Chapter 70 Bringing Shane In - The Future Deputy Warden

“You and Rick both had professional law-enforcement training, but the two of you aren’t good at the same things,” Magnus Vane said, standing only a few feet from Shane in the second-floor hallway. “Rick is better at holding people together, listening to different sides, and making the whole group trust him. You’re different. When somebody has already made the decision and something dangerous actually needs to get done, you’re probably the best person in this camp to carry it out.” Magnus glanced at the walker bodies Shane had just put down before looking directly through his visor again. “You asked me last night what you’re supposed to do now. Stop trying to beat Rick at everything, Shane. Become my Deputy Warden.”

Shane’s eyes shifted slightly, but Magnus didn’t give him time to interrupt. “Protect the people you care about in a way that doesn’t destroy them. This prison is going to need somebody who can organize defenses, train fighters, respond when something goes wrong, and make hard decisions without freezing up.” He pointed toward the concrete walls surrounding them. “There’s a place for you here, and it doesn’t require taking Rick’s family away from him.”

This time Magnus made his intentions completely clear. He had no interest in wasting months trying to settle the impossible question of whether Lori’s unborn child was biologically Rick’s or Shane’s; in the world they were living in, there was no simple way to know, and obsessing over it would accomplish nothing except reopen the same wound. If Shane believed there was a chance the baby was his, then Magnus could turn that attachment toward protecting the prison rather than fighting Rick. What mattered was getting Shane to understand that protecting someone and possessing them were not the same thing.

Magnus had already forced both sides of Shane’s obsession into the open the previous night. What Shane had felt for Lori had begun under extreme circumstances, while Lori had believed herself widowed and depended heavily on the man who had gotten her and Carl out of Atlanta. Whatever genuine affection existed between them had become tangled with grief, fear, responsibility, and Shane’s growing rivalry with Rick after his return. Lori had chosen her family, and now Shane needed to choose what kind of man he wanted to become afterward.

If he kept fighting Rick, the group would eventually split.

If the group split, people would die.

Everything Shane claimed to want to protect would disappear with it.

Magnus therefore reduced the entire offer to something Shane could understand without another long psychological discussion: stay with Magnus, protect the people he cared about, gain real responsibility inside the prison, and prove his worth somewhere that actually needed him. The future could give Shane power, status, and purpose without forcing him to take those things away from Rick. Magnus extended his hand. “Shane, work with me.”

Shane unconsciously touched the center of his chest.

The pressure that had been sitting there for months seemed weaker than it had the night before.

Magnus’s words came back to him alongside Lori’s face, but for once remembering her didn’t immediately trigger the same desperate feeling that he had to reclaim something before it disappeared. He had been fighting ever since Rick returned, and now he could finally admit what much of that fight had been about. Lori and leadership had become mixed together until losing one felt like losing the other.

Shane had wanted to be the man people depended on.

Then Rick came back.

The former King County deputy who had been Shane’s partner and best friend returned from the dead, reunited with his wife and son, and naturally became one of the people the survivors trusted most. Shane had tried to convince himself that his resentment was only about Rick being too soft for the new world, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Competing for Lori had become another way of competing with Rick.

He had been angry.

Jealous.

Obsessed.

Yet after nearly allowing walkers to close around him upstairs, the things that had seemed absolutely essential yesterday no longer felt quite as large. The moment he had decided to stop fighting and die, his own body had rejected the decision violently. Shane had learned something important in those few seconds: beneath all the resentment and exhaustion, he still wanted to live.

The realization left him suddenly tired.

Shane sat down heavily against the wall and pulled off the protective helmet. Sweat dampened his hair and ran down his face as he looked up at Magnus with unusual seriousness. “All right. But if we’re talking about me working under you, then I’ve got conditions.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not listening to Dale turn every decision into some speech about how we used to live,” Shane said bluntly. “The old rules didn’t stop those guards from putting guns on Lori and Carl yesterday.” His breathing had mostly steadied now, and the familiar force in his voice was returning, but it no longer sounded directionless. “I want this prison armed. Heavy weapons if we can get them, solid gates, reinforced fences, ammunition stored where we can reach it.”

Magnus listened without interrupting.

“And I want people trained,” Shane continued. “Not three or four guys doing all the shooting while everybody else hides. If this is gonna be home, then eventually everybody who can fight needs to know how.” He looked Magnus directly in the eyes. “I want to build something that can defend itself.”

Magnus almost smiled.

There it was.

Shane still wanted authority.

That had not magically disappeared overnight.

But there was an important difference now: instead of talking only about Lori or proving himself stronger than Rick, he was talking about fortifying the prison and training the group. His ambition was beginning to widen beyond his personal rivalry, which was exactly what Magnus had hoped for.

Shane hesitated before adding the final condition. “And Lori is still my line.”

Magnus’s smile faded slightly.

“I’ll keep my distance,” Shane said. “I’m not saying I’m gonna keep chasing her or start trouble with Rick. But if I’m doing this, then you make sure she stays safe.”

Magnus studied him.

“At least for now,” Shane added quietly, “that’s the one thing I’m not negotiating.”

Those words interested Magnus more than Shane probably realized.

At least for now.

Shane’s center of gravity was already moving. Lori remained the person he was most emotionally attached to, but there was now room in his mind for other responsibilities. In time, that concern would almost certainly extend more strongly toward the child she was carrying, because regardless of biology, Shane clearly believed there was a possibility the baby was his.

That gave him another reason to build instead of destroy.

Magnus extended his hand.

“Deal.”

Shane looked at it for several seconds.

Then took it.

Magnus pulled him to his feet.

For Shane Walsh’s personality, Magnus considered that about as good an outcome as anyone could realistically expect. A darker Shane might have approached the same offer completely differently, suggesting the two of them seize control together, remove Rick, divide the group between them, and treat Lori and Carl as prizes to be handed over in exchange for loyalty. This Shane had not crossed that line.

That mattered.

Shane could be impulsive.

Aggressive.

Ruthless when he believed something had to be done.

Those qualities made him dangerous as an unchecked leader, but they also made him extremely valuable as the person responsible for executing a plan after the decision had been made. Rick was good at making people believe they still had a community; Shane was good at making sure that community survived a fight. Magnus wanted both.

He picked up Shane’s helmet and personally settled it back into place before patting him on the shoulder. “This prison is going to be what keeps everybody alive. We clear it, fortify it, and turn it into something people can actually defend.”

Shane didn’t answer immediately.

He only nodded.

But what Magnus said and what Shane heard were not exactly the same.

Your child can grow up safely here.

That was enough.

Shane tightened his grip on the machete.

The pressure inside his chest finally seemed to fall away.

Months of resentment hadn’t vanished, but for the first time since Rick returned, Shane had somewhere else to direct all that energy. The change wasn’t dramatic enough to make him cheerful, yet his posture had already straightened, and the emptiness Magnus had seen in his eyes that morning was gone.

“Good,” Magnus said. “Then the second floor is yours.”

Shane looked down the hallway.

“Check every room. Every closet, bunk, ceiling gap, bathroom, storage area—everything. Don’t assume something is empty because it’s quiet.”

“And you?”

“Third floor.”

Magnus brought the Remington 870 Police around and began feeding fresh 12-gauge shells into the magazine tube. Rick had supplied the ammunition along with the shotgun, and the pump-action weapon had already proven how useful it was when a hallway suddenly filled with walkers. Compared with Magnus’s preferred sledgehammer, the shotgun gave him another option for enclosed spaces where he couldn’t safely make a full swing.

Shane watched him finish loading.

Then nodded once.

“I’ve got this floor.”

Magnus turned toward the stairwell.

“Deputy Warden,” he said without looking back.

Shane paused.

Magnus smiled.

“Try not to get eaten on your first day.”

“Go to hell.”

That sounded much more like the Shane Walsh Magnus remembered.

Magnus climbed to the third floor alone.

He moved quietly as he reached the landing, shotgun ready while his eyes scanned every doorway, ceiling panel, and dark corner ahead. The floor seemed completely silent. After what had just happened below, Magnus trusted silence even less than growling.

His experience with 7 Days to Die had taught him one rule better than almost anything else.

If a building looked suspiciously empty, it probably wasn’t.

There was an old joke among players that buildings weren’t really made from concrete, steel, and wood; they were made from zombies waiting inside walls, ceilings, closets, and bathrooms for the player to walk past. The real world version of the system had already proven willing to imitate that behavior at the motel and again on the second floor. Magnus therefore advanced with the assumption that something was waiting for him until he personally proved otherwise.

The third floor was noticeably different from the lower levels.

The first floor had contained staff facilities and access areas, while the second offered bunks and rest spaces for guards. Up here, the hallway was wider and the rooms larger, with fewer offices taking up more space. Magnus quickly guessed that this level had been reserved for senior administration.

“Warden and deputy warden,” he murmured.

That would make sense.

A large prison needed offices for its command staff away from the constant movement downstairs, and the layout reflected that. Glass office walls allowed broad visibility across the floor, while an elevator sat in the far-left corner, currently dead without electricity but apparently connected directly to the lower level and an exterior access point. The entire area looked almost comfortable compared with the crowded spaces below.

Something about that bothered Magnus.

There were no walkers.

Not one.

The warden’s office looked surprisingly clean.

So did the deputy warden’s.

Magnus stood outside the doorway and waited.

Nothing happened.

He slowly placed one foot across the threshold.

Then pulled it back.

Still nothing.

No growl.

No collapsing ceiling.

No corpse bursting out of a closet.

Magnus narrowed his eyes.

“Did the system finally decide to behave?”

He waited another few seconds before stepping fully inside.

The warden’s office was separated from the neighboring deputy warden’s office by a solid wall, but one detail immediately caught Magnus’s attention. A rectangular section of what looked like ordinary dark glass was set into the wall at roughly the size of a medium painting. From the warden’s side, Magnus could see directly into the neighboring office.

He walked closer.

Everything inside was visible.

Desk.

Chair.

Cabinets.

The entire room.

Magnus immediately left the office and went around to the other side.

From the deputy warden’s office, the same panel looked like a normal mirror.

He stared at his own reflection.

Then slowly looked back toward the warden’s office.

“Oh.”

Magnus’s mouth curved into a knowing smile.

“Somebody really liked keeping an eye on the deputy.”

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