Staying Alive//TWDFanFic

Thirty Nine

I woke up on the ground in what looked like a makeshift hut made out of sticks, I stay where I am but look around at my surroundings as much as I can without moving. I freeze when I hear Alpha's voice from what seemed like mere feet away, I turn my head slowly to see she's speaking in a low tone to Beta as he takes a razor to her head, shaving what I don't know because she's literally bald. I stay quiet as I hear her tell him to take 'the sisters' along with him since they have a real 'scent for the dead'. Beta just nods before asking, "What are we going to do with her?" I know he's talking about me and my breathing starts to quicken a bit as I start to panic, I'm trying not to let my fear get the best of me but it's hard to fight it at this point since I'm in such a vulnerable situation. I close my eyes and pretend to still be knocked out in case they look at me, she finally answers, "I'll convince her to join us or she'll die. I know she loves that Daryl man, she'll go along if she wants him to stay alive for that child of hers." Beta scoffs, "We should just kill her." I have to fight back a whimper as I started to worry about Beth, I didn't know she knew about her, I've never taken her out of Alexandria since the skins showed up so how would she even know of her? I start to cry as quietly as I could, it goes silent around me before Alpha sends Beta off and sits on the ground beside me. I sat up quickly and backed away as far as I could before she laughed softly, "I'm not going to hurt you unless you give me a reason to, so calm down." I hate her condescending, matter of fact tone but nod anyways. "I'm going to make you a deal," She says, "You join us and replace my daughter by my side and I won't hurt yours." I feel the tears flowing down my cheeks, she notices and sighs, "You'll get used to the feeling like I have or you won't, either way." She shrugs. It's silent for a moment before I finally spoke, "Why me?" She sighs, "You remember when I approached your gates for my daughter?" She waits for my answer so I just nod. "Well, you're the only one who was able to challenge me without speaking and I have a love/hate relationship with that but I respect it and my respect is hard to come by so you should feel special." She looks me over, "I think you'd be a good addition for what we've got here, I've seen how you fight alongside Daryl." She leans forward and whispers, "It's going to come down to him or your daughter and you're going to make the decision so you better be ready for that when the time comes." She smiled like she enjoyed the thought of me having to choose between my child and my husband, she's obviously sick and twisted but I had to pretend like it didn't bother me. She sits back, "Now, what is your name?" I clear my dry throat, "J-Josie." She shook her head, "You're now Gamma, that is, if you choose to stay but just know your daughter is what hangs on that decision." I swallow as I try to hide the anger flowing through me, "I'll join you but I have one more condition." She smirks, "You're not exactly in the position to be throwing out conditions." I shook my head, "I have one; you don't touch Beth or Daryl, if I'm going to join you, she needs him." She smirks slightly once again, "Deal but if he comes for us, it's either he joins us as well or you kill him. Just know that." I nod, "Fine, just don't go out your way to lure him here, I want them to think I'm dead." She smiled deviously as she leaned forward and ran her dirty fingers through my hair, "Honey, you're one of the dead now." She looks me over quickly before standing up and making her way out of the hut, "Follow me."

After a few hours, I assume it was that long anyways, of following Alpha around in painful silence, Beta finally returns with his group and throws one of the sisters on the ground in front of everyone. It turns out she's the mother of the baby that Hilltop took in a while back. I felt for her as she cried that she loved him and wanted him back. One of the others goes to stab her but stops when Alpha shouts, "Stop!" She walks off and Beta follows her like a lost puppy. I stay behind and give the crying woman a sympathetic look before looking around, trying to find a way to escape unnoticed. I decide quickly that it probably isn't wise to do that because I need to stay alive as long as possible, I have to at least try. After what felt like hours of agonizing silence, Alpha approaches me, "Come with me." I'm immediately nervous when she leads me to what looks like a dirt cave, "This is it." I thought to myself as I entered the cave behind her. We stood beside one another for a few minutes before the lady who was crying about her baby earlier, slowly approaches. Alpha waits for her to stop in front of her, "Take off your mask." The girl hesitates for a split second before taking it off and looking up at Alpha with fear in her eyes, they stared at one another for a moment before the girl screamed loudly and kneeled before Alpha. I was caught off guard by the scream so I jumped a bit which seemed to amuse Alpha as she smirked before consoling the crying girl kneeling before her, which threw me off. I expected to witness a brutal murder, not whatever this was. She allowed to go before glancing at me and following her out of the cave. As I'm walking out, I notice Beta eyeing me before following after Alpha as she walked away from 'the pack' as they call it. One of the masked women approaches me and in a low voice asks, "Where do you live?" I ignored her and shook my head as I found a tree away from everyone, I sat below it by myself and stared into the trees.