CONQUEST • Negan

Magic Words

After a long day spent in the woods, hunting and tracking without a break in between, I was pleased enough to be making the trek back home with a large and healthy deer slung over my shoulders, even if this thing weighed a damn ton and would have my back aching for days.

The food supply had been running dry for too long now, even before what had happened three nights ago, and now that we were required to provide and scrap together some meagre tribute for another settlement, our resources were only going to deplete even quicker and indefinitely. It was only a matter of if we would let it.

People were panicking. Shit, I was panicking, my mind stuck in a constant cycle of desperately trying to scrounge up solutions for how we could scrape together a good enough offering and keep our people fed and healthy at the same time. It was keeping me up at night. I couldn't sleep because over how worried I was that we weren't going to meet the impending deadline in four days and the consequences that would follow that.

But it wasn't the only thing keeping me up at night. Glenns last moments. Abe's last moments. They were haunting me. What's worse, I was in a constant state of anxiety over Daryl. Over what that sick freak with the bat might be doing to him.

I had to admit, sometimes, in the darkest moments when my mind would wander to the most horrific possibilities, I prayed Daryl was dead so he wouldn't have to suffer. I hated myself for the thought each time it reared its ugly head but it couldn't be helped.

The deer would raise morale though, I hoped. It would feed the whole community for a night if rationed properly and that was enough for now. To know that this could lift peoples spirits even a little, it would help everyone get back up tomorrow to do it all over again with fuller stomachs and a tiny bit more hope to stoke the flame and keep pushing on. It was enough.

But hope and luck revealed itself to be a sick, cruel illusion when I made it back home, to the gates of Alexandria.

They were here, four days too early and indefinitely uninvited.

If my hands weren't already full, heads would be rolling right now.

The smartass who had managed to invade my nightmares let out a whistle as I shuffled through the open gate to be greeted with a battalion of armed men and woman raiding my home, coming back to the trucks with crates of our stuff. Even our furniture and mattresses were being escorted off the premises. Now that was just cruel.

"Lookie who made it home! Ive been waitin' all damn day to see you again! Was startin' to worry I'd have to leave before you made it back and that would've been a shame since I haven't managed to stop thinkin' about you." I rolled my eyes and continued trudging on, making my mind up to stomp right past the maniac until those intentions were dashed too, "Come 'ere, macho lady, come say hi to me! Shit, that thing must me heavy, let my men take it off your hands for you."

Two of the Saviours pressed in towards me, and my head whipped about, tracing there every step and move, but with my hands full and no way to fight them off, I backed up. "No. This is mine. I've spent all day tracking it down."

"And we appreciate that, Dice. I appreciate you fulfilling your duty, just as you were told. What a good little worker you are. Taking orders like a champ."

One of the men pulled at the leg of the dead deer and I rounded on him, driving the toe of my boot into his gut. He hunched over with a groan and the other man backed off warily, proving himself to be smarter than he looked.

"No, no! See, what did I teach you? Haven't you learned a goddamn thing?!" Negan rounded on Rick who was sending a lethal glare my way and my own anger wilted a little. "Are you not keeping your people in line, Ricky-boy? Do I seriously need to teach you people another lesson, cos I don't like it and I don't want to but if I have to, you better believe that I will do just that. Is that what needs to happen here today?"