my tears ricochet

Chapter Twenty Five

Daryl saw the fire burning first before the world took shape around him, people in bleachers looking down as he stood with his hands bound, Merle's face half turned away. It was the first time in months he had laid eyes on his brother after clinging to some hope he was out there in the world and disgust made his mouth bitter.

Merle liked falling in with people who were bad because it made it easier to do bad things. Daryl had seen him walking side by the side with the devil his entire life, folding in with the men who carried records next to their names, knuckles already bruised before the fist could strike down. It shouldn't have been a surprise that he was here and he had brand new crimes to loom over but Daryl felt guilt from expecting more. He had wanted so much more from his brother.

He would have taken anyone on that road. He would have beaten them like he had done to Glenn, his face a wreck of bruises and blood. No one could have been safe from that violence but a child felt different. She should have been different.

The world ending had shifted the illusions of blood and family. Glenn was Daryl's, like any other in the group. He had once tortured Randal with a knife and his own hands for being part of a group who had shot at Rick, Hershel, and Glenn. The answering violence had been so easy, crafting a song to break a body into pieces.

Blood didn't bind Daryl to a single person in that group but he go down for any of them.

Everyone was screaming and Daryl shoved his shoulders back. He had picked off whatever targets he could shoot at while the others got over the wall with the intention of marking the Governor. But men had kept coming and he never saw the leader until he was shoved onto the ground, gravel biting at his hands and knees, cornered in the dead of night.

He had wanted that shot for Ivy.

"I asked you where your loyalties lie," the man with his face cut up said, standing at the helm of the audience. Someone had recently managed a few good hits on him, drawing fresh blood to the surface of his skin. Daryl could see where it smeared along his jaw, just below an eyepatch. "You said here. Prove it to us all. Brother against brother."

He thought of Glenn folding forwards onto the floor. The second he had seen the pair of them being escorted away for execution. Ivy in a shirt that wasn't her own.

Everyone in the audience rallied at his words but he saw Andrea's pale, living face peering out at him from the crowd. It was a relief that they hadn't wasted the energy to lay her memory to the ground. Glenn had carved her name into the plank of wood with a few other of their losses but they hadn't let themselves slow down to feel it truly.

Shane had never been worth a mention. His name had been wiped away, a clean slate left untouched.

People were shouting for Merle, crying it up like a cheer for the night sky to consume. Whatever role his brother had established was a popular one and Daryl had already begun to understand how exactly he forged his reputation.

He lifted his hand in the air and turned away. "Y'all know me. I'm gonna do whatever I got to do to prove-"

Daryl hadn't expected the punch. Merle had spun on his heel and sucker punched him to the chest without pulling back. The image of his brother bringing home stolen tea cups from the church just so their mother had something nice to look at slipped free from his soul. He hit the ground for the second time and the air seemed to vibrate from the sounds of people shouting.

"My loyalty is to this town!" Merle finished, kicking at him.

He had seen Rick make it over the wall. Woodbury hadn't been Atlanta. Everyone he cared about had made it out and was on the other side of danger, hopefully figuring their way free from the noose closing in on them. Daryl took the hits as he tried to right himself, feeling his fingers grasp dirt.