THINK ABOUT LIVING | Daryl Dixon

005 | Playing Hard to Kill

━━━━━━ CHAPTER FIVE ━━━━━━
Playing Hard to Kill
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          RED. OH, HE SAW RED.

A bullet shattered a hole through one of the windows of the diner, cutting short his sound-triggered instinct of ducking his head with the sudden weight he caught in his arms.

Red.

Mallory's blood poured through her hand's fingers as she brought it up in the very last second to clasp over the side of her neck, where the bullet grazed on its way past, all but a second before her knees lost strength and she dropped forward in his arms. There was too much blood and he had nothing he could do about it but collapse back down on the ground with her, call her name in a broken chant and blink the blur out of his eyes only to realize she's grown pale, cold and stiff.

"Is she dead?" A shout coming from outside gave voice to the disbelief-riddled question Daryl too found blooming within her mind between the unbearable noise. There was a blabber out there, in the parking lot of the diner, from whoever fired the gun about hoping of not having aimed her head.

That's when it clicked. Like an army underneath the hand of a leader, all his thoughts thrown into havoc fell silent before his rage. Red went hand in hand with fury after all, so it was easy to restrict every single sorrow, pain, terror and tear into one single chant of thought: The person who shot her is out there.

He hadn't the strength yet to correct himself that Mallory hadn't just been shot, but she had been killed that night, right before his eyes. Good Lord, he didn't have the strength yet to realize that she would turn any moment now and he'd have to kill her himself again.

No, Daryl didn't consider himself capable of doing something like that, not now, nor ever. The mere passing though was making him sick.

So he set her head down as if she was sleeping, let her rest on the floor.

With an unblinking gaze, lost in that same denial that flipped the switches on reason and control, the animal life had forged within him mercilessly long before the dead walked the earth took over and he picked up his crossbow.

Holroyd fired two more rounds into Walkers approaching due to the initial gunshot fired, which is why, when Daryl kicked the diner door open, the wannabe doctor wasn't prepared to be shot with an arrow, one that went right through his firing arm.

There was no reason to talk. He didn't allow Mallory that grace, so why should Daryl give him any?

His scream of pain was immediate but insufficient to cure the lack of humanity suddenly at home in Daryl's gaze. Those blue eyes of his had frozen over, a mourning blanket cast over them darkened their intention.

While the doctor bowed over his knees holding his wounded hand, the gun had slipped his grip. He looked up, shocked to see Daryl still march towards him, but too dazed by pain to form the smart thought of taking a step back, "The woman was a fucking Undead. I know she didn't look the part, but-"

Holroyd's explanation was cut short by a swift hit of the crossbow's handle right in his face, knocking him back.

The roars of the Walkers approaching the scene obviously escaped Daryl, because the second he saw the guy on his back, whining for the realization that he sported new bruises and the taste of his own blood on his tongue, he dropped his crossbow and got right down with him, hammering the first hit such that the taste of blood would grow to choke the man. His knuckles knocked out a tooth, then a bunch more as the hits kept going and he held not even a ounce of his strength back.