A/N: Thank you guys for your continued support. I love that I keep getting new readers too! You get an early post this week, because I dont know when I'll be able to post later. Hope you like it! Much loves 3
The sunlight is just starting to filter through the leaves when Sam and Daryl find their first target. Daryl has already shown her how to use the bow and made her practice a few times. He quietly hands the bow over to her, loaded and ready to fire.
Sam keeps her eyes on the squirrel, fat little thing rummaging around on the forest floor, not paying any attention to them. Sam fires the bow, but misses by a few inches, lodging the bolt in the dirt and causing the squirrel to dart away and up a nearby tree.
"Damn it!" Sam exclaims, shoulders slumping with disappointment.
"That wasn't bad." Daryl reassures her, taking the bow to reload it.
"Not bad? I missed by a mile." Sam retrieves the bolt from the dirt.
"That was a smaller target than you practiced on, and alive. You only missed by a few inches. You did good." Daryl cleans off the bolt and loads it again "Give it another try."
The squirrel is still in the tree, chattering away angrily at them.
"Focus and breathe out when you shoot. Keeps your aim steady." he advises when she aims again.
The squirrel tries to leap away at the last second, and the bolt ends up hitting it in the side, knocking it to the ground, there it lays, twitching for a heartbeat before going still.
"Yes!" Sam exclaims "I got it! Did you see that?"
Daryl attaches the squirrel to the rope across his body, "Good job, not a bad shot."
"I can't believe I got something. My first time out too." Sam chatters excitedly, she beams at him "I guess I just have an awesome teacher."
Daryl blushes and shrugs "Probably just lucky."
Sam rolls her eyes slightly "So what now?"
"We find some more game an do it again." he searches the trees for more animals.
"Think there's anything bigger than squirrels in these woods?" Sam asks, following closely behind him.
"There's some deer round here, tracks over there." he points to a bare patch of ground.
"How can you tell? All I see is dirt." Sam stares at the ground with a puzzled look on her face.
He shows her the outline of the prints in the soft ground. "See the way the leaves are scattered? We wanna go that way."
They follow the tracks deeper into the woods, or more accurately Daryl follows the tracks, Sam follows Daryl, taking turns shooting at any poor squirrel that crosses their path. Daryl signals for her to stop and raises the bow, taking aim at the doe a few yards away between the trees. The bolt sinks deep into the deer's side, wounding it as it runs away.
"Damn." Daryl mutters under his breath "Now we gotta follow it an wait for it to die."
"Can we sit for a minute?" Sam asks, not used to hours in such a rough terrain "Maybe find some more water?"
"Yeah, but we can't wait too long. Don't want her to get too far ahead of us." Daryl leads them back to a nearby stream.
Sam sits on a sun warmed rock by the edge of the water and starts splashing handfuls of the cool water onto her face and arms.
Daryl watches Sam out of the corner of his eye, cooling off the back of his neck with the water. The humid summer air makes her tank top cling to her body, the dappled light plays against her face. He licks his lips and turns away.
"Let's go."
Sam stands and brushes the debris off her pants. "Lead the way."
They follow the trail deeper into the woods for hours before they can't see the trail in the dark and decide to camp for the night. When the sun rises they follow the trail again, which circles through miles of woods, back towards the camp. They hike up the final hill and see some of their group, most of the Atlanta group, and a new comer, circled around the deer and the decapitated body of an eater, the deer's neck all chewed on.
"Filthy, disease bearing, motherless, proxy bastard!" Daryl punctuates each word with a kick to the body. He continues complaining about the deer while he walks back to the main camp "Merle! Get yer ass put here, got some squirrels for us up cook up."
The next few minutes are a blur when the new guy, Rick Grimes, breaks the news to Daryl that they left his brother hand cuffed to a roof in Atlanta. Daryl looses it, pulling his hunting knife and swinging at anyone that gets in range. He ends up in a choke hold from Shane, while Rick, Lori's "dead" husband , tries to calm him down.
"I'm goin back for him." Daryl tells Sam "He's my brother. I gotta go get him."
"I'm going with you." Sam says. He looks at her, considering it for a second, then nods.
"Lets get going. Tell me where he is so's I can go get im." he demands of Rick.
They head back to the city, piled in the back of the furniture truck, Daryl, Sam, Rick, Glen and T-Dog. Daryl keeps shooting nasty looks at T-Dog between checking, rechecking and cleaning his weapons.
"He better be ok." Daryl says as they draw closer to the city.
Sam lays a reassuring hand on his forearm "I'm sure he'll be fine. He's one tough bastard, you know that."
"We walk from here." Glen says, parking the truck.
Glen leads them back to the department store from the day before. Most of the geeks have cleared out, just one or two left in the store, which Daryl quickly dispatches. They cut the padlock off the chain and Daryl is first through the door, frantically searching the roof for Merle, Sam follows close behind.
Daryl rounds the last set of pipes, still searching for any signs of his brother. What he sees causes him to lose any composure he has left. He turns away and looks back a few times before his brain can fully process the images it's taking in, the empty handcuffs, the puddle of blood, the saw and the severed hand laying on the ground.
"No!" he shouts, turning away, grabbing his hair with one hand "No! No!"
Sam walks to where Daryl is, and her hands fly to her mouth to keep in a scream, or to keep from throwing up, she doesn't know which. The sight of the pale hand, palm up, almost makes her lose it, but she breathes in deep, trying to ignore the faint smell of blood. Daryl is still pacing back and forth, yelling. She leans against one of the large pipes, bracing her hands on her knees. That's when she sees the definitive blood trail leading away from them.
"Daryl, look" she points it out to him. He lowers his bow from T-dog's face.
"Looks like he got off the roof." Daryl is completely focused on the trail. He borrows a bandana from T-dog and wraps up the hand, sticking it in the pack.
They follow the trail through an office, admiring the two geeks Merle was able to take out, one handed.
"Toughest asshole I ever met, my brother. Feed him a hammer, he'd crap out nails." Daryl replies to a comment from Rick about Merle not making it far.
The trail ends in a kitchen with a handful of Bunsen burners are still going , Merle's belt on the counter and an overturned metal press.
"What's all that black stuff?" Glen asks as Rick inspects the press.
"Burnt skin." Rick replies "He must have cauterized the wound."
"Looks like he took off." Daryl points out a broken window .
"Why would he risk going into the city?" Glen asks, shocked.
"He's on his own, far as he knows." Daryl says, anger clear in his voice.
"I'm sorry Daryl, I really hoped we would find him." Sam says.
"We can search some of the surrounding blocks, but we need that bag of guns." Rick offers.
Everyone agrees with that. Glen lays out a plan, as usual, he'll go for the bag, covered from the back by Daryl and Sam, and the front a few blocks away by Rick and T-dog. Sam peers out from behind the dumpster, watching as Glen hops over the barrier.
There is a scuff of a boot behind him and Daryl turns around, bow raised. The kid, scared looking teenager in baggy jeans and a dirty tank top, sees the bow and starts yelling.
"I'm looking for my brother, he's hurt real bad. You seen him?" Daryl asks, the kid just keeps yelling.
Sam hears the yelling and turns around, Daryl has a kid on the ground, trying to cover his mouth, but the kid keeps pulling his hand away and calling for someone. The chain link fence rattles behind her and two big guys run down the alley, kick Daryl off the kid and keep attacking him. She tries to pull one of them away, but he shoves her back. The fence rattles again and she turns the same time the guys do.
"Glen!" she yells.
"That's the bag! Get it!" one of the guys yells, the other runs for Glen.
Sam gets in his way so Glen can back peddle out of the alley.
Daryl aims his bow and fires a bolt at one of the guys just as a car pulls up to the mouth of the alley. The other one, the he didn't shoot grabs Sam and throws her in the car.
"Daryl!" she screams before they slam the door.
"Sam!" he tries to get to the car, but the driver peels out before he can get there.
Glen slips back inside the fence, pulling it closed behind him, keeping out the encroaching geeks. Rick and T-dog come running up the other end.
"What happened?" Rick looks from Daryl and Glen to the kid, still on the ground.
"They got Sam. This punk and his homie friends jumped me, then took Sam." Daryl goes after the kid again, barely held back in time by Rick.