The girl that they saved in the last chapter is my third main character O.C, this chapter is more about getting to know her. With a bit more storyline thrown in. There will be more O.C's that join the crew eventually, and like any great walking dead story they will always be at danger of being killed off so watch and wait.

This chapter is Eric and Leon asking Rea to joint them and the beginning of their long mission to try and find a safe home for their people.

Stay cool.

The next morning: 7.13am

"There wasn't a time when I was out on the job that I wasn't ready to put my life on the line for any given victim." Rick said as we got back into the police cruiser with our lunch, he began driving to the car park that we usually sat in and I smiled at him curiously. "What?" He said looking at me.

"Why?" I asked him.

"What do you mean?" He said in genuine confusion.

"Why do you risk your life for strangers?" I asked him, the question had been on my tongue since I began the job, but saying it made me seem weak in my mind.

"Everyone has their doubts at the beginning, and you never fully appreciate the concept until you save a life..." He said distantly.

"I don't know if I could do it." I said, looking at the floor of the car as we pulled up in the car park and he rifled through his bag of lunch.

He looked me up and down and grinned. "You could do it." He confirmed.

"Just like that? You can just tell?" I asked him in shock.

"Yeah." He said with a big fat grin.

"Mister!" I heard as my shoulder shook violently. My hand instantly snaked around whatever was grabbing me and I heard the girl whimper. I opened my eyes properly and her big green eyes were staring down at me, upside down. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to..."

"I should be sorry hon." I said softly as I sat up and rubbed my eyes, releasing her hand.

"I wanted to say thank you." She sniffled. It was obvious she had been crying.

"I know that we don't really know each other. And my hope is you'll give me and my friend the chance to get to know you... But if you ever... ever... need to talk about what happened... I ah... I've been known to be a good listener." I said awkwardly.

She smiled at me sadly. "Was he your father?" I asked her.

"My step-father." She whimpered. "I didn't know my real father, what he looked like... anything." She said slowly, trying to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"What happened?" I asked her, sitting up more and leaning against the counter behind me.

She sat next to me on the mattress and pushed her light brown hair behind her ear nervously. "Me, my mom, my little brother and my step-father were staying at a town a few miles way in our Kombi." She said, sniffling again. "Me and Hugh woke up and my mom and my brother were gone. Hugh tracked them here and these men had already killed them. They killed him..." She whimpered.

"I can only imagine how you feel, I could never have any idea about the pain. My family was dead to me since I was ten years old." I told her truthfully. "Did anything else happen?" I asked her carefully.

"They started to... you know... but one of em started having some fit thing and they were about to start when you guys came in. The rest is a bit blurry." She said nervously, looking at the ground.

I looked at her with as tender a face as I could. "I know you remember what you saw." I told her simply and casually. "I know the way we handled those men... it seems... drastic. We've been through a fair bit of shit lately and I know that doesn't excuse our behaviour but I hope it at least explains why we reacted the way we did. And if we had walked in while they were... abusing... you, then it would have been a whole lot worse."

She smiled and looked up at me with wide eyes. "You saved my life, both of you. I can't ever repay you."

"It was our pleasure. So that was your Kombi outside with the supplies in it?" She nodded at me nervously. "How old are you hon?" I asked her suddenly.

"I'm thirteen." She said, looking at him awkwardly.

"I'm nineteen." I countered. "What's your name?"

"Rea... Jamison... And you?" She asked with a bit more confidence.

"Eric Paxton. Where are you from?"

"My mother told me that my father was a cop in Texas. My mother is from Columbia and my stepfather owned a hotel in Atlanta." She replied quickly.

"Your ma jump the border?" I asked her with a smirk.

She laughed. "Yep." She responded. "What's your story? If you don't mind me asking."

"I was a high school drop out, worked in a series of jobs since I left. Lived all over the southern states. I was training to become a cop in King County, Georgia when the turn happened. Me and Leon been living together since we was eight years old." I told her briefly. She'll know the whole truth eventually.

"That's cool, that you guys are so loyal." She commented.

"What are your plans...? I mean... If you want... You can, you know... come with us." I said, far more nervously than I had hoped to.

"I won't be a burden. I can help, however I can." She said, looking at me intently from right beside me. I got a flash of Rochelle's face and looked away with a cringe.

"It don't matter, burden or not... your one of us now." I told her with a grin and she hugged me suddenly, wrapping her arms around my neck.

"Thank you. Honestly, thank you with all my heart. I won't let you down." She said as she started getting emotional again.

The hug felt awkward and weird at first but I slowly relaxed into it when I realised they were two separate distinct people and I hugged her back and she relaxed in my arms. "I see you two are getting to know each other." I heard Leon say from behind us in the main office doorway.

"Rea Jamison... Leon Wolcott. My best friend and brother." I told her proudly. "I've just told the little lady that she'll be joining us."

"And what a joy it will be." He said with a seemingly genuine smile as he approached her and ruffled up her hair. She smiled up at him. "I can't wait for a chance for us to get to know each other."

She looked overwhelmed with joy and it made me even more pissed off when Leon suddenly asked her. "So the men who attacked you... do you know who they were?"

"Leon... come on... she jus..."

"No it's okay Eric." She insisted to me. "Before my mother and brother were kidnapped and killed a man visited us and told us to come to his camp at the cost of merging our supplies with his own. Hugh didn't want to give up what we had."

"Did he say where abouts the camp was that he came from?" I asked her suddenly as a thought crossed my mind.

"Wood-something... I don't quite remember." She answered truthfully.

"Woodbury." I whispered to myself.

"That was the one..." She said with sudden realisation.

"Was the man a hillbilly with a blade for a hand?" Leon asked her, kneeling beside her.

"No... I never saw anyone like that." She said, shaking her head. "The man was... tall and... handsome. He was wearing all black, he hard dark brown hair that was going slightly grey in places. He had quite a big stature too." She said, slowly trying to remember everything she could. "I heard one of his men call him Blake."

"Well neither Blake nor hillbillies will take you while we are looking out for ya so rest easy Rea. We leave at midday." Leon told her softly. "Your body's still trying to get rid of that flu." He pointed out to her.

"Yeah, get out of here before you give us all cooties." I told her as she strolled back to her bed with a laugh.

Leon went and sat on a chair behind the counter and I could hear him put his feet up behind me. I rubbed at my eyes again and reached over to where my jacket lay on the floor next to the mattress. I pulled my already low packet of cigarettes out of the pocket and lit one up gradually. I put my head back as I breathed in the smoke and exhaled with joy as a smile stretched across my face.

I heard Leon light up a cigarette too and I grinned at him as well. "Woodbury. Sounds like a bad idea."

"I knew from the moment I saw Merle in charge of that group. Whatever their camp is... It isn't gonna be around for long. One way or another." I said briefly.

"So now we got a life under our protection... Someone's genius idea... what do we do now, stay on the road? Get ready to get caught on another rooftop?" He asked rhetorically, in annoyance.

I took another drag on my smoke and chuckled. "You wanna join a group just say the word man, I'm good either way."

"It would be smarter don't you think? Given that we have a young teen girl in our care." Leon said with a hearty chuckle.

"You want to go back to Rick?" I asked him.

"How long do you think they will last? now that you've unleashed Merle onto them." He said accusingly.

"Give it a god damn rest Leon..." I said impatiently.

"I mean I'm just saying... There ain't much choice around now. A town of murderers or a farm full of people who are ignorant to how unsafe they are." He said, shaking his head. "And I'm not just talking about the threat of Merle's arrival. They aren't prepared for anything. They were sleeping outside in tents." He said in disbelief.

"Yeah." I said quietly. "I thought that Rick would be smarter than that."

Leon sighed and it was a while before he decided to speak again and when he did he sounded tired and as if he didn't really give a shit anymore. "So we just keep going until we find a good group?"

The life on the road was wearing him down and it was easy for me to see. "Yeah." I muttered, stubbing out my cigarette and struggling to my feet off of the mattress. I reached into the backpack beside the bed and pulled out a white, tight, long sleeve thermal t-shirt and picked out the blue and black plaid shirt that I had ripped the sleeves off of. I changed from my black sweatpants into a pair of white and black camouflage, cargo pants and pulled my pair of light brown work boots.

Rea came back out to the main room and went straight outside. Leon jumped to his feet and grabbed his rifle from where it was leaning on the wall. He followed her outside as I put my backpack on the counter and filled it back up with everything I had taken out for the night. I began rolling my mattress up and Leon and Rea came back inside. She had a small bag of things and she silently handed both of them a can of tuna before moving into the back room with her bag.

Leon ripped his can open and found a plastic fork in his own bag before digging in, I followed suit hungrily and we finished up just as Rea came back into the room in her change of clothes. Rea was now dressed in a pair of tight black jeans with light blue and white converse shoes. She had a loose fitting white singlet hanging off of her skinny upper body and a dark grey puffa jacket over top. She tied her hair back in a ponytail and had a knife with a fist grip in a holster that was wrapped around her right calf muscle.

Leon was wearing a simple black singlet with slim, light grey jeans and white and black sneakers. His jaw line stubble had begun to grow into a full blown beard and he was looking more and more rugged by the day. I smiled at my 'group' and pulled the hood of my 'vest' over my head to cover my bright hair.

"We ready to rock?" I asked them both and they nodded to me confidently. "We'll transfer a few supplies into the Kombi, I'll drive ahead in the Jeep and you two follow me in the Kombi." I said.

"You sure we should take two vehicles?" Leon asked him curiously.

"We're going to have too many supplies to carry in one vehicle, we can barely fit anything else in the Jeep." I pointed out to him. "It's worth the gas loss in my books."

Leon nodded to him and looked at Rea. "Pack all the sleeping gear into the Kombi. Me and Eric will get the stuff out of the Jeep."

"No problem." She said as she knelt down and began rolling up my mattress. Me and Leon wandered outside and surveyed our surroundings. For once there were absolutely no walkers around and I was relieved, it seemed that every time we went outside we were attacked these days. It felt as though there were more and more walkers filling the earth and eventually nowhere would be safe.

I opened the back of the Jeep and took two of the gun bags to the Kombi that was parked relatively nearby. Leon was lugging food bags and most of the gas cans that we had taken from the shed at home. When the supplies were more evened out we had a quick inventory check before hitting the road. I told Leon a few things about horn signals and such and we set off through the pine trees.

Later that night: 7.55pm

I could see Rea in my view all the while, I told her to stay just ahead of me as we cleared out the place out. She held her knife at the ready and I had already witnessed her stab two walkers to death. It amazed me that she could actually do it. For such a skinny little thing she had powerful arms and a strike that wasn't shaken by fear or hesitation. I had my own knife and tomahawk at the ready behind her as she opened the door. No sounds came from inside and I waved her in. She looked at me and nodded. Clear.

"That's that then." I said with a relieved grin, exhaling deeply.

She smiled at me and slipped past me through the doorway brushing against me. "Good work." She said as she passed and began the walk back downstairs.

The farmhouse was big... More space than we needed but the comfort was welcome. There hadn't been many walker's inside or out which showed that this place was practically untouched. I could recognise a couple of the walkers from the photos that were still up on the walls. This place is promising for loot. I realised I hadn't heard from Leon in a bit and decided to follow Rea back downstairs. I passed by one of the bodies that she had put down and it gave me a half-smile. Leon wasn't anywhere downstairs and I had a look out the windows at the vehicles only to find Rea compiling all the stuff they'd need for the night. I saw the door to the basement was open and muttered curses to myself about his recklessness.

As I went down the stairs I listened out for anything that might be going on... but there was nothing to hear. I descended the stairs as silently as I could and turned the corner and my breath caught in my throat. Leon was standing silently looking at two bodies that were hung from the rafters. They both had two bullet holes in their head that looked fresh to me. Leon must have put them down.

"You good?" I asked him.

He stood in silence and I didn't see him move at all. I waited for a response for another couple of minutes before I turned to go check on Rea. "You think our families would have survived this shit?"

"I couldn't care less." I told him instantly.

He looked at me and his eyes were welled up. "Do you really mean that?"

"I do..." I said softly, looking at the floor. "Even if we did want to know it would be a stupid idea to try and find out."

"Mine probably would have... you know... given up." He said waving a hand at the couple with ropes around their necks. "They couldn't even handle taking care of a child. Took the easy way out of that as well..." He said, sniffling.

"You were the family I chose Leon." I told him, my voice shaking. "And not once in my entire life have I regretted that choice."

He looked at me as he cried and I smiled as tears came to my eyes too. "Thank you man." He said quietly, he came straight to me and hugged me.

"C'mon this is feeling a little gay. Let's go see what mischief Rea's up to." I told him, releasing him with a smirk.

When we went back upstairs I found that it had gotten a whole lot darker, a whole lot quicker. "Where is she?" Leon asked, looking around.

"In here!" I heard her call from the back of the house. "Come take a look at this!" She said urgently.

We rushed around to the back dining room where she was leaning on a table looking out a window at a distant glow. "That's a fire." I said in a panic.

Me and Leon looked at each other at the same time and I smashed my hand into the wall in frustration. I looked back at him angrily and he pointed at the garage. "Dirt bike in there. Full tank." He confirmed.

I ran to where Rea had dumped my bag and heard them talking as I strapped my weapons back around my mid-section. "Where are you...? Where is he going?" She asked Leon.

"It's not your problem little buddy. Eric will deal with it and he'll be back before dawn." He said to her as I began my walk to the garage. Leon grabbed my wrist suddenly and I looked at him. "Won't you?" He insisted.

"Don't be scared Rea, I can't die." I said with a wink. I set off at a run towards the garage and found the keys in the bike already. I started it up and revved the engine to shit before taking off and swirling dust through the air as I took the dirt path around the house and followed the bike trail over the paddock hill where we had seen the fire. It was going to be a long ride to Rick's farm and back and I could only hope that the gas would hold for the entire journey. As I rode further through the farm I noticed there were hardly any walkers roaming around until I had gotten so far that the farm had turned to bush.

Every time I had ridden a dirt bike through the forest like this I had been going a tad less fast. But as I weaved my bike through the trees at a dangerous velocity I suddenly wished that I had done it like this every time. The rush was something out of this world and I felt all the fear, panic, stress and sadness eased from my heart and all I could think of was the way my blood boiled as I sped my way towards the fire.

It was at least an hour before I found a road, but I recognised it fairly quickly when I saw a familiar car wreckage. I wasn't far from the farm and I could tell by the faint smell of smoke that clung to the fresh air like a tick. I followed the route that we had used last time we were on the road and I found the turnoff to the farm in minutes. I had to stop when it came into sight. Fuck there's vehicles there. I thought as I saw headlights up ahead. The instinct inside of me was struggling with whether to make myself know. But when I heard yelling coming my way I knew that it was too late for that.

I recognised Merle Dixon as I drove closer to the vehicles. He was running towards me. I jumped off of the dirt bike and it cluttered to the ground heavily as it still attempted to drive. I landed with a roll and Merle opened his arms up as I came closer.

"What the hells the..." He began to say.

I smashed my left fist into his nose twice before my knee came up and smashed into his ribs. My left hand snaked forward again and clutched to his hair, I smashed a head-butt into his eyebrow and felt blood stain my forehead. I smashed two savage right hooks into his cheek and jaw before I felt a crack to the back of my head.

I turned and saw the Latino man that I had seen yesterday readying for another punch. I kicked out at his knee and heard it crack. He fell to the ground with a yelp and I smashed my boot into his knee two more times.

I turned back on Merle and leaned over him as he tried to re-gather himself. "What the fuck did you do!?" I yelled to him.

The barn was burning and there were hundreds if not more walkers wandering around the entire property. None of the group that had lived here could be seen. I looked back at Merle and he suddenly lunged for me. I smashed another right and left punch into his face and he fell back to the ground with a chuckle.

"I didn't do shit." He yelled. "Was like this when we got here." He grunted.

I stood up off of him and he got up and smirked at me through bleeding gums. "Not to say that I wouldn't have done worse if I got here first."

"Leave them alone." I told him angrily. "You find your brother and then leave them the fuck alone." I said as I walked back to my bike. I heaved it back upright and sat on it as I heard the Latino man groaning on the ground. "Haven't they been through enough?" I said, gesturing at the farm.