Daughter of a Dixon ✔️

30: The Governor's Attack

No one came to check on me, and I guess it was because they knew I needed the time. When someone did finally enter my cell, though, the last person I expected it to be was Carl.

I was lying down, facing the wall, when I heard his small footsteps enter the cell. He hesitated before nudging me once in the shoulder, making sure I was awake.

"Yeah?" I asked, my voice unusually dull.

"Okay if I sit?" he asked.

For an answer, I drew my knees to my chest, allowing him room to sit on the end of the bed. I didn't move as he took a seat beside me, the cot sinking down slightly with his weight.

"You've been up here awhile," he said.

I gave him a shrug. I really didn't know what to say, and I had a good feeling that he didn't either; he just didn't want me to be alone, I felt like.

"Are you okay?" he asked me eventually. I began to shrug my shoulders again, but he saw that coming, and stopped me.

"Don't shrug, Sidney. I'm trying to make sure you're okay, but you're not giving me anything," he said, shaking his head.

I let out a breath before pushing myself up into a sitting position, smoothing out my hair as I did so.

"I don't know... I mean, what could I have done that made Dad leave me? What'd I do to deserve it?"

"You didn't do anything. Even I know that. Daryl probably just... got over-excited when he found out Merle was alive... I mean... I think if my dad found out that, somehow, Mom came back to life... I think he'd leave me if it meant he got to see her again."

"No, Carl, he wouldn't. It'd be impossible for him to, he couldn't do it," I told him, shaking my head.

Carl exhaled a breath, then let out an airy chuckle. There was no joy in it, though; it was lifeless. "Yeah... that is impossible, because I saw my mom die... right in front of me."

I was about to say something to comfort him, but he cleared his throat before I could. "But, um, anyway... you never answered my question."

"What question?" I asked, shrugging at him.

He looked back at me with his blue eyes, and said gently, "whether you're okay or not."

I slowly looked away from him, and my shoulders rose and fell in an uneven sigh. I shook my head, and was about to speak to him when a noise stopped me from outside.

I knew that noise anywhere, and it sent Carl and I both jumping up from the cot and speeding down to the courtyard.

The noise was that of gunfire.

When Carl and I threw open the door that led to the courtyard, it was still pitch black outside, but we could see well enough to tell that someone, in a white and orange truck, had rammed straight through our front gate. There was another white pickup positioned outside our gates, and a man with a pistol standing beside it.

From beside me, Carl put an automatic weapon in my hands that he had swiped from the inside of the prison. I took it without taking my eyes off the white and orange truck. It was unmoving in our courtyard, which only left room for more concern in my mind.

Then, a walkway fell from the back of the truck, making a path from the truck to the ground. I let out a gasp as loads of walkers stumbled out of the truck and into the courtyard. And, on top of that, someone from the left guard tower began shooting at Carl and I, and we immediately darted behind a nearby wall.

We both leaned out from opposite sides and began shooting; Carl took another guy on the outskirts of the prison while I aimed for the one in our guard tower. I was firing rapidly, just hoping that I'd get lucky, and I eventually did. I saw the guy's body hit the ground, and the realization hit me that I had just killed someone. I froze for a moment at that thought, but Carl was quick to break me out of my daze.

"Sidney, come on, we have to move!" he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me away from more gunfire. We ran, and ducked behind another part of the prison where we could better see what was happening.

From there, I was able to see that other walkers were getting drawn by the gunfire, and were starting to appear outside the prison. I also saw that, for some reason, Rick was outside the prison. Why he would be out there at that time of night was unknown to me, but what I did know was that he needed help.

"We gotta help Rick, he's outside the fence!" I told Carl, already beginning to dart around the wall. But, he quickly grabbed my wrist and stopped me, a momentary smirk crossing his face.

"They've got him," he said, pointing. I turned around to see what he was pointing at, and I almost passed out when I did.

I didn't quite believe it was my dad and Merle at first, but when I saw them fighting off walkers and making them drop to the ground, I knew I wasn't hallucinating. A grin crossed my face for a second, but then it quickly faded away into a frown. Instead of being happy, like I should've been, I was just plain angry. Yeah, Dad came back, but he still left in the first place. He left me, his only daughter. And I didn't know if I could ever forgive him for that, let alone understand why he did it.

Eventually, the two trucks pulled away, and left us the walkers and tons of damage to deal with. As all of us were working together, we were quick to finish off the walkers in the courtyard, but with the gate busted, that meant more could come in at anytime.

We were forced to use two of our vehicles, lined up back-to-front, to block the gate temporarily. We made sure there wasn't any way the walkers could seep through, and Glenn volunteered to stay out there for the night and keep a watch on it.

As for the rest of us, we all met up inside. Rick told us that it would probably be best for us to rest until morning, and we could discuss what our plan of action was going to be as far as Woodbury then. Apparently, the leader of the place was called the Governor, and he wanted the prison badly, badly enough that he was willing to kill every single one of us to get it. He had already killed Axel that day, I found out, and Oscar as well. Although, the reason why he killed them? That I never found out. All I knew was that I, and no one else in the prison, was going to stand for it, and something major had to be done about the Governor, one way or another.

As I was walking up to my cell, sluggishly dragging my feet up the stairs, a familiar voice called out from below, and it wasn't one that I wanted to hear.

"Sid, can I talk to ya...? Please?"

I didn't even turn around as I answered my dad. "No, you can't. Because no matter what you say, I'll never understand why you left me."

He didn't utter a single word after that.