A kiss from the wind -The Walking dead. Daryl Dixon/OC
Chapter 3- The doused fires.
Summary: The gnarled hand scrabbled uselessly against the ground, rotting body trapped under the mangled car wreck, reaching, moaning and snarling. Charlotte grimaced, moving further out of reach and crouched to the ground. "Come on kid." Daryl's voice sounded behind her, a hand landing on her shoulder, "Leave it. We got ground to cover." Daryl/OC
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IM SO SORRY TO THOSE WHO KEPT GETTING THESE UPDATES, I HAD TO EDIT THIS CHAPTER AND HAD AN ATTACK ON ME!
Hey guys! Thanks for the great response! A few more reviews from the alerts wouldn't go amiss though! =P Onwards…
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Oh! Also, due to not knowing the novels or what's coming next I'm ignoring the whole Andrea getting split from the rest and being saved by the girls whose name I cant remember or pronounce!
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Charlotte sat beside Jamie next to the dwindling fire that evening, half listening to the boys whispered ramblings, a weary eye on the newcomers camp.
Three guards stood strategically placed around their tents, there was nothing those people could do that wouldn't be seen. No escape. Andrew was one of them. He stood near the crossbow wielders tent, Daryl, Charlotte remembered his name to be. He was talking, possibly to one of the others, she couldn't work out the words.
Betty sat at another fire in the corner of the camp, cooking something up that smelled disgusting but would no doubt taste as close to heavenly as you could get these days. Some kind of meat, possibly rabbit, Charlotte thought there might have been some brought back from the last hunt. Messy, bullet riddled animals, more gunshot wounds than edible meat. But it was something.
Perhaps she could take the children fishing, she was no expert but had been once or twice during the rare days her father was sober and loving in her childhood. She could probably create make shift rods. She made a mental note to enquire later.
She noticed movement in the new camp, cramped and close together as it was. The brunette woman moved from inside her tent, followed by the officer. They seemed to be discussing something heatedly. Charlotte surmised they were probably married, or at least in a long term relationship, the boy looked similar to them both. A full family in this place. It was good. The redneck exited his own, still angry, his voice carrying further than the others but still just an angry drone from where she sat. The Asian, Korean she was now sure, followed and soon a full blown discussion began.
The guarding men moved closer in, a silent threat that seemed to simmer the group down.
Charlotte found her view blocked by Betty's torso. "Yer dad says you have to take 'em their food."
"What?" Charlotte squeaked, eyes shooting back to the angrily pacing members of the group, the bloody prisoners.
"You heard. Jamie, Emma, get to it." Betty informed, "you're the least intimidatin' at least he's feeding them."
Charlotte reached for the spare plates, the brightly coloured plastic picnic variety that had been raided from a shop when the group first rallied together. There were plenty spare, many members had been killed, some had left. They took two plates each, Charlotte pointed Emma towards the beautiful short haired woman with the sad eyes and the blonde teenager, Jamie towards the mother and son. Betty, somehow balancing four of her own, probably from years of experience followed behind. Charlotte moved towards the older blonde woman, ignoring the indignant shouts of "Why're they getting' fed first?" from some camp members.
"Get yer own!" Betty cried brazenly in response.
"Hi." Charlotte said quietly, avoiding the woman's hard eyes. "Dinner."
She took the plate with a mumbled, "Thanks" before turning back to her tent in a blatant dismissal. Charlotte frowned and turned towards the others, Betty handed Rick his food and the trusting man smiled warmly, thankfully despite their situation. Emma stood shyly beside the short haired lady who looked even sadder than before though a warm smile graced her lips. The blonde teen stood beside her, a hand placed comfortingly on her shoulder. Jamie smiled shyly as he handed the older boy his food and Charlotte smiled.
Breathing deeply she hesitantly carried the second plate towards her last destination, the meat and strange mashed substance looked dreadful but she felt her own stomach rumbling at the idea of readily available food, she only hoped that there was some saved when she returned.
The red neck, she didn't know the guy but that's what she had taken to calling him in her mind, sat menacingly outside of his tent, glaring at nothing in particular. She approached hesitantly.
"I-" she started, "I bought-"
Her voice cracked as the glare landed on her face. "I bought you food."
"Don't want it." the red neck, Daryl she reminded herself said petulantly.
"You should eat-" Charlotte began placing the plate onto the small table outside his tent, before she could finish the action or her sentence though the small fold away chair he had been sat on flew backwards and he was on his feet, shouting, "I said I don't want it. Get the hell away!"
Charlotte jumped backwards and collided with a body, "Easy there." The older man said, arms steadying as Rick moved between herself and Daryl and practically knocked the man back on his chair.
"Now you stop it!" he cried, "She ain't the enemy here. We ain't never gonna get away if you go killin' members of their group."
"Wasn't gonna kill 'er."
"Hurtin' then. Same difference." he turned to Charlotte, "You okay ma'am."
Charlotte nodded, "Yeah, everything's fine." she said loudly, towards Andrew and another weapon toting boy, Peter, who stood guns pointed. She moved away from the blondes hands and to safety as Rick moved to try and placate their guards, apologizing for the commotion. Charlotte felt for him, he obviously knew they shouldn't be here and would do anything to protect his boy. Having guns pointed at their camp was not going to protect his son, all that was needed was a sweaty trigger finger to slip and someone could die.
"It's fine Andrew." she said, suddenly feeling inexplicably angry, cutting over the officers voice "Put the Goddamn gun down." She roughly pushed the barrel of the shot gun down, avoiding her foot space, "There's a kid in there, not to mention Jamie and Emma."
The gun moved willingly but a hand came up to her shoulder and pushed her roughly to the ground, the barrel she had just seconds ago moved now hovering above her own face.
"Hey!" the older blonde woman cried, "Stop it."
Charlotte felt her throat constrict, her palms grow clammy. "You ever touch my gun again," Andrew growled, "I'll kill you with it."
Time seemed to slow, she could hear Betty soothing Jamie, possibly he was crying, she could see Officer Rick a hand still pressed against the rednecks chest despite the fact that he now stood taking in the scene before them. Glare now directed towards Andrew. The rest of the camp stood still, both Rick's and her own. Tense.
Charlotte wondered if her father could see, though she knew he would simply leave them to it. The men were not aloud to treat Charlotte, or Betty and Emma by extension like the whores they were used to. Like nameless sacks of meat for them to rape and abuse sexually over and over again. That was Lawrence Pearce's rules regarding his daughter. Bullets, bruising and general creepiness however was not covered and the men, the violent ones at least, took full advantage of the latter two.
She couldn't change inside her own tent without wondering if someone stood nearby, just waiting to come inside, couldn't bathe without feeling the eyes of whatever guard was on duty on her skin. David, from earlier at the river was one of the worst. Charlotte believed that were her father to ever recede his rule or pass away he would be the first to step forward.
Andrew moved the gun from her face, sneering, "Get outta here."
Charlotte scrambled to her feet, glaring as strongly as she could manage, hot tears pricking at her eyes as she stretched out her sore spine, she'd landed hard and it hurt.
"Asshole." She heard the blonde woman she had given food to say as she scuttled back to her own tent, dutifully ignoring the argument that broke out between the woman and Andrew.
She climbed onto the floor below Jamie's empty cot and pulled her sleeping bag over her, boots and all, though she didn't cry and she no longer felt hungry.
The loud voices carried and there was an underlying fear that they might attract any lonely dead people. She didn't think there would be hordes of them, not this far from civilisation anyway. At least she hoped not.
Jamie entered the tent what seemed like only a few minutes later, Charlotte knew that Betty would have kept a hold of him whilst it all went down.
"You okay Charlotte?" he asked quietly, lying on the floor beside her. She turned to face him and nodded.
"There's food left out there." he said.
"I'm not hungry Jamie. Have you eaten?"
The boy nodded and she moved forward to place a kiss to his pale forehead. "Okay. Get into bed. We gotta help with breakfast tomorrow."
"Good night Charlotte."
Jamie slipped into sleep quickly, it had been a long day. Adrenalin, caused by fear kept Charlotte awake however, long after the voices in both camps had died down and the fires had been doused. It was late before she slipped into blissful unconsciousness.
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She woke groggily the next morning, roused by the unzipping of her tent, she instinctively tensed and sat up, ready to protect Jamie with whatever it took.
She sighed with relief when Emma's young face popped through the hole.
"Betty says to get up." Emma said, "We need to help with breakfast."
"Course. We'll be right there." Charlotte said with a strained smile, noticing Jamie slowly waking behind her.
Charlotte wanted to lie back down and sleep for an eternity the events from the night before had left her exhausted, the adrenalin completely gone leaving a body completely crashed and running on barely any sleep and no food. She immediately regretted skipping dinner, wishing that she had sucked it up and nourished herself.
"C'mon Jamie. Get dressed."
She moved slowly, wincing as her spine protested, though she was moving so it was only bruised or sore, nothing worse. Straightening up to normal height hurt like hell but she soon managed. By habit she moved onto her first job , collecting empty plates from around the camp, often people were too tired to return plates before they slept, the majority wouldn't even bother most of the time. That was a broads job they'd say.
She moved automatically, trudging back and forth piling plates near Emma who would wash them with the river water as best she could before they were used again.
"Get the rest." Betty said, indicating the new camp, eyes moving over Charlotte but offering no questions of health and no offers to take a rest. She wouldn't baby her or let her off of her duties. Charlotte loved that about Betty.
She wearily scanned the guards, Andrew of course was no where to be seen, thank the lord for small mercies and it looked like none of the newcomers were awake. She stepped quietly past the new guards, and nodded, picking up the plates as she went, they had obviously taken the initiative and copied the people here in where to put their plates. It wasn't like they could casually stroll to the cooking area to put it away themselves.
She moved left to right counting as she moved and hesitated again at the last tent, even in such a small area seemingly isolated from the rest. She toed quietly over and cursed under her breath when she couldn't find the plate. She had no intention of asking anyone and moved to leave.
"Here." A voice said gruffly from her right. She jumped, startled and saw the dirty man stood off to the side, the bright yellow plate held out to her by a grubby hand.
She paused. Moved to take it and mumbled, "Thanks."
She scurried back towards the breakfast area and Betty, dropping a plate and stumbling as she did so.
"You get any sleep girl?" Betty asked, exasperated.
"No." Charlotte whispered as Jamie moved from their tent, looking about as refreshed as a child could, "Not much at all."
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I HAVE TO END IT THERE! I'm bloody exhausted after a 15 hour overnight work shift. Damn! Hope you liked! Please review and let me know! Love you all! x