Too Good to be Bad | Negan |

51 - I killed him

'Lara, I have to talk to you.'

'What's wrong?' I ask worriedly. Alex stumbles desperatedly into the laundry room with brimming, red eyes. I haven't seen him this distraught since the night Maria died. He walks over to me and takes my hands into his own.

'It's Kieran', he says in a strangled voice. The ground seems to sink beneath my feet and the only thing keeping me up is Alex holding me with his strong arms. His face can only mean one thing. He's dead.

'Oh my God, I killed him,' I say breathlessly.

'What?' Alex asks confused.

'I killed him', I say again, letting go of Alex to double over with my hand on my mouth. I feel like I'm going to throw up.

'What are you talking about?' Alex asks. Of course he doesn't know about what happened last night. I tried so hard to convince myself that Kieran would be all right that I decided not to tell the others. Besides Derek. I thought I'd just needlessly worry them, but now...

'Last night', I sob. 'You were right, you and Derek. Simon tried to manipulate me. First he said that he could arrange for Kieran to come here more often, but when I didn't bite he... he...'

'What? What did he do?' Alex asks urgently, grabbing my shoulders.

'He ordered him to go out and clear a herd in the middle of the night. Alone. And I could've stopped him if I had just given in, but I thought that he would-'

'Wait, wait, wait', Alex interrupts me, grabbing me even more tightly. 'Are you saying that Kieran wasn't at the outpost last night?'

'No', I say between my tears. 'He sent him out there to die.'

Then, to my immense surprise, Alex's face breaks out in a desperate smile and he hugs me.

'Dios mío, you might have saved him.' Now I'm the one that's confused.

'What?'

Alex lets go of me and runs his hands over his face to wipe the tears.

'There was an attack on the satellite outpost last night. They killed everybody there.'

The noise of shattering glass pulls our attention to the side where Pamela just dropped her glass of tea.

'What did you just say?' she asks, shocked.

'They killed everybody', Alex repeats. 'But if Kieran wasn't there he might still be alive.'

Pamela reaches out to the table for support, but doesn't seem to find it. Her mouth is wide open and so are her eyes. I glance over at Alex for a moment before I make my way over to Pamela to guide her to a chair.

'Are you all right?' I ask her, not sure if I'm all right myself. I just had to process the news that Kieran is dead, then that he might not be dead, but everybody else at the outpost is?

'I know people there', Pamela says in a small voice. I rub her back to comfort her a little but I'm as shocked as she is.

'Alex, I don't understand. They killed everybody? Really? How is that possible? Who did this?'

'I don't know', he says. 'I don't think we're supposed to know yet. But I just heard it from Keith, who heard it from Emma, who heard it from Paul who was in the room with Simon when he-'

'Okay, yeah, it doesn't matter', I interrupt him, agitatedly. 'Who would do such a thing? Who even could? There's well over 30 people there, isn't there?'

'I don't know.'

'Do you think they're coming here as well?'

'I don't know', Alex says again.