I step backwards, turning, frantically searching for some way to escape the man's view though I know it's futile. I'm too slow. Footsteps catch up to me in an instant and a hand wraps tightly around my bicep dragging me stumbling back towards the group.
Daryl's voice is more like a feral snarl as he shoves me front and center for the King. "What the fuck are ya doing with one of Negan's bitches?"
In an instant, the faint glimmer of hope that had begun in my heart is snuffed out with fear as my knees threaten to buckle beneath my body. "I don't know what you're talking about, " I choke out. My struggle to free my arm from Daryl's grasp is rife with futility.
He practically growls in response to the lie. "The hell you don't."
"Release her at once." Ezekiel steps forward with severity in his voice unlike that I have ever seen from him. The perpetually regal expression on his face is staunch with authority. Daryl's grip on my arm loosens but does not slip entirely. "I certainly do not understand what you are speaking about, Daryl. But perhaps, with our civility intact, we may air out any misunderstandings that seem to have presented themselves."
"It ain't a misunderstanding," Daryl snaps. "It ain't a misunderstanding how her husband's the same bat swingin' fucker we just spent all that time yammering about. Same one you're too pussy to fight."
My mind spins wildly, trying to think of something, anything that can explain this away. My first instinct to lie only paints me into a corner worse. I lied so much at the onset of my time here that poking holes in any part of the story makes the rest of it fall apart. More lies would only function as a bandaid over a gaping wound.
"It's true," Carl steps forward, not taking his single eye off me for a moment. There is no mercy for me in his gaze when he speaks. And why would there be? The very last time I saw him, he witnessed a man have half his face burned off because I ratted out Amber for spite, only after listening to Negan go on about pumping me full of baby gravy. "I was at Sanctuary. I saw her there. She's one of Negan's wives. He said her name was Rori."
Shit. I knew I should've used a fake name here. I didn't have much of a chance either way, but Carl providing my name without so much as a hint is just about as much corroboration as Daryl's accusations could've hoped for. My shoulder's slump forward as my head falls. My eyes burn and my lip threatens to quiver as I fight back bitter sorrow. Having an ounce of happiness, a shred of security that didn't come at the cost of my very soul, was too much to ask for.
"Rori?" The King addresses me.
Reluctantly I look up at Ezekiel. "It's true," I say. My throat feels raw around the words.
"Rick." Daryl nods to the man, who from his posture alone I can tell is the leader of his group as he steps forward to level with Ezekial, his hand resting on his gun.
"I'd like you to explain to me how Negan's pregnant wife is strolling through your Kingdom when we're on the verge of war," Rick states evenly. "And somehow you don't know - or you don't care - who she is. I'm not sure which is worse."
I don't even want to watch where this is going, not when I can end it here. "I lied to them. I lied to everyone," I explain. My heart feels like it's going to beat out of my chest as I resign myself to the truth, or at least the version of the truth that will spare Molly along with the Kingdom. I turn to Ezekiel to continue. "Almost everything I told you was true but I did lie to you. I was living at Sanctuary before. I was married to Negan." I rest my free hand on the roundness of my belly. "He's the father of my child."
"And your friend, Molly?" The King asks.
I shake my head. "I lied to her too. I met up with her on the road. Everything from that point on was true." Despite her betrayal, after all the absolute shit we have been through together, I won't sell her out along with me. She never married Negan, I did. Only one of us has to go down for that choice. I only pray Molly can see the gift I am giving her ass right now for what it is and stick to that story.
Ezekiel is silent, his lips press together as he regards me with deep contemplation. I don't blame him if he kicks me out on the spot. As much as I shit on this place when I first got here, the people of the Kingdom have been nothing but kind to me. And I repaid their kindness with dishonesty. I had my reasons, but they won't see that.
"This changes nothing," the King declares. "Release your grasp, Daryl. It matters not from where she came. Young Rori has made her home in the Kingdom."
"What?" I utter in disbelief. I lied straight to this man's face and he is defending me? Daryl's hand still doesn't budge another inch.
Rick shakes his head. "She's coming with us."
Oh fuck no. "No, I'm not!" Daryl's hand is a vice once more when my fight to get my arm out of his grasp is renewed. I'd sooner walk out these walls on my own, take my gun and take my chances, before I went anywhere with these murderers. Negan may have a cruel streak, but I have never seen him murder innocent men in their beds while they slept. Fucked up as it may have been, he always had a reason for the shitty choices he made. These assholes kill in cold blood. I have pride but I am not above begging when it counts. "Please. I'll leave on my own. I don't want trouble. Just leave me alone and none of you will ever see me again."
"You will not be leaving anywhere, Rori," Ezekiel assures.
"Yes she is." Rick's voice is even and terrifies me. "You don't want to fight, and I'm not gonna force you to. But taking her gives us leverage. It gives us another angle we can get to him from."
"I will not have a member of my patronage taken to be used as a pawn."
"I'm not gonna make you gamble your people in a war, Ezekiel. But this girl isn't one of your people. She's Negan's. And she is a ticking time bomb you've got hidden in your walls. You've got an agreement with Negan for now, but how many of your people's lives are you willing to bet when he finds out you're harboring his wife and his unborn child?"
He has a point. One that confuses me as well because I didn't even know the Kingdom knew of the Saviors. I'm an idiot for not questioning that much. Even if the Kingdom hadn't gone out looking for Sanctuary, how could a place like the Kingdom exist and Negan not know about it? He's everywhere. He knows nearly everything. I really never stood a chance at making a home here, not because of the people of the Kingdom, but because of who I am. "Let me go on my own then," I start, speaking more to Ezekiel than anyone else. "I won't take anything more than I came with. I'll leave and none of you will ever see me again. No one will ever know I was here. I'll just go and I won't be anyone's problem again."
I see the calculations running in Ezekiel's mind. "Surely you can't think I could allow a woman in your condition to forge a path on her own, young Rori," he shakes his head at the very thought. "No, but Rick has a point."
"Wait!" I interject. He can't be serious. Send me off on my own, but please god not with them. At least I have a chance on my own.
"I can't in good conscience send you and your child to your deaths in exile. I won't allow that." The King looks to Rick. "But I also cannot, in good conscience, allow my people to suffer for the mercies of their King. I need your word, Rick Grimes-"
"-They're murderers!"
"So's your goddamned husband," Daryl growls in my ear.
"I need your word that no harm will come to the girl. If I send her with your people, I do so in the good faith that she and her child will be safe."
Rick offers the outstretched hand of a binding pact between one man and another. "You have my word."
In a single handshake, I become a commodity for the umpteenth time in my life, a piece of property to be bargained and traded over. I refuse to look Ezekiel in the eye as I'm led to the awaiting truck at the gate. Each step is as if my feet are filled with concrete.
I don't look back and try to make a memory of this place because I don't have to. I may have spent most of my short time in the Kingdom fighting the kindness, disparaging the warmth and hospitality of these people, but for a blinking moment, I still allowed the place to make an impression. I allowed the veil of a happy future to obscure the reality that at the end of the day, my life means nothing to these people. For a handshake and nothing more, the very King who welcomed me, sold me to the same despicable humans who murdered my friend in his sleep.
Tension shares the space with me, Rick, Carl, and two women on either side of me in the humid cab of the truck. As we pull out from the gates of the Kingdom and hear them close behind us, I can sense the shift before it happens.
"Cover her," Rick gives the command and I scream as a bag is thrown over my head, swallowing my view in darkness. Plastic zip ties bite into my skin as they are tightened around my wrists.
"You gave him your word!" I spit through the bag.
"Keep it to yourself," the woman on my left retorts.
I do my best to mentally keep track of the twists and turns we take, trying to estimate how far we're going and in what direction, but lose track after we make a third left turn in a row, doubling back at this point before taking another turn. Smart really, because even if I got away from Rick's people, I wouldn't know where to go to get back to the Kingdom or anywhere for that matter. About all I'm certain of is that we aren't heading towards Sanctuary, based on the lack of paved roads we take. It brings little relief, but there is some. It wouldn't make sense really for the Alexandrians to trade me back, not when they are talking about war. Having someone they believe Negan has some kind of attachment to, regardless of how incorrect that assumption, as bait, or a hostage, or someone to torture in order to manipulate him, is a far more valuable reason to keep me around.
Between the bumps of the road and the repeated looping turns we make, I do my best to sink into old habits. I'd let my guard down at the Kingdom, now look where it got me. How much easier will it be to avoid that trap as a prisoner. Haunting images come to mind of that poor girl kept prisoner at Sanctuary, her misshapen feet and broken ribs, the pus and red streaks streaming from the infection ridden wound carved in her face.
Long suppressed memories from my time before Negan begin streaming in. Desperately trying to sleep in the dirt, while my heart raced waiting for the moment I'd be dragged from my rest and defiled once more, beaten, bitten, burned and brutalized into submission to the point I'd prayed for death every spare moment. I know how kindly prisoners are treated first hand.
The ride smooths out as we transition from dirt roads to asphalt. I force myself to keep my breathing calm though claustrophobia and uncertainty have my nerves frayed. Keep calm. Stay alive. Look for a chance to escape.
That chance certainly doesn't come when being led out of the car with the bag still securely fitted over my face. I do my best to keep from tripping as I'm walked forward, already thrown off balance by my protruding belly, and now much more so with my hands held behind my back. I'm not allowed to fall though as I'm walked into a structure and down a flight of stairs. It's not until the metallic clang of a metal closure sounds around me that a knife slips between my hands and breaks the tether of the zip ties.
The bag follows, being removed from my head. I blink against the intrusion of the late afternoon light while my eyes adjust from the darkness to see Rick and the two women from the car, one shorter with black hair pulled back into a short, messy ponytail, the other tall with long dreadlocks and an expression on her face of pure disdain, all gathered around me in what looks to be a jail cell? Aside from the bars, this place looks to be a partially finished basement in a normal single family home. What is going on? What the hell kind of community is this that they live in actual houses instead of some kind of repurposed structure?
I don't know what these people are waiting for. Are they going to stand here all night? Attack me? Interrogate me? My stomach knots with anticipation of pain.
"Michonne will bring down a meal for you tonight," the man finally breaks the silence. "Don't have a mattress for you thanks to your husband, but we can find a blanket and probably a pillow. Bang on the metal if you need the restroom or a pitcher of water. Any questions?"
I shake my head.
"Good. Then we'll talk in the morning."
Well now, it certainly has been a minute, hasn't it? Nearly three years worth of minutes really lol. BUT YA GIRL PROMISED SHE WOULD FINISH THIS STORY SO HERE I AM. I'm genuinely sorry so much time has gone by. I lost myself. I lost my love for writing. And with so much darkness in the world the last year and a half, it seemed so hard to come back to writing about a world that was also so filled with darkness. But amidst so much loss, I somehow never lost the love I had for this story. I read through it several times over. I read all your comments and kind words that inspired me for the years I put into writing it. And now that I am in a better place, I'm back to hold myself to my word and do these characters, and everyone who supported this story justice and finish the damn thing. If you are new here, Hello! Welcome to this cheerful little nightmare. If you are an old reader who came back to say hi again, thank you so much for your time.
I hope you enjoy the far too long awaited update. The end is coming. I will finish what I started. In the meantime. I hope you read, review, and as always, most of all, enjoy.