Chaos for the Fly [The Walking Dead Fanfiction]

Chapter 2: Rules of dead men

        "She won't come back no matter how long you sit by that damn door, Alice!" The seven-year-old's vacant stare didn't react to the cold words her father spat. He was angry; he was always angry. He wore the face of a distinguished man, but he was hiding behind the law. No amount of family photos could make him a father. 

        His hands, a judge's hands, gripped at her small throat. 

        "I said back from that door you little shit!"

        Her body was thrown a few feet back as she coughed, eyes watering with tears she didn't want to spill. Crying only fueled his rage, but she broke. Tears, like blood, stained her cheeks as her father's hand slapped her across the face. 

        "It's your fault she's gone!" 

        He grabbed the bike chain off the end table, the same one he’d been meaning to use to fix her bicycle, and he struck her. It hurt so bad she turned her back to him and curled her knees to her mouth as he whipped her again, and again. She hardly noticed when the whipping turned to the kicking against her chest, a sickening crack made her scream in pain, and he started to strangle her to keep her quiet. She ended up passing out.

        It was the worst beating she endured, her father wasn't careful enough to hide his work (a mistake he wouldn't make again). The child's body was unconscious, broken and bleeding. He left her there, got a beer and sat down in front of the television waiting for an opportunity to fall in his lap. He'd make it look like some horrible accident so no speculation could fall on him when he'd have to bring her to the hospital.

        A crash outside would seal her father's innocence. A young man in a beat up truck was wrapped around a light pole, drunk off his ass. He was barely aware of what happened as her father quickly seized his opportunity and lay the child in a way that would break any parent’s heart. He stood up and screamed causing the neighbors to open their doors and see the hysterical man. 

        "Call 911! Please hurry, my daughter's been hit!" His voice echoed through the darkness, confidence seeping through his veins. He shouldn't have been surprised when he saw the driver was redneck trash Merle Dixon. He had been the judge to put him in juvenile detention more than once--solid motive. A smirk lay across his thin lips. It couldn't have been any more of a perfect cover. 

        He held his daughter close to him, crying, "Baby, please open your eyes. Daddy needs you."

        "Mr. Windsor," the doctor started, "your daughter is going to pull through. She's badly injured, two broken ribs, deep lacerations in her back and some pretty bad internal bleeding." Her father smiled, letting a few tears roll down his face, but his eyes held no emotion. He was an important government man, and there wasn't a person that counted that'd ever think he'd be capable of hurting a child. It was too brutal to imagine that a car wasn't the thing that hit her.

        "Is she awake?" His voice was shaken, consistent with a man who might have thought he lost his child. Secil, her father, was only concerned if she had said anything to throw off his story.

        "Any moment now."

        "I need to be there when she opens her eyes." The doctor nodded, leading him to her room.

        The sound of her heartbeat bounced off the white walls as he sat beside her, letting his concerned facade melt away as the last nurse gave them privacy. Her eyes opened slowly, green just as his own, making him the first thing she saw. Her heartbeat visibly, and audibly, fearful.