CHAPTER SEVENTEEN － LIAR

No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get out of their zip ties. Hershel had advised both women against the notion, and eventually would sigh as Kate slipped onto the floor later on when trying to hop over to one of the counters. Michonne's tactic, however, was to start screaming her head off, thrashing her entire body against the walls.

A few minutes later though, another man stepped in, binding each their mouths with socks. Reasoning with him didn't work much, seeing as the only time he spoke was to call Michonne a snot nosed bitch. He also yanked Kate up, cutting the ties around her legs and dragging her out to a car, practically shoving her inside before slamming the door shut.

Kate could feel the eyes on her, people walking by from all around the camp as they prepared to leave. Later on, two other people would hop into the front seat, a couple, she took it. A blonde haired man, along with a young hispanic woman at the wheel. Neither would speak to her while they drived, only glance back at her before looking st each other or the road again. They were anxious, but not monsters; she knew that much.

By the time they stopped, Kate knew it was at the prison by the small explosion she heard. The cars shut off, and the couple hopped out of the car, the man stepping a few steps to his right while the woman remained on the other side of the car. Kate couldn't see much behind the tan seating in the car, but she recognized the grass, and she recognized the voice about the speak.

"Rick, come down here!" The Governor called out. "Let's talk!"

"It's not up to me!" The raspy voice cake a few moments later, fainter due to the distance. "There's a council now! They run the place!"

"Is Hershel on the council? What about Michonne?"

She glanced over through the window, watching both of her friends get dragged forwards, shoved into a kneeling position side by side.

"How about Kate? She on the council too?"

The car door on her right opened, the young blonde man tugging her out and escorting her to sit on the right side of Hershel. He'd then step back, almost terrified at being up front and center in the action like the two of his friends that brought up the other captives.

Now resting stinging knees, Kate glanced up, spotting the crowd forming by the gates closest to the prison. Beth and Maggie, huddled side by side in horror. Rick stood next to them, in the middle by the fenceline. Daryl was next o him, with Tyreese, Sasha, Bob, and Carl behind him.

Oh, God, Kate couldn't help but think to herself as she saw them. This is a live execution, and I'm on death row now.

"I don't make decisions anymore!"

"You're making the decisions today, Rick. Come down here. Let's have that talk."

The scruffy man would turn, giving Daryl a look before cupping Carl's cheek, offering it a slight rub of comfort before stepping closer. She noticed the group lean in to speak to each other quietly as he did, no doubt going over the exit plan the council made first thing after being out into power.

"Let 'em go, right now. I'll stay down here. Talk as long as you want－ but you let them go." Rick pleaded, stopping about halfway down the hill. His voice shook, perhaps more than Kate had ever seen back during the war.  "You got a tank. You don't need hostages."

"I do," replied the Governor, his thumbs pressing into his belt. "This is just a precaution, not to blast a hole in our new home. You and your people, you have 'til sundown to fet out of here, or they die."

He glanced back at them, making direct eye contact with Kate before he spoke. "It doesn't have to go down this way."

"I've got more people, more firepower－ we need this prison." The Governor waved him arms, as if finally dropping the bomb on them. "There is is. It's not about the past, it's about right now."

"There are children here." Rick's voice cracked slightly before he cleared his throat. "Some of them are sick. They－ They won't survive."

Kate glanced to her left, noticing a few pairs of eyes on their side of the fence drifted back up upon the tank, where the Governor was, waiting for guidance or reassurance. The truth, they wouldn't get.

"I have a tank, and I'm letting you walk away from here. What else is there to talk about? I could shoot you all, you'd shoot right back, I know that. But we'll win, and you'll be dead. All of you. Doesn't have to be like that. Like I said, it's your choice."

Kate glanced to her right, only to see destruction. Another guard tower had been destroyed at the hands of the Governor. Who even knew if anyone was inside. By the gates farther up the hill, Kate could spot Daryl sneakily trying to pull guns out of the buckets, slowly handing them to everyone else in the area. She felt grateful her brother wasn't there. At least, if she were murdered, he wouldn't have to see it. She wasn't sure he could come back from that.

A few walkers snarled in the distance, only to be gunned down as soon as they became heard. The sound would draw more of them soon, the question was just when.

So did the Governor. "The noise will only draw more of them over. The longer you wait, the harder it'll be for you to get out of here."

Guns raised from the fence, some being from people that Kate hadn't even known too long. She wasn't the most sociable these days, like Hershel, or the one who'd gone on the most runs, like Michonne, but they were just as eager to save her too. She was one of them, and now, it wasnt ex-Woodbury and herself. It was Kate, and her people.

"We've got...maybe an hour of sunlight left. I suggest you start packing." The Governor glanced up at the sky, taking a nice deep breath of air. "Remember, the longer you wait, the harder it'll be to get out here."

"We can all－" Rick stuttered, almost choking on his words. Then, he went silent, sucking in abreath himself. "We can all live here together. There's enough room for all of us."

"More than enough, but I don't think my family would sleep well, knowing you were under the same roof."

"We'd live in different cell blocks. We'd never have to see each other, not 'til we're all ready."

Hershel turned the best he could, wincing under the pressure on his stump. "It could work, you know it could."

Kate wanted to scream at him, beg for him to remain quiet. One wave of his finger, and one of them could get hurt, or worse, someone up at the prison. He'd been the one to insist on not picking a fight with him earlier, why couldn't he do the same now that weapons were involved? Stay quiet and don't put yourself on their radar, that's what she used to tell herself before she knew them, before she'd known that she was on the losing side in the early days of the war.

"It could've, but it can't. Not after Woodbury, not after Andrea."

Michonne tensed up from the far left, fists clenching at the name of the woman she once knew.

"Look, I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. Fact is, it's gonna be a hell of a lot harder than standing here, shooting at each other, but I don't think we have a choice." Rick claimed.

"We don't. You do."

"We're not leaving." He stated firmly. "You try and force us, we'll hit you right back. Like you said, the gunshots will just bring more of them out. They'll take down the fences, and without the fences, this place is worthless. Now, we can all live in the prison, or none of us can."

The sound of the Governor hopping off of the tank made Kate flinch, quickly followed with your shoulders tensing as the sound of a katana was drawn; Michonne's katana.

"We'll fix the damn fences," She heard him mutter, shoving her to the dirt. When she looked up, her heart stopped.

The Governor had the katana lined up against Hershel's neck, gripping the bun his white hair was pulled into tightly. Yet, his face remained calm, his eyes staring right up at his daughters. Maggie and Beth were gripping the fence, tears barely masking the fury in their eyes.

For Rick, it was like watching his father get taken down. His own eyes were shaking, his voice no longer containing any composure. "You, in the ponytails, is this what you want? Is this what any of you want?"

The girl in the ponytails looked away in shame, whereas the man who'd shoved Kate into the car earlier, a shorter man in a military hat yelled out. "What we want is what you got, period. Time for you to leave, asshole."

"Look, I fought him before, and after, we took in his old friends. They've become leaders in what we have here. Now, you put down your weapons, walk through those gates, and you'll be one of us. " He pleaded. "We let go of all of it, and nobody dies. Everyone who's alive right now, everyone who's made it this far. We've all done the worst kinds of things, just to stay alive. But we can still come back, we're not too far gone. We get to come back. I know we all can change.

A beat passed, maybe two. Enough time passed that Kate could hear a bird distantly chirp. And then she heard a whisper, and felt blood splatter against the left side of her face.

"Liar."

One swipe, then another, and that was all it took for Hershel Greene's body to fall against Michonne's lap, his head halfway hanging off of his body. His eyes were dull, and his limbs were limp, but he was still alive. Hair was still escaping his nose. Maggie or Beth, possibly even both, had let out a broken shriek. Then Rick did, and he became the first to fore off a round of bullets.

Kate could taste the iron in her mouth, her friend, her father figure, executed in a warrior's style just next to her. For a moment, as bullets echoed off, she was frozen, staring in horror at the lifeless body besides her while on the other end of the corpse, Michonne was rolling over, avoiding gunshots as she disappeared into the rows of vehicles surrounding them.

Ears ringing, she forced herself to scoot back, screaming at herself to back away. Now wasn't the time, she couldn't freeze up, couldn't lay here and mourn Hershel. Kate needed to move, before his corpse woke up again with a thirst for blood. Arms scraping against the dirt, wrists aching with every tug, she shakily climbed up to her feet. And when she was far back enough out of the line of fire, Kate used a corner on one of the cars to undo the zipties.

Right as she freed herself, however, a sudden burst of firey hot pain shattered into Kate's shoulder, and she let out a jaw dropping whimper. It was a man, the one who'd grabbed Hershel from the vehicle he'd been separated into earlier, but right as went to fire the finishing blow to her, he stopped, collapsing to the ground. Behind him was the hispanic woman that'd driven Kate there earlier.

"You need to get up," She instructed, yanking her up from where she'd collapsed. "Come on, let's go."

Kate wheezed for air, kicking at the grass as the movement set her shoulder on utter flame. "I...what? I can't just－"

The cars began to move forwards, the fence shattering in a rapid snap, then the other. Neither of the women could even see their friends and enemies through the smoke twisting in the sky.

"I'm putting you in the car. My husband and I are gonna get you away from the gunfire." The stranger wrapped Kate's good arm around her should, stumbling though the back end of any remaining vehicles, fortunately meaning there wasn't exactly anyone to see them. Hershel, his corpse had now moved, his walker head lightly growling, searching for the rest of its body.

"I can't just leave them. My brother, my friends－"

The woman flinched harshly, ducking both of their bodies down as another explosion rang out, shot directly at the prison walls. "Yeah, no chance in hell. They're fucked." She tugged the back of her collar and black bra strap back, inspecting her. "Okay, that's good. There's an exit wound, we can treat it when we find somewhere safe."

"Why should I trust you? You're with him!" Kate cried, slipping off of her at another blast and collapsing against the dirt just feet away from the car she'd arrived in.

"Because if you don't, you'll die, and I didn't sign up for a bunch of strangers blood on my hands today. Brian promised us no one had to die." The woman pulled her up, wheezing again. They continued forth, the right-side door of the backseat still open, allowing the stranger to guide Kate inside and shut the door. She then would turn around, scrambling towards the driver's side as before, looking around and shouting a name. "Mason! Mason, come on!"

The blonde man who'd been in the car with them earlier appeared, running through the cars left behind, dodging any stray bullets left behind. Walkers were starting to appear, drawn by the beacon the sound, exactly as promised. He didn't stop for even a second, practically flying into the passenger's seat.

"Go, go, go!" He cried, harshly yanking on his seat belt. Kate noticed now that he had a British accent, though slightly mixed with a southern one with how much time he must have spent stuck here by now.

The car stated, squealing as it reversed back at great speed. Kate let out another cry, falling back against the seat. She could feel the light begin drifting away, her eyesight fading in and out as she tried to peer through the seats and drown out the remix of arguing, explosions, and gunfire.  Her heart begged her tired eyes, willing them to stay open. She needed to see, she needed to look. Her brother, her friends, Rick, Carl. Where were they?

Kate wouldn't get to see, and the light faded from her eyes the minute the prison faded from the background. Her home was gone, and so was her family.