Beth knows there's going to be a problem long before they reach their destination. The blackened trickles of smoke on the horizon remind her of looking back toward the prison, when Daryl used the fire as a way to track how far they were away from danger. A glance at Shane's expression shows he's equally concerned, and she spares time for a random thought of how odd it is that she's learned to read him so quickly.
"Gonna pull over and get off the tracks at the next crossover," he tells her.
She nods. "Gear up and go on foot?"
Sighing, he glances her way. "You don't have to go."
He's trying to spare her, she thinks, but she's tired of being protected and sheltered. "I know. But I think I need to."
The difference with Shane and most of the people she knows? He doesn't argue her decision. As she belts on her machete and checks that her knife is in place, he makes the turn and carefully backs the bus into a tangle of undergrowth. It isn't completely hidden, but at least it isn't obvious. They leave Muffin with the puppies, only taking Biscuit out as they move through the treeline toward their goal.
Reaching a chain link fence, it is unmistakable that something horrific happened at the self professed sanctuary… and recently so. "Jesus," Beth mutters. "It looks as bad as the prison."
"It does." Shane's got his backpack off, removing the sealed bag that holds their stink suits. "Should be enough without fresh guts, with the fires messing with their senses."
As they dress in the coveralls, Beth slowly loses the acrid scent of smoke behind first the taint of walker and then the pervasive scent of menthol when Shane offers her the little tub.
"Biscuit. Stand guard. Patrol." The dog fades back into the woods at Shane's command, making Beth arch a brow at the man. He smiles, but the expression is grim. "He can't go with us, but I don't want him sitting in the open right here."
It makes sense, Beth supposes. Even if Biscuit had a stink suit, animals don't turn, so she figures walkers might notice him. They might not, but why use him as an experiment and risk it?
Assessing the fence, Shane finds a spot where it's been cut. He points out the small footprints and the clear impression of a rifle's butt next to the fence. "Someone watched from here before entering. Fence is recently cut. See the way the cut ends shine?"
She nods, carefully studying the signs he points out. "Someone didn't trust their messages."
"We'll borrow their temporary gate. I don't see any movement that isn't walkers, but they're also the thickest near the gates."
What follows is worse than the visit to the fallen prison, which Beth didn't expect. But at the prison, the Governor only wanted them dead. Terminus? Their goals are so much more sinister and disgusting.
Dodging fire, rubble, and walkers, Beth recognizes the horrific room faster than Shane, thanks to a lifetime on a cattle farm. But it's Shane that identifies the wrongness her brain wants to retreat from, gibbering in primitive recoil. The makeshift abattoir here was never used to process livestock.
She must whimper or make some sound of distress, she thinks, because she finds herself hauled close to a firm chest. The fact that she's got her cheek against his grime smeared suit doesn't register enough to overcome the idea that there are worse cannibals than the walking dead. How much time they lose while she grips the material across his broad back trying to reel her mind back from the edge, she doesn't know.
"Maybe they didn't make it this far." Shane's voice finally breaks through her shock, and she nods mutely.
"Or not everyone did." Beth can't find it in her to be optimistic as she usually would be, not after the past week. Especially not faced with this room and what hangs nearby. She hugs Shane before stepping away and kneeling to gently close the eyes of the pale haired stranger lying next to the trough, his slit throat a silent testimony to the horror of this place.
Searching the buildings doesn't help her spirits, and with each step, a heaviness settles on her soul worse than the one that found her after her father was murdered. "I didn't think there could be a worse room than the abattoir," she says, voice catching as they find a room full of things stolen from these monsters' victims.
Shane nods silently, holding the battered King's County Sheriff's Department hat in his hands. If they needed proof of her missing people being here, it doesn't get any more distinctive than that hat. But Beth looks anyway, placing each item she recognizes into Shane's backpack and identifying them, sometimes unnecessarily.
"Daryl's vest. Michonne's belt. Glenn and Maggie's wedding bands. My daddy's watch he gave Glenn. Carol's watch. Rick's watch." So many damned watches. Ticking away despite their owners' time running its course. Grief lurks beyond the edges of a coldness she vaguely recognizes as shock.
Shane clears his throat, and his voice sounds raw and breaking when he speaks. "Anything of the other kids?"
Sifting through the trophies collected off those who trusted this place, Beth isn't sure. "Nothing of Sophia's, but I don't think she had anything distinctive, and I wouldn't remember the others' things as well, like Sasha's or Tyreese's."
She isn't sure what is worse about that gap in knowledge. It's possible that Sophia, Andre, and Judith didn't make it here. They could be wandering still, two babies protected by a terrified teenager. If that's the case, she prays one of the adults from the prison didn't follow those horrific signs and found them. Sophia is brave and strong, but some tasks are impossible.
A noise from an alcove puts them both on alert. Shane plants Carl's hat firmly on Beth's head before approaching the area, and she knows he's probably cursing himself for not clearing the room fully. They were both thrown off when they spotted the hat now covering Beth's blond locks.
"Beth? We got a live one."
It takes her a minute to realize he probably needs her to identify if the person is one of hers or not. She's certainly given him enough unfamiliar names in her stories. When she spots the woman in tattered, bloody clothing, she shakes her head. "Not one of mine."
That doesn't necessarily make the woman one of the villains. There were likely other victims than the one unknown man in the abattoir. But this one doesn't have long to live, with a seeping bite wound evident on her neck where it meets the shoulder, and Beth figures other wounds lie beneath the torn and bloody clothing. The stranger is already in the grips of the fever that will kill her before turning her.
"Don't let me turn," the woman begs. Beth looks up, seeing a blood trail where the woman crawled to try to reach the trophy room from the alcove room. A heavy metal door bears bloody handprints, obviously closed by the dying woman. Thinking about the pocket knives among the trophies, Beth guesses she was seeking her own way out.
"Who are you?" Shane asks. There's something cool in his voice, a near absence of emotion. He taps the knife at his belt in a seemingly casual fashion, drawing the woman's eyes to it.
The hope in those fevered eyes is frightening. "Mary."
Getting them both back to the bus safely is something Shane attributes to years of law enforcement experience honed to absolute instinct by necessity in the apocalypse. Beth didn't shut down completely, but she's on the razor's edge of shattering like glass. Biscuit guards their every step, the pit bull on alert to their emotional turmoil.
Outside the bus, Beth seems to lose whatever strength propelled her. She slumps against the vehicle, eyes nearly vacant. With grief screaming in his own mind, he can't begin to imagine the multiple blows she's taken today.
Gently, Shane strips her out of the protective suit and packs both away. Wiping her exposed skin clean using a bucket of soapy water, he suggests she go inside and change, since her clothes retain the stench of smoke and walker. Repeating the process with himself, he gets everything into the bus.
Inside, none of the dogs are visible, not even Muffin. The curtain is pulled across the bed area, so Shane takes advantage of that to strip down and don fresh clothing himself. When he bundles his dirty clothing up with Beth's to stash in the bathroom, he risks a look behind the curtain. All he can see is a bit of blonde hair above the top of the blankets, and since she's got all the dogs huddled around her except Muffin standing guard, Shane decides to get them the hell away from this nightmare place.
Driving south, he doesn't stop until they're an hour away in King County. Hiding the bus in an abandoned warehouse not far from his once home, Shane puts food out for the dogs and goes to check on Beth. Touching her shoulder, he realizes she's still crying. Deciding the hell with propriety, he sheds his boots and climbs into the bed with her.
Tugging her close makes her sob harder at first. She has that tiny rag doll he took from the prison clutched to her chest, and a glint of metal on her fingers shows him that she has four metal bands slipped on the fingers of her right hand. Only the tight fist she has the hand curled into keeps the rings in place on her slim fingers.
With Beth against his chest, Shane finally gives into the grief he's held at bay and sobs uncontrollably himself. He wishes he never thought of Terminus, because searching aimlessly is better than this terrible, soul scarring knowledge they possess now. Biscuit and the puppies whine and nuzzle at Beth and his arms around her. Behind him, he feels Muffin creep up from the foot of the bed, pressing her furry body against his back.
The ghoul in human guise had confessed so readily with the implied promise that he would end her suffering in exchange for the truth. There hadn't been any recognizable trophies for the children other than Carl, but he can never unhear the unholy delight of that thing describing how young girls, children, and babies are always slaughtered first, because the meat is so much sweeter and tender compared to boys after puberty and adults.
Shane wanted so badly for the woman to be insane, even after the evidence of the abattoir. But the burn pit where the discarded bones still had unburned bones stripped mostly clean of flesh. They're the right size for Sophia and the toddler boy. He couldn't keep digging to find even smaller bones in the ash and scorched bones. No one's mind would be capable of returning from the sight of their child like that, and a voice that sounds suspiciously like his late grandmother whispered he couldn't abandon Beth.
The only revenge he could manage was hog-tying that rabid bitch and leaving her to die of her fever and wounds in that room full of symbols of the dead. For all time, unless someone else finds her undead body and puts it down, she'll face her guilt, unable to escape and feed, eternally the one thing she dreaded becoming the most.
Carol blinks groggily, letting the painkiller process through her system. After the encounter with Noah, she knew exactly how to get inside the hospital turned prison camp to find Beth. Daryl hadn't liked the idea at all, but he bent to her determination after a short argument. Timing it just right to not end up with a serious injury from stepping in front of a car was tricky, but she did it.
Feigning unconsciousness is a skill she hasn't lost in the years since Ed died. The two men masquerading as cops bundled her into the car with surprising gentleness. At the hospital, she made it onto a gurney, with the bored doctor's cursory examination and treatment getting her labeled as concussed, dehydrated, and with only minor injuries.
Allowing the IV fluids to run their course gives her time to listen to the conversations around her. It confirms Noah's tale of indentured servitude, which means his tales of the women being treated as sex slaves are probably legitimate as well. The very idea makes her blood boil. Finding Beth is even more important now. If even one of these bastards laid a finger on the girl, Carol is going to feed him his balls.
Blinking, she deliberately groans, drawing the doctor's attention. His faked concern makes her consider his own long term health as being at risk, but she bows her head meekly. Time enough to reveal the Trojan Horse they've brought inside when she finds her missing young friend.
Daryl still hates this plan vehemently. It feels so close to Merle's foolish self-sacrifice attempt that his skin is crawling with unease that grows with each mile away from the city. At least these dumb bastards are on guard when he and Noah emerge from the trees at the church.
"We found the people that took Beth," he explains, unable to meet Sophia's anxious gaze. "But they have Carol, too, now. Her choice."
The others clamor for an explanation, one he hates to give. Letting Carol go into a place of brutal men who abuse women is killing him slowly. Stumbling through the words, he manages, and he's almost done when a small, delicate hand slips into his.
Looking down, he sees Sophia, and instead of the judgement he fears, there's only trust. Straightening his slumped posture, Daryl finishes on a firmer note. "We know where Beth was taken, and Carol's inside to help us. Who is going back to Atlanta with me?"
"We all will."
Everyone turns to Carl, where the boy is holding his sister. "While you were gone, the new people promised they would help us, and that included repaying Carol for rescuing them from Terminus. So we all go."
No one argues with the fierce glares of the two teenagers, making Daryl wonder just what in the hell went down while he was gone. But he isn't arguing his luck here. "A'right. Let's get on the way. We'll come up with a plan on the road."
Sophia smiles at him, that glint of her mama's spirit showing even more these days. For the first time since he lost Beth and then had to watch Carol put herself in harm's way, he thinks they might come out of this one intact.
A/N: The first of the mistaken for dead scenes occurs... Time will chug a bit slow until the Grady arc is done next chapter. Then we'll start getting hops.
Until more time passes, no romance, as Beth has literally been with Shane for about 3 days at this point. Neither are ready to see the other like that yet.
And in case the ring count seems off, Beth has both her parents' rings (Hershel's before Shane buried him, Annette's from visiting her father's room in the farmhouse), plus Glenn & Maggie's.