AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
I think you can assume this to be pretty common to this story, but there's some violent/disturbing content in the chapter where they're discussing treatment of Wilds. Not too graphic, but it's there.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol had spent the entire day with Alice, even going so far as to eat her lunch in the clinic with the woman, so that they could get through as many of the new arrivals as possible. Due to the general state of neglect and poor treatment of the people—and the fact that each one had to be won over individually to even begin to treat them—they had only made it through four of them by the time they were due to start cleaning up and preparing to close down the clinic for the evening.
What they had discovered was that the main reason for being dubbed the wildest of the Wilds was a leaning toward repeated violence, especially toward the guards, but other contributing factors, though varied, seemed often to come into play. Of the four people they'd seen, one had been profoundly deaf, two had displayed signs of underlying and untreated medical issues that Alice had wagered contributed to their so-called problematic behavior, and one woman had seemed to have broken entirely from reality under the mental strain of it all.
And there were still six more to be seen.
"I'll send food over," Alice said. "Everyone we saw gets a meal, but everyone else gets double the food. If they weren't fucking starving and dying from thirst they'd have a chance to at least be in a better damn mood."
Carol didn't point out that Alice's own mood could use a little boosting. It was growing progressively worse with each passing minute. Like most compassionate people, she was absorbing the pain and the anger of the people that she was treating. She kept it together when they were in the room, but the moment they left the clinic she broke into a few hundred pieces and wandered off to another examination room to scrape herself back together and to glue the pieces back into place before the next inmate was brought in.
If nothing else, watching Alice all day had taught Carol one thing—she wasn't going to hurt them. At the very least, she wasn't going to hurt them purposely or voluntarily. If she did anything, it would be with the gun at her own head—and at those moments, everyone's decisions weren't really their own.
Richardson, the over-sized guard that they'd started the morning with, had been working with them all day as well. With some assistance, he brought the inmates to them. Without quite as much help—except in the case of the woman who had taken leave of her senses almost entirely—he took them back. He seemed to care more than the others and he seemed to like Alice. Whether his interest in her was personal, or simply some kind of feeding off of her energy that was taking place, Carol couldn't tell. What she did know was that the guard wasn't leaving his post until they closed the clinic.
They would all sleep well tonight—the sleep of the exhausted—even if their sleep was haunted with nightmares of the horrors that they imagined others to have suffered.
"Last call," Richardson barked, opening the door of the clinic. Some slight commotion outside—some barked orders from another guard that was helping with the delivery—told Carol that he was bringing another inmate.
"Last call was the last one," Alice responded. "We're done."
"He's here," Richardson responded. "They had him ready when I got there..."
Alice glanced at Carol and Carol shrugged at her. She was at work. If Alice said they were going to see one more, then Carol would stay and hand her things as she requested them. If Alice said she was too tired to deal with it, Carol would go home after they'd sent the inmate back to wait another day. Alice let out a growl in response, an indication of her progressively worsening mood, and then she yelled back to Richardson to bring the inmate in.
When Richardson brought the man into the clinic, Carol quickly assessed him. Like all the others, he wore chains around his legs. He wore the metal collar that they used to manhandle them—a collar that was likely something they wore at most times given that everyone they'd seen had sores around their necks that were probably caused by the constant rub—and he wore a blindfold. The only difference, that Carol could see, was that the man's arms weren't cuffed traditionally. Instead, there was a heavy chain bound tightly around his upper body that pinned his arms to his side just at the elbow. A fast glance at his hands told Carol that this form of binding him was owed to the fact that the man was, in fact, missing one of his hands.
"Bring him over," Alice said, directing Richardson. The guard pushed the inmate forward and the inmate spat some kind of muffled curse at him. He tried to look around, like he might see through the blindfold, and Carol's stomach rolled a little.
Whether it was the quality of Daryl's description or some sort of instinct, Carol got the sudden and sharp feeling that she was in the presence of Daryl's brother. She didn't say anything, though, and instead started gathering things together for Alice while the woman helped Richardson settle the man into a chair.
"Can you hear me?" Alice asked. "Give me some indication that you can hear me if you can."
"Wish to fuckin' hell I couldn't hear you," the inmate responded. "Got a voice like a damn stuck pig."
"Charmer," Alice responded. "Since you're so charming, I'm going to be straightforward with you. I'm as tired as I can be right now. Now—I've got food here to offer you and I need to examine you. You can make this an easy trade for both of us or you can choose to make this as hard as it possibly can be. One way or another, I win. Your choice."
"What kinda food?" The inmate asked.
Carol almost laughed to herself. The food got everyone's attention. Though she may have had the most trouble communicating at first, they'd found the deaf woman—Sadie—the most agreeable of their patients. She was also the most informative. They left her alone to eat two and a half sandwiches in peace—a fairly impressive amount given her stature—and then she'd cooperated with them almost one-hundred percent. They'd learned from her that it had been roughly three days since she could recall eating, so they'd assumed the near starvation was a common trait for all of them.
"Sandwiches," Alice said, leaning over the seated prisoner. From the way he was sitting, and the way his arms were bound, he could have overtaken her in an instant. Maybe she trusted him more than she should have, or maybe she was just exhausted beyond care, but she didn't seem spooked by him. "You want them or you want me to knock your ass out and do this the hard way?"
He licked his lips and smirked from behind the blindfold.
"I'll take the food," he said. "But—I ain't opposed to the hard way if you're offering, sugar."
Alice laughed quietly. She was either truly amused or growing delirious. She reached and untied the blindfold from around the man's eyes. His smirk only widened when his steel blue eyes were free from their cover. Carol's stomach did another little flip. She knew those eyes.
"Carol? Sandwiches?" Alice asked, abandoning the man for a moment. He watched her every move, smirking as he did, and Carol wondered if it bothered Alice at all to know she was being ogled by the man. Carol offered him a sandwich, stepping close to him for the first time. She wasn't sure how she was going to find her voice and how she was going to tell him that his brother was alive and well. "Do you have a name?" Alice asked, rolling her cart over and bringing her chair to sit near the man.
"I'd rather have yours," the inmate responded. Carol held back on the urge to suggest that his name might be Merle.
"Dr. Walker," Alice responded. "Alice. And you are?"
"Don't really matter, does it?" Merle responded, trying to eat his sandwich around his restraints.
"I could unlock those for you," Alice said. "If you think you can handle that. I have to warn you, though, that my buddy Richardson over there has orders to shoot you if you try anything. And he's not shooting to wound."
The inmate glanced at Richardson, sitting in his time-out corner and reading the book that he'd been working his way through during most of the day, and then he looked back at Alice. Carol saw his throat bob with his swallowing.
"Shoot to wound," he said, "is what the fuck they do every day. Let me outta these chains, A-lee-se."
"Name?" Alice asked before she unlocked the restraints.
"Merle," the man said. As soon as he gained his freedom, he tore into the sandwich with his teeth. When they were eating had been the only time that Carol had truly thought most of the prisoners seemed to really be wild. They tore at the food like they were ripping apart prey. Carol was grateful that it had been a long time since she'd been that hungry. "Who the hell are you?" He asked, finally making eye contact with Carol. He rolled his eyes from her face down to her feet. She could almost feel violated by his stare alone.
"Carol," she responded. She bit back the desire to introduce herself further for the moment. She was simply observing him now that she knew he was really Daryl's brother.
"How'd you lose this hand, Merle?" Alice asked. She reached for the cuff that he was wearing and the man snatched away from her.
"Don't touch my fuckin' arm or you might lose yours!" He barked.
Alice backed up and held her hands up in mock surrender.
"I have to examine you," she said. "You know that. You agreed to it." Still visibly tense, Merle watched her. She put her hands down and eased them toward him again. "I'm not going to hurt you. That isn't my job. How'd you lose it?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Merle responded.
Alice nodded.
"I would," she said. "Can I see? They gave you the cuff?"
"Couldn't stand to look at the shit," Merle said. He did let Alice touch him, though, and he let her remove the cuff. He continued, with the hand he had left, to feed himself the sandwich while he stared at her every move. "Had a fight with a...very nice officer. Fuckin' chained my ass up as punishment. Outside like a damn dog. Couple days—forgot about me. Damn bucket of water just outta reach."
"So how'd you lose the hand?" Alice asked.
"The saw wasn't outta reach," Merle said. He rolled his eyes from Alice then to look at Carol. He smirked at her when he noticed her looking back at him. He attacked the sandwich and chewed through the bite of it while staring hard at Carol. "Little bitty sweet piece," he said, speaking around the last of the bite as he finished it.
"How long ago?" Alice asked, looking at the stump and ignoring Merle's other comments.
"Let me check my damn calendar," Merle responded.
"It's infected," Alice said. "And whoever—sewed it up? Looks like they never did a suture before. I'm going to have to treat you for that infection. If I don't—it could get ugly. Uglier than it is. You could lose more of this arm."
Merle hummed at her, still watching Carol. Carol moved to get him another sandwich. She unwrapped it and offered it to him even as he leaned forward to snatch it from her. His eyes weren't leaving her despite the fact that the cleaning Alice was working on giving the wound had to be painful enough that even the food couldn't distract him from it entirely.
Carol felt herself relax—she was finding that she didn't fear him. Not even as much as he clearly wanted her to fear him.
"Your brother is alive," Carol said. She saw his expression change. She saw, too, that Alice was looking at her with some curiosity. "Daryl?"
"The fuck you know about my brother?!" Merle barked. Carol jumped simply because the words were the loudest that she'd heard since he'd entered the clinic.
"He's alive," Carol said. "He's alive and he's here. He's my...mate."
"Daryl?" Alice asked, interrupting any response that Merle might have made. Though, for just a moment, the man seemed speechless. He was staring at Carol like he was trying to figure out her angle—he suspected it to be nothing more than a trap.
"Merle is Daryl's older brother," Carol said, keeping her eyes on Merle. "They were separated at capture. They told Daryl that Merle is dead. So, I'm guessing, they told Merle that Daryl is dead too."
"Where the hell is my brother?" Merle asked. He jerked like he might get up and Alice quickly came out of her chair and pushed him back. She almost covered him entirely with her body to keep him from reacting. A reaction could end badly. Richardson wasn't as jumpy as some of the guards, but he still had clear orders.
"Let's get this arm healed," Alice offered, lowering her own voice like it might lead Merle to do the same, "and show them you can act like a human and I'll get you your brother to you. Just the same as I got you those sandwiches? I can get you what you want—but you have to play by the rules. It's all in good time here."
"Every fucking thing is playing by your damn rules!" Merle barked. Carol saw Richardson's interest get piqued and she shushed Merle out of instinct. If it went badly, it could go badly for all of them—just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One shot fired could mean other guards coming in—and other guards might not distinguish well between the various types of Wilds.
"It's all a game, Merle," Alice said. "You play it right, you win the game. That's all it is. You play it right? You win a mate. You win your brother. You win your freedom. You play it wrong? You lose a hell of a lot more than this hand."
Merle remained tense for a moment and then, seeming to respond to Alice's words, his smirk returned and he settled once more into his chair. He remembered the sandwich he was clutching. He returned to it and chewed through the first bite before he spoke again. Alice, too, settled back into her positon and Carol saw Richardson return to his book.
Merle hummed.
"Little brother's alive," he mused. "And got himself a mate. Took some damn body handin' him over a piece for him to finally get one." Carol didn't respond. She knew—better than most people even knew she might—when she was being antagonized. He wanted a rise out of her. He wasn't going to get it. Merle hummed at her again and gave her a thorough inspection once more. She decided that she wasn't giving him any more information. Not right now. Alice, she knew, would offer him nothing more than what he needed to get through her job for the day. "Guess if you're giving it away, he drew a decent straw. Coulda done worse...yeah...coulda done a lot worse. My little brother. Maybe I'll do half as damn good."
"Eat your sandwich," Alice said, entirely unbothered by Merle. "You don't want to show your weakness by hitting the floor in a minute when I take your blood."
