I'd never seen Atlanta in my past life, curious to see what was left of it now. We were maybe thirty minutes out, and I was already sick of I-75.
The countryside had gone feral. Abandoned houses. Rusted-out cars lining the shoulder. Anything not destroyed had been looted down to the studs. Nature was reclaiming everything—towns, schools, malls, police stations, all of it sinking under grass and vines like the world was slowly digesting them.
Then something caught my eye.
A bison?
I focused on the field.
Yes. More than a hundred of them, grazing in open grassland like the apocalypse was somebody else's problem. I'd only ever seen bison behind zoo fences. An entire herd just out there—it was strangely beautiful.
The vehicle kept moving. The herd disappeared behind us.
Further down the highway, we passed what used to be a town. If I hadn't been holding a map, I'd never have known.
No houses. No foundations. No stores. Nothing—just grass stretching flat across what used to be someone's life.
I figured it out fast enough. Survivors had stripped it bare. Every plank, every sheet of metal, every nail gone. Reused for fuel, for walls, for rebuilding somewhere else.
Who did this? was my first thought.
Then: smart.
Walkers weren't the only thing trying to kill you out here. People needed materials too, and dead towns didn't fight back.
"Lord, what's your favorite fruit?"
I glanced at Priest. Notebook open, pen moving, looking up at me like I owed him an answer.
"Mango. Why?"
"I'm cataloging your likes and dislikes." He didn't look up. The pen kept moving.
"I have a question too, Max." Carol, by the window. Maggie and Daryl both went still, suddenly very interested in the conversation.
Things had been a little tense since I'd taken the prison. Understandable.
"Go ahead."
Answering a few questions wouldn't hurt. Might even take some of the edge off.
"What's the population of the Blood Angel Community?"
Not a surprising question, and not one I had any reason to dodge they were part of it now, whether they liked it or not.
"Almost five thousand. Closer to eight thousand counting territories and affiliated settlements. Double that if you count allies."
Silence.
Carol's eyes went wide. Maggie's mouth opened and stayed that way. Daryl actually drifted toward the shoulder before correcting.
Fair reaction. Most groups out here topped out in the dozens. A community in the thousands sounded like a fairy tale.
Carol recovered first. "And where is it?"
Maggie leaned in too, waiting.
"Can't tell you that."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't trust you yet. Give it a year."
Carol looked annoyed for a second, then nodded. "Fair enough."
"All I'll say is North Carolina. Somewhere around there."
That seemed to settle her.
"So you're the leader of the whole thing?" Daryl asked, eyes on the road.
"Yes and no."
That got everyone's attention.
"I'm supreme leader. But I don't hold all the power—most of that sits with the council."
"Council?" Maggie asked.
"Four wing leaders, each with a council seat. They vote on laws, major decisions, resources, expansion... everything that matters." I looked around the vehicle. " every community leader gets voting power proportional to their population. Bigger population, bigger vote. If your people picked a leader tomorrow, that person would get a seat too weighted by your numbers, but they wouldn't have the power same as council they can only vote and nothing else."
"So you have the most power because you have the most people," Carol said.
"Exactly. And the four wing leaders back me, which is why they made me supreme leader. That gives me command of the military, no debate. That's the only power that comes with the title."
"You wrote this rule?"
I smiled. "I did."
"Why?"
Maggie was looking at me strangely now.
I leaned back. "Because it's practical."
They waited.
"If I ran this as a dictatorship, everything depends on me. I die, the whole thing collapses. History's full of examples."
I looked out the window.
"But pure democracy doesn't work either. Not here."
Carol frowned. "Why not?"
"Because people stop surviving and start campaigning. Groups compete for votes instead of cooperating. Leaders spend more time managing perception than solving actual problems." I shrugged. "Eventually it's just a contest over who can lie the most convincingly."
Quiet, for a moment.
"So I split the difference. Communities get representation and a council, no single point of failure but I keep enough centralized authority to move fast when it counts."
"How?" Daryl asked.
"Representation plus centralized command. Council handles distributed power, leadership handles speed."
I crossed my arms. "Not perfect. Nothing is. But it works."
"And if you die?" Maggie asked.
"Someone else takes my place. The council keeps running. The system doesn't need me specifically...that's the point."
Nobody spoke.
They'd probably expected I trusted myself more than anyone else.
Instead, I'd built something designed to outlive me.
What I didn't mention: the religious faction. The most dangerous people I controlled, and the least controllable by anyone but me. If the whole community turned on me tomorrow, they wouldn't. They'd die for me first.
They were also insurance. If I went down, they'd be the ones looking after my family and descendants.
"Didn't Michonne or someone else tell you about all of this?" I asked, a little confused as to why they didn't know these basic things.
"No, she did explain it, but only about the Supreme Law...what the benefits are under it and what the punishment is."
I nodded. Explaining everything in one day would be almost impossible.
"Michonne said we can make any laws or regulations in our own community. Is that true?" This time it was Daryl who asked the question.
"Yes, that's true. You have full freedom to run your community however you want. The only requirement is that you follow the Supreme Law and pay taxes...but you don't need to worry about that right now. Taxes only start once your population reaches 100. Until then, you don't pay anything."
I rubbed my head, wondering why they were asking so many questions.
"Why are you asking me these kinds of questions?"
They looked at each other, and finally Carol answered.
"The woman with the ice axe told us to question you because you are the leader."
So it was Molly. She just handed her work to me, and I was unknowingly doing it too. I would take care of her when I got back to her.