Spider Monkey

Chapter Eighty - Five - Omega

Hedley gave Lydia a dinner tray when dark came. She didn't touch it.

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Hunger's a gift." She responded, then frowned at him, "Why are you being nice to me?"

"I'm just doing what I'm told." He said, taking his seat, feet wiggling for stimulation, "How is hunger a gift?"

"If I had to explain it, you wouldn't understand. It'll never be okay again."

"Says who?"

"My dad." She then told a story, what was suppose to be a memory of her mean father and her heroic mother. Something Hedley didn't buy.

"Two of ours went missing." He said after she was finished. "We found their horses, though. Half skinned, half eaten. You know anything about that?"

"How could I? I've been here."

"What would your mom do if she crossed some of our people? Would she kill them?"

"She would if she had to."

"Some people kill because they enjoy it." Hedley stood up, "They just use this world as an excuse."

Hedley left and went round the building to find Daryl leaning against the wall.

"I know you've been listening. She needs our help, dad."

Daryl hummed, then snapped a branch off a tree before going down into the cell. When Lydia saw him, she cowered back into the corner. Her shirt sleeve was up and when she noticed her bruises were out, she quickly hid them. Hedley watched from the entrance as Daryl started stripping the leaves from the branch he was holding.

"You know, some dads would come up with any excuse... just to beat the shit out of their kids. Maybe they're drunk. Maybe they can't get drunk. Belts are good. But these assholes, they ain't picky. They'll use whatever's layin' around. But a good switch from a birch tree... that'll work." Lydia took in Daryl's words, hiding her face using her hair. "Your dad sounds a lot like one of those dads. Except the part where he sang to you when you were scared. Those dads... they like it when you're scared. Thing is, that's the only part of your story that didn't sound like bullshit. Now, you knew exactly what this was when I walked down here." He waved the branch and when she flinched, he threw it to the side. "And those bruises are from a beating. So let me ask you, if your dad's dead, who gave 'em to you?"

"My mom." She answered.

"Where is she?"

"Be glad you don't know."

"Where is she? Where's your camp? Why are you protectin' her? Huh? You're safer here."

Lydia laughed, "This place isn't real. The world changed, and you're all acting like it's gonna change back. My mom walks 'cause that's what the dead do. It's their world, and we have to live in it. And what my mom does, she does for a reason."

"Your mom beats you because she loves you? That's bullshit."

"No, it isn't. When you stay soft, people die." Lydia then told another story. How her dad got bit by protecting her when she was a child.

"You were just a little girl. It wasn't your fault." Daryl said softly.

"I was stupid." Lydia said, "I deserved to die. But my dad was soft, and now he's the one that's dead."

"What was he supposed to do? Just watch his little girl get bit?"

"When you can't bend, you break. He broke."