Bright lights and a searing pain.

That's all I remember as the ringing in my ears finally stopped. I peeled my eyes open slowly, shutting them instantly as the fluorescent light bulbs reflected off the white walls. I was in a hospital I knew that much. I'd been in and out of them my whole life; I would never forget what they looked like.

The bed below me was soft, nothing like the hard floors I was used to when we were on the run.

Daryl. My mind instantly flickered to his face, covered in dirt and sweat from long days in the Atlanta heat. Where was he?

I slowly opened my eyes again, blinking rapidly to allow for adjustment. I looked frantically around the empty room to see if I could see him, to no avail. There was a chair at the side of the room with a blanket draped over the top but no one was sat in it; it looked cold and unused.

That's when another wave of pain hit me. My shoulder burned as I tried to sit up, the pain shooting from my shoulder down my arm and across my collarbone, causing me to fall back down to the bed below me.

Connected to my right elbow was an IV drip, pumping fluids into my tired body. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't for pain relief.

A moment had passed when the thought occurred to me, has this all been a horrid coma dream? Have I finally woken up into the world before all this started? Before the walkers hit and I'd lost my family? Before I'd met Daryl? Before Jacob?

It wasn't until the door opened and a slightly dishevelled blonde walked into the room that the thought left me just as quick as it had arrived.

"Beth!" I beamed at her, checking her over quickly. Other than a few cuts on her face and the plaster cast on her wrist, she was relatively unharmed.

"Finally, you're awake!" A small smile appeared on her face as she entered, sitting down in the cold chair across from me.

"Where are we?" I asked, accepting the small plastic cup of water she'd handed me.

"A Grady memorial hospital, they brought us here when we got hit by the car." She hung her head low and ran her finger around the brim of her own cup.

"Who's they?"

"They're police officers, they took this place when the outbreak started and they've been bringing people here as a way of 'helping' them." She held up a hand and made air quotes as she spoke. Something was telling me these people were far from helping others.

"How long have I been out?" I asked, using my good arm to push myself upright in the bed so that I could drink.

"A few days, maybe a week?" We've had to keep you hooked up to the IV for fluids and meds to help with your heart." Her smile was small but seemed genuine.

"You're not telling me something." I spoke up as a moment of silence passed between us. "Beth?"

She sighed and finally looked up at me.

"These people ain't good people. There was a boy here, Noah, we both tried to get out, to go and find the others to bring them back here, but they caught me. Noah got away but they dragged me back in here." I leant my head back against the wall and sighed. We were sitting ducks here. If they were just helping people we would be able to freely go, but the way she spoke, that wasn't the case.

At least this Noah kid managed to get out, maybe he would be able to find the others and bring them back here for us; bring Daryl back here.

"Then we need to get out." I sat forwards and placed my cup on the table beside my bed, throwing off the covers with my good arm, ready to take the drip out and make a run for it.

"We can't."

"Why not? If we're basically prisoners here then we can't just sit around and do nothing." The will to get back to Daryl was something that was burning inside of me. I'd never been one to fuck with the world, to go up against people who were clearly a lot stronger than I was; but I needed to get back to Daryl, I needed to get things back to normal with him. At least as normal as they could be.

"Carol is here." That one small sentence sent a wave of emotions through me. If Carol was here that means that she and probably someone else came out here looking for us. That means everyone knew where we were and probably it was all down to Noah.

"What?"

"Honestly I don't know, it wasn't long after I woke up here that they brought her in. She hasn't woken up yet." She shook her head and looked down at the cup in front of her. It meant something though. If Carol was here maybe the others knew where she was; maybe Daryl did.

She was far too young to be out here dealing with this. She'd just lost her dad and Maggie was no where to be seen. We didn't know if she was okay and now here we both are stranded in the middle of god knows where with some corrupt cops and no way of getting out.

"Come on, Dawn wants to talk to you." Beth walked over to the far corner of the room where a few boxes were laid out, pulling out a nurses uniform from the top one.

"Dawn?" I asked, pulling myself off the bed and taking off my IV drip.

"She's the leader here." She didn't say much else as she handed me the uniform and left the room, waiting for me to change.

"I look horrendous." I shook my head as I walked out of my room, the hallways were dimly lit, the electricity clearly being saved for things that were more important and there was a man at the end of the hallway dressed in a cops uniform.

"No Percy tell me, should I use smaller words?" The voice was loud and echoed down the hallway. The man was standing at the end of the hall way with an old man wearing a very similar outfit to the one that I was wearing. "Is the directive fix the hole in my sleeve too complicated for you?" Beth and I stopped outside of my door looking on as the man pushed him to the floor. I was about to step forwards and intervene but Beth held onto my arm, stopping me in my tracks.

A woman, wearing the same police uniform walked around the two of them.

"What about you two?" He asked, a slight sneer on his face.

"I need them, come on." The woman directed Beth and I to follow her, the officer following us with his eyes as a shiver ran down my spine.

"Thank you, Beth. I need to talk to Annora on my own." Beth nodded and gave my wrist a squeeze before leaving the room. "You've been out a while." The woman stated as she sat down on the edge of a desk, leaving me to stand alone in the room in front of her.

"Um," I stopped and looked around, a few pieces of paper littered the floor but nothing that seemed too much out of place. "Yeah, I must have been pretty worse for wear." I bit the inside of my cheek and looked down at the floor, not wanting to meet the womans' eyes. "The man Beth and I were with-"

"Beth already asked me the same thing when she woke up, you were both on your own surrounded by rotters. Had we not have found you when we did, you would be dead. You more so than Beth by the amount of medication we had to give you for your heart condition." Beth must have told her about that, there was no way she would have known otherwise. It wasn't like I wore it like a sign.

It was suspicious I'll admit. There was no way after being hit by that car that Beth and I would have ended up together lying in the middle of the road. Daryl would have gotten to us before then. He would have come out of that house to help us. "You fit enough to work with Beth?" She asked; standing and walking towards me, forcing me to look up at her. I didn't speak, just nodded my head. "Then go." I nodded and walked out of the room, leaning against the wall once the door had closed; just being in the presence of that woman made my heart race.

I found Beth sitting at the ledge of the elevator, her head leant against the wall as she looked down.

"We'll figure this out you know." I reassured her, sitting down beside her and rubbing a hand across her shoulder.

I was the only one of us to turn around as the door to the hallway opened, the woman before with the police uniform on exited, leaning against the wall.

"Percy's going to be okay." She tried to reassure Beth as she watched the two of us.

"Nothing's going to be okay." Beth spoke up, no other emotion in her voice than sadness.

"Are you going to jump?" The question caught me off guard. Personally it looked pretty peaceful and if I wanted to be left alone that's where I would go.

"I wanted to be left alone. You left your elevator key where it was." Beth didn't even look at her as she spoke.

"Well, I know you two aren't going anywhere." The woman spoke, confidence clear in her voice but it was soft, like a woman talking to her child.

"Neither are you." I shrugged, chipping in for the first time in this conversation. Beth shook her head for a moment before finally turning to face the woman.

"You keep telling yourself you have to do whatever it takes until this is all over," I watched the two of them as I listened, being awake for a mere ten minutes really left me out of the loop. "But this isn't over. This is it. This is who you are and what this place is until the end."

"This place saved you, the both of you." The woman now had a little more authority in her voice as she looked down at us. "I saved you, twice." Her gaze was now directly on Beth as she spoke. "The others don't know what you did. The others think Joan was trying to get back at me," I looked at Beth as the woman spoke.

What did she do and who was Joan? Did Beth do something to someone here in the hospital? There was more to this place than what Beth was telling me. "And Gorman and Jefferies were in the wrong place at the wrong time." Did she kill someone? I whipped my head around to see her staring up at the woman, by now I had figured out that she was this Dawn person who was in charge.

"That's what happened."

"Bullshit." Dawn spoke up quickly, interrupting Beth "I saw the smashed jar." I had no idea what to make of this situation. I wanted to speak up and help Beth, but I wasn't there, I didn't know what had happened. "You're a cop killer."

"Beth would never kill somebody." I protested, my voice finally being found. I was used to just sitting on the sidelines and letting shit just happen in front of me, but here I was, basically becoming a spectator in their game of back and forth and I was sick and tired of hearing the way Dawn was talking to her. I didn't think Beth could ever kill someone.

I mean sure in this world we are pushed to do things we wouldn't normally do and I'm sure that if I was pushed to do it I would be able to kill a living breathing person. Walkers Beth had killed hundreds of, I'd been around her most of the time when she'd done it but I just couldn't see her killing another person; not after everything she'd been through.

"But she did, what do you think the others would do if they found out, Beth? I protected you." The way Dawn was speaking to Beth, it wasn't right. There was something so manipulative about it, something bone chilling.

A door clicked closed behind Dawn, all three of us turning to face the cop that was now standing at the end of the hallway; a lump in my throat as Beth and I stood to face him. This was not going to end well

***********

I sat on the floor of Carols' room, curled up on one side with my knees pulled up to my chest, Beth sat down beside me.

She'd just ended up killing the cop who had walked in on our conversation earlier. It had all happened so fast but there was a fight between and Dawn and the man, a rough one; both myself and Beth being thrown across the room as the cop pushed us. Dawn had managed to kick him towards the elevator shaft whilst I lay on the floor, the pain in my shoulder in that moment excruciating. Beth had pushed him down the elevator shaft.

Neither of us said anything as we sat in Carols' room, the silence and steady rhythm of her breathing was enough for us; until Dawn walked in and I decided I'd excuse myself.

I didn't need to hear the rest of this.

I sat outside of the room with my knees pulled up to my chest and my one good arm draped across the top as the other fell down to the floor, releasing some of the pressure on my shoulder.

My mind wandered to Daryl. Where he was and whether or not he'd survived.

He had been so angry at me over Jacob, over what had happened long before I'd even met him. His life didn't have me in it back then and yes, I realise now I should have told him what had happened, that I was engaged before all of this began but I'd wanted so desperately to forget about all of that. Not that the images of Jacob were making things any easier for me; that was until Daryl came along.

He was like a comfort blanket to me, something that I clung to right from the beginning to keep me safe and warm and protected. But now he wasn't here. I was far away from him not knowing if one another were safe or alive. I hadn't felt this feeling in a long time.