This Night

Chapter 194

Author's Note: I hope I'm forgiven for the shortness of the last chapter. I just didn't know when I could post again (my son is home for 22 days, he's a computer hog) so I wanted to give you something. But, I hope I'm forgiven with this chapter. If you haven't went to you tube and checked out the video that's on my profile, go now, I'll wait. Review and like it. Go, this will still be here in five minutes. Ah you're back? Good! Did you review it? Good. Now review this please.

Rick's group POV:

Mar bent down, checked her weapon and glanced ahead. She didn't hear the footsteps behind her, but felt the gun to her back.

"Well, well, well, look what I found," a man's voice said. "Throw that gun down, real slow and stand up and turn around," he told Mar. "Hands up."

Mar took a breath and did what she told as she turned around.

"Yeah that's her," the other man said.

"Well you are a looker," the first man said as he grabbed her arm. "We're gonna have fun with you. You aint gonna last long," he said as he pulled one of her arms behind her. "Hey Joe, look what I found, she was hiding," the man said.

Mar looked at Rick and Michonne, who both had guns to there heads.

"Well damn Ulysses guess you better claim her real fast. You screwed up asshole. Today's the day of reckoning, sir. Restitution. A balancing of the whole damn universe. Shit, here I was thinking of turning in for the night on New Years Eve," Joe said as he held a gun to Rick's head.

"Claimed," Ulysses hissed in Mar's ear as his hand grabbed her ass.

"Don't touch me," Mar hissed as she tried to pull away. She glanced at the man who was standing by the car window where Carl was.

Joe laughed. "Oh a fighter, well they don't last long here now a days. Now whose going to count the ball dropper with me huh?" he asked. "Ten Mississippi, nine Mississippi, eight Mississippi," he said.

"Joe! Hold up!" Daryl exclaimed as he came from the other side. He looked at Mar then at the rest of the group.

"You're stopping me at eight Daryl," Joe said.

"Where's the other one?" Wade asked Daryl.

Daryl ignored him. "Just hold up."

"This is the guy that killed Lou, that woman was with him, we aint got nothing to talk about," Harley told him.

"The thing about now a days is that we got nothing but time. Go ahead and say your piece, Daryl," Joe said.

"These people, you're going to let them go. These are good people," Daryl said as he glanced at Mar and the rest.

Joe laughed. "Now I think Lou would disagree with you on that. I, of course, will have to speak for him and all cause your friends here killed him in a bathroom," he told him.

"Let them go, I'll stay. Rick has a wife and a baby on the way…he needs to find her. She needs him. Let them go," Mar pleaded.

"You want blood, I get it. Take it from me," Daryl said as he put down his bow. "Come on."

Joe looked at Mar. "It's real nice that you are worried bout his wife, but you could have shown a little bit more compassion toward our friend," he said as he turned his attention to Daryl. "You say these are good people? They killed our friend. Right there, that's a lie. That's a lie!" he said as the group started beating on him.

"No!" Rick yelled.

"Let him go!" Mar pleaded.

"Teach him fellas, teach him all the way," Joe said.

Mar turned her head as Dan pulled the car door open. "Come here boy!" he said as he pulled Carl from the car.

Rick started to spring up. "You leave him be!"

"Don't you touch him!" Mar told him.

"You better be worried about yourself," Ulysses whispered in her ear.

"You'll get yours, you just wait your turn," the Hispanic man told Michonne.

Rick's voice got deep. "Listen it was me, just me."

"See now that's right, that's not some damn lie," Joe told Rick as he looked at Daryl getting beat up. "Look we can settle this, we're reasonable men. First we're going to beat Daryl to death, then we'll have the girls, then the boy, then I'm going to shoot you and then we'll be square. Then, we're going to find that guy that Daryl was with, and kill him too," Joe said.

Mar watched as Dan pushed Carl down. "Carl, look at me! You're strong, you're a good man, a better man than this worthless piece of crap."

"Damn would you just shut up," Ulysses said as he pushed Mar down to her knees. "I'll make you shut up."

"Let him go," Rick hissed.

"Stop squirming," Dan told Carl.

Mar turned her head to Carl as he struggled. "Carl, Lori would be so proud of you. Jewel is proud of you. You're gonna see that baby sister or brother of yours, you're going to protect him or her from worthless pieces of shit like these. You are going to survive, we're going to survive, and these men are going to die," she said as she blocked out the beating Daryl was getting.

"Shut her up!" Wade told Ulysses as he helped beat Daryl up.

"Let him go!" Rick told him again as he pushed himself backward against Joe, causing the gun to go off in his ear and Joe lose his balance.

"I got him," Joe said as he went over to Rick. "Oh it's going to be so much worse now," Joe told him as he kicked him. "Come on get up," he told him. "Come on."

Mar let her hand go down to her boot as she kept her eyes on Carl as Michonne tried to get the gun from the man who was holding her. "You keep fighting, Carl. Men like this are worthless slime," she told him.

Rick got on his hands and knees and pushed himself up. "Let him go," he hissed.

Joe grabbed him around the waist. "What the hell are you going to do now Sport?" he asked.

Rick didn't answer him, instead he took a bite out of his neck, blood spewing all over the place, he then spit it out.

The rest of the group was momentarily stunned before going into action. Mar grabbed her knife out of her boot and raised it right up, catching Ulysses in the balls. He doubled over as she quickly stabbed him in the neck. "I told you not to touch me," she hissed. She heard a gun shot over her shoulder and she turned to see Lexi standing there with a weapon having taken out one of the men beating Daryl. Axel ran toward the man who had Carl.

"Let him go," Axel told him.

"I'll kill him," Dan said.

"He's mine," Rick hissed as he walked over to him.

"Stay back, please," the man pleaded with Rick, as Michonne grabbed Carl to comfort him. Rick killed the man as he stood up and looked at the group.

The next morning:

Mar and Daryl came over to where Rick was sitting as Daryl handed him some water and a rag.

"We should keep it for drinking," Rick said.

"You can't see yourself, he can," Daryl told him. "Axel figured out what they were before I did. He's definitely not the same person he was when we met him at the prison."

Mar took the water and the cloth and wiped some blood off Rick's hands. "None of us are the same."

"How'd you two wind up with them?" Rick asked.

"We were with Beth for a while," Daryl told him.

Rick flinched as Mar cleaned up his knuckles. "Sorry," he told her. "Is she dead?"

Mar looked at Daryl before continuing. She wanted to know what happened as much as Rick did.

Daryl shook his head. "No, she's just gone. After that, that's when they found us. Axel tried to tell me we should leave that night, but I didn't listen. I knew they were bad, but they had a code. It was simple, but it was something. I didn't really think Axel was that strong to survive out here, but he did. They said they were looking for some guy and girl. Axel got information out of the one that saw the two of you under the bed, he was real smooth about it. We decided to stay with them, until we got closer, so we could warn you. Axel and I found Mar and Lexi first. Told them to stay with Axel," he said as he glanced at Mar.

"I don't listen well when people tell me stupid things," Mar told him as she moved to Rick's face.

"I saw the rest of you, right when you saw me, didn't even know they found Mar," Daryl said. "I didn't know what they could do," he told him.

Rick looked at him. "Hey it's not on you, Daryl. It's not on you. You being back here with us now, that's everything. You're my brother," he emphasized to the other man.

Daryl noticed the small smile that Mar gave him. "Hey what you did last night, anyone would have done that."

Rick shook his head. "No not that, something happened."

"Rick stop moving your head," Mar told him. "Rick what you did last night, it saved all of us, it saved Carl. You know if Jewel had been here, she would have done a lot more then that. She would have took a chunk out of his neck, castrated him, then clawed his eyes out. Don't ever second guess yourself when protecting your children, Rick," she told him.

"Thank you for what you were doing last night, talking with Carl," Rick told her.

Mar shook her head as she moved over to Daryl to check him out. "Don't have to say thank you for that, Rick. He's family."

"None of you saw Summer?" Daryl asked.

Mar shook her head. "I got out alone, met up with Michonne, then found Lexi, Rick and Carl," she said. "But we'll find them, at Terminus," she said as she stood up. "Rick you mind if I talk with Carl?"

"No, course not," Rick said as she got up.

Mar nodded and opened the door. "Hey Michonne, can you, Axel and Lexi finish boiling the water for me, so I can talk with Carl."

Lexi squeezed Carl's hand as they got out.

Mar took Michonne's spot and rubbed Carl's back. "You don't have to say a word, Carl, but I want you to listen to me. It may not hit you today, or the next day, but it'll hit you."

"He didn't do anything," Carl reminded her as he kept his voice low.

"No, thank God for that. But he tried, and sometimes even that is enough to make you wonder if it's something you did. But Carl, it's not, you never think that way. You need to know men like that….men like that are the worst kind of men, especially now a days because there's no laws. Even laws didn't stop men like that before. It isn't your fault. If you ever want to talk, I'm here."

Carl sat up and looked at her. "Mom was raped wasn't she? I mean Jewel…when she was younger?"

Mar nodded. "You're smart. Yes, she was. When she was about a year older then you. She didn't tell anyone and it almost destroyed her. When you all found me, after I had escaped….I didn't want to talk about it, and I think it made it worse because I felt alone. You aren't alone. That's why I talked with you last night, why I was letting you know it wasn't you. We're going to be leaving soon, we've got the rest of the family to find," she said as she kissed the top of his head.

Author's note: I hope that made up for the shortness of the last chapter. Next chapter reuniting (well I hope) with Jewel! At least they'll be at Terminus! Review please