Solitude -> The Walking Dead

53

"Did you find them?"

Rick's eyes softened at the sight of me before shaking his head. The color drained from my face at the news. I'd been keeping it together quite well, all things considered.

After Bob going missing, we also found out that Daryl and Carol were nowhere to be found. Someone or something took them. Anything could've happened. Anything bad.

Not even minutes after Rick's promise of trying to keep the people I care about safe and already they were in danger. From the look on his face, I knew he was well aware of that, too.

"This is all connected. You show up, we're being watched, and now three of us are gone." Sasha snapped.

My focus went to her figure approaching the priest. She was acting hostile towards him and I couldn't blame her for it. He was the only new person that had motive for it.

Yet despite that knowledge, my gut told me that it wasn't him. He was too much of a weak coward. The way he cowered before Sasha proved that.

"I don't," Gabriel looked around the room, "I don't have anything to do with this."

His words did nothing to convince Sasha who pulled out a knife. Rosita and Tyreese stepped forward protesting her actions. Abraham held Rosita back in an effort to keep her from harm's way.

"Who's out there? Where are our people?"

Gabriel held his hands up in front of him in an attempt to calm her down, claiming he doesn't have anything to do with their disappearance. I took a deep breath before coming closer to Sasha and gently grabbing her elbow.

She ignored the silent command. "Where are our people?!"

As she raised her voice, Rick joined me at the other side of Sasha and pulled her back into me. Only then did she allow me to remove her from Gabriel's vicinity.

That's when Rick took over.

"Why'd you bring us here?"

A good question. We were strangers and he just casually led the way to his sanctuary, his church. As if though people weren't worse than the dead.

"Please, I-"

"You working with someone?"

"I'm alone-I'm alone. I was always alone."

His words hit deeper than they should've. Always alone in the suffering. Always the one to go through everything alone without comfort.

I shook my head trying to shake off those thoughts. They weren't true. I wasn't alone. I definitely wasn't alone. Despite repeating the sentence in my head multiple times, it still felt like it was an untrue one.

"What about the woman in the food bank, Gabriel? What did you do to her?" Rick asked.

My heart sped up. I shouldn't be here. Whatever this conversation was, it wasn't leading to anything good. Not for me anyway. It was all triggering, and I don't even know what.

Some kind of guilt or loneliness. A bit of both.

"You'll burn for this. That was for you," Rick insisted, "why? What are you gonna burn for?"

I held back tears as I remembered Ryan's blank face. He wasn't the first person I failed or lost. But his death was the first one to make me question everything.

I couldn't hear any more. It hurt. It hurt so much and I couldn't understand why.

"Rick-" I uttered weakly.

Rick grabbed Gabriel by his collar and pushed him against the wall. "What? What did you do? What did you do?"

His yelling made me flinch as I stepped back and bumped into Maggie. Her hands steadied me as she noticed the panic on my face.