Tiptoe Through the Tulips

A scream echoed and at the time I couldn’t tell if it was Beth’s or my own. But shouts of pain broke through it, forced me upright, forced the air from my lungs in relief.
Rick still knelt, his eyes slowly opening as he realised, the man next to him, one of the Governor’s had collapsed on the floor, holding his knee where blood soaked into his jeans.

Merle was standing to his full height, pistol in his grip, aimed no longer at the prisoners but at his boss, still holding me. He was rigid, his breathing heavy, chest hitting against my shoulder blades,
he pushed me forward, my knees slamming onto the cement flooring, as I quickly crawled over to Rick and Beth, the man Merle had shot whimpering in the corner.

Beth clung on to me, her tears had stopped but her eyes were wide, her mouth agape.

“I need to find my brother. You promised me men if I ever got word.”

“Your brother is a danger, you swore your loyalty to Woodbury.”

“He is my blood,” Merle urged, his hand shaking slightly, “I am going to find him, and I need these alive to do it.”

“You don’t,” The governor scorned, I didn’t understand why he was speaking so confidently when he was facing down the barrel of a gun, “If what they say is true, if he cares so much about them he will come for them. And we will mow him down like the monster he is.”

“He is my brother,” Merle’s voice cracked, my hands over Ricks face, trying to get an idea of how hurt he truly was, he could easily get his arm infected, was he already?

“Anyone not from Woodbury is the enemy!” The Governor roared, “You swore to this, this is how we survive, if we want to live, to make best of this world, we trust us and us alone. Your brother is a danger, he could kill us all and feel no regret.”

“You don’t know him,” Beth spat, a flicker of bravery, “We just want to leave, we don’t want to be anywhere near here, please.” He scoffed, taking a step forward, Merle was hesitating, the place he had spent the last few months in must have contorted his morals even more.

“This is the second time you have been in my town,” his attentions turned to me, Ricks hand flailing to grasp me as I was again wrenched upwards by the Governor,

“The first time I intended to kill you, and you got away, then you led us on a merry chase, got. My.Men.Killed.” he had pushed me against a wall, each word of the last sentence accompanying a slam to my head against the stone, pain flaring through my skull as it made contact.

I was dizzy by the time he had finished, my head on fire, blood dripping down the back of my neck, blood pounding behind my closed eyelids.

“We shall wait until the others come, and they will,” I fluttered my eyes open, the images slightly blurred, but I could see he was smiling, could tell Merle still stood, but the gun was at his side. The Governor walked towards him, taking the gun from his hand and walking thankfully past Rick. Another shot rang out, and the man in the corner, his man, rang silent.

Whatever humanity he had once had was gone.

He shouted something outside and more men appeared, one had the audacity to smirk at the body in the corner. “Take them back to the other room,” he walked to the door, the gun held down by his thigh, Beth screamed as yet another shot fired, this time into Merle’s thigh.

“Take Merle with them, we’ll wait for your brother to come Dixon, we’ll see how strong your bond is. See if he mourns over your corpse. We execute them tomorrow. String them out along the wall. Show what we do to traitors and murderers!” He declared, storming from the room.

Merle fought against the men as we were taken down the hall, Rick again pretty much carried, I stumbled, unconsciousness threatening to take over me. Breathe in, breathe out. Beth kept hissing my name, focus on her voice, focus on my name.
Ariella..Ariella..Arie…

Black.

________________

I was cold, my body aching, my head felt like it had an axe imbedded in it, but then moments of relief, a cold, but nicely cold wet feeling. I groaned, every hair on my body standing upright as the cold seeped through me,
“Ariella, stay sitting, drink this..” the voice was indistinguishable, like I was underwater, blurred. I accepted the plastic cup, the strange tasting water waking me a little.

I opened my eyes,

“Oh thank god,” I whimpered, when I saw the hand resting across my stomach to keep me upright.
“Oh, I thought you were…”

“Stop talking,” the voice commanded, “You took a nasty hit, you’re going to be concuss as hell, you need to sit still.”

“If I’ve already been unconscious it’s better I don’t do it again,” I argued weakly, though I lowered my voice and stopped trying to turn, just lifting my neck, ignoring their tuts as I looked around the room.

“Who did that to Rick?” I asked lowly, noticing he was barely conscious, an ever growing Carl whispered to him, rag tied around his ruined arm growing ever bloodier.

“Who do you think? That crazy bastard that runs this place, he got us at the prison, I dunno why he just didn’t kill us… though from the sounds of it that’s what he’s gunna do tomorrow.”

“No. We can get out of here.”

“How do you reckon that?” another voice asked, body pressed against the heavy door, listening, on edge, liked a caged animal, Michonne.

“Because we have done too much to get shot in the head by that lunatic. Daryl and that will…”

“Beth already said where they were, and if they’re smart they won’t come, not with a fucking baby. They know what’s here, what we went up against...”

“If my brother cares about you lot of fucks as much as you claim he’ll be coming.” Merle interrupted, sat as far away from us as possible, face beginning to blacken, the knife taken from the end of his right arm, just a stub covered in metal.

“We are in no position to bust out of here,” T-dog argued, standing and pulling me with him, taking me a couple of seconds to properly regain my balance, my head still pounding.
But that wasn’t important right now.

“We got out of here before,”

“We had our weapons,” Michonne bit back, “There are guards outside the door, anything we had is in his office. He bragged a lot about that when..” she trailed off and I noticed the bruises on her forearms, knew the meaning between her stumble of words.

I felt sicker than I ever had.

“Then we get to his office…”

“We’ve been here for a week, you don’t think we haven’t tried every way of getting out of here?” T-dog said, his tone softening, “There is no way out…if we had a shot it would be to escape when they come to…” he glanced and Carl and Beth, listening intently, “Kill us…”

“There ain’t no hope, you peoples are stupid for even trying.”

“Well, until I drop dead I’m going to try to live a little longer, if you don’t mind.” Merle scoffed at me, snarling at the blood stained wall, two rotting corpses not far from him.

“Whatever plan we have we need weapons, and Dad is in no state to be doing anything.” I kept my eyes on the bodies a few seconds longer before returning them to the adult in a child’s body, one who had seen so much, lost his mother just days beforehand.

“We have weapons, we just need to make them.”

________________________

“Look, you either help us get out of here, tell us the layout of the town or we kill you now to keep you quiet and escape anyway,” Michonne growled to Merle, who took a good few minutes to nod.

“I ent dying tomorrow.”

The group was by the door, Rick was awake but still hardly mobile.

“We have no guarantee any of this will work,” Michonne still argued, although she looked excited and more alive at the possibility of a fight, finally having a plan.

“He’s got too big an ego to accept an offer from you,”

“But he’s got a big enough ego to listen, to brag…” I urged, “If I say I want to talk to him, offer him something for Carl and Beth to go… even if he doesn’t I’ll be in his office, because he’ll probably want to…” I trailed off, and everyone dropped eye contact.

“You know what you’re doing? You know what he did to her.” Merle seemed almost horrified by my idea, “You are setting up to get raped,” he said lowly, spitting every word, accent I barely noticed on Daryl any more heavy. I winced at the looks on everyone's face.

“If it needs to be done for us to get out of here…”

He let out a weird laugh, shaking his head, “You’re either really fucking brave or really fucking stupid.”

“She goes,” Michonne interrupted, “He is in his office, it takes a couple of men to bring her to him… we have the bones,” everyone but me glanced down, we had ripped the skin from the arms, broken the bones, they were sharp, “We somehow have to get the door open, get the leftover guards in here. Kill them, get there weapons.”

She turned to Merle, “You know the way around this place, you get us to the wall, the door, any other hidden way.We get out.”

“What about Ariella?” Beths’ light voice asked, T-dog and Michonne’s eyes meeting mine quickly.

“If our weapons are in his office, I get some… I make my way to you guys,” I lied.

I had no plan.
The inclusion of myself in the plan went as far as keeping him unaware, with whatever it took.
I was going to try, to get away from him, kill him even.

But we all knew there wasn’t much chance of that.
Even less chance than the rest actually escaping.

But we all had to try.
Die on our own terms.