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

Bruises

Blake paced around the room, walking first from the bed, and then to the table, and then back again.

What had just happened?

These past couple of days had just been a whirlwind to say the least.

This time yesterday she hadn't even met the leader the Saviours yet, and now he had given her...well, all this! A room....no, a place of her own....

But it couldn't be that easy, right? There had to be sort of catch. She knew better than to trust him...this Negan...all tall and dark and handsome as he was...

Blake shook herself...

What was she doing? The man was a monster. Of course he was. He'd killed Glen and Abraham, Spencer and Olivia. He was a madman. Drunk on power.

She gave a sigh rubbing her tired face with her hand and slumping down onto the edge of the bed.

Blake had already used the bathroom, a separate washroom for ladies at the end of the corridor, and washed her face, freshening herself up slightly. She had not looked good. Her long caramel hair felt a little tangly and her skin looked dirty (most likely from sleeping on a dusty cell floor last night).

A red haired man and another man with shaven dark hair stood in the corridor holding guns, watching her as she passed, but didn't utter a word. She guessed they had been told to stand watch by Negan. But at least in the bathrooms she could be alone...

The toilets themselves were separated off into blocks with separate shower cubicles that had all been empty when she had popped in.

Blake had come back and shut herself in here again. In her room.

All of this being a little overwhelming for her, as she sat here alone, with her thoughts...

At least it was better than sitting in a cell, she thought to herself. But here she was away from David....away from the people she knew back in Alexandria.....away from everything she held dear....although most of those things were long gone now anyway.

Blake gave a sigh, raising her eyes to see a flock of birds drifting past her window in the far distance.

She had already stood at the window and checked the view, which was just of that same old fencing, surrounding by hordes of the chained-up dead. But Blake had discovered, that from back here on her bed, it looked like she could be anywhere....where none of this had happened...where everything was back to normal and right again.

This was, in fact, the first time in the long years since all this had begun, that she had felt this way. Felt like she could just drift away and forget about everything.

Despite this place being what looked like an abandoned factory, the air seemed clean in here, and smelled good. Better than out there at least....

Never would she get used to the smell of the never ending rotting dead.

She picked up a book from beside her. A random title she had picked from the shelf to distract herself for a moment.

Moby Dick.

She remembered starting reading this book as a teen but being far too interested in boys to keep up with finishing it. Perhaps she could pick up where she left off, those fourteen or so, long years ago.

Blake gulped, flipping the pages over in her hands, but not wanting to stop anywhere particular. And so she just kept flipping.

She wondered what at this second, David was doing. It had been an hour or so since she had seen him.