My Fallen Angel (Daryl Dixon Love Story)

Chapter Thiry Nine: Wrath

"They're coming!" Jerry announces as he comes into the Berrington house office where I sat with Maggie and Michonne, I stand at this point as I hear the faint noise of the horns blowing signaling the Savior's arrival. "You know what to do," Maggie says standing with Michonne as well. As Jerry leaves to get ready she turns to us and we nod to each other. I go to check on Judith and Gracie. "Henry, if you go out there during the attack, you'll die." I hear Carol telling the kid as I am walking from checking on Judith. "Hey Henry," I call him, putting my hand on Carol as she stops near me when I call him. "I have an important mission for you, care to help?" "Of course." He stands ready with his broken staff looking proud and I can see King Ezekiel raise an eyebrow to me, I smile. "I need you to help protect the children. No, it's not babysitting," I counter as he's about to argue. "I need you outside the door so that if someone dangerous does somehow get in you are there ready. Understood?" "Yes, Ma'am," He nods and turns to the king waiting for his approval to which he smiles and nods. Henry runs up the stairs and we hear him talking to the kids about keeping the door shut and that only he is allowed to let anyone in or out. "Thank you, Esme!" King Ezekiel smiles at me and I just nod making my way back to Maggie.By nightfall, I am standing with Maggie and everyone is at their stations. You can feel the tension in the air as we wait for our next signal that the Saviors are here. Finally what feels like forever we see Jerry give the signal. Maggie turns to me."Here we go." She says to me as she grabs the walkie talkie pushing the button. "Negan! I want to talk to Negan." "Well, hello there, you are talking to Negan, but my birth certificate says, Simon." I hear his voice and shudder as Maggie and I raise our eyebrows. "With whom do I have the distinct displeasure of speaking?" "Maggie, Maggie Rhee. The Widow." "Well then, Hello again, Widow Rhee, and allow me to offer my condolences, for what's happened and what's about to happen. In case it's not already plain as Hilltop potatoes yours truly is speaking on behalf of Negan this go 'round and I assure you that the man himself personally received your care package next day delivery. I noticed it was the box that I gave you in good faith... tricks on me. But the bills come due and you and your people are gonna have to pay. Quite dearly I'm afraid." "Your 38 people are alive and breathing." She responds as Hilltop members bring the prisoners to us. I pull my gun just in case and face them nodding to Maggie to go on. "Turn around and leave us be, and they stay that way but if you don't I have 38 bullets that I will personally fire into all 38." She then holds the walkie talkie to Alden to talk."It's to nice night to spend it dying, don't you think, Simon?" He asks. "How's this going to go?" Maggie asks. "Well, Maggie Rhee, this is highly regrettable, but the way I see it, the Saviors you're in possession of they're are damaged goods." He replies and I shake my head in disgust. "You know, they've got themselves into their own pickle, and this organization prizes those A) who avoid capture and B) figures out their own shit when said outcome eventuates. Which, in the end, is my way of saying screw them." "Did you really think that cockamamie play would work?" Gregory asks. "Shut it." I glare at him. "It will," Maggie answers anyway. Just then I can hear the engine of my favorite bike and gunshots going off as the plan actually starts. I turn to watch as the gate opens and Daryl drives in. The bus blocking the entrance I hear metal on metal as the Savior's truck hits it. "NOW!!!" Maggie and I scream our order. The front line starts to shoot at the Saviors and arrows start to fly in all directions as the Saviors shoot at us. I push Maggie behind me and a pillar. "Take the prisoners to my office, hold them there till it's done." She orders as we both duck behind the balcony. "I can help you defend this place," Alden says to us. "I want to." "Get the fuck inside," I glare and point my gun at him. "Please, Maggie," He begs her. "Do you really think I have a reason to be loyal to these people?" Thankfully someone pulls him inside as I'm about to turn around. "Maggie we can't stay here," I tell her as we watch what's going on. "Where hell is he?" She asks and I finally turn to look for the one we both want dead. "Lookouts, fall back! Front line, give 'em cover!" She orders and pulls me inside with her to start the next phase of our plan. I watch from a window as all the Saviors lights are shot out and I can feel the eerie darkness surround me as the lights inside are shut off as well. Soon that eerie darkness is followed by an even eerier silence. My heart pounds in my ears as I watch the Saviors slowly creep forward into our trap. As they get closer one of them starts to whistle and I can't help but strain my eyes to find Negan wanting to shoot him. I knew I was supposed to not be seen but I wanted to find him. Just then I am blinded by our car lights turning on and miss my cue to shoot. I blink away the spots in my vision and start to shoot like I'm supposed to. I watch the Saviors as they run towards the exit and feel movement beside me. I turn to see Maggie getting up, I follow her grabbing SIG from its holster as I do, we run after the Saviors both trying to find Negan. We catch up as the Saviors get in a truck and are joined by my brother as they are speeding off. All 3 of us were shooting at them and hoping for our shots to get Negan. We shoot till our guns are out of ammo or they are out of sight. I gasp for air as I glare at the receding lights of their trucks. "I wanted them dead," Maggie gasps out angrily. "All of them. Negan most of all." Rick and I nod agreement as we catch our breaths. "Yeah," Rick finally says something. "Me too." "Did you see him?" I ask, finally standing straight and able to breathe. "He wasn't here." Rick answers. "I saw him out there. I broke away and tried to kill him. I didn't but I tried." I nod to him when he turns to us."Thank you," Maggie whispers to him and I put my arm around her shoulder in comfort.Morning is spent killing walkers that were attracted by the noise and regrouping. We buried our dead, let the prisoners bury the Saviors outside the gates, counted our resources, and I helped heal all of the wounded. I am making my way around Hilltop with bandages getting to the people with small scrapes when I see Seddiq trying to help Rick with his cut. I watch as Rick gets up angrily and goes to walk away untreated. "Brother!" I call him but he still keeps walking. "Rick Grimes, don't you ignore me!" He stops and turns a small glare on his face as others watch the encounter. I turn to Siddiq on the steps. "I got this," I nod to him and he gets up giving me his spot as I sit down and watch my brother begrudgingly walk to me and sit down. "I love you." I smirk at him as I watch a small but sad smile cross his face, my heart hurts as I see the sadness in his eyes, 'Don't let this break you.' Carl's words echo in my head as I pour water on a clean rag and start to clean his face off. The others finally stop watching and get back to what they were doing and I can sense Rick start to relax. I don't say anything as I clean and bandage the wound. We both knew there was nothing that could be said right now, we were both still grieving. When I'm done I kiss his forehead and let him leave. As I'm packing Michonne comes and helps me by taking all of the dirty rags and trash. She smiles at me and I know it's her way of saying thank you. I sit up in bed not knowing what woke me, Daryl turns to me and sits up a bit as well. "What is it?" He grumbles tiredly. "I don't know. I don't know what woke me, probably just a nightmare I don't remember." I say as I lay back down facing him. "Hmm. Come here." He pulls me into him as I cuddle into his chest and try to go back to sleep and ignore the uneasy feeling I seemed to always have nowadays.What seems to be only minutes we scramble out of bed as screams are coming from downstairs, I grab my knives and Daryl's knife as he opens the door to make sure nothing is there he nods to me as I pass him the knife and we race downstairs as the others follow. Some of the wounded were now walkers and attacking the people that were asleep downstairs. I kill a walker that was chewing on a woman's throat and kill her before she turns."Esme, Rick!" I turn to see Siddiq calling for my help. I run to him and see a man with his arm bit, Siddiq is using his belt as a tourniquet and knows what he's asking. "Rick I'm going to need you to." "Yeah," He answers and nods for me to help hold the man down. Siddiq gets his chest and I sadly sit on the man's legs and turn my head as I hear the squelch of flesh when my brother chops his arm. You would think you would be used to this by now, Esmeralda. I think as I feel my stomach clench. "Ok, Esme my pack is right there." I hear Siddiq call me and I know it's finally ok to look and help. We get to work on bandaging up the man. "The hell happened?" Daryl asks as he kills the last walker down here. "I don't know." I hear Rick's answer. "Maybe walkers got in." "Maybe during the fight?" Morgan says. "These are our own people, though." Daryl points out. I help Siddiq stand the man up."You got him?" I ask him. "I'm going to check for other wounded." He nods and takes the man to the infirmary. Daryl, Maggie, Rick, and I rush upstairs when we hear fighting going on up there. "You alright?" Daryl asks Carol as we rush into the room."He wasn't bit," She says as we notice Tobin dead on the floor, he had been turned. "But he turned." I lean down to check his stitches. They were torn open but no signs of infection that I could see. I then go to find a bit and Carol is right nothing. I turn to them puzzled. "Negan's bat," Rick says, gaining our confused attention. "When I was out there with him, it was covered in walker blood. I just thought he'd crossed some, but maybe..." "They have us working for them again," Maggie says. "Killing our own." "It's the fever," Bruce says from his place in the bed. "That's what it is. It makes sense now." He says and I stand up from my spot and walk to him. "One of you... You're gonna have to do it. I can't. You gotta do it for me. I can't, please." He says crying as Maggie takes his hand. "Shh... Shh..." I comfort him sitting next to him and turning to the others. "You guys go, check on the others that haven't turned yet," I look pointedly at Daryl and he nods, I had dressed Tara's arrow wound earlier that morning. The next morning is more of the same stuff, burying our dead, killing walkers outside the gates, and now also preparing to help find Henry. I walk outside to give Daryl more of his bolts when I pause at the anger on his face and Tara's words."Look, do what you gotta do." She is saying. "But just know it's just for you, I'm out." She turns and walks past me. I go and sit next to him. "Everything ok?" I ask. "Hn." Is all I get, I raise my eyebrow. "Was that about Dwight?" I ask a matter of factly. He looks at me then and I can tell I'm right. "Right, well let me say this, she may be right, maybe he didn't shoot her with a clean arrow, maybe he did and she is lucky, but what I do know is he didn't have to shoot her at all he could have warned her with a fake shot. What I do know is he killed Denise, He hurt you, He did terrible things and this doesn't excuse it." I say pointing the way Tara left. "If he was on our side, why not run in the middle of the war and come back now when things are calm to help us again? I don't trust him, I don't like him, and I don't forgive him." I glare at the gates. I can feel Daryl's eyes on me as he ponders my words. "Rosita and I are going to go check out the bullet factory," Daryl finally says after a minute or two. "You want to come with us?" "I have to help Siddiq, sorry," I say shaking my head. He nods and helps me out from the back of the truck. I kiss his cheek as he gets in the driver seat. "Be safe you two," I call as they drive away. I sigh as I stare at the roof of my room. I was supposed to be helping Siddiq with the wounded but he seemed to have it all under control. I wasn't up for it and he could sense that anyway. The last couple of days were tiring to me. I wanted to be numb again but I couldn't seem to push my feelings down, not this time. This wound was too deep, my heart was now too heavy. Carl's death and the grief that came with it was too much. The only thing that seemed to help me even lighten the load was Judith holding her gave me a semblance of relief and happiness. I roll over and stare at the letter next to me. The letters mix together as my eyes tear up again. I blink away the tears, sit up and read the letter again, this was the 9th time I've read it. Trying to understand his words and holding onto the last thing I have of him. I get up stretching when I hear the gates open. I stand and watch as Gregory walks in. I follow Maggie as she angrily throws him in the pen we made for the prisoners. Rick and Michonne walk to us. "What did he want?" Rick asks."He gave Maggie a map," I say nodding to her."What do we do?" She asks, handing the map to my brother with the note from Dwight. "We check it out." Rick answers."I don't trust it." I shake my head. "It's a trap." Maggie agrees. "Probably, but still we need to check it out," Michonne says. Rick, Michonne, Rosita, Daryl, and I are all staring at the map that Dwight sent with Gregory. We came up with 2 plans. One for if it was not a trap and a second for it was. "All right, we stick to this road, keeping to the trees," Daryl says pointing to the map. "We will get there quicker. Plus, we can keep an eye on the road that way." "Yeah, if they're planning anything, we'll see it." Rosita agrees. "You think you can trust Gregory?" Michonne asks."No," I scoff. "I locked him up inside the house," Maggie tells us. "He knew I wouldn't let him walk around free. He knew he was coming back to that. He doesn't believe in anything except himself, and he'd have to believe in the Saviors a whole lot to send us into a trap and think it would work out for him.""Unless Dwight didn't tell him," Daryl says. "That asshole could be setting this up." "Either way, we have plans," I say as Rick grabs the map and gets ready to leave. I'm putting a couple of gauze in my backpack to take with me when I hear the gate opening. I casually look up when I see Morgan hit Henry with his staff. "MORGAN!!!" I call, running to Henry. I push the staff out of his face and pull him to me as Carol steps in front. The others are running to us now. I stand up helping Henry with me, Carol pulls him with her as she takes Morgan's staff. I sigh as Rick tells the others to get back to getting ready. "He shouldn't come with us!" I growl at my brother and walk away. I grab my pack praying that Morgan can get his head on straight again. We get to the point on the map and watch as the Saviors set up a walker roadblock. We shoot them down and start checking their pockets as Negan, of course, isn't here. I haven't found anything when King Ezekiel calls out to us. "Good people found something on our quarry." He states, I walk up to him and look over Rick's shoulder as he shows him another map and papers. "What is it?" Michonne asks."A list and another map. And what appears to be other facts." "They're lining up Saviors on the old mill road," Rick says reading the map. "That's where Negan will be.""We have to get to Negan before they figure out what happened here," Carol says. "So let's go." I look at Rick. He nods and grabs the walkie talkie. "Maggie." He radios her."I'm here." She answers. "It's time. It was a trap. So we're changing the plan." Rick explains what we found and we come up with a meeting place.After meeting up with Maggie's group we start to make our way to Old Mill Road. I walk with Rick and Daryl when we pause and stare out at the land. I blink when I realize that off in the distance is the biggest herd I've ever seen. "Son of a bitch." I gasp out. "Holy damn," I hear Jerry gasp as well. "You ever seen one that big?" "No." Rick answers. "Things are changing. Let's go.""How much further?" Daryl asks as he puts an arm around my shoulders."We grow closer." Ezekiel answers. "Yonder, over the ridge."As we make it over the ridge we all start to look for the Saviors and Negan. I can't spot them anywhere. We make it past a few trees when we hear the stupid whistle. We all stop and point our weapons trying to find them. "Well, damn, Rick, Look at that." Negan's voice comes over a speaker. My heart starts to race as I turn trying to find him. "Pegged again. Pegged so very hard. I ambushed your ambush with an even bigger ambush." He laughs causing my anger to flare as we all still try to find his group. "How about you step out and face us!" Rick yells angrily looking for him as well. "Oh, I am everywhere, Rick," Negan answers with a laugh. "Some more bullhorns, more walkies. Pick a direction and run. See how you do, make it fun for us all. Guess what else I did. I brought you some of your old friends." I turn trying to find who he was talking about. I still couldn't pinpoint where he was talking. " You remember your old buddy, Eugene. Well, he is the person that made today possible. The same goes for Dwighty boy here. In case you were wondering, he didn't ream you on purpose." I growl as he brings them up. My anger flaring even higher. "No, he is just a... a gutless nothing that sucks at life and now he gets to stand up here and watch you all die and he's going to live with that. Gabriel... Well, he's got to go too. We are cleaning house today Rick. and then there is you. It never had to be a fight. You just had to accept how things are. So... Here we go." I turn and watch my brother as he desperately tries to find them as well. "Congratulations Rick. Three!" I look around again pointing my gun at the ridges. "Two!" We watch as finally, they step up onto the Ridge surrounding us. My anger is replaced by fear. "One!" I freeze heart racing as I hear the gunshots and screams start. We all turn and look to each other when we realize none of us are hurt but the guns exploded in their hands. "NOW!" Rick yells and we run to the shocked Saviors. I kill any that try to stand up from the ground."He's running!" I hear Maggie yell and I turn following her. We get to the main group of saviors and to my shock they were not shooting or fighting. "Don't shoot." A female calls to us. "Please. We're done. It's over." She says getting on her knees. I look at Maggie and Michonne as the other Saviors follow her lead. After rounding up the saviors we all make our way to find Rick and I watch in panic as my brother and Negan beat the shit out of each other. Rick falls to the ground and I watch them start to talk but I can't hear shit. Rick stands and I watch him somehow slit Negan's throat. Finally ending this stupid war. I smile at Maggie when I hear Rick call out to us."Save him." His words shock me, as I turn and see he's looking at me and Siddiq. "Come on." Siddiq pats my shoulder as he runs to the bleeding Negan."What?" I shake my head in angry protest. "No." "NO!" Maggie yells as Michonne catches her. "NO! He can't!" "Maggie, Maggie." Michonne tries to calm her. "NO! He killed Glenn." Maggie's words churn the stones in my heart and my anger rises again. "We have to!" Rick calls back."We have to end it!" I yell at him in anger grabbing my knife. I try to run to Negan but someone catches me."No," Daryl tells me. "Not right now." "Rick!" Maggie begs him. "We have to make it right!" "We can't make it right," Rick shakes his head. "But this makes it over." "NO!" I yell fighting to get loose just like Maggie. "Kill him!" "It's not over till he's dead!" Maggie yells."RICK!" We both plead. I have never been angrier with my brother until now. "No," Rick says walking up to us. "What happened... What we did, what we lost, there gotta be something after. The ones that have them up, put your hands down, we're all going to go home now. Negan is alive. But his way of doing things is over. And anyone who can't live with that will pay the price. I promise you that"." I stare at my brother as he paces in front of the group. "And any person here who would live in peace and fairness... who would find common ground this world is yours by right. We are life, that's death." He points to the herd over the ridge. "And it's coming for us. Unless we stand together! So go home. Then the work begins, the new world begins. All this... All this is just what was. There's gotta be something after." He says and walks away. The next few days were spent helping all the communities with rebuilding, but I ignored Rick and Michonne as they tried to get me to go back to Alexandria, where he was a prisoner. I stayed with Maggie and Daryl at the Hilltop. I didn't know if I could be there anymore, it didn't feel right and I was angry at my brother for what he did. Besides, my best friend needed me and I made a promise to Glenn to help her in any way possible. I can't kill Negan for her but I will help her with her pregnancy and her community, "I just wanted to say you were right, about saving the prisoners from the satellite outpost. Having them here," Maggie says to Jesus as she sits in her chair. "I don't regret what I did, but you were right. And Rick was right about not killing all the Saviors." "He was right," Jesus says."He was." Maggie agrees. "But not about Negan." "So what does that mean, Maggie?" "We have a lot to do." She says and looks to Daryl and me in the corner. "We have to build this place up, make it work better than before, make it thrive for the people who live here. We need our strength, the ability to defend ourselves better. We have to have that.""We will." "But Rick and Michonne... Rick was wrong to do what he did. Michonne, too. So we're going to bide our time, wait for our moment... and then we're going to show him." "Yeah," Daryl finally speaks up. "We will." "I can't help you hurt my brother," I say shaking my head. "But I'll help with Negan to show him." She nods at me understanding as Jesus looks at all of us.