[ i. eenie, meenie, miney, mo ]

october 27th, 2012

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ON THE WORST NIGHT of Astrid Dixon's life, she could do little more than watch as her executor stepped from the shadows of the RV.

The stranger was a towering man who possessed a sinister aura that seemed to swallow the feeble light around him. Clad in a tight-fitting black leather jacket that accentuated his sinewy frame, his muscular shoulders strained against the fabric. His pepper-black hair was slicked back against his tanned forehead and his dark, inscrutable eyes flickered beneath the glare of the surrounding headlights.

His leather combat boots left deep imprints in the gravel as he stepped further into the vast clearing. The earth seemed to shudder beneath his weight as if recoiling from the evil radiating from his very being.  He was grinning. Excited.

Astrid's careful, watery stare went to the lethal weapon of his choosing that was slung carelessly over his shoulder.  A wooden baseball bat wrapped in thick layers of barbed wire.  Its jagged edges glinted as he approached the kneeling lineup of Alexandrians with cocksure swagger.

"Pissing our pants yet?" The stranger ribbed.  Even his voice was a sharpened edge.  Deep and raspy.  "Boy, do I have a feeling we're getting close.  Yep.  It's going to be Pee-Pee Pants City here real soon."

As he drew ever nearer, Astrid felt his scrutiny bearing down upon her and her family.  His calculating gaze, sharp as a hawk's, swept over them all, dissecting their strengths and weaknesses with the precision of a seasoned predator. It was as if he could see into their very souls, assessing and determining if their lives were still livable with easy, calloused detachment. 

Slowly, his cold eyes moved across Astrid, then to the young child whimpering in her arms, then onto her husband, and beyond to her friends.

Astrid's focus slid back to her hunter. Daryl was still looking only at her and their children. She watched in terror as he swayed unsteadily on his knees. His gaunt face was all but drained of color, and blood still seeped from the vicious gunshot in his shoulder. Fresh tears welled in Astrid's eyes, her breath catching in her throat as she struggled to stifle her helpless whimpers.  She wanted to move closer, to speak to Daryl—even if it were for the last time—but her lips failed to move. Her voice was gone.

Forcing herself to look away from her husband's deteriorating state, Astrid clutched Bailey tighter to her chest. Over the young girl's head, she glanced at the others in her group, soon locking eyes with Abraham and then Rick. The latter man was looking widely around the gravel clearing. As if he suddenly no longer even knew where he was, what he was doing, or how he was going to get beyond this moment.

Perhaps he would not.

The heavy footsteps of the leather-clad man snapped Astrid's attention back to the head of their lineup. "So," he addressed, "which one of you pricks is the leader?"

No one answered.

It was a futile attempt to delay the inevitable.

Yet, despite the Alexandrians' silence, every eye still turned instinctively towards Rick. Astrid's stare lingered the longest, not liking what she saw. If she were in the leather-clad man's position, she would not have been able to discern a proper leader among them. They were all so beaten and broken.

No matter, the mustached Savior from earlier took charge once more. "This one," He announced, his finger stabbing the air, pointing accusingly at Rick. "He's the guy."

The leather-clad Savior turned toward the center of the lineup and advanced. As he closed the distance, a cruel smile twisted his lips, casting shadows across his face. "Hi," He greeted. "You're Rick, right? I'm Negan."

Astrid's breath evaporated from her lungs. She felt her eye sockets blow wide, horror painting itself across her sweat-soaked features as she stared up at the stranger before her.

She had held a sinking suspicion, deep in her gut, that the notorious leader of the Saviors still lived, but to come face to face with him now was a nightmare made flesh. While the others had long since dismissed his existence, believing him to have been executed in the place of Primo, Astrid had known the truth all along. She had been right. But for the first time in her life, she did not want to be.

Negan continued, "And I do not appreciate you killing my men. Also, when I sent my people to kill your people for killing my people, you killed more of my people," He said. "Not cool . . . Not fucking cool. You have no fucking idea how not cool that shit is. But I think you're going to be up to speed shortly. Yeah . . . you are so going to regret crossing me in a few minutes. Yes, you fucking are."

His grin widened. Astrid knew there was no warmth in that smile. Only the promise of pain and suffering.

She dared not meet his gleaming gaze for long, fearing the attention and wrath lurking behind those cold eyes.  But, as if reading Astrid's thoughts, Negan swirled his head to his left to look at her and Bailey. If the two females clinging to each other held his interest, no matter how short, he did not show it in his expression as he stepped away from Rick and began to prowl before the kneeling man.

"You see, Rick, whatever you do, no matter what, you don't mess with the new fucking world order." His grip tightened on the baseball bat clenched in his right hand. "And the new world order is this, and it's really very simple. So, even if you're stupid, which you may very fucking well be, you can understand it. You ready? Here goes—pay attention."

Negan thrust the barbed-wire bat forward, a deadly warning that missed Rick's head by inches.

"Give me your shit . . . or I will kill you," the leader of the Saviors snarled. "Today was career day. We invested a lot so you would know who I am and what I can do. You all work for me now. You have shit, you give it to me. That's your job. Now, I know this is a fucking mighty big, nasty pill to swallow, but swallow it you most certainly will. You ruled the roost. You built something. You thought you were safe. I get it. But the word is out now."

"You are not safe," Negan finished darkly. His stare skimmed over Astrid once more. "Not even close. In fact, you are fucked. Actually, you are more fucked if you don't do what I want, and what I want is half of your shit. And if that is too much, you can make, find, and steal more, and it'll even out sooner or later."

Astrid's body quivered. A cold sweat trickled down her spine, soaking her back. She fought to regulate her breaths, the echo of her earlier panic attack still lingering in the ringing in her ears.  With one arm locked tightly around Bailey's shoulders, Astrid pressed her other hand firmly against the ground to keep herself level. But it was her fractured hand, and she knew it would not hold her up for long. Gritting her teeth, she fought against the quick-growing ache in her knuckles—and the pain of sharp rocks tearing into her bloodied palm all over again.

She was in a world of hurt. And as a result, fear found her easily. How could it not? Her husband was dying beside her, his blood staining the earth where she knelt, her daughter was traumatized, and Astrid herself was still weakened and bruised from her recent ordeal as a captive. Mentally and physically wounded, she found herself utterly unprepared for this fight.

None of this was supposed to happen. They had walked blindly into a trap.

Astrid's childhood began to flood her mind. A memory—of drawn mazes that her father had crafted for her and her brother Dominic when they were little. The only rule?  Get out.  The only consequence?  If you reach a single dead end, you are out. There was no doubling back.

In those mazes, there was no room for error, no second chances. Astrid's father had instilled in his young children the belief that, like his mazes, the world operated without mercy, without forgiveness. The world would not care for Astrid or Dominic if they made an innocent mistake. The world would not care if it killed either Lancaster child. So, Astrid and Dominic had to be smart. Watch out for dead-ends before they became trapped in them.

"Either you adapt and survive, or you fail and pay the price."

That line was said over and over again to Astrid as a child, but it would take many years to finally stick. In those youthful maze competitions, Dominic's methodical approach had often triumphed over Astrid's impulsive speed. It was a lesson she had learned the hard way: slow and steady wins the race. Slow and steady stays alive.

What the Alexandrians had done today—rushing into danger, into the Saviors' trap—was not slow and steady. They had ignored caution, and now they faced the consequences. There would be no escape. No second chances.

Negan's vicious voice yanked Astrid from her thoughts again. "This is your way of life now," He declared. "The more you fight back, the harder it will fucking be. So, if someone knocks on your door you let us in. We own that door. You try to stop us, and we will fucking knock it down. You understand?"

The leader of the Saviors had begun to address only Rick again. He cupped a hand around his own ear.

"What, no answer?" He taunted.

Rick refused to speak. Instead, he looked down at the opposing edge of the lineup. The wildness in his glassy stare had not ebbed. He was spiraling. He could not protect them.

Astrid silently seethed with frustration as she watched him, transported back to the heated arguments she had shared with him regarding their ways with the Saviors. From that very first day at Hilltop, Astrid had urged Rick to consider caution and pleaded for restraint. She had warned him of the possibilities they would face, that this did not have to be their problem, but he had remained stubborn. Blind. Ignorant.  Now, it was their problem.

After all this time, Rick found himself standing on the edge of betrayal in Astrid's eyes. Once her brother, her strongest ally, now he faced only her skepticism, her anger. She had begged him to steer clear of this path, to protect their family, but he had ignored her opinion, and now they found themselves trapped, brought to their knees as they knelt for what may be their lives.

If innocent blood was to be spilled tonight, it would stain Rick's hands. He would have to live with that.

They all would.

Negan eyed Rick's skittish behavior. "You don't really think you're going to get through this without being punished now, do you?" He questioned. "I don't want to kill you people. Just want to make that clear from the get-go. What I want is for you to work for me. You can't do that if you're dead now, can you? I'm not growing a fucking garden. But you killed my people, a whole damn lot of them, too. More than I'm comfortable with. And for that, you're going to pay. So now . . . I'm going to beat the holy fucking hell out of one of you."

The proclamation was enough to turn Astrid's stomach. Her skin prickled as Negan held his barbed-wire baseball bat high for the entire lineup to see. "This is Lucille, and she is awesome," He introduced. He smiled down at the bat affectionately, as if it were as beautiful and pure as a newborn child. "All this . . . all this just so we can pick out which one of you gets the honor."

Astrid's mind churned as she envisioned the brutal impact of that horrific weapon crashing down upon her skull. Of being bludgeoned to death by a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. The pain, she imagined, would be beyond comprehension.

With agonizing slowness, Negan began to prowl again. He made his way down the left side of the line, his stare passing over Maggie before settling on Abraham. A tense silence enveloped the air as the redheaded marine straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest, boldly locking eyes with Negan. The latter, seemingly unfazed by the display of strength, absentmindedly ran his fingers over his stubbled chin. "Huh," He murmured, "I've got to shave this shit."

Without another word, Negan sidestepped, his imposing shadow falling over Astrid next.

Bailey, still nestled deep in her arms, tensed instinctively.  Astrid stole a fearful glance at the devilish smirk playing across Negan's lips. He squatted down before the woman and child and began to study them with an unsettling intensity.

"You two don't look related," He observed.

Bailey met Negan's blunt stare through Astrid's veil of partially sawed-off hair. The twelve-year-old did not speak, but her tearful eyes were still narrowed.  Guarded and distrusting beyond her young years. Meanwhile, Astrid gritted her teeth, her gaze fixed straight ahead now, toward the RV, wishing desperately for Negan to move on.  But as always, fate seemed determined to thwart her at every turn.

Negan released a long sigh.  He was close enough that Astrid could feel his warm breath on her skin, even as she tilted her chin away.  "Then again, who am I to judge? Family, now that's a complicated fucking thing," He mused. "It can hold you together or tear you apart. With it, you're someone. But without it . . . You can be anyone. Depends on the perspective, I guess." He chuckled lowly and shifted his stance, forcing Astrid to meet his beady eyes. "Between you and me," he addressed her directly, "I think we have different ideas of 'family'. Am I right?"

His dark humor only twisted the knife of discomfort deeper into Astrid's gut. She did not want to look at him any longer.  Her head shifted further to her right, her eyes involuntarily drawn to Daryl.  But it was an immediate mistake to look to her hunter, an alarm bell surely going off in Negan's brain, and she knew it.

"Well, I'll be damned," the leader of the Saviors drawled mockingly as his focus flicked between Daryl and herself. "Looks like we've stumbled upon a little family. How fucking touching. Three against the world, fighting for their happy ending." His tone dripped with sarcasm. "But you know what I hate? Happy endings."

A tear escaped the corner of Astrid's eye before she could blink it away.  At least—for the time being—Negan appeared to be finished with ridiculing her, Bailey, and Daryl as he rose from his crouch and wandered toward the opposite end of the lineup.  Astrid's eyes followed him wearily as he approached Carl, who was kneeling beside Eugene.

A dangerous, peculiar glint filled Negan's dark eyes as he reached for a pistol lying several feet in front of the teenage boy. "You've got one of our guns," He remarked casually. "Hell, you've got a lot of our fucking guns."

A silent challenge burned in Carl's glare. Jaw taut, shoulders free of any trembling terror, the fourteen-year-old refused to cower in the face of Negan's intimidation tactics. Astrid immediately feared for the attention his bravery and rebellion would bring him—even if it seemed the boy wanted it.

Negan's smirk only widened as he eyed Carl's stoic expression. "Shit, kid, lighten up. At least fucking cry a little."

Carl remained as still as a statue, refusing to betray even a flicker of emotion. With a dismissive grunt, Negan pivoted slightly, rose from his crouch once more, and stalked slowly to Astrid's side of the lineup again. Suddenly, before he could reach her specifically, his attention fixated on Maggie Rhee and a low, contempt whistle escaped him.

"Jesus, you look shitty," He snorted.

Maggie stiffened upon the attention thrust her way, yet she refused to lift her head to meet his gaze. With shaky breaths, she fought against another wave of sickness.  On Astrid's opposite side, Glenn started to strain forward. It was obvious his heart was torn between the desire to comfort his ailing wife and the dread of worsening her unwanted spotlight.

Negan abruptly hoisted his weapon, Lucille. "I should just put you out of your fucking misery right now."

Astrid was knocked frozen.  As the leader of the Saviors moved to seize the frail, defenseless Maggie, Glenn exploded from his kneeling position.  A booming shout tore through him. "Leave her alone!"

Negan instantly released Maggie as Glenn dove at him. But before he could make any contact, Dwight intervened, forcefully subduing him to the gravel. Each punishing blow delivered to Glenn's flailing arms and legs felt like a punch or a kick to Astrid's own, her body recoiling with each sickening hit.

Her friend was going to be beaten to death right before her very eyes.

"No!" Maggie wailed between gasps. She frantically attempted to reach out as her husband's yelps of pain grew, but her feeble body practically collapsed in on itself, and a loud sob broke through her teeth. "Stop it! Stop it!" She begged.

Negan—now a silent spectator to the brutality he orchestrated—surveyed the scene. Then, he flicked a finger toward Dwight, ceasing the scarred Savior's beating. "Nope," He decided coyly, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Get him back in line."

With Maggie's sobs still echoing loudly into the night, Dwight's harsh grip on Glenn's shirt adjusted. Dwight began to drag him back forcefully to the end of the lineup.  All the while, Glenn yelled, and stumbled, and ferociously kicked as he went until his desperate fingers clawed into the gravel.  He leaned forward on dusty knees.

"Don't," He begged Negan, his voice cracking with fear. Not for himself, but for the love of his life. "Don't, please."

Negan merely chuckled at the young man's torment. "All right, listen," He commanded, now turning to face the rest of the lineup. "Don't any of you fucking do that again. I will shut that shit down—no exceptions! The first one's free. It's an emotional moment, I get it," He added with a smirk, his eyes locking onto Glenn's.  But he was only looking at Maggie as silent tears trickled down his cheeks.

Caught between Glenn's agony and Maggie's tear-stained face, Astrid's own heart broke. She could not stand to see so much pain inflicted upon her friends. She could only hope that she and Daryl would not suffer the same torture beneath the same violent stage. Daryl was already bleeding out. Astrid did not think he would survive another beating. She did not think she would be able to survive watching her husband take another beating.

With tears fully clouding her vision, she cast her eyes downward and stifled another sob that threatened to rip through her.

Do not draw attention. Do not draw attention.

It seemed that Astrid was in the clear for now. As Negan moved away from Glenn and Maggie, he descended upon the Alexandria Safe Zone's broken leader once more. "Sucks, doesn't it?" He provoked. "The moment you realize you don't know shit."

Rick's attention was still elsewhere.  Astrid followed it to see that it was locked onto Carl with a fierce protectiveness.  Negan quickly caught the exchange and rose excitedly to his feet. "This is your kid, right?" Gesturing between father and son with Lucille, he chuckled, "Yeah, this is definitely your fucking kid."

That got a reaction. 

Rick lurched forward on his knees. "Just stop this!" He roared.

"Hey!" Negan's sickening delight faltered, his glare narrowing to slits as he pointed the bat threateningly at Rick. "Do not make me kill the little future serial killer. Don't make it easy on me," He warned, his tone deadly serious. "Look, I've got to pick somebody. Everybody's at the table waiting for me to order and I simply cannot decide . . ."

Turning away, Negan's eyes scanned the many onlooking Saviors that crowded in the darkness, his fingers tracing the stubble on his chin again. The silence was suffocating to Astrid, broken only by the ragged breaths of her group and the eerie chirping of crickets. Then, with the very same whistle that had lured them all into this trap, Negan turned back to the lineup, his eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound interest.

"I've got an idea," He announced.

Approaching Rick once more, Negan tilted Lucille towards his face, the barbwire hovering dangerously close to his nose. "Eenie," He began, his voice dripping with sadistic glee.

Astrid's body instantly bristled as she comprehended what was about to unfold. At the culmination of this macabre nursery rhyme, someone would be dead.  Someone would be bludgeoned to death with a barbed-wire baseball bat.  Panic flared within her.  Someone had to stop this, stop Negan, before he escalated to his deadly conclusion. Scanning the lineup, Astrid's gaze pleaded with Rick, silently begging him once more to act. To be their leader and protect them.

Yet, instead of meeting her wide, bloodshot eyes, he averted his tearful stare and did nothing.

So, there it was. The betrayal that had finally torn Astrid to the very core. The day that she had worried would inevitably come, the day when all that she and he had once built together would shatter. The day that she could no longer follow Rick Grimes.

Renowned for eliminating the Governor and Woodbury, for slaughtering Gareth and his hunters, for taking out complex, dangerous communities repeatedly, that very same man now could not do something as simple as distract Negan further. Rick had given up, leaving Astrid and the others no choice but to follow suit.

She would die on her knees. Her brother was going to let her die on her knees.

Astrid decided that she would not look at him as she went. Her hateful eyes returned to Negan as he commenced his procession down the left side of the lineup.

"Meenie . . . Miney . . . Mo . . . Catch . . ."

The bat loomed over Astrid's face, and she tensed as the barbs threatened to prick her cheek. Heart racing, she defiantly met Negan now, glaring up at him as he smirked down at her before moving on to Daryl and beyond.

"A tiger . . . By . . . His toe . . . If . . . He hollers . . . Let him go."

Bailey clutched Astrid's sweater and held to her unborn brother again. Astrid's eyes locked on Negan's every move. As the bat traversed the line, brushing past Aaron, Carl, and Eugene, Negan restarted.  However, before Astrid could even begin to calculate where the bat would land next, the leader of the Saviors began moving the bat erratically, pointing the weapon at any given face he wanted.

"My mother . . . Told me . . . To pick . . . The very . . . Best one . . ."

Terror gripped Astrid like never before.  All out of hope, she turned her head.  Her gaze instantly collided with Daryl's.  Had he looked away from her once?  Despite locking eyes with the very person that she loved most in this world, she realized that she would never feel safe again.

"And you . . . Are . . ."

With one arm still shielding Bailey and the other braced against the gravel, Astrid looked skyward.  Her search for the stars was met with nothing but an abyss of inky clouds veiling the moon, casting the world below into darkness.

It is said that one only needs to look to the stars when they are lost, but how does one navigate through a pitch-black night? How does one find the light? How does one ever find their way home?

For one of them, there would be no way home.

"It."

Astrid's focus shifted back to the bat, where it was now poised to deliver its final, devastating blow. The floodgates holding back her tears collapsed, and her lower lip trembled uncontrollably. Her heart pounded so violently it threatened to tear free from her chest, and she could no longer restrain the mangled cry clawing its way up her throat.

Negan's lips curled into a sneer. "Anybody moves, anybody says anything—cut the boy's other eye out and feed it to his father, and then we'll start," He spat. "You can breathe. You can blink. You can cry. Hell, you're all going to be doing that!"

Bailey whimpered fearfully in Astrid's arms, and the Dixon woman hastily spun her around, pressing the child's face into her chest. "Don't look," She whispered. She repeated the order like a broken record until it was little more than a broken, inhumane sound in her gaping mouth. "Don't look. Don't look."

Astrid's stare returned to Negan's hands as they tightened around the wooden bat christened with the haunting name of Lucille. She parted her lips, ready to shield Bailey's innocence, to spare her from witnessing the impending execution.  But before the words could escape her lips, the towering leader of the Saviors raised the bat high to shatter their family beyond repair.

Then Negan swung. Too swift, too cruel. Too late.

And all Astrid could do was scream.

~~~~~~~~~~

astrid recognizes that she's in a world of hurt and i am, too.  welcome to book three, everyone.  you're in for a wild ride.

any predictions?