Disclaimer: AMC owns the story and characters of The Walking Dead and they played Chandler Riggs dirty.
Author's note: I can't believe I got enough strength to update today, it has been quite the day. I'm sick, my friends, so here, a chapter to cheer me up (hopefully you as well). Ugh, being sick is awful. And aren't you excited? Book two is about to end! Also, check out my one-shot, So it goes, it's on my profile and it's part of this story.
After
Alexandria, VA
Becoming a year older is in itself a victory, Tory thought as she watched herself in the mirror after her shower; her hair in a towel and her very practical underwear being the only things guarding her self-imposed modesty. She was a bit too slim, but her skin glowed from sun exposure. Tory tried to think of herself as the sixteen-year-old girl she had been six years before.
That girldidn't exist anymore.
This thin stranger with haunted grey eyes and a lot more scars looked like she'd live through hell. Her hand glided over the double scar a couple of inches under her navel, from hip to hip, while her other hand gripped the slim pregnancy test she'd taken before showering.
Negative.
"Thank God." Tory whispered, feeling tears fill her eyes. A part of her wanted children, but not with Spencer, who was in a really terrible place at the present moment, the other part of her was relived.
No one was ina good place with the food shortage and the fresh wounds of the walker horde. A baby was the last thing she needed.
The young brunette disentangled the towel from her hair, letting the damp strands fall down. Her hair was so long now, she liked it that way.
Henry had cut it before he… and since then,Tory couldn't quite keep it short after that. Jessie had trimmed it every once in a while, but Tory had kept her hair long, so that it was almost touching her elbows now.
No, I'm not the stranger. Tory thought. The one from her memories was the stranger, the one who had lived in a happy world, the vain one, who used to check herself in the mirror for things like scars, hairstyles and makeup.
Her arm burned and she read the new words without much care.
Who are we?! We're the fucking Saviors!"
Her Dad was waiting for her, with breakfast served already. It was mostly roasted tomatoes and a side of beans. Tory smiled because he always tried.
In the middle of their table sat a worn velvet-lined box. Her mind supplied the words gift and jewelry.
"Happy birthday, Victoria." Her Dad exclaimed cheerily, giving her a hug too. He was warm and smelled like their slowly cooling breakfast.
"Thank you, Dad." She replied with a grateful smile. "It looks better than that awful porridge I've been making lately."
None of them justified the awfulness of the porridge due to the lack of food. It was a given, and Tory guessed her Dad wanted to keep it as normal as possible.
"What does it feel to be twenty-four?" Dad asked, raising his eyebrows with a funny face.
"Old as balls, Dad." Tory said, chewing her tomatoes carefully. They were perfectly seasoned. Too perfect. "Did Carol help you with this?" Carol loved using paprika with her tomatoes, and her breakfast tasted just like that.
"No." her dad answered quickly, blushing at the same time. "Well, maybe a little."
"It's okay, dad. It's good and it's the intention that counts."
They kept an idle chat, avoiding anything to do with recent events, out of crop raising and some little chore sharing. Once they finished their breakfast and coffee, her Dad took the box reverently and smiled, a far-away-nostalgic smile that reached his eyes. He looked younger thisway.
"Your mother was buried with her engagement ring." He started. Tory didn't understand why he would bring that up, but said nothing. "The ring I gave her when we got married in Savannah, I kept it because she said I should."
In her will was left unsaid.
Tory took her father's left hand with her right one, but noticed the tan mark of his missing ring.
"Dad…" She started, but he silenced her with a tender look.
"She wanted me to give you this when you were to get married," Her dad sighed heavily. "but I just don't see that happening and I think is time you have this."
Tom opened the box and revealed the expensive marriage rings he'd shared with his late wife, white gold with yellow gold rims, a little ring that had belonged to Erin and his own, bigger and thicker. He lifted the thin, long silver chain from where the rings dangled.
"Happy birthday, sweetheart." He whispered softly.
"I can't, Dad." Tory protested, her eyes filling with tears for the second time this morning. "They are yours."
"You can, and you will, Victoria." Tom said sternly. "I hoped that Henry…and then Spencer…but that didn't happen, and your mother would come and haunt me if I keep them any longer."
Tory took the chain and put it around her neck.
"You had them for the best part of ten years, Dad." She sighed. "Why now?"
Tom sighed as well, as if the answer to her question chagrined him.
"Your mother was your age when she married Roy Miller."
Near the satellite outpost
"I didn't want to have to do this," Negan said, pacing in front of the six unwitting idiots from the Hilltop. "but Simon told me…Ya' know what he told me?…"
The idiots didn't move or tried to answer his question and Negan continued, "He told me, and I gotta trust the man, he's my right hand, and he told me that you weren't delivering." Negan swung Lucille dramatically and put her on his shoulder. "And I come to the scheduled delivery, because a man's got to keep control of this shit. And what do I fucking find?! SIMON WAS FUCKING RIGHT! YOU AIN'T FUCKING DELIVERING!"
One of the girls, a plain little thing, sobbed openly to his shouting, making Negan uncomfortable with the sound of her crying.
She would go first.
"Ne-Negan we are try-" one of the tried to explain, but the leader of the Saviors stopped him, pointing Lucille at him.
"No, this has already gone wrong, my boy." Negan chuckled. "You've earned your punishment." He was sure his smile was predatory as he caressed Lucille with his gloved hand. Yeah, his girl would see some action, but first, he took his hunting knife and spun it with his petting hand and pointed at the unfortunate speaker. "You, come here."
Simon had to push the man, making him crawl in all fours to Negan.
"Help him stand, Si." Negan ordered sternly, not because he was mad at Simon, but because he had to come though as for how serious he was in that moment. "Now, you uncompromising dicks and pussies, I need you to fucking understand, we're working to make the world a civilized place again." The man in front of him was shaking so hard, Negan thought he would crumble. "I'm gonna have to kill…say…two of you? Yeah, two of you! Because I need someone to take a fucking message back to dear Gregory."
Negan pushed the man to his knees and told Simon to hold him. "Now, Regina, help me with that one. Girls doin' girls." Negan ordered his lieutenant, pointing at the one he had decided to kill…the sobbing one.
Regina put the girl on her knees and went back to her place.
"Now…tell me your name, sweetcheeks." Negan ordered, caressing the girl's cheek with the blunt side of his knife.
"M-marsha." The girl sobbed.
"I'm sorry, Marsha, but I have to do this, so people will understand."
Negan tried not to bask in the horrified gasps of the other hilltoppers when he stabbed the side of Marsha's head. An instant kill. Torturing women wasn't something he enjoyed. Aman who had tried to stop Regina sobbed hard and fell in all fours, sobbing and screaming in rage and sadness.
"See, this is what happens when you don't fucking deliver! I don't like killing people, but someone's gotta do this ugly shit." Negan sighed, cleaned his knife on the kneeling man in front of him, leaving a fresh stain of blood in the fabric.
"Now, I'm going to say this one time, because I don't like repeating my-fucking-self." Negan smiled. "You have to put effort on what you do. Or people die, so…" Taking Lucille with his hands, he took a deep breath and lifted her. "DO." First hit, the man stumbled to the ground, screaming. "YOUR." Another hit, and the remaining girl screamed the name of the poor shit. Tim. "FUCKING." Tim stopped moving by the third hit. "PART!"
Once he was done, Negan smiled again.
"Load that one up." Negan pointed the crying guy. "Now you are going to get Gregory a message."
The three shitbags left trembled hard while Negan spoke, a smile still in his face.
"The answer to that message is Gregory's head for that one we're loading up. And our shit, which is half of your shit."
Negan turned around and got in his truck, before ordering the savior inside to drive away.
That same night
Tory woke up drenched in sweat.
Her old nightmare vanishing to the back of her mind when her arm kept burning intently.
DO. YOUR. FUCKING. PART!
Whatever that meant?
Alexandria, VA
Rick had come back determined from the Hilltop.
Calling them inside the church was a bold move, a power play that Deanna had never used. She preferred a more democratic approach to this sort of thing, that was the reason they used to hold the meetings in her back patio. Until Reg…
Tory was standing up, too nervous to actually sit and listen. Her Dad was looking at their leader with a wary expression in his eyes.
Something was wrong.
Tory had checked on Paul Monroe, the hilltopper that had ruined the truckfull of food that Daryl and Rick had found. She was skeptical about the leader of Alexandria going to the Hilltop, food shortage or not, and she had also seen Rick when they had arrived. His jacket stained with blood. No good news could come out of a bloody Rick, not even the food they had helped unload from the RV.
"-and we can work with the Hilltop." Rick said, looking at all of them with a serious expression. "Maggie hammered out a deal, we're getting food, eggs, butter, fresh vegetables," he made a little pause. "but they are not just givin' it away."
There…a catch.
"This…Saviors, they almost killed Sasha, Daryl and Abraham on the road and sooner or later they would have found us." That name stirred something in Tory. The Saviors… "-like those Wolves did. Just like Jesus did. They would have killed someone, or some of us, and then they would try to own us."
No one said a word.
"And we would try to stop them, by then in that kind of fight, low on food? We could lose." Some doubtful looks were exchanged. "This is the only way to be sure, as sure as we can get that…we win."
Rick wanted them to fight. Fight to the death.
"We do this for the Hilltop, it is how we keep this place, it is how we feed this place. This needs to be a group decision. Anybody objections? You should say your peace."
Just as Tory was about to speak, Morgan rose from his seat, an unreadable expression on his face.
"You sure we can win this? We can beat them?" the man asked.
Rick spouted some shit about what they had learnt, and Tory tried not to seethe against the man. She believed in confrontation, yes, but not without solid information. This was too half assed for her liking. Morgan talking about compromise seemed adequate, about a way out.
"We have to come for them, before they come for us." Rick declared. "We can't leave them alive."
Too radical, Tory's conscience yelled at her.
Voices were starting to raise. Tory didn't agree with either Rick or Morgan, but talking to them didn't seem that bad.
Tory tried lying to herself, she didn't care if her soulmate was part of this group. She did not.
Aaron rose and spoke. "What happened here? We won't let that happen again." Looking right at Morgan, he said. "I won't."
"I don't agree."she spoke but her voice didn't shake, that was score for her. "I'm sorry, Jesus." Tory said, looking at the man. "I'm worried that we don't know enough."
"We do." Rick contradicted.
"No, we don't!" Tory raised her voice a bit. "We know these people have enough brute force to send out more than twenty out of their own men and women to handle business. We know that a murderer is their leader, but what if there's more?"
"We fight more." Rick declared, firm and strong. "We have food, numbers and alliances. And we can plan."
No one said anything, again.
"Seems like it's settled." Rick said, his voice rising too. "We don't shy for this, we fight, we win. We kill them all."
Morgan sat, his expression defeated.
"The people that's gonna stay, they have to accept this." Rick said as he left the church, silently adjourning the meeting. Tory felt Carol's heavy look on her, but ignored it as she left the church too.
She ignored the burn of her arm, and had she not, she would have noticed the importance of the words etched in her skin.
Radio Simon, I need him for fucking yesterday. Fuck the fucking outpost.
The night of the attack to the Saviors, Tory stayed awake watching the sky through her window, wondering what that would cost them all.