Jinx || Daryl Dixon || The Walking Dead Fanfic

-20-

When Tomas was finally done, he looked up at them all, he was covered in blood and Big Tiny's head was nothing but a bloody pulp on the ground. Daryl and Rick's eyes met; this couldn't be over soon enough.

They continued down the hallway in the dark, everyone a little more apprehensive now. Rick and Daryl held back a little. "Did you see the look on his face?" Daryl asked, "He makes one move, just give me a signal" he told the sheriff.

The next room they entered was the laundry room, there were double doors on the opposite wall, they could hear the snarls of walkers already waiting on the other side. Rick threw the keys at Tomas' feet and he told them he wasn't going to open that door.

"Yes, you are." Rick told him "If you want this cell block, you're gonna open that door. Just the one, not both of them, because we need to control this." He shined his flashlight towards it, but thankfully this room also had windows so they could see a little better. Reluctantly the leader of the prisoners picked up the keys and began to unlock the door.

"You bitches ready?" he asked, yanking on the door once, twice, "I got this" he told them, promptly pulling both doors open at the same time.

"I said one door!" Rick yelled at him.

"Shit happens!" he yelled back as they all started swinging at the walkers.

Daryl stayed back slightly where he could use his crossbow to shoot them as they came through the door and he saw Rick duck back, narrowly avoiding Tomas' weapon slicing his neck open. They glared at each other before Tomas jumped forward and grabbed a walker throwing it at Rick, who dodged again, but this time it landed on Jinx knocking her to the ground and landing on top of her.

"T, mind the gap!" Daryl yelled as he jumped forward stabbing the walker on top of Jinx in the tip with the arrow he'd been about to load and throwing it off her. He pulled her up and they both went straight back to fighting.

The snarls quieted and they stopped, realising they'd finally got them all. Rick squared up to Tomas who shrugged "It was coming at me, bro".

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." The sheriff told him, "I get it. Shit happens." he set his jaw and Daryl knew what was coming next. The pair stared at each other for a long second, Tomas' eyes looking everywhere but where they should've been, when Rick quickly swung his arm round and brought his hatchet down on the man's head and kicked him away to free the blade.

"No!" Andrew yelled, charging towards Rick with his bat raised, but Rick easily kicked him back too. The prisoner fell to the floor and Daryl stepped forward raising the crossbow again.

"Easy now" he told the prisoner, but the little guy got up and ran from the room.

"I got him." Rick said chasing after him.

Daryl turned his crossbow towards the two left behind, Axel and Oscar. "Get down on your knees!" he told them.

"We don't have no affiliation to what just happened." Axel told them, "Tell him Oscar" he looked over at the tall man.

"Stop talking, man." he shook his head as Daryl kept the crossbow trained on him.

T-Dog kept his gun pointed at Axel's head and Jinx stood between them, she still hadn't drawn her gun, but she held her knives in both hands, ready to fight.

Rick eventually returned without Andrew; he pointed his gun at Oscar's head "We had nothin' to do with that" the man told him with his hands raised.

"You didn't know?" Rick asked him, "You knew. Daryl, let's end this now." He swung his gun round to point it at Axel, while Daryl stepped forward and held his knife to Oscar's throat.

"Sir, please, listen to me!" Axel begged, "It was them that was bad. It wasn't us." The guy was almost in tears, "You saw what he did to Tiny. He was my friend. Please, we ain't like that. I like my pharmaceuticals, but I'm no killer." He glanced at the other prisoner, "Oscar here, he's a B and E, and he ain't very good at it neither. We ain't the violent kind, they were!" he was starting to get hysterical "Please, I swear to God! I wanna live!" he begged.

Rick spun back to point the gun at Oscar again, "What about you?" he asked.

"I ain't never pleaded for my life and I ain't about to start now." Daryl respected him for that. "So you do what you gotta do". Rick lowered his gun, and they pulled the prisoners to their feet. Rick held onto Axel and T-Dog held onto Oscar and moved through to the cell block they'd been clearing out.

Rick shoved Axel through the door, there were a lot more dead in here than there had been in C block. It appeared the guards had lined the prisoners up and executed them in here.

"I knew these guys," Axel told them, his voice breaking, "These were good men."

Rick decided it was time to go. "So, you're just going to leave us in here?" Oscar asked him, his voice softer than the last time he'd spoken, "Man, this is sick."

"We're locking down this cell block" Rick informed him, "From now on, this part of the prison is yours. Take it or leave it, that was the deal."

As they headed for the door Daryl paused, "You think this is sick? You don't wanna know what's outside" he told the man.

"Consider yourselves the lucky ones." Rick told them as they left.

Daryl bit his lip, "Sorry about your friends, man" he told them, he felt Jinx's hand on his arm, urging him to hurry up.

As soon as they made it back to Cell Block C, they all went straight to check on Hershel, Carl told them he'd stopped breathing, but Lori had saved him. She stood off to one side of the small cell. "Still no fever." she told them, Rick nodded and moved closer to the injured man. He opened his mouth as though he was about to say something, and everyone crowded around.

Daryl stood leaning on the doorframe just behind Carl, he felt Jinx rest her hand on his arm again and he smiled down at her as Hershel opened his eyes. Rick unlocked the handcuffs that had chained him to the bed as a precaution. The old man raised his hand up, grasping Rick's and the sheriff knelt beside him for a moment. Lori left the room and Rick went after her, placing Beth's hand in Hershel's.

He felt the warmth of Jinx's hand disappear from his arm and he turned to see her silently making her way upstairs, he paused for a second, then followed, dumping the crossbow on his bed as he passed. It had been a screwed-up day and he wanted to make sure she was okay. When he caught up with her, she had just finished pulling a clean shirt over her head and was leaning down to give Shadow a stroke where the cat slept on her bed. He knocked gently on the wall, and she looked up, giving him a tentative smile. He quickly closed the space between them in two places and wrapped his arms around her. It hit him in that moment just how close he'd been to losing her when Tomas had thrown that walker at her.

She froze for a second, but he knew she understood when she wrapped her own arms around his waist and held him back. They stayed like that for a few minutes, until finally she pulled away and looked up at him. He looked down at her, they didn't need to say anything, he just nodded, acknowledging that she was okay, they were okay, and it was over now.

He turned and headed back downstairs, hearing her voice mutter incomprehensibly as she talked to the cat.