Running From You I Negan x Maggie (ENGLISH VERSION)

Chapter 23: I want love to stick a knife inside me and twist it all around

I want love to

Change my friends to enemies

And show me how it's all my fault

The dawn painted the window with an orange hue, the sun breaking through the darkness of the room with a delicacy Maggie couldn't feel within herself. She blinked slowly, her green eyes finding the worn ceiling above the bed. The sensation of a warm weight against the side of her thigh jolted her back to reality.

Negan.

He was there, still deeply asleep. His arm rested across her waist as if possession were instinctive, something he did without thinking. His broad chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and the scruff on his jaw seemed even rougher under the soft morning light. He looked... vulnerable. The kind of vulnerable Maggie didn't think he was capable of being.

She tried to ignore the lingering warmth on her skin, his touch still imprinted in her memory like a seal. It was so much easier to hate him when he didn't seem so human.

"He's just a man," she repeated to herself. It wasn't a mantra of comfort, but an attempt to rationalize what shouldn't have happened—what shouldn't keep happening.

But there was something disarming about him, lying there, so carefree, as if the weight of the world didn't touch him. It was unfair. It was wrong. He shouldn't be able to sleep so peacefully when she could barely breathe next to him.

Maggie turned her gaze to the window, where the morning shadows danced against the wall. The light seemed to suggest a kind of redemption, but Maggie knew there was no redemption for what they were doing... for what they kept doing.

There was no redemption for what she felt. Not when his scent still clung to her, nor when her marks still adorned his skin.

Her fingers moved instinctively to the necklace around her neck, finding the cold metal of Glenn's ring. Always there. Always present. Always a reminder. Maggie closed her eyes, pressing the ring to her skin as if it could erase what had happened.

But even in that silence, his touch lingered. Not just on her skin but deeper, as if he'd left a mark that neither time nor distance could erase.

She hated it.

How could he be capable of this?

Negan shifted beside her, a low sound escaping his throat, breaking the fragile silence of the room. Maggie watched him for a moment, her eyes following the flutter of his lashes, the way his brows furrowed before relaxing again. He was a paradox she couldn't solve—a man who brought chaos to an already broken world, but somehow made everything else disappear when he was near.

She should wake him. Tell him to leave. Do what she knew needed to be done before the morning turned into something more real. But Maggie didn't move. Her hands remained still at her sides, while her heart struggled between the distance she knew was necessary and the emptiness that would come with it.

Negan opened his eyes slowly, and his gaze met hers effortlessly. There was no surprise in his dark eyes, just something Maggie didn't want to name. He observed her as he always did, with that unsettling intensity that sent a shiver down her spine.

— Too early for you to kick me out, huh? — His voice was rough, scratched by sleep, but the corner of his mouth already held that familiar predatory smile.

Maggie didn't respond immediately. She stared at him, her gaze hard but with something wavering at the edges—something she couldn't control.

— I'm not kicking you out, Negan. — The words came out before she could think, almost like a confession, low and laced with a sincerity she hadn't intended to reveal.