my tears ricochet

Chapter Fifty One

Beth was a child. She was barely grown up. This wasn't the kind of life Hershel had wanted for either of his daughters and Beth seemed so young, hands not accustomed to fighting over scraps. But Daryl hoped she knew how to run fast, how to discard the pieces of hope so nothing held her back. That Beth had learned enough things from every single person that came before, studying and adopting skills just to survive a little bit longer.

"Before they put you in here, you didn't see Tyreese?" Sasha cut through, joining them at the one corner. She had removed the laces from her boots to arm herself with a crude version of a garrote.

"Nah, he wasn't there."

"Good." Defiance burned through her tone. They had all been scorned for their hopes and darkness threatened to smother every single one of them, but at least some of their people hadn't found themselves drowning in the same pit.

Glenn had moved against the frame of the door, replicating Rick's earlier work with his watch. The set of his shoulders looked tense against the light. Occasionally he would look back, gravitating to Maggie's voice like she were the sun in the pit of darkness, instinctively turning in her direction every time.

A louder pulse of the radio cut through the cloying silence. Daryl bumped Ivy against the wall, settling himself directly between her and the door. Glenn was backing away with a skinny piece of wood in his hands. "Four of those pricks are heading this way."

"You all know what to do," Rick instructed, clambering to his feet. "Go for their eyes first. Then their throats."

"Get your backs to the walls at either end of the car!" Someone shouted through the metal walls, hand rapping against the door with a deafening knock of authority.

Everyone positioned themselves. Before the world ended, they were normal people with normal lives, settling themselves into a landscape of kitchen table bills and jobs, finishing school and talking with their families. Now they knew how to shift their feet into a proper stance, fists coming up to guard their faces. Every single person knew how to lean into the violence to make it through the next minute, burning the shells of whoever they had once been into a hazed memory.

They were survivors. Fighters willing to do whatever it took for their people.

The shaft of sunlight appearing above their heads took them by surprise, sun pouring through the small space and burning their eyes. Daryl didn't see what was dropped but he heard the metallic clatter of it, trying to place to familiarity of it to another time and place. "Move!" Abraham bellowed suddenly, turning around and shoving Sasha and Rosita hard.

The device flashed a painful white light and smoke poured through, flooding the train car. Daryl rocked backwards and turned, pushing Ivy further into the wall as he tried to cover her better. He barely heard her cry over the sound of the door sliding open, pain bursting from where she hit the wall with her bad shoulder.

Somebody grabbed him by the back of the neck and hauled backwards, nimbly ducking when he flung a desperate punch that struck nothing. The follow up punch glanced off of a gas mask, harmless despite his intentions. "No!" Ivy screamed, thrashing against Maggie and catching him by the wrist.

Daryl was being dragged towards the door. Rick went out first, all teeth and nails, thrown down the steps and to the ground. The person yanking him didn't register or care that there was a child clinging to Daryl, her hand curled so tight around his wrist it was as unyielding as a metal cuff. Her feet were trying to dig into the wooden floor to try and find purchase, numb to the danger beyond that door.

He just wanted one more day.

The world was ending and Daryl jerked his wrist towards her thumb, dislodging her grip in one hard move. Smoke stung his eyes and he couldn't see her but he felt where she fell backwards, tumbling somewhere beyond where the sun could reach.