Knife Edge [Daryl Dixon]

Chapter Eighteen - Days Dividing (1/2)

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
A.C. Swinburne

Rick laid a heavy hand on the door frame to E Block, tensing as the cold iron sapped the heat from his skin. Drifts of conversation reached him through the open door, and after a day and night of lurching between running battles and fighting to a standstill, there was comfort to be had in the everyday sounds of the prisoners settling into the block.

The respite was welcome, for him and for them, even if it was temporary. That morning, he broke the news that no matter how many times they swept the prison, somewhere out there, some of Iain's men would be lying low, just waiting for them to leave.

His eyes were drawn to the uneven streams of blood that ran down the already stained wall, pulled this way and that by the rain that fell during the night. All that remained of Iain. 

Any of Iain's men who did plan on popping out once the coast was clear were in for a shock. The plan was to open every breach and set fire to every block on the way out. 

The prisoners couldn't stay here, there would be nothing left. 

A movement pulled his eye through the gap in the pen to the main yard, but it was Rosita stopping to talk with Michonne and Bennett. Whatever she said, it was brief, for seconds later she moved on, leaving Rick a partial view of the families who were sitting on the damp ground, waiting for him. 

Iain's people... They couldn't stay in the prison either. 

Their initial tears on being coaxed from C Block that morning were replaced with a fear-filled silence on seeing the piles of their dead and the broken, smoking remains of the prison. 

Yet, as the hours ticked by an undercurrent of sullen shock was setting in. Perhaps it was being searched by armed guards, or maybe it was that most of their rations were diverted to the prisoners, but whatever it was, resentment threaded the air. It reached him even here.  

Yip, he thought as he shifted his weight from one aching hip to the other. They could wait until he was ready. 

His priority was to get the prisoners to come to Alexandria. Being forced to farm for Iain didn't make them farmers but they knew more about it than he did, and the way things were going between him and Maggie, Alexandria needed to stop relying on Hilltop for anything. 

He went to talk to them about it earlier that day but backed off fast when he was met by a wall of uncertain faces. It turned out that being seen to shoot Iain point blank wasn't the best introduction to him, or Alexandria, even if they were glad to see him go down. 

It was fair enough, he supposed, after all the guest who escapes through the window rarely goes back in through the door. But if he was being honest, he was harboring a little resentment himself.

He stood taller as Daryl rounded the corner, bringing Sarah. Even with her puffy eyes and leaden feet, he was banking that if anyone could get the prisoners to come to Alexandria, it was her. She risked her life trying to save the people tied to the fence, and her fading scars were a testament to the hard miles she walked in their shoes. 

'You ready?' he asked, when she got close.

Her, 'Yeah,' was a fraction too high and tight for his liking. 

'Just do your best,' he said. 'We need them as much as they need us.'

She considered that for a moment, then with a slow incline of her head she stepped through the doorway and out of sight.