**Complete**
Riley Grimes. The baby sister of Rick Grimes, a Sheriff's Deputy in King County, Georgia, a real southern man with a southern wife, southern son, and southern best friend, he's a survivor. Riley though? She moved to Maine when she turne...
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I could hear them banging on the door behind my head. Merle was panicking, freaking out because for a moment, the dead had been able to push the door open, they wouldn't have managed, the door did have a chain on it, and they wouldn't have been able to break, but in an effort to keep him calm, I had shoved the door closed, and was now keeping it shut, using my body weight as I sat on the ground in front of it.
Merle was screaming hysterically, but there wasn't anything I could do. The hacksaw was too blunt to cut through the handcuffs, so we just had to wait. I just needed him to wait. Rick would come. He would.
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It was a long night.
I slept up against that door, even when the dead had moved on, drawn by noises or something, I'm not sure, but I slept against it all the same. Partly to keep my distance from Merle, and partly to try and keep him sane. But that seemed less and less likely, as we had been up here for hours now with the sun beating down on us, and I think he could be going heat-mad.
"That's right. You heard me, bitch. You got a problem? Bring it on if you're man enough, or take it up the chair if you're a pussy. You heard me, you pussy as noncom bitch. You ain't deaf. Take it up the damn chain of command or you can kiss my lily-white ass. That's right. That's what I said. You heard me. And then this idiot, he takes a swing, you know, and well..." He cut himself off, laughing hysterically, and I decided enough was enough. I pulled myself to my feet, and moved over to where he was still attached to the pole.
"Merle." I mumbled, shaking his shoulder. It took a couple more shakes, each getting harsher than before, to get him to finally look at me like I wasn't a ghost.
"Riley?" He mumbled, and I sighed before pulling a half filled bottle of water from my backpack. I had been saving it for myself, but it looked like he might have needed it more.
"Drink." I said gently, putting the bottle up to his lips, and he eagerly sucked down the majority of the water, before pulling away and sputtering out a few coughs, and when he looked back at me, his eyes looked clearer, and I could tell he was back with me.
"How much longer until they get here do you think?" He asked miserably, rubbing at the raw skin around his cuffed wrist, and I winced at the pain I knew he had to be feeling.
"Not much longer I don't think. You just gotta stick with me okay? If you go flying off the handle then you and I will both die, and my baby will die. Please, don't kill my baby." I whispered, trying to bring some kind of protective instinct, some sense of purpose to him, maybe then he would be calmer.
I was right. I watched as his shoulders squared up, and a look of determination fell across his face. His eyes still flicked around, but now they were anxious, nervous, not crazy, and destructive.
