Ok guys. I'm back. Jeeze, I suck at updating in a timely manner. What I can tell you though is we are getting pretty close to the end of Wolfsong, maybe three or four more chapters to go. I hope you hang with me till the end, I've loved having you with me on this long journey. Enjoy!
It was after dawn by the time Luna woke, pain throbbing through her shoulder, arm, hip, and head. Her eyes fluttered open slowly as she tried to come to grips with everything that had happened the previous night. She could feel Mal behind her, pressing softly against her, the rising and falling of his chest lightly touching her back. His arm was draped over the curve of her waist, the muscled limb heavy on her body, but still comforting. One of his legs was tucked around hers as well, their feet practically intertwined. Every time he exhaled he caused a small piece of her hair to flutter against her neck, softly tickling her skin.
Her head was swimming from the after affects of the whiskey she'd had last night. She needed to get up and find some cold water to wake herself up with. She needed to rouse the group so they could get something to eat and then hurry back to the CDC. There was so much she felt like she needed to do, and absolutely no will to get up and get to any of it. All she really wanted was just to lay here and enjoy Mal's body heat and maybe not move again for the next six months. But there was too much pressing on her, including the thought that every moment wasted meant Jenner could be slaughtering innocents with deranged, manic attempts at a cure.
The thought of returning to her prison cell made her teeth grit inside her mouth. Merle had made a fair point last night; going back there now, when they'd made it out alive, with the most of their friends, it was a psychotic death wish to go back. She tried to think around it, to convince herself to not risk the lives of her family and her friends.
But she just couldn't. She'd never be able to live with herself knowing she'd turned tail and ran like a coward. Many times growing up her father had told her she had to find her own code to live by, that one day he, and the rest of her family too, wouldn't be there anymore, and she'd no longer have a higher power to answer to. Then she'd have to create her own meaning for her life, and it might as well be worth fighting for. Worth dying for.
Death ain't ever far away in this life, Luna. So your life had best mean something worth dying for.
She tried to slide out from under Mal's arm without waking him but was unable to do so. He stirred and let his eyes snap open right as she was sitting up, dust motes floating everywhere in the stale morning air of the boarded up house as her hair tumbled down her chest. He smiled up at her as his eyes adjusted to the daylight.
"Morning," he mouthed.
"Morning," she signed, moving her hand slower this time so he could see and understand.
He pushed himself to sit up and ran a tussled hand through his hair to push it out of his face before he leaned forward and gently kissed her temple, grinning almost childishly as she did the same at the tickling sensation it caused. He let his fingers curl slightly through her hair before dropping his hand onto her thigh and tilting his head so he could look at her through the curtain her tussled waves had formed.
"Hey, you ok?" he asked softly.
She slid up to her feet and offered him her hand. He took it without question and she carefully picked her way through the bodies of her sleeping friends and let them out onto the porch where they sat on the steps and stared out at the misty, twilight world in front of them. Fog lightly brushed the overgrown grass and weeds on the lawn in front of them, most of the stars veiled from the heavy cloud cover, and the darkness that lay within the trees seemed deeper than Luna could remember seeing for some time.
She stayed quiet for a long time and at first Mal was tempted to press her, but he remembered what she said about words and decided to let her be, to let her pick what she wanted to say. Beneath all that fire and fury was someone he suspected had never really had their metal tested and was finding out exactly what it might cost her, and he knew the depths of her pride, and how unwilling she was to admit she might lose a fight. He was shocked by what she did.
She leaned into him, pressing her hip up against his and letting her head rest on his shoulder. She breathed in his scent slowly and surely and after a moment he heard a low hum from her throat and felt her fingers dance over his skin on his forearm. She pressed her nose into the hollow of his throat and buried herself against him, her free hand wrapping around his opposite thigh and holding onto him firmly, as though she were afraid he might dissolve and blow away like the fog at their feet.
"The little wolf is afraid," she breathed slowly against his neck. She couldn't look up into his eyes but her fingers bit into his flesh as tightly as she could without hurting him. "Not for me. For the ones I love." She pushed even tighter to him and now he could feel her shaking like a leaf just about to tear free of its tree.
"Jenner's going to try and kill me down there. And if he succeeds, it'll destroy my family. My mom and dad…they won't recover. It'll kill them. They might hang on, but they'll be good as dead. And Judith will feel guilty for the rest of her life that she didn't try harder to stop me. And Rick…Rick will feel responsible for my parents' pain. It'll blow a shotgun blast straight through my whole family. The better thing to do is just to run, just leave, just go down to the highway and wait for my family there and when they come we can go back home. But I can't…I can't turn away and know that I let all those innocents die."
He held her close and rocked her slowly back and forth, letting his one hand come up and pet through her hair and then curl just under her jaw and lift her head up so he could look her in the eye. Even now, when she truly did look terrified, he could still see all the fire and spirit of the wolf and he couldn't help but smile.
"I'm not gonna let that happen," he whispered. "I'm not gonna let you die down there, Luna. I swear."
He kissed her chastely, just a soft press of his lips on hers, just enough to chase away the echo of her trembles, before he pulled back. She sat up on her own and pushed her tussled hair away from her face and stared at the world for a moment longer before she exhaled a long breath and stood up to her feet. She offered Mal her hand again but this time when he took it, he pulled her in close and wrapped his arms loosely around her waist, just tight enough to keep her against him, swaying back and forth gently.
"We have work to do," she huffed, tipping her head back in slight annoyance as she tried to wriggle out of his grip.
He shrugged his shoulders and angled in for a kiss. "It'll still be there. Let me have this dance, hm?"
She rolled her eyes but she was smiling despite herself. She relented and laced her arms around his neck and swayed back and forth with him, her feet awkward and uncoordinated and nearly tripping on his toes but he didn't seem to mind. She was infinitely tempted to ask him what it was he had said last night against her neck, warm muffled words she would have never been able to hear, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Instead she eased into his grip again and leaned her head against his chest, content with his warmth against her skin and his scent in her lungs. She couldn't hear his heartbeat, but she could practically feel the pulse against her cheek.
Eventually his movements stopped and he slid his hands from her waist to come up her shoulders and neck before he cupped her cheek. There were probably a thousands of words he could have chosen to say, but none of them meant as much as the way he kissed her, full of teeth and tongue and lips, heat and life and spice and musk. It wrapped around her and made everything else seem faint and far away, like as long as she held onto him the whole world wasn't going to crash around her ears and fall apart right in front of her. She smiled in the knowledge that she had taught him well and eased into his grip, letting him have his way for as long as he pleased because she knew after this there might not be any time or opportunity for softness for a very long time.
"Now we can go to work," he said after he let her go. She nodded and grinned just a little at him before going back into the house to rouse their friends.
Rousing them didn't take much effort, but actually getting them up and moving did. Everyone was sore and stiff from having spent the night on the floor and when they got up there was a chorus of grumbles and difficult looks shot in Luna's direction.
"So is your uncle not going to help us?" Simon demanded as he rubbed the back of his neck and shoulder, trying to work through a kink.
Luna sighed as she dug through their ration packs and began to hand out breakfast. "Either he will or he won't. I did everything I could."
"So what's our next move?" Tau questioned, feeling the tension beginning to fill the room and knowing that unless she diffused it the fur was likely going to fly.
"Well you guys have to tell us. What happens when Jenner does his experiments? When he tests his cures?" Luna ripped a piece of jerky with her teeth, chewing the smoky meat with voracious hunger she hadn't been aware of until she'd smelt the food.
"From what I read in his notes, he gets all the kids down into the basement and locks them in and sends the cure in as a gas of some kind. And then it just turns into hell…" Mal's eyes were dark and his throat was tight as he answered. "The last time this happened all the test subjects went insane and ripped each other to pieces, even before they turned. I can't imagine it would go any better this time."
"And the other adults, do they not know?" Leland asked.
Mal tipped his head to the side. "I can't imagine that at least some of them don't. I'm sure people like Martinez and Milton do. As for anybody else, I don't know."
"We need to have a plan for when we come back into the lab. We won't be welcomed back with open arms, you know that right?" Judith said, just the barest trace of sarcasm curling through her words. Luna couldn't hear it, but she could see it in the twitch of her jaw and the shadow of her eyes.
"Milton will want the two of you locked up, back in the cells you were in before the dorms. I can get you out, but like I was telling Luna, only one more time. After I let you go, they'll know which side I'm on." Mal exhaled a long breath, and Luna could see the twitches of his fingertips, betraying the slightest hint of nerves. "After that, there will be a massive target on my back. And I know Martinez won't hesitate to shoot for it. Especially after that little stunt down in the lab the night of the fights."
"So we have to time your escape well," Tau inferred. "Otherwise, they'll throw all of us into the cells and then we really are screwed."
"I want to destroy the labs," Luna spoke up quickly. "To prevent this from ever happening again. How do I do it?"
"It won't work," Simon said heavily. "If you destroy the labs, the computer system will override the security and completely blow the whole building. It was a fail safe built into the system back in the Before, to prevent diseases from escaping. If you damage the labs, the whole system will melt down. It will kill everyone and everything and nothing will be salvageable."
A low growl rumbled in Luna's throat. She liked the idea of that, of just wiping that entire cursed building off the face of the planet, but there were lives she had to consider; supplies that they could not afford to waste. She scrubbed her palms over her face as she tried to figure out some sort of way to prevent the loss of life and limb, but the restlessness in her blood made it hard to think.
"So then we need to get everyone out before that happens. Because I'm with Luna. The CDC is nothing but a breeding ground for people like Jenner. There is no cure for those things out there," Tau agreed. Her knuckles cracked as her fingers tightened into fists. "He's had his chance. It's over now."
Luna felt her mouth twitching in the barest trace of a smirk. She knew better than to take this lightly, but just the thought of making this insanity finally end, of revenging the capture of her mother, and her and Judith's imprisonment, against the man responsible, was enough to make her heart race.
"Here's what I suggest we do," she began, and even though there was no one around to listen, they all huddled in close as her voice dropped lower in volume. The hushed, reverent tones filled their ears, terror and excitement pulsing through all of them like the pounding of their hearts.
The sun was blasting against their backs the entire day as they made their way down the mountain again and back into the deserted town. They saw their first Walker right as they set foot on the pavement of the main road. Luna took the opportunity to practice the main skill her mother had taught her, throwing knives, and slammed one straight between the eyes, the silver of the spinning blade burning with eye scorching white fire in the full breadth of the sun's rays. The Walker dropped in a pile of twitching, rattling bones as ever more began to crawl from the buildings and stagger into the streets.
"This is worse," Tau panted as she yanked her machete out of the split skull of a corpse she had just dropped. "This is way worse than what we came through before."
Luna's stomach squirmed hard; the were hordes of the undead shuffling and staggering towards them, boney clawed fingers outstretched, endlessly gnashing mouths straining towards them.
"We've got guns, now might be a really good time to use them!" Simon barked, even as he swung his ax and cleaved a head from its shoulders. Blood spattered in a wide, graceful arc, coloring the grey pavement a sickening reddish black color and unleashing an even fouler smell.
"He's right!" Judith panted as she shoved her knife through another Walker's eye just before Leland grabbed her by the upper arm and yanked her away as hard as he could before another monster could sink it's teeth into her opposite hand.
"Go, go, go!" Luna yelled even as they kicked their feet into overdrive, diving for a small side street that looked to be a little more clear than the main drag. As they threw themselves around the corner, Luna charged towards a group of three Walkers to kill them in order to buy Simon time to distribute the large automatic weapons and give the others a crash course in how to use them. The first Walker went down easily, her blade sliding between the eyes and retracting effortlessly, but on the second the metal snagged bone fragment on the nose and the monster was able to shove her against a wall so rotted that both she and the Walker went crashing through it, tangling in the weeds and kudzu vines that had grown over the weakened structure. She snarled and yowled with terror as both remaining Walkers collapsed on top of her, limbs flailing in wild, desperate motions.
Her legs were useless, completely pinned down by the weight of the Walkers and the tangles of the weeds. She grunted and screamed with the effort but it was to no avail. Everything in her demanded that she keep fighting, she keep kicking and thrashing her arms, just to keep living. The drive for life, for that next breath, no matter the putrid smell of rotted flesh and death, just suck one more in, and another, and another, even as the desperation flooded over her in terribly icy waves. Her life began to flash across her eyes like bolts of lightening. Her father's blue eyes and calloused but loving hands, her mother's sleek gracefulness as she sparred with her in the evenings after work in the fields. Judith's playful banter and teasing grins, the faces of her family and the only life she had ever known. And Mal, his eyes made of steel that sparked with fire and life and heat that beat and pulsed for her. The feel of his hands against her ribs, his teeth on her neck, the flex of his muscles bucking up into her even as her hips rotated on top of his. She'd be damned if she gave that up, if she let those monsters take even a single piece of that from her.
She screamed with the effort as her neck arched back and she desperately reached for any sort of weapon possible. Her fingers clawed and scrabbled and finally closed upon a splintered piece of wood. She yanked her arm forward and drove the board into the Walker's skull, blood spattering everywhere on her skin and clothes but at last the demon lay still. She turned her attention to the third one, terrified it would slip off to the side and snag her arm in its rotted teeth and rip the flesh off her bones the way she would tear the meat off of deer's rib, but the thing was so focused on trying to reach her face that it didn't seem to notice an easier target, but it wasn't close enough for her to kill, and her legs were still pinned down. She was just about to give an all or nothing thrust to try and wiggle out from under the dead weight when suddenly the Walker seized and stiffened, a bloody knife tip protruding from its forehead.
"Luna!" Mal's face was white as a sheet beneath his caramel complexion and his eyes were wide as two full moons, full of terror. He yanked his knife free and hauled both Walker bodies away from her and slashed the kudzu vines pinning her down. She yelped like a wounded hound dog and tried to rub the blood off of her face even as she scrambled away from the corpses and vines that had almost been the cause of her death. She didn't even have time to feel the world stop spinning on its axis before long, warm fingers closed over her wrist and yanked her against a strong, almost trembling body. She buried her face against Mal's chest and whimpered, gasping for air, trying not to completely come undone.
Mal pushed against her shoulder and stared her right in the face so she could read his lips. "Don't ever do that again!" He pulled her against his chest so tightly she could almost feel her bones creaking. "Don't ever do that again, Luna." He pressed his cheek against hers and the thin little frightened whimpers coming from her was almost enough to break his heart. Someone like her should never be so frightened, it violated everything he knew of her, and hammered home how close he'd come to losing her.
She arched up against him and claimed his mouth in a bloody, shaking, barely coordinated kiss. Her fingers clutched his hair as she desperately attacked his mouth, trying to wipe away the horrible feeling of death clutching at her so tightly it had nearly dragged her to the gate of hell.
"I love you," she breathed against him. She'd felt it in the frantic way her heart was hammering in her chest, the way his hands stroking up and down her back and shoulders seemed to settle her back into her skin, the way that she'd been grateful that it was him that had saved her. She didn't have the right frame of mind to question now why it came to her so easily, but it didn't have to matter now. What mattered was he was here, they were both still alive, and she knew that if she didn't tell him now, she'd regret it, because at any second they could be parted.
He let his hands cup the sides of her head and tipped her head back so he was looking down at her. He stared down into her blue eyes, still so full of fire and wolf-song and an unimaginable drive for life. They burned too with the remnants of her terror and the quickly hardening resolve, and even though she was smeared with blood and still shaking like a leaf in a storm's gale, she was beautiful.
"As I love you." He kissed her hard and fast, a rough, messy press of his lips on hers, but she wouldn't have had it any other way. It lasted barely a second or two, but it was enough to bring her back up to fighting speed.
They ran like bats out of hell back to the edge of the ally where their friends were waiting. Luna sheathed her knives and pulled out her pistols and began taking shots at the moving Walkers that stood in their path, mowing them down like she used to do with cans out in the field that her family had used as a practice range. Every time the gun popped with its kickback in her hand she felt as though the coolness of the wind created from the traveling speed of the bullet stroked against her face, quieting much of her previous terror. She was certain it would come back, but for now the flying of the bullets and the sight of the dismembered corpses hitting the ground staved off the potential meltdown.
When the path was clear enough they took off at a sprint, the soles of their shoes scraping pavement and propelling them along as fast as they could go, leaving a horde of spent shell casings and dead bodies in their wake. Luna led them through the streets, trying to keep her eyes peeled for the possibility of stealing a car but they had no such luck. They were still at a fast lope when Leland panted, "Where are we going?"
"Back to the quarry! We need to rest before we go back into Atlanta, unless you want to navigate the tunnels exhausted and in the dark."
Leland shook his head and even though his lungs were burning and his calves were screaming from the effort he kept pace with his friends. Beside him, Judith jogged steadily, her head up, her eyes blazing bright. Somewhere along the way she'd managed to tie back her hair but several of its shorter layers had slipped and fallen and were tinged with sweat even as the sun finally began to sink towards the trees. She looked over at him when she realized he was watching and despite it all, she was able to laugh with trembling exhaustion and overwhelming relief. They were still alive.
"What the hell did you get yourself into girl?" Merle spat the taste of ash out the side of his mouth as he picked over the massacred bodies of truly dead Walkers that were laid out all over the streets of his old town. Even in the dark at this distance he could see the dozens, if not hundreds, of spent shell casings that were scattered everywhere. There were several biters lingering around but none of them seemed in too big a hurry to follow after him as he moved quickly through the blood soaked streets. He saw a human sized hole in the side of one of the buildings and two more dead Walkers, and in the faint shaft of moonlight he could see a piece of torn fabric. He picked it up and recognized the material as a part of the shirt Luna had been wearing just last night.
"So you and your pals made it out alive, didja? Sounds about right. Your old man was always good at slipping out of sticky situations." He huffed a coarse breath and kept going. The trail began to become harder to follow as he followed the main drag out of town, but there was enough of it left that he could get a general direction of where they were headed.
"Couldn't have gotten much further than that ol' fishbowl, not after a fight like that," Merle reasoned. He picked up the pace, determined to reach them before dawn. Luna had left him with a bleeding nose and pride so beaten down that he now found himself loping to the edge of town, picking his way through the edges of Walker groups and heading for the highway that would take him up to the quarry. He had almost refused to give it credence, but after the third and fourth shots of whiskey had done nothing to ease the horrible restlessness squirming in his gut he'd gathered up his supplies and hauled out. He couldn't get the image of her eyes burning through him out of his mind, or the sound of her terribly grated words out of his ears, so harsh and thick from both her deafness and her simmering anger. She had all her parents' fire, that was for sure. Never once in the entire time he'd held her mother captive had she turned away in fear. Never once had she flinched or backed down, or even so much as held her tongue. Certainly she had screamed, but there had never been surrender. And her father…his little brother, the only person in the world who had ever meant anything good to him…he saw so much of him in her eyes that it had shaken him to his core. He could hear him in her words, the barest trace of softness in her tone that whispered truth, the twitch of her lip and jaw when she spat the honesty of his failures and his guilt at him like nails, just like Daryl could do on the rare occasions he'd been provoked, usually after he'd had too much whiskey.
Merle couldn't stop himself from mulling it over, all night long, as he made his way from town to the quarry. Living completely independent has he had had wrought an endurance in him that was leading him up the slope of the gravel hill where he, his brother, and those city slicker stragglers had first taken refuge so long ago when the world had first collapsed in on itself. He didn't fancy having to confront the entire pack of kids, he really only cared to deal with Luna, and was still coming up the hill trying to formulate a plan to get her on her own when he saw motion at least a hundred feet ahead of him.
A lean, prone form leapt gracefully out of a large tree and began to stalk towards him. He could tell from the slender frame that it was a female, and the arm was extended, a pistol held out straight level with his head.
"How'd you see me?" Merle drawled softly as Luna approached. Even in the darkness he knew it was his niece. Judith, though powerful, never moved with so much of a predatory stalk in her step. The softest trace of confident swagger in her thighs and the tension in her shoulders was entirely her father's walk, but the expression on her face, one almost of smirking contempt, was her mother.
"Being deaf so young made my eyes better," she answered calmly, but did not lower the pistol. "Why did you come here?"
"Think you could lower that pretty little pistol you got pointed at my face? I just came to talk."
She bared her teeth in a conniving clash. "Why did you come here?" she demanded again, brandishing the gun with total steadiness.
"Your ma's afraid of guns ain't she? There was no holster on her belt for one when we had her in Colorado. And your dad was never carrying a spare to give her once he got her loose." His eyes sparked coldly as a twisted leer played with his mouth.
"She might be," was Luna's answer. "But I ain't."
Merle's smirk only increased. "Nah. But I am awful curious as to what you're really afraid of."
"Who gives a shit, Merle?" she growled low in her throat. "Either you'll help me, or you won't, and that's really all there is too it."
"Oh you had plenty to say about my fucking feelings, I think you can stand to listen to some of your own," Merle shot back, a ruthless knife stabbing through every syllable.
"What makes you think you know me? That you know anything about who I am, what I've done, what I plan on doing?"
Merle's expression loosened just barely, just enough to surprise her. "Maybe I don't know. But let's say I'm curious. You said you're planning on burning the CDC to the ground. How exactly you think you're gonna accomplish that and make it out alive?"
She didn't lower the gun but her shoulders slowly began to relax. "My friends and I have a plan," she answered.
He snorted at her with contempt. "Jenner will rip you to pieces like a Walker with a fresh kill before you even get close." He shifted his weight between his feet, a cold light in his eyes but she didn't back down. "You really think you're gonna be able to stop him?"
"Any man can be killed, Merle. It's not that hard."
Merle exhaled another sharp breath. "You ever killed anybody, Luna?"
"Have you?" she shot back.
He didn't answer, but she could see the look in his eyes, the ice chipping the edges of his pale irises. She knew the answer was yes. Yes he had.
She lowered the gun and stepped forward, beckoning him to follow her back towards the edge of the quarry to keep the conversation from potentially waking any of her friends. She wasn't sure why it mattered, they'd met him already, but for some reason she felt it better to put as much distance between them and her uncle as possible.
"I know more about you thank you think I do," Merle started, the words slow but still full of heat and a familiar poison that she almost shuddered at.
"Sure you do," she growled coldly. "You don't know a damn thing about me."
He swung his remaining hand forward and caught her by the shoulder and gave her a rough push to turn her towards him, completely facing him now instead of just her head turned so she could read his lips. She bristled at the contact and began to jerk her arm with the gun in it up but he pinned it down with his metal contraption and she held still, breathing sharply through her nose, the scent of metal and leather and whiskey searing her lungs.
"I know you ain't any better than the things I've done," he hissed. "You're gonna take your kin and your friends down into that hell hole just to wipe your slate clean. You'd rather risk their lives than feel guilty for letting all those sorry bastards die down there. But what happens when they get killed, huh Luna? What will you feel then? You think you're just gonna be able to run on home if you show back up without Judith, and they all find out it was your fault because you had the chance to walk away and you didn't?" His eyes burned and she felt the terrible cold snake of fear biting down her spine with ice picks for fangs.
"I can't do it without them! They know the risk, I'm not dragging any of them!" she spat back, trying to wriggle out of his grip that he had on her shoulder but his fingers were brutally strong and held onto her firmly, not allowing her to escape.
"Sure they know, but they don't really know, do they? They don't know how far you'll go, what you'll trade just to avenge your family. Isn't that what this is really about?"
She glared at him with a look so powerful that he was sure he felt his heart stop for several long seconds. She bared her teeth at him and snarled low in her throat.
"That's what it would be about for you!" she spat. "Now, I'm not saying I wouldn't love to see that bastard Jenner torn to pieces by biters, but that's not enough to make me risk my sister or my friends lives! This is about making sure no one else suffers because of him! Leland and Tau, they were taken from their families, just like me and Judith, and they'll never see them again, Merle! And when Jenner murders this batch of kids, he'll just have his goons steal more and more and more and it has to end!"
"And what about the tall one trying to get between you and me last night? What was his name? Mal?" A slow, sickening leer twisted Merle's mouth. "You willing to risk his life for this little mission of yours?"
"He knows the risk, I'm not dragging him." But her words tasted like ash in her mouth and that snake of fear on her spine wrapped itself around her heart and began to squeeze down hard, filling her with dread.
"Sure you're not," Merle sneered. "You act like you're self-righteous, in the end, you're just as selfish as I ever was. At least I tried to protect my own, wasn't my fault he went tearing off into the blue with your crazy ass mother."
Luna backed away from him and sheathed her pistol. "Don't make me break your nose for real this time," she growled. "You're wrong, Merle. You didn't protect him. Why do you think he lived his life with his back against the wall?"
"You weren't there!" he growled, low and deep in his throat, all menace and deep seated anger and pain beginning to roil to the surface. "He came tearing into that cell to go for Phillip and if I hadn't gotten between them, Phillip would have shot him! You would have never existed, because as soon as Daryl was dead, Phillip would have killed your mother and that would have been the end of this whole fucking mess!"
"You locked him in a cell and he listened to her scream while she was being mauled." Her chest was trembling with some twisted tangle of anger and pain and fear she didn't entirely understand. "But we've been around this way before, so tell me, what did you really come here for?"
"Don't make the same mistake I did!" Merle shouted at last, his chest heaving with the force of emotion. "Don't trade your family for your pride!"
Her stance finally eased as the lock holding the maelstrom of feelings slowly dissolved and everything came apart and the pressure finally relaxed.
"This isn't pride, Merle," she murmured softly. "This is my choice. And if they choose to follow me, that's up to them." She exhaled a long, shaking breath and glanced back at the sleeping sprawl of her friends in the long, clean grass of the quarry and smiled gently as she turned back towards Merle and just watched him for several seconds before speaking.
"Want to stay the night and come with us towards Atlanta in the morning?" she asked.
He let loose a sharp breath and shook his head. "Nah girl. Never was one for much company. I'll go down to the highway and get set up. You'll never even know I was there by the time you go past."
She nodded. "There's biters on the road. Be careful."
"You too. Because if I have to break the bad news you ended up as a Walker snack, I'll personally haunt you in hell after your daddy kills me."
She snickered a little. "Nah, it wouldn't be Dad. It'd be Mom."
He tilted his head in consideration. "If that bitch got the better of me in a fair fight, I'd rather be dead."
She rolled her eyes and waved him away, but before he could go far she called back to him. "Thank you, Merle."
He managed to nod before he turned on his heel and headed back down the hill and she returned to her perch in the tree to stand watch. It wasn't that much later when the sun began to come up and she finally moved from her post and picked her way through her friends and found Mal, nudging him gently until he woke up. Without a word she pulled him up to his feet even as he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
"I meant what I said," she whispered against his neck as her arms came around him. "I love you," she breathed as she looked up at him.
He looked down at her and saw the swirl of her emotions in her eyes. There were deeper, more serious things on the tip of his tongue, but he decided for the moment, he'd rather see her laugh than be weighted down by the thought of everything she might lose.
"Really? This isn't a bad wake up call, but I think morning sex would have been better. Either that or something with caffeine."
He could only hold a straight face for about five seconds before he burst out laughing at her expression. She snickered unwillingly as well, breaking away from him and cuffing him with the heel of her hand on his forehead, making him wince and duck his shoulders.
"You sleaze dog," she teased but she was still laughing, and when she met his eyes, all of the real emotion passed between them like a lightening bolt, but the slight throb in his head was completely worth it to see her smile at him like that.
All six of them were on the steps of the CDC's doors, having just finished running the Gauntlet. The sun was beating down on them with furious abandon and biters were snapping at their heels as they staggered up the stairs towards the glass doors. They all expected what was coming, and both Judith and Luna were bracing for the worst. They stood side by side, flanked by the rest of their friends as they made their way towards both what would be safety from the biters, and yet might also become their tomb. Luna would be a liar if she said she didn't feel a sharp bolt of fear slam down her throat as they threw themselves inside and staggered into a tangled heap on the sleek lobby floor of the CDC, gasping for air, covered in blood from fighting their way through the biters, dust and filth from the road, shaking with exhaustion and hunger.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Martinez drawled as he looked down at the pathetic mess of teenagers on the ground at his booted feet. Flanking him at his shoulders were four other men, and they were all armed with large rifles. "You guys look like you've been run through the mill."
Mal managed to look up and began to pick up his feet, being careful to avoid helping Luna or Judith. They had to make this look real. It was never going to work otherwise.
"They put up a helluva fight," he answered, nudging Luna with his shoe as she lay there panting. She tried to get up to her feet but before she got much further than her knees Martinez lunged forward and clocked her hard in the shoulder blade and kicked her back down to her belly with a painful yelp.
"Take her sister down to the cells. Jenner wants this one in the lab."
Panic flushed Mal and he could see it on the faces of his friends, barely disguised even with their physical exhaustion as Martinez's lackeys snatched up Judith and began to drag her away, kicking and screaming even as they wound plastic zip tie cuffs around her wrists. This was definitely not part of the plan. Both girls were supposed to be in the cells…in the lab with Jenner was the exact right way for this to completely fall apart.
Martinez stepped forward and snatched Luna up by the nape of the neck who, to her credit, fought as hard as she could. It took Martinez and the two other men to restrain her and begin to haul her down towards the elevators to take her underground towards the labs. As Luna continued to holler and kick and screech at the top of her lungs, Martinez glared at Mal angrily.
"You could give us a hand here!" he barked coldly as he struggled to restrain Luna.
Mal snorted and threw up his hands, shaking his head. "She's your problem now. I dragged her all the way here."
Martinez spat on the floor at him and at last managed to shove Luna into the lifts and disappeared behind its steel doors with her, leaving Mal, Leland, Tau, and Simon standing in the lobby, panic now erupting through their veins.
"What the fuck do we do now?" Tau demanded, stomping her frustration into the floor even as Mal's brain whirred a mile a minute, trying to come up with a back up plan. He rounded on Simon and sank his long fingers into his shoulder to pull him down towards eye level.
"Go find your brother. Take the weapons from the armory and give them to the kids we can trust. Tell them to hide it on their person and to stay out of their rooms. If Jenner starts the test, that's where the guards will go to find them. Keep them as scattered as you can. We have to stall Jenner's testing as long as possible."
Simon nodded sharply. Mal was relieved to see that although there was urgency and some anxiety in his eyes, there was strength and commitment and a willingness to fight as well.
"We'll do what we have to," he said quickly and Mal let him go and he took off like a bat out of hell for the stairs, thinking it'd be faster than the lifts and Mal turned towards Tau.
"Tau, you work with the solar power that runs this place right?"
She nodded as she managed to finish tying her massive mane of hair back to get it out of her face. Her brown skin was smeared with grit and blood just like the rest and her shoulders were shaking from the exhaustion and effort it had taken to get back here, but she knew they had a long way to go before they could rest. Fire curled through her belly like a living, breathing thing as the thought of being so close to freedom and avenging her family hit her like a freight train. It hadn't truly felt real until this moment but now that it was within her grasp, she knew she'd do anything to see this through to the end.
"Raid the kitchen, get as many rations as you can and find any adults we can trust and tell them to load up the vehicles. We're gonna need a fast getaway and with the cars we might have a shot at getting through the streets, even with the Walkers in the way. Once you've got as much food and water as you can get in the cars, cut the power. Leave the emergency generators on, it'll make things dark and confusing, but the security override won't go into affect as long as the generators are running. Find as many of the kids as you can and get them in the cars, tell them to head for the highway to get the fuck out of town."
"What about you? And the ones I can't find? You'll need to get out too," she said worriedly.
Mal looked between himself and Leland and exhaled quickly. "We can take care of ourselves better than most of them. They need to get away as quick as possible before shit completely hits the fan. Go with them if you want to. You'll have done more than enough for us." He smiled for her and she shot him a teasing smirk right back.
"As if I'd leave you freaks here to mess it up. I'll get as many of them out as I can and then I'll come find you to help with the rest." She playfully punched Mal's shoulder and then hugged Leland hard. He returned her embrace quickly, squeezing his friend tightly before she pulled away and took off towards the kitchens.
"Yes General Malachi?" Leland asked teasingly as the sound of Tau's footsteps faded on the linoleum.
"You know where Martinez's office is?" Mal asked. When he nodded Mal began to feel his heart rate skyrocketing and he quickly yanked off the thin silver chain he'd hidden beneath his shirt off his neck, and on that chain were two keys. He normally didn't wear it unless he had a specific reason to, it wasn't wise to advertise the fact he had an advantage he knew damn well Jenner and Martinez wouldn't want him to have, but he knew he'd need these keys before the day was out. He freed one key from the chain and pressed it into Leland's hand.
"This is a master key for all the doors in the building, including the cells. Jenner thinks he and Martinez are the only ones that have them, but I was able to make a spare or two a long time ago. In Martinez's office are the security codes that he gets from Jenner before he gives them to you when we go for runs. The alarm will sound if Jenner puts the building into lockdown, but the codes will unlock all the doors automatically. If the alarm goes off, punch in the code and then get the hell out, and take as many people as you can with you."
"What about you? And Luna?" Leland asked as he pocketed the key.
"I'm going down to the lab. Jenner may choose to start his little experiment with her, and I'm not going to let her die down there." He unsheathed his pistol and ejected the spent clip and thrust a fresh one in before pulling the hammer back to chamber a round and putting it back in its holster, sans safety.
Leland grabbed his long time friend in a fierce embrace. "Be careful," he urged.
"You too." Mal let him go and watched him take off for the lifts, knowing he was going down into the cells to free Judith before heading for Martinez's office. Mal turned on his heel and took off at a run to cross the lobby and head for the emergency stairs to head down towards the lab where he knew Martinez would be taking Luna. He didn't know what Jenner might be planning to do with her down there and he didn't care. It was time for this to end, and even though he was alone, he could hear the pounding footsteps of his friends echoing around him in the concrete stairwell and he imagined them running like a pack of wolves on the most desperate hunt in the middle of winter. The cold chill of fear ran against his spine like snow and ice but it was drowned out by the memory of his little wolf's fire scorching his skin, and he knew this time, he'd join her in the hunt.
DarylDixon'sLover: Will they find others and I think Merle needs his brother.
I can promise a reunion. I cannot promise however how well that reunion will go xD
Brittney: So glad you're back, I've missed Wolfsong! As always, great chapter! :)
Well back might not be the best word, but I'm doing my best!
mrskaz453: OMG...I'm glad that Fox straighten Rick out, but I'm still ticked at the two of them... if only a little...LOL Even after talking to Daryl, Rick still tried to cross that line with Fox and that makes him no better than Shane... and not as good a friend to Daryl as Daryl is to him...The confrontation between Fox/Rick was needed... Rick trying to bait her was just wrong..I wished she would have just kicked his butt into next week... I get some of her feelings in regards to Rick, but still don't like it... probably never will and I'm a huge Rickyl fan...I get that they have a bond and understand what she said...but Rick needs to seriously back the heck off and she needs to put some distance between them... I'm glad she brought up what she did with Glen, because that was wrong on so many levels, but like she said Daryl forgave her...and will forgive her for this... Telling Rick her real name was something they can't get back...and that's something I think will continue to hurt Daryl...and something Rick, even after her telling him that she was Daryl's, tried to use again...I'm glad that it's over...or at least, I hope so...but I don't think that Daryl will ever fully trust Rick again and he shouldn't... He's always going to have Rick's back, but there should be something different in thier friendship...Rick has to earn that back, as does Fox...Alright, I admit, I'm hard on both of them.. and a stubborn bitch to boot...LOl I did like what she said about her/Daryl...and I really hope that after this she will be loyal to him, finally... completely...I loved Daryl/Fox... that was hot...and Daryl needed that... He knew that she went to talk with Rick and in the back of his mind, he has to wonder... Daryl will always be loyal to both, love them both, forgive them, but I hope he doesn't forget...Yeah, Daryl is headed for Merle... I hope they get there and find the girls... Luna/Uncle Merle together... I don't know how or if Daryl could ever forgive what he did to Fox...but maybe Merle can earn something back.. not everything, but something... So excited to see what comes next.. Daryl/Merle reunion... Luna/Judith reunion with thier family, Daryl/Rick meeting the boys..OMG, those boys are in for it...but I'm sure Judith/Luna will protect them from thier daddies... and Fox..I so love this story.. the way you write the conversations & interactions between everyone is awesome... Are you sure your not on the writing staff of TWD...because this would make for great TV...Update soon... loving this
With Rick and Fox's confrontation, I definitely took cues from the show for how to play that one, and as time has gone on, he's definitely shown that he doesn't have a problem with getting under people's skin and starting trouble if it will suit his purpose, so that influenced how I decided to go with that one. I think the level of friendship between Rick and Daryl is unbalanced in certain ways, because in the apocalypse Daryl was able to make himself a man that he can be proud of, whereas Rick spiraled downwards in many ways, and so that offsets the two of them at times, but I love being able to play around with that in writing. Ohh the confrontation between the two of them, I had originally planned it to be much more violent, but I chose to back down, because the pivotal moment was when Fox has him pinned down and says "you want me to prove I'm his?" and she proves it by letting him go. In another life, if Daryl hadn't been there to influence her in a positive way, she'd of probably killed him. She was trying to prove Daryl's taught her the value of mercy as well as the importance in fighting for humanity rather than giving up on it. But during the confrontation she was definitely able to get through to Rick and so he'll keep his distance from now on. It wasn't as if there was ever a chance between the two of them, but now Rick understands where Fox was coming from, and me personally, I think that's almost always the key to resolving conflict. Daryl will forgive Rick in time, he knows better than to throw away the bond they have as brothers over a conflict like this. He knows the man that Rick truly is and understands his weaknesses, but that doesn't mean he won't be guarded. Mmm, I can't wait for the reunion between Daryl and Merle. I have several different takes on how it could go, I haven't completely decided on how that will work but I'm looking forward to it. Definitely won't be a brother's-in-arms meet up, that's for sure. Daryl has forgiven Merle for some things, but not for others. The main grudge Daryl still holds against his brother is not even for beating up Fox and everything Phillip did to her, it's the fact that he chose to hang onto his pride even when the situation was so desperate, as Merle had done throughout their entire childhood. So it's a lingering pit of so many small betrayals caused by pride that Daryl really has a hard time with forgiving Merle for, not so much that specific incident. Although, obviously, that last one will not lay down and die easily either. Lol, yes my friend, I'm quite certain I'm not on the writing staff of TWD. If I was, then I'd at least have a legit excuse for why it takes so long for new material xD.
Emberka-2012: Well, this conversation was obliged to taken place. And Rick understood what Fox meant. Ha, Daryl came to the same idea as to his daughter - Merle.
It was definitely obliged. They were never going to be able to move on from that if they didn't hash things out. And Rick does, finally, understand where both Fox and Daryl are coming from, why small things mean as much as they do. Lol, Daryl and Luna do think similarly in many ways don't they? ;)
RedneckBunny: I think it's safe to say, all of your loyal readers will want to get a copy of your published work. That way, when someone else tells us about this New York Times Bestseller/Breakout Author we can be like "We've known how awesome she is for years. Glad the rest of the world got with it" :-D And as far as the latest chapter goes... That... *fans self* was awesome. I've always loved the very animalistic aspects you've given Daryl and Fox as individuals and a couple. And I love that you've passed it on to Luna too with the twist of her deafness (is "deafness" even a word? and I like to think I'm a writer... sheesh). I'm glad I finally had a spare moment to read this chapter. Having a baby and taking care of him by myself most of the day has taken away most of my lazy times. But I will always find the time to read your story without falling far behind.
Awwww, that just makes my writer's heart beat harder with excitement. Ahhhh, the idea of being a published writer with a breakout work… shiver inducing day dream my friend, but enough plugging xD That's one of the things I love about the show in general is that because of the circumstances the characters find themselves in, those animal instincts come so close to the surface that they often get out. It looks like the humanity is being stripped away…but is that really what's happening? Or is it that true human nature is being revealed? Interesting to think about. And in the case of Daryl and Fox, neither of them had much sugarcoating to start with, and they both understand, and love, that about each other. They can be rough and wild with each other and not worry about judgement or reproach. Not only that, but they can enjoy those parts of themselves together. And Luna of course inherited a double dose of that from her parents. Her being deaf has caused her to have a very visceral, black and white view of the world, and so she'd much rather just deal with the simplistic, animal nature of things, and that obviously comes out in her own personality. Ahhh, new baby, I understand, for quite a while I was babysitting a 2 month old and even though he was a relatively easy going baby, still never got much else done during that time. I only wish I could update faster for you guys, ugh, life, it keeps getting in the way!
lunasky99: Oh my god, this chapter was amazing! I'm glad that Rick, Fox and Daryl all have an understanding now 'cause that problem has been going on for far to long now, and though subtle for awhile it was still a problem. Yeah same for you, life gets in the way sometimes so don't beat yourself up over not updating super quickly. Great, can't wait!. I totally get what you mean with the whole multiple projects thing I do it all the time and most the time I don't stick with them 'cause I just get more and more and then the first things don't matter anymore. I solute you for sticking with things to the end even though you have like ten million other things going on. Yeah, I can name at least eight people that wouldn't even stand a chance just off the top of my head in my family. Well... she definitely succeeded from my POV, though Merle will probably make up some sort of excuse to make it seem like she didn't actually get to him. Yeah I bet it would be terrifying to love anyone in the middle of the ZA 'cause there's always that chance of them not making it another day. Hmmm, It really is true love if they can love the bad parts of you as much as they love the good. Hmm well we will figure out soon enough if he loves all of her or just the good parts or even if this is like the Rick/Fox love. Hahahahaha! I can't wait to read it!
It was definitely a problem that they had to deal with, because if they didn't, it would eventually be the unraveling of everything else, and of course as a writer, because apparently I have a cruel streak, I loved writing that conflict, and its resolution xD Ugh, the curse of multiple projects. I was walking my dog last night and I was suddenly hit with yet another original idea that could make a great novel and I'm like 'ugh, seriously, Muse, I do not have time for this!' I personally think it's terrifying to love someone, whether it's a ZA or not, because, when you love them, they can wound you, sometimes irreparably so, but a ZA definitely doesn't make it any easier. Or maybe it does, because then you have something really worth fighting and living for? Ahh, two sides to every coin. I really appreciate you sticking with me on this, man, I feel bad for taking so long to update. Again. *headdesk*