A/N: Hello readers…

Sorry I got a little bit delayed in revealing the next chapter, but things got kinda nuts at school (it's mid-term project time, which is always stressful for me) and I didn't want to release it before I was happy with where things stood.

This is a pretty emotional chapter as you probably have already guessed. I went through quite a rollercoaster ride in writing it, but I think it's also some of my best work so far. It took a lot out of me just trying to get it all down onto paper, and I obviously can't tell you what's going to happen yet, but I want to thank everyone for sticking with me as long as they have. Hopefully when all is said and done, you'll still be as invested in the story as I am. I hope I don't let anyone down:)

Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead.

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Ch15.

Carol's heart was in her throat. Her mind was racing, trying to figure out what to do as Beth screamed in horror at the vision of her arm being savagely ripped open. The walker was about to go back for seconds, and she had to act fast.

When Ed had first started hitting her, she'd enrolled herself in a self-defense class to try and build up the courage to fight him back. She hadn't made it through more than two classes before he'd found out about it and made her sorry that she'd ever signed up for it, but she did remember a move she had seen the instructor do. Praying to God that it worked, she ran at the walker with her elbow poised right at its throat. She managed to knock it back against the wall far enough to grab Beth and pull her away.

It had worked, but there was no time to be impressed at her accomplishment. There was also no way to get to the gun now. The walker was right in the path she needed to get to, and she really didn't want to try that move again. Beth was still screaming and she was probably going into shock. Carol quickly grabbed the girl's uninjured arm and dragged her along down the hallway as she attempted to figure out where they could go. She knew the walker was following quickly behind.

"Beth, I need you to concentrate for me." She said as calmly as she could. "We need to get you back to the infirmary to see what we can do about your arm."

"It's too late!" Beth sobbed. "Just leave me!"

"NO!" Carol yelled, searching a door nearby. "I am not leaving you behind! There's still time! We can save you!"

"IT'S COMING!"

Carol spun around and saw the walker just feet away. Without a rational thought left, she managed to open up one of the doors nearby that looked like it had been secured. She took a quick look inside and didn't see anything moving. Taking a shot in the dark, she grabbed Beth and threw her in the room, following quickly behind. It was lined wall to wall with storage lockers, but not much else. As Carol went to push the door shut behind them, the walker's fingers got there first, curling around the frame as she tried desperately to push it back.

"NOOO!"

Beth screamed out, but seemed to be paralyzed by fear, not to mention the loss of blood. Carol was stuck holding her own against the monster, who was doing a decent job of trying to push its way into the room. It didn't help that it was probably twice her size either. One thing that had always amazed Carol about walkers was just how strong they were, even after most of their limbs had rotted away. Their primal instinct to find food surpassed anything else, and she'd seen them overtake animals twice their size in the process. She continued to try and push the door shut, but it was a constant tug of war.

"Let go you bastard!"

Carol suddenly got an idea. Hoping it would work, she backed away from the door far enough to give herself some leverage and kicked it forward, hoping to throw it off balance. The walker let go and flew back against the opposite wall in the hallway, and Carol was able to grab the handle, slamming the door shut and throw herself against it. Luckily it had worked, but now she was scared to let go of the door. Flashbacks of her ordeals with Ed were coming back in waves. There had been plenty of times that she'd had to barricade herself and her daughter against a door in the middle of the night to keep her drunk, abusive husband at bay. The feeling of sheer terror was very much the same.

"Beth…" Carol continued to lean against the steel door, trying desperately not to break down. "We need to find something for me to kill it with. Is there anything in those lockers?"

Beth snapped out of her state and began to look around in the lockers. Most of them weren't very large, so the chances of finding something big enough to take it down were slim. Maybe someone had managed to sneak in a knife, but as she continued to look, it was looking hopeless. Carol pushed back against the door and noticed that it seemed secure for the moment. She ran over to the other side of the wall and started throwing open lockers left and right. They had all been cleaned out. There was absolutely nothing that would be of any help to them. It was enough to make a sane person lose their mind.

"HOW CAN THERE NOT BE A SINGLE THING IN HERE?!"

"Maybe Rick cleared it out when he came down here." Beth said quietly. "What do we do?"

All Carol wanted to do in that moment was curl up in a ball and cry. It was one thing to feel empowered when you had a weapon in your hands, but with the prospect of trying to save a life on top of having nothing to do it with was the most hopeless feeling she could imagine. She could hear the walker starting to pound against the door again, and knew they needed to act fast. One of the lockers on the side was pretty rusty and it looked like someone had tried to pry the door off the wall, but had been unsuccessful in doing so. Carol grabbed onto it, hoping that maybe she could get it the rest of the way off and use it as a stabbing mechanism, but the door wouldn't budge. She looked around on the floor, hoping that maybe something might have fallen just underneath the edges of the wall that she could use, but again she came up empty. The one thing she did notice was that there were some big cracks in the cement in one corner of the room. One went straight across the corner, and there was a slight gap in between. If she could manage to loosen it, maybe it would be big enough to actually do some damage.

"I'm going to try and pry up that piece of cement in the corner. I need you to watch the door for me and tell me if he's getting close to breaking in."

Beth walked over towards the door while Carol shoved her fingers down into the crevice of the floor, trying to get enough of a lip that she could grab it and pick it up. The walker was pounding louder now, and Beth looked more frightened than she had before. Carol continued to claw at the rock until her fingers were on the verge of bleeding, and after what felt like eternity, the piece finally started to wiggle and she was able to loosen it from the floor. The slab was about the size of her hand, but it was heavy and jagged on the underside. At this point, she didn't have a choice. It was the only weapon they had.

"Beth, I'm going to open the door and try to take it down." She walked back to the door, pushing her back towards the corner. "Just try to stay as far away from it as you can. If you get the chance, you run. Do you understand?"

Beth nodded; her face was extremely pale. Carol knew she had to do this now or the girl didn't stand a chance. Bracing herself behind the door, she yanked it open. The walker stumbled into the room, immediately taking notice of Beth. She screamed as it went barreling towards her.

"AAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Carol came up from behind, figuring she could kill it with a blow to the head. Unfortunately, it wasn't until she got closer to it that she realized that it was nearly a foot taller than she was. As she lifted the rock over her head to bring it down, she miscalculated her range and ended up clipping it in the shoulder. She felt the clavicle snap, but the force wasn't enough to knock it over. It turned its attention back to her, and Carol had nowhere to go. She backed up, trying to put space between her and the walker so she could propel forward, but a piece of cement from the slab fell to the floor. Carol felt her foot give out from under her and she went crashing back into the corner of the rusted locker, hitting her head on the wall in the process. The force of the impact rattled her teeth and she slumped down onto the floor.

"CAROL!"

She could hear Beth screaming for her as the room came back into view again. The walker was only feet away, and the look on its face told her that he was determined to get a meal out of one of them before this was all over. Carol went to get up, but fell back, gasping in pain at the burning sensation that radiated up her side. The walker was still focused on her, and in that moment, Carol knew what she needed to do.

"Beth…you need to go…" She felt tears come to her eyes. "Tell Daryl I love him…"

"I'm not leaving you!" Beth sobbed. "Please get up!"

She tried once again, but the pain was still enough to take her breath away. The thought of neither of them making it out of the room alive was too much to bear. If the walker made its way up to the main area without notice, it would put everyone in jeopardy. Carol hadn't had much time to focus on how her death would impact the others, but she knew that she couldn't handle the thought of others dying because of her mistake.

The piece of cement had gone flying when she'd fallen, and was now lying over on the other side of the room. Even if she could get up, she would never get to it before the walker attacked. Seconds were starting to feel like minutes as she tried to get her muddled brain to process what her next move should be. Carol turned her head back to where Beth had been standing, but was shocked to see that she was no longer there. Hoping that she had listened and made a run for it, she was once again surprised when Beth reappeared just behind the walker, now holding up the piece of cement. She yelled and slammed the stone into the side of the walker's head, knocking it off balance. In that moment, Beth had probably saved both of their lives, and it gave Carol the hope she needed.

Now able to think more clearly, she extended her leg out to trip the walker, just able to roll off to the side as it hit the ground next to her with a loud thud. Beth tossed her the slab, and with every ounce of energy she had left, Carol raised it over her head and slammed it down onto the walker's skull until she heard a loud crunching noise. It fell flat against the floor, but she wasn't about to take any chances. Without a conscious thought left, she continued to hit it over and over until there was nothing left but a pile of brains and a mass of mangled bloody flesh. Finally too exhausted to lift the rock up one more time, Carol threw it down and crawled over to Beth, who was now in a pile on the floor as well. When she went to comfort the poor woman and get a better idea of how bad the damage to her arm was, she was shocked to feel that Beth's skin was radiating with heat. She reached up to feel her forehead. It was blazing.

"Oh god…Beth…you're burning up."

Beth nodded, tears still welling in her eyes. "That's what I was trying to tell you. It's too late."

Carol's stomach rose up to her throat. She'd waited too long, and now there was no hope. Beth was already suffering, but Carol couldn't bring herself to be the one to end the girl's life. It was a double-edged sword. She tried desperately to hold back the sob that clutching her chest.

"We need to get you back." Carol wiped away the tears on her face and braced herself to get up. "I'm not leaving you here in this pit to die. You need to see your family."

Beth was getting hazy "I don't think I can walk that far."

"I need you to try sweetie." Carol pulled her up and pushed her forward. "I need to get you back where you belong."

"Carol…I'm sorry." Beth clung to her in delirium. "I never should have come down here. I put us both in danger."

Carol shook her head. "Don't you do that. You fought through your fear and you saved my life. Don't you dare blame yourself for any of this."

"But I-"

"No." Carol stopped her. "Beth I need you to keep fighting for me. Blame isn't going to get us anywhere right now. You need to keep being strong. Can you please do that for me?"

Beth nodded and Carol didn't waste any more time. She kicked the dead walker's leg out of the way and dragged Beth out the door and down the corridor. They started back down the same way, and Carol eased them both along little by little. She trusted her instincts to get them back, and by some absolute miracle, she seemed to be going in the right direction. Beth was starting to lose consciousness, so they had to constantly stop to rest. What would have normally been a two minute walk turned into a ten minute ordeal, but when they finally came into a part of the prison that Carol recognized, she nearly wept with joy.

There was no way to tell if anyone was within earshot of them, but Carol yelled out anyway, hoping someone would hear her. By this point, she was barely keeping Beth upright, and the pain in her side had doubled. She didn't know how much further she could go on, but just when she was about to give up, she saw Tyreese immerge. He ran over, seeing the two women covered in blood and the bite on Beth's arm. The look on his face revealed everything.

"Oh my god."

"Take her." Carol shoved Beth in his direction. "We need to get her to Hershel. She doesn't have much time."

Tyreese picked up the frail girl and rushed her over to the medical station. Carol lugged behind slowly, trying to keep up. The pain in her side was almost unbearable now, and she was starting to feel dizzy. Within a minute, Rick came running up to her, obviously filled in on the situation.

"I saw Beth and Tyreese." He exclaimed, grabbing her arm to steady her. "Are you bitten?"

"No." Her breathing was labored. "But I hit a wall and I think I busted my ribs."

"What about the walker?"

"It's dead."

"And there weren't any more?"

"I don't know…" Carol started to see spots. "Rick, I need to sit down. I think I'm gonna-"

"Carol?"

She heard his voice, but it sounded warbled. Her vision got blurry. She felt Rick grab her by the waist when her knees gave out on her.

Everything went black.

A/N: Okay guys…I definitely want to address some things now that you've read the chapter, so bear with me please…

Deciding to kill off a character—any character—is never an easy decision. From the moment I thought of this story, I knew that I needed something dramatic to happen in the middle to keep the story flowing, and in a situation where these characters are always in danger, a walker attack seemed like a logical choice. I have nothing against Beth as a character, but in this case she just happened to fit the bill of what I needed for the scene. She also has ties to both Daryl and Carol, so the impact of her passing will be felt very strongly by them, as well as the others.

One thing that absolutely fascinates me about this show is how the deaths of characters dictates the lives of the others. As horrible as it may sound, I'm glad that Sophia died because it gave Carol the inner strength she needed to stand up and become a productive member of the group. Same with Merle and Daryl. Everyone is affected in some way but someone else and that story dictates their path. It's either a moment of clarity or a moment of insanity. Sometimes they're able to come back from the brink, and sometimes they can't. I am constantly asking myself how I'd handle the same situations if I was ever placed in them, and the honest answer is that I have no idea. I don't think you can know until you're in that spot and have to make the decision. I hope that you all can appreciate the wonders of this world the way that I do and know that when it's time for someone to die, there is always purpose behind it.

I want as much feedback on this one as you guys can give me. Be brutally honest if you need to, but again try to be respectful of the people who will be reading it. I will try to respond to as many of the reviews as I can and let you know that I appreciate what you guys are doing.

Live long and Caryl on.