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 23

Adrian looked around the room Merle had dragged her into. It honestly didn't look any different than the room she was just pulled from. The back wall was made of old, chipped bricks while the walls to her left and right were made of wood. The door behind her, as she had seen, was wooden with tin making up the wall on both sides of the door with wooden support beams to keep the tin upright.

She was broken from her inspection of the room when she felt Merle's hand roughly pull on her arm as he lead her to a chair on the far side of the room. Like the other room there was an overhanging light and directly underneath the light was a small square wooden table with a pair of chairs, one of which Merle roughly pushed her into, making the chair tilt slightly before Adrian was able to righten it so she didn't fall onto the cold concrete floor.

She looked up at Merle as he pulled the other chair around to her side of the table, turning it backwards, and sitting in the chair, his arms folded on top of the chair. They both starred at each other before Merle broke the silence.

"Now see, I don't recognize you but I can see recognition, even anger, in your eyes. Why's that?" he asked her, genuinely curious.

When he had stumbled across them at the store Glenn had recognized him because they had been part of the same group for weeks before Merle had been left behind. The girl in the other room didn't know him at all, which wasn't surprising since he didn't know her either, but the red head seemed to know who he was, even knew that he was Daryl's brother, but he had no idea who she was. He knew he would've remembered such a beautiful woman if he had ever come across her but only a blank came up the longer he looked her.

"We never officially met. The group outside of Atlanta was camped a few miles away from where my friend and I were camped at and I spied on your group for a while before any of them were even aware of us." she told him, starring him directly in the eyes. Merle had to give it to her, she didn't looked scared in the least as she looked him in the eyes. Her bright green eyes glittered with anger and determination despite the situation she and the others found themselves in.

"And how is it exactly that you managed to hide yourself from my brother? I didn't do much hunting back then but my baby brother was out in the woods pretty often and he never said nothin' about other people bein' around." he asked.

"Well nobody has any use for a hunter who can't even walk straight, especially when he's so high off his ass that he can see the color of sound." she said, her expression as sarcastic as her comment.

"Hm. And my brother?"

"Daryl rarely looks up into the trees unless he's hunting squirrels and even then he's not looking up very high."

"Is that right? And the, uh, angry stare you're pointin' my way?" he asked waving his knife stump in her direction. Adrian rolled her eyes so hard she felt the strain of it in the muscles around her eyes.

"I have plenty of reasons you be angry with you, Merle, it's not exactly a short list. Now why don't you cut the shit and ask me what you really wanna fucking know?" she said locking eyes with Merle again.

Merle smirked at her comment. He was starting to like her, which was unfortunate since they were likely going to have to kill all three of their prisoners.

"Where's my baby brother?" he asked her.

"He's safe. He's back at camp, exactly where he should be. Surrounded by people who love and respect him." she told him.

She knew what Merle really wanted to know, the exact location of Daryl, but she would die before she told a single person where that was. She could understand Merle's drive to get back to his only blood family, and she really wished she could tell him what he wanted to know, but there was more than just Daryl at the prison and she would die for every one of them if it meant they were kept safe.

Adrian knew Merle wouldn't like her answer and the proof was now written on his face. Merle knocked over the chair he was sitting in, his feet making quick work of the few feet that separated them, and backhanded her with his left hand. The force was enough to snap her head to the side. The hit hurt, even stunned her for a second, but it didn't hurt as much as she thought it would. She didn't have time to think about it before she felt a hand wrap around her throat and jerk her face back in Merle's direction.

"You said you were gonna talk, damn it, and you're gonna tell me what I wanna know if it's the last thing you ever do!" he yelled down at her. "Now, you tell me where my brother and the rest of your group is, and you tell me now!" he yelled.

"I'm not going to tell you where they are. I'll die before I do. And if you think for one second that Daryl will just blindly follow you, you're delusional. By now they all know that something's gone wrong and if you just magically showed up, it wouldn't take them long to put two and two together." she told him.

"You think my brother really gives a damn about any of you? He'd have his bags packed and ready before I ever cleared the door." he told her. It had always been the two of them and no amount of strangers would ever get in between them no matter how much time had passed.

"Once they realize that you got our location from one of us, well, let's just say that our current rolls would be reversed. And Daryl would be the one skinning you while Rick asked the questions. Daryl would never go anywhere without knowing I'm safe." she said.

"You really think Daryl gives two shits about any of you? He'd choose me over any of you pussies any day of the week. He doesn't need any of you assholes, just me. He needs me, he always has and always will." he told her.

"You've been gone a long time Merle. Daryl's grown into his own man, a man deserving of the love and respect he not only gives but receives from every member of our group. He's not that beaten down, dependent man that you left behind a year ago." she told him.

Merle pulled his hand away from her throat only to backhand her again. Merle was getting angry, she could tell because that hit had been harder than the first one. Adrian turned her gaze back to Merle's angry face and licked the cut on her lip, tasting the blood.

"You can hit me all you want but it's not going to change anything. He mourned you, of course he did. Held a grudge against every one in camp whether they had anything to do with it or not. But he found purpose in the group and grew into an amazing man. A man capable of love and compassion and loyalty. He would die for any one of us, just like we would die for him." she said.

Adrian narrowed her gaze on Merle as she looked him in the face. He wasn't a hard man to read and she could see exactly what he wanted to do. "Hit me again and I'm gonna come outta this damn chair and take a fucking bite outta you. I let the first two slide but I'm not just going to sit here so you can use me as a damn punching bag." she growled at him. Glenn had gotten worse than a few slaps, she knew, but she also seriously doubted that Glenn was able to leave his chair and fight back. She wouldn't be able to use her hands but she could fight with more than just her hands.

She could see Merle sizing her up and weighing if she was being honest or just bullshitting him and if it would be worth the possible fight to hit her again. Adrian decided to take the choice away from him and distract him with a question that plagued not only her but the man that she loved back at the prison.

"Why did you leave?" she asked suddenly. Merle's eyes cleared as his eyes locked with hers. "Back in Atlanta, why did you leave?" she asked him.

"What kinda dumbass question is that? I left because they left me behind to die. I refused to wait on that godforsaken roof for the biters to make their way through the door and eat the flesh from my bones. Those sons of bitches left me there to saw off my own hand so I could get away. I was injured, helpless, and scared as I wondered my way down the building to get outside. I found a van on the outskirts of town and lit out." he answered angrily.

"They went back for you dipshit! It was their van you stole! You were already gone by the time they got to the roof. Daryl was devastated to show up to get you back only to find nothing but a bloody hand." she snapped.

"Oh, well wasn't that nice of them. Maybe when I find them I'll lay out the welcome mat for 'em and tell them all is forgiven." his reply a heavy mix of anger and sarcasim. "Fine, answer me this then. If your roles had been reversed and it had been Daryl on that roof and you at camp, do you think Daryl would've had not only the faith but the belief that you'd go back for him once you found out that he had been left?" she asked him.

It was a question she had asked Daryl while they had been holed up in the shack and his response broke her heart. He said that around the time that Merle had disappeared that he would've had solid faith that Merle would go back for him, no doubt. But after learning to not hold Merle up on a pedestal he wasn't sure if Merle would've gone back for him. At least not as quickly as Daryl had gone back for him. He knew how his brother had been, preferring hand outs and drugs to doing any real work of his own to get by. There was no telling how long Merle would've continued to choose his drugs over sobering up and getting off his ass to make his way into the walker infested city to save his little brother. She knew that it often hurt Daryl to look back on his brother only to see the many faults that made up the man Merle was. There were very few happy memories in Daryl's life and none of them had anything to do with Merle.

"What kinda stupid ass question is that? Of course I'd go back for him and he knows that too. We always take care of each other, it's what we do. Nothin' would've stopped me from getting back to Atlanta so I could save him and he'd've been smart enough to know to stay put 'til I got there." he answered, frustrated that she would even ask such a stupid question.

"If that's the case, then why didn't you have that kind of faith in him? Why did you leave? Did you think that he couldn't do anything without you there to tell him what to do? If you honestly believe that he would've had that much faith in you going back for him than why didn't you have the same faith in him and keep your ass there until he got there? Why didn't you have faith in him, Merle?" she asked him.

She would never admit it, least of all to herself, but she was practically begging for an answer by the time she finished speaking. For so long Daryl had felt like he had let his brother down because Merle hadn't been on that roof when he and the others had gotten there and she knew that deep down he wanted to know why Merle had left, even if he already knew the logical answer. Adrian could tell just from Merle's face that she had completely taken him by surprise with that question. She could also tell that any answer he gave would never be good enough to fully answer the question.

Maybe he didn't really know the answer to the question or maybe he did and he could just never truly admit the answer to the question to himself. Whatever the case was Merle quickly turned his back on her and left the room. Adrian was left to wonder what would come next.

TWD

Adrian didn't know how long she had been waiting in the room and she didn't like it. Not only had they all been separated for far too long now, which was a smart tactic on their part she'd admit, and while she couldn't make out the actual words, she had heard Merle yelling and then Glenn scream shortly after. It didn't sound painful, which she was thankful for, but it did sound angry, as if all of the anger he had been holding in since they had been taken had finally broken free. She could only imagine what had caused such a reaction from Glenn since he wasn't known for letting his temper get the better of him.

A while later the door to her room opened. She opened her mouth, ready to light into Merle for whatever he had done and then demand answers, only to snap her mouth shut when an unfamiliar man walked through the door instead.

He was tall, at least six feet, with short brown hair, although even from where she sat she could see the grey that lightly shown through, and a clean shaven face. He wore a light grey long sleeve button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and charcoal grey slacks with a dark belt wrapped around his waist which held a knife and a gun. Normally she wouldn't bat an eye at the weapons, anyone who was stupid enough to walk around in this day and age unarmed was just asking to be killed, but she didn't like that he was armed while she wasn't.

He stayed silent as he walked deeper into the room. He was watching her closely, taking in as much of her as he could. She knew he was because she was doing the same thing to him. He calmly walked behind her and she tensed when she heard him take his knife out of its sheath, but before she could say anything she felt the tape around her wrists give way. She slowly brought her hands in front of her and looked at them as if she had never seen them before before she looked up at the stranger that had just cut her free. She wasn't sure if it was a smart or stupid move on his part yet but she figured she was about to find out.

He picked up the chair that Merle had knocked over earlier and brought it to the other side of the table before he sat down in it.

"Hi. My name's Philip but the people around here call me the Governor." he said. He looked at her expectantly when she didn't say anything in return.

"I'm not calling you the Governor, especially since I didn't vote for you." she told him, her face serious even though the sarcasm could be heard in her voice. She couldn't tell if his smile was mocking or if he'd actually found her response amusing.

"What's your name?" he asked her. She was quiet for a moment, debating what harm it could do to give him her name. "Adrian." she finally told him. She decided to follow a piece of advice that Lucas had once told her. "Always sprinkle in some truth in your lies and let your enemy decide which is which." Granted they had been playing a harmless game at the time he told her that but she figured that if there was ever a time to put that advice to good use it would be while she was in her current situation.

"I don't suppose you happen to know if my friends are alright, do you?" she finally asked him. She was still worried about Glenn from earlier, and since he seemed to be the man in charge, she figured he'd know the conditions of his current prisoners. "They're both fine from what I understand." he told her. She wasn't good at reading people most of the time but she didn't get the feeling he was lying. Of course she'd also had a pit in her stomach since he'd walked into the room so he could be lying to her and it was just hopeful wishing on her part that he was telling the truth.

"I heard one them scream earlier. What happened to him?" she asked him.

"Merle. He threw a biter into the room with your friend, against my knowledge at the time. I was told that your friend managed to kill the biter rather quickly. I'm impressed, if I may say so." he said. She believed everything that he told her. He did sound a little impressed that Glenn had killed the walker so quickly. She fully believed that Merle would throw a walker into the room with Glenn too.

"Well, Merle's never been known to make smart decisions when he's angry, from what I've been told." she told him.

"You know Merle?" he asked her.

Merle had informed him earlier that he and the boy had once been in the same group, and that while he had never seen either of the girls before, that the ginger haired one seemed to know him.

"I know of him. I joined Merle's old group not long after Merle got left behind." She told him.

"The group that his brother was in?" he asked her. He knew that Merle's pipe dream was to find his brother, who he fully believed was still alive, one day.

"Still is." she simply said.

"So I take it that the group, and his brother of course, is how you know of Merle but he doesn't know you?" he asked her. He thought it was smart to gently ease into the subject of her group. He could tell from not only her eyes but her body language that she had her guard up. He was hoping that if he could get her to relax that she might let something important slip.

"Yes." was all she said.

"Why don't you tell me a bit about them? Your group, I mean." he asked.

"We're careful and smart. And every one of us is a pro when it comes to killing walkers. We don't take chances when it comes to the lives of the people in our group." she told him.

"And what about yourselves? Do you take chances with your own lives?" he asked her, trying to gauge just how far their loyalty for each other went. He liked to think that his men would never leave each other behind if they could help it, but he also know that the instinct to survive often out weighted loyalty.

"We would willingly die to protect each other. Some of us have." she said, thinking about how T-Dog had selflessly given his life to close the gates to lock up as many walkers as he could after Andrew had broken the chain on the gate.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Loosing someone is never easy, especially these days." he told her. She narrowed her gaze on him trying to get a sense of how truthful he was being, but if she had to guess she would say that he could honestly care less about any of the people they had lost.

"I'll tell you what." he said as he leaned back in his chair. "I think this has all been a big misunderstanding."

Adrian's eyebrows shot up in surprise at his words. He honestly expected her to believe that everything was a big misunderstanding? She had finally come to the decision that the Governor was completely nuts if that's the story he was going to spin.

"A misunderstanding?" she asked, the disbelief heavy in her voice.

"That's right." he simply said.

"And, what exactly, did I misunderstand about being kidnapped at gun point, being bound and forced into a room as I listened to my friend get beaten by one of your goons, only to have said goon throw me in here and attempt to beat the same information out of me?" she asked him.

"Well, it's as you said earlier. Merle's known for making rash decisions." he said.

"His hot-tempered nature doesn't help anything either." she said, leaning back in her own chair.

"No. No, it certainly doesn't." he chuckled lightly. "You said he attempted to beat you? What did he do exactly?" he asked her. He knew how heavy handed Merle could be but didn't see more than a small cut on her bottom lip. "He slapped me twice. I told him that if he did it a third time that I was going to get up out of my chair and bite the shit out of him." she told him.

The Governor said nothing but he did laugh. Merle had told him that she had some fire in her. He was pretty sure that deep down Merle actually liked her on some level but it didn't seem to stop him from wanting to get answers.

"I'll tell you what. You tell me where your group is and I'll have y'all taken back to them. I'll have a car waiting at the gates, hell, I'll even drive you there myself. Or Merle could drive you back, finally reunite the long lost brothers. Or better yet, y'all could all live here. There's plenty of space here for everybody and you'd all have a safe place to live with plenty of food to eat, clean clothes to wear, and even hot water to shower in. Now you can't tell me that that just doesn't sound like paradise for times like this." he told her.

And there it was.

The long awaited pitch.

She knew it was coming sooner or later, although she had to admit that he certainly knew how to dangle the right kind of bait. But she wasn't stupid enough to believe a word of it. Her gut still told her that this guy was bad news and she'd learned long ago to listen to her gut. It had helped keep her alive this long and she wasn't going to start ignoring it now.

"That simple, huh? Just tell you where we live and we're free to go?" she asked him, an eyebrow raised in obvious disbelief.

"Or you could all come here. Like I said." he said.

"Well, you know what they say about things being too good to be true." she told him.

She finally put on her resting bitch face, as Daryl so lovingly called it. She was done playing his game and she could tell from the look on his face that he knew it too.

"Well, that's unfortunate to hear." he said, his own face changing from the charming, friendly stranger to a man who now meant business.

"Stand up. Take your shirt off." he told her after a few seconds of silence.

Adrian's eyebrows hit her hairline in surprise. "Excuse me?" she scoffed, unable to believe the balls on the man in front of her.

"Take your shirt off." he repeated, he voice taking on a somewhat cold quality to it.

"Abso-fucking-lutely not. You're out of your damn mind if you think for one second I would undress in front of you, or anybody here." she told him.

He slowly leaned forward in his chair, an action meant to intimidate her. His eyes had lost any warmth they had previously held, as if that along with everything else had been just an act, which she was certain it had been. "I said to take it off. Now." he said. The words were spoken softly but that didn't hide any of the rage that he had felt. Adrian leaned forward in her chair as well, determined to show him that she wasn't afraid of him, even if she really was. It had been in every movie she had ever watched and every book she had ever read, never show your enemies just how scared you were.

"And I said no." she told him, her voice just as low and soft as his had been.

"I'm not going to tell you again, Adrian." he growled.

"Make me, Philip." she said, her whole body tense, waiting for his next move. Adrian was so focused on his face that she was taken by surprise when the table suddenly hit her across the face, the force of the hit knocking her out of her chair and onto the cold, hard floor. She was still working through the surprise and the pain from the hit when she felt a rough hand grab a handful of her hair and jerk her up off the floor and onto her feet. The pain to her scalp was enough to jerk her out of her daze. She reached up to the hand in her hair, hoping to lessen the pain somehow even though it was fruitless. She looked up to see the cold look that had settled over her capture's face.

"You're going to tell me where your people are. One of you people are going to tell me what I want to know, even if I have to beat it out of one of you myself." he growled through clenched teeth. It was at that point that Adrian's fight or flight instinct kicked in but she knew flight wasn't an option, so fight it was. "Fuck you." she said before she punched him with as much power as she could in the sternum. It probably didn't hurt as much as she had hoped, but it had been enough for him to let go of her hair.

Instead of getting closer to him she quickly got as far from him as she could. She wasn't physically strong, no matter how much muscle she had gained from their very physical labor went into each day. She especially knew that she was no physical match for this man but she would be damned if she just stood there and let herself get beaten. She had managed to get a few good feet between them but she knew from the rage clearly seen in his eyes that it wasn't good for her. She expected him to want to get his hands on her as fast as possible in retaliation but what she didn't expect him to do was to use the room to his advantage.

She had a split second to panic as she watched him quickly pick up the chair she had just been thrown from and swing it at her. She tried to cover her head as quickly as possible but it wasn't fast enough. She felt the chair connect with her upper arm, shoulder, and her temple before the harsh blow sent her back to the floor. Her arms were already up from trying to protect her head but they were on the wrong side so when she hit the floor her head hit the hard concrete. She could already feel a massive headache coming on from all of the abuse her head was taking.

She didn't even realize that she had made the mistake of taking her eyes off of her enemy until she felt the chair hit her again, only this time hitting her in the ribs and her hip. She let out a sharp yell of pain when the chair hit her a third time before finally breaking. The Governor grabbed the seat of the chair that was still intact and threw it to the far side of the room before he delivered a harsh kick to her midsection. The kick knocked the breath right out of her lungs, making it impossible for her to make any sounds of pain from the blow. She was still trying to get her breath back when she felt the same foot on her shoulder and then push until she was flat on her back.

The Governor was standing over her, his legs on either side of her, the rage clearly written all over his face. It was as she finally sucked in a large gulp of air that he leaned down and wrapped his hand around her throat, not enough to completely block her airflow but enough to make breathing difficult.

"Where are your people at?" he demanded.

"Fuck you!" she said as loud as she could before she quickly brought her leg up and kicked him right in the backside, causing him overbalance and stumble forward and letting go her of neck.

She quickly picked herself up off the floor and seen the chair that he had been sitting in before and ran towards it. She quickly turned to see him coming for her, having recovered from her surprise attack, and in a panic, she threw it at him. He stumbled back in surprise at having the chair launched at him like a missile, only to feel a heavy weight hit him in the stomach and tackle him to the floor. She landed on top of him in his shocked surprise and landed two solid punches to his cheek before he grabbed the front of her shirt and jerked her down to him and headbutted her in the face.

The blow was unexpected and made stars explode behind her eyes from the sudden pain to her face. The punch that hit her cheek was more than enough to knock her off of him and onto the floor beside him. The hard punch to her stomach once again knocked the breath out of her. He was too far gone for words at that point, not even caring to ask where her group was since it was clear that she wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know. He landed a vicious kick to her ribs, which knocked the air she didn't even have out of her lungs again, before he reached down and grabbed her forearms and threw her against the brick wall a few feet behind her.

The impact with the wall somehow knocked the air back into her before she collapsed to the ground once more, her legs unable to hold her weight at this point. Adrian's blurry eyes landed on the rage filled form that was the Governor before she felt pain explode on her cheekbone. The last thing that registered in her mind as her world went black was that she tasted blood.

TWD

The first thing Adrian became aware of was that she flying but it didn't feel like flying because her feet were dragging along the floor. Once that thought crossed her mind she realized that she wasn't flying but was being dragged. She wanted to open her eyes so she could see where she was being taken but it was taking everything in her just to keep her thoughts straight. Then she heard a loud squeaking noise, like hinges that needed to be oiled, before she heard a loud gasp.

"Adrian." "What did you do to her?!" she heard what sounded like Maggie and Glenn say before she felt something cold underneathe her. It took her a second to realize it was the concrete floor before she heard Merle's voice from above her. "Calm down, Glenn. She's still alive. Now that we know where y'all are camped at there's no point in keepin' y'all separated no more." he said before she heard the door squeak again, most likely being closed this time.

"Adrian. Adrian, can you hear me?" she heard Maggie ask, her voice thick with emotion. She felt soft hands on her before she was rolled over and she groaned loudly in pain from the simple motion. She tried to blink her eyes open but the lights were too bright on her sensitive eyes so she quickly closed them again.

"What happened?" she mumbled.

"Adrian, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I told them about the prison and how many of us there are. I'm so sorry but he was going to kill Glenn." Maggie rambled.

Adrian could tell that she truly was sorry about breaking and telling them what they wanted to know, she could hear the tears in the poor girl's voice. " 'S okay, Mags. You did good." she told the guilt ridden woman. Adrian managed to pry her eyes open, her eyes tearing at the sudden onslaught of the bright light and focused her blurry gaze on the young brunette. "You did the best you could. That was all I asked of you." Adrian told her. She reached out to touch Maggie's tear stained face but didn't have the strength to get there. As her hand started to fall, Maggie grabbed her friends hand and held it, gladly taking the support that her beaten friend was trying to offer.

"How can you say that? Look what they did to you? Do you even know what he did to Maggie?" Glenn asked, anger ringing from his voice. Adrian rolled her head in Glenn's direction and seen that he was in pretty bad shape too. His jaw looked swollen on one side and he had a stream of blood lined from his busted lip all the way down his to the waist of his pants. It took her a second to realize that he wasn't wearing a shirt. She looked back up to his eyes, one of which was swollen and bloody and discolored, but both eyes shown bright with anger.

"I told her to say nothing unless her life was on the line. She didn't tell them what they wanted to know until they threatened to kill you. I can't fault her for that." she told him, not in the mood or mind set to deal with his anger.

"How can you say that? I told them where the others are." Maggie said, not able to understand how Adrian wasn't angry at her for breaking. Clearly the Governor tried to get her to talk too but she had kept her mouth shut obviously. It was the only way to explain why she was beaten so badly. "He threatened the man you love in front of you. Anyone would break when faced with that. Even me. There's nothing we can do about it now." she mumbled. It was getting hard for her to keep her eyes open the longer she tried.

"Adrian! You have to stay awake." she heard Maggie say urgently as she felt a sharp sting on her cheek. Maggie could tell just from looking at Adrian that was wasn't well. Overall she didn't look bad, mostly a lot of bruising and some blood, mostly on her face, but it was the slurring and mumbling, not to mention the glazed over look in her eyes, that worried Maggie the most. She wasn't as smart as her daddy but she'd guess that Adrian likely had a concussion and she knew that it was best to keep Adrian awake as much as possible.

"Can you walk? We should get you away from the door." Maggie asked her. Adrian didn't answer but started to roll over onto her side, only to give a loud groan of pain when she moved. She tried to figure out what exactly it was that hurt but it was hard to tell since everything from her waist up seemed to hurt. It took a few minutes to get Adrian up off the floor, mostly supported by Maggie since Glenn seemed to be in a fair amount of pain too, and over to a spot by one of the walls.

Adrian decided against sitting against the wall and instead just laid down on her side that wasn't completely screaming in pain. She felt small hands lift her head up and gently place it on something soft. Adrian could only assume that it was Maggie and that she had put her head on her lap. Adrian couldn't find the strength to say thank you so she let out a soft sigh instead to show that she liked the new position.

Maggie started to softly run her fingers through Adrian's dirty hair at some point and every once in a while would hit a spot that would make Adrian hiss in pain and would then avoid those spots. They didn't know how long they were in the room, or even how long it had been since they had been taken, but they all knew that it more than enough time for the rest of their people to know that something had gone wrong. It had been a simple milk run, so to speak, and they should have been back hours ago.

Adrian quietly dozed, Maggie making sure that she didn't fully fall asleep every once in a while, while Maggie and Glenn would either sit in silence or speak quietly. Adrian didn't know how long they stayed like that before she heard Glenn grunt in pain. She opened her eyes and moved her head enough to see that Glenn had stood up and started walking towards the dead walker on the floor. Adrian managed to push herself up enough to lean against the wall but not without being very vocal about the pain that such a simple task caused, while Maggie stood up.

They watched as Glenn ripped off one of the walkers arms, which was disgusting in Adrian's opinion, and then watched as he kicked at it's forearm, making the bones stick out. Maggie walked over to Glenn and he began pulling at some of the bones that were sticking out and the women watched when Glenn finally turned and gave Maggie some of the bone. Glenn then walked past Maggie and knelt in front of Adrian and held out a large piece of bone to her as well.

"We have to get out of here. Whatever it takes." he told her, a determined gleam in his eyes.

Adrian looked down to the bone before she finally raised her hand and accepted the makeshift weapon. "Whatever it takes. May the odds be ever in our favor." she said with a small smirk.

She doubted that Maggie or Glenn got her joke but she did and that was all that mattered at the moment.

TWD

They didn't know how long they had been standing by the door but they all knew they had to be ready for whenever their chance came. It was only a matter of time before someone came for them, although what for was anyone's guess but they knew whatever it was going to be for it wasn't going to be good. They finally heard footsteps outside of their door and they all got ready. Glenn was going to charge out first and then Maggie.

Adrian, who had steadily been breathing through her pain as best she could, decided that she was going to help whoever needed it if she didn't have her own person to take on. They didn't know how many they would send for them but in their current conditions they doubted it would be an army of people. The door opened and Glenn let out a war cry as he barreled into the man standing in the door. Maggie ran through the door next and pinned a surprised man against the wall as she pushed her bone weapon into the man's throat.

Adrian seen a third man frozen in surprise as he watched what Maggie did and Adrian seen no better time to strike. She took a deep breath and she charged forward and rammed her whole body into the man. He looked up, surprise and terror written all over his face, before she plunged her bone weapon into the man's eye as deep as she could. She could tell from his lack of screaming and suddenly limp body that he was dead. She heard something clatter to the floor and looked over to see Glenn fighting Merle.

Adrian quickly grabbed the knife off of the dead man underneath her and ran to Merle as he slammed Glenn onto the floor. Adrian had just pushed the knife against Merle's neck when Maggie pointed the gun he had dropped at his face. "Let him go!" Maggie yelled at him. Merle looked up at Maggie with a smile on his face. Adrian wanted to kick that stupid smirk off his face. It was when two more men came into the room with guns that Adrian realized why he had been smiling. He had known that there was back up just outside the room.

Merle let go of Glenn's arm and quickly drove his elbow into Adrian's stomach. The rough blow to Adrian's already bruised and abused stomach cause her to choke on air from the sudden hit. She dropped the knife, which clattered on the concrete floor, and stumbled back into the wall behind her before Merle jerked the gun out of Maggie's hands. "Get up!" Merle yelled at both Glenn and Adrian. Glenn started to get off the floor before Merle turned to Adrian. "I said get up!" he yelled again.

Adrian rolled her pain filled green eyes up to Merle's face. "Suck my dick, Merle Dixon." she told him, more than done with people telling her what to do. She should've seen the backhand he gave her coming but oddly enough she didn't. It probably hurt worse, not only because she was already sporting so many bruises, but also because he had still been holding the gun he had taken from Maggie.

Adrian spit out the blood that had flooded her mouth front the hit before she looked up at the one handed man again. "Jesus, I fucking hate you." she told him again. She had no intension of moving so he was either going to have to move her himself of just kill her right there. Once Merle seen that the ginger had no intension of moving on her own he handed the gun to one of the other men and reached down to grab a handful of her hair before he jerked her up and forced her into the room they had just escaped.

Adrian, Maggie, and Glenn were all forced to their knees as Merle was handed the gun back and aimed it at them.

"Well, it was fun catching up. But this is where the fun ends." Merle told them as a bag was shoved over Maggie's crying face.

"You pussies can't stand to look at our face when you shoot us?" Adrian snapped at all of the men in the room.

They were going to die, there was no doubt about that but she'd be damned if she didn't scream a streak a mile wide before they finally put a bullet in her.

A hood was finally put over Adrian's glaring face before her hands were forced in front of her and taped together.

"Wow. You bitches really know how to make a girl feel special." Adrian told them.

"You better shut your fucking mouth before I shut it for you." one of them said.

"Go fuck a walker you asshole." she told them before she was jerked to her feet.

Adrian was starting to feel the full force of all of her pain again when she heard a loud bang that make her nearly jump out of her skin. Adrian started choking when the air became thick with something and quickly yanked the hood off of her head when she felt that no one was holding onto her anymore. She jumped when she felt someone grab onto her arm again but gave a breath of relief when she realized it was her fearless leader.

Rick quickly pulled her out of the cloud of smoke and into a hallway where more of their people were before they all started running when someone started firing their gun from inside the cloud of smoke. Once they all made it out of the building they stopped in the shadows and were quickly cut loose from their bindings before they were forced to run again. Maggie, who was supporting Glenn, was running behind Rick and Daryl. Adrian was in the back being supported by Oscar as a woman Adrian had never seen before ran behind them.

They could see and hear people causing a commotion in the street but stayed to the shadows as much as possible until they came to a building that Daryl quickly enter, followed by Rick, Maggie, Glenn, Adrian, and Oscar. Daryl was nowhere to be seen as Glenn practically fell to the floor before he hit a small cabinet, Maggie following him down. Oscar walked inside and quickly dropped Adrian down onto a couch set against the wall before he turned to look out of the covered window to make sure no one had seen them come inside.

"There's no exit back here." they heard Daryl said from the back room.

"Rick, how did you find us?" Maggie asked only to receive no answer. "Glenn, how bad are you hurt?" Rick asked him. "I'll be fine." Glenn gasp from the floor. Adrian was trying to push herself up from the position she had fallen in when Oscar had put her on the couch but wasn't having much luck. She was thankfully on her less hurt side but the taunt pulling was making her other side scream and the soft couch wasn't easy to push herself up from.

Suddenly she felt a pair of large hands grab onto her. One was on her arm while the other settled under her armpit to help sit her up. Adrian looked up and met the most beautiful pair of worried blue eyes she had ever seen. She knew he had questions but now wasn't the time for them. Adrian grit her teeth and let out a moan of pain as Daryl helped her sit up.

"Adrian?" she heard Rick ask. "A hot bath and a glass of whiskey and I'll be ask good as new, bossman." she panted as she watched Daryl look her over.

She had not idea how bad she looked but if she looked half as bad as she felt she could only imagine that she looked like a hot mess, and not the good kind. Daryl took a quick second to look Adrian over and the more he looked the less he liked what he saw. She was covered in scratches and bruises. There was a cut above her left eyebrow, a cut or two on her left temple, and a cut on her bottom lip. He could hear her shallow breathing and could only assume that her ribs had to be hurting her for her to be breathing like that.

He wanted to kiss her but this was neither the time nor the place for it.

"Daryl, this was Merle." the heard Glenn say from the floor as Maggie helped him into a think zip up hoodie. Adrian saw Daryl's eye's widen in shock before he turned to look at Glenn. "This was all Merle." Glenn told him. Daryl looked between Adrian and Glenn, shock still all over his face to hear that his brother was still alive.

"You saw him?" Rick asked.

"Face to face. He threw a walker at me. He was gonna execute us." Glenn told him.

"So, what, my brother is this Governor?" Daryl asked.

"No. Your brother's his lieutenant or something." Maggie told him as she zipped up the hoodie for Glenn. Daryl looked back at Adrian and seen just how badly she was beaten. Adrian could see what he was thinking the longer he looked at her. "Merle didn't do this. He only slapped me a few times before I threatened to take a chunk out of him if he did it again." she told him to help put his confused mind at ease.

"Does he know I'm still with you?" Daryl asked.

"He does now. It's why that son of a bitch kidnapped us. FYI, your brother is a giant dick." Adrian told Daryl.

"Rick, we're sorry. We told them where the prison is. We couldn't hold out any longer." Glenn told them.

"Don't apologize. You did the best you could for as long as you could. You're all still alive and right now that's all that matters." Rick told them.

"They're gonna be looking for us and if we don't move they're going to find us." Adrian said as she leaned deeper into the couch. Daryl finally got up from his kneeling position in front of Adrian and walked over to Rick. "We've got a car a few miles out. Can you guys walk?" Rick quickly asked Glenn and Adrian. "Yeah." Glenn panted. Rick looked over to Adrian next. "I'll fucking crawl outta here if I have to because I'll be damned if I stay in this hell hole." she told him.

"Wait, I need to see Merle." Daryl said, his voice laced with shock and urgency. "Not now. We're in hostile territory." Rick told him, his mind solely focused on completing the mission of getting everyone out of Woodbury and to safety. "He's my brother! I can't just leave him!" Daryl told Rick, panic now in his voice at the thought of being so close to the brother he thought dead only to have to leave him behind.

"Look at what he did!" Rick hissed at him, causing Daryl to go quiet. "We gotta get outta here now. If we don't we're all dead." Rick told him. Rick could tell the second that Daryl had learned that Merle was still alive that he had completely forgotten about their mission to save their people and get them home. "Maybe I can talk to him, work something out." Daryl tried to bargain. Daryl had never been more shocked to learn that Merle was not only alive, but within spitting distance of where they were standing. He had thought his brother was dead for so long and now that he knew he was alive all he wanted to do was find him.

"No. Listen, you're not thinking straight. You've lost sight of the mission, Daryl. Our mission was to get in, find our people, and get out alive. Now we've got our people back but we still need to get out of here. No matter what they say, they're hurt. Glenn can barely walk and Adrian can barely sit up. When you found out that she had been taken you were ready to burn this whole place to the ground and kill anybody who stood in your way of getting her back." Rick whispered, seeing that his words were starting to get through to Daryl when he saw Daryl's troubled blue eyes look over his shoulder to Adrian on the couch. "I need you to help us get out of here. What are we going to do if walkers surround us or this Governor catches up to us? I need you with me, Daryl. We all do." Rick finally told Daryl. "Are you with me?" Rick asked him after a moment of silence.

"Yeah." Daryl told him after a beat of silence.

Daryl walked back over to Adrian and could hear her trying to keep her breathing slow and steady. "How you holdin' up?" Daryl asked her as he knelt down in front of her again. "Could really use that old bag of drugs Merle kept in his motorcycle bags." she said, chuckling before quickly groaning in pain as she reached for her ribs. "How bad is it really?" he finally asked her. He knew her well enough to know that unless she knew he was serious she was going to keep covering up her pain with sarcasm.

She went to give him another sassy comment when she seen the look on his face. He was ready for her to cut the shit and tell him the truth. "I haven't been beaten this black and blue since I was fourteen. Actually, I'm pretty sure even he didn't beat me this badly." she told him. He understood what she was telling him without saying it out loud. It cut him deeply to know that she hadn't even been hurt this badly on the worst day of her life. The salt in his wound was to know that he hadn't been there to protect her from any of this. He had been safe at the prison while she had been here with Maggie and Glenn, getting beaten for information.

"Hey, don't think like that. None of us could've seen this coming. We only kept our ears out for walkers. It never occurred to us that we needed to be on the look out for people too. It's been so long since any of us had seen a live person that wasn't us while on a run. None of this is anybody's fault except for Merle's and the Governor's." she told him as she gently held her hand against his cheek with the hand that wasn't holding her aching ribs. "When this is all over I say that we take a long vacation at the cabin." she told him with a weak smile on her face so she didn't irritate the cut on her lip.

"Alright guys, we need to get going." Rick whispered loudly from the door. Daryl gently helped Adrian up off the couch and gave her a soft kiss before he passed her over to Oscar since Maggie was helping Glenn. "On three, stay in tight formation." Rick told them before he opened the door and Daryl threw out two smoke grenades before Rick said three and they all ran out as quick as possible. There were men on two buses parked end to end against one of the walls that started firing at them.

Rick, Daryl, and Oscar starting shooting at the men on top of the buses after they started firing at them. Adrian couldn't see much through the smoke but she was grateful that Oscar was there to keep her moving and upright. Adrian yelled in pain when she felt what felt like fire kiss her shoulder. It wasn't until she reached up to the spot and seen blood that she realized that she had just been grazed by a bullet. "We need cover! Over there, move!" they all heard Rick yell at them.

They all made it safely across the street and to a small gap in between two buildings just big enough for them to hide in. "How many did you count?" Rick asked them as he quickly reloaded his gun. "Don't matter cause more of 'em's comin'." Daryl said as he quickly reloaded his own gun. "You got hit?" they heard Oscar said. They all turned to see Adrian gritting her teeth as she looked at her bleeding shoulder. "It's just a graze. If you need more cover power then give me a gun if you have any spares. It was my left shoulder that got grazed." she told them

"No, you're too injured to be worrying about shooting at people right now. You just worry about keeping upright and moving until we get out of here." Rick told her. "We gotta move. We'll make for the buses. We got any grenades left?" Rick asked Daryl.

"Yep."

"Get 'em ready."

"Y'all head for the buses, I'll lay down cover fire." Daryl told them as he handed out newly reloaded guns.

"No, we stick together." Maggie told him.

"It's too hairy out there. I'll be right behind y'all." he told them.

"Over my twice dead body are you staying behind. There's too many of them out there. We need to stick together." Adrian told him. He had risked his life to get her and Glen and Maggie out of there, she wasn't going to loose him now that he had gotten her back.

"Adrian, we ain't got time for this shit." he said as he stood in front of her, his blue eyes looking deeply into her green ones. "I'm gonna stay back and cover y'all as best I can and I'll be right behind ya." he told her as he held up a handgun in front of her face. Adrian looked from the gun to his face as tears welled in her eyes. Adrian said nothing as she swallowed her emotions and grabbed the gun. Daryl gave her a nod of approval before he turned back and grabbed his own gun.

Daryl threw out another smoke grenade before everyone else quickly ran for the buses. Daryl stayed by the buildings to give them some cover while Rick ran out in front of the buses by some solar panels to give them some cover from there. Oscar climbed up onto the hood of one of the buses and helped Glenn up while Maggie and Adrian helped cover them. Once Oscar got Glenn on top of the bus he yelled for her to give him her hand, which she did. She screamed in pain and he quickly pulled her up onto the hood with him and helped her on top of the bus with Glenn before he jerked and screamed in pain.

"No! Oscar!" Adrian yelled over the gunfire as she watch the man fall from the bus. Maggie ran over to Oscar and turned him over to see a large patch of blood on his side. "Rick! Rick, come on!" screamed Maggie before she quickly shot Oscar to keep him from turning and climbed onto the bus. "Rick! Daryl! Move your asses!" Adrian screamed as Maggie made it on top of the bus. They watched as Rick quickly turned from a man he had just shot and ran for the bus, screaming Daryl's name as he climbed.

"Daryl!" everyone seemed to scream at the same time.

"I'm comin'! Go!" he yelled back to them.

"Damnit!" Rick growled before he jumped over the wall.

Thankfully there were no walkers that they could see and they could only hope that their luck held out and it stayed that way. "Adrian, come on! I'll catch you!" Rick told her, holding his arms up for her.

"Not without Daryl." she told him as she looked back at her lover.

"Adrian, we don't have time for this!" Rick yelled up at her.

"Adrian, either you jump or I'm pushing you." she heard Maggie say.

She looked over to the young woman to see that she was serious. Adrian gave one last look over her shoulder before looking back at Rick. "Motherfucker." she growled before she jumped over the tin wall and into the waiting arms of her friend and leader. Adrian screamed from the bolt of pain that shot through her body when Rick caught her and her feet hit the ground. Glenn jumped down next, giving his own loud groans of pain as he harshly landed on the ground before Maggie jumped down last and they quickly followed after Rick, all keeping low and to the shadows until he stopped behind a car. They looked over the hood of the car to see a wall that was patched together using tin, wood, and very large tires and heavily guarded with spot lights.

"Come on, Daryl." Rick said, more than ready to leave.

"I swear to God, if he got captured in there, I'm taking the tires off of his bike and hiding those fuckers around the prison." she said through clenched teeth, more from pain than anger. What chemical assistance her body had given her to help dull the pain earlier was wearing off and there was only so long she could go before the pain was too much for her.

They heard leaves move and branches snap behind them before the woman from before crawled out from underneath the train that was behind them. Adrian was finally able to get a good look at her now that she wasn't running for her life. The first thing she noticed was the samurai sword the woman had hanging at her side and what might have been blood on her face. She had dark skin and dreadlocks that fell a little farther than her collarbones. She was wearing a sleeveless shirt and dark pants and boots, although what color her clothes were was the last thing Adrian cared about right that second.

Rick quickly drew his gun and aimed it at the woman as Maggie stood up and circled behind the woman, aiming her own gun that the strange woman. "Where the hell were you?" Rick demanded after making her raise her arms. "Turn around." Rick told her, clearly pissed off that she had went off script. He pulled the sword from its sheath, disarming her before she slowly turned back around and leaned against the train car behind her.

"Get what you came for?" he asked, his tone mocking. "Where's the rest of your people?" she asked as three of the four people there held a gun on her. Adrian was leaning against the car Rick had been by earlier and just didn't care enough to hold her gun on the woman. "They got Oscar." Glenn told her, anger coating his words.

"Daryl hasn't made it back yet. Did you see him in there?" Maggie asked her.

"I didn't see anybody." she told them.

"If anything happens to him-" Rick said only to be cut off.

"I brought you here to save them." she told him.

But Adrian could tell from her vanishing act earlier that she hadn't helped them solely out of her good heart. She had wanted something here too but Adrian couldn't tell from the look of the woman if she had gotten it or not. "Thanks for the help." Rick told her, his words sounding like a farewell. Adrian could see from the light of the moon that the woman had come to the same conclusion by the look on her face. "You're gonna need help getting them back to the prison or going back in for Daryl. Either way, you need me." she told him, the words of a woman who didn't want to be left behind alone.

"Rick." Adrian whispered as loud as she could from the car. She had been still for too long and was not only loosing the fight with the pain but to also stay conscious. Rick turned from the woman and quickly walked over to Adrian seeing that she wasn't doing very good. He knew that she was hurt pretty badly but they couldn't afford to have her pass out here. "Hey. Hey, look at me." Rick said as he took her face in his hands and gave her a little shake that made her eyes shoot open.

"She's right, Rick. With Oscar dead and Daryl missing we need her. You can't go after Daryl alone and me and Glenn won't make it far on our own. As much as you hate to admit it, we need her." she told him quietly not having the energy to speak much louder. "I don't trust her." Rick told her. Adrian had always been someone to tell Rick how things were whether he had wanted to hear them or not, so to hear her say that they needed the woman's help only confirmed what Rick didn't want to admit.

"Right now it's not about trust, it's about survival. She doesn't want to get left behind any more than we do. But of the people here you do trust, Maggie is the only one who is able bodied to be of any good. This is one of those times when you have to choose the lesser of two evils, Rick." she told him. Rick looked behind him to see Maggie still holding her gun on the woman which Glenn was resting on the ground not far away. Rick turned back to Adrian and swore before he stood up and walked back to the others. "Alright, this is what's gonna happen. Maggie, you and me are going back in for Daryl. You" he said pointing his gun at the woman " you're gonna help Glenn and Adrian back to the car." he told them.

Glenn didn't seem to happy about being separated from Maggie but he really didn't have any room to argue the point. Rick walked back over to Adrian, careful to stay in the shadows and out of sight of the guards and pulled her to her feet as gently as he could without hurting her too much and walked her over to the train car when he leaned her beside the woman. "You guys are going to the car. If we don't make it back by noon, you leave without us and get back to the prison. Coming back for us in your states would just be a suicide mission, if you even made it back this far." Rick told her as he took off his watch and handed it to her.

Adrian looked from the watch to Rick's face a few times before she finally gave a sigh of defeat and took the watch. "You guys better come back from this alive and whole or when I can finally walk up straight again I'm coming back and burning this whole fucking town to the ground and there won't be a damn subtle thing about it." she told him as she gave him a quick hug. Maggie came and gave her a quick hug as while while Rick helped Glenn off the ground.

Maggie quickly gave Glenn a hug goodbye before Rick turned to the three of them leaving for the car. "Adrian, if we don't make it back, you're in charge. I know you'll do right by everyone." Rick told her, a note of finality in his voice. Adrian looked at him in surprise, never thinking that he would ever give her the crown of his dictatorship should anything happen to him. The chain of command in the group was clear for everyone to see, Rick was their leader and when Rick faltered Daryl took his place.

Rick gave her one final nod before he and Maggie disappeared into the shadows of the night. Adrian looked over to the woman and Glenn, only to see Glenn as shocked as she was at Rick's words.

"Right, then. Let's get a move on. From what I understand we have a long walk ahead of us." she said as the woman started to lead the way back into the shadows.