Red ~ TWD (Daryl Dixon)

Darkside

Content Warning:

This chapter includes descriptions of graphic violence, blood, gore, death, and torture which some readers may find distressing. Reader discretion is advised.

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In the chaos that swallowed the Kingdom, grief thick enough to choke on, bodies collapsing into each other, voices breaking, I slipped away unnoticed.  It wasn't hard.  People saw what they wanted to see, and right now all anyone saw was loss. 

Breaking into the armory was even easier.  A locked door and a distracted guard were nothing compared to the skills I'd developed over a lifetime.  Still, I planned to have words with the self-proclaimed "King" about his security protocols, if I made it back.  The twins could have picked that lock.

Night swallowed everything whole.  Two days had crawled by since Alpha took the small peace we'd carved out and ground it into dust, leaving the world feeling stretched thin and hollowed.  Daryl and Merle were downstairs with Glenn and Maggie, their voices a low rumble through the floorboards.  Rick and Deadpool were supposed to come by soon.  If I was going to leave, it had to be now, before someone noticed my absence.

I had tucked the twins into bed already.  If they wondered why I held them longer, why I buried my face in their hair like a drowning woman fighting for air, they didn't say a word.  They just hugged me back, trusting, brave.  Chief lifted his massive head from between their beds, amber eyes following me, waiting. Always guarding.  My smile held until I switched off the lights and stepped out of their room. 

Daryl would find the note on their nightstand in the morning.  That gave me a few precious hours.  I had to move quickly.  I didn't stop to let myself consider how this would hurt him.  If I did, I wouldn't be able to go through with it.

Your fault.

Your fault.

Grinding my teeth I changed fast, my body falling into old rhythms I thought I'd left behind.  Black cargo pants with built-in knee pads.  Calf-high combat boots laced so tight they cut into my shins.  A skin-tight black long-sleeve Henley hugging my ribs like armor.  The tactical vest settled over me like an old friend, weighted down with every weapon I could slip out of the armory without attracting attention.

Two leg harnesses strapped to each thigh, loaded with ammunition for every gun I carried.  Knives sheathed in a line across my back like metal vertebrae.  Pistols holstered on both legs.  And an M4, its sling looped across my chest, settling against me like an old lover I shouldn't have missed but did.

I slicked my hair back into a military-tight bun.  No loose strands.  No softness.  No room for mercy.  My fingerless gloves slid on like second skin.

Then I made myself look in the mirror.

The woman staring back wasn't the mother who tucked her children in every night or the wife who laughed when Daryl muttered something under his breath.  She wasn't the leader trying to build something better, or the survivor who'd once dared to believe in peace.

No.

She was the ghost I thought I'd buried years ago, hard-eyed, sharp-boned, carved from violence and purpose.

It turned out she hadn't died at all.

She'd just been waiting to be unleashed.

Light on my feet, I crept out of our room and down the hall toward a window that faced the road out of the Kingdom.  I heard my husband's voice, steady, resolute, even through the agony of what we'd lost, trying to console his friends.  I stopped and let my eyes close for a moment.  My heart hammered against my ribs, splintering under the weight of the pain I was about to cause him.  All of them.