Torn Apart • TWD

Chapter 18 - fear scheme

"Are we just going to force her here?" Beth interrupts Rick's explanation, a judgmental look on her face at how the man is going along with kidnapping a little girl.

"No, we'll figure it out as we go along, but right now Judith needs to eat," the man states firmly, he's receiving a lot of disagreeing looks, even from his son. He has no plans on keeping the girl here unwillingly, but just for a day they need to see if she can help the baby.

Carol intervenes before someone else berates their leader, "She's bleeding, we need to get her to Hershel. We can figure everything else out tomorrow."

Rick sends the woman a thankful look before turning to usher Daryl in as the child pummels at his back relentlessly. Maggie has been speaking soft words to the girl in hopes it would help calm the anxiety she is no doubt feeling, but she was only met with violence when she got too close.

Daryl moves quickly past the fence, not stopping to address anyone or respond to their stares, his only goal is getting the girl inside the building. Everyone is following the hunter's fast pace, curious of what the rush was, only to see him slide the child off the shoulder and onto the floor the second his foot got past the bars on the inside.

"Daryl!" Maggie shouts at the harsh treatment, running to the child who just got the wind knocked out of her at that solid landing on the concrete floor.

"What?" Daryl asks innocently, taking his crossbow from T-Dog and going up to the perch that holds his mattress, instantly letting his sore body fall on it.

Tessa doesn't like any of this. She didn't like the stares, she didn't like how close Maggie was sitting next to her, and she didn't like how the moment Daryl had brought her in she could hear a deafening scream coming from the baby.

One of the people called down the old man who she saw was trying to help Dolores sleep, but he was clearly bad at it since the infant was still raging on after he put her down into a familiar crib.

"It's nice to see you again," the old man greets as he makes his way over. Rick had managed to subtly tell the group to disperse, leaving only him and Maggie, but everyone was monitoring what was happening from their cells.

"I hoped I would die before I saw you people again," Tessa bites back truthfully, but Hershel only smiles kindly at her anger.

"What do we have here?" Hershel gets down onto his knee to get a better view of her leg, but before he can move her jeans out of the way she kicks his hand and scrambles onto her feet, not holding any weight on her left one.

"None of your business, you old shit!" The child backs away until she reaches the wall while the woman helps her father off the ground, no one trying to advance on the girl in her feral state.

Rick puts his hands up to show he doesn't mean her any harm, but that doesn't mean shit to Tessa when she's still locked in this building. "We just want to help you."

"You can help me by letting me out!" Her shouts echo in the large concrete room.

Maggie decides to sit on the ground before talking to the girl, to get on her level and show the child has the upper hand, "How about this? You let him stop the bleeding, and we can give you all the food and toys we took from your house," she offers.

"You took it?" Tessa instantly shouts, assuming they stole what belongs to her and that the other kid here has probably been touching and tampering with her toys.

"Yes, but we haven't touched it, we were just keeping it safe for yo-"

"Bullshit!" The girl is overwhelmed, a part of her wants to take one of their weapons and make them let her out, but the other part that isn't being driven by fear is responding to Lola's crying, "Give me the baby."