Daryl reached around in his truck he had enough dry clothes on the floor of his truck and his bag to clothe the women. A sweatshirt to wrap the baby in. His first thoughts was to get them to the hospital, but the baby was pink now and feeding hungrily at Carol's breast. He gave her a protein bar to eat. The cab was warm but they couldn't sit here all night. He would run out of gas before morning.
The baby had a bruise on her head, Daryl didn't want to ask how it got there, it had to have something to do with the reason Carol was running through the woods in the rain in the dark. To Daryl it looked like her partner had gone after the baby and Carol had fought him. He hadn't asked but reading between the lines that's what he thought.
'What are we doing?' Daryl asked. 'What do you want to do?'
'I don't know, I don't know anyone, we just moved here.' Carol told him.
'Where do you live?' Daryl asked.
'Old Crown Road...'
'That's about 6-7miles away, you ran that far with Sophia in your arms?' Daryl couldn't believe it.
'He was going to kill her! I fought him.' Carol told him quietly, Daryl was pleased to see the shaking had stopped but they were still sitting in the dark, with a cold baby and a cold women he needed to get them somewhere or get them to Andrea. All thoughts were going though his head and he knew he had to calm down before he made a mistake and they got stuck in the mud near the guy who did this to her.
'Ya going back?' Daryl hated to ask but women did strange things sometimes. The amount of times he had seen women go back to someone who assaulted them nearly made him lose his mind more than once.
'Never! We are not even married.' Carol told him. 'I've been in a seperate bedroom from him for 9 months. Was only with him a year.'
'How bad are you beat?' Daryl suddenly wondered if he was sitting in the truck with a women with life threatening injuries. He felt like a real tool all he wanted to do was go beat this guys arse and then throw him in jail.
'I'll live.'
'You want to come to my place tonight and tomorrow think about things?' Daryl asked.
'Yes please, thank you.' Carol didn't know why she agreed it might have had something to do with the way he cradled Sophia against his chest for ages to warm her while Carol tried to warm herself in the sleeping bag. He felt safe.
'I'm not a creeper, I just don't know where I could take you both to be safe tonight.' Daryl told her. 'I live just out of town.'
'I don't care, I'm not going back! Take us to the police station, hospital whatever, I'm not going back.' Carol stated with a shaky voice.
'I'm not gona make you do nothing ok.' Daryl told her, 'Hold onto that baby, we not got a car seat ok.'
'My sister inlaw's the local doctor anyway they would just make her go to the hospital anyway to check ya, if we go straight to my house, she's going to be there.' Daryl told her.
Daryl started his truck driving slowly down the old track. He had to drive past Carol's house, she pointed it out to him and she ducked as she saw Ed moving about the front waving a touch around looking for her. His eyes looked wild, she was scared he would see her.
Slowing down as he drove past Daryl felt rage grow within him. How fucken dare this guy try hit a little baby, and the mother of the baby, the baby was still tiny. Watching this man pace across the front lawn Daryl had little doubt that he would have shaken little Sophia like a rag doll with the rage he was viewing from the side of the road.
'That him?' Daryl asked pulling his truck to a slow stop looking at Ed.
'Yes please just go.'
'Hang on. Lock the door.' Daryl jumped out of his truck and walked around to the back lifting out his crossbow slinging it across his back and crept like a panther across the lawn to where Ed was standing.