Newly Revised

"I think we got about a day's worth of water left," Rick said as he walked down the tracks. "We're lucky it's cooled off a little bit, but-" he looked back to find Carl, Sophia, Michonne, and Merle carefully traversing the tracks, not on the boards like he was, but trying to balance on the tracks themselves. "What are you doing?" he asked completely entertained.

"Winning a bet," Carl said.

"In your dreams," Michonne answered.

"I'm just seein' if I can go farther than Pops. If I do, I get my bow back!" Sophia chimed in, Merle having took it from her until her shoulder healed more.

"Yep," was all the man had to say about the matter.

"I'm still on!" Carl proclaimed right before losing his balance and flailing his arms to regain it.

"You spoke too soon, wise guy," Michonne laughed, Sophia chuckling behind Carl.

"This might go on a while," Rick said, walking back towards the four idiots playing a game even though he was smiling and chuckling himself. "Maybe there's a way we can speed this up?"

"Yeah, you're right," Michonne said as she kept walking, "We shouldn't be fooling around. We should probably—CARL!" she yelled really loudly trying to throw him off guard only to lose her own footing as a reward, thus losing the bet.

"I win," he gloated, "Pay up."

Michonne sighed and rummaged in her bag as Carl got out of the way, Merle and Sophia picking up their paces now that no one was in front of them. As Carl complained about the candy Michonne handed over being the last Big Cat, Rick turned around and watched as the two hunters with them played around. It put a smile on his face to see the two kids having fun and smiling, behaving like kids with the two goofball adults. Sophia was now taking leaps down the track, apparently showing off how Ani had taught her how to jump root to root using the ball of her foot. She was pretty good and Merle gave her a few pointers before tripped and started falling backwards fast. Rick thought it was going to be bad until Merle's arm shot out to catch her before she got within a foot of the metal tracks. If it hadn't been for the oldest Dixon, Sophia's head would have been split open in a split second from falling like that.

"Should be more careful, girly. Practice more on trees, less on tracks," he chastised as she laughed.

"Okay!"

"The four of you are somethin' else," Rick commented as Michonne held the candy out to Carl.

"Oh, come on!" she whined as Carl went to take the Big Cat.

"But you said," he teased.

"Go ahead, take it. It's yours," she said, throwing the other candy bar back into her bag. "You won it, fair and square."

Carl opened the candy, took half, and handed the other half back to Michonne who looked at it with desire, "Come on, we always share."

"Should share with Sophia," Michonne commented.

"She likes the other kind," he told her. "Besides, I don't share everything with her."

After a moment's contemplation, Michonne looked at him and smiled brightly, "Fork it over."

Carl handed the woman the candy bar as he smiled took a big bite of the candy bar, looking towards Merle and Sophia. It was nice having someone who wasn't a parent but still older and yet could still relate to him. Sophia had Merle looking after her and teaching her what her mother couldn't and he smiled as he watched the two of them laughing and goofing off in front of him. Finding Michonne had given him some more hope about finding the others and that, even if they didn't, they were out here somewhere. Her story about her son had him hoping that, if Judith hadn't been lost at the prison, at least Judith wasn't alone wherever she was. Sophia was so sure they would find both Ani and his sister, but all he wanted was to make sure the four people he still had around him stayed safe. She had lost almost as much as he had; it was why he was so happy she was around. They had both lost a parent, had to grow up fast, and were surviving and knew how to keep it that way.

"Hey, Sophia!" he called out to the girl, causing her to look back. "You want some?"

"No thanks," she called to him as she and Merle walked back to them. "I don't really like Big Cats. I was always a Creamy Way girl."

"You and Ani both," Merle commented. "Girl always says she don't like candy, don't like sweet things, yet find anythin' with caramel and she's all over it."

"Well, caramel is creamy goodness!" Sophia defended.

"Sure," Merle said noncommittally.

"Can we just," Rick paused to shake his head and chuckle, "can we just get goin'? Or is there another round of games you want to play?"

"No, best we get a move on, Officer Friendly," Merle joked. "'Sides, find a place to hunker down for the night, me and the girly can go huntin', maybe get us some meat."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

~x~

Daryl was surprised by the ingenuity of the group of men that he'd found himself with as they settled down for the night. They wrapped the trees in the area they'd chosen in barbed wire and tin cans, sleeping in close quarters with each other. There was barely enough space to lay down before someone else's feet were in your face but it did mean that they would be safer. It was smart, but he still felt disgusted by them, especially when the night settled in around them and they started talking. The one called Len, especially, had been going on about what he'd done the last time they'd had a woman in their grasp. The topic switched to how they had managed to catch up with the mystery girl the night before last, got close enough to where they could practically smell her. The man had claimed the woman as soon as they'd seen her and had found his brother as dead as the others. Daryl couldn't understand why they were all so hung up on one woman that they were all hunting her.

He'd barely managed to get an hour or so's worth of sleep when he got woken up by the warning system being triggered. The sight that awaited them had several of the men cussing up a storm, Daryl staring on in shock. One of the three men that should have been on patrol with the others had shown up as a walker. Daryl was horrified when he saw it; it's mouth was bloody as it chewed on the thing that hung from it. Judging by the large bloodstain coming from the front of his pants, Daryl knew exactly what it was that the man was chewing. He damn near puked like one of the other men did at the sight and realization that they weren't the only ones hunting out here. One of the men killed it and pushed it away from the camp as the others finally started saying something about who they were hunting.

"Fuck! That's the seventh that whore has killed!" Len said. "Little bitch is still out here somewhere. I told you we shouldn't have stopped huntin' her in the woods!"

"Hold on now, Len," Joe said. "Last time we went huntin' her in the dark, we lost two of our members to walkers and a third like Donny down there. Might have been worth less than shit stains, but they were still a part of our group. She can't get any farther than we can in the dark and already has half a day's worth of travel on us. Might as well get a few more hours of shut-eye and stay in camp the rest of the night. We know she won't try anything when we're in a group. Besides, Jacob and Elliot are still out there. They'll either chase her down and bring her to the check point or meet us there."

"Who's this 'she'?" Daryl asked after a minute, trying to get a better picture of the situation.

"Oh, some wild child we've been chasing for a few days now. First encounter with her, just like this one," Joe said, gesturing to the now dead walker. "She did this to three of our men, Len's brother included. Some good trackers and hunters right there. Mighty fine people. But the thing is, she cuts off their members, stuffs 'em in their mouths so that they wake up with something to eat. Well, it's not like we're going to be playin' nice with her when we catch up to her anyway, so I suppose anyone she catches until then is free game. She just better hope we don't all catch up," Joe told him. "And we are. Only a couple days away if my guess is any good. You're welcome to stick with us and have a piece of the pie, so to speak. Of course, you'll have to wait your turn. Not every day we get somethin' warm and wet to keep us company."

Daryl became restless as the members settled back down, though they kept complaining about the woman. What if it was someone from the prison they were hunting like Maggie or Sasha? What if it's Ania? he thought to himself as he laid on his back looking at the trees. They'd used the term 'wild child,' a term that Daryl had come to solely associate with Ani because of how often she was called that by one of the members of the group. Could he really have fallen in with a group that was chasing after his wife with the intent to pass her around like a common whore? Unable to get back to sleep after listening to the others for so long, Daryl left the group before the sun even came up. H went straight into the woods and began wandering in an attempt to see if he could find any kind of trail. The only one he found was a rabbit's, though that wasn't a terrible haul if he was only feeding himself. He hadn't eaten since the funeral home and he hadn't exactly stopped to eat anything when he'd been chasing after Beth.

Daryl couldn't help but scoff to himself as his mind brought up the numerous times he'd gotten onto Ani about eating for her to simply say she'd forgotten. He'd never understood how someone could forget how to eat until having done it himself. He had told her many times not to use excuses to get away with not eating and that she needed to get better at it. Now he felt like an ass for assuming that that what she was doing; he'd forgotten to eat over the last day and a half running after Beth. All he'd been consumed with was trying to catch up to that car and hadn't even bothered to take a drink. He owed his wife a huge apology for treating her like she was a child when it came to eating. He followed the trail until he found the rabbit munching on a weed a good twenty feet away. Daryl dropped to one knee and lined up his shot before he pulled the trigger and hit the rabbit. He quickly stood with a scowl on his face as a second arrow struck the creature right after his had. Len was standing opposite of him with his bow, looking smug at the rise he was getting out of Daryl.

"What the hell you doin'?" Daryl asked him angrily.

"Catchin' me some breakfast 'fore I look for that wild child," he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"That's mine," responded Daryl as he trudged after the thing.

"My arrow's the one that hit first. Cottontail belongs to me," Len argued.

"Like hell it did. Been out here since before the sun came up," he said, pulling the arrows out of the rabbit.

"You see, the rules of the hunt don't mean shit out here," Len said as he began slowly stalking towards Daryl. "Now that rabbit you're holdin' is claimed, boy. Claimed, whether you like it or not. So if I was you, I'd hand it over, now. Before you start to wishin' you never got out of bed this mornin'."

"It ain't yours," Daryl growled at him, standing damn near toe to toe with the man and refusing to back down from his challenge.

"You know, I bet this bitch, the one you were lookin' for, got you all messed up, hmm?" Len said not so cautiously. "Am I right? Walking around here like a dead man. Must a lost a piece a tail actin' like that. Must've been a good'un. Tell me somethin'. Was it one of the little-uns? 'Cause they don't last too long out here. Then again, I see you got a ring on. What? Lost your wife? You know, if we find her, we can all help keep her warm at night. I mean, might as well share, right?"

The more he ran his mouth, the more Daryl wanted to kill the man, but it was what he'd said about Ani that had him primed to attack. They had already spent time talking about passing a woman around and now this asshole was talking about doing the same to Ani. He'd already almost lost her like that to Shane and the two of them had taken out the group they'd heard talking like the Claimers did. Now this asshole was talking about raping children and sharing Ani as if it was just another day. It was disgusting and there was nothing he wanted to do more than drive his hunting knife into the man's skull. He hadn't even realized that he'd already grabbed it until Joe caught his arm before he was able to even fully pull it out. Len had a smirk on his face as if he had won some kind of prize while Joe had a passive look on his face. Daryl stared at Len with a scowl but he didn't fight Joe when he pushed his arm back down.

"Easy, fellas, easy. Let's just put our weapons down. See if we can't really figure out what's the problem here." Assessing the situation and seeing the rabbit in Daryl's hand, he turned to Len, "Did you claim it?"

"Hell, yeah," Len told him.

"Well, there you go," Joe said. "That critter belongs to Len."

"So let's have it," the man said while smirking.

"Looks like you may be wanting an explanation," Joe sighed while looking down. "See, going it alone? That ain't an option nowadays. Still, it is survival of the fittest. That's a paradox right there. So I laid out some rules of the road to keep things from going Darwin every couple of hours. Keep our merry band together and stress-free. All you gotta do is claim. That's how you mark your territory, your prey, your bed at night. One word, claimed."

"I ain't claimin' nothin'," Daryl said, refusing to go against everything he'd come to believe in with Ani; hell, the girl'd even changed his brother's mind about shit like that.

"We gonna teach him a lesson, right?" Len said as he got up in Daryl's face. "The rules say we gotta teach him."

"It wouldn't be fair to punish you for breakin' a rule you never even knew existed," Joe told Daryl only for Len to get angry and storm in a circle before putting his hands on his hips.

"There are no rules now," Daryl argued back, watching Len.

Not only was was the man a jackass for trying to steal his hunt, he was disgusting with what he'd said about Beth and Ani, hell, little ones in general. How little'd he mean? he couldn't help but wonder as he stared the man down. Men like Len were the reason why he didn't believe rules exited anymore; he had no code, no care for anyone but himself. He didn't care who he hurt as long as his dick was wet and his stomach was full. Daryl didn't want to be a part of this group at all, but he didn't want to be alone and he had no leads on anyone else. He didn't know where to start looking and the best lead he had was these guys who had used the term 'wild child.' At the same time, he didn't want to care about anything anymore so that he didn't lose anything else. That would be an easy enough task to do running around with this group, even if they were the worst kind of men. They didn't care about anyone as long as the rules weren't broken and that was the easiest way of life right now. Rules didn't matter for guys like these and the way the man acted as if they did was belying their true nature.

"Oh, there are. You know that," Joe countered. "That's why I didn't kill you for the crossbow."

Daryl was still staring at Len when Joe reached down to grab the rabbit's front legs while he kept hold of the back. He refused to let go of the creature and if it hadn't have been for Joe's reassurances that everything was going to work out, all three of them would have fought. Joe, for the leader of a bad bunch of guys, tried to be understanding, at the very least. He was level-headed, unlike the rest of the group, and the men seemed to look up to him enough for him to be leader. The thing was, for how much of a bastard Len was, Joe didn't once have to be menacing for him to throw his weight around. If it hadn't been for the comment about passing around the woman they were chasing, the guy could have actually been decent. Merle would have liked him and the way his carefree attitude allowed him to joke around while still being primed and ready to step in and finish the fight. If the man had kept his mouth shut about passing around a woman, Daryl might have respected him more. Instead, he glared at the man as he took his knife and cut the rabbit in half, leaving Daryl to hold onto the back end as he handed Len the front.

"Claimed, that's all you gotta say," Joe told him as he shrugged his shoulders in surrender and Len stormed off, a look of utter disbelief on his face. "Hey, an ass end's still an end."

He stalked back to camp and stuffed the half rabbit in his bag as the others began taking down and packing up their defenses. They all made their way silently back to the train tracks with the only words passing between them being to comment on the other two men sent out on patrol. Daryl didn't know why they were traveling the tracks, but at least they were an easily identifiable marker if he decided to cut his ties with this group. He didn't believe in claiming shit that didn't belong to him; it wasn't the same as when Ani told him to stake a claim to her. She had been willing to be called his and had told him she wanted to be called such in as many words. He had never forced her to be with him and had never once felt like they had been a 'first come, first serve' type affair. These guys didn't even believe in that idea; no matter who saw what first, whoever claimed it first was the one who got it. He knew he should leave the group as soon as possible, but it was highly unlikely that he'd get away unscathed.

"So what's the plan, Daryl?" Joe asked as they moved down the tracks behind everyone else.

"How so?"

"Well, you're with us now, but you ain't soon?" Joe inquired.

"Yup."

"So what's the plan?"

"Just, lookin' for the right place is all," Daryl said non-committedly; that was the only answer he really had.

"Oh, we ain't good enough for you, huh?"

"Some of you ain't exactly friendly," Daryl admitted.

"You ain't so friendly yourself," Joe countered. "You know you need a group out here."

"Maybe I don't," he said, thinking about how he'd lost Merle, Ani, and now Beth; it'd be better to go it alone rather than looking for a random 'she' that he knew nothing about.

"No, you do," Joe said, stopping and turning towards him. "You should be with us. People don't got to be friendly. We don't have to be nice. We don't have to be brothers at arms. We just gotta follow the rules. You claim. If you steal, you keel. I know that sounds a little funny, but nobody laughs when somethin' goes missin'. And you don't lie. 'Cause that's a slippery slope indeed."

"What happens if you break 'em?" Daryl asked, thinking that they were simple enough rules for the time being, even if the principles behind them weren't the most honorable ones.

"Oh, you catch a beatin'," Joe said nonchalantly. "The severity of which depends on the offense and the general attitude of the day. But that don't happen much 'cause when men like us follow rules and cooperate a little bit, well, the world becomes ours." He whistled to the group as they passed a worn-down building on the train tracks, "This is our abode for the evenin'. First buildin' on the track. The boys'll be here if they aren't dead."

"Hey," Daryl said. "There ain't no us."

"You leavin' right now?" Joe asked Daryl as he walked back over ot him. "No? Then it sure seems like there's an us. Are you a cat person, Daryl? I am. Loved 'em since I was three years old. Vicious creatures. Anyway, I'll tell you, and this is true. Ain't nothin' sadder than an outdoor cat thinks he's an indoor cat."

"Know someone who'd say different," Daryl responded without even thinking.

"Oh yeah?" Joe asked, intrigued. "Who's that?"

"Don't matter," he said with a shake of his head.

"It does. What'd they say?"

"Just some dumb story about a cat bein' a cat whether it's indoors or out," he huffed. "Still got the same instincts and all that, just one's more battered and bruised, the other's pampered. Pamper the battered and bruised, they become pampered, vise versa. Just some stupid shit like that."

"Must've been a woman," Joe chuckled with a nod of his head. "Only women think like that."

"Yeah," Daryl admitted.

"Your wife?" When Daryl didn't respond, Joe said, "Ah well, in this world, who wants to be tied down anyway, right?" The hard look Daryl gave him sobered the man, who said, "Recent loss, eh? Well I'm sorry. Seems men like us don't just get our happy endings, we have to fight tooth and nail just to get the scraps. I'm sure she was a good woman."

"Yeah, she was," Daryl answered, staring at the tracks and off into space as images of Ani flooded his mind.

"Well, let's get this place cleared, see if the other two we sent out on watch are here or come back. Never know with that wild child," Joe said, clapping Daryl on the shoulder before leaving the man to stand on the tracks by himself.

Daryl didn't have much choice but to either keep going, most likely to be stabbed in the back by members of this group, or keep their company for the night. There was no guarantee shelter would be available further down the track, let alone that he would find anything worthwhile. He might as well stay with the known threat in a relatively safe environment than risk an unknown threat out in the open. Len stood at the door looking out as the other men went inside and scoured the place as Joe and Daryl walked up to the tiny station and entered last. It didn't even look like it was a train station when they got inside, but a mechanic's garage or a car museum. There were several decent looking cars under the tarps they were met with upon first entering. Daryl looked around at the few that weren't covered before walking over to one of the ones that were. It was a decent looking car; maybe he could find some gas or there was some in the tank and he could use it to get away. Other than the cars, nothing else seemed to have been touched as a thick layer of dust and the smell of rust lay everywhere.

"They ain't here," one of the men said in irritation after scoping the place out. "Nobody's been here for a while. Whoever it was got all the gas."

"That don't matter," Joe told them. "We're gettin' closer. I can feel it. Jacob and Elliot might be comin' back, too. We wait the night, then head back out."

"Claimed," a younger member said as he walked up to the car Daryl was currently inspecting.

That started a round of people claiming the available vehicles, Daryl not even bothering with trying to claim one. There weren't enough cars to go around for everyone to use one, though some of them were willing to share. Daryl just found a corner of the room where he got as comfortable as he could on the cold concrete while the rest settled in. He knew both Len and Joe were watching him, hell, most of the group was watching him, but he didn't really give two shits about it. He didn't have it in him to feel hopeful anymore or to bother with Joe's stupid ass rules right now. He laid down and covered his eyes with his arm, using his bag as a pillow of sorts, trying not to let the cold bother him. A banging on the door a few hours later alerted everyone to the fact that someone or something was on the other side, jerking the few who had already found sleep awake. Most of the men took up arms, Daryl included, as Joe went over and tapped on the door twice and waited a few ticks. When there was a responding set of knocks, he opened the door to let the other two men enter, one supporting the other as he hobbled around.

"She got the jump on us. Chased her half the night 'fore she disappeared into the trees. Came back around behind us out of no where. Killed Donny and then she was gone again. Started catching up with 'er and then she threw this damn thing at me. Got me in the damn thigh. Took advantage and started just hoppin' away. Know how she gives us the slip now. Uses the roots," the one with the wounded leg said, holding up a weapon that had Daryl freeze, paying a lot more attention to the conversation. "Don't think she's headin' this way anymore, Joe."

"Well, dammit, Jacob! We can't track two groups! We were countin' on them workin' together to catch 'em!" Joe said angrily before sighing with a shake of his head. "Oh well, we'll cut our losses and keep searchin' for the ones we know're on this track."

"Cut our losses?!" Len yelled while moving to stand in front of Joe. "My brother was one of those damn losses!"

"And that's just shit, ain't it?" the man asked calmly. "But unless you want to go hunt her on your own, we're stickin' to the tracks and the ones we know we can find. Not some Rambo-woman with a death wish."

"Can always have this," the other man, Elliot, told Len, tossing something at him.

"Why the fuck would I care about that?!" he asked as he blocked the blade with his bow, sending it skidding to Daryl's feet.

"It's what I pulled out of Jacob's leg," Elliot said with a shrug. "It's all we got that we know is hers."

"I don't want no damn knife! I want the woman!"

"Well, we aren't getting the woman, so that's the best you're gonna get," Joe said..

"Claimed," came the word as before Joe even finished talking, not from Len, but from Daryl.

Swooping down, he grabbed the dagger up and held it in his hands, making sure it was the blade he had thought it was. Hope began growing as he looked at it because he knew exactly who's blade this was and what it meant if it'd been thrown. Down to a dagger and still alive, he thought, trying hide his shock and elation. Everything they had said about the woman they were chasing came to his mind as he thought about Ani. They had been chasing her and she had been killing them left and right; they'd said seven of their number had fallen to her. She had made it out of the prison and was at least relatively well off if she was running from these assholes. He wondered if she could breath properly and whether or not she was eating enough. It was getting cold at night, too, making him worry about whether or not she was going to get sick all over again. The others around him couldn't tell what he was thinking as he held the blade in his hands before moving it to stick in his belt.

"What the hell you want that dagger for anyway?" Len asked.

"Just don't want you to have it," Daryl snarked, earning a chuckle from a few of the men before he laid back down.

The evening passed quickly after that, Daryl getting very little shut-eye, but clutching that dagger behind his head all night thanking whatever Ani believed in that they'd kept her safe. Even though he felt hopes and prayers were useless, he still hoped and prayed that whatever was watching over his wife would keep it up until they could be reunited. They were heading in the opposite direction of where they knew she was, according to the scouts, and he had no idea if she would stick around. Daryl knew his wife well and knew that she wouldn't let a group like this go easily. She might very well have circled around to keep an eye on them, but if she had, she would have seen him and given him a sign. He'd gone outside to take a leak and smoke while collecting his thoughts a few times during the night in case she actually had. He was half tempted to cut out in the dead of the night, but knew that doing so would only prove deadly to him. He grabbed a twig to chew on when he went outside for the last time before laying back down and trying to relax.

"You've got to be kidding me," Len said from somewhere to the side before stalking up to Daryl as angry as a badger. "Give it here."

"You step back," Daryl said quietly.

"My half was in the bag. Now it's gone," Len insisted as Joe walked up. "Now ain't nobody here interested in no half a damn cottontail except you. Ain't that right?"

"Man, you're the only one still thinkin' about that crap!" Daryl told him indignantly; he'd forgotten all about the damn thing when the dagger appeared.

"Empty your bag," Len said, stepping forward to grab it.

"I said step back," Daryl said as he grabbed the bag.

"Did you take his rabbit, Daryl? Just tell me the truth," Joe said, slowly taking Daryl's bag from him.

"I didn't take nothin'," he told him.

"Well, lets see what we have here," he said before emptying the bag on the ground. "Come on." The last item to fall out of the bag was the first half of the rabbit. "Well, look at that."

"You put that there, didn't you?" Daryl accused Len, his voice growing louder with his next accusation, "When I went out to take a piss?!"

"You lied," Len said, getting in his face.

"Didn't you?" Daryl repeated, pushing him away.

"You lied. You stole. We gonna teach this fool or what, Joe?" Len asked as he came to stand toe to toe with Daryl once again.

Before either of them could have a go at each other, Joe stepped in to mediate while separating as he talked, "Now, Daryl says he didn't take your half of the rabbit. So we got a little conundrum here. Either Daryl lied, which is an actionable offense, or..." Joe chuckled before turning to Len, "Or you didn't plant it on him like some pussy, punk-ass, cheatin' coward cock, did ya? 'Cause while that wouldn't be specifically breaking the rules, it'd be disappointing." Daryl simply stared at Len as he continued to deny the accusations and get in his face. "Good. Well..." Joe said after a moment only to turn around and sucker punch Len right in the face. "Teach him a lesson, gents. He's a lying sack of shit. I'm sick of it. Teach him all the way," he said before he turned around and told Daryl quietly as the other men began to beat Len, "I saw him do it."

"Why didn't you try to stop him?" Daryl growled at Joe, trying to ignore the sounds of his childhood repeating itself behind him.

"He wanted to play that out. I let him," Joe said simply. "You told the truth. He lied. You understand the rules. He doesn't." He bent down and picked up the top half of the rabbit before tossing it at Daryl, "Looks like you get the head too."

Daryl said nothing, just turned his back on the men beating Len and collected his things while thinking about how Len deserved the beating. He threw them into the bag he was carrying his things with, meager as they were. Laying down with his back to the group, he closed his eyes and gripped the dagger for dear life, cutting into his hand as he tried to block out the sounds behind him. Only after the noises had stopped did he bother to address the cut, wrapping it with the piece of Ani's old shirt that he kept from the shack. The door was banged open all too soon in the morning, startling Daryl from his nightmares, where the sounds of last night plagued him along with images of the same being done to him and Ani. He groaned as he rolled over and sat up, the bloodstains on the floor showing just how serious a beating Len had taken. Even if the amount of blood splattered everywhere wasn't enough to show what happened to the man, his beaten body with an arrow through his eye. He had just been thrown outside the building like a piece of trash and Daryl couldn't help but remember what Beth had said about how it mattered how bodies were treated. He grabbed a tarp to cover the body before realizing that it really didn't, not for men like him. That man would have raped both Beth and Ani if he caught them and Ani wouldn't have cared about his death. She didn't any of the Claimers she'd killed so far if the way she treated their bodies afterwards was any indication. If she didn't care about how these people were treated in death, why should he? He threw the tarp down and stormed off after the rest of the group while Joe waited for him a few yards behind the others.

"White Lightening," Joe said, offering Daryl a flask he'd just taken a swig from himself. "Easiest thing to make with the least amount of supplies. I'd start slow if I was you. You're stomach's probably emptier than you think."

"Mmm," Daryl said after taking a healthy gulp and handing it back. "I ain't been lit at dawn since before everything fell apart."

"Fell apart?" Joe asked. "I never looked at it like that. Seems to me like things are finally starting to fall together. At least for guys like us. Livin' like this, survivin'. We've been doin' this from the start. Your wife. She anythin' like that? Like us? Or did you find her after?"

"Both," Daryl admitted. "Was like us, but better. She got out. Made somethin' of herself. Didn't forget who she was at the end of the day, though. Didn't need me around to protect her, just liked me doin' it. Kicked my ass once or twice when drinkin' 'shine."

"Mmm, really sounds like you got it bad," Joe said with a nod of his head. "I had an old lady once. She was gone long before all this happened. Cancer. She tried makin' somethin' of me, but I knew who I was. End of the day, that's all that's left. Who we are."

"Getting closer," one of the men said as the rest stopped to look at a map.

As Daryl saw it, he remembered the car ride to the veterinary college and put two and two together, asking Joe, "You seen this before?"

"Oh yeah," he said, honesty shining from his eyes. "I'll tell you what it is. It's a lie. Ain't no sanctuary for all. Ain't gonna welcome guys like you and me, gals like your wife, with open arms."

"So is that where we're headed?" Daryl asked as they continued walking down the tracks beside Joe.

"So now you're askin'?"

"That's right."

"We were in a house, minding our own business the night after we lost three of our men to that wild child. This walking piece of fecal matter was hidin' in the home. Strangled our colleague Lou and left him to turn. Lou came at all of us. He lit out. We tracked him to these tracks and one of those signs, and thus we've got a destination in mind. Caught tracks of that girl too, which had led us to that house in the first place. Figured they might be together, but after the other night, well, that theory got blown all to hell."

"Have you seen any of their faces?"

"Only Tony, and that's enough for a reckoning. Though, we suspect there are others with him, a couple kids and another man and woman. Not entirely sure, was busy fighting Lou to get a good look."

"And the girl?"

"Len saw the girl's back; she was carrying a couple of bags and has some crazy long hair, but that's about all he could rightly say about her appearance. As for her ability, well, damn, he said it was almost like tracking an animal how well she could move at night. We tripped over ourselves for miles lookin' for her in the dark before callin' it quits, only gettin' one clear shot at her in the very beginnin' before she took off. Kept on her trail and sendin' guys out thinkin' she'd be exhausted bein' alone. Damn bitch kept givin' us the slip and killin' our men. She knew what she was doing, too. No one in their right minds would treat a body like that. Cold and calculating. That's why we wanted to catch her. A crazy girl like her would be all kinds of fun. Only problem is, we never fully caught up to her. Don't think we will now."

Daryl listened to Joe talking as he thought about what his wife must have been through to have fought against these men so viciously. He now knew that she was all alone and that all she had was a couple bags; most likely a couple of the bug out bags from the prison. It was pretty easy to tell why she would take the risk of taking time to mutilate their bodies and left them to turn. One of them must have tried to claim her, to touch her when they caught her the first time. She had told him once that she would never lay with another man and she sure as shit had kept it and sent a warning and a threat. Daryl didn't think it was her fault that these men didn't get the hint; it was pretty clear they should have left her alone. Instead, they had kept chasing her and now he was chasing her with them solely because it was his only lead. And with what they said about two men, a woman, and a couple kids, there was a good chance that it was a small group from the prison. It had only been half a week since it had fallen and the description seemed like too much of a coincidence to cut out before finding out if it was. And if it wasn't, well, Ani would have his hide if he left kids to whatever fate these people had in store for them. As he claimed a wild vegetable away from the man who saw it, he hoped Ani was still heading the same way they were. He had to maintain appearances until he knew for sure and that would be easy enough considering how simple their way of life was. Wait for me a little longer, baby girl. I'll find you yet.