Flip Side {Daryl Dixon}

{... And Nail}

"How can she be gone?" Jax mumbles to himself as him, Lilith, Rick, Merle, Abraham, and Daryl stood around the dead body of the man that took Juno. "Did you see any tracks leading away?"

"Yeah, but they just vanish after a few feet." Daryl growled lowly as he paced like a wild animal. She was all alone out there now, maybe surrounded by enemies and the rest of that group could be doing god knows what to her.

"She didn't just climb a tree?" Lilith asked as she eyed the canopy far above their heads.

"She woulda come down by now, I yelled her name pretty loud. We been standin here long 'nough that she woulda seen us and known she was safe." Daryl snarled back, his patience wearing thinner and thinner the longer they stood there.

"Maybe she went back to the group." Rick offered, he knew that Daryl was already teetering on the edge of shutting down. He needed Juno. She kept him here. Merle jumped into the conversation so Daryl didn't get the chance to snap at the cop.

"Let's split, some head back ta see if she returned. I'll take Daryl, Jax, and crazy-town with me to see if the trail picks up somewhere else. Good?" He looked over at Rick to see if he agreed, the older redneck coming to terms with taking orders from the Grimes. Rick nodded and the others moved to get back to the others and tell them what was going on and what they had planned.

"C'mon, lets see where this lil' spitfire's gone off to." Merle waved them forward, his gaze locking down on the ground to try and make out Juno's tracks from the trampled ground around them. Daryl shuffles along, a walking ball of frayed nerves and unmeasured rage. If he ever gets his hands on whoever took Juno, he was going to paint the world with their blood.

"Looks like I found something." Lilith's voice caught their attention about ten feet ahead of them. The men converged and knelt down to see what she found. A trail of boot prints pressed down into a path their group never got close to. Someone was out here a lot- and recently.

"Looks like it's just a few guys-" Merle was cut off by Lilith.

"No, there's more than that. I'm counting at least a dozen. They talked in tandem and made sure to step on each other's prints to hide their numbers but there's inconsistencies. We killed six at our campsite so that leaves at least six more still out here. They may have snatched up Juno as she ran trying to circle back to the group. They can't be too far off, there was only a few minutes between Jax's shot and Daryl getting to the body."

"Then let's get goin'!" Daryl snarled, stopped by Jax and Merle stepping into his path.

"There's only the four o' us, little brother. I know ya wanna find 'er as fast as possible, but we ain't no good to her dead. So get yer head on straight!" Merle thundered back, his cold eyes not wavering from Daryl's fiery gaze. They stood in tense silence until he lowly huffed in defeat and nodded to say he was okay.

"Alright, so the average man walks at four miles an hour. But he's got a struggling kid with them so I'd cut that down to about two and a half instead. It's been about thirty minutes since Juno vanishes, so if they took her then they can't be more than a mile out." Jax spoke to himself as they trailed Lilith and Merle along the path the strangers had left. He reached out and gripped the shoulder of Daryl beside him. The man glanced at his hand before meeting his eye, the ravenette gently smiling in comfort.

"We'll find her. Alive."

Juno kicked and slammed at the bars those strangers tossed her behind. Once she got out from under that asshole's corpse, these guys were waiting in the trees. She figured they were part of the group that attacked hers.

"Let me out!" She snarled at the guards standing on the other side of the cavern. They had taken all her weapons: her bow, tomahawk, dagger, and even her clawed gloves we're sitting in a haphazard pile against the far wall out of her reach. "I said let me out!"