Alone TWD

Guilty As Charged

"Y'know, ages ago, when we were still in Georgia, our community had just collapsed, one we spent seven months putting together and defending. Me, Daryl, and our friend, Beth, got out."

"Beth?" Lydia asked.

"Yeah, like Elizabeth, my Bammy's middle name. She was this young kid, about your age, blonde, and she was strong. Anyways, we... we ended up losing her, we got separated. I blamed myself for it, it was over a stupid dog. So It was just me and Daryl, man, we chased that car till the sun rose up, think that was one of the worst stitches I ever had in my life." She chuckled. "Well, we ended up stopping cause we hit a fork in the road, no idea where the car went, so we gave up, layed on the ground and just stayed there in the sun. Until this group approached us, about six men, I don't know about you, but that's a warning sign for danger, and it was. They didn't give us a choice to join their group, well, they initiated Daryl into their group, and I was with Daryl. These people were horrible, horrible people, but they lived by a code, a shitty code, but they had it. One of their people, he kept giving Daryl shit, trying to compete with him, turn the others on him, shit like that, just messing with the new guy, y'know. Our second day with them, Daryl had snuck out to go hunting for the both of us, I hated hunting, but he has always been good at it, even back then. So he was up, even before the sun, hunting this one single rabbit, and just as he was about to hit it, y'know what happened?"

"What?" Lydia asked, hanging off of her every word.

"The guy came in, shot the rabbit from behind him, and "claimed" it, said it belonged to him. It didn't matter how much time and effort Daryl put in, cause he still only ended up with the ass end."

"But that's not fair!" Lydia rebutted.

"No, it wasn't, and I said the same thing, but Daryl didn't react, he just got over it and he continued, I didn't, but that's not the point. Well, we had been outside talking, away from them, planning our departure, and whilst we were outside, the guy had snuck his half of the bunny into Daryl's stuff, yeah, I know, sounds weird and random." She smiled at the confused expression on Lydia's face. "But that's just men for you. Well, it turned out that he did this, so that he could frame Daryl, turn the others against the Newby, why would they believe a stranger over their friend? Besides, according to his story, Daryl had broke a few of their code laws. So, he makes a scene, woke me up, by the way, going on and on about this stupid rabbit, coming up to us trying to initiate a fight, so the leader steps in, and he asks what's going on, and obviously, we deny the whole thing, we're innocent. So then he checks the mans story, and he still confirms it, and as I prepare myself for the attack, he swings round and throws his fist into the mans face, knocks him flat on his back, and then he orders the others to beat this man to death. It turned out, he had watched the man do the whole thing, knew it from the start, he knew the kinda fucker he was, and he allowed that to play out, because he knew he was guilty as charged, and he paid for it, with his life."

"Did you end up leaving the group?" Lydia asked, understanding why Natalia told her that story, so she wouldn't take any blame for Margo, even if she didn't feel it right then.

"Yes and No, something came up, we reunited with Michonne, and RJ's dad, Rick, and Rick's son, Carl, and the group were hunting them down, so we had no choice but to kill them, in complete self defence, by the way."

Lydia swallowed, staring at the ground.

"Are you going to kill my mom?" She asked.

"Lydia..." Natalia sighed, having no idea what to tell the girl. "I don't want to lie to you, your mother, what she put you through, what she did to our people, what she's continuing to do, we can't just let her get away with it, Mich, she doesn't want to cause anyone harm, trying to find a balance, but it won't always work out that way."