Ch. 29
Eve paced around the front gate, kicking dust and keeping an eager eye on the road. After she'd finished changing Eugene's bandage she'd found herself buzzing with fear and energy. Unable to fathom doing anything else, she grabbed her bow and handgun and took up residence at the gate. She was joined there by Manuella who carried Diego in a homemade sling. The new mother tried to offer words of comfort and reassurance, but they rang empty on Eve's ears.
They should have been back by now. They'd gone right after Daryl. They should have caught up to him quickly and dragged him back. But it had been hours and still nothing. Eve gnawed on her bottom lip. Something was wrong. She could feel it.
Manuella finally gave up and went back to the house leaving Eve to her worries alone. A little while later Rick joined her.
"Is Michonne back yet?" he asked her.
Eve just shook her head and kept her eyes on the road but she didn't miss the worry line that formed between Rick's eyebrows. He kept silent vigil next to her while the sun crept over the sky.
"Eve!" Enid's voice pierced her worried thoughts. "Rick!"
Turning. Eve saw the young woman running toward them. "It's Maggie," she panted. "Something is wrong."
Eve temporarily forgot her worries and sprinted after the hysterical girl with Rick at her heels. Eve found Maggie curled up on her kitchen floor, sweat soaked and groaning in pain.
Eve quickly got to work assessing the situation, asking Maggie a series of questions trying to figure out what the problem was. She ordered Rick and Abraham into action, telling them to move the woman swiftly and gently to the infirmary where Eve charged up the sonogram machine. The baby's heartbeat was strong, but it was slowing. Moving the wand over Maggie's abdomen revealed a pattern of bruises on her hips and ribs.
"Jesus," Eve said under her breath. The woman had sustained worse injuries from her capture than Eve had originally thought.
"What's wrong with her?" Enid asked fearfully from the other side of the room. But Eve couldn't answer. She didn't know. Her inadequacy as a doctor was never more apparent. Despite her ability to clean and stitch up wounds, assessing and diagnosing was over her head. She has a few guesses, but had no idea how to treat her. For the second time since moving to Alexandria Eve found herself longing for a dead doctor's advice.
There was no where else to turn. She looked up and Rick and Abraham, her face saying it all.
Rick nodded. "We'll take her up to Hilltop. To Harlan."
…
Eve sat next to Maggie as the RV bumped and rattled along. Maggie's forehead was soaked in sweat as a fever raged through her. Eve kept a stethoscope firmly pressed against Maggie's abdomen, doing her best to monitor the baby and mother alike.
She was trying to keep the woman calm while trying to calm herself. The group around her were wound tight with anxiety. Abraham drove tensely, with Sasha at his side, her rifle ready. Eugene and Aaron were armed and kept watch out the side windows, on the lookout for more of Negan's men. They'd already been blocked three times by groups larger than Eve could have imagined. Just how many people Negan had in his army was becoming more and more unclear. But it was a lot.
Rick stayed close to Carl. What had started out as an easy and quick trip to the Hilltop had turned into a game of cat and mouse. And unfortunately, they were the mice.
The RV screeched to another stop. Eve looked up. The road in front of her was blocked by a chain of walkers. Eve stayed aboard with Maggie while the rest exited and the walkers down, making way for the RV. When they got back on the RV Rick looked at Eve with haunted eyes. Without a word he handed her a familiar looking arrow.
Eve felt her stomach drop. "They have Daryl?"
Rick held up something else in his hand. He gulped. "And Michonne." Eve felt sick as she realized he held a strand of her dreadlocks. She looked at Rick. He had started out so confident, but from the sweat on his forehead and the fear in his eyes, Eve could tell that confidence was dwindling. It made her more afraid than she thought was possible.
The sun was setting and still they hadn't reached the Hilltop. Eugene consulted the map and voiced a plan to take Maggie the rest of the way on foot while he would drive the RV in the other direction. It was as good idea as any, so Eve didn't protest as they began fashioning a stretcher to carry Maggie.
She kept a cool hand to the woman's forehead. "We're almost there," she assured her.
"I can walk," Maggie said.
"Shhhh," Aaron cooed behind her. "We've got you."
Abraham, Rick and Aaron carried the stretcher while Sasha, Eve and Carl kept a lookout with weapons drawn. The forest whispered around them as they moved as quickly and as quietly as possible. Eve gripped her bow, an arrow knocked and ready to fly.
Suddenly an eerie whistling sounded through the trees. Eve raised her bow and looked around frantically. She felt her skin prickled as another whistle answered the first one. And then another. And another. They were here.
Eve blinked, momentarily blinded as a light flooded the woods. What she saw when her vision cleared made her knees weak. They'd been herded into a clearing filled with people. Men with various weapons stood in a circle. They were expecting them.
This was bad. Very Bad.
Eve looked round at her companions and fear was ugly and raw on everyone's face. This was it. They were all going to die.
A man stepped forward and commanded everyone to their knees. Eve watched as poor Maggie was pulled from the gurney and forced to the ground. She was clearly in pain and the fever was in full force. Eve wished she could go to her, but she was shoved to the ground between Sasha and Aaron. Her bow was viciously snatched from her hands. She looked up as Eugene was pushed forward to kneel beside them. The RV was parked in front, clearly hijacked.
A van opened to the right and amongst some struggled shuffling familiar faces. Daryl appeared, followed by Michonne, Rosita and Glenn.
When she saw Daryl Eve involuntarily tried to stand and was forced back to her knees roughly from behind. She couldn't take her eyes off his shirtless and bloodied state. His face was pale and drawn with pain. It was clear he'd been shot.
"Maggie?" Glenn's tortured voice wailed upon seeing the capture of his pregnant wife.
Eve gulped down her tears. This was it, she thought. Negan's men were going to kill them all. Execution style, down on their knees begging to live. After all that had happened, she couldn't believe it would end like this. She looked at Daryl and met his eyes. Behind the pain, he looked resigned. He knew this was the end too. He'd accepted it.
Eve's lip trembled in fear and she felt a tear slip out. As much as she wanted to face death bravely, she couldn't keep the fear at bay. Looking around at her companions, she knew she wasn't alone.
"Alright," the man in charge said. "It's time to meet the man." He walked up nd banged on the RV door.
The man who came out was the most terrifying person Eve had ever seen in her life. It wasn't that he was grotesque. On the contrary, his face was rugged and handsome. He was tall, with slick back dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a fitted leather jacket with some kind of ascot underneath, tight jeans and sturdy boots. Strength and terror reverberated from him like a physical thing and Eve felt herself cowering under his gaze. In his hand he carried a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.
When he began talking Eve did her best to listen, but her mind was whirling. She mostly kept her eyes on Daryl. She wanted him to be the last thing she saw in this world. There was so much ugly, so much evil. She didn't want to die looking into the face the monster now twirling a bat in front of her. She wanted to remember Daryl's hands and lips against her, the love and trust between them.
Despite her efforts she couldn't help but listen as the man talked. This was the notorious Negan. The leader of this evil group that they had tried so hard to get rid of. He stalked up and down the line of kneeling people, his bat swinging menacingly. Eve was sure he was about to give the word to his men to start slitting their throats when what he said caught her off guard. His plan wasn't to kill them after all.
His plan was to teach them a lesson.
Eve listened as he told the group that he would be killing just one of them and that the rest of them would be free to go, free to start working for him. Part of Eve was relieved. They wouldn't all be killed. This might not be her last living moment, kneeling on the rough ground in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe it would be…
"Eenie," the bat swung around like a pendulum, it's point inches from Maggie's face. "Meanie, Minie, Mo." Eve held her breath when the bat landed on her. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination or not, but she felt Negan's eyes boring into her as he held the bat to her head a beat longer than everyone else. "Catch a," he went on "tiger, by the, toe." The bat landed on Daryl and he stared up into Negan's face. "If he," Negan moved on, "hollers, make him, pay, fifty, dollars, every-" The bat pointed back at Eve, close enough for her to see specks of blood and brain stuck in the barbs.
"Day," Negan paused with the bat poised over Carl's head. "My mother," he said, moving on. "told, me, to, pick, the, very, best, one, and-" Eve felt terror rising in her chest as she realized the end was coming. She felt slight relief as he moved past her but quickly realized Daryl was right in the landing zone. Oh god, what would she do if it was him?
"You, are..." Negan stood in the middle of the line now, his bat outstretched hovering on Eugene. Turning, his face shown with gleeful delight as it settled on Glenn. "It."
Maggie tried to stand but Abraham held on to her tightly. She sobbed and pulled against him, even as Negan called out a warning not to interfere. Eve willed herself not to look as the bat landed heavily on Glenn's head, a sickening crack that echoed in the clearing. Again and again Negan beat the life out of her dear friend, out of dear sweet Glenn. Eve heard herself cry out but her voice was lost among the shouts and cries of the others. She could hear Sasha keening next to her.
When it was over Maggie lay curled into Abraham, her body wracking with hysteria. Rick looked dumbstruck. He seemed unable to look away from the place where Glenn's head used to be.
Daryl got the worst of it though. He'd been kneeling next to poor Glenn and was now covered in splatters of gore. He wiped at his face with the back of his hand trying desperately to clear his face of his friend's blood and brain.
"Alright, alright," Negan said, somehow soothingly. "The worst is over." The way he said it, it was almost fatherly. Eve felt sick. "Everyone take a deep breath," Negan said. He gripped his bat and shook his head sadly. "It had to happen. I hope you see that now. Don't-" he paused and pointed the bat at Rick, "make me do it again," he finished.
"Now," Negan swung the bat back up so it rested on his shoulder. "We're not done quite yet."
He stalked down the row and came to rest in front of Daryl. "You," Negan said, pointing the bat in Daryl's face once again. "You owe me something more. See my man Dwight here tells me he's met you before. That you helped him and two of my wives escape." Eve frowned. Wives, plural? What the hell?
"Now, Dwight's received his punishment for what he did." Eve followed Daryl's eyes and saw a man hovering close. He was a slim man with blond hair and carried Daryl's crossbow. Half his face was wrinkled and scarred. It was exactly like the burned man at the medical supply warehouse.
"Now it's time for you to pay up as well."
Eve's heart hammered in her chest. Daryl was looking paler and paler. There was no way he could withstand whatever kind of torture Negan had in store for him. Judging by Dwight's scarred face, she had a feeling she knew what was coming.
"Now I know what you're thinking, you were just trying to help a few people out. You had no idea that those two girls were mine. So, I get it. But," he paused and shook his head. "The fact of the matter is that I lost two wives because of you. Now, I think it's only fair that you replace at least one of them."
Daryl's face hardened. What was this guy saying?
Negan whirled around and Eve gasped as the tip of the bat hovered an inch from her nose. She felt bile rise in her throat when she realized strands of black hair clung to the barb wire. Glenn's hair.
"This your girl?" Negan asked Daryl lewdly. He whistled and squatted down in front of Eve. He raked his eyes over her face and body. "Damn," he said. "I can't wait to try her out." He glanced up and behind her, nodding at one of his men who stepped forward and grabbed Eve roughly from behind. The man dragged her to her feet and started pulling her away. Terror seized her. She looked wildly around, toward Rick, toward Michonne. Surely they would save her! Their faces were horror struck, but there was nothing they could do. Rick held her eyes for a moment, then looked away, as if he was ashamed. He'd failed her. He'd failed all of them.
The last thing Eve saw before she was shoved into the back of a van was Daryl's tormented eyes. He'd managed to crawl forward a few feet, and Negan was watching him, with a smile on his face.
