A Broken World

Seventy-Four

Chapter 73

The night didn’t settle.

It hovered.

That was the wrongness of it—the way the dark clung to the prison like it was waiting for permission instead of taking what it wanted. The usual rhythm never fully arrived. No deep quiet. No steady hum of resignation. Just… anticipation. Like the world had leaned forward in its chair.

I was awake before the cough woke me.

Not the dry, hacking kind we’d grown used to—but a wet, tearing sound that scraped through the walls and lodged under my sternum. It came again, closer this time, followed by a choking gasp that ended too abruptly.

I was on my feet before my brain caught up.

“D-Block,” I muttered, already moving.

Boots pounded behind me—Daryl, Rick, someone else I didn’t bother identifying. The corridor lights flickered as we ran, the fluorescent buzz stuttering like a bad pulse.

By the time we hit the quarantine door, Maggie was already there.

She was on her knees.

Hands slick with blood.

“No,” she said. Over and over. Not loud. Not hysterical. Just… broken into a thousand pieces and trying to hold herself together with one word. “No, no, no—”

Hershel was standing.

Barely.

His mask hung loose around his neck, forgotten. One hand braced against the wall. The other pressed hard to his side, red seeping through his fingers.

Rick froze.

For one terrifying second, no one moved.

Then Glenn screamed.

It was hoarse. Weak. Alive.

My head snapped toward the sound—toward the bunk where Glenn lay thrashing, eyes wild, chest heaving like it was finally remembering how to breathe.

Hershel let out a sound that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t been soaked in pain and disbelief. He sagged, knees buckling.

I caught him.

“Sit,” I ordered, dragging him down onto the stool before gravity could do worse. “Sit. Now.”

“I’m fine,” he said automatically, which was how I knew he wasn’t.

Blood dripped onto the tile.

Rick knelt beside Maggie, hands hovering uselessly for once. “Glenn?”

“He—he couldn’t breathe,” Maggie choked out. “He panicked, and then—then—”

“I know,” Hershel said softly. He reached for her with a shaking hand. “But he’s breathing now. He fought through it.”

Glenn gasped again, chest rising hard, then settling into a rhythm that—while ugly—was real.

Alive.

Alive.

The relief hit me like vertigo. I had to grip the edge of the bunk to keep the room from tilting sideways.

“What happened to you?” Rick demanded, eyes locked on Hershel’s side.

Hershel glanced down like he’d forgotten. “Slipped,” he said. “Caught the corner of the bed frame.”

“That’s a lie,” Daryl said flatly.

Hershel didn’t argue.

Rick swore under his breath. “You’re done. You hear me? You’re done. You sit down and you let someone else—”