Last One Standing ~ TWD Daryl Dixon

117

<><><><><>

Jo

The forest was dead quiet except for the melancholy weeping of my friends standing over what remained of their loved ones. It was shortly after dawn and morning mist had already burned off. All I could smell above the lingering scent of exhaust was the tangy coppery scent of fresh blood.

I hadn't moved. Not since they left. Not since they took him and I had done nothing, nothing to stop them. I had tried, tried to get him to take me instead and had failed. 

Failed miserably.

I stood, rooted in the spot, staring down the road long after the cars had disappeared taking him with them. They took him.

I could hear the others moving around behind me, making plans and decisions, but none of that seemed to matter. I didn't care what the others were doing. I...I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what to do. They had taken him and I had just stood here.

I looked down at my feet, not fully understanding why they were still rooted in the ground in the way that they were. Next to my boot was the small pile of what remained of my knives. The others, the others I had thrown....It felt like it took tremendous effort to lift my chin and look across the clearing to find where I had thrown them. All because he had asked me to.

He was supposed to be impressed. I impressed men like that. Sadistic, narcissistic psychopaths were my specialty. He was supposed to take me. Take me and leave Da-

My heart started pounding and my breath quickened as the panic nearly choked me.

-and leave him here to get help. Help and medical attention, he had been injured and hurt and I had let them take him.

It took a minute for me to realize someone had been speaking to me. At first I didn't hear them, and then the voice was garbled and sounded far away.

"Jo?"

I jerked as the voice was suddenly right next to me. I had no weapons at my reach, nothing to defend myself with. I whipped towards the voice, preparing to drop in a crouch.

"Jo," the voice repeated my name again, this time with more tension and fear.

I slow blinked as I watched Aaron stumble back a step his eyes wide and his hands coming up defensively.

I had scared him.

I frowned. I didn't feel scary. I felt empty.

"Aaron," I said his name, stilling myself until everything slowed down again. It was better, I was better, when things were moving slowly.

He bobbed his head up and down at what felt like sonic speed and then composed himself. He looked over my shoulder at the rest of the group and then made eye contact with me. "We are pushing on to Hilltop."

I turned then and looked at the others. They had already started moving. They were carrying the bodies of our fallen over to the motor home. They were going to continue on to Hilltop and bury our dead.

Our dead. He wasn't the only person I had failed. There were other 'he's' whose names I couldn't even think. Not without risking the panic attack I could feel lurking just out of reach.

I licked my lips, looking at the group headed to Hilltop. I frowned, I couldn't go to Hilltop. Not without him.

Negan's smile flashed through my mind and then it was The Governor's smile. I remembered suddenly what it had felt like seeing him in the middle of that ring in Woodbury and my stomach heaved. He would have died there, fighting for his life, and now he was in the hands of another man, similar and yet worse.