The Devil Wears Leather

Chapter One

Red like Blood in Your Veins

Shock. This is defined by an unexpected disturbance of the mind or emotions. In medical terms, it is when a sudden loss of blood flow occurs throughout the body. Phoebe was experiencing shock in every sense of the word.

Pressing both palms against the bleeding wound in her side, she knelt in the gravel that cut through her jeans and inhaled short and sharp breaths. Everything was hazy, from the wave of eerie whistling that surrounded her and the others who had been forced in this position to the movement of the man they called Negan. He was pacing, speaking, laughing and it all blurred together between each second that passed. She was fading, bleeding out.

Closing her eyes, she focused on her own pulse that raced through her ears and attempted to keep herself upright until the first loud crunch of wood hitting skull ripped her from the edge of unconsciousness. Lifting her heavy lidded gaze to her right, she watched as the man began his execution of Lindon, the only member in her small group who had any kind of medical training. Each heavy crack of the bat pierced her mind like a needle, the sobs of the others nothing but background noise that she tried to block out as the pain in her side caused by a bullet from one of their guns forced a grunt from her lips.

"Stop." She ground out, every letter excruciating on the tip of her tongue as she raised a hand smeared with her own blood. "It was me. It was me, goddamn it. It was me."

She rocked on her knees and groaned as everything stopped. The crunching, the sobbing, the whistling. Silence – until his boots trudged through the gravel along the line-up until he was standing directly above her. Black lace ups, grey jeans covered in blood spatter. Details.

"You? Well fuck me, sweetheart." He spoke loudly, his voice deep and commanding as he knelt down to her level. "Why didn't you just say so? I mean, this poor bastard over here just got his head smashed in by Lucille for your mistake. That is disgraceful, in fact that is downright horrific!"

His voice echoed through her head, and she lost her balance as she swayed, throwing her hands out to catch herself before she ate the ground. Hissing as the gravel scraped her bloody palms, she felt a hand on her shoulder and froze beneath it.

"Woah, Jesus Christ. Are you bleedin' all over the place? Aw hell, there wouldn't have been any goddamn reason to kill you seein' as you're already on death's doorstep." He pushed her back into position, and she met his dark gaze for a long moment before he reached out and roughly assessed her injuries.

Yelping like an injured animal at the feel of his fingers jabbing her in the side, she lost her breath and fell forward again. Her face hit his knee hard, and she knew it was going to bruise as he let her collapse against the ground between his boots.

"She in charge?" Negan asked one of the others in the line-up, to which they nodded silently as if speaking out would result in their deaths too. He snorted and smirked at the response. "Some shitty leader you fuckers picked if you ask me, but I guess there wasn't any real fucking competition for that position in your retarded little group anyway. Simon, load this thief up. Nobody's dying on my fucking watch until I say so, nope. No easy way out for any of you, not after the shit you pulled."

"We were starving." Phoebe managed to groan out as she eyed the baseball bat he named Lucille, inches from her face and covered in a thick layer of blood. If she wasn't so concentrated on keeping herself awake, she was damn sure that she would've gagged at the sight and smell of it.

"I don't give a shit." He mumbled lowly, hard fingers snatching beneath her chin and forcing her to look up at him from her foetal position. He looked predatory, like a wolf in leather as he licked over his lower lip and shook his head. "Nobody hides supplies from me, not you, not them. Not any-fucking-body. If you really were starving which I sincerely doubt, then you would've made ends meet by actually working hard to find shit. But people are led by example, and with a girl in charge like you? Well, it's really no surprise you fucked up."

Phoebe scowled at him and pulled her face from his grasp just in time for his right hand man to tower above them and grab for her.

"Fuck you." She spat at Negan, desperate and bleeding but not afraid as Simon hauled her to her feet by securing both hands under her arms. As far as she knew the Saviours were leading her to the slaughter once he was done with his speech, she wasn't about to trust a maniac who used a children's nursery rhyme as a method to choose his victims. "Fuck all of you!"

"My, my – the fucking mouth on you is so unladylike that it's making my dick hard. Can't have that when I just killed your friend over here, that's fucked up." Negan beamed, grin wide and voice enthusiastic as he watched Simon shove her into the back of one of his trucks. "Do me a favour and gag that girl, give her tongue a rest while she's still got one."

Phoebe gasped as she collapsed against the cold metal of the bare truck, her legs too weak to help her shift into a more comfortable position as Simon climbed above her and did as Negan asked him to. He snorted at his leader's request, and chuckled to himself. She heard him patting down his pockets and for a minute she thought he was going to kill her.

"You got a handkerchief handy, ain't got shit here." He called out, and she sighed when she heard Negan make another witty remark.

"Here, borrow my scarf. I want that shit back, it's my favourite one." He mumbled. "Red just like the colour of your bullet wound, sweetheart."

Phoebe closed her eyes, balling her hands into fists as Simon grabbed her hair and lifted her head enough so he could get the scarf around her face. She furrowed her brows together as the material slid between her teeth, smelling just like him. Leather, smoke and something else. Wincing as the Saviour tightened the material at the back of her head, he clucked his tongue and patted her shoulder.

"Alright, we're good to go boss!" Simon declared, his voice twisting at the already painful migraine in her head as he stepped out of the truck and closed the doors behind him. Light turned to dark instantly which was almost a relief. She was alone, able to let her guard down as tears pricked her eyes. The pain was numbing which wasn't a good sign. If she couldn't feel it then that was her body's way of telling her it wasn't doing so good. That much she had learned from Lindon before Negan had murdered him.

Hearing his loud muffled voice through the truck doors, Phoebe closed her eyes as he finished up his speech. They were leaving, and she was going with them. The engine rumbled to a start as she rested her cheek against the metal flooring, biting into the scarf as she slowly drifted into a dream or death – she knew she would find out soon enough which one it was.