He was barely asleep for a couple hours before the brick flew through the window. The sound of glass shattering made my heart nearly jump right out of my chest as Daryl scrambled to his feet like he hadn't been sleeping at all. I pressed my back against the wall beside the window to keep out of sight. The brick lay at the end of one of the aisles. There was a red ribbon tied around it.

"They must know we're here," I whispered to Daryl, who was crouched below the window. He straightened slowly to peek out through the bottom where the glass remained intact. A sudden thud against the door on the other side of the room made me jump. Thank goodness we'd locked it.

"What do we do?" I stammered, trying desperately to keep the panic out of my voice.

Daryl picked up his crossbow and used the end of it to break the rest of the glass out of the window frame. "This way," he said. There was another loud thud from the door. They were trying to break it down.

"They could be right around the corner!" I protested.

"You wanna stay here?" Thud. "Our best chance is this way."

"Okay," I agreed, and picked up my bag.

"Leave that," he said. "Less weight you're carrying, the better."

Thud. Crack!

"Hurry up!" he hissed.

I dropped my bag to the floor and pulled my jacket out of it. After putting it on, I strapped my belt around my hips, knife and machete attached.

"Here." Daryl held out a pistol.

"Don't you need that?" Thud. Crack.

"I got another one. Let's go."

I tucked the pistol into my belt and climbed out the window. The alley was quiet. The car I'd seen parked out on the street was gone. I eyed the dumpster as Daryl hopped down after me. There was surely someone hiding behind it, waiting for us to pass by. Daryl must have had the same thought, as he'd loaded his crossbow and was stepping carefully towards it. I followed closely, machete drawn and ready.

Inside the store, the intruders managed to break through the door with a final loud CRACK. As the footsteps inside approached the window, Daryl reached the side of the dumpster and whipped his crossbow around the corner at whatever might be hiding on the other side. A foot came up and kicked it back at him, throwing off his balance for a moment, just as three sets of heavy boots hit the ground behind me. I barely turned in time to see the bat coming straight for my head. I ducked out of the way, slicing my blade through the air. It hit the man's thigh, cutting it nearly in half. Blood spurted everywhere as he tried to hold himself up with the bat. The other two men came at me with their own sharp weapons, but I'd already turned and run out of their reach. Daryl was wrestling with the one who'd been hiding behind the dumpster. He had the attacker's throat in the crook of his elbow and was slowly pressing the air out of him, but the man was struggling, his arms flailing and scratching Daryl's face repeatedly. Without another thought, I plunged my blade into his ribcage and he fell out of Daryl's grip. The other two were close behind as we sprinted from the alley.

Our feet hit the asphalt hard as we ran down the dark street. Daryl turned and fired an arrow, hitting one of the men in the shoulder, but it didn't bring him down. They didn't seem to have guns. If they did, they were smart enough not to use them and risk attracting walkers. Daryl struggled to load another arrow onto his bow, falling behind a few steps just before it locked into place. I glanced over my shoulder. The men were only a few feet behind us. There was no choice but to stop.

As if we'd had the exact same thought, we turned around, stopping instantly. Our followers' momentum kept them from slowing in time to avoid the end of my machete and Daryl's arrow. They hit the sharp ends at the same time. I felt my blade go clean through the man's spine and out the other end. His eyes, wide and shocked, stared at me as he went still and fell to the ground. I was just as stunned. I let the handle slip from my hand with the body still attached to the blade.

Daryl's hand on my shoulder made me flinch. I hadn't realized that my entire body was tense. My eyes were still glued to the impaled corpse at my feet. I'd killed two people out of self-defense before, but that didn't mean it was easier to kill two more.

Daryl must have realized what was going through my mind. He dropped his hand and stuck an arrow into the man's head. He'd already taken care of the other one.

My breath hitched in my throat. "The other two," I croaked.

"What?"

"The ones— in the alley. Their heads— we didn't—"

Daryl shook his head. "They don't matter. We should go. There might be more of 'em."

I could feel the muscles in my face start to twitch, my chin, my eyebrows. I clenched my teeth, resisting the tears that were fighting their way to the surface. I felt sick, but not like I was going to throw up. It was a more twisting, weightless feeling that threatened to rip my consciousness from me. I reached out with one hand, gripping Daryl's jacket as I swayed with dizziness. I thought he would offer some stability, maybe put an arm around me for comfort, but before I knew what was happening, the back of my head hit the hard ground. I hadn't fallen. I'd been pushed. The pain in my elbow and tailbone confirmed that.

I pushed myself upright to see Daryl yanking his knife out of a walker's head. It was the man whose leg I'd sliced. He'd bled to death faster than I thought. I hadn't heard it coming. Daryl must have pushed me out of harm's way before it got me but I was too weak to catch myself. He hurried to my side to check on my wounds.

"You okay?" he asked. I just nodded. Luckily my hair had been tied up in a bun at the back of my head to soften the blow. My elbow was bleeding badly, though. The ground had scraped it up. I noticed then that Daryl's face was also bleeding from a few shallow cuts along his cheeks and forehead. Those must have come from the guy he had in a headlock in the alley.

"You're bleeding," I said as I regained my thoughts.

"So are you," he replied.

"I know." I twisted my arm to look at my elbow. The pain from the impact was worse than the pain from the broken skin. It throbbed terribly. "My bag," I said. "I had a first aid kit in there."

"Can't go back for it now," he replied. "There might be others."

"We should find another store, then," I said. "I need to clean and wrap this. And those cuts on your face are gonna get infected soon."

Daryl stood and held out his hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet. We looked around, observing our surroundings. We were in front of a strip mall whose windows were mostly boarded up. Across the street from it was a park lined with trees. It was too dark to see past the sidewalk.

"Maybe there's a drugstore down the street," I said, and started walking. I swallowed. My throat was dry. I needed water.

Daryl caught up to me, my machete in his hand. I'd forgotten to pull it out of the body. He grabbed the sheath hanging from my belt and slid the blade into it. I thought the word thanks but wasn't sure if I said it out loud.

"You did what you had to," he said quietly as we walked side by side down the dark street. "Ain't nothin' wrong with that."

"His eyes," I said, my voice nearly a whisper. I couldn't get that bug-eyed stare out of my mind.

"That woulda been you if you didn't kill him first."

"I was trained to save lives, not take them," I said. "After the first time, it took two weeks for my stomach to accept food again."

"It ain't easy for me neither," Daryl said. "But there's no other option if I wanna live."

"I know," I said. "I understand that. But that doesn't make it any less sickening."

"It'll go away," he replied.

"Did Rick ask you those three questions, too?"

"Nah, he didn't come up with those till after I already knew him."

"How did you meet him, anyway? You don't seem like people who would have talked to each other before."

"There used to be others with us," he explained. "One of 'em was his partner from the force. Rick's wife was with us, too. They both thought he was dead. Said they left him in a hospital. Then one day Glenn finds him hidin' in a tank in the middle of Atlanta and brings him back to our camp. Shoulda seen their faces."

"What happened to them?"

"Got bit," he said, but something about the way he said it made it seem like there was more to the story.

"Sorry," I said. I didn't want to pry a sensitive subject, but the distraction of conversation helped ease my nerves. "My brother was bitten," I continued, venturing into the territory of sharing things. "He was seven. Shit had just started going bad. They got into our parents' house. He was home alone. I stopped by to check on him and found him bleeding on the floor. He told me not to let him get bad. Said he wanted to stay a person. So I hugged him tight and stuck a knife into his brainstem. It's instant that way."

Both of us were quiet for several minutes after I'd finished speaking. Telling the story hadn't made me sad. It reminded me of how strong my brother was.

"My brother was already turned when I killed him." Daryl's voice finally broke the silence with the last words I was expecting to hear. I looked at him. He was staring straight ahead. "He was shot. Left to turn. I stabbed him in the head seven times."

"Wow," I said. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," he replied. "Did what I had to."

I could feel the warm blood dripping down my arm. I was letting it hang at my side when I should have been keeping it elevated to minimize blood loss. I would need water, alcohol, and clean bandages. A tube of Neosporin would come in handy for Daryl's face, but it wasn't likely that we'd find any.

I was starting to have rational thoughts again. My mind was clearing up. That was definitely a good sign.

We finally came across a drugstore that, aside from the shattered windows and ransacked interior, didn't look too hopeless.

We rummaged through the debris in search of anything useful. Our flashlights didn't offer much light, but it was better than nothing. l stepped over an overturned clothing rack that had once held cheap sweaters and t-shirts and made my way to the wall where the refrigerated drinks would have been. I wasn't surprised to see that there was nothing left behind the glass doors. There was shelf leaning against the glass a few feet away. I stepped carefully over to it as Daryl hopped over the pharmacy counter.

"Bandages, not meds," I called to him. There was probably nothing left back there, anyway. I reached down and pulled up the shelf. It had once held countless bottles of liquor, but now all it held was the yellow price labels along the edges. I looked at the floor beneath it. I couldn't believe my luck. There was a plastic bottle of cheap vodka that had survived every previous raid of the place. Maybe there was still some water left, too.

I picked up the bottle and went to the pharmacy counter. Daryl was somewhere in the back where I couldn't see him, so I climbed over to go find him.

He was in a small office that had also been searched, but not as thoroughly. He was sitting in the desk chair, his head ducked under the table. And right there on the desktop stood three unopened bottles of water.

"Daryl?"

The thump of head against desk told me I'd startled him. He sat up straight, rubbing the back of his head. "Jesus, don't do that," he said.

"Sorry." I set down the bottle of vodka beside the water.

"Don't think gettin' plastered's gonna help much," he said when he saw the label.

"It's not for drinking, genius. I need it to clean our cuts."

"Last people to rob this place didn't think to look in the good doctor's mini fridge," he said, indicating the water.

"I noticed," I replied. "Anything else in there?"

"Rotten sandwich that smells like ass."

"I think we're good, then."

"D'you find bandages?"

"No."

Daryl turned around and pulled a white lab coat from the back of the chair. "Will this work?"


We managed to make it back to the van by dawn. We wanted a safer place to rest and clean the blood off our skin than the middle of a drugstore in shambles. We'd each downed a bottle of water in big gulps, thrown the rest of the bottles and the lab coat into a plastic bag, and made it out of the town in one piece.

We sat inside the back of the van, doors locked and windows up. We were gonna have to make another run to find gas. Resting was a little more important now.

Daryl sat facing my right side, bottle of vodka in hand. I held my arm out, elbow up so he could clean it.

"Pour enough to cover the scrape and use part of the lab coat to dab the blood. Don't wipe it. And be gentle with the pressure."

"I've done this before. Relax," he countered. He let some of the liquor trickle onto the broken skin of my elbow. It stung, but it was nothing compared to the throbbing I was still feeling from the impact. If I'd fallen any harder I would have broken the bone. Then I'd really be screwed.

When he was done cleaning the blood away, he tore a long piece of cloth from the lab coat and wrapped it tightly around the wound. "Thanks," I said, bending and flexing my elbow. It hurt, but so did the rest of me. "Your turn."

I used my knife to cut off a small piece of the coat and soaked it in vodka. I rearranged myself so I was facing Daryl and started dabbing at a cut along his jaw. He barely winced.

"He really got you good," I observed as I cleaned. "Who knows what was under those nails of his." I brushed his bangs aside to check his forehead. There was only one scratch and it was small, but I cleaned it anyway. The worst one was on his cheek. It was long and deep and the blood dripping from it had stained half his face. The skin was easy enough to wipe clean, but the cut itself was bad and I didn't have the tape from my first aid kit. Luckily it wasn't bleeding anymore, but any bit of pressure or movement could open it up again. "You're just gonna have to be careful with that one," I said. "It's deep and I can't stitch it up."

"I'll be fine," he said. In my EMT mindset, I'd been entirely focused on cleaning the scratches. But now that I was almost done, I was starting to become fully aware of how close his face was to mine, how his skin felt under my fingers. It was softer now that it was actually clean. I'd gotten rid of most of the dirt since it was all mixed with the blood. I stole a glance at his eyes, which were looking somewhere over my shoulder. They were a pure, crystal blue that suddenly made my throat feel dry. I let my gaze fall over the rest of his face as I dabbed absently at a small cut. I wondered how he'd react if I kissed him. Would he push me away? Be completely repulsed? Would he kiss me back? I felt like a teenager with a stupid crush, but I couldn't help my thoughts.

I didn't let myself think any more of those dumb thoughts. They'd only drive me crazy. I dropped the hand that was cleaning his face and leaned forward before I could stop myself. I hesitated for a moment when my lips were barely an inch from his. He didn't move back, didn't pull away. I forgot how to breathe. Then I pressed my lips to his. They were chapped and dry, but so were mine and I didn't care. I didn't know what I was expecting to happen, so anything would have been a surprise. I felt his hand on the side of my neck, his thumb on my cheek. He was pulling me closer, deepening the kiss. My heart gave a lurch. It felt like it was beating in my stomach. My ribcage filled with heat. I'd forgotten what this felt like. It was the best thing I'd felt in a long time. I wanted more. The warmth in my belly made me want to grab him, touch every inch of him, but the bit of rationality I had left reminded me of what a bad idea that would be.

I broke the kiss but kept my forehead against his. I didn't want to open my eyes. Didn't want to come back to the dim reality I was stuck in. He dropped his hand from my neck to my arm. "You need to sleep," he said. His voice was raspy. I hated him for sounding like that when resistance was so important.

"Yeah," I whispered, opening my eyes but keeping them down. "I think I should." I didn't look at him again. I just crawled into the front passenger seat and reclined it as far as it would go. I drifted into a dreamless sleep, completely clueless as to whether the knot in my stomach was good or bad.