10.
"What just happened?" Beth asked, the first of the women to find her voice.
"Is he dead?" Carol asked, voice hushed.
"I..." Lori held the binoculars firmly in her grasp, watching the prone figure on the ground. It was just too hard to tell from where they were.
"I'm going out to him," Carol said.
"You can't!" Lori said, grabbing hold on Carol's arm.
"We can't leave him out there."
"Someone was watching him. And if we go out there, they'll shoot us all," Beth said.
Carol looked to Lori, wanting her to change her mind, but she saw the resolve in the other woman, knew that she was thinking rationally and she conceded, feeling helpless and fearing for Daryl.
"Carl?"
Rick walked carefully over to where his son was standing in the doorway. Carl's back was to him, and he didn't respond to his father's call.
When Rick was a few steps behind his son, he gently called his name again, this time drawing the boys attention. "What's wrong?"
Carl looked a little worried. "I thought I heard something."
Rick stepped up beside Carl. The others were in the warehouse, loading what they could onto carts to take out to the cars. Rick and Carl were on watch, T Dog, covered another door on the other side of the large warehouse. Rick studied the shop floor and heard no sound, saw no movement. But he trusted his boy. The others were still quickly checking through boxes for anything useful to them, things that were vital.
"Dad, can we go soon? Back to Mom?"
And there was something in Carl's tone, in his eyes that frightened Rick. And he too wanted to get back to the prison as soon as he could.
Ann watched in horror as the man on the other side of the fence hit the ground.
As soon as the gun had fired, she'd moved from where she'd been hiding, stepping out so that Suzy could see her. The two men pushed the child aside as they reached the fence and she heard them start to argue. Something about the keys and not reaching the body.
But she didn't care about them, she just held out her arms and waited for Suzy to come to her.
Suzy wasn't hers. When this all started, when she'd fled her some she'd spotted the girl alone in the street looking terrified and she couldn't leave her.
They'd lasted a long time hiding out in a house in a quiet neighbourhood but then these men had found them.
They'd use Suzy as bait if they saw survivors. Draw them in. She was a little girl. Harmless and innocent. And from what she'd heard, they'd wanted this prison for some time. They'd seen the cars leave and had hoped it would be there chance, but the gates were still locked and they didn't have the tools needed to get in. Then they saw a faint light one night and they knew they had a chance.
There plan was never to kill the who'd come for Suzy because they wanted a hostage, concerned more of the living would be inside and they'd need to bargain there way in.
Suzy shivered in her arms and she knew it wasn't just from the cold. The dead things were getting closer, she could hear their faint moans steadily growing. She wondered if the men had a plan now, the arguing had calmed somewhat and they were discussing a strategy yet she could hear what they said.
Ann rubbed Suzy's back, trying to comfort her the best she could and when she looked back again, one of the men was standing over her. "Back to the van," he said. She tried to see what was going on behind him, but he blocked her view so she followed his instructions, standing up and picking Suzy up with her, heading to the van.
When they got to the van, he opened the back for them and she crawled across to the blanket that was on the floor and say on it, Suzy wrapped in her arms.
She wanted to ask what they were doing, but was too afraid to speak. He was checking his gun. The dead things were still coming, they weren't far off and he was checking his ammo, seeing what he had left to kill them with.
But she was wrong about that.
He was checking the gun to see if he had enough ammo to kill them.
And Suzy was dead in her arms before she even realised that the gun was no aimed at her and the trigger was being pulled.
Daryl's shoulder was throbbing in pain.
The crossbow was just out of his reach, his fingertips brushed against it, but he didn't want to move for it. He needed to listen, to observe.
He couldn't see what was happening. Heard a couple of people arguing, a girl crying and eventually the talking calmed down. They thought Daryl was knocked out and he was determined to keep it that way. One of them was going to get the woman and the kid back to the van and the guy still here was going to drag Daryl over to him and snag the keys from his belt.
Daryl hoped they stuck with that plan because it sounded a lot like it was just the two men and they were about to split up. He waited and listened.
The guy left to move him closer grunted with effort for a bit before cursing to himself. Whatever he was trying to do wasn't going well from the sound of it.
The sound of two shots firing out stopped Daryl playing dead as his mind focused on one thing. The woman and child. If they were planning on getting in here, why would they take them away? He raised his head and the man at the fence was turned away, towards where the shots had come from and Daryl pulled a gun out from his belt before the man in front of him had even turned back round. He pulled the trigger without wasting another moment.
He regretted having to use the gun. It gave the other man the opportunity to know something was wrong but he knew the crossbow would be too heavy to lift with just one arm and he'd likely have missed his shot. The second man was cautious and never came out from the woods enough for him to get a good clear shot. he saw the body, eyes went quickly to Daryl and then he retreated, heading off back into the woods.
Daryl heard the van start up and drive away.
With the adrenaline starting to ebb away, Daryl could only think about what he'd bought on them all.