Haunted | Daryl Dixon

53. Final Straw

Everything around Evelyn was numb.

There was a ringing in her ears that she wouldn't be able to shake even if she tried. The world seemed to be moving around her from far away. Even the people standing beside her felt miles and miles apart from where she sat.

After hearing about the deaths of three more of her loved ones, the woman hadn't been able to register anything else. She hadn't fought as Negan gently held her against him and led her to sit against one of the porch steps of a house she didn't care to place.

He had barked orders at a nearby Savior to stand beside her- but even that she had been oblivious too.

She had just been staring into space, struggling to wrap her mind around this new, devastating loss that she had been introduced to.

The woman hadn't even noticed when yelling took place in the building behind her. The voices of Carl and Finn rising above the others, followed by amusement in Negan's. She didn't even try to comprehend as people from her community scrambled about, searching desperately for the weapons that weren't accounted for.

Worried looks and cautious glances that were thrown her way by her friends and family didn't even cross her radar.

She truly looked like a woman broken in two. Damaged beyond repair and dragged to the point of no return. Every time she thought it couldn't get worse- that enough had been taken from her- more would be ripped away.

The only time Evelyn's eyes flickered away from the empty void she had been staring into was when Negan stepped into her line of vision, eyebrows pulled down ever so slightly and a small frown gracing his features.

"Come on, kid, we're heading home." He held a gloved hand out to her.

His words were muffled- or perhaps they weren't- but either way, Evelyn wasn't able to hear him. She just stared at him blankly, not processing a singular thing going on around her.

Negan's sigh that he let out was merely a small breeze of the wind to her as he softly but firmly pulled her to her feet and began leading her to the truck that she and him had taken on the way there, not resisting as he placed her in a seat and turned around to continue taunting the Alexandrians, mask of cockiness back on.

He didn't fail to notice the way everybody's eyes flitted to the woman in the passenger seat every few moments, including Daryl's, nor did he miss out on the way Finn had his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides.

But he continued to jest and sneer, anyway, until he finally got back into the vehicle and sped away, leaving behind the people he hadn't realized cared so deeply for the woman now sitting emotionlessly by his side.

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Not a single word slipped past Evelyn's lips on her way back to the Sanctuary. Or when she trekked through the halls by Negan's side to get to her room.

Negan was never one to like silences. They made him antsy, he always had to be opening his mouth to be saying one thing or another, lest the quiet swallow him whole. But for once, the man stayed silent. He didn't, however, keep himself from shooting worried glances at the brunette woman almost every other minute.

He didn't acknowledge the way Daryl fought back slightly from being separated from Wright upon their arrival back to the Saviors base. Though they hadn't been in the same vehicle, Dixon had been able to look out the window and keep an unwavering eye on her.

Smith had simply glanced towards the struggling man and continued to steer Evelyn away, lest she note him and finally snap out of her daze to fight back as well.