A/N: Loved all of the reviews! I know that cliffhangers are mean, but... I'm getting used to them finally. Sorry!

Anyway, since you had to wait soooo long for chapter 20, I gift you with chapter 21.

Enjoy the read, my pretties..!

Chapter 21

An unusual blaring noise woke Daryl from his slumber, the echo of it ricocheting around his empty bedroom. Groggily, he rolled over and ran his hand across the carpet next to his mattress, searching for the offensive noise. As soon as his fingers brushed his cell phone, he grasped it and pulled it toward him.

Despite the fact that he felt like he'd been asleep for half the night, his alarm clock showed that it was only midnight; he'd only been in bed a couple of hours. He squinted at the bright blue screen and sat up when he read the name staring up at him: Beth Greene.

Wide awake, he hit the green button to accept the call and brought the phone to his ear. "Beth, everythin' alright?"

"Daryl, I'm so sorry to do this to you," she said; he could hear the hitch in her voice. She was crying.

He got out of bed, flipped on the light and went over to his closet to start pulling on clothes. "Nah, don't worry 'bout it," he said, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he put pants on. "What's wrong, Beth?"

"It's Carol," Beth said, sniffling into the phone. "She was here at Sasha's with us, and then Ed called her a few hours ago; he was drunk and angry, and he got in the car and started driving. Sophia was with him. While Carol was on the phone with him, though, she heard him crash and the phone cut out. Rick and his people have been out looking for the car for a couple of hours; they finally found it, but…"

"What?" Daryl asked, grabbing his keys and swinging on his jacket.

"Ed was already dead when they got there, but the car door was open. Sophia is missing; she left the car and she's lost in the woods," Beth's breath hitched again, and Daryl felt compelled to go to her. He was already down his steps when she said, "Daryl, I know it's so cold and icy out, and you have to work in the morning… I just… you're a hunter, and I know you're a good tracker. I thought that maybe you could help. I thought you could make a difference in finding her…"

Of course she thought that. Daryl's chest swelled with what he imagined was something like pride, knowing that Beth had thought of him; knowing that she thought so highly of him, even. He was a damn good tracker; she had no idea… but she'd still thought to call him.

He'd been such an asshole to her in the beginning; so ready to push her away and be his usual hostile, shunned, anti-social, shut-in self. But she'd just kept coming back for more, and eventually he'd found himself drawn to her. Now, as he started the ignition and let his truck roar to life, he realized that without Beth, he'd still be completely lost in the world. She'd come unexpectedly and found him; shown him a way home, the way to a better life for himself.

If he had to spend every day for the rest of his life paying her back for that gift and making her happy, he'd try his damnedest; starting with finding that little girl lost in the woods.

"I'm already on the road," he told her, backing out of his driveway.

"Oh Daryl, thank you," she breathed. "Thank you."

She told him which part of the highway they'd found Ed's car beside, since that's where ground zero was for the search and rescue crews that had already begun to gather there.

As he drove, his wiper blades slapping the falling ice off of his windshield, Daryl hoped like hell that the little girl had stayed put in the car for awhile before she braved the woods. If she'd left as soon as they'd crashed, which had been hours ago, the freezing weather might turn their search for the girl into a search for her body.

Daryl didn't know Carol terribly well, except for the few times he'd seen her around town, in the bar, and the day in the grocery store after Beth had given him a piece of her mind; but Carol seemed like a nice enough person, and an honest one. She didn't deserve to lose her husband and her only child in the same fateful night.

He finally saw the flashing of red and blue lights up ahead; the highway was crawling with rescue vehicles and probably every squad car the small town had to offer. Daryl slowed down and eased his truck into the emergency lane, pulling up and parking behind a long string of civilian cars; other people like himself who'd been called out to come out to help search for the little girl.

Daryl stuffed his cargo pockets with a flashlight, extra batteries, his lighter, a handkerchief for his face, and a pack of gum. Whenever he hunted in the freezing cold, he always brought gum to chew on, to keep his jaw from tightening up and his teeth from chattering.

He pulled on a warm beanie and an expensive pair of leather gloves that he'd won in a poker game awhile back, before Merle's latest stint in the slammer. Once he made his way into the chaos, he began looking for someone in a uniform so that he could get a little more heads-up on what was going on and figure out which area they were combing.

Before he made it over to the cops, though, a small body collided with his, and arms wound around his waist. "Daryl, I'm so glad you came," Beth said breathlessly, squeezing him.

"I told you I would," he said, putting a hand awkwardly on her shoulder. She released him and stepped back, and even in the hectic lighting, he could see that Beth's eyes were bloodshot from crying. Her cheeks and nose were tinged in red, and her lips looked a little cold, too. She'd been out there awhile already.

"Carol is a mess," Beth told him. "She insisted on coming to help look, even though Rick didn't think it was a good idea. Lori and Sasha are taking turns walking with her. It's just so cold out, and everything is slippery… I've already fallen into three puddles." As though to drive her point home, a shiver wracked her and her teeth clattered together.

"Of course you did," Daryl said, shaking his head at her; that girl was so damned accident prone. "You need t' get your ass inside an' get dried off. You won' be doin' that little girl no favors by losin' a few toes to fuckin' frostbite."

Beth shook her head at him, ignoring his rude tone. "I can't stop now. Sophia will lose more than a few toes if we don't find her, and soon."

Although Daryl was admittedly more worried about Beth than anyone else out there, she was still right. They had to hurry.

"A'right then, get me up t' speed. Where's the car she got out of?"

Beth pointed him into the direction of Ed's blue car that was crumpled against the broad trunk of a tree. As they made their way toward it, weaving in and out through the crowds of people, Daryl took stock of the situation. It looked like the dumbass had lost traction and spun out of control, sliding right off of the road into the steep ditch. Daryl walked over and peeked into the car. Ed's body was gone, but the mess he'd left was impressive. Searching the back seat, Daryl didn't see any sign of Sophia's blood; it was a good sign she possibly hadn't been injured too badly.

"The K-9 dogs keep leading us off that way," Beth told him, pointing northeast of the car's location. "I don't know why Sophia wouldn't have stayed by the road…"

Daryl looked from the car up the steep embankment of the ditch where the highway sat. "Without light, she probably didn' know which way the highway was," he responded. "The acciden' most likely disoriented her; she must've seen her daddy an' jus' took off. Let's move."

Just like the first day he found her, Daryl heard Beth's soft footsteps follow him deeper through the woods. He pulled out his flashlight and turned it on to light his path and keep an eye out for a trail. Thankfully, Beth had a flashlight of her own, as well.

Together, they stepped lightly, occasionally hearing the distant shouts of other searchers calling out Sophia's name.

Finally, Daryl found a broken branch to their left that had a single light brown hair sticking to it. He turned to Beth and pointed at his find; although he could tell by the way she was frowning that she had no idea what he was trying to show her. One day, he'd bring her out there and teach her how to track; just in case she ever got lost in the woods again herself. He'd make sure she knew how to orient herself and find the right way home. Tonight wasn't the time or place for it, though, so he circled around the evidence and headed in the new direction without further explanation.

He'd found a couple of small footprints embedded in areas of the trail where Sophia's feet had sunk into the mud. He was relieved to note that she did have both shoes on, at least. However, as the hour wore on, the weather never quite let up, and the icy drizzle that floated down from the canopy of bare branches above them covered what little foliage was left and weighed it down, making it impossible for Daryl to tell where leaves had possibly been crumpled or disturbed by her plight.

Beth followed behind him silently, except for occasionally calling out Sophia's name in an attempt to locate her. She never complained or whined, but Daryl could tell how cold she really was by the way her flashlight beam was trembling as she used it to scan the woods around them. She was constantly shivering. The one time he'd suggested she head back, though, he hit a wall of Beth Greene stubbornness that rivaled even his own, and he backed off.

He knew she probably felt better searching for the little girl in the freezing cold than sitting around in the warmth of a house waiting for news, though. Beth was a fighter; he knew she wouldn't give up so easily.

Finally, Daryl's flashlight gleamed against a few more strands of hair clinging to the bark of a tree along the path. They were still headed in the correct direction. Off to their right, about 50 yards away, Daryl could see other light shifting from between the trees; the search volunteers didn't seem to be spread out too thin, hopefully, and others were at least going the right direction, too. With some luck, they had a good shot at finding her before the weather took a turn for the worse, as it had been threatening to all week.

Eventually, though, the other searchers seemed to veer off in the opposite direction, and then it was just him and Beth alone again. He paused for a minute to turn around and assess her state; she'd been much too quiet for the last half an hour.

She squinted under the bright scrutiny of his light, but he was disgruntled to find that her lips were tinted in blue, and there was even frozen blood caked in the corner of her bottom lip from where it had split open in the elements.

"Do you have chapstick?" he asked her, tilting the light back out of her face.

"Yeah, do you need some?" she asked, fumbling to get her hand into her jacket pocket. She pulled it out finally and held it out for him.

"No, you do," he said, opening the cap and cupping her chin in his hand to gently apply it to her chapped lips. She hissed a little when the motion disturbed the cut, and a little more blood beaded out from between the crack.

"Sorry," he mumbled, applying some to his own lips, just in case, before replacing the cap and handing it back to her. She fumbled to put it back into her pocket, and he realized that the gloves on her hands were the thin, knitted version, which probably cost her all of $7 at the store, and definitely weren't constructed to keep her hands dry.

He tucked his flashlight under his armpit and clamped his teeth down onto the fingers of his gloves to pull them off easier.

"What're you doing…?" she asked between chattering teeth as he yanked her gloves off.

"Give me your hands," he said sternly. As she complied, he put his gloves onto her hands, pulling them as far up as they'd go; although there was still a good inch or so of leather sticking out passed her small fingers.

"I though' you said y'moved down here from Chicago?" Daryl accused grumpily.

"I did…" Beth responded, staring at him, looking confused by his mood change.

"This the kind o' shit you wore in Chicago in the fuckin' snow?" he asked, throwing her gloves over his shoulder to be surrendered to the woods.

"Well, no…" Beth said, pulling her newly warmed hands up against her chin. "I didn't know Georgia got this cold," she admitted. "I left all of my winter stuff at my apartment when I moved. My roommate made good use of everything, I'm sure."

Daryl grunted, not amused. "All that damn shoppin' you did las' week, buyin' towels an' shit, an' here you didn't even have a decent pair o' gloves on you. No sense at all."

"What about your hands?" Beth asked. "Now yours are going to be cold…"

"That's the first decent pair o' gloves I've ever owned; my hands'll be fine," he assured her, turning to resume their search.

"Thank you," she said, following behind him. "They're nice and warm."

"We'd better find somethin' soon," Daryl said, steering the subject back to more pressing matters. "I really don' think that little girl woulda come out this far, honestly. I've lost her trail."

Behind him, Beth didn't comment, but she did resume calling out Sophia's name. Daryl hoped they weren't closing in on too-late.

In another thirty minutes, the temperature had dropped again, and Daryl could feel the cold nipping at him through his clothes. Their trek finally ended at a creek bed with a steep drop-off. Daryl insisted on searching it, just in case Sophia had been running and fallen blindly down the slope.

He had Beth stand at the edge and shine her flashlight down to help with his descent; but it was pretty precipitous decline, so he told her to wait for him at the top. He slipped a couple of times, his hands not getting the right purchase on the smaller trees sticking out of the side of the dirt wall because of the ice, but he managed not to fall. Getting back up the damn thing, well… that might be a different story altogether.

He paced around near the bank, walking the stretch of the shallow creek bed, keeping his eyes on the water for anything tangled against the current. He didn't see anything that promised insight as to Sophia's whereabouts, though. No blood, no hair, no clothing, no shoes, no prints; nothing.

It took him twice as long to climb back out of the ravine as it took to descend down into it, but he made it out without incident.

"She hasn't been this far," Daryl said, feeling fairly certain about his assessment. "Let's go back t' the last place I saw her trail; look at it from a clean angle."

Beth nodded, and Daryl was certain she wasn't going to last much longer; she was much too cold and under-dressed for an outing like this.

He led them back the way they'd come, searching all around them for more tells of Sophia's trail. Finally, he noticed another snapped branch that he'd missed when they were coming from the other direction. It veered off of the narrow trail they'd been following; the trail Sophia had been on, but apparently turned off of to go crashing through the bushes. Now that he was in there, he could see the evidence that something had spooked her and sent her running; all kinds of branches were broken and twisted, her footprints were spread far apart. He couldn't believe he'd walked right passed the damn thing.

"Now we've got her trail," Daryl said over his shoulder.

Beth called out, "Sophia?! Sophia, honey, it's Beth! Can you hear me? Sophiiaaa!"

He didn't bother to call out, too; if the girl was scared, the sound of a strange man could send her into hiding. It wasn't uncommon. For Beth's sweet voice, though, she just might come out, if she was anywhere close by.

Finally, the trees broke, and they found themselves in a small clearing. The sky above was pitch-black, without so much as the moon or a star in sight. The sleet was still falling, not quite snow, but still drifting down to pelt them in their faces and necks.

He paused at the break in trees to kneel down and locate her trail to see which direction she headed once she hit the clearing. Her footprints, faint here where there was more grass to keep the mud at bay, swerved to the right, keeping the tree-line at her right shoulder as she traveled.

Suddenly, Daryl heard Beth gasp from behind him. "I think I see something," she said briefly before shouting "Sophia?!"

Beth sprinted across the clearing, and Daryl followed her at a slower pace, keeping his light pointed in the direction she was heading.

Then he heard a metal twang, and Beth yelped as she went down, her flashlight beam twirling into the night as it spun through the air and landed away from her.

He jogged forward to where she was sitting, holding onto her ankle.

"What happened?"

She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "I don't know; I stepped on something…"

Daryl knelt down and realized that the something she stepped on was actually a coil-spring animal trap. Thankfully, it was toothless and small; more for coyotes than bears, but Daryl still feared her foot or ankle might be broken.

He handed his flashlight to her so that she could aim it at the trap. He grasped the opposing insides of the metal with both hands and looked up at her. "When I get this open, pull your foot out, a'right?"

Beth nodded, holding his flashlight in one hand, and gripping the top of her boot with her other.

Inhaling, Daryl yanked the arms of the trap wide, pulling them all the way down until it locked open in place again. Once Beth's foot was out of the way, he dropped a branch in the center of the disk and let the trap snap closed again.

She hissed as she tried to roll her ankle, and Daryl could tell by how white her face was in the light that she was in a lot of pain.

"The damn thing's probably broken," he told her. "Can y'get your boot off?"

He watched as Beth gave her boot a good honest tug, but the color drained from her face and she looked ready to retch. She set it down, shaking her head.

"A'right, let's get you back, then."

"Daryl, wait… I saw something," she said, swiveling her upper body to point across the field to where the woods swallowed everything up again. "Will you go check it out first; make sure it isn't Sophia? I wouldn't forgive myself if we were this close to finding her and then I got my ankle broken and we left her alone out here."

Daryl nodded, agreeing with her reasoning. He handed her back the flashlight that had flown out of her hands, and used his own to light up the ground at his feet. Sometimes, with the smaller traps, hunters would stake out two or three, just to get a couple of animals caught out of a pack, especially if they had been intent on catching coyote. He treaded carefully, keeping his ears tuned into the forest around them, listening for signs of running or crying.

He waded into the thicket that was tangled amid the base of the trees, but there was no sign that Sophia had ever been there. When he turned around and went back into the clearing, he walked to his left, following the tree-line that he'd seen Sophia's tracks near. It looked like she veered out of the clearing halfway through walking in it. He could remember the way back to this spot and resume where they left off; but not until he'd gotten Beth out of there.

Without her ability to walk, she was useless in the search anyway. She'd just be sitting around freezing for no reason.

He went back over to her, careful to keep his eyes on the ground for more traps.

She looked up at him expectantly with her large sky blues, and he couldn't help but notice the small flurries of ice that kept getting caught as they landed on her long lashes. She looked like a snow princess he'd seen on T.V. as a kid once.

"Nothing…?" she whispered.

"Nah," Daryl said. He pointed into the direction of Sophia's tracks and said, "It looks like she circled aroun' the field an' then went back into the woods. I'll come back an' keep lookin', after I've gotten you seen to."

"What?" Beth said, leaning back against the ground, as though she could get out of his reach. "We don't have time to walk all the way back to the highway; and what if it gets worse out here and then you can't find her trail again?"

"Look, you wanted t' stay out here an' help; an' you did. But your ankle might be broken; I need t' get you t' the medics, back at the highway."

He could tell she wanted to argue with him; he understood that she felt like she was letting Carol and Sophia down by needing help now. But like it or not, that's where they were at, and Daryl was done backing down to her stubbornness.

Luckily, she seemed to reason her way through their predicament and arrived at the same conclusion he had; they needed to head back.

Daryl put a hand under her arm and helped her stand up on her good leg. He wrapped his arm around her waist, but even with his support, she could barely limp. They'd be too slow getting back.

He had a better idea, and after stashing his flashlight in his pocket, he knelt down in front of her. "Here, climb on," he said over his shoulder.

"Wait, what? Are you serious?" Beth asked, laughing a bit.

"Yeah, I'm serious. This is a serious piggyback. Come on, now."

Beth, unable to hop or jump, leaned down against his back and wrapped her arms around his neck. As he strained to stand up, he felt her legs straddle him, and he wrapped both hands under her thighs to help hold her on. The broad was heavier than she looked. He shifted her higher up on his back and then began the slow trek back to the highway.

Closer to their destination, the woods were crawling with people, all shouting for Sophia. It had begun to look like the whole damn town was out there trying to find her. A couple of people offered to help them back to the ambulances, but Daryl refused them. He wasn't handing Beth off to a stranger; he'd only be leaving her in the capable hands of an EMT.

As he walked, Beth's soft face remained pressed against the back of his neck, her warm breath breathing down the inside of his jacket and shirt, caressing his skin, broke his whole body out in goosebumps. She was keeping him warm in other ways, though; which was convenient, since the temperature outside seemed intent on plummeting, and the sleet was coming down at them larger and faster through the tree branches above.

They finally broke through the thickest part of the woods, to where the red and blue lights were still prevalently flashing. A couple of other people were sitting around rehydrating, or getting cuts and scrapes cleaned up. The visibility in the woods was only getting worse, and most of the people there weren't cut out for wandering around in the frigid dark to begin with.

Daryl walked Beth right up to an ambulance, where the EMT inside motioned for him to bring her. Daryl turned and deposited her gently in the open doorway of the ambulance. The EMT knelt down and Beth began explaining what had happened to her ankle.

He felt extra cold where her face and breath had been, and he hated leaving her alone while she was injured, but they hadn't found the girl, yet.

"A'right, I'm gonna go back, see if I c'n pick her trail back up," he said, turning away from Beth as the medic began cutting her boot off of her.

"Daryl," she said, and he turned at the sound of her voice. He found himself doing that a lot lately; heeding her whims. "Take your gloves so that you're warmer."

She pulled them off, but as he held his hand out for them she clasped his cold hand in her warm one and said, "Come back safe."

"I will," he told her gruffly. He took the offered gloves as her hand slid out of his and gave her a final nod, hesitating for a moment to soak her all in. Then he turned and wove his way through the crowd, headed back for the forest.

Just as he passed one of the police cruisers, a hand on his arm stopped him short. "Sir, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask…" Rick's sentence faltered as Daryl turned to look at him. Standing there, Rick looked just as cold and miserable as the rest of them.

"Daryl," he said suddenly, not bothering to hide the shock in his voice. "What're you doing here?"

"Beth called an' said Sophia was missing," Daryl said, thinking it was pretty fucking obvious what he was doing there. "She asked me t' help look."

Nodding, Rick smiled at him a bit. "That's awfully kind of you. But the weather is getting worse; we've decided to recall the search party. Barely anyone can see in there, and I've already got four adults we're having to look for on top of searching for Sophia. We're asking everyone to stay out of the woods until the weather lets up a bit, if it does. If not, we'll have to resume our search in the morning."

"I grew up in the woods; I ain't gonna go get fuckin' lost," Daryl spat. "Besides, I had her trail. I jus' had t' bring Beth back; she got injured. I'm goin' t' go back t' where I left off before the ice covers all o' her tracks."

Rick seemed torn between letting him go and making him stay, but Daryl didn't wait for the decision to be made. He was going back to Sophia's trail whether Sheriff Grimes liked it or not.

He heard people pass by him on their way back to the highway as he strode along the narrow trail he and Beth had walked, but all he could see were light and shadows; their visibility was officially nearing zero.

Daryl stumbled along, tripping over things that his light didn't touch on until his feet had already met with them; irritated at how shitty it had gotten in such a short amount of time. Carol's stupid fucking husband couldn't have gotten drunk and killed himself last night when the weather was cold, but halfway decent?

He lost the damn trail three different times, needing to go back and blindly retrace his footsteps. By the time he found the clearing again, nearly an hour and a half had passed since he'd left Rick standing at the mouth of the forest. He circled around until he found the spot in the woods where Sophia's footprints had last disappeared into.

The ice was coming down in sheets, and Daryl had to tie the handkerchief he'd brought around the lower half of his face to protect it. The wind was so cold that it stole the breath right out of his lungs. Daryl knew that if he didn't find the little girl soon, they might not find her at all.

Nearly crawling along the ground to keep her shallow tracks in his sight, Daryl made slower progress than usual.

It wasn't until he found a small, worn, fabric doll that he realized he must be getting close. Feeling triumphant for the first time all night, Daryl snatched the torn doll out of the bush she was tangled in. He stood up, tucking the doll into his belt for safe-keeping.

"Sophia!" he finally shouted, hoping beyond hope that she would be brave enough, or scared enough, to take her chances with him if she heard him calling for her. "Sophia!"

He shouted as he walked, but the wind continued to whip his words away and throw them haphazardly through the woods. There was no telling if she could hear him; even if she was three feet away from him, it would be possible to completely miss her in such a fucking mess.

Finally, to his left, he heard a distinct rustling that didn't coincide with the rhythmic sounds of the brush blowing together in the storm. "Sophia!" He shouted, stomping his way through the foliage.

As he knelt down to check for her tracks, he began to call out to her again, but her name died in his throat as his flashlight broke through the dense hail and illuminated the meanest, ugliest sonofabitch that ever roamed the forest.

It was that same fucking russet-colored demon that had chased Daryl into the river a few months ago.

This time, it was crouched inches from his face. Daryl wished briefly that he'd bothered to grab his hunting knife before he left his apartment, but he hadn't. It was just him, the sleet, his flashlight, and the devil before him.

Much like at the river, the dog fixated on Daryl, pulling his lips back in a vicious snarl. The creature tensed, and then sprang.

Daryl saw nothing but a streak of red muscle and spittle before he was taken down.