Dale and T-dog set up a gazebo attached to Dale's RV as I sat cleaning their guns which was my chore. Considering they didn't want to trust me with weapons in case I went on a wild rampage they sure do trust me in possession of their guns to clean them. Idiots. Like I couldn't just take one of the many weapons and kill them all in a few minutes right now. I wasn't going to but I could. Surprised these people weren't dead yet. "Dale, here's some peaches for you" Glenn held up the bucket to Dale as he took one. He leaned the bucket to me as I took one and muttered "Thank you." to him. Andrea walks past greeting everyone with a good morning. Glenn offers everyone a peach as T-dog rubs his eye, "Sup?" he asks.
Glenn widens his eyes and blurts out a "Nothing. Nothing's up. Why?" Something was definitely off. His whole vibe has been off since last night. Pausing from cleaning the guns, Dale and T-dog looked at him suspiciously. They sensed it too but they only realise now due to his response. Glenn looks between them before walking off with the basket. Weird. I placed the gun I was cleaning on the floor and followed Glenn who was now talking to Lori. "You have a medical condition." Glenn states before both him and Lori spot me. Shit. "What's wrong with you?" I asked as she shook her head. Glenn stiffens as we all share glances at each other. "You can't tell anyone." Glenn blurts out, "She's pregnant." With a death stare Lori hits Glenn on the shoulder. Shit. "Who's, is it?" I ask. I heard a few rumours that Lori and Shane had been bumping uglies before Rick showed back up which wasn't too long ago. Lori stared at me for a moment. I could tell she looked shocked at what I said. Glenn raised his eyebrows at me clearly not knowing what I meant. Guess he hasn't been checking Gossip Girl lately. "Have you told Rick?" I stare at her. Please tell me you have told your husband.
Looking away from me, she shakes her head. "Please keep this a secret." A secret. A baby is not a secret. I can't keep a baby a secret. It was another mouth to feed. Another big responsibility. They already lost one child, why would they have another. Someone vulnerable to look after. A new born baby would be difficult in normal circumstances but now it would be treacherous. Then Shane calls me and Glenn over. Glenn offers a peach to Rick. Glenn and I glance at Rick and then at Lori. I can't not slip up about this. It's too difficult. Glenn walked off and I stood awkwardly not knowing what to do. If I just stood her I would end up slipping up and telling everyone about Lori's 'medical condition' as Glenn put it.
"Kaia." Carl shouts me over. I didn't want to make friends with the kid but he saved me from a possible slip up. I smile awkwardly and make my way over to the kid. "You alright?" I ask. He lifts his sheriff hat up and nods. His big blue eyes look up at me and I look away. He looks like him. "I want to learn how to shoot. Can you teach me?" He asks. He's a kid. He shouldn't want to learn how to shoot a gun. But for his safety it was the best idea. He would have to learn self defence one day. Why not today? His mom and dad won't always be around to protect him. "Why don't you ask your parents that?" I sit on a log and look down at my hands.
"Well, can you talk to them?" He asks again, "They won't listen to me." Shit. Now he wants me to talk to his mom and dad. How can I do that without slipping up about his mom's situation? "You should ask them. I can't get into that stuff with them." I reply to him trying my best not to look at him as he stares at me with his pleading eyes. Carl paces and that's when I notice something poking his shirt out. "What's that?" I question him. He lifts his shirt up and my gun is strapped to him. That kid is sneaky. "That's my gun." I exclaim which got the attention of Lori, Shane and Rick. They all rushed over. "How the hell did this happen?" Lori grabs the gun from Carl and paces. I don't know, maybe you have been too busy with your affairs to watch your kid. You always watch your kid now. Lori looks at me. Is she seriously blaming me right now? "You think I let him have the gun." I accused her. She shrugs her shoulders. If she continues her little secret will get spilled right onto the grass right now. "He needs watching. That ain't my fault. Maybe you all have been too caught up in your own affairs and situations to notice." I dig at Lori. Can't believe I was getting the blame for this. "He asked me to teach him to shoot just now. I told him to ask you."
"Well I'm not comfortable with that." Lori shakes her head and Rick looks at her in disbelief. I sigh. "Don't make me out to be the unreasonable one here." Lori shoves her hands in her pockets. "I know I have my concerns too but-" Rick begins.
"There's no but." She spits, " He was just shot. He's just back on his feet and he already wants a gun." He wants to be protected. He wants to learn how to feel safe when he is alone. "This isn't the same world anymore. He needs to be able to defend himself." I argue.
"What do you know about kids?" She leans towards me, "I don't see your kids anywhere." I gulp and step back tears brimming in my eyes. Please don't do this. Her secret is going to spill out any moment now. "It's better than him being afraid of them." Rick adds. He begins to tell Lori why Carl should learn how to use a gun and she argues why he shouldn't. I still can't believe she could be so rude. It might be the raging hormones going through her body. But what she said reminded me of things I tried to keep buried inside me. Things that would break me into a thousand tiny little pieces. I zoned out of their conversation. I couldn't hear anymore about this whole child being able to defend themselves. I backed up bumping into Shane who sent me a smirk. Creep.
Then I began to speed walk off. I couldn't be around them anymore. Walking without looking where I was going, not a great idea. A bucket came into contact with my foot and my legs buckled beneath me. With a great thud, my body fell to the floor as I landed on my side. I hope no one saw that. But I wasn't lucky as I heard a snort. Fuck sake. Why can't embarrassing things happen to me in private? Looking up, I spotted the lucky guy who watched my embarrassing fall which unfortunately was Daryl. "Shut up." I tell him as I sit up from my fall. Sitting on a log, he smirks at me as he polishes his crossbow. Then I noticed his arms again then his hands as they worked the sides of the crossbow. His muscles flexed every time he began to scrub a different place. Thank god for sleeveless tops. Biting my lip, I watched him thoroughly polish the crossbow. Who knew watching someone clean something could be so sensual? Stop stupid brain. I can't be thinking about Daryl in this way. How did my brain end up near my vagina? I needed to stop thinking with my downstairs brain and start thinking with my upstairs brain. I mean this is Daryl we are talking about. No way could I be attracted to that unruly hick.
"Your balls still good?" I ask, jokingly. Surely his balls were healed from my headbutt about a week ago. He glances up to me as his hands begin to rub over the crossbow. If only he could rub me like... No stop Kaia. Think normally, you horny dickhead. "Fine." He replies.
"Was gonna say if they still hurt I could kiss them better." I smile at him. Daryl puts his head down as his cheeks turn slightly pink, "Stop it." I let out a laugh as he glared at me. "Ain't funny." Daryl frowns trying not to let out his laugh. Brushing his hair back with his hands, Daryl puts his crossbow over his shoulder. "Get ya' axe." He demands. Doing as I'm told, I grab my axe and I follow him towards the woods. Daryl still walked with a stagger due to his injuries from the other day. "You sure you're fine?" I question him. I didn't want him to pass out in the middle of the woods because I would not be able to carry him all the way back. And then he would be a yummy meal for some 'walker' as they call it.
"Why do ya' care?" He grunts. Why do I care? I don't.
"I don't. I just don't want to carry your sorry ass back." I swing my axe back and forth in my hands. He glares at me as we begin to trek through the woods.
"We gotta find the lil' girl one way or another." He mentions, gripping his crossbow, "Ya' the only one who gives a damn other than me." That was true. No one else has been looking for her as much as he has. He cares even though he tries to make it seem like he doesn't. I nod. "Don't be singing no Dolly Partridge or whatever her name is." He grunts as he shoots an arrow at a walker.
"Dolly Parton." I corrected him, "And no promises." Pulling out a map, we both look at the map and he shows me where he went the other day so we could cover an area that hadn't been searched so far. We planned to search a small village which wasn't too far from the highway and where Sophia had been last seen.
Walking up to the village, it still looked fairly clean and populated. It didn't look like it had faced the end of the world. The people who lived here must've had a good time to pack their shit before they had to leave. Guess they weren't into so much threat for the first couple days since it was a small village. We walked up to an information sign which showed the latest notices on the board. Different things about a garage sale happening and other notices which weren't of any importance now. Just general notices about general things when the world wasn't a piece of shit. But one notice seemed weird. It had a bunch of dots on it. Almost like morse code. Too bad I didn't know how to read that or I could know the village secret. "You know morse code?" I shout to Daryl. He raises his eyebrows at me and walks over to the notice board. He shook his head. "Guess we will never know the village's secret." I chuckle.
"So sad." he replied with sarcasm, "Ya' think she's here?" I'm not sure if I'm completely honest. I hoped she was here, cooped up in a little house eating a can of beans and sleeping in a comfy bed. She deserved that. "Worth a look." I say as we enter a house, "Also just to be clear I'm only being nice to you to find Sophia."
"Don't care." He mutters. The small house was still intact but a few family pictures were missing off the walls. Nothing screamed that Sophia was here. "You ever gonna apologise for scaring my squirrel away." I glanced at Daryl. He shoots me a deadly look.
"Ya' ever gonna shut up." He flicks his hand at me. Shut up about the time I could've starved. No I will never. He was the prick not me. "Ya' ever gonna leave us all. Cause we don't need ya'." His voice becomes louder, "Ya' ever gonna look Carl in the eyes. Ya' ever gonna fuck off." His arm comes up as he flings it at me in his rage. How did he notice I couldn't look Carl in the eyes? And why did he make it sound so malicious? I have my reasons for not giving that kid a look. It was too painful. It reminded me of... "You don't even care about finding Sophia, do ya?" He spits at me.
Did he really? I don't care about finding Sophia? "Really, that's why I'm out here isn't it?" I shout back at him, "You ever think that you ain't the only one who's been looking? I'm out there every night looking while you all sleep sound in your beds. While Carol is weeping." Stepping towards him, my heart beats fast as he enrages me. All these accusations. He really does piss me off. I knew there was a reason I didn't like this fucking deranged redneck. "You don't know shit. You're gonna end up just like your brother. Yeah I heard about Merle." I roar, "You're gonna be a dead piece of hillbilly shit just like him."
"Ya' aint know shit about Merle." Daryl leans close to my face as his spit flies at my face, his voice loud. He was right, I didn't know shit about Merle. I'd never met him but I had been told he was a bad influence on Daryl. He controlled and ill-advised him. He was also a raging hillbilly with no filter who did whatever the fuck he wanted. Sound familiar? "I know enough to know you ain't never gonna see him again." I threatened. I didn't know for sure if his brother was dead, no one did. Glenn told me the only remnants of Merle's body was a severed hand on a random roof in Atlanta. Getting under Daryl's skin had to be through his brother. It was something that affected him. "Fucking bitch." He shook his crossbow at me.
"I promised Rick something but I should have never promised him something I couldn't keep." Gripping my axe tighter. This could be the end for him. I could kill him right now. I could slaughter him right on this wooden floor and leave his body for the rotters to feast on. There was nothing stopping me. Nothing stopped me from what I was going to originally do to him when we first met. First impressions mean everything. Didn't he know that? But I've changed. I don't kill unless I need to and he didn't serve me a high threat at this point in time. "Ya' gonna kill me." He towers over me. No I wasn't But if you so as raise your crossbow to me you're dead meat. Suddenly, there were loud moans coming from outside the house. Both rushing to the door we were met with a herd of walkers in the street making their way to the little house we were just arguing in. Thankfully it was only about 15 walkers. But that was still enough to kill me and Daryl and make a three course meal out of us. Fuck sake.
Lifting my axe up, I step down from the porch and swing my axe to the head of the closest walker. Spinning around and swinging my axe at the next one. "Daryl." I scream at him. I couldn't fight this herd on my own. My skills were good but not that good. Two walkers stumbled towards me with their arms reaching out to me without me noticing, I could barely turn around to slash them in their heads without getting bitten. An arrow came whizzing past my head as it slammed into one of the walkers' heads allowing me to swing my axe at the other. "You nearly shot me." I shouted. I could've died. He shrugged as he began shooting his arrows at random walkers as I tried to slam my axe into as many of their heads as I could.
Turning around to bash another walker in their brain, one stumbles into me and falls on top of me. How unlucky am I, today? The shock of the fall made me lose grip on my axe which led it to crash to the floor. The walker thrashed on top of me as he snapped his rotten jaw at my face. My hands grabbed his neck which felt squishy and made me want to spew right there and then. I tried to push the walker by its neck to the side so I was able to grab my axe but its flesh just slopped off onto my shirt. Gagging at the smell, I tried to keep my grip on the walker's neck but since the flesh had freshly fallen off there was blood all around its neck. My hands strained to keep a grip on the walker to keep it from biting my face off and indulging it like it was a feast. I tried to hold it up with my strongest arm while trying to grab my axe but it was no help. I couldn't reach it. Today was the day I died. Great. Bringing my hands up to the walker's neck again I try to hold it still.
Struggling to hold my grip on its neck, it gets dangerously close to my face before blood spills all over me. My axe rips out of its head as it falls on top of me. I struggle to push it off me before I shoot my eyes to Daryl. "You got blood all over my shirt." I gasped, pinching at my stained top.
"You're welcome." He grunts at me, "Better clean off before we go back." True. We weren't supposed to be out here right now. Well Daryl was supposed to be on bed rest which left me with the option of telling Rick I came out here alone. That was something he was not happy about considering Daryl's performance the other day. So we had to clean up before we got back or they'd notice what we had been doing. "I have a bottle of water to clean the blood off us. But I don't think it will get the blood out of my top." I stated, staring at my blood-ridden top. I liked this top. I was sad to see it go. Daryl shrugs, not giving me any helpful tips on how to save my ass on this one. "Fuck sake." I mutter. Grimacing, I take my top off and throw it to the floor as I stand up leaving me in my bra which thankfully wasn't revealing. Thank god I put my sports bra on today. I could come back with this on and hopefully no one batted an eyelid. I hoped. "Ya' think they won't notice you coming back with no shirt on." Daryl questions me as his eyes flicker to my exposed skin for a split second.
"It can pass as a crop top." I say, unsure. Tensing my jaw, I spot Daryl looks me up and down before walking away back to the farm.