The Only One | Negan

23. In Love

A thud woke me up from my unsteady sleep filled with nightmares. At first, my eyes had to adjust to the darkness that was surrounding me but then I saw the crack of the door. It was getting larger, a sharp ray of artificial luminance illuminated the insides of the train car.

I scrambled further into the darkest corner, my hazy mind registering the events as danger. My breathing was becoming faster and uneven while my eyes tried to make out what was happening. My first thought was that they were coming to drag me out and kill me. It was scary but also somehow relieving. So I shut my puffy eyes tightly and embraced whatever destiny was to come. Two hands grabbed my shoulders and shook me violently.

"Blackburn." I heard the all-too-familiar caramel voice. "Jesus, what have they done to you?"

My eyes shot wide open.
"Negan?!" I managed to whisper.

I tried to make out his features in the dark and it truly was him - beaten up, bloodied, hair a mess, but him. Alive. He wrapped his arms around me tightly and I buried my face in his chest, my tears soaking his shirt. His hand cupped my head while he pressed his lips to the top of my hair. It was such a relief to see him, to know that he was alive and okay. I felt as if a heavy stone was lifted from my chest.
We stayed like this for a minute before he pulled away.

"Come on, we don't have much time. Get up, sweetheart." He lifted me up and dragged me out into the poorly lit yard. I saw the two dead or unconscious bodies of the troopers that were guarding my cell and further away two more.

Negan looked around and made a sharp turn behind the train cars. He inspected my face quickly and motioned me to step on his hands so I could jump the fence.

"I can't, my hands." I summoned all my strength to make a sentence.

"Fuck." He muttered under his breath and started fidgeting with the cable ties. He then took out a knife from his boot and cut through them.

"How...how did you..?" I tried to ask, rubbing the bruises on my wrists, but glad I could finally move my hands. Negan took off his jacket and threw it on top of the barbed wire.

"It's a long fucking story and now we have to run." He said and lifted me up so I could climb up the fence. Despite the sharp and piercing pain that was pulsating through my thighs, I managed to pull myself up and swung a leg over the fence. I jumped down, landing in an unattractive manner, and winced. Negan jumped next to me with a groan, grabbed his jacket and we ran. His hand was gripping my upper arm tightly to pull me ahead into the dark forest. We ran as fast as we could, my legs threatening to give up on me.
I finally managed to regain my clear piece of mind.

"Negan, tell me what the fuck is going on." I demanded. "How did you get out? Where are your handcuffs and where are we going?"

"I'll tell you everything once we are someplace far away from here and safe." He glanced at me quickly. "There must be a small town about two miles south. When we get there, we have to look for a dark green car. Afterwards, I'll tell you all about it."

"What if we stumble upon a walker or something, we don't have weapons, except for that knife. And how much time do we have until the fuckers notice we're gone?" My mind was trying to figure out what was going on and how the hell we were free all of a sudden, but it was failing. He had a knife. We had to look for a...green car? What the fuck was going on?! There were too many questions and no answers.

Negan only smirked at me and pulled up his t-shirt to reveal a gun that was tucked in the back of his jeans. I looked at him wide-eyed.

"How...where..."

"Let's just say we have a guardian angel." He said mysteriously. "Come on, we have to go faster, we don't have much time."

After what seemed like forever because of the pain, we finally reached the said small town. We kept cover, not risking it to walk on the streets and after a while, we managed to find the said green sedan.