By the time we made it back up to the prison, Daryl was half dragging me. We were in a shady spot in the court yard, out of view from the fields. Out of view from Rick.

"Jesus, Daryl!" I said, yanking my hand out of his grasp, "What the hell, Dude?"

He completely ignored me, which was extremely annoying. He walked on with his mission, through the sick cell block; where Maggie, tending to Glenn, cheerfully waved to me. Daryl and I went through a metal door, and down some almost pitch black stairs.

We got into the corridors of the basement and he clicked on a flashlight. He rounded on me with an intense look. He pointed his finger at me, almost threateningly.

"Aight, look," he growled, "I ain't gonna have any part in no damn triangle or any shit like that. You have just got to understand, he won't be right for a while. He ain't gonna be right for a long time. He's lost too much and it's haunted him bout til you showed up. Carl and Judith are all he really cares about. Do you know how long he's known Carol? It didn' even matter! What bout you? You're just a place holder to him. And I ain't gonna try and steal you from him or somethin', but Jesus, do you even know what happened to his wife? He still has his wedding ring, he still wears the thing when you're not around. Hell, he was still seeing her walkin' around for a month after she died."

I was staring open-mouthed at Daryl. Silence. He huffed a little and paced.

"The fuck is all this coming from, huh?" I said, my voice raising, breaking the silence. "You don't know what's going on with me and him. You don't know how he feels about me and you sure as hell don't know how I feel about him."

I felt a little sick to my stomach with that last sentence. How did I feel about Rick? And for that matter, how did I feel about Daryl? I could tell there was definitely something with Daryl because I'd been anxious when he left to go on the medicine run and I'd felt distinctly placated when he'd shown back up, and he'd saved me, and our shower moment was pretty hot... I'd sure like to blame that entirely on a concussion, but let's be real, I was just being stupid.

And, I didn't even know why I was arguing besides the fact that he'd pissed me off and was being a disrespectful little shit.

He threw up both his arms in the midst of pacing.

"Here," he said, rounding on me again. He pulled something out of his belt and handed it to me. A knife, handle first. I took that as the cue that he talked enough about his feelings for now. It was impressive he'd even got as much out as he did."We're gonna clear it out down here, just to make sure that-."

I didn't hear the rest of his sentence. The building was shook violently just as there was a noise so loud, there was practically no mistaking what it could have been. Dust and pieces of cement fell from the ceiling. A small crack formed on the wall.

Daryl turned to me, confusion flashing on his face. His look communicating exactly what I was thinking. Was that a fucking explosion?

Again he grabbed my hand, but he didn't have to drag me this time. I ran next to him, my free arm above my head instinctively.

We rushed together up through the dark, into the cell blocks, and back out into the sunshine, where a large chunk of the people in the community were pressed up against the closest fence to the cell blocks. One of the towers behind us was destroyed and on fire, rubble everywhere at it's base. I gazed at the tower, wondering if my poor gun had been left up there by another watchmen, when I felt Daryl reach over and grip my arm painfully.

Only then did I noticed the militia at the main gates. There was a semi circle of them. Maybe about fifty people, all heavily armed, with vehicles and a damn tank. Obviously where the explosion came from.

I got in line with the others standing at the gate, me at the end and Maggie next to me. Rick was at the far other end, Daryl let go of me and headed to confer with Rick.

I felt extremely unequipped and overly nervous. I could feel the nerves radiating off everyone else, which wasn't helping my confidence. My hand strayed to my knife, my only weapon, the one Daryl had just handed me.

The leader was front and center in his arch of vehicles, looking regal and in his element. From what I could see from this distance, he had an eye patch. This was the guy then. The mysterious, deadly guy. He called out for Rick. Very bravely, after glancing around at the rest of our little group, all rag tag and worn out after the hell our entire camp had been experiencing, Rick answered.

I was only half listening to the conversation. I was trying to figure out a plan. This guy wants the prison. This guy wants me to leave to one home I've had since the outbreak. I felt my hackles raise. Who the hell does this asshole think he is? I don't really give a shit if he has a tank or not.

The council was mentioned, Rick wanted to get his point across that everything wasn't up to him. That we were a community together.

Fuck. The guy pulled Herschel and Michonne out from behind a truck. Bound with hands behind their backs, they both sat, kneeling in the grass in front of this guy. You could practically feel the smugness emanating from the clan of intruders. I glanced at Maggie with fear and sympathy in my eyes. She was clinging to the fence now. Her knuckles were turning white against the fence. Unfortunately, this was not looking positive. We were outnumbered. And exhausted. Half of us had been up all night and the other half were still coming off their illness.

Behind Maggie, I saw Rick's eyes widen in fright. With a nod from Carl and Daryl, Rick took a step down the hill. He stopped and turned to look at me. I followed suit with a nod to him because I didn't know what else to do. I wanted to scream at him to not go down there. I didn't want him anywhere near these people. But he needed to do this. He needed to save Michonne and Herschel. He moved his head in an almost imperceptible movement back to me and headed down the hill toward the small army. My feeling of unease was beginning to get painful.

Daryl came behind me, stealthily grabbing from a bin of weapons. He must have been feeling the same way I was; like this wasn't going to end without a fight. He held an M16 with a scope out to me. I took it and stashed it behind my back. He went slowly through and passed out guns to everyone else. Maggie and Beth seemed surprised, but carefully managed their guns.

Out by the fence, from what I could hear, Rick was practically begging. We were so screwed. I wished we hadn't had that illness. We would have the numbers against them. Maybe not the gun power, but definitely a better shot than we had now. Deciding I might want to sight out some of my potential targets, I crouched, hidden behind the gun bin and lifted my scope to my eye.

I would be sure to take out the asshole with the machine gun mounted on the truck; target number one acquired. The tank guys would be inaccessible immediately; they were out watching Rick with disdain on their faces, but once fighting broke out, they'd be holed up. We'd have to get creative with them. The people on foot weren't much of a concern. While sweeping through the ranks, my eye stopped on their leader. I felt my entire body go cold. My heart stopped. I literally felt nothing but white, blinding horror.

I knew him. I fucking knew him. He killed Kaylee...and Grace. At damn near the same time. The Boss had been so pissed off, he'd charged this asshole like five times extra. Pretty girls weren't so easy to come by in the apocalypse. His name was Philip and he definitely did not have an eye patch back then. He had walked through the dirty, dark room and picked a girl out from all of us. Each of us chained up or drugged out to the point of barely being able to function. I guess he'd enjoyed himself because he hung around and kept trying new girls each night for almost a week. He clearly had some serious shit to bargain with, we were not cheap. He was like a millionaire by the Boss's standards.

The night he picked me, I'd ended up puking all over the bed we were supposed to be sharing because the Boss tried to load me up on an ass ton of Vicodin and Norco beforehand. I conveniently forgot to mention that I was allergic to codeine. He'd mentioned to Philip that I was "prone to freaking out" and needed to be sedated, or else I wasn't much fun. And Mr. Philip had said, "Eh, she sounds like my kinda girl."

I was his kind of girl until I vomited so hard it came out of my nose and I got a few chunks on him and the rest puddled disgustingly on the sheets. He had looked like he'd wanted to hit me, but he was too grossed out to touch me. He got greedy after that. He was a well-paying customer; he wanted two girls instead to make up for my mishap.

Kaylee and Grace were both far too sweet. Too kind for their own good. And, in some kind of horrific snuff fantasy, he'd killed both of them in cold blood. He choked Kaylee to death and then beat Grace too hard. We'd heard them screaming, but none of us could do anything. I could barely stand up I was so dizzy, but I'd made myself bleed from trying to get my chains off. I wanted to help, I just couldn't. I'd never felt as helpless as I did while listening to those girls screaming; our "bouncers" outside getting wasted on who-knows-what, not doing their jobs.

Philip walked right out of that dingy hotel room, naked, and confronted the Boss. The Boss was pissed, but only because of loss of product. He didn't genuinely give a shit about us. He must have offered a ridiculous amount in trade, because Philip walked out of there without being instantly murdered, but he wasn't exactly invited back either.

He was psycho. He smiled the entire time he was with you; I'd heard from the other girls. Obviously, I wouldn't know. But it was a disturbing smile, not kind. The girls he'd been with were terrified of him. And, I saw the bodies after he left that night.

He was a goddamn psycho. Rick wasn't safe. Herschel, Michonne, and the whole prison. There was no point in trying to bargain. It wouldn't work. Our little prison community was clearly not well enough informed about this freak.

I lowered my gun, and stood, fighting a violent wave of nausea. I rushed to where Daryl stood next to Carl. They both turned to look at me.

"We need to kill him. Now," I said, panicked. "There's no point in talking to him. I know him. I fucking know him and he needs to die."

Then I heard screaming directly behind me. I knew our fight was starting. Rick had failed. Well, Rick would never have succeeded.

Without pausing, I turned fluidly, gun to shoulder, eye to scope, and began firing at the Outsiders. Bullets began to rain from everywhere. Maggie was sobbing, Beth was still screaming. I could only guess what had happened. I looked for Rick, but Daryl grabbed me by the waist and pulled me behind a wall.

"I'm going to go get Rick," I yelled over the tat-tat-tat of automatic weapons, peeking around the wall.

I heard Philip shout, "Kill them all!"

The tank smashed through the fence first, the smaller vehicles following, and then the people on foot. They took down the inner fence and began up the hill toward us.

Daryl glanced around the wall at the invasion. "The fuck you ain't," he said. "Rick will get himself. He can take care of himself."

His sentence was punctuated by a blast from the tank. The shell hit the cell block behind us, crumpling the cement wall. It was far enough way to not do any damage to us, but it was certainly enough to intimidate me out of romping down into the fields.

The outsiders were advancing up the hill quickly. I have to kill some of these douche bags.

I turned to Daryl. "I'm going to come back," I said confidently and booked it out from around the wall and across the courtyard. A bullet got dangerously close to my head. I flinched, but slid into cover and dropped on my stomach. I spread my legs out wide and settled into my scope. The guy on the machine gun in the truck was shaking silently with laughter between the bursts from his big ass gun. I could see his mouth open and his shit-eating grin.

At this distance, the invaders were easy pickings. I took out a chick who was shooting in Daryl's general direction and then, when the truck bounced into view, I nailed the gunman and then shot the driver in the head through the windshield.

I was trying to formulate a plan to go get the machine gun for myself when I noticed Rick locked in a brutal fist fight with Philip. Dammit, he was going to get himself killed down there. I brought Philip into view, but I didn't want to accidentally shoot Rick. Maybe Michonne could get herself free and help him.

Everyone in the camp was doing their part to defend themselves, but, especially with that tank, we were losing. I was taking in the scene around me with rapid movements, with a constant background of earsplitting gunfire. People were being herded onto a yellow school bus, Glenn was yelling at Maggie, the little blond girls had guns. I saw Tyrese run behind me and hunker down behind a cement planter. There was another horrifying thWUMP from the tank and in the split second before it hit the cell block behind me, I felt my entire body tense. I was honest-to-God terrified. I curled into the fetal position as chunks of rock and shrapnel landed on me.

Covered in dust, I raised up and saw a group of three headed to me, guns raised. I scrambled into better cover, out of sight. They were only ten yards from me. My ears weren't quite working from the tank blast, but I heard a plinking thud next me. I'd played enough Call of Duty back in the day to know what that was. I had probably never moved so fast in my entire life. I slid a little on the debris left from the tank blast and scampered over another planter a midst a hail of gunfire just as the grenade went off. The shock wave from it coursed through my body like it had physically hit me.

Feeling an extremely sharp pain on my calf, I looked down on my leg and saw I'd been nicked by a bullet. The wound was freely bleeding, red warmth seeping through my denim.

I placed my gun on top of the planter. It was not looking good for me. The tank was officially in the courtyard now, the on-foot people were being met with little resistance, as most of our people seemed to have fled by now.

I nailed two of the attackers, there were about ten left, not including the guys in the tank. I could probably have dealt with everyone myself and gotten inventive with the tank operators, but now walkers were starting to pour in from everywhere, drawn in by the noise.

"You guys fucking shot me!" I screamed as I started firing into the little crowd, blowing one guy's head into a bunch of little pieces and another's all over the tank metal.

The tank turned it's barrel onto me.

Fuck.

Daryl came into view and lobbed a grenade directly into the tank's gaping barrel. My damn savior. The muffled explosion from inside the tank was delightfully satisfying. I took out a few walkers that were getting too close for comfort.

The remaining attackers were starting to look conflicted. Losing the tank seemed to make them lose some confidence in this whole plan. They began to turn their guns on the waves of zombies.

"Grey!" Daryl shouted over the noise, twisting around, looking for me. "Grey, you gotta go! I will find you, okay? I will find you!"

I could hear the desperation in his voice. He was hoping I'd hear him. I nodded, though he couldn't see me, but I had no intention of leaving yet. I was going to make sure both him and Rick made it out of here alive.

Daryl took off. I didn't even get to see where he went; to my right I heard crying. I saw Beth being advanced on by some asshole about twice her size. She was sobbing hysterically, on the ground, totally defenseless. This man only had a knife in his hand, must have ran out of ammo.

I started at his back at a dead sprint. Even though my calf hurt, I was so pissed off. These people came in here and ruined everything. They listened to the psycho Philip, someone I wished I'd killed a long time ago, and they ruined my first real home. How would Daryl even find me again? I might not ever see him ago. I could even die here. I felt all my inhibitions float away to make room for pure and absolute anger. I slammed into him. He wasn't expecting me and pitched forward onto his face. Beth let out a scream and skittered out of the way.

By the time he'd rolled onto his back, I was on his chest. This guy had about 70 pounds on me, but I wasn't going to let him use it. I pulled back my fist and punched him as hard I could in his nose. I felt it shatter under my knuckles. He screamed as blood bubbled out and into his mouth. He went to swing at me, but I raised my knee and pinned his arm down at the elbow. I couldn't hold him there, but it surprised him for split second, as much time as I needed to pull Daryl's knife from my belt and bury it into his bicep. Making sure it could would incapacitate him, I gave a good twist. With him sufficiently distracted and freaking out, I moved all my body weight to his other arm. Very carefully, I reached both hands to his face, bringing myself inches from him. I felt blood spray on my face from his shrieks. I put my thumbs on the dark circles underneath his bulging eyes and my pinkies behind his ears. And then, very slowly, as he screamed and thrashed, and cursed and tried to displace me, I pushed his eyeballs loose from their sockets. He was frantically flailing around helplessly. I was a little surprised he hadn't passed out yet.

I stood up, thought better of it, reached back down, ripped my knife out of his arm, and for good measure, yanked one of his eyes free from his face. Cue fresh screaming. Damn, it felt good.

Beth was laying on the ground, staring at me, mouth open in absolute horror.

"Yeah, I know," I said in an acknowledging way, dropping the eyeball and nonchalantly punching through a zombie's head with my knife. "You need to leave."

She didn't need telling twice.

The walkers were started to fall upon my victim. He'd screamed himself hoarse. I picked up my M16 from where I'd dropped in and listened to his gurgling coughs until they died out as I ran toward the edge of the field. I lifted my scope to check on Rick. He didn't look so great. He was limping badly, supported by Carl. They hobbled off together into the forest.

I turned to look for Daryl, but I couldn't see him either.

I stood, surrounded by fires and destruction, listening to the background noise of the invaders running out of ammo, proceeding to freak out, and then getting swarmed by walkers.

What the hell do I do now.

I figured since Rick and Carl were moving so slowly, I'd be able catch up to them at some point. I felt stupidly guilty about the whole Daryl incident, but I honestly didn't even know if Rick gave a crap. I might be the only person with any inner turmoil over the whole debacle. Like I said, the apocalypse isn't really the time to worry about such petty shit.

Decision made, I walked purposefully back into my ruined home one last time. If I was going back out into the wilderness, I needed supplies.