His people were silent as he drove out of Alexandira. It was the first time in a very long time that Negan had left alone. What he was doing had to be done alone, though. It was between Rick and him. No one else. No guns. No weapons. No people fighting. Just silence. He was going to make Rick see the truth. Rick had spent too long being blind and Negan was tired of it. If he had to face the harsh truth, so did Rick. He wasn't allowed to have the privilege of being blind anymore.
Carl had been dead for three weeks. Rotting. Starving. Groaning. Negan almost wished that he had never met the kid that way he could just kill him. Beat him in the head with a bat. Stab him in the head. Shoot him. Anything. But Negan cared and Negan was desperate and alone and he never knew how sane Carl had kept him until all Carl could do was groan and stumble towards anything with a heart beat.
It was Ricks fault. A father's job was to love and protect and watch over his child. Rick had never done that. Carl was his own father, teaching himself to man up and fight and make his own choices. Rick could have kept him in Alexandira the day he got bit, have stricter rules and have Carl watch over his sister. He would have never left if he was with Judith. Rick could have went with him or invited the man to join, stopping Carl from going out and finding the man once more. But the ere were no more "coulds". Carl was dead and it was his father's fault. Not that Rick was a very good father begin with.
Negan looked in rearview mirror, sighing. Carl was hunched over in the back, tearing apart the remains of an assortment of dead animals. It was the only way to get Carl into the car. The kid was stubborn even when hes dead. He turned back to the road and looked at the zombies that littered the sides of the road. It was impossible to think that Carl was the same as those things. They were nothing alike. Carl wasn't a monster. He wasn't a killer and he wasn't another piece to the world falling apart. Carl made the world, he just had to leave it before everyone else.
"Your dad is gonna be happy to see you. So happy he'll get on his knees and thank me." Pale, torn up fingers pushed through the bars that separated the front of the car and the back. The fingers curled around the bars and yanked. Carl growled behind him. "You finish up everything?" He laughed. "Don't get too full..." He tightened his grip on the wheel. "You'll be eating more soon."
The ride was long. About an hour and a half filled with Carl thudding around in the back and groaning. Blood smeared across the back and of the car and across the bars near Negans face. It made him feel sick. Not the blood, but what created blood. Carl. His Carl had torn up all of those animals and eaten them. It was scary, seeing what the boy had become. He was bit saving someone and now he's the reason people need to be saved. No. Carl isn't bad. Carl isn't like the other zombies. Negan shook his head in an attempt to get the thoughts out of his head.
The sun began to set, different colors painting themselves across the sky. Negan hated it. They were beautiful. He didn't believe that beauty should live on without Carl. Carl was the only one who adored it. The stars and the planets. The rain and the sunsets. The sunrises and the rainbows. He saw beauty in everything and he admired it. Without Carl there was no beauty in everything. He was why they were beautiful. His love made it beautiful. Nothing would ever be beautiful without Carl. Nothing.
Carl was getting impatient in the back. Clawing at the doors. Yanking at the bars. Slamming onto all of the walls. He was going to be riled up by the time Negan opened the back and let him out. It was going to be perfect. Rick could see what he turned Carl into. Not a man. Not a fighter. But a brain dead zombie who wanted nothing more than to sink his teeth into anything that moved. Rick did this. Rick ruined his son. Rick ruined the one good thing left in this god awful world. And Negan was going to make sure Rick had the image of what he did burned into his brain.
