The Only One | Negan

7. Naïveté

The coldness of the evening slowly crept into the room from the open window. From where I was lying on my bed I could see every single star sparkling in the dark ink-blue sky, like little specks of white substance on a velvet tar fabric.
The moon had the shape of a slim sickle and hung lazily above, dusting weak light across everything and anything.

The week had worn me off completely - with all of the new responsibilities I had, there was barely any time for anything else. Simon took in the news of me becoming a lieutenant with a pinch of salt and Dwight wasn't happy at all. The rest of the group were nowhere near interested in me, rather just made inappropriate sexist jokes. But under the tough and heavy boot of Negan, they all kept quiet, because he made sure to underline how much he likes me and they knew better than to oppose him. Christian was trying to look happy but I saw right through his pretend smile and farce.

I couldn't go and visit Alexandria that week, instead, Simon took me with him to the Kingdom to "watch and learn". Their leader Ezekiel was a very charismatic and nice man and we clicked instantly. He was very happy that I was going to be the one collecting the goods, although the last guy, Gavin, wasn't that bad. But maybe a woman overlooking the exchange was really somehow more calming than a man. Turns out Ezekiel was keeping the whole thing a secret from his people for quite a while because he didn't want to stress them out which I thought was kind of him. But it also raised the question in me of how and why didn't Negan put on a show and killed some of the Kingdom's citizens for good measure like he did in Alexandria. That got answered quickly enough because Simon was feeling talkative that day and told me all about how they came across the Kingdom. Ezekiel agreed to parley straight away and didn't hesitate to make a deal with the Saviors, and in return, Negan was more generous and not as hard on them as he was on us. But then again - we were hostile and caused quite a lot of problems for the Saviors, so Negan's attitude towards us was deserved. The Kingdom was always on time with the supplies, they never fought back or did something to threaten the Saviors, so the whole thing was a lot smoother. The amount of produce they supplied the Saviors with was far less than what Alexandria was expected to pay. There was a reason for that too - what Ezekiel and his people gave to the Saviors was much better than what we had to offer. He supplied them with meat, vegetables, fruits, eggs, all kinds of dairy products. Stuff that Alexandria didn't have. And Negan wasn't stupid - he knew that those things were hard to produce so he valued them even if the quantities were small. Even after Ezekiel finally told his people about that deal and broke the news, the Saviors that collected the goods were instructed by Negan, direct orders, to not attack, harass or threaten the people from the Kingdom. That was one of the reasons why Simon wanted me to look after that exchange. In his words, I was friendly and easy on the eyes so they wouldn't be scared. Great. They were scared though - even if I tried my best. I made sure to keep the other Saviors in check and honestly, it didn't go bad at all. All I could add if I had the chance is to give them something back in return. But, the Saviors didn't do that kind of shit. And even though they never gave anything in exchange to the Kingdom, Negan still treated them more like allies than enemies. Not like he treated Alexandria.

The Hilltop was a whole different story though. Now that Maggie had taken over and overruled that sleazy douchebag Gregory, the tension was more than high between the Saviors and the Hilltop. She wanted Negan dead at all costs, which I completely understood, but he on the other hand didn't want to retreat from his rule over them. Negan never liked Gregory, he knew Gregory was an idiot, that's why the Saviors from the Satellite outpost, which were "the worst of the worst" in his words, were assigned to look after Hilltop. But now that Gregory was no more and the Hilltop finally started to get better under Maggie's leadership, Negan didn't want to fall back. He was furious about us plainly lying to him that Maggie was dead and that was some sort of punishment. But Maggie was smart enough to stand back until she had an actual chance, just like Rick and I. She didn't have enough fighters - none, really - and almost no guns. Although she, with our help, started training her people, it still wasn't good enough. So the visits continued, but Negan changed them to monthly ones, instead of weekly. He knew better than to piss Maggie off even more and give her a reason to fight back because he needed to narrow his attention to that group that shot at us and didn't want another fight. Given the Satellite outpost was out for months and they were the ones responsible for looking after the Hilltop, Negan assembled a new team to go and take the supplies, Simon being the head of the operation, because he was scary and threatening and knew how to get the message across. The message being - don't dare to fuck with us again, because we are already fucking angry. Simon wanted me to go on with them and inspect how things were going, but thank God that same day there was a huge pile of newly acquired items that had to be listed and I found an excuse to stay in. I also had to check the distribution of said items down in the marketplace, so Simon didn't press further and went on without me.