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Ch. 4 - Average Joe

"Lucille looks pretty in your hands," Negan said, eyes glued to the road. I glanced down at the dark bat, blood stains creeping up from the large end, pieces of flesh cemented to the barbed wire.

"I prefer something a little smaller," I responded, knowing that as the words left my mouth, he would have some childish rebuttal.

"That's the first goddamn time I've heard that from a beautiful lady," he turned to me, the right corner of his lips playfully smirking.

"I guess there's a first time for everything, huh?" I egged on, playing off of his humor. When he wasn't surrounded by his men, or anybody really, he wasn't the worst person to be around. If he hadn't butchered my friends' faces, I'd like him a lot more, maybe find him tolerable. But he did, so I'll give him shit because he deserves it.

"That one hurt, darlin'," he placed his hand on his heart and grabbed at his leather jacket, crumpling the material as if it were paper. His grin never left its position in the midst of his salt and pepper beard.

"You deserve it," I tell him. It was true, he did.

"What the hell did I do?" He asked.

"You can't fucking be serious, right?"

"What?"

"You killed my fucking friends you asswipe." I turned to look away, feeling myself becoming upset as I remember the scene when Negan first took me from my group.

"Oooooh," he sang in a child-like manner. "Yeah, sorry about that." I nodded my head at his lackluster apology. Nothing could bring them back. They couldn't even turn, he'd fucked them up beyond belief. I remained silent until I'd fallen asleep. I haven't had a nice rest in a while, sleeping on concrete isn't too enticing and I just got a new room for the time being. Hopefully one of the houses has a bed to sleep in.

-

"Jade," I woke to the sound of my name and a gentle nudge on my shoulder. "Wake the fuck up, dude."

"I'm awake, dude." I took Lucille from between my legs and handed her to Negan. As soon as he had ahold of her, he shut off the truck and instructed me to get out. The door opened with a vulgar creak and I jumped down from the truck, the gravel beneath my boots shifting with my weight. I shut the truck door and headed towards the congregation of men. I decided to stand amongst the group rather than beside Negan, I was one of them for the time being, until I could escape with Daryl.

"Sunset is coming quickly, we've got maybe two hours to clear these fucking houses and set up camp for the night. I want you," he motioned to half the group, "on that side of the road. The rest of you on this side." He distinguished between the mirroring houses. "Jade, you're with me." I sighed, I wanted to be with the group. The men all went back to collect their bags from the trucks and began to split, each group gathering at the beginning of the street before pressing on.

"Aren't you fuckin' lucky, you get to be my partner for the evening," he gloated. He motioned to a separate street, a roundabout at the end and maybe six houses surrounding the pavement.

"Just my luck," I started, "stuck with the old fuck, looking through these average-joe ass houses." I started walking down the cul-de-sac.

"I'm not old."

"Coulda fooled me."

"I'll have you know, I'm only 43. And I think I look damn fucking good for my age," Negan said.

"You're like twice my age," I said. He looked at me with an eyebrow raised.

"You're 21?" I shook my head at his response.