Chapter Fifteen

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   The next day was calmer, mostly scavenging and trying to forget the events of the CDC. And soon we came to an agreement, to ditch T-dog's van, Shane's jeep, and Daryl's truck, so the RV had enough gas for the next eighty miles.

   "Abigale, can I talk to you?" Rick asked before I could get on the back of Daryl's motorcycle.

   "Yeah," I replied, "I'll be right back," I told Daryl, he nodded and watched as Rick pulled me to the side. "What's up Rick?" I asked. I knew what he wanted to talk about, I knew he was gonna say before he even said it.

   "How are you feeling? I know there's been a lot of stuff goin' on." I stifle the urge to laugh, this is from the script for him, the amount of times I've heard him ask me this stuff is ridiculous.

   "Rick, I—" I sigh, resisting the urge to run my fingers through my hair. "Okay, look, I'm doing alright, the bruises don't even hurt anymore, I'm fine." When in doubt, deflect.

   "That's not what I meant, and you know it," He retorted.

   "Then ask me what you want the answer to. We both know you can say those words, so say them," I snap. Rick has always had a difficult time saying what he meant, especially when it come to this. He sighs and runs his hands through his hair, trying to find some kind of comfort in the action. "Hurry up, Rick, I'm not going to wait here all day for you to spit it out."

   "Do you—Do you still want to die?" He finally chocked out, and for a second I was proud of him for being able to say it.

   "Yes." He closed his eyes. "But I have people to live for, so I'm not going to act on it. yet," I say, and I walk over to Daryl and get on the bike behind him. Daryl glances back at me and I just shake my head, and shift so I'm more comfortable and hold onto his torso lightly.

   The next thirty miles are quiet between Daryl and I, not that you can have deep conversations over the roar of the bike, we only had to make a detour once, but it didn't add too many more miles. That was until we passed Sharpsburg, Georgia where we ran into some real problems.

   Daryl and I kept driving ahead, through the car pile ups, trying to find a way the RV could fit, we circled around to talk to Dale.

   "See a way through?" Dale shouted over the motorcycle. Daryl looks behind us and nods, motioning for Dale to follow us, and we quickly turned around and got in front of the RV and slowly weaved through the abandoned cars.

   I jumped and tightened my grip on Daryl when something popped in the RV, and Daryl stopped and motioned me to get off the bike after he had turned it off.

   "I said it. Didn't I say it?" Dale asked as everyone stepped out of the RV and Rick, Lori, Carol, and the kids walked from their car. "A thousand times dead in the water," He complained, walking in front of the RV to see the front.

   "Problem Dale?" Shane asked. I rolled my eyes, of course something is wrong. Dumb ass.

   "Oh, just a small matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no hope of—" Daryl started rummaging though the back of a car, "—Okay, that was dumb," I chuckle as we all look around.

   "If you can't find a radiator hose here..." Shane trailed off.

   "There's a whole bunch of stuff we can find here," Daryl said as he continued looking through the car.

   "Can syphon more fuel from these cars for a start," T-dog says as he starts to head towards more cars.

   "Maybe some water," Carol mentions hopefully.

   "Or food," Glenn suggests, I nod and start walking towards a yellow sun damaged mustang and start going through it, before Lori's voice stops me.

   "This is a graveyard." Everyone stops and looks at her. "I don't know how I feel about this..." She says quieter.

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