When night fell upon the barn, we began to head out.
Aaron had told us the quickest, most direct way to get to Alexandria, but Rick decided we were going to take an old, uncleared backroad to get there. In my opinion, we should've just taken the highway, but I'd already gave him a piece of what I was thinking once that day; I didn't want to chance doing it again.
We were in three separate cars, with Rick, Michonne, Aaron, Carl and I in one, Dad, Alex, Lea, Ben, Glenn, Maggie, and Noah in the second, and Abraham, Rosita, Carol, Eugene, Sasha, and Father Gabriel in the third.
Our car was leading, and Aaron was trying to advise us the best way to get to Alexandria by the backroad we had chosen. It was extremely dark and difficult to see, but I figured Rick knew what he was doing. I hoped so, at least.
"That was a good speech you gave," Michonne had said to me on the way there.
"Thanks," I told her, nodding my head.
She nodded, and smiled to herself softly. "Daryl's proud of you, you know. We were talking about it, before we left the barn. He said he couldn't believe how much you'd grown since all this started, how much you'd stepped up. Said he couldn't wish for a better daughter."
My heart sort of swelled up in that moment, and I smiled genuinely; Dad was proud of me... In a way, that was something I had always really wanted.
Michonne saw how my face had lit up, and she placed a hand on my arm, squeezing it gently as she smiled. I nodded over to her, and was about to tell her thank you once again before I was stopped by a bump from the hood of the car.
The three of us in the backseat jumped, and turned to look ahead of us. Though, there wasn't much to see besides the multiplying spatters of blood and gore gathering on the windshield. Rick was swerving the car, trying to avoid the walkers, but eventually had to stop.
We all clamber out of the vehicle, drawing our weapons as we did so. Once I was out of the car, I was able to see that, up ahead of us, a herd of walkers was approaching, and Aaron's promised RV that he said would be nearby was nowhere in sight.
"What do we do now?" Michonne asked Rick, who was just shooting at the upcoming walkers.
Just as he was about to answer, somewhere in the distance ahead of us, a flare was fired into the air, illuminating a streak of the night sky.
"Oh, no... no, no, no, no, no," Aaron muttered, and tried to make a break for it. Michonne grabbed him in an attempt to stop him, but in a haze, he knocked past her, and started sprinting towards the flare.
I wasn't about to let our only ticket to Alexandria run away from us without an explanation, so I did the only logical thing I could think of; I jumped over the hood of the car, slid down the front of it, and as soon as my feet hit the ground, I sprinted after him.
Despite everyone calling my name, I kept running, eventually catching up to Aaron. He had gone into the woods to avoid the walkers, and so once I got to him, I grabbed him by his jacket and slammed him against a tree.
"Where are you goin'?! Where'd that flare come from?!"
"Please! It's my partner, Eric. He's at the RV, he must be in trouble. Please let me get to him!"
My tough demeanor softened slightly, and I let go of the hold I had on him. Without a word, I cut the rope binding his hands, and gave him the knife I did it with.
"If you're lyin' to me, you're a dead man," I told him, pulling out my gun and loading it.
"Believe me; I know," he said, and with that, he took off towards the flare, me following behind him.
He led the way back onto the road, and there we took out a bunch of walkers so we could navigate our way through. We ran up the road a little ways before, to my relief, we came across an RV. Aaron bolted inside, and I followed closely behind him.
"Eric?" he called out once inside.
"In here," I heard a voice answer.
Aaron sighed of relief, and rushed into the back room of the RV. I stayed put, and surveyed the scene from afar.
A man was lying down on a bed, with a pillow elevating one of his ankles. Aaron went over to the bedside, and immediately gave the man a kiss on the cheek.
Okay, so either these guys are really close friends, or... ah, yep, they're together.
I looked away from their moment, wanting to give them respectful privacy. I began looking around the RV, remembering the one our group used to have. They were both pretty similar; they had a booth, a row of seats by the right-side window, and a back room with a bed.
Then, as my eyes drifted outside the window, I saw the people of Rick's car approaching the RV, eyeing it with skepticism. They stopped just short of the door, and then Rick spun around and began saying something inaudible to Carl and Michonne.
Curious, I opened the door, and peeked my head outside.
"We need to find her, she could be anywhere, she-..."
"Lookin' for me?" I asked with a smirk on my face.
Rick spun around, and sighed when he saw me at the door. Despite his attempt to seem annoyed, a smile did make its way onto his face as he stepped up into the RV.
"Looks like you had everything under control," Rick said once he was standing in front of me.
I gave him a confident nod, and smiled softly. "Looks like I did."
Within the following minutes, the people of Dad and Abraham's car found the RV, not having been far behind us when we ran into the walkers. Since not all of us could fit in the RV, about half of us stayed in it while the others remained in the two cars.
Aaron wanted to stay by Eric's side, considering he was injured, so he simply gave us a map to Alexandria, and said he would help navigate if necessary. I think Rick was more comfortable with that idea anyway, though, and had Abraham drive the RV as he, Michonne, Glenn, and Maggie followed behind in the first car.
Carl, Lea and I stayed in the RV, along with Carol, Eugene, and Sasha.
If I could've, I would've tried to sleep, but the excitement of the new place awaiting us kept me awake, and bubbling with anxiousness.