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Chapter Twenty-five
"Get this fuckin' think off'a me! Who the fuck gave you the right to do this to me?" Merle's screams bounce harshly off of the camper's walls and Rick's gut tightens nearly as hard as his fists as his body instinctively goes into battle mode. "My fuckin' hands!"
Reaching the bedroom, Rick sees Merle thrashing wildly on the bed, the blanket askew to reveal his bandaged arm as he rattles the cuffs against the gold curve of the wall sconce. He stops in the doorway as Daryl rises from his perch on the opposite twin bed, a hand stretched out toward his brother and speaking in a voice usually reserved for untamed animals - which in this case, actually fits. For the wild look in Merle Dixon's eyes is more dangerous than any animal that Rick had ever encountered.
"We had to do it, man," Daryl says adamantly, standing between the sheriff and his brother. Detecting a trace of fear in his friend's voice, Rick wonders if Daryl positioned himself intentionally to protect him from Merle, or was it a subconscious decision that separated the two adversaries.
"You had no right!" Merle screams again, his voice wavering slightly as if on the verge of tears. Almost, but not quite there yet as anger still outshines despair.
"He saved your life, ya dumb shit! Ya got bit so we had to take it off fast. Rick had the katana and -,"
"God damned cocksucker! I'm gonna kill you, ya motherfuckin' cop!" he yells furiously at the ceiling as he reaches out blindly with his stump. He falls back to the bed in pain and misery, thrashing violently and cursing Rick to the heavens.
With a hand on Daryl's shoulder, Rick nudges the man to the side to face Merle himself. "Listen, I know you're in a lot of pain and maybe rightfully pissed, but if you want me to unlock that cuff, you're gonna have to calm the fuck down."
"You." The single syllable carries more venom than all the rattlesnakes in Georgia combined as Merle slowly lifts his head and shoulders from the bed.
Rick meets his deadly glare. "Yeah, Dixon. It was me. For some stupid reason your brother didn't want you to die, and I was the one holding the sword. But let's be clear about one thing," Rick says hotly, throwing compassion out the window. "I didn't do it for you, I did it for your brother."
"We had to, Merle," Daryl says miserably. "We had to."
"No one asked ya to!" Merle hollers, still mad and breathing heavily, but a little less agitated.
"It was yer only chance, Merle." Daryl leans toward his brother again. "We had no choice."
"Then ya should'a let me die," Merle says softly, surrendering the battle with a long deflated sigh. A touch of pity lightens the tension inside the camper as Merle slumps back to the pillow once again, his body melting into the bed as his anger turns to exhaustion and frustration. "Just get this fuckin' cuff off'a me."
"Can I trust you?" Rick asks, trying to gauge Merle's expression to see whether murderous rage is still fighting for first place.
"I ain't gonna kill ya. Just cut me loose," he replies evenly, sounding completely defeated. "My wrist hurts almost as much as the one ya took. Ya got any painkillers in that magic bag of yours, Irish?"
Rick turns to follow Merle's gaze and finds Erin standing right behind him. He tilts his chin with a look that says, Do you ever listen to me? She ignores his smirk and lifts his hand to place four rust colored tablets into his palm. Of course she'd be prepared to treat her patient. Rick gives her a small apologetic smile. "Thanks, honey."
"It's only Motrin but it might help take the edge off," she says as she hands him a bottle of water.
Rick turns back to the bed and hands the water to Daryl, and then reaches into his pocket for the key.
After checking Merle's stump and fashioning a sling out of a threadbare beach towel, and insisting that she didn't have anything stronger than over-the-counter analgesics, Erin follows Rick back to their tent as the sun sits just below the horizon.
The camp is quiet, their friends still sleeping before the birds and chores rouse them from their beds to face another day in far-from-paradise. He takes her hand and leads her around the fire pit, his palm warm and cozy against the chill of the early morning hour.
"So, that was some dream last night, huh?" he asks nonchalantly, but the glance he aims at her invites all kinds of sinful speculation.
The flutter in her belly awakens with a jolt as she remembers their dream on the Savannah balcony. She can't help the grin that immediately splits her face. When he slows their pace and his eyes darken with desire, she knows he is thinking of the slap that had still stung her ass upon waking in the camper. Her flutter blushes demurely and her grin softens into a shy smile. "Yes, it certainly was something."
"I'm not sure that my hand was working entirely on its own though, was it?" he asks, his tone saying he already knows the answer. Which of course he does because he knows her so well, and their dreams – though otherworldly and fantastical, are always very insightful.
She feels her cheeks heat and a part of her wants to run and hide, but then her flutter stands proud. With her chin down but angled toward him, she looks up from beneath her long lashes and gives him a coyly seductive little smile as they near the patch of dirt that holds their tent. "I don't know what you're talking about," she says sweetly, virgin innocence dripping slyly from her tongue.
"Is that right?" He stops, swings her around to face him and pulls her into his arms. "That thought never crossed your mind, huh?" he asks, squeezing a handful of soft buttocks.
His hand feels wonderful as it massages her rear after groping it roughly. She can almost feel the sting of his palm now as it had connected with her flesh on that ethereal balcony. "Well," she says slowly, "it may have… seemed like a good idea… at the time."
"Yeah," he says softly, "we're gonna have to finish that dream someday." He lowers his head and swallows her reply with warm lips and a hot hungry tongue.
God, this man can kiss. With her hands in his hair as her knees grow weak, she angles her head to invite him deeper, and loses herself. His mouth molds to hers, tongues swaying in a sweet and savory dance and in an instant - two plain puzzle pieces are gloriously interlocked to create an extraordinary picture. Yes, she thinks in the tiny corner of her mind where lust and emotion fuses with love and devotion… we were most definitely designed for each other.
Dark gray clouds move swiftly across the late day sky, swallowing the sunset as a strong wind ruffles the tree tops and lifts the bottom corner of the thin paper below Rick's hand. The well-worn map of central Georgia stirs its edges but remains flattened beneath the many capable hands that are pressing it into the hood of Daryl's truck.
Standing at the front bumper with Shane at his side, he has Dale and T-Dog flanking the fender to his left while Daryl and Glenn lean over the map on his right. For over an hour now the small group of men have been deliberating their next move; discussing, discounting and revisiting idea after idea of exactly where to search next. Rick knows they are on borrowed time at the quarry and hopes to be moving on by the end of the week, before their luck runs out. But after analyzing every highway, backroad, side street and dirt path between Atlanta and its surrounding townships, they can't find one place that they are certain would be safer than the small clearing at the top of the quarry.
He looks over his shoulder toward the small tent pitched next to the Pelletier's dwelling and wonders when Michonne will be feeling well enough to talk. He'd tried speaking to the dark woman earlier about the places she had been through, hoping to use her experiences to help with their planning strategies. But she was still too sick - and much too wary of the group that had taken her - for him to push the subject. For the few minutes that she'd emerged from the tent this afternoon, her fevered eyes had been just as haunted as Jim's and as feral as Daryl's. So he would give her one day to sleep, and heal. But tomorrow he was going to have a long talk with her - whether she liked it or not.
Swinging his eyes back to the Dixon's tent on the other side of the camp, he wonders if Merle will sleep through another day. With a good amount of Motrin and a sleeping pill drifting along his bloodstream, he has been passed out for most of today. Hopefully Erin has enough pills in stock to keep the redneck sedated and docile until he can get some much-needed information from Michonne.
He glances to his right as a splash of white catches his eye. He smiles at Erin as she steps into the gap between Daryl and Glenn, her rusty hair falling long and loose over his white tee shirt. She gives him a knowing smile as she lifts a shoulder and rubs her chin against the cotton.
She'd surprised him that morning when he was pulling a gray tee shirt over his shoulders to hang loose over his black jeans. She had nonchalantly reached into his duffel bag, rooted around for a few seconds and pulled out one of his white tees. She'd given him a flirty, yet challenging look, daring him to try and stop her from slipping it over her head. Not in a million years.
She'd walked out of the tent to join the rest of the group for breakfast, leaving him with a stirring in his crotch as if they hadn't just finished what they'd started in the dream last night – slightly stinging palm and all. It was incredible. She was incredible.
Now, as they stand among their friends, he blocks out the image of her panting beneath him to focus on the discussion of where they would be safe. Something tells him that it just doesn't exist in this world anymore.
"What about Fort Benning?" Andrea asks after squeezing between Rick and Shane at the front bumper. "Isn't that what you had mentioned the other day, Shane?"
"It's an option," Rick replies, inching to his right to make room for the blonde woman. "But it's a long way to go for protection that may not exist anymore."
"It'll be there," Shane says, meeting Rick's eyes over Andrea's head. "The military will protect their base at all costs."
"Exactly. And that's what I'm afraid of," Rick says, pushing the brim of his hat up into his hairline with more than an ounce of frustration. "You said yourself that they were shooting everyone at the hospital when you came to get me. How do we know they'll welcome us with open arms if we knock on their front door now?"
"They wouldn't do that," Andrea responds. "We're not sick and we're certainly not the enemy."
"I hate to say it, but I think Rick's right," Dale says, giving the sheriff a supportive nod. "The government doesn't exist anymore. Who's to say that there isn't a group of trained soldiers behind the walls of Fort Benning that are only concerned with keeping themselves alive? Survival of the fittest. They've got nothing to gain by taking us in and everything to lose."
"They aren't going to let the weak inherit the earth without a fight," Erin adds, giving Rick her own supporting nod. He's never loved her more.
"Okay, so Fort Benning is out," Glenn says, leaning down toward the map once again. "What other options do we have?"
"I still think- " Andrea begins but a short bark and a low growl from Nikki cuts her off.
Rick follows the husky's snarling stance toward the mouth of the gravel path that spills out of the forest into their clearing. A moment later a slight tinkling of a can reaches his ears and he drops his hand to the Colt Python at his belt.
"Somethin's comin'," Daryl says, pulling his crossbow from his shoulder.
"Or someone," Rick says, moving around the truck to stand in front of Erin, protecting her from whoever is coming up the path. "A walker would've made more noise going through those cans."
The soft sound of gravel crunching beneath distant boots gets louder as Nikki's growl grows deeper, his hackles spiking high and intimidating between his shoulder blades as he stands in front of Rick and Daryl. Protecting his pack.