Naomi

The van came to an unceremonious stop. Not for the first time, I was flung against the hard metal walls. I could feel small bruises forming on my arms and legs from where I'd hit against the sides and floor on the drive. These assholes were either shitty drivers or took pleasure in knowing that I was being shaken around in the back of the damn thing. I'd never take seatbelts for granted again, that was for sure. I pulled my knees up to my chin, sat with my back against one of the walls, and listened. Other engines around this one came to a stop. Doors slammed as people got out, and I could hear them calling over to each other, laughing at something like they were colleagues winding down at the end of a long shift. I guess that's all Abraham's death was to these people, just another fucking day in the office.

The doors opened. After hours shut up in the dark, I flinched away from the light outside. It made my eyes ache. Simon's tall frame blurred against harsh sunlight as he reached in and grabbed my arm. He pulled me out so fast I didn't have time to stand. My knees dragged against the floor, and I stumbled out, struggling to get my balance when my feet hit the ground. I'd been curled up so long in the back of that van, my joints hurt. Simon didn't slow down as he pulled me toward a tall building.

The van they'd dragged Daryl into was parked in the shadow of it. The back doors were still hanging open like they'd taken him out recently enough that they hadn't had time to shut them.

Was he close? Would I get to see him?

Maybe I could catch up. I sped up, unable to take my eyes off that van - the last place I'd seen Daryl alive. I peered into it on the way past. Completely empty. The doors were dented, and there was blood on them. Like someone had hit it repeatedly. Nothing fatal, but… enough to bleed. My mouth went dry. Daryl had already been shot, I couldn't stand the thought of him in any more pain.

"Where is he?" I asked. I knew they would answer, but I couldn't hold it in any longer. It had been threatening to burst out of me since they'd opened those doors. I'd been quiet for so long that my voice didn't come out right. Simon just laughed at me again and pushed me into the building. I felt a gun press into my back. I kept my head down, scouring the ground for a drop of blood. A smear. Any clue as to where they'd taken Daryl. I listened hard. If they were hurting him, if he was screaming or yelling, I'd know it was him right away. Trouble was, I knew that Daryl could withstand a lot of pain without making a sound. They could be inflicting all kinds of shit on him behind any of the doors I was walking past, and I'd never know.

My heart raced, and the only thoughts in my head were, I have to find him. I have to get him out of here.

"Move," Simon demanded. The gun pressed hard against my back, forcing me toward a door. Simon opened it. A dark staircase with grimy windows on one side. They forced me up two levels and into another corridor that looked much like the one before it. Some of the doors had windows in them, I glanced through each one. No sign of Daryl. No sign of anyone.

"Stop," Simon grabbed hold of my shoulder. I stopped walking but kept searching the area around me. He unlocked one of the doors and shoved me inside. No Daryl.

The small fragment of hope that I'd held that they might lock us in the same place died immediately. I turned to Simon again and asked, "Where is he?"

"Negan?" Simon said although he knew damn well that wasn't who I was asking for. "He's a little busy right now, but he'll be with you when he can."

He shut the door before I could say anything else. I heard it lock, listened to his footsteps go back down the corridor. And then silence. Cold dread washed over me. Putting all of my energy into trying to work out where Daryl was had somehow kept me calm. Now I was trapped in one room with no chance of finding him, I could feel myself starting to crumble. Was there anything here I could make a weapon out of?

There was a bed pushed up against the far corner. It had a metal frame, hard to break a piece of. Maybe if they left me here long enough, I'd be able to work away at it, prize one of the thinner wires out from underneath. I could always strip the bed, make some kind of noose from the sheets, and hang Negan from the window. Next to the bed, there was a small cabinet. I opened all of the drawers and found nothing except some scraps of old clothing. Probably leftover from whoever had been locked up here before me. There was a bucket of water and a washcloth. In the other corner, another empty bucket. No toilet breaks for me, I guess.

A small mirror hung from a rusted nail on the wall. If I smashed it, I could forge some kind of weapon from the broken glass. Slit Negan's throat. Or Simon's… whichever one of them came in here first.

I crossed over to the window and looked down. It opened. But it was too high up for me to safely jump out of. Always an option if I needed to off myself, I guess.

Calm. Stay calm. Try to work out where we are.

The building looked like an old factory. It was hard to be sure without a map, but this could've been the one I'd been heading for with Lucas when the Wolves had run us off the road. What would've happened if I'd found this place then? Could I have got in and killed Negan before any of this had happened?

I heard footsteps in the corridor outside. They echoed in this soulless place. I'd spent the whole night listening, trying to piece together what was going on outside of the van, and now I couldn't switch off. Every new sound I heard felt magnified. It had been useless. I'd heard the occasional shout or cry. Never clear enough to make out the words. They could've killed Rick and everyone in that clearing without me knowing. They could've shot Daryl in the back of his van, and I wouldn't have known. I felt sick. Tired and sick. Trapped in a bad dream that I'd never wake up from.

I heard the rattle of keys, and the scratch of them in the lock. I could tell from the tall shape behind the frosted glass that it was Negan before he opened the door.

Shit. I hadn't had enough time to prepare anything. Or come up with any kind of plan. I could always untie my bootlaces, try and choke Negan out. But then what? I still had no idea where they were keeping Daryl.

"Hello, Naomi," Negan said. Sugar-sweet. Like we were friends. But there was a tone, a note underneath his words, that made everything feel like a threat even when his words weren't threatening. I said nothing. The door shut behind him, locked again. I took a few steps back. His smile widened and showed more of his teeth. His eyes roamed over me like he could see the fear I was trying to hide and drank it in. "C'mon now, don't be like that. What do you think I'm going to do to you, huh? If I wanted your brains bashed in, I'd have done it last night."

I took another step back, felt my back brush against the wall, and knew I couldn't go any further. There was plenty Negan could do - or threaten to do - in a locked room, and he damn well knew it. That's why he'd said it.

Something in my silence amused him. He was always so damn amused. I think that was the worst thing about this guy. If he'd been angry, screamed and yelled, it would've given me something to fight. But he didn't. He just inflicted all of this pain and violence with a damn smile on his face. At ease and enjoying it. He didn't come any closer, but it didn't make the way he was looking at me any less creepy. I could feel my heart racing like it wanted me to run. But there was nowhere to run to. My back was, literally, against the wall.

When he'd let my silence sit for just long enough for us both to be uncomfortable, he asked, "You settling in okay?"

Is this asshole really trying to make small talk?

I glared at him to let him know that shit wasn't going to fly with me. "Where is he?"

"We getting right down to business?" he asked, looking a little disappointed. "Alright, then. Straight-talking girl, I respect that."

"Where is he?" I repeated. I wasn't expecting him to give me a straight answer, but damn this guy loved the sound of his own voice. If he thought he was going to get anything out of me that wasn't about Daryl, he was sorely mistaken.

"He is…" Negan cast his eye over the room I was in. "In a much worse place."

I didn't know what to read into that. It was deliberately vague. Avoiding any small clue as to where in the building Daryl was, or if he was even in the building. It was ominous enough to let me know that no matter where he was - it wasn't good. I felt a lump rising in my throat and swallowed it down. Negan got a rise out of any kind of reaction, and I was determined not to give him one.

"But he's alive, right?"

"Yeah," he said, laughing a little. "He's alive."

Even though I knew it wasn't smart to trust a word coming out of his mouth, I still felt relieved hearing him say it. Unless something awful had happened on the journey here, I had to assume that if he wanted Daryl dead, he'd have killed him in that clearing.

"And the others?" I asked. "Our friends… are they…?"

"Rick and I had a little chat, reached an understanding," he said. "Rick works for me now. Everyone who follows him will work for me too, r they'll die pretty damn fast. Left him and the others in that clearing. I imagine they're back home by now. First day of their new job. Bet they're real nervous."

I wanted to believe him, to think of them all back home in Alexandria. Surely Rick would already be coming up with some kind of plan to beat these assholes. We might not have to wait things out here as long as it seemed. Negan studied my face while I processed this. If he was hoping for me to cry or scream at him, he would be sorely disappointed.

"Why take us?" I asked. "Why not just… kill us? Or let us go with the others?"

"Good question," he said like I'd genuinely impressed him rather than just asked him a simple question. It wasn't even one I expected a truthful answer to. "Moving on from trying to find him, huh? Takes most folks in your position a couple of days to get over being split up from folks they know. But look at you, not even shedding one little tear."

"Well, you ain't going to tell me where he is, are you?" I asked. "No matter what I say. You don't care if I beg or cry."

"You seem pretty sure about that," he said. It wasn't a question, but he kind of said it like one.

"You don't seem like an idiot," I shrugged. "If you tell me where he is now, I'll bust him out, and he'll kill you."

He laughed again like what I'd said was ridiculous. "You think he'd kill me?"

"Ain't that what you've got him trapped here for? Tryna kill you?"

"Well, lucky for me, I got you here to stop him from doing that."

"That was a one-time thing," I told him. "If he swings for you again, I ain't stopping him."

"Huh," Negan said, tilting his head to one side as he looked at me. Damn amused. Like every word out of my mouth was a surprise to him. It filled me with rage, and I wanted to fly at him, punching and kicking until I brought him down. But he still had his damn bat. It still glistened with drying blood. And I had nothing. Not even a shoelace or some damn bedsheets. He stopped leaning on the locked door behind him and stood up straighter. "Look, I just came in here to make sure there are no hard feelings."

"No hard feelings?" I repeated, narrowing my eyes at him. "You killed a friend. You tormented every-"

"Yeah, I don't care about that," he interrupted me. "I did what had to be done. I meant about getting you to kneel down like that. Making you think Lucille was about to… well, y' know."

"Well, I don't much care about that," I said. "Why apologize for something you chickened out of doing?"

He let my words hang there for a moment. Like he wanted me to worry that calling him a chicken would make him mad. I was too tired and angry to give a shit.

"Did you think I was going to kill you?"

"Yes," I said. No point in lying.

"Good. I needed you to believe it. Needed Daryl to believe it, too," he nodded. "I was never going to kill you, though. I want you to know that."

That was more surprising than if he'd told me he'd changed his mind again and was going to kill me right at that second. "You weren't?"

"Nah," he said. "And I am, truly, sorry for messing with you, but I had to know whether or not you would be useful to me. Seems like you got exactly the kind of power over Daryl that I need."

Just when I thought I'd found a way to be immune to his crap, something he said got under my skin.

"The hell is that supposed to mean?" I asked. I didn't like what he'd said. I didn't much like the way he'd said it either. The connection between Daryl and me had always felt like our biggest strength. Unbreakable. Bent out of shape sometimes but never broken.

"You know he'd do anything for you, right?" he said, with this smile that made me incredibly uncomfortable. I didn't answer him right away, didn't want to admit to anything. But I knew. Of course, I knew. Negan enjoyed my hesitation. Reveled in it. "That's gotta be some kick, having that kind of power over somebody, huh?"

Power. That word again. I felt myself bristle with how one-sided it sounded coming from Negan. Like Daryl was some idiot I was stringing along.

"It's mutual," I snarled.

"Yeah," he said. And I thought he might've even looked mildly impressed. "You sure proved that. Two people ready to die for each other… you know how rare that shit is? Now, I've had my eye on Daryl for a while. My boy Dwight has told me all about him. A guy like Daryl would do well working for me."

It was such an absurd idea that it drew a sharp and bitter laugh from my lips.

"Something funny about that, Naomi?"

"I dunno what your boy Dwight has been telling you about Daryl, but he clearly doesn't know shit," I said. "Running around terrorizing other communities…Beating unarmed people to death in the middle of the night like a goddamn coward… Daryl would never-"

"Ain't that exactly what he was doing for Rick?" Negan said. I stopped talking. "Sneaking into one of my outposts in the dead of night and killing my people while they slept like a… how'd you put it? A goddamn coward?"

"That was different."

"Was it?"

"You killed a kid at the Hilltop, forced them into giving you half of their shit," I said. "It ain't right. What you do… someone's gotta make you pay for it. You're damn lucky we got the wrong place."

"Well, shit. I am sorry you got such a bad impression of us, but that ain't what we do here," Negan said, looking at me like I was a goddamn moron. "See, we save people here. That's why they call us the Saviors."

Fucking arrogant name.

"That what you were doing when you killed Abraham?" I asked. "Saving him?"

"No," he admitted. "But, we were saving the rest of you."

"From what?" I asked. "We were doing fine until you showed up."

"Is that right?" Negan asked. "Because it seems to me like if you were doing fine, you wouldn't have needed to strike a backhanded deal with the Hilltop to get hold of half of their shit. If you were doing fine, you wouldn't have needed to break into my outpost in the middle of the night like a bunch of goddamn cowards."

Now he was getting angry, a little bit of spit flew from his mouth while he yelled. You'd have thought, given what he'd just put us through, that seeing him get mad would be scary. But there was something about cracking his overly-cool façade that was weirdly satisfying. Maybe I'd just had such a horrific night that I was numb to the idea of any more bad shit.

"This is some evangelical bullshit," I said. "You call yourselves the Saviors. Don't make it true."

He looked like he wanted to hit me. Like he was really considering it. I stared back at him, silently challenging him to just do it. Any excuse to hit him back. He looked me in the eye like he was sizing me up.

"Now, Daryl, I knew about. But you were a real surprise," he said. "I thought I was going to have a hard time breaking a guy like Daryl and then you…"

"Break him?" I took a step forward. Anger pushed me out of the corner I was backed in to. "The hell do you mean, break him?"

"Look, I want you on my team," he said. "I want you both on my team. You and Daryl. I know the only way that's gonna happen is-"

"Ain't gonna happen," I interrupted him.

"People are easier to break when they've got something they're scared to lose," Negan said. There was a gleam in his eye like he'd struck gold. "And I'm willing to bet he's mighty scared of losing you."

My blood turned cold. It was the first thing Negan had said that really made me worry that he'd get what he wanted, that following Daryl here had been the wrong call.

"He's stronger than that," I shook my head. Negan laughed. Loud and booming, too big for this small room.

"You really think if I bring him up here and start chopping pieces off you, he won't join my team just to make it stop?"

Up. I tried not to react. Negan had given something away. Wherever he was keeping Daryl, it wasn't on this floor. It was one of the ones below me. It was a tiny, almost insignificant clue. But it was still a clue.

"What's more," he continued. "Is that I'm willing to bet that this is… how'd you put it… mutual?"

It was. Of course, it was. I'd chew my own arm off if it got Daryl free.

"That your big plan?" I asked him. "Just cut bits off me until Daryl agrees to join your pack of bitches?"

"No," Negan said. "Well, not now, anyway. Gotta give you both some time to... get used to the way things are around here. If he's going to join me, he's gotta mean it. But, I'm willing to bet you can help me make him mean it."

My mouth went dry. Negan saw the flicker of doubt that passed through me. A moment of fear that I had doomed Daryl and me to a life of serving this asshole. But that thought of Daryl, all his strength, and the strength he gave me pushed the rest of it away. People had been underestimating us our whole lives. Negan was just the latest in a long line of assholes.

Nothing could keep us apart.

Not at school. Not work. Not Merle. Not our own dumb arguments. Not even the dead rising up and taking over the Earth. Certainly not this asshole. I felt myself relax.

"Maybe you ain't that smart after all."

His eyebrows raised. "How'd you figure that?"

"Keeping us both alive…" I said. "It's only a matter of time before one of us gets out and kills you."

"Oh," he started laughing like I'd just told him the best joke he'd ever heard. "Now, you're gonna be the one to kill me, Naomi?"

"Yes."

"I don't think you got the stomach for it, little lady."

Patronizing piece of shit.

"I'd cut out your tongue first. Stop you talking so much shit," I said. Negan's smile widened. Like in some kind of sick way, this was exactly what he wanted to hear. He leaned in closer. "And I'd hit you with that bat. Not hard enough to kill ya but enough to do some damage, y' know? Then I'll bleed you out. Real slow. Hang you up by your feet and drain you like a pig."

"Wow, Naomi, that is specific," he said. "I had no idea your fantasies about me would be so... detailed. I'm flattered."

"I can think of a thousand ways to send you to hell," I said. "I'm only sad I'll have to pick just one."

He laughed again.

"I gotta good feeling about you," he said with a wink that made my skin crawl. "You could have a bright future here, once you learn to start behaving yourself."

"Behaving myself?" I repeated, a fire igniting deep down in my soul. The look on his face told me I'd just taken bait he'd set out very deliberately.

"Once you start playing ball, you can get out of this room," he said. He knocked twice on the door behind him, and I heard it unlock. "We got a lot of nice shit here, Naomi, and you can have free reign over all of it. You can meet my people. Dine with my wives. Hell, I might even let you see Daryl. But only when I believe you and I are truly… friends."

Never going to happen.

He opened the door. Two guys appeared on either side of him, guns trained on me like they were worried I was about to rush them now that the door was open. Tempting as it was, I wasn't dumb enough to try. I just looked him in the eye and said, "Go to hell."

I could still hear his laugh after the door closed. Alone again, the fear sank back into my bones.

There were only three ways I could see this ending. I would walk out of here with Daryl. If he'd been killed, I'd walk out of here with Negan's head under my arm. Or I would die in this goddamn shithole.

Daryl

I was taken from one dark place to another. A brief moment in the morning sun while they dragged me a short distance from the back of the van to a tall, dark building. My eyes didn't have time to adjust. The ground blurred. I caught a glimpse of my bloody knuckles, which had started swelling from a night spent punching van doors. And then I was inside again.

They opened the door to a room even darker than the van and pushed me in so hard my knees hit the concrete floor. The room was small. No windows. Probably used to be some kind of supply closet. Smelt like shit. Real, actual shit. Some piss and vomit in there too. Probably whichever unlucky bastard had been in here before me. I expected a beating. Maybe even to be tied up. But the door shut and locked again before I could get back on my feet.

A small crack of light from the hallway came through under the door. Not enough to see by. I walked over to it, pressed my ear against the door, and listened for any sound of them bringing her in. Dragging feet. Yelling. Screaming. I heard doors slamming and people moving in and out, but nothing I could've said was definitely her. I wondered if I should kick the door and start shouting so she'd know where I was if they dragged her past. But what if I made so much noise I never heard her yelling back? What if she was in another place altogether? Negan could have any number of outposts we didn't know about. We hadn't known about this place.

They left me alone for much longer than I thought. Or maybe it just felt that way. Time stretched out in the dark, and it was made worse by how little I knew. Were Rick and the others okay? Had Negan let them go? Would I ever see any of them again? How could I protect Naomi from this damn cell?

The sound of the key in the lock made my fists clench. Bending my fingers hurt. Scabs that had just started form broke open again. Dried blood flaked onto the floor. I moved to stand in the light of the opening door. If she was out there, I wanted to see her. Dwight's ugly, fucked up face looked back at me from behind my own damn crossbow.

"Step back," he told me as my feet moved toward him. "Step back."

I liked to see that there was still fear in his eyes when he looked at me. Even though he was the one who had all the power here. A guy next to him shoved a gun in my face too, and I backed up. When my back hit the wall, Negan stepped in. Bat still in his hand. Still covered in blood. I looked hard at it, but I couldn't tell if it was more or less bloody than it had been last time. If he'd added to it. Someone else from the clearing. Or if he'd changed his mind and killed Naomi after all.

"Hey there, Daryl," Negan leaned against the doorway, stared in at where I stood in the dark. I was ready to fly at him again. Ready to land the punch I hadn't been able to last time. He must've been able to read it in my face. The rage. He enjoyed it. We both knew I wouldn't act on it. Not yet. Not until I knew they wouldn't harm her for it.

"Where is she?"

He smiled, rolled his eyes slightly like it was the most predictable shit in the world.

"She's…" he paused like he was mulling it over, but I knew he was just toying with me, leaving me to stew in my own worst thoughts. Then he looked up at me with this horrible grin. "In a better place."

Dead?

Felt like half of me had been ripped away, and all that was left was torn and bleeding. Before anyone could move, I was on him. My fist slammed into the side of his face. Hurt like a bitch, but it was the most satisfying second I'd had since I'd got here.

Pain erupted in the back of my head as Dwight smacked me with the end of my crossbow. My vision faded for a split second. Another punch hit the other side of my face. And then I felt a foot slam into my chest, kicking me hard enough for my back to hit the wall. I slid down it, feeling like I'd cracked a rib. I struggled to breathe for a moment. Couldn't tell if the pain in my chest had come from the kick or from losing Naomi.

I shook my head to clear it. The barrel of a gun swam in and out of view.

Shoot me.

Fucking shoot me. I don't care.

If she's dead, just beat me until I am too.

The pain in my chest from where I'd been kicked started to subside. I was ready to fight again. Now that I had nothing to lose, I didn't have to hold anything back. I'd go out, causing as much damage as I could. If there was a heaven, I'd see her. If there wasn't, at least I wouldn't be trapped in a world without her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Negan bent over where I was sitting on the floor. "Did you think I meant she was dead? I can see why that might have been misleading."

Asshole.

I felt my breath starting to return to me, in slow and ragged pieces. I looked up at him.

"She ain't dead?" I asked. Just to check that I'd heard him right. That he wasn't messing with me.

"Nah, she's fine. She just… in a better place than this shit hole," Negan said, looking around the room that he'd chucked me in like it was my choice to be here. "Thought you might be glad about that. Thought you might even thank me for it."

Deep in my chest, I was hit with relief so intense it hurt. Like my heart was stitching itself back together with nothing but hope. Piece by piece. Sharp needles and threads I couldn't trust to hold together, invisible and flimsy. Nothing would mend until I saw her. His word was not enough.

"She's alive," I repeated it for my own sake, but he treated it like a question.

"Yeah, she's alive, fucking hell, how many times I gotta say it?"

"Prove it, asshole."

He laughed.

"Nah, I ain't making it that easy. I've actually just come from spending some time with her," Negan said, and my stomach dropped. I'd have done anything to wipe the sickening grin off his face. "And she is… quite something, your girl, ain't she?"

This glint in his eye sparked the fire that had been temporarily doused in relief. What did he mean? Had he put his hands on her? Beat her? Worse? I remembered the way he'd looked at her in that clearing. Like she was a piece of meat, and he hadn't eaten in weeks.

No.

Not Naomi.

Not again.

It felt like someone had set me on fire from the inside out. Like my soul was burning with rage and setting every nerve in my body alight. I was made of nothing but anger so strong I couldn't feel pain anymore. I pulled myself to my feet and ran at him. Dwight and his other guy grabbed my arms and shoulders, held me back. I fought against them. Got close to Negan's face while he laughed at me.

"If you laid a finger on her, I'm gonna break them off!" I yelled. "I'll tear you to pieces! You're gonna die so slow you'll wish you'd never been born. I'm gonna-"

Another fist slammed into my jaw so hard it twisted my whole head up to look at the ceiling. I tasted blood, felt a stinging in my tongue as it started to swell. A swift kick at the back of my legs, and I was on my knees again. Negan's hand tugged at the top of my hair, forcing me to keep looking up as he leaned over me. Everything stung, and the ground shifted underneath my knees like I was about to pass out.

"Hey, hey," Negan said like he was deeply insulted. "Look, I don't know what kind of shitshow you and your man Rick have been running, but that kind of shit does not fly around here. Ain't nobody putting their hands on your girl, don't you worry. Not unless she wants them to, of course."

It did nothing to make me feel better. Nothing. Negan could be lying about all of it. He could've killed Naomi hours ago, could've done all kinds of horrible shit. I knew that he could very well be telling me what he knew I wanted to hear - needed to hear - to keep me in line. I also knew that if I kicked off now, gave him a reason to kill me, or let me rot in here, I'd never know what happened to her.

"Better be the truth," I warned him. If there was one bruise on her body or a hair out of place, he was a dead man. He was a dead man, anyway. But if she was hurt, I'd make it last for months. Peel off tiny pieces of him until he was begging to die.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," Negan said. "I was just appreciating her, that's all. Nothing wrong with that, is there?"

Yes.

I didn't say anything, just glared up at him.

"See, I ain't going to kill your girl unless you give me a reason to," he said. "You step out of line. You throw another punch like that… and it won't just be you that gets a beating for it. Do you understand?"

My heart was beating so hard I could feel it hitting against my ribcage. I couldn't say anything. Couldn't do anything. Couldn't move. The fight to stop myself from trying to kill him was all-consuming. But in my head, I was tearing him apart with my bare hands. Negan waited, but my mouth stayed shut.

"I gotta hear you say it," he said. "I gotta hear you say that you understand the rules, man. I'll let this one slide, but you throw a punch like that again… I will slice off a piece of her, and I will watch you eat it. Do you understand?"

I felt sick. Gut-wrenching, painfully, ill.

"Yeah," I nodded.

"Good," Negan said, relaxing, stepping back. "Because it would be a real shame if I had to kill her. I like her, Daryl. I mean it. I'd be mad as hell if you did something that meant I wound up having to feed her to Lucille."

Not as mad as I would be.

He leaned back on the wall, a relaxed and easy smile like we were just two friends shooting the breeze.

"She's a lot like you, you know. She was making all kinds of threats about how she was gonna kill me. Slice me up and bleed me out," he laughed like it was a fond memory. "It was… adorable."

A tiny bit of pride flared up inside me. Despite the shit we were in, Naomi hadn't lost her fight. She was smart as hell. The only person in the world who'd have followed me to a shithole like this. Put herself in danger for me. If anyone could outsmart this asshole, it was her. New confidence rose up to meet that pride.

"You ain't gonna find it so adorable when she beats your ass," I told him. I was sure it would happen, just prayed I'd be around to see it. To help.

He bent down again, real close. I could feel his breath on my face.

"I'm gonna take everything from you," Negan said. "Your clothes, take your name, take your goddamn identity until you are as Negan as the rest of these sorry assholes. And then, I'm gonna take your girl."

I spat in his face. It was an instinctual, gut reaction. Most of it was blood. I watched how it ran down his chin and fantasized about it being his blood instead of mine. He shook his head, wiped it away. But he got this light in his eyes. Like he liked the fight. Like I was giving him everything he wanted.

Negan stepped back, let Dwight and his other men get a few hits in. It was worth it. They could've hit me another dozen times, and it still would've been worth it. I barely felt it, still riding high on the satisfaction of what I'd been able to do.

And then it hit me.

Naomi.

Would they punish her for this? For what I'd done? Was that enough to cost her something? Negan leaned in real close to my face. Like he was daring me to do it again. Or was about to spit back.

"The best part is, she's going to come to me willingly, Daryl," he put his meaty fingers under my chin and forced me to look up at him. My head was still spinning, the rest of the room was just a blur, but his face was crystal clear in front of me. "And you are going to thank me for taking such good care of her."

Never.

A cold twist in my gut made me clammy and queasy all at once.

He could take my clothes, he could try to take my name, my identity. But he could never take my girl. Not really. As much as she felt like mine, I wasn't dumb enough to think of Naomi as anyone's but her own. For whatever reason, she'd chosen me - and I was grateful as hell - but she would always be free to change her mind. If I wasn't good for her, didn't treat her right, or if she didn't feel the same way about me as I did about her, I'd want her to leave. To be happy. Even if it was someone else.

But this asshole?

No goddamn way.

"Don't believe me, huh? Honest to God, that's how it's going to be. Ain't that right, D?" he looked up at Dwight. A look passed between them that I did not understand. He said, "Yeah, that's right."

But I thought I saw the muscles in Dwight's jaw clench like he was holding something back. A flicker of resentment in his eyes. A thought that hadn't occurred to me before suddenly gripped me.

What the hell happened to Sherry?

I kind of didn't want to know the answer. There was too much dread that came with the threat of knowing. Like there was any chance that what had happened to them would happen to Naomi and me. Was there anything in the world that would turn me into this asshole?

No.

He could threaten to kill me as much as he liked; I'd never do his dirty work. I'd never bow to him like Dwight. And if he really did kill Naomi, I'd fight him until I killed him. Or he killed me. Didn't much matter.

Negan turned to leave, glanced at Dwight over his shoulder, "Knock some sense into him for me, will ya?"

Dwight and the other guy grabbed me under the arms and dragged me out into the hallway. There were more of Negan's guys waiting out there. Negan took a slow stroll down the hall and didn't even turn back when they started beating on me. Just whistled to himself like the sound of fists and shoes slamming into me was music to his ears. I got to my feet a couple of times, managed to hit some back. But there were always too many of them. I could never stay up for long.

From the ground, I tried to kick at them. Tried to trip up as many as I could, but two of them got my legs and pinned me down on my back. The bottom of Dwight's shoe crushed down on my nose. I struggled, but my arms were pinned under heavy boots. There wasn't a part of me that wasn't hit. Kicked me so hard in the stomach, I thought I was going to puke.

And then without warning, it lessened. They backed off. Someone could've given the order, but I didn't hear it because my ears were ringing. Their grips on me loosened, and I managed to twist myself away from a few of them. They pinned me again, my cheek pressed against the cold concrete. But the beatings stopped. For a moment.

"Hey! Hey!" Dwight called out. Sounded worried about something. I followed his boots as they ran away from me, toward a door I was sure hadn't been open before. I had a chance to take a breath, confirm that my ribs were bruised at the very least, some of them probably broken. I spat out blood that had been collecting in my mouth, threatening to drown me. Dwight stopped at the door, and I heard him say, "You know you're not supposed to be down here, sweetie."

Sweetie?

Is Sherry alive after all?

But the feet standing in the doorway were too small for an adult. I raised my head as Dwight tried to push a kid back out of the hallway. She resisted him, locking eyes with me.

Wide, horrified eyes that fixed on me. Knew me. She had her sister's nose.

Mia.