It's In The Air
Shane and T-Dog had to push Daryl back as he attempted to attack Jenner, pushing him back and out of the way. It was fairly obvious that most in the room wanted to do the exact same thing, but Daryl was just violent enough to actually try it. Jamie was screaming at the top of her lungs as she kicked at the heavy metal door that had sealed them in the room, Rick's arms looping under hers to keep a strong hold on her and pulling her back. Her side and back throbbed as they were jarred with every kick, but she didn't much care at that point.
She struggled to escape his hold but he pulled her back until he had reached the work stations and handed her over to the others, hoping that she would be able to calm herself down to the point that she wasn't attempting to break her own foot by kicking at a door uselessly. Rick marched up to Jenner to demand that he release them, but the man denied at all turns.
Jamie fell to lean against one of the desks, her breathing heavy and her body tense and trembling. She didn't know if she'd be able to control her temper if she got near Jenner, she didn't know if she's be able to stop herself from chocking the life out of him. Her hands gripped at her hair as she fought against thinking about wrapping them around the man's neck.
"What happens in twenty eight minutes?" Rick asked in a low, threatening voice, stepping right up into Jenner's space. Jamie pulled herself up to her full height, beginning to pace. Her body was shaking too much to stand still. Jenner ignored Rick's question, facing one of the computers instead. "What happens in twenty eight minutes?" he demanded in a much louder tone, slamming one hand down on the desk while the other reached for Jenner.
"Do you know what this place is?" Jenner demanded, his voice rising to a yell as he faced off against the younger man. "We protected the public from very nasty stuff!" he yelled into Shane's face, stepping back only to take a breath. "Weaponized smallpox's, Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever!"
Pacing like caged animals, Jamie and Daryl made a perfect pair as they watched Jenner like hawks scoping their prey. They didn't stop moving once, making a half circle each on either side of the man in copied habits. Daryl had always had a bad habit of pacing, something that Jamie had picked up on throughout the years that they had been friends; she had always watched people carefully, especially when she was involved and Daryl had learned to do much the same. They had become the perfect pair of predators within the time that they had known each other.
"In the event of a power failure in a terrorist attack, for example," Jenner continued much more calmly, resuming his seat before the computer. "HIT's are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."
"HIT's?"
"Vi, define."
"HIT's, high impulse thermobaric explosives consist of a two stage aerosol ignition that produces a wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum pressure affect ignites the oxygen between five thousand and six thousand degrees and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage is desired."
Jamie finally froze when Vi was speaking, her eyes widening. She leaned against the table nearest to her as her face went pale white, looking as sickly as a dying woman. Her body was still shaking, trembling from adrenaline, fear and understanding. When the female voice finally stopped, she felt as though she was going to collapse right there. Everyone looked shocked, numb and some even very confused.
"It lights the air on fire?" she demanded in a hoarse voice, trembling like the rest of her. Jenner looked over to her, no emotion in his eyes. He was a shell. Just like those things that they had been running from. He didn't care about them; he was giving up just like his coworkers had.
"No pain," he said simply. "An end to sorrow, grief…regret." He looked away from her eyes, the accusing hazel that held more hatred and disgust than he had ever seen in one person before. She had seemed so nice, so innocent to him when he first saw her. Now, her eyes were haunting; seared into his memory as the one person that would hate him from this moment until they had died. "Everything."
The room was held frozen, seemingly stilled for minutes in time even as the clock continued to count down. Even then, however, their minds were racing. They soon began to move around in search of an exit, moving toward the heavy metal door that had closed them in. Rick, Daryl and Glenn tried to find some kind of way that they could override the locks that were used to close them in, but it seemed that only Jenner could get them out using his key card and code.
Daryl finally growled out in rage as his anger got the better of him and he chucked the bottle he had been holding against the wall as hard as he could, whipping around to face Jenner and pointing back at the door as he yelled out.
"Open the damn door!"
Shoving Shane on the arm to draw his attention, Jamie jogged over to where there were emergency cases in case of a fire near the other locked doors. He quickly caught on to her thought process and ran after her, stepping to the other side of the door as her to get the second axe. Jamie kicked the glass in to preserve her skin, drawing back to remove the axe rom his casing. Shane was able to use his elbow with ease, knowing exactly what to do. He quickly ran around with the object in his hand until he could get up the path to the door, Jamie taking another route around while she remained on the ground floor and approached the ramp.
"Daryl!" she yelled, drawing his attention. She chucked the axe up to him, the stronger of the two catching it fluently before he ran back to the door to help Shane, the metal end of the axes slamming down on the door. Sparks flew at the contact, the sound of metal on metal screaming through the room. The men grunted with every hit, reaching every member of their group that were littered about the room. The children were beginning to panic and cry, angering and frightening the parents.
Jamie leaned her hands on the ramp as she watched the two men try and make more than just scratches and dents in the door, her heart dropping as she watched the same result each time. The scratches could be considered deep, but with how thick that door was, there was no way they would be able to get out. It was a pointless effort, but no one wanted to believe it. Shane stepped back after a while, glaring at the offending obstacle before he moved over to speak with Rick.
"Nothing?" Jamie asked in despair, her hands clutching at the edge of the ramp. She moved around to get onto the platform, meeting up with Daryl as he was making his way down as well, breathing heavily and looking as deadly as a murderer with the axe still in his hand. He was starting to perspire heavily with the combination of no air circulation, swinging the axe at the door and the paranoia of being locked inside that room.
"That door was designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner said as soon as he heard Shane's status report to Rick.
"But your head ain't!" Daryl yelled as he raised the axe up again, rushing toward Jenner. Dale, Rick and Jamie all got a hold of him, T-Dog coming up from behind to take the axe from his hand before he could hurt someone else unintentionally or get the idea to go at Jenner for a third him.
"Back up!" Rick yelled as he pushed Daryl backward, away from the insane doctor. Jamie continued to pull him until he was backed to the railing of the work station, her hands on his chest as she kept him where he was. He never looked away from Jenner, the murderous intent lingering in his eyes, as he breathed heavily. Jamie knew that if he was going to follow through with killing Jenner then he would use the knife that was strapped to his belt, or even steal the one in the holster on her thigh.
"Look at me," Jamie ordered, taking Daryl's face in her hand and forced him to stop looking over her shoulder, getting into the view path of Jenner so that she could distract him at least enough to calm him down a bit. "Look at me, Daryl." His blue eyes landed on her face after a moment more of resistance, his blue eyes clashing with her golden hazel ones. "What was it that you told me when I got sick and scared because I had to go to the hospital?" she asked softly, stroking his cheeks before sliding them down to his neck.
He didn't say anything at first, just breathed heavily through his nose. "Angels can't die," he finally mumbled in response, the hot breath fanning over her face. She smiled softly when he finally spoke and lifted her hands to smooth his hair, damp with sweat. Leaning forward, Jamie pressed her forehead against his for a moment, their lips less than an inch apart.
"Guardian Angels can't, either," she whispered before pressing a kiss to his lips, only briefly but enough to bring him back to himself.
"There is no hope," Jenner said loudly from behind them, drawing Daryl's attention again. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her against his chest for a moment as he pressed a hard kiss to her forehead, a silent acceptance to her terms. Don't kill anyone. "There never was-"
"There's always hope," Rick interrupted, pacing around before his friends and family, his anger toward Jenner evident in his tense posture and harsh stride. "Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here but somebody, somewhere."
"What part of everything's gone do you not understand?" Andrea asked suddenly, the crossness in her voice drawing Jamie forward. To just drop all hope as she had, to give up and try to get everyone else to was just something that she couldn't take. It was bad enough that Jenner was doing it, but he was a complete stranger to them. When one from the group began to shut down and lose that will to live, the fight to survive, it could tear them apart. It would have more of an impact than that of a stranger, a man who they didn't know and didn't understand.
"Listen to your friend, she gets it-"
"You shut up!" Jamie yelled as she marched over, pointing threateningly at Jenner as she passed him. "And you," she shouted, pointing down at Andrea, "What the hell is wrong with you? You're seriously going to just give up after everything. You've fought so hard to stay alive until now and you're just going to let yourself die?"
"There's nothing we can do," Andrea said in a tight voice, glaring up at the other woman.
"That's not true!" Jamie yelled, looking over at Jenner as well. "We can fight! We will fight. I won't roll over and wait until the clock runs out, I never have before and I am not going to start that now. As long as we're alive there's a chance, a reason to go on." She looked back down at Andrea's blank face, knowing the exact reason behind her depression. "Amy's dead and gone, I know that. We've all lost people that we love in this; friends, family. You don't see us curling up on the floor and throwing our lives away-"
"What do you know?" She hissed out with a darkness in her voice that it was nearly frightening. " You still have Daryl, he's not dead!"
"No, but there was a time when I didn't know that," Jamie hissed out. "You can't go searching for Amy, you can't use that as a reason to live like I did, but there is always a reason. Live to preserve her memory, live on for her because she can't!"
"Shut up!" Andrea yelled, tears beginning to collect in her eyes. Jamie crouched down before Andrea, her eyes softening as she looked at the torn apart woman before her. Andrea was younger than she was, that much was easy to tell. But it wasn't by much; she just seemed very young because she'd clearly been sheltered before the epidemic.
When Jamie spoke again, her voice had softened, "It's true that I still have Daryl, but that doesn't mean I'm going to say 'alright, it's okay to die now.' I don't need to fight to live so that I can find him, but I need to fight so that I stay with him." Andrea opened her mouth to speak but seemed to think twice about it and instead looked off to the side, at the floor by Lori's feet. There was a brief silence in the room as everyone looked anywhere but Jamie and Andrea, feeling as though they were intruding on something private.
"This isn't right," Carol finally gasped out, tears coursing down her cheeks. "You can't just keep us here."
"One tiny moment, a millisecond. No pain," Jenner tried to reason, leaning forward in his chair so that he could look at Carol and try to get her attention. Jamie stepped over and shoved his shoulder, keeping him back. Rick moved up encase she lost her temper, but she didn't touch the man further and stepped away again, her entire body stiff.
"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!" Carol yelled over to him, pulling at everyone's hearts at the broken sound of her voice. She was desperate. She handed Sophia over to Dale, standing up herself and moving away from the man. Jamie placed an arm over Carol's shoulders, offering what comfort and reassurance that she could. It's seemed pointless, but she wanted to help the distraught woman.
"Wouldn't it be kinder? More compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?"
"Don't make me hurt you," Jamie hissed out as she gently moved Carol away from the man, stepping back up so that she stood between the tearful mother and the monster that Jenner had become. His logic could be sound for some people, but to take someone's choice of life wasn't right in any way.
The sharp, familiar sound of a shotgun loading drew all attention backward, to where Shane was marching back up toward Jenner, the black shotgun that he had been carrying with him all along in his hand. He looked ready to kill, out for blood. It was a side of him that they hadn't seen, a deadly side that only came out in a fight for survival. Instinctual.
"Hey, Shane!" Rick yelled, stepping in front of the man to stop him. Jamie stepped back, out of the war path and leaned against one of the stations as Shane bowled past Rick and marched right up into Jenner's face. The muzzle of the gun never wavered away from Jenner as Shane held his ground.
"Open that door," Shane said in a low voice, "Or I will blow your head off. Do you hear me!" He looked like a mad man, holding the shotgun up to Jenner's face, his eyes wide and wild. Daryl stepped up to Jamie and pulled her back, passing Lori and Carl, Dale and T-Dog. She stumbled back into his chest as he hold onto her protectively, keeping her as far from the line of fire as he could without stepping out of the immediate area.
"It won't be so painless to get your head blow off," Jamie said evenly, her arm rising up to wrap around Daryl's neck, holding him to her. If they truly were going to die, she'd die with him. Daryl had an eye on Shane and Jenner, a darkness inside of him hoping that Shane pulled the trigger, that the bastard died for all he'd done.
When Shane yelled out in a war cry, they all thought that it was over; that he was going to fire. Instead, he turned the gun away from Jenner and began to shoot the shit out of a couple of computers passed Jenner's head. Jamie jumped in surprise at the loud shots, Daryl's arm tightening around her waist for a moment. People around the room ducked in instinct, half expecting Shane to begin firing off in random directions. It seemed, however, that he had only been venting and opted to destroy a couple of computers.
Rick tried to take the gun from him, ending up with Shane firing upward and taking out one of the lights. Jamie and Daryl both ducked as sparks flew everywhere for a moment, the rest of the people in the room doing the same. Rick was able to remove the gun from Shane's hands and cracked him over the head with the butt of the gun, taking him to the ground. He raised the gun in preparation of having to swing again, but Shane was downed and wasn't trying to attack Rick.
"You done now? Are you done?"
"Yea," Shane snapped, looking up at his best friend, "I guess we all are."
"Not yet," Jamie called over, needing to try and keep the hope inside of everyone. They could not afford to just let everything go. She looked over to Daryl, seeing that he was still breathing fairly heavily. She met his eyes for a moment, nodding his head. Not yet.
"I think you're lying," Rick accused suddenly, taking everyone in the room by surprise. That was not one that they had expected. Jamie looked over to Rick at the same time Daryl did, watching him turn to face the equally confused doctor. "You're lying about 'no hope'. If that were true, you would have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't."
"You didn't give up," Jamie said softly, drawing Rick's attention for a moment. He could clearly remember the sight of the husband and his wife back at the house they had stopped at to look for fuel and found the horse that they had ridden to Atlanta on. GOD FORGIVE US.
"It doesn't matter," Jenner tried to deflect, bringing Rick's gaze back to him.
"It does matter, it always matters. You stayed when others ran, why?"
"Not because I wanted to," Jenner glowered back, looking Rick straight in the eye. "I made a promise, to her." He pointed up at the screen, where they had been watching the playback of subject 19. "My wife."
"You don't seem like the marrying kind," Jamie said as she leaned back against the headboard of the hotel room that she was in, grinning slightly as she held the phone to her ear and lowered the volume on the television so that she could properly hear Daryl over the phone.
The sound of scraping metal made Jamie look back to where Daryl was once again throwing the axe against the door, putting all of the force that he could in each swing, adding his body weight into it. She turned to face him completely and stepped forward until she was standing at the base of the ramp, watching as he swung again, and again, and again. Her hand touched the cold metal railing that surrounded the space, feeling distant.
"I'll take you to Vegas someday, prove it to ya, I ain't having some fancy ass weddin'," Daryl's voice said through the phone, accepting the challenge that she did not even know that she had set. Jamie couldn't help but laugh as she tipped her head back against the cool wall of the room, not quite knowing how to take his words. To heart? As amusement?
Daryl stopped swinging to take a moment to breathe, turning around to look over at the group. He saw Jamie standing at the base of the ramp, a small smile on her lips. He knew that look; she was having another one of those nostalgic moments. She was looking toward the ramp, but he knew that she had been watching as he swung at the door, trying fruitlessly to break open the metal blocking their escape. He looked away and turned to the door again, preparing another swing.
"Ha! Mrs. Jamie Knight Dixon. Jamie Dixon; you know, it kind of has a nice ring to it. Dontcha think?" Jamie teased into the phone, leaning forward when her shoulder blades began to grow uncomfortable against the headboard. "Does this mean we're engaged?"
"Come on!" Daryl yelled, drawing Jamie back to herself. The door had opened, Daryl standing in front of it as he held his arm out toward her. She didn't hesitate a second more and ran up to him, letting him place a hand on her back and guide her over the threshold as the others raced behind them. Jamie turned back to make sure that everyone was coming before she let Daryl take her hand and pull her down the hall. She could see Lori and Carol pulling their children along behind them, calling after the others that weren't moving quite yet.
"Rick, come on!" Jamie screamed, her voice echoing off the walls of the hallway. He'd saved her life, she'd be damned if she let him die in this place.
Jamie could hear when Jacqui told everyone she'd be staying, Dale yelling at them to run. The group stayed frozen in the hall for only a short while longer before they took off for dear life. Jamie slipped her hand into Daryl's as they ran, feeling his long fingers close around hers as he tugged her forward, guiding her out.
She could hear Daryl laugh deeply in her ear, imagining him leaning against the door of his truck as he looked at the forest that surrounded his and Merle's place. He never spoke inside since Merle would always cut in on their conversations and ruin the time that had to talk whenever Jamie had to leave town for work. "'Spose this means I've gotta call you my fiancé now, don't it?"
Been a while! I'm sorry, I've been writing a story for my Advanced English class and I couldn't get distracted by thinking about the Walking Dead, since it has nothing to do with it. I hope that you all liked the chapter, I'll try and get another one out today but I can't make any promises!
Does anybody here watch the Talking Dead? It's hilarious! If you don't you should try to find a way to watch the episodes, they also give some really cool insight in the making of the episodes.
Chapter 17 – Blackened
When the shaking began to slow down, Daryl lifted up to look out the front windshield of the truck, to where the CDC once stood. A flaming pile of rock was all that was left behind, lighting the area with the blaze. Jamie was left gasping on the seat, her hands rising to her face as she tried to stop her trembling. She soon pulled herself up as well, looking out at the flames. She quickly looked back to Daryl, seeing that he was looking at her as well.
Her hands reached for him at the same time that he lunged for her, her hands gripping at his hair as he pressed her down into the seat again. Their lips met in a desperate kiss, a flurry of movement and emotion. Jamie could feel tears of relief burning at her eyes, the horrible tension that had been building in her stomach for an hour finally releasing.
"I love you," She gasped out as she pulled back from the kiss, soothing her hands across his sweat slicked face. "Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you," She chanted against his skin, feeling the press of his lips as he continued to kiss her. The sounds of the other trucks starting were masked slightly by the rolling flames and falling rubble of the CDC, but they were loud enough that Daryl knew they needed to get moving. He pulled back from Jamie with on last kiss, picking the keys up from where they had fallen to the floor of the truck.