Hello my friends. It took a while to write this update. I wanted to make sure I got it just right. I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Reading!

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Jo
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Things had been quiet for a couple of weeks, but we all knew the drop with The Hilltop was coming. Negan didn't seem concerned. He claimed to have full faith in Tommy's ability to handle a few farmers, his words, not mine. I on the other hand was tense. Gregory was a snake and Jesus could be formidable, or maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was anxious to get back over there and see Katie. It had been a long time since we connected and I didn't want her to think I didn't care.

It was late evening and I was finishing up a few sets in the private gym before joining Negan for dinner. He was sitting at the table in our apartment. I heard the knock on the door but didn't bother stopping. People came to see Negan all the time.

They were speaking in low, hushed voices but I ignored it. It had been a long time since I lost control working out, but that didn't mean I had given up any of my discipline. I refused to let the fact that things were going well make me soft.

"Get a couple teams together," Negan's voice was harsh and it surprised me.

The door opened and I turned, halfway up in a sit-up. The look on his face made my blood run cold. Negan was not prone to overreaction and the fact that he looked shaken was terrifying to me.

I scrambled to my feet. I swallowed and my voice was hoarse when I spoke. "What happened?" I asked.

Only something terrible could put that look in Negan's eyes.

"We're not exactly sure," Negan said. "Paula called for backup from the alpha safe house. The Station hasn't responded on our normal channel," he wiped at his mouth thoughtfully. "Get your gear," he said solemnly.

My hands were shaking as I hurried into our room. I had been training with some of my weapons but not all of the ones I would need for something like this.

Paula has been watching Kate's back the last time we were there, but I also knew she led groups out on runs. I had to reassure mused that just because Paula got herself in trouble didn't mean Kate was in danger. It wasn't surprising that Paula had gotten mixed up in something, her ego was a problem. What was surprising and a little worrying was that Tom's people hadn't responded.

Negan turned to me. "I have to get shit ready," he said. "I'll meet you at the gate okay?" He asked. He waited a beat for me to meet his gaze as though he were reassuring himself that I was tracking.

I nodded as I worked the buckles on my thigh holster. I didn't exactly understand why he was acting this way. I was worried, but I didn't feel like I was off.

"I'm going to have Arat and Dwight meet you here," he said. He was speaking slowly and over annunciating in a way that had me even more nervous.

He said he didn't know what happened. But it was clear something had happened and he thought I should be reacting to it. Instead of feeling rushed or hurried I felt like everything was moving in slow motion. I checked my guns a couple times before I slid them in my shoulder holster. Then I shrugged on my leather jacket.

There was a knock at the door and I flinched in surprise. It seemed odd that they had arrived so soon after Negan left.  I walked to the door. Dwight and Arat were waiting for me in the hall, both already wearing their gear.

"Ready to go boss?" Arat asked, but her eyes were grave.

Even Dwight looked solemn.

I nodded, because I didn't trust myself to speak. Everyone was acting like they were already dead. But Negan had said we didn't know what happened. They didn't know what was wrong just that something was wrong. So why was everyone acting like I was going to break?

Resolving to prove everyone wrong I strode past them and headed down the hall. Negan was waiting at the truck. He held the door and closed it behind me once I was inside.

As usual Negan drove the main truck but what surprised me was the sheer number of trucks he was taking with us. He had left just enough men behind at the sanctuary to keep it safe but all the rest were locked and loaded. This kind of response made me wonder if there was something he wasn't telling me.

"What do we know?" I was finally brave enough to ask. If he was keeping something from me I needed to know before we got there.

Negan glanced at me. "It's been radio silent since the call came in on all channels. Last we heard Paula's group had a situation out at one of the safe houses. Sounded like it might be that group."

My mind somehow felt totally detached and yet it was racing over all the possible senarios. That group was the new mystery group we suspected was operating on the edges of our territory. We lost all those men on the highway a while back, but other than that we hadn't experienced any direct contact to confirm they even existed. It had always felt a little like the boogeyman to me, but now knowing Paula's group had called for help and that the Satellite Station had been silent I wasn't so sure. The need to check on Katie was suddenly overwhelming.

I looked out the window and frowned. "Where are we going?" I asked after a minute when I realized we had turned off onto a side road instead of going straight to The Satellite Station.

"We know they were in trouble at the safe house," Negan said grimly. "We don't know about The Station." He was holding himself in that way he did when he was bracing for a fight.

"But Kate-" I started to say my voice rising with tension.

Negan's eyes cut to me. They were hard and almost angry. "Our people called for help from a safe house. We haven't heard anything from The Station. For all we know it's as simple as their batteries are dead."

When I didn't respond his jaw tightened. "This is what it means to lead Jo," he growled.

I tightened my hands into fists but still didn't say anything. I knew what it meant to lead, the sacrifices, I didn't need to be lectured.

I was silent the whole rest of the way to the slaughterhouse safe house. I had never been to this one before, but as we pulled into the lot I understood why it had been chosen. It was dusk, but I could see that the building was low to the ground and made of cement with no visible windows. It could be easily defended and made into a bunker against a horde of Biters. Negan parked and we all climbed out of the trucks. He turned to Gavin. "Take your men and check the perimeter before we lose the last of the light."

Gavin nodded silently and disappeared around the side of the building. There were two of our cars parked outside, but all of the doors and both trunks were open as though they had been searched.

Negan and I were on the lead as we opened the front doors. Dwight and Arat were behind me. Immediately inside the door I recognized the body of Primo, the medic from The Satellite Station. The building was filled with a haze of smoke and the noxious scent of burned flesh.

I knew immediately there would be no survivors. We paced down the halls, clearing every room as we went. Even though we were angry with each other Negan and I still worked as a perfectly synchronized team. It was one of the things I appreciated about him. He would never let his emotions get in the way of our safety or the job that needed to be done.

Just outside a door labeled 'killing floor' we found a can of gasoline. When we slid back the warm metal door we found the bodies of Saviors still smoldering. Some looked like they had been clawing at the walls.

"They were still alive," I said in horror. I glanced back to Negan. His jaw was like granite as he looked over his people. He would blame himself for this, I knew him well enough to know that.

"Who did this?" I asked in shock.

Negan shook his head. "Dead men." He snarled.

His anger was almost palpable as he led the way deeper into the building. We found a biter trap. They had all been killed with an efficient knife blow to the temple. I recognized the one on the lead.

"That's Paula," I said in a low tone.

Negan turned and looked at the body emotionlessly. He nodded once in agreement, but his whole body was coiled tight with his barely contained anger. The others were moving more carefully around him since he was mad, but it did nothing but piss me off. He lectured me about having a job to do, we needed to hurry.

"She was one of the Saviors who spent a lot of time watching Kate," I pointed out.

Negan froze for a moment and I could see him trying to work out what happened here. But it was taking too long. Everyone here was dead, there was still a chance we could help people at The Satellite Station.

"We have to get to the satellite station," I said fiercely. I was even more angry at him for keeping me from checking on my sister.

"In a minute," Negan said, his voice was so quiet I misjudged him, I thought he was done being mad. I was wrong.

"A minute?" I snapped my fear for
my sister made my temper short.

Negan swung around to face me, his face a thunderous mask of rage. "This wasn't done by those farmers, which means it could be those assholes who attacked our people on the road but I don't know that for sure. It would take military precision to clear a safe house this thoroughly and we have to be sure!"

I took a step back from his anger though my hands tightened into fists. Every instinct I had was begging me to get to Kate. I recognized half the saviors here as ones who moved to The Station.

"They didn't come here for no reason," Negan continued. "We need to check every room."

I froze for a second as my thoughts raced to understand what he meant. I realized in that moment that he thought there was a chance Tom had evacuated everyone here. Which meant we needed to make sure Kate wasn't among the dead here.

The realization made me almost dizzy as my stomach dropped. Negan was suddenly standing in front of me. He grabbed my jacket and gave me a rough shake. "Don't you do that," he snapped. "We've got shit to do," and he stomped out of the room in disgust.

I swallowed and felt a little embarrassed for having my weakness exposed when Dwight and Arat were so close. I palmed two knives and moved out the opposite door to finish searching a different section of the building.

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Negan
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I stormed away before I yelled at Jo some more. The truth was I was worried and it bothered me that she wasn't seeing things clearly. First, she had been so convinced that our power could keep us safe she hadn't considered the true extent of the danger. Now, she was so caught up with getting to Kate she wasn't seeing the big picture. Both were damn dangerous.

Tom should have had men here long before we got here. Paula put out the SOS needing backup almost two hours ago now. Tom could have been here in fifteen minutes. There was no telling what could have happened in those two hours. I stomped through the slaughterhouse but there was nothing to see here. The only thing I could do was make sure Tom or Kate weren't here.

It didn't take me long to determine that whoever had come through here had done a damn efficient job of killing our people. Whoever it was, it was for sure not the farmers. These people were cold blooded professionals. I wasn't sure my own people had enough training to pull this off. There was a new player in town, and they were dangerous.

I glanced over my shoulder, wishing I hadn't stormed off like a prick. If they were this good, there was a chance that they could have left traps behind. I trusted Dwight and Arat as much as I trusted anybody, but I wanted Jo with me so I could make sure she was safe.

I finished my sweep and Gavin came around the corner. "Anything?" I asked.

He shook his head grimly. "Nothing outside," he reported. "And we lost the light."

I nodded stiffly. "Okay, load up we need to get our asses over to the Satellite Station."

Gavin frowned in confusion but didn't argue. He was a great soldier but this was the reason he would never be a threat to my position. He didn't think out of the box. He wasn't leadership material.

"Tommy boy should have had his men here long before we got here," I explained.

Gavin's eyes widened but he didn't bother saying anything. I appreciated the hell out of his efficiency.

"Let's move," I said. I led the way back towards the front door.

Jo was waiting. She was pacing anxiously just outside. She was wound tighter than a top and even if I hadn't seen it myself all I would have to do was look at Dwight to know for sure. He was hanging back a little further than Arat and watching her warily. Jo wasn't exactly being scary but she wasn't far off from it.

It had been a long time since she lost control and was scary, instead she was being obtuse, which was worse and way more dangerous. She was refusing to see or acknowledge the possibility of what we could be walking in to. I didn't know how to fix that. If anything happened to Kate I wasn't sure if Jo would survive it.

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Jo
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Negan was silent the whole drive to the Satellite Station, but I was too anxious to worry about whatever was going on in his head. The mess at the safe house had me rattled and I leaned forward in my seat willing the truck to go faster. I needed to see with my own eyes that Kate was okay.

When we pulled up to the Satellite Station the gate was standing wide open. My stomach dropped and I sucked in a breath. It was maybe the last conscious decision I actually made. Tom would never allow the gate to be left open. No matter what.

I threw open my door almost before Negan had parked the truck and hit the ground running.

"Jo!" He yelled behind me but I didn't listen. Nothing was going to keep me from getting to Kate.

Two biters shambled towards me. I recognized them as men who lived here. I had spoken to both of them the last time I was here. I swung my first knife straight for the man's eye and plunged the second up through the others chin. I barely broke stride as they fell to the pavement. I left my knives behind me. I had plenty more and I needed to find Kate.

As I neared the door I spotted the dead bodies of two other Saviors. There was also a biter head laying on the ground. It looked enough like Gregory that a bad feeling went over me as Tom's plan flashed to the front of my mind. This had all the makings of a trap and Kate would have been in the middle of it.

I raced through the front door. The power was out, but the emergency lights had turned on from the backup generators, providing just enough light to see. There was blood and bodies everywhere. The sharp smell of blood and gunpowder still hung in the stale air, but there was no movement. That almost made it worst. If only there had been movement I would have had something to fight. I needed something to fight. The stillness was deafening.

I stumbled through the labyrinth of hallways trying to remember how to get to Kate's apartment but I had only been there once. There was bodies in the hallways. I barely noticed them behind identifying they weren't Kate or Tom. I opened two doors on the way to find more dead Saviors. Unlike the dead in the hall who had clearly put up a fight, these men had been murdered in their beds.

They were dead. They were all dead.

I choked back bile that rose in my throat as I ran for Kate's door. It was open a crack. I froze for a moment, uncertain what to do. That last moment before my life changed was the calm before the storm.

I opened the door and the scream stopped in my throat. My hands came up to cover my mouth but no sound came out. It was like I was paralyzed, frozen between one breath and the next, unable to move forward because moving forward meant I would have to learn to live in the next moment without her.

Kate's body lay like a broken doll on the ground beside her bed.

I couldn't breathe, couldn't scream, couldn't escape this thing that was happening to me. It was too big, too real, and I knew I would survive it. How could I? I fought to gasp in a breath but I was gagging. I fell to my knees and I stared into the dead, unseeing eyes of my baby sister.

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Negan
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It was a damn shit show. I didn't know who these assholes were, but this was their work. And I was going to find them.

The guards at the front doors had been killed and there was a head laying on the sidewalk. I cocked my head to the side as I stared down at it. It was a close approximation of Gregory but it wasn't him. I would recognize that asshole anywhere. Whoever those assholes were, they were working with The Hilltop and had used Tom's ultimatum as a trap to get in the front door. I kicked the head in frustration and swore loudly as it flew away into the bushes like a kickball.

It had obviously been their work at the slaughterhouse and they had hit here too. I wanted to chase after Jo. I knew without a doubt what she would find inside. They had been too efficient so far, there was no reason to assume they had changed their pattern, but I had to do my job. Jo was breaking down, but I couldn't. I needed to give our people direction.

I turned to Gavin. "Check for survivors," I ordered.

"Survivors?" He asked in surprise.

"I doubt you'll find any," I said honesty and I turned to follow Jo into the building. I looked back and pointed at Arat and Dwight. "Find her," I ordered. They nodded and once we were inside they split off and headed a different direction so we could cover more ground.

I paced through the dimly lit rooms alone. There were bodies everywhere. This was sloppier than the slaughterhouse had been. Some of the bodies in the rooms were precision work, but others, the ones that looked like they had fought back hadn't even been policed. I was going to need to assign a few guys to do that.

I didn't know where Jo would have gone to find Kate so I started searching for her. I was assuming it would be one if the apartments. I was several hallways in when the first of the dirty kills started to turn. Low growls echoed through the cement hallways.

"Son of a bitch," I snarled, lifting Lucille up. "Jo!" I yelled her name as the dead started to rise. I swore again as I realized they probably hadn't been sloppy at all. The bastard had laid a trap for us, and we walked right into it.

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Jo
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It never occurred to me that the reason my sister moved was because she was dead. Instead I suffered the soul searing second of hope that she, out of everyone, had somehow survived. She was after all a survivor. In some ways even more than me. She had managed to survive this long and still remain true to herself. I was nothing like the woman I had been before. But Kate was still just Kate. She was supposed to survive. Merle had made sure of that.

I heard a deep rasping breath and she moved beneath my hand. For that one second I truly believed she was alive. The moment of relief was so pure and true it literally made me light headed.

Then the thing that had been my sister sat up. It's dead eyes looked at me for less than a second before it lunged towards me, it's teeth snapping at my face.

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Negan
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I fought my way deeper into the station. This damn place was a maze of twisting hallways and dead ends. Of course that was why I chose to keep it, but I had never seen Tom and Kate's apartment so I had no idea where to even start looking for Jo.

Biters were everywhere. I slammed my bat side to side demolishing their skulls. The last two dropped and Dwight and Arat appeared around a corner both breathing heavy and covered in gore. My stomach dropped when I realized Jo wasn't with them.

"Where in the hell is she?" I roared.

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Jo
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I couldn't do it. I couldn't fight back, I didn't know how to. All this time I had been so certain that being locked up again, being controlled again, being her again was my greatest fear. But I hadn't experienced fear or anguish before that moment.

My arms were pathetically weak as I held the vicious, snapping biter that had been my beloved sister away from my face.

"No," I whispered but it just kept coming. The skin was cool beneath my fingers but not cold, it hadn't started to decompose yet. She hadn't been dead for very long. Something inside of me broke at the thought that we could have saved her. If we had only been faster or come straight here we could have saved her. I could have saved her. I was supposed to. That was my job, wasn't it? It was why I had stayed alive and fought all those months in that cell.

Kate had been so beautiful in life and the twisted ugly thing controlling her body now was a mockery of all my baby sister had been. It moved her face wrong and the eyes were dead and starving. She was dead. Kate was dead. I'm had lost everyone, my whole family, but Kate was the final straw. She was the last piece of my precious life and she gone.

I had a moment, just a single moment where I stopped fighting.

I took a step back from it and lowered my arms. I didn't know how to keep fighting if I wasn't fighting for Kate. I didn't want to. My eyes locked on the dead eyes of the biter and let my knives fall to the ground with a loud clatter.

The biter snarled excitedly and shuffled towards me at the exact moment another one slammed into my side. The force of the large male biter sent me flying. I slammed into the table and chairs, one of the chairs tangled up in my legs.

I was trapped and the snarls of biters surrounded me. In the back of my mind those old parts of myself I thought I had shut away for good woke up.

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Negan
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The red emergency lights blinking overhead did little to illuminate the room. Instead it turned the gore covered scene into something straight out of a horror movie. Only it wasn't a movie, it was what Jo had lived through. I cursed myself up and down for letting her jump out of the truck like that. I hadn't been able to protect her again and I hated myself for it.

The first body I stepped over may have once been Tommy but it was difficult to tell. It was the right size and shape but the head had been completely caved in with a leg broken off a chair that lay beside the corpse.

I stepped deeper into the room and all I could hear was quiet whimpering that tore through my heart. I remember what it had been like after Merle died. Jo had been wild. We had to sedate her to convince her to quite fighting. This was something totally different.

She was crumpled on the floor, her knives beside her as she held Katie's body in her lap. She was bent over it and sobbing into it's hair as she clutched it to her. There was still a knife lodged in the back of the spine, wedged up into the brain with such precision I knew no one but Jo could have put Kate down.

"Jo," I said her name softly as I crouched down beside her. In the past the worry was always that I would startle her into attacking before her instincts realized I was not her enemy. This time she didn't even flinch. She tightened her grip on her sisters body and sobbed.

I had to get her out of here. There were still biters to clear and our people needed to get to work cleaning and securing this place. I didn't know yet if the right answer was to pull everyone back to the sanctuary until we figured out who this new enemy was or if we should hold our position. There was so much work to do, but I needed to get her home.

"Jo sweetheart," I said softly. "You gotta let her go."

She didn't even resist me as I picked her up and carried her away. She curled against my chest and sobbed. There was no fight left in her, Jo was done.

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I hope you enjoyed the update. Please comment/vote! I've already started working on the next chapter and am really looking forward to sharing it with you guys!