Remember Me (Daryl Dixon)

Chapter Seventy-Seven: Problems

"Everyone...this is Aaron."
Everyone's eyes quickly moved to the strange man entering the barn with us. All of their eyes filled with fear once they got a good luck. We had learned not to trust anybody. We were breaking that rule by bringing him inside. Aaron seemed clean, but so did everyone else. We had no idea what he was capable of.

Daryl rushed over to us with anger. I knew he would be more irritated about this than anybody. He hated strangers more than he hated being bossed around. "We met him outside. He's by himself," Maggie said as Daryl checked outside. I knew he was making sure that people didn't follow him. I also feared that. I glanced at Noah for a second. He had his gun on Aaron. This comforted me. If he tried to attack, Noah could take him out.

Daryl began patting Aaron down in a rough manor. I knew how pissed he was by then. We could've brought a killer in the barn with Judith. That was on us if anything happened.
"Hi," Aaron said nervously as he looked to Rick. Rick handed a fussy Judith to Carl without breaking eye contact with Aaron. Rick wasn't amused by this whole situation.
"It's nice to meet you," Aaron said, approaching Rick. Daryl quickly stopped him from doing so. It was like we protected Rick more than anybody.
"He had a weapon?" Rick asked.
Maggie nodded before walking over to Rick and handing him a gun. Rick looked over it before shoving it in his back pocket. He had a look of disgust on his face. "There something you need?"
"He has a camp nearby," Sasha answered. "He wants us to audition for membership."
I scoffed at the words. Audition for membership? Really?

"I wish there was another word," Aaron said awkwardly. "Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of dance troupe. That's only on Friday nights."
I snickered at his joke and Daryl shot me a look. Aaron appreciated that I was the only one to find it comical. I quickly cleared my throat and continued listening.
"Um., and it's not a camp," Aaron clarified. "It's a community. I think you would all make valuable additions. But it's not my call. My job is to convince you all to follow me back home."

Rick cocked his head at him in confusion. How dumb did he think we were? He thought we would just follow him wherever he told us to?

"I know. If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into," Aaron said, trying to reason with us. "Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?"
Sasha rolled her eyes with irritation before walking over to Rick. She slowly pulled the backpack off of her back and handed it to Rick. "Front pocket, there's an envelope," Aaron said. Rick slowly opened the pocket as Aaron continued. "There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community."

Damn right. There's no way you could convince us at all. We learned our lessons about these "communities" at Terminus.
"That's why I brought those," Aaron said as Rick pulled out an envelope. "I apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last--"
"Nobody gives a shit," Daryl replied, cutting him off. I rolled my eyes at Daryl's attitude.

"You're absolutely 100% right," Aaron said as he looked back at Daryl.
Rick opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of pictures. I tried to get a look at them, but I was too far away. "That's the first picture I wanted to show you because nothing I say about our community will matter unless you know you'll be safe. If you join us, you will be."
If? We weren't going to. I still didn't trust this guy. Something about this was very fishy. Why us? Why was he following us?

"Each panel in that wall is a 15-foot-high, 12-foot-wide slab of solid steel framed by cold-rolled steel beams and square tubing," Aaron spoke to us all. I really didn't give a shit. You could throw solid steel on a slaughter house, but that doesn't make it more appealing.

Rick slowly stood up, still holding the photos. "Nothing alive or dead gets through that without our say-so. Like I said, security is obviously important." I looked around at the others as he continued. "In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival. The people."
Daryl and I exchanged eye contact for a moment. Did he believe what he was saying? Did I believe what he was saying? Everything he said seemed so honest. It seemed too honest, that's why I was skeptical.
He was either telling the truth or a really good liar.

"Together we're strong. You can make us even stronger," Aaron continued. When was he going to shut up? I was getting so sick of his rambling. "The next picture, you'll see inside the gates."
My eyes moved to Rick who was approaching Aaron at a fast pace. I was kind of nervous about it. I didn't want him to kill the guy. "Our community was first construc--"
Aaron was cut off by Rick's fist hitting his face. I gasped as Aaron hit the ground. I knew Rick was going to get tired of him, but I didn't expect him to do this. Everyone rushed to Aaron as he hit the ground.

Rick paced away from him before getting stopped by Michonne. "So we're clear, that look wasn't a 'let's attack that man' look. It was a 'he seems like an okay guy to me' look."

"We got to secure him," Rick replied before turning away from her. "Dump his pack. Let's see what this guy really is."
"Rick," Michonne said in shock.

"Everyone else, we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us," Rick announced to us all. I was pretty confused. I didn't think anybody was going to be coming for us. It wasn't that serious, was it?
"We might not know how or when, but they are."

I stared down at Daryl and Carol as they began tying Aaron up. This seemed like we were going too far with it. It just didn't feel right to do the man this way.
"Me, Sasha, and Elizabeth, we didn't see him," Maggie replied to Rick. "If he had wanted to hurt us, he would've."
She had a point there. He could've attacked us when we were outside if that's what he was here for. It would've been easy.

"Anybody see anything?" Rick asked us all.
"Just a lot of places to hide," Glenn replied as he stared out of the window. What were we looking for exactly?

"All right, keep looking."

I groaned at his words. Nobody was going to attack us. Maybe I didn't trust this guy, but Maggie had a very good point. He would've taken us out before.
"Problem?" Daryl asked with irritation.

"It's nothing," I replied as I kneeled back down to Aaron. "Just the fact that we're no better than Gareth right now."

Daryl was annoyed with my words, but I was right. People only get irritated when you're correct. I stared at Daryl for a few moments before I heard a groan escape from Aaron.

He was waking up.