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Chapter 12

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The three men were virtually silent as they made their way down the road. Fortunately, the moon was full and illuminated the night to an extent, so they could see where they were going.

Jesus followed behind Rick, who was leading the way. Daryl walked a few paces behind, likely not trusting Jesus to be aware of his own surroundings. Daryl obviously felt the need to keep watch behind them, even though Jesus was perfectly capable of doing that himself. It was also quite likely that Daryl was keeping an eye on Jesus in case he decided to attempt escape again, which Jesus could admit was still a possibility in his mind. He appreciated the help Rick and Daryl had offered, but he still needed that truck.

It was true that Jesus felt pretty much like hell by this point, but he was still paying attention to what was going on around him. Jesus was used to having to keep a sharp eye. He traveled by himself quite often and generally relied on only himself. Even with a bullet hole in his shoulder, a broken arm, and a dull pain throbbing through his entire body, he had his wits about him.

Before leaving the house, Jesus had claimed a nice knife from Scott's body, so he was fully prepared to fight the dead if need be.

"Man, if that truck's gone..." Jesus looked over his shoulder at Daryl, who was shaking his head in preemptive anger and frustration as he spoke. "I had a shitty enough day already."

"It won't be," Rick assured his friend.

"We'll find out soon," Daryl seemed much less hopeful than Rick.

Jesus was not very hopeful either. There were more survivors out in the world than it seemed. They just didn't always cross paths with each other. The chances of no one finding the truck seemed pretty slim. Hell, the Saviors themselves could have found it, and Jesus doubted they'd count it toward Hilltop's quota.

Jesus watched as Rick stopped in his tracks and raised his hand up, indicating for the men behind him to halt as well.

"Couple walkers ahead," he noted.

Jesus gripped his knife in his hand and followed cautiously behind Rick. Usually where there was one walking corpse, there were more. They tended to follow noise, and nothing was noisier in the middle of nowhere than another of the dead clumsily dragging itself over leaves and twigs, running into low branches and snapping them off and making low moaning and growling noises through it all.

So far there were only two up ahead. Daryl quickly made his way past Jesus to dispatch the one Rick hadn't gone toward. It didn't take long for a couple more to stumble out of the foliage from the left. Daryl and Rick immediately went for those two next.

As the other two men continued taking out the small group of emerging from the left, Jesus scanned the area, noticing a faint sound from the right. He gripped his knife tighter and waited, hoping it was only one or a few of the dead. Ordinarily, he could take out four or five with no trouble, but with both of his arms injured, he really didn't feel like fighting too hard if he didn't have to.

For a brief moment, Jesus closed his eyes in anticipation and braced himself for the pain that was sure to be radiating even more strongly down his arm in a few moments.

As soon as a walker stumbled out of the woods and toward the road, Jesus sprung into action, moving toward it and plunging his knife quickly into its skull. He pulled the knife back out and used his foot to shove the corpse backward. It landed with a thud.

Jesus looked back up in time to see another walking body dragging itself out of the trees.

Suppressing a pained wince, Jesus lunged toward the next zombie and took it out in a similar fashion as he did the first. Another one was close behind it. Before Jesus could push the second one, out of the way, the third had made it up to the road and was trying to walk right through the other walker in an attempt to get to Jesus.

With two bodies now being pushed against him, Jesus was knocked to the ground. As he avoided the clawing hands and tried not to look into the white, dead eyes of the corpse presently trying to make a meal of him, he in took a sharp breath and shoved the bodies off of him as hard as he could, unable to suppress a small groan as the movements caused excruciating pain to radiate up and down both of his arms.

He quickly dragged himself up to his knees and put his knife through the walker's skull.

Glancing back toward the woods, he was happy to find no more walkers were emerging from the right. He looked to the left in time to see Rick pulling his knife out of the skull of a fallen corpse as Daryl put down the last of the group.

Jesus un-clenched his hand and breathed a heavy sigh as he dragged himself back up to his feet.

"You alright?" Rick asked, looking in his direction.

"Yeah," Jesus nodded as he continued working on catching his breath.

"You okay, Daryl?" Rick wondered.

Daryl nodded as he put his knife back in his belt and continued walking.

Rick waited for Jesus to catch up before the two followed Daryl down the road. Whether the older man was keeping close to Jesus to make sure he kept up or to make sure he didn't try anything remained unclear.

Jesus flinched very slightly when Rick reached over toward his shoulder. The older man noticed this and paused, looking Jesus in the eyes and silently asking for permission to check his injury. The younger man nodded.

Rick pulled back Jesus's coat and vest enough to see his shoulder. "Just wanted to make sure your run in with the walkers didn't shift the bandages at all," Rick noted before replacing the vest and coat and putting his hand lightly on Jesus's back. "You still feeling okay?"

Jesus nodded. He felt awful, but there was nothing he could do about it.

"You let me know if you need to stop for a minute," Rick advised.

Jesus nodded as they continued walking. He'd love to stop for a minute. Or for a few hours for that matter. He was exhausted and in a lot of pain, but he knew he needed to keep moving. As soon as he rested, it would make getting back up and moving on all the more difficult. So he chose to push through the pain, ignore it as best as he could and keep moving.

"We can share the the supplies in the truck," Rick offered when Jesus remained silent. "It's only fair. I don't want your people going hungry."

Jesus frowned. What was going on with his town, Hilltop, was so much more complicated than Rick could see. In a way, Jesus felt embarrassed for his community. They were allowing themselves to basically be tormented by bullies, with no payoff for their community whatsoever. He didn't want to explain it to Rick and Daryl. It was sort of the town's dark, shameful secret. Jesus, being quite capable in defending himself and generally hesitant to allow anyone to cheat or control him, didn't like to admit that half of all the work he did gathering supplies wasn't for his community at all, but rather for a violent group of brutes who didn't deserve the goods at all.

"I mean it," Rick continued. "We'll work something out so both of our groups win."

Glancing over toward Rick, Jesus wondered if he could live with himself if he made a break for it once they reached the truck (assuming it was still there.) Though his community did desperately need the supplies, Rick clearly had a group depending on him too. Maybe the supplies could save Jesus's friends from further violence inflicted upon them... for a while... But Rick's people needed the supplies too.

Jesus felt nervous when they reached the stretch of road they had been on before, where Rick and Daryl had originally left him once they reclaimed the truck. It would only be a short walk until they made it to the road where he'd seen Daryl and Rick turn off onto earlier today. That was where they seemed to have left the truck full of supplies. Whether it was still there or not, it posed a problem for Jesus.

If it was gone, Hilltop was was going to have a large job ahead of them regathering the supplies. If it wasn't gone, Jesus would still have to find a way to reclaim it. If he wanted the full truckload of supplies, he'd either have to take it forcefully, or somehow convince Daryl and Rick to let him take the whole thing. He'd taken the keys out of Rick's pocket earlier when the man was bandaging his shoulder, so he was prepared to sprint ahead and jump into the truck before they could catch him, but he wasn't as fast as usual, with all of his injuries, and he didn't feel great about leaving Rick and Daryl out on the open road with no vehicle in the middle of the night.

Even as they moved down the road, Jesus wasn't sure if he was going to try to steal the truck back or not. He hadn't decided yet. Sharing the supplies was the right thing to do, but it could cost his community greatly. If he took all the supplies, however, he could easily be dooming Rick's group to starvation. He couldn't decide just yet what the best course of action would be. Nevertheless, he needed to be ready to act on whichever choice he made.

As they neared the road where Rick and Daryl had left the truck, Jesus subtly patted his pocket to double-check that the keys were still there. He'd be ready to make a run for it once he got close enough, if it seemed like a viable and moral option. As long as Daryl and Rick didn't expect him to sprint toward the truck, he'd likely make it to the truck before they did.

All three quickened their pace when the turn-off was in sight. When Jesus could see down the road, his hopes were immediately dashed. There was no sign of the truck anywhere. He felt his shoulders slump as he stopped walking and simply stood in the road, staring at where the truck should have been.

"Dammit!" Daryl growled, but kept walking as though expecting to somehow find the truck further down the road. It wasn't there though. Someone had obviously found it, broken into it, and hot-wired it. It was long gone, and they weren't getting it back.

"It's alright," Rick was obviously the calm one in this duo. "We'll live."

Jesus swallowed a lump in his throat. Rick's reaction proved he didn't need the supplies as much as Jesus's group did.

"How far away is your camp?" Jesus frowned, wondering how much longer his exhausted legs could keep going. If Rick's camp was too far, he may just have to offer to lead them back to his home instead, though he'd rather see Rick's group first, to get a good read on them before exposing his community to them.

"Pretty far still," Rick glanced over toward him. "But we left a car further down the road. We'll still make it back relatively soon. Assuming no one took my keys, of course," Rick added, raising his eyebrows and looking in Jesus's direction.

Jesus shook his head and shrugged. He didn't steal the car keys. He had no use for them. Rick very likely was aware that he had taken the truck's keys, however, or he wouldn't have made that comment. Rick was picking up on Jesus's tricks too fast. He'd have to be more careful around these two...

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