Sadie's POV

When we finally arrived back at Alexandria, a man who I'd seen maybe once or twice before….Tobin, I think his name was, pulled open the gate to let us in.

Behind him, stood a small crowd of others.

"Lose the car?" He asked after taking a quick glance behind us.

"Nah, it's somewhere safe." I reassured him.

"So, you didn't find anything?"

"No, but listen, we have to get everyone ready- " I started to tell him before getting interrupted by the sudden roaring of engines which were rapidly making their way through the gates.

"T, where's that asshole's bat?" I asked Theresa, who I'd just noticed was standing off to the side with Alex.

"Right where you left it, why?"

I nodded, watching as the assholes proceeded to park their trucks in the near distance. "Go get it and bring it back to me, Gareth can take Alex for now."

"Okay." She handed Alex, who lit up at the sight of us, over to Gareth before taking off in the other direction just as a group of those assholes was heading right towards us…..minus one.

"Sadie! Hello!" One of the uglier ones, who seemed to be leading the rest of the group, called out abruptly. "...and hello again!"

"You!" I called back, as I approached him. "I don't believe we've met, where's your better looking leader? Doesn't he usually come to these little show offs, or did I just scare away whatever was left of his dignity?"

"Ohh, he told me you were somethin!" The bastard chuckled, a little too amused for my liking. "What? Do you think we're here for a tribute?"

"Better not be!" I scoffed. "A little early for what me and your precious little leader agreed on, don't you think?" I folded my arms across my chest.

"Indeed it would be!" He agreed, a little too eagerly. "Good thing we're just here for Daryl!"

"I was told Negan took Daryl, just a while before my family and I got here." I half lied, as if I was confused by the accusation. "Kinda a dick move, don't you think?"

"Mmmm, he did…..BUT, then you and the boy showed up, Daryl went missing….. Might those two things be connected?"

I approached him, more slowly, til I was right up in his face.

"Are you insinuating I'd lie to you?" I accused. "...I thought your precious little leader thought more highly of women."

He chuckled again. "So, you really wouldn't know where he is then?"

"No. We didn't even know he was gone until just now." I lied. "...matter of fact, I'd be surprised if he does ever show up here. He doesn't really like me too much"

He grinned, just a little too quick to eat that shit up. "Then this should be easy!"

He turned to address the rest of the crowd, along with his own gang.

"Now, everyone find a buddy! Gonna have to follow us around. If he is here, we really need you all to see him die!"

Oh, goodie. Another joy, right off the bat…..so to speak.

I decided to humor him and the rest of the bastard's little goons as they paraded themselves throughout the place, staying just ahead of us as they ransacked each place we hit until we reached the pantry, where Theresa managed to discreetly return to me with the bat.

"Thanks, T." I said under my breath, just loud enough that only she should hear, as I took it back from her.

"Of course." She replied, just as quietly, half smiling as she glanced back at Alex, who was settled comfortably in Gareth's arms just behind us. "You want me to take Alex back to the house?"

"He'll be fine. Besides, I've got a plan."

She nodded, just as the bastard started whistling, bringing our attention to the concerningly empty shelves in front of us.

"Wow…" The bastard declared, as if we couldn't see it with our own eyes. "These are some bare shelving units. You guys have a barbecue or something and not invite us?

Seriously, this is sad!"

Theresa and I exchanged looks before I looked back over to Aaron, who clearly didn't have anymore of an explanation for this than we did.

"...Hope you're not trying to hide stuff from us…" The bastard continued. "….'cause that generally doesn't go over very well."

Aaron was clearly scrambling his thoughts together, fumbling for words as he tried to come up with a decently believable explanation for the time being.

"We have a lot of people…" He panicked, trying desperately not to show it.

"It's... getting harder to find stuff, and our focus lately has been on finding things

that Negan might want. We're still adjusting to the new system."

Could've come up with something that was a little less kiss assy, but I digressed.

It was something.

"Provided your precious little leader sticks to the schedule, and recovers the balls to show his own face around here, he might just find something to his liking." I added, stepping closer to him again. "..within the terms of our agreement, that is.

"Awww!" His voice, more condescending now, as he folded his arms up over one of the bare selves in front of him. "Relax! We're not here for a pick-up." He glanced around again, as if to reconfirm. "Good thing…..But that day is coming, so you best do whatever you need to. Dig deep! Go the extra mile, take some risks!"

"I've told you I'm a woman of my word….ah…"

"Simon." He finished for me.

"Simon….right, I figured it was something stupid like that." I chuckled. "Well, Simon….I told you I'm a woman of my word, so why don't you do us both a favor by not insulting myself or embarrassing yourself any further and just take that word for it?"

"Sure thing." He chuckled, less than convincingly. That shit-eating grin of his, still smug on his face.

"Thank you for the cooperation, Sadie!" He announced as we walked them back out toward the gate. "My apologies for leaving the place a bit of a mess, but we got a litany of other shit to attend to! So do you, I guess."

A large pickup truck pulled up just as he started to walk off, just before he stopped dead in his track at a sudden realization

"Oh! Right…" He chuckled, spinning around to make his way back over to me.

"Gonna be needing Lucille back. Leader's orders, you know." He added, mocking my earlier leader remarks.

I placed the bat, very obviously and very carefully over my left shoulder as I held my stare back at him. "Well then, your leader can come back and retrieve her himself."

"That wasn't a request." He insisted, a little more sternly.

"Neither was mine." I replied just as coldly. "I don't even bow to your precious little leader, let alone your sorry ass, so this is gonna go one of two ways…"

His stare, turning into more of a glare that matched my own.

"...either you're gonna take these fucks with you, and leave here like a man…."

I held my free arm out, motioning for Gareth to bring Alex closer and hand him over to me. "...or you're gonna take Lucille with you and leave here a coward, having threatened a woman for it in front of her two year old child….which, I'm sure will go over just swell with your precious leader, when he does show back up here for pick up and hear aaalll about it."

Alex looked a little uneasy at first, but calmed down more, once he was snuggled more closely against me in my arm.

"Now, which is it?"

He just looked at Alex, then at the small crowd watching us, then back at me.

"...You just let us know if Daryl does come crawling back here." He finally said before turning to walk back to his truck, boasting a little more loudly again as he went, as if he hadn't just made an absolute embarrassment of himself. "…if he does turn up here…..two days from now, two months from now...hell, two years from now, just know there's no statute of limitations on this. Keep that hatchet handy. You're gonna need it if he turns up with you people." He and whoever was next to him, in the driver's seat, took off after that, followed shortly by the rest of the others.

"What happened to the pantry?" I finally asked, once those assholes were out of sight and the gate shut behind them.

"We don't know." Aaron answered. "...and we need to talk about Gabriel."

"Well, where is he?"

"He was on watch the night you all went to scavenge." Tobin explained. "I was supposed to take over for him in the morning. He wasn't at his post, pantry was cleared out, and a car was gone."

"No one's seen him since." Eric added.

"That son of a bitch." Theresa scoffed. "He stole our shit and ran."

"That's... what it looks like." Tobin sighed.

"Well, I don't want to believe it. I don't believe it. That's not Gabriel, he wouldn't do that to us." Michonne defended.

"You got a better explanation then?" Theresa argued.

We followed the group back to Gabriel's house to look through it, see if we could find something that might tell us what the hell he was thinking and where he might've gone after that.

"I can't believe he would just take our stuff and go." Tara said as I looked the room over. "...I mean that's not who he is."

"Well…" Michonne recalled. "...he saw Deanna and Spencer die right in front of him."

"I know. I just…" Tara sighed. "He found his courage, you know? I wanted to believe he held onto it."

"Why wouldn't he have taken this with him?" I interjected, holding up a bible I'd found just lying on the floor. "Why would he leave it just lying on the floor?"

"There weren't tracks out there before, we didn't find anything now. Maybe Daryl

could've picked something up." Aaron added when he and Eric re entered the room.

Meanwhile, I'd decided to skim through this little bible of his for some kind of clue.

Far be it from any bat-shit Christian I'd ever known to fuck up their precious little prized possession, but I still couldn't rule it out. From the few encounters I'd had with the man, I always got the sense that he was different.

"He left." Theresa insisted. "He didn't leave a note, he obviously doesn't wanna be found."

"Yes he does." I observed, stumbling on a short note I'd found in the back of a notebook that I'd moved onto, just next to it.

I held it up as all eyes, now curious, throughout the group were on me.

Aaron approached closer upon the find, taking a closer look at it.

"How would he know we were out there?" He asked, somewhat suspiciously.

"I don't know." I admitted.

After deciding to take our little search party a step further, outside the gates, in hopes of tracking him down….or at the very least finding just a little more to go on, we didn't make it very far before another, even larger, group collectively stepped out from hiding and surrounded us.

Yeah…..this should be fun.