Knife Edge [Daryl Dixon]

Chapter One - To Be Saved (2/3)

When Daryl ducked into the hut, the woman stared at him, breathing fast but shallow. Like a rabbit that had spent too long in a snare. 

He was so focused on not getting shot when he first opened the door, he didn't give much thought to anything else. Now, he cursed his haste. With his weapons and the water dripping from his straggly hair, he realized what he must look like to her. Just another asshole there to hurt her. 

Moving real slow, letting her see his every move, he set his gun and crossbow by the door and drew his knife. There were fresh streaks of blood on the blade.

Pushing ahead, he told her, 'I ain't gonna hurt you,' and knelt down, cutting the ropes binding her hands and feet in one fluid motion. He wished Tara or Michonne were with him. Or Carol. Or Maggie. Hell, even Rick would be better at this than me.

Everywhere he looked, she was hurt. Her skin was broken and inflamed on her wrists and ankles where the rope had dug deep. The blood on her face was coming from a messy wound above her left ear and the cuts on her cheeks where her skin had broken under the blows she had taken. 

The dirt floor was freezing and damp. If she had been lying on that for any length of time, it was a wonder she was still alive. He wanted to hurry but the last thing they needed was for more of those pricks to show up and turn the tables on them.

'I killed four men...,' his voice grated in the quiet of the hut. 'Are there more?'

When she shook her head, her forehead sliding against the dirt, Daryl nodded. It freed him to move. To help.

He shrugged off his shirt and wrapped it around her, tucking it in around her sides. It was the warmest, softest thing he had. That done, he put his jacket back on and stood, biting his thumbnail.

He would take her to Alexandria, to his community. She needed a doctor. But that was down the line. Before any of that, he needed to get her out of the hut. 

Kneeling, he slid his arms under her but as gentle as he was, she stifled a high pained cry when he lifted her. He winced at how light she was. How the cold of her body seeped into his chest when he carried her out of the door. 

Desperate to get some warmth into her, he sat her by the fire while he raked through the camp but there was very little in the clearing except the hut and the men. The blankets over the bushes were not enough to camp outside all winter and there was next to no supplies. 

Still, he found what he was looking for. A bottle of water.

Her hand trembled against his when he held the bottle to her lips but while she was pale and shaken after taking a sip, Daryl took a breath. It was a start.  

As much as he didn't want to touch the men, if he wanted to get the woman out of there he had to search their bodies. He started with Jack, dragging him off the log before patting his pockets. Even dead he looked furious when Daryl took his car keys.  

Daryl clutched them tight and went back to the woman, asking her straight off, 'Did they have a car?' 

Her eyes flickered when he spoke. Under the bruises, her eyes, a bloodshot blue, stared blankly.  

He began to ask again, before it dawned on him that she wasn't answering because she hadn't heard. She wasn't answering because she had seen the men's bodies strewn around the fire. Seeing what she was seeing, he looked over his shoulder at their torn, bloody bodies. Down, never to rise. 

He had been taken captive by Negan, and held naked in a cell. He was shot, tortured and beaten and it had nearly broken him, but for the life of him he couldn't imagine what this woman had been through. He gave her the time she needed. It was all he had to give.