Chapter 43
Eyes are on me, and I feel stiff, strange; like I'm not really in my body. I see my hands and arms moving, dipping into the streaming water and turning it transiently to wine, but I have no awareness of willing them to do so. They're automatic, my motions robotic, and I'm shaking. I can't stop shaking.
I wince and brace myself against a wet rock as a creeping sensation of faintness comes upon me. It takes a few minutes, but I regain my senses and continue washing blood from my limbs. My blood, Ben's blood; maybe a bit of Leigh's blood, too. It's all the same color, so it has no meaning to me anymore. I just want it off of me. I want to be clean, and no matter how many times my hands thrust down into the water and slip over me, I keep seeing red.
Their voices, they murmur and canter not too far from me. The Saviors are assessing the new girl, assisting to her needs, getting to know where she came from and who she is. She doesn't provide many details, speaking briefly on how she came to be in these woods and not mentioning much on who Leigh and his men were. She informs them that her name is Rachel, and she's only seventeen years old. This revelation makes me feel worse, and I become more disconnected as I stare into the hypnotizing current, splashing in it again and again until I'm soaked from head to waist.
A chastising hand grips my bicep, pulling me firmly from the water. I sit back on my heels, my gaze boring into the lapping river, and I stay stoic. I'm afraid to move, afraid to look anywhere else, because then all of this might actually be real. Everything that happened and what I saw, I'll have to remember it for the rest of my life. Nothing can wipe those memories away, and they'll stain me like the cuts that will surely scar my skin. They're a part of me now, permanently, and I didn't know what to do with them.
Soft material covers my face, dabbing at the wetness and avoiding the tender spots that still bleed. Something is draped over my naked shoulders and I realize it's my jacket I left by the edge of this river not a half hour ago. Not even thirty minutes. I wondered how things could change so drastically in such a short amount of time, but I shake my head. That isn't something to linger on. I'd been wondering that my entire life and the pursuit of an answer was always futile.
"Everly," Negan's voice spoke from beside me, and it brought me out of the oblivion, a rushing alertness alighting me.
Like a puppet, I turn my head and look at him. He's disappointed and angry; I can tell. But there seems to be something else, something hidden around the edges of his hostility. I can't accurately place it but I think it might be pity.
"What in the holy fuck were you thinking?"
He asks it such a way that it comes off as a genuine question. Not intimidating or rhetorical but sincere. His eyes are searching mine, trying hard to find an answer, but I can't open my mouth to speak. I turn back to the water instead and stare again because the answer he wants is obvious. I hadn't been thinking at all.
I hear him sigh before he speaks again.
"You have a lot of balls to berate me on trust. To make me feel like the unreasonable one when I have damn good reasons for the decisions I make. Do you want to know why I kept such a tight fucking leash on you?"
His face is closer to mine now. His breath is warm where it hits my cheek, but the moisture on my skin turns it cool instantly when he stops speaking.
"You have almost zero self-awareness. It's fucking unbelievable how you managed to make it this far, and I'm starting to suspect that you might be a bit of a goddamn liar. You claim that you can take care of yourself and you survived on your own for months…and I fucking bought it. I let you go off for barely ten motherfucking minutes when the one person who was supposed to look after you comes barreling up to me saying you ran away. How the fuck do you think that makes me look?"
He's worried about his image. How his people might view him now since he keeps giving me chance after chance with no payoff. They're probably wondering, "Why bother? What can she give you that no one else can? What makes her so special?" And the short answer is that nothing is. There isn't anything particularly special about me. Negan just doesn't like losing, and he doesn't want to be a quitter. He presses closer to me in response to my silence.
"It makes me look like a goddamn fucking asshole," he mutters, his voice deep and begrudging in my ear. "I didn't choose to bring you out here to make a fool out of me. I was giving you an opportunity to show what you're worth, and you fucking blew it."
He let his words sink in, and I wondered what the consequences would be. What would come next? I assumed the stiff, old cot and my first job as Sanctuary housekeeper, or perhaps the cell.
"I should have known." His breath is an angry plume on my neck. "I wanted you to do well, but I'll rightfully blame myself for thinking you had the capacity for more than organizing shit in a box and mixing soap with water."
"Got the kit," Lydia's voice interrupted.
She hopped on the rocks, crossing the river to us and coming to a stop by my knees. Negan motioned for her to get on with it, and she squatted down, throwing down a clean shirt and opening the first aid kit to take out the items she would need. She cleaned up my wounds a bit with a stinging mist and ignored my wincing as she waited for the medicine to dry. Lastly, she applied multiple butterfly bandages to my cuts, squeezing the wounds together in a not so gentle way which left me lightheaded once more.
"She's definitely going to need sutures," she spoke to Negan. "These will hold up for a while, but the cuts won't heal properly until they're sewed up."
Negan nodded to her in thanks. "All of you head back, and check the girl again. Get her some food."
Lydia nodded back and chucked the clean shirt into my lap. I squeezed the cotton material in my hands, wringing and stretching it in my misery as she bounded away and everyone started through the woods. I sat in a trance with Negan beside me, waiting, but I didn't want to move to put on the shirt. I wanted to stay here, on this rock wet and cold, forever.
Negan ripped the shirt from my worrying fingers and grabbed the jacket off of my shoulders, leaving me bare again. Impatiently, he shoved the t-shirt over my head while being considerate of my injuries, making sure he was clear of them before handling me roughly once more.
"I'm not weak," he whispered after I was dressed, a hint of desperation laced in his tone as his fingers crushed my arms.
He shook me once; his eyes dancing embers as a flash of lightning lit the sky. When the thunder rolled, he moved, pulling me against his chest in a compressing hug. A gasp escaped me from the pain and the pressure, but he didn't relent. He needed me to feel what they had done because he couldn't add more to it. And instead of pulling away or fighting against him, I fell into his embrace and let the pain happen. I needed it just as much as he did, and no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, this was more than an improvised way of payback. Negan may not be a feeble man, but there were times when he needed comfort, too.
My arms rose up over his back, and I gripped his shoulders, holding him close to me. I wanted to thank him for coming after me, for saving me, but I felt it would be an insult to him if I did. He had come for me because he thought I had run, not because I was in need of rescue. That just happened to be the scene when he showed up; an unfortunate turn of events for me. And if anything, it proved to him how powerful he was. How much I, or anyone else, needed him.
"If you ever run from me again," his voice was gravelly and his fingers dug in my hair, "I'll kill you."
Negan pulled away from me, his hands encased around my shoulders. His eyes bored into mine, their gaze beseeching me for a response or any form of acknowledgement. I remained a blank slate, staring and quiet.
"Fucking say something, goddammit!" He roared at me, and I bit my quivering lip, determined not to speak a single word. Not until I could.
I sobbed instead and grabbed at his collar, dragging myself into him again. I was scared. Scared of him and everything else, but he was the only person at the moment I felt safe around. He was a living, breathing paradox, and as he let me fold myself into his lap, I found the concept of who and what he was too complicated to ponder. I only took what he offered me, and for the moment, he lent me his arms and shoulder to cry on.
"I'm not so sure about this, Maggie. You're going to lead this whole group into a world of hurt and they're too stupid to realize it!" Gregory slammed a hand down on his desk.
Maggie put a hand on her hip, shifting on her swollen feet, and raised a brow. She wasn't fazed by the tantrum he was throwing.
"Don't you see what you're inevitably doing?" He implored. "You're going to take away fathers, mothers, husbands and wives! You're sending out brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins…to die! All in the name of what?"
"Freedom," Maggie replied coolly. "Desperation. Vengeance. Life. We're givin' those who've been stuck on their knees in the mud, shiverin' cold, a leg to stand up on. I'm giving them that. They want to fight, and no one is makin' them. They voted for it. This is their decision."
"Oh, there you go with your pretty words again," Gregory laughed and wagged a finger at her. "A real verbal architect. Did you learn that from Rick? You two have got most of these people so drunk off of each syllable that comes out of your mouths that they can't see the lies hiding behind each one."
"It's done, Gregory," Maggie snapped. She was fed up with his bitching.
"I'm not!" He yelled, glaring at her angrily. "I'm not done! This is my house, my responsibility! Whatever happens from here on out will be my neck stretched out on the chopping block!"
"Oh, is that it? You're worried about yourself?" Maggie scoffed and shook her head. "I can't say the revelation surprises me."
"And it shouldn't! Are you kidding me?" The Hilltop leader was nearly beside himself in disbelief. He threw his hands up in the air, a sign of defeat. "It's true. I can't undo what you've already set in motion. It's a snowball rolling down the biggest hill in the world, and it won't stop after it reaches the bottom, no. It will just keep getting bigger and bigger."
The pregnant widow lowered her brows. She understood his reasoning, and she wasn't keen on the idea of war either, but this was, as her father Hershel would've said, the time to strike out in a new direction. To close the book on this obsolete way of life and start something new. She rubbed her protruding belly and inhaled sharply.
"I don't know how else to explain this to you so that you see it the way we do," Maggie stated carefully. "Maybe you've lived under Negan's thumb for so long that you're startin' to depend on it, and that's fine. I can't say I blame ya…but we don't acclimate like that, and we won't learn to. He took what was most important in my life, and I don't want it happening to anyone else. Not anymore."
"Maggie," Gregory groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. He was tired of hearing the same wilted story from her, and Maggie tried not to let the old grump's reaction hurt her feelings.
"The world is gone!" She flared, her emotions flying out of her control. "There ain't hardly nothin' left but us, and we're stuck picking up the pieces, tryin' to push them back together. It's hard, Gregory, it is! But I'm not raisin' my child in a place where he has to fear more than the dead. That's already too big of a burden to bear."
"You think Negan's the only one," the Hilltop leader laughed. He sunk down in his chair, pulling out a bottle of whiskey and a crystal glass.
"I'm not that naïve," Maggie replied through clenched teeth, "but the sooner we're rid of someone like Negan and we all band together, the better off we will be against someone who decides to follow in his footsteps."
She took a moment to watch him as he plugged the cork back in the bottle and raised his glass to her.
"To new fucking beginnings regardless of whose lives are lost along the way." He threw it back, swallowing the amber liquid in one gulp. He grimaced and wiped his mouth. "Next, you'll be wanting to call yourself leader of Hilltop. Am I right?"
"Get the fuck over yourself," she crossed her arms, appalled. "I really hope this conversation is the last we'll have on this topic."
Gregory shrugged his shoulders and smiled at her condescendingly. "As you said, what more can I say to further explain to you the way I see it. You're going to do what you want anyway."
Maggie nodded, and turned to walk out. She really need a fucking nap.
"When this is all over," Gregory said to her retreating back. She stopped, but didn't turn to face him. "I want you gone. I don't want to see your face inside my walls again. If we're all still alive, that is."
He huffed out a derisive sigh as his office door slammed. He picked up the whiskey bottle once more, unplugging the cork and pouring himself another hefty drink. He stared at the door as he brought the glass to his lips, pondering exactly what he wanted his next move to be. Whatever it was, it involved enlightening Negan of Miss Maggie and her crew's plans, and whether that involved their deaths or not, he didn't care. He was doing it to save the masses, and to be honest with himself, to save his sense of security and importance.
"Let the bitch try," he mumbled to himself and grumbled random curses under his breath. "Let her fucking try."
He led me through the woods by my wrist like I was a child, and he didn't slow down until we neared the end, the tall metal siding of the warehouse looming in the background.
Negan didn't say much else after my breakdown. He sat silently on his knees while I wept against his chest, soaking his shirt and trembling in his arms. It wasn't until the rain started to fall, sprinkling the canopy of leaves overhead, did he gently haul me to my feet and pull me after him.
"You're gonna need another change of clothes," he commented, looking back at me.
I nodded and shivered as a drop of rain ran down my nose. So would he, but at least we both had our jackets on.
"Are you going to talk to me now?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow.
I cleared my throat and swallowed. "I didn't believe you when you said you'd kill me if I ran."
He smirked at me and chuckled.
"That's pretty damn bold. Why the fuck not?"
"For one thing, I wasn't running away," I peered up at him shyly and glanced away. "And while I know finding me just so you could kill me would be the heart of your driving force, I don't think you would."
"Sweetheart, you've seen me work," Negan protested.
"And I've been your victim, too," I countered. "That's all I've ever really been…until recently."
He scoffed, but remained silent. For once in his life, he was backed into a corner and I was the one who had put him there.
"I see more of you now than I did before," I spoke slowly.
"Bullshit," he snapped grumpily and quickened his pace as we exited the trees. We had no cover from the rain without them. "And what the fucking shit do you mean you weren't running away? Laura made it pretty clear that was what you were up to."
"I think you might have misunderstood her. That or she's a liar," I blinked water from my eyes as we rounded the corner to the front of the building. "Either way, I wasn't running. I may be an idiot to you with no self-awareness, but I'm not that damn stupid."
"Okay," he relented, coming to a stop at the warehouse doors. We huddled under the small canopy there. "I'm piqued. Continue."
"Did you hear her scream?" I questioned as my teeth chattered and my gashes stung from the rain. I attempted to cross my arms over my chest to stay warm, but Negan still held my right wrist.
"Yes…" he spoke, his features hardening. "I thought it was you, more so when Laura came barreling out of those woods like a bat out of hell."
"I couldn't hear her and not do something."
His mouth became a firm line as he gazed at me, squeezing my wrist slightly. He shifted his weight leaning toward me as he narrowed his brows. He wasn't happy with my reason.
"You told me once you admired that about me," I reminded him, and he rolled his eyes.
"And I do, but Jesus fuck… You nearly got yourself killed!" He bellowed.
"I know!" I answered hotly. "And I don't feel great about it. There were better ways to do what I did, but I acted impulsively if not predictably. And I was afraid to wait or go back for you. I didn't want you to deny me or…to be too late to save her."
Negan and I looked through the glass doors simultaneously. Everyone was relaxed inside, and Rachel sat surrounded by the only women in our group, eating a sandwich while Theodore sniffed around them.
"You did a good thing," he looked back at me and I met his light brown eyes. "But you've got to start using some logic. I also mentioned to you how motherfucking emotional you are and that doesn't mix well with snap decisions."
"Clearly," I replied sarcastically, and I was confused to see him smile. "What?"
He shook his head. "You're starting to act like yourself. You sort of had me freaking back there at the river with you all catatonic and mute."
I looked down, feeling sad and vulnerable again.
"Yeah," I whispered.
"I'm sorry," he said, releasing his grip on my wrist and running the same hand up to my shoulder. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, and I'm sorry I was dumb enough to let you and Laura go alone. That was my fucking fault."
I gazed him, perplexed. "Really? You're sorry?"
He shrugged and let me go, pulling the door of the warehouse open.
"Get inside and change. You're responsible for the new girl. Get to know her, make her feel at home, and let me know if you get anything useful out of her." He held the door open for me as his dark eyes whisked inside. "That's your new job until we get back to the Sanctuary."
A spark of hope flared inside of me. Maybe we would be going back sooner now.
"Will we be going back as soon as we leave here?" I asked.
"You will be, yeah," he replied, staring at my forehead. "We've got to wait out this storm first. Try not to do anything fucking stupid in the meantime."
Negan grabbed my sleeve and ushered me inside. I smiled to myself, excitement temporarily winning over the dread that had set a dead weight on my heart. I would be seeing Daryl soon, and I wanted to be in his arms again more than anything. And we'd be in the Sanctuary without Negan. This might be our chance to leave.
"Don't think about getting cute," Negan came up behind me, his lips to my ear. "I'll only be half a day away."
He patted my bottom, directing me to Rachel who sat with Laura and Lydia.
"Where will you go?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"I'm going to see a king," Negan smiled. "Now get to know the new girl. And get some fucking rest while you're at it. You look like shit."
I rolled my eyes as he sauntered away, a wink his departing gesture. Get to know her, sure. I would do that. Rachel was a new set of eyes, seeing and hearing things none of us knew about yet. Her former group was dangerous and, the way Leigh had spoken about their assumed leader, reclusive. Who knew what their numbers were or what they had. That could be to our advantage and add to our cause. Whatever I learned about them, I'd let someone else handle them personally. I'd seen enough of who those people were to not want to experience more. There was potential for them to be allies, but I mostly viewed them as another clan of enemies. Whoever they turned out to be, maybe Rachel would open up to me about her former group, and maybe what I shared with Negan would be superficial.
He wasn't the one planning a revolution after all.
Edited by lolasskicker.
Sorry this chapter is short. Going back to school has really chaffed my metaphorical balls, and I'm grumpy as hell as I get used to a new sleep schedule (a.k.a. I ain't gettin' no sleep). Anyway, the next few chapters might be short as well as I struggle to find free time to write. Sorry about that.
For those of you who could, I hope you were able to enjoy the eclipse! I managed to run outside every fifteen minutes at work to watch it. It was pretty sweet.
Thank you, Blue Moon, for your review! The Vikings were some crazy ass people who did some crazy ass things. History can be very interesting sometimes, and kinda sick. lol