Violent Delights¹︎ | D.Dixon

1.07 ➸

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CHAPTER SEVEN
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          LEONA SPENT THE MORNING WATCHING Andrea, who seemed to be frozen in place. Amy's body lay on the ground, blood coating her neck and her left forearm from bites of skin and flesh ripped from her body by walkers. Andrea sat beside her dead body, one hand cradling her sister's face while the other clutched one of her hands resting on her stomach. She looked peaceful, Leona thought as she watched Andrea stare down at her sister. She only hoped that when she was inevitably bit, she was left with a body for her family to mourn.

She could hear the commotion around her despite her laser focus on the woman. She could hear Daryl as he swung the pickaxe into the heads of people who had once been members of their little group, a final mercy to make sure they didn't reanimate into one of the dead. Leona could see Morales out of her peripheral vision as he, Rick, and Shane pulled walkers and the bodies of their friends into separate piles. T-Dog and Glenn would burn the bodies of the walkers, and the ones who'd been a part of their group would be buried.

It was Lori who'd tried to talk Andrea into leaving Amy's corpse the next morning. While everyone had been concerned the night before, and had told her to go to bed, they had been shocked when they found her in the place she'd been in hours ago. And when Lori approached her, she didn't say a thing to her. Just stared at Amy like the force behind the stare, itself, could bring her back to life.

"She still won't move?" Rick asked as he approached. Leona, Carol, and Lori had sat down around the firepit, nothing burning in it, as all three of them watched Andrea, each one concerned about what would happen when Amy reanimated. Shane had sat down across from them on a bucket, watching the scene in utter silence.

Leona shook her head, glancing from Andrea to her brother, squinting from the bright sunlight beaming down on her. "She's been there all night."

Dale, who stood beside Rick, shifted nervously.

"What do we do?" Lori asked.

Shane shrugged. "Can't just leave Amy like that. We need to deal with it the same as the others."

Leona shook her head again, this time disagreeing with Shane. "It's her choice. If she wants to put herself in danger, knowing full well what the consequences are, then I say we let her."

"And if she gets bit?" Dale questioned.

"Then we deal with that accordingly." She told him. "Either way, I could hit Amy from here without touching Andrea, and I know I'm not the only one who could do it, either. If she gets bit, we take out Amy, then figure out what we do with people who are bit."

"I don't think I could live with that decision," Shane told her.

But she didn't care. "Then it's a good thing it isn't your decision."

Rick nodded, taking a step forward to wedge himself between her and Shane before it escalated. "I'll tell her how it is."

Leona didn't protest it, figuring Andrea just wouldn't answer and they'd give up. When she heard a gun cock, however, she was on her feet, slipping the rifle off her shoulder in preparation. The shuffling of feet told her others had done the same. After a few tense seconds, Rick backed away, Andrea's handgun following him until he was out of her sight. And then she went back to staring at Amy.

Leona understood her grief, to some extent. Sparing a glance in her brother's direction, she knew that if she would've had the chance to mourn his body, she would've defended it until the last possible second that she could've had with it. She'd known him from the second she was born. He was always there, leading her, guiding her, loving her. Rick may not have realized it, but he was her favorite person, the only one that truly got her, and she would hold on tenaciously to their bond no matter the cost because siblings didn't leave one another to die. Not without cause.