In the following week, Cassandra had made up with the Greene's and Glenn but still gravitated towards Daryl in most situations. She trusted him. With the coming of winter came the cold, forcing the group to seek warmer clothing and leave their shelter in hopes of finding something more substantial to wait out the storms. Rick was skeptical at first, but the hunters managed to convince him they could see the signs; clouds were building in the west as the wind swept them towards the group's location and gained force and chill with each passing day. So, with a little resistance from Lori – who was finally beginning to show a little baby bump – the group reluctantly packed up their gear and set off with the fuel they had managed to scavenge from a nearby town a few days prior.
As the convoy headed down the road, bare-branched forests flanking either side, Daryl and Cassandra sped ahead on their bikes. They dodged the occasional walker, looked at the road signs and kept an eye out for anywhere that might seem suitable. By nightfall, they had still found nowhere to call home for the winter and the frigid bite of darkness was closing in again. The group made camp at an abandoned gas station for the night and moaned about the loss of the stable. They did their best to cover the smashed in windows with empty shelves but it was hardly enough. At least there was enough food left scattered on the floors for one night. But no fire. That would draw too much attention.
The next morning, as the group shivered through their meagre breakfast of stale protein bars and a box of pretzel sticks, Cassandra and Daryl readied their packs for another day of scouting. They double-checked one another's bags and made sure each was ready for the day ahead like a well-oiled machine. Today, they were going on separate trips.
Given the group's lack of food on top of their need to find shelter, Cassandra was tasked with hunting for the next few days while Daryl continued to scout. The pair were to ride out to the highway intersection and follow the road in different directions from there. They expected to be gone for a day each, at which point they would meet back up at the same intersection and return to the group. Successful or not, they could not risk being away from the group for any length of time.
Cass smiled at Daryl deflatedly and placed a hand on his arm. "When I see you again, Daryl," she murmured their customary farewell before separating for any period of time. Neither the girl nor the man ever considered saying goodbye; they would see the other again soon. Anything else was not an option.
"When I see you," the hunter replied gruffly before swinging his leg over Merle's bike and revving the engine when Cass did the same.
Rick came out of the gas station with his coat wrapped tightly at his neck, shoulders hunched against the growing bite of the wind and hands shoved deep into his pockets.
"Until tomorrow afternoon," he stated without pleasantry. "We can't stay here any longer than that, have to move on before dark tomorrow."
"Got it," Daryl responded, turning to Cass. "C'mon."
And so they rode. At the intersection, Daryl gave her a quick wave before turning north on the highway. So Cass went south, riding only until she found a shallow valley with a small forest straddling a modest river. Hopefully, that would have at least some people game left.
It was nearing noon when Cassandra reached what used to be a small parking lot with a stile and public walking path leading over the river she had seen from the hill nearby. She dismounted, walking her bike over to the side of the tarmac and covering it with fallen branches and debris after siphoning most of the fule in her tank out into a tin. This she buried nearby so that no one would be able to steal the bike if they found it while she was gone. Noon came and saw the girl finally make her way into the forest to begin setting up some snares where she saw more recently used game trails. By the end, she was nearly an hour's walking into the forest and finally could venture off into the underbrush to pursue larger prey.
Early afternoon, Cass found some deer tracks and was following them down towards the river. They were deep, very deep; a large quarry then... They were relatively fresh as well so it could only have taken her a couple of hours to track it to a bend in the river where it drank amongst the waterfowl, taking a couple of squirrels along the way. Silently, the young hunter notched an arrow and drew her bow. Just as she lined the remarkably large stag in her sight, aiming for the spot right between his impressive set of antlers when he dashed off, bounding across the shallow section of the river into the trees.
"Shit," Cassandra cursed.
A quick toss of leaf litter showed her she was upwind of the animal so what...?
Mid-thought, there came a growl and scuffle to the girl's left flank. She jerked around just in time to see a walker emerge from the trees, its once long blonde hair now tangled in a jaw that was being torn half off by each head movement. It struggled towards the water's edge in pursuit of the stag but was quickly distracted by the ducks milling around in the slower water.
Voicing her displeasure under her breath, Cass took aim and shot the walker down before it could scare away the waterfowl. It was now nearing sunset so the girl had to turn her attention to finding shelter. She swiftly collected the four or so birds that were still aimlessly milling around the river bend and started along the river after marking the spot the deer had crossed with a stick and a rag. For the night, she butchered one of the squirrels and ate the whole thing, not having partaken in the group's meal that morning nor having eaten much at all recently. She found a tree whose roots were exposed and stuck into the river bank where she wrapped herself in her sleeping bag and shivered into a few hours of sleep.
It was still dark when she awoke and could not figure out why until she heard something next to her. It hissed, shadow silhouetted against the high moon. She could see the bobcat's lips curl back to reveal sharp fangs as its eyes glinted with a demon-like sheen in the gloom. It was not huge but it certainly could do her some damage. And it definitely seemed to want to.
Stealthily unsheathing her hunting knife, the girl launched out at the predator with a cry and slashed at it. The cat's claw lashed out and left a gash on her hand but it retreated nevertheless, disappearing into the black night. Cassandra settled back down and slept until dawn.
By now she really needed to find that stag or her trip would have been almost fruitless. Still silent as ever, Cassandra was more hurried in her actions that morning. She moved through the brush swiftly and followed the trail of the deer until she reached the outskirts of a small town. Cursing to herself, the girl realised this would mean she could no longer follow the thing's trail and would have to turn back. As she went to do so with a disheartened slump, Cass noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and, with a stifled gasp of joy, saw the stag pad carefully out of n alley beside a building baring the green cross of a pharmacy. It sniffed at some bins and was about to step out into the street when Cassandra's arrow slammed through its eye. The animal slumped to the pavement instantly and Cass was left to hoist it onto her slim shoulders with a grunt of effort. She didn't mind though; the group could stay fed on this thing for a week while they looked for a place to settle.
Now laden with meat, Cassandra took far less time maneuvering back up the valley stream to the point she had entered the woods the day before. It still took a good few hours since she had to stop and retrieve the snares along the way, but overall she was well pleased with the few smaller animals and that big buck thrown across the back of her dirtbike. The weight could be felt in the bike, threatening to topple her more than once but Cass got used to it and made it to the checkpoint where Daryl waited for her by noon.
"Nice job," he congratulated her gruffly. A lot of people might think he was being sardonic or mocking, but Cassandra knew the fact that he said anything at all was high praise indeed.
"You find anything?" she inquired back.
Daryl nodded but said he would elaborate when they got back; no point in repeating himself. So the pair rumbled back down the highway and found themselves back at the gas station just as the snow began to fall in earnest.
*****
Six members of the group moved in an arrowhead formation through the compound.
Daryl had found a storage locker area with chicken-wire fences and no activity surrounding it on his trip the day before but it would need clearing. Rick had made the decision to stay one extra night at the gas station so everyone could eat a full meal and rest up for the next day. And so, today Rick ran point with two members of the group flanking him on each side as they moved through the compound. He had wanted to try out techniques like this for a while, get the group moving as a cohesive unit in combat as well as with camp, but had only just been afforded the chance. He believed that if they worked well enough together then they could exploit areas that would otherwise be untouchable. Areas like overrun medical facilities or food storage warehouses. That kind of place could be a goldmine if they could only access what was inside.
T-Dog and Glenn were immediately to either side of Rick, taking out walkers that got too close, while Daryl and Cassandra came next using their bows to thin the masses before they reached the other men. Maggie brought up the rear, protecting them from walkers that occasionally filed out from behind a corner they had already passed. It worked well. With only a few mishaps that were rectified by Carl sitting at a vantage point with his own silenced gun, the group had cleared the whole facility by late afternoon and moved all their stuff into a single unit before fortifying the fences with whatever junk they could find in the other lockers. The rest of the day was spent looting all the lockers for anything that might be useful.
By the time those looking for stuff had returned, two of the lockers opposite each other had been opened fully so the doors nearly touched. They were propped up with wooden beams and draped in tarps and various large pieces of plastic, metal, wood, and fabric to build makeshift walls. They had essentially bridged two units to create one massive tent to keep out the cold. The best part was the gap in the middle that allowed the smoke from a big fire to escape.
That night everyone was in much higher spirits than they had been in a while and they settled down to a good meal and a warm night's rest.
Cassandra went over to where Daryl had laid his and her things and sat down on her own bedroll with a sigh. He acknowledged her with a grunt and continued to sharpen some shafts of wood into new arrows.
"Thanks for finding this place, Daryl." She said quietly, fiddling with her nails. "It's perfect for us to hole up for the winter."
Daryl shrugged, eyes still on his work. "S'alright I guess. You're the one that fed us for the whole damned winter with hat dear and them birds. Ain't no way we have survived another week the way we were going, even with this place."
"Still," she persisted. "Thanks."
"Sure," Daryl relented.
That night, as Cassandra drifted off to sleep, she was vaguely aware of someone coughing beyond the battering of the storm winds against their rude walls.