I had a rough day, sorry in advance.


He grabbed her jaw furiously. His grip so tight it feels like he's trying to crush her bones with his bare hands but it isn't enough, not nearly enough. Her eyes were still defiant and not a sound other than the faintest grunt.

His eyes burned with fury and his hand clenched like a vice around her throat, squeezing so hard it was shaking.

He got so close to her face she could smell the faint of whiskey on his breath and feel it drying her eyes. It made her sick to her stomach, but not a lick of it showed.

He made threats but frankly, she's heard better. It wasn't until he threatened to do something to Maggie that she froze.

The temperature of the room dropped, and slowly her eyes grew cold. Cold until they were burning so hot that for a split second it actually felt as if his skin was burning. Burning like he was staring into the sun. It came out of nowhere, like taking a hike and all of a sudden coming eye to eye with a wolf.

Her glare wasn't threatening or daring or riled up like he expected.

The look made him falter. Without even making the conscious decision, he took a step back.

Blazing amber eyes bore holes through his skull, making it feel like there was something crawling around inside him, wriggling and itching and boiling his veins.

He could feel the sweat beginning to collect under his collar and it soon turned cold.

He isn't so proud as to ignore the hauntingly firm voice in the back of his mind that told him he shouldn't have done that — the voice even more disturbing as he could all too easily imagine it belonging to the person in front of him, without ever having heard it before.

He doesn't get the feeling that she doesn't think he'd actually go through with the threat, but she is far too calm for his liking.

She looked at him the way a snake looks at a mouse. Promising something beyond his capacity to decipher. All he knows for certain is that there's a steady gleam in those fires. Like she's seen this before.

Nobody who isn't familiar with the ugly side of the human race is that calm and threatening in her situation.

It's like staring into a mirror that reflects what it's seen and there's nothing but fire and screams. No fear, no hesitation, only the sound of deafening silence.

All his threats and all his words & wounds for all the people they've bested, pale in comparison to the single deadly stare of one chained woman.

It was unnerving, despite himself. He thought he'd seen everything but … staring into these unwavering eyes, like a devil in human skin, daring him to keep digging himself deeper into this hole so she can drag him down through the earth all the way to purgatory.

Before he knew it, he was leaving the room in haste. Desperate to get out of her line of sight, and her eyes bore holes into the back of his skull

Not 3 steps down the hallway he stopped to lean against the wall in the empty hallway. His hand shaking and goosebumps heckling his arms, a cold sweat on the back of his neck.

He'll never admit it but he feels like a lion who just lost a fight with a bear.

All of a sudden he turned back and with fast steps to the door, he flung the metal open again, hitting the wall with a loud bang and pulled his gun off his hip.

Without hesitation he pistol whipped her in the face and knocked her straight out.

He'll have to make these people talk one way or another. The only one left is the other girl. He'll have to try a different tactic than they did with the other two.


Eve woke up to gunfire.

It sounded like an automatic but she was so out of it she couldn't be sure, and then the door swung open and two guys came in.

In a flash, they had unhooked one arm and didn't give her a second to fight back as they wrenched her arm behind her back and wound the chain around her before doing the same with the other side and locked the ends together.

Fighting back was near impossible, though she still tried.

That Governor wasn't stupid, he didn't give her any wiggle room. Literally.

Merle probably warned him about her beforehand. Traitorous canoe licker.

She was still out of it while they dragged her across the floor and down the hall. Her vision wonkee, and head throbbing like the inside of a war drum.

No matter how hard she tried to focus, she couldn't hold it for more than a minute.

Every part of her aches but the most demanding being her stomach.

Her throat is bruised so badly she's having trouble breathing but other than that and some sore ribs, the rest of her wounds are superficial.

It's a good thing she doesn't talk a lot, she won't be doing any of that any time soon. She and her voice won't be on speaking terms for a hot minute.

She saw Glenn and Maggie above her being shoved into a room before they dragged her in with them, and dropped her on the ground like a punching bag beside Maggie.

Her left eye is so swollen now that she can barely see out of it but her ears work perfectly. Enough to hear Glenn tell Maggie with a resigned firmness that made Eve's blood burn, to just keep looking at him.

Being on the ground like this made it even harder to breathe but that won't stop her from saving— or at least giving Glenn & Maggie a fighting chance.

If only she wasn't wrapped in metal like a burrito and the room wasn't spinning more than a merry-go-round.

She wanted to scream in frustration (and pain) but she won't give them the satisfaction, nor will she let herself fall so far as to start believing that's the only thing she can do.

There's always a way out, there's gotta be. She just has to find it.

Maggie's broken voice muttered, "I love you." before bags were shoved over both their heads.

Glenn gave Eve one last look before he was covered and she snapped.

She can't do much but they've made the mistake of putting her on the ground.

She took as deep a breath, grit her teeth so hard she felt bone displace and suddenly rolled, slamming with as much force as humanly possible into the man standing next to her before she bit his ankle with all the force of her jaw.

A piercing scream rang through the air like a bombshell, vibrating the metal walls and sent hackles down even Eve's spine.

He kicked her in the face as he plummeted to the floor like a sky diver but with all the pain she's taken already, it didn't slow her down in the slightest; in fact, she bit down harder and he screeched so loud that if he claimed to have sonic voice powers, it wouldn't be difficult to believe it.

Wild eyes filled with hair-raising panic looked at her the way you'd look at a walker trying to devour you. Rampant fear and blind terror quickly overwhelmed him as the pain of blunt human teeth tore into the flesh of his ankle, digging for the tendon like a jewel.

Before someone else could get to her, she let go and with a quick roll, her teeth chomped down on his nose, making him let out another frenzied shriek.

Her body weight crushed his arm so he couldn't rip the gun from his side and shoot her but she was never after hurting him, it was just a bonus.

It was the easiest and most believable way to get her hand close enough to his belt and snatch the padlock key from his pocket.

She barely got her fingers around it before Merle came up behind her and ripped her off of him, slamming her into the ground.

A twisted smile peeled across his lips, looking back and forth between her good eye and bloody mouth. She stared back, amber eyes blazing like flames in the dark.

He's enjoying this. He didn't bother to hide it.

"Damn, Tinkerbell. Ya still got some fight left in ya. That's good. Damn impressive sweetheart, I'll give ya that. Killin you'd be no fun otherwise."

She resisted the urge to snap her teeth at him and Merle lifted her like a bloody duffel bag.

"Ya know, I always knew you'd go down swingin'." He dragged her out of the room, right behind Glenn and Maggie as they were shuffled out. Leaving the man she attacked and one other in the room trying to stop the bleeding but her mouth is swimming in the taste of iron and her stomach lurched with nausea as she realized there's some skin and stringy flesh stuck between her left frontal incisors.

Good luck not losing your foot from that, sprinkle-sharter.

Her lip quirked but she quickly wiped it away to focus.

She's the only one without a bag on her head, why? Who knows. Maybe Merle wants to take delight in watching the fiery light die from her intense eyes.

But really, what's life without a little disappointment?

He barely got her out of the doorway before there was a clack and a deafening bang.

A flash of light blinded everyone in the room. Smoke swirled the space like a thick perilous swamp fog and Merle dropped her on the spot.

Eve's shoulder hit the ground painfully, the metal digging in all around her as another pair of hands grabbed her.

She coughed and jerked, ready to bite someone again but she could barely see and they grabbed her by the back of the chains, almost the same way Merle had.

She flinched as gunfire erupted all around and just as her vision began to adjust again, the person pulled her to her feet, before unexpectedly and with moderate difficulty, she was thrown over their shoulder.

She struggled violently, almost making them drop her, until she whacked her wrist painfully hard on something attached to their back and froze.

A few seconds later the fog was left behind and she could see clear as day.

Relief flooded like a tidal wave over the fires of panic. There's only one person she knows who carries a crossbow— this crossbow and who'd even think about carrying her like this. She should've known the second that smoke grenade & flash bang were tossed in there but forgive her for not thinking too clearly in her near-death moment.

The questions of how the Hell he — and whoever else came — found them will have to wait. Even just a quick glance as they were moving fast and she can tell this place is much bigger than she thought.

She struggled to move her wrist in such a way that she could unlock the padlock but that's a hundred times more difficult when she's being carried like a sack of potatoes, his shoulder is digging into every fresh bruise on her stomach, and the chains feel like they're squeezing her even more.

The blood on her wrists and hands aren't helping, but after the longest seconds of her life, she managed in less than a minute.

Once it was unlocked, she unraveled the majority of the chain from her torso, slower than normal as she can't move very well; thank Hades for adrenaline.

"Quit movin'." Daryl scolded but he felt her get her arms free (she may have accidentally elbowed him in the shoulder blade) and stopped long enough to put her down.

The chains dropped in coils at her ankles but as soon as she put her weight on her left leg, so did she.

She hit the pavement hard, knocking the wind out of herself but Daryl half-caught her so the impact wasn't nearly as bad as it would have been.

"Keep moving! This way," Rick's urgent voice half-whispered half-yelled at them to keep moving but other than him and the obvious persons, she can't actually tell who's all here.

Using her arms Eve tried to push herself up, straight into motion. But truthfully Daryl did most of the work.

She did her best to keep as little pressure on her leg as she could get away with but refused to let Daryl be a crutch. They need to move fast so she ran. (Staggered, like both her feet are asleep)

It was harder and harder to breathe as she pushed on but she didn't run out of willpower before, she isn't about to now. And this is exactly what she's been training for.

'Just a little more. Come on, Rider.'

She kept up with the small group under the dark sky as they ran through the streets — actual clean streets, like people are still living on them — albeit a tad bit slower than everyone else but she was handed a gun in a hurry and covered the back with Daryl while Rick led the way.

They followed everyone into a random building and Glenn immediately collapsed to the floor, Maggie right beside him.

Eve leaned against the wall a little heavier than she meant to, swiftly and carefully looking out of one of the windows, overhearing Glenn tell Daryl, "This was Merle."

Eve looked at Daryl and watched him as Glenn spoke. Disbelief was most prominent on his face, but she could also see something she hasn't in a long time.

Hope.

She vaguely heard Glenn tell Rick they told them about the prison, they couldn't hold out. Which was news to her but understandable. Glenn looks worse than she does, and she only noticed that he didn't have a shirt — that Maggie is the one wearing it — until someone passed him a jacket to put on.

Her teeth clenched. Hand falling to her thighs but all her anger was frozen on the spot. The empty spot.

She looked down and had a heart attack. How could she forget, they took her knives.


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