damnation → the walking dead ⁴

[ 039 ] executioner.

— CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE.
executioner.

THE RETURN TO THE Hilltop is a sorrowful one.

Cori doesn't go with Maggie to tell Tammy Rose and Earl about their son's death. She can't. She just can't.

Instead, she returns her own trailer. She finds Flynn sitting on his bed with a box in front of him. "What's that?" She asks as she turns her back to him, she begins to take off her jacket.

"Sasha gave it to me before she and Rosita left to kill Negan," Flynn answers. Cori whirls around.

"What?" Her brows dip in. "You've never opened it, Flynn? That was almost two years ago."

"I never had the courage," the nine year old says. "I was scared that if I opened it, her death would become all the more real."

"Oh, Flynn," she frowns. She walks forward and sits beside him. "Do you want me to stay with you while you open it?"

He nods.

When Flynn opens the box, Cori sucks in a breath. She stares down at what rests in the box. "Flynn."

"I know." Flynn reaches into the box and grabs the necklace. "Abraham made it for Rosita. Rosita told me about it. She said she knew Sasha had it but she didn't see it on her when they went to the Sanctuary. She gave it to me."

Flynn holds up the necklace. The red piece shines against the warm light in the trailer. It came from a headlight, Rosita told him.

"It's very special. You have to take good care of it." Cori says as she stands back. "Now, come on."

Flynn sets the necklace back in the box. "Where are we going?" He asks.

Cori sucks in a breath. "Ken's funeral."

Cori goes to Barrington House to check on Maggie, to ask if she would be joining everyone for Ken's funeral. Maggie tells her no, she isn't welcome. Tammy Rose and Earl don't want her there, not after she convinced them to let their son go on the run. He came home dead. All for a plow that broke.

The moonlight is heavy. Cori stands beside Jesus, her arm wrapped around Flynn's shoulders. He stares at the wooden box that holds the dead boy. She keeps her eyes locked on the grass underneath her feet. She can't bare to look at the coffin. Ken doesn't deserve to be in it.

Nearby, Theo stands beside Cyndie. The young man refused to go to the Sanctuary with the others. He and Cori both tried to convince Odessa to come with them to the Hilltop but she refused. She said she needed to face her demons.

As Alden's singing comes to a stop, he speaks up. "I'm gonna miss you, Ken. Heaven's a better place for havin' you."

They all drink from their cups, everyone except for Cori and Flynn. Neither sibling drinks anything that can alter their brains, too scared of becoming like their father.

They all watch as Gregory steps up. "Ken was a quiet, good-hearted young man. He wasn't a fighter. Uh, he— he tended to our animals. He— he shoed the horses. It's regular guys like Ken that keep a place goin'. He will be remembered as a son, a friend... a— a shining example of Hilltop's strength and fundamental decency, even in the face of this terrible tragedy. Cheers, Ken. Rest in Peace."