I do not own The Walking Dead.

Previously:

"Hey, girly!"

Faye froze.

That was not Daryl. That was most definitely not Daryl.

Slowly turning her head around, Faye could see the silhouette of the man who had yelled to her. She could barely make him out as she squinted, but he was large. From the looks of it, he had come from the 'abandoned car', as there was another figure stood by the door. Both seemed unaffected by the rain.

Large enough to take her down, easily. His tone mocked her as he continued.

"Why don't we go find somewhere nice 'n cosy, huh? Just the two of us."

Faye bolted.

The heavy jacket slipped from her hands as she ran, feet pounding the road as she could only hope she wouldn't trip on the wet floor. That would be game over, a fate likely worse than death if she allowed herself to be captured. But she didn't spare herself time to think of the consequences. If she lost her attacker, the thoughts would never even have to cross her mind.

Faye gave it a seconds thought before turning left when the end of the road formed a 'T', the direction not particularly mattering at that point.

"Come on, girly, don't make this harder than it's gotta be!"

Well, it was pretty damn hard already, as far as she could tell.

Making a bee line towards the next house, it dawned on the girl that she had a gun and she was stupid enough to not already have it in her hand because she could have ended this immediately but now there was this stupid chase and hell to it all, she was going to make this as hard as she possibly could. Whipping around as she pulled out her gun in one swift motion, Faye blinked what raindrops she could out her eyes, backing through the rusty black gate of the house. The moment the figure appeared from around the corner, the girl pulled the trigger, four shots echoing loudly above the sounds of rain on the floor.

There were no cries that told her any bullets had reached their target, but the man was obviously smart enough to duck for cover, hiding behind a brick wall of the first house.

Faye finally stopped backing away when her back hit the door, jumping slightly at the feeling before her attention was ripped away. Another shot rang out as the child dropped to the floor, wet fringe now pressed to her face along with tiny pieces of grit from the path.

At first, she wasn't sure if it was a wound that had sent her to the floor, adrenaline masking the pain, or her reflexes were a lot better than she previously thought. Letting out a breath she had been holding, the girl pushed herself up into a crouch. When no jolt of pain racked her body, she assumed her instincts really were up to scratch.

The door, however, was not so lucky. A hole from where the bullet had hit it was in the right hand corner, probably close to where her shoulder had been. This man was a good shot, better than she was for sure.

"Now, why don't we jus' calm down a little here?" His voice was hard to hear of the heavy pelting of rain, but Faye could tell he was shouting. "I ain't wantin' to put a hole in ya, ain't interested in damaged goods!"

Damaged goods?

Faye was both insulted and disgusted by the possible meanings to the sentence.

He continued. "It'll be easier on the both of us if ya just come with me now! I got my buddy waitin', remember? By the car? We jus' wanna have a nice chat with ya, 's warmer than ya think in the back seat…"

The way his words trailed off made her scowl.

Just wait until Daryl got hold of these two, he would knock them down-

Only, Daryl wasn't here. Daryl was God knows where. Alive or not, he was not there to protect her. But she didn't need him. She could handle herself, prove Carl wrong. The hunter wasn't there for her to hide behind anymore, and she didn't need him.

(Like hell she didn't.)

Jumping to her feet, Faye raised her gun at the figure, who apparently had given up on hiding to get his voice across.

Without any more hesitation, she pulled the trigger, for once feeling sure in her aim for the head. Because that's what you were supposed to do when things got tough. Fuck Carl. He didn't know what he was talking about. When the man cried out and cursed – Faye barely made out the 'bitch' hurled at her – she cocked her head for a moment. So, maybe she'd missed his head, but it was a hit all the same.

Hopefully somewhere painful.

Moment of satisfaction gone, the girl slammed her body into the door. It shook, apparently weak on its hinges, but didn't open. She didn't bother with a second try, instead lining up her pistol directly at the lock and fired.

One.

The lock wasn't busted. Screw it. She didn't have time for this.

Two. Three. Four.

Pushing the door with her shoulder again, the entrance opened and Faye ran inside, pushing over the first object – which ended up being some kind of cabinet, which was conveniently next to the door – in hopes it would slow the now angry man's attack.

Had he started moving while she was 'opening' the door? She hadn't been paying attention. With any luck, he hadn't. Then again, her luck had done absolutely nothing for her today.

Faye decided against going up the stairs. If she was going to escape through a window, which she vaguely planned to do, the fall would do more harm than good. The last thing she needed today was a sprained ankle or, worse, a broken one. Having no foot at all was probably the worst, though. What if she fell from the second floor and it just snapped clean off?! Then she'd be in some major trouble. Bleeding to death would almost certainly be inevitable-

Dammit! She was wasting time!

Her first steps through the house were halted by yet another shout of annoyance from the man, who sounded too close to the house for comfort. "It's gonna be so much worse for you now, ya dumb bitch! All we wanted was a quick fu-"

The girl stopped listening after that, instead choosing to hurry the hell up and get out of there, which seemed like a much better idea than staying and seeing what was 'so much worse'. Running down the hallway, Faye ducked around the corner of what looked like a small living room as she heard the door burst open, the man cussing as he must have hit the cabinet. She had wasted too much time and shed be caught if she ran to a window in this room. However, the door across the room to her left could be an easy escape.

As long as it wasn't just a cleaning cupboard or something, the girl wasn't sure how a mop would remedy this situation.

Before she could make a break for it, the heavy footsteps of the man entering were clear and, without really thinking, Faye jumped from her hiding spot and fired. He must have seen her too quickly, though, or she took too long a second to pull the trigger, as he dodged back behind the staircase. Alright, so his reflexes were pretty good too. Screw him.

"Ah, don't be so trigger happy, girly. It don't get ya on the good side of people."

Well, she was pretty sure she was already past that, no more sides left to go to. In this predicament, there were many things worse than being trigger happy.

Pressing herself to the doorway, Faye inched her head forward to see if he had revealed himself yet.

Her eyes first saw his bleeding shoulder, which must have been the spot where she shot him, but it was only a graze. Damn, was he really that pissed off over a graze?! This guy had problems.

(Really? That was what made her think he had problems? It wasn't like, you know, he was going to rape her or anything-!)

It then occurred to Faye that if she was able to see his shoulder, the rest of him was there too. Stood by the stairwell, a sick grin adorned his face as he spoke. "Took ya long enough. Ain't much of a bright spark, huh?"

Whirling round, Faye bolted towards the door on her left. Fortunately, the door was open, and the girl easily swung open the door, shoving the lock into place. Looking around, she found herself in a bathroom. It was small, but there was a window. Thank God, there was a freaking window, big enough for her to crawl through, too. Hopefully. There wasn't exactly much time to measure its size against her own.

She did her best to blank out the taunts coming from behind the door, the language more colourful than she had heard in a long time, as she stood on the bathtub to get to the window. Gripping the frame, Faye pushed, finding the task harder than she expected. It didn't budge.

She had not come this far to get killed because of a stubborn window!

Resorting to simply hitting the glass as the child became more and more panicked, it dawned upon her that she was locked in a small room and there was a monster outside and she would be in a world of pain when it got in. Oh God, she was going to die a slow death by the hands of psycho's and nobody would know and Daryl would find her mutilated body and oh God!

Faye's breathing became laboured as she backed away, mind not clear enough to find a solution to the problem as the door shook from the force of the man barging into it. She tripped as she fell from the bath tub, shuffling back until she hit the wall, gun dropping from her hands-

The gun. The gun. Thegunthegunthegun. Usethegunusethegun. Getawaygetawaygetawaygetaway.

The words chanted through her head as she fumbled with the weapon in her hands, her legs shaky as she stood up to aim. Pulling the trigger, Faye staggered forward as her ears rang with a high pitch sound as the bang echoed off the tiled walls. The child persevered, though, forcing her legs to climb upon the bathtub again and use the back of the Glock to smash the remaining glass that surrounded the bullet hole. Squeezing through the window was harder than she expected, but with her heart pounding out of her chest any pain from the spikes of glass still attached to the frame felt like nothing as she fell to her knees on the grass below.

Thank God this was the ground floor, or she might have just broken her legs.

Mind working automatically, Faye shot onto her feet and dashed behind the line of houses, only stopping to jump over the fence. She didn't look back to see when the attacker found the bathroom empty. The girl was already gone.

The heavy rain made any traces of her blood vanish, Faye with them.

Author's Note:

I'm sorry it's been so long, there have been some problems in my family which I won't go into the detail of and I haven't been able to write. I know this is short, and technically only half done, but I wanted to get something out to you guys and the next chapter will be longer to make up for it. Thank you for the reviews encouraging me to write, they genuinely helped.

As for the next chapter, the only clue I will give is that Faye's problems are only beginning. And, by the way, I haven't forgotten that there are two men, not just the one! Also, to the reviewer who mentioned having some Daryl POV, I did think about it for a while, but there I thought there was too much on Faye's end that we would miss out on if I chose to go that way. Don't worry, he turns up soon, and I do have some Daryl POV planned for very soon.

I'll try to update sooner this time. Thank you again for all the wonderful reviews, and again for sticking with me this long! I couldn't ask for better readers.

'Till next time!

Please review, I love to hear your thoughts and advice.

Thanks.

Cobalt Flame.