What Keeps You Alive (Walking Dead cross w/bands)

Chapter 12: Are They A Threat?

------------Chapter 12: Are They A Threat? ----

Arin knew they were in trouble. The man paced back and forth in front of the two of them, both him and Jake still on their knees in front of this man who seemed to be in charge of this group they'd been spying on.

The man came to a halt, his men behind Jake and Arin making sure they weren't going anywhere. He crouched down in front of Arin, clearly seeing he was the weaker of the two. He held a hand gun against the side of Arin's head, making him freeze.

He didn't want to die like this; he wanted to out-live this whole epidemic and die on his own terms. And anyway, Juliet was still back at the camp, and the last thing he wanted to do was leave her, even though he knew that Ashley would look out for her.

"You wanna tell me again why you were spying on my group? You thinking of stealing from us or something?" the man said, his accent not as heavy as Arin thought it would be; maybe he wasn't a local.

Arin stayed silent, completely freaked out. The man looked away from him and turned his focus to Jake who was just kneeling there, his expression unreadable; he looked determined though.

"Your friend here doesn't wanna speak," the man said, sounding rather displeased. "You care to answer my question?"

"What was the question again?" Jake asked, no emotion in his tone at all as he addressed the man.

The man behind Jake hit him over the back of the head with his gun, making Jake's expression turn to a glare. The man that was in charge looked to the guy behind Jake.

"Man, c'mon," he said, his tone completely different and nowhere near as threatening as it had been. "We talked 'bout this, yeah? Don't hurt 'em; they probably don't mean any harm."

There was a bit of a silence before his gaze reached Jake again, his expression nowhere near as aggressive or intimidating as before.

"Look buddy, can you just tell me why you were watching us?" he asked, not demanding this time.

Jake narrowed his eyes at him for a few seconds as he thought about what he wanted to say as the answer. After a bit, he gave a nod.

"Alright, if you really gotta know," he began, the man watching him intently. "We were just observing to make sure you guys weren't a threat."

The man frowned, and Arin watched as he thought.

"Why would we be a threat?" he asked after a bit of an awkward silence.

Jake gave a bit of a shrug and looked to Arin briefly before he looked back to the man in front of them both.

"We were just doing as asked."

The man gave him a strange look before he gave a nod and stood up, no longer crouched down in front of Arin. He gave them both a smile.

"Well I promise we're not a threat," he said with a bit of a laugh. "Sorry about all this; just the whole 'intimidation thing' really. It's just to make sure people keep away from us and don't steal our stuff; hard to get supplies around here nowadays y'know."

Arin and Jake both exchanged looks, slightly confused as to what was going on here. One minute, this man had been all up in their grille, and now he was apologising? Who was he?

The man saw them exchange looks.

"Oh, sorry," he said apologetically. "You could probably stand up now; it's all part of the process."

Jake and Arin just exchanged looks again before they did as told and got to their feet. The man gave a nod of approval and indicated for them to follow him.