Silence permeated the car as Daryl, Rick, and Glenn tried hard to avoid looking at Dani. Glances were thrown around and yet no words were spoken.
Daryl, in the passenger seat, sat with his shoulders slumped and his head bowed. His hands were clasped hard and he used his thumb to scrape the rough skin of his fingers; a nervous tick. With heavily lidded eyes he looked to his left and saw Rick with furrowed eyebrows exchanging glances between the road, Daryl and Dani in the backseat.
"Well," croaked Rick, his Georgia accent thick with emotion. "All else aside that was a pretty good run."
Dani was silent. Her eyes slightly narrowed looking out the window at the seemingly endless fields that separated the small town from the Greene farm. 'Good my ass. I shouldn't have come. How do I always managed to fuck shit up.' She thought, anger bubbling up inside of her. 'They could have died. I was nothing but a liability.'
"Yeah, it was great. Except that end bit." Glenn mumbled angrily. Dani watched as Daryl turned around in the passenger seat to glare at Glenn so hard it made him wiggle in his seat, a mumbled "sorry" escaped him as he looked everywhere to avoid Daryl's eyes.
As he turned back around, Daryl looked her over. Her knees were huddled up close to her body and the backpack that held the items from the run was being cradled tightly under her left arm. 'She damn sure wen'through a lot fer that shit.' He mused.
After the gunfire in the jewelry store, Daryl remembered slowly approaching Dani. Her hands were shaking and her breathing was heavy. Without making a sound, he put his hand on hers, the gun quaking with a soft clatter beneath. Her gaze switched immediately from the body on the ground to Daryl. Her eyes were slightly wild and she looked at him with almost disbelief at what had just happened. His eyes implored her: 'Give me the gun.' accentuated with a nod of his head as he lightly pulled the firearm from her.
"Guys, we got walkers." Glenn poked his head back through the door of the jewelry store after he had slipped out to check for any reaction to the sound of the shots.
His voice broke the revere she had seemed to be in and she began to look around the store again. The familiar adrenaline walkers inspired was bringing her back to life. She made a beeline over to where her rucksack and backpack were.
"C'mon." Daryl mumbled, motioning to the direction the parked the car. He began to take her elbow and lead her outside.
She whipped around to glare daggers at Daryl, yanking her arm from his grasp. His only reaction was to put both hands up in surrender and back up enough to have a look out the door where Glenn was keeping watch. With haste, Dani picked up the backpack and rucksack, hesitating only to swipe something off the floor. With a huff, she reached back into her bag and armed herself with her knife. Daryl took that as a silent 'ready' and bounded out of the door, with Dani close behind.
With a swift kick of the dashboard, Daryl turned around to face the road with Rick. They still had twenty minutes to go before the Greene farm.
Chewing on the side of his thumb and ignoring the mindless chatter Rick was trying to initiate, Daryl felt his thoughts drifting back to the jewelry shop. 'It hadta be her firs'time killin' someone.' with a sardonic huff he mused, 'Least someone who was 'live at tha time.'
He threw another look at her in the rear view mirror. For anyone else, the painstaking silence would have been an indicator of emotional trauma but with Dani, it was just normal. She must have felt his gaze because with a sharp look into the mirror she saw him. He was met with a sallow face, her eyes screaming uncertainty. A little alarmed at being caught staring, Daryl shifted his attention back to his hands flashing back to the mirror every few minutes. Normally, she would have smiled. Normally, her her eyes would have been dancing.
'Those mutha' fuckin' sons of bitches.' Daryl growled as he crossed his arms gruffly.