HEART OF GLASS
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE !
[ season three, episode nine ]
The roaring of a crowd filled Daryl's ears. Someone was dragging him, knees scraping across a sandy surface. His view was heavily constricted by a burlap bag, and his warm breath fanned out into the scratchy material, practically suffocating him.
Was he being led to his death? Possibly. It felt like it.
The first thing Daryl noticed was that he felt scared. He hadn't been gripped by fear in a long time ─ hadn't opened himself up to it. He didn't allow it to fester. He severed it at the root so it couldn't grow anymore. He told himself not to believe in it. Fear did not exist.
But for the first time since the Outbreak, Daryl Dixon allowed himself to feel the vulnerability of his current predicament. It frightened him.
And when the burlap bag was ripped from his head by a pair of rough hands, that vulnerability truly sunk in.
People. At first, they were all he saw, all he could focus on for the time being. Their faces swam around him, Woodbury residents perched in stands surrounding a sandy gladiator-type arena. Their eyes were all bulging in disbelief as if Daryl were a two-headed cow being presented to repudiated auctioneers. He felt like it. He felt like the odd one out. He felt watched. He felt wrong. He felt hot and sweaty and tired, but above all, he felt scared.
Some of the people in the crowd pointed, but most simply stared. There were little kids amongst the roaring wave of people, too ─ they were all booing louder than the adults.
That was the type of place Woodbury was.
A breeding ground for twisted sycophants.
"These are two of the terrorists who invaded our home," bellowed a voice, so close and unexpected that Daryl actually flinched. "killed our people!"
Aforementioned voice belonged to a tall, lithe man. He stood in the centre of the arena, the enormous overhead fire-lights illuminating a sadistic grin and a slightly bloodied bandage stretched over one eye. He had a gleam of malevolence in the other eye, which made Daryl very uneasy.
This had to the the Governor.
Breathing heavily, Daryl peered around the sandy ring once more. A bead of sweat dribbled into his eye. The crowd had quietened now to listen to the Governor, and most of the people standing within it were dressed in night-clothes, like they'd just been ripped out of bed. Which they probably had.
Daryl gazed down at his hands ─ they were bound together with rope. He could feel his heart quicken with the realisation that he wouldn't be able to escape anytime soon. Rope was not as easy to break as duct-tape.
He lifted his head again, facing the chaos. The Governor paced in front of him, and then moved aside, giving Daryl a clear view of the opposing side of the ring. But he almost wished he had never seen what lay beyond.
Across from him, kneeling in the sand with her hands tied in front of her, was Sage Whitman.
Daryl felt his entire body freeze.
"A mute child," the Governor boomed. He pointed at Sage, before his finger quickly span around to Daryl. "And Merle's own brother!"
The crowd broke into murmurs.
Merle? They knew Merle?
Next to Daryl, in the ring, was the man himself. His brother. Merle. How had he not noticed him until now? The answer was fairly simple: he had been too caught up in adrenaline, that fear Merle ordered him to abandon a long time ago plaguing his mind. But how was he meant to stay calm in a situation like this? That was near impossible.
Daryl's heart almost exploded in his chest from the sheer amount of anxiety coursing through his bloodstream ─ he couldn't catch his breath.
Merle was alive. He had been betrayed; his supposed people turned against him.
There was a gun pointed at his brother's head. Daryl knew that somebody the Governor supposedly considered to be his lieutenant wouldn't be standing in the middle of a fighting ring, with a gun poised to blow his brains out. The sheer astonishment smeared over Merle's face backed up that point by a mile, too.
Daryl inhaled steadily through his nostrils. He turned his head back to Sage.
She was staring at the sandy ground, lips forming an O as she tried to breathe through a panic attack. Her cheeks were stained by remnants of tears, and she looked absolutely terrified. Even across the distance he stood from her, Daryl could see how much Sage's hands were trembling. Like leaves in the wind. He couldn't imagine the extent of her trepidation in that moment ─ she couldn't hear anything. Couldn't hear the Governor, or the roaring of the crowd, or the sound of guns being unholstered in every direction. Just her own thoughts, her own thudding heart. She could just see the unwarranted hatred the strangers held in their eyes when they looked at her. And she didn't know why.
Right then and there, Daryl decided he wanted to kill the Governor.
"What should we do with them, huh?" the Governor enticed.
He grabbed Daryl's arm and pulled him violently to his feet. Daryl almost fell, but managed to hold on at the last second and composed his footing in the sand. He swayed from side to side, his gaze flicking from Sage, to Merle, and to the Governor at such an intense speed he soon felt himself going dizzy. But he had to make sure they didn't go anywhere.
The crowd punched their fists into the air, crying out for bloodshed, "KILL 'EM!"
"FINISH THEM!"
A devious grin curled at the Governor's lip. There was a sick kind of glory imbued deep within his bones, burning through to meet his skin as if it were an acid eating away at every molecule of flesh. This is exactly what he wanted: his people pleading for justice. Justice for something that had never happened, against people who were innocent in everything but essential survival. Justice for the brain-washed.
In the middle of the left stands, a large cluster of the crowd abruptly surged forward and subsequently parted. A woman with blonde hair shoved her way through, and Daryl recognised her immediately.
Andrea.
"Philip, stop this!" she pleaded.
One of the Governor's men stopped her before she could reach the sandy-ring, and he pinned her arms behind her back like she was under arrest. She could hardly move.
"The people have spoken," the Governor said without sparing Andrea a single glance. He pointed at Merle, "I asked you where your loyalties lie. You said here. Well, prove it. Prove it to us all."
Daryl's breaths came in short gasps. He glanced sidelong at his brother, and for the first time ever, Merle looked scared.
"Brother against brother," the Governor demanded. He smiled sadistically once more. "Winner goes free."
A cacophony of agreement erupted from the crowd.
The Governor then stalked between Daryl and Merle like a vicious, predatory animal seeking to find its food ─ or in this case, retribution, "Fight to the death!"
More cheers echoed across the ring. The Governor soaked it in like the morning sun.
Eventually, he moved away from the spotlight, from the Dixon brothers, and walked slowly to the other side of the ring. When he reached Sage ─ still kneeling in the sand and staring fearfully into the crowd ─ he stopped just behind her, and pulled a Bowie knife from his pocket.
Daryl's heart leapt when the Governor lowered the blade to Sage's neck.
"Refuse, and she dies."
Sage felt the cold, serrated blade graze over her windpipe and froze.
She could've sworn the knife was cutting off her supply of oxygen. Every breath that weaselled through her mouth was laboured, and her chest was tight, like her airways were closing up. She was gasping, choking on her own tears, and the crowd continued to leap into the air, pumping their fists high above their heads in exhilaration. Was she going to die?
Not this way, please.
Sage stared at Daryl. He looked scared and angry and worried all at once, his gaze pinned to the Governor. And then suddenly, Daryl couldn't look anywhere but the ground because he was thrown face-first into the sand, and Merle was standing above him, arms raised in victory. He was bellowing something to the crowd, and they all appeared to cheer back.
She gulped. The Governor pressed the blade tighter to her throat, and a small prick of blood welled over the serrated metal.
Don't let me die like this.
Meanwhile, in the darkness surrounding Woodbury's fighting ring, the crosshairs of a semi-assault rifle was trained on the Governor's head, and Marley Whitman gritted her teeth as her finger inched closer toward pulling the trigger.
She had the opportunity.
Rick wouldn't let her take it.
The group had rushed back into the town the moment they realised both Daryl and Sage were missing from their ranks. Glenn and Michonne had stayed behind, both too injured to come. As a result, Marley was given Glenn's semi-assault rifle, which was heavy and disproportionate in her arms. It was, however, a far better option than walking into a fight armed with a baseball bat.
"Marley," hissed Rick, crouching down next to her. "Wait."
She clenched her jaw, continuing to stare at the Governor through the crosshairs of the rifle, "I have a clear shot here, Rick."
"We need to wait."
"He has Sage," Marley whisper-yelled. She lowered the rifle to her shoulder. "He has a knife to her neck. We need to do something."
Maggie placed a comforting hand in the arch between Marley's shoulder-blades. She looked at Rick, "She's right. We can't just sit here."
"I agree," Theo added. He pointed over at the arena, "They're bringing walkers into the equation now."
Indeed they were.
A couple of the Governor's men trampled across the sand, directing walkers toward the Dixon brothers using long, metal dog-graspers that had been chained around the undeads' necks. Teeth gnashing, the walkers were dragged into the fight. Daryl narrowly avoided having a chunk of flesh chewed from his neck, ducking under the dead one's outstretched arm.
Then, he and Merle chose to abandon their fight. The brothers stood back-to-back, targeting the walkers that the Governor's men purposely pushed in their direction.
Meanwhile, the Governor continued to loom over Sage like the Grim Reaper itself.
Marley drove out a vehement scoff from the back of her throat and redirected the semi-assault rifle back to the man's head. She itched to pull the trigger ─ it taunted her. By killing him, she could be ending something before it had the chance to begin.
Just do it.
You can.
She felt the trigger falter beneath her fingertip, the rifle jitter to the side. There was a small chasm in time where she saw the bullet rip through the Governor's brain, and the entire town of Woodbury crumbled to ashes the second his cold, dead body hit the floor.
It would stop everything. Stop him.
But she didn't pull the trigger. Rick told her not to, so she didn't.
She probably should've.
"Alright," Rick said, shattering the glass dome of ignorance around Marley. She lowered the gun as Rick reached into his pocket and pulled out one of their last remaining smoke-grenades. "Let's move."
Quickly, the group shuffled forward, moving to hide behind a large dumpster. Maggie peered over the top of the metal container and fired into the arena without hesitation. She killed a snarling walker before it had the chance to rip its teeth into Daryl once and for all, and another bullet met a female solider's chest. Theo drew back the string of his compound bow and launched numerous orange-fletched arrows into the crowd ─ most of which struck Woodbury soldiers in the shoulders or leg, occasionally the arm. And it wasn't because his aim was bad: he just didn't want to kill them.
Rick threw the smoke grenade into the centre of the sand-pit, and the screaming crowd immediately began to flee, splitting through the rising cloud of smoke.
They moved out.
"I'm going to get Sage," Marley announced once Rick and Theo had dispersed to find Daryl. Her aim with a gun was still terrible ─ she wouldn't be able to hit a target from her vantage point beside Maggie. "Wait here."
Maggie grabbed the girl's shoulder, "Marley─"
"I'll be back."
"No, I can't let you go," Maggie protested sternly, her fingers tightening like a claw around Marley's shoulder. "Rick will find her."
Aggressively, Marley slammed a new magazine into her rifle, "She's my sister. I have to."
She slipped away from Maggie and ignored the woman's hisses for her to come back. Soon enough, the rolling tsunami of pepper smoke cascaded over her body, and she turned invisible to the woman behind the dumpster.
Everything around her became difficult to discern, too. Silhouettes moved through the vapour, and passed Marley without giving her a second glance. Most of the people were women, children, adults who didn't have any involvement in initiating the fight. The Woodbury soldiers, however, had more skill in avoiding the enemy. They had their guns poised and ready to unload, yet none pulled the trigger. One of the soldiers saw Marley, and he quickly averted his gaze, pretending she was a passing ghost in the cloud of smoke. He looked moderately young, inexperienced, like he didn't want to be there. He ran away the moment another round of screams and bullets echoed through Woodbury's desolate streets.
Heart hammering wickedly, Marley raised her rifle and stormed into the cloud.
She saw him straight away.
The Governor.
His nose was crooked, bent on an angle, packed full of tissue. It filled her with pride, knowing she had wounded him so irreversibly. But that pride swiftly faded when she saw, writhing under the man's arm, Sage. He was dragging her along, her shoes scuffing against the sand, drawing puffs of golden grains up into the polluted air. She punched his arm, trying to kick her way to freedom, but to no avail.
Fortunately, Sage saw Marley before the Governor did. The younger Whitman's eyes bulged in shock. She motioned for her older sister to go back, but Marley did no such thing.
Instead, Marley pointed the rifle between the Governor's one good eye and the bloodied patch of gauze draped over the other.
"Let her go," she demanded shakily. "Now."
The Governor whirled around to discern the threat. And when he recognised it to be none other than the teenage girl who broke his nose, his malevolent smirk reappeared.
Slowly, he pocketed his silver hand-gun. He raised the one hand that wasn't holding Sage in place to surrender, but Marley wasn't stupid. The Governor wasn't the type of man to willingly surrender ─ to her especially. There had to be an ulterior motive to this somehow.
"Now, hang on," the man said breathlessly. Subconsciously, his arm tightened around Sage's neck. She winced. "Let's have a talk. Go on now and drop that gun."
Through gritted teeth, Marley snapped, "Let. Go. Of her."
A beat.
The Governor stared at her. He didn't move a muscle regardless of Marley's demands, but the most infuriating thing about the altercation was the fact his smirk was yet to dissipate. He was gaining pleasure out of this ─ some sick, twisted joy. He liked to see people vulnerable under his influence.
Marley's patience snapped like a cord. She lunged forward, "I swear to God. Let her go!"
Finally, the Governor released Sage.
However, before the girl could get more than one step, he lurched toward her and pressed the serrated Bowie knife to her throat. Sage screamed, kicking her leg back into his knee. She landed a blow to the joint, but the pain must have been nothing compared to the agony of his one, bleeding eye. He clenched his jaw and yanked her head back, the edge of the blade teetering further into Sage's jugular.
Marley's stomach dropped. Her hands grew sweaty on the rifle, and she struggled to maintain her grip around it, the cool metal slipping between her palms.
Don't do anything rash, don't do anything rash. Don't be stupid.
"Drop the gun," the Governor demanded in a deadly calm voice. Ice-cold. Venomous. "Come on, Marley. Drop it."
Marley inhaled sharply and refused to oblige.
He tilted his head slightly in irritation. The blade moved closer and closer and closer. Dangerously close.
"Drop it."
She should have. But she didn't.
Without thinking, Marley instead dropped the muzzle down to aim at the man's leg, and she squeezed the trigger. The bullet whistled through the air, formed a canal through the smoke, and punched a deep hole into the lower-half of the Governor's thigh.
He screamed hoarsely.
The knife in his hand slipped. Or he moved it. Whatever it was, the movement was too quick. She couldn't tell.
The silver blade glinted in the firelight and a thin line of blood sprung to the surface of Sage's throat.
The Governor collapsed to the ground, cradling his leg.
Marley immediately rushed into action, discarding her rifle. She ran to her sister. She was wounded. She had to help.
Fortunately, Sage remained conscious. She stared glassy-eyed at the crimson sapphires dripping from her throat and soaking into the sand, her expression hollow of anything but absolute shock. She cradled both hands around the potentially fatalistic wound, blood welling between the gaps of her fingers as tears sprung to her emerald eyes.
Marley didn't know what to do. She was panicking, freezing up. Her limbs felt like lead.
What would Maggie do? Or Beth?
They wouldn't panic. They'd help.
Hands trembling, Marley remembered Hershel's lesson on how to stop excessive bleeding. Press something to it; staunch the flow of blood. Marley gazed down at her shirt, and ripped a large chunk of material from the bottom of it, thick enough to be a temporary bandage. She yanked Sage's hands away from her throat and wrapped the piece of fabric around the elongated line of blood.
She let out a harsh breath at the sight of it, relief clouding her brain the same way the pepper smoke closed in around Woodbury.
It wasn't deep ─ the blade had only just grazed Sage's flesh.
But she needed some of that gauze from Maggie's bag before she lost too much blood. And soon.
They ran.
✧.｡. *.
The sky was the colour of outdated milk. Fitting. The mood was just as sour.
"I hope he's dead," Marley spat venomously.
The group had quickly reformed in the remnants of war zone Woodbury, and the night had bloomed into a bright, early morning that highlighted the array of new injuries and new people amongst the small party. Fortunately, Maggie had packed enough medical bandages to wrap Sage's throat ─ effectively soaking up the blood ─ and she wasn't in as much pain as earlier. Unfortunately, however, she was now carrying a much heavier weight. Her brush with death had left her traumatised and scarred. . . literally. She hadn't even tried to communicate with Marley since they slipped out of the town.
Marley wanted the Governor dead for it. She could only hope the gunshot wound to his thigh, courtesy of her, would suffice.
"I hope so, too," Rick said in response to Marley's statement.
Behind them, Merle Dixon ─ who had somehow attached himself to the group on the way out of Woodbury's gates ─ snorted. He flashed Rick a sardonic grin, "Keep dreamin,' Officer Friendly. Governor'll be plannin' your downfall as we speak. All of y'alls."
"You're the one who abandoned your post as his right-hand man," Marley shot back. "I'm sure you'll be first on his hit-list."
"Says the one who broke his nose, shot him in the leg," Merle retorted bitterly. "You're gon' be Woodbury's most wanted, Goldilocks. I wouldn't get too comfortable if I was you."
Maggie whipped her head around, narrowing her eyes at the big-mouthed redneck, "Don't speak to her."
"Just statin' the obvious, buttercup."
"Shut up!" Rick scolded furiously, a vein bulging in his neck. He gave Daryl a pointed glare, asking him to intervene, but the youngest Dixon brother merely huffed and continued shuffling forward.
They were headed back toward the car. Michonne and Glenn had been waiting there all night, and Marley could only wonder how bad their reactions were going to be when they saw Merle. He attacked them both. Tried to kill them. Kneeled at the Governor's feet and abided by his every command. How were they meant to react to something like this? Everyone resorted to violence these days. Deep down, Marley hoped Michonne would use her katana to the best of her ability.
Soon enough, they reached the edge of the highway where the car was parked. Rick braced himself for impact the moment Glenn and Michonne rushed to meet them at the tree line of the surrounding wood.
"Now we got a problem here," Rick warned, raising his hand. "I need you to back up."
Glenn caught on. He ripped his gun from the back of his waistband and pointed it at Merle, practically exploding with fury, "What the hell is he doing here?"
Michonne matched Glenn's ferocity. She unsheathed her katana and raised it. Chaos ensued, with Rick ordering her to put it down, Merle yelling whoa whoa whoa every millisecond, Daryl interfering to defend his brother, Michonne shouting that Merle attempted to kill her and Theo, and Glenn's angered recount of Merle's assault against him back at Woodbury. The sounds all mixed together, forming one synonymous vibrato of frustrated victims.
Behind the chaos, Sage leaned into Maggie's side and tried not to fall asleep on her feet. Her throat was throbbing with pain, and an aggressive headache had begun to form.
She wanted to go home.
On the sidelines ─ unable to do anything ─ Marley and Theo watched with mirrored stances: arms folded, heads craning in to listen to the shouted words.
Glenn was yet to lower his gun, "If it wasn't for him─"
"He helped us get out of there!" Daryl defended.
"Yeah, right after he beat the shit out of you," Rick reminded harshly, standing between Michonne and Merle.
The latter leaned against a tree, unfazed, "Hey, we both took our licks, man."
"Jackass," Daryl grumbled.
"Hey, shut up," his brother barked in retort.
"Enough!" Rick bellowed.
Both Marley and Theo exchanged an exasperated look. Agitated, Theo's cheeks puffed out as he released a sharp sigh.
Suddenly, Daryl rounded on Glenn, angrily swatting the loaded gun away, "Get that thing out of my face!"
Still leaning against the tree without a care in the world, Merle guffawed vexingly, garnering the attention of the entire group, "Man, looks like you've gone native, brother."
"No more than you hangin' out with that psycho back there!" Daryl spat.
"Oh, yeah, man. He is a charmer, I got to tell you that," Merle sneered. He looked at Michonne and smirked, "Been putting the wood to your girlfriend Andrea. Big time, baby."
Theo and Michonne looked at one another, eyes bulging. That wasn't a news flash they had been expecting any time soon, that was for sure.
"What?" Glenn gasped. "Andrea's in Woodbury?"
Daryl nodded, mouth twisted in contempt, "Right next to the Governor."
There was a beat of silence. And then, Michonne redirected her samurai sword toward the Dixon brothers and lunged. However, seconds before she could get in a good hit, Rick interfered, slamming a palm against her shoulder while simultaneously arching away from the elongated blade.
"I told you to drop that!" he scolded furiously. Michonne reluctantly lowered the sword, glaring at Rick. He pointed at her, "You know Andrea?"
Theo knew ─ just from Michonne's displeased expression ─ Rick wasn't going to get an answer from her. At least, not one he liked. He wanted this over with.
So, he stepped forward, sighing grumpily, "Yes. We know her."
Almost comically, Rick side-eyed him, as if the boy's exasperated tone was insulting. He arched a singular brow and opened his mouth to speak.
But before Rick could get in a word, Merle butted into the conversation once more with yet another infuriating recount of his personal perception of past situations, "Those three spent all winter cuddling up together in the forest. Mhm-hm. When we snagged 'em out the woods, Blondie was close to dyin.' Mustn't have been takin' much good care of her, hm? And then not long after, Robin Hood and my Samurai Queen over here abandoned Blondie at the gates─"
"─we didn't abandon her," Theo corrected through gritted teeth. "She made a choice to stay in Woodbury. Maybe you should have, too. That way, we wouldn't have to stand here listening to you run your mouth."
Marley nodded in agreement.
"Hey!" Rick snapped icily, shooting daggers from his crystal-blue eyes. "What did I say? Enough."
Theo refrained from flipping the ringleader the bird in response to that. He tightened his grip around his compound bow to distract himself.
"What you gonna do now, Sheriff, huh?" Merle taunted, his smirk wider than ever. "Surrounded by a bunch of liars, thugs and cowards."
"Shut up!"
Merle chuckled to himself, "Oh, man, look at this. Pathetic. All these guns and no bullets in them."
"Merle, shut up!" Daryl growled viciously.
"Shut up yourself!" Merle pushed himself away from the tree, spitting mad, advancing toward his brother, "Bunch of pussies you roll─"
Rick slammed the hilt of his Colt Python against the back of Merle's head, and down the eldest Dixon brother went. His body thudded against the ground. Unconscious. Thank God.
Marley scowled at the back of Merle's head, his face smushed into the dirt.
"Jerk."
⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
so...sage has gained her bronze
badge in terms of achieving
trauma.
i mean, it's twd. what do you
expect at this point?