Negan's infuriating, smug whistle sounded outside Daryl's cell door. He blinked himself awake to the sound and dragged himself into a sitting position just in time to shield his eyes from the sudden light as the cell door creaked open.

"Good morning, sunshine!" Negan called with that crooked grin that was becoming all too familiar. "Time to show off my pet at the ranch."

Daryl had no idea what the hell the man was talking about, but he didn't ask either. Daryl never responded to Negan. If he thought it would shorten the man's torturous monologues, he might, but he had no hope of that.

Daryl was soon shackled with his hands behind his back and thrown into a van. The van bobbed up and down over potholes and probably over dead bodies too. There were no windows in the back, of course. The Saviors never wanted Daryl to know where they were going, but he tried to get some sense of direction from the sun seeping through the window and over the seats in the front of the van. He judged the speed and counted the distance. Alexandria, he had figured, was only about six miles east of the Sanctuary, but they seemed to be going much farther today.

Daryl had tried to communicate the Sanctuary's location to Rick the other day, but Negan had told Rick to stop looking at him, so he'd given up the useless blinking. Besides, it didn't seem like Rick had any fight left in him. He'd let Negan take all of the guns. All of them. They'd had five days before Negan arrived. Daryl didn't understand why Rick hadn't changed the inventory to reflect only half the guns and buried the rest in the graves.

Then again, maybe Rick was right to play the humble servant. Daryl's instinct to fight back had gotten Glenn killed. That man's blood was on his hands. The Saviors outnumbered the Hilltop and Alexandria combined, and they had large stashes of weapons, including RPGs. If Alexandria had tried to ambush them, they would not have won without great losses, if at all. And there were women and children to think about. There was little Judith for Rick to think about.

That was why Rick was the leader, Daryl supposed, and not him. Daryl didn't know how to bow, and his stubbornness and hot-headedness got people killed. They'd only been captured because he was out looking for revenge in the first place, and Glenn had only been killed because Daryl couldn't stand the sound of a woman crying. Daryl didn't think. He felt. And when he felt, he acted. Carol had told him, after the collapse of the prison, when they were searching for Beth, that he'd become a man. But maybe he hadn't. Maybe he was still a kid. Because a man swallowed his pride when he had to. A man bent his knee when it meant saving a future generation.

Or did he? Because if he did bend his knee, what was he saving them for but a life of servitude?

Daryl didn't know anymore. He couldn't tell wisdom from cowardice, anger from courage, endurance from stubbornness. Maybe every virtue was nothing but the flipside of some other vice. Maybe there was no right or wrong. Maybe there was just the difficult choice in the moment, which opened a pathway to another impossible choice. And then another. And another.

Daryl nodded off thinking about it. He hadn't wanted to. He wanted to stay awake to measure how far they were going, but he'd slept so little these past nights, with that damn song waking him up every few minutes. When the van thudded up and over something, he was jolted awake.

Negan grinned from the seat across from him. "You're not going to ask about the ranch?"

Daryl's lips tightened together.

"Beautiful community, but like yours, it was a little slow to bend at first. Led by a husband and wife couple. Unfortunately…." Negan bent his head back and forth "I had to take the woman by surprise when she and her teenage son and a few others were out scavenging for medicines." He made a tsking sound. "It was a shame that she made me beat that poor boy to death right before her eyes, but she's such a stubborn thing! A lot of spunk though, I'll give her that." He chuckled and pointed to Daryl. "Reminds me a bit of you in that regard, except she's a lot prettier." He put his hand back on the bench seat of the van. "So I'm going to have to recruit her, just like I'm recruiting you. I'm bringing you because I want to offer the obstinate lady a glimpse into her own future."

Daryl felt a queasiness in his stomach, and it had nothing to do with all the dog food he'd eaten. That food wasn't quite the torture Negan had imagined it to be. It wasn't as though Daryl had never eaten dog food before, when he was a kid, and felt near starving, and his mama hadn't shopped in two weeks, and there was nothing else in the cupboards. It didn't taste as bad as Negan probably thought it did. No, he felt nauseous at the thought of Negan doing to a woman what he'd done to him.

He also feared that Negan might do worse to her. Negan's brand of rape was psychological. He liked to pretend he wasn't raping the women he'd coerced into "marrying" him. He liked to pretend there was something vastly more moral about not using physical force to take them. But Daryl didn't think psychological pain was any better than physical pain. He'd rather have the blows than the music. He'd rather be slowly beaten to death than be responsible for Glenn's death.

Daryl drifted off to sleep again. He awoke when the van ground to a halt. A Savior seized his arm and dragged him out. Daryl stumbled to gain his footing, blinking against the sudden sunlight. Meanwhile, the Savior trained his gun on him and told him to stay still and shut up, as if Daryl ever talked.

Negan did his song and dance routine, running his baseball bat along the high iron bars of the gate to the ranch, whistling, and then saying, "Come out little piggy, come out!"

The words "Green Acres Ranch" were written in sweeping cursive black metal over the gate. "Isn't that cute?" Negan asked Daryl. "Like the old T.V. show."

"I actually think it's because the ranch uses green energy," one of the Saviors said, but he fell silent when Negan looked at him.

Daryl surveyed the iron fence. It was tall, at least as tall as two men, and seemed sturdy. Spikes lined the top of every vertical bar, and barbed wire had been wound from spike to spike. It wouldn't be a fun fence to scale. In the distance, between the bars, and beyond the acres and acres of farmland being grazed by horse, cattle, and goats, he saw the massive main house, three guest houses, and two barns. The inhabitants had also erected two rustic wooden watchtowers at the two front corners of the ranch. He was looking at the one on the right, some 1,000 yards away, when he thought he spied a flashing twinkle of light.

And then Negan's head snapped back.

Negan was grinning when it happened. He was still grinning when the blood began to drip down from his forehead and over his nose. He ran his fingertips over his face, as if he didn't know what had happened, and pulled his fingers away. His eyes fell on the dark red streaks that stained his flesh.

Negan's grin finally faded. The leader of the Saviors slumped to his knees and fell face down in the dirt.

The man holding a gun to Daryl's head fell next. The Saviors sent out an indiscriminate barrage of bullets in the direction of both watchtowers. Their rapid fire filled the air, completely drowning out the sound of the one-at-a-time, well-aimed, long-range shots from the two towers.

Frantic and terrified, the surviving Saviors took refuge behind the trucks, only to be shot from the forest behind them. One managed to get a truck started, but his tires were shot out. When he stupidly flung open the front door and began running down the dirt road, he was brought down.

Daryl, his hands still cuffed behind his back, turned in a slow circle to survey the scene as the dust literally settled, floating down in thin clouds to the earth all around him.

He stood solitary, still, and silent for what felt like five minutes, when he finally ventured to call, "Hello?"