Torn Apart • TWD

Chapter 20 - your son is broken

"I heard her running around last night, what happened?" Rick asks as he stares up at the cell the girl is staying in, there hasn't been a sighting of her yet by any of the group sat down for breakfast.

"I handled it," Daryl answers simply while taking a sip from his cup. Rick raises an eyebrow at the vague answer, knowing that those two's interactions always end violently but their shouting at each other would've been heard.

Tessa was still lying in the lumpy bed, after running away from Daryl a few hours ago she had hidden under her covers like she would as a child hiding from the monsters coming to snatch her away.

She had drifted in and out of consciousness a few times, closing her eyes for what felt like a second but was long enough for the sun to rise. The girl could hear faintly people talking, which is the reason she is staying in bed and just hoping that would solve all her problems.

After mentally scolding herself for not sticking to the plan of leaving before they woke up, she thinks of everything that needs to be done before night returns; she has to find a house to sleep in that must be hours of walking away, she has to set up traps to protect her in case Glenn was right and that the people who attacked her were part of a larger group, and she has to leave without drawing attention to herself so they won't keep her captive.

Just thinking of the tasks ahead makes her snuggle deeper into the uneven mattress and throw the blanket over her face in procrastination. Leona is being tightly squeezed into her chest, needing to focus on holding her then of what the future looks like.

No one in the group has been brave enough to come see her much to her delight, there have been people taking a few steps towards her cell but then quickly backing out and speed walking in the other direction which results in Tessa shoving her fist into her mouth to stop herself from laughing and alerting them she's awake.

The child doesn't know what Daryl will do if she sees him, or what the others will do at learning about her little mission. She had tried to steal what belonged to them, all the other times with the crossbow she had got it through a deal, but this time she had tried to steal it plain and simple.

The girl has seen what people do to thieves in the new world, how they punish and even kill them. Tessa knows she has the advantage of being a little girl and throwing in some fake tears normally seals the deal that they won't hurt her, but that would work only a few months into the apocalypse, it's almost been a year now and she no longer has the luxury of pretending to be confused and scared, especially since she hadn't bothered to hide her murderous history with these people.

If things go bad and they won't let her leave then the plan is to hold one of the younger people of the group hostage, preferably the leader's son because she very much doubts she has the strength to threaten Lola again and the teenage girl looks stronger than her, while the boy has had a whole group to protect him all this time and probably won't know how to react to a knife at his throat.

Tessa's fiddling with the tiger's ears under the blanket, rubbing the silk on the inside with care, not wanting the teddy to be any more damaged than already. Leona's leg was ripped on an arrow when it fell out of her bag yesterday and the limb is barely hanging on to the rest of her body, so much stuffing already lost.

A set of footsteps echo the stairs and then slam on the concrete, the child is keeping track of the steps and so far they are heading her way. She wasn't worried they'd enter and that she'd have to socialise until whoever it was passed the invisible line where the others had previously turned back.

The girl swiftly turns to her other side to face away from the door, if her dad had taught her anything it's that she's not good at pretending to be asleep when he would peek in to check.