Chapter 66

The horror and disbelief was palpable as they watched the van careening down the road, absorbing sheets of bullets head-on while it drove at full tilt. Ice cold fingers ran between their shoulder blades and over the back of their necks as they watched, both in fear for Sasha's life and that of their systematic mission.

"No. Oh, shit," Dwight whispered in a panic as he walked forward, but going a few feet closer added no more clarity to what was happening in the distance and it certainly didn't allow him to see into Sasha's mind. "What the fuck is she doing?"

She hit the gate, the wired doors smashing open in a myriad of sparks. Bullets continued to assault the van, puncturing both sides of the vehicle as it tore through the Sanctuary parking lot. The tires must've blown because it began to swerve and the brake lights lit up. The van tipped to the left and then the right before it toppled over and onto its top, sliding to hit the factory wall with smoke enveloping the air above it in an opaque bubble. Dwight could hear the gasps behind him and he knew he would be in charge of damage control.

God DAMNIT, Sasha! He cursed her from afar. She did exactly what he told her not to do, and fuck him if he didn't put his trust in her to comply with his wishes. He should've known she wasn't right with the desperate way she had begged him, but she had swayed him with the possibility of moving the herd at a quicker and singular pace.

"What the fucking hell!" Maggie screamed at his back and Dwight turned with placating hands in the air. "What was that? What the fuck was that?"

Maggie, Michonne, Jesus, and a few others from Alexandria had shown up with Sasha. Dwight should have expected as much when he let her have the job of bringing the van to meet him half way, but he was still annoyed. The damn Alexandrians could hardly ever do anything alone, and now Sasha's bullshit act was causing alarm.

Maggie pushed Dwight's shoulders, accusing him of setting Sasha up. "We should've never believed you! I knew you would turn on us!"

"She wasn't supposed to do that, okay? She was supposed to jump out and let the van roll downhill. We have one of my fucking guys down there waiting to pick her up for Christ sakes!"

"I'm going in after her," Jesus announced, running to a parked SUV and a few others followed suit.

"Hold on!" Dwight called, but no one heard him through the rising panic.

"We are not attacking with her down there in the middle." Maggie's irate finger jabbed itself under his nose. "Eugene and the rest would've been sheltered, prepared, but she's out in the open. We have to get her out."

Dwight was at a loss. He turned to look at the Sanctuary, saw people scrambling to get inside as the horde descended upon them, and wondered how in the hell they thought they could get Sasha out. He looked at Maggie, pity in his expression as he mulled over what words he could use to convince them to stay.

"You can't," he said. "You go in there, you're dead, and we have no idea if Sasha isn't already."

"Exactly!" Maggie yelled. "We don't know, but I'm not gonna leave her in there to die. I'm not going to let her be torn to bits by those monsters and I ain't talkin' about the walkers!"

"There isn't anything we can do!" Trevor stepped into the argument, exasperated. "Sasha clearly knew what she was doing. This whole thing was her idea. We're going to attack." Trevor turned to his cohorts. "Get in the trucks."

"Like hell you are!" Maggie sneered and withdrew her gun. A few Alexandrians followed her lead with stubborn anger etched on their faces.

"It's best if you stepped aside," Michonne requested, her sword halfway unsheathed.

This was not the way Dwight had wanted tonight to go and he was caught in the middle. He wanted to blow the Sanctuary to hell, and Trevor had made a point. Sasha had known what she was going to do. There was no doubt in his mind that she'd been planning a suicide mission since she learned of the mass of dead wandering about up north, but now there was a big hole in their plans. One big enough to set them back and possibly cost them to lose this war. Negan knew without a doubt who was after him now and not only that, but his enemies were currently turning against each other. This was shaping out to be quick loss for them if they didn't get their shit in order.

Dwight held his arms out. "Everybody stop! Jesus, you too!"

The bearded Hilltopper was in the driver's seat of an idling SUV, a few Alexandrians ready to go with him, but he waited and listened with a grimace on his face.

"There is no feasible way you can get to her. Look!" Dwight pointed to the Sanctuary and at the milling dead bodies overcrowding the surrounding tarmac. "How do you expect to get through that? By the time you get down there and you push through all of that - if you can survive it - she'll be gone."

Maggie inhaled deeply, trying to find a reason to keep arguing against an attack, but she couldn't find one other than that she wanted to save her friend; a friend who purposely sacrificed herself to give the dead an infallible way inside the enemy's lair. She wanted her loss to be enough of a reason, but sadly she realized it wasn't and couldn't be. She placed her gun back in its holster and gazed sorrowfully down at the overrun factory, imaging Sasha stumbling about with white eyes and gnashing teeth.

"Please don't blow it up. Not yet," Maggie pleaded. She had a thread of hope that Sasha was okay and she was holding onto it until it broke.

"Maggie," Dwight began.

"Please!"

Dwight noticed her fear, recognizing the desperation he was accustomed to witnessing whenever Negan had someone on their knees with a barbed wired bat anchored over a loved one's head. It was easy to see because he'd already seen that fear from her once before…

"Okay," he relented, annoyed but understanding and Michonne sheathed her sword. "We won't use the rocket launchers…yet. We'll let the chips fall where they may for now, but we are attacking when we know for sure if she's dead or alive."

Maggie nodded, sniffing back unshed tears as Trevor spoke up from behind his shoulder.

"What about Sherry and the rest? They're waiting for us."

Dwight clenched his teeth and found himself lost in the multifaceted exterior of the old factory. Inside were his wife and the few people he'd left behind, waiting for their moment to fight back and escape, but that window had already closed. They were stuck in there now, trapped by the dead and with little means to get out, but they knew what to do. He had prepared them for the possibility of things backfiring.

"We need to figure shit out and be on the same page for what comes next. Things just got a lot fucking harder, and I'm serious when I say to follow the fucking plans." Dwight gazed at everyone menacingly. "We can't turn on each other when something doesn't go right. Or… We. Will. Lose. This."

"We understand," Michonne stepped in front of Maggie, keeping her eyes trained on Dwight's. "Tell us what to do next, boss."

Dwight scoffed and backed up. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

"But it did." Michonne words burned him, and he didn't know what to say next as they turned away and left.

Trevor approached him. "Are we following?"

"Yeah." Dwight didn't look up. "Have Randy stay and wait for Wade to get up here. No one's leaving the Sanctuary any time soon. Tell them we'll be back by the evening. Do not attack until I say so."

"Sure," Trevor responded with an eye roll and walked away.

"Fuck this," Dwight muttered as he glimpsed one last time at the Sanctuary and its deceased invaders, glaring at the underbelly of the van. "Fuck. This."

Bleary, tired eyes watched him, forming around him a baggy-eyed loop of curiosity and fear. He spoke to them about the travesty laid against their group, told them how many of their loved ones might be dead now or would be soon. Not because of him, however, but on behalf of the snakes who had camouflaged themselves in their garden and slipped poison into their minds. One snake in particular being Dwight who had stolen some of his weapons, his people, and was now killing those who were left.

"He won't stop until he gets to me," Negan said, shuffling around in a tight circle. "He wants to destroy our home and take away everything you all have worked so hard for… He wants it all for himself; probably to be your new leader!" He threw his hands up with a smile and chuckled. "There might be some of you that think that won't be so bad. He doesn't burn the faces off of people who betray him, does he?" Negan held out Lucille and admired her. "He might be merciful enough to let them do it again…unlike me, but he does do this," his finger stood up straight in the air. "He lies to people. He manipulates them to get what he wants and he uses them to his benefit! He has never given you anything, has never provided for you people. He only followed my commands and he did so poorly. Not to mention how much of a coward he was when he stole our medicine and hid out in the forest for a week… He only came crawling back after he got his sister-in-law killed, people, and then he gave up his wife because he didn't want to die. Imagine that shit."

Negan would have pointed Sherry out, but she and his other wives had not shown up for the meeting. Normally he would've stormed in their parlor and calmly but acutely demanded they attend, but he didn't have the patience or the time to bother himself with it. Not with everything being waffle-stomped down the fucking drain.

"He's greedy." Negan's hand dropped along with his tone, Lucille scratching his jeans. "He takes what he wants and runs, but when that shit doesn't work out for him he comes back to take more. Soooo, he'll be back…and we're going to show Dwighty boy who he's fucking messing with. We'll take down every single last fuck who had any affiliation with him, too. We won't be the victim. We'll make them ours."

"Uh, Negan!" A panicked voice called from the back of the audience and people stepped aside for the Savior as a cacophony of gunshots permeated the walls from outside. "Something's going on outside."

"What the fuck is it?" He demanded as the spacious room grew thick with anxiety and unease.

"There's a van. It's heading straight toward us," his Savior informed, his expression worried.

"So take the fucker out. It's only one damn van?" Negan felt his headache coming back. He didn't have time for this shit, but then he started to wonder and his eyes grew wide. "It's not one of ours?"

"No, it's not. It's playing loud music and behind it…" The Saviors voice cut off suddenly, like he was afraid of what he had to stay next. Negan didn't wait, but pushed him aside and strode through the crowd.

"Get everyone back to their rooms!" He yelled as he walked to the Sanctuary doors, but he stopped mid-stride as a boom resounded and the factory walls shook, the lamps and walkways overhead shaking violently as dust sprinkled on them from above. "The fuck-"

The front doors burst open, his men and women scrambling inside with terror-stricken faces as a deafening beat chased them. Negan looked over their heads and saw exactly what drove their fear. It was the dead, hundreds of them, and they were piling into his front fucking yard, bending and pushing down sections of his fence as they crowded through.

"Dwight," he snarled in a lowered whisper.

As his people came in, a few stayed outside shooting the herd, but it was only drawing them in further and keeping their attention.

"Stop!" He yelled through the open doors as one of his Saviors drug an unconscious and battered black woman over the threshold. The ones who had been shooting stopped and ran to the doors, but one got caught by a walker. He screamed as the dead snared him with gnarled fingers and sunk its rotten teeth deep into his neck.

"Barricade the goddamn doors!" Negan barked and the agonized Savior cried after them, his hand outstretched and begging. The man in charge turned away as the door closed with a final resounding thud and he pointed at the Savior with the passed out woman. "Who the fuck is that?"

"The driver of the van. She crashed into the building. I had half a mind to get her out; figured you'd want to see who brought them here." The Savior nodded to the doors and to the dead who screamed and growled outside of them.

Negan bent down to one knee and took her chin between his thumb and index finger. He looked her over and barely recognized her as someone placed in Alexandria, remembering her from the night in the clearing.

"So, the Prick is in on this, too?" He pondered and frowned deeply, searching for Eugene among the crowd. When he found him, the man was nearly sunken in on himself, quivering and pale. "He must not have been as damn beaten down as you fucks claimed. Lock her in a cell."

He let Sasha go not so gently, pushing her head to the side with an abrupt flick and stomping over to Eugene. He grabbed the man by the nape of his neck and pushed him up a short set of stairs. Forcing him to another set of doors, Negan kicked one open violently, the metal a rectangular clanging bell.

"Ding! Ding! Ding, fuckers! It's time for lunch!" Negan exclaimed to the roaring crowd and pushed a cowering Eugene up to a railing that was set above a sea of rotting, reanimated flesh. Eugene tried to squirm away, but his captor had a tight hold on him and shoved him ferociously into the rail, sinking the metal bar into his protruding belly.

"Oh, God! No! Please!" Eugene squealed, terrified. Negan pushed him harder, and Eugene grabbed onto the railing with sweat soaked hands, hanging on desperately.

"I thought you were my friend," Negan whispered to him and hoped he could hear him over the raucous, hungry growls from the dead all around.

"I-I am!" Eugene cried, his lower lip wobbling and wet.

"Friends don't lie to one another, Eugene, and you, my friend, are one of the biggest fucking liars I know."

Eugene shook his head, mumbling incoherently, but Negan couldn't quite make out what he was saying. The walkers were too loud and they were starting to grab at their shoes and lumber up the stairs toward them.

"I'm going to feed you to this pit of hungry fucking biters," Negan said.

"No! I didn't know! I swear!" Eugene yelled in distress. He was half lying again as he knew something like this would happen eventually. He just hadn't known precisely what would happen or when.

"They're gonna rip you limb from limb and I'm gonna laugh while I watch."

"Oh, God! Oh, God! Please! I-I have an idea! I know how to get rid of them! Just don't let me go!" Eugene pleaded to any part of Negan that might still believe in him.

Negan let him go and stepped back to swing Lucille at an advancing walker. She struck it in the temple, tumbling the walking dead back down the stairs and bowling over the ambling bodies below. It gave him a few more seconds to deal with the shivering turd before him.

His nails dug into the sweating blubbery flesh once more. "You have twenty fucking seconds before I bust in both of your knee caps and throw you down those fucking stairs."

Eugene sucked in rapid short breaths, trying to reach some sense of logic and calm amid the pandemonium and impending doom.

"Armor!"

Negan was growing impatient. He yanked on the southern man's neck. "What?"

"Use them as a shield! You are in possession of an adequate amount of men and defenses to destroy the better half of this horde, but evaluate their potential. You can employ them." The Alexandrian was really grasping at straws here, but he wanted to stay alive. Giving his enemy war strategies wasn't his brightest or most loyal moment, but he had little to no other choice. "P-pour molten metal on their heads but leave their mouths clear. As it cools, it'll consolidate with their flesh, renderin' them nearly impossible to kill in one-on-one combat and possibly deafen them. They'll be practically bulletproof and you could lead them anywhere…somehow. I'll think about that… But they can be your front line; take on the brunt of any attacks."

Negan glowered at the back of Eugene's head, considering his idea but wanting to dangle him over the edge of the railing and let the biters strip his skin off in a feeding frenzy. Yet he was useful, resourceful, and quick on his feet. Negan couldn't give that up so easily. He yanked Eugene back as the walkers made it atop the landing once more and pulled him inside. His Saviors barricaded the doors behind them as he drove Eugene into the ground and shoved Lucille under his nose.

"I'm not the type to give second chances much, but when I do it's like finding a hundred dollar bill in the middle of a packed mall and you were the only one to see it. In other words," Negan bent down in his face and dug Lucille's wires in Eugene's cheek as he let out a short howl, "I rarely give second fucking chances!"

Tears mixed with the small droplets of blood on Eugene's face, and he whimpered, his eyes squeezed shut as he nodded with understanding.

"I'll give one to you." Negan removed Lucille from Eugene's cheek, sliding the wires down slowly before lifting her away. It looked as if she'd slashed him with her claws, and in a way, she did. "Consider yourself within that lucky fucking few. Prove you're not a cowardly lying fuck like the rest of 'em or I'll pick out the prettiest little dead mamas out there and dip you dick first over their wide-open, lipless mouths. Either way, I'll be making a man out of you like I promised."

Eugene nodded again, more eagerly this time, but the strain of making an agreement was clear on his face. Negan had one question for him before he let him get up.

"Who are you?" He asked.

Eugene opened his eyes, a bit confused. He didn't understand the question but knew there was only one right, specific answer. Negan lifted his brows and said, "When my people promise their devotion to me and only me, they tell me who they are, and their answer every single time is… Negan. So, one last time, who are you?"

"N-" Eugene swallowed thickly. "Negan. Always Negan."

"Damn right." He glared angrily at the succumbed man before standing up and addressing his people once more. "This is what I mean!" Lucille pointed to the barricaded doors. "Dwight and his friends from Alexandria want us all dead. Well, I say they have no fucking right! I am no one's enemy. I bring order to the fucking shitstorm that's been raging all over our world, giving people a better way of life. They are the ones who want to see it dead and rotting just like those poor, forgotten souls out there! They are our enemies! And right now, you all only have one of two options: stand up with your Saviors, the ones who have provided and protected you all this time, or don't and die a cold, painful death." His gaze swung over multiple faces in a matter of seconds. "I want you to live. I want you all to be happy, but not while our adversaries attack us like cowards."

Negan glared at Eugene pointedly. "This one here knows our enemies. In fact, he was one until five fucking minutes ago before he prudently switched sides. He's going to make sure we meet our foes face-to-fucking-face, and I fully plan on taking an eye for an eye. That right, Eugene?"

"Y-yes, sir," Eugene's feeble reply came and Negan chuckled.

"It only took a giant, angry mob of dead fuckwits to understand what was going on, but I guess shit could've been worse. We've already go-"

The sound of breaking glass interrupted him and he pivoted to see gray and porous arms reaching through the windows. His windows.

"They're breaking in!" A woman screamed and horrified cries carried after her.

"Shit!" Negan bellowed. "I spoke too goddamn soon!"

"Push them back!" His men yelled out, but there was no point. They were beginning to twist and wriggle their way in.

He and Simon locked eyes for a split second and instantly both men knew what the other was thinking. Negan barked out orders for his Saviors to grab blunt objects to bludgeon the dead with while Simon ushered a few to obtain their more powerful weaponry. The old and defenseless patrons of the Sanctuary took shelter higher up in the factory, locking themselves away until the danger passed.

"Kill as many as you can, but not all. I wanna march a fucking army of dead down to my old pal Prick's place once this shit is settled!" Negan ordered and set to work, hitting and subduing as many rancid heads as he could with each swing.

His Saviors fought hard, some losing their lives in the fray, but they eventually worked their way outside. Simon and his group brought out heavy arsenals, but Negan didn't want too much of it to go to waste. He was going to need a lot of it when he got himself out of this shit-fuck of a situation.

"Throw some grenades outside of the fence. It'll distract some of these stupid fuckers and clear 'em out a bit," Negan directed Simon and he obliged. It worked temporarily, but the dead were a fickle bunch.

Large trucks were brought out, the idea of pushing the group of dead beyond the fence and blocking them was an attractive one, but it didn't hold them for long. The fence itself was already bent in and bowed, but the walkers contorted it further by their sheer mass, moving around the large vehicles and falling back inside. Eventually Negan had no choice but to call his men back inside.

He took a few more straggling dead out, bashing their heads in one after the other. A strong grip snagged the collar of his leather jacket and Negan spun, lifting his foot to stomp down on the walker's knee. It crumbled to the ground, its right leg gone except for its seeping thigh, and Negan gave Lucille a break as his boot crunched through its ripe skull.

"Everybody in!" He yelled and began backing up to the doors. He observed his men fighting off the biters, moving back at the most opportune chance, and vexation fanned the flames inside of him. The dead were a mob; nearly taking over his home like a cockroach infested crack house and it sickened him to see the sight; to know it was a reality.

This wasn't supposed to be his debacle. This happened to other people, but his teeth ground together the longer he stared at the disintegrating bodies blundering after his people. It was happening to him and it was complete and utter bullshit. Negan nearly called retreating off, wanting to strike every cadaverous creep down, but a peculiar sight stopped him.

In the distance the dead were still converging on the road, waiting in meandering lines to find their way past his walls, but some of them weren't. Some of them stood stalk still, watching the fracas stoically, or so it seemed. Their actions were restricted, and Negan found it harder to keep them in sight as more corpses crossed in front of them. He squinted his eyes, trying to determine what the hell he was actually seeing, but a moment later the apathetic figures were gone.

The hell? Negan thought, but soon he was surrounded again and he forgot all about the oddly motionless figures.

"Inside!" He ordered once more, and his men fell back, gathering inside the Sanctuary while simultaneously repelling the dead with hits, blows, and gunshots.

"We'll have to wait them out," he announced once the doors and windows were secured. He directed his Saviors to keep everyone off of the first floor. "Take those tanks and lead them out if you can. This shit wasn't as easy as I thought it might be."

His men complied and Negan found Eugene trying to blend in among them, locking eyes with him as he spoke to the room.

"Light the furnace." His voice searched for anyone who would comply. "Light them all and find as many pieces of useless metal as you can find. We're blacksmiths in this bitch tonight; make some fucking armor for our newly appointed Saviors."

The Saviors gazed around at one another, looking for clarification from each other as to what their leader was talking about. Negan held a grimy and bloody Lucille out to Eugene, setting the spotlight on him.

"This genius here has maybe come up with one of the most fucking insane ways to fix this shit outside. I'm giving him a shot to prove himself damn useful." Negan smiled wolfishly and directed his words to Eugene. "I'm giving you the reins, butterball. Unless you want a crown of silver for your own, I suggest you not fuck this up."

Eugene shifted on his feet, his eyes skittishly roving from the left to the right. He cleared his throat and said decidedly, "I will require as many chains as you have available, and if it could be arranged, some fresh meat."

"Kinky," Negan grinned and set his people to their tasks. He approached Eugene. "This better work, Einstein."

"It'll be trial and error." He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself. "But I have confidence this will work."

Negan narrowed unblinking eyes. "We'll see… but if it doesn't, well," Negan shrugged and flicked a thumb at the obstructed windows and doors, "at least you'll have hundreds of new friends to meet."

Eugene repressed the urged to gulp and spun away, not knowing exactly where he was going. He only knew he needed a moment to himself to think. How was he going to do what Negan wanted while saving his own life and that of his friends? Was there a way or was he royally screwed? Eugene was sure this was the worst situation he'd ever been in, but he would come up with something. He always did.

Edited by Nightperidot.

Helloooooo! I've kept you all waiting long enough, I suppose. How's the show been going? Has it been any good? I keep hearing how lame it's getting and it makes me sad. My friend said one episode (I think it was this past one) made her cry, so that's good. Right? Anyway, it's gotta be better than this! I haven't been feeling too motivated or creative lately. Does this chapter make sense? Anything seem odd, weird, or illogical? Does it just plain suck? Let me know. I'm curious because sometimes I'll be writing and have to stop due to internal verbal abuse against myself, "What the hell are you even talking about!? This shit doesn't make any sense! Are you dumb or just stupid!?" And then I delete everything and go pout...

Also, sorry Everly and Daryl aren't in this chapter. I thought about going back and adding them in, but I was cautioned not to force it (which seems like sound advice). We will definitely see them next chapter, though. Sorry again and have an awesome weekend!