[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 413 - Realizing the New Ability Brought by Evolution

Leon was stunned.

He stared dumbfounded at the man in front of him, who was damn near falling apart.

Oedipus complex?

Oh, fucking Jesus Christ.

He'd rather brawl with a hundred Walkers bare-handed than stand here listening to a grown man's emotional confession.

Since when had he become someone's goddamn shrink?

Had his personal charisma really grown that powerful?

Powerful enough that even a hard-boiled iron man like Daryl Dixon would willingly crack himself open in front of him?

Just as Leon was still baffled by his own cursed "charisma," Daryl's voice came again, thick and nasal.

"I don't know... I fucking really don't know why..."

He lifted his reddened eyes and stared at Leon. Lost.

"The moment I see your eyes... I just... I just can't hide anything."

"I don't want to say it. But I can't stop myself..."

"It's like... if I don't say it, I'll fucking suffocate the next second."

BZZZT!

Leon's brain felt like it had been split open by a bolt of lightning.

The world went still.

He thought of Lizzie.

That little girl. In front of him, she had been exactly the same.

Those sick, twisted thoughts had spilled right out of her mouth, completely beyond her control.

He'd told himself he'd just scared her.

Told himself she was a kid with a weak will.

Fuck.

He'd been wrong. Completely wrong.

It wasn't that Lizzie was too fragile.

It wasn't that Daryl trusted him too much.

It was him.

It was his own eyes.

The evolution he'd just completed hadn't only given him a broader psychic network, hadn't only given him finer control over the Walkers.

It had given him something else entirely.

A devilish ability.

Interrogation.

Psychic interference.

As long as he willed it, as long as he focused his attention on a single person, that person would have no secrets left. Not one.

Thoughts locked in the deepest corners of the mind. The darkest ones. The most shameful ones. The secrets someone would die before admitting. All of it would crack open in front of him like a safe someone had pried apart with a crowbar.

Shit.

A chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his skull.

What the hell was this?

A passively triggered truth serum?

This wasn't simple power anymore.

This was authority that only a god should have.

He looked at Daryl's face, etched with pain and confusion, and the flicker of excitement at discovering something new was snuffed out instantly by something colder. Something deeper.

He felt like a stranger to himself again.

"You... why are you looking at me like that?"

Daryl's skin was crawling under that unreadable, shifting gaze.

Leon pulled himself back.

He took a slow breath and pressed the storm in his chest down by force.

Not the time.

He had to deal with the man in front of him first. The one who was about two minutes from a complete mental collapse.

Leon stepped forward, fished a cigarette from his pocket, stuck it between Daryl's lips, and lit it.

"Alright. Quit acting like a goddamn woman."

He clapped Daryl on the shoulder, keeping his voice as easy as he could manage.

"If you like her, go after her."

"What's wrong with an Oedipus complex?"

"Just don't fall for Bruce and start taking out life insurance policies."

"It's not the fucking end of the world... oh, shit. It is the end of the world."

Leon had cracked himself up.

"What I mean is — look around you. You're still losing sleep over something like this?"

"You like her, she needs someone to protect her. How is that not the most natural thing in the world?"

He rested his hand on Daryl's shoulder. The dark-gold in his eyes caught the light in a way Daryl couldn't quite read.

"Listen, Daryl. My good buddy."

"Stop thinking about all that useless garbage. That's how men turn into cowards."

"Do what you want to do."

"You like Carol, then go take her to bed and make her forget how to walk. Why are you tiptoeing around like a damn sissy? You've got less nerve than Amy right now."

"Just don't make a baby. Be safe."

Daryl took a long, hard drag.

He looked at Leon. At this man who was several years younger than him. At that face that seemed to give exactly zero shits about anything.

The stone that had been sitting on his chest, the one he couldn't breathe around — he felt it, just barely, shift.

"Fuck. You really are a bastard."

Daryl scrubbed a hand roughly across his face, pushed Leon's hand off his shoulder, and turned to leave.

His footsteps, this time, weren't frantic. Not like before.

Leon watched him go and slowly exhaled a long breath of smoke.

Then he turned toward the mess hall entrance, where two heads were still peeking around the doorframe.

Rick and Glenn.

His gaze settled on Rick's face.

He wanted to test it.

Test exactly how terrifying this new ability really was.

Rick's body went rigid.

Leon's gaze felt like two scalpels slicing straight through his skull.

He felt like... he should probably say something.

The moment that thought surfaced, a cold sweat broke across Rick's skin.

➤ Next: Explosive — Heartbreak