Heart of a Hunter

by ChamberMom88

Tea spent her life being the odd man out. Having spent her younger years suffering abuse for being autistic and ADHD, she came into the apocalypse ready to take on the world all alone if she had to. Neither she nor a certain redneck expected to be pulled towards the other, but at the end of the world, who can say no to love?

92. Chapter 92

Newly revised

"What the fuck is this?!" Merle shouted as he barged into Ani and Daryl's bedroom the next morning, earning a knife flying by his ear. "Fuckin' hell, girly! Why the hell do you sleep with a knife under your pillow?!"

"So if assholes like ya come in when I'm sleepin' I can stop 'em. Lucky I recognized ya voice," Ani yawned, making sure she was fully covered after finally being able to finish what they'd started the night before. "What the fuck ya want?"

"You wanna tell me what the hell this is?" he asked, holding up the ultrasound picture.

"What the fuck ya think it is? It's a sonogram."

"Don't get smart with me, girly. You steal it from Glenn and Maggie?"

"What the fuck is wrong with ya?!" Ani shouted, offended as all hell at the implication of his question.

"What's goin' on?" Daryl asked sleepily beside her.

"Ya brotha found the picta and is bein' an ass. Thinks we stole it from the Rhees."

"Fuck off, Merle."

"Well, who the fuck's is it, then?" Merle asked, making both Ani and Daryl groan.

"I knew ya were an idiot, Merle. I didn' know ya were stupid," Ani deadpanned.

"Use your brain, man," Daryl told him as he rolled over, his eyes closing as his thumb lazily drew circles on the hip he was holding.

"The two a ya keep callin' me stupid and I'm gonna start throwin' punches!" the man yelled back.

"Why're you shouting?" Sophia asked with a yawn when she came out of her room.

"Take a look at this," he told her, shoving the picture in the young girl's face.

Sophia took a moment to look at it before realization dawned in her eyes and she excitedly asked, "You're pregnant?!"

Ani laughed at the blank expression on Merle's face while telling Sophia, "Well, at least one a ya can use ya thinkin' brain first thing in the mornin'. Thought ya Pops would have an aneurism 'fore 'e got ta the right conclusion."

"Wait, does that mean we win the bet?!" Sophia asked.

"Bet?" Ani questioned. "What bet? Did ya guys seriously bet on when we were goin' ta have a kid?! Who the fuck is all in on it?!"

"Well, fuck, girly, ya told 'em most of it. Might as well rat us all out," Merle told her before he started grumbling about them keeping secrets from him.

"Well, Pops thought you were when you were fighting with Daryl. Sasha and Abraham bet it was probably when we met Aaron and we went to the cars. Tara and Denise thought it might've been around the same time as Maggie. Beth, Carl, and I guessed since the prison," Sophia told her.

"What the fuck is it with people in my life thinkin' my life's a fuckin' game ta bet on?" Ani lamented.

"How far along are you?" the girl asked.

"The three a ya would be right, ya bunch a assholes. 'M 'bout thirteen weeks along."

"How fuckin' long you known, eh?" Merle shot at her. "Find out after Phia told you 'bout Maggie?"

"Nah," Ani told them. "Found out the night 'fore last. We were startin' ta celebrate when Jesus escaped."

"Oh, I bet," the older man commented. "Thirteen weeks, huh?" he asked before the same thing they'd realized dawned on him. "Fuckin' hell! Your asses are fuckin' lucky! You stupid bitch coulda gotten my kin killed!"

"Ya think I don' already know that?!" Ani shouted right back at him, sitting up and pulling the sheet with her, half tempted to get out of bed aside from the fact that she had nothing on underneath. "Ya think I ain' already dealin' with the guilt that comes with that?! The fear?! I didn't fucking know!" she seethed.

"Well, now you do. And you'll be keeping your ass here in Alexandria where I can keep an eye on ya."

"Fuck off, Merle. If Daryl can' convince me ta stay, ya ain'. Not 'til I absolutely have ta."

"You should try harder, man. Keep 'er locked up tight 'til she pops."

"Try it and I'll cut ya junks off and stuff ya shaft for Francines while makin' ya eat ya own damn Rocky Mountain oystas!"

Merle paled and held his hands up in surrender; after what she'd done with the Claimers, he had no doubt that she meant what she said. He'd already thought she was knocked up from after how she'd been during their little spat. After that, the constant questions about squirrel had driven him half-crazy and then how much she'd been sleeping lately wasn't normal, either. Daryl had chalked it up to the stress having got to her, but they'd all seen how she was when it was that. She might take an extra nap or two for a couple days, and then she'd be fine, and that was after pulling watch duties and fulfilling a leadership role and dealing with insomnia. Nowadays, she slept the better part of the night, though she had been having more nightmares lately, and still fell asleep for a couple hours any time she sat down for more than twenty minutes. Merle had mentioned it to Beth after Ani's little temper tantrum about missing a meal and said he would bet his bottom dollar she had a bun in the oven. It had spiraled from there and several of them had gotten involved; there were others both in their group and in Alexandria that had simply bet for or against the fact.

"What are Rocky Mountain oysters?" Sophia asked, making the other three snort.

"Bull balls, Phia," Ani answered. "They're bull balls, but, in this case, I was meanin' Merle's balls!"

"Eww!" the girl cried before running out of the room.

"What you two still doin' in bed? Come on. Get up. Time to go to the meeting," Merle told them.

"Gee, Mer-man, I wonda why we ain' out a bed. A madman barged inta our room while we were sleeping and began askin' a shite ton a questions. Did ya eva stop ta think we ain' inta voyeurism?"

"What?"

"I'm naked, shitebrain!"

"Get the fuck outta here!" Daryl yelled at him, finally fully waking up and fully realizing what was going on, throwing a pillow at the man.

~x~

"I'd rather you didn't go," Daryl told her after they fully woke up and got dressed, resting his forehead against the back of her head.

"I don' know what I'd ratha do, ta be honest. But I got ta go. Got ta make sure ya come back ta me," she told him, turning in his arms and reaching up to kiss him.

"You stay out of harm's, got it? Just keep a lookout by the cars," he told her when she pulled back.

"Yeah, I promise. 'Less ya need my help, I'll stay with the vehicles."

"Alright," he said, wrapping her up in his arms. "Got ta get to the church soon."

After a few more minutes within each other's arms during which time Sophia came in with the twins, the three of them headed to the church where the rest of the citizens had begun to gather. Once everyone was there, Rick began explaining what happened at Hilltop and the deal they had made with the group living there. While it wasn't an ideal situation, what they were capable of doing was what mattered to the Hilltop, not what they had. Compromises had to be made in order to survive and Rick was asking the people of Alexandria to fight for what they needed. It was how they would get food, livestock, tools, weapons; with this one act they could be set up with everything they needed to survive. They could have trade with another settlement, potentially even an alliance in the face of threat so that there wasn't a need for their people to clean up the mess Hilltop faced again. They already knew where the compound was, already knew the layout, all they needed were people willing to take the risk to make it happen. Ani pointed out that they still needed people to stay behind, as well, to keep the home front guarded and immediately suggested Merle, which pissed the man off until she told him to consider it practice for the future. Even if Merle didn't realize it yet, the only other people she trusted with Alexandria's wellbeing when most of their people would be gone. She was also the only one she trusted to watch over the kids, including those to come, when no one else was around to. He stood down after that and begrudgingly accepted the position of Alexandria's 'whipping post,' as he called it, earning a roll of the eyes from Ani before Rick continued.

"And we can work with the Hilltop," he said as he wound down his spiel. "Maggie hammered out a deal. We're getting food, eggs, butter, fresh vegetables. But they're not just giving it away. These Saviors, they almost killed Sasha, Daryl, and Abraham out on the road. Now, sooner or later, they would've found us, just like those Wolves did, just like Jesus did. They would have killed someone or some of us. And then they would try to own us. And we would try to stop them. But by then, in that kind of fight, low on food, we could lose. This is the only way to be sure, as sure as we can get, that we win. And we have to win. We do this for the Hilltop, it's how we keep this place. It's how we keep this place fed. But this needs to be a group decision. If anybody objects, here's your chance to say your piece."

Ani looked around as she saw several of the citizenry doing before Morgan stood up and asked, "You're sure we can do it? We can beat them?"

"What this group has done, what we've learned, what we've become, all of us-" Rick told him. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Then all we have to do is just tell them that," Morgan tried, not wanting to take human life.

"They don't compromise," Rick stated.

"This isn't a compromise," insisted Morgan. "It's a choice you give 'em. A way out, for them and for us."

"We can' do that, though," Ani told him. "Negotiatin' means givin' up our advantage, our safety."

"She's right," Rick agreed. "We can't talk to the Saviors without givin' up the element of surprise. No, we have to come for them before they come for us. We can't leave them alive."

"Where there's life, there's possibility," Morgan pointed out.

"Of them hitting us!" Rick insisted.

"Hey, they're not trapped in this. None of you are trapped in this."

"I beg ta diffa, Morgan," Ani reasoned. "They killed a sixteen year old kid at the Hilltop jus' ta prove a point. We don' hit 'em and they come for us, one a my family could be killed, one a my kids. Ain' lettin' that happen."

"Morgan," Rick told him. "They always come back."

"They come back when they're dead, too."

"Yeah, we'll stop them. We have before," Rick said.

"I'm not talking about the walkers," Morgan said.

"Morgan wants to talk to them first," Rick told the rest of the group, putting it to them rather than making that choice himself, looking to Ani to see her nod her head slightly, agreeing with his choice. "I think that'd be a mistake, but that's not up to me. I'll talk to the people still at home. I'll discuss it with the people on guard now, too, but who else wants to approach the Saviors, talk to them first?"

"What happened here," Aaron said as he stood from his spot next to Eric. "We won't let that happen again. I won't," he said looking at Morgan, essentially telling the man he believed he was wrong.

"Looks like it's settled," Rick stated as Morgan hung his head. "We know exactly what this is. We don't shy from it, we live. We kill them all. We don't all have to kill. But if people are gonna stay here, they do have to accept it," he stated as he left the church.

Francine joined Merle as the Dixon troupe moved on to Ani and Daryl's house, entering the abode and moving to the living room. Daryl sat on the couch and brought Ani onto his lap, both moving to lay down and stretch out as Sophia took one chair and Merle pulled Francine into his lap in the other chair. The kittens jumped up on the couch and laid at their feet as the five people in the room remained quiet, just contemplating what was going to go down by the end of the next night. Merle was staring off into space as he worried about what Ani had planned wanting him to stay back but not saying anything about herself. Sophia was worried about her, too, now that she knew she was expecting, though she was also worried about whether that meant they would want her to move out. All four of the little family were under a lot of stress for the same reason as they stared at the sonogram on the coffee table, Francine only noticing after following Merle's gaze.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Huh?" Ani said sleepily, looking over to see what she was talking about. "Oh, exactly what it looks like."

"Wow. Congrats," Francine said, picking up the picture. "I never thought I'd see another one of these."

"Did ya have kids?"

"No, but my brother...they weren't as lucky as I was," she told her sadly. "I'm glad the world's not stopping you from living. It'll be nice to see more babies around here."

"You're stayin' here tomorrow, right?" Merle asked, his voice dangerously low as he thought about his pregnant little sister heading out with them and putting herself in harm's way.

"Nah, ya and Phia got keepin' this place safe takin' care a. I'm goin' ta stick ta parimeta duty, little ta nah fightin', I promise, but I'm goin'. I got ta."

"No you don't, Ani," Merle said, getting ready to put up a fight before Francine stepped in.

"I heard Maggie's going too," she said.

"That's why I got ta go. Mags and I, we'll keep each otha safe, keep our babies safe, but we both gotta go. She made the deal, I'm one a the leadas now that Deanna's gone. I can' jus' sit it out. Not yet. There'll come a time when I stay home, but for now? I jus' can'," she told him.

"I don't like it."

"Think I do?" Daryl asked him, holding Ani tighter to him as she began to drift to sleep.

"Then why you lettin' 'er go?"

"Promised she'd stay by the cars," Daryl sighed. "'Bout as hard-headed as you are. Nearly clocked me in the jaw when I said the same thing."

"I should go with yous, keep her safe."

"We need you here keepin' home safe," Daryl countered.

"How's trainin' with Bobby goin'?"

"They're both gettin' good at trackin'. Bobby knows when to attack and when to lay low. They'll help keep 'er safe. Haven't been bulkin' 'em up for nothin'."

"Think she'll let 'em go?"

"Ain't givin' 'er a choice," Daryl told Merle as he pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and draped it around them, getting comfortable himself. "If she's goin', they're goin'. That's my only say on the matter."

~x~

In the morning, Merle gave Ani her daggers, freshly sharpened and warned her to be careful before taking Francine back home while Sophia went over to spend the day with Carl and Enid. Even though she fought it at first, Ani eventually agreed to bring the twins with them, though stated they would be staying in the RV until such time as they were needed. She knew that Daryl and Merle had both been working with the kittens and both were almost the size of their full grown counterparts. They just needed to gain muscle now to get to the weight they would generally be. It still amazed Ani that it only took about six or seven months for the kittens to get so big, though they could now jump into her outstretched arms, not just force her to bend over or suffer from being climbed up. She and Daryl walked together over to Rick's house, meeting up with Glenn and Maggie on the way after Daryl took Catty out of her arms and told her to quit carrying her. Standing around the table with the other guy from the Hilltop, they handed him a paper and pen as they asked him to describe the compound the Saviors were staying at.

"And you didn't see any other rooms?" Maggie asked as the man describe the facility.

"No," Andy told them. "It's a big place. This is the hallway I saw. There is more."

"And every time," Michonne said as she pointed at the drawing he had made. "They had you bring things into here?"

"Jesus."

"We brought a couple spears for them," Andy continued, drawing some more. "Two of the Saviors took them down this hallway. Now, they must have done something with them because they didn't come back with them."

"Maybe a weapon's locker, an armory," Jesus suggested.

"Okay," Glenn stated. "We get in there, secure the armory, that's how we end it."

"That's how Carol ended it here," Maggie stated, looking over at the woman.

"But we don't know if they have an armory or where it even is," Andy reasoned.

"They got one, alright," Ani stated. "If they didn', ya wouldn' be so scared a them. They got weapons somewhere in there."

"She's right," Daryl said from beside her, stepping up to look at the map himself. "We've got a lot of good guesses. We've done more with less."

"We go in at night while they're sleeping," Rick stated, having talked it over with Merle and Abraham the night before when the others were sleeping and the three were on guard duty together.

"The guards won't be sleeping," Andy told him. "Like I said, I think there's only one way in and there's no way to bust through that door without waking up the rest of them."

"Ya don' need ta bust through the door," Ani told him.

"They're gonna open is for us, let us walk right in," Rick agreed, the two sharing the same smirk as their thoughts synchronized.

"Ya said they wanted Greg's head, right?" Ani asked Andy, who nodded his head. "Well, let's go do some walka huntin'. Got ta be one close 'nough ta lookin' like that rat bastard out there."

It didn't take them long before they were ready to go and all piled into the RV, Ani suggesting she and Daryl take the RV but being shot down. The car they brought and the motorhome being out on the road was a dead giveaway of their presence to begin with; they didn't need all that plus an ATV out there. Merle had been a blabber mouth and told Rick and Abraham to keep special eye on Ani because of her condition, promising violence if she came back with so much as a scratch. They drove along in silence until they were about two miles away from the compound Andy had explained before stopping Bobby and Catty were sprawled out on the floor of the RV and startled awake when the convoy laid on their horns. Immediately, Catty had jumped up onto Ani's lap while Bobby bristled in front of her while hissing, making everyone in the RV laugh. Jesus hadn't stopped staring at the things since they'd come into the RV with her, neither of them being on a leash like he was used to seeing. He didn't expect them to be trained nor react and respond as they did, apparently, and it greatly fascinated him how the pair of hunters had such a bond with the pair of bobcats as they piled out of the vehicles. Ani used a hand signal to the twins, who immediately began bounding ahead as she and Daryl stopped to hear Rick giving out orders before heading out in the opposite directions.

"Aaron, Rosita. You start here. We'll peel off every quarter mile, meet back here in a couple of hours. See what we got."

Abraham, Sasha, and Aaron joined them as they walked down the road, searching for walkers, Abraham and Sasha eventually splitting off, leaving Ani, Daryl, and Aaron to go their way. Most everyone else was in teams of two, but for this part, Ani had insisted to go with Daryl, especially since they were using Bobby and Catty as lures for any walkers in the area, thus the reason they'd run ahead. Sure enough, a little ways ahead, they could hear the them yowling, several walkers standing at the base of a tree trying to reach up at the kittens in its branches. The three of them made quick work of the walkers, finding two that could work as Gregory in the right light. Ani did her best not to get sick as the guys started chopping the heads off while the kittens jumped down from their perches. Moving to join back up with the others, Daryl jumped on the hood of the jeep before pulling Ani up with him, wanting to hold her for the little bit of time he could before he left her with Maggie. She held his arms tightly, enjoying the feeling of being tucked safely under his chin as they listened to Rick explain the plan one last time after everyone got back.

"We're gonna take a look around, try to get a feel for how many people are in there. We like how it looks, we go in. A couple of hours before dawn. The guards outside will be tired. Everyone inside'll be sleeping. We don't like what we see, we head back, make a new plan. They don't know who we are. We'll keep Jesus in the shadows. This is how we eat," he reasoned. "This is how we eat. We roll out at midnight."

"Why is Maggie here?" Ani heard Carol ask Rick as Glenn and Maggie came up and thanked her for staying with them.

"She's guarding the perimeter, same as Ani," Rick told her.

"Yeah, but why is she here? And what has it to do with Ani?"

"They're in similar positions," Rick stated. "And it's their choice."

Carol looked over to Ani as she thought about what Rick said when realization hit her like a slap to the face that Ani was pregnant. It took Glenn and Maggie waling over to her and Daryl, for her to figure it out when the two women talked to each other before they hugged. They both had smiles on their faces as they stood there with their husbands, the men shaking hands as they seemingly congratulated each other. Carol couldn't believe the two women were being so stupid to be putting themselves in danger when they were expecting. She knew she didn't have much room to speak; she hadn't exactly been the happiest person in the world to be pregnant and had done her fair share of reckless things. She had never, however, put her in an immediate line of danger out of her own free will. Ed had been nicer than normal when she was pregnant, attentive even, and had rarely hit her until Sophia was born, and then it went back to what she was used to. It had terrified her more that he had been nice to her than when he was shouting at her and calling her a whore. Now, she was watching two couples congratulating each other about the new life they were carrying while sitting and waiting to get shot at. Carol couldn't believe they would be so imbecilic to even have volunteered to do anything but stay at the home front and keep it safe with Merle.

She especially couldn't believe that Ani was willing to be out here while in her particular predicament considering how protective she was of the kids. Ani had been adamant that the children needed to be kept safe, even from emotional damage; Sophia had moved in with her because of that. In fact, ever since Sophia had been left in Ani's care, the three of them had started mending bridges in some ways. Sophia was at least talking to her again, even if it was only when they were in the same room and she still refused to listen to her. Ani and Carol had been able to hold conversations about life in general now that they had their own places to live and didn't have to be around each other every day. Even when Daryl wasn't around, they would walk down the road together talking about what had happened since the last time they'd talked. And when Daryl was around, the three of them would actually enjoy each others company while talking about nothing and everything all at the same time. That she would be out here after not even giving her a chance until Sophia was properly protected was beyond reason.

"I want to stay out here with them," she told Rick

"Well, this whole thing's a race to the armory," Rick tried to reason. "We need as many people inside as we can get."

"They shouldn't be out here alone. They shouldn't be out here in the first place."

Rick looked at her and then around at everyone else that was with them before turning back and simply saying, "Okay."

"Good."

Daryl let Ani slide away from him and down the truck before getting off it as well when Glenn and Maggie walked up. They'd heard from Tara that morning how she was pregnant, too and came over to ask how long they'd known and the women asked about symptoms and cravings. Glenn and Daryl congratulated each other and Glenn asked him if Daryl if he was looking forward to parenthood, all four of them admitting it was terrifying but exciting all at once. After they left, Ani grabbed his poncho from the RV and went over to the field next to the convoy to lay it down. Daryl laid down on top of it before Ani laid down, too, her head on his shoulder as they looked up at the sky. They stayed like that for a while before she turned on her side and hugged herself as close to him as possible, both his arms going around her as he brought her fully onto his chest. They were both scared of the possibilities that lie ahead as well as what the consequences of their actions might be.

"You be safe, you hear?" he told her as the others started preparing the food they had.

"I should be tellin' ya that," she replied, sitting up and letting him up in the process. "Ya betta come back ta me in one piece, ya got it?"

"Promise, baby girl," he told her, grabbing her around the neck and pulling her in for a kiss before he stood up, helping her stand as well before putting the poncho on her.

~x~

After a nap with Ani in his arms, night had finally fallen and Daryl had given her one last kiss before following along with Rick and Glenn. He had to trust that she would be safe, that Carol would help keep both expecting women safe, until they got back. Everyone had their jobs to do, and he was no exception, pushing his nerves over leaving her to the side, knowing that between Carol, Maggie, and his wife, nothing could touch them. All he had to do was focus on the task at hand and make sure that he managed to keep from getting hurt so she wouldn't worry about him when he got back. She'd been wearing his poncho with the bobcats sitting next to her when they drove away, getting within an a mile of the Saviors' compound. He and the other Alexandrians crept, minus Gabriel and Tara, who, through the dark doing their best to remain as silent as possible while getting as close to the building as they could. Gabriel and Tara, along with Andy, would be hanging back, making sure none of the Saviors escaped and tried to go back to the Hilltop to wreak havoc. Sticking to the shadows, he watched as Andy drove up to the entrance of the satellite station, everyone in position to take care of the task at hand.

"Stop right there!" they heard a voice shout from inside the complex. "Announce yourself, asshole!"

"It's Andy from Hilltop! It's done!"

"Step out!" He watched as Andy came out of the vehicle with his arms raised, the burlap sack carrying the walker head in it in his good hand, the voice of the guard asking "Is that it?!"

"Yeah!"

"Bring it here shit-brain!" a different voice called out, the sound of a door opening. "I don't want the bag, needle dick." Daryl couldn't clearly see what was happening, but after a short pause he heard, "Will you look at this shit? Will you look at this shit?!"

"He broke my hand, so I broke his nose. That's why he looks that way," Andy said after a tense moment.

Another prolonged paused was followed by a sarcastically raised voice, "The little bitch broke my nose, wah," as another man laughed. "Okay, looks like you learned. I'll get your guy, you'll go home, and you'll bring us more stuff next week," was said, followed by the sound of a slap.

He heard the door open as someone else began whistling, signaling their time to start the operation, stealthily making his way to the door with Michonne and the others. He moved behind the bigger man and grabbed his forehead, bring his head back enough to be able to slit his throat and cut his whistling off. As the man fell to his knees, he used both hands to slam his buck knife into the man's skull, ending him for good as the others came up and cleared the body away. Holding his rifle at the ready towards the door, he stood guard until the others were clear, only then backing away into the shadows. They had to wait for the other guard to come back out before they could rush the door and get into the building without alarming the others. Michonne took the lead when the other man came back out with the missing Hilltop team, slicing through the man's chest while Andy grabbed his friend and took him to the car. Daryl quickly ran into place by the door as Rick ended the man for good before tossing the keys over so he could unlock it while Glenn took point. Rick opened the next door, Abraham, Sasha and Daryl moving as a unit to clear the area before splitting off, Abraham and Sasha as a team, Rick, Michonne, and Daryl as a unit. Glenn and Heath made another team while Rosita and Aaron compromised the final team. They moved as silently as they could down the hallway, fanning out before Rick whisper-yelled to all of them.

"Check the doors, find the arsenal. We take them out."

Daryl kept an eye out behind them as they moved, switching his stance every now and then until they reached more consecutive doors. Kneeling down as Rick opened one of them, he did a quick sweep before motioning that there was someone in there before silently turning back around to keep guard. He watched as Rick entered the room, looking away before the man drove his knife into the enemy's head. The two of them moved onto the next room, Rick taking out most of the men as they went while Daryl and Michonne kept watch. They slowly made their way through the facility, taking care of every person they came across, all of them sleeping, until they weren't. An alarm blared through the halls, alerting the remaining Saviors in the compound to their presence. The ensuing fire fight was bloody with him, Michonne, and Rick running for their lives half the time and being pinned down the other half. They fought fire with fire, Daryl helping clear a passage for him and Michonne before they were pinned down again with Rick on the other side of the hall. They continued making their way down the hall while covering each other, Daryl busting through a door and bashing the face of one of the Saviors with the butt of his rifle.

In the end, they managed to take the entire compound without a single casualty, though they were all changed, everyone wanting to just forget about what happened. Daryl still couldn't help but be thankful that Ani hadn't come with them, her or Maggie. Having to run through a gun fight wasn't something he wanted either pregnant woman to go through. They said goodbye to Heath and Tara, Tara giving him a hug and telling him to give Ani one for her. He said he would, and watched as they took a small camper from the compound and drove off on their scavenging trip. The group was spread out along the fence when they heard the roar of an engine, one that sounded very familiar to Daryl as he swung around. From an open garage door, a man riding his old bike, the one that had been stolen, came out, causing him to shout a curse before everyone opened fire. The man went down rather easily, his bike spinning out of control as Daryl body checked the man back to the ground as he tried to stand. If the bike was there, that meant that they had either taken it from Dwight, or Dwight had been in the compound himself and these were the assholes he'd been so afraid of. This punk was weaker than Aaron, a couple punches being all it took to keep him down as he shouted at the man.

"Where'd you get the bike?!"

"Just do it!" the man yelled at them as Rick knocked the hammer of his gun back. "Like you did everyone else, right?!"

"Lower your gun, prick," a disembodied voice called out over the walkie talkie the man had, causing everyone to look around, guns up and on high alert. "You with the Colt Python. All of you lower your weapons right now."

"Come on out," Rick called over the walkie. "Let's talk."

The next words that came out of the walkie had Daryl's blood running cold as he and Glenn shared horrified expressions, "We're not coming out, but we will talk. We've got a Carol, a Maggie, and an Ani. I'm thinking that's something you want to chat about."

~x~

Ani had been standing in front of the RV staring down the road ever since the rest left, prompting Maggie to walk up to her and put an arm around her, "They're gonna be back. Everything is gonna be okay."

"I know," she said, somewhat shrugging her shoulder to tell Maggie she wasn't in the mood to be touched.

"I see you brought the twins with you."

"Merle wouldn' have it any otha way. Thought Daryl was ovaprotective, but damn. Merle's got 'im beat. Damn near had ta knock 'im out ta leave," Ani told her. "It's a good thing, though. Somethin' happens ta us, the twins'll get our men ta us."

"You think somethin's gonna happen?" Maggie asked.

"I think it's a good thing ta cross ya T's and dot ya I's."

"Yeah, better to be safe than sorry."

"If you were being safe you would've stayed in Alexandria," Carol huffed as she walked out of the RV.

Ani and Maggie looked at her before falling silent, the pair not wanting to think about what the woman had said since they both knew she was right. There really wasn't any real reason for either of them to be out here aside from purely being selfish over the fact that they wanted to know their men were safe. It was nothing other than that that had them watching and waiting at the RV for the others to return or some sign that something bad was happening. Neither Maggie nor Ani had been prepared to deal with Carol's negativity, let alone were expecting her presence. At first, it was nice that she had stayed behind, but it was clearly just because she was irritated with them after the first hour or so had come and gone with her doing nothing but giving them both the stink eye. While Ani could guess why, she couldn't understand what Carol's problem was since she'd never been like this before. Angry at her over Sophia, yes, but angry just at being in her presence or being angry at Maggie for seemingly nothing? She'd never really been angry at anyone for anything since they'd met, the anger lasting only for short bouts before everything was back to being a-okay. Ani had turned around to ask Carol what was up to be cut short before a single syllable left her lips by a loud alarm ringing in the distance.

Carol immediately stating, "They're in trouble. Stay here."

"I'm going with you," Maggie stated as Ani simply went to follow.

"I said stay here," Carol yelled, rounding on them.

"Hell nah," Ani said as Maggie said, "No."

"Dammit, you two!" Carol said, grabbing a hold of both of their arms.

"We have to," Maggie told her, Ani simply breaking her grip.

"No, you don't. Neither of you have to!" Carol insisted.

"Yes, we do!" Ani shouted. "I sat on my ass long enough! I'm goin' ta go help 'em and ain' shite ya can do ta stop me!"

"What the hell are the two of you doing here?" Carol asked.

"What are we supposed to do?" Maggie shot back in exasperation.

"You're supposed to be someone else! The both of you!"

"They need our help," Maggie said as a walker came at them, Carol quickly dispatching it even though both Maggie and Ani had their own knives at the ready.

"You are staying here," Carol told them with a voice of finality.

"Watch me," Ani threatened, knowing Carol couldn't hold her own against her, even now.

Rustling behind them caused Carol to raise her gun as both Ani and Maggie turned, unholstering their own weapons in unison. It was dark in the woods and that had Ani on edge, especially since the sound could have come from anything. It might just be a raccoon or an opossum out there looking for food or an owl or bat doing its nightly hunting, it could be a walker; worse case scenario was it was someone who escaped from the compound. The best case scenario would be their people having lost the cars and simply needing to make their way back to the cars. Dawn was not far off and with nary a cloud in the sky there was enough light for Daryl to find his way and lead the rest back to the RV relatively easy enough. Ani jumped as she watched as a man exited the woods and went down from Carol's shot, but either her gun needed serious cleaning or her aim was off because she got him in the arm. Carol had become a really good shot over the months at the prison, even becoming capable of taking down walkers on her own. The weak woman she'd been at the start had been forged into steel by the world and had taken quite a few lives in the past few months alone. Ani couldn't see a reason why she would have missed the shot aside from needing to give the gun a damn good cleaning. She and Maggie headed over to the man on the ground to finish the job as Carol tried to get them to stop, once again trying to grab onto Ani and get her to stay back.

"Dammit, Maggie, let's go!" Carol whisper-yelled at them.

"Not until it's done," Maggie said right before another voice sounded from behind Carol.

"Stop!" a woman said, Ani turning to be met with a gun to her face as the newbie brought her own gun up to Carol's head, a third woman holding one up to Maggie's while two more women came out with weapons up. "Or they're dead," the woman threatened, prompting Maggie to turn around and hold her hands up in surrender. "Guns, knives on the ground right now."

"Nice jacket," the elderly woman with a gun trained on Maggie said as they dropped their weapons, Ani pulling her daggers from her back and dropping them to the ground with a glare.

"For a murderous bitch," the younger woman with her gun to Ani's head said.

"Well, we'll take it off her before we shoot her," the leader told them.

Their hands were bound before they were forcefully marched with guns to their heads to the gate that separated the satellite facility from the woods. The sun had risen during the journey as Ani looked at the ropes and determined the fastest way to undo the knots; she might not know much about tying the damn things, but untying them was her specialty. It would have been very easy, too, as they'd literally just tied them in a knot and she knew that the twins were close by and would listen to her vocal commands. But Ani knew that, if she broke her bonds, there were too many people with weapons close by and Maggie and Carol could get caught in the crossfire, not mention the twins or herself. She would have to wait for her chance as the man Carol shot continued complaining about the fact that he'd been shot. She couldn't help but roll her eyes at the man as she looked down at the yard and the barely distinguishable figures, having known that even Sophia had been shot and made less of a fuss than him. Little girl had two close calls and scars on either side of her shoulders thanks to them, but she was tough as nails and had barely even complained about pain. This guy? How could a group that called themselves Saviors and terrify Gregory be so damn weak that even a thirteen year old girl was tougher than them?

She watched as Daryl, the wings on his back recognizable even from this distance, the others coming to stand around him as the leader said, "It's Primo. Dammit, they've got him. Give me the walkie."

"Babe, what's happening?" pussy-man asked, handing over the electronic device.

"Lower your gun, prick," the leader said. "You with the Colt Python. All of you lower your weapons, right now."

"Come on out. Let's talk," Rick's voice rang out over the walkie, none of their people putting down their guns but all of them at the ready with a gun too.

"How many we got?"

"Eight in sight," the leader said. "Too many."

"No, we can take them," pussy-man told her. "We've taken more."

"Doubt they were eva as trained as our people," Ani quipped, earning a backhand from the woman with the walkie.

"We're not coming out," the leader called back to Rick. "But we will talk." Turning to the girls, she demanded, "Names. Names!"

"I'm Maggie, she's Carol, and she's Ani," Maggie answered as the woman turned back to the walkie.

"We've got a Carol, a Maggie, and an Ani. I'm thinking that's something you'd want to chat about," she said as Ani watched the stand-still in the field in front of them. "Now, we're gonna work this out right now, and it's going to go our way."

Ani watched as Rick silently gave a word and Daryl forced the man on the ground to his feet, keeping his gun trained to the back of his head as Rick spoke into the walkie, "You can see we have one of yours. We'll trade."

"I'm listening," the woman in charge said.

"First I want to talk to Maggie, Carol, and Ani, make sure they're alright."

"I'm going to put you on, you say you're fine. I'll know if you try anything else," the leader said, walking up to the trio as the older woman took out an incoming walker.

"Rick, it's Carol," Carol said, sound weak. "I—I'm fine."

The leader scoffed as she pushed Carol away and grabbed Maggie, "Now you."

"Rick, it's Maggie. We're all okay. We'll figure this-"

"Shut up," the woman told her before grabbing onto Ani. "Speak."

"Daryl?" Ani said, making the woman look at her. "I'm alright, baby. We'll be fine."

"That's your man in there?" the younger woman said, wondering which person she'd been talking to.

"That's my family and my man," Ani corrected as she looked out at the forms in the field, barely distinguishable from each other outside of guessing based on the color of the clothing, the only one she knew who it was being Daryl.

"You have your proof. Let's talk," the leader said.

"Alright, this is the deal, right here," Rick stated. "Let 'em go, you can have your guy back and live."

"Three for one, that's not much of a trade."

"You don't have another choice or you woulda done something about it already."

"He's right 'bout that," Ani said, earning her a shut it from the eldest woman, to whom she just shrugged her shoulders to. "Jus' sayin'."

"If you don't shut your mouth, I'll shut it for you," Pussy-Man stated, her name for him officially instating itself in her mind as he gritted his teeth through the pain. "We have to get him back."

"Primo can take care of himself," the leader insisted.

"He can patch me up," Pussy-Man insisted before turning to Carol. "I need him, thanks to that bitch. You lost your balls, Paula. You should've shot her in the head so they could hear her die."

"If you could just shut up, I'll solve this," the leader, Paula, stated.

"Then make the deal or we go in," the man demanded.

"She said shut up so shut it," the eldest woman stated. "You should be glad she doesn't have a sack of gonads to trip over."

"Seems ta me she's got bigga balls than Pussy-Man," Ani told the elder with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Seems like you don't know when to shut up," Paula told her before resorting to threats after slapping her hadn't worked; to be fair, Ani had been hit much, much harder than that in recent weeks. "Speak again and I'll shoot."

"Look, I know you're talkin' it over," Rick's voice sounded over the walkie. "It's a fair trade. Just come out, we do this, we all walk away."

"Smug prick," the younger woman with her gun trained on Maggie said. "He must think we're stupid."

Only 'cause ya are, Ani thought to herself as Paula stated, "That's a good thing."

"Do we have a deal?" Rick asked.

"I'll get back to you."

The last thing Ani saw before Daryl's poncho was put over her head was Paula heading to take care of a walker. As they were dragged through the jungle, Ani made sure to scuffle and stomp her feet as much as possible, making an obvious trail for Daryl to follow. It was easy to do with the better part of her sight blocked off and not being able to see where she was putting her feet very easily. She did her best to keep track of the direction they were going in, but eventually they were hauled into a vehicle before their rope confines were replaced with duct tape, a grave mistake in Ani's opinion. Duct tape was easy enough to rip if you knew how, even easier still if you had the strength, and Ani had both in abundance. All she had to do was raise her hands above her head and then bring them down quickly while forcing her hands apart. Sure, how they'd duct taped their hands together would be difficult for normal people, being wrapped all the way up around their hands, but for Ani, it would only take a little more effort. She had to commend them, though, at making sure they wouldn't be able to grab any weapons off of them since their hands were covered. It was essentially the patience game that she had to play with everyone until Daryl and Rick could catch up to them. Patience had never been something she had been good at when in a high anxiety situation like she was now.

Ani was happy she'd given the kittens a signal to follow at a distance right before she took off with Maggie, because they would be able to get the guys on the right heading. Bobby was already following her as per her training; Merle had forced Ani to hide around Alexandria to make sure the kitty knew how to find her. Catty was probably already with Daryl, giving him a heading and an advantage over these pricks; again, Merle had made the two train as well. It was stupid and they'd only done it to placate the older man at first, though Daryl did become more serious about it as Merle kept talking in his ear. The thing was, when she got back to Alexandria and he found out his training had worked, he was going to become absolutely insufferable and find new ways to take up her free time. She couldn't help the smirk that played at her lips as she listened to Paula giving instructions to more Saviors as they went down the road, though. Soon enough, their captors were leading them into a building of some sort. The oldest woman was bitching and complaining about the place, calling it a safe house and then cursing it out before Paula began to reason with her. As the poncho was taken from off her head, she was met with a walker right in front of her. Doing the only thing she could think of doing, she closed her eyes tight, reared her head back, and smashed the thing with her forehead as hard as she could in the head, killing it before doing her best to get the nasty off her face and leaning over and retching.

"Damn, sugar, you really have some guts to do something like that," the eldest woman laughed before she started coughing, Paula dispatching a walker from in front of Maggie's face as the others put gags in Maggie and Carol's mouths.

"Get on the ground," Paula demanded. "You there," she pointed to Maggie and a small section of wall that jutted out. "You, over there," she said to Carol, pointing by the door. "And you, you're staying with me for now," she told Ani. "God, someone get the blood off her face and get a gag in her mouth. I don't want to hear anything else out of her."

"Come here, Magnolia," the older woman said, producing a rag from her pocket and wiping at the blood as Paula began wrapping Carol's legs in duct tape. "You're a tough little chicky, ainchya?"

"Had ta be ta live past childhood," Ani answered as she was finally able to open an eye, the look the woman in front of her was giving her a mix between curiosity and realization.

"We've all been through the ringer, hun," she said, Ani humming in agreement.

"You're wondering if there's a way out of this," Paula told them as she finished with Carol's legs and went over to Maggie. "There isn't. Not unless I say so." As the older woman finished cleaning Ani's face, Paula came to her and gagged her before she shoved her down into the corner as the other women called for help. "I want to kill the three of you right now. It's taking all I have not to so I dare you to try something. Just see what happens."

With that, she left the room, Maggie looking around to see what she could use to work her way out of the bindings she was in. Ani watched as Carol smartly removed her cross from the pocket it was originally in only to start shoving it in her other pocket, making it easier to get to. She also watched as Maggie started trying to break the duct tape on her hands, rubbing it against the corner of the stone she was sitting against while the other women focused on Ani. It didn't work as she simply sat still watching the two women try to work a way out until the gunfire stopped and the sound of the other women coming back echoed in the halls. Ani knew she'd need more than a few minutes if she was going to get out of the bindings and start up one of the many plans she'd already drawn up. Even though her legs were free, there was no way she would be able to stand, attack the old lady and get to the young one before one of them put a bullet into one of their heads. There were simply too many guns while she was without a single weapon other than her ability to fight and there was no way she was going to risk the baby or either of the other women. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply as she tried to calm her nerves and remain patient until the sound of someone else's breathing started grating on her ears. Opening her eyes, she found the source to be Carol as she began panicking and hyperventilating around her gag.

"When's the last time this place was cleared?" Paula asked as she and the other three women came back into the room from one direction, Pussy-Man and Elder Lady returning from a different direction.

"It was fine a month ago," the younger woman told her.

"There was gas and food and now it's gone," one of the other women said, training her gun on Ani as she got back on her feet.

"Sweetie, that was a month ago. Shit hardens quick," the last woman told them.

"The guns have gone bye-bye. The food's gone bye-bye. And we got growlers up and down the halls," Elder Lady spoke as she went to Ani and roughly pulled her over, gun out but not pointing at her, thankfully.

"Means people can get through, too," Pussy-Man reasoned.

"CAROL!" Maggie and Ani shouted around their gags at the same time.

"Maybe we should get gone too," one of the women suggested.

"Yeah, where the hell too?" the young woman asked.

"Nowhere," Paula said as she checked the man's arm. "There's dead in the halls? Free security. Those asshole get here before our people, the cold bloods will buy us some time. Shut up," she told Carol, the sentiment doing little to calm the woman down.

"Jesus, it's bleedin'," Pussy-Man complained. "It's not supposed to keep bleedin'."

"Molly, give me the rope!" Paula told the Elder Lady, who left Ani to the other woman before handing the rope over and grabbing Ani's arm again.

Ani huffed a sigh and rolled her eyes at all the manhandling, irritation beginning to settle on a not so very nice plan she'd envisioned. She had already been on edge and hadn't wanted Maggie touching her; the fact that complete strangers kept passing her around like a ragdoll had her about to go into sensory overload. It was bad enough that she could still smell the walker ick all around her, her hair and clothes both being saturated with it. She was beginning to feel queasy from the smell, the anger and stress not helping the matter any as she tried to keep from puking. Being touched by people she didn't know, people who were actively threatening to kill her, was too much. She could hear the sounds of the walkers in the halls and could swear she could hear the blood dripping from the man's wound. There was a faint smell of stale smoke that she couldn't place and almost everyone smelled of sweat and guts. Having had her sense of sight taken away before they got there and the immediate sight of the walker only to lose her sight again until her face was cleaned off had already had her on edge. Combined with the smells and the feel of sweaty palms on top of the wet poncho on her skin, she was shaking and working on keeping herself from a panic attack.

"I'm not losing it," Pussy-Man stated. "I'm not."

"So you grind it out," the younger lady told him. "Jesus, Donnie."

"Screw you, 'Chelle! We have to get him back! We have to Paula. He can fix it."

"No!" she stated plainly. "I saw them, you didn't. They took the place down. They got the guns. They'll kill us too."

"Hey!" Maggie yelled at them, Paula ignoring her.

"I'm not going down like that," she stated as she worked the rope around the man's arm. "Not after making it this far." Maggie continued to yell at the woman until she managed to get her attention, going over to her and ripping the gag out of her mouth before growling out, "What?"

"She's hyperventilating," Maggie said, pointing to Carol. "Somebody needs to take her gag off!"

After a look from Paula, Molly, the elder one who'd been pushing and pulling Ani between her and the other older lady, walked over to Carol while saying, "She's a nervous little bird, ain't she?"

The younger lady who seemed the most ready to fire her gun walked over and cocked her weapon, pointing it at Carol and lamenting, "Look at you. Bitch, how did you make it this far?"

"Honey, you need to take some yoga breaths and calm your ass down," the old lady said, causing Ani to chuckle which made all of the ladies in the room look at her only for her to shrug and spit her own gag out, having worked it lose by moving her head and chewing on it.

"What? It was funny," she said as the others looked at her in shock, making her chuckle again, gambling on the plan that she could get under their skin since she'd already been slapped for talking. "Sorry ta burst ya bubble, but ya can' shut me up that easily."

"I can't," Carol said as she motioned for her pocket, the older lady reaching in and grabbing her cross out, Carol holding onto it between her fingers as she took some deep breaths, causing even Ani to roll her eyes.

"Oh," Molly said. "You're one of those."

Carol was still wheezing when Paula walked over and asked her, "What are you so afraid of? Are you actually afraid to die?" She scoffed at Carol then, "All this and you're scared of getting your ticket punched."

Carol shook her head and looked at Paula then, telling her, "It doesn't matter what happens to me. Just don't hurt Maggie or Ani. Don't hurt the babies."

Every woman in the room looked at both of them then, the younger woman looking at both and pointing her gun at them in turn, scowling at Carol and stating, "Yeah, right."

"They got buns in the oven, they don't look it," the man stated.

"I'm only eight weeks, I think," Maggie stated.

"I'm 'bout thirteen," Ani stated coldly, staring at the woman who had the gun pointed at Maggie.

"You gotta be some kind of stupid, getting knocked up at a time like this," Paula stated, causing both Maggie and Ani to huff a laugh. "Y'all think that's funny?"

"When was it ever smart to get knocked up?" Maggie asked.

"Women 'ave always been willin' ta risk their lives ta bring their young inta the world," Ani stated. "Plain and simple fact, child bearin' has always been life or death. I'm happy ta put my life on the line ta give my man a child. I love 'im, and I want a family with 'im, and 'e wants one with me. Why wouldn' I try?"

"Women used to just die in childbirth," Maggie reinforced Ani's sentiment. "They always thought the world was gonna end. Living through that, why would you just give up?"

"But are you gonna live through it?" Paula asked.

"Ya bet ya bottom dolla," Ani told her with a smirk. "Ya should be askin' yaself that. Bobby's prolly already 'ere, and Catty won' be too far behind."

"Bobby? Catty? Those are stupid names," Paula said with a scoff. "What? Is that supposed to scare us?"

"Nah, but it prolly should."

With a scoff and a smile, Paula just looked between her and Maggie and said, "That's cute. Babies are the point. Children are our future. Making bite-sized snacks for the dead?"

"Ya fuckin' take that back!" Ani growled, moving so harshly she damn near forgot herself for a moment and almost broke free of the hold of the woman who had her. "Jus' 'cause ya kids didn' make it don' mean ours won'!"

Paula walked over to Ani and slapped her hard across the face once again before sneering and telling her, "The point is to stay standing."

"Walkas stay standin'. People keep livin'. Me and Mags, we're choosin' ta make a life, not roll ova and die like y'all are," Ani spat at her.

"You are choosing something," Paula said simply before walking away, leaving the room as Molly sparked up a cigarette before a coughing fit began as soon as she drew a hit.

"The babies!" Carol told her, causing the woman to start laughing through her coughs.

Ani had a bit of a snicker with the woman at Carol's plea due to the fact that Daryl always smelled of cigarette smoke. She'd been around him while he'd been smoking; it'd actually become a guilty pleasure of hers, the scent of stale smoke on and around him. Having the smell in the air was actually quite calming to her, soothing her nerves as she thought about her next move. There were still three women and the man in the room, the other lady heading out with Paula when she left. Ani was able to clear her head with the familiar scent in the air, concentrating on it and doing her best to forget about the smell of the poncho. She almost wanted to smack Carol across the face for asking Molly to put out the cigarette, but, at the same time, Daryl never smoked in the house and the smoke didn't stick around outside. It was more dangerous if exposed in the long term and she damn well knew it, it was just that she didn't see it as a problem being around it in an enclosed space for a few minutes.

"Honey, in case you haven't noticed, you got bigger problems than a little secondhand smoke," Molly told her.

"Molls," the younger woman said, making Ani study her.

"Y'all are worse than a bunch of evangelical second graders," Molly stated.

"Not me," Ani told her, earning a look that she just shrugged to. "My man smokes. It don' botha me any. Though, he don' smoke in the house, jus' 'round me. Shite, that's prolly somethin' else that's goin' ta change now, though."

"You are somethin' else, little Magnolia," Molly stated as she started coughing, the rag she'd wiped Ani's face off earlier going to her mouth.

"Those things'll kill you," Carol told her.

"They already have," came the reply as Molly showed her the rag, a fresh splotch of blood covering the area she'd been coughing on. "I'm a dead woman walking. Which puts us in exactly the same boat," she told Carol before she started coughing again.

It didn't take long for Pussy-Man to start ranting and raving again as Paula came back into the room, "My arm feels like it's on fire!"

"You pull that off, you gonna be nothin' but a spigot," Molly told him.

"Okay, hold on," Paula said. "Scout crew is coming. They're 30 minutes out, maybe less."

"He doesn't have 30 minutes," Maggie informed them. "His nerves are dying. If he doesn't get medical help, he's gonna lose his arm, maybe his life. I'm not a doctor, but my dad lost his leg and I know that much. Your man, Primo, you think he can help you? It's time to end this. Talk to Rick."

"Thirty minutes," Paula reassured the man.

He stared at Carol as he got to his feet, snarling, "You know my problem? She did this to me," he said walking in front of Carol, Ani poising herself, ready to make a move at a second's notice. "She did it and she's just sitting there right as rain, fully in tact."

"Hey," Paula tried.

"No, if you're not gonna make the trade, then we just do 'em all now," he told her.

"No, we wait for the others," Paula told him, the other women in the room starting to get antsy themselves. "We have to be smart. We need insurance."

"Then shoot her in the arm, too," he complained.

"No," Paula said with a chuckle.

"You really gonna stick up for some gutless bitch over me?" he asked before grabbing his arm and cursing again.

"Shut. Up," Paula told him, fed up with his whiny attitude herself, she and Molly both noticing Ani's almost predatory vigilance of the man.

"Don't push me, Paula," Pussy-Man told her before groaning in pain again.

"Shut up!" she repeated.

When he reared up and slapped Paula across the face, he looked back at Carol before Maggie moved and kicked his leg out and caused him to fall as she struggled to stand. When he grabbed at Maggie, Ani took a step forward and ripped herself out of the woman's grip who'd had her. Carol grabbed the man's leg at the same time, making him let go of the younger woman before he turned around and quickly delivered two kicks to Carols spine. Swinging around in another step, Ani lifted her right leg and kicked backwards as she spun, hitting the man in his injured arm and sending him head first into a wall. She'd made sure not to use enough force to kill him, simply render him unconscious as she brought her legs down and resumed a simple defensive stance, or as best of one she could given the fact that her hands were tied in front of her. Paula stood up and walked over to him as he began to stir slightly, smacking him in the head with the butt of her gun before turning back to stare at Ani. The other women in the room had stood and watched, stuck somewhere between shock and awe at what had just transpired. Whether it was because the man had raised his hand against Paula or that Ani had knocked him out with a kick, she couldn't tell, but they were frozen for a good minute One of the women roughly grabbed Ani and forced her to her knees as Paula walked up looking at her while rubbing her cheek.

"You really are some kind of stupid." Looking over to the younger woman, she pointed to Maggie and said, "Take that one out. See if she knows anything. Should've done that before. Molly, you and Cynthia keep an eye on this one. Make sure she doesn't cause any more trouble."

"I didn' cause trouble!" Ani said, somewhat offended. "I kept trouble from knockin' ya ass 'round again, lady. Don' be such an ungrateful bitch."

"Ungrateful?" Paula asked with a laugh. "You should be grateful you're not dead yet."

"Same could be said for ya."

"Let's take a look at that," Molly said, walking up to Paula and taking yet another rag out of her pocket to dab at the cut on Paula's cheek. "He got you good kid."

"He's in pain. Guys can't handle pain."

"Men can handle pain jus' fine," Ani countered, knowing she was going to be pissing these people off, but trying to buy just a little more time; her hands were already free of the sticky tape inside the bindings, now she only needed to rip it. "Jus' dumb as shit pussy-boys like that that can'. They're all the same. Playin' big and bad but they're jus' playin'."

"Yeah? Did anyone ask you?" Paula said.

"Did anyone have ta?"

"Excuse me?" Carol interrupted. "I just wanted to say thank you," she told Paula, making Ani roll her eyes yet again; she wasn't sure what Carol was playing at right now. "For helping Maggie and Ani. For helping me. My husband, Ed, used to-"

"Yeah?" Paula cut her off. "I don't care if your old man rang your bell. I see exactly who you are, Carol. I know. You're pathetic. You wanna think we're just the same? Go ahead."

Ani watched as Carol retreated within herself, only now realizing that she really did think she was the same as Paula, though not in the way Paula was saying. No, Carol was scared of becoming a killer like Paula, a killer like her; someone who did whatever they had to no matter how much blood accumulated on their hands. It would never be enough so long as the people around them were threatened, so long as their own lives were threatened. Carol was unable to come to terms with such facts, such an immense responsibility and burden to carry, one Ani doubted Paula had any problems with. She, herself, was able to carry that burden by reminding herself of why she had done what she had in the moment. It allowed her to only feel the guilt when her mind got out of hand and lately, it wasn't even then. Carol couldn't simply repeat a mantra and let it go like Ani could, though, and that was the fear she was truly feeling. It made it hard for Ani to look at her, knowing that she was already what the woman feared of becoming herself and probably being one of the reasons she didn't want to.

"You're wrong," Paula continued. "He's just a warm body for my bed. That's it. I could kill him in his sleep." She watched as Carol rolled her cross between her hands before chuckling, "Do you really believe in that crap?"

"My faith got me through the loss of my daughter," Carol said, having come to terms with the fact that Sophia had cut all ties with her the moment she'd moved in with Ani.

"Hmm," Paula told her, having the wrong thought about what had happened to the child. "Well, the good news is, maybe you'll see her again soon."

"Have you thought about it?" Rick's voice sounded from the walkie. "Talk to me."

"You weren't listening," Paula told him. "I said I'd contact you."

"Would it make a difference if I said I was I was sorry about that?"

"What do you think?"

"I think we're gonna make the trade, so tell me where."

"We haven't agreed to that."

"We will."

"Well, I'm not so sure," Paula said while she paced. "We'd be taking most of the risks, not getting much in the way of a reward."

"The other option won't work out for you."

"We'll take our chances."

"Suit yourself. We've already found Bobby."

"What the hell does that mean?" Paula asked, whipping around to find a smiling Ani.

"Like I told ya, jus' tellin' ya Bobby's 'ere ain' goin' ta frighten ya, but ya should be scared anyways," Ani told her. "Let's jus' say, they're an insurance system my brotha trained up for my man and me, and ya neva goin' ta see 'em comin'."

"You don't have to do this," Carol tried to reason. "You don't have to fight."

"You're people killed all of my people," Molly told them. "Of course we gotta fight."

"We didn't want to," Carol insisted.

"But you did," Paula said, going to kneel in front of Carol. "So tell me why?"

"Your people ambushed my people on the road," Carol told her. "Ani's husband, her brother and his girl. They tried to take everything we had. They were gonna be killed."

"Well damn, well now we know what happened to T's group," Molly said with a sigh. "Those idiots. Probably put on a big show."

"Okay, fair play," Paula reasoned. "You were just defending yourselves. But, see, your people killed them on the road. Blew them to pieces."

"Aye, that was my man's fine handiwork," Ani boasted, earning a scoff from Molly as she sparked up, though she was nice enough to push Ani to a corner and back away rather than smoke right beside her.

"So, why not stop?" Paula asked Carol, ignoring Ani for the most part after a seething glare.

"They said they were working for Negan," Carol told her.

"Well, what do you think you know about Negan?"

"He sounded like a maniac," Carol said with a shrug of her shoulders as her voice started to break. "We were scared. We thought we had to stop him."

"Sweetie, sweetie," Molly told her, feigning care. "We are all Negan."

"What do you mean?" Carol asked timidly as Ani had an epiphany.

"Oh fuck, there's a shite tonne a ya, ain' there. It's a fuckin' cult run by one guy at the top, the Negan. And 'e's got 'is soldiers trained ta 'be' Negan," she stated, making the five women in the room turn to her.

"You sure are smart for such a dumb bitch," Paula said.

"Well, it was my damn job ta read people," Ani stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Plus, it don' take a fancy degree ta put two and two tagetha when she sits there and says 'we are all Negan,'" she repeated, her voice going down to match Molly's perfectly pitch and inflection.

"Take her out and question her," Paula told the other two women, who took Ani from the room harshly. "And don't let your guard down. She knows how to fight."

Ani was taken past a room she saw Maggie sitting in, the woman inside with her wrapping something around her hand as she sat across from her sister in arms. It was after they rounded a corner and a couple walkers popped up that she took her chance. Ducking down, she tripped one walker, who fell face first onto the open arm of the younger woman, taking a decent chunk out of her arm before the other one knew what was happening. Ani had her knife up and in her hands, ramming it into the other woman's chin as she jumped up knee first into the woman's chest and took her down. Yanking the knife from her chin, she brought it down and around into the walker and woman on the other side of her, she kicked the last walker away before bringing the knife down into the skull of the woman she'd basically thrown the first walker on before killing the last one. Carefully making her way back through the corridors, she broke herself free from the duct tape in one fluid movement. Ani considered herself lucky that Paula hadn't been smarter to use the duct tape farther up their arms or escape would have been impossible. As she made her way down the hallway, she caught Carol by the back of her coat, making the woman turn around with her knife at the ready before she led her the opposite direction, over to where she'd seen Maggie. They could hear Molly cussing and wheezing at the walkers in the hall as they left, reinforcing the idea that that had been the wrong direction. Ani opened the door to the room Maggie was in, Carol immediately helping the woman out of the duct tape restraints and giving her a hug.

"Are you okay?" Maggie asked her.

"I have to be," Carol replied, looking back at Ani who just nodded. "They're spread out, but I think we can make it past them."

"We have to try," Maggie told them.

"They can' stay standin'. Nah matta what, they can' stay alive," Ani said.

"No," Carol told them. "We should just go."

"No, Carol, we have to finish this," Maggie agreed with Ani. "We have to."

"I'll take the lead," Ani said as she brought them back to the room they'd originally been in. "The two that took me, they're already dead. Got lucky with a run in with walkas, but they'll know by now I'm not there."

"Rick contacted, there was no static," Carol informed her.

"Yeah, he said 'e already saw Bobby, which means they were close by the last time, prolly 'bout ten minutes or so out. They'll be here in nah time, but so will their people. We got ta finish this," she said as she went over to the man on the ground and brought him close to the door, taking the rope off his arm and weaving it around the pipe. "Already dead, help me set 'im up."

Molly entered the room just after the three of them had hid, Ani hiding on the opposite side of the door, being grabbed by the reawakened man right before he bit a chunk out of her arm, "Eat shit and die, Donnie!" she cried as she killed the walker. "Where are ya, Little Magnolia? I wanna bloody up that nice-"

Whatever she was about to say was cut off by Ani's blade to the heart, up through the ribs with a twist, cutting off any chance for her to call for help. Maggie went apeshit on the woman's head with the gun she took from the woman, making Ani lean over and retch at the sight; she'd already wanted to puke after the fight with the other two and walkers. Carol ended up pulling her out of the room as Maggie calmed down, telling them they needed to move as Ani wiped her mouth. They slammed the door shut on the sight in the room before making their way slowly down the hall, Ani leading them until they reached a bump in the road. They were faced with an area where walkers rammed onto pipers or otherwise trapped, forcing them to stop. Ani felt sick all over again at the sight, looking over to Maggie to see if she was having the same problem only for her to look just fine. It wasn't fair that she kept getting sick because of sights and smells but Maggie was right as rain with it.

"They're using them to trap us in here and keep the others out," Carol said as a kitten hopped into view.

"Catty!" Ani hissed before giving a hand signal along with a verbal command. "Go ta Bobby and Daryl! They're close if she's 'ere!"

"Come on," Maggie said as she grabbed the walker closest to her and dispatched it. "We gotta find 'em."

Ani had just grabbed and killed a walker herself when gunshots rang out around them, a few bullets ricocheting off the walls beside them and into walkers as she grabbed Maggie and brought her protectively under her. Carol tried her best to shield both women as they ducked to safety before standing with her own gun locked and loaded and aimed at Paula. When she told the woman to run instead of shooting her like Maggie insisted, Ani couldn't help but take a half step back and balance her knife by the tip. Paula began a tirade over what she'd given up, what she'd done as Carol balked at doing what needed to be done to ensure their safety. It was enough of a distraction for Ani to take a step forward and swung her arm, releasing her knife at the right time to lodge it firmly in Paula's neck. Carol turned to look at her horrified as the woman, only to earn a hard glare in return when Ani went to retrieve her knife.

"Ya should a fuckin' fired, not listened ta her try ta get unda ya skin. She ain' got shite, Cars. Not shite."

"Paula?" the other woman, the one who'd had Maggie, called out as a door opened, the three women moving to hide. "Molly?!"

When she came around the corner, Maggie was the one who grabbed her, fighting in earnest as the woman fought back. She managed to dodge a fist to the face, but only barely jumped out of the way of a knee to the stomach. The jump back cost her her footing and allowed the other woman to whip her around and slam her against the wall. Ani jumped into the fray, then, grabbing the woman by the hair and ripping her away from Maggie, punching her in the diaphragm before performing an uppercut that sent her back towards the opposite wall. The woman was quick to produce a knife, swiping it at both Ani and Maggie, managing to hit Ani's shirt as she pushed Maggie back. Maggie was beginning to panic after the knee to her stomach had almost connected and how Ani's stomach had a thin line of red on it. Carol stepped up and shot the woman in the head before Ani looked down and wiped at the mark, it barely being a scratch that wasn't really bleeding; it was more of a papercut than anything else. It didn't start bleeding again after she pressed her shirt to it for a couple minutes, the line barely visible. Ani knew she would have a hard time explaining that to Daryl let alone Merle when they both were already being hard asses towards her. Carol wasn't being much better as she stared both women down with a scowl and disappointment written all over her face.

"Neither of you should be here," she said as static cracked on the walkie again.

"Paula, we're approaching the perimeter. Are we good to go?" a man said. Ani picked the walkie up as the man reiterated, "Do you copy?"

"Copy that," she said, once again matching the woman's voice; if it was a woman's, she was pretty good at imitating a voice. "Meet us on the kill floor."

Carol lamented as they waited in a room off to the side of the gasoline-soaked kill room, "I think I might have killed eighteen people, twenty. It should have been twenty two in the woods. I had a clear shot, I didn't miss. None of this would've happened if I had just killed him."

"Ain' ya fault, Cars. Ya don' want ta be a monsta like me," Ani said, once again thinking about how much blood was on her hands. "With the ones 'ere, I'm up close ta a hundred twenny five or so."

Both Carol and Maggie sucked in a breath before Maggie told them both, "Don't think about it."

"I can't stop," Carol said as Ani responded, "I have ta. If I don', it means it don' mean nothin', and it does. It has ta," she elaborated for herself.

"We're almost done," Maggie reassured them both, her eyes still on Ani's cut shirt.

They quieted down as footsteps were heard coming closer, people passing the door to go into their booby-trapped room, Carol pulling out a cigarette and lighting it as a man said, "You sure this is it?"

"She said the kill floor," another man answered.

"Hey, this one's locked!" a third man told them as the trio began to move.

Carol dropped her lit cigarette through the small opening as Maggie and Ani closed the door quickly behind the men and Carol locked it. The screams that ensued as the flames roared to life and engulfed the man were only made worse by the smell. Through the smoke they walked back towards the entrance of the building and past the bodies of the young woman and Paula. Finding the corridor with the walkers, Maggie and Ani took turns taking them out, Carol in a sort of trance behind them. Ani had her reclaimed daggers and kept them at the ready while Maggie had the stolen gun up when Carol pulled a door open. They came face to face with their own group who had their weapons at the ready, all of them having been ready to take out whatever threat they faced. Ani sighed a breath of relief as Glenn and Daryl both pulled their wives into their arms before Daryl noticed Carol's state. She couldn't blame him for worrying about his friend and, to be honest, Ani was too. For her to be in a stupor like what she herself went through during sensory or emotional overload, it scared Ani to think that Carol's mind was starting to break. She had noticed it back in Atlanta, but the woman had become better at hiding her troubles since then. Now, it seemed like all the killing she had done was finally getting to her starting from way back at the prison.

Turning back to Ani, he asked her, "Are you okay? We got your trail. Kittens worked out good."

"Did you start a fire?" Rick asked them, noticing Carol's silence, Daryl and Ani walking up to her.

"Hey, you good?" Daryl asked her.

"No," she said, prompting Daryl to give her a hug while Ani put her hand on the woman's shoulder in a show of support.

"They're dead," Maggie told the others. "They're all dead, the ones that took us. They're all dead."

Glenn asked Maggie if she was okay, only for her to admit that she couldn't handle being out past the gates anymore. Ani side-glanced at Daryl, who had a questioning gaze as his eyes locked onto her cut shirt, knowing he wanted to know if she felt the same. She just shook her head before wrapping herself around him, his arms coming up around her as he held her to him, kissing her hair as they both breathed each other in. Ani wasn't having the same issues as Carol or Maggie as far as worrying about things after she'd voiced her fears to Daryl; she'd just try to stay away from the action and not let Carol do the shooting next time. The pregnancy wasn't going to hold her back when it came to protecting her family and she wasn't the same person to break down over death. She would be lying if she said she wasn't concerned about the baby at all because she was terrified of something happening to them. Ani didn't want to stay behind the walls until she gave birth, but how many dangerous situations could she let herself be put in before she was willing to? In all honesty, when she pulled away from Daryl as Rick began speaking to the man they'd brought in, Ani wasn't sure what was the right path for her to take now.

"Your friends are dead," Rick told the man, Primo. "No one's coming for you. So you might as well talk."

"Let 'im burn," Daryl growled out, Ania being safe in his arms the only thing keeping him from beating the man's ass all over again.

"I'm gonna ask you one last time, how'd you get the bike?" Rick asked him.

"We found it," the man answered."

"Like hell you did," Daryl stated.

"We found it!"

"Was Negan in that building last night, or was he here?"

"Uh, Rick, 'bout that..." Ani started before the man chuckled.

"Both. I'm Negan, shithead. Now there's a whole world of fun we can talk about, so let's have a chat-"

"I'm sorry it had to come to this-"

"Rick, wait!" Ani said as they all cut each other off, Rick's Python ringing out as Primo's body fell. "Dammit Rick! It's a fuckin' cult! That ain' Negan nah more'n the people who took us were! But they're all 'Negan,'" she stated. "This...this ain' ova."