Finger On The Trigger
Part II
Chapter 8
Beth-
Merle and I sat side by side on that hospital bed while we let Shawn and Annie get a few more minutes of sleep.
He didn't want to say it, and I knew he wouldn't, but he was scared or worried that somethin' would go wrong with this plan. I don't blame him though, I was nervous about it as well but it was somethin' that had to be done if we wanted to get out of here.
We could hear the footsteps of Dawn's men echoin' through the halls as they went room to room to make sure everyone was still there and the light were out before they locked the doors.
I reached over and squeezed Merle's hand as they drew closer and once they were at the room next to ours, he looked at me and let out a deep breath.
"Looks like it's time," I said quietly.
He nodded and we both stood up as the door opened.
One of Dawn's men stepped into the room and glared at us both and then grinned.
"We're here for the babies," he said and started towards them.
"Wait!" I said and stepped in front of him. "I want to talk to Dawn. Just me and her. It's really important."
He glanced at Merle and then back at me. "Alright, I'll let her know and she'll come see you."
"No," I grabbed his arm and tried my best to sound scared, which wasn't that hard to do. "Not here. I need to talk to her alone. Please."
Merle-
I watched Beth walkin' 'round the room, tryin' ta think 'bout anythin' she could that would help 'ere convince that bitch ta let us all go then she stopped an' turned ta me.
"I need you to hit me," she said.
"What?"
"Not hard. Just enough to leave a mark. If I'm goin' to sell this whole story to Dawn, I need to make it more believable. She's a cop. She'll need to see somethin' that will give her reason to believe me and after everythin' we've done."
"Ya can forget that shit. I ain't hittin' ya."
"Okay," she said quietly then she walked over ta tha wall an' leaned against it. "Merle, if this doesn't work, promise me you'll get them out and if you can't, do whatever you have to do to my babies but do not let them stay here."
"Don't ya worry 'bout nothin', I'ma get 'em out somehow."
"Thank you," she whispered an' then she turned an' slammed 'er head inta tha wall.
Beth-
"What tha hell?! Are ya fuckin' crazy?!" Merle shouted.
I winced when he grabbed my chin and turned my head towards him.
"What tha hell did ya do that for?"
"You wouldn't hit me."
He gently turned my head to the side and stared at it.
"How bad is it?" I asked.
"Bad 'nuff," he said then rubbed his hand over it and chuckled. "Yeah, I'm startin' ta see jus' how crazy ya are."
Rick-
I sat down on the bed and rubbed my hands over my face.
Maggie couldn't have been more wrong if she tried. I never saw Beth as bein' damaged and I sure as hell wasn't usin' her to get back at Lori and Shane, I wasn't usin' her in any way.
As pissed as I am that she left, walked out on us, I love her and that won't ever change. Every mornin' and every night I pray to God that she somehow finds her way back to us.
And this thing with Jessie, it wasn't supposed to go as far as it has but it's too late to change what has happened and even if Beth showed up right now, I don't know that she would still want me.
Beth-
I looked back at Merle as I followed one of the cops out of the room. He gave me a nod as the door closed behind us and I turned back to the cop.
When we made our way to Dawn's room, she stood up from the desk she was at and looked me over, head to toe.
"You can leave," she said to the cop. "Shut the door on your way out."
After he had left, she came around from behind the desk and studied my face.
"That's a nasty mark. What happened?"
"Mer….he….I don't want to leave," I choked out. "I want to stay with my babies and this is the safest place I know for them and for me to have this baby."
"It was Merle's idea to leave?"
I nodded and began cryin'.
"Do you think he will hurt your babies?"
I shook my head no.
"Okay. Have a seat and I'll get Dr. Edwards to look at your head while I deal with Merle."
"No," I shouted. "Please don't do anythin' to him. He was just mad that we didn't get out."
She sighed and studied my face again.
"I'll get my first aid kit and then we can discuss what we need to do," she said and stepped into her bathroom.
She came back a few seconds later with a bag and sat it down on her desk and pointed to the chair.
"Sit down so I can get that cleaned up."
I sat down while she tried to clean it but I jumped when she pressed down on it.
"Dr. Edwards needs to take a look at it," she said. "It's deeper than I thought. What did he hit you with?"
"He….he slammed my head into the wall after I asked to talk to you."
"Stay in here, don't move, until I get back. Dr. Edwards can stitch you up or whatever he needs to do and then we'll take care of Merle."
I nodded and watched as she left the room but I couldn't sit there without doin' anythin' until she came back so I got up as fast as I could and as quietly as I could I began to open the drawers on her desk.
I grabbed what I could, what I thought would be useful and hurried to sit back down before she came back.
It wasn't a minute later when I heard her and Dr. Edwards talkin' as they came back to her room.
Dawn stood directly behind me as I sat there and let Dr. Edwards take a look at my face.
"I need to get something to deaden this before I start putting stitched in," he said to Dawn. "Can you come hold this gauze just like I have it until I get back?"
Dr. Edwards quickly moved and Dawn took his place holding the gauze to my head while he went back to his office.
"You're lucky," she said.
"How so?"
"I'm a cop, Beth. Before the rotters, I saw a lot of domestic violence. I used to go on a lot of calls because it was easier for a woman who had or was being abused to talk to me. More times than not, we continued to get calls about the same people, the same stories, but the women would never press charges or they would claim it was an accident and there was nothing any of us could do about it. But now….now we can."
I shoved her hand away from my face and stood up. "You let Gorman and the others rape and abuse and take whatever they wanted from the people here and you've turned a blind eye to what they're doin'."
"It's for the greater good," she said coldly. "And it keeps them happy."
"Happy? Have you seen what it's like outside these walls? There's no place for happy in this world anymore."
"There is, Beth. If they're happy, they will stay here and we can start to rebuild. We can make the world a better place than it was before."
She stepped closer to me and reached up to place the gauze back on my head. "We're ridding the world of evil. The kind of evil that's in Merle."
"That kind of evil doesn't exist in Merle, Dawn. It's in you."
She moved her hand away and I steadied myself before shoving her back as hard as I could and thrustin' a pair of scissors into her chest.
She fell to the the floor and pulled the scissors out with gasp.
"You little bitch!"
Merle-
I got tha babies back in their carriers an' got tha bags we had so I'd be ready fer when Beth got back.
She had a plan an' I didn't doubt she wouldn't go through with it but it was risky. Wasn't no way it would work but she believed it could.
Tha door squeaked open an' she came in gaspin' fer air.
"We have to wait," she gasped. "Not long, just a few minutes until they think everyone is asleep."
I gave 'er a nod an' looked at 'er shirt an' hands.
"Ain't none a that yers, is it?"
She shook 'er head an' stepped forward.
"We have to go. Now is our only chance to get out of here," she said.
"How we gon' do this?"
"Most of Dawn's men are on runs, the ones that are still here are...well, you know what they're doin' this time of night."
"So ya got a plan?"
"Not really but if we don't leave now, they'll kill us."
Maggie-
We were all sittin' around the table, goin' over our final plans for the run when Rick finally came in.
Carl didn't even bother to look at him when he sat down at the table and when he reached for Judith, Carl quickly stood up and moved away from the table.
Rick watched him sit Judith down on the floor with a toy.
"If y'all are goin' back to Atlanta, I'm goin' with y'all," Rick said after Carl had sat back down.
"And why is that?" I asked. "So you can be the first one to tell Beth you've moved on?"
Beth-
Merle didn't ask anymore questions about how we were goin' to get out of there until we had reached the ground floor.
He grabbed my arm and spun me around before I could get to the door.
"We ain't got no way out. We step through those doors, they could be waitin' far us."
He was right. We didn't know what we would be facin' but at this point it was better than what was in here.
Merle-
I guess we didn't really have a choice in tha matter.
It was either go through them doors or stay in here an' fightin' off some walkers seemed ta be tha better choice a tha two.
One a tha babies started whimperin' an' Beth snapped 'er head towards us.
"We have to hurry," she whispered while rubbin' 'er hand over Shawn's back.
'Fore we stepped out a tha door, there was a noise, sounded kinda like static from a radio.
Then above an' 'round us there was people screamin' an' shots were fired.
"They must have turned," Beth mumbled then turned back ta tha door an' eased it open.
Maggie-
I hated that Rick could just move on and forget about my sister like he has but if he was goin' with us to search for her, I had to know that whatever he had with that Jessie woman was over. I wasn't goin' to let him play games with my sister like that.
He had left our meetin' and I followed him to Jessie's house. He wasn't in there long, which I took as a good sign, before he came out and she slammed the door behind him.
He walked right up to me and let out a deep breath. "You can tell Beth whatever you want about me, about what happened here, but you and Beth both need to know that I love her. I'm not sure I ever told her but I love her more than I ever loved Lori."
"We'll see about that," I said and started towards Jessie's.
"Where are you goin'?" he asked.
"I'm goin' to talk to her like I should have done when I first saw she was interested in you. She needs to know that it's done and what better way to get that through her head and yours than for me to do since Beth isn't here to do it herself."
I was nervous but more than that, I was pissed.
She answered her door after the first knock and when she moved aside, I stepped in and she closed the door behind me.
Beth-
We had to be quick but careful while tryin' to leave the hospital. It would be dangerous for all of us, especially for Shawn and Annie and even more so if they started cryin'.
I turned back to Merle one last time before I opened the door and asked, "Do you trust me?"
"How many times ya gon' ask me that? Ya know I trust ya."
I opened the door and the cool night air hit us as we stepped outside.
I motioned for Merle to follow me along the side of the building where the shadows could hide us a little more.
We made it to the fence and stopped.
"I took a bunch of keys from Dawn's office," I whispered as Merle eyed it.
"Were they marked?"
"Some of them were. I only took the ones I thought we may need," I said as I took the keys out and tried the ones that were marked 'gate'.
In the back of my mind, I couldn't help but think that this all seemed to be too easy. Like at any second somethin' would go wrong and we would be carried back inside and I would never see my babies again.
The lock popped open and I heard Merle let out a sigh of relief at the same time I did.
He smiled when I turned back to him to get on of the bags he was carryin' and we stepped through the gate though we wouldn't consider ourselves free just yet.
He followed me over to the row of police cars and stood watch as I tried the doors on a few of them.
"Ain't we lucky," Merle said when the door to one of the cars opened.
"We'll be even luckier if we actually get in and make it far away from here," I replied.
Before I could ask if he wanted to drive while I tended to the babies, he had opened the back door and got inside.
"I guess I'm drivin'," I muttered to myself.
When I got inside and I knew Merle had Shawn and Annie secured, I started the car and pulled away from the hospital.
"How much gas is in 'ere?" Merle asked.
I glanced down and smiled. "It shows a full tank."
"Good. Must a been Dawn's personal car if ya got tha key out a 'er desk."
"How far do you think it will get us?"
"Should be more than 'nuff ta get us ta tha church ya said ever'one was at. An' there should be a couple a gas jugs in tha trunk with some supplies."
"How do you know that?" I asked as I glanced up into the review mirror.
"'Fore they brought ya in, part a my job was helpin' 'em syphon gas fer their cars an' load 'em down with shit 'case they had ta make a quick get away," he said. "Soon as we're far 'nuff away from 'ere, maybe jus' outside a tha city, pull over an' we'll trade places."
"I'm fine with drivin'. Besides, I know the way to the church, you don't."
"Ya ain't fine. Ya gotta rest an' eat somethin' fer yerself an' that baby an' ya can still give me directions from back 'ere."
And just like that my stomach growled and he chuckled.
"Told ya, ya need ta eat."
Merle-
She pulled tha car over jus' outside a tha city an' got in the back with 'er babies.
I know we was both scared we wasn't gon' make it out a there but we did an' she was smilin' at those two kids even though they was sound asleep.
"When we get ta tha church, I'ma try an' take this damn cage thing out a 'ere. Don't like there bein' somethin' 'tween us," I told 'er.
"Me either," she said quietly.
She gave me directions ta get ta that church but 'fore we go there I heard 'er start snorin'.
Beth-
I jerked awake when the car started to slow down and when it came to a stop, I couldn't believe my eyes.
We were at the church but it didn't look like anyone had been there in a long time.
Merle got out first and went inside to check things out then came and opened the door and helped me get out then we each got one of the babies and went inside.
"I cleared it. We should stay 'ere tonight an' gather up what we can," Merle said as he walked around the church with Annie.
He walked up front and knelt down then stood back up with somethin' in his hand.
"What is it?" I asked as I walked over to him.
He stared at whatever it was and then handed it to me. I stared at it for a minute then looked up at Merle and then back to the paper.
SORRY, I WAS AN ASSHOLE.
COME TO WASHINGTON.
THE NEW WORLD'S GONNA NEED RICK GRIMES
A/N: I know, I know. We don't know what all happened with Beth and Dawn but we will know soon. And just to let everyone know, we're getting closer to the end of this story.
Please review!
xoxo
-A