Riley Grimes, the younger sister of Sheriff's Deputy Rick Grimes. She's a baker. She's soft, she's sweet, and she's taken.
Daryl Dixon, the younger brother of Merle Dixon. Everyone knows he's a nobody. He's rough, he's mean, and he's destined to be...
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He looked the same as he had every single day for the past thirteen years. He was wearing his sheriff deputy's uniform, his hat pulled low over his eyes, his badge shiny and pinned to his chest, with his colt on his hip. He looked clean, normal, like nothing had happened.
"Oh my God." I whispered, staring at him as he looked me up and down, shock written clearly across his face as well.
"Ri?" Rick asked breathily, taking a few stumbling steps towards Bailey and I, and when he got close enough, I practically collapsed into his arms, sobbing my heart out, the stress of the past few days, along with the fear I felt all the time around Ashton recently, melting away as I was wrapped up in my big brother's arms. I was safe.
"Rick." I sobbed out as he clutched me to his chest, and I couldn't tell if the flinch I felt was from the pain I was inflicting by squeezing him too hard, or simply my own body trembling.
"Riley. Are you okay?" Rick asked angrily, as he pulled away and scanned me over, his eyes lingering on the bruises across my face and arms. I didn't answer, my eyes drifting to Ashton and the young man behind him who had saved us. Ashton was warning me with his eyes not to say anything, and the young man looked uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry. I'm Riley Grimes, this is my brother Rick, and my boyfriend Ashton." I mumbled awkwardly, looking at the two men to see if they would say anything, but after a moment I continued.
"Anyway, thank you for saving us." I let a small smile lift my face, and he copied me, but his looked a tad more forced.
"Glenn Rhee. It's no problem. What in the hell were you two doing?" Glenn asked, looking back and forth between us, seeming bewildered. Rick glanced at Ashton and I before turning back to Glenn. I ignored their conversation, watching as Ashton took several steps towards me, his hand gripping my bicep in what probably seemed like a comforting gesture but all I could feel was the pain where his fingers were cutting off the circulation.
"Why'd you stick your neck out for me, for us?" Rick asked severely as I finally tuned back into their conversation. Rick said it carefully, but I could tell he was suspicious.
"Call it foolish, naïve hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me. Guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than you three." Glenn said grumpily as he turned and led us to a different ladder and began to climb down. I groaned, turning to grab Bailey up off the ground and put her wound my shoulders, but she was already gone, and when I looked up Rick was halfway over the edge with her resting calmly on his shoulders. I gave Rick a grateful smile as he chuckled, his head disappearing from view, leaving Ashton and I alone up on the roof. I took a few steps towards the ladder, but before I could reach it, Ashton had grabbed me again, and I was frozen in place.
"You know what'll happen if you tell him right?" Ashton hissed harshly in my ear and I nodded, a silent tear slipping down my face that I wiped gently off my face. I pulled my arm away from him, not bothering to look at his face as I took the few steps towards the edge and followed my brother down it.
When we were all finally at the bottom of the ladder I looked around and realized we were at the top of a staircase. Rick put Bailey down gently, and she immediately returned to my side. I took her leash back in my hand and watched as Glenn took out a walkie-talkie, while staring down at a door down the stairs from us that was guarded by four dead.
"I'm back. Got three guests plus four geeks in the alley." A moment later we began to move down the steps, and when we got to the bottom, two men in protective gear came out with baseball bats and went after the two dead closest to the door and we rushed in.
"Let's go!" Glenn said, since we weren't moving fast enough for him, and when we were finally inside one of the men in gear ran back in and spun around to yell for the other.
"Morales, let's go!" The other man, Morales, rushed through the door and slammed it shut behind him, ripping his helmet off in the process, revealing a slightly older than me Hispanic gentleman who looked like he had been out in the heat all day with the amount of sweat dripping down his body. The other man removed his helmet as well, showing his darker skin and bald head that was also drenched in sweat.
Before I could inspect the others that were around us, Rick was shoved into me, hard enough to slam me into the wall and I could hear Bailey growling at whoever had done it, and people were yelling, but my mind was just reeling, the room spinning around us as I suffered head trauma for the second time today.
"You son of a bitch! We ought to kill you!" A lady was screaming, her voice barely distinguishable from the ringing in my ears, and I could kind of see that Rick's hands were up defensively, but most of what was happening was blocked by his shoulders that he had broadened in an attempt to protect me.
"Just chill out Andrea. Back off." Morales was saying from somewhere to the left, and a dark-skinned woman on my other side echoed his words.
"Come on, ease up."
"Ease up? You're kidding me, right? We're dead because of these stupid assholes." Andrea, the blonde who had shoved us against the wall, and was apparently pointing some kind of weapon at my brother, seemed extremely angry.
"Andrea, I said back the hell off. Or pull the trigger." Morales grumbled, and I glanced at him in shock, my hand flinching to my gun, but he seemed unconcerned, and I understood why when Andrea immediately lowered her gun and backed away. Rick moved away from me as fast as possible, turning to look at me with concern before turning back to look at Andrea again when she spoke.
"We're dead... all of us. Because of you." Andrea hissed, pointing at the three of us as she ran her fingers through her hair, moving away with her gun in the hand that was touching her hair, but I could see that the safety was on now, so even if she had pulled the trigger, the gun wouldn't have gone off.
"I don't understand." Rick said dumbly from in front of me, but I did. We had seen it, sound draws them, and we weren't exactly quiet about getting in here.
"Look, we came into the city to scavenge supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving! You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out, tiptoeing. Not shooting up the streets like it's the O.K. Corral." Morales said angrily as he took up Andrea's role of lecturer.
"Every geek for miles around heard you popping off rounds." The other man in protective gear added, but he didn't look as angry, just scared.
"You just rang the dinner bell." Andrea gestured over to our right, her left, where I saw what they were so anxious about. The glass entrance doors were being pushed up against by several walkers, and it looked like the glass would break soon, and there would only be one set of doors between us and them.
