Negan knelt on the ground, holding Lucille with a loose grip. The fire had died down, only small areas were still burning, but Negan didn't care. All he cared about was the damaged wood in his hands. What were once light brown edges with clean barbed wire wrapped around them were now burnt black and crumbling, covering the silver barbed wire in ash. Negan had been sitting there for hours, staring.
Rick wanted to ruin him. Not kill him. Not take over his people or his home. Not steal from him. Rick Grimes wanted to ruin him. First, he took Carl away. Shitty parenting and no rules caused the kid to be too giving and get bit. If only Rick had told the kid how bad the world was. How not everyone had goodness in them. How he was being stupid and being far too hopeful. Now, it was Lucille. He burned her. The only thing he had left of her, the one thing that got him through all of this, was burnt to a crisp and falling apart in his hands.
Negan was shaking, tears blurred his vision. He wanted to break things. Hurt things. Tear things apart and ruin them. It was unfair that it was him. Unfair that Rick got to keep ruining him. Killing his people was bad, but ruining Lucille and killing Carl was terrible. That was what he had. Negan stood up, his legs almost giving out. Why didn't Rick just kill him? He could have. Rick wasn't as weak as Negan had thought. He was evil. Never killing. Never hurting, not visibly. Just slowly cutting into Negan, pulling out each of his organs.
Negan gripped the bat tighter, swinging as hard as he could and slamming it into a metal pole that was still standing in the basement. He beat it over and over, screaming and yelling and sobbing. Pieces of wood flew across the room, shards of barbed wire were coming unwrapped around the bat. He continued to beat it, feeling the uneven pieces of wood digging into his hands. He hoped he was bleeding. Negan needed something to remind him that he was still alive.
Images flashed through Negans mind as he beat the bat against anything he could find. Carl being bit. Carl screaming in pain. Lucille turning and grabbing at Negan, not out of love, not out of anger, but out of hunger. Savage hunger. Carl pressing a gun to his head and shooting himself. Carl falling apart at the seams like a doll that had been played with for too long. Lucille twisting and turning and crawling towards Negan, groaning. Lucille smiling one moment before closing her eyes and dying. The final breaths leaving their bodies. Negan was alone.
One final blow caused the bat to explode. Shards flew across the room and hit Negan in the chest and face. The base of the bat was barely clinging to the tip, the only thing holding it together was a few strands of barbed wire. Inside the barbed wire was different chunks of wood, gaps missing while others clung to the silver strands that curled around what remained of the bat. Negan dropped to his knees, letting the remains of the bat clatter against the floor.
Screams ripped through his body as he stared at the bat. Tears fell from his eyes and landed onto the ash covered floor, cleaning away the ash to reveal concrete. He hit his fists on the ground, shaking his head. He stood up, rubbing his face. He leaned back against the wall and looked around the room. The fire had died down now, silence filling the air.
He was alone.
-
"You can breathe, you can blink, you can cry... hell, you're all about to be doing that." Negan smiled, walking around the row of people. It was smaller than Ricks group. Only five people. Three men. Two women. No children. That was Negans favorite. When there were no kids. No parents to avoid, no kids to traumatized. Just idiotic adults who think they can control him. Who think they can beat him. Pathetic. "Now... before we get started, I feel like I need to introduce someone."
"Dwight!" Negan shouted, turning around. "Bring me the bat..." He smirked when a man sobbed. It was so nice seeing men be weak. Seeing them on the ground and sobbing instead of playing my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours and walking around like they own the world. That was one of the reasons Negan did this. To show them that they aren't powerful. They aren't free to do as they please. He is in control. He owns them. Negan took the bat from Dwights trembling fingers, chuckling.
The bat was bigger than his last, different pieces of spiked metal and nails pointed out from the wooden center. It was heavier, too, but also easier to kill with. He could bash a zombies head in and yank it out in one motion. It also made kills quicker. Negan wasn't sure if he liked that or not. He swung the bat and slammed it into the dirt, yanking it out. A cloud of dust drifted through the air.
"This.." Negan walked around the group, pointing the tip of the bat at eye level for each person. "Is Carl. And let me tell you two things about Carl." He stopped walking, standing up straight. "One... Carl doesn't take shit. He doesn't like liars. He doesn't like rapists. And if he doesn't like you..." Negan swung the bat and stopped before it hit the person in the head. "He'll kill you."
"And secondly..." Negan bit his lip. The people were shaking. Sobbing and gripping at the dirt. They had no idea how bad it was going to get. "He loves this." Negan swung again, hitting a man in the head. Spikes jammed into his skill, one point poked out of the mans eye. He yanked it out, the blood splattering across his friends faces.
The people screamed and sobbed and squirmed in their places. It felt good to be back.
