The Wolf You Feed

Chapter 23

The look on the leader's face betrayed him, showing more than the tough attitude he was trying to portray. He wore an expression of amusement peppered with a fair amount of confusion that he was trying his best to hide. As Neegan's soliders, they dealt with all different types of groups. He knew people could be unpredictable. But they had stopped surprising him a long time ago. He was doing his best to maintain his composure, but that strange woman had shocked the shit out of him.

David, the man she had approached, wasn't exactly a ladies man. He had a face full of acne scars and long scraggly hair that looked like he had stopped taking care of it long before the end of the world. One of his eyes was damaged and it gave him a strange lopsided appearance. Like the rest of them, David had an intimidating presence. That's why he was assigned to this group. But that woman had walked right up to him like she wasn't scared at all. Watching her weave between their bikes, it crosses his mind that he had never seen a woman try that before. Raping wasn't allowed. But the groups they encountered didn't know that. Women usually ran and hid from them or cowered behind their men. Either this one was special kind of stupid or she was crazy brave. Maybe a little bit of both. In an even stranger turn of events, the woman had then offered to help David without demanding anything in return.

David climbed off his bike, something he knew was totally and completely against the rules. Not only that, he left his gun behind and let that woman lead him around by his hand like he was a five year old instead of a grown man and a member of Neegan's army. Not sure quite how to react to the odd situation, the leader of the group took a moment to compose himself. He decided the best course of action was to pretend that nothing at all had happened and carry on with what he had been waiting here to do.

"First things first," he told the three men standing in front of him, eyeing the large lighter brown dog that had not followed the dark haired woman back inside the camper, "I'm gonna need your weapons." He could see the men's bodies tense up. The man in the middle with the long dark hair concerned him the most. He had a marking carved into his forehead, which made him look a little crazy. But it wasn't that. There was something in his eyes and the posture of his body. He was not afraid to die.

"Why should we give you anything?," Daryl asked, aiming his bow at the man who was talking to them. The threat was obvious. If you signal your men to attack, you will be the first to die.

"Well, your guns no longer belong to you," the man said, "your camper, the gas in it..." He rambled on, mentioning anything else that might be inside the truck. "All your property now belongs to Neegan." Daryl wasn't really sure how to react to that. He did get the distinct impression that these people were part of a much larger group and he was worried that more people might be watching them from the woods. Waiting to jump in if they decided to fight these men instead of just rolling over. Rowan's father had no such concerns. And he didn't like being threatened.

"Wendigo," Rowan's father announced, training his gun on the man. Abraham cursed under his breath. He had spent enough time with the other members of Rowan's old group to know what the fuck that word meant. Rowan's damn dad was about to do something crazy as hell.

"Be cool," Abraham hissed at Rowan's father. Of course his subtle advice didn't work. Rowan's father stepped forward and opened his mouth again.

"I am Grey Wolf, leader of my tribe as my father was leader of my tribe before me," he informed the men. Abraham was surprised at the biker's reactions. Some of them looked like they almost might be impressed. Or at least like they thought Rowan's father was giving them some quality entertainment. They didn't look ready to blast him to pieces. Not yet anyway. "You are Wendigo and we will give you nothing. Leave now before I am forced to kill you and leave you and your men to walk among the army of the dead."

"Oh we got us a live one here," the leader of the other group announced. "Fucking John Redcorn," he laughed, insulting the man with the first thing that came to his mind.

Abraham glanced at Daryl, hoping he might do something to reign in Rowan's father. Daryl met his eyes and gave him a slight shrug of his shoulders. It was too late to do anything now. Fighting amongst themselves in front of these men would only make them look weak. They were just going to have to see how this played out. Lily was growing at the man on the bike. She must not have liked the tone in his voice when he was talking to Rowan's father, who she considered one of the people it was her personal job to protect. Daryl edged forward slightly, making sure Lily was close enough that he would be able to grab her if she decided to lunge at the man on the bike.

"Normally we introduce ourselves by killing someone right away," the man on the bike said. He finally pulled out the gun he had tucked into his waistband and pointed it at Rowan's father, the man that seemed the most threatening to him. The man didn't even flinch. However, the two men behind him looked slightly more concerned for their own safety, so he carried on with his well practiced speech.

"But you seem like reasonable people. So I am going to tell you what we are going to do. We are going to follow you home. Find out where you hang your hats. Then we are going to take half your shit. If you don't like that, we are going to kill you. We are going to take your shit anyway. Then we are going to kill your dogs and we are going to eat them."

Just for the effect he threw that last part in there on the fly. He thought threatening the dogs would be a nice touch. Icing on the cake. Actually he was impressed with the animals. It was the first time he had seen anything like it. The dogs were intimidating. He didn't really want to eat them, but he might like to take one and see if he could get it to mind him.

The man on the bike opened his mouth to say something else but was cut off by a high pitched whistling noise. Before he could even look to see where it was coming from, he and his men were blasted into a million pieces.

Daryl cursed and dropped his bow, holding his hands over his face to protect himself from the heat of the blast. Lily was yelping. A hot chunk of something had lodged into her fur and it was burning her. Rowan's father smacked it out with his hands and grabbed her collar to keep her from running scared. She was still whining and pawing at her ears. The force of the explosion had probably hurt them, maybe even blown her eardrums out.

"Whoa whoa whoa..." The voice came from the side of the RV where the door was. The one remaining biker was on his ass on the pavement, scooting back and away from Aaron. The very large gun Aaron had shot the rest of his group with was still smoldering. He was holding it like a baseball bat, prepared to beat the man with it if he had to. Abraham and Daryl moved quickly, training their guns on the man.

Once his hearing started to return, the first thing Daryl heard was Rowan. She was inside the RV, crying out in pain. He took his eyes off the man on the gorund, turning to peer inside the open door of the RV. Rowan was on the floor with Eric kneeling next to her, holding her ear. A small trickle of blood was snaking down the side of her face.

"I will fucking kill you,"Daryl hollered, pointing his gun at the man on the ground again. The man held his hands up, insisting that he never laid a hand on her.

"Never touched her," he said, "I swear I never laid a finger on her." The man started coughing again and finally had to turn and brace his hands on the pavement to help absorb the force of his raking coughs. He had gotten a big face full of the smoke from the explosion and it had not helped to improve his condition.

"It's true," Eric called from inside the camper, "She sat down by the open window... I think maybe the blast blew her eardrum out. That guy never touched her." He was trying to pry Rowan's fingers away from her ear so he could make sure nothing had flown into it. She was refusing to cooperate, clamping her hand down over her ear and squaking like Eric was trying to kill her. Tank barged in, growling in the man's face until he backed off. Rowan's father kept ahold of Lily's collar and started heading for the camper. Daryl caught him in the doorway.

"What should we do with him?," he asked, gesturing towards the man they were holding at gunpoint.

"He's wendigo," Grey Wolf informed him, like that ought to explain everything. Then he turned and headed inside the camper to deal with Rowan.

First Rowan's father shoved Tank away. Then he shoved the pain in the ass dog away again harder, giving him a hard whack on the rump to keep him moving. He tried coaxing his daughter first, explaining that he needed to check and make sure nothing got into her ear. But Rowan either couldn't hear him or she was refusing to listen because when he grabbed for her wrist she clamped her hand down tighter over her ear and tried to kick him. Eric stood back watching the scene unfold. He wasn't sure what in the hell was going on or what if anything he ought to do about it.

Rowan's dad was trying to look at her injured ear and then next thing Eric knew the two of them were involved in some sort of crazed wrestling match while they yelled and screamed at each other in another language. From how loud Rowan was yelling, it was obvious she couldn't hear herself. Eric guessed that meant he was right about the eardrum. The funniest part was Tank. Eric expected the ever faithful dog to step in and protect Rowan but he seemed much more interested in trying to lick a Lily's ears, completely oblivious to the fact that Rowan's father now had her pinned to the floor of the RV, looking into her ears depsite her loud complaints.

Outside the camper the men were having their own problems. Aaron had killed the bikers that were threatening them, but he didn't feel right about killing a sick man that was crying and coughing on the ground at their feet. Abraham and Daryl were refusing to bring the sick man back with them. This left the men at an impass.

"Just let him go," Daryl finally suggested. The man didn't know where they were going or how to get there. He didn't have a vehicle to follow them in. And while Daryl agreed that the smartest course was to shoot this man, he didn't really want to do it himself. That made him feel hard pressed to insist that someone else do the murdering for him. Aaron nodded his head in agreement. Abraham just shrugged his shoulders and headed back inside the RV. He also thought the man should be killed, but since the man no longer posed a threat he didn't see any reason to fight with Aaron over the matter. The man was sick. He was alone and unarmed. He was as good as dead anyway.

Everyone and every dog was inside the camper and accounted for, so Aaron fired the engine back up, leaving the coughing man sitting in the road behind them. Aaron kept an eye on him in the rearview mirror until he was out of sight. Eric took the passenger seat, reaching over to put a comforting hand on Aaron's knee. Killing people wasn't something that either of them enjoyed.

"If it makes you feel better," Eric whispered, leaning in close, "you looked really sexy holding that big gun." His joke had the intended effect. Both men laughed together and started to put the events of the day behind them.

Daryl entered the camper to find his wife hiding under the table with her arms wrapped around her knees. Her father was on the other side of the RV, leaning back with his arms crossed. The two of them were still arguing back and forth. They were speaking in sioux, but Daryl had spent enough time with them that he could pick up most of what they were saying. Rowan was calling her father a big mean jerk. And he was telling her to stop acting like such a little baby. Family squabbles between them were rare, but not totally unheard of. If they got into it, the fight was often about one of the dogs. Usually Morgan.

"You hurt my sore wrist," Rowan accused, speaking in english now so everyone could hear her complaint. She was talking loud as hell and she sounded half retarded, like she couldn't hear herself. Daryl could tell that both Spencer and Abraham were fighting back laughter.

"Well if you wouldn't have fought me, you wouldn't have gotten hurt," Rowan's father informed her, leaning down and speaking loudly to make sure Rowan heard him. Daryl was looking slightly concerned with the situation so the man directed a much quieter comment towards him.

"I had to make sure there was nothing stuck in her ear," Rowan's father added. This time his tone was a little more apologetic. Daryl was good people, and his constant need to protect Rowan was one of his best features as far as her father was concerned. Rowan's father didn't hurt her, but he did hold her down and make sure the bleeding in her ear had stopped and there wasn't anything lodged in there. He wanted to make sure Daryl knew that. Daryl gave the man a slight nod of his head, his way of saying the issue was settled.

While she enjoyed helping other people if they were sick or injured, Rowan herself was just about the worst patient ever. She had been that way since she was a kid. Only her mother had ever been able to doctor her without her freaking out. The worst was the time she cut her leg on a piece of glass bad enough that the bleeding wouldn't stop and she needed stitches. That had been after the outbreak. Derek had tried reasoning with her, since it happened back when the two of them were still in love. But in the end he had to grab her and stuff a rag in her mouth to keep her from screaming and attracting the dead. It took four grown men to hold her down so Nokake could suture her leg. Rowan refused to speak to any of them for a few days after that, but the stitches had saved her from a lot of blood loss and possibly a bad infection.

Rowan hugged her knees and refused to say anything else to her father. She was fuming mad and her ear felt like it was on fire. When she got back home to Alexandria she was moving out of his house and back into her trailer. He was the meanest man on earth. He didn't mean it. Come on out baby. She could hear Daryl's voice in her head. He sounded sad and worried. Then she remembered feeling his fear for her when she fell down the steps of the RV and landed hard on the concrete. She didn't really want to admit it, but that was probably what had actually hurt her wrist, not anything her father did to her.

Rowan climbed out from under the table, taking care not to rip her dress. Daryl held his arms out and she was more than happy to let him wrap her up into his warm embrace. He held her on his lap, smoothing her hair down with his rough hands. He pulled out his hankerchief and wiped the blood away from her ear and off the side of her face. She felt the press of his lips on her forehead and then one hand tucked around her waist, resting protectively against her stomach. Rowan closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. She wasn't sure at what point she fell asleep in his arms but when she woke up again they were home.

** The reviews have been acting up, some are coming through in my email but not posting to the story. I know I had a question from Celia Azul about Rowan's age. In my original notes I had her at 25 at the beginning of the outbreak, so by now she is around 27 or 28. This puts her dad at about 44, which fits since he is described as being only slightly older than Daryl. Thanks to everyone that took the time to leave a review. Another Carl and Enid chapter will be coming up next. **