damnation → the walking dead ⁴

[ 005 ] who are you now?

— CHAPTER FIVE.
who are you now?

mentions of rape, suicide, and self-harm

BY THE FOURTH DAY, Odessa starts to hallucinate. She is dehydrated, exhausted, and hungry. And despite all those things she doesn't sleep. She doesn't drink the water that is given to her twice a day. She doesn't dare touch the food she is given.

She hasn't said a word to anyone since she threatened Kathleen. Kathleen is still the one that brings her the food and every time she takes back the untouched tray. Every time Odessa sees the traitorous bitch it takes all of her strength not to kill her. She hates her for what she's done, for the betrayal. But mostly, she hates her for the pain she's caused Cole Tanner.

Kathleen tells Negan about the Grimes girl not touching her food. Negan tells her to force feed the girl if she has to. Kathleen doesn't tell him that Odessa would quite literally attempt to bite her fingers off if she tried that shit.

Hidden away down a hall sits a girl in the corner of a barren, cemented room. Her knees are pulled up to her chest, she rests her chin on her knees.

There are no tears when an old man appears beside her. He doesn't have his fisherman's hat or his watch. He wears the same clothes he did the day he died. However, these is no blood or guts spilling from his stomach. He sits with his legs out in front of him.

Odessa doesn't dare look at Dale Horvath. She can't. She hasn't seen him in quite some time. Three weeks maybe? She knows why he's here now. He can feel the anger and the hatred in her aching heart. He is is here to talk her out of the vengeance she plans.

He won't be able to. Not even God would be. If someone put Odessa Grimes in a room alone with Negan right now, she would kill him. There would be no talking, no nothing. She would slice his throat, put a bullet between his eyes, maybe bash him over the head with his own fucking bat. She doesn't know how she would do it. All she knows if that she would walk out of the room and Negan would not.

And still—

"Dessa," he starts. She looks over at him finally, resting her cheek on her arms that are locked around her legs. "What're you doin', sweetheart?"

"Well, uh, I'm kinda being held prisoner." She informs him. "The leader hasn't come to get me. I don't know if he ever will or if he plans on me rotting away in here."

"No, I mean. What are you doing?" He annunciates the word doing. "Why haven't you done something about it yet?"

"Yeah, like what?" She scoffs. "Tell someone to tell Negan to bring his ass down here? That I wanna talk to him? I don't even wanna see his face, Dale. Not until it's lifeless."

Dale sighs heavily. "Always with the killing, Odessa. Killing Negan won't bring back Glenn and Abraham. You don't have to kill people anymore."

Her eyes harden. Her heart turns ice cold. Her lips press into a straight line. "I know that." Her words are said in a tone she's never used with Dale before.

His bushy eyebrows shoot skywards as she continues. "There is no getting them back, Dale. Just like there was with you, and Mom, and T-Dog, and Hershel, and Beth, and Noah!"

She shoots up and Dale remains seated. "You don't get it, Dale! You never have! I have to kill! That's what the new world is, and you've never understood that! It's kill or be killed! You wanted Randall to live when he told Daryl that his group would rape the women and possibly Carl! They would have killed all of the men!"