Lucien and Merle both froze at the same time. They turned slowly.
A bald man in a striped shirt stood at the street corner, maybe fifteen yards away. In his hands was a Glock 17, the barrel aimed at Merle's head. Two more men flanked him, also armed.
Merle shifted slightly, putting himself between Lucien and the newcomers. His bandaged hand stayed on Lucien's shoulder.
Then his face split into a manic grin.
"Look what crawled outta the woodwork. You got any idea who you're pointin' that at, slick?"
The man didn't respond. His eyes were locked on Merle's hand, still resting on Lucien's shoulder. The grip on his Glock tightened.
"I asked you a question. What are you doing to that kid?"
Lucien's brain was swimming. The fever made everything feel distant, like he was watching the scene through dirty glass. He squinted at the man, trying to make sense of the rage in his eyes.
Why was he so angry? What had Merle...
Oh.
Oh no.
The way Merle had been holding him. The way he'd forced the pills down Lucien's throat, hand clamped over his mouth. To an outside observer, especially one who'd only seen the last thirty seconds...
"Hold on," he tried to say, but his voice barely came out at all. "It's not—"
"What the fuck d'you think I'm doin'?" Merle's voice rose. "I'm takin' care of him, you dumb sonofabitch!"
"Taking care of him." The man's tone was flat. "That what you call it?"
"Yeah, that's what I fuckin' call it!" Merle's face was turning red. "The kid's sick! I was givin' him medicine!"
"Medicine." The word came out doubtful.
Merle looked down at Lucien, then back at the three armed men, and Lucien watched the exact moment it clicked. His eyes went wide, then narrowed into something murderous.
"You gotta be shittin' me. You think I'm some kinda..." He couldn't even finish the sentence, too furious to get the words out. "Are you fuckin' kidding me right now?!"
The man's expression didn't change. "Let go of the kid. Step away."
"I like women, you goddamn moron!" Merle was practically screaming now. "Grown women! With tits and ass and all the parts that make 'em women! You hearin' me?!"
"I hear you talking," the man said. "I also see what I see."
"What you see is me takin' care of my boy!" Merle jabbed a finger in Lucien's direction. "He's sick, he's runnin' a fever, and I was tryin' to get medicine in him before he fuckin' choked!"
"Your boy."
The way the man said it made it clear he wasn't buying a word. His eyes flicked from Merle's face to Lucien's features, even accounting for the dirt and exhaustion. The comparison was damning.
"Yeah, my boy!" Merle was losing it. "Jesus Christ, you—"
"That kid's about as much your son as I'm the Queen of England," the man interrupted. "Which is to say, not at all."
One of the other men spoke up. "Felipe, we should just take the kid and go."
"I'm not leavin' without—" Merle started forward.
Three guns came up simultaneously.
"You take one more step," the bald man, Felipe, apparently, said quietly, "and you ain't gonna have to worry about walkers."
Lucien tried to speak up again. "Please, he's telling the truth—"
His voice was too weak. The fever was making his head pound, and the words came out slurred. To Felipe and his crew, it probably sounded like the mumbling of someone in shock.
"Kid looks half-dead. How long you had him?"
"I found him yesterday!" Merle's voice was strained with the effort of not lunging forward. "He saved my goddamn life! I been carryin' him around since this mornin' tryin' to find somewhere safe!"
"Right. And the hand over his mouth?"
"He was gonna spit out the medicine, you dense motherfucker! He's runnin' a fever and—"
Felipe made a gesture. Lucien felt hands grab him from behind.
He'd been so focused on the argument in front of him that he hadn't noticed the two men circling around. Arms hooked under his armpits and hauled him backward, his feet leaving the ground.
"Wait..." Lucien tried to twist around, but he was too weak. "You don't understand..."
"Goddammit!" Merle surged forward.
Felipe's Glock swung to track him. "Don't."
"That's my—"
"I said don't!"
Lucien was being carried toward a car parked half a block away. He caught a glimpse of Merle's face before he was shoved through an open car door. Two men piled in on either side of him, sandwiching him between hard muscle and suspicious glares. The doors slammed shut.
Through the window, he could see Merle standing in the middle of the street, Felipe and the other man keeping their weapons trained on him. Merle was shouting something, Lucien couldn't hear it through the glass, but he could see the fury in every line of the man's body.
Then the engine started, and they were moving.
"You fuckin' wait!" Merle's voice carried even through the closed windows. "You hear me? You just wait, you sons of bitches!"
The car turned a corner, and Merle disappeared from view.
Lucien slumped back in the seat, his head spinning. The men on either side of him were tense, hands resting on weapons, but they weren't pointing them at him.
"You okay, kid?" The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror. "Did that guy hurt you?"
"No," Lucien managed. "He didn't—"
"It's alright," the younger man to his left interrupted. "You're safe now. We're not gonna let him get near you again."
"You don't understand," Lucien tried again. "He wasn't—"
His vision blurred. The fever was getting worse, or maybe it was just the stress finally catching up. His body had been running on adrenaline for days, and now that he was in a car with people who seemed intent on protecting him rather than killing him...
The exhaustion hit like a wave.
"He's burning up," one of the men said. "Felipe, the kid's running a serious fever."
"Get him back to the home," Felipe replied from the front. "Carlitos can look at him."
Lucien tried to explain one more time. The words were there in his head, but somewhere between his brain and his mouth they got tangled up.
"S'not... he didn't... Merle was just..."
The world tilted sideways.
The last thing Lucien heard before darkness took him was one of the men saying, "Poor kid. God knows what that bastard put him through."
Then nothing.
---
While Lucien was being "rescued" by a group of well-meaning kidnappers, Rick was having his own reckoning on the road out of Atlanta.
Two days before the so-called rescue, the truck's engine rumbled beneath Rick. The sun was dropping toward the horizon. Behind him, in the truck bed, the others were crammed together with their scavenged supplies. In the cab with him, Morales sat in silence.
Rick's hands gripped the steering wheel. He should turn around. He should go back. His gun bag was still in Atlanta, next to that tank, with his weapons and Morgan's walkie-talkie. Merle was still handcuffed to that pipe on the rooftop, probably dead by now but maybe still alive and cursing his name.
And Lucien.
Rick didn't even know if he was still alive.
"You're thinking about going back," Morales said.
"Yeah," Rick admitted.
"Don't."
"There's people back there—"
"One person who deserves saving, and one who definitely doesn't," Morales interrupted. "And you don't even know where either of them are."
"Lucien—"
"Might be hiding. Might've already made it out of the city." Morales turned to look at him. "I get it. You feel responsible. But charging back into Atlanta right now, in the dark, with no plan and no backup? That's stupid."
The words stung because they were true.
"Glenn said the kid was smart," he continued. "If he's half as capable as Glenn thinks, he's probably found a safe building somewhere and he's waiting for daylight. Same as we should be doing."
Rick wanted to argue, but the sun was setting. He had already made one rash, impulsive decision today. He couldn't afford another one.
"Besides," Morales added, "Merle's got a brother named Daryl. He's at the camp, and from what I hear, he's pretty capable. Maybe even more capable than Merle, though that's not saying much."
"And?"
"And when Daryl finds out Merle's missing, he's gonna want to go looking. You team up with him, you've got backup. Better odds all around."
Rick's grip on the wheel loosened slightly. "You think he's gonna want to help find Lucien too?"
"I think Daryl's gonna want to find Merle," Morales corrected. "But Lucien saved you, which means he saved all of us. That's gotta count for something. And if the kid really is as smart as Glenn says... Maybe he'll have found Merle already. Two birds, one rescue mission."
It was logical. Everything a good cop should appreciate.
Rick hated it anyway.
But he kept driving.
The miles passed in silence. Atlanta disappeared behind them, swallowed by distance and dusk. The forest grew thicker, the roads narrower. He followed the directions Morales had given him, turning where he was told to turn, keeping the speed steady.
When they finally pulled into the camp, the sun had fully set.
There were more people than Rick had expected. Maybe twenty, scattered around a collection of tents and vehicles arranged in a rough circle. A fire burned in the center.
He killed the engine.
The others were already piling out of the back, greeted by shouts and questions. Rick stepped down from the cab and looked around at the camp.
It was makeshift and fragile, held together by necessity rather than trust.
It reminded him of the hospital.
"Rick?"
A familiar female voice came from his left.
He turned and saw her.
Lori.
His wife stood maybe ten feet away, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. She was staring at him like he was a ghost, her hand pressed to her mouth.
"Lori?" Rick's voice came out rough.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Lori made a sound and ran toward him.
She collided with him, and her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. She began to cry, pressing her face into his shoulder as her whole body shook.
Rick's arms came up automatically, holding her.
"Dad!"
He looked up and saw Carl running toward them from the far side of the camp. Carl slammed into them a second later, and Rick dropped to one knee, pulling his family close and holding on as tightly as he could.
Lori was still crying. Carl was crying too. He felt tears on his own cheeks, hot and unexpected.
They were alive.