Chapter 2: The Wolves

Note: Sorry for making y'all wait. I wrote this chapter and then decided to rewrite it and have Beth take a different more interesting (also more realistic) path. I'm happy bout this chapter but a little so-so at the same time. It'll start picking up speed in a bit I just have to lay down the ground work.

Beth slowly checked her surroundings, there was still light left but it was disappearing quickly. She still wasn't sure if W man was alone so she decided to weave her way through and through until she was sure no one was following her or could pick up her trail back to camp.

Beth had managed to bag a rabbit and another squirrel but that was it. It was enough for two people although the animals were quite skinny and didn't look the healthiest. They just needed something to get their energy regained for the morning.

Beth plopped down on the ground with her catches. Edwards just watched her as she pulled out a small pocket knife and start to nick the fur down by the private area. When she started pulling the fur off she heard Dr. Edwards slightly gag. This made her chuckle internally but continue partially skinning the rabbit and then made a perfect slice down the stomach.

"How can you do that and not…. The smell alone…" Edwards breathed in.

Beth shook her head, "We gotta eat, don't we?" She let herself go back to the past when Daryl had taught her how to hunt, more specifically the not so glamorous part of it.

"I don't know about this, Daryl." Beth sighed as he saw him take the dead rabbit and brought a knife to the fur of its private area.

"Rabbit's not gonna skin itself for ya'. You need ta learn in case…" Daryl cut his sentence off as he explained, "Now you just nick the fur here, and then ya barely cut internally so you don't cut the intestines."

Beth wrinkled her nose and couldn't help the sound she made as he cut into the rabbit.

"Come on, princess. Ya' gotta learn. Ya' gotta eat don't ya?"

She smiled to herself as she gutted the rabbit and dug her hand in to retrieve the heart, lungs, and intestines. She set them aside. Skinning the rabbit didn't take much because the rabbit was pretty small. She sawed through the neck, then took off all four feet and then cut it in half.

She then stuck a sharp tree limb through both the halves, stuck the meat branch on their pathetic stand and let it sit over their hidden fire to roast. She started on the pair of squirrels next, still ignoring Dr. Edwards.

"Who taught you to do that?" Edwards piped up, obviously getting over his squeamish self.

"The man you people took me away from… Twice." Beth almost cut too deep at the reminder.

"Taking you was wrong. I never agreed with it." Edwards defended himself, watching her intently.

"You did nothing to stop it." She paused. "You're a coward, Edwards. Just like Dawn was."

Edwards shrunk back into the tree he was sitting against. She had fished with the squirrels which had less meat than she thought due to their emaciated state.

After a while Edwards cleared his throat, apparently getting some courage back, "So uh where do we go next?"

Beth messed with the rabbit, turning it over slightly, "North."

Edwards knew she was done talking. She hadn't said a full sentence to him since they left Grady and the fact that he got an outburst out of her was surprising.

"Why?"

Beth stopped messing with the rabbit and let out an annoyed sigh, "Does it matter?"

Edwards snatched the map out of her backpack, "According to the map if we keep going North we're headed for Washington DC."

"Uh huh." Beth agreed halfheartedly, "You have any better ideas?"

"No, I'm just glad to see you still have hope finding them. I thought you lost that." Edwards skimmed the map, acting like he wasn't gauging her reaction to his statement.

"I highly doubt we'll find them. Washington just seems to be a place to start to find anyone. We went to Richmond, found Noah's home in ruins, and now we're moving on. If they aren't dead they're hundreds of miles away by now." Edwards looked up form the map to stare at her. Beth sighed, "I can't dwell on false hope. I'm tired of getting my hopes up." The last sentence was strangled. She did want to see them again, more than anything. But she was done thinking this world was some fairy tale where they all would live happily ever after.

She was about to get the rabbit off the fire when she heard something. It was just a slight rustle. Wouldn't have worried Edwards but she was sure that W man had friends. She slowly picked up her crossbow as she heard another rustle. That was definitely no walker.

Beth aimed it at the brush as the sounds got louder. When the figures emerged there were four men, all with Ws on their foreheads, and three were armed. One guy who didn't have anything pointed at her looked at her crossbow and smiled, "So you took out Greg?" Beth slightly nodded and he shook his head, "That idiot was always getting himself into trouble. Never took no for an answer. We told him you were someone he shouldn't mess with."

Beth got an uncomfortable shiver down her back at the thought of them watching her without her knowledge. They were slick but this also gave her reassurance that these men weren't out for blood. Well, at least not out for hers. They followed her back to her camp and could have killed both of them and taken all their belongings. But they hadn't.

The man could see the gears in her head turning while she was being silent. He continued, "Then ol' Greg told us to watch and learn and well… we all know how that went down."Some of the men gave little laughs behind him. This was one of their own, and they were laughing about it? His voice brought her out of her thoughts again, "You knew he was tracking you the minute he started on your tail, didn't you?" Beth didn't say anything but he knew the answer. He nodded in approval, "That's impressive... Now we don't take in just anybody but you've proven yourself. We have more people at our camp. Granted, you took out one of our own, but he was getting reckless anyways. Would've happened sooner or later.""

There was a long silence between the two groups. Beth didn't know what to say. She knew she shouldn't trust them but they seemed like a strategic group of survivors. Sure, they looked dirty and had Ws on their foreheads but... Beth just didn't know. She wasn't fully convinced that these men could be trusted. But theyw eren't going to stand there all night. She had to make a decision.

She lowered her crossbow, "Okay. Lead the way."

The man seemed surprised, "To be honest, I thought I was going to have to spend an hour convincing you."

Beth didn't reply just signaled for Edwards to get up.

"Hold on now, we said you could go. You're an asset to us. He's not." The guns were raised toward him.

Beth jumped, "So a doctor ain't an asset to ya'?"

The men lowered their weapons and the man turned his head to her, "A doctor? Well this just gets better and better, don't it? Alright, come on."

Beth retrieved the squirrel and rabbit meat and put it in her backpack. As they were walking Beth's brain would not shut up. She had had two choices: join their group and have a chance of survival with numbers or stay by themselves and hope they found some sort of shelter or another group. In this world, you didn't pass up opportunities of survival.

Sometimes you just had to take chances.

So Beth's with The Wolves O.O... Yeah, so the next chapter will be following Daryl. I got it in my head, just gotta type it out now.