***Mentions of SA are mentioned in this chapter. If you do not want to read it, skip over the section in italics.***

I walked through a dark and empty back alley of Atlanta as I made my way to my car that I parked a few blocks away. I won the fights and all I wanted to do was get home. Aunt Annette and I got into a bit a disagreement before I left and it's probably best I don't stay out for too long.

As I was walking, I heard a glass bottle clattering on the ground. When I turned my head over my shoulder, there was nobody there. A bad feeling settled in my gut and as I much as I wanted to run, Jax taught me that that was one of the worse things to do after a fight. A lot of these fighters are on steroids or some other kind of upper. If I start running, so will they and they'll have the upper hand since they're the predator.

"Hey!" An angry voice yelled. "You bitch!"

Fuck, he's talking to me. Just keep walking. One more building and I'm out of the alley.

My hopes were cut short when an extremely heavy body tackled me onto the ground. My head smashed against the wet asphalt and pain radiated all over. In that brief moment of impact, my wrists were pinned above me by one man and my legs were held down by the one that tackled me.

I tried fight my way out of their grasps but they were both stronger and heavier than I was, and no matter how much of a skilled fighter I was, I knew I wasn't getting away from this unscathed. "Get off me!" I screamed as I tried getting at least one of my limbs free.

"Not so tough now are ya?" The guy above me snarled. "You took my fucking money! I don't fucking like it when bitches take my fucking money." His rough hands dug my wrists into the ground so hard I thought they would break. His face was just out of reach so I couldn't even bite his damn nose off. "You wanna know what happens when bitches don't stay in their place and take my money?" He nodded his head towards the bald guy that was using his fully body weight to pin my legs down by my knees.

Panic flooded through me in a way it hasn't before when I watched Baldy undo his belt and zipper. He pulled out a large knife and held it against my diaphragm as his other hand started to pull down my pants. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't muster up enough strength to get myself free. Most of my strength was left in the abandoned warehouse I was in not too long ago. I struggled and screamed as loud as I could, but the busy streets of downtown Atlanta drowned me out.

Not once did I stop trying to fight, not even when the blade was dug deep into my skin and ripped down towards my hip. I screamed and bucked, trying to get away. Time blurred together and in the end, I was left alone in the ally- bleeding, cold, and broken.

The sound of rushed footsteps echoed around the alley when the night sky started to turn into day. My right eye was swollen shut and I was just too drained to open my left eye. "If you... Came back... To do more.. .Just fuckin' kill me..." My voice was raspy and I took haggard breaths between every few words.

"Holy shit! Is that you, Striker?" A somewhat familiar southern voice asked, but I was too out of it to care. There was pressure on my stomach when another questioned was asked. "The hell happened?"

"Go... away... Or kill me..."

"Jesus christ. Just hold on. No, no, no, no! You stay awake, ya hear me?" The southerner lightly tapped me on my cheek. "Do ya hear me?"

"Yeah..."

"Don't you-"

I was covered in blood by the time I got back to the farm. Most of my stitches were ripped, my knuckles were busted again, my bare feet were ripped nearly to shreds by sticks and sharp stones- that blood was mine. The rest of the blood was from the walkers that simply got in my way.

Three freshly dug graves sat beneath the old oak tree that they should've been buried under sooner. A part of me wishes that I could feel some of the anger I felt earlier, but it was all gone and replaced by numbness. Daryl and I almost died chasing a ghost that was actually in a barn within eyesight of my own front door.

I froze in my tracks and stood between the house and the campsite. One place I didn't want to be near, one place didn't want me to be near. The only place I wanted to be was home, and that home wasn't the white farmhouse that sat in front of me. And here I stand- bloodied and alone, like I've been many times before but under different circumstances and in different places.

The hot Georgia sun bore down on me as I stood still with the time until my feet started to move. I made my way into the house and headed straight for my bathroom to wash the blood and sweat off my body. Blood and soap spiraled down the drain, a sight I never thought I would be seeing again.

After getting dressed, I grabbed a small bag of medical supplies and left the house again. I didn't bother looking for any of my family to see if they were okay. They were the last people I wanted to see. For once, a pair of combat boots covered my feet, and a large piece of gauze covered my leg until I got to where I wanted to be.

Ignoring the looks that followed after me as I walked through the campsite, I plopped down right outside the tent I slept in the night before. I removed the gauze and started sewing my gash back together. My teeth clenched together with each pass of the needle through my skin, but I didn't stop, not even when a large shadow covered my direct light of the sun.

Black shoes were just within my line of sight when a deep, angry sounding voice spoke above me. "The hell you doin' here?"

"I don't know." My voice was raw from all the screaming I did in the woods. "At first I just wanted to get away from somethin- everythin'. Then I wanted to talk to you, but there's nothin' to talk about. Everythin' was laid out so damn clearly, nothin' needs to be said. Now I just don't know."

I glanced up when Daryl started to pace a bit. He had his thumb up to his mouth as he chewed the skin on the side of it. "Did ya know?"

"About the barn or about Sophia?"

"Either one." Daryl growled out, his hand falling to his side. "Did you know?"

Tying off the last stitch, I tossed the needle and the last of the thread onto the old piece of gauze and wiped my hands clean on a rag. I looked Daryl in his eyes and spoke truthfully. "No, I didn't. I haven't been near that damn barn in three years- since my twenty-first birthday. I was drunk off my balls and got chased down by two very angry racoons when I got close. Haven't been down that way since."

He scoffed, "You expect me to believe that? Angry racoons? That's fuckin' bullshit, woman."

"Believe me or not, it's the truth. You can ask anybody in that farm house and they'll say the same. Besides, two of the people I thought were six feet under were in that barn. And the little girl you were lookin' for? I was helpin' you look and nearly died 'cause of it. I may do a lot of stupidly dangerous shit, but I ain't that stupid." I sat staring up at him as he continued to pace. "Yell at me or something! I can see it on your face that you want to."

Daryl paced back and forth a few times in silence before finally exploding. "We went out lookin' for that little girl every goddamn day! Fuckin' walkers everywhere! Never shoulda let that damn kid outta her momma's sight! But nah, she just had to run. Officer dumbass just had to give her shit directions!" He kicked at a decently sized rock and I watched as it skittered away from the corner of my eye. "These dumb fucks kept fuckin' walkers like they was pets! Feedin' 'em and shit. And for what? Huh!?"

I stared into his glare. There was nothing I could say to possibly make up for anything or defend anything, not that I wanted to anyway. I understand where his anger is coming from. I was there. Only difference is that my anger was taken out in the woods and his was being taken out on people.

After watching the redneck pace around angrily for a while longer, I finally decided to ask, "Got more yellin' to do?"

"That blood on ya," He ignored my question, brushing it off without so much of a care. "When you got back- was that yours?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Just answer the damn question."

I let out a harsh sigh. "Not all of it and I wasn't bit or anythin'."

Daryl stood for another moment before sitting down in front of me. I gave him a questioning look which he responded to by grabbing one of my hands and some bandages. As he started to wrap my hand, I wanted to ask him what the hell was going on in his head that caused the mood switch, but the steely look in his eyes made me keep my mouth shut.

We just sat in silence as I watched him meticulously wrap my hands. I was surprised at how well he was doing, but then I remembered who is brother is. Even though scars from previous fights littered my knuckles, he never asked about them like some others have tried.

"What was that other time?" Daryl's voice broke through the comfortable silence we were sitting in after he had finished wrapping my hands. He had moved to sitting next to me after I had moved my little medical bag to the other side of me.

"Huh?"

"You said that there were two times you went to the hospital 'cause of some guys after your fights. First one was that scar on your knee, what was the other one?"

I looked at the distant tree line as I figured out how to word my answer. Nobody has asked about that time simply because I've never brought it up. Those who knew, knew. And that was it. "Um... That one's a longer story. One I'm not too fond of. Long story short, I was cornered in an alley in Atlanta and I was attacked by two guys. A blond and a bald guy. I fought the blond the first time 'round. Second time wasn't so successful."

"What did he do?"

"Enough. They did enough, but I had too much anger to stop after I was fully healed. Kept going out and fightin' even though I probably shouldn't've. I got a scar on my stomach and I was planning on covering it up with a tattoo, but I never got the chance."

We fell into another comfortable silence as the sun started to disappear behind the trees. My eyes closed as I let the breeze lull me into a doze. Pain radiated all over my body as I sat in a fetal position, basically trying to hold myself together from all the past events. In the odd sense of comfort Daryl brought, I finally let myself feel the calmer, but just as ugly, feelings I kept bottled up inside.