Daryl
Negan finally stopped beating Michonne's head. It was, to put in in simple terms, beating a dead horse. There was absolutely nothing left of Michonne's head, being reduced to mush. Several of her dreadlocks were caught on Lucille's barbs.
"Did you see that?" asked Negan, taking heavy breaths from his beatdown. "She took that like a CHAMP! Didn't she Rick?"
I saw Rick crying, but too traumatized to say anything.
"Oh shit," said Negan, feigning regret. "Was she your… girlfriend? Well… that fucking sucks. But you should be happy about how she went out. Your warm body at night just took one or six or seven for the team! So take a good, hard look at it."
Rick looked, but I could see the fire in his eyes. He wanted blood as soon as it was over. But now, he was mourning the best he could in the circumstances.
Negan, meanwhile, began to try and force others to look at the blood stained bat. Sasha flinched a bit, Carl gritted his teeth, and Eugene vomited. Negan then went to Abraham. "Why don't you look at it a bit, Big Red? Look at the insides of Rick's squeeze?"
"Suck my nuts," Abraham said defiantly.
"Bitch all you want. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm in charge and you people aren't. Now take a damn look. Hell, that blood you see right there, Rick might have eaten out while she was on her period-"
That was it.
Not a fucking word more from that fucker. Rick had suffered enough and I wasn't going to let him be humiliated anymore. I got up with what energy I had left and punched Negan as hard as I could. Negan got knocked to the ground, and I was able to land in several more punches before the Saviors pulled me off of him and pinned me to the ground instead. I felt a gun being pressed against my head.
Do it, I silently egged the Savior. It would be a huge relief on me and save Rick the humiliation. My only regret was that I didn't tell Beth. I heard her screaming my name, but it was more of a "what the hell are you doing" rather than "please don't die".
I regretted not telling about how I truly felt about her.
But I wasn't dying.
Not when Negan commanded it.
He ordered the Saviors not to kill me, even when Dwight offered to for kicks. I was dragged back to my spot in the line.
"That's not how it works," Negan began, spitting out some blood. "I already told you people: the first one was free. Then what'd I say? I said I will SHUT THAT SHIT DOWN… No exceptions. Now I don't know what kind of lyin' assholes you've been dealing with, but I'm a man of my word."
Negan had calmed down. It was as if he was luring us into a false sense of security.
Perhaps not.
"First impressions are important. I need you to know me." Negan moved towards the end of the line, where Glenn was.
"So… back to it."
And without warning, Negan turned a full 180 degrees and whacked Glenn's head with the bat.
Beth
No!
I wasn't the only one saying it. Maggie of course was, but Carl and Rosita did too. Another swing of the baseball bat, and Glenn wasn't the same. He'd taken a brutal hit right on the forehead, cracking his skull hard enough for one of his eyes to be forced out of position. It was suck a shock to all of us, and even one or two of the Saviors took a step back when Negan did the actual hitting.
It was gut wrenching and excruciating. I couldn't do anything but cry. As hard as it was for me, however, it was a thousand times more traumatizing for Maggie. Her mouth was open in shock as she looked to Glenn, who was struggling to say her name.
"Buddy, are you still there?" asked Negan curiously, flashing a smile. The sick bastard was making a mockery of what were Glenn's final moments. No honorable death like Michonne. No quick, easy end to the beatdown.
As Glenn continued to make sounds no human ever should have, Negan continued his psychological torments: "I just don't know, it seems like you're trying to speak, but you just took a hell of a hit! I just popped your skull so hard, your eyeball just popped out! And it is gross as shit!"
Glenn then began to finally speak something. "M-Maggie, I-I'l l find y-you, I'll f-find you."
He was promising to see us again. Maggie just cried harder, and I couldn't stop any of my own weeping.
Negan then looked at us and gave a false sympathetic look that could have fooled the devil himself. "Hell, I can see this is hard on you people. I'm sorry, I truly am. But I did say it… NO EXCEPTIONS!"
Negan turned around and hit Glenn again. And again. And again.
Maggie at this point had gone into full shock, crying harder than when Daddy died. And I held her tighter and cried with her as a man I loved as a brother died in one of the most horrific ways imaginable, right in front of us while we could do nothing.
My thoughts turned to Daryl. He looked as horrified as the rest of us, dropping his jaw with each swing of Lucille. Surely he had to hold some of the blame? But that was Daryl at his core: always standing up for the group. He wanted to do what the rest of us wanted. I'll bet that he wanted what ultimately happened to Glenn.
He didn't think it through. I'd have to ask Maggie what she thought later, but for now she was simply too caught up crying over Glenn to do anything else.
"You bunch of pussies," said Negan as he popped Glenn's head again. "I'm just getting started!" And as with Michonne, he continued to beat Glenn's corpse several minutes longer. Everyone was dealing with it in a different way: Abraham and Carl gritted their teeth, Sasha shook her head, and Aaron looked like he'd seen the end of the world and had accepted it.
"Lucille is thirsty," said Negan, whose bat now had a large part of Glenn's scalp stuck on it. "She is a vampire bat!"
Glenn was all but dead now. His corpse twitched a few times before laying completely still. Maggie just kept crying, as did everyone else. I couldn't do anything else. Now Maggie's child would never know his father.
"What?" asked Negan. "Was the joke that bad?"
"I'm gonna kill you." Rick, though Glenn's death, must have finally developed his response to Negan. "Not today, not tomorrow, but I'm gonna kill you."
Negan just laughed, then asked for Rick's axe. "Simon here's my right hand man. Without him, what do you have? A whole lot of work. You should have one too. Maybe one of these fine people still breathing? Or… did I…" Negan made a pop sound.
Then, without warning, he grabbed Rick and began heading for the RV. "Be right back. Maybe Rick'll be with me, but if anything happens, we can just turn these people inside out, can't we?"
As soon as the door slammed shut, Maggie fell, unable to take it anymore.
"Can you get her some water?" I asked one of the Saviors, the same man who'd painted the X on that one man in the street.
"Shut your trap," was the harsh reply. "I'm not a babysitter."
"I don't know what condition she's in, and she's the only person I know who can grow crops. Without her, you'll never get any food from us." Admittedly, I'd learned a few things too, but not on Maggie's level.
Simon rubbed his mustache, then told the other Savior, "Clay, get her a bottle or some shit. I like having food on a regular basis."
The Savior just grunted and went into one of the trucks, came back with a water bottle, and threw it in front of me. With Maggie's head in my lap, I tried my best to make sure she drank. I kept her head and eyes away from Glenn's body.
After she finally drank, the RV started and drove off to wherever Negan was planning to take Rick. As if killing his girlfriend wasn't enough to break him…
But I knew Rick. He didn't break easy.
It was Daryl I was worried about.
Daryl
As soon as the RV drove off, I collapsed from sheer exhaustion. I couldn't do anything else.
I had severely miscalculated what kind of man Negan was. I was expecting him to torment me. If nothing else, it would keep everybody else alive. But no, Negan saw through it fast, and killed Glenn for it.
One of my closest friends, gone in a second, for something I did.
How could Maggie or Beth ever forgive me? How could Rick?
It was my entire fucking fault. Add Glenn to the ever growing list of names of people I failed. Except I was more of a failure than any of them.
Abraham said something, and suddenly two of the Saviors were beating him up. I could tell, however, that their intent wasn't to kill him, just rough him up. Beth finished up the water bottle she was using to help Maggie recover, even though that wasn't much either.
With not much else to do, most of the Saviors began talking amongst themselves about things I didn't know or care about. Even then, there were enough on guard to ensure that if we all got up and killed several, each at the same time, we were all dead too. Occasionally a walker stumbled into the area, but it was quickly dispatched by whoever was nearest.
Among us, the only one speaking was Beth, telling Maggie whatever soothing words she could tell, Bible verses and what not. Reminded me of when we had a pissing contest over a dumb game of "never have I ever". After yelling for five damn minutes straight, I broke down. I told her that I'd failed. I let Herschel die and I let the prison get blown up.
And Beth still forgave me, putting all the personal insults aside. She simply hugged me while I let myself cry a little. Merle would have told me to "man up, little brother."
I personally didn't give a rat's ass.
Eventually, I got up and sat myself, prepared to wallow in misery if that was what it was going to be. Abraham was still lying (thanks to getting beat up), and Maggie still had her head in Beth's lap, but other than that everyone was sitting, as if dead inside.
Ten minutes later, the RV came back. Rick was thrown out, followed by Negan. Rick had to have been subjected to some sort of brutal ordeal, since he was still shaking. "Lemme ask you something, Rick. Do you even know what that trip was about?"
Rick simply sat on the ground, seemingly retraumatized by seeing his everyone in the daylight. The humiliation in front of his us probably didn't help either. Rick didn't say anything.
"Speak when you're spoken to." Negan sounded like an angry schoolteacher again. I watched him pace around with the bat in hand. Rick sniffled. "Okay...okay."
"That trip was about the way that you… looked at me. I wanted to change that, I wanted you to understand. But you're still looking at me the same damn way, like I pissed in your scrambled eggs, and that's not going to work. So, do I give you another chance?"
"Yeah… yeah."
"Okay, alright, and here it is. The grand prize game." Negan smiled viciously and stood, gesturing with Lucille. "What you do next will decide whether your crap day becomes everyone's last crap day, or just another crap day." Negan motioned with his free hand. "Get some guns to the back of their heads."
Several Saviors took out their rifles and sidearms and put them at our heads. I felt a barrel pressed pretty hard against my skull.
"Good," said Negan. "Now level it with their noses, so if you have to fire…" Negan made a gesture with his hand, pretending that his face blew outwards. "… it'll be real mess."
He then turned his attentions on Carl. "Kid: here. Now."
Carl was silent for a few seconds, then reluctantly got up and stood next to Negan. As the man took of his belt, he asked Carl, "Are you a southpaw?"
"Am I a what?" You could hear the defiance in Carl's voice.
Negan, however, didn't seem fazed by that. "It's a baseball term for a left handed pitcher. Are you a leftie?"
"No."
"Good." Negan began wrapping the belt around Carl's left arm and I instantly had an idea of what he was going to do. Yet another person I failed to save. "Did that hurt?"
"No."
"It should. It's supposed to." As Negan forced Carl to lie down next to his father, Rick began to stutter. "P-Please don't do this. Please don't."
"Me? I ain't doing shit." The implication being that Negan wanted Rick to do it, given how the ax was on the ground next to Rick.
It's mostly just rehashing S7E1 dialogue with my own twists, but it's fun to write Negan. Review away!
