2

The phone saved them. It rang through the silence, echoing through the small house. Merle was leaning against their bedroom door, his ear pressed against it.

"Lose track of time, Darylina?" he whispered in a sarcastic drawl.

"I don't have a fucking curfew!" Daryl hissed back.

"Ma went ballistic. I think she lost it. Screamin' about how all of us are messed up. Said it was our fault-"

"Probably is..!" Daryl growled under his breath.

"Don't make me pound you too, son," Merle retorted.

They both went quiet when they heard their dad pick up the phone.

"Where the fuck are you, you bitch!" They heard Dallas Dixon scream into the phone, and shockingly wait for an answer. There was a long pause, and then he erupted like a shotgun. "You think you're better than this?! They ain't, for sure! Stay away, for fucking good!" The boys heard the phone being thrown across the room. Daryl imagined that could hear the dial tone.

Dallas Dixon was one mean motherfucker when he wanted to be, and his sons knew this better than anyone. There was speculation and reasonable doubt that Dallas might not be Merle's father, but he was undeniably Daryl's. Dallas was a tall and lean man with wild long hair who probably should never have been a father. He married their mother, Jolene, because she had become pregnant with Merle. Daryl's conception was viewed an unforeseen incident, a regrettable accident. Dallas worked at a garage in town as a minimum-wage mechanic, and had done so all their lives. Daryl was the spitting image of Dallas at sixteen.

There was an eerily gentle knock on the door.

"Boys," Dallas called softly from the other side. "That was your mama."

"And?" Merle called back through the hollow door.

"She ain't comin' back," Dallas slurred against the door.

Daryl felt his chest tighten.

"Ain't comin' back til you to shape up," Dallas continued. "And you're gonna shape up."

The boys heard the man on the other side shuffling around, and they soon realized he was standing directly in front of the door.

"Open up, you two," Dallas demanded, his voice picking up power from somewhere. "Open the fuck up! I just need one of you!" At this, he swung a fist into the door, and Merle found himself face to face with Dallas.

Time froze for Daryl. It felt like an hour. Flashbacks burst in his head like cannon fire. Being dragged out of his room by his own father, being told to say goodbye to his mother because she's leaving because she hates him. Shoving, slapping, punching, bruises. No one is safe and no where is safe anyway. Red, purple, yellow, blue. Black. He couldn't breathe. But she had never actually left before. He made her watch what he could do with his whiskey-strength, and sometimes he would show her.

"Daryl!" Merle's voice brought him back to reality. "Run to the car!"

Merle tackled their dad down, and that was all Daryl saw as he tore back through the forest. It was pitch black in the woods, and the only light came from the half moon in the clear Georgia sky. He hated himself because he was running, like a coward. He hated that his mom left. He hated her. He finally reached the boxcar and didn't even bother using the ladder. He scaled the car in the light of the moon, and dropped inside. He used an old Bic lighter to locate an oil lamp that they had stashed there a few weeks before. Lighting this cast wispy shadows across the wooden walls of the car, which made Daryl shudder for no reason. He placed the lamp on the floor, wrapped himself in a blanket, and curled up on a mattress to wait for Merle.

—-

Daryl was woken abruptly by a slap to the back of the head. "Don't fucking fall asleep with that goddamn lantern on, you little shit," he heard Merle say from across the car. He heard his brother stalk over to the other side of the car and collapse onto the other mattress. Daryl grabbed the lantern and scurried across the car to his brother.

"I shouldn't have left you," he began. "I shouldn't have ran, I could've helped-" He stopped talking when the light hit his brothers face. He was harshly greeted by a beaten in face and blood matted in various places.

"Well, I told you to run," Merle answered gruffly. "This ain't nothing." He turned on the mattress with his back now to Daryl. "Go away."

"What happened with mom?" Daryl blurted out.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Merle bellowed at the wall. "She had it, Daryl!" He flipped back over with a pained grimace and stared into his little brothers unbelieving face. "She had enough of dad, enough of me, and even enough of her precious, beloved, angel-baby Daryl!" As Merle said 'Daryl', he sent a wave of spit over Daryl's face. "Go to fucking sleep. Or go back home. I don't give a damn." Merle turned back to the wall, and Daryl shuffled back over to his bed.

The next morning, soon after the sun was up, Merle was shaking Daryl awake. "It's Monday, little brother," he yelled as he shook the sixteen year old. He forced Daryl out of the safety of the boxcar, and made him go to school. Daryl hated high school. Merle didn't even finish, and he didn't see why he had to. The kids teased him. They said he was dirty. He was, he wouldn't argue with them at all. He honest didn't remember the last time he took a shower, but he did swim in the rivers a lot. He slid into his designated workspace in his first period art class thirty minutes late. The girl next to him stared. He stared right back. The older, former-hippie art teacher walked slowly past Daryl's row, and stopped in front of him. Daryl concentrated on staring at the desk.

"Mr. Dixon, when did you slide in here?" He asked knowingly.

Daryl shrugged his shoulders. "I've been here the whole time, sir," he answered as innocently as he could.

The teacher looked at the girl across from him. "Sadie, has this young man been here since the start of class? Did I just miss him?"

The girl smiled at Daryl and nodded. "Of course he's been here. You must have missed him. We were just discussing Gauguin."

The oblivious teacher moved on, and Daryl stared at the girl with a mixture of awe and fascination.

"My name's Sadie," she said matter-of-factly.

"I figured that."