Daryl's Angel: Saviour (Book Two)

Chapter 1: Terminus

Daryl finds himself bound and gagged, staring into a shiny metal basin with seven other men lined up beside him—Rick, Glenn, Bob, and four strangers. His breaths heave around the cloth gag, already steadily becoming soaked with his saliva.

He watches everything, piecing things together even though the pieces form a gruesome puzzle. There's a naked corpse on the nearest table, one leg already sawed off and set aside. Two guys wearing bloodied aprons stand around him, butchering him.

It's all so fucked up.

He twists his wrists, trying to loosen his binds, but they don't budge. One of the butchers does test swings with a metal baseball bat, another sharpening a wicked knife, the metal making a ringing, metallic sound with every swipe. Daryl takes deep breaths, nerves thrumming. This isn't the first time he's been up to his neck in shit and he can't—won't die here.

The butchers walk to the far end of the basin and stop behind a whimpering blond man. The one holding the bat winds up and swings. Daryl flinches as it cracks against the back of the kid's head, sending him reeling forward only for the second butcher to yank his head back and slit his throat.

Blood pours into the basin and Daryl looks away. Gotta get out, he tells himself. Gotta get out. Gotta get out. There's nothing but panic and adrenaline in his body. The men near him let out muffled screams as the blond man shudders, every drop of blood leaving his body.

The butchers repeat their gruesome task with the second guy and he too hangs over the basin, blood draining. Then again. The sound rings in Daryl's ears—the crack of skulls breaking, the slice of the knife cutting through flesh, the wet splash of blood as it flows in a sick river towards the drain.

Daryl's gaze darts to Glenn as the butchers loom nearer. Gareth walks in, notebook in hand, looking for all the world like this is a normal thing. Sick bastard.

"Hey guys, what were your shot counts?" Gareth asks.

The bat-wielder winds up. "Thirty-eight."

He bashes the guy next to Glenn. Another throat slit. Gareth marks it down and they move to Glenn. Daryl shifts, hands clenching. He's useless. He can't save Glenn. He can't stop it and he can't die here. He can't leave Hope like this.

No. No!

"Hey!" Gareth snaps. The bat-wielder stops and Glenn lets out a ragged breath. "Your shot count?"

For a second, nothing. Gareth waits, staring at the executioners expectantly.

"Crap, man, I'm sorry," one of them says. "It was my first roundup."

"After you're done here, go back to your point and count the shells," Gareth says, like he's talking about the weather or getting a document printed or some shit. "Kaylee won't be gathering them until tomorrow."

Bob starts shouting around his muzzle, words muffled. Gareth ignores him as he blows out a breath.

"Four from A, four from D?" he asks, pointing to the four dead men, then sweeping his finger over them.

"Yeah."

He writes more down. Bob raises his voice, more desperate, insistent. Gareth purses his lips in annoyance and walks over, ripping Bob's gag off.

"What?" he snaps.

"Don't do this," Bob says, panting a little. "We can fix this."

"No, you can't," Gareth says, reaching for the gag.

"You don't have to do this!" Bob shouts. "We told you there's a way out of all this. You just have to take a chance." His breaths are still fast and Gareth keeps jotting things down in his book. Bob looks at the others, then back to him. "We have a man who knows how to stop it. He has a cure. We just have to get him to Washington. You don't have to do this, man. We can put the world back to how it was!"