Chapter Five

I woke up to mud and dirt caked onto my skin.I woke up to my sides screaming in pain and my head spinning...just like it had the past week, the only difference were the trees and bushes I was hiding under. I sat up slowly, taking out the bandages and clean water, cleaning myself up again as the sun beat through the trees, it was quiet.

Negan was out there, his men were still out there patrolling the streets looking for me. I leaned against the tree and shouldered the duffel bag and began my hike through the woods again, every breath was agony and every step ripped up my bare feet. They were out there, they were looking for me with orders to kill or worse, take me back. I stopped and took out some water, listening for bikes and Shufflers hidden in the trees. I closed my eyes for a second, I didn't know where I was.

"Melaney!"

I couldn't stop, I had to keep quiet, I placed a hand over my mouth shaking as I tried to curl up as tight as I could underneath the bank. Negan was going to find me, drag me back and throw me in the cell.

"Melaney! Baby! Come on, I know you didn't mean to escape baby, just come on out and we can talk!" Negan shouted from where he was above me.

I ...I was so fucking scared. I could see him through the brush, could spot Lucille swinging in his hand and the frown that spread a ross his face as he looked around wildly for me. I had been crawling for two days, bleeding and crying, before Negan's wolves picked up on my trail and alerted him. I didn't know what happened to Amber and Dwight, but I knew it couldn't be good whether or not Negan found out. But I owed them, everything. A map to Alexandria, food, water and guns and knives...I had an arsenal and it was all their doing to get me out of Negan's reach. But now I was broken.

"LANEY!" Negan slammed the bat against a tree and yelled in frustration before taking off out of my sight. I closed my eyes and held my own hand over my mouth tighter as my heart pounded in my ears. I couldn't come out, I'd never come out of this hole I dug.

I'd never lay eyes on that man again.

"Fuck." I bent down and dug a thorn out of my heel, feeling sweat drip down my face before seeing it hit the ground. I stood back up and continued on my way towards where Alexandria was marked at.

It had been a long time since I was on my own...it's been awhile since I've been outside of the Sanctuary gates to be honest and it felt nice. I didn't have Negan's men breathing down my neck all the time and I didn't have to worry about being looked at like I was under a microscope. I jumped as a shuffler came out of nowhere but fell down due to its broken leg. It started crawling towards me but its fingers were trashed, couldn't find a grip in the dirt. I carefully stepped around it and unhooked my gun from my waist just in case.

It was like I just escaped a really bad relationship, I let myself laugh out loud for a second before ducking under some brush. I was stupid, so stupid to think that they were actually Saviors, men and women trying to help each other. Leeches, they were all leeches. Negan...Negan killed everyone who did him dirty. I know he killed Leo, Leo was my best friend and a threat to Negan all the time because of how close we were. Negan let him get bit, let him die.

I stepped out into a road, feet aching from stepping and dragging through the mud. I set my bag down and stretched as I looked over the map again, I was only ten blocks away it seemed, not too far. We had never gone to Alexandria, it was a pretty far ways away from Sanctuary so we never bothered. It was probably filled with cannibals for all I knew.

My head snapped up at the sound of a motor off in the distance. Cursing, I cinched the bag tighter around me and took off down the road, feet pounding on the hot concrete. I had to make it, I had to. If Negan or his men found me...I didn't even want to think about it. I picked up my pace and ran towards where Alexandria was as if the Devil was chasing me himself...and in a way, he was.

I almost tripped over myself and skidded along the ground as I rounded a street a couple minutes later, sweat pouring over my face and ribs hurting. There were so many dead Shufflers, spread out all along the road, the sides. I carefully stepped past them, chest heaving from exhaustion as I pulled out the map again and crossed into the safety of some brush. I was supposed to be looking for some watch towers which would lead to the main gate but all I saw around me were trees. I screamed in frustration and threw the map on the ground, kicking it before collapsing and crying with my head in my hands.

Alexandria was my last chance to get away from Negan, to get away from my past life. I wiped my face carefully, my bruises were still tender from Negan's fists. Still tender from the beating he took out on me, tender from him kissing me afterwards as I laid on the jail cell floor covered in blood and blacking out.

I looked up behind me as shufflers appeared, I grabbed the dirty map and continued through the brush before the Shufflers could catch up to me again. I burst out of the brush and looked up as a giant shadow was cast over me...a fence. I looked down to the crumpled map as my breath was taken from me. I had made it. I made it to Alexandria.

I slammed my hands against the thick walls and followed them, tears streaming down my face as I ran alongside the wall to where I turned a corner and found a run down watch tower. I shifted the bag higher on my shoulder as I walked towards the front gate.

"Wherever you are, wherever you are in this world Melaney, I'll always fucking find you." Negan whispered as he left the cell, "You're never going to leave me that fucking easy."

I stopped walking as I stepped in front of the gate, Negan's words ringing in my head. Ever since I left, small memories of him talking would hit me like a brick. If Negan found me, if he found me with these people he would kill them without a thought.

"Who are you?"

I jumped away from the fence with a gasp as a figure appeared on the other side, tall and bigger.

"State your name...please." he continued talking, awkward as I stood on the other end. I couldn't stay here, I couldn't put these people through Negan's wrath if he found me, "Ma'am?"

"I...I'm sorry. Wrong place..." I stepped back then looked up as a slender black woman peered over the edge of the wall up top with a gun strapped to her.

"Eugene, go get Rick." she called down to the man at the gate and aimed the gun at me as he disappeared, "Don't move a muscle."

I put my hands up and watched her for a few moments before three more men came to the gate, all black figures through their extra levels of protection by their gates. One drew away the inner gate and I got an eyeful of sweaty, armed men.

"It's alright, Sasha, we got this." The man closest to me through the gate nodded to the girl above and she left the post. He was southern, something I was used to hearing when I was down in Florida as a kid, "Who're you?"

"Rick, the bag." one of his men stepped forward, crossbow on his back as he motioned to my duffel.

I looked down at it where it had ripped, anyone could see the obvious outlines of guns and knives and ammo in it. Carefully, I strapped it tighter around me and took a step back, bare feet burning on the ground.

"Where'd you get that bag?" Rick asked, already making a move to open the gate, giving me a warning look, "Where'd you get the bag?"

"I'm sorry, I think this is the wrong place-"

"That's our fuckin' weapons!" The red head who had been flanking the other two stepped around Rick and ripped the gate open and holy fuck was he an impressive god damned gorilla, "You-"

He reached for his gun but I was quicker, I popped off a warning shot over their heads, hitting their wall and took off down the road. Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea Fuck! I sprinted across the ground as I heard the men yell after me as they took off. I rounded the corner I came from and slammed into the shufflers, in panic I shot blindly and managed to kill them before getting up bloody, and running again. Shots fired off above me and around me as their men tried to follow me at their posts.

I could hear Rick screaming for them to stop and cease fire as I rounded their base, and hit plush grass...which I wasn't expecting and hit the ground, sliding over myself as green stained my skin and clothes. I rolled over my bag, feeling the weapons curve and jut into me as I fell. Rick and the red headed gorilla caught up to me easily and had their weapons drawn as I pushed myself to my feet.

"Hands up!" Rick ordered and I obeyed, dropping my duffel to my feet and un-clipped my own gun and let it fall onto the pile as well, "Don't make any stupid moves. Abraham?"

"Yeah." The red headed gorilla stalked forward and grabbed the duffel from me, ripping it open as I stood there, hands raised and heaving from the stitches in my side from running. My feet felt like they were sizzling, settling on the cool grass, "Uh, Rick?"

"It's all mine. I haven't stolen anything." I whispered as Rick walked forward and inspected my bag as well, "Whatever you think I did. I didn't do it alright, I-"

I heard the rip of a motorcycle and I froze, they were here. Negan's men found me. I dropped my hands and spun around wildly, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. It was loud, it was close and I felt my heart start beating fast.

"We have to leave."

"Who the hell are you kid-"

"WE HAVE TO LEAVE!" I yelled, grabbing my bag away from them in an instant, shocked they let it happen as I began pushing them towards the safety of the trees, "He's coming, we have to leave! Go!"

"What the fuck-" Abraham let me shove him for a minute before twisting my arm behind my back and bringing me to the ground, "Calm the hell down nobody's coming. Rick, she's crazy."

"Hey, hey you gotta quiet down." Rick knelt down next to me as I bucked against Abraham's hold on me. I screamed and Abraham covered my mouth.

I bit him hard and kicked him off of me, scrambling to my feet as the motorcycle engine ripped down the street. Fine, they could die but like hell I was going to let Negan fucking have me again.

"HEY!"

I stumbled across the road as quick as I could after bursting through the trees, the two men behind me. I stopped dead in my tracks as the motorcycle came down the street, gravel flying under it. The man was making a beeline for me.

"KID!"

I turned around and was immediately punched in the face by Abraham. I went flying a foot backwards before landing on my bag and heard my spine crack. I groaned in pain, and rolled to my stomach.

"He's here, he's coming! He's coming..." I cried as the motorcycle rider came to a stop a little ways away from us. I shakily got to my feet, my whole body trembling in pain as Abraham's punch opened up the cut on my eyebrow from Negan.

"Daryl, you freaked her out." Abraham chuckled as a man in a leather vest hopped off the bike and drew his crossbow at me.

Rick was the first to come forward to me as I studied Daryl. Not one of Negan's...Negan wasn't coming. For a second I was relieved but then I began to feel dizzy. Abraham came over to me again as Rick picked up my gun from where it had smashed onto the ground and holstered it on his own belt. Abraham ripped my duffel off of me and threw it to Daryl who caught it easily and set it on his bike. All three men were watching me carefully.

"So...now that we're all here. I'm gonna ask you again." Rick crouched in front of me as I sat back on my ass weakly, "Where'd you get the bag?"

"None of your fucking business." I spit out, he looked disapointed.

"Where'd you get all of that gear strapped to you then?" He motioned to my old harness that I used to stuff my machetes into, wrapped around my waist.

"I didn't steal it from you...stole it from somebody else." I frowned as my vision started to black slowly. Rick nodded and rubbed the stubble on his chin before looking carefully at me.

"How'd you get beat up?"

I didn't give him an answer to that and he sighed before standing up. Abraham and Daryl were looking at him expectantly as I laid down on the ground, letting the sun wash over me as I put a hand to my eyebrow as pain began pounding through my body.

"We can't leave her out here, Rick. Stick her in the cell when we get back." Daryl voiced and Abraham nodded.

"None of that's our missing stuff, wherever she came from...they're jacked to the fuckin' teeth."

Rick nodded to them and they spoke softer as I tried to turn onto my side, feeling like I was going to throw up. After a few more minutes Abraham knelt next to me, suddenly soft as he helped me up to my feet and gently picked me up in his arms. Rick was next to him as Daryl revved up his chopper and took off with my bag strapped to the back.

"Alexandria..." I whispered, Rick looked at me in Abraham's arms.

"What did you say?"

"I was looking for Alexandria." I whispered and closed my eyes, passing out as the men walked towards a back gate with me in their arms.