DarylDixon'sLover- She will, without a doubt suffer a painful death but not just yet ;)

Hope ya'll enjoy this chapter too! xx

"You know him, sweetheart?" Wise old Dale spoke up. Being the oldest there he felt compelled to defuse the situation, his age would gain him a little respect at least.

"I don't think so." She whispered, half disappearing behind Daryl.

"Course she don't fuckin' know 'im." Daryl snorted, "Ya bringing the kid out or not?"

The question hung in the air for a painfully long time, Andrea nudged Alice and nodded at the enemies behind, every single one was grinning, for them it was a twisted joke, they had done this so many times before.

"Not... Here's how this is going to work, you lovely people are gonna march all the way back to that little Inn of yours, get all your supplies, bring them back here then the kid is all yours."

Rick was smart enough to know that he was in no position to argue, he had already decided to agree just to get his friends out but his heart wouldn't stop nagging him about Sophia. "Can we see her? I can't be sure that she's even here otherwise."

One of the men reappeared moments later with what resembled the little girl, only her head was covered with a filthy old pillow case and her hands were bound. "Sophia, hunny! It's going to be ok!" Andrea called out, praying that hearing a familiar voice would reassure her somehow.

This was the first time the survivors had come into contact with another group since it all began, they had been too nieve. In a world where only the strongest survive good people turn bad and the bad just get even worse.

The man Rick was trying to reason with wasn't one of the good guys, he was an ex-army sergeant relieved of service after commiting a horrific murder. His day release from prison had worked out perfectly for him, escape had been easy. The dead rising had been very convenient for him.

"Daryl-"

"I know. Somethin's wrong with her, she's just swayin'." Daryl knew exactly what his girl was thinking, it was hard to tell from such a distance away but her movements really did resemble a walker.

Rick lowered his gun with a solemn nod,

"Okay, we'll be back before nightfall."

As the group began to take their leave, the air thick with a suffocating tension, the leader made one final demand.

"The women can stay here, that way you'll be sure to come back."

Rick knew this decision, whatever the outcome, would rest ontop of his shoulders for the rest of his life. No matter how he tried to view the situation, the only option was to comply and pray no harm would come to Alice, Andrea or Lori. The increasingly loud arguing around him was preventing him from voicing his decision, the voices around him were shrill enough to rip through his thumping temples, only one voice clearly stood out from the others.

"Well? Aren't you going to do something or are you going to be a coward just like Rick?" Shane sprung into action at Lori's command pumping the shotgun in his hands vigorously, he stampeded towards the leader in a one man army completely blinded by love. Rick watched in a warped slow motion, unable to prevent his former best friend from marching to his own suicide, the leader withdrew a small handgun from the back of his trousers and promptly put a bullet in Shane's head. His heavy body hit the floor with a loud thud, life vanishing from the former cop in an instant from the bullet hole between his open eyes. No tears fell for him, no screams rang out in protest of the horrific crime just committed- there was only a morbid silence.

Daryl clutched Alice tightly, the men of the group were being hearded out of the warehouse, guns on their backs, but he couldn't move. "I can't...I won't leave ya." She blinked away the tears from her watery eyes and somehow managed to suppress the trembles threatening to shake her, she had to be the strong one for once.

"Quit bein' such a pussy an' go." Her impression was uncanny, in another situation Daryl would have laughed at a chick trying to sound like him but unlike her he couldn't even force a smile. She was acting like it was no big deal, like she was oblivious to what men can do to women who are defenceless in such a messed up world.

How could she be so strong when he was falling to pieces in front of her?

"Come on!" The captors were becoming impatient, Alice was terrified of letting Daryl leave but even more afraid of him being lost to her forever. No way would she continue to live if he wasn't still walking the earth, keeping the squirrel population in check.

"I love ya,ok? Two hours tops an' I'll be back." The dirt on his hands smudged onto her deathly pale cheeks as he kissed her one final time, he gripped her face with the same urgency that her fingers clung to his arms.

Daryl's eyes stung, burning with a teary mixture of despair and hatred for a group of men that he needed to kill with his own two hands. The last deadly glare he shot the leader conveyed his thoughts, warning him off the only thing that mattered to him- Alice.

The only light in the room trickled through small gaps in the wooden boards that covered one small single window. It wasn't the suffocating humidity in the room that exerted the most repulsion but the stench of fresh urine. Warm tears found a way through Alice's closed fingers but she didn't utter a single sob, she didn't want anyone to know that she was crying. Andrea placed a comforting hand onto her shoulder knowing that it would do no good at all.

Alice knew that the three strangers in the room were staring at her curiously and that Lori,who was talking with them, wasn't going to fill in any blanks for them but she didn't care who these people were, they weren't going to help. The pain of being apart from Daryl was like nothing she had felt before, unbearable agony that tore her heart in two but she was praying that he wouldn't come back. The two girls and their old father were telling Lori how they had fallen victim to the same group, who had raided their farm and killed the rest of their family. They had been captive for just under a week and had seen other groups seperated from their women to be slaughtered like animals when they returned with the demanded supplies.

"What happened to the other women?" Lori was selfishly worried about her own safety.

"I dunno. It's a big place, maybe they're kept in another room." The girl with short brown hair shrugged, catching Alice's eye with a hopeless glance.

Daryl and Rick tore through the trees, unfazed by the branches scratching at their faces and bare arms, the adrenaline surging through their veins numbed any physical pain they might have felt. They had ditched Dale a couple of miles back, the old guy never had a chance of keeping up with their manic pace.