In the Very End: Book One

Chapter 45

Quinn nodded before lifting up a small bag and placing it over her shoulder. Something was different about her. She grabbed my hand and we fell behind the rest of the group. She took each step slower than before, took each breath heavier than before. I noticed the side of her face was an ugly purple color and stopped abruptly.

She turned and looked at me. "What?"

"Who did that to you?" I demanded.

"Some guy of the Governor's," she replied like it was no big deal. "I left him for dead after I kicked his ass."

She looked weak...different.

"I feel lost without the rest of 'em," she said quietly as we started to walk again. "Rick, Michonne, Carl...Judith."

"We'll find 'em," I said confidently although I wasn't so sure myself.

"Yeah," she added nonchalantly. "We can't be the only survivors, right?"

This made me think of Beth. "I lost 'er."

I saw Quinn look at me from the corner of my eye.

"What?" she asked.

"Beth," I said quickly. "I lost her."

"She's dead?" she asked.

"Nah, just gone."

She nodded before averting her gaze back out to the road. She held her stomach with one hand and limped beside me. I gave her fingers a squeeze as we continued behind the men.

___

We finally reached a barn-type structure.

"We'll pull off here for the night!" Joe called out.

"C'mon," Quinn said as she tugged on my hand.

When we claimed our spaces in the barn and got situated, she snuck me out to the woods; said she had to talk to me. We walked hand in hand as the leaves crunched under our feet.

"Now what was it that you wanted to talk about?" I asked.

But instead of letting her talk, I placed my lips on her's. She hesitated before kissing me back.

"What's goin' on?" I asked.

___

Quinn's POV

Should I tell him? How would he react? He'd probably never speak to me again, but he needed to know. It's not something I could just keep from him.

"Did one of those guys touch you?" he asked. I didn't answer. "Quinn, what the hell is goin' on?"

"Daryl, I'm pregnant," I said quickly.

My entire body tensed and I couldn't move a muscle. My words hung in the air as he froze in place and stared at me. There was a long moment of silence and I knew right then and there that this was a bad idea.

"You know for sure?" he asked quietly.

I nodded. "I raided a store for a test. The moodiness and the morning sickness. It all adds together."

"Jesus, Quinn," he said, placing his head in his hands before bringing them down and looking at me.

"I know, bad timing," I said as I looked off into the woods.

"This ain't bad," Daryl said gruffly as he tried to look into my eyes. "That what you think?"

"I don't know what to think, Daryl," I snapped, finally looking at him. "How the hell are we gonna raise a baby in this world? If I or the baby even survives—"

"How can you think like that?" he asked, but before he could continue, I was talking again.

"Daryl, think about it. We're missing half our group, we have no food, no shelter, and no one to deliver it."

"You delivered Judith," he said suddenly.

"Yeah and Lori didn't survive. Besides, I'll be the one giving birth."

He placed his head in his hands once again. I sighed as tears pricked my eyes.

"We'll get through this," he said, pulling me into his arms.

I breathed in his musky scent. He smelt so comforting, so warming. The moment didn't last long before we heard the groans and growls of the dead.

"God damn it," I mumbled, kicking a tree trunk.

I unsheathed my knife and took down the first one. Before I could yank the knife out, something pushed me to the ground face first. I struggled underneath its grasp before rolling over onto my back. I grabbed ahold of its throat.

All of the sudden, the body went limp and the weight was pulled off of me. Behind the darkness was my savior. He grabbed my hand and pulled me up.

"Let's head back," he said lowly.

I nodded as I leaned into his chest, suddenly feeling nauseous. On our way back to the garage, I pulled away from Daryl and the last of the contents in my stomach came up. I felt Daryl pull my hair out of my face as he rubbed my back.

I fell backwards onto my butt as I finished. Daryl pulled me into his chest and we sat on the forest floor for the next ten to fifteen minutes. I felt him shuffle behind me before rising and pulling me up with him.

We walked back to the rest of the group. Daryl and I had a place on the cold, cement floor. He wrapped his arms around my waist as he pulled me in close. I was having some déjà vu from the farm; when Daryl and I used to sleep in the tent together.

This lead me to think of Dale and Shane and anyone else we lost. That was a time I didn't want to go back to. I kept thinking about how if this had never happened, if the apocalypse had never even broke out. I probably wouldn't be with Daryl, nor the rest of my friends. The chances of meeting them within the real world were slim.

My thoughts brought me to sleep at some point. Either that, or Daryl's soft snores in my ear.