"It's a little late to be out, isn't it, Beth?"

Beth's hand came down from the handle and she swallowed as she turned around to face Gareth. He was standing only a few feet away from her with his hand on his gun in his holster. There was no need to take his gun out though. Staggered on either side of Gareth, two men were with him, both strapped with rifles. Beth connected the dots and assumed they were the missing guards.

A stillness filled the air around the four of them as they all exchanged glances. The only thing that could be heard among them out of the silence, was Beth's breathing —a clear give away that she had been running. The three men stood patiently as she caught her breath. Waiting for whatever response she came up with.

She said there first thing that came to mind:

"I didn't realize there was a curfew," as soon as she spoke, Beth bit her tongue, wondering if her response was too defiant.

Gareth just shrugged, "There isn't."

"Well, then what's the problem?" Beth felt the small of her back press into to metal handle of the door way. She was trying to make a distance between herself and Gareth's goon squad, who seemed to be slowly inching closer. "If I'm allowed to walk around at night, I don't see one."

With a smirk, Gareth took a step back, "There's a difference between walking and skulking, Beth."

That's when the stillness ended. Beth instinctively moved for her knife, but before she could grab hold of it, two hand came around her neck. In an instant her feet were in long steady on the ground and her body was being thrown up against the door, her head whipping back hard into the metal — causing her to see stars.

Beth blinked repeatedly, gasping for air and clawing at the hands. Tears were being forced out of her and she tried to blink those away too.

She coughed. The hands grew tighter.

She kicked to legs aimlessly at her attacker. The hands grew tighter.

She reached helplessly for her knife now missing from its sheath. The hands grew tighter and her blurry, spotted vision became darker.

With one more cough everything faded and the last thing Beth remembered was hearing Gareth's voice say "That's enough."

. . .

To her own surprise, Beth woke up. Her eyelids twitched and then slowly pried open as she took shallow breaths of stale air. The first thing she saw, were shadows of her feet. They were, again, unsteady – wobbling as she tried to move them under her buckled knees. She was too exhausted to lift her head, but she could feel the iron clamped around both her wrists. She didn't have to look up to know they were restraints.

When Beth did move her head, shooting pain came from her neck, as if the hands were still grasping to it. She moaned softly and it echoed. Beth found it even more painful to make noises than move. She wanted to hang her head and close her eyes again, but forced herself to look.

She was strung up like Christ. But she had no thieves among her. She was alone in the warehouse. There was no sign that Gareth or any of the Terminates were there with her. Although the unlit corners would have been hiding anyone.

The only light that entered the warehouse, came from above. A rectangular hole was cut in the roof, and it wasn't an accident. The hole gave spotlight to a stainless steel table that homed a collection of trays. On the trays, small weapons were shined and organized. There were knives, scissors of all sizes, wrenches – countless items left for her to stare at and imagine their purpose.

She wouldn't let herself though and allowed herself to hang her head again. If she wasn't going to make it out alive, at least she had hopefully left a spark for the groups.

. . .

Beth didn't know if she had passed out again, or how much time had passed when the door to the warehouse wheeled opened. The extra light came in through it for the opening, then disappeared moments later.

She didn't have to try to lift her head to know that it was Gareth, accompanied by a minion. She could hear him chat as they crossed the warehouse toward her dangled body.

"Sad to see you like this, Beth," Gareth spoke to her directly as they got closer. "You could have been such a good addition to Terminus."

Beth didn't speak.

"You had me fooled for a while, I'll admit that."

If she could have brought herself too, Beth might have smirked. But all she could do was stare at her shoes.

"But all good thing, do have to come to an end."

Beth heard something being set down onto the warehouse floor and suddenly her boots were accompanied by another set of shoes. A hand came up and placed two fingers below her chin, lifting her head up so that she could make eye contact with him. She narrowed her eyes at him and clenched her teeth to keep herself from moaning and showing weakness.

"I did under estimate you," Gareth chuckled and broke eye contact to look back at his minion, who was setting up a wooden chair and placing a notebook and pencil onto the seat. "But I think we upper hand now."

Gareth took a step back and Beth's tried to keep her chin raised as he switched places with the lackey. He picked up the notebook and pencil and sat himself comfortably in the chair. Leaning forward, he opened the book like a student taking notes for class. He nodded for the lackey to what Beth supposed was to begin.

AN: HELLO HAPPY NEW YEAR LOVES! I hope every one had a wonderful holiday season with their families or whomever you spent it with! My Christmas got a little weird *laughs*. I won't go into too much detail but I did get really mad about Bethyl when finishing a bottle of wine and there was a rant to all my family members. But other than that it was smashing!

There is a time jump thing going on in this chapter..but I think it makes sense...if not oh well because not every chapter is going to be a success... a lot like TV show episodes *cough* CODA *cough* (I'm still bitter and I have spiralled into Team Dilusional)

May 2015 bless Beth Greene not dying from a head shot!