KAIYA'S POV:

I sat down in a chair and Shane and Rick walked back into the circle of campers, a woman between them.

It was a woman I had never seen before. She looked to be in her thirties with strawberry blond hair, and bright green eyes. The shape of her nose was kind of funny, turned upwards at an odd angle. She wore her hair down, with slight waves in it. She was a bit taller than me (everybody was) and a little on the pudgy side considering the recent depletion of food and necessity of exercise.

I didn't like the way her eyes lingered on Daryl as she gave our group a quick once-over.

I glanced over at him.

His head was leaned down as he worked at cleaning an arrow, so the front part of his hair was hanging in front of his face, blocking it from her view. He was wearing (as he usually did) a button-up with the sleeves torn off. Due to his lack of sleeves, you could see the thick muscles under his tanned skin flexing and relaxing as he rubbed the arrows clean.

Yes, I could see why she had hesitated to look away from this particular man, but I didn't like it. If she liked his body that much, she had something coming when she saw his face, perfectly shaped with an adorable little mole on the corner of his mouth and piercing cold blue eyes. And that southern drawl that made just about every woman in camp swoon (though they tried to hide it).

He looked up then, sensing the two pairs of eyes on him and the silence that had befallen the group when she walked up. He looked up, his eyes darting to mine first.

I had to fight not to shiver at the beauty of his eyes. I looked over at the girl, but she was grimacing now.

"Everyone," Rick started, gesturing to the new woman. "This is Emily Grayson."

That was all that was said about her, but soon everyone was flocking to her, speaking over one another to introduce themselves.

Daryl and I took this opportunity of distraction to nonchalantly wander off a little farther away from the camp and into the woods. I stopped in front of a tree and turned to him.

He put his hands up on either side of my head and I backed up quickly, pushing my back against the tree and touching it with my fingertips as he leaned down to stare into my eyes. I grabbed his face and pulled it to my own, locking lips with him as he pulled me closer. His hands roamed over my body, squeezing gently and pushing me closer to his body.

He pulled his lips away, leaning his forehead against mine as we both caught our breath, eyes closed.

I slowly opened them. "Daryl?" I whispered.

He made a slight "hmm" noise and opened his eyes to meet mine.

"What are we going to do?"

He frowned and looked down at his feet with a shrug.

I sighed and moved my head to the side so that I could hug him.

I was a very short teenager (something Daryl took pride in pointing out often) and I only came up to about his chest.

He wrapped his warm arms around me and squeezed.

I closed my eyes, trying to savor the moment.

Being in a secret relationship during a zombie apocalypse is about ten times harder than it is in the normal world. I only ever got to be like this around him (or really around him at all) when we were in private. And even then, our time together was fleeting; we didn't want everyone getting suspicious when we had extended absences.

Andrea knew about our feelings towards each other, but she knew nothing about our relationship. We couldn't afford for anyone to know. I hadn't even told Glenn and he was like my big brother.

I wanted this moment to last forever, to stay in his arms permanently and bask in his warmth.

But, inevitably, he sighed and pulled away. "Let's head back. They might miss us if we're gone too long."

I nodded and walked back first, not looking behind me when he followed about five minutes later. No one noticed or said anything.

That girl, Emily, was sitting in the chair beside mine. I went and sat down when I got back.

She looked over at me and held her hand out to me to shake. "Emily Grayson." She had kind of a Yankee accent. Maybe New York.

I shook her hand and said, "Kaiya Caston."

She gave me a confused look, but said nothing as she turned back toward the fire. Yeah, that's right, be confused about my odd name!

Daryl walked past then, going straight over to the folding chair with his crossbow in it. I was watching him, and out of my peripheral, I could see she was, too.

Daryl looked over at us, his blue eyes only partially squinted at us. He seemed to be focusing on me, but I could hear Emily's breathing stop for a second. He nodded slightly to me, not breaking eye contact.

I nodded infinitesimally back and he kept walking.

"Who is he?" Emily asked, sounding breathless and smiling.

I looked over. There was a slight blush over her cheeks. "That was Daryl Dixon. World's best squirrel skinner and zombie hunting jerk face." I smirked at the title I had given him when I drew a picture of him in chalk on the pavement of the highway just before I got lost. I wonder if he ever saw that…

"That was you?" Emily asked, turning to face me.

"What?" I asked, furrowing my brows in confusion.

"I saw the chalk drawing on the highway. The stick figure that said Daryl Dixon and then Zombie Hunting Jerk Face."

I smiled. Even in a zombiefied world, good art still circulates. "Yeah, that was me. I was kinda pissed off at him. If you want to avoid any two people in this camp when they're pissed off, its me and Daryl."

"You two close?" she asked, glancing sharply at me.

I blushed, taken aback. I didn't know how I was supposed to answer; we hadn't covered the story we were feeding to strangers we met when going over this oh so well thought out plan for our public distance. I thought about it. May as well tell as much of the truth as I can. "Used to be. Not so much anymore." At least that way if she asked around camp, she would get the same vague story.

She nodded. "Thought so."

"What do you mean?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at her.

She kept her eyes focused on the fire in front of her. "You just look a little young for him is all. I mean, what are you? 12?"

I bit back a growl and snarled, "16." before standing and muttering something about going to help with dinner.

I caught Daryl's eye from across camp and he caught my pissed off expression, he glanced over at the Emily girl who smiled flirtatiously at him. I rolled my eyes and stomped away, going to find Andrea to talk to her about how pointless of an emotion jealousy was.