A/N Remember those triggery things I mentioned? They're mentioned here, including rape, suicide, and torture. Be warned.
Cool, cotton sheets floated over my legs. My eyes were closed, but I knew it was mornin' because it was all red, and I felt warm, and I smelled the jasmine that was planted in the bed below my bedroom window. Sleepin' late on Saturdays was my favorite. Maggie was the early riser, and I could hear her voice rising and falling as she paced the hallways, no doubt on the phone with one of her girlfriends from college. Turning to my side, I curled into the pillows, smelling the laundry detergent Mama used, and the sunshine that had dried it when it had hung on the line outside the kitchen door. Bacon was frying downstairs. Coffee had been made. The oak tree outside my window swayed in the breeze, the leaves rustling.
I curled my fingers into the pillow, frowning at the stiffness in them, how they didn't close into a tight fist anymore. That wasn't right. I scratched at my wrist, an itch suddenly blooming to almost unbearable levels. My fingertips encountered gauze, and tape, and I hissed as my wrist stung and ached. When I opened my eyes, I was in Annette's room. My jeans were dusty. The house was quiet. Maggie was sitting in the wing back from the guest room down the hall – she must have dragged it in. There was a rusty stain of dried blood on the bandage on my wrist, and I sat up, tearing at the tape that held the bandage in place. Maggie shifted in her sleep, but didn't wake, and I could hear sounds of panic rising in my throat, moans and whimpers. I pulled the gauze back and bled bright red, a fountain, pouring from a four-inch cut to the inside of my wrist, and found that I still clutched the shard from the broken bathroom mirror.
"Bet right now you wish that had worked, don't ya?"
I woke up screaming.
I felt hands on my shoulders, and someone murmured my name, but those last words, mocking, violent and brutal, stuck with me. He had said it to me, the one with the gray eyes, the one who was the vilest. He'd stood over me, my knife in his hand, tracing the long, thin scar on the inside of my wrist with the tip of the blade, the one that hadn't gone deep enough, and he'd spoken my darkest thought out loud. Then he'd held me down and yes, I'd wished I'd died that day they left Andrea to watch me.
I screamed until I was hoarse, and the fight left me, and I struck someone, the satisfying crack of my fist against a face, my feet tangled in the sheets on a strange bed in a strange place. Surrounded by strangers. I saw them all – Rick, and Glenn, Carl, and Maggie, and Daryl. Daryl, hovering in the shadows, watching from the corner, his fists tight, his face tense, as the others moved to try and calm me.
"Don't touch me!"
My protest rang out, and everything stopped – the hands, my name, everything. They backed away, and I shied from the light from the open window.
"Please," I murmured. "Close the blinds." I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes and tucked my head to my chest.
Footsteps faded away, and the door closed, and I thought I was alone again.
"Bethie," Maggie said hesitantly, her knuckles brushing my bare arm.
I hissed and pulled away. "Don't."
She sighed. "Bethie, I was so worried…"
"I'm fine," I said flatly. "I'm alive."
"I know," Maggie continued. "And you don't know how happy that makes me – makes all of us." She paused and laughed a little. "You gave Carl quite a scare."
"Carl," I repeated. The name sounded foreign to me.
"In the woods – you don't remember?"
No, I didn't remember. I didn't remember what had happened, or really, who Carl was, or she was, or even who I was. I didn't even know if this was real. "Where am I?"
"Safe. You're safe." Maggie's voice broke.
"No such thing," I muttered, shifting to the side of the bed that Maggie wasn't perched on. She was too close; I could smell the soap she'd used, feel the heat from her body. Pulling my hands from my eyes, I finally afforded her a glance. I didn't recognize her; or I barely did. There was something in her smile, maybe, that made me think of her, and someone else, but I wasn't sure.
With a tilt of her head, she frowned, and slowly reached her hand up, making me flinch. She didn't waver, however, and gently touched the ends of my hair where they fell to my chin. "You cut your hair."
I pulled away and tucked the strands behind my ear, and turned my face to the wall.
"Are…are you hungry?"
I shook my head, and looked down at my hands in my lap. My crooked fingers twisted each other.
"Have some water, at least? When was the last time you ate anything?"
"Just leave it," I snapped. "Leave me."
"Bethie…"
"Don't call me that." I afforded her another glance, wondering if it was a trick of the light, or a trick of my mind, that made the sunlight filter around her chestnut colored hair. "You're not here," I said. "You're not real." My head began to hurt.
Maggie smiled through her tears. "Of course I'm real."
"If you cry, so help me, Beth, I'm never takin' you anywhere with me again."
I swallowed my fear and nodded at Maggie, and then quickly followed her across the field to the deserted farm house down the lane from our place.
"And don't tell Daddy, either."
A sharp slap to my face woke me, and my lip split open, splashing blood onto my thick tongue. My mouth was dry, rusted, and I groaned in pain as a sliver of light pierced my sensitive eyes. I shied away from it.
"I said you got family? Got people lookin' for ya? Or was it just him – that dirty son-of-a bitch you were tagging along with?"
"No," I croaked, shuffling back along the dirt floor of my hovel.
"You fuck him?"
My body lurched at the harsh words. I'd never been with Daryl, not in that way. It wasn't like that between us, and someone trying to make it something it wasn't made me seethe.
"Fuck you," I growled.
He chuckled. "I bet you did," he continued, crouching down so that his face was in mine. It was the one with grey eyes. Dead, flat, grey eyes; and he was smiling all the time, but there was nothing behind it. I shivered, and I cursed to myself for giving him the idea that I was afraid of him. I bit my tongue until I tasted blood again, as he slid his hand from the inside of my thigh up the fly of my jeans. "You a good fuck, babydoll?"
If I'd had something in my stomach, I'm sure it would have come up. As it was, my guts still twisted, and my mouth filled with the taste of salt and bile.
"Maybe I shoulda stuck around t'ask yer man," he went on. "Ask him which was tighter – your pussy, or your ass. But since he ain't here t'tell me, I'll just have to find out for myself." His fingers tore at my belt buckle.
"No!" I lashed out as best I could, swinging my foot up and catching him on the inside of his knee.
He bellowed, and buckled forward, catching himself on his hands. He snarled in my face, the sight so frightening that I screwed my eyes shut and clawed at him with curled fingertips and dirty, jagged nails. I felt his skin break, heard him howl, and he pushed me back. Staggering to his feet, he snared my ponytail and held me steady. "Look at me," he demanded lowly. When I didn't answer, I felt his hot, rank breath against my face. "Look at me!"
I cried out, startled, and my eyes shot open. Three angry, red claw marks ran over his eye and down his cheekbone. His lips were pulled back from his teeth, and his spittle flew wildly as he spoke, "I wanna see that pretty face all fucked up with pain."
His foot came down on my hand that had damaged his face, and I heard bones snapping under the guttural sounds of my screams. Pain, unimaginable, angry, blazing hot pain exploded in my hand, and wound its way up my arm, and only intensified as he ground his heel, and his message, home.