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“You really gonna to stay here and let em keep treating you like this?” Negan asked and grabbed the horn of his saddle, pulling himself up onto the back of his massive steed.
“They’re my family.”
He chuckled, the sound deep and menacing. “Told you already, you're the only one that can decide whether you’ll be a sheep or a wolf.” Then his horse dashed forward, taking him behind the house and out of her life at lightning speed.
Maggie clenched her fingers on the porch railing as her heart beat like a war drum in her chest. She didn’t have any time to spare, did she? If she couldn’t make up her mind now, she ran the risk of Negan changing his mind on a whim and disappearing forever on her.
Maggie dashed into the house.
“Where’s the fire?” Annette called out to her from the kitchen, but she ignored her and ran for her room.
At least Beth wasn’t there to ask uncomfortable questions, because if she packed in the girl’s presence, those would be endless. Maggie didn’t have time to spare, so her focus was on gathering her most important possessions.
A small mirror and hairbrush that had belonged to her mother went into the carpetbag first, along with a change of clothes, followed by the money the Pinkertons gave her, but she stalled when her gaze wandered over the crumpled sketch of Glenn. It was the only thing Maggie had left of him.
Maggie hesitated, her fingers hovering over the crumpled sketch. Memories flooded back: the warmth of his smile, the gentle touch of his hand. She couldn't bear to leave it behind, yet the thought of carrying it on her journey filled her with uncertainty. Would she lose it, or damage it so irreparably that all she would have left to remember him was her memory, which faded more and more each day? With a sigh, she carefully folded the sketch and tucked it into a hidden pocket of the carpetbag. It was a risk, but she couldn't part with the last tangible piece of him.
She was contemplating her two spare shirts when the door suddenly burst opened, and Beth popped her pretty blonde head in, staring at Maggie with wide eyes. “A man just took Biscuit, and your saddle!”
Dread settled in her gut and a chill snaked down her spine. How was she going to complete her mission if she didn't even have a horse to track down Negan. Maggie couldn’t think, she could barely hear any of her little sister’s words through her frantic heartbeat.
Then something her sister said registered.
“He told me he knew Jesse James.”
Maggie made a strangled sound, speechless with rage. The fucking audacity.
“Which direction did he ride off to?”
The girl shifted her weight, blinking. “Down the path towards Mr. Abernathy’s house.”
Maggie quickly shoved a few more basic items into her bag, no longer having the luxury to be rational about it, then dashed out of the room as if her life depended on it. In the kitchen, Jimmy, the young stable boy, was arguing with Annette about how he couldn’t have eaten the whole porter cake himself, but a life where such trifles constituted problems was fading fast for Maggie.
Maggie snatched the shotgun from a case lying under a side table in the hallway and burst onto the porch. She jumped down the three stairs and bolted for the stable, calculating which of the remaining horses would be fastest. Her daddy's ranch hand, Otis, yelled something to her from his own mount far away, but Maggie didn’t have time or the inclination to listen, too focused on her own plans to truly care.
Shawn’s voice boomed in the stables as Maggie rushed inside. “What do you mean he just ran off with Biscuit? You were right there. Didn’t a stranger coming in on his own alarm you?”
Shame twisted in her gut, but she didn’t stay to check on who was enduring the stern dressing down. Instead, she focused on making her way towards Shawn's horse, which stood waiting for her, saddled, in front of the stable. She ran past the open door, put her foot in the stirrup, and nudged Thunder into motion, her empty stomach twisting into a ball of nerves at the thought of what she was about to do. But she had to. For Glenn. At least that was what she chose to tell herself.
Shawn didn't notice her escape, too focused on yelling at the poor man, not even when Maggie galloped uphill, then past the open gate and down the forest path she had directed the Pinkerton agents to earlier. The clouds were dark and ominous, ready to unleash torrential rain, but the upcoming storm had nothing on the rapid beating of Maggie’s heart. Could she really do this? Could she befriend and work with a man who rode with the very people who brutally murdered her childhood sweetheart and fiance? Was what she was doing even morally justifiable, or did the cause not justify the means after all? They were criminals, outlaws, bandits. She'd have to participate in horrible things to earn their trust. Could she be that person?
Maggie steeled her resolve and urged Thunder to pick up speed. She could. To finally get justice for Glenn, she could. Negan might be a wolf, but if he thought Maggie was a sheep, then he had another thing coming.
Maggie pulled her bandana over her nose to protect her lungs from the dust lifting under the hooves and clenched the shotgun tight, on the lookout for any sign of two horses ahead as fury drove her towards the hunt. Fresh tracks continued down the shadowed path, only to abruptly change direction and dive between the trees.
Negan couldn’t be much further.
“I’m warning you, Negan!” Maggie yelled out, never stopping her gallop. She pulled on the reins to make Thunder turn up the low slope where the treetops cleared, showing the overcast sky. “You better stop right now! My mount is swift, and so will be your death if you don’t hand over my damn horse!”
Laughter echoed back. As if the crazy bastard had not a care in the world. Or maybe death threats were entraining to outlaws, who the hell knows.
“Well God damn! Is that little Miss Maggie Greene?” called out a voice from beyond the slope, and the confidence made Maggie stiffen. Was this it? Would she end up with a hole in her forehead the moment Negan caught sight of her? Just another victim of the Saviors.
Maggie urged the panting steed to trot, but the moment she spotted Negan in a field of goldenrod that was scattered around a massive boulder, she raised her double barreled shotgun and aimed it at him. The man faced away, calmly taking in the scenery, while both horses fed on the grass beneath their hooves. Biscuit glanced Maggie’s way, but Negan kept him in place with a tug on his reins.
Fury licked at her insides, and she fed that anger because it staved off the mind-numbing fear. “I'm sure the ladies would hate to see half that pretty face of yours blown off. So, hand over my damn horse, you bastard!”
Negan chuckled but didn’t even bother to turn. That was it—the end to Maggie’s patience.
She hooked the leather strap attached to the firearm onto her shoulder and grabbed the lasso Shawn had left hanging off the horn of the saddle. Ropes and knots had been Maggie’s friends since early childhood, and she swung the lasso above her head before casting it Negan’s way with the same skill and proficiency she rode with. The loop knocked Negan’s hat off as it fell in place and tightened around his midsection at Maggie’s tug. At last, Negan glanced over his shoulders in surprise.
Maggie held her breath when she didn’t see a single twitch in the bastard's face, but her chest started to ache when metal flashed at Negan’s hip. He had his gun trained on poor Biscuit’s head. The goddamned bastard knew exactly where to hit so it hurt, and was smirking despite the rope around his body. “Are you sayin’ you find me pretty, darlin’?”
The question rattled Maggie around her head far longer than it should’ve, given the circumstances.
Pretty? No. Negan was by no definition pretty. Handsome, now that she couldn't deny. Tousled dark salt and pepper hair. Beard scruff that was closer to being a beard than scruff. Tight, well-worn jeans over slim hips and long toned legs. Tattoos. Muscular arms—the kind that you couldn't help but imagine wrapped firmly around you and holding you close. Negan was a handsome man, too goddamn handsome. Like a force of nature, one who had taken an interest in Maggie for reasons she couldn't comprehend. But just like a tornado, Negan should be admired from afar but was best avoided by anyone wanting to keep their life.
Maggie urged the horse closer but didn’t attempt to tug on the rope. Negan was too quick of a shot to risk it. “I’m saying you’re out of line.”
Negan smiled, an amused, arrogant smile that had no right to be so damned attractive. “If you want to join up with the Saviours, you’ll have to be out of line too,” he said rolling back his shoulders to loosen the rope around his torso as he studied Maggie, his gun firmly trained on Biscuit, who simply continued nibbling on the grass at his feet, completely and utterly unaware of the current threat to his life. “Our life’s a dangerous one, darlin', and I can’t leave anything to chance. Needed to see what you were made of, and let me tell you, Maggie, I like what I’m seeing.”
Maggie looked away at the unexpected compliment. She sighed and ran a hand across her face. “I was already packing my things when you decided to steal my horse. There was no need for all this.”
“There's always a reason for a little mischief,” he said with a wink. “And I was reckoning that they weren't exactly gonna let you just walk out with the horse, no matter that you had raised it since it was a babe.”
Maggie watched Negan slide the lasso up his body and drop it as if it were merely a leaf stuck to his coat. This man was her key to finding the Saviours and getting justice for Glenn, but he was truly like no one she had ever met before.
She'd been told tales about how women were often foolishly drawn to dangerous men, lured by smiles that promised both thrills and delight, and for the first time in her life Maggie understood why it happened. Negan’s confidence in the way he approached people and spoke to them transcended social mores, and he was certainly quite the catch where looks were concerned. She imagined running her mouth over the veins in Negan’s forearms bared by his rolled-up sleeves. She licked her lips, trying and failing to suppress the hunger gnawing at her, hunger that had nothing to do with her empty stomach.
Maggie shook her head. What an absolutely insane thing to imagine when faced with a predator out in the woods. Pretty feathers didn’t make Negan any less dangerous. A snake could be pretty too, but it would still bite you if you got too close.
Maggie cleared her throat and slid off Thunder’s back to approach Biscuit. As terrible as her relationship with her daddy was, Maggie couldn’t justify stealing a horse. She was confident he wouldn’t report the crime, but it just didn’t feel like the right thing to do. But she also couldn’t go back home. Not after Negan’s stunt.
“Are you saying you stole the horse for me? That’s a mighty good excuse.”
Negan jumped to the ground, picked up his fallen hat, and wiped it off with one hand. “Maggie, darlin’, you’re makin’ me blush.”
"You're a damn bastard, you know that."
"I know. But the crazy thing is, you like me anyway,” he answered with a wolfish grin.
She walked up to Thunder and pulled her carpet bag off the saddle. Worries raced through her mind, but if she ever wanted a spitballs chance in hell to reconnect with the only family she had left, she needed to make things right. She made sure her body blocked the saddlebag from Negan’s gaze and then with a heavy heart stuffed the bundle of Pinkerton money into the leather satchel. She hated to see it gone, but this wouldn’t be the first time she had to go without. She had enough tools in Biscuit’s saddlebags to feed herself in the wilderness for a while.
The shame of what she was about to do sat heavy in her stomach, but she pushed herself to do what she had to do and say what needed to be said.
“How did you know which saddle was mine?” she asked, pulling out a small notebook.
Negan chuckled behind her. “Your little sister told me.”
Of course. After all, Negan had told Beth he ‘knew Jesse James’.
Maggie ripped out a page, because the money wouldn’t be a sufficient enough message, and wrote, For Biscuit. I’m sorry.
It was all she could come up with on the spot, but since she couldn’t risk Negan finding out what she was doing, those few words would have to do.
Confident Thunder would find his way home, she slapped his rear and watched him dash out of sight. With that, Maggie’s fate was sealed. Fears of what was to come flashed through her mind, like lightning before a storm, but she had made her decision and she was sticking to it. Maggie squared her shoulders and turned and faced Negan, who was drinking from a flask as if rustling horses was his usual Saturday afternoon. Knowing the Saviors, it probably was.
For a day that had started slower than usual, it was now gaining a speed Maggie wasn’t prepared for. She was about to embark on a journey that would change her life forever, spurred on by a man she’d met by chance.
Fate had drawn her to this man even before the Pinkerton agents had set her on a course for revenge. Like the devil himself, Negan had made whispered promises, tempting Maggie into a life of sin and outlawry. All she needed to do was let go of her morals.
“Why me?” Maggie asked when Negan urged his horse to walk with just a small nudge of his thighs.
“Your pretty green eyes,” he said with a smirk.
“I’m being serious.”
If the Pinkertons were correct, that charming smile hid a monster—one capable of meting out violence without batting an eye or letting it interrupt his meal. She wouldn't let herself fall for his pretty words.
Negan exhaled and looked skyward, and it was definitely not attractive when he did that, with that long throat and tense jaw. No goddamn way.
“You don’t belong with them, darlin’,” he sighed. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re the kinda’ woman who wants more from life. You’d never be happy as some pretty little ornament on some dumb cowpokes arm. You might be green, in name and nature, but you’re strong and could thrive with us, if you have the grit for our kind of life, that is.”
Negan lowered his gaze and turned to look over at her, his expression serious. "Now you tell me, darlin’. Why’d you join up with us? Why join the Saviours?”
Maggie was joining the Saviours to find the man who killed her childhood sweetheart and see justice served, but Negan had hit the nail on the head. Maggie wasn’t happy in Mert County, not for a long time and not since Glenn died—taking her chance at a happy future with him.
“My mama died of consumption when I was younger, and daddy was never the same. He drank, ya know, and I looked too much like her for his liking. He'd get violent, thought I was her ghost come back to haunt him or some such. Things got a bit better when he remarried, but with Annette came the son he’d always wanted and a daughter who didn't remind him of his dead wife, so I quickly went from a daughter to some burden he had to get rid of. So, I thought fuck it. I'd rather live a life of sin, than be sold off like some broodmare to the first man that offered.”
Negan curled his tongue over his teeth and gave her a wolfish grin. “Oh, if it's sin you want darlin' that I will gladly give you.”
Maggie swallowed. He was an outlaw and murderer, yet she couldn’t look away from the gaze luring her in with the promise of sin.
“Cake?” Negan suddenly asked, presenting a chunk of porter cake he must have ripped off the whole thing like some animal.
Maggie stalled. “Is that my step mama’s?”
Negan pretended to be wounded by her implications. “How could you even think that darlin', I'd never steal from your step mama.” Then flashed her a grin and pushed the still-warm cake towards her mouth.
Lying came so easily to Negan. Was she already under his spell? She'd need to watch him closely, and just maybe she could learn from such a master because she was embarking on her own path of lies. One that would either lead to the men responsible for her childhood death being strung up, or a bullet in her head.
“You already stole her daughter.”
Negan shrugged and waggled the chunk of cake near her lips. His eyes lit up with glee when Maggie bit a piece of the cake out of his hand.
The corners of his mouth turned up as he looked at her through his lashes. “And I’ll take good care of her, like I would have a stolen horse.”
He tilted his head and regarded her for a moment and the way he seemed to be assessing Maggie’s body made her self-conscious. His tongue curled up to touch his teeth, and the urge to lean in and kiss him threatened to overpower her. But she remembered the Pinkertons and her mission. She also remembered Glenn's beaten and broken body—she could never forget that.
To a man like Negan, she probably looked like some naive little girl who's virtue was up for grabs by the first cowboy willing to give her attention. That was fine by Maggie. She’d be the snake in the grass. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Maggie had left home and was venturing into the unknown, but it was a new beginning. Just this morning, she’d woken up depressed, aimless, and with no idea how to add meaning to her life. Now, she had a purpose.
She’d been a good daughter for so many years. Meek, pushing down her dreams and needs to try and make her daddy happy, fighting her instincts to challenge her step brother, and pretending to pray at church. But to be honest, that quiet life was now over. So to hell with it, she’d eat the damn stolen cake.
She grinned at Negan and when offered her another bite, she leaned forward and reached into the man’s bag for the whole tin. When Negan’s lips parted in shock, Maggie spurred Biscuit into a trot and carried the cake with her.
No one said a blood-soaked path of revenge couldn’t be a little bit fun.