The CROWN ☁︎ Negan

PART 18

Negan really liked it in Alexandria. He was making himself home with hardly any complaints. But however cozy and comfy he was, waiting for Rick so he could deliver Carl to him, it was a pain. Sally must've been climbing walls waiting up for him. His trip got way longer than it was supposed to be. But when he finally made it back to his compound, he came bearing gifts.

"Take our visitor and get him some bed and breakfast, we don't want to be rude, do we?" Negan swept his obligations with Eugene out of the way. He had more important things to do. "I ain't got time for this shit now, I need to go see my girl." He was a little bit let down she did not end up in his arms right as he crossed the gates. She was always on the move and she would know he was closing in. But who he was to judge if she was already waiting for him in his bed. So he followed the rose petals but he didn't got too far.

"Sir, we've got a situation. You might want to see this," one of the Saviors came running to Negan sooner than he made it inside.

"Are you kidding me? I've got a hot mess waiting for me in my bed. What could possibly..."

"Fat Joey ... if I may, sir..." He dared to interrupt, but it was more the rush more than boldness.

"Fat Joey what?" The boy quite grew on him, so he wanted to hear the rest.

"He's dead, sir."

"Lead the way." Negan furrowed his brow and followed the guy to the back yard. "What a shame," he commented once he saw the poor guy on the ground with his head bashed in, "he didn't even finish his last supper."

"Now, who did this?" Negan asked but nobody dared to guess. "Get Sally for me, she would know."

Three guys got on the task right away, so they could summon Sally sooner, Negan wasn't exactly the patient one. But one of them got back right away, alone.

"Sir, Daryl... Daryl is not in his cell. He's gone."

Negan could hardly contain the wave of anger that flooded him. Not even Rosita who tried to shoot him just hours ago and shot Lucille instead didn't manage to get him so mad. But he only had one target to hit. Sally had to know everything about that situation. She always knew about everything.

"WHERE THE HELL IS SHE??? GET HER TO ME NOW!!!"

Every last one of his men vanished looking for the girl. Negan waited and he waited, pacing the small yard back and forth, back and forth until his head was spinning. Daryl was gone and further with every minute they lost looking for Sally in the colossal compound.

"She's nowhere to be found, sir," the report stated.

"Did you check the roof?" Negan had to be sure.

"First thing, sir. She's not on the premises as far as we know."

"I can't believe you, you bunch of morons. How do you lose not one, but two people in one day! In a couple of hours! In a daylight!" He shouted.

Nobody tried to defend themselves.

"Organize search parties, scan the perimeter, just to be sure."

"Yes, sir."

"I guess now we know who let the birdie out of his cage." Negan believed Sally finally showed her true colors and let Daryl out.

"And don't forget," he called after his men, "everyone's guilty, until proven otherwise."

___

Negan couldn't just stay behind and sit on his hands. Right after he had Dwight beaten severely for his misguided project Daryl and thrown into a cell, he went out to look for Sally just like his people. He did not need anybody to tell him which way to go. The connection he had with Sally, the most inner understanding they shared, made him turn and walk in her footsteps.

She got far but never could get far enough from him. Negan was catching up, breathing down her neck. She was running, he was driving around in this truck cautiously tracing the woods, certain he was onto her. His eyes were browsing faint colors of the forest. The same shades Negan saw Sally covered in when he first saw her. Spotting her back then would be an unearthly task but this time he could almost feel the burning of her fiery-flamy hair on his smoothly shaved face.

"Stop the truck," he called out suddenly. A gleam of red flashed past his vision, disturbing the dull scenery.

The driver hit the brakes and Negan and his crew got out of the trucks and rushed after Negan into the woods.

The savoury glow lured him closer and deeper into the wilderness and as he reached the checking point and it became his new ground zero. She was there, she passed the point, he could feel the heat. He bent down and picked up the proof of the ground. His scarf that Sally considered hers for the day was in the hands of its rightful owner again. The crimson banner was flowing in the wind as Negan was wrapping it around his neck.

"Sir, she most probably went this way. Here are some traces of the dead, they were going after her..."

"Truck number two, stay behind," Negan ordered, "search the site, just to be sure. We'll go a little further up the road. She can't be that far."

___

Good thing Sally kept her combat boots. The change of her whole attire caught up to her, but the boots allowed her to run free through the wasteland. The little black dress was not so constricting when it came to her breakaway, yet it was in no way clothing to wear outside the safe walls.

Her bare skin got scratched on every shrub she had to flounder through. Branches clawed her legs and arms and face, tried to tore the dress from her body. But she did not care about her surface when her inside balanced on the edge of six feet deep valley. The dead were rising from their graves but she didn't have walkers on her mind, she meant living breathing humans who were supposed to be long lost and gone but somehow found their way back from the afterlife.

She couldn't wait another second, she couldn't breathe without them next to her, without him next to her, like they always were. Two of them against the world. It was him!

She kept soaring through the pillars of trees, barriers of bushes, at the moment hardly aware of the walkers chasing her behind her back. But she needed to halt, she needed to see where she was headed, how much off the course she slipped while navigating through the wild.

She accelerated and bounced herself off the ground, her arms reaching high enough to catch a low-lying branch of an enormous tree. She pushed herself up on the limb and made no stop until she reached high enough to oversee the tree-tops. And yes, there, right in front of her, she could see it - the reddish Barrington House on the horizon.

Wasting no time, she began to slide back down, only this time there was no denying of hungry growling under the tree. The walkers that were chasing her caught up, she drew a crowd along the way and they were trying to reach her resting back on the lowest branch.

Three walkers against one unarmed girl with nowhere to escape, crouching above the ground looking down into the sea of helping hands. And that was how Negan found her.

___

Author's Note:

Just a little heads up ... we've got some gore in the next part, but nothing you couldn't take since you're watching TWD. But is that really what I should be warning you about? Find out right away.

Stay safe, lovelies 💋

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