Disclaimer: I do not own anything that you recognize. Although I would love to have my own personal Daryl Dixon. Short and sweet.
AN: So I hope I didn't get everyone too confused with my mix up with the chapters. Anyway here is chapter 15 so I hope yall enjoy. I have also decided to start spacing out my updates. I figure once or twice a week should do if everything keeps going well for my writing. I am already up to chapter 18 and hope to keep doing well.
Chapter 15
Adrian had said she was well enough to attend the service that they were holding for Otis but it seemed that everybody who had some bit of authority, Rick, Kale, and Hershal, had told her to stay inside with Carl.
The boy had woken up briefly before the funeral began and had asked about Sophia. Not wanting to upset his son, Rick told him that Sophia was okay and safe. A white lie to be sure, but forgivable if the lie put Carl's mind to rest enough for him to rest for a while longer.
She had heard earlier about how Shane had helped to save Carl, which he had helped. But she had her doubts about Shane's story about how things went down at the high school. Maybe it was just her because she had hated not only Shane since she had first set eyes on him, but also every word that came out of his mouth. But she didn't think that she was wrong about this because her gut told her otherwise. And so far her gut had helped keep her alive.
After the service, and a forced sandwich and another glass of the much hated orange juice, Adrian decided to go outside for some fresh air and sunshine. She seen that Rick, Daryl, Shane, Andrea, Hershal, and his daughter Maggie were all gathered around the hood of one of the vehicles.
After walking closer she heard Rick talk about getting a proper hunting party together to look for Sophia. She then heard Hershal tell Rick and Shane that they couldn't go. "Just me then." she heard Daryl say.
"I'm going too." she said from behind them. They all turned to look at her. "You certainly can't go. You gave more blood that Rick did. Even put the IV back in after I took it out the other night. You need food and rest more than anybody right now." Hershal told her.
"None of you can stop me from going. I'm going to help look for the girl. If
you're so worried about me, I'll take Kale. He can be my official babysitter." Adrian said defiantly. "Me and Kale did just fine on our own before we hooked up with y'all. Besides, I trust him the most to watch my ass with the sorry state I'm in." she added.
"Well if we're gonna be doin' this, we're gonna need our guns and more than half of us can't shoot for shit. They need gun training like we've been promising." Shane said since it was obvious that Adrian was going to do what she wanted no matter what anybody said.
"I'd rather nobody carried guns on my property. We've done fine for ourselves so far without guns. I'd rather keep it that way." Hershal said. "That's all fine and dandy until you get a herd of walkers through here and then you're gonna wish you had alot a guns." Shane said trying to make a point.
"His land, his rules." Rick said putting his gun on the hood of the jeep. Shane put his gun on the hood as well, even though he was extremely unhappy about it. Then Rick, Shane, and Andrea looked at Adrian as if waiting for something.
"Do I look like I have my gun on me right now?" she said a tad bit annoyed. Then she looked at Hershal. "I respect that this is your land and you don't want guns here. But my man doesn't know how to use anything else as good as he does a gun. When we go past that tree line, we will be packing heat, although I rarely use mine. After me and my partner get back from looking for the girl, our guns will go in our tents, where they will stay until we go back out looking for the girl." Adrian said to the old doctor.
"Now Adrian-" Rick started only to be cut off. "Shut up, Rick." she said never looking at him. "Is that good enough for you Mr. Greene?" Adrian asked him. After a long moment of silence and a heavy sigh Hershal finally answered. "I guess it will have to be." he said none too happily.
"Thank you. Now I'm going to get cleaned up, grab Kale, and go look for Sophia." she said firmly walking away from the group in order to track down Kale and tell him that as of now, he was being voluntold to be her babysitter in the woods until she said otherwise.
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Adrian and Kale had had no luck in finding anything on their search that day, unlike Daryl who had found a place where she had possibly holed up for a while. Adrian had seen the pretty white flower that Daryl had brought back for Carol but didn't say anything.
It was after midnight and sleep was being an elusive bitch because Adrian
couldn't sleep no matter what she did. Dressed in her black basketball shorts, a black tank top, and her hair down for the night, Adrian walked towards the house bare footed to check in on Carl.
As she silently walked into the house she began to finger the black wristband on her wrist. Kale had made sure to keep her fed and watered during their hunt that day so she was feeling more like her old self.
She walked into Carl's room to see Rick sleeping in a chair beside the bed. Walking towards the other side of the bed, Adrian slowly sat down so as to not wake the boy and propped a leg up on the bed while she just starred at Carl in the dim lamp light.
"You know you have an unhealthy obsession with my son." Adrian heard the quiet voice from the doorway. Turning, Adrian seen Lori standing in the door just behind Rick. "And I don't like it." she added now glaring at Adrian.
"It's not unhealthy to look after someone who needs it." she said with a serious face. "Carl doesn't need you to look after him. He has me, and Rick, and everyone else in the group to do that." Lori said angrily.
"Yeah, bang up job y'all were doin' when I found him in a tree, miles from camp, with no protection of his own of any kind, and three walkers snappin' at his feet!" Adrian whispered starting to get annoyed with the woman.
When Lori had walked into Carl's room to find Adrian sitting on his bed starring at him, Lori instantly became annoyed at the red headed woman. She had on a pair of black cotton basketball shorts and a black cotton tank top with her feet bare and her hair loose. At first glance, Adrian had looked so young and sad before Lori had said anything. When Adrian had looked up at her, Lori disliked her even more. Wide, bright green eyes, long, wavy red-orange hair, pale skin that was covered in scars from what Lori could tell. All in all, she was beautiful, unpredictable, and her son liked the woman and it just made Lori dislike the girl even more.
"He shouldn't have been out there in the first place." Lori finally said. "You're right. He shouldn't have. And he wouldn't have been if someone had been keeping a proper eye on him. At least when I sent him back to his camp of people he had a damned knife. Which is more than he had to protect himself with when I found him. He's your son, and I understand that more than you'll ever know, but he can't afford to be a child anymore Lori. This is a harsh world we live in now and he's going to have to grow up fast to survive it." Adrian said angrily, getting off the bed.
"I understand that you want to protect him from all of the bad stuff in the world, but one day you aren't going to be here to protect him from all of the bad stuff an then what? He won't know how to survive or protect himself and he won't stand a chance." Adrian growled and then stormed out of the room leaving Lori to her new thoughts.
Adrian left early the next morning to go hunting. She knew she should be looking for Sophia more than she should be hunting so she kept an eye out for any other tracks besides animals. Looking up into the sky Adrian realized she had been out hunting for at least seven hours. She looked at what game she had killed during that time and was satisfied with her kill.
'Ten squirrels, five rabbits, even managed to round up a dozen fish. Not too bad.' Adrian thought to herself. Adrian was on her way back to camp when she heard voices not too far off. Knowing she couldn't very well ignore the voices, Adrian quietly stalked towards them.
Once she got close enough, she realized that the voices belonged to Rick and Shane who seemed to be having a somewhat heated discussion. Not wanting to make her presence known, she kept herself hidden. After they wondered off, Adrian took off back towards the farm.
After she broke the tree line Adrian seen Dale on top of his RV looking out in her direction. Letting him know that she was a friendly, she waved. Glenn and Kale met her at the fence.
"Where the hell have you been?!" Kale demanded before Glenn even got his mouth open. "Since you asked the stupid question first, you get to skin and gut these. All of them." Adrian said to the frustrated teen throwing him the dozen big, fat fish she managed to fish out of a shallow river.
"Ah man, why do I have to do the fish?" Kale whined as she walked past him. "I told you. You asked the stupid question first." she said laughing at Kale's displeasure at having to deal with the fish. "But why would you go hunting? The reason Otis was out so far from the farm was because there were no more deer around here." Glenn asked seeming confused as to why she would even bother hunting.
"I wasn't hunting deer. I was looking for smaller game. Which is exactly what I found. I even found some hog tracks. Can't tell how old they are, but if we're lucky I can kill a nice big fat one in the next few days." she said throwing her string of squirrels and rabbits onto an old picnic table.
"Where's Hershal?" Adrian asked both Kale and Glenn. "In the house, I think. Why?" Glenn answered. Adrian walked off without a word of explanation.
Adrian was hot, sweaty and covered in dirt and animal blood but she didn't care as she walked into Hershal's pretty, clean house. She found him eating his lunch in the dining room. "Hershal, may I have a word with you privately?" she said when she stopped at the table. "I'm eating my lunch. Can it wait?" he asked never looking up from whatever book it was he was reading from.
"If I were a nice, polite person I would say yes, but I'm neither nice nor polite, so no, it can't wait." she said firmly to the old man knowing she was being rude. With a great sigh of annoyance Hershal stopped reading his book and looked up at her.
Her skin was flushed from the heat of the day, which had also caused sweat to pour from her, her hair looked damp as if she had gotten it wet recently, almost every inch of her was covered in either dust or dirt and she had blood in a few places on her jeans. All in all she looked a mess ad Hershal didn't want to be around the rude young woman longer than necessary.
"So what is so important that you had to disturb me in the middle of my meal?" he asked.
"You don't want to have this conversation here." she said walking towards a small little office she had found the night before while she had been exploring the house. Hershal closed the door behind him.
"Want to tell me why you mysteriously know the layout of my home when you have hardly been inside of it?" Hershal asked with an impatient tone. Adrian was quiet for a moment. Then she answered with a question of her own.
"Want to tell me why you have a barn full of dead people?" she asked looking him in the eye in all of her dirty glory.