Having a last name like Dixon surely gets people to raise their brows. Stepping into the local grocery store for something that most people think we don't need certainly has people looking my way. But ya know what, sometimes we need some damn toilet paper. But around here it's odd to see a Dixon come out from our little retreat in the woods and actually make a trip to town. That's why we all dropped out of school, my brothers and I. Didn't even reach high school and we were already burning our textbooks in the back yard. My name's Harley Dixon, but most call me Harl. It's easier to remember since all of our names did have a rhyme to it, it wasn't hard to figure out the other sibling's name.

I was born five years after Daryl and I've grown up with him. He was the one I spent my time with and was by far my favorite brother, Merle has always been in and out of a jail cell since before I was born. Not sayin' I don't love my elder brother, but he has a habit of being a pain in the ass. I've always been with Daryl though, he was the one who taught me how to survive in the woods for weeks on end. He taught me what Merle taught him, how to hunt and get the necessary things you needed when you were miles from the nearest town. For as long as I've known me and Daryl have always went out for a weekend hunt whenever we could. It wasn't hard to get away from the house but sometimes Daddy had other plans for us. My brothers had it easy with my father, even though we had the same scars over our bodies they were never touched by him. I'm sure Daddy'o had some nasty thoughts a few times when he was drunk off his ass but he never did anything. I was the one who had to put up with the rape. I remember the first time he touched me, me and Daryl were sleeping in our room, he on his mattress and I on mine. Our Old Man had crept in there and from the second the door squeaked as he opened it, I was awake. Living in that house taught you to always sleep lightly and with one eye open. I kept quiet, I didn't want Daryl to take the repercussion of trying to stop him and being knocked unconscious for interfering.

But Daryl knew exactly what happened because the next morning he had said something from under the hood of his old, rusted truck. I lounged in the cab, tapping the toe of my boot against the open door, hoping it'd shake away the memories. It didn't, it did the exact opposite.

"What'd he do to you?"

"Nuttin'," I spat, my nose scrunching at the thought.

Daryl growled. "Don't be actin' like he did nothing, Harl. Tell me what he did."

"You know damn well what he did."

Daryl sighed and shut the hood of the truck, leaning on it and watching me through the window. I can't recall a time where my brother was clean. Hell, I probably shouldn't rat on him 'cause I'm just the same, but he was covered in grease and dirt and clumps of mud stuck to his hair. His eyes peered at me from under all the dirt and grime, staring at me like he could see straight through. "Keep yer knife on ya and stab the fucker if he tries again."

My hand unconsciously slipped down to touch the pocket knife that was clipped to my jeans. That was easy enough, wasn't it? Just stab him, that's all I had to do. Daryl made it sound easy, though. The next time Daddy came to visit me I couldn't bring myself to grab my blade from my pocket before he tore my jeans off. And again like a wimp I just laid there, staring at the ceiling and trying to find some closure to shut me out of the situation. I didn't even cry, crying in the Dixon household was a sign of weakness. Last time I checked Daryl was passed out drunk in his truck and Merle was still locked up behind the bars of that cell down at the local station, miles away from our little trailer in a clearing of the woods. I didn't want to scream for help because I knew it wouldn't do any good. Whenever Daryl was drunk a fucking gunshot right next to his head wouldn't wake him.

Daryl and I almost never talked about it, it was an uncomfortable topic for both of us. Daryl didn't want to come to terms to his little sister being violated by their own father and me, well I don't really have to explain that. The first time we talked about it after the first night it happened was years after. We were out on one of our hunting weekends. We were gathered around the fire eating what squirrel we had caught, it was slim pickings today. I had to go to the restroom so I ventured off by myself and why mother nature decided to show up at that point, I don't know. I was pretty embarrassed, actually, there were no other woman in the Dixon house besides me but I knew what it meant. I wasn't stupid. Ma had burned to a crisp in her own damn bed and all I had were my brothers. I sulked back to camp.

"Daryl," I said as I stepped over a bush. I tossed the toilet paper over by our tent and sat by the fire again.

"Hm?" Was all I got from my brother, he was busy stuffing his face with the charred meat.

"I'm bleeding." I said simply, there was no reason to hide it. I had to tell him, he was the only one out here with me and god forsake if I was going to keep that dirty little secret all to myself. I hoped he'd know something, he had to.

Daryl just huffed, not stopping to look. "Well patch the damn thing up."

I reached over to him and knocked the plate out of his hands. That got his attention. He shot up and looked down at me with disbelief.

"What the fuck, Harl?"

"Daryl I'm bleeding." I narrowed my eyes at him and waved one hand in the air for emphasis. It took him awhile but he did get it, his eyebrows raising up surprisingly.

"Oh, oh." And what he said next didn't surprise me at all. "Well can't ya stop it?"

"Fuck, Daryl, no. I can't."

"Well what'cha want me to do about it?" He growled, sitting back down next to me.

I pulled legs to my chest and laid my chin on my knees, watching the fire. "We need to leave." I looked at him now. "We need ta get out of that fuckin' house."

Daryl rose a brow. "Why? Pa's on his last leg, he's gonna kill over any day now."

"I can get pregnant now. I don't want no fuckin' inbred baby Daryl. Hell I don't even want a baby!"

"God dammit." He got from his spot and paced around, his hands laying on his head. "What the hell are we gonna do? We can't just leave the fucker!"

"Yes we can, we can live out here. We do better out here anyways, all we gotta go is tell Merle when he gets out. We can bring yer truck out here and we'd be just fuckin' fine!"

So that's what we did. We got what we needed. We packed everything in the back of Daryl's truck and slipped down the drive way when the Old Man was snoozing. That's how we lived until Dad died and we only found out that he did when Merle got out and went back to the trailer. He knew exactly where to find us. Daryl and I were gutting the deer we had gotten a hold of a few ways out when Merle's voice echoed through the trees.

"Harl? Daryl? Are you two numb-nuts out here?"

Daryl met me eyes just as I looked at him and we both were thinking the same thing. Should we call back? But before we had time to discuss the matter my brother yelled back.

"Over here, Merle!" We both got up and went searching for him, our eyes watching the trees around the camp.

Merle ended up coming out of the brush behind our tent. He held his hands up on the air like he just hit the jack pot. "What the hell ya'll doin' out here? Ya'know Pops has killed over dead in his own rockin' chair." He sauntered over to us, reaching out to ruffle my hair when he got close enough.

"When?" Daryl asked, his voice quiet.

"Dun' know baby brother, but I went by the trailer and poor thing was rottin' already. Probably a week or so ago." Merle laugh loudly, "You guys kill 'em and 'scape out here? Na I knew better than ta let ya'll 'lone with 'em."

"We didn't lay a hand on Pops, he killed himself." I muttered, wiping my hands against my pants and letting the blood clutch to the denim.

"Now what'cha mean by that, Harl? You've gotten a smart ass mouth on ya since I left, huh? Darylena here teach ya everything you needa know?"

I growled. "Fucker got what he deserved."

"Woah!" Merle smacked my mouth lightly, "You do have a smart mouth on ya." I pushed his hand away.

Daryl finally left the little circle we had formed and went off towards the tent and started dismembering it. "We better go back, then."

After packing up camp all three of us headed back, sitting in Daryl's truck. Merle wouldn't shut up and I sat between both of them so he yapped off my ear the whole way back. "So when did ya'll leave him?" He poked Daryl in the head, his arm was laid on the back of the seat behind me.

"Some years ago." Daryl replied.

I laughed, "I didn't expect the sum bitch to make it this long."

Merle chuckled along with me. "Me neither, baby sister, me neither."

I was glad Merle didn't ask why we had left the bastard to fend for himself in his own trailer, which he seemed to remember how to do since he lasted for years. Merle wasn't going to understand, Daryl and I both knew it. He'd probably make some joke about me being a girl and when I was gonna sprout out him a nephew. So we just said that he was getting on our nerves and we couldn't do it anymore.

"I'm sorta glad he's dead." Merle said absently while he stared out the window at the passing trees. "I woulda killed him myself if he didn't."

"We all would've."

Just as Merle said Dad was slouched over in his own rocking chair. His skin was dark and gray and body liquids soiled the chair and the floor around it. I coughed once Daryl had threw the door open, the smell was more overwhelming than I had pictured it to be. And of course Merle just laughed as Daryl and I gagged.

Once I finally caught my breath and got a good amount away from the trailer I looked to my brothers. "What're we gonna do with'em?"

We decided on throwing him in our pond, since the fucker didn't deserve a good burial anyways. We ended up picking up the corpse and throwing it out the window that was next to his chair because there was no way we were gonna carry him out of the house. I couldn't help but laugh when the dead body hit the ground. I was left with dragging the corpse to the pond and Merle and Daryl had to deal with the rocking chair. I had a difficult time dragging him through the grass, even though I had muscle he was still a 300 pound man. I had a hold of his foot and was dragging him through the long blades of grass that I made a mental note on to be cut. Merle's voice snapped me out of my determination and made me look back towards the trailer where he was standing on the side of it.

"Hurry up Harley! Don't tell me you're turnin' into those little ladies who cries when they break a nail!" Leave it up to Merle to call me by my full name. He did that when he wanted to insult me, he knew I didn't like it. Harley wasn't something I wanted to be called by and most of the time I didn't answer to it.

"Shut up, Merle!" I yelled back and went on dragging the lifeless body. After a while I had made it to the pond and rolled the body in. I watched. It floated for a second before the alligators got a hold of the flesh. I didn't feel sad about what had happened. Yeah he was my father, my flesh and blood, but he was nothing to me. Nothing but a good-for-nothing drunk that enjoyed touching me every night. He deserved what he got, whatever way he had died, it was a good thing he did. Daryl was right when he said one of us was gonna end up killing him. Hell, maybe even all of us would have something to do with it. Lord knows I've thought about sneaking up behind his chair and slitting his throat for years. But you just can't do that, you just can't murder your own father in cold blood. I know it's probably sounding crazy, me saying this. But if you went through what I did, you'd have the same disturbing thoughts.

I walked back to the trailer to find the soiled rocking chair sitting in front it, it smelt too. I made my way up the cinder block steps we had made and stepped inside. The smell had died down but it still made me want to hurl. I'm guessing' Merle and Daryl had sprayed everything down with some air freshener like it was going out of style. I grabbed my stuff that was sitting by the door and headed to Daryl and I's room, looking down at the mattresses when I came in. They were bland, just a couple of mattresses that had been stripped of all blankets and sheets and pillows. For as long as I can remember I never had anything to cover up with, no matter if it was snowing outside and the fucking heater stopped working – which it did often – Daryl and I had nothing. During those nights we'd try and huddle together, pushing our mattresses side by side and trying to keep warm.

"You okay?" A voice knocked me out of my memories. It turned out to be Daryl. He stepped into the room around me and watched me.

"Yeah, m'fine. Don't start gettin' soft on me." I said flatly. I threw my things down and got out of the room.