Carol was angry. She didn't understand, or rather, she didn't want to understand, and he got that. She wanted them to stay until they had both healed, and he saw the reasoning behind that, and appreciated that she was worried about them - about him - badly enough to be mad at him for not following her reasoning, but he couldn't lose any more time. The wolf, he was sure, hadn't stopped for anything since taking off toward the south the night before, and he had to follow as quickly as possible or risk losing its trail.
He had rushed through the breakfast she had made for him, sharing his meat and sausages with Rick who seemed to be much better than the night before; had cleaned his crossbow and inspected it to make sure that it hadn't taken any damage from his rough and careless handling of it; and had tied back his hair and started putting on his boots the moment he was finished.
„What do you think you're doing?" she had asked, her tone deceptively calm and quiet as she came up next to him and Rick. The wolf had looked up at her with its amber eyes from where it was sitting in front of Daryl, keeping an eye on him.
„Gettin' ready to move out," he had answered, his voice soft. „It's been movin' since last night, since it finished feeding on your neighbor." He knew he was being an asshole, but he had to focus on what he was putting on the line with every moment he delayed his departure. It was the lives of innocent people that he was risking, and he had already lost too many of those over the years to risk any more.
„It's getting too cold up here," he went on, defending himself. „It can't stay here any longer, and it won't come back again for me. Your winters get so cold that it would risk freezing to death at night - and I would risk Rick. So it fed, because it had to, it was running low, and now it's on its way back down south, where it can stay in the open at night without freezing." He looked up at her briefly, but she was so pissed that she looked off toward the window, denying him her eyes. With a sigh he picked up his jacket and started putting it on. „We're Hunting it, so we have to follow. There's no way around it. We've got to leave."
His voice became softer. „Today."
A whisper. „Now."
She did meet his eyes then, hearing the anguish in his voice, and realizing that he wasn't leaving out of spite, and that moving on didn't leave him unaffected. It tore at her to hear how much he cared, how much he didn't want to go. Her heart ached at the thought of giving him grief over something he hated doing, but had to do nonetheless. „Be safe out there," she whispered as he swung his crossbow onto his back and put on his gloves.
Once again, his eyes seemed incredibly blue as they held hers for an endless moment. „I will remember," he breathed. „And I will try -„
She placed one finger on his lips, silencing him. „Do not make promises you cannot keep," she warned him. „I'm the kind of person that will hold you to your promises, and hate you for breaking them. Try what you need to - but do not give me something now just to take it away again later."
Biting his lip, he nodded and picked up his helmet. „Stay indoors after sunset." His voice was brittle, and he was unable to look at her. Opening the helmet's visor, he grasped the chin straps to both sides to hold them down against the helmet's edge and keep them outside and accessible, and then raised the helmet over his head.
Just as he started pulling it down, her hand came up, lightning fast, and brushed over his cheek. Closing his eyes, relishing the unexpected touch, not flinching away from it, he swallowed hard, and when he opened his eyes again to meet hers, she lowered her hand, averting her face, her lips quivering. His eyes burned as he put on his helmet and closed the chin strap.
He grabbed his backpack, nodded at her, once, his eyes again looking like the sky inside the darkness of his helmet, and was gone.
The wolf trotted out after him, looking up at her as it passed.
Carol firmly closed the door behind the wolf, unable to follow and watch. Leaning against the door, seeing his blurred shape through the glass inset as he fixed his crossbow in place and swung his backpack onto his back instead, she heard his bike roaring to life, heard the scrape of metal against stone as he turned up the kickstand, and after a few more moments - during which he turned the bike toward the west, walking it backward while already sitting on it - he revved the engine twice, and then he was gone.
The fire crackled in the hearth, the house screaming its emptiness around her.
Hugging herself, she took a deep breath and stepped up to the sideboard on which she'd set the plates for breakfast. Her hands were perfectly steady as she opened one of the two drawers and took out a knife.
It was made of silver.
.-.
They traveled fast, sparing neither the bike nor themselves, pushing south relentlessly. That same night, they made camp in a field they had passed on their way north four days before, surprised at the difference that a day's distance - a long, hard day's distance - made in the temperature at night and their degree of discomfort in the morning. The trail they were following was still fresh, and when they set out the next morning it didn't seem to have aged that much, compared to the day before. Apparently, Shane had rested during the night as well, which meant that they hadn't lost too much time by giving in to their physical needs.
While packing up for their second day on the road, they had discussed whether or not Shane had also been injured in their fight and had arrived at the conclusion that Daryl's second bolt, the one he had wielded in his hand when jumping toward Shane, might have grazed him, but other than that, they had to assume that Shane had escaped unscathed. Daryl had never even pulled his silver-bladed knife on him.
While they had both attacked him, Daryl's first bolt had flown wide, the second hadn't inflicted any noticeable damage, and he had not had a chance to even take the third one out of his quiver. His own unarmed damage potential against a werewolf was nothing to write home about, whereas Shane's claws alone, as well as his weight crashing into Daryl and throwing him down, had inflicted considerable damage on him.
The same was more or less true for Rick. He had boweled Shane over, managing to get him off Daryl, but had not had a chance to follow through with his attack in any meaningful way before getting bitten himself. His claws, he pointed out, might have done some damage, but the effects of the fight would certainly not slow Shane down. They could only hope that he was assuming they would allow themselves some time to heal and only follow with a considerable delay.
If Shane didn't assume anything of the sort, maybe even hoping that they would not follow at all any longer, but instead traveled at full speed, they would have to search for his trail again - without any indication of where he was headed or where he might stop on the way. And this, Daryl thought, was with another wolf helping him track the beast, which made identifying the tracks as Shane's much easier than it would have been for him alone.
They pushed on.
.-.
Daryl noticed subtle signs of being followed or watched on the third day out. It was nothing that he could have put his finger on, but the signs were definitely there, even if some of them could be traced back to gut instinct. At times, it was literally only a feeling of being watched, of eyes burning into his back - but also of benevolent attention on him, for which he had no explanation, especially since he spotted nobody at all whenever he gave in and looked around himself.
When he talked about it to Rick, all he received for an answer was a blank stare when he would have expected Rick to have already sniffed out their pursuer. The really big question was who, except for Shane himself, whose trail they were following, would have any interest in following them. Maybe someone was holding a grudge because of a wolf they hadn't managed to take out and that had killed someone dear to whoever was stalking them?
Also, Daryl had absolutely no idea how anyone could be following them consistently at the speed with which they were traveling south. By day, Rick rode on the bike behind Daryl, carrying the backpack. Once he felt the Change coming upon him, Daryl stopped to take a break while Rick retreated into a copse of trees or a field not yet harvested. Once he had completed his Change, they then routinely traveled on for at least one or two hours, with the wolf loping along at nearly the same speed as the bike, but slightly back from the road so other travelers would not spot him. How anyone could essentially match that pattern without drawing their attention to them was beyond Daryl, no matter how closely he kept watching their backs.
Daryl took to sleeping in uncomfortable positions so he would wake at the smallest disturbance, and Rick stopped venturing out too far from Daryl's camp at night, loath to leave him behind unguarded.
However their pursuer was doing it, Daryl still felt like he was being watched - and Rick was beginning to feel it as well.
