Chapter 22

The Wolves?

They don't worry me.

They're not soldiers. They're not even tacticians. They're just a disorganized pack of malnourished lunatics, scavenging through the bones of the old world, clinging to some half-baked ideology about "freedom" from civilization.

Give me my supressed HK433C with the cover of night and I could cut through the lot of them like tall grass. No noise, no drama. Just a clean sweep.

What worried me—what kept needling the back of my mind like a splinter—wasn't them.

It was the quarry.

Thousands of walkers crammed together, shoulder to shoulder, like sardines in a can of death. No space to move, no air to breathe, and yet they kept pushing, kept pressing against the earth and one another, driven by hunger alone.

That's the thing with walkers—they don't think, they don't tire. They just build. Pressure. Weight. Force.

And all it takes is one loud sound, one weakened barrier, half-collapsed truck and that stone wall keeping them in?

Gone.

Alexandria wasn't ready for that. Not with half the population have only begun to train how to hold a knife and shoot a gun properly. That many walkers break free? It's not a fight. It's a slaughter.

My thoughts were cut short by voices inside Deanna's house. We were convening—me, Rick, Daryl, Michonne, and the rest—trying to make sense of the chaos and what the hell to do next.

The Wolves. The quarry. Glenn and Aiden. And Bob.

Bob was gone. He was one of the good ones. Knew how to stay alive. And while mourning him was fair, we had bigger problems scratching at the walls.

Deanna addressed the room. "We'll proceed with what Price suggested earlier. A hearing tomorrow—to get the full picture of what happened during that run."

Smart call. Glenn and Aiden's situation needed resolution, but not tonight. Not with all the pieces still scattered.

Everyone nodded. The room was tight, the air heavier than usual. Maggie stood close to Carol, lips pressed together. Abraham leaned back against a wall, arms crossed, always sizing things up. Spencer lingered near Reg, quiet.

I scanned the room.

Rick. Michonne. Maggie. Daryl. Carol. Davidson. Aaron. Maggie. Abraham. Gabriel. Francine. Dr. Holloway. Heath. Tobin. Scott. Rosita. Spencer. Reg. A few others from Alexandria—fresh-faced and tense, trying their best to keep calm.

Deanna turned to me. "Price. Tell them what you saw."

I nodded, stepping forward. Time for facts. No fear. No embellishments. Just the truth.

"First—the Wolves," I began. "This isn't the first time we've seen them. Our first encounter with them was at Shirewilt Estates, Richmond. That place was once a community—quiet, fortified. Sound familiar?"

People shifted in their seats, the familiarity of it striking a nerve.

"They butchered them. Slaughtered every last person they could get their hands on. We arrived just as the attack was unfolding— Elijah's families were among the few who survived, while Noah's didn't. They only made it because we got there in time."

I saw some jaws tighten. Francine leaned forward, her eyes wide. Heath swore under his breath.

"But that wasn't even the bulk of them," I continued. "That was just their initiates."

Tobin raised a brow. "Initiates? What do you mean?"

"You heard me right," I said, tone cool and sharp. "They weren't even full members yet. The Wolves recruit by blood. To be accepted, they're told to kill. Find a community, kill its people, and earn your place. Simple as that."

Gasps. Mutters. Disbelief.

"They don't believe in civilization. Not after the fall. They think the world ended so that people could be 'free' again. Primitive. Unshackled from laws, from society, from technology. They think we—all of us living in a place like this—are the problem."

Aaron clenched his jaw. Tobin let out a curse. Scott looked visibly ill.

"This community? With its solar panels, running water, and food supply? To them, this is the enemy. This is everything they hate. And they're close."

That part hit hard. You could feel the weight of it in the silence that followed. No one said a word for a moment—just the sound of people swallowing fear.

Then I shifted gears. "But that's not all."

Eyes snapped back to me. They were still processing the Wolves, and now I was handing them something worse.

"Earlier, during a scouting run with Daryl and Caleb, we found a stone quarry a few miles southeast of here. Looked like someone had used it to trap walkers. A natural pit, surrounded by high ridges, with only one way in and out."

Rick leaned forward, his brows knitting.

"There were thousands of them," I said slowly. "Packed in so tight they could barely move. But they were pushing. Always pushing. And the only thing keeping them in? A half-collapsed truck and rock wall blocking the entrance."

Someone whispered, "Jesus..."

"They're one storm, one loud gunshot, one accident away from breaking loose," I finished. "And when they do? They won't stop. They'll come here."

A beat of silence. People from our group looked tense—battle-tested, but not numb. But the Alexandrians? They looked pale. Shaken. Some of them were realizing, maybe for the first time, just how fragile their safety really was.

I let it sink in before I added the last piece.

"And that severed head I brought earlier? That was a Wolf. One of the bastards we ran into after leaving the quarry."

That sealed it. They weren't hypothetical anymore. The threat was here.

"In short," I said, "we're standing on a powder keg. One spark—just one—and this whole thing goes up in flames. One threat would have been enough now we've got two—and a green community full of people who've never seen a real fight."

-----

The next couple of hours dragged on like boots through wet mud.

We were all still packed inside Deanna's house, the place buzzing with tension and half-baked ideas—most of them borderline suicidal. Everyone wanted to be the one to speak. Few had anything worth saying.

The room had broken into groups, and slowly, suggestions started pouring in.

Davidson stood up first, his voice calm but with that usual edge of forced optimism. "We hit the Wolves first, all guns blazing. Take out their camp in a single night, burn whatever they've built. Quick, loud, decisive."

I raised a brow. Suicidal optimism masked as decisiveness.

"No idea where they are yet," I said flatly. "And if we go in loud, they scatter. Or worse—retaliate. They don't have structure, but they're not stupid. They're opportunists. You kick the beehive without knowing where it is, all you do is get stung."

Davidson nodded, maybe even agreeing, but didn't say it.

Then came Carter—always nervous, always overthinking, which wouldn't be bad if it didn't mean catastrophic plans made out of fear.

"What if we just… fortify the town. Double the walls, set traps. If the quarry bursts, or the Wolves come, we hold them off. We don't go out there."

I had to bite the inside of my cheek not to sigh.

"That's not a plan. That's hiding. And it only works if the threats don't combine. If the Wolves attack when the quarry breaks open, we'll be surrounded—inside our own walls. We won't survive a siege. Not with our ammo counts and not with half of Alexandria still green."

Spencer, always trying to prove something, added his two cents with too much confidence and not enough experience. "Why don't we lure the walkers out from the quarry early? Break open the barrier ourselves, lead them away before they escape on their own."

I stared at him for a long moment.

"Because if anything goes wrong," I said slowly, "we're not leading them anywhere. We're feeding Alexandria to them. And I don't put trust in plans that have zero margin for error."

None of them looked particularly thrilled after that. Their plans were emotion-driven—reactive. Trying to be heroes with no cost. But this world demands a toll.

Then Rick stood. Calm. Measured. I could tell he'd been working it out in his head while the others played strategy roulette.

"We don't wait. We use sound to draw the walkers out of the quarry. Block off all routes except one, then lead them away in a slow, steady convoy. We use cars, bikes. Take them far out. Clear the quarry in stages."

People around the room began nodding. Rick was good with people—he spoke with the kind of tone that made others believe. And it was a solid plan… on paper.

But I didn't nod.

"It's ambitious," I said, arms crossed. "But it requires precise coordination. Timing. Fuel. Dozens of moving parts—and the walkers have to cooperate with your plan. They won't. They never do."

He looked at me, waiting.

"What if they veer off the road?" I continued. "What if one of the barricades fails? What if a car breaks down? And what if the Wolves strike during this delicate little parade of death? They wouldn't even have to fight us. They'd just have to make noise. Chaos handles the rest."

He didn't argue. Just nodded slightly. He knew I wasn't wrong.

That's when I stepped forward and laid it out—calm, cold, and direct.

"We reinforce the quarry. Patch the weak spots. Shore up the rock wall. Weld metal to the trucks blocking the entrance. Make it a tomb—keep the dead in." I pointed to the map we had sprawled out on the table.

"Next, we find and eliminate the Wolves. All of them. Quietly. Thoroughly. Because if we try to deal with the quarry first, they will interfere. That's not a guess—it's a certainty. This community is everything they hate. And they'll burn it to the ground just to prove a point."

Some of the Alexandrians looked unsettled. Too blunt, maybe. But I wasn't here to comfort them. I was here to keep them alive.

"Once the Wolves are gone," I continued, "we come back to the quarry. Set controlled fires around the entrance. Close enough to lure the walkers forward, but contained enough to keep it from spreading. Fire draws them like moths. It'll thin the horde, and we clean up the rest in waves".

Silence. No gasps. Just understanding.

Deanna exhaled, the weight of leadership visible in her posture. "Then it's decided. Price's plan it is."

A few murmurs of agreement. Even Rick seemed to let his stance shift. He wasn't proud—he just wanted what worked.

"We'll need to brief the rest of the community tomorrow morning," Deanna added. "After breakfast. And those still on shift will be informed during their posts. We all need to be on the same page. No room for panic."

I gave a quiet nod, my arms still folded, eyes still watching every flicker of doubt in the room.

One crisis at a time. That's how we win this.

But winning didn't mean surviving.

It meant being willing to make the hard calls before the chaos.

Because when it came?

It would be too late to debate.