Sophia ran off into the woods on the side of the highway after two walkers started in on her. Apparently she tried to get out from under her hiding car too soon and they spotted her and started chasing her. Rick followed them all into the woods. This is what my dad and T-Dog and I are told when we reach the RV a few minutes after we hear the scream.

Then it's waiting.

We all hang around by the guardrail for a long, long time. Even T-Dog, after Dale patches him up. My dad stands on the hood of a car, keeping watch, and Shane stands on the top of another. Glenn leans on a different car altogether. Dale and T-Dog are by the guardrail, Dale watching off of it (for Rick and Sophia and walkers) and T-Dog just resting there. Andrea is by the car my dad is on. Carl and I are by the car Shane is on. Lori is sitting on the hood of that same car, and she is rubbing the back of Carol, who switches between standing and leaning, crying and not. With or without tears, her face makes me hurt and so I don't look at her much at all. I keep my eyes on my feet, mostly.

I hate waiting.

. . . . .

Rick comes back and he doesn't have Sophia.

He doesn't have Sophia.

He left her. He found her and then he left her in a nook on the river, that's what he says. He told her to run back here when she got the chance, he told her how to get here and everything. But has he ever met Sophia? The twelve-year-old who still carries a doll? The girl who once begged me not to kill a rabbit because it wasn't hurting anybody? How would she know what to do in the woods? How would she know how to get away from walkers? Did she even have a weapon? Anything?

He left her.

And when Carol hears this she falls on her knees and I get angry and I definitely don't like Rick but I have to keep it all inside and I hate that.

My dad goes back into the woods with him, with Rick. Shane and Glenn go, too, but my dad's the best one to take, the most useful, and it makes me calm down a little that he goes. I mean, I hate that he's not here. Hate it. But he's a great tracker, the best, it runs in the family, and he'll find Sophia. He'll find her, and she'll be fine.

There's waiting again.

An hour after they leave, Shane and Glenn come back. My dad and Rick are still out there, still looking. Shane tells us my dad picked up the trail. Of course he did. He'll find Sophia easy, if she's still –

Stop. That's a bad thought.

And then there's waiting.

. . . . .

Dale and I stand by the front of the RV and watch – well, Dale sort of directs – as Shane drives this old tan car into a big red one. Andrea stands outside of the red car but jogs with it when it starts to move, her hand on its steering wheel, and she makes it roll safely off the highway, down a small slope and into another car.

As Shane backs the tan car away, Dale turns to the RV again. He's working on fixing it. He's got some little door open and I can see inside of the RV. The bolts and screws and pipey-things are old and rusty and I think it's time for a new RV, but I guess that's not really an option. "Can you fix it?"

Dale's fingers reach into the opening, touch something, fiddle around. "Oh, sure. It'll just take a little time, is all."

"You a mechanic?"

Jim was a mechanic.

Dale shakes his head. "No, no, but this thing has been giving out on me for years . . ." he looks down at me, smiling. It makes me relax a bit, that smile. Dale reminds me of my Papaw, have I mentioned that? "I remember one time, my wife and I were taking a trip to Nevada, and right in the middle of the Interstate –"

"Why aren't we all out there lookin'? Why're we movin' cars?"

Dale stops and looks above me and I look over my shoulder. Carol's come over here. She's hugging herself and talking to Dale.

"Well, we have to clear enough room so I can get the RV turned around as soon as it's running," Dale explains. "Now that we have fuel we can double back to a bypass that Glenn flagged on the map."

"Goin' back's gonna be easier than trying to get through this mess." That's Shane. He and his shotgun have appeared behind Carol. Almost at the same time, Lori and Carl arrive at the RV, both with their hands full of newfound supplies. I catch Carl's eye and remember the Snickers from earlier. I suddenly wish we'd given some to Sophia.

Carol's forehead's wrinkling up. "We're not going anywhere till my daughter gets back," her wobbly voice says.

"Hey." Lori leaves her findings in a little pile we've started and comes over to Carol, touches her arm. "That goes without saying."

"Look, Rick and Daryl – they're on it, okay?" Shane tells Carol, gently. "Just a matter of time."

"Can't be soon enough for me." Andrea. She and Glenn have reappeared from somewhere in the car lake, and Andrea has a water bottle. I already got some earlier – it was like going swimming on the hottest day of the year, but in my throat and head – and I kind of want more now. But instead of seeking out water, my eyes follow Carol as she turns her back to the rest of us and goes back to her spot by the guardrail. I think it's the spot Sophia ran from. Andrea and Shane say something about a herd but I don't really listen. Watching Carol stand all alone like that makes me want to gnaw my knuckle. Doesn't she know? Doesn't she understand that this is my dad we're talking about?

My feet move before my mind gives them the okay, and then I'm sort of trapped in doing it. I leave the others and their discussion of herds and attacks and go over to Carol. It's quieter over here. I stand beside her and look out into the woods. There's a hill covered in brush that leads down to where the forest starts. The forest, it's thick and shadowy on the inside. The best kind, if you ask me.

Carol's hands are together, her fingers twisting around one another, pulling and releasing. I know this . . . Yeah, it's called wringing. Wringing your hands. Mom made fun of Nana for doing it. Nana did it a lot, actually, when she was nervous. And Carol, Carol's definitely nervous. Definitely scared.

I look up at her. I don't talk to her much, but now's as good a time as any. Maybe. "No point in worryin'."

She glances at me. I don't think she realized I was here. Her gaze moves back up, back to the dark woods, just as fast. "Well, sometimes you can't help it."

"I know," I say. God, I'm not good with words. Mom, Mom was. "But I just mean, my dad . . ." And how do I describe it? How do I make her get it? I'm not sure you can get it, not unless you see him in action, my dad. "He's a really good tracker," I settle on, which is weak. "I mean, the best. Maybe ever." Well, him or Merle, anyway. And someday I'll give them both a run for their money, but that's not important right now, and I keep my eyes on Carol, because Mom always said eye contact is important for making people believe you. "Sophia's gonna be just fine."

And I believe it, I do.

And Carol, Carol manages to give me a smile, and it's hard for her to do, I can tell, but at least it's a smile. And at least I tried. She can believe me or not. Either way, my dad'll bring back Sophia and Carol will see for herself.

I've done what I can. I walk away.

. . . . .

"Look."

Carl says this to me from his perch on the edge of a dusty red truck, a place that gives him a view through a dirty window into the cab. I step back from the on-its-side blue motorcycle I'm examining and go over to him. He jumps down and I jump up and I look.

Another body. Great.

I don't flinch. I look down at Carl, who's standing on his tiptoes below me, still peering in. "What about it?"

"Under its arm. You see it?" His voice is excited.

I look again, my eyes avoiding the decaying head, the wide-open mouth with the crazy teeth, and I do see it. Under the arm, like Carl said. Something flat and black, but with a silver line on its edge, its curved-out edge.

I squint. "What is that, an axe? Or . . . a hatchet?"

"Only one way to find out." He heads around the truck, walking with a purpose. I watch him for a moment, taken aback, before dropping down and following him.

"You kiddin' me? You ever even touched a body before?"

We reach the other side of the truck, the driver's side, and Carl pauses, eyes on the window, on the outline of the dead man's dead head. He looks uncertain for a second, but then he says to me, "If that's a hatchet, we need it."

"We got other weapons."

His eyes meet mine, and I know right away I hate that look. "What, are you scared?" he asks, and in spite of everything, in spite of the corpse and Sophia and all, the corners of his mouth are almost curling up, I can see it, and I narrow my eyes. Scared? He thinks I'm scared?

"I had one of those –" I check behind me, and there are no adults close, the only ones I see are Dale and Glenn by the RV and Carol by the guardrail, and so I turn back around. "I had one of those damn things on top of me a few hours ago, city boy," I snarl at him in a low voice, ignoring the fact that most of my time before the walkers was spent with my mom and we lived in a nice neighborhood where people mowed their lawns and had swimming pools in their backyards. That's not me these days. "I ain't scared of one more."

Carl's head tilts from me to the body and back. There's a question in his expression. A request. I raise my eyebrows. That changed around fast. "What, you want me to do it?"

"You just said you're not scared."

"And what, you are?" I cross my arms. "Need me to do your dirty work?"

We stare at each other for a while.

Finally, Carl sighs. He gestures at the handle. "Alright . . . Why don't we do it together? On three?"

I could do it alone. I could do it alone just fine. But, I mean, Carl's the one who wants the hatchet-axe thing so bad. And if he doesn't want to get it by himself, it's only nice that I help him. So I nod.

"One . . ." he begins. "Two . . ."

Both of our hands find the handle. Our fingers tighten around it, carefully, not enough to pull it, not yet. We watch each other.

"Three!"

The handle resists but gives. The door squeaks as it swings open. The body's arm slips from its lap and dangles from the torso while Carl and I stand there, taking the image and the stench of the dead man in. My body wants to shiver and I tell it hell no. If I handled hiding under a corpse, I can absolutely handle this. Even if my dad's not here.

The hatchet – and it is a hatchet, I'm sure now – the hatchet is right there. Well, sort of. It's under the arm not dangling, the arm farthest from us.

Carl and I don't say anything for a bit. He breathes out through an O-shaped mouth.

"You wanted it," I eventually say, because isn't it true?

"I thought you weren't scared?"

See? This is why he and I are not friends. Not really. "I thought you weren't, either? I already helped you open the door." I nod at the hatchet, at the body. "You want it, you get it."

He grimaces. I wait. He doesn't move for a minute, but then he does. One minute he's still, the next he's pressing up against the dead man's car seat, and I gotta admit, I'm surprised.

Carl reaches his arm across the corpse's lap, touching onto the hatchet. Then his other hand goes up to help. I check for adults, but we're still pretty alone. "It's not just a hatchet," Carl tells me, his voice strained by the pulling. "It's a whole bundle."

"Of what? Weapons?"

He yanks and yanks but this bundle of his doesn't come out. He lets go and steps back. I bite my lip, look at the body, and then say, "Let me try," because if it's a whole bundle of weapons, I know it's worth getting, and it's not a big deal, it's just a body . . .

But by the time I've made my offer, Carl's climbing up beside the seat. Now I'm really surprised.

And . . . just a little impressed.

"Ew." He bends over the corpse. "It smells so bad."

He has no idea. I don't tell him this, though, because like I said, the kid's showing more spine than I've ever given him credit for, and I don't want to spoil that.

Carl grabs the bundle and tugs, tugs, tugs.

"Why won't it come out?" I ask.

"It's just hooked – whoa!"

He tumbles out, his sentence ended with his own high-pitched yell and a cracking noise from the corpse, and as Carl hits asphalt and I squat down to him, the body leans out over us, kept from falling out only by the seat belt it's still trapped under.

"You okay?" I ask as Carl sits up, panting. He has the bundle in his hands, this black leather thing about half his height. He nods at me and feels the bundle. A grin breaks out over his face. "It's an arsenal."

. . . . .

Carl and I show the weapons to Shane and he tells us – kind of harshly, actually, but I don't know why – to give them to Dale, so we do. My dad and Rick still aren't back yet, and I'm not worried, but I just wish they would hurry up and bring Sophia back.

We keep looking around – scavenging, Glenn calls it once. Yeah, we scavenge. Lori, she finds some clothes she thinks will fit me – four shirts, two pairs of jeans, a pair of shorts, some socks and underwear, and everything seems clean. I immediately change, since I swear I can smell death on my old clothes. The jeans I choose from my new stash are a little long, but that can be fixed by just rolling them up, and the shirt is a green tank top that's kind of loose but looks like something my mother would wear on a weekend, so I like it.

Before I leave the RV's bathroom I dig out my mom's picture from my old jeans. I tuck all of my clothes under one of the beds in the back room and then go outside, head straight to my uncle's – my dad's? – motorcycle, where I tuck the picture into one of the bags on the side of it. I hate not having the photo on me, but it's too easy to lose and I can't risk it. That would be awful.

The sun sinks. The day gets dim. My dad and Rick don't get back, and I can't help thinking about the day of the fish fry, when my dad and Rick and Glenn and T-Dog went into the city to find Merle and some guns Rick had accidentally left behind. I waited for them to get back all day, long after they were supposed to have returned, and then it got dark and late and they showed up just as walkers were killing half of our people . . .

That won't happen this time. They'll get back, and they'll have Sophia, and things will be good. Things will be fine.

Less and less light. The sky in the west turns orange, the sky in the east goes blue. My stomach hurts. No reason, though, no reason at all. I've even eaten some jerky Shane passed around earlier, so I'm not even hungry. And nervous? No reason to be nervous. My dad, my dad can take care of himself. And Rick. And Sophia.

I keep busy. Like I said earlier, we're pooling supplies together, and I set myself to organizing out the food we find. Cans over here, dried fruits over there, that kind of thing. I even start sorting by expiration date after a while. At one point, Shane comes up behind me with a huge jug of water and he gives me a smile. "That's good, Sydney," he says. He's not harsh, like before. I like Shane.

Dale and Andrea start arguing behind me – Dale has Andrea's gun, I think, and he won't give it back? – and Shane goes over to break that up, says something about not having so many guns "floating around camp," and I'm in the middle of thinking that my dad ain't gonna give up his gun no matter how Shane feels about it when I hear Glenn say, "Oh, God – they're back."

I drop a jar of peanut butter and bolt to the guardrail. Glenn's right. They're coming up the hill right now, Rick in his dirty white shirt and my dad with his crossbow and –

And that's it.

No Sophia.

I stop short just behind Carol. What? What? But my dad – my dad –

A strange breathy sound that's sort of like a sigh but different comes from Carol, and then, when my dad and Rick get close enough, "You didn't find her?"

Rick climbs over the guardrail. "Her trail went cold. We'll pick it up again at first light."

I hear others gathering behind me but I don't turn. I look at my dad, who's not looking at me, and I don't understand. Has my dad ever lost a trail before? Ever?

Sophia.

"You can't leave my daughter out there on her own, to spend the night alone in the woods . . ." Carol's close to crying again. Again. But she has a right to cry, I know . . .

"Out in the dark's no good," my dad tells her, and he's using his special gentle voice, and for a moment – just one moment – I feel a spike of jealousy because that's supposed to be his voice for me, that's why it's special. But then I feel ashamed. "We'd just be tripping over ourselves. More people'd get lost –"

"But she's twelve! She can't be out there on her own!"

Being twelve has nothing to do with it. Being a girl like Sophia does. I feel sick.

Carol faces Rick, her face changing, crumpling together, and sobs are seconds away. "You didn't find anything?"

"I know this is hard," Rick says, holding his hands up in a calm down sort of way, "But I'm asking you not to panic. We know she was out there."

"And we tracked her for a while," Dad adds.

Carol's breathing hard, shakily. All of her is shaking, actually.

"We have to make this an organized effort," says Rick, loudly, and I look behind me and all of the group is here. Lori's doing her best to comfort Carl. Carl's mouth is open. The look on his face . . . I don't think he ever considered that they wouldn't find Sophia.

But then again, neither did I . . .

Roll with the punches. Roll with the punches. Be tough. What's Rick saying?

"Daryl knows the woods better than anybody."

True. Very true.

"I've asked him to oversee this."

"Is – is that blood?" Carol's asking. She's pointing at my dad's leg. And yes, there's blood. Why is there blood on my dad's leg?

Rick and Dad exchange looks, and Rick seems lost for a moment, but then he nods. "We took down a walker."

"A walker – oh my God –"

"There was no sign it was ever anywhere near Sophia."

I want to get away from all of these people and go somewhere with my dad and talk to him. I want his hand on my shoulder and I want him to tell me I'm fine and –

Andrea's asking Rick how he can be sure, be sure that the walker wasn't around Sophia, that the walker didn't –

But it's my dad who answers. "We cut the son'bitch open. Made sure."

I think of all of the deer, the rabbits, the squirrels I've seen my dad gut. Helped him gut. Now I try to take all those scenes, all the blood and the gore, and make a human – no, a walker, there's a big difference – fit into the picture. I can't. I don't want to. I don't look at the blood on my dad's leg anymore.

Carol. Poor Carol. She sits down on the guardrail. She's pale, I can tell that even in the dusky light. I hate this. My dad's still behind the guardrail. I want him by me, now.

Lori's sitting beside Carol. Carol, she's talking to Rick. Oh, she's – she's mad. "How could you just leave her out there to begin with? How could you just leave her?"

Handcuffs flash through my mind and it happens – my temper flares up and I'm mad again, just like that, it flares up and makes my fists form, and I glare at Rick and will Carol on.

"Those two walkers were on us," says Rick. He sounds tired. Anxious. I don't care. "I had to draw them off. It was her best chance."

Shane passes me and stands beside Rick. "Sounds like he didn't have a choice, Carol."

"How was she supposed to find her way back on her own?" Carol gasps.

Look at the sun. Remember landmarks. Trace your footsteps. But Sophia, she doesn't know that, any of that, but I guess that didn't matter to Rick.

"She's just a child . . . she's just a child . . ."

Rick crouches beside her, wiping a hand over his mouth. "It – it was my only option. The only choice I could make," he tells Carol, and he sounds earnest. Real. Regretful . . .

But he left her and that was wrong, it was wrong!

Shane tells him nobody doubts him. Shane is wrong, too. You don't leave people. You don't –

I was going to leave T-Dog. Earlier today. Instinct told me to.

My stomach caves in and it hits me that I'm no better than Rick is.

"My little girl got left in the woods." Tears are streaming down Carol's face now.

Rick doesn't reply. Then he bobs his head up and down, fast. Then he stands. He looks around at all of us, and then all at once, he starts walking away, Andrea sits on the other side of Carol, and my dad steps over the guardrail. He moves past me without a word, but his hand lands on my shoulder as he goes by. I want to chase after him so bad, but I know my dad. He wants time alone right now.

I don't look at Carl again for the rest of the night. Because his friend is lost. Because his dad left her and that's bad and I might be just as bad. Because my dad couldn't – he hasn't found Sophia yet. Because Carl and I aren't friends. Because it should have been me and not Sophia, if life were fair, because I would know what to do with myself. Because I hated that look Carl had on his face before and I don't want to see it again.