Say Goodbye: Part One
The clouds marched across the pale moon, staggered and jagged like a brigade of ghostly troops. The atmosphere was warmer than it should've been in the wee hours of the morning. The rains made the air humid, offsetting the chill. Every breeze carried a misty spray from the dying storm to kiss Michonne's battle-baked cheeks. She looked suspiciously at the men all around her.
There were a dozen conversations buzzing in her ears. The wounded pride of men who boasted about how they would've put her down in a heartbeat if they weren't on detail for big money VIPs. Some wondered how their secret location had been infiltrated. Others were affronted that a 'nigger bitch' like her had defiled their ceremony. Still others had lost friends to her blade and were openly discussing defying Negan's reprieve.
"I didn't come here for this," she could hear one man saying at the other end of the covered porch. Michonne couldn't see him at first for the crowd. His words were slightly slurred and very angry. When he pushed past the press of murmuring Saviors, she saw the man was Philip Blake.
The owner of a meat packing plant, who looked like the pigs he slaughtered, called after the governor with a friendly pat on his shoulder. "Hey Phil, You don't want to stay for this lynching? It's been a while."
Blake sneered at the man's hand on his person. One of the politician's bodyguards nudged the man back from Blake's personal space. Holding a handkerchief to his busted lips to hide the gaps left by his missing teeth, the governor condescended with an icy smile, "In my younger days these diversions would have been amusing. But a man of my station has acquired a more sophisticated palate than the death of one 'nobody nigger' could satisfy."
"Negan likes to play his little games, but I hope he's smart enough to rid us of this little band of trespassers for good. Because if even one makes it off this ranch, this shit show is only just beginning." The two stone-faced survivors of his security team made a wedge for him to leave by the sidestair of the wrap-around deck. Michonne watched as he disappeared into the night.
The SOC had taken a good many casualties, but it was easy to see that Rick's small band of warriors were still hopelessly outnumbered. Hugh August in single combat with Simon would at least give them a chance to catch their breath and regroup.
For her part, Michonne's lungs burned and her muscles ached from exertion. For all her skill and agility, she no longer had the energy she did when she was a little girl practicing before the smiling eyes of her grandfather. Opening and closing her fingers around the hilt of her sword, her heart blossomed with a happy warmth remembering him, despite the peril she faced.
She knew he would have been proud of her tonight. Losing Hugh August Sr. was a tragedy right up there with losing Andre. Her grandfather and son were so much alike. Determined but kind. Serious but happy. Too good for the world, it was true, but she wished she still had them both.
Wishes were hollow, though. She couldn't get them back, but at least she could hope that they were somewhere together. Hopes were more tangible than wishes. She dared to hope... and found love with Rick, a new relationship with her mother, with Sasha, with Carl…
Is that you, Peanut? Grandad? Steering me to my destination while I carry myself forward on hope? I'm not done hoping, she said to herself as she looked down at her father and wondered if the steering of loving spirits could move a man notoriously immovable.
A man cold as granite. Sharp and deadly as flint. Harboring fiery fury like coals. Black as all three. It would've been right to pity these poor ignorant Saviors. In her father's hands, they would be the ones needing saving and she didn't know who from heaven or earth could do it.
Negan agreed to this faceoff because, smug as he was, he didn't know her father. No one did, really. Not even her. What she did know was that this uneven fight for her safe passage out of there would be over quickly.
But despite the terms her father gave, Michonne had no plans to leave there without vengeance for her mother or her son. That would be easier said than done, though. The men around her weren't a bunch of hick recruits like the common Savior.
They were the ones smart enough to stay out of her way while she cut down the prideful fools inside. They were the muscle of men who could afford the seasoned best in their professional fields.
Like her, she knew her father and Rick would be eager to finish the SOC for good. But could they? Looking out to the grounds littered with Savior remains, she could see that Rick's deputies were haggard from fighting.
She'd met them all at Shane's funeral.
The young skinny one was on his knees, picking himself up from the ground, bleeding profusely from some wound under his brown skullcap. Moses? She tried to remember his name. He'd been quiet in grief that day at the bar, but he'd given a respectful nod with a tight lip to keep his tears from falling. Noah. She remembered now, the rookie.
At Shane's farewell, Jerry told them all about the time he fell for a girl online and Shane played the 'Cyrano de Bergerac' to his 'Christian de Neuvillette'. Thanks to Shane, Jerry got the girl… at least for a while. Everyone laughed with tears in their eyes when Jerry explained the lengths he went to in order to keep the young lady from running into and falling for the author of all his smooth talk.
When the burly Samoan raised his glass to toast Deputy Walsh's memory, he'd cried openly until Rick came to his rescue with a slap to his back and a few words of his own. 'Jerry's a good egg,' the sheriff told Michonne later. And now the big guy with the man bun had his arm curled around his barrelled belly, holding his side. Probably a cracked rib, Michonne thought, wincing along with him as he limped over to check on Rosita.
The fiery little Latina was covered in mud, crossing herself in devotion. She kissed the crucifix around her neck and kicked the dead body of a faceless Savior. Michonne would never forget Rosita's eyes as she spoke to Rick in confidence that sad day in Pard's. She knew a woman with a broken heart when she saw one.
Now, Michonne put two and two together when she saw the cure for Rosita's heartache was Daryl throwing his jacket around her shoulders. The way he held her close and the way she melted into his side, was a true study in denying your heart. Something her mother called 'lay-away love'.
One of them is missing, Michonne recognized suddenly and her heart sank. T-Dog!
Obviously, they were going to lose some of their own. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to understand that. Not with five rogue deputies, their sheriff, his girlfriend and her estranged father against a homicidal armed militia of white men.
All the same, a pang of guilt seized her. If she hadn't fallen for Merle's treachery, none of them would be there. She added all of them and their injuries to that traitor's tally of sins. Even though she knew he could never have enough to satisfy the tab, she still planned to tax him for every red cent.
Michonne was snatched from her thoughts when she heard a rich man's foot soldier laughing behind her. "Simon is Negan's million dollar man," said a man with black rimmed glasses on a pointed nose.
Another bodyguard seemed surprised. His long blond hair in a ponytail, he asked through a thick eastern european accent, "That's the guy?"
A third man, with a graying goatee and a pierced ear, put in proudly, "Yeah. Negan paid off an entire parole board panel and a judge just to get Simon an early release. They call him the Pieman."
"Why Pieman?" The second man asked in broken English as he studied Hugh's bloody tattooed opponent.
"Well, it ain't 'cause it rhymes with Simon," the third man chuckled with a sinister gleam in his eye.
His hired man laughed along, pushed his glasses further up his face and joked, "You ever heard of minced meat pie? Simon's secret ingredient is eggplant." The European raised his brow, confused by the double entendre of the American slur.
The men apprised of the story shared a look and another chuckle, before the rich man went on to explain Simon's disturbing fetish for butchery and torture. Michonne listened to the tales of Simon's despicable deeds, bile building in her throat. The men with the intel called him sick and psycho but it was the glee in their voices as they related all the ways he'd mutilated men, women and children that turned her stomach the most.
Now she understood why Negan chose this gray, balding and seemingly unremarkable man as his champion. Michonne remembered how terrified Jadis had been when Negan placed her in Simon's claws. She remembered the cracking thud that echoed through the basement when he pulled her away screaming.
Unsettled, she looked over at Rick to get a read on his take of the situation. She could see Negan was confident, even at the end of her lover's shotgun and she fought back the urge to knock the smile off his face. When Rick met her gaze, his eyes were a somber shade of blue and though he was silent, she could tell he was praying.
Sheriff Grimes was well aware of Simon's rap sheet. When Dale came to him with the lowdown on the Saviors, the old reporter spoke about the Pieman in hushed tones, as if he was some kind of urban legend. Those nights he'd left Michonne home alone, Rick was doing his own probe of the Savior's rosters.
He'd seen the archived files from Simon's courtroom trials with his own eyes. Things that kept him awake at night. Things that made him hold his precious love closer in the dark for comfort.
There were pictures of bodies flayed and dismembered. Evidence boxes where the floral patterns of clothing worn by Simon's victims were stored, brown and stiff from being soaked through with blood. The written testimony from prosecution experts explaining the vicious methods of his crimes. The recorded testimony from the defense's medical experts explaining the perverse mental state of someone so violent and unremorseful.
Besides Daryl, Rick was the only person there who had seen the work of both Simon and Hugh. He had no doubts both men were deadly… even deranged. He tried to look confident in Hugh's victory… but his gut roiled with toxic foreboding.
Simon strode out to Hugh in the middle of the gravel yard. The long tin stables stood behind Hugh, pale under floodlights and glistening wet from rain. Such was the growth of the SOC's criminal enterprise, they were running out of room for their kidnapped women. A three story scaffolding had been erected for another stable under construction. Plastic blue tarp covered tools and equipment.
Simon's backdrop was the massive ranch house. Its porch crowded with a rapt audience.
A lineup of cars sat low on the hill's incline. Beyond the unmarked battleground, Saviors lay dead from sabotaged weapons and beyond them a wall of darkness stretched over the rest of the farm.
"So you ready to die, boy?" The question seeped from Simon's horse-like teeth, harsh as a hammer on steel.
He moved closer to Hugh and his wormy bottom lip curled into a bitter smile under the curtain of his mustache. He pulled his soggy henley shirt over his head and tossed it aside. Stretching his arms out wide, he gave his opponent and all the spectators a good long look at the grotesque assortment of faded tattoos etched under his skin.
Spider webs branched out down his neck. Twin she-devils with tongues of fire posed obscenely across the planes of his abdomen. The eagle of Germany's Third Reich sprawled across his chest, a wreathed swastika in its talons. A thick, detailed noose squeezing the eyes from a dark brown man with exaggerated red lips decorated his forearm.
The Confederate flag and the American flag were tied in a knot, forever linked in ink across his back. In place of stars, more swastikas profaned the symbol of American freedom. Large and black was the battle axe heralding his hierarchy among the Saviors.
On every inch of skin there were words so foul and symbols so hateful, Hugh's teeth ground tight with rage. Michonne's father gave Simon no answer except eyes that burned cold as ice. He kept silent and still.
Simon took it for fear and tried to further daunt the ex-Marine. His voice was low and smarmy as he stalked closer, "They call me the Pieman 'cuz I…"
Hugh interrupted, loud and quick, "You come to kill me or not?"
"Don't keep the man waitin', Simon!" Negan called from the steps. "Get this done and we can still have us a cattle drive."
The men around him hooted and whistled, piqued by the notion.
Negan's axeman raised an excited brow. He stopped toe to toe, nose to nose with Hugh. "I think I'll feed you to that bitch you call a daughter when I'm done. Then again… that nappy cunt prefers white meat, right?"
Hugh leaned out from Simon's intrusive stance and spit in disgust on the rocks at his feet. He cut his dark eyes at his foe and they sparked to life. Before Simon could anticipate his move, Hugh reared back and smashed the man square in the face with his forehead.
"Speaking of white meat…" Hugh quipped, observing the colorless tissue under the exploded surface between Simon's eyes. Blood spurted from the bridge of his nose as the vengeful father pressed the attack with a throat strike that left Simon stumbling back and gasping for air.
A switch seemed to flip for the Savior's man and he blacked out with rage. He didn't give himself a second to recover. It was almost as if he couldn't feel the pain. Rabid, he lunged forward, growling and snarling. He took Hugh by the neck to strangle him with his bare hands, the words "HANG GANG" inked into his knuckles.
The marine never flinched. Grabbing hold of Simon's thumbs, he bent them back to peel his palms away, ducked under his grasp and charged right shoulder first into his center of gravity. They landed on the ground, the impact knocking what little air Simon sucked in through his injured windpipe. Toothed bits of rock bit into his back and left bloody punctures to the back of his head.
Hugh was not spared the force of the fall. His left shoulder hit the ground, dislocating the joint from it's socket. He rolled off Simon and groaned as he forced it back in place before his challenger could regain his footing.
The pain shot through Hugh like a hot pincer. It was literally blinding and then he took a right hook to the face, stunning him. A left hook and another right and then another left. The last hit opened a weeping cut above his eye that blinded him even more than the pain.
Hugh heard the jubilant cheers from the onlookers as his head swam.
"Kill that nigger!" One called out amid yelping cheers.
"Teach that nigger who the fuck he's dealin' with!"
"They came to the wrong place tonight!"
Hugh shook off the darkness pressing in on him. He wiped at his eye and found Simon looking as unsteady as he was feeling himself.
Negan shouted through cupped hands, "Get'em Pieman. I want that black bastard's head!"
Michonne served him her most hostile mug. Rick gave her a slight shake of his head and flexed his fingers around the shotgun in his hands, itching to pull the trigger. She watched as her father resumed the fight. Fists sped through the air so rapidly it was hard to tell which man was taking the brunt.
Simon came at Hugh with unyielding fury. The lean ebony man hurled jabs of his own but he ducked more punches than he threw. Simon went for his face, his ribs, his gut. Hugh reared back, right stepped and regressed.
A man who had come to after being knocked out by Hugh's punch howled through his busted face. "Run that nigger back to the jungle, Pieman!"
After a barrage of blows, Hugh stood his ground briefly. Blocking a shot from the left with a level bicep, he opened a path for his elbow to catch Simon across the chin. His fist knocked away a coming uppercut. Using the centrifugal force, he pulled Simon close and drove a knee into his chest.
Simon kept coming like a madman, driving him back and back. The battle advanced across the yard away from the porch full of eager eyes. The entranced press of raucous men followed, surrounding the embattled pair for a better view near the stable under construction.
As Savior's spilled into the yard, Noah and Jerry made way, moving around the crowd closer to where Rick and Michonne stood with Negan.
"Are you really just gonna stand there and watch them beat each other to death," Noah asked Rick, clearly alarmed. Jerry looked back and saw Hugh absorb another combination of blows to the chest. Both deputies looked to the head of KC's law enforcement with fretful eyes.
"Your posse's gettin' nervous, Grimes." Negan grinned. "You better pull one of those soothin' speeches outta your ass to calm 'em down." Rick didn't respond.
"Miss August," Noah entreated Michonne, "your dad can beat him, right?"
Michonne's eyes shifted from the bloody combatants to the deputies doubtfully, but like Rick, she stood mute. She licked her lips and swallowed.
Simon was smiling through the grisly lacerations left by Hugh's initial headbutt. Like a creature of the undead, he lapped at his own blood dripping into his mouth, seeming to revel in the taste. He mockingly wagged his tongue and roared at his rival like some demon. The crowd joined him, roaring their support and amusement.
Hugh took a step back and lost his balance on the low base platform of the scaffold behind him. Simon kicked him while he was down, but Hugh drubbed a right hook to Simon's inner thigh and a left hook to his hip bone. It slowed the bounding maniac down just enough for the Marine to find his feet.
Hugh jumped to grab a bracing beam over his head and delivered a double footed kick to Simon's chest, knocking the other man forcefully into the metal support bar at his back. The entire structure rattled with impact. A shower of collected raindrops and unsecured tools fell from the tarp-covered planks above them, clattering off the upright steel and wood.
Hugh pulled himself up to the next platform with Simon hot on his heels.
"This shit is like Thunderdome," Negan compared gleefully and turned to the sheriff. "If I was you, Rick, I'd be rethinkin' your answer to my offer. Your little ninja's daddy is makin' a good go of it, but from what I see, Simon is gonna kill him once he's had his fun… and I can almost guarantee you, he'll want her too." He motioned to a defiant Michonne. "And if you don't cooperate, I think I'll let him have her."
…
"Daryl!" Rosita called in a lowered voice, following him down the main hall of the house. Her gun was drawn like his, both of them on the lookout for an ambush by stragglers of the confederate cause.
Girls were still hiding throughout the house. He could hear them crying, running scared from room to room like mice. He didn't look back. His eyes were narrowed, clearing blindspots and corners. "Get out of here, Espinosa. Y'all did what y'all could, but I don't want you here if shit don't go our way."
"No," she answered him flatly. Back to back, they worked together and cleared another room. "I came to make sure you were okay. I'll leave when you do."
"No. You're leavin' now. I gotta find my brother."
"Fuck you, I'm leaving now," she repeated with a healthy dose of defiance. "Are you gonna make me say it?" She could hear him behind her. Heavy breaths that anyone who didn't know him would've attributed to the dangerous situation. But Rosita knew him too well. He was afraid of what she was going to say.
"Don't say anythang. Just…"
"Yo siempre estuve a tu lado! Why can't you understand that?"
"Cuz I don't speak fuckin' Spanish, Espinosa." He responded dryly.
She dropped her guard, unthwarted by his attempt at humor. "What are you afraid of? Look into my eyes, Backwoods…" It scared him to death but he did it. Her fiery brown stare melted him. He tried telling her to leave again but his tongue turned to stone.
"Te amo, estúpido," Rosita said annoyed.
"Even I know what that means. She just called you stupid." Merle's voice broke into the room. He stood there pointing a rifle at them. "Unload your pistols." They hesitated. "Go on," he encouraged them calmly.
They complied. "Now, toss your gun to this side of the room and your clip to that one." He motioned to opposite ends of the spacious den. They did as he said. "She said she loves you, little brother," Merle announced, "…and before that, she said somethin' 'bout bein' by your side."
Rosita started at Merle with an angry Spanish rant. But he shushed her. "Do me a favor, taco Tuesday, shut the hell up. I'm not that good at beaner talk. And I don't care anyway. I just wanna ask my brother why the fuck he betrayed us…"
"Are you fuckin' serious, bro? Us? You really thought I was goin' for this racist bullshit? I was hopin' you didn't tell Negan the truth about me because you were havin' a change of heart."
Merle replied, disappointed, "The truth about you? Only truth I know about you is you're my little brother that followed me around like a puppy when you were a kid… joined the force cuz you wanted to be like me. I hoped you wanted our nation back. I thought you wanted to rid America of this plague we got where motherfuckers like Shumpert..."
"Merle, you are fuckin' Shumpert! You're doing the same thing to these girls that he did to Enid! You really can't see that?"
"Shumpert had my only daughter living like an animal, in squalor! She was so malnourished when they found her she had lost four teeth!"
"Shumpert treated her like an animal?" Daryl argued, shocked, baffled and angry, "Merle, you're at Negan's fuckin' 'cattle drive'! They call their rooms 'stables'! You stand by and let them hunt these girls in the woods! They hunt them!"
"Not the white ones." Merle defended. "We keep them girls warm, well-fed. They get medical care. We're birthin' a new nation. The mothers of this new America want for nothin'. Once they understand what we're doin' here, they wanna be here. Part of history. Look at Jadis..."
Daryl was stunned silent but Rosita spoke up, "There's no way you really believe that, Dixon."
"Jadis is fuckin' dead," Daryl reminded him.
"Yeah, well…" Merle said coldly, "That's what happens to traitors."
"I never knew how deep and dark hate could be. Never seen it up close like this." Rosita lamented in a voice shrunken with hopelessness in the face of Merle's stubborn beliefs. "It's twisted you around so far you've become exactly what you say you hate." If she was a crier, she would've been in tears.
Merle looked at her, despising her pity. "I'm done talkin'."
He kicked back the large rug, revealing a secret hatch in the floor. Gun trained on Rosita, he asked politely, "Would you be so kind as to open this for me, mamacita?" She knelt and found a digital keypad. "E-N-I-D," Merle spelled out the PIN.
The keypad beeped and unlocked. "Grab that bag outta there. It's heavy."
Rosita strained, still sore from the earlier skirmish. She dragged out the large travel bag. When Daryl saw it, his countenance fell and the room seemed darker. "Why the fuck do you have this here, Merle?"
"Open it," the older Dixon commanded Rosita. It was full of money. Plastic wrapped squares of pink fifties and blue striped hundreds. Something about that much money made her uneasy wondering where it could have come from and how it came to be in Merle's possession.
"Backwoods, what is this?"
"Tell her, 'Backwoods'," Merle mocked. When Daryl refused to speak, his brother answered. "It's blood money, Espinosa. Blood money that belongs to your sweetheart."
Daryl trembled. "Shut up, Merle."
"You remember my daughter, Espinosa? What happened to her? How they found her?" Merle kept going. "Daryl does."
"Ok, Merle. That's enough."
"That's what I told you. Remember, little brother? I told you we were just gonna beat that nigger til he looked like the elephant man. I told you we were gonna send him to the pen, cuz a life behind bars as a cripple is worse than death."
"Stop it, Merle!" The story was being resurrected on his brother's tongue, like revenant tentacles pulling Daryl back to that day. Back to Shumpert pleading. Back to the smell of gasoline. Back to the blue spark from the match head. Back to the howling.
"You didn't stop." Merle reminded him. "You wouldn't stop til you got a glimpse of him in hell."
"No."
"You like to blame me for that, but truth is, you were manifesting your true nature as a king that night. The true owners of this land. Of all land. Where we go, we conquer."
Rosita looked sick.
"You had it right all along little brother. Killing Shumpert was your right as the apex of god's creation. All our lives, I used to teach you. But that… that's what you taught me."
"That was wrong, bro. I didn't have the right."
"Why? Because 'black lives matter'?" Merle held up a fist in mockery and spit out cruel laughter. "Nobody looked for that son of a bitch. Nobody gave a shit about one less drug dealin' jigaboo. That's how much black lives matter. His partners looked harder for this money he had, than they looked for him."
Daryl was speechless, recognizing the truth.
"They were ready to kill him themselves," Merle said, "…and they probably would have eventually if you hadn't killed him first. Black on black crime is the gift niggers give us everyday… and we don't even have to ask." He kicked the duffle bag. "And this is the gift we gave ourselves. You're comin' with me tonight or we'll both face justice tomorrow."
Rosita gasped horrified in sudden realization. "You did kill that lady's baby… on purpose." She accused Merle and turned to Daryl. "And you knew he did it!"
Daryl broke down. Pitiful, sputtering and in tears. He ignored Merle and answered the question Rosita raised regarding his fears. "You wanna know what I'm afraid of?"
He shouted red with anger, "You see what happens when I love? I don't know what to do with it. It's too much for someone like me. I loved my niece and I burned a man alive because of it! I love my brother, abomination that he is, and I kept his secret! God help me! I love you Rosita, but what could I do with it except hurt you?"
Rosita was quiet, frozen there on her knees before the money. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know anything.
"You see? You see the way you're looking at me," Daryl sobbed, "that's why I kept my feelings to myself. I never wanted you to look at me that way. I never wanted you to see my soul. I know you can. You told me you could see people. You told me you were touched by the light of that saint. You can see people and I never wanted you to see me."
Forgetting Merle, she stood up and pulled Daryl into her arms. She knew what to say then. She knew what to do. She understood everything now. All it took was to hear him speak and then she could see.
Merle interjected, mimicking someone overcome by theatrics, "You're gonna make me cry, bro. But don't you worry…" he crouched to the bag, zipped it and yanked it onto his shoulder.
With all the emotions in the room unleashed, he wasn't even aiming the gun anymore. "You don't want no one to see you? There's enough money here to make us disappear forever," Merle said as he walked away, relieved, feeling light as a feather. "Say goodbye to him, Espinosa. We're outta here. Just me and you, bro."
Daryl lifted his head from Rosita's shoulder, her hair plastered to his face with his tears. "I'm not goin' nowhere with you."
Merle stopped in his tracks and turned around with a confused expression. He aimed the rifle again. "Like hell you ain't. There's nothin' for you here."
"I'm here for him. Pertenezco a su lado." Rosita said, still holding Daryl tight. Earlier, when she was helpless in front of a firing squad of Saviors she saw herself dead in this man's arms. That wasn't the moment, but maybe this is, she thought.
"We're leavin', bro and Espinosa's stayin' here. I decided I wasn't gonna do nothin' to her since she loves you. But don't force my hand."
Merle's cruel voice, told her exactly what he was willing to do. He didn't hide what he thought about her. She was nothing. Nothing to him and nothing for his brother.
"No, Merle. Don't." Daryl pleaded, still wrapped tight in Rosita's arms.
"Then let her go and let's get out of here."
Daryl willed his arms to push her away, but he only held her closer. "I can't."
"Let him go, Espinosa."
"No. Yo pertenezco a su lado." She whispered through tears. "Yo me quedo aqui. Pertenezco a su lado."
Merle sighed. "Fine with me."
He raised the rifle's butt to his shoulder, lined up the sight to the back of Rosita's mud crusted ponytail and pulled the trigger.
…
Simon's energy was starting to wane. Hugh's strategy was working. The downside to letting Simon tire himself out with his hateful onslaught was Hugh getting battered in the process.
But Hugh August believed no one could take a beating and keep going like a black man. He didn't know if it was actually true or if his belief made it true in his case. What he did know was Simon's blows were getting weaker. His breaths were more ragged and both of his eyes were purpling and just about swollen shut from Hugh's first attack.
The crowd below the dueling men had energy to spare, however. Their appetite for carnage was insatiable. Every spattering of blood that rained down on them drove them to new heights of frenzy.
Michonne found herself carried along with the tide of bodyguards and VIPs. Her eyes stayed glued to her father and before she knew it, she was a step lower than Rick and Negan. Hugh was partially obscured for a moment by a flap of hanging tarp. She took a few steps to the right and found him again, only now she was three steps closer to the gravel yard.
The first sound that she heard from her father was a gulped down moan of pain. Up until then the only sounds had been the thudding of fists against flesh and the raving howls of Simon when her father hit a sweet spot or his maniacal squalls of sadistic pleasure when he repaid a blow to Hugh.
Hugh had a brick in his hand pounding away at Simon's neck and shoulders. Looking up, Michonne mouthed words of warning and support silently to her father. He wouldn't have been able to hear her over the surging crowd if she had been so inclined to shout up to him. But that wasn't the reason she stood mute.
Even in this life or death situation, their relationship was so unnatural, rooting for Hugh Sr. outloud would've felt as strange as cheering for Simon. She looked back at Rick, needing to know he was still there. His eyes were already on her.
The new brick crumbled in Hugh's hand and a sudden sharp grunt from her father pulled her eyes back to the scaffolding scrimmage. The Savior's contender got his hand on a screwdriver and jammed it into the fleshwound where the bullet grazed Hugh earlier.
She grimaced at the sight and turned her head to the ground. In her peripheral, she saw a brown bald head between two parked cars.
"T-Dog! Oh my god!" She put his arm around her neck and immediately tried to get him to his feet. The stocky man barely moved. "T! Can you walk?" She tried again with no success.
"I'm not goin' nowhere," he said with a weak smile. "Just let me sit right here. I just need to catch my breath… that's all."
Michonne stopped and knelt beside him. Her hand came away dark red when she touched it to the tourniquet he'd fashioned from the sleeve of his shirt. He was noticeably pale and could barely lift his head.
She peeked back over the hood of the cars and waved Noah and Jerry over. Rick watched the big guy and the rookie make their way to Michonne, while the Saviors stayed captivated by the cruel show.
From the look on her face and the deputies he'd counted before Hugh and Simon started tearing each other apart, Rick knew what his woman had found between those luxury cars. He hoped T-Dog wasn't hurt too badly. He hoped that Hugh would hurry up and make an end to this fight so they could get his deputy somewhere safe.
Michonne smiled nervously, "Just hold on, T. It's not that bad."
"I know." He dozed and snapped awake. "I'm not worried."
She held his hand and squeezed.
Noah and Jerry fell in around her, surprised to see T-Dog still among the living… for a little longer at least.
The mob of manic white men sent up a combined roar that made the hairs on Michonne's arms rise. The elation of the crowd had her afraid to look up. When she did her heart sank and her throat went dry.
Above her she saw her father stumbling, backing away from Simon. The Pieman advanced on him with a soldering torch. A tipped blue flame hissed back and forth as Simon swung it at Hugh. The heat hot enough to melt metal left a trail of red blistered skin across his chest.
Tripping over the unkempt worksite of volunteer Savior tradesmen, Hugh lost his balance and went down on the wooden planks of the structure. A sharp pointed bricking trowel was lodged in his lower back, ravaging the vertebrae of his spine. He let out another long wail- The sound of some great sea monster dying in dark cold waters.
In Michonne's ears it was like the bang of a starter's pistol or the angel of Revelation's seventh and final trumpet blast, signaling the beginning of the end of this crusade. She knew it was time to tie up loose ends. Without a word, she left Rick's deputies and marched back to the brightly lit house.
"You leavin' Miss August?" Negan asked her as she climbed the stairs in her approach. "It's gotta be hard to watch a strong man like your daddy die. Even harder knowin' you're next."
"If you think I'm gonna let you lay a hand on her…"
Before Rick could finish his defense, Michonne's fist came in hot. Negan's face caught it like a baseball mitt cradles the ball. Rick stepped aside as the leader of the Saviors careened onto his back. Her response was planting the chunky heel of her boot in the middle of his chest, making him a welcome mat as she stepped over him back into his own house.
"I'm going to find Merle." Michonne informed her sheriff. "And Rick… keep that piece of shit on his knees. Let him watch my father kill that animal of his," she paused her stride in the doorway and pointed her sword tip at Negan as he pulled himself up from the ground, "then I want you to give him both barrels."
"Followin' your lead, sweetheart." Rick replied as he regarded Negan with indifference.
He pressed the tip of his shotgun to his captive's shoulder to keep him kneeling like a slave. Negan wiped the blood from his mouth with a shaky hand. Rick showed him a sliver of a smile as the rhythmic beat of Michonne tearing down the hallway faded.
Inside, the smell of gasoline grew stronger the further she walked down the hall. Michonne jerked her sword up at the sound of hurried steps coming from the staircase on the other side of the wall to her left. She turned the corner and was face to face with the hysterical blond Merle had chucked at her like a trash bag.
The girl seemed to have sobered some, but was no less afraid. She cocked back a baseball bat, shaking it in her nervous grip like a rattle. Traumatized by everything she'd been through since she ran away with Jared, to the massacre she'd witnessed tonight she very slowly lowered her guard at the sight of Michonne and her ruddy blade.
"Be careful," the girl whispered, "there could still be saviors in the house."
"I know. I'm looking for one in particular," Michonne replied.
A line of pale skinned girls moved around the blond, descending the steps toting boxes of recordings, pictures, ledgers and computers.
Michonne's eyes followed the loot. "What's all this?"
"Proof," answered one of the girls as she passed, her mousey brown hair bounced in ringlets at her back.
The batter explained, "Records Negan kept about the Saviors. Pictures of girls we never saw again. Video of what he did to them. We're makin' sure everybody knows."
The final girl in the line was carrying a gas can. She sloshed it's contents on the floor and walls as she came down. "Was your dad in the military?" The blond girl asked Michonne.
"Yeah. He was."
"I could tell. I was an army brat too. My name is Beth." She ventured a small smile, hugging the bat to her chest. "When my mother was alive she used to say war made my father a broken man. He was so hard to live with, I left and eventually ended up here. But I'd give anything to see him again."
"You will."
"If it's not too late," the girl said doubtfully. "If he's still alive. I wouldn't be surprised if he drank himself to death." Michonne watched Beth's heart break as her voice did the same, "If I don't make it out of here, could you find my daddy and tell him I love him and tell him I'm sorry… I'm sorry for leavin'. He's a mean old one-legged vet named Hershel Greene. He shouldn't be hard to find."
Michonne nodded, speechless as she grasped the connection. There was so much she could have told Beth about the man Hershel had come to be. The wisdom he'd imparted had helped Michonne to heal hurts she never knew existed.
But with those stories caught in her throat, she watched the young woman run through the large country kitchen. She looked even skinnier against the backdrop of the space outfitted to feed the army Negan was growing. Beth joined the other abducted runaways tiptoeing quickly to the backdoor.
She gave Michonne one final glance and mouthed a tearful thank you to the woman who'd inspired her to fight for her life tonight. Her pale blue eyes reminded Michonne of her own. A different color, but holding the same grief. A daughter with a father she could never reach. Fearful that an untimely death could rob them of catharsis.