My knuckles stung as I stretched my hands. I walked over to the tan truck with Jimmy in tow to figure out where we'll be searching next for Sophia.
"I'd like to help." Jimmy said as we walked up to the group. He was a bit hesitant to do so, especially after noticing the look Daryl was giving him. "I know the area pretty well and stuff."
"Hershel okay with this?" Rick questioned, looking between me and the boy.
I shrugged my shoulders unaware of Uncle Hershel's approval or disapproval, but when Jimmy said, "Yeah, yeah. He said I should ask you." I trusted him. He hasn't lied before and I didn't see a reason for him to start lying now.
"Alright then. Thanks."
"Nothing 'bout what Daryl and that girl found screams Sophia to me. Anyone could have been holed up in that farmhouse." Shane sat on the edge of the inside of the truck. His voice was already annoying to me, but when he said 'that girl', it sent a wave of anger through me.
"Anybody includes her, right?" I snapped. "And my name's Vesper, not 'that girl'." Shane glared at me through the window and I glared back at him. He may be used to running things and not getting checked, but boy are things gonna change while he's on this farm.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Daryl scratch the side of his nose. "Whoever slept in that cupboard was no bigger than yay-high." He held out his hand to a little above the height of the truck hood. It was definitely a child in there, unless it was an extremely short adult.
"It's a good lead." Blondie said while readjust her straw hat.
Rick looked over at Daryl. "Maybe we'll pick up her trail again."
"No maybe about it. I'm gonna borrow a horse. Head up to this ridge right here, take a bird's-eye view of the whole grid." Daryl pointed out the ridge for everyone to see. "If she's up there, I'll spot her."
"Good idea. Maybe you'll see your Chupacabra up there, too." T-Dog pointed at the same spot Daryl did.
"Chupacabra?" Rick asked with an incredulous look on his face.
"You never heard of it?" The old man, Dale, placed a duffle bag of guns onto the truck. He sorted out the weapons as he spoke. "Our first night in camp, Daryl tells us that the whole thing reminds him of a time he went squirrel hunting and he saw a Chupacabra."
I slapped Jimmy on the arm when he started to snicker. Chupacabra are nothing to laugh about, whether they're real or fake.
"What are you braying at, jackass?" Daryl had a slight blush on his face, but was still ready snap at people.
"Jimmy, no." I tried warning him, but he didn't listen.
"So you believe in a blood-sucking dog?" He had a skeptical look on his face. Of course that's what he's asking. It's not like the dead have come back to life or anything.
"Do you believe dead people walking around?" Daryl took the words right out of my mouth.
Jimmy stared at the redneck before reaching out to grab one of the rifles Dale laid out. "Hey, hey." Rick pulled the gun away from his grasp. "Ever fire one before?"
"Only at a paper target and beer bottles." I answered for Jimmy before he could speak.
He shot me a glare. "Well, if I'm going out, I want one."
"Yeah, and people in hell want Slurpees." Daryl slung his bow over his shoulders and walked away.
"They're right, Jimmy. You could hardly hit all the targets when you used to practice with Otis. A moving target is different and more nerves are involved with it" I pulled him a bit away from the group as I spoke. If he wanted to help, fine, but he's not gonna be shooting a gun when he's more likely to shoot himself than a damn wall.
"Why don't you come train tomorrow?" Shane stood up, draping his arms over the truck door. I eyed him and the pistol he was loosely holding, not trusting him one bit. "If you're serious, I'm a certified instructor."
Jimmy looked questioningly at me, waiting for answer. "You clear it by Uncle Hershel first, but until then, answer's no."
"For now he can come with us." Blondie gazed over at Shane and walked away.
"He's yours to babysit, then." Was Shane's reply.
"You stay by them, Jimmy. No guns, no shooting. You listen to Rick unless he says otherwise. Are we green?" I pulled Jimmy's attention back to me. I wasn't happy that he was going to be around Shane, but I had a feeling Rick would keep him in check long enough for them to get back to the farm. "Are. We. Green?" I asked again after getting met with silence.
He nodded his head. "Yes ma'am- I mean, Vesper. We're green."
With a sigh, I released his arm and followed after Daryl. The trek to the stables was long enough for me to wish it was closer. I went over to the pasture to get Bear and started saddling him up next to Daryl and his horse, Nelly.
"Are you sure you wanna ride that one?" I asked as I put the saddle blanket on Bear's back.
He grabbed the reigns and attatched them to Nelly's bridle. "You gonna be cryptic or you gonna tell me why I shouldn't ride the damn horse?"
"She's a nervous one, that's why her name is Nervous Nelly. We got her a bit before everything went to shit and we haven't been able to ride her all that much. She's jumpy."
"Then it looks like she's gonna be getting some practice then." He finished saddling the horse up and walked her outside.
"Guess who's gettin' bucked off, Bear? Not me." I laughed and shook my head. "You wanna know why? 'Cause you're a good boy."
Daryl was already sitting on Nelly when I rode out with Bear. We rode in silence for a bit before Daryl broke the silence. "What happened to your hands?"
"What?" I gave him a questioning look, a bit confused by what he had asked.
He pointed over at my hands that were sitting on the saddle horn. "Your hands, what happened to 'em?"
"Oh, um... I busted them up pretty badly the other day. They're still bleedin' a bit so they'll be wrapped for another day or two, hopefully." I contemplated telling him that I knew his brother, but I settled on an apology for the before instead. "Daryl, I'm sorry about yesterday."
He glanced over at me, his head slightly bobbing as the horses walked. "What do ya mean?"
"Like the comment about the stick up your ass... It was a good jab and you do have a stick up your ass, but it was a bit uncalled for on my end."
Daryl grunted, "It was a good one. Sorry for gettin' in your face and shit."
"You don't seem like the one to apologies." I glanced over at him, moving a branch at out my way.
"Neither do you, yet here we are." Daryl urged Nelly to go a bit faster and I watched them with a small smile on my face. Hopefully this is a a bit of a sign that today's search will go better than yesterday's.
We continued to ride up to the ridge in more silence. Daryl shot at whatever squirrel he could and I started to regret not taking my bow with me. It's been a while since I last went hunting - the last time being when Shawn and Aunt Annette died.
My brain quieted down for the first time in days with the trees brushing against my arms and the gentle sway of Bear's walk. The combination lulled me into a half-sleep until Daryl's voice sounded ahead of me.
"See that?" He pointed out what looked like a body in the creek down below.
"The doll?"
"Yeah. It looks like the one Sophia had." He hopped off Nelly and handed me her reigns to hold. Daryl climbed down the steep, into the ankle-high water, and picked up the doll he spotted from above. He stared at it for a moment before calling out her name. When there was no response, he climbed back up the hill.
As we rode for a bit longer, Nelly got spoked by some birds. "Whoa. Easy, easy." He calmly said to the horse. In that moment a bad feeling started to settle in my gut. I kept my eyes open for an walkers that might jump out as we continued on.
Not even a few minutes later, Nelly reared up in fear. Whatever spooked her also spooked Bear. I tried grabbing on as best as I could, but my grip slipped after the gauze got caught and tangled in the reigns. The world blurred around me as I tumbled down the hill we were walking on.
Any chance I had at catching myself was quickly lost when leaves and sticks turned into a massive, slippery wet rock. A sharp pain radiated from my left leg and when I looked down, I saw a large gash. It didn't take a genius to know that my tattoo will have a giant scar across it when it heals up.
I took off my over shirt and wrapped it around my leg before moving over towards Daryl. One of his arrows managed to go right through the left side of his stomach when he fell. We helped each other move across the creek to the closest piece of land. He ripped off the arms of his shirt with his knife and used the fabric to tie it around his waist and arrow.
When I looked up to see how far we fell, I saw that it wasn't just a hill we fell down, it was a fucking tall cliff. I sat on the sand while I watched Daryl search for his crossbow in the deep end of the creek. After he found it, we both limped over to the cliff wall and got to climbing.
As I climbed, my vision became blurry and my ears started to ring. Last time I felt this way was when I got slashed across the chest and stomach after I handed somebody their ass during a fight. I had laid in that back alley of Atlanta for more than hour before a very sparkly stripper found me. Daryl started to slow down and before I knew it, he was tumbling back down the cliff.
My shoulder let out a loud pop as I tried grabbing hold of his arm but between his weight and the momentum, he slipped from my fingers. I decided against climbing back down when the only thing I felt was pain. It wouldn't do either one of us any good so I decided to stay where I was and wait for him to drag his ass back up.
I passed out at some point from the blood loss. When I woke up, I felt even more shitty. Looking down to see if Daryl was still there, I saw a walker stumbling towards him while he was beating another walker's face in with a stick. I pulled out my hunting knife, praying that it would actually hit and I threw it as hard as I could. It spun through the air and right as Daryl finally managed to get his crossbow ready to shoot, the knife dug deep into the walker's skull.
"Whoo!" I cheered at the sight of the dead walker. I was so scared that it would hit a tree or simply miss, but it didn't! My joy was short lived when the ground beneath me started to move as I made my second tumble of the day. I narrowly missed Daryl by just a few feet when I landed with a final thud.
We laid next to each other under the hot Georgia sun for an hour or so while we gathered our strength for the second climb back up. Daryl cut up the one squirrel that survived the fall and gave me some of it to eat. "I can't believe your stupid ass thought it was a good idea to throw that damn knife." He said in between bites.
"Well at least this stupid ass didn't take the horse named Nervous Nelly." I swallowed down the squirrel heart like pill before fixing my flannel on my leg. "Besides, you were 'bout to become walker chow."
He licked his fingers clean. "Lucky your aim was good."
"I know right. Who would have thought that the first time I pray in over ten years, it would actually work? If he's real, God is a funny bastard."
Daryl shook his head with a small smile on his face. "Yeah, real funny." He went over to the walker and sliced off their ears and noses with my hunting knife. He then strung the ears through one shoe string and the noses with the other. "Here ya go."
I grabbed the nose necklace and my knife from his hands. "Thanks." I said as I hung the shoe string around my neck. Placing the knife back in its sheath, I limped back over to the cliff and started climbing back up.
The climb up took longer than last time. As we got close to the top, Daryl started talking to himself. "I liked it better when you were missing." He must've took a harder spill than I thought.
I kept climbing, leaving Daryl to his devices. Whatever was going on inside that brain of his was motivating him enough to keep climbing. Who was I to interfere with that? The only thing that kept me climbing was the look of disappointment that Jax would give me whenever I took too long of a break. Even in death that bastard judges me.
When I made it to the top, I leaned against a tree and groaned in pain. "I am never riding with you again."
"Feeling's mutual." Daryl held out his hand for me to grab and I accepted it. He pulled me to my feet and we began our painfully slow walk back to the farm.
We finally broke through the tree line and the cars of Rick's group was just within view. I wanted to speed up to get home quicker, but my painfully numb leg and Daryl kept me from doing so.
Four people came running towards us with weapons in their hands. It took me a minute to realize that it was Rick, Glenn, Shane, and T-Dog. I was too tired to smile even on the inside, but boy was I happy to see them.
"Is that Daryl and Vesper?" A look of confusion spread across Glenn's face. Everybody else had the same look as well.
Daryl took a few steps towards Rick. "That's the third time you've pointed that thing at my head. You gonna pull the trigger or what?"
"Don't pull the trigger." My words slurred together as I spoke. "Not while I'm leanin' on him." Next thing I knew there was a loud sound, Daryl went flying back, and I went falling down.