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HOME WAS THE mother of all false promises. A fraudulent claim to trick people into letting their guard down. Whether it be human, animal or building; it was not guaranteed. Inevitably, its pillars of sand would be blown away by a fatal gust of wind and the inhabitants would plummet to the depths of an ocean beneath ground, submerged in darkness with no way of surfacing.
There was, of course, the option of swimming - searching for light at the end of the tunnel. Finding a new home, a key to fit the rusted old lock that was the human heart.
Staring at the threshold of Alexandria, battling with the gut-wrenching memories circling her mind, Devin was of the belief that it was better to drown homeless and aware than live in the delusion that one-day things might change.
Things never changed. Not people. Not places. Certainly not the universe. People killed. Places disintegrated. The universe took and took and took and never gave a damn thing back - not to Devin, at least. Never to Devin.
Above her, on the guard's post, a blonde stood with the stock of a carbine rifle pressed into her shoulder. Devin could recall seeing her among The Saviours at one point or another. That woman had participated in the slaughtering of people Devin had once considered her own, and yet, Freya trusted her to protect the community that her children were confined to.
If that wasn't divine intervention, Devin didn't know what was, but what she did know was that she detested it with everything in her.
Negan in a cell, fed and watered daily. His people walking the same streets Abraham and Sasha once had, standing where they stood, conversing with their friends. It was, well and truly, a travesty of justice.
Devin forced a swallow, discreetly trying to salivate her sandpaper throat. She angled her head and risked a sideways glance up at the Saviour, unsurprised to find the muzzle of the woman's rifle aligned with her head. She resisted the urge to laugh at the irony and averted her gaze back to the abundance of white scrapes scarring the asphalt.
They were the result of the gates being opened and closed one time too many, a permanent consequence of trust. Devin imagined if she was able to extract her heart and let her eyes trace over the large pulsating muscle, she'd find that its surface resembled Alexandria's threshold. Another victim of trust.
Boots scuffed against the ground in slow and calculated steps, coming to a stop before Devin.
When she looked up, the wind was knocked out of her chest instantly and her knees threatened to buckle if she dared move a muscle.
A worn old sheriff's hat, painstakingly familiar freckles dotted beneath eyes that Devin could never forget - Judith Grimes, seven years older, almost an exact replica of her sister.
