Carolina in my mind

Chapter 36

Daryl slowed his motorcycle to a crawl when he felt Carolina's arms tighten around him. Her body went stiff and he knew even before she spoke into his ear just loud enough to be heard above the purr of the motor what she was going to say.

"This is it. This is the place."

The certainty in her voice left no room for questions. Daryl made a wide turn just behind the crookedly parked food truck, pointing his bike back in the direction they came and cranking the throttle. This was the fourth location they'd checked as they slowly worked their way through every nursing home in the greater Coweta County area. It took a lot longer than Daryl expected. But since each run swelled their growing stockpile of medical supplies and food, Rick stopped objecting even though Daryl knew he didn't believe they were actually going to find the governor this way.

Rick was following a mile or so behind them in a car. And he was quick to slow the vehicle to a stop when Daryl flagged him down. He started to explain what they'd seen to Rick. But he only got a few words out before Carolina was launching herself off the back of his bike. In her excitement, she caught the seat with her foot and jerked the bike to the side. Daryl cursed as he gripped the bike to keep the whole thing from toppling over in the street. Carolina caught herself with her palms on the pavement before she scrambled over and stuck her face into the driver's side window. Rick flattened himself against the seat, his head pressing back into the headrest as he tried to avoid getting a literal facefull of Carolina's exposed cleavage.

"Michonne!," Carolina squealed, pointing in the direction she and Daryl just came from. "We found it! It's a brick building with a big food truck parked right outside!"

Instead of retreating back out the window once she'd made her loud announcement, Carolina leaned further into the car and started jabbering back and forth with Michonne. Rick leaned back against the seat without complaint until she accidentally elbowed him in the side of the head. Shoving her arm away, Rick glanced at Daryl. He was hoping the man might save him from any further molestation. But Daryl was busy puffing on a cigarette as he stared at Carolina's ass and the way her jeans slid down slightly when she bent forward, exposing a little strip of flesh between the denim and her shirt.

"Carolina!," Rick finally hollered. "If you wanna talk to Michonne, go do it on the other side of the damn car!"

"Geez," Carolina grumbled, backing out of the car window. "You don't have to be so huffy." Pushing her sunglasses back up onto the bridge of her nose, Carolina headed back towards the bike to snag a hit off Daryl's cigarette.

There was some initial discussion between Rick and Daryl about heading back to the prison for more people. On the slim chance that the governor was actually inside the apartment building, there was no telling who was with him or what state he might be in. And counting Glenn, who was currently dead asleep in the backseat of the car, there were only five of them. And two of them were Carolina and Michonne, neither of which were great with a gun. But their eagerness for even the slimmest chance to catch the man and finally put this chapter behind them eventually won out over safety. And once Daryl's bike was hidden in a thick crop of bushes, Rick directed the car back towards the seemingly abandoned apartment building with everyone inside.

Rick parked the car about a block down from the apartment. The sound of Daryl's bike had likely already alerted anyone inside to the presence of other people in the area. But they still didn't want to announce their arrival. Carolina pried the backdoor of the apartment building open as quietly as she could, cringing when the wooden frame finally gave way with a loud splintering crack. The noise alerted the few walkers that were lingering in the hallway. And Carolina moved out of the way, letting Michonne dart in and dispatch them with her sword.

There were two sets of stairs, one on either side of the hallway. Daryl and Rick headed up the closest set first, signaling for the group to stay put. Despite his objections, Glenn followed Carolina and Michonne down around the corner and up the second set of steps.

There was one walker in the stairwell. Both its legs were broken in several places. And it also appeared to have been shot in the chest multiple times. A low guttural growl issued from its throat as it reached for them, its fingers pawing at the air. Carolina slammed her crowbar into its face, gagging when its rotted skull caved in more easily than she expected. Whatever congealed blood that was left inside the creature must have leaked out through the chest wounds. Because there was only a small splatter on the carpeted stairs behind its head when she was finished dispatching it.

Michonne was leading the way up the stairs. And she stopped so suddenly that Carolina nearly avoided slamming into the back of her. The woman's body was stiff and she had her sword raised threateningly. Carolina switched the crowbar to her left hand, using her more dominant hand to pull her gun from the holster. She recognized the woman that was pointing a gun at her friend. It was Tara. She'd become part of the core group eventually. But that didn't mean she wouldn't shoot at them now. Even a nice person would shoot a stranger if they were scared enough. Michonne spoke, hissing under her breath as she asked Carolina if she knew this woman and if she was from Woodbury. Carolina shook her head.

"Just hold it right there!," Tara ordered. "Don't come any closer!"

Tara was pointing her gun at them but Carolina wasn't sure if she even had any bullets left after trying to kill every walker in the building by shooting it in the chest. Carolina took a deep breath before she stepped out from behind Michonne. She tucked her gun away and held her hands up. One open palm was pointing towards Tara, Carolina still had her crowbar in the other hand.

"We don't mean any harm," Carolina said. "We're just looking for someone." Someone that probably wasn't there. Or he would be the one in the hall pointing a gun at them. "Have you seen a tall white guy with only one eye?"

Tara shook her head, obviously finding Carolina's description of the man slightly comical despite the armed standoff they were having. She'd definitely remember if she saw a big guy with one eye. "I haven't seen anyone," Tara admitted. She didn't put her gun away. But she lowered it slightly so it wasn't pointing at Michonne's face. "You're the first people I've seen since the beginning of the outbreak when the national guard evacuated everyone."

"You didn't go with them?," Michonne asked. Tara shook her head again.

"My dad said it was a bad idea. We hid inside our apartment until they were gone," Tara explained.

"He was right," Glenn said, showing his hands before he finally poked his head out from the stairwell. "Everyone that went to the refuge centers died." The one in Atlanta was the worst. They fire bombed it along with the rest of the city, killing anyone that was unlucky enough to still be alive.

"Don't do anything stupid," Rick warned, pressing the muzzle of his gun against the back of Tara's head as Daryl darted forward and snatched the gun from her hand.

"I thought I told you to wait downstairs?," Daryl huffed, casting a pointed glance at Carolina before he turned his attention back to the unfamiliar woman.

"Hands on the wall," Rick ordered, padding Tara down despite her loud objections.

"Get your hands off me, you jerk!," she said, swatting Rick's hands away from her.

The sound of Tara's loud objection must have caused her sister some concern. Because the next thing Carolina knew, Lily was in the hallway swinging a bat around like she was trying out for major league baseball. Daryl jerked back just in time, the end of the bat brushing by the tip of his nose. Rick ducked the next blow, letting it slam against the doorframe where it left a scuffed dent in the painted wood.

"Stop it right fuckin' now!," Daryl warned the woman. "Before ya get yerself shot!"

Lily turned, swinging the bat towards Daryl since he was the one that she felt was threatening her. Carolina used this as an opportunity to rush in. Skirting around Tara, she grabbed Lily, wrapping her arms around the smaller woman in a giant bear hug. Carolina gripped her own wrist to lock her hold, pinning Lily's arms against her body.

"We're not gonna hurt you," she promised. "Please just calm down!"

Carolina held on long enough that Rick was able to move in and twist the bat out of the woman's grasp. Then she let her go and backed up. She hoped it helped a little that it was her and not one of the men that grabbed Lily. Because she looked more irritated than scared.

"Are they from Woodbury?," Rick asked, eyeing Tara and Lily as he smoothed down the front of his rumbled shirt. Carolina shook her head. She obviously knew who Tara and Lily were. But that was from watching them on the show. In this reality, they were total strangers.

Rick insisted on checking not only the inside of Lily and Tara's apartment but every apartment in the building before he was satisfied that they weren't hiding the governor somewhere inside the place. Carolina believed Tara when she said she hadn't seen the man. But she still helped search the apartments on their floor before she sat down to play a board game with Lily's daughter Megan.

As she moved the chess pieces around on the board, Carolina pondered the unexpected situation they'd found themselves in. They got to Lily and Tara before the governor. And she was sure they were going to take the small group back to the prison with them, even though Rick hadn't asked them the three questions yet. But it remained to be seen how that would affect the rest of the storyline. If the governor never found them, would that alter his timeline enough to stop him from returning to the prison? Carolina hoped it might, but she wasn't totally convinced.

"Something about that seem strange to you?," Rick asked, ticking his head towards the open apartment door. Daryl raised his eyebrow as he followed the man's gaze. Not seeing anything strange, he looked to Rick for further clarification. "Carolina," Rick whispered. "She said she's never met those women before but now she's in there acting like they're her best friends."

"She acts like that with everyone," Daryl offered with a shrug.

Carolina was a friendly person. And since it often kept him from having to speak to people he had no interest in speaking to, Daryl rather enjoyed her constant need to conversate with everyone on the planet. Merle was that way too, always running his mouth to people as long as he wasn't strung out and looking for a fight. It was a conflicting mix of feelings, missing his brother and the way he and Carolina were constantly talking not to but at each other while also secretly being just a little happy that Merle wasn't there because he wanted her for himself. It wasn't that she was pretty or funny or curvy in all the best ways, though she was all those things. It was the way she looked at him that gave him a warm feeling in his stomach. She looked at him like he hung the moon. Like she was the luckiest girl in the world to have him. No one ever looked at him like that before. Especially not a girl like her.

"She knew about that helicopter on the roof," Rick said, pressing the issue even though he could tell Daryl was well past exhausted of the topic. "I think she knows these people. Maybe this is some kind of trap…"

"Seriously?," Daryl asked, unable to stop the low rumbling laugh from shaking his chest. "She brought us to a place she didn't know the location of so two women, a kid, and a dying ole man could jump us?"

It wasn't that Daryl didn't think people could be capable of trickery and evil. But that didn't even make sense. And Carolina didn't know about the helicopter on that roof. She just said to check the roof. When Daryl asked her about it later, she said she was worried people might be camping out or hiding up there, because a few times Merle found people doing just that when he was clearing stores for the governor. Daryl did sometimes get the feeling she was leaving things out when she talked to him. But whatever she was keeping to herself, it was going to take a lot more than Rick's weird hunch to convince him that Carolina had any ill intentions.

"Come on man," Daryl said, thumping Rick with the back of his hand. "Ya gotta lighten up."