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The morning came far too quickly for Crimson's liking. The sun was shining through her window, waking her at the break of dawn. It took hours of tossing and turning before she finally fell into a light sleep. Who really needs sleep anyway? She didn't. At least, she didn't need much to still function and fight at a hundred percent. Her radio had been silent most of the night.
Her morning routine was quicker than usual. She was showered, dressed, teeth and hair brushed, and was down in the cafeteria in less than 20 minutes. It was nearly empty at such an early hour. She finished her eggs and toast quickly and debated what to do. She could go to the clinic and waste time until her team was ready to head out again. Or, she could suck it up and go to Negan's office, hope he was up, and see if he knew more than was said over the main channel. She chewed on her bottom lip for a minute, then decided on the latter. She needed an update.
Joey, or Fay Joey since there were two of them, was posted by the elevator on Negan's floor. He gave her a nod when she walked out. She didn't like him much. Lately she could feel him leering at her backside when she walked away from him.
She knocked rather forcefully on Negan's office door. He grumbled a loud "what the fuck do you want?" before she entered.
"I came to see if you'd heard anything new," she said. "There wasn't much said over the main channel last night or this morning."
He looked up at her from his desk. He appeared to be as exhausted as she felt. His hair, usually slicked back so clean and neatly, was messy. He'd been running his hand through it absentmindedly all night. His beard hadn't been cleaned up. The dark circles under his brown eyes and the stress lines looked so unnatural on his handsome face. It was like seeing a glimpse of the real man underneath the mask of a monster he wore so well. A different side of the man she'd started to see while he cared for her after she'd been shot.
"Wade said they were closing in, should be on them in no time."
"That's good." Seeing him like that was hard. It put a tightness in her chest that few people could. She suddenly realized that she missed his company, the comfort his presence gave her. She missed his crude humor, witty remarks, and intelligent conversations she couldn't have with anyone else. She missed the way he smiled at her. She missed… him, all of him.
"Look, Negan," she started, "I just want to say," but she was cut off abruptly by the radio.
"We got an emergency!" it took her a moment to recognize the voice. Wade. It was echoing between the radio on her hip and the one on the desk so she turned hers down. "Cam got bit, I got his arm off but he's bleedin' real bad and we can't get it to stop."
Negan picked the radio up. "Get him straight to the clinic, Crimson will be there waiting. How far out are you?"
"Less than an hour if we floor it and make a straight shot."
Negan threw the radio so hard it bounced off the desk and skidded across the floor. He rubbed his furrowed brow.
"It'll be fine," she said softly. She walked over his desk, closing her hands around his to pull them away from his face. "I'll take care of Cam. Everything will be fine. Bud and his crew are still out there, he'll find them." She stroked his face with one hand. He relaxed into her touch and closed his tired eyes with a deep sigh. His hands wrapped gently around her wrists. "Once we've got them, you and Lucille can have your fun and this will be over. Next week we'll be laughing about it."
"I can't believe what a fuck up this shit is turning into. What the fuck was Dwight thinking? Get down to the clinic so you can work your magic. I'll find out where Bud's guys are. Dwight and the girls will be dealt with today. Even if that means burning the fucking forest down around them."
"Negan, you can't," 'burn down an entire forest to get three people' is what she was going to say, but he braced her jaw in his hand, pulling her for a kiss. It was soft, over so quickly she wasn't sure it happened.
"I can do whatever the fuck I want to baby doll. Now go, I'll come down and see what the fuck happened when they get here."
She nodded, stroking his cheek one last time with her thumb before she pushed off of his desk.
It was a quick walk to the clinic. Nancy was already waiting for her. She washed up, set out everything she would need, washed up again, snapped on a pair of gloves and sat down to wait.
She felt terrible. Negan looked almost… vulnerable. And she knew their fight wasn't helping anything. She was stubborn and so was he, but she would talk to him tonight after things settled down. She wouldn't apologize for the fight, he was as much to blame as she was. Maybe more so since he just didn't understand that he has to keep his hands, and delicious lips, and everything else to himself until all his wives were dismissed.
The wait wasn't long, Negan waltzed through the door a few minutes later. He'd showered and cleaned up before he came down. She could smell the woodsy scent of his soap from his still damp skin. His hair was shiny and slicked back, every strand in its usual orderly place and his salt and pepper beard had been trimmed up. Negan was back in full force, cocky smile included. Nancy knelt down before he told her to wait in the hall and close the 'fucking' door behind her.
"They'll be here any minute," he said. "Wanted to let you know Wade had the three assholes before they ran and Cam got bit. The other guys will have 'em in no time."
"Good. Go do what you need to do, I'll take care of everything here."
He grinned at her, that arrogant, charming grin, the one that said all of the things he was thinking about doing to her that made her a little weak in the knees. "Go? Fuck no, I love watching you work. You got no problem getting dirty. And you get the cutest fucking intense look when you're really concentrating and you start biting on your lip. I bet you'll do the same thing when I make you come."
Crimson felt her cheeks heat up, just a little, before she laughed. It wasn't easy to embarrass her, but the more she wanted him, the more his words affected her.
"You shut that filthy mouth, I need to stay focused," she told him, shaking her head with a smile.
"You could always come over here and shut it for me."
She held up her gloved hands, "I'm already scrubbed in for surgery."
"Later then?" It was so hard to resist him when he smiled at her like that, leaning against the counter with Lucille slung across his leather clad shoulders, the thumb of his free hand hooked in the pocket of his well fitted jeans. That jacket looked so good on him.
"Mm, no, not as long as Valerie is still around. I have a reputation to uphold."
"She ain't gonna be around much longer baby doll."
"Good. And as soon as she isn't, I'll put that filthy mouth of yours to good use."
He didn't have time for a retort. The door opened and a full crew of sweaty, dirt covered men came through the door. Nancy followed them in. Wade had what was now Cam's only arm slung around his shoulder.
"Everyone out!" Crimson called out after Wade helped Cam onto the exam table. He was pale but alert, there was a tourniquet on his upper arm, the only part of his left arm that remained. It had been severed right at the elbow. It was crude, took a few hits with an ax or a machete, but was it was clean enough. No sharp bone fragments that she could see.
Negan slapped the poor man on the shoulder.
"Cam, Cam, Cam, what the fuck did you go and get yourself bit for? I thought you were smarter than that."
"Suh, suh, sorry, Negan, sir," Cam half stuttered and half slurred out.
"Ah, don't be sorry! Shit happens, I get it. Just be more careful next time." He leaned over a little, just enough to look Cam straight in the eye, invading his personal space the way Negan loved to do. It made people so nervous. "I don't really have any use for a guy missing both his fucking arms." He laughed to himself, like he usually did when he thought of something funny. "But it would be funny as shit watching you run around waving two gross ass nubs everywhere." The other guys laughed too. He turned back to them. "You heard the lady, get the fuck out. Go do something useful, I don't keep you around so I can watch you play with your dicks."
Wade and the rest of the men filed out as quickly as they filed in. Only they left a trail of muddy boot prints all over her pristine floor. So much for a sanitary room. Not that it mattered too much. Cam's arm was hacked off in the middle of a forest with a dirty weapon, nothing sanitary about that.
Negan stood watch while she worked. Nancy helped her get Cam out of his long sleeved flannel shirt and laid him back on the table. She gave him a shot of morphine that hit him quick. His eyes were open but they weren't processing anything that was happening to, or around him. She quickly numbed the area and went to work debriding the wound. The dirt was minimal, but some of the damaged muscle needed to be cut away. She was carefully removing the dead tissue.
"Man, that is fucking dis-gust-ing Doc, but I just can't look away," Negan said. His black leather clad finger pointed at the wound with a circling motion. "It's all pink and red and you can even see the bone! Can I touch it?" The look she gave him said that he most certainly could not. "Come on," he clapped his hands together. "I'll even wash my hands and put on a rubber glove."
"No," she told him. "If you keep distracting me, I will kick you out of this room. And the gloves are latex, not rubber."
"Fine, I'll be quiet. I'll go sit down like a good little boy. Will I get a reward later? I can think of a few things I'd like from you." He wagged his eyebrows like she didn't get what he was suggesting.
She glared at him one last time, then went back to work. She washed the wound out with iodine after debriding, pinched off the major blood vessels, shaped and stretched the skin, and stitched it closed. Cam was an excellent patient, quiet and still. The shot of morphine may have had something to do with it. He was lucky, Wade got him home in enough time that the tourniquet did damage what was left of his arm. The hour she worked went by quickly. She was just tying off the final stitch when Bud's voice came over the radio.
"We got a truck coming down the road. We're gonna say hello and introduce ourselves."
"Let me know who your new friends are after you say hi," Negan answered.
She washed the closed wound and wrapped it.
"Nancy," she called for the nurse. "We'll start him with penicillin since we have so much of it. Watch it close, any signs of infection and I'll switch him to something else. If you notice any puss, take a sample and start a culture." She pulled off her gloves and tossed them in the trash. "And clean up please. I'll check back in this evening. I gave him a pretty big dose of morphine, let him pass out and don't give him anymore until I get back."
Negan was waiting by the door for her. Lucille was hanging by his side and he offered her his free arm. She took it, slipping her left arm through his and her right hand wrapped around his bicep. It just felt… right. She was almost getting used to watching everyone kneel as they walked by. It was still strange, but if he wanted to be worshipped like a God when he provided all of these people with a safe place to sleep, food to eat, and water to drink, she wasn't going to say anything about it anymore. He was an egomaniac, and he displayed most of the twenty behaviors on Hare's Psychopathy checklist, but he took care his people as long as they remained loyal to him. She'd met some psychopaths out there who lived without rules, without an ounce of morality. He wasn't one of those and there wasn't much more you could ask of a man of power in a post-apocalyptic world.
"Do you think we should send Simon's crew back out?" She asked him. "They could pick back up where Wade was. I can go back out with them, Bud might be busy with that truck."
"I keep noticing you saying we. I'm the one that calls the shots around here baby doll."
"Yes, you do. But I think we've made a pretty good team lately. The fence expansion here is going well. I've heard the agricultural efforts at the outposts are doing even better. That gave some of the workers who needed more points an opportunity to earn more. When the crops start coming in, it will give everyone a chance to eat fresh foods." Her thumb was drawing circles on his bicep. "Happy workers don't revolt. And don't forget, we put on a great show with the guy that shot me and his friends. Who doesn't love good entertainment? Plus, you did say something about me being your muse the other day."
"Those are some very valid fucking points. You know where else we'd make a good team?"
"Hm?"
"In bed," he grinned at her. He really did amuse himself.
"Do you ever stop?"
"I might." He leaned over to whisper in her ear as they walked. "After I make you hoarse from screaming my name all night. But if that tight little pussy of yours tastes as sweet as I think it will, I'm not ever going to stop."
A short dark haired man, she recognized him from Simon's crew but didn't know his name, burst around the corner and nearly ran straight into them.
"Woah, woah, slow the fuck down," Negan told him. "It's rude as hell to go around running into people. Didn't someone teach you fucking manners?"
He quickly dropped to one knee. He was out of breath, sucking wind from running so fast. "Sorry sir! But you need to come to the front gate now. Dwight and Sherry are back."
"Well now, that's a pleasant surprise. Tina?"
"No," he said. "She's not with them."
"Get Simon," Negan ordered.
"He's already out there, sir."
"Then you're dismissed."
"Thank you, sir." He stood up and scampered off like a frightened dog.
Negan twirled Lucille around like a baton. "Let's go see what brought our Dwighty-boy and my ex-wife home."
She kept both of her hands on his arm until they reached the front doors. Dwight and Sherry were already waiting on their knees, Skinny Joey and another guy were standing on either side of them. They were dirty, bloodied, scratched up, but in otherwise fine condition considering they'd been chased through the woods for an entire day. Sherry's eyes were puffy and red from crying. Dwight, he just looked completely and utterly broken.
"Well, well," Negan greeted them. He removed his arm from her grasp, but his leather clad hand brushed down her back before he stepped closer to the two traitors on the ground. Lucille swung back and forth between the two. Her fresh barbed wire glinted in the afternoon sunlight. "It looks like Christmas came early for me! But, seems Santa shorted me a present. Why didn't that jolly fat fucker bring me Tina too? "
Sherry's only response was to cry. She sobbed so hard she fell forward, onto the floor, her face clasped in her hands. Dwight's jaw twitched, like he wanted to respond but couldn't pull himself together enough to get the words out. Neither one of them looked at Negan.
"I asked a fucking question and I expect a god damn response. What the fuck do I need to do to get a little respect around here? Where the fuck is Tina?"
"She…" Dwight said.
"She fucking what? I don't have all damn day. In fact, shit is running behind schedule because you assholes stole from me and ran off in the middle of the night. So if the next words out of your god damn mouth aren't an answer to the very simple question I just asked, well then," he smiled. "Lucille will be asking the next one."
"Shegotbit!" Dwight spit out so quick it was one jumbled word.
"What?"
"She got bit. In the neck."
Negan laughed, leaning on Lucille like she was a cane. "Well ain't that fucking ironic! You and my ex-wife take off with her and my meds because you thought you were saving her life, and all you did was get her killed." He chuckled. "I bet that made you feel like absolute shit."
"We're sorry Negan," Sherry finally spoke up. When she looked up at him, her eyes were so puffed up Crimson wasn't sure how she could even see anything. "We were just trying to help her, she was so sick lately. But we came back. I told him we had to. This won't happen again."
"It sure as shit won't." He crouched down in front of her. His 6'2 frame was still imposing, leaning over her on the ground. His gloved hand slipped under her chin, forcing her to look him in the eye. He smirked at her, the one that came with the dangerous, unpredictable glint in his eye. "You are back to being number 28. Numbers don't have free run of Sanctuary. They don't get the opportunity to steal my shit and run."
"I'm sorry, I'll do anything you want! Please don't send me back down there!"
"Good, then you'll go back with the labor crew, digging ditches, without complaint." He stood back up, rolling his shoulders back so that he stood tall and proud. "You know Dwight, I just don't get it. You had it good here. You were one of my top guys, got everything you wanted. But you still ran off. Why? Sherry's pussy wasn't that great, not even in my top ten amazing fucks list."
"I'm sorry," is all Dwight responded with. He didn't give some long winded apology and excuse like Sherry did. Dwight was smarter than that. Begging only got Negan more riled up, more excited.
"Oh you will be. Tomorrow, you get the iron." He gestured to the two guards on either side of them. "Get them out of here, they can spend the night in a cell. Separately." Sherry's cries echoed down the hall as she was dragged away. Dwight stood up and walked. At least he attempted to maintain some measure of dignity.
Negan flung his arm around Crimson's shoulder, pulling her tightly into his side. They were alone in the front entrance now, and she could feel his muscles twitching in anticipation. "Another one gets the iron, and so soon after the last! It's bad that I'm kind of really fucking excited about it, isn't it?"
She turned to face him, his right arm was still draped across her shoulder. "You're sick, you know that?" she told him with half of a smile. It wasn't an accusation or an insult. It was a fact.
"I know." He leaned his head down to her. His lips brushed over her ear, the effect was instantaneous, heart beating faster as the shiver went down her spine. He leaned Lucille against the wall and wrapped his now free arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him. His manhood was hard, pressing into her stomach. "I got hard just thinking about it. But you like it, don't you?" His voice was low and husky, his lips brushing her ear with every word. "You like how twisted I am. I know you do. Because you're like me. I saw it when you gutted that asshole on stage, it made your panties wet. Just like I'm doing right now." His hand slipped up the back of her shirt, drawing circles that were setting her skin on fire. He was right, the damp heat was pooling between her legs. Her knees were so weak she wasn't sure if she could stand if he let her go. "Come on, baby doll, admit it, you like seeing weak assholes on their knees in front of you." His lips trailed over her jaw, his breath warmed her cheek. "Tell me how much you like it." His lips brushed against hers.
Her hands gripped his jacket on either side of his hips to stop them from trembling. "I do love to watch you work."
"Mm, fuck yeah you do."
"Negan," the radio crackled. He tossed his head back and groaned before he released her from his grip and grabbed his radio.
"What?"
"We have a… problem… sir. Out on Country road 35. Think you need to see this for yourself."
"Fine. Simon, meet me out front in five fucking minutes. Anyone else got any more bad fucking shit I need to know about?" His only answer was radio silence.
"I'm coming with you." He looked as if he was about to tell her 'fuck no, you're staying here where it's safe.' "If anyone's hurt, you'll need me there." She reached up to touch his cheek. "I'll put together a travel kit and meet you by the trucks."
Ten minutes later, she was sitting in the front of the truck, on Negan's lap since that was the only available seat, and Sanctuary's gates were closing behind them. It was Simon's single cab truck and he was driving. There were two box trucks in front of them with the rest of Simon's men. It was tense in the truck, the quiet tension of three people on their way to find some very bad news. She rolled the window down to get some fresh air. She hung one arm out of the window and her fingers were tapping on the door. The arm Negan had around her waist squeezed her a little tighter.
She was out of the truck before it came to a full stop and ran to the head of the trucks. Her hand was on her .380, sitting on her hip. Negan had it brought down while she'd been packing up her kit.
There really wasn't anything that could have prepared her for the blackened carnage that greeted her around the front of the caravan. She stopped when the smell hit her nose, both arms falling to her side as she observed. The bitter, tangy smell of explosives and gasoline filled the air, with a trace of something else underneath it. The first thing that stood out to her was the deep hole in the middle of the road. The asphalt was melted, twisted and warped like the mouth of a monster. She could still feel some residual heat from the explosion. There were bikes surrounding the hole. Two were still standing, facing away from her, the paint burned, some charred substance stuck to the metal but otherwise unscathed. The other five were on their sides, a couple were blown up beyond recognition. Her eye fell on the lead bike, the furthest from her. Bud's.
It was laying on its right side. She realized the charred substance stuck to all of the bikes was flesh, human flesh. On this bike, it was Bud's flesh. There was part of a lower leg standing up against the burnt metal. It still had a black boot on, Bud's boot. Bud, her comrade, her friend, and all that was left of him was part of a leg.
She was shaking, her whole body tense and trembling. There were no tears. Rage, pure unadulterated rage was coursing through her veins. Her body was numb. Everything was the strangest shade of crimson red. The world was swirling and twirling in it, weaving in and out of everything. She couldn't think about anything except slaughtering the people who had done this the way they had slaughter her friend.
Her heart jumped in her chest when Negan's arms wrapped around her waist. He didn't say a word, he didn't move, he just held her, her back against his chest. How long they stood there, she didn't know. It could have been minutes, or hours, or days but she didn't care.
Eventually his hands started moving up and down her sides, softly at first, then firmer with each stroke. As the tension in her body released, she relaxed into him, her head falling against his shoulder. She could hear the steady heart beating in his chest. The greens and blues and browns of the world returned to her vision.
"I'm sorry baby doll," his words were soft and strong. "Let's go home."
"I want to know who did this," she turned her head to look up at him. "When I found out who they are, and where they are, they'll be the sorry ones. Take me home."