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BOUND BY BLOOD, brother and sister have no choice but to acknowledge the other's existence. But everything else. . . That's up to choice. Nobody asked Tariq Driscoll to love his sister with everything he had in him, it wasn't expected of him - for all their parents cared, Trudi could've cried until she was blue in the face and limp in her cradle.
But he stepped up, three years old and frail, overwhelmed by an innate compulsion to protect the wailing bundle of misery.
Trudi wished she could remember the first time he'd climbed into her crib, the warmth that exuded from him and enveloped her body, the anchoring weight of his body beside hers.
He'd told her about it countless times, and that used to be enough for her to picture it vividly, but now she was struggling to visualise anything that wasn't their last encounter; him headless, bleeding out, discarded on the floor of a wrecked barn like he meant nothing.
Tariq wasn't a part of that conflict, the only whisperer he'd killed was the one that attacked him and Brodie - self-defence. And it was unlikely Alpha even knew about that. She'd made him a pawn in her wicked game simply because she could. She saw a weak target and exploited his vulnerability.
Trudi couldn't help but blame herself. To avoid another awkward encounter with Rachel, she'd handed Lori off to Jerry and hid inside the bathroom stall for half an hour. When she came back out, he was already gone, and despite the lack of confirmation; she knew.
If only she'd had the guts to tell Rachel to leave her alone, stormed past her and made it back to Tariq. Alpha had taken her victims one by one, if Trudi had been there with her hatchet, she could've protected her brother in the same way he'd always protected her.
It was her fault, and it was Daryl's fault, and Negan's and Simon's and Mom's and God's.
The cycle of blame never stopped spinning.
If Trudi couldn't get her hands on Alpha, she'd find another way to grant Tariq some semblance of justice because sitting with her rage wasn't an option.
It didn't ebb away from her as the days passed, it swelled and swelled until it began to cave in on her heart and that pressure was insufferable. The only method of alleviation she'd found efficient was unleashing a little of her fury; Daryl's face as her bullseye and tableware as her darts.
