"YOU should be good to go now, Tess," Andy decided after he patched me up from when I was shot earlier. "I cleaned and wrapped it, but you'll have to do the rest later."

"Thanks, Andy," I quietly thanked him, dipping my head down as I said it. He nodded and dipped his head down, too, and walked over to Paul and the others.

Morgan, however, was standing nearby, and I decided that it was now time to talk to him. He was hanging on the fence, which was filled with Walkers on the inside. They were trying to get at us, but we wouldn't let them.

"I don't wanna die," I decided to say first to him. "I just thought that I should let you know that."

Even though I wasn't looking directly at him, I could see from the corner of my eye that he was slowly nodding before he said, "That's good. I'm glad that it's over and done with now."

"Yeah, but," I paused before looking up at him in question. "Why do I feel dead, though?"

He looked down at me and asked, "What do you mean?"

I shrugged and sighed all in one motion. "I don't know. I'm alive. I know that, but I just feel like my time is coming, y'know? I mean, maybe I've killed enough people and burned enough bridges in this life that it's time for me to move on, y'know?"

Slowly, Morgan nodded and went back to looking forward. "I know what you mean. I do. I felt that way for a long time. Might still do. I don't know."

"Morgan," came my concerning tone, "what happened to Richard?"

I had only heard of his passing earlier since he wasn't mentioned at Sasha's memorial. It was Carol who had told me of what she knew since she wasn't there when it happened. Yet, I wanted to hear Morgan tell me.

"He... He just died," he said at first, shaking his head. "He got Ben killed. I couldn't... I couldn't just let him live after that."

"I understand," I whispered but gulped when remembering the little bits and pieces of the story that I had heard earlier. "He had to go. He... He got Ben killed. He was a really good kid."

"He was," Morgan agreed with a nod. "He shouldn't have gone out that way."

"And, what about you? Where does that leave you, Morgan?" I asked, turning the spotlight back on him. "You didn't want to kill anyone, but you turned back to the dark side - like I have - and decided to kill again. Why? I thought that every life was precious."

"It is," he somewhat muttered out and hesitated to shake his head. "What 'bout you? Hm? Do you still feel guilty about your friends?"

"Morgan, I-"

"You shouldn't," he quickly cut me off before I could break out into song. He finally was looking at me while shaking his head here and there, and everywhere. "Nah, you shouldn't, Tess. You couldn't save them. That's not your fault. All you can do now, Tess, is..." He paused, hesitating to say anything else. He quickly recovered, though. "All you can do now is kill Negan, yourself, and maybe then - and only then - will you feel better. Maybe, but don't count on it, though, Tess."

I understood what Morgan was trying to tell me. He was trying to say that, even if I kill Negan all by myself, I might still never feel satisfied. I may never be happy, even if I strangle Negan with my bare hands and watch him gurgle for another breath. I understood this, and this is why he was right.

Maybe Negan shouldn't die, after all. Every life is precious, Morgan used to say and try to convince others of it. He was right, and I wanted to follow in his lead, but... I couldn't when I knew that, even if it didn't make me happy in the end, Negan and all his little followers needed to die for what they did to us. All of us - including Abraham and Glenn.

"We were gonna start with taking out the guards with arrows," Morgan began to say after I had already walked away. He was speaking to Dianne. "You think you can still hit them through there?"

Dianne, after staring down the Satellite Outpost, she shook her head and faced Morgan. "I wouldn't bet on it."

She wasn't wrong, not from what I could see from here. This was the same Satellite Outpost we previously cleared out before, the same place that I was separated from Glenn and Heath before running into Daryl, who saved my life.

Having reclaimed the building, to provide extra protection from outside threats, the Saviors have constructed a moat surrounding it consisting of two fences filled in the middle with just Walkers. These assholes were smarter than what we were giving them credit for.

"Looks like they made themselves a moat," commented Paul, as if he had read my mind. He sighed and turned his head to face us. "I guess that we shouldn't be surprised, considering."

Meanwhile, Tara cocked his gun and countered, "We can do this. We did before."

"Yeah," Paul agreed, shrugging. "That's what I was considering."

"We're not cold-hearted killers, Paul," I suddenly spoke up, saying to my twin brother. He looked straight at me, and he sighed. "I can read your mind sometimes, too."

"I wasn't here before," Morgan suddenly said, which I already knew. "Just need a clear shot. Right, Dianne?"

Dianne glanced and, then, said, "Just a few seconds."

"So, we just need to time it right," Morgan added, dead-set on ending this shit today rather than tomorrow.

"They see us, they fire a gun, we're not getting in," Paul noted, turning to look at us once more. "I'm not going to let any of us die today, especially my sister."

Morgan took a mental note of that before slowly backing up and saying to Dianne, "Don't let them fire a gun, Dianne."

She nodded and stepped up, leaving along with Jesus and Tara. I waved goodbye to Morgan, and he slowly waved back. I nodded to them before I dipped out.

-

WITH Morgan distracting the Walkers on the inside to pile up in one area, the two guards walked out in question as to what was causing the dead's attention. So, then, Dianne quickly took out her bow and shot them both in the heads.

Once the coast was clear, we followed behind Tara in a single-filed line into the Satellite Outpost, armed with silenced handguns, and ready to shoot anyone we may face.

We are taking out patrols as we make our way deeper into the compound. As soon as we entered, we shot down the three men one by one. There was no noise. Just silence as we took them down.

Once they were down, we all glanced at one another in silence question. I couldn't really tell what story we were playing here, but I knew exactly what Paul was thinking, though. He nodded at Morgan, who turned and snapped his fingers at Dianne, who whistled out of the door to the two dozen militia soldiers waiting outside.

Tara and Paul headed to the right, leading their own group, while Morgan went straight ahead with his group, and I went to the right with my own. Everyone formed up outside of the various rooms and awaited Paul's signal to attack.

At the door where I was at, I leaned forward when I heard voices. None of what they were saying was making any sense behind a closed door, but none of that was important because we were about to march in and murder all of them.

Paul held his fist up, making us wait just a moment longer before he slammed it down, and we immediately took foots to doors, taking them down and opening fire. We burst into the rooms and began taking out Saviors, catching them by surprise.

"Eduardo, to your right," I called out to the Hilltop man. He spun around and shot the Savior that was sneaking up on him. He nodded to me afterward, seeing that I practically saved his life. "Now, let's move, people! Let's go!"

We headed deeper into the room, pausing for a moment at the corner before heading deeper inside. Then, all of a sudden, bullets ran past my face, and I fell back into Eduardo, holding my breath.

"Tess, are you hit?" Eduardo asked, just as the other stepped up and shot at the Saviors that were shooting at us. I shook my head, and he breathed out, "Thank God."

"Roger, take a group and hold off," I yelled to another man who was a part of the Kingdom. "Cover our asses!"

"Yeah," he yelled back and did just as I told him to do, holding off until we could get a clear view. "Looks like they're holding off. Go ahead and we'll cover you."

I nodded before heading out, opening fire onto the men that came back out until we shot them down. "Move forward! Let's keep going!"

We headed forward until we came to the next door, which led to our right. I kicked it down, and a Savior stood there, wide-eyed and holding his breath.

"We've arrived, motherfuckers!" I exclaimed before I shot him right between the eyes. "Go! Go! Go!"

We headed inside and, almost as soon as we rushed inside, shots went off and two of my men went down, which made the rest of us hide until we can get up and fight again.

Eduardo was sat beside me on my left while some girl was on my right, shaking like a little leaf. She was breathing very hard and fast, nearly hyperventilating altogether. She had ginger-red hair that was short, sort of like Carol's, but just a little bit more stylish and longer.

"Hey, hey, hey," I whispered to the girl, placing my hand lightly on her arm. She couldn't be any older than me. "You need to calm down, alright? With you hyperventilating like that, you're cutting off oxygen to your brain. You could die."

"T-They almost shot me," she talked back, still hyperventilating. "The bullet went right by me."

"It happens," I tried telling her, but I don't think that it was helping, though. "I've been shot and it nearly killed me, but I didn't die, though. Even if you get shot, you can still be saved. You'll be okay. Stick behind me, okay?"

Finally, she breathed in through her nose and out of her mouth. She slowly nodded, green eyes now looking up into my dark orbs. "I-I'm Nerissa," she introduced herself. Maybe this was her way of feeling better. "Y-You're Tess, right?"

"I am," I nodded and met her eyes. "You'll be okay, Nerissa. Just stick behind me, okay?"

A few shots started coming our way, and we shot back, but I could clearly hear Nerissa over them, "You promise?"

I glanced back over my shoulder, eyes meeting, and nodded, "Yes, I promise. Now, let's go!"

We swept through the rooms until they all appeared clear, showing that we needed to regroup with the others. Before we could do that, though, we had one more room to go.

We stood outside of the door. I was on the right with Nerissa behind me, and Eduardo was on the left. Everyone was dead silent. I held my hand up and, then, leaned in to see if I heard anything. I heard some loud noise, followed by some yelling. I could clearly hear a man say, "Let's kill every last one of these dumbass pricks that think they can come in here and kill us! Fuck them! Let's make a motherfucking stand! Right here and right now!"

After hearing that, I whispered to my team, "If we just start shooting through the door, we could make our way inside. Shoot them all. None of them live. Don't be scared to kill them because they won't hesitate to kill you."

With that said, I slammed my hand down, and we all stood, blasting through the door with our gunfire. The door practically opened itself up for us as we came running inside, taking down all those that were left standing.

After a moment, I saw two bodies slide off to the side, so I made everyone hold down until someone could get a visual on them. It took a minute, but I ended up hearing one of them call out, "It doesn't have to be this way. We can all just walk away from this, okay? Nobody else has to die. We're not the enemies here. The dead are!"

I told everyone to keep quiet, just letting them try and talk their way out of this. Everyone remained quiet, thankfully.

"W-We can work something out so that me and my friend make it out of here alive," the guy kept talking, huffing. "We will leave and disappear. Y-You'll never see us again. We'll go out on our own, never coming back to Negan. Okay?"

Again, we all remained silent, as if we weren't here at all. The place was so quiet that you could drop a pen in here.

"H-Hey, what can we do?" He was just talking, which made me keep rolling my eyes to the back of my head. "You know what? Maybe we will kill you all."

Gunfire erupted again, and we started to shoot back. These guys were fighting until the bitter end. We fell in until the gunfire stopped, and we discovered their bodies behind some crates, dead on arrival.

I took a deep breath, thanking God that we were alright until I heard something behind me. I spun around and noticed Nerissa on the ground, gasping for breath as she placed her right hand over her stomach that was bleeding. She was shot.

"Nerissa," I called out her name and fell to my tops beside her dying body. "I-It's okay. I can fix you. I was a nurse before."

She couldn't find the words to talk. She was shaking and slowly going back to hyperventilate. I placed my hands over her wound, pressing down on it to somehow stop the bleeding. "She needs help," I frantically called out to the others with tears pooling up in my eyes. "Help me! Find something for her!"

"Tess..."

"She's dying," I cut Eduardo off quickly. "Please help me. She needs-"

"Tess," came his warning tone again. "Tess, she's gone."

I looked up to see her face, not even noticing until Eduardo pointed it out. Sure enough, she was. She was dead. I felt so bad immediately. I promised her that she would be okay and I... I lied to her. Straight to her face.

I slowly lifted my hands from her body, which were all covered with blood up to my wrists. I didn't know what else to do to get the blood off, so I just smeared it all over my shirt and pants.

I stared down at her and blinked a few times until I realized that I was crying and the tears were streaming down my face. Surprisingly enough, they were cold instead of warm as usual.

"Tess..."

"Wait outside," I softly said, but nobody moved. They were frozen in place. "I said to wait outside, dammit!"

Everyone began to move, heading outside, while Eduardo stood beside me. He placed his hand on my shoulder and whispered, "I'll do it, Tess. Let me..."

"Eduardo," came my own warning tone as I looked up into his eyes. "I didn't know her, but I did make her a promise, though. Let me, at least, make sure she doesn't come back. Go wait outside with the others until I get there."

With that said, he nodded and went outside to wait with the others. I slowly faced Nerissa again and took a deep breath that dragged on for a minute. She looked like, despite the blood, she was at peace and not fearing or fighting another battle. She was at peace.

At least, this is what I tried to convince myself of. It didn't make me feel better, not even in the least. I might as well have killed her, myself.

Placing my hand over her forehead, I put my head down with my eyes closed. "I shall give you mercy, Nerissa. May you rest in heavenly peace with our Lord and Savior."

With that said, I took my knife out and slid it in her temple before she could turn. Then, this was it, and she was finally laid to rest. I could only hope that she made it there.