Daring Dixon (A Daryl Dixon fanfiction)

Chapter 38

Daryl and I both rushed out, despite the fact that I had no weapon. But Daryl had his crossbow, and if that wasn't good enough, we'd all be dead soon enough anyway.

A single walker was bent over Rose's body. Lilly was a few feet away, kneeling, her head in her hands and sobs racking her body. It was hard to look at her. She was such a good person. She didn't deserve this.

Daryl shot the walker with his crossbow and I went and kneeled beside her, wrapping my arms around her. She began to sob harder. It was all I could do not to break down with her.

After she was all cried out, and there wasn't a tear left in her body, she raised her head. I was still hugging her, trying to calm her down.

"I want her gone by the time I wake up," she snapped, storming over to the tent and going inside, presumably to lay down. I stood up and Daryl walked over.

"Get the shovel. We gotta bury her," I said. He shook his head.

"Don't have one. We'll have to burn her," he suggested.

"No!" I said forcefully. "We can't burn her. She deserves a proper burial," I insisted.

"Well what the hell do you suggest then?" he demanded.

I thought for a moment. I could see his lips form a hard line. Finally, I had it.

"We sink her in the river. Give her a proper service and then put out a stone for her. There's no other option," I said.

Daryl opened his mouth and then shut it again. He nodded in agreement. We both knew that Rose needed a proper burial and that was the best we could give her given the circumstances. I just wished that Lilly would come with us. I knew she'd regret it if she didn't, and I didn't want her to deal with it for the rest of her life.

"Let's move her," I suggested. Daryl nodded and took her head, giving me her feet. We were just about to lift her when we heard a small voice behind us. "I want to," Lilly said.

Daryl nodded. "Take the feet and I'll-"

"No, I want Rosaline to do it with me," Lilly interjected. Daryl nodded slightly, but looked a bit worried. "You grab some rope so we can sink her properly." Daryl nodded, throwing me a look. But I ignored it. 

Lilly and I picked up Rose and we slowly made our way down to the river nearby. Rose was surprisingly light, but that may have had something to do with the fact that she had been ripped to shreds by the walker and then had bled out.

When we got to the river, we set Rose down, and then Lilly went off to look for a few rocks. She was coming back through the trees when Rose began to stir.

Lilly dropped the rock in her hands, barely missing her feet, and rushed over to Rose. I tried to hold her back but she fought me off, landing a nicely aimed elbow shot to my ribs. Going to Rose, she knelt down beside her.

Now, I mouthed to Daryl. He seemed to understand. He shot Rose clean through the skull with an arrow, and with good timing, because Rose was inches away from tearing a chunk out of Lilly.

"You bastard!" Lilly said, jumping up and stalking over to Daryl. Tears were streaming down her face and there was more anger in her eyes than I had ever seen a human have.

"Lilly," I said, catching her by her waist. She elbowed me in the ribs once again, and then lunged at Daryl.

She attacked him, clawing at his face and punching him as hard as she could muster. It took a bit for Daryl to restrain her, but he finally got ahold of her. When he did, she fell to her knees, her head in her hands and breaking down all over again.

Daryl and I exchanged looks. He hadn't suffered anything major from Lilly's attack but he did have small trickles of blood here and there from the scratches. I walked over to Daryl and placed a hand on his shoulder. He gave me a sympathetic smile and placed his arm around my waist.

Lilly looked up to us, pain and regret in her eyes. "If I had just sat in the other place-"

"Lilly, you can't do that. You can't blame yourself for what happened. It's not your fault. It could've happened to any of us. Nobody is to blame except the people or person responsible for that thing. It wasn't your fault," I assured her. But she shook her head in protest.

"It is my fault. If we had stayed with the other group-"

"What other group?" I asked suspiciously. Why was she just now mentioning this?

"We were in a group before this but we escaped," Lilly said quietly.

"Escaped? They were holding you captive?" I asked.

Lilly nodded. "Our older brother, Cedar, had rescued us both from the hospital we worked at after the outbreak. We found a group with other woman and children, so we joined them. A few weeks after we did, the woman began to drop off one by one, each more mysteriously than the last. Cedar and I were worried, but we knew we'd never survive on out own, so we stayed with the group.

"When Cedar died, I knew it was over for Rose and I. It only took a day for the leader of the group to come to our tent. He and his best friend raped Rose and I. But instead of killing us like the others, they beat us, putting fear in us and making us weak. It happened every night, like clockwork." Lilly began crying again.

"You don't have to-"

"Yes, I do," she insisted. I nodded. I understood what it was like to need to get something off your chest. "I finally plucked up the courage to try to escape, and Rose and I barely made it out alive. We were on our own for about a month before we found you two. And now Rose is dead and I have nobody, nothing left," Rose said, the sobs becoming too much for her, and she stopped speaking.

"Lilly, you have us, and we will take care of you and protect you as long as you need it," I promised. She gave a small nod. "We don't let anything happen to family."

Hello faithful readers! How are you on this blistering hot day? (Well, it is where I am because there's no air conditioning in my house right now. It's broken.)

So what do you think? Do you think that Lilly deserves to be in the group? What do you think about Rosaline calling her family? How do you think Daryl is going to react to Rosaline calling Lilly family? Let me know in the comments!

As always, don't forget to vote, comment, and fan!