Avenging Angel (Daryl Dixon Love Story)

Chapter Eleven

"I'm going to check those generators." Rick said.

"I'm coming too." Alexa said as she stepped closer too her brother.

"No you're not," Daryl spoke bringing every eye to him.

Alexa rose an eyebrow about to say something when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Shane looking down at her. "He has a point, it might be dangerous."

"All the more reason that-"

"I understand," Shane interrupted. "I'll go with him."

"I'll go with you." T-Dog said.

"I definitely want to check this out." Glenn said a bit enthusiastically.

While the four men disappeared to the basement, the rest of the group disbursed to their rooms. Daryl waited at the doorway as Alexa moved towards him. Just before she reached him, Jenner's movements caught her eye. He was heading towards his office, and she instantly moved to follow. Alexa stopped short before turning to face Daryl. "I'm going to talk to Jenner for a minute, you go ahead and return to the room." She didn't wait for his response. When she neared the door, Jenner's voice shifted through the open door.

"...the best I could do in the time that I had, I hope you can forgive me."

The pain in his voice hit her hard. She stood in the doorway as Jenner set a framed photo of a woman back on his desk. A gasp escaped her lips as she recognized the smiling woman holding onto a smiling, younger version of Dr. Edwin Jenner. The man turned to face her. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

Alexa continued to stare at the picture. "That woman..." she whispered.

Jenner looked back at the frame with a sad, small smile as he said, "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

"That's the same woman on the video."

"Yes," Jenner said.

Alexa cut her eyes to him as she asked, "Who is she?"

"She was my wife. She worked here at the CDC, and searched tirelessly for a cure when all this happened. The day she was bitten, instead of falling into despair, she insisted that the CDC record as the transformation occurred."

"But, why?" She couldn't understand why anyone would be willing to go through something like that.

"For science," he said.

Alexa's head whipped to face him. Their gazes locked for a moment before he looked back down at the framed photo. "She devoted her life to hunting down a cure for every aliment that she came across. She was fighting a loosing battle, but that never stopped her from wanting to save everyone. When the out break happened none of it fazed her, she only continued as if it were any other illness. She turned it over to me when she was infected. Her faith in me killed me as I watched the life drain from her eyes moments before I shot her."

Alexa's eyes grew wide. "You... shot her?"

"I had no choice." Jenner said as the lights powered down. "It's started."

"What's started?"

Jenner ignored the question as he pushed passed her. She followed him down the hallway as several lights within the living quarters began to shut off. She noticed as the group frantically came out of their rooms one by one. They all spotted Jenner and rushed to him, demanding he explain what was going on. Alexa barley listened to him as he said something about the building itself was shutting down. She ignored the stares she received from Daryl as she spotted her brother. He, with his small band, was quickly making their way down the hallway. Rick walked passed Alexa and straight to Jenner.

"What the hell is happening?" he demanded.

"It was the French," Jenner spoke as if her were telling a bedtime story. "They stuck it out the longest before they too ran out of power. The system is designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second, but the building will decontaminate in thirty minutes. It's too late to stop it without any fuel."

"Quick get your stuff and run!" Rick yelled at everyone over the emergency alarm.

Everyone turned towards the doorway just as it slammed shut.

"Open the door!" Rick demanded as he tried to stiffen the fear that rose inside him.

"There's no point in struggling," Jenner explained. "Everything topside is automatically locked down. 'When that door closes, it wouldn't be opened again'- you heard me say that. It's better this way," He added as he stared off at nothing.

"What happens once the clock gets to zero?" Rick inquired, noting that it was quickly running down.

"You're at the CDC- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Jenner stressed the last word. "To prevent strains of disease from getting out if the building's security was ever compromised, HITs would deploy, setting the air on fire. It would decimate the building and everything inside. Death would be instant, and painless." He pointed this out as if he were talking to a child that didn't want to do their homework and that was some kind of reward.

Alexa stared horrified at the man that called himself a doctor. He was actually trying to convince her brother that accepting his fate, and ultimately death, was the right thing to do.

"There's no hope. Last night you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead. This 'Outbreak' is nothing more than humanity's extinction." Jenner argued.

Alexa looked over at her brother. She actually feared that he would give in to this man's claims. A loud clang filled the air followed by gun shots. She turned to see both Daryl, with an axe, and Shane, with his gun, trying to break through the door. Their attempts did little to nothing. Once the two men noticed this, they turned their assault on Jenner himself. Rick, with the help from T-Dog and Dale, threw Daryl off of Jenner. Alexa grabbed Daryl's arm, that held the axe, and used her free hand to hold onto his shirt. She hoped that this would be enough to calm him. She could feel how tense his body was, but he made no further attempts to break the hold.

"Brother, don't do this. If you kill him, we'll never get out of here." Rick tried to reason with his partner. Once he saw that Shane had calmed down some, he turned his attention on Jenner. "Why? Why did you stay if you didn't think there was any hope?"

"I made a promise," Jenner said, not meeting anyone's eyes.

"To who," Lori inquired.

"His wife," Alexa stated earning looks from everyone in the room. "Test Subject-19."

"She was one of the finest scientists in the world." Jenner said with admiration. "If anyone could have done something about this, it was her."

Everyone exchanged a look.

"Me?" he admitted, "I'm just Edwin Jenner."