I think I liked you better when you didn't have a knife in your hand, Peaches

The Discovery

Was she seeing things?

Blake blinked once, then twice more...

As she glanced up at Negan, who was staring at her darkly from around the bookshelf.

He shot a her a questioning look...

...but Blake could only stare back at him....mouthing at the air for a small second, before turning back to the dark, and now, open vent...

...unable to believe what she was seeing...

For inside, crouched there, with a pink smock on, tiny giraffe leggings, and her short mousy brown hair tied up in a tuft on top of her head....was a teeny little girl.

She couldn't have been more than two and half years old, and peered up at Blake with the roundest blue eyes, her face red and wet with tears, looking terrified.

What the hell?

Blake breathed hard...frowning....

What the heck was a toddler doing hiding in a vent?

The tiny girl peered up at Blake before sniffling again, giving a whining cry, before turning and crawling further away down the small metal shaft, looking scared.

Blake's eye immediately drifted back up to Negan, blinking again for a long second, before her gaze once again feel to the little girl, who had sat herself back down, her face turned away.

Even from here Blake could see that she looked frightened....left alone in here, for God knows how long.

Blake lowered the knife to her side once again.

"H-Hey, sweetie...." she said in a soft voice, placing a hand to the grate opening.

But at the sound of Blake's voice, the girl gave a sudden whimper and began to cry loudly.

"Jeez, is that a fuckin' kid in there?" said Negan suddenly from behind her, giving a dark frown.

But Blake ignored him, kneeling forwards and leaning further in towards the grate.

"Hey, shhhh...its ok...." said Blake in a quiet tone. "...everything's gonna be ok...."

But the girl's cries inside the echoing vent were loud enough to wake the dead. Quite literally.

But the little child, on squatted legs, looked at Blake over her shoulder, her lip jutted out.

Blake gave an immediate warm smile.

"Sweetie, it's ok...." she uttered in a kindly voice. "There's no need to cry."

The tiny toddler sniffled, wiping at her wet nose with her tiny hand, her eyes still on Blake.

And at this Blake softened completely.

Who the hell would just leave a kid here like that?

"S-She must belong to one of the people who ran away...." said Blake to Negan, shaking her head. But she didn't look up at him.

Negan seemed to shift his weight from foot-to-foot.

"Well, hell, we checked the rest of this place out and there ain't nobody else left here...." he said bluntly.

Blake shot him a quick look.

"What about the guy downstairs?" she asked frowning, talking about one of the two men they had manage to capture earlier this morning.

But Negan gave a sigh, running his free hand down his face, before gesturing with the, now, bloody Lucille.

Blake should have figured it out sooner of course.