She stretched before she stood from her sleeping bag on the ground. She rolled up the bag, unzipped the tent on the right and walked into it. The dark haired man's sleeping form came to life as soon as her foot touched the ground within the tent. "Lila?" he questioned.

"Sh, Ryan go back to sleep, I'm going on a hunt," she changed into a pair of black leggings, her combat boots, and thin black tank top. She then grabbed her leather jacket—despite the Georgia heat, it was much safer. She grabbed her bow and arrows—after pulling her dark hair into a bun first. Right as she left her tent, a familiar face exited the other tent. She gave Daryl a curt nod as they both headed towards the woods together. They walked in silence the entire way to the tree line.

"Ya still sleepin' outside?" he questioned quietly.

"Mm," she replied. "Ryan stinks up the tent." Daryl refrained from cracking a smile as the made their way silently into the woods. Most of their hunt was silent, the two wordlessly worked together to bring food back for the group.

Voices echoed through the woods and Lila turned to Daryl. He places his finger to his lips as they moved towards the voices.

"Son of bitch," one voice cursed as the sickeningly familiar sound of a knife going into a walker's head could be heard. Slowly, Lila moved into view first. She grabbed her gun—she always had her bow, a gun, and a knife on her—and aimed it on the one who had just called out 'Son of a bitch'. Another man came into view. He was taller than the first with longer hair.

"Put your weapons down," she commanded. His green eyes met hers briefly and he didn't move.

"We don't need trouble here," the tall one said. "Dean put your gun down."

The way Dean held his gun reminded Lila of a cop. His stance and the way his eyes never left her. Slowly, Daryl made his way out of hiding, his crossbow focused on the taller of the two.

"Okay," Dean gave in, putting his gun back in the waistband of his jeans. "Your turn," he said, his eyes challenging Lila.

She brought her gun to her side and Daryl lowered his crossbow. "Who the fuck are you?" she questioned the two of them.

"I'm Sam Winchester and this is my brother Dean," the tall one stated. "And you are?" he had sensitive and caring eyes. He seemed much more approachable than Dean. But, Lila also realised neither she nor Daryl were approachable either.

"Lila Bennett. That's Daryl Dixon," she pursed her lips, sizing the two up. "What the hell are you doing out here scaring off all the game?"

"Walking," Dean stated. "Trying to find some freaking water and then these dead sons of bitches kind of attacked us."

"You don't say?" Lila put her hands on her hips. "That's kind of what they do."

"I gathered that," Dean and Lila continued to glare at each other before Sam stepped in.

"Is there anyway you guys have some water you could spare. We've been out here a while and our car ran out of gas." Lila looked to Daryl, who just shrugged.

"Are you going to play nice?" her question was directed at Dean as she sent him an icy glare.

"He will be on his very best behaviour," Sam promised.

"I want to hear it from him."

"I'll behave," Dean stated.

"Follow me," Daryl stated. Sam took point with Daryl and Lila and Dean brought up the rear. This way nobody could really pull a good sneak attack on anyone.

"There's no chance you've got some freaking cheeseburgers, is there?" Dean asked and Lila had to catch herself before she started laughing.

"Nope. Unless you want a squirrel burger," she stated.

"Squirrel? Like fluffy tail? Like road kill?" he questioned. Again, she had to refrain from laughing.

"More like shot in the head," she held up the little critter and he looked at it surprised.

"Dammit," he cursed. Sam looked back at his brother, making sure that he was behaving as promised.

"Daryl, you think Shane's going to mind us bringing back other people?" Lila found herself asking.

"Don' care," he shrugged. "Asshole cop," he murmured under his breath. It was kind of a given that Daryl and Merle wouldn't get along with Shane, Lila found that he didn't do too bad for the group. Sometimes she or Ryan had to be the voice of reason when it came to Merle though.

"I meant to ask, were you a cop before this?" Lila looked at Dean. "The way you held your gun made me think you were."

Dean weighed his options. He could either lie and say that he was with the FBI, but some of his other tendencies would eventually give away that wasn't the truth. "No, I'm just an experienced hunter," he said.

"You shoot Bambi like that?" she questioned.

"Something like that," he said, his gaze far off.

They arrived back at the camp a short while later and introduced Sam and Dean to Shane and decided to let him take care of the rest. Daryl and Lila headed back out into the woods to find the food for the day. When they came back, Ryan and Merle were sitting outside their tents and Lila dropped a pile of squirrels into Merle's lap.

"Th'hell ya doin'?" he asked.

"Make yourself useful," she stated.

"'S yer turn ta get water from th'quarry ta clean our arrows," Daryl stated, sitting on the third of three logs around their fire.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she said. "Let me grab a bucket," she took off her leather jacket and put it inside the tent before grabbing the bucket and heading down the the water. When she got there, she saw Dean sitting on the ground. "Just got here and already slacking," she stated, bending down to fill up the bucket.

"Sammy's setting up our tent," he said.

"So you're down here tanning?" she looked at him, smirking.

"Actually he told me to leave."

"I should've known. Pretty boys are useless outdoors anyway," she scoffed.

Dean's ego quickly bruised. The girl before him was certainly something. She had dark blue eyes and long dark brown hair. She had a curvy form that was very easy on the eyes. She was the hottest girl he'd seen since the apocalypse, that was for sure.

"I can do other things, just not set up tents."

"That's cute," she finished filling her bucket and carried it back up to camp. She set it down next to Daryl on the log and she joined him in cleaning their arrows.

Dean came back up to camp soon after and found his eyes focused on the smaller camp off to the side where Lila, Daryl, and two other men were. He debated for a moment, he shouldn't feel like he had something to prove, but he did. He walked over there quickly, taking long strides to the camp and Lila looked up at him at small smile forming on her lips.

"Can I help you with something, Winchester?"

"Need help with the squirrels?" he asked.

"We got it," another man spoke up. His hair was cut short as he sliced into one of the small creatures.

"Wait, who are you?" the other man looked at Dean before standing. His dark hair was the same hue as Lila's, his eyes as well. He looked to be quite a few years older though.

"Dean Winchester."

"When the hell did we start letting new people in?" Ryan questioned. Dean Winchester could fight demons, but somehow, this man, induced fear. "I'm just kidding with you. I'm Ryan. I guess you've already met my sister and Daryl. And that's Merle." Ryan had always been the most civil of the four. He and Merle had been in the army together and after they came back, Ryan and Lila moved from their small town in Ohio to the back woods of Georgia. Ryan had been the only family Lila had left at the time and she saw no point in sticking around Ohio. "You know how to skin one of these?"

"I think so," Dean said.

"Lila, how 'bout you give the new guy an example," Ryan eyed his sister carefully. He worried for her sometimes, she had never really liked people but he knew she couldn't spend her whole life with just the Dixon brothers. He would say that Lila had an innate sense to help everyone around her, even if she hated their guts.

Lila sighed and stood from her place on the log. "Okay look here, Pretty Boy," she grabbed a squirrel from Merle and started showing him how to skin it. She gave Dean a small grin to show that she was just kidding with him, but she had a feeling that he missed it.

XxX

The next day, Ryan went with Daryl to hunt rather than Lila. She walked into the main camp and found Sam sitting on the log by the main fire, eating some breakfast. After a long lecture from Ryan, she realised she may have been kind of a bitch to the two brothers. Before she could take a seat next to Sam, Dean sat there and she walked over to them.

"Look, I'm kind of a hot head and I can be an ass sometimes. I'm also kind of judgmental—let's just go with I have tons of negative flaws. I'm sorry for yesterday. I don't trust easy and honestly, I didn't want to bring the two of you back here."

"Trust issues, that's something we're very familiar with," Sam said evenly. "It's okay, actually, it's probably safer to not simply trust anyone you run into. And Dean understands about being a hot head."

Sam reminded her of Ryan. Always calm and level headed. She tended to act first and think later. "Well, you guys will have to help out the camp in one way or another, you can help me—trust me it's better than laundry duty."

"We'd be happy to," Sam said. Dean continued to watch her carefully.

"Great. And Dean," he looked at her. He had yet to speak a word. "You've gotta be more than just a pretty face to last this long," she smirked.

"I am more than eye candy," he smirked. She just rolled her eyes, grinning.

"You did say you were hunters right?" They both paused for a moment. But she spoke before they could say anything, "Guns are really loud and Ryan and I strictly use bow and arrow. We're always short on arrows and we need to make as many as we can." Wordlessly, they followed her to her side of camp. She gave them a quick demo before they picked it up quite quickly. "I'll be right back," she said, seeing Shane standing by the RV, watching her. She walked over to him and placed her hands on her hips. "What?"

"Teachin' 'em ta make arrows?" he questioned. She nodded. "Probably smart. Surprised you ain't out huntin'."

"Ryan and Daryl have it under control," she shrugged. Shane's brown eyes caught her blue ones for a minute.

"You takin' watch with me t'night then?"

"Yeah, I don't sleep much anyway..." she shrugged. Their relationship was a hard one to describe. In the beginning, they had ended up talking a lot because neither of them could ever sleep and would end up watching from atop the RV. But it was never anything romantic, they just talked and watched out for the camp.

"Yer always welcome up there, Lila."

"I know. I just find it easier to lay on the ground and be with my thoughts." He nodded. "I'm going to make sure they're doing okay with that." Before she could get back to her side of camp, Dale walked out of the RV and stopped to talk to her.

"So what do you think of our new members?" he asked. Whether she wanted it to or not, her opinion mattered. None of them would forget how big of a role she played in putting the camp together.

"Dammit, Ryan," she stated. "Listen to me, we've gotta help get these people away from the city," she told her brother as they stood by the old pickup truck.

"We ain't gotta do shit fer them," Merle said.

"They're human beings," she said.

"Look, Li, you have to have faith in the army. Whatever they did was to help us. They wouldn't just kill innocent people if it wasn't part of a bigger plan," Ryan tried to reason.

"Bullshit," she climbed up on the tailgate of the truck and made her voice as loud as she could. "Everybody," she called. "We need to get away from the city. I don't know exactly what's going on, but we need to get some place safer!" she called. "Spread the word!" she then got in the driver seat of the truck. Merle said something about her being a 'crazy bitch' before they all piled into the truck. She drove the vehicle off the side of the highway and into the grass. She was thankful for four-wheel drive at that moment. She made the drive far away from the city and to the quarry. She noticed a whole trail of others following her.

Upon their arrival to the quarry, they realised they needed to set up camp until help could come for her.

"I think they'll be helpful," she said. "There's probably more to them than they're letting on. But then again, who around here doesn't have a secret," she shrugged. "I'm going to check in on them."

"Okay. You don't think they're a danger to us?"

"No. If they were going to hurt someone, they would've done it already," she walked over to the camp and found that they both excelled at making arrows. "Awesome. Finally someone useful," she said. "So honestly, what did you guys do before this?" she found herself asking. "Not a cop, but something where you had a fire arm..." she waited for a response, but didn't get one for a minute.

"Park rangers," Sam offered.

"Bullshit. Park rangers wouldn't have been so loud in the woods yesterday."

"I guess you'll just have to figure it out," Dean said, offering her a grin.

"Okay, Winchesters, I will solve your mystery," she said grinning.

AN: well the first upload failed. Thank you Lady (guest) for pointing that out! Please let me know what you thought. NO FLAMES.

UPDATE: 30/11/15 I know this isn't the most popular story, however, I completely forgot about it. I haven't been on this site for a while and I felt like doing so editing in hopes of improving. I plan to do that to each of the chapters. Reviews are still welcome. They always give me motivation to write.