AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Grady, having headed up the building of the accommodations for the newly arrived inmates, had been invited to watch their arrival. He'd chosen, rather than to stand somewhere with others who were hired for the project, to be the one that came and let Carol and Daryl out of their home to stand on the porch. He'd also chosen to stand with them.
Carol was happy to see the young man, as she was most mornings when he came to pick Daryl up while she was still there, because he was simply easy to get along with. He was friendly and polite and, in Carol's opinion, the epitome of a well-raised young man. On the whole, his behavior and demeanor contrasted dramatically with what many would have probably believed to be characteristic about a wild-captured child.
As soon as they'd stepped out onto the porch, Grady had offered Carol a genuine hug and a round of congratulations for the baby. She'd missed him since the announcement had been made and it was his first chance to congratulate her personally. When he told her that Daryl had told him about the baby—and was "pretty damn excited" about it—and told her he hoped that nothing happened like it had before, Carol took it for exactly what it was. He wished them the best. He spoke from the position of someone who genuinely wanted them to have whatever it was that would make them happy, and not as much from the position of what would be good for the project, as some other people might have.
"Will the fence stay up forever, Grady?" Carol asked, while they were waiting for the inmates to come. "Or is it coming down?"
"They don't tell me much," Grady said. "But—I guess I'll know if they decide to take it down. I know where they're coming from, though. These Wilds? They're coming from the big-deal prisons."
"Big deal prisons?" Daryl asked. Grady laughed to himself.
"I know that's not the official name of them or anything," Grady admitted. "But that's what I call 'em. They're real protected. The fence we put up? It should keep 'em in, but it's going to look like freedom to them. There's at least three fences that circle around Overhills. I don't know much about Grady. Three just like the one that's set out there. Two foot apart, maybe. Like if you could get through all that barbed wire you'd have the care to try to shimmy right on up another two fences just like the one you'd just come over instead of layin' in the dirt and just dying wedged between the fences."
"Are they really that dangerous?" Carol asked. Her body involuntarily shivered. The announcement had made her blood run cold just from Samirah's tone of voice. In Region Thirty Three, Carol had seen one or two inmates that passed through that had scared many of them. They'd seemed to have snapped. They didn't care if they lived or died, and they really seemed to want to take some people with them when they finally went. Eventually they died in taming or they were taken out, nobody ever really knew which, but it wasn't before they seemed to feel the need to systematically go around and try to make life more of a living hell for everyone else. Carol had a small scar, just above her eyebrow, that served to remind her of the day that she'd come into contact with one of them that had started a fight with at least a dozen of them in the showers. She hadn't been directly involved in the outbreak of the fight, but in the scuffle she'd ended up injuring her face on the corner of the sinks and earning herself a couple of stitches in the process.
Grady shrugged at the question.
"I don't know 'em personally," he said. "I know—you get in a place like Overhills for being too violent. Murdering guards and non-Wilds. Just—overall being pretty rough, I guess. I used to live not too far from Overhills and, on the roads, about five miles out in every direction, they start with these signs that tell you that you're entering the Overhills zone. Like if one of them was to get over the three fences? They figure that five miles is how far it'd take them to get them back locked up again."
"You come over that one fence and can run for three miles," Daryl pointed out, "then you got my respect."
Carol had seen the fence that they'd put up to separate the housing from the rest of the community. It was only chain link, but it was quite high and she suspected it was also electric. The gates were pretty sturdy and the locks certainly were. The barbed wire they were referencing was laid out in one or two feet coils at the top of the fence and Carol wasn't sure how anyone could get over it. She'd have to respect, as Daryl said, anyone who could do it three times and live to tell about it—less likely to run, afterwards, for five miles while a group of heavily armed guards tried to apprehend them.
And the guards, from what she could see, didn't look like they were interested in playing around with any of the prisoners. They stood in the streets, clad in riot gear, with a military stance. They were armed and they were displaying it. Carol could guess that the price for stepping out of line was a bullet to the brain—they wouldn't likely bother with shooting to wound.
"Do you think they're a threat to us?" Carol asked. Her stomach tightened with anxiety over what the prisoners might do, but it also tightened at the thought that her brain offered her immediately.
She was afraid of them. Just the same as some of the people there were afraid of her, she was afraid of the new arrivals. There was always the "us" and the "them".
"Wouldn't be half as scared of them as I would be of the guards," Grady pointed out. "Not you at least. They want to be out of the prison. Want to be free. The guards? See them giving speeches sometimes. They're part of the wild is wild groups. They're the real dangerous ones. There's been open season on Wilds for a long time as far as they're concerned. Wouldn't worry about the Wilds so much—stay outta their way if you see 'em running. But I'd watch out for the guards. I know I do."
"You do?" Daryl asked.
"Wild-captured is still wild," Grady said. "Little wild, lot wild. It don't matter to them that don't like wild at all."
Carol reached and patted Grady's back.
"You're not wild," she said. He shrugged at her.
"Neither are you," Grady said. "But—you can't tell that to someone that don't want to hear it."
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By the time that Carol actually laid eyes on the new arrivals, her fear for them shifted to something else entirely. Instead of worrying that one of them could become free, she was hoping that all of them would become free. She could assume that the women she saw had walked from the entrance to the community—a decent walk to her house by any standards—and they'd done it carrying the combined weight of the chains and metal constraints that they wore. They dragged their feet, the leading woman almost seeming to pull the others along behind her to their destination while the last in line was harassed by a guard whose profanities could be heard at a longer distance than the shifting metallic sound of the chains. Carol's heart ached for them.
If killing a guard earned them such a fate then it was only for want of a weapon that she'd never ended up in those chains.
They had ended up there the same way that everyone else had ended up in the prisons. The world went mad and forced them to survive. The drive to survive—and perhaps to keep someone else alive—had forced them to do whatever they could do and whatever needed to be done. Their captors had been unkind and there had, more than likely, been fear and pain. And, clearly, there still was.
All of them, it was obvious, would need healthcare. They'd need a great number of things to even resemble the people that they must have once been. Carol was sure, working with Alice, that she'd get her chance to meet them one day. And now, rather than fear that possibility, she looked forward to it. Kindness, perhaps, could go a long way.
On her porch, none of them spoke. Samirah had passed, some minutes before the women and their guards, to tell them all that anything that disrupted the procession would land them in hot water. They'd be punished to the full extent of the law for anything they did to cause a problem. They'd chosen to remain silent instead of risking anything that might be misinterpreted.
Carol felt the weight of Daryl's arm around her, hugging her into his body. His only response to the sight of the women walking linked together was to pull Carol closer to him and tighten the hold that he had on her. Her response to him was simply to lean her head against him, long enough to brush her face against his shoulder, before she straightened herself back up and turned to look for the sound of the metal that she could hear, again, moving toward them.
The men came steeped in the same misery as the women. They dragged their feet too, their chains visibly heavier, but they sauntered along. Their final guard, pushing them forward, had a more hands-on approach and reached out every now and again to shove the last in line for what he seemed to see as dawdling. Carol turned her face into Daryl's chest and refused to watch the rest of the procession. She only moved again when she felt Daryl's body jerk and she pulled away to see what had startled him or caused his movement.
He let go of her and rushed to the side of the porch, leaning over it to prolong his view of the passing men. He muttered something and a look came across his face that Carol hadn't seen before—a desperate look, maybe, or maybe it was fear. He'd seen something that spooked him.
"What is it?" Carol asked, crossing to him and being careful to keep her voice low. They'd drawn the attention of Grady and, no less quiet than Carol, he joined them in the tight corner of the porch. "Daryl? What is it?" Carol repeated.
"You OK?" Grady asked, keeping just enough distance between them that it was evident that he thought Daryl might react in some way to whatever was going on inside him.
"Merle," Daryl said.
"What?" Carol asked.
"Merle," Daryl said. "One of those inmates. He looked just like Merle."
Carol knew the name by now. Daryl's brother. He'd been killed at capture. He'd tried to fight, like so many had, for his freedom and he'd been killed. Daryl rarely spoke of him, but when he did mention him, a weight always seemed to come over him. Of anyone he might have lost, it was losing Merle that pressed down on him the most.
Carol put her hand on Daryl's back and rubbed a circle there to remind him that she was there—that she would comfort him if he needed it, and that there was no shame in needing it. Rather than take the comfort, though, Daryl looked at her and shook his head. His eyes were wide.
"That was my brother," he said, confident in his statement. "That was Merle!"
Carol shushed him, reminding him that they might still get in trouble for being loud. He glanced around, took in the location of the guards in the streets, and relaxed. Carol felt his back muscles loosen under her hand.
"I thought he was killed," Carol said quietly. "Remember? Maybe he just resembled Merle."
Daryl shook his head at her.
"They told me he was dead," Daryl said. "But I didn't never seen no body." Carol didn't point out to him that she understood that feeling. Never having proof that someone was gone left it open to believe that they might not be. She wasn't going to say it to him, though. Not when he was struggling through his feelings at the moment. Daryl seemed to read her mind, though. He shook his head. "You can think I'm crazy if you want," Daryl said. "But that was my brother. He ain't dead. And—I gotta talk to him."
Carol's stomach rolled at the chance he'd be taking if he were to try to approach the fences without permission or without reason. The guards would never allow it. If he was going to have contact with the man that he thought was his brother—and maybe who truly was his brother—he was going to have to have a reason. Nothing, these days, was as easy as simply doing them.
Carol shook her head at him.
"I don't think you're crazy," Carol said. "But—if he's your brother? You have to wait until we can get you there so you don't get in trouble. We've got to do this the right way."
Daryl stared off after where the almost-chain-gangs had gone, but they were gone from their field of vision now even if the sound of the metal and the yelling officers could still quietly be heard. He made a noise that hurt Carol's chest as badly as the sights that she'd just seen, and she moved her hand to squeeze at his shoulder muscle and bring him back to her.
"What the hell is the right way anymore?" Daryl asked.
"I don't know," Carol admitted. "But—Alice might."
