"Well well well, what have we here?" The man with the barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat surveyed the group, savoring their realization that this was the end of the fucking road. Metaphorically and quite fucking literally: the road they'd been on wasn't a road at all, but a carefully laid track that led them precisely to where he wanted. "These the fuckers that have been causin' me so much trouble?"

Dwight leaned in, telling him where they'd found everyone - the woods, the RV, outside some library - and then stood back again smirking at one of the prisoners while fondling the crossbow cradled in his hands.

"Oh, baby...we pissing our pants yet? Oh, boy..." Negan, the man with the fucking bat, continued to talk while pacing back and forth before the group who were prostrate on their knees before him. Their fear was palpable. Fucking delicious. Their anger was barely restrained. Fucking delightful.

Negan was not a stupid man. Far from it, he was a very, very smart man. He was rambling on with whatever came to mind at that moment, but he was watching them. Each and every fucking one of them. And he was pretty sure which one of these fucking pricks would cause trouble when the time came to mete out punishment.

The beefy ginger fuck was certainly a threat, he was like a fucking bull scraping one hoof against the ground just waiting for the gate to open. The cunt with the dreads was as cold and calculating as they come, and they'd confiscated a fucking katana from her. Their leader, Rick, was probably a threat at any other time, but he was shaking in his shoes right now for gettin' them in this pickle - especially his boy - and that made him as limp as a baby's dick. His boy though, he was a different story: even one-eyed, that little fuck wasn't one to turn your back on. Future serial killer, he called him, and the little prick didn't even twitch. The other fucker, the one that Dwight shot, might have been a threat any other day, he carried himself like a fighter even halfway dead from blood loss, but then again, Negan caught the looks that he shot at the little gray haired lady off to the side, and wondered what if he was a fucking mama's boy. Little old lady all hunched over had to be his mama...then he realized she was hunched over because of some kind of wound in her side, and though her hair was gray he finally saw her face and it was practically unlined and surprisingly pretty. And she looked fucking terrified.

Then again...

She looked fucking terrified. But then he caught sight of her when she returned one of the man's glances and he was starting to suspect that terror might not be altogether fucking genuine. Worry, sure, and fear for the others, but the kind of mind-numbing terror of the helpless and vulnerable that she was projecting to the world right now? He was beginning to think that was a smokescreen.

He kept talking, assessing them, calculating exactly what he needed to do to break them. His normal tactics weren't going to be enough. This was a group that knew loss already, they knew how to survive it. This was a group, much like his own, that came out stronger from the tempering flames of death and destruction. They would mourn their friends and use the pain to come back tenfold at him. This wasn't the time for his normal tactics. And so he watched.

Finally the Asian fucker broke, lunging for his woman - who looked on her last legs if truth be told - in a misguided attempt to protect her. Sure as shit, three faces swiveled to look over at the gray-haired woman, looking to her for guidance: Dwight's little pal, the black guy that had the stick, and, most unexpectedly!, Rick himself. Well if that wasn't the most interesting fucking tidbit he'd come across in a long fucking time. Which got him thinking...

A lot of gears that had been spinning loose in his head suddenly clicked into place.

While he considered this new revelation, this inconceivable little seed of an idea that was now blooming into just about the best fucking thing he'd ever known, he introduced them to Lucille with the deference that she demanded. He knew they were taking it all in, dread settling over them like a blanket as they waited to find out what it all meant. Who they'd lose. He figured they thought they knew what he was all about, what he'd do next. Time to surprise them.

"I simply cannot fucking decide! So how about you fucks tell me which one of you is Carol?"

It was fucking priceless, truly it was. Her mouth dropped open - just a little!, barely a fraction giving her away - while panic suffused the features of the three men who'd looked to her. Dwight's little pal was bellowing about something or other, about a rocket launcher and an empty road - he hadn't been sure this group had anything to do with that fucking loss and he'd file that away for future reference - but the man would NOT shut up. He was cataloging all his sins against Negan's people in a fruitless fucking attempt to offer himself in her place, and that was a mighty long list. Rick was simply bargaining with Negan, offering his entire group to them in what could only be described as indentured fucking slavery to keep that woman from meeting Lucille, but not all of them seemed so keen on the idea: the younger black twat with the cold eyes seemed especially raw with Rick at that. The black fuck with the stick just hung his head, looking like the deed was already done and he was mourning her.

But not a one of them spoke up to identify her.

"Now, this is fucking interesting. This is me putting two and two together and coming out with well more than the four I would have expected. See, I hadn't connected all the fucking dots yet. We've been watching your little safe zone for a good long time. A loooong fucking time. You drew our attention and the show has been mighty fucking interesting. I've been getting reports back about all kinds of events taking place, and I just now figured out what all those things had in common.

"We saw the Wolves attack, those fucking savages - I must say I am grateful for your efforts to scour those fuckers from the earth - but I didn't hardly give credit to the report that most of them had been taken out by - and I'm fucking quoting now - some gray-haired housewife in a fucking cardigan. Seems she held her own when the dead crashed your gates as well... My man watching you has become quite a fan, Carol. Quite. A. Fucking. Fan.

"Then y'all decided to bring the fight to me. You slaughtered my people in their fucking sleep," he clenched his jaw as he smacked Lucille against his leg, agitated, but sucked in some cleansing breaths and continued, "But even worse was what happened at the fucking safe-house. My people were fucking BURNED ALIVE. And whose name had come in over the radio? Who did my Paula unknowingly bring into the fucking safe house - and we can all now appreciate the fucking irony of calling a fucking slaughter house by that name, can't we? - Paula brought in someone named Carol, someone that she thought was a weak link we could exploit. GODDAMN was she fucking wrong. I don't know who did what, but I'm starting to have a pretty fucking good idea.

"Because do you know what happened this morning? Just this fucking morning when my people were getting themselves in place for our little fucking surprise party? Do you know what came over the radio from the only survivor of one of my patrols? Quoting here again: some gray-haired bitch from Alexandria killed them all.

"So let's cut the shit. Carol?"

She nodded at him. He grinned, showing all his teeth. He advanced on her, stood before her, ignoring the explosion behind him as Dwight's pal lunged and Dwight knocked him flat. He tapped Lucille against his ankle, considering her. She didn't look up at him, she kept her gaze steady on whomever it was behind him screaming her name and begging him to leave her alone. He cleared his throat. She finally looked up at him and her eyes were the clearest, brightest blue he'd ever seen. They met his own, unwavering. She looked...calm, accepting. He held out his hand. She stared at it, confused, then looked back up at him and made a face like he was an imbecile, and he realized her hands were still zip-tied behind her back. He shouted for someone to release her, shaking his head and apologizing to her for the fucking inconvenience of it all.

Her hands were free and she was shaking the feeling back into them then touching her side, checking her wound. He waited, patiently, then held out his hand again. She took it. He helped her up, and she stood in front of him with her head high and her back as straight as a fucking pole despite the fresh blood spreading out across the fabric of her shirt. Not enough yet to be worried, he thought.

"What's going to happen to them?" Them, she said, not me. He was more fucking impressed by the minute.

"Nothing. They're going to be on their way, to Hilltop or back to Alexandria, or who the fuck knows," he said to her, quieter, the raised his voice and shouted a bit more loudly in the general direction of Rick. "We'll be expecting half of what you have, and half of what you produce. Non-negotiable. That's the cost of living in these parts, and after what you've done to my people, you should count yourself very fucking lucky to just be paying in goods and services."

"And me?"

He didn't answer, not right away. He still had her hand from when he helped her up, hadn't released it yet, and he felt himself still grinning. He led her forward to stand with him at the front of the group. She wasn't looking at any of her people, she was looking only at him, and he found himself enjoying having her undivided attention. "Here's how it's going to be: I'm not going to kill any of you fuckers today, I'm going to let the rest of your people return to wherever they want to go. We'll be collecting our first pickup from the gates of the safe zone in seven days. Hear that Rick? SEVEN FUCKING DAYS," he shouted over his shoulder before quieting again. "You? You'll be coming with me." He was not surprised at the explosion of shouts, these people did not learn their fucking lessons. He motioned to Dwight, who knocked his little buddy down again - Negan saw Carol flinch at that - and another one of his men gave Rick a shotgun stock to the jaw. "You're going to be my insurance policy for their good behavior."

She nodded, once, and asked, "May I say my goodbyes?" So calm and classy, a fucking lady.

He agreed. She went first to Rick, who was dazed from the blow to his jaw, and put her hand on his shoulder. She leaned in, saying something low in his ear, and Rick glanced over at Dwight's pal. Rick nodded at her, and looked as if he might cry. Negan hoped he wouldn't. Men's tears kind of grossed him out. Just wasn't...manly, and he saw way too much of them as it was. Rick didn't cry though, and he got points in the plus column for not being a fucking child about it.

Carol then hugged Rick's boy to her, stroking his hair and then settling his hat back in place. The boy didn't cry or carry on either, he just gave Negan a look promising him hell on earth. She made her way down the rest of the line, patting shoulders or touching cheeks, asking them all to take care of themselves, and asking the ginger fuck not to let "Daryl" come after her. He figured out quick that Daryl was Dwight's buddy, and must be her man, because every single one of them glanced toward him as she moved to the next person. The man himself never looked up, he kept his eyes on the ground and sat as if carved from stone.

She saved Daryl for last. He still didn't look up at her, and she dropped to her knees in the dust and leaned forward, whispering frantically in his ear. He shook his head once, twice, and she grasped his face in her hands and forced him to look her in the eye. Daryl had tear tracks down his cheeks but he was calm, and Negan was astounded to realize he didn't think less of him for them. Daryl shook his head at her again, not saying a word. She tilted his head down and kissed him on the forehead, and Negan felt a small surge of...something at that. He was shocked to find that he actually felt a measure of fucking jealousy that his woman - and she was very much his fucking woman now - was this attached to this Daryl fellow. He briefly considered changing his mind about not killing any of them, but it was like she could read his fucking thoughts because she turned her head and met Negan's eyes and the warning in there was fucking implicit. If he wanted her to go with him quietly, and stay with him of her own accord, he better not touch a single fucking hair on Daryl's head. He gave a grudging nod, rolling his eyes, and she turned back to Daryl.

"Promise me. PROMISE ME," she was saying now, loud enough to be heard by more than Daryl. He shook his head again, then purposely looked away from her. She finally gave up her hold on his face, but let one hand linger on his cheek then ran it down to rest on his shoulder. "Please don't shut me out, not now," she said desperately. Daryl looked at her with such raw need that Negan twitched, Lucille a comforting weight in his hand. He didn't know what he felt just then, emotions weren't his strong suit, and this woman was causing him to feel all kinds of new fucking sensations in just the first ten minutes of making her acquaintance. "I have to know that you're alive or I can't do this. So you better fucking stay alive for me," she said fiercely. "You do whatever it takes to stay alive."

"You too." He rasped, his goddamn heart in his eyes for everyone to see. Negan didn't know if he thought that was the weakest shit he'd ever witnessed, or the strongest. It was...worrisome.

"Nine lives, remember?" She got back to her feet and joined Negan as her man howled his agony at the sky.