"Okay, look—before you say anythin', I know it's stupid, alright? I know you wouldn't've wanted me to—which is why I didn't ask—but I wanted to."

Daryl raised both eyebrows and fiddled the toothpick in his mouth with his tongue, contemplating me to see if he was now allowed to step into our camp. He had gone to get fresh water and given me just enough time to set up the meekest birthday banquet known to man. Beans, beef stew (barely expired), blackened trout (still warm), and a half-drunk bottle of liquor sat nestled by the fire, a hastily wrapped gift thrown in the mix. I stepped aside and allowed him to view my work, anxiety wiggling in my gut.

"What's all this?"

"A birthday party. Kinda. I mean, it's just you and me but I still figured that everyone deserves a birthday party, y'know?" I kept my eyes glued to him as he slung his belongings off his shoulders and under the tattered tarp we used as a tent. "I found everything myself and the liquor came from that last run we did and—"

"A birthday party?" Daryl settled on a small rock we'd been using like a stool across the fire.

I took my place closer to the food so I could serve him. "Mmm-hmm."

Then he went and said something I wouldn't have ever thought he'd allow out of his mouth:

"Ain't never had one."

My heart, if possible, shriveled. Ever since we burned down that moonshiner's cabin, Daryl had been a lot more open, more easy-going. He hadn't been warm and fuzzy or sugary-sweet, but he'd eased off on being such a hardass and taken to throwing a nice word in here and there during my hours of babbling.

"Well," I smiled. "I hope I make your first one memorable."

I served the food on the china plates and poured fresh water into the cans we used as cups. Daryl didn't wait for me to serve myself before he dug in. Once we'd eaten and I'd cleaned the plates and set them aside to dry, I thrust my gift into his arms and urged him to open it.

"What is it?" he shook the package by his ear playfully. "Hope it ain't fragile."

I scooted closer to him, laughing, "No. It's not." He eyed me and I nudged him. "C'mon! Open it."

The rotting newspaper I'd used to wrap the gift tore easily and within seconds Daryl had unveiled the shirt I'd snagged at the moonshiner's cabin before we turned it into ashes. The elbows and collar were moth-eaten but nothing I couldn't fix with a bit of thread and a needle.

"Thanks," Daryl muttered, refolding it to set to the side.

"You're welcome." I picked up the liquor. "Here, you get to take the first sip."

Unscrewing the cap, he took several swigs and passed it back. We sat there taking turns with the liquor until the buzz hit our veins and minds and tongues, until we were lying on our backs and the last few drops in the glass was ambrosia slipping down our throats.

"Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, but Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumblin' after . . ."

As my voice faded into the night air, Daryl's rose.

"You know it ain't really my birthday today."

"Yeah. I know."

"Why'd you do it, then?"

"Like you said. I know it's stupid…"

"Won't gone say that."

If I hadn't been so drunk I would've noticed the blush that came on strong.

"Happy birthday, anyway. Early or belated."

Dew had fallen sometime during the evening; I could feel it on my cheek when I turned my head, my vision a kaleidoscope, and reached over for his hand as I had many a time in the passing weeks. He didn't hesitate—either because of all the liquor in his system or because he was used to it. Our clasped hands lie on the wet grass.

"So since I got you a present you have to give me one now."
"That so?"

"Yup. And I choose crossbow lessons."

"You really are a happy drunk."

"And tracking lessons."
He chuckled.

"What?"

"Just know you ain't gonna give up till I give in."
"Got that right."

"Fine," sighed Daryl, resting his available arm behind his head. "When you wanna start?"
"Tomorrow morning."

"You'll be hungover."

"Tomorrow afternoon?"

"Deal."

I didn't forget about the lessons like Daryl so obviously hoped I would. By the time I'd cleared my head—and stomach—of the liquor, I was about to jump out of my skin, itching for action.

"Why don't I go with you to hunt for dinner? That way I can learn how you track and you can teach me about the crossbow along the way."
"Can't have you chitter-chatterin' and scarin' off all the food," he said.

"I swear I'll stay quiet."

He just looked at me, eyebrow raised.

"I swear I will."

And so that's how we ended up in the middle of the woods in the latest part of the afternoon right before evening came again looking for a wild pig I'd shot. The bloodtrail had gone cold nearly half and hour ago but Daryl insisted I learn to track without that obvious clue. It was literally a wild pig chase.

"See that there?"

I squinted over the sight on the crossbow to where he pointed. "The branch?"

"It's been broken. Pretty recent."

"Could've been a walker."

"Naw. They move too slow to break it."

"Look." I squatted by the bush, pushing aside the splintered limb, and revealed the unmistakable tiny hoofprint. "It did come through here."

We found further tracks down the unbeaten path. Daryl took the crossbow back; I drew my knife when I heard the rather close moans and shuffles of a small herd. If they were nearby, they could've gotten to the pig.

What we found was nothing like we were expecting. Even I wouldn't have been surprised to find the undead feasting on the only chance at full bellies we had at the moment. The woods thinned into a clearing, and in that clearing, the moans escalated to a near-constant refrain of misery.

The walls, made of cut-down trees and sharpened to points, were taller than the cement fences at the daycare center we'd stayed in. A gate, proud and stern in its days of use, hung open, maw-like. Daryl and I froze at the threshold of the clearing.

"It's a camp," I whispered.

A walker, a business woman in life from her attire, stumbled past the gaping entrance, stopped, turned, and set out towards us.

Daryl shot the walker through the eye before she could get too close. "It's been overrun."

"We should check for survivors."

"Ain't no use. From the looks of it, there ain't no one left in there still human."

"What if there is? And we just stroll on by?"

I didn't allow him to answer. Striding forward, I cautiously entered the camp with my knife raised and shoulders squared. I could feel Daryl at my heels. Stepping forth into the camp brought on a stab of despair—walkers were everywhere. I hid behind the roughly hewn steps that led up to a watch tower. Remains scattered the premises and those who hadn't been consumed were roaming among their murderers. What appetite I'd had before was now gone.

I clutched my stomach and stumbled backwards.

"We should go," Daryl insisted.

"No," I said. "We have to look in the tents. Just in case."

He didn't argue. The tents were spread out in military-like precision, lined up perfectly in rows of five by three. Many were falling or torn or tainted. Unlit lanterns swung eerily in the breeze. Advancing caused commotion; the walkers zeroed in on our scents and moaned louder. By the time I reached the first tent with Daryl guarding my back, brain juice had soiled my shirt and jeans.

"Anyone in there?"

I scrunched my nose up at the fly-ridden corpses.

"No."

Each tent either contained a corpse or a freshly turned walker. Night was inching up on us so I grabbed a pair of lanterns and struck a match hurriedly. Light might attract them but working in darkness only risked our lives more.

The wail was a sharp edge in the midst of the moans. Rushing towards the sound with Daryl protesting behind I tore open the tent flap and went inside. Curled up in a sleeping bag was a child, not nearly three years old, crying hysterically.

"Beth," Daryl huffed, "Beth, no. Don't even think about it."

"We can't leave him here!"

"What if he's bit?"

"We'll deal with that later!"

The boy reached out his arms to me, speaking incoherently in Spanish. I snatched him up out of his sleeping bag, only then noticing that he had been sitting next to the rotting reminisces of his own mother, and shouted, "C'mon!"

Our only way out was to go the way we'd come. Daryl got in front of me to cut a path, and I took out the ones that came at us from angles he couldn't reach. The little boy clutched my neck and buried his face in my shoulder. I got so caught up in stabbing and slicing and running for my life that when James appeared I almost didn't pause to recognize if it was really him.

"Arrrrghhhh." James's milky, bloodshot glare was set eternally into the dirt-creased ridges across his decomposing skin. The purple and black maggot-infested bite mark on his arm flashed when he staggered forth and stretched out his fingers to grab at me and the boy. I scanned him up and down to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

I wasn't—his knee was still wrapped as it had been when we'd left him zip-tied to that sedan for his people or the undead to find.

James leeched onto arm. "Arrrgghhh!" he bellowed.

My first recollection of him hit me like a sucker punch: "Hey, hey. Sweetheart. You're alright, sugar. We ain't gonna hurt you neither."

"Beth!"

A bolt hit home in James' temple before he could take a chunk out of me or the little boy. Daryl and I took off, tearing through and taking out what few of the herd remained, until we were a safe enough distance away that we could take a rest and figure out what to do with the child.

"Beth?"

"Hmm?" My fingers had been stroking methodically over the little boy's dark hair since we'd hunkered down in an alcove of wild rose bushes. The sequence of James—no, not James, the predator now living in his body—reaching for me, attempting to hurt me, just like he had in life.

It's only been a month and half since I met him. How long had it been since he got turned?

Daryl stared at me but didn't comment on the way I'd zoned out.

"We gotta check the kid for bites or scratches."

"That was James' camp."

"What?"

"James. Remember? The guy that almost killed you?"

"Hell yeah I remember that asshole. He damn near tore my shoulder off."

"That was his camp, Daryl, the one he kept bragging about."

"Couldn't be. Not this far north."

"He did mention it was a ways off. Said they had a few rendezvous' in between. Doesn't this highway run all the way up north?"

"Yeah." Daryl shifted towards me on his knees, the lantern swinging in his hand. The little boy had cried himself to sleep in my arms. "Now we gotta make sure we ain't got a time bomb on our hands here."

I kept my grip firm on the child. "Not yet. Let him sleep."

"Let me check him over real quick."

"What if he is bit?" It came out more as a whimper than I intended.

Daryl's eyes became gentle, his body and tone softening. "I'll take care of it then."

Consenting, I released my hold enough that Daryl could check every inch of exposed skin on the boy. I pulled up the child's t-shirt to check his stomach to be sure, but we found nothing.

Daryl sighed and rested back on his heels. "First thing in the morning, I'm goin' huntin' and then we move on. Don't want what's left of that herd followin' us if I can help it."

I couldn't stop it; my deepest-rooted fear slipped out: "It looked like there were as many people as he said in that camp. What if . . . what if there aren't any left that haven't been overrun by walkers?"

"Hey." Daryl said. "Stop."

"It's just—I mean, there were almost ninety people in that camp. Ninety. We had to have taken out at least half that. That means plenty were bitten. That means plenty were no longer human or—or eaten."

"You need to stop talkin' like that. Don't help nothin'." He took ahold of me by both my shoulders and squeezed, making me look directly at him. "Focus on livin' till tomorrow, okay?"

I smirked. "Pretty sure it's already after midnight."

"Then it worked." He parked ungracefully in the bed of moss in the tree next to me, shifting and squirming till he was settled. "You made it to another day."

It was a rarity, his tiny half-smile, so I savored it. I nodded and let the subject go.

We'd made it tomorrow. That was all I needed to focus on.

The only English words the boy knew were his name and I don't talk good.

I'd carried Mateo, who woke off and on, as Daryl and I traveled. I'd introduced him to us both when he'd woken the first time (Daryl was apparently terrifying in his eyes, seeing as he shrunk away when Daryl gave Mateo a grunt to acknowledge his existence), and he had taken to me better than I'd thought.

"It's another mouth," Daryl grumbled.

In accordance to our track record of arguments, he had brought this up for a third time.

"We can't drop him off somewhere." Because there's no where to drop him off.

"It's hard enough keepin' you and me alive."

"I doubt he'll eat as much as you. You're a grown man—he's not even four."

"It ain't that I don't wanna help the kid—"

"Mateo."

His jaw clenched slightly. "Ain't that I don't wanna help Mateo, I just don't see how we're gonna find enough to his belly from grumblin' too."

"I could help you hunt."

He grunted. That was the final word on the subject for miles until we came across a ramshackle farmhouse, too crumbling to make a suitable place for the night, but the lean-to off the back would do okay. Once settled, I made a pallet out of my bedroll and the extra throw I'd acquired a while back.

"How're we supposed to take care of a kid out here?" Daryl was squatted at the edge of the shelter, warming his hands over the tiny fire. He wouldn't look at me. The ease between us of the night before last had faded quick.

Lying down on my side behind Mateo, I curled an arm around the child to anchor us both. My stomach's popping and grumbling lulled me into a fitful nap; a tiny hand pulling on my arm startled me to consciousness in the middle of the night.

Mateo's russet eyes glistened with tears. "Quién eres? Quién eres? ¿Dónde está mamá?"

I pushed up to my elbows, shaking my head. I caught sight of Daryl, still in place by the fire, wary gaze concentrated on the exchange.

"Sweetie, I can't understand what you're sayin'."

"Quién eres? Quién eres?¿Dónde está mamá?" Mateo repeated, frustration straining his soft little voice. He was quaking in my grip.

"He wants to know who you are and where his mama is," Daryl said.

I raised an eyebrow, shocked.

"You know Spanish?"

"Mrs. Rodriguez and some of the other old broads taught me some." I could hear where his voice caught on the punctuation, knew that the sentence was supposed to be finished with back at the prison.

"Wow. Um, can you talk to him then? Anything I say will be lost to him."

Daryl shrugged. "Could try."

"Mateo," I coaxed, turning him around on my knee to face Daryl. "Mateo, listen to my friend."

"Uh . . Su nombre es Beth." Daryl began shakily, concentrating to find the correct words. "Tu mamá no está aquí. Nosotros no haremos daño ."

I smiled when Mateo visibly relaxed, leaning into me, babbling away in Spanish at Daryl now—who, bless his heart, struggled to answer.

"He says he's hungry."

"I have one more can of beef stew in my pack."

Daryl retrieved the can and warmed it over the low flames. Mateo greedily ate every last bit until he passed out again under my blanket.

I moved closer to the fire once I was sure Mateo wouldn't stir if I left him alone. "You can sleep now."

Daryl didn't pause in sharpening a bolt. "Can't."

I didn't argue with him further on that; there was no use in wasting my breath. I wrapped my arms around my knees, drew them to my chest, and rested my chin on top.

"How the hell are we supposed to take care of him, Daryl?" Sometimes I carried the confidence and hope, sometimes I was the Atlas with the tipping mark in our decisions. Other times I got to be the questioning one, though it made the world, the what ifs leaden on my shoulders.

"Same way we do with each other." Apparently he'd had enough time to think this through.

"What if something happens to him when he's with us?"

Daryl flicked his eyes up swiftly at mine, then back down to his moving knife.

"Wonder the same thing about you all the time."

My heart quite literally skipped a beat. I was afraid for a second it wouldn't start again.

"'Sides, you're the one that's always got all that hope," Daryl mumbled. "Thought you'd have more faith."

I screwed my eyes shut. "It's been hard to lately."

"Big Guy upstairs not listenin'?"

"He's listenin'. And I know He's workin'. It's just . . ."

"Mateo told me his dad's name."

More than relieved for the subject change, I whispered, "Really?"

"Yeah. Not really good news."

"What? Why?"

"Kid's dad is Juarez, that jackass sidekick of James'."

"Seriously?"

"Don't think the kid could lie."

"Dammit." I closed my eyes again, gritting my teeth. "How do we even know if Juarez is still alive?"

"Didn't see him in the camp."

"Me either. Then again, it all happened so fast."

"Wait—didn't you say somethin' 'bout James tellin' you 'bout some rendezvous places of theirs?"

"Yeah. If he got away, I bet there's where he went."

"Probably rounded up some survivors and supplies and took off."

"And didn't think to grab his son?" I seethed.

"Maybe he didn't know the kid was still alive."

"I would've at least checked."

Daryl harrumphed. Day split the night sky into fragments of dark violet and coral pink, bits of baby blue peeking through the hanging clouds.

"We have to try to find Juarez," I said, standing. I retrieved my gun from my pack and slipped it into the back of my pants. "I'm goin' huntin'. Stay here with Mateo."

"You shouldn't go out there by yourself."

I ignored him and trudged on, my boots crunching over dew-soaked leaves and rotting branches, until the lean-to my mismatched family used as shelter disappeared into the mist. Being in the woods always cleared my thoughts, set them in a straight line that I could read as a list. To-do lists had always somewhat comforted me; they'd given me crystal sights of what was ahead of me and what all I had to accomplish.

Deer were no where to be seen, nor wild pigs or rabbits. Walkers appeared sparsely, usually in odd numbers or alone. I ended up with a couple of squirrels. They bounced against my hip where I'd tied them onto my belt the entire trip back. I found the two of them waiting for me; Mateo stood at Daryl's side, barely tall enough for his head to be level with Daryl's belt, fingers clutching my friend's jeans. Once the squirrels were relinquished from my belt to his, and Mateo had his arms locked around my neck, we were off.

"Did James say anything 'bout where one of these places would be?" Daryl asked as our trio started the path east.

"Yup. They're all located along the highway. Not even a mile off road, most of 'em."

"He sure seemed to trust you."

My voice shrunk in my throat. "And look where that got him."

"Guy was a douchebag, Beth."

"Doesn't mean he deserved dying like that. What if some group found you, thought you were a douche, and tied you to a car for God knows who or what to find?"

Daryl remarked, "They'd probably've thought right."

"No." The sun struck our eyes as we came across a hill, warming my face and shoulders until the trees masked it when we reached the bottom of the slope. Mateo squinted, turned his face into my neck. "They wouldn't have."