Chapter Text
“Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi
Later, people will call it the final battle. They will tell stories about the forces of Alexandria, Hilltop Colony and The Kingdom banning together, swarming over a hill to storm a factory. Led by Maggie Rhee, King Ezekiel and Rick Grimes, the names whispered around campfires and in bedrooms to soothe children after nightmares. The leaders of the new free world, faces riddled with scars, and battle-hardened, but still here. Still fighting to keep them safe.
Stories about roaring tigers, the whisper of a knife in the dark, billowing clouds of black smoke when the surprise attack on convoys and outposts was launched. The shattering of glass, breaking of locks and people staggering out of cells to become free men once more. How a shadow had passed over the country, smelling of smoke and death and ashes, but how it had passed, in the end.
People who hadn’t been there will tell tales about that final chase. Of a hunter in the night, a shot lined up so perfectly that it brought the monster to its knees. Of a brother who’d pleaded for his own to stay true to who they had been, all those years before, and who they were trying to be despite their circumstances. A mother’s dying words spilling from her son’s lips.
They would tell their children and friends about how the boy had lowered his weapon as an act of mercy and how his brother had smiled at him with pride. That there had been a man in that clearing, named after the lord and savior of mankind, who’d cuffed the monster and dragged him away. To keep them all safe, but the monster, too.
But those people hadn’t been there.
That’s not how it ended.
There had been a hunter with a perfect shot, and a monster on his knees. The mother’s dying words, passed from brother to brother. It hadn’t been enough. The bow had been raised, a finger on the trigger, and it was only Paul darting forward and batting the weapon up that made the bolt go wide. A scuffle between the boy and the man, the teenager screaming in anger and blinded by rage.
Rick had been there, panting from running after his sons, grabbing the youngest around the waist and throwing him back towards the factory, trying to get him away from Negan who was laughing on the ground. The cop catching a fist with his jaw before growling with anger himself, forcing the teenager up against a tree, squeezing his cheeks with one hand, feeling the tears under his fingertips and forcing the youngest Dixon to finally meet his eye.
Nobody tells stories about how Daryl had begged for another shot. How he’d pawed at Rick’s chest, trying to push himself away from the tree and see Negan over the man’s shoulder while promising to not try anything as he tried to pull his knife at the same time. Desperate pleas about how he’d done it before and please, he could use the red-handle machete again, this was the same thing, Rick didn’t have to do it, he could do, it was fine, everything would be okay if he could just get to-
But Rick had hugged him tightly. Strong arms had pinned the boy in place while the cop waited out the storm. In the end, Daryl just leaned against him. Forehead against his collarbone. Whispered pleas about wanting to kill him dying between them.
Rick had cupped his cheek again, gently this time. Those blue eyes catching blue eyes. ‘You okay?’ he’d asked.
And Daryl had leaned back against the tree with a nod. ‘Yeah, go.’
Rick had left.
There hadn’t been a gunshot. Daryl had laughed, looking up at the night sky and imagining how the machete had cut right through Negan’s skull. How it had buried itself in that messed up brain, how blood had gushed down that pale face to ruin that leather jacket.
After a couple of minutes, he’d pushed himself away from the tree to walk back to the clearing. Just in time to see how Rick helped Negan back to his feet, hands bound behind his back, and walked him towards the factory.
Daryl had watched, frozen on the spot, and had never felt more betrayed.
People called that night the final battle. It hadn’t been. Years later people will talk about the fireworks that had lit up the sky when the Sanctuary finally fell, about the pyres that were set ablaze and how people had danced around them, songs mixing with the clinking of glasses and cheers echoing through the land when Ezekiel honored the dead with a stirring speech about the new, free world that was waiting for them.
In reality, Ezekiel covered the faces of his fallen soldiers after making sure every single one of them was stabbed in the brain so they could never come back. A hand trailing over their brows and whispered final goodbyes. A king brought to his knees by his losses. He sat with his people until the sun rose and then ordered them to be brought back to the kingdom for a proper burial.
The pyres people speak of as signs of victory and celebration were in fact the graves of the people from Hilltop Colony. They burn their dead.
Daryl sat on the hood of his brother’s truck and watched how bodies were dragged into the flames. The orange light mixing with the light of dawn, Paul hiding his weariness and grief behind his gloved hand until Ezekiel grabbed him by the shoulder, speaking to him in a low voice.
And then came the stirring speech. Not about victory, or a new world, but instead about a false dawn. About tiredness and loss and sadness and anger, about one final push before they could all rest. It was not yet over.
Most of the Saviors had surrendered once their leader had fallen to his knees, but some remained loyal. Daryl had gotten up, an automatic rifle now slung over his shoulder. It wouldn’t be over until they were all dead, anyway. Boots hitting the dry earth, he joined the soldiers who would hunt them all down.
The morning light would give them the advantage. None of the Saviors had escaped with a vehicle. They were on foot, some were injured and others disoriented by their own panic while fleeing from their home. Daryl had nodded along with Rick while the man talked about how they would be brought to justice. That they would lock them up when they laid down their arms, that they would be escorted back to the Kingdom where there was more room to build a prison.
A quick hug from Merle and Daryl had left to track down one small group. Flanked by soldiers of the Kingdom, Tara, and Rick, he darted between the trees to find their trail. It wasn’t hard even though it took almost an hour. The woods beyond the Sanctuary are massive and they’d swerved to stay closer to the road than both Daryl and Merle had thought they would. It had been a clever move, in hindsight, but in the end it hadn’t mattered much.
They found the group around noon. Five people, four guys and a younger woman. They were resting by a small creek. The woman was sobbing softly, arms curled around her knees and ignoring one of the guys who was trying to comfort her. A strong arm around her shoulders and whispered words about how she needed to drink something before they continued on.
Rick whistled, made the gesture that made the soldiers go into a wide circle before closing in on the little group. There were weapons by their sides. Automatic rifles and handguns. Once everyone was in position, Rick shouted out the warning that the group was surrounded. That they should leave their weapons and raise their hands above their heads. That there was nowhere to run.
Three of the men jumped up, grabbing their weapons. One did try to run, shooting his gun at the vague direction of Rick’s voice but running straight into Tara’s line of fire. A bullet hit him in the neck, causing him to fall to the ground immediately but die a slower, gurgling death while he clawed at his wound, fighting to draw breath.
The two others just emptied their clip in Rick’s direction while screaming. Going out in a blaze of glory. Daryl had followed Tara to the side of the circle. He watched how Rick hunkered down, knelt behind a thick tree and lowered his head as he waited out the assault.
Waited for them to make their move.
He did. Flicking off the safety of his weapon, stepping out from behind his own tree, he’d ended it right there and then. Measured steps over the unsteady forest floor, the heavy weapon raised easily and the two men died before they even realized that Rick hadn’t been lying about them being surrounded.
The woman had been screaming. Curled up into a ball on the ground, hands covering her ears instead of going for the gun that was next to her.
The man beside her, the one who’d tried to get her to drink something, had thrown the water bottle aside to grab his weapon. Upon seeing that they’re surrounded, he started to lower it slowly.
Daryl aimed and took the shot.
The woman screamed.
Daryl walked over and kicked the gun out of the dead man’s hands, glancing at the woman before slinging his rifle over his shoulder. ‘Clear.’
The look on Rick’s face will haunt him forever. Eyes wide and hand shaking as he reached up to drag it over his weathered face, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to breathe easy. Others swarmed in to get the guns. Most couldn’t stomach the sight of the woman slumping over the last man’s body, sobbing and digging her fingers into the shirt as if she was trying to keep him close.
Tara set her jaw while Daryl rummaged around in his pockets for a cigarette, only coming up with Will’s lighter. With a huff, he started to head back to the Sanctuary where one of the guys would surely give him something to smoke as they waited for Merle’s group to come back.
‘Dare,’ Rick said softly.
What have you done? Dripping from the very word.
Behind them, the woman looked up at Tara with a tear-streaked face. Telling her that it had been her dad.
‘He would have shot one of us,’ Daryl said.
‘He was lowering his gun.’
‘I didn’t see that,’ Daryl lied.
Rick looked at him.
‘It’s us or them,’ the Dixon snapped. ‘And it’s always gonna be us.’
‘That was somebody's father.’
Daryl had smirked before pushing past the cop, making sure their shoulders collided painfully. ‘So was Glenn.’
The meeting is held at the Sanctuary just when the sun starts to set. There’s a large table which hosts the community leaders. Of course there’s Rick Grimes, shirt patchy from sweating under the southern sun and bloodstains on his hands. Michonne sits next to him, back straight and dark eyes keen. There’s a wound on her arm, wrapped up by one of the Kingdom’s doctors, but it’s no reason for concern. Behind them, Carl lurks in the shadows, pacing up and down with his scarred face hidden by his father’s hat.
There’s Maggie whose eyes are cold except for when she looks at her family members slowly trickling into the room. Jesus sits next to her with his hair now tied up and his long coat hanging from the back of the chair. He looks over his shoulder at Merle, who just lifts an eyebrow in return.
There’s Ezekiel with Jerry. Both men quiet from their losses. The battle axe is resting against the wall behind them, so heavy that only Jerry would be able to lift it up quickly enough to be effective. Morgan leans against the wall next to it but doesn’t speak. He’s looking at his Bo. The tip is tainted red.
Two women from Oceanside have stepped forward to represent the community. Only twenty of them had come to Alexandria’s aide, but it’s enough to consider them friends. Daryl doesn’t know their names.
And then there’s Dwight. Pale and with shaking hands, eyes that won’t stop darting around the room, looking for a threat and wincing at every noise in fear of it being the tape that restarts. Daryl knows the feeling but can’t feel sorry for the man.
Maggie starts the negotiations because Rick looks at her expectantly.
Daryl sits on a cabinet, arms wrapped around his brother and his chin resting on that broad shoulder. They’re both watching the negotiations though they don’t speak up. They don’t have to, because Maggie is both fair and representing their community, so Daryl relaxes against his big brother and tries to ignore how badly his head hurts. It’s been two days since he’s slept.
The conversation flows past him. Land. Borders. Trade-routes. Property. Resources. Skills. Knowledge. Doctors, medicine, building materials. Livestock and seeds and harvests.
Jesus and Maggie talk the most. Daryl closes his eyes and listens to them. Just the knowledge that they’re both there and that Merle is holding him up, is almost enough to help him finally get some sleep. It’s not until Dwight finally speaks that his eyes snap open again.
‘What about my people?’ the man asks in a hoarse voice. ‘They surrendered.’
‘That doesn’t make them innocent,’ Rick snaps back.
Michonne places a calming hand on his forearm.
The cop closes his eyes for a second, breathing in through his nose. ‘The workers will be set free. They can join any community they want to, or stay here. But the ones who fought us? The ones who were Negan?’ He looks at Maggie. ‘There has to be a consequence.’
‘There will be,’ she assures him. ‘We’ll keep them in separate buildings and they’ll help to rebuild Alexandria.’
‘Labor camps?’ Paul asks with a frown.
‘Might as well make themselves fucking useful,’ Merle grunts. ‘Don’t have to be us, breakin’ our goddamn backs out there.’
‘The Sanctuary will need help to start cultivating the land,’ Maggie says. ‘They’ll need a whole new system to get by. It won’t be easy.’
‘We’ll manage,’ Dwight mutters. ‘If you don’t leave us stranded. There are children here. Women. Elderly.’
‘We won’t leave you to your fates,’ the woman assures him.
Daryl grits his teeth but doesn’t speak up. He drags Merle a couple of inches closer, plastering himself to the man’s back. His brother glances at him over his shoulder. There are still blood splatters on his weathered face, bags under his blue eyes. His hand finds Daryl’s left calve. He rubs it comfortingly.
Rick shifts in his chair. Works his jaw, waves with his right hand, fingers twitching. ‘What about Negan?’
‘Same goes for him.’
‘Lock him up?’ Rick asks with a frown, turning to Maggie. ‘The rest of them, yeah – they can come back from that, but he? People like him don’t change. We’ve made that mistake before.’
‘You didn’t kill him last night,’ Paul says. ‘There had to be a reason for that.’
Rick glances at Daryl. He shifts in his seat again, leaning forward. ‘I didn’t want to do it in front of my boys. They’ve seen enough. They’ve done enough. If we want to do this,’ he gestures around the table, ‘if we want to make this new world a reality? Then we have to decide together.’
‘And we will,’ Michonne puts a hand over his. ‘You say we’ve made that mistake before but this is different. It is. This is over.’
Something cold settles in Daryl’s chest as he watches how Rick intertwines their fingers. How the man leans towards his girlfriend, curling into her warmth and allowing her to run her hand through his curls. The sound of nails scratching over skin and Rick’s shuddering breath fill the room for a moment.
Carl steps forward and folds his arms in front of his chest. ‘We’ll take Negan. Morgan built a cell, we’ll keep him separate from his people. He won’t go outside.’
‘Alexandria has sustained heavy damages,’ Ezekiel says, voice rough. ‘It is not the fortified stronghold it once was. Some would say it’s lost.’
‘They’d be wrong,’ the boy bites back. ‘That’s our home. We will rebuild it.’
The king dips his chin in understanding. ‘So be it.’
‘We’ll need to rig up the wall again, some parts have been damaged,’ Carl glances at Merle, who’d helped before with the rebuilding. The older Dixon nods. ‘And we need to build new watchtowers. Does the Kingdom have any materials?’
‘We do,’ Dwight speaks up. ‘Steel plates, logs, tools. We have those.’
‘You took those,’ Paul mutters as he looks away.
The blond man glances at him and lowers his head after a nod. ‘Yeah.’
‘Thank you,’ Carl cuts in. ‘We’ll need those. The work will begin…’ he hesitates for a second.
Merle sticks up two fingers.
‘Two weeks from now,’ the teenager continues. ‘It’ll give us enough time to prepare and…’ he tucks the sheriff’s hat lower over his eyes and sinks back into the shadows behind his father, ‘mourn our people,’ he mutters.
‘Two weeks from now,’ Rick agrees. He pulls away from Michonne and turns to Ezekiel to arrange for the Kingdom to take most of the prisoners. There’s more room there than at Hilltop and everyone agrees that it would be best to not keep them at the Sanctuary.
Daryl listens to their voices but he can’t quite comprehend what is going on. His ears are ringing. In the end, he just hides his face by leaning heavily on his brother and tucking his face in the crook of his neck and shoulder.
The hallway is long and dark. The power has gone out in most parts of the Sanctuary, something appears to be wrong with the generators but nobody has been able to figure out what yet. They’ll find the problem in the morning. It doesn’t matter anyway because Daryl knows the lay-out of the factory by heart.
He’s surprised to see Rick and Michonne sitting across from the door he’s supposed to be at. The man’s arm around the woman, her head resting on his shoulder while she cleans her gun methodically. They both look up at the sound of the teenager’s footsteps and appear to be just as surprised to see him.
‘Dare,’ Rick rasps. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m going to finish this,’ the boy says as he draws his knife. It had been a gift. Just a month ago, the blade had been shining and new, the hilt light save for the burned markings that bloom into wild flowers. He’d tried to keep it clean. First of his own blood, a promise made without having been asked for it, but other’s too. It’s stained now. He doubts it will ever get truly clean again. Like every single thing in this new world, it’s ruined.
Rick gets to his feet and holds out a hand. ‘Dare. Put the knife away.’
‘No.’
Michonne gets up, too. She takes a couple of slow steps towards the door to block it. The keys jingle on her belt.
‘Get out of my way.’
‘Dare,’ she says softly. ‘No. I know-‘
‘You don’t know shit,’ he bites back, fingers tightening on the blade. ‘We can end this right now.’
‘It’s already over. We’ve won,’ she urges.
It doesn’t feel like it. Everything inside him still hurts like his organs are made of shattered glass. He doesn’t have the energy to cry anymore but his eyes are raw and red still. There’s no calmness flooding him now, no sense of elation or happiness. This isn’t winning.
He looks at Rick. ‘You promised. Not today, not tomorrow, but you were going to kill him. And now you don’t wanna do it? That’s fine. That’s what happened last time, too. I can do it again.’
The cop winces. ‘Dare – no. It won’t solve anything.’
‘You made a promise and I’ll keep it. It doesn’t have to solve anything. Just step aside, man.’
‘We can’t do that,’ Rick says. ‘I know how you feel – we all feel the same way, but we can’t go down that road again. That’s not who we are. Who you are.’
‘It doesn’t matter who you think I am!’ Daryl snarls. ‘It’s not about me! It’s about him and –‘
‘What we do, it changes us. We didn’t fight this war for us, we fought it for our people, for a better world for Judith and Maggie’s child. We did it for them, but it’s over, Dare.’
‘So he’s just gonna walk, after everything he’s done? He killed Abe. He killed Glenn and Carol! He burned Eric on a goddamn pyre and laughed while he screamed and you’re gonna let him get away with that?’
‘Dare, please-‘
‘No, man! You can’t hand me the machete one time, and tell me to fuck off the next. It don’t work like that. You don’t get to choose.’
Rick takes a cautious step towards him. ‘It was wrong to give it to you the first time. I won’t make the same mistake again. Put your knife away.’
‘No.’
‘We’re not moving,’ Rick says as he gestures to Michonne and himself. ‘So you’re going to hurt us to get to him now?’
‘Well-‘ Daryl falters for a moment but then grits his teeth. ‘You’d do the same to me, right? You can kill one of them right in front of me. Which one. Which one, Rick?’ The Dixon hisses.
Rick looks away for a moment, hurt flickering over his face. ‘I – I can’t even begin to explain how sorry I am for what happened, but this is not the answer,’ he says. ‘We’re going to talk about that, we’re going to talk about all of it, but – just – please, Dare.’
He wouldn’t hurt them.
It scares him a little that Rick doesn’t seem as sure.
He puts the knife away and rolls his shoulders back. ‘There’s gonna be a time when you ain’t here. Not today, not tomorrow, right? But I’m going to kill him.’
Negan’s laughter coming from the cell haunts his retreating footsteps.
He wakes up screaming.
The sound dies around him as he sits up in his bed, staring at the wall with a heaving chest. The blankets and pillows are soaked with sweat. He pushes his wet hair out of his eyes with a trembling hand.
Moonlight illuminates his bedroom at Hilltop Colony. There’s a cabinet which holds the few items of clothing he has. His crossbow leans against it. One drawer is filled with his spare bolts. Most are fragile, made of wood, but he likes to use them to hunt walkers with. They often break on impact, piercing an eye and brain but snapping in two when he’ll try to wrench it out of the skulls again. He just leaves them now. It doesn’t matter. He has enough.
There’s a desk with a pile of old war plans he sometimes still studies. He tries to find ways he could have saved Carol, how they could have breached the Sanctuary differently, how he should have been faster once they were actually inside. It leaves him frustrated. The night of the final battle is a muddle of blood and death, of him screaming people’s names and then choking on them.
His vest is hanging from the chair. Scrubbed clean, Will’s wings once again as white as snow. The leather jacket under it, transformed due to Enid’s contribution. He’s had to ask someone to sew the sleeve on again a while ago because the thread had started to give but that doesn’t matter. It’s fixed now and still one of his favorites. Dark jeans with tears at the knees. Those boots.
He hasn’t thrown them out yet. He won’t, probably.
They shouldn’t waste things just because they carry bad memories with them.
The black baseball cap hangs on a hook near the door. He never leaves the room without it.
He sits up, legs swinging over the side of his bed so his bare feet touch the floorboards. He feels exposed by just sitting there in his underwear, staring at his bony knees and old wounds on his thighs. The necklace jingles softly when he moves. Two wedding rings and the number twenty-two.
Slowly he reaches up to grasp them.
Light footsteps on the other side of the wall cause his heartrate to spike, his breathing to become irregular for a couple of seconds. There’s sweat still dripping down his temples, pooling in the little dip of his collarbones. His hands curl around the edge of his matrass while he looks up just in time to see the door open.
‘Daryl.’ Paul stops on the threshold. It’s clear that he’s just thrown on some clothes. His signature knives and belts are missing, the laces of his boots undone and his white shirt is hanging open to reveal his toned chest. He looks concerned as he takes a slow step into the room, voice low as he speaks. ‘Daryl?’
‘I’m fine,’ the teenager manages to get out, but he sounds breathless and shaken.
‘You were screaming.’
The bony shoulders curl inwards as the boy leans onto a knee with his elbow, running his hand through his wet hair. He’s breathing easier now, but his hands still aren’t steady. ‘I’m fine now,’ he mutters. ‘Nightmare. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ Paul answers. He takes another step towards him. ‘Please talk to me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Daryl repeats and his fingernails dig into his skull. He must have woken people up with his screaming. It has happened so many times before that he’s lost count. Nobody mentions it the next day but he’ll know that everyone heard by the too-kind smiles and overly enthusiastic greetings or the sympathetic strokes over his baseball cap the next morning.
Paul kneels down in front of him. He has to duck his head to catch the boy’s eye. ‘Please,’ he whispers, ‘talk to someone.’
‘Don’t got nothing to say.’
The man looks crushed as he reaches up, fingers almost touching a clammy cheek.
‘Don’t touch me.’
He drops the hand immediately. ‘Daryl, please.’
The teenager takes a deep breath and shoves himself away from the bed. He stumbles, disorientated, but manages to make it to the desk. ‘I told you,’ he mumbles as he yanks his jeans on, ‘I’m fine.’
They’ve had this conversation so many times that, somewhere deep down, Daryl is honestly surprised that Paul still tries. The Lord knows he would have given up a long time ago. He stomps his boots on too, grabs his shirt and makes a move to get his bow.
A hand on his arm stops him. It’s gone before he can lash out, hand instinctively going to the hunting knife that’s always on his belt.
‘You don’t need your bow,’ Paul tells him. ‘It’s dark, and you’re safe within the walls.’
The words almost make him sick. You’re safe.
He always feels better with the weapon slung over his shoulder. Just like when they’d arrived at Alexandria, Hilltop’s policy is now that the guns are stored in various rooms around the complex. Those on guard carry rifles and pistols, but the rest had to hand them in. Despite his raging and refusal at first, the rule now also applies to him.
Maggie had argued that it makes the people feel safer. Less on their toes at all times, and Daryl wants to scream at her for it. Wordless sounds of hurt and fear and anger, because every conversation he has tried to have with her over this has ended in her shooting him down. He doesn’t want people to feel safe. They’re not. They’ll never, ever be safe.
The bow, he gets to keep around. She’d acted like it was a fair compromise but it still feels like he’s getting the short end of the stick.
There’s a gun hidden in Merle’s bedside table though, and he knows that Paul tends to his knives every single night, so he wonders who Maggie is trying to fool with the attempts at normalcy.
He doesn’t want to tell Paul that he feels weak without his most prized possession, so he just sets his jaw and finally meets those blue eyes. ’You’re right,’ he lies. ‘Reflex, I guess.’
Paul gives him a doubtful look. ‘Do you want me to wake Maggie up?’
‘What for?’ Daryl asks as he slips past the scout and grabs the baseball cap from the wall. He places it backwards over his damp hair. ‘Done told you twice already; I’m fine. I’m going to –‘
‘Please talk to me.’
He stops on the threshold. He looks at his hand on the doorknob, at the shaking fingers. There’s fear inside his veins. It doesn’t matter that he’s at Hilltop and behind the wall. It doesn’t matter that there’s a knife on his hip, or that their most experienced fighter is standing right behind him to back him up. None of that matters. He’s scared. He’s always scared these days. A nervousness has taken over his heart, has shook his foundation. Everything is cracked and broken and crumbling and he’s so scared.
He wants to tell Paul that there’s something wrong with him. That there’s something in his heart, in his brain, that has just gone wrong somewhere along the way. Something died and festered and is now spreading like a plaque inside of him.
The words die on his tongue, however.
I’m scared, Paul.
I’m terrified.
It almost makes him laugh. There’s nothing to be scared of, anymore.
The war is over.
‘Thanks for checking on me,’ he says instead. ‘You didn’t have to.’
‘Because you’re fine, right?’ There’s a trace of anger in Paul’s words. A sharp bite to them.
Daryl nods. ‘Sorry for wakin’ ya,’ he mutters before heading out into the dark hallway. His footsteps echo until they get silenced by the carpet. Shadows dance on the walls he passes. Soft candle light flickers from under doors. He catches shards of conversations and pretends not to hear any of it.
The doors are heavy as he pushes them open to reveal the rest of Hilltop Colony. Out in the distance, down the pathway, the wall rises up. Silhouettes patrol the night sky, stark against the silver moon. Easy targets, Daryl thinks immediately. One sniper as good as Sasha and it would be all over.
FEMA trailers are but dark building blocks to his left. They’re standing so close next to each other that one grenade could damage two at the time, if thrown by Merle or Rosita. The fire would catch, grow into an inferno that could take out the entire courtyard. There’s a make-shift barn right in front of him. Hay and animals and wood and – he can feel the blaze already. The heat on his skin, the roar of his world collapsing, the screams of dying pigs that would remind him of the pyres and-
He stumbles away from the front door, to the left. Dizziness forces him to his knees after just a couple of steps. One arm curls around his stomach as he catches himself on the ground with his free hand. He throws up.
After a minute, he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. The sour taste lingers as he gets to his feet again, taking clumsy steps until he gets to where he was heading all along. He falls into the grass and stares up at the night sky.
Orion and the scorpion, high above him.
He closes his eyes because he doesn’t want to see.
Instead, he turns onto his side and curls up. One arm outstretched, fingers digging into the soft earth. He holds on tightly, afraid to let go, afraid to open his eyes, afraid, afraid, afraid.
He starts to cry. Broken sobs and hoarse pleads, even though he’s not sure what he’s begging for. For it to stop, to go away and leave him alone, for anything that could make him stop feeling this worthless and useless and wrong.
For it to stop.
‘Please,’ he cries, curling up tighter and digging his fingers into the earth. ‘I can’t – I don’t – I’m so tired.’
The next morning, the claw-marks on Glenn’s grave will be the only evidence that the boy was ever there.