"Y'all gotta follow the creek bed back," Shane announces outside, where the group has all gathered underneath a tree with far-stretching branches. "Okay, Daryl, you're in charge. Me and Rick, we're just gonna hang back. Search this area another hour or so just to be thorough."
"You're splittin' us up?" my dad says. "You sure?"
"Yeah, we'll catch up to you."
"I wanna stay, too." That's Carl. He steps forward, looking from his dad to Shane without blinking. I eye him. "I'm her friend," he says.
I remember him crawling up into that truck, getting right next to the body, tugging out the weapons, and I think now what I thought then: The kid has spine.
Rick and Lori exchange looks that I guess don't come out to mean no, because Lori then tells Carl, "Just be careful, okay?" and hugs him, saying something about him growing up. I consider asking if I can stay, too – I don't like the idea of Carl getting to do something and me not – but I brush that idea away. My place is with my dad.
Rick takes Lori in his arms, telling her goodbye, and as she pulls away, he stops her and says, "Here, take this." He holds out his handgun, barrel down, the way you're supposed to give a gun to someone, I know. "Remember how to use it?"
Lori gives him a look. Lori reminds me of my mom sometimes. Like anytime she gives a look like that. "I'm not takin' your gun and leaving you unarmed."
"Here, I got a spare."
My dad. He makes a gun appear, some little gun I've never seen on him before, and he hands it to Lori. "Take it." He gives Rick a nod and Rick nods back, and I know at that moment that my dad's not mad at Rick for leaving Merle behind anymore. Does that mean I shouldn't be?
But he left Sophia, too . . .
I was going to leave T-Dog.
I'm confused and I'm tired and bugs keep biting me. I slap one away now and let Dad nudge me forward, and we walk off, me and Dad and Lori and Carol and Glenn and Andrea. I look over my shoulder once, and even though Carl and Rick and Shane are walking off in another direction, Carl's looking over his shoulder, too. He's almost too far away to tell at this point, but I think our eyes meet. And I think he gives me a smile. And I think I might smile back, just a little, just to be polite.
Or maybe because – and this is just a maybe because – he might be starting to grow on me.
But that is a big maybe.
. . . . .
Going back, the six of us don't say much, the same way it was this morning. My eyes scope the woods with every step I take, looking not just for walkers but for something, anything – a patch of clothing, a ripped-off knot of blonde hair, maybe even that doll – that points to Sophia. But I see nothing. None of us do.
Sometime in the late afternoon Carol sits on a log without a warning. "So this is it? This the whole plan?" There's hopelessness and disgust in her voice.
My dad sighs, leaning up against a tree. The log Carol is on reaches over here, by him, and so I sit down. An odd mix of pain and pleasure rushes through my legs. My muscles have this bad habit of not telling me how tired they are until they can't take much more. I frown and rub my thigh, telling those muscles to deal with it. Dad, he says, "I guess the plan is to whittle us down into smaller and smaller groups."
And I don't like the way he says that, I don't like the edge of doubt in his voice. But he catches me watching him and winks, so I know we're okay. As he does that, though, Andrea's saying nastily, "Carrying knives and pointy sticks . . . I see you have a gun."
Does she mean my dad? I turn to her, but no, she's not talking to him. Her eyes are on Lori, who looks at her in a cold way that doesn't match the air around us. "Why, you want it?" She puts her backpack down on this log and draws the pistol, holds it out to Andrea. "Here. Take it. I'm sick of the looks you're givin' me."
Andrea glares back at Lori, mouth slightly open like Lori just said something completely unfair, but she's not wrong, Lori. Me, I pay attention, and I've seen those angry glances Andrea keeps throwing Lori's way. I mean, Andrea looks angry a lot lately, but still. She takes the gun now, though, in a slapping way that suggests she thinks the whole thing is completely ridiculous.
My mother would have rolled her eyes at her, and so I do.
Lori sits back down on the log. "Alla you . . ."
All of us? All of us giving her bad looks? I haven't given her a single bad look, didn't know there was reason to. Still don't think there is. My dad gave her the gun, so it must be okay.
But Lori's talking to Carol now. "Honey, I can't imagine what you're going through, and I would do anything to stop it, but you have gotta stop blamin' Rick."
There's a tingling on the back of my neck. Stop blaming Rick. Rick, who left Sophia? I squirm.
"It is in your face every time you look at him. And when Sophia ran, he didn't hesitate, did he? Not for a second."
Carol looks away from her. I do, too.
"I don't know that any of us would have gone after her the way he did – "
My dad would have, I know that. But I don't say anything. I want to chew my knuckle but, since Dad's standing right over me, settle for picking at the skin instead. Because Lori's making good points and making it hard for me to be mad at Rick and making little streams of guilt pool together in my stomach. Especially now that I know my dad's not mad at him, either.
" – or made the hard decisions that he had to make or that anybody could have done it any differently. Anybody?"
No one says a word.
"Y'all look to him," says Lori, "And then you blame him when he's not perfect. If you think you can do this without him, go right ahead. Nobody is stopping you!" She lifts a water bottle to her lips and takes a drink in a somehow heated way. She's just finished putting the cap back on when Andrea holds the pistol back out to her. She takes it silently.
"We should keep moving," Andrea says, and her voice has softened a bit. And I know that Lori's managed to change some part of some game here, and I think that's a good thing. She's been nice to me.
Lori pulls her backpack on and stands, along with Carol. My muscles beg me, beg me no, but I grit my teeth and make myself get up. It's not so bad once I'm on my feet, but I know my legs'll go right back to aching later. I'll be fine, though.
More walking. More bugs, more heat. I love the woods, I do, but it's best in the morning. Yeah, in the morning, and in the middle of fall. Waking up in a cold tent, wrapping myself in a puffy coat three times too big, holding a thermos of coffee I won't drink just to keep my fingers warm, listening for rustling in the dry leaves . . . Oh, I'd come home with a sore throat, and Mom would chew my dad out, but I didn't care, I loved it, and I'd sure love it right now. I'd love a lot of things right now.
Like for my dad to not be mad at me. But is he mad at me? I'm not sure. He called me Sydney Rose back at the church, which is never a good sign, but it's not like I did anything bad. I was just talking.
I decide to feel out the situation.
"I beat T-Dog in poker," I tell Dad. We're at the head of the group, of course, basically alone.
"Yeah? Win anything good offa him?"
"We didn't bet."
"Didn't bet? Ain't you s'posed to be a Dixon?"
I giggle, and I know then that he's not mad. He's joking, and he doesn't joke when he's mad. And I'm relieved. But I still don't get –
The gunshot stops my thoughts short. It stops everything short. My dad jerks his head around and his hands tense on his crossbow, even though the shot was far off, echoing around us like it could have been just a dream. But it wasn't. It was a gunshot, very real, and it came from behind us, and I don't see how there's any way it didn't have something to do with Rick and Shane and Carl.
Carl.
And suddenly I really wish I had asked Dad if I could go with them.
