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Taken by the Saviors alongside Daryl, Reader makes a promise to get them out of there, no matter the cost. She promises herself that she's killing Negan on the way out too. 
   When Negan offers Daryl a position as a Savior and Daryl refuses, she volunteers to take his place. Being that close to the inner circle of the Sanctuary isn't an opportunity she can pass up.  Negan agrees, believing that having the golden girl of Alexandria fighting with him is exactly what they need to realize who's in charge now.  
   He drags her around, his personal soldier. Every visit to Alexandria, pick-up, and punishment. He'll never see her as more than a pawn, something he stole from Rick She's useless to Alexandria from here, only ever a few paces behind him, waiting for his next order. 
  She hates it, sick with the guilt of pointing a gun at her friends and family. She wants nothing more than to turn her weapon on Negan, take Daryl, and run but she hasn't seen him in days. Isn't even sure he's still alive or in the Sanctuary, can only hope he's escaped.  
    So she bides her time and waits. Then she sees it, a tiny chink in the armor he'd so carefully created.  It's in his posture as he walks through the Sanctuary, in the tone he uses when speaking to his wives, and grin on his face when they fall into him. It's in his eyes when she says the word family. 
   Negan is lonely. He has nothing but the community he's built off the backs of others. He's alone. She decides she'll become the one thing he thinks he has. She'll get close and she'll take him down, from the inside.  
    Her plan comes to a halt when she feels it, that tiny flicker of empathy that sends her pushing him back to arm's length. The last thing she needs is to let him get too close and compromise her mission. But the feeling was persistent, wriggling its way into their every interaction and then she realized, she cared about him. 
   And caring about the monster, Negan Smith? That was a fate worse than death.
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