damnation → the walking dead ⁴

[ 021 ] the first day of the rest of your life.

— CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
the first day of the rest of your life.

TEARS FALL DOWN THEO'S face, a piece of paper is clutched between his bleeding fists. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly. He opens his eyes and starts to read,

Dear Theo—

Dwight is the one that tells them Negan is coming. Him and about twenty Saviors and Sasha. Their Sasha.

Cole sits in his living room. He doesn't sit on the couch or chair. He sits on the wooden floor with a notebook in front of him and a pen in his hand.

He doesn't knew what to write.

What does he say to the boy who's heart he ripped out? To the boy that he put beneath a traitor, beneath a woman he barely knew?

He's just gonna wing it.

Dear Theo—

When the sun rises, Cole decides it's a beautiful day to die.

Everyone prepares for what's about to happen. The Scavengers arrive at Alexandria on their bikes and in their garbage trucks.

It's an odd sight.

But that's not their biggest issues of the day. Their biggest issue are the trucks coming their way this very moment. Negan and Kathleen are both on their way to Alexandria right now.

They station Michonne and a Scavenger in the highest story of Deanna's old office. On the floor below them, Theo Blake sets up his rifle on the window seal.

From here he'll be able to see everything that happens. He'll be able to see Negan and Kathleen, he'll be able to take the shots.

He won't hesitant today.

He hesitated before and Hershel died. No one else is going to die because of his hesitation. Not while he lives.

Anxiety courses through all of Alexandria as they prepare for the fight that is driving their way. People line the walls. Odessa kneels beside her brother. Her knuckles are nearly white from how hard she's gripping one of the guns they'd stolen from Oceanside.

Cole stands on the concrete below them. He's anxious, just as everyone else. But something in the pit of his stomach feels wrong. Something bad is going to happen. Something very bad.

When Rick tells Rosita to get into position, she has no time. Because at that very moment, Eugene Porter's voice fills the tense air.

"All points are covered. Every contingency is already met. I come armed with two barrels of the truth. A test is upon you, and I'm giving out the cheat sheet."

Cole's heart plummets. He moves so he can see out the gate. As the trucks park, he can see Eugene standing on the back of one with a megaphone in one hand.

Cole considered Eugene his friend. One of his best ones and now he's on the other side of the wall. With Negan, with the Saviors. He's with the man that killed his best friend, Abraham.

"H— hello." He stutters as he looks at Rick Grimes, one of the many people he's betrayed.

Odessa and Carl share an angry look as they listen to Eugene's words.