Days later, he lost her. Someone took her in a car branded with a cross. Daryl hurried after it, calling for Beth over the thunder of his heartbeat. As the car escaped him, its glaringly red lights faded like closing eyes. He followed the road until it split into a Y-intersection.
Sweat wet his hair and his burning lungs begged for an end. He dropped his crossbow and hopelessness pulled him to the ground.
He lost everyone just as a tree lost its vibrant leaves in autumn. He was left bare and gray; unsightly with his exposed, sharp branches. The family he found brought color to him, but he forgot how much the winds could take away from him.
He didn't know how long he sat there, but it was long enough for him to be approached by a clique of rugged men. They encircled him.
"Well lookit here." As the man in front of him bent to take the crossbow, Daryl struck him like a coiled snake, feeling the cartilage of the man's nose crackle. After knocking him to his back, Daryl trained his crossbow on him; a hunting dog pointing at game.
Around Daryl, guns clicked and stared at him.
"Dammit, hold up!" Their leader's voice was muffled by his hand over his nose.
"I'm claiming the vest," said one behind Daryl. "I like them wings." He heard the grin.
"He's got a damn stuffed animal like some kind of dolt," another snapped.
Daryl's muscles twitched with the temptation to turn his aim on the man beside him. He could lose his vest if needed, but not Harley's Tigger. It was all he had left.
"Hold. Up." The leader touched his bloody nose. He laughed hysterically and climbed back on his feet. "A bowman. I respect that. See, a man with a rifle, he could have been some kind of photographer or soccer coach back in the day. But a bowman's a bowman through and through. What you got there, 150 pound draw weight? I'll be donkey-licked if that don't fire at least 300 feet per second. I've been lookin' for a weapon like that. Of course, I'd want one with a bit more ammo and minus the oblongata stains."
The man behind Daryl chuckled. "Get yourself in some trouble, partner?"
"You pull that trigger," the leader said. "These boys are gonna drop you several times over. That what you want?"
Daryl stayed silent.
"Come on, fella, suicide is stupid. Why hurt yourself when you can hurt other people?" His smile was ominous as storm clouds. "Name's Joe."
Daryl lowered his crossbow. "Daryl." Around him, the guns followed suit, and Joe's smile broadened.
"Now, the best way to handle a knife is the one you feel the most comfortable with."
Harley admired the hunting knife Daryl held; a silver fang she imagined could sink through to bone, the flesh being nothing but soft dough.
"In some situations, things might get outta hand fast," he said. "Ya might not have time to think. Don't get caught up in the 'proper way' to hold the knife. Practice using it in whatever grip you like so you'll be as prepared as you can be. If we come across any of them dead ones, remember to go for the head. That's what kills 'em."
Daryl handed Harley the knife, and his trust dumbfounded her. She hadn't been allowed to handle a plastic dinner knife. No patient could at Laurel Heights. She wasn't used to this small privilege, and realized this new world meant new chances.
She gripped the weighted knife like an artist familiarizing with a paintbrush. The amount of red she could paint intrigued her, and it wouldn't matter if she swiped or carved on her canvas. Anything was deemed artful, even a colorful dot. "I've nev'ah killed anything before."
"This time around you'll kill plenty of things only because ya have to. A lot more than before."
"I think I'm more scared of bein' alone than anythin'."
"We got good numbers here. Good people, too, even if some don't know how to handle a weapon yet. They'll learn just like you, and you won't be so worried anymore."
Harley smiled, tracing the edge of the knife with a fingernail. "I do have a great teacher."
Daryl's smile was small and brief. After a moment he said, "I notice whenever Merle comes 'round, you run. He won't hurt ya. I wouldn't let 'em."
"He gives me the heebie jeebies."
"Yeah, that's his charm."
"All he does is remind me of the guys that hurt me, an' it wasn't tussles." The memories returned as a feeling, a ghostly intrusion of hands exploring her and whispers of false promises tickling her ear. "They forced me to do stuff with them."
"At the hospital?"
She nodded, rubbing away the phantom hands as if they were hungry flies.
Daryl looked down.
"Ya don't have to feel sorry for me. I don't want that. All that happened to me is in the past now."
"Yeah," he said quietly. "But it ain't far behind. These days, though, you can't run from nothin' anymore. You gotta fight. No matter what."
"How do I fight the past?"
"You'll find a way."
While it was still dark Daryl left the sleeping men for the woods, stepping over the wire girding the area. He kept his bag behind, but Harley's Tigger stayed strapped to his hip.
Joe's followers, men who acted like a pack of wannabe wild dogs, continued to mock Daryl for carrying the stuffed animal.
"He carries that thing like it's a damn chihuahua in a purse."
As much as he wanted to stamp their faces with colorful bruises, he kept quiet; seething like lava beneath the earth. They didn't know what and who he had lost, nor did they care to assume. He would have been a matching piece to their puzzle long ago, but these days he was tearing away the caution tape from his heart.
And it started with a messy group of people and a nutty woman. It took the end of the world to unravel the softest part of him.
He leisurely walked, not minding the crunch of debris underfoot. The woods, peaceful as a sleeping body, carried everything he had left to hold onto; memories.
"Why do you carry that thing around? Ain't you a little old for toys?" Daryl followed Harley through the woods, sunlight slicing through the canopy like air holes poked in a box.
"Ya never too old for toys!" Harley said. Daryl thought her loud voice would scare away everything. "Besides, ya really think that matters now?"
"Ain't much of a need for survival."
"Maybe not for you. But if you can put an arrow through that squirrel." Harley pointed it out on a tree. "I'll tell ya why I have Tigger." She stopped and faced Daryl, smug as a dog stealing a treat.
"Alright." Daryl eyed her, questioning her confidence. He had enough in himself to overlap hers. "Easy enough." He aimed his crossbow, and the arrow severed the squirrel's spine, pinning it to the tree like a specimen on a naturalist's card.
Harley's face fell. "Maybe too easy."
Grasping the plump squirrel, he pulled the bloodied arrow out. He looked at Harley, holding it up. "Arrow for an answer."
"Fine." She hugged her Tigger, resembling an innocent, small child. "I've had him since I was little, little. He was the only thing I had ta talk to while my mom yelled the color off the walls. When I needed a hug, I had him. When I was scared in the woods, I had him. He feels alive to me. He knows everythin' about me. All my life."
Tears shimmered in her eyes like liquid mercury. "He might be just a toy to ya, but I've had him since I don't have anyone else. He's my heart."
Daryl didn't have toys growing up; he had the woods and lessons in hunting. The only intimate thing he had with his father scarred his back. He was nothing with his family. He didn't have an identity. All he was was part of the duo that contained him and his brother.
Merle kept him handcuffed to him, and all the blood and tears rusted the cuffs chafing Daryl's wrist. Merle never showed him any decency, and Daryl never expected anything different. He realized now Harley never intended to be mocking her interest in him. She wasn't Merle. Daryl had a hard time seeing through Merle's thick shadow casted over him. He didn't know how to tear away, but he wanted to start sneaking some light.
"Really means that much to ya?"
Harley stretched her lips into a thin smile and nodded.
"Sorry I misunderstood."
She clicked her tongue and dismissed him with the wave of her hand. "Don't worry about it! Tig and I forgive ya. So what animal are we orphaning today?"
"We ain't going for the young ones. Big ones feed more people."
"Aw, c'mon, everyone's got a mom or dad. Or had. What were yours like?"
The scars on Daryl's back became sensitive as though they were raw. "Not much better than yours."
"Did they at least give ya any toys?"
"If you count using empty beer cans to build a shitty castle, then sure."
"What's a toy you've always wanted?"
"I don't know."
"Aw, c'mon. There's gotta be somethin'!"
"There's not."
"What if—"
He stopped, staring at her over his shoulder stone-faced. The simplicity of a wanted toy was another door that led to gritty memories in a rundown house. It was a house he only visited in his dreams, and he wanted to keep it in the dark. He didn't want to see it when he was awake. Not in the light of day. He couldn't give it that yin-yang power.
Harley pressed her lips into a thin line as if caught in an act. "Right. Boundaries."
The deer, a cookie cutter shape in the sea of dying sunlight, stared and bobbed its head at Daryl and Harley.
"Just stay still," he said. "She's checkin' us out."
"We've been doin' this staring game for an hour."
"It's only been a couple of minutes."
"Feels like forever."
"You wanna learn or not?"
The deer began to graze, but then snapped its head up to their direction.
"What's it doin'?" Harley whispered.
"Tryin' to make us move. Give ourselves up."
The deer stilled, statuesque like a taxidermy animal. In the silence, Daryl heard his pulse in his ears and felt it echo throughout him as though his body were a cavern system. The deer turned and nibbled the ground vegetation.
Daryl handed his crossbow to Harley.
Her eyebrows shot up, childlike enthusiasm shining in her eyes. "For me?"
"You needa learn."
She took the crossbow, and Daryl guided her on how to handle it; molding her form like clay. "Hold it loose. You'll get stability from your rest, your shoulder, and your cheek - not so much your hand. And don't close one eye."
The crossbow's stock was solid against her shoulder, and she glued her cheek to it.
"Deep breaths." Daryl checked that her finger was relaxed over the trigger. "Aim just behind the shoulder and some way up from the belly. Both the heart and lungs are there, and if your shot goes smooth, you will get one or the other, and the deer will suffer as little as possible."
At Harley's silence, Daryl looked at her. The sunlight struck her eyes, sharpening them into a light, sea glass blue. They looked feral, and about as inviting as barbed wire around a 50's suburban house. There was something much more to her than her bubbly, colorful exterior. More than just her night terrors. She looked like she wanted to do as much damage as possible.
She pulled the trigger, but
Daryl's arrow struck the cottontail, but so did another. He felt the other arrow shoot past his temple like a single, cool breath. Behind him, Len smiled like the smug bastard he was.
"What the hell are you doing?" Daryl demanded, chest heated.
"Catching me some breakfast."
"That's mine." Daryl gestured, moving to the rabbit.
"My arrow's the one that hit first. Cottontail belongs to me."
Daryl kneeled down, and pulled the arrows out. "Been out here since before the sun came up."
"You see, the rules of the hunt don't mean jack out here. Now, that rabbit you're holding is claimed, boy." Len looked where Daryl tossed his arrow. "Claimed whether you like it or not. So I was you, I'd hand it over."
Daryl approached him, gripping the cottontail by the hind legs.
"Now. Before you get to wishing you ain't never even got out of bed this morning."
"It ain't yours."
"You know, I'll bet this bitch got you all messed up, hmm? The one who had that stuffed animal at your hip. Am I right?"
Like double exposure, Daryl saw Harley over his reality. He saw her hugging her Tigger to her chest with that cheshire grin of hers. What she held wasn't just a stuffed animal, it was her heart. She was born with her heart outside of her body, and now Daryl had it, wondering where she had gone without it. Or if it was ripped from her corpse.
Daryl moved around Len.
"Got you walking around here like a dead man who just lost himself a piece of tail. Must have been a good'un."
Daryl stopped, working his jaw.
"Tell me somethin'. Was it one of the little'uns?"
He unhooked the knife at his leg.
"'Cause they don't last too long out here."
Daryl ripped the knife from its holster, turning on Len, but Joe snatched his forearm; the rope around Daryl's horn.
"Easy, fellas, easy," Joe laughed.
Len grinned at Daryl, biting his tongue playfully.
"Let's just put our weapons down. See if we can't figure out what's really the problem here, huh?"
Daryl eyed Len as Joe wedged himself between them.
"Did you claim it?" Joe asked.
"Hell, yeah," Len said.
"Well, there you go. That critter belongs to Len."
"So let's have it." Len gestured to Daryl.
"Looks like you may be wanting an explanation," Joe said to Daryl. "See, going it alone, that ain't an option nowadays. Still, it is survival of the fittest. That's a paradox right there. So I laid out some rules of the road to keep things from going Darwin every couple hours. Keep our merry band together and stress-free. All you gotta do is claim. That's how you mark your territory, your prey, your bed at night. One word." Joe held up a finger. "Claimed."
"I ain't claiming nothin'," Daryl said gruffly.
"We're gonna teach him, right?" Len stepped forward, a bull seeing red. "The rules say we got to teach him."
"It wouldn't be fair to punish you for violating a rule you never even knew existed," Joe said.
Exasperated, Len raked his fingers through his hair.
"There ain't no rules no more," Daryl said.
"Oh, there are. You know that. That's why I didn't kill you for the crossbow." Joe grabbed the cottontail from Daryl.
"Hey." He tightened his grip hard enough to bruise the animal.
"Easy there, partner." Joe held the cottontail's body against a tree, splitting it in half with a hatchet, and tossing one end to a bewildered Len.
Silenced by the stalemate, Len walked off.
"Claimed," Joe said. "That's all you gotta say. Hey, ass end is still an end." He followed after Len, leaving Daryl.
It seemed he eventually got the ass end of everything. Why he went along with the Claimers, he didn't know. Numbers, maybe. He had no one else. He used to think he was better off on his own, but the raggedy Tigger at his hip made sure to tell him otherwise.
He imagined all the things Harley would say and do, to Len and him. Her and her impulsiveness. Her and her funny Three Stooges accent.
"Hm." He smiled.
She missed. The arrow teased the fur of the deer's back, and it hurried away.
"Did ya see that?!" Harley exclaimed.
Daryl moved to retrieve the arrow, which stuck to the base of a tree. He had seen that wild look of Harley's before; a domesticated tigress smelling blood for the first time.
While they skinned a deer he thought she enjoyed it too much, but he tried not to analyze. She had been in mental care, and experienced a different kind of "normal." She found everything outside of her normal fascinating; people, hunting, weapons, cars, and rocks. She was a flower innocent of other fields.
"Sorry I missed." Eyebrows squished together, Harley handed him the crossbow.
"It's alright. It's what learning's for. You good to keep going? Could be at this all day."
"Oh, I'm peachy." She dismissed him with the wave of her hand. "Let's go!"
Liquid pearl moonlight became intimate with the darkness, and shadows of the trees left ghostly gashes on the ground.
Daryl walked alongside Harley, the tartness of berries she harvested lingering in his mouth. At first, she overwhelmed and even annoyed him. She was too talkative and bubbly, an extra bright star intruding on his comfort away from others.
Others noticed his seclusion, the shelter he built for himself even with safety in numbers. He didn't let himself be easy to read. Like a top secret document, he blacked out most of himself, but Harley put him to the sun to see through his security. It scared him to be seen. He was scared of the damage anyone could do, or the damage they would find.
He wanted light, but wasn't brave enough to leave his brother's shadow. Instead, someone came to him. Now, he didn't mind Harley in his sky. She didn't judge him, or try to play operation and change him.
Like the need for a wolf to howl, the moon gave Daryl the courage to speak, reflecting on Harley's question about his parents. "My mom, she liked to whine." His softness felt safer in the dark. No one could look into his eyes and see what he hid behind dry words. Not all of him was out of the shadows yet. "She liked to smoke in bed; Virgina Slims."
Harley looked at him, quiet and intrigued.
"I was playing out with the kids in the neighborhood. I could do that with Merle gone. They had bikes, I didn't. We heard sirens getting louder. They jumped on their bikes to run after it, you know, hoping to see something worth seeing. I ran after them but I couldn't keep up. I ran around a corner and saw my friends looking at me. Hell, I saw everyone looking at me."
"Fire trucks everywhere. People from my neighborhood. That was my house they were at. It was my mom in bed burnt down to nothing. That was the hard part. You know, she was just gone. Erased. Nothin' left of her. People said it was better that way." Daryl chuckled. "I don't know. Just made it seem like it wasn't real, you know."
"I'm sorry about your mom," Harley said softly.
"I'm sorry about yours."
"Hey." Harley stopped, and Daryl did, too. She pulled out the smallest bouquet of purple and white flowers, and gave it to him. "I picked this earlier. A long time ago, the statice meant 'I miss you', like some sort of remembrance."
Daryl held it as delicately as a life in his fingers.
"Although you haven't told me much, I can tell most things. Perks of livin' around broken people all ya life. I dunno, I thought it could mean to you…somethin' like a remembrance for the childhood you lost. I know what that's like, and I'm sorry you didn't get the one you wanted."
Daryl put the statice flower in his breast pocket, letting it peek out. He looked at Harley. Her eyes were big and watery, and she smiled as if proud. He furrowed his brow. "What?"
"Ya big ol' softie, c'mere!" Harley latched onto him like a sea urchin and squeezed. Eyes closed, she breathed in deeply as if he were her favorite flower.
He wasn't sure what to do. Escape? No, because then she'd look at him like a kicked puppy. Begrudgingly, he patted her shoulder.
"I knew you weren't so bad."