It's been almost two weeks since the Whisperer War. Everyone's back in Alexandria, including Maggie and her people. My wounds have healed enough, though the bruises are nasty as hell. Beatrice loves Maggie, though, I'm not so sure how I feel about that. Inejra and Connie still aren't back and I'm starting to see the effects more and more on both Gabriel and Alyssa. As well as Rosita since, technically, Inejra's her stepdaughter.
Alyssa seems worried all of the time, almost as if she's convinced everyone in this group is gonna die if she turns her back once. She's less energetic and just seems less...Alyssa. I've let her go out and look for Inejra a few times, along with Kelly, but they've come up empty-handed. Gabriel is more irritable since Inejra's been gone, he's a hell of a control freak and extremely protective, just like Alyssa.
Inejra needs to get her ass back here.
It's about midnight right now, we're at an abandoned military base for some supplies like food and farming ever since the Whisperers' horde fucking destroyed Alexandria's crops.
We have to descend by ropes inside the building from the roof because each door is either locked or barricaded. Alyssa and I are helping each other with tying the ropes around our waists, making sure it's tight and secure. The deep black sky makes it a little more difficult but finally, the ropes don't come loose when we tug on them.
"Alright, let's go." Maggie whispers almost soundlessly.
Magna, Rosita, Kelly, Maggie, Alyssa, Lydia, and I descend down, achingly slow, making sure not to make any noise.
The garage room we're in is huge, there are old helicopters and abandoned trucks; tool carts, and two offices on opposite sides of the garage room. Not to mention, of course, the Walkers littering the ground. There are maybe two hundred of them, but they're all on the ground, seemingly sleeping. With how many Walkers there are, we basically have to to parkour to get to wherever the hell we're going.
Maggie looks at me and points to a metal door to my right, across the population of Walkers on the ground. I nod and slowly take a step in a gap between two Walkers, cussing silently. Once I get past a few Walkers, it's almost like a trail, their arms distant enough that we can actually walk.
Once we get to the door, Maggie hands Magna a lock pick to break the padlock on the door. After only a few seconds, the lock pings open, bouncing off of the metal walls. All of us quickly look back at the Walkers to make sure they didn't get up and, thankfully, they didn't.
I nod to Magna and she slowly and quietly opens the door, allowing Maggie to go in first, then me, then the rest of the group.
Maggie leads us down a long hallway, slowly pushing open a door to a storage room. In the storage room, there are two sleeping Walkers, which Kelly and Magna kill. Maggie stands at the door to keep watch while I walk down another hallway, checking for anything else.
The hallway is a yellowish creme color, the carpet on the ground somehow the same color as the walls. It smells like baby powder and a rotting corpse in every inch of this place, annoyingly potent.
I hear a quiet whistle from a few feet down the hall, causing me to turn. Lydia waves me on, a signal that they got what they need and it's time to send it up.
When I get out, Maggie and Alyssa are sending the goods up by putting them in burlap sacks and using the ropes to pull them up. The ropes creak quietly, up until one of them snaps and the bag drops.
With lightning-quick reflexes, Daryl catches it in mid-air, saving us from being torn to goddamn shreds. A drop of blood from his arm from rope burn drops down from where he's standing, landing on a sleeping Walker. My heart stops at the faint sound of the growl, the feeling of adrenaline already pumping through my veins.
Shit.
As if a domino effect, as soon as that Walker wakes up, the rest of them do. I quickly run back into the storage room and catch a burlap sack as Kelly tosses it to me. I toss it to Alyssa and she hooks it onto the rope.
A Walker grabs me by the shoulder and I quickly stab it as arrows come flying down from the roof above us, killing other Walkers. Rapid gunfire echoes around the room, killing several Walkers around me. When I turn, Alyssa's holding a dusty machine gun that she found on the floor, saving my ass times four.
She then hands me another machine gun and a magazine for it and she and I stand back to back, firing at all of the Walkers around everyone. "Adrian!" I hear someone whisper from the ropes. When I look, Magna is waving me on. I shake my head and motion for her to clip on the rope. Knowing she doesn't have a lot of time, she clips in without much fight and she, Kelly, and Lydia get pulled up. Next is Carol and Maggie as Alyssa and I very slowly scoot closer to the ropes, still back to back.
Once the ropes finally lower for us to clip into, Alyssa pauses and whispers "wait." I purse my lips at her and she points to another box of food.
I groan quietly and mouth "I'll cover you" to her. She nods and runs to the box as I shoot the Walkers in her way or that are approaching her. My heart pounds in my ears as I watch her run through the Walkers, worry creeping into my head.
She hastily grabs her bag and shoves the food in as throw my knife at a too-close Walker. When she finally gets all of the food, she runs back to the rope and clips in. A grunt escapes my lips as I hit a Walker in the head with the butt of my gun while I clip in, jerking the rope to let the group up top know I'm ready.
Without wasting a second, they pull us up, leaving the growling, scratching Walkers below us. Daryl grabs my hand and pulls me up the rest of the way while Kelly helps Alyssa.
Back at Alexandria, I see Beatrice helping Negan with carrying a plank. Though, clearly, he's the one doing all of the work. "Bug," He whispers, looking at her then nodding to me. She turns around and I watch as her face lights up at the sight of Magna and I.
"Can I go hug them or do you still need help?" She asks Negan.
He chuckles, "You can go hug 'em."
She beams and drops her end of the plank, not fazing Negan with the "rest of the weight". Her arms are held out from her body as she races toward us, wrapping both of us in her arms.
"Hey, Bug-a-boo." Magna whispers, hugging her tight.
"Doin' Negan's manual labor?" I ask, nodding to Negan.
Beatrice giggles, "We were talking while he was helping and he was struggling to pick up the planks. I offered to help."
I smile softly, "Shit, you're stronger than him, huh?"
She grins, "Duh. Look at my guns." She pulls her navy blue jacket sleeves up to reveal her biceps, flexing them as if she's jacked.
Magna smiles, "Wow, look at you." She crouches and squeezes Beatrice's biceps. "You need to give me your workout routine."
Beatrice puts her hands on her hips, "Digging for worms isn't as easy as it looks." Magna and I both smile.
"Meeting." Alyssa tells me as she walks past me with Kelly.
I groan quietly and excuse myself from Magna and Beatrice.
When Alyssa and I get to the church, ten people are already in there. Gabriel watches me as Alyssa and I as we approach the group, "About the food situation..." He starts, nodding slightly to me. "One week." A sense of dread rises quickly in my body at those words. One week? That's nothing.
"That's it? From that last run, just a week?" Daryl asks.
"We can make it work." Aaron assures us.
"How?" Carol questions. "We just took in two new communities. We have no crops, no back stock."
"We can get there. We got people out there right now, scavenging houses for materials." Aaron assures us.
"And they're slowing down." Gabriel adds. "It's a little hard to put up a wall with broken tools and an empty stomach."
"Our people are good hunters." A girl from Maggie's group, Agatha, says. "Frost and I could take a group out."
I shake my head, "Our ground's all picked clean. The last horde scared all the animals away." I think for a moment, "We could find somewhere else. Search for different huntin' grounds."
"We don't have time. We need food. Lots of it. Now." Gabriel persists.
It's quiet for a moment while everyone ponders on the possible locations to find food.
"I know one more place." Maggie speaks up, looking around. "The place I lived, before this. Where we lived. Meridian. It's got plenty of food, water, crops, and animals."
"Yeah, now it's gone." Elijah chimes in, now without his mask. He's got dark skin and short, straight dreads. His face is sharp and angular but in a somehow gentle way.
Maggie looks up at him and sighs sharply. "So...what happened out there?" Rosita asks.
Maggie hesitates before saying "We were on a mission. Leadin' Walkers away. Duncan," She says, referring to the tall, buff, bald guy standing to my left. "Agatha, and Frost," The shorter guy with a beard and tan skin standing next to Agatha. "Took the last shift at the front of the herd. Going miles out. I circled back with Elijah and Cole." Cole's a fucking prick. He's got a long-ish beard and is too tall and buff, making his ego grow clearly bigger than his dick.
"On the way back home, things kept goin' sideways and we got stuck out on the road." Maggie continues. "Lookin' back now, I don't think that was an accident. All of a sudden we heard these screams in the distance. We raced back home. But it was too late. Most of our people had been slaughtered. And the rest of us barely got away with our lives. The people that attacked us...we only knew two things about 'em. They come at night, and by the time you see 'em, you're already dead."
Maggie looks at Daryl, "That was before we caught one, Daryl was with me. He came after us alone. Why? 'Cause there aren't that many of them. They're at Meridian now. There's plenty of food to feed Alexandria until we get this place back up and runnin' again. That;s why they took it. We just need to take it back."
"So...you're leaving to fight ghosts. That's the plan?" Aaron asks.
"Do you have a better one?" Maggie sasses.
"Shore up Alexandria for starters. I mean, the walls are not stable. Walkers will get inside. That's not if, it's when. Alexandria needs us." Aaron says.
"This is for Alexandria." Maggie pushes. "My son is here. I have skin in the game, too."
"But," Rosita starts. "If they slaughtered everyone once, what the hell makes this situation any different?"
"Duncan, Agatha, and Frost are Meridian's best fighters, and now I have 'em. Hopefully some of you, too." Maggie states.
"Maggie, this sounds like a suicide mission." Rosita queries.
It's quiet for a moment before Alyssa says, "It's a suicide mission if we don't have food anyway." She looks at me, "I'll go."
"Woah, what?" I exclaim, turning to her. "To kill yourself for a bit of grain and rice?"
"It's not 'a bit of grain and rice'. It's food for Christ's sake. I'm sick of eating goddamn wet socks for dinner." She softens her eyes at me, "Beatrice deserves to have an actual meal rather than a slice of bread."
I hesitate, weighing the options. If Alyssa goes, she could possibly die. If she doesn't go, she could live but they won't have as many fighters for the food. If I go with her, I may die or I can protect her from certain death.
I clench my jaw, "We're in." I grunt, turning back to the group.
Maggie half smiles at me. "I'll go." Daryl says, standing up. "Anybody else?" As soon as he says that, everyone other than Aaron, Carol, and Rosita raises their hand.
"All right." Daryl says, exiting the church.
By dark, we're walking through a dark, secluded road. It's storming like hell and every few seconds, theres either another lighting bolt or a crash of thunder. The wind is enough to pick both Alyssa and I up and send us flying back to yesterday and the rain is cold as hell, soaking my shoes.
"Negan, how much longer 'til we're through the city?" Maggie yells over the wind, looking at Negan. We decided to take Negan with us because he was a gym teacher around here so, he would know the layout of the city. He left the gang and became a teacher only a year-ish after Nick and I broke up.
"Well, we got about six hours! We should hunker down, wait for this to pass!" Negan yells back.
"You don't get a vote, asshole!" Frost yells.
"Don't speak to him like that!" I bark, narrowing my eyes at Frost.
"No, he's right. We need to find some shelter." Daryl agrees, his voice barely heard over the wind and rain.
"No! We don't have time!" Maggie counters.
"We can't stay out in this!" Alyssa claims, shielding her eyes from a sudden gust of wind, pushing the rain on us to feel like pellets of hail.
Maggie then points to a sign that says Metro, a tunnel underground that we can go through. "Yeah, let's go." Daryl says, jogging to the steps leading down.
Alyssa looks at me, "What if it-"
"'Lyss, Carol's not here to blow it up. We're gonna get out, I promise." I assure her, putting my hands on her shoulders.
She stares at me for a moment, shivering from the rain but then, reluctantly, nods and follows the group, grabbing my hand and pulling me behind her.
Inside the metro, our flashlights illuminate only a few feet in front of us, revealing rested wood, mildew-covered walls, and broken pipes.
"Alright, which way?" Daryl asks Negan.
"Not to sound like a broken record, but we oughta' take a breath, hunker down, and wait for this storm to pass." Negan says.
Maggie looks at him, "You don't wanna go in there?" She sasses.
"No, I don't."
"I don't give a shit. Which way?" I give Maggie a warning look, silently telling her to be careful. She just looks at me as if I just asked her to kill her dog.
"Yellow line north. Switch to blue at Reagan National, then we hop the red toward Bethesda." Negan says. "Hey, can I talk to you?" He asks Daryl.
"Why's that? You think we're buddies or somethin'?" Daryl spits, turning and walking away. The rest of the group follows, Frost and Cole shoulder-checking Negan as they pass.
Alyssa and I stand next to Negan, "Fuck, they piss me off." I mumble.
Negan looks at me, "I don't need you fighting my fights for me."
I roll my eyes, "Shucks," Alyssa scoffs and starts walking, to which I follow her.
Walking through the old railway is really ominous, the sound of outside storms and water droplets slowly is making me go insane.
Suddenly, a loud creak rolls above us, making us all jump. "What the hell was that?" Gage, the teenager who beat Lydia's ass asks.
Alden walks over to a pipe and puts his hand on it, "The storm's pushing air through the pipes, making them groan. It's nothing serious, we're good." His words are overshadowed by the creaking around us intensifying.
"I beg to differ." Alyssa mumbles.
"You know what that noise actually is?" Negan asks. "That is God telling us to turn around."
"Pretty sure He would've ran that past me first." Gabriel replies.
"Yeah? The Good Lord direct your one eyeball to this?" Negan aims his flashlight at imperfections on the wall to our left. "Water line mark. Means this tunnel floods on a regular basis, like when it rains."
"It's bad down here, worse up there." Daryl says, looking up.
"Look, man, all I am saying-"
"And it ain't workin'." Daryl interrupts Negan, approaching him. "You tryna' run shit? Keep movin'." Daryl continues, calling Dog to him; the rest of the group follows closely behind.
After walking for what feels like five fucking hours, a sudden stench of death wafts around us. Alyssa gags quietly and covers her nose with her shirt. When we look forward, hundreds of plastic body bags block the ground. When Daryl goes to look in on, the Walker inside sits up and tries to bite at him through the body bag. He quickly grabs his knife and stabs it, killing it before it can do any damage.
"Why didn't it make any noise?" One of Maggie's men next to me asks.
Daryl opens the body bag to reveal a Walker with a sliced throat. "Throat's slashed so deep it almost severed his head." Gabriel notes.
"The guys we're going after do this?" Gage asks.
"No, these people were killed during the fall." Maggie says.
"All of 'em?" Negan asks.
"What?" Maggie turns to Negan.
"We are walking through a mass grave that could still be in use. So, I am asking you, are you sure all of them were killed during the fall?" The sound of muffled, dead growling begins to echo against the walls as a few body bags start to sit up.
"Take each one out. Clear the path." Maggie orders.
"Maggie, hold up." Alden tries.
"We're not stoppin'." Maggie says, dropping a stuffed animal bunny she found and walking forward.
I groan quietly and follow them, killing each body bag in my path.
The sound of knives plunging around us gets covered by another groan from the pipes. Suddenly, Gage yells and a fat, big Walker grabs him from behind.
"Kid!" Negan yells running to him and pinning the Walker against the wall with his crowbar. Negan groans loudly as he tries to shove his crowbar into the chomping Walker, very slowly making progress. Since no one else is helping Negan, I quickly run over and stab it for him, allowing him to release the Walker and let it fall to the ground. He breathes heavily next to me and looks at me, "Thanks."
I nod to him and turn back to the group who is just standing there. "Pay attention so we don't miss any more." Maggie finally says.
"Oh my god, I'm so close to ripping her scalp off." I whisper to Negan.
"I'll help." He whispers back. Then, he steps forward. "Pay attention? That's your new big plan? Tell me, Maggie, anything in particular we should be paying attention to?"
"I'm real close to shoving a gag in your mouth." Alden chimes in.
Alyssa turns to him, "Who the hell asked you to speak, Alden?" He quickly shuts up and looks at Alyssa, nodding silently to her.
Negan turns to Alden, "Well, why don't you get up on your little tippy toes and try?" I pretend to scratch the corner of my mouth to hide my smirk.
"Cut it out. Both of you." Daryl orders.
"This kid almost died." Negan mentions, turning back to Daryl.
"Man, you don't give a shit about that kid." Daryl rasps.
"No, she doesn't give a shit. She has been playing dictator since we left, not listening to me, not listening to him. Hell, not even listening to you. We don't know if this tunnel even has a way out." Negan looks around, "Whoever or whatever killed these rot bags could still be down here. Has that thought crossed anyone's mind?" Nobody replies.
Negan scoffs, "Exactly. It has. So, then this is a death march. And you are the goddamn pied piper. Now, y'all wanna roll with that shit, that's fine. Knock yourselves out. But not me. Not today. I am out."
"Me too." Gage agrees.
"What?" Alden asks.
"He-He's a dick, but he makes sense." Gage says.
"Yeah, we shouldn't've come down here." Roy says.
"We're not splittin' up." Daryl demands.
"It ain't up to you...'buddy.'" Negan says.
"Just let him go," Agatha tells Maggie. "He's supposed to be helping us, all he's doing is slowing us down."
"We can't." Maggie says.
"Why not?" Duncan asks.
"We need him. He knows the city." Maggie assures them.
"Oh, is that why I'm here? I'm your DC tour guide? What, nobody here know how to read a goddamn map? I'll tell you why I'm here, man-tits," Alyssa snickers quietly beside me. "She brought me here to die." It's quiet for a moment before Negan continues, "If we get through this, I'm not comin' back."
"The hell you're not." I add, glaring at Maggie.
"I appreciate that, Adrian, but she'll find a way, she'll find a reason, she'll do it herself. Away from the prying eyes of Alexandria. Here, in the jungle." Negan begins to approach Daryl, "Man, I really thought you were in on it. I did. See, I can tell from that glazed look in your eyes, you didn't have a clue. None of you did."
"You're paranoid." Gabriel tells Negan.
"But I'm right." Negan replies. "Look, you all wanna put your lives in her hands? Her head isn't even in the game because I'm in her head, living rent-free. So, Maggie, me dying on your terms, it ain't happening; especially with Adrian here. So, what do you say? Let's just get 'er done. Right here and right now. Because I am not gonna let you drag me through the mud, filth, and slime to put me down like a dog." Negan pauses, "Like Glenn was."
My gaze hardens and I take a step back to allow Daryl to punch Negan. Yes, I don't hate Negan. But yes, he killed two people incredibly close to me. And that was way too far, even I can agree that.
Negan groans at the punch and falls to the floor. Maggie approaches him, "We're down here because up top is death. We're movin' fast because our kids are starvin'. And I'm callin' the shots because that's how everyone voted."
Yeah, no they didn't. At least Alyssa and I didn't.
"As for me killing you," Maggie cocks her gun and aims it at Negan's head. I take a step closer to Negan and put my hand on my pistol as a warning. "It's always on my mind," Maggie says, glancing at me but looking back at Negan. "I'm not gonna tell you that you're wrong about me because you aren't. The woman who left six years ago is not the one standing over you now. There's a little bit of her left in me, and that little bit is the only thing keepin' you breathin'. But I don't know how long that's gonna last. So keep pushin' me, Negan...please."
Continuing to kill the bodybag Walkers, Negan suddenly announces, "Shit." Everyone looks up and follows his flashlight beam to a subway at the end of the tunnel, blocking our path.
Alden's light flickers out and he turns to us, "Need a battery swap. Gage?" But, Gage doesn't reply. "Gage, Roy?" Alden asks, noticing the both of them missing from the back of the group.
"Has anyone seen them?" Cole asks.
"They took our supplies." Gabriel notices. "Ammo clips, rations."
"Oh, great. That's just great." Frost mumbles. "It's this asshole's fault, he scared 'em off." He then begins to approach Negan, pointing his sword at Negan.
Daryl then shushes us so we can listen. The sound of growling Walkers suddenly approaches us, as does the Walkers that the noise is attached to. "Alright, cut them off." Daryl tells Gabriel.
"We'll clear the rest." Gabriel says.
"Agatha!" Daryl announces waving to Agatha to shoot her arrows alongside him. As they shoot their arrows, the rest of us, other than Negan, Alden, and Gabriel, kill the approaching Walkers.
"HYAH!" I grunt, jumping, spinning, and cracking my whip on three Walkers' heads. Alyssa stands next to me, plunging her knife into a Walker's head.
"Fall back! Now!" Daryl yells as more and more Walkers approach. I can feel a slight sense of panic ignite, claustrophobia starting to take place.
"Alyssa!" I pull her away from a Walker so she stops fighting and all of us run back to the subway.
"Can we get around it?" Maggie asks.
"It's a choke point. We don't know what's on the other side." Alden says.
"Up top. Go, all the way up." Daryl orders as Duncan fails to pry the door open. Duncan climbs up first, then Frost, then Alyssa, then the rest of us. Minus Daryl, Dog, Negan, and Maggie.
I hold my hand down for Negan to grab, to which he graciously accepts and I pull him up.
As Maggie is climbing up, a Walker grabs her leg, almost pulling her down. "Negan!" She yells as he watches her. Without helping, Negan backs away, making eye contact with me from a few feet away. I shrug and follow the rest of the group, knowing Maggie didn't see me.