"What do you want?"

I knew what she meant, but I was going to make her say it. "I want many things, perhaps you should clarify."

Lonnie knew I was playing with her, I'll give her credit for that, but she had no choice but to play along. "You said that you're my only hope of getting out alive, what do you want for it?"

So, she was decently perceptive, good. I rested my hands on the desk, "Only your co-operation."

Her eyes narrowed, "for what?"

I had her on the hook, she knew I was the one in control, but now she was curious. The key here was getting her to believe not only that she could survive this, but that she could profit off of it. "The organization I represent currently holds most of what remains of Europe," I paused again, "That's the land across the ocean."

She looked slightly indignant, "I know that, I read it somewhere."

So books had survived, good. "Good, then you understand the resources we have at our back. General Winter and I represent the vanguard of our forces, the tip of the blade if you will. We are to secure the Commonwealth to be used as a staging area from which we can take the entirety of the Eastern Seaboard."

"I still don't see what that has to do with me."

I offered her a purposefully-strained patient smile. "I'm getting to that point. In case you haven't noticed, the General and I have very different management styles. General Winter is a fine military commander, but he is just that, a military commander. He is a man with nothing but a rather large hammer and absolutely everything appears to be a nail. He wishes to carry this out under his standard protocol, rape, pillage, and murder until everyone in his way is dead or imprisoned."

Her eyes went distant for a moment, most likely picturing the various trinkets we'd spread around Lexington and imagining it happening to her. Finally, she was back in the moment, "And what do you want?"

There we go, "I have a desire to be promoted to the post of Chief of Overall Operations in the Western Theater. The best way of achieving this goal is to be able to present the Commonwealth to them on a silver platter. Preferably without General Winter and his forces to share the credit with. To do this, I will need to use local forces, and that's where you come in."

She was starting to connect the dots, but she wasn't quite there. "Why me?"

"I could attempt to charm you, but I find honesty to be so much more refreshing." That was only half a lie. "I encountered your people in Lexington, under a man calling himself Gristle."

That struck a chord, just like Asher said it would. "I hope you killed that fucker slow."

I let my smile spread out, "Don't worry, I can assure you he died in great pain. He didn't offer me a moment to negotiate. The same can be said of you other friends, Bear and Ack-Ack. I'm afraid we were forced to kill them all. Your young friend provided us with the information about you, after the proper encouragement." No need to make myself look soft. "My colleague, the general, and I have philosophical differences over how to operate, much like you and your own colleague, Jared I believe his name is."

That caught her attention, it shouldn't have considering she believed that I had tortured information out of Asher. Still, people don't really think things through when you're gaslighting them. Still, I pressed her, "He is a drug addicted fool, desperately and obsessively hunting for a nonexistent ability that would likely prove useless even if it were to exist. Said hunt is already killing your own people.' I rested my head on my fist, "You are a savage, but you are apparently a straightforward savage, if you want something, you kill whoever has it, and take it off their corpse."

Insert dramatic pause here.

And the line she's waiting for, "You would be a far better leader than Jared, and thus you would serve my purpose."

There it was, the spark in her eye. She saw a way out of this, and she even saw a way to profit out of it. "And what do would we need to do?"

I had her, "Well first, of course, you need to recruit your cohorts, those that won't support you must die. Anyone who will not support the Long Night dies, we do not leave stragglers."

Considering what she did with Asher, a tiny part of me wondered if she'd have a problem with this. As in many cases, here too the minority lost. "Of course they fucking do, anyone who doesn't back me gets their eyes gouged out and shoved up their ass."

Delightful, still, this presented another opportunity I'd been waiting for. "So you want some kind of display of brutality?" I shook my head slightly, "No, I think it would be better for you to direct them to my people, it can be done quietly."

Certainly an option, but not the one I was hoping for. Thankfully, she took the bait. "No no, hear me out," she leaned forward, now that she thought she was getting out of this, she was getting some of her confidence back. "I know these guys, I know how they think, if I… if you want to be taken seriously, we need to show them we're the real fuckin' thing."

The best way to convince someone to do something is to make them think it's their idea. I leaned back in my chair, "So a public execution is necessary then, how would we go about it?"

She was filling in the blanks on her own. "I'll send my crew around and have 'em tell everybody Jared wants 'em all together in the big room he hosts all the big meetings in. Then when they're all together, we'll bring out Jared and cut his nuts off and jam 'em down his throat. Anyone who doesn't wanna join me gets the same."

What was it with this woman and forcing spherical body parts into orifices? I'm a fetishist and debatably a high functioning sociopath, and even I find that strange. Asher's argument was making more sense by the minute. "My people can handle securing Jared, and of course throughout this process I will be with you." I showed a slash of teeth somewhere between a smile and a snarl. "I'm afraid I don't trust you yet."

She nodded vigorously, I was using her, she thought she was using me. A true Romeo and Juliet relationship, except only one of us was going to die at the end.

"We will discuss this further on approach." I gave a small wave to Rebecca who stepped forward.

Lonnie held up herhands, "no, you don't have to…" but then the needle was in her neck and Rebecca was pushing down on the plunger. A few gurgles later and she was off into the void of Morpheus.

"Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay," I mused.

"The worst is Death, and Death will have his day.

…

Okay guys, really short one this time, I'm probably going to take a few weeks off for the next one, these rushed chapters never really turn out as well as they could in my opinion. And besides Lexington is certainly one that cannot be rushed. The sheer number of chapters it's taken me to get here is more than proof of that.

On the upside, we're one or two chapters from getting out of Sanctuary. Finally, I like the minutemen well enough, but they're not the focus of this story, at least not for a while.

Either way R&R people.