hey, my lovelies, hope you enjoy this chapter. peace out!
oOo
Midday found Felix and the others making plans of search and rescue around a selection of melee weapons on top of a truck's hood. His body was still weary, aching and barely keeping his weight, but his eyes were focused, following Andrea to Shane to Rick as each person spoke.
Andrea complained about not having a gun, and the others justified that if anyone chanced to shoot unnecessarily it could draw the horde to them. Going by Diana's tale of Andrea's tendency to wave her gun in people's faces, he also thought it best to keep her unarmed. At least for the time being.
Daryl suggested they should follow the creek since it was Sophia's only point of reference. Sophia Sophia Sophia.
What about his sister? It made him mad that no one had said anything about her yet, as if she'd simply gone forgotten because she was older and less helpless.
"I don't wanna blow a hole in all this, but what about Alice?" Glenn asked, lowering the hooked machete he'd procured. He glanced at Diana beside Felix, forcing his eyes to follow.
Oh, she was in a baaaad mood. He'd noticed it that morning when he woke up and she was sitting at the edge of their bed, elbows on her knees, frowning at her joined hands. She'd forced herself to smile at him and speak normally, but her sentences had been clipped, and her voice strained and barely suppressing her annoyance.
She stood with her arms crossed, bow across her chest, eyes hard and unfocused staring straight ahead. He could tell she shared his sentiment – she was that easy to read – but he suspected she didn't know how to put it in words without sounding uncaring about Sophia. At least that was what was going through his head.
She blinked back to herself, inhaled deeply, and said, "We don't…know for sure where she went. I mean, her tracks just…vanished. For all I know, she's also found the creek, or she's hiding out with Sophia, or she's on her way back right now." She looked at Rick. Her words were measured, "But I know I'd feel better resuming where we stopped yesterday, someplace where I know she was at."
"Of course. I understand," Rick said, nodding, "we can spare the resources, divide into two groups, cover more ground, rendezvous back here."
"Spa-spare resources?" Diana repeated incredulously, arms dropping.
"What the fuck?" Felix said simultaneously, feeling his pulse rise. Sweat rolled down the back of his neck, a shiver against his feverish skin.
"Rick," Diana breathed in astonishment, lip curling incredulously, "are you insinuating my sister's any less important than Sophia? I get that the circumstances are different, but she is not a side assignment."
Rick blinked and shifted his weight, shame etching itself in his face at his unfortunate phrasing. "That's not what I meant."
There were uncomfortable looks being passed among some of the others as if they were guilty of the same sin. He knew they cared for his sister, he knew they enjoyed the way she made them laugh in spite of the world during her "manic episodes" or "queen-of-the-fucking-world phases" like she called them.
Shane put his hands on his hips. "It's her own fault she's lost out there, to begin with, no one asked he-"
"Oh my God, man, would you shut the fuck up?" Felix called out, fingers digging into his temples like he was on the verge of a headache. That fucker's voice was going to be engraved in his brain as the 'douchebag-iest' sound ever.
"What did you say, boy?" the 'offendee' stepped toward him with dark eyes and a scowl, puffing out his chest. Seriously? Oh, he wouldn't be doing that if his dad had been there.
"You heard me, shit-face."
"Shane, what has gotten into you?" Lori put her arm out to block Shane while Diana turned toward him with a: "Felix, language!"
There was an amalgam of noise as people spoke over one another. T-Dog stood in front of Felix but could not block his height, so he could see everything over his shoulder. Rick tried to keep Shane in place by his arm but the man shook him off and raised his free hand in surrender, stepping back. He made direct eye contact with Felix, and he resisted the urge to flip him the bird. For a police guy, he had a lot of anger issues to figure out.
"People, people!" Dale called over the voices, mellowing them down, "Let's not get heated, remember we're wasting precious daylight as we speak."
Shane was looking at Lori, who had hidden Carl behind her and was stepping away from him with the stink eye. His hands clenched at his sides and Felix eyed the shotgun in his hold with apprehension. He was sure Shane wouldn't, but the idea made him break into a cold sweat; what if he decided he had nothing more to lose and just went berserk on him or any one of them?
Forget Andrea, Shane should be the one with a gun ban.
"Would it have been any different if my sister was blue-eyed in ponytails?" Diana said after the others agreed to Dale. She sounded hurt and Felix felt it in his chest. He didn't look at her, knowing it'd make it worse.
"This has nothing to do with that," Andrea said with a soft voice. "I get your reluctance, but Alice is much more capable of fending for herself in this environment than Sophia Peletier. Think about it, be rational, please. We want the best for both of them." Her hand was on Carol's arm. The woman was looking guilty and pitiful.
Diana turned her face to the side, withdrawing, low-key bitter. "Forgive me for being cynical."
"We are all the same, all trying our hand at survival. The only distinction to be made is between the living and the dead, there's nothing else," Dale said with raised eyebrows above his owlish eyes.
Okay, so why did they have a whole-ass rescue plan for Sophia but hadn't even thought of sending someone after his sis? Don't tell him that the color of their skin was a coincidence here. "Yeah, 'cause racism died out with the rest of the world," Felix said sarcastically. "Bet."
"Sure did," T-Dog said with a glance at Diana, his uninjured arm cradling his side as if protecting his ribs.
There was an uneasy silence as they shared looks. Felix thrived on making white people uncomfortable with race issues.
"Enough. I'll go by myself. Got no problem with that." Diana, sentences clipped again.
Felix's face screwed together. The hell? Did she seriously think he'd let her go alone? Alice was their sister; he'd put his fears aside if it meant getting her back. Besides, watch Diana lose her way with that distorted sense of direction of hers.
Glenn joined Diana's side with a small smile, which she tensely returned. To make it worse to Felix's eyes, her hand covered Glenn's. Of course, the guy was family, he knew he wouldn't let them down.
T-Dog put his hand on Felix's shoulder, but Diana interjected just as quickly. "No," she and Felix told him simultaneously. They exchanged a look and Diana continued, "You lost a lot of blood and you're on meds. Stay here." Her frown flattened. "But thank you, T, for real."
His mouth was pressed into a line but he nodded, and his hand squeezed Felix's shoulder before dropping.
"Are you okay with this?" Rick asked Diana.
"You got your numbers."
Rick looked like he wanted to say something. He disliked the situation, it was plain on his face. Felix did too, it felt like it was driving a knife through their solidarity, dividing them.
He nodded at their smaller group. "We'll meet back here."
Diana nodded back. Felix grabbed his bat where it had rested against the truck's front tire. The three of them turned to leave.
"Daryl?" Dale said, sounding taken aback.
Felix curiously looked over his shoulder and saw the man in question directly behind him. His eyes were locked with Diana's. A glance at his sister confirmed her surprised gratitude.
"It's a personal matter, old man," Daryl said without turning around.
"Shoulda seen it coming," Shane accused. Felix had not seen it coming, though.
Daryl faced them at that, glaring daggers at Shane. My man, Felix thought.
Andrea, Carol still at her side, tried to reason with him, "You're our best shot at finding Sophia as quick as possible."
They still had the advantage in numbers, why were they so desperate to leave them with nothing? Either Felix was reading too much into it or they really didn't care. If you thought about it, hadn't it also been Sophia's own fault for getting lost? After all, why had she run out into the woods instead of towards them? Why had she left the spot Rick had hidden her in? All Alice did was try to help. Stupidly, that's for sure, but still.
"Y'all got your plan," Daryl responded, "I told y'all where to go and what to look out for, what more you want from me?"
Rick tilted his head and looked at him like he was trying to read something in the distance. In the end, his eyes flicked behind Felix, in Diana's direction. He nodded. "Alright."
"What?! You just gonna let him go," Shane complained, turning to Rick as he turned to his wife and son.
"This is not a dictatorship, it's not my place to stop him." Rick shifted his weight, looking pointedly at Shane. "Daryl's right, Diana's right, finding Alice is just as important as finding Sophia. We can cover more ground like this."
"You still got your numbers," Daryl said, paraphrasing Diana.
oOo
There was a turmoil inside her. Her anger had been well-founded, but after matters were settled and their group of four took off, it had dwindled down and mixed with guilt.
Recalling Carol's face was the worst. She had to shove that image aside many times but it always found its way back.
She'd also bluffed on the 'going by herself' thing. It had been a way of guilt-tripping someone into joining her cause. A little bit of manipulation from her part, which was despicable, and she kinda hated herself for it. She doubted Glenn's and T-Dog's willingness to volunteer had anything to do with that. They would've stepped forward with or without it. Which made it all the more unnecessary.
Daryl had surprised her. She had been nothing but cold and insulting to him the night before, despite his good intentions. That added to the fact that he was their best tracker, she'd kind of expected him to join the others on their search and rescue. But he'd taken her side.
'Her side', she didn't like thinking like that. Dale was completely right; there was the living and the dead, it should only come down to that. But Felix had also been right; not everyone left was the best humanity had to offer. There were plenty of assholes still around, she had personal experience with those.
She'd have to apologize to Rick. He was the complete opposite of an asshole, yet she had treated him like a bigot. It wasn't fair. She didn't want to hurt her relationship with them. She liked Carol and she liked Rick. They had been there for her with their kind words when she'd needed them. What cruel hypocrisy she was partaking in...
On the other hand, they could stand to be a little more empathetic. Alice was also missing. She and Felix were the only blood she had left. Of course she'd turn the world upside down to find her again, no matter who came in between.
"Diana," Glenn called, catching up to her. "Daryl said to wait up or we'll lose sight of each other."
"Oh." Diana looked over her shoulder. Daryl and Felix were small figures in the distance, she saw flashes of them from between the trees and green shrubbery.
"Hey, I get that you're not in the best mind place right now, but don't distance yourself from us, okay?"
"Sorry, I didn't notice I was walking that fast. We're here, though."
Glenn snorted a chuckle. "Yeah no, I didn't mean that. Like, back at the interstate, it kinda felt like you were trying to cut yourself off from the rest of us. Like you thought you'd be better off on your own. So don't, okay, don't think that." He pulled on her wrist so she'd stand still. Diana looked into his serious eyes, as near-black as bitter coffee. "We're facing a complicated situation, that's true… You know that's when we can't afford to come apart. We face this together. All of us."
So typical of Glenn, Diana thought fondly. She pulled him to her by the backs of his elbows, feeling the corners of her lips pull while the bonfire in her chest grew warmer. He put his hands on her waist and bowed his head until their foreheads touched and they were looking into each other's eyes.
"I'm getting cross-eyed," Glenn said after some seconds.
Diana breathed a puff of laughter as they broke apart. "Same."
"I'mma pretend I didn't see that." Felix approached them with Daryl in tow. "Lamechices. Bleh." He stuck out his tongue with a grimace and a shudder.
Diana chose to ignore him and asked Daryl, "Where do we go from here?" She heard Felix yelp and curse in Portuguese behind her at the decomposing walker Alice had killed the day before. Then saw him reappear at her side, his hand grabbing onto the back of her shirt.
Daryl crouched near a bush of bare thorns and picked something off of it. He stood and examined it closely. Diana approached him curiously, eyes on the prize: a piece of fabric, it seemed. Very cliché, but if that belonged to her sister, showing them the way, she would bow so low her head would make a hole through the dirt.
Daryl rubbed it between his fingers, then brought it up to his nose. Diana anxiously and meticulously watched him take a whiff of it, then immediately his lips curled with disgust and he threw it at his feet. "Got that putrid walker smell," he said. "Pro'bly from our buddy Rooster Cogburn over there.
"Her trail went dead. Either she went back the way she came or she covered her tracks."
"I don't see why she would… Cover her tracks, I mean." Diana was at a loss. She loosened Felix's fist on her shirt and gave him her hand to hold.
Glenn shrugged. "So what now?"
As if on cue, the resonant sound of church bells began chiming in the distance.
They looked at each other, considering their next move.
"Now that stinks of trap," Felix broke the silence, "Alice would never fall for that."
"Yeah but Sophia might have," Glenn said with an apprehensive glance at Diana. "And any walker still out here would've headed towards it."
Daryl nodded. "The others might be thinkin' the same thing."
"So we're gonna literally walk into a literal trap, is that what we're doing today?" Felix almost whined. "Guys, I enjoy living."
"You can always wait out here?" Diana suggested, knowing he'd do no such thing.
Felix looked at her expressionless, then pointed in a random direction. "So, it was this way, right?"
oOo
She heard the church bells again, very faintly, like a pin dropping in the distance. She supposed they weren't chiming hourly like the ones in her village, so she had no idea of the passage of time. Summer and the high sun could do that to a person.
She was also thirsty as fuck, and so hungry she could morally eat a giraffe, and so full of period cramps that she was tempted to use her knife to carve the uterus out of her belly if only to be in less pain. Not to mention she had resorted to cutting the hem of her shirt to stripes to stuff in her underwear.
But not even all of that discomfort made her succumb to the church bells. It was an obvious trap. She was smart enough to figure that one out. Or maybe she was untrusting enough. Whatever, both worked in her favor this time.
Her legs trembled as she hitched her leg up high and hooked the back of her knee on the next branch. She pulled herself up, her biceps protesting the strain, and grabbed hold of the trunk once she was upright.
A look down showed her how far she'd climbed. She thanked her lucky stars for not giving her vertigo. It reminded her of when her family had walked up this antenna tower and her sister didn't go past the second level because of how scared she was. She'd laughed in her face and guided her back down. Oh, good old times. Bitter old times.
The sun had been high in the sky when she woke up and she'd realized she had no idea where she'd come from. Her wandering around in the dark had gotten her turned around, a shameful thing she would never admit to anyone.
She'd gathered the rope, kicked the walker at the foot of the tree, and began walking. First in a spiral around her sleeping tree, keeping it as a reference in case she needed to go back, then, when she realized it was a stupid idea, she just took off in a random direction.
She hiked until she heard the church bells for the first time. She saw walkers attracted by the sound and hid. Weak as she was, she didn't want to pick more fights than necessary.
When the coast was clear she set off again. She had stopped when she reached the edge of someone's property.
A mostly vacant vast plowing field at the front, a barn, and someone's home. She'd spotted tiny figures in the distance, living one's judging by the way they didn't walk around aimlessly and could successfully manage the oh-so intricate mechanism of opening doors and wheel around wheelbarrows.
She couldn't see any better from up on the tree, but she was hoping it would keep her camouflaged while she figured out what to do.
She couldn't go back… she didn't even know what direction back was. She couldn't very much just stroll up these people's front walk and ask for directions.
What she could do was scout the perimeter, look around for Sophia, keep the farmhouse as a point of reference. Someplace she could come back to once it got dark.
At this point, she had no hope of seeing her family again. She used to have trust in her skills, her immaculate sense of direction, but then again she'd never been lost in an unknown place before. How would they know where to look for her? Were they even searching? Why hadn't she seen any sign of them? Maybe they'd just decided 'good riddance' and left her behind.
She swallowed any sorrow and hardened herself. Fine, she'd learn how to live and fend for herself, she didn't need anybody else.
oOo
Felix's long legs could carry him ahead of anyone else he knew, that was true, but only if his heart was in it. His hesitancy to get to their destination made him lag behind even his sister.
His eyes were trained on the bow at her back. Her strides were sluggish and he could swear he could hear her heavy breathing above his own, and everyone's thumping feet.
Daryl had her hand in his, helping her keep up the pace, looking back at her every so often. Glenn took the lead.
The forest cleared and gave way to a graveyard and they slowed down, jogging up the field to the church painted in a contrasting white. Felix kept his eyes ahead, steering clear from the headstones and crosses lined up on both sides of him. He hated cemeteries, unlike his sisters, and he hated that right now his mind's eye took him only to the last 'cemetery' he'd been in.
The doors of the church were open, had been burst inwards, the wood around the lock in smithereens. Felix feared for the worst.
Daryl signaled them to stop, his hand still wrapped around his sister's. They kept away from the entrance, hidden just next to the front stairs.
Diana was having difficulty catching her breath and Felix hurried to her side, letting her embed her fingers on his bicep as she schooled her breath with wide eyes.
"It's okay, just take time. Uh, breathe, alright? Just breathe." Felix had no idea what to say. Dad had always been the one that coached her back to normalcy, and that time at the CDC, Alice had done the job.
"Youthink…tellingmeto…breathe…will-" she gasped between wheezy inhales.
Felix could've rolled his eyes. "Stop wasting your breath talking back, woman."
"You ain't got the inhaler on you?" Daryl asked her, to which Diana shook her head minimally, in shame.
Yeah, she should be ashamed. Always keep that thang on ya.
The wooden porch creaked, causing them all to turn at the sound. Felix's heart was beating in his ears. He found himself staring up into a gun barrel. Coldness punched him in the gut and he squeezed his eyes closed, sucking down the tears. Really? Fucking really?! He didn't want to die, goddamnit, he really didn't want to die.
"Oh my God, Rick." He heard Glenn say and opened his eyes. The gun was gone, and he was looking up at Rick's face, the sheriff hat shielding his face from the harsh sunlight.
"Nice double chin, bro," Felix muttered, completely boneless and feeling lightheaded. "Heads up, I think I'm gonna throw up." Then he did, emptying his stomach at the base of the stairs. He'd just stared his death in the face, again. If this was going to become a recurring thing, he'd have to toughen up and be able to handle it better. He sincerely hoped it didn't become a thing, though. The stress alone would kill him first.
Diana's sisterly instincts must've overcome everything else, since she was standing at his side now, looking up at him with concern, hand on his chest to hold him upright. He gave her a shaky smile and patted her hand with his trembling one.
The four were led inside by Rick as Andrea rushed out, pausing just one second to look at them. Felix didn't pay her much mind, he listened to Rick whisper that neither Alice nor Sophia were there.
There was a strange atmosphere inside the southern church. It was somber and filled with light filtered into a golden tint by the stained glass windows. Felix's eyes were directed toward the almost life-sized crucified Christ at the end of the aisle; He was weeping still tears as He looked down on them, and Felix could swear he saw one roll down the painted wooden cheek.
He ignored it. He hadn't been much of a church-goer before, why would it help him now? He saw Diana bow her head and cross herself at the beginning of the aisle, a custom imbued into her by their grandparents. He knew she believed in her own version of God; a kind motherly figure, something Felix could get behind if he'd been a more avid believer.
Had she prayed in that small second? Asked for guidance?
Felix believed more in her sisters than he did in God. He'd rather put his faith in Alice and Diana than a faceless deity. Especially one that had allowed such atrocities to happen.
oOo
All that traipsing around, chasing shadows and bells, had cost them more daytime than they could afford. And in the end, they had regrouped just to disband once more.
Rick, Shane, and Carl – with Lori's permission, of fucking course – had stayed behind to do a thorough search of the area, while the others were being led by Daryl back to the creek bed, where he'd use his magical tracking skills to figure out where Sophia was.
Diana had kept silent. She had no leads left to follow, nothing concrete to take her to her sister. This time she would go along and hope against hope that it was the right way to go.
At one point they all stopped to complain, Carol about the plan, Andrea about not having a gun, and Lori about how they blamed Rick for handling the situation the way he did.
It was true, Diana had seen the way Carol looked at him, the tears and the rage in her usually soft eyes. And she agreed with Lori for once, what a miracle. Rick hadn't hesitated in taking off after Sophia, and from what she'd heard from Felix, he had hidden her away and yet she had left, leading them to their current situation.
Yes, she was young and had been terrified, but by following a simple instruction she could've been at her mother's side right now, and Alice at hers.
She let the soft purr of the bow chase away those bitter thoughts. It wouldn't do well to linger on them, they'd only sour her mood. And blaming a scared child for running away from danger was too low for her, she was more empathetic than that.
They resumed the trek in silence, climbing uphill and almost rolling downhill, that was until a gunshot rang out.
