𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝔽𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 | Daryl Dixon

53 | NO SANCTUARY

She wasn't there. Everyone else was in that train car, except her. If she wasn't there, where the hell was she?

The questions circled around Daryl's mind over and over, on a loop as he kept his eyes squinted, peaking through the very thin gap between the door and its rickety frame. The sunlight glaring off the wood made it tough to see, but his hunter eyes saw past the shine, straight out into the yard. Designating himself as the lookout, just so he had something to distract himself. Without a set focus, he'd be pacing up and down until his legs gave out.

Terminus wasn't the sanctuary the signs claimed it to be, which he'd suspected from the very start. He knew there was something off as soon as he and the others walked in through a gap in the fence from the woods, not seeing or hearing a soul until they were already inside one of the buildings. The weasel of a man that had greeted them was a fake, a phoney. The tone of his voice was a friendly one, until it wasn't.

Bullets had flown, the four of them sprinting around the entire compound until they were cornered, forced into the dark and damp-smelling train car they were locked in now.

The silver lining was that they weren't alone. Many friends they though they'd lost – Maggie, Glenn, Bob, Sasha, they were all there too. Along with four new faces, two women and two men, who the oldest Greene sister was quick to vouch for. Just seeing them all, having them back and knowing that together, they could try to make an escape was a big relief.

But he still felt a gaping hole in his heart, a loneliness that could only be cured by one woman. The face Daryl really cared about the most, really needed to see just so he could breathe properly again, was nowhere to be seen.

His goal was still to find her. His plan consisted of escaping the train car, reclaiming the crossbow, the Walkman, and other things taken from him, escaping Terminus, and finding Victoria Stark. Of course, he had no idea how he'd do any of those things. He just would. Somehow.

The piece of wood he'd carved out of the wall made splinters in his calloused hand as he gripped it with enough force to choke the life from it. He heard voices outside, his eyes squinting, piercing through the sharp sunlight as several figures approached the train car, guns in hand.

"Alright, we got four of them pricks comin' our way," the Dixon spoke up, calling out to the group as they finished building their makeshift weapons out of anything they could find.

Rick just about finished carving a shard of wood out of the wall, using the chain of Hershel Greene's (now Glenn's) silver pocket watch. "You all know what to do," he spoke calmly, exerting confidence despite his lack of advantage on their captures. "Go for the eyes first, then their throats."

The group silently got into their positions, standing in defensive stances with their forged weapons raised, ready to attack whoever opened the door. They listened out for the footsteps that approached from outside, hearing the clicks of guns being cocked and raised.

"Put your backs against the wall at either end of the car, now!" a man yelled from the other side of the door.

Daryl and the rest all tensed up even more, ignoring the voice's order. They counted the few seconds of silence as they waited for the door to slide open, but it never did. Instead, a clank above their heads had all of them looking upwards, squinting as the sunlight leaked into the train car through the opened ceiling hatch.

Something was dropped inside onto the floor, the metal cannister rattling as it rolled along the wooden boards. A flash bang.

"Move!" the redheaded man, Abraham, yelled.

The whole group jumped as far away from the cannister the same second it blew up, smoke filling up the confined space. While Daryl blinked away the stinging in his eyes caused by the thick grey cloud, choking through his painful breaths, he felt hands grabbing and tugging his arms. Yanking him across the floor and out of the train car.