(Quick trigger warning: mentions of/allusions to rape and sexual assault. Nothing graphic, but I'm putting a warning here just in case.)
Naomi
The door opened, and everyone flinched. After weeks of living like this, it still struck fear into our hearts. Never knowing which one of us they were coming for made the whole place tremble as everyone prayed for it not to be their turn. Afterwards, if it weren't you, you just felt guilty for being so relieved. We cowered away from the light. Sometimes it seemed they came in with you in mind, sometimes you were just unlucky enough to be seen first.
Dee stumbled in on bare feet. The door closed again, and there was a brief feeling of relief in the room. I stood up and ran to catch her as she sank to her knees, sobbing. I didn't ask if she was okay. We all knew that the answer to that was 'no'. Instead, I asked, "Are you bleeding?"
She shook her head, trembling arms wrapping around me. I hugged her back. "You're okay," I whispered. "You're safe now."
I repeated it until she stopped shaking. When she was ready, I took her further away from the door, into the shadows of one corner where she might feel safer.
She sat down, hugged her knees to her chest. I sat down beside her.
"I don't know how you can stand it," she said. Glared at me a little. I didn't react because I knew it wasn't really me she wanted to be glaring at. "You're so calm. Even when they bring you back... it's like it doesn't affect you. You just put up with it."
It took a lot for me not to answer immediately. I knew I'd yell at her if I did. So, I took a deep breath. It wasn't Dee's fault, we were all trapped in hell, but it was new for her. Living in constant fear, not of the risen dead, but of people around you was how I'd grown up. It was like I had this switch deep inside me that I could just flip off, and it made me numb. I'd learned long ago that crying didn't work, begging didn't work. Sometimes all you could do was wait for it to be over. The only way to find peace was in the other people who were trapped in hell with you.
"I am angry. All the time," I told her. She looked surprised, but I felt like I'd been born angry. "If I let myself feel even a little bit of it, I will lose my mind."
"Noami, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"
"It's okay," I told her because she had nothing to apologize for. The rage, pain and shame all of us were feeling was immense. There was nowhere to put it or direct it to. It would be too easy to turn it against one another, let it tear us all apart. "If we fight, we have to be smart about it. We need to know where they're keeping the kids, and how they're being guarded. We need to communicate with everyone else. Coordinate an attack that they don't see coming."
Dee nodded, calm and determined for the first time in weeks.
"How would we communicate with the others?" Mary asked in a whisper. I jumped because I didn't know how close she was, or that she'd been listening, and any unexpected noise sent my heart racing now. Incase it was Them. Back for more.
I turned around to tell her that I didn't know, that I hadn't thought much further than finding out where the hell they were keeping Mia, Perla and José. But Dee spoke before I could.
"I saw Lucas today," she said, sitting up a little straighter like she'd only just remembered it.
"You did?" I asked. "Where?"
"When they were bringing me back," she said. "They were bringing him back from somewhere else. He didn't look so good."
"Poor Lucas," I said. Occasionally, they'd take the guys out and beat them so that they didn't get any ideas about trying to protect the rest of us.
"He's in the train car that way," Dee said, pointing to the one on the left of us. "They brought us both out at the same time. Stood next to him while they opened the door to the courtyard."
"They've done the same thing with me before," Mary said. "Easier to get us all in and out at once, I guess."
"You think you'd be able to talk to them?" I asked. "If it happened again?"
"No," Dee shook her head. "They'd hear us... might be able to pass them something, though."
"Like a note?" Mary said. Dee nodded. "Maybe."
"Shame we don't have any paper," she said and frowned like she was trying to remember where we'd kept any of the useful shit in Terminus.
From the other side of the container, Gareth stood up. His hurried whisper cut across the room. "You guys hear that?"
We stopped talking and listened. Yelling. Gunshots. People crowded around the few places that light could get in, gaps in the door or holes in the walls that let you see a tiny sliver of the world outside.
"Can't see anything," Alex said, but there was a crowd around him who all wanted to take a look too, each hoping to be the one who saw something.
"Sounds like a fight," Gareth said, ear pressed to the wall.
"Think one of the other groups got free?" Mary looked so hopeful. She'd been close to breaking for a while now.
"Maybe some newcomers turned up," I suggested, thinking about the signs that we'd put up along the railway tracks. What horrors they would be walking into now, thinking that they'd finally found somewhere safe.
The yelling outside was too far away to catch any words. Or hear who it was. It lasted for about fifteen minutes. There was a lot of gunfire. And then silence.
The silence went on for hours. Nobody spoke. Nobody dared ask if this meant our captors had all been killed in whatever had gone on out there. We all hoped.
Footsteps outside. And the door opened again, and we all ran to sit with our backs against the walls. Reminded me of going into the kitchen at night when I was kid, turning on the light and watching roaches scatter into the shadows. I felt small and disgusting.
The leader of the men who'd taken over walked in, flanked by two of his men. They were covered in blood. Some of it looked like it might even be their own. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. He scanned us all, and then his eyes met mine.
"You," he pointed at me, and my heart sank.
Not again.
I still hurt from the last time. I never stopped hurting. Dee grabbed my hand as I stood up. I looked down at her. She whispered, "Don't."
Fighting was worse. Fighting was much more painful. I gave her hand a squeeze before I took a step forward and let go. You can feel everyone's eyes on you when you leave. Their pity, their relief that it's not them. There was something else there this time too, a curiosity. Nervous anticipation that we might get some answers to what it was we'd just heard.
I took one last look back at Dee before they closed the door behind me.
On the surface, everything looked the same, but something was different. Quieter. Less relaxed than usual. When I looked at them, they didn't sneer back at me. They looked angry. I thought that would make them more frightening, but it didn't. Usually, they laughed while they hurt us. They took their time. They were in control of everything; of us, our bodies, our kids, our lives and future. This time, they hurried me inside. Didn't take me to the usual place, either. We were in the comms room, where the radio was. I wondered if I'd be able to grab it and send out a distress call before they shot me. Would there be anyone out there to hear it?
"Take a seat," the leader said. I hesitated. This weren't normal either. Maybe this was part of their game, changing things up just when I'd come to know what to expect.
"You know you're my favourite, right?" he said. I felt sick. Said nothing. He sat down opposite me and grinned, "Even if you do have those horrible scars all over what would otherwise have been great legs."
I felt old cigarette burns itch through my jeans. I squeezed my legs tightly shut, the way I always did whenever something made me think about the marks my childhood had left on my body. He took a swig from a bottle of water which he then held out to me. "Want some?"
I shook my head, although I was parched. They gave us enough food and water to keep us alive, but never enough to satisfy us.
"Suit yourself," he said, putting the bottle back on the ground. "You got a name?"
It wasn't until he asked that I realized we didn't know any of their names, and they didn't know ours. It was just Us and Them. I wondered if that made it easier for them to treat us the way they did.
"Naomi," I said. It was the first time I'd spoken to them since the night they'd arrived. I'd screamed, I'd cried. But never spoken.
"Naomi," he repeated, and I hated the way it sounded in his mouth. Made me want to rip out his horrible tongue and set it on fire. Hated the way he smiled when he said it. I wished I'd lied, given him a fake name so it felt less like I'd willingly given a part of myself to him after he'd taken what he wanted for so long.
"Do you want to know why you're my favourite, Naomi?" he reached his bloodstained hand across the gap between us. I tried not to flinch as he touched my hair. I could smell blood and dirt, the dried mixture of both was rough on my skin as he ran his fingers down my cheek to my chin where he forced my head up to look him in the eyes. "You put up enough fight to make it fun but not so much it pisses me off."
I wanted to cry. Or scream. Or throw up. But I didn't, I tried to flip that switch, make myself numb to it. I find it harder with words.
"You also have this look in your eye," he said. "Like you're just biding your time. Waiting. And if I slip up, you'll be the first one with a knife at my throat. I like that. I like the danger."
I wanted to peel my own skin off. That I could do anything, even accidentally, that this man liked… made me want to turn myself inside out until I became someone else. He laughed, his warm breath in my face. The stench of it made me flinch. It was always the same. I felt like I could smell him on me for hours after he was done. My hands were shaking. I balled them into fists in my lap so that he wouldn't see and braced myself for what usually came next. But to my surprise, he sat back and sighed.
"It's been a fucking long day, Naomi." He sounded weary, and I felt that little bit of hope again. Something had gone wrong for him today. That could only be good news for us, right?
"Why are you so well behaved?" he asked. "Why don't you talk back like some of your friends… the things they threaten me with."
He laughed again like it was a fond memory for him.
"You have my sister," I reminded him.
"Do we?" he said. "Ah, one of the brats upstairs, I presume? Funny, that's actually what I got you out here to talk about."
Upstairs.
My heart leapt. They'd finally given something away about where they were keeping Mia and the others. I tried not to let any hope show on my face, I wanted to keep him talking, so I said, "I don't want to say anything that'll get my sister hurt."
"Makes sense," he said. "Although I'll tell you right now none of us actually know which kid belongs to which of ya."
"What?"
"The threat is enough to keep you all in line," he said with a shrug. I was relieved for a second.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked. It seemed dumb to arm me with this kind of information. Now I knew I could do anything and they wouldn't hurt Mia specifically. I guess it meant they'd pick a kid at random; Perla or José or any of the Terminus kids. I didn't want that either.
"Seems we weren't hard enough on the kids," he said. "Haven't been disciplining them like we have you guys. They tried to stage a little uprising."
"No," I sat up straight. My mouth felt dry. The fact he was here and they weren't meant they must have failed. He laughed again, but it was bitter.
"Yup," he said. "They didn't like the sound of what we were doing to all of their mommies and daddies. So they tried to stop us. I lost two guys before we got them under control."
My heart was beating so loud I could hardly hear him talk.
"What do you mean 'got them under control'?" I asked.
He grinned.
"We got their ringleader," he said. "Got the guy who orchestrated the whole thing. I thought you might be able to help us deal with him."
"Me?" I said. "Why me?"
"I remember you being very helpful with the kids before," he said. "And, if you do what I tell you, I'll let you see your sister."
It sounded like a trap. Like it was too good to be true. "You don't know who my sister is," I said.
"Doesn't matter," he shrugged. "I'll show you where they all are."
"I can see all of them?" I asked. Bringing news of the kids back to everyone would lift their spirits. Maybe even go some way to cheering them up.
"They're all in the same room so you might as well," he said. "We got a deal?"
"Yes."
He beckoned over to someone standing at the door. I heard the sounds of a struggle, feet scuffing against the floor and someone trying to protest through a gag. I knew it was José before I saw him. My heart sank.
"José!" I called as he was dragged to stand in front of me. He stopped struggling at the sound of my voice.
"You know this kid?"
"Yes."
"Well shit, this might be hard for you," he said. The guy holding José took off the blindfold and moved the gag from his mouth. Our eyes met, and I could not look away from him. Hands still tied behind his back, they forced José to his knees.
"It's okay," I said. That phrase, it was becoming a reflex. "You'll be alright, José."
"Actually, no. He won't."
They made me stand up in front of him. He still wouldn't say anything. He just looked up at me, strangely calm.
"Shoot him," they told me and pushed a gun into my hands. I was so shocked that it took me a second to realize what I was holding.
"I can't."
The leader came to stand behind me. His horrible breath on my neck, his meaty hands took hold of my wrist, raised the gun to aim at José's head.
"You can either shoot him now," he told me, removing the gag from his mouth. "Or we'll kill him in front of you. And it'll be slow."
"No," I said. The gun shook in my hand.
I had a fucking weapon.
I could turn it on him now.
I probably wouldn't get very far before one of his buddies shot me. They'd shoot José too, probably, but maybe that was better. Go down fighting.
"Naomi," José looked up at me. "It's okay."
"No. It isn't," I told him.
"Don't fight, don't let them kill you too," he said, looking pointedly at the gun in my hand. Guess he knew what I'd been thinking. Guess everyone in that room would've known the second they gave me the damn thing.
"Clever boy," there was a horrible laugh from behind me. "Shame, you learned that lesson too late. Could've made a great addition to our group if you'd got to grow up."
"José…" I felt more like I was pleading with him than our captors. He saw me look from the gun in my hand to the guy holding him. He knew I was still trying to work out how many shots I could get in before they took us down.
"Mia and Perla," he said. "They need you. I need you to look after them."
It was so much like the promise his mother had made me make. The weight of my own failure crushed me. "I'm supposed to be looking after all of you."
"You are," he said. How could he be so calm?
"Naomi," our captors were getting impatient. "He's dying one way or another. If you don't do it soon, we're going to do it ourselves."
Maybe that would be easier, better than having his blood on my hands.
"Too slow," one of them stepped forward, held up a knife to José's throat. José flinched, but they did not slit it. Instead, he ducked behind José, who let out an almighty scream before his captor held up one of José's bloodied fingers, severed from his hand. He waved it at me. "I'm going to keep cutting bits off him until he dies of the blood loss or you do the decent thing and shoot him in the head."
José screamed again as they took off another one.
"Please," I begged them. "Please stop. You can kill me instead."
Their leader walked over to me then, put a hand under my chin. "Couldn't let something so pretty go to waste," he said. "You still not going to do it?"
I looked behind him, to where José was bleeding and grimacing in pain.
"Please," he looked up at me, and I saw a strange mix of peace and determination in his eyes. He said, "It should be family."
I saw them move the knife, started to slice into his arm, just below the elbow. They were going to take that next. Could I really watch him bleed out because I didn't have the guts to pull a trigger?
"Close your eyes," I whispered to him. His eyes shut. I did my best to remember the words Blanca had said to him and his sister all those nights we'd lived up in the safety of the trees. "Te Quiero."
I think I saw him smile. And then I pulled the trigger. A clean shot through his head. Painless and too quick for him to know it was coming. Or, so I hoped. I guess you can never really know unless you're the one being shot.
I heard someone behind me start to clap as grief ripped through me. I turned on him, squeezed the trigger as many times as I could. It clicked. But never went off.
"Didn't think we'd give you more than one bullet, did you?" he said. I threw the gun to the floor and dropped to my knees. I threw up, which only made them laugh more.
I felt heavy arms around my shoulders. I knew from the smell that it was him. I twisted in his grasp, my fists slamming against soft flesh. Though my vision was blurry, his face swam into view. My back hit the floor, and he pinned one of my arms beneath me. My free hand thrashed out at him.
All I could think of was José.
Feet away from us.
His Momma and the promise I'd made her. Now broken, lying in blood.
I felt my nails scrape down flesh. He roared and stumbled backwards, clutching the side of his face. There was a brief second where I was free. I lunged for him again. Felt hands grab me, holding me back.
"Fuck you!" I screamed at him. "Fuck you!"
There was blood on his face, from three scratch marks I'd left behind. I struggled against the guys holding me. He recovered and sprang towards me. His foot slammed into my stomach. I doubled over, the wind knocked out of me. He spat in my face.
"Get her out," he said. They started to drag me towards the door. There was so much pain in my stomach I couldn't walk.
"Do we put her back?" they asked, stopping in the doorway.
I glared up at him.
"No," he said. "Take her to the kids' room. Deals a deal."
Feeling sick from the kick in the stomach, I half-stumbled and was half-dragged along with them. I was aware of being hauled up a set of stairs. There were some offices at the top of Terminus, I looked up to see the tops of the kid's heads standing around the outskirts of the room. A door was unlocked, and I was thrown in. I knew from the smell that something was horribly wrong. I thought they'd come in with me, but the door slammed shut.
The room was almost quiet, apart from the horrible and unmistakable sound of the dead.
Dead.
All of them.
Chained to the walls and straining to get to me.
No.No, no, no, no, no.
I sank back against the wall. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't make a sound. I could hear laughter in the hallway outside, knew they were watching me through the glass. Small dead hands reached out to grab me. Faces I'd seen playing around Terminus not that long ago now stared at me with their cold, unseeing eyes. Their jaws snapped. The chains holding them to the walls rattled with the force that they tried to break free and get to me.
I had to close my eyes for a moment. It was too much to bear all at once. All of our kids. Dead.
If Mia's here, I thought to myself, I will let her bite me. I will end this fo myself.
I opened my eyes again.
Scanned all of their faces. Each one hurt a little bit more than the last.
No Mia. No Perla.
I checked again, looking at each little dead face for as long as I could stomach it. They weren't there. I thought back to how calm Jose had seemed, how willingly he'd met his fate. Did he know they were safe somewhere? Did he manage to get them out? Or were they just killed in the fight they tried to start?
I backed to the safest corner of the room and sank down to the ground. Standing was hard. Breathing was hard. It felt wrong that I should be able to do any of those things when the children we had failed to protect were all dead.
They watched me through the glass as I sat and sobbed in front of the corpses of innocent children. It felt like they left me in there for hours, but it might not have been. Time stopped in that room. Stopped, but couldn't go back and fix anything. Eventually, the door opened. The scratched-up face of the bandit leader peered in at me. "Seen enough?"
I didn't move. Couldn't move. I wanted to, but I felt like everything inside me had been torn to shreds. He entered the room and grabbed me by the arm. "Let's go, Naomi."
He pulled me out. I heard them lock it up again.
"Why are you keeping them like that?" I asked him. "Why not let them rest?"
"Need somewhere to put you guys when you misbehave," he said. "Also it's kinda cute, huh? Didn't you find you dead little sister adorable?"
He laughed again. Kept laughing while I said nothing. He really thought my sister was in there, which meant that he definitely didn't know who she was. Or that she and her friend might have gotten away. I didn't want to say anything that would make him think otherwise.
Back down the stairs, I turned towards what I knew was the way back out to the train cars they were keeping us in. He grabbed me by the arm. Pulled me real close.
"You didn't think I was done with you, did you?" he said. I froze. My whole body tensed up. "You have me a good scratch back there. Drew blood. You gotta pay for that."
I didn't care. I really didn't. There was nothing he could do now that was worse than what he'd already put me through. He didn't know how much physical pain I could endure without flinching. I flipped that switch, let him tire himself out. He tried hitting me to get a reaction, but part of me was just… gone. Like I checked out of my own body. Knew what was happening, but had disconnected enough not to feel it. As close to being dead as I could get. I just wanted it to be over.
When he was, finally, done with me, he threw me back in with my friends. I was bleeding. It hurt to stand up. My face felt bruised. But all of that was nothing compared to the weight I was carrying in my soul. I sank to the ground.
"Oh my God," I heard Dee before I felt her arms around me. "Oh my God, what did they do to you? Help me!"
She was calling to someone else. I knew I was crying and bleeding all over her, but I still couldn't feel much. Another pair of arms wrapped around me and helped me move away from the door. Mary and Dee propped me up. Someone tried to wash the blood from my face, but I held my hand up to stop them. No point in wasting the little supplies we had on vanity. We would need every ounce of strength we could get for what was coming. I couldn't focus on any of them, just stared at the ground. Everyone sat in silence around me. Felt like I was sitting at my own wake.
"Naomi," Dee gently brushed some hair from my face. "You're okay. You're safe now."
I shook my head. Looked up at her, at all of them.
"They killed the children," I said, and something inside me snapped. Like a dam breaking, flooding me with all of the anger I'd been holding back. My whole body trembled with the force of it. I heard the shock pass through the room, and people started to sob. "They're keeping the bodies chained up like dogs."
"Why?" Mary asked. I'd expected her to cry, I knew she'd had grandkids there. Knew she'd taken in orphans who'd arrived in our Sanctuary and loved them like she'd loved her own sons. But something inside her had snapped too, and she was looking at me with the same fire I could feel burning deep inside.
I told them all about how the kids had tried to fight our captors, taken it upon themselves to try and save us all. How they'd been killed for it.
When the door opened again, sooner than any of us would've wanted, Mary stood up. She walked towards the light while the rest of us cowered from it. I thought she might try and fight them right there and then, braced myself for having to watch them kill her in front of us, but she went with them pretty calmly.
"The hell was that?" Dee asked when the door closed again.
"She's had enough," Gareth said, looking hopeful for the first time in weeks. "She's going to end this."
"She says we're either the butcher, or we are the cattle," Alex said. "And I think she's done being cattle."
Mary came back bleeding and battered but smiling all the same. The fight she'd put up had distracted them from the things she'd managed to steal. Nobody knew Terminus better than Mary, not even the people running it now. She'd managed to grab scraps of paper small enough to conceal in her fists and a pen she slipped down the front of her shirt. It weren't much. But it was enough.
Even the worst kinds of people had a routine. They got us out together, and they put us back together because that way, they only had to make one trip. We spent the night making weapons out of anything we could. People made nooses from their belts. I took the laces out of my boots. We broke off anything from inside the container that we could, leaving us with pieces of jagged and sharp metal.
Morning came, and instead of cowering from the door Gareth, Alex and I stood close to either side of it. The door opened. I held one of my bootlaces tightly between both hands and did my best not to make a sound.
"Fuck you," Mary yelled at them from where she sat opposite the door. "Child killers!"
The rest of them began to shout too, hurling insults they'd been holding in for weeks.
"Settle down!" their leader yelled, raising his gun at them. "Or we'll-"
He didn't get to finish. While he'd been distracted, I'd snuck up behind him and wrapped the bootlace around his neck. I started pulling it tight. His gun went off accidentally but didn't hit anyone. The sound of the shot echoing around the metal container was deafening. Our friends rose as one, charging at our guards.
Dee grabbed the gun of the guy in front of me, who was now gasping for air. His meaty fingers reached up to try and pull it away from his neck. He sank to his knees, looked up at me. I saw the shock in his eyes and. I think he tried to say my name like he didn't expect it to be me who was choking the last of his horrible breaths out of him.
Gareth and Alex had two other bandits in a similar position. There was a rush of people storming forward to take their guns from them and then ran out of the doors. I could hear yelling and gunshots from all around. People being held in the other containers were rising up too.
I pulled tighter on the bootstring. He was heavy. When he passed out, he almost brought me down with him. I waited to be sure he wasn't faking it and then loosened the string. A red line ran around his neck. I kicked him over, used the lace to tie his hands behind his back and used the other one to tie his feet. If he weren't dead, I didn't want him waking up and causing trouble. I saw a knife sticking out of his belt loop and grabbed it. It wasn't the best weapon in the world, but other folks had taken his guns, so it was all I had.
I stood up, could still hear the sounds of fighting outside. I ran to join in. Saw Dee lying in a pool of her own blood, eyes open and staring at the sky without seeing it. She'd only made it a few steps out of the door before being shot in the head. I screamed when I saw her. It was anger more than anything else. Someone fired at me and I charged towards them, not caring at that moment if I got hit or not. I think the shock of my recklessness gave me the upper hand. I'd grabbed him before he could take another shot.
I slashed and sliced at his face until he crumbled to the ground, clutching the bleeding sockets where his eyes used to be. I stuck the knife in his throat, took his gun, and left him to bleed there.
By now, the fight had mostly moved inside as the bandits retreated deeper into Terminus. They were losing ground pretty fast. Some of them tried to flee and were shot before they could climb the fence. Some of them might have made it.
I found almost everyone in the main hall of Terminus. A group of bandits had surrendered. The rest lay dead around the room. I saw William, Jack and Izzy there too. I walked around to check that everyone who'd died had been taken care of so that they wouldn't rise up again. I shot any of the bodies that hadn't already been shot in the head. When I got to my friends, I paused for a moment. I closed Jack's eyes, which till looking at where Izzy lay. When I went to check on her, she groaned.
Still alive.
"Izzy!" I said. Her eyes fluttered open and then closed again. I think she tried to call for Jack. "Izzy, can you hear me?"
She raised a weak and shaking hand.
"She still alive?" I looked up to see Lucas standing over me, a deep scar ran down his left cheek. It looked a few days old.
"I think so," I said. "Help me move her?"
I slipped my arms under her shoulders, Lucas took her legs, and we carried her into the old ticket office. Gareth ran in with medical supplies and told us to get out of the way. He'd been training as a nurse before all of this. We watched him try to stop Izzy's bleeding. Outside, the bandits who'd surrendered were being rounded up and taken outside. I looked at Lucas, who tried to smile, but winced as it hurt his scar.
"You okay?" I asked.
"I'm free," he shrugged. Which was the best any of us could have said. "Is it over?"
I desperately wanted to say yes.
"Almost," I said, and with a heavy heart, I left the room to climb the stairs.
"Naomi," Lucas called after me. I turned just before them. "Where are you going?"
"Someone's gotta take care of the kids," I said. "I've already seen it, but there's no need for all of these other folks to traumatize themselves."
"Okay," he said and picked up his pace to join me.
"What are you doing?"
"You don't have to do these things alone," he said. "It's bad enough… what they made you do to José."
His name sent a stab of guilt through my gut. I shook my head. "I should have refused," I said. "Maybe he'd still be here."
"They'd have killed him," Lucas said. "You know that. And they'd probably have chained him up here with the rest."
"Maybe," I said, but we had no way of knowing. And the speculation did nothing to alleviate my guilt. We reached the top of the stairs. I could still see the tops of the kid's heads, moving around like they were still alive. I turned to Lucas, "You sure you want to see this?"
"No," he said. "But I don't want you to bear this burden alone."
The door was locked. The key was probably still on one of our former captors, who were either dead or in the middle of being thrown in the containers they'd kept us in. I gave it a few hard kicks. The sound of it drove the dead kids inside berserk trying to get at us. The door burst open. I strode in and just started firing, Lucas followed. The kids fell, one by one. And it was horrible, but it also felt like the first good thing I'd been able to do for them since Terminus had been taken over.
When the last one was at rest, Lucas turned to me. His eyes were heavy with the weight of what we'd just done. I felt better, though, knowing that the kids weren't being kept like they had been.
"Mia's not here," he said.
"I know," I said. "Perla ain't here either."
"Do you know what happened to them?"
"No," I said. "Maybe they were both killed when they tried to fight. If they were shot in the head, they wouldn't have come back as these… things. Or, maybe they got away."
"Think that's possible?"
I shrugged. "José seemed so calm… didn't fight at all. If he knew his sister was okay…"
"Then he would've been able to face what was happening to him," Lucas finished for me. "That makes sense. So, what now?"
"I gotta go look for them," I said. "Hopefully they stayed close by. Mia might've left me some visible tracks."
"It'll be dark soon," he said. "Can you wait until tomorrow?"
I wanted to say no. But my body ached from the fight, and there was so much to clear up here, I knew I'd be more productive the next day.
We cleared the bodies from around us, and we buried those of our friends. We buried the kids. A memorial room was set up for us to remember everyone we'd lost. Mary got out every candle we had and some black paint from a supply closet. When I went in, the room was silent, sombre. But the candlelight gave it a warm glow and having so many survivors all grouped together like this made me feel calmer than I had in a long time. Lucas was painting William's name on the wall. He gave me a small smile when I walked in. I picked up a paintbrush, my hand felt heavy with guilt as I wrote José's name there.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to him.
I started to paint Dee's name underneath. I had to stop a few times because my hand was shaking so much. It just felt so important that I got it right, so that anyone who came through here would be able to read it, and know that she was here. I could feel Lucas watching me. He cleared his throat.
"You want to write Mia's name on here?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Don't think I could, it would be like admitting she's dead. And I don't know that for sure. Feels like giving up."
"Okay," he nodded. "Sorry, I didn't mean-"
"It's okay," I shrugged. Didn't have the energy to fight anyone anymore, not even verbally. "I know it's probably dumb to hope."
"No, it's not," he said. "I just thought you might want some kind of tribute to her, that's all."
"Sweet idea," I told him. "And you can write her and Perla up there if you like. I just can't do it myself."
"I feel weird about me doing it," he said. "I'm not related to either of them."
"We're all family," I said, and I took hold of his hand. "There's no guarantee that either of them is alive, or that they'll come back here. If their names on that wall will help you keep going after all we've been through, you have my full blessing to put Mia on there."
"Thanks, Naomi," he squeezed my hand and then I let go to finish painting the rest of Dee's name.
When the memorial was done, we all lit candles and sat in the room with their names telling stories about the people we'd lost. Terminus was quiet without the sound of children playing.
The next day, I started my search for Mia and Perla. I took one of the old maps and divided it up into grids. I'd heard that was how cops did it when they were looking for missing children.
Mary, Lucas and everyone else who was well enough spent days clearing up the blood and debris from Terminus while I was out looking for Mia and Perla. Each day I searched a different place. Each day I found nothing. On the third day, I came back to the smell of barbecuing meat and everyone sitting down in the memorial room to eat.
"What's this?" I asked, staring down at the slab of meat in front of me. It didn't smell like anything I recognized. We were all starving, most of our food supplies had been used up and eaten by the bandits before we'd broken free.
"It's meat," Mary said, taking a big bite of her own dinner. "Eat up."
"I can see it's meat," I said. "But what kind? Did someone go hunting? I haven't seen much out there."
"Just eat," Mary told me. I sliced off a chunk, held it up to inspect it on the end of my fork. The look on the faces of those around me made me stop. Lucas cleared his throat, something he usually only did when he was holding back from saying something. I looked at him.
"What?"
"She should know," Lucas said. "Before she eats any of it. It's only fair."
"She wasn't here for the discussion," Mary said, glaring at me. "She shouldn't get a say."
"I was looking for my sister," I said.
"Your sister is dead," Mary said. "Like the rest of them. When will you fucking grow up and realize that?"
I put my fork down to argue with her. Lucas put a hand on my shoulder.
"It's one of the bandits," he said, which didn't make any sense to me.
"What?" I asked. "Did one of them say something about Mia? Or Perla?"
I knew Mary was keeping a few of them locked up somewhere, maybe she'd got them talking, and they'd said something about what happened to the girls. But that wasn't it at all.
"The meat," Lucas said. "It's one of the bandits."
I stared at the plate, felt the room spinning.
"No," I said. Mary was instantly angry.
"I told you she wouldn't see sense," she muttered, she glared at me some more. "While you were out on your wild goose chase. We strung one of them up and bled him out. Felt good to hear him scream, Naomi. You should try it."
"Have you lost your minds?" I looked around at them all. Only Lucas and Mary would look me in the eye. Mary looked cold and distant, Lucas was silently pleading with me. But for what, I couldn't tell.
"We are starving," he said.
I shook my head. "Not an excuse to fucking eat people."
"They're not people," Mary said. "They're monsters."
"They're not," I said. "They are people. Calling them monsters is just a way to forget that regular human beings are capable of the worst things. Which is exactly what we'd be doing if we go through with this bullshit!"
"You think we should let them out?" Gareth said. "To live amongst us?"
"I'm not saying that," I said. "Keep them locked up. Execute them if you have to. But butchering them like cattle is just cruel."
"We have to eat," Alex said. "And they deserve to die."
"So execute them all," I said. "And I'll go on a hunt tomorrow if you really need some meat. Stop with this shit."
"Have you forgotten what they did to us?" Mary asked.
"Of course not," I said. "They brought nothing but fear and violence to this place. But the only way to stop a cycle of violence is to choose to break it. This is just continuing what they started."
"We are not like them," Mary yelled.
"Not yet," I yelled back. "But you're well on your way. When other people follow the signs to get here, what are they going to think of you all? Huh?"
"From now on everyone who steps foot in here is either with us or against us," she said.
"Really?" I said. "So it's ain't just the people who did us wrong that you're going to do this to?"
"Everyone gets a choice," she said. "With us or against us. That includes you."
"It ain't right," I said.
"Then I guess you're against us," Mary said.
"Damn straight," I said. "What are you going to do about it? Lock me up? Cook me and eat me too?"
I'd not meant it to be serious. But the look in her eye told me that was exactly what she thought should be done with me. Lucas stood up. I was grateful for a second, someone was coming back to reality.
"Let's not be too hasty," he said, holding up a hand to stop Mary from coming any closer to me. "Some of us were resistant to it at first, too."
"I should damn well hope you're still-" I started to say, but Lucas shouted over the top of me.
"Let's go for a walk, clear your head a little bit," he said. He grabbed me by the shoulders and propelled me towards the door.
"I'll want her answer when you get back," Mary called after us.
"My answer is still going to be the same you crazy old bag," I yelled back. The door closed behind us, so I missed whatever she yelled back.
"Naomi," Lucas groaned. "Please don't make this harder than it has to be."
"Lucas!" I said. "There is no way in hell that I would ever-"
"I know," he said. We came to a stop. "Which is why we have to get you out of here as soon as possible."
The urgency in his voice made my heart start racing. "I can't leave. What if Mia comes back?"
"If you want to stay, you have to live by her rules," he said.
"Her rules are bullshit," I said.
"She might change her mind," he said. "When all of the bandits are dead, she might be less angry."
"She has fully lost it," I said. He looked pained.
"Then you need to go," he said. He took me by the arm to where our belongings had been laid out in one room for us to sort through. "Take what you need and be quick before she comes looking for you."
I grabbed my bag and a few choice weapons. I paused when I saw Mia's bag lying there too. If she'd escaped, she didn't stop to pick it up. Should I take it in case I found her? Or should I leave it for her in case she came back?
When I opened it, I found it was empty anyway. A little bit of me was disappointed that there was no trace of her anywhere. And then I remembered the small zipped compartment. I opened it. Found the picture of me, her and Daryl still tucked inside. I took it out and slipped it into my own bag, putting it inside a book I was carrying to keep it flat and safe.
"Okay, I'm ready," I said. Lucas grabbed a pair of wire cutters from the pile of tools.
"Let's go," he said, but he looked glum as he said it. I felt sad too.
It was dark out. Which was probably good for me, would make it hard for anyone to follow. Also meant it was more dangerous, the dead would be more active. Lucas cut a hole in the fence just big enough for a person to slip through. Then, he turned around to face me.
"Punch me," he said.
"What? No."
"It needs to look like you overpowered me and escaped," he said. "Which you could absolutely do, but it would really help if it looked like you'd beaten me up."
"But I don't want to," I said.
"I appreciate that," he smiled. "But Mary can't know I helped you."
I looked at him in the semi-dark, holding up the wire cutters he'd used to help me escape. There were old cuts and bruises on his face, that jagged and painful-looking scar, leftover from times he'd been beaten while we were all in captivity. It probably wouldn't be hard to make him look like I'd fought to escape on my own. But I really didn't want to. All we'd been through, I couldn't stand the thought of hurting him. Behind him, the woods I was about to walk into looked dark and lonely.
"Come with me?" I blurted out. Hated how desperate I sounded. "We have some time before they know we're gone."
"I can't," he said.
"You don't agree with any of this, do you?"
"Of course not," he said. "But I'm not like you. I don't stand a chance out there on my own. I need people. A group."
"You wouldn't be on your own," I said. "You'd be with me."
"Why? So you can do all of the hunting and kill all of the dead while I just do my best not to die? You don't need me slowing you down."
"You wouldn't," I said. I could feel my hands start to shake. I'd never been good at losing people, but I'd never known what to say to get them to stick around either. No matter what I said or how I said it, everyone always left. "How can you slow me down if I don't even know where I'm going?"
"Naomi..."
"What if Mary still thinks you helped me?" I said. "It might be safer to leave."
He shook his head. "You saved my life when you found me in that clearing. I owe you for that-"
"You don't owe me shit."
"I do," he said. "But I can't come with you. I'm tired of running all the time. If we get separated, I'm screwed, and if we don't, I'm a burden to you. Plus, someone should stay and take care of Izzy."
He sounded so sure, and I kind of got it. It would be easier to stay with him, with all of them. Even if I couldn't buy into Mary's twisted way of thinking, maybe I could pretend I did. Just suppress it until I stopped thinking about it altogether.
Even entertaining the idea felt wrong. I'd never been great at biting my tongue. I signed, resigned to what was about to happen.
"If you change your mind," I said. "I'm heading North. Mia and I always said we'd try and get back to DC. If she got out, it might be where she's heading. If she and Perla come back here-"
"I'll let them know," he said. "And I'll keep them safe. Now, punch me."
I hit him a couple of times. It wasn't that hard, but it was enough to reopen some of his old wounds, so they started bleeding again.
"I'm not doing any more," I said. "I refuse."
"Fine," he said. "I can always stab myself in the leg or something when you're gone."
"Find me if you change your mind," I said, pulling him close to me. Hugged him tight. He wrapped his arms around me, and I whispered, "Please change your mind."
"Goodbye, Naomi," he said and let go. I climbed through the hole he'd made in the fence. Crouched down on the other side and pulled it behind me so that you couldn't see it had been cut unless you looked real close. Lucas crouched down on the other side and helped. Gave me a sad little smile, "Go. I'll tell them you left out the front."
I smiled back but felt too sad to say anything. I turned around and walked into the woods. I walked as fast as I could, wanting to put as much distance between Terminus and me as possible. I didn't know how long Lucas would wait before heading back in.
Surrounded by nothing but trees and the dark, the loneliness crushed me. I almost turned around. I almost went back. I knew I was doing the right thing, but I was getting sick of the way that doing the right thing always seemed to leave me walking alone.
Daryl
"What you got against Peach Schnapps?" Beth asked me. She'd been quiet for a while. It was midday, and the sun was at its hottest. Walking around in this heat was shit. Even worse when you're hungover.
"What?"
Beth and I had been on the road for a long time. Without the prison for shelter, and without knowing if our friends were still alive, we'd had to go back to scavenging to survive. In the middle of all of this, Beth announced that she wanted to try her first drink, which was how we'd wound up off our faces and yelling at each other on Moonshine. Seemed like we were friends again now, but we were left to walk to the next place with a killer headache.
"Back at the old club, you smashed that bottle pretty quick," she said. On our quest to find her some alcohol we'd found a bottle of Peach Schnapps in some old clubhouse for rich folk. I hadn't been surprised that it was the only thing nobody had drunk, but I weren't exactly happy to see it. When I didn't answer right away, Beth said, "You get sick drinking it one time or something?"
"Something like that," I said. She looked at me, expecting more, so I said, "Just turned me into a real asshole. If you thought I was bad last night, you should've seen me on Peach Schnapps."
She laughed, but not in a mean way. "You get in a fight or something?"
"Yup," I said. "Huge one. With my best friend. Worst night of my life."
"You had a best friend?" she said like it was the most shocking thing she'd ever heard me say.
"Yeah," I said. "'Course I did. I told you about her... she had a little sister?"
"Mia," Beth said. "I remember. Didn't mention it was your best friend."
"Does that matter?"
"Yes," she said. "Never imagined you with a best friend, especially not a girl one. So, you had a fight. Do you mean…"
She was on the verge of looking at me like I were nothing but redneck dirt. I wondered if I'd ever escape that look.
"I didn't hit her, if that's what you were going to ask," I said, but then because it was kind of a lie, I added. "Not on purpose, anyway."
She gasped. "What happened?"
"I got mad," I said. "Threw this bottle at the wall. I was drunk. My aim was off. It smashed and a bit of glass ended up in her hand."
I looked away from her, didn't want to see if she were judging me for it. The memory was making me feel sick anyway.
"Oh," Beth said, didn't sound as disgusted by me as she should. "So, it was an accident?"
"Yeah," I said.
"That doesn't sound so bad," she said. "I'm sure she forgave you."
"We said some horrible shit to each other," I said.
"But you apologized?" she asked.
"Nah," I said. "Never saw her again."
"Wow," Beth said. "Maggie and I used to fight all the time, but none of them were that bad."
"Well, y'all lived together," I pointed out. "Easier to make up then."
"True," she said. I wondered if, now that we had no idea if Maggie were still alive, she regretted time wasted on fights.
"What did you guys fight about?" I asked.
"Dumb stuff," she shrugged. "I'd steal her clothes and her makeup. She'd yell at me for copying her. I'd pretend I wasn't."
"Why not just wear your own stuff?" I asked, thinking about how many times Naomi had changed her hair when she went off to college, her new clothes that weren't good for hunting in. "Why be somebody you ain't?"
"Didn't really know who I was yet," Beth shrugged. "There's all this pressure that comes with being a girl. Makes it so confusing."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. We're supposed to look a certain way, act a certain way. Nobody actually tells you the rules, they just make fun of you if you get them wrong." she said.
"That so?" I said. I hadn't thought about things that way before. How had Naomi's patched-up clothes and muddy hunting boots compared to the people at her school? I doubted any one of those other assholes would've had the same shit.
"All I knew," Beth said, "was that Maggie was the coolest, and if I could be like her, then other people would think I was cool too."
"I guess that makes sense," I said. "Kinda like me following Merle and his friends around because I thought they knew shit about life just because they were older than me."
"That's one thing I don't miss about the way things used to be," Beth said. "That pressure to be perfect all the time, it's exhausting."
"Sounds shit," I said.
"It was," Beth agreed. "People just being mean to anyone a little bit different to them because they need a break from hating themselves for a while."
I wondered if Naomi had felt that pressure too. I'd always seen her as this confident smartass, but maybe that were just with me. What about when she'd moved? Been around other people? People who, unlike me, didn't understand the kind of person she was and already think she was perfect?
I remembered how quiet she'd been the night I called her, how sad she'd sounded. I wished I could go back in time and just tell her she didn't need anybody else. She'd always been hard on herself, without me around to keep that in check, how bad had it got?
"How old would Mia be now?" Beth asked, distracting me from all of that regret. "If she's still out there?"
"Er..." I tried to do the maths in my head. "Thirteen, I think. Bout the same age as Carl."
It was a weird thought. Last time I'd seen her, she'd been about eight.
That night, we stopped over at an old funeral home. Which, turned out to be a surprisingly good place to hide from the dead for a while. There was some food there. We ate well and had somewhere almost comfortable to sleep. I mean, I slept in a coffin, but it were still better than those damn prison bunks. We heard a dog outside, yelping in pain. I told Beth to stay back and went to look. Second I opened the door, a Walker lunged right for me. Must've been drawn to the lights we had on.
I yelled for Beth to get out the back door and make a run for it. The house was overrun in seconds. We were low on bullets, and I had to make use of anything I could get my hands on to fight my way out.
When I made it out of there, there was no sign of Beth. Just her bag on the ground, and a black car with a white cross on the back screeching off into the distance.
She'd been taken.
Worst of all, it was my fault for not keeping her safe. Her dad was dead because I hadn't managed to kill the Governor when I had the chance. And now someone had kidnapped her.
I yelled her name, started to run after the car. I followed the headlights in the dark until they were too far away. After that, I just followed the road. I ran until I couldn't run anymore. Then I walked until I couldn't do that anymore either.
I sank down onto the road, too tired to go any further. The muscles in my legs burned. Felt like throwing up.
"Excuse me," I looked up. A nervous-looking little girl was standing in front of me. Couldn't have been older than fourteen. Her dark eyes darted around to the trees behind me like she expected something terrible to emerge from it, which I guess were sensible. Lots of terrible things around, both dead and alive.
"The hell did you come from?" I ask her. It hurt to speak, my lungs still on fire from all the running. She glanced at the woods behind her.
"Over there," she said. "I saw you running."
"Alright," I said. "Ain't you with anybody? Who's looking after you?"
"I was with my friend," she said, sitting down cross-legged on the road in front of me. "But somebody took her."
"Yeah?" I said. "Me too. You see which way they went?"
For a second, I felt a flash of hope in my chest that this girl had seen more. Whoever was running around snatching up young girls needed to be stopped.
"No. But I think I know who it was," she said. "We escaped from this... place. Used to be a sanctuary, but these men came. Took it over."
She shuddered, didn't seem able to go on anymore, but if these were the people who'd taken Beth, I needed to know what we were up against.
"They hurt you?" I asked.
She nodded, and then kind of shrugged. "They hurt other people more. We tried to fight... but it all went wrong. We didn't have any weapons, they had guns..."
"But you escaped?" I said. "You and your friend?"
"Yeah... my brother... he made sure we got out. Told us to go and find help," she said. There was a long pause. "I don't know if he's still alive."
I didn't know what to say to her. I couldn't promise her that her brother were still alive. Didn't want to offer her false hope. So I tried to focus on where we could go from here.
"You think the people you escaped from came looking for you?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Were they in a car?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Did it have a white cross on the back?"
"I don't know," she said. "I was hiding. I couldn't see them from where I was."
It wasn't much, but it was my only real lead on who might've taken Beth.
"What's your name?"
"Perla."
"Perla," I repeated. "I'm Daryl. You think you can get us back to where you and your friend were being kept? I think they have my friend too."
"Yes," she said, but she looked terrified at the thought.
I stood up, even though my legs were still hurting. "Let's go then."
She stood up too. We took a path through the woods. Didn't want to take the road in case any of the people driving around snatching up little girls saw us. Probably wouldn't have mistaken me for a little girl but Perla was still at risk.
We walked through the woods until Perla said that we were close. We slowed down, were really careful on the approach. It was an old train station. I could see the disused tracks running into it. The word 'Terminus' has been painted on to the side of the building.
We hung back a bit and observed the parameters. The closer you got, the more you could smell some kind of cooking meat. Reminded me I was hungry.
"Hey," Perla muttered to herself, looking real confused. "That's Mary…"
She was staring at a woman who'd just come out to check on some kind of barbeque.
"You know her?"
"Yeah, she was the leader of this place before it got taken over," Perla looked confused. "They must've all got out. They must all be okay."
She looked so hopeful that for a second I didn't want to take that away from her, but then I saw her gearing up to run down there, or shout something that might give away our location. I put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "Don't move too soon," I told her. "Not until we've figured out what's happened here, and we know it's really safe."
Disappointed, but understanding where I was coming from, she nodded.
Behind us, I heard some people moving through the woods. I pulled Perla deeper in, tried to hide us better in case someone had seen us from the compound and sent someone out to go get us. We ducked out of sight as best we could.
Rick, Michonne and Carl walked wearily into view. They all looked like shit. Covered in blood. Exhausted. But I was so happy to see them that I forgot to be quiet.
"Hey!" I said, standing up from our hiding place. Rick and Carl immediately had their guns on me. Michonne's sword was ready to slice me in half. I raised my arms above my head. "Just me."
"Daryl!" Carl ran towards me. I scooped him up in a big hug.
"Glad to see you, man," Rick said when I hugged him too. "Didn't know if you'd got away."
"Back at ya," I told him. Michonne finally put her damn sword away, and I hugged her too.
"Who's this?" Rick asked, nodding at Perla who was still standing where we'd been hiding.
"'C'mere, kid," I motioned her over. "This is Perla. She and her friend were held captive here for a while."
"Captive?" Michonne repeated. "Place says it's a Sanctuary."
"It used to be," Perla said. "But these men came and took it over."
Rick and Michonne glanced at one another and then back at me. "So, we don't go in?" Rick asked.
"Well," I said. "Perla and her friend escaped, but she thinks they sent someone after them. They took her friend, bundled her up in a car. Same thing happened to Beth."
"Beth was with you?" Rick said.
"Yeah," I said. We all looked through the trees at where Terminus stood.
"And they might both be in there?" Rick asked.
"They might be," I said. "We've been watching this place for a couple of hours. Perla says she recognizes one of the women from back when this place was safe. So, maybe it's legit again."
I was glad Rick was here. I could already see him trying to get together as much information as he could and formulate a plan.
"Maybe," he said. "But let's play it safe. There a way in here?"
He looked at Perla, who was startled to be asked. "Um…" she said. "Most folks come in the front. All the other entrances are blocked off."
"Look," Michonne said, pointing down to a part of the fence. "Think there's a gap in the fence there."
"Surely not," Rick said. But she was right, it looked like a part of the fence was slightly coming away from the rest. "Okay, let's hide some weapons out here, we can come back and get them if we need to."
We dug a shallow hole and hid some of our weapons in a bag. Took the rest with us to check out the gap in the fence.
"Hey, someone cut this," I said, pulling it open. It was too neat and precise for it to just be damage to the fence. They would've had to use wire cutters. Whether it was to get in or out of the place, I couldn't tell. It was just big enough to fit one person through at a time.
We were quiet. Didn't see anyone out patrolling the parameters. Perla took us to the nearest way in.
It was a big room, high ceilings that would be cold in winter. A woman was sitting with headphones on and a radio in front of her. She kept saying, "Sanctuary for all. Community for all. Those who arrive survive."
I knew those words. I'd been trying to find them for so long. It was a woman talking. But it weren't the one I'd heard before. I was sure of it. Don't know how, but I was. A small part of me was disappointed.
Before any of us could do or say anything, Perla stepped forward.
"Lucas!" she said. She sounded so happy. One of the guys who was bent over a table, writing something on a map looked up. The joy on his face twisted up a long scar on his left cheek.
He dropped his pen, ran to her. "Perla!" he said. "Where have you been? Is Mia with you?"
We watched them hug each other, but I could feel the eyes of everyone else in the room turn on us. She'd blown our cover. Now, I just had to hope she hadn't lied to me about anything, that she weren't deliberately leading people here with some bullshit story about a kidnapped friend. Another man stepped forward.
"Well, I bet Albert is on perimeter watch," he said, surprised, and a little annoyed, that we'd got in without them knowing. He introduced himself as Gareth and the place we were standing in as Terminus. Rick introduced himself and then the rest of us.
"They brought Perla home," the one called Lucas said. He said it real pointedly, but if there was any meaning behind it, only Gareth understood.
"Of course," he smiled. "Thank you for that. Mary will be so pleased. Come this way."
Mary was the one that Perla had mentioned before. From the sounds of things, whatever had gone down here while Perla had been hiding out in the woods, Mary was back in charge. They lead us out of the room to this courtyard where someone was cooking meat. My stomach rumbled, and I think I was too hungry to be able to tell what kind of meat it was. I was usually pretty good at that.
Something weren't right. Folks in the courtyard stopped what they were doing to look at us, which I guess was fair enough. Newcomers to any community should always be treated as a little bit suspicious. But that weren't all that was wrong. None of the faces around me were familiar. But some of their stuff was.
One of them had an orange backpack that looked a lot like one we'd had at the prison, not suspicious on its own but someone else had prison riot gear, another guy had a poncho identical to one I used to have. Hershel's pocket watch. I glanced at Rick, knew he'd seen it too.
He grabbed a gun off one of the guys who'd lead us out here and took another one hostage, demanding to know how these people had come by our shit. They tried to claim that they'd just happened to find them. But their story didn't add up.
A shot rang through the air. The guy Rick was pointing a gun at collapsed. I could tell by the shock on Rick's face that the bullet hadn't come from him. More shots were fired, we tried to fire back, but we were massively outnumbered.
We fled, running down a few alleyways between buildings. Seemed like everywhere we went, they were ready for us. We almost made it to the back fence, where we'd be able to get out the small hole we'd come in and get back to the weapons we'd buried. But there were more armed Terminus folks at the fence. Snipers on the roof.
"Lower your weapons," Gareth said. We were surrounded. Fighting would be certain death. But what was the alternative? I saw Rick look at Carl and then lower his gun. I put my crossbow down. Gareth made us line up outside one of the old train cars. One by one, we were forced inside.
The door shut behind us. There was nothing but dark and silence while our eyes adjusted. And then, in the dark, someone said, "Rick?"
It was Glenn. Next to him, was Maggie, Sasha and Bob. Alive a well. Or, as well as you can be when some psychos have locked you in a train car.
Nobody seemed to know what the hell was going on, or why they were holding us here. If they just wanted our stuff, why not shoot and take us?
We built weapons out of anything we could. When I tried to break off pieces of metal inside the car, I saw that there were already chunks missing. Was this just an old car, or had other people tried this before us?
The door opened without warning, and a canister rolled in, spewing out gas into the car. It was like they knew not to come in. Like they knew we were lying in wait for them with homemade weapons. My eyes immediately stung, and I couldn't stop coughing. Tear gas.
I felt dizzy.
Someone grabbed me, hauled me out of there. I could hear other people struggling too, but my eyes were burning. I couldn't breathe right. Felt someone tying my hands and feet, a gag in my mouth.
They dragged me away. It took a while in the fresh air before I could see properly again. When I did, I saw a weird trough. Like you'd used to feel animals. Another room with high ceilings. The hell was this place?
I saw Rick, Glenn and Bob. Along with some other guys from the train car that I didn't know. They made us kneel in front of the trough. My head was still woozy from the gas they'd used on us, but I was aware enough to realize that whatever the hell this was, it weren't good. I thought they might try to talk to us, try and negotiate with us about whatever the hell it was that they wanted from us. But they just hit the first guy on the head, pulled it back while he was all dazed and confused, and then slit his throat.
I knew at once what was happening. This is how you bleed out animals.
I started trying to break free of the ties binding my hands. They were talking and joking with each other while they did it. Whoever these guys were, this weren't their first time bleeding out humans.
They were just about to kill Glenn when they were stopped by a whole commotion outside. Gunshots. An explosion. I looked at Rick, while Glenn shut his eyes in relief. Did that mean some of our own had broken free to start fighting? Rick was struggling with something her hidden in his sock, trying to get his hand free on a sharpened stick.
A door opened, and Perla ran in. Her wide eyes took in the blood, the men who'd had their throats slit. She looked at me with a kind of horror that told me she'd had no idea this was happening when she came back here.
"I'm sorry," she said to me. "I'm so sorry."
"Hey, you're not supposed to be in here, kid," Gareth said. He looked at the guy with the scar, who'd run in after Perla. "Get her out of here, will ya?"
He never had a chance to respond because suddenly Rick was on his feet. He stabbed one of the butchers through the neck with the sharpened stick he'd used to cut himself free. Perla ran towards me, cut the binds tying my hands together with a small knife. I saw Lucas run to free Glenn.
"I'm sorry," Perla said again. "I'm so, so sorry."
"Ain't your fault, kid," I said, standing up to join the fight. "Mind if I borrow your knife?"
She handed it over. I slashed at another one of the butchers while Glenn was freed.
"This way," Lucas said, beckoning to another door. Perla ran towards him while I glanced at Rick, who looked as sceptical as I felt. We didn't know this guy. Could easily be leading us back into a trap.
"We ain't going anywhere with you," I said. "You're one of them."
"It doesn't matter anymore," he said. "This whole place is about to go up in smoke. A horde of the dead are coming, please… just follow me."
Outside sounded like chaos. There was screaming and gunfire, and I could definitely smell smoke. Reluctantly, we ran towards Lucas. Ran past half-skinned human bodies hanging from hooks in the ceiling.
Then, he took us through a room filled with candles. Perla stopped running. I stopped too.
"You okay?" I asked her. She stared around in shock. Names had been painted all over the walls, along with the words 'first always', 'never again' and 'never trust'.
"The hell is this?"
"I think it's a memorial," she said. "Everyone those men killed... most of them are children. Mia and I are the only ones who got out."
What the hell had happened in this place? Rick and I glanced at each other and then back at Perla as she scanned the names on the wall. I wondered if she was looking for her brother. I stepped forward, was about to tell her that we had to move. And then a name caught my eye.
Mia Payton.
I stopped. Blinked at it a couple of times. It didn't change.
Underneath was the name, Perla Rocha.
"Hey," I tapped it. "This you?"
She nodded.
I pointed to Mia's name, "That your friend?"
She nodded again. My mouth felt dry, my heart were beating a million miles an hour. Just the name Mia I could chalk up to coincidence. But Mia Payton? It had to be her.
I looked at her name on the wall, and there were only two things I could be sure of. First and most obvious, Perla weren't dead. Someone must've presumed they were after their escape. Maybe Mia hadn't been brought back here after all. No sign of Beth either. No weird cars with white crosses. They must both be someplace else. They could both still be alive.
Second thing, the handwriting of both girls' names was the same, but it weren't Naomi's. I'd recognize her so-neat-it-looks-typed handwriting anywhere. This weren't it.
"Was Mia on her own?" I asked. Perla still couldn't really talk, I did my best to keep my voice level, so I didn't frighten her. "Did she come to this place on her own?"
"No," she said, wiping away some tears on the back of her sleeve. "We came here together. A whole group of us. My brother…"
She started sobbing again and moved to stand in front of another name on the wall.
José Rocha.
Next to it; Nadia "Dee" Mills.
Both of them so neat they could've been stencilled on there. I reached out and touched the name next to Perla's brother. The hairs on my arm stood on end. Had she written this? Had she stood where I was standing now?
I did one last, desperate sweep of everything around me. No Naomi Payton on the memorial wall. No hint of her in any of the shit lying around me. No way she'd have stood by while this place became what it did, that much I was sure of. If she hadn't written Mia's name, it was because she didn't think she was dead. She would be out there somewhere, looking for her. Naomi never gave up on anyone, wouldn't stop looking until she found her sister or the search killed her. That was assuming Naomi made it out of that fire. Mia could have made it this far on her own.
But the handwriting.
The goddamn handwriting.
"Daryl!" Rick yelled. The walls shook with the force of another explosion, and I knew it was time to go, we didn't have long before this place went up in smoke.
We fought our way out to the train cars. Terminus had caught fire, the fences were down. Walkers flooded the place. Some of them were on fire too. Cries for help came from inside the carriages. We busted them out and ran for the hole in the fence.
Terminus residents were still shooting, but their targets were torn between the Walkers and us. We were low on weapons and low on bullets, so headed for the stash of weapons that we'd buried. By the time we'd dug them up, most of Terminus was on fire, and the gunshots from its former residents had stopped. They were either dead or fleeing.
I heard someone approaching through the woods. Looked up to see Carol.
She was back.
Felt like I was looking at a ghost. A giant rush of happiness and I ran to her. Hugged her tight. Our little family hadn't felt right since she'd left.
"Did you do that?" Rick asked her, with a nod to the mostly destroyed Terminus. Carol nodded. The two of them hugged each other, whatever bad blood had come between them when he'd sent her away was clearly now water under the bridge.
"I believe these are yours," Carol said, handing me back my crossbow and giving a watch back to Rick. "Tyreese and Judith are waiting for you all."
"Judith?" Rick repeated, overjoyed that he was going to get to see his little girl again. Carol nodded.
"Before we go, we should make sure everyone from Terminus is dead, so they don't come after us," Rick said. He took his pistol out and turned it on Lucas. "That includes you."
Lucas raised his hands in surrender, automatically got down on his knees.
"No," Perla said, trying to stand between Rick's gun and Lucas.
"Hey," Lucas said as calmly as he could. "I got you all out of there..."
"Don't matter," Rick told him. "Place was already going up in smoke. And what you all were doing in there... it's sick."
"You don't know what it was like..." he stopped himself, looked away from us. "Terminus was a Sanctuary once."
"Enough," Rick's gun clicked as he switched the safety off. Perla turned her pleading gaze on me. She must've seen the hesitation on my face.
"Wait," I said and stepped forward. I couldn't let it happen without knowing how Naomi fitted into all of this, one way or the other. I looked at Perla.
"Your friend, Mia," I said. "Was she with anyone? Family?"
Perla nodded, and it felt for a second like my heart stopped beating. The kid took a few deep breaths to calm herself and then said, "Her sister."
"Naomi?" Shock coursed through me. Felt like I'd been struck by lightning.
She's alive.
At the mention of her name, Lucas looked up at me. I took Rick's place in front of him, crouched down to look him in the eye. I wanted to be able to tell if he was lying.
"What about you?" I asked him. "You know Naomi?"
"She saved my life," he said. I felt a sharp pang in my chest. "We're friends."
"She in there?" I gestured back towards the burning Terminus building, ready to run into the flames if he said yes. I'd been held back once, wouldn't let that happen again.
He shook his head.
"She left," he said. "How do you-"
"Where'd she go?" I asked.
"North," he replied. "She was heading for DC, looking for Perla and her sister. She and Mia always planned to head back there, so she thought it was a good place to start."
I stood up, looked at Rick.
"Don't shoot him," I said. I didn't really care what happened to him, but he was the last person to see her alive, he knew what she'd been thinking. I glanced down at him. "Get up."
He scrambled to his feet. I grabbed him by the arm, starting walking as fast as I could.
"Daryl," Rick called. "Where you going?"
"North," I said, without stopping.
"Will you slow down, man?" he said, I heard him break into a run to catch me up. "We should talk about this."
"If y'all ain't coming with me, I ain't got nothing to say to you," I said.
"Daryl, that's not what I'm saying," he said. "But we need some kind of plan, we can't just go wandering off into the woods."
"I think North is a sensible plan," one of the guys we'd escaped with said. "Put as much distance between us and this place as we can, head towards DC, where I wholeheartedly believe things will be safer. I think this is the best way to fully maximize our chances of survival."
"See," I glanced back at him. "This weirdo agrees with me."
"Affirmative." The weirdo with the mullet gave me a nod. I turned my attention back to Lucas.
"What happened to her?" I asked.
"You sure you want to know?" he said. I wasn't, but now that I had something else to focus on, a direction to walk in, I thought maybe I could stomach it.
"Yeah."
"They separated us from the kids," he said. I tried not to think about Naomi and Mia being torn apart. Everything Naomi had ever done had been for that kid. "Said if we stepped out of line, they'd kill them. They locked us in the same containers we put you guys in. They beat the men. They did worse to the women."
He didn't say anything else, he didn't need to. I knew what that meant. A deep pain twisted in my gut like I was being ripped slowly in two. I had to find her. Just walking North weren't enough. I needed something else, tracks to follow that guaranteed the path I was on would lead to her.
"Did she get out of Terminus the same way we just did?" I asked. He nodded. "How long ago? And how big was the group she was with? I might still be able to pick up their tracks."
"A while ago," he said. "And it was just her."
I stopped walking. Heard everyone who'd been following us stop too. Felt like everything inside me turned to ice in an instant. I pushed him up against the nearest tree. Held a knife to his throat. Everything he'd told me so far had made me nothing but angry.
"She's on her own?"
The one thing I could blame him for. Lucas looked more scared of me now than he had of Rick when he was pointing his pistol at him.
"She wasn't happy with... what we were doing, what Mary was doing," he said. "When she found out, she tried to change things. Got in a big fight with Mary about it."
'Course she did.
I shut my eyes for a second. That sounded exactly like the Naomi I knew. I felt like the world was spinning too fast. She'd been here. She'd fucking been here, in that place and in these woods, and now she was gone. Felt like I'd spent my whole life just a few steps behind her.
When I opened my eyes again, Lucas was looking at me pleadingly. "If she hadn't left, Mary would've killed her."
"You should have gone with her," I yelled at him. "Sending her off on her own... after all she's been through...!"
I didn't want to think about it, but I also couldn't stop. Lucas had his arms raised again. "She was the strongest of all of us," he said. "I didn't want to slow her down."
I felt a hand on my back, Carol looking from me to Lucas and back again.
"I'm sure we'll find her," she said gently. "But we need to go get Tyreese and Judith. Then we can start."
"Fine," I said, though I could feel every wasted second like a stab in the heart. I looked back at Lucas. "That's a damn weak excuse. You shouldn't have left her."
He nodded, knew it was best to keep his mouth shut. I let go of him and started walking again. Wanted to scream her name into the trees until she answered, but I knew she'd be too far away for that.
Truth was, it wasn't just Lucas I was angry with. It wasn't just the men who'd hurt her. I was mad at myself too. If I hadn't run from her the night that we'd fought in her dorm, if I'd only gone back and apologized... If I hadn't let Merle drag me away from her burning house... I could have saved her from all of this.
I'll find you, Naomi.
A silent promise, an apology all rolled into one. I couldn't believe she'd been alive all this time and I hadn't been looking for her every damn day. She'd made it out, she'd gotten out of that fire. But where the hell was she now?