You Are My Light

For Him

Her head hurt. That was the first thing Beth felt, pain. She slowly opened her eyes and lifted her head. Looking around she could see the three men, sitting about 5ft away from her, cooking what she assumed to be a squirrel over their fire. She tried to lift her hand to move the hair out of her face, but found that she couldn't. Turning her head to her right she saw that she was sitting against a large tree and her arms were tied around it behind her. She tried again to pull at her arms, testing the strength of whatever was binding them.

"She's up." Beth heard one of the men say and quickly looked in their direction. All three men were now focusing on her. "Now, here's how it's going to go." The man Beth had labeled as number one started. "You're gonna take us to your little camp and we are gonna live there. We are gonna be the new people in charge and well, whoever doesn't wanna listen, we'll just kill 'em." Man number two started walking toward Beth, stopping and kneeling down in front of her. He grabbed her chin and moved her face so she was looking right at him.

"Blondie, one way or another we are getting to that camp of yours. You can choose, the easy way or the hard way." Beth simply shifted her eyes away from the man. She refused to give them the location of her family, even if that meant never seeing them again.

"We'll give you the night to think about it." Man number three said. "It's getting dark, and I'm tired. You'll take us to your camp in the morning." With that the three men got some blankets out of their packs and lay down around the fire.

Beth sat helpless, tied to the tree. There was no way she was letting them anywhere near her family, not Rick, not Judith, not Carl, not.....Daryl. A single tear slipped down her cheek as she thought that last name. She was never gonna see Daryl again. His last memory of her was gonna be her yellin' at him. She never got to tell him how much she loved him. She always yelled at him for going outside the walls and then she did the same thing. Difference was, he always came back to her and she knew if he ever didn't he would've been fighting his damn hardest to. She couldn't give up, she wouldn't give up, for him.

She quickly assessed her surroundings. The men had already fallen asleep and none of the fools had stayed up to take watch. It was rope that her hands were tied with and with enough friction she might be able to cut through it using the tree. Even if she freed herself, she was going to need a weapon, no one could last long out here without one. She looked around, maybe she could take one of the men's weapons without waking them. That was what she would do.

Beth started moving her arms to the right and then the left, trying to saw through the thick rope tied around both her wrists. After a few small movements she noticed a pain in her arm. Looking down at it, she noticed a small bullet wound. It was still bleeding and each time she moved her arm, the bleeding became heavier. She needed to get out of this rope so she could prevent herself from losing too much blood!

She continued working through the rope for what felt like hours. Finally, just as she was about to give up , it snapped. She threw her hands up in surprise, barely containing her shriek of excitement. She quickly pulled the rope from around her wrists and stood up. She was making her way over to the men when she tripped over something, twisting her ankle. She grimaced in pain and quickly looked around for the cause of her fall. Her knife. She had tripped on her knife, she had forgotten all about it. She quickly grabbed it and tried to stand, falling right back to the ground, her ankle not able to support her body weight. 

All of this pain, plus the bleeding from her arm was making her dizzy. You can do this, she thought to herself. She cut a long strip from her shirt and tied it right above the wound in her arm, slowing the bleeding. She then quietly crawled over to a tree, using it to support herself as she stood up. She tentatively took a couple steps forward, keeping most of her weight on her uninjured foot. Although painful, it was manageable and Beth took off in the direction she had seen her friends run hours before. She knew she was leaving noticeable tracks and just hoped that she got far enough ahead that the men wouldn't catch up until she had some backup.

The sun was just rising as she caught a glimpse of a road through the thick trees. She noticed three figures running toward her just before collapsing of pain and exhaustion. Right before she passed out she heard someone yell her name.