++++++ I do not own the Walking Dead or any affiliated characters apart from my OC's ++++++

Two

Ebony's reaction was exactly what I thought it would be when I brought the girl back to the cabin with us. She immediately started coddling the girl, offering her food and something to drink from our dwindling supplies which she immediately scoffed up.

Jade took to the girl just as quick as Ebony did, it was the first time in months that I had seen my rabbit this excited. She was happy for another kid to be around, so happy that she immediately burst in a barrage of questions-well as many questions as a four-year-old could think of without repeating herself. I laughed, in the game of twenty million questions, Jade had managed to stick in a question about who her favourite Disney princess was. She kept asking me that same question but as a kid I played with cars and fire crackers, not hopes and dreams.

I set about skinning the animals and bottling the blood for later use. The blood was good to draw away the walkers from the place that you wanted to go. I had used it several times and so far it was a huge success.

"That stinks," Ebony grumbled, announcing her presence to me as she sat down beside me. "The girl's asleep. You did the right thing, PJ, by bringing her here."

I snorted at her and continued cutting the rabbit meat from the bone.

Ebony rolled her eyes at me. "You're a horrible, human being, you know?" she told me. "The girls name is Sophia Peletier, she said that she was travelling with a group of survivors but they were separated on the highway. She said that walkers were chasing her. Poor thing cried herself to sleep."

I snorted a second time. "She was probably making a racket and drew the walkers to her." I stabbed my knife down on the table, "did she say where about on the highway she left them?" I asked, formulating some kind of an idea in my head. If I could get the girl back to her group before we left then maybe I could barter for some supplies in trade for the girl. My intentions weren't the best nor where they the most honest but I was doing all I could for Ebony and Jade, I owed no one anything else.

"Sophia said something about them being on the highway not too far away from the sign on the road that you follow to that farm you won't let us go to," Ebony answered.

I sighed. "I'll get some supplies and go back out there, search for the girls group."

"You've been up for five days straight!" Ebony argued. "You haven't slept, you're not eating so that Jade and I can eat, and honestly PJ you look like a dang racoon with those black rings around your eyes." She folded her arms, "come on, PJ sleep for a couple of hours and then go out looking for the group in the morning."

I cleaned my knife off on the bloodied rag and winked at her. "What are you talking about?" I asked her with a laugh. "I did sleep."

"An hour doesn't count," Ebony growled at me. "PJ-please you need to rest otherwise your body will start to shut down. Eventually you'll become a walker if you don't start taking care of yourself."

I grabbed the compound bow out of the back of the Jeep. "Do you have anything of the girl's that I can use sort of as a goodwill gesture?"

Ebony pulled Sophia's doll out of the back of her jeans and held it out to me. "I knew you'd be going out, you're a stubborn git, you know that?"

"It's my stubbornness that's keeping us alive," I told her, checking my weapons for easy access. "I'm gonna trade the girl for some supplies, hopefully they'll have medicine. It will be winter in the next few months, I don't want Jade to get sick. It would break what's left of my heart if I had to put that little girl down, you know that. Sophia Peletier is the best chance we've got of making sure Jade doesn't die."

"A group is the best chance," she started on me again. "You know it is!"

"I'm not having this argument with you again, Ebony," I replied.

"Too late, we're having it!" Ebony snapped. "I don't understand why you don't want to be a part of a group, a group can provide us safety."

"And I can't?" I snapped back at her.

"You can barely keep yourself awake!" she growled. "You won't let me help, is it some stupid, soldier sense of pride or something? You're gonna get yourself killed adhering to some stupid code of honour trying to protect us. PJ you cry out in your sleep when you manage to get it. You need someone watching you're back. You don't trust anyone."

"If you wanna join a group then be my guest," I told her coldly. "Just don't expect me to follow you blindly. My code keeps me safe, you never trust what you don't know, Ebony and that is what has kept us alive, kept you and Jade alive." I picked up a bottle of blood and strung it to my belt, "I'll drop this about a mile or so away from the cabin in a circular pattern, tomorrow we're leaving. And for the record, I trust you, Eb's."

Not wanting to give Ebony the chance to argue with me, I headed down the overgrown path, leaving my best friend to look after the two girls. Finding my way to the highway was easy, finding any sign of people was easier still. Sophia's group had been there alright, they had gone through a number of cars looking for supplies and weapons. As I walked through the convoy of broken down and deserted cars I scribbled some notes down on a notepad, marking the supplies I could take and where they were until eventually I came across a shit box pale yellow car with some food and water, a blanket and a torch on the hood. There was a note written in white pain on the windscreen-SOPHIA, STAY HERE, WE WILL COME EVERY DAY-I raised the torch and smashed the windscreen before stashing the supplies in my pack and continuing on down the road. Sophia wasn't going to need them, I kept telling myself. I headed down the road and back into the bushes again, following the tracks of a size thirteen set of standard issue police boots down the side of the embankment. The tracks were easy to follow, whoever owned the boots had left a trail that was easy to follow-hell even Ebony could follow this trail through the bush.

I followed the trail through the bush for at least a mile before I stopped for a break-as it turns out, worst mistake of my life.

I cracked open a bottle of water and sat down on the rock to take a sip. Take away the flesh eating monsters and you had yourself an ideal afternoon hike like I used to take with my family. I looked around quickly the moment I hear a kind of wiping sound and jumped up off my rock just in time for me to be thrown backwards into the water of the stream. Pain ripped through my whole body, echoing up from my abdomen, I looked down to see a crossbow arrow sticking out of my stomach. I wanted to scream out in pain but screaming would draw walkers and wounded I didn't need that sort of problem.

I heart footsteps in the dirt, looking up I saw some kind of rough looking farm hand leading a horse out of the brush. I struggled up and grabbed my bowie out of my boot, groaning in pain, I could feel my blood soaking through my clothes and running into the stream. My attacker loaded his crossbow and aimed it at me. I could hear him speaking but everything was blurry.

I blinked, rubbing my eyes, trying to make him out…eventually everything just went black and that was the last thing I remembered.