vehicle. It was Eugene.

"There's the girl! You made it. Welcome to where you're going." The savior that I had approached earlier stepped out of the crowd and towards us.

I lifted my gun up into the air and shakily pointed it at him, taking everything inside me to not pull the trigger.

Carl's hand reached out and lowered my gun from its previous position.

"Don't." He muttered quietly.

I placed it back in my pocket and stared silently at the man. He walked over and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. I kicked and fought to be released from his grip, but it didn't work.

"Grace!" Carl yelled out, his face filled with dread.

"We'll take your weapons." The man said to the group as he clung onto me.

I rolled my eyes and gritted my teeth at the man. He glanced down at me looking angry. The rest of my group was just standing there in disbelief.

"Now." The man demanded. I heard the hammer of his gun click as he placed it against my temple.

"We can talk about it-" Rick's voice trembled.

"We're done talking. Time to listen." The man scowled as he shoved me back over to the group.

I stumbled into the middle and found my way standing next to Carl. He looked at me in fear, so I nodded at him to show that I was alright. The people swarmed us, grabbing us and forcefully removing our weapons.

The man who seemed to be in charge, the one who'd grabbed me, came over and pulled Carl's gun away from him. He glanced back over to me and made an evil grin at Carl.

"She's yours, right?" He chuckled.

Carl's jaw clenched and I just looked over not sure what to do or say.

"Yeah. Sure. She's yours." The man sent me a strange look, then flicked Carl's hat.

The way that he said it made my stomach turn. Carl's eyes filled with anger. He couldn't stand it when someone talked about me like that, especially not these creeps.