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

Sixteen

Glen was going to ask me what I meant when I had said we weren't alone but a voice from outside stopped him.

"Dave? Tony?" the first asked as I crouched down near the door.

"They said over here?" a second replied. I took my gun out and cursed myself for only bringing on clip as a backup and my bowie knife.

"Yeah," the first agreed. "I'm telling you, man. I heard shots."

"I saw roamers, two streets over. Might be more around here." Roamers? Wow, it's amazing some of the names you hear for the undead.

"It's hot, we gotta get out of here."

None of us had any idea who was talking now. Whoever they were, they wouldn't be too happy that Tony and Dave now decorated the bar floor. It was interesting that Rick chose to shoot them in the head…did he know that you don't have to be bitten to become a walker?

"Dave! Tony!"

It was the first man again.

"Shut up, idiot!" the second hushed. "You wanna attract them? Just stick close. We're gonna find our guys."

Two men approached the bar.

I glanced over to Rick and held my gun up with a nod.

"Dude! He said to stay close!" came a third voice. This one was considerably younger than the first two.

"Tony!"

Silence followed as our new friends continued down the side of the bar.

"Rick!" I whispered.

He looked at me.

"I could draw them off," I replied.

Rick shook his head. "No! Who knows what they'll do to you!"

"I don't need your permission," I hissed back. "I'm not part of your group."

"You're part of mine," Herschel cut in. "The answer is no. Rick's right, you don't know what men like that would do to a girl like you."

Girl like me? What the hell did that mean?

Rick ushered me back over to them.

"Why won't they leave?" Glenn whispered.

"Would you?" Herschel asked him.

"We can't sit here any longer," Rick announced. "Let's head out the back and make a run to the car. Where you parked?" he asked me.

"Out back in the alley," I replied. "Rick, I could be useful in leading them away. I was the fastest in my unit."

He shook his head. "No, PJ. We need you here, you're the best out of us with a gun. You may be fast but your gunmanship is what we need if this goes south."

"I got news for you Rick," I retorted. "This is so far south we're in Cuba sipping margaritas on a beach full of landmines."

He smiled at me.

And it was a genuine smile.

Suddenly we heard gunshots and it was back to our positions.

"What happened?" I heard someone asked.

"Roamers, I nailed them," the young guy replied. "They disappeared, but their car's still there."

"I cleared those buildings! You guys get this one?"

Great.

He was taking about the bar.

"No."

"Me neither."

"We're looking for Dave and Tony and no one checks the damn bar?"

I looked over at Rick and signalled for him to head to the door first. No offense intended but if I am the best shot that we have, I should be covering them last. The door beside me started to open and I pushed my back up against it, slamming it shut.

"What?" the first man asked. I was beginning to pick out who owned what voice.

"Someone pushed that shit. There's someone in there!"

"Yo? Is someone in there?"

Silence.

"Yo, if someone's in there, we don't want no trouble. We're just looking for our friends."

The two dead friends on the floor? I asked myself.

The three of them started talking amongst themselves whilst we tried to figure something out.

"We don't want any trouble," the repeated. "We're just looking for our friends. If something happened, tell us. This place is crawling with corpses, if you can help us not get killed, I'd appreciate it."

"They drew on us!" Rick shouted.

There was a collective silent gasp from me, Herschel and Glenn. The poor boy looked frightened as all hell, Herschel was silent, like he was going over everything in his mind and me…well I was itching to shoot something. Sitting here like this was killing me.

"Dave and Tony in there?" we were asked. "They alive?"

"No!" I answered before Rick could.

The men outside paused. Their silence told me that they weren't expecting a woman to be in this situation.

"They killed Tony and Dave!" the third man growled.

"Come on man, let's go."

It ain't never that easy.

"No! I'm not leaving!"

I sighed.

"I'm not telling Jane! I'm not gonna go back and tell them that Dave and Tony got shot by some assholes in a bar!"

"Your friends drew on us!" Rick argued. "They gave us no choice! I'm sure we've all lost enough people, done things we wish we didn't have to, but it's like that now. You know that! So let's just chalk this up to what it was-wrong place, wrong time."

"Maybe you send your girl out and we can talk."

I rolled my eyes. "You know it's that sort of attitude that got your dick weed friends shot you two bit, back street, ass fuck."

That was when they started shooting at us.

Rick and I jumped up. He took the door and I smashed out a chunk of the window before the two of us started firing back. "Get outta here! Go!"

Herschel and Glenn took off running to the back of the bar.

"You're next Rick!" I yelled at him. "And don't be arguing with me! You've got a kid on the way. You can afford to lose me! Go!" I roared.

Rick glanced at me and started making his way to the back of the bar but not before I tossed him the keys to the Jeep.

"Gear sticks in three," I told him. "You be ready to get us the hell out of here."

Time always managed to go so slow in combat. No matter what the actions, no matter what the outcome, time always seemed to slow down. It felt like just a split second had past but in reality the minutes that rolled by told the true tale. In the back of my mind, a small voice announced that it was frightened that I was so at home in this world of carnage and death but she was easy to shit up.

I waited until Rick got to the back of the bar and took off following him. Just as I got to the door, the front double doors slammed open and a shot rang out across the bar. I felt an instant pain shoot through my body, pulsating up from my hip.

Rick caught me when I almost fell. He dragged me out the back, firing at the same time. "You're bleeding!" he whispered in a frantic tone when he put me down. He took a hold of the torn fabric of the dress and ripped it down sideways exposing the wound as well as the black panties I was wearing.

"Anything to get into my pants," I gritted in pain.

"PJ this is serious!" Rick grumbled. He looked around for something to stop the bleeding. "This isn't the time to be joking."

"Who's joking?" I laughed. "I was serious. It's just a flesh wound."

"Can you two stop flirting!" Glenn growled. "We need to get to the Jeep in the alley."

"Flirting?" I gasped. "Damn it Herschel!" I hissed as the veterinarian tried to stop the bleeding with an old cloth or something. "This isn't flirting." For a flesh wound this hurt like a mother. It's like getting a paper cut.

"You'll need stitches," Herschel announced. "It's a little more than a flesh wound PJ, we have to stop this bleeding. I'll stay here with PJ whilst you and Glenn sort out our escape plan."

Rick nodded and then went to stand up but I grabbed his arm. "PJ?"

"I'm not gonna lie," I mumbled. "I'm not sorry about that kiss."

Rick stared at me whilst Herschel and Glenn observed in stunned silence. He squeezed my arm tightly for a brief second before I let him go sort out a plan with Glenn.

Herschel helped me stand up. The two of us watched Glenn and Rick disappear outside. "You kissed him?" Herschel asked me.

I nodded.

"Right," was all he said.

The two of us waited until I heard the familiar sound of the Jeep start. It was only than that we headed outside. Herschel handed me off the Glenn the moment we saw one of our shooters with his leg impaled on a fence.

"Well that's new," I retorted.

"Put her in the car," Herschel ordered Glenn.

I could feel the blood rolling down my leg as Glenn helped me into the Jeep.

I wanted to close my eyes for just a moment.

I was safe in the Jeep…the last thing I remembered was Glenn shouting walkers and the sound of gun shots before I passed out.