Chapter 14: Peeping Tom

Carol crept through the forest, doing her best to stay quiet, though leaves still rustled under her every step. She bent her knees and crouched slightly, mimicking how Daryl was walking ahead of her, but by the sound of it, she must be doing at least fifteen things wrong.

Finally, she sighed. "Are you going to tell me how to do it right, or are you just making a point?"

"Do what right?"

"Hunt. That's what you said this was about. Teaching me to hunt."

"And you believed me?" His mouth twitched, and he shouldered his crossbow. "Hell, woman. You ain't got a whiskey's chance in a honkey tonk of learning to hunt. You're loud as hell and twice as bad a shot. Stick to walkers. They's slow, big, and stupid."

She scowled. "If we aren't hunting, what are you creeping around for?"

"Just putting on a show till we got away from camp." His eyes smiled a little, though his mouth stayed solemn. "Don't tell me you wanted to stay there listening to Lori and Rick picking at each other. I'm about ready to divorce 'em myself."

She huffed out a breath, then shrugged. "True enough. So what are we doing?"

"Whatever you want. We can walk, maybe fish. I got some hooks, little bit o' line." His face brightened. "You like to fish?"

She laughed.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just, normally you can't lie to save your life. I spotted it from a hundred miles the time you tried to cover for Carl about looking at those dirty magazines in the gas station. But if it comes to getting us out of camp to go fishing, well, that's another matter."

His hand went to the strap of his crossbow, and he started chewing on his lip.

Carol's eyes narrowed. "What? Were you lying about the fishing, too?"

"No." He turned and started walking.

She jogged to catch up, glancing around for walkers before she peered closer at him. "You lied about something, though, didn't you?"

He ducked his head harder. "Can we just go fishin'?"

"Nope." She grinned, happy to have the upper hand for once. "Was it when you told Rick you didn't find any food at that last house?"

It wasn't as urgent now that they'd done the run on that big store. They hadn't managed to grab much before the walkers came in and Carol had to blow the horn to pull them back, but even a couple of armloads of cans was the difference between stress and relaxation, these days.

"You holding out on the Reese's peanut butter cups again?" she teased. "That's gonna cost you, buddy."

He cut a glance sideways and her stomach fisted. She stopped walking.

"What, Daryl?" It was something serious, she could tell. What would he have lied to her about that was big? "Does Rick know? Are we in danger?"

She stopped walking and so did he, though he kept shifting his weight from foot to foot, his muscles surging like he wanted to go before he stopped himself.

"Ain't nothing important," he said unconvincingly.

She felt sick.

"Please," she whispered. "Just tell me. I can handle it, whatever it is. We're in this together, Daryl." Pain streaked through her hand and only then did she realize how hard she was gripping the hilt of her knife. "Let me help you."

He coughed out a breath, the way he sometimes did when he was getting stitched up. Like he was in pain and wouldn't let himself cry out. He gripped the back of his neck, took a step, came back. "I lied 'bout watching you," he said.

She blinked, tried to sort out the meaning of his words. "What?"

"Not when the walkers attacked, last week. I wasn't watchin', then. But back in quarry camp, used to watch. All the time." His face twisted. "Sorry."

Her mouth fell open a little bit, and then she clapped a hand to her chest, starting to laugh.

He dared a glance up at her, messing with the strap on his crossbow. "What's funny?"

She sank to the ground, her knees shaky, and laughed until her throat hurt. "I thought you were going to say a herd was coming, or we were out of bullets, or…" She didn't even try to list the thousand dire scenarios that had gone through her head. "And it turns out you were just a peeping tom?"

"Not the other day," he said again quickly. "Not with Beth there, and Rick's wife."

Her eyes narrowed. Had he been watching her, at the quarry camp, or all the women? He'd said he'd lied about watching her.

"But at quarry camp, I didn't bathe alone either," she said slowly, every word choice feeling fraught with assumptions she was a little embarrassed to be making.

"Not when you brung Sophia," Daryl said quickly. "I caught Merle going down to watch one of the days you had Sophia there, and I drug him off. Not that he likes little kids. He don't like 'em any younger than fourteen. But he wouldn'ta cared if she was there, long as he got to see the others."

"So it was a family affair," Carol said dryly, raising both eyebrows.

"Nah." Daryl made a face. "Not watching together. That's sick."

"What?" She grinned. "Every time Maggie and I watched you guys skinny dipping in Hershel's pond, we did it together."

He huffed his usual disgusted noise at her joke and she laughed. He flopped down next to her, reclining back on his side. She smiled a little wider, happy they were back to their "just us guys" comfort.

"I didn't know any of y'all back then. You's just girls to me," he said. "I shouldn'ta. But I's horny. I did, couple of times."

She patted his arm. "I forgive you for using us as your personal Hustler. I doubt you were the only ones, considering we had a matched set of blondes there for a while."

"Andrea?" He grimaced. "Girl's a pain in my ass."

"Doesn't mean you didn't enjoy hers."

He grunted, brushing that off, and squinted up at her. "Why ain't you mad?"

"That you were ogling the women back at quarry camp?" She shrugged. "Lots to be mad about, these days. That doesn't hardly register."

"But the other day, when I saw you…" He pulled a piece of grass out by the roots, starting to shred it. "You were—" She watched his lips form the m for mad, but then he seemed to change his mind. "Sad. Or upset. Or somethin'. Couple days there, you were. Weren't talking much to me. So why don't it bother you I was doing it on purpose at quarry camp, and lyin' about it, even?"

She stared at him. Every way she twisted his words in her mind, they came out the same. He hadn't been watching them at quarry camp. He'd been watching her. Even though she'd had her head shaved nearly bald and had the confidence of a stepped-on mouse. He wasn't upset that he'd seen her topless. He thought she was upset.

Suddenly everything he'd done since then changed to a different light. The way he'd bumped her shoulder on the steps, trying to make it up to her by teaching her self defense tricks. The way he'd brought her extra food for days, like peace offerings. The way his eyes had skittered away from her even more than normal. He hadn't been repulsed by looking at her. He'd been trying not to look.

But like a poorly fitted key, the thoughts wouldn't turn inside her head. She had to know. It was stupid, and reckless, and maybe it would ruin everything, but she had to know.

She reached out and touched his leather-clad wrist, stilling his hands where they worried at the grass. "Daryl? Were you watching…me?"

A shout rang out through the trees, followed quickly by the spiking moans of excited walkers.

They both jumped to their feet, but he caught her when she started toward camp. "It's this way." He pulled back his crossbow, threw a bolt into it, and took off running. She jerked the gun out of the back of her pants and sprinted after him.

They saw the walkers first, a whole cluster of them. Daryl shot the first and then stopped to yank back his crossbow to load a second bolt. She planted her feet and aimed, but she couldn't see the humans and didn't want to risk hitting one, so she ran closer when Daryl did. When he stopped to shoot a second, she took aim at a rotund walker on the fringes. It took her three shots, but she finally brought it down. Somebody screamed, and she heard tearing flesh. God, what kind of world was this that she recognized the sound of it?

Motions blurred. She fired and stabbed, backing up to give herself space when she had to reload, shooting walkers off Daryl when he had to reload. Time stopped and everything was just fear laced with the comforting twang of his bowstring. She didn't even look at the people they'd saved until the walkers were all dead.

"Holy shitballs. It's a woman." The man who said it stared at her wide-eyed. He was young, with wide shoulders and a belly that made her think he'd had a paunch not long ago. He wore a University of Oklahoma hoodie and scavenged sweatpants a few inches too short, but a gold watch glittered from his wrist that would have cost the same as two of her old SUVs, back before the turn. Somehow, she bet he'd been in the fraternity house section of UO.

There was a human still gasping on the ground, blood spurting from the bite wound in his neck. Guy looked barely twenty, with bright purple hair. Daryl stepped up and put a bolt through his forehead, keeping an eye on the other two as he pulled it out. "He's bit," he grunted, in case they were planning on arguing. Neither of them looked away from Carol.

The shorter of the two had a narrow acne-scarred face, his gray eyes too close together. With the blood streaked across his face, they looked scary bright.

"Did you see any more stumblers?" Frat Boy said, quickly reloading his gun and glancing out at the forest.

"Nah," Daryl said, reclaiming his arrows and wiping them on the rag from his pocket, one by one. "That was plenty enough, I guess."

Gray Eyes started to reload. Carol roused herself, trying to ignore the post-adrenaline trembling as she hit the button to kick out her empty magazine and do the same.

"Don't bother," a voice said.

She looked up into the barrel of a gun.