It was a supply run gone wrong. With all the time they spent strategizing against Negan and his band of miscreants, it was easy to forget how quickly things could turn bad all on their own, out here in the world. And now they were –

"Blocked off. No way out but here and those dead bastards will be coming in the back soon enough. That bookshelf won't hold the door for long," Abraham's assessment was bleak.

"I'm out of ideas," Jesus said from his spot on the dirty floor, gritting his teeth against the pain of a badly broken ankle.

Both men looked at Michonne anxiously. She pushed aside the filthy curtain and looked into the street, thinking and calculating.

"I can do it," she said, forming the plan as she spoke.

It was desperate but it was all they had and there was a chance it could work.

"I'll go out first, draw then over to the south, around the corner. When you see an opening, you two make for the car, do a loop around the block if you have to, and then pick me up," Michonne laid it out.

"What?! No!" Jesus said at the same time that Abe grunted, "Like hell you will."

"How many are out there?" Jesus asked, not for the first time.

"Fifteen, maybe seventeen or so," Abe answered from the window on the other side of Michonne, "And that's just the ones in the front."

"Listen to me!" Michonne said fiercely, getting their attention.

"This is the way it has to be. Abe, you're the only one who can get him out of here and I'm the only one who can clear the way. So that's what we're going to do," Michonne had a steely certainty in her voice.

"No. I'm not letting you sacrifice yourself for me," Jesus said, his face growing pale but his eyes were as determined as ever, "We're in this together."

"He's right," Abe agreed, "Whatever you're thinking, stop right here."

Michonne drew her sword from its hilt. Her expression was calm like the lull before a storm. Her next words were simple but spoken with the confidence.

"I didn't say anything about sacrificing myself. I said I can do it. I've killed more than this."

Michonne put her hand on the doorknob and turned the lock.

"Ready?" she asked.

Jesus glanced at Abe helplessly. Abe returned Michonne's gaze and nodded once.

Without another word, Michonne opened the door and stepped outside. A wide swing of her katana decapitated the closest two walkers before Abe closed the door behind her. She strode through the agitated walkers, slashing left and right, never faltering.

A skeletal corpse lunged for her but she swung her blade up and to the left, slicing cleanly through its skull. She stepped over the fallen body and continued fighting. Soon she was at the edge of the group of walkers, leading them around the side of the building away from her friends' escape route.

Glancing behind her, she realized that it was a dead end. A chain link fence blocked the end of the alley, but there was still enough open space that she wasn't immediately worried.

Michonne slashed through the neck of a growling corpse then pivoted and drove the tip of her katana into the forehead of a large dead man. She pulled it back out as the body collapsed and continued the movement to slice through the torso of another decaying walker.

The steel blade became an extension of her body and her movements were like a dance, each swing punctuated by the wet splatter of blood. Michonne slashed and spun and stabbed and slashed again and again and again until she was short of breath and there was sweat dripping into her eyes and the white and black hilt of her sword was dark red.

She fought until there was nothing left to fight. Michonne took deep breaths to calm her racing heart and took stock of the carnage spread around her. That was definitely more than she'd ever fought by herself, but she'd made it.

With a flick of her wrist to shake the blood and little shreds of brain matter off her katana, Michonne set off to find her friends, stepping carefully over and around the piles of corpses scattered about.

Ev