Last One Fighting ~ Negan Fanfic

8

5 Months Later

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"Show time," Martinez's voice seemed far away, but I knew he was standing on the outside of my cell. It was Saturday night. Where else would he be? I snapped my eyes open to meet his gaze and he flinched. I smirked up at him, from where I was crouching on my cot. It was fight night and it was show time.

Martinez and another man, another soldier, one I hadn't bothered learning the name of, stood outside my door with their guns trained on me. I unfolded myself slowly, every muscle movement tightly controlled. I was a fighter now. It was all I was anymore. Any memory of being anything else had been pushed back into the dusty recesses of my brain to make sure it didn't interfere with my ability to survive.

Martinez pulled my steak knives from his belt and tossed them towards me. They clanked as they tumbled together across the dirt floor of my cell. I stared down at them, unable to tear  my gaze away from them. In the last six months my entire life, my survival depended on those knives. The Governor has never allowed me another weapon except this one, the one I had attacked him with, sealing my fate. He thought it was another way to torment me, a constant reminder of what I had done. It wasn't. Every time my hands touched the handles it was a promise. A promise that one day I would have another chance to sink one of these two knives into his skull.

"Go on," Martinez ordered, gesturing towards the knives with his gun. "Big night for you," he said with a leering smile. He was putting his own mask on now for the ring. He couldn't go out there looking like he was afraid of me.

I moved towards the knives, keeping my movements slow and controlled. I didn't want to frighten either of them into getting trigger happy. I palmed both knives, twirling them through my fingers. I had gotten good with the knives. Better than I had ever thought possible. My entire survival had hinged upon my ability to learn to fight the biters. I had set myself to learning, just as I had before, to fighting. But I wasn't that woman anymore. I was beyond being able to make conscious decisions like that anymore. All I did was react.

Martinez motioned with his gun for me to step out of my cage. I walked out in front of him and the other man, not bothering to even look at them again. The adrenaline started running through my limbs, making my fingers tingle and added a bounce to my step. I didn't get nervous, not anymore. I had stepped into that ring too many times to get nervous. So it wasn't nerves, it was anticipation. 

Martinez and the other man walked me out towards the ring, but stepped back, staying outside the ring of light. It would ruin The Governor's game if his people saw me being held at gun point. He could send me out into the ring all he wanted, tell his people all the lies he could come up with to keep them happy. But I didn't pretend anymore, I didn't have to. Kate was gone, his leverage was gone.

Leverage. That's all she was reduced to now, all I could allow myself to think of her. Even in my mind. I wondered for a moment if I was well and truly insane yet. I sincerely hoped not. If I was, I wanted my money back, I had high hopes of insanity being more of an escape than this hell.

Stop, reset.

I couldn't let my mind wander, couldn't let thoughts about Katie in when I was in this place. When I was here there could be nothing but the ring.

I stepped out into the middle of the ring, the heat from the overhead floodlights beat down on me, making sweat bead on my skin. It was a warm summer night, at least I thought it was summer. I really had no way of knowing.

The crowds were amped up tonight, more than usual. They were stomping and screaming. Normally I ignored them, or rather, I wasn't able to turn my focus from what was happening in front of me to what was happening around me long enough to notice.