Tomorrow Will Be Kinder

As quickly as they appeared, the men retreated up the road. Their shadows elongating behind them as they chased the setting sun. Daryl breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He returned his knife back to its sheath and clenched and unclenched his stiff fingers. The snap of blood felt good. Real good.

The woman whistled high and shrill: a Kentucky Warbler. The same call his uncle Jesse taught him and Merle to use while hunting. He opened his mouth to ask who she thought she was when Loki loped over, slinking around the bodies and back to his mistress's side. She buried her face in his ruff. Loki licked her ear once and sat down to be coddled. Spoiled wolf.

Her right hand never stopped petting Loki's thick fur as she used her left to turn the radio back on.

"Go for Luna."

Daryl wracked his brain for someone he knew named Luna. It probably wasn't her real name seeing how she ran with a wolf. So he memorized her features and ran them against the people he knew, the tiny handful of them. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

A deep voice crackled through the mic, "Where the hell have you been, Luna? I've been hailing you for twenty goddamn minutes. Don't keep doing that to me! Over."

Luna's eyes went wide with embarrassment, and Daryl enjoyed watching her squirm and duck away. Not so smug now. All those weapons, yet she seemed cowed by the voice squawking from her shoulder.

"Chill out, Parker. I tracked those men to an access road along the tracks. They were too close to play telephone with your loud ass."

"Roger that." Luna cringed and turned the volume down. "Me and the buggy'll be there to extract you in thirty. Think you can stay alive until then? Over."

Luna wiped the back of her wrist across her forehead. She clicked the radio to respond, "I've made it this far without you. I'm pretty sure half an hour won't make a difference. Are you picking up my signal?"

Signal? Daryl needed answers and fast. He guessed he had time to get them before her partner showed up. And then what?

"Roger that. Signal's strong and steady. See you soon. Over."

"Oh, and Parker?"

"Yes? Over."

"Stop saying over and Roger. You sound like such a tool." Luna paused, holding the button down, steeling up her … nerve? "And make room for a stray. Picked him up on the road."

"Luna," the edge in Parker's voice cut straight to the point.

"I'm no stray," Daryl growled. "I've got it from here." He flipped his crossbow onto his shoulder and strode past her, too proud to wince when the metal smacked his collarbone.

Luna turned her radio off and followed him. "What you've got, Daryl, is one bolt," she eyed it, "heavily used, no water, no shelter, and no one to watch your back. I'll handle Parker. Just follow my lead."

"That's another thing," he said, not slowing down, "how the hell do you know my name?"

"If I said it was written on the back of your vest, would you believe me?"

Daryl stopped walking to turn his head and look — just for effect. "Naw, I wouldn't."

She handed him a handful of arrows and changed the subject. "Use these until we find or make some for your crossbow. Be careful though, I don't want you shooting out your eye. Maybe you should wear my helmet."

He gave it a cursory glance, then said, "Hell no, I'm not wearing that thing."

She laughed, but he didn't — still feeling out the situation. They walked down the middle of the road, heading in the opposite direction of the men. Loki pranced on his long legs ahead of them, sniffing the wild grass and marking his territory.

Daryl tapped one of the arrows against his leg. The steady beat of the metal arrowhead against his knee was somehow comforting in the gathering twilight.

"So," he started and stopped unable to find the thread of conversation. Smooth, Daryl. Columbo'd be mystified by your detective skills.

"So." She didn't offer any help. One of her hands played with her gun holster. Snap. Snap. Snap. The buzz of cicadas filled the silence between the sets of three. Snap. Snap. Snap. The leaves crunched beneath their boots. Snap. Snap.

He anticipated the third one. When it didn't snap, he stopped walking and stared at the wolf. Luna hovered beside him like his own 3D shadow. Repetition and instinct took over.

"How many walkers have you killed?"

"Hundreds, I reckon." She didn't say it to brag; he knew by the way she dropped her eyes to her boots.

"How many people you've killed?"

Her eyes rounded on him, and she crossed her arms. "I can still count them on my fingers. You?"

"No one who didn't deserve it, but I didn't keep count," Daryl said. And it was the truest thing he'd told her. He skipped the why question. It would only lead her to ask in kind, and he didn't want to talk about the prison. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

She didn't press him for details. "Ain't nobody's hands clean no more."

"Why're you following them guys?"

Luna squinted up at him, and raised a hand to shield her face from the sun's last hoorah. He caught a look of uncertainty in her eyes, but it wasn't enough to kill his curiosity, or make him take back the question. Knowing what he'd gotten himself into would mean the difference between life and death. And he was firmly on the side of life, but he didn't want to be alone. Right before Andrea died, she said, "No one can make it alone now." She was right.

"They killed a member of our group a few days ago. Thought Tommy was alone roaming the woods. An easy target. While me and Parker were scrounging for diesel, they stole his gun and ammo. Put a bullet in his skull. They even stole his jacket. Dumb asses don't know there's a tracker sewed into the collar." Luna waited, but Daryl kept quiet. "At night, I get close enough to listen to their conversations. They're evil, evil men.

"Parker and I are going to wipe them off the planet. Since I started trailing them, they've left a path of dead and broken people in their wake. Beat and raped a woman so bad that I had to put her down before she bled to death and came back. She was more terrified of turning and hurting people than dying. I forgot to ask her name."

Luna shook her head and wiped a palm across her cheek, rubbing away a streak of paint. Almost as if erasing tears that she'd shed days ago.

"They broke into a house. The man hiding inside escaped by killing one of their gang and leaving him to turn reCor while they slept."

"Wrecker?"

"Short for reanimated corpse: reCor. I heard you call 'em walkers. Same thing. All us survivors have a name for them. Biters, corpses, meat suits, roamers, etc." She ticked each name off on a finger.

"Geeks," Daryl added.

A look of disgust and hatred passed over her features. Daryl wasn't sure whom it was for. "None of them died though. They're following the guy. They call it a reckoning. And what about Tommy's or that poor woman's reckoning?"

A group of six men with that many weapons would be hard for two people to ambush. Daryl wondered if he wanted to be involved in another violent exchange, however justified Luna laid it out to be, because there were always two sides to everything. Had to be, or he was still just a drifter. Lost and separated from his family.

"I'm gonna kill 'em all."

Daryl noticed that her accent had changed, dropped into longer vowels the angrier she became. Luna waved for Loki, who trotted obediently to her side. She rubbed his massive head, scratching behind his ears. Loki's tongue lolled, pink and wet. He got up off his haunches and circled Daryl, sniffed his pants and his hands. Daryl stayed perfectly still. Loki leaned his body against Daryl's leg, his furry shoulder meeting Daryl's hip. The wolf glanced up at him before ambling off again.

Luna nodded, as if expecting Loki to accept Daryl. "You don't need to help or nothing, but I'm happy to get you somewhere safe. If you want? I know trusting people is a historical occurrence, so I won't hold it against you if you don't trust me."

Daryl almost let it slip that he had people out here that he already trusted. People he wanted to find. Almost told her about Beth. Luna might understand, might even help him. But he stuffed down the thought with all his other feelings that weren't helping him survive in the present. Beth was gone.

"Is there such a thing as safe anymore?"

"Course there is." Luna gave him an almost malicious smirk, the rumble of an engine thundered down the road. "The cavalry has arrived!"

No wonder they'd left the "buggy" behind. Approaching at a low speed was a hulking military Humvee painted with the same greens and blacks as Luna's face. An enormous gun sat on the roof, along with glinting solar panels. Who were these people, and where did they get all their toys? Anything that big and loud was bound to attract all the wrong attention. And just as the thought rattled through Daryl's head, he saw groups of walkers' heads and limbs popping out of the forest to jerk and sway toward the vehicle.

"Suppertime, Loki!" Luna sprinted down the road on the balls of her feet, Loki snarled and kept two paces ahead of her. She held her bow ready, an arrow nocked, and a gleam of sheer madness in her eyes.

Daryl jogged behind her, giving her wildness room to burn out. He lugged the heavy crossbow off his shoulder and fitted one of her arrows behind the taut string. He sighted a walker and put his finger on the trigger, but the body dropped before he pulled. Bodies fell with wet thunks as fast as they lurched from behind the trees. The vehicle's engine cut out. A tall, muscular black man, garbed in military gear like Luna, swung down from the driver's seat. He fired two guns with long silencers in quick succession.

"My hero," Daryl deadpanned.

Loki, true to his nature, wolfed down huge gobbets of walker meat. Daryl's stomach heaved. Loki was a man-eater, and he wouldn't be able to sleep anywhere near the canine.

The hiss of an arrow passing close beside his ear forced Daryl to spin around. Within arm's reach dropped a walker, an arrow sticking out of her eye socket. Way too close. Focus, Dixon! He turned back around to see Luna mime a curtsy before nocking another arrow and aiming at another walker. His debt to her was growing, and he didn't like it one bit.

In short time, a herd of at least fifty walkers were dead — proper dead — all around them. Luna had already pulled the arrows from the bodies and wiped them off. Daryl picked his way to the vehicle, trying to ignore the manic sounds of Loki tearing long chunks of meat off human bones.

Parker and Luna stood close with their heads bowed. Daryl knew they were talking about him and lowered his chin, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, tried to make himself a smaller target. Parker hugged Luna, and she nearly disappeared in his hulking embrace. Daryl thought about turning on his heel and fading back into the forest, when Parker approached.

"I'm Abel, Abel Parker," he introduced himself, extending a hand. His goatee was shot through with silver. "Everyone just calls me 'Parker'."

It had been a long time since someone wanted to shake Daryl's hand. Maybe since Patrick from the prison? Or was that Zach? Too many dead kids' names weighed on his conscience.

He shook Parker's hand, firm and quick. "Daryl."

"Luna vouched for you. Said she filled you in on our mission. You're cool with that?"

It felt like a test. "I don't know, but it's not my place to judge you. Or, I guess, the mission."

"I respect that," said Parker.

Over Parker's massive shoulder, Daryl watched Luna climb up onto the Humvee's front wheel. She whistled her imitation Kentucky Warbler, and Loki shot to her like a grey-fletched arrow. She poured a bottle of water over his muzzle and scrubbed at it with a stained cloth. Loki backed away and shook himself off. Water flicked everywhere, as Luna laughed and held out her hands to stop the droplets from hitting her face.

"How's Loki able to eat walkers?"

Parker glanced at the wolf and quickly turned away. "We don't know. Saves us having to make wolf kibble though. And it means more rabbit and deer meat for us."

Luna opened a door, and Loki bounded inside. She hopped into the passenger seat and shouted, "Shotgun!" before slamming the door.

"Well," said Parker, "let's go."

Daryl followed him to the driver's side. A single door greeted him from that side. Small windows, wide enough for guns or crossbows to fire through, ran the length of the side panel. He waited, unsure if he should climb into the driver's side or be let in.

Parker put a hand on the door handle, his huge frame blocking Daryl's way. Parker said, "Sorry, man, but … ."

Daryl's stomach dropped into his feet. This was it. They were parting ways; he was on his own. Again. He screwed up his courage to be polite about it. These people owed him nothing. In fact, he owed them for saving his ass. Twice. Daryl rationalized what he would do if he found someone like him on the road.

A deep belly laugh rumbled out of Parker. He bowled over and slapped his hands on his knees. "You should see your face! Like an angry kicked puppy. No wonder Luna said to trust you. Wear your emotions like masks." He continued to laugh, as Daryl felt the heat of embarrassment on the back of his neck, the rumble of anger bubble up the back of his throat.

Luna stuck her head out the open window. "Don't let Parker bully you. He thinks he's hilarious. The door to the backseat's on my side.

The clap of Parker's hand on Daryl's shoulder grounded him in place. The bigger man's laughs had settled into snickers. "Just playing with you, man. No hard feelings?"

"Naw," Daryl said, a slight smile on his lips more out of relief than forgiveness. He rounded the front of the Humvee and opened the back door. Loki sprawled across the backseat, leaving no room to sit.

Daryl climbed up and slammed the door behind him. The huge wolf didn't even bat an eyelid. Inside was stocked with red gas containers, water jugs, boxes, and another long seat behind the first. Daryl settled into the jumper seat behind the driver. Luna leaned an elbow over her own seat. A metal cage separated him and Loki from Parker and Luna.

"Don't be scared of Loki," Luna said. Somehow she'd picked up on Daryl's hesitation. The wolf cocked his head at the sound of his name. "Sit next to him. It'll be more comfortable. The seat you're in has a broken spring and in about a mile you'll have a rusty hole through your butt cheek."

"And we don't have any tetanus shots in the buggy," Parker added, the rumble of the engine coming alive under his touch.

Daryl focused on Loki's dark eyes, watching him, when he got up. He didn't know if he should turn and offer his ass to the wolf to take a piece out of, or keep his eye on him and lose a chunk of his thigh. He also didn't know if he should sit near Loki's head or backend. The sudden movement of the Humvee took the decision from him. He toppled into the space between Loki's head and the door hinge.

Loki's tail wagged a few times, and Luna cooed, "Hvaen pengutt," from the front seat. The wolf's huge head dropped onto Daryl's lap, and then he sighed and closed his eyes.

"He likes you," Luna said.

"I always wanted a dog," answered Daryl.

He held his hand above Loki's neck, wanting to pet him, but also rather attached to his limb. Daryl glanced at Luna, who gave him an encouraging smile, and then ran his fingers through the wolf's thick ruff. Loki nuzzled his head against Daryl's thigh, so he continued to stroke his fur.

Luna whispered, "I remember," but Daryl heard her all the same.

o . O . o

A/N: Like it? Review it! Thanks for the follows! Thanks for reading! Hmm, that's a lot of exclamation points for one paragraph. #sorrynotsorry New chapters will be posted on Sundays — mostly.