Ch. 15

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It was an unspoken agreement that any catching up would be done while they tried to create weapons from whatever they had in the train car.

Sasha asked if they had seen Tyreese, but no one had.

Merle asked if anyone had run into Carol, but no luck either.

Beth was going to ask about Judith, but when she saw the way Rick and Carl stood stoically as everyone discussed their missing family members, she knew that something terrible had happened.

"What happened to your face?" Maggie asked as she worked their daddy's pocket watch chain into the side of the train car to carve out a sharp spike of wood.

"Got ambushed," she answered quietly and looked around, as everyone tried to fashion weapon out of something. Her shirt hung low enough that they never noticed the screwdriver in her belt, so she reached back and took it out, holding it at her side.

"By who?" Her sister pressed, but Beth didn't want to talk about it. She hadn't even fully processed it herself.

"A couple of guys. Merle and Daryl killed 'em."

Maggie stopped and met Beth's eyes. "Did they…" She trailed off and Beth knew what she was asking.

"No, but they would've." She looked over at Daryl who was keeping watch. It was the furthest he had been away from her since they got locked inside.

Maggie put the watch away and sighed. Beth looked up at the sound and saw tears filling her eyes.

"We can't yet," Beth whispered. "We can't think of it. Not until we're outta here."

She nodded and wiped her eyes. "I know. I just—God, Beth. Things fell apart so quick."

"Yeah," Beth agreed and took her sister's hand. "They sure have."

Daryl was watching the movement around the train cars. They had split into groups of four and some were headed their way and the others to train car further down the line.

"Got four of them pricks headed this way," he said and took a few steps back and over to Beth.

"Y'all know what to do," Rick said. "Go for their eyes first. Then their throats."

They banged against the railcar door and Daryl pushed Beth a little further behind him. "Step away from the door and move toward the ends of the car."

He watched the door intently when a hatch lifted on top of the car and someone dropped in a small silver canister.

The Army guy, Abraham, saw it and immediately yelled, "Move!" And pushed anyone near him away as the canister exploded and smoke filled the space.

The loud noise threw him off, and Beth got pushed to the side of the car. His head was spinning as he saw a man enter and grab her arm.

"No!" He shouted and ran forward, smashing his forearm against the man's face.

He took a swift kick to the back of his knees and fell to the floor. "We wanted you anyway," the man said as he hauled him up.

Daryl fought against his hold, but ended up thrown from the train car and landing hard against the concrete. His vision blurred as they zip tied his hands behind his back and another man gagged him.

Daryl's breath was coming out in harsh pants as he tried to get his bearings but was pushed toward a building instead. Once inside, he saw four other men already line up, kneeling beside a trough.

Glenn got pushed to his knees first then Daryl beside him followed by Rick and Bob.

He pulled his wrists and the plastic bit into his skin as he struggled to free himself. Others were trying to get free, too, but it wasn't working. He heard the crack of a bat against bone and looked down the line just in time to see one of the butchers pull up the guy by his hair and slit his throat, blood spewing forward, and they slumped him over the edge of the trough as he bled out.

He thought he was having a heart attack as they proceeded to work their way down the line. His wrists were bleeding as he tried to get out of the bindings, and he thought about Beth. She was locked up in that train car, and if he didn't get out, she would wind up just like him, and that was something that he couldn't let happen.

Daryl Dixon wouldn't go out like some fucking cow at a slaughterhouse.

"Hey!" The voice from the door made everything pause and the douchebag that ran the place walked through the door with a journal in his hands. "What were your shell counts?"

The men in charge of the killing started talking, and Daryl knew they didn't have much time. Glenn was next on the chopping block, so they needed to work fast.

It was at that moment that Daryl looked to Rick who was moving his hands just like Daryl was, but he caught the flash of wood working against the zip ties and swallowed hard.

Out of his peripheral, he saw the man draw back the bat again, and he flinched to the side a little as Glenn curled forward.

"I need your shell count," Gareth said again and the man stopped and started apologizing about it being his first go or some shit.

Daryl had almost gotten his thumb through the restraints and once he had that the rest would follow easily. He had skinned it deep enough to bleed, but it didn't fucking matter.

When he thought they were going to start back up, Bob started moving around, talking and Gareth came forward and removed the gag. He began pleading for their lives, saying that Eugene knew about a cure, that the world could change, but Daryl saw the resolve in Gareth's eyes. This man had nothing left inside of him that would listen to the pleas of his captures—his food.

The zip tie caught on the hangnail of his thumb, and he wanted to beat his own ass for the nervous habit of biting them. Now, he would have to tear off his fucking nail just to get out and try not to flinch in the process.

He was about to do just that, when Gareth turned to Rick.

"We saw you go into the woods with a bag of weapons. You came out without the bag, so we want to know where you stashed and what's inside."

Rick didn't speak and Gareth pulled Bob forward, a knife at his eyeball. "What was in the bag? I'm curious. It was a big bag, Rick."

"I'll show ya," he said quietly.

"Not gonna happen."

The look in Rick's eyes was the same one that he had the previous night with Joe's group, and Daryl didn't think that, even if they got away, it would ever leave him. The man was not who he used to be. Neither was Daryl, but someone had shifted in Rick completely, and if things went the way he hoped, Gareth would feel that same wraith soon.

"There's guns in it," Rick said, his voice flat. "AK-47. Forty-four magnum. Automatic weapons. Nightscope. There's a compound bow," he paused and tilted his head to the side and finished, "and a machete with a red handle." Another small pause and he looked directly at Gareth and said, "That's what I'm gonna use to kill you."

Garth laughed. "Thanks."

He stood up, and Daryl went back to removing his hand from the ties, his thumbnail, tearing as he did. He was almost free when gunshots sounded from the outside, and Gareth barked out some orders and ran from the room, the two men in charge of killing them were stunned by the noise and the sudden explosion that rocked the building.

Rick was up on his feet, slitting one of their throats. The other man came at Rick with the baseball bat, and Daryl pushed off the trough with his chest and stumbled to his feet.

With all the force he had left, he tucked his shoulder and jumped as the man passed him, hitting him right in the stomach.

They landed and the man tried to push Daryl off, but someone grabbed the back of his shirt and tugged him away.

He saw that it was Rick and relaxed. Then watched as Rick picked up the baseball bat and beat the man on the floor until his head was caved in.

Rick cut the rest of them loose, and Daryl picked up a long knife to use as they left the building, and Glenn went toward the first man Rick had killed. As soon as he raised his knife to drive it through his skull, Rick spoke, "Leave 'em. Let 'em turn."

She screamed Daryl's name and tried to run for the door, but a strong arm circled her waist and pulled her back.

She looked to her right and saw Abraham pulling Maggie from the door, too.

"It's gonna be okay, blondie," Merle said against her ear. "That dickless bastard ain't gonna be able to take him down."

She shook her head and whispered, "No," over and over as she gripped Merle's arm.

"Let go, girl," he said and shook her off once the door was shut.

Beth looked down and saw that she her fingernails had broken the skin and little crescent shaped bloody lines stood out against his forearm.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"S'okay."

He went to the wall and went back to working on pulling out a riveted piece of metal.

Everyone seemed to be lost in their own world as their attempts to make weapons became more frantic.

Beth still held onto her screwdriver, but she went to the wood edge Maggie had been working on to try and pull it out and hand it off to someone. Once she got there, though, she saw that someone else had already taken it.

It was a few minutes later, after the silence became so heavy that Beth thought she was going to suffocate, that Eugene started talking about a way to blow open the door.

He was quickly shut down by Maggie.

"My dad's gonna be back," Carl said in a strong voice. "They all are." He looked over at Beth as he said that and then turned back to the door.

"We better be ready," Michonne said and took a deep breath.

A few seconds passed and as if on cue, they heard gunfire from outside the train car. Beth sighed and Merle walked to her side and nudged her shoulder.

"Ya stay behind me, ya hear? He'd kill me if I let ya end up dead."

Maggie eyed him before turning away, and Beth said, "I can take care of myself, Merle. Ya know that."

"Yeah, but we ain't never been in this position before."

More gunfire and an explosion that almost knocked the railcar over, and everyone was chomping at the bit to get out.

"Walkers'll come without a doubt," Carl said.

"Son a fuckin' dick," Abraham muttered and tried to pull on the door. "We gotta get outta here."

That moment, the door opened and Rick hollered, "Let's go! C'mon!"

She saw Daryl who had a long knife, fighting off walkers that had already managed to get in the yard and ran toward him. She put her screwdriver through the head of a walker that was almost on his back when she heard a growl over her right shoulder. Before she could turn and kill it, Daryl put his knife through its head.

"I could whoop your ass," he said and pulled her along behind the group. "Never worry about me. Get yaself out."

She shook her head and dodged walkers as they made their way to the fence. He didn't get it, but Beth thought maybe he did sometimes.

Without him, there wouldn't be much left of her.

Merle followed after the group, and it became pretty clear that the good people of Terminus weren't on their tail, but the stray walker definitely was.

No one slowed down or looked back. They barely paused long enough to retrieve the bag of weapons before starting to run again. When Rick felt they were far enough away, Merle guessed, he stopped and everyone stood there catching their breath.

Merle was leaned up against a tree, watching as Beth leaned against Daryl whose hands were shaking as he hugged her to him.

He wasn't sure he ever wanted to know what went down in that room they had taken him to.

A branch snapped behind him, and he turned to look and make sure it wasn't a walker. Nearly everyone sucked in a surprised breath at the same time, and Merle's strides ate up the distance between him and Carol.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up, pulling her tightly against him.

"Ya miss me?" She laughed quietly.

Merle nodded and sat her down before leaning his head against her shoulder. Carol brought up her hand and stroked the back of his neck.

After a few seconds, she moved away. "Figured you'd need this back," she said and pulled his knife prosthetic from her bag.

"Yeah." He took it from her and Rick came up beside them.

"Was that you?"

Merle's heart was beating harshly in his chest, and he thought about all the things he had wanted to say to her.

She passed Daryl his bow, and he hugged her first before he took it, slinging it over his shoulder then took Beth's hand again.

"C'mon," she said and nodded her head to the side. "There's some people that wanna see you."

She started walk, and Merle stood there watching. He should have felt an overwhelming happiness, but the dull look of Carol's eyes made him pause. If he had changed during his time away, it was certain that she had, too.

And it didn't look like it had been a good change.