A/N: I'm sorry that this update's late in coming. Life, as I'm sure you all know, loves to toss things out to trip you up. I should be back on track as far as regular updates, though. I hope y'all enjoy and as always, thank you so much for your support and love for 'Feral'! :)
"Jesus, Aaron, what the fuck ya been eatin'?" Daryl muttered under his breath, hoisting the unconscious man higher up on his shoulders.
As much as Daryl would have liked to have heard his friend make a crack at him, it was probably a good thing he couldn't make a retort. At least it wouldn't be his fault if they drew unwanted attention.
Daryl's mouth tightened into a thin line as Beth cautiously slipped through the door leading out of the basement. Fuck, but he didn't like her going first with just her little pigsticker. If he was going to be completely honest, he didn't like her going first at all, but she just wasn't big enough to haul a grown man on those scrawny shoulders of hers. They made it out alive, first thing he was going to do was shove another can of peaches into her hands and make her eat the whole damn thing.
He shook his head roughly as he used his elbow to hold the door open so he could angle himself through. Beth was in the small hallway immediately outside it, her long hair flowing against her back as she peered around the corner towards the front of the house. It was dead quiet, not even a creak. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He glanced down the hall leading to the back before half-turning towards Beth.
"C'mon," he said gruffly, juggling his burden a bit and shifting so Beth could get past him.
She darted in front of him and he appreciated that she was moving quick and quiet. He barely heard her boots brush against the floor as she swept down the small corridor towards the back door. She held her hand back to him, signaling that he wait as she crouched down to peek beneath the curtain that covered the window. He watched her turn her head back and forth, wide blue eyes scanning the fenced back yard. Then she nodded and gestured to him, cautiously opening the door. The fence was high, but Daryl tried to keep as low as he could anyway, stepping off the back porch and following the wall of the house until he reached the corner.
Beth was right behind him, her hand gripping the sleeve of his jacket briefly as she stopped a little in front him, cocking her head towards the fence. He breathed through his mouth, straining to hear anything, but that fucking silence had descended on the neighborhood again, coating the air with a stillness that threatened to give him gooseflesh. He nudged her heel with the toe of his boot, his gut starting to churn. She didn't even turn around, just started moving towards the gate. Silently, she lifted the latch and cracked it open, looking down the line of the fence before swinging around to look the opposite way, her knife gripped tight in her hand.
"C'mon," she echoed him in a whisper, pushing the gate wide and moving through it in a blur of blonde and grey.
Daryl followed her, but didn't stop when she did, letting her drop back to keep an eye on the rear as they made a beeline for the woods. He trotted as fast as he dared, mindful to keep the jostling to a minimum. Every groan made him grimace.
"Sorry, man," he grumbled, bouncing him up when he started to slide down his back. "Ain't got much choice in th'matta." He stepped wide over a fallen log. "Jus' relax and enjoy the view back there. Don' think I ain't heard you and yer man talkin' 'bout my ass." His mouth twitched a little as he grunted, "I don't mind, though. Kinda have to agree, actually. It's a mighty fine ass."
He hoped like hell Aaron could hear him. Made him feel a little better to think that he could. Daryl angled their path in roughly the same direction they'd come. Their best chance was getting back to that truck. Still didn't want to dig the son of a bitch out of all the crap they tossed over it, but it sure as fuck beat walking. And there weren't no way in hell he could carry Aaron all the way back to the zone. He'd damn well try, but he wasn't fool enough to think that they were gonna get very far.
Shit, was the undergrowth this damned thick when they came through here this morning?
Daryl swore again, much more colorfully, under his breath. Was it just this morning? It felt like a fucking week. Piddlin' round in that basement. Cage. It'd felt more like a cage. Felt like even when he was working on the door that all he was really doing was waiting; waiting for someone to push a muzzle through an opening and pepper the whole room with hot lead, or waiting for a face to appear in the door, or the window, spot them and give a shout. He reckoned Beth felt the same way, much as she'd moved around down there, looking for something to keep her hands busy, looking at the window, the door. Even in the dark, he'd seen her hair shimmering like stray beams of sunshine as she'd twisted to watch every exposure point, every corner. Like a cat with a permanent kitten tick.
"Heh, seems like I've made tha' comparison before," he murmured to the curly-haired man as he glanced back at Beth. Her eyes were narrowed and her jaw was set in that stubborn line. She looked small and tough at the same time, her hand unimaginably dainty where her fingers curled around that big knife of hers . "I reckon it still applies," he added softly.
There was a hand on his arm as they got close to the logging road, stopping him. Beth met his eyes as she came up beside him and applied a firm pressure to his arm. Rolling his shoulders, he set Aaron down as easily as he could and stayed crouched. When he looked up again, Beth held her hand up, fingers spread before she pointed to the line of trees ahead of them. He followed her line of sight, squinting as he caught a flash of color that was much too bright for anything that lived in the woods.
He put his hand on her shoulder, the blonde strands that caught under the rough pads of his fingertips smooth and cool. He put his mouth close to her ear.
"Stay here with Aaron," he muttered, his fingers flexing where they touched her when he felt her tense. "Don't fight me on this, Beth," he said more forcefully when she turned to glare balefully at him.
To her credit, she didn't. She just ignored him, shoving his hand off and scuttling forward before he could grab her again.
"Hard-headed little-" he cut himself off and looked down at Aaron for a split second before he scrambled after her, shifting his crossbow to his back as he went.
Daryl rammed himself against a tree, blowing hair out of his eyes. He could hear a soft murmur of conversation not far from him, and the low rumble of an engine. With a quiet grunt, he steadied the bow on the ground and pulled back the string. He loaded a bolt without looking, peering around the trunk of the tree. A beat up red pickup was parked on the road, a couple hundred yards down from where they'd spent the night before. Beside it, two men and a woman were standing, their rifles pointed at the ground as they talked among themselves. He recognized them as the three they'd damn near flattened yesterday. They wore matching khaki cargo pants and black wife beaters, giving them a kind of militaristic or uniform kind of look. He reckoned they were probably the back guard, supposed to keep watch in case the three of them made it back this far.
He caught sight of more movement at the end of the truck. Then he started swearing again, because what he saw was blonde.
Daryl lifted the crossbow, lining up the shot while his eyes flickered between the petite thing creeping along the tail of the truck and his targets. But he couldn't squeeze the trigger. She was goddamned lucky that they were all facing away from her, because otherwise, he didn't think she could have done it. Vaulting over the back, Beth crept along the bed of the truck with quick, crab-like movements, her knife between her teeth as she got to the back of the cab. Her body blocked the shot and Daryl promised her silently that the two of them were going to have a few words of prayer about this proclivity of hers for running headfirst into trouble.
He watched the muscles in her back bunch under the material of her sweater, her jeans hugging the backs of her thighs tight as she curled her hands over the side of the truck. Then his eyes about popped out of his head as she jumped right over it and onto the back of the man closest to the truck. She snatched her knife out from between her teeth as her arm wrapped around his broad shoulders, a feat that he barely comprehended that she could pull off with them scrawny arms of hers. And then she slid that knife right across the poor bastard's throat.
Without missing a beat, she shoved him from the back as the other two started to turn, clearly trying to pull up their guns as they processed what the hell was happening. But they weren't quick enough. As the dead weight of the first fella was jammed against the second, Beth slammed the knife into the woman's chest. She gasped and Beth yanked it back out. The woman sank out of sight, clutching at her shirt in shock. The blonde didn't pay her any further attention, as the second man was attempting to pull his buddy's body away from him, but it looked like their guns had gotten tangled together. Beth didn't give him a chance, her lips curling back in a snarl as she snatched the other woman's gun from her, a small caliber rifle with something on the end of the barrel that might have been a silencer. He figured that it was when Beth put it smack between the second fella's eyes and fired. He dropped and Daryl watched her aim twice more, presumably putting a bullet in each of the other two's skulls so they wouldn't turn.
She turned her head to where he was standing behind the tree. Their eyes met, her features set in a fierce expression that made his mouth dry. And that was when he realized he was slackjawed.
His teeth clicked together and he scowled, unloading his bow. He shouldered it again like he had before and went to retrieve Aaron. It took some effort to get the tall man back up again, but he managed. Aaron moaned softly, a quiet sound of pain.
"Hush up, now," Daryl grumbled at him as he staggered onto the road, fighting to keep his balance. "Ya been sleepin' through the hard parts."
Beth was crouched on the other side of the truck, pawing through pockets until she fished out a set of keys. She wrenched open the door and slid across the bench seat, sticking them in the ignition. She turned them a little, shading her hand over the dash.
"Full tank," she said as she popped open the driver side, hurrying to the back as Daryl got closer.
She lifted the handle and lowered the tailgate with a hollow bang before climbing back up into the bed. As carefully as he could, Daryl lowered Aaron down and Beth grabbed the shoulders of his jacket to drag him all the way in. Daryl hoisted the gate back up, smacking it once with his palm to make sure it was secured. Then he pointed at Beth.
"You and me are gonna have a long, long talk when we stop," he growled at her.
She didn't even look up, just tossed him the keys and he bite back the urge to snarl at her. Woman was going to send him to an early grave. But if she was, he thought as he climbed in and slammed the door, he was sure as hell going to do his best to make her hair turn gray before then. He'd be damned if he was going to make it easy on her to send him to the pearly gates.
Daryl didn't let himself dwell too much on the fact that he liked the idea of driving her as fucking crazy as she did him. It just wasn't healthy for his sanity to give that line of thought a whole lot of room in his head.