Running From You I Negan x Maggie (ENGLISH VERSION)

Chapter 31: Don't take that sinner from me

"Don't care if he's guilty, don't care if he's not
He's good and he's bad and he's all that I've got"

The darkness came first.
Thick, suffocating, heavy.

Negan felt it before he even opened his eyes. Felt it in the hard mattress beneath his back, in the damp smell that clung to the air, in the moisture sticking to his skin.

He knew this place.

His whole body ached, like he had been hit by something big and cruel. Maybe he had. His head throbbed, his ribs screamed with every breath. He reached a hand to his side, fingers finding the bandage pressed against his skin. They had cleaned the wound, but they hadn't changed his clothes.

They were still bloody, dirty, heavy with the night he had left behind.

Negan opened his eyes slowly. The light was scarce, barely filtering in through the small window high on the wall. The world outside felt distant, blocked by the barrier of cold stone and bars.

But the sound...

The sound could not be silenced.

Voices echoed from outside, some loud, urgent. People walking fast, the rustling of footsteps against concrete filling the suffocating silence of the cell.

It still felt like night.

He took a deep breath, his chest protesting with the sharp pain in his ribs. This place still smelled the same. The same musty scent, the same invisible weight in the air.

His eyes swept over the cell.

Nothing had changed.

The scratches were still there.

He saw each one of them, the marks he himself had made on the walls, a reflection of the years spent here. Years he never wanted to relive.

His chest tightened. His breath faltered.

He blinked quickly.

The air grew denser.

Every shadow in the cell seemed to expand, swallowing everything.

He was still here.

It didn't matter how much time had passed. It didn't matter that he had gotten out. The cell had never left him.

His chest rose and fell in an erratic rhythm.

He needed to get out.

The air wasn't enough.

He needed to get out.

Negan closed his eyes tightly, his fists clenching over the bloodstained fabric of his shirt.

It was still all he had.

Negan took a deep breath.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The air filled his lungs unevenly, each breath dragging in as if carrying the weight of years gone by. He kept his eyes closed for a moment, focusing on his own chest rising and falling, on the controlled sound he was trying to maintain, on the bitter taste that still lingered in his mouth.

He ran his tongue over his teeth, feeling the cut at the corner of his lip. There was still blood there.

He exhaled slowly, letting out a short, humorless laugh. Fuck, that dog Dwight had a damn good right hook.

Son of a bitch.

Negan brought a hand to his ribs, fingers sliding over the makeshift bandage. It was there, a mess of gauze and tape barely holding the pain in place. But he was still alive.