oOo
The morning of the run had been an emotionally stressful one. At least for Diana, it had. Her parents almost forbade her to go at least four times, but she'd prevailed by reminding them of the points that had won her argument the day before.
Then she'd gone to wish Daryl a good hunt but it seemed like he'd already left.
Shane had given her a machete which she'd taken with a hint of gratitude. She had her bow with her anyways, but since no one knew what it could do, she didn't want to look unarmed. It may have looked foolish to the others, but she knew what was up.
The ride to the city had given her nervous butterflies. It made her want to throw up with every jostle of the van. There, they worked stealthily and raided a couple of uninhabited stores.
Everything was going fine, but it didn't last long. When does it ever?
Glenn had spotted a man donning a sheriff's uniform on the streets while on the lookout for the next spot. He'd been riding on a horse like an apocalyptic cowboy and had then gotten himself trapped in a tank with dozens of geeks surrounding him.
Diana's heart went out for the poor horse as she averted her eyes and covered her ears from its desperate whinnies.
Glenn took off after that, trying to reach the man on the walkie-talkie, going by the logic that there must be one inside the tank. Diana wanted to accompany him, but he asked her to stay behind, not wanting to put her in unnecessary danger. Then he went ahead and put himself in unnecessary danger.
They'd been waiting for some time when they heard shots from out on the street that were growing closer to them. Diana heard Morales curse under his breath and run his hands into his hairline. In a nervous tizzy, she tapped the flat side of the machete against her leg and cracked her knuckles one-handed.
If the shots came any closer, the geeks would come to them like a tidal wave.
The others were pacing, seething, especially Andrea, who was on the verge of tears of anger. Her knuckles were white from her grip on her gun and Diana eyed her like she was about to explode.
Suddenly, Glenn's voice sounded from the walkie-talkie, accompanied by vague static, and Diana shot to T-Dog. "What'd he say? Is he coming back?"
T-Dog pursed his lips and nodded tensely. "Yeah, got that son of a bitch with him."
He and Morales started covering themselves with some kind of protective gear they'd improvised with shit from the store.
Morales spoke next, wiping his sweaty brow, "Seriously, does he not get the concept of stealth?"
Diana ignored their collective complaints. She just wanted Glenn safe by her side again, with or without Apocalypse Cowboy.
T-Dog and Morales counted to three and burst out the door, fully geared up and donning baseball bats. Diana heard the snarls of the dead before the sound of wood on flesh and bone was heard. She suppressed a shudder, seeing the gory image that accompanied the sound in her mind's eye.
Glenn came rampaging through the door with the other man in tow.
Glenn's hand flew out immediately in her direction when he spotted her and Diana almost glided to his side, grabbing it and squeezing it in relief. They shared a look before being distracted by Andrea's outrage.
She was on the Sheriff before the Devil could blink, pressing her gun to his face. She made furious threats and accused him of their doom.
Diana thought that she could stand to be less melodramatic about it and pointing a gun at the guy's face wasn't gonna do anything. Dead or alive, he couldn't change what he'd done.
"Hey, c'mon now, Andrea. Maybe put the gun down and give the guy a break. We're all just tryna survive here," Diana appeased her and put a soft hand on her upper back. Her insides trembled like jelly at the situation, but she bit her tongue and kept her head.
"It's his own fault, Diana," Morales warned and experimentally lowered Andrea's arm, telling her to either back down or pull the trigger.
She backed off slowly, accusations still fresh on her tongue and angry, frustrated tears in her eyes.
Diana glanced back at the sheriff, looking him up and down. He looked shaken up and confused, riding on slowly trickling adrenaline. He was holding a hand to his side.
"You okay? Are you injured?" Diana asked cautiously with a touch to his arm.
The sheriff's head snapped to hers, his blue eyes wide, and he shook his head. "No, I'm… I'm not." He dropped his hand when he noticed Diana's pointed look.
"Were you bitten or scratched?" She'd never seen it in action, but patients from the camp had told her tales of the things they'd seen. That plus her knowledge of zombie movies equals 'contact with human blood is a no-no'.
He looked at her like her question was a familiar one. "No, I haven't," he sounded sincere.
T-Dog spoke from behind her, his tone almost threatening, "Let her check."
"I swear I will put a bullet in your brain if you're lying," Andrea stepped forward as the sheriff hesitantly untucked his shirt.
Diana put her arm out and stopped her. She raised an annoyed eyebrow. "Chill," she bit out. They had more important stuff to do, so let her just confirm the guy's innocence and move on.
He lifted his shirt just enough to see a pink scar on his side. It looked recent, but it was neither a bite nor a scratch mark, thus making it not a big deal.
"I told you," the sheriff whispered while tucking his shirt back in. Diana nodded at him in gratitude.
"Who cares about that; we're still all dead because of you," Andrea lamented, falling back. Jacqui pulled her to her side and caressed her back.
"I don't understand," said the newcomer.
Morales grabbed him by the arm and dragged him along to the front of the department store they'd been holed up in. He admonished his loudness and lack of stealth and lectured him on the key points to survival and scavenging.
Diana shared a look with Glenn as they hurried behind the group. She could hear the sounds of geeks banging on the glass doors, and upon reaching the storefront, the sight was enough to make her chest constrict with the beginnings of panic.
The tidal wave had crashed on their front door and they were on the verge of drowning.
She heard Andrea say, "You just rang the dinner bell."
The geeks were squished up together in an unruly manner, as they do, pushing and banging against the glass with whatever body part was more convenient. One or two of them had rocks and were attempting – and succeeding – to crack the glass door. Diana had never seen them use tools before. What that a thing?
They backed up in shock when a perfect spider web crack appeared on the partition. They hid behind racks of clothes and still mannequins in fear.
Diana felt her breath hitch and her throat threaten to close up. She coached her breathing, in through the nose and out slowly through half pursed lips, calming the stress-induced asthma attack before it could start. There was no more she could do than that, her inhaler had run out of juice last week after a self-defense session had left her particularly winded.
She came out of her out mind when she heard the sheriff mention something about a helicopter he had been trying to flag.
"What helicopter?" she asked, curious, and felt the disbelieving eyes on her.
He turned to her. "I saw it over the building, the reflection of it, anyhow." It sounded like he was telling the truth. Who knew? Maybe there was still some semblance of organized society out there, trying to find survivors in all the chaos.
"Man, that's crap, there's no damn helicopter," T-Dog chided, and Jacqui joined in, saying it must have been a hallucination.
"I saw it," the man defended firmly, his lips pursed.
Diana believed him, and she said so. "Dude, we got no idea who's still alive out there. For all we know, it could've been real."
"I wouldn't bet on it," Morales said as a side note and then asked T-Dog to try to contact the others.
She forgot about the helicopter talk, since it wouldn't help them right now, and focused instead on helping to find a way out of there, out of the city, and back to her family.
Her parents had finally been willing to let her go. She'd promised them a thousand times over that she would come back to them safe and sound – something she wasn't even sure she'd be able to keep but had promised anyway, just to appease them – so she could not and would not die there.
"The others?" Sheriff asked, hopeful, "The refugee center?" His hope was shot down by Jacqui's sarcastic reality check, saying that yeah, they had cookies fresh out of the oven waiting for them.
That didn't sound half bad, Diana hadn't eaten cookies since forever. Her stomach grumbled in response to the thought of chocolate chips treats and Mailänderlis, and she slapped a hand over her belly, hoping the sound hadn't been obviously loud. She had bigger issues that her hunger, she could eat once they were safe.
T-Dog fumbled with the knobs and buttons but only got static in return. He frowned. "Got no signal. Maybe the roof."
A shot rang off from above them, startling them into a half crouch. What the hell? Or who in Hell had done that? Besides the Sheriff, they hadn't seen anyone else alive out there. Diana looked around at the group; who was missing?
Oh no. Merle.
Merle, why do you have to wander off like a damn child? Like a trigger-happy, loony child.
Everyone grumbled about him, cursing out his name, and hurried out the door that led to the stairs to the roof. Glenn waited for her there as last, waving an arm at her to hurry, his brow raised in apprehension. "Come on, Diana, let's go, no time to be admiring those things."
She ran to him without a final glance back, her hand on sheriff's back to push him ahead.
"Stay close to me, alright?" Glenn told her as they took the tail climbing the stairs two at a time.
Diana gave him a look. She intended to, but she didn't like being told what to do, so she responded with, "I'm not a child, Glenn," and ran ahead.
Both erupted through the door, out into the sunlight to see Merle shooting down at the street from up on the building's edge. He was laughing in spouts like he'd gone crazy.
Diana calmed her heavy breathing and blinked against the blinding light. She raised an arm to shield her eyes and bent slightly at the waist to catch her breath. Fuck, how she hated asthma.
"Hey! You oughta be more polite to a man with a gun," Merle shouted out in response to whatever Morales had said to him. A condescending grin was on his lips and he waved his rifle around, shortly pointing it at her before it continued on its rotation.
Diana could feel exasperation building up in her. Why was everyone so fond of pointing guns at people's faces lately. Was it the new trend? What had happened to talk first, shoot later?
"Merle, for real, you're acting like a fucking asshat. Put that thing down and get down from there!" Diana said, ever so concerned about the wellbeing of others. Actually, seeing him standing so close to the edge was making her skin crawl with anxiety.
Merle sneered down at her, his lips pulling up in contempt. He proceeded to jump down and parade himself in front of them, the maniac grin reappearing on his face.
Morales and T-Dog jumped over one of the wide pipes running along the length of the roof and stomped to him, infuriated. The latter said, "Man, you're wasting bullets we ain't even got, man! And you're bringing even more of them down on our ass! Man, just chill!"
"Hey! Bad enough I've got this taco-bender on my ass all day. Now I'm gonna take orders from you?" Merle shook his head. "I don't think so, bro. That'll be the day."
"Merle, don't be a jackass. Stop this right now," Diana demanded, more than pissed off. One hand gripped the humming bow on her shoulder and the other hovered over the handle of the machete at her side.
He just turned to her and gave a gratingly arrogant smile. "Ya ain't gotta butt in. You might be nicer on the eye than these two, sweet cheeks, but ya ain't any better than them. You're some kind o' rotten hybrid, the result of shameless inter-breeding."
His words and the easiness with which he'd said them were enough to almost physically knock her back. She stood there, shocked and hurt, for the whole of two seconds. The subsequent fight that broke out between Merle and T-Dog jarred her to focus.
Glenn's comforting words fell on deaf ears. She ignored the sheriff getting knocked to the ground by one of Merle's mindless punches. She ignored the panicked cries as Merle knelt over T-Dog with a pistol to his face.
Diana grabbed the bow off her shoulder – its purring almost aggressive now – and approached Merle from behind.
The others stood around in silence, frightened for what he might do.
"Diana, what're-" Jacqui didn't finish her sentence.
Diana grabbed the bow by a limb, raised it over her shoulder and swung it like a baseball bat, clubbing Merle on the back of the head with a blunt thud. He fell to the floor, next to T-Dog, not unconscious, but stunned.
His gun skidded from his grasp and Morales picked it up in a rush.
The sheriff, now recovered from the blow he'd sustained, stalked in Merle's direction. He gave her a slightly impressed nod as he passed Diana and handcuffed Merle to a metal rod that connected the pipes to the floor.
T-Dog was helped to sit by Glenn and Jacqui. Diana said to him, "Sorry, T-Dog, man. I'll take a look at you in just a sec, I wanna see how this plays out."
She heard Sheriff introduce himself to Merle as Officer Friendly and condemning his bigoted remarks.
Glenn helped T-Dog sit up against the wall and slid up to Diana. "You okay?" Glenn whispered to her, his hand slipping into hers.
She nodded minutely and squeezed it. "Yeah, just tired. Of everything."
But damn, had it felt good to knock Merle down a peg. She'd heard so many racist comments in her life and had always imagined herself retributing in one way or another. Of course that with her mild temperament, she'd never done anything about it other than be upset about it and cry.
But she was tired. Tired of snide side comments she wasn't meant to hear, tired of hearing she was "(insert generic complimenting adjective) for a black girl", tired of being asked "what she was", tired of being insulted to her face about her heritage, something she was so proud of, tired of being told to go back to her country, even back in her home country.
So this time, she did do something and she didn't regret it one bit.
The bow hummed gently, in tune with her emotions. Diana hung it from her shoulder, feeling more at peace despite her act of violence.
The sheriff received Merle's pistol from Morales and pressed it to Merle's temple, repeating his words from before about being polite to a man with a gun right after Merle told him to go screw himself.
Diana tilted her head to Glenn and whispered, "He might've ruined our stealth and our chance at survival or whatever, but I like his sass."
"You would," Glenn whispered back.
"-All I am anymore is a man looking for his wife and son. Anybody that gets in the way of that is gonna lose. I'll give you a moment to think about that," Sheriff hissed to Merle. He then proceeded to search his pockets until he found something in one of them.
Diana craned her neck to take a better look. In the Sheriff's grasp was small baggy half full with a white powder.
Of course, he fucking would. Damn Merle high off his own face, endangering the group, the run, everything, just for the thrill of a snort. Some of her conversations with Daryl hinted that Merle had dabbled with drugs in the past, but she didn't think he had dragged his addiction with him into the apocalypse.
Fucking irresponsible.
Sheriff threw Merle's drugs over the building's edge. Diana's eyes tracked the little white spot until it was lost to her while Merle yelled and threatened and tugged at his handcuffed wrist, the rattling of metal on metal loud alongside his voice. Music to her ears.
When the Sheriff strutted away from them with Morales trailing behind, Diana realized her more important duties. She let go of Glenn's hand and knelt by T-Dog.
She dragged her backpack to her from where she'd thrown it. She set it next to her and checked the injured man who was like a big brother to her own little brother. Did that make them brother and sister by association? Did it work that way? Even if it didn't, he'd already been calling her sister for a long time.
With careful hands and a light, but thorough touch, she cleaned the cuts on his face and applied ointment on them to help the healing. A quick prodding to his ribs indicated nothing was broken nor cracked. He'd be sore for a while, so she gave him a Dafalgan from her reserve.
T-Dog thanked her with a pained smile. He added, "I'm sorry he said that."
Diana smiled sadly but didn't elaborate. "You're welcome, bro. Sorry I didn't get to him sooner." She adjusted his disheveled shirt and packed her travel-sized med-kit away.
"I heard that, sweet cheeks," Merle's voice sounded from his spot of incarceration.
"Good, I didn't damage your hearing, then." Diana rolled her eyes and pat T-Dog on the shoulder. She apologized sheepishly when he winced.
She stood and braced herself against the wall while looking down at the anthill of geeks on the streets.
"That was a hell of a swing," Sheriff commented as he joined her, the same apprehension on his face at the sight below.
Diana shrugged. "Thanks, I guess. Nice handcuffing?" She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and saw his lips twitch into a short smile as he nodded in thanks.
"May I ask why a bow? Comes to my observation you're not carrying-"
"-any ammo for it?" Diana finished and gave him a regretful smile that was nothing short of a grimace. "Yeah, it's uh- it's complicated. Maybe one day you'll see."
"Signal's like Dixon's brain-" Diana heard T-Dog say as he messed with the walkie-talkie "-weak."
She dragged her gaze away from the geeks buzzing down in the streets like bees in a hive, their groans fresh in her ears. She abandoned the Sheriff's curious gaze as it followed her and went to Glenn, who was sitting on the rusty metal stairs, his elbows resting on his knees in quiet contemplation.
He was sure to be the one to get them out of there safely. His knowledge of the city and his strategic mind would make sure of it.
Diana sat on the step below him, her butt on the space between his feet and her upper arms coming to rest on top of his knees. She heard him sigh and felt his chin settle on top of her head, his arms draped over her shoulders, hanging down her front.
She looked up at him with a fond smile and reached up to hug him to her the best she could.
Merle made Andrea a disgusting sexual offer and accused her of being lesbian when she refused. Yes, because you totally had to be lesbian to refuse a man like Merle. For real. His lewd voice and word choice made Diana's skin crawl.
She felt overall annoyed by him, but his racy behavior atop his racism made her distaste grow. "Get some class, man, it still isn't too late."
He turned to her, adjusting himself to accommodate his chained wrist. He no longer went through the trouble of hiding the contempt he felt for her. "You're one to talk, sweet cheeks," his nickname for her was dripping with venom.
His comment puzzled her. Diana sat up straighter, untangling herself from Glenn. "What do you… what do you mean by that?"
By then, everyone's eyes were on them, even though some only payed half-minded attention to Merle.
He huffed in humorless laughter. "It don't matter you already gorging on rice balls," he spat out in Glenn's direction. "You think I ain't noticed you sneakin' around with my lil brother? Like a cheap who-"
"That's enough!" Sheriff bellowed out. He succeeded in shutting Merle up, but not in taking back his words, nor removing the satisfied smirk from his face.
Diana stood and looked at the others, who avoided her eye. She could feel her heart thump in her chest in panic, making it hard to breathe. Before the air was completely gone from her lungs, Diana wheezed out, "It's not like that, okay? He's be- he's been teaching me."
Merle raised his eyebrows depravedly and rotated his hips. "Oh, I bet he has."
Diana's eyes widened and she shook her head in denial. She heard her pulse pumping in her ears, making her lightheaded. Is that what other people thought? Not only that she and Glenn were a couple, but that she was sleeping with Daryl on the side.
Was that the impression they had of her?
"What the hell, man, you don't know jack-shit." Glenn put a protective arm around her shoulders, jolting the bow hanging there.
The numbness of her skin faded as she felt the bow hum against her. Her furrowed brow flattened. What better time than now? It was past due, anyway, she'd been delaying it for weeks. There was no better time nor place than this. She'd worried her nerves raw over what people would think and say, but they already had the wrong idea of her.
What was the point in hiding any longer?
Ooooh shit it's happening
also, guess some ppl put two and two together when they realized diana and daryl always disappeared at the same time, except their two plus two equals five
please leave a comment! i'd love to read your thoughts on this story! ILY
