TWD - Chapter 525: How the Hell Did You Guys End Up Like This? (Patreon)

The Wolf King’s expression froze.

An instant later, Turner exploded out from behind and to the side, locked both of the Wolf King’s arms behind him, and drove a knee hard into the back of his leg.

Both men lost their balance and crashed into the thick brush.

A muffled impact sounded, followed by snapping branches and a short grunt.

At almost the same moment, Mike lunged at the burly man.

The man instinctively fought back, throwing a vicious punch at Mike’s face.

Mike slipped his head aside, caught the arm as the punch missed, and twisted it into a hard joint lock.

Crack.

The burly man screamed and dropped to his knees. His free hand shot toward the knife at his waist, but Mike planted a boot on his wrist and pinned it to the ground.

The youngest Wolf was still sitting on the ground and had not even managed to stand when Carver smashed the butt of his rifle into the back of his head. His eyes rolled up and he went completely limp.

The entire takedown was nearly silent. The nine masked fighters recovering in the valley never noticed a thing.

Calista rose calmly from behind cover and walked toward the Wolf King.

Turner had him pinned facedown in the brush, one cheek pressed into dead leaves and dirt. His hands had been pulled behind his back and cinched tight with plastic restraints. Blood continued to bead along the scratches on his face as he glared at Calista.

“...You’re their leader? That so-called Pope?”

The Pope.

So it really was the Pope.

Calista blinked, crouched until she was level with him, and looked straight into his eyes.

“What’s your name?”

The Wolf King remained silent for several seconds before a tired smile touched the corner of his mouth.

“You don’t need to know. I’m not surviving today anyway.”

Calista studied the man in front of her. He was in his early thirties, with even, refined features. In another life, he might have looked perfectly at home quietly reading in the corner of a café.

The apocalypse had changed a great many people.

The burly man had one wrist dislocated by Mike and his lower leg broken by a follow-up stomp. Now he lay curled in the brush, face deathly pale, cold sweat pouring from his forehead as he let out the occasional muffled groan.

Mike tore a strip of cloth from the man’s shirt and stuffed it into his mouth, cutting off the sound.

The youngest man was still unconscious, a huge lump rising on the back of his head. Carver dragged him beneath a dead pine, tied his hands and feet, then looped the rope three times around the trunk to secure him.

The Wolf King and the burly man were tied to two other trees and gagged as well.

“They’re not going anywhere.” Carver dusted off his hands and circled the three prisoners twice.

Bossie remained at the drone reconnaissance terminal. On the screen, the nine masked fighters moved slowly through the resort. They were spread out, but always kept a deliberate distance between one another.

“No sign of pursuit,” Bossie said. “They’re collecting their teammates’ bodies.”

Calista nodded, then glanced at Leah.

Leah stood motionless at the edge of the ridge, facing the resort.

The silence stretched on for a long time before she finally spoke.

“Cali, I want to go down there.”

Calista drew in a breath and turned toward her sister.

“To do what?”

“...Take a look.”

It was a vague answer, but Calista understood exactly what she meant.

Leah wanted to see whether those really were her former teammates. She wanted to know why they wore masks, why they were here, and why they had fought the Wolves.

And she wanted to know whether there was any chance of bringing them over to their side.

“Leah, you want to turn them,” Calista said with certainty.

Leah did not deny it.

“They fought beside us. We ran missions together. We drank together.” She paused. “I don’t want to kill them.”

“Sis, you know the risk.” Calista rubbed the bridge of her nose. “They just killed dozens of people. They’re still coming down from that fight. If you appear in front of them now, they could see you as another enemy.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know what’s under those masks. You don’t know what the Pope did to them. And you have no idea how they’ll react.”

Leah fell silent.

She knew. She knew all of it.

She still wanted to go.

Calista sighed and stepped closer.

“All right. But you’re not going alone. Carver and Mike are going with you.”

She turned toward the two men.

“Carver, Mike, stay on full alert the entire time. If they attack, try to disarm you, or do anything abnormal, open fire and fall back here. I’ll have Jenson and Bossie ready on the high ground.”

Her expression hardened.

“You care about them. I don’t. I care about you. If they become a threat to any of you, I’ll kill them on the spot.”

Carver gave Calista a long look, then nodded. Mike moved to Leah’s side as well.

“What if they’re willing to talk?” Carver asked.

Calista glanced at Leah.

“Then talk. But until that happens, none of you lets go of your weapon.”

Leah, Carver, and Mike moved around the shaded side of the ridge, following a shallow ravine filled with dry grass and loose rock as they slowly approached the resort.

The nine masked fighters were still active.

Three were dealing with the bodies in front of the main building’s porch. They dragged Wolves’ corpses into one pile, then carefully carried the bodies of their two fallen teammates beneath the porch and covered them with sheets found inside the building.

The other six were spread around the grounds. Some kept watch from the roof, some searched the staff dormitory, and others gathered weapons and ammunition.

They still wore their masks. White skull. Black moth. Rusted metal. Several others whose shapes Calista had not been able to make out through the binoculars.

Leah and the others stopped behind an abandoned garage about a hundred fifty meters from the main building. From there, they had a clear view of the three people working near the porch.

The one in the rusted metal mask crouched beside a dead Wolf and tore a bone necklace from the dead man’s neck.

He examined it for a few seconds, then tossed it into a bag beside him. More than a dozen similar necklaces were already inside, along with several relatively intact machetes and a few rusted hunting rifles.

He was collecting trophies.

Leah stared at his back.

She knew that posture. The left shoulder always sat slightly lower than the right.

Benson.

Like Leah and Rickson, he had once led another squad at Sentinel Tactical.

“Leah,” Mike whispered, “did you recognize someone?”

Leah did not answer.

She rose from behind the garage. Carver and Mike both reached for her, but she had already stepped into the open.

One hundred fifty meters was more than close enough for the nine fighters’ sentries to notice her.

On the roof, the sniper in the white skull mask flipped open his scope cover and slowly turned the muzzle toward her.

Leah kept walking.

The three people near the porch stopped what they were doing.

The man in the rusted metal mask stood and turned around. Sunlight struck the crude mask welded from old sheet metal, revealing countless scratches and dents across its surface.

He looked at Leah.

Then he removed the mask.

His face looked older than she remembered. Not older in years. The apocalypse had not even lasted a full year.

He simply looked worn down.

His eye sockets were deeper, his brow more pronounced, his lips dry and cracked. Several days of stubble covered his chin.

Benson.

It really was Benson.

Leah stopped fifty meters away. Her rifle pointed toward the ground, but her finger remained along the trigger guard.

Benson stared back at her.

He hooked the mask onto his belt and let his hands hang naturally at his sides. He carried no weapon.

“Leah?”

Something caught in her throat.

For several seconds, she could not force the words out.

Then she finally cursed.

“Benson, how the hell did you guys end up like this?”