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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀just one bad thing

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⠀The loud creak of the cell doors was accompanied by our slow footsteps as if we were willingly walking into a lion's den. And it felt so, gripping the stranger's katana once again seemed to define me at that moment as live bait. Even as I couldn't see her myself, I knew she was just yearning to see her dear sword again. I was, dangling it like a fleshy worm on the end of a pointed hook.

⠀Hershel, Rick, Daryl and I were making our way into the cafeteria to interrogate the woman. Our leader walked forward hastily, and the angel-vested man let me follow carefully behind his figure. This reminded me of the ever-present knife still tucked in the waistband of my torn jeans. It had been there since we shared cigarettes. Imprinting a sharp existence on my skin.

⠀It also reminded me that I had something she wanted, she appeared to stare knowingly at my every move, which made that thought ever stinging.

⠀I would quiet my words for these moments, as I knew I was only there to build numbers, and judge. Other than that, my thoughts were racing from the images of Harvey's face, still on my mind. This stranger was not necessary to me, she was nothing on my list of things I'd rather be doing. There was a good reason Rick had brought her in, and I knew what it was. I just couldn't wipe my slate clean. I assumed she could feel her unimportance and the pure agony of her presence. To me, that felt like someone had carved a scar on my face that no one could unsee.

⠀I remember that feeling.

⠀"We can tend to that wound for you." Rick started quietly, bringing me out of my wavering thinking. "Give you a little food and water... and send you on your way."

⠀She didn't respond, sticking to her position as she sat on one of the tables, holding just her wound and nothing else. Daryl and I took our place on her right, as the elder of all of us took his seat on another table.

⠀The room felt too big for our sensitive conversation. One echo of one word could make me feel wrong. One sound and this could all go wrong, Each syllable made my spotlight scatter.

⠀Rick continues. "But you're gonna have to tell us how you found us." How she came right up to our gates, with a wanting and knowing stare. How she had those particular supplies and no proof of the need for them. This seemingly disparate and breathing thing just strode up with nothing but all we had been needing.

⠀The woman doesn't say a thing. That unrelenting censorship still bouncing back to us with every line of enquiry.

⠀Continues. "And why you were carrying formula."

⠀There's a beat of silence that seems to go on forever. I used it up by making sure I was a fair distance away from Daryl's line of fire, as I had a deep feeling this interaction would soon get sticky. I could already feel my brain crawling out for some sort of release on this mute, small conflict.

⠀She speaks that steady tone that was her only form of articulation. "The supplies were dropped by a young Asian guy..." My thoughts of Daryl's crossbow leave my mind, and I step closer. "With a pretty girl."

⠀I notice Hershel stops himself from fully sitting down, obviously triggered by her response. I step further, now in front of the man once on my side.

⠀Glenn and Maggie. That is why she had the formula, they had been out looking for this stuff. And now we know they're not where we thought they were. All this time we had been caught up with finding each other, we had forgotten to keep track of where the found people were. My stomach turned, thinking why exactly Maggie and Glenn had dropped such vital things.

⠀My brain, helplessly, moved towards the notion of the worst.

⠀I finally caught myself up into the conversation. "Wait," raising a free hand up to her, everyone looked towards me. "What happened to them?" I could imagine what she said next. *They were killed by someone. I found them dead.* I had to yearn myself to look stronger than I felt. But, inside, little portions of my thoughts started the break-off, and lose itself,

⠀"Were they attacked?" Hershel furthered, demanding, walking the best he could to get closer to all of us.

⠀"They were taken."

⠀She was giving us nothing but short sentences, and it was starting to send a sharp pain all over my head. "By... who?!" I didn't mean to begin to raise my voice, but as my teeth kept grinding together, I couldn't help but up the volume. The conversation was quickening into a disturbing chorus.

⠀I had stepped into the room with such disinterest, and now my skin was crawling with panic.

⠀When she didn't answer straight away, Rick repeated my words. "Taken by who?" We were slowly starting to lose our tolerance for her reticence.

⠀Instead of heading our most desperate questions, she stays at the same level she's been. "By the same son of a bitch who shot me."

⠀I watched the former sheriff lower his gaze to her level, bending his posture and contorting his expression. "These are our people," he growled, grabbing the spot on her leg that had been bandaged with nothing but an old, grey hand-towel. She cried out, fighting against him. This time, it was Rick's turn to raise his voice. "Tell us where they are now!"

⠀She reels back from him, shoving her finger in his face. "Don't you ever touch me again!" She's then standing, eyeing us all down as we grabbed our weapons and got ready for anything she would try.

⠀Daryl's eyes met mine for only a split second before he raises his crossbow, and I uncover her katana, showing it off to her angered expression. I stay out of his way, but feeling the weight of her weapon, my arms became aching from it.

⠀"You better start talking," Daryl warned, and I could feel his threat on the back of my neck. "Or you'll have a much bigger problem than a gunshot wound."

⠀She simply looked down the length of the bolt, furrowing her brows and sneered back. "Find them yourself."

⠀Even though her entire persona was setting my teeth on edge, and the katana in my hand became more apparent, I begged myself to ask Daryl not to shoot. Despite her short answers, those may lead us to our friends. Who knew precisely who had them?

⠀Whatever it took, we would get them back.

⠀But first, we had to get a straight resolution from this woman.

⠀Rick did what was needed, and ushered the crossbow downwards. We had a few moments when she got herself supported, that we all crowded in her view. None of us seemed to know what to say next, as she became a rock in the road,

⠀I decided to dig my way around it.

⠀Putting the katana back in its hold, and sending it clattering to the ground behind our feet, I took three small steps forward. Shoulders squared, and teeth still taught with annoyance, I became the nose of our ship. "You need to stop with the fucking riddles. They're not getting us anywhere." I didn't take much for me to be on eye-level to her, but it took a few more words before she even looked at me. "These are our people," I said those words slowly, hoping to squeeze some form of empathy from this woman. "Why would you pick baby formula up off the ground, and come our way?"

⠀That seemed to stir something in her, and I observed as her eyes came to mine, then left. I chewed on the inside of my mouth, and my chest started to heave when she was prolonging the interval. I eventually let my hands stretch out from their naturally clenched state when I saw her eyes travel back to me,

⠀"There's a town. Woodbury. About seventy-five survivors. I think they were taken there."

⠀I could hear the audible release of air coming straight from my throat.

⠀Rick came up on my right. "A whole town?"

⠀All this time running from walkers, and the memory of former homes — we forgot they may be other rulers on these parts. Other strangers. They were teeming on the edges of our vision like flies around a picnic, just waiting for a taste of what we had. We had been so caught up in the bellowing hells of these dark halls, this foreign gust had swept us from our balance.

⠀Those words. Seventy-five others were just hanging on the edge of our horizon... I wanted nothing more now than to have my eyes ever open.

⠀*Maggie. Glenn. They're lost. Do something.*

⠀"It's run by this guy — calls himself the Governor." The venom in her still tone made me think she had a close, unwanted encounter with him. Still... more words throttling like bullets in my head.

⠀*Maggie. Glenn. They're lost. The Governor. Do something!*

⠀"Pretty boy; charming; Jim Jones type."

⠀I had been within the clasping hands of pretty, charming boys. Driving backwards, and faster in those memoirs of distinct pressure. We had our people to find... under the clasping hands of a pretty, charming boy. I wondered whether I would be of use, but I wanted to be...

⠀Three words more, and I could feel the burning skid of that train's wheels. "He got muscle?" Daryl inquired, and my vision naturally moved from those sprinting doubts to the bullet wound on this woman's thigh.

⠀The toe of my shoe started to tap on the solid ground incessantly, and I hadn't realised my pulse was begging me to calm down. Even though I knew the right reason as to why we weren't just leaving right then and there, I was still bursting with adrenaline to do so. I was going to help find Maggie and Glenn, better yet keep an eye on this outsider.

⠀"Paramilitary wannabes." She mocked. "They have armed sentries on every wall."

⠀"You know a way in?"

⠀"Place is secure from walkers, but... we could slip our way through."

⠀I watched Rick peer his eyes, looking down her body before he trailed them back to her eyes. "How did you know how to get here?"

⠀She lifted her shoulders for a moment. "They mentioned a prison, said which direction it was in, said it was a straight shot."

⠀The noise of my constant fidgeting was suddenly in my ears, and I held my breath for a moment before asking her one more question. "And did 'the son of a bitch who shot you' also hear about this place?"

⠀"No."

⠀Rick finished it with telling her that the father of the 'pretty girl' would help with her wound. I made sure to pick her katana up off the floor before exiting with the two other men, who strode straight back into the cellblocks, leaving room for Carl to come in and take the place of a watchful eye.

⠀I could already tell we were well on our way to leaving before nightfall, yet as I was itching to do so, my chest wanted to weigh me down and tell me... I'm not ready.

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⠀My lance looked entirely pathetic in my almost empty cell. Once in a cell where I had torn pieces of mattress apart for Hershel, moving into a new one didn't make me feel any less unkempt. I wondered whether there was any point in bringing it, as the quick scuffles of the other three men moving along our halls reminded me that we were bringing more than we could carry.

⠀And yet, I was here, staring into the nothing when I should have been making this place a home for me. I'd never had the time. With Hershel... and the baby. Partly losing Rick to the shadows, and an all-round kaleidoscope of guilt blocking my vision, every night I hadn't taken notice of this one room chasm.

⠀My fingers scratched at my bare arms, looking for a hair-tie I had long misplaced, goosebumps raised on my skin when I started to shiver. This would be a long, dark night — Rick's invitation to venture through it was suddenly balanced on the scales of conscience.

⠀The entire group had offered to come, yet it was Rick, Daryl, Oscar, The woman and me who had been given this task. I suddenly questioned why they all had so much faith in me. Maybe it was because I hadn't just been found half-dead; or had lost a leg; burned my face and reclused; knew how to work the generators; was a child; had a kind heart.

⠀All these reasons as to why the others would not come, and now I was trying to figure out the reason as to why I could. No matter how much I wanted to, I didn't trust myself.

⠀"Y'alright?"

⠀My thoughts bottled into my throat, and I turned quickly on my heels to see who had beckoned my state of mind. It was just Daryl. Standing there with light outlining his taller body — he had ushered himself past the flimsy barrier of my room that was a thin, stained bedsheet.

⠀Daryl... wouldn't he know why?

⠀"Yeah," I let out slowly, closing my eyes for a moment to figure out how I was going to word my questions. "Why— why do you think Rick wants me to come?" I noted the wicker basket in his arms, filled to the brim with an array of prison riot gear, and offensive instruments. Then there was the massive gun, dangling by its strap on his left shoulder.

⠀Daryl rose his shoulders for a second before dropping them, daring to look me straight in the eyes. Without his answer at first, I leant over to pick up my improvised weapon, feeling the audible click in my pelvis as I leant back up. But he did give me words, unlike his usual self. "He knows you want to."

⠀"He tell you that?" I could hear my own scared vocabulary. I sounded like I didn't want to go... I just wanted to be sure they did. I needed to amend something. "I need to go with you... but something is wrong."

⠀"I don't trust that woman." I made that very clear to her, and everyone. To me, she was a spirit in a house she wasn't allowed to haunt. "What if they're waiting for us? What if something happens?" Within that small, confined space those walls couldn't hold my panic.

⠀My lips wobbled under that pressure... that pressure burying me down, and making me suffocate.

⠀"Whether it's me, or Rick, or you, or someone else... what if something happens that I can't take back?" I had given him my bare fears, and I wasn't sure I should have buried him under that too.

⠀Moving his head back and forth, it was his turn to move farther yet into my cell, dropping the things in his arms onto my unmade bed, and facing me directly. There were many moments of silence between us, and I understood his part on every one of them. But this one hurt me, and every sound that wasn't a word was torture.

⠀Then he took the gun from his shoulder and placed it in my arms. I wasn't sure what he was doing, until he put one of his now free hands on my right shoulder, threatening to skim the very edges of my pale skin.

⠀The shiver that once ran through me dissipated, and it was like my mind made the click of a lighter sound in my ears. That scratch, and flicker. Burning all that trepidation like bad memories in old photos. Ripping, tearing like I had done with my book of horrors back on the farm.

⠀I only in that brief second was I concerned as to where those remnants had blown off too.

⠀"Hey," he tore at me again. "Ain't nothing gonna happen that isn't supposed to happen, alright." Somehow, even with this certain man reigning in my terror, I wasn't convinced.

⠀I was just a woman who needed to atone, but there was no map or rules.

⠀Gripping the more significant parts of the gun I had realised was my MP5, I had an urge to leave it where it had been stowed away. Return the invite into this escapade... because something was going to happen, and I didn't like knowing whether or not it was in our favour.

⠀I had been relishing in our small world without knowing it, and now that our canvas was extending, I didn't like the uncertainty. All this fucking dread for one day in our lives. "I just— I don't want to mess things up I—."

⠀Daryl stopped me, his grip tightening, and not just on my arm but on our gaze. "We're gonna get Maggie and Glenn, and if we need to do things because of that... it's not your fault." My eyes watered. "It is not your fault, okay?"

⠀He let me go only when I nodded back, trying not to give away the fact that my blame was cumbersome...

⠀"What about you?" I managed to let it out before he had entirely left our space, begging him to stay with me. My voice was much smaller than his, and I barely felt like a whole person. "Are you okay?"

⠀He went to pick up the basket, nodding slowly enough for his answer to be somewhat realistic. "Yeah." The man finally took his eyes away from me, and I felt that shiver again. "I don't really trust her, but... it's Maggie and Glenn."

⠀I nodded in agreement, going to move after him out of my cell. Before that, though, he turned to me once again. This time, I spoke first. "We'll be okay."

⠀A beat, then him.

⠀"We always have been."

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⠀The drive was long, and it wasn't particularly comfortable.

⠀I had used up that lost time by watching the sun as it made its slow movements due west. That simple walk it had done in those minutes made me squirm. It would be night soon, and with that comes the cover of ambivalence.

⠀I had made sure to keep my arms tightly coiled onto the small divots of my gun, pushing myself further and further into the car door as the journey went on. As I had been placed behind Daryl in the car, it only reminded me of other courses I had taken in long car rides to save someone.

⠀I shook that memory off like a bug on my skin, and just in due time as Rick carefully swerved the vehicle to park on the side of the deserted road. The static atmosphere was only charming me to think the worst before I had even stepped outside... again.

⠀Something the woman had said about being better off on foot made our escapade turn a wheel.

⠀We all made our quick movements the get out, some of us going towards the trunk to gather more supplies. And I watched warily, holding the door open, as the woman followed after us all. Limping, and now reunited with her weapon.

⠀With that, I slammed the door closed, moving my body up to hers. Our chests collided until her back hit the car. And her eyes held that stone-like presence they had been since we carried her into our home.

⠀I didn't care what it looked like, and I didn't care why in the hell I was doing this. All I knew was that my panic was slowly grinding down to fine dust I could blow away within a second of anger. I still was... I was always that furious person all this time.

⠀"If there's something waiting for us," I started, my voice breaking more than I wanted. "You'll find out that I'm the one who doesn't get along with strangers." I expelled that threat like it was nothing because I was serious. Even though my anxiety made my entire body quake, the oncoming unknowing made me hold this woman to every word she had said.

⠀She didn't say anything back.

⠀Instead, nodding towards me, an understanding in her expression. She seemed to agree with me, and it made nothing but confusion run through my brain.

⠀As the rest of us unloaded the weaponry from the back of the car, I took my time watching the woman amble away from me, casting a glance over her shoulder before telling Rick that it would only be a mile or two.

⠀Snarling sounded behind them all, as a female walker strode at her fastest pace to find us. As this corpse tried their damndest to reach us, we took no notice. Not a single one of us turned to it but me, and I had that one second urge to get rid of her. But the thought of wasting bullets for this one thing, when we need them to save Maggie and Glenn, I simply followed after the rest of our cluster into the deeper parts of the woods.

⠀As we trekked on further, I followed closely behind the woman and Oscar, while Daryl and Rick took the rear. I squinted under the afternoon heat, as it beat down on us, I urged my body to be less tired than it actually was. Obscuring all my feelings of fatigue, my legs kept on shifting through the rough terrain despite a pain running its way into my stomach.

⠀I craved for this day to be over, and for none of this to have happened. To be reunited with the couple who had been captured, and to lay in nothingness. At this moment, I would rather have felt the cold walls of that prison pressing into my view than becoming worried at every shadow cast by the trees.

⠀After being told that my guilt had made me into a useless piece in this dangerous board game, the journey to becoming that person I once was crept up on me without mercy. The heated interrogation of this woman had lit a fire in that thought.

⠀And with Daryl's assuring words running themselves like ants over my misgiving, I had come to face it that whatever I would need to do, might be worth it... If I were to just one bad thing, all the good things I would do after might make up for it.

⠀The path came to a short incline, and the leaves brushed upwards to the small parts of my legs that were exposed due to the various holes in my jeans. Looking down, I noted for the second time in a while that my boots were on their last string.

⠀"Down!" Rick suddenly hissed, and we all bent our knees to the ground, the man coming up beside me. I had been so in my head, I had relied on the eyes around me to keep watch of our surroundings. Growling rang around us. "Formation. No gunfire." That instruction led me to wrap the strap of my gun on my shoulders, and pull Daryl's knife from underneath my shirt.

⠀The hilt trembled in my left hand, and only when the walkers came into my view did I grip it tighter.

⠀I looked back to Daryl, as Rick moved forward to strike at the frontier of this minute herd. The crossbow in his arms was lifted, and he then brushed past me to aim closer — taking one out that had become alarmingly close. Oscar then swung at another on our left, pushing it down with the small axe we had given him.

⠀The woman watched on, holding her katana with casual readiness.

⠀I straightened my legs, looking past the people who surrounded me to detect any weak spots that would let anything creep up on us. But they only came from in front of us, and when the moans turned into a low rumble, I went to quickly move forward and do my part in this small battle.

⠀But I was stopped by Daryl, who placed his hand on my shoulder and ushered me back when he exclaimed, "There's too many of them!" His words were all too true, as now they started to pool from where we had once been.

⠀I moved back, turning to thrust the knife upwards into a walkers head, reaching as far, and as hard as I could to pinpoint the spot that makes them go down for good. It fell from me, and I leaned downwards to yank the weapon back out of its skin. Blood spurted into its clothes, and I took a second to wipe the sharp object across the side of my jeans.

⠀Rick, still hushed, commanded us. "This way!" And we all followed hurriedly, our future path a mystery to us as we ran from the walkway once in front of us.

⠀We retreated through the more difficult scenery, knocking ourselves against the trees, and nearly tripping over the uneven ground.

⠀As the three men's speed started to pick up, I found myself wavering towards the back of our faction where the woman had been, and then she was in front of me. My breath short, and my throat burning, my heart beat with a cruel amount of speed as I bid my hardest to keep up with everyone else. Feeling the threat whipping at my heels.

⠀A small hut came into my view, and it took me a few more moments than everyone else but we all eventually made our way inside.

⠀"Get the door," Rick hissed, and as I was the last one in, I kicked it back into the frame, earning a loud thud as it shook unevenly in the structure. "Keep it down," he spat, and I bit my lip in slight embarrassment.

⠀I felt physically hit by the God awful stench that filled the hut like a fog, and I coughed out, looking around for whatever was making it. Everyone else mirrored my movements, as I walked further into the centre of the place, holding my hand over my nose.

⠀"That smell... It's loud!" Daryl proclaimed, just as I found whatever might have been making us all gag. Flies swerved around our faces, as we looked onto the animal laid across a smeared, patterned blanket. Daryl's flashlight was swerving over the thing, showing off its decayed state.

⠀"What the hell is that?" Oscar questioned.

⠀"Probably a fox or what's left of one," Daryl answered. I took half a step back when I saw the collar sticking out from its white, matted fur. Its teeth scattered in its mouth, and on the floor. Snout pulled back, and eyes rolled over, greying innards pooled out onto the floor in a mess of moulded, viscous liquid.

⠀The scars on my left arm tightened, as the knife in my hand was squeezed between my tired fingers. My thoughts started to burn... that house and the dog. This space slowly started to become a reminder of the winter just gone.

⠀I felt strong hands come around my upper arms, and usher me past the animal, making my brain clear itself. I knew they were the redneck's, as he squeezed them gently, moving me away from this scene. Then he let go. "I guess Lassie went home."

⠀There was not a single part of this abandoned place that didn't scream out of mind. With hardly anything to pinpoint with my eyes in the darkness, I naturally moved towards the shards of light that made its way through the barricades on each window.

⠀Banging sounded from outside, as walkers piled across each plane of this hut. Their sounds were only attracting more of their kind.

⠀My attention was caught by a small, low bed situated right at the back of the hut. Blankets piled in disarray, and smell cascading into my face of a stale nature. And as I instinctively reached towards the fabrics, my hand shook from the scepticism of this odd sight. I didn't know whether it was exactly necessary to understand what was under what I was reaching for, but it provoked me into slowly pulling the sheet back.

⠀I was abruptly pushed back, feeling the butt of a gun push heavily into my chest, and it made me lose my breath. Almost dropping my balance as I hurried backwards, my arms rose up in surrender as a shotgun was pointed right between my eyes. Accompanied by an elderly man, eyes ample with a crazed aura.

⠀"Who the hell are you?!" The hermit screamed, looking onto the others who now came up and faced this man. With him still aiming at me, but without dropping my knife, I splayed out my palms, getting a good view of the loaded barrel.

⠀Feeling the weight of an imaginary bullet already pressing itself into my temple, I couldn't help but choke out a small sob as my vision blurred.

⠀Trying to keep as calm as possible, I welcomed the words of Rick who wanted to cool them down. Anything to get that fucking gun out of my face. The men beside me raised their weapons, ready to strike back, but all I could do was stand there and hope to hell that this man would not fire.

⠀"We don't mean any harm!" our leader assured, now displaying himself like I did, trying to woo the man to lower his gun from my eyes.

⠀"Get out of my house!"

⠀"Okay, okay we will," Rick continued. "But we can't right now."

⠀"Now!"

⠀I briefly heard the woman say something, but as a slow smoke of rage threatened to bellow from my core, I started to question why I was just standing there. More words, and more words, and nothing was working to shut this guy up.

⠀Blocking out the noise... the whispers, the clanging against the walls, Harvey's words made themselves apparent right then. With probably two bullets at his expense, after me, he could shoot any other person surrounding him then.

⠀Before he could scream another word, and as Rick settled on convincing the man he was reaching for his sheriff's badge, I abandoned the hope for sedation. I quickly reached towards the gun in my face, pushing it up to the ceiling, earning a shot to rebound. It sent fragments of wood raining down on our bodies.

⠀Daryl's knife still in my hand, I threw the consequences of this man's possible actions to the wind as I drove it into his chest, dragging the sharpness up his body, digging, driving, and working my way to his throat. I made guttural movements to crack his figure open.

⠀His chest pried outwards, ribs turning at impossible angles, lungs splitting. Under my hands, I could feel his plump heart at my fingertips.

⠀I remember those bodies.

⠀He only let out small cries, blood pooling from his mouth as I bared my teeth in determination. The sounds of the knife cutting through his flesh filling the air, and drowning out everything else around me. Nothing but this man's life leaving his body, as I pushed harder, I could feel his skin ripping away and sending his soul to the ground in a pool of thick darkness.

⠀I watched his eyes roll back into his head and his breath sputter.

⠀I knew this feeling many times before, and the faces of Randall and Will gleamed themselves into my conscious. In these moments, earning myself delicate tendrils to run through the lighter parts of my mind. I felt it again, those particles of a better me being swallowed by the sight of this man dying in my grip. I made this choice, and with every choice lies the possibility of regret.

⠀I felt the specks of red hit my face and neck, and only when the hermit cried no more did I drop him to the ground. A pile of uncertainty fell with him, and I wasn't scared anymore of what was to come.

⠀What if something happens that I can't take back?

⠀Ain't nothing gonna happen that isn't supposed to happen.

⠀I'll just do this one bad thing.

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note ⛈

my new kink: daryl putting his hands on marley's shoulders.

my literal babies.

and yeah marley killing the hermit was a last minute switch up, because i felt it necessary especially after what harvey has just said to her

she doesn't want to be useless.

and then daryl telling that things will need to happen and that's fine.

her mind went woooooosh.

and yeah bitch THAT IS
WHY RICK WANTED U TO COME

by the way guys i'm going to be doing a video q&a after work today and then editing it this weekend so if u have any questions for me on ANYTHING don't be afraid to comment below.

words : 5364

2019 / 10 / 05

edited ✓

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