Maggie's eyes fell on the ring of keys hanging from the Shepherd's belt. She bent down, grabbed them, and yanked hard enough that the loop tore free from his waistband.
"Forget him," she said, turning away. "Let's move."
They left quickly. Glenn and Shawn both threw uneasy glances back over their shoulders as they went.
After they put some distance between themselves and the Shepherd's office, Maggie stopped abruptly and slammed her fist into the wall.
The concrete cracked under the impact. Her knuckles split, leaving blood smeared on the painted surface.
Glenn saw the expression on her face.
"Hey, it's okay," he said, trying to find the right words. "I mean, yeah, that was... intense. But he had it coming. Everything he did to people, all the—"
"He got off easy," Maggie cut him off. She turned to look at Glenn, and he shut his mouth fast.
"What were you about to say?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
Maggie studied him for a moment, then seemed to think of something.
"Was it your people who did that?" She gestured toward the office they'd left behind.
Glenn scratched the back of his head. "I think so? I mean, probably? Our people are... they're really good at what they do."
Maggie's eyebrow went up. "The Shepherd usually has at least a dozen guards around him. His office is locked down tight. How exactly did your people get in there?"
Glenn spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't know. Maybe they found a back way?"
Maggie gave him a look. "You might as well tell me they can fly."
It was clear he either didn't know or wasn't saying. She decided not to push. They'd come here to deal with the Shepherd and get the keys to the holding cells. Everything else was secondary.
"Come on," she said, picking up the pace. "We've got people to free."
---
After their footsteps faded completely down the corridor, Lucien stepped out of the shadows.
He looked down at the Shepherd. The man was still twitching and technically still alive, although calling what remained of him "alive" felt generous. Everything below the waist had been destroyed.
He felt conflicted.
If circumstances had been different, the Shepherd might have been a formidable man. But they hadn't been different, and that was the problem.
Lucien wanted to survive. That was his first priority. Survival, however, couldn't be his only principle. There had to be lines a person refused to cross, even if crossing them meant living another day.
Human beings needed limits. That was what separated them from the walking corpses outside.
The Shepherd had abandoned those limits long ago. He had turned faith into a weapon and used it to control and murder others. He had wrapped cruelty in righteous language and convinced himself that it was justified.
If Lucien became something like that simply to survive a little longer or a little more comfortably, then what would be the point?
There was also the practical issue. He had no reliable way to control the man. Until he mastered magic that could bind another person's will completely, trusting the surrender of a manipulator like the Shepherd would be suicide.
"Time's up anyway."
The Shepherd seemed to hear something. His head lifted slightly as he looked toward the direction of Lucien's voice.
"I hope you're satisfied with how this ended," Lucien said quietly.
Through the haze of death, the Shepherd thought he heard a child's voice.
He wanted to see. If this truly was divine judgment, he felt he deserved to witness it. But he never got the chance.
There was a brief sound, and then silence.
Lucien withdrew his wand. The Shepherd's head slumped to the side as the light faded from his eyes.
Lucien stood there for a moment, looking down at the body. After a while, he put the wand away and turned toward the Confession Chamber.
---
The stench reached him before he even touched the door.
The Confession Chamber lived up to its name. This was a place meant to break people, to make them suffer until they confessed to anything just to end the pain.
Lucien kept the Invisibility Cloak wrapped tightly around himself as he slowly pushed the door open.
The room was larger than he had expected. It looked industrial, with a high ceiling and rows of fluorescent lights. An iron cage stood in the center of the room. It was roughly ten feet across on each side, and the bars were spaced too closely for anyone to squeeze through.
Inside the cage was Daryl.
Outside the cage were at least a dozen walkers. They pressed against the bars, reaching through the gaps with grasping hands while their teeth snapped hungrily at the air.
Daryl was in terrible condition. His left leg bent at an unnatural angle. His face had turned pale beneath layers of sweat and grime. Blood soaked through his jeans where a shallow wound cut across his thigh. He leaned against the far side of the cage, keeping as much distance as possible from the walkers. The pain in his leg kept him alert.
If he lost consciousness in there, the walkers might eventually find a way to reach him. Staying awake was the only way to survive.
Lucien began circling the perimeter of the room while remaining invisible, searching for the best way to handle the situation.
Daryl's eyes followed movements he couldn't see. Somewhere in the darkness, a walker must have shifted. Lucien noticed his hand slowly tighten into a fist. The man was wound tight.
Then Daryl started talking. Maybe he was speaking to himself. Maybe to the walkers outside. It was impossible to tell.
"Yeah, I confess," he muttered. "I confess I'm a useless piece of shit."
He slammed his fist into his broken leg. The pain must have been incredible, but his face barely changed.
"I confess I drag everybody down. I'm the weight around Merle's neck."
His eyes were unfocused, staring at something Lucien couldn't see.
"You out there, Merle? I bet you're laughing your ass off right about now."
And then, to Lucien's surprise, Daryl answered himself. His voice shifted, taking on the drawling, mocking tone of his older brother.
"Damn right I am." Daryl's impression of Merle was disturbingly accurate. "Look at you. That what you call survival?"
Daryl's jaw clenched. "Shut up."
"Make me. Oh wait, you can't. You're stuck in there pissin' yourself while I'm out here takin' the hit for your sorry ass again."
"I said shut up!"
"You know what you are? You're a used rubber. Good for one thing, and once that's done, you get tossed in the trash."
Daryl's eyes opened, focusing on a spot just outside the cage.
"These people don't give a shit about you. You're just the redneck trash they picked up along the way. Rick and his group of do-gooders will dump you first chance they get."
"That ain't true," Daryl said, but his voice lacked conviction.
"Ain't it? When's the last time any of 'em looked at you like you were worth a damn? Face it, Daryl. You're nothin' without me. And I got myself bit tryin' to keep your worthless hide alive."
"You took that trial because you wanted to," Daryl shot back. "You're a stubborn son of a bitch who thinks he's tougher than everybody else."
"Nah. I did it because you couldn't. If they'd put you in that room with the walkers, you'd have folded like a cheap tent. You know it. I know it."
Daryl's hands were shaking now.
"I should've been the one," he said quietly.
"Well, ain't that sweet. You're feeling guilty. That make you feel better? Sittin' there confessin' your sins to a bunch of dead shitheads?"
A walker's hand came through the bars, fingers scraping across Daryl's boot. He kicked it away without looking.
"You wanna know what you should confess? Confess that you've been deadweight your whole damn life. Every time somebody helps you, you just end up needin' more help. You're too weak, too stupid, too goddamn useless to make it on your own."
"Stop," Daryl said quietly.
"Confess that when they find you in here, they're gonna wish they hadn't. Because savin' your ass ain't worth the effort."
Daryl's head dropped forward. His shoulders shook slightly. "I know."
"That's my boy. Finally bein' honest with yourself."
Lucien stood in the shadows and watched the man slowly tear himself apart with self-loathing.
The things Daryl was saying, the way he spoke to himself in his brother's voice, didn't sound like ordinary stress or fear. This kind of pain ran deeper. It had been carved into him over years of being told he wasn't good enough.
Merle's hallucinated voice wasn't saying anything new. It was probably repeating things Daryl had heard countless times before. Perhaps it was even echoing things he believed himself.
That was the saddest part.
Daryl's eyes grew distant again. He stared past the walkers.
"I got lost once when I was a kid," he murmured to himself. "Merle was in juvie, dad was off drunk somewhere with some waitress. I was in the woods by myself. Got turned around and couldn't find my way back."
He shifted position slightly, wincing as his broken leg protested.
"I thought somebody would come looking for me."
A bitter smile crossed his face.
"But nobody came. Nobody even knew I was missing..."