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The slick ash bat twirled between his callous fingers dripping a thin scarlet color. It splattered on the grass aside her father's trembling kneeled legs, yielding the wicked man who towered above him. Every last nerve of his body shook with such intensity she thought he might pass out. She wanted to hug him, she wanted to reach out and wrap her slender arms around his neck but she couldn't move.
She'd seen him like that once before, the look of sheer fright in his eyes. The sweat that ran in rivulets down in his temples and built up at the roots of his hair. It was the day of the lineup, the day his two best men were mercilessly beaten before him. Now, amid what was supposed to be a safe haven, Rick's knees dug deep into the dirt as he tried to keep his glassy eyes from glancing over the body next to his. The one that was beaten to no more than a bloody pulp, all that's left being the disfigured body and the sheriff's hat coated in thick layers of maroon.
She could feel the tears that streamed down her face, the overwhelming wetness on her cheeks, but she couldn't reach up to touch them. Her hands were glued to her side. She tried and tried, but her shoulders failed to twitch, not even an inch. She couldn't take her eyes from the mess on the ground, the one that used to be her brother. She could feel the bile rising in her throat, yet she had no ability to lurch over and let it out.
"Man, what a goddamn shame." His voice was rumbling and sickly, it sent chills down her frail spine. "I liked the kid. He might have been a little fucking psychopath, but shit did he had some balls of motherfucking steel." The man in leather kneeled to my father's height and looked him in the eye, basking in the pain he caused. "You did this, Rick."
"I'm gonna kill you," her father's southern accent drawled and dwindled with the hitch of his chest. His gaze kept flickering to the lone sheriff's hat by the crumpled corpse. She could see the absolute mess of her father, his bloodshot eyes, the pathetic noises that came from the back of his throat, the way his face crunched in a way that looked like he was ready to give up. Like he already had.
"You know what Rick? You said that exact same shit the day I met you and look at where the fuck we are now." Negan jerked his bat roughly to the intimate body causing streaks of blood to fly onto her father's shirt. The man wielding the weapon only seemed to enjoy how the man below him flinched, how he scrunched his nose in utter disgust as he caught a glance of the thing that killed his son.
Licking his lip, Negan twisted his waist and made eye contact with the girl. He curved his lips up like he was proud of the mess he'd made; the horrid act he'd done. Even seeing the woman he loved cry, his smile failed to falter in the slightest. He averted his gaze back to Rick and jerked his head toward his daughter. "It's not like I left you fucking childless, Rick."
The sweaty man raised his chin and looked him deep in the eye with the greatest animosity he'd ever registered. It's like she could see every vein in his neck – maybe she could too, and with detail. It was as if she could make out every tiny thing in great detail, but when she focused back on the bigger picture, things got blurry. The wicked man's grin was a simple upturn of the lips and her father's trembling body was a shaken blob of faint colors.
