Dixon's Daughter • The Walking Dead

47: Accusations and Explanations

Emma's P.O.V

As Michonne, Carl, Dad, and Rick rounded the corner I still stood there, gun raised.

"Emma, put the gun down." Rick said calmly.

I didn't budge.

My dad began to slowly walk towards me. I knew what he was doing, he was gonna take my gun, which I didn't mind. I wanted to put the gun down but I couldn't. Its not that I physically could not, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was too shaken up. I was terrified he'd come back and try to hurt me again. I couldn't let him do that to me again.

When dad got close enough to me he took the gun out of my hand, but it wasn't that hard for him. I had no where near a tight grip on the gun. As he took the gun from my hand I snapped towards him and hugged him. With all of everything -fear, sadness, guilt, trauma, and more- built up inside me I began crying.

Dad handed my gun over to Rick and hugged me back, despite the fact that he didn't really like displaying emotions.

"What happened?" Michonne asked.

I stopped hugging my dad and just stood alone.

"Carl, I'm sorry I lied to you." I said in a quiet voice.

He looked kinda puzzled, it was clear he had no idea what I was talking about.

"Don't worry about that right now." He responded. 

I nodded.

"Uh, I, he, he tried to rape me again." I said in a sort of trance state, just staring at his body, not moving at all.

"What do you mean 'again'?" Rick asked.

I shook my head no, not wanting to answer the question. It was clear that Carl caught on.

"What was your mom's ex-boyfriend's name?" He asked me.

Those words haunted me.

I looked up at him like I had just seen a ghost or something. "Carl. I'm sorry." I said, ashamed.

"What was his name?" He asked again. He stayed calm but it was clear that he was mad.

"Marcus Radford..." I admitted.

Everyone, besides Carl, looked at me in shock. Carl already knew, and he probably had for a long time.

"Why didn't you say anything? We could've sent him away." Rick said.

"I thought maybe he had changed. I wanted to give him a chance at survival, the world has gone to shit if you haven't noticed. Everyone deserves a safe place to stay away from walkers. I was giving him a chance. This world is harsh and unreasonable and unfair, hell, you all know that. I didn't want to be the reason someone else died, whether it was him or even worse one of the people that I love. You guys didn't know him like I did. If you would've tried to send him away, especially after we took all of his supplies, I know for a fact he would've tried to hurt one of you." I argued.

"A man like that doesn't deserve the 'safe place' you were talking about, I don't care if he has changed or not. He wasn't much of a man to do those things to you in the first place." Michonne said.

"I just wanted to help someone out. No matter what our history is. I know people change, I've seen it, I've witnessed it my whole life, incase you don't remember the stories of my mom, she went from loving and caring one day to not giving a shit and hitting me the next day... literally. I didn't want to have someone else's blood on my hands, I like to help people, you all know that. I realize that thats what happened in the end anyways, but at least I tried." I added.