[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 428 - How to Choose

The bonfire crackled and spat, firelight painting every face in shifting gold and shadow.

Using a more terrifying virus to fight the Walkers?

It sounded insane.

Merle was the first to break the silence.

"Holy shit, boss. You serious?"

"The T-Virus? Super soldiers?" He barked a short laugh. "Sounds like a hell of a time."

No fear on his face. Just that raw, ugly excitement he never bothered hiding.

"Long as it doesn't turn us into those things, or drop us dead on the spot, I got zero objections."

Shawn spoke next.

He was leaning against a tree, arms folded, that hard-cut face giving nothing away.

"Flip a car over?" A pause. "Not bad."

"That's basically Superman," Abraham said, his booming voice cutting through the dark. He was already grinning. "Sign me up first."

"I'll punch every single Walker into paste. One hit each."

He even laughed after he said it.

It broke something loose in the air. The oppressive weight over the camp thinned, just a little.

Glenn forced out a smile too.

Yeah.

Getting stronger was a good thing. Obviously.

Who wouldn't want the power to control their own fate in a world this thoroughly screwed?

Who wouldn't want to be a hero?

It was practically written into the bones of every American man. Individual heroism. Wired in from birth. As long as the prize was power, a little risk seemed like nothing.

Leon looked at them.

He watched the expressions move across their faces, shock first, then uncertainty, then that hungry, restless edge of wanting.

He didn't feel it. None of that eagerness reached him.

He shook his head.

"You think this is a game?"

The camp went quiet. Every eye found him.

"The injection carries a risk of death."

His gaze moved from face to face. No softness in it. No room for doubt about whether he meant it.

"I don't know the mortality rate."

"Could be ten percent. Could be fifty. Could be ninety."

"This isn't a miracle cure. It's a gambling table."

"The stake is your life."

"You win — you become Superman."

"You lose — you become a corpse. Or something worse than the Runners out there."

"So."

Leon set the ugliest truth he had in front of them, bare and bleeding.

"Still want in?"

No one spoke. The fire crackled on, indifferent.

Shawn's arms were still folded across his chest, but his hands had gone tight without him noticing.

Death.

Fuck.

Of course he was afraid to die.

Leon had given him everything he had now. Power. Status. Respect. Even after taking a bullet, the people in this place still treated him like someone who mattered, because he'd been with Leon from the beginning. He'd had a taste of what that kind of authority felt like, and it was more intoxicating than the hardest liquor alive. More magnetic than Lori, even.

Logic said he should back Leon without question.

But.

What if he lost?

That was his life. His one life.

Rick's breathing had gone heavy.

Carl.

His boy, who'd just barely found the nerve to kill his first Walker with his own hands. He wanted to protect that kid. Wanted to carve out something safe for him in all this ruin.

But if his own survival wasn't guaranteed, what protection was he offering anyone?

Super soldier.

The power was real. He couldn't pretend it didn't pull at him.

But if the price was his life...

What happened to Carl?

He couldn't let himself finish the thought.

The grin had left Abraham's face entirely.

He was a soldier. Orders were his whole life. Leon was his commanding officer.

But this order was asking him to bet his existence on a future that might not exist.

Except the whole reason he'd survived this long was to save the world. If Leon's plan was built toward that, if it was truly for something larger than any one of them, then dying for it wasn't something to flinch from.

His jaw set.

Decision made.

Glenn had gone the color of old paper.

He couldn't look at Leon. He kept his head down, eyes fixed on his own hands, fingers lacing and unlacing with the kind of nervous energy he couldn't control.

He liked taking risks. He liked the prison. But at the end of the day, he was a pizza delivery kid who'd been living on luck and Leon's goodwill since day one.

Inject that stuff into his veins?

He couldn't die.

He really, truly could not become a monster.

But then he thought about the mistake he'd made, and how Leon hadn't punished him, hadn't pulled back from him, hadn't made him feel like nothing. That stuck. He owed something. To Leon, to this camp, to the people around this fire.

And there was something he feared more than the injection.

Being useless.

"Shit."

Merle swore under his breath. He tipped the bottle back and got the last mouthful, then slammed it against the ground hard enough to shatter.

"Die is die. What the hell are all of you scared of?"

"I'm no educated man. But I know this much, without Leon, half of us never would've crossed paths. We'd still be out there somewhere, hiding in a ditch and hoping nothing found us."

"Leon's the one who put us together. Gave us the prison, everything in it."

"We've had our share of the good times. Now the prison needs something back from us." He looked around the fire. "And you're still sitting on your hands?"

He got to his feet and walked over to Leon. Those bleary eyes of his held something that didn't belong there.

Gratitude.

"My life ain't worth a damn anyway."

"Rather get chewed apart by Walkers like some coward? I'd rather throw the dice."

He planted himself in front of Leon and didn't blink.

"Boss — when you've got that stuff ready, I want it first."

➤ Next: Set Our Sights on Something Bigger