DARYL'S POV:

I breathed hard and stared down at my brother's sawed off hand. Blood was splattered across the white pipe he had been chained to and was dripping from his end of the cuffs.

I paced back and forth, fuming. I spun around and pulled my crossbow up with a grunt. I leveled it at T-dog's head. It was his fault my brother was gone.

But Rick had his gun pointed straight at my temple, ceasing any further movements from me. I heard Kaiya let out a frightened squeak behind us. My breathing was uneven and pant-y even. I could feel myself shaking, but the crossbow didn't show it.

We stayed like that for a few very tense minutes before Rick said, "I wont hesitate. I don't care if every walker in the city hears it."

I blinked hard a few times, tears threatening forcefully once again. I dropped the crossbow, eyes still closed.

Rick un-cocked his gun and lowered it as T-dog breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

I kept my glare focused on T-dog, though. Then I looked down and tried to blink the blurriness out of my eyes. "You- uh… gotta do-rag or somethin'?" I asked, trying to keep my tone level.

He reached into one of the pockets of his cargo pants and pulled out a blue rag.

I walked closer to the hand and propped my crossbow up against the pipe. Then I bent down to his hand. I laid the rag down next to the hand and started to pick it up by the pinkie. "I guess the, uh, the saw blade was too dull for the hand cuff." I twisted it around between my fingers. "Ugh… Aint that a bitch?" I set it in the middle of the rag and folded it up, sighing. I stood up with the wrapped up hand and turned to the others.

I saw Kaiya holding Glenn's hand while a few tears dripped silently down her face. The expression she wore didn't fit the tears, though. She looked strong and determined, not grieved and tearful.

I grabbed Glenn by the backpack strap and turned him around. I opened the top of the bag and set it inside. "He must've used a tourniquet. Maybe his belt. He'd have lost more blood if he didn't." I grabbed my crossbow and walked back to the blood stains. I followed the blood stains.

T-dog retrieved the bag of tools Dale had wanted us to bring back and the other three followed me.

The blood drops led to a door.

I lifted my bow so that everything ahead of me was in the sights of my weapon and ducked around the corner, spying around the inside of the door. Rick held his gun in his right hand, using his left to steady the butt. Kaiya had her rifle drawn, gripping it fiercely. I had to admit she was pretty adorable with a gun. Wait… What?

"Merle!" I called down the stairs beside us. "You in here?"

We started walking slowly and cautiously down the stairs. We came to the ground level and I walked into an office-looking room where one walker was lurking. She was kind of fat looking and her bottom jaw was missing, leaving her bloody tongue hanging out disgustingly.

"Ew…" I heard Kaiya whisper beside me. Huh… I hadn't realized she was so close to me. "That's nasty."

I brought my crossbow up and shot straight through the walker's forehead.

We moved stealthily forward, peeking around every corner, tiptoeing over every object laying askew on the ground. When we came out of the door, we met up in a hall with Rick and the other two. Guess Kaiya was the only one that followed me through the room.

The hall was long and very dim, but there was just enough light seeping through the windows for us to see. We came into another office at the end of the hall. There were two walkers laying dead on the floor with a bunch of papers strewn about.

"Had enough in him to take these two sum o' bitches. One handed," I muttered, walking around the large room. I put an arrow in the crossbow and started pulling it back to cock it. "Toughest asshole I ever met, my brother. Feed him a hammer and he'd crap out nails."

I noticed Kaiya smirk at the statement out of the corner of my eye.

"Any man could pass out from blood loss," Rick said, making me frown. "No matter how tough he is."

We moved through the room, looking for any other signs that Merle had been here. We came to another doorway, where carpet met tile. On the light brown-red tiles, telltale blood droplets were leading our way.

"Merle?" I called out again.

"We're not alone here, remember?" Rick murmured, getting a little closer to me.

I looked into the tiled room. It looked like some kind of kitchen. "Screw that," I said. "He could be bleedin' out ya said so yerself."

We moved farther into the room. One of the burners of a stove was lit and still burning. There was blood dripping down the front of the stove and his belt was laying on the surface of the counter next to the stove. Rick noticed an old iron with bits of skin fried onto it and picked it up.

"What's that burned stuff?" Glenn asked, eyeing the iron warily.

"Skin," Kaiya whispered, not quite as appalled as I thought a teenage girl would be at the grisly mess.

"He cauterized the stump."

Glenn looked like he was gonna be sick.

Kaiya shoved him playfully and mumbled, "Don't be such a girl." then walked past him with her rifle up.

"I told ya he's tough," I said, eyeing Rick. "Nobody can kill Merle but Merle."

"Don't take that on faith, he's lost a lot of blood," Rick said, looking around at the bloody mess Merle had made.

"Yeah?" Kaiya asked from where she was, looking out what looked like a smashed window. We walked over to her. "Didn't stop him from busting out of this death trap."

I grinned.

"He left the building?" Glenn asked, sounding terrified. "Why the hell would he do that?"

"Why wouldn't he?" I asked, leaning down and inspecting the broken shards of glass. "He's out there alone as far as he knows. Doin' what he's gotta do. Survivin'."

"You call that survivin'?" T-dog asked as I turned and walked past him. "Just wanderin' out in the streets, maybe passin' out? What are his odds out there, huh?"

I glared at him. "No worse than being handcuffed and left to rot by you sorry pricks."

T-dog looked away, familiar guilt flooding his eyes.

Kaiya frowned, but I tried to ignore it.

I walked up to Rick and stood right in front of him. "You couldn't kill him. I aint so worried 'bout some dumb dead bastard."

Rick returned my gaze evenly. "What about a thousand dumb dead bastards? Different story?"

"Why don't ya take a tally? Do what ya want, imma go get him," I started to walk past Rick and out the window, but he held a hand to my chest, pushing me back. "Get yer hands off me! Ya cant stop me!"

"I don't blame you. He's family, I get that. I went through hell to find mine. I know exactly how you feel." Something about the look in his eyes made me believe that and calmed me down a little. "He cant get far with that injury. We could help you check a few blocks around but only if we keep a level head."

I nodded. "I could do that." At least they were helping me find him and not just abandoning the search because the trail ran cold.

He nodded once and looked over my shoulder at the rest of them.

"Only if we get those guns first," T-dog said. "I'm not strollin' the streets of Atlanta with just my good intentions, okay?"

"You don't have a gun?" Kaiya asked, stepping out from behind Glenn.

He looked at her and shook his head.

"Well, shit, if you had told me that, I could've let you use my shotgun."

I smirked. It would figure that she had another gun.

Rick frowned at her language.

I had to say, though, I kinda liked the way she cussed like a sailor. It was cute. Ugh! Why do I have to keep thinking things are cute? Things aren't cute! I had to bite back a groan, but I kept it in as we moved on.

We moved into another office and Glenn began drawing on the tile in a permanent marker. I highly doubted that anyone was going to charge him with vandalism, so what the hell.

When he was done speaking, Rick said, "You're not doing this alone."

"Even I think it's a bad idea and I don't even like you much," I muttered.

"It's a good idea," Glenn defended. "Just hear me out. If we go out there in a group, we're slow, drawing attention. If I'm alone, I can move fast."

"But I can move faster," Kaiya said quietly.

"What?" T-dog asked.

"I'll go," she said, sitting up straighter and getting a fiery look of determination in her eyes. "I'm faster than Glenn and I'm smaller, more places for me to fit that I can hide behind if a walker sees me."

Everyone in the room saw that this plan had a better chance of being executed properly with her in the center, but no one wanted to allow her to go out on her own.

"No," Glenn said.

She grabbed his arm and turned him toward her. "Glenn, I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself. Besides, you know I'm right. Now summarize your plan to me, I've been having an ADD moment over in that corner playing with some sticky tack."

All of us rolled our eyes at her and listened once again as Glenn hesitantly relayed the plan to her.

"That's the tank," he said, pointing to a clip positioned between two buildings. Five blocks from where we are now." Then he grabbed a wadded up sticky note and placed it in front of the tank/clip. "That's the bag of guns. Here's the alley I dragged Rick into when we first met." He pointed to a corner just on the other side of the building from the tank. "That's where you Daryl and I will go."

"Why me?" I asked on impulse.

"Your crossbow is quieter than his gun," Glenn pointed out, gesturing between Rick and I.

Valid point.

He picked up a random small tape dispenser and set it in the alley where he, Kaiya, and I were going to go. "While Daryl waits here in the alley, you run up the street, grab the bag."

She nodded.

"Rick and T-dog will be waiting in this alley over here in case." He picked up an eraser and put it up the street from the bag and the tank.

"Two blocks away, why?" Rick asked.

"She may not be able to come back the same way. Walkers might cut her off. If that happens she cant go back here," he gestured to Daryl's marker. "to Daryl. She'll move forward instead. All the way around to that alley where you guys are. Whichever direction she goes, she's got us in both directions to cover her." He still sounded like he didn't want to let her go out there on her own and I thought it was dumb, too. But if short round was right, she would be just fine. "Afterwards, we'll all meet back here," Glenn concluded.

"Hey, kid, what'd ya do before all this?" I asked, gazing up at him.

"Delivered pizzas," he answered simply. "Why?"

Rick gave a funny look to the ground upon hearing this odd piece of information.

I nodded and shrugged. It made sense.

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