Zedler, M.D. // Daryl Dixon

Chapter Seventy: Couch Cushion

•seventy•

Beatrix

"Sorry about the confusion, man," Joe says, patting Lucas on the back after he pulls away from me. "We don't get to see many women anymore, and when we do, they tend to go wild over them."

"Oh," is all Lucas can say as he subtly pushes me behind him. It makes my skin crawl, though, as if it could crawl even more after what just happened.

"I hope you'll forgive us," Joe speaks for everyone, and they seem to all nod their heads in agreement. "We'd love to have your company."

"Uh, we appreciate the offer, but I think we're good," Lucas says. I decide that I'm going to stay quiet and let him handle it, because these people obviously don't respect women anyway.

"Nonsense," Joe completely disregards Lucas. "We're headed south. It's gonna get cold soon, so we need to move with the game. We'll keep you and your lady safe."

Lucas looks to me, and I try not to frown back at him. We both know that there's no way we can stay with these people, but we also sure as shit aren't going to tell them about the rest of our people. Basically, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. And I'm double damned because when Daryl finds out I kissed Lucas, he will die, no matter the reasoning behind it.

"Lucas," he reaches his hand out to shake Joe's hand in agreement.

"Glad to have you on board," Joe gives us a shit eating grin that makes me want to vomit. "You gonna tell us your name now, sweetheart?"

"Arianna," I decide to give him my middle name after a moment of hesitation. I definitely don't want them knowing my first name.

"Arianna, that's a sweet name," Joe states me down before turning on his heel and walking down the tracks in the same direction we were heading before. At least we'll get closer to Terminus. "Let's head out."

//////////

As we walk with the group of claimers, Lucas and I hang towards the back, hoping to get far enough back that they can't hear us plan our escape from them. Unfortunately, though, they are probably smarter than they appear, and they won't let us get too far away, watching us like hawks. It's almost as if they didn't believe us that we were married.

My head snaps up from the ground only when I hear several of the men "claiming" something. I can't help the small gasp that escapes my lips when I see what they're doing. Len and another one of the men are pulling arrows out of walkers. Arrows with green and black tails.

"You okay?" Lucas whispers, seeing that I'm obviously shocked.

"The arrows," I whisper back, and I'm thankful that the men are too preoccupied to be paying attention to me at the moment. "They're his."

"You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure, Lucas," I mutter, watching as the two men put their new arrows into the slots of their bows. I want nothing more than to rip them out of their hands, but I know I can't do that.

Nobody says anything else as we set back out on the tracks. The only sounds around are of walkers meaning and our shoes stomping against the train tracks. My mind wanders the whole time, trying my best to think of a way out of this, but that's proving to be difficult, seeing as I can't keep my mind off of those damn arrows.

"He's alive," I whisper to myself over and over again, even saying it in my head when any of the claimers get within earshot. It's like my mind truly can't comprehend that Daryl is alive, or at least he was, and he was on the same train tracks I was. That at least gives me a sign that we're going in the right direction. I know that Lucas told me he was alive, but some part of me was thinking that he was just lying to me to get me up and moving, but I guess that was wrong.