A/N: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of it's characters in any way, shape or form.

TRIGGER ALERT: While not in every chapter there are chapters that mention rape and/or abuse.

Chapter 22

Adrian didn't know how long they had been driving but it hadn't been for very long before they approached a set of gates. Merle opened his door and got out, dragging Maggie with him since keeping her as his hostage had worked to keep them in line so far. Merle had yelled up at two men on top of a wall to come help him bring them in. The men didn't seem all that surprised when Merle had told them that they had information that was likely useful to someone named the Governor and to help him get them to the holding cells.

Adrian tried to take in as much of her surrounds as she could but there were two things that got in her way of that. First was that there was nothing notable about her surrounds other than that whatever building they were in was made of mostly tin, wood, and bricks. Second was that she had never been all that great when it came to taking in her surroundings. The two men, along with Merle, were pushing them down a hallway before Adrian and Maggie were locked in the room they had been thrown into, completely helpless. The room was bare with brick and tin walls and a concrete floor. The only things in the room aside from the women were two wooden chairs and a round wooden table that sat in the middle of the room. Maggie was sitting at the table in the chair she had been pushed into with her hands duct taped behind her back.

Adrian, however, was not sitting in the chair she had been pushed into. Her hands were also taped behind her back but instead of sitting she was pacing around the room. Both women then realized that Glenn wasn't in the room with them but Adrian realized that she could hear his voice from the other side of the tin wall to her left.

"Where are they?! What did you do with them?!" they heard Glenn yell from the other room.

"Sit down and shut the hell up!" Merle yelled.

Adrian heard a scuffing sound from the other room, as if someone had been shoved into a chair but the chair had scrapped against the floor. Then she heard the unmistakable sound of duct tape. Adrian didn't know what all had been taped on Glenn, but she became a little unnerved by the sudden silence coming from the other room. Adrian couldn't stand to sit down, needing to do something, even if it was just pacing the room they were locked in. Adrian was scared, she'd be a fool not to be in their current situation. They were miles from home and no one back at the prison even knew that they had been taken so the likelihood of them being rescued was slim to none.

Adrian looked over at Maggie to see that the poor girl was terrified, and she had every right to be. She had had a gun pointed at her head, knowing that the slightest wrong move meant her death, she had been used as leverage to keep she and Glenn in line, and now she was locked, and bound, in a room beside the room the man she loved was being kept in, and that room was completely silent.

Everything was so quiet, aside from the sound of Adrian's pacing, that when they heard a slight thump and a scrapping noise both women jumped, not expecting the sound.

"You don't even know why you're here, do you?" they heard Merle's voice ask. "I didn't mean you no harm. I lowered my gun, but you raised yours. Now see, I would've been just fine with the Ginger's plan, because there's no way any of yall would've just left her there. But you just had to shoot that plan right down, didn't you." Merle said.

Adrian could see a point in Merle's anger. He had put down his gun but none of them had lowered theirs. But in their defense, even if they did know Merle, he couldn't be trusted with the location of the rest of the group. He had been an outsider for so long that they had no clue where his true loyalties had been, with his brother or with whoever he had been with for the last year. Clearly they had all been right in not trusting him, the proof being their current situation.

"You were an asshole out there. Just like on that rooftop in Atlanta." Merle said, bitterness dripping from his voice.

Adrian had to roll her eyes at that one. He held a grudge longer than anyone she had ever known. She had heard all sides of the story from everyone that had been there the day Merle had been left, and while Adrian knew that T-Dog hadn't meant to drop the key and that it had been an unfortunate accident, Merle didn't see if that way. The only thing his brain latched onto was that they left him there alone and handcuffed to a pipe on the roof.

"What you did, leaving me up there, people wouldn't do that to an animal." Merle said.

"We went back for you." Glenn said. Glenn had no idea how relieved both women were to hear his voice.

"Well ain't you thoughtful." Merle said, his tone wrapped in sarcasm.

"We did. Me, Rick, Daryl, T-Dog." Glenn told him.

"Hmm, T-Dog. That the one that dropped the key and ran away as I was begging and pleading with not to leave me there? Where's he at? I'm sure he'd like to bury the hatchet." Adrian heard Merle say.

She was also sure that Merle would've loved to bury the hatchet with T-Dog. He'd have loved to bury that hatchet in either T-Dog's head, chest, or back. Unfortunately for him, and for them, T-Dog was dead.

"He didn't make it." Glenn said sadly.

"Is that right? Well I hope he went slow." Merle said.

That one line from Merle had Adrian's blood boiling.

T-Dog had been a wonderful man. Even in all of the blood and death the world was now covered in, T-Dog had never lost his faith, in neither God nor the kindness of human beings. T-Dog was a man who always put the others before himself. There had been very few people like T-Dog before the world had went to shit and the chances of them ever meeting another man like T-Dog ever again were slim to none and slim had already left the building.

Adrian angrily stomped up to the wall that separated their rooms and kicked the tin hard, causing the whole wall to rattle from the force of her kick.

"You shut your whore mouth Merle Dixon before I come over there and shut it for you!" Adrian screamed.

"Oh ho! Sounds like someone's angry over there. Was that the ginger or the brunette? I'm betting on the ginger. She seems like the type to have a real temper." Merle said, the amusement clear in his voice.

"Now, how 'bout the others, hmm? How about my baby brother? You can't tell me that he's alive and then not tell me where he is." Merle asked Glenn but all they heard was silence. Apparently Glenn had decided that he was done talking for now. Adrian had to give him credit for staying quiet. If it had been her she wouldn't have been able to keep her mouth shut. Oh, she wouldn't have told Merle a thing he really wanted to know, oh no. Chances were that she'd be flinging sarcasm all over the place. She had never really known when to keep her mouth shut and it tended to get her in trouble.

"No? Well how about I ask the farmer's daughter?" Merle said. Glenn cut a dark glare at Merle at his words but said nothing. "So it is the brown haired one. It was a shot in the dark really which one belonged to you. Pretty girls like them don't stay single long now a days." Merle said as he stood up from the table he had been half sitting on.

"Yeah, the brown haired one seems more your type. Seems sweet. But with the way she was pointin' that gun at me seems like she can get pretty feisty too, am I right? Yeah, the ginger just doesn't seem like your type of girl. Seems like she can be quite the handful." Merle said as he slowly paced around the room.

"She is." Glenn mumbled, if for no other reason than to keep Merle's focus off of trying to figure out where the rest of the group was.

"Oh really? And how would you know that? Have you been dipping your wick into some ginger wax on the side that the farmer's daughter don't know about?" Merle asked with a letcherous grin.

"Shut your fucking mouth, Merle!" a feminine voiced yelled from the other side of the tin wall that separated the rooms as the loud sound of rattling tin filled the air.

"That one must be the ginger. She's got quite the temper." Merle said laughing before he turned his attention back to Glenn and the smirk fell from his face.

Adrian had been pacing the room but ever since she heard Merle start to interrogate Glenn she had mainly paced by the wall that had separated the rooms they and Glenn were being kept in.

Every once in a while Adrian would glace over at Maggie and she felt for the girl, she really did. Maggie was struggling to hold it together the longer Merle spoke. She could see the girl trembling every once in a while from where she was pacing. Merle started talking to Glenn about how he felt when he was holding Maggie when she was scared. Adrian looked to Maggie and could see that the longer Merle spoke the harder it was for Maggie to be strong. Adrian felt so bad for the younger woman. Maggie wasn't like Adrian, when Maggie got scared she would stay brave for as long as she could before her fear started to show. When Adrian got scared she got angry until the fear was too much to be masked by anger any longer.

"I remember you. You're the sneaky one, aren't you. Got nerves of steel, don't ya? You don't scare easy, do ya? I like that." Merle said. Adrian didn't feel comforted by those words at all. "Now, I wanna know where my brother is." Merle demanded seconds before Glenn started to grunt in pain. Glenn suddenly went quiet. "I wanna know where the sheriff is." Merle demanded again. Adrian heard Merle yell out in pain before she heard Glenn grunt in pain.

Glenn must have done something to make Merle mad because the next thing she heard was the unmistakable sound of someone being hit repeatedly. "Now, I wanna know where your camp is and I wanna know now!" Merle yelled before the sound of flesh hitting flesh and Glenn grunting in pain could be heard again. Adrian could hear Maggie's heavy and broken breathing from having to listen to Glenn being beaten in the next room but there was nothing that Adrian could do to help her at this point.

TWD

Back at the prison everyone was trying to wrap their heads around not one but two shocks. Rick had been outside with Carl, Hershel, Beth, and the baby when he spotted something odd outside the fence. The fence was lined with walkers as usual, but one of them seemed to be carrying a red basket. Rick, who thought it was definitely out of the usual for a walker to be carrying anything, handed the baby off to Beth who took the baby girl back inside at his command.

Rick, along with Carl and Hershel, walked down closer to the outter fence, noticed that the dark skinned woman carrying the red basket, which looked to be filled with baby formula, wasn't a walker at all. She was still alive. He could see the silent plea for help in her brown eyes before she winced in pain and reached down for her leg. The walker beside her then seemed to smell the blood on her hand from her wound and turned for her. She noticed that she had caught the attention of the nearby walkers and limped back away from the fence as she dropped the basket and pulled out a sword.

Carl, who was at the gate ready to open it at any second asked if they should help the woman but Rick remained silent. The woman managed to kill a few walkers before she fell to the ground and seemed to have passed out. Carl quickly drew his gun and fired at the two closest walkers near the woman to keep her from getting bitten. Rick cursed as he ran for the gate, demanding the keys from Carl, and opened the gate, shooting at a few walkers that were getting too close.

Carl ran for the basket, knowing that they needed it for his little sister, and quickly brought it into the safety of the gates while Rick ran for the fallen woman.

"Is she bit?" Hershel asked from inside the gate.

Rick quickly checked her over and found the wound on her thigh. "Gunshot."

"Let's hurry and get her inside." Hershel told Rick and he quickly turned and started his way back towards the cell block. Rick picked the unconscious woman up and brought her inside the gate as Carl quickly closed and locked the gate back up before he picked up the basket and followed after his father.

Once inside Carl quickly threw a towel onto the floor that Rick gently placed the woman on. Hershel offered Rick a bottle of water that Rick, which he took and splashed a little onto the woman to help her wake up. She tried to go for her weapon but Rick quickly pushed it away with his foot, warning her that they wouldn't harm her unless she did something stupid first.

"Hey Rick." Daryl called out as he walked through the open door that lead to the cell block.

"Who the hell is this?" Daryl asked seeing the unfamiliar woman lying on the floor.

"What is it?" Rick asked Daryl, not taking his eyes off of the woman.

"You're gonna wanna see this." Daryl said, thinking about what was currently inside the cell block that only he and Beth knew about. Rick stood up and told the woman that she would be safe there with all of the doors locked. Clearly she had come there for a reason, she was even carrying baby formula and that wasn't just a coincidence, so she would stay exactly where Rick had put her until they could find out why she had showed up.

Once Rick, Carl, and Hershel were all inside the cell block Daryl closed the door behind him and locked it behind him before leading the others to a specific cell. Rick stopped at the door in shock, the same shock that showed on Hershel and Carl's faces, seeing a dehydrated and weak Carol sitting on the bottom bunk. She looked up at all of the men and gave them a happy but weak smile, so glad to see them all. Carol pulled herself up off of the bed and embraced Rick tightly, both so happy and emotional to see each other still alive.

"Poor thing fought her way into a cell. She must've passed out and got dehydrated." Daryl explained to the others as Hershel and Carol hugged. Once they pulled away Carol seen Beth holding the baby and Carol was overjoyed to see the newest member of their group, until she looked over at Rick who wore an expression that Carol knew well. Just that one look told her that while the baby was alive and well, her dear friend Lori was not. Carol's tears of joy quickly turned to tears of sadness as she hugged Rick in comfort, knowing what it was like to loose family to this awful new world.

Carol turned back to Beth and marveled with both sadness and joy at the baby girl Beth was holding in her arms. After a few minutes Hershel told them that he was going to check Carol over just to make sure she was okay. Rick, Carl, and Beth left the cell while Carol sat back down as Hershel sat on a nearby stool, Daryl still standing in the doorway.

Daryl had been devastated that day, not only to learn that they had lost so many of their own that day, T-Dog, Lori, and Carol, but he felt a piece of himself go empty at the thought of Carol being gone. Yes, he had been friends with both Lori and T-Dog, but not like he had with Carol. But because of the seriousness of Ass Kicker's condition if she didn't get food soon had caused him to push his feelings aside and focus on keeping the most defenseless member of their group alive. It wasn't until the next day that it had really hit him that Carol was gone.

He was stunned beyond belief when he had jerked that cell door open, expecting a weak walker to come stumbling out, only to look down and see a weak but alive Carol sitting on the floor. Daryl was pulled back to the present when he heard Hershel declare that Carol was only weak from lack of food and dehydrated and that she would be back to new in no time. "Thanks Hershel." Carol said quietly to the older man. "Come on, let's get you back to your cell so you can rest." Daryl told her as she slowly pulled herself up from the bed. Daryl helped Carol up the stairs, not wanting to chance that she fell and hurt herself. Once they reached the cell that Carol had shared with Lori on the second level Daryl released her as she settled herself onto the bed.

"Don't go yet." Carol said as she watched Daryl getting ready to turn and leave her.

"You need to rest." Daryl told her.

"I've had plenty of rest. I've also been alone for more than a week now and am in desperate need of company." Carol told him.

"I'm at least gonna get you some food and some water then. I'll be right back." Daryl told her before he turned to walk to the cell that they kept all of their food and water in. Once there he grabbed a pack of crackers and two bottles of water before he headed back to Carol's cell.

Daryl gave Carol the crackers and water before he settled down onto the bed beside Carol. She had eaten a total of three crackers before she spoke.

"Tell me what happened that day. The day the alarms went off." Carol told him.

Daryl was quiet for a minute, collecting his thoughts, before he spoke.

"It was one of the inmates we thought was dead. He managed to survive and came back. He cut open the gate that the walkers were locked in. Me, Rick, and Glenn were too far away to help. Hershel and Beth managed to get to safety in time and once we got the courtyard clear they told us that Adrian, Lori, Carl, and Maggie had went for the cell block but when we ran into the cell block it was full of walkers. We didn't know if they were alive or dead, we were just all scattered all over the place." Daryl told her.

"Then the alarms started going off and Oscar showed us where the generator room was. Rick and Oscar were fighting off the prisoner while I was trying to keep the door shut against the walkers that had followed us there. Oscar killed the prisoner and he and Axel earned their places among us. We went back outside to regroup only to see that it was still only Hershel and Beth out there. We found T-Dog along the way. Found your scarf not far from him and we couldn't find your body so we just assumed that you were dead like T." Daryl told her, pausing, remembering the moment he thought that Carol was really dead.

"Once we made it back outside and only seen Hershel and Beth we decided to keep looking for the others. Only before we got a chance, they found us. We heard the baby crying first. When we turned to look, we all knew what had happened. Maggie and Adrian were covered in blood and you could see the heartbroken look on Carl's face. Maggie could barely speak as she held onto the baby. Adrian...I'd never seen her like that before, not even after loosing Kale at the farm. We were all trying to wrap our heads around all of our loses that day, but Rick and Carl were the most devastated of us all. Especially Rick. He's only just now starting to get a little better but we can all tell that he's still drowning in grief." Daryl told her, finally going quiet.

"How are the others doing?" Carol asked him as she took a few sips of her water.

"Better. We all still feel her loss but I'm not sure anyone was more haunted by it than Adrian though. Maggie had to go through with the C-section, but they were cut off from everyone and she was forced to cut her open with nothing but a knife. Adrian made sure that Carl didn't watch but she had to help Maggie with the baby. She was forced to sit there and watch her friend die as she helped Maggie get the baby out." Daryl said, thinking back to just how badly Adrian had taken Lori's death.

Adrian was probably one of the strongest women he had ever met but she wasn't made of stone. Everyone there aside from Carol knew just how bad Adrian had gotten afterwards. "How bad was it? I can't imagine it getting any worse than after loosing Kale." Carol asked him. She really couldn't imagine Adrian getting any worse than after the farm. They had all feared for her once she had fallen into her depression because once she slipped into it they were all afraid that she'd never find her way out of it. But thanks to a lot of hard work and effort from everyone she had finally managed to crawl her way back to them. Although Carol knew that Daryl and Carl had a large part in pulling her back.

"Do you remember the nightmares that she would have?" Daryl asked her.

"Yeah, they got pretty bad sometimes." Carol answered.

"She started having nightmares again. Only this time she would wake up screaming every night. After a few nights she told me that she wanted to lock herself in a different cell block every night til they stopped but I'd be damned if I was gonna let her go through all that alone." Daryl told her as he started picking at some loose string in the hole in his jeans.

"What'd you do?" she asked him.

"I had her pack a bag and we left for a few days. Locking her away like she'd done something wrong wasn't gonna help her none. I knew that it wasn't just the memories that was haunting her but this place. I told Rick and the others that we were leaving for a while and that's what we did. I found a little place a few miles from here that I took her too and it did her a lot of good. I was actually surprised that getting away from it all managed to help me some too." he told her, a little embarrassed to tell her that, but this was Carol and he knew he could always tell her anything.

"Well, I'm glad that you two managed to get away for a while and that it helped you both." she told him.

"Thanks." he said.

They were quiet for a few minutes before Carol broke the silence.

"So, how did you two spend your time away from the company of everyone else?" she asked him, a sly grin on her face letting him know that she knew exactly what they had been doing those few days away. Daryl scoffed at her as he rolled his eyes. "Shut up." he told her as he gently shoved her shoulder, causing her to laugh, because with those two words and his actions he had just confirmed to Carol that she was 100% correct in her assumption.

TWD

It had been about an hour so since Daryl had left Carol to rest after their visit. He, Rick, and Hershel were discussing what to do about the woman they currently had locked up in their common area. "Let me at least treat her wound. We let her leave here without getting it seen to and she could get an infection and die." Hershel told them.

"We're not arguing that point, Hershel. I told her we could treat her wound and we will. But we need to know why she came here in the first place. She came here for a reason, even if she doesn't want to admit it or really know why she came here at all. But she had a basket of formula and there's only one reason she would even know to come here with it." Rick told them.

"Do you think something might've happened to Adrian, Glenn, and Maggie? They left on a run this mornin' and still ain't back. Adrian said they didn't plan to go far so they should've been back by now." Daryl asked. He hadn't thought about it until then, having been distracted with finding Carol alive, but the scavenging party should've been back already. Daryl didn't want to cause himself, or the others, any worry if it wasn't warranted but anything could happen so someone out there these days.

"Let's go find out." Rick said as he headed for the door. He unlocked the door, leaving it open for Daryl and Hershel, who was carrying his medical supplies, to follow him through. Rick stopped a few feet in front of the woman who was sitting on a table with a rag against her injury. Hershel propped himself up against a table just behind Rick and Daryl was standing a few feet behind Hershel, off to the side so he had a clear line of sight on the woman in case she tried anything and he had to take a shot at her.

"We'll give you some food and water, treat your wound, and we'll send you on your way. But you need to tell us how you found us and why you were carrying baby formula." Rick told her.

The three men watched at she silently inspected each man before her eyes went back to Rick. "They were dropped by this Asian guy. He was with two pretty women, a red head and a brunette." she said.

"What happened?" Rick asked, staying stoic.

Hershel pushed himself off of the table he had been leaning against. "Were they attacked?" he asked her, the concern clear in his voice.

Daryl looked away from the woman and looked to Hershel. Daryl felt just as concerned as Hershel, and probably Rick, did.

"Taken." she said as she turned her eyes to Hershel.

They were all officially worried now. Three of their group had been taken, and they could only imagine why, but anyone who would take people off the street couldn't want them for anything good.

"By who?" Rick demanded.

They were all still trying to get used to having lost so many of their group not so long ago, and while they had gained Oscar and Axel and gotten Carol back, which helped lessen the blow some, they couldn't handle loosing any more of their family. Especially Hershel, who's daughter and a man who was as good as his son-in-law was out there, and Daryl. They all knew how Daryl felt about Adrian and while none of them could argue the fact that he wouldn't lay his life down for any of them, they all knew that when it came to Adrian that Daryl would do anything and everything to get her back. He didn't care how many people or walkers he had to kill to keep her safe, he would do it without hesitation.

"By the same son of a bitch that show me." the woman answered, clearly upset just thinking about it.

"Hey, these are out people so you better tell us what we want to know, now!" Rick told her harshly, grabbing onto her injured leg roughly, which she did not like at all. She shoved Rick's hand off her leg and quickly rose from the table, pointing a stern finger at Rick's face. "Don't you ever touch me again!" she yelled as she limped a few steps away from Rick.

Daryl, who had already been white knuckling his crossbow to help keep his worry for the others under control, quickly aimed his crossbow at the woman's face, which she seemed to take notice of. "You better start talkin' or else you gonna have a bigger problem than a gunshot wound! Tell us what we wanna know about our people or else I'ma shoot you in your other leg!" Daryl yelled at her.

He needed to know what she knew about where their people had been taken so he could go get them.

"Find 'em yourself." she said as she glared at Daryl.

"Okay. Okay. That's enough." Rick said as he gently pushed Daryl's crossbow down. "Put it down, Daryl." Rick told him.

"Damn it, Rick! She knows where they are! She needs to start talkin'!" Daryl yelled as he lunged at the woman.

Rick managed to push Daryl back a few steps away from the woman. "I know, Daryl, I know. We'll find them, okay? We'll find her and get her back. But she can't tell us anything if she's dead and she won't tell us anything if we hurt her." Rick told him. Daryl looked at Rick and seen the man silently pleading with him to trust him. Daryl gave Rick a quick nod before he began pacing back and forth, keeping his narrowed eyes on the woman the whole time.

Rick turned back to the woman and sighed. "You can here for a reason. Why?" Rick asked her.

She bowed her head and avoided eye contact with them all. She did have a reason for showing up at the prison but she looked reluctant to admit what that reason was. Finally she looked back at Rick. "There's this town, called Woodbury. About 75 survivors, I think they were taken there." she told him.

"A whole town?" Rick asked. He had to make sure that he had heard her right because a whole town that was safe from walkers was unheard of these days.

"It's run by this guy that calls himself the Governor, pretty boy, charming."

Daryl finally stopped his pacing and started paying attention. "He got any muscle?" he asked her.

"Paramilitary wannabe's. They've got armed guards on every wall." she answered.

"You know who to get in?" Rick asked.

"The place is pretty secure from walkers but I could sneak us in." she told him.

"How'd you know how to get here?" Rick finally asked. It was a smart question to ask. If Glenn had dropped the basket and Glenn, Maggie, and Adrian had been taken then it made them curious how she would've know how to get to the prison.

"Said something about a prison. Said which direction it was and that it was a straight shot." she told him.

Rick seemed satisfied with her answer because he turned toward Hershel. "This is Hershel, father of the brunette girl. The one behind me is Daryl, the red head is his girlfriend. Hershel here will patch up that wound of yours." Rick said before he turned at Daryl and jerked his head in a silent command to follow him. They made it as far as the stairs before Rick broke the silence. "We'll start getting together everything we'll need. Ask Oscar if he's willing to come with us." Rick told Daryl but he could tell that while Daryl was listening to him, he was also thinking about something else.

"Is this run gonna be a problem for you?" Rick asked him.

Daryl turned a cold blue glare on Rick. "Try to leave me behind and I'll shoot an arrow in your ass and take your place." he growled at his friend.

"Will you be able to keep your mind on task once we're in? I can't have you going rogue on me because you're worried for Adrian. And I know you are, you're not exactly hiding it very well. The goal is to get everyone back alive." Rick told his friend.

He knew he shouldn't have to tell him that, probably didn't need to really, but having been separated from Lori once before he knew what a man was willing to do to get back the people they loved.

"You think I don't know that? Jesus, Rick. Of course I wanna get everybody back alive, especially Adrian, but I'm not stupid enough to run off on my own. We'll get our people back, safe and alive, no matter what it takes." Daryl told the man, clearly offended that Rick would think that he was more concerned about only getting Adrian back as opposed to all of their group.

"I know, I know. I just wanted to make sure that your head was on straight for this. I know what a man is willing to do when the woman he loves is in danger." Rick told him.

Daryl just nodded his head, staying silent.

"We'll get her back, Daryl, I promise." Rick told the man.

"Good because once I get her back here she ain't leavin' my sight for a long ass time. Something always happens to her when I turn my back on her." Daryl told him.

"Well loving a woman in general isn't easy, but I can imagine that it takes a pretty strong man to love a woman as wild spirited as Adrian." Rick said as he grinned at Daryl.

"I need more patience than strength." Daryl said, causing Rick to laugh.

TWD

Adrian didn't know how long Merle had been beating on Glenn, or how long she had been pacing, but she knew it had been a good while at least. Adrian had been panting for a while as she paced but it wasn't from exhaustion, no, she had learned a long time ago that she had quite the temper when the right buttons were pushed and having to helplessly listen to one of her friends, her family, get beaten while she could do nothing to stop it was definitely one of those buttons.

"You're a lot tougher than I remember." Adrian finally heard Merle say. Adrian could only imagine how much pain Glenn had to be in. Merle had been beating on him for a while and with all of the resentment and bitterness that Merle held towards the group, especially Glenn, she knew that Merle hadn't taken it easy on Glenn. "I'm surprised you made it this long. Hell, with the way Officer Friendly abandons people, I figured he would've left you behind by now. But he didn't do that, did he?" Merle said, trying to get under Glenn's skin.

Adrian could only roll her eyes at that comment. She had been told, by all of the people involved that day, how Merle had ended up getting handcuffed to the roof and left behind. Yes, Rick hand cuffed him to a metal pipe on the roof of the building that the scavenging group had been hiding in. Yes, T-Dog had dropped the key down a drain after tripping on the rooftop and was unable to free Merle. Yes, T-Dog had chained the door behind him so no walkers could get to Merle and the group had left him behind for at least 24 hours before they had went back for him.

But what Merle conveniently kept forgetting was why he was cuffed to that pipe in the first place. The reason was because Merle had been high off his ass and had been shooting walkers on the street with a rifle, making all kinds of noise and drawing even more walkers to their location. A location they were already trapped in because of the pile up of walkers on the ground floor. Even Daryl had admitted the Merle's actions that day were a dumbass move.

"So tell me somethin', where y'all been at?" Merle asked again.

"It's just a matter of time before they come looking for us." Glenn said but Adrian could barely hear his voice through the wall.

"I'll bake a cake. With pink frosting. Will they like that?" Merle asked.

Maggie watched as Adrian looked up at the ceiling and heard her muttering something about strength. Maggie didn't understand how Adrian wasn't scared out of her mind like she was. But then again she knew that Adrian dealt with things differently. In all of the time that they had been together Maggie had seen Adrian deal with things in ways Maggie knew she couldn't have handled the same way.

When she got scared she tried to be as brave for as long as she could. When Adrian got scared she got angry. She knew it was just one emotion covering another and it was just how Adrian reacted to things. When she got angry she would either try to calm herself down or give the person who had made her angry the cold shoulder. When Adrian got angry she tended to walk away from everyone, which was probably the smartest thing she could do for everyone because they could sometimes see her hands twitching, as if she was aching to grab the closest weapon and use it on whoever had made her angry. Right now though she couldn't tell if her red headed friend was actually angry or was using it as a cover.

Maggie and Adrian heard Glenn tell Merle that they had been on the road. Told him that their group was too big and started listing names, most of whom were dead. Adrian could understand the need to make it seem like they had a very large group so as Merle would think that they weren't to be messed with but something in Merle's tone told her that Merle didn't believe him, as if he knew something they didn't.

Adrian was done being useless and letting Glenn take on the brunt of the interrogation. She stormed up to the wall and began kicking it again, causing a loud ruckus in both rooms.

"Hey, you rat bastard, why don't you pick on someone else for a change?!" she screamed through the wall as she kept kicking it. She could hear Merle laughing through the wall but, unlike Merle, Adrian knew just what to say to get Merle to leave Glenn alone. "You come get me outta here and I'll tell you what you wanna know." she said loud enough for Merle to hear.

"Finally, someone willing to cooperate." she heard Merle say.

"Adrian?" Maggie asked, confused why Adrian of all people would be willing to tell Merle where the others were. Adrian quickly walked up to Maggie and kissed her on top of the head. "You stay as brave as you can for as long as you can and you tell them nothing. Do you hear me, absolutely nothing. Not unless your life is in danger, do you understand?" Adrian told her, her voice firm but soft so no one else could hear her.

"I understand." Maggie's broken voice whispered. Both women were looking at each other with a look of understanding when they heard the door open. They looked to the now open doorway to see Merle standing there. Adrian gave Maggie one more look before she turned and walked out through the door and into the hallway. The guard at the door firmly closed the door, the door clicking loudly as the guard re-locked the door, and Maggie was left alone in the room with nothing but deafening silence.