Rick and the others had stayed hidden until they were sure that the small group was gone. And though Carol was upset about them taking Sophia, like Rick and Dale, she had some hope that the girl wouldn't be hurt or worse while with the strangers as Rick grabbed the note that been left behind by whoever had taken Sophia.

After what had happened at the CDC the group had sort of lost faith that there were any decent people left in the world. So the fact that there was a group with food and water and such- willing to let them stay with them, was beyond understanding right then.

Their minds kept waffling back and forth between the possibility of safety so that they wouldn't have to travel anymore. And fear that the invitation was in some way a trap, and Sophia was the bait.

Showing the note to Shane, Lori, Carol, Dale and the others Rick waited patiently until everyone had seen it before finally asking. "Did anyone get a good look at those people?"

"I did," Daryl said. "Four men, and two kids. All of them were foreigners from the looks of them. The one that they kept referring to as Ali, I think, was the lone female of the group."

"Foreigners huh? That's good, that fact may work in our favor if it comes down to a fight... Was there anything else that you noticed about them? Weapons? How they were dressed? Did they look clean? How did they take the walkers out?"

"Yeah. I noticed. Looked like some of them know martial arts. The rest had knives, daggers- stuff like that. Except the girl, I'm not entirely sure but I think she carried some sort of grenade if the explosion earlier was anything to go by. And she also carried a staff on her. And one of the other guys carried a spear. Everyone else took the walkers out with their hands. They were clean. Their clothes were newly washed. Some of their shirts were still damp."

"Anything else?" Rick asked as he mentally went over the details that Daryl gave him in his mind. Daryl nodded his head before saying simply,

"We need to be cautious..." Daryl seemed to hesitate for some reason. Almost as if he were trying to work something out in his head before finally saying, "Each of them is a very efficient killer."

"Do you think they intend to hurt Sophia?"

"Nah," Daryl said with a slight shake of his head before slowly tacking on. "If they were going to hurt her then there would be no point in saving her and clearing this area out. They cleared the area just in case others were nearby."

"I-I think so too." Dale said hesitantly as everyone looked at him expectantly, hoping that he would explain further. "I think Daryl is absolutely right about those people. I could see them out of my window. They weren't the least bit aggressive or abusive towards Sophia. They were however, protective of her. If they had wanted to hurt her, why not do it here? Why drag her off promising food and water, and other things? To them, there was no need to do so. There was no one else here, and as Daryl pointed out before- they are each efficient killers. Why take a young kid that may only drag them down in the long run? What can she contribute to them and their little group?" He shot Carol an apologetic look for those last few words, knowing that they had likely upset her.

Carol merely thinned her lips at the comment about her daughter dragging a group down, but said nothing as Daryl spoke up and said, "She can offer easy sport for any guy who is interested."

Everybody cringed at the colorful words as the man growled out defensively, "What?! It's not like I'm wrong. The world being what it is now- if it were me, I'd covet any potential way to breed a new generation so that I could try to keep humankind alive. I wouldn't care much about the person's age as long as I could use them. That's just how people now think."

"That's disgusting!" Lori said, causing Daryl to get up in her face and yell.

"Well that's how things are now! Not everything is all rainbows and sunshine princess! We're in the shit out here! Little girls like Sophia, who don't know any better- who are sheltered and shit, they're easy targets!"

Rick quickly stepped between the two and laid a hand on the man's shoulder and gave him a small push to get him out of Lori's face before saying, "That's enough Daryl." He muttered, not liking the fact that the hunter was stating something like that so loudly in front of his wife, young son and Carol.

It was something that he had figured out a while back at the CDC when Jenner had nearly wiped them all out because of his selfish desire not to die alone.

Rick had known since then that the rules of the new world were less than pleasant for the survivors. But hearing someone else say it aloud...just made it more real to him. And he didn't like that.

From the looks of Daryl and Dale and Shane- they didn't fucking like it any either. But the truth was the truth and they needed to accept that, the faster that each of them learned this- the better off they would all be in the long run.

"The girl with them, did you see how old she was Dale? Did she look..."

"Abused?" Dale supplied helpfully, causing Rick to thin his lips a little bit and nod curtly as Dale said, "She looked young. Maybe a tad bit older than Carl. Possibly in her early teens. She was clean, her clothes were clean- She had on long sleeves, so that could easily hide any bruises on her arms... But all in all she looked fine to me. She was well fed, healthy, maybe a little bit tired, but not overly so."

"I agree with Dale," Daryl said quietly, drawing Ricks attention to back to him as he said. "From what little bit I could see, I noticed the same. The kid appeared to be treated well."

"Then there's a chance that they're just some decent folks that saw a little kid in trouble and decided to lend a hand. Great. Let's go and get Sophia." Shane said sarcastically, knowing that this still could be some sort of trap.

Apparently Rick and Daryl were thinking the same thing because Rick quickly began to tell them of a plan that he had to check things out while the rest of their group stayed with Dale and T-dog on the interstate and waited for someone to come back and tell them whether it was safe or not.

The plan called for Rick, Daryl and Shane to go to the address on the piece of tattered paper left behind by the stranger. One way or another, Rick promised Carol and the others, they would bring Sophia back.