Undead

Before and After. (313)

MADISON'S POV.

I feel like a child as I sit still, silent on the couch as Rick and Michonne stare at me from less than meter away. They just stare, thinking cautiously as if I'm a bomb waiting to go off... maybe I am.

"Can someone please talk now." I beg.
Rick scoffs. "What would you like us to say Madison?"
I just shrug.
I'm equally at a loss for words.
I'm not shocked about what I done how it hurt my family. I'm shocked that I was stupid enough to think they wouldn't find out. Honestly, shitty situations like this just become routine at this point.

As soon as Simon left Rick and Michonne dragged my ass to the infirmary to get my side restitched. All the while, they were equally as quiet. It was unnerving. And then, they hauled my ass back here where they could rip into me and not care what lines they had to cross to make their point.

"When did you even leave?" Rick bursts making me jump.
"...that's where you were earlier. Wasn't it? When you were gone." Michonne connects the dots quicker than Rick.
I nod twice.

This feeling creeps into my skin and crawls along my skin making me cringe and squirm as it makes its way deeper and deeper inside me like a leach as it settles in my stomach, making me feel sick. I felt my internal heater switch on, roasting me from inside out as I start to nervously sweat. I look back and forth between Rick and Michonne and finally to the two letters laid on the coffee table in front of me.

I feel myself sink deeper and deeper into the couch, hoping it will swallow me up and erase the past 24 hours if such a thing were possible. Fangs waits impatiently beside the couch.

"He killed Glenn. Do you remember him Madison?" Rick taunts.
"Of course I do." I snap.
"How about Abraham?"
"Spencer? Olivia ?"
"I get it guys, I screwed up. I made a mistake." I admit.
"A mistake ? No Madison, this is the real world now. It's not what it used to be. It's shitty and dangerous and non refundable so you have to make due with what you get. Grow up! You don't just get to make a mistake and move on. If you make a mistake, you die." Rick shouts.

"How did you know he wasn't gonna kill you right there and then Mads?" Michonne asks.
"He wouldn't hurt me. Not unless I gave him a reason to. Maybe even then he wouldn't."
"Well, sorry, not all of us have been glued to his side for the past six months." Rick snaps.

I feel my blood boil and I try to calm myself before I say something I don't mean. That exact kind of reaction is what just gave me a split lip and black eye.
"Yeah? Who's fault was that Rick?"
"Careful Madison." Michonne warns.

I feel the facade already begin to wear away.
"No! You're equally to blame Rick. The night I was taken was the night shit hit the fan. We were surrounded. We were stuck so I could understand why you couldn't do anything to save me that night, but where were you after that? Where were you? I waited for days for you to come save me and Daryl and you never came. You were too busy being Negan's bitch." I shout back.

His jaw sets and I watch as his face reddens slightly. It's like I can physically see his blood boil.
"You better watch what you say right now. This isn't about me. This is about you going to Negan today. About what?"
I push the my letter towards him.
"Read it for yourself."

Rick frowns as he bends to pick up the letter, opening it and making a confused face as he takes in the drunken scribbles.

"Dear Negan..." He reads.
"I'm drunk right now so I don't know what sense this will make in the morning when sober me reads it, but if it's made it's way over to you then it mustn't be too bad. And if it doesn't then I must be totally Shit faced right now.