Hope you all had fun this weekend! Thank you for reading!

Chapter Sixty Nine

After pulling up behind Damon's car, parked on the opposite side of the road as Sophia's, Daryl nearly ripped his door off in his haste. He knew where she was, or where her phone was anyway and he knew he needed to get there. This was all because of him and he would face it head on. He still didn't understand how it was happening, or even why, but it was.

Damon hopped off the hood of his own car and approached him, his eyes on fire. "The driver's door was open, so was the glove box. The gun's still in it."

Daryl leaned into the car, flashlight in hand. He scanned the floorboards, the dash, the seats, looking for a message from whoever had taken her. He didn't find one. Not until he pulled his hand away from the headrest. It was sticky and he shined the light on it. There was a fist sized smear of blood there, drying but still tacky. There was the message. And that was when it happened.

Anguish tore at his chest, clawing it's way up his throat as he remembered the things he had seen as a child. Things no boy should ever bear witness too. Things that could very well be happening to a girl that had become his own in the short amount of time he had known her. As those vicious images flashed through his mind the anguish morphed into something different, something he could barely wrap his mind around. A feeling that scared him to death and calmed him all at once. A cold wave of icy rage surged through him then, carrying away that pain on a dark current and replacing it with a seething squirming hatred that had his vision tinting red.

He was going to find her. He was going to find her alive. And he would chew through anyone standing in his way with his bare teeth if he had to. But he would get her back. She wouldn't end up like his mama had.

"Is that..." Damon's voice trailed off.

"Blood," Daryl said, his voice an emotionless growl even to his own ears. He watched as the boy's face grew even more pale, a haunted look clouding his dark eyes. He didn't want to involve a seventeen year old in this. He didn't want to, but he wouldn't tell the boy no. "You take her car and follow me."

"Follow you? Where the fuck are we going? We don't even know where the hell she is!"

"Calm down," he growled. "I know where she is. We gotta get to the garage and then get to her. They're waitin'."

"What? How the hell- We need to get in touch with the others. We can't just-"

"Get in the fuckin car!" Daryl snapped as he climbed into his own. He didn't have to tell Damon again. The truth was, he couldn't call anyone else. If they all showed up, she'd be dead before he could get to her and he knew it. Right now, the men that had her didn't know that he knew exactly where she was. If he did this quietly, there was a chance they could save her.

~H~

Carol's eyes snapped open as a strange pain woke her out of a dead sleep. It was deep and sharp and she gasped at the suddenness of it. She hadn't gotten the shot. The contractions had tapered off on their own but this didn't feel like a contraction. This was different. She glanced at the clock and saw that she had only been asleep for an hour.

"You okay?" Merle asked.

She glanced over, surprised that he was still there. "I think so," she said with a frown.

He scooted up to the edge of the seat, his eyes narrowed. "You look pretty pale. You sure you feel okay? I know that look, remember? Something's up."

"I don't know."

"You hurtin'? You got that shot so the little dude should be resettled, right?"

She shrugged. "They didn't give me the shot because I stopped having contractions. I don't think it was a contraction though. It was something else."

"I'm gonna go get the damn doctor," he said, standing up quickly.

"No!" she said quickly, grabbing his hand.

He looked down at her with that hard look that usually had other people backing down. She wasn't other people. She was Carol and she didn't back down from anyone anymore. She held his gaze and finally he sat back down but didn't let go of her hand. "You're the most stubborn goddamn woman I've ever seen in my life," he growled.

She smiled but then gasped as that same strange pain his her.

He yanked his hand out of hers then and stood up, running a hand through his short cropped hair. "What the fuck. If you don't let me get the damn doctor then use your little button thing and get a nurse in here."

She wasn't in the mood to argue with him over it now. One thing about pregnancy was that you got used to odd pains. This was more than just an odd pain. It sent warning signals in her mind that this needed to be addressed. If it had only happened once then that was okay but it was happening again and it wasn't easing up this time. She reached for the button and then she felt it. "Oh my God..."

"What?" Merle barked, his eyes growing frantic at the look that must have been on her face.

"My water just broke," she said, her hand going to her stomach.

"Oh God... No. Not yet. Not right now for fucks sake. Daryl ain't here. I'm here. I don't wanna be the only one here."

She pushed the button as hard as she could like the nurse would be able to tell just from the force of the push that this wasn't just Carol needing an extra pillow or a cup of ice.

Merle looked like he was about to pass out and she hoped that Daryl got here fast. She was regretting urging him to leave in the first place.

"Call your brother," she said from between clenched teeth as another pain hit her hard.

~H~

Sophia was fully aware of her surroundings now. She was in a room that was about fifteen by fifteen. There were no windows and the door was nothing but a piece of steel fitted into the cement wall. There was no handle, no key hole, no escape. There was also nothing that could be used as a weapon. There was no furniture and nothing adorned the walls that she could tell. Not even a nail that she could use to poke someone with.

She wanted to curl up in the corner and cry. That would have been the easiest thing to do. But she didn't have that option. She was tougher than that. No, she wasn't as tough as Piper but she was tougher than she ever had been before. The throbbing in her head had subsided to a dull ache and as far as she could tell she wasn't bleeding anymore. After making her rounds, figuring out her new environment she had to keep swallowing down her fear. She found a wet spot in the floor, sticky with blood, and realized that was where she had been lying on the floor. The puddle wasn't that big but it was bigger than she expected.

The sound of footsteps above her head had her looking up. She could hear the sounds of men talking but she couldn't make out what they were saying. The floor creaked above her and then she heard a banging somewhere beyond her door. It sounded like another door hitting a wall. She fought back the urge to cry once more and willed her hands to stop shaking. Heavy footsteps sounded outside the door and she backed herself against the far wall. She wasn't sure what to expect. She knew that there was more than one man there because she had heard two distinct voices, maybe more. She didn't know what they wanted with her. She didn't have any money so it hadn't been a robbery. The only thing of any value she owned was the car and they could have easily knocked her out and taken that. They hadn't had to take her. This left only one thing and it made her flood freeze in her veins.

The door was flung open and she felt like a caged animal. Not the kind that attacked out of fear either but the other kind. The kind that got scared and pissed themselves. There were three men standing in the doorway, the light hanging behind them making them look like faceless monsters ready to pounce on her.

One of them must have hit the light switch on the outside of the room because suddenly there was a bare bulb shining dim yellow light over the grimy floor and walls. She didn't want to look at them but she forced her head up and met the eyes of a man she had never even seen before and forced air into her lungs even though they were being constricted with steel bands of fear. "Who are you and why the hell did you bring me here?" She asked, forcing volume into her voice, summoning her inner Piper.

The first man sighed sadly and shook his head. "Well, sweetheart. You're just unlucky. What I wanted was your daddy but he's a little untouchable. So we were gonna take your mama but she's never alone. So we started watching you."

The man wasn't talking about Ed and she knew it. "I don't think you understand what kind of trouble you're in. You might as well just let me go and nothing will happen to you." She watched as the man laughed and shook his head.

She realized then that his clothes were similar to what Daryl and Merle and the rest of the club members wore. A black leather vest with club patches sewn on, but the patches were different. This wasn't her club. She looked past the first man and saw another man that she didn't know but the third, the one that hung back a little further than the others, she recognized. He was wearing the same type of clothing as the others, and he was familiar. She couldn't place him but she knew that she had seen him before.

"What's this about?" She asked.

The first man, the one that seemed to be the leader in this, smiled. "You know, I didn't ever really believe I would be able to get back at that crazy son of a bitch for what he did to us. I really didn't. But somethin' tells me that when he finds out what happened to his little girl, he's gonna know the kind of pain that we know. Daryl Dixon," he spat the name like venom, "He's a taker. He takes and he takes and he takes and nothin', nothing ever fucking happens to him for it. He's been doin' it since he was a kid. How much do you know about him, little girl? Has he told you about the people him and his fuck face daddy have killed?"

She shook her head and tried to move further into the wall but she couldn't. The man's eyes had taken on a dangerous glint. She looked to the other men to see if they looked like maybe they would take pity on her but she realized quickly that wasn't the case. Even the one that had hung back was now closer, his eyes hard. And then she recognized him. He was one of the men that had showed up at Buck's that day. This was someone related to Dave. But those guys hadn't showed their faces after that day they had come to the house. Was this really just about Dave?"

"No, I bet you don't know shit. But you will. You'll know who to blame when you're so strung out you can't think straight and some pimp is lining men up outside your door."

"What?" She choked, shivering but not from the cold anymore.

The man took a step closer. "You've already been bought and paid for. The highest bidder is driving down from Atlanta as we speak."

Sophia had no idea what this man was talking about. Was he really trying to say that he had sold her? She was a human being! She wasn't up for sale. "I don't understand."

"Oh, you will. And when we start sending the Dixons pictures of what you've turned into, the whole family will be out for blood. They'll get sloppy. And then we're going to pic them off one at a time. That includes that pretty mama of yours. Unless I decide to keep her for myself."

Sophia thought that she was going to throw up. She didn't know what the hell they were talking about and she wasn't sure how much time she had. How long would it take for Daryl to find her?

"You wanna meet the man that gave us the idea to begin with? Another man that had things taken by the Dixons?"

She wanted to look away because she knew, knew in her gut who she was about to see. Her stomach twisted when the man stepped through the door, his cold eyes regarding her much like they did her whole life.

Ed grinned triumphantly.