Chapter Seven: Unfair Advantage

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T/W: Dead Children (You should be used to this, it's The Walking Dead, but just letting you know)

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"I can't not come," I argued, following after Rick to the RV he was about to take on this extraordinarily dangerous mission.

"Well, you're gonna have to," he said. Rick didn't want me to come along because of my personal ties to the Saviors, aka Oliver.

"Rick, my cousin could be in there. He-he's not a killer," I tried to plead. I didn't know Negan had other areas than just the Sanctuary, but I guess I should've. Just another blind moment for me.

"What's he look like? Maybe I'll recognize him," Rick suggested, almost in a joking manner.

"Like any other mixed hispanic white guy with black hair. I'm telling you, let me come," I said with a frown.

"You're not a killer, Lou. If you come, you'll just be someone else we have to look out for. I can't have that," he said.

"Maggie's going, isn't she? And she's pregnant," I pointed out.

"Maggie can handle herself. This discussion is over," Rick said, leaving me standing in the dust. What a tool.

"And we can work with the Hilltop. Maggie hammered out a deal. We're getting food--eggs, butter, fresh vegetables. But they're not just giving it away. These Saviors, they almost killed Sasha, Daryl, and Abraham on the road. Now, sooner or later, they would've found us, just like those wolves did. Just like Jesus did. They woulda killed us all, or some of us. And then they would try to own us. And we would try to stop them. But by then, in that kind of fight, low on food, we could lose-"

"You're going to lose," I called across the church, sick of Rick's talk. He stood at the back end of the church, where a preacher would preach, while I leaned against the wall beside the door, watching the people in the pews pay every cent to his nonsense speech, "No matter what you do, fight now, fight later, you're going to lose. You need to leave. We all need to leave," I said, looking over the crowd of people whose attention I'd gathered.

"Lou, I get it. You've seen them before, but you haven't seen them recently," he said.

"There's more than you think. You know of one post because that's where they trade with Hilltop, but that's not the heart of them. They have an army, and in comparison, we are a bug. We may startle them--get the jump on them, but they will squash us," I said, pushing myself off of the wall.

"This needs to be a group decision," Rick said, staring me down, "Anybody else who objects, here's your chance to say your piece."

The only person to speak up other than me was Morgan, who didn't have any better insight other than trying to compromise with the saviors, which was an awful idea on its own. I stared in defeat as the rusty old RV drove off with my friends inside, but not me.

It was another few days before they returned with the story about what happened, the group of Saviors that kidnapped Carol and Maggie, and how they escaped. In those days I'd taken up shifts watching over the wall, taken care of Echo while he started learning how to crawl, and was still helping build parts of the community back up. The most shocking news Rick had when he returned seemed to affect me the most.

He'd killed Negan.

"It can't have been that easy," I said to Daryl, throwing a knife at the wall.

"Dude said he was Negan so Rick put a bullet in his head," Daryl shrugged, "Ain't nothing hard about it," he threw his own knife.

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