AN: Everyone is commenting on the new trailer for Season 4. I am both encouraged by the snippets of Caryl, as well as deadly fearful! Beth? Oh sweet Jesus, what's that all about? And Tyreese? I'm sure he'll survive, but who didn't? I don't believe it's obvious, so, what are your theories? Inquiring minds want to know? And, if you're still reading this fic, I'd love to hear from you!
Chapter Eight
Her consciousness bounced back to her like static, a throbbing pain radiating throughout her body and alerting her mind that she wasn't dead, despite something inside her head screaming at her that she should be—or soon would be. Events started to unfold in her mind, and as Daryl's face before they were hit pushed its way through the blurred muddle of her memories, she became aware of the thick dripping of some heavy liquid from her chin to her shoulder, although the deep, lacerating agony most decidedly originated from her forehead. Her eye felt sticky and partially encrusted when she blinked it, and as everything finally crystallised in her brain, and she realised it was her blood that coated her face, fear ripped through her system and she came awake with a sharp, terror-filled gasp.
"Daryl?" She sniffled, hating herself that his name squeezed out of her throat on such a pathetic whisper. He was silent, though she heard some kind of struggle, a dense thumping reverberation against something like a wooden floor or table, and she forced herself to fight the drowsiness wanting her to just close her eyes again and forget about everything. "Daryl?" She was a little louder this time, though someone's unexpected touch sent her careening in shock and revulsion, and finally Carol's eyes snapped open to her worst nightmare.
One blue eye and a black eye-patch was barely an inch away from her face. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. He can't answer you right now."
Carol struggled to force his grip off her face and arched her shuddering body to see around him, gasping painfully as she found Daryl staring at her from the floor. He was deadly still, his arms bound, his mouth gagged, and he tried to convey to her some kind of message that Carol already knew she'd blatantly ignore, even if she could decipher Dixon eye-language. She looked back at the Governor and she felt righteous anger rid her of her last grain of common-sense, seeing nothing but a cruel and twisted brute with too much power that he'd let go to his head. All she saw was Ed, and frankly, she was sick to death of seeing him. Of being afraid of him. Of being afraid of any version of him.
She took her time to observe her surroundings, ignoring the psychopath in front of her until she was sure she understood their situation. Until the pain that made her entire body throb was consumed within her as something that existed but didn't matter. Couldn't matter until they were safe. A great, hulking black man with impressive short dreadlocks stood in the door of the cabin where they'd been taken and subdued. He was armed to the teeth, and Carol had to admit that he looked formidable, angry, and just a little bit scary. He looked like Michonne, if Michonne swapped her katana for a penis and a high-powered rifle.
The Governor was oily…smarmy. He was unarmed from what she could tell, not even a knife at his belt, which was standard for most people these days. His gun holster was empty and Carol understood why when she saw the pistol left carelessly on the table between Daryl and their captor, and just an energetic jump away from Carol—if she hadn't been tied to a chair. The bastard was so confident he had them he didn't even feel the need to hold a weapon within his hands. Well, she'd show him how the world paid arrogance these days. It was about time he learned that lesson.
While she'd studied the two, she'd not picked up on the third—a man faceless as he stood behind her. There was a subtle push against her bound hands, a knee she thought, and suddenly a harsh voice hissed loud enough for them all to hear just above her ear.
"Those hands of yours are tied up tight, sugar. You won't be doing nothing but watching your pretty loverboy over there eat lead."
The words filled Carol with panic, and she jolted against her restraints, processing slowly that his knee was still pressed lightly against her fingers. When she braced her wrists automatically she found they weren't tied very tightly at all. They were remarkably loose and that ever-present knee was preventing the ropes from falling to the floor. Relief slammed into her so hard Carol almost sagged in her chair, but instead a renewed sense of fight rushed through her and her gaze narrowed dangerously at the man hiding a ruined eye behind a patch.
She eyed him up and down, loathing making her heart pound and realisation hit her cold and fast.
"You're just a man." Disgust rolled heavily off her and seemed to flow straight into the Governor, his menacing smile morphing into sinister detachment that chilled her to her bones—bones that were feeling old and frail after their earlier impact with his car. They'd spent so long building him up as a monster that the realisation that he was just like them was enormous. The power of it breathtaking.
"And yet, I'm the man holding all the cards," he said, suddenly falling to one knee in front of her, his finger swiping zigzagging lines through the trail of blood on her cheek. "I'd considered keeping you," he confided, his voice deceptively soft, like he gave a damn, "but I'm not leaving anyone from your group alive."
The silence was filled with his amused chuckle and Carol watched him, never daring to look toward Daryl, knowing that to have the strength she needed to fight for him, she needed to not fight against him.
"So, you're that kind of man, too. Killer of babies and children. Two thirds of the people at that prison are people from Woodbury—people who were loyal to you until you turned on them and killed their family. You kill your own. It's a good plan to kill us all. No one would ever give you loyalty now."
There was another startling thump and Carol realised it was Daryl viciously kicking the leg of the table, sending it jolting across the floor in an effort to tell her to shut up. She couldn't do it, though. Couldn't just sit there and let this man do this to them. Couldn't let him get off on destroying them completely.
"I said to someone not so long ago that in this world, you kill or you die. I still stand by that."
Laughter, loud and ugly, tore from her throat and Carol saw the twisted incredulity that tainted his expression. "Am I funny to you? You find your lover's impending death amusing?"
Carol blew out an angry breath of air, gearing up to do verbal battle and hoping she got in some good shots. "First of all, you won't be killing him, not today, not ever, an' if you even try, I'll rip your balls off and shove them up your undoubtedly loose asshole."
The hard slap across her face stung, made her ears ring, and Carol dug down deep inside herself to hold back the tears that would normally have sprung up after such a familiar attack. She licked her bottom lip and tasted the metallic tang of her own blood.
"Where did you hear that one?" he sneered, dangerously close to her face. "It seems a little vulgar for a refined woman like yourself."
She smiled and knew it was laced with every scrap of pride and new respect she'd gathered for Daryl's brother.
"I'm sure you can guess. You did spend almost a year gettin' him right where you wanted him."
"Merle was a traitor, he played me right from the start." The Governor actually had the nerve to act betrayed when Carol knew he was out and out lying. Merle might not have been there for any reason other than to give him the freedom to try and find Daryl, but he'd done every damn thing this maniac had expected of him, and he'd porbably done it all with a smile on his face.
"I found that there was a lot I could learn from Merle Dixon," she confided, and somehow she felt that Merle was standing over them right now, lending her his enormous strength and stubbornness, probably saying a hundred and one crazy things to Daryl to get him to lie still and wait for her plan to take shape. A plan she'd never have been able to have if whoever the Governor's other man was, stationed behind her back, had been much more under his ruler's thumb than he apparently was. "He had you more than pegged, that's for sure. Told us all sorts of things about you."
"Did he now?" The leer returned, creating an ugly slash across an otherwise attractive face, but Carol didn't even bat an eyelid in fear. She felt nothing but revulsion for his good looks and wondered still how a smart woman like Andrea had been taken in so easily. Carol was resolved to make this man meet his end, and she hoped to God it hurt when she did. Suddenly she wanted justice, thirsted for it, and it was as if Merle was right there, whispering in her ear so loudly that she could completely blank out the pain she knew this was causing Daryl.
"How did you do it?" Daryl had never told them, had kept the pain to himself, letting her patch up a few of the cracks occasionally, but never confided fully. She knew that her asking the man that had put Merle down would cause another of those cracks to open in Daryl and she struggled now to keep from crying, determined to see this to the end even if it wounded them both. Even if he never wanted to touch her again for causing him to relive this.
"Didn't your boyfriend tell you?" The thought of Daryl keeping his brother's death a secret from her seemed to greatly amuse the Governor, and apprehension settled like a big ball of sick heavy in her gut. She shook her head in answer, ignoring Daryl's furious kicks to the table leg, but registering that each time the table shunted across the floor, that gun got closer and closer to the edge of the table. Closer to her.
"'I ain't gonna beg.' That's what that dumb hick's last words were. Maybe if he had begged, I might have let him live—long enough to watch me kill his precious brother, anyway. I bit off a couple fingers, then I shot him."
Carol sucked in a lancing breath, her lungs feeling the cut of air like it was from the blade of a knife. The horrible image of Merle being shot and bleeding out made her stance crumble a little, and tears gathered in her eyes. "Shot him where?"
His eyes glistened with pride, with callous glee. "In the gut, darling. And then I watched him turn."
There was an almighty roar from a suddenly ungagged Daryl and he was on his feet and charging at the Governor. His untied hands went around the man's throat and Carol watched as that cocky confidence was replaced by shock. Frantic eyes darted first to the big black guy at the door and then to the one she still hadn't seen but whose presence had been a solid at her back the whole time she'd been awake. Carol finally understood that these two men, these two followers, had their own plan, emphasised to the Governor himself as the black man stepped back over the threshold, out of the cabin. The ties unexpectedly fell from her own hands and even without the nudge on her shoulders she was off the chair and grasping at the gun, flicking open the chamber to double check it for bullets before snapping it shut and clicking off the safety.
Carol aimed the gun straight and sure, but by now Daryl had tackled their enemy to the floor, throwing wild, heavy punches at the Governor's face, splitting tissue and cracking bone as he grunted with the all the fury of a wild animal. The fight was a blur but it wasn't all Daryl's way, and every time he was pushed away and the Governor got the upper hand, Carol quaked in fear at the stark expression of pure malice he was unable to hold back. The two men that had been hunting them down at the side of the Governor stood completely back, not interfering to help them or their boss, and Carol had mixed emotions about that. If she and Daryl didn't eradicate the immediate threat, what were these men going to do next?
"Carol! What the fuck you waitin' for? Shoot the prick in the head," screamed Daryl and Carol stopped looking at the other two and tried to line up the shot.
Daryl was back in the fray, slamming the Governor's head into the corner of the table. Carol cringed at the sick crack of what sounded like bone snapping and figured that if a piece of the man's skull was now floating around in his brain, the struggle might slow down. Instead it seemed to fire him up, and with a renewed sense of strength, he hauled himself to his feet and started kicking Daryl in the ribs. Daryl's grunts of pain focused her like nothing else could have and she aimed the gun right as piercing, deadly blue eyes narrowed in on her.
"Give me the gun," he purred, and she could see in the brief flash of insanity in his eyes that he seriously expected that she would. That she'd lay down and die if he simply asked in the right tone of voice. He started advancing on her and Carol quickly walked backwards, wondering where her strength went. This was their last chance—if she failed they might not get another one.
"Pull the trigger, Sugar, or my baby brother is as good as dead, and you don't wanna have to put him down like he had to do with me."
Merle's husky tones echoed in her head and as the livid hatred of the man before her got closer, his mouth loosing a small amount of drool from his lips as he panted like an excited dog, Carol ignored his outstretched hand, once again lined up the shot and pulled the trigger.