Tigerlily xoxo, YouthINaisa6, Sorry-I-Wasn't-Listening, mygnomefriend, HaloHunter89, AffairWithACrossbow, Summers Rage, crystal2817, Jasmin Jade xx, lillytimes, itsi3, Team-Sooric-Delena - Thanks for the support and feedback. That last chapter was tough and extremely uncomfortable to write. I hope in the end you all feel that the intensely graphic nature of the chapter was necessary as you see the story unfold.

WARNING - This chapter contains graphic violence and adult themes.

I only own the plot lines that are original.

Chapter 17 - Daryl

When the last geek dropped I lowered the shot gun Shane had tossed me.

What a fucking mess. How did this happen? How did they get out? Why were they in there?

I looked around. Looked for Carol. I'm not sure when it happened, but seems she was the always the first thing I looked for whenever something bad happened and the smoke cleared, whenever I went up to camp or came back from a run. Hell if someone just says something I steal a peek at her to see what her reactions was. Sure enough her eyes would be there, looking back, speakin' volumes.

Not this time thought.

I saw Hershel on his knees hands over his mouth. That Maggie girl was standin' beside him, head turned away from the mounds of corpses. Her kid sister was sobbing in that kid Jimmy's arms.

The older woman, Otis' widow, stood a few feet away looking dazed and defeated.

Skeletor was holding Carl on the ground while shooting Rick a look that said, 'what the fuck?'

Andrea looked stricken and Dale only has eyes for King Shane, his face marred with loathing.

Just then the little blonde daughter broke free of her man and ran toward the dead bodies crying about "mom, mom." She pulled a downed geek off what used to be a woman. The girl knelt by her head crying before the geek burst to "life" and grabbed her. Everyone leaped forward to separate the two. T-dog started stomping on her skull but she kept comin.' Andrea kept her head about her and ran for a scythe and drove it through the creatures head.

We all stood around staring at each other for a minute, then Hershel and his family started back for the house, supporting each other like they was injured.

Rick, King Shane and Glenn went after them.

That's when I saw Sophia. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and I turned to see Sophie stumble out of the stables. I mistook her for a geek at first. She had blood stains pouring down from her mouth and her nose and she was cradling her right wrist. I saw her stumble and fall.

I bolted yelling for help as I went, maybe for the fist time in my life.

I heard footfalls behind me and I saw Rick look up from his argument with Shane and dash over to fall in line with me.

I dropped to the ground so fast when I reached Sophie momentum almost slid me passed her.

"Holy shit Soph, what happened?"

My hands hovered above her afraid to touch her, cause her anymore pain.

Her lips moved weakly but nothing came out.

"What?" I whispered, terrified, leaning down so my ear was practically at her lips.

I could only make out four words.

"Carol. Ed. Dead. Stables."

I shot up and saw Rick and Andrea staring back at me.

"Andrea, go, run and tell Hershel to get all his medical shit ready. Rick carry Sophia back to the house as carefully as you can."

I didn't give them a chance to question. I was on my feet and passing the threshold into the barn as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I need to get them away and know that Sophia would be taken care of in equal parts. Their retreating footfalls confirmed that they were doing as I asked.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the barn, and when they did I threw up.

Ed, his pants around his knees was on top of my Carol, motionless and pale with death.

I saw red and rushed to her, ripping his limp weight from her tiny form.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

I felt the tears forming in my eyes and I fought them for control.

Don't lose it now!

"Carol? Please don't be dead," I knelt by her and touched her cheek. Cold. "Fuck, woman, I need you to wake the fuck up! Now!"

I started stroking her hair. "Please, please be alive."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and reached for her bruised neck. My middle and index finger trembled above where her plus should be. I sucked in a breath and pressed down into her flesh, creating a hole like a crater. I felt a thumping press back against my finger tips, weak but definitely there. I let out my breath like a sob.

"O.k. baby, it's o.k., I'm here, I got you."

Took in the state of her body. She looked so broken I was afraid to touch her. Her pants were hooked around an ankle andI knew I should cover her but there was so much blood, I was afraid of doing more damage if I pulled her pants up. I heard the others comin' and I knew I needed to act fast. Her dignity meant so much to her, I couldn't let them see her torn up and exposed to the world like she was. I searched around frantic and found a horse blanket. Running back to her side I wrapped her up in it and gently cradled her in my arms and lifted her from the ground.

I saw Glenn and Dale running up now, well, Glenn at least was runnin'. "Go tell Hershel he's got a second patient coming and she is probably gonna need surgery.

Glenn nodded and turned on his heal to dash back to the house.

"Stay with me baby girl. I need you to keep breathing, that's all, just keep breathing, it's all gonna be o.k. I promise if you keep breathing I wont ever let anything like this happen to you again. I swear. Just... just don't die."

I silenced my pleas and hardened my face as Dale came into ear shot.

"My god! What happened?" he asked, removing his hat as if a funeral procession was passing.

That pissed me off, she wasn't dead and she wasn't going to be anytime soon. I won't let her.

"Seems that questions been going around a lot today." I said, dead pan. He stopped. I kept going.

When I reached the house Hershel had a bed waiting for her. I laid her down and backed out of the room as Hershel and Patricia were a flurry of activity around her. I saw Sophia in the parlor, she was all patched up, Andrea sitting next to her her.

"She's gone catatonic," said Andrea looking up at me. "I think she's in shock. What happened?"

I just shook my head and headed back outside to the stables. Everyone seemed to be comparing notes or staring at each other in confusion. I passed them all without a word but put on a face I'd spent 27 years perfecting. It said: 'don't fucking follow me.'

I stormed to the stables and dropped to my haunches beside Ed's corpse. His body twisted in strange ways from having been hurled off his little girl. I felt the bile rise in my throat at the memory but I suppressed it. I was done with weakness.

I examined his remains the way homicide cops do on TV shows. I also searched the marks left behind on the dirt floor of the stables. They spoke to me. All tracking is story telling in the end. This was the worst tale I have ever read.

I saw Ed drag Sophia here. I saw her fight and I saw her fall. I saw Ed come down on top of her. I saw Carol burst onto the scene, stop, then charge Ed. She was so small and in her condition no match for Ed. She must have known it, but she was doing what she always did, sacrificing herself for her sister. I saw all the blood where she lay. Sophia's little foot steps came at them from behind before her body hit the ground some distance away. I looked at Ed's body and saw the bite mark on his neck for the first time. The blood on Sophia's mouth made sense now and I nodded my head in respect for the little girl's bravery. This was the story of two sister desperate to save each other, risking everything, paying any price.

Shame threatened to overwhelm me. I had failed my only friends in the world. I should have been there. This should never have happened. Nothing like this will ever happen again. This whole secret friendship is over. Secrets get you killed... or worse.

Just then something in the dirt caught the light and I moved toward it. There, where blood had turned the dirt to mud, lay Merle's buck knife. The one I had given her before I left for Atlanta to go find my brother. The one she kept with her always. I pulled the rag from my back pocket and rubbed the blade and handle 'til they shined, then I folded it carefully and slipped it into my pocket.

Knowing that she had killed the monster with the blade I had given her, with the blade Merle never used on my father to save me made me shake with an emotion I couldn't identify. Maybe there were too many to distinguish just one. Knowing that she kept it with her always but was too far gone after today to hold onto it only added fuel to the fire.

The feelings coursing through me were like too many colors blending, no matter what they looked like alone, together they were a muddy brown, an ugly thing.

A rasping breath filled the room like a scream and my eyes found Ed's just as his found me. Well, not really Ed's eye's anymore, they were a geek's eyes and I didn't stop to question, I just smiled. I wasn't there to kill Ed the first time but at least, in some small way I would get to kill him the last time. Not when it mattered most but right now I needed to kill something and I couldn't think of anything I'd rather take my rage out on then Ed's reanimated corpse.

I moved, like a cord inside me had snapped, my boot heal came down on his head before he so much as raised it.

The sickening crunch of his skull caving in soothed me like a lullaby. I stopped down again and his brain popped like a zit, splattering my pants and coating my boots.

That's right baby brother, give yourself over to that anger, like a man, like a Dixon.

I didn't care that Merle's advice was never no good. I let him rile my up like a twisted cheerleader and was grateful for it.

I stomped Ed's skull again and again 'til his brain was turning liquid. Stepping back with panting breaths I looked down at the disgusting man and realized I wasn't done. I brought my boot down on his cock and looked down at the partially severed, flaccid little thing. Then I kept going, I couldn't stop, I didn't want to. It was long after there was nothing left of his supposed manhood and I had broken his pelvic bone in my need to obliterate the weapons he had used to hurt my friend that I finally stumbled back from his sack of bone.

The hand, whispered Merle, look at his blood covered hand. Her pussy was torn up somethin' fierce and you know his little prick couldn't have done all that damage. Doesn't take a genius to put two and two together.

"Shut the fuck up Merle, don't you talk about her like that. Don't you talk about her ever!"

I was too consumed in rage to care that I was arguing with a voice inside my own head. I pulled my hunting knife from it's sheath and started hacking away at Ed's blood covered hand. Bone and sinew burst apart with each chop and I felt blood splatter my face but I kept going until his hand was unrecognizable except as fish chum. When I was done I stumbled to my feet and looked down at my handiwork.

Headless, cock-less, deformed and defaced. It was a revolting sight, but less disgusting than the man had been in life, and I in regards to him, I was using the term man loosely.

My anger spent, I grabbed his pants and pulled them up over his broken pelvis. The others may suspect what happened here today but they wouldn't learn it from me and I wasn't about to let this dead man tell any tales.

He got bit, bite mark on his neck to prove it. I put him down. End of story.

If I read the signs right, the others would learn soon enough that in the end we all turn. Only thing a bite from a geek does is kill you. That wasn't today's story, though, couldn't be today's story. I had failed Carol in every way imaginable, I wouldn't be the one to out her secret.

I slung Ed's fat carcass over my shoulder and walked him to the truck were the others were loading up the geeks from the barn. Dumping his body on the pile of monsters I fixed Dale and then T-dog with hard stare.

"We burn his body with the other geeks."

The fact that no one questioned it spoke volumes to how deep there suspicions went. It might have pissed me off that they were so certain he was such a bastard and yet none of them lifted a finger to help her, but I'd exhausted my ability to feel... anything, at least for today.

So, I helped load up the truck with downed geeks.

Andrea came over to us from where she, King Shane, Skeletor and that kid Jimmy had been digging graves for Hershel's geek family.

"We're ready over there," she said simply, smudging dirt on her brow as she wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

"Alright, well, let's at least get these bodies out of here before the ceremony," said T-dog heading for the truck.

Andrea nodded, "I'll go with you," she said hoping on the truck's tailgate.

Rick and Dale headed back towards camp. I didn't.

I felt their wondering glances but I ignored them as I made my way to the house. Fuck them anyhow, I didn't need to explain myself to anyone, anyone but her.

As I passed into the house I saw Sophia sitting on the couch, staring into space. She hadn't moved an inch since I left. I took a step forward but stopped. Little girl needed her sister. What the hell good could I do her. I was no better with kids than I was with words.

She's no more a kid than you were at that age.

I wasn't sure where that came from, certainly wasn't something Merle would say.

I lowered myself to the floor and leaned against the couch next to where she sat.

Staring off into the same distant point she was focused on, I spoke, unsure if she could hear me or if she even cared to listening.

"I saw what happened. Well, I didn't SEE IT, but the tracks told me. What you did was very brave. You should be proud, you both should. You where up against someone bigger and stronger than you but you didn't give up, you fought with everything you had. You had each others backs and even though at any point one of you could have run and saved yourselves, you didn't. You kept fighting and you survived. Your a survivor Sophia, and so is your sister. I really respect what you did. You got nothing to be ashamed of. We all of us got a darkness in us, of some sort or another, don't let it be all you are."

That might have been the most I ever said all at once. I glanced back at her. She hadn't moved or even blinked, just stared off like she was made of stone.

I lifted myself off the ground. Shoulda known better than to try to help. Fuck up like me could only make things worse.

"Thank you."

I spun around but Sophia was still motionless. The words had been spoken in a whisper so faint they could have been a breath. I must have imagined it. Turning back I left the room without another word to find the only person who could help Sophia, her sister.

I came up on the room that I had carried her to but I heard voices so I stopped.

"Welcome back."

It was Hershel's voice. She was awake.

Thank fucking god.

"Do you remember what happened to you?"

I couldn't hear her response. I should walk away, this was eavesdropping but I was rooted in place.

"Now I'm no gynecologist, or even a surgeon, but I did the best that I could for you. Your vagina was torn apart. The flesh was so shredded I had to cut parts away so that it was even feasible to stitch you up."

Hershel sounded detached, defeated, dead inside. The slaughter at the barn had taken some essential part of him. Whatever solid ground he had planted the feet of his character in had crumbled.

"For the sake of your life there can be absolutely no penetration for at least five weeks, two months to be safe. Now, I can only imagine that this is the last thing you want to think about but you need to be prepared. You will be much smaller - down there, if you do ever, if there is ever penetration again... I believe there will be some pain - much like the pain women experience their first time."

What the fuck was he telling her this shit for? Ed was dead, I wasn't gonna let anyone touch her ever again. She didn't have to worry about that anymore.

"I'm not telling you this to scare you. I know you don't want to say you did this to you child, but I want to make sure you understand the consequences if you don't let anyone help you and this happens again."

If she made any response I couldn't hear it. After a moment Hershel continued.

"I wish I could tell you what to expect as regards to your ability to have children but I have to assume based on the amount of damage I saw that your uterus was also damaged. Unfortunately I don't have the equipment necessary to check nor the expertise to know the significance of what I saw.

"I know I've burdened you with a lot right now but if there is one thing I want you to take away from our talk it is that even though I am just a veterinarian, I will honor doctor-patient confidentiality. I have to say though, one last time: Child, if you don't tell someone what is happening to you, or at least who is doing this to you, you wont survive another one of these attacks."

I heard Hershel moving toward the door and I ducked through a nearby entry way. When he was gone I slipped into her room.

"They're gonna have a service for Hershel's family that was in the barn. Did you wanna come out side."

She stiffened when she heard my voice but she didn't look at me, just shook her head no.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, unsure what to say.

"Do you want me to bring Sophia in here to keep you company while we're at the service?"

She shook her head.

I grimaced. She had said more than once that we were friends but it still scared the crap out of me to put myself out there.

"I could stay with you."

She was very still for a few breaths but then shook her head, no. Rejection crushed me and I fled from the room like the coward I was. I had failed her one too many times.

Why would she ever want me to be anywhere near her?

I stalked off to the ceremony for people I'd never met and didn't feel guilty about putting down.

Not like I have anything better to do...