Naomi

Something scraped across the table beside me. I smelt the coffee before the cup gently slid into view. I looked at it, momentarily surprised that it existed, and then up at Aaron. Eric was hovering behind him. Both of them looked at me with the same apprehension you'd give someone when staging an intervention. I put my pen down

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to disturb you."

"It's fine," I sighed. I sat back in the chair and reached for the coffee. I blinked a few times, I'd been staring at the maps in front of me for so long that even when I wasn't looking at them, thin lines still ran across my vision.

"Thinking of heading out again?" Aaron asked.

"Yeah," I said, and the endless pit of guilt in my stomach widened. It had been so long since I'd gone out just to look for Mia. Aaron sat down opposite me, gave me that concerned-teacher look he can do without trying.

"Do you have a plan?"

"Yeah, I think so," I said. "Every run I've gone on, I've taken a note of the places that it looks like other people are scavenging. I chart them here so I can look for potential hotspots, and that-."

"Gives you an idea of where other communities might be," Aaron finished, nodding. "That makes sense."

"You find anything?" Eric peered over my shoulder.

"A few places look promising," I said. "I just don't know where to start. This place over here… you see where the school is?"

I tapped it with my pen. Aaron leaned over to take a look. "Yeah…"

"All of these spots," I tapped again, where I'd circled them. "Looked like they'd been recently scavenged. But not by us. So, there have to be some other people somewhere in that area."

"That's… pretty close to us," Aaron said.

"I know," I grinned. "I could probably drive it in less than an hour, walk it in about four if I have to. I could easily be there and back within a day."

I thought he'd be as excited about it as I was, but he stared at the spot on the map with nothing but apprehension.

"I'm not sure you should," he said. "Until we know who set fire to those people, and left those Walkers..."

He trailed off. Since finding that burned campsite and those carved-up Walkers, he'd been tense and on-edge. Aaron wasn't really used to seeing that kind of thing or facing the horrible things human beings could inflict on one another when everything fell to shit.

"You sound like Daryl," I said, standing up and sending my chair scraping against the floor. Any other time in my life, I'd have meant that as the world's biggest compliment. But now, I said it because they were both annoying me. I was so damn sick of people telling me where I was and wasn't allowed to go.

"I'm just concerned."

"I know," I said. "And I wasn't planning on barging right into any communities I found. I wouldn't give up Alexandria's location, either. I know what it's like… when the wrong people find a safe place."

"I know you do."

"I was planning to go and observe anywhere I found for a while," I said. "Like you and Daryl do when you're out trying to recruit people. I wouldn't approach anywhere that didn't seem safe to do so."

Aaron nodded along as I spoke, seemingly reassured by the precautions I was taking. He took a drink from his own coffee cup.

"Have you spoken to Daryl about this?" he asked. There was a note in his voice that suggested his casual tone didn't exactly match how he felt. Even Eric seemed to catch it, shooting him a look too quick to decipher. He cleared his throat, tried to cover it up. "Were you thinking of taking him with you?"

"Dunno…" I said, sighing again. Even I was beginning to get sick of how much sighing I'd been doing lately. No wonder Aaron was concerned. I glanced at him, found him studying me intently, and wondered why he'd brought it up. "He's been real distant lately. You've probably seen more of him than I have. Why do you ask?"

"No reason," he gave an unconvincing shrug. "Just need to know if he won't be around for recruitment purposes."

"Oh," I said. It made sense, but I still got the feeling it wasn't why he'd asked.

"I think you should ask him," Aaron said. "He'd want to go."

"Maybe…" I said, wondering how Aaron's read on the situation could be so wildly different from my own. To me, it seemed like Daryl didn't much want me around these days. I wondered if he was freezing me out until I agreed to stop going on runs. He'd been so mad about it, and I thought we'd sorted it out, but maybe he'd just given up arguing with me. That thought was somehow more depressing than if he'd been straight-up angry. I knew how to deal with an angry Daryl. I had no idea how to deal with a Daryl who couldn't sit in the same room as me for more than thirty seconds unless there was someone else present.

"Didn't Deanna ask for these maps back?" Aaron said, looking at where I'd scribbled all over them.

"She did," I said. "But I've apologized now, so we're all good."

"You've apologized?" he said.

"No need to sound so surprised."

"I'm surprised that she accepted," Eric said. "What did you say?"

"Firstly that I was sorry her husband was dead," I said. "Because that seemed like the most important part."

"And secondly?"

"That I was sorry for calling her a prune-faced old bitch," I said. Eric started laughing before I was done talking. "Who's so far up her own ass she can play tonsil-tennis with herself."

"Did you apologize for calling her a calculating shark with a chewed-up moral compass?"

"I think she kind of took that one as a compliment," I said with a shrug. "Certainly didn't seem mad about it."

"Don't encourage her, Eric," Aaron said.

"Sorry, but you should've seen her face," Eric said.

"Okay," I stood up. "I'm going to get some supplies from Olivia, and then I'm heading out."

"Be careful," Aaron said.

"Will do," I did my best not to roll my eyes at how cautious he'd been lately. He stood in the door and watched me walk down the path. His face was still as tense and concerned as it had been at the dining table. I turned back.

"I'll be back for dinner," I said, and that seemed to chill him out a little.

"Alright. See you then," Aaron said and shut the door.

I took a few steps towards Daryl's house, could see Carl and Judith playing with Perla on the front porch. Carol waved at me from one of the windows. I waved back, but when she disappeared from view, I stopped. Thinking about being met with the cold stare and shrugs that Daryl had started communicating with me in was soul-crushing. So, I turned and headed toward Olivia's on my own.

It was busier than usual. There weren't any runs planned, and the construction crew was pretty much done fortifying one of our walls, so I guess a lot of people had picked this as the best day to collect their weekly rations. I stood in line and waited for Olivia to be done listening to Shelley Neudermyer's laments that there was only dried pasta available.

From further ahead in the queue, someone said, "Naomi?"

"Oh, hey Lucas," I said, as he peered around Spencer's wide shoulders at me. "What you doing here?"

"Just picking up our weekly rations," he said. "You?"

"If you want to chat," Spencer said tersely, "I suggest you move back."

Lucas hesitated. I pulled a face at the back of Spencer's stupid head, and then Lucas left his place in line to join me.

"What put a stick up his ass?" I muttered.

"What was that?" Spencer looked back at me.

"Nothing," I said, and waited for him to turn back around again. I guess even if Deanna had forgiven me, maybe her stuck-up son hadn't.

"So, what are you here for?" Lucas asked.

"Came to check out a few guns," I said.

"You going on another run?" he asked. "I didn't think there was one scheduled for today?"

"No." I could see his risk-analyst brain kicking into overdrive assessing the risks involved with an unscheduled run, and did my best not to laugh at him. "There are a few places I want to scout out for other communities. See if Mia might be with them."

"Oh," he said, and visibly relaxed. "That's great."

He and Daryl were the only ones who didn't look at me with some degree of pity when I brought her up. I was trying to stop bringing her up. A thought occurred to me that hadn't until I'd seen him. "Do you wanna come with me?"

He looked as surprised to be asked as I was to be asking him.

"Yeah," he said. "I would. I'd like to help look for Mia, and I haven't been outside of these walls since we got here. I should probably remind myself what it's like out there."

"Really?" I said. "Shit. Maybe you're too rusty to come with me. You remember the dead are walking around now, right?"

"Well, now you've said that," he said, with a slight eye roll. "I'm definitely staying put."

"What can I get you two today?" Olivia asked as we found ourselves suddenly at the front of the queue.

"Can we check some things out of the armory?" I asked.

"Are you heading out today? I didn't think there were any runs scheduled?" she asked. I hesitated. I'd been hoping to avoid this question, although I should've known that it would be asked. Then her gaze slipped across to Lucas, and she put the pieces together herself. "This about your sister?"

"Yeah," I said. With every passing day, it felt more and more like people were just humoring me when they asked about Mia. It was clear they all thought I should've given up by now. Even clearer from all the goddamn pity in her smile.

"Okay," she said brightly as if she was worried speaking at a standard pitch would bum me out too much, and I'd become a sobbing mess in her damn grocery queue. It reminded me of when I was little, and well-meaning nurses would come and tell me that my Momma was sick and had to sleep for a while like she had the flu or something. And I'd want to let them know that I'd seen her shoot up. Spent hours waiting for her to come out of it because I knew if I called them too early, she'd get mad, and I'd get burned. But I didn't tell them any of it because I think they already knew, and their tone was meant to make everyone else in the hospital more comfortable. So I'd look at my shoes and wait for the ground to swallow me up and count down the hours until I could go back outside and hunt something with Daryl.

I fixed a familiar smile on my face and said, "Thanks."

"Are you looking to take out much?" Olivia asked, letting us into the armory. "Will you need any food?"

"Nope," I said. "We'll only be a few hours, probably stay in the car so we should just need the minimum."

"Alright," she said and checked a few things off on a clipboard before she handed us a gun each, a few spare bullets, and let us pick up a couple of knives.

"Thanks, Olivia."

We got in one of the cars and drove up to the gate. I got ready to face more questions and smiles like Olivia's, but when someone tapped on the window, I looked up to see Eugene and breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't seem like a bullshit-sympathy kind of guy. Or the kinda guy who'd ask too many questions. I rolled the window down.

"Hey, how's Tara doing?"

"She's recovering," he said. "And she owes a lot of that to you, I'll bet."

"And you," I said. "You're the one who managed to get Tara out of that building."

He nodded, a little blush on his cheek. I could tell he was proud of himself for what he'd managed to do that day.

"You folks heading out?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Alright," he said. I wondered if he'd ask where we were headed, but instead, he said, "Word on the grapevine is, you was heading to D.C. before all this?"

"I sure was," I said. "Lived there for a while and figured if anywhere has the kind of infrastructure to withstand this kind of disaster, it's probably D.C."

"I had the very same thought," he said. "But, I feel the need to tell you that we have tried to go that way and found the road to be impassable."

"Shit, really?"

Since finding out that Mia wasn't on her own, I'd stopped thinking about D.C. as an option. It had never really been my home in the same way it had been hers, but there were still people there that I'd cared about. Bryce and Andrew recently renovated their home to include a panic room, but that had been built with home-invasions in mind. I doubted it was well-stocked enough for them to have survived all of this in it, and I didn't know how well-equipped they were to live out in this new world. I thought about Marrianne and Hugh. Everyone at the paper might've had a slight advantage on the breaking news as it happened and been able to get someplace safe. I also knew some people would've stayed until the bitter end, trying to spread the word about what was going on until Walkers pried them from their desks.

Maybe, for once, Mia and I were lucky our Momma got so sick.

"Just thought I should let you know," Eugene said, pulling me back into the present. "In case you were thinking of heading there."

"No," I assured him. "Just a quick trip to scout out a few places. We'll be back soon."

"Alright then," he said, tapping the car. I rolled the window back up, and he let us out of the gates.

"You recognize the outside world?" I asked Lucas as we drove by all of the shut-up and abandoned houses just outside of Alexandria's walls.

"It's so easy to think everything's gone back to normal when you're in Alexandria," Lucas said.

"This is what's normal," I said, nodding at the abandoned cars and run-down buildings. "Alexandria's the anomaly."

"Do you really think that?" he asked.

"I do," I said. "We're lucky to have found it, but… you have to wonder how long it will last."

His silence told me that this might be the very first time he'd ever wondered that. I guess that was the difference between people who stayed in Alexandria and planned things with Deanna and those of us who went outside to execute their plans. They didn't have to face any of it anymore. Lucas took a deep breath that kind of turned to a shudder, "If anything ever happened here… that made it like Terminus…"

Terminus.

The word brought a chill into the car.

"It won't," I said. "We won't let it."

"But if it did," he said. "I'd rather die than live through any of that again."

"Yeah?" I tried to think of something uplifting or encouraging to say but couldn't. "Me too."

Admitting that, out loud, wasn't as depressing as I thought would be. It was like a weight lifted a little from my lungs. One I didn't know I'd been carrying until I said it. When I glanced at Lucas, there was a small smile on his face, like he understood. The cold in the car was gone again.

For the first time in days, I didn't feel like a dark cloud was following me around everywhere I went.

"You ever think about New York?" I asked. "The people you knew there?"

"All the time," he said. "At first, I just felt lucky that I wasn't there when it happened. Trying to flee from that place must've been…"

He broke off, shaking his head at even the idea of it.

"Yeah," I said. "I feel the same about D.C."

"And then I felt guilty for a while," he said. "That I hadn't been there. Didn't know why I should've been lucky enough to survive when it's very likely that my friends and family didn't. Then I stopped thinking about it altogether."

"And now?"

"Now, it doesn't feel real," he said. "Like a place with so many people living so many different lives could ever exist… it's like a dream."

"Urgh, what the hell is that?" I winced, rolling up the windows as an overpowering smell filled the forest around us. Smelt like Walkers, but I couldn't see any. I kept my eyes on the bend in the road in front of us. Just in case there was a horde coming, and we had to turn back. "Keep a lookout, will you?"

Lucas kept a close eye on the forest around us, checking for hordes moving between the trees.

"What do you miss most?" he asked. "About life before this? And I'm going to say it can't be anything soppy like a person. It has to be something dumb."

I knew he'd added that to stop me getting bummed out about Mia again, and I was thankful for it. I thought for a second. "I miss takeout food. Having to cook everything all the time is such bullshit."

"Doesn't Eric cook everything at your place?"

"Yeah, but I still have to hear him going on about it," I said. "What don't you miss?"

"The subway," he said immediately. "Used to have to get it two and from work every day, and it was never not terrible. Always stank."

"Good one," I said. "I don't miss traffic. Remember gridlock? That was shit."

"That was shit," he agreed, but he sounded distracted. I glanced at him. He'd leaned forward and was squinting at something in the trees through the windshield. I glanced up at it too. "There's something up there."

"Just a body," I said. "Some poor bastard that's hanged himself."

The hangings were always the weirdest ones to me. Not just because it seemed like such a horrible and potentially prolonged way out, but because it didn't do shit to destroy the brain. So at the end of it, all your Walker would be left dangling there, kicking out at passing survivors, until one of them was kind enough to shoot you.

"It's not just that," Lucas said. Something about the tone in his voice sent a chill right through me. When you're with someone who notices that something ain't right, but they don't want to say anything about it because they want to be wrong, it's so much worse than when they just scream something at you. "There's more of them."

I slowed the car down, leaned over to take a look at the forest. He was right. It wasn't just one body in the trees, there were dozens.

"What the fuck?" I breathed.

"Mass suicide?" Lucas suggested. There'd been lots of those at the beginning, but it felt bizarre option for people who'd made it this far.

"Maybe," I said. "But why now? And why out here? Why hanging?"

Lucas shrugged, kept staring at them. I slowed down some more. "I think…" he craned forwards more in his seat. "I think they've got something on their heads, like a symbol… do you see it? A mark? Maybe they were in some kind of cult."

"This is just creepy enough to be a cult," I said. I leaned further forward to see if I could see what was talking about. Too far away for me to get a good look. It could have just been a mark.

Or-

"Naomi! Look out!" Lucas yelled. He reached over me to grab the steering wheel from me, I think on instinct more than anything else. A truck was tearing down the road towards us at a million miles an hour. I turned the wheel so hard I felt it pull something in my arm. We span off the road in a blur of trees and truck and grass. My stomach lurched. And then we hit a tree.

A thud as a Walker from the tree hit the windshield. It cracked.

"You okay?" I asked Lucas. He nodded, looked uncomfortable, and afraid, but he wasn't bleeding or anything. I checked myself over. A few aches but nothing serious. The shock of it had been the worst thing. No warning. Not even the blare of a horn to warn us of an impending crash.

"What the hell was that?" Lucas said, rubbing the back of his neck like he might've got whiplash. "Didn't they see us? I know you don't expect anyone else on the roads anymore, but c'mon…They've stopped. Do you think they want to swap insurance details."

I knew he was joking, but there really was no need for them to stop. It was unlikely they were good Samaritans who wanted to see if their reckless driving had accidentally hurt someone.

I looked back at it in the rearview mirror.

Food truck.

The Walker that had fallen from the tree onto the windshield of the car looked back at me. A freshly carved 'W' right between its hungry, dead eyes. No way in hell was this a coincidence.

I tried to start the car. The engine sputtered and then died.

"Shit," he said. "Give it a few minutes and see if it'll start then."

In the rearview mirror, I could see the back of the food truck was starting to open up. I knew what was about to come out.

"Lucas, get out of the car," I said. He caught the urgency of the tone in my voice. Looked scared but couldn't yet understand why.

"What? Why?"

"This is a trap," I said, as calmly as possible. I unfastened my seatbelt. "Grab your gun, knives. Anything you can. We're going to get out on your side of the car. Stay low, there's a chance they won't see us."

I was worried he'd waste time asking for more explanation, but he didn't. He grabbed up his weapons, and opened the door slowly, to make as little noise as possible. The Walker on the windshield snarled and reached for him, but he ducked out of the way. I crawled across to his side of the car, keeping as low as possible. The sound and smell of Walkers was everywhere. The engine of the food truck was still running.

"What the hell?" Lucas was crouched by the passenger door, his eyes fixed on where more Walkers were stumbling out of the back of the food truck. I grabbed his arm.

"Let's go," I whispered.

We kept low and used the car as a cover as much as possible, ducking behind a nearby bush as soon as we could. The Walkers from the back of the truck had spilled out onto the road, heading right for the car. Right for us. The driver hung out of the window and watched. One of them climbed on to the roof to get a better view. Lucas whispered, "We can't stay here."

"I know," I said. I wished he'd shut up for a second, so I'd have a moment of peace to think this through. If we stayed where we were, the Walkers would get us. If we stood up and ran, the guys by the truck would see.

"If we head that way," Lucas pointed through the trees. "I think we can make it back to Alexandria."

I knew he longed for the safety of those walls, and for the protection of the snipers that patrolled them.

"We can't go back," I said. The color drained from Lucas's face. I knew it was the last thing he wanted to hear, it was the last thing I wanted to say. "If we do, we could lead them right to the others. We'd be putting everyone at risk."

I wondered if he'd fight me on it or raise the point that Alexandria had both more people and more weapons than these guys in the truck did. But he didn't. He knew the value of keeping a safe place a secret as much as I did. So he nodded and whispered, "What do we do?"

"They're using the Walkers to hunt us," I said. "Sniff us out. So first, we outsmart them. Then, we worry about the living."

"Okay," he nodded. "Let's do this."

Daryl

The sun was hardly up before someone was banging on the door. The whole mood of the house changed. From sleepy quiet, where only half of us were actually up and awake, to quiet that's alert. Listening. The kind of listening deers do when they think you're close by. I heard people scramble for weapons that we no longer had access to. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen.

"Daryl!" Someone yelled outside the house. More banging on the door. "Daryl! You in here?"

"The hell?" Rick appeared in the hallway, half-dressed and a toothbrush still in his hand. I shrugged to show him I had no idea what was going on and went to answer. It was Aaron. I hadn't recognized his voice because I'd never heard him so panicked before.

"Hey, man," I said. "Everything okay?"

I knew from his face that no, everything was not okay.

"Is Naomi here?" he asked. At the sound of her name and the fear in his eyes, my heart leaped.

"No," I said. It was way too early in the morning for her to visit. For anyone to visit. "Why? Did she say she was coming over here? Is Eric-"

"Eric's fine," he said, and then he hesitated. He didn't want to say it. But he'd already let too much slip. "Naomi didn't come home last night."

"What?"

I felt sick to my stomach, grabbed my shoes from where I'd chucked them down by the door.

"I thought she… I just assumed she'd be here…" he looked at the quietly gathering crowd behind me, with their panicked bleary eyes. Unless she'd snuck in to spend the night here without me knowing, I knew Naomi wouldn't be among them. He still looked at them all. We both did. Like he thought, this might be a bad dream. Sure felt like one.

"When did you last see her?" I asked him.

"Yesterday morning," he said. My stomach lurched. Almost twenty-four hours ago. "She was talking about going on another search for Mia."

"I opened the gate for her," Eugene suddenly piped up. I looked back at him.

"She say where she was going?"

"She did not," he said. "We talked about D.C. I told her not to go, due to the road being congested with the dead."

"And you didn't think to ask her where she was headed?"

"No, I did not," he said.

"Was she on her own?" Rick asked. It felt like a dumb question. Of course she was on her own. Who else would she be with? Aaron and I were both still here. But then I saw Eugene shake his head.

"She was with Lucas."

Lucas.

I could've punched Eugene. Could've punched any of them. Gawping at me like a bunch of useless pricks.

Burrowed deep in my gut, a sharp twist of something bitter. Why Lucas? Why ask him? Aaron glanced warily at me, I wondered if this was news to him too. Or if he'd already checked that she wasn't sleeping over wherever Lucas was staying.

I wanted to storm over there myself. Check that damn creep hadn't cooked her up and ate her.

I looked at Rick. "What do we do?"

"I told everyone we shouldn't be doing any more runs or recruitment missions," Rick said. "It might've led those people out there right to our door."

"Those people out there might have Naomi," I said. Now wasn't the time for him to get all righteous about shit. "Ain't this your job, man? Finding missing people?"

"She's an adult, she could-" he started to say in his old cop-voice. Then he looked at me, and something in his face changed. "Alright. I'll do my best. Did she take anything with her? Anything more than usual, anything that would suggest she was planning on staying away for longer than a day?"

"Er, I don't know," Aaron said, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't check."

"Alright," Rick said, still so calm. Like the world wasn't falling apart around us. But I guess his wasn't. It was just mine. Crumbling. "Let's go over there and have a look now."

I was out of the door before he'd finished talking, ran back over there with Aaron. Could hear Rick running behind us. The door was already open, Eric stood in his pajamas. Tousled hair and sleepy, worried eyes.

"Did you find her?" he asked, the moment Aaron was close enough to hear him. Aaron shook his head, I saw Eric look from him to the rest of us, and the hope faded in his eyes.

"Can I take a look at her room?" Rick asked. "See if she took anything that indicates she was planning on being gone longer than she has."

It felt like a waste of time. And I didn't like the implication that Naomi had lied about how long she'd be gone. But we led him up there anyway. Stood in her empty room. Unmade bed. Too many books. Like she was just downstairs. It felt like an intrusion.

"Anything missing?" Rick asked us.

"I'm not sure," Aaron looked desperately around him as if it would be obvious.

"Her bag," I said. "It ain't hanging on the back of the door."

"Oh yeah," he said. "I think I remember her taking that."

I looked under the bed. Mia-box still there. I didn't think she'd have left for good without that.

"Did she leave anything behind?"

"The maps," Eric said suddenly. "She'd been pouring over them for days. Marked up everywhere she wanted to go."

"Maps? That's good. Are they still here?" Rick asked.

"Yeah," he said confidently. "Downstairs."

We trudged back down again. Every step, every tick of the clock passed painfully.

There were three different maps, all marked up differently. Pieces of paper with notes and lists, shorthand, and symbols. For the first time since Aaron had knocked on the door, my heartbeat slowed down. It felt like she'd drawn this map for me. Every color on here that looked random to everyone else wasn't random to her, so it wasn't random to me either.

"She talked about the school; maybe she's headed there?" Eric suggested.

"Nah," I said. "She's gone here."

I pointed to a place on the map that was on one of her lists. An old factory.

"Are you sure?" Rick asked.

"Yeah, see this?" I slid it across the table to him.

He picked it up, read it over. "The school's at the top?"

"Yeah, but the factory has a star next to it, not a bullet point, which means it's first on her list."

"How can you be sure?" Eric asked.

Felt like I'd been training for this moment for years. It was like I'd stood over her while she put all of this together. I knew how she thought, how she planned. I could do this. I could find her.

"I just do."

"Alright," Aaron said. "If that's what Daryl thinks, I'm willing to head out there. You coming?"

We both looked at Rick. He shook his head. "Sounds like Daryl's got this. You good?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"We'll be here for her if she gets back," he said.

I moved towards the door. I was done wasting time. "C'mon."

I heard Aaron scramble to pick up his shit and follow me back out into the street.

"You taking the bike?" he asked.

"We should take a car," I said. "And get one of them medical kits from Olivia just in case-"

I stopped. The world swam in and out of focus at the thought of it. They'd been gone so long. It seemed impossible that they'd both come back in one piece. I felt Aaron put a hand on my back.

"It's alright," he said. "I'm sure she's fine, but it's good to pick one up as a precaution."

Olivia's house was dark when we got there. I looked at the garage door, which I knew lead to the pantry and, in turn, the armory. Probably be quite easy to kick in if she didn't hurry the fuck up. I didn't stop knocking until I saw the lights go on.

She stared out at us, eyes a little wide and angry. "What's going on? It's so early, is everything alright?"

"Did Naomi come by here yesterday?"

"Yeah, she and Lucas took some weapons. They haven't returned them yet, actually, are they-"

"They're missing," Aaron interrupted her. "Did they give you an idea of how long they'd be?"

She shook her head, tried to speak through a yawn. "I offered them food, but they said they'd be back before it got dark."

"When it got dark, and they hadn't come back, you didn't think to say anything?" I said. "Didn't think to raise the alarm or nothing?"

"I… I…" she stared at me, mouth open wide.

"Do you know which car they took?" Aaron said.

"Em… yes," Olivia picked up the dumb clipboard that she used to keep track of shit. No keeping track of people. Nothing as useful as that, just shit that didn't matter. She pointed out the car they'd taken, gave us the make, model, and registration.

"We need a medical kit," Aaron said. "And some weapons of our own too."

She led us into the armory. I grabbed my crossbow. Anything else I could. Aaron grabbed one of the medical kids. Olivia followed us around. "Em… I just need to…"

"You can mark it off when we bring it back," I told her. "We ain't got time for this shit."

I walked past her through the pantry and opened the garage door from the inside. Olivia was slow and scared of me, I couldn't be waiting around for her to open up doors and make nervous small talk. Time was already running past us faster than I wanted it to. The sun was up now, all traces of the dawn were gone. I walked over to the nearest car.

"Let's go," I said, turning back to Aaron, who was being frustratingly slow now. Hanging back and giving Olivia all of these apologetic looks. Like I'd been the unreasonable one rather than her being unreasonably slow and stupid for not telling anyone that two damn people had gone missing.

Aaron got the car keys from her, opened the driver door but didn't get in. He offered me the keys, "Do you want to drive?"

"Nah," I said, sitting in the passenger seat. Appreciated him asking, though. I guess he thought I might feel better if I was doing something. Truth was, I didn't think I could drive. Not a car, not a bike. My palms felt too sweaty to steer anything safely, and my fingers hadn't stopped shaking since Aaron had come to our door.

The folks at the gates weren't ready for us to be leaving so early. If this had taught me anything, other than never letting Naomi out of my damn sight, it was that Alexandria was unprepared for emergencies. The people here were so damn slow. If any group tried to take over, would we have to form an orderly queue to get weapons from Olivia? A fight would be over before it had even begun.

I'd never felt car sick before. But driving down that road with Aaron, I thought I was going to hurl my guts out into the glovebox.

We'd hardly driven any distance at all before we saw it. Tied up against a tree. Still moving but not living. Looked like a woman. Dark hair.

"There!" I yelled, pointing at it.

I'd jumped out of the car before Aaron had slowed to a full stop. I heard him shout after me, but I didn't turn back. Just ran towards the tied-up dead woman.

Please don't be her. Please don't be her.

The Walker turned its head when it saw me coming.

Not Naomi.

Wrong hair. Wrong face. Been dead for longer than Naomi had been missing.

A wave of relief washed over me that was so strong it knocked me on my ass. I sat down. The snarling Walker was trying so hard to get to me that the ropes tying her cut into dead flesh. I didn't give a shit. The only thing I cared about right then was that it wasn't Naomi.

I heard the car stop.

"Daryl?" Aaron called. I took my head out of my hands. Looked up at him. He was nothing but a blur.

"It ain't her," I said. "It ain't her."

I hear his sigh of relief, his feet walking towards me on the road. He crouched down, drove his knife through the Walker's skull, and then looked at me in the sudden silence.

"You okay?" he asked. I wiped my face across the back of my arm, looked away from him.

"Yeah."

"We'll find her," he said and put a hand on my shoulder. "She's smart. She knows how to stay safe."

"Yeah," I said, trying to catch my breath. "Lucas is fucking useless, though. Why'd she take him?"

Having someone so useless and stupid tagging along with you could put you in more danger than being smart and on your own. Aaron shrugged. "Maybe she just wanted some company."

I nodded.

"She didn't ask me," I said. My voice sounded real quiet, even in the silence. I hadn't been looking for an answer. Didn't expect him to have one, but the look on his face suggested otherwise.

"She… mentioned that you'd been distant with her lately," Aaron said. "She didn't think you'd want to come."

"Oh."

Shit.

It felt like the trees were closing in on me. More confined even than the walls around Alexandria. I looked up at the sky, trying to force my breathing to be some kind of normal again. I felt like I'd just run a damn marathon.

"Have you?"

"Have I what?"

"Been distant with her lately?"

"I guess."

"Mind me asking why?"

I did mind.

I minded a lot.

I watched two birds fly by overhead. Looked like one of them was chasing the other. Couldn't tell if it was a hunt or a game. I cleared my throat. "It's just… hard to be around her sometimes."

I looked back down at him. Aaron nodded like he understood, but I really doubted it. Doubted he ever looked at Eric and worried that one day they'd have another fight so bad he'd wind up hurting him. Aaron wasn't that kind of guy. He was good. Kind. Knew how to love people right.

"Shall we keep going?"

I nodded. He stood up and reached out a hand to help me to my feet. I took it, let him pull me up. My legs felt weak.

We got back in the car. Kept driving.

"I don't like how close that was to Alexandria," Aaron said. "Closer than the campsite we found."

"Nah," I agreed. "Me neither."

I looked at things passing by the window. Searching the gaps between trees for any sign of Naomi.

"We'll find her," he said again as I swallowed down a lump in my throat. "She'll be alright."

The more he said it, the less likely it felt. But he was probably saying it to calm himself down too so I didn't stop him. I couldn't handle that kind of hope just to have it taken away again.

It was hard to be around her, but it was much harder not to have her around at all.

We came to a bend in the road, and something by the side of it caught my eye. A car. Or, it had been. Now it was just a burned-out shell, wrapped around a tree trunk. But it was the one they'd left in, no doubt about it.

"There," I pointed it at. "That's the car."

"Shit," Aaron whispered and slowed our car to a stop.

Smelt like death when we got out. Ashes and rotting flesh.

The passenger door was open. A whole bunch of burned up remains around it. Aaron looked at what was left. Charred flesh clinging to blackened bones. "Is… is that…?"

"This ain't them," I said. "These were Walkers. Been dead a while before they got burned."

I checked inside the car. Saw nothing that looked freshly dead. No burned weapons either. No sign of any of Naomi's things.

"They got out," I said. Felt confident enough saying it now I'd checked the car. "Nothing in here suggests either of them were in it when it caught fire."

"Okay," Aaron said, peering in there too through the driver's window. "Did they get in some kind of accident?"

"They swerved to avoid something, that's for sure," I said, pointing at some skid marks on the road. "Whatever it was is gone now."

When I looked at Aaron, he was looking up at the trees again. There were sounds around us, which I'd mistaken for wind in the trees, but now I focussed on it I realized that wasn't it. It was Walkers, with their soft, ragged breathing. I looked up at the trees. Saw them hanging there. Each one had a W carved on its forehead.

"This was some kind of trap," I said. "Same people from back at that food place."

Aaron nodded.

"But they got out, right?"

"They got out of the car," I said, looking back at it. "But maybe that's what whoever set the trap wanted them to do."

I looked at the ground around the passenger door, where two people had definitely crawled out. But did they crawl because they were injured? Or because they were trying not to be seen? I crouched down where they might have looked over at the skid marks on the road. From here, you wouldn't be seen by most people on the road.

"Can you track them?" Aaron asked, watching what I was doing.

"They moved over here," I started trying to trace their steps. A short distance to a nearby bush that would've sheltered them from anyone on the road. Aaron followed me. I looked back at the car, just a stone's throw away. The dead and burned Walkers around it. "I think it was them who torched the car."

"Shit," he said, "Really?"

"Yeah," I said. "Those Walkers must've been close to them. And they used the fire from the burning car to distract them so they could get away."

"That's good," he said. "Right?"

I nodded, looking down at footprints in the mud. They were further apart. Lighter. Running, not crouching any more.

"They were running from something," I said, following them to where they stopped behind a tree.

"From the Walkers?" Aaron suggested. "After they set the car on fire?"

"Maybe," I said, but his explanation didn't sit right with me. It was too easy. The story the marks on the ground were telling me was too complicated for that. "They climbed."

I looked up at the tree as if she'd be sitting on one of the branches waiting for me to find her. Then she'd jump down, maybe call me a dumbass for worrying about her and then we could both get in the car and go home. But she wasn't there anymore, although she had been at some point.

"Climbed?" Aaron repeated, looking up in the same way, like she'd be up there laughing at us. "Why?"

"Don't know," I said. People who weren't used to tracking seemed to think it was just following one clue after another in one straight line, rather than piecing together several things from all around the place to get an overall picture. Anything you could track, be it people or prey, rarely moved in neat, straight lines. Especially when they're scared.

Close by, what I thought were three Walkers lay shot in the head. I wondered if it had been her, from high up in the trees. I took a look a look at them, realized one was much more freshly dead than the others, and trapped underneath a Walker with a rope around its neck. I picked up the end of the rope, saw that it had been cut. Probably by a small knife in the hands of a clever girl.

"They waited in the trees. Cut them down when whoever was following them got too close," I said. "Landed on this guy. Then someone took out him and the Walker."

"Someone?"

"Don't think it was one of them," I said. I took a look at the dead man's footprints, leading back to the road. There was a second pair walking with him. "Think this guy had a friend. Probably who this poor bastard was meant to hit."

I kicked over a second Walker that was lying on the ground. Another cut rope around its neck.

"But the second guy survived," Aaron said, looking at the bullet wound in the Walker's skull. "Shot both Walkers and then his friend because he'd been bit?"

"Looks like it," I said. "Which probably gave Naomi and Lucas enough time to climb down and run away."

Aaron looked around at the scene in front of him, nodding like what we'd just put together made sense to him. Maybe he was starting to get the hang of tracking. "Any idea which way they went?"

I went back to the tree she'd climbed, saw the scuff marks from where she'd jumped down again. Probably landed on the balls of her feet, scraped her hands on the mud. I pointed, "This way."

"That's not the way home," Aaron said. "Are they lost?"

"I think she deliberately went the wrong way so that they wouldn't follow them back to Alexandria," I said. "Tryna protect everyone."

I had to close my eyes for a moment. It was so predictably Naomi, to think of everyone else rather than just keeping herself safe like I wanted her to.

"I think they might already know about Alexandria," Aaron said, his voice thick with dread.

"Why?" I asked. "Because of that Walker by the walls?"

"That, and…" He'd picked something square and flat up out of the mud next to the dead guy. He held it up to me, "These were in my bag. I lost it back when we got trapped by the Walkers in those food trucks. It has to be the same people.

Pictures of Alexandria. I could see Rick and Judith in one of them.

"Fuck."

Everything she'd done, all of the danger she'd put herself in, all for nothing. They already fucking knew.

It was away from the road, which made sense if they were trying to get away from being followed. But it was away from Alexandria too. I followed the places in the undergrowth that had been recently disturbed. Plants crushed under rushing feet, twigs snapped by hurried hands trying to push their way through hard-to-follow spots. They'd definitely been through here. But the guy who was following them had too, and I couldn't tell how much further behind he'd been.

I stopped. Couldn't go any further. None of the tracks made sense anymore.

Aaron stopped behind me, waiting for me to move again, but I couldn't. "What's wrong?"

I looked at the ground. "They stopped," I said. "The tracks split like five different ways."

"They split up?"

"No," I said. Searching desperately for something that would prove me wrong. A footprint. A snapped twig, a trampled flower. "She's covered her tracks. Created some false trails that don't go anywhere…. I don't know which way they went."

I was equal parts mad at her and proud of her. This was expertly done, but it meant I would struggle to find her.

"Should we check them all?" Aaron asked.

"The guy following them went this way," I said. He'd followed the most obvious tracks, which gave me some hope that he wasn't the sharpest and might not have got to them. "We should go that way first. Just in case."

He nodded and followed carefully behind me. I noticed that he made sure only to tread where he'd seen me step before. It was kind of him, to try and make it so that we left as few tracks of our own as possible, preserving the ones we were actually trying to follow. It wasn't too long before there was only one set of tracks ahead of us, presumably the asshole who'd been trying to trap Naomi. The further in I followed them, the better I felt.

"He turned here," I said, pointing at where his tracks veered off. "Probably headed back to the road to try and find them from there."

"So, you don't think he got them?"

"No," I said. There had been no signs of a struggle at any point along here, and I had to hope that no matter how useless Lucas was, the two of them should have been able to take out one guy. "Not here, anyway."

We walked back to where the tracks diverged into a confusing mess. I kept staring at them, hoping for some kind of sign. Looking at her maps, I'd known exactly what she was thinking, but looking at this… Anything Naomi knew about tracking, she'd learned from watching me. So everything she thought about throwing a tracker off… it was all based on shit I did.

Trying to track her had given me some direction. Something to think about other than how crappy I felt. But now that was slipping away from me, it all came rushing back. I could tell Aaron wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. I felt like I was sinking. Like there was nothing but darkness under my feet, and every step I took in the wrong direction just led me deeper into it.

I can do this.

I took a deep breath, tried to think like her. Tried to think about what she'd do in this kind of situation, where she might go. It felt like a test of how well I knew her. She would've been trying to think like me, so if I was trying to hide tracks from myself, what would I do? I kicked over a fallen branch in front of me.

Footprint.

"This way," I said. There were a few signs that weren't strong enough to be sure, some that could've been my own wishful thinking, but determination spurred me on. I stopped a few times, getting caught out by squirrels moving in the trees above us.

Further in, their tracks became a little more clear. Must've been when they were confident they weren't being followed anymore.

Something moved. Larger than a squirrel, more purposeful than a Walker.

"Shh," I said, even though Aaron wasn't talking. I threw my hand up to stop him from walking any further. It took him a second to get what I meant. I was so used to Naomi following me when I did this kind of thing, and she always knew what I meant even if I just glanced at her. The sound of his footsteps was throwing me off. He stopped. Stared at me while I listened.

Someone was moving through the trees ahead of us, I was sure of it. Naomi's name rose in my throat, and I had to choke it back. If it wasn't her, I shouldn't give our position away.

But what if it is?

I pointed in the direction I'd heard the noise, watched Aaron frown as he listened. Then he nodded. He heard it too. I motioned for him to take a step forward, and we walked slowly towards the sound. The noises stopped. Silence like the whole forest was listening, and I wondered if whoever it was had heard us too.

Then I saw him. A familiar douchebag ducked between the trees.

Lucas.

I looked at the space around him.

No Naomi.

Was she hurt? Had he hurt her?

There was a fire in my veins. I broke into a run.

"Oi!" I yelled. My voice tearing through the quiet of the forest made him jump, and he turned to look at me, eyes all wide like a rabbit who'd just realized he'd been caught.

"What did you do to her?" I yelled. "Where is-"

His stupid face. That bullshit innocent look about him. I think he opened his mouth to say my name, but he didn't get a chance.

Something swung down from one of the trees, knocked me to the floor. I closed my eyes as my back hit the ground, pushed all the wind right out of me. I felt the weight of someone pinning me underneath them, two hands pushed mine to the ground on either side of me and held them there. They smelt familiar.

Naomi.

I opened my eyes, and she looked back at me, as surprised and shocked as I felt.

"Daryl?" she said like she couldn't believe it. "What the hell are you doing?"

"What the hell are you doing?" I said. While this had the element of surprise, I could have dislodged her if I wanted to. Both hands trying to hold my wrists down meant she wouldn't be able to reach for a weapon without letting one of them go. And then I'd be free to grab her. Her face was close, it wouldn't take much to reach up and grab the back of her head. She wasn't heavy either, so even with her thighs on either side of me, I could've flipped her over. Pinned her to the ground instead... If I'd been someone that meant her harm, of course. "Get off me, weirdo."

She climbed off, stood up, and dusted off her knees. I hauled myself to my feet.

"Heard you coming and thought you was one of them," she said. "We were being followed yesterday, thought they might still be here."

"Yeah, we found your car," Aaron said, having finally caught up with me.

"Aaron!" she broke into a huge smile, ran over to him, and gave him a hug.

"How come he gets a hug, and I get knocked over?" I grumbled.

"Because he wasn't creeping around trying to attack us," she said. "Why'd you try and tackle Lucas like that?"

"Thought he might've murdered you."

"What?" Lucas looked disgusted. "Why would you think that?"

"Wouldn't be the first time you'd killed someone, would it?" I said. "I ain't ever eaten someone before, but maybe once you get a taste for human flesh, it's hard to shake. Maybe you just fancied a damn snack."

Lucas flinched. I didn't know if it was my words that hurt him or because I was yelling them. Either way, it made me feel a little bit better.

"Daryl," Naomi warned. "Cool it."

"Easy there, Daryl," Aaron chimed it. "We know Lucas is as much of a victim in this as she is."

"All I know is he ain't above throwing his lot in with murdering psychos when it suits him," I said.

"That's not fair," Lucas's face flushed a little first bit of fight I'd seen in him. "You don't know what it was-"

"Don't know?" I repeated, sick of him making vague excuses for the shit he'd done. Like none of the rest of us had been through some bad shit. Or had to make some tough choices in all of this. I felt a familiar rush of heat, a flash through my spine and down my arms right into my balled-up fists. Stared right into his stupid little face, "What the fuck don't I know, huh? Huh?"

"Hey! Hey," Naomi stepped between us. "We got ran off the road. You saw the car!"

"And how's that, huh?" I glowered at Lucas. "His shitty driving?"

He backed away from me as I took a step forward. Naomi forced herself between us, all fiery eyes and balled-up fists. "I was the one driving, Daryl. Me. They came out of nowhere."

"Who did?" Aaron asked. "Did you get a good look at them?"

"There were two of them," she said. "Too busy trying to get away to get a proper look at them, but I think we took one of them out."

"You did," Aaron said. "His body is back by the road."

"Is Rick with you?"

Rick, Rick, Rick. Why's she so obsessed with Rick all of a sudden?

"No, he ain't," I said. "How come you two are best-buds now? He didn't even like you at first. Didn't give a shit that she was gone, neither."

I felt petty. Like a kid that had just snitched on his friend for stealing some candy.

"That's not strictly true," Aaron said like he was worried it would hurt Naomi's feelings or something. Although looking at her, she didn't look bothered by it. "He helped us-"

"I don't care about that," she interrupted him. "We just… found something he should know about."

She and Lucas shared a look. Like they had a secret. I hated it.

"What?" Aaron asked.

"There's a Quarry way back down there," she pointed in the direction they'd just come from. "I remembered seeing it on a map and thought we'd be able to cut through it to get back to Alexandria without being followed. But when we got there… the whole place was filled with Walkers."

"I guess that's-"

"No," she said. "I mean filled. Someone's parked some trucks across the entrance so they can't get out once they're in there. But they've really been building up. Biggest horde I ever seen. I think it's why Alexandria's been so untouched."

"Shit."

She wasn't wrong, Rick should know about this.

"The trucks ain't going to hold them back forever," she said. "We should have some kind of plan in place for when it breaks. Or… find a way to deal with it before it gets to that."

"That's pretty serious," Aaron said. "We should head back, let the others know as soon as possible."

He started moving back the way we'd come, an urgency in his step now there was a new threat facing Alexandria.

"Is the road clear?" Lucas asked him. "When we couldn't get through the Quarry, we doubled-back to here in case we got lost, but we weren't sure if they'd still be around."

"They're all gone," Aaron assured him. "We parked the car right by what's left of yours."

Naomi glanced at me and was started walking after them. "You didn't bring your bike?"

"Nah," I said. "Seemed more sensible to share a car."

Lucas and Aaron walked ahead of us, leading the way back to the car. Naomi fell into step beside me. "What were you guys doing out here, anyway?"

"Looking for you, dumbass."

"What? Why?"

"Because you were missing," I said.

"We're fine," she said. The amount of confusion in her voice about why I might've thought she wouldn't be really rubbed me up the wrong way. After spending all day going out of my damn mind, I was only now starting to feel like my world was putting itself back together again.

"I can see that," I snapped. "Why'd you go off like that?"

"Like what?"

"Running off without telling anyone," I said. "It's fucking dumb."

"Without telling you, you mean?" she said, her eyes narrowed as they fixed on me. I felt like I'd been busted for something but didn't know what.

"Nobody knew where you were."

"I told Aaron I was taking a trip," she said. "I told Olivia. I told Eugene. You're just pissed off because I didn't tell you."

For a moment, I stewed in my annoyance over the fact that she wasn't wrong. "Why'd you do it?"

Another flash of irritation in her eyes. "Do what?"

"Why'd you go?"

"I've found places I want to look for Mia," she said. I already knew that. She wasn't answering the question I really wanted to ask. "It was only meant to be a short trip, how could I have known that-"

"Take someone less useless with you next time, yeah?"

"Like you? That what you mean?" she said, seeing through my bullshit immediately. "That what you're mad about?"

She was looking at me like it was the dumbest, pettiest reason in the world, and I was the one being ridiculous. "Well, why not me, huh? I could've helped!"

"You ain't been around, Daryl! You won't spend five seconds alone with me! When the hell was I supposed to talk to you about any of this? Huh?"

At some point, tears had sprung into her eyes. I watched her fight them back. Felt myself calm down. Like they doused the fire in me. I hadn't realized she'd noticed me trying to keep my distance. Thought I'd hidden it well enough, but clearly not.

"Hey, I'm sorry," I said and tried to reach for her, but she shrugged me off.

She looked up at me, red-eyed and trying not to cry. "Did I… did I do something?"

Her voice was real quiet just then. It tugged at my heart. "No… No, of course not."

"Then… why?"

I knew I couldn't explain it to her. Not without telling her everything.

"I'm sorry. I just…" I didn't know how to finish. "I'm sorry."

We looked at each other. Her brow furrowed, studying me. "You got scared, huh?"

I nodded.

"'Course I did." I'd been scared of everything. Afraid of losing her. Terrified of loving her. "And you covered your tracks like a damn idiot, which didn't help. How was anyone supposed to find you?"

"That was the damn point. I was trying to make sure that these assholes didn't wind up in Alexandria," she said. "And you did find me, so it's fine."

"Almost didn't, though."

"Really?" her eyebrows shot up, a little smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.

"No need to look so smug."

"Listen, you're the best tracker in the whole wide world," she said. "And if you struggled to find us, then I must've done good. Right?"

"No, I ain't. But you did alright," I admitted, begrudgingly. There was an annoyingly satisfied silence. I looked at her again, tried not to get mad this time. "You disappeared, and I just... I... I-"

"Lost your damn mind?" she finished.

"Maybe," I admitted. It was hard to explain it to her. That fear that gripped me. The crushing weight of it. "We good?"

I thought she'd say yes. Maybe call me a dumbass. But she shrugged and said, "I dunno… are we?"

"Yeah," I said. "I mean... I am."

"I am too," she said with a shrug. "Just feels like you've been avoiding me is all."

"Nah," I lied. "Just... getting used to the new place, y'know. It's a lot."

"Yeah," she said, but she didn't sound convinced. "You sure I didn't do something wrong?"

"Other than giving me a heart attack today," I said. "No. You didn't."

At least that was the truth.

"Okay," she nodded. "If you say so."

We got back to the road. I opened the back door for her, and she moved the medical kit to the middle seat so that she could slip in. Lucas got in the other side, and I sat in the passenger seat next to Aaron again. I looked at Naomi's face in the rearview mirror as she stared out of the window on the journey back. Closer we got, the quieter she seemed to be. I thought about what Aaron had said about her being as messed up as me, and I think I saw a bit of it then. Like she only let it out when she thought nobody was paying attention. I wasn't sure anyone paid attention to her like I did.

The whole car ride was quiet. Like we all knew that when it ended, we'd have to bring unexpectedly bad news to a group of people who were wholly unprepared to hear it. I knew Rick would come up with some kind of plan. And it would probably work. But if it didn't... I was okay with that. As long as I had Naomi, as long as she was safe, I knew I could make anywhere home.