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Chapter 5

Daryl looked at Aliya and didn't say anything. He was pressing and she was pushing back. He needed answers.

"No." she said quietly.

"Damnit. What's the big deal."

"The big deal is that it's none of your damn business." she said loudly.

"How?" he repeated.

She folded her arms across her chest and blew a wayward strand of hair out of her face. "Are we done here?"

"We ain't done 'til ya' tell me."

"It's not any of your business. Just let it go." Her voice was hard and she was frowning.

"Then 'least tell me why ya' don't want me ta' know."

"I just did, Dixon."

"No, ya' didn't. Ya' said it weren't none a' my business. It sure is my business."

"How do you figure that?" Aliya said, reaching for the cigarette in his hand and putting it between her lips. She took a long drag and handed it back to him, turning her head sideways to exhale the smoke from her nostrils.

Daryl couldn't answer for a second. He was more than a little taken aback. "I ain't never see ya' smoke before."

"See, there's a lot about me you ain't seen and don't know and yet we're getting along just fine." she said, narrowing her eyes a bit.

"I'm not playin' 'round here." he said, his frustration starting to build.

"Neither am I." she hissed. Aliya could sense he was starting to get more tense. So was she. She knew this day would come and every time she started to think about how she'd handle the questions, she pushed it back out of her mind. But she didn't want to fight. Her shoulders fell. "Listen, Dixon, it's personal. There's stuff I don't want you to know."

"Why not?" he said, squinting.

"Oh, Christ!" she said, her voice tight, her fists clenched now. "Because if I told you, you wouldn't like me anymore, damn it!"

"I'm not liking you much 't all right now." he said. He sighed loudly. "Don't shut me out."

"I'm not trying to." she said, sighing. "I just, it's…not good."

"How bad could it be? I told ya' stuff about …'n Merle. Ya' know more 'bout me than I do 'bout you."

"I know. This is…different."

"What, were you a narc?"

"Fuck no!" she said.

"Then what? Were you in jail?" Aliya froze. He could tell by the look on her face that he'd hit a nerve. She looked at him, trying not to bolt from the room. "How do ya' think that's bad? Merle's been locked up more times 'n I can count. I was in juvie for six months. Ain't no big deal."

"I know."

"Tell me. I already guessed, didn't I?"

She turned away from him. "There's more. A lot more."

"Just tell me."

"Daryl." She pressed her lips together and looked down at her feet and then back up. "It's real bad. I'm…not proud…" she stopped, looking back up at him, her eyes moist. "I don't think I can do it."

"Ok. Let's do this." Daryl rose and walked to the desk in the corner and pulled an almost-full bottle of Jack Daniels from the bottom drawer. He turned back to the davenport and sat down next to her, handing her the bottle. "Tell me tha' beginning."

"Drinking won't make it better." she said.

"No, but it'll come out easier." he said, reaching to the bottle and unscrewing the cap. "Come on."

"Shit. I feel like I'm about to lose my best friend." she said, taking a long drink.

"I'm yer' best friend?" he said, grinning.

"You're my only friend." she said. "You're the only person I trust."

Daryl nodded slowly and took the bottle from her. "Me too." he said, taking a large gulp and wincing when he swallowed. "Now out with it." he said, his voice gravelly from the burn.

XXXXX

Aliya Marie Henderson was the only daughter of Sheppard "Duke" and Mary Frances Henderson of Atlanta, Georgia. She had three older brothers who taught her everything they knew. Nick was the first born, followed by twins, Joseph and Jackson, and then four years later, Aliya, who was the apple of her father's eye.

Mary Frances left Duke when Aliya was a baby and moved to a small town outside of St. Louis. Briefly. She then returned to Atlanta. Mary Frances wasn't inclined to leave again…and by that, she was made to understand that if she ever was so inclined to try to leave again, she'd be coming back quickly. In a pine box. The made-to-understand part left her with scars on her back and legs for the rest of her life. Mary Frances knew several things about her husband Duke. One, he was one of the biggest arms and pot dealers in the metro-Atlanta area. Two, he wasn't joking about killing. She'd seen him do it.

By the time Aliya was ready for school, she knew more about guns and drugs than most cops. She knew that guns were for business and drugs were for stupid people and that Daddy made a lot of money off of both. She also knew that you didn't talk about either of them to anyone outside the family. She was taught not to trust anybody and not to ask questions. Do what Daddy and Mommy say and follow the family rules. It was that simple.

Aliya's father was well-known to law enforcement. He was also smart and very cautious. There was not much the cops could ever pin on Duke and make stick. That being said, about once a year, the Henderson home was raided by either the feds or the state boys. They never found much of anything. Once, her brother got caught with two joints stuffed in a carved-out book in his room and the federal marshal that found them just handed them to Duke and said that nothing they could do to Nick that would come near what he was gonna get from his own Daddy. Nick got the beating of a lifetime to enforce one of the more important of those Henderson Family rules. You don't use drugs. Ever.

When Aliya was starting third grade, Duke decided that public school was "a waste of time" and pulled all the kids out, keeping them at home from then on. What he was really doing was keeping the children away from the prying eyes of school officials, law enforcement and child welfare. His kids were well-educated, clean, well-fed and better-behaved than most of the other kids in that school. But that didn't stop the cops from trying to work the teachers and classroom aides to pump the Henderson kids for information, which invariably never came. Several times, the new student teacher turned out to be an undercover agent. To say the kids were tight-lipped was an understatement. Frustrated the hell out of everyone who tried.

Aliya loved staying at home. They lived on the outskirts of the west part of town on several acres with woods, a large, stocked pond, and lots of animals. They had what would probably be called a "compound" today: large house, outbuildings, fencing, security cameras and dogs, the whole works. At times, there were armed men patrolling the perimeter and stationed at the front gate. Aliya knew it wasn't like other kid's homes, but she didn't question it. It was just, well, the way it was.

In the mornings she would work on school with Momma and she'd spend her afternoons with Daddy. She was definitely Daddy's girl and showed an interest in guns early-on. He taught her everything about shooting and taking care of firearms. He also taught her the finer points of the sale and delivery of marijuana, his "other business." Duke didn't normally grow marijuana, he had a whole cadre of others to do that for him. He was more of an "import-export man" as he would often say.

Duke, as a role model, was a curious man. Liberal about some things, rigid about others. Drink all you want, no dope of any kind. Dope makes you slow and stupid. "A good businessman, Darlin, doesn't use his product" he used to tell her. This was somewhat hypocritical, as Duke was not only a distributor but a connoisseur of fine moonshine, in addition to the marijuana business. Duke sold quite a bit of coke in the 80's as well, but he just normally stuck to pot. The 'shine was more of a hobby, Unless there was a deal that was just too good to pass up on. Business was business, after all. He left the meth clean alone but had been known to hijack a truck or two if it had a particularly large shipment of "pharmaceuticals." Oxycontin and Vicodin was always a money-maker.

When she was sixteen, Aliya's world ended. Almost literally. The feds had gained inside information into one of Duke's biggest deals involving a shipment of some "hard to find" items that he was brokering between a certain group of foreign nationals and a local gang. Hard to find, being defined as totally illegal on every level and enough to make the feds' mouth water. They couldn't make him for any one of the number of mysterious disappearances they suspected he had a hand in, or any of the drug sales for years, but what they had this time was enough to put him away for life. Probably a couple of his boys as well. They had Duke, two of his sons and about three of his employees by the short curlies, as Duke would say, they closed in with a vengeance at the abandoned drive-in.

What they didn't know was that Duke's daughter was with her Dad and brothers that evening when the deal went down. When the shooting started, Aliya, or "Shadow" as she was known, pulled out a piece from the back of her belt and started shooting back. When the shooting ended, three officers were wounded, one dead, two of Duke's men were dead and his oldest son, Nick, died later that night in the hospital. Aliya was wounded, as well, when she went to help her fallen brother.

The shooting made the national news and her father and brother were given life sentences at their trial. Duke Henderson died of a heart attack in the penitentiary and her brother Jackson was stabbed to death in a fight a year later. Aliya's remaining brother, Joseph, fled to Missouri and jailed there on weapons charges. Not quite as adept at covering his tracks as his father, Joey was going to be a guest of the Missouri penal system for 20 years. Mary Frances was killed in a suspicious automobile accident shortly after Jackson's death. It was widely assumed that she had committed suicide by driving into the river on purpose, but it was never proven.

Sixteen-year-old Aliya's world was gone. Everything and almost everyone she knew was taken from her. She had known that her family was not normal but she never knew just how "not" normal they were until she got a dose of reality from law enforcement and the rest of the people she encountered. The nurses and staff at the hospital treated her like she was trash, none of them were sympathetic. A couple were especially cruel and rough and volunteered that they were married to police officers and didn't even want to be around her, much less help her. The police officers questioned her mercilessly, keeping her awake for hours, refusing to give her food or water, threatening her, taunting her. Even the other kids at the group home either tried to bully her or were so afraid of her they totally ignored her.

Aliya was alone and had to use the only things she had left to survive. She was determined to do just that, however. She still had a couple things she could count on. First, everything she was ever taught by her Dad or her brothers…and second, willpower. Henderson willpower.

XXXXX

Daryl sat there dumbfounded. They had been passing the bottle back and forth slowly and it was about three-quarters gone.

"Well, fucking say something, Daryl." she said quietly, taking another sip and wiping her lips with the back of her hand.

"Holy shit." he said quietly. He was sitting at her feet on the floor now. He remembered the story from the news. He figured Merle had probably done business with Duke Henderson somewhere along the line. Hell, Merle'd probably worked for Duke at some time. Daryl had been totally rapt as she recounted her family history. He could tell just how painful much of the story was for her. At one point, he realized that she was leaning forward towards him and he was sitting on his knees in front of her, their faces close, his hands on her knees. "I had no idea."

"Now do you see why I didn't want to tell you?"

"No." he said. "Coulda' told me."

"Please. Tell me you're not thinking that I'm nothing more than a white trash, cop-killing, drug dealing felon right now."

"I ain't." Daryl ran his hands through his hair and blew out a loud breath. "Tell me tha' rest."

"I don't know if I can."

"Sure ya' can. I gotta' know how ya' ended up here."

"I think in your truck, if I remember right." Aliya was trying desperately and not so subtly to change the subject.

"Ya' know what I mean."

"Haven't you heard enough?"

"No."

"You're a glutton for punishment."

"And yer' a sixteen-year-old girl with a gunshot wound. Finish yer' story."

"Jesus." she said, taking a drink from the bottle. "Alright." she sighed deeply and started again. " There were two bullets. Here…and here." she pointed towards a place near her stomach and then down a few inches. The real problem was the infection I got in the hospital. I was there for six weeks. They wouldn't let me see anybody, including my own mother. They charged me as an adult but Daddy made a deal with the prosecutor that if they went easy on me, he'd give them everything they wanted." she sighed. "I went to a group home until I was eighteen and then to a women's facility until I was twenty-one. That was the deal. He convinced them I didn't really know what I was doing, I was just doing what I'd been raised to do. Defend my family."

"Damn. Bet that was rough."

"You have no idea. Changed me. Hardened me, as if being a Henderson hadn't already. I had to go to my mother's funeral in handcuffs." Daryl put his hand back on her knee and Aliya put hers on top of it unconsciously. He could feel her hand trembling slightly.

"I got out and was on four years' parole. I got lucky that my p.o. was a real good person. She was real patient. She could have sent me back any number of times that first year, but she didn't. Not even when the first guy I took up with turned out to be a psycho. She didn't give up. She didn't back down. She called me on my shit and made me toe the line. 'Court-appointed, federally-approved tough love' she called it. Ol' Gloria pretty much saved my life."

"You were lucky." Daryl whispered, squeezing her knee. "Most p.o.'s don't give a shit 'bout nuthin'."

"I got my ass together, got away from L.T., Gloria helped me get a real job, picked up some college classes here and there, managed to scrape enough money together to buy a little house. Settled into a routine, just me and my dog."

"Pit bull?" he said.

Aliya laughed. "Sorry to disappoint…white German shepherd."

"Nice. Go on."

"That's about it. That's where the drama ends, just me and my Duke…until this walker crap started in."

"Boyfriend?"

"No thanks." she shook her head. "Who'd want me? Felony convictions for attempted murder of a police officer, possession and trafficking of stolen weapons? Not exactly the kind of girl you'd take home to your mother. Only guys interested are the kind I need to stay the hell away from."

"Like me."

"Yeah, like you. You are definitely a bad influence. I need to stay away from you." she said, as she poked Daryl in the chest with her index finger, grinning. She sat back. "So. Now you know. Everything."

Daryl sat back and looked at her. "It stays wi' me. Ok?"

"It'd better. They can't know." she said, gesturing to the door with her head. Not ever."

Daryl nodded his head in agreement. He opened his mouth and then hesitated briefly, thinking. "Where'd you get tha' Glock then?"

"Huh?" his question had thrown Aliya off.

"Ya' got a felony on yer' record. How'd ya' get a gun?"

"Hmm…dunno. Musta' fell off a truck." she smiled. "Now. I'm hungry and I need something to soak up some of this alcohol. Let's go upstairs and raid the pantry."

Daryl stood up and then Aliya stood up. She turned and he grabbed her elbow and spun her around to face him. "Thanks."

"Why?"

"Know that was hard."

"You have no idea." she whispered.

"Yeah. I do."

Aliya swallowed. "We still friends?"

"Yup." Daryl nodded.

"Thanks for not judging."

"Glass houses." he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, they do tend to be a bad place to hide skeletons, huh?" she smiled.

A/N: No this is not autobiographical!