Saved

XXXII

So what's up with Daryl now? The groups discovered the quarry filled with walkers, and Rick's in charge so they are coming up with the plan of how to get the walkers away from the group. Carter has tried to rebel and Eugene heard, but Rick spared his life. They are working on building up the route, and the dry run will happen tomorrow. 

My hands were completely wrecked, and the palms of my hands were bleeding from the blisters that had been ripped open over and over again. I was sweating, and my cuts stung whenever it was touched by the liquid dripping down my body. 

"Hurry up!" Arat yelled, and a sharp sting hit my back, and I groaned, swinging the pickaxe down into the ground again. I had been... replaced by Arat and I had been demoted to a slave. Dale, thankfully had been taken in by the wives, while I was forced to sleep down in the cells with the other slaves. Thankfully, I was put in a cell farther away from the others, so I wasn't being driven completely insane by that dreadful song. 

I swung the pickaxe down again, breaking up the asphalt. We were supposed to be clearing this area for a new garden to be, but it was paved. So, we have the lovely jobs of breaking it up. Eventually, they'll use one of the big... things with scoops on them... to come and pick up the pieces and clear it away, but those things guzzle gas like no tomorrow, so they can't use it to break up the road. 

It's backbreaking work, and as soon as I was cleared by Dr. Carson to resume physical activity, I was assigned by that man who looks like... no. I was assigned by Negan to join the slaves. Since my brain injury has obviously affected me, he didn't want me to be his right-hand anymore. Said he couldn't trust me. So, here I am. Thankfully he had allowed Dale to be treated well, I am allowed to spend an hour with him a day, and he seems happy. He misses me of course, I tell him I'm working, but I don't think he believes me. 

Negan also still demands that I attend therapy sessions with Dr. Carson for an hour every day, trying to retrain my brain, recognize the objects that I don't know, and if I see something, and don't know what it is throughout the day, I'm supposed to draw it for Dr. Carson to tell me during session. It's... it's hard. Especially since Dr. Carson gets annoyed with me sometimes, he wasn't a neuroscientist of any kind before, he did something with cardiology I think he said, so he doesn't understand that I'm like a baby. If you tell me what something is, I won't just remember like an adult. I have to be told, and shown multiple times before it actually sticks. It took me a week just to remember that a door was a door. 

I swung the pickaxe down again, and when I glanced up, there was a walker coming towards us. This area isn't fenced off yet. Some of the other slaves are working on it, expanding the fence, but we are extending the Sanctuary out by almost a mile, and it's taking a bit for them to do. I glanced behind me at Arat, but she was screaming at one of the other slaves, and there were no other guards out here with us. Just her, and I know we aren't supposed to speak unless spoken to, but I couldn't let anyone die. 

I yanked the pickaxe out of the asphalt, and carried the heavy thing the fifty feet to the walker. I was steps away when a shot rang out, and the walker dropped. I whirled back around, and was surprised when I saw the man, no. Negan, standing there, bat at his side and gun pointed at the walker that I had been advancing on. 

"Arat! What the fuck is going on here? You almost let a walker eat my slaves?" The man, Negan, spat, turning away from me and glaring over at Arat, who had only spun around when the shot had been fired. She looked scared, her eyes flickering between me and Negan, looking like she was asking for my help, but there wasn't anything I could do. If he could... if he could slam that bat against my head, when I did practically nothing to deserve it, and had been making out with him in his truck not even an hour before, there was no way I could save her from him. 

"I'm sorry Sir. This slave was slacking off, and I was reminding him to hurry up, I didn't see it." 

"Well next time, keep a closer fucking eye on my slaves, got it Arat? Or you'll be one next." 

"Yes Sir." Arat whispered, looking scared, and then Negan turned his eyes to me. 

"Riley, you're up. We have a lead on Dwight, and I want him to see you before they capture him. Get the fear in his bones, so he knows what to expect for betraying me." I said nothing, just kept my eyes to the ground as I walked over to him, and when I was a few feet away, one of his soldiers obeyed a silent order, and scooped me off the ground, yanking my pickaxe out of my hand in the process, as he carried me over to a truck, threw me in the back, and shoved a black thing over my head, blinding me. 

I shook, afraid of the blindness, and clenched the front of my sweatshirt, trying to stop the shaking. I knew I was probably holding onto the large T, but I couldn't find it in myself to care if they were laughing. Let them think I'm a fucking turnip. 

I don't care, but please, take the darkness away.