A/N – This chapter is dedicated to xBlueMagnoliax on tumblr cuz she's awesome and I adore her.

This chapter was extremely difficult to write. The muse wanted me to scrap it every time I blinked but I was too far into it and didn't want to do that...Anywho, I'm feeling really nervous about this chapter and hope you enjoy it.

Badass Beth, comin up! Warning for violence.

Chapter 10 –

Beth ran as fast as she could, her feet pounding the tile floor of the hospital hallway in the brown shoes that were much too big for her, each step making her feet slide and shift in the large shoes. She felt clumsy. The blonde glanced behind her briefly, her large blue eyes taking in the sight of the door bursting open and walkers pouring into the hallway, the two others in scrubs running several feet behind her. She forced her eyes to focus back on the hallway in front of her, her heart racing and her head pounding. The blonde spotted a sign for a stairway down a hallway to her left and she quickly turned to go down that hallway. Daryl's voice was in her head, instructing her to find a weapon of some sort and get the hell out of the hospital and the youngest Greene followed his orders.

Beth's eyes honed in on the door with the 'EXIT' sign hanging above it and she pushed her feet to move faster. She was feet away from the door when an arm suddenly shot out and she ran straight into it, the limb staying stiff against her chest and throwing her back, her feet sliding on the floor and her body flying backwards and down to the ground from the force of the collision. Her breath was knocked from her lungs as she hit the ground and she lay on the cold tile, her lungs gasping and wheezing for breath as her blue eyes watered and met the cold, brown eyes of the brunette woman in the police uniform.

"Get up," the woman barked, her hand on her gun. Beth blinked the moisture from her eyes and glared at the woman above her before pushing herself to her knees and then her feet. "You're not going anywhere."

"Watch me," Beth retorted. The woman in front of her clenched her jaw and tightened her grip on her gun.

"You made this mess, fix it!" The blonde snorted.

"I didn't do this! I woke up from your drugging to those two about to leave me behind. They started this." The brunette forcibly turned Beth around as the other two in scrubs caught up to them.

"The three of you fix this."

"I don't have a weapon, as I'm sure you are well aware," Beth bit back. The policewoman shoved a machete into Beth's hand and the blonde eyed it thoughtfully. She could very easily turn this blade on the woman behind her and run for it.

There are too many walkers, she thought as the small herd grew closer to them.

Stay light on your feet, Beth, Daryl's voice whispered in her mind and Beth's mouth set into a grim line. The other two in scrubs were given knives and the three faced the herd of walkers. The woman beside Beth wasn't doing too well, the bite on her arm obviously affecting her.

Maybe I should put her out of her misery, Beth thought as she glanced over the woman, noting the sheen of sweat on her forehead and her labored breathing. Surprise filled the blonde. Where had that thought come from? That was not who she was. Beth Greene was not a dark person and she certainly did not kill the living. Images of Billy, Harley, and Dan, the three men of Joe's group that she had killed, flashed through her mind and Beth fought off a shudder.

Killing them had been out of necessity. Billy had been strangling her, threatening to have his way with her and make Daryl watch. Harley had been beating Daryl to death. Dan had been about to…Beth shook her head, forcing herself to refocus on the quickly approaching walkers. The blonde took a few steps forward and used the machete to cut into the first walker's head. Using her foot to help free the blade, she spun and kicked another walker away from her; doing her best to remember all the tips Daryl had taught her when they had been together.

It was gruesome and exhausting. Her pounding head and the drugs still pumping through her body made the fight twice as difficult as it should have been. Her feet became a powerful tool to help give her space when walkers got to close but every kick took more out of her. The temptation to run past the brunette officer was strong and there were a couple of times that Beth kicked a walker closer to the woman to see what would happen, but every time she did, one of the others in scrubs would kill it.

Only four left, Beth, you're doin' great! Daryl's words helped Beth push herself for those last four. The machete stuck in the second-to-last walker and the blonde struggled to pull it free as the last one approached her quickly. The man in the scrubs came between her and the last walker and efficiently stabbed it through the eye with his knife, his head turning to check on her with a brief nod as she pulled the machete free and muttered a quiet thanks.

"That wasn't too hard, now was it?" the brunette cop asked them, making Beth let out a breathless chuckle. The blonde kept her back to the woman and listened as she approached. "You, take this one to surgery. The quicker we get medicine in her the quicker she'll recover."

"There's no cure for this," Beth pointed out as she turned to the officer and the bit woman.

"Gareth must not have told you why you're here. We're working on a cure," the brunette replied calmly. For the first time since the farm, Beth felt that hopeful light in her heart. A cure?

"How?"

"We're testing different theories." Beth glanced at the bit woman and then the brunette officer.

"You mean experimentation? On humans?"

"Well, we can't exactly use mice or rabbits. Animals don't seem to be affected by the disease."

"Have any of your theories been successful?" Beth ground out between her clenched teeth. The woman's blasé attitude toward the fact that they were experimenting on other people was really rubbing the blonde the wrong way.

"If it had, would you have just had to fight off all of them biters?" the brunette gestured to the pile of bodies behind Beth and the blonde blew a strand of hair out of her eyes with a angry huff. She tightened her hand on the handle of the machete as the policewoman approached her, the woman's brown eyes steely. "Best get comfortable here, Beth. You'll never leave her again."

Wrong thing to say, Beth thought as she raised the machete and prepared to bring it down on the woman's head. My family needs me. Daryl needs me.

Pain shot through Beth's wrist as the woman grabbed her arm and wrist and stopped her mid-swing, twisting her wrist painfully until she dropped the machete. The blonde cried out as she felt and heard the joint snap and pop. It was most likely broken now.

"Wrong move, Beth," the brunette warned, her eyes glaring into Beth's. "That's a warning, the next time you try something like that, you'll be on the next operating table."

Daryl fought the bindings and the gag in his mouth before the butcher pushed his head over the trough in front of him. His eyes met Gareth's as he entered the room and his glare turned stony.

"Where's Beth?" he shouted through the gag, over and over again until Gareth removed it from his mouth to hear him better. "Where's. Beth?!" he growled, making Gareth smile cruelly.

"She's in good hands in Atlanta," he replied before replacing the gag and moving to hear what Bob had to say, annoyed that they were trying to talk to him, plead with him to not kill them. Daryl watched silently, his hands working to get ahold of the wooden shank he had cut out of the train car's wall, to get freed, anything, as Rick and Gareth discussed their bag of weapons.

"There's a machete with a red handle. That's what I'm gonna use to kill you," Rick threatened.

Or I will, Daryl thought darkly. One way or another, you're going to be dead for taking Beth and doing this.