AN: Special thanks to Dawn, Leah and Deanna Price for reviewing last chapter, and thanks for the added favorites and alert lists. I really appreciate the feedback. I hope you all enjoy the new chapter.
And also, just as an interesting tidbit, I was listening to the soundtrack for the new "Alien: Covenant" movie while writing this, particularly "The Medbay" (composed by Jed Kurzel). So if you're looking for music to set the atmosphere.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead.
The Chase, or, "Negan didn't appreciate being locked in a basement"
~O~
Samantha raced back to her hideaway.
The workers in the hallways gave her curious looks as she passed them, but she didn't slow down. Her window of opportunity was very limited. She couldn't waste time on keeping up her façade. There was no point to it anymore. By the end of the night, everybody would know that she wasn't who she pretended to be. She would become infamous. Her name would be the one they only dared to whisper. The name that would follow the notorious Lucille's as newcomers were warned of the full brunt of their leader's explosive wraith. She would be the next cautionary tale. The next Spider and the Fly, starring Negan and herself respectively. Le Petit Chaperon Rouge for the apocalyptic age.
True to form, her downfall was her overconfidence and ambivalence. She allowed the gentlemanly spider - the big bad wolf - the Pied Piper - to lead her into ruin. She was a story worthy of Hilaire Belloc. Little Sammy Wake, the girl who lived in the walls of perdition, took too many steps out, lured by the devil, and was torn apart by his vampire bat while he grinned with malicious glee. Instant classic.
One of the saviors she passed tried to stop her, noticing her obvious distress. He put down the rain tarp he was carrying and held up his hands for her slow down, genuine concern marring his features, but she pushed past without a glance, ignoring his calls for her to wait.
Barefooted, hair a mess, dress covered in grime, shins and elbows scraped from tip to hilt; she didn't blame him for trying to stop her. It wasn't everyday that one of Negan's wives could be seen running through the halls, looking like she had just played a competitive game of Twister with a goblin.
The thunderstorm was raging outside, the wind and rain crashing against the main building, making the windows shudder. Saviors crowded the halls and common rooms as they finished bolting down the compound while the workers made their way to their rooms for curfew. Sam ducked into the first maintenance closet she could find that wasn't being ransacked by a savior. She pulled out the screws and climbed inside the vent, putting the grate back in place behind her before crawling towards the east wing.
The air inside the shaft was drafty and the metal was cold to the touch. It gave the damaged skin of her scratched shins some relief, but gooseflesh erupted along her arms and she shivered. It was going to be freezing outside, she could already tell. She would have to change into something warm once she got to her hideaway, or else life beyond the compound was going to be even harder. Autumn was creeping up fast, and since the world had fallen the winters have been harsh.
Sam navigated the ventilation system until she made it back to her hideaway. She kicked open the grate and jumped down. Another shudder racked her body as her feet landed in water. It came up to her ankles and covered the floor. Her sleeping bag and the notes left scattered around were a sopping mess in the corner, along with all her clothes that she had left on the ground next to her shelf of books and manuals. The storm must be causing the older parts of the main building to flood. She groaned in frustration, swashing through the water as she reached into her satchel and pulled out Negan's radio.
Switching it on and placing it on a high surface, she listened to the saviors' operations as she tore through her hideaway looking for supplies. She grabbed a pair of boots and slipped them on her feet, but the water had soaked all of her clothes. She held up one of her shirts, dripping wet, before dropping it back in the water with a splash. Changing was a no go. There was not enough time to track down something else to wear. She needed to get only the important stuff and leave.
The only thing that was still dry was an old cargo jacket that she had found in the market. It was two sizes too big and frayed at the ends, but it was better than nothing. She slipped it on over her dress, letting it hang open.
Pens and a pad of paper found its way into her satchel, along with a compass, a roll of gauze, a rusty Swiss army knife, a box of matches, a can of chicken noodle soup, a half-full bottle of water and an Altoids peppermint can filled with safety pins and sewing needles. Everything else she would need to leave behind.
If she had the time mourn then she would have. Her hideaway had truly become a home, however strange that sounded. It was the first place in a long time where she had felt safe, even if it was inside a community run by a smiling maniac. It was her space and she was going to feel the hurt of losing it later when she was back to living off practically nothing.
The feed from the radio offered up nothing out of the ordinary until Simon's voice spilled from the speakers, his transmission making Sam's blood run cold.
'This is Simon. Anybody know where Negan is? He was supposed to meet me out by the gate with the Hilltop offering, but he was a no-show. Dwight?'
From where she crouched, packing her satchel, Sam turned towards the radio, her heart pounding in her ears.
'This is Dee. I haven't seen him.'
'Is he with his wives?'
'I don't know. Standby.'
She packed the rest of her supplies with renewed urgency. Twenty minutes after locking him in the basement, Negan's disappearance was being noticed. Her window shrunk about a quarter in size. There was the small hope that they wouldn't find him trapped in the basement until Sam was already long gone, but people had seen Negan and her head down that way not too long ago, workers who would relay what they saw without hesitation if the saviors started asking questions. She couldn't rely on dumb luck or off-chances anymore. She needed to move as if Negan was right on her heels, because he might soon be.
She needed a plan. She needed to think. Negan aside, what else was an immediate threat?
The saviors, definitely. The workers, not so much.
The workers weren't allowed to carry weapons, and once word got around that there was an intruder, they would have to stay in their rooms until the problem was dealt with. Negan was a malevolent tyrant if she ever did see one, but he at least provided his followers with some protection, enacting a curfew and issuing lockdowns during a crisis for their safety. Unless they tried to catch Sam themselves to score brownie points with Negan, which was a possibility (drowning man clutches at straws and such), she should only have to worry about the saviors.
Easier said than done. They were many and they were mean. The saviors were cockroaches and the Sanctuary was their disgusting nest. Poke it with a stick and they all come crawling out in hordes of glossy brown shells and flexing mandibles. Not quite a nuclear disaster, but they were still the pests that survived the end of the world, and the only insect that could make Sam shiver with revulsion - and this was a girl who had two pet tarantulas as a kid.
This was where the vents would be the most useful they have ever been, because once Negan was found and an alert was raised, the Sanctuary would be crawling with saviors looking for her. She was going to have to rely on them one last time to get her through this and escape.
There wasn't really the option of staying in the vents until things quieted down enough to sneak out. Negan was going to be looking for an explanation for how Samantha was able to move around the Sanctuary undetected and take things from highly secured areas like his private floor. Eventually he was going to make the connection between her and the vents, and the last thing she needed was to be inside them when that happened. He could seal off all the openings except for one and wait her out with lack of food and water, or smoke her out by turning up the temperature to an unbearable heat until she came crawling out right into his hands.
There was no choice other than to leave now. The saviors would be patrolling the halls, but if she was smart and used the resources available to her, there was a chance she could make it out.
What would she need? Avoidance was the name of the game. Getting spotted would be a deadly foul and getting caught would be a one way, final destination trip to the penalty box. Cover and a distraction would be the place to start.
She stared down at the murky water covering the floor, watching it ripple as she tried to work out what to do next. Above her, the lights flickered, turning her attention upwards.
The lights. She could cut the lights. That would give her extra cover besides the vents, allowing her to use the halls to some extent. The closest power box for the building was in the main workshop. It would be empty and locked up by now. She had noticed in the basement's power box that all the switches had been rigged to stay on, presumably to keep people from messing with them, but the main workshop held the building's generator, the queen bee of the electrical hive. Not only could she cut the power of the main building with it, but the surrounding buildings like the garage and the warehouses as well.
The workshop, then. That was where she needed to go next.
The radio buzzed to life with Dwight's voice.
'Negative on the wives. Joey checked his floor. He's not there.'
'Alright, stay frosty, everyone. Possible MIA on Negan.'
It was time to go.
Pulling her satchel up on to her shoulder and grabbing the radio, Samantha looked around her hideaway one last time. Her eyes watched the papers pinned to the walls blow with a soft draft. Her sleeping bag and clothes floated in the water like storm drain debris. Her mechanical projects and her collection of spare parts littered the shelves. It was a pack rat's den. Hording in the earliest stages. Junk nobody could appreciate besides her. It was a hovel, but it was her hovel.
It had been Negan's castaway, his garbage, but once he knew that someone had found value in it, he was going to want it back. Because that was what people like him did. They were claimers. Takers.
'Simon, this is Dee. I've got a worker here who says he saw Negan heading down into the basement with one of his wives. What do you make of that?'
And so it began.
Sam clipped the radio to her satchel. She pulled herself up and back into the vent with a grunt. Simon and Dwight exchanged a back and forth via their radios as she crawled through shaft, on her way towards the workshop. They knew about the basement now and it was only matter of time before someone went down there and found Negan. She banished the dread she felt and kept moving.
'Stormy rendezvous?'
'In the basement?'
'Hey, whatever gets his engine revving, man.'
'Would you just go check it out.'
'I'm messing with you, Dee. Already in route. Standby.'
It took about fifteen minutes to get to the workshop. It was dark, but the fire lights were still on, illuminating the exits. When she dropped out of the vent, she kept low to the ground as she made her way across the workshop. She had never been in the part of the workshop where the generator was, but she still knew it was there and had some experience working on the more complex, industrial generators. Fortunately, this wasn't a performance test for school and she wasn't tasked with fixing anything. The exact opposite, actually. There wasn't any wrong way to cause a malfunction - just do what you're generally not supposed to do.
Sam found the main generator, and from there another power box. She used a paperclip from her poor man's lockpicking kit to pick the lock on the panel door, raking the straight end inside and pushing in all the pins. When the lock snapped open, she tossed it aside, opening the panel to reveal the box's interior.
As she surveyed the breakers and wires, her radio sat at her feet with saviors reporting in on standard operations. It wasn't long until Negan's voice finally blared out of the speaker with a roar of static as he sounded the alarm.
'Wake up, motherfuckers! We've got a red situation on our hands. A goddamn, fucking red situation. There's an intruder in the Sanctuary! A woman dressed like one of my fucking wives. Fat Joey, get your chunky ass up to my floor and make sure there's only five women up there. Everyone else, keep on the look out for a bitch running around in a black dress. All workers are to stay in their fucking rooms until she's caught. I don't know how the fuck she got in here, but she ain't getting out.'
At the risk of becoming overconfident again, the corner of Sam's mouth curled up. The odds may be stacked in Negan's favor, but she was in full survival mode now. Her senses were alert and her knowledge of the Sanctuary's layout was at the forefront of her mind.
Being a mouse in the walls had its advantages, and because of them, she knew every last square inch of the compound, much better than the big boss himself. While Negan was up in his high tower getting pampered by his harem of wives, sleeping in a cozy bed, Sam was on the ground, tracing the floors, learning the dips and grooves, the nooks and crannies, like one would the body of a new lover. She got the upper hand on Negan once and she could do it again.
Outside of the workshop she could hear boots pounding against the linoleum floors; Negan's soldiers taking their battle stations. The doors to the workshop were locked so she didn't need to worry about them coming inside unless she gave them a reason.
She turned back to the power box, her hands at the ready.
'Dwight, anybody got eyes on her yet?'
'Negative, but we're looking.'
'That little bitch almost cracked my fucking skull with a wrench. If she isn't found in the next ten fucking minutes, Lucille is going to start bashing in heads. I want her found. Alive, if you can.'
'Roger that.'
Taking care not to electrocute herself, Sam shut down the power to the Sanctuary entirely. The loss of light echoed throughout the workshop, snapping off with a soft whirl and shrouding everything in darkness. Without the tinnitus-inducing buzz that the fluorescent lights gave off, the storm outside could really be heard, the raindrops hitting the windows hard.
She began pulling out wires, yanking them until they tore in half and leaving them to hang out of the box like a disembowelment. They zapped with lingering electricity when they broke, but they no longer had any live currents flowing through them. She picked up a nearby socket wrench and went at the breakers with it. The switches bent and broke off, falling to the floor as she hit the box with the wrench over and over again. The frustration and stress from her ordeal channeled into the hits and she found herself striking the box harder. Her whole body was put into it with both hands gripping the wrench tight.
Nothing came to mind as she pounded away at the box, no faces appeared behind her eyes as she sent the wrench down. It wasn't catharsis. It was just fear and anger. She didn't stop until her arms ached and she was out of breath. The wrench dropped unceremoniously from her fingers and hit the floor with a loud clang.
Breathing hard, Sam turned away from the ruined box and walked back the way she came. It left her feeling both strangely hollow, and filled to the brim. Complex, conflicting feelings were really the only thing her brain could process. She gave herself the moment to just feel as she walked back across the workshop.
When the moment was over, she thought about what to do next. She had gotten her extra cover so now she needed a distraction. The Sanctuary's kitchen was the first place to come to mind. A wide, open area filled with gas, ovens and cleaning chemicals. She didn't know how she would cause a distraction, but the kitchen would give her a lot to brainstorm with.
She pulled up her mental map of the Sanctuary and traced the possible routes she could take. Synapsis linked and her mind's eye conjured a blueprint of the duct work. With her eyes closed she could see the layout as clearly as if she physically held it in her hands. She focused in on the kitchen and surrounding air shafts. This was one of those rare instances where taking the vents would be a risky move. There were no vents that connected from the east wing to the north wing. She would have to leave one vent and climb into another, but the halls in that area held a lot of the common rooms and could possibly have saviors patrolling them. The fastest and safest route would require her to leave the building, running from the east wing door to the north.
The doors were right outside the main workshop, but Sam hesitated. She could hear the storm on the other side of them. She was more of a creature of the cold than of the heat, given where she hailed from, but thunderstorms and dresses did not mix, and she had nothing dry to change into once she got soaked.
Still, it was no time to be finicky. Soggy boots and underwear could never measure up to the same levels of discomfort as being riddled with bullets. She pushed on the latch bar and stepped out into the storm.
It was raging like a monsoon. Heavy raindrops fell in sheets as lightening ripped through the sky in flashes of white and purple. Thunder cracked, echoing like fireworks into the night. She gasped as the rain hit her body, soaking her in seconds as if she stood under a showerhead on full blast. Her hair became matted, sticking against her forehead and neck like rivulets of black ink. Her breath clouded as it slipped past her lips while the cold nipped at her skin through her rapidly dampening jacket.
Her boots splashed in the puddles as she ran full sprint around the side of the main building. She made for the west wing doors, praying that they would be unlocked as she grabbed the handle and pulled. The corridor was empty. Water dripped from her clothes and pooled into a puddle at her feet, the sound echoing off the walls into the long stretch of shadows like something out of a horror movie. Sam pushed her wet bangs back from her face and reached down to switch her radio back on.
'Simon, what the fuck is going on with the lights? I can't see dick.'
'I don't know. Maintenance, what's happening?'
'We're checking it out now. Standby.'
A sound further down the corridor had Sam switching off the radio, silencing the transmission.
She ducked down in front of the double doors and listened, picking up faint voices. Incomprehensible, even in the harrowing silence of the Sanctuary, but they were coming closer. She looked around the corridor for somewhere to hide. She pushed off the doors and went further in, keeping her hand against the right wall to feel for a door. The voices grew louder as Sam moved on a collusion course with them. Her heart pounded with each step. It was like a twisted game of Chicken. She knew she was leaving behind a trail of water on the floor, but she hoped the darkness would hide it.
With her eyes now adjusted to the darkness, she could just barely see the corridor coming to an end up ahead where the voices would be turning the corner at any second. There was the weak glow of flashlights, getting brighter. Her fingertips touched the cool metal of a door frame and she wasted no time grabbing the doorknob and stepping inside, closing the door behind her just as a trio of saviors rounded the corner.
She sat crouched in the miscellaneous room, staring at the space underneath the door as the voices passed by and flashes of light flickered in time with their footsteps. She caught snippets of their conversation, complaints about having to patrol the grounds in the middle of a storm.
Once she heard the doors close, she switched the radio back on, keeping the volume low as she crept back out into the halls towards the cafeteria.
'Negan, we found the problem. It looks like the power to the main building has been cut.'
'And how in the fuck did that happen?'
The worker in maintenance stammered into the radio, intimidated by Negan. He apologized at length and assured the leader that they would have the lights back on as soon as possible. Negan threatened that they have them back on in the next twenty minutes, or else they would have to explain to Lucille why they weren't working, but that wasn't going to happen. The lights would be out for at least the rest of the night. She yanked out enough wires to keep the power out for days. The power box looked like a bowl of spaghetti when she was finished with it. They would need to replace and rewire everything.
The doors to the cafeteria were locked and she had to track down a vent to get inside. Dropping down into the large room and replacing the grate, she made her way back into the kitchen, pushing through the swinging doors. The area was spotless, with what little light there was reflecting off the stainless steel tables and counters. Sam found a relatively clean looking dish towel hanging on a hook and used it to dab herself down, ringing her wet hair into it and drying off her legs. She then wrung out her jacket and the skirt of her dress into a purge sink so she wouldn't leave behind anymore water trails.
Once she was dry (or rather, less wet), Sam reached into her satchel and rooted around for her pen light. She dug deep, feeling around for the familiar metal of the slim flashlight. When she couldn't find it, she peered through the darkness into her bag to see the light missing from her supplies.
Where was it? She thought back to the last time she used it, down in the basement when she flipped the breaker. It must have fallen out during her struggle with Negan. Great.
Before she could lament the lose of her trusty light, the sound of the double doors opening had Sam ducking for cover. She peeked over the top of one of the tables and saw flashlights coming towards the cooking area. Looking around in a panic for somewhere to hide, the only place was underneath the table in front of her. The darkness of the kitchen would keep her from being spotted, but it still wasn't the most covert place. However, with the swinging door pushing open, Sam didn't have a choice and crawled underneath, pushing herself as far back as she could with her legs tucked underneath her.
There was more than one. Not the same three from before, but still more than just one. She could hear them talking in low tones as they stepped inside, the door swinging closed behind them. She counted two pairs of footsteps patrolling the empty kitchen. One of them passed the opening of the aisle she was hiding on and she saw the unmistakable flash of light reflecting off a blade. From her spot under the table, she could see it in his hand as he passed down at the end. A serrated buck knife held in the palm of fingerless glove.
A whistle sounded out. A two note 'yoohoo', slow and drawn out for dramatic effect. The beams from their flashlights gave away their positions as they searched up and down the aisles, both saviors whistling for her to come out.
Ollie Ollie oxen free, no thank you.
Sam stayed where she was, under the kitchen table as she listened to the footsteps. They walked at a slow pace, almost leisurely up and down the aisles as if they weren't aware that she was in there with them. Somewhere behind her, the second savior tapped the tip of his knife against one of the tables, dragging it across to make it a shriek like nails on a chalkboard. The first savior was all the way by the freezers across the kitchen, but his companion was coming up on Sam's hiding spot. She could hear his boots squeaking against the ground as he approached, whistling as he dragged his knife across another table. Her ears screamed in protest at the shrill noise, but she didn't move.
It took everything in her not to bolt when a pair of legs suddenly appeared in front of her table. Right above her head, the knife came down again, the contact sending vibrations through the stainless steel before running along the length of it, producing another intimidating 'schlik'.
Sam held her breath, reaching up with a hand to cover her mouth as she stared at the pant legs of the savior's trousers. Her heart pounded harder when he didn't move on to the next table like he did the others. In the hand not covering her face, Sam reached into her bag and clutched her shard of broken mirror, readying herself to lash out the second the savior reached underneath to grab her.
He remained idle at the table she hid under and she thought for sure that he knew she was there, except he didn't do anything but stand there. She could hear him tapping both his knife and the fingers of his free hand on the table top to some uneven rhythm, the clicks and clanks of someone absently moving their hands.
After another intense minute, the savior finally moved, letting his knife slid across the table one last time as he continued down the aisle. She listened to him join back up with his companion by the gated off area where the kitchen staff locked up the food. The rattling of the gate and low tones could be heard before both sets of footsteps moved back towards the swinging entrance.
Carefully, Sam crawled out from under the kitchen table and poked her head up over the top. She saw the long beams from their flashlights moving around in the dining area of the cafeteria. She waited until she heard the double doors close before pulling herself back on to her feet. She braced her hands against the table and let out a heavy breath, feeling lightheaded from the close call. If the savior had just been an ounce more invested in their search for the intruder, he would have found her.
A pang along her palm had her uncurling her fingers gripping the piece of mirror. Sam stared down at it with a pensive look, realizing that she had gripped the shard too tight. Red stained the mirror from the new cut on her palm. She watched a large drop of blood pool at the base of the cut before leaking out and running down her wrist. It stung, but she did nothing to starch the bleeding. It ran down her arm and dripped onto the floor. She knew that blood was red, but it looked like a dark green, almost black to her. She wiped her hand off on her dress.
She ransacked the cabinets and drawers of the kitchen, looking for anything she could use for a distraction. Her ears stayed tuned into the sounds outside while her hands searched. In one bottom cabinet, stuffed too deliberately in the far back behind the cooking wine, she found a half empty bottle of whiskey. The golden brown liquid swashed in the bottle as she pulled it out, holding it up.
No doubt it was stashed there by a stressed worker or kitchen staff, too reliant on the alcohol's blissful numbing effect to keep it in their living counters in case a savior came knocking, looking to claim it.
If the situation wasn't so dire, she'd might have felt bad for taking it, but she twisted off the top and grabbed a dish towel before she could think too hard on it. She sat down on the ground, out of sight, placing the bottle in front of her and laying out the towel. Using the shard of mirror, she cut the towel in half, the fabric ripping loudly through the kitchen. She used one half to wrap her bleeding palm, pouring just a little whiskey on it as a crude way of sterilizing the cut. It burned like fire, making her bite hard on her bottom lip keep from making noise. She rocked back and forth as she clutched her hand tight to mute the pain. When the worst it of subsided, she let out a breath and loosened her fingers, using her other hand and her teeth to tie the material into a knot.
The other half of the towel went into the bottle, pushed in until one end stuck out of the neck and the other was soaking in the whiskey. She used the oven burner to light the protruding end of the towel, turning the bottle of whiskey into a Molotov cocktail. Brightness assaulted her sensitive eyesight as the towel caught fire, a burning flower of beauty and death. Sam stepped towards the window that separated the cooking area from the dining, cocking back her arm and taking aim.
The flare of it sailed through the air like a comet as it passed through into the cafeteria. It landed on one of the tables with a shatter. The whiskey spilled out over the tables and floor. The fire followed not a second behind with an audible swoosh as it ignited. Sam gasped at the sight, the expulsion of flames, an array of warm colors she couldn't comprehend. For several seconds she stood there and stared, mesmerized by the brilliant display of fire spreading, burning everything it touched as black smoke wafted up in a thick cloud.
Then she remembered where she was. She ran out of the cooking area and around the burning tables. The double doors slammed opened and she stumbled out into the hallway.
"Hey!"
Her head snapped to the left, seeing the two saviors standing further down that hall, both leaning against the wall with a lit cigarette between them. They stared at each other, Sam with panic and the saviors with bewilderment before realization set in and the savior holding the cigarette dropped it in surprise.
"It's her!" He pulled his knife from his belt.
Sam took off down the hall, not looking back as she heard the men follow her, but as they passed the doors of the cafeteria, they saw the smoke drifting out from underneath and flames through the little windows.
"What the fuck! The kitchen is on fire!"
Without a sense of direction she ran, following the turns of the hall blindly to put as much distance between her and the cafeteria as possible. Once the saviors radioed in, the place was going to be a hot zone (no pun intended). She didn't stop running until she was almost clear across the building. She stopped to catch her breath in an empty hallway, collapsing against the wall. Her breathing was on the verge of becoming painful, but she sucked in mouthfuls anyways, turning her radio back on.
'We got a situation in the kitchen! I repeat, there's a situation in the kitchen! Fire! The place is burning up, we need guys down here ASAP!'
If luck would allow, that would keep the bulk of the saviors occupied for a while.
Once she had her breath back, she pushed off the wall and ran until she found herself somewhere in the south wing.
There was a maintenance room ahead. The next phase of her escape would be to get out of the main building and then out the surrounding fence. It went without saying that she couldn't just waltz right out the front gate. Negan would still have his guards posted there, maybe even more because of the lockdown. The front gate was the only exit in the Sanctuary's perimeter, or at least the only designated one. Though jobs like redirect duty and around-the-clock watches kept the area around the Sanctuary from having too many goblins lurking about, the compound was still only surrounded by a simple chain link fence. The barbed wire running along the top would keep her from climbing over, but if she could get her hands a pair of pliers she could cut her way out.
She rooted around the maintenance room for supplies. As she searched one of the tool tables, her radio buzzed to life again, with a more ominous transmission.
'This is David. Negan, I think I got her. I saw her go into one of the maintenance rooms in the south wing. I'm right outside, waiting on your orders.'
'Knock yourself out, Davey. I'm sending Dwight your way.'
Sam rolled her eyes because this was almost funny. Negan must know, or at least suspect, that she was listening to all their communications because she had taken his radio, thus hearing just as he had heard that the savior was standing outside, and yet had done nothing to warn "Davey". She wondered what Negan was playing at by doing this. His sardonic response didn't do much to convey his faith in his savior. Was he trying to mess with her head? He likened her to a mouse, so did that imply he was the cat in this little chase of theirs? He certainly postured like a tomcat. Flashing his claws and doing as he pleased with his tail hanging up in the air, all attitude and condescendence.
When the door creaked open, she pretended not to hear it, keeping her back turned as she searched the drawers for pliers. There was a pair in the bottom door and she quickly slipped them into her satchel as she listened to the savior creep up behind her. He wasn't as stealthy as he thought. His shoes squeaked against the floor and his jacket made noise whenever he moved his arms. He didn't even seem to notice that she had gone completely still.
She could almost feel the lewd excitement coming off him, hear the elevation in his breathing; the vulgar trepidation. She didn't need to look at his face to know he was getting off on this. Still, she pretended not to hear him, waiting until he drew close enough.
When she felt the shift in the air as he braced himself to jump her, she pivoted to the side, narrowly missing his large body. The savior rammed into the table with a pained yell and fell backwards on to the ground. Sam moved behind one of the metal shelves, using her weight to push it over and on top of him. The tools and boxes on the shelf went crashing to floor as the shelf impacted with a loud bang.
She heard the savior groan, but didn't check to see if he was getting up. She moved to climb over the shelf, jumping on to the table and bracing her arms to lift herself up, swinging her legs and launching herself over. She landed on the ground with a grunt, gracelessly landing on her knees and then her side before scrambling to get back up and out of the room.
Distancing herself from yet another disaster, Sam ran through the halls towards an unknown destination. With cover and distraction out of the way, it was now time for her exit strategy. She needed to think about where the least savior activity would be and where to cut the gate. There was so much to take into consideration, precautions she didn't have the time to take and limited resources.
Sam was a planner by nature, but none of this was even in the same realm as her comfort zone. It was one step at a time. It had to be that way, otherwise the mere thought of living outside the walls of the Sanctuary could have her reconsidering escaping. It hadn't crossed her mind until then that maybe turning herself over really was the lesser of two evils. There was the possibility that this wasn't a situation of choosing whether to live or die, but rather choosing one death over another. To die one way that might be quick and painless, as opposed to dying another way that might be slow and horrible, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire or the jumpers of 9/11. Choosing to either jump to your death or stay trapped inside a building on fire, ready to collapse into a smoldering pile of ashes.
Her choice was either Negan or the goblins, and she wondered which one would be the equivalent of burning to death.
'Negan, this is Dee over in the south wing. Davey's down and the girl is gone. No sign of where she went.'
'You bunch of useless pussies. She's just one girl, how the fuck is this so hard?'
The furnace room would have to be her exit point. There were so many transmissions coming through the radio with saviors from all over the compound constantly reporting in to Negan, it was impossible to tell just where everyone was, and more importantly, where they weren't. It was reported by Davey that he had been in the south wing so that was the last reported sighting of her. The saviors who weren't battling the fire in the cafeteria were going to converge there and then branch out. The furnace room was on the opposite side of the compound with its own exit to the outside.
'And while we're on the fucking subject, can any of you jerkoffs explain to me just how the fuck this bitch was able to merrily tap dance around my Sanctuary, right under your fucking noses? Or how she fucking managed to get her hands on a goddamn gun? Somebody is going to get their fucking head caved in for this.'
Through all of this she wondered where Negan was.
She could hear him on the radio, but where was he in the compound? If she knew then she would steer clear of it, treating it like a hot zone for a deadly disease. Because that was what he was, really. A disease. Him and his saviors. If she were in the headspace for it, Sam would have contemplated (not for the first time) the philosophy behind this new world, of what really constituted as the greatest threat, the goblins or the people, but good Lord was it the most inopportune moment to digress in her own head.
She supposed it was better than thinking of the alternative, like her death, but that usually followed thoughts of new world philosophy anyways so she was really only doing it for the reprieve.
'We've lost all visuals on her, sir.'
Static spilled from the speaker with something that sounded like a sigh. 'If you want something fucking done right around this shithole, I guess you've gotta do it yourself.'
Sam chose not to dwell on what that might mean. Somewhere ahead she heard more noises and she moved into another room, this time a small mop closet that smelled heavily of bleach and disinfectant. She pressed her back against the wall and slid down to the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest.
Her radio sat tucked between her thighs and chest on low volume as it reported the ongoings of the Sanctuary. The fire in the cafeteria was still going, but was controlled, not reaching further than the cafeteria. Other than a few tables, there was no significant damage. Dwight reported in on Davey's condition; unconscious but still breathing with no signs of serious injury (more's the pity), and Simon relayed that they were coming up with nothing in their search for Sam. Throughout Negan remained suspiciously silent.
She sat in the closet, breathing in and out slowly as she waited for the hall to clear. Her eyes closed and she leaned her head back. Overwhelming exhaustion was beginning to pull her under. The night was still far from over and she wondered how much mileage her body had left before it crashed.
'Hey Samantha,' Negan's voice came through the speaker, 'are you listening?'
She looked down at the radio in her lap.
'I know you are.'
His tone was teasing as he spoke to her, his chuckles fringed with static. She heard a familiar clicking somewhere in the background and it took a few seconds to recognize her pen light. Negan must have picked it up from where she had dropped it in the basement. In her mind's eye she could see him holding it in his hand as he talked into the radio with that condescending smirk on his face, his thumb pressing the button on top and making the light flicker.
'If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is your game plan here, little mouse? Even if you manage to make it out of the compound, which is sure as shit unlikely, how far do you think you're going to get before me and my boys catch up to you, huh? You've got, what? A handgun with no extra ammo, a little bag of toys, no supplies. You have a better chance turning yourself over to me than you do out there. I'm giving you a way of out this that doesn't have to end with your guts being torn out of your stomach. I suggest you take it.'
Was he the twenty-seventh story drop onto hard concrete or the burning flames and suffocating smoke? She wanted to ask but didn't. The clicking stopped and the radio beeped, the transmission cut off.
Sam stood up and left the closet. The halls were silent again and she continued towards the furnace room. It wasn't until she was right outside the double doors that she heard another noise. Footsteps. One pair, far in the distance, but not too far that the owner won't hear Sam opening the doors, so she stayed where she was. Her hand rested on the latch bar while her other held the radio. She stood unmoving, waiting for something to happen. The footsteps were still there, but it didn't sound like they were coming in her direction. It was more like they were pacing. Moving up and down the halls in a leisurely stride. Whistling started up again, but it was a cheery tone, not the trademark, two-note call of the saviors.
It was several minutes until something finally happened. She heard a beep, recognizing another radio. She waited, listening...listening...
A shrill cry erupted from her radio, making her almost drop it.
It ripped through the silence like a serrated knife through flesh. Her hands scrambled to get her grip back and switch it off, silence taking over again. Her heart skipped a beat and panic made her break out in a cold sweat. She listened again, praying that whoever was lurking hadn't heard the cry of feedback.
The footsteps stopped, lingering for a long moment before turning with a squeak against the linoleum and walking back in the other direction, the owner whistling again with an air of nonchalance. Sam listened to them walk further away until the sound of a door opening and closing was heard. She reached down to turn her radio back on, dreading to hear someone reporting suspicious activity near the furnace room, but she only heard Negan's voice coming through the speakers, talking directly to her again.
'This really doesn't have to be this way, you know. I know I fucking suck at making good first impressions, but I can be a very reasonable guy once you get to know me. Honest.'
She ignored him and his succinct words. She knew how he liked to operate, how he opted to manipulation once he realized he couldn't use his intensive power to intimidate, or his men to physically force someone into submission. He had no idea how long she had been inside his Sanctuary. He would find out soon enough, she didn't doubt that, but for right now he couldn't even begin to comprehend just how much she knew and understood (not condoned, mind) how he led his community. Sam had spent a fair enough time reading about famous historical tyrants and dictators. If Negan thought what he was doing here was anything groundbreaking, then he was dead wrong.
Nihil novi sub sole. There is nothing new under the sun.
'Come on, Sam.'
She stepped into the furnace room, seeing an exit door at the top of the platform. She ran across the room with her sights zeroed in on the door, mounting the steps leading up to the platform.
'Let's be friends.'
Her body slammed against the door's latch bar, throwing it open as she burst out of the building and into the wet night. The rain had lessened to a light drizzle and for a split, foolish second, she dared to see it as the proverbial dawn.
Her vision was tunneled, keeping her from seeing the figure standing against the wall next to the door, waiting. He dropped the radio he was holding and lunged at Sam's exposed back.
A hand grabbed her arm from behind, yanking her backwards. She screamed at the assault as she fought against the iron grip, realizing her mistake a moment too late. An arm wrapped around her waist and gripped her hard. It curled around her stomach, pushing in painfully and causing her breathing to hitch. She struggled as she felt herself being pulled backwards into something solid. Her arms and legs thrashed and she yelled in protest, fighting like a wild animal for freedom.
Through her struggles she felt the person holding her lean in close from behind. Warm breath ghosted over her neck, clouding the cold night air in puffs of white that churned like riptides.
"Gotcha," a voice said, the feeling of coarse facial hair scratching her cheek.
Negan's hand came up to her face. His palm covered her mouth while his fingers held her nose closed, cutting off her oxygen. Her suffocation alarm went off immediately when his vice grip tightened on her face. She clawed at his hand in blind panic, but he didn't relent, even as her nails embedded themselves into the rough skin of his hand. They moved down his forearm, but bit into thick leather. She yanked at his arm, hoping to pull it away from her mouth long enough to take a breath. Her legs kicked in desperation as she tried throwing her weight back into him, to throw him off balance, but Negan was a brick wall behind her, solid and immovable. He was holding nothing back.
Her vision began to blacken around the edges as her lungs contracted inside her ribcage. Tears pooled at the corner of her eyes from fear as her mind screamed in agony, begging for this not to be the end. She didn't want to die. She wasn't ready to die. Negan was going to take it all away. He was going to pinch his thumb and forefinger against her flame and snuff it out like it was nothing. She would die with her body pressed back into his and the smell of his cologne in her nose. Her nails dug in deeper and she kicked her legs harder in a last-ditch effort to get Negan to let go until she started losing the ability to move her limbs. Conscious thought began to abandoned her, leaving behind a heralding lightheadedness and loss of self.
Just as she thought her lungs would collapse in on themselves, she vaguely felt the hand slip from her face. Negan had released her and she could breath again, but she knew she was still going to lose consciousness. His arm around her waist loosened. The pull of gravity and her body's own unwillingness to move had her falling to the ground. However, just as she expected to feel the hard impact of concrete face first, Negan grabbed her and lowered her down with a surprising gentleness that she was unable to comprehend in her air-deprived state of mind. Everything felt muddled and sounded distant, like floating underwater.
Negan put her on her back. The cold from the ground seeped up through her already wet clothes, chilling her skin further. Raindrops hit her face without hindrance as her arms laid useless at her sides. She looked up at the night sky with half-lidded eyes, her mouth open just a bit as air gradually filled her lungs again. The glare from the outdoor light above the door saturated her view with a color she saw as an acidic green until Negan stepped into her view. Because of the light behind him, she only saw him as a black figure, his face barely distinguishable as he stood over her.
In her last moments of consciousness, she watched him reach down and take her satchel from her. He opened it and picked through its contents. If she had the capability then she would have felt helpless watching him touch her stuff, but her vision was getting darker and she couldn't stave it off. He took out the gun and held it in his hand, giving it a curious look before grinning down at Samantha with a wicked smile. He tucked the gun into the front of his pants before dropping her bag to the ground with a wet thud.
"You really should have taken that fucking shot," he said, "because you're mine now."
His words followed her into darkness as she finally let go and oblivion took her.
AN: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Make sure you let me know what you think of it. Feedback is very much appreciated and it lets me know that you guys want more. I guess, technically, Negan wasn't in it much again, but at least he was there in spirit, and in radio. He'll most certainly be in next chapter a lot.
This chapter was pretty lengthy, so if you came across a grammar mistake or whatever in the material, let me know in a review and I'll fix it. Thanks!
~Scorpiofreak~