"We left her right here," Rick told Daryl as he showed him the hiding spot among the roots. "She bolted when the walkers showed up at the creek. Isabell killed the first walker," Rick continued, pointing out the dead walker in the water to Daryl and Shane, "And I led the other one farther that way before I killed it." Rick let out a sigh. "I figured she'd have run off back to the group, I told her how to get back. But she ran in the opposite direction. We followed after her for quite a while but couldn't find her."
"Seems we're up shit creek without a paddle," Daryl grumbled. He eyed Glenn who was standing directly in the path that Sophia had run off on. "Hey, how 'bout you move over that way," Daryl said to Glenn, "you're mucking up the trail."
Glenn hurriedly moved out of the way, his eyes darting around the trees. He seemed on edge as if walkers would suddenly be surrounding us if he let his guard down.
"She must not have understood your directions," Shane called out.
Something about his tone irritated me. It was almost as if he was trying to pin the girl's disappearance on him.
"She understood just fine," Rick snapped at his old partner.
"The kid is tired and scared, man. She just came up against two walkers, she's obviously not thinking clearly. Kinda wonder how much of what you said actually stuck."
"He has a point," I spoke up. "She's just a kid. She was scared so she ran. She wasn't keeping the directions in mind when she did."
Rick ran a hand over his face in frustration.
"There's clear prints right here," Daryl said, catching everyone's attention. He was farther down the way in which I'd caught her running off in. "Looks like she did what you said, they're headed straight for the highway. Everybody spread out and start lookin'."
The five of us did as Daryl had ordered and made our way out of the creek, our eyes scanning the area as Daryl kept his glued on the trail. Suddenly he stopped and bent down.
"She was fine the way she was goin', but she suddenly veered off that way," Daryl told the group, pointing towards the right.
"Why would she do that?" Glenn asked.
"Maybe she saw something and it spooked her? Made her run off?" Shane suggested.
"A walker?" Rick asked.
Daryl shook his head firmly. "I don't see any other footprints."
"So what do we do?" Shane asked. "All of us press on?"
Rick shook his head. "No, better if you, Glenn and Isabell get back up to the highway. People are going to start panicking. Let them know we're on her trail and we're doing everything we can to find her. Stall. Keep everyone calm."
"I can keep everyone busy scavenging a few more cars. Give out a few more chores. That'll keep them occupied," Shane said. He turned to Glenn and I. "Come on."
Glenn started forward but I stayed put.
"I'm not leaving until we find her," I said, staring Rick straight in the eye.
"It's too dangerous, it's starting to get dark," Rick countered.
The other three silently watched our exchange.
"I lost her too, Rick. I'm not leaving until I know she's okay. She's just a kid lost and alone in this forest. And it's going to be dark soon. She's got to be scared." I paused. "I'm staying."
"Fine," Rick conceded.
Glenn and Shane made their way back towards the highway and Rick and I turned our attention to Daryl who was now bent over and following the girl's tracks.
We carried on in silence for what felt like a half hour. The sun was getting lower in the sky every time I looked up and I felt a pit forming in my stomach. We needed to find her soon.
I kept glancing behind every tree as we walked, barely watching where I was stepping as we moved. My foot caught on a root and I nearly fell forward, but Daryl had whipped around and caught me mid-fall. I stood there awkwardly for a fraction of a second with my face nearly buried in his chest before he was trying to right me.
"Thanks," I mumbled out, feeling my cheeks burn.
He gave a curt nod before turning his attention back onto the tracks. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rick staring at me but I chose to ignore it, keeping my head down.
"The tracks are gone," I said, as I followed behind Daryl who kept moving forward.
He shook his head without turning around. "No, faint, but they ain't gone."
I squinted and tried to see what he was seeing, but I couldn't. How did he learn to be so good at this?
Daryl was pointing a few feet ahead of him. "She came through here."
Rick and I both walked up beside Daryl, both of us eyeing the ground around him.
"How can you tell?" Rick asked him.
"Yeah, I don't see anything," I admitted.
"You want a lesson in tracking or you want to find that girl before nightfall?" Daryl said, his attention never wavering from the tracks in front of him.
I bit my lip and kept quiet but was struck with a new question. Why was Daryl so determined to find this girl? I didn't consider him to be such a bad person that he wouldn't help, but there was something about the way he was so dedicated to the search. He was so engrossed in it.
A rustle of leaves caused all three of us to immediately go on the offensive as we squatted down in the dirt. Daryl's crossbow was raised at the ready. We took a few small steps forward and spotted a walker ambling through the trees.
With no words, Daryl directed us which way to go. Quietly we split up, trying to surround the walker. I kept my eyes open as I did, hoping it was just the one. Once again, my foot got stuck on a root and I cursed under my breath as I tried to untangle it. A snarl cut through the silence and I went rigid, slowly raising my head. The walker had spotted me.
Before it had even taken a step in my direction, an arrow was sticking through its right eye. The walker dropped to the ground and Daryl rushed forward to claim the arrow.
"You okay?" Daryl called out quietly to me. He gestured to my foot.
I felt stupid for getting tangled in the roots again and just nodded my head mutely. I focused on freeing my foot before heading over to where Rick and Daryl were standing over the dead walker. For a moment I wondered why they were staring before it hit me.
"You…don't think…?" I asked quietly, not being able to actually form the question aloud.
Both men eyed me quietly before Rick pulled a pair of gloves out of his back pocket and knelt down. He pulled the gloves on and opened up the walker's mouth. I felt my skin crawl.
"Sophia!" Daryl's voice rang out through the trees.
No answer.
"There's flesh caught in its teeth," Rick suddenly said.
I watched as Rick pulled it out and held it up. Daryl stepped closer to get a better look.
"But what kind of flesh?" he asked.
"Only one way to know for sure," Rick said as he ripped the walker's shirt open.
"You're not going to…?" I watched as Rick pulled a knife out. "Oh God." I covered my mouth with my hand.
Daryl stopped Rick before he made an insertion. "I'll do it." He stood over the dead body and pulled out a hunting knife that looked close to the one I'd found in the Honda back on the highway. "How many kills you skinned and gutted now, anyway?"
Rick sighed and put his knife away to let Daryl cut into the dead man.
"Mine's sharper," Daryl said right before he stabbed the knife into the walker's gut.
The sound of flesh tearing suddenly had my stomach churning. I had to look away, but I could still hear every knife cut and then the moist sound of Daryl digging through the body. A strong, disgusting order struck my nose and I began to feel bile rise in my throat.
"He had a big meal not long ago," Daryl told us.
I glanced over my shoulder and instantly wished I hadn't. Daryl was arm deep in the dead walker's insides. This time I couldn't hold back the bile in my throat and I raced behind a tree where I immediately threw up. Twice.
"This gross bastard had himself a woodchuck for lunch," I could hear Daryl tell Rick.
I leaned up against the tree beside me and tried to wait off the nausea as I wiped a hand across my mouth.
"At least we know," Rick said.
"At least we know," Daryl agreed.
A moment later the two were standing in front of me.
"You okay?" Rick asked me gently.
I nodded slowly, trying to calm my stomach. I had not been prepared for that.
"We should head back, the sun will be setting in a half hour," Daryl told us, his gaze up at the sky. "Won't do any good searching in the dark."
My heart sunk. "We can't just leave her out here!"
An unreadable expression crossed Daryl's face as he looked away. I turned my attention to Rick.
"We have to find her. What are we going to tell the group?"
"I'm sure she'll find some place safe to hole up in for the night. We'll find her first thing in the morning," Rick assured me.
"Won't see a damn thing in the dark. Sophia or otherwise," Daryl muttered.
"You two can be the one to tell Carol we stopped looking for her little girl, then," I shot angrily.
No one spoke for a moment, neither man meeting my gaze.
"Highway's back this way," Daryl finally said, turning and heading back towards the others.
"We'll find her," Rick said before following after him.
A voice in my head kept telling me that if we didn't find her tonight, we never would, but I followed after the two men.
The sun was just starting to set when we came out of the cover of trees. Carol was the first one to see us but the hopeful look soon left her face when she didn't see Sophia with us.
"You didn't find her?" Carol asked, her voice about to break.
"Her trail went cold," Rick answered her. "We'll pick it up again at first light."
I stood behind the two, unable to make eye contact with Carol.
"You can't leave my daughter out there all alone. To spend the night out there in the woods," Carol pleaded.
"Tracking in the dark's no good." Daryl's usually gruff voice sounded softer than usual. "Just be trippin' all over ourselves. More people'd get lost."
Carol started to cry now. "But she's only twelve, she can't be out there alone!" A large sob escaped her. "You didn't find anything?"
"I know this is hard, but I'm asking you not to panic," Rick said, trying to calm Carol down. "We know she was out there."
"We tracked her for a while," Daryl said, his voice sounding comforting.
"We have to make this an organized effort," Rick told the group. "Daryl knows the woods better than anybody. I asked him to oversee this."
Carol finally took in both Rick's and Daryl's appearance. "Is that blood?"
Daryl glanced down to where she was looking.
"We took down a walker," Rick told her.
"Walker?!" Carol exclaimed near hysterics.
"There was no sign that it was ever near Sophia," Rick assured her.
"How can you know that?" Andrea suddenly spoke up.
Rick and Daryl exchanged a look.
"We cut the son 'a bitch open," Daryl replied. "Made sure."
Carol was breathing heavy, trying to process all of the information. She slowly made her way to the guardrail and took a seat. Lori stepped over and sat beside her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"How could you just leave her out there to begin with?" Carol asked, her eyes meeting Rick's and then mine. "How could you just leave her?!"
There were tears stinging in my eyes now and I was trying to fight them back.
"Those two walkers were on us," Rick tried to explain. "We had to draw them off her to kill them. It was her best chance."
Shane stepped over and for a moment I thought he was going to say something to make the situation worse like he had in the woods.
"Sounds like they didn't have a choice," Shane told her.
"How is she supposed to find her way back on her own?" Carol accused. "She's just a child."
"It was our only option, the only choice I could make," Rick tried to explain.
"I'm sure nobody doubts that," Shane said quietly.
I could feel the tears sneak past my eyes now. They were streaming down my cheeks as I watched Carol break down over her daughter. I couldn't even begin to imagine how she felt. I couldn't help but feel like it was our fault for losing her. I should have went after her when she ran.
"My little girl got left in the woods."
I watched as Andrea sat down on the other side of Carol who was just sobbing now. Both women were trying to comfort her as Rick stood up and walked off past the RV.
I wiped a hand over my face and turned on my heel. Carol was right, we left her daughter in the woods. It was our fault. And right now, I just couldn't face everyone. I couldn't be around Carol and listen to her sobs.
I headed back towards the car that I had been riding in earlier and opened it, reaching in to grab my duffle bag. I zipped it up and threw it over my shoulder before shutting the door. I could hear footsteps behind me but I didn't turn around. I just headed farther down a few cars and climbed into a backseat, throwing my head in my hands and finally breaking down.
A throat cleared in front of me awkwardly. I glanced up between my hands, tears still flowing, but when I saw it was Daryl I immediately started rubbing the palm of my hands over my eyes. It was useless though, he'd obviously followed me here. He knew I had been crying.
"S'not your fault," Daryl said, his voice strained. He seemed uncomfortable as he scratched the back of his neck, his eyes darting towards the treeline behind me.
"What?" I asked before I could stop myself.
He cleared his throat and said again, "S'not your fault." He glanced at my face for a moment before looking away again. "You went after her. You and Rick. You both saved her from the walkers. S'not your fault if a little girl got scared and ran off."
"I should have went after her," I told him.
"Rick would have used his gun on them walkers then. That herd from earlier, it would'a came back. Then we'd all be dead," Daryl said matter-of-factly.
I shook my head. "I should still be out there looking for her."
"No way we could have followed her tracks in the dark." Daryl let out a sigh and took a few steps forward to lean against the Toyota I was sitting in. "Look, we did what we could. We tracked her. We'll pick it up again in the morning. And we'll find her."
"You don't know that," I mumbled, wiping away a stray tear.
Daryl caught my gaze with a stern one of his own. This time, he didn't look away awkwardly or embarrassed. "I ain't givin' up on her. I'm gonna keep lookin' til we find her. That's a promise."
"Because of Merle?"
I wanted to hit myself the moment I said it.
A dark look crossed Daryl's face. I saw his jaw clench and unclench. I was expecting him to start yelling at me, but instead he glanced over at the truck next to the Toyota.
"If you're stayin' in there to sleep tonight you better shut the doors," he said before climbing into the bed of the truck and laying down.
Neither one of us said a word the rest of the night, but I couldn't help feeling safer knowing Daryl and his crossbow were just feet away from me in case another herd of walkers came tearing through the highway.