Lily is my OC and she is most definitely there. Walking Dead is not.

Warning: Just to be careful, this may be a trigger chapter to some readers.

"Anybody there?"

It was Shane. There could only be one reason that he was hear. He knew that she was here and was here with others to bring her home.

The leader placed his large hand over her mouth, essentially silencing any cries she could muster, then he pinched her nose. She couldn't breathe. 'What's he doing?! I can't breathe! I'm going to pass out! That is if he doesn't kill me first.'

Lily was pushed up against the back of the desk close enough to the floor so she could stick her fingers out from under it. 'Concentrate on getting his attention!' she forced herself to think. Shane was still in the room because his footsteps had not retreated. Silently, he'd made his way over to the desk and touched her fingers making her jump.

She pulled her fingers from his desperately trying to take a breath and pointed to where the leaders head was.

"Cover your ears," Shane said, not caring if the leader heard him or not. A second later, a shot rang through the room.

She screamed deafened by the shot. The man slumped against her under the desk pinning her there forcing what little air she could get from her lungs.

"Lily! That you?"

"Mm-hmm!"

He ran around the desk and pulled her out by her feet.

"Damn you look awful." Her dress hung around her waist leaving her bare chested and bleeding standing in front of the man she hated most bound with duct tape. She took a deep breath trying to clear her head and ran.

"Son of a bitch!" he hissed running after her. "Get back here!"

She desperately looked for anything that looked familiar hopefully to lead her out of this hell.

"Lily! Come back here!" He did not sound like he wanted to kill her just to find her, but once she was found there was no telling what he'd do.

Around every corner, she ran into darkness hoping for outside. She ran and saw someone standing in the middle of the hallway. They spun to face her and a twang echoed through the air. Her dress snagged on something causing her to trip and slide along the ground keeping her pinned to the wall. With force she did not know she possessed, she tore from the wall ripping the dress free.

Shane was barreling towards her down the hall at an astonishing speed. She flattened herself against the wall and held out her foot, sending Shane soaring through the air where he face planted the ground. Once he was down, she sprinted down the same hall away from the man who shot at her.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" a younger sounding man shouted when she ran into his line of sight. "Guys! I've got her!" He took her waist, but she stomped on his foot causing him to groan in pain and release her. On her sprint from him, there was yet another man who had seen her trying to escape and as she ran, he used that momentum to throw her over his shoulder. When she hung upside down a very muffled gasp could be heard.

She kicked and kicked but he held her legs down. 'Just let me go!'

"Hey, she's in here! Come help me with her," the man who now held her over his shoulder called the one who she had stepped on.

She was lowered to the ground, and the second her feet hit the ground, she made to run, but the men knew she would and prepared for it. As hard as she could she fought, but they held on.

As she fought, a third man entered the room and a gunshot followed silencing everyone. Out of instinct, Lily curled up and dropped to the floor.

"What the fuck is goin' on here?"

"We found her."

Footsteps approached her on the ground and hands lifted her face up. "Oh, my God. You're alive."

She dared to open her tear filled eyes and saw bright blue ones looking back at her.

"You're alive," he repeated.

She heaved a great sigh upon seeing him smile at her. 'There was no way he was here right now. I'd been forgotten. There was no way they found me. How did they find me?'

"Lily, don't move. I'm gonna get you outta this." He cast his eyes to the others in the room. "Could ya step out?" They left the two alone in the room. He lifted her dress as much as he could with the tear.

She closed her eyes and heard a knife flick open which made her jump. He placed his hand on her cheek. "Don't move."

He set the knife on the ground as he began to peel the many layers of tape from her face. Gently he cut the tape on her cheek and began to peel the tape from her hair. Quiet whimpers could be heard as the tape came away from her hair. It was just too much of a mess and he had to cut her hair off at some points. It was a full ten minutes before he made his way to her mouth. "I am so sorry about this." Taking a slow inhale, he began to pull it from her mouth gently, just praying to God he wasn't hurting her.

The second it was gone he took her face in his hands as she let out a small cry.

He cut the tape from her arms swiftly to see the bloody handcuffs, then wrapped his jacket around her shoulders. How she longed to touch him but she was afraid he would push her away so she kept to herself as she cried.

"It's ok," he whispered taking her in his arms. She clutched his vest sobbing. "It's over."

"Bitch tripped me," Shane snapped walking into the room. Daryl pulled her out of reach of Shane and into his arms. Lily looked up and saw blood running down his face from the fall.

"You've done enough. Get out of here." Shane stomped out of the room to join the others who had come.

In his mind, Daryl saw the flash of skin when she rounded the corner and he fired fearing it was a straggler who they had missed. Thankfully he missed and just snagged the dress. As she pulled herself free, he could see her peppered with bruises and blood dripping down her chest and neck. She looked like a wild animal but she was still alive and Shane was after her. He reminded himself that she was going to be all right.

"Daryl?"

"Yeah," he laughed with relief. "I never meant to hit ya. I'm so sorry. Imma never forgive myself for hittin' ya. I'm not like that. I'm not gonna be like my old man. I'm not gonna be my old man."

A sob racked her body as she reached a shaky hand up to touch his face. "You came. You came. I'm sorry I punched you...twice."

"Shh. It's nothin'."

"You came."

"Hell yeah, I came. I ain't gonna leave ya. It's ok. You're safe now. We're gonna get ya outta here."

She cast her eyes down to the floor. "Hey, you don't wanna see what we did ta the place." He kept her gaze on him instead of letting it drift down to the body on the floor.

Tears ran down her face as she tried to fight against them but he understood them.

"No, you don't. You don't need to see them dead. We made sure they suffered. They already suffered. You need ta close your eyes or we ain't leavin'."

She wanted to see the men who hurt her dead, but she wanted to leave more. He lifted her in his arms.

"Jus close your eyes and we'll leave. It'll become a bad memory. That's all."

Her eyes closed and she held onto him tighter. "Don't stop talking," she said around the knot in her throat. "How did you find me?"

"The group came back to the farm with this kid named Randall, he's still there, but he told us that these guys moved around every week or so. We had to weasel the information out of him before they moved, and he gave us this general area..." He readjusted his grip holding her closer as she silently cried. "You hafta understand we got here as fast as we could. If we coulda got here faster then-then..."

"I understand," she sobbed.

Voices reached their ears from a distance.

"In here!" Daryl shouted to them. Lily lifted her head. "Keep your eyes closed." She settled her head back down in the crook of his neck.

"Oh, my God, I can't believe we found her!" Glenn cheered.

"Is she ok?"

"No, Rick. She ain't ok." He readjusted her again. "Now move."

"Where was she?"

A sob filled her chest. "It matter?" Daryl turned to face them. "She's alive and they ain't. That's it. Let's get the hell outta here. Ok?"

"This way!"

"You got her?" That voice she'd recognize anywhere not out of affection but out of fear.

Shane. He wouldn't leave her. She looked up and saw a man with a knife through his head stuck to the wall. His eyes were open and there was blood dripping from his open mouth. A cry of shock came from her mouth. Daryl moved his hand up to push her head back into his shoulder.

"Get us outta here!" Daryl shouted. "Now!"

The pair was ushered out of the compound where the camp of cannibals called home.

"Look at me. Look at me." Daryl told her after setting her on a car seat.

He wiped the blood and tears from her face as she refused to open her eyes.

"Shane, you got a handcuff key?" Daryl asked him as he examined the cuffs on Lily's wrists. "We hafta get these off ya before you get anything else in these open wounds."

"Yeah, I think so." Shane rummaged through his pockets for a minute before pulling out a small silver key.

'After all these months how did he still have it?'

The cuffs were not coming off easily. They had become so embedded in her wrists that the cuffs had become stuck. The silk had bonded with the blood and dried to the metal forming one giant scab. It would be painful to remove them to say the least.

She couldn't tear her eyes from the bloody mess that her wrists had become. The handcuffs had been too tight and she couldn't break them. All she could do was suffer through the pain.

"Lily, I need ya to look at me," Daryl whispered angling her gaze to meet his. "Keep lookin' at my face and don't look away. Promise?"

She nodded. Promise? Was she a child? The last time he made her promise something, he was drunk. Did he remember everything he told her and never said anything? It was so childish but meant so much.

He held her gaze with his blue eyes while he felt around her wrists using his hands to search for the lock. But he had to break the gaze to find the keyhole. Once the keyhole had been located, he locked eyes with her again.

"I'm really sorry about this," he whispered.

The key clicked into place. His hands closed around her wrists. Warm lips pressed against her forehead. Her mouth fell open in shock. The handcuffs snapped away from her wrists. A scream of pain filled the night. Hands closed around her wrists again to staunch the blood.

"Keep her quiet!" Shane hissed. "She's gonna bring every walker down on us."

"Shut the hell up, man!" Glenn snapped at him. "Leave her alone. You already scared her once tonight."

"Come on, man!" Daryl shouted urgently to Glenn who ran over with a bottle of water.

Lily never saw Glenn approach because Daryl pulled her head roughly to his and kissed her forcefully making the bruises on her face scream in agony. Daryl wrapped both of his hands around her neck pulling her as close to him as possible as Glenn dumped the water all over her wrists to clean them briefly. His kiss muffled the sounds her cries of pain.

Tears began to flow from the stinging the water had upon her wrists as Daryl tied his bandana over one of them. She'd bent over into the fetal position hoping the pain would lessen, but it didn't.

"It's over! It's over! It's over."

Daryl adjusted himself in the backseat pulling Lily into his lap letting her cry as he wrapped her other wrist up in his shirt.

"It's ok," he whispered in her ear as he ran his hand along her head in a soothing motion. His huge hand slid under her hair taking her neck letting his thumb rest on the side of her face as he kissed her forehead again.

"Nothin's gonna happen to ya. It's over. You're so strong. You're so strong. Jus' hang in there."

"Don't leave me," she spoke weakly.

"I'll never leave you again," he said seriously and she felt safe. She'd felt safer than she'd ever felt and knew she would be.

"You are never leaving the house without us," Rick said to them.

"She's never leaving the house again!"

The drive back to the farm was mostly in silence.