Too Good to be Bad | Negan |

52 - We all go or we all stay

It doesn't take too long for Negan to find out who was behind the attack on the outpost. A community called Alexandria that had somehow heard about us, had thought to take us down before Negan could take control over them. Well, that backfired.

Negan took a whole bunch of his Saviors to trap the Alexandrians and give them the worst night of their lives. I know Kieran was there, but sadly he's not able to tell us about it, because he has been ordered to return to the satellite outpost. But Derek was there too and he shares the details with us when we're all gathered in Alex and Max's room.

'It was... brutal', he says, shaking his head. The events of last night have clearly not left him unbothered. 'He had them lined up, scared the shit out of them. Told them he was going to kill one of them and he did. But then that guy had to jump up and punch him and he took out another one. Bashed his skull in, right in front of his pregnant wife.'

I feel sick imagining Negan swinging Lucille down on some guy as his wife looks on in horror. Of course it was always going to come down to something like this. He wasn't going to let them get away with killing his people. But I still don't like it. I've seen the guy that punched Negan. Dwight walks around with him sometimes, when he doesn't keep him locked up in a cell. He looks completely broken.

'They deserved it, right?' Jody says. She's tucked Samantha in with Carmen for the night, so we can talk freely. We don't need the kids to hear any of this. 'I mean, they started this. They killed like 30 of our people for God's sake. Negan only killed 2 of them. If you ask me, he's been forgiving.'

'I guess you're right', Derek mumbles. I walk over to him to lay a hand on his shoulder and he smiles at me. I don't like to see him so troubled. He's not violent like so many of the other Saviors.

'Did they start this, though?' Alex asks. 'Or did Negan when he started taking from other places like he owned them. You could say they were trying to protect themselves.'

'Would you say that if Kieran had been killed there?' Max asks pointedly.

Alex looks up, surprised at his tone. I get his point though. We didn't know anybody that got killed, but Max, Jody and Derek have been here longer and they did know them. Most of the people at the satellite outpost may have been assholes, but not all of them were.

'I didn't mean to...' Alex stumbles. 'I don't know, maybe I wouldn't. But I'm sorry if I'm not okay with him killing people on their knees. A man that was going to be a father.'

'There were fathers at the outpost', Max says. 'Brothers, sisters, friends. Just because you didn't know them, doesn't mean they don't matter.'

'Shit, I didn't mean it like that, Max', Alex says, getting up to throw an arm around him. Max lets him, albeit a bit reluctantly. None of us have been quite ourselves since the attack.

'Then what happened?' I ask Derek.

'Negan drove off with their leader, Rick, for a while. Not sure what happened. When they came back he told him he owned him and all that. Then he told him to chop off his son's arm.'

'He did what?' I ask, shocked.

'He stopped him just in time', Derek says quickly. 'It was like a test or something. You know, show that guy he could make him do anything. He was going to do it, but Negan told him to stop just before he...'

I take a seat on the bed next to Derek and watch my friends. None of us really know how to deal with any of this. Of course, the people that attacked us needed to be punished. But none of us like this. I just want to get away from all this violence.

'I know we agreed not to talk about this again...' I begin carefully.

'You want to leave', Katarina says, reading my thoughts. I nod.