Anna laid out the large paper on the ground, flattening out the folds. She'd taken Jesus's map of Sanctuary and scaled it up to fit more detail. With a pen, she glanced through the wood planks in the window, determining where the annexes and debris were, before drawing them out on the map. She took a bullet from her pocket and placed it in the rectangle that represented the annex Gabriel had taken refuge in.
She chewed on the dead skin of her bottom lip, studying the map, as if the lines on the paper would somehow reveal the perfect plan to her. Truth was, she didn't have many options. The only thing she could think of was ordering the snipers to her position and clearing a path for Gabriel, but she had no way to communicate that plan to him. Even if they could pull it off, he'd lead the herd away from the Sanctuary—if they didn't deplete the herd numbers too much.
Taking the walkie from her belt, Anna brought it to her face.
"Snipers, report. How's it lookin'?"
-"East is good. Got some looky-loos in the windows, but nobody's trying anything," - Donny called back.
-" We're good on the West side," - Jason reported.
-" Clear on the North side," - Claudia added.
"Anybody tries anything, fire on them—do not kill," Anna said.
She tapped the antenna against her chin, still surveying the map.
-" How are we going to get Gabriel out of there?" - Claudia asked.
Anna said nothing for a moment and sighed heavily.
-"We have a job to do," - Jason said. -"Gabriel is just gonna have to hold on until the Saviors surrender."-
-" That could be days," - Claudia argued.
"We'll figure something out. For now, focus on the task at hand," Anna said into the walkie before clipping it to her belt.
Anna gathered her bullet and map, folding the paper into a rectangle the size of her hand and tucking it back into her satchel. She sat back in the chair and readied her rifle, peering through the scope.
As she watched the herd writhing in the courtyard, her mind wandered to the last herd she'd seen—the one that had gotten into Alexandria. She thought of how Rick, Michonne, and Jessie had run into the infirmary wearing bedsheets and walker guts.
She pulled the walkie from her belt again.
"I have an idea."
Daryl and Rick moved through the office building, weapons at the ready as they came at a T in the hallway.
"You signal if they're already inside. We'll be there," Rick ordered, sending the three men who had come with them down the hall leading to the front of the building.
"Come on. Let's find them guns," Daryl called quietly, leading the way forward.
They checked room after room as they made their way through the first floor. Rick went around the corner as Daryl checked the last room, finding it void of any guns. Frustrated, he went to join Rick, who quickly aimed his rifle at him before relaxing.
"Ain't on this floor," Daryl said.
"Only option is up," Rick sighed.
"High ground. Good cover," Daryl agreed.
"Yeah, I'd put 'em up there, too," Rick nodded, tucking some papers into his breast pocket.
"Stairs," Daryl said, going toward the door.
He rattled the knob, but the door didn't budge. It was locked down. He reeled back and kicked at the door, trying to force it open.
"Don't waste the energy," Rick said, grabbing Daryl's shoulder.
Daryl huffed and stepped away from the doors.
"Looks like we're takin' the elevator," Rick said, a light note to his tone.
The two went to the elevator doors and pulled them apart, revealing the empty shaft. Daryl leaned in, looking down first to see that the elevator car was settled on the level below them, then up to see the nineteen floors above them.
"You ready?" Rick asked, slinging his rifle around to his back.
Daryl hummed in response, pulling his crossbow strap over his head and pushing it to his back. They began their climb, their grunts the only sound echoing in the elevator shaft. They didn't want to expend their energy on talking.
Isaac leaned back in his chair at the end of the table, his back to the door as he continued picking the small shards of glass from his hair. He grimaced as he let the little pieces fall to the ground.
"We have to assume Negan's dead," Regina said from the other side of Gavin.
"I'm Negan," Simon responded immediately. "And as I understand it, everyone in this room is. Now, I realize there's a lot of stress in the air, but just to clarify, are you saying you're someone else, Regina?"
"No," Regina said calmly.
Isaac, still picking at his hair, gave a low hum.
"Good," Simon said.
Regina turned to face the rest of the room, "We should send the fence crew out. Grab a few others, we get forty workers, standing back to back. We get them out with pipes. They clear a path, just enough for a small team—"
"Inadequate," Eugene said, staring at the table like he was going to be sick.
"What?" Regina snapped.
"Inadequate," Isaac echoed, slower so that Regina understood.
She shot him a glare.
"The numbers you suggest aren't adequate," Eugene elaborated. "Given the current SRO density of the herd surrounding us, forty workers armed with melee weapons in the formation you propose would be overcome, closed in on, and macked upon within a few minutes."
"Yeah. That's right," Regina said, as if it should have been obvious. "We use the workers as a distraction to get a small team past the herd. They can warn the outposts and then come back with the Fat Lady."
"Add to the approach's slim chances of success, it's likely the play would lead to widespread unrest, pittin' the workers against the soldiers when we're runnin' out of food and fuel, upsettin' our already precarious apple cart," Eugene said.
"Maybe," Regina started, leaning forward, "all we need to do is put you out there, Eugene. Maybe it would motivate the answer man to come up with a solution."
"Regina, he's right," Dwight said. "The workers have the numbers, and we need to keep them on our side."
"We need to keep them in line," Simon corrected.
"In line, on our side—either way, we can't risk a coup," Isaac said, brushing his hair back. "And we don't want to waste any bullets."
"Even if we get a few of ours out and somehow clear the crowd," Gavin said, "they have snipers all around the building. So right now, let's deal with the other part. Someone in here," he said, waving a finger in the air, "made everything out there happen. We're having our little crisis-management meeting about the rebellion in Alexandria, us three outpost heads, and that's when they pile this crap on us? That's when they cut us off? Come on." He sighed. "They knows all and sees all. Sometimes it doesn't take a gun. The right kind of rat… can kill plenty of people with just some talk."
"But it's not gonna be us," Dwight insisted, "and it doesn't have to be the workers."
"Dwight, you got to face reality here," Simon said.
"No, Simon," Dwight snapped. "We keep what's ours, and we don't give up a damn thing. We get out. I don't want to hear backbiting or pissin' or moanin' from you two," he said, standing over the table to point out Gavin and Regina. "You got a problem with that, come at me," he hummed expectantly. "You can't lead the Saviors out of here, I will," Dwight warned, pointing at Simon before taking his seat.
Isaac raised his eyebrows and shook his head, almost in awe of Dwight's proclamation as Simon glared down at him. He watched as Simon moved around the table, much like a predator, and leaned between Eugene and Dwight.
"Yes, my boy," he said quietly, clapping Dwight on the forearm. "Yes! And…" he said, pointing in Dwight's face before he turned to Eugene. "We're gonna find that subhuman coward that did this to us, and we're gonna kill him very slowly in front of everyone here over the course of a few very long days."
Simon looked around the room, nodding.
"Good meeting, people," he said. "Now let's make today the best today it can be."
Simon grinned at them before turning and leaving the room. Isaac sighed and pushed up from his chair, following the man out.
He walked behind Simon a few paces, staring at the back of his round, balding head. It was endlessly irritating to Isaac that he was forced to follow Simon around like some lost puppy, waiting to be told what to do. But he didn't have many options. It was better than following Gavin or Regina. At least with Simon he had gotten closer to Negan.
Now that Negan was out of the picture, however temporary, Isaac was left to deal with the instability of Simon. While the man could be cunning and calculating, Simon let his emotions direct him. Isaac couldn't quite fathom why Negan chose him to be his right hand. But that didn't quite matter anymore.
Daryl pulled himself up, glad that the elevator doors were open when they made it up the twenty floors. He groaned, his muscles straining, but he managed to get his left knee on the ledge and crawled the rest of the way onto the floor. He reached down and pulled Rick up the rest of the way.
Quickly, he pulled his crossbow off his back as Rick did the same with his rifle and they turned the corner, each facing either side of the corridor, but saw that they were alone.
"Last floor. Guns gotta be up here," Rick said, his breathing heavy.
"He said they'd be here," Daryl huffed.
"Everything else he passed you and Anna is checking out," Rick assured.
"That guy's a piece of shit," Daryl snapped.
"Those guys get to the Sanctuary; they could cut through those walkers and free up an exit. We'll go faster if we split up. I find the M2s, you find 'em, we use 'em," Rick said. "Hit the courtyard right then and there."
"End this quick," Daryl nodded before heading off down the hall.
If only they could end the whole thing quick. Anna's plan was smart, but it wasn't fast enough. It kept them waiting on the Saviors for resolution.
Each open door he passed, he checked, finding the rooms empty until he reached the last one at the end of the hall. He kicked the door open, aiming his crossbow around. There was no one in the cubicle room, but there was a closed door on the other side.
Quietly, he closed the door and moved down the left side of the room, keeping his bow aimed as he checked around the partitions. Once he reached the closed door, he pulled it open and found nothing.
He grimaced. The room itself was no more than a small walk-in closet, but an odor emitted from it that made the hairs on his arms stand up.
Daryl looked to the floor, searching for the source of the stench, when his eyes came upon a paper plate with a familiar looking sandwich. Along the wall, near the floor, was a thin pipe, attached to which were a pair of handcuffs, precariously dangling over a dried patch of vomit.
His stomach churned and it felt as though a weight had been dropped on his chest.
No. Anna's plan wasn't enough.
-" Are you insane? You've got to know that's crazy," - Jason said over the walkie as Anna cut a hole through the top of the tarp she'd found.
"I am very aware," Anna said quickly into the walkie. "But I've seen it work."
She pulled the tarp over her head, pushing her head through the hole, testing the length of the tarp on her body. It came down to about mid-calf.
-" Are you sure about this?" - Claudia asked.
"As sure as I'll ever be," Anna muttered to herself before bringing the walkie back to her face. "Once I'm ready, I'll turn my walkie off so I won't be able to hear you while I'm out there."
-" We'll cover you, of course," - Donny assured.
"I appreciate that. Keep an eye on the doors while I get my outfit together," Anna said before clipping the walkie onto her belt.
She grabbed her stick, leaving her rifle by the window, and headed downstairs and outside. It took her a few minutes of wandering around the back of her building before she found a walker stumbling toward the Sanctuary.
Anna let out a low whistle, calling its attention. It started toward her, dragging its feet as it snarled and reached for her. She jabbed the end of her stick into its chest, pushing it back before whipping her stick across its face, dropping it to the ground. Quickly, she pulled her knife and stabbed it through the ear for good measure.
She took a step back and surveyed her handiwork, using her foot to roll the walker onto its back. Distantly, she could hear the snarls of the herd as it pawed at the Sanctuary.
With a grimace, Anna knelt beside the walker and drove her knife into the right side of its stomach, pulling it to the left to open up its belly. Blood, guts, and whatever it had for lunch spilled out.
"Fuck," she groaned, gagging on the stench.
Shaking her head, Anna pulled her hair tight in its pony-tail and began smearing the blood and guts over her tarp.
"Gabriel owes me some communion wine after this."
Daryl stalked down the hall, glancing through the open rooms he'd already checked as if they would miraculously sprout guns. He'd gone through the entirety of the south side of the building and come up empty-handed, and he could feel the anger in his chest.
Piece of shit lied to us, he thought.
This was probably the most important outpost, and it had been for nothing. They'd tell Anna Dwight's intel was crap and they would have to come up with a new plan that would delay them even further. Daryl didn't think he could wait any longer than he already had to.
He rounded the corner and entered the north side of the building where Rick had been searching, seeing that Rick hadn't had any more luck than he had as he passed empty room after empty room.
Toward the end of the hall, Daryl paused, staring into another office room, where a man lay face-down, motionless on the floor.
Daryl raised his crossbow and cautiously walked into the room. There had clearly been a struggle.
"We never made it to Birmingham," came a distantly familiar voice. "They didn't."
Daryl followed it.
"Well, I'm sorry," Rick's voice said.
"Really, Rick?" The man asked, his tone short.
"I am," Rick insisted. "I lost people, too. Lori, Shane, Andrea… Glenn," he listed off.
Daryl peered around the corner just long enough to see Rick being held at gunpoint by a burly dark-haired man.
"Negan killed him. Forced him to his knees. Bashed his head in right in front of me. In front of his pregnant wife," he spat.
Daryl pressed his head into the wall, willing the pain to go away.
"He had a wife?" The man asked, and Daryl suddenly recalled where he'd heard the voice before.
He remembered the man with his wife and his two young kids from the quarry. They'd left for Birmingham when Rick had decided to take the group to the CDC.
"Not before. During. He met her," Rick explained.
"In this?" Morales asked.
"Yeah. In this. She's the Widow," Rick confirmed. "Are you Negan, too?" He asked after a moment.
Daryl was willing to give Rick a chance to sway Morales to their side. He remembered him as a reasonable person.
"I lost my family," Morales started. "I lost my mind. I was in some… tow trailer, sleeping myself to death. Waiting to become nothing. And the Saviors—they found me. They thought I was worth a damn. Worth bringing back with 'em. So, yeah. Yeah, I'm Negan. To make it this far, this long, I had to be. I had to be somethin'. Just like you."
Daryl clenched his jaw.
"We're not the same," Rick said.
"How's that?" Morales scoffed.
"Well, look at you," Rick huffed.
"Look at me? Look at us, Rick," Morales corrected. "Look at us. We're two assholes who'll do whatever we have to just to keep going. And the only difference is I'm the one holding the gun. That doesn't make me any worse than you, Rick—that just makes me luckier. 'Cause let's face it, if it wasn't me, if it was you holding the gun, I'd be brains out on the floor right now."
"You don't know that," Rick said.
"And you do?" Morales asked. "Huh?"
"I know I wouldn't want to," Rick implored.
Daryl rolled his eyes.
"Come on," Morales huffed. "Is that the best you can do?"
"I'd—I'd at least try to find another way," Rick insisted.
"Yeah? Why?" Morales challenged. "'Cause we knew each other for a couple days back at the start?"
"Look, I know—I—I wouldn't—I wouldn't just—"
"You want to know what I think?" Morales interrupted. "I think you can talk all you want. You can say all the words. Lori, Shane, Andrea, Glenn... They're all dead, and somewhere along the way, Officer Friendly died right along with 'em. Just like I did, with them. That's what I know, Rick."
Daryl clicked his teeth together. Morales was right, and that's all he needed to swing around and fire a bolt into the turning man's forehead. He was vaguely aware of Rick telling him to wait.
Morales fell to the ground and Daryl looked down on him.
"You good?" He asked, glancing briefly at Rick.
He stepped around Morales and bent forward, grabbing his bolt and yanking it from Morales's forehead.
"That—T-that was—"
"I know who it was," Daryl said. "It don't matter. Not one little bit. You find them guns?" He asked, changing the subject.
Rick stared at him for a moment, his brows knitted together.
"They aren't here," he finally said.
"What?"
Rick dropped to the ground and gathered his guns and the walkie on Morales's belt.
"He called the Saviors back from the courtyard. We gotta get out before—"
A door thudded open in the distance, cutting him off.
"They're here," Rick said.
Daryl snatched up Morales's gun and the two took off down the hall, hoping they'd get out before the Saviors found them, but as they turned the corner toward the elevator shaft, gunfire erupted from the bottom as they jumped out of the way and back the way they'd come before Saviors appeared down the hall and fired on them.
Daryl careened into a room and fired back, ducking back inside whenever the Saviors returned fire until his gun clicked empty. He pulled out his revolver and fired four booming shots, two of which managed to hit two of the Saviors.
Leaning into the doorframe, Daryl looked to Rick to see that he was dealing with his own side of troubles. He checked his revolver; he had five bullets left. With a frustrated sigh, Daryl swung around and fired the last of his shots at the Saviors, only managing to hit one of the four Saviors darting to either side of the hall.
His gun clicked and he fell back, patting his pockets for any extra ammunition, only to come up with nothing.
"Hey!" He called, looking to Rick.
Rick, who was pressed against the wall holding his rifle, looked up at him.
"I'm out," Daryl informed breathlessly.
Rick looked around, when his eyes landed on something, and Daryl could hear the Saviors advancing.
"Hey!" Rick said, holding up three fingers when Daryl looked at him.
Daryl nodded, and Rick lowered one finger just before firing at the wall. White smoke spilled into the hall and Daryl ran for Rick, somehow lucky enough not to get shot by the blind gunfire of the Saviors.
Once he was beside Rick, the Saviors ran into the smoke and the two grabbed for them. Daryl punched one in the gut before he could fight back and tossed him down the elevator shaft, listening to his screams of terror as he fell with an odd satisfaction as he went to grab for the next one.
Rifle fire from further down the hall came and the rest of the Saviors collapsed to the ground.
"Teams of four, sweep the offices," Aaron ordered.
"Aaron," Rick called.
"Rick," he responded.
"We're by the elevator," he informed, if only to not be mistaken for Saviors and shot.
Anna stood at the corner of her building, looking at the herd in front of her. All she had to do was walk slowly so that the walkers didn't sense something wrong. If they even had senses. She suddenly wished she had Milton's journals to reference before she potentially got herself killed.
She took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly before she stepped forward.
-" Are you seeing this?" - Jason called over the walkie.
"Shit," she hissed, scrambling for the walkie as three of the walkers turned toward her.
She slipped behind the corner as the three walkers started toward her.
-" They're—" - Anna shut the walkie off as the three corpses rounded the corner.
She held her stick in front of her as they neared, seeming unable to reconcile the sound and scent. They reached out for her, their fingers curling toward her. She smacked their hands away with her stick before whipping it back around and across the closest walker's face—a bulky, heavy male—and jabbing the end of it into the next walker's chest—a thin, wiry female.
For the third walker—an average sized male—she had enough time to ram her stick through its eye socket, but as it fell, it yanked her stick out of her hands.
The first walker was already reaching for her again and she stumbled back, tripping over her feet. Her back hit the ground hard, breath leaving her as the first walker fell on top of her. It snarled and snapped at her face, gripping her arms as she tried to hold it away from her.
She gasped at the pressure on her toes and managed to look over the walker's shoulder enough to see that the second walker was attempting to gnaw through her right boot.
With as much strength as she could muster, she kicked her foot, knocking the walker back. Turning her head further away from the first walker, she kicked blindly, attempting to strike the second walker in the face with her heel.
"Get off," she huffed, pushing on the heavy walker atop her, her arms shaking with the effort.
She kicked out again, this time making contact with the second walker's face, but there wasn't enough force to kill it. Swinging her leg over the first walker, she used the momentum to roll them over until she was straddling the corpse.
As quickly as she could, she ripped her knife from its sheath and stabbed it through the walker's forehead.
Pushing herself uneasily to her feet, Anna pulled the knife out of the heavy walker's forehead. She yelped as her left arm was yanked back, the second walker having blindly grabbed her sleeve; the knife fell from her hand. The walker's teeth were mere inches from her arm. Without thought, Anna swung around with her other hand, punching the walker hard in the jaw and knocking it to the side when it lost the grip it had on her arm.
Anna lunged forward and snatched the knife off the ground before she whirled around—just in time to stab the final corpse through the ear. She tore the knife out and stumbled backwards, bracing herself against her knees as the walker fell to the ground with a thud.
Her chest heaved and ached as she struggled to catch her breath, her hand still coiled tightly around the knife. She straightened, bringing her hands up behind her head to try and open up her airways. She stared up at the beautiful blue sky, a few fluffy, white clouds lazily drifting by.
Barely able to feel her arms, Anna reached down and pulled the walkie from her belt. She clicked it on and brought it to her face.
"What were you saying?" She asked breathlessly.
-"Gabriel got out. Kind of," - Claudia said. -" Are you all right?"-
"I'm fine. What do you mean kind of?" Anna pushed.
-"He and Negan... they got out of the trailer, but they made it inside Sanctuary," - Jason explained.
Anna sighed. Gabriel had made it out of the trailer—and so had Negan. Now the priest had a whole different problem, only this time, Anna had no way to help him.
"Shit."