Rick felt his whole body begin to shiver, and a shiver down his back eventually spread through all his limbs, feeling the cold in summer weather.
The hostage those people took was not someone insignificant, but his wife, mother of his two children, and now as long as something went wrong, she would be in danger.
The body's reaction did not affect his ability to judge, countless thoughts passed through his mind, but he finally restrained himself and did not take a step forward.
He knew he absolutely could not get close. Once the other party recognized him, Lori's fate would be in jeopardy. With this in mind, Rick took a few steps backward in silence and then tugged at Shane's clothes secretly.
He looked at his friend in a strange way, and the other party seemed to be a little nervous and approached in a strange way.
"What's wrong?"
Rick didn't answer him right away, but he adjusted his position so Shane blocked his face, and then he quickly flashed through his mind to those he'd let go of in the past.
"Morgan!"
Goddamn it!
"Morgan! Come here!"
Rick lowered his voice and shouted to Morgan not too far away.
Looking behind him quizzically, Morgan approached without much thought.
"You two stay put."
Rick stood in a place that couldn't be seen by those people, who didn't appreciate noticing he was here.
Rick secretly breathed a sigh of relief and then said to the two inexplicable people.
"Remember the report I made some time ago about a group of cannibals? That's them, the ones I let go from the military base."
After Rick reminded them, Morgan vaguely remembered hearing something like that in the reports, then he knew this wasn't a simple problem. He wanted to do something, but stopped himself.
"There's nothing we can do, Morgan, go over there and get Glenn and ask him to call Airon on the intercom, he's wearing a headset so no one but him will hear us."
Watching Morgan leave in small steps, Rick turned his head to look at Shane.
"They have seen me and I'm sure they will recognize me, so you need to help Airon in the negotiations, I need you to save Lori, do you understand me?"
Rick's expression was very serious when he spoke, and he patted Shane's shoulder indicating that he trusted him, without speaking further, he turned his head and walked towards Morgan.
Shane took Rick's words to heart. The two became close before the end of the world. He was single and often spent time at Rick's house, so both Lori and Carl were part of his family. He didn't care if Lori had become annoying and very heavy, he just wanted to help his friend.
Shane is a very protective man, as long as there is a person he wants to protect, he would rather be the bad guy in the world to keep them alive than to see someone who is close to him suffer.
Knowing the identity of the enemy at this time, Shane also recalled the report about the military base back then. I don't take it too seriously, even though he has encountered a lot of garbage in Georgia, but this garbage should always be taken care of.
But it still should not scare the enemy. These types of men are not that simple, they are ex-military and their IQ is the hardest to fool. If you must solve this kind of problem, you first have to make sure Lori doesn't get hurt.
But what should he do?
With these and other thoughts in mind, Shane walked behind Airon unknowingly.
The two parties were still negotiating. After a while, Airon had already figured out the names of these people, and he also heard from the guy named Derek of how they got here.
It turned out that these five people were army soldiers. After the end of the world broke out, they were trapped in a military base. They were later rescued and found a family of survivors. At the terminus , several people planned to come and try their luck. Unfortunately, the family of three on the road lost their lives in a walker attack.
The five fled all the way here. Gereth, who heard that the five were army soldiers, wanted to take them in, but since they did not know each other, they let them stay in a hut while they were being watched.
When Shane stepped forward, Derek was still talking about their situation, and the husky voice penetrated his ears, giving him an unsettling feeling.
"We also just got here a few days ago and we don't know anything about this place. I don't know what enmity you have with these people. But we don't want to be your enemy."
Airon was quiet and seemed to be seriously listening to what this man was telling him, but he was actually hearing Morgan's voice in the headset.
After Morgan left, he quickly caught up with Glenn and used his intercom to communicate with Airon.
Listening to Morgan's narration on the headset with a normal expression, Airon secretly sighed that Derek's words were half-true and half-false, and if it were someone else, it might not be possible to distinguish the truth from the lie.
According to the usual practice, these five people have already shown weakness, by this time they should all calm down. But that was not something that was happening with Airon, who was watching Lori being held hostage.
How did that annoying woman get in this place?
"That's our story. Sir, I don't know what your thoughts are. We just want to leave and never appear in front of you and your people again in the future."
Hearing this, Airon suddenly spoke up.
"You said you belong to the army, so do you have any thoughts of joining us? We are a very large force. We have taken Atlanta completely. Right now, we need experienced soldiers to keep expanding our territory."
This invitation left Derek, who had been eloquent, suddenly dumbfounded, and unconsciously a thin layer of sweat broke out on his forehead.
The expressions on the faces of the other four people were also serious, not expecting the other party not to play cards according to the usual routine.
After all, they still had a hostage on their hands but that seemed to be of no concern to the man in front of them.
Airon smiled and looked at this guy who wanted to leave since he appeared, but that smile was full of murderous intent. Whether he knew about the cannibalism of these five people or not, the fact that these people decided to join the terminus without becoming food showed the problem that no one had recognized.
Lori, who was in a coma, suddenly stirred and then slowly opened her eyes. First, she looked in front of her in a daze. Not far away were Airon and Shane. She remembered what had happened to her and stopped moving.
She looked up and searched through the crowd, but couldn't find Rick, so she quickly asked.
"Shane! Where's Rick?"
"Rick?"
Derek frowned, the name sounded inexplicably familiar, as if someone had mentioned it before.
Seeing the other party's expression, Shane thought his friend's wife kept causing trouble. He had obviously heard his friend's words, so he didn't respond directly.
"If you want to leave, you have to show that you are not like those people in the terminus , let her go and we can let you go."
And Airon, who had just listened to Morgan's explanation of Rick's relationship with these people, also understood Shane's intention in intervening, so he also said in cooperation. "I don't think you want to join us either, so I won't force you. As long as you let her go, we'll let you go, how about it?"
Derek breathed a sigh of relief, and the people behind him also whispered a few words, stepped back a little and started talking about something.
Lori, who originally wanted to eavesdrop, was a little frustrated to discover that the other party seemed to be speaking in Spanish, so she couldn't understand at all.
So she looked back at Shane and, seeing the look on her face, Shane felt his scalp go numb and wanted to stop her from speaking, but it was too late.
"Where's Rick?"
Derek, who was speaking with his head slightly bowed, shrugged his pupils and finally remembered who this Rick was, wasn't he the one who saved them?
Although the other party didn't tell him his name at the time, that's what his subordinates called him, I mean, these people probably knew who they were, and everything they had done, otherwise why wasn't Rick among the group of these people.
"What a stupid motherfucker, I owe you big time, we almost walked into a fucking trap."