Elijah's POV
To be honest, Terminus looks like an obvious trap.
I mean, c'mon. "Sanctuary for All, Community for all. Those who arrive, survive." Please. Who lets complete strangers come into their community, without the intention to capture them and make them slaves or kill them or one of those fun things? Even if I wasn't held captive like I was for so long, I still would have steered clear of the place. The fact that the gate is hanging WIDE OPEN and there's nobody in sight, dead or living, makes it look abandoned. Well, expect for the sniper guys on the roof. Kind of a big give away.
"Look at them. They think they have it so figured out. Ignorant bastards." Caroline says in disgust, a twisted frown on her face. Up until yesterday, I didn't know the names of anybody I was stuck with. That's changed, obviously. Out of the 22 we had yesterday, only 8 have stayed, or are still alive. Probably half of my fellow former prisoners got shot up or eaten yesterday. Out of all of them, I've become "friends" with Caroline. More like acquaintances, really.
She used to be a Social Studies teacher from a school on the outskirts of Atlanta. The day before Atlanta was bombed, she was teaching when, somehow, a few of the people at the school had turned. A few turned into a lot pretty quickly. Once people figured out what was going on, the ones who could drive left. But everybody else called their parents to pick them up. Long story short: the school was overrun pretty fast.
She got out, though, and was with a group for a loooooong time, until a couple weeks ago when they themselves got overrun. The next day, she was caught by the Terminus scumbags, and now she's here. Caroline is Japanese, although she was born in the US. She has long, sleek black hair that's put up in a messy bun. Her black skinny jeans have holes at the knees, leaving her knees exposed. She was wearing a plain white tank top, but after that group of saints basically saved us, she picked up a maroon long sleeve shirt off of one of the Termies, along with a nice black jacket.
"Tell me about it. They're gonna crash and burn, don't worry. It's their time to suffer now." I say to Caroline, smiling broadly. She holds up her newly acquired SMG, picked off of a dead Termie. "The day of reckoning has come." She smiles back.
"Amen, sister. Testify." I say, and I can't help but giggle just a little bit. Killing these sick, twisted people is gonna be MORE than fun. Caroline pats my shoulder before walking off towards the rest of our little "army", gathered a little farther back in the woods, to stay out of sight of the snipers.
"You ready for this, Eli?" Beth asks from a few feet behind me.
"You don't even know how ready I am for this." Once she makes it to the fence, she leans next to it, rocking back and forth,facing me. She's holding on to the AK-47 Daryl gave her like one would hold a purse. Her long blond hair cascades down her front, making it to her elbows. The ratty old yellow shirt and worn out jeans she had worn for days as a prisoner is gone, replaced by a nice fitting red tanktop and yoga pants like Maggie's.
"Maggie says we have to wait until tonight before we attack. We'd be too obvious in broad daylight. To be honest, I don't think I can wait that long, though. Never been in a gunfight though." She informs me.
"Wait, you've never been in a shootout? Where the hell have you been the last two years? On paradise island or something?" She has to be kidding. How could she have never ran into any bad people?
She blushes just the slightest, looking up at me smiling. She's just too gorgeous sometimes, I swear. Maybe she does it on purpose. "Well, Maggie and I were on my Daddy's farm for a while. But it got overrun, and we eventually found the prison. Even when the Governor attacked us, I was shooting at them, but all the bullets were aimed at Rick at that point. By the time the tank destroyed the fences, I was too far away from all of it to be shot."
"Well, you've been awfully lucky then-DUCK!" I see one of the sniper dudes look our way, and I dive behind a tree. Beth lays down flat on the ground, watching the sniper until he walks away to another part of the roof. I chuckle.
"Close call."
"Tell me about it. Wanna go for a little walk, so we can talk in peace?" Beth asks, dusting herself off. OHMYGODYES. "S-sure." I say, and it's my turn to blush just a little bit. We walk away from the fence, heading around the chariot where the rest of the group is gathered on a road that runs parallel to the fence. Once we're a reasonable distance away, we emerge back onto the road. Out of the blue, Beth starts singing.
It's so unexpected that it scares me at first. But once I figure out it's just Beth, I relax, and enjoy the singing. I recognize that it's a Lana Del Ray song. "Summertime Sadness." I didn't know Beth could sing, and man, her singing is amazing. Well, I haven't heard anybody sing in quite some time, but Beth was born with a singers' voice. I close my eyes for a second, and imagine that we're not preparing to attack Terminus. That the world didn't end, and Beth and I were just two high schoolers hanging out on a weekend. Maybe it could be a date...
I hear the loud shriek of tires on pavement, and freeze.
A sleek black car is trying to stop before it hits us, the driver slamming on the brakes hard. But it doesn't work, and they collide head on with Beth and I. My side explodes in pain, and i'm sent flying down the road. I hit the hard pavement, and I feel it grinding against all my exposed skin painfully. My head smacks against the road hard, and I see stars.
"Beth?" I croak out, but I don't hear a response. Suddenly, somebody is lifting me up, their hands wrapping around my waist. Thank god, Maggie and the others are here. What the hell was the driver thinking, driving that fast? Dumb ass, they could have killed us.
The edges of my vision are going black, but I'm still conscious enough to feel myself being gently tossed into the back of the black car. Oh no no no no no no no. I'm being abducted, again. The driver sits me up, and buckles in my seat belt. I weakly slap him, or her, I don't know, in the face, but they just laugh. Yeah, it's a he. Is that a police uniform he's wearing?
"BETH?!" I hear a desperate scream from a voice that can only belong to Maggie. Speaking of, Beth is roughly thrown in next to me, completely unconscious. Bullets ricochet off the car, and the driver quickly drives off, leaving the his door wide open. Looking out the back window, I see Maggie running after us feutily.
Before I completely black out, I decide that this guy who has the audacity to abduct me will die slowly and painfully.
ISAAC'S POV
Getting into Terminus was pretty easy.
Since we didn't have big enough guns to take them down ourselves, or even enough people, Kat came up with the brilliant idea to attack them from the inside. We simply walked up the tracks inside the compound, and ended up talking to this older woman named Mary. She was manning a big grill, made us each a plate, and took us inside. The food was amazing, and we were each given a room near the back of the warehouse. Each room was once used for storage I guess, but now they serve as living quarters.
I don't know what's going on here exactly, but I haven't seen that many people. Sure, a couple people have walked by, stopping by and saying hello. It almost seems like Terminus really is a sanctuary, but we know better. Whatever is going on here, we're going to figure it out. Once we know how this place works, we attack.
"This place is actually better than I expected." Kat tells me, unpacking her gear into one of the two dressers in our room. "But they insisted we show them all of our weapons, and that kind of killed the whole effect their trying to pull off. 'Sanctuary' and everything."
"I guess. But, if you were in their position, would you let strangers in without knowing how many weapons they had with them?"
Kat shrugs. "No, I guess not. But this place is still sketchy. I've only seen like 5 or 6 other people here." She's noticed it, too. I briefly talked about that with Carol and Tyreese a little while ago, but they left to go explore the compound.
The loud siren that blares cuts off my response. We just stand there covering our ears for a few seconds until, thankfully, the siren stops. Before either of us can talk, one of the Termites bursts into the room. "We're under attack! Follow me!" Kat and I follow him warily as he runs through the warehouse, past huge crates and storage units and makeshift rooms and work stations, before finally ending up in another courtyard. I can hear shots near by. We both have our guns drawn. Who's attacking us? People? Walkers? Have Carol and Tyreese found something?
I see four people dive behind cover probably 40 feet in front of us, on the far side of the courtyard. Other buildings to the left and right act as walls almost, leaving the way the intruders came as the only way out. The Termite guy leads us behind a huge grill similar to the one Mary has out in front. A big square slab of metal about 4 feet fall, so we have to duck down behind it. Soon the smell of gun smoke fills the air. I feel several shots hit the other side of the grill, leaving dents protruding towards us. I freeze. I hate HATE confrontations with other people.
Kat fires off a few shots with her shotgun at the pile of crates where some of the intruders are. By this point i've set my automatic rifle down at my side, staring back towards the warehouse we came from. Carol and Tyreese emerge from it, and I see Carol tense up instantly. Tyreese runs back inside holding Judith fiercely, under the protection of a Termite with a machine gun, while Carol makes her way to us, not caring to fire at the enemy.
"Stop firing!" She yells at Kat once she's behind the grill with us. Kat twists her head towards her for a split second, shotgun still aimed at the pile of crates, and then her face explodes in blood. She goes down hard, and i'm right next to her instantly. OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD. Luckily, the bullet only grazed the side of her temple, leaving one wicked groove along the right side of her face. The pain has rendered her unconscious, but she's bleeding quite badly. I rip off the sleve of my flannel jacket, wad it up, and hold it over the worst of the bleeding.
"What are you trying to do, lady? They are attacking US-" Carol quickly shoots him in the face while nobody is looking. She rolls his dead body out into the open. "Those are friends of mine. I saw Carl for sure, and I think I saw Daryl." Even though I have never met either Carl or Daryl, both Carol and Alex have told me a lot about them.
"Are you sure it's them?"
"Look over behind those crates. You'll see the top of a sheriff's hat that belongs to Rick's son, Carl. And if Carl is here, Rick sure as hell is too." Risking getting shot in the face, I quickly peek up over the edge of the grill and see the hat she's talking about. "We need to help them then. If we attack now, the Termites will be surrounded and we could win!" Just as I say this, I see somebody run out from behind the crates Carl is behind. It's Alex, and he's heading towards another pile of crates. How in the hell did he get here? Wasn't he with Maggie? Unless Maggie is here too...
Suddenly, Alex goes down hard, blood spraying from his ankle. Oh God. A black lady rushes out of hiding to pull him to safety, and the boy with the sheriff's hat that must be Carl comes after him as well. He fires wildly in our direction, and I duck. Several other Termites have taken to the rooftops at this point. Besides Carol, Kat and I, there's only 4 others on the ground, hiding behind the huge garage door that leads into the warehouse behind us.
"SURRENDER NOW AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED!" A voice I recognize to be Gareth's booms over a loudspeaker. I see him perched on roof a second later with a megaphone in his hand, a pistol in the other. In response, one of our friends fire several shots towards him. Instead of showing anger or fear, Gareth just shakes his head blankly.
A squad of Termites comes around from the other end of the courtyard, and swiftly capture Carl and Daryl, along with the black woman and a gruff looking man that must be Rick. He struggles greatly, kicking and biting and headbutting as the Termites put him in handcuffs. A few of them grab Alex, and take him into the building making up the left border of the courtyard.
"Oh no..." Carol looks worried. "I'll follow them, find out where they're being taken. I'll find you tonight, and we'll make a plan then. Remember, to them, we're friends. Use it to your advantage." And with that, she swiftly walks into the open courtyard, following the group taking Rick and company away at a distance.
"HELP! SHE'S BEEN SHOT!" I yell, holding Kat's limp body up, and within moments Termites are streaming out from behind the garage door. Once they see how bloody Kat's face is, they manage to lift her up and carry her back into the warehouse. They don't notice the dead guy Carol killed lying mere feet from where i'm sitting. They don't know that Carol killed him, or that the people they just detained are our friends.
Remember, to them, we're friends. Use it to your advantage.
Oh, that's definitely what I plan on doing.
If Alex was with Rick and his group, that means that they must've rescued the prisoners from the Terminus slave caravan. Which means that Maggie and the rest of them are somewhere in the area, probably as Rick's backup. I need to find them ASAP. By ourselves, Carol, Tyreese and I can't take these people down. After seeing how strong they really are, I know it would take a large amount of people to lay siege to this place.
I walk back inside the warehouse to see a medic cleaning Kat's wound and wrapping gauze around her head on the floor. Standing around them is the group of Termites that brought her over there. I kind of recognize the guy with the oily black hair, Alan maybe? I can't remember his name.
"Hey, man, I think there might be more of those people hiding somewhere in the forest. I-I've seen them before, on my way here. We watched them for a little bit, almost joined them actually. But we saw them do horrible things. I think we should sent some people out to look for them." I try not to stutter too much. Everything I just said is a complete lie, but I hope he doesn't realize that.
"Really? Well, damn. I guess when you advertise sanctuary, some people just wanna take it for themselves. I'll tell ya what, you and that other friend of yours can go and scout around the perimeter a little bit." He digs in his pocket, and produces a walkie-talkie. "Find anything worth finding, and message us over this." I take the walkie from his hand, and secure it onto my belt, right next to my machete.
"Thanks, bro."
"No, thank YOU...Isaac is it?"
"Yeah."
"Well, thank you for looking our for us, Isaac." And with that, i'm home free.
I find Tyreese in his and Carol's room, which is actually right next to Kat and I's. I fill him in on what happened, and we take off. He brings Judith, strapped into a baby carrier to his back. We walk out into the front, saying hello to Mary briefly, before rounding the corner and sprinting out of the gate. I freeze when I see several people making their way down the tracks. People heading for Terminus. We have to warn them.
Their leader appears to be a woman wearing a deep blue jacket with the hood pulled up, with sunglasses on, covering her face. She has on a familiar pair of boots, and a familiar pair of yoga pants. I see a few wisps of long brown hair, and I know who it is. Although I don't recognize the people she's with, I've known Maggie long enough to tell that it's her.
