Fight With You - Daryl Dixon TWD

Chapter 19: TS-19

And he knew that. I looked into his eyes and I could see him battling with himself, his humanity fighting his urge for survival and he took in the groups pleading faces.

Clearly, this man did have a stroke of humanity left, or else he would never have succumbed to Rick's cries for help, and an obvious conscience as he didn't want to turn us away and have that weigh on him for however long he had left.

He took a few steps forward, eyes still scanning us as he landed on Sophia and Carol cowering by Dale to the left of me.

"You'll all submit to a blood test." He announced. "That's the price of admission."

"We can do that," Rick assured, everyone else nodding along.

The man dropped his gun and walked towards us, telling us to grab any stuff we had to bring in and to do it now because 'once this door closes, it stays closed.' which in every sense of the word was ominous as fuck, but we didn't have time to unpack that. Luckily we'd thought ahead and already had everything we could carry on our backs, so T-Dog and Dale grabbed the doors and shut them tight.

"Vi, seal the main entrance." The man spoke into a keycard swiper on the wall to someone called Vi. "Kill the power up here."

I turned to watch the shutter fall mechanically back into place as Rick introduced himself.

"Dr Edwin Jenner." He - Jenner - replied.

---

Jenner took us to the elevator he'd come up in, and we packed ourselves in snuggly. I stood between Glenn and T-Dog against the back doors, leaning slightly on Glenn as we travelled down.

"Doctors always go round packin' heat like that?" Daryl mused from beside Glenn. He had yet to put his gun away and held it towards the roof of the elevator.

Jenner turned calmy and spoke with a slight lilt of humour in his voice. "There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself." He paused for a brief moment in consideration, eyes once again scanning the group. "But you look harmless enough."

"Except you." He directed to Carl, who stood in the middle next to Sophia. "I'll have to keep my eye on you." He chuckled.

Carl smiled at that and it was a nice sight after days of solemn near silence from the boy. Something I'd expected from Sophia, but not from him.

Jenner turned back to face the doors and from what I could see of his face from behind Andrea, he looked almost troubled.

The rest of the ride after that was spent in anxious silence, the ever-present elevator hum doing nothing to calm our nerves as the doors opened and Jenner stepped out and led us down a white hallway.

"Are we underground?" Carol spoke from in front of me.

"Are you claustrophobic?" Jenner questioned.

"A little." She replied, and I had to admit so was I.

He simply told her not to think about it as he led us further through the bunker and into a large circular room filled with computers that looked like they belonged in 1992 - though I'm no expert. He called out to 'Vi' again to turn on the lights in 'The Big Room' and stood still for a second as the room lit up to show nobody in it.