AN: Here we go, another chapter here. Plenty more to come.

I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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"They just leave him fucking hanging up there for half a day!" Alice ranted. "Snarling and snapping. Besides the fact that it's the most disrespectful thing that they could do, they don't even stop to think about how damn dangerous it is! As hard as everyone's worked to get the Dead population under control and if he had fallen in either direction he could have done some damage and started an epidemic right here inside the walls of Woodbury because those assholes wanted to make a show of things."

Carol might have pointed out to Alice that the Wild—who had died after he'd busted out the window in his house, climbed the fence, and essentially gutted himself on the barbed wire at the top where he'd gotten hung—probably wouldn't have done much walking if he'd fallen in any direction, but she realized that wasn't going to make the situation any better. Alice was mad about a number of things and this was simply the one that she was latching onto to let off a little steam.

Carol had seen the man, turned and snarling from his location atop the fence, on her way to work while some of the workers in the community had been trying to figure out how to get him down. Her only relief was that she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he hadn't been Daryl's brother because he hadn't fit Daryl's description in the slightest. Now the "Pen" was under an even stricter lockdown than it had been and the fence—which Carol had thought might be electric but clearly wasn't—was going to be electrically charged.

They were out from under the community-wide lockdown now and, back to work, Alice and Carol were waiting on the new arrivals. One at a time, accompanied by armed guards, each of the new Wilds would be brought in for Alice to examine. Carol was being allowed to stay, but only under the stipulation that she keep out of the way when Alice told her that was what was best.

If she was lucky, Carol would get the chance to at least see Daryl's brother within the next few days—whenever he might make it in for an examination—and if she was really lucky, she might even get to speak with him.

She hadn't brought it up to Alice yet, though, because she could see that the woman was already dealing with enough frustration over the whole situation.

"They can't treat them like that," Alice said. "They're fucking people. Murderers or psychos or whatever—they're not making it any better. That's why the hell we had to have the sandwiches."

Carol hummed at Alice. The sandwiches. The people at the mess hall had looked at Carol like she was insane when she'd come carrying her orders from Dr. Walker that they provide her with twenty five sandwiches and twenty bottles of water post-haste and before they'd even finished serving breakfast to everyone. But the moment that Alice had been made aware, via a phone call from Samirah, that the inmates hadn't been fed in a day or so, she'd decided that if they got nothing else out of their visit with her they would at least get some food.

"They'll appreciate the sandwiches," Carol said.

"From the looks of them," Alice said, "and this is only from a distance, I would imagine they'd appreciate just about anything. When one of the guards told me they were taking the body out, do you know what he asked me?"

"What?" Carol asked, not wanting to use too many words lest she say the wrong thing.

"He asked me if he should just go ahead and shoot one of the women to keep things even or if I thought that, since they're animals, we could just put them all together and see how things worked out with getting her covered too," Alice said.

"Are they going to shoot her?" Carol asked. Alice narrowed her eyes at her.

"No," Alice said. "They're not going to shoot her. They're not going to do anything with her. Not right now. They're part of the project but Milton doesn't know if they'll really work out or not. We don't know anything about them. We don't even know what being the wildest Wilds really even means. Right now we've got enough houses to keep them all separate and that's what we're doing until we know more."

"So why bring them to Woodbury?" Carol asked. "If they might not work for the project?"

"Because the alternative was death," Alice said. "They're taking every excuse they can find to kill inmates right now. The max prisons are the worst. They'll kill them for chewing with their mouths open. We wanted to move more of them out earlier but—ten is all we could get."

Carol might have pressed for more information, or even broached the subject of Daryl's brother, seeing that Alice was open and ready to speak to her, but they were interrupted with a knock at the door. Rather than waiting for Alice to open the door, a burly guard came in like he was raiding the place. Carol didn't recognize him and assumed he might be one of the ones that came with the new inmates. She backed up a little, out of instinct, and put some distance between herself and the man.

"Got a damn bite!" He barked, practically thrusting his arm at Alice. She immediately went for gloves and then stood in front of him to examine the wound.

"Dead or alive?" Alice asked.

"What?" He asked.

"I'm assuming it was a person who bit you," Alice said. "Were they dead or alive?"

"Alive! One of them damn wild-ass fucking animals. Tried to get her out of the house and she bit me," the officer said. He looked at Carol. He stared at her while Alice was gathering supplies to treat the obviously minor wound. Still looking at her, he grinned. "I hope I knocked every damn tooth she's got loose, too, when I busted her in the mouth for acting like that."

He spat when Alice cleaned the wound—and Carol bit the inside of her cheek because she could tell the woman wasn't being nearly as gentle as she could.

"Whoops," Alice said. "Sorry. Smarts a little. There—that's all it needs. Barely broke the skin. Just—keep it clean. Watch it for infection."

"What if I catch something?" He asked.

"You won't," Alice said.

"She wild?" He asked, gesturing his head toward Carol.

"Not nearly as wild as some of the people I've seen in uniform," Alice responded.

"You hang around with them, you could catch something," the officer informed the doctor.

"Not likely," Alice said. "I've been pissed on, shit on, bitten, and bled on. And the most I've caught is a cold. Are you bringing the woman in?"

"Not getting near that bitch again," the officer said. "Richardson's bringing her in. He's outside."

"All the better," Alice responded. "Watch for infection. You come back and see me if it gets bad."

She turned and rolled her eyes at Carol as the man left the office. Not a full moment later, the door opened again and two more of the new officers came in—one of them Carol assumed was Richardson—each holding one arm of a woman who didn't weigh half as much as either of them. She was shackled, blindfolded, still wearing one of the metal collars around her neck, and fighting around a gag in her mouth—but it was clear that they feared her as she fought against them.

"Is all this necessary?" Alice asked, gesturing at the overkill of the woman's restraints and limitations.

"Blindfold is to keep them disoriented," one of the officers said. "Gag is because she bit someone already. Everything else is standard."

"Oh! So you're our biter!" Alice said, almost sounding pleased with the woman. "Help her to the chair over there, please. I'd like to talk to her before I examine her. You can leave her with me if you want. Wait outside. I'll tell you if I need you."

The officer cleared his throat.

"No ma'am," he said. "Orders are that at least one of us has to stay the whole time."

Alice looked between them.

"Then you stay," she said. "I won't be needing both of you. And neither will she. Inmate—I need you to cooperate, OK? If you'll cooperate, I can promise you that nobody is going to hurt you. We only want to help you, but I've got to examine you."

The officer that was dismissed, who hadn't bothered to speak to any of them yet, took his leave with the same silence that he'd guarded the entire time he'd been present. The other held to the arm of the woman who was, at the moment, standing perfectly still even if she was panting around the gag. Slipping his fingers into her collar to take more control of her, the officer started to lead her to the chair that Alice had indicated and the woman lunged backward, trying to knock him down. Being a great deal smaller than him in any way possible, she did little more than shove him backward. Still, Carol moved into the farthest corner that she could and put greater distance between herself and the possible problem. Alice went directly to her cabinet.

"Hold her," Alice said. "I'll sedate her. I'm sorry. I didn't want to have to do this. I wanted us to do this a much nicer way..."

The sedative started working almost immediately and the officer was able to get the woman into the chair. Alice rolled the small table around that she used in the main part of the office and pulled a chair up to sit near the woman. "You can go have a seat or something now," Alice said. "She's not going anywhere." The officer, Richardson as Carol was calling him in her mind, took Alice up on the offer and moved across the room to sit in a metal chair that made him look like he'd been sent to the corner in kindergarten. Alice waved at Carol and invited her over. It seemed that the woman had given up on fighting for the moment.

Alice moved and carefully slipped her fingers under the blindfold of the woman and the woman fought her as best she could by trying to shake her face from side to side. All that it accomplished, really, was helping Alice to loosen the blindfold. She pulled it away and the woman stared at her and then glanced at Carol.

"If you don't fight," Carol offered, "then we'll help you. I promise. I know—I was there too. I'm tame, but I was wild." She felt she didn't need to point out that, perhaps, they were at different ends of the wildness spectrum if such a thing existed.

"If you can keep yourself from biting anyone," Alice said. "Then I'll take the gag off. Can you not bite me?" The woman looked quickly back and forth between them and Alice posed the question to her once more. Finally, she nodded at Alice. And, true to her nod, she didn't move at all until Alice had removed the gag and pulled her hands away to put some distance between them. "I'll get your hands loose, too," Alice offered. "If you can stay here. But—you should know that if you try to run? That man over there will probably kill you and there's nothing I can do about it. Can I un-cuff you?" The woman offered another nod and Alice got up. Carol watched her as she went and started to argue with the officer over the handcuff keys that he didn't want to give her.

Deciding to make some friends for herself, and figuring the sandwiches were just as much hers to give as anyone else's, Carol got up and got one from the bag she'd brought them in. Immediately it was clear that she had the attention of the woman. She didn't get out of the chair, and probably couldn't have, but she did lean up a little and look at what Carol held in her hand.

"Are you hungry?" Carol asked.

The woman stared at her, mouth open, but couldn't seem to pull her eyes away from the food. If it was true what they said, though, she'd been without food for a day or two, maybe more. Carol glanced at Alice and the officer, both of them locked up in discussion over how to proceed from here and neither of them paying her any attention, and she unwrapped the sandwich.

"Are you hungry?" She repeated, catching the eyes of the woman that she was truly beginning to believe might be wild. The woman nodded. She licked her lips and seemed to realize, from a look that registered on her face, that the corner of her mouth was bleeding. She moved a little in the chair, inching her body closer to Carol and closer to the food. Carol reached for a tissue from Alice's table and, catching it, she gingerly dabbed at the woman's bleeding mouth. Rather than try to bite her, as Carol worried she might, the woman froze and stared hard at Carol. "Your lips are bleeding," Carol said to her. "If you don't try to bite me, I'll feed you this sandwich while they argue about letting you have your hands. Deal? I'll feed you and you won't bite me?"

Carol's new friend nodded enthusiastically at her and Carol offered her the sandwich. Carefully the woman bit the corner off the sandwich. It was clear that she was trying, without being exactly certain where Carol's fingers were, to keep her teeth far from Carol's skin. She almost swallowed what she got whole, though, and Carol's stomach ached at the sight of her. She didn't care if she got bitten—she was suddenly desperate to feed the woman.

"Bite again," she offered, putting the sandwich to the woman's lips. "But don't choke." The woman bit into the sandwich again and Alice approached, tapping Carol on the shoulder and startling her. "She was starving," Carol said.

"That's what the sandwiches are for," Alice offered. "Can I have my seat?"

Carol got up and the woman, open-mouthed, followed Carol's movements. She let out the first sound that she'd made since she'd gotten into the office—almost a howl—at the thought of losing the food that she'd just gained and leaned around the side of her own chair to follow Carol with her eyes as Carol gave Alice some room.

"Just a minute," Carol said, worrying a little because she almost felt like she was talking to the animal that they told her this woman might be. "We're not taking it away."

"I'm just going to unlock your hands," Alice said. "And then you can feed yourself with some dignity. Won't that be a nice change of pace?"

But when she reached her hand behind the woman, meaning to push her forward and unlock the cuffs, the woman snatched in Alice's direction and very nearly head-butted her. She missed only because, in her slight stupor, she'd failed to guess the distance between them correctly.

"What the hell!" Alice barked at her. "You can't act like that! Nobody is doing a thing to you! If I'm going to do nice things for you, then you're going to have to be nice to me! I was going to let you loose!"

Alice was clearly surprised by the woman's action. The woman's movement had startled Carol, too, because she'd somewhat smashed the sandwich in her hand when she jumped. The woman, though, appeared just as surprised as either of them.

"I'm sorry!" She said quickly. "I'm—I'm sorry!"

It was the first indication that she even had the ability to speak. And when the words came out of her mouth, a different quality to their sound than Carol was accustomed to, Alice made eye contact with Carol. Carol didn't know, though, what her expression was supposed to communicate.

Alice caught the woman's face in her hand.

"What's your name?" Alice asked. The woman didn't respond and Alice shook her face a little. "Tell me. What's your name? Speak to me—inmate."

"Sadie," the woman finally offered. Alice glanced back at Carol, but Carol was still not sure what she was supposed to be doing. Sadie, as she called herself, decided to speak again. This time without prompting. "Can I have the food? Please?"

Alice looked back at her.

"One condition," Alice said. Sadie nodded at her enthusiastically. She'd take whatever condition Alice had for her. "Tell me if you can hear me right now." Sadie shook her head. Alice nodded hers in response. "I'm going to unlock your hands. If you sit still, you can have the sandwich. You can have two or three—if you want them. Deal?"

"Deal," Sadie offered, leaning up and looking toward Carol again to keep track of the food. Carol stepped forward and offered her the sandwich the moment that she had a hand free. She was eating, cramming large bites into her mouth, before Alice ever got the cuffs off the other hand.

"What does it mean, Alice?" Carol asked.

"It means we don't have a single damn idea what gets you qualified as the wildest animal out there," Alice said, sitting back in her chair. "But we're about to find the fuck out one victim at a time. And I've got a pretty good idea that it's going to make us both every bit as sick as anything else has. Can you hand me another sandwich and some water? This one isn't going to go far."