Gen Tags. Found family, Daddy issues, Abuse, Hurt and comfort, Gore.
Summary. Harley D. Dixon is a tough yet sweet little girl who until the dead started eating the living, thought she had seen it all. Alongside a mismatched group of survivors in rural Georgia, Harley and her Dad are forced to leave their small life behind and learn how to survive all over again through the horrors of the apocalypse.
ā TW: This fic contains canon typical violence and gore, abuse, mentioned suicide, off-screen suicide, main character death, and has been described by my lovely readers over on Ao3 as 'gritty', 'intriguing', 'intense', and 'special'. Please read with caution!
ā Note: Canon is only loosely followed. Some changes have been made to certain plot points to keep it fresh and interesting / account for the added character.
ā¤ļøCross-Posted from Ao3.
Season 1 - 2 Word Count: 180,000
Season 3 - ? Word Count: 52,000
āao3 should have an algorithmā ao3 should continue only giving me exactly what I ask for which happens because I know how to use the search, sort, and filter functions
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šChapter List.
Author's Note.
Yoohoo! Been a couple months... What else is new? š
"Everybody, everybody! Please head home! Lock your doors!"
I cling tighter to Rick's shoulders as the sounds of panicked screaming and truck engines surround us from all sides, chaos filling the moonlit street faster than any herd of walkers could. Shoulders are bumping into us. People are tripping over each other. I can't hardly tell who's a civilian and who ain't, but it's us who the guards are lookin' for. We kicked one hell of a hornet's nest down in the blocks.
There were bodies. I saw 'em. Bodies, white smoke, and bloodied bullet casings at our feet. It was a massacre.
I'm sure that's what they'll call it.
Not an escape, or a kidnapping, and definitely not torture. Not the truth ā No, a terribleĀ massacre.
First they killed Eric,Ā they'll say,Ā And now this!
The Governor's got a way with pickin' the worst, most fanciest words for things and I know he'll make it easy to hate us. He's a lizard with a silver tongue and his people are nothin' but lemmings. They prefer it that way. That guard had it right when he said it's amazing just how much people are willin' to sweep under the rug when they got food and shelter on the line. The Governor could say the sky is red and they'd surely convince themselves it was so. He could say we're heartless, bloodthirsty killers and they'd surely do it then, too.
I could say they got no idea about the horrors lurkin' under their suburban paradise, but I'd be wrong.
"Terrorists!" The guards are cryin' out behind us, strikin' fear into the night. Their words are like cattle prods at our ankles, whipping the crowd into shape. It's like they want us to be scared.Ā Terrorists?,Ā I think, feeling lost,Ā Us?Ā "We're under attack!"
"Get home!" Another shouts. "It's not safe!"
"Don't worry, we're gonna find these people!"
"Get home!"
No, I desperately think, seeing the scared faces that pass us,Ā That ain't us.Ā This is a misunderstandin'. Terrorists are them people from the news channels who hate America, who wanna kill innocent people, who are evil. That ain't us. We want to go home more than we want to shed more blood. These people ain't done nothin' to us. If they want a terrorist, all they gotta do is look at their leader.
We wouldn't have attacked the blocks if it weren't for the fact that we were bein' kept prisoner there. In fact, none of this would be happenin' if it weren't for the Governor. That faceless monster we're all runnin' from right now; it'sĀ him.
I can still feel his touch on me.
Like the remnants of a bad rash.
"It's alright," Rick's pantin' hotly into my ear, as the flow of the crowd takes us past an idling truck. "Just hold on t'me."
The smell of burning gas curls around me. From up in the truck bed, one of the guards surveys the heads of everybody rushing by below, his cool gaze lingering on us for a moment longer than is comfortable. Does he recognise us? Does he know we're the terrorists?
"We gotta get off the streets, Rick," Maggie hisses under all the noise, eyeing the guard back. "Now."
Looking around frantically for a way out, Rick agrees, "I'm tryin'."
I watch as another wave of people stumble forward, the guard's face disappearing into the crowd. I don't think he realized.
Rick nods to a nearby break in the chaos, holding tightly onto me and stepping over the street curb, narrowly avoiding two parked trucks as he slips in between them and peels off from the crowd. We're headed for the closest and darkest alleyway. Wait. No. No, my Dad is still out here. My Uncle Merle, too. Why are we goin' this way? We ain't gonna find 'em over here, in this lightless armpit of town.
"What are ya doin'?" I exclaim to Rick, pawin' at his shoulders in protest. "Rick, what are youā?"
"Shhh. Sh, sh," He soothes dismissively, jogging around a big dumpster. "Shhh."
"No. My Dad, Rick. Heā"
"In here."
Stepping up to an old red door left slightly ajar, Rick scares off the little bugs hovering over the lantern on the wall by pushing it open. They all fly off into the night in a panic as we step inside what could be somebody's house, but the lights inside are all off.
A narrow, dusty hallway presents itself to us in the dim moonlight.
"Come on," Rick beckons everyone, hurrying onwards while the screaming continues mutedly from outside.
I hear the door click softly as Oscar closes us all in.
"No," I complain anxiously, nails digging into Rick's shirt. Not another locked door. I don't wanna be trapped again. "Wait."
Are we gonna be able to get back out again?
Are we ever gonna leave?
How we gonna find my Dad and my Uncle Merle from in here? How we gonna find 'em if we don't even know where they are?
Spilling into the lounge room, Rick takes quick cover under the windowsill just as a head light beam slowly swipes across the room. He holds me to his chest, my head tucked under his chin. They're sparin' no amount of guards to look for us. They won't find us. They can't. Maggie and Glenn duck behind the sofa together, Oscar squeezing in beside the tiny armchair. I hear thick tyres droning by. Quiet, quiet, then really loud. Rick's fingers tighten around me. His laboured breaths fan across my nape, his heartbeat thumping into my back.Ā
"Dad," I whimper as the sound of the trucks starts to feather out. "I need him. I need my Dadā"
"Shhh," Rick shushes me, his hand coming up to cover my mouth. No. I smack it away.
The others send us worried looks.
A second truck drives past. The light reaches over us like a threatening hand, illuminating the very ends of my hair. The tighter Rick holds me, the faster my heart races, the more I feel like one of those little bugs, trapped in a straight jacket made of webs.
"Stop it," I scold him, wriggling and hitting his hand away for a second time. Don't touch me. "Stop it."
Bad rash.
"Shhh, Harley," He anxiously shushes me, holding me down so I can't break free. "We have to be quiet."
"S-Stop it."
My voice goes muffled as he muscles my efforts away and covers my mouth with his hand, his arms like a boa constrictor around me.
No. Why won't he listen? Rick always listens.
"We have to be quiet, honey," He whispers apologetically.
When the second truck drives away and leaves us in darkness once more, I hinge open my mouth and sink my teeth into his palm. With a guttural yelp in my ear, he pulls away almost instantly and I'm free, shooting up from his lap and running past the sofa.
Maggie gasps my name softly. Her fingers graze my shirt. I'm runnin' for the locked door. I gotta get out.
"Harley!" Rick hisses, standing from his hiding spot.
Just as my fingertips touch the golden doorknob, Rick's hand is wrapping around it instead.
I scream out in anger, jumping at him as he puts his body between me and the door. I gotta get out. Why is he stopping me?
"Harley, listen to me," He levels with me in his firm, patient voice. He holds his ground as I try to claw my way around him, and when that doesn't work, I ball up my fists and hit him in the stomach, because I gotta get out and he's in my way. "Stop. Hey. Hey."
"Let me out," I snarl at him. He's not listenin'. Nobody is listenin'. "Let me out!"
Locked door.
Bad rash.
I need my Dad.
I need to get out!
Nudging me back with his hand, Rick crouches down in front of me just like he did on that first day back at the quarry.
"Hey," He says gently, catching me again when I try to fight my way past him. My elbows jab into his back, my fingers claw his shirt, my knees knock into his. I gotta get out, out, out. That door might never open again. We're trapped. "Hey. Hey, it's okay."
Another wordless scream of anger ripped from my throat, I shove at his face, my nails catching his stubble.
"God damn it," He winces, realizing I've hurt him. Whispering harshly, he scolds me, "Harley."
"The door! Let me out!"
"You're feelin' a lotta big feelings right now," He explains to me, frustrated yet relentlessly patient. Always relentlessly patient. Big feelings? What's he talkin' about? We ain't got time for big feelings. I just want him to get outta my way. Why won't he just get outta my way? "You're angry. Okay? You're sad. I can see that very clearly, and I'm very sorry for it, honey. Tonight's been rough, I know."
My patience is wearin' thin. I don't wanna talk about tonight. Not now. Not ever. "Move! Move, Rick!"
"I'm sorry I had to hold you down before," He adds tenderly, despite his constant efforts of pushing me back from the door. "We were stuck between a rock and a hard place. But you need to listen to what I'm sayin', and you need to listenĀ now."
"Outta my way." The stupid man won't move no matter how much I fight him, the infuriating, immovable object to my unstoppable force, like usual. With one, big, petty shove to his shoulder, I step back from him and my eyes are immediately drawn to the nasty, pink scratch marks on his cheek. I brush off the guilt quicker than it can surface. Balling up my fists at my sides, I warn him, "You best move."
My feelings don't matter right now, even if they are big.
"I can't. I wish I could, but I can't," He continues calmly, his voice a whisper, "Because there are a Hell of a lotta people out there who want nothin' more than to march us right back down to those cell blocks, okay? We don't want that.Ā IĀ don't want that."
I don't want that, neither,Ā I think incredulously as I keep my scathing glare trained on him.
"So, we have to be quiet," He reminds me. "Quiet as a little mouse. Can you do thatā?"
"I ain't no mouse," I counter sharply, "And I want myĀ Dad."
"We can't help anybody if we don't keep ourselves safe firsā"
"I want my Dad!" I shout with a stomp of my foot, lunging for the doorknob again. "Move!"
He catches me again, because of course he does. He doesn't get it. Why doesn't he get it?
"We can't leave 'em!"
"That's not your mouse voice," He discourages me. "We need to use our mouse voiā"
"IĀ want," I snarl brattishly, screaming on the top of my lungs purely outta spite and desperation, "MyĀ Dad!"
"Stop shoutin'ā"
"Move!"
"Harley, listen to meā"
"Move!"
Then, as if I've done it with my mind, the door opens behind Rick. I gasp at the sight of the dark alleyway on the other side of the wall. The smell of thick, fresh air hits my nostrils, fills my lungs. Finally. We can leave. We ain't trapped.
"There," Oscar says with finality, his hand on the knob. "Take a look. It ain't locked."
"Move," I breathlessly mutter, before I'm trying to lunge over Rick's shoulder. "Move! We gotta go!"
"No, Oscar, close it!" Rick scolds him harshly and reaches for the doorknob. "Close it!"
"Somebody's gonna hear this, man! We gotta do somethin'!"
It softly shuts.
"You think I don't realize that?"
A scream from my mouth. "No! Open it!"
"Okay? Just let me think of somethin'!'
"Rick," Glenn quietly warns him from a few feet down the corridor where he and Maggie are gathered, nervously watching this all play out. He sends him a meaningful look as he clings to Maggie, shaking his head. "I tried this before. It's not gonna work."
"Somethin' is really wrong," She agrees, her eyes fixed on me. "This ain't her."
"I know," Rick mutters in resignation. "I know."
"Let's just figure out what we're gonna do about getting outta here," Glenn suggests. "She'll get tired eventually."
Rick and I begin our violent back and forth once more. He half-heartedly side steps my every move while he talks things out with the other adults over my head. It's almost like a game. A game where I take a step around Rick and he sticks his leg out to stop me, and I shoot my hand out around his opposite side before he wrestles me back from the door and we repeat it all again. I ain't even sure I'm tryin' my best. My punches ain't landin'. My complaints are fallin' on deaf ears. I can't even form anythin' other than a few pained grunts.
Maggie's right. Somethin' is really wrong. Somethin' both vague and obvious. I hardly even got the words for it, but this feelin' inside my body sure as Hell ain't waitin' around for my permission to do what it wants with me. It don't need a name to puppet me.
It's tellin' me that if I don't claw my way outta this house right here and now, I'm gonna die. It's life and death. The walls are made of concrete and I'm trapped and if I don't get out while I can, I'm gonna die. Dad and Merle and everyone I love will die.
"That woman that was with us," Oscar begins, "I saw her ditch us outside the blocks."
"We can't go lookin' for her," Rick says coldly, his hands vices around my wrists. "She's on her own. We focus on ourselves."
"We need to get Harley and Glenn out," Maggie says. "And fast."
"This was Merle." Glenn tells them. It sounds like an accusation thrown across a courtroom, his name spat distastefully. He glances between their confused, angry expressions before he finds the words to continue. "It's true. Merle. He's alive. He survived Atlanta by the skin of his teeth and fell in with these people. We ran into him at the strip mall and he and some others took us in at gunpoint."
"He's here?" Rick asks, sneaking a quick glance down at me as he pieces together what this means for us.
"Face to face," Glenn nods. "He kicked Mouse, scared him off. Drove us here. He threw a walker at me."
Don't list his crimes,Ā I think,Ā I don't wanna hear 'em. I've taught myself not to listen when somebody's tellin' me about whatever horrible thing Merle did to them, or to their sister, or to their brother, or to the tyres on their car. I don't wanna know what I'm defending when I tell 'em to fuck off and mind their own business. That's between Merle and whoever he pissed off. I don't gotta know.
I don't wanna think about how Merle kicked Mouse and shot the tarmac around his paws. I don't wanna think about the sound of his laugh as Glenn cried out in pain. I don't wanna think about how he brought us here when he knew Dad would be tortured.
"He wouldn't hurt Daryl?" Maggie insists, her uncertainty betraying her. Somehow, no matter how much of a dick my Uncle is, and even if he's only known from anecdotes around the fire, he'll always be known for protecting his family. "His own niece?"
"He gave Daryl some leeway," He says. "He stood up for him. Harley was staying in his apartment in the beginning, before things got... complicated. But clearly, his hospitality doesn't extend to old friends. He'd kill us if he could."
"Soā Merle," Rick drawls, tilting his head with a squint, "Is he thisā? This 'Governor'?"
"No," Glenn shakes his head. "He's his own piece of work. Merle's his lieutenant or something."
"What do they want?"
"Revenge, I guess. We killed one of their men in self-defence, but also... They wanted to know where our group is," He hesitantly admits, and I'm sure they're all thinking the same question. There's no point in sugar-coating it. "They know, Rick. I'm sorry."
"Don't. No need to apologise," Rick reassures him. "It's not your fault."
"Daryl says the Governor had a gun to Harley's headā," He starts. "HeĀ hadĀ to, or elseā"
"It's alright," Rick doubles down. "You held out as best you could. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."
Oscar changes the subject. "You said they took Daryl away somewhere? They spare any details?"
"NāNo," Glenn shakes his head. "Just that they were gonna make him fight Merle."
"Shit." He lets out an exhale. "We really walked into crazy-town, didn't we?"
"People are panicked right now. They won't be doing it tonight," Rick thinks aloud. "They'll be holding them somewhere."
Maggie suggests, "Back in the blocks?"
"Wherever they are, we can't have you and Harley with us," He explains, looking at Glenn. "And we can't come back tomorrow, so we're doin' this thing tonight. Right here, right now. We gotta split up. Me, Oscar, and Maggie can escort y'all to the walls and then you can make a run for it with Harley. We got a car a few miles out, sittin' on Eighty-two. Wait for us as long as you can."
"Alright," Glenn confidently agrees as Rick digs into his pocket and hands him the car keys and a pistol.
Gesturing down at me, Maggie asks, "And Harley?"
"I-I can't carry her." Glenn shifts his weight off his bloodied leg as he pockets them. "I can't. Not like this."
"I can take her?" She suggests.
"No." Rick insists, "Maggie, we need your firepower back here. Glenn's in no state to fight and it's too risky with just me and Oscar."
As if to tell us to hurry it up, the sound of another truck approaching kicks us into gear.
"That's the plan," Rick decides. He picks me up and holds me to his chest once more, his grip on me even more impossible to wriggle out of than it was before. With his other hand, he unholsters his revolver and opens the door. "Come on. Let's move."
Without a word, we scurry down the opposite end of the alleyway than where we came in and make our way down the quieter street on the other side. The lonesome streetlamps guide our way toward the perimeter walls, like a long, dotted line on a map. It's not long before we're stepping out from the yellowed light of the last bulb and into the shadows cast by the wall. From somewhere far away, an angry dog barks into the night as Rick gently places me back down on the ground. The grass grows tall here, the long blades tickling my knees.
"We'll see you later," Rick whispers urgently to me and Glenn. "Stay safe."
Oscar grabs at one of the wooden planks nailed to the wall, prying it back as quickly as he can.
"You too," Glenn utters, before he turns to give Maggie a kiss, their gazes lingering after he pulls away. "Be safe."
Oscar gives one final grunt of effort. The plank falls silently into the grass, revealing a tall, thin gap we can squeeze through. The wilderness stares back at me like a serpentine pupil, the wind blowing through it with a low, unnerving whistle.
Is this what it was like when Rick left Merle in Atlanta? Is this the right thing to do?
Is it better to run for my life, or stay for theirs?
The choice is made for me when Glenn grabs my hand. My line of thought breaks, interrupted by a screech of tyres against tarmac. When I whip my head around, I'm left almost blinded by the pair of swooping head lights coming at us from the end of the street.
Somebody cusses under their breath. I think that was Maggie. The wall near my face suddenly sparks like the end of a matchstick. I gasp. That was a bullet. They're shootin' at us. A guard's voice from inside the light shouts at us to stay right where we are, but we don't. We start scrambling to get through to the other side of the wall. Oscar's kicking at it to widen it and I'm being shoved through by Glenn, and my shirt and my pants and my skin all catch painfully on the jagged metal teeth as I suck in my belly and wriggle as much I can.
Returning gunfire pierces my ears. Maggie and Rick, probably. I hear 'em shoutin' things.
Glenn shoves me. My shirt rips. I fall forward into the grass, catching myself on my palms.Ā Ow.Ā The sharp twigs that dig into my skin are the familiar sting of a game of tag in the forest behind my house during the Summer. I brush them off. I look up.
Glenn is squeezing himself through the gap, his sweat-slicked wince of pain gleaming in the moonlight.
"We got this, man, c'mon," Oscar stubbornly grunts, trying to pull the wall back with just his bare hands.
"Glenn!" I cry out. The sound of rain hitting a tin roof fills my ears ā It's bullets, hitting the wall. I'm on my feet. I'm grabbing handfuls of Glenn's shirt and pulling on him as hard as I can. He's almost through. I think his leg is caught. "Glenn, c-c'mon!"
It's morbidly beautiful, the way the sparks light up the night sky like golden fireworks behind his back.
They're the last thing I see before he's falling onto his side in the grass next to me. Above us, Oscar pulls a face like he's seen a ghost. A long moment passes before blood spurts over his bottom lip ā Oh, no ā and he slumps forward onto his knees.
He disappears on the other side of the wall, replaced by a tall, swirling cloud of smoke and fog. Is heā?
"Oscarā?" I call out, even though his intestines are skewered onto the wall where my shirt ripped. "Oscar?"
"Oh, my Gā! Harley," Glenn's grabbing my hand again. "Harley, we have to go!"
He just died. "Oscar?"
"We have to go!"
I'm being pulled to my feet. Oscar just died. I'm running. Twigs are snapping under my shoes.
We made it out.
When I look back over my shoulder at the sparks of colors in the sky, it's the prettiest death has ever looked.
She'll get tired eventually.
That don't even begin to cover it.
My heavy eyelids droop lower as the powder-pink color in the sky creeps higher, signifying the end of a long, long night. The sun will make itself known any minute now and it will have been a whole six or so hours since Oscar got shot to pieces in front of us and we left half of our family in Woodbury. I just put one foot in front of the other, knowin' it's all I can do. We just gotta get to that car.
I hope it's got air-con.
End Notes.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! š Intense, as usual. We hate happiness here!
Harley's freak-out might just seem like a temper tantrum to some people, but I tried to make it clear that it was basically just a giant, emotional, trauma-induced panic attack. You know when you're panicking, and you only have one goal in mind and you don't care about consequences? Yeah.
At least Glenn and Harley made it out! They get to enjoy some peace and quiet (and air-con).
ā TW: DISCUSSION OF HARLEY'S SA. It's gonna be integrated into the story, guys! Beware!
Who's ready to get rescueeeed?! šš
"Harley?"
My lips are tinglin', is the only thought that floats through my mind, like a lost bobber in the ocean.
"Baby, say somethin'," My Dad tries again a minute later, more of a plea than a demand.
I hug my knees tighter to my chin.
"I'on know what to do," He mutters after the silence stretches on for too long, slouched on the floor in the opposite corner of the room with a sense of defeat. He rests his beaten, sweaty temple against the wall as he stares longingly at me, but it ain't me he's talking to anymore. At least, I'on think it is. He's talking to Glenn on the other side, whose voice I've almost forgotten is attached to a real person.
"Daryl, please," Glenn begs him, "I know it's hard, but you have to tell me what happened in there."
"Heā," Dad starts, unable to get the words out right, like they taste of somethin' foul. "He made herā..."
Desperate, he insists, "He made her, what, Daryl?"
He can't say it.
I didn't wanna kiss Philip. Less than I've ever wanted to step on a rusty nail or swallow a raw egg, I did not wanna kiss Philip. Dad knows that. He has to. There was a gun to my head. He saw. If I had kicked him or punched him or cussed him out some more, like any brave person would do, like I wasĀ sureĀ I was gonna do, he would'a shot me dead. But instead, now, my lips are tingling.
That's how I know he's still not gone, because his warm, chapped lips are brushing against mine, and our noses are tickling against each other, and his breath is ghosting across my face. I'm in two moments at once, trapped between nothing.
Don't move, Harley.Ā I can still feel the gun trained on my head.Ā Don't move.
"He made her kiss him," He eventually admits, his voice echoing weakly off the concrete walls. "Made her kiss him on the mouth."
There's a painful silence emanating from Glenn's side of the wall for what feels like a long, long time.
"He's a fucking monster," He exclaims quietly after I'd thought he'd say nothing, his chin trembling with anger easy to imagine.
"She won't talk." Dad continues staring at me, like he just can't pull his eyes away. I wish I could shrink into the sharp point between the walls and the floor until I fold in on myself like a little origami creature and disappear forever.Ā Stop lookin' at me,Ā I mentally scold him, sounding a lot more passionate in my head than the empty, heavy feeling I've got in my chest.Ā "Won't let me touch her."
"This is Merle's fault," Glenn tells him matter-of-factly. "As much as it is Philip's. He let this happen."
"No." Dad mumbles, sounding sure. "Ya don't know my brother. He loves Harley more'un anythin'. This weren't him."
"He's a bad person, Daryl."
"You think I'on know that?" He shoots back, pausing for a long moment before adding, "I'd made my peace with him bein' gone."
"Sorry, I justā... I don't know how they're getting away with this."
"It's fine. Sky's blue. Shit stinks." Dad says, wincing as he feels along his jaw, coughing up another bloody molar. "Fuck."
"How bad are you hurt?"
"Got the Chicklets beat outta me," He licks his bloody lips, groaning, "But I ain't dead, yet. You?"
"Not dead," He agrees, but he don't sound too far from it. I try to remember everything Herschel's ever said aboutĀ sepsis, but my thoughts are dashing around my head like spooked rabbits, disappearing and reappearing into hidden pockets I can't reach.
Maybe if I stare at the floor hard enough ā It's grey, concrete, speckled with dirt ā it'll all go away.
"Shut up in there!"Ā A guard suddenly shouts from outside, making us both flinch.Ā "No talkin'!"
Don't move, Harley.
"When are you gonna let us outta here?" Dad shouts back angrily. "Ya feel good about yerself, lockin' up a lil' girl?"
"You ain't heard me the first time? Shut up!"
After that, he stops beggin' me to talk to him.
From the porch of our trailer house, I watch as Mandy's small, white car crawls up our driveway.
How did I get here,Ā I ask myself, looking around at all the people gathered in our front yard. The sound of cheering and whistling cuts through the warm air like it's the fourth of July, the smells of sizzling meat drawing my attention to the back of the crowd. There's our shirtless neighbour, Mark, wearing his cheap, black apron ā The one that says,Ā King of the GrillĀ ā as he flips hotdogs and dances to the radio sitting nearby. There's his skinny sister, Hannah, with her chubby baby sat on her hip, and their nephew, Timmy.
I recognise most of the people here. Neighbours, people from Dad's old job at the mechanic's, friends.
A memory,Ā I realize ā It's the day my Dad came back from prison.
"I know that's right," Merle whoops as the car comes to a stop, the engine shutting off. He grabs my hand and Tank follows us down the porch steps, the cheering growing louder by the second. If I didn't know any better, I'd think I was at a concert for a rockstar. I'm frightened, excited, angry. I'm about to see my Dad. After four years, he's here. "My brother! Daryl motherfuckin' Dixon!"
I squeeze Merle's hand tighter as my Dad steps outta the passenger seat, closing the door behind him.
"Daddy," I exclaim, my voice lost to the noise, but somehow, he hears me.
"You're so big," Is the first thing he says to me, and he looks proud and sad at the same time, bending down to wrap me in a hug. I make sure he knows how much I missed him by squeezing him so tight I hear him grunt in pain. "I missed you so much, baby."
He weren't here for my birthdays. He weren't here when I got that certificate at school. He weren't here at all. I feel like I don't know him anymore, but at the same time, it's like no time has passed at all. I mean, how much can a Dixon really change?
All of a sudden, there's something fluffy and slobbery forcing its way between us.
"Tank," I complain with a giggle, pulling away.
"Hey, boy," Dad laughs as he pets the big dog. "You miss me, too?"
"Not as much as I did," Merle jokes as Dad stands up and lifts me up to sit on his hip. "Four fuckin' years, huh, buddy?"
"Four years," Dad agrees as they share a hug, before he pulls away to gawk at all the people that showed up for him. "Hey, y'all."
"At least let him put his shit away first, ya vultures," Mandy scoffs. She steps outta the driver's side of the car and spits her bubble-gum onto the ground, sending her boyfriend a sassy look. "I'm sorry to say, Mark, but yer hotdogs ain'tĀ thatĀ good."
"Love you to, darlin'," The king of the grill laughs.
"Nah, Mandy, it's alright. I'm starvin'," Dad smiles. "The shit they serve in prison ain't even fit fer pigs."
"Get on in here, then, man!" Mark beckons him with a wave of his spatula. "We got plenty to go around!"
The crowd is swallowing us up and congratulations are flying left and right. My Dad is a hero. He's the reason I'm still here. He's the reason everybody else's kids are safe to play outside, without the threat of Ronnie lingering around any longer. He's got double the balls these people could only dream of havin', the brave underdog rising from the ashes, returning home from war. We ain't always the most functional of neighbours and friends, but we get shit done to protect our own in this part of town and we're proud of it.
Soon, I'm sitting on Dad's lap and I'm feeling like a princess, ketchup and mustard smeared all over my face as I chow down on my fat hotdog. I can't stop smiling. There ain't nowhere else I'd rather be than here, even after everythin' that's happened.
My Dad is a hero, and for the first time in my life, it feels like we've won something.
"Long as me and Merle are here," He promises me once everyone's attention is elsewhere, "Ain't nothin' gonna happen to you."
I smile back at him.
I believe him with my whole heart.
"Get up."
I wake to the sound of a guard's gravelly voice.
What? What's going on?
"Get up!"
My Dad cries out in pain.
There's a gun pointed in my direction. No. No, not again.
"Wakey-wakey! Let's go!"
The guard uses his free hand to force Dad to his feet, shoving him toward the door.
"Noā" Dad croaks, turning to look at me. "Harleyā"
"Let's go!" The guard roars, and suddenly my Dad don't look like much of a hero at all. "Let's fucking go!"
He's taking him away.
He's taking my Dad away.
"Hey!" Glenn shouts, banging against the wall. "Hey, what are you doing to them?!"
"Shut up! Let's move!"
I should get up. I should help Dad. But I can't make myself do it. I'm stuck somewhere inside myself, unable to pull the strings. All I do is cower deeper into myself, hugging my knees so tightly I think I might implode. I can't move.Ā Don't move. The Governor might come back. I don't want him to come back. Terrified, I watch Dad stumble across the room, his pleas desperate, panicked, useless.
Then the door is slamming shut and I'm all alone.
"They's gonna cut his throat open," I frantically whisper to myself. "They's gonna cut his throat open."
Why didn't I move?
"Harley?" Glenn calls out.
"They's gonna cut his throat open."
"Harley?" He tries again, his tone softening. "Harley, listen to me. It-It's alright. I'mā I'm here, okay?"
"No, you ain't!" I shout at the wall. I'm alone. I'm all alone in here. "You ain't here, Glenn!"
"I am," He insists. "It's just an inch or two of concrete, and then I'm right here. Please calm down. It's gonna be okay."
"I want my Dad!"
"Take a deep breath. I'm gonna do it with you, okay? Ready?"
Kicking my feet against the floor, I shriek, "I want myĀ Dad!"
"Harley?"
"I want my Dad!"
"You motherfuckers!" He suddenly turns his attention away from me, shouting out at the guards in pure anger, voice cracking. "This is inhumane! You've got a little girl in here ā She can'tĀ takeĀ this! SheĀ can't! Don't you have aĀ conscience?!"
"This is the safest place for her right now," A guard argues back. "You'd do best to shut up."
"The safesā? Are youĀ kiddingĀ me? Where the Hell is her family?"
I swear I hear him snicker. "They're kinda busy right now, but you can check back in on 'em later."
"What does that mean?"
"Governor's gonna make 'em fight," He sounds pleased to admit. "Give the people a show. Make an example outta them."
Example? A show?
I don't know what that means. What does that mean? Is giving people a show worse than gettin' yer throat cut? Are they gonna die?
"What?" Glenn exclaims in confusion. "How is he getting away with all of this?"
"You'd be amazed, the shit people get used to when they're promised a home. Every time you think the line's been crossedā..."
"Do they know he kissed a little girl? Do they knowĀ that?"
He says nothin'.
"Daryl's daughter," Glenn pleads with him. "Merle's niece. You can't do this to them. You can't do this toĀ her."
"I'm just a guard, buddy."
"Fucā ComeĀ on!" I hear him hit the wall in a burst of outrage. "YouĀ knowĀ this is wrong. You know it!"
"This is the cost of safety," The guard scolds him. "We got a system here. I'm prepared to uphold it, and if that's wrong, so be it. Y'all ain't the only people in the world with kids and family to protect, alright? Don't act like you're above us. We all sin."
"We don't take children hostage," Glenn retorts hotly. "We don't make people fight like dogs."
Nothin', again.
"Please," He continues, "Just let him take his daughter home. We've all paid the price, okay? You got your hits in. It's over."
We wait a long time for the guard to answer.
"Please. Hello?"
This is it. This guard don't care. He's gonna let us all die in here because a paradise is still paradise if it's paid for in blood.
"Please, just think about this.Ā Please."
It ain't no use.
"Are you therā?"
BANG!
I flinch.
A gunshot. That was a gunshot. My own squeal of fright is the last thing I hear before my heartbeat takes over my ear drums, and I'm burying my face in between my knees, rocking back and forth, back and forth, huffing and puffing, praying,Ā No. Don't shoot me. I did what you asked.Ā There's shouting and thudding in the corridor outside, as if a violent stampede is tearing through the walls.
I don't know what's going on out there. Is it more angry guards? Is it the Governor? Is it him?
"Harley!" I hear Glenn's voice very faintly, but behind it all, I know it's a guttural scream. "Harley! Are you okay?"
Don't shoot me,Ā I keep thinking, making myself into a hard shell where nothin' can get me.Ā I did what you asked.
"Hey! Hey, what's going on?!"
More thudding. Doors being kicked in. It's the Governor. He's coming. He's gonna kill me. I'll have to explain to him thatā Well, IĀ didĀ wanna kiss him, because it meant he wouldn't shoot me, but I ain't meant nothin' by it. I just didn't wanna die.
I swear years go by before the shooting stops, leaving nothin' but a sharp ringin' in its wake.
"Shā She's in hereā"
The door to the room busts open, punctuating the silence with a,Ā THUD.
He's here.
"I did what you asked," I tell him before he can shoot me in the head,Ā I did what you asked,Ā but what I don't realize is that it's not the Governor at all. Glenn spills into the room first. He clutches at his abused thigh as he limps, half hopping, over to my corner of the room before he falls at my side, which is when I notice Rick, Maggie, and Oscar behind him. It's them.Ā They made it, I think, gawking up at their rifles and blood-stained clothes. I want to be relieved, but the Governor could still be near. He's here. "I did what you asked."
"Is she hurt?" Rick asks Glenn, crouching down and reaching out to touch me. "Honey, can you walkā?"
His fingers are claws descending on me, my body shrinking in on itself on instinct. I cry, "Don't!"
"Woah, okay," He placates, flinching away from me. He glances at Glenn for answers, but his expression betrays nothing but a sad wince. Somethin' bad happened down here. To all of us. This is the part of the fairytale where the knights rescue the hostages, except the air smells of gunpowder and my whole body hurts. Looking back at me, Rick soothes, "Okay. Okay. It's okay, Harley."
Glenn's dishevelled, sweaty hair and gaunt cheeks do nothin' but make me wonder just how long we've been down here for. A day? Two? A week? Watery blood dribbles down his bare chest as he pants, tired just from taking a few steps. He looks sick.
"Where's Daryl?" Maggie asks him urgently. Now ain't the time for lickin' wounds. "He's not down here?"
"I did what you asked," I whisper to nobody, maybe Rick, maybe Glenn. "I did what you asked."
"They say where?"
"They took him away," Glenn explains to her as Rick sends me a troubled look.
"Iā I don't know."
"Those gunshots weren't silent, people," Oscar anxiously reminds everybody. "We got, like, two minutes tops to jump ship."
"Yeah. We gotta move," Maggie agrees. "Glenn, how bad are ya hurt?"
"IāI can walk," He stammers as she hooks her arm around his waist, holding him up. "I'll be fine."
"And her?"
"I don't think they hurt her," He shakes his head. "But Daryl said she hasn't moved for the last few hours."
"Screw it," Rick says under his breath and swings his rifle onto his back, readying himself. "I'm gonna have to carry her."
There's only half a moment for me to react. I can barely shoot my arms out to swat him away before his hands are under my armpits and I'm being lifted onto his chest, my attacks useless. He looks around at everybody, his eyes lingering on Glenn.
"Alright," He nods, "Let's get outta here."
End Notes.
Our knights in shining armour have arrived! š
I was thinking two things while writing this chapter ā First, I feel so bad for Harley, Daryl, and Glenn. Sorry, guys. And second? Hooooo, the revenge is gonna be sweet!!
Wasn't sure how to incorporate the flashback considering we're in first person perspective, so I decided to make it a sort of dream sequence, but everything that happened in it was real. Also wanted a break in the monotony of y'knowā¦ being locked up and tortured in a basement.
I'm excited to escape Woodbury and move into the next phase of the story. Merle's my next target. I like the action as much as anybody else, but it's the drama I live for!
I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, guys! š
ā TW: OFF-SCREEN TORTURE. NON-CONSENSUAL KISS INVOLVING CHILD.
Hey, everyone :) Please be mindful that this chapter is pretty intense. If what's listed in the TWs isn't something you're comfortable reading, kindly skip this chapter and read the end notes for a summary.
A few hours later, once the sun begins to sink below the windowsill and turn the room orange, the front door slams shut.
I can't see him from where I'm curled up in the cramped space between the sofa and the wall, crying and sniffling into my hands, but I can tell it's Merle just by the weight of his footsteps and the sound of him dumping his keys on the kitchen counter. He calls out for me ā "Harley? Why's the door unlocked?" ā but I keep my mouth shut, 'cause I know he's gonna find me, anyway.
His boots appear in my line of sight, stopping before he sighs to himself. "Aw, shit."
As he crouches down in front of me, I rub the wetness from my eyes and bravely meet his gaze. He always hates it when I cry, but he especially hates it when I don't look him in the eye. It's one of the many, random things he finds disrespectful.
"What's wrong?" He asks, lookin' more confused than anything. "C'mon, cry-baby. What happened?"
"There was a man in here," I whisper, watching his expression turn to stone.
"Like Hell there was."
"He had keys," I continue frantically. "I wasn't gonna let him in, I swear. He said his name was Philip andā"
"Of course it was fuckin' Philip."
"āAnd he said he was gonna cut Daddy's th-throat open if I didn't tell him where our group is," I exclaim.
"And did ya?"
"I ain't told him shit, but he said he'd be back!"
While I was sitting here, waiting for Merle to return, I thought about climbing out the window or leaving through the front door to go and help Dad and Glenn, but I'll admit it. I got scared, and this hiding spot seemed a lot more appealing than out there.
He pins me with a meaningful look. "Ya say he only talked to ya?"
"Uh-huh," I sniffle, nodding.
"He ain't done nothin' else?"
I shake my head, tears quickly gathering in my eyes again. "He said he'd cut hisĀ throatĀ open, Merle! I'm worried about 'em!"
As soon as the words come outta my mouth, I catch him trying not to roll his eyes. "Girl, I left you with a box of snacks and all the movies a kid could ever want, and now you're all upset? Come on, now. You ain't already know what was gonna happen?"
I knew we weren't gonna be popular here, but I ain't thought anybody would get they throat cut!
Glaring at him, I ask, "What, andĀ youĀ did?"
"Jesus." He looks down at his boots, chewing on his cheek before he meets my gaze again. "Yeah, I knew, okay?"
"And you letā?"
"I told you. My hands are tied," He explains, lowering his voice. "I ain't the golden child that makes all the decisions here. But like I said, I went to see yer Dad. And for yer information, yer Uncle Merle's the only reason he's got food and water right now."
Oh. Great. Dad's gonna get murdered in a cellar, but at least he's got food and water.
He adds, "I ain't yer enemy, here, alright?"
"He don't need food and water," I say, offended he thinks that's what any of us want. "We need to go home!"
"Wanna tell me where that is, then? End all'a this?"
That shuts me up.
Conflicted, I stare him down, knowing I won't say it. Despite everything, I can't. I know it'd be the wrong thing to do.
"Okay." He grins sarcastically. "So, we're gonna go withĀ myĀ plan, then. Good to know."
"WhatĀ isĀ your plan?"
"To not let ya Daddy get killed. So, get up," He reaches out for me, grabbing my arm and forcing me to my feet. "He's refusin' to say anythin' until we prove you're alright, so now we gotta take a lil' field trip back down to the blocks together. Let's go."
I gasp as he drags me over to the front door. "I get to see Dad?"Ā
"He's holdin' a guard at gunpoint as we speak, so, yeah. They're takin' him serious."
As he grabs his keys, I ask, "Was you there when he did that?"
"Nah. I just talked to him a lil' bit a few hours ago. Was out by the gates when they told me to come get ya."
"Wait."
I suddenly come to a stop, diggin' my heels into the carpet so he can't drag me any further.
He turns to look at me. "What?"
Feeling proud of myself, I decide, "I'm only lettin' ya take me to see Dad if you promise to let Glenn see a doctor."
If Dad's allowed to threaten people to get what he wants, so do I.
"Like I can't just throw ya over my shoulder, anyway," He jokes. "Ya weigh about as much as a tin of beans."
"I'll kick and scream the whole way," I warn him, and I'm dead serious.
Merle considers me for a moment, before he sighs in defeat and pulls the door open. "Fine."
"Yes!"
"Let's go."
The five-minute walk from Merle's apartment to the abandoned building leaves me with just enough time for my anxiety to settle back into my bones, though I guess it never really left, always a firm sediment permanently fixed to the bottom of my stomach.
My palms begin to sweat as we approach the cellar doors, feeling like I'm about to jump off a tall building.
When Merle knocks on them, they're opened from the other side by an angry-lookin' man who gestures for us to enter.
Oh, man,Ā I think to myself as we descend the concrete steps, our movements echoing loudly off the walls,Ā It's cold down here.Ā The light slips away as the doors close behind us, reminding me of the hundreds of tunnels in the depths of the prison, where even the sun and the fresh air can't reach. I feel a chill creep up my skin as I huddle closer behind Merle, afraid of the guards' lingering gazes.
"Bring her in here,"Ā Dad's distant voice echoes.Ā "Bring her in here right now, or this bastard loses his brains!"
I think of Merle's apartment as we make our way down the long corridor.
It's strange to think that he lives just around the corner from this nightmare, as if the flower beds let him forget about it.
"They're comin'!" A guard shouts back at Dad. "Don't shoot!"
With each door we pass, I wonder,Ā Is that the one?
Until we come to a stop at the very last door, and Merle gives a meaningful look to the guard standing outside it. This is it.
"So, you're that psycho's daughter," The stranger muses to himself in distaste, before he grabs the doorknob and pushes it open.
The very first thing I see is my Dad standing in the middle of the room, holding a man to his chest with a gun to his head. His whole body tenses, posturing himself for a fight, fingers clenching around the grip, before he realizes that it's just me.
"Harley," He exhales with his whole chest and throws the gun to the ground, running up to me.
I wrap my arms around him as the guard makes a noise of relief, snatching up his gun and scrambling outta the room.
The door slams shut behind him.
"Harley," He says again, pulling back and cupping my face in his dirty hands. "Fuck. Them bastards told me theyā..."
"I'm alright," I assure him with a shake of my head, but I ain't as relieved as he is, not even enough to return the small smile on his lips, the tender, beaten expression on his face. He'sā He looks worse than he ever has. His nose is bent the wrong way like it belongs to a different person, leaking fresh blood onto the already dried, tacky blood caked onto his upper lip. It tracks lines back up his pinkened cheeks, looking like reverse tears, pooling into his hairline as if they had him hanging upside down. "A-are you okay?"
Remembering what the scary man said, I check his neck. There's no slice or mark from a blade, but there are colorful bruises blooming in a line over his Adam's apple that look a bit like the milky way galaxy. It's awful. I think he must've been strangled.Ā
"Don't worry about me," He croaks, touching his fingers to the browned, purple skin. "It's nothin'."
"Daddy, I don't like this anymore," I desperately confess. "At first, I thought it was gonna be okay because Merle was with us, and he said they was only gonna question ya, but now they're sayin' they gonnaĀ killĀ ya, and we can't go homā"
"Shh," He croons. "Shhhh, no, no, no."
Gently, he leads me over to the blanket crumpled up against the wall, sitting down on it and setting me in his lap.
"Shh. No more of that," He whispers, leaning his chin on the top of my head, too weak to talk any louder. "You been at Merle's?"
Yeah. Let's talk about something else.
Staring at a stain on the floor, I answer, "We talked and he left for a while, so I watched a movie."
His chest rumbles beneath me as he chuckles, his breath warm on my scalp, before I feel him shudder, sniffle.
Oh. I realize he's crying quietly to himself.
"Movie, huh?" He eventually murmurs, his voice thin and shaky. "That's real good. That's good, baby. Which one?"
Whatever they told Dad they was doing to me, it must've been bad. It might've even been that they was cuttin'Ā myĀ throat open, because if I heard that Dad was had only been watching movies this whole time, I'd be just as relieved. But it ain't true.
Ignoring the bruises on his arm, I say, "Somethin' with a lotta gun fights."
"It weren't that corny one with the robot-soldiers he always liked, was it?"
"I think it was."
"Well, that's worse'un anythin' they been puttin' me through," He jokes, sniffing wetly. His breath hitches before he groans and coughs something thick and red onto the floor. I feel his muscles loosen as he sighs heavily. "Used to hate it when he put that shit on."
A fat, white tooth sits in the middle of the puddle of blood like a pearl.
"He got cartoons, too," I add, hoping he finds it a little bit funny. "Got a whole bunch of 'em."
"Remind me to bring that up later, huh?"
"Shit!"
I flinch.
At the sound of Glenn's muffled cry coming from the other side of the wall, I straighten, calling out, "Glenn?"
"Harley?" He shouts back, panicked. "Oh, my Gā You animals! Let her go!"
"She's with me," Dad cuts him off sternly. "She's alright."
"Oh. Oh, thank God. Are you guys safe?"
"There's nobody else in here wit'us, if that's what'chu mean."
I hear a door slam shut.
"What's that?" Dad asks him. "You alone, too?"
"It was some guy," He groans, and I imagine him sitting with his back against Dad's, with only the wall to separate us from each other and it makes me feel a little better. "He wrapped gauze around my thigh and gave me some pills. Hope it wasn't poison."
"I threatened Merle on the way here, Glenn," I proudly tell him. "He promised me he'd let you see a doctor."
"He didn't look like any doctor I've ever seen," He jokes. "But thank you, Harley. That was kind."
"Smart," Dad agrees fondly. "Guess I'm sorry I ain't thought of it."
"It's alright, man," Glenn says. "If it was me who had that guard at gunpoint, I would've asked to see Harley, too."
I ask, "It still hurt?"
"Uh. No. No, don't worry." It's easy to tell he's lying. "I feel better already."
"We gotta get the fuck outta here," Dad grumbles lowly because he can tell, too, but nobody says anything else after that.
It's a little difficult with all the gray, concrete walls and the single lightbulb hanging down from the ceiling by a thin, red wire, but I imagine I'm in the forest. Any forest. It's where I'd be all the time if I could. I'm in the forest and I can see the sky, clear and blue above me, reminding me that I have nothing to worry about because maybe I'm a leaf on a bush or a thorny flower, blowing softly in the breeze.Ā
I can't picture the smaller details, but that's alright. All that matters is that I can see the sky.
The forest blows away like sand in the wind when the door opens.
Lifting my head from my Dad's shoulder, I blink away the grogginess that sticks behind my eyes, adjusting to the dim light of the room. I must've fallen asleep, dreaming about clouds. I think for a moment that I'm in my old bedroom again, curled up in Dad's lap after he drifted off while reading me a bed time story, but I'm quickly reminded of where I am when Philip's voice fills the room.
"I almost thought you were a total monster," He says as I turn to look at him. "But you're just a Dad."
He slowly stalks into the room, smiling nicely as a guard follows him in and closes the door.
"There's always two sides to a person." He comes to a stop just a few feet from us. "She looks just like you. I didn't notice until now."
Dad's fingers curl tighter around me, glaring up at the man through his brows, saying nothing.
"Hm?" Philip chirps with a little shrug. "What's the matter, Daryl? Not in the mood to spit on my face again?"
"I will be," He rasps lowly, "Once y'all take Harley back to my brother's."
"Back to your brother's? I think I remember you threatening to kill one of my men unless we brought her in here." His smile grows into a friendly grin, flashing his perfectly clean teeth at us. His hair, gray and healthy, hangs down in the shapes of crescent moons against his temples, like it's come loose in a fight ā The only imperfection to his neat appearance. "She can stay. Tell me, how old is she?"
"Take Harley back to my brother's," Dad warns him again, voice dropping into a growl.
"I'd say she looks eight. Maybe nine," Philip guesses. "You know, that's around my daughter's age."
Slowly, my Dad stands up, matching the man's height. "This ain't got nothin' to do with her. You got a kid, you'll understand."
"I've also got a town to keep safe. If you were a leader, you'd understand." He retorts calmly, nodding to the table. "Now, sit."
The guard leaning against the wall smirks at us.
Breathing harshly, nostrils flared, Dad glances down at me. We have to do as he says. Realizing this, he grabs my hand and we carefully make our way over to the round table in the middle of the room, the glow of the light bulb lending it a soft, yellow hue.Ā
I sit down in the closest chair, Dad taking the one opposite mine as Philip takes up the head of the table.
As we sit together in an uncomfortable silence, I notice I was wrong.
Philip's unkempt hair is far from his only imperfection ā I just had to see him under a better light for them to make themselves known, like noticing a scuff on a window only when the sun hits it, or peeling back a bandage to reveal a hideous wound. I begin to squirm anxiously, unable to take my eyes off him. His forearms are littered with tiny droplets of blood, red freckles against the beige of his clean skin, a large splotch smeared over the glass of his expensive watch, still tick, tick, ticking away with each second that passes.
Strangely, his tie is still perfectly straight.
"Let me tell you this, Daryl." He doesn't take his eyes off Dad, and Dad doesn't take his eyes off him, matching his cool gaze with an impossibly hot, angry one. If he could, he'd tackle this man to the ground. Philip leans back in his chair, looking like he enjoys Dad's obvious struggle. "I don't want to hurt your daughter. I've done a lot of things for this town, but hurting children isn't one of them."
"Daryl?"Ā Glenn shouts from the other room, earning only silence.Ā "Daryl, is Harley still in there?"
"But if youĀ makeĀ me hurt her," He continues cooly, "I won't have any problems with that."
Glancing down, I watch Dad's knuckles turn white as he claws anxiously at his thighs.
"Harley, can you hear me? Are you okay?"
"Like I said." His smile turns smug. "There's always two sides to a person."
"Harley?"
I want to answer Glenn, but I'm scared that if I do, it might make Philip angry. IĀ can'tĀ make Philip angry.
"I already told you when you was beatin' my face in earlier," Dad mutters angrily. "They cut us loose months ago."
"No, that story's not gonna cut it anymore," Philip sighs in frustration. "Your brother told me he had a chat with your daughter and that she said your group is probably worried about where you've been all day. How can those two things be true at once?"
I see the breath leave Dad's body, defeat taking over his expression. Oh, no. I messed up. I messed it all up.
"You know kids. They never lie."
When Philip looks at me, my whole body stiffens.
I ruined Dad's story. IāI didn't mean to give anything away, I swear. I didn't even know IĀ wasĀ giving anything away when I was talking to my Uncle Merle. Stupid, stupid, stupid girl. How could I have not realized he and Glenn were probably gonna lie?
"So, now that we've got that out in the open ā Here's how this is gonna go."
Dad won't look at me, but I wish he would so that he could see I'm sorry.
"I'm going to ask you three times where your people are." Philip leans forward, resting his forearms on the table. "The first two times, you're going to tell me to go fuck myself, or to go to Hell, or what-not. But the third time, you're going to tell me."
I flinch as a dull thud comes from the other side of the wall, Glenn crying out in pain.
Philip doesn't flinch at all. "Where are your people?"
Shaking his head in disgust, my Dad lets out a weak, sarcastic chuckle. "Go fuck yourself. My daughter doesn't need to be here."
Nodding, Philip simply asks again, "Where are your people?"
Glenn cries out again in the silence that follows, and again, and again, the blunt sounds of a fist coming down on his body making me flinch each time as if I'm the one being hit. It's such an awful thing to listen to, but Dad's refusing to fill the silence and Philip seems more than happy to let us stew in it. I feel like I've been tied to this chair, unable to move, but it's just his presence that's keeping me down.
"Okay," Philip mutters after a minute or two, taking a deep breath, and reaching for his holster.
My Dad's eyes go wide, and that's the last thing that happens before Philip's pointing a gun at my head. My blood runs cold. Oh. I stare into the barrel. It's a single, black eye staring straight into mine, a slender finger resting on the trigger.
Don't move, Harley,Ā I tell myself, even though my hands are shaking,Ā And it'll be okay.
"This will be the last time," He says. "Where are your people?"
Squeezing my eyes shut, a tear slips down my cheek.
When I open them again, my Dad is looking at me. I don't think I've ever seen him look this scared, not even when our house got robbed when I was seven, or when Merle sniffed all that powder and broke a window, or when Tank got injured. He's never scared. If I could tell ya one thing about my Dad, it's that. He's the bravest, toughest person I know, who right now, looks absolutely terrified.
He's gonna tell him,Ā I think, already mourning the moment he does.Ā He's gonna tell him.
Sniffling, swallowing down whimpers, I hope he can tell that I won't be angry at him for it. Rick wouldn't be, neither.
"Meriweather County prison."
A hiccup escapes me. My chest violently shudders, filled with heavy dread. He told him.
None of us are safe, anymore. Not even Judith. We'reā We're gonna have to move, or hide,ā O-or maybe we can't do anything. Maybe when they come and take everything we own and all the people I love are dead, I'll think of this moment.
"That's where they are," He adds, quiet, ashamed.
Philip's smile returns.
"Look at that. I could just get him to do anything like this, couldn't I, Harley?" He chuckles, but I just can't stop crying, not even if I hold my breath like my Daddy taught me how, or if I imagine something nice, something that isn't a gun pointed at my head, or my Dad's bruised face, or the guard standing in the corner, watching this play out. "Your big, strong Dad. Have you ever seen him dance?"
"Just stop," I beg him. "Ya wanted to know where our group was, and heā he told ya. Just s-stop."
"C'mon, Daryl." He grins at him, ignoring me. "Stand up. Give us a little dance while you're feeling so compliant."
My Dad reluctantly rises from his seat, and I wish I didn't have to watch. I want to tell him,Ā it's alright, because that's what he would tell me. This whole thing is almost over. Just do as he says. After standing there for a moment, embarrassed, looking at the floor, he starts to awkwardly do the hustle. The sound of his boots shuffling against the floor fills the room and somehow it's crueller than watching him be punched or kicked or strangled because at least then, I could see the thing that's being broken and it would be dignified.
Philip's chuckling to himself, enjoying the show. I feel the overwhelming urge to ask him what the Hell is wrong with him.
"It's like being at one of my daughter's ballet recitals all over again," He laughs. "I'd like to see a spin, Daryl."
Glancing at the gun again, my Dad defeatedly spins in a circle, his expression twisted up in shame.
I think he wishes I didn't have to watch, too.
When he comes to a stop, Philip's laughter dies out, smile lingering like a thin ripple after a tall wave.
He looks at me. "I want you to remember this the next time he says he can protect you. Will you do that for me?"
"I hate you," I seethe through my tears.
"Harley," Dad hisses in desperation, his eyes darting between me and Philip. "Harley, shut the fuck up."
"I hate you."
"Well, that's not nice," Philip croons. I hate him so much. No, I will not remember this the next time Dad says he can protect me. My Dad is brave. He's tough. That ain't gonna change just 'cause this bully humiliates him while he hides behind his gun, too much of a pussy to pick on somebody his own size. I hate, hate, hate him. "'If you don't have anything nice to say'... You know how it goes."
"You're a bully," I spit, feeling the anger simmer up into my face. "You're a crazy, stupid bully and you should die."
"Harley," Dad warns me again. "Harley, baby, please."
"You gonna shoot me like y'all shot my friend, Glenn? Huh?"
"When I shoot you, I won't be doing anything your Dad hasn't already," He tells me. "You're forgetting why you're here."
"We're here 'cause my Dad shot some feller who was tryna kill us!" I shout at him, ignoring the way my Dad keeps begging me to,Ā shut up, Harley. Please, shut up.Ā "And you told me you ain't even liked him, so you can shut the fuck up about it!"
"Are you done?"
"Just leave us theĀ HellĀ alone, already!" I squeal, furious, panting. "I justā We justā We wanna go h-home."
Whenever I shouted at my Dad or Uncle Merle like this, I'd forget about myself right up until my anger bubbled down and the room went quiet, my heartbeat drumming against my skull the only thing I could hear. Then, everything would become clear to me again, and the anger quickly cooled like a red metal being dunked in a bucket of water, hardening into fear. We would stare each other down for a minute or two, huffing and puffing like offended bulls in a fighting ring until one of us snapped ā And it was never me.Ā
Here, now, Philip doesn't reach for his belt, pull it from its loops, whip it over the backs of my thighs. He doesn't grab me by the ear and bring my face close to his, lecturing me on manners while I nod for every word he says.
All he does is ask one last time, his voice as calm and smooth as a glass lake, "Are you done?"
Gulping, I glance around the room, as if to check it's still the same as it was before I lost my temper.
"You got what'chu wanted," My Dad reminds him. "I did what'chu asked. You know you ain't got no issues with my daughter."
"IĀ doĀ have issues with little potty-mouthed girls who can't hold their tongue," He says, raising a brow at me.
Usually, this is where I'd start babbling,Ā Please,Ā I didn't mean it. I was just angry.Ā But I'mĀ stillĀ angry. And IĀ didĀ mean it.
Stubbornly, I say nothing.
"Okay. Harley," He says, light as a feather. "Come and give me an apology kiss, and it'll all be forgiven."
I almost falter.
That's what he wants?
I can't stop myself from mumbling, "What?"
"You heard me."
That's right. I did hear him. A kiss?
Like what Glenn and Maggie do, because they're boyfriend-girlfriend? And Rick and Lori, because they're husband-wife?
Is-is heā? "Are you serious?"
"I don't think you should ever ask that question to a man with a gun to your head," He says smugly. Yes, he's serious.
For some reason, I glance at my Dad to get permission from him, because he'll put me in time-out for giving Philip a kiss without his say-so. It's one of them things I don't need to know all the logistics of to know ā to feel ā that it's wrong, but he don't look angry with me, even though he and Merle have always told me I ain't allowed to kiss a boy until I was eighteen. He just looks broken.
Looking back at Philip and the expectant look on his face, I force myself to stand from my chair.
It scr-cr-crapes painfully against the floor before I'm on my feet, creeping around the table as he keeps the gun trained on me.
Every step feels like a stride through a minefield, careful, terrifying, bracing myself for the gun to go off if I make the wrong move.
When I come to a stop in front of him, the tear clinging to my jaw slips onto my shirt, soaking through the fabric, onto my skin. It's warm. I think I hear Dad seething something under his breath as Philip leans forward and his nose almost grazes mine.
A kiss. That could also mean the type of kiss my Dad or Maggie or Carol or Lori gives me, right?
A kiss on the cheek?
"You know, in my family," He says, tapping the gun against my lips. "We used to kiss on the mouth. Must be an Italian thing."
I shy away from the cold metal, turning my head to the side as if it's a spoonful of broccoli I don't want anywhere near me. His breath is hot, fanning gently across my chin. The smell of sweat and shampoo mingles together into a thick, poisonous gas and I quicken my breathing, short and shallow pants escaping me just to stop it from entering my lungs, to make it feel a little less real.
"C'mon." He says quieter, looking at me, the little fish he knows he's got on the hook. "Aren't you sorry?"
Glancing down at his mouth ā Yes. Yes, IĀ amĀ sorry. I'm sorry I said those things aloud.
Dad tries to talk to me like I'm the only other person in the room ā "Harley Dixon, look at me," ā but the guard cocks his gun.
I have to do it.
It'll only take one second.
Everything that happens in this room will stay in this room and I'll forget all about it once we're back home.
I kiss Philip on the mouth. It's quick. It's barely there. It's like I'm kissing a hot coal and I don't want to burn myself, and I'm flinching backwards, trying to will away the warm sensation on my mouth as Philip smiles, pleased. I'm gross. I'm so gross.
"That wasn't so hard." I can feel his gravelly voice all over me. I want to go home. "All's forgiven."
"You're sick," My Dad grits through his teeth, tears brimming on his lashes. "A sick motherfucker. Somethin' real wrong with you."
Unbothered, Philip stands from his chair. "I'll leave you to figure out what that is, then."Ā
"I wanna talk to my brother."
"See you later, Daryl."
When he and the guard leave the room and the door slams shut in our faces, a piece of me leaves with them.
Author's Notes.
ā SUMMARY: A few hours after the ending of the previous chapter, Daryl is refusing to reveal any information until it can be proven to him that Harley is alright. Merle brings Harley to the blocks and she is locked in Daryl's cell with him until the Governor arrives to interrogate them.
Daryl reveals the group's location when he puts a gun to Harley's head. She gets emotional and cusses the Governor out, prompting him to force her to kiss him on the mouth as an apology.
Should I start this off by saying I'm sorry?! š I'm sorry!
This was messed up. I felt very uncomfortable writing this, but I needed a traumatic event to happen to Harley while they were in Woodbury. It's part of my plan for her and Daryl's arcs this season. I hate when media throws sexual assault around as a key point in a female character's story but I just had a problem with the Governor physically torturing Harley. I feel like this is more realistic.
And don't worry about Merle. He wouldn't have let this happen if he wasn't also being threatened.
Let me know what you thought! See you next time! :)
My voice comes out as a screeching cry āĀ "Merle!"Ā ā like I've just watched him get shot at the climax of some dramatic movie, before I'm breaking free of Glenn and crashing into my Uncle's arms, and he's warm like the Georgia sun around me and he's alive.
"Holy shit," I hear him rasp in my ear as he hugs me tight. I'm thinkin' the exact same thing! Holy shit!
"You're alā You're aā," I blubber, pulling my face away from his neck to look him in the eye. "You're alive!"
It's been a whole year since I last saw him, but almost nothing about him has changed. His face is broad and wrinkled by the sun, nose ugly and crooked from all those bar fights, and he's still got that look of a brute about him that my Dad never quite mastered.
He didn't die in Atlanta. He didn't dieĀ anywhere.Ā He weren't layin' out on the concrete roof of a skyscraper, slathered in sweat and blood as the dead tore into him with wet fingers like greedy kids at a barbeque ā Not like he was during so many late nights, dyin' over and over again in my nightmares ā because heĀ lived. I got no idea how, and I sure don't got no idea how I ever doubted him, neither.
"I sure am," He smirks, his dark blue eyes tinged with adrenaline.
He glances over my shoulder at Dad, chuckling to himself at the sight.
Dad hasn't moved. Not even an inch. He stands there, staring at us with that same look on his face as when he watched me step onto that frozen river last year, afraid for my life but without anything he could do to save me, help me, pull me back into safety.
His gaze darts between Merle's face and mine over and over again, as if he can't decide who to look at.
Why ain't he happy to see him?
Merle's chuckle dies away, leaving us in a terrible silence. I can't figure out what's wrong.
"I asked you nicely to drop yer shit," One of Merle's friends warns them. "Or did you forget?"
Reluctantly, Dad and Glenn throw their weapons aside, lifting their hands in surrender.
"Merle," Dad eventually says in greeting, tense and unfeeling, glancing at me once again. "Long time."
"Forever," He agrees. "And Harley's barely grown a hair's width, haven't ya, princess? Woof. What the Hell happened to yer hair?"
"It got a bunch'a blood in it, so I cut it all off and now I just keep it short. Daddy helps me." I giggle as he ruffles my hair, my gaze dropping down to his other hand ā Or, well āĀ Blade. He ain't got no hand at all. I gasp, "What the Hell happened to yerĀ arm?"
"You like it, huh?" He lifts it up, the metal glinting just a few inches from my eye. "Fixed it up myself."
"Woah," I breathe, looking into my own pupil in the reflection.
"You can tell her all about it back in town," His friend with the brown skin angrily butts in. He shoves his gun at Dad and Glenn, his wavy, black hair suckered to his forehead with sweat as he sneers at them. "I know a few guys who'll wanna have a chat with these fucks!"
Merle lowers his blade as he stands to his full height. "Hold up, India. You're really gonna ruin my nice family reuniā?"
"I don't give a shit if it was Christmas, Merle. They gotta pay."
"Arjun's right." The other man steps forward, snatching the gun and knife from my holster and throwing them aside, making Dad and Glenn tense up, relaxing only slightly when he steps back. "They're comin' back with us. Frankly, whether you like it or not."
I don't know why, but I back away from Merle, slowly at first but then I'm running to hide behind my Dad.
What? Coming back with them?
Back, where?
I thought it was all just a big misunderstanding, and that now I got my Uncle here, everything's alright?
Uneasy, I glance at the dead man laying off to the side. His vacant eyes stare at the sky as his blood trickles out from around the bolt lodged between his eyebrows, slowly dripping into a big puddle on the tarmac.Ā Eric,Ā I think they called him.
"Are you serious?" Glenn exclaims in outrage. "We've got a kid! Merle, that's your niece!"
"Wanna tell me where you're holed up?" Merle asks, and when Glenn's stammering is met with a smug look of indifference, almost like he's bored, I realize he's not going to save us from this. This isn't a reunion anymore. "Didn't think so. Wherever you're set up, I'll bet'chu my other arm our place is ten times the fuckin' paradise. Just make this easy for us, man. Harley won't be in no typa trouble."
Peeping around my Dad, I look up at his face. "Daddy, what's goin' on?"
I don't wanna go nowhere with these people when the invite's like this. They're angry with us ā Real angry.
Dad looks like he's about to explode. "Merleā"
"It's either that or the Indian and the fat-ass shoot us all in the head right now," He deadpans. "And while I wouldn't be too sad about Glenny here gettin' his shit rocked, I don't fancy it happening to you or Harley. Okay? C'mon. This is a favor, brother."
I look up at Dad again, but he's silent. What's gonna happen to us at Merle's paradise town?
Glenn takes a step forward. "You can't do thiā"
BANG.
His hands fly to his thigh. "Fuck!"
As Dad gasps, I squeal, "Glenn!"
He shot him!
"I'm not messin' around, cowboy," The white man snarls, marching forward and grabbing Glenn's arm. "Get movin'!"
We're leaving with them. We really are.
Dad quickly picks me up and protectively cups my head to his shoulder, his grip on me tight. I wrap my legs around his waist, not realizing how much I'd been wanting to be in his arms. Oh, my God. I know we killed their friend, but can't we just tell them we're sorry? It was in self-defence, and nobody alive this far into the end of the world ain't done it at least once. We were only here for baby formula.
Dad grunts as the Indian man shoves us forwards with his gun, the sound of Glenn struggling to walk behind us.
He needs a doctor. We can't run away even if we wanted to, not when he's like this. That man knew that when he shot him.
Merle's laughing his ass off. "Holy shit, Boyd! Ya ain't have to shoot him!"
"Whatever, Merle. Just get the keys outta my pocket 'fore I shoot you, too. You're driviā Shit!"
Mouse suddenly lunges at him, biting onto his ankle and shaking his head from side to side, growling nastily.
"Shit! Shit, get him off!" He cries out as Merle rears his leg back and kicks the dog in the face.
Yelping, Mouse backs off before a couple gunshots split the tarmac around him and he turns on his heel, scampering away through the trash and litter. My heart jumps and sinks at the same time, watching him disappear into the trees with his tail tucked.
I feel Dad's muscles tense under me.
Lowering his gun, Merle calls out after him, "Scram, poochie!"
"Shit, that hurts," Boyd winces down at his blood-soaked jeans, shoving Glenn forward. "Hurry it up. I got a date with the med bay."
"It's gonna be okay, chicken," My Dad's mumbling into my ear as we all make our way across the parking lot, fingers squeezing the back of my neck. "I can feel yer little heart racin'. It's gonna be okay. Me and Glenn and Merle ain't gonna let nothin' happen to you."
Merle said this was a favor. If we told them where the prison was, we'd be leading a bunch of angry people right to our family, and they might want to take our food or our beds or even our lives, just like those people that Jim was with who threatened the Greene farm. If we just let them take us to their paradise instead, then maybeā Maybe they can sort this out? They won't shoot us all in the head?
"Where are we goin'?" I mumble into my Dad's shirt, watching the forest shrink behind us. "I don't wanna go."
"I know ya don't, chicky. Me, neither." He steps up onto the curb of the pavement, then back down on the other side and through the main parking lot, approaching their car. The man keeps his gun on us as he pulls the passenger door open. "But it's gon' be okay."
"Shut up and take shotgun," The man nods at the seat. "Your kid can sit in your lap."
Without answering, Dad climbs into the car, door slamming shut behind us. I watch over his shoulder as Glenn is forced into the middle of the back seats, his face wrung in pain, his fingers curled around the blood gushing from his thigh. Arjun and Boyd take a seat on either side of him, the fatter man shoving him upright before pointing his gun at the back of Dad's head, scaring me into looking away.
"We're gonna take a little drive," Merle sighs as he swings into the driver's seat and pulls his door shut.
He twists the keys into the ignition, engine rumbling to life.
As he peels outta the car park, Glenn's pained groans growing louder by the second, I wonder where that beetle went.
We end up at a checkpoint gate.
Merle's got his window rolled down and he's chatting it up with another one of his scary-lookin' friends, who I guess is a guard. They're talking about work schedules and other gossip, until Glenn makes a loud noise and he bothers to ask who we are.Ā Oh, that's the guy from my old group up in Atlanta,Ā he's telling him,Ā And my brother and his daughter. My niece. I told you about her. Can you believe it?Ā I ain't really listenin'. I'm looking out at the tall walls of sheet-metal, the barbed wire curled along the top of it, the people holding big guns up in the tower, spitting on the ground and smoking while they stare down at us with loose smirks. Somehow, it feels a little like the prison.
"No shit?" The guard eventually exclaims with a grin. "Hey, congrats, man. That's some crazy luck you got."
As he looks us over, twiddling his fingers in greeting, I feel my Dad's grip on me tighten before Merle pulls his attention back. "You're tellin' me, man. But listen. We gotta head on down to the blocks ā Tell ya about it later ā so get Philip for me, will ya?"
"Sure. I'll radio him," He nods. "But, yo? Where's Eric at?"
"Just open the fuckin' gates, Mendoza," Boyd snaps, pressing his gun harder to Glenn's temple. "I'm gettin' impatient."
The guard makes a shrugging gesture before he takes a step back, whistling sharply at somebody. "Open up! They're good!"
"What the Hell are, 'the blocks', Merle?" Dad grits as the guards begin to pull the gate open and Merle drives through. All the barbed wire and metal walls fall away, revealing pretty town houses and flower beds lining the streets. Merle weren't lyin'. This place looks likeā Well, it looks like paradise. It feels like we've gone back in time, to before all the blood and death and walkers. "What's the plan?"
"The blocks are where we put the undesirables." We pass a woman and a man walking together with a baby stroller and a cute little dog on a leash, and they're happy and clean, and I wonder if they know what 'the blocks' are. They look like all they gotta worry about is what they're gonna have for lunch. I also wonder where Mouse is right now. Poor little guy. "They're gonna question you and the Asian."
"His name is Glenn," I mumble unhappily, knowing nobody gives a shit. They shot him.
Dad scoffs. "Should'a known you wasn't gonna send him to a doctor. Y'all ain't the special-treatment type, is ya?"
"Fuck you, Merle," Glenn whines from the backseat. "Fuck you."
"W-wait," I frown. "Ya can't leave him like this, Merle. Herschel says it ain't right."
Merle shrugs. "Who's Herschel?"
"He's an animal doctor. And he says you always gotta take the bullet out, or it might not get better. Please?"
"Princess, I think what you're sayin' is adorable," He says as we turn a corner, the streets suddenly becoming a little duller ā No flowers, less people, open dumpsters and construction cones lining the curb. "And I get it, but it's outta my hands, okay?"
"Well, can't ya at least give him a bandage?"
"What about Harley?" Dad cuts me off before I can argue any more. "She sure ain't goin' to no, 'block'."
"Hey. I'm stayin' with you," I turn to face him. If that's where he and Glenn are goin', that's where I'm goin'. I'on care if the blocks is where they put their 'undesirables'. I'll be an undesirableĀ withĀ them. I can't be on my own. "Daddy, I gotta stay with you."
He ignores me. "Merle?"
"I know she ain't. Don't worry," He reassures him, pulling in next to a half-built house. "She can stay in my apartment."
"Good," Dad slowly nods, but it's not good at all.
"No. Dad, don't leave mā"
"It's better this way. Okay?" He scolds me, brows raised as he waits for me to answer, but I know that look in his eyes. I know why his fingers are shaking. He's scared. I give nod, before he pulls me in for a hug. "Okay. So, shut up and give yer Dad a hug."
Merle cuts the engine off.
"We're here. Get out." Arjun shoves his door open and climbs out, pulling on Glenn's shirt. "I said, 'Get out'. Come on."
"Fuck you," He whines again.
Dad places a kiss to my hair, pulling away as Boyd rips our door open. "It's gonna be okay. I'mma see you soon."
I shake my head. "How you know?"
"I'mma make 'em."
"What's the matter, asshole?" Boyd taunts as Dad reluctantly climbs out, leaving me in his seat. "Never been to prison before?"
"Sure," Dad jokes, pinning the man with a unamused look. "I'm gettin' fuckin' deja vu."
The door slams in my face.
"Come along, then, tough guy."
It's gonna be okay,Ā I repeat in my head as he shoves my Dad forward with his gun.Ā I'mma see you soon.
I watch them go. I want so bad to run out and cling to my Dad's leg, so tight they'llĀ haveĀ to let me stay with him, but I remember what he's always told me.Ā Sometimes, little girls don't get what they want.Ā It's always for my own good, so I bite my tongue as he and Glenn hobble down the steps of the building's cellar door, a cold sense of grief washing over me as the top of their heads disappear.
It's only now that I realize I don't even know where I am.
"You heard yer old man," Merle says to break the silence. "It's better this way."
It's like I'm back in the parking lot at Arrendale State Prison, sitting on Merle's hip while they take my Daddy away.Ā That jury was just a bunch of pansies, princess,Ā he told me,Ā They don't get what it means to be a Dad. He's innocent.
"They're just gonna ask him a few questions," He tells me now. "Nothin' he can't handle."
"I wanna go with 'em," I murmur to myself, staring longingly at the closed cellar doors.
If it's just questioning, why can't I go, too?
"No, ya don't," He laughs a bit, twisting the keys into the ignition. "C'mon. Let's go kick back at Uncle Merle's place, huh? Like old times?"
I say nothing as he pulls into the street.
"It'll be fun. Ya still like Twinkies?"
The door to Merle's apartment closes behind me.
Dumping his backpack on the floor, Merle stretches his arms over his head, groaning as he meanders up to his kitchen cabinets.
"Got 'em stashed away up here somewhere."
"Woah," I mumble, looking around. "You live here?"
"Welcome to my humble abode," He chuckles to himself. "It ain't too big, but you won't hear me complainin'."
We ain't never had no apartment. Apartments are for hipsters and rich kids, as Dad liked to say, but it looks like Merle's been living it up since the world ended. I'm kinda jealous, but it ain't his fault I sleep in a cell and had to eat mushrooms for four months.
As he paws through his groceries, I head over to the lounge area, picking up the magazine laid out on the coffee table. The shiny lady on the cover smirks at me, and when I notice how she got no clothes on, I quickly drop her back down. The cashews scattered at my feet and the empty bag of crisps shoved under the sofa suddenly seem very interesting, and also the baseball bat laying across the cushions. Merle was never very good at cleaning up after himself. Turning away, I pass the dining table, approaching the open window.
Sunshine sweeps over me as I push the curtains aside. The street below is loud, busy, normal. A pair of ducks wade around in the still, green water of a stagnant fountain in the nearby gardens, one dunking its head under as an armoured truck drives by.
"There they are."
If Dad was here, he'd prolly tell me that joke about ducks I like āĀ What time does a duck wake up? At the quack of dawn.Ā We read that in a fortune cookie when he ordered Chinese food one night. I hope he and Glenn are alright, but I ain't so sure.
Merle drops the box of Twinkies on the table. "Here we go, princess. Sit down."
Turning away from the window, I take a seat opposite of him.
"Are those real?" I ask. "No way."
"You know you sound like some sorta feral animal, askin' all these questions." He throws one to me. "Yeah, they're real."
"Thanks, Uncle Merle."
"We got a lotta catchin' up to do. You gotta be nine by now, right?"
"Yeah, I think so!"
"So, little miss nine-years-old, wanna hear the rest of that story?" He grins, taking a Twinkie for himself.
Tearing the plastic open, I nod, taking a bite. "We all thought you was dead."
"So did I, girl." He jokes, shaking his head. "Oh, man, I thought I was dead. Weren't no way any old Joe was gonna get himself outta that pickle, but I ain't any old Joe, am I? Nah. I thought of you, I thought of yer Daddy, and I cut myself outta them cuffs."
"That's how ya lost yer hand?" I giggle in disbelief, earning myself a nod. "You crazy, Merle. Did it hurt?"
"'Course it hurt. But I got it cauterized, got it all bandaged up with my shirt. You know, y'all was gone, time I got back."
"Wait, what? So, we missed ya?"
"By at least a day, is my guess. Fires were cold. I found one of yer socks on the ground. Kept it with me for weeks."
Oh. My Uncle is a real asshole ā He's exactly the typa person he used to pride himself on protecting me from ā but I know he loves me. To think, if we'd left just a few days later than we did, he could'a been with us this whole time. I used to think about that every day. Things prolly would'a been worse with him around, sure, but he's family. You're supposed to stick around when things get worse.
"Sorry, Merle," I sigh, fiddling with the crumbs on the table. "We didn't wanna leave. Really. But we had to."
"Yeah," He sneers. "Was it Officer Friendly?"
"Nah, it was me." I admit. "I got real sick. We thought I got scratched by a walker and we went to the CDC."
He deflates a little. "Well, shit, huh? What happened?"
"It was like I was dyin'. Dad was angry at everybody. He broke a walkie. Turns out, I just had food poisonin' from some bad jerky Glenn made. Ain't nobody ever taught him how to cure meat properly, you know. After that, he was kind of our only friend."
"What, y'all like that little twerp, now?" He chuckles awkwardly, taking another bite of his Twinkie.
"Merle," I pause, a little embarrassed I have to say it out loud. "Merle, I likeĀ allĀ of 'em, now."
It's been a year ā AĀ year.
I like Officer Friendly.Ā His woman,Ā Lori. I likeĀ the Asian, andĀ the housewife,Ā Carol. I like all of 'em. I don't know when it happened, or if I really had a choice in it, but everything is different now. Even if some things are still the same, like Merle.
That group is my family, but he don't need to know that. I know he'll just say call me brainwashed.
"And to be real honest," I reluctantly add, "They're prolly wonderin' where we are right now. Y'know?"
This Twinkie is nice and all; I'm finally back with my Uncle again. I even saw a dog on a leash. But I hope he don't think I want to stay here. It ain't really a paradise if my family ain't here with me, or if my Dad and my friend are locked up in a cellar right now, being questioned. I gotta go back to my real home sometime. I don't belong here. Ya don't belong in a place that you got taken to at gunpoint.
Merle looks down at his empty wrapper, wordlessly crumpling it in his hand. I can tell he's pissed off.
"How much do you like it here?" I ask, suggesting, "I know you got new friends and all, but what if you came back with us?"
"Baby, I got an inklin' that's not how any of this is gonna go down," Merle scoffs lightly. "I'm sorry, but it ain't."
"Iā? I don't get it. Why not?"
Don't he wanna be with me and Dad?
"Think about what yer Dad said just now." He straightens, his metal blade clanking as he lays his arms on the table. "Things are better this way. We got running water here. Plumbing. Electricity. Hell, girly, I can even get'chu some of them Disney movies you like."
"I don'tā"
"What was it again? Fox and the somethin'? Fox and the Hound? I can trade Patty for it. We can watch it tonight."
Swallowing the stale glob of Twinkie in my mouth, feeling it slide down my throat like tacky glue, I leave the last bite on the table.
"I don't know, Merle," I guiltily shrug. After a long, uncomfortable silence, I ask, "Can I have some water?"
He relents, sighing. "Sure, baby. Hang tight."
As he stands up to go back into the kitchen, I forget all about his promises of snacks and movies, thinking of my group back at the prison instead. They don't got no Twinkies, or TV, or my favorite movies, or even electricity, but I would still rather be there than here. There's gotta be some way I can convince Merle to leave this place with us. He must love us more than he loves his apartment.
I begin to wonder when weĀ areĀ actually leaving. They can't make us stay here, can they? This is just a visit?
Dad and Glenn are gonna get questioned for killing that man, Eric, and then Merle will vouch for us?
Either way, everybody must be worried about us. If not now, then definitely in a few hours from now when they realize we ain't came back. That trip never takes more than an hour. They'll wait for us, and then they'll wait just little longer, and then Rick will grab his gun and come looking, but he'll find nothing but mine, Dad, and Glenn's weapons laying next to a body in the abandoned parking lot.
We only drove for about ten minutes to get to this town. We never ran into it, but it can't be so hard to miss.
I really hope we ain't stuck here long enough for it to come to that. I just wanna go home.
BLIP.
The sound of a walkie chiming makes me jump.
Putting the cup down next to the sink, Merle groans to himself and digs into his backpack. "Shit."
"What is it?"
"It's gonna be Mendoza," He complains, before he presses the button down and there's a voice the other end. "Hear that?"
I shake my head. "I can't hear so well, now."
He pulls a face at me. "How ya mean?"
Instead of explaining myself, I just push my hair back from my ear, revealing my hearing aid before smoothing it back down.
"You got a hearin' aid?"
"I got two. Without 'em, I basically can't hear nothin', andĀ withĀ 'em, it's kinda hard to hear fuzzy things, or faraway things, but it's mostly like it was before," I say timidly. "Shane accidently shot my ear off last Fall. Messed me up good and proper."
"Shane," Merle sneers, laughing to himself. "Shane Walsh. I'll kill that motherfucā"
"Dad already did."
"Oh," He chirps, sounding pleased. "Well, that works out, then, doesn't it? How?
"Beat him and kicked him 'til he ain't never got up again."
"Good to hear yer Daddy's still got his balls intact. What, so you know sign language and shit now?"
"Sure. So, what'd the radio say?"
With a sound of annoyance, he grabs his keys from his backpack and shoves them in his pocket. "I gotta go help out with sum', and I wanna see yer Dad down at the blocks soon, anyway, do some catchin' up. I'll prolly see you in a few hours."
I perk up. "Can I coā"
"No, ya can't come," He deadpans, opening the door. "I'mma lock this behind me. Don't open it for nobody."
"O-okay," I nod, obedient.
"Help yourself to anythin' you want, princess. See ya later."
The door slams shut, the lock clicking loudly āĀ SNAPĀ ā before his footsteps retreat down the corridor.
Letting out a breath, I slump against the table.
Old times.Ā
Lucky me.
Merle's got a big collection of movies.
While the fiery colours of a cool gunfight flash over me, voices shouting war cries, I flip the cover of a different CD over in my hands. I figure I gotta keep myself occupied while Merle's gone, and he did say I could help myself to anything I want.
"Tom and Jerry," I read aloud to myself, smiling at the cartoon animals and shrugging.
The movie cuts out when I press the eject button, and the disc comes sliding out. I take it, replacing it with the new one.
A colourful menu pops up on the screen. Aw, cute!
I find myself grinning up at it like a monkey who's discovered electricity for the first time, pressingĀ playĀ on the remote and absentmindedly watching as the episode plays out in front of me. I'm surprised I even remember how a TV works. It feels like I've snuck outta my bedroom in the middle of the night, snacking on ice cream straight outta the tub while everyone else sleeps. I feel naughty.
I wish I could share this with the rest of the group, especially Carl. Ain't none of us watched TV in forever.
Jerry the mouse is slapping Tom the cat in the face with a banana peel when there's a knock on the door.
Flinching, I turn around.
I wait a moment, watching the door, making sure I really heard it. If it was Merle, he'd probably just openā
"Hello?"
Shit.
That's not Merle.
I press the eject button, and the silly noises and bright colours cut out.
"I don't think you should've done that," The man behind the door muses in the silence that follows, his voice calm, amused, like he's talking to somebody he knows, but I don't recognise the sound of it. "See, now I know you're in there. It was a bad move."
I really wish I had my knife or my gun on me.
Who the Hell is that? Whā Who would want to talk to me?
"Now I think it would make sense if you would come and open the door for me. No point in hiding, Harley."
I can't help it ā A sharp gasp leaves me.
"Yes, that's right. I know your name," He laughs, sounding almost fond, as I slowly rise from my position on the rug and creep over to the door, pressing my ear against the wood to hear him better. "My name is Philip, but people call me the Governor."
Phil. Merle mentioned that name at the gates.
A friend of his?
"Your Uncle Merle probably told you not to open the door for strangers, but we're not strangers any more, are we?"
How do I make him go away?
"I knowĀ yourĀ name," He muses boredly. "You knowĀ mine. If you want, I'll even tell you my favourite colour. It's green."
I don't give a shit what his favourite colour is.
Maybe if I just keep quiet, he'll think the TV is broken, or that he made a mistake ā There ain't no little girl named Harley in here. Because there's no way in Hell I'm opening this door for anybody, even if I know their name and their favorite colour.
My heartbeat hammer, hammer, hammers against the door.Ā Please go away. Please.
After a long pause, I hear him laugh to himself again. "You're not going to open the door, are you?"
No, I ain't.
"Smart girl."
Suddenly, I hear the sound of keys jingling.
My blood runs cold.
I jump back as the doorknob rattles in front of my face, watching it turn, gasping as the door opens. He had keys the whole time?
The man lets himself in and closes the door behind him like he owns the place, like I ain't just gave him a very clear message I don't want him in here, walking past me and coming to a stop in the middle of the room with his hands in the pockets of his grey slacks, smiling quaintly at me. He looks like an office worker, a harmless one, his clothes ironed and clean, hair damp and combed to the side.
I stare at the stranger ā because that's what he is ā horrified, violated, wanting to jump out the window.Ā
"Who are you?" I frown with my chest puffed out, trying my best to sound confident.
"Well, I just told you," He jokes, nonchalant. "My name is Philip."
"You ain't supposed to be in here, Philip," I warn him. "My Uncle, he's gonna kill you."
"Oh, I doubt that very much," The man chuckles to himself, like I've just made a very funny joke. "Mind if I sit, honey?"
I do, but that don't seem to matter.
He rounds the sofa and carefully dusts the crumbs off the cushions before taking a seat, gesturing for me to do the same.
"Come on," He beckons nicely. "Sit where you like. Don't be scared."
"I really don't thinkā"
His face hardens. "Don't be rude, either."
Shit, this is bad. What the Hell do I do?
I glance at the front door. I could make a run for it, but it might be better to pretend everything's okay. I don't wanna make him mad, and I definitely don't wanna get lost out there, so I shuffle my way over to the lounge area and sit on the rug again.
When my eyes dart to the baseball bat laying next to him, his smile returns. I think he likes that I'm scared.
"I'm going to confess something," He decides.
Too afraid to speak, I keep my mouth shut.
"Before I came here, I'd planned to promise you I would take you back to wherever your group is. Get you to tell me where they were that way," He explains, lacing his fingers in his lap as if he's in a business meeting. "But I realize you wouldn't fall for that."
He's right. I wouldn't.
I guess that's why he's here. He wants to know where my group is. "You ain't here 'cause you're mad about Eric?"
"Did you kill him?"
I shake my head.
"Then, no," He simply says. "I hope you're good at keeping secrets, because between you and me ā I never liked him."
"Well, I sure as Hell ain't tellin' you nothin'," I say bravely, thinking of baby Judith. "I ain't even told my own Uncle."
"I know that." He continues smiling at me in a way that makes me wonder if his face is stuck like that permanently. "I could also tell you that the only reason I'm asking is to help your people out, share our resources. But you wouldn't fall for that, either."
Where is he going with this?
"So," He says patiently, "It turns out I'm not going to do either of those things. Do you know what I do here?"
"You're the president," I guess.
"That's cute." His smile lifts into a smirk for a moment, before he shakes his head. "No. I'm Woodbury's leader. 'Governor', remember? Everything I do is in my people's interests, just like I'm sure your Dad does everything in yours. When I start hearing that there's a new group around, I think of what that might mean for us. Have you ever had something like that happen? A new threat?"
"There were people who wanted our farm," I hesitate to admit. "And no, that ain't where we're livin' now."
"I didn't think so. What did you do about it?"
"We hung one of their guys in a barn. He was our friend, but... Sometimes, you gotta kill yer friends."
Philip is still smiling at me, but his eyes are all empty, like they're not really his. I've seen those eyes on dead people.
"I'm glad we have an understanding," He nods slowly. "In the past, I've had to kill my friends, too."
"Good for you."
For the first time since he opened that door, his smile completely drops. "You know who else I'm prepared to kill?"
My heart beat starts to hammer, hammer, hammer against my ribs again.
"Your Daddy," He says with that expressionless look on his face. He don't look so much like an office worker no more. He's a killer in fancy britches, with the blood freshly washed off his forearms. He's a wolf and I'm the little piggy, and I made a mistake when I didn't run away. My fingers tighten around my knees, the sweat hot and slippery on my skin. "If you don't tell me where your group is, I will cut your Daddy's throat open and make my apologies to the unlucky fool who has to clean up all the blood he leaves behind."
I can't speak. I can't. The words are congealed somewhere at the back of my throat, making it very hard to swallow.
"I wouldn't even have to kill the other one," He smirks a little. "I'm sure that gunshot will do it for me. Sepsis is nasty stuff."
Dad and Glenn. Oh, God, I knew it. We didn't question Jim when he was our prisoner, so why would they question them?
Of course Dad didn't want me there with them. They're in danger. They're in danger, and I'm up here in this apartment, eating snacks and watching cartoons and that's all I'll be doing when they cut their throats open or hang them from the ceiling.
"Oh, pleā Please don't," I huff, grabbing my belly so I don't throw up on Merle's rug. "Please don't."
Lifting his hands up, the man makes a gesture of peace, his smirk widening before he drops them in his lap. "Oh, I won't. I haven't exhausted all my options, yet, honey. It wouldn't be wise to kill your Dad right now. This is just something to think about."
I hug myself tighter as he stands from the sofa.
"For when I come back," He adds, staring down his nose at me, cowering at his feet in a ball.
I don't have it in me to glare at him.
All I want is to go home with Dad and Glenn and Mouse and never step foot in another paradise again.
Smiling that stupid, empty smile of his, Philip steps past me and crouches down next to the TV, picking up the Tom and Jerry cover. He chuckles to himself at the picture on it, before putting it back down and pressing the disc back into the player.
On the screen, Jerry starts hitting Tom with the banana peel again, but it's not so funny any more.
"Enjoy your cartoons, honey," He says oddly sincerely.
I watch him stand back up and make his way to the door, not sparing me a backwards glance as he closes it behind him. A grating burst of laughter comes from the TV, and before I can stop myself, I cry out ā "Ugh, shut up!" ā and punch it hard.
The disc slides back out, silently landing on the rug.
"I wanna go home," I whine to nobody.
Author's Note.
This chapter took a while to come out, but I hope the wait was worth it!
I can't believe I finally get to write Merle! Harley is very glad to see him again, even if she knows he isn't perfect. Meanwhile, Daryl isn't too pleased. Things have definitely changed.
Writing the Governor was SO fun. He's very creepy. Whenever there's I have a character who's really smart or has a way of dictating a conversation, it's always humbling when I remember that means I have to be those things in order to write them lmao. I hope I'm doing him justice.
Also hope you enjoyed the chapter! See you in the next one!
"So, what'd you do?" My Dad asks the prisoners, as we're eating breakfast in the courtyard the next morning. "Whose life you ruin?"
All the walker bodies have been dragged into a pile over by the dumpsters and burnt into nothing more than a few lumps of charcoal, leaving the courtyard as quiet as it's been since we got here. With the snarls and growls finally gone, I can hear birds chirping on the roofs of the cell blocks, the beautiful sound of silence beyond them. It might be the first time we've been completely sealed away from danger.
If Rick wasn't still inside with Lori, Carl, and the baby, I think he'd feel the same way.
"Nobody's but my own, man," Oscar chuckles dryly. He shakes his head, spooning some stewed corn and beans into his mouth, chewing absentmindedly. "There's nothing more to it than my people were poor as dirt. Got to be that I was dumb and desperate enough to steal from a Walmart. I should'a been handing my resume in, or something, but no. Sentenced three years over a pack of diapers."
I look up from my bowl to study the regret on his face, finding myself surprised. Shop-lifting diapers?
That wasn't what I thought he was in prison for at all.
"Sorry to hear that," Glenn says sympathetically, exactly my thoughts. "World wasn't exactly fair before all this, either."
"Me, I got caught with, y'know," Axel gestures vaguely, "Drugs and stuff. In my car. I was parked outside a police station, and I ain't had a home at the time. I think wanted to get locked up, if that makes sense. I'd been in and out a bunch of times. Only thing I knew."
"Sounds like someone I knew," Dad scoffs, and I know he's talking about my Uncle Merle. "The dumb bastard."
"So, you ain't, like," I frown at the prisoners in confusion, "Bad?"
Oscar laughs a little. "Not everybody who ends up in prison is bad, kid."
"I know that," I argue as I eat another spoonful of stew. "My Daddy was in prison, and he ain't bad. But some of 'em is."
"We ain't had the best track record when it comes to strangers," Maggie explains to them, putting it lightly. "Or even friends."
"Hey," He shrugs. "No offence taken. You gotta be careful out here."
"ThereĀ wereĀ some seriously bad eggs in there, though," Axel agrees with me. "You bet'cha. Made life a livin' Hell for the rest of us."
Oscar looks at my Dad. "You're her Dad, right? You went to prison, too?"
"Arrendale State Prison," He nods, slurping up the stew in his bowl. "February of '04. I was released far before all this shit started."
"What crime?"
"Aggravated manslaughter."
Axel's eyes widen. "Damn, mister. I ain't sayin' you don't look the type, but I would'a thought you stole a car or somethin'."
Wiping his mouth, he smirks. "Who says I ain't did both?"
"Skills like those sound like they'd come in handy nowadays," Oscar says, "So, Hell. We ain't here to judge anyone in your group."
"You gotta stop saying, 'your group'," Maggie scolds him, smiling. "We got off on the wrong foot, but for all intents and purposes, there's only one group here. We ain't have to be best friends or anythin', and we'll be watchin' you, but you've proven yourselves."
"But I thought you saidā...?"
Yesterday, we served 'em a death sentence by forcing them outta the gates ā Today we're eating stew together.Ā
"Listen. There was a man named Shane," Glenn levels with them. "He was the first one. He was Rick's best friend for fifteen years and we all watched him go crazy without any power to stop it, until he tried kidnapping Harley. He was shot and beaten to death."
There's the loud,Ā BANG,Ā and the sound of my crying spilling out afterwards. That was one of the worst days of my life.
The prisoners share a glance with each other.
"The second man was Jim," He continues. "He didn't have the best interests of the group at heart and we kicked him out for that. And when we ran into him a few months later, we saw that hadn't changed. He threatened to ruin what we'd built. We hung him in a barn."
That one didn't make much sound at all ā Barely a,Ā snap.
"Your friends, Tomas and Andrew. And there were so many others. A group that took over a town near our old farm, people on the road, assholes, thieves. We've got good people here. We're family. But we haven't let our goodness make us idiots."
I'd almost forgotten the violence we'd committed over the past year, the deaths, a hundred little wounds scarred over with time.
Axel and Oscar remain silent as they stomach his words, the underlying threat there ā We've killed better men for less.
Shane was Rick's right-hand man, a brother, and one of the most important people to the group, but even that couldn't save him in the end. Jim was a father, a resilient little weasel who worked harder than anybody else back at the quarry, and I saw him die, too. I saw all manner of men die. The prisoners risked their lives by leavin' this place, but they also risked them by comin' back to help us. They chose to do that. I'on know too much about what makes a trustworthy stranger, and I ain't even sure if such a thing exists, but I imagine it's a start.Ā
"Ya ain't idiots," Axel agrees, looking between Dad, Glenn, and Maggie with his honest eyes. "You can trust us."
Oscar puts on a reassuring smile. "We get it, man."
For two fellers who've just been threatened with torture and execution if they misbehave, they don't look so frightened.
I guess they don't plan on it, then.
"Good," Glenn slowly nods at their answers. "This is the best thing that's ever happened to you, by the way. You're welcome."
Axel's moustache skews to the side as he smiles. "Thank you, dudes."
"And it ain't just kiss-ass for a bowl of stew," Oscar warns us, gesturing with his spoon. "'Cause this shit tastes like ass."
"I'll let the chef know," Maggie jokes.
It looks like our group just got a little bit bigger.
"Go on, then." Dad juts his chin out in the direction of the cell block. "My guess is you ought'a get outta them scrubs if yer stayin'. Just ask for a lady, Carol ā She can sort that out for ya. T-Dog's old stuff should fit ya, but I ain't so sure about Stringbean."
"'Stringbean'?" Axel complains, looking down at himself.
"Maybe you can find somethin' in Glenny's wardrobe," Maggie smiles, poking him in the ribs. "Ain't that right?"
"Hardy, har."
As they stand from the table with their empty bowls, Axel adds, "We really appreciate it. Thanks for not letting us die."
"Sure. Git," Dad grits, watching as they make their way back into the prison, before looking at me. "What'chu thinkin', chicken?"
Chewing my stew, I garble, "I gesh dey don't sheem sho bad."
"Nah, they don't," He agrees, reaching out with his spoon to clean the dribble off my chin. "You don't gotta worry about 'em, okay?"
I swallow as he pulls away, warning him, "But I'on think Mouse is a fan. He was growlin' at 'em."
"I'm sure they'll figure that out," Glenn reassures me, chuckling. "If that's the only problem they have, I'd say they got off lucky."
"Not if they screw this up, they won't," I exclaim, raising my spoon like a knife. "That happens, I'mma knife 'em in the knee!"
"Hey, and I'll let'cha," Dad jokes as he puts his hand over mine to lower the spoon. "But right now, I want'chu to finish all yer food."
"Okay, Dad."
Breakfast goes by slowly, like any good morning should.
The baby ā Until the Grimes agree on a name, that's what I'll call her. The baby ā loves to sleep.
I guess being born takes up just as much energy as giving birth, because Lori says until she's a few months old, this is all she'll do. I can't exactly play soccer with her right now, or even teach her to draw a picture, but I don't mind waiting. She's cute enough just like this, with her eyes closed, small tummy rising and falling with softs breaths as she dozes off in my arms, hopefully dreaming of something sweet.
What do babies dream of? Milk? Sheep, prancing in circles? They even got enough memories to form a nightmare, yet?
Watching on with a fond smile, Lori muses quietly, "I told you."
The baby makes a grunt, squirming around in the tightly swaddled blanket before she relaxes, content.
No. No nightmares.
Looking up at my Dad, I ask him, "Was I like this?"
A faint smirk tugs at his mouth, as if he's recalling a memory. "Nah, you was a fiend. Your Momma and I couldn't get'chu to sleep for nothin'. Had to pace around with you for hours on the porch just for a wink. Sing, hum. Let'chu listen to the rain, cars, birds."
"Sounds like she was a fussy one," Lori smiles, reaching out to stroke her thumb across the baby's smooth head.
"I ain't never met a baby who could pull an angry face quite like Harley could," He scoffs. "Had the temper of a stick of dynamite."
Under the weight of his tired gaze, Rick smirks a little. "So, not much has changed, then."Ā
Sticking my tongue out at them both, I look back down at the baby, gasping as her eyelids begin to flutter.
"She's openin' her eyes," I exclaim with excitement, handing her off to Lori. Her Momma should be the first thing she sees. Not me!
"Oh, my gosh," The woman breathes.
All at once, with her forehead wrinkled against the brightness of the room, she opens her eyes for the very first time. Green. Wow. They're the same colour as Lori's, dark and pretty like the wet leaves on a forest floor, staring curiously up at the matching pair.
Rick scoots closer and grins down at her, a chuckle escaping him as she studies his face next.
Even though I love my Mom and Dad more than anything in the world, and I wouldn't trade them for anybody else, I can still say with certainty that this baby is real lucky to have a Dad like Rick and even luckier to have a Mom like Lori. She got gentle hands, a voice made for telling fairytales, and the patience of a saint. Her smile is the type that nobody could be mad at when they're on the receivin' end of it.
My Gramma Dixon ain't had one of them smiles. In all the photos I've ever seen of her, she had a smile like a row of yellow piano keys, black holes left where her rotten teeth had fallen out from smoking so much and so often, but I had never seen it in person.
When my Dad was thirteen years old, the same age as Carl, the smoke of a stray cigarette caught onto his Momma's bedsheets while she was sleepin' and she, the house, and everything that was in it went up in flames, with a single black smear to prove it ever stood.
That's why whenever my Dad finishes a cigarette, he spends a second longer than anybody else would making sure it's out.
Glenn's got it right āĀ World wasn't exactly fair before all this, either.
Havin' any Mom, let alone a Mom as good as Lori, was a special thing even before the world went to shit.
"She gon' love havin' you as her Momma," I smile to Lori.
And if you were my Momma,Ā I'm too embarrassed to say,Ā I'd be lucky, too.
As if I've just minced her heart between my fingers, the woman pouts, managing a smile. "Thank you, honey. That's nice of you to say."
I don't ever remember dreaming of milk or sheep or soft things with gentle colors, but I'm glad this baby will, even if just for now.
The sound of the toilet flushing fills my ears as I push past the stall door, approaching my Dad who's waiting for me by the sinks. He lifts me by the armpits onto the little plastic foot stool that Glenn found a few days ago, carefully setting me down on it.
"You sure I can't stay up just a little longer?" I ask as I tweak on the water, pumping soap into my hands.
"How much is,Ā a little longer?"
"Hm... Five minutes?"
"I already let'chu finish yer card game with Carl and Beth," He reminds me. "My generous mood's run out, now. It's late, y'know."
"Okay, Captain Obvious," I sigh, scrubbing my hands together under the water before shutting it off.
"Watch it, Captain Smartass." He takes my hand and helps me jump off the stool, leading me through the door and down the corridor, before he randomly comes to a stop. As I turn around to face him, he crouches down to my level. "But I gotta talk to you first."
"About what?" I pout, worried I might be in trouble. "If Carl told you I cheated at cards, it ain't truā"
"I ain't talkin' about that," He reassures me, raising his brows. "And you're lucky I ain't, 'cause I'on believe you for a second."
"Okay. Maybe I peeped at Beth's cards."
"Yeah. Maybe." With an empty chuckle, his expression slowly dampens, turning serious. "It's about Axel and Oscar."
"Huh?"
"I trust 'em," He begins, but I got no idea where he's goin' with this. "What I always saw in Shane and all the other douchebags like 'im, I'on see in them. Some folks, you can just tell. Axel's a sorry loser just like yer Daddy and Uncle Merle used to be, and Oscar's a Dad."
My Dad's what some people call,Ā a good judge of character.Ā Nodding along in agreement, I let him continue.
"If I thought they wasĀ anyĀ sorta threat to you," He promises, "Even if it was just breakin' yer favorite crayon, thenā..."
"Then, you'd kill 'em," I finish, remembering the sight of his shadow swinging down on Jim's face through the slats of the shed wall, the big, black bag the paramedics wheeled outta the woods, the way Shane's blood pooled out across the dirty tiles. "I know."
"So, I guess this ain't really about them, 'cause they ain't gonna hurt you. It's about you, baby."
"MāMe?"
"You ain't in trouble." He says again, soothing my nerves. "I prolly should'a had this conversation wit'chu months ago, but you know I ain't so good with 'conversations', so it's happenin' now. I need you to know what happened with Shane weren't your fauā"
"Why are you sayin' that?" I cut him off, feeling like it's wrong for Shane's name to be in his mouth. "I dā"
"Just listen to me." He grabs my shoulders, stern and strong. Quips and hot venom brew on my tongue, but I bite it down, knowing that if I lash out, I'll actually be in trouble. I can't stop him from mentioning Shane, violating him even in that way, like he used to do with my Momma's name when he threw insults at her and told lies about her to strangers. I have to remember ā Shane ain't my Momma. They was both sick, but only one loved me. I'm pretending to know which one that was. "It weren't. But we could'a done things differently."
Don't talk to strangers,Ā He and Merle always told me. Is that what he means?
"I-I don't get it," I shake my head in confusion. "I'm allowed to talk to Axel and Oscar. They ain't strangers."
"Neither was Shane, baby." He counters. "Spent so much energy teachin' you not to trust assholes like Ronnie, I ain't never taught you not to trust assholes like Shane ā Typa guy that makes it past yer doorstep and tries to be yer friend."
I temper my glare. "What'chu gettin' at, Daddy?"
"You know grown men can't be friends with little girls." He explains patiently, his grip on me tightening. "Rick and Glenn, they're different. They's like yer Uncles. Ya get along with 'em, but they're there to protect ya, just like I am. Axel and Oscar ain't like that. You ever meet anybody like 'em, you don't do anythin' that makes you uncomfortable. You don't give 'em anythin' they want. You don't let 'em trick ya."
Shane. I did all those things with Shane.Ā HeĀ did all those things withĀ me.
"And you always tell me if any of that happens. Always. Ya ain't never gon' get in trouble for what other people choose to do."
"The prisoners ain't tried to be my friend," I assure him. "And I ain't tried to be theirs. Promise."
"I know. I'm proud'a you for that." His grip loosens, fingers sliding down my arms, dropping in his lap. "But do you understand me?"
"I think so."
"I'mma somethin' better'un,Ā I think."
Frowning, I think. Shane weren't my fault. Dad said that since the beginning. I guess he only wants to make sure it never happens again, like how it ain't yer fault if a dog bites ya, but you can always learn to recognize a violent animal and turn your back on its teeth.
I shouldn't have let Shane corner me in the car while the rest of the group was distracted in that supermarket.
Shouldn't have played into his stupid game, neither, by punching him in the face when he asked me to.
Definitely shouldn't have agreed to be his friend.
Dad's always gonna look out for me, but, "I understand."
"Okay. Good girl.Ā SmartĀ girl," He nods, standing and taking my hand in his, leading me down the corridor. "I love you, chicken."
"Love you, Daddy. But I thought you said I was allowed to knife 'em?"
"You can knife 'em first, and then I'll kill 'em," He jokes. "Deal?"
"Deal."
He chuckles to himself. "Let's get'chu to bed, then."
"Easy, boy," Axel smiles, scratching Mouse's ear as he watches him gobble up the meat in his hand. "There ya go."
From my seat nearby, as I wait to leave with Dad and Glenn for a supply run, I don't bother callin' Mouse over yet. The dog ain't my toy or nothin', but I should still share him with the prisoners. I know they ain't seen one in years, so I let him have the moment.
When Carl walks past me, I ask him, "You sure ya don't wanna come with us?"
"Thanks, but I'm sure. I'm just tired today," He turns to send me a smile, before continuing toward Axel. "Hey. Got more food."
"Oh, thanks, dude," He says happily, accepting it.
"He really likes this stuff."
It's taken almost a full month not only for Mouse to warm up to the new members of our group, but for the others, too.
We ain't best friends or nothin', like Maggie said, but it turns out they're a better fit for our family than I first thought.
Axel really is just a sorry loser with a good heart, who I've learnt over the past couple days wasn't kiddin' when he said he loved dogs. He's almost never more than a few feet away from Mouse, bribing him with treats or scraps of his own dinner, sometimes accidently calling him,Ā Goober,Ā the name of his old dog. When I look at him, I see all the other sorry losers we used to live with in our trailer park, his twangy accent and his stories of punking the police when he was younger weirdly comforting to me. Dad don't seem so offended by him, neither.
Oscar's the type of person who talks a lot around the dinner table, just like Carl and Maggie are. He's always got a snarky, good-natured joke to throw in here and there, or a reassuring tidbit to share when somebody opens up about something in their past.
When it comes to his own past, though, he suddenly ain't so much of a chatterbox no more.
I can only assume his wife and baby are among all the people we've lost, too. I wouldn't wanna talk about 'em, neither.
Rick watches Oscar standing there with a guarded look on his face, my Dad drawing his attention away by nudging his elbow, holding two guns out to him. With another glance at Axel, who's giggling like a small child at Mouse's enthusiasm for the food, he takes them.
"Axel. Oscar," Rick calls out, coming to a stop in front of them. As they look up at him, he offers a gun to each of them.
Axel's eyes widen as he stands up. "You serious, Mister?"
Oh ā That's another thing. Axel doesn't call people Ma'am or Mister to butter 'em up. It's just his Southern manners.
"Daryl and Glenn are leaving for a few hours," He explains as Axel hesitantly reaches out for the gun, treating it more like a live grenade. For all the petty crimes he's committed, I'on think he's ever actually held a gun. Oscar takes his slightly more confidently, knowing exactly where to put his fingers, though he don't seem to like it. "With them gone, I think it's time you stepped up, helped us protect this place."
"Sure thing," Oscar nods, checking the mag is empty before stuffing the gun in his pants line. "Happy to, chief."
"Now, you mentioned you got experience," He reminds him, before turning to look expectantly at Axel.
In the silence that follows, the man offers, "I shot a slingshot, once. Busted in some rich old lady's Rolls-Royce window with it."
Rick's expression remains stoney. "A slingshot?"
"Yeah! Real cool one."
"A slingshot."
Awkwardly, he says again, "Yeah."
"Right." Rick gives him a friendly pat on the back, almost knocking him off balance. "We're gonna have to train you up a bit."
"Well, have fun," Glenn muses as he slings his backpack on, with Dad gesturing for me to stand up. "See you guys later."
Carl smiles, "See you later."
"C'mon, boy!" I call out to Mouse, clapping my hands. "Time to go."
"Remember, she doesn't handle the whole-wheat blend very well," Lori warns us, rocking baby Judith in her arms. It's good to finally see her outta bed again, to have her sitting around the breakfast table next to Herschel just like she always used to do.
"We'll look around for somethin' different this time. Trust me. I remember," Dad reassures her as he leads us up the concrete steps and pushes past the exit door, letting it close behind us before he mutters to me and Glenn, "She only threw up on my face twice."
"Eugh," I giggle, walking alongside them down the corridor. "That's gross."
"You ain't gonna talk to me about gross, missy," He jokes. "Who's that kid that spat chewed-up salami into my lap again, Rhee?"
Glenn chuckles at that. "Oh, yeah. I think her name wasā...?"
"Somethin' beginin' with an,Ā H, right?"
"Shut up," I giggle even harder as Glenn opens the main door, turning to lock it behind us. "It was an accident!"
"Haā? Harriet," Dad pretends to struggle guessing, completely ignoring me. "Holly? Harleyā?"
"Ohhh. Harley," Glenn exclaims as he stuffs the key back in his pocket. "That was it."
"Yeah, that's ringin' a bell."
"Shut up," I complain again, dragging him over to the gate. "C'mon. Me and Mouse wanna go!"
Agreeing, the dog lets out a,Ā ruff.
This might only be the fourth time I've been on a scavenge this month, but I'd be lyin' if I said it ain't just as excitin' as the first time. Sure, the adults watch over me and Carl the whole time, and we only ever go to the same store, but everybody says we been doin' a good job and it's true. The worst thing that's happened to us is getting spooked by a rat running across our path, and even that was fun.Ā
"Okay, we're comin'," Dad chuckles raspily, letting me pull him along. "We're comin'."
"What do you wanna play this time, Harley?" Glenn asks.
As Dad opens the gate to the field, Mouse is the first one out, running ahead of us down the path.
I kick a pebble down the hill, thinking. "What about eye-spy?"
He locks it shut. "Didn't we do that one last time?"
"Yeah, but I lost," I argue as we follow after the dog.
"So, a re-match," Glenn says in understanding. "Sure. Who's going first?"
"Me!"
"Is it that leaf over there?"
"Nope."
"What aboutĀ thatĀ leaf overĀ there?"
"Still nope."
"ThatĀ leaf?"
"You can't just guess every single leaf you see, Harley," Glenn chuckles. "The game would never end."
"So, it's not a leaf?"
"Not a leaf," He agrees. "Come on. You can do it."
Walking down the side of the highway, I look around for anything,Ā Small and green.Ā If it ain't leaves, or any of the hundreds of other things I've guessed so far, I'm screwed. In the distance, the tall sign for the strip mall pokes out from the trees, growing closer.
"Can't just look at what's in front of ya," Dad says helpfully, squeezing my hand. "Hunter's eye's gotta see everythin'."
Humming in concentration, I look down instead, noticing it instantly ā The green beetle clinging to my shorts.
A giggle escapes me as I rest a finger near the insect's tiny head, letting it crawl onto me, holding it up to my face. "It was you!"
"Point for Harley," Glenn smiles as we step over the curb, entering the dumpster area behind the strip mall. The forest falls away behind us, making way for concrete and scattered litter. "You were taking so long; I was worried it was gonna fly away."
I turn a suspicious eye on my Dad. "Hang on. Did you let me win?"
"I might'a noticed it a couple minutes ago," He muses.
I flinch as the beetle's pearly wings whip out from under its shell, flickering into a blur, before it takes off into the trees.
"Aw." I pout, distracted by its disappearing shape as we approach the side of the building. "Bye, beetlā"
"Stop."
Stop?
Dad drops my hand. He slings his crossbow off his shoulder, training the sights ahead of us as Glenn grabs me, forcing me up against the wall with him. The warm brick presses against my back, Glenn's thick heartbeat thudding rhythmically beneath my fingers as I grip his wrist. I hold my breath. Suddenly, we're hiding ā From what? From who? ā and I couldn't care less that we didn't finish the game.
What's wrong,Ā I desperately want to ask them, instead clinging tighter to Glenn, cowering, making myself small.
I try to get a glimpse of what's going on in the main parking lot, but I'm not close enough.
With his shoulders tensed and footsteps light, Dad creeps forward, peeking around the wall.
"It's okay," Glenn whispers to me, turning to scold a growling Mouse, "Shh, boy. Shh."
I focus on the nearby sounds ā Someone's car engine idling, boots scraping against tarmac, hushed voices. People. It's people.
As Dad pulls back behind the wall, Glenn asks him, "How many?"
"I count three," He exhales, glancing down at me for a moment, before shaking his head. "We gotta go."
"Okay. Come on." Glenn gently tugs me by the hand, pulling me along with him in the direction we came. "It's okay."
"C'mon, chicken," Dad encourages.
We stick close to the wall, Dad scanning the back parking lot with a slow sweep of his sights, before giving us a nod, letting us know the way is clear and leading us down onto the tarmac. Everything opens up. My gaze darts from the dumpsters pressed up against the chain-link fence, to the trash littered across the ground, to the distant trees, the sky, the back of my Dad's head, Mouse at his heel.Ā
Dad takes one step back over the broken curb, his boot hitting the grass on the other side.
My fingers tighten around Glenn's as I lift my foot to do the same.
I'm taking a sigh of relief ā The forest is right there. We can slip away ā but the breath in my lungs is stolen from me. I stumble backwards into Glenn. A man shoots out from behind a rusted car, tackling my Dad, and a gasp escapes me, loud and sharp.
"Daddy!" I shriek, watching him tank the sudden impact with a grunt.
"Boys!" The man shouts over his shoulder. "Over here!"
Squeezing my hand, Glenn draws his gun, acting unsure if he should run with me or stay and fight. "Daryl?"
"Stay with Harley!" He orders.
We watch as Dad shoves the man off him in one powerful movement, sending his stocky body tumbling.
The man lands against the car door. The window cracks under his elbow, glass shattering, tinkling, falling at his feet. He groans like an animal, blood trickling down his forearm as he rears it back again, knife in his hand, about to stab Dad wherever he can.
Dad's crossbow comes down on the man's arm and the knife goes flying, clattering loudly across the parking lot.
"Fuckā" He cries, disarmed, before Dad takes a step back and āĀ FWIPĀ ā unleashes a bolt into his face.
The man's legs give out, body slumping to the ground.
"What's going on back here?!" A voice shouts, footsteps approaching. "Eric?"
Glenn whips his gun around, shoving me behind him so fast; I only catch a glimpse of the ā two? ā men pouring into the parking lot before I'm pressing my face into the back of his shirt, squeezing his hand so tight I think I might break a few of his bones.
"Holy shit," One of the men exclaims as their footsteps come to a stop in front of us. "Eric! God, he's dead!"
"You'll be dead, too, if ya don't back theĀ HellĀ up!" Dad barks at them, taking a step forward.Ā "Back up!"
"You fucking killed him!"
"He attacked us first!" Glenn counters. "Put the guns down!"
"Oh, my God!"
"Who's that behind you?"
"Hey! You keep yer eyes on us and put'cher fuckin' guns down!"
The arguing, shouting, ā Mouse's relentless barking ā gets louder and louder with each second, ruminating into one big cloud of noise around me as I squeeze my eyes shut. I only wanted to help them scavenge some baby formula, enjoy the sun and the breeze, maybe win at eye-spy. Home is only a ten-minute walk from here. No, no, it wasn't supposed to go like this. It's never gone like this.
"Put that goddamn crossbow down!"
"I ain't doin' shit!"
"Everybody, shut up!"
The parking lot falls silent. I hear the footsteps of a third man approaching, slow and calm, like an angry teacher.
"They killed Eric," One of them exclaims. "We heard him shout for us."
"And this piece of shit here killed him. I saw it."
The footsteps slow to a stop, and no response comes. I wait for a gunshot or a punch to be thrown, but that doesn't come, neither.
After the pause has gone on too long, the man hesitates to ask, "Boss, what's wrong? Are we killing 'em, or not?"
"I said,Ā shut up,Ā Gavin."
Oh.
That voice.
Merā?
No.
Merle is dead.
Merle was chained to roof and eaten by walkers and he's dead and he's gone and I mourned him and ghosts ain't real.
My movements in slow motion, I loosen my grip on Glenn's hand, my body going numb as I dare to peek out around his hip. As the scene reveals itself to me, a curtain pulled over a window inch by inch, everything hits me like a ton of bricks, years, names, memories.
The man standing at the front of the small crowd stares, gawking, at my Dad, unbothered by his confused friends.
When he glances down at me, his arm pointing the gun at us falters.
Our eyes lock, and suddenly ghostsĀ areĀ real.
I can feel myself start to cry, I think.
Merle.
Author's Note.
It's Merle! Is there anything more to say? He's back!
I'm going to have my work cut out for me in the coming chapters. Trauma, emotions. Here we come.
Sorry for the slightly longer wait between chapters than usual recently! Please enjoy! š
Walking back into the cell hall after everything that happened is a breath of fresh air.
Approaching the cell with caution, I'm almost afraid to interrupt the quiet chatter coming from inside. We've been gone for almost a full day, night having fallen over the prison, bringing with it a sense of calm. The first person to turn around and notice us is Beth, gasping at the sight of us, alerting the others of our return. The conversation morphs into curious mutters, questions of if we're okay and where we've been, as I continue into the cell, the sounds of their voices a faraway ambience. I come to a stop at the bed, unable to contain my smile.
The chatter dies away. There's a baby in Lori's arms, and its the most precious thing I ever saw.
"Would you like to hold her?" The woman weakly croaks, offering the bundle to me. "It's okay. She's a little sleepy."
"'She'?" I softly exclaim as Carol helps me embrace her, resting her heavy little head in the crux of my elbow, her whole body weighing no more than a few bottles of water. Wow. A girl. Ya couldn't tell like this, aside from the pink blanket she's swaddled in ā she looks more like a doll than a baby. She's warmer than I thought. Her cheeks are fat and perfectly smooth, her nose a cute button, her lashes so small and delicate I think somebody must've taken the time to stick them there. I even wonder if she has angel wings. "Hi, baby. I'm Harley."
Looking up at Carl, I match his beaming smile. After months and months of waiting, he's officially a big brother.
"I think she likes you," Lori whispers to me, while everyone else looks on with fond gazes, not a sad face in sight.
"Y'know, she don't look like no Bob-ette," I decide, earning myself a round of hushed laughter. "I changed my mind."
Carol teases, "I don't think her Mom would've let you name her that, anyway."
As Dad steps forward, she takes the baby from me and places her in his arms, letting him take her as carefully as he'd take a glass vase.
"She got a name at all, yet?" He asks, looking down at her pristine face, sweat and dirt plastered all over his own skin.
"No," Carl shakes his head. "Not yet."
"Well, how about 'Little Ass-kicker?"
"Dad," I protest, making sure not to raise my voice too much. "How come I gets, 'Chicken,' and the baby gets, 'Ass-kicker'?"
As more quiet laughter breaks out, my Dad placates, "Hey, I'm only pullin' ya leg. We all know you're the top ass-kicker."
"You can teach her when she grows up," Glenn agrees, with Maggie hugging his side, her head resting against his shoulder.
"Me, too," Carl adds. "We can both teach her."
Looking back down at the baby, my Dad gently bounces her in his arms with the sort of ease only a parent could muster. I think back on the day Carl and I were sitting under that tree on the farm and we overheard his Momma blurt that she was pregnant, the months we spent out in the snow together, unsure if she and the baby would survive, and I think it's quite amazing that we managed to get here at all.
Suddenly, my Dad's eyes begin to well up, and he blinks the tears away as he hands the baby back to Lori.
"Good job," He mutters to her, kissing her cheek before standing back up.
Maggie smiles sympathetically, her own eyes slightly watery. "You alright, Daryl?"
"Yeah, s'justā," He clears his throat, swiping the heel of his palm over his eyes. "Reminds me of when Harley was born."
After a long stretch of silence, Carol asks, "Where's T-Dog?"
I avert my gaze to the floor as Glenn hesitates to answer for us. "Heā... He was with Daryl and Harley."
"We made it outta the courtyard together," Dad explains, his tone grim. "Found our way into another part of the prison. Hid ourselves in some cupboard or other, dead knockin' on the door. We was already trapped in there 'fore we realized T'd been bit on the way in."
"Oh, God," Carol gasps, covering her mouth in shock, her silver brows knitting tightly over her tearful eyes. "No."
"We waited long as we could," He tells her in a comforting way. "And I promise you he ain't turned."
"Oh, God," She says again, as Carl puts a hand on her shoulder.
T-Dog was with us folk from the quarry since the very beginning. It's hard losin' somebody who saw you through all the ups and downs of a year in a world like this, almost as if to think that just because you've known them such a long time, it means they're invincible.
"I guess now's a great time to ask," Dad jokes, looking at Glenn. "Where's Rick?"
"The pressure got to him. When Maggie and Carol came back with Lori, she could barely walk, barely talk. They'd had toā," He pauses, uncomfortable with what he's saying. "āTo perform a C-section. It wasn't pretty. Nobody knew where you guys were. We had no idea if Harley was alone, or if you were even still alive. That freaked him out even more, and then he saw the baby and he just ran."
"I stitched her up before the bleeding could get any worse." Herschel reassures us before we can ask. I look over at Lori, whose hair is tussled messily over her shoulder, looking more exhausted than anything. "She'll be bed-bound for weeks, but she's stable."
Glenn continues, "I've tried speaking to him, but I think he just needs some space right now. He's a live wire."
"Where is he?" Dad asks, but I don't think he plans on going out and finding him right now.
"In the boiler room of this cell block."
"He'll be glad to know Daryl and Harley are alive," Lori says, a badly concealed look of hurt in her eyes. "Somebody should talk to him again."
Glenn smiles a bit. "Maybe later, hey?"
"What a shit-show." Dad deadpans, what I'm sure everyone's thinking. "How'd this even happen? Y'all find out?"
"It was one of the prisoners," He says. "Rick thought he'd left him to die in a courtyard, but he escaped. Wanted revenge, I guess."
"Rick blames himself for that, too," Maggie adds sadly.
"Well, the bastard got it. He dead now?"
Glenn only nods.
When the baby burps up some spit, Beth quickly wipes it away with a little rag, and the rest of us decide it's time to go to bed.
"The baby is really cute," I whisper down to Beth and Carl as we all try to go to sleep, the cell block peacefully quiet.
"She looks like Mom," He smiles in the light of the electric lamp, blanket up to his chin. "I can't pinpoint it, but it's just... It's her."
"Go to sleep," My Dad's voice echoes.
"Sorry," We all call out, before Carl reaches over and flips off the light.
In the sudden darkness of our cell, I pull my blankets up, sighing deeply. All this talk of the baby is a bittersweet tang in my mouth, the aftertaste of gunpowder and blood never far behind. It's sad that T-Dog ain't get the chance to see the new addition to our family.
When somebody coughs, I'm reminded to take out my hearing aids and stuff them under my pillow.
The noise came from the prisoners' cell. Through their locked door, I can see a pair of feet sticking out from the bottom bunk as one of the men tosses and turns. I don't like it any more than I did before, but the two prisoners, whose names are Axel and Oscar, returned to the prison just like I thought they would. Though, it wasn't for the reasons I guessed. They ain't chickened out or starved. Glenn told us they heard the alarms blaring in the distance, knew something had gone wrong, and came running back to offer us whatever help they could.
I think it was just an excuse for them to cowardly weasel their way back in and steal a bed and a warm meal offa us, but even I know I can't blame them for that. We all want to be safe. Besides, they did help Rick and Glenn find the controls to shut off the alarms, and they ain't seem too sad about their dead buddy that set them off to begin with, neither. I guess they ain't done too badly for themselves.
They're lucky they're so pathetic, and that their cell block is completely run over by walkers, now.
But they ain't never gonna be T-Dog, and I hope they don't forget about that granola bar he gave 'em til the day they die.
The prison now has a graveyard before it has a farm.
The next morning, the white ball of the sun rises over the trees in the distant forest as I sit in the dry grass, watching as my Dad stomps the shovelhead into the dirt and pours it into a pile beside him, the repetitive noise of it all nearly lulling me back to sleep.
This is where T-Dog is gonna be buried, on the edge of the field, overlooking the sunrise. Never thought I'd say that.
Once Dad's finished the grave, he drives the shovel into the ground and steps out of it, sitting beside me in the sun.
"I wantchu to feel safe here," He sighs after a short pause, looking away from the forest to study my face. "You know I always want that."
"I feel safe," I tell him, and it's the truth. "You're here."
"And I'll always do my best to keep you safe, but what happened yesterday was scary. Weren't it?"
I nod again. "I'm just gonna miss him, I think."
"Me, too. I'm sorry you had to be there for it."
"You think it hurt?"
"No," He says sternly, in a way that makes me believe him instantly. "No, baby, it don't hurt like that. He would'a felt nothing."
"Like Tank?"
"Yeah. Like Tank," He agrees. "Like Morales. Sometimes, endin' the suffering is the kindest thing to do. Ain't I taught you that?"
Whenever he and Uncle Kyle used to take me hunting, I would always get upset if we ever came across a wounded animal, and it would be laying in the dirt, kicking its legs, honking in pain, and they'd just shoot it in the head. I'd cry,Ā Why don't we help it? Why doesn't it get a plaster like when I'm hurt?,Ā and Dad would say,Ā Baby, sometimes being kind means you gotta do an unkind thing.
Hearing the sound of wheels wobbling loudly behind us, I turn around and see Glenn, Maggie, Axel, and Oscar making their way down the hill with a big wheelbarrow, a white sheet billowing out from it like a woman's long hair. I already know what's inside of it.
"The others will be here soon," Glenn says to greet us, setting the wheelbarrow down close to the open grave.
My Dad stands up and takes his shoulder in thanks, all of us gazing down at the covered lump ā T-Dog's body.
"He was a good guy," Oscar muses somewhat indifferently. "He gave us couple of nobodies some extra food before we left."
"He wasĀ family," Glenn corrects him, offended.
"I had one friend like that in my entire life," He says. "You got a whole group. I'm sorry for your loss."
"Well, thanks for helpin' us go back for him," Maggie smiles weakly, before the first of our group begin to head over. "I guess it's time."
After the funeral, we return to the cell block, where Lori is tryna breastfeed the baby without any luck. I thought new Mommas always had enough milk to feed their babies, but Herschel tells us that isn't the case when the Momma has been through what Lori's been through ā Sickness, starvation, injury, strain, a thing called,Ā malnutrition.Ā Her body just doesn't have what it needs to make milk.
"Somebody will have to go on a supply run," He shakes his head as Lori shushes the crying, hungry baby.
"I just feel so bad," She whispers, strong guilt written all over her face. "What kind of Mom can't feed her own child?"
"It's okay, Mom. We'll go," Carl comforts her, looking expectantly up at the adults, "Won't we?"
My Dad sends a questioning glance to Glenn, the only other person who can make big decisions for the group without Rick around.
"Please?" Carl continues. "My Dad said you'll let us help out more. You've been training us to deal with walkers. We're ready."
Dad looks at me with a brow raised. "And you wanna come, too?"
Nodding, I think of T-Dog. He would'a gone. I know it. Rick and Dad were right ā This isn't a game ā but we're not gonna learn much about surviving the world outside if spend every day inside the prison, only ever waiting for a time we might be old enough to try, that might not even come. We might be young, and we might'a messed up going after the infirmary on our own, but this is the right way.
Looking like he's thinking the same thing, Dad eventually decides, "Alright, then. As long as you give it the green light?"
Lori considers it for a moment, looking at her son. "I think you're right, baby. You're ready. And they'll take care of you."
His eyes light up. "So, that's a yes?"
"Yes," She nods, smiling faintly. "You be careful, though."
"Of course." He gives her cheek a small kiss, pulling away. "Thank you, Mom."
"Thank you, Dad," I say with a smile.
"I'm thinkin' we check out that strip mall on Durn Street," He says, pushing himself off the wall. "And, Glenn, I'm thinkin' you stay."
Agreeing, Maggie offers, "I'll come with you guys."
"Are you sure?" Glenn asks, lowering his voice. "With everything you've been throughā?"
"I wanna go," She reassures him. "For Lori and the baby, I have to."
Relenting, he cups her jaw with his hand and gives her a quick kiss. "Okay. I love you."
"I love you," She smiles as they pull apart, before we exchange a bunch more goodbyes with each other and head outta the cell block.
It takes about ten minutes to walk to Durn Street, but I don't mind. The weather is good, the gentle breeze carrying the warmth of the sun along with it, the trees on either side of the highway quietly rustling against each other like smooth paper, a relaxing sound.
It would be a good opportunity to take in the ambience, like I often enjoy doing, if not for the fact that Maggie and Carl are singing some country song that never seems to end. Rising to the challenge, my Dad and I begin to sing a song of our own ā A crazy one he used to play on the radio all the time ā until they're forced to belt it out in an even louder, more annoying volume, leading us to do the same.Ā
When we do eventually get there, after a long singing battle that nobody wins, I'm feeling better than I have in days.
"Remember it ain't Winter anymore," My Dad reminds us as we step into the car park. "I know we used to let'chu come along with us a lot more back then, like when we went searchin' for presents, but it's warmed up since. Walkers ain't in low supply, now."
"Thanks, Captain obvious," I say in a funny voice, earning a scolding look.
"Yeah, and who are you?" He jokes. "Captain smartass?"
"Sounds about right," Maggie teases, coming to a stop in front of the pharmacy and knocking on the window. "Anybody home?"
We wait a moment or two, my Dad lifting his crossbow and shooting down the single walker that comes to greet us.
"Could be more inside," She warns us as she steps through the doorway.
She's right. We find a a pair of rotting walkers holed up in a cupboard at the back of the pharmacy, guarding some bottles of medicine and other supplies, and another walker slumped behind the service counter, but we take them out before they can do any damage.Ā
After we've looted all the baby formula we can find, which is only one small tub, we're back on the road again.
Of course, we sing all the way back home, too.
When we return to the cell hall in the early afternoon, the sight that greets us is a surprisingly sweet one.
Carol is passing the baby to Rick, whose fingers tremble as he reaches out for her. His blue eyes, wide and unblinking, stare at her small, doll-like face as he holds her against his chest, almost as if unsure if he'll poison her just by touch. He certainly looks like he's been locked away in a boiler room for two days, but for whatever reason, he's chosen to be here if only for a moment. Sometimes I wish I could hide away, too.
Pulling us over to the side, Herschel quietly asks, "How did you do? Everything alright?"
"We're fine, Daddy," Maggie whispers with a smile, kissing his cheek in greeting. "Kids did great, and we managed to find some formula."
"Only one tub." Dad warns. "It ain't much, but we didn't wanna overstay our welcome. We can go back and search more another time."
As Glenn approaches, Herschel puts a hand on Dad's shoulder. "Don't worry, son. Any little bit helps."
She hugs Glenn tight, only pulling away after a long moment. "Hey, you."
"So glad you're alright," He says, looking around at each of us.
"I killed a walker," I tell him proudly.
"Did you? Wow," He croons, even though it's a simple achievement. "Well done, Harley."
"And look who's here," Carol says to Rick, gesturing to us with a small, excited smile on her face. "Daryl and Harley. They're okay."
Rick's gaze meets mine. It feels like I've been slapped across the face without even being touched, but I recover quickly. I can see the relief flood through him in real time, before he moves onto my Dad, then back to me, making sure we're really here, really alive.
He searches for a third person, but he doesn't find them.
"I'm sorry," He mutters, his voice hoarse, stuck at the bottom of his throat. "I didn't thinkā...."
"Save it," Dad says gently, shaking his head. "Weren't your fault."
"Iā"
"I said, 'Save it'."
After the farm burnt down, Rick promised us with the flames of the campfire reflected over his face that he would keep us safe. All Winter, he thirsted after finding a home for us, to the point where it became the only thing he ever wanted to talk about, if he talked at all.
What happened yesterday wasn't Rick's fault any more than it was mine, or Dad's, or T-Dog's.
I know he must feel like he's failed us ā failed T-Dog, and maybe even the baby in his arms ā but he hasn't. HeĀ neverĀ has.
Nodding slowly, Rick looks back down at his daughter, but unlike my Dad, he doesn't start bouncing her, doesn't coo at her, stroke her cheek, sing her a lullaby ā He just stares, stares, and stares, like he would stare at a blank wall, contemplating nothing at all.
When she stirs, her face scrunching up in anger, Herschel speaks up. "She's hungry. Let me make her a bottle."
"Hey," Rick croons softly, his voice soothing out the wrinkles in the baby's forehead. "Hey, don't worry."
I almost don't notice the smile tugging at Lori's lips.
Author's Note.
A short and simple chapter. I think writing T-Dog's death threw me off a little bit, leaving me unsure of where to lead us next with this chapter (especially since we're in a bit of an awkward spot between major events), so sorry if this felt like filler - It kinda was! Hopefully, satisfying filler.
Can't believe we're so close to meeting Merle again. It's gonna turn everything upside down.
Hope you enjoyed reading and I'll see you in the next chapter! šš
This chapter is heavy with a bittersweet/happy ending. As for the intensity level of the death, think back to the chapter where Shane died. If you want to know more, look at the first tag of this post. Please be wary of this before you read!
Through the wire circle, down at the bottom of the hill, the tiny prisoners are being kicked out.
Curling my fingers tighter around the fence, I squint against the sun, watching as the gate is closed in their faces. They're left to stand there, without direction or purpose, in a sort of purgatory. They can either stay there and eat gravel until they starve, or they can face the outside world. If Dale can hear me, I'm sorry for thinking this, but,Ā good riddance.Ā There certainly ain't no phones out there no more, or even any food, and I know they'll die, but,Ā good riddance.Ā We'on know them. If we let them into our cell block, we'd be downright fools.
You don't put foxes in a chicken coop. It's just common sense, and we don't have much, but we have that.
As our group walk off to continue their chores, content with the death sentence, T-Dog lingers by the gate, digging into his pocket.
Surprisingly, he passes them what looks like a granola bar.
"They're gonna need more than that," Carl muses from beside me. "They need weapons. Ammo. Water."
The two prisoners are less than enthusiastic to receive the snack, but pocket it with a nod anyway. Rick went back into their cell block and packed up their half of the food for 'em, because a deal's a deal, but every crumb counts. A snack can save yer life same way a gun can.Ā
As they turn into the field beyond the prison, I shrug. "Rick'll prolly let them back into their cell block if they come back."
"You think they will?"
If they don't die out there first, then the answer is obvious. "S'like when ya put'cher dog outside when they's naughty!"
He giggles, "They always wanna come back in."
"Them two fellers ain't no wild dogs," I agree. "They's a pair of chihuahuas."
Before Carl and I can watch the two prisoners for any longer, the door to our cell block opens behind us.
Turning around, a smile makes its way onto my face as Herschel shakily plods down the steps, a crutch wedged underneath each of his armpits. Beth and Lori are dutifully fussing over him, ready to catch him if he falls, but he's managing just fine on his own.
"Whoo-hoo, Herschel!" Carl whoops as we walk over, earning a grin from his Momma. "You ready to race me, yet?"
"Give me another day. I'll take you on," He chuckles breathlessly as he breaches the last step, noticing Mouse. "Hey, boy."
I ask him hopefully, "Will ya race me, too?"
"Oh, no," He exclaims as he rests against the rusty railing, the white sunlight curving over his face. "Now, you're a different story."
"You're being silly," Lori smiles to him.
"I hope so."
"Don't worry, Herschel," I knock my elbow into his. "I'll go easy on ya!"
"How generous. Perhaps Carl and I will just have to verse you as a team?"
"Then it'll just be twice as embarrassing when she beats us both," Carl snickers.
Everybody down in the field can be heard shouting cheers up to us, as Herschel lifts his hand off the crutch to give them a wave.
"Come on," Lori says, eyeing his free hand until he grips the crutch again. "What do you say we go rest at that table over there?"
"Well, I'd say I've got no choice."
"You're right about that," Beth says as we guide him across the courtyard. "Carl, what do you think of his new pants? Stylish, huh?"
The boy glances down, only just noticing the change. "Hell yeah."
"Beth was telling us she tailored them herself," Lori says, sounding impressed.
"Well, I didn't do it alone," The girl smiles as we reach the picnic table, carefully sitting Herschel down. "Harley helped me."
"I just held the string," I say shyly.
"No job too small," Herschel muses to me with a smile, before gazing out at the scenery around us, sighing contentedly.
As grey and bleak as this place may be, with its dead walkers and concrete walls, it's a nice day out, which is always a consolation no matter where we are in the world. The sky hangs bright and blue like a polished dome over our heads, painted with smeared, fluffy clouds. If I really wanted to, I could pretend it's just another summer's day back on the farm, but I'on think I do. I don't need peaches and cows to be happy.
"Good to see you up and at 'em again, Greene," My Dad smirks as he comes through the gate, taking the man's shoulder.
As he squeezes and pulls away, Herschel exclaims, "It's good toĀ beĀ up. I couldn't stand to be in that bed a moment longer."
"I bet. You could come help me clear the fence if ya wanted," He jokes as he walks off. "My students are on break."
"We're just leaving the grunt work to the grunt," Carl calls after him.
"Sure you are," Dad says over his shoulder, before drawing his knife and downing one of the many walkers at the fence.
As he gets back to work, Mouse runs up to us with his tennis ball between his slobbery teeth, dropping it at my feet.
Picking it up, I hold it out to Herschel. "Wanna throw it for 'im?"
"Absolutely," He says, taking it.
He throws the ball across the courtyard, sending Mouse scrambling after it like it's a little animal he's gotta catch. It's nice watching Herschel play fetch with Mouse like this, spending the morning chatting with each other about useless things like the weather and seasonal crops.Ā
After about ten minutes, when he gives me the ball to throw, it skips like a stone into a pile of trash near the dumpsters. Whoops!
"Ohhh," Carl exclaims dramatically, watching Mouse nose through the junk. "Foul ball."
Giving him a bit of a shove on the shoulder, I laugh, "Shut up, Carl!"
"She never claimed to be a pitcher," Beth giggles. "She's more of a kicker."
"Yeah, I'm a kicker," I agree, with twinkle-toes Carl dodging me as I try landing a kick to his ankle, "Lemme show ya!"
"She's attacking me!"
"I'm a biter, too!"
"Kids will be kids," Herschel chuckles heartily to the girls, shaking his head. After a short pause, I hear him utter, "Whatā...?"
It takes me and Carl a moment to settle down, pushing at each other and swallowing down our giggles, before we look in the direction of the dumpsters, where everyone has pinned their attention. The laughter dies in my throat just as quickly as it had come alive. Mouse has completely abandoned his search for the ball ā My first clue something's wrong ā, staring unflinchingly around the corner.
He starts growling lowly, making my Dad turn around just before a rotten foot steps out into the open.
A face peeks out, melted and dripping.
A walker?
Out here?
Then there's a second, and a third, and a suddenly obvious cacophony of groans that could only come from a mob.
As another walker appears on the opposite side of the courtyard, sandwiching us in, Lori gasps.
I exclaim, "What the Hell?"
Where'd they come from?
"Get inside!" My Dad shouts at us, drawing his crossbow, shooting, killing the closest corpse. "Get inside, quick!"
"Come on," Lori grunts as she and Beth haul Herschel onto his crutches. "Come on, we have to go. We have to go!"
The rest of the group are running up the road, screaming our names and fumbling with keys and guns, ripping the gate to the courtyard open, but it's total and sudden chaos, walkers scattered everywhere. Rick rears his axe back, slamming it into a rotting forehead. The blood spurts. The body falls. We can't take this many on, not like this. Dad was right. We have to run. I unsheathe my knife as Herschel and the girls hobble across the courtyard, my eyes darting from face to face, from yellowed mouth to cloudy eyes to melted skin.
"Mouse?" I call out, feeling almost guilty for wanting to run off and save him. "Oh, my God!"
A body breaks apart from all the others. It reaches out for us, its fingers curved like scythes.
Beth squeals, terrified. "Get away from us!"
There's a disgustingĀ SQUELCHĀ as I drive my knife into its knee, the cold blood splattering my cheek. Twist. Pop. Its knee buckles.
Herschel and Beth scurry up the steps as I pull my knife out ā I don't have to kill it. It'll only waste time ā shouting coming from all directions as I watch another walker lunge for Herschel and Beth. He raises his crutch, bracing the rubber stub on its chest.
I stand up, ready to help.
As soon as I'm back on my feet, a loud alarm rings out, freezing me to the spot. Who turned those on?
"Harley!"Ā My Dad's voice roars from across the courtyard.Ā "Come here!"
"Let's go, girl!"
T-Dog takes my arm. I'm being dragged toward Dad, tryna spot everybody else. Rick, he's with Lori, Maggie, Carol, and Carl, shoving them all into a big, red cage, closing the door, and fending off more walkers with Glenn. Maggie shoots the lock. They huddle through the door to the prison. They're out. They're safe. Herschel and Beth, they're gone. I think ā I hope ā they managed to escape, too.
Where did all these walkers come from? We blocked the courtyard off, didn't we?
We reach the back of the courtyard. There's my Dad. He lowers his crossbow, a walker collapsing to the ground in front of him.
"Daddy!"
"Get over here!" He shouts, using his bow to bludgeon walker about to bite into his arm. "We gotta go! Gimme 'er!"
T-Dog shoves me forward.
Dad grabs my hand, his grip turning my skin a pure white, and we're running past walkers again, approaching a big, metal door.
He unholsters his gun and āĀ BANGĀ ā shoots the lock off.
"Come on!"
"We can't close this behind us, man!" T worries as we run into the dark corridor, walkers following after us. "What we gonna do?"
Without answering, my Dad leads around a corner, cussing under his breath as he frantically looks around for another door.
After he takes us down what feels like a hundred more corridors, he finds one. "In 'ere! Quick!"
We slip inside. He slams the door shut, taking a step back, staring at it for a moment before it starts to shudder under the weight of the walkers pawing at it on the other side. No more running. God. We've trapped ourselves in here, but at least we're safe, at least we're alive. I wasn't so sure at first, but I can feel the blood pulsing through my muscles now, my breath leaving me in short, panicked bursts.
"Shit," My Dad pants hotly, his sweaty brow glistening even in the dark. "We okay? Baby, you okay?"
"IāI'm fine," I nod shakily, the blaring alarms suddenly cutting out. "W-What happened to everyone else?"
I think I managed to help Herschel and Beth get out safe, but we got separated before I could catch up to them.Ā
"I'on know," He admits, "I'on know. Seemed like we all scattered, but they'll look after each other. Least we're together."
The walker's shadows twitch and warp in black shapes against the grey of the floor, their fingers curling up underneath the bottom of the door like rotten little shrimps, tickling the metal with their chipped nails. They're wild dogs clawing at a rabbits' burrow, thirsting for blood.
When T-Dog doesn't respond, the only noise in this small, dusty room the snarls from outside, Dad asks, "T, man? You okay?"
I turn to look at him, the lack of sunlight making my eyes hurt.
T-Dog is staring at his feet like there's an interesting bug crawling on his ankle, wordless, looking up at us with wide eyes.
"Oh, my God," I breathe, watching the blood pour out.
There ain't no bug on his ankle.
There's a gaping bite.
"My sister used to babysit our neighbour's dog from time to time," T-Dog chuckles to himself, sat up against the wall opposite us. His legs are kicked out lazily in front of him, his smile plump and warm, like he's relaxing on his porch. The only thing missing is a cigarette between his fingers. I'on think he realizes that me and Dad ain't fully listening, or maybe he doesn't care. "Man, he was an ugly thing."
Already, this room smells like death, and there's nothing we can do except stew in it.
The door shudders violently in the background.Ā
"A lil' Scottish breed, or sum. One of them dogs with the big moustache and the angry eyes. Anyway," He sighs. It's difficult to look at him, in a way that makes me feel an aching sense of guilt for averting my eyes like this, but I just have to. I can't look at his smile anymore, or at the puddle of blood, or at the bite, or even at the walls, my gaze stuck unwaveringly on my boots. "There was this one weekend. She'd just got done takin' the lil' guy for a walk, and she was on the phone with her friend, talkin' about a party. 'Course, I was eavesdroppin'."
He wheezes a laugh to himself as my Dad continues to stare emptily at him, not entertained in the slightest.
"I thought to myself, 'Girl. Our parents are gonna kill you if they find out.' She was never the bookworm type, or anythin' like that. She was a bit of a bully, mind. Used to invite me to get ice-cream with her and her friends and make fun of me the whole time-type stuff."
Shut up,Ā I wish I could shout in his face without angering the walkers outside,Ā It doesn't matter now. You're bit!
When I thought I'd gotten scratched back at the quarry, I spent all night thinking of things that didn't matter, so maybe I can't blame him.
"I just got so jealous," He whispers, his smile fading, a sad look in his eyes. "I'on even know what pushed me to do it, but I went into the backyard and I opened the gate. Let the dog out. I knew I'd done the wrong thing when I saw the look on 'er face. I even went with her when she was puttin' up missin' posters all over our neighbourhood, shoutin' his name.Ā Pepper, pepper.Ā We ain't never found him."
"Don't you just sound like a pair'a angels," My Dad dares to joke.
He laughs. "That's what Grimes said."
That was back on the farm, when T was tryna make me feel better 'bout my fight with Carl by telling me a story 'bout his sisters stealing from him. He's always had the most ridiculous stories that make us all laugh, and he would let us, even if it was at his expense.
If I were to think about useless things, too, I'd think of him nicknaming me and Carl,Ā little nerds,Ā him sharing his pretzels with me while I was unwell, how he went with Rick and Dad to save me from Shane, those stupid shirts we got him and Glenn for Christmas.
"Well, ya know what they say about great minds," Dad mutters non-committedly, before there's another thud on the door.
"Daddy?"
"Hm?" He grunts, leaning toward me.
Into the shell of his ear, I shyly whisper, knowing he can't do nothin' about it, "I'on wanna be in here, no more. I wanna leave. Please."
"I know, chicken. I know," He soothes, putting his arm around my shoulders, cradling my head against his side. "M'sorry."
T-Dog asks, "What'd she say?"
"She don't like it in 'ere."
"Well, I'm sorry, too. I'm gonna die," He chuckles incredulously, his belly shuddering. "And all I can think about is that damn dog."
"How you feelin', man?"
"Like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound sack," T-Dog slurs, his head lolled onto his shoulder. "Thanks for askin'."
It's been hours since we trapped ourselves in this room. I can tell, not only because of the way my stomach has begun to roil with hunger and my mouth has gone dry like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other, but because of poor T-Dog. His bald head is slathered in sweat, the droplets sliding down his face as if he's sitting under a showerhead, but I know it's the work of the germs inside his body.
Dad, Merle, and I saw this hitch-hiker get bitten back in the beginning, while we were staying with this group of people whose supplies we ended up stealing. They was the types to pick up needy travellers on the side of the road, even if they'd just been bitten.
Merle wanted to kill the guy when he found out, but it only took half a day for the bite on the man's leg to do it for him.
"I think we gotta start thinkin' aboutā," My Dad cuts himself off, before muttering, "What we gon' do."
"We wait here until somebody finds us," T-Dog insists, repeating the plan they had came up with hours ago. The walkers won't leave us alone with him bleeding all over the floor the way he is, and to go out there would be suicide. "It can't be much longer, now."
"I'mā," Dad sighs. "I ain't talkin' about the walkers, T. You know I ain't."
He nods his head in jerky movements.
"I-I know," He says.
"I'on think they're gonna find us before it matters." His way of saying,Ā Before you turn. "Iā I can't have you in here with Harley."
When T-Dog doesn't have anything to say in reply, Dad forces himself to continue. "So... I got a bullet or a bolt. That's where we're at."
"No." He adjusts himself against the wall, lifting his head to look him in the eye. "I don't want you to."
"I know," He placates. "I'm sorā"
"I'mma do it myself," He says matter-of-factly. "I'm a man of God. It might be a sin to take myself out, but I'll be damned if I fought this hard and got this far, only to let another man kill me. Even if he's my brother. So, I'm doin' this on my own terms. It has to be me."
Stomaching his words, my Dad slowly nods to himself, before he sends me a sympathetic look.
T-Dog bides his time for a couple more hours by telling us what must be every story he has, but it's after he throws up into the corner of the room that it becomes obvious to us that we just can't afford to wait any longer for the group to find us.
"We ain't gonna be sappy about this," T-Dog warns us as he sits back down, wiping his mouth.
"C'mon. You're one'a the sappiest bastards I know," Dad deadpans. "And I know a lotta sappy bastards."
"I guess I just always wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, if I had to."
"You don't want yer last moments to be with us?"
Coughing up a laugh, T-Dog jokes, "I didn't say that."
I almost want to ask him to wait just one more minute ā That's not a long time. He could do it ā and after that minute passes, I'd ask him again. I know it wouldn't save his life if the group found us right now, but I wouldn't be asking for them, or even for him. I'd be asking for myself. Selfishly, I want just one more minute with him. What ifā? What if he didn't get any sicker? What if he turns out fine?
It's a question only a fool would ask, and I know all I can do now is appreciate all the thousands of minutes he had before this.
"Okay," He sighs, reaching behind him, pulling out his gun and resting it in his lap, staring down at it. "This is it."
It ain't how my Momma did it, but it's just as awful.
"We could still wait," My Dad suggests, giving him an out I know he won't take. "If they find us, they find us. If they don'tā..."
"You heard me, man. Blaze of glory." He looks up at us, his sweaty fingers gently curled around the gun. For the first time since the door closed, he meets my gaze, but he just looks tired, like he could use a long, peaceful sleep. "This is gonna be hard. I'm sorry."
I watched Shane die in front of me, watched him bleed much the same way. At least this time, I'll get the chance to close my eyes.
"You're a tough girl," He gulps. "You been through more shit than most."
"Thought'chu said we wasn't gonna be sappy," I complain, just to get him to stop.
"The first time I saw you, I just knew you were gonna be a lil' terror." He continues, anyway. "Dale, too. Said he knew you'd make it."
Dale always did say the darndest things. The only reason I've made it this far is because of other people. I ain't no clueless airhead can't skin no animal or kill no walker, but my beatin' heart can be accredited to a small group of people, one that includes T-Dog. There's been countless times where I should'a died and didn't, and this is one of them times that somebody else shouldn't be dying, but is.
I ain't special. Just because I ain't died yet don't mean everybody else can't still be alive, too. My Dad says,Ā Ain't no such thing as good or bad luck. Just strong people,Ā but T-Dog ain't weak and there is such a thing as bad luck.
"I thought you would, too," I tell him, hoping it's some sorta comfort.
"C'mere," Dad mumbles, helping me climb into his lap and rubbing his big hand between my shoulder blades as I press my brow to his neck, squeezing my eyes shut. He takes out my hearing aids, and after that, I don't open my eyes for the next few hours.
Like this, I can pretend it didn't happen.
But I can still smell the gunpowder in the air.
"Hush little baby, don't say a word," My Dad's voice rasps quietly in my ear, "Daddy's gonna buy you a mockingbird."
I've never wanted to leave a room more than I want to leave this one in my entire life. If I could, I think I'd claw my way out.
"And if that mockingbird don't sing, Daddy's gonna buy you a diamond ring."
The singing helps. It don't make the smell any more bearable, but it helps.
"And if that diamond ring turns brass, Daddy's gonna buy you a looking glass."
One more minute,Ā I tell myself just like I wanted to tell T-Dog,Ā one more minute, and then another after that.Ā The others have an entire prison to search for us in, with twists and turns every few feet, dust in the air and walkers lining the corridors, and I can't even guarantee they ain't already dealing with the deaths of any of our other people, but I know they'll refuse to stop until they find us.
I keep replaying the scene of the courtyard in my head, remembering everyone who I saw made it out.
"And if that looking glass gets broke," He sings, "Daddy's gonna buy you a billy goat."
Sometime later, I realize I've managed to block out the sound of the incessant groaning because there's suddenly another noise amongst it all ā A grunt too pronounced to come from a walker, then a squelch and a dull thud, like a sack of flour dropping to the floor.
Lifting my head from Dad's shoulder, I look at the door as the groaning becomes lesser and lesser until it disappears.
"They're here. They're here," I say in shock, climbing off Dad's lap just as the door is opened.
"Holy shit," Glenn exclaims as Maggie wraps her arms around me, returning my brutal hug. "You're here."
"We drew them away," She says, pressing a kiss to my cheek. "Oh, I can't believe it. We searched everywhere for y'all."
It's when she pulls away that I make the mistake of following her and Glenn's gazes into the corner of the room, where T lay exactly where I last saw him, the only difference being that his brains are now plastered against the wall in the shape of a flower.
"Don't look," Dad gently scolds me, turning me back around so I'm facing the door.
She stares at the carnage, her lips slightly parted without knowing what to say, before she has to look away, too. "What happened?"
"He got bit," Dad mutters. It's impossible to recount what we just went through in any poetic way, and the rest, they can guess.
"Horrible," She croaks.
"We can come back for him later," Glenn struggles to say, urging all of us outta the room. "Let's get you two back to the cell block."
"Is everyone okay?" I ask him desperately.
As the door closes on T-Dog, Glenn gazes down at me, his face just as exhausted-looking as Dad's, but with a slight glint in his eyes.
"Everyone's okay," He manages to smile, glancing at Maggie before he adds, "Even the new baby."
I look up at my Dad, his shock mirroring mine. "Lori had her baby?"
And that right there isĀ goodĀ luck.
Glenn steps over a body. "Come on."
Author's Note.
In exchange for T-Dog's especially intense death, Lori lives.
I went over SO many iterations for this chapter after receiving a comment suggesting I consider letting Lori and T-Dog live, and honestly, this version was the most suitable one. I decided the other versions were either just too indulgent or didn't fit with the story, but I liked them, too š
Thank you to ermynee, because without them/you, Lori would also be dead right now!
I hated doing that to T-Dog, but I thought it would make for an interesting non-canon scene and wanted to balance out the fact that Lori lives. You'll see also that Carol doesn't get lost, so the whole 'getting stuck and being found' situation was given to these guys instead. RIP T-Dog.
Thank you for reading. Always appreciate you! š
Herschel still looks like he's sleeping peacefully after a long day's work on the farm, with one of his arms flopped over the side of the bed, handcuffed to the frame. His fingers, curled loosely around nothing, refuse to twitch no matter how long I stare at them.
Maybe that's why it's so hard for me to imagine him as one of the walkers.
It's easy to forget that they used to be people.
"You best wake up soon," I tell the motionless old man, trying my best to sound like I mean business. It ain't lost on me that my Dad was in this same position last year, laid up in bed after he took that bullet to the guts and refused to die. It was Herschel that had saved him, only outta the kindness of his heart and nothing much else at all, 'cause he ain't got a bad bone in him, not even one. "We need you."
Crouched at his bedside, Maggie squeezes her eyes shut, a tear slipping down her cheek as she holds his hand.
When she opens them again, they're green and watery like fresh grass after a sun shower.
Even though Carl and I got an earful from our Dads about sneaking off, I'm glad we managed to get the supplies from the infirmary.
His leg ā Or should I call it something else, now that half of it is gone? Is there a word for such an impossible thing? ā is wrapped up in clean, white bandages, no longer pourin' blood. I know any one of us would happily give him one of ours, but we just can't.
"Thank you," Carol glances from me, to Carl, to Glenn. "By the way. I couldn't have done this without your help."
Glenn smiles a bit. "Should I say it was no problem?"
"Probably not," She chuckles softly, going back to tidying up the thin gauze around the wound.
Herschel was always so kind to me, even when I wasn't kind in return. There are just some people who are like that ā Good. Like Dale ā and can't ever be anything else. I used to think it was a weakness, because what good is an animal that doesn't know how to bite? How's it meant to survive? Nobody I ever knew was brave enough to be gentle, but Herschel was. He took us in when we needed help, fed us warm tea and potato soup when all we had to give in return was trouble. He cleaned the blood from my wounds, gave me a clean bed to sleep in.
No matter if somebody is as mean as a snake or as loyal as a dog ā In my case, if they're both ā we all bleed the same.
"Harley?"
Everybody turns at the sound of Beth's voice, the blonde girl peering around the doorframe.
"Yeah?"
"Could you come help me with somethin' real quick?" She asks, adding, "It won't take long."
"That reminds me, actually." Carol tells Glenn, "I need your help with something, too."
"I don't think I can leave Herschel again," He says.
"Let's talk about it outside."
"Um. Sure thing," I nod to Beth, standing from the metal seat and following her outta the cell, and into ours. "What is it?"
She kneels down on Carl's mattress where Mouse is napping, picking up a bundle of brown cloth and laying it across her lap. "He's gonna have a hard time walkin' around with one side of his pants draggin' on the ground. He could, you know, trip or somethin'."
She takes a tiny sewing needle and sticks it through the fabric.
Trip?
Her Daddy's on his deathbed and she's worried about him tripping?
"I just need you to keep the string from knottin' up," She explains as I sit in front of her. "So I can focus on the sewin' part."
Taking the string and picking the tangled pieces apart as she continues weaving the needle in and out, her thin fingers trembling, I decide to humour her, because it's the right thing to do. Some people cry when they're nervous, but I guess others sew up pantlegs.
"I asked Maggie to help me earlier," She muses, frustrated. "But she wouldn't do it."
I almost lose my grip on the string as she tugs harshly on it, catching it at the last moment.
"Oops."
"Apparently, she didn't want me to get my hopes up too high," She says. "You believe that? It's like s-she thinks he's gonna die."
I struggle to know whether or not I should tell her that's exactly what Maggie thinks, and that nobody can blame her for it. I thought my Dad was gonna die when we were on the farm, but it was never because I didn't have faith in him. I was just scared.
Feeling my stare on her, Beth looks up at me through her furrowed brows, pouting, "What?"
I shake my head. "Nothin'."
"Just say it, then." She slumps. "You think the same thing, don't you?"
Gesturing to her with the ball of string, I try to convince her, "Well, I'm helpin' ya, ain't I?"
She sighs as she looks back down at her needle. "Yeah, but I know you're just feelin' sorry for me. I felt sorry for you when your Dad was unconscious. You were like a sad little puppy dog waitin' for her owner at the door, but I couldn't do anything to help."
"I'on think he's gonna die," I insist, because it's true. "I think he's either gonna die or wake up, and that's totally different."
She pulls the needle through with a long, sweeping motion. "Sorry. I'm just... I appreciate you gettin' the medical supplies."
"O'course."
I ain't gonna lie and tell her I didn't second guess going with Carl, but what matters is that I only ever had Herschel in mind.
If you were to ask my Dad, though, he'd say that's exactly what the problem was.
She adds, "Just... Promise to be more careful, next time?"
"Who bribed ya to say that?"
"Nobody," She giggles, biting the string with her teeth and tying it off. "Nobody needs to be bribed to care about you, Harley."
"What'd they give ya?"
"Nothin'!"
"If it was cookies, I want one."
"Oh, shut it." She smooths out the pantleg before holding it up to look at. "There. These will do. Decent, right?"
I smile, "Yeah, you're really good at that."
"Thanks." Folding them neatly and grabbing the next pair of pants, she says, "My Mom taught me all about textiles when I wā"
"Oh, my God!"
Mouse's head whips up.
"Maggie?" I call out worriedly, throwing the string aside and running outta the cell. "What's wrong?"
She's backed up against the wall when I come to a stop outside Herschel's cell, staring wide-eyed at him, shuddering somethin' about,Ā He ain't breathin', He stopped breathin',Ā as Lori pushes past everyone and presses her ear to his chest.
"'Stopped breathin'?'" I exclaim but I don't know who to, horrified it means,Ā dead.
"Oh, Lord," Beth croaks.
Lori lifts her head and without wasting any time, she starts pumping his chest, grunting with each brutal squashing of his sternum. I watch on, unsure what I can do, unsure if I'm gonna stop breathin', too. His heart's stopped, and IĀ knowĀ that means dead.
Lori's hair hangs down, tickling the end of his nose like a feather.
"Come on," She's gritting through her teeth, "Come on."
I swear his nostrils twitch.
I'on even have to think about it. I pull my gun out, point it at his head, watching for any sign that he's waking up in the wrong way. It ain't like all the other heads I've had hovering on my sights. It ain't mishappen, rotted, peeled back, leaking. It's just our Herschel.
The handcuffs rattle.
I gasp.
All the little hairs on my arms stand up.
Lori squeals as his body lurches up like he's being sick and his arms reach out for her, Maggie pulling her into her side.
They hold each other, gawking at him.
Has he turned? Is he gone?
I'm about to move my finger onto the trigger when he lets out a thin sigh, slumps back down on his pillow, and starts to snore like a happy baby, none the wiser to any of the horror he just caused us. Well. I'm gladĀ somebody'sĀ havin' a good time.
Lowering the gun, I look at poor Maggie, Beth, and Lori, suddenly quite ashamed that I had drawn.
When I look to my left, Carl's shakily lowering his gun, too.
"It's okay," Maggie soothes us after a breathless moment has passed. "It'sā It's okay."
"I'm sorry," I say. Even if he had turned into a walker and I was forced to shoot him, it still would'a had her Dad's face on it.
"Don't be, honey. It's okay." She says. "He'sĀ okay."
Beth suddenly breaks free of them and marches outta the cell.
Not wanting her to be alone after what just happened, I holster my gun and follow after her, Mouse at my heel. I don't care that I'll probably be stuck with her for hours. Some people sew up pantlegs when they're nervous, but I guess others help them hold the string.
Beth and I have finished tailoring and folding away all of Herschel's pants by the time Rick, Dad, and T-Dog return to the cellblock, approaching Carl, who's standing in the doorway of Herschel's cell, telling them, "Herschel stopped breathing before. Mom saved him."
"It's true," Glenn nods as they crowd into the cell with us, Rick coming to his bedside, sadly gazing down at him.
"I almost shot him, Dad," I whisper, thinking of the night he was forced to raise his gun to Dale's head. "Thought he turned."
His expression solemn, he reaches down and wraps a hand around the nape of my neck, squeezing reassuringly.
"S'alright," He rasps quietly, leaving the rest unsaid.
I let the pressure calm me as I watch Herschel's sleeping face, his wrinkled mouth parting as if to speak a silent word.
Wait.
His mouth is parting.
Realizing the same thing, Maggie rushes to his side.
"Daddy?" She softly calls out to him, searching his closed eyes for something. "Daddy, we're here."
"We're here," Beth agrees.
Please,Ā I think to myself,Ā This has to be it, right?
I feel Dad move his hand onto my shoulder, stopping me from reaching for my holster. He rests his fingers on the grip of his gun. Rick gently puts his hand on Maggie's back, glancing back at him with a tense sort of look before focusing on Herschel again.
Then, without any grand affairs or a single word from anybody in the room, his eyelids slowly flutter open, and they're not milky, or bloodshot, or twitching, or anything. They're just a tender blue, focusing and unfocusing on the bottom of the bunk above him.
The first thing he turns his head to look at is Maggie's tearful, laughing face. Beth lets out a squeaky cry, and the corner of his mouth pulls into a weak smile as his hand twitches in the handcuffs, tryna reach out for them in the human way, gentle and loving.
He's okay. He really is.
Dad relaxes, removing his hand from his gun.
Taking the keys from his belt, Rick unlocks the handcuffs and they fall away, letting Herschel embrace Maggie's wet cheek.
"Hey, sleepyhead," Beth sniffles.
"You scared us," Maggie adds, putting her hand over his.
He looks over her shoulder at Rick, at me and Dad, at Carol and T-Dog, at Lori, Glenn, and Carl, and lastly, at smiling Mouse.
"I hope my bed hair isn't going to s-scare you all over again," He says hoarsely, making us all chuckle. "How long?"
"About half a day," She says. "We dressed your leg up real good. Got the bleedin' to stop. You're gonna be okay, Daddy."
"Of course I am," He smiles.
"Let me get you some water," Carol says as she turns outta the cell, leaving everyone to bask in the moment, sharing relieved glances.
We got no choice but to believe him when he sounds as certain as he does. He's a tough one, alright. Tougher than all of us combined.
When she returns, Maggie shuffles outta the way to give her room to crouch down, helping him take a long sip.
"Easy," She cautions, pulling away. "We want you rested up."
"Yes, I think that's a good idea," He agrees, peering down his belly at his half-leg, giving it a bit of a wiggle.
"Does it hurt?"
"Oh," He chuckles. "Only my pride, my dear. You did an excellent job."
"Well, I had an excellent teacher," She says proudly, brushing some of the hair back from his face.
"And, Rick," He reaches out for the man, who takes his bony hand in his strong ones. "I think I owe you just about everything."
He shakes his head. "No more than I owe you."
"I haven't quite taken an axe to your leg, yet, son," He jokes, releasing his hand to point at him, "S-so, not exactly."
Dipping his head, he laughs, "Fair enough, old man."
Taking Maggie's hand again, Herschel's eyes begin to droop sleepily before he falls back asleep, a faintly happy look on his face, like he's having a nice dream. Maggie kisses Beth's cheek and holds her Daddy's hand under her chin, placing another kiss there.
"Let's leave him to rest," Carol says, gently guiding everyone out. "He needs it if he's going to be up and walking."
Stepping into the cell hall, Rick sighs heavily, "That was a relief."
"He's a tough son of a bitch," Glenn agrees.
Rubbing her belly, Lori asks, "What happened with the prisoners?"
"We tried to take cell block C with them," He explains, his brow splattered with wet blood and gunk, but with no wound. "I mean, these are guys who thought we might have a phone for 'em to use, so you can imagine how it went. The rest, I'on think the kids should hear."
"So, where are they now?" Carol asks.
"Two of 'em are in cell block C," He says, leaving me to wonder where the other three are. "It's a mess, but they agreed to stay."
I ain't sure how I feel about havin' neighbours in here. The prison is definitely more than big enough to share with them, but some neighbours are just better off dead, even if they give us dry corn and canned beef. It's not what Dale would've said, I know, and I think that's the reason Rick let them live. For now, at least. It's not as if they've threatened us, unlike that group of bandits he murdered last year.
Yes, the prisoners' leader did have his gun aimed at Rick's head, but Rick had one aimed at his, too.
"Hopefully they stay out of our way," She shrugs, though she doesn't look very happy. "Nothing else we can do."
"Don't worry. We're keepin' an eye on 'em," T-Dog reassures her.
"Well, I'm gonna go clean myself up," Rick announces, his exhaustion suddenly obvious. "I need a good sleep."
"Ditto," Dad groans.
That night, I think we all rest more than a little easier knowing that Herschel will survive.
My knife sinks into the soft meat of the walker's knee, the bone popping open as I twist the blade like a key.
It gives out a gurgling cry, gripping the fence with its blackened fingers as it falls to its knees, tonguing at the wire.
SQUELCH.
Stabbing it through the eye, the rotting lady's jaw goes slack, right before she slumps over and another walker replaces her.
"Nicely done." Dad says. He's making good on his promise to let us help clear the courtyard. "How many's that now, girl?"
"Eight," I pant.
He's standing a few feet down the fence from me, holding his hand over his brow and sneering against the glare of the sun. Behind him, Carl deftly drives his knife into the knee of a walker and then its head, pulling it out with a spray of blood.Ā
In the background, Mouse is busy doing his own thing, sniffing weeds.
"Good. Make it ten." Dad approaches me and takes my knife from me, wiping it on his thigh. "And remember to keep this clean."
With the newly gunk-free blade, he swiftly kills the walker in front of me.
It drops to the ground.
"Like I said, it don't gotta be sparklin', but you don't want all that sticky shit dryin' on there and makin' it harder for you to pull out," He explains, handing it back to me. He watches me stab the knee of the next walker, breaking the bone. "That's it. Now the head."
Its face presses up against the fence, eye level with me, only managing half a growl before I stick the blade through its eye.
It's all the more satisfying when I imagine it's the walker that tackled me on the farm, or the one from the hospital, or the one from yesterday. It sure feels good being able to kill a thing that wants to killĀ me. With each kill, I'm gettin' better, faster, more accurate.
"And you, boy?" He calls over to Carl. "How many?"
As the walker in front of him collapses, the boy grins. "Ten. Guess I've mastered the class, huh, Daryl?"
"Ten?" I sass. "You lyin'."
"Make it twelve," Dad orders, wiping the smug look from his face. "Remember yer footin'. S'why you're stumblin' all over the place."
I can't help but snicker.
Dad unlocks the small gate as I cripple and take out one more walker, bringing me to ten kills, one for every one of my fingers.
Dad pulls his bandana over his head. One of the many walkers shuffles toward him, but before it can do any damage, he effortlessly lunges forward with the fabric and braces it between its teeth, dragging it into the courtyard and tying a knot behind its head.
As Mouse starts barking at it, I soothe, "Shh, boy. It's okay."
Dad kicks the gate closed, and with the walker angrily chewing on the bandana, he muscles it over to us.
"We're gonna practice without the fence."
I remember we did this a few months ago on the side of the highway when we were first learning how to properly kill walkers.
Until then, we only knew the basics ā Aim for the head!
Now, he makes us practice every few days.
It's one of my favorite pastimes. Even better'un playin' soccer and ridin' our bikes!
"Y'all know the drill. It can't bite ya." He reassures us, the walker's thrashing no match for the strong grip he's got on it. "I'm gonna let it go and you're gonna take it down however you feel is best. But you wanna keep on its eight and four. Why ya gonna do that?"
"That's its blind spots," I recite. "And ya don't wanna get behind it, 'cause it might fall on ya."
"Easier to dodge," He agrees. "Harley, you're gonna go first. Carl, you get seconds. Hold the dog. Ready?"
Carl crouches, holding Mouse still. "Yep."
"Ready," I nod.
"I'm right here if things get messy." Dad shoves it forward. "Alright. Meathead, in the ring. Show 'im who's boss, girl."
The walker locks eyes with me.
Without anything to hold it back, it starts to clumsily stride toward me with purpose.
"You got this, Harley," Carl cheers, Mouse whining worriedly.
"I'mma kill it, Mousey," I reassure him. "It's okay."
Let's do it. Eight and four, eight and four. As soon as it's within arm's reach, I dodge it, ducking under its arm. Confused, it looks around, sniffing at the air to find out where I went because it's a fuckin' idiot. Rearing my knife back, I drive it into the back of its knee.
It stumbles drunkenly, landing on its stomach, but with my hands still wrapped around the knife, I fall with it.
Landing against its thigh, I grunt.
Mouse's whining gets louder.
"I'm here. Stay calm," Dad coaches me as Carl shushes the dog. "Get that knife out 'fore it gets back up."
Righting myself, I pull the blade out and crawl up to its head, stabbing the nape of its head.
Pink brains and blood leaks out.
It's dead!
As I stand back up, heart racing, Dad comes forward and starts untying his bandana from the walker's mouth.
"Good work," He says, shaking it out. "You know why you fell, right?"
"I ain't took the knife out quick enough. Pulled me down with it."
If I was up against any more walkers, they would'a piled on top of me while I's on the ground.Ā Eaten alive,Ā in Rick's words. Eugh.
NotĀ a good pastime.
"Was only practice," He soothes, kissing my hair. "Next time, give it a bit of a wiggle and it'll free up quicker."
"Alright."
"You didn't warn us aboutĀ usĀ falling onĀ them,Ā Daryl," Carl jokes, releasing Mouse, who runs straight for me.
"Shut up, Carl," I smile, petting the dog's big snout. "It was only practice."
"Woohoo, Harley!"
We all look up at Glenn standing out in the field with Rick, grinning and holding a bunch of firewood.
"Good job!"Ā Rick adds, waving.
Dad scoffs. "Didn't know we had an audience."
I cup my hands around my mouth. "Thanks!"
After that, Dad dresses up another walker for Carl to practice on. While he don't fall over like I did, he keeps nervously dancing around it like some sorta twinkle-toes ballerina, until my Dad's patience wears thin and he shouts at him to make a move, and he finally kills it.
SQUELCH.
"Alright," Dad says, "Back to work."
Fifteen,Ā I count in my head, pulling my knife free, when the door behind us suddenly swings open.
What was that?
At first, I think it's more walkers spilling into the courtyard, but when I turn around, I see it's not walkers at all.
It's the prisoners.
The white guy with the ugly moustache and the black guy that wanted a phone to call his family.
That's them, emerging from the dark.
"Oh. H-Hey, guys," The shorter of the two greets us breathily, holding up his hands as the door shuts behind them. "Fancy seā"
"Back the Hell up!"
Dad's got his crossbow aimed at their heads before they can take a single step toward us, his finger curled around the trigger.
Mouse startsĀ bark, bark, barkingĀ at them, but I lunge toward him, holding him back.
"Holy shit," The prisoner exclaims, looking like he's about to wet his jumpsuit, or cry, or both. "Man, w-we don't want no trouble."
If he ain't careful, he's gonna get an arrow to the head and a dog bite to the neck.
"WhatĀ doĀ you want?" Dad growls, blocking their view of me and Carl with his body. "Cell block weren't cozy enough for ya?"
"Please, mister. We know we had a deal," He begs. I ain't never heard nobody call my Dad,Ā mister,Ā before. He must really wanna get on our good side, but what he don't understand is that when it comes to strangers, we don't got no good side. "But you gotta understand! We canāt live in that place another minute, you follow me? All the bodies. People we knew. Blood. Brains everywhere. Thereās ghosts!
Rick, Glenn, and T-Dog must have noticed all the commotion, rushing into the courtyard.
Frowning hard, Rick demands to know, "What's goin' on? Why're they out here?"
Lowering his crossbow, Dad sneers, "Fellers got cold feet, is what I'm hearin'."
"We just can't live like that," The taller one says. "We can't."
"Why don't'cha move the bodies out?"
As Glenn herds me and Carl behind him, T-Dog scoffs, "You ain't done that, yet? You should be burnin' them."
"We tried," The blonde blubbers.
"The fence is down on the far side of the prison." The other explains, making everybody share tense glances with each other. A downed fence ain't good at all, if we wanna fortify this place. "Every time we drag a body out, those things just pile up."
Well, that's what they're best at. Piling up. That, and bitin' into people like they's burgers.
It's a bible-level miracle these two ain't dead, yet.
"Look," The weaselly little man says, becoming even more antsy at our prolonged silence. "We had nothing to do with Tomas and Andrew. You tryna prove a point? Yeah? Wā You proved it, bro! I swear, weāll do whatever it takes to be part of your group!"
When he gestures to me and Mouse, Dad's hands twitch around his crossbow.
"Youā? You got a dog? I mean, that's awesome," He puffs. "Clearly, you been doin' well for yourselves. What's his name?"
"Don't'chu fuckin' talk to my daughter, man," Dad scolds him.
"It's just, I loveā We love dogs. I actually used to have a labradoā"
"Man, will you stop?" His friend tuts. "Have some balls."
Mouse gives a little huff.
He don't like 'em, neither.
"I'm just sayin'," He sighs, "I really, really, really don't wanna go back to that cell block again. Please don't make us."
"Our deal is non-negotiable," Rick replies coldly. "You either live in your cell block, or you leave. We have kids here."
"We ain't pedos, mister. Swear!"
"Jesus Christ," Glenn mutters under his breath, because this guy is embarrassing.
"We ain't here to test that theory out," Dad scowls.
Rick agrees, "You even think about steppin' into our cell block, and you can consider yourselves dead."
"You know, I told you this was a waste of time," The tall one scoffs, smart enough to ditch the begging route. "These guys aināt no different than the pricks who shot up our boys. You know how many friendsā corpses we had to drag out this week? Just threw āem out-like. Those were good guys! Good guys who had our backs against the really bad dudes in this joint, like Tomas and Andrew!"
None of these guys were put in here for no reason.
Everybody used to say that only bad guys went to prison, but I never believed that. I saw the people I cared about be rounded into cop cars and driven away into the night more time than I cared to count, always watching the flashing lights disappear down the road while standing on the porch with Merle, shivering in the wind in my pyjamas. No, I knew it was only people the police ain't liked that went to prison.
Whether it was because they was murderers, or brawlers, or tax-dodgers; or if they had only given 'em a sour look.
My Dad, he was all'a those things, but it weren't no sour look that got him put in handcuffs in the end.
He ain't like Herschel and Dale. Ain't all good. He's nasty and he swears and he's killed people, but that's only part of him.
I feel a little bad for these two.
They're clueless, like babies. They don't even got a word for the walkers, yet. But I know that even though our group love my Dad for who he is, and they know he's been to prison, and that it don't make him all bad, they won't feel the same way for these two strangers.
The most important thing we have is each other.
I've seen first-hand what we do to anybody that threatens that.
"Now, weāve all made mistakes to get in here, chief," The man continues uselessly. "And Iām not gonna pretend to be a saint, but believe me ā We paid our due. Enough that we would rather hit the road, than to go back into that shithole for one more second."
He doesn't know he's just described to a T what's about to happen.
Rick levels them with an indifferent look. "Then you're on the road."
His face falls.
And it's probably not because he won't get to pet Mouse.
"We'll die out there."
Again, Rick shrugs.
Raising his crossbow once more, Dad herds them outta the courtyard and into the field.
Author's note.
I enjoyed writing this chapter! Probably because nothing bad happened. We have low standards here at Harley D. Dixon.
As always, I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading! š
I couldn't tell you why if I had to, but people have always told me,Ā You're mature for your age.
It wasn't that I didn't appreciate the sentiment ā Whatever it was ā because at the very least, I could always tell it was supposed to be a compliment. It's just that I don't think I ever understood what I was doing that was so unusual it deserved a compliment, in the same way that most things that deserve compliments are unusual. I was never particularly smart, or pleasant to look at, or good at much of anything except, maybe, starting fights whenever they suited me. No, I was dumb, sour-looking, and bad at almost everything.
It was when our neighbour Betty told me the same thing that I finally realized why I hated hearing it so much.
Merle was right about you,Ā The fat-faced lady smiled to me as I helped her hang her wet laundry in the sun to dry, her kids' laughter like echoes in the distance, their bicycle bells jabs to the heart.Ā Sometimes I wish my little ones were more like you.
I remember watching the two kids in the dirty side-mirror of her small car, wishingĀ IĀ was more likeĀ them.Ā But Merle had bragged to Betty that morning about how much I loved to help with chores, that I wasĀ mature for my age,Ā that I didn't want to play.
It was as if I'd done something wrong without even knowing it.
I liked watching cartoon animals sing on TV. I liked doing my hair in the mirror and messing it up. I liked collecting sticks.
How could I have been mature?
Maybe it was because I never cried when I got beat?
It never mattered any ā I didn't have a choice. It was already decided that I was,Ā mature for my age.
Thank you, princess,Ā Merle would croon to me,Ā You're a good girl. You ain't like them other shitheads, is ya?
No, Merle,Ā I'd reply, so many times that I ended up believing it,Ā Never.
Walking in front of Glenn on our way back to the cell block, I sneak a glance at Carl at my side, catching his guilty expression.
I wonder what I did to deserve that rank, or if I ever even did?
Glenn takes the keys outta his pocket and unlocks the door for us. As it creaks open, I realize that I prolly shouldn't humour that line of thinking right now, because Lori is waiting for us in the cell hall as we step inside, gasping when she notices us.
"Oh, my God," She exclaims, spooking some of the others into turning their heads. "What hapā?"
"They wanted to find the infirmary," Glenn tells her before she can even ask. "Found them trapped in a room."
"What?" She looks from him, to us. "Are you crazy?"
We ain't supposed to respond that, but I'm guessing the answer is,Ā Yes.Ā
"What made you think that was a good idea?"
"All things considered," Glenn admits, shrugging a shoulder as he passes the duffel bag to her, watching as she unzippers it. Inside, there's pill bottles and bandages piled high, making for an impressive sight. "We made out alright. Got just about everything we needed."
Maggie approaches us as Lori stammers before sighing, "It's hard to be very pleased with this, knowing how you got it."
"He's alright?" Glenn asks Maggie.
Nodding sullenly and looking at the bag in Lori's grasp, she asks, "Is this from the infirmary?"
"Yeah," Carl answers defiantly, "Me and Harley went. WeĀ hadĀ to."
Lori sighs, "We appreciate thatā"
"Then get off my back."
"Carl," Glenn scolds him harshly. "Don't talk to her like that."
"Don't worry about it." Flustered, Lori brushes him off and nudges Carl's shoulder. "Just go wait for your father. Both of you."
We're so fucked,Ā I think to myself as Carl lets out a begrudging huff and spins on his heels, stomping off in the direction of the dinner hall. With one last guilt-ridden glance at Glenn, I turn and follow the boy through the gate, unsure if I wish we had not gotten caught, or if we had just not gone at all. I sit next to him on one of the benches, with nothing else to look at except for the single door across from us.
An awkward silence settles in as Carl takes off his hat and sets it in his lap, fiddling with the brim.
"Sorry about before." He looks up at me, regret swimming in his sky-coloured eyes. "With the walker. I should've killed it."
It weren't exactly the best part of my day, but I don't blame him for it.
"It's okay."
"Not really," He insists, putting his hat back on. "Glenn was right. If he wasn't thereā..."
I watch as he glances at something over my shoulder ā Herschel's cell.
"I-I just didn't have a clear shot," He continues, meeting my gaze again. "Its head was so close to yours. I didn't wanna accidentally shā"
"Okay," I interrupt him. "I'd be mad at'cha if ya didĀ that."
I kinda need my head.
He pauses for a moment, before seeming to forgive himself, smiling a little. "Anyway. I just wanted to say that, beforeā Y'know."
Before our Dads get back.
"You make it sound like we're 'bouta die," I joke.
He shrugs fully, as if to say,Ā You never know.
I'm counting the stains on my boot when the door opens.
"Food's here," T-Dog calls out with a toothy grin on his face, peeking out from behind the cardboard boxes in his grasp.
Carl and I stay quiet as Glenn and Lori come out from the cell hall to greet him and Rick, asking them where they found so much food. According to a very happy T, we got canned beef, canned corn, and even canned cans, all thanks to a deal they made with the prisoners, who I suppose have accepted by now that money ain't the way to bargain no more. They didn't look like the deal-making sort, but I know they don't have to be. It must've been that in exchange for some of their food, Rick didn't hang them all from a rafter somewhere.Ā
As T-Dog heads into the cell hall with the boxes, Rick places the two big bags of dried corn on the table.
Sparing us a short glance, he asks Lori, "Any change?"
"Bleeding is under control and no fever," The woman tells him, tucking her hair behind her ear with a blood-stained hand, and hesitating before she adds in a lower tone of voice, "But his breath is labored, his pulse is way down, and he hasnāt opened his eyes yet."
Rick opens his mouth to reply, but she cuts him off.
"And that isn't even the worst of it," She says coldly, nodding in our direction. "Guess what happened while you were gone?"
Just tell him already, I sigh to myself, wanting the band-aid to be ripped off already.Ā Carol had the nerve to callĀ usĀ dramatic.
He frowns. "What?"
"They snuck out," Glenn admits, putting his hands on his hips. I watch Rick's expression morph from concern into something sharper, and more like cold anger. "Slipped right past us while we had our backs turned. Wanted to find the infirmary and get supplies."
"Nobody was hurt, thank God," Lori quickly interjects. "But this is something that affects all of us."
"Just thought you'd wanna know," Glenn adds.
Without even saying anything in reply, Rick calls out T-Dog's name, ordering him to go keep an eye on the prisoners.
"Tell Daryl to get in here," He adds in passing.
"Oh, God," I groan, but not quietly enough.
He agrees, "'Oh, God,' is right."
When my Dad appears in the doorway, approaching us with a frown on his face, all I want to do is grab ones of them spoons from the table nearby and start digging a grave for myself. Rick doesn't waste any time telling him what's going on, and I know I just said I wanted all of this to be over with already, but I take that back. My Dad's body seems to flood with anger as if it were just more blood in his veins.
"You didĀ what?" He snarls at us, his lips curling into thin lines around his teeth, loud enough to make us flinch.
"There's far more pressin' matters for us to worry about right now," Rick lectures us, leaning back against the table opposite us and crossing his arms over his sweaty chest, "Than chasing after the two of you, 'cause you wanna go around playin' superheroes."
"Are you fuckin' kiddin' me," Dad grumbles as his outburst wears off, turning to pace around in the background.
"I shouldn't even be wastin' my breath on this," He says.
"Then don't," I quip. "We get it."
We all have a role,Ā or whatever it was that Herschel said to us before his role almost killed him, anyway.
"No, I don't think you do." He argues, looking back and forth between me and Carl. "I'on think you get it at all."
"We put ourselves in danger," Carl says boredly.
"When you were specifically told not to," He pointedly adds, as my Dad sits down on the bench behind him, lacing his fingers in front of his mouth, glaring at us over his dirty knuckles. "I got T in the other room babysittin' the prisoners right now. I got a cell block to clear out, so that I can keep y'all safe in here; y'all don't have to sleep with your eyes open anymore. I'm not havin' tea and biscuits with 'em."
"We didn't think you were." Carl says convincingly. "We know this isn't a game. We know it's hard work."
"Hard work?" Dad interjects, pointing to the cell hall. "Look at that stump on Herschel's leg and tell me it's hard work."
The boy falters a little. "Okay. Okay, it's not hard work. It'sā..."
"It's life orĀ death."
I couldn't feel worse about what happened to Herschel ā In fact, I feel partly responsible for it all just by the simple fact I weren't there to help ā but to tell the truth, I couldn't give less of a shit that it's life or death out there. Why the Hell should I?
"What?" I can't stop myself from sassing, "So, it's fine if Herschel dies, but not us?"
"Harley, who here do you know is fine with Herschel dyin'?" Rick asks to make me feel stupid. "Maggie? Beth? Me?"
"Nobody, butā Y'all let him go wit'chu in the first place!"
"He's capable."
"So am I," I retort. "And don't talk to me 'bout, 'You're only nine,' because every one'a y'all have messed up at some point, too!"
"I'm not saying we haven't," He placates sternly. "We mess up all the time. But when push comes to shove, could you take me down?"
"Yes," I say without thinking, because that question makes no sense.
"Really? You could knock me on my ass?"
"Wanna find out?"
"Hey," My Dad grits. "Watch yer mouth."
"Because that's what you're gonna be face to face with when you're squarin' up to a walker, Harley. You got your knife. Your gun. You know how to take 'em down when they're behind a fence or twenty yards away. But at the end of the day, you ain't even pushin' four and a half feet yet, and you know as well as I do they'd eat you alive out there, no matter how tough you think you are. No matter how strong."
I hate that he's right. I sure couldn't take down that walker that had me by the arm before.
"Hell." He lets out a little laugh. "I've known full-grown men that thought the same thing."
"But I'm mature for my age," I say even though it means nothing, because even if it don't feel like it, I know it must be true.
Dad frowns deeply. "Who told you that?"
"Merle," I admit easily. "And Betty, and Mrs Kannard, and Dennis' Momma, and even Uncle Kyle. They all said it."
"Baby," He sighs harshly, always faltering at the mention of his brother. "You're just a kid. You ain't mature for nothin', alright?"
"So they was all lyin', then?"
"Yes. Yes, that's what people say to kids who ain't allowed to be kids," He explains without confusion, battling with his own impatience. "That's what they say so's they can boss ya around and make ya feel bad for cryin' after theyĀ makeĀ ya cry. S'just nonsense."
"It's not," I tell him. "It's 'cause I ain't like other kids. I'mā I'm tough. So's Carl. That's why."
"You're tough," He agrees, "But you ain't no different. You're just as dumb as any other kid I've ever met. Just as innocent."
Funny how when I'm bragging about how mature I am, I feel my smallest. I'm a phoney.
I guess it was all just another one of Merle's lies, then.
"I know you wanna help. I think it's really admirable of you. It shows you care; you have courage. It don't change the fact that these are your lives we're talking about here," Rick says softly after a long pause. "And I'm not gonna explain to you why that's important."
Embarrassed, I resume counting the stains on my boot because at least with this, there's a simple answer. I think he was right. I didn't get it. I ain't even sure I do now. It's all so confusing that it's makin' my head hurt like a sore thumb. What I learnt is that I'm important, but I'm not important enough to make a difference. I'm tough, but I'm also dumbĀ and innocent, and for some reason, even though I love Herschel like he's my grandpa, and he's the reason so many of us haven't lost our minds yet, his life is more expendable than ours.
All I want to be is what people think I am. Merle thought I was mature. Carl thinks I'm helpful. Dad thinks I'm tough. I can't control what they think about me, but I can prove 'em right. If I's whatĀ IĀ thought I was, I'd just be a useless girl, and I couldn't bare it.
"I'm going to assume the message was made clear." He says. "We can talk more later, alright?"
This ain't what I signed up for when I said yes to Carl.
As Rick pushes himself off the table, my Dad jokes, "Seems like you're always talkin' more later, Grimes."
"Tell me about it." He muses tiredly. "I need to go speak to Lori and then we can head out."
"Sure."
As he walks away, Dad scratches at his temple and considers me and Carl, before he drops his hand.
"That was fuckin' stupid, sneakin' off like that." He says plainly, like he's telling us the sky's blue. "You get that, right?"
"Yeah," We both say.
"I'm gonna throw y'all to the walkers if it ever happens again, ain't that right?"
"Yeah," We say again.
He slowly nods to himself. "Good. 'Cause I mean it. They like little kids the best."
Against my own will, I'm suddenly scrunching my nose at him and smiling. "No, they don't, Dad."
"Sure they do. They told me."
Carl clearly doesn't buy it. "Walkers can't talk, Daryl."
"That's what they want you to think," He says ominously, grabbing his crossbow and standing from the bench. "Tell ya what ā We gon' be gone a while, but when we get back, I'mma be pickin' off some of them walkers in the courtyard. Need me some volunteers."
"Me," I quickly stick my hand up like I'm in school again. "I'll do it."
"And me," Carl nods.
"Okay," Dad lilts as I lower my hand. "But only if you're free."
"We're free," I confirm. Anything is better'un washin' dishes. "We're super free. Free-est we ever been."
His mouth twitches up into an amused smirk. "Alright, then."
Rick marches back into the dinner hall, stuffing a glock in the back of his pants line and nodding toward the door. "C'mon. We're up."
"Stay your asses in the cell block this time," He warns us before slinging his crossbow over his shoulder and following after him.
The door clatters shut.
I let out a big breath.
"We're alive," Carl says, shocked.
Not wanting to jinx it, I stand from the bench and we head back into the cell hall together.
End Notes.
The phrase, "You're mature for your age," in my opinion, is almost never a good thing. Or even true!
As a kid who was told this all the time growing up, I know that it's mainly because of people mistaking trauma in children for maturity. I wanted to reflect my experiences in Harley's. I make a point try not to project any of my own feelings or opinions onto characters because I want them to stay authentic, but I felt like it would be plausible that she went through the same thing as I did.
Hours later, the rays of sunlight shrink back behind the barred windows, making way for night.
"Let's do the dishes, kids," Lori says to me and Carl after dinner has ended, swinging her leg over the bench.
As everybody disperses from the tables and starts heading back to their cells, I grab my dirty bowl. "Okay, Lori."
"Yes, Mom."
The soapy water in the wash bucket sloshes around my wrists as I scrub the grease outta the plastic bowl, shaking the droplets from it and throwing it in the clean pile. This ain't how I would'a spent my free time if I had the choice, but it ain't so bad.
Thoughts of Dad cross my mind as I grab another bowl and plunge it beneath the suds, thumbing the gunk out. He's the one that caught dinner for us tonight while he was out on his impromptu walk. A fat possum and an even fatter rabbit, courtesy of Mouse. He would'a had to leave the prison to find them animals, which is not where he said he was gonna go, but we ain't bothering him about it. It's best not to, when it comes to my Dad. It only ever ends up making things worse, and I'd say things is worse enough already. He'll come around.
Standing elbow to elbow with me, Lori stops her light humming as Herschel approaches our makeshift kitchen.
He's about to add his bowl to the pile when Lori flicks some water at him.
"I don't think so, Mister Greene." She warns him, ever the mother hen. "The time for that has come and gone. Kitchen is closed."
Chuckling, the old man placates, "Yes, Ma'am. I can see who runs this operation. Don't worry, I'll wash it."
"I'm only kidding," She relaxes, tryna take the bowl from him, but he just rolls up his sleeves. "We can do it."
"No, no. I insist, darlin'." He smiles. "I'm used to a little elbow grease."
She relents, "If you say so."
"IĀ wasn't kidding," Carl jokes, giggling a little when both Lori and I flick the water at him this time. "What? I wasn't."
"Silly boy," His Momma weakly scolds. "Don't get distracted."
As we work together in silence, Herschel seems to forget that he only had one bowl to clean, or maybe he just really likes washing dishes. I try to keep up, but I can't stop my eyes from drifting to Lori's belly every now and then, as if it's a zit I'm supposed to pretend I don't notice. I guess I'm just worried. I heard some women die when they give birth, either from pushing the baby out or not being able to.
"Hey, Mom?" Carl lilts after a few minutes, pulling me outta my own head. "Can I go with everyone else tomorrow?"
His Momma quirks a brow. "Everyone else?"
"Yeah," He continues like it's nothing, like he's talking about the weather. "To find the cafeteria and the infirmary."
It had to happen at some point. It feels like asking the adults if we can get in on one of their crusades has become a daily ritual for us. What Carl's talking about sounds a lot more exciting than washing dishes, which is what we're supposed to want to help with. You can't really die doing this, unless you're the world's biggest idiot, but they can't baby-proof everything. We need to grow up at some point.
Not wanting to be left out of the action, I add, "I wanna go, too, Lori. Can we?"
"Um," She scoffs as she glances knowingly at Herschel, instantly squashing all my hopes. "I don't think so."
Carl's face scrunches up in annoyance. "Whā? Are you serious?"
"As a heart attack."
"Harley. Carl," Herschel patiently asks, "Just how many times do you plan on setting yourself up for the same answer?"
"Maybe later," I put on my best adult-voice, because he's right. I do know the answer. "Not right now, kids. Blah, blah."
"I understand where you're both coming from," He says, "But when we set a boundary, it's usually for a very good reason."
My Uncle Merle used to make me apologise to him three times whenever I went in his room, and I never saw much reason in that.
Whatever. I ask, "But, whenĀ isĀ later?"
"When you're grown," Lori answers.
What? When we're grown? That's forever away!
"Well, what was the point of Dad teaching us to shoot, then?" Carl throws his hands up. "And Daryl teaching us knife skills?"
"Carl, it'sā"
"To defend yourselves," My Dad's voice suddenly rumbles off the concrete walls around us, and I swear the room shrinks a little. The light from the electric lamp illuminates his brooding face as he stalks closer, squinting at me and Carl. "Y'all think it's fun?"
"N-No," Carl argues, making sure to look my Dad in the eye. "We just wanna help you guys, Daryl."
"Yeah, Dad," I agree. "He ain't lyin'."
"Yeah? And what kinda help is a thirteen-year-old and a nine-year-old gonna be to us when shit hits the fan, huh?"
"Shit hit the fan at Thanton Memorial," Carl smugs. "Needed her help then, didn't you?"
"If I have to hear about that goddamn hospital one more timeā," Dad grumbles to himself, rubbing his forehead as he takes a seat. Dragging his hand down his cheek, he levels us with the same glare, one that almost turns the water cold. "That was different."
Feeling like I'm missing out on some big secret, I ask him, "How?"
They needed my help ā Lori and the baby needed my help ā and I wasĀ eightĀ years oldĀ back then and IĀ stillĀ did it.
"Well, you was there, wasn't ya?" He jokes flatly. "There weren't no other choice. We were on our last leg."
"S'that really it?"
"Please don't gimme bullshit, girl. You really think I'd'a sent'chu in there if there was another way? Ya think Rick would'a?"
"Listen, honey, I've thanked you countless times," Lori puts her hand on my shoulder. "Rick and Carl? They have, too. That was a very brave thing you did for us, but it doesn't mean that we should be throwing you into every dangerous situation because of it."
I shrug her off. "I'on wanna be thanked. I'on care about that! I'mā Iā I can be helpful!"
"No," Dad impatiently explains, gratin' on my last nerve, just like I'm gratin' on his. "Ya can't."
"Daryl," Herschel warns.
He ignores him. "You wanna help? Sure. Done. Help me skin dinner tomorrow, but don't ask me about stuff like this."
"IĀ canĀ help with stuff like this." I know I can.Ā HeĀ knows I can. Everybody knows I can. "Carl, too. We'll listen real good."
"Why don't'chu just listen now?"
"'Cause it ain't fair."
What if somebody needs my help again, and I ain't there? What if somebody dies, and I could'a done something to stop it, even if it was just something simple, like spotting a walker before anybody else did, or lending them one of my bullets when they run out?
He chuckles, not amused in the slightest. "It ain't fair yer Daddy don't want'chu to die?"
"What? I ain't gonna diā," I force out a sigh, so harsh; some of the pearly bubbles below me disappear. "I just wanna help."
"Nowadays," Lori says gently, "Those are the same things. Okay?"
I feel like I could disappear with a simple huff of air, too. "No, it ain't. We're all still here."
Not all of us,Ā Nobody says.
I know it's not safe out there. Not many places left are, but I hate having a knife, and a gun, and two hands and a brain, and not being able to do nothin' with any of them. I don't wanna wait for danger to find me until I can fight back. Why can't I land the first punch?
I wanna be out there. I wanna be where it's most important, killing them that wanna kill us. Not just doing dishes.
"Are we really gonna go over this again?" My Dad says tiredly, looking straight at me. "Really, baby?"
I don't get what he means. "What?"
"Think."
He can't be talking about the hospital. Does he meanā? I think he means the farm. Yeah. He's got the same look on his face as he did when he found out I snuck into the shed last year, not caring that Jim might'a hurt me, or tried to kill me. I think I wanted it. It was after Shane and Sophia died, and everything felt pointless, like somehow even the smallest blade of grass was plotting against us.
Is he really asking me this right now? It ain't like that again. I don't wanna die. I just wanna help!
Even if those are the same things nowadays, I'on care.
That's a better reason to die, anyway ā Because of them I still got, instead of them I already lost. That's exactly how Morales died, fending off a hoard of walkers from our camp, and how Merle and Shane died, protecting me. Everybody wants to be a hero.
Realizing what he's tryna play at, I throw the wet bowl down. "Are you pullin' my fuckin' leg right now?"
"Language," Lori hisses as it rolls across the floor.
"Fuck you," I snarl. She couldn't stop me even if she tried. "I ain't done nothin' wrong. Goodnight!"
As I jump down from the bench and storm toward the cell hall, Carl gets one last word in with the adults before turning away and running after me. I ignore a concerned glance from Maggie and Glenn, heading straight into our cell and climbing into my bunk.
"This is stupid," I complain to nobody, crossing my arms over my chest. "Treatin' us like we'on know how to fight."
Carl flops down on his mattress. "I know!"
I gotta calm down. Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and feel the air fill my lungs, then let it all out again. Some of my anger escapes with it, leaving me to slump against the wall, glaring at my Dad through the wall and hoping he can feel it on his skin.
"Just 'cause I'm nine," I say, the edge to my voice suddenly gone, "Don't mean I'm useless."
I promised Carl this place would work out ā I'm holding myself to that, but I can't do it like this.
"Hey. You're not useless," The boy argues, frowning at me like I've just cursed his entire family. "You help me all the time."
Sure. "With what?"
"I don't know... You shared those beans with me this morning?"
It's hard not to roll my eyes. I was thinking more along the lines of ā Well, actually, I don't know what I was hoping to hear.
"Thanks," I say, anyway. "You help me, too."
"Good."
"Knock, knock?"
When I glance up at the doorway, I see Herschel approaching us, and just the sight of him calms me down a little.
"Cooled off, yet?" He asks, seeming to find us a little amusing, for whatever reason.
"Kinda," I say.
"You two have always been a pair of hot heads, haven't you?" He smiles. "My, you've got fire in your hearts, that's for sure."
"Kinda," I say again, even though the better answer would be,Ā Absolutely.
I brace myself for Herschel to break out into a pep talk of sorts.Ā You should listen to your father,Ā or something like that.Ā You kids don't know how good you've got it.Ā I ain't sure I wanna hear it right now, but I ain't mean enough to tell him to go away.
"We all have a role," Is all he says instead, like it should mean something to us, and walks away.
But it doesn't, so I pull the covers over myself and stuff my hearing aids under the pillow.
'Goodnight,'Ā Carl signs from down below as I get comfortable.
'Goodnight.'
Closing my eyes, I try and focus on how lucky I am to be sleeping in a bed for the first time in half a year, before I'm drifting off.
"You won't be needing that," Rick says the next morning, taking the helmet from his son's hands.
Pouting, the boy lets him.
"Don't worry, Grimes." My Dad sneaks a glance at me. "They already got that run-down last night."
Sure did,Ā I think. I can't wait for the scolding he's gonna give me once they make it back.
As they continue to get organised, Maggie tightens the straps of her Dad's thick vest, helping him fit into it. He don't look like any SWAT officer I ever imagined, with his thin, white hair pulled back into a ponytail, the softness in his gaze as he watches his eldest daughter. All I have to do is remember the night the herd came down on the farm and he was right there with us in the fray, shotgun cocked.
I know he can handle himself, but I don't think I'm the only one that would rather he be relaxing somewhere.
If he's allowed to go, why ain't me and Carl?
It's best not think about it too hard, otherwise I might just start up another argument right here and now.
Rick tosses the helmet aside into a nearby pile of trash. "Great. Let's go."
Maggie secures the last strap, smiling weakly up at her Dad and patting his chest. "There ya go, Daddy."
"Thank you, sweetheart."
The group wordlessly file out of the cell hall together, Carl stepping up to the gate and closing it behind them.
"Come on," Carol says once they're out of sight, "Let's do something while we wait."
Carl shrugs. "Like what?"
"I think this place could use a clean," She suggests, looking around at all the gross shit on the floor. "Don't you?"
He cringes. "I used to get paid pocket money for stuff like this, you know."
Without waiting for an answer, the woman just titters and walks off in the direction of the maintenance cupboard, grabbing some broomsticks and dust pans out of it and handing them to us, a dreadfully chipper look on her face. "We're far past pocket money, sweetie."
"If bosses don't pay they workers," I tell her, feeling a little smart, "I heard they go to prison."
"I'm already there," She reminds me.
Remembering all the cells and bars around us, I go, "Oh."
"So dramatic, the pair of you." She chirps, full of energy. "Come on. No time like the present."
"What's that mean?" Carl asks as she chooses an area to start sweeping.
"It means, 'Get your little butts over here before I start swinging this thing around'!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Beth and Lori join us after a few minutes, grabbing some more broomsticks and getting to work sweeping the debris.
"Hey, Harley?"
After half the cellblock has been cleaned, I look up from the end of my broomstick. "Yeah?"
Lori points at the bin. "Take this outside, please?"
"Sure thing." I prop the broomstick up against the wall and walk over to her, lifting the plastic bag outta the bin.
Carol glances over her shoulder at me. "Just put it in that dumpster out there."
"I got it."
Tying the handles into a knot, the same way I'd tie my laces, I carry the bag outta the call hall and down the dark corridor, elbowing the door open. Sunlight peels over the metal, blinding me as I step outside and hop down the concrete steps.
As I pass the fence, the walkers on the other side take turns groaning at me like I'm a celebrity.
Blowing a wet raspberry at them, I throw the bag into the dumpster.
It lands with a soft rustle.
As I make my way back to the prison, I try to take comfort in the fact that Rick, my Dad, and everybody else that went into the Sharpsburg hospital managed to clear it out without getting hurt or bitten, but that doesn't mean it's gonna be the same inside the prison.
Pushing past the door and letting it creak shut behind me, my footsteps echo around me as I walk.
Anything could happen in there, and Carl and I are doing Spring cleaning in the cellblock, safe and sound. It ain't fair.
I can't believe you'd bring that up again,Ā I argue to my Dad in my head, because I always seem to do that after the fact, when it don't even count,Ā I don't care what Lori says. It ain't like that anymore. I don't wanna die. You think you know everything?
I'm your father,Ā I imagine he'd tell me,Ā You think that counts for nothin'?
"I'on care if you're the King of England," I mutter to myself as I turn into the cell block. "I just wanna help."
I'm lingering there on the concrete platform without even realizing it, lost in thought, staring at nothing.
SLAM.
I flinch.
The door crashes into the wall.
Maggie's hair whips around as she cries out, "He's losin' too much blood!"
"Open the gate!" Rick shouts.
"Help us!"
Did she just say,Ā Losing blood?
I run up to the railing, grab it, look at the whole thing unfold below. Did I walk into the wrong building? The group flood into the dinner hall without any warning at all, screaming,Ā Help us, The gate, Open the gate, because somebody's hurt. I already know it. There's the sound of metal clattering against the floor ā Wheels ā Those are the wheels of a cart being pushed through the crowd, and the body laying on top of it ā White hair, black vest ā that's Herschel. And that's just the thing. He's a limp body, leaking blood onto the floor.
My skin goes ice-cold at the sight, like I've been dunked in a lake, and that's how I know I'm not dreaming.
Another group of people stroll into the cellblock after them ā All strangers, dressed in blue jumpsuits.
Who the Hell areĀ they?
"Help us!"
Carl opens the gate for them. I push myself off and go running after them, ignoring the strangers. They don't matter.
Carol drops her broomstick. "Oh, my God!"
"Daddy!" Beth shrieks. "Daddy, no!"
"Is thatā?!"
"Is he dead?" I shout. Everyone's pressed tightly around the cart. All I see are elbows and sweating bodies and lots of blood. I can't get in. I want to see Herschel. My voice don't even sound like my own, echoing in the tall ceiling with all the others. "Is he dead?!"
"Baby, get back," My Dad warns, "Get back!"
"Is he dead?!"
"No! Get back!"
"In that cell!"
"Turn! Turn it!" Glenn shouts, making a sharp turn into an empty cell with the cart, narrowly avoiding a crash. "Come on!"
I'm on their heels like flies on shit, no matter what Dad says. I'm not in the habit of listening much lately, anyway. Slipping past the doorway, I push my way to the front, and it's instant, they way I wish I hadn't. Herschel's face is blanched, wet and pale like a under-boiled egg, and his pantleg is empty from the knee down.Ā That's impossible,Ā I think, but it don't change what I'm seeing.
His leg. His leg, it'sā It's gone?
"Get him on the bed," Rick fusses, Carol stealing a rag from the bedside and wrapping it around the butchered stump.
"Did you cut it off?" Lori frantically asks.
Cut it off?! Why would she ask that?
"Yeah."
Oh, God. I ain't never heard of anybody gettin' they limbs cut off, except maybe a pig or a deer, but they ain't alive when it happens. That'sā That's just wrong. That's all types of wrong. We need our legs. Rick cut it off? Can people live without a leg?
As Beth reaches for Herschel, I panic, "Dad?"
"He got bit," He explains, before he heads outta the cell with his crossbow drawn. I think of the strangers, but only for a second.
"Ready?" Rick braces his hands under Herschel's body. "One, two three! Lift!"
I hug Beth's arm as they haul her Daddy onto the bed, shouting at each other to grab towels, blankets, rags, anything. Her skin is slippery with his blood, red and warm and terrible, but I don't let go and neither does she. Herschel got bit. It had to be somebody.
The blood just keeps pouring and pouring, soaking into the mattress until it can't hold any more.
I watch it pool into a fat bead like an expensive ink, spill, and splatter onto the floor.
Please, no,Ā I think,Ā Herschel can't die.Ā What about the soybeans? We have to grow the soybeans.
"No, no, no, sweetie," Lori soothes her, hugging the girl's head to her chest like a Momma would. "He's gonna be okay."
Rick asks Carol, "You think you can stabilize him?"
"I need to keep his leg elevated. Get some pillows!"
"He's already bled through the sheets," Maggie shudders.
"We can burn the wound to clot the blood," Glenn thinks aloud, and he's not bluffing, not at all. "I can start a fire."
"Please don't do this," Beth begs.
Carol takes some more rags from Carl, stuffing them on top of all the others. They only stay white for a moment. "No. The shock would kill him. Itās not gonna stop the arteries from bleeding. We need to keep it dressed and let it heal on its own."
"Did you manage to find the infirmary?" Lori asks them. "Whatever's in there, he's gonna need it."
"No." Rick rakes a hand through his greasy hair. "We hardly made it to the cafeteria as it was."
A voice booms from around the corner.
"I go where I damn well please!"
"Who are they?"
"Other survivors. Prisoners," Rick explains, taking a step backward outta the cell. "It's alright. Stay put. Glenn?"
The man looks up from all the blood on the floor, grimy streaks down his face, like tear tracks through dirt.
"Do not leave his side." He insists. "If he dies, you need to be there for that."
You understand what I'm saying?,Ā Are the words that hang in the air.
Glenn's taken aback for a moment, because Rick means that he might have to murder Herschel, but then he nods.
"I got it," He promises, tender.
"I can bring T in here ifā"
"I got it."
Slowly, Rick nods, glancing between us all.
The smell of blood only becomes stronger when he leaves. I didn't even know we had this much of it. How's it all fit?
"It's okay," Lori says again. Beth pulls away from me and curls into the woman's side, hugging her waist. "Shh, honey."
I stand there, my hands sticky with nothing to hold onto.
It all happened so fast. It always does.
One minute, I was sweeping the floor and worrying about stupid things like arguments, and the next, Herschel is just a body, losing too much blood. I wish I could do more, but it sounds like we've done all we can for him with what we've got right now. Maybe a better thing to wish for would be for him to get his leg back, or for me to have been able to do something to stop this. Was it possible?
It's selfish to think that they didn't try their best to keep him safe, that somehow, I could do better, but it's worse to think that this happened for no good reason at all beside bad luck. I can fight walkers, but I can't fight bad luck. I don't think anybody can.
When Glenn takes my wrist in his hand, I flinch, meeting his soft gaze. He's blurry. I think I've started to cry.
Gently, he asks me, "Are you okay?"
"N-No." I glance at the old man's face again. It looks like he's sleeping, like it doesn't hurt. "He'sā He's not well."
"No," He agrees. "But we'reā. I'm gonna take care of him."
"Please don't kill him," I ask him nicely, as if good manners are what's stopping him. "Iā I don't think I want you to kill him."
"I know. It's gonna be okay," He pulls me in for a hug, repeating the same thing to Maggie over my head. "It's gonna be okay."
Wrapping my arms around him, I hold on tight and only let one tear slip from my waterline before I squeeze my eyes closed.
The soybeans. All I can think of are the fucking soybeans.
As he pulls away, I wipe my arm across my face.
"Sorry."
Dixons don't cry, my family always said ā among other things.
I'on want anybody to think I've given up on Herschel. That's not it at all.
"It's okay to cry," Glenn's reassuring me, but I'm already pushing past Maggie and turning outta the cell.
The commotion coming from the dinner hall is a good distraction. I let it lure me over to the gate as I force myself to suck up the tears, sniffling away the last of my sadness. I grip onto the metal bars and peep around the wall, tryna make sense of what's going on.
"How many of you in there?" A scary-looking man I've never met asks Rick. Shit. He's pointin' a revolver at him.
Our leader doesn't flinch. "Too many for you to handle."
The prisoners stare him down, face to face with Rick's cool demeanour and the bowman behind him, glaring down his sights.
People.Ā Those are people.
We ain't seen anybody else for months, and I imagine they ain't seen any, either.
I don't have to know much about these guys to tell they ain't no friends of ours. The shortest man curls his fingers into fists at his sides, shifting on his feet like an antsy chihuahua ready to pounce. He ain't look like all that much compared to the monster of a man behind him, who's as tall as a fridge, and just as stocky. I bet he got put in here for cracking someone's head open like a coconut just because they looked at him funny. Then there's a lamer-looking pair. A man that looks a bit like the small one, and a blonde with a country-moustache.
The scary man with the curly hair, who I think is their leader, stands at the front of their small group.
"You guys rob a bank or somethin'?" He asks superstitiously, adjusting his grip on the gun. "Why don't you take him to a hospital?"
Dad and Rick share a cutting glance with each other without even moving their heads, one that says a million words.
A bank?
A hospital?
What's that clown talking about?
We ain't robbed no damn bank.
I remember on the first day of all this, everybody in our hometown flocked to the supermarket as if there was a sale on, and while they was stealing cash outta the registers, Dad and Merle was stealing food. Nobody wants money. Not like they used to.
Rick turns looks back at the prisoners. "How long have you been locked in that cafeteria?"
The scary man shrugs, a twitchy movement. "Goin' on a year."
"A riot broke out," The big man adds. "Never seen anything like it."
"Attica on speed, man," The white one agrees in an accent like mine and Dad's.
"Ever heard about dudes goin' cannibal? Dying, coming back to life? Crazy."
"One guard looked out for us. Locked us up in the cafeteria. Told us to sit tight, and threw me this piece," The leader explains, gesturing with his gun and taking a pause before he admits, sounding almost embarrassed about it, "Said heād be right back."
"That was two-hundred-ninety-two days ago," His friend says.
The blonde helpfully adds, "Ninety-four, according to myā"
"Shut up!"
Closing his mouth, he pouts sadly at his feet.
"We were thinking that the army or the national guard should be showing up any day now."
It begins to add up. This is awkward. These men have no idea what lays beyond the walls of this prison, do they? I can see it on their faces, that they think a phone would still work if they were to pick one up, that half the population of America ain't dead, and that neither are their families, or whoever else they left behind. I almost feel bad for them, like when I'm looking at an animal I'm about to shoot.
They couldn't guess the shit we been through if they tried. Things we seen, they prolly ain't even had nightmares of. In my life before, I never dreamt of no walking corpse with its guts hangin' out, no girl stumbling out from a barn, no lady being eaten alive.
"There is no army," Rick tell them, his voice flat, uncaring. He would know. We all would.
Not sounding so scary anymore, their leader stammers, "What do you mean?"
"There's no government," He continues. Their faces fall and fall and fall with each admission. "No hospitals. No police."
I guess it does sound kinda scary when ya say it out loud.
"It's all gone."
After a beat of silence, the blonde one asks, "Are you for real, Mister?"
"Serious."
"What about my Moms?" The big man despairs, frowning at the floor.
Your Moms is dead,Ā Is what I'd tell him.Ā All the Mommas are. Except for Lori.
"My kids. My old lady. Yo," The man beside him steps forward. If he wasn't wearing a prison uniform, he could be any old Joe at a bus stop or a gas station, asking for the kindness of a stranger. "You got a phone or something, so we can call our families?"
"You just don't get it, do ya?" My Dad rasps.
"No phones," Rick doubles down. "No computers. Far as we can tell, whole world's ended. Every last bit of it. It's gone."
There's something a bit sad about watching it dawn on them.
Dad lowers his crossbow.
These people are having the worst day of their lives, and that's saying a lot, considerin' they was locked in a cafeteria for a year.
"Ain't no way," The leader breathes.
Rick shrugs. "See for yourselves."
They hesitate. I wouldn't wanna see it, either. It's a lot better in here, where the sun is dim but the blood is old.
"Okay," He eventually lowers his weapon, too. "Show us."
As the prisoners are herded into the corridor, I let my hands slip from the gate, wondering what's gonna happen to 'em. They can't stay with us. That's for sure. The last person we let stay with us ended up with his neck broke, swinging from the end of a noose.
Looking away, I head in the direction of the bathrooms so I can wash up before my skin is stained forever.
"If we get him through this," Carol's saying as I stop by Herschel's cell. "We'llā"
"WhenĀ we get him through this," Lori corrects.
"We'll need crutches."
"Right now, we could use some antibiotics." She grabs another rag. "Pain killers. Some sterile gauze. We need that infirmary."
"If thereās one, weāll find it," Carol reassures her as she joins her on the floor. "You gotta be worried sick about delivering the baby."
She fixes Carol with a plain look and squares her shoulders, making herself look as strong as she can.
"Look at me," She says, her pretty face covered in sweat and muck. "I look worried?"
A little.
Carol considers her for a moment. "I think you look disgusting."
Soft laughter fills the cell.
"So do you," She says, before focusing her attention back on the old man. "We'll get through this."
The faucet squeaks as I turn it off.
The rust-colored water swirls and dribbles down the sides of the dirty porcelain, snaking into the plug hole. I've had a lotta different people's and animal's blood on me in my short time alive, but it's never felt quite this awful when I've washed it off afterwards.
Flexing my clean fingers a few times, I look up through my lashes, staring into the cracked mirror on the wall.
My face is a color-by-numbers, shattered into a million little pieces all stuck together, glinting under the florescent lights.
Even like this, I can make out the stump of my ear peeking out from under my hair. I always can. It's hard to believe what Carl said last night about me not being useless, when that's exactly how I feel right now. Maybe Dad was right ā I'm no hero. Just nine.
Stepping outta the bathroom and into the corridor, I almost jump outta my skin at the sound of a voice.
"There you are."
Whipping around, I feel myself relax when I realize it's just Carl. "Oh. What is it?"
He wastes no time asking me, "You heard them talking before, right?"
"Who?"
"Carol and my Mom," He explains, keeping his voice low. Uh, oh. He's cooking something up. "About the infirmary."
Yeah, I heard. "They said we need crutches and ant- anto- antobā?"
"Antibiotics." He agrees helpfully. "Yeah. I was thinking you and me could go and get them together."
"What?"
"It's okay if you don't wanna come, but you know I'd keep you safe," He says reassuringly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure nobody's there. "The others are all waiting for Rick and your Dad to do it, but they're too busy and we're running out of time."
Wanting to help when the adults were gonna be right there beside us was one thing, but going alone?
It seems the silence has spoken for me, because he feels the need to add, "I know where it is. There's a map."
Part of me wants to push past Carl and tattle to Glenn about all of this. It would be the right thing to do, and I'm sure it's what my Dad would want, but the other part of me, the one that feels small and puny but is actually the biggest part of me, wants to tell Carl to count me in. We would be helping Herschel by bringing back those supplies. Helping everyone. Ain't that everything I been wanting?
"Are you sure you know where it is?" I caution, 'cause I know I'm gonna say yes to him. "Like, exactly where?"
There's a reason we're thinking about doing this in the first place. Those corridors ain't the safest place to wonder around in.
He nods. "We go straight, right, left, left, right, and it'll be on our left."
That means absolutely nothing to me, but I believe him. "You know we're gonna get in big trouble."
"Yeah. But I'd rather get in trouble than sit here and do nothing," He shrugs. "Like I said, I won't be mad if you wanna stay."
He makes a good point. "I'm in."
"Awesome." The boy nods back down the corridor. "We need to go grab some stuff first."
I follow him into the cell hall and wait outside one of the rooms we're using as storage as he ducks through the doorway, stealing an empty bag and a flashlight from underneath the bottom bunk, before he reappears at my side again. "Good to go."
Hauling the bag over his shoulder, he leads me to the exit door and pushes on the metal bar.
Darkness stretches out on the other side.
We glance at each other.
Like Carol said ā No time like the present.
With one last look at the back of Glenn's head, I step into the corridor just as he starts to turn around.
The door closes behind us.
I strain to make out his silhouette as he beats the head of the flashlight into his hand.Ā Smack, smack.Ā The floor and the walls suddenly blink into existence, the cone of light barely reaching into the depths of the corridor as it groans at us in warning.
"Stay behind me," He whispers bravely, before walking ahead of me and drawing his gun. "Let's go."
"I think Glenn saw us," I warn him, making sure not to lag behind. "He turned around."
"Don't worry. We'll be quick."
He pounces around the corner, training his gun's sights on something a few feet taller than him.
The empty,Ā THUNK,Ā of his silencer sounds out as I step up to his side.
A walker's legs fold in half, collapsing to the floor.
Letting out a sigh, he lowers his gun as the blood begins to spill out of its head. "That was some good aim, huh?"
"Good job, but keep goin', please," I complain, giving his back a bit of a shove.
"Sorry," He whispers as he steps over the body. "I just haven't practiced in a while."
We round the next corner, scaring off a couple cockroaches and sending them scampering under a metal door. I'm glad Carl remembers which route to take. It's impossible for me to know where I'm really going without the sun to use as a compass. All these dirty walls are starting to look the same to me, and I can't remember whether the turn we just took was a left, or a right, or something else entirely.
"We're not lost, are we?" I ask him as we make another turn, noticing a spray-painted arrow on the wall.
"We're not lost," Carl answers boredly. "It's just up here."
"Okay. You ain't painted these arrows, did you?" I wonder, even though I know that makes no sense.
"What? Noā."
Without any warning, I bump into his back.
The corridor is blocked by a bunch of walkers. Oh. Shit. That's too many to take on. They turn their heads to check us out like owls in the dark as they stand there without much purpose, knocking shoulders with each other. The closest one takes a step toward us, with its knee hanging out from a rip in its jumpsuit, as Carl spots a door to our right, pointing at it and hissing something like,Ā In there.
Pushing it open and slipping inside, Carl quickly shuts it behind us before any of the walkers can get in.
"Well, we can't go that way," He sighs as he pulls away, already looking for another way out.
"What happened to your good aim just now?" I tease as they start pawing against the door.
"Shut up." His eyes light up when he spots something. "There!"
He runs up to a set of double doors blocked by a fallen cabinet and grabs onto one of the handles, grunting as he pulls on it.
"Here. Let me help," I offer, pressing my shoulder against the cabinet.
We push and pull until the first door is no longer blocked, andā
"Harley, watch out!"
The door slams into my side. I'm almost knocked off balance as something stumbles through and grabs me by the arm. I shriek, looking up into the back of a walker's throat. Fuck. I try to wrestle free of it, reaching for the hilt of Merle's knife on my thigh.
As soon as I wrap my fingers around it, the walker is suddenly rammed into the door, as if hit by a car.Ā
THUD!
I stumble backwards, dropping the knife to the floor.
Glenn pulls his blade free from the walker's ear.
The body slides down the door, leaving behind a long smear of blood, before collapsing onto the floor.
My heart pounds as I catch my breath.
Holy shit!
When I look up at Glenn, he's already frowning angrily at us. "What the Hell are you guys doing?"
"Weā," I ain't quite sure what to say. IĀ knewĀ he saw us. "We were justā"
"It's no big deal," Carl tries to convince him. "I kept us safe. I killed a walker!"
Glenn gestures to the body. "Well, you didn't kill this one, Carl. What would've happened if I wasn't here?"
We don't need to say it. I would've ended up like Herschel.
Sensing that I really messed up this time, that I can't just argue my way outta this or angrily throw something across the room and walk away from it, I say nothing. This is all too similar to the day Carl and I snuck into the woods and came back only to get berated by our parents for doing something so completely stupid, that we might have even gotten ourselves hurt, or bitten, or maybe even killed.
"You know what? It doesn't really matter," Glenn sighs impatiently, shaking his head at us like we're a couple of gross stains on the bottom of his boot, before he picks my knife up off the floor. "You're here to get to the infirmary, right? That's what the bag is for?"
"We're really close," Carl nods as he hands the knife back to me. "It's just around the corā"
"Yeah, I know where it is," He cuts him off. "Listen, we're here now, okay? We're gonna go there together and then we have to get back to the cell block. I had to leave Maggie in charge of Herschel to come after you guys. You know what that means, right?"
"Well... We didn't think you would," I explain meekly, even though I know he's right. It doesn't really matter.
"You're lucky I did," He retorts, and he's right again.
Whatever scolding we was gonna get for back-chatting last night just got a whole lot worse. God damn it.
"We're wasting time." He holds the door open for us. "Come on. Let's make this quick."
Stepping into the corridor, I mutter, "Sorry, Glenn."
His expression doesn't change. "Save that for your Dad."
Why do bad ideas always seem good at first?
End notes.
I hope you enjoyed reading!
Carl and Harley are just two dumb kids with too much passion. If I was looking after them, I think I'd have to put each of them in one of those backpacks with the leashes on them š
And Herschel ā¹ļø
Let me know what you thought of this chapter! See you in the next one! š¤
