Well, kids, I'm off again for a few weeks. Heading to the North Pole, got a vendetta with a reindeer, bastard owes me twenty bucks and a half a dozen candy canes. As always, I'll be back with more in a little while!
Chapter Forty-Three: Baron Samedi II
**Daryl**
"Come on, get your ass up!" Daryl commanded, yanking Cash to his feet from where the man was cowering behind the Humvee.
"I was checking your tire," he explained.
"Shut up and get your fucking ass in that hummer, you're taking me to the camp."
"I-I wouldn't," Cash said. "I don't want to?" He tried.
Raising his crossbow, Daryl aimed his loaded bolt right between Cash's eyes and backed him against the vehicle. "Do it!"
"I don't know where they are!" Cash explained. "Look, I just don't know why Martin would bring the entire group here, he must have been run out of Arkansas or something, I swear!"
"Martin?" Daryl growled. "This Martin is going to have his ass handed to him!"
"Daryl," Rick said. "Carol went willingly, she must have a plan to escape."
Keeping his crossbow trained on the man before him, Daryl rubbed his finger against the trigger in thought, itching to squeeze it and let his anger out at something.
Pulling back, he dropped the crossbow and threw a punch hard at the man.
Cash ducked, but it clipped him in the eye instead of the jaw and sent him flying hard against the Humvee.
"They just walk in and take her?" Daryl demanded of Rick. "Just like that?"
"Daryl," he began, "they got the jump on us. I don't even know how they found us, but we'll get her back."
Looking around for support, Daryl found Fay missing from the group. Where was that dumb ass when he needed him?
"Fay!" He stormed around the prison yard in an absolute rage. "Where the fuck are you?"
He found the Cajun sitting on the bumper of the Humvee, pale and holding his head.
"Come on," Daryl kicked his boot. "We're going after those assholes, mount up." It wasn't until the Lieutenant removed his hands from his head that Daryl noticed how sickly he looked, his pallor was waxy and white as snow.
"You alright?" Daryl asked, taking a knee at his side.
Avoiding his eyes, the Cajun took a moment, before nodding. "Yeah."
Narrowing his eyes at the Marine, Daryl shoved him. "Come on, pull it together. We'll get her back."
"Daryl," Rick moved up to stand beside him, distracting him from studying Fay. "We should keep our heads about this. This could be a good chance to hit up their camp while they play around with meeting us at the pancake house."
"What? Wait until tomorrow?" Daryl growled. "Hell no. Should have shot that asshole when we had the chance."
"Yeah, and then his men would have taken you and Carol and everyone else down, it would have been a bloodbath. We'll get her back."
"Fucking right we will," Daryl stated, kicking Fay again to get him to stand up and motioning towards the front of the Humvee.
Silently the Cajun followed him.
"Daryl, let's not go into this half-cocked. We'll tear them apart, I promise you, but only if we do this carefully. Lieutenant, help me out here, you're a tactical mind."
Staring at his reflection in the window, the Lieutenant was silent.
Finding no help from him, Daryl shook his head. "Rick, I'm going after her. Stop me and I'll put my boot in your ass."
It was Tyreese who actually stepped in on Rick's behalf, moving to close the door to the Humvee before Daryl could hop inside.
"Think about it, man," Tyreese said. "She's in the den, if we go over there and start shooting up the place," he paused. "Hell, she'll be dead before we even get close enough to help her."
Daryl eyed him with electric blue eyes, before pushing up close into his face. "We didn't just let my girl walk off with those men. I'm getting her back. Ain't no one going to hurt her. Fuck you and fuck everyone else."
Hopping up onto the hood of the Humvee, Kowalski draped there calmly and watched everyone quietly.
"Get off that damned hood," Daryl growled.
The young Marine shrugged.
"We should give the convent a head's up," Sister Joan broke in. "About this."
"No," Rick said. "If we go back to the convent and they have a tail on us, we'd lead them home. It's better to just figure this out on our own. Tyreese," he said, tossing the keys to the prison at him.
The man caught them, nearly taking them in the face.
"Go inside, get our prisoner, he's coming with us to Delgado's. It's time your friend proves how loyal he is," Rick said, addressing the Lieutenant who was still milling about looking sick. Turning to Cash, Rick pointed at him. "You want to earn some loyalty to us, you go with him and help."
Cash blinked at him through a left eye that was beginning to turn yellowish green around the orbit. "I'm not really that eager. Martin's kind of pissed at me."
"Too bad. Get moving and help out for once."
Pacing like a caged tiger as he waited for them to get moving, Daryl gave everyone a murderous look, daring them to say something. First person to approach him he was sure would get knocked on their ass.
He looked over at Fay who was leaning limply against the side of the Humvee, still staring off into space and scowled deep.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, Daryl kept on pacing, if it took any longer for them to get their shit together he'd just up and leave their asses. Carol was gone and those assholes could be doing anything to her.
Glancing at the door into the cellblock where the prisoner was kept, he found it still closed tight and quiet and cursed under his breath.
"What the hell is taking them so long?" He bitched to Kowalski who still lay limply on the hood of the Humvee.
The deaf Marine blinked at him.
"Fuck off," Daryl growled, just pissed off at the world at the moment.
Seemed those were among the few words the asshole could read on his lips, as the Marine jerked his chin to his chest in mild insult, before a dark, wildly insulted look took over and the young man was glaring back at him.
"That's it," Daryl declared, heading for the driver's door of the Humvee.
Rick intercepted him smoothly. "Daryl, calm down for a while. We're going to do this together, we're stronger together, right?"
Having enough of Rick getting in his way, Daryl took a swing, his anger white hot by this point. The ex-cop ducked the swing, but didn't expect the upper cut from Daryl's crossbow wielding hand and dropped against the hummer.
Kowalski leapt down, rushing to hold Daryl back, but the Dixon knocked him in the face with his elbow and sent the young man sprawling back in shock.
"Daryl," Sister Joan approached, but a swinging fist had her ducking for cover and wisely remaining out of the fight, as Daryl continued to grapple with Rick.
Darting around the front of the hummer, Rick managed to avoid Daryl's fists, his boots skittering on the gravel. He backed up rapidly into the Lieutenant who crashed to the ground with him and soon Daryl found Kowalski on his back again, trying to restrain him.
All four men fell into a rumbling heap on the ground, Daryl just throwing punches, feeding his anger, it didn't even matter who he hit.
"Lieutenant? Stop them!" Sister Joan pleaded.
The Cajun was trapped at the very bottom of the pile and didn't seem too interested in it, still looking dazed.
Rick, swimming his way to the top of the pile, struggled to pull Daryl from the others in order to restrain him, found it near impossible and losing his foothold on the gravel, crashed down hard on the others, crushing Daryl between him and Kowalski.
"Jesus Lord, give me strength," Joan murmured. "This is why I didn't take that position at that boy's reformatory."
Feeling a sharp tug of his hair, Daryl immediately froze like a kitten in his mother's jaws, before scrambling to free the woman's hand from tearing his scalp off.
"Fuck, let go!" He growled.
"Not until you cool down! Stop it! Now, just stop it!"
Daryl noticed she had Rick's hair in her other hand, Kowalski on his ass beside the Lieutenant was sullenly rubbing blood from under his nose with the sleeve of his jacket.
Shoving the woman's hand off of him a little roughly, Daryl stood up.
"Get the hell away from me!" He demanded. "Don't fucking touch me! You all just let her go! You fucking let her walk!"
Rick held his hands up in defeat and the nun release his hair. He slumped gratefully into a spot on the ground beside the Lieutenant, who still looked like he was hit by a bus.
"Rapists," he stated, wandering if they had forgotten what kind of men this group was comprised of. "Murders? And you want to just wait?"
Pushing to his feet, holding onto the running board of the Humvee with white knuckles, Fay stood up, collecting his rifle and wheezing out, "I got your back, brother. Let's go kill that salaud." His tone was eerily cold and distant, even Daryl frowned at it.
"Lieutenant," Sister Joan began softly, concern in her eyes.
He gently pushed her aside to get into the hummer and Daryl, feeling that they were finally making progress, hurried to climb in behind the wheel.
"Daryl," Rick began protesting.
Kowalski, with almost macabre joy twinkling in his eyes, hopped into the back, looking like the eager young pup he was for once.
"Daryl you can't leave us here with two prisoners—" Rick began protesting, trying to get into the vehicle to remove the keys when Daryl gunned it.
Falling out, all he heard from Rick in the dust the Humvee was kicking up was a loud.
"Fuck!"
..-~-..
..-~-..
"Alright, we have most of the ammo, half the guns, a young, deaf Marine and…a plan?" The Lieutenant murmured this last part hopefully.
Daryl glared at the highway. "Get Carol back."
"Sure, good plan, no one dies, how's the plan looking in the world of reality?"
"Kill them all, wipe them out, got enough ammo and guns."
Sniffing, the Cajun shifted in his seat.
"Fuck you, Fay! You got a better plan, then out with it!"
"I got a plan, but," he paused, "you won't like it."
"What is it?"
"Let me go in alone, I'll join up with them and get Carol out."
"These men aren't going to let you in their group, they don't need or want men, they're after women," Daryl snarled.
"That man, that Martin Deveau, he'll let me in." Fay said simply.
Daryl scowled at the road ahead of them. "You know him?"
"In the way Minos knew Zeus."
"What the fuck's that mean?" Daryl demanded, feeling that familiar heat of anger rising in him again.
"Martin Deveau is the man who raped my mama," Fay said softly, almost inaudibly. "He's my daddy."
Slamming on the brakes, Daryl needed a moment to stare hard at his friend in the seat beside him.
Fay avoided his eyes, studying his rifle in his lap. "He'll let me in his group."
With the steam taken out of his rage, Daryl sat quietly soaking this information in as Fay sat repentant and almost guilty at his side. He felt his blood freeze in his veins, the ground beneath them was rolling and heaving like the waves.
If it was his daddy, that mean old hellcat of a father and Grace, Daryl would place blame on himself and his daddy was no rapist as far as he knew. Fay, looking like anything that happened to Carol was on him was something he wouldn't put up.
"No," Daryl said in a raspy tone, turning the hummer around. "You're not going in like this. We'll do it Rick's way." He'd rather take Fay back to the prison than drive him into the inferno himself. The state of mind he would imagine the Cajun was in was probably suicidal, the asshole always put others before himself and as much as Daryl knew he wouldn't be able to live without Carol at his side, he wouldn't drive his best friend, his brother, to his death.
They'd get Carol back, but Fay was going nowhere near that camp.
When he drove the Humvee up slowly into the prison yard, he found Rick and the others just about to leave and pulled up close to them to talk to Rick in the driver's side, locking the doors to the Hummer to prevent the Cajun from leaping out.
"Rick," Daryl said grimly.
The man took one look at him and his pissed off look melted.
"What's wrong?" He demanded, suddenly panicked.
"We got a problem. Do you have a minute?"
Rick nodded, hopping out of the car, in the back, sandwiched between Tyreese and Sister Joan sat the prisoner Carol took, Cash in the front, all of them peering out at them as Daryl motioned for Kowalski to keep an eye on the Lieutenant before joining Rick a few yards away.
"What's wrong?" Rick asked.
Daryl glanced in the direction of the Hummer where Fay sat looking pale and drawn.
"That asshole in charge of their group," Daryl began. "Fay knows him."
"And?"
Daryl hesitated. He was sure no one about Fay's daddy except for him and it seemed like a betrayal to say anything, but Rick needed to know. He began with a pained wince, "that man is Fay's daddy."
"Wait a minute," Rick said, shifting his feet and moving in closer. "Are you saying that man is the Lieutenant's father and—"
"They don't have a good relationship, I don't even think the man knows who Fay is," Daryl said. "He raped Fay's mama, went to prison for it."
Rick rubbed his hand over his face and into his hair. "Are you telling me—"
They both looked up as the Lieutenant hopped out of the Hummer, Kowalski doing so as well and taking hold of his arm.
"Rick," Fay began, not looking him in the eye either, "I'm not…I just want to get Carol back. It's personal, but…my judgement isn't clouded."
Rick shook his head. "He can't come with us," he insisted. "Lieutenant, you're going to be a liability. I can't have you going in for revenge on this one, not with Carol in their possession!" He called over.
"I can help, Rick," Fay insisted. "Please, let me help get her back?"
"You're going back to the convent!" Rick stated.
"And if they follow me?" The Cajun demanded. "You said it yourself, they could be waiting to tail us home."
"We can't—"
Fay stepped in close. "Let me do this, Rick? I need to get her back from him. I need to."
Rick looked over at Daryl and sighed heavily. "Your call, Daryl."
Looking over at his friend, Daryl's mind had been on Carol and only Carol, but now…Fay looked so rough, like he was going to vomit at any moment. He looked shaken and sweaty and Daryl wasn't sure if it was the toll the past few hours took on his body or the situation and guilt.
But there was that steely, confident look in his eyes, hidden beneath the shame, that told him the Lieutenant was still clear headed and on solid ground.
"We won't be able to keep him away," Daryl murmured. "Just let him come with. Keep an eye on him."
After a moment, Rick sighed and nodded. "Fine. Let's move out, the sooner we get to Delgado's the sooner we can make plans."
As Daryl moved back towards the Humvee, Fay stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
"Thank you, cabri. We'll get Carol back safe, I promise. I won't let anything happen to her."
Daryl looked up at him. "I got your back, brother." He added after a moment of looking up into the Lieutenant's crestfallen eyes, "semper fi."
"Always faithful." The Lieutenant agreed.