And there they were again, on their knees in front of Negan, only this time, the line was drastically reduced to two people, and two people only, father and son... the plan B.

The gunfight was still taking place down the road but with numbers on Negan's side it wasn't that hard to overthrow Rick and show him he didn't stand a chance.

And Negan... Negan was smiling because he had every reason to. Everything Sally told him, everything she snooped out was paving their way. Daryl, the guns, Jadis settling for less... she got it all right. As well as the fact that Rick hated bringing his loved ones into the fight. But they would never let him go alone and there was nothing he could do stop them.

It was Negan who stood corrected, learning from his own mistakes, that bringing in the people not related by blood to Rick was not punishment enough. What got to Rick the most was Carl and he proved that over and over again. They all remembered threatening Carl was language that Rick understood, but promises were not enough anymore. Eliminating Carl meant taking down Rick. There was no other relation that meant so much to him. And the timing couldn't be any better for Negan to confirm his theory.

A woman's scream cut through the air right into Rick's brain. The apocalypse kept taking and taking from him. Part of his soul was ripped out again, his heart was sinking faster than the falling silhouette. And Negan just couldn't miss the convenient occasion. He chuckled.

"Oh, wow. You just lost somebody important to you right now. Like just now." Empathy was something strange to Negan since he could feel just about nothing, not like he used to. Before all this. Maybe that was the reason why he had such a warm spot for Sally. Compassion had no place with there. Quite the contrary. She felt so much lighter when another person who was stealing Rick's heart was gone. But there was no time to dwell in that feeling. Negan took no break.

"I'm gonna kill Carl, now," he announced and those were the words that put Sally's feet back on the ground.

Right at that moment it hit her how final those words were. Negan wasn't just fooling around. She realized she couldn't watch that scene. Carl was the kid she watched grow up. Negan was beginning to break her down. But she didn't see a way how to stop all that just yet with her head being bashed in as well. Negan was not taking another misbehavior that day.

In the meantime, Rick was fueling Negan's rage, answering back to Negan, maybe just so the swing of the bat was savage enough for Carl not to suffer.

The fury that welled up in Negan's face was unlike anything Sally had witnessed before. It was growing with every next Rick's word but was fueled from the deepest inside of Negan's seemingly empty soul. He imagined Sally kindle under his touch and he was not losing that again.

"You're all already dead!" Rick said like they all did not know it already. Like Negan wasn't aware of his miserable existence. He was there one day, maybe wasn't the next. They were all there to rot just like the walking dead, but the only one Negan couldn't envision like that was Sally. It was so unlike her. It wouldn't suit her and even though she balanced on the edge it was her decision to take the step, not Rick's, not anybody's. Not even his.

Negan's growing heart couldn't take a thought of that so he did the only thing that did the trick for him when he got scared. He laughed it all off. Lies provided the illusion that nothing could touch him.

Negan stood up nimbly, walked over to Carl and threw away his hat so it didn't stand in the way.

For Sally, Lucille was sacred, but that was Carl for god's sake! Even Negan liked Carl, he said it himself. Maybe they could adopt him and drag him to their side. He was not hopeless, not like Rick. She saw it in Carl's face when he visited Sanctuary. The longing for power, for appreciation. He could be the new Alexandria leader.

Negan had Lucille all set, up in the air, and just as he was about to glide the bat back down, Sally barged right in her way to take the hit herself blindly believing she could halt it halfway.

"No," Sally yelled, shutting her eyes, preparing for the impact, but her voice died in a much louder roaring.

Lucille never made it as far as the collision with Sally.

Negan got startled by a tiger. A tiger?!

A scene out of a fairytale reenacted right in front of his eyes, sight so unforeseen he could hardly prevent the backfire. In attempt to cover himself, he missed Sally's hands ready to catch Lucille by mere inches and Lucille's barbed wire drove right through Sally's face, ripping half of it open.