**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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"This isn't right. You can't just keep us here!" Carol screeched, pulling her daughter closer to her.
"One tiny moment... a millisecond. No pain."
"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!" Carol said between sobs, and I could feel my own ramping back up.
"Wouldn't it be kinder, more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" Jenner asked, looking around at everyone, but before anyone could say anything, Shane was cocking his trusty shotgun and running at Jenner, only for Rick to step in the way.
"Shane, no!"
"Out of the way, Rick!" Rick didn't move, but Shane continued to aim at Jenner around him.
"Stay out of my way! Open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off. Do you hear me!" Shane screamed, and Rick put his hands up, trying to get too close for Shane to not be able to shoot unless he wanted to kill him.
"Brother, brother, this is not the way you do this. We will never get out of here." Rick was saying.
"Shane, you listen to him." Lori said demandingly from near them, and I flinched, suddenly remembering why I had felt so distrustful of Shane for the past few days.
"It's too late." Shane said, moving to pull the trigger.
"He dies, we all..." Rick was cut off by Shane beginning to fire, but he was hitting the monitors near Jenner, not him.
"...We all die! Shane!" Rick yelled, moving to grab the gun, after a short struggle, where Shane got knocked in the face with his own gun, putting him on the ground, Rick glared down at him, holding the gun.
"Are you done now? Are you done?"
"Yeah, I guess we all are." Shane said passive-aggressively, moving to take one of the fire-axes and began swinging at the door.
"I think you're lying." Rick said, and Daryl tightened his arms around me, and I realized why when I glanced at the clock and saw we had less than ten minutes.
"What?" Jenner asked, seeming confused.
"You're lying about no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does matter. It always matters. You stayed when others ran. Why?"
"Not because I wanted to. I made a promise... to her. My wife."
"Test subject 19 was your wife?" Andrea asked sadly, and Jenner just nodded.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no? She was dying. It should've been me on that table. I wouldn't have mattered to anybody. She was a loss to the world. Hell, she ran this place. I just worked here. In our field, she was an Einstein. Me? I'm just... Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this. Not me."
"Your wife didn't have a choice. You do. That's... that's all we want... a choice, a chance. Let us keep trying as long as we can." Rick begged, glancing at me for the first time all morning.
"I told you, topside's locked down. I can't open those." Jenner said, but he pressed a few buttons and the doors opened, letting us go. Daryl glanced down at me, and gathered up our things.
"Grab Bailey. Let's go." He grunted out, picking up the tub and the rest of his things. I nodded, grabbed Bailey's leash, and ran beside him. He probably could have run faster, but he slowed down for me. Everyone was yelling, but we ignored all of them, moving up the stairs until we made it to the top.
Everyone was scrambling, trying to find a way to break through the glass, since that was the only thing that didn't have metal plating on it. Rick threw a chair at the glass but it didn't work, and neither did bullets.
"Rick, I have something that might help." Carol said, as she began rummaging through her bag.
"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna do it." Shane said rudely, but everyone ignored him as she pulled out a grenade.
"Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform, I found this in your pocket." Rick reach down, grabbed it, and made his way to the class.
"Get down!" He yelled, and everyone began scrambling again. Daryl dropped the tub and grabbed me, moving me down so he was laying on top of me, and he used his right arm to pull Bailey in underneath him as well.
"Oh shit!" I heard Rick yell before there was a boom, and Daryl got off of me, reached under my armpits to pull me up, and grabbed the tub of food.
"Let's go!" Rick yelled, and everyone began jumping out of the window. Daryl jumped first, set the tub down and grabbed Bailey. She yelped a little but calmed down when he set her back down on the ground, and then he was reaching for me, so I jumped down to him. He caught me, set me down, grabbed the tub, and then we were running for the truck.
When we reached it, Daryl tossed the tub in the back while I opened the door. Bailey jumped in and I climbed in after her, leaving the passenger door open for Daryl. He came in seconds later, and didn't say a word, instead he grabbed my head and shoved me down into his lap. I faintly heard Bailey whine, which I'm assuming meant he had moved her somewhere, and then Daryl was leaning over me, covering me with his head, and his left arm was wrapped securely around my waist, covering my stomach, and his right arm was in front of his head. It was quiet for a moment, and then there were horns blaring, and the the loudest boom I had ever heard rang out, followed by several more as more of the building exploded.
I could feel the heat from where we were parked, but I didn't focus on that, I focused on what Daryl was saying.
"We're gonna be okay. We're okay. It's okay. It'll be okay. We'll be okay." Over and over he repeated versions of the same thing, and I found myself relaxing, even with the explosions going off less than a quarter-of-a-mile from where we were sitting.
Finally, it was over, and very slowly Daryl raised himself up to look around, but kept a hand firmly on my head, holding me down.
"Hold on, okay?" He whispered, glancing down at me, I just nodded and relaxed into his leg. Eventually, his hand moved away from my head and let me sit up, and when I did I was surprised by what I saw. The C.D.C. was in ruins. It was burning, and there were walkers moving closer to the fire, and I knew we needed to leave.
"We're leaving, right?" I asked nervously, glancing over at Daryl. He just nodded and moved from the passenger seat, ran around the front of the truck, and hopped into the driver seat.
Bailey was laying on the floor in front of the driver's seat though, so I lifted my legs up so she could move, and called for her to get up on the passenger seat. Once she did, Daryl revved the engine, hit the gas, and we were off.
"Are you okay?" Daryl asked quietly, glancing over at me, and I just nodded, and spotted closer so I was practically pressed up against him, and wrapped my arm around his, so I was almost hugging his arm.
"I'm fine. Are you okay?" Daryl glanced at me, nodded, kissed the side of my head, and continued following the RV.
