They liked to drink. I don't know where they got the stuff, but I suppose if Daryl and I had found a still deep in the Georgia woods, it wasn't too far of a stretch that they had found something similar. Maybe it was a warehouse, or a bar, that they'd ransacked. It didn't matter to me where they got it from, though. It only mattered that they liked to drink, and that the woman was rather melancholy when she did so, and so she didn't always pay attention to what she was doing.
She'd wanted to play 'asshole', and somewhere in my brain I had a memory of learning how to play. A deck of cards was produced, and shuffled, and she dealt out hands on the dirt floor where I sat, my hands still bound tightly, the feel of rope between my fingers becoming too familiar. I watched, somewhat bemused, as she picked up her cards and began arranging them. When she noticed I hadn't budged, she frowned, and kicked my cards towards me.
I shrugged helplessly. I couldn't very well hold my cards if my hands were tied. She'd grumbled something about me not even being a threat, and snatched up my cards, and hers, and left the room. There was no noise, none of the quiet, low murmur of voices, and I realized that the two men had left, and I was alone here with the woman.
I sank back against the wall, rolling my shoulders as best I could. I hoped she'd leave me alone now. The man with the grey eyes was easy to read: he was an angry man, scared, and weak with the world, and he sought to take out his fears on those that he believed to be beneath him. The second man seemed to be along for the ride, definitely not a leader, but one who did what others told him was best. His lack of empathy, or ability to know right and wrong, was terrifying, and he sometimes seemed to be empty, while the man with the grey eyes gave him orders.
The woman, though, was vicious. She may have been beautiful once, but life on the road didn't treat everyone equally. She hated me, I think, because of my hair, and my eyes, and my skin, and my teeth. The man with the grey eyes knew this, and kept her on a short leash, but sometimes he wasn't always there. She played with me, sometimes seeming like a child, a younger sister, eerie, and flighty. Other times, she was unfeeling, and smiled wanly as she watched my bones being broken, my flesh being cut. She wouldn't let them mar my face, not after my eyebrow had been cut being flung into the car. Everywhere else, however, was fair game.
My relief at her absence was short lived. She burst back into the room, her dead smile firmly in place as she came nearer. Squatting down in front of me, she held a knife under my nose, the blade laying flat on two palms, as if she was offering it to me. I glanced at the blade, and then to her, and swallowed thickly. It was the knife Daryl had given me on one of those first nights we were running together. I'd used it a handful of times, and I longed to feel its weight in my hand again. Not thinking, I reached for it, and she snatched it back, shoving me roughly back against the wall. She chuckled, and then reached for me, making me flinch. Her arms went around me, and I smelled the cold air clinging to her, smoke in her unwashed hair, and the scent of grime ground into her skin. She grunted, sawing at the ropes around my wrists, and I flexed my fingers as my bonds fell away. When she was finished, she stepped back, and watched me expectantly.
I focused on the knife. If nothing else, I wanted it back, wanted to hold it, and use it to cut my way out of their hold. The knife was mine, the one thing Daryl had given me that was tangible. Now that he was no longer talking to me, I felt as if his blade in my hand might bring him back to me somehow.
Fingers snapped in my face and I lifted my gaze to the woman. Behind my back, I flexed my fingers once more, and as she moved to stand, I moved too, something driving me, making my leg swing out so that my foot hooked over her ankle, tripping her, and bringing her face down into the dirt.
She grunted with the impact and I sprung into action, clambering over her body, driving a kneecap into her spine as I went, making her gasp as I crushed the air from her body, laying as much of myself into her as I could. When she'd fallen, the knife had skittered from her hand, and now lay just out of her reach. Gritting my teeth, I gathered all of my strength, and crawled up her back, pinning her down with my forearm against the back of her neck. My fingertips touched the hilt of the knife as she bucked and twisted beneath me. Suddenly, my world tipped, and I felt myself flip over to one side, onto my back, just as I curled two fingers around the knife.
I shook my hair from my eyes just as she landed on me, her fist connecting with the side of my face. Hot pain bloomed in my jaw, and her nails scored my skin as she clawed for my hair. With two firm fistfuls of the long strands, she lifted my head up and sent it crashing back down to the hard-packed dirt, and my ears rung as my teeth rattled together.
She snarled curses at me, and looked past my head, her eyes going from frantic to frozen as she saw the knife in my fingers. With another burst of adrenaline, my free hand sailed up shoving her chin up and exposing her throat to me. I brought the knife across in a swift arc, and a thin line of red appeared on the skin of her throat. Very little effort was needed, and it was exactly like a hot knife through butter. Her flesh gave way, then tendons and muscle, and suddenly, her throat split open and hot, coppery blood flooded out while she gagged and gurgled.
Her hands clutched her throat as her eyes went wide, and she fell back from me as she tried to stop the bleeding, but I'd cut deep, and long, and I shoved myself backwards as I watched her die. I gasped for breath, and my limbs felt heavy and over-taxed as the adrenaline sailed back out of my limbs and threatened to leave me numb. But I couldn't stay here. I needed to get out.
I didn't bother finishing the job, and left the now lifeless woman without driving the blade into her brain. It would be a surprise to the men when they returned, finding me gone, and the woman a walker. I stood on shaking legs and stole into the main room, and began gathering anything I could find to help me on my way.
A low, guttural growl came through the trees. My heart was pounding, reliving my escape in my head, but the sound that roused me was close, and it wasn't a wild animal. Holding my breath, I closed my eyes and listened again, hearing the steady, sluggish lurch of dead feet trampling through leaves. It was coming closer, and seemed to arc around, closing in on our camp.
"Shit," I muttered, ducking through the trees towards the low flames.
I nudged Daryl with my toe, and when his eyes snapped open, I held a finger to my lips, and nodded towards the trees. "Looks like they tracked us down," I whispered.
Daryl nodded once, and scrambled to his feet, stuffing his bedroll and the blanket he slept on into his pack as I roused Carl and Rick. They were bleary eyed, the latter having gotten no more than an hour's rest, but he moved quickly, making sure Carl was up and already headed the way I'd indicated before he slung his own pack over his shoulders.
"C'mon," I hissed at Carl, tugging on the straps of his backpack and making him move faster.
"Think we can outrun em?" I heard Rick mutter, and Daryl grunted in reply.
"Dunno. Beth, how many?"
"I think it's the same group from this mornin'. Twenty, easily. Maybe more."
"Probably more," Carl muttered.
We turned in the trees again, tearing through creeper vines, and stumbling into a clearing. Carl's momentum carried him forward, and he tripped over something on the ground, something that grunted and then shouted, cursing wildly before scrambling to pick up a rifle.
"What the fuck?"
I skidded in my tracks, and realized we'd stumbled in on another camp. "I don't believe it," I breathed, before I started to back away. "Go back, head west," I warned over my shoulder, as loudly as I dared.
The other two members of the camp had roused, and Carl had managed to find his feet, but barely. We stood on the other side of the clearing, the group of strangers in the middle, as Daryl and Rick crashed through the brush to join us.
"Jesus Christ," Rick muttered, his hand already palming the gun from his holster.
Daryl's crossbow was raised and aimed, as his eyes cut from one stranger to the next. "Beth," he muttered in warning. "Run. Go south. Back to the road. We'll catch up."
I shook my head vehemtly. "I ain't leavin' you, Daryl," I breathed. "I won't."
"Goddamit, I'm not having this argument again, I said go!"
The moans of walkers soon filled the immediate area behind Rick and Daryl, and my stomach dropped as I realised the only ones with a chance to escape were me and Carl. I shook my head again, hesitating.
"Beth, come on!" Carl's hand grabbed mine and he tugged me towards the trees.
"No!" I screeched, and it seemed to only invigorate the walkers. Soon enough, the first of them were straggling through the trees, and Daryl turned, loosing one bolt, and dropping the one closest to us.
"Go! NOW!" Rick roared.
Carl yanked me again, and we stumbled out of the clearing as alarmed voices rose behind us. We ran, stumbling into the forest. Something crashed behind us, living or dead I didn't know, and I didn't want to find out. The groans of the dead were closing in on us, and it seemed like they were coming on all sides now. Shots were fired from the clearing, and my heart leaped into my throat as Carl swore sharply.
"Here," I said, pulling him to a halt beside a sturdy oak. I pulled myself up to the lowest branch, and then stuck my hand down to Carl. "C'mon. Walkers don't climb trees, last time I checked." He put a hand in mine and I pulled as his boots scraped up the sides of the trunk. He struggled, and I reached down to yank him up by his pack, when my hand encountered someone already grabbing onto him.
Carl struggled. "Fuck, let me go!" He growled, and then wiggled in the grasp of the man that had followed us. It was the one Carl had tripped over, and he tore Carl down from the tree, aiming his rifle at him.
"Get outta that tree, missy," he grunted. "Or I'll shoot the both of ya." He stomped a heavy boot down onto Carl's shoulder and cocked the gun.
"There's walkers on your ass," I snapped. "An' you're wastin' time. Let him up and run, now. You don't want me to come down there."
Carl struggled, and craned his face up to look at me where I hovered in the trees. He shook his head. "No, Beth, stay there…"
The man issued more pressure on Carl's shoulder, and grinned up at me. "I got a gun, missy." He moved his eyes to the knife I gripped gently.
Hold it like you would an egg, I heard Daryl's voice tell me. Don't strangle it. It's a part of you, like your hand.
"What are ya gonna do with that itty-bitty knife?"
You gonna cut me, sugar? Make me bleed? C'mon, an' show me what you got, babydoll.
The grey-eyed man's voice closed around me, and as the sun began to rise up red and newborn in the morning sky, I dropped down from the tree, and showed him how well I handled my itty-bitty knife.