Chapter Six

Daryl's POV

Sophia was missing.

Tensions were running unbelievably high.

Everyone had a chip on their shoulder and no one could blame the other for it.

Stuck out on this highway as we were, it was a miracle that a fight had not broken out amongst any one of us yet.

But then...I had been noticing more and more the furious way Shane had been looking at me, like I had done something wrong, like he had done something wrong...and he needed to let his anger out.

I knew he and Rick had been having some problems with each other lately; nothing anyone else could do about it, though.

It was their own business, and I tended to keep mine to myself.

Glenn, Shane, Rick and I had already retraced Rick and Sophia's steps in the woods, leading us to a small river bank where they had split up.

Their footsteps had been easy to follow up to this point, even with Glenn walking all over them and me having to tell him to get his ass off of our tracks.

However, Sophia still had yet to be seen, not being in the place Rick had left her and everyone of us could see how much this fact was quickly eating away at the former cop.

I crouched down low to the ground once we ascended back onto higher ground from the water, my eyes searching for the distinct markings in the dirt and the sweep of the leaves that I had been trained to spot, the rest of the small group behind me.

"...doing just fine 'til right here; all she had to do was keep going," I announced to the others, pointing to a new direction, "...she veered off that way."

"Why would she do that?" Glenn asked, a fair question for us all to think about given how oddly her trail had turned when it truly had been a straight shot back to the highway.

"Maybe she saw something...spooked her...had her run off...?" Shane answered reasonably, looking back at us all.

"Walker?" Glenn's voice grew worried with just the single word.

I shook my head to indicate the negative.

"I don't see any other footprints 'sides hers," I replied solemnly, adding to everyone's confusion, no doubt.

We decided that some of us should head back to the others still sitting on the highway to let them know that we were still looking for Sophia and that we had managed to find her trail at all.

Carol, most of all, needed to know this much from us so far.

Rick and I were to stay behind in the woods to continue our search, him following me closely while I kept my eyes glued to the forest floor.

Rick really was terrible at tracking, so I remained patient with him as I explained that Sophia's tracks were faint but not completely gone while we continued to slowly navigate down the path I created.

"How can you tell?" Rick asked me and I could hear the bafflement as well as an underlying tone of admiration in his voice as he continued, "...I don't see anything, dirt...grass..."

"You wanna lesson in trackin' or you wanna find that girl and get our ass off that interstate...?" I answered his puzzlement with a playful question of my own while we walked next to each other, Rick only taking a step once I did.

In spite of our current predicaments, I felt calm, totally at ease with looking for tracks in the woods as I was with the leader of our group.

I was Zen.

Rick, of course, looked troubled, riddled with guilt and worry, and he stuck close to me as a result.

I didn't mind.

I was in my element and doing something I was good at with someone I respected by my side.

Suddenly, we spotted a walker, the rustling of leaves making us both squat down low so we were less likely to be seen.

Rick and I operated well together, as it turned out. With only a few soundless gestures between us, we easily cornered the walker and I put a bolt through its skull from a few yards behind.

We quickly decided that we needed to cut the damn thing open to see if any body parts resembling the girl we were looking for were inside it.

"How many kills you skin and gut in your life...?" I posed the rhetorical question to the city cop, offering in my own way to be the one to do the dirty work as I stood over the fallen walker, adjusted my gloves, and readied my buck knife, "...and mine's sharper..."

Rick looked like he wanted to throw up, the poor guy, but I paid his green expression little mind as I continued my task, knowing that it had to be done and he would get over it.

Rib cages were a bitch to saw open, but after a few tries I was able to separate the bones I needed.

"Here comes the bad part..." I commented aloud in somewhat humorless jest, before I pulled the walker's torso open even wider, revealing dead, blackened insides.

I had pity on the squirming man next to me and dug in, jerking free a few organs that were in the way of the intestines so I could follow their girth and see if it had eaten something recently.

"Yeah...hoss had a big meal not long ago...I feel it in 'ere..." I said calmly to Rick, having to lean towards him while I worked, able to feel the unprocessed carcass of something inside of it.

Rick piped up and offered to see what it was that the walker had eaten.

He seemed a little steadier than before, as he used his blade to rip open the stomach I had pulled free for him, both of us worried about what we might find but not speaking a word about it.

"This gross bastard had himself a woodchuck for lunch..." I concluded, holding up the bloodied skull on the tip of my knife for us both to see, feeling relieved as Rick and I both stood up to leave the site.

But still...we still had no sign of Sophia, either dead or alive.

I knew the others would hear this news and despair.

Especially Carol...

But I refused to think that way. I did not want to give up on this like I had given up on so many things.

It was with heavy hearts that Rick and I decided to go back to the others on the highway; they'd be waiting for us and it was beginning to get dark outside.

I could hunt and track well but everyone got lost in the dark.

I was no different.

Even though we had confirmed that the only walker we had come across in that area had not gotten Sophia, Rick still looked torn.

I could tell he was angry at himself...I knew because I had seen that same expression on myself more times than I could count.

My chest twisted at the sight of it on someone like him.

"Don't worry..." I spoke quietly, intimately, for only Rick to hear and no one else, not even the trees that we slowly passed, "...we'll find her."

His sky-colored blue met mine in a gentle flash and the faintest of smiles touched his lips, a smile that clearly said 'thank you' to me, and I nodded to him to tell him that he was welcome.