CaineSpeedle, LaurenEmilyxx, crazstiz, Tigerlilly, Jasmin Jade, crystal, DarkAngelShadow, HarmioneandMarcus, itsi3 and Summers Rage - thanks for the love!

Summers Rage - I appreciate the constructive criticism and I get where you are coming from. The lack of both emotion and detail were intentional choices for the authenticity of the characters and respect for the sensitive nature of the subject matter, respectively. I do, however, promise to review Chapter 5 when I have more distance from it. Thanks again! I'm all about becoming the best writer I can be and no one can do that without feedback.

Chapter 7 - Carol

"Quit shoveling your face you cow and make yourself useful," snapped Ed, snatching the sparse plate of food away from me and shoving what little there was in his pig mouth.

I got up, still not healed from what happened at the CDC. We were hold up in the second story of a nursing home that had been attacked, by the living. I tried not to think of the murdered people down stares. A world full of geeks and people were still murdering each other. Insane.

"Ed," said Shane, leaning against a wall as he sharpened his knife. "Remind me again why we keep you around?"

"Fuck you cop."

Everyone was staring at Shane. He was generally not one to contain his anger.

"Cause it seems to me you aren't a whole lot of useful yourself," he said. "You don't hunt, you don't scavenge, you don't cook, clean, or protect this group" he said drawing his blade against the sandstone as if to punctuate each statement.

"Seems to me you're what I like to call dead weight."

Shane stopped sharpening his blade just then and looked Ed right in the eye. "So why don't we just drop the weight and MAKE you dead."

This was bad.

I chanced a look at Daryl while everyone was focused on Shane and Ed.

He was glaring at Shane but his eyes flicked to me just for a second and he gave me an infinitesimal nod. No one else noticed so I returned the gesture and he returned his attention to the pissing contest.

"Seems to me it's time me and mine left this crazy ass group," said Ed with a smug look on his face. "You've all just lead us from one death trap to another."

I saw Daryl shift at that but I shook my head slightly, without looking at him and just hoped he caught it.

Daryl, against all odds had become my friend, but he was my secret friend, I wasn't ready for us to tip that hand yet.

"Oh, yeah Ed, you think you would last one minute out there on your own, go ahea-"

"That's enough," came Rick's stern voice.

The room went silent and I was surprised that after his colossally bad call to go to the CDC, we all still looked to him. There was never a vote or a consensus, we've never even official said he was the leader, and yet there it was.

"We are in the middle of Atlanta. We get out of here alive, then we can start making decisions, but let me remind you that safety in numbers is our best shot, especially after what we discovered here today."

He looked each of us square in the eye before continuing.

"It's not just geeks we have to worry about any more."

"It never was."

Every head in the room snapped up.

It was Daryl, and after his observation earlier, it seemed they all put stock in his opinion like they never did before.

Everyone else, even the cops, looked at the carnage downstairs and assumed they got over run by geeks. Daryl read the scene like a book, he was the only one who realized that those poor people all took a bullet in the head, execution style, and they were human when they were shot. The butchers took what ever supplies they wanted and were gone by the time the geeks, hearing the shots like a dinner bell, descended on the place for a feast.

"It was always people you had to worry about. It's people who do fucked up things to one another, alway have. Geeks are just a new obstacle in life, a force of nature, like a flood."

With that, all conversation stopped until watch duties were doled out. Then, everyone went to bed without another word.

Well, not everyone.

Once we were alone, Ed had a few things to say.

"Bet you thought that was funny, huh?" he asked pushing me against the wall, hard. My shoulder blades would be bruised tomorrow, I noted absently. It was strange how detached I could become to what was happening to my own body.

"Why's that cop take such an interest in you anyway?"

I didn't answer. I knew where this was going.

"Did you suck is dick you fucking slut?"

He pushed me again, this time much harder. I heard my head crack against the wall and I stumbled a little as my vision blurred.

"Hey, you look at me when I'm talked to you."

Ed grabbed my jaw to pull my face in his direction before back handing me so hard my body spun as it headed for the floor.

"Get up!"

He huffed before kicking me in the stomach.

"What? You too tired from getting fucked up the ass by that nosey cop?"

He drew his foot back to kick me again but suddenly his body crumbled to the floor next to mine.

I tried to look up but my head was spinning and I closed my eyes against the nausea.

"Come on girl, stay with me."

Daryl.

I felt hands wrap around my shoulders and lift my upper body off the ground. I felt his hands on my head and ribs but I didn't fight it. Couldn't if I wanted to.

"I ain't no doc, but I know a concussion when I see one. You just won yourself the privilege of staying up on watch with me."

I felt his other arm slip under my knees as he lifted me completely off the ground.

"Sophia," I whispered.

"Don'chu worry, I got you both."

I kept my eyes closed tight to try and stop the world from spinning and the nausea that came with it but I chanced a peek when I felt Daryl placing me down gently. He propped my back up against the wall and put a revolver in my hand. Putting his finger to his lips, he made sure he had my attention before turning and pointing over his right shoulder.

With some effort I focused on his finger and then passed it, realizing I was at the top of the staircase where they had set up watch.

He looked back at me and I nodded.

Then he disappeared back to where the rest of the group was sleeping and I did my best to keep my eyes open and on the stairs.

I wouldn't be much use if we were attacked, not with the way my head was whirling. Didn't end up mattering much though, 'cause Daryl was back almost as soon as he had gone, carrying Sophia wrapped up in a blanket.

I almost cried. Even though I saw Ed go down and she was safe with the others before he pulled me away, I was still never easy with her out of my sight. He would wake up in a rage and I couldn't let him catch her alone.

He placed her down so her head was in my lap. I noticed he had another blanket and he draped it over me, avoiding Sophia's head. Then, he took the gun back and retreated to the over side of the hallway.

"Thank you," I heard my voice rasp out.

He just looked at me and took a swig of a caramel colored fluid from a water bottle.

"I know you were trying to help but...when he wakes up... he's gonna unleash holy hell on me."

"You see any doctors around lately?" he asked. I looked at him confused. "Ambulances, hospitals, 911 first responders, red cross volunteers?"

He had worked himself up into an anger and I had learned that anger was the only upset he knew how to be.

"Oh right, the world ended and there isn't any. Injuries that used to be a trip to the hospital now mean death. Ain't no surgery, no one's gonna patch you up and re-set your bones. The way your lovin' Pa was kicking you he coulda broke a rib or caused internal bleeding. Even if a broken rip didn't puncture a lung so's you suffocated to death on dry land, the injury could slow you down enough to get caught by a geek. In this world you have to be on top of your game every second of every day or you die. So do the math, not only do you risk dying every time you take a beating, but the injuries you sustain could get you killed. How you gonna help your sister when you're dead?"

He spat on the floor and took a swig from his water bottle.

He took a breath to calm himself down.

"And maybe not," he said looking at me from the corner of his eye.

"Hmn?"

"You said he'll unleash holy hell on you when he wakes up," Daryl said studying the bottle in his hands. "King Shane gave me a bottle of whiskey for saving his life today. I sprinkled some on Ed so he'll reek of whiskey and put the empty bottle in his hand. With any luck I hit him hard enough that he won't remember what happened before he passed out and he'll attribute his massive head ache a hangover."

"That's a waste of good whiskey," I said, at a loss for what else to say over the lengths he had gone through to protect me from the consequences of helping me.

"Oh, hell no!" he said pulling two more water bottles of amber liquid out of his pockets. "Merle instilled in me the importance of never to wasting good whiskey."

I stared at him for a moment and then laughed. It felt good to laugh, even if it made ribs catch fire.

He kept me awake all through his shift, convinced I had a concussion and then a half hour before his watch was over, he carried first Sophia and then myself to where the others were sleeping.

He even went back to the stairs and waited before a few before coming back to wake Rick for his turn at watch. Daryl settled himself on the floor between us and where Ed would come from when he woke.

Daryl had saved my life, covered it up from my own father, kept me awake while I was concussed and put me to bed before anyone was the wiser about our secret friendship.

The man was good.

I smiled, knowing I had a friend like that. Hell, I was happy to have a friend at all.

"Thank you," I whispered into the air. I saw him nod ever so slightly.

I smiled, again, before closing my eyes.