Daryl had finished cleaning the paint off of her windshield finally after two days and when he came back inside, he saw that she had packed up some bread and vegetables for him. He smiled, "Thanks. You could still come with me ya know."
She shook her head. He nodded, "Those guys…they were lookin for you weren't they?"
Her eyes lowered to the ground and she nodded, he'd already known but having her acknowledge it made him want to know what happened, in case she changed her mind and decided to turn up at Hilltop. He asked, "Is it just them?"
She shook her head and held up seven fingers. He then asked, "What happened?"
She hated thinking about it, she didn't want to think about it, what had happened, what all they had done…what she'd done to get away… Everything from that time made her want to vomit. Daryl saw how pale her skin had gotten, he realized he shouldn't have asked. He reached his hand out to put it on her shoulder and for the first time in a week she flinched away from him and he pulled away, "Nevermind."
Moving away from him she grabbed a map that had a marker on it for where they were and where Hilltop was, so he knew where to go, and she handed it to him. He understood and took the map and bag she had packed for him before grabbing his bow and heading for the door.
Ren followed him to the door and once he was through it, she took her necklace of keys off, locking the door, alone again.
It took him a while walking but he made it to Hilltop and heard the people on watch calling out to the others inside. As he walked in the gates Rick, Michonne, Carol, and Maggie came up to him. Rick looked at him, "Where have you been? Are you alright?"
"Yeah we got this note sayin you were hurt." Maggie followed up.
"A note?" Daryl asked.
"Yeah, we've been out looking for you every day since." Michonne said as Maggie handed him the note. It was Ren's hand writing.
This stuff is for Maggie from Daryl. He got hurt while out. I'm taking care of him, he'll be back soon. Good luck with your son.
He couldn't help but let out a slight laugh, that girl actually cared about people as much as she tried not to. He'd realized that's why she didn't want to come back with him, because then those guys hunting her might cause trouble for them, and she knew there was a baby here. Rick looked at him, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, no big deal. Fine now." He shrugged looking at them.
"Then why were you gone for so long?" Carol asked, "Were they holding you or something?"
"What? Nah!" Daryl looked at her, "Just wanted to make sure I was alright."
"Were they good people?" Michonne asked. "The type we would want?"
Daryl didn't know how to answer, he thought she was, but clearly, he still didn't know everything about her to know for sure. He just sort of shrugged at them again, "Didn want to come."
He didn't want to answer anymore of their questions, he felt kind of bad leaving her there all alone with no real protection with those guys out there looking for her, but he wasn't going to stay there with her when he had people here waiting for him. He walked over to the campers, the place he normally stayed while in Hilltop and went into his bag, his stomach somewhat growling. Reaching in he pulled out the only thing she'd packed him that he hadn't eaten, pickles.
Carol came over to him, "They packed you food too?"
"Yeah." He answered, looking at the bag in his hand.
"Daryl." Carol looked down at him, "What happened out there?"
"Nothin. Got stabbed, stitched up, then sent on my way." He forced himself to open the bag and pulled one out.
"Then why did you get that look when you read the note? And the other look when you said those people didn't want to come?" She sat down next to him, "You know I'm not an idiot."
"Never said you were." He said through chews.
"What aren't you telling us." Carol said, "Is it something we need to worry about?"
"Nah." He shook his head, "She won't do nothin to us."
"She?" Carol raised an eyebrow with a smirk.
"Stop." He didn't look at her.
"What? I'm just reading between the lines." She defended, a teasing smile still on her face.
"Ain't no lines to read between." He turned away from her, finishing his last pickle. "She saved me, stitched me up, then I left, that was is."
"Alright, if you say so. Just know that if it was more then that, it's alright too." Carol grinned at him.
"Shut it."
The water pipe had bust in another place and she was working quickly to try and bring the water pressure down before it completely exploded. She held a piece of metal to the leak and tried reaching for the wrench, but it kept slipping out of her wet fingers.
He'd only been there a week, but Ren now saw the usefulness of having someone else around, sometimes fixing things was a two-man job. The two days he'd been gone were a painful example of that.
Deciding screw the leak, she went for the wrench and stuck it on the bolt, gripping it as best as she could to get the water off. Using every muscle she had she let out a yell as the bolt finally turned and water stopped flooding on to the floor.
Sitting down on the chair she looked at the pipes, they needed some real maintenance, she needed other pipes to replace these. She couldn't risk going out again so soon. She knew those guys had gone back, more of them this time, and seen that her car was gone, that she was in the area, she just knew it. She wouldn't be able to leave the campus for at least a month because they would stay in the area to keep looking for her, hopefully after that they would move on.
Grabbing her mask and welder she sat down and fixed the piece over the hole but before she turned the water back on, she used the wrench to tap on the pipes, seeing if there were any places that sounded like they were going to go bad so she could try and reinforce them before they did.
After a few hours work and turning the water back on she went up stairs to her living room and landed on the couch. She was exhausted. She'd never tried to fix or upgrade anything like that before it broke. Her eyes were to heavy to even warrant getting up and getting something to eat.
"Come on, there's got to be a quicker way to get to Virginia than this." Becca said, her foot propped up on the dash.
"Hammond sent me a picture of the path he was taking, that's what were following only backwards." She told her friend, "Plus I mean, at least we're staying out of the way of tornados?"
"But it's Utah, nothing interesting is in Utah." Becca groaned.
"Uh, tell that to the Great Salt Lake." Ren laughed at her, "Don't get a name like that without being interesting."
"Yeah I guess, but according to your map we aren't going anywhere near it." Becca looked over at her.
"Never said you'd get to see it, just that it's considered interesting." Ren grinned.
"Bitch." Becca laughed, "Virginia better be worth it."
"It's better than an entire city of munchers. It has to be." Ren looked out the window, cars abandoned on the highway, the random muncher every now and then in view. "I mean it's where most of the government is, they'll have to keep the people safe there right?"
"I don't know. We lost signal for everything so early on that I don't even know how far it spread. For all we know it could be the whole world." Becca told her.
"Yeah but I mean if a computer virus can't even spread across the whole world, there's no way a biological one can, not with deserts and oceans and stuff like that right?" Ren looked over at her, not knowing why she thought her friend, a code writer would know.
"Sounds convincing enough for me." Becca shrugged. As the car moved on the road, Ren slowed down to avoid hitting cars that were in their path. They heard a pop followed by a thumping noise and Ren slowed to a stop. "What happened?"
"I don't know, sounds like a tire maybe?" Ren answered undoing her seatbelt.
"Do you know how to change a tire?" Becca asked getting out with her.
"If it tells me how to in the car manual." Ren laughed and watched as Becca reached back into the car for the manual in the glove box. She started flipping through while Ren looked at the passenger's side front wheel that was entirely shredded.
"Hey look, there's someone coming that might be able to help us." Becca pointed down the road to a truck maneuvering through the cars.
"You know I already don't like that." Ren said looking down at the tire again, spotting something in the thread.
"Oh come on, not everyone is bad, those people that helped us get out of the city were fine." She waved the car down.
"Hey there, you ladies need some help?" An older man rolled down the window of the truck.
"Yeah, we got a flat tire." Becca told him.
"Becca, stop it." Ren hissed as her fingers pulled at the metal in the tire.
"We'd love to help." The driver got out of the truck, followed by three other men younger than him, more around their age.
"Thanks, we really appreciate it." Becca said with a smile as Ren pulled out a piece of metal that had been sharpened to a small blade.
"Our pleasure." One of the passengers said before striking Becca across the face with the back side of his hand.
"Ren run!" Becca yelled out as she tried to get away too, but two men already had her by the waist and arms.
Ren got to her feet as fast as possible and slid in between two cars that were next to her. She began running towards the brush. It wasn't that high, but she might be able to hide in it if she made it in time. As she ran, she saw two more men come out of the brush coming towards her and she stopped, looking around trying to figure out what to do. She started to run to the right, she saw a small group of munchers there, but hopefully the men wouldn't follow her towards them.
She should have known she'd be wrong as she felt someone tackle her to the ground. She fought and struggled against the weight on top of her and soon another body joined it. She heard one of the men say, "Damn, she's a fighter."
"Don't worry, little girl." Another one said kneeling down by her face, "We just wanna play."
She felt a cloth go over her mouth and nose. It was a sweet chemical smell, but it didn't last long as she passed out.
Ren bolted up out of her sleep, sweat drenching her body as she fought for air. She was shaking, the dream had been just as real as when it actually happened. Getting up from the couch she went to the bathroom and splashed some water on her face before going into her bedroom to peel the drenched fabric from her skin.
Looking over at the wall her eyes landed on a picture of her and Becca at the beach, her friends long blonde hair flowing in the breeze. Her fingers ghosted over the image as a small but sad smile formed over her face.
A/N: Yes, there will be flashbacks and stuff in this and they will always be segments in italics so you can tell them apart, I'm not a fan of making people think that they're reading reality when they're not haha it always gets my hopes up then makes me mad when I realize it's a dream or something haha. But anyways let me know what you guys think! I love reviews and stuff!