"Never respond to an angry person with a fiery comeback, even if he deserves it...
Don't allow his anger to become your anger."
– Bohdi Sanders, Warrior Wisdom: Ageless Wisdom for the Modern Warrior
It took us less than the ten minutes Gabriel said it would take, probably because I ran all the way there. When we got there, I noticed there were some walkers outside of the building but nothing too bad.
We got inside through a window on the back of the building, so we didn't have to face the walkers. I was glad Glenn and the others had come because I hadn't brought a flashlight with me but Glenn and Maggie had. So we separated, Maggie went with Tara and I searched with Glenn. We wanted to get out of here quickly if we didn't find anyone here. It had been a long night and two people were still missing.
"I'm sure she's okay," Glenn told me. "Mika too."
"Yeah," I mumbled. "If they are not here, I have no idea where they could have gone or why."
"They probably had to escape."
"They wouldn't run like rats and leave us."
Then it became silent again, I wanted to scream their names and run around the place and look quicker but I didn't want to attract the walkers outside and I didn't want to trip, this place was so dark.
"So..." Glenn started, making me look at him. "Not pregnant, huh? I really believed you back at Terminus when you said you were."
"Well, I needed to be convincing, I wanted Gareth to believe me, didn't I?" I said, trying to hide my nervousness.
"It was the look on your face. Like if you were truly scared that he was going to kill your baby. Like... I don't know, I hadn't seen that look on you before... that convinced me it was true. I was surprised when you said you had lied."
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to make you guys think I was. Daryl probably went crazy for a few hours and he was a bit disappointed when I told him the truth."
"He was?" Glenn asked a bit shocked, I nodded. "Cecilia, look, are you sure there is nothing else you want to tell me?"
"Like what?"
I bit my lip and looked away, I didn't want to tell anyone the truth, not even Glenn. This was a secret I needed and wanted to keep, enough people knew about it already, my mum and Rick. Daryl obviously had to know since it concerned him.
"I don't know, you have just been a bit different lately. Starting with the run, you chose to come with me instead of Daryl, that was weird," Glenn told me. "Then you are pregnant, then you are not and then you become Tara's best friend and you are not the kind that just befriends people, you always keep your guard up, even for months and you've been avoiding your mum even when you didn't see her for months."
"You know my mum and I have a complicated relationship, no matter how good things can be between us. I won't lie that the prison thing affected me but I'm fine. We are finally all reunited... well at least for now, speaking of that, I'm mad at you."
"What? Why?"
"You'll leave with Abraham."
"Cici, I had to say yes."
"No, you didn't," I said, we were looking at the last room in here and still hadn't found them.
"We needed him," he said and then sighed.
Glenn said nothing else to me, he put an arm around me and pulled me closer to him. I took a deep breath before resting my head on his shoulder.
"You have to stay alive," I told him. "This can't be the last time I see you."
"You have to stay alive too," he said to me. "We still have many runs to do together."
"Of course," I said with a small smile.
Glenn and I stayed like that for probably two minutes. No matter what, he was my best friend, he was the first person I befriended in this shit new reality, I was his 'best woman' at his wedding and he had to be there for my own wedding.
"Besides," I said after a very long silence. "You have to be my maid of honour for my wedding," I told him as I finally lifted my head and looked at him, a smile was forming on his lips. "Or you have to walk me to Daryl, I still don't know what you will be doing but I can't get married without you."
"Right," Glenn said with a small chuckle. "Right. I'll be there."
We both knew we can't make any promises anymore, anything can happen but we still did, probably to just give us hope that we will see each other again.
"We should go back, they are not here," Glenn told me, giving me a last squeeze before letting go of me.
Maggie and Tara didn't find anything either, I was disappointed and scared but also relieved. A part of me was fearing I would find my mum cut into pieces for what she did to Terminus.
We walked back to the church, which had already took us twenty minutes, my pace was very slow, I felt beaten. I wanted to search these woods and anywhere close but I had no idea where to start, where to go.
Tara and I were a few steps behind Maggie and Glenn, who were holding hands. Tara noticed how down I was and she put a hand on my shoulder for moral support, I smiled at her.
"I'll miss you," I told her, I unconsciously lowered my pace even more then.
"And I'll miss you," she said.
"You are a good person, Tara," I told her as I stopped to turn to look at her. "Forget about what happened in the prison, it's not on you, okay? None of it." She nodded at me. "And please take care of yourself."
"You too," she said quickly.
"And keep an eye on those two..." I said and looked ahead and noticed they had kept going, I couldn't see or hear them anymore. "You can say Glenn is like the brother I never had."
"Of course," she told me with a smile.
Tara and I kept walking but as we did, I saw a knife on the floor, it wasn't Glenn or Maggie's. I picked it up and looked closely at it. Then I looked around and saw some broken branches on the trees next to us. I didn't need to tell Tara I was going to check that out, she even went ahead of me. Some meters later I saw a body on the ground.
"Do you have your flashlight?" I asked and she nodded, turning it on quickly.
She lighted the body as I carefully crouched to get a better view. I turned it around because it was on his stomach. When I did I noticed this man was killed while he was still alive, he had a stab wound on his chest, he probably was attacked where I found the knife and he took it out himself and threw it there and died only a bit away from the crime scene.
I grabbed the knife and stabbed him in the brain so he wouldn't turn. I stood up again and just looked at Tara, silently asking her what she was thinking.
"He is one of Gareth's men, I remember him. He offered us food when we first got there," Tara told me. "If you want we can keep walking in this direction, maybe we can find something else."
"Sure, let's go."
I didn't like finding a dead man in the middle of the woods, especially when he was killed by another human, not a walker. I tried to keep my cool but my mind was running one thousand miles per hour, I was having all kind of horrible thoughts.
A wild animal, probably a squirrel, ran in front of us, we both jumped and aimed our weapons but the animal was too fast we didn't even see it, but gladly it was nothing else. It still scared the crap out of us.
As we kept walking, we came across a second body, it was a woman and she had more than a stab wound, she had four and another one in her forehead. Her blue shirt was stained with bright red blood, I touched her cheek and it was still warm, she didn't die more than two or three hours ago.
"Let's keep going," Tara told me.
"Was she from Terminus too?" I asked as I started walking.
"I'm not sure."
We kept walking until Tara and I reached the road, we had three options then. Go left, go right or keep straight and get on the other side of the woods. I asked Tara for her opinion but neither of us knew where to go.
I was going to randomly choose a direction when I saw something on my right side in the middle of the road, it was a small doll, I picked it up and started going in that direction, to the right, I remember seeing Mika with that doll in the prison.
"Let's just hope they went straight from here," I muttered.
Tara and I increased our pace, we were almost jogging by now. Luckily, there weren't branches or roots or anything that could make us trip, so the surface was smoother than the uneven ground of the woods.
Only like three minutes later, I heard voices, making me slow my pace until I could finally see three figures and I luckily recognized the two voices I heard.
"You can't go!" I heard Daryl exclaiming.
None of them had seen me yet and when I heard that I got paralyzed in my spot, go? Was my mother trying to leave us all, even me? But she was taking Mika with her?
Tara kept walking and eventually Daryl heard her, I swear some of his senses weren't human. He turned to look at us and because of how dark it was I couldn't see his expression but I knew that he had recognized me, my mum too.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked as I finally reacted.
I walked closer to them but my mum didn't answer, Daryl didn't either, he just looked at my mother, waiting for her to say something.
"Well?"
No one said anything again, even Tara looked uncomfortable, she knew what my mother was attempting to do. Mika just kept close to my mother, I could sense the girl was very nervous and uneasy, she had barely talked lately and it was obvious she was damaged, the sight of her made me calm down a bit because I was getting very pissed.
"Tara?" I muttered, turning to look at the brunette woman. "Would you be so kind and take Mika back to the church? It's getting very chilly here."
"No, please, I want to stay," Mika desperately cried, grabbing my mum's arm tightly.
"Sweetie, I'll be right there," she said to the young girl. "This is a grown-ups conversation, I promise I'll go very soon."
My mother calmed her down and got her to let go of her arm, so Tara quickly put an arm around the girl's shoulder and slowly pulled her away from us. Mika seemed terrified she was being separated from my mum, even when the church couldn't be that far.
Mika was sweet and gentle but she was never a coward, she was brave when she had to be brave. She proved she knew what was going on while her sister made us wonder, so now it troubled me to see Mika this way. I couldn't help but quickly wonder what happened during these last months.
"So, are you going to say anything or not?" I asked to my mother once Mika and Tara were out of sight. "'You can't go', what does that mean?"
Some very awkward and tense seconds passed, my mum was finally going to say something when we heard a car approaching us.
"Hide, quickly!" Daryl exclaimed.
The three of us got behind the car just on time, a dark car passed by very quickly. Daryl stood up and looked at the car and then out of nowhere he ran to the car's back and started to hit the back lights with his crossbow.
"Woah, what are you doing?" I exclaimed while my mum shouted at him to stop, which he didn't.
"They got Beth!" he exclaimed without even looking at us, he just kept going until he broke the lights. "Let's go! Come on in!"
Without even thinking about it, my mum and I got inside the car too, I ended up in the backseat while my mum was next to Daryl in the front, of course at the moment I had a lot more important things to worry about than that.
We were following some random car, I think Daryl mentioned Beth but I wasn't sure and my mum was going to abandon me, I was so worried and I tried so hard to find her and now I couldn't help but feel like a fool. I was angrier at myself than at my mother.
"Just so you know," I spoke up. "You never told me about how you and Beth got separated, you didn't even tell me if she was alive, Daryl, and you will tell me the whole story once I'm done with my mother. So, you better prepare yourself, because I might not be too comfortable following these strangers for someone as slutty as her. So, mum, what were you doing?"
"I don't know."
"Were you trying to leave? Do you want to leave?" I asked her, my voice slightly raising. I was just getting angrier and angrier. "I thought you were happy you found me."
"I am."
"And you were taking Mika with you?"
"She followed me, I couldn't get her to stay."
"So, you were indeed trying to leave without even saying good-bye but you were taking her with you. What is she now? Your new daughter? My replacement? Our replacement?" I exclaimed at the verge of tears, not of sadness but of rage, I was meaning Sophia and I and my mum understood that.
"Don't you dare say that!" she exclaimed, finally glancing at me for a few seconds. "I love you, I loved her and Mika is no one's replacement. She just needs me and I won't abandon her."
"Just like you were not going to abandon me just now," I said sarcastically. "I spent the whole night looking for you because I thought Gareth had gotten you, you could have at least left a damn note."
"I wasn't sure if I was going to leave or not!"
"But you wanted to." Then I let out a sarcastic chuckle, even Daryl looked at me through the rear mirror. " I am just trying to understand this, you were telling me I could trust you, that you were my mother and that I could go to you to tell you stuff whenever I needed to, bad or good stuff, then once you pretend to be a good mother and I actually believe it you just try to walk out on me, as usual. I mean, seriously? You know all I'm going through right now, you claim I'm hurt, that I'm falling apart and you still dare to leave me while I'm in such state? I just can't get it. Couldn't you wait a bit longer? I could understand back at the prison, you weren't there but it wasn't exactly your choice but now it is, so just why?"
"I told you yesterday, I told you the day before, I love you Cecilia, I do..."
"But?" I said, interrupting her. "Because there's gotta be a but in there, otherwise you wouldn't even be thinking about leaving, especially the way you were doing it."
"Look, I'm confused, I still don't know what I was going to do, I don't! Okay?"
"Whatever," I said, crossing my arms and then glanced at Daryl. His shoulders showed how tense he was at the moment and it was obvious he was uncomfortable being in this car with me and my mum. "You know what? You feel guilty for not finding me in that house where you saw Sean? Good, you should be."
"Cecilia, that's enough!" Daryl said quickly, taking his eyes off the road for a second, giving me a warning with his eyes.
"What? She has done worse things she doesn't feel guilty for, like when she didn't even look for me in the farm, she just assumed I was dead or every time I was sent to the hospital because she didn't have the balls to do something to prevent it from happening again or when I went to prison and I was left to rot there or that time when..."
"I said that's enough!"
"Alright, you want me to focus on you, fine," I said, I was very pissed right now and I couldn't help but be angry at Daryl too, he wasn't to blame, but I was too angry to control who I was angry at. "Tell me the whole story, everything. I need to know how you ended up with her, what you did, where you went, if you saw someone else, what happened when she decided to kiss you, and how come she is not here right now and we are following a car because you say they got her. If you don't tell me everything I'm going to jump out of this car, Daryl, because I don't want to rescue her, if you want, if Maggie or someone else wants, fine, but you gotta tell me the story if you want me to collaborate."
Daryl got even tenser, it was obvious he didn't want to talk about it, especially with my mum here with us but these were my conditions, I was angry and I wanted answers, so if I was acting like a bitch, I'm sorry but I felt like I had the right to be.
Daryl took a deep sigh, then my mum quickly gave him some directions, Daryl ignored me for a couple of minutes but he knew I was waiting and he knew I was being serious, if I said I was going to jump out of the car I would do that, he also knew he had no choice.
As I heard my mum and Daryl discussing the routes quickly, I felt how my heart softened because I couldn't be angry at Daryl. He didn't deserve it. He was here because he was looking for my mum because he wanted to help me, he had done nothing but be there and fight for me.
I was angry at my mum and Beth. One tried to abandon me and the other was a friend who stabbed me in the back by kissing my fiance, not a nice move at all. Hearing we were here because of her just made me feel all that rage when Daryl told me what had happened, I just wanted to punch her but since she wasn't here I needed to get my anger out by being a bitch.
Finally, Daryl started his story. He told me he was looking for me in the prison when Beth convinced him there was no one left inside, there was no one left outside, or at least they couldn't see anyone and they both ran from the prison. He also said they found walkers eating our friends, making him lose all kind of hope. Then he told me about the days they spent out in the open until Beth apparently wanted to get drunk, told me about a golf club and the little shack we found time ago.
He made little pauses, focusing on the car ahead of us, making sure we weren't getting too close to them but also that we wouldn't lose them. He also needed to be careful to not hit anything, not even a plastic bottle because that could make noise and alert those people, and it was too dark outside Daryl needed to put most of his attention on driving, especially since he wasn't using the car's headlights.
"Wait, so you saying she drank my moonshine?" I asked in disbelief.
"It wasn't yours."
"It was when I found it, and yours and Michonne's, no one else's. Damn it Daryl. You took her to our special place, now I feel more angry."
"She lost her dad, I was trying to be nice," Daryl exclaimed. "She wanted a drink, I gave her one."
Of course things didn't make me feel better when he told me he burnt the place, using all the moonshine as accelerant, and he said he let her use his crossbow. I felt special when he taught me how to use it, just me, but now I didn't feel as special anymore, I know I was being over dramatic, but I was hurt and probably the hormones were still all a mess inside of me, making me overreact on pretty much everything.
"So you stayed in a house right on a graveyard?" I asked surprised as Daryl kept telling me his story.
"What's wrong with it?" he asked with a shrug. "We are surrounded by the dead all the time, the only difference is that this kind of dead are underground, not walking and trying to eat us. There was a lot of food and water there, we weren't out in the open and we were safe for many days."
"Fair enough," I mumbled. "So what happened there? Why didn't you stay longer?"
"Walkers. They got inside of it, Beth escaped, told her I was going to meet her outside. I barely got out. When I did get out the house I saw a car just like that one with a white cross on the back window driving away, I tried to follow it for days until exhaustion got the best of me and I was found by your ex's group."
There was another pause then, we were just outside of Atlanta now. It had been a very long time since I last came here. After our camp was overrun, Amy and many others were killed, Rick and the others led us here, to Atlanta, to some people they met when they went to rescue Merle, I never knew them but Daryl did, turns out they weren't alive anymore, it looked like they had been killed by another group to steal their things. That was right after we went to the CDC and barely got out of there, then we ended up in Hershel's farm and then I was separated from them but never got even close to Atlanta, big cities are the most dangerous now. We got close to Florida and at some point to Alabama since we never settled in one place and just kept moving and moving.
"So, you are saying they kidnapped her? What would they do that?"
"No idea," Daryl muttered, I could barely understand him now, he was speaking so low and not clearly.
"You shouldn't be so hard on him." I heard my mum saying to me as she finally looked at me. "She had a crush on him for months, maybe even longer. I heard her say it to Amanda."
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Because she was your friend and I never thought she would act on her feelings, besides, we all lived together. I didn't want to cause a drama. Can you imagine living with her, being paranoid all the time, thinking the worst just because she walked past Daryl? No, I kept my mouth shut but I kept an eye on her."
"Now I'm very relieved, thanks," I said sarcastically.
"Believe me, that was the best option," she told me, looking at me for a second.
"Well, I'm sorry but I can't believe or trust you anymore. And from what I remember, your choices are usually the bad ones so..."
"Cecilia, just please stop it!" Daryl exclaimed. "This is not the time or place to discuss that. Now if you don't mind, I need to focus, so shut up."
I stared shocked at Daryl. He had never been so harsh on me and if he had, he apologizes seconds after but not this time. I knew I deserved that. I was just upset and I tend to get frustrating when I'm upset but that didn't make me feel better. The way he talked to me, so coldly, hurt me. And even if I wanted to keep arguing with both, I kept my mouth shut, not because Daryl told me to but because I knew it was the best for now.
I stayed silent in the back seat with my arms crossed over my chest and then I heard it. Daryl sighing. He did feel guilty but he wasn't going to apologize now or he would have done it already.
"Rick's gonna wonder where we went," Daryl commented after a while, breaking the silence.
"At least Tara will tell him we were okay when she left us and that we were all together," I said, this time being the first I talk normally. Then I sat up straight and looked ahead of me and at the wheel. "Is the tank's runnin low?"
"We can end this quick," my mum said immediately. "Just run him off the road."
"Nah, we're good for a bit," Daryl commented.
"If they're holding her somewhere, we can get it out of the driver."
"Yeah, but if he don't talk, we're back to square one. Right now we got the advantage," Daryl said, not taking his eyes off the road at all. "We'll see who they are. If they're a group, see what they can do and then we'll do what we gotta do to get her back."
I bit my lip and let myself fall back into the seat again. I knew we were here because of Beth but I felt so uncomfortable whenever any of them mentioned her. If she hadn't been one of my closest friends I wouldn't be so angry. She knew how much I loved him, she knew we were engaged and she still tried to get into Daryl's pants. Even if she had just lost her father in such a brutal way, that's not an excuse to behave like a slut.
I tried to not listen anymore and instead looked out the window. Looked at the buildings outside. It had been forever since I had been in a big city like this and it almost felt weird to not be surrounded by trees.
The first time I came to Atlanta, I was around five. We were visiting some relatives. I had been living in this little town and I was amazed by the tall buildings and all the lights at night. It was around the time when my dad was actually behaving like a human being and not a monster so we had a good time. Sophia wasn't born yet so it was just us three.
My memories were interrupted when Daryl stopped the car. I turned to look in front of me and noticed the car we were following had stopped too.
"What the hell's he waiting for?" Daryl asked.
Then the driver just turned off the engine of the car, which was very weird. Daryl did the same, the sound of this car could give us away but it would take longer to escape if we needed to.
I quickly grabbed my small gun when I saw one the doors of the car being opened. Maybe they had indeed seen us.
"There's two of 'em," Daryl commented, the man who stepped out was on the passenger's seat. "Is that a cop?"
"Do you think they saw us?" I murmured, earning the attention of my fiance and mother for a couple of seconds, but none of them replied, instead they turned their faces again to look at the man.
We were so concentrated on the man and the car in front of us, we all jumped when a walker got too close and slammed its hands on the window where my mum was. I took a deep breath when I saw it was just a walker and not a person.
"Aw, shit!" I said under my breath.
We all recovered quickly from the scare and we turned our attention to the guy some feet ahead of us. The walker was banging against our car and I froze when the man turned to look at the walker, at our car... at us. He stood right outside their car just staring at us. None of us dared to even blink for some seconds, until the man opened the door and got inside the car.
The other man started the engine and they started to drive away, Daryl tried to do the same but the car wouldn't start.
"Oh, shit! Tank's tapped!" Daryl said frustrated. "They'd have taken the bypass and they didn't. They must be holed up in the city somewhere."
Neither my mum nor I said a word to Daryl, we just stayed silent and as we did we could hear even more walkers close to us. This one banging our car made enough noise to attract its buddies.
"We gotta move, find someplace to hole up till sunlight," Daryl said in a quite tone.
"I know a place just a couple of blocks from here," my mum said quickly. "We can make it."
My mum quickly lowered the window and killed the annoying walker with her small knife. As soon as she did, Daryl and I, followed by my mum, got out of the car. A walker headed to me, I got my knife out but before I could kill it, the walker was on the ground dead... dead for real. Daryl had killed it.
We killed two more walkers before mum started running and we followed her. I was on the very back. A block away from where we left the car, we found a group of walkers. Each one of us had at least two walkers to deal with and more were coming.
I was tempted to get out my gun and shoot them all, it would take approximately twenty seconds but I couldn't risk it. Those men could be really close and could hear and I'm sure Daryl would lecture me all night about it, unless shooting was absolutely necessary, none of us would do it.
Finally we killed them all and we continued our way, this time Daryl didn't let me be in the back. He wanted me in his sight. On our way we encountered a few more but only one or two at a time, nothing we couldn't handle or that stopped us, we just kept running while killing them.
My mum turned right a couple of times, then just continued to run two blocks, then she turned left, ran a bit and then stopped in front of a big building made of bricks, I stood there, just looking at it while my mum and Daryl rushed to the entrance and on their way killed five walkers.
"Cecilia, come on!" Daryl shouted at me, I hadn't moved in probably a whole minute. I shook my head and ran to them.
Daryl was trying to open the door while my mum looked to the street, in case more walkers or even people headed our way, while I stood there in disbelief.
I could faintly here more walkers coming our way, but they were far, I knew that even when I wasn't fully paying attention or concentrating on the sound.
"You got to be kidding me!" I exclaimed as I looked at mother for a second and then at the building again. Daryl stopped what he was doing for a second to look at me but he quickly remembered we needed to get inside, walkers were coming. I just shook my head in disbelief, I knew though, thatI had to get inside, there was no other way. My mum just gave me a look, but I wasn't sure what to make of it.
Not being able to stand the tension, my mother looked away and hurried to the walkers to kill them when I heard a loud noise on my left side, Daryl had managed to open the door.
So guys, I don't know if I told you this last time but after everything I did, I'm back to my home country and it wasn't fair but I'm back and been kind of down. I've been trying to write and to edit a video (on TWD, by thw way) but no luck, haven't progressed at all.
Anyway, hope you like the chapter :)