~ I'm really thankful for the number of comments I've been seeing on my story. They really keep me motivated because I want to put out new chapters for you guys. ~
Chapter 14 : Neon
"Michonne, do you hear that?" Rick asked, tilting his head in the darkness beneath the bushes surrounding the tin warehouses they'd seen the two strangers taken to.
Michonne cocked her head, then nodded. Screams. The sound of a fight. Weeping. Those people were being tortured.
"Why do you think they're torturing them instead of just putting them in the community like they did us?" Rick asked, his hand gripping the long knife attached to his belt. "Do you think it's because they know something?"
Michonne nodded, her eyes glittering in the darkness. "Which means they probably know something we want to know too."
Rick couldn't help but agree. If the people of Woodbury found the information these two held so desirable that they did not kill them outright, then it must be another town, a place for supplies, something. And it could lead to more information about his family. He turned to Michonne, "So how are we going to do this?"
They'd walked around the back and one side of the building to reach it after sneaking back through the roof of the weapon's building using a rope and the broken handle of a broom to make a crossbeam in the trap door so they could climb back up. Then they'd immediately headed in the direction of the warehouses, hoping they weren't too late. By the sounds of it, they weren't, but if they waited any longer, they might be.
"We've got to go in fast."
"I was hoping we could sneak out quietly," Rick admitted. "Be miles away from here before they realized we were gone. But I know I wouldn't feel right leaving those people in there."
Michonne dropped an arm on his shoulder. "If we go in with guns blazing, they're going to fire back and injured or dead wasn't the way I wanted to be running out of here."
Rick agreed wholeheartedly. "So…"
Michonne shook her head and turned her attention back to the buildings, hoping something would come to her before the screams and crying stopped. "So."
The governor grinned as Maggie trembled and cried, her bra a discarded covering on the table. "So, are you going to tell me where your little village is?"
"You can do whatever you want to me," she hissed. "I'm not telling you anything."
She tried to ignore the sounds of Glenn struggling for his life in the other room. He wouldn't want her to weaken. If he didn't weaken, she refused to as well. Her shoulders shook as she tried to hold back her tears.
"Girl-"
The sharp sound of splintering wood broke through his interrogation. Maggie gasped and turned toward the room holding Glenn because that's where the sound had come from. The blast of gunfire punctured the night, then silence.
Maggie pulled her shirt back and and shuffled backwards, her knees on the brink of collapse. Glenn!
Glenn pulled the wooden stake from the brains of the zombie and stared in shock at the two people standing before him. Two guards could be seen dead on the ground in front of the building, blood seeping in through the entrance. He was still full of adrenaline so it took him a while to recognize the man, but when his eyes finally focused, he felt his throat almost close in startlement.
"Rick," he gasped.
Rick nearly tumbled to the ground in amazement. "Glenn?" He rushed forward and grasped Glenn's shoulders in his hands. "Glenn?"
Michonne stepped toward them and pried Rick's hands off of Glenn's shoulders. "We don't have time for this. We have to get the woman."
"Maggie!" Glenn whispered. Rick pulled away from him and handed him a gun.
"Should we-"
"We're going through the wall," Glenn cut in. "They'll never expect that."
Michonne and Rick glanced at each other, then nodded. It was as good a plan as any.
The Governor turned toward the door to the room in which he liked to intimidate and interrogate prisoners and called out to one of his guards. "Get some more men here. Check on that other prisoner. Something-"
The words were taken from his mouth when the wall to his right exploded inward, the tin and plank construction flying to pieces as it hit the floor and three people stepped through the rubble, gun's trained into the room. Rick fired a shot without a second thought at the men in the room. They were there to rescue the woman. Anyone else was inconsequential. Glenn grabbed Maggie by the arm and they darted back out through the wall with Michonne and Rick right on their heels, trying not to think about who'd been shot in that room and who could still be behind them. Rick kept his eyes over his shoulder hoping that more men wouldn't come pouring out of the woodwork.
"I don't know if we can get out of here tonight," Michonne hissed to Rick when they heard the sound of more boots on dirt and pavement.
"We've got to," Rick growled, ducking when he heard a bullet fire.
"If we could find somewhere to lay low-"
"No!" Rick said, grabbing Glenn's arm and pulling him behind a tree when a bullet took out a tree limb next to his head. "We're getting out of here tonight. We've got a map. We've just got to slip these guys and find that weak spot in the wall."
Michonne agreed and turned them further into the woods, leading them to the left, almost in the direction of the gunmen. "Climb the threes," she rasped out. "Find one that's out of the way of the path we're on. We've got to split up. Once you feel like you've slipped 'em, follow the wall to the right until you reach the lowest point and get over it and hide in the woods as soon as possible. We'll try to find each other from there."
Rick nodded and grabbed her elbow before she could spin off into the night. "Be careful."
Maggie tried not to let her breath rasp out through her mouth as she dodged hanging limbs and dried sticks scattered over the ground. She could hear men further back in the woods and she longed to have Glenn next to her, but he'd already found a tree to climb. He'd been reluctant to leave her, but the more spread out they were, the easier it would be to slip around someone if they were alone.
She gripped the gun tightly in her hand and gritted her teeth in determination. She saw a tree in the distance with a strong-looking branch a few feet off of the ground. She dashed toward it, hoping the people behind her hadn't seen in which direction she was heading. She wrapped her arms tight around it and pulled herself into higher branches as quickly as possible. Just to make sure they still thought she was headed in the other direction, or at least still moving, she took the collection of rocks from her pocket that dark woman with Rick had advised they take, and started throwing them at random intervals as hard as she could in different directions through the forest when the silence began to fill occupied by a hunter's stillness. She would then hear movement and knew she'd made the right choice in sending them off in a different direction. She only had to do this three times before the night felt empty and the thoughts of what could happen next could creep in.
Rick had chosen not to climb a tree and had instead made his way toward the wall. He was impatient to get out of Woodbury, impatient to ask Glenn if Carl was still alive.
"Rick!"
He heard the click of a gun and slowly raised his hands up above his head.
"You know you're not allowed to leave."
A heavy sigh pulled his shoulders up and down as he turned to face the person holding him at gunpoint.
"Andrea," he sighed, a desperate gleam in his eye. He felt like he was so close. Glenn might know something and the wall was only five feet away from him. "Please. We won't tell anyone. We promise."
Her teeth were bared in uncertainty and she kept glancing over her shoulder.
"Please." The word slipped out like sob. "Please."
"I don't want to you. Let me just take you ba-"
"Do you know what they'll do to us if you take us back? The tie us up and torture us like they did Maggie and Glenn or they'll kill us on sight."
Andrea blinked in surprise, but held her gun steady. "Maggie and Glenn are here?"
Rick tilted his head. "The Governor didn't tell you."
Her eyes squinted in suspicion, but as far as she knew, Rick wasn't a lier and this seemed like something he wouldn't lie about. What purpose could he have… other than trying to turn her against the Governor.
"He had them locked up about half a mile from here and was torturing them for information."
"You're lying."
"I have no reason to lie."
"Other than you want me to let you go."
Rick felt himself beginning to panic. He didn't want to kill Andrea. He didn't even know if he could get to his gun before got shot. "Andrea, please. Don't do this. They'll kill me."
Andrea studied him again. He seemed genuinely desperate not to be taken back to Woodbury.
"Come with me," he tried. "Please. Things aren't like you think they are here."
Andrea felt her past friendship with Rick tugging at her while her current loyalties held her in their grasp as well. He really wasn't the type to go back on his word, and when one of the worst people she'd known, Merle, got left behind in zombie-ridden Atlanta, he'd convinced the others to go back for him. She slowly lowered her gun and slipped it back into her holster.
Rick felt his shoulder's slump in relief. "Thank you. Thank you." He headed toward the wall and climbed over, feeling her eyes on his back. "Thank you," he continued to whisper as he made it over the wall. "Thank you."
Michonne quickly and quietly snuck up behind yet another gunman and separated his head from his body with a single stroke of her sword. The fewer men there were wandering around, the better their chances of getting out of the woods. She quickly darted off and disappeared into another tree.
"Woah!"
She froze when she found another person in the branch above hers with a gun directed toward her head. She sighed in relief when she saw it was the Asian man that Rick had called Glenn.
"I almost had a heart attack," Glenn whispered.
Michonne held her finger to her lips, then stared off into the night time darkness.
"Do you think everyone else is still okay?"
"I don't know about them, but I know we won't be if you don't stay quiet."
He nodded in agreement, but the silence was making him extremely nervous.
"Do you think they're gone?"
Michonne blew out a long breath and rolled her eyes to the heavens. She wished Rick would have warned her that Glenn was a talker. She considered heading back down the tree and taking her chances in the forest.
"We won't know until we try to head to the wall," she finally answered.
Glenn glanced down at her for a while, then he slowly and agily lowered himself down to Michonne's branch. He crouched in the corner close to her. "So who are you?"
She assumed he was asking her name. "Michonne."
He glanced her up and down. "How do you know Rick?"
She shrugged. "We've saved each others life once or twice."
Glenn nodded and looked at her out of the sides of his eyes wondering if something romantic were going on between the two. He wondered if Michonne even knew about Rick's family or if Rick even thought that his family was still alive. He shook his head, thinking about what would happen when they got Rick back to the prison and he saw Shane. They would all finally know what really happened between the two men in the forest, because it was quite clear that Rick was not as dead as Shane had claimed. And what would Lori think when she saw Rick alive again? What would she do? And the bigger question, what would Shane do?
"I think it's safe for us to go down," Michonne said, starting to head out of the tree. But Glenn grabbed her shoulder, causing her to stop.
"Wait, do you guys have somewhere to go after this?"
Michonne blinked at him in confusion. "We thought you guys might have a place to go. Rick and I have been living out in the woods, staying away from the walkers where we can and surviving on what we could find. You mean ya'll don't have a safe place? Why were they torturing you then?"
Glenn struggled on whether to tell her, thinking about all of the conflict that would follow were he to lead Rick back to the prison. But he knew he shouldn't turn his back on Rick like that. Rick had done nothing to deserve it. And he couldn't imagine whaMt Rick was going through if Rick thought his family was dead.
He turned to Michonne, "We do have a place, but… Rick…"
Michonne's brow crinkled, wondering why Glenn was so nervous about what he needed to say. "What?"
"Has he told you about his family?" Glenn asked, needing to know how informed Michonne was with what had happened between Rick and Shane.
"He told me they got snatched away by his partner Rick and the man tried to kill him."
Glenn's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Wow, that's a much different story that what Shane told us."
Michonne cocked her head to one side. "What story did he tell?"
"There was a fight with some walkers and Rick got turned, then he had to put him down - which is clearly untrue."
Michonne nodded. "Wow."
Glenn gnawed on his lip and stared out into the now silent darkness. "Yeah well, whatever Rick told you is true. Shane must have tried to kill him and thought he succeeded. Boy is he going to be surprised when you two show up. I'm just scared about what he's going to do. Shane isn't exactly the most stable man I know."
Michonne agreed wholeheartedly. Someone who took his friend out in the woods and tried to kill him in cold blood wasn't exactly someone you wanted to spring a surprise on.
"And Lori-"
Michonne turned toward him so fast Glenn's mouth clamped shut. "Rick's wife is alive?" She grabbed his by his upper arms. "His son, Carl. Is Carl alive?"
Glenn nodded and was surprised when Michonne's dark eyes brightened with tears. She quickly wiped them away, but it was clear Rick had told Michonne a lot about his family and she cared a lot about what this news would mean to Rick.
He was glad she seemed like a good person. They didn't need any more psychos than the one they already had at the prison.
"I guess we should head out of this place and get Rick back to his family as soon as possible. Carl has really missed him."
Michonne frowned at the tone in his voice. "And his wife?"
Glenn shrugged. "She's another story entirely."