Daughter of a Dixon ✔️

101: How You Honor Me

Although our original plan was to head to Hilltop with the others after everything, Rick insisted on making a pit stop at the junkyard to speak with Jadis. He implored that we still needed them, their people, and that they belonged to us, not the Saviors. I didn't know how good of an idea that was, considering everything that had just happened, but I knew better than to argue. I was thinking that, from the way Rick saw it, I was still alive, and Carl wasn't. I had a sickening feeling that he was going to begin to resent me for that.

Upon arriving at the junkyard, the three of us walked in through the only entrance, which was a cargo container that lead to the center. When we opened the door to the other side, though, a series of clatters began to ring out, and trash began collapsing down on us from above.

We darted out of the way just in time to avoid the trap, and all the noise it caused brought on another, much more sinister one.

Snarls and growls erupted from all around us, and we frantically began throwing aside trash that built up the walls in an attempt to get to higher ground. The growls grew closer, and, unable to fight the curiosity, I turned around to see how many walkers we were dealing with.

I didn't expect to see, by any means, that every single one of the trash people had been killed, and therefore had turned.

We tried to fight them off, but there were just too many of them. We were forced to climb up the walls of trash, causing debris to cascade down and collapse beneath our feet. Once we were finally able to stand firmly upon the mounds of junk, I was able to breathe again.

"Rick?"

The uncertain voice startled me, and I, along with Michonne and Rick, spun around to face it. There, sitting atop a high mound of trash, was Jadis, clad in a white dress, and looking more worn down than I'd ever seen.

"What happened here?" Michonne asked, and Jadis frowned.

"Saviors," is her one-word response.

"How do we get out?" Rick followed.

"Get out, same way you got in," she said, looking at us with squinted eyes. "These weren't heaps before. Just trash, laid out as far as the eye could see. I used to come here to find things to paint on; metal sheets, fabrics. And then after... everything changed... I realized this whole place was a canvas, that we were the paint. We could create something new, become something new... we did."

She had begun to tear up at the end of her explanation, and I almost felt bad for her. Rick Grimes, however, did not.

"You did this," he said, gesturing around to the corpses of her people among the trash. "This is because of you."

As Jadis wiped her eyes, Rick picked up a nearby, rusting car door and a cloth. Straining, he began to bend the door handle and any other moveable pieces forward, making it so the door acted as a weapon and a shield.

"What are you doing?" Michonne asked, arching one of her dark brows.

"We're gonna make a run for it," Rick said, nodding to himself with confidence. I furrowed my eyebrows, and Michonne and I shared a quick, skeptical glance. Although, we had to get out of that place somehow, and right then, running seemed like the only logical option.