Alright ladies and gentlemen, wonderful readers and reviewers, we are back again! Bit of a longer update this time, and it went through at least a half a dozen rounds of edits before I was satisfied. I hope you guys enjoy!
RedneckBunny: I'm trying to figure out if reading this before bed was such a good idea...My dreams will be of this. But if my brain tries to dream up predictions of what you'll write next, they never live up to what you end up writing. I'm curious to know more about Leland and Mal. I don't think you'd give characters names if we weren't going to see more of them. How do you come up with your character's names? I get Luna's since she was explained in Wildflower but Leland and Mal. Any particular choice for their names? Names you like, name meanings, things like that? When I write, I tend to use a baby book actually. I like matching names to the personalities and qualities of my characters...or doing the opposite for comical reasons. Can't wait for more of this! I still wish I could read these in actual book form. Mix the awesomeness of your stories with the feel and smells and experience you get from turning the pages of a book... bookworm nerdy-gasm.
Heh, ya know, I love to read before bed, it makes my dreams all that much more interesting. Sometimes things in my dreams find their way into my stories, since my dreams tend to be in that sort of fashion rather than scattered scenes. Oh trust me, you will see more of Leland and Mal for sure, Wolfsong will be chock full of my OCs because it is so much further in the future. As for how I come up with my charries names, typically I try to find something that matches their personality, or sometimes if I know someone with a name that reminds me of my charrie I will use said name. Or sometimes I just like a specific name, as was the case for Leland. Mal on the other hand was chosen because it reflects something of his personality (Mal is short for something else which will be revealed later if you haven't guessed it already) and this ties in a little bit with one of the over-arching theme of the story. Ooooh the wonderful feel of an actual book in ones hands, I will never switch to an electronic reading device, I am far too attached to my paper and ink, so I completely understand where you're coming from.
Brittney: This is getting more and more interesting by the chapter! I'm curious about Mal, sounds a bit like Merle... Update soon!
Heh, Mal in comparison to Merle…there are a few parallels between them now that I think about it, but I dare not give so much away ;)
Emberka-2012: They returned there where they started. Bad news. In this CDC all such spineless and ready to be guinea pigs? Would be better if they let them go right away. Because the fear of Milton can quite come true and these girls will tear organization to pieces. And when their parents will come ... Wow, they remember Daryl and what he did.
It is bad news that they're back where they started but at the time it was do or die, and both Luna and Judith know its better to live to fight another day. As far as all the people living/working in the CDC they're not all spineless, but they've lived in relative safety and comfort for almost twenty years, that does a bender on your psyche. But Milton's fears are indeed valid, and they're about to find out how hard it will be to keep Judith and Luna pent up. And of course they remember what Daryl did to them…he was ruthless when he came to rescue Fox, and he'll only be just as ferocious this time, if not worse…
FanFicGirl10: No they went through all the trouble to escape only to be caught willingly? Grrr! Why would they trust Leland, they should know better than that by now. Stupid Milton i don't like him in your story he's mean. Update Soon!
It was do or die in that particular moment. Judith calculated the logistics and played the safe card. The city is overrun with Walkers and both she and Luna aren't in top form. It's better to live to fight another day than to run the risk of getting torn to pieces. They don't trust Leland, but it was between a rock and a hard place as it were. Ahh Milton, we'll dive deeper into his psyche as the story goes on, something which I most look forward too =)
rosemarycr: This is getting exciting! I have so many questions, but I sure the answers will eventually be delivered! I don't even see this as a fanfic anymore... More of an original post apocalyptic story with some known characters. It's fascinating how you describe what the world has become. Don't you dare abandoning this
Hah, I hope I deliver all that you guys crave! It is probably the most 'original' fanfic I've ever done, which poses both risks (some people don't like me taking my creative license out on TWD) but also wonderful challenges. Don't worry, I won't abandon Wolfsong. I managed to get through my block, I won't give up =)
Guest: HI!. I love your writing and think you should try to write an actual book I think you would have a great shot at it being published. I'm not really sure what the hell you would write a story about but... ya anyways just saying. I really liked your story Wildflower and I'm so happy you decided to make a sequel. It is absolutely amazing so far. I can definitely see both Daryl and Dahlia in Luna haha!. Ooo I wonder if Mal and Leland will become more prominent characters in the future 'wiggles eyebrows'. Haha! Okay can't wait for the next chapter so hurry up and update woman!.
Well as it would so happen I am working on an original book. I have written many, many, MANY original stories already, some finished, some half constructed ideas. I'm delighted you are enjoying Wolfsong as much as you did Wildflower, I gave Wildflower everything I had in me as a writer, and I am doing double as much on Wolfsong because it is more 'original' than Wildflower. I'm so glad you see both of Luna's parents personalties come through in her, it's hard finding a balance but I do my best, and it's one of the cool challenges to writing her character. Oh don't worry, Mal and Luna will definitely become prominent charries, along with a few others who haven't been revealed yet but are coming along shortly. Thanks for taking the time to write in!
Michonne guided them through the backside of the base, showing them a well hidden and relatively well maintained trail that was just wide enough for their vehicles to slip through. The narrow mountain pass made everyone driving leery, not to mention their newest addition. Benjamin wouldn't go any closer to her than absolutely necessary, choosing to ride with Maggie and Glenn while Michonne took his usual spot in Rick and Carl's vehicle. Taking her along unsettled Daryl but it was a necessary risk. If she could help get them out of the mountains and back down to a faster road towards Atlanta, it was worth having to put up with. Besides, she didn't seem like the type to want to stick around and leech off of their resources (of which there weren't that many) anyway. He knew instinctively that Fox was curious about her, the fact that she used a blade appealed to her greatly. Even after almost twenty years of continuous use, Fox had not lost her preference for her knives, or her unwillingness to pick up a gun unless absolutely necessary. He supposed it was one of those things about her that would never change.
"Shit," he cursed quietly and began to kill speed on his bike as they began making the start of the most treacherous point of descent towards the valley.
"What is it?" Fox asked, lifting her head off his shoulder, her grip tensing on his waist.
"Running low on gas. Damn near empty," he explained. He killed the engine entirely, shutting it down and putting the kickstand up as the rest of the convoy also came to a halt when they realized he was no longer following them. He swung off the bike as did Fox and stretched his legs for a minute while the others piled out.
"Gas?" Rick asked as he came around from his car.
"Yeah. I'm down to fumes, this terrain killed the mileage." He flicked his tongue around his mouth and spat on the ground to clear the taste of dust and then cast his eyes on Michonne.
"They have gas down there in the valley?" he asked.
She nodded. "Under heavy guard. It's probably one of their most guarded caches." Her eyes grew dark. "I really would suggest not trying to steal it from them. It won't end well for you."
"Can we shuffle what we've got around? Give a little to Daryl to get us through the valley where we can scavenge anything left?" Benjamin asked.
"I'm almost onto fumes as it is, I have enough or another fifty miles, that's it." Rick's voice was heavy with stress.
"Same, we're almost out," Glenn added wearily.
"We don't have time to go on foot to bring back more from outside the valley," Fox growled, her knuckles clenching.
"Do you really want to risk a fight?" Maggie demanded.
"How many people live down there in the valley? What kind of artillery do they have?" Rick asked Michonne who was leaning up against the truck that Carl had brought back the day Luna and Judith had been taken.
"I don't think it's quite a hundred, fifty…maybe seventy five people. Women and children too, not just men. But they've got guns, and bullets to back them up. They've been in the valley for a long time as far as I can tell, at least as long as I've been in the area. Every so often they send out scavenging parties to bring back things like gasoline and medical supplies. This whole area is almost drained dry of resources, from here to about a hundred miles out in any direction. Whatever is left they've got in the valley under a watch. They got paranoid after the men in the base came into the valley trying to take their supplies. They drove them off if that should give you some indication of what they're capable of."
Daryl cursed. "Fox is right. We don't have time to go all the way out of the valley and bring the gasoline back."
"We can't go on foot," Rick countered. "Maybe we can negotiate."
"With what?" Glenn growled angrily. "We don't have a lot of anything to give away."
"The medicine." Benjamin's voice was heavy, but his eyes were bright. "There's very little in this world more valuable than the medical supplies we have."
"And what happens if one of us is injured? Sick?" Fox countered. She thumbed the edge of her knife's sheathe. Daryl could feel the heat simmering just underneath her skin. If she had her way, she would fight. Fox had never backed down or said no to a challenge in her life, most especially if there was bloodshed involved. He had not forgotten that cold snowy day when he'd awoken to Fox leaving the tent, leaning over and kissing him briefly saying she'd be back and when he asked why she was leaving she had merely said "Because I have to." He had known then where she was going- with Rick to put an end to Shane and all his madness, and he knew instinctively that she wasn't going just to help, she was going to do the bloodletting herself. And when she had returned to him she'd been soaked in an enemy's blood. He had no doubt, even with twenty years of peace to cool her down, that she would be just as vicious now. He hoped that it was only because she was so hell-bent to retrieve Luna and Judith as quickly as possible, but there was a part of him that suspected it was because Fox yearned for the challenge, to pit herself against an adversary, and win. Daryl fought if and when it was needed, and no one who had ever seen him fight could ever say that he never put his whole heart into it, especially when defending someone he loved. But he did not actively seek violence or bloodshed if he could help it. Fox on the other hand was just shy of asking for it.
Rick shifted his weight uneasily and Daryl took a note of the way Michonne was watching them carefully. He was curious about her. Her silence told him she was weighing everything and considering the options. He wasn't about to put money on the idea that she'd help them if they got into trouble, but he liked the idea of another tactile mind chewing things over.
"We're out-numbered and by the sounds of it outgunned. I don't want to risk a battle. Not when we can't afford it." Rick's voice had so much weight in it, it was a wonder that he didn't sink through the earth like a rock sinking into a pond.
"We can't give away our supplies!" Carl snarled angrily. "We need them! We risked our lives on those runs. You're gonna throw all that away?"
"If it means we get your sister and Luna back sooner and safer? Yes!" Rick snapped, rounding on his son, his eyes flashing like blue green coals. "They are our priority. The sooner we get them back, the better."
"We have enough gasoline to get down to the mountain, that's it. Maybe we can get down there, see what the situation really is. Maybe it's not as bad as we think and we can pilfer or trade if we need to. We don't have to trade everything. We don't have to tell them exactly how much of anything we have." Maggie looked at Glenn, a little thrum of anxiety running through her. She needed Glenn to back her up on this compromise. The others would give it more weight if he did. Sparks flashed between them and she saw the wheels spinning in his head.
"She's right," Glenn murmured quietly. Reservation and anxiety twisted in his stomach, but he wasn't about to leave Maggie hanging, not when he'd sided against her when Fox had her little meltdown the night before. "We don't have to show all our cards. Just enough to tempt them if we have to."
"Yeah, just enough to tempt them into stealing everything. If there are as many as you say, they can come and overwhelm us." Fox's voice was brittle.
"We won't let that happen," Daryl assured her, his fingertips slowly stroking the handle of his bow. "We can shuffle the supplies between the cars and split up what we have. Keep the most valuable for ourselves and only show what we are willing to part with. The rest of us will be with what's more important to defend it incase they come looking."
Rick's mind spun and all the while he kept one eye trained on Michonne. Her silence unnerved him, but as Daryl was speaking he saw a certain gleam of agreement catch her eye. He looked at her and she shifted her weight, clearly not enjoying that the spotlight was now on her. He expected her to say something but she remained as silent as the grave. Or as silent as graves had been before the outbreak.
"Fine. We'll go to the bottom of the mountain. Can you get us inside where the gas is on foot?" Rick asked.
She nodded. "I can't guarantee we won't be seen though. There's so many of them that it'll almost be impossible to get through without being spotted."
"Maybe we should wait for dark then," Benjamin pitched in.
"It'll be dark by the time we get down there," Carl growled. "Let's just go." His fingers drummed against the holster of his gun. "We're wasting time."
"Alright. We drive to the bottom of the mountain, stash the vehicles, and rearrange the supplies and then slip inside." Rick's voice picked up that general like quality, the one that when he used made people snap to, whether they really agreed or not, but trust Fox to throw a wrench into a well-oiled machine.
"Who goes in?" she asked. She eyed Rick with an almost hungry light in her eye. Nobody really needed to even ask to know she wanted to be one of the ones going in. Rick however was hesitant to bring her along. Fox was a helluva fighter, she always had been, but she was also great at provoking people to anger. No, in order for this to work they needed to appear not necessarily weak…but not hostile either. He looked at the group, weighing the options carefully, knowing that his choices could make or break this operation.
"Me, Michonne, and Benjamin. Daryl, Fox, Carl, Glenn, Maggie- you stay put at the vehicles and deal with anything that comes your way. If you're overwhelmed, retreat up the mountain, we'll find you."
Daryl opened his mouth to protest but Rick shot him a look. "I've learned enough about tracking from you by now to know how to find you if you had to run."
An uneasy peace settled over the group. None of them were particularly happy about the arrangement, but to just have a plan at all helped to put their minds at ease, at least partially. Daryl felt wrong, leaving Rick to go into hostile territory without being there to back him up. For almost twenty years he'd stood at Rick's side, protecting him, making sure he shot down anything that got too close to killing his friend while Rick was busy forging a safe path ahead for the rest of the group. They all split back up and headed for their vehicles, Fox following close behind Daryl as they went back to the bike.
"I don't like this," she said as she swung up behind him while he cranked up the engine.
Daryl shrugged. "Don't have much choice. Sides, Rick can handle himself."
"Yeah, and Benjamin is about as tough as wet tissue paper. And we have no idea what Michonne might do." She snaked her arms around Daryl's waist and squeezed a little as he started down the mountain following the rest of the vehicles. She made a valid point but Daryl tried to put it out of his mind. Rick was a leader for a reason, he understood people, he knew how to negotiate and soothe riled feelings better than most. They would just have to trust that almost twenty years of isolation had not stolen that quality from him.
When they reached the bottom of the mountain they continued driving until they were a quarter mile away from the beginnings of the buildings that marked the enemy's territory. They stashed their vehicles in a lot after clearing out a few straggling Walkers, everyone feeling incredibly exposed as they darted back and forth quickly to secure the area. Daryl's bike was all but wheezing with the need of gasoline by that point and when he shut the engine off he had to wonder if he'd ever be able to get it going again without fuel. He helped the group re-arrange the supplies, mostly directed by Benjamin who would know what was the most valuable and what could be parted with if necessary.
"Do we need to bring our own containers for the gas or do they have it packed up already?" Rick asked Michonne as they finished divvying up the supplies.
"It's stored in a big tanker. When they need fuel they just feed directly into the vehicles," she explained. She adjusted the sword across her back, her fingers flexing around the handle of the blade as she kept a wary eye on Fox, who in turn kept just as close a watch on her, just shy of baring her teeth in aggravation at being forced to stay behind.
"Alright, bring our containers, let's go, before it gets any darker," Rick ordered. If they were successful, they'd be able to carry enough gasoline back to get them out of the valley and a little further, just enough to hopefully be able to find more where they could refuel their tanks entirely.
Michonne took the lead as they started up the road, Rick following just behind. He had his python strapped to one hip, his machete on the other. Every time the large weapon bounced against his thigh he recalled a very cold winter night when his breath had fogged and he had gone an almost literal twelve rounds with Fox in hand to hand combat as she struggled to give him an outlet for the pent up rage from Lori's death. At the time he hadn't really realized how close he might have come to accidently killing her. He knew that she'd be aggravated at him for leaving her behind but he knew better than to risk her hotheaded temper screwing this up. He kept a wary eye on Michonne and her sword and as they kept moving up the street towards another cluster of buildings he asked "Why the sword?"
She fixed him with an almost smirk, her dark eyes flashing in the emerging moonlight overhead. "Doesn't run out of ammo."
"Oh come off it. You got the whole badass thing going on," Benjamin panted as he brought up the rear of their little group. He had his pistol in his belt along with a bowie knife that Fox had painstakingly attempted to teach him how to use properly. With Benjamin it was a bit of a lost cause for weaponry unless it came down to an immediate life or death struggle.
"Well there's that too," Michonne conceded with a bit of a smile towards Benjamin who raised his eyebrows. Rick shushed them as they crouched down behind the corner of a building and paused. Michonne slid forward and carefully looked beyond the corner where they were hiding and saw a small patrol heading their way.
"The gas is in the middle of town in what used to be the back parking lot of a school. It's fenced in and they built guard towers around it after the men at the base tried to invade," Michonne explained. "Its an open field all the way around it, we won't get through without being seen, unless we circle around and come in from the back, through the school itself."
"Can you get us in?" Rick asked, his voice hissing with tension.
She nodded. Just at that moment the patrol she had seen comprised of two men with rifles began to walk past them and they all pressed back around the building and held their breath. When they were twenty feet beyond them Michonne darted forward, moving at a smooth but fast paced crouch, sticking close to the porches and doorways of the buildings. Rick and Benjamin stayed right on her shadow, moving swift and as silently as possible. Rick's heart was pounding in between his teeth and all the tension in his body would have had him running like a mad man for their target but he knew that he had to trust his instincts and go by stealth, not all out speed. They paused when they reached another intersection and right on the diagonal corner was the school. At each end of the street along with two in the middle were guard towers, just like Michonne had said, and even from this distance Rick could see there were people inside.
"Now what?" Benjamin demanded as he caught his breath. "We'll never get past that unseen."
"Is the school clear of Walkers?" Rick asked Michonne.
"As far as I know it is. I can't imagine they'd leave any inside." Her eyes narrowed and she shifted her look from mild concern to anticipation and maybe anger.
"Oh no. I said I'd get you in, I didn't say anything about being bait!" she growled.
"Someone has to distract them!" Rick insisted. "Someone's got to give them something to chase while we slip inside!"
"Me." Benjamin said and to his credit he was able to say it without trembling, although his New York accent peaked through sharply. "I'll run."
"You're not the fastest or the strongest out of either of us," Rick dismissed him but Benjamin clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Nah, but I'm the smartest." His hazel eyes flashed with pained amusement. "Go on. Take Amazon over there and get inside and get the gasoline we need. I'll run interference and meet you back here." He handed the containers over to Rick and Michonne and tightened up the laces on his sneakers.
"And what happens if you get caught?" Rick demanded. Even after all this time Benjamin was still pleased to see that Rick's concern wasn't just because he had medical expertise, but because he was part of the family. Like Fox, he too had felt a measure of wariness and distrust from the other members of camp when he'd first joined them all those years ago in the mountains in New York. It hadn't lasted as long as Fox's had, but he was still aware of the fact that he wasn't from Atlanta like they were, he hadn't seen quite the destruction, pain, and death that they had, and he hadn't gone through all of the trials that they had. He was glad to see that despite being strained and fractured from the distress of losing Luna and Judith they were managing to keep the bonds between them strong, rather than fragmented.
"They won't hurt me," Benjamin soothed. "I'm a medic. And I've got the supplies," he tapped the side of the backpack he had on. "If there is as many people here as Michonne says, there's bound to be a few that are sick or injured." He flashed a smile and to his credit, there was less fear there than Rick would have expected normally. "Don't worry about me. Just don't take too long." Now the worry crept up in his voice again and he had to silence the rapid thrumming of his heart, or at least attempt it. Sweat broke out on his palms but he got up from his crouch and darted straight out into the middle of the street, making like he would go for the gate of the school that guarded the tanker. He could have been a little more obvious but he knew that if his interference was too exaggerated that they might suspect it for what it was. His balance worked beautifully and almost immediately spotlights were trained right on him, leaving him exposed and sited right in the middle of the empty road.
"Ah shit," he panted when he saw doors for the towers opening and men coming out. He took off running, daring a glance over his shoulder and out of the very corner of his vision he saw Rick and Michonne darting for a patch of shadows that would lead them to the dark gauntlet that ran between another building and the school fence. He twisted back around and ran, his chest gasping for air as he ran for the darkness knowing the cover would help hide him. He lunged down a street hearing the loud pursuit of his followers and his instinctive paranoia told him he heard the clicking of a gun loading a bullet into the chamber. He shoved away his jittery nerves to prevent himself from bolting all the way back to where Daryl and the rest of the cavalry were waiting as he twisted hard again and flung himself up onto a porch and then inside the building itself through the surprisingly unlocked door.
"Just like in school eh?" he told himself as his chest heaved for breathe. He peaked out the front window trying to see if the patrol had noticed that he'd ducked inside and to his dismay saw a group of three burly men headed straight for him.
He slipped through the building and out the back door but it put him right in the main street which another few men noticed. He yelped when bullets pinged near him and he took off as fast as his lean legs could take him. He almost considered dropping the pack to lighten his load so he could run faster but he knew that the supplies he had with him would likely be his bargaining chip if he got caught. He swerved and tried to fling himself down the street that he and the others had come by on the way here but he was surrounded.
"Hands up where we can see them!"
He put on his best brave face and held up his hands as men swooped in to corner him in the middle of the street. He was shoved unceremoniously to his knees and the heel of someone's hand clocked him hard in the back of his head, tipping him forward. He redressed his balance and stared up at the man in front of him, a man who actually reminded him a bit of Shane, holding a very large automatic rifle, and who was staring down at him with a look that reminded of a mountain lion just about to spring on a helpless goat.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he growled, still staring down at Benjamin with pitiless eyes.
"Passing through," Benjamin replied. He could hear his voice shaking, his accent coming on thick. He was surrounded by at least ten men, all of them armed. He was armed too but there was no way he'd be able to draw fast enough to be of any real threat.
"Oh really? Whatcha got here then?" the man asked. He nodded to one of his fellows who knocked Benjamin to the ground, cutting his lip on the rough concrete, and ripping his backpack with his medical supplies off, wrangling his arms at the same time.
"Be careful with that!" Benjamin panted. "You don't want to break what's in there!"
"Why? You got a bomb or something pretty boy?" Shane's counterfeit sneered. He jerked Benjamin by the chin and smacked him hard across the face.
"There's medicine in there!" Benjamin panted, trying to ignore the stinging burn in his skin. "Little glass vials of powerful drugs that you really don't want to waste."
The leader narrowed his eyes and nodded to his men. They began to go through the backpack while a few others kept Benjamin covered with the gun. He tried not to show that his hands were shaking. Where the hell were Rick and Michonne? Had they run into trouble? He knew Rick wouldn't leave him behind, but maybe Michonne had seen shit hit the fan, bolted, and now Rick was a hostage too. A fine time to wish that they'd brought some of their firepower with them.
"Are you one of those scientist freaks from up the mountain?" The question was posed by Shane's look-a-like.
"You know them?" Benjamin asked. Maybe he could talk his way out of this. That was what he'd been counting on anyway, wasn't it? He tried to smooth out the shaking in his voice as much as he could.
"We know 'em," the man replied. "They came in here and raided some of our food stores and our gasoline. But that wasn't the worst bit. They killed three of us when they came!"
Benjamin's eyes went wide. "When did this happen?" he asked.
"It's none of your business!" the man snarled coldly. "If I had to bet money I'd say you're in league with them, coming down here to spy on us and see if there's anything else you can take, well I'll tell you, I won't have it!" He struck Benjamin across the cheek with the butt of his rifle, sending the medic down to the ground, stars spinning around his skull. A heavy boot was pressed into his back and then the muzzle of the rifle against the nape of his neck. Panic flooded over him like a dousing of freezing water.
"Wait, no, please, I'm not with them, I swear!" He could hear the whine in his voice and he'd berate himself later if he managed to wriggle his way out of this. "Please! Listen! I'm with another group; we're not from around here! They've hurt our people too!"
"Is that so?" the man hissed. "Where the hell is the rest of your group then?"
Benjamin shut his trap, doing his best to think on his feet. Or on his belly as it were, with his cheek grinding into the pavement. "We don't want trouble! Take the medicine in my bag, just let me go, please! We're just passing through, we're on our way to get our kids back!" He blurted it out before he could stop himself.
"Kids?" the man growled. "The hell you talking about?"
"Two days ago two teenage girls who are apart of our group were kidnapped by the same men from the same base that raided your town. My group and I are on our way to retrieve them. Please, understand, we don't want any trouble, I swear." There was a very tense, heavy silence above him and the muzzle of the rifle was still grinding into the nape of his neck. His heart was hammering in his throat making him feel dizzy and sick to his stomach as he tried to keep quiet and not squirm like a worm on a hook.
"Hey assholes! Why don't you get your own squeaky toy and give that one back to us!"
Benjamin's heart pinged like a squirrel on cocaine inside his chest. He knew that voice and while it was a God-send, it was also a sign shit had gone from bad to worse in some ways.
"Who the fuck are you?" He heard more than saw the men turn around. He did his best to see but the angle of his head didn't afford him any sight more than clusters of boots.
"The end of you if you don't let him off the ground and give him back to us right now!" Fox's growl was beyond threatening. It was a promise. He heard the clicking of a gun and his mind spun wildly at the prospect of the O.K. fucking corral going down with him right in the middle of it.
But suddenly the pressure of the foot in his back was gone and the muzzle of the rifle was removed from his neck. He scrambled up to his feet and looked to see Daryl, Carl, and Fox, all with guns blazing. Fox smirked at him, but Daryl and Carl's faces were stony masks of promised violence.
"Benjy get over here," Fox called. She held her forty-five caliber pistol with ease and poise, as if she'd been doing it all her life. Benjamin glanced at her and then at his bag that they'd taken which was clutched in the hands of one of his captors. He decided it wasn't worth starting a possible shoot out over and so he skittered out from the circle of his attackers and back to his group.
"Leaving this behind?" one of them asked, gesturing to the bag of medicine.
"Consider it a bargain. Ain't worth anybody dying over tonight," Daryl answered. "You follow us, we'll fire."
"Where the hell are Rick and Michonne?" Benjamin hissed to Fox who was still covering the men with her gun.
"With Glenn and Maggie. These guys sounded an alarm not ten minutes after you guys left, we came as backup," Fox explained. They began to back away slowly, still holding all of their weapons out, everyone barely breathing as the intruders began to retreat deeper and deeper into the shadows. "We brought the vehicles through and filled our tanks while you were distracting them. Nice going Benjy. Never thought you had it in ya." She flashed him a toothy smile and Benjamin rolled his eyes.
"Happy to help," he panted, shaky disbelief rattling through his nervous system.
"Come on!" Daryl urged. Carl took point as they disappeared down a corner and onto another street that for the moment was empty but within seconds of their arrival their convoy emerged. Everyone broke cover and ran for it, not knowing if anybody else in the town would try to gun them down or ambush them some other way. Fox swung up behind Daryl after sheathing her pistol and he gunned the engine hard, the machine rumbling much more cleanly now that she had a full tank of fuel.
Daryl led the convoy so he wouldn't be forced to eat dust the whole way out of town. They came across a few of the town's inhabitants but they refused to stop, rather instead they picked up speed, Daryl gunning the engine to almost eighty miles an hour as they found the highway out of town and blew through as fast as they could. Fox clutched his waist tightly, laughing as the wind tore her hair back. His lips twitched in brief amusement as well but his was not for the same reason.
When they were out of town by at least fifteen minutes at high speed Daryl twisted around to glance back and see if anyone was following. He saw no headlights or any other signs of pursuit but he did catch Rick's signal asking him to pull over. He did so and the others followed, cutting their engines off and regrouping quickly.
"Everybody alright?" Rick asked, most notably to Benjamin.
The blonde medic nodded, wiping a streak of blood away from his face. "I'm ok. They were a little rough but I'm fine."
"What all did we lose?" Carl demanded.
"Half our antibiotics, half our bandages, two bags of saline, some sterile needles, couple tourniquet ties…" Benjamin rattled off the list and Carl's expression morphed from aggravation to anger.
"Was there anything we didn't lose?" he growled hotly.
"We still have the most potent of our antibiotics left, my tools, most of our painkillers, some saline, and everything in our emergency medicine kits." Benjamin dabbed at the blood leaking from his face and then shook his head with a sigh. "It was either that or shoot 'em up. I'm just glad we got out when we did."
Rick nodded. "Come on. We need to find someplace secure to hole up to get some rest. Michonne, what's in the area that's big enough for all of us?"
The black woman shifted uncomfortably with all of the eyes suddenly turned towards her. "Wouldn't know. I roughed it out in the woods for the most part," was her answer. Daryl's eyes hardened as the tension between the rest of the group began to spark again.
"You planning on staying with us or moving the hell on?" Daryl growled softly. It wasn't his intention to try and scare her off, but he would if he thought it necessary.
"I'm interested in seeing what these CDC men are up to. I typically live alone but there might just be safety in numbers." She fixed Daryl with a firm, unflinching look. It was so reminiscent of Fox and how she used to dig in her heels with him when they'd first met that he was taken back just a bit.
"If you're going to travel with us, you have to play by our rules, you got that?" Rick's voice was intimidating and harsh but Michonne did not seem to be frightened. Beside him at his shoulder Carl tensed markedly but Rick ignored him for the most part. Or at least tucked it into the back of his mind for now. He would deal with his son's discontent when they had the chance.
Michonne gave a sharp, tense nod of agreement towards Rick and the sheriff turned to the rest of them. "Come on, we need to put more distance between us and them. We'll find somewhere to rest eventually."
When they did finally find a place to rest it was well after the sun rose and were more or less forced to stop because they were beginning to swerve drunkenly. They'd found another little backwoods town and cleared out an abandoned fire house of half a dozen biters before parking their vehicles inside the garage where the fire trucks were formerly housed. They checked the building for any kind of supplies but found nothing of value. They shut the garage doors tight and after double checking to make sure all of the doors were locked and the blinds on the windows were down they stretched out with their sleeping bags on the floor near their vehicles and did their best to get some sleep, but Fox couldn't rest. She tossed and turned on her sleeping bag, shifting and curling restlessly trying to get comfortable. Finally giving up she got up off her sleeping bag and snagged her pistol and buckled her belt of knives back onto her waist before slipping off to take up a position in the upstairs living quarters of the firehouse where she could keep watch out the window. She dared to push it open and inhale the wonderfully cool night breeze as she sat on its ledge and stared out into the darkness. She tried not to look but was unable to stop herself from staring at the sky and the crescent moon that hung there and her heart gave a fierce stab of pain. Unbidden and unwanted memories came to flood her consciousness, the first few nights after Luna was born, her getting up at the sound of her cries, holding her close and soothing her back to sleep. The gentle melody of the acoustic guitar that she used to sometimes quiet her down as Daryl held her and gently paced their room, the steady motion of his rocking helping to ease her distress. Another memory of Luna at age three bouncing along happily near her mother's legs as she guided her down to the shallow, slow moving section of the river, Luna giggling with delight when the cool water splashed over her bare feet, looking back to grin at her, asking with short signs for her mother to join her in the water. A nameless night coming home empty handed in the winter from a hunt and finding Luna and Daryl on the couch, Luna curled into Daryl's chest, his bright eyes telling her that Luna had tried to stay awake to wait up for her, the warm happy hum of contentment when Fox had carefully lifted Luna off her father's chest and held her close before carrying her to bed.
More recollections greeted her and she struggled to suppress them, willfully forcing herself to think of other days before the pain tore her to pieces. Days before they'd built their homes, days when they'd still been on the run, before she had been a mother. Given their current situation of living on the road it wasn't hard to remember. Pain moved through her like the soft lapping of water at the shore as she recalled all of the lives their family had lost between then and now. She found herself rocking back and forth slowly, very quietly humming snatches of the songs she used to play then. She recalled the long tangled strands of her red hair that had once burned like scarlet flame in the fierce Georgia sunlight and the days when the dance between her and Daryl had been just a hair's breath away from tearing each other to pieces. She felt hollow and wrung out, strangled and suffocated, right on the very edge of losing her already tenuous grip on reality.
She heard Daryl's footstep before she saw him. In days passed as soon as she'd heard him she would have straightened her face and refused to let him see her distress, but now she turned and got up off the window seat and went to him. She buried her face into his chest and shuddered for a moment while his arms wrapped around her back and shoulders and held her close. Normally he would have been content not to speak, but he knew that she needed it and so he found the words she needed.
"We'll find her. We'll find her, and we'll get her back. I promise."
After a minute she pulled back and gazed at him before leading him back to the window seat where he joined her. "I don't understand how all of this happened. Me meeting you, the group, us surviving all this time, Luna, and then losing her…I just…I don't get it." She wiped her eyes, struggling to keep back the hot sting of salty tears. She dared to look at Daryl and seeing the reflection of her daughter's eyes made it impossible for her not to let the tears drip down her cheeks. "Is this my karma? Is this God's way of punishing me for all the things I've done?"
"No, Dahlia, you can't think like that," Daryl assured her. "I'm pretty sure after everything you've done, good and bad, the old guy in the sky wouldn't do this to you."
Fox wiped her eyes, scrubbing at her cheeks, trying to stem the tears. "I'm not so sure," she said softly. After a few minutes she clenched her teeth and pushed back from him a little. "Fuck this regret shit. I don't do it for a reason. This fucking reason." She wiped her eyes again and curled her fingers into fists so tight that her knuckles cracked. "I made mistakes, I abandoned my mother and my sister…I got some of my closest friends killed…I played God and killed a man who hurt people I love…but damn it all, I did the best that I could do in the given situation." She clenched her teeth and stared up at the sky with cold fury in her eyes. "I almost died protecting the ones I love. Why do I have to lose one of the only things I can't live without? What more do I have to prove that I am worthy!" She slammed her fist into the side of the wall and Daryl jolted. He slid closer to her and took her hands in his own, his calloused fingertips stroking over her skin.
"Dahlia, listen to me," he murmured. "This had nothing to do with some big eye in the sky making judgment calls or dangling happiness at the end of a string in front of you just to snatch it away for kicks. This is just life. Shit fucking just happens sometimes and there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes you can't control it." He leaned closer to her and cupped her cheek, threading his fingers into the edges of her hair. "Remember what I told you all those years ago, back on the plantation right before the herd drove us off?"
"You asked me to trust you." The memory burned strong in her mind's eye and made her eyes glow brightly with barely repressed tears.
"Do you?" he asked softly. Now he held her face in both his hands, forcing her to maintain his eye contact. He could see she was struggling not to come undone, that it was taking every ounce of her control to just bare the pain. He knew the answer she'd give but he wanted her to say it. Not for him, for her. When faced with distress he shut down, he forced everyone and everything away until he could master himself and only allow what he comfortable with people seeing to show through. She was different. When she struggled on the verge of coming undone she allowed the full strength of her emotions to pull her like a rockslide giving out under her feet, and never mind the pile of broken bones waiting for her at the bottom of the cliff. It didn't matter too much to her in that particular moment if her spine was broken at the bottom and she could feel nothing. He'd seen that in her time and time again. After all this time, his little wildflower was still given to allowing the full rush of her emotions to destroy her. It was his job to protect her from herself, as he had been doing since the first moment he had met her. He held her gently and steadied her as she exhaled, her lips shaking as she found her speech.
"Yes."
The word rasped between her teeth with tears that began to trickle free from her eyes. He could feel her shaking even as his thumb traced the ridges of one of her scars. She shivered at the sensitivity and silently asked for what only he could give her. It wasn't his way, and in truth he was so tired that he would rather have just gone back downstairs and laid down with her to sleep but she needed more. She needed more and she was pleading with him to help take the load of what was breaking her. And he would, as she had done so many times for him in so many different ways.
He leaned down to kiss her and she responded immediately. She tasted like pain and the crumbling edge of despair and his heart hurt to feel it in her. The salt of her tears brushed his cheeks even as he pulled her closer to him. She pushed him off the window seat and stood up, chasing his mouth with hers and when she claimed him her teeth sunk into his lip enough to draw blood even as her hands scrabbled at the rest of him. She yanked his clothes away from him as if they personally offended her and when he didn't get her undressed fast enough to please her she did it herself, huffing with exertion as she tore the laces of her boots off and kicked them off her feet before she stripped the rest of her clothes. She all but pounced on him and now he shook off his exhaustion and laid everything out on the line. It was what she needed and even though he was physically shaking from the need to rest he gave her all that she could handle. Her nails raked down his back and shoulders, digging uncomfortably into his scars as she hung on for dear life. He fisted his fingers tightly into the back of her head through her hair and held her as tightly as he could, trying to physically hold her together before she shattered.
She poured into him everything that was destroying her from the inside out. The edges of his sanity began to spark and crackle with the threat of unraveling even as the pleasure and pain spiraled higher and higher into a dizzying peak that had him almost biting through his lip to keep quiet even as her teeth sank so hard into his shoulder that she tasted a flush of blood, and still she would not stop. Still she begged him for more. He growled against her throat and clutched her tight, fingers bruising at her hips and thighs even as her back scraped every surface of the upstairs room, including the glass of the window. He held her up and bore down on her even as her head tipped forward and she bit down on his neck. The force of her bite was so much that blood leaked from between her teeth and pain rippled through him enough to distract him from the peak of climax. She added fresh lines from her nails to the small of his back and his flanks, clawing and kicking at him even and finally he could take no more of the pain she inflicted on him and with a rough twist of his hands on her hips he forced her onto her knees, coming up behind her and sinking in low and deep, biting the nape of her neck hard enough to draw blood. She whimpered as her head sank between her arms but still he did not stop, biting down harder still and driving her to the brink. She muffled her scream against her arm and his against her neck and shoulder, blood flushing over his tongue as he quelled the sounds of his undoing.
It went on like this for hours, all night, until finally he collapsed into a pile of sweaty limbs, damp hair, and blood smeared skin. His limbs were tangled as he lay on his side to avoid putting pressure on his bloody back, every point of him aching and pleasure spent. It was like he'd been run through with a battering ram at every inch of his body, and though it hurt, he was so worn down and so satiated that the pain was just a dull companion to his exhaustion. He'd only felt like this a few times in his life, where he'd pushed himself so hard for so long that he thought he might not actually be able to move anymore. Right now he didn't see any reason to move and so he just lay still on the concrete floor of the upstairs room and just breathed, savoring the smell of sweat and sex and blood, a warm dizzy burn of contentment slowly working its way through his blood like a few shots of good whiskey.
"Daryl, we have to get up." Her voice was raspy from half strangled use all night. She was bruised and a little bloodied as well, but not nearly to the extent Daryl was. The lines across her shoulders and hips were merely red and were already fading into white, the sting barely noticeable. Daryl's back was actually dripping blood from the intensity of her frenzy.
He heard her words but at first they had no meaning. The only thing that made him move was the fact that his pride would not allow him to be caught like this by the rest of the group. He tried to move and found that he was quivering. He tried to remember the last time he'd been this tired and this overworked and he recalled a very cold evening being hounded by wolves in the Catskills as he struggled to come back form a fruitless hunt for a lost child. The jagged parallels between then and now were far too much for his punch drunk brain to deal with and so he kicked it back under his mental rug.
Fox was dressed by the time he managed to pick himself up off the floor. The only reason he moved at all was because he heard movement coming from downstairs and the sky outside was beginning to glow a softer blue rather than the inky coal darkness of the night. He staggered as he tried to stand up and Fox leaned down to catch him. She handed him his clothes and he shoved his legs back through his pants feeling like he was working through concrete.
"I can't do this again," he said softly, catching Fox's eye. "You need what you need but we have to be able to function. Fight. I can't even drive like this."
She nodded and approached him and curled one hand around the nape of his neck and kissed him deeply, her mouth soft and caressing now. He could only accept, he could not respond, he didn't have the strength.
"Thank you," she breathed against him. In those two words was all the assurance he needed. She sounded more like herself now than she had since before Luna had been taken. He'd held her together, he'd fended off the demons trying to break her, and now he could rest assured that she'd be ok. He shrugged back into his shirt and winced at the feeling of his skin tearing and bleeding as he did so. He went downstairs with her and found the rest of the group packing up.
"Carl, help me get the bike in the tail-bed of the truck. It'll help save gas. Fox and I will ride with Maggie and Glenn."
The young man nodded and Daryl struggled to mask the pain as he and Carl worked painstakingly to lift the motorcycle into the bed of the truck. After they loaded her up and lashed her down securely he stepped back and swayed almost drunkenly.
"Hey, you ok?" Carl asked as Daryl tried to brace himself on the side of the truck.
"I'm fine, go help your dad," he waved him off but out of the corner of his eye he saw Benjamin coming towards him.
"There's blood on your shirt that wasn't there yesterday," the medic noted. He had his bag of tricks with him and Daryl tried to suppress a desire to brush him off too. He glanced at Fox who was helping Maggie and Glenn load up their car and then back to the medic. His brain felt thick and hazy, like he had a bad fever in the middle of a Georgia summer, so much so that when Benjamin motioned for him to follow he blindly stumbled along after him without fuss. He didn't know if even a Walker attack would have been enough to get him into second gear right at this second. He followed Benjy to the back corner of the garage and sat down on the steps, his torso bowing forward between his arms as he struggled to stop the wobbly in his limbs.
"Jesus Christ she tore you to pieces," Benjamin muttered as he lifted up Daryl's shirt and saw the scratches. "The hell were you guys doing last night, trying to kill each other?"
"It's nothing alright," Daryl grumbled angrily, flinching away when Benjamin inspected the scratches.
"It's not nothing. Don't let her do this again. You could get infected from this," Benjamin chastised him.
"Yes mother," Daryl drawled even as he hissed at the sting when Benjamin dabbed in antibacterial cream and bandaged the deepest of the cuts.
"I'm serious," Benjamin muttered with a look into the redneck's eyes. "We don't have as many antibiotics as we used to. So just be careful alright?" As he continued to meet with Daryl's stare, and noting the exhausted look and deciding he might as well take his chances, he added "Is she always this rough with you?" His fingertips skimmed over knots of very old scar tissue and then pulled back swiftly.
If he had been anything less than completely worn down he would have simply ignored the remark but with all of his defenses lowered he didn't have it in him to let that go.
"Those old ones aren't from her. And she didn't hurt me. Not really." He shrugged back into his shirt and got up off the steps he'd been sitting on. He swayed a little and Benjamin reached over to steady him. "Quit worryin', Yankee. I can take care of myself."
Benjamin rolled his eyes and tucked his supplies back into his bag as Daryl took a few shaky steps back towards the others. "Yeah, I can see that," he muttered as Daryl continued to walk away.
"And get some sleep before you have a psychotic break would you? That's the last thing we need is you going to pieces too." Benjamin scrubbed at his eyes and sighed before following the hunter back towards the main body of the group.
They loaded up and for once Daryl was happy to be in the back seat of a car. He didn't bother strapping in, he just curled up against the door and the back seat and closed his eyes. Even with Glenn's less than textbook driving ability guiding the car he was still unconscious before they'd even made it a mile from the fire station and Fox was right behind him, her face relaxed for the first time since they'd left home.