Aiko leaned in close to Helen and whispered in her ear while watching Michonne. Michonne lay on the bench she had claimed as her own, with her arm draped over her eyes, pretending not to see or care.
The pixie haired woman tended to a pot cooking on the stove, something which smelled of curry. Michonne had to admit that was one smell she was glad to know wasn't lost to the apocalypse. One she never thought she'd have the pleasure of experiencing ever again.
The woman tapped her spoon on the edge of the pot and set it in a bowl. The ladies got up to get their servings of what she had cooked. Michonne observed for a moment, before the brown woman spoke.
"You too." she said looking at Michonne.
"-Come on." she repeated.
She dipped a large amount of the stuff into a bowl and handed it to her.
"Strange thing, when the world ended, not many people looted for spices, at least for the kind of spices I like to use. So, I was able to cobble together some form of aloo gobi today. This is dandelion, wild onions, canned potatoes, and this. She held up a Costco-sized container of what was labelled "Indian Curry".
"I'm Farah."
Michonne nodded and took her bowl. She didn't start eating until she saw the others do the same.
Farah chuckled as she watched this.
"Oh, you'll fit right in here."
The sole entrance swung open and Joy walked in, looking no worse for the wear. She glared at her armed escorts for a moment before widening her eyes at them with an I'm here, you can go now! glare.
As soon as the door swung shut, Joy scrambled to her side of the room and rifled through her things. She pulled out two plastic grocery bags from under her bed, checking them thoroughly for holes, before putting one inside the other.
Farah shook her head and smiled.
"She's persistent, that one."
Michonne watched her with open interest.
Joy squatted over her bags, stuck two fingers down her throat and retched. On the third attempt, she vomited.
The dirty blonde woman laughed at her mockingly.
"You know Negan knows that you're taking his shit! He's just biding his time waiting for you to do something stupid enough so he can make an example of you."
"Well, at least she's not just sitting on her ass talking shit." the brunette added, quietly.
"At least she's trying to do something about her situation here."
"What are you saying, that I'm not?!" the dirty blonde said defensively.
"I'm surviving! I've survived the biters, I mean to keep kicking and not end up like Linda, Debra, and Gail!" she added.
"-What happened to Debra?" Michonne interjected.
"What?"
"I want to know what happened to Debra. That's a story I haven't heard yet... and Linda and Gail too for that matter, with details, at least."
Joy looked up at Michonne then, as did Helen and Aiko as they huddled together in their corner.
"Debra was legendary. She had us all fooled." Farah began.
"Came here of her own volition, pretending to be a groupie like Kasey over there." Helen said, indicating the dirty blonde woman.
"We all hated her kiss-up ass, until she showed her true colors. She never told us much about her life before, but Charlene over there, was the closest of us to her."
Charlene, the freckled brunette waved in a distracted deadpan way, as she continued to eat.
"She was a trick-turner before all this, like I was... Though, she was of the higher-class variety." Charlene added, as she chewed a mouthful of food.
When the others expressed shock, she added, "You never asked. We know our own. She was obsessive about keeping her stuff clean. She knew all the back-alley tricks. That's what gave her away. Toughest bitch we ever had up in here too. If she couldn't sack that bloated sociopath, I doubt any of us could."
"She looked like a model, though not of the more exotic variety like you. She was All-American with the feel of the girl-next-door. She gave Negan the time of his life on the regular, and became his favorite 'wife'. She had herself convinced that the guy was in love with her. -See, he doesn't trust any of us. He often likes to tie us up when he's in the mood for favors and none of us has ever seen him sleep deeply." Farah added.
"Yeah, he's into that bondage shit." Charlene added, a lot of power-trippy men are. I bet he's too proud to be the sub he really is.
"She played the part well...but then so did he." Charlene continued.
"Finally, she got it into her head that she had him relaxed and loving her enough for him to drop his guard, I guess. Though, she told none of us what she'd planned. The guards came to get her one night and she didn't come back." Helen said.
Negan himself came with ten of his best men and escorted us to the amphitheater a day later. That's where he puts on shows to keep his people in line. Debra had broken his most serious rule, betrayal and so she got the worst punishment.
She was beaten with Lucille and beheaded, publicly.
...He took his time doing it. Negan had his men divide her up and make sure that everyone had piece of her corpse on display in a prominent place in every living space among his people. Every bit of her, from fingertip to a brain-matter splattered lock of hair.
"We got to live with her little toe hanging by the doorway for a month."
"How? -How had she thought to do it?" Michonne asked.
"She made a shiv, wrapped it in a salvaged plastic grocery bag, and stashed it business-end down, in her vagina, I'd wager. When she got to his suite, she requested to clean-up herself in the restroom, likely turned on the water and hid it under the sink. She fucked him into what she thought was complete exhaustion and recovered her weapon... We can only go by what Negan says, but he claimed that she tried to stab him in the head with it, while she thought he was sleeping.
He caught her and elbowed her hard enough to knock most of her teeth out."
"-Disgusting prick that he is, he quipped that he should have had her give him head right then, as he'd always wanted to know what a 'fucking gumjob' would feel like. So that's how Debra ended up."
"Gail managed to dig and modify the plumbing in one of our bathrooms enough to make sure she could get through what would have been an escape route. She was a small woman, so when she'd had it just big enough for herself, she managed to squeeze her little spelunking ass through the pipe."
Farah chuffed. "Negan didn't have to lay a hand on her. The pipe opened up on an incline about fifteen feet over a pit they'd dug out, filled with shards of glass.
He had her dragged back in here and told us how she died. Judging from the condition of her body, it looked to be the truth."
Michonne frowned slightly, at this.
"Linda slit her wrists. She was the sister of the leader of a group who had managed to create a working community of treehouses. She went to Negan thinking he'd ease up on her brother and their people if she were a good little cocksucker." Joy said, her voice still slightly raspy from just -having thrown-up.
"-Not even once!" she said, laughing darkly.
"When they stopped being able to provide enough food for themselves and Negan's people? His men went and burnt down their forest. Roasted them all."
"...But that's not gonna be me." she said triumphantly, holding up the key.
Heath opened the gate when he saw Enid and Carl come strolling up to the gate.
"This is a hell of time to go out exploring-"
He stopped short when he spotted Carl's weapon's bag and looked both damning and impressed at what he thought both had attempted to do.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid! -You're both lucky your folks didn't know. Now, get your little dumb-asses in here!" he said, and slid the gate shut.
"If he asks, I'll tell him I saw you two go out together for some private time." he said pointedly to Carl.
Carl exhaled. "Thanks."
"Whatever..." Heath said, "Jesus' debrief is going on in the chapel, right now. So, they'll be getting her back soon.
Jesus, stood at the pulpit and filled Rick and his inner circle in on all that he saw.
Because of Rick's concern about spies, he had Tara, Rosita, and Sasha guard the building. None of the Alexandrians were notified about the meeting.
"It's immense. Fortified and guarded by trained men armed to the teeth and surrounded by a moat and a field of walkers. Even I couldn't find a way to slip through.
The surrounding area is covered in boobytraps."
"This means that we can't hide. We'll have to confront this head on. We have to give them we they want."
"But what are we gonna live on, grass and air?" Abraham said.
"I said we'd give them what they want. I didn't say that we won't get it all back."