As they continued toward the prison, Martinez rested one hand on the window and thought back to the scene from the day before. The Governor had stood in front of the table with a dark expression, staring at the prison's location circled on the map.
Martinez had stood in the doorway, not daring to hurry him, simply waiting in silence.
"Nothing unusual at the rendezvous point?" the Governor asked without looking up.
"Nothing. Crowley and Tim waited until six-thirty today too, and none of the preset markers along the route were triggered."
Martinez answered cautiously, "There are two possibilities. First, they got held up inside the prison and couldn't get out. Second, they… changed their minds."
"Changed their minds," the Governor repeated, his fingers tapping lightly on the table.
Gargulio. Haley.
He had chosen them in the first place because they looked young and harmless, the kind of people who made others lower their guard.
But harmless also meant fragile. It meant they could easily be tempted by another kind of "warmth."
What was inside that prison?
According to the reconnaissance Martinez and the other two had carried out, there were children there, old people, and that fake civilized "family atmosphere."
Any of those things could become a wedge that pried loose Gargulio and Haley's loyalty.
Martinez suggested quietly, "Should we send a small team to scout back along their planned evacuation route? Maybe they ran into a walker horde over the past few days and got trapped somewhere."
The Governor was silent for a long time before finally saying, "No. Forget it. If they ran into something beyond their control, like a large walker horde, sending more people would only increase our losses.
If they stayed behind on purpose, or even… defected, then that only proves the prison has some kind of attraction, or threat, that we don't know about."
The Governor turned and stared at Martinez. "I'm more inclined to believe the latter. They wavered. They may even have told them everything about our mission in exchange for a 'clean' new identity!"
The thought filled him with anger.
A kind of anger that was slipping out of control.
He had actually misjudged them!
Someone had dared to treat the "opportunity" he had given them as something they could throw away whenever they liked!
Woodbury's order was built on absolute obedience and fear.
Even the slightest loosening could bring the whole thing crashing down.
Once he brought them back, there would be two more trophies in his glass tanks.
"Martinez, put together an assault team," the Governor suddenly said, his voice cold and sinister. "Go punish them."
"Punish? Gargulio and Haley?" Martinez confirmed in surprise.
"No. Punish that prison. Make them pay. Anyone who touches my people has to face the consequences, whether those two are dead or alive, whether they were lured in or exposed!"
The Governor walked over to the map and jabbed his finger hard at the prison icon. "And while you're at it, test the prison's real defenses!
Our previous observation was too passive. I want to know how much panic they'll fall into when a hole is blown through their wall and walkers pour inside."
Martinez felt a chill shoot up from the soles of his feet all the way to the top of his head.
This was insane, and far too risky.
Woodbury still knew nothing about the prison!
But the Governor was in such a stubborn state that Martinez did not dare argue too much. He could only nod. "Do you have anyone in mind?"
"You pick a few people. I'm not asking you to storm the place. Just open a hole in the wall big enough to let the walkers in, create chaos, then pull back.
If there's a chance, bring someone back alive. And remember, if you're discovered, you're just raiders 'passing through.' This has nothing to do with Woodbury."
"Understood. When do we leave?"
...
At the northwest corner of the prison wall, near the old sewage treatment plant, there was a patch of overgrown weeds that few people ever visited.
Recently, there had always been more walkers outside the wall there than anywhere else, so most people kept their distance. Everyone except one girl, Lizzie.
She also had a younger sister, Mika.
The two girls and their father had been hiding in a nearby town until Tyreese and Sasha found them not long ago while out searching for supplies and brought them to the prison.
Carol had been paying especially close attention to Lizzie lately, and worrying about her even more.
Because she had discovered that Lizzie was using living things to "feed" the walkers. Rats, small birds, and any little animals she could catch.
Lizzie would tie the small animals with string, slowly push them through the gaps in the wire fence, and watch as the walkers outside fought over them, tearing them apart and devouring them.
She watched with intense focus. Sometimes, a strange little smile would even appear at the corner of her mouth.
Once, Carol happened to catch her in the act, and Lizzie explained as if it were perfectly natural, "They're just hungry. Look at that one. It never manages to grab any. Isn't it pitiful? I even gave them names."
Lizzie pointed at the different walkers one by one, cheerfully introducing her "good friends" to Carol.
It made Carol's skin crawl.
Lizzie, Mika, and Sophia were around the same age, and Carol did not want to see the children's view of the world twisted by the apocalypse.
Carol tried to explain things to Lizzie and stop her, but Lizzie only looked at her with those big eyes, then walked away in silence.
After that, new animal remains and bloodstains would soon be found in the same place again.
Carol had gone to the girls' father about it, but in front of him, Lizzie acted completely innocent and claimed she knew nothing.
Their father could only warn his two daughters that walkers were not the same as people, and that if they ran into one, even if they could not kill it, they had to get as far away as possible.
Lizzie nodded to his face, then went right back to doing whatever she wanted.
Later, Carl and Sophia caught her once too.
Carl immediately drew his knife and sharply warned Lizzie to stay away from the wall. "You're attracting these walkers! If too many gather here, something's going to happen!"
Lizzie glanced at him. It was not the look someone gave a peer, but more like the way one looked at a child who did not understand anything.
"You don't get it. To me, they're the same as you, Mika, and Sophia." She lowered her head and toyed with the field mouse still struggling in her hand.
Carl felt a chill run through him. He pulled the confused Sophia away from this clearly abnormal girl and told Rick what had happened.
The prison held a small meeting because of it.
"That child… has something wrong with her," Dale said, deeply worried. "She can't tell life from death, or good from evil. If this keeps going, it'll be too dangerous!"
"It's not just dangerous," Andrea said sternly. "She's deliberately creating a high-threat area at one of the weakest points in our defenses!
If those walkers have 'feed' there every day, they'll keep gathering there and won't leave! Who knows what could happen one day?"
Rick rubbed his brow.
He knew the girl, and her younger sister, Mika.
Mika was a very good girl. She offered to help on her own and practiced using knives and shooting arrows with Carl and Sophia.
He had never expected her older sister to be so… different.
"Increase patrols in that area. Carol, you and her father try to keep an eye on her. But we can't really do anything to her."
Rick looked at Andrea. "For now, that's all we can do. Once Lori and the others come back, maybe her condition will improve a little…"
They really did not have a better solution.
In the apocalypse, psychological trauma was a more common illness than physical wounds, but there was no medicine for it.
Lizzie did not know about the adults' worries. Or rather, she did not care at all.
She still slipped off to that corner every day to carry out her lonely, eerie "feeding."
There were more and more walkers outside the wall, and the rotting stench grew thicker by the day.
But to Lizzie, this was not a threat. It meant she had more and more friends, and things were getting livelier.