The fires still smoldered behind her as the smoke curled into the grey sky. Bodies lined the square, some dead, some kneeling. Lucille stood tall, leather coat streaked with grime and blood, her feared barbed bat: Negan resting on her shoulder like an executioners blade.

The community had resisted. Fools.

"You thought you could say no to me?" she called out, voice sharp and clear over the quiet sobs. "You made me do this. Every body here, every broken wall, every goddamn grave... that's on you. All you had to do was kneel."

She began walking the line, each step slow, deliberate. Eyes scanned the faces. Some of them would be useful, some of them not.

She stopped at one cracking her back. One swing. Then another. Skull and blood. Her judgment was swift. An action to set fear into them.

Then she stopped.

A young man knelt, beside the one she just crushed the head of. She leaned close, pressing Negan’s barbs just under his chin lifting it up to force him to look at her.

“Alright, baby,” she whispered, voice like gravel and honey. “This is the part where you tell me why I shouldn’t paint the dirt with your brains.”