Closer (Negan X OC)

Chapter 28

Negan looked at me in disbelief at my statement. His lips curled upwards, a smile ghosting on his lips, but when he saw my lack of humor, it fell.

"What happened?" He asked, his voice low.

I didn't quite know where to start. There had been so much that had transpired before the death of my mother. I guess it made the most sense to start at the beginning.

"Remember earlier when you asked me about my real parents?" I asked. Negan nodded, silently urging me to continue. I took a deep breath and began speaking.

"I never knew my father or anything about him. I never found out what happened to him...but if my mother was involved, then he must be dead. I don't know anything about him, but I know that whatever magic or energy that makes me a wolf came from him."

"My mother, Aidan...she was someone who was obsessed with power. She lived it, breathed it, craved it...and she ultimately tried to create it."

"From what I know, she had it in her mind that if she had a vessel, she would be able to not only transfer power into it, but channel it as well whenever she wanted. It would be her very own unlimited source of power."

"It was me. I don't know about the details of how I came to be, but I know she wanted to use me, harness that power that made me a wolf and use it for her own benefit. To her, I was never her daughter, just something she could use. I don't remember much of the first few years of my life and I'm not sure how she ended up losing me to the system. But that's when the Gardners found me and took me in. And that's where my memories start, seeing them for the first time. I was with them a little less than a year before Aidan came looking for me."

"The newspapers called it an accident. But it wasn't. I still don't know how she pulled it off, but she staged a car accident. She murdered our parents because they were in the way. But she didn't try and take me, not yet anyway."

"She did do something to me though. She hurt me, twisted up me up inside so bad that the doctors were convinced that I could never have kids. I never found out why she did that, other than the fact that she was a cold hearted bitch with no regard for life other than her own. And when I was in the hospital, the doctors noticed that there something wrong with my blood. They ran every test they could, but they never diagnosed it, saying it was a rare and unknown blood disease. But you and I both know that once it gets into your blood, the...disease takes over."

"So my brother and I grew up as relatively normal as we could. But then when I was 21, Aidan returned. Turns out, she needed me to be a certain age for her...whatever she was going to do to me. That's why she didn't kill me when I was a child. This time, she threatened to destroy everything and everyone in my world. She had me backed into a corner and there was only one thing I could do."

"Fight," Negan provided. I had zoned out during my story, my gaze lost in the city lights. I turned to Negan for the first time since I had started speaking to see his reaction. His eyes were laced with concern. I gave him a small smile before I continued, the tears beginning to well up in my eyes.

"I turned into a wolf and I killed her. I knew I had to, even though a part of me didn't want to. She was still my mother, Negan."

He scoffed. "No, baby. She was a fucking monster and deserved what she got."

"You know, I told myself for so long that I did the right thing, that it was the only option to save my brother. But what if it wasn't? And what if I'm just as bad as her? What if I'm the monster for killing my own mother?" By now, the tears were falling freely down my cheeks. I hated what I had done. And I hated myself for it more.

Long fingers swept across my face, wiping the tears as they went. "Look at me, Carson," Negan said.

Reluctantly, I did. I was scared to see how his opinion of me would change after I had told him the truth about me.

"You wanna know what I see?" He continued, cupping my cheek in his hand, gently stroking my skin. "I see a woman who is so goddamn strong and would do anything and did damn well everything to protect the people she loves. Baby, you're a fighter. A survivor. You're not a monster. You know why? Because you have the guts to ask yourself that question. Someone who was really a monster wouldn't give a shit what they did."

Negan let his hand ghost across my face, wiping the remaining tears away before pulling his hand back. I smiled at him and felt heat spreading in my cheeks. Never before had I told someone my story, the way the brutality of it had shaped me into the person I was now. But Negan didn't see it. He saw someone who survived against impossible odds. Someone who wasn't a monster. Maybe the remorse I felt for my actions did separate me from the rest of the monsters of the world. And Negan's words provided me with a new revelation. While my actions may have been monstrous, that didn't make me a bad person, a monster.

It made me human.