A Marauder's World

Part 3

Can't stop...

They'll kill her...

Not like Sophia, can't put her down...

Can't stop...

Lead them towards the group... towards backup...

Save her... Larui's daughter... his daughter...

Daryl would find them...

Which way...

Can't stop...

He didn't remember falling down, but he did remember glancing at Judith and seeing the blood raining on her. He'd stopped to take his shirt off and cover her, then kept plowing on through the trees alone...The last lingering image in Rick's mind was the sight of a man with messy black hair and hazel eyes behind flashing glasses in the bright sun coming towards him. He was not from Terminus, he was not a Walker, and the stranger raised his knife not at him, but towards a threat.

His eyes snapped open to see exactly this man across the room, slumped asleep against a cradle that held an infant with the man's exact same fly-away black hair holding onto the bars and shaking them slightly.

Only one soul crossed his mind, and he scanned wearily for-

Judith! An unknown woman, with choppy red hair and half her breast exposed was nursing his daughter and speaking softly to her in such a different dialect he almost didn't understand the words. "All right now, come on it's Harry's turn, you've had enough love. Merlin James, I feel like a cow-"

It only belatedly occured to Rick he should look away, but her decency was a fleeting thought, a part of his past that would never involve some stranger having to feed his daughter while his hands were tied. He tried to sit up, a demand to be released and have her back this instant, but the words only came out as a groan as the world spun crazily and his body refused to so much as twitch.

The man's eyes snapped open with clear practice as he sat up, knife in hand and the two locking eyes once more. The woman stepped towards the crib as well, holding his own daughter cautiously as if he were the rabid animal rather than these two holding his daughter hostage.

"Woah, woah, easy mate, that's one hell of a concussion you seem to have got." His was less pronounced than hers, their faint British accent was the least surprising thing going on here as Rick tried again with more resolve, but without his hands, he could barely get his shoulders to move, sitting up was beyond him. "Like some water?" The slosh in the canteen made his head finally jerk away from Judith to see he'd moved closer, too close. Leaning his head back as far as he could, Rick meant to bash his skull into this guys nose, hopefully cracking it into his brain to take one down now, he'd get Judith and-

His ruthless action had apparently only been a meek nod to the stranger, who gave him a smile and unscrewed the cap, pressing the rim to his lips.

Rick wanted to refuse the possibly drugged offer, spit the water in his face as a distraction, but his body spoke for him before he could and he was slurping it down greedily in moments. When the man sat back on his heels still hovering in front of him and Rick could only lay gasping, he finally acknowledged he'd have to reassess here.

Play nice, he decided for now, lull them into thinking he would grovel and be grateful for whatever trick was inevitably going to be played on him until he could at least get his daughter back safely-

"Got a name then?" The man spoke again in a damning cheerful voice that grated on Rick's ears, he'd never heard someone so lighthearted in...days? Weeks now? Since before the Governor had ruined their home...