Once A Dixon, Always A Dixon (Daryl Dixon)

Misunderstood

Setting: The House, Season Four

*Nico's POV*

I pour some boiling water into the tea kettle. 

"Thank you for your help," Carol smiles. She puts the lid on the kettle and turns the stove on. 

Outside, Lizzie laughs. 

"Griselda!" she exclaims. Carol and I share a confused look. Who's Griselda? We peer out the window. My breath hitches. 

Griselda is a walker. A walker that is chasing Lizzie. 

Carol and I bolt outside. 

"You get away from it!" Carol yells. 

"No, no, no!" Lizzie exclaims. 

"Right now, Lizzie!" I shout. Lizzie tries to explain something but Carol whips out her knife and kills the walker. I sigh in relief. That was too close. 

"She was playing with me. She wanted a friend!" Lizzie cries. 

"She wanted to kill you!" Carol snaps. 

"I was gonna lead her away!" Lizzie shouts. 

"You could have died!" I yell. 

"It's the same thing!" Lizzie turns to Carol. "You killed her! You killed her! It's the same thing!"

"Lizzie," Carol tries to calm the girl down. 

"What if I killed you? What if I killed you?" Lizzie screams. "You don't understand, you don't understand, you don't understand, you don't understand, you don't understand!" 

"Lizzie, please," I try. 

"You didn't have to!" Lizzie cries. "You didn't have to. She didn't want to hurt any..." 

That's when I lost it. And maybe I went a little too far. 

"Okay, that's it!" I shout. "I have had it up to here with this bullshit! Lizzie, she wanted to kill you, she wanted to rip the flesh from your bones while you were still breathing! Wanna know how I know? My damn brother was killed by one of these things! What if one of them killed Mika? Would you still think they just want to be your friend? 'Cause they don't! They can't think! All they can do is walk and eat! They're not human, they're dead! They're dead!" 

"She was my friend!" Lizzie persists. "And you killed her! You killed her!" She breaks down and starts crying. 

Carol and I start walking back to the house. 

"One of these days, you're going to regret saying that," Carol tells me. "Now, she'll do anything to prove that she's right." 

"Maybe," I mutter. "I think someone had to knock some sense into that girl."

---

"Is it too heavy?" I ask Mika as she carries a sniper rifle.

"Nah, I'm good," she says. "The fire's still burning." I look up and, indeed, there is smoke rising to the sky from a distance. 

"What makes you think it didn't go out?" I challenge her. 

"Because the smoke's black," she explains. "If it was white, the fire wouldn't be burning anymore. I miss science class. Except from when we had to do stuff like cut up planaria worms."

"You've got to do worse than that nowadays, Mika," I say. 

"I don't gotta," she persists. 

"You do," I say. "Lizzie's bigger than you and in some way's she's stronger. But you're smarter. And you understand these... things. You've got to look out for her. You have to--" I stop in my tracks to see a deer grazing.