ꜰᴏᴏʟ'ꜱ ᴍᴀᴛᴇ || ᴛᴡᴅ

142: ɪᴍᴘᴇɴᴅɪɴɢ ᴅᴏᴏᴍ

●～●～●～●～●

Rachel woke to a stinging in her neck. 

There was something over her head, but it was pulled off by Ezekiel, who's hands were bound with tie raps, same as hers. 

They were in a bus, with many other people, someone banging the outside of it, creating a horrific metal banging that made her want to shrivel up and die. Bars were welded onto the back and front ends of the rows of seats, like a prison bus. 

But Ezekiel was beside her. Furious, but there. She pushed herself further from the metal wall of the bus, and closer to him. 

"Is everyone okay?" He asked, looking around as other people began pulling off the sacks on their heads. "Anyone hurt?"

"Ezekiel? Rachel?" Kelly's voice came from behind them, and Rachel saw her a few rows down on the other side. 

"Are you hurt?"

"No. Not since they . . . How long were we out for?"

"I don't know. My necks still sore from whatever they injected us with."

Grace, down the back of the bus, looked out the window. "One of the trucks is missing."

Negan nodded. "No sign of Maggie, Rosita or Sami."

"They're unloading a bunch of stuff off the trucks." Kelly looked out the window, too. 

Rachel sat up a little. "Are the kids there?"

She shook her head. "No."

Rachel felt sick. She'd been with Judith, RJ, Gracie, Dog and Daryl when the people attacked them. One of them hit Dog. His whine distracted Rachel, and in her stupid fury, she got whacked in the head. Now she was here.

A door opened, and a man walked in, looking at them from the far side of the bars, by the front door.

"Good morning, and welcome. Today is the first day of a new beginning." He had ginger hair, like Rachel's, and stood tall in all black. She thought it was dramatic. "The world works when everyone knows their place. Your place is at the bottom. All of the resources that we use to bring the old world back into the new and sustain it, it all starts at places like this. You should take comfort is knowing that good people will gain benefit from your labor here. That is your redemption. That is your salvation. Your children are safe and being attended to. Play by the rules, you get to see them again. In order to do that, you must work as one. Here . . . nobody has a name. Because we have no need for them. I'm not gonna tell you mine, and you will not address each other by yours."

Rachel decided his name was Bread, as he pulled out his keys and unlocked the gate.

"When I point at you, you stand up. And you exit the rear."

The door at the back of the bus was opened, and a soldier opened the back gate. 

Bread made his way down the line, walking past Rachel and Ezekiel at the front and not pointing at them, only pointing at people they didn't know. Until he got to the back of the bus, and pointed at Grace.

"You."

"They are being transported to another site." Bread spoke, as he walked back to the front of the bus. "The rest of you will work until the tracks are clear. Everybody up!"

Still with her hands tied together, Rachel got to her feet, following Ezekiel out into the cold, damp air of the early morning. Bread was talking again about being 'protected by the Great Commonwealth' but she wasn't listening. She was looking around.