Chapter 50
Those that Can't Do

Once again, I found myself forced to endure Negan's company for another dinner. I hadn't had to put up with another one for quite some time thanks to Dr. Carson's suggestion that Negan allow me some space, but the air of it hadn't changed a whole lot. I was still furious to hear about Negan's trip into Alexandria earlier that day and it made me less inclined to cooperate. If he wasn't going to uphold his end of the bargain, there was no reason for me to uphold mine.

My reluctant behavior was for nothing!

I chewed the food in front of me woodenly, hardly tasting it. Once or twice, Negan tried to start a conversation, but I gave nothing to sustain it, opting to give him the silent treatment instead. I still hated him, he was still annoying as all get out and talking to him would just infuriate me more. His voice was actually starting to give me a headache, to add to the number of many other complaints I already had.

Just then, he said something that caught my attention.

"You know school started up about a week ago here. Tomorrow you'll be attending."

I jerked, sitting up and staring in horror about the idea. "Say what?"

He snorted with my exclamation. "So now you have something to say?"

"Hell yes. I am not going to school here." I declared immediately.

"Yes, you will." He fired back.

"Why? So, you can brainwash me with the other poor underage suckers in this joint?"

"You went to school back in Alexandria and you'll keep going here."

"And I hated it there as well and those were all kids from my town. I'm not going to sit in with a bunch of tiny sociopaths all day! You can forget it."

"You're not going to be sitting around doing nothing every day. And I can't keep an eye on you all the time."

"No, that's what the stupid guard is there for, isn't she?"

"Your stupid guard has a name, if you bothered to remember."

"Well I didn't, because I don't care!" I fired back.

"Well you had better start caring about something around here. And you'll be upholding the same expectations all the kids here do and that includes going to school."

I dropped my fork and folded my arms across my chest stubbornly. "I won't go."

"Yes, you will."

"No, I won't."

"You will go if I have to drag you the whole way there. So, don't fucking test me, Judith. You've behaved rather well these few weeks; don't fuck it up now because I can guarantee, you do not was to ride this train with me. One way or another I always get what I want. Do you really want me to burn that message into Daryl's hide over something this ridiculous?"

I went quiet, turning my glare on my plate while I stewed in fury over this stupid turn of events.

"Class starts at nine, and you better be fucking on time."


I stood before this group of sad looking bodies in contempt and vengeance. Negan thought he could make me sit in with these dolts and learn he had another thing coming.

"Alright," The teacher announced, an old lady with graying hair and glasses. "We have a new student with us today. Would you like to stand and give your name please?"

Oh, I was going to do much more than give my name, that was for sure.

"Oh me? Why I'm just a prisoner here. I live in Alexandria but I was kidnapped and dragged here with all you lunatics because your infamous leader is a psychopath and all your soldiers are mooching good-for-nothings that leech off of better skilled and talented people. And I know for a fact that if people don't do exactly what they want, then they kill whoever stands in their way. You hear that? All of you are spineless murderers and cowards that need to disarm people and put them on their knees before you butcher them. I'm here now because I'm being forced to be here. None of you will ever be my friends no matter who you people torture to make me cooperate. You're my enemies and someday I will grind all of you beneath my boot.

"P.S. I am a witch. The dead are the ones afraid of me and if you piss me off I will set them upon you."

The teacher looked unfazed by this announcement but there were several of the kids that definitely looked much more apprehensive of me now.

"I'm quivering in my shoes." The woman announced, completely unamused. "Get back in your seat, now."

The day went by as she attempted to assign work to me. I zoned out during her lectures and occupied myself with a crossword puzzle I had found in my room. When we were told to get into groups for a project or reading or something, I hissed inhumanely at one of the kids who approached me and refused to move from my spot. He backed away and didn't attempt it again.

When asked a question or called on in class, I would sneer and say something along the lines of, "I don't care," instead of, "I don't know," to illustrate just how little any of it mattered.

By the end of the day I was no one's friend just as I promised.


"What's this I hear about you threatening your peers and teacher?"

This time Negan didn't wait for dinner to reprimand me but met me in my room the moment the teacher reported on my behavior that day and there we argued back and forth about it.

"I only told them the truth." I defended.

Negan only went on. "Not just that but your behavior today sounded pretty inexcusable."

"Well what do you want me to do? You just said I had to show up and that it was mostly to keep an eye on me anyways."

"You agreed to behave and part of that involves treating this seriously."

"It is serious—seriously pointless!"

"I am not having this fucking argument with you, Judy. Tomorrow you are going back to school and your behavior have better fucking improved. If it hasn't and the teacher has one single complaint about you then I'm going to drag Daryl up here and make sure—"

"You are not holding up your end of the bargain!" I announced, sharply cutting him off before he could get started again. "So, there is no reason for me to hold up mine!"

"I told you—,"

"It's the closest thing to a cure anyone has ever seen!" I nearly yelled, cutting him off again. "Don't you dare try to trick me with that bullshit! When the day comes where you're bitten by one of those deadbeats that would have either killed you or shaved off a decent chunk of your body weight, you're going to thank god above for the treatment I've kindly provided! So, don't you dare say it's not an active cure! I won't be deceived that way!"

He seemed to understand the purpose of my misbehavior, just then, and hastened to find a response. "I'm not arguing the importance of it." He growled.

"Sure; you're just not planning to pay for it! You just want to keep leeching off of others and be greedy and selfish like what you've always done."

The smack across my cheek was expected, and in the back of my mind I knew I was probably provoking him quite a lot, but I didn't care.

"Are you this fucking stupid?!" He shouted at me. "Are you seriously this dumb?!"

"IF I WAS DUMB I'D JUST LET YOU KEEP ON STEALING FROM MY HOME WITHOUT DOING A SINGLE THING ABOUT IT! BUT I'M NOT, SO I REFUSE TO BE PUSHED AROUND AND LITERALLY DRAINED OF MY LIFEFORCE WHILE GETTING NOTHING IN RETURN FOR IT!" I shrieked it loud enough to make him retract in surprise for my outburst. It also served to stun him to silence long enough for me to keep going. "And you said you weren't a liar but you are! You lied about this—you lie about everything! So, I'm not going to behave or cooperate or anything until Alexandria is paid honestly!"

Sometime during my rant my eyes had started to burn and hot, furious tears gathered under my eyes. It was humiliating to let him see me cry but I couldn't control it—just like everything else! I couldn't remember being so mad about something in my whole life, not enough to leak tears of rage right in front of my mortal enemy.

I didn't think I could watch his smug smile return when he saw the tears on me, so I refused to meet his eye, fixing my gaze in the corner while the water did nothing but slide down my face. I waited for his next snide comment and prepared for the damage it would make towards my pride, but it looked like I didn't have a whole lot of pride left to work with in my current meltdown, so it didn't matter a whole lot either way.

In the corner of my eye I saw Negan approach and grab me by my shoulder steering me roughly to the chair by the desk and seating me in it. I put up no fight, my energy spent after the long day and the humiliation for my loss of control. waiting while he took a seat across from me on the bed. The fury and wrath he had held with him when he first entered seemed to melt away, leaving behind a shell that was just as tired as I was of all of this.

He pinched the bridge of his nose as if holding back a migraine. "Fucking threats, bribes, and beatings and not a single fucking improvement." He sighed. It looked like he was emotionally exhausted by all of this as well. "This is pointless."

It surprised me to hear that he just wanted to give up, like this was too grueling to try and wrap his head around why I might have been acting this way.

"We had a deal and you don't want to uphold your end." I said, in a calmer tone and maintaining a watery glare without looking at him. "You took from Alexandria when you said you wouldn't."

"That was just to get your things. Weren't you the one complaining that you didn't have a toothbrush or underwear?"

"You implied it wouldn't be the last time." I said. "So, I'm angry because everything I've had to go through was for nothing. Wouldn't you be?"

"Alright, fine." He said, rolling his eyes as if the situation was annoying him. "That was my mistake. I shouldn't have phrased it like that."

"No, it's good you did. Your first words are always the sincerest. Least I have a better understanding of your true intentions."

"It was a slip of phrase."

"I don't believe you."

"No, you just don't want to believe me."

"Pick one." I said with venom.

He didn't answer right away but leaned back on his hands in thought as he tried to sum me up with some stern calculating expression. All humor was entirely gone. There was no arrogance or bullying that I could find in his next words.

"I know you'll find this hard to believe, but I really am trying to understand you. Would you like to know something about me? Something about what I was like before all this shit went south?"

"No."

It hadn't been what he'd been expecting. He was expecting me to jump at the thought of know inga bit more about my foe, but I didn't. There was so little about his previous life that anyone knew about, after all; So, little he'd let anyone know about. Back home, there's this game that people played with walkers and with people. They'd point to one and imagine the sort of life a person may have led before the dead started walking. Some of the kids tried to play it once by using Saviors and had attempted it with Negan a few times. I'd listen in on the sort of predictions they made about him and had to scoff at the ideas.

"I'll bet he was a prison warden. That would explain why he's so intimidating and he can freak people out so easily."

"No way. Pro baseball player, or at least training for one. His dad was a convicted serial killer, so it's like in his DNA. He was just waiting for something to make him snap and go full psycho."

"I think he was the president of a biker club, that's why he wears that jacket and nothing bothers him."

I wanted to vomit by the stupid things they came up with. "Oh, please. He wasn't anything that warranted any fear or respect along those lines. I'll bet he was nothing more exciting than a Walmart associate—maybe a manager at the most. He unloaded the trucks at night. Negan wasn't even his real name back then. I'll bet it's something lame like Craig or Gary. The closest he ever got to world domination was playing Risk with his elderly mother and great aunt on Tuesdays in their nursing home."

That was what it often came down to when I entertained any sort of curiosity for his former life. He wasn't special, he was merely presented with a set of circumstances that allowed him to advance as far as he managed to. He triumphed because he was the biggest and the meanest in a big and mean world—not because he was skilled or prepped for it.

Besides which, the reason I didn't want to really know anything about him was because I already knew everything I wanted to about him:

He was a horrible person, he was my enemy, and that was enough for me. They say "know your enemy" but if I did that, I may have discovered something I did not want to know. Possibly something that might alter my very strict impression of him and make him seem less like the monster I knew him to be. In complete honesty, I needed him to be that monster.

If he wasn't, how was I supposed to crush him when the time came?

After my prompt refusal of his question, without so much as needing to think about it, his brow went high up and he looked again as if I had slapped him in the face. It dropped down once more into a withering glower and he looked perturbed and angry.

"I asked if you—,"

"And I said no." I cut him off again. "No, I don't want to know anything about you. I already know all I want to know about you."

He glowered but decided to tell me anyways despite my insistence for ignorance. "I was a high school gym teacher. I dealt with angry kids all the fucking time. I dealt with weaklings and bullies and little sissy girlies. The ones who were picked on or dominated the school or did their best to stay the fuck out of everyone's way. I've seen the depressed emos who dyed their hair black and slit their wrists to feel something, the goths that roleplayed as witches and vampires, the helpful little volunteers who ran around signing up for every club in the world, I've seen the ones that stuff tiny nerds into lockers and the champions who came to save the day. I've seen it all with kids… until I met you. And I really don't get you, but I would like us to make progress." He spoke through gritted teeth trying to maintain a calm composure.

From the sight of the bulging vein in his neck, staying patient was obviously becoming very, very difficult for him as he continued. "And the only way to do that is to cooperate."

I wanted to roll my eyes with the revelation. Of course, his subject would be gym.

Those that can't do—teach, and those that can't teach—teach gym.

I wasn't fazed by the pathetic speech, nor did I really believe he was ever a teacher of anything; gym or not (the most useless subject there ever was). He had been a coach, not a counselor; he didn't know anything about kids in the least. His only job was to keep them from getting fat and his idea of doing that was probably to starve them the same way he had done us.

Yet even with that in mind, I sensed there was just the fractional bit of earnestness in his words. It wouldn't do for him to be more negotiable than me in any situation, so I attempted a similar respectful tone.

"Look…" I told him, slowly beginning to calm down while I tried to be honest. "I don't know what you want from me, alright. You bring me here and you give me all of these rules and you say you're going to do this and that to me and everything else. I don't know how you expected me to react. Did you really think I was just going to sit quietly and just take it all with no complaints? Is that what you really thought would happen after… after all this time? Just… what do you want from me?" I demanded, snapping my gaze towards him. "Tell me what you want because I really don't know."

"All I want you to do is behave and maybe stop treating this like it's some kind of death sentence."

"Then why does it sure feel like one? I'm stuck here and every second is a reminder than if I don't do everything you want then you're going to hurt me or hurt my people. As far as I know this is a death sentence. I'm not allowed to be angry or be myself and that—it's suffocating is what it is!"

He looked at me then with a strange sort of calmness. "Alright. What do you want then?"

I was a little stunned by that question because it was the first time he'd ever asked what I wanted or possibly even what someone else wanted in general. "I want to go home. I don't want to live here with you and I don't want to see you or any of your people ever again. That's what I want."

He looked angry but not surprised by my request. "Well, unfortunately for you, that's not about to happen."

"Well, then why bother asking?"

"Because I thought I'd be able to work out some sort of compromise, instead."

"What kind of compromise?" I demanded. "Is it just that you want me to behave or what? Because I'm really having a hard time with that, especially when I know that I'm being screwed over, or that I know you're killing my people and trying to hide it."

His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, reminded of the time I had exploded at Eugene when he first arrived here and raved angrily about Olivia's death. "Who told you about whatshername? How did you know about that?"

"Does it even matter?!" I snapped. "If someone told me, what the hell were you planning on doing? Yank their tong out so they can't do it again?"

"If someone upsets you it's my business."

"You're the only one that upsets me!" I fired. "I'll always know when someone dies. Always!"

His thoughtful pause lasted only a second, but it was enough time for me to think that maybe I had revealed too much about my other talents. "I'm sorry about your friend. It was unfortunate but necessary to put them back in line."

"Put them back in line," I repeated distastefully. "It's always about putting them back in line. Saviors shouldn't need to force people to do anything. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a savior bear the cross for the ones he saves? Or maybe I'm just talking out my ass about it. After all, I'm only a heathen pagan witch, so what on earth would I know about it?"

"Nothing!" Negan snapped furiously in answer. "You don't know shit about it. Sometimes people don't realize they need to be saved, but it is a bitter pill they will swallow, or they will die."

"—Because of you!" I finished with venom. "You don't seem to understand something; We never needed you! Not ever! And we still don't, but it seems pretty clear to me that you definitely need us! You take our stuff and don't do anything to deserve it. Admit it; you're just parasites! And now it's literal" To add force to the statement I extended my arm, bearing the scars around the veins where the needles had impaled me to draw out the blood.

Negan was galled to be reminded of that and his next statement came out as a growl. "Well these parasites do plenty to protect your people every day, but it sure seems to go unnoticed quite a lot. If you want evidence maybe I'll let a few of the hordes we've diverted find their way to Alexandria's gates. Then we can watch how many of your people are left after they run around trying to lure them away themselves."

"Then do it!" I challenged, without thinking. I couldn't stop the rebellious spiel that burst from my mouth. "We faced hordes before. A lot in fact. We know how they work. We know how to drive them off! You think you're special because you do what everyone from my town already learned to do BEFORE you were even a concept to us! You're not! You just do it easier because you took OUR weapons and OUR supplies! YOU left US vulnerable so you could feel like you're not completely unnecessary in this world!"

The backhand was almost expected. It connected hard against my face and the force threw me back against the chair, stunning me. My vision blurred so much that I hadn't realized Negan had risen from his seat on the bed till he walked to the door. My eyes focused on him as he made his way angrily to the other side.

"If you don't want to go to school—FINE!" He snarled, putting his hand on the door. He looked furious but still in control somehow, even while he shook with obvious rage. "Except for using the bathroom, you can stay in here until I say you can come out, and unfortunately for you, I don't think I'll want to see you again for the rest of the month!"

With one last withering glare over his shoulder he slammed the door so hard one of the knickknacks from the shelves fell from its place and clattered on the floor, leaving behind a frightful hush in his wake.

I was left alone to stare at the closed entrance.

Slowly, the replay of our conversation began to sink in and a horrible feeling erupted in my mind.

What on earth did I just do?

"Crap!" I hissed gripping my scalp in terror with both hands. Why did I have to say that? What if he actually does send a herd back home? I moaned helplessly in my chair, bringing my knees up as I rocked in mortification. "What is wrong with me?!"


Author's notes: Well… Judith tried. You can't say she didn't try. But after hearing about what Negan did, her patience and tolerance has finally snapped entirely. She put up with their weird experiments and abuse and insults because she's decided to love her people more than hate them, but now that she knows they're getting nothing for all of the sacrifices she's made, she's had enough. Of course, her assertiveness doesn't come without consequences. You can't stand up for yourself and expect to get off lightly. Negan can't hurt her the same way he does everyone, but he can deprive her of the things that matter most to her; family and the outdoors mostly. The next chapter is going to be interesting to see how she'll cope with such a punishment.

Thank you to SkippingThrough for the comment and in response to your questions:

"Where do you learn all that stuff for Judith's magical practices? You seem very knowledgeable about it and I'm wondering how much research you have to do. Unless you practice it yourself?"

Thank you very much.

I don't practice wiccan or pagan rituals myself, but I've done quite a bit of research on it by reading from books, searching on websites, and watching numerous movies, shows, and documentaries. I want to be as accurate as I possibly can with my stories, so studying is a big part of my writing process. What's nice about real witches is that they can actually develop their own spells over time, and what I've come to figure is that it's mostly a self-study process. So long as you have a general idea of channeling energies, symbolism, botany, and geology then most of it is self-explanatory. Of course, there are books you can find like Silver RavenWolf or Cassandra Eason.

Not all spells work the same way for various people so you may need to develop the methods that work best for the individual. This is where a Book of Shadows comes in handy. Ultimately, it's a witch's personal journal or a recipe book and you can do whatever you want with it. Fill it with spells, pressed plants, poetry, recipes, reminders of the day, artwork, photos, stories, and just basically whatever you can think of.