Future Ghosts • TWD

135. The Escape.

"You are a kid. You're barely seventeen and you're stupid enough to do shit like this, so, yeah, you're a fuckin' kid. You're a kid 'til you can prove to me that you've wised your ass up," Daryl argued, his jaw tense.

"That's bullshit! I'm more responsible than any a'-" Rosie was interrupted by Connie taking her shoulder and turning her to make eye contact. Connie held out her notepad in front of her and pointed to it. Where are they? she had written. Rosie sent one more glare over to Daryl to try and communicate that she was still mad and this argument would be continued later, before taking a deep breath. She turned and started to lead them back to the Alpha's camp. "It's this way. When I left, they had us tied up to a tree. And I got out, 'cause I can handle myself," Rosie said with a firm voice, glaring at Daryl once more.

"We can talk about it later," Daryl said in a voice just as firm and tense as hers.

Rosie knew that the most important thing at that moment was getting Henry and Ian back, safe and alive, so she put aside her frustration for the time being. "They've got a shit ton more people than we thought. We can't just sneak in like this," Rosie said quietly as they approached the camp.

"Where're they tied up?" Daryl asked.

"Over here," Rosie said, pushing past a branch in her way. Just as she pushed past that branch, they started to hear yelling, screaming, and panicking. Then the growling and hissing. Daryl grabbed Rosie's arm, tugging her backward. "What?" she asked.

"You're stayin' here. We'll go get 'em," Daryl said, pushing past her.

"Are you kiddin'? You don't even-?"

"God damnit, Rosie. Stop," Daryl snapped, his voice rough and mean. Rosie snapped her mouth shut, unsure of what to do. When he was mad, he yelled. He didn't just snap and spit out something like that. Not to Rosie, at least. That's what made her think that this wasn't anger as much as it was fear. "Just stay here," he said, turning away and rushing off with Connie. Rosie wasn't sure how to feel. She backed away until her back hit a tree trunk, and she leaned against it with her arms crossed.

It was only two minutes later when Daryl and Connie reappeared with Ian, Henry, and Lydia.

"Rosie! Oh, my God! Where the hell did you go?" Ian asked as they all started rushing away from Alpha's campsite.

"Away," Rosie answered, running with them. Just as she said it, Henry fell to the ground with an oomph! after tripping over a tree root. Fighting the urge to laugh at him, Rosie skidded to a stop and crouched down next to him. "You good?" she asked.

"Yeah," Henry muttered in a pained voice. Rosie reached out her hand to him and he took it, letting her pull him back up to his feet. "This isn't the way back to Hilltop," Henry said, looking around with wide, panicked eyes.

"Tara made a deal with those assholes. We broke it. We ain't goin' back to Hilltop," Daryl explained.

Lydia nodded along with him. "He's right. There's too many of them. Alpha would destroy Hilltop to get me back now," she said. Rosie thought it was very strange that Lydia referred to her mother as Alpha, and that Alpha decided herself that she would be called Alpha. But she knew better than to ask.

"And why didn't you tell us there was that many of 'em?" Daryl asked in an annoyed, accusatory tone. Despite how frustrated with him Rosie was at that point, she was asking herself the same question. Lydia didn't say that there'd be a shit ton of them, but god damn, there were a shit ton of them.

However, Lydia didn't seem to like Daryl's question. She stared up at him with fire in her brown eyes, and Rosie had to look away because she got that weird feeling again. She thought about asking Daryl about it, but she was too mad at him for that. She had a guess as to why she felt this way, but she wasn't 100% sure if she was right. So she'd just have to wonder why Lydia's presence made her feel so strangely. "You kept me locked in a cage! What'd you expect? I wasn't going to betray my own people!" Lydia said frustratedly.