It was the truth when he told her that it would not be her fault, their clear walking in to a trap, but he refused to believe it the other way around. That was just how he was built, how he had become given his youth – everything was his fault and he would carry the responsibility of everything on his shoulders. When he had been told as much enough times by his drunken father, it became something hard to unlearn, but with Beth sometimes he wondered if it was actually possible. So, with a hint of a smile on his face, mirrored and amplified on her, he pulled open the door, sliding it to one side and Beth was there and taking a step inside before he could.

He could smell it before he saw anything, the only illumination coming from the door as he walked in through it. It was blood, metallic and tangy in his nostrils, yet there was no reek of death and decay. The blood was fresh which unnerved him more than it should have done. Beth risked a glance across at him, an eyebrow raised in query and he jerked his head over his crossbow so they both stepped further inside. That was when he saw it, moments before Beth did if her gasp was anything to go by. There was a body tied to one of the structural support beams running from the ground and up to the hay loft. There was steam coming from the torn-up torso, rope bound above and beneath the wound of the naked form, dirty skin and scraggly dirty hair.

Daryl paused as Beth continued walking towards to the strung-up victim, his eyes flickering around the barn, checking for tracks on the floor and then viewing the hay loft, waiting for someone to drop out on them. Someone had clearly butchered the girl in front of him, for some completely unfathomable reason, but Daryl had no idea where the culprits were. Hell if he was going to let them anywhere near Beth.

Beth gasped again, her whisper distracting Daryl. "She's alive."

From the corner of his eye, Daryl watched as Beth stepped closer and then he heard her inhale sharply, exhaling a name: "Jocelyn."

She tipped up the woman's head and Daryl almost warned her against it.

"Daryl, look," she whispered and he took a few steps backwards and glanced across his shoulder. It was Jocelyn, her eyes open, her breathing raspy and pained, but she was still human, and there was a W written on her head. No, not written, he realized at the bright red drops dripping down in to her eyebrows.

"What the…?" he mumbled as Jocelyn's eyes suddenly snapped to focus on Beth and she cried out.

"Run!"

"Might wanna do as she says," a male voice laughed and Beth turned sharply, Daryl merely shifted his head towards the large, still open barn door and saw two men standing there – both with large knives in a hand and both looking generally cold and unkempt. Both of them had Ws on their heads, marked, but not etched on.

"The fuck you making Walkers for?" Daryl growled as Beth gasped, her own knife already unsheathed and ready. Shifting his body slightly, Daryl aimed his crossbow at the largest of the two men, though neither looked particularly large or imposing. Malnutrition had hit these guys hard, hopefully harder than it had Beth, Daryl thought as his brain tried to formulate a plan. He had faced foes larger than these his entire life and he knew that Beth could handle her self.

They both laughed, sending invisible shivers down Daryl's spine. "Making Walkers, as you call 'em, to help rid us of a people problem." From in between Daryl and Beth, Jocelyn went silent and Beth moved towards her, forcing her knife through her dead skull without hesitation. The men laughed again. "See now, this bitch was one of us. Had been for a month or so. Helped us ransack that farm down there."

"No," Beth quietly whispered, the horror clear in her voice. Jocelyn must have gone almost straight from the school to these freaks, finding it the only way to survive. She had been a good person once, but that was hard for Daryl to reconcile with what he had seen down at that farm. He had seen one of the mothers get the babies in to the car and then be killed. From what he had watched, none of these bastards had done anything about the babies, freezing and alone in the back of the car. He had sorted out the monstrosities they had been left to become without Beth knowing anything.

"Yeah, she didn't like to. Not at first, but we persuaded her." There was a leer on his face that Daryl considered punching clear off.

"Sweet piece of ass she was," the smaller of the two said, grinning and showing his brown rotting teeth. Beth winced at his words as the larger man continued.

"Recognized the two of you, she did. Asked us to leave you both alone. But we couldn't have that."

"Why not?" Beth asked. "We ain't done you no harm. Plenty of places t' stay down there."

"Nah, pretty lady, we ain't sharing this world no more."

"Pretty shitty outlook," Daryl grumbled, wondering if it was truly what the world had come to. His world had been shitty enough before all of this, he had never considered it could ever get worse.

"Yeah, like you're willing to share this piece of ass, redneck shit."

"Hey!" Beth argued taking an offensive step forward, insulted for either of them or both.

The bigger of the men, the one Daryl had slowly been edging to, suddenly sprang forward, lunging at Daryl and knocking the bow down just as he loosed an arrow, sending it to the floor instead of in to the man. The guy shoved his shoulder low in to Daryl, forcing a grunt from him as the attack hit straight on to his wound. The world vanished for a few moments as pain flooded his body and all the oxygen left his lungs. It was all just snippets of sounds – Beth's heavy breathing, muffled sounds, heavy and hard thuds, kicks and punches, little grunts from Beth and louder from the men.

Finally, Daryl managed to open his eyes and saw them, a bit blurry all around the edges. She kicked the smaller guy, still bigger than her, on a kneecap and he fell to the ground, hard. Then she shot her right leg, her stronger and dominant leg, backwards into the stomach of the bigger man, sending him staggering back a few steps. Landing on her right foot, she swung around and brought her left knee up in to the man's face before turning slightly and bringing her fist, holding the hilt of her knife tightly, across the smaller guy's face.

With slow and cautious, careful steps backwards away from the fallen men and towards Daryl, Beth said, "Daryl?"

"'m okay," he managed to mumble, standing up straight. Her hands were on him then, her back to the attackers, but Daryl was standing tall, his bow freshly nocked and trained across the barn whilst his free arm was slung across her back, holding her tightly to him.

"Think we can let 'em go?" she whispered, tearing herself away from him and frantically pulling at his shirts and coat, getting to his stitched-up wound. There was an innocence and naivety in her voice that Daryl could not bring himself to answer her out loud. She should get to keep that. Forever.

Instead, he shook his head and pulled away from her, but she stopped him with a hand to his chest and refused to move until he met her eyes, the weight of her gaze was a compelling pressure. He feared that she was going to stop him, that she was going to try and talk him out of it, telling him again that there were still good people, that they were both just men and then he would have to argue with her because he had given up the hunt for the Governor and all of them had paid the price, Hershel the most though. And it would piss her off, make her cry if he brought up Hershel, but he knew what he needed to do, what simply had to be done and there was no way that he would hesitate.

"Ya stitches are all good," she whispered thickly, releasing him with a nod of her head. He hated himself then, those men, the whole entire fucking world. With a jerky head nod, Daryl stepped past her, her delicate fingertips brushing his inflamed skin as her hand fell away. "Daryl, wait."

"What's it, girl?"

"I can-" she started, but he cut her off, refusing to hear her suggestion.

"No, just fuckin' no. Go check on our stuff." Because there was no way that she was going to be happy staying here any more. He was not too keen on the idea. For one thing, they had no way of burying three bodies what with the snow and frozen ground. A fire would barely keep burning in these temperatures and it would be too much of a risk to bring other people, Walkers even down on to them. And there was no way that he was about to let her deal with the men. It was bad enough that she had killed people in defence, that he had let her kill the cop that been about to force her, but to kill these two men, that was a job only for him. "Or tidy up, Jocelyn."

This time she let go and he hovered over the bigger guy, who was just starting to wake, and shoved him flat on his back with a boot to his chest, pressing down firmly.

"Can't keep her safe forever, Trailer Trash, there's more Wolves coming." Without hesitation, Daryl fired the arrow at the smaller man, still unconscious and straight in the top of his head.

"Die tryin'," he said, unsheathing his knife and gripping it tightly, slamming it down through the man's open eyes.