SHELTER | DIXON

|22|

"Nah. You're a good person, Madi," T-Dog told her. "I don't think much can change that." She smiled slightly as he patted her shoulder again and went off with Andrea to pile up the walker bodies onto the truck, so they could take them out and burn them.

"Madi! Madi!" She turned at the frantic shouts of Glenn, seeing him stumble down the porch steps as he ran toward her. "You gotta come quick! Hurry up, come on!"

"What is it?" Madison asked worriedly as she hurried toward him. "Glenn, what is it?"

"It―it's Beth!"

Madison didn't stay to hear anything else once her sister's name left his mouth. She sprinted past him and into the house as fast as she could, screeching to a halt when she saw Beth sprawled on the kitchen floor with broken dishes lying not too far away from her. Maggie was knelt at her side, her hands hovering as she didn't know what to do. "What happened?" Madison asked as she moved over and knelt down as well.

"She was doing the dishes, and she just collapsed," Maggie said as Glenn entered the house and headed into the kitchen as well. "What's wrong with her?"

"Catatonic shock," Madison answered, her fingers pressed to Beth's radial pulse to get a reading on it. "That's what it looks like to me." She glanced up at Glenn. "Do you mind helping getting her off the floor and up to her room?" Her nodded, moving forward to help her pick Beth up. Madison used her boot-clad foot to push the broken plates out of the way, making sure Beth wouldn't get cut on them when her body was moved. "Go find Dad," she told Maggie as she and Glenn carried Beth upstairs.

"Is there anything else I can do?" Glenn asked as they lowered Beth onto the bed.

"Maybe go help Maggie look for my dad?" She suggested hopefully. Glenn instantly nodded and hurried out of the room, eager to help in any way.

After he left the room, Madison set to work trying to make her catatonic sister as comfortable as possible. She pulled off her shoes and then eased her out of her pants, instead dressing her in a pair of cotton shorts to help cool her down. When Lori appeared in the doorway, her eyes wide with concern, Madison was using a damp rag to blot at Beth's feverish forehead and humming quietly to her. "Is she okay?" Lori asked worriedly.

Madison swallowed thickly. "She's in shock," she answered. "Her body's been under too much stress, especially emotionally. Everything has taken such a toll on her and I ― I didn't even notice it, Lori. How did I not notice it?"

"This isn't your fault, Madi," Lori assured her. "Everything has been so crazy lately, it's hard to keep up." Maggie and Glenn came rushing up the stairs then, and Lori stepped to the side to let them into the room.

"We can't find him," Maggie said, out of breath. 

"What?"

"Hershel," Glenn clarified. "We can't find him anywhere."

Madison slammed the damp rag back into the small bucket of water, utterly stressed out as she put her head in her hands. "I'll go tell Rick," Lori offered, stepping away from the door frame. "Don't worry, Madi, we'll find him."

× × × × × ×  

If there were two things Madison hated at the current moment in time, one was that she couldn't be in multiple places at once. She needed to be with Beth, but she also wanted to go and look for her father. The other thing she hated was the fact that her father was gone, and he had taken the key to his safe with him. That particular detail wouldn't have been much of a problem if he hadn't locked away all the prescription medications inside of it― and because of this, Madison wasn't able to give Beth the proper sedatives she needed so that her body wouldn't keep working so hard. All Madison had been able to do was start an IV and hang a bag of normal saline to make sure her sister was at least getting the fluids she needed.