Chapter 15:

"Open the damn door!" Daryl screamed, throwing his bottle at the door.

"Out of my way." Shane had found an axe some where, and he ran at the door, taking a nice long swing. T Dogg tossed another axe at Daryl, who followed Shane's lead. I watched as the men tried in vain to cut through the bulkhead.

"You should've left well enough alone, it would've been so much easier." Dr Jenner tried his hand at consoling us. I listened to the children crying, mixed in with the sound of metal clanging against metal. "You know what's out there. A short brutal life and agonizing death." I caught the end of a conversation and my stomach flipped. "Your sister, what was her name?" he asked, turning to Andrea.

"Amy."

"You know what this does, you've seen it." Rick and Jenner began to argue and Shane joined our group, out of breath, exhausted.

"I can't make a dent."

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher." Jenner said, amusement in his voice.

"Shut up." I hissed at him. Daryl either didn't like what he said, the way he said, or a mixture of both and rushed at the man.

"Well your head ain't!" He reared his axe back, only to be stopped by the others. Rick argued with the man for a few seconds before turning away.

"I don't want this!" Rick yelled, leaving Jenner speechless, but only for a moment.

"You do want this, last night, you said you knew it was a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead." The group went silent and I could see the hurt and confusion in Lori and Carl's faces.

"You really said that?" Shane was angry.

"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" Jenner didn't like Rick's response, and he slammed his fist onto the counter.

"There is no hope! There never was!"

"There's always hope, maybe not you, maybe not here, but somewhere-"

"What part of everything is gone don't you understand." Andrea interrupted, her patience gone. My mouth dropped and I stared at her wide-eyed.

"Listen to your friend, she gets it. This is what takes us down, this is our extinction event!"

"So just quit?" Both of their eyes dropped to me and I stood up, calmly brushing myself off. "You," I pointed at her, and I pointed at Jenner, glaring my eyes at them both. "Make me sick. I'm not gone and I'm not dying here. If this is our extinction event, how bout if you buck up and adapt to it instead of whining in a bunker." Then I lost it, I reached out, striking Andrea across her cheek, leaving a solid red handprint. She glared daggers at me as we stared each other down. "Amy would be ashamed of you."

"You open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off. Do you hear me?" Shane had cocked a shotgun, and the barrel now sat inches from Jenner's face.

"This is not the way you do this." Rick spoke softly to Shane, attempting to calm him down.

"Shane, you listen to him!" Lori yelled from the floor. Shane growled in frustration, turning his gun on a stack of computers behind Jenner. The man was like the hulk with a gun and continuously put shots into the machinery, it was only when Rick wrestled the gun away from him, knocking the insane man to the ground, that he stopped.

"You done now?" Rick asked, patronizing, as he stood over Shane, who was breathing heavily on the floor.

"Yeah, I guess we all are." I watched in utter horror as I realized what this man was doing to our group, he was tearing us apart. Daryl walked up next me, taking me into a hug. I sat silently with my face in his chest, feeling the up and down motion of his breathing start to comfort me. After a few minutes of silence, Rick spoke again.

"I think you're lying."

"What?" Jenner sat with a puzzled expression on his face.

"You're lying. About no hope. If that were true you would've bolted with the rest and taken the easy way out. But you took the hard way, why?"

"Doesn't matter."

"It always matters. You stayed when others ran, why?" Rick was now crouching next to where Jenner sat in his chair, forcing him to look him in the eyes.

"Not because I wanted to, I made it promise." Jenner rose to his feet and pointed at the large screen that was still counting down. "To her." It clicked in my brain, the pieces fell together. The way he talked about TS-19, looked at the screen. I knew that she was more than just a test subject in a lab. "My Wife." My head snapped up from Daryl's chest and I stepped away. I heard him take a sharp breath.

"Test Subject 19 was your wife?"

"She begged me to keep going as long as I could, how could I say no? She was dying." I stepped away from Daryl, who went to try the door again with the axe. "It should've been me on that table, I wouldn't have mattered to anybody." The group was silent, the only sound being Daryl working away at the metal door. "She was a loss to the world. Hell! She ran this place, I just worked here. In our field she was an Einstein, me? I'm just Edwin Jenner." Another clang of metal. "She could've done something about this, not me."

"Your wife didn't have a choice." Rick spoke.

"You do…" I whispered. The two men turned to me and I continued. "Please, give us a choice."

"That's all we want, a choice. A Chance." Rick pleaded. Jenner waivered.

"Let us keep trying as long as we can." Lori was still holding Carl in her arms, as she spoke, backing up her husband.

"I told you, topside is locked down, I can't open those." The doctor sighed, crossing to his computer. He began to punch in numbers, and with every button he pressed I could feel butterflies growing in the pit of my stomach. The hydraulics of the metal door kicked on as it slid open.

"Come on!" Daryl yelled, followed by sounds of the others shouting in agreement. I had no idea what to do, I was in such shock that my feet wouldn't move and I turned to Jenner. He was defeated, but I couldn't help myself. Throwing my arms around him, I wrapped him in a hug, planting a quick kiss on his cheek.

"There's your chance, take it." He said to Rick and I. I didn't have to be told twice, and I turned on my heel, glancing once at Andrea who hadn't moved from her spot on the floor. We made quick, understanding eye contact, and I bolted for the door, Rick hot on my heels.

T Dogg went to pull Jacqui, but she fought him off.

"I'm staying!" She shook her head at the group who stared in disbelief. "I'm not ending up like Jim and Amy." T Dogg opened his mouth to disagree, but she shook her head. "There's no time to argue, and no point. Not if you wanna get out. Just get out." She pushed him and slowly I walked into the hallway, looking back once.

...

We were led up to the entrance, with barely anytime to grab our stuff, and hurriedly I ran to the keypad by the front shutters. Pressing any combinations of buttons possible, I realized they weren't going to open. The men had already crossed to the windows, swinging away at them with their axes. I ran to catch up with them, watching as every swing didn't even leave a scratch.

"The glass wont break." I whispered, not realizing how close I was to the children, who began to panic again. T Dogg ran at the glass with a chair, swinging wildly and growling. Shane came back with his shotgun, and fired one shot. My ears rang and I could hear my heart beat in my ears. We were free for a minute, and now that my hopes had been up, they came crashing to the floor violently.

"Rick, I have something that might help." Carol was rummaging through her bag, Shane snorted at the woman.

"Carol, I don' think a nail files gonna do it." He said smartly. She ignored him, pulling out a grenade. It barely fit in her small hand. "Your first morning at camp when I washed your uniform, I found this in your pocket." Rick looked at her in disbelief, along with the rest of us. It took him a few seconds to realize what she was holding, but he took the grenade.

"Look out!" He yelled to everyone. We all scurried down the stairs, nearly falling over each other, and Daryl took my arm in his hand, catching me when I tripped over my own feet. We both fell to the ground at the bottom of the steps. I clutched at my head, bringing my body into a ball.

"Oh Shhhhhh-" A loud explosion knocked Rick to the ground next to us, and I listened to the sound of falling glass breaking on the floor. The sound of freedom.

"Everybody run!" Rick commanded. In a matter of seconds we were all on our feet, running to the gaping hole in the window. Daryl shoved me through the window, taking off the head of a walker with his fire axe. I ducked away from the blood and guts, not paying attention to where my feet were taking me. There was a wall of barricades, which I unfortunately didn't see quick enough to get a good jump over, and my foot caught the top, sending me sprawling to the ground, knocking the wind out of me.

I yelled out in pain as I skinned up my hands and knees pretty badly on the concrete and rubble. I noticed my palms bleeding profusely onto the asphalt. I tried to crawl towards the car, catching my breath as I pulled myself along, but it was no use.

Daryl stopped a few feet ahead of me, looking around frantically, and when his eyes fell on my crumpled form he dropped his bag and bow, rusing over to me. Without thinking, he jumped on top of me, cradling my head in his arms. I heard screaming from the cars to my left and saw Andrea and Dale duck behind a line of sandbags.

Closing my eyes, I felt the explosion rock the ground beneath me, and Daryl held me tighter to him as debris fell around us. My ears roared from the sound of the explosion and slowly Daryl peered up over the barricade. After a few seconds, he looked back down at me, taking my hands in his, surveying the damage in silence.

After being satisfied that I wasn't too badly broken, he grabbed the back of my neck, pressing his lips to my forehead. It took me by surprise, and when he pulled away our eyes met, making the whole world seem to disappear.

The honking of car horns brought us back to reality and we looked at the caravan. They were ready to get the hell away from here, which seemed fair enough considering every walker in the city would have heard the explosion. Slowly he got off of me, helping me to my feet as well, and I limped side by side with him, his arm wrapped around my waist, guiding me back to his truck.

...

I love you guys! not too cheesy, but there was fluff... but also i have an important announcement. i do plan on writing more, i actually have 3 chapters of season 2 written already, but i'm going to be taking atleast 2 weeks off so i can write most of season two before putting it up. also my son is due in 12 days and i haven't gotten his nursery together AT ALL (bad hannah D:) so i will also be taking this short, tiny, itsy, bitsy hiatus to do that and hopefully give birth! YAY! but thats another reason i'm taking a few weeks off to write so that way i wont have to make you guys wait too long between chapters when he finally gets here.

Much love and appreciation! i'll be back!

xoxo Your loving writerrrr