ENDURE.
❝I know how to fight,
and I know how to win. ❞
THE WALKING DEAD.
DARYL DIXON.
BOOK THREE of the LANCASTER SAGA.
[ SEASONS 7 - 9 ]
*****
*I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters. I simply write to write. Astrid, any additional...
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[ i. eenie, meenie, miney, mo ]
october 27th, 2012
➸➸➸
ON THE WORST NIGHT of Astrid Dixon's life, she could do little more than watch as her executor stepped from the shadows of the RV.
The stranger was a towering man who possessed a sinister aura that seemed to swallow the feeble light around him. Clad in a tight-fitting black leather jacket that accentuated his sinewy frame, his muscular shoulders strained against the fabric. His pepper-black hair was slicked back against his tanned forehead and his dark, inscrutable eyes flickered beneath the glare of the surrounding headlights.
His leather combat boots left deep imprints in the gravel as he stepped further into the vast clearing. The earth seemed to shudder beneath his weight as if recoiling from the evil radiating from his very being. He was grinning. Excited.
Astrid's careful, watery stare went to the lethal weapon of his choosing that was slung carelessly over his shoulder. A wooden baseball bat wrapped in thick layers of barbed wire. Its jagged edges glinted as he approached the kneeling lineup of Alexandrians with cocksure swagger.
"Pissing our pants yet?" The stranger ribbed. Even his voice was a sharpened edge. Deep and raspy. "Boy, do I have a feeling we're getting close. Yep. It's going to be Pee-Pee Pants City here real soon."
As he drew ever nearer, Astrid felt his scrutiny bearing down upon her and her family. His calculating gaze, sharp as a hawk's, swept over them all, dissecting their strengths and weaknesses with the precision of a seasoned predator. It was as if he could see into their very souls, assessing and determining if their lives were still livable with easy, calloused detachment.
Slowly, his cold eyes moved across Astrid, then to the young child whimpering in her arms, then onto her husband, and beyond to her friends.
Astrid's focus slid back to her hunter. Daryl was still looking only at her and their children. She watched in terror as he swayed unsteadily on his knees. His gaunt face was all but drained of color, and blood still seeped from the vicious gunshot in his shoulder. Fresh tears welled in Astrid's eyes, her breath catching in her throat as she struggled to stifle her helpless whimpers. She wanted to move closer, to speak to Daryl—even if it were for the last time—but her lips failed to move. Her voice was gone.
Forcing herself to look away from her husband's deteriorating state, Astrid clutched Bailey tighter to her chest. Over the young girl's head, she glanced at the others in her group, soon locking eyes with Abraham and then Rick. The latter man was looking widely around the gravel clearing. As if he suddenly no longer even knew where he was, what he was doing, or how he was going to get beyond this moment.
Perhaps he would not.
The heavy footsteps of the leather-clad man snapped Astrid's attention back to the head of their lineup. "So," he addressed, "which one of you pricks is the leader?"
