Living Like You're Dead

Instances of worry flashed through Daryl’s mind as the woman raised her dagger above her head. But of course, Daryl wasn’t entirely hopeless.

Rick had listened to what Daryl had forewarned and was locked and loaded when Merle came to get him. Both of them were ready to fight the two humans that had a knife to Daryl’s throat but everything they said made it more interesting. Merle didn’t like what they were doing to him one bit.

Merle rammed the girl as hard as a bull would a matador. She went flying backwards, her head making a thick cracking sound against a near by tree. ‘Bear’ had release Daryl and was ready to attack Merle, but the sound of a cocked shotgun made him halt. Rick was pointing the gun at Bear’s head, and Merle helped his brother up, gathering his crossbow along with him. The woman now stood. And seeing that they were outnumbered made her uneasy.

“So we don’t play nice with cannibals – as you already know.” Rick said. “Now I also don’t like shooting things other than walkers. So we’ll give you a chance to get gone, if you do it quickly.”

“Ah hell no!” Daryl said, “They were gonna kill me, I’m gonna kill them.”

“Daryl no.” Rick said.

“I’m with Daryl on this one.” Merle said. Stepping up to face ‘Bear’.

“Then as you can see,” Rick said addressing the two newcomers, “You may not have much time.”

“Aye, we can see that. But there are more of us, and when we don’t come back – the rest are gonna come knockin’.”

“How many more hillbilly cannibals are there?!” Daryl yelled.

“More than you can handle.” She said.

“Well then guess we’ll see you soon.” Daryl said. “Don’t keep us waiting.”

The girl whisked herself into the cover of the trees, the large man was a little harder to conceal but eventually he disappeared too. Daryl was ready for a fight, Merle could tell. Daryl had obviously concealed some anger since he’d become infatuated with Addie. There had to have pent up anger from Merle’s actions, as well as Addie’s. Just like before – Merle would tick him off at home, and when they’d go out he’d be a ticking bomb. It was only a matter of time before Daryl couldn’t hold it in anymore.
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“Daryl what the fuck?”

“You know they were coming back anyway!”

“Maybe if we had spared their lives they would’ve have thought to bring an entire army of cannibals back here!”

“They already want us dead, now we can be ready!”

“Ready!? For what?! I’m getting my family, and we’re leaving right now! I’m not waiting for anything to come back!”

“Come on you know we can do this!”

“No Daryl! I don’t know, there could be a hundred of them and we wouldn’t know!”

“Fine be a pussy. More space for me.”

“Why don’t you ask Addie what she wants.” Rick said.

“Ask me what?” Addie said. There was no telling how long she had stood there, because she was completely concealed as she stepped out from the shadow of the hallway.

“Jesus, do you always come out of the shadows like that?”

“Well you guys are being pretty loud… yelling and all.”

“Sorry, anyone else up?” Rick asked.

“Yeah everyone is.” She said. Rick left to find Lori and Carl. He wanted to leave. Addie walked up to Daryl and looked in his eyes. He was obviously disturbed by something.

“Theres a few… uh cannibals… out there, said they were going to come back and fight us. Merle n’ I wanna be here to fight them.”

“I see. And there are how many?”

“At least two… maybe a few more.”

“and you want to kill them?

“Well they tried to kill me first!”

Addie’s face became puzzled.

“When!” her eyebrows furrowed, Daryl was definitely in trouble.

“Ah.. maybe an hour ago…”

A hand smacked across his face, it was of course, Addie’s.

“What the hell were you doing with cannibals when you should’ve been in bed with me!?”

“I went out there to protect you!”

“You mean to say you ran out in the middle of the night to protect me? I didn’t see any signs of forced entry, nothing woke me up but you screaming at Rick!”

“They’d been watching us baby! They’re probably the ones that set your home on fire.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I wasn’t sure, I only found out last night, and you were already sleeping, I couldn’t wake you.” Addie placed a warm hand on his cheek, he wanted to do the same to her but he didn’t want to irritate her wound.

“I want to leave.” She said looking into his eyes. Daryl only nodded in response, all he had needed to see was her scarred face, he couldn’t put her in another potentially dangerous situation.

Merle had silently watched them, he had never thought he’d see a side to Daryl that he saw now. His brother had been reckless, a fighter, a hell bent crazy ass mother fucker – and so had Merle. But it seemed that this girl had done more than tame them both.