sixty two.

Each time I tried to open my eyes, my vision was clouded with small dots of bright light. The sight made me dizzy. I couldn't remember what happened after Daryl was shot. All I remember was my vision going black and then trying to wake up, but my head was pounding too much to open my eyes fully. I could tell we were being transported in the back of some vehicle but I kept drifting in and out of consciousness. I could feel myself being shaken awake now.

"Aften," Daryl mumbled tiredly. He was almost inaudible. I gazed up at him. His face was the palest I've ever seen it. He was wrapped in a blanket, the right side of his body drenched in blood. I felt myself become weak again, leaning into him. He held me in his arms, his blood leaking onto my clothes and staining them red. My head weakly flopped back onto his wounded arm, even more blood covering my face. I closed my eyes. Glenn sat the farthest away from us, shaking uncontrollably and quietly sobbing into his arm. Michonne sat near us in silence, only the tiniest bit of sweat covering her skin. I struggled to open my eyes again.

"Daryl," I whispered. He placed his hand on this side of my face, rubbing his thumb against my cheek. "What happened?

"It's okay, baby, I got you," he said to me as everything faded to black again. I was blinded by the headlights of a car when I came to, tight hands on my arms.

"We've got people to meet," someone said with excitement as I was yanked out of the back of a van and shoved down onto my knees. I barely had time to process what was even going on. I could see everyone lined up on either side of me: Rick, Carl, Sasha, Maggie, Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Aaron, Glenn, Michonne, Daryl, and tons of other guys I didn't recognize at all surrounding us and closing us in. They clutched large weapons in their hands, staring at us almost with smirks on their face like they were excited with what was about to happen. I don't know what they wanted with us, but I wanted to go home. I wanted this to be over. God only knows how much I wished this was all just a dream.

"How sweet. The whole band's back together," some guy with a receding hairline grinned at us. "Let's meet the man, shall we?" He knocked on the door of an RV. It swung open and a tall, lanky man came down the steps.

"Pissing our pants yet," he asked us, flashing a smile. He sauntered over to us; he was dressed in a black leather jacket with a red scarf underneath it and light gray pants. He sighed, holding a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire over his shoulder. I eyed it fearfully. I'd never seen anything like that. "Boy, do I have a feeling we're getting close... gonna be pee-pee pants city here real soon," he slightly chuckled. What the hell was he talking about? Bastard was just reveling in taunting us, making us sit here and wonder what the hell he was gonna do to us. "Which one of you pricks is the leader?"

"This one." The guy with the receding hairline pointed at Rick. The man with the bat sauntered over to Rick, staring him down.

"Hi. You're Rick, right?" He tilted his head to the side, a smirk tugging at his lips. "I'm Negan and I do not appreciate you killing my men!" A chill ran down my spine. We were all gonna pay for Rick's mistakes and for what? Why? What happened? What did he even do? "Also, when I sent my people to kill your people for killing my people, you killed more of my people." Holy shit, how many fucking people did Rick kill? "Not fucking cool. You have no fucking idea how not fucking cool that shit is, but I think you're gonna be up to speed here shortly. Oh, you are so gonna regret crossing me in a few minutes. Fuck yeah you are!" Negan held back a chuckle while he watched Rick tremble with fear, weakness.

"You see Rick, whatever you do, no matter fucking what, you don't mess with the new world order and it's actually very simple. Even if you're fucking stupid, which you very well may be, you can understand it. You ready? Here goes, pay attention: give me your shit or I will kill you." Negan began to laugh to himself, backing away from the line. I looked down at the ground to try and ease my jitters. I had a feeling we weren't gonna get outta this. "You know who I am and what I can do. You work for me now. You have shit, you give it to me: that's your job. Now, I know that's a mighty big, nasty pill to swallow but swallow it you most certainly fucking will!" He raised his voice a tad, my body jerking in fear at the sudden harshness of it.

"You ruled the roost," Negan continued to taunt Rick. "You built something and you thought you were safe. I get it, but the word is out: you're not safe... not even fucking close. In fact you're fucked, more fucked if you don't give me what I want and what I want is half of your shit and if that's too much then you can go make, find, or steal more and it'll even out sooner or later. This is your way of life now. The more you fight back, the harder it'll be for you. So if someone comes to your door, you fucking let us in; we own that fucking door," he bellowed. I flinched at his voice again. I wanted to go home. "You try to fucking stop us, we will knock that fucker down. You understand?" Negan bent down towards Rick, cupping his ear with his hand. It was silent, the cicadas buzzing and crickets chirping around us. Sweat was plastered across my forehead, dripping slowly down my back. I was trying to think back to if I've ever been this scared in my life before, but my brain was swimming.

"No answer? You don't really think that you were gonna get through this without being punished, now, did you?" Negan paused, sighing before continuing. "I don't wanna kill you people, just wanna make that clear from the get-go. I want you to work for me and you can't do that if you're fucking dead, now, can you? But," he drawled, leaning back and biting his lip. "You killed my people, a whole fucking damn shitload of them, more than I'm comfortable with and for that, you've gotta fucking pay!"

At this moment, I hated Rick. I hated his guts. I hated him for putting us in this situation, for killing Negan's men. I hated him for putting our lives at risk; some of us didn't even do anything. I hated him for leading us into these fucking traps. I wanted to punch him in the face, kick the shit outta him.

Negan flashed his pearly white teeth at us for what felt like the millionth time, the hot steam emerging from his mouth and mingling with the cold crisp air of the night.

"So now, I'm gonna beat the holy fuck fucking fuckity fuck out of one of you." I gazed up at Negan in disbelief while he raised his bat from his shoulder. "This is Lucille and she is awesome! All this is just so we can pick out which one of you gets the honor." I shuddered, my face pale. Negan sauntered over to Carl. I helplessly gazed down the line at Daryl, a tear rolling down my cheek. I thankfully caught his eye. We didn't dare speak; we just locked eyes like it was the last time we were ever gonna see each other.

"You have one of our guns... you've got a lot of our guns." Negan grabbed Carl's gun from his pocket and shoved it into his pants. "Shit, kid, lighten up. At least cry a little." He stood up and stopped in front of me. My body began to tremble, my eyes wide with fear. My chest heaved up and down quickly, my anxiety skyrocketing. He pointed Lucille at me. I flinched. "Look at you! I sure as shit wasn't expecting to see a pretty girl covered in blood before I started the grand finale!" Another tear streaked across my skin. Negan gasped dramatically. "Don't cry, sweetheart." He placed his gloved hand on the top of my head, dragging it down to my chin. He lifted my head up so I could look him in the eyes. "You would make the perfect wife."

"Back off," Daryl growled. Negan turned his head, staring at him with a slight smirk on his face.

"She yours," he asked. Daryl stayed silent, his eyes squinted with burning rage. "How sweet! Just might have to trample over that shit." Negan moved over to Maggie. She shook as well, tears in her eyes. You could tell she was extremely sick. "Jesus, you look fucking shitty! I should just put you out of your misery right now."

"No," Glenn screamed, running towards Negan to stop him. The man with the burnt face grabbed him and held him down against the dirt, a loaded crossbow pressed against his cheek.

"Stop it," Maggie shrieked, a hand flying to her stomach. I almost threw up when she did that; I forgot she was pregnant and now she was going through all this.

"Nope," Negan growled. "Get him back in line." The man obeyed his leader, dragging Glenn back by his sweater.

"Don't," Glenn cried out helplessly. "Don't!"

"Don't any of you do that again! I will shut that shit down, no exceptions. The first one's free. It's an emotional moment, I get it. Sucks don't it; the moment you realize you don't know shit." Negan observed Carl again then glanced back at Rick. "This your kid, right? This is definitely your kid!" He became excited, pointing Lucille at Carl.

"Just stop this," Rick demanded, angrily. His whole body was shaking with rage, sweat dripping down from the curly strands of hair that hung in front of his misty blue eyes.

"Hey! Don't make me kill the little future serial killer, don't make it easy on me! I've gotta pick somebody. Everybody's at the table waiting for me to order." Negan bit his lip, pondering as he scanned all of us again. His eyes landed back on me. My body immediately tensed again. "Would you like to pick, sweetheart?" He extended Lucille to me, his face soft as he waited for my response. I quickly shook my head 'no'. He sighed. "How disappointing. Someone take her out. There's no fucking way I'm gonna beat in that pretty little head she's got. I need her," Negan demanded, a man suddenly pulling me up off my knees. I was too struck with fear to speak, a small whimper emerging from my lips as I was dragged back across the dirt. Arms were wrapped tight around my waist, standing me up no matter how weak my legs were. Negan rubbed his head in distress, whistling.

"I simply cannot decide." He paused, his eyes suddenly lighting up. "I've got an idea!" He pointed Lucille at someone new with every word that escaped his lips, dragging it on for as long as he could. "Eeny... meeny... miny... mo... catch... a tiger... by... his toe... if... he hollers... let him go... my mother... told me... to pick... the very... best... one... and you... are... it." My stomach dropped, tears immediately flooding my eyes. I felt my breathing begin to increase again, my body freezing. "Anybody moves, anybody says anything, cut the boy's other eye out and feed it to his father and then we'll start. You can breathe, you can blink, you can cry. Hell, you're all gonna be doing that."