Violent Delights¹︎ | D.Dixon

3.05 ➸︎

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CHAPTER FIVE
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ANDREA DIDN'T LIKE THE LOOK of the prison. It was empty, the grass-filled yard far too large for it to remain void of anything else. There should have been reinforcements made to the fence line surrounding it to keep the walkers out beyond the wood pallets near the gate, but instead, the door was left wide open, seemingly abandoned. Andrea knew better.

But it was the guard towers her eyes couldn't help but look to. Red brick, and tall enough that she had to tip her head back to get a good look at it. Cupping one hand over her eyes to keep out the sun, she could've sworn she saw something flash in the tower closest to the back gate. Binoculars, or the scope of a gun.

The walker at the end of her catch pole, arms and lower jaw removed in the same fashion Michonne had used to keep them safe over the winter, growled and snarled as they approached, jerking this way and that. There was no hunger left inside it anymore. The removal of the teeth and the arms took away any desire to maim, but it made her reek of death. The odor was certainly pungent, and it disguised her as one of the dead if they remained at a distance.

Crossing the walker-infested prison yard was easier than it should've been. One or two strayed too close, but that was the purpose for the hatchet in her spare hand. Then, the walkers were drawn more to the thuds of footsteps on concrete than to her. The sound of a chain-link fence being bumped against, and then the sound of a voice she hadn't heard in a long time, so long that it was almost foreign.

"Are you alone?"

Rick motherfucking Grimes. There was no time for this. The walkers were starting to get closer. Her deterrent wasn't nearly as useful if she got pinned against the fence.

"Open the gate!"

"Are you alone?" He shouted, his tone sharper.

They could see she was alone. "Rick!"

And then the gate slid open, the walkers closing in suddenly not nearly as dangerous as they'd been moments before. She released the walker back into the yard, dashing behind the gate as Merle slammed it shut.

"Turn around." Rick demanded, and before she could move, he was shoving her towards to fence. "Turn around now!"

So, she did. Andrea knew, despite the hatred she felt towards the stuck-up man patting her down-for the way he was speaking to her, and for leaving her and Leona behind all those months ago-she understood that she was at his mercy. It was she who needed to listen, despite the desire to grab the nearest chunk of debris on the concrete and lob it at his face for abandoning her.

Hands grabbed her from either side, a scream ripping from her mouth as a walker pressed up against the fence, only for her to pulled from its grasp and shoved down onto her knees on the concrete. Pain shot up her legs, piercing to the bone. That's when she saw them, saw them all.

Rick. Daryl. Merle. Maggie. And up on the walkway-

"I asked if you were alone." Rick hissed, ripping the backpack from her shoulders, subsequently forcing her gaze back to him.

"I am." She frowned as he tossed her backpack towards Maggie. God, she was happy so many had made it. But not all of them could have. After all this time, who had they lost?

Then she saw more as people stepped out from their hiding places. Glenn. Carl. Michonne.

Michonne. Her eyes glued to her friend, the woman who had protected her from the dead for months, who fought beside her, who brought her medicine as she lay dying in the back of some smelly bar. But the look in her eyes wasn't the same. Not anymore.