Soon the trio approached the roadside in silence. Jennifer's heart pounded in her chest the entire time. She tried to reason with herself - one of the men had introduced himself to her - why would he bother to do that if he was planning to hurt her? She knew that she had to stay calm - if she allowed herself to panic, the chances were that she'd panic the men too - and then who knows what might happen.

As they emerged from the tree line, Jennifer looked up to see that the remaining members of the men's group had immediately turned their attention to her. A few of them had raised a gun in her direction, clearly in the habit of protecting each other at all costs.

The man who had introduced himself as Rick quickly settled the commotion.

"It's okay", he said, raising his hand, "it's okay". Jennifer glanced around the people in front of her and noticed how mismatched the group looked. There were men, women and children of all ages. Some of them looked like they could handle themselves, others looked like they only stayed around to cook dinner. The one thing all they shared, though, was that look of fear and uncertainty. Jennifer knew full well that she probably had a similar expression on her face too.

"This is Jennifer", Rick began. "She's who made the noise. We didn't see any walkers, but all of you, keep your eyes open. Remember, no guns unless you have to"

Rick paused to rub the back of his neck with his hand and Jennifer saw how stressed he looked. She deduced that he must be the leader of the bunch. Rick continued informing the group of what he knew.

"She says she's alone and -"

"Bullshit" one of the other men cut him off. "There ain't no way she's alone." The man approached Jennifer quickly and towered over her as he spoke "Where's yer people? And don't fuckin' lie to me". Jennifer opened her mouth to reply but found that no sound came. The man's body language intimidated her, and she could see that his eyes were completely devoid of any kind of emotion.

"Shane, stop it", one of the women carefully said. Her tone of voice confirmed that it was really more of a request than anything else. Obviously this Shane guy had the same effect on his own group.

Shane ignored the other woman and turned his attention to Rick. "Don' tell me you believe she survived this long on her own? Come on, man!" Shane scoffed and walked towards one of the cars, turning back to face Rick "I tell you what we got' do. We gotta keep movin'. We gotta keep goin' just like we planned. Leave her an' let's go."

Rick strode forward to meet Shane. "Shane, listen to me," Rick began. He tried to maintain eye contact, but Shane dodged his efforts, seemingly knowing what Rick was about to say. "We don't kill the living. You know that. And if we leave her here alone, that's what we'll be doing. Look at her, she's starving."

"Then give her a goddamn cereal bar an' send her on her way!" Shane growled back, angrily.

Rick took a step back, trying to resist losing his patience before he spoke again.

"I think she's tellin' the truth, brother. And even if she is with a group, we're gonna be on our way outta here soon anyway, they wouldn't be able to follow us anywhere."

"But Lori, Carl..."

"If she ever steps outta line, she's gone. First sign of trouble, we leave her." Rick assured him before turning to face Jennifer "Right?"

Jennifer only nodded. She was still unsure if she wanted to go with these people. The women and children made her feel much more at ease, that was for sure, but -"

"Can you shoot?" someone asked.

"What supplies do you got in your bag?" someone else wanted to know.

"What happened to your family?" another one added.

"Alright, settle down. Plenty a' time for questions later. First, we gotta get movin' again." Rick nodded quickly at Shane, reaffirming his earlier suggestion. The rest of the group began to disperse towards the vehicles. Rick held back and spoke to Jennifer alone "We're gonna drive another few hours an' then set up camp for the night. We got food, water and protection. If you're comin', you ride shotgun with me where I can keep an eye on you". Rick turned and walked away, headed to a car which already held a woman and a young boy.

In a split-second decision, Jennifer decided to follow him.