The Razor's Edge Chapter Three

Andrea sat behind the table and waited while her hands were cuffed. She knew the man who’d put the knife to her throat stood back and regarded her. There was something in his eyes. Regret, perhaps? She had never taken the time to get to know Martinez when they were all camped back at the quarry. She didn’t know if he was a good man forced to do bad things, or a man who was once good but no longer cared if what he did was right or wrong.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” she said. “I didn’t want to kill anyone but he was shooting at me.”

Martinez shook his head. “The Lieutenant will be with you soon.”

“You mean Shane?”

“Yeah. Shane.”

“May I have some water?”

“No,” was all he said, and then left the room.

Her sense of time was distorted. She didn’t know if she’d waited half an hour or an hour. A second could go by like ten when sitting in fear. She’d Rick Grimes exit an office as she was being led in and she now cursed herself for not calling out. It would have been better to risk having her throat sliced open than what she feared when Shane found out she was alive.

The same went for Brian Blake.

What kind of man is Rick now? Andrea wondered. Had life with the Governor and Shane changed him? Was he as selfish and heartless as they were, or had he held on to his basic sense of decency, even while sharing a town with monsters?

“Son of a bitch.”

Andrea had been so lost in thought she hadn’t heard the door to the office open. Shane Walsh stood there, staring in at her, his face a cocktail of open emotion. His expressions rapidly cycled between pissed, relieved, and pleased.

“Shane.”

“You’re not dead,” he said. “Y’all get out. I need a little word with Andrea.”

Martinez and the other man, one she didn’t recognize, nodded once and left.

“Get rid of Curtis,” Shane added. “Throw him to the walkers.”

“You got it,” Martinez said. He spared Andrea one last look before he left.

Shane sat down on across from her. He studied the marks on her wrists made by the cuffs and then pulled out a set of handcuff keys. He released her and she rubbed her hurting wrists.

“You’re all bony now,” he noted. “Life ain’t easy out there, is it?”

She shook her head. “No. Food is hard to come by.”

“Damn sure is. That’s why I don’t understand why you’d fake your death and live out there, scrounging for something to eat that ain’t gone so bad it’ll kill you. Taking the risk to drink water that could give you dysentery. You risked all that rather than live in a nice home here in Woodbury.”

“I searched every map I could get my hands on for a town called Woodbury and never found it,” she said.

“Place’s real name is Thornton. I don’t know why the fuck Rick told us it was called Woodbury but that shit ain’t important. You tried to find us? You tried to find me?”

She knew what he wanted to hear. Perhaps telling him that she’d looked for him, that she felt something she didn’t, would appease him and he wouldn’t go too rough on her. She’d been raped more than once since the Turn. She could tolerate it again, but she wasn’t about to lie. She was done with that.

“I looked but not for you. I looked for Beth and Rick.”

She may as well have spit in Shane’s face, the way he recoiled at hearing Rick’s name.

“Not like that,” she clarified.

“So, you never screwed Rick?”

“No, Shane, I never screwed Rick. Look, this isn’t about us.”

“Like hell it ain’t!” he shouted, and slammed his fist down on the table. She jumped back and waited to see what would happen next. She expected to take at least one good, hard slap, but Shane kept his hands to himself.

“I grieved for you,” he said. “I fucking…Goddamn you, Andrea. Why, huh? Why ask Rick to tell us you was dead?”

“I was afraid you would look for me.”

“Damn right I would have looked for you. It’s dangerous out there. I wasn’t gonna have my woman running around--”

“I’m not your woman, Shane. I ended things with you clean and clear but you wouldn’t accept it,” she reminded him.

He nodded and got up, going over to a wet bar where he grabbed two bottles of water. He brought her one back which she drank down without stopping for a breath. He offered her the other, and she downed half of it before sitting the bottle on the table.

“So that’s it, huh? You just break it off and fake your death.”

“The Governor was after me too,” she told him. “I didn’t lie just to escape you, Shane. I could live with you having trouble letting go, but I knew Brian wasn’t going to keep taking no for an answer.”

“You should have stayed mine. He wouldn’t have bothered you then.”

Andrea laughed bitterly. “Jesus Christ.”

“What?”

“That attitude right there  was a big part of the problem. I don’t want to belong to anyone, Shane. I’m a woman, not a fucking dog to be owned and passed around from one master to another!”

They lapsed into silence. Shane took his own bottle of water and sat back across from her, studying her.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Do to you? God, Andrea, I can’t believe you’d ask me that. I ain’t gonna do shit to you. As for the Governor, I have no idea. I know he ain’t gonna be happy when he finds out you had Rick lie about your death.”

“Don’t do anything to Rick. He was only trying to help out a friend.”

“Is Merle really dead? Did you go off with him and--”

Andrea began laughing. “Oh, my God. Yes, Shane, you’ve got me all figured out. I left you to run away with Merle Dixon. We’ve got a kid, a cat, and a little house about ten miles from here. He’s at home with the baby baking pies and changing diapers while I’m out looking for food. Are you fucking serious?”

“Hey, Rick lied about you. For all I know Merle’s as alive as you are.”

“Merle really is dead. He was killed by walkers that day. I just asked them to stretch the truth.”

Shane was smiling at her now, which surprised, and scared, Andrea. “What?”

“You’re so goddamn sassy, girl. I love that about you.”

“If you’re so fond of me let me go.”

“And have the Governor put a bullet in my head?”

“Brian loves you. He’s not going to put a bullet in your head,” she sighed, annoyed with the melodrama.

“He goes by the Governor now. Nobody calls him Brian anymore. Not even me,” Shane informed her. “I ain’t letting you go without his consent. Where you been, Andrea? Who you running with?”

“I met up with a woman the day Merle was killed. She saved us from the walkers. I asked Rick not to tell you about her. She’s--”

“Black, beautiful, carries a sword?” Shane asked.

Andrea’s stomach clenched. “How do you know that?”

“Because we got her, too. Caught her just a few minutes after you were brought in. She was trying to sneak in. I guess to rescue you,” he said. “The Governor’s with her now. I’m guessing he’ll want a word with you after he’s finished talking to her.”

Andrea leaned forward and took Shane’s hand in hers. “I know that man well enough to know that he doesn’t just talk to prisoners, Shane. What’s he really doing to her?”

“He’s interrogating her. We’ll leave it at that. Get comfortable. You’ll stay in this office until he’s ready to see you.”

“Shane, I’m begging you--you can’t let him hurt her--”

“You lost your right to make demands of me when you had Rick tell me you were dead,” Shane said, not looking back at her. He pulled the door shut. Andrea tried the windows as soon as he was gone. Unsurprisingly, they were all sealed shut. 

*****

Rick wasn’t even aware he was drifting off when the sound of Daryl and Beth’s voices roused him from sleep. Daryl sounded like his old self again, and he was pissed off.

“Son of a bitch tried to kill me,” he said.

Yeah, the painkillers had worn off.

A quick glance at the clock told him it was two-thirty in the morning.

“Which one actually shanked me?”

“Joss,” Beth answered.

“Well, you wait till I heal up. Soon as I’m back to one hundred percent I’m gonna return the favor. ‘Cept it’ll be in his chest instead of his fucking shoulder.”

“Rick?”

Dr. Stevens was still awake. She had bags forming under her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Shane’s here for you.”

“Okay. You get some sleep in that other bed. Tell Daryl and Beth to pipe down.”

She nodded, looking grateful, and then headed off to get some rest.

Shane stood out in the hallway, pacing. “What took you so long, man?”

“I’ve been up late. I had to interrogate the Hudson brothers. They told me how you put a hit out on me and Daryl. If you wanna do me the favor of killing them for squealing go right ahead. In the meantime, if you want to kill me, do it yourself.”

“I ain’t put no fucking hit out on you. When the day comes that I truly want you dead, you’d best believe it’ll be my hand that ends your life, face-to-face.”

They stared one another down and Rick believed him.

“So you didn’t promise them a week off from the arena fights, to score some pussy for them for a couple of nights. And chocolate. We can’t forget the fucking chocolate. You’re telling me that wasn’t you?”

Shane snorted. “Pussy and chocolate. Are you fucking serious?”

It did sound ridiculous, at least as far as Shane went. If Shane had wanted him dead, he would have come at Rick directly. No, this was somebody else’s doing, and Rick was convinced it was the Governor.

“What do you want, Shane?”

“A cup of coffee wouldn’t kill me.”

“Fine.”

Rick went to the other end of the hall, where the light was burned out, and poured two cups of coffee from the percolator. He brought a cup back to Shane who sipped it and grimaced.

“I take that back. This shit just might kill me. It’s hot and it’s kicking it’s way down,” he said.

“I can’t believe you’d come here for small talk. Unless you’re distracting me so a couple of assassins can sneak in through the window in there and murder Daryl, Beth, and Dr. Stevens.”

“Rick, how long you known me, man?”

“Since we were ten.”

Shane nodded. “In all that time, have you ever known me to have anybody, and I mean anybody, do my business for me?”

“No, I can’t say I have.”

“Then stop with this assassin bullshit.”

“Gladly, if you’ll just tell me what you want.”

Shane heaved a deep breath, sipped his coffee, and looked everywhere but at Rick. Finally he said, “I loved Lori. I was head over heels in love with her.”

“I know.”

“Did you?”

“How could I not, Shane? You’re an open book. I saw the way you’d look at her. You trying to tell me you slept with my wife or something?”

“I did, actually.”

Everything in Rick turned white hot with rage. It was strange that he could feel that way and remain so calm.

“When the Turn first happened and you got shot, we both thought you weren’t gonna make it. You were in a coma while we were all holed up in that hospital. When we had to run to the refugee center we just…it just happened, all right? We were both scared and thinking any second would be the last and that you were gonna die in that hospital. Lori felt god awful about it. She even hated me a little bit for it. You recovered, found us, we went on the run and then…well, you know what happened from then out. Lori and Carl gave me a reason not to eat a bullet, Rick, and then you came back and took them away. Then you let them get eaten by that herd.”

Shane stared at the wall. Inside, Rick’s anger cooled with miraculous speed. Now he was just tired and he was shocked to realize he really wasn’t surprised that Shane and Lori had slept together. He knew she loved him and he knew that when he came back she didn’t let Shane touch her again. He didn’t even need Shane to validate that belief.

“You think I don’t hate myself as much as you do for what happened to her and Carl?”

“Yeah, I know you do.”

Shane looked at the floor, his shoulders suddenly looking bony and small, rather than wide and strong like Rick knew them to be.

“I blame myself too,” he said. “I should have done something more to save them.”

“You did all you could. We both did all we could, all we thought was right. Turns out we were wrong.”

“Don’t try to comfort me, Rick. We’re past that shit.”

“Actually, you son-of-a-bitch, I’m comforting myself.”

Shane laughed. Rick was surprised to hear a laugh come from his own lips.

“Things are going on here, Rick. Bad things. You ain’t gonna last long. Somebody, and we both know who it is, wants you dead. You stay here too much longer then it’ll only be a matter of time before he gets what he wants.”

“You ain’t one of them?”

“It surprises me to say that, as of now, no. I ain’t one of them. You should get while the getting’s good. Take some people with you before it’s too late. This place just ain’t for you, Rick. It never will be. You should know your man Curtis is dead. I found him a few hours ago, when the attack on Daryl happened. He’d turned. I don’t know what happened to him. My guess was his neck was broken. Who did it, I can’t say for sure.”

Shane stood and handed Rick a piece of paper that had been folded over, and then strode toward the door, throwing his nasty coffee into a waste basket as he went. “I won’t stand in your way. That’s the best I can do.”

Rick opened the paper and read what was written there. His guts turned to jelly when he saw it.

“Shit,” he said, and ran back into the office to get Daryl.

“What’s wrong?” Beth asked, when Rick came toward them. She could see it on his face, something big was happening.

“You’re gonna have to get up, Daryl. We got trouble and I can’t do this without you.”

*****

Michonne tasted blood. She let it flow into her mouth before spitting it in the direction of the man who questioned her. He called himself the Governor. She’d heard that name before. Andrea had spoken of him often. From what she was seeing of him now, Andrea had severely underestimated what kind of man he was.

“That’s just rude,” the Governor said, eyeing her from head to toe.

She was a strong woman. He knew she could take a lot of what he dished out, and he planned to dish out a lot. He usually had to wait until he broke up with a woman to have ‘fun’ with her. Now he didn’t have to go through the bullshit of pretending to love one of the whores he bedded in order to get to this point, to the end of it all.

“Your name?”

“My name is Fuck You,” she said.

The Governor laughed and leaned in close, putting one hand on either side of the wall that Michonne was chained to.

“I saw them bring in another woman. Didn’t see her face, but I saw her back. She looks familiar to me. Really familiar. In fact, I’d swear I knew her if I hadn’t been told she was dead. Do you know the woman I speak of?”

“Go to hell,” she answered.

The Governor stood back. “I undoubtedly will, but not tonight. No…tonight I intend to go to heaven.”

He unbuckled his belt with easy deliberation, staring her in the eye. She knew what was coming, and she was powerless to stop it. It was her powerlessness that thrilled him, that made his blood pump in his veins, made him feel like a god in the flesh.

He was just about to unzip his trousers when the door flew open, and Rick Grimes stepped in. The Governor heard the click of a gun and froze.

“Zip it up, 'cause that shit just ain’t gonna happen, Governor,” Rick said.  



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