The guns remain lethally trained on Beth and Daryl, surrounding them on all sides; the men aiming them look on, waiting for the signal.

"You'd burn it all down?" Daryl grapples. "So seven people have better odds?"

"Not all of it," is the coolly delivered response. "We don't have that kind of starter fuel. But enough." The point man laughs, looking at the desperate expressions on his captives' faces. "Alarmed? I don't know where you an' the girl 've been, but the world's been on fire for goin' on two years. It's already gone up in flames; we're j'st raking the coals." He nods at Daryl, "There's a herd back on that road. We'll burn enough that the dead will be swarming. Some tall flames? They'll descend on this place, tear it down. Anything not lost t' the flames'll be lost to the dead. The town'll be a wipe. You sure as hell won't be staying the night. Now, let's get goin'." The other seven watch, some stoic and dead-eyed, others sniggering, getting off on the raid.

Daryl cannot drop the bow. He can't. His eyes shift, sizing and resizing the stakes. If he bucks and can get the one at his head hostage, they'll have her straight away. Another standoff. If he—

"Brother, I can tell you're dying to pull that trigger, but I promise you you don't want to do that. You'll kill one of us, maybe — I'm betting you're still a good shot even considering how dead your arms must be gettin' holding postion like that—"

"—C'n do this all day," Daryl growls.

"Great. You kill one of us, there's seven left. You won't have time to reload. You'll be dead. Guaranteed. And then it'll be her." Again Daryl's eyes try to search for Beth. She's right there behind him but he can't see her. "I can see you runnin' through your head all th' other tight spots you got yourselves out of. You two out here on your own? Couldn't have been like that since the start. You've lost people, but you made it out. Don't let that inform this. Nothing worse than false confidence." He looks to his fellows as if for confirmation, "Others thought they'd get out; they never have."

Daryl's stuck; adrenaline coursing through him, he twitches with the compulsion to act but is confounded by what will get them out. They can't give up their weapons. But he cannot risk Beth. Can he trust that if they surrender they'll be set free? Or is it just one more sinister ploy in this dark grim world? Better to take their chances and fight, or cut their losses and survive? What is Beth thinking? Daryl risks it and this time he does move far enough to see her. The gun against his head follows closely, but it does not fire. There she is. Her feet spread, her arms steady, Beth looks ready to take a stand. But Daryl knows she does that — makes herself strong for his benefit so worrying about her isn't one more thing on his shoulders. Except that when she does that, it makes it harder for him to read her. His eyes move quickly, searching. Searching for an out, a clue, something to be done, something that will let him get them out of this. He's thinking fast, but not fast enough. An out is eluding him and he needs to find one, fast, because they really are running out of time.

"Com'on now, Sam," the man orders Daryl. "NOW. Drop the weapons."

"It doesn't have to go this way," Daryl tries. "Take the ammo. Take the rounds and the arrows. Take th' food. We keep the guns and the bow. Leave us the shoes. An empty water bottle. We'll call it even." His eyes are flashing in all directions, keeping track of all the faces behind the guns, watching Beth, watching the leader.

The guy cracks a smile, "Well aren't you the negotiator." His head shakes dispassionately, "Uh,uh. Think you're th' first to try to talk your way out of this? Hasn't worked yet, and one rundown haggard lucky-ass redneck and waif sorority girl don't come close t' what we've gone up against. Time to talk is over; get to surrendering— Or we will take her. We'll slit her throat, with her own little knife, and leave you here, alone, thinkin' on how it all could've gone down different. How you could've been the difference in her living or dying." He shrugs, "It's up to you. You've got all the information. Is her life worth less than that banged-up old bow? Now make the call, Sam. NOW!"

Daryl eyes Beth. He can't let this be another Governor. He can't let Hershel Greene's daughter die because he didn't act. He measures the odds one more time: If he takes a shot, kills one of em' they'll be on them before he can reach for his gun. Beth's a good enough shot, but she's not fast on the draw, not that fast. He can't risk a firing blitz, they wouldn't survive. His finger hovers heavy over the trigger—

"All right." Beth speaks up. "All right." Daryl freezes and Beth looks from the lead bandit to Daryl and then back. "But you have to leave quietly. You can't leave us here with nothin' and then do somethin' that'll make them come." All eyes are on her. "You said you weren't interested in killing us," she reasons, "don't make us targets. If you do, we're two more walkers comin' after you in the end."

"Or we could shoot you both in the head right now and be done with it," he reminds her. "You really don't have any ground to be setting conditions."

Beth doesn't back down, she's got that ardent precocious school girl thing going and she argues their case, "Don't kill us — or leave us f'r dead, we'll give you what you want." Her fingers flex as she regrips her firearm. "Otherwise, fire, but we'll take at least two of you out with us. We're excellent shots." Daryl doesn't know where she's getting the balls to say all this, or to make demands, but his eyes narrow and focus through his scope, he takes aim—

"Uuuurghhh-uhh!" Everything happens at once: Beth doubles over, reeling in pain from the unexpected blow to her lower back by the butt end of an automatic rifle; Daryl's bow is knocked out of range, the bolt fires dead into the asphalt, but he's quick to grab the handgun he's carrying in his back waistband and draws it, cocking it at the skull of the bandit closest him. There they are — Beth caught, held with arms locked behind her, a knife at her throat, Daryl with a gun at his head and his gun at another's. It took mere seconds for the upheaval to up the stakes and escalate the stalemate.

Daryl freezes watching Beth struggle as best she can to get loose with the blade to her neck. "Let 'er go," he growls.

"I don't think so."

"I'll kill him," Daryl says about the man he's holding hostage.

"You kill one of mine, we kill all of yours. Now end this, give up the gun! We've been more than fair, we could have eliminated you six different ways by now. We even let you bed her one last time." He looks at Beth, who's trying not to breathe too hard against the edge of the blade, "I apologize, if I'm presumptive. Maybe he's your dad," he drops with an offhanded smirk. "See," he philosophizes, fingering a wisp of Beth's frazzled hair as he does, "Blondie here," Beth cringes at his touch, "'s our golden ticket. She's going to do what we want, so we don't bash your skull in, and you're going to do what we want so we don't—"

"Fuck you," Daryl spits.

"No," he the point man counters virulently as he advances on Daryl, "see, that's what you're trying to avoid. Do what we say, it won't come anywhere near that."

"Man, look at us," Daryl appeals. "We ain't got nuthin'. We been on the road for months; we got shit."

"Un-true." His voice and manner are growing more vehement; he's losing his patience. People plead and lie and bargain with him all the time. "Sayin' I believed you, that that pup tent you're carrying and that crowbar and that duck tape she was wearing earlier, and all whatever else is stuffed in those two packs of yours are shit and worth nothing to us, you still got two things worth a lot. You got your weapons — that crossbow and that Smith & Wesson she's packin', an' your piece, plus anything else you've got on you — ammo, and I'll bet you've got more than that; and—" he looks at them with meaning, "you've got your will to live." Daryl nearly chokes on his own belligerence, though none but Beth, who keeps her eyes trained on their adversaries, detects it. "Don't get me wrong, we don't give a shit if you live out there — frankly you're two more people out there killing off the freaks — what we do care about is us. If you've got a weapon, that's one less weapon f'r us. If you've got food, that's one more meal we're losing out on. If you're out there moving quickly, being a little efficient apocalyptic duo, you're taking resources we could be getting. Us first — that's how we're playing this game."

"This ain't a game." Daryl's near rearing.

"Isn't it? We're winning. You're losing." He approaches Beth again, who's still in pain from the blow to her kidney and who's struggling to keep a brave face and some level of defiance if for nothing else for Daryl's sake. As he nears her, Beth's eyes go to the woman standing at the back, her gun also raised. Beth's wide blue eyes look to her to plead with her for some pity, for a stay, for some shred of decency— "Don't look at her. She's not going to do anything for you. Now, listen," he edges in, "you're going to walk over there, and you're going to get that gun out of your boyfriend's hands, bring it and the bow to us, then all your gear. Go ahead now," and the knife is pulled away from her and she's shoved forward a little with two guns still trained at her head. "Wait—" he stops her, and speaks to her as one might a startled deer, "I'm just going to—" and he reaches around her and pulls off the pack she's still carrying. "Thank you. Go on now."

Beth swallows and crosses uneasily to Daryl. She's in pain from the blow, but much worse is what she's now being made to do. She hates it. Beth looks at Daryl, and he tries to look at her, but he can't get his eyes to stay on her. Gently, ever so gently, her shaking hands land on his. Daryl grips onto the gun tighter, but as her hands stay on him, he allows her fingers to intertwine with his and eventually, conflicted, he does relinquish the weapon to her. The weight she takes on in the transference is so much heavier than just the weapon itself. Once it's out of his hands and into hers the gun at his head strikes him hard against the back of it, sending him stumbling forward as the surrendered firearm is wrestled out of her hands. The group's arsenal remains trained on Daryl and Beth.

"The crossbow too."

Beth can't look at Daryl as she reaches for the symbol of their salvation, lifting the heavy weaponry from in between his legs where he'd dropped it after misfiring. Slowly she lifts it, fighting back the desperation that's filling her with its surrender—

"—Just knock me out," Daryl blurts out quickly. "Leave her the bow. Knock me out, we won't follow you; take th' arrows, leave the crossbow. Take the gun, take ev'rything!" He shrugs off his pack and flings it at them. "Leave us with the bow."

"You're talking like you've got experience running the show; like you get what you're after, but you're not running this show. You don't have the firepower nor th' numbers. You've already lost. I can see you don't do that so easy, but that's all the more reason we've got for doing it." He tugs Beth away from Daryl as another pulls the knife from Daryl's belt.

Now the leader lowers onto one knee and moves to pull Beth's boots off. His one hand at the base of her right foot, his other holds gently the back of her calf. He tugs, and Beth struggles to keep her balance without relying on him to steady her. "You're pretty; you know that?" His hand travels to her other leg, and lingers there a moment before taking hold of the left boot. "Dangerous thing t' be nowadays." He's said it like he's a social anthropologist, not as a threat, not like he's the threat. He said it without any sense of irony, ignoring fully he himself is dangerous, and at present the primary threat to her safety. He lets the remark come off like some kind of helpful tip, like maybe she could do something about it. When she's left in only her socks, the clean ones she'd just acquired, he rises and, doing so, fingers the end of her ponytail. Watching on, Daryl seethes. "May I?" the bandit asks with out-of-place civility, then without the consent he'd only just asked for, the ringleader leans in and standing terribly too close to her, removes Beth's knife from her waistband. Before Beth has any time to protest that she'd been promised she could keep at least it, his grip on her hair tightens and he's pulling hard on it, bending her head back towards him. With Beth so positioned, he sets to work sawing off her ponytail with her own knife. Her mouth opens in pain as the knife and his grip yank her back further. Beth's face winces and clenches through the ordeal and yet she remains mute. Finished, the man looks at the hacked-off locks he holds in his hand then spreads open his fingers and lets the hair fall lifeless to the ground. "Now you," the man barks at her as if the last thing to pass between them was the removal of her shoes. "Unlace his boots."

Shaken and wretched, Beth kneels obediently before Daryl and takes hold of his laces. Daryl looks down at her while she does this, powerless to stop her, powerless to protect her, powerless now to intervene on his own behalf or hers. As he looks down, watching her slowly undo the thick double knots of his boots, Daryl realizes he no longer even recognizes her by the top of her head. Beth's hair is a piteous mess, short in some places, longer in the back; it falls sadly about her head creating the effect of a half plucked bird. Woefully sorry to be doing it, Beth, with a Glock 19 and an automatic rifle following her every move, works at the sorry task. Fleetingly her river eyes lift to him and for a moment their eyes meet. He looks sorrowful and rage-filled at being utterly useless, and his keen eyes are wet with emotion. With what little time she has, Beth looks to him with the best incantation of reassurance she can muster. Throughout all this, her face has been notably stolid, even, aside from the involuntary grimaces as her head was yanked physically back, while her hair was hacked off. No detectable tears have pooled in her eyes, but now Beth fights back the tears and swallows hard on the knot in her throat as she does this work kneeled there before him. It isn't the capitulation or the loss of their gear or even their weapons, but to do it to Daryl, to be the one at his feet removing his boots, to have handed over the bow, it is a guilt and sorrow too weighty for her. She knows how very much he still needs to be fighting this, and how painfully he'll take any signs of solace or submission from her, but Beth's intent is to get them out alive, and she needs him thinking clearly. She concentrates, and fights back this swelling of tears; she will not cry for them, not over boots, and she will not let Daryl see her cry, not now. Not until they're safe. And they will be safe. His second boot now is untied and loosened and the man with the Glock trained on Beth nods at Daryl as Beth is tugged roughly to her feet by her underarm, "Take 'em off." Daryl glares at the man, then, in defiance of debasement, without looking away, lifts one foot at a time to pull his boots off and drop them, heavy to the ground.

Daryl's close to driven to distraction; anyone who knows him could recognize the panic in his face. "You've got what you wanted," he hurls at them. "Now move on." But the clan of so-called bandit Darwinists aren't finished. Now they're patting them down, checking their pockets, looking for anything he or Beth might have stored away on their person. This added affront and degradation has got Daryl twitching with rage, but it does not stop them. From him, they pull a flint, matches, some assorted pieces of hardware, a bandana, twine, a multi-tool, and, oddly, a small porcelain figurine of a bird. He'd grabbed it from the bedroom before they'd left. Seeing it, Beth knows it was meant for her, and her eyes dart to him before she watches it smash against the black street. From her pockets, they pull the pack of gum, chapstick, bullets, a lighter, and a crumpled pack of low-tar cigarettes, the carton she'd pocketed at the garage as a surprise for Daryl.

"We got a score here," the one searching her calls, waving the carton in the air. Daryl looks at Beth. If she wasn't so fond of surprises he might at least've smoked one of them before they were ambushed. "'We ain't got nuthin','" the man searching her jeers at Daryl.

"Alrighty," the point man calls, "think we're about done." At his nod, several of his companions pull out bottled makeshift incendiaries, and lighting them with Beth's lighter, spread out and chuck them through the windows of homes and storefronts. There is the crashing of glass and the rippling roar of flames catching and fire building. The two with guns still at their heads force Beth and Daryl down on their knees. A third figure, maybe the woman, ties their wrists behind their backs and to each other, then all three back away, aligning with the others, keeping their guns focused on the girl and archer. Their leader nods again and one of them fires off a few rounds into the air. "We see you again—" the point man says "—I'll be expecting a good story of how you got y'rselves out of this." And his eyes move to the horizon, where already the dead are appearing. "Take care you two," he says sardonically, "don't let this world get you down." They turn and walk away firing a few more stray shots into the air for good measure. "Keep love alive." As they go, he drops Beth's knife, and the sound of it in the echo of the fired-off rounds is hollow and lonely.

In the growing darkness, two broken figures kneel in the street, without shoes, without gear, without weapons, without so much as a match or small excuse for a meal, surrounded by growing flames, a smashed ceramic, and advancing walkers. The figures rise, without direction, and without hope.

[Update: After seeing the S5 trailer premiere today, I've really lost all steam on this... :( How can anything come close? And what crazy hospital clinic is Beth in? #elevatorshaft! October, come soon!]