Chapter 10

"Are you sure she is ready for this?" Rick asked Charlotte as he eyed young Kaela worriedly.

Charlotte shrugged. "Is anybody ever ready? I see you let Carl go out on scavenging missions all the time." She said, her tone was nonchalant, but her eyebrow was raised and her face harbored a dry smirk.

Rick laughed in spite of himself, she had a point … and she knew it. he put his hands up defensively in front of him. "Okay, okay, you win just be careful! Daryl is out on a hunting expedition, and you know how much he hates when I let you go out alone."

"But I won't be alone, Kaela'll have my back, won't you, girl?" Charlotte said as she nudged the girl playfully in the shoulder. Kaela grinned. "You know it!"

Rick smiled, not since Sophia, had Charlotte grown so close to another kid, they had picked up kids after Sophia's death, but it was always Maggie, Glenn or Beth that took care of them, it was like the pain of losing Sophia was too much too soon for her.

It was Kaela who had initiated the first contact with Charlotte and it was her who wouldn't leave Charlotte alone, no matter how many times she was rebuffed and brushed off.

It had finally paid off, the cute, spunky girl had finally won the tough little one-eyed woman over.

Rick gave them a final wave as he and Carl opened the gates for them 'Be careful!' he mouthed to them as they passed him. Rick watched the old Tucson as it disappeared around the first corner, his aged face lined with worry.

"Don't worry, dad, Charlotte's tough, she'll be fine." Carl said as he gripped his father's shoulder. Rick smiled tragically at him. "You're still too young to understand why it bothers me so much when I have to let her do this. It's because it's how it effects Daryl."

Carl's brow furrowed. "Charlotte's a grown woman, he should know that." Carl said bluntly.

"Yeah, but are you going to tell him that?" Rick said with a laugh.

Carl blanched a little. "No."

"That's what I thought." Rick said, a small smile playing about his mouth.

"But at least she has Gavin with her." Carl offered.

"That's something to be thankful for." Rick said as he put his arm around his son's broadening shoulders.

"Keep your eyes open, girl. When you go into a small town like this and it's deserted, it's easy to let your guard down … don't." she said as she waggled her machete at her. Kaela nodded and steeled herself as they got out.

There were many small towns that people just … missed … and those were the towns that were ripe for the picking. They started at what was once a general store, Charlotte imagined that the small town was once quite a charming place back when the world belonged to the living.

"It's hard to find places like this, corporations like Wal Mart all bust swallowed them all up." Charlotte said as they trolled the dusty, grimy isles for anything useful.

Suddenly, a crash and a shout came from behind her and she whipped around to see Kaela pinned to the ground by a very large male walker, he was dressed in overalls and a John Deer t shirt, probably the owner of the store.

Charlotte rushed forward to help, but stopped short, astonished as the walker stopped, leaned in, took one large sniff of Kaela like a dog, then turned to Charlotte with a hungry growl.

Charlotte stumbled back and shook her head, recovering from her moment of shock, then dispatched the walker easily with one of her machetes.

"Wha … what the hell was that?" She said breathlessly as she cleaned her machete on the dead walker's overalls.

Kaela shrugged. "I don't know how to explain it, I think it has something to do when I was bitten and didn't get sick, I think something changed in me, like the part that made me … I guess appetizing to them went away and they don't react to me anymore."

"And you're just now telling me this because?!" Charlotte said as she gripped her arm.

Kaela shrugged. "Eugene was lying about being a doctor, it just didn't seem like it mattered anymore."

Charlotte opened her mouth to reply when Gavin began to growl low in his throat and pushed himself against Charlotte's leg, his growling rumbling through her like an earthquake.

"Someone's coming." She said as they crouched down below the slats to the boarded windows.

Sure enough, no sooner had they hidden themselves, two vehicles came around the corner. "Shit." Charlotte cursed as four large men exited, packing high powered rifles.

"You think you can take them out?" She asked Kaela, Kaela shrugged and grinned, despite the graveness of the situation.

"No time like the present to try."