Thank you all for the reviews, favorites and follows! I promised a prompt chapter, and I'm sorry that I let you down on that. But nevertheless, onwards and upwards!
Star's vision field was all black with flashing white and icy blue bursts. Her eyelids felt impossibly heavy, and the base of her skull was throbbing in time with the bright flashes.
Open your eyes, dammit. She chided herself. Blind is a great way to get yourself killed.
She tried to bring her hand up to rub the weight from her eyes, but the slightest lift brought tension across her wrists. Shit, did I break my wrists too? Nice fucking job, Star! She rotated her hands to assess the level of damage, but instead of a sharp pain, felt only pressure.
Her eyes snapped open at the same time as her brain snapped to attention. Tied. I'm tied up.
The white sunlight forced her to squint at her surroundings until they came into focus. Dirt. Forest. Small fire. Blurry shapes of strange humans. Slumped over, familiar human next to her. She blinked at that sight a few times until she recognized her bound companion, still unconscious, still bleeding.
She scooted over towards Daryl's figure, but in an instant, found one of the strange human shapes pointing the barrel of a gun at her forehead. She glared up at it until a scrawny, dirty, white man with shaggy blonde hair came into focus on the other end of the weapon.
"Wouldn't be makin' any stupid moves, ma'am," he quipped, his drawl reminding her faintly of Daryl's.
"He's hurt," Star protested.
"Sounds like a personal problem t' me."
Star's head was throbbing even more now, and she grimaced. "Why the hell did you hit us? What do you want?" She managed. Information. Get him talking. She saw a slight movement to her right, and saw Daryl's blue eyes peek out from under his eyelids.
"You were followin' us, n' we can't be havin' that."
"Following you? We were being cha…" Her protests were slapped out of her mouth by the butt of the pistol whipping across her jaw. Everything went white again as her teeth instantly became coated in blood and her skull felt as if it had cracked along her ears.
The crack of wood on bone made a loud enough sound to jolt Daryl to full consciousness, because he was on his knees and launching himself at the man before Star could catch another breath. With his hands tied, he simply knocked the man to his back before the two girls, shouting and hollering, dragged Daryl off and threw him aside.
"Daryl STOP!" Star finally managed to spit out, spraying her own shirt and the ground with blood. The two girls stared at her in a mixture of fear and pity, but the brunette handed the man the pistol again nonetheless. The man quickly wiped away dirt from his face as he aimed the weapon at Daryl.
"Dwight, please," the younger girl with short blonde hair pleaded. "Maybe he won't tell them. Maybe they aren't with him."
Daryl looked over at Star for insight into this comment. She was blinking past a river of tears streaming down her cheeks, and painfully holding the left side of her jaw. She shrugged back at him.
"We ain't who you think," Daryl told the man standing above him. The two girls looked at each other, and the brunette cautiously knelt down to give water from a bottle to Daryl. The blonde crossed to Star and did the same. Star refused angrily; there was no way she was moving her jaw. The blonde shoved the bottle at her more forcefully.
"Drink it," she commanded. Star managed to dribble some down into her mouth, and let some of it fall out of the corner to wash out the sea of blood. The young girl gasped and backed away quickly from her at the sight.
"We ain't takin' the chance that they are," Dwight informed the two girls. "Bring em' with us."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" the brunette asked incredulously.
Dwight snorted at her concern. "Please. Th' chick only had baby knives and a pointy, broken stick on 'er. Won't be any trouble at all."
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They had been walking through the charred forest for about fifteen minutes, with the two girls up front and Dwight bringing up the rear, Star and Daryl sandwiched between their captors. Their hands were still bound, but Star had begun to loosen her ties as they walked. They entered a small clearing in the trees, and it seemed to perk the girls' interest as they began chatting about being "back again".
Daryl used the momentary distraction to draw closer to Star. She had been oddly quiet and complacent since the crack across the face.
"You ok?" he whispered. She only gave a subtle nod, not meeting his gaze.
"Star," he insisted. She lifted her eyes to his face, and he saw the swelling and angry red mark across her sharp cheeks and gentle jawline. Rage flooded through him, and she noticed his lips draw into a tight line across his teeth.
"Don't," she told him. She could see the helplessness, hurt and fury in his eyes, and she knew they needed to remain levelheaded to get out of this. She was already emotional enough; two people lost to logic could mean their death. She reached out to touch his bound hands with hers, but Dwight intervened.
"Don't make me separate you two," he warned. Daryl took a step back from Star, leaving her to walk closer to the girls.
"We got somewhere t' be," Daryl told Dwight evenly. "We can make a deal."
Dwight apparently wasn't in the mood to be bargained with, because he rolled his head as he pulled the pistol from his waistband.
"Now you're just gettin' on my nerves," Dwight warned. "Shoulda never trusted you people to begin with."
'We're here!" the brunette called out, sprinting ahead through the trees.
"Honey!" the small blonde yelled after her, nervously eyeing Star close behind her. "Honey, come back!" Star noticed her discomfort and took a half-hearted, lunging step towards the girl. The girl jumped and cowered, and Star allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction. "Pussy," she taunted the girl.
"Knock it off," Dwight warned her from behind Daryl, but Daryl thought he heard a hint of a laugh in his voice.
The party reached a gated industrial sight, which looked like a fuel station for freight trucks. Walkers roamed the concrete pads, their rasps echoing off the steel buildings. The light in Honey and the blonde's eyes faded, and even Dwight seemed to deflate at the sight.
"Shit," the man muttered.
"No!" the blonde screamed. "NO! Not Patty!" She threw the large duffel bag she had been lugging to the dirt, her hands gripping the links in the fence. Honey threw an arm around her, burying her head into her shoulder.
Star and Daryl gave each other sideways glances. Daryl's eyes darted back into the woods, and then west, and Star nodded once. Daryl then looked at the forgotten duffel on the ground, and then back to the woods. Star again nodded. She blinked slowly at him. 1….2….
The small girl collapsed limply onto the ground, her companion crying, "TINA!" Dwight dropped to his knees to catch the girl.
Star turned on her heel and sprinted full-speed into the charred trees, frantically running sideways through the thick. She heard Dwight yell "Hey!", but Daryl's pursuing footsteps sounded closer. Two shots rang out, and she slowed just enough to come into her companion's field of view, and then continued high-stepping though the vegetation.
Seeing a fallen log, she launched herself over it, and Daryl came flying over a few seconds later. Star frantically wrenched one hand free of her ties, and then undid Daryl's binds as well.
"Holy shit," she panted. Daryl was already elbows-deep in the duffel bag, and tossed her the portable radio without looking up. She caught it and promptly began talking into it. "Sasha. Abraham. Come in."
Only static replied to her call.
"Dammit," she growled in frustration. She turned her attention to the remaining contents of the bag. Underneath the crossbow, Glock and her spear, which she promptly slung back over her back, was a red cooler.
"What's th…" she began, and then she read the upside down letters. INSULIN.
Daryl promptly stopped his rummaging and pried open the top. Several rows of medication and syringes sat in the container.
"The blonde girl," Star realized. "She's diabetic." She was promptly on her feet, the cooler cradled in her arms. "She collapsed. We're going back."
"Seriously?" Daryl sighed, but he was already standing, adjusting the crossbow on his back and tossing the duffel over his shoulder.
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The two broke the clearing, Daryl at the lead with his crossbow pointed squarely at Dwight's chest. The trio was exactly where they had been left; Tina, unconscious on the ground, Honey crouching over her, and Dwight frantically scanning the forest for his two escaped prisoners. Upon seeing Star and the hunter emerge from the trees, Dwight brought his hands up promptly to a surrender position.
"Look, we're sorry," he pleaded. "We thought you were workin' for 'im. But we need those meds!"
Daryl nodded for Star to pass him, and she holstered her spear as she ran to Honey's side. The two swiftly injected the insulin and held their breaths, waiting for a response from the young girl.
"Gimme th' gun," Daryl gruffly commanded Dwight. Dwight balked, his hand on the piece.
"No fuckin' funny business," Daryl snarled, raising his crossbow to aim right between the man's eyes. Dwight handed the weapon over to Daryl, who tucked it into the back of his waistband without taking his eyes off the Target.
"Star?" he inquired.
"She's fine," Star breathed a sigh of relief as Tina's eyelids fluttered and the color returned to her cheeks.
"Thank God," Honey cried out, and drew the small girl into a hug. She looked up with shining eyes at Star and mouthed, "Thank you."
Star rocked back onto her feet and stood up, un-holstering her spear along the way. She crossed back to behind Daryl.
"You have the meds," she told Dwight sharply. "And we're not going to tie you up and take you hostage. Must be your lucky damn day." She swung her spear to point exactly at the same spot as Daryl's arrow. "I suggest you don't push it."
He nodded in acknowledgement, swallowing thickly. "We didn't wanna hurt y'all. They just can't go back to 'im, ya see."
"No, we don't see, and quite frankly we don't care to," Star replied curtly. "Follow us and see how lucky you…"
Her vague threat was cut off by the distant rumbling of a large engine.
"Shit!" Dwight panicked. "Give me the gun back!" He told Daryl. Daryl made no movement.
Honey and Tina were at Dwight's side instantly, Tina supported partially on Honey's shoulder. The rumbling was quickly drawing closer.
"Dwight, it's Wade!" Honey said, visibly scared, while Tina overlapped with, "We gotta hide!"
"Let us go!" Dwight hissed at Daryl and Star. The two were caught without a plan and no idea what to do. Star shook her head at Daryl.
"For fuck's sake!" Dwight yelled. "They'll take 'em back to 'im!"
Tina was burying her eyes in Honey's shoulder, and Honey set a steely gaze at Star. "Please, you don't know what will happen to us!"
Star's spear tip wavered slightly, and she looked at Daryl again. This time, he nodded and lowered his crossbow. But their decision came too late. A large 4-door truck rumbled into the clearing, accompanied by two smaller vehicles. Three gruff, large men emerged from each vehicle, with the driver of the truck leading the way.
"Wade," Dwight called up to him, fear in his voice. "It don't have to go like this."
A sinister sneer crawled its way across the man's leathered face. "It's funny you say that, Dwight. Cause that's exactly what I'd think, but fact is, you stole from him. And you know we can't have that. Order and rules and all that."
Star counted the men and the pieces on their hips, and saw how vastly outnumbered and outgunned they were. If their captors were desperate to get away from this group, they must have some pretty severe punishments.
"We only took what we earned!" Tina piped up from Honey's arms. "Nothing more!"
"Well you two, yes," Wade confirmed as he stepped down from his throne and onto the forest floor. "But Dwight here…he took you two. And he certainly didn't earn that."
Star suddenly understood. Honey and Tina are commodities. Commodities that belong to someone else.
Rage swelled up in her. The world had gone to hell less than three years ago, and already someone was creating a culture and civilization with women as objects to be traded and earned. She stepped in front of the two girls, her spear again raised to attack…only this time, aimed at the band of men.
Daryl noticed her unspoken change of heart, and although utterly confused, followed suit and raised his crossbow at the leader.
Wade chuckled. "Looks like y'all made some friends. I was wondering how you'd survived all this time. We thought we were gonna find your corpses. But I'd hate to kill some folks who didn't do anything wrong to us."
"No one needs to die," Star returned. "We can all walk away from this. You can have whatever they took, except the girls and the insulin."
The men laughed.
"You got some guts, don't you, little lady," Wade smiled at her. "Tell you what, I'll do you one better. Dwight, you let us take the warrior and the new woman, and we'll let you three walk."
All eyes turned to Dwight, except Daryl's. In one movement, Daryl had his Glock in the other hand, pointing it at Dwight, the crossbow never wavering from Wade.
"Ya do tha, and we kill ever' last one of ya," Daryl cautioned to no one in particular.
The men laughed deeply again at that, and Star decided right then that there was no way out of the confrontation without bloodshed.
"He means it," she warned. "So one last time: they return the goods they took, and everyone walks away intact."
Wade was about ten feet away, with two of his associates flanking his sides. One of them had an AR, the other a revolver. Star slowly slid her hand stealthily into a side pocket, fingering one of her small knives.
"I don't think you fully understand your predicament," Wade taunted her. "We don't really need to make a deal. You're on the losing side here. We could take you all, and all your stuff, too. But we're trying to be reasonable here."
She held his gaze, and then cast her eyes over to her group. "Fine, we'll be reasonable. "Honey, pick up the duffel bag," Star instructed, and saw the girl follow her order out of the corner of her eyes.
"Daryl, give Dwight his gun back."
Had it been anyone else, Daryl would have questioned their decision making. But Star was too calm and had that mischievous, hard glint in her eyes. He could tell she had a plan, and he could see the faint glint of folded steel in her right hand.
Daryl holstered his Glock and handed the pistol back to Dwight. Dwight took it, looking completely confused.
"Well trained monkey," the henchman holding the AR joked. Star's eyes snapped up to him.
"It was nice meeting you all," she said quietly. "But here is where we say good bye."
"What?!" Honey cried out. "No! You can't!"
Star looked right at the girl. "Go," she said calmly, and then snapped into a turn on her heel and let the concealed knife fly. It buried its blade keep in the chest cavity of the man holding the AR.
Shock took hold of the entire scene for a half second and the man's knees crumbled underneath him, and with a gargled cry, he slammed face-first into the blackened earth.
"GO!" Star hollered, and she, Daryl, Dwight, Honey and Tina bolted for the trees, a rain of bullets chasing them into the pines.
Phew! So sorry, once again, for the delayed updates. I'm working lots, life happens, etc. etc. Reviews are treasured forever.