AN: Thanks so much the reviews last chapter! I really appreciate the support and feedback. I'm still on the look out for a beta reader, so if you're interested let me know in a review. I hope you guys enjoy this one!

Recently Re-Edited (2/25/19)

Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead.

The perfect storm, or, "Reasons why following a strange man into a dark room is a bad idea - besides the obvious."

~O~

Despite how blasé she acted towards the situation, with every step she took towards the Sanctuary basement, Samantha was hyperaware of the person following behind her.

Her attempts to dissuade the savior had failed and now she had a tag-along that she had no idea what to do with. The older man seemed perfectly content following her and any hints she gave for him to leave passed over his head. She suspected that it was intentional, but he was a hard customer to read. Every time she looked over her shoulder at him, he was staring at her, making instant eye contact. He didn't even have the decency to look away when she caught him doing it.

After about the fourth time they ran through this unfunny sketch, she glared at him to get him to stop, but he only responded with a cheeky wink and a slow, brazen smile splitting his face. Sam let out a frustrated huff and looked forward again. She walked faster to put more distance between them, but he easily matched her quick steps with his long strides. He walked with a curious swagger. Nothing ridiculous, but one that suggested a powerful confidence and sense of self-control. She felt like a cartoon character walking down a corridor with him, her feet stuffed tight into tiny heels like Betty Boop. Ridiculous.

And it wasn't like she wasn't aware he was staring at her butt just as much as he was the back of her head.

Sam had never felt so uncomfortable in her life, and she felt worse knowing that she only had herself to blame for it. Here she thought she could manipulate anyone in the compound (because she had been doing it for over a month), but as soon as a challenge comes along, she finds herself with a field trip buddy? She was better than that. She was going to have to be if she wanted to shake him after getting her battery, or else he might follow her home like a puppy.

The corridor they were walking down led to an old elevator that the savior said would take them to the basement. Sam would have rather taken the stairs, but she was getting too tired to argue, and against her better judgment, she let the man lead her into the elevator. It didn't look up to code, but if she were to be morbidly practical about it, she had a higher chance of crashing and dying in the van that she had stowed away in than she did dying in the elevator. Only twenty-six people die in elevators each year in America. Twenty-six people die in car crashes every five hours.

Well...she supposed the statistics on that had dropped a bit, but the point still stood.

The elevator made her wonder just how old the factory was. The engineer in her took satisfaction in knowing that even the oldest buildings could withstand "The End" much better than humans could. It begged more appreciation for the art of engineering and architecture. So much of the old world had been taken for granted, more than just running electricity, markets full of fresh produce and being on top of the foodchain. Even if the elevator was old, it was still a marvel of technology to Sam.

"This piece of crap is slow as balls, but it'll get us down there," her companion said, stepping in after her. "Pardon my fucking reach."

Sam was forced to lean back when the savior ostentatiously leaned over into her space to get to the elevator's panel on the other side of her. He stood so close that there was barely an inch between them. She knew he had done it on purpose. No man so aware of himself would make that big of a miscalculation.

She craned her head back to see his face and he smiled impishly down at her, the spicy smell of cologne and aftershave filling her senses and aggravating her headache. He took his time pressing the button and stepping back over to his side of the elevator.

When he caught the look she gave him, he shrugged his lanky shoulders.

"I like pressing the button."

The gated elevator door closed with a rusty shriek, enclosing them in the small space together. It took several seconds before the mechanism gave an almighty heave before descending. Sam wanted to groan when she realized the savior had been right; the elevator moved at a snail's pace.

The savior leaned back against the railing, at ease as he tapped his long fingers on the metal in time with the overhead music. Sam was visibly more tense, choosing to stand with her heeled feet pressed together, her back straight with ramrod posture and her arms crossed over her chest. She made sure to stand with as much space between her and the man as possible, not caring if he thought her standoffish. She did everything she could to demonstrate with her body language that she did not appreciate his presence here. It was the perfect image of that scene in movies where the motley crew of characters stood awkwardly together in an elevator with the ironic, easy-listening music playing in the background.

Yellow Submarine by the Beatles came on over the intercom, the voice of Ringo Starr distorted with static by the poor reception. The savior started humming along with it in his deep baritone as they continued to descend.

"You know," he began after another minute of uneasy quiet, clearing his throat, "back when the world first went to shit, I heard rumors about how all this might've started and the emergency plans to evacuate survivors. I never paid much attention to them because I knew they were a load of horseshit, but I came across this one ridiculous bastard who claimed that the US government had these huge fucking submarines in every major port in the country where they've taken all the top scientists, politicians and celebrities only, leaving the rest of us to fucking die. Supposedly the subs are stocked with enough food and supplies to last a decade."

"I heard that our alien creators already took all the survivors they wanted before the virus hit, if the last cry of Scientology can be believed."

"Think we should build a submarine, darlin'? Join Kim Kardashian and Bill Nye the science guy beneath the waves?"

"It's a good idea as any, I suppose."

"Do you think we could build a submarine?"

Sam pursed her lips, thinking about it for a second. She could write an entire dissertation on why they couldn't build a submarine with the world being the way it was, but just to name a few reasons off the top of her head:

"Probably not. Assuming that you'll want to take everyone in the Sanctuary, you would need to build a structure that not only can sustain so many people for an extended amount of time, but you would need to design it to be able to withstand the weight of the water, as well as several other combining factors. But, if you were thinking about only taking a select few, you'd probably hit a roadblock in the construction with a CO2 scrubber because you won't find one of those anywhere around here."

"What's a CO2 scrubber?"

"If you don't limit the Carbon Dioxide in the air supply in a submersible, you'll suffocate on the fumes. A CO2 scrubber treats the air. You'd need a submarine where the CO2 build up would limit the submersible period, and ten years is a long submersible period. You can typically find them in airtight chambers like air and spacecrafts. So unless Negan has a rocket ship stashed somewhere that we don't know about, I doubt we'll be setting sail anytime soon."

"Hm."

"It's a nice idea, though," she added softly as a second thought.

The worsening ache in her feet and spine finally had her leaning back, joining him against the railing with a sigh.

They lapsed back into silence. Sam leaned further against the fenced backing of the elevator, craning her head and closing her eyes. Fatigue was creeping up fast. This had been the most time she had ever spent out of her hideaway. She could feel the blisters on her feet forming and the fluorescent lights of the Sanctuary were starting to get to her. The relentless hum they gave off was becoming ingrained in her ears drums and the lighting irritated her deficiency. She was a little more sensitive to bright lights than other people because of it, and it made her remember why she was able to adjust to the darkness of the vents so easily.

The grinding of the old elevator's mechanism lulled her into a sense of calm and she almost forgot that she wasn't alone.

"What's your name?"

Almost.

She opened her eyes and turned her head to give him a withered look.

He smiled at her, trying to look cheeky and charming. "Our submarine's got to have a name."

She turned away and closed her eyes again. The savior frowned, taking it as her stonewalling again, but after a pause, she answered.

"Samantha."

"So the SS Samantha, then." The savior made a contemplative noise, working his jaw as he mulled it over like a piece of candy on his tongue. "I like it. Its gotta nice ring to it."

She didn't know what compelled her to give the savior her actual name, other than the realization that this was the most interesting conversation she has had with anybody in months. His crude language grated on her nervous, making her flinch at the abuse of the English language, but at least it made her take notice. Most of time when people spoke to her, she tuned them out until they sounded like the parents from the Peanuts movies.

He gave Sam her peace for the rest of the elevator ride. All ten seconds of it. When the elevator finally came to a stop, the gate opened up to darkness, leaving only the bulb over their heads as light.

"You wouldn't happen to have a flashlight on you, would you?" Sam asked, her voice echoing out as they peered into the basement, trying to sort through the blackness for any discernible shapes.

"Does it look like I have a fucking flashlight on me?" the savior shot back, gesturing down at his body.

"You don't have to curse at me, I was only asking."

"How in the shit did those asswipes get these lights off? I thought they went off and on with the lights on the main floor. I've been down here a million fucking times and not once have I seen a goddamn light switch, the fuck."

"They do sync with the main floor, but the building runs on a grid of interconnected systems. You can shut down power to individual sections to save electricity from the main power box upstairs without shutting off everything in the building."

"Jesus, you're like Wikipedia with tits - which is a fucking kickass idea now that I think about it, but let's get these on before I trip on something and sprain my dick."

Sam's nose curled up at his remark, choosing not to dignify it with a response. She wondered if he was he always this crude. It seemed excessive and detrimental to any conversation this man would have, but maybe language skills weren't as high on his list of priorities right now. Despite being more garish than the others, the man didn't seem any less brutish so perhaps the slow reversion back to caveman times wasn't as big of a loss to him as it was to her.

Or maybe Apocalypse Sam was an even bigger prude than Regular Sam, which was a weird direction to go in, even for her.

"Better get maintenance down here," the savior mumbled.

He reached for the radio on his belt, but Sam held up her hand.

"I've got it. There should be a breaker box somewhere close by."

Reaching into her satchel, she pulled out her pen light. It wasn't the most convenient light source, meant for more precise and focused lighting than widespread, but it would at least keep her from tripping. The click of the pen light echoed through the basement and Sam flashed the ground in front of her.

"Stay here," she told the savior.

"Sure thing," he replied, amusement in his tone.

She stepped out of the elevator, leaving the savior to watch the skirt of her dress sashay with each step and the subtle outline of her ass underneath it until the darkness swallowed her up.

The basement was tread through enough by workers and saviors, she didn't have to worry about walking face first into any spider webs. She took care to step over cords and boxes as she went. It wasn't easy and her heels weren't doing her any favors, but she managed to find a fenced in corner of the basement where she knew the breaker box would be. She shined her pen light through the chain link and spotted it on the back wall.

The breaker was standard issue. A grey box with a collection of black switches inside, all labeled different sections of the factory with masking tape and blue magic marker. They were all rigged to be locked in place with metal wiring except for the one labeled "basement". Sam reached out and ran her fingertip over the label.

"Honestly, with how outdated this factory is, I half expected it to be powered by a long-legged Mary Ann," she said to herself.

"A fucking what?" she heard the savior call out.

"Nothing."

She grabbed the basement breaker and switched it on with a resonating click. The lights flickered overhead, buzzing to life and banishing the darkness into the smallest recesses of the basement. Her light sensitive headache spiked at the sudden transition from dark to light, but it was a fair trade to be able to see again.

Not that the Sanctuary basement was really a sight worth seeing. It looked like the birthplace of Anthrax. The walls were white, but time and weather had the paint chipped off. Long trails of dried rust ran down the brick from the network of pipes where rainwater and metal combined.

To Sam the rust stains looked a sickly green, oozing down like slime straight out of a Goosebumps book. Stray piles of garbage and equipment cluttered up the space, turning it into a maze of storage. Puddles of water gathered on the concrete floor and she could hear more water from the storm seeping in through the cracks of the factory's foundation, dripping somewhere in the distance. The air was musty and she could see the particles of dust and asbestos floating around.

She sniffed contemptuously before making her way back to the elevator. The savior was still waiting where she had left him, watching her approach with a thoughtful look on his face. She ignored it, looking up at the lights above her head.

"Let there be light," she mumbled, more to herself.

"Flipping a switch? Hell, I could've done that."

"Yes, but it was better if I did it. There's a lot of rusty stuff down here and I doubt you've been vaccinated for Tetanus because of your seasoned age, so you're welcome."

The savior cocked a brow at her, surprised by her gall. "You calling me old, sweetheart?"

"I never said 'old'."

"Well, 'seasoned' isn't fucking flattering, either."

"Would you rather get Lockjaw?"

"I'd rather get what we fucking came here for and get the fuck back up to civilization - and for your information, sweetheart, I have been vaccinated for Tetanus, fuck you very much. I was born in the 60's, not the fucking Dark Ages."

Sam ignored the "we" in his statement as she put her pen light back. She turned and began navigating the basement floor, weaving her way through the labyrinth as she studied everything she passed, cataloging it for future reference. The prize was still a battery, but she may have to come back down here and it would be better to get a layout of everything now. There was too much to sort through in the main area of the basement, but there were individual work stations setup in some of the backrooms. Sam decided to try there first.

She reached into her satchel and pulled out her ohmmeter. The needle danced behind the plastic covering and the back was still stained with soot from Ian's fried battery. She used the flap of her bag to clean it off as she walked towards one of the backrooms. As she came to a door and opened it, she heard the savior behind her let out a sigh.

"Alright, I think it's time we cut the bullshit, Darlin'. I might not be Thomas fucking Edison, but I know that's not a fucking radio. Do you think I'm some kind of idiot? Because your story has a whole lotta fucking holes in it, girly."

She stopped in the doorway, one hand resting on the frame while the other gripped her ohmmeter. She turned to look back at him with her face pensive. There was no point in keeping up the charade; she had gotten where she needed to be.

"Fine," she said. "The parts aren't for Negan, they're for me. I'm working on a personal project and I didn't want anybody crowding me while I was finishing it."

"What kind of personal project?"

She turned away and stepped into the room. "You're crowding me."

There was a three step staircase just inside the room. The old wood creaked underneath her heels, but held her weight and the savior's behind her when he followed. She reached up and pulled on the chain to turn on the light bulb in the room.

"You have a shit poor attitude, you know that?"

"I've been told," Sam replied as her calculating eyes scanned the room.

The walls were wet and covered with mildew. It was unremarkable, nothing of real note in it except a workshop table pushed against the farthest wall with a standard tool rack and drawers. Parts laid scattered over the top, but not cluttering. Sam walked over with a silent prayer, hoping against hope that she would find what she was looking for. The savior was thankfully silent behind her, milling about the room in bored exploration while she searched.

The tabletop hailed no success, and neither did the first couple of drawers she opened, but finally, finally, in the very last drawer, laying under an owner's manual for an air conditioning unit from the 70's, Sam found a battery. She resisted shouting in triumphant as she snatched it up.

Depositing it on the tabletop, she flipped over her device and pried open the back. The battery fit right in. It powered up beautifully and Sam couldn't fight the smile that broke across her face. Now that the device had power, she could recalibrate it. Her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth as she pulled off the device's front and began poking around in its innards like a schoolchild dissecting a frog.

"Jesus, are you almost done?" the savior spoke up, reminding her of his presence. "I feel like I've got fucking mold growing in my throat breathing in this gracias-nasty ass air."

Sam had the trappings of a workaholic so it didn't come as a surprise that she got very irritated when her concentration was broken by outside distractions, and the savior was nothing but. Hearing him prattle on about nonsense and kicking around machine parts while she was trying to focus pushed the young woman on to her last nerve. Reaching her breaking point, she slammed her ohmmeter firmly down on the workshop table, cutting of the savior in mid sentence with the hollow bang it produced.

He turned to look at her, but Sam stayed facing the table, her nails digging into her device.

"What the fuck is your-"

"I am trying to work!" She whirled around to glare at him. "If you don't like it down here, then leave. This isn't your business anyways."

A tense silence followed but Sam didn't care. She turned back to the table and worked on her device again, picking up and putting down tools with more force than what was necessary.

There was a dirty hubcap propped up against the tool rack on the table and she could see the savior in the reflection. She could feel his stare burning into her back. Somehow through her anger, she looked up from her device and studied the man, waiting to see what he would do. Tall and imposing, he watched Samantha severely.

After a full minute of not moving, he slowly reached up and tapped the light bulb with his finger, making it swing back and forth as the chain clinked against the delicate glass.

From the reflection in the hubcap, Sam could see his looming figure standing in the middle of the room, his arm still raised as they were draped in intervals of light and darkness. He had a nasty smirk on his face that only grew more wicked each time the bulb swung forward to give light. The temperature seemed to drop and the air felt thinner as a horrible feeling crept over her. It was foreboding, like seeing the grim reaper in the rearview mirror of your car just before crashing. She watched as his easygoing nature turned absolutely predatory in the span of about two seconds.

"Oh, honey, everything that happens under my roof is my fucking business."

He looked like a big game cat, muscles coiled under his white t-shirt as he smiled that fiendish smirk. She gave no indication that she could see him, but her working hands came to a gradual stop the longer this went on. Her body seemed to be a few steps ahead of her brain because her eyes were dancing over the table top, searching for something to use as weapon even though her mind had yet to fully perceive the threat.

She used her body to shield her hand as her fingers ran along the table, inching closer to a pipe wrench. The hair on the back of her neck raised as she felt a shift in the air. The man moved in the hubcap, his image stretching out into a blur of white and grey. He stalked towards her, footsteps on concrete echoing in the dark expanse of the basement room. Samantha felt trapped in the small space, but also unhinged to stable grounding, lost in a nonstructural limbo with a demon intent on devouring her unsuspecting soul.

In the distorted reflection of the hubcap, he looked like the Crooked Man. Long-limbed and terrifying, birthed from the shadows of the swinging light bulb. The distortion made his teeth look sharp and his eyes obsidian black. He had morph into his true form right before her. She tensed, her breathing ragged and near audible as he came to a stop just behind her, so close that she could feel the heat radiating from his chest through both of their clothing. The scent of his cologne invaded her nose again, making a roll of dread churn her stomach. Her mouth went cotton dry and her eyes blinked rapidly as she tried to process what was happening while moisture gathered along her lashes.

Her trembling fingers finally reached the cold metal of the wrench, the tips just barely grazing the handle. His cheek brushed her hair, the strands snagging on his beard as he leaned in.

"In case you haven't caught on," he whispered, his breath tickling her ear, "I'm actually fucking Negan."

Gripping the wrench tight, Sam spun around and swung it with both hands. She aimed for his head with all her might, but Negan had anticipated the move and grabbed her wrist, throwing off her trajectory with the hit landing somewhere around his collarbone instead. He let out a grunt as his other hand came up to join the first. Sam tried to fight him off, but he was stronger than he looked. He gripped her wrist so hard, she feared it would snap clean in half. She pulled her arms back to break free but he held tight, coming with her and using his weight to dominate her.

"Fucking drop it!" Negan roared, squeezing her wrists harder to get her to let go of the wrench.

She held on until the crushing pressure became too much. The tool slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a clatter.

Keeping his hold, Negan struck out his boot and kicked it away. The action made his grip on one of her wrists loosen and Sam was able to get her arm free with a hard yank. They struggled for the upper hand again, Sam trying to break away while Negan demanded submission. He went to grab her arm again, but she pulled her arm back out of his reach before bringing it under his own arm and then up. The maneuver allowed her to get at his unprotected front and she lashed out at his face, sinking her nails in.

He yelled and reared back his head, his hold on her other arm slipping as her nails bit in just above his eye. She pulled her arm back and used both to shove Negan as hard as she could. He stumbled backwards into an awkward misstep that had him careening to the side and into the wall.

Sam used the opening to run past him, but Negan recovered fast and was on her again. He snatched a handful of her hair before she could get far. A scream lodged in her throat at the pain erupting along her scalp as her hands came up to claw at his fingers. Negan yanked her back, bodily throwing her backwards into the workshop table. She let out a cry as the small of her back came in harsh contact with the table.

The table slammed against the back wall, knocking tools off the hooks and broken parts on to the ground. The move left her stunned and she fell to the ground before she could grab the table. Her knees and palms hit the wet concrete first before her arms failed to hold up her weight and she landed on her side.

She laid there, reorienting herself before sitting up. The ground scraped against the exposed skin of her arms and legs. Her heels had fallen off in the struggle and were now stewed across the room, along with her satchel. Negan's shadow fell over her as she held her head, pressing her palm against her forehead to stop the world from spinning.

"Oh my goodness!" he bellowed as he stood above her, drawing the words out. "Look at you! And here I was thinking that there was some big, fugly rat sneaking around my Sanctuary and taking my shit, but you're just an itty bitty mouse, aren't ya?"

Her chest heaving, she glared up at him through her dark, disheveled hair. He chuckled slow and lazy at her, his tongue pressing up against his teeth. He reached up with his fingers and touched the scratches on his face. There were four of them above his left eye, long, angry red lines where her nails dug into his skin and dragged down.

Sam looked down at her hand and saw the red under her fingernails. He overpowered her, but if she died tonight she took satisfaction in knowing that she was able to leave a mark on him.

"Fuck," he hissed, pulling his fingers away to see a bit of blood on them. "Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck you got me good."

He didn't sound angry, but he didn't sound amused. Sam watched as he reached behind his back and pulled out his radio.

"Dwight," he spoke into it. He released the button and waited for a response, but only static came through. "Dwight? You there?"

Static. It must be the storm outside, or even the basement that was messing with the reception. Sam took the distraction to look at the ground around her. Negan had kicked the wrench halfway across the room and out of reach, but she spotted her satchel laying only a few feet away. Not close enough to grab it from where she was, but if she was able to move closer without Negan stopping her, she could get to it.

"Piece of shit," Negan mumbled, shaking his head.

Sam sat up more as he put his radio back on his belt. She watched him like a hawk, her eyes wide with barely restrained panic as she waited for him to make a move. He continued to stand over her. His eyes danced over her fallen form as he sucked air through his teeth. She didn't dare move. She was facing down a venomous snake and one wrong move would have its fangs sinking into her leg. She needed to be smart about this. Her options looked grim and there was a very likely chance that tonight would be her last night on earth, but if she kept her wits about her, she wouldn't have to die in a moldy basement like a rat.

"So," Negan said, holding out his arms, "here we are. Fucking finally."

Sam stayed silent. Her chest still heaved from their struggle and the sound of her breathing filled the room. Negan looked more composed than her, with the exception of his disheveled clothing and scratches. His perfectly groomed hair stuck up in places and his dark eyes were wild with the promise of violence and excitement. Still, when he spoke, he managed to sound like the reasonable one.

"Now, this can go either one of two ways for you. You can gave up right fucking here and let me take you back upstairs without a fight, and maybe - big fucking maybe - I'll go easy on you. Or, you can keep acting tough and I'll drag your ass back up there, kicking and screaming. Personally, I recommend the former, because if you go with the latter, I think it's pretty fucking fair to say that things could get a little rough for you and I won't be held accountable for my actions."

He smirked down at her, taking a step closer.

"So make this easy on the both of us, Samantha. What's it going to be?"

He caught the moment of her decision, the subtle intake of breath and tension in her limbs. With the arm that wasn't holding her up, Sam grabbed a handful of loose dirt from the ground and threw it at him. Negan turned his head as it hit his chest, staining the front of his white t-shirt.

It was an act of defiance, her final answer. She braced herself.

Negan sighed, rolling his eyes as he brushed off his shirt.

"Alright, have it your way."

His face dropped and he moved. He advanced quick, striking out to grab her. Sam rolled on to her stomach and lunged for her satchel, her fingers tangling up in the strap just as Negan's hand wrap around her ankle. She yelped as he dragged her across the ground, scuffing her knees and elbows further, but she didn't release her grip on her bag. She reached inside and grabbed the handgun she had taken earlier. She rolled on to her back and pulled the gun out, brandishing it at her attacker.

Negan froze with his hand still on her ankle as the safety clicked off.

With the barrel aimed between his eyes, he stared down it with a murderous glare, his handsome face twisting into something ugly. Sam jerked her leg to dislodge his fingers before reaching up with her free hand to grip the edge of the workshop table behind her.

"Get back," she commanded as she pulled herself up on to her bare feet.

To her surprise, he did, but he didn't hold his hands up or react in any outward way other than glare at her like he wanted to see her lynched. He believed she would shoot him if he made the wrong move, believed she was at least capable of pointing a gun in his direction and pulling the trigger, but he didn't seem concerned that she would shoot him for anything other than in self-defense. She kept the gun and her eyes trained on him as she reached down to pick up her satchel with her free hand.

The gun wasn't as steady in her grip as she would have liked, but she didn't doubt that Negan could already tell how terrified she was. She made no effort to hide it. She never did. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, she was terrified, running on fear and adrenaline, but Sam was at her best under pressure and she knew how to work through it without letting it overcome her. She was scared, but she was brave.

She held out her hand, her palm upturned.

"Give me your radio."

Negan reached behind him and took his radio off his belt, tossing it to her without a word of protest. His compliance unsettled her. She caught the radio and it went into her satchel with the rest of her things.

With their eyes still locked, Samantha began to back up towards the door, glancing back only to make sure she wouldn't run into the stairs. The gun was held out in front of her with her left hand while her right clutched the strap of her bag. Negan watched her go with his arms hanging limp at his sides, the expression on his face unreadable.

As she stepped out of the room, she heard him call out:

"You're not getting out of here, little mouse. I can fucking guarantee you that!"

Slamming the door shut, she grabbed an old pipe laying nearby. She lodged it underneath the handle of the door and braced it against the ground, barricading it shut. The pipe was put in place not a second too soon because a sudden force on the other side of the door slammed against it. Sam gasped and jumped back, holding up the gun out of instinct as she watched Negan try to break his way out of the room. The pipe held strong, though. He wasn't going anywhere.

Sam took off across the basement, weaving back through the storage maze as quick as she could. The sound of Negan repeatedly throwing his weight against the door still echoed out, but she didn't dare look back as she made for the staircase, throwing the door open. Her movements were clumsy. The concrete bit into the bottom of her feet and more than once she stubbed her toe on a step and fell, but she crawled back up until finally reaching the top.

She ran back into the corridor that led to the elevator, bolting past it. She didn't stop until she was more than several hallways over from where she came up. The halls were empty and Sam was able to duck into the first room without being seen. It was one of the ladies' restrooms. The door hinges squeaked loudly as she pushed open the swinging door and collapsed inside. She fell to the dirty floor a heaving mess, nearly hyperventilating. She sat kneeling, her arms braced against the ground and her head hanging as she gasped for breath.

'Breathe...breathe...breathe...'

Her heart pounded in her chest like a pow wow drum. Reality came crashing down over her ears as she realized that she had just come face to face with the Sanctuary's infamous leader, and that she had locked him in a smelly basement after scratching his face and stealing his radio.

Things had gone to hell in a hand basket so fast, it literally left her head spinning. The world around her was on fast forward, speeding through at an incomprehensible pace. Her body went rigid, knowing that the despite narrowly escaping Negan's clutches, the crap had yet to truly hit the fan. The leader wouldn't be stuck down there forever. Negan's presence in the Sanctuary was far too ubiquitous to go unmissed for very long. A hellfire hurricane was surely on the horizon and Samantha needed to get to the eye of the storm before she burned.

She picked her brain, tracking down where everybody of importance currently was at that moment. She looked back on all the behaviors she had observed during her time in the vents. From basic Sanctuary operations, she knew that the final run of supplies was supposed to come in tonight, and she had heard that Negan usually went out to oversee the unloading and get a report from Simon. She had maybe fifteen, twenty minutes tops before anybody came looking.

She looked down at the gun in her hand. Three options came to mind.

She could use the gun to shoot her way out of the Sanctuary, but that was failure to launch. Negan's sheer manpower alone would smother any chances of escaping and she was forced to check out Bonnie Parker style in stag.

There was the option of saving the ammo and going a different route in case by some insane stroke of luck she managed to escape the compound alive. If she got out, she would need something to defend herself with against the goblins and Negan's men if they caught up to her. She would be living off virtually nothing out there and she would need to make every bullet count.

Then there was always the grim option of using the gun to shoot herself in the head, saving herself the suffering and robbing Negan of his chance to kill her. It sounded tempting, especially since Negan liked to use his baseball bat on the people who had severely crossed him. She knew he would be pissed about her skipping out on a meeting with his beloved Lucille.

But, however neat it would be to ruin Negan's day from beyond the grave, she didn't want to die. This wasn't the first time this option had been available to her, but Sam knew she could never follow through with it unless she was staring down a horde of goblins coming to rip her apart. The second option won, much like she knew it would. The jig was finally up and now Sam needed to prepare herself to fight her way out of the Sanctuary.

The gun found a place in her satchel along side Negan's radio and her ohmmeter. She would need a new weapon. Her eyes scanned the restroom, seeing nothing but dirty sinks and an empty paper towel dispenser before settling on the mirror that ran the full width of the restroom. Her reflection looked back at her; black hair a tangled mess, her skin tacky and covered in grime. The poor-quality, fluorescent lights above made her complexion pale and clammy, almost like a goblin's.

With melancholy, she tried to remember if this was what her younger self pictured when she used to be tormented by the popular girls during recess. When they would lock her in the bathroom with the lights off, forcing her to play Bloody Mary and refuse to let her out until she was screaming and pounding on the door hard enough to make her hands bleed.

'If I turn off the lights and say Bloody Mary three times, will she give me a quicker death than Negan?' she thought.

Her eyes stung as she stared at herself, blue orbs becoming glassy. She blinked and tears tracked down her face, washing away some of the dirt. She sucked in a shuddered breath, allowing herself a moment to grieve her own soon-approaching death.

When the moment was over, Sam wiped her tears away leaving smears on her cheeks. She turned from the mirror and stepped into one of the toilet stalls, grabbing the tiny trash can screwed to the wall. She yanked it out with a ferocious display, the rusty screws no match for her strength. She came back out and pitched the trash can at the bathroom mirror. The can impacted with a loud bang and the mirror shattered.

Carefully stepping around the sharp jigsaw pieces decorating the tiled floor, Sam grabbed a shard of broken mirror and clutched it like a knife as the restroom lights glared off its reflective surface. She reached down to pick up her satchel and put it back on her shoulder.

With one last breath, she pushed open the restroom door and stepped out.

AN: This chapter and the next one were actually meant to be one chapter, but it ran a bit too long so I decided to cut them in half. Plus, I wanted to draw out the cat and mouse chase for just a little while longer.

Hope you guys enjoyed the new chapter. I always appreciate feedback!

~Scorpiofreak~