Up The Wolves | Negan

Chapter One: Forgive

I gasped awake, reaching for Echo, who was directly beside me. I'd camped out for the night in a small grocery center just on the outskirts of Huntington Virginia. We'd been traveling for a couple of months by now and hadn't caught sight of him or his men since the day I left. Echo was bigger now and had started eating somewhat solid food, which was good for me. Baby formula was definitely becoming a scarce resource and I was growing increasingly afraid that our good luck was going to run out soon.

After feeding Echo some apple sauce I'd found the day prior and changing him, I set up my makeshift sling, adjusting him in it in a way that made him feel like he was being held and coddled-I'd learned he enjoyed it. He sat in front of me, leaning against my chest, while I slung my bag over my shoulder--one of the bags I'd left the Sanctuary with had been unfortunately used to get out of a certain situation with walkers, but we'd still been doing okay without it. It wasn't like I had many opportunities for a separate change of clothes anymore anyway.

After scavenging the last of the store I could with minimal walker activity, I checked the road for any strays before continuing my way. From what I could tell, I was heading north again. All I knew was that I needed to be careful not to stumble my way back into Negan's territory.

After almost a full day of walking, only pausing to take care of Echo—who had thus far been a very quiet baby, which I was very glad about, I began to look for a new place to stay the night. I knew the sun only had a couple hours of light left, and I needed us to be sheltered before nightfall. Searching around, I found a small path on the ground and followed it, hoping it would take me to some sort of cottage or even a cave. I smiled to myself when I spied a small white house, junk surrounding it all around the ground. I crept up and around, checking for any stragglers, but thankfully didn't see any around. I took a glance at the junk, not seeing anything that particularly interested me—Anything that would work anymore that is. Then I made my way to the front door, readying my knife to take down any dead in my way.

I slung the door open, checking the inside and thankfully not seeing any at first glance. The idea that they could be deeper in the small lodge and catch me off guard if I didn't see them crossed my mind, and I did a small knock on the doorway to see if I could draw any out. Then a louder knock. None came around, so I deemed the building safe enough—if there were any, they were most likely stuck somewhere and wouldn't be able to sneak up on me anyway.

I hesitantly made my way in, still looking around for anyone else who could be in sight. I went to pull out the pistol I'd stolen from Negan's drawer before remembering that I'd ran out of bullets for it a few days back. Fortunately, I hadn't needed it again yet, but I needed to find more ammo before I did need it.

Holding my knife out in front of me I searched through each room individually, finding most everything had been completely cleared out—No food, no weapons, no ammo—I did find a few pieces of bloody clothing around, but nothing that would fit me or would be any cleaner than the clothes on my back. Finally I came to a bedroom. The furniture was arranged in a strange way, and the bed had no legs to hold it up-it was pressed against the far back wall, with a nightstand at the foot of it instead of to the side. Still, in the end of the world, I wasn't going to complain to have a bed.

Searching through the room I came across something I hadn't seen in ages—I found a walkman. Excitement ran through my bones as I reached in my bag for my mother's tape before realizing there was already one in the device. Curiosity nipped at me as I sat against the bed with Echo soundly sleeping against me and put the headphones over my ears.

Looking at the tape, it was clear somebody had recorded on a blank tape—it must've been somebody's mixtape. I pressed the play button and listened as a song I'd never before heard began playing. I didn't know the words, but with how scarce music was, I enjoyed every second of it.

The chorus seemed to stick out to me quite a bit, especially considering I was still gripping onto my mom's tape, "Our mother has been absent, ever since we founded Rome. But there's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home," it sang. I rewinded and replayed the track a couple times, in complete bliss of the sound. It had been so long since I'd heard music.

I was quickly pulled out of it when I heard one, then two then three then a few more gunshots from right outside. I scrambled to throw the walkman off of me, quickly scurrying to the window to look out. There I was three people standing, two men and a woman. The woman wore a floral sweater over a blue striped shirt and some blue jeans, she had short greying hair and was holding her gun—she'd been the one to fire off all the shots. One of the men had scraggly, almost greasy looking shoulder length hair, and wore a jean vest over some v-neck sort of shirt and had brown pants on. I couldn't help but notice that he was holding a crossbow. The last guy wore a blue collared shirt and tie with a brown chunky jacket over it that reminded me of Smokey the Bear and he had black jeans and curly brown hair. They looked at each other, saying something I couldn't hear before they started to move closer to the door I'd come in from.

Just when I thought I could let out a sigh of relief, I locked eyes with the man with the greasy hair and felt my breath hitch. He stopped walking and I instantly ducked down below the window, praying he would think he'd only imagined it.

That simply wasn't the case as I heard movement come from inside the house soon after. I reached for my gun, knowing it was completely empty. I remembered my first day at the Sanctuary and how I'd bamboozled all of Negan's men with an empty gun. If I could do it then, I could do it now, besides, sometimes humans were easier to bamboozle than walkers. I held Echo close with one hand while I readied the gun with the other, aiming it at the door they were most likely going to come through. I only wished I had some sort of cover just in case. The man with the crossbow stepped up in front of the door first, and at the sight of me he held up his hands in surrender, including the crossbow.

"What do you want?" I asked, seeing him shake his head at his friends, "Who are you people?" I added.

"We were gonna ask you that," he answered. His voice was sort of gruff and gravelly but also higher pitched—it fit his face, demeanor and outfit perfectly.

"Are you alone?" I heard the other guy ask from the other side of the door.

"She's got a baby," the first guy said.

"Would it matter if I told you?" I asked, adjusting my hand on the gun. I hoped the baby would be enough murder repellent, but I knew people were crazy in this new world.

"How many people have you killed?" Greasy guy asked and I cocked an eyebrow at him.

"W-What?"

"How many people have you killed?" He repeated, staying frozen.

"None... Yet," I said, cocking the unloaded gun.

"Daryl, what are you doing?" I heard the woman ask. So this guy's name was Daryl...

"How many walkers have you killed?" He continued without answering her.

"A lot... I don't know the exact number," I replied. He nodded, glancing at his partners before back at me.

"Why?"

There'll all ways be a few things, maybe several things
That you're gonna find really difficult to forgive