Bite Me. // Carl Grimes

Eight - "You ripped his throat out!"

"Well, well, well..." the man with the bat chuckled his dark figure loomed over the dead girl, "What do we have here?"

"Looks like a stowaway!" Simon let out a laugh and the rest of the saviours joined the second in command in laughing at the girl.

"Any reason you were trying to hide her in there?"

"Don't touch her!" Carl outburst and began to climb to his feet before his father forced him back

"Carl who is that?" Rick whispered, somehow already knowing the answer himself.

"That's my girl." Abraham spoke up, his eyes pierced holes into Negans soul, "Get your filthy fucking hands off of her - come here Lyds."

The faces of Lydia Greenes family and friends would haunt her for years to come, the way they all stared upon her with tears in their eyes and expressions of both fear and shock on their faces. She would never be able to get their faces out of her head. It was the first time they'd seen her since they'd witnessed her death, it couldn't be possible.

"Okay..." she mumbled, hesitantly forcing herself from Negan's grasp before she knelt on the ground beside her surrogate father. It had been months since any of them had last seen her alive and yet there she was, right in front of them, as perfect as the day they'd lost her. Rick had never felt so thankful, whilst Aaron had never felt so terrified. Was this going to be it? Were they all finally going to be a family only to be torn apart once more? How did she survive? Did she come back? Were they all already dead and simply hallucinating?

"Honey, you look like shit!" Negan cackled pointing his bat at Maggie, "Maybe I should just put you out of your misery-"

"No!" Lydia outburst, her hands clutched into fists, "No her."

"No her? Can she even speak English?"

"Leave her alone. She's just a kid." Rick mumbled, he seemed so weak, Rick was never weak.

"Well it has to be one of you, so who is it going to be?" Negan began to contemplate and his eyes fell upon the red head girl once more, his bat was pointed right in front of her face, "I know... Eenie, meenie, minie, moe..."

There was one brief minute, only a minute, between Negan choosing his victim and the blood spattering across her face that Lydia truly felt her own heart beat for the first time, and it was beating out of her chest. It felt as if it physically exploded when she witnessed Negan's bat crushing Abraham's head, and the moment it was all over she fell onto her hands knees and threw up everything left inside of her. Abe was dead.

"What is wrong with you?" The girl roared and climbed to her feet. She didn't care about what might have happened to her only that Abraham had been murdered, and she wasn't willing to let that go without a fight.

"Sit back down!"

"Leave her alone!" Daryl outburst too and shoved Negan back and away from the decaying child, he'd been inching closer and closer to her with every single one of his yells and Daryl feared for himself and for everyone that they could lose her again. He couldn't risk that.

Without a moments hesitation Daryl landed a punch across the man's cheek, knocking him back but only for a moment before he let out a deep laugh and grasped his bat harder than before.

"I fucking told you! The first one is free..."

"No." Lydia's eyes widened in fear, he was going to make them pay and she couldn't risk her family dying because of her and daryls actions and so without a trace of doubt she ran at Negan once more ready to tear his throat out as she had done with many weak minded men in the past but before she could reach them one of his saviours grabbed ahold of her, pinning her arms against her sides and her back against their chest.

"Be quiet little girl." The man chuckled in her ear.

"So... back to it!"

The forest fell silent all except for the sickening crack of Lucille across Glenn Rhees head. Lydia couldn't even scream, all she could do was watch as her sister choked on air and desperately tried to make her way to her husband.

"Maggie..." Glenn forced out with the last drop of life within him, "I'll-I'll find you..."

And with that the bat crushed his skull once more, until it was all over.

"Glenn!" Lyds screamed and thrashed in the man's arms.

"Calm down you little bitch!" The saviour laughed, how could someone laugh after witnessing such a death?

Before the Greene girl could stop them she felt her primal urges taking over, her walker instincts and as anger became the only emotion in her body she turned in the man's grasp and bit down as hard as she could on the man's throat, tearing him apart. Blood spurted in every direction covering her clothes and her teeth and jaw, everyone was speechless. Lydia had always been such a gentle child, she was always so scared at any form of conflict; the dead version of Lydia was not the one they had come to know.

"Holy fuck!" Negan breathed out, "Dwight hold her down!"

Within a second the girl was pinned against the floor.

"Lydia no!" Carl yelled

"You are one sick fuck aren't you?"

"Let her go! Let go of her shithead!"

"My brother dead."

"Oh I am sorry! I didn't know that was your brother, hell you're white as shit! But shit has to be done, people need to be put in their place! And you, you little fucking psychopath, just killed one of my men. You ripped his throat out!"

"I'd do it again." She told him, her eyes never left his.

"Do I need to put you in your place?"

Before anymore words could leave the leaders mouth, the man who'd had his throat ripped out rose from the ground, his eyes a milky white and his skin the hue of death. She'd turned him.

"Oh shit." Negan spoke and he watched as Dwight landed an arrow in the dead man's skull, "Now I am wondering something and you answer me this - did he die and come back? Or did your bite just turn him?"

"That's crazy!" Rick hissed, "She's just a girl!"

"Then what the fuck is that?"

It seemed that in her struggle with Dwight, Lydia's hoodie had slipped from her shoulder on one side revealing the scarred and broken skin from where she'd been bitten and turned what felt like a life time ago, Negan had seen it and there was no more hiding.

"Let her go!" Maggie begged, "We just got her back."

"Please..." Aaron begged, "We can talk about this.

"No. We can't. She's coming with us. And the archer too."

Before anyone could even scream Lydia's hands were bound and her frail body was harshly thrown in the back of a truck, it was only moments later that within the darkness after the truck doors slammed shut that she felt the calm embrace of Daryl's arms and tears began to cascade down her cheeks.

"We ain't gonna die."

"Already dead." She whispered to him, as the engine rumbled and the quiet whimper of Carl's cries for his love could be heard beyond the thick walls.

"Not anymore you're not." Daryl shook his head, tightening his grasp around her shoulders, "and I ain't losing you again okay? So you take my hand and you don't let go of it, do you hear me?"

"We family?"

"Yeah." The Dixon man chuckled, although his tears burned his eyes, "We're still family."

And with that his head fell to rest on top of hers and the dead girl cried into his chest.