C H A P T E R  2 2

❛ a dangerous game ❜

QUINN

     HER HEARTBEAT WAS POUNDING IN HER EARS as she marched down the street. She could barely hear anything else as she blindly charged towards the house her father was staying in. They couldn't waste any more time. They had to get to those weapons before they'd reach the Sanctuary. She could deal with her mistakes later...

She was forced to an abrupt halt when a hand landed on her arm and turned her around. A pair of worried brown eyes were staring right into hers. Merely looking at him was enough to make her stomach clench painfully but he was holding her arm in a tight grip, one that didn't match with the soft expression on his face.

"What the hell, Quinn?" Somehow Milo managed to sound both worried and angry.

"I did what I had to do," she replied through gritted teeth. "He had information and he wasn't going to tell us any other way."

Milo's eyes hardened and her heart trembled. "That kind of thinking makes us no different than the Saviors."

A bitter chuckle fell from her lips and she shook her head. "So be it."

She turned around and walked away, the words burned in her throat but she wouldn't take them back. She would do everything she could to make sure they'd win this war. Why couldn't Milo understand that? Negan had to die. That was the only way this could end.

Familiar footsteps fell in line with hers and she sighed. "Don't you dare lecture me too." She looked at her right, where Daryl was walking beside her.

A fire was burning within his eyes that fueled the fire within her heart. "Nah," he shrugged. "Ain't no other way ya could've gotten that prick talkin'. Now let's get 'em guns."

She nodded, feeling a small smile tug at her lips. Together they climbed the stairs to her father's porch. Quinn didn't waste a single second and knocked impatiently on the door. When there wasn't an answer within three seconds, she knocked again. Then, the door was finally opened. As soon as Nick noticed Daryl, he froze but Quinn didn't allow herself the time to revel in that satisfaction.

"The abandoned warehouse on Sixth, you know it?" she asked.

Nick cleared his throat and tore his eyes away from Daryl, finally managing to look at her. "I do, why?"

"We figured out that's where they're keeping the guns," she spoke quickly, hoping to avoid any questions. "You're coming with us to show the way." She was already turning around when he stopped her.

"Wait, how did you figure that out?"

Inhaling deeply she turned back to look at him. She'd hoped to avoid this conversation for now. There was no time to waste and besides, Javier had spent such a long time avoiding his brother. But, as she looked at him, she realized how cruel she'd be to keep that information from him. She would have killed anyone and everyone who stood in the way of her finding out Milo was alive. So how could she keep that information from him?

"I ran into uncle Javier," she mumbled.

All remaining color disappeared from his face. "H-he, you, what?"

"You'll get the details on the road," she said while walking away. "We have to leave. Now!"

She could hear the door closing behind her as Nick hurried to make his way after her and Daryl. She didn't bother looking at him as they made their way to the gates, where Rick already had two cars waiting for them. Rosita and Michonne were standing beside him.

"Quinn, wait, where did you see him?" Her father reached for her but Daryl pushed him aside before he could touch her. Nick froze when Daryl glared at him with stone cold eyes.

She came to a halt and placed a hand on Daryl's arm, softly pushing him aside so she could face her father. "I told you, you'll get the details on the road. We're in a hurry."

Nick looked like he wanted to protest but one glance at Daryl, who was still staring at him like he was personally responsible for ending the world, made him close his mouth and nod. Without another word of protest he followed her towards the car and got in the back while she took place behind the wheel. Rosita, Michonne and Rick took the other car and Daryl got the passenger seat beside her. Before she could close the door though, Milo knelt down beside the window.

She raised a brow. "You're not coming?"

He sighed and shook his head. "I got a mess to clean up here." Sadness gleamed within his eyes but still he managed to give her a reassuring smile. "Stay safe."

"You too," she mumbled.

She rolled up the window, waited until Aaron opened the gate and drove off. Rosita was behind the wheel in the other car, following them closely. From his place in the backseat, Nick gave her the directions towards the warehouse, keeping a wary eye on Daryl the entire time. After a twenty minute drive, he leaned back in his seat. "Just keep heading straight on, it should be somewhere on your left near the first intersection."

Daryl glared at him through the rearview mirror but she could tell by the way he slightly slouched back in his seat, that he trusted Nick was telling the truth. Which meant she owed her father the truth as well.

"I ran into uncle Javier at one of the outposts yesterday," she began, her knuckles turned white from her tight grip on the steering wheel. "Turns out he knows Rick. They stayed in the same camp near Atlanta when it all started." She couldn't help herself and glanced at her father through the rearview mirror. He was staring out of the window, his jaw clenched. "He told me he, Miranda and the kids left to find Milo and me. But along the way..." She didn't have to finish that sentence, they all knew what it meant.

"He must hate me if he went through such trouble to hide from me," Nick muttered.

Quinn kept quiet. What was there to say? It was true, he hated him and it was his own fault. There was nothing she could say, or wanted to say for that matter, to make the truth hurt any less.

"Can't imagine it was a happy reunion," Nick continued.

"What makes you think that?" she said, her stomach clenching with sudden nerves.

"Milo mentioned something about cleaning up a mess."

She cleared her throat. "Anyway, anything important we ought to know about this warehouse?"

Nick sighed but didn't comment on her sudden change of subject. "There isn't much to say. It's a small building and from what I know it's used as a storage, rather than housing."

"Storage for weapons?"

"I guess so, since that's apparently where they're keeping them."

She glared at him once again and this time he noticed.

"I wasn't a high ranking lieutenant Quinn, I don't know everything he's got planned."

"Somethin' ya do know?" Daryl snarled suddenly.

"There's a back entrance," Nick mumbled. "You should be able to get there unseen through the bushes."

"So you've been there before?" She asked, raising a brow.

"Once, to get supplies for the doctor." He pointed at the front window. "The intersection is around this corner. We should probably hide the cars here and continue on foot."

She pulled over at the side of the road, watching Rosita do the same behind her. She stepped outside and opened the trunk, gathering the weapons they'd taken with them. A gun for each of them and of course her daggers.

Michonne came standing next to her as she reached for one of the guns. She was still bruised from her fight with one of the Oceanside women who'd been on Natana's side. But clearly her wounds hadn't made her any less determined, even if it meant she'd been forced to stay behind during the first part.

"Are you sure you're good?" Quinn asked quietly so the others couldn't hear.

She checked the magazine, her brows furrowed. "The second you guys rolled out to Sanctuary and I wasn't with you...it's like this...siren's been going off in my head. I can't turn it off." She sighed and turned to look at Quinn. "I helped get this started. It's been a day and half and I have felt every second. So I just need to see it. Turn that alarm off in my head."

Quinn nodded. "Okay."

Michonne inhaled deeply. "Okay."

The two friends turned back to the group. Everyone had taken a weapon and then Rick surprised her by turning to look at her. "You've got a plan?" He asked.

She was quick to mask her surprise and nodded. "Nick told me there's a backdoor we could reach unseen through the greenery. We enter the building, split up and search for the weapons. We run into one of them, we kill them."

The former cop nodded. "Alright, let's go."

They walked in single file down the road, completely silent and aware of their surroundings. Nick had spoken the truth. An intersection awaited them once they rounded the corner. Straight up ahead stood a gray, square building. Two trucks were parked beside the front doors; Someone was home.

Quinn looked over her shoulder at her father, who gestured towards the treeline on their right. She tightened her grip on her gun and walked into the direction he'd pointed in. Using the cover of the greenery, they made their way around the building, keeping their eyes and ears open. Everything was quiet and there was no movement to be seen behind the windows. Once they reached the west side of the building, the backdoor became visible. Quinn inhaled deeply and then sprinted towards the door, closely followed by the others.

Quinn pointed at Rosita, Michonne and Rick and then gestured towards the door. The first two covered the door while Michonne reached for the door handle. She held up three fingers and counted down. Quinn could feel her heart beating louder with each passing second.

Then Michonne opened the door.

Rick and Rosita entered first, guns up. Michonne entered next, closely followed by Quinn, Nick and finally Daryl, who quietly closed the door behind him. They'd entered the storage room, filled with rows upon rows of racks. Most of it looked like tools left over from before the world ended. In the distance they could hear echoes of footsteps and voices.

She gestured towards the aisle on their left and then pointed to Michonne and Rosita. They nodded at her and took off. She sent Rick and Daryl to the right, though the latter gave her a pointed look before leaving. She knew what it meant. He still didn't trust Nick.

With her gun up she slowly moved towards the voices and as she edged closer, the words became more clear.

"It didn't just happen," a male voice said, clearly frustrated. "There was an RV out front that was all burned to hell."

A shiver crawled down her spine. They were talking about the Sanctuary.

"Thinking it was that asshole Rick's ride," the man continued.

"Okay so?" A female voice replied. "Negan torched that piece of shit. So what?"

Anger came boiling alive within her stomach, but she forced herself to stay calm and keep quietly moving forward. Instead she tightened her grip on her gun, as if by squeezing hard enough, she might get the anger to leave her body.

"Or, or they did," the man went on. "Think about it. That gate was ripped open and an RV bomb is one hell of a dinner bell for the dead."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean there was a fight. Come on, Zee, there had to be. That was definitely a battle back there. And I'm betting it was all about surrounding the big house."

She was nearing the end of the aisle. Between the stacked boxes she could see Daryl and Rick had started circling around the voices. She took a measured breath and continued forwards, careful to avoid the pools of lights from the fluorescent lights on the ceiling.

"Yeah, well, whatever happened, whatever is happening, Rick the prick, or whoever, he doesn't know shit about 'The Fat Lady' here. What's been done can be undone real quick."

With a racing heart she looked at Nick, who simply shrugged. He had no idea what they were talking about either. Careful to not make any noise, Quinn knelt down behind one of the racks and glanced between the boxes. Between the racks she could see a cargo door. A truck was parked in front of it. The back was loaded with huge speakers and in the ground lay several boxes containing countless guns. Javier told the truth.

"We get her singing, we save their asses," the man said, nodding. He was seated on the hood of the truck. "And I think Negan's gonna give us a leg up. No more of this scavenging bullshit."

"Well, then, get it done, then," the woman said, annoyed.

"Calm down, I'm almost-"

The sudden silence made her feel sick to her stomach and she desperately looked around to see what had caught the man's attention. He was looking to his left, to the aisle where Michonne and Rosita were hiding. He must've seen something. The two Saviors moved at the same time and raised their guns. Slowly they etched forward, while both Quinn and Nick took aim between the shelves. She wasn't even given time to catch her breath before they opened fire.

The echo of the machine guns in the storage room felt like a bomb going off. She winced, clenched her jaw and took aim as well. She had to get their attention away from Rosita and Michonne before they hit them. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed her shoulders and fired.

A pained scream tore through the air as the woman fell to the ground, holding her bleeding leg with tears in her eyes.

The man, clearly panicking, aimed his gun in her direction and fired.

She let herself fall flat to the ground as jars and tools on the shelves above her were shattered. But just as suddenly as it began, the gunshots stopped. Instead, a horrifying gurgling noise reached her ears.

With wide eyes she slowly got to her feet and watched as Daryl pulled his knife out of the man's throat, before plunging it through his temple, killing him for good. Meanwhile Rick had taken care of the woman, who now lay unmoving on the ground. They'd snuck up to them from behind, able to move completely unnoticed.

She was about to walk up towards them, but froze in her tracks when an eerily familiar whistle came from behind her. A shiver crawled down her spine and she was nearly blinded with the painful memories that the haunted tune awoke. It was coming from all around them, just as that one night in the forest. There were more of them...

Quinn preferred the blasts of gunfire to the haunted whistles of the Saviors. The sound echoed through the storage as they slowly closed in on them, making it impossible to determine where it was coming from.

Through the shelves, she locked eyes with Rick, who pointed at her and gestured to the right. She nodded and grabbed Nick's arm, pulling him along as they entered the aisle to their right. With her gun raised she carefully walked forward, looking left and right in search of the men who were still whistling.

She was nearing the end of the aisle when she was suddenly grabbed from behind. A startled yelp escaped her lips. Her gun was pried from her fingers and a blow delivered to her stomach. Pained coughs rattled her body as she fell to her knees. Her eyes watered from a wave of nausea that overwhelmed. Her muscles tensed, waiting for a second blow. But it never came...

Through her watery gaze she watched as a large man with a gray beard threw Nick on the ground. With a clenched fist he started pounding down on his face. "Traitor," he spat in between punches. "Fucking traitor!"

Reaching for support by a box to her right, Quinn forced her trembling legs to stand. Then the sound of an engine roaring to life caught her attention, combined with the sounds of a struggle. The familiar grunts and shouts of Daryl made her heart shake painfully. The Saviors had reached the truck!

Biting her lip in frustration her eyes flickered between her father and the direction of the truck. She couldn't see what was going on, but her ears painted a perfect picture.

"Get your ass to the Sanctuary!" One of the Saviors screamed but he was cut off by the sound of a gunshot.

"Rosita, get that truck!" Rick shouted.

Time seemed to slow down as she kept on standing there, her heart torn in two.

"Fuck," she mumbled, then inhaled deeply and stormed forward.

Still reeling from the blow to her stomach, she didn't have the grace to attack with a well thought out move. Instead, she used her weight to shove the Savior off of Nick. Her shoulder landed hard on the concrete floor and she screamed in pain but the man was already getting back on his feet, giving her no time to gather herself.

With no strength left to stand and tears stinging in her eyes, she reached for her dagger. With gritted teeth, she slammed the blade down into the man's foot. He howled and fell to his knees, giving her an opening to push a second dagger into his eye. Blood gushed over her hand and colored her skin bright red. One last tremor made the Savior shake before he went completely still.

Breathing heavily, she let herself fall back to the ground. Her heart was pounding in her ears as she crawled to where Nick lay on the ground, whimpering. Carefully she rolled him over and even looking at him made her wince. His nose was definitely broken and his eye was already turning blue.

"G-go," he coughed. "I'll catch up."

She nodded, not having the energy to protest. With a grunt she managed to get back on her feet. She gathered her gun from where it had fallen on the ground and then stumbled into the direction of the cargo door.

She had barely left the aisle when a familiar voice screamed her name and two strong arms caught her and held her steady. "Ya okay?" Daryl asked.

"Gotta be," she mumbled.

His features hardened but he nodded. This wasn't the time and they both knew it.

Hurried footsteps came around the corner as Michonne and Rosita ran up to them. "We gotta get the cars! Rick went after them alone!" Michonne said, not bothering to slow down her pace.

Quinn and Daryl shared one last glance, ensuring each other they were okay, before heading after the two women. She ran as fast as her bruised body could carry her, using Daryl's arm as a crutch. They left the warehouse behind and hurried back down the road. She'd never felt so relieved to reach her car before as at that moment.

Rosita and Michonne took one car while she and Daryl got into the other. With screeching tires they took off after Rick and the Saviors. Rick must've taken one of the trucks they'd seen parked out front to go after them.

"Where's Nick?" Daryl asked. He looked like was about to vomit by just saying his name.

"Got hurt real bad, said he'd catch up," she explained, eyes focused on the road ahead.

Daryl just nodded, not bothering to waste any more words on the man.

They flew over the empty roads. It felt like hours had passed when finally, in the distance, they could see three trucks racing after each other. One was the truck with the speakers, the other looked loaded with the guns. Rick was driving the third, taking after them all alone. Though he was catching up to the car with the guns.

"Come on," Daryl grunted, speeding up.

Suddenly the trunk of the truck was opened and a Savior with a gun appeared. He took aim and fired at Rick, who was forced to slow down to avoid getting hit.

Daryl hit the steering wheel. "Fuck!"

"Wait, look!" She pointed at the right, where Michonne and Rosita were pulling up beside the car of the Saviors, trying to divert their attention.

It worked. The man in the trunk opened fire upon them, leaving the way open for Rick. With one hand on his steering wheel and his gun in the other, he leaned out of the window. Before the Savior could even realize he'd walked right into their trap, Rick pulled the trigger and killed him.

With Michonne and Rosita on one side of the truck, preventing it from swerving and Rick heading up to the other side, the Savior had nowhere left to go. Quinn held her breath as she watched Rick climb out of his seat and steady himself. Then he jumped.

He landed onto the passenger seat of the truck. She couldn't see that struggle that ensued because Daryl was forced to swerve aside to avoid getting hit by Rick's car, now without a driver. But they had finally managed to secure the guns.

However, she hadn't even realized how close they were to the Sanctuary until they rounded a corner and the factory appeared in the distance.

"Shit!" With wide eyes she watched as the truck loaded with speakers was getting away.

Daryl floored the gas and they shot forward, leaving the others behind to secure the guns. But they knew it was useless. They would never catch up to the truck.

In one last hopeless attempt to stop the truck from reaching the Sanctuary, Quinn rolled down the window and grabbed her gun.

"Hold it steady!" She shouted.

Daryl clenched his jaw and nodded, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.

She inhaled deeply before leaning outside and taking aim. The wind made her eyes water and her bruised body protested. She ignored it all and fired. It was useless. They were too far away to even make a dent. A frustrated shout left her lips as she let herself drop back into her seat.

The truck had reached the herd surrounding enemy territory and Daryl suddenly hit the brakes. If they got any closer they'd be caught right in the middle of it. Music blasted above the growling and moaning of the dead. And with tears in her eyes, Quinn was forced to watch as their carefully crafted plan fell apart right in front of her.

A U T H O R 'S  N O T E

Oh boy it's been a long while since I updated this story. I'm really sorry for my long absence guys. I've been working on my own original book so all my other fanfics were put on hold for a little while. But I've finished the first draft, meaning I now finally have the time (and more importantly: room in my brain lol) to work on my other stories again!

I really missed writing this fic and latetly so many new readers have joined our little Collapsed Saga. I'm so so SO grateful for all your support and amazing comments. Honestly, you guys make my day and I wouldn't have come this far without you all! Thank you endlessly for your support!

I gotta be honest. I feel like action scenes aren't really my strength. So hopefully this chapter was at least a little bit exciting and fun to read. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Much love,

Nelly