"YOU HAVE TWO options," Maisie repeated for what seemed like the fifth time. She had been in the small shed with Randall for hours, asking him the same questions over and over which he didn't answer at all. She had been nothing but patient with him but he gives her scared looks and head shakes.

"You either tell me the information I need, or I let Daryl come in here and beat the shit out of you until you talk." Maisie says as she leans forward, "Because if I give Daryl the go he'll cut your fingers off. Hell, maybe even your leg."

"I told you I barely knew those guys," Randall finally speaks. He's spoken maybe three times in the whole thirty minutes of Maisie being in there.

"You haven't told me a single damn thing." Maisie scoffs, leaning back in her wooden chair, and crossing her arms, "Where is your group? How many of 'em are there?"

No response.

Maisie gives the kid a look and shrugs before standing from her chair, giving him a hard punch to his face, and then sitting back down. "How many people are in your group?" She repeated louder and slower, she needed him to speak.

Nothing.

She nods, standing from the chair, and opening the door for Daryl. He passes his crossbow to Maisie and without hesitation, sends a punch to Randall's face, giving him no time to even realize Daryl has entered the shed.

Maisie didn't know how long it's been since that happened. Randall was bleeding out of both sides of his nostrils, his mouth was dripping with blood, and his cheeks were completely swollen. Maisie had been sitting on the wooden chair, watching as Daryl beat the living hell out of Randall when he didn't answer her questions.

"I told you-" Randall tries.

"You ain't told her shit!" Daryl shouts, picking the boy up by his shirt collar and throwing him against the wall.

"I barely knew those guys. I met 'em on the road."

"How many of 'em are there?" Maisie once again questioned the kid, her voice loud while she stood beside Daryl. She was getting impatient with him, he wouldn't say a single thing.

When Randall remained silent, Daryl glanced at Maisie, who was waiting for Randall to speak. When he didn't reply, Maisie gave a nod which caused Daryl to swiftly draw his knife and stare at Randall with a glare.

"Uh, no, no, no. Come on, man." Randall begs, but he has enough chances to answer Maisie's questions. The boy yelped whenever Daryl stabs his knife into the wood beside Randall's leg. Maisie didn't take her eyes away from Randall's terrified eyes.

"How many?" Maisie shouts, arms crossed while Reaper sticks his nose through the gap of the door and opens it, sitting beside Maisie.

"Uh, 30. 30. 30 guys." Randall answers quickly, not giving Maisie a second to finish her sentence. She nods, happy with his answer.

"Where?"

"Uh..." The boy hesitates so Daryl rips off the bandage Hershel had put on him hours before and throws it to the side, "I don't know. I swear. We were never anyplace more than a night."

Daryl lowers his knife onto Randall's wound before speaking, "Scoutin'? Plannin'? on stayin' local?"

"I- I don't know. They- they left me behind." Randall looks at Maisie for help when Daryl's knife and slightly touches his wound, but Maisie shrugs. He should've picked the easy choice.

"Did you ever pick off a scab?" Daryl asks.

"Come on, man! I'm- I'm trying to cooperate." Randall says, his brows furrowed as he looks at Maisie for help one last time.

"Should have done that a long time ago," Maisie mutters with an eye roll, sitting back down on the wooden chair before sending her dog back to watch over Beth.

"Start off real slow at first." Daryl instructs, stabbing his knife deeper into Randall's leg, "Sooner or later, you've just gotta rip it off."

Randall repeats countless times, agreeing to tell them everything he knows which causes Daryl to look up at him, "They- they- they have weapons- heavy stuff, automatics. But- bu- bu- but I didn't do anything."

"You almost shot 'er in the face, lie to me one more time." Daryl says before stabbing his knife into Randall's leg, his scream echoing throughout the shed, "Your boys shot at my boys, tried to take this farm. Touched on this girl. You just went along for the ride? You tryin' ta tell me you're innocent?"

"Yes!" Randall shouts as he begins breathing heavily and squeezing his eyes shut. He was trying to avoid eye contact with Daryl as much as possible, "These- these people took me in. Not just guys- a whole group of 'em. Men and women, uh, kids too- just like you people. Thought I'd have a better chance with them, you know? But... we'd go out, scavenge- just the men. One night we- we found this little campsite. A man and his two daughters- teenagers, you know?"

Maisie was listening closely, though she didn't know where he was going with this. She asked where his camp was, not a sob story. She leaned her head back on the chair and silently groaned to herself, waiting for him to get to the point.

"Real young. Real cute." Randall continued, looking at Maisie when he spoke causing Daryl to freeze and glare while Maisie looked down at him in disbelief, "Their daddy had to watch while these guys- they- and they didn't even kill him afterward. They just- they just made him watch as his daughters- they just- just- just left him there. No, but- but- but I didn't touch those girls. No, I swear I didn't to-"

Just as Daryl was about to kick Randall's leg, Maisie stopped him. Daryl backed up and watched as Maisie punched Randall in the face three hard times and kicked his leg afterward. She backed away from him, looking at how beat up he was while she was staring at him with a glare. She couldn't believe he had the nerve to tell her that story, she didn't ask for it. She just wanted to know where his camp was located.

"C'mon." Maisie orders, hearing Daryl kick Randall in the leg one last time before following after Maisie who was already out of the shed. When Daryl got out, Maisie locked the shed shut and gave him his things. She began walking away, a bothered look painted on her face which didn't go past Daryl.

"You okay?" He asks, putting his jacket back on with a slight wince.

"It's just-" She stumbled over her words, trying to figure out what to say and how to word it, "I don't know. Just forget it." She continued to walk away. Daryl caught up to her, walking beside her while looking at the ground. Maisie wondered why he started being so nice to her all of a sudden. They had their fights, but overall he's been good to her.

After the long walk of unidentified silence, they made it to the others. Everyone was staring at them with a look of determination on their faces. They wanted to know what Randall had said to them. When Daryl and Maisie arrived in front of the others, Daryl was the first to speak.

"Boy there's got a gang, 30 men. They have heavy artillery an' they ain't lookin' to make friends. They roll through here, our boys are dead. An' our women, they're gonna- they're gonna wish they were."

"What did you do?" Carol asks, her eyes set on Daryl's bloody knuckles before shifting them to look at Maisie's bloody shoes.

"Had a little chat," He replies as he slightly stepped in front of Maisie.

Maisie looked up from the ground and made eye contact with Maggie who looked worried. She had a frown on her face as she and Maisie had crossed arms. Maggie was still getting used to the real world. Maisie was trying to. They both had each other and that's all that mattered.

"No one goes near this guy," Rick says.

"Rick, what are you gonna do?" Lori questions.

"We have no choice. He's a threat. We have to eliminate the threat." Rick tells her causing some of the people in the group to look at him in shock. Maisie didn't wanna kill a kid, but he was a threat. And so was his group.

"Fine by me." Maisie agrees, shrugging before making eye contact with Andrea. Maisie had yelled at Andrea the day before because she had found out about Andrea encouraging Beth to kill herself. Maisie threatened her but Maggie pulled her away before she could do anything bad.

"You're just gonna kill him?" Dale asks, his eyebrows furrowed while he stares at Rick in utter disbelief.

"It's settled. I'll do it today." Rick looks around, ignoring Dale's words before walking away. But Dale wasn't a man to back down without a fair argument, so he followed after.

Maisie made eye contact with Andrea once again so she looked away from Andrea and started to walk back to the farmhouse with Maggie. She heard Andrea calling her name, but she chose to ignore the voice and continue walking. That was until Andrea grabbed Maisie's shoulder and turned her around. Maggie pushed Maisie behind her knowing she would do something because Andrea laid her hands on her.

"You can't ignore me forever." Andrea pants while shaking her head. Maisie scoffed and jerked her head back.

"First you encouraged my sister to kill herself and now you're telling me what to do? Who the hell do you think you are, Andrea?" Maisie spoke sharply, her eyes staring into the void in Andrea's pupils.

"That's not what I meant and you know that," Andrea says with a look of defeat on her face. She knew she wasn't going to win this argument.

Maisie just nodded, she didn't want to argue further. She's had a long day and now she just wanted to rest. Andrea was shocked that Maisie didn't reply, but she let it go. The last thing she wanted to do was argue with a woman who wouldn't back down until someone was bleeding. Especially after what she did to Beth.

"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna argue with a girl who encourages suicide." One thing Andrea knew about Maisie was she always needed to get the last word. Always.

*

Maisie was sitting down with Reaper, enjoying the view of the lake. She sat further away from where her family was, though. She would occasionally look over at them to make sure they were fine, to make sure nothing bad had happened. She was still trying to process the words Beth had said to her, she needed to take her mind off of that but it's all she's been thinking.

"Maisie, I know you want to. I can see it in your eyes."

She was trying to figure out if Beth was right. Maybe Maisie did want to kill herself. She hadn't been eating or sleeping, she'd been thinking. Just like Beth said. Maisie didn't like how the world was, but she had to live in it. She needed to live in it. She needed to protect her family and her dog. She needed to live, but she didn't know if she wanted to.

She felt a familiar presence walking up to her with silent footsteps. It was Daryl. She noticed how Reaper looked behind her and started wagging his tail in excitement.

"Wanna go huntin'?" Daryl speaks after staring at the back of her head for a couple of seconds.

"You askin' me or my dog?" Maisie questions, slightly turning her head to look at the man. He was admiring her side profile, completely unaware of the question she just asked.

He hesitated, forgetting what to say, "Don' be stupid."

"I'm bein' serious." Maisie chuckles before turning back to the lake in front of her.

"You," Daryl replies, walking away to his camp which is far away from everyone else's. Maisie laughs, standing up to follow after him.

"Maisie!" Dale's voice rang in Maisie's ears so she looked over to him and saw him quickly walking over to her. He had been trying to convince everyone to not let Rick kill Randall, but Maisie's opinion was set in stone. Randall is a threat, kill the threat. "We need to talk about the boy."

"For what? I've made my decision. You heard me back at the-"

"Your opinion matters." Dale interrupts, "It's an execution, I know you don't want this."

"Rick's got my back, and I've got his. Where he goes, I follow. No second thoughts." Maisie shook her head at Dale who had a look of defeat on his face, "I've made my decision, Dale. I'm sorry."

Dale sighs, "You carry the weight of his fate now. His blood, it's on you."

"I know." Maisie carelessly says while Dale nods his head and starts walking over to where Shane is. Shane would never agree with what Dale has to say.

Maisie watched as he walked over to Shane before sighing and walking towards Daryl's camp. The walk was still long, she hated how long it was. Reaper was at her feet, it was like he could sense something was wrong with her. The way she was dragging her feet instead of normally walking, how tired she's been. Reaper had been sticking by her side lately, not going anywhere unless Maisie was there. She found it quite odd, but she didn't mind. But she still sent Reaper to watch over her family, thankfully the dog listened to her.

When Maisie made it to Daryl's camp, they started to go hunting. Daryl knew what Maisie was thinking, he asked her to go hunting with him so he could change her mind or put her thoughts elsewhere. Daryl had been watching Maisie carefully, making sure wasn't going to pass out or anything. Maisie would ignore him looking at her, she tried to shrug it off.

They had been hunting for a while now, they even made up a game. Maisie felt wide awake now that there was a game. She was so focused on it and Daryl tried not to laugh at how focused she was. He was easily winning because he was used to using a crossbow, but a 20-minute teaching session for Maisie wasn't enough to make her good at using it.

"God dammit." Maisie groans while staring at the arrow on the tree that was supposed to be in a squirrel, "This is rigged."

"Rigged? Nah, your aim just sucks." Daryl grabbed the crossbow Maisie was handing him before walking up to the tree to retrieve his bolt.

"Yeah, because my teacher ain't teaching." Maisie flipped Daryl off when his back was facing her so when he turned around he tried to act like he didn't see her flipping him off.

"Here."

Maisie grabs the crossbow from Daryl and flings it over her shoulder after loading it, "Why can't you just do it? I've been losing this game for two hours."

"You just need to try," Daryl says with a smirk on his face when he realizes what Maisie is about to say.

"It's 5 to 0."

"Hell yeah, it is."

"Go fall in a hole." Maisie rolls her eyes and starts to walk away from him to find another tree where she can hopefully find more squirrels or just food in general.

Daryl trailed behind her, watching closely before his eyes looked down to her feet when he realized how loud her footsteps were.

"You're scarin' away the food." Daryl mumbles, grabbing Maisie by the arm to show her.

"You look fuckin' stupid." Maisie smiles while Daryl walks in a circle around her to demonstrate how to walk silently.

"Tha's how ya gotta walk if ya want food tonight," Daryl says, letting go of her arm when he realized he was still holding onto it.

Maisie rolled her eyes, walking like how Daryl showed her while he looked at her feet, "You look fuckin' stupid." Daryl jokes.

"Shut up, Mr. You're scarin' away the food." Maisie mocks before kneeling behind a bush when she spots a deer.

Maisie grabs the crossbow from around her shoulder before aiming the crossbow at the deer like how Daryl taught her. Daryl was looking at how focused she was, he looked away when he realized what he was doing. He needed to stop getting so close to her, he hated what she was doing to him. He hated that she didn't even know what she was doing to him.

Maisie put her finger on the trigger of the crossbow before shooting. The crossbow made a noise as the bolt flew straight into the Deer's body, "Hell yeah. Look at me, I'm way better than you."

"You still ain't winnin'." Daryl points out.

"Like hell I ain't. A deer is definitely triple points to those little ass things." Maisie chuckles after pointing to the rope of squirrels Daryl had.

"Believe what you want. Time to head back, anyway."

"Oh, you're such a sore loser."