What Lies Ahead

Chapter Four

Unwanted Memories

Hi guys! I'm back with the next chapter! I had the end events planned for quite a while, but we're seeing them a little sooner than I had thought I'd reveal them. They fit so perfectly in this scene so I went with it.

However, I do want to warn everyone that things get dark in this chapter. It could be triggering, and while I didn't go into super detail about it, there's enough that it could be upsetting, so please read with caution.

That being said, I can't wait to see what you guys think of everything revealed here. Thank you so much for sticking with me through this journey! You are all amazing, and the feedback I've been getting brings me so much joy! 3

"You're giving up, I'm tired (oh)
The tug of war that we're playing (playing)
I'm not giving up, I'm trying
To tell you, to tell you, to tell you, to tell you"

-Black Sea by Natasha Blume

CAUTION: DARK THEMES AHEAD

Remington was shivering violently as she came to a little while after collapsing against Daryl. Her whole body shuddered, and while her veins felt like molten lava was flowing through them, the receptors in her brain were screaming that she was freezing. Her legs felt like dead weight, unresponsive, as she was dragged through the trees. The kaleidoscope of autumn leaves flashed by, becoming a disorienting blur, the different colored leaves bleeding into one another. Vaguely, she recognized the man dragging her wasn't Daryl, but she could hear his familiar footsteps and breathing nearby, a silent protector in the night as he ushered them along and ensured Walkers didn't get too close.

She was a liability.

'I'm slowing them down.'

The thought twisted through the fog in her mind, and guilt clung to it, something heavy and suffocating. She struggled weakly against Jenner's hold, her body jerking as her fever-riddled mind blurred reality and delusion. One moment, she was certain Jenner was dragging her to safety; the next, he was a shadowy threat, his touch foreign and damning. Her survival instincts demanded that she fight and escape.

"I can't… I have to… let… go..," she murmured incoherently, her voice trembling and fearful.

"You are stronger than this," Jenner whispered as he stopped in place to fight against her. His hands gripped hers, caging her wrists together as he maneuvered her body around to keep her off balance until she stopped fighting. "Whatever is going on within your body right now, you will win; you just have to stay strong."

"We can't be stoppin' like this," Daryl muttered gruffly, his eyes locked onto Remington and her state as worry tugged at his features. Her eyes looked glassy and unfocused, like how Merle got sometimes when he'd go on a bender in the past. "Gotta keep movin'."

Daryl didn't hesitate as he strode forward, shoving the gun into Jenners hands as he scooped Remi into his arms. Her head lolled against his chest. Occasionally, he felt how she'd nuzzle into him, muttering words that made no sense but had calmed.

"She's burnin' up," Daryl muttered, his jaw tight as he felt the fever clinging to her skin, almost too hot. He hadn't stopped feeling that terrible fear and helplessness since he had been told Remi's fate, but seeing this didn't put him at ease.

Daryl's thoughts spiraled out of control. He saw no happy ending, his heart pounding nearly as fast as Remi's was as he watched her act like a stranger. When she went still, her body limp, as sweat built at her brow, he grew worried, especially when she began muttering, talking about things that weren't there.

Remington felt the air brush against her body, causing her oversensitive skin to scream out as it felt like a million needles jabbing into her body. She wanted to cry, to beg for them to stop, to slow down, anything to allow her to try to orient herself as her body did its best to join the atoms around them. Being alive felt like being burned alive and reconstructed all at the same time.

As things around her began to slow down, the colors separating, trying to become separate entities once more, Remi was overly aware when a figure stepped into her line of sight, blocking her gaze as she stared at the stars and limbs above her that threatened to collide. There was a chuckle, familiar, the sound sweet like sugar and sharp as a knife. Her heart raced, the blood within her veins feeling like they were rushing into her ears, and she swore she could taste the iron in her mouth.

The figure blocked out the sickening swirling stars and leaves, bringing his features into crystal-clear focus as handsome features formed into a familiar nightmare. A whimper escaped her lips as he leaned over her prone form, that smile growing larger, as his dark eyes glimmered with a predatory satisfaction at the sight of her.

"Well, if it isn't my darling wife." His gaze slowly dragged along her form. "Blood looks damn good on you."

"E-eli-." The name wasn't said in whispered adoration but horrified recognition. "Y-you can't be here." Her mind felt like fracturing, but while she was aware that Daryl was holding her and moving her somewhere, she wasn't so connected to reality that she realized he was talking to her and questioning her. In her head, there was only Eli and her right now; everything was strangely disconnected, even as she was partly aware of those in attendance.

"Funny that word… can't." Another dangerous chuckle. "I can be anywhere I damn well please when it comes to my wife and daughter." He didn't move; Eli just hovered, leaning over her, and she was far too paralyzed to fight like she wanted.

Remi was sure she was moving. Daryl's gate was quick but not trying to sprint as before. It bounced her body against his chest, and with every thump, it felt like her bones might break, but Eli… just stood there… floating like a phantom as he kept his pace right alongside them. He looked so real and solid that Remington thought if she reached out, she could touch him.

"You've been quite naughty, hiding from me, shacking up with… well, whatever you've decided was worth your time." His dark gaze flickered up to Daryl, and while he didn't outwardly scoff at the man, his expression showed his displeasure and disapproval.

"Y-you can't be real… y-you can't be here. You don't belong here."

The words left her lips in a whisper, faint and barely strong enough for anyone to believe her. Something very wrong was happening.

"Why don't I belong here, Remington? Shouldn't a husband be by his wife's side?"

Her mind felt like it was fracturing.

"N-not you… y-you aren't supposed to be… here… not here…"

There was something… tugging at her mind… a memory. Her vision swam, Eli, fading in and out as what sounded like a door slammed open, its force accompanied by the noise of wood breaking.

They were out in the woods. There were no doors around.

Sharp, hot fire shot up her spine, settling behind her eyes, and a muffled scream left her lips as she bit down on her bottom lip, causing the abused flesh to bleed. From somewhere far away, the sound muffled like she was listening through water, came the voice of someone trying to soothe her. There was something like a sensation of someone gently prying her teeth from her lip, the touch soothing rather than forceful that told her it wasn't Eli.

As lost in her mind as she was, Remington missed the flurry of confusion and worry from Daryl as he demanded Jenner to do something.

"Ah, he's right, sweets; if you don't stop, you're going to ruin those pretty lips of yours."

Eli had always been concerned over her looks, making sure her face stayed impeccable while the rest of her bruised and broke. She hated him for it. Anger reared up, hot, seeping into her pores, as that painful sensation from before slipped away, as the fever dug its claws back into her. The desire to bite, tear, destroy ate away at her, and Remington found her baser animalistic instincts slipping in, taking control, as she snapped her teeth in Eli's direction and wiggled against the arms that held her.

Her eyes grew mirky, milky, as a snarl escaped between her lips.

"Damn, sweets!" His laugh bounced off the trees; a giddy, almost malicious gleam sparkled and lit up his features as he leaned back, teasing her with his movements as he urged her to try to bite him again by leaning forward once more. "You're looking like one of those dead creeps. A role you must be comfortable with… huh, Rem."

He was no longer smiling, his glee replaced by something unnerving and blank, the look of a man who felt nothing and was always accompanied by some form of punishment.

She whined pitifully when that splitting sensation flooded her head from before. Her eyes cleared, just barely, as she stopped struggling, her limbs growing heavy, and the urge to attack Eli faded away.

All that was left was screaming in her ears from events long past.

Voices begging.

Pleading.

Murky honey-toned eyes stared up at Eli. Her breathing picked up to dangerous speeds. Hyperventilating… she was… hyperventilating.

He looked unbothered and bored, but something in his eyes chilled her to the bone. The heat she had been battling before seemed to evaporate, and Remi began to shiver uncontrollably.

Bang!

She flinched. There was what sounded like a gunshot, an animal whine, then silence.

Her heart pounded against her ribcage as she continued to stare up at Eli, unseeing, as memories played across her vision.

Bang!

Another shot. Another whine. Silence.

Remi was terrified. That pleading… it was her voice… wasn't it? But… Remington… didn't remember saying those words, feeling this kind of fear.

"You've always been good at suppressing things, haven't you, sweets."

Was this happening… or had it happened… something she had lived through and had forgotten? She was so turned inside out, broken, and fractured into pieces that she couldn't make head or tails of it.

"The presence of death, it clings to you, you reek of it." Eli's voice twisted, a slither of emotion showing through, pure malice and hate. "I can't be here, shouldn't be here, no… no sweets, the misplaced one is you."

She wretched and gagged as her sense of smell was suddenly flooded with a metallic bitterness.

Words refused to leave her lips: confusion, horror, and something knowing all mixed and vile as it stuck in her throat.

There was a sudden sensation of a small body huddled in her arms. Those pleading words swirled around in her thoughts, desperate and terrified, and were whispered by a woman from long ago. Her pleas were met with silence, stared down by a monster, as something glinted in the light, raised in the air-

Bang!

Remi flinched, now in the present and in the past, that had lodged itself inside her mind, forcing her to relive the nightmare she had come from.

A scream tore from her lips, the wail of sorrow that abruptly ended on a keening whine that sounded more animalistic than human.

Eli from her memory and the Eli constructed by the fever merged.

"I told you I'd fucking kill you if you left." He had never looked so much like death before. Eli, a man who prided himself in the control he harbored, had lost any semblance of it. All there was staring back at her was someone unpredictable and out of control. Her fingers dug into the body she held, her arms still wrapped protectively, even as the evidence of her failure saturated her clothes. "You are mine, Remington. Maisie is mine. To do with as I fucking please… and you… you took that away from me… and if I can't have you both…" He looked deadly calm as he pointed the gun at her next. "Maybe in the next life, you'll do as your fucking told."

Bang!

Remington jerked, her body shaking uncontrollably, her muscles seized, every nerve point was lit up with an ungodly heat, as her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she began to choke.

There was a flurry of movement above her, a panicked voice, a professional, commanding tone, and the brushing of grass against skin that would have grated on her nerves if she could have focused on such things.

Instead, as her body reacted on its own, once more out of her hands, Remington was lost to a sea of sounds and flashing lights before blissful darkness crashed over her, tugging her within its depths. And then, and only then, was she granted a reprieve from the abuse that the virus was wrecking on her system as her natural antibodies fought back.

"Remi, angel, c'mon sweetheart, wake up!"

"Get her on her side," Jenner commanded, swooping in as he knelt at Remington's side and forced Daryl to follow his lead in getting her rolled over. "We need to make sure she doesn't choke, and then we need to start moving again."

In the distance, the Walkers' snarls and moans were heard as they were slowly gaining on them again. Daryl did as he was told, his grip on her shaking slightly as he watched helplessly as Remington came out of the seizure that had just taken over her after she screamed. A scream that had almost startled him into dropping her before panic had set in, and he tried to figure out what had changed from her nonsensical mutterings to what sounded like she was undergoing torture.

The seizure hadn't been a welcome change from her screams, and now they were in more danger than before. Every Walker in their immediate area would soon be baring down on them, and Daryl was starting to tire out. Remi was not a heavy woman, but they had been fleeing the farm for a while now, and there was no sign of safety in sight.

A shuffling of leaves and the sound of boots scuttling over the ground had him twisting, his gun raised in the air, as his crossbow clunked against his back, but the Walker he was aiming at head suddenly slid forward off his neck, tumbled through the air, and thunked against the ground.

The body quickly pitched forward and followed as it crumbled in on itself and landed over the head.

Daryl's eyes flickered to the very alive figure standing behind where the Walker had just been stalking from, a sword glinting in the barely there moonlight as a hood obstructed their savior's face.

"Who the fuck are yah?"