(TW!! Mentions of drug usage and alcoholism!!)
I giggle, "Keep talkin' and I'll shove my foot so far up your ass you'll taste it." "I'll taste what, the metal or the skin?" I scoff, "Both. I'll lay on the ground and shove both of 'em up there."
"I'm gay so maybe I'll like it." "Damien!" I yell with a laugh. "Oh my fucking god you're so-I don't even know." My words come out through laughs; the rock still being kicked between my feet.
Damien kicks his rock a little far but quickly runs to begin kicking it again. Damien opens his mouth to speak but Daryl's whistle interrupts us. I quickly turn to look at Daryl.
"Let's go!" He yells. I look away from Daryl and to Damien. Sweat rolls down my temple as the burning hot sun cooks us alive.
"Intermission until we're back on our feet and out of the car?" I ask. Damien nods and picks up his rock, "Intermission."
I nod and pick up my, now decently round, rock and put it in my backpack.
Michonne and Tyreese stand up from the tree trunk they were sitting on and walk toward the car, Damien and I follow.
Michonne grabs her rock, "Intermission?" "Intermission." I say, nodding.
As we all pile into the humid ass car, I release a breath of hot air. "Jesus H. Christ feels like I'm sittin' in..." I pause for a moment. "I'm too hot for a snarky comment right now, never mind." I pant. "You're hot all the time shut the fuck up." Damien retorts, rolling his eyes.
"Aw." I put a hand on my heart and smile a downturned smile. "That's so sweet." I pretend to fake cry and Damien just nudges me with his shoulder. "Any time. If you get sick of Daryl, hit me up." He winks at me and giggles.
Daryl looks at us confusedly from the passenger seat- Bob is driving and stares at us. I smile, "Hello."
"Anything that ends in '-cillin' or 'cin' grab." Bob says, walking into the medicine room of the college.
I stand in the doorway, staring at all of the pill bottles.
You're not here for that. You're here to save the sick people- and possibly Alyssa, at the prison. Don't turn this into another drug raid. You have Dilaudid in your backpack, and Ecstasy, Fentanyl, Xanax, and Adderall in your dresser. You don't need any more.
My fingers itch to grab all of those pill bottles and shove them into my backpack. My mind races and I pick at my cuticles, it feels like I can hear the medicine saying "Adrian. Adrian, we're right here. C'mon. Think of the joy you get when you use us."
Go do something different. Don't step foot into this room.
I begin to slowly back away from the doorway. I gasp quietly as I bump into Damien.
"Good god." I exhale, putting a hand on my heart. "Okay Casper, Jesus." I mumble. "Why don't you and I go look for extras? Food, water, whatever. I checked with Daryl, he said it was fine. He and I both agree that we don't want you in this room."
I sigh, "I like that idea." Damien smiles and motions for me to begin walking with him.
I look back at the room before walking down the hallway to the left.
"So, I have a question," Damien says cautiously, kicking his rock while walking.
"Oh god," I grunt, tilting my head back. "What's up?"
"So...you know how you know Judith is your half-sister? Or at least...you think she is since Lori kind of... you know."
I nod, "Mhm."
"Well, if you know she's your half-sister, why are you never hanging around her?"
The question hits me like a punch in the gut. I chew on my lower lip slightly.
"She just reminds me of my dad." Damien looks at me suspiciously. "There's more to it. I don't think it's just that." I don't look at Damien, I just continue watching my feet as I kick the rock.
A sigh releases from my lips, "She reminds me of...when my dad was not my dad. When he was fucking obsessed with Lori. When he backhanded me. When he was...in-" I pause for a moment. "Insane," I say quieter. "He began to remind me of Nick. He treated Lori the same way Nick treated me after we broke up. That's why I began to refer to him as Shane instead of my dad. Why I started keeping my distance from him."
Damien listens attentively. "I get that." I shake my head and look at him. "But you don't." My gaze wavers back to my feet as I quickly use the tip of my shoe to roll the rock back to me so I can kick it again.
"Nobody does." It's silent for a moment, the only sounds are our shoes when we take a step and the rocks rolling on the ground.
"Here." Damien nods towards a kitchen. I nod and we turn right, our rocks leading us.
When I get inside the kitchen, there's nothing other than a can of beans and Spam. The kitchen has an open window to a cafeteria, silver storage shelves everywhere, and a few stoves and refrigerators.
My face drops and I purse my lips. "You're fucking me." I groan. "I would," Damien says, nudging me. I scoff, "Yeah but that's Daryl's job." Damien laughs and grabs the two cans of food and shoves them into his bag.
"Check the fridges real quick," I suggest, limping over to the fridges. "You're limping." Damien notes. "My wound hurts. Just from being on my 'feet' all day." I admit, opening an empty refrigerator.
"Have you unwrapped the bandage recently?" I nod, "Like yesterday morning." "It could be infected." "Meh." Damien closes the last refrigerator door and turns to me.
"Unwrap it." "No. That's so much work for so little reward." "God you're lazy." Damien says, groaning and rolling his eyes. "I'm fine. Let's just-"
Daryl peeks his head through the doorway. "Y'all ready?" "Yep." I respond, grabbing my bag and limping over to him. He looks at me concernedly.
"Are you-" "Limping? Yes. She is." Damien interrupts, condescendingly. "It's fine. I can unwrap it in the car, 'ight?" Damien and Daryl exchange glances with each other.
I have to admit, that the more I walk, the more my wound hurts. It just feels tender, like I just got a paper cut or something. When I put pressure on it, it gets worse.
"Fine." Damien spits, walking past me and to the rest of the group. "Damn. Who's stick is up your dick?" "Did you say dick instead of ass because I'm gay?" Damien scoffs, raising an eyebrow. "Yep!" I giggle.
"'s go." Daryl nods to the hallway and I quickly jog to catch up with them as they begin walking.
Daryl leads us to a door before stopping, "Woah, woah, woah." He whispers, shining his light in the door's window.
There's a whole small herd of Walkers just stumbling in circles in the room.
"Nice." I whisper, rolling my eyes. "'s go this way." Daryl whispers, quietly running the other way.
All of us follow closely behind him.
Michonne runs in front of him and leads us into a non-Walker-infested room.
Bob goes to the left to try a door in the room as the rest of us search the room for literally anything.
"Door's busted." Bob whispers. "Oh. Hol' up." Daryl says, jogging to go help Bob.
"Shit!" Tyreese whisper-yells running and closing the door. As he does that, Walker's growls come into earshot and their hands begin banging on the walls. "Mm, awesome. This is a ten out of ten trip if I do say so myself." I groan, kicking my rock. "You're an ass, you know that?" Damien asks, looking at me with a smirk.
"It's one of my best qualities, yes."
"There." Michonne whispers, shining her flashlight on a stairwell sign.
That's gonna be great for the pain in my non-foot foot.
We all quietly follow behind her, careful not to make any sound. It feels like it's too quiet.
It feels like I was correct as a Walker appears out of what feels like nowhere and launches on Tyreese. Tyreese is quick to slam his hammer into the Walker's head, killing it.
We continue as if nothing happened, leaving the Walker on the ground.
Michonne quietly jogs up to the stairwell door and grabs the locksmith's lock.
Before she says anything, the door slams open about an inch. The chain is keeping it closed, and walker's fingers begin sticking out of the doors. Walker's snarls creep out as well, swirling around our ears.
"How many?" Daryl asks, shining his light in. "Can't tell." Michonne responds. The door we came in from slamming open catches our attention. Walker's begin stumbling in, tripping and falling over thin air.
"We can take 'em." Tyreese reassures us. "No! They're infected. Same as at the prison!" Bob yells. "We fire at them, get their blood on us, breathe it in. We didn't come all this way to get sick."
"How do we know the ones in there aren't any different?" Tyreese asks. "We don't." Michonne spits. "Well, it's gotta change sometime." Daryl grunts.
"Well, we gotta do it quickly!" Damien urges, looking from the approaching Walkers to the Walkers behind the door.
Daryl breaks a chair and uses the legs of it to quickly break open the chain.
"I've got the ones from where we came in!" I yell, grabbing my whip. I swing my whip around my head and crack it on the ground, causing the Walkers to come quicker.
I swing my whip to the left, chopping off a few Walker's top of their heads.
"Adrian, come on!" Daryl yells. I run backward, killing a few more Walkers before turning and running up the stairs behind everybody.
As quickly as we can, we bolt up the steps and run through the hallway of the upstairs. It seems as if there are more Walkers up here as Bob has to throw a box to keep a few away.
My whole leg burns at this point, the aching pain just gets worse and worse. The more I run, the more I feel nauseous.
"Michonne runs and tries a door, but it doesn't budge. "We don't have an exit!" She yells, moving out of the way so Daryl can try and kick the door open.
There's a window at the end of the hallway, a pushed-out vent right under it.
"Then we make one!" Daryl grunts, hopping on top of the vent and slamming his crossbow into the window.
More climbing, great.
"Get down!" Tyreese screams, throwing a fire extinguisher and shattering the window as Daryl ducks.
Daryl helps Michonne out as Bob yells, "They're here!"
"C'mon!" Daryl urges me, helping me climb on the window and shoving me out as I jump across a thirty-foot drop to a roof.
I groan in pain as I land on my foot, using Michonne as support.
"Adrian-" "It's fine!" I hiss. I grab Damien's as he jumps onto the roof. At this point, I have no pressure on my foot, I'm just standing on my only real foot.
"Hey wait," I look at Damien and Michonne with sad eyes. "Our rocks." Damien scoffs and rolls his eyes, "You need a non-infected foot for that." "It's not infected." I grunt, turning away from him.
Bob is the last person to jump out of the window but as he does, he falls onto his stomach on the roof and his bag hangs over. Walkers begin trying to pull his bag from his hand as he holds it with a death grip.
Everybody quickly runs to him, Tyreese grabs ahold of his shirt to pull him back up but because he won't let go of the bag, Tyreese can't fully pull him.
"Bob, let go of the bag." Michonne urges. Bob continues to shake the bag, trying to get the Walker's hands off of it.
"Bro, let it go! It's fine!" Damien yells urgently. "Let it go man!" Tyreese pleads.
"C'mon, Bob. Let it go!" Daryl rasps.
Unwavering, Bob continues to try and yank his bag out of the grasp of the Walkers.
Finally, Bob swings the bag on the roof and the sound of glass clanging with the roof catches our attention.
Dary pauses and slowly walks over to the bag, grabbing a bottle of alcohol.
"You got no meds in your bag?" Daryl warns, holding the bottle. "Just this?" His tone is condescending and angry. If I was Bob, God knows I'd be terrified.
Bob looks around ashamed, breathing heavily after the fight for his bag.
"You should've kept walkin' that day." Daryl says before going to chuck the bottle.
"Don't." Bob quickly says, putting his hand on his gun.
I narrow my eyes and take a step forward with my hand on my dagger.
Daryl scoffs and sizes Bob up, grabbing the gun out of its holster. He grabs Bob's vest and begins slowly pushing him to the edge of the roof.
"Just let it go, Daryl." Tyreese announces. "The man's made his choice. Nothin' you can do about it."
I exhale exhaustedly and grab ahold of Damien for support as the world spins.
"Something's wrong." I whisper.
I can't even hear Daryl and Bob's conversation as my ears ring.
"Guys!" Damien yells, holding onto me. Daryl looks quickly at me, and his eyes widen.
"We gotta go!" Damien yells. "I can't catch a fuckin'..." I take a second to breathe as I'm incredibly short of breath. "A fuckin' break."
Damien scoffs, "No, you can't. Now let's go."
There's a fence below us, protecting us from the herd of Walkers under the roof so Damien hops down and holds his arms out to catch me. I jump down and feel Damien's arms wrap around me to support me.
Everybody follows shortly, and Daryl runs up to me.
"Can you walk?" I exhale heavily and shake my head. "No," I say exhaustedly.
"I got'er." Damien assures Daryl. Daryl nods and looks around before waving to everyone, "Let's go!"
I look up at Damien as he helps me walk, I wince every time I step on my foot.
"I don't think I need to say I told you so..." He pauses for a moment. "But I told you so." I scoff, "Smartass."