Naomi
A twist in my gut shocked me awake, pulling me out of my sleep so sharply it left me queasy. The room spun in the dark. The sound of my rapidly beating heart filled my ears, and sweat-soaked goosebumps covered my arms. My bleary eyes searched the darkness for what had woken me.
My heart was racing so fast I was sure there had to be something in the room with me, but I looked around at the same four walls I'd been staring at for God knows how long. I was on full alert, but my mind hadn't caught up yet. All I could feel was a deep, primal urge to run and no idea what I should be running from. Or to.
And then it started: a series of loud bangs. Distant, but getting closer. Echoing in a corridor not too far from me.
Gunshots.
That was the sound that had woken me. Pulled me into silence as they reloaded to shoot again. I scrambled to my feet so fast the blankets got caught up around my ankles. Gunshots were not an unusual sound in a world where the dead refused to stay that way, but I'd hardly heard them while I'd been in the Sanctuary. If Negan was going to punish someone for something, he preferred Lucile, or the iron, to a gun. Even outside gunshots were rare. Those of us who worked the fence kept Walkers away; the Saviors preferred to use them rather than kill them, so shots were only fired if there was no other option.
So, what the hell was going on now?
The screaming started, and I knew that this had nothing to do with the Saviors. This was not friendly fire.
Is this it?
Is it them?
I pressed my ear to the door, probably the only person in the building who wanted to get closer to whoever was shooting. I could hear people running, yelling at one another across corridors. Maybe Rick had sent those people in their garbage trucks to mislead Negan after all, lull them into a false sense of security while they launched an attack in the dead of night.
Sleep and wishful thinking let me hope for a moment, but I heard pauses between shots as I listened. Too long to be a group unless they were exceptionally well coordinated. There was only one shooter.
Daryl?
Shit.
There was a second where I felt the world drop out from under my feet, tipping like a ship in a storm. Anticipation and dread swelled within me. I'd been too late, too slow to stop Daryl from doing something he shouldn't. He'd never make it all the way here without getting caught or shot dead. And if by some miracle he did, the two of us would never make it out alive. Had he really gotten so desperate so fast?
The shooting stopped. I could hear people running. Yelling. Then that stopped too, and I couldn't hear anything at all.
I tried to tell myself that this could've been one of Negan's men, who'd finally opened their eyes to his bullshit and decided to take matters into their own hands. But I couldn't shake my fear that it was Daryl. That he'd finally snapped out there and gone rogue. I should've asked Dwight to find him and tell him I was still alive. Should've found some way to send him a sign that I was still alive. Daryl had always been so quick to anger, but I'd usually found a way to calm him down. I'd always seen it in bursts. Small, intense flames that I knew how to put out. But I didn't know what happened if there was no one around who knew how to deal with it. I didn't know how those flames might grow beyond anyone's control.
I thought about how I'd be if it was him who was trapped in here. Would I be driven to storming this place alone in the middle of the night to get him back? Maybe. If I was desperate enough. If all of my hope were gone and I had nothing left.
After an agonizingly long time, the silence finally broke. More footsteps. Just one set this time, getting louder. Someone was coming toward me or running past. I tensed as they got louder still, waiting to see if they'd come to a stop outside or go right past. They stopped. The corridor beyond the frosted glass was dark, and all I could see was a hazy outline. I thought it was a man, but it was hard to see much through the dark and frosted glass.
"Daryl?"
His name slipped out without me realizing it. The pang of longing that accompanied it was strong enough to knock the wind out of me. I knew it wasn't him from the hesitation that came from the other side of the door. And the fact that whoever was on the other side wasn't actively trying to break it down. A small cough, and then he answered, "It's Dwight."
Even he sounded sad to be saying it like he wanted to bring me better news. I'd known it was a long shot, but I felt the fragile hope I'd built inside me shatter all the same. I'd been resigned to dying here, but I hadn't realized until that moment just how badly I wanted to see Daryl one last time. Just talk to him. Even if it could only be through a damn door.
It's better this way, I told myself. We'd never have made it out of here alive.
"Someone broke in," Dwight said. He sounded out of breath, had clearly run quite a distance to bring me this news, but there was an element of shock underpinning it too. The Saviors weren't used to interruptions like this. This was the first time I'd seen him alone since the Trashpeople had arrived claiming they knew Rick, but I was too disorientated from waking up to the sound of warfare to think clearly about that yet. Dwight mistook my silence for something else and added, "Not Daryl… someone else...I don't know her… I don't know her name, but she was in that clearing with you."
She...
Michonne? Rosita? Sasha? Maggie?
Dwight hadn't given me enough to go on, and I doubted he knew them well enough to tell me one way or the other. My head was too much of a mess to work out who was most likely to do this.
"I spotted Rosita by the fence," Dwight said. He wasn't done dropping bombshells.
"Is she okay?" I asked.
"I think she got away," he said. "I don't think anyone else saw her."
"Did you see anyone else?" I asked. I didn't ask specifically if he'd seen Daryl, but I wanted to. Now the thought was in my head; I couldn't lock it away again. A small hope that this was just the start of Rick's move against Negan wouldn't leave me alone, although I couldn't see how they'd have managed to get enough guns together to pull off something like this.
"No," he said. "Negan's got people out searching around Sanctuary for any others, but... there's no sign of anyone else. I'm sorry."
He sounded it, too. Like my desperation to see Daryl was leaking through the door.
"Don't be," I said. My desire to see Daryl, and fear of what Negan would do if he caught him, nearly tore me in two, but it was good that he wasn't here. It was good that he was safe. But how much longer could he stay that way if Negan really had gotten some information about whatever Rick was planning?
Sending some random woman to appear like they were betraying Alexandria and letting one of our own get captured didn't seem like much of a plan. Not one I could make sense of anyway. I was getting tired of sitting on my ass and taking guesses at what Rick's plan was. If there even was one. Even if any of this was part of it, none of it was worth the risk that Negan posed to Alexandria and everyone in it. They needed to know. In case someone really had betrayed them, all of them needed to be warned. I wasn't getting out of here any time soon. But Dwight could come and go as he pleased, and this was the first time I'd had any kind of chance to talk to him since he'd started shadowing Eugene.
"Dwight, you have to-"
"Someone's coming," Dwight said urgently, trying to shut me up. The thought, the small niggling fear that he'd never really been on my side, that Negan had just planted him here to get close to me, and I'd been so desperate for any kind of ally that I'd been dumb enough to fall for it reared its ugly head. It stoked a fire that was already burning in me.
"No!" My fists clenched. I wondered how many punches that frosted glass could take before it shattered. I slammed my hand against the wood of the door. I was angry and terrified, and it felt good just to hit something. "Listen to me, you gotta warn-!"
"It's him," Dwight said, in a harsh whisper, sounding so distracted that I wasn't sure he'd been listening. The way he said 'him' made it clear he meant Negan. I heard the scuff of Dwight's feet on the floor as he backed away from me, panicking and trying to put some distance between us, so Negan didn't catch us conspiring.
Too damn late.
"Dwight?" I could hear Negan's voice through the door. He wasn't exactly trying to keep quiet, but after the silence that had followed those final gunshots and the hushed tones of Dwight through the door, he sounded even louder than usual. "The hell are you doing up here?"
"I, uh…" Dwight's silence felt agonizingly long, but I wasn't sure if that was knowing what he was hiding that just made it feel longer than it was. "Wanted to make sure there was no one else up here. Y'know… breaking this one out."
"Well," Negan said. Again, his pause felt longer than it probably was as I waited to hear whether or not he believed Dwight's lie. "Ain't that smart as hell? Checking Redneck Romeo ain't come to get his Trailer Park Princess, huh?"
Fuck you.
"Yeah," I heard Dwight laugh along and wondered how genuine it was.
"She awake?" Negan asked. Was it a test? Would he glean something from Dwight's answer about what we'd really been up to?
"Not sure," Dwight said. "Just got here."
"Huh," Negan said. "Well, let's find out together, then, shall we?"
Shit.
I'd been so busy eavesdropping, I hadn't thought about how suspicious it would be if Negan opened the door and found me with my ear pressed against it. Keys jangled as he took them out of his pocket, and I backed hurriedly away. He sauntered in with a quiet chuckle. I knew what I'd look like, all wild-eyed and desperate.
"Still awake, Naomi?" he asked with that big, dumb grin. "I had no idea you were such a night owl."
"Cut the crap," I said. Negan's eyebrows shot up, but that smile didn't budge. I was too angry to be afraid. Too desperate to care what happened to me. "Who've you got down there?"
"How'd you know about that?" he said, his eyes narrowed. Behind him, Dwight's eyes widened in a panic that transferred to me as we both realized I might be seconds away from undoing Dwight's lies.
"I heard gunshots," I said. "Unless your people have suddenly woken up to how much of an asshole you are, it's gotta be one of mine, right? So, who is it?"
Negan didn't answer. I saw his head start to turn toward Dwight like he didn't believe I'd worked it out for myself, and his suspicions as to why Dwight had been so close to my room in the first place were starting to rear up again. Dwight's panic was rising, and I knew one look at him would confirm any doubts Negan had. I took a hurried step forward and asked, "Is it him?"
Negan looked back toward me. I didn't have to clarify who I meant, and Negan's laugh told me I'd fooled him. For now, at least.
"Nah, it ain't Daryl," he said. "Sorry, sweetheart. Looks like he still doesn't give a shit that you're in here."
I looked away from him, down at the ground, hoping it would look like disappointment but truthfully, I was trying to hide my anger. I usually had a pretty tight rein on it, but I could feel it slipping. I'd been in here too long. I'd been keeping calm too long - a simmering pot seconds from boiling over.
"Who have you got down there?" I asked him again. "Who was it?"
"You familiar with Sasha?" he said, with a smile like he already knew I was. "She came in here all guns blazing, trying to kill me. Can you believe that?"
He chuckled.
"Yeah," I said. "Somehow, I can."
"I'm always coming in here giving you good news," he said, "and all you give me is this attitude."
He shook his head like a disappointed father dealing with a rebellious teenager, rather than an asshole who'd been keeping someone prisoner for almost two weeks now. And for what? All he'd done so far was take sadistic pleasure in seeing just how miserable he could make me and offer me things I would never say yes to. Other than the pleasure he took in causing other people pain, I couldn't see what he was getting out of all of this. Surely he'd get bored of messing with me soon. But what would he do with me when he did?
"Good news?" I repeated. "How the hell is telling me that you've killed Sasha good news?"
"Didn't say I'd killed her," he said. "Now you're just putting words in my mouth."
"But you will, won't you?" I said.
"Now, why would I do that?" he asked. "I keep telling you, Naomi, people are a resource, and Sasha is a valuable one. So, no, I'm not going to kill her. Not tonight. Now, if she chooses to kill herself… well, that has nothing to do with me, and I don't want you holding it against me, alright?"
"She wouldn't make that choice if you didn't have her locked up here."
"I wouldn't have her locked up here if she hadn't come in here trying to kill me," he said.
She wouldn't be trying to kill you if you hadn't killed Abraham.
I stopped myself from saying it because I knew we'd just wind up going in circles, but he could see it etched into my face. He could see my jaw clench as I bit it back.
"Y'know what?" he said like something had just occurred to him. "That wasn't even the piece of good news that I came in here to share with you. That was just a bonus."
He stopped talking, and I felt a familiar sinking in my chest. Negan loved the sound of his own voice so much that he only stopped talking when he knew his silence could be filled with more terrible things than he had the time to list off. Whenever he gave me anything that he considered good news, there was always some twist to it. Something that turned it into a nightmare. So, what was it this time?
Sasha wasn't going to die tonight, but I was?
I kept my mouth firmly, stubbornly shut, and glanced at Lucille balanced on his shoulder. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of asking him what he'd come in here to tell me. But his continued silence made my pulse race, and my mouth felt dry. I needed to know so I could start planning how to fight it. I needed Negan to get out of here so I could tell Dwight to warn the others that they'd been betrayed.
Negan sauntered further into the room and sat down on the bed. Getting comfortable. Like he thought he was going to be in here a while.
Get the fuck out.
When my silence continued, and he realized I wasn't going to ask him, that infuriating smirk spread across his face, and he said, "Not in a chatty mood, huh? Alright then, I came to tell you that you get to go home tomorrow. So, you wanna say thank you?"
I knew he wasn't being straightforward about this. He couldn't be. There was no way that after keeping me here all this time, he was going to let me walk out, not unless he knew I'd be walking into something worse.
Had he found Daryl and Mia? Killed them? Strung them up on the fence for me to see on my way out?
"Not even a goddamn thank you?" Negan said like I'd offended him. He tilted his head to one side as he looked at me. "I gotta say, I thought you'd be jumping for joy at this news. Damn, do you not want to go home? You getting attached to this place, darlin'? Because you're still welcome to join us, you just gotta say the word."
Go to Hell.
I found my voice. I didn't know how long I could keep my temper, but I didn't know how long I could keep up my silence without Negan losing his temper, either. "You're letting me walk out of here?"
He laughed. "I didn't say that."
"So, what is it?" I asked. "You take me back to Alexandria so you can show me you've burned it to the ground, and there's nothing left but ash?"
"You're a real Drama Queen; anyone ever told you that?" he said, but there was a glint in his eye like burning Alexandria to the ground was exactly what he wanted to do. "Now, Sasha hasn't told me yet whether or not her little trip here was something Rick put her up to, but either way, there has clearly been a breakdown in communications between this place and Alexandria. You and Sasha are gonna help me set it straight. Get things back on track."
"No, we ain't."
He laughed again. "Oh, you speak for Sasha now, huh?"
I couldn't imagine a world in which Sasha ever took the side of the guy who murdered Abraham in cold blood. Negan was good at talking people into things, at getting people to do shit they didn't want to do because he'd created a worse alternative. But, Sasha had already lost so much. What could he possibly offer her that was worse?
"Sasha won't do shit for you," I said. "Not after what you did. If you were dumb enough to give her something to kill herself with, you best hope it's not something she can use on you."
"Why don't you let me worry about Sasha, huh?" Negan said. "What I'm trying to tell you is, tomorrow, we're all taking a little trip to your beloved Alexandria. Lucille is going to choose a couple of people and make an example out of them. How many people she gets to pick depends on how much your friends resist us. That's where you come in. You and Sasha are going to help me make sure that Lucille here doesn't demand too many heads."
"I ain't doing it."
"I haven't even told you what it is yet."
"I ain't doing it," I said again. "I don't care what it is. I ain't doing it."
"Will you calm down and just listen to me for a minute?" he said. But I couldn't. Felt like the walls were closing in on me. "I'm not asking you to pick up any weapons against your friends. I'm not asking you to kill nobody. All you gotta do is sit in a car while we drive you there. Now, if Lucille decides that you or Daryl or that little sister of yours are the ones she needs to take to keep order in Alexandria… Well, that ain't on me, either."
Something snapped. I closed my eyes for a moment.
"No," I said. Everything was slipping away. Negan had told me I had choices here so many times. All this was doing was prove that he'd been bullshitting from the start. Desperation rose in me. One last chance. "Please."
"Oh, now. Don't cry," Negan said. His tone was gentle, but I knew he'd be relishing in this. He thought my eyes were shut to hold back tears. Something was burning behind my eyelids, but it wasn't tears. "Things don't have to go that way. There's a very good chance most of you will survive if things go smoothly for me. And that is up to you, little lady."
I felt his fingers brush against the side of my face. Like he was trying to comfort me. Brush away tears that he was sure I was soon to shed, but he'd gravely misunderstood what was happening here. I wasn't begging for me, or even for them. It was for him. Because he was right.
This was up to me.
When my eyes opened again, they fixed on him and nothing else. All I saw was red. And him. I lunged at him. So fast, he didn't see it coming. My fist slammed into the side of his jaw in a way I knew would hurt tomorrow if I lived to see it. I heard the shock in the way he yelped. Pain, too. If I'd been able to feel anything but rage, there would have been a flash of satisfaction.
I grabbed a fistful of his hair. He swung for me, and I used his own momentum against him to pull him to the ground. I heard the wind leave his lungs, forced out by the way he hit the floor. There was a second thud as Lucille flew out of his hands and hit the ground beside him, rolling away from his outstretched hands.
My knees pinned his arms to his sides, and he desperately reached for Lucille. I think he was yelling at it. Like she was a real person who could hear him and help, but she lay too far outside his reach. Both of us unarmed, it was more of a level playing field. Dwight hadn't got me a weapon in time, so I would use my fists. I got in a few good punches before he stopped trying to get his damn bat and turned his attention to me.
Unable to use his arms, he twisted under me. He was taller, heavier than me, and all of his wriggling around on the floor dislodged me for a second, and he threw me off. I felt my knees skid against the ground. I threw my hands out to balance myself. If I got to my feet before he did, I might still stand a chance.
And then I saw another option. Right in front me. Closer to me than him.
Lucille.
I made a desperate play to get to her, scrambling across the dusty floor on my hands and knees. A dull ache in my hands from where I'd been hitting him. There was blood on my knuckles - his or mine, I wasn't sure yet. I focussed on where Lucille lay waiting for me.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Negan roared. His hand closed around one of my ankles, and he pulled hard, sending me crashing back down to the ground. I threw out a hand. My fingertips brushed against the wood of Lucille's handle. And then she slipped away, shrinking from view as Negan dragged me back. I kicked out at him, twisted round to throw my hands up just in time to block one of his punches.
"Keep. Your. Hands. Off. Her." Negan loomed over me, landing a punch for every word. The metallic sting of blood filled my mouth. But I hardly felt a damn thing. I reached up and took a swipe at him, my fingernails leaving jagged scratches across his jaw. My foot connected with the bottom of his ribcage, and he stumbled away from me for a second. I got to my feet, and without wasting a second to catch my breath, I ran at him again.
"Dwight!" Flecks of blood flew from Negan's mouth as he yelled. "The hell are you just standing there for?"
Dwight had been standing in the doorway this whole time. The shock and fear on his face were impossible to hide. He moved hesitantly forward, torn between letting me do this and keeping up appearances with Negan. The answer lay in how successful I was likely to be. I saw him raise his gun, but his fingers were nowhere near the trigger. He gripped it like he was thinking about throwing it to me.
Negan's arm flew out and struck my chest, knocking me back but only just. Only slightly. Not far enough. Then he whistled, short and sharp and loud. In the distance, I heard footsteps running toward us. He'd sent out a distress call. More Saviors would be here in moments. Dwight made a decision; he grabbed me by the back of the jumper and pulled me back before I could get to Negan again. An apology in his eyes, and then he punched me. Hard but not too hard. Enough to cause a reaction from me without leaving any lasting damage. I grabbed him like I was trying to push him away, but I used the struggle to get as close as I could to him and whisper, "Alexandria. Warn them."
I pushed him away again. Thought I saw him nod like he'd heard me. Like he'd understood and would do what I asked him to.
I looked back at Negan. The footsteps were getting louder. My window to do anything to save my friends was closing. Now that he thought Dwight was dealing with me, Negan had gone to pick up Lucille. His back was to me. I ran at him again.
I knew I should stop. I knew everything would be worse for me if I didn't. Whoever coming to save Negan could run in and shoot me dead. But I couldn't stop. My fists, my rage, and my love wouldn't let me. He'd made a direct threat against Daryl and Mia. Against the home I'd spent time building.
I ran at Negan's back, jumping up and gripping onto his neck with my arms. I squeezed tight, trying to cut off his air supply. He dropped Lucielle again as his hands grabbed my arms and tried to pull them away. My nails dug into the flesh at the base of his skull while my other hand gripped his chin. With one twist, I could snap his neck. If I was strong enough. Angry enough.
And then something hit the side of my head so hard it made the room spin. A grey blur of the floor and the ceiling, and then I saw a horrible mustache, gleaming eyes that had wanted to see me hurt like this for a long time.
Simon.
Dwight flinched when Simon hit me, but I don't think I did. Before I could get my bearings or find my balance, his foot slammed into the middle of my chest. The ground left my feet, and I flew backward. A split second of suspension, and then my back slammed hard into the wall. The ground rushed back up to meet me. My hands and knees smashed into it, and I felt something fall with me. Hit across my back.
Shattering.
Glass rained down like glitter. I covered my head with my arms to shield my eyes and face. I could hear larger shards skidding across the floor. The shock of it was enough to grind everything to a halt, just for a moment. I took a breath, suppressed the pain, and looked up. The mirror hanging on the wall was gone, fractured into a thousand tiny knives around me. Too small to be useful.
A shard of glass about the size of my hand lay under the small cabinet by the bed. I could see it glinting from the shadows.
A little too far away from me, but I could weaponize it. If I could get there in time. It wasn't much, but it was more than I'd had until now. The Saviors in the room had backed away from the mirror as it smashed across my back. They were further away than they had been, and their shock would make them slow.
I moved. Heard someone yell, but I blocked it out as I crawled over the sea of broken glass. I could hear it crunching under someone's books. And then those boots kicked me down. Held me there.
"The hell are you trying to get to now?" Simon asked, as his foot on my back pressed me down into the floor and broken glass. I turned my face to the side so I could still see that shard of glass - my one piece of hope. Smaller fragments of glass dug into my cheek. Another pair of boots walked over to stand in front of me and blocked my view. I knew they were Negan's; I didn't have to look. But he crouched down anyway. To get a good look at my face or make sure I got one of his, I couldn't tell.
"This could've been so easy," he said. He sounded almost mournful. "You could have had everything."
"You want me to kill her?" Simon asked.
I looked up at Negan. He wiped his bloodied mouth with the back of his hand and glared at me. His glare said yes. He did want me dead. I glared right back; at least I'd die knowing I did everything I could.
"Goddamn, Naomi," he whispered. "I was rooting for you. I really was."
I spat at his feet.
"Make her sorry for what just happened here," Negan said. I could practically feel Simon's glee radiating off of him. He'd just gotten the permission to give me the beating he'd always wanted to. "Then lock her up. If Daryl survives what's coming next, I want him to see it."
Not even sure Simon was listening to that last part, his beating had already started. Another Savior held my hands behind my back. I looked for Dwight, but he was gone. I hoped he'd gone to do what I asked. To save my friends. To make sure that when Negan arrived the next day, they wouldn't be sitting ducks.
I looked back at Negan, and I did not look away. He didn't look away from me, either. That smug fucking smile had finally been wiped from his face. Whatever it was that had amused him when I'd talked back to him before, when I'd shown a little bit of fight, was gone now that he'd seen the full force of it. He sat on the bed and watched, cradling Lucille in his arms like she was protecting him. Protecting him from me. Even though I was the one taking a beating, I was the one feeling smug now.
I'd almost killed him.
I would have, too, if his men hadn't saved his ass.
Without his cronies, without Lucille, I'd have killed him and he fucking knew it. I could see it in his eyes. A small glimmer of fear that only seemed to brighten the longer I kept my eyes fixed on his. It made the beating hurt less, seeing that fear in him. It kept me from crying out until I passed out and couldn't feel anything anymore.
Daryl
Didn't feel good about what we did at Oceanside.
But I was damn glad we'd done it.
The women and kids there, they'd all lost people to the Saviors. Every male over the age of ten had been murdered as a punishment for standing up to the Saviors. Now Oceanside were in hiding. Living in fear and trying to protect their survivors. They'd refused to join us, and we'd had to take their weapons by force. Can't say I blame them for not wanting to risk what they had left. Didn't think they could blame us for wanting to fight, either.
The journey back was quiet, even though we'd won. A small victory in a much bigger war. A successful battle against people we had no issue with. It was hard to sit right on that journey back. Didn't sit right with any of us. When I'd heard their story, the fear around it felt like it could have been contagious. To spread to people in Alexandria who were hesitating to fight Negan for what was ours. People who might think that submitting and living with the consequences would be better than running the risk of the same thing happening to us. Seemed like it had the opposite effect, though. It shone a light on the boogeyman under the bed and showed the cruelty we were facing. Nobody wanted to give Negan the power over our community that he'd had at Oceanside. Most of us were decided; he had to be stopped.
That was what we told ourselves, to make what we'd done to Oceanside seem okay.
The women and girls there might not have been fighting with us, but I don't think they were too far from our minds after we left them. Nobody had said so, but we could return their guns to them after we won. We could take the Saviors weapons for Alexandria and give Oceanside's back, so they wouldn't be left unprotected for too long. Until then, they had enough in place to deal with Walkers, and they were well hidden. Negan wouldn't find them, even if he worked out where we'd got our new weapons cache.
We had a hell of a lot of guns now. Maybe even more than we'd had before. After leaving me at Hilltop, they'd found explosives on the roads. Enough to blow Negan to more pieces than any of us could count. With everyone we were training at the Hilltop too, we were almost ready for this fight.
Fuck the Kingdom, and fuck the King. We didn't need them.
Victory felt close. I'm sure it felt different for everyone, but for me, it felt like Naomi's hand in mine in the middle of the night.
The truck we were in, all loaded up with guns, stopped at the gates. I knew something was up from the way Rick muttered to himself. Didn't catch what he said, but I knew. Uneasy glances were fired around where we all sat. If Negan had popped by unannounced again and caught us with all of this shit, everything we'd just fought for and the danger we'd put Oceanside in was for nothing.
Wasn't him, though. It was Rosita.
She didn't smile when she saw us. She hadn't been doing a whole lot of smiling before now, but she looked even more miserable than usual. Maybe the haul of guns we were bringing in could change that.
"Are you okay?" Enid rushed toward her. The rest of us hung back a little, not sure what she was doing away from the Hilltop.
"Where's Sasha?" Jesus asked. We hadn't been able to find either of them at the Hilltop before we left. Thought they might have been training people outside of the walls, away from where Gregory might see them, but it didn't seem like that had been right. Rosita looked at all of us, her face still set in misery.
"There's someone here," she said, not answering either question. The way she said it made it clear it wasn't good news. It wasn't someone we wanted here.
She brought us to the jail cell Morgan had built. Someone was sitting in the shadows. He stood up when we came in. Stepped into the moonlight that was coming through the little cell window. More of a window than I'd been allowed in his damn cell. The shadows of his scars deepened in the half-light. It made his eyes look every more sunken than usual.
Dwight.
I will fucking kill you.
I ran at him. Felt the others try to hold me back. I didn't understand why. I couldn't. They knew him; they knew who he worked for and what he'd done. Some of it, at least.
Rick stood between him and me. Arms raised and ready to push back on my chest every time I got too close. Like he was trying to break up a damn bar brawl. Me, on the other hand, I couldn't understand why this asshole was still breathing. Why hadn't Rosita shot him dead instead of locking him up here?
"He says he wants to help us," Rosita said.
Like Hell he does.
I stopped trying to get to him. I'd let this play out, whatever the hell it was, and then when they were all done acting like some damn jury, I'd be Dwight's executioner.
"That true?" Rick turned to him. "You want to help?"
"I do," Dwight said. Rick pulled out his gun and pointed it at Dwight's head.
"Get on your knees," Rick told him. Dwight knelt down. Rick was the one pointing the gun, but it was me Dwight looked at. If he was looking for mercy, he was looking at the wrong damn person. Rick knew I'd be close to losing it again, so he said, "Look at me. Why?"
Dwight looked back at Rick.
"'Cause I want it stopped. I want Negan dead," Dwight said, then his gaze slid over to me again. "And so does Naomi. She's-"
At the mention of her name, something snapped. I rushed him, dragging him back to his feet and pushing him up against the cell wall.
"You keep her name out of your damn mouth," I yelled, holding him there. My knife was real close to his face, and I was ready to start chopping chunks outta him. He started shaking a little then, I could feel it against my knuckles. He and I were the only two people in that room who knew what he'd done to me. What he was capable of. He took a few deep breaths.
"You wanna end it this way…" he said. "You go ahead. I'm sorry. I am. I know you want to."
"He could just be here to see if you were here," Rick said. "We can't trust him."
"She's alive," Dwight said, looking right at me like he was pleading with me to believe him. He avoided saying her name again, but he didn't need to. I knew. Everyone in that room knew. They could probably all see that tiny window of hope opening up for me.
"He's got no way to prove that. He could just be telling you what he knows you want to hear," Rick warned me like it wasn't something I didn't already know.
"We're working together," he said.
"Nah," I said. The small piece of hope snapped shut. Naomi wouldn't work with a guy like him. "You're lying."
"She wants to kill Negan," Dwight said, quickly. "She wants to protect all of you, to stop this before it becomes a full-blown war. We both do."
"So why don't you kill him?" Rick challenged. It was a good point. He was perfectly placed to do it as Negan's lapdog. He could turn around and rip his throat out any time he damn well pleased. Bet he had a hundred opportunities a day to do it. Why would he need a prisoner to help? She had nothing in there. No one.
"Can't just be me," he said, and then he looked back at me. "They're all Negan. Now, N… Naomi, she's so dead-set about just getting him that I don't think she's thought past that point."
He'd hesitated to say her name since I'd almost killed him the last time he had, but he knew it was his best shot at getting me to listen. I was so hungry for any news of her that I'd eat it up even if it came from him. His eyes were fixed on me. Desperation poured outta him like sweat.
"Nah," I said again. "She's smart, she wouldn't do something so-"
"She's desperate," Dwight interrupted me. I wasn't sure what I'd been going to say. Reckless? Dumb? Killing Negan no matter the consequences sounded like something I'd do in a fit of rage, not something my binder-filling, list-making, color-coding Naomi would do. She planned things. She did them right.
"She's been asking me to get her a weapon," Dwight said. "So she can kill him to stop this war. She wants to protect everyone here. Protect you."
No.
I didn't want to believe him.
"He's got no proof," Rick said, but something in what Dwight was saying rang true. Naomi would do anything to protect this place and the people in it. She's lost one home, and I wasn't sure she could stomach losing a second.
I knew that, but could Dwight? He could've come here with this lie while her corpse rotted and writhed on one of them damn sticks outside the Sanctuary walls.
The knife in my hand was burning a hole in it, begging me to kill this son of a bitch. I could've done it. I wanted to. After everything he'd done to me, and everything he might have done to Naomi, I should have done it. But he was giving me the one thing I hadn't been able to get, the one thing I'd wanted since I'd gotten out of there, proof that Naomi was alive. It was the first thing I'd had to go on that wasn't built on nothing but my own damn hope. He saw my hesitation, and he used it.
"If she fails, he'll kill her. But even if she succeeds, then Simon or Gavin or one of those other assholes will kill her for it. Either way, she ends up dead," he said. I felt sick. I'd felt good about all of the weapons we'd just got, but now every moment we'd spent getting them felt wasted. I should've been at the Sanctuary. I should've been getting her out.
I pulled Dwight away from the wall only to smash him back into it again.
"You best stop that from happening," I told him. "If Negan or Simon or Gavin or anyone in that shithole lays a finger on her, I'll fucking kill you."
He swallowed something back. A flicker of something in his eyes. Could have been deception, could have been fear.
"They'll kill me if I protect her," he said. My knife pressed as hard to his skin as it could go without breaking it and drawing blood. "But it doesn't need to come to that. Negan trusts me. We can work together, me and you, we can stop him. You knew me then, and you know me now. You know I'm not lying. I'm not."
I wanted Negan dead. Probably even more than Rick did. I wanted him to suffer for everything he'd done. To me. To Naomi. To Alexandria. But, if it came down to a choice between letting him live and saving Naomi, I'd choose her every time.
I lowered my knife. Let go of Dwight and stepped back.
"They have Sasha, too," Rosita said. "If she's even alive."
"Why didn't you say something?" Jesus said. "He could be our only chance to get her back!"
"Because I don't trust him," Rosita said, shooting Dwight a glare. "But, I trust Daryl."
"Negan's coming soon," Dwight said. "Tomorrow. Three trucks, probably. Twenty Saviors and him. I can slow them down, bring some trees down in the road, buy a little time for you guys to get ready. If you can take them out, that's where we start. You kill them, I'll radio back to the Sanctuary and say everything is okay. You drive the trucks back, and I can lead you right inside, and with the right plan, we can wipe out the rest. Check to see if your friend is still alive. Get Naomi. Then, we get the workers on our side, build our numbers up, and go from outpost to outpost until we end this."
It was a tempting plan. Having someone on the inside, so close to Negan's inner circle was a huge advantage. But, of course, Negan knew that too. And having one of his inner circle come to mislead us would be a huge advantage to him. And he knew the only way I'd accept Dwight as anything other than dead was if came with the promise of keeping Naomi alive.
I knew all of this. Rick knew it, too. But what choice did we have? If Negan was really coming here tomorrow, we'd need to be prepared. So, we let him talk. We agreed on things, and we didn't tell him everything. We held as much back from him as we could. But even with all that, when negotiations ended, it felt crazy that we were just letting him walk off. Opening up the gates for him after everything he'd done, everything he could be about to do.
"Hey," I stood real close to him, staring him down. He was looking so scrawny I felt like I had enough rage in me to snap him like a twig right now. He was the one link of communication I had to Naomi. Even if it wasn't a reliable one. "You go back there, and you tell her not to make a move against Negan. Tell her to sit tight. Tell her we're coming for her."
He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, admit to something else, but he stopped. The jaw muscles under his scar tissue moved again, and then he nodded. "I'll tell her."
He turned, and we watched him walk back through those gates.
"We just started it," Rick said, as we watched Dwight slink back into the shadows he'd come from. "The whole thing."
"If he's lyin', I'm gonna kill him real slow," I said. "When this is done, I don't give a damn if he's sorry. I will kill that son of a bitch."
"If he's lying," Rick said. "This is already over."
"He's not," Rosita said. I looked back at her, and she folded her arms across her chest. Her face was stony. "He's not lying. Not about Naomi, at least. The other stuff..."
She trailed off with an infuriating shrug, her face giving nothing away. I took a few steps toward her without realizing it. I got that she was in a crappy mood, but it sure seemed like she'd been holding back a lot of important information tonight.
"You know she's alive?" I asked. She nodded. "How? How can you know that?"
I didn't think she was going to answer me right away. Another stony silence. Whatever she and Sasha had been through tonight had taken everything from her but anger. I knew how she felt. I didn't have much left in me but rage either, and it was exhausting. Too exhausting for me to deal with anyone else's shitty mood.
"How do you know?" I asked again.
"Sasha and I were scouting out the Sanctuary for a while," she said. "Trying to see if we could take a shot at Negan while he was outside. But, he rarely came outside. Naomi did, though."
"She was outside?" I asked. Could hardly hear myself over my own stammering heart, the way it seemed to have risen in my throat to get tangled up in everything I wanted to say. I'd thought she'd have been locked up in that one-room, windowless cell like I had been. "You saw her?"
"Yeah," Rosita nodded. Clammed up again.
"Was she… did you… did you talk to her?"
"No," Rosita said. A little reluctance had crept into her voice. "There were too many Saviors around with guns. She was fighting Walkers. Not killing them, just stringing them up to these posts all around the fence."
I closed my eyes for a second.
"Yeah," I said through gritted teeth. "They had me doing that, too."
I knew exactly what that job was like. How dangerous it was. How frustrating it was to risk everything to protect a place you hated. How they never let you eat or drink anything until you were close to dropping down as dead as one of those damn Walkers. Being shot by the Saviors at the fence looked like a better option, the longer you were out there. And it would've been Dwight on the other side of that fence. Pointing my own damn crossbow at my girl. I glared back into the shadows he'd disappeared into and thought about running after him. If I'd known what he was making her do, I'd have put that knife right through his eye, and I wouldn't have stopped until I hit his brain.
He'd said she was alive, and that had been enough for me. But I should've asked more. Was she hurt? Had he hurt her?
He could've got her out. He could've brought her here with him tonight.
Then again, so could Rosita. She'd been there; she'd got Dwight easily enough.
"Why didn't you tell me you were going?" I rounded on Rosita. I knew my anger wasn't really meant for her, but I had nowhere else to put it. "You and Sasha had no business doing that on your own."
"Abraham is dead," she said, her eyes flashed with anger. "That made it our business. You might be content to sit around here and wait on Rick to do something. But we weren't."
"I could've come with you," I said. "Maybe with three of us, Sasha wouldn't be in that place now. That is if she ain't dead!"
"You were going to Oceanside," Rosita said. Another damn shrug. Like it didn't matter where I was, or that going with them meant I could've got her out. "We thought we'd get it done. We thought it would be easier."
"Easier?" I repeated. My anger hit up against the emotionless wall that Rosita had thrown up and bounced back on myself twice as strong. "Just you two dumbasses storming the place? No wonder she got caught! What did you think was gonna happen? Huh?"
Rosita's brow furrowed a little, a small glare creeping into the corners of her eyes. I'd struck on something strong enough to crack that wall.
"We didn't go there expecting to make it back," she said. The weight of what she'd said made the air feel heavier. "Neither of us did. But then we got to the gates and Sasha, she just…"
Rosita trailed off and looked away from all of us. I didn't know what to say. I was mad as hell that they'd gone there without telling me and that there had been an opportunity for me to go get my girl, and I'd missed it. But not caring if you came back from a fight, going into it expecting to die? Wanting it? I got that.
"Hey," Rick stepped between us, focused on Rosita. "We're all glad you made it back here. We'll get Sasha back. Naomi, too."
He looked at me, warning me not to take this any further. Not with everything Rosita had been through tonight.
"We knew you'd have wanted to come with us. See if you could get Naomi out of there. But… that wasn't the plan for us. We didn't have an exit strategy," Rosita said. I nodded, and I was about ready to drop the whole thing when she added, "Maybe it's better she's in there."
"The hell did you just say?"
She'd muttered it, but I'd heard her. Clear as a damn bell. Rick tensed ago, ready to step between us.
"Dwight says she's going to kill Negan," Rosita said. "I say we let her."
Another damn shrug, and then she walked off. Didn't even know I was trying to follow her until I felt Rick's hand on my chest again, pushing me back.
"Don't. She's been through enough tonight," Rick said quietly. "We've all been through enough. We can't start turning against each other now. Not with everything we've got ahead of us."
After our victory this morning, the road ahead still felt long and steep, like climbing a mountain. And if Dwight was telling the truth, we'd have to do it all tomorrow. I know that made other people nervous. Unease crackled around Alexandria. People hurried to get ready, set up our traps and weapons, stole moments of sleep when they could. Messengers were sent to the Hilltop and the Kingdom, a call to arms or a cry for help. There was no knowing if they'd answer it in time. If they'd get here before Negan did.
Rick sent word to a group of people he said he'd found living in some landfill somewhere. Not sure I thought he was really serious about that until The Scavengers arrived not long after the sun came up, and they all drove in on garbage trucks. We posted lookouts along the route the Saviors would come. We blocked the road as much as we could and set a trap close to the gates.
Then, it was just a matter of waiting. Waiting so long, it made me ache in all kinds of ways. I just wanted this done. I wanted it to go the way Dwight said it would. Maybe we could be back at the Sanctuary by sundown. Maybe I'd have her by my side at nightfall.
A call rang out between the Scavengers letting us know they were close. It was time. The aching faded, melted away by the adrenaline that burns you up before a fight. We all took up our stations. Preparation time was over. This was it.
"Rosita. Get into position," Rick said to her. "I'll signal you. And the wall's gonna hold?"
"It'll hold," she said, but I'm not sure she cared either way. I looked at Rick. He looked at me and nodded as if to say we got this. I nodded back.
The engines came within earshot of Alexandria. Quiet rumbles that slowly got louder. And then the first one came into view. Someone was standing on the back, their voice booming out of a megaphone.
"All points are covered. Every contingency is already met. I come armed with two barrels of the truth." You would think that Negan would be the first to talk to us, but he didn't show his face. Not at first. It was Eugene. "A test is upon you, and I'm giving out the cheat sheet."
Why had they brought him? Why was he the one talking to us? Was Negan even here? I looked for him and for Dwight, but it was just Eugene. Rick shot an uneasy look at me. Eugene's truck came to a stop right where wanted them to, right by the trucks that we'd filled with explosives, but if we detonated them now, it would blow Eugene to hell. Waste of resources if Negan wasn't even here.
"H-Hello," Eugene said. He sounded more nervous now that he'd stopped. Maybe he'd expected a warmer welcome than this silence. "I come salved with the hope that it is my dropped knowledge that you heed. Options are zero to none. Bottom-lining it - you may thrive, or you may die. I sincerely wish for the former for everyone's sake. The jig is up and in full effect. Will you comply, Rick?"
He was speaking like himself, but Negan had put those words in his mouth, right? Eugene had been in that clearing. Abraham had been one of his closest friends; it would take some severe brainwashing for him to forget that and turn his back on us. Unless Negan had broken his spirit already and made him think there was no resisting him.
Either way, Negan was a goddamn coward for sending one of our own to deliver this message.
"Where's Negan?" Rick asked.
"I'm Negan," Eugene said.
Fuck. You.
Might as well have signed his own death warrant there and then. His words hit us all in different ways. The same betrayal but to different degrees. Tara, who'd been the first and sometimes only person to see any real bravery in Eugene, whispered a soft, "No!"
Rosita, maybe the only person still alive who knew Eugene best of all, looked disgusted and wounded beyond belief. They'd both started this whole thing with Abraham. They'd both watched him die. But now Eugene had chosen a side. Rick turned to her. Nodded.
No.
It was instinctual. Even I didn't get it at first, but I was suddenly gripped with a fear of those explosives going off. It wasn't because we had no real idea if the wall would hold when they did, or even because it would almost definitely kill Eugene.
It was one thought that told hold of me, scared me right to my core.
If he's brought Eugene here, who else has he got?
I scanned the trucks I could see for any sign of her. Any small hint that Negan had her tied up in the front of any of those trucks. I didn't see anything, but I only had seconds to look. I turned to Rosita to ask her not to do it. Not yet. Not until we knew who was in the rest of them damn trucks.
Too late. Rosita's thumb pushed down on the button, and I braced myself, waiting for the ground to shake, for the deafeningly loud boom that was supposed to follow that press of a button.
But there was nothing.
Silence.
And then a flurry of movement as the Scavengers pulled out their weapons and pointed them at all of us. One of them opens the gates. Then there was the sound of car doors opening and closing as Negan, Dwight, and some of his other men got out of their trucks.
It all happened so fast that it took us a second to realize we'd been crossed. The Saviors gathered up the explosives we'd hidden while the Scavengers kept us all in place. They'd sold us down the river. I looked at Dwight as he walked to where Eugene was standing. Had he known this was going to happen? Was he part of it?
I was so caught up with how this could've happened that I didn't even think to look at Negan until he said, "You ever hear the one about the stupid prick named Rick who thought he knew shit but didn't know shit and got everyone that he gave a shit about killed? It's about you. You're all gonna wanna put your guns down now."
"No one drops anything," Rick said to us, but I don't think he needed to. There was no chance I was surrendering this fast. They'd have to pry this gun outta the hands of my damn Walker. RIck looked at Jadis, "We had a deal."
"Made a better deal," Jadis said with a cold shrug.
"You push me, and you push me. And you push me, Rick," Negan said. It was only then that I noticed cuts and bruises all over his face. At least it looked like Sasha had managed to do some damage when she bust in there, even if she hadn't been able to kill him. Good for her. "You just tried to blow us up, right? I mean, I get me, my people. But Eugene? He's one of yours. And after what he did - he stepped up. You people… are animals. The universe gives you a sign, and you just shove your finger right up its ass."
He laughed at all of us. Flipped us off. Then he looked at his right-hand guys.
"Dwight, Simon," he said. "Chop-chop."
They moved toward something at the back of the truck, undid the chains holding it there, and pulled off the sheet covering it. I could tell what it was before they swung it around.
A goddamn coffin.
Whose coffin is that?
They pulled it until it was standing upright so we could get a good look at it. Negan let the silence sit for a moment, let the fear seep into all of us.
Who's in the fucking box!?
"So, you don't like Eugene anymore," Negan said. "You guys gotta like Sasha."
Sasha.
Was that who was the box? Had he killed her after she'd tried to kill him, left all of those bruises on his face?
"I do, too," Negan said, tapping the coffin with Lucille. "Got her right here packaged for your convenience, alive and well. Now, I brought her so I wouldn't have to kill all of you, and not killing all of you could get complicated. See, I know there's a lot of firepower left in there, Rick. So I'm gonna make this simple. I want all the guns you've managed to scrape up. Yep, I know about those, too. I want every last grain of lemonade you got left. I want a person of your own choosing… for Lucille."
Rick didn't say anything, but I think we were all thinking the same thing; if Sasha was really alive, why bring the damn coffin?
Negan's cold little eyes fell on me.
"Daryl… Ooh, I gotta get me my Daryl back. I see you," he said with his hungry-wolf smile. Yeah, I see you too, asshole. I glared back at him. My gun felt heavier in my hand. One well-taken shot and he'd be dead. Like he knew I was thinking about it and was challenging me just to try, Negan took a step forward, eyes still fixed on me. "I am in desperate need of something to keep your bitch in line."
She's alive.
I know he was only bringing her up because he thought it would hurt me. But for a second, it did the opposite. Rosita was right; Dwight hadn't been lying. At least not about Naomi. I knew if she was dead, Negan would have brought a piece of her here to prove it. To fuck with me. To watch me collapse. This fight would've been over before it began, for me, at least. But now he'd refreshed why I was doing this. Fighting to save someone is so much better than fighting to avenge them.
"This was her, by the way," Negan said, pointing at the injuries on his face. Cuts and bruises. My heart dropped. That little bit of comfort he'd just handed me turned to ice. "She did not like the thought of coming back here. Guess she doesn't miss you guys too much, huh?"
I took a better look at those bruises on his face. The same ones that had given me some silent satisfaction now made me feel sick. His bruises were dark, fresh, but it couldn't have been more than a day since she'd made them. Those little cuts on his jaw looked like scratches, and I tried not to imagine what he'd been doing to her when she made them. Tried not to imagine Naomi's hand making them.
"She with you?" I asked. "You got her locked in some other damn box?"
He didn't answer. Just laughed. I searched the windows of every truck I could see. Was she in a coffin of her own? Would he drag her out of a truck so I could watch her die like Abraham?
"Naomi!" I yelled. If she was here, if she was shut up in the truck of some car or locked in some fucking box, I wanted her to know I was close. That I was coming for her. That all she had to do was sit tight and wait for me.
"I am going to have to kill her, Daryl, you get that, right?" Negan said. "You want a piece of her when I'm done? Little keepsake?"
I shot at him. Rick yelled at me from his post, but I hadn't even thought about it. All I saw was red. And him.
"Woah now!" Negan ducked out of the way. The men around him raised his guns and pointed them at me, but Negan held up a hand to stop them. One of the Scavengers kicked me in the back of the legs, and I fell to my knees. Negan looked back at Rick. "You best keep your dog on a leash and give me what I'm asking for now, or Sasha dies. And then all of you. Probably. C'mon, Rick. Just because I brought her in a casket doesn't mean she has to leave in it."
I was ready to fight. Ready to blow Negan's head off even if it meant the damn Scavenger behind me blew mine off right after. But with Sasha's life now hanging in the balance, I didn't know how many others would feel the same. I didn't know how Rick would choose to play this one out.
If he stood down, I wasn't sure I could stand by him. Not after Negan had made such a direct threat against Naomi's life.
"Let me see her," Rick said.
"Oh. All right. Just give me a second. I might have to get her up to speed. You can't hear shit inside this thing," Negan said, turning to face the coffin. He tapped it with Lucille again. "Sash. You're not gonna believe this crap."
He opened up the front of the coffin. I saw her arms first. Reaching for him. Heard his little yelp of surprise as she lunged forward. I thought, for a second, that she'd just decided to fight him now she was here, but then that smell hit us. That unmistakable rot of Walker-flesh and I heard the snarl that only the dead make. Whether Negan knew it or not, Sasha had been dead for a while. And now she was giving all of us a chance to live.
Negan fell off the truck, landing somewhere out of our sight. Sasha fell after him. I could hear yelling, hoping she was tearing his flesh right off the bone. In the shock and chaos that followed, it was Carl who moved first. He shot at one of the Scavengers behind him, and that one shot was enough to push the rest of us into action. I turned and fired at the Scavenger who'd knocked me down, and then I turned my gun and shot through the gate.
I saw Negan get up and duck down behind some cars I kept shooting. Saviors started pushing through the open gates while I was trying to get out of them. Not because I was abandoning Alexandria, I still wanted to get out there and check every vehicle Negan had brought with him. He hadn't answered me. She might be here. In all of this mess.
Too many Saviors were storming the gates, and I had to fall back. We were outnumbered and, probably, outgunned now that we'd shared the weapons we'd managed to get our hands on with some goddamn traitors.
It wasn't looking good. Bodies were starting to pile up, and my gun was getting light, empty. I took out a Scavenger with my last bullets and pulled the gun from her hands before she hit the ground.
I fought my way closer to the center of town. I'd seen Rick get hit but get back up again. Hadn't seen him since. Hadn't seen Negan, either. The Saviors and their friends had started rounding people up. Three of them cornered me, firing so close a bullet grazed by my shoulder. I pulled the trigger, but my gun didn't go off. It was jammed. Or maybe out of ammo again. I needed another one, fast.
I dove out of the way of the next bullet and took shelter behind a car. The approaching Savior's guns got louder as they kept firing, getting closer and closer. I checked my gun. Out of ammo. I looked around for another body with a weapon I could take. Nothing
Could I run for it? I sure as hell wasn't surrendering.
A round of fire went off real close to me, and two of the Saviors dropped to the ground. The third ran. I looked up. A big gun in a small and shaking hand.
"Mia?"
I couldn't believe it was her. The fight we'd had when I'd left her at the Kingdom forgotten, I stood up, ran to her, and pulled her into a hug. She felt real enough, but how could she be here? I thought I might have been shot after all, and this was either some death-hallucination or that Mia had died without me knowing, and this was her greeting me wherever we end up after this place. But nothing else around me had changed. No Pearly Gates, just the ones to Alexandria.
Then I heard hooves on the road, and when I looked toward them, I saw the King. Bryce was just behind him, his face all flooded with panic until he saw that Mia was alright. The King looked down at me.
"Change your mind?" I asked him.
"I was… persuaded," he said, and I caught a smile on his face even though he tried to hide it. Morgan and Carol were not far behind. I saw the same badly-hidden smile on Carol's face too.
"You need this?" she asked, handing out a spare gun.
I took it from her. "What the hell took ya'll so long?"
Maggie, Glenn, and a small army of people from the Hilltop charged in moments later, and the tables turned fast after that. Saviors scrambled to get out of the gates. Scavengers let off smoke bombs and melted away into them. Any of them that were well enough to run, we chaced back to the gates.
By the time I got there, the gates were closing, shutting out anyone who might think of launching a second attack, but I didn't think there was much chance of that. The Saviors were fleeing like rats from a sinking shit. I threw down my gun and climbed up the side of a truck to look over the walls, and jump on the roof of one of them trucks if they were parked close enough. Jesus had managed to get into Sanctuary that way, no reason I couldn't.
They were gone already, and the road was empty.
No.
I swung my leg over the top of the wall. I could climb down from here without wasting time getting the gates opened up again.
"Daryl!" Rick yelled. I paused and looked down at him; he was clutching a wound on his side. Bleeding, but able to move. "Where are you going?"
"I'm getting in one of them cars, and I'm going after them," I said.
I was about to swing my other leg down before he could stop me, but then he said, "Without your gun?"
I stopped again. Looked at where my gun lay discarded on the ground. As it currently stood, I had nothing but my fists to get me in there, and I wasn't planning on knocking. I climbed back down into Alexandria. If I'd been looking at Rick, I might have caught the nod he gave to Aaron and Glenn. But I was too focused on the gun.
Before I could reach it, they grabbed me by the arms.
"Hey, what the hell?" I asked, trying to pull myself free of them. I was so shocked they were doing it that at first, I didn't struggle too hard. These were my friends; we'd been through a lot today. The last thing I wanted was to give any of them a black eye. "What are you doing?"
"I'm sorry, Daryl," Rick said. "I can't let you chase after them."
"I gotta go, Rick," I said. "They're gonna kill her."
Maybe he's forgotten what's at stake for me here. Maybe it slipped his mind.
Rick had a lot on his plate, and a lot had gone down here today. I could forgive him for momentarily forgetting why I was doing this and thinking I was so jumped up from the fight that I was chasing more. But that wasn't what was happening here. And I could tell from his eyes that he knew it. They dragged me away from the gates.
"The hell are you taking me?" I yelled. I struggled against them. Harder now that I knew they weren't messing around. I wasn't, either. It wasn't just them I was fighting. Every second that passed was a second lost. "He's going to kill her."
They didn't respond, not right away. Rick was dragging me too, now, and took all three of them to get me to where they wanted me to go. Took me a second, but I realized too late that we were in the jail Morgan had built. They pushed me in. I spun around and ran back at them, but they slammed the door shut before I could do shit about it.
I wrapped my hands around the bars of the door and shook them. They held fast. "The hell is this?"
"Stay in here," Rick said, locking it quickly. "Just until you've cooled down."
"You fucking serious?"
"I can't have you chasing them down," Rick said. "We dealt them a big blow today. We started something. That's what we wanted."
"It's what you wanted. I wanted my girl back!" I yelled. "And they still got her!"
"We got lucky today," Rick said like I hadn't even spoken. "With the Kingdom and Hilltop arriving when they did. There's more of them at the Sanctuary. More guns and more soldiers. We lost people today, and a lot more got hurt. We gotta regroup, hit them strategically when we're stronger."
Fuck you.
"I ain't asking for an army," I said.
"I know," he said. "But I still can't let you go."
"I ain't asking for your permission, either," I snapped. "Let. Me. Go."
"I can't do that, Daryl," Rick said. His eyes and his voice were heavy with sadness, which just made me madder. Acting like this was all out of his control when he was the one with the goddamn keys. "Getting in there by yourself… it's a suicide mission. I can't let what happened to Sasha happen to anyone else. Especially not you, Daryl. You're my brother."
Don't give me that shit.
I pressed my face against the bars and glared out at him.
"If it was Michonne they had in there," I said. "If it was Carl. Or Judith. You'd be there. You'd have broken down those doors by now. Guess some lives aren't worth as much to you as others. Guess hers ain't worth shit to you, huh?"
Rick backed away. His eyes were bright and red.
"I'm sorry, Daryl."
You will be.
"You're killing her, Rick," I said. "If you don't let me go, you're killing her as much as he is."
Rick didn't say anything else. They locked the door behind them when they went so that if I bust out of this cage, I'd have another lock to get through. I screamed curses at them until my lungs hurt. Even when I knew they were too far away to hear me. I kicked the door until it shook on its hinges, but it would not move. I punched the walls until my knuckles bled, although I knew it would take me a thousand years to wear it down enough to get out. I didn't feel the pain because my anger was so much stronger than any of that. A fire that burned bright, white-hot.
And when there was no rage left in me, something broke. I felt it happen. Like a string snapping after being pulled too tight. I wondered if it was that bond between us. Whatever it was that tied Naomi and me together, that tug I felt deep in my chest when I missed her, that feeling that no matter how far I drifted, I was always tethered to someone. Someone who gave a shit. Was that what had snapped in me? Now limp and lifeless because there was no one on the other end of it. Nothing I was tethered to.
When the rage left, there was nothing but pain underneath, and I felt it all at once. It took over every part of me. Seized up my muscles so I couldn't move from where I was curled up on the floor. Shattered my heart and let the pieces fill up my lungs.
When we were kids, she used to say that she'd haunt me if she died first.
I used to think there was no way in hell I'd let that happen.
Now I wondered, if she'd died tonight, did she die mad that I hadn't come for her? Or was she sitting next to me right now calling me a dumbass?
"I'm sorry," I whispered to the dark. "I'm so, so sorry."
When there were no more tears left in me, I was empty. I watched the sun come up again, and even when the sunlight reached me, I didn't feel warm. Just numb. Like there was barely any of me left to feel it. Which was fine. If my better half was gone, I didn't want the rest of me.
I heard the door unlock, and footsteps come in, but I didn't look up. Didn't see the fucking point.
"You alright?" Rick's voice was tentative, nervous like I was going to start yelling again. I wasn't sure I could take a deep enough breath to shout. I didn't answer him. Didn't look at him.
"This came for you," Rick said, and then something small and wooden rolled onto the floor in front of me. "Think it's from Dwight."
It was. It was one of the figurines that Dwight had in his room. I reached out and picked it up, surprised that any part of me still worked. The words 'She's alive' had been scrawled on one side of it. I stared at them and felt nothing.
"You expect me to believe this?" I finally looked up at Rick. "Dwight's a lying son of a bitch."
"We have no reason to believe he knew the Scavengers had crossed us," Rick said calmly. "Everything else he told us checked out. There's nothing to say he's lying about this."
"No reason to say he's telling the truth, either," I said. How long did people expect me to just go on believing Naomi was okay without any damn proof?
"I know it was hard for you to be in here last night," Rick sighed like I'd had any choice in being here. Like he hadn't caged me like a fucking animal. "But she's alive, and that means we got a shot of getting her back. If I'd have let you go last night, we'd have lost both of you. You gotta see that, man."
I shrugged. Didn't know how to tell Rick that Naomi's death would mean losing so much of myself that it would be like we were both gone anyway.
"With the Hilltop and the Kingdom, we got the numbers now," Rick said. "The Saviors are hurting. When our people have recovered enough, we'll take an army there. We'll demand Negan's surrender, and we'll demand they give her back. You just gotta wait a few days. Can you do that for me, Daryl?"
I stared at him. He'd unlocked the cell door, and he was giving me that look. That pleading look he gives people when he's trying to seem reasonable. Rational. I still hadn't heard an apology come out of his mouth. I still hadn't heard him admit that this would all have been a different story if Michonne or Carl was stuck in Sanctuary. Overnight, I'd imagined all the shit I'd say to him. The punches I might throw if he opened up that door again.
I stood up and walked toward him. He stood his ground, but his eyes were wary. I should've hit him. Should've told him and his plan to go to hell. But I didn't.
Because he'd handed me a tiny piece of hope.
I closed my fist around the figurine.
"Where's Mia?" I asked, pushing past Rick.
"We took her to Aaron's," Rick said. "We thought she might want to sleep in-"
I didn't need to hear the end of that sentence. I walked out of the jail cell, out of the building, and back to Aaron's place. I could hear Rick's footsteps following me at a distance like he was worried I'd bolt again.
I didn't knock. Aaron, Eric, and Bryce were all sitting around the table. No sign of Mia. Aaron stood up when I came in, his face all pale and guilty.
"Daryl, I'm sorry, I-"
"Mia here?" I asked. Couldn't even bring myself to look him in the eye in case I punched him for what he'd done.
"Upstairs," Aaron said. I nodded and headed for the stairs. I knew where she'd be, and she stood up when I came in. Her eyes were all wide and anxious, she teared up when she saw it was me.
We didn't speak, just hugged each other, standing amongst piles of books that would've looked messy to anyone who didn't know how the system worked. There were probably only three people in the world who knew how to read the order into this kind of chaos, and two of them were standing in this room. The other was probably dead. The only reason I had to think otherwise were two words scrawled on something carved by a man I didn't trust.
Hope is a fucking poison. But it's also a hell of a drug.
A/N: How has this story been going for a YEAR already? Thanks to everyone who's read, reviewed, followed or faved it. It means a lot :) And shoutout to Shae Rosa for letting me know it's been a whole year!
Also, I know this was a mean and hopeless chapter so I'm going to try and get the next one up ASAP. Thanks again for reading!
