HEART OF GLASS
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT !

[ season three, episode six & seven ]

It felt good to be outside.

They had the courtyard back at the prison of course, but this was different ─ it didn't feel quite as sequestered. There was a sense of freedom. No fences, nothing holding them back, no tormenting memories circulating through the air like toxic chemicals. Here, Marley could breathe. And she liked it. She liked the feeling of the sun beating down against her neck, and the sound of the birds twittering wistfully overhead. She liked the smell of nature, even if it was slightly tainted by the repulsive scent of rotting flesh. She liked to hear the wind rushing through the spindly tree branches, the cicadas humming.

Just for a moment, Marley could relax.

She leaned up against the side of the truck, looking at the sky ─ a cluster of clouds resembling a duck had caught her attention. Then, the plume of white shifted, and the duck's neck elongated, forming a pretty swan. It glided elegantly through the sky.

And then her tranquillity was shattered by Glenn squeaking in terror.

"Jesus!"

Using a pair of plyers, he had busted the lock on the door to the convenience store. A flock of birds that had been trapped inside claimed their one chance at liberty, and in unison, the animals soared out of the door, their flapping wings almost colliding with Glenn. He ducked, hands instinctively curling over his head.

Maggie and Marley exchanged a look, and then they both started giggling, much to Glenn's embarrassment.

"You should have seen your face," Marley teased jestingly.

Glenn disappeared inside of the store in an attempt to hide his pink cheeks, muttering something incoherent under his breath. Maggie's flashlight trailed after him, illuminating the random objects that had fallen from the shelves. Amongst the crap, there were toys.

"Glenn, get that duck," Maggie requested, the beam of waxen light from her torch pooling over the little rubber duck.

He glanced at her incredulously from over his shoulder, "What?"

"Get that duck."

"Are you serious?" Glenn inquired with a noncommittal laugh. He picked up the duck, blew the away the dust that had collected on the yellow coat, and handed it to Maggie.

She beamed, "A kid growing up in a prison could use some toys."

Marley grinned, peering down at the beady-eyed duck. She vaguely remembered a mint green teddy-bear from her childhood ─ she had carried it everywhere. To the park, to the doctors, to birthday parties, to the store, to the livery yard her Mom worked at, and to even school. But when she turned ten, Marley realised that maybe she was a little too old to be lugging Minty around in her backpack. Eventually, Sage claimed him. God knows where it went after that.

She wondered if the Grimes' baby would grow to adore this duck as much as Marley adored that mint teddy-bear.

The differences in their childhood environments made that hard to believe. The most difficult thing Marley went through as a baby was being weaned off of pacifiers. She already knew Carl's sister would have to go through worse before her life even properly began, and that was a terrifying thought.

Marley sucked in a sharp breath and stepped inside of the store. Glenn was over by the food aisle, and Maggie was keeping watch outside  ─ both looked equally as blithe. Meanwhile, Marley made her way toward the back end of the narrow store, interested in the garden appliances. The weapon opportunities were vast.

Her eyes first snagged on a pair of garden shears. But, with deep consideration, she acknowledged the overwhelming list of cons: heavy, susceptible to rust, energy-consuming, and too blunt. And, of course, the metallic leaf rake propped up beside the shears were an absolute no-go.

The baseball bat on the floor, however, had potential.

Marley picked it up and propped it between her hands, measuring the weight. Not too bad. Heavy, but it wasn't anything extensive. The bat itself was composed of Maple wood, brand new, the surface gleaming ─ it had never been touched. There was a black marking for the brand that had procured the bat painted onto the barrel; an M for Matterson's Sports. An M for Marley.

She hummed to herself, passing the bat from hand to hand. The long hilt was sleek. Easy to grip. Admittedly, she liked it better than her machete.

"Hey, look," she called out to Glenn. He peered around the aisle, a slight furrow to his brow. Marley held up the bat, a grin working its way onto her lips, "New weapon of choice. What'd you think?"

"Edgy," Glenn said. "I like it."

"Better than Daryl's crossbow?"

"I don't know about that. His crossbow is, like, the superior choice, you know? Nothing can top it."

She arched a brow, "Hm. I guess."

Her gaze drifted to the floor. A box of plastic bobble heads had been ripped open, and the little toys had spilled out across the linoleum. From the look of the painted faces, the bobble heads were meant to represent different celebrities.

Marley picked up the figurine that looked indistinctly similar to Katy Perry. Black wig, vibrant eyeshadow, and that weird, swirly bikini that resembled little pieces of candy.

She snorted and turned back to Glenn. He was crouching over a pile of spilled condiments, reading the labels.

"Hey, think fast!" Marley yelled.

While Glenn panicked at the possibility of an encroaching walker, Marley threw the Katy Perry bobble-head across the store, aiming for her friend. It thwacked against the rack of shelves directly behind Glenn's head, uprooting a row of facial-cleanser bottles. They clattered against the ground in a simultaneous racket.

"Hey!" Glenn shouted, clutching his chest.

She snorted in amusement, "Damn. I still need to work on my aim."

"No shit," Glenn retorted smugly. He peered down at the bobble head that was rolling across the floor toward his feet, "Hey, wait ─ is that Katy Perry?"

"Everything okay?" came Maggie's concerned voice from outside. Her flashlight grew brighter ─ a beacon of light swelling across the walls and lifting the murky shadows nestled into the deepest crooks of the un-lit store ─ as she slowly approached the door. Glenn scrambled to shove the little figurine into his pocket, plastering a fake smile onto his lips.

"Mhm." He held up a red basket filled to the brim with different commodities. "We just hit the powdered formula jackpot."

Glenn stepped back outside, and Marley ─ not wanting to be left alone in the dark, slightly creepy store ─ scuttled after him like a dog attached to a leash. She kept her grip firm around the baseball bat, having now decided that she didn't want to part with it. Her knife was buried back at the prison, and her aiming with a gun was terrible, so she supposed there was no harm in trying something new.

Maggie huffed a sigh of relief at the sight of the formula, "Oh, thank God."

"I also got beans, batteries, cocktail wieners, many mustards," Glenn pointed out, digging through the red-basket.

Maggie then looked to Marley, expecting her to follow up that list with one of her own. But the adolescent merely held up the baseball bat and grinned from ear to ear.

"Uh. I got this."

The Greene chuckled lightly, "Looks like we got both you and the baby a toy today."

"Ha. Ha," Marley droned, unamused. "Very funny."

Like a teasing older sister, Maggie's smile bloomed into a vexing smirk.

"Its a straight shot back to the prison from here," Glenn informed, dropping a sachet of porridge-oats into the basket of goodies. "Probably make it in time for dinner."

Marley found herself feeling slightly disappointed that they were heading back already. She was enjoying their moment together as a trio, the sounds of nature buzzing in the background. Deflated, she swung her bat back and forth, gazing into the sky again. She searched for the swan, but found that the clouds had now mashed together to form a wispy plume of nothingness.

"I like the quiet," Maggie pondered morosely. "Back there, back home, you can always hear them outside the fence no matter where you are."

Gnarled hands slipping through the metallic chain-like fence sprung to mind. The walkers were always there, groaning and snarling and gnashing their rotten teeth at anyone who dared come near. Maggie was right ─ the quiet was nice.

Until it wasn't.

"And where is it y'all good people are callin' home?" a southern voice bellowed.

There was a click of a gun's safety being unholstered, and Marley whirled around in time to see a man round the corner of the outlet mall. He looked vaguely familiar. The smirk, the arrogant stance, the voice. . . she had seen and heard it all before, she was sure.

Glenn pointed a gun at the man. But he, too, recognised him, "Merle?"

Ah-ha. Merle.

Merle began to guffaw hysterically, lowering his gun to the ground. Connected to the end of his right arm was a long blade ejecting from a metal stump, and Marley suddenly remembered the story, or rather the thing, Rick, Daryl and Glenn brought back from their failed endeavour to rescue Merle from that rooftop in Atlanta city ─ a severed hand and no sign of the redneck.

She couldn't believe he was alive.

But he was, very much so. Was that a good thing? Probably not. She'd always been wary around him to begin with.

He raised his hands into the air, grinning like a mad man, "Wow!"

As Merle began to approach, Maggie tensed, grip tightening around her gun, "Hey, back the hell up!"

"Woah, okay, okay, honey!" Daryl's brother exclaimed, halting in his steps. His grin never faded, widening across a wrinkled face smeared in the blood that was spilling from his busted nose.

Subconsciously, Glenn shifted to the left so his body was shielding Marley's. He didn't lower his weapon. "You made it."

Merle's expression morphed into something more neutral, "Can you tell me, is my brother alive?"

"Yeah," said Glenn.

A light wheeze of laughter echoed in the barrens of Merle's chest. His unnerving grin reappeared, and his surrendering hands slowly began to lower, "Hey, you take me to him and I'll call it even on everything that happened up there in Atlanta. No hard feelings, huh?"

Marley's stomach clenched. There was no way in Hell they were taking Merle back with them to the prison. No way. He was a problem, a burden, in that camp at the quarry overlooking the city, and there was no chance he'd changed since then. Besides, Marley hated his guts, and she was sure everybody else besides Daryl did, too.

"What happened to your arm?" she heard herself question aloud, trying to take the focus away from his inquiry about seeing Daryl again.

Merle chortled, pointing at her like she'd just materialised out of thin air, "Oh, hey, pipsqueak! Who knew you had a voice-box in ya, huh?"

"Yeah," she rolled her eyes, "who knew."

The redneck cackled deviously again. He looked borderline insane, jiggling his terminator-style arm around in the air. "My arm, huh . . . Well, I found myself a medical supply warehouse. Fixed it up myself. Pretty cool, huh?"

Glenn exhaled sharply, tired of the charade. "We'll tell Daryl you're here and he'll come out to meet you."

Merle's mood changed drastically. His malevolent smirk dropped and he shifted from foot to foot, becoming rowdy, "Woah, hey now hold up there ─"

"Back up!" Maggie demanded.

"Hey!" Merle's hands lifted again, completely surrendering. He heaved a sigh, "The fact we found each other is a miracle."

"Is it?" Marley remarked dryly.

At that, Merle's throat crackled with a rasping chuckle, "Full of sass, this one."

The silence pervaded; Marley didn't bite back. He seemed to realise they weren't going to crack anytime soon.

"Come on, now. You can trust me."

"You trust us," Glenn corrected sharply, "You stay here."

Merle's chuckle ebbed into an unnerving silence. They all stared at one another. And then, without warning, Merle yanked a second gun from his back pocket and bellowed ferociously. A bullet clanged against the back windshield of the red truck, forcing Glenn and Maggie to scuttle away from the explosion of glass, parting up either side of the vehicle. Marley ducked, shards raining down on top of her. Merle came charging at her first.

In the swift moment of ensuing chaos, Marley swung her new baseball bat at Merle's body, hoping to land a blow. But she completely missed and almost popped her arm out the socket instead with the sheer force of her swing.

Merle easily knocked the bat out of her hand, and it clattered loudly to the ground. She tried to run, but he latched a hand around her loose, unbound hair and dragged her down to the floor. She yelped, clawing at her scalp. Her knees collided with asphalt. Then, she was dragged backward, the exposed flesh on her arms scraping against the gravelly road.

She grunted in exasperation, trying to push herself back up. But to no avail.

An arm snaked around her neck. Then, Marley felt the barrel of a gun kiss her temple, and the icy coldness of it pressed to her flesh spiked a great rush of fear in her. She attempted to wriggle free from Merle's grip, but he was strong and his arm tightened like a coil around her neck.

Maggie and Glenn rushed around the corner of the truck, weapons pointed at Merle. Their eyes flared at the sight of Marley with a gun to her head, a position that put her life in immense danger. Glenn's jaw tightened, and Maggie exhaled sharply through her nostrils, her gaze never leaving Marley's.

"Let go of her," Glenn demanded in a deadly-calm voice that was edging explosive.

"Hey, hey, hold up now, buddy!" Merle panted, breathless. The gun slid to Marley's cheek, and she couldn't hold back her whimper of fear as the barrel trailed over her flesh.

Glenn reached boiling point, "Let go of her!"

"Put those guns in the car right now," Merle ordered briskly. His voice was hoarse and filled Marley's ears like water. "Put them in the car, y'all."

Both Glenn and Maggie reluctantly threw their weapons through the broken back-window. They raised their hands into the air, fearfully looking down at Marley on the ground.

"There you go," Merle said. "Now we're gonna go for a little drive."

"We're not going back to our camp." Maggie refused through gritted teeth. She looked at Glenn, and he, too, didn't appear willing.

Merle's chest rattled against Marley's back as he released a short puff of laughter, "No, we're goin' somewhere else."

The gun moved back to her temple. Marley squeezed her eyes closed as Merle's fingers inched close to the trigger, praying to whatever God was listening to spare her. Sage needed her. She couldn't die ─ she couldn't leave Sage on her own. She couldn't be the third Whitman gleaming in the globe's rising sun.

"Please─"

"Get in the car, Glenn!" Merle yelled. His voice pierced Marley's eardrums. "You're driving. Move!"

Maggie's chest heaved. She looked furious, "Don't you dare hurt her."

"Get in the car! Come on, now."

Glenn carefully shuffled back, retreating. He threw open the driver's side door and slid into the seat. Maggie followed suit, slipping into the front passenger seat.

Merle shoved the gun into his back pocket and coiled his non-bladed hand around Marley's arm. He dragged her up from the ground, fingers digging bruisingly into her flesh, and then shoved her into the backseats. Maggie immediately turned in her seat to look at her.

The nod she gave her did nothing to lift Marley's nerves.

She knew nothing good could ever come from Merle. And she knew that wherever they were going, that couldn't be good either.

✧.｡. *.

The red basket stocked to the brim with cans of baby formula and other edible condiments had tipped over, the contents spilling across the road where the red truck had been ten seconds ago.

Beside it, there was the baseball bat that belonged to the girl with corn-blonde hair.

Merle had taken the three strangers hostage, including aforementioned baseball-bat girl ─ she couldn't have been any older than Theo. That made it all the more difficult watching as Merle held a gun to her head and demanded that Glenn and the brunette woman, whose name wasn't mentioned during the altercation, get into the car and drive to an unnamed destination. Theo already suspected it was to Woodbury. Where else would Merle go? He had nowhere. He had no one.

Theo's neck itched. He felt guilty about watching from the side-lines and not interfering, but Michonne told him to stay put and that was what he did. She made the decisions, and he followed them.

Now, they had to make a decision together.

"He said it was a straight shot to the prison from here," Theo murmured, inspecting the basket full of baby formula. "By the looks of this, they were on an important run."

"I know." Michonne said quietly, still unsure. Their last run in with other human life had landed them in the confines of Woodbury, and directly into the Governor's scheming hands. How were they to know this wouldn't be the same?

Maybe they had to take the risk.

They were the only witnesses to Merle's abduction.

Theo tipped his head to the side, rubbing at a patch of skin on his cheek, "What do you think we should do?"

Michonne looked at him, eyes flared wide and lips drawn firmly. He knew she was reluctant, but in matters involving babies ─ especially in a post-apocalyptic world ─ the seriousness of the situation was not to be taken lightly. And that realisation had dawned on her the moment she glanced the excessive amount of baby formula.

Thirty minutes later, they were at the edge of the wood. Between the branches of the clustered trees, Theo could see the prison fences and gangling watchtowers.

Walkers gathered around the metal chain-link, slipping gnarled fingers through the small lesions in the fence. Fortunately, during their minor run-in with Merle earlier that morning, Theo and Michonne had unknowingly given themselves leverage against the dead.

Merle had thrown a thrashing walker at the pair, and Theo fell backwards, bringing Michonne down onto the ground with him ─ live-bait amongst crisp leaves. But when Michonne sliced her katana through its decaying torso, the walker's guts and innards splattered all over their clothes. The smell acted as a shield. They could walk through a horde undetected.

A walker in a bloodstained sundress stumbled through the foliage on the right of them. It lifted its chin in their initial direction, slowing its pace, and let out a loud snarl. Theo's eyes widened. He slowly shifted his bow between his hands. The walker, however, took no interest in the two. It continued hobbling sluggishly toward the prison, the hem of its dark sundress fluttering in the light breeze.

Theo exhaled sharply in relief.

His eyes shifted to the side to see Michonne, but she was gone.

Panicked, Theo whipped his head around, peeling back a branch that was hanging in the way. No sign. He looked to the front of the wood rather than around it, his eyes trailing across the treeline ─ and there she was. Halfway across the field. Into the cyclone of dead ones.

Theo muttered a string of profanities under his breath and immediately tracked after Michonne, slouching ever so slightly to give himself a more 'dead' look.

He kept his gaze on her the entire time; he couldn't face looking into the swirling, milky-abyss eyes of the walkers around him. It unsettled him, made him feel uneasy. So many people had died because the dead didn't have the capability of using their brains to comprehend morals. That milky-white abyss had claimed their mind, body and soul. It wiped them out. Infiltrated their bodies.

Theo wasn't sure how the world was still breathing with a species so abominable thriving on it, but the world had always worked in mysterious ways, counting now.

Although, not as mysterious as Michonne.

Why hadn't she given him a heads up? He would never know.

He reached the fence, where she had been standing for the last few minutes. The first thing he noticed was the man on the opposite side, staring at them as if they had both sprouted another head. But, understandably, it was probably a confusing sight to behold ─ a stranger covered in walker-guts carrying a basket of formula that his friends were meant to be bringing back. Well, Theo assumed they were his friends. The man's expression looked almost grief-stricken as he peered down at the basket, before quickly reverting back to the same confusion that held the rough edges of agitation.

And then, without warning, a walker attempted to take a chunk from Theo's shoulder.

He yelped and ducked out of the way. The shield was broken. He grabbed an arrow from the quiver at his back and stabbed it through the eye, bursting the cloud of white-haze.

A small hurricane of the dead ones were rushing their way. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Theo nocked an arrow into his compound bow, yanking the string back and aiming it at the walker that was the closest. Releasing the string, Theo watched in satisfaction as the arrow flew across the field and struck the walker in the forehead. It fell instantly.

Michonne was swinging her katana left, right and centre. Heads and severed limbs were scattered around her like a strange satanic ring, but Theo noticed above all she was really struggling. Her bullet wound was seeping blood, and the amount she had lost since that morning had to be substantial. She was swaying, blinking slowly. Not good.

Theo ran to the body of the walker he just downed. He placed his foot on its forehead and applied pressure, yanking his arrow out of its brain. Blood and brain-matter clung to the sleek wooden shaft, but it didn't phase him as he nocked it into his bow and used it to kill the next walker he saw approaching.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins, powerful enough to decimate an entire city. He whirled around, checking on Michonne.

She was on the ground. Unconscious.

That adrenaline was fast replaced by anxiety. Panic. The silent hum in his ears had vanished, and now he could really hear the roar of undead, the squalling of birds circling overhead, the sound of . . . nothing. No help. The man behind the fence hadn't moved a muscle since the duo arrived, and there was now a small boy with him, staring in the same blank way the adult was.

Weren't they going to help?

Theo ran to Michonne. He killed a walker that got a little too close for comfort first, and then reached down to check the woman's pulse ─ a dull thrum against his calloused fingertips. Her parted lips acted as an opening for oxygen to escape, heavy and sharp and laboured. Theo's spine tingled with fear.

He looked desperately to the man and boy at the fence. They watched.

The walkers had doubled and were swarming around Theo and Michonne like vultures to a carcass. Gasping for breath, Theo kicked the closest one in the chest, sending it plummeting to the dirt. He raised his bow, pulled back the string, and shot it in the head. The arrow was so deeply wedged into its rotting skull that he struggled to pry it out, and in the meantime, another three walkers had managed to breach the invisible circle Theo had drawn around himself and Michonne's unconscious frame.

He unsheathed his buck knife ─ that Andrea gave to him during their first week of acquaintanceship ─ and plunged it into the skull of a walker that had just narrowly missed sinking its teeth into his collarbone. Its friend was almost successful in its attempt, and the weight of its body pressing against Theo's was too much. He toppled over.

With the grass flush against his back, Theo dug his fingers into the walker's shoulders, keeping it as far from him as possible. He could feel it thrashing against him, and its mouth hung open in a desperate attempt to feast on his flesh, snarls loud and inescapable. Theo grunted in exasperation, his clammy fingers struggling to maintain grip around the knife's hilt. The blade teetered behind the walker's head, the sun's gaze glinting along the sharpened edge. He clenched his teeth together as he attempted to push the blade into the walker's skull ─ so close yet so far. The weight of the dead one pressed on his arm, making matters more difficult than ever.

Then, he heard a great screech of metal grating against metal.

He kept the walker at arm's length, his arms shaking from the pressure, elbows aching. Footsteps thudded against the dirt around him, and suddenly the dead one was being drawn away from his body, and the blast of a gunshot rang through the air. The body thudded to the ground.

The man from behind the fence was here. As was the boy.

Without hesitation, they scooped Michonne up, one of her arms draped over Theo's shoulders, the other around the man's. The young boy in the cowboy-hat raced to the gate, and as soon as they were past it, he slammed it close. Walkers threw themselves against the chain-link, but it was too late.

Theo was safe.

But almost as soon as he was inside of the prison walls, the bow was being yanked out of his hands, the quiver ripped from his back, and the baseball bat he kept for the blonde girl torn from his waistband. A gun was pointed between his eyes.

The man was back.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

The wailing of a baby inside of the cell-block beyond Theo's perception ─ considering he was in what looked to be a cafeteria bordered with thick iron-bars ─ echoed through the chilling silence, and his purpose of being there was sharpened into complete clarity.

He heaved a deep breath, "Someone who's meant to be here."

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

the next chapter is going
to be tense 😬