Thought I'd throw up chapter 15 because it might be a few days before I get the next chapter up. Thank you for all the story follows! And DJ Jazzy-I never liked Jenner much myself!
Nobody spoke for a few moments. It felt like a long while that passed where the only sounds heard were that of everyone's scared, heavy breaths filling the room. My eyes passed to the clock on the wall. We had less than seven minutes now before we'd be entirely obliterated. Part of me wasn't entirely sure how I felt about that.
On the one hand, a quick and painless death would be a nice escape from the horror of what awaited us if we even managed to get out of here. In all honesty I had nothing left to live for as far as I was aware. I didn't think I had it in me to point a gun to my own head and pull the trigger, but sitting here quietly with the others until the clock hit zero? Part of me almost reveled in the thought of how easy that would be.
But there was still another part of me that didn't want to give up. Maybe it was the animal instinct in me that was determined to survive against all odds. Did I really wake up in that hospital, fight my way out of Atlanta, just to meet my end here? Now?
"I think you're lying," Rick's voice broke the silence.
My eyes glanced up to him, watching as he looked at each of us in turn. His gazed paused on his wife and son before he turned to Jenner.
"You're lying about no hope," Rick continued. "If that were true you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"
Jenner shook his head slowly. "It doesn't matter."
Rick took a step toward the man. "It does matter, it always matters. You stayed when others ran—why?"
Jenner's response came in a stony voice. "Not because I wanted to. I made a promise." He pointed a hand at the big screen we had been watching an hour ago. "To her. My wife."
"Test Subject Nineteen was your wife?" Lori asked the man in disbelief.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no?"
The sound of metal striking metal caused me to jump in surprise. Daryl had an axe again and was swinging at the doors.
"She was dying," Jenner continued on, his voice carrying above the sound of Daryl's axe squealing against the metal door. "It should have been me on that table. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. She was a loss to the world! Hell she ran this place, I just worked here! In our field she was an Einstein." Jenner paused, his voice full of frustration and what sounded almost like guilt. "Me? I'm just Edwin Jenner. She could have done something about this. Not me."
Daryl stopped swinging the axe in his hands for a moment. Frustrated, he kicked the door with his foot and let out a grunt. He began pacing again, back and forth, in front of the door.
"Your wife didn't have a choice," Rick said, his voice sounding desperate and pleading now. "You do. That's all we want. A choice. A chance."
Metal began squealing on metal again as Daryl furiously began swinging his axe even harder.
"Let us try," Lori spoke up. She was hugging Carl tight to herself with both arms. "Let us keep trying as long as we can."
Jenner's gaze stayed on Lori for a moment before it landed back on Rick in front of him. Daryl's heavy blows to the door punctuated each moment as it broke through the silence. Finally a look of resolve crossed Jenner's face.
"I told you the emergency exits topside are sealed and I can't open those," Jenner said as he made his way over towards his computer again.
Everyone began exchanging hopeful glances. I watched as Jenner started pressing a few buttons on a keypad. The door Daryl had been swinging at opened and he stopped mid-swing.
"Come on!" Daryl shouted to the group.
My eyes glanced at the clock on the wall. There was still four minutes and thirty seven seconds left.
Rick began ordering everyone to hurry and grab their things and get to the top. The group began racing out towards the door where Daryl was ushering everyone through. His eyes darted to where Jacqui, Andrea, and I still sat by Jenner. Currently the man was whispering something to Rick as they exchanged a handshake.
I could feel my legs itching to go, to run out of the room and grab my bag and follow everyone else out of here, but I couldn't move. I felt my heart racing inside of my chest, thudding against my ribcage. Do I stay or do I keep fighting?
"Hey! We've got four minutes left, come on!" Glenn screamed at us.
A pair of hands was pulling me to my feet.
"What the hell are you doing woman?" Daryl snarled in my ear. "We have to go!"
A rough hand began pushing on my back, urging me forward. My legs followed the command and I began stumbling forward into a run. I was barely aware of Jacqui arguing with T-Dog and Dale arguing with Andrea. Daryl didn't give me a chance to even look back, he kept pushing me forward. The only time his hand left my back was when he stopped into my room to grab my duffle bag before stopping into his and grabbing his crossbow, but then it was back on me, pushing me with the others up the stairs in the darkened stairwell.
When we reached the lobby I could see it was early afternoon outside. The sun was pouring into the room and lighting everything. T-Dog was frantically trying to get the door opened with a keypad on the wall but it was unresponsive.
"Daryl!" Shane called out.
From beside me I saw Daryl rush forward with the axe still in his left hand. Shane still held his and the two began slamming them into the window, but both axes only kept bouncing back off of it. They had as much effect on the window as they'd had on the door downstairs. T-Dog ran forward with a chair and began smashing it against the window, but the chair made no impact either. I watched as Shane reloaded his shotgun and fired a round at the window. Yet again nothing happened. The window was too strong to break.
"Rick, I have something that might help!" Carol called out. She was digging in her bag frantically now until her fingers landed on something and she pulled it out. "Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform, I found this in your pocket."
She held out the grenade in her hand, the one I remembered Rick taking off the dead soldier in the tank. Her hand shook with the weapon in her hand before Rick took it from her.
"Everyone get back!" Rick ordered.
I raced back towards the stairs with the rest of the group, everyone huddling together and crouching down as Rick activated the hand grenade, placing it by the window before racing back towards us. It was mere moments before it exploded, the impact hitting me in the chest like a punch. The window shattered and scattered glass everywhere.
"Let's go! Back to the vehicles!" Rick's voice rang out.
We all clambered through the window, our feet crunching over the shards of broken glass. It was hot outside and I found myself sweating almost immediately. There were a few walkers outside directly in our way. My hand instinctively made its way to the waistband of my jeans only to realize my gun was in my duffle bag. Shane's shotgun and Rick's gun took down a few of the walkers but there was one heading right towards me. I cussed under my breath. My duffle was still slung over Daryl's shoulder.
My eyes began darting around for any weapon as I backed up from the walker. It was snarling and snapping its mouth at me hungrily.
"Move!" a gruff voice ordered from behind me.
I jumped out of the way just as Daryl swung the axe in his hands, slicing the head off the walker. He quickly pulled my bag off of his shoulder and handed it to me. I momentarily wondered how he had been managing to carry my things along with his before he yelled at me.
"Don't just stand there like an idiot, move!"
Remembering how little time we had left before the CDC exploded right beside us, my feet picked up their pace again and I was running forward following the rest of the group. When we reached the vehicles everyone began piling into them. Rick, Lori, Carl, and Glenn had loaded up into the RV. T-Dog, Carol, and Sophia climbed into the vehicle right behind the RV while Daryl continued forward towards his truck and Shane climbed into his Jeep.
A movement out of my peripheral caught my eye and I stopped, turning to see Dale and Andrea emerging from the shattered window. They were sluggishly making their way from the building towards us.
A rough tug on my arm made me stumble forward, nearly falling onto my face.
"Are you trying to die?!" Daryl's frustrated voice shot at me. "God dammit, move!"
He dragged me by the arm to his truck, pulling the passenger door open and literally shoving me inside before he slid over the hood of the truck and climbed into the driver's seat. His right hand pushed me forward roughly.
"Stay down," he ordered.
He crouched down as best as he could as well, part of his body shielding the top of mine. I could hear his heavy breathing and feel his breath tickle my neck with each exhale.
I heard someone shouting from one of the vehicles ahead of us but the voice was suddenly drowned out by an earsplitting explosion. I felt the impact before I felt the heat. It only lasted for a few seconds though before Daryl was sitting up in his seat. Hesitantly I sat up as well.
The building was gone; it was engulfed in a fiery plume. A few pieces of the ground remained on fire, the corpses that had lined the path to the CDC were ablaze, and a handful of trees had burnt up in the blast. Thick black smoke was covering the sky above us.
My eyes darted around for Dale and Andrea. For a moment I panicked, thinking they hadn't made it through the explosion, but then I spotted them just outside the RV. The door swung open and Glenn pulled them both inside.
It was a minute before the RV started up, the engine roaring to life. In succession each car rumbled to life. I had no idea where we were going, but after that explosion it wouldn't be safe to be here in the middle of Atlanta.
The RV lead the line of vehicles in a U-ie in the direction we had come just the day before. I couldn't believe how much had happened in such a short amount of time. And now Jacqui was gone.
When the CDC was far enough in the distance I saw Daryl shoot me a look. I kept my eyes straight ahead on the tail lights of the vehicle T-Dog was driving, but Daryl's angry voice caught my attention.
"What the hell was that back there?" he snapped at me. "That door opened and we had four minutes to get out of there, and you just sat there on the floor!"
I continued to avoid his glare which seemed to anger him further. He slapped a hand on the steering wheel in frustration.
"D'ya want to die?" Daryl growled.
"I froze up," I admitted, my voice quiet.
I could feel his glare burning into the side of my head. "You don't get to freeze up," Daryl said, his voice quiet and cold. "None of us do. You keep going, keep moving. You don't just sit there and give up!"
I could feel my own anger rising now. My hands clenched into fists at my sides and I fought to keep my voice even. "What does it matter what I do?" I snapped.
Daryl let out a humorless chuckle. "Don't try to start spewin' that nothin'-left-to-live-for bullshit."
I turned and glared at him. His own narrowed eyes met mine as he glanced between me and the road.
"If we all give up then Jenner's right," Daryl shot at me. "This'll be the end of all of us."
I let out a snort. "What the hell do you even care about what happens to humanity?"
Daryl's lips tightened into a straight line as he stared firmly ahead. I saw his grip tighten on the steering wheel.
"I didn't ask for your help," I shot at him.
His lips pressed further together at my words.
"If I wanted to stay back there like Jacqui then it was my choice."
"If that's what you really wanted," Daryl's cold voice said, "then I read you wrong."
I shot him a questioning look now. Since when did Daryl really take notice of any one in the group?
"If you just wanna lay down and die, then you're weak," Daryl shot at me. "You're gonna get someone else killed. Stop fuckin' sulkin' over what was and what you don' remember. This group needs you." His eyes darted to me. "You," he said forcefully before he looked back to the road. "The chick who braved Atlanta twice. The one who went back for my brother." He shot me another quick look. "The one who isn' afraid to stand up to me."
Was I actually hearing a tinge of admiration in his tone?
"You think those kids or their mothers got what it takes to protect this group?" Daryl continued, his hands tightening and untightening on the wheel in what appeared to be a sign of awkwardness. "Rick, T-Dog, Glenn, maybe. Shane's losing his mind. Dale's too stuck to his moral compass. Andrea's too stuck on her sister to step up."
He paused, suddenly chewing on his left thumbnail. Daryl wasn't prone to long conversations. He usually never said much unless he was yelling, either. I could only assume the whiskey in his system and our near-death experience had suddenly given him the gift of gab.
"Is that what you wanted?" he suddenly asked me, his eyes still firmly on the road ahead.
I sighed. "Part of me, yes," I admitted. "It would have been easier than all of this. But there's still a part of me that wants to keep fighting. And I don't get that. What's there left to fight for?"
"If you give up before you find the answer, you'll never know," Daryl's gravelly voice replied.
Neither of us continued the conversation after that, an awkward silence filling the truck.
We made it a few miles before we stopped just outside of Atlanta. A bunch of cars were stopped dead on the highway and the RV pulled over. Rick ordered Daryl and T-Dog to siphon whatever gas they could from the vehicles while the rest of us picked around inside looking for whatever food or water we could find.
Fifteen minutes later we had a little more food, a small amount of water bottles stock piled in the RV, and enough gas for a few vehicles. Most people piled into the RV, but I climbed into T-Dog's vehicle with Andrea. Daryl had decided to ditch his truck and ride his motorcycle instead.
Ever since Daryl and I had left his truck he'd ignored my presence and refused to make eye contact with me. It reminded me of this morning when he'd ignored me like our conversation last night hadn't happened. For some reason I didn't quite understand, his cold shoulder treatment bothered me.
Why had he taken the time to give me all that advice last night? Why was he so concerned with getting me out of the CDC? He hadn't pushed Andrea or Jacqui. And then he'd been so furious afterwards with me. It made no sense, but I assumed his cold shoulder treatment now was because he was still pissed at me for being weak and nearly giving up. Nothing else made sense. And I wasn't even going to get started on understanding why him avoiding me was bothering me so much, or why my eyes remained glued to his back as he rode his motorcycle ahead of our line of vehicles.