i 'm convinced i left the greatest plot twists til' last.
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Merle's foot slammed on the break as we skidded to a halt outside the school. Daryl threw the door open and nearly fell headfirst out the door, it was just gone eleven a.m, school was in full swing and my appointed death was scheduled for mid-day.
Though we were all still unsure of how they were going to kill me.
Merle and I stumbled after Daryl as he shoved the front doors of the High school open.
"MOVE!" Daryl roared shoving through a group of students, they yelled at him to fuck off but none of us were listening as we sped through the school, around corners, shoving through more groups of students, crashing against teachers and bumping into walls.
Finally Daryl came to a sliding stop, I crashed directly into him and Merle managed to grab my shoulder before he went flying at the speed he was going at. Our eyes searched the cabinet of pictures placed next to the principal's office door.
"THERE! THERE!" I yell jabbing my finger at the picture on the top left corner. There was Daryl and Merle's mother, dressed in her Sunday best the jewels hanging from her wrists, around her neck and balanced delicately on her fingers.
"Are they the jewels or not?!" I yell turning to look between them.
"They might be." Daryl answered unsure.
"EITHER THEY ARE OR THEY AREN'T DIXON!" I yell grabbing his shoulders.
"I DON'T KNOW!" Daryl yelled back.
"There's only one way to find out." Merle answered.
Silence envelopes us for a moment before Daryl speaks. "Where do we get the shovels.?"
The two brothers share a look, there is no name for this look, no term you could use to describe the look of unease on their faces at the thought of having to dig their mother up out of the ground.
"Janitors closet?" Merle questions.
Daryl nods and then checks his watch, "Shit, we've thirty minutes." My mouth drops for a moment before I suddenly kick into auto pilot and I'm shoving Daryl and Merle in the direction of the Janitors closet - a place Merle was famous for fucking a teacher in.
She was fired, he was given detention.
Daryl - being the fastest of us - reaches the door first, Merle second and just as I reach Merle's shoulder an arm comes from behind me and pulls me backwards away from him.
Before I can scream a hand is over my mouth, I kick out but who ever is holding me is holding me too tight and pulls me away from Daryl and Merle.
I react instantly biting down on the hand over my mouth, the man holding me gasps letting my face go for a moment and it's just enough time for me to yell, "DARYL!"
Daryl and Merle turn instantaneously, they pause for a second taking in what I can't see and then they react.
Merle runs and launches himself at another man dressed in all black standing slightly in front of me. As he drops the gun he had been holding goes flying from his hand, Daryl snatches it from the ground as I maneuver my elbow to jab the man holding me in the side. He yells in pain and drops me, there's a gun shot and he drops behind me.
Daryl grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet, kicking Merle off of the other man and then shooting the other man.
"It's not even twelve o clock yet!" I exclaim terrified.
"They said they'd kill you at twelve, they didn't say they'd catch you at twelve." Merle answers surprisingly calmly.
"What do we do? What do we do?!" I repeat, my heart is racing, my palms are sweaty and my whole body is shaking.
"They know we're in the school, we need to get out of the school." Daryl answers.
"BUT WHAT ABOUT THE JEWELS!?" I yell louder than I needed to.
"It doesn't matter about them, all that matters is we get as far away from here as possible!"
It's only now as Merle breaks into a jog towards the exit that I notice the crowd that had gathered around us, and then it only takes me seconds to realize I don't care. Daryl squeezes my hand and then pulls me after him and Merle.
"Where do we go now?" I ask him as we run.
"Anywhere but here." Is all he can say before we enter the front hall, and come to a complete standstill.
We're surrounded by more men. All dressed in black suits, all with different variations of hand guns pointed directly at the three of us.
"Shit." Merle whispers.
Silence falls around us, sirens wailing in the distance, students gathered whispering, teachers calling students to move and to leave but I'm not really listening to them. I'm listening to Daryl's breathing next to me, raged and short.
He's scared.
No, he's terrified.
I glance up to the sky, Zoe, please help us.
I can't help you.
You have to, you created us, you put us in this mess, help get us out.
I made your shoulders wider Athena, that's what you asked for. You can't ask for anything else.
I never asked for this!
I know. I'm sorry.
Do something, please.
What do you want me to do? You control yourself now, I put the ideas into play, you act them out, you've made every decision because you wanted to, not because I told you, you're still alive Athena. You can do it again. Just close your eyes, follow your instincts and don't die.
I look back to ground level, closing my eyes briefly and then opening them, I scan the men around us and then gulp.
I follow my instinct.
I turn on my heel faster than Daryl or Merle can see what I'm doing and take off down the hall we'd just come from.
"ATHENA!" Merle roars as he and Daryl follow me.
It's my life, not theirs. I choose when I die. No one else. I'm not dying today.
I run to the back exit, students and teachers flying out of my way. Finally I reach the back exit doors and shove them open, rushing out of the school and into the arms of a stranger who grabs me around the neck and drags me kicking from the doorway.
"Now, now sweetheart, calm down."
There's a tint of a southern drawl to the voice, mixed with a deep New York City accent. But nothing stands out about the voice more then the fact that it's female.
Daryl and Merle crash through the doors and are immediately grabbed by the two men who had been waiting at the door to catch them.
"THENA'" Daryl yells before a hand slams over his mouth silencing him.
"Hush, hush now darling." The woman holding me coos softly.
Daryl and Merle's eyes both widen, Merle's face turning completely white. She chuckles softly behind me.
"Thought I was dead right?" She whispers. "Thought I was gone, huh? Well you were wrong. It's not like it mattered that much anyways, you forgot about me, and it was all her fault!" She snaps the last part, pulling my hair back and pressing a knife against my throat.
"I didn't do anything!" I yell fighting against her hold, but arching my neck far enough back that the knife won't cut me.
"I wasn't talking to you, you slut!" She hisses in my ear kneeing me in the back. I yell out in pain and both Daryl and Merle lunge against their captures.
She giggles softly watching the struggle.
"I assume you are all very confused." I can't help but nod - who the hell is this bitch?
She knees me again to tell me she wasn't asking me but continues anyway. "I'm shocked it took you two long enough to recognize your own mother. I mean sure apparently I was dead and all, but really boys, I haven't changed that much."
With a sudden burst of anger Merle manages to break away from his holder, he then turns swinging his fist and knocking his capture out cold.
"I WANT A BLOODY EXPLANATION RIGHT NOW!" He roars storming forward pointing directly at his mother.
She chuckles. "Well as a school teacher I couldn't really do the whole job of laying low as the leader of the Georgian branch of the mafia, now could I?"
Merle takes a step back starring at the woman. "You're the leader of the Georgian branch of the mafia?" He exclaims.
"Surprised? Come on I dealt with your father for most of my life. But I got you two beautiful boys out of it, and then this whore came along and made you forget about me completely!" She yells, gripping my hair tighter.
Merle takes another step back.
"What about the jewels? The note? The whole thing, getting us to leave her! EVERYTHING!" Merle yells more than questions.
"Well." His mother stops and then shoves me away from her and onto the ground, that's when Daryl breaks free of his holders grip and rushes towards me. He grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet, holding me close to his chest one arm wrapped around my waist as he eyes his mother carefully.
Merle was the muscles, I was the brains, Daryl was the secret weapon, and right now our secret weapon was silent and brooding, and that was never good.
She stops again before she starts her eyes training on how Daryl is holding me. "So you are a little whore." Daryl's grip tightens and his Georgian blue eyes turn ice cold.
She laughs lightly. "You don't scare me darling."
Darling, it disgusts me.
She turns back to Merle. "Firstly, if your wondering why I couldn't have just quit my job, the whole town knew who I was, I couldn't just drop off the map without an explanation, death was a brilliant one. Secondly, you got a letter to leave and forget her or she'd get hurt. You left, yes, but you never forgot. There was two parts to that letter, not one. Thirdly, the jewels were just to have a reason or more so an excuse to kill her. She was going to die whether or not you got anything to me. The whole idea behind the last year or so of your lives has been to rid you two of her, and since nothing else seems to be doing it, I'll just have to do it myself, and if that means putting a bullet through her skull then so be." She smiles sweetly shrugging lightly as the rest of her men come into view, flanking her slightly.
Students have gathered around them, far enough away so that they probably won't be in the aim of a bullet. The sirens of the police have gotten considerably louder but they aren't here yet.
"And what makes you think we're going to let you kill her!" Daryl finally growls. She giggles then. "You don't have a choice sweetheart."
"GET HER!" She suddenly yells. "Run!" Daryl hisses shoving me towards the crowd. I break into a sprint my mind switching to auto pilot and I take off in a complicated path through the students trying to drop the men off my trail.
I can hear Daryl and Merle behind me, yelling things that my ears can't catch, calling to each other, but my mind is preoccupied.
I'm praying. Praying to every angel in the sky, to the god I know exists, to my loved ones looking over me. Praying they can save me, praying they can help me. I pray with ever fiber of my body to live for one more day. I pray that what ever happens today that I get to wake up tomorrow and this could maybe be all just a dream, but I know it won't be, I know it can't be. Because this is my reality, running through the school yard, next to my best friends and being chased by their mother and her mafia branch.
It should be terrifying really, bullets soaring through the sky, yells of anger coming from behind you, but it's not. Because I'm not afraid of death anymore. I guess I never really have been, it's been kind of numbed to me.
It happens all so quickly one second I'm running towards the boundary wall where the cop cars are pulling up the next there's a roaring pain below my collar bone and another one burning through my abdomen and then I'm falling to the ground, landing with a yell and a thud.
"ATHENA!" My mind picks through the voices to hear Daryl.
"Someone call an ambulance!" It's Merle's voice.
Before my mind can swim before me, I'm being rolled onto my back and there's two heads above mine.
"No, no, no, no, no." Daryl chants, tears already falling from his eyes. He rips off his over shirt and folds it into a bundle and presses it down below my collar bone. I arch my neck and yell out in pain.
"Merle, the other one!" Daryl begs as Merle rips his own over shirt from his body and bundling up to press against the other gun shot wound.
"Daryl, it's not going to work!" Merle exclaims frantically. "IT HAS TO!" Daryl yells angrily.
"Stop shouting, you fools." I murmur softly, I feel a disgusting warm thick liquid in my throat and cough twice, and blood spews from my mouth. "No, no, no, no please Athena stick with me. I can't loose you, I won't!" Daryl says.
"Daryl." I gasp reaching up and cupping his face with my hand. "Stop." He shakes his head though. "No, no, you'll die, you'll die!" He whispers angrily. "I can't let you die, I won't! I can't say goodbye to you, no, not for real."
I shake my head back at him.
"I love you." I croak, but he shakes his head again. I reach my hand down and fumble, finally grabbing Merle's hand and squeezing it. "Love you too Merle." He hiccups, in tears.
"I can't let you die." Daryl whispers.
"You can't save me." I whisper, I can feel the warmth leaving my body, my life flowing out through the bullet holes in my skin.
A voice shouts from somewhere far away, "HEY YOU BOYS GET AWAY FROM HER!" It's a voice I don't know, a voice I don't care to know as suddenly Merle is jerked from my grip.
"NO!" Merle roars, before he grabs Daryl's shoulder pulling himself back down next to me.
"Athena." He croaks, words he had never said and always meant to becoming lost in thin air as he cries and finally lets himself be dragged away from me. "GET THE OTHER BROTHER." The same unknown voice yells.
"No, no, no, no, no." Daryl whispers taking my face in his hands. "Go." I say softly. "I can't say goodbye." He answers.
"Then don't."
He laughs through his tears and then finally leans down and presses his lips against mine. He doesn't break the kiss but suddenly his body is jerked away, from mine, he fights against it as he clings to me not wanting to let go.
Not wanting to say goodbye.
"Daryl, don't forget me."
"Never." He whispers before he's finally pulled away from me.
And it's the last thing I see.
The last thing I see, the Georgian sparkling blue eyes of my best friend, before it all goes black. And there is nothing.
#~#~#
*bows dramatically.*
thank you