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ACT ONE
(judge, jury and dale)

    A WEEK had passed since the group had found Randall. While he was healed enough to leave, the group had a setback when the boy admitted he knew Maggie.

Now the boy currently resided in a small shed, it wasn't comfortable. Neither was the beating he had just received from Daryl.

So as Daryl spilled all the new information he had forced out of the boy. Veroníca couldn't help but pity Randall. "The boy has got a gang. Thirty people. They have heavy artillery and they ain't looking to make friends. They roll through here, our boys are dead. Our women.. They're gonna wish they were."

"What did you do?" Carol asked, intently looking at the man's bloody knuckles.

"Had a little chat."

"No one goes near this guy." Rick commanded.

"Rick, what are you gonna do?" Lori placed her hand on Rick's shoulder as she questioned him, which he didn't seem to notice.

"We have no choice. He's a threat. We have to eliminate the threat."

"You're just gonna kill him?" Dale asked, disbelief clear on his face.

"It's settled. I'll do it today." Rick loudly announced, walking away immediately afterwards.

When he left, Dale was close on his tail. Through Veroníca didn't know what they were going to talk about, she had a pretty good idea of what Dale would bring up.

Instead of pondering the idea, the woman walked over to Carol. "Ready?"

"Of course." Carol smiled, tightening the bag around her shoulder.

The two then made their way to sit beside Sophia's burial sight.

In the short span of a week, the two women had created a club. The club solely consisted of them, and they'd meet almost everyday to read books in silence beside Sophia's grave.

Though it was a very silent activity, Carol had needed it. She needed the peace and quiet, she was glad she got to do that while sitting beside her daughter. Even if her daughter was no longer alive.

So as the pair sat in their comfortable silence, Carol looked up from her book for a brief second. "Sophia would've loved you."

"Can I hear about her?"

Carol nodded, bending the ear of her page to place it on the ground beside her. "She was a very shy girl.. I remember one day, she was in kindergarten and she came home from school.. And she said Mama! I met a friend! She went on and on about this friend.. Grace.. Ed had been pressuring her, telling her she needed friends. So he was happy when she finally met one.. But, mother's instinct.. You know. Something was off. So, next time i'm picking her up I ask her teacher—I say, Could I meet Grace's mom? And the teacher goes—She goes, Well, Mrs. Peletier.. We don't have a Grace in your daughter's grade..."

Carol paused for a moment, a smile coming on her face as she seemed to picture the fond memory. "I remember thinking it was so silly.. Such a Sophia thing to lie about.. I went into Sophia's room and I said... Soph, why did you lie about this? and she said. Well Mama.. I heard the song Amazing Grace and wanted to meet her.—I remember just laughing and laughing.. Sophia didn't know why I was laughing but she joined in.. We didn't laugh alot at home, but that night we did..."

Veroníca smiled at the story as well, placing her hand on Carol's shoulder for a moment as she spoke. "She sounds wonderful."

"She was." Carol said sadly, looking at the dirt mound beside her. "She was too wonderful to live in a world like this.. I know she's happy now. She's probably laughing up there."

Veroníca nodded, agreeing with the woman just as Carl and Rory approached the pair. "Hi, Ma!" Rory said, kissing the woman's cheek.

"What are you two doing here?"

"I came to see you.. Carl came to see Sophia." Rory explained making Carol speak up.

"Well, Sophia isn't here anymore.. She's in heaven."

"No, she's not. Heaven is just another lie. If you believe it then you're an idiot." Carl said, pulling Rory behind him as he stormed off.

Veroníca's mouth was completely dropped at this point, shocked at the young boy's harsh words. As she went to comfort Carol she was shocked to see the woman not beside her anymore.

She looked around for a moment, when she saw the woman talking to Lori and Rick. She figured it would be best to leave the area.

She then stood up and made her way back to camp.

Upon reaching camp, she smiled when Aiden made his way towards her. When she noticed her brother wasn't smile her smile dropped. "What's the matter?"

"Shane just told me Carl and Rory snuck into the shed. Talked to the prisoner."

"What?"

"That Grimes kid is a bad influence."

Veroníca didn't want to agree but she wasn't going to turn a blind eye to the changes her son seemed to be going through, even the little changes like his tone were still noticeable. "Rory is a smart kid. He can pick his own friends, hermano."

Aiden rolled his eyes at this, rolling his eyes again when Dale entered the duo's conversation.

"Good, I caught you two together."

"What, Dale?" Aiden asked, his harsh tone earning an elbow in his ribs from Veroníca.

"I want to talk to you both about the prisoner." Dale said calmly, mostly turning his attention to Veroníca seeing as he knew she'd listen more.

"What about him?"

"We're voting tonight, on his execution... You two can't seriously think killing a kid is a good idea?"

"I do." Aiden said, raising his hand a bit with a cocky smile.

"You heard Daryl and Rick.. He's a threat."

"Threat by association! We're letting a kid die over hanging out with the wrong crowd. Do you know what your son will think when he sees you vote to kill an innocent boy? I do. He'll think shoot now, think later."

"My son's smart enough to know what's right.. Killing him keeps everyone safe." Veroníca said sadly, she did pity killing the boy. Unfortunately they had too, all their lives would be at risk if they let him go.

Dale scoffed at this, looking at the woman in disbelief before shaking his head and looking in between the siblings. "Thought you two were different."

The man then stormed off. As soon as he was out of earshot, Aiden started mumbling to himself. "Who does he think he is?"

Veroníca ignored it, deciding not to reply as Rick called out to everyone. "Let's gather up!"

As he yelled from the porch, Aiden and Veroníca both began making their way over together.

Just as they reached the steps, a muddy Carl and Rory reached the steps as well. While Carl went to Lori, Rory ran over to Veroníca. "C'mon Carl I want you to stay with Jimmy."

"But I wanna listen."

"Not this time.. Ronnie, you want Jimmy to take Rory too?" Lori turned her head to her friend, smiling when Veroníca nodded.

Veroníca then kissed her son's head, lightly nudging his back. "You heard her, go find Jimmy, okay?"

Rory nodded, running inside to find the teenager.

The group sat silently in the living room. While Glenn and Veroníca sat side by side on the piano stool, Aiden stood beside Daryl.

Glenn then nervously pat Veroníca's knee as he spoke. "So.. How do we do this? Do we just take a vote?"

"Does it have to be unanimous?"

Rick rubbed his eyes for a split second before speaking. "Let's just see where everybody stands. Then, we can talk through the options."

"The way I see it.. There's only one way to move forward."

"Killing him, right? I mean why bother to even take a vote? It's clear which way the wind's blowing."

"Well if people believe we should spare him.. I wanna know." Rick said honestly, looking around for anyone who agreed with Dale.

"Well, I can tell you.. It's a small group—Maybe just me and Glenn.."

Dale's statement received silence from Glenn making the older man realize Glenn didn't agree with him.

Before Dale could complain about it, Glenn spoke up. "Look, I—I think you're pretty much right about everything, all the time, but this—"

"They've got you scared!"

"He's not one of us. We've—we've lost too many people already." Glenn admitted, feeling a little better when Veroníca patted his knee to show him support.

"How about you? Do you agree with this?" He asked Maggie making her sigh.

"Couldn't we continue keeping him prisoner?"

"Just another mouth to feed." Daryl mumbled, Aiden nodding along.

"We could ration better."

"Well, he could be an asset! Give him a chance to prove himself." Dale demanded.

"We're not letting him walk around." Rick finalized making Dale tightened his grip on his hat.

"We could put an escort on him."

At Maggie's suggestion, Dale nodded. "I would volunteer for that duty."

"None of us should walk around with this guy, What if he gets loose..." Aiden said, thinking about what this young boy could do.

"He's right, I wouldn't feel safe unless he was tied up." Lori shrugged.

"Look, say we let him join us, right? Maybe he's helpful, maybe he's nice. We let our guard down and maybe he runs off, brings back his thirty men."

Shane's explanation surprisingly made a-lot of sense to everyone but Dale who shook his head. "So, the answer is to kill him to prevent a crime that he may never even attempt? If we do this, we're saying there's no hope."

"I'd rather have no hope and everyone still here, than have hope and everyone dead." Veroníca admitted which just earned a head shake from Dale.

"She's right we should not put our own people at risk." Glenn agreed.

There was a second of silence before Patricia spoke up. "If you.. Go through with it, how would you do it? Would he suffer?"

"We could hang him, right? Just snap his neck." Shane suggested as Rick nodded.

"I thought about that.. Shooting may be more humane."

Now T-dog spoke up, yet as soon as he asked about what'd they do with the body Dale cut him off. "Hold on, hold on. You're talking about this like it's already decided!"

"Kind of is.." Aiden mumbled as Daryl nodded before he began pacing.

"You've been talking all day, Going around in circles. You just wanna go around in circles again?"

"This is a young man's life! It is worth more than a five-minute conversation! Is this what it's come to? We kill someone because we can't decide what else to do with them? You saved him! Now look at us. He's been tortured. He's gonna be executed. How are we any better than those people that we're so afraid of?"

"We all know what needs to be done.."

"No, Dale is right. We can't leave any stone unturned here. We have responsibility—" Rick then got cut off by Andrea who seemed annoyed.

"—What's the other solution? We haven't come up with a single, viable option yet. I wish we could."

"So let's work on it!" Dale yelled.

While Lori and Rick tried to convince Dale they were working on it, Carol began speaking over them. "Stop it. Just stop it! I'm sick of everybody arguing and fighting. I didn't ask for this. You can't ask us to decide something like this. Please decide, either of you—But leave me out."

"Not speaking out, or killing him yourself.. There's no difference."

"That's enough." Rick hushed, taking a step backward before talking again. "Anyone who wants the floor, before we make a final decision.. Has that chance."

There was a long silence, nobody wanting the floor until Dale spoke again. "You once said that we don't kill the living."

"That was before the living tried to kill us."

"Don't you see? If we do this, the people that we were—the world that we knew is dead! This new world it's ugly.. It's harsh.. It's survival of the fittest! That's a world I don't want to live in. —— I don't believe that any of you do. Please. Let's just do what's right... Isn't there anybody else that's gonna stand with me?"

There was another silence, this one much more awkward than before. So when Andrea spoke up, everyone felt relieved. Yet her words weren't as relieving. "He's right. We should try to find another way."

"Anybody else?" Rick asked again. When nobody replied, Rick turned to face Dale expectingly.

Dale's eyes watered as he spoke. "Y'all gonna watch too? No. You'll go hide your heads in your tents, and try to forget that we're slaughtering a human being. I won't be a party to it."

Dale then stormed off, muttering something to Darly before making his way out of the house.

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