Philip was alone when he rounded the corner near the rear of the settlement and saw Martinez fall.
For a second, his mind refused to process it.
Martinez didn't fall. Martinez gave orders, steadied men, kept things from falling apart just by standing in the middle of them.
But there he was — upright for a heartbeat, then not, his whole body folding forward into the dirt.
"No—"
The word left Philip before he'd decided to say it.
He dropped low and scanned the rooftops, the treeline beyond the maintenance road, every window and alley that could have hidden the shooter. Nothing. Whoever had taken the shot was already gone, well hidden, or both.
The handful of men who had been holding position under Martinez's voice were already glancing at the body instead of the fight in front of them.
"Eyes forward!" Philip's voice cut across the open ground. "Martinez is down. Eyes forward! Don't let their deaths be in vain! So hold the f*cking line!!"
It worked.
Not perfectly. Not cleanly. But enough.
The men found their feet again. Weapons came up. Someone shouted for ammunition. Another man dragged Martinez's body behind cover.
Philip's eyes kept moving, searching rooftops, alleys, and windows, but he had no idea where the shot had come from. All he knew was that someone had managed to sneak inside.
Someone had gotten in behind them and had killed Martinez cleanly and vanished without a trace.
He can't allow them to fight on two fronts like this where they are unprepared.
He needed the wall to hold and he also needed the rear checked, but he couldn't do both himself.
Philip turned and began moving towards the front, rifle raised as he went.
A burst of gunfire erupted from somewhere beyond the smoke.
He stopped behind the corner of a concrete building, leaned out, and fired three controlled rounds towards the hole on the wall. Another burst of gunfire answered almost immediately, some rounds snapping against the wall above his head.
Philip ducked back and continued moving.
Every few seconds he stopped, fired, and moved again, advancing towards the wall where the thick of the battle was happening.
The distance was only fifty meters, but it felt like a kilometer in his eyes.
Eventually, Philip reached the gate just as Shumpert appeared through the smoke near the shattered gate, rifle braced against his shoulder as he returned fire toward the attackers beyond the tree line.
"Shumpert!"
The man turned.
"Martinez is dead. Our rear is compromised." Philip said as he arrived beside him, both hiding behind a car.
Shumpert's jaw tightened. "Yeah, I saw him go down."
"Take three men. Go check it. Eliminate them as quickly as possible and come back here."
Philip fired over the hood of the car towards where he saw a muzzle flash.
"If there's more of them back there. Do not engage and immediately come back here."
Shumpert hesitated for half a second before obeying his order with silence.
Shumpert grabbed the three nearest fighters and peeled away from the line, moving fast toward the quiet half of town.
Philip watched them disappear towards the street before he turned his attention back to the front. The gunfire had slightly died down, but noticed that the enemies were getting closer from the sound of the gunshots.
'They got us good.' Philip was impressed and gritted his teeth in frustration. He was already thinking of abandoning this place if Shumpert could not salvage their rear.
He believes that defeat is only final if they are dead.
Philip raised his rifle and fired into the smoke. He has no choice but to keep the front from collapsing until Shumpert and his team returns.
He just didn't know that the men he had sent to search the rear were already looking in the wrong place.
A hundred meters from the wall, the fight between the defenders and attackers had come to a stall as the defenders had finally managed to establish a proper defensive line.
On a positive note, Team 1 had managed to close the distance between them as they are now at the edge of the tree line facing Woodbury.
But it rendered the Molotovs in their hands useless as the battlefield had stabilized, which is certainly not good news for them and for those inside.
Michael quickly ordered everyone to hand their molotovs towards him and took matters into his own hands.
He grabbed one bottle and sent it arcing farther beyond the wall and struck the streets behind it.
Ratatata!
"Second floor, building on the left," Michael called out, catching the muzzle flash from a window above the wall — more disciplined fire than the panic coming from ground level. "Someone take it out."
"Ain't much we can do about a window from here," T-Dog shouted back as they loaded another round to the launcher.
Michael didn't say anything and just lit another bottle. He watched the flame catch, and for half a second, his own rule sat there in his head — no unnecessary fires, civilian buildings stay untouched — the same words he'd said out loud to every fighter in this operation a moment ago.
Then a round cracked past close enough to feel, fired from that exact window, and the hesitation ended.
He threw it.
The bottle sailed up in a hard, arcing line and shattered against the window frame, fire spilling instantly through the opening and across whatever curtains or furniture waited on the other side. A scream cut off almost as soon as it started. Smoke began pouring out thick from the broken window within seconds.
"Boss—" one of the fighters near him started, unsure if he was even allowed to say it.
"I know what I said." Michael was already lighting the next one, eyes already moving to the second occupied window, the muzzle flash behind the window. Whoever was there was shooting towards him.
"But the situation calls for it. We must keep them tied down here or our people inside will be in danger."
He threw again.
The second building caught faster than the first, and whoever had been hiding behind that window quickly abandoned it rather than burn to death for something that wasn't worth dying for.
Within minutes, both buildings were burning steadily, and the battlefield that had stalled regained its intensity.
Michael can even hear The Governor's shouting from behind the wall.
Across the settlement, Rick's team went through house after house, and the random building they'd chosen as a holding point was filling up fast.
Most of Woodbury's residents came quietly once the guns were pointed their way — too frightened or too unarmed to do anything but raise their hands and the people they had left behind earlier were thrown inside with the rest.
Some others hadn't been found at all, probably tucked into closets, crawl spaces and root cellars, and there wasn't time to hunt down every last one.
The ones they'd found were enough for now.
One man in plain civilian clothes tried to talk his way past Glenn with a calm, reasonable voice, insisting he was a researcher, that he had information worth something.
Glenn tied him up with the rest.
"I'm Milton. I'm currently researching biters and how the virus is able to make the dead walk. I'll be extremely useful." The man said, hoping his words might buy him a different treatment.
"So did you find anything?" Oscar came over and asked.
Milton became embarrassed and timid. "I haven't made any progress yet, but if I keep doing it. I'll be able to discover something soon!"
"Shut up, man." Oscar snorted and pushed him towards the others.
Glenn just shook his head and continued watching them.
*
High above the settlement, Jack lay flat along the catwalk ringing the water tower, rifle braced against the rail.
Team 3 had noted down this location earlier and retreated here after they took down Martinez.
Below, Tom and Daryl kept low inside a nearby building facing the water tower, watching the surroundings while Baldwin stood a couple of windows away, arms crossed, bored.
Jack had watched the whole thing unfold from up there.
Shumpert and three men had peeled away from the wall, jogging toward the rear, to search for those who had sneaked inside.
Philip's response had been fast — the moment he appeared and took charge, he'd done everything right. It just hadn't been fast enough. By the time Shumpert and the others encounter any of them, they'd either be tied down or killed before they can even make a splash.
Jack settled deeper into the rifle and adjusted the scope as The Governor entered his crosshair — defending diligently at the wall, firing into the smoke, holding a line that was quietly running out of time in a direction he wasn't looking.
A hundred feet up, in a place he'd never see coming, the rest of this fight had already come down to one man deciding when to pull the trigger.