Bethany Sutton Chapter 6

Daryl was already on the rooftop courtyard, waiting for Beth to arrive. His thoughts were easy to wander to the past, to his childhood, on days when he was prepared for a confrontation, even if it wasn’t going to be an angry one. He had to confront Beth about the man in the café. He had to ask what was going on.

His father, Donnie, would have mocked him if he could see his youngest son now. Donnie had possessed a keen eye. It was what had made him a great tracker. While it had been a gift in Daryl’s hands it had been a curse in his father’s. Donnie Dixon could read people as easily as he could read a trail, especially his youngest boy, and he’d used that talent to torment Daryl at every opportunity.

Scared of the wittle gwirl? Donnie would have chided in baby speak. Scared she’ll see wight through you and turn to run? If she’s got any sense she’d take off far from your worthless whore ass. I can’t believe any woman alive would pay good money to be pecked at by your little baby dick--

“Stop!” Daryl whispered aloud. His voice was rife with vehemence. Even though he’d been dead almost twenty-six years Donnie Dixon still haunted Daryl’s mind. He was the voice of self-doubt that had very nearly held Daryl down in abject poverty and misery. Every time something good came along his father’s voice would mutter discouragement at the back of his mind. He just wanted that voice to be silenced. He doubted it ever would.

Now the sun was low in the western horizon, to Daryl’s left, and it had splashed crimson and gold across the sky as though God was a clumsy artist, streaking paint from his brush as he slashed it across the canvass that covered the earth. Even when clumsy God had managed to mistakenly create a masterpiece. Daryl though it would probably surprise Beth to know that Daryl not only believed in a divine creator, he loved Him and thought about him often.

When the door opened behind him Daryl was relieved. He’d worried that Beth wouldn’t show. He made it a point to lean casually against the same wall they’d stood at the previous day and ignored the scratchy surface of the stone, or the heat that billowed up from it in visible waves. He looked good, Beth thought, in a pair of distressed jeans and a form-fitting tee-shirt. Then again, Beth thought, Daryl Dixon would look in sackcloth and ashes.

“Sutton,” he said, by way of greeting.

“Father Dixon,” she replied, making him chuckle. “Am I going to be viciously attacked by a bony mummy tonight?”

“Nah, she’s back in her tomb.”

“Good.”

They looked out at the lake. It shimmered in the distance, at least the narrow section of it that was visible from their vantage point, looking like a pool of liquid gold. One thing that Daryl liked about Beth was her ability to enjoy silence without feeling the need to fill it with meaningless chatter. They watched the sky darken in that peaceful silence, while on the streets below men, women, and children ran about with frantic energy, living their lives like bees that never stopped working. Beth didn’t realize it until Daryl broke the silence that she’d inched nearer to him, longing for closeness.

“We were asking one another questions yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t get to ask mine.”

“That’s right, you didn’t.”

“I was completely honest with you about who I am.”

Beth nodded. “You were.”

“Why were you so afraid of that man in the café?”

Beth considered how to answer him with as much honesty as possible. She looked into his eyes and refused to break contact. “I can’t tell you everything but I’ll tell you as much as I’m able to.”

He nodded, deciding that for now, he’d be satisfied with that. “Okay.”

“I’m running from him. If he finds me he’ll kill me.”

Daryl regarded her in silence. This was hard to hear. How could anyone want to hurt a girl like Bethany Sutton? He could tell that she was genuinely kind and caring. He understood people. He recognized evil when he saw it in someone’s eyes. God knew he’d grown up staring it in the face from birth to age fourteen. He didn’t see evil in Bethany Sutton and no one was a good enough actor to fool Daryl Dixon. Not when it came to having a cruel, callous soul.

Had he looked into the eyes of the man who’d so badly frightened Bethany, he was sure he would have seen the evil she spoke of. The kind of evil he’d grown up with, putting scars on his back that he’d spent thousands of dollars to have repaired and faded. They would never be gone completely. They didn’t just mar his skin, they marred his soul.

“The man and woman, Michonne and Rick--”

Beth shook her head, cutting him off. “That’s two questions and I can’t answer them. I’m sorry. Daryl, I came here tonight to tell you I can’t talk to you anymore. It’s dangerous to be around me and I don’t want to get you hurt.”

“I’m a big boy. I can make up my own mind on that.”

Again, Beth shook her head and felt her chest tighten with sadness. “No. I won’t be responsible for ruining someone’s life. Or worse, making someone lose it. I like you, Daryl Dixon. I like you probably more than I should considering I don’t really know you. If we’d met under different circumstances I think we could have been great friends. As it is, we can’t be anything at all.”

She was glad he didn’t try to stop her when she walked away. She stopped at the rooftop exit and looked back at him. He gazed after her with the most intense expression she’d ever seen in anyone’s eyes. It felt as though he’d reached into her soul to try to feel her out. She hurried through the door, down the stairs, and back to her unit where she locked the door and laid down on her bed to sleep once again.

……….

“Do you remember when we first met?” asked Rick.

Michonne sat on the couch with her computer in her lap. She’d spotted Negan at Glory Lake and had taken quite a few photographs of him with a group of some fifteen other people. Their behavior hadn’t been at all suspicious. They’d merely seemed like people out on the lake to enjoy the holiday. Still she’d been curious about them and had gotten some great shots of each person in his group.

“Yeah,” she said distractedly. “I was on my first case, prosecuting a pedophile. You were working the security detail for the perp.”

“You kept ignoring my attempts to get your attention,” he remembered.

“Like I am now because, like then, I have more important things to worry about than your attempts to get in my pants.”

“Michonne--”

Rick took one of her hands in his. She finally looked up at him. “I was never unfaithful to you. I know I fucked up. I’m sorry. Can’t you forgive me?”

“You broke my heart, Rick. You broke Lori’s, too. You made a mess of everything.”

“I know I did. I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since.”

Michonne pulled her hand from his. “Why are you still trying?”

“Because I love you,” he answered, without hesitation. “Do you feel nothing for me?”

Michonne gazed at her laptop without really concentrating on the photographs there. She didn’t confirm she loved him but she didn’t deny it either. That was progress, Rick supposed.

A loud knock on the door had both of them jumping and reaching for their guns. Rick relaxed, recognizing the familiar knock, and went to the door. He opened it on Lori’s serene face.

“Viper reporting for duty,” she said dryly.

Rick stepped aside and she came in. She left a very large, very heavy case in the hall for Rick to get, which he did.

“Samurai,” she said, using Michonne’s code name. She slipped her hands into her pockets. “Where is the client?”

“From the looks of her vitals she’s asleep,” Michonne said.

Rick always hated it when the three of them were in the room alone, or even in the same town. The lack of anger between the women always unnerved him. Michonne didn’t blame Lori for Rick’s decision to break things off because, despite what she said to the contrary, she’d understood why Rick had done what he did. He’d begged her not to leave him for the military, that doing so would tear them apart, but she’d chosen to go into the career she wanted. Doing so had caused her to lose the man she’d loved.

For her part, Lori had understood that Rick had never stopped loving Michonne, and that he never would, and she’d not blamed Michonne for Rick’s mistakes.

“Is my unit set up?” Lori asked.

Michonne nodded and pointed to a set of keys on the coffee table. “I’ve got the place ready for you. Video feed to the client’s room is all set up. You’re directly across the street from her apartment.”

“2A is a studio, isn’t it? I won’t have to scope two rooms plus a bathroom?”

“Right,” Michonne confirmed.

“I’ll introduce you to the client tomorrow,” Rick said.

It was just past midnight and Lori took that to be her cue to leave. She looked at Rick. “I called Oleander. She provided the poison darts in the case. I’ll give them to you when we reach my unit. She wants in, just so you know.”

“Andrea is a poisons expert. We don’t have a use for her on this case,” said Rick.

“You know Andrea. She’ll find something to do.”

Their voices faded and Michonne’s attention went back to the photos she’d captured of Negan at the lake. She didn’t recognize the people he was with. Chances were they were family and friends, nothing more. Still, she decided to send the pictures to Shane.

She also decided to run them by a few sources she had outside of the FBI. She figured it couldn’t hurt.

“Michonne, I’m about to turn in. The Threat is still in Springston,” Shane said tiredly, having answered on the fourth ring.

“I sent you an email. You’ll need to read it in the morning. I have a request.”

“What?”

“Hummingbird needs to talk to Oldtimer.”

He was silent for so long she began to wonder if he hadn’t fallen asleep on the line. “Why?”

“Why do you think? We have untraceable cell phones. One call, Shane. It would do her a world of good to talk to him.”

“One call. I’ll text details.”

He hung up and Michonne smiled at her little victory.

……….

Beth wasn’t particularly happy to meet another member of the team and she made no effort to smile and shake hands. She merely cast a single glance at the tall, thin woman who’d come in to meet her and then put her head back down and closed her eyes. Lori left with Michonne, then, and Beth returned to her solitude. Now she sat on the couch of her apartment with her hair tangled and her clothes rumpled from having been slept in. Because they didn’t have a confirmation that Negan had left the area Beth wasn’t allowed outside.

“Agent Walsh is arranging a phone call to your dad,” Michonne told her, when she returned later without Lori. “He’ll text me the details as soon as possible.”

“That’s great. Thanks, Michonne,” Beth answered, though without the enthusiasm Michonne expected.

She put a hand on Beth’s shoulder. “We’re going to keep you safe.”

“I want to ask what for,” Beth said quietly.

“I don’t understand.”

“What are you keeping me safe for? I can testify against Negan but then what? I’ll probably have to stay in this damned witness protection program anyway. You may never catch all the people involved in his ring and me and my family may never be safe again.”

“Beth, I know it looks bad now but you’ll be reunited with your family. You won’t always be in danger and on the run.”

She nodded but Michonne could see that Beth was in a dark place. She was so young and she was so lonely, and the truth was she and Rick couldn’t be everything Beth needed and keep her safe at the same time.

Even news that Negan was gone and they’d received the clear to let Beth roam free, escorted of course, didn’t manage to lift her spirits. She spent days in bed, watching TV, eating, neglecting to shower or change clothes. Beth kept up a steady internal dialog that things wouldn’t always be this way but she couldn’t rise up out of the depression. She had no job. She had no friends. She literally felt like she had nothing.

Thoughts of Beth and her mental and emotional wellbeing were on Michonne’s mind when Friday evening rolled around. It was cloudy and Michonne expected it would storm that night. She was bringing in groceries when she looked at the door to apartment 2A. For all of his questionable choices in life, she’d seen the tenderness in the way Dixon had handled Beth in the restroom at the Flower Street Café. He could be just the distraction Beth needed to keep her spirits up. Perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to have Beth write him off.

“Rick, I want to talk to Dixon,” Michonne said, setting the groceries down.

“About what?”

“Beth needs a friend. He wants to be that friend.”

“I can see what you’re getting at already and I don’t know how good an idea it is. The man is a prostitute, Michonne. Beth’s an impressionable girl who could get her heart broken. You think she’s depressed now, imagine how bad it’ll be when she realizes he’s not going to change his whole way of life for her.”

He had a point but something in her gut told her that Dixon would be good for Beth, and maybe they weren’t giving her enough credit. “I can talk to him, make sure he keeps his hands to himself.”

Rick snorted, somewhat derisively. “You want a whore to keep his hands to himself? Really?”

“Yes, really,” Michonne snapped, annoyed now. “Rick, she’s gonna waste away in that room, wallowing in depression and sadness. She needs a friend. She’s an extrovert and this solitude is bad for her. She can’t take it.”

Though it was against his better judgment he had to agree that Beth was the friendly, outgoing type, and solitude was like slow acting poison to her. She needed someone to talk to. She needed someone in her life who could pay attention to her without constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure a killer wasn’t drawing down on her.

“Talk to him,” he finally relented. “Make sure he knows the risks. Don’t give too much away.”

In a move that surprised both Michonne and Rick, she leaned in and kissed him square on his lips.

“Thanks.”

He licked his lips, wishing he could come back for more. “You’re welcome.”

……….

Daryl answered the door dressed in green surgical scrubs with a face mask hanging below his chin and wearing a pair of latex exam gloves.  He opened the door just as Beth was making a rare appearance to take out the garbage. She took in his costume, heaved a sigh, and continued down the hall. Daryl looked after her before turning his attention to Michonne.

“May I help you?”

“I need to talk to you about her,” Michonne said quietly.

“Is she okay?” he whispered, seeing that Beth looked a mess when she came back up the hall and disappeared into her room with a final curious glance at him.

“She could be better,” Michonne said, when Beth closed her door. “I won’t take up a lot of your time.”

He stepped back and allowed Michonne entrance. She saw that Daryl had filled his home with expensive furniture and, she figured, the wine rack on the opposite wall was filled with impressive vintages of expensive wines.

“Would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you. I’ll get right to it. Beth has told you she’s running from someone.”

Daryl nodded and leaned against the kitchen counter. “She says he’ll kill her if he finds her.”

Michonne agreed. “I can’t give you a lot of details but I can say that Bethany is a good woman. Her life has been disrupted through no fault of her own. She’s had to give up her family and her home. She needs a friend but I mistakenly encouraged her not to associate with you for your safety. Ever since then she’s been deeply depressed. Today was the first I’ve seen her out of her apartment since Tuesday.”

Daryl considered what Michonne had said but he wasn’t sure what she expected of him. “What are you asking of me?”

“If you’re willing to risk it I’m asking you to be her friend.”

“You may not ask that if you knew more about me,” he said.

“You would be surprised what I know about you, Mr. Dixon.”

He cocked a brow in curiosity. “Oh?”

“You grew up in an abusive home. Your mother died in a house fire. You ran away from home at fourteen. Your brother, Merle Dixon, is in prison for murdering your father a year after you left. You earn approximately two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars annually from your combined income of painting, legitimate massage jobs, your earnings from your mistresses, as well as being very good at the stock market. You’ve never been in trouble with the law, you’ve never drawn the attention of the IRS because you pay taxes on every single penny you earn. From what I’ve seen of you, Mr. Dixon, you seem to be a decent man, regardless of some of your practices. I’m not judging you, just saying.”

He regarded Michonne for a long time, his face admirably blank, giving nothing away of what he’d just heard regarding his private life from a complete stranger.

“You live in this building with my charge. It’s my job to know as much as I can about you,” Michonne elaborated. Beth needs a friend. If you’re willing to be there for her, help draw her out of her shell, we’ll include you in our protection detail.”

“I can take care of myself but I think you’ll need to convince Beth to talk to me.”

“That won’t be a problem. Daryl, listen, keep your hands to yourself. Not because I object on a moral basis, I don’t, but for her sake. She could quite easily fall in love with you and I can tell you right now, Beth wouldn’t be able to share you with your uh...clients. The last thing she needs on top of everything is a broken heart.”

A knock sounded at the door. Though Daryl didn’t make Michonne any promises he had every intention of keeping his friendship with Beth platonic.

His client, Rachelle, stood at the door in a red wig and dressed in a torn outfit with fake blood and injuries, with bruises marked on her face. The makeup job was so genuine she must have drawn looks on her way in.

“I’ll leave you to play doctor,” Michonne said, nodding at the woman on her way out.

“Moonlighting?” Rachelle asked Daryl, coming into his place and closing the door behind Michonne.

“No, she’s a friend.”

She looked skeptical but didn’t question it. “Dr. Dixon, I’ve been in an accident.”

He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around him while he peeled her ‘blood’ stained top off and walked her toward the massage table that he’d dressed up as a gurney. He lay her down and very slowly began peeling her pants and panties off.

“Let me take a look at what we’ve got here,” he said.

When she was naked, began kissing her belly, tasting the sweetness of the fake blood that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. He licked the length of her moist folds, eliciting a moan from her.

“I’m going to have to operate,” he said, and then slid his fingers inside.

……….

It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter…

That was the mantra Beth repeated as she listened to thunder roll outside. It didn’t matter to her that, right at that moment, Daryl was fucking some stranger. She knew it wasn’t Michonne because she’d heard her leave while she kept her ear pressed to the door of her unit. It was someone else but it wasn’t Ophelia.

Despite what she tried to tell herself it did matter. She felt jealousy, sharp and hot, deep in her chest and she wanted to go over to his door and demand he kick out whoever he had in there and stop fucking women for a living.

Of course that was unfair. They didn’t know each other very well and he owed her nothing. Still, she hated the idea of Daryl putting his hands on women and knowing she would never be one of those women. She buried herself in her pillow and ignored Rick’s invitation to dinner. Instead, she listened to the rain on the windowsill and went back to sleep.

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