The Masks We Hide Behind (Negan)

The Day Will Come When You Won't Be

❝ NO PARENT SHOULD
       OUTLIVE THEIR CHILD ❞

―

Rick's POV

They'd been gone for a lifetime.

That's how it felt. I couldn't sit still. My mind was going at a million miles an hour. Snippets of her. Her smile, her soft eyes, her sweet voice. They were screaming at me. Taunting me. Like it was the last time I might ever see her.

I scrunched my face to try and shake the thought. But it wouldn't go away.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and tasted iron blood. I looked down. My palms were stained red. It wasn't mine. I couldn't feel anything.

I closed my eyes, imagining my child in my arms. Safe. Unharmed. Untouched.

I dry-heaved. The images were sickening. No parent should outlive their child.

You're a fucking failure.

Suddenly the door swung open.

Defeat wasn't an emotion I was used to reigning. It had almost become foreign. But the feeling I was experiencing right now was overwhelming and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Defeat was there when I saw my baby for the first time without her mother.

It was the same defeat I had felt as Hershel was murdered right in front of me.

At first there was stillness. My heart was thudding inside my ears in fearful anticipation, imagining every possible outcome, none of which were good. I was torturing myself.

The same feeling of defeat was dominant, when I saw her finally, teary eyed and so weak she was almost unrecognisable.

... But anger had drowned it out.

She was innocent. Not only that but she was still a child. My child. And I'd failed to protect her.

Negan was dragging her into the clearing forcefully by the arm with a sadistic grin on his face.

My stomach dropped.

Her little hand was as purple as amethyst. I wracked a sob. It was my fault. I could've stopped him. But I'd let him harm her.

It hurts. Oh, god. It hurts.

As they got closer, I caught a glimpse of her in the trucks headlamps and for a moment, in the harsh light, she looked like an actual child. A version I knew all too well. The mysterious little girl who never used to speak. Who never used to cry. Who used to live her life behind a mask. Instead of an adult trapped inside such a small form. 

I watched the bat with a held breath as Negan flung it through the air playfully, like he was the happiest man in the world. I didn't remember it being covered head to toe in blood. Was it hers?

What the hell did he do to her in there?

I bit my bottom lip to suppress the anger that was rising once again from the pit of my stomach. It wasn't working. I wanted to fucking kill him.

He stopped abruptly in front of me as she stumbled over her feet. His smile remained glued to his face, but I could feel his eyes threatening me.

"She's exquisite," he crowed, not once breaking his gaze from mine, "Simon, save her for me."

It took everything I had not to charge at him.

He shoved her roughly past me and Simon caught her with ease. She let out a small whimper as her wrist collided into his chest.

If only I could've held her and told her everything was going to be ok. To allow her to cry her eyes out, scream if she had to. I owed her that much. God knows I owed it to all my children. I wished they could've experienced the childhood I had. But I knew that was never going to happen. There was no way we could've ever predicted something like this.

Guilt was eating away at me. I'd made a deal with myself that no matter what, I'd keep my family safe. I'd find a place, I'd fix it. I'd keep them alive, Lori, Carl, my two little girls. I was lying to myself. I was a failure.

"Goddamn Rick, your girl is fiery as hell," Negan sneered, tearing his eyes away from me momentarily as he looked her up and down, a smirk playing on his lips. "Shame 'bout the wrist. I usually like my things left unspoiled."

I wanted nothing more than to take that bat and beat him to a fucking pulp.

But it looked like Daryl had got there first.

He lunged at Negan and managed to get one good hit in which sent the bat-wielding psychopath staggering backwards before he was surrounded, two large men beating him bloody. I couldn't lose him now. Not like this.

"Daryl!" My voice broke.

"NO!" Negan's yell was so venomous it'd paralysed me. The bat was inches away from my face. I didn't dare move a muscle. "Oh, no." His eyes glittered dangerously.

I knew it was about to get so much worse.

His chest hitched with laughter. "That?" He said, pacing back to where Daryl had been pinned down onto the dirt floor. "Oh, my! That... is a no-no. The whole thing... not one bit of that shit flies here."

I should've done something. Anything. But then I saw my son and thought about what might still happen. I stayed rooted on my knees.

Daryl was such a fucking idiot. What the hell did he think was going to happen? If Negan had no problem hurting a child, who knows what he was prepared to do next.

That's when the blonde man wearing Daryl's vest stepped in, using his own weapon against him. "Do you want me to do it?" He seethed, the crossbow aimed unsteadily as he shook with blind rage, "Right here."

There was a split second where I thought he might actually pull the trigger.

I felt like I was on fire. Like I might spontaneously combust at any given moment. Like someone had set a slow and steady match beneath my centre, deep in the pit of my stomach.

Negan yanked Daryl's head up by his hair. There was a short pause as he stared at him. "No," he said finally. "No, you don't kill them... not until you try a little."

I should've been relieved. Grateful.

The day will come when you won't be.

"And anyway..." Negan continued as Daryl was dragged roughly back into his place, "that's not how it works. Now, I already told you people, first ones free, then what'd I say? I said I would shut that shit down!" He grinned. "No exceptions."

My brain stuttered for a moment. And then I remembered where the blood on the bat had come from. My chest suddenly tightened as if I was being choked.

"Now, I don't know what kind of lying assholes you've been dealing with... but I'm a man of my word. First impressions are important."

I felt like I'd been hung upside for hours. My mind was racing. All I could see was red. I could feel bile in my throat. I didn't want anyone else to die. God help me.

"I need you to know me."

I blinked. Negan was uncomfortably close to Glenn.

Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong.

"So... back to it."

Crunch!

I couldn't speak. Or look at the man hunched over on the ground. My ascendancy had been crushed like Glenn's skull.