Chapter 28 - The Suicide King

We sneak through the town as quietly as possible, people still on their posts and look outs for us. I grip my gun tightly in my hand as I run through the plan in my head again. My heart pounds anxiously in my chest and I know that I will stop at nothing to get him back. I also think of Merle and the thought of us all finally being together again. Despite everything that has happened, I have missed him so much.

I hear the sound of cheering as we approach, beginning to get in formation. I look to Rick and he points for me to go and get behind a small wall. I sneak over to the wall and I finally get a clearly look into what's happening. There is a big crowd of people and in the centre are a few people.

My eyes immediately land on the two brothers and I see the scared look in Daryl's eyes as he looks at his brother. Merle stands there with a conflicted look on his face. Off to the side I see someone I never thought I'd see again. Andrea who stands there and tries to plead with a man who has a bandage over his eye.

The crowd quiets down and the man with a bandage begins to speak to Merle, "I asked you where your loyalties lie, you said here. Well prove it, prove it to us all. Brother against brother. Winner goes free. Fight, to the death!"

The crowd begins to cheer as I gasp, feeling my whole world begin to shake. I want to run into the ring and begin shooting at everyone but I don't, knowing that our plan will work. Instead I grip my gun tighter in my hand and look down the focus.

Merle looks towards Daryl before raising his arm in the air and addressing the crowd, "Y'all know me! I'm gonna do, whatever I'm gonna do. To prove..." He begins before he turns and throws a punch into Daryl's stomach.

Daryl falls to the ground, pain covered over his face. Unwanted memories of finding him on the ground in pain after his father beat him come to mind, his expressions mirroring from so long ago.

"...That my loyalty..." Merle yells, kicking him in the side and he rolls over.

"...Is to this town!" He declares.

He continues to beat at his brother and fear grips me as I see them bring in walkers being lead into the circle on the end of a pole. I look towards Daryl in time to see him throw a punch at Daryl. Merle stumbles back and Daryl gets to his feet, eyeing down his brother. Daryl runs at him but Merle knocks him to the ground, holding him down. Daryl reaches up and begins to choke him as the men lead the walkers closer, the crowd going wild.

I feel sick to my stomach as I watch, thinking how disgusting and barbaric this is. However I hold out and wait for Rick's signal before I make my move. Suddenly Merle and Daryl are on their feet, back to back and taking on the walkers around them. That's when I hear the first gunshot and I begin to shoot at the people, taking down a man beside them. Rick throws the last smoke grenade and we all begin to shoot at the rest of them. I try to aim for the Governor but I miss him. I see Daryl and Merle begin to run through the smoke towards Rick and Maggie and I run off after them.

"Bree!" Rick yells out, looking around for me.

"Let's go!" I yell, reaching the group.

Merle looks at me with wide eyes before we all run off towards the wall, looking for a place to exit. We separate quickly from the hoards of people. We run to where the buses are and Merle talks to us all, "They're all at the arena, this way!" He instructs, running off to the side.

"You're not running anywhere with us." Rick states angrily.

"You really wanna do this now?!" Merle demands before rushing to the wall, kicking it in.

"Come on man." Daryl says to him.

He kicks it in and I hear Daryl call out, "Come on Rick, we gotta go man."

We all turn and Daryl urges me through the panel first before coming out after me. Merle rushes forward and begins to pound a walkers head in with his metal arm and he turns to us, "A little help would be nice!"

I rush forward and shoot one in the head, it falling to the ground and I hear Maggie and Rick shoot as well, "We ain't go time for this!" Merle says, rushing away.

"Let's go!" Daryl says, running after his brother.

We all follow after them, making our way back towards where we sent Michonne and Glenn to stay while we got them back. We run for awhile, Rick taking the lead to where the car is. After awhile we all slow down to catch our breath. I turn to Daryl and he looks over at me and I walk over, throwing my arms around him. I hold onto him tightly and he hugs me back briefly, pulling back to look at me, "You alright?" He asks, placing his hand on the side of my face.

I nod my head and look him over, "What about you?"

He winces slightly at my touch before shaking his head, "I'm fine."

I turn and look over at Merle, who looks between us with a small smirk on his face, "I guess things have changed since I was away."

"Shut up Merle." I say, glaring at him.

"Ooh, someone's a little fiesty." He says, "Didn't you miss me at all Bree?"

I look at him for a moment before nodding my head. I walk over and give him a hug, holding onto him tightly. He hugs me back until Rick interrupts us, "We better get going, they might be coming after us."

"Plus Glenn and Michonne are waiting for us back at the car." Maggie says.

"Oh God, that's going to end well." I mutter sarcastically.

"Don't you worry Darling, everything is going to work out just fine." Merle says, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

We all glare at him before we begin walking back towards the car. Daryl and Merle flank my sides while Rick and Maggie take the lead. With each step closer towards home, I can't help the feeling that things are going to be bad. Merle is not going to get along with anyone at the prison, the only people caring about him being Daryl and I. Merle and Daryl are brothers and loyal to each other to no end and I'm apart of that. Things are just going to have to work out, because if they don't... I'm going to be making a tough decision.

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Morning light surrounds us and I feel completely exhausted, from this evening events and still from being trapped in the closet. However as we are walking our surroundings become more familiar and I soon see that we are near where we left the car.

"Glenn!" Rick calls out.

"Rick!" I hear Glenn call back, relief in his voice, "Rick! Oh thank God!"

"Now we got a problem, here I need you to back up." Rick says, holding his hand out.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Glenn says, pointing a gun at Merle when he comes into sight.

I run forward and stand between Glenn, Michonne and Merle, trying stop them both killing him. Maggie stands over with the others, her gun aimed towards Merle with fury on her face.

"He tried to kill me!" Michonne yells, pointing her sword at him.

"Just calm down!" Rick says as everyone continues yelling.

"He helped us get out of there, drop it." Daryl says to Glenn.

"Yeah, right after he beat the shit out of you." Rick yells at Daryl.

"Hey, we both took out licks man." Merle defends himself.

"Jackass!" I mutter.

"Hey, shut up!" Merle shouts at me.

"Enough!" Rick yells, as Michonne tries to go around him.

"Hey get that thing out of my face!" Daryl yells at Glenn, who has his gun aimed at Daryl's chest.

They continue yelling at each other Merle begins laughing, "Man looks like you're going native brother."

"No more than you hanging out with that psycho back there!" Daryl yells in his face.

"Oh yeah he is a charmer, I gotta tell you that. Been putting the wood to your girlfriend Andrea big time baby." He says, rolling his tongue at her.

"Andrea's in Woodbury?" Glenn asks.

"Right next to the Governor." Daryl says.

Michonne goes for Merle again and Rick steps in front of her, "I told you to drop that." He yells and I step forward, blocking off Merle from her.

"You know Andrea? Hey, do you know Andrea?" He asks, getting in her face.

"Yep, she does. Her body spent all winter cuddling up in the forest. Mm, mm, mm. Yeah, my Nubian queen here had two pet walkers. No arms, cut off the jaws. Kept them in chains, kind of ironic now that I think about it." Merle chuckles tauntingly.

"Shut up Merle!" Daryl yells in his face.

"Hey man, we snagged them out of the woods. Andrea was close to dying." Merle informs us.

"Is that why she's with him?" Maggie asks, looking at Michonnne.

"Yeah, snug as two little bugs. So what you gonna do know sheriff? Surrounded by a bunch of liars, thugs and cowards." Merle taunts towards Rick.

"Shut up!" Rick yells.

"Woah man, look at this pathetic. All these guns with no bullets in them." Merle begins to taunt and I grow frustrated.

"Shut up yourselves you bunch of pussies-" Merle begins to yell.

Rick steps forward and hits him over the back of the head with the butt of his gun. Merle falls to a heap on the ground and Daryl and Rick exchange a look before rick mutters aloud, "Asshole."

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I run my fingers through my hair tiredly as they continue to argue over what they've been arguing about for the past half an hour.

"It won't work." Rick says.

"It's gotta." Daryl argues.

"He'll stir things up." Rick counters.

"Look, the Governor's probably on his way to the prison right now. Merle knows how he thinks and we could use the muscle." Daryl explains.

"We're not having him at the prison." Maggie states.

"We can't have him sleeping in the same cell block as Carol, Beth." Glenn says.

"He isn't a rapist." I say, offended that they would say that.

"Yeah but his buddy is." Glenn says.

"They ain't buddies no more, not after last night." Daryl argues.

"There's no way Merle is gonna live without putting everyone at each other's throats." Rick says.

"You gonna cut Merle loose so you can bring the last samurai home with us?" Daryl asks, pointing to Michonne.

"She's not coming back." Rick argues.

"She's not in a state to be on her own." Maggie says, glancing back at Michonne who leans against the side of the car.

"She did bring you to us." Glenn adds, looking towards Rick.

"Then ditched us." Rick countered.

"At least let my Dad stitch her up?" Maggie asks.

"She's to unpredictable." Rick says.

"That's right, we don't know who she is." Daryl states, "Merle? Merle's blood." Daryl says, bringing the conversation back to his brother.

"No, Merle is your blood. My blood, my family is standing right here and waiting for us back at the prison." Glenn argues.

"And you are part of that family. He's not, he's not." Rick adds, "He's not coming back with us." Rick says, looking Daryl and I in the eye.

"Y'all don't know." Daryl says.

Everyone just looks at him and he shakes his head, "Fine, we'll fend for ourselves." Daryl says and I look at him sadly.

"That's not what I was saying." Glenn argues.

"No him, no me." Daryl stands his ground and I sigh and nod my head, "Me too."

"You both don't have to do that." Maggie says.

I look at them all before shaking my head, "Yeah, we do. It was always the three of us before this."

"Don't." Maggie pleads with us.

"You serious, you're just going to leave like that?" Glenn asks.

"You'd the same thing." Daryl argues.

"Well what do you want us to tell Carol?" Glenn asks.

"She'll understand." He says and I know how close the both of them have gotten.

I look between them all before turning to Daryl and I nod. I know that he doesn't want to leave, neither of us do. But Merle is our family and we can't just leave him behind.

I sigh and Daryl turns to Maggie, "Say goodbye to your Pop for us."

"Bree are you serious? Daryl?" Glenn says in disbelief.

Rick chases after us and stands in front of us, "Hey, hey there's gotta be another way." Rick argues as the others watch on in shock.

"Don't ask me to leave him. I already did that once." Daryl says.

"Hey, we started something last night. You realise that?" Rick says, trying to talk some sense into him.

We reach the trunk of the car and Daryl opens it up, "No him, no me. That's all I can say."

Rick looks over at me, his eyes pleading with mine and I shake my head, "Take care of yourselves, take care of that beautiful baby girl. Carl, he's one tough kid." I say, barely holding back the tears.

Maggie and Glenn reach us and she grabs at my hands, looking me in the eyes, "Bree, I'm begging you to stay."

I feel Daryl's eyes on me and I look up at her and shake my head, "Could you leave Glenn?"

Her face drops slightly and I look her in the eye, "I can't, I won't leave him. Ever."

She looks at me for a moment before nodding her head and I pull her in for a brief hug. I step back and look to Glenn who looks at me like he can't believe what's going on. I give him a quick hug before I turn to Rick. We exchange a long glance before I hug him tightly, him hugging me back. I pull back and turn and walk past Daryl towards Merle, willing myself not to break down.

Merle looks at me with the largest smirk and he places his stump on my shoulder, "I knew you wouldn't-"

"Shut up Merle." I mutter, stalking past him and into the forest.

I hear Glenn call after us but I ignore him, the guys catching up to me afterwards. I hear Merle begin to drone on and I turn him out, not in the mode for his bullshit right now. A hand slips into mine and I look down at it, him giving my hand a gentle squeeze. I hold it back and I look up into his eyes and I can see his love for me. He is going to protect me no matter what and I with him. We will always look out for each other and always have each other's back. Always.