my tears ricochet

Chapter Fifty

His feet started walking, he started counting heartbeats. He kept going until the body looked like his own from the distance.

.

A wisp of campfire smoke caught Daryl's attention, drawing him through the trees and along the paved road, catching the sight of a man tucking himself in tight to the natural incline of a ditch. It was easier to press closer to Joe's men in the darkness of the night, investigating the permitter of their temporary camp and making sure they were settling in on their own.

But something else was here.

The sky was indigo drenched in a cold shock. Daryl forced himself to drown out the white noise as he gazed through the darkness, trying to catch the shape of two girls together. The temperature had started to drop further and further each passing day and he felt the bite of it against his bones, his left knee aching somewhat.

Daryl faltered, seeing the prey seconds before it was too late.

"Oh, dearie me," Joe grinned out of the shadows. "You screwed up, asshole."

Michonne's sword was kicked away as the men drew their circle tighter, cutting out of the night like death itself. They were coyotes circling a carcass, ready to devour the remains whole. Daryl peered through the night as he tried to translate their motions for a weak point, somewhere he could enter and render the situation as finished.

He didn't have a gun. He had three good bolts left. Joe's group were walking as a loaded armoury, cheerfully filling the gaps with bullets and manpower. "Today is a day of reckoning, sir. Restitution," Joe continued, theatrical with his speech. "A balancing of the whole damn universe. Shit, and I was thinking of turning in for the night on New Year's Eve."

Rick and Michonne were pinned, gazing up at the men holding the loaded guns down at them. Someone was in the car and Daryl tried to hope it was Carl, that somebody else had emerged from the prison unscathed, that they weren't the last people in the world who remember Dale and Hershel and Lori.

But he also hoped Carl wasn't there. He knew the man peering through the glass, the way he shoved magazines in his bag with a slick eagerness. Glossy images of children bent and folded, faces caressed with a greedy finger.

Joe started counting down like a pulse that was racing and Daryl felt his patience snap, shoving through the slight nest of men. "Joe!" He called, waving a hand up. His other hand was braced on his crossbow, ready to swing.

Rick's face blanched at the sight of him. They had been together in the yard before Rick left, staggering like a deadman as Daryl single-mindedly smashed Phillip's hands with a stone.

"Hold up."

"You're stopping me on eight, Daryl."

"Just hold up," he said, drawing nearer. The men were confused on who to aim for; the man who killed their friend or the other man who killed their friend. Daryl needed to get the guns off of Rick for him to serve any purpose in a fight. Joe didn't even look surprised at his appearance, like he knew eventually their lines would cross and intersect at the right moment.

"This is the guy that killed Lou, so we got nothing to talk about," someone snapped, chamber clicking like teeth.

Joe's face stretched in a grin. "The thing about nowadays is we got nothing but time. So let's talk. Where the hell have you been?"

"These people, you're gonna let 'em go," Daryl said. If Rick and Michonne could survive the night, maybe they would be the ones to find Ivy down the line. "These are good people."

He could trust Rick with a child. He trusted Michonne with Ivy. They could do what Daryl couldn't. Their goodness mattered and maybe it would be enough for his kid to get by a little longer with a little less pain.