My Damaged Protector

Chapter Thirty-Four ~ No Sanctuary

We had been walking for hours on the train tracks, constantly passing signs at intersections for Terminus. A small shack was sticking out of the trees just ahead, Merle pulling his knife and moving forward to cover Judith and me. I could faintly make out someone mumbling through the trees. "Hold up." Merle held his hand out, softly stopping our group from going any farther.

"See, I knew the chick with the sword was bad news." The voice said. "Yeah, I told Albert I want the kid's hat after they bleed him out." Chick with a sword and a kid in a hat, could it be Michonne and Carl?

Merle moved through the trees after that, holding a gun to his head with Carol at his side. "Keep your finger off the button and drop it." Carol threatened the man, pulling the hammer back on her gun.

"Listen, y'all don't have to do this. Whatever you want, we've got a place where every one's welcome." The man said, his hands going in the air as the black walkie fell to the ground.

"Shut up." I snapped, moving Judith to my other hip away from the man. "We're friends with the chick with the sword and the kid in the hat." When the man didn't respond, Merle snatched the walkie talkie from the ground, passed it to me, and pulled the man over towards the shed.

Carol turned to me, a plan glowing in her eyes. She quickly told me of how we needed to scope out the place after what the man said, we needed to find our people without going inside the community at first. I agreed to go with her, dropping my backpack to the ground near Merle and passing Judith off to Ty's waiting arms. Merle then handed me a brown blanket, getting a confused look from me.

"Figured ya didn't want that getting all dirty." He pointed to the poncho that was still draped over my shoulders.

"Thank you." I smiled at him, cutting a hole in the middle and draping it over the poncho while hiding my riffle underneath. "Ready?" I looked over to Carol who had a deep green blanket over her shoulders like mine.

We walked into the woods towards Terminus, stopping to take out a lone walker. Carol cut into its stomach then pulled a pair of black gloves from her pants and smeared the blood across our blankets, allowing us to blend in with the walkers. I gently rubbed some dirt across our cheeks, making the pink color from the sun less noticeable.

When we got to Terminus, we ducked down outside the fence, looking inside to see if we could spot anything out of the ordinary. It seemed to be an old train stop, a few cars dotting the concrete between the fence and the massive building. White letters spelled Terminus on the glass windows, almost working as a billboard to pull more people in. One of the train cars had a door open with people surrounding it, so I slid my riffle off my shoulder and looked through the scope while Carol did the same with hers. Rick was tossed out of the train car, followed very closely by Bob, Glenn, and Daryl.

I watched with fear in my eyes as all three men were dragged into the building, obviously putting up a fight. My hands had clenched onto the gun tight enough that my knuckles had gone white. Carol rested her hand on my shoulder. "He's going to be alright." She assured me.

Before we left, Carol had snagged the man's backpack, and inside sat a few fireworks. She passed one over to me and told me to place it into the barrel of my gun, pointing to a gas tank near the main building. With a count of three, we fired and ducked down, an explosion shaking the ground, causing people to start yelling from inside.

We made quick work of falling into character as we slowly made our way through the now broken fence, blending in with the walkers and having a mutual agreement to split up to cover as much ground as possible. She was to strictly be looking for our people while I was searching for anything even remotely useful. I came across a door with the word VAULT drawn on in thick white paint, making me shake my head and roll my eyes at the simplicity. My hand gently opened the door and I stepped in away from the walkers.