Last One Fighting ~ Negan Fanfic

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Jo

"Home sweet home," Negan called in a sing-songy voice from the front seat. 

I flinched at the sound, but he didn't seem to notice. We had been riding in silence for hours now. I sat up straighter in my seat, my body was stiff and my eyes were gritty and burned from the exhaustion of the night before, but I hadn't slept again. I had felt my eyes drift closed a few times but had snapped them right back open. I had essentially passed out earlier, but now I just wasn't comfortable enough to allow myself to be so vulnerable around Simon and Negan. 

I stared as we crested the hill. I had never been as far north as Virginia, but I loved the look of the forest lining the road. I wanted to be out there, those forests looked safe to me, a lot safer than being in here. My heart started to pound in my chest and the SUV suddenly felt too small. I closed my eyes for just a second. 

Stop, reset. 

All I had to do was get to Kate. Then she and I could leave, that was what Negan had said. We weren't prisoners, I could leave anytime I wanted I wrapped my hand around the grip of the knife he had given me. He had let me keep the knife. You didn't arm a prisoner, not one who could do what I could. And you certainly didn't put them in the backseat of the car you were riding in while they were armed. 

I wasn't a prisoner. 

I opened my eyes. When we came down the hill I sucked in a breath. He had called it a compound but for some reason I had always envisioned a community like Woodbury. A small town somewhere where a few of the streets had been fenced in to make it safe and give the illusion of normalcy. That was not the case here. No one was pretending things were normal here. This was a compound. 

It was a massive old factory,  sprawling and at least eight stories tall. There were huge smoke stacks coming off the roof, but I couldn't tell exactly what it would have been used for before. The building itself appeared to be made entirely of concrete with the exception of windows that started three floors up. The entire compound was surrounded by layers of fence. Within each layer I could see line ups of cars and what looked like people moving around. The factory was set in the middle of a large open field with clear line of sight for at least a mile in every direction. Woodbury was nothing, it was tiny, insignificant compared to this, easily taken. This place wasn't just a compound, it was a fortress. 

I glanced at Negan, feeling a sliver of fear slide through me. I had grown to, I don't know if I would use the word trust, but I at least didn't distrust him. I thought that maybe I had started to understand him. We had fought beside one another the night before, and out in those dark woods he had saved my life. 

Looking at this place it suddenly felt like I had no idea who he was. What did a man have to do to become the leader of a place like this? How strong did they have to be to hold so many people together? How much of themselves did they have to give up in order to become what they would have to become to do this? The act, his little show suddenly made sense. It was his mask, his persona, but was there anything left beneath it? Looking around this place  I didn't see how there could be. 

The first gate was thrown open and we were waved through. Between the first and second lines of fencing was an entire layer of biters, dozens of them. I couldn't hear them with the windows rolled up, so I was able to look at them objectively. I scowled at them, at first not understanding what this would do for defense against other biters. But as I took on the armed men standing at intervals around the fence I realized the enemies of The Sanctuary weren't just the biters. Other people, other communities would be the real enemies. Other people who would come and try to take away what they had built here.