XXIII

—/<3/—

Dave yelled out in pain, muffling the sound with his other hand. "You bitch!"

"You brought it on yourself really," Rick said. He cocked his gun and shot a bullet directly between Tony's eyes. Rory stepped away as Rick turned to shoot at Dave, not necessarily wanting to be covered in brain matter and blood.

Dave's body thudded to the ground, his arm still pinned to the bar. Rory stepped over the pool of blood and retrieved her knife.

"Let's go before the walkers decide to swarm the building." Rory grabbed a couple bottles of vodka from the glass shelf behind the bar and then began walking towards the back door. She handed the gun she took from Dave to Rick, letting him shove it into the back of his jeans.

"What's the vodka for?" Glenn asked, trying his best not to look at the bodies.

"Antiseptic," Rory said simply, stashing the bottles in the bag. Glenn nodded and began to follow her, patting Hershel on the shoulder as he did so.

They all froze when they heard more cars and a voice that shouted, "Did you hear gunshots? Dave and Tony might be in trouble!"

"Shit." Rick crossed the bar to the front door, peeking past the curtains. "There's a lot of 'em."

"Let's sneak out the back now and make a run for the car. Those men aren't gonna take to kindly to us killing their friends." Hershel suggested, rounding the bar and approaching the door to the storeroom. He opened it slowly, checking for any walkers.

"We can't. They'll end up finding the bodies in here, hear the car and follow us back to the farm." Rory bit her lip.

"Oh God what do we do?" Glenn ran his hands through his hair.

"Hide the bodies, drag in a couple dead walkers and act like we don't know who Dave and Tony are?" Rory suggested.

"No. We'll tell the truth. They were low-key threatening us to find out where the farm is and he was harassing Rory, they have to understand that we didn't have a choice."

"Something tells me that they won't care that we murdered their friends for a reason..." Rory narrowed her eyes. A car door slammed and the voices got closer, causing Glenn to panic.

"Oh my god lets just go! We'll drive in the opposite direction of the farm or something but they outnumber us and they're probably gonna want revenge!" Glenn said.

"It's too late for that they're outside the door," Hershel whispered, his face white as a sheet.

"Tony? Dave? You okay in there?" A man yelled by the door.

"They're dead. They threatened us and we didn't have a choice," Rick said.

"Are you fucking kidding me? You killed them?" The man growled. "Hey boys, Dave and Tony are dead!"

"Look man, we didn't have a choice!"

"You're gonna pay for their lives, buddy! You kill one of ours and we do the same."

"Get down," Rick hissed. They all dropped to the floor just as the bullets began firing through the glass . "Back door, go!" He said as the shooting stopped momentarily. They had no idea how many there were, but there had to be at least a dozen with the amount of gunshots there were.

Rory pushed Hershel through into the storeroom first, pulling a panicked looking Glenn through with her. Rick stumbled in a moment later, breathing heavily.

"They're probably gonna be around this way too," Rick said. "Rory and Glenn, you two cover the right, I'll shoot left with Hershel. You got that?"

Rory nodded, grabbing her gun. Rick inched the door open and the shooting resumed instantly, the bullets lodging into the metal door.

"Shit!" Glenn yelled. Rory pushed to the front and used the door as cover as she quickly glanced around the side, noting the two gunmen who were reloading.

"There's two, go now!" She whispered. Rick ran out and shot at one of the two guys who were reloading, wounding but not killing him. Glenn and Rory ran out next, running in the opposite direction like Rick instructed them to.

But then someone started shooting at them from the other end of the alley. Rory shot back in a panic, hitting the man in the shoulder. He fell to the ground with a strangled yell and Rory's eyes darted to Glenn, who looked scared out of his mind. He'd ducked behind a trash can, clutching his gun to his chest with wide eyes.

"They're retreating! Come on let's go, we're getting swarmed by walkers!"

—/<3/—

Rory sat uncomfortably in the back of Rick's car, squished between Glenn and the random teenage boy that got impaled on a fence. They were all shaken up. After the adrenaline wore off and reality set in, they all realised what they had done. It was because of them that two people had died and even more were injured.

All morals were abandoned. Even though they were being threatened, there were better ways to deal with the situation than murder and violence and it was eating Rory up inside. She didn't know if she'd killed anybody. The man she shot had been injured but she didn't know if he died or if he would die from the wound, and the fact that she was responsible for that filled her with dread.

Randall, the boy they were attempting to save, was groaning and breathing heavily next to her, his hand shaking as he tried to keep the pressure on his leg. They hadn't exactly got him off the fence in the best way, but it was the quickest and most practical whilst being swarmed by walkers.

"Where the hell have you been? It was supposed to be a short trip, you were gone all day and night!" Archie yelled as the group stormed up to the car.

"We ran into some trouble," Rick said tiredly. They'd had to drive around until morning just in case they had anyone tailing them.

"Walkers? there were never that many there on our runs..." Maggie said worriedly.

"Men." Rory stumbled out of the car and over to her brother. She leant her head on his shoulder, absolutely exhausted and feeling terrible.

"Men?" Lori asked.

"There were some guys that found us in the bar, started grilling us about where the camp was. Turns out they had a whole group." Glenn walked around to the side of the car Randall was in and helped him get out. "This is one of them. They ditched him when the walkers swarmed the town."

"And you brought him here?" Shane seethed, pushing to the front of the crowd. Daryl glared at him harshly when he bumped into his shoulder.

"He's blindfolded and we drove around all night to throw him off," Rick said.

"Plus, he's a kid. We couldn't just leave him to die." Hershel added.

"But it was perfectly fine for us to kill his friends," Rory muttered.

"What?" Archer furrowed his brows, looking down at his sister who was staring off into the tree line, arms hanging loosely at her sides with her head still on his shoulder. He was the only one to hear her, luckily. If Carl had heard, Rick and Lori wouldn't have been happy.

"Rory can you help us fix him up?" Rick asked, throwing Randall's arm around his shoulders to take some of the weight off of Glenn.

"No. This is your mess, you deal with it. Stop dragging my sister into things." Archie practically growled, stopping Rory from moving towards Rick. He gently took her by the elbow and led her to their tent, paying no mind to the dozens of sets of eyes that followed their retreating figures.

—/<3/—