Ch.6

His words made her heart skip a beat, and she felt excitement and hope swell up inside of her. If they were being followed it could be someone from their group, it could be Maggie.

"Get your things together, we need to move." His voice was sharp, taut.

She was confused. "Shouldn't we stay here? If it's Maggie, we shou-."

Daryl cut her off. "It's not Maggie, not anyone from the prison. We need to get going."

Any hope she had vanished with his words. "Then who is it?" Her voice was small.

"Don't know, now get your clothes on," he said, tossing her the clothes that had been drying on the rack.

She didn't even try to catch them; she was sill trying to make sense of what he was saying. She quietly got up, and without even caring if he saw her, dropped the blanket and put her clothes on. She could tell that he was worried, something was putting him on edge, and anything that worried Daryl terrified Beth.

She helped him collect their few belongings, being sure to grab the pot she had found yesterday. They stuffed as much as they could into the backpack, which Beth volunteered to carry. While Daryl gathered his bow and arrows and tried to erase any evidence that they had been there, Beth tied her hair back in a pony.

She felt reenergized from the full night's sleep she had gotten, but she was starting to wish that she would be tired because she had a million things going through her mind. She noticed how Daryl stayed close to her side, sneaking a careful glance in her direction every few minutes. He was being careful to not create a lot of noise, and he was trying to eliminate any obvious tracks they were leaving behind. Daryl hadn't told her much, and it was starting to get on her nerves.

"Daryl, why are you so worried?"

"Nothing you need to worry about."

"It's something. How do you know it isn't anybody from our group?" She didn't notice that she had stopped walking.

"Their tracks. Large feet, men's feet. Besides, if they were from our group wouldn't they try to catch up to us, not stalk us from a safe distance?"

Beth looked over the fact that he had said they were being stalked, and focused more on what else he had said. "There's more than one?"

Daryl nodded his head. "Can't be sure how many, but it's more than us. Now come on, we need to keep going."

He didn't seem willing to offer up any more information, so she decided not to push it. As they walked she began to notice that they had slightly changed direction, but she wasn't certain, and Daryl wasn't exactly in a very talkative mood. She kept her mouth shut as he stopped and pointed to a rabbit only five yards away. He steadied his crossbow and shot at it, the rabbit dropping dead in its place. She hoped that it hadn't felt anything. When he went to recover his arrow and his kill, she saw as he looked at his arrow, the tip of it broken. He put the tip in his back pocket.

They didn't have to walk much further for everything to change and for the veil of safety she had felt since being with Daryl fade away. Daryl had spotted them first, before Beth could even make them out. Through the trees and foliage there was movement, too fluid to be walkers. Daryl leaned into Beth's ear, his lips practically brushing her skin.

"Run," it was quiet and he stayed calm, but she knew that there was a sense of urgency behind the words.

Without thinking she obeyed his command. She wasn't positive what she was running from, but she assumed it couldn't be anything good. She felt her foot catch on the root of a tree and she fell hard to the ground. In one swift movement Daryl grabbed her elbow and yanked her back to her feet forcefully, dragging her behind him, not letting go. She couldn't make out any of her surroundings, her adrenaline kicking into overdrive, making things blur. She nearly ran in to what they were running from.

In his attempt to avoid the group that was following them, he had led them straight into their trap. He saw their swift movements up ahead, still far away, but too close for his liking. He had whispered for Beth to run, and had pulled her back to her feet when she fell, refusing to let go of her arm in fear she would fall behind. But their running did them no good, because the group had circled around them, virtually surrounding them with nowhere to go; he had to jerk Beth's arm back to keep her from running straight into one of the people.

Daryl looked around him, scanning for any possible way to escape, but there weren't any. They were all around them, blocking any path of escape. And Daryl didn't like what he was looking at. All of the people were men, and not wimpy and frail men; they were all muscular and well built. Daryl tugged Beth closer to him; he had a feeling nothing good was going to come of this encounter.

He watched as one of the men, a man about Daryl's height and size with shaggy brown hair, stepped forward. He wanted to grab his crossbow from his back, but he knew that would only hinder any chance they had of getting free.

"We don't want no trouble," Daryl spit out, trying to keep his composure so as to not upset the man.

"We don't want any trouble either. We've been following you these past few days. I have to say, you're a tough bunch."

"Just let us go."

A dark smile appeared on the man's face. "Nah, we can't let that happen. We got to get food somewhere."

"You want our food? Here," Daryl said, removing the backpack from Beth's back and tossing it to the man.

The man just looked at it, guffawing loudly. "I don't think we're on the same page. You see, we haven't had that kind of food in a long time; we prefer a more unconventional food source."

"Was that your work at that tent back aways?" Daryl asked, clearly understanding what the man had meant.

"Ah, you saw it. Have to say, that man didn't put up much of a fight, we were all a little disappointed."

Daryl hadn't noticed, his attention had been too focused on the man talking to him, but one of the men off to his right had started to silently inch forward. He saw as the man before him, who was obviously the leader of this group, nodded his head. And before he had time to react he felt as Beth was ripped away from him, a gasp escaping her throat.

He didn't even think his actions through. His hand instinctually reached around to his back, bringing the crossbow to his front, aiming it at the man holding Beth. He had a knife to her throat, the blade pressing firmly to her delicate skin, making it impossible for her to break free without injury and impossible for him to shoot her assailant without him slitting her throat as he fell to the ground. He watched as the tears began to roll down her face, knowing there was nothing he could do to help her.

"Let her go!" He yelled.

"You see, we can't do that. We have plans for you two. We'll get you over with first, make it fast, just a little pain, if you don't struggle you probably won't feel a thing. Her," he said, motioning to Beth, "we have different plans for her. We don't come around women that often, and when we do, they aren't nearly as young and pretty as your little friend there."

Daryl felt his stomach churn. "You son of a bitch. If you so much as lay a finger on her…"

"A finger? I plan on laying a whole lot more on her than just a finger, and I'm pretty sure every man here will do the same. She probably won't like it too much at first, but she'll get over it soon enough."

Daryl felt the heat rise in face; he was furious with what the man was suggesting. He didn't care what happened to him, he just didn't want anything to happen to Beth. His finger rested carefully on the trigger, his eyes narrowing on the man holding Beth. He was about to take a chance, hoping it wouldn't harm Beth, when he saw Beth's eyes widen and felt a hard blow to the back of his head; the world went black around him.

Author's Note: And they finally meet their enemy! Things aren't looking too good for them. What do you think will happen?

And thank you for all of the reviews and favorites and follows! It means so much for me! I hope you enjoyed this chapter.