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TRUDI DIDN'T ALWAYS think before she acted. Her brain formed ideas and she found herself acting on them before considering the consequences. That was what had happened when she slipped Daryl Dixon a candy bar and a note. It had been something so innocent, and yet so incredibly stupid. Daryl was gone now, and when his cell was ransacked, the napkin with her handwriting scrawled onto it was found scrunched into a discarded ball.
Dwight had thrown her under the bus instantly, what did he care if she was punished? It wouldn't affect him. Though, as she'd later come to realise, he had his own reasons for doing so. Almost justifiable ones.
Her father hadn't hesitated to seize her by the arm and drag her into the very cell that Daryl Dixon had been held in, and with no Tariq or Negan around to stop him, she found herself locked in that wretched room, staring at the four walls of doom for hours.
Dwight had named her as a traitor, claimed she was conspiring against the Saviours with Rick Grimes and his people. It was ludicrous, really, because Trudi had never even set eyes on the man. She'd uttered a single sentence to Daryl and got no response. With Freya, she'd simply pleaded for her and Tariq's lives. She wasn't a traitor- if anything, she was conspiring against Rick's people. She'd been forced to give up all the information she knew about them.
She wasn't quite sure how much time had passed when the cell door finally opened. She'd expected to see Tariq but it was Negan. Just Negan with Lucille slung over his shoulder and a disappointed frown on his face.
"Why, kiddo?" Negan asked her, closing the cell door behind him. "Why are we here again?"
"Because Dwight-"
"No. No, because you helped someone escape. Again. Someone that I very much needed to have. He was leverage. He was my upper hand. Having him here meant assuring that they wouldn't try a damn thing against us."
Trudi folded her arms across her chest. "Negan, I didn't do this."
"I know your handwriting. 'Guts mean death.' The wrapper Dwight found? I was the one that gave you that. You've been helping him survive here, making the ride a whole lot easier." Negan propped Lucille up against the drywall. "That shit is not acceptable. If it were anybody else-"
"You'd iron their faces."
Negan's lips twitched slightly. "I would, but I can't iron your face. 'Cause you're still a goddamn kid. One that keeps making the worst decision. Now, seriously, I'd be expecting this if you were still thirteen but you're damn near seventeen, and this is how you act? How am I supposed to trust you with this place one day when you're pulling this shit?"
"I didn't pull any shit."
"Drop the fuckin' act, Trudi. You've been made. It's done. I don't know what he offered you-"
