my tears ricochet

Chapter Fifty Six

Daylight brought a tide of new walkers staggering up the road to be dispatched. One nearly grabbed Rosita by the shoulder before Abraham could catch it by the throat and slam it bodily to the ground, bashing it's skull open with the force of his violence.

Rick watched from the steps, eerily frozen. The light didn't seem to banish the shadows painted across his face. "What's going on?" Daryl asked, pocketing his pack of cigarettes. Glenn had snagged him the set and he was trying to stretch them, but the first morning without Oscar alive had him digging one out already, eager to fill his lungs up with smoke.

"Everyone's packing."

He grunted. The food was being shuffled into the lower compartment of the bus as the priority and he had already scared Eugene off from poking around the engine when no one else was looking. "Right."

"Don't think Gabriel's right for this trip."

Daryl frowned, looking at him. "Nah, man. We're not leaving him behind."

"You really wanna bring him with us? He's a liability."

"You all were. Back then, you didn't know left from right. And I didn't leave you to starve. What the hell were you providing?" Daryl's grief steadied out into anger. He knew it best, his childhood shaped around it. "You left my brother behind. We left Andrea. Carol. I'm not doing it again."

Gabriel was deficient with his softness but they had all been like that once, fumbling their way along the campsite at the quarry and the farm, trying to piece together the new rules to surviving. "So, you trust him then."

Rick's eyes looked flat, harsh. A bit of judgement glinted back.

"Way I heard it, you were a liability strolling through the streets of Atlanta. Glenn picked you up and gave you a chance. Everybody needs people to survive."

Daryl knew enough dead people who would have vouched for the stranger. They couldn't speak on the man's behalf so he would, grimly resolved to the matter. Gabriel, useless as he was, had opened the church up. He had sat in silence when Gareth offered him the deal, an attempt at coaxing out a coward with a key to surviving the violence. Maybe, if he lived long enough, he could adapt the way they all had.

The group was sliding so firmly into Abraham's hand and it displeased Rick, that sway of force. But Daryl didn't care. The bus was better than walking and eventually something would be enough. They still had their numbers and the dreams that came with it; hopes for a fence and a shelter, something to fight for.

He left the man sitting on the steps and went into the church. Golden light streamed in through the windows and it just highlighted the old bits of chaos. Bullet holes in the walls, splattered blood that nobody had tried scrubbing off of the hymnal cards. They had buried Oscar in the graveyard behind the church but the other bodies would be left to rot in the one room, locked tight like a tomb. Sunlight wouldn't greet their faces again and they wouldn't be given the luxury of a grave.

Maggie frowned at him from where she sat on a pew with Ivy at her feet, his kid's face grimacing as the woman tried working the knots in her hair free. "Bit of a bird's nest," she greeted him, picking a snarl with the end of a comb. "Glenn out back?"

"Organizing supplies," he said, taking a seat next to her. "Said he'd keep Beth in his sights."

The younger Greene had been picking wildflowers for Oscar's grave. Carol and Tyreese had been with her but Glenn was her persistent shadow, watching her even as he hefted the boxes of canned goods into the storage.

Maggie had a spray bottle of water mixed with conditioner and he took it, shaking it slightly. Ivy's hair had knotted around the ends and he sprayed it carefully, inhaling a cloud of rose scent. "Here," Maggie handed him the comb. "I gotta go check with Carol. She's supposed to go refill the water jugs."