I'm so sorry with how late this is. I had lost all inspiration and as a result moved onto other stories. I think it's because pretty much most of season 5 except for the first few episodes didn't seem as strong as they were in the past. Still very good don't get me wrong. Just not as much as I was hoping.

Anyway, being ill today and having the chance to re-watch the first three episodes got me some inspiration to finish a new chapter. It's a bit of a jump, but at least it's done.

Thank you all for your patience!

WARNING: this actually quite a dark chapter, probably suited better with M but the warning is there. Also, sorry if certain content isn't exactly believable, but this was pretty uncomfortable to write _

And with that done, on with the chapter...

"Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venomous."

Chanakya

The nauseating feeling of guilty blame tugged relentlessly in Gareth's stomach. The screams. The screams of his people being butchered haunted his skull no matter how many times he muffled his being to the world.

They were trying to be good. When others were selfish they were selfless. That was what Terminus was supposed to be. Meant to be. And the psychotic beasts had shredded that dream the moment they had stepped into the confounds of Terminus and turned it into a battle ground.

Revolting images of his people lying dead, bullet wounds scarring their corpses with gushing red. Red. That was what that day had been - just red.

Gareth would have vomited but there was no contents to throw up, he hadn't eaten in God knows how long, and he was starving. They didn't care. Didn't remotely fucking care that his people were starving. Or that they had likely impregnated most of the women through hours and hours of distressing torture.

His stomach held tightening knots of blame. He was meant to protect them. That was the promise he made to everyone who had set foot in Terminus, that they would be protected, fed, given shelter when no-one else offered. He had indirectly been forced to break that promise.

Gareth lifted his limp head with a deafening crack of his neck, the darkened train car freezing the people who were confined inside its prison. They were numb to the bone, all five of them. Christine who had only arrived a few days before lay on the wooden floor with lifeless features. She was so young, barely eighteen, but the sick barstards had taken a liking to her in particular.

He couldn't even bring himself to look at her, not after the hell she had gone through and continued to go through. She would cry herself to sleep, everyone heard it, and it depressed the already deathly atmosphere. But no-one comforted her.

Even with Mary huddled up to Alex opposite him, eyes distant and glassy, there was only one person who filled Gareth's thoughts:

April.

She had been taken perhaps an hour ago but the time seemed to run much longer, self-torture as his sickened mind flashed with disgusting thoughts of what they were doing to her. He loathed himself for that alone, not to mention how many times he had fought to keep her in her arms, only for a smack around the head to shock him into submission.

His whole body was battered; he dreaded to think how many deep purplish bruises marked his exhausted features. Everything hurt. Physically and mentally, every inch of him was painful. He just sat there in the dark, staring in a daze as he racked with sickening ideology of what the beasts were doing to his wife.

She had been right all along. If only he had listened instead of trying to be the hero. Then maybe, their unborn baby would've survived. That caused the most guilt, it broke his heart in two at the mere sensation of his baby -his child he was supposed to protect- had been taken away from him moments after the beasts' arrival.

It despaired his very core. But he had to remain positive, clear-headed, he had to be the leader.

"We will take it back." He mumbled loudly, for all to hear though he honestly wasn't directing it at anyone. He was just echoing himself. Finding a form of comfort at the saying that he had repeated from day one. "We will take Terminus back."

"Just shut up will you." Alex snapped, and Gareth's dull eyes rested on his younger brother who just glared at him with mild anger. He wasn't truly angry, too exhausted to be angry. But Gareth's repetitive words were beginning to crawl under Alex's skin.

"Or what?" Gareth dared with a hidden venom. Alex heard it even so. He looked away from Gareth's penetrating eyes, knowing his mind was close to shattering completely if April didn't return in the next few hours. He wouldn't be surprised if Gareth went on a suicidal rampage.

Gareth sighed depressively, eyelids drooping as sweat rolled down his face. It was freezing, and yet still he was sweating as if it were mid-summer. That didn't make sense. Then again, nothing made sense anymore.

I've never been a believer, and I'm not the saintliest man in the world. But please God, I'm begging you, stop them from hurting her. Gareth prayed silently in his mind, not allowing anyone else to hear his weakness. But prayers would always go unanswered in the new world.

Gareth had to learn that the hard way.

"Learn that from your mom did you?"

April said nothing, the sour taste in the back of her throat was a mixture of bile and repulsive cum. She had been handcuffed to steel bars inside the warehouse that was once the food storage. Now, it was nothing more than a slaughter house. Bodies were still left to rot, axes and machetes sunk into the discoloured flesh of the head.

She couldn't bring herself to think of which friends the animals had slaughtered.

April was on her knees, too exhausted to stand as the skin of her wrists pulsated rapidly, the heat radiating from them made her know that they would be red raw, perhaps even bleeding a little.

She didn't care what they did to her anymore, the pain would never amount to the loss of her baby. To think. All it took was a push, an impact with the floor...and a little life was gone. For a long time she had felt numb, even when Gareth had attempted to comfort her, his own emotions heightened as the loss was also his own.

But she had just shut away. Made even worse by the monsters who dragged her away, assaulted her, tormented her. None of them could amount to Jax's mind games. Even with Jax zipping his jeans up in front of her, she was too distant and broken to even acknowledge the suggestive taunts.

However, his hand gripped her chin to make her look up into his lust-filled eyes. What was the worst part, was that he only looked eighteen. Dark hair and baby-like features, electric blue eyes that held dilated insanity. Everything about him made her skin crawl. They all did, but Jax especially, ever since he had claimed her as his.

"Don't be like that. You now how sad it makes me." He cooed, gently caressing her face. She wanted to spit at him, scream at him to go to hell, to promise she would cut his cock off with a blunt knife.

She stayed quiet.

"After a while, you'll forget about that bony-ass hipster...and that baby too."

April scrunched her hands into fists, stomach tightening as she swallowed down the rage that roiled inside her veins. He knew it. A sly grin spreading across his childish face as he leaned in. April shrunk away as Jax's tongue trailed along the side of her face, the slime of his saliva causing April to bite down on her lip to stop herself from crying.

His mind games were the worst, any chance she felt the beginning of a rebellion he would smite it away. That's what he was doing now. Keeping her frightened, keeping her cooperative.

Once his revolting lick was over, he planted a peck on her cheek.

"You always manage to turn me on, sweetie." He said, slithering a hand down to in-between her legs. Her eyes remained shut, ignoring his fondling as best she could, but she just wanted to sob. She was silently relieved that there was material to barricade from his groping, it was pointless relief though, he could rip them off if he felt like it."But, even I can't go all night." He sighed, actually disappointed in himself as his hand moved away, causing the finest moment of relief.

Jax stood up and began to click at the handcuffs, and before April knew it her hands were freed and she fell to the side, not strong enough to catch herself as her body impacted with the concrete flooring. The cool damp of the floor brought no relief as fresh tears involuntarily fell from her eyes.

She wanted Gareth.

She wanted to be free.

Jax wouldn't let her have it that easily.

His face altered into darkened rage, storming forward as he yanked her hair, pulling her head up so that he could place the steel of a blade along her throat. She gasped, the numbing shock the blade caused was one she had once inflicted on Alex a long time ago. Being in that position herself, she was truly petrified.

"I really hate it when you're not grateful for what I do for you. I'm a lot more gentle than the others, they would be fucking you all night and every night. You should be grateful it's me." He hissed with poison, yanking her hair on the emphasised me, causing a pained choke to warble through her lips.

"I am grateful." She whispered, telling him what he wanted to hear.

Jax's demonic glare hastily flicked to an illusion of a loving smile. The blade taken away from her throat as he crouched down next to her, keeping the grip on her hair as he breathed into her ear. She couldn't look at him, seeking refuge across the room towards the exit door, trying to avoid the corpses that littered the room. The stench was putrid.

"I can't stay mad at you sweetie. Can I at least get a smile?" He asked innocently, pouting his babyish face. April swallowed the lump in her throat, trying to stop the tears from falling down her cheeks as her head limply turned to him. She cracked a hollow smile. "There's my girl." He praised, wiping away her tears with a dirty thumb. He sighed, letting go of her hair as he laced it around her shoulder, pulling her towards him firmly.

She trembled in his grasp.

"If it was down to me, I'd let your people be killed instantly, little pain. And then, when all the ugly business was out the way and over. Me, you, and your baby would've all been together. Like a family. Wouldn't that have been nice?" Jax asked rhetorically, but April still answered his silent warning with a faint nod. "But, Mads is the boss. He makes all the decisions and we follow them because we're loyal. If you play nice like this all the time, then maybe I can put a word in for you." He compromised, trailing the side of his hand down her face slowly, causing another knot to twist inside April's stomach.

She didn't want to live. Not without Gareth. Not without Mary or Alex. What would be the point?

But she had to do this. She had to appear loyal, hell, she had to pretend to have Stockholm syndrome if it meant a slim chance of taking Terminus back. If it meant being able to murder Jax, she would have to suffer as long as possible, and she didn't mind waiting a thousand years for that pleasure.

She had to pretend.

April lifted her head and tried to wear a gracious smile, and for a millisecond it faltered Jax's prideful psychotic eyes.

"I'll play nice. I promise." She said, making her deal with The Devil as Jax grinned, a mixture of praise for April's submission and delight for the fact he had wormed it out of her so easily. He didn't suspect her own mind games.

He pounced on her lips, snaking his tongue into her mouth. Possessive. He was testing her now, testing whether she was being genuine. Trying to ignore the bile that rose in her stomach and the self-inflicting feeling of being unclean, April entwined her tongue with his. She could feel the smirk pull at his face.

It'll be over soon. Just keep pretending. It'll be over soon.

She repeated the saying over and over again in her head, a hand reaching out to pull at Jax's greasy hair, dragging her fingers through it. She twitched as the unwelcoming feeling of a cold hand began sliding into the rim of her trousers, continually moving down.

It'll be over soon.

April let out a forced low moan as Jax's fingers rubbed against the spot. At the moan, he picked up his pace, exploring her mouth even more as April pulled at his hair.

"Oh, fuck." He swore breathlessly as April let the hand slip down to grip his in her trousers, messaging him to go faster. "This is so much fucking better than a blowjob." He moaned, the bulge in his jeans growing the longer he assaulted her mouth.

She hated this, hated all of it, wanting to just kill him there and then. But she couldn't, she had to pretend, even if it made her feel disgusting and dare she say cheating on Gareth. He would never be able to look her in the eye. Not after this. But she was doing this for him. She was doing this for her people. To free her people.

It'll be over soon.

Suddenly she pushed his chest downwards, mounting on top of him with a seductive smile on her face. At first he was angry, and it faltered the fake smile for a second, but then Jax just sighed in pleasure. April internally thanked God. The risk could have costed her dearly.

"You've done this before." Jax concluded, smoothing his hands over her curves, resting them on her waist.

"Only to the hot ones." She countered, ignoring the bitterness that swirled in her mind, slowly beginning to grind against him as her hands covered his on her waist. His eyes rolled back into his head, his low moans of pleasure making her ears bleed. She picked up the pace, even though every muscle screamed with disgust and exhaustion.

It didn't take long before he came with a pathetic squeak, April pretended to reach her own seconds later, collapsing on top of him. Not for pretending, she was just too tired to hold herself up anymore.

He took the opportunity.

"I wouldn't mention this to any of my group. You see, they're not as understanding as I am. They might get jealous, and I may not be able to protect you."

He actually sounded like he was worried about what they would do to her, as if what he had done was loving. How delusional could a man be? How psychotic could a man be? The truth was: very given what they had gone through themselves to reach such a degrading level of so called humanity.

"I wouldn't but, you would try to protect me?" She enquired, strained innocence dripping off her tongue. Jax snorkelled grotesquely.

"They're all twice the size of me!" He exclaimed, but felt April's flinch at the raised voice. He sighed, pushing strands off of her face so that he could see it resting against his chest. She had to quickly alter her expression from horror to contentment. He didn't see the shift. Chuckling to himself as if he had won a soap bar in a trombola.

"Mads picked me up on the road, my family had just been eaten by those fucking things...the only reason I got away was because they were too busy tearing my family to shreds. I owe Mads, we all do, he's protected us for this long and now he's brought me here...to you." He added, causing April to freeze because it sounded almost sane. Almost. But then he sat up sharply, griping April close to him, looking up into her fearful eyes with a straitened mouth.

"It's so frustrating. Unable to be with you all the time. Having to abandon you in that train car, it's cruel. But you keep this up, and maybe Mads will see your potential. Otherwise..." He trailed off, trailing a finger down her face, eyes snapping between her lips and her eyes. She was paralysed, the touch, the look, his words. She was fear-stricken.

"Otherwise, he'll make me kill you. I don't want that. You don't want it either, do you?" He asked, electric eyes burning holes into her soul. She swallowed, shaking her head urgently. "Then impress him sweetie. Impress him for me." Jax finished with a widening grin, eyes glinting with insanity.

She knew exactly what he meant by impress.

It'll be over soon.