FOUND LANDS.

chapter one, not a sanctuary.
[ season five, episode one ]

UNEXPECTED. IT WAS UNEXPECTED. Odessa Grimes should have known it would go bad. And that's what's happening. It is all going so, so wrong.

With a muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of her head, she squeezes her eyes shut. This is a shit storm waiting to happen. She moves to raise her arms but the gun presses even harder into her skull.

"I said don't move," the person grits out.

"I'm raising my arms so you see I won't pull some quick shit on you," Odessa hisses.

If she does pull something, there's a chance she will die and so will her people. If she doesn't pull something fast, she l'll be taken and her people will still die.

It's a lose-lose situation.

The girl cocks her head to the side, her eyes settled on the train car. Inside was her father and brother and her friends. Her best friend had been taken God knows where.

She needs to kill this person and burn this place to the ground. She needs to do it now.

Time is of the essence.

Odessa's jaw tightens. Her fingers twitch. She made her decision.

She rears her elbow back into the person's stomach. She quickly moves her head away from the muzzle. She does it just in time. A bullet lands directly in front of her.

She whirls around, blades already in hand. The person is doubled over.

Now Odessa sees it's a young man. He couldn't have been much older than her. Probably around nineteen or twenty. He has brown shaggy hair and a bent nose.

Odessa slashes at his right arm. She cut his arm deeply. He cries out as his gun drops to the first floor below.

Odessa kicks her leg out at his knee. Her boot makes contact and he crumples to the ground with another cry of pain.

Odessa stares down at him, her lip curled and her nostrils flared. "This was the biggest mistake of your life." She whispers.

She kneels beside him. "Now, I'm not gonna kill you yet but I am gonna ask you some questions," she presses the blade against his throat, "and you're going to answer every damn one with nothing but the truth."

A few minutes later has the man tied to a tree. She stands in front of him, glowering down at him. This time, her blades are sheathed. A familiar weight rests on her knuckles. The man keeps glancing between Odessa's brass knuckles and her face that was too young to be so cruel.

"You don't have to do this," he says to her, his eyes wide with fear.

"No, I do," Odessa crouches in front of him. "My family is in that train car. Your people are gonna come lookin' for you, right? So we have to be fast."

He doesn't say anything.

"What's your name?" She asks. He doesn't answer. She sighs and rubs her eyes. "I ask questions, you answer. It's simple."

"Francis," he replies.

"Francis! See? It's easy." Odessa grins a fake, grim smile. "What's your leaders name?"

No answer. This time Odessa isn't so kind. She stands to her full height and swings her fist at the man. His head whips to the side with a crack.

"What is his name?" Odessa growls. He doesn't answer again so she raises her arm.

"Gareth! Gareth, it's Gareth." The man shouts desperately.

"What are you people?" She asks. "Your leader, he said some pretty weird stuff. Something is off about this place. So tell me. What are you people?"

This time he really doesn't say anything. No matter how many times she hits him, he doesn't speak. It was ten minutes later when he finally says something.

It isn't until his entire face is covered in crimson and Odessa's hands and brass knuckles are coated in the same color.

"They're— they're gonna kill all your family. Every single one. The boy, the pretty— pretty ladies, the archer. Every single one of 'em's gone die." He snarls.

"So what the hell are you?" Odessa snaps. "Huh!?" She screams. Hit. The man let out a sob at the hard hit. The girl standing over him was the most ruthless teen he'd ever encountered.

"What are you!?" She shouts.

She unsheathes her blade. "No, no, no!" The man begs and tries to get away. He doesn't go anywhere. Odessa kneels in front of him.

"What. Are. You?" She asks slowly this time. And to Francis it is much more terrifying than her screaming or hitting the shit out of him.

Because he sees the gleam in her eyes. The murderous light that sparkles. It sparkles in Gareth's eyes as well whenever new people stumble into Terminus. He knows as soon as he sees it he wasn't going to make it away from the tree.

"Cannibals." His voice is so monotone Odessa almost doesn't believe him. But then she sees the seriousness in his face and it all made sense.

They were prepping Theo.

They had her family locked up in a train car.

They were saving them for later.

They were going to eat Theo.

She had to save him and her family.

She had to do it right now.

She crouches in front of him. Their eyes connect. Then she drives her knife right through his stomach.

He gasps, his eyes shoot wide.

The Grimes girl draws the blade from his gut and drives it in again. She does it over and over until she's settled.

Only when she was finished did she stand to her full height. Blood covers her arms up to her elbows, her shirt, her knives.

Leaves crunch behind her. Odessa drops her twin blades and pulls out her gun. She whirls around.

"Odessa?"

─────────

Cole Tanner sharpens his belt buckle into a weapon. He imagines Wolverine's claws as he makes it.

"Alright, got four of them pricks comin' our way," Daryl informs them from where he stands by the door.

"Y'all know what to do," Rick walks forward. "Go for their eyes first. Then their throats."

The group readies themselves while Carl, Michonne, and Eugene stay back.

"Put your back to the walls at either end of the car now!" A man shouts from outside.

The door in front of them isn't opened. Instead they hear footsteps on the roof and a hatch is pulled open.

A canister drops in front of them. Cole's eyes move to it. Then Abraham shouts, "move!"

Then—

Boom.

It goes off.

Smoke blurs their vision. It clogs their throats.

Hands grab at Cole's arms. He is yanked from the train car. His eyes are wide as he struggles against his captors.

The only people they'd taken were him, Rick, Bob, Glenn, and Daryl.

The five are led into a warehouse and put on their knees behind a metal tub.

Cole watches as two men take a saw to a dead man. His eyes are wide. What the fuck are these people?

But his heart lurches when two men pull a struggling teenage boy into the room. He has shaggy blonde hair, familiar blue eyes, and a scar above his right eyebrow.

"Theo?" Cole asks from under his gag but it comes out as "Eo?"

Theo is forced to his knees beside Bob. Cole look at him with wide eyes. Theo's eyes shoot to him. But both turn their attention to the two men with a bat and blades. 

They walk behind the blonde man at the other end of the tub.

When one smashes the bat over the poor guy's head Theo jumps. The other grabs his hair and lifts his head up. He slits his throat. The blood runs down the metal in front of them.

Rick squeezes his eyes shut. It reminds him too much of when he watched his own daughter murder his best friend.

As the two men get closer to Glenn, Gareth walks in, unknowingly saving Glenn Rhee's life. "Hey, guys. What were your shot counts?"

"Thirty-eight," one replies.

The other doesn't. As they move behind Glenn, Theo's heart picks up faster than it already was before. Before the bald man can slam the bat down on Glenn's head, Gareth speaks up. "Hey! Your shot count?"

"Crap, man. I'm sorry. This my first roundup," the other says.

"After you're done here, go back to your point and count the shells. Kaylee won't be gathering them until tomorrow," Gareth tells him.

"Hey!" Bob tries. "Hey, let me talk to you!" It came out muffled.

Gareth points at them. "Five from A, four from D?" He then looks to Theo, "and the kid with a friend outside the fence."

Theo's eyes shoot to him. Friend outside the fence?

"Yeah, we know about her. We sent a man to kill her. He should be back soon with her body." Gareth grins.

Rick stares at the man. A friend outside the fence. He knows Beth was with Daryl and they got separated. He had seen Maggie and Sasha. He was with Michonne. It could only mean one thing.

Theo's friend outside the fence is his daughter. The man cocks his head to the side. Now it isn't  just his son's life that is in danger. It's his daughter's, too.

Again, Bob asks to talk to the monster.

Gareth walks forward and pulls Bob's gag from his mouth, "don't do this. We can fix this."

"No, you can't." Gareth reachs forward to put Bob's gag back in his mouth but stop when Bob pulls back.

"You don't have to do this!" Bob shouts. "We told you there's a way out of all of this. You just have to take chance. We have a man who knows how to stop it. He has a cure. We just have to get him to Washington."

Theo's brows furrow and he looks to Bob. A man who knew how to stop it? To cure everything? It sounded too good to be true. He doesn't believe it.

"You don't have to do this, man. We can't put the world back to the way it was." Bob says.

"Came for back, Bob." Gareth stated before he pulling Bob's gag back up and into his mouth. He then kneels in front of Rick and removed his gag.

Rick stares at the man coldly. "We say you go into the woods with a bag and come out without it. Had to pull my spotters back before we'd go look for it. What was in it?" Gareth asks. "You hid it, right? In case things went bad? Smart. Still, we'll find it. But it's too dangerous to go out there right now."

Gareth snatches Theo towards him. He fists his hair and holds his blade pointed directly at his right eye. The same eye his father lost. Gareth looks back at Rick. "What was in it? I'm curious. And it was a big bag."

Gareth motions to Theo when Rick doesn't reply. "You're really gonna let me do this? To a kid?"

"Well, let me take you out there. I'll show you." Rick threatens.

"Not gonna happen. This might," Gareth pulls Theo closer to the point of his blade. He squeezes his eyes shut.

"There's guns in it. Ak-47. .44 Magnum. Automatic weapons. Nightscope. There's a compound bow and a machete with a— a red handle. That's what I'm gonna use to kill you."
Rick lists before he meets Gareth's eyes again.

The man chuckles and pulls his blade away from Theo's eyes. He goes to regag Rick but he pulls back. The father states, "that man you sent out there after the girl? He's already dead."

"How do you know?" Gareth tilts his head.

"Cause that girl is gonna storm this place and kill every one of you," Rick's lip curls. "And she's not gonna let one man stand in her way." Gareth sighs and gags Rick, not believing that a single teenage girl can kill all of his people and turn this place upside down. But unbeknownst to him, she's no longer alone.

"Well, Rick hate to break it to you. She's not as strong as my man," tells told him. "But thanks."

He stands and walks away from them, "you have two hours to get them on the dryers. I'm gonna go back to public face. Now's the time we can get messy but we need to dial it all in by sundown."

"Got it."

"Yes, sir."

Gunshots.

Gunshots sound outside.

Gareth pulls out his walkie. "Hey, Chuck?"

More gunshots. Cole meets Theo's eyes again. Beneath his gag, Theo smirks. Odessa is alive. And she is making her move.

Then the ground shakes with the explosion outside.

______________________________

word count: 2,214

welcome to found lands!!! we're jumping right into the fire and violence of this book right off the bat. let me just say, this book is much more gruesome than the last two so if blood or violence or anything gorey triggers you please don't read!!

also i've decided to change it from past tense to present tense because i like it more and all of my books i have unpublished are present tense.

did y'all really think odessa was gonna lose a fight to that man? i mean, come on. it's odessa. she's killed thirteen people now. twelve men and one woman.

does it way on her conscious?? sometimes.

i love the end of this chapter. theo smirking is so badass. he knows odessa doesn't break her promises. he believes in her so much.

but rick now knows that his oldest is alive. i also love what he told gareth. he was right too because that little bitch did not stand a chance against odessa grimes. there's very few people who do. but we're not listing them right now 😉.

also, who was that at the beginning of the chapter that said odessa's name?? i think we all know.