This chapter is dedicated to Merle's Right Hand, who gives me such solid support and feeback. You are love, my babes. Total and complete.
Chapter Forty-Two: Agau II
**Carol**
The man eyed them groggily from within the cell, sitting on the lower bunk, hands dangling between his knees, hair spiked in every direction from his ordeal.
Standing behind the bars beside Rick, Carol eyed him back, her arms folded guardedly across her chest.
"Your boys sure seem to think they own half this country," Rick began calmly.
"My boys?" The man asked, still dazed from the whack over the temple Carol had given him. "Where am I?" He eyed the bars on the window with a certain degree of concern and panic.
"So what? They don't need any more men? Threaten our women? You travel with a sick crowd of friends."
"Friends? It's eat or be eaten with them," the man said in his velvet rasp. "So what? You going to kill me?"
"We're not going to kill you yet," Rick said. "We want some information first, then we'll see how accommodating we can be."
The man in the cell laughed softly. "Sure, I know what you're getting at. Empty promises of a pardon and all I have to do is confide my sins to you, hm?"
"No," Carol broke in. "Rick's word is good. You help us out and we'll let you walk."
"Walk? Yeah, lonely existence out there these days, I'd rather you just put a bullet in my brain."
"That's your choice, but we still want some answers." Rick stated.
Getting off the lower bunk on wobbly legs, the man eased up against the wall and sighed. "Why should I be so forthcoming?"
"Because you know these men and what they're capable of, don't you?"
"I've only been with them since Jackson," the man said.
"But you've seen what they're like, haven't you?"
Wide blue-green eyes blinked at Rick, the red rimming them attesting to his near sedated state and Carol wondered if it was a constant state for him as of late. He was an elfish looking man, with fine bones under thin skin and narrow, almost to the point of being slits, lips. If it wasn't for the haunting grey and red of his deep-set eyes, she would have said he was a more on the handsome side of plain, but his eyes gave him a dark, bleak look.
"Were you going to rape us too?" Carol asked him suddenly.
His tragic eyes flickered over to her face and for a moment he looked almost scared, before he frowned and shook his head.
"No."
"But you've seen it done, haven't you?" She went on, Rick taking a step back to allow her to interrogate the man.
Picking at a chipping part of the paint on the inside of the cell, the man was quiet.
Rick kicked the bars of the cell. "Hey! She asked you a question!"
Knocking his forehead against the wall, the man sighed again and closed his eyes.
"How many men in your group?" Rick asked, kicking the bars again.
"Too many," the man murmured.
"That's not an answer."
"I didn't take a head count," the man snarled suddenly, eyes opening and flashing dangerously in their direction.
"You hopped up on something?" Rick snarled.
Pushing away from the wall, the man approached the bars. "Purely recreational, I can assure you."
"You're military," Carol said. It wasn't a question, it was fact.
"No," he returned simply.
"I saw the tags," she pointed out.
Running a hand through his thick dark hair, the man sighed again heavily.
"Are you a medic?" She went on questioning, her soft tone a contrast to Rick's hard one. She would have been amused by the 'good cop, bad cop' scenario they had going on, if it wasn't for the fact that the man and his group were murdering raping thieves.
"Are you a housewife?" He shot back with his frightening rasp.
"Not anymore," she replied.
He quirked and brow and tilted her head, she had her answer.
"You're a doctor?" Rick broke in.
"Flight surgeon," he returned.
"In the army?"
Giving Rick a look like he was stupid, the man angled his chin. "The air force."
Rick's eyes narrowed, but he didn't react to the man's sarcasm.
"Where do you come from?" Carol asked.
"Salt Lake City."
"Utah?" Rick broke in.
"No, Nebraska."
"Don't be a smart ass."
Turning hard eyes on Rick, the man said, "I don't think I'm going to talk to you anymore."
"That's too bad, because you still haven't answered my question about how many men in your group," Rick returned.
Returning to the bunk, the man eased onto it and lay there quietly.
Carol exchanged a look with Rick, before asking him. "How many men?"
"I don't know," he whispered. "They travel in groups this way and that, meeting up only at night in the camp." He sat up again, but leaned wearily against the wall. "They never took me out of camp before, kept me close to the women."
"Why?" Rick demanded.
"They broke them and I put them back together again."
Rick stepped in closer to Carol and for once she was grateful for everyone's seemingly over-protectiveness of her, she wanted that reassurance when she heard those words, what could have been her.
"So what do you want to do?" Rick asked.
"Get high off my ass and forget this shit reality."
"I mean are you going to help us or do we get creative with our interrogation methods?"
"I wish I could," the man said. "All I can tell you is that the top man, Martin, he's all sugar and spice, but he'd sooner rub you off the face of the planet then step over you. Charming fucker, but don't trust a snake. Rumour has it he was doing eleven to twelve for first degree rape back where he comes from."
"Can you give us a rough estimate of the men?" Carol urged.
The man was quiet, resting against the wall, eyes closed.
Rick and Carol exchanged a look, before he kicked the bars of the cell hard. "Hey!"
Inside the man was quiet and unmoving.
"He's fine," Rick said. "Come on, let's go outside and get some air."
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Standing about outside, Carol held her pistol in a cold, clammy hand.
The whole situation made her sick to her stomach, the man in the cell, the group he was with.
She didn't like not knowing what was lingering in their area, didn't like the idea of always fighting now.
"What do we do with him?" She asked. "When we're done?"
Rick rubbed his hand over his rifle. "I don't know. We'll see how accommodating he is to us."
"If he's a surgeon, couldn't he be useful to us?"
"Depends on how much he was involved in illicit activities with that group of his. He might be more trouble than he's worth."
Glancing over the prison yard, Carol squinted in the direction of a vehicle moving up the road to the gate and paused.
"Rick," she said, motioning to it.
He shielded his eyes on the early morning sunlight, raising his rifle to see down the scope to get a better glimpse.
"Carol, get inside." He said, lowering his rifle and following her back into the safety of the prison.
Locking up behind them, Carol knew that whoever was driving up the road to the prison could get into the yard if they wanted, but without an arc welder and a lot of time, they wouldn't get past the doors.
Back up would come eventually; they could wait any siege out just the two of them.
Rick moved into an open cell to get a glimpse of what was happening outside and Carol joined him, carefully peeking out of the window.
Three vehicles pulled up outside the gate and a group of men larger than the one that ambushed them on the highway jumped out.
As a cluster of them head for the gate, one singled itself out by heading away from them, down the line of the fence.
"What do you want to do?" She asked him.
"Wait it out," he said. "Hold off as long as we can."
As they watched nervously, the men clustered back up and seemed to hold a brief discussion, before they all began to pile back into their vehicles and pulled out and away, heading back the way they came.
"It can't be that easy," she whispered to him.
Rick narrowed his eyes at the scene beyond the window.
They stayed at the window for what felt like hours, before relaxing. Carol wandered over to check on their prisoner, while Rick continued to keep an eye out the window.
Inside the cell, the man was still in the same position he was before, but the deep rise and fall of his chest gave him away as being alive, but passed out cold.
"There's a vehicle coming up the road," Rick said. "It's one of ours."
Carol breathed easier, pushing up from where she was stooped to see the man better and brushed her hands off. "Good, I'm going to get some bandages out of our car to wrap his head. Then we can head back to the convent for back-up."
"I'll get the gate," Rick said, pausing at the door as he unlocked it for her and held it open. "Be careful, I don't like the idea that those men might still be around."
"I will," she said, holding her pistol up as proof she wasn't unarmed.
Waving to the boys who were at the gate, she smiled and moved around the side of the cellblock to where they had pulled the car up and parked it close to the building where it was out of sight.
Opening the trunk, she reached for the medical kit, but found it was too heavy to carry one handed, so she tucked her pistol into her belt in order to properly pull the heavy kit up and out of the vehicle.
Setting the kit on the ground, she closed the trunk and peered up in time to catch sight of two female walkers heading her way.
She quickly drew her pistol. It was all she had on her.
For weeks they hadn't seen a single walker, now two of them and both looked fairly fresh.
Carol backed away, she wasn't sure if she should fire, if there were more.
Keeping her gun trained on the walkers, she contemplated what to do as they headed rapidly towards her, finally she made the decision and fired, downing one, the other was already knocking her down by then and she couldn't get her arm up to fire at it. At the last moment she realized there was a chain bound around the thing's midsection, but pushed that thought from her mind in her fight with it.
Struggling under the weight of the thing, keeping clear of its teeth, Carol fought to free her pistol.
Then the walker was knocked off her, and she took the chance to roll up and away from it, firing a bullet into its brain.
"You're quite the deadeye, honeychild," a comforting Cajun voice purred from beside her and Carol laughed.
"Thanks, Lieutenant," she said, turning to face him.
Instead of the handsome features of the Lieutenant, she was greeted by a lean, older man who stood at her side, flanked by two other men, both of them holding guns trained on her.
She moved to raise her pistol, but found her wrist held in a tight clamp by the man.
"Don't be so rash," he drawled. "Them gunshots will bring your boys running, plenty of time to get to know one another."
Sure enough Daryl was the first to come running, crossbow up, boots skittering on the gravel of the prison yard.
The lean older man pulled Carol against him tightly, hand holding her arm pinned between them painfully.
Approaching slowly, crossbow still raised, Daryl glowered at the man.
"You all ain't so friendly around here," the man said.
Rick, the Lieutenant, Tyreese, Sister Joan and the young Marine Kowalski finally joined Daryl, all of them backing him calmly.
"Ooh, looks like we're outnumbered here boys," the fellow holding Carol teased.
"Let her go," Daryl snarled.
Unable to move, Carol tried using her legs and feet to kick at the man, but he only twisted her arm more until she felt a small pop in her shoulder and winced.
"I said, let her go," Daryl repeated.
"You have our medic, yeah?" The man asked.
"What medic?" Rick asked.
Laughing blithely, the older man took a step back with Carol. "Even I have to admit that's funny." Taking another step back, the man said, "tell you what. You bring our medic to that pancake house down the road some tomorrow evening and I'll give you back your woman. I mean, we had a hell of a time tracking you all down, think it's only fair to be diplomatic to us."
"Can't let you walk away with her," Rick said.
Carol, noticing that beyond the corner of the cellblock there was eight or nine more men with weapons waiting, licked her bottom lip. "It's okay, Rick. Take the deal." She hoped that would save them from walking into a firing squad.
"I'd rather kill you here and now," Rick spat stubbornly.
"I don't think today's my day," the man said.
Carol, finding Rick hopeless, turned pleading eyes on Daryl. "Let me go," she said to him.
His blue eyes were fire for the longest time, before the tone of her voice registered in him and he slowly lowered his crossbow, not enough to leave him vulnerable, but enough to give the man holding her the tipoff that he was resigning. The muscle twitching in his jaw was a sign that Daryl wasn't happy about giving in, but his eyes were glazed and she knew he was worried about her.
Turning her eyes to the Lieutenant, hoping he'd keep Daryl calm enough to let them go without incident, she found him eyeing the man down the scope of his rifle with a pale, almost terrified look so couldn't decipher.
"Turn around and walk back into the cellblock," she said softly. "Don't follow us."
"Your girl here is smart," the man said triumphantly. "But we won't hold her long, so you'd best be there tomorrow evening."
Finding everyone before her looking uncomfortable, Carol was soon dragged off, manhandled by the man and swarmed by the others, pulled through a hole they had cut in the fence behind the prison and into the woods.
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She was swept away deep into the woods, where her wrists were bound with zap straps and shoved in the direction of a back road that lay far through the woods, the older man who had taken her, holding her against him.
"Why are you doing this?" She asked him. "Your people move in and just, what? Take?"
"Best way to survive, honeychild," he replied calmly. "The world is a deep, dark pit and we're all scrambling to get out of it."
"Your medic is that important?" She demanded.
Quirking a dark eyebrow, the man smirked. "Not really, but I enjoy a good cat and mouse. Seems like it's been ages since I've had a challenge. You know how hard it is to find someone from Arkansas with a shred of intelligence? A beautiful mind is a beautiful thing."
"That seems a little unfair to us, boss," one of the men grumbled.
The tall, lean, but powerfully built older man took a swing at the man while casually holding Carol firm in his other hand.
The punch knocked the man onto his ass, where he was soundly kicked in the face by a heavy boot from the man holding her.
Carol looked away at the sight of the man scrambling backwards, blood and teeth falling from his mouth.
"'Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove' - P.G. Wodehouse. Read a book once in a while, son. Jesus Christ!" The man snarled, dragging Carol with him towards a jeep parked just in the trees off a narrow back road. She didn't like that there was only one vehicle when before there had been three. The whole thing seemed well planned, well prepared and she wondered if maybe things weren't as cut and dry as the men just wanting their medic back.
"You had our people outgunned back there," Carol went on. "Why did you take me without a shot fired?"
"Because there wasn't any coverage for my men and we needed the leverage for our Doc."
Eyeing the man with the split lip and missing front teeth, Carol doubted the man had any care for his men, but she understood the need for medical aid in this day and age.
Picking Carol up by the scruff of her neck and the ass of her pants, the strong older man sort of tossed her into the back of the jeep and slid in beside her, jamming her between him and another man.
She looked over at him as they drove, his face was drawn and grim, his eyes cold grey and piercing.
"I'll never understand men like you," she said. "Think you can step all over people, instead of helping them rise up above it all."
"Well, I am a black dog at the mouth of hell, angel," the man said. "We sinners are marching proudly, about to reclaim paradise for the devil."
"You have no mercy or remorse. Why? How can you have so little care for your fellow man?"
"Men, as with all creatures, are easily killed. I just happen to have a deep yearning in my dark soul for blood to be spilt," he replied, turning to her with a strangely familiar grin. "Don't worry, when this is all over, when your men are fallen and your people erased, if you be good and do what I say, you'll become one of my favourite pets."
"And if I decide not to cower to a man like you?" She asked.
"Methods of distraction," he replied. "Your rotting corpse will razzle dazzle some other unsuspecting bird."
Carol swallowed thickly, thinking of the fresh walkers and how odd she thought the one with the chain around its middle was.
"Women are only good for three things," the man said softly. "When they die, they're only good for one more."
The man sounded like Ed, but had more charm and intelligence and it frightened her.
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I hope all these updates are okay still...not filling your inbox with crap or anything.
DarylDixon'sLover - Indeed!
HaloHunter89 - I agree. Fay pushes himself too much. Well, Daryl for that matter. Those boys.
Merle's Right Hand - I also heard they wear girlie panties.
Claire Randall Fraser - I agree. No time to sit on his ass and feel sorry for himself now.
Surplus Imagination - You make me sound so sneaky. ^_^ I love it!
missdaryldixon - If you love the Lt. that much you'll really dig the next few chapters.
vickih - As you can tell Gambit was always my fav as well.
Girl in a White Dress - I am good to you, aren't I? Like a mama bird feeding her chicks.
itsi3 - Thanks! 3