5:25 PM
Negan popped into the radio room where Laura was listening to radio traffic. "Pick up anything from Egypt or Rome?"
She shook her head. "Just chatter from our own posts and scouts."
"Simon check in?"
"He and his squadron pulled out this afternoon. He plans to clear his way to North Carolina by sunset, and then they'll camp out and start for Georgia in the morning."
"How close are the scouts to snagging Shane and Jesus?"
"Neither man seems to have left the Hilltop today," Laura replied. "They haven't been spied on the roads."
Negan rapped his bat against the doorframe. "Then tomorrow. Tomorrow they'll be ours. And once they're ours, we can roll into the communities. But now, I need to go slap on some aftershave." He gave Laura a wink. "I have a new wife to break in."
"Who?" asked Laura
"Sherry," Negan replied. "She finally agreed to the nuptials. I guess the plan for Dwight to work as machinist at Gavin's outpost fell through, what with the uprising, and she won't have enough points to buy that medicine by the end of this week after all. Unless, of course, she becomes my wife." He grinned. "Damn shame."
Laura smiled thinly in return. "Have fun."
5:45 PM
Carol had just passed the cornbread to Glenn across the dining room table when a voice crackled from the CB in the kitchen. A woman. "Egypt come in. Rome come in. Paris come in. Whoever the hell can hear this, come in. Midnight Dingo. Warrior Princess. Dungeon Master. Lori. Laura? Laurie? Come in."
Forks dropped on plates with a clatter and everyone rushed from the dining room, T-Dog and Glenn jammed the entryway to the hallway for a moment. Daryl pushed through them. The family stumbled into the kitchen one by one and looked at the radio in awe as the unfamiliar, female voice continued on: "Sherriff of Nottingham. Daryl. Rick. Come in. Anyone come in. Laurie? Over."
Carol and Daryl exchanged a glance, and Carol cautiously picked up the microphone and pressed the talk button. "This is Egypt. Over."
"Tell Rome a squadron of forty armed Saviors is coming," the female voice replied. "With armored vehicles, automatic guns, and RPGs, led by a man name Simon." She spoke quickly and in a low whisper, as if afraid of discovery. "They leave tomorrow morning at sunrise from North Carolina. It will probably take them 12 to 20 hours to clear their way through the highways all the way down. Expect an attack late tomorrow night or early the following morning. They're coming for Lori. Or Laura. Whatever her name is. The pregnant mother of Shane Walsh's child. They want her in order to get to Walsh, because he's rebelling against us. The Saviors. Be ready. Don't use any long-range CB channels to communicate with each other. I'm not always the one monitoring them. You'll eventually be overheard. You won't hear from me again. Over and out."
Carol numbly returned the microphone to the radio.
"Get yer bike," Daryl told Dixon. "'S time to see if you were just shit talkin' or you can really beat me. 'Cause we're racin' to Woodbury."
5:55 PM
Sherry emerged from the bathroom of the harem freshly showered and dressed in her new black dress and high heels and matching lingerie beneath. Prior to her shower, she'd been taken to see Dr. Emmett Carson for her "preliminary exam" to make sure she was "a fit wife." For Negan, that meant no visible symptoms of STD, no pregnancy, and no intact hymen. He prided himself that he was not in the business of deflowering virgins, as if that somehow made him less abusive.
Negan was going to have her sent to his room soon for his pleasure. Dinner and then sex. Fat Joey would fetch her. But now they were alone and locked in, as they always were when a eunuch wasn't present, so the wives were free to talk. Three of them were sitting on the couch, another in an armchair.
The one in the armchair, Tanya – Gavin's sister – stood and approached Sherry where she stood near a high table with a decanter and glasses on it. "It's not so terrible," Tanya told her. "He's not rough in bed. The hardest part is not laughing at him. Especially when he gets to talking."
"God how he loves to talk dirty," another wife, Jennifer, said. "It's like the worst erotic novel you could ever imagine reading."
Tanya poured Sherry a glass of brown liquid from the decanter and handed it to her. "This will steel your nerves for it."
"I'm sorry for you," Frankie said from the couch as Sherry took a small sip of the offered alcohol, "but I can't say I'm not relieved he won't be calling me tonight like he threatened he would. He told Gavin he was going to ride me like a horse."
"Because he figured out how you feel about my brother," Tanya replied. "I told you not to tip your hand."
"Well, Negan has no worries on that score," Frankie said bitterly. "Gavin sure as shit doesn't feel the same way. He made that abundantly clear."
"I know Mark loves me," Amber said with a sigh.
There was the rattling of keys in the door, and the women fell silent. After the click of a lock, the door swung open. Fat Joey lumbered in the entry way. "Sherry?" He looked the wives over appreciatively. "Come on. It's time. Negan's ready for you."
"Just a moment," Sherry told Fat Joey and strolled over to where Frankie sat. She put a hand on Frankie's slender, bare arm. "It was so nice to meet you," she told her, and then she bent down close to her ear and whispered, "Gavin's keys to the harem are taped inside the toilet tank. When I knock three times later, slip them under the door so I can unlock it from the outside. We're getting out. Every wife is getting out. And Gavin said to say he loves you."
6:25 PM
Daryl pushed his bike as hard as it would go over the open highway. Carol rode behind him, her AR-15 strapped to her back, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, her body molded to his strong frame, her chest against his leather jacket and her thighs pressed to the outside of his legs. The motorcycle shuddered as the March wind whipped around them. Dixon was a good mile ahead on his racing bike and putting more distance between them with every passing minute.
They had to update the Woodbury Army on the threat that was coming. They couldn't risk using the radio to tell them. These people – these Saviors as they called themselves - knew where Woodbury was, and if Woodbury didn't prevail in the invasion, if someone was captured and tortured, they might soon know where the other communities were, too. They might search Terminus and Fun Kingdom for Lori when they didn't find her at Woodbury. They might not believe she was dead.
The Saviors needed to be stopped – and stopped hard - at the gates of Woodbury.
7:25 PM
Sherry quickly pulled back on her lacy black panties and black bra as Negan clawed frantically at his own throat. He lay stark naked in bed, sucking in air in short, desperate gasps while white foam dribbled from the corner of his mouth. She'd poisoned his wine with a capsule Dr. Carson had slipped her when she'd gone in for her "fit wife" exam. Dr. Carson was working with Gavin. She'd drawn it from her bra when Negan had his back turned.
The poison had acted quickly, but Sherry wished it had acted even faster. She'd had to spread her legs for that sick bastard. But if she'd tried delaying the sex any longer, he'd have grown suspicious. He'd started choking while he was in her, and she'd pushed him off and scrambled from the bed.
She pulled on her black cocktail dress and slipped into her matching high heels while Negan wheezed like an old asthmatic and reached out weakly for her. Sherry slapped his lamely grasping hand away and rummaged through the drawers of his nightstand, listening to his straining breaths, until she'd found his handgun. She'd love to shoot him right between the eyes right now, but that would be too loud, and he wasn't going to able to breathe much longer anyway.
"You suck in bed," she told him. "I couldn't even tell if you were in me, limp dick." Sherry left him lying there, barely breathing now, foam still gurgling from his mouth, and cautiously opened the door to peak outside.
7:30 PM
Daryl eased his bike to a puttering stop beside Dixon, who was digging through the pockets of a freshly stabbed walker at the side of the road. The teenager's racing bike was parked a few yards up the road. He'd paused to kill and loot a walker.
"Find anything interesting?" Carol asked.
"Swiss Army Knife." Dixon held it up to show her and then slipped it in the pocket of his brown leather jacket, the one he'd snagged to replace the red and black racing jacket he'd given permanently to Beth as a token of his affection. "Ready to admit I can outrace you yet, old man?" he asked Daryl.
"We ain't to Woodbury yet," Daryl replied. He put his feet back on the pedals and Carol was jolted as he roared off. She squealed and clung more closely to him.
"Hey!" Dixon shouted as he ran down the road to mount his own bike.
"That's cheating!" Carol called to Daryl over the roar of the engine.
"Tortoise and the hare!" Daryl called back. "Kid got arrogant and stopped to lounge! Slow and steady wins the race."
Carol chuckled as Daryl kicked it up a gear, but in only five minutes, Dixon was right behind them.
7:35 PM
Frankie looked at the clock on the harem wall again.
"This isn't going to work," Tanya said. "This is risky."
"Then you can stay!" Frankie told her.
"No, I can't," Tanya replied. "If my brother's a party to insurrection, I'm already a dead woman walking. I might as well go along. Because if I stay, when Negan finds out Gavin's betrayed him, he'll have me tortured to spite him." She shook her head. "Gavin's a fool. He'll bring hellfire down on us all."
"Or maybe Gavin knows what he's doing, and we'll get out!" Frankie hissed. "Have a little faith in your brother!"
There was a rap on the door. One, two, and then three knocks. Frankie walked to the door with the keys Sherry had taped to the inside of the toilet tank – Gavin must have passed them to Dwight this morning, who passed them to Sherry, who hid them under the tank when she was preparing for Negan. Frankie crouched and slipped them under the door so Sherry could unlock it.
There was a click and the knob turned as Frankie stepped back from the door. Sherry hurried in and abruptly shut the door behind herself. She had a gun in her right hand. She breathed hard and they all waited in silence as footsteps passed by on the metal walkway.
"Were you seen?" Jennifer asked when the footsteps were a long way off.
When Sherry shook her head, Tanya muttered, "Negan's going to kill us all after he tortures us all."
"Negan's not doing anything," Sherry assured her. "Negan's dead. I poisoned him. Dwight says Gavin's got a guard in his pocket, the one on post at the exit of the west stairs. He'll get us out. There's a truck and a driver waiting for us through the west woods."
"Take off the high heels," Frankie told them. "They'll be too loud on the walkway. We've got those slippers Negan gave us for lounging in."
They all changed footwear. Frankie opened the harem door slightly, and seeing no one, they all slunk out. The wives tiptoed in red silk slippers down the hallway.
They turned the corner cautiously and, after a few more feet, ran into Laura stepping out of the CB room. Sherry raised her gun to shoot, but Laura raised her hands and cried, "I'm with Gavin!"
Sherry inched her finger away from the trigger, the gun shaking in her hand.
"I'm with Gavin," Laura repeated. "And I'm going to help you. And…" she nodded inside the radio room and called, "Come on out."
Tina emerged hesitantly from the room, and Sherry walked quickly forward to throw her arms gratefully around her sister.
"I'll cover this hall and distract anyone who comes down it," Laura promised them. "Now get out!"
The women hurried down the long hall of the Sanctuary and through the exit door. They clamored down the west stairwell. When they burst out the door at the bottom, the guard there – Keno - shushed them. He led them to the west exit gate - a heavily chained and rarely used emergency-only chain link exit - and undid the combination lock. Looking back and forth, he pulled the chains loose, swung it open, and said, "Good luck."
Jennifer kissed him on his cheek in gratitude before she fled, and he smiled. The women scurried out the gate and disappeared into the forest on the other side as Keno chained the gate shut behind them.
"Dwight said we follow the trees scratched with Xs," Sherry told them.
They ran through the woods, following the marks carved in bark for what felt like acres, as the sun began to sink between the trees, washing the forest in an eerie orange glow.
As Tanya was pointing to another X carved on a tree, a walker lunged out from behind it, growling. It grabbed her by the arm and sunk its teeth into her shoulder. Tanya cried out in pain and terror. As the creature tore into Tanya's smooth flesh, moving from shoulder to neck, Sherry fired the handgun she'd taken from Negan. The first shot – in the creature's side – caused it to let go and rear back enough that Sherry was able to shoot it in the head. The walker collapsed to the ground.
Tanya grabbed at the side of her neck to try to hold in the spurting blood. The women gaped at her in open-mouth horror. "Go!" she gurgled through the blood that was now flowing out her mouth as well. "I'm dead! Go!"
The women took off running through the forest, frantically searching the trees for marks.
7:50 PM
Dixon stood leaning back casually against his red and black racing bike before the walker-filled moat, his arms crossed over his chest, as the drawbridge clicked into place, Woodbury's gate swung open, and Sasha strolled out.
Daryl pulled up alongside him, with Carol laughing behind him. At least she was laughing now. She'd screamed, "Too fast!" three times over the past ten minutes.
Daryl looked at the smug, victorious smile on his nephew's face. "It's only 'cause I had so much extra weight on the back," he told him.
"Excuse me?" Carol said as she dismounted. "So much?"
"Meant…some. Some extra weight," Daryl clarified, and Dixon chuckled. He began rolling his bike carefully over the moat, and Daryl dismounted to follow.
"What brings you here?" Sasha asked cautiously as she stood guard with her AR-10 and watched them cross the moat.
"Bad news," Carol replied. "You better gather your council."