love her | the walking dead ¹

04. leave him there to rot

Katherine was helping do some chores around camp, the adults say she doesn't have too, since she's a kid still, but Katherine feels bored without having something to do. Usually she'd play tag with the younger kids, but this morning Harlow wasn't in her bed next to her, so she assumed Harlow got up early to play with the others.

"How many times do I have to say you don't have to do anything, Kat?" Carol comes to her side.

"Until you stop telling me. I wanna help, Carol" Katherine replies.

"Your job can be babysitting while the actual adults do the work" she says, grabbing the clothes from Katherine's hands, "Where are the kids?"

Katherine looked around, but couldn't spot any of them. Her answer came to her when screams came from the woods, Katherine could hear Harlow screaming her name. Katherine, along with Lori and the men of the camp ran in the direction of their voices.

Katherine saw Carl and Harlow running towards them, Carl went to his mother while Harlow went to her sister, "Are you okay?" Katherine asked her, placing her hands on either side of her sister's face, searching for any sort of bites.

Harlow nods, "We were just playing" she cries, looking over at Carl beside her.

"It doesn't matter what you were doing, as long as you're okay" Katherine tells her, pulling her sister into her chest, holding her tight.

If anything ever happened to Harlow, Katherine would lose herself.

⋆ ★ ⋆

Daryl Dixon walked into camp calling for Merle, and that's when Katherine knew things might turn to shit once someone tells him the truth. Katherine stood with Harlow, and the other woman in camp, under the shade of the RV.

The young girl was still shaken up over seeing the walker eating at the deer, Harlow having never really seen one before, and she thought like everyone else, was that where they were camped was safe.

"Daryl, just slow up for a bit, I need to talk to you" Shane called him back, stopping him from going to where he and his brother slept.

"About what?" Daryl replied, stopping and facing Shane.

"About Merle" Shane states, "There was a– There was a problem in Atlanta"

Daryl briefly looked around at the rest of the camp, "He dead?"

"We're not sure" Shane replied.

"He either is or he ain't!" Daryl snapped.

"No easy way to say this, so I'll just say it" Rick steps forward.

"Who are you?" Daryl asked.

"Rick Grimes," he replied.

"Rick Grimes" Daryl says in a mocking tone, "You got something you want to tell me?"

"Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there" Rick tells the younger Dixon brother.

Daryl looks away angrily, "Hold on. Let me process this" he steps back, before looking back at Rick, "You're saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof and you left him there?!"

"Yeah" Rick replied calmly.

Daryl throws his crossbow, and goes to attack Rick, but Shane gets there first and knocks him to the ground. Daryl pulls out his knife from his belt and goes to attack Rick again, but this time, Rick and Shane are able to contain him, Shane holding him in a chokehold.

"You best let me go!" Daryl shouted.

"Nah, I think it's better if I don't" Shane replied, walking backwards away from Rick, pulling Daryl along with him.

"Chokeholds, illegal" Daryl grunted.

"You can file a complaint" Shane retorted, bringing Daryl to the ground, still keeping his hold on him.

Katherine can understand where Daryl was coming from, even though Merle isn't a nice person to anyone at camp, including his own brother sometimes, it's still his brother. Katherine would act the same as Daryl if she was told Harlow was left behind.

"I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think we can manage that?" Rick asked, dipping his head down to be level with Daryl's. He didn't answer and kept grunting and panting in Shane's hold, Rick repeated his question and Shane eventually let Daryl go. "What I did was not on a whim. Your brother does not work and play well with others" Rick told Daryl like he was a little kid, like he was speaking to Carl or Harlow.

"It's not Rick's fault. I had the key" T-Dog said.

"T-Dog" Katherine speaks up, shaking her head at him.

She did not want to see T-Dog get beaten up by Daryl Dixon, or anyone for that matter. She hopes that they can all have a civil conversation. But knowing the latter, and how he reacted earlier, the conversation will be anything but civil.

Daryl, who was looking at T-Dog turned and looked at Katherine at the sound of her speaking up, "What?"

"I dropped the key," T-Dog said, bringing the attention back onto him.

"You couldn't pick it up?" Daryl asked.

"Well, I dropped it down the drain," T-Dog further explained.

Daryl scoffed and got off the ground, "If it's supposed to make me feel better, it don't" he walked off.

"Well, maybe this will" T-Dog said, stopping Daryl in his tracks as he waited for T-Dog to continue., "I chained the door to the roof, so the geeks couldn't get at him, with a padlock"

"It's gotta count for something" Rick added on.

"Hell with all y'all" Daryl shouted, gesturing around to everyone at camp, "Just tell me where he is so I can go get him"

"He'll show you" Lori spoke up, referring to her husband, "Isn't that right"

Katherine rolled her eyes, she didn't think Rick should have to show Daryl when Merle is, the latter got into that situation all on his own, he was a dick and faced the consequences. She doesn't think they should risk members of the camp to get someone who no one wants around.

Katherine thinks they should leave Merle Dixon there to rot.

__

I hate Merle sm if it isn't clear, therefore Katherine does too.

Not a lot happened this chapter, but the next... :
;))

Also thank you for 200 reads! Just last chapter I was thanking y'all for 100 !! It seems you all are enjoying this book so far