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A hiss escaped Eleanor Greene’s lips as she knelt beside her sister Maggie. Rocks dug painfully into her knees as she glanced around at the rest of their group. Abraham took position on Maggie’s other side, helping to keep her supported in her weak state. After a moment, Rick knelt on Eleanor’s left side.
All around them were dozens of armed men and women who had herded them like cattle to this very spot. Their eerie whistles still rang in her ears as she tried to focus on the man who seemed to have set up this whole encounter.
She had been very vocal with her disagreement of the original plan to take out the Saviors in favor of gaining Hilltop’s trust. Rick, as the leader, had moved ahead with it anyway. Now, they were all facing the consequences of their actions.
To the side of the clearing, a vehicle was opened and even more of their people were ushered into the lineup: Michonne, Rosita, Glenn, and Daryl who appeared to have sustained some sort of injury since they had last seen one another. Maggie sobbed beside her as she saw her husband, Glenn Rhee try to get to her, but he was hindered by one of the goons around them and forced to stay on his knees.
“Alright,” the man who was leading the encounter brought all attention back to himself, “We’ve got a full boat. Let’s meet the man.” He knocked on the door of the RV and stepped aside.
Eleanor was not sure what to expect from the person who opened the door, but the first words out of his mouth left her numb.
“Pissin’ our pants yet?” he asked with a cocky grin.
All sound seemed to converge and roar in her ears at once. Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she saw Maggie look from the man to Eleanor’s left forearm. Beneath the plaid sleeve were those same exact words.
The two girls had spent their childhood trying to imagine what type of man would greet his soulmate with a vulgar phrase like that. Maggie’s own simple phrase of “uh-huh” had not been much to go on for their imaginings. Her mind wandered to the night her father had explained why they each were born with words on their skin.
“Those are the first words you’ll ever hear your soulmate say,” a young and whole Hershel Greene had explained to the ten-year-old child on his lap. He rolled up his sleeve, revealing his own ‘soulmark,’ as they called it. “Care for a dance, cowboy?” was plainly read on his forearm.
“This is how I knew your mama was the one for me,” he explained with a soft smile.
“But what if he’s not nice?” little Eleanor had asked, worryingly tracing the letters that marked her skin.
Hershel squeezed his daughter tight and pressed a kiss to her head. “You still have a choice,” he murmured into her hair. “You don’t have to fall in love with him. You can choose someone else. Plenty of people fall in love with someone who isn’t the one that marked them, just like how I love your step-mother.”
“How come Shawn doesn’t have any words on his arm?” Eleanor asked about her new step-brother.
Hershel sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know, sweetie. Some people just don’t have them.”
“That’s pretty sad,” Eleanor muttered, rubbing the dark marks on her arm. Her rumination did not last long as she perked up. “Maybe his soulmate can’t talk!”
This conclusion had lit a fire in the little girl, and she jumped to her feet. “We need to learn sign language so we can talk to her when she comes. Thank you, daddy!”
Back in the present, Eleanor longed for those simple naïve days that she spent on her daddy’s knee. She clenched her hands to hide their shaking as her eyes went back to the man who was telling Rick exactly what he expected to happen from now on.
When he told them that he was going to beat one of them to death, Eleanor clamped her jaw shut and stared at the ground. A fleeting thought went through her mind that maybe he would choose her, make her be the sacrifice and free her from the knowledge of who he was. Let him realize after her death that they had this cursed connection. The one thing she vowed to herself was that he would not know until this was over, he would never hear a word from her. Maybe he was one of the people like Shawn who never had words to caress and dream about. Maybe her death would cause him unbearable pain and suffering.
Determined to stay silent no matter what, she tightened her jaw. She did not make a noise as he started his game of picking the sacrifice, keeping her eyes on his face, silently urging him to choose her. Her silence continued even as he threatened Maggie and Glenn tried to stop him.
He taunted them, promising if anyone else acted out there would be consequences to pay. He started to use a rhyme, randomly moving between each of them. Twice the bat was pointed in Eleanor’s face, and twice he moved on. Then, he brought his bat down on Abraham’s head.
Tears streamed down Eleanor’s face as the man was savagely bludgeoned to death, but still she kept quiet. Hot blood splattered against her skin, and she wanted to scream and rage, but she did not utter a word. She wanted to yell when Daryl attacked Negan, but no noise came out. Her hands clamped over her mouth as Glenn paid the price and her sister’s sobs tore her heart apart.
Reaching out, the sisters gripped one another’s hands as they mourned the deaths around them. When Rick was dragged away, Eleanor bit down on her thumb to keep from crying out, but as the two men pulled away in the RV, she finally released her wails of anger and pain. She clung to Maggie, sobbing and whispering countless apologies into her hair. She lost track of time as they mourned and waited and prayed for Rick to return.
When the RV returned with both Rick and Negan, she resumed her silent watch. Seeing Negan’s face as he dragged Rick across the clearing fanned the flames of her anger. Each word from his foul mouth caused her hatred and sorrow to grow. She was the butt of some sort of cosmic joke that tied her to this cruel, hateful man, she surmised.
As Negan ordered Rick to cut off his son Carl’s hand, she seethed in anger. Maggie’s hand was what kept her still. Tears of anger and helplessness flowed from her eyes freely as she tried to keep her gaze on the men directly in front of her. When Negan did not make a completely broken Rick follow through, she puffed out a breath of air.
Negan stepped away to address the group and for once, Eleanor looked away. She dug her hands into the ground as she breathed heavily in an attempt to redirect her anger, but when Negan ordered one of his men to take Daryl away, her gaze snapped up directly to meet Negan’s eyes.
Brows lifting in interest, Negan stepped towards her. That bloody bat of his came up under her chin, directing her face up to look at him straight on. “You may want to fix that expression, doll,” he warned as he leaned in closer, “or I may just have to kill another one of your friends to teach you a lesson.”
“Why did it have to be you?”
Eleanor had not meant to actually say the words. Somehow, they had escaped against her will, tumbling out in a broken sob.
Almost instantly, the bat dropped away, and Negan’s eyes widened. “What did you say?” he growled as he grabbed the front of her shirt and hauled her to her feet. He shoved his bat into the grip of his right hand man and gripped the cuff of her sleeve. With a shove, he pushed the fabric up her left arm to reveal the familiar script that lay on the otherwise pristine skin.
“Well I’ll be,” he scoffed. His finger lightly grazed the exposed skin, sending a chill down Eleanor’s spine. “This is quite the interesting twist for how I thought my day would go. It must be fate.”
Suddenly, Eleanor was shoved at one of Negan’s men. She stumbled over loose gravel before she was hauled up.
“Load her up with the other one,” Negan ordered, a dark grin stretched across his features. He turned back to her friends on the ground. “Man, Rick, I may have gone a bit easier on you had I known my soulmate was with you.” He pushed back the sleeve of his leather jacket to reveal Eleanor’s words staining his left arm.
Negan knelt by Rick one more time as Eleanor was shoved into the back of the waiting van with Daryl. She could not hear his words, not sure she actually wanted to know what he was saying to the broken man on the ground. Daryl’s hands steadied her, and she found herself clinging to her friend like a lifeline. She clung to him as the doors of the van slammed shut and found herself staring at the clear skin of his left forearm. For the first time in her life, she thought that maybe those without a soulmark were, in fact, the lucky ones.