Poker Face

Chapter 82 - Something In The Way

"Where's my girl?" he just managed to choke out.

"Which one?" Rick sneered. He clearly knew which one, but he also knew there were other women back at the Sanctuary who had begrudgingly shared Negan's bed, though he didn't know they'd been pushed aside for the queen herself.

"Where is Aven?" Negan hissed more forcefully. Rick and Michonne exchanged a glance and Michonne nodded, as though giving the go ahead for something they'd discussed.

"She's dead," Rick replied almost regretfully, though there was the hint of a sick smile in his eyes.

"No," Negan choked, allowing his tears to fall. "You didn't. I'll fucking kill you. You didn't." He was again shut up by a hand around his throat. He shut his eyes tight and didn't open them for the rest of the day. He didn't want to. He didn't want to be alive.

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Aven woke slowly over the course of an hour, her mind swimming with anger and despair. Her thoughts weren't verbal or lucid, only abstract, only feelings. It was as though she were in limbo, with no notion of anything other than her own self floating in space and time. She might have enjoyed the soft warmth encasing the lower half of her body if she didn't have a headache that seemed to encase her entire skull, inside and out.

She groaned as she tried to sit up, the pain only worsening. She tried to bring her hands up to her face but no contact was made. It took another moment to realize her arms were pinned at her sides and when she pulled against her restraints, a sharp, hot pain shot up her right arm. Her heartbeat sped seemingly from zero to a hundred in less than a second and her eyes shot open, but her vision was hazy from sleep and the sudden exposure to dim lights and the early morning sun coming through the window.

She was trapped again. Again? No, she was never free. She must have dreamt escaping that basement. She must have dreamt that long, grueling journey through the woods and up the east coast. The dead walking? Of course, it was definitely all a dream.

"Good, you're awake," said a serious female voice with a southern twang. That's not Cindy or Melanie, she thought, the different voices of her captor's other victims playing somewhere in the back of her mind. It wasn't them and it certainly wasn't him, the greasy, lanky son of a bitch who took her from her family.

Her family. Mom, Dad, Brandon. If it was all a dream, they were alive.

"I know you can hear me, Aven," the voice continued. Aven blinked hard trying to focus her vision, looking towards the voice and seeing a blurry silhouette.

"She awake?" another voice grunted from further away.

"Get Rick and Michonne," the woman replied. "I don't want to deal with her."

Deal with me? Aven thought. Michonne? What kind of name is that?

Several moments passed but to Aven it felt more like seconds and a new voice came into the room.

"Maggie, I need to see her," a man said timidly.

"You already treated her. Just get her out of here." This woman was mean and Aven shuddered to think what was about to happen. She'd been at the mercy of one captor for too long; now there were several.

"It's not that simple. She suffered massive head trauma, I have to monitor her."

"Fine."

Massive head trauma? What the fuck happened?

"-me?" the man asked something, suddenly right at Aven's side. Only a second earlier, she thought, his voice had been in the distance. Aven finally focused on him as he clicked a small flashlight a foot in front of her face to get her attention.