Ok so after some deliberation, I've written a shorter chapter xD You guys didn't seem to mind much either way but this shorter piece worked better into my own personal time frame and the time frame of the story. :) Now, heads up, this chapter, as I just said, is shorter. It mainly focuses on one particular scene (kind of) but you'll get that as you read. There were many reasons for this, some being that I wanted to focus on the emotions of this particular scene and this chapter marks a type of...transition in Audrey's mindset and in her relationship with others, mainly Daryl.

But more on that next chapter ;)

Anyway! Hope you enjoy and PLEASE REMEMBER TO REVIEW! I love love LOVE hearing what you guys think and liked and what you didnt because it helps me improve this story and my writing overall. :) So please and thank you! ^^

Disclaimer: I own nothing but this story and OC.

Warning: Language and gore.

Chapter 21: I Am Human and I Will Let You Down

"AMY!"

Something snaps in my throat, something breaks and shatters and rends in two. I taste blood; I become lightheaded. The night erupts into chaos around me and all I can see is my friend's arm, locked in the jaws of a walker.

"AMY!" I scream again and this time, I'm moving. My feet fumble, pain flares, but I force myself to jump the log I was previously sitting on, landing with a distant feeling of agony but not even fazed as I stutter forward. However, I don't get very far. Three steps away from the fire pit, another geek suddenly appears to my left, to my right, ten of them shuffling out from behind the RV. I stare at all of them in horror, frozen in place. Where did they come from? There's…there's so many. My mind races, counts, calculates, all in the span of a breath. It's like a horror movie; it's like Dalton all over again. Too many, too many, too many of them and not enough of us. We can't…I can't…there's nothing we can do against these numbers. We have almost no guns; we're five men down! Oh my god. Oh my fucking god! My brain loops that curse over and over again before it slams into the thought of What are we going to do?!

What the fuck are we going to d—?!

"Mommy!"

Carl's voice snaps me out of my thoughts. He's cowering against Lori's side five feet to my left. His eyes are wide, face bathed in shadows and flickering with terror. His mother cries as she pulls him close and Shane tries to get between them and the walkers but they're everywhere: before, behind, and on all sides. The former cop circles like a rabid wolf, trying to protect its pack, firing at anything that moves with a snarl.

Fire burns through me and that's when I think our pack. Our group. This is our goddamn camp and…and I'm not about to let it fall to a couple of fucking dead bastards!

I don't know how it happens; I don't remember the movement. But suddenly, my katana is twirling in my left hand, steel length catching the reflection of dancing flames and giving the impression that the very blade has been set afire. The weight is familiar; as is the burning in my veins, and all the weariness, drowsiness, and pain fall away, shed weight. I'm light now, buoyant, quick and I sure as hell am fucking lethal. A walker shambles into my line of sight and bares its teeth at me. I snarl right back, noise inhuman, and set upon it like a wild animal. My blade cuts through the night air with untraceable speed and the geek's scalp and half its skull tumbles to my feet, gore splashing my ankles. The body hasn't even hit the ground before I'm darting to the side, setting in on my next target, no thought, no plan, just pure instinct and the need to killsurvivekill.

In the back of my head, I had this plan to cut a straight path to the RV, images of blonde hair and blood accompanied by the mantra of Amy's name screaming at the base of my skull. But the night is too chaotic, too hellish. I try to keep straight and walkers come at me from left and right; a person screams behind me and I whirl around just in time to decapitate yet another head. I'm getting turned around and soon enough I don't know where I am. I'm just a blur of constant motion: swing, slice, hack, and repeat. The dirt's the same beneath my shoes, the fire casts shadows across the whole world, there are geeks wherever I turn and the screams of the frightened, of the dying, intermixed with gunshots and moans, plays like a soundtrack from hell through the hot summer air, digging down to my very bones. I'm cast adrift in this tempest with no land in sight.

I know it's only been a few moments since the walkers tore into camp but quickly it begins to feel like hours. I'm drenched in sweat, coated in blood, none of it my own thankfully. My arms grow leaden, my legs sluggish, and it seems no matter how fast I move, no matter how much I slash and destroy, another camp member is falling before me. I see a woman whose name I can't remember become ambushed from behind before I can warn her, a half rotten jaw digging into her shoulder. I see another man run in my peripherals, run for his life, but he trips and goes down hard, a pack of walkers on him before he can get back up. I see Rebecca and Simon, back to back, become overwhelmed by five geeks and I can't get there fast enough, I'm too far away, there's nothing I can do, and they collapse under tearing hands and gnashing teeth, their shrieks of pain vibrating painfully in my ears. Hopelessly, I still try to reach them, thinking there must be something, something can be done, but then more walkers are coming at me and Sophia is screaming now, high pitched and sounding like every nightmare I've ever had. I wheel around, frantic, still lashing out when rotten fingers get to close, the fetid odor of decay to rank, and I finally I see her.

Carol has her daughter wrapped tight in her arms, has her half lifted off the ground as she tries to stumble and run from a huge male geek that's hot on her tail. She screams in terror, in pleading, I can see the tears on her cheeks in the weak light of moon and fire, and Sophia all the while keeps wailing, the sound reaching a crescendo until I can hear nothing but that one note. I start to run for them but in my mind, I know I can't reach them. They're yards and yards and miles away. I can't reach them. I can't reach them. I need a gun, any gun, someone with a gun.

"SHANE!"

The former cop snaps his head around at the sound of his name. His eyes scour the carnage, searching, and I wave my hand frantically in the air, hoping the glare of the katana will catch his attention. It does and I start pointing behind me, nearly throwing my arm out of socket, whipping my head from staring at him to tracking Carol and making sure she hasn't succumb. I'm still running.

"Carol!" I shout at Shane. I gesture at the running woman; my gut roils as I see how much closer the walker is to catching her. "Help her! Shoot it!" Shane hesitates, gun cocked and loaded, but the trigged not pulled. "Shane!" I scream in pleading. All of the sudden, a walker lunges at me from the darkness and I curse as I bring the katana down on it's face. When its body lays prone in the dirt, I snap my head up and see that Carol is still running, right behind me, fifty yards and almost done. I whip around and find Shane still staring at me, his mouth moving but I can't hear what he's saying, don't want to hear what he's saying, just wanting him to fucking shoot.

"Goddamn it! Walsh shoot the fucking thing!" His face twists, cast in shadow, and he tries to say something again but I won't let him. "FUCKING SHOOT IT!"

The retort of his rifle—not the usual shotgun, must have run out of ammo—is like a holy choir singing hallelujah. I'm just starting to think thank fuck Carol's saved when a searing pain tears through my arm. The white-hot agony makes me cry out, notions of walkers and teeth, broken skin and infection careening through my head before I look down and see not a geek bite, but a furrow carved deep into the upper half of my left arm.

Shane shot me. He fucking shot me.

The thought barely registers before I'm spinning on heel, casting my eyes about, because if he shot me, he must of missed the walker and Carol needs help, needs saving, and Sophia might die!

Except Carol and Sophia aren't where I last saw them. They're tearing through my peripherals and I turn just in time to see them be hustled toward the RV by Morales who's brandishing a bloody bat. The walker that had been chasing them lies in the dirt, still and unmoving twenty yards in front of me, it's neck turned at a sickening angle so I catch sight of the crater like hole that Shane's bullet indented into the middle of its face. Seeing the bullet hole and feeling the scalding burn on my arm I suddenly think back to Shane's hesitation, his attempts at shouting something at me. He was trying to tell me to move; I was in his way; he didn't want to shoot me.

Something in me wants to laugh, because out of everything I've taken the last few days, I had tried my hardest to remain bullet free. Well, there went that notion. But I don't have time to curse or cry at life's ironies. Walkers still moan in the darkness, people still scream, and I have no more time to stand and be idle. Turning my katana on myself, I slice the bottom half of my shirt off, being careful not to nick any skin with the gore covered blade. Strip of fabric in hand, I force my right hand to tie it around my upper arm, shielding the open wound, screaming behind gritted teeth at the pain. The knot is haphazard and I cinch it with my teeth, tasting salt. My vision swims and bile rises in my throat but I forget the blood snaking down my skin, the way my arm now fights me on every movement, the extra, agonizing heart beat in my wrist, and dive back into the melee.

People are rushing in a stampede for the RV, following Shane's shouted orders. I see Morales' family up there, Dale, Shane, Lori, Carl, Sophia and her mother. I can make out no one else in the darkness. There are still too many sprinting shapes and I can't tell who's walker and who's not until one of the latter category sets in on me, snarls and growls and rheumy, marbled eyes. My feet tangle in bodies and slide in blood slicked dirt as I try to fight my way up the hill to the Winnebago. But my body is tiring, pushed to its uttermost limits. I'm one of a few still fighting hand to hand, or blunt object to head anyway, and even the others are trying to turn tail. Gunshots come less and less, not because the number of geeks is dwindling, they're still here in droves, everywhere I turn, but because the ammo is running out. No more bullets; no more shotgun pellets. Soon, all we are going to have left are bats and pipes and my blade. Against these numbers, we'll all be overwhelmed.

A wet gurgle to my left has me starting and suddenly, a geek looms over me, its throat torn out, a gaping, red hole left in its wake from which watery snarls echo. I try to stumble away, raise my katana, I hear screams of my names as if from a distance but no resounding crack of a bullet comes to save me. Seems we've finally run out of ammunition. My blade feels too heavy; I don't have enough strength to lift it. The geek seems to sense this and its hand reaches out, snags the front of my shirt, broken nails digging into the fabric. I weakly struggle but it's not enough to get away, not enough to save me, and I gaze up in the yawning maw of my death, waiting for the inevitable bite.

The run back to the quarry is a pain in the ass. It's almost ten goddamn miles and the sun is excruciatin, burnin the back of Daryl's neck and the bridge of his nose. He had told Grimes they should just go back and steal another car but the streets were crawlin with geeks, more than usual, all of them hyped up by the commotion earlier in the day. They tried twice to snag a vehicle but both instances almost ended in them bein bit in the ass and, what was more, they didn't have the time to waste. Merle had probably reached camp already and Daryl just wished he didn't kill anyone or get killed before they returned. It was a stupid ass wish but he clung to it all the same.

Now, since the moment Daryl entered the quarry, he knew every single last person there was a city slicker, spoiled and pampered. But—holy fuck—it's never been more obvious than when none of them, save Grimes and even he has trouble, can do more than jog a mile before forcin them all to stop. Daryl glares like his heated gaze will get them movin but Chinaman just clutches the stitch in his side while T-Dog doubles over pantin. Grimes tries to act like he ain't in the same state but Daryl sees right through his shit; he's barely standin on his own two feet. The hunter hates their weakness, wants to curse at them, demand if they've worked a single goddamn day in their life cuz Daryl could run this distance since he was eight, needin to get far away from that house he lived in, his drunk father, the yawnin absense of his Ma. But he does none of those things. Instead, he hefts the bag of guns that Grimes had dropped to the ground up onto his shoulder, ignorin the way his muscles protest, the way his crossbow digs painfully into his spine. The cop tries to argue but Daryl ignores him too. He starts off with a brisk walk down the long, gravel road that leads up the hill, back to camp, and soon enough, the rest of them join him and they're joggin again. Even with the added weight of the guns, Daryl outpaces them all.

No one says a word the rest of the way back; they don't have the energy. The only sounds to be heard are harsh pants and wheezin breaths, the heavy pound of footfalls and the clatter of loose rocks. As time drags on and the sun steadily approaches the horizon, Daryl actually begins to feel the strain. His knees have started to click and sweat's pourin off him in rivers. His vision's gettin spotty and he won't say nothin, not to anyone, but he's been feelin light headed for hours now. It's cuz the last time he ate was…fuck over two days ago and he damn well knows it, knows his body is barely even runnin on fumes now. But there had been no time. He went from huntin game to huntin down his brother with no rest in between. Eatin was a luxury he couldn't afford. Or so he thought. Now his neglect is comin back to kick his ass.

Not long after Daryl gets a pulsin headache behind his eyes, T-Dog calls out for them to stop again, lettin the bag of tools he's carryin tumble to the ground before anyone can say otherwise. Grimes spares Daryl a glance, as if askin permission, and the hunter scowls and grunts noncommittally, turnin away like he's disgusted with the lot of them when, in reality, he needs to get the ground to stop movin under his feet.

Ten yards away from where he's standin, Daryl sees an outcroppin of rocks and he quickly—as quick as he can manage anyway— and trudges to it. His knees buck just as he reaches the first boulder. Cursin at the sudden give, Daryl flings his hand out and catches himself at the last minute, palm scrapin harshly on the gritty surface of the waist high rock. The sting doesn't even faze him, pinpricks of blood washed away by the sweat and weariness in every inch of him as he manages to sit down without fallin down. Daryl chances a glance to the side but no one's payin him much attention, too busy guzzlin water like racehorses and tryin to keep their lungs in their chests. He tries to sneer at the sight but fails when his sight doubles.

"Fuck." Daryl lets his eyes slip closed and he starts countin his breaths. As a precaution, just in case they ran across any more geeks on the way, he's also been carryin one of the extra shotguns they brought back. He could have stowed the gun and carried his crossbow but the bow is to heavy to run with. Now though, the gun weighs goddamn two tons. It almost slips from Daryl's clammy fingers but he's not that fuckin weak yet and he manages to drop it into his lap, flexin his fingers and tellin himself they aren't shakin.

However, as the gun settles against his thighs, a dull crinklin noise reaches his ears. At first he thinks it's somethin in the brush behind him but the noise didn't sound like dry grass and the minute, sudden seize of his shoulders eases. The sound repeats itself and Daryl frowns as he opens his eyes. It takes him a moment, he has to squint to focus his gaze, he has to shift to hear the noise again, but soon enough he sees it: a small, red piece of plastic, stickin out from his pocket.

Daryl knows what it is before he reaches for it, knows that it's that goddamn protein bar the kid had pressed into his palm before she whirled away. But just because he knows it doesn't stop the churnin in his gut that has nothin to do with hunger when he pulls it out and lays it flat in his hand.

The bar stretches from the tips of his fingers to the heel of his hand. It's crumbled and more than a little bent, warm and soft against his skin. His stomach snarls at the sight and he remembers green eyes and concerned gazes, tentative smiles and split lips.

"Do you want me to grab you something real quick? I think there are some leftovers from breakfast, nothing much but enough to take the edge off until you get back."

"It's a protein bar. I…I had a few left in my pack and well…it has all the nutrients of a full meal so…you know…"

A part of Daryl wants to throw the bar away, cast it into the dirt. Not cuz he's pissed at the kid but cuz he's pissed at…he doesn't even know anymore; himself, Merle, the rest of the assholes at the quarry. All and none of the above. He just feels like shit and he wants—needs—to get back already, see what's happened, see the damage, see what he can goddamn fix. Daryl casts half a glance to the sky and notices that it's already sunset. Merle can demolish a bar in five minutes flat and get them all carted off to jail within half an hour. It's been half a day, at the least, since Daryl last saw that cube van. The quarry could be burnin by this point. The thought makes he want to jump to his feet and sprint the last few miles back but the headache in his temples stops him, as does the flickerin of his vision. The fact of the matter is, no matter what Daryl wants, he ain't gonna get nowhere if he passes out. He glances down at the bar in his hand and doesn't give it a second thought when he rips the plastic off, bringin the melted and mushy, chocolate covered granola bar to his lips.

Daryl knows it should taste sweet, the wrapper boasts of real chocolate and other cavity inducin shit, but as he chews and swallows, chasin every mouthful with a gulp of matter, he can't help but think it tastes like dirt and feels like glass goin down.

A few minutes go by and Daryl tries not to notice how his vision evens out, how his headache starts to lessen, but when Grimes rallies the rest of them up, he can't exactly ignore how his legs don't shake anymore or how he has a new burst of energy. When they start to run again, he hates to admit it but he knows that fuckin bar saved his ass and that's just another goddamn thing he's indebted to that kid for. When he thinks about the shit he's done to her, directly and indirectly, all the fuckin shit, Daryl realizes he's in debt up to his ears and sinkin like a stone. It makes him feel even worse, like dirt, crap, and trash— Garbage ain't allowed in heaven. Ya know that, don' ya boy—and it pushes him to run that must faster through the darkenin bruise of twilight.

#

It's dark by the time they hit the final stretch. Night fell quickly as they ran and despite the lift the protein bar gave him, Daryl feels wiped out. His muscles burn and his eyes sting, his lungs feel bruised and he has blisters along his heels and insteps. But he doesn't say anythin, doesn't show it. He just keeps runnin and, finally, the rest of them seem to catch his frantic need to get back to camp cuz they've picked up the pace. Chinaman's huffin and puffin beside him, drenched in sweat, but there's this determined glint in his eye, shinnin in the dull light of the moon, and Daryl kinda admires his drive.

Then he remembers that it's the fact that Merle could be killin everyone at the quarry that's drivin the chink and his admiration sours into somethin unnamable.

The thought of his brother sets Daryl's bones shiftin in his skin. Because with each step, the four of them get that much closer to their destination and now that the finish line is in sight, Daryl has to start thinkin bout what he's gonna say, what he's gonna do, when he finally sees his brother. But he can think of nothing to say. It's just this big fuckin mess in his head of ingrained loyalty to the only family he's got left—cuz kin's everythin baby bro; you remember that—and the chink's fuckin face as he told Daryl that same family member tried to murder a seventeen year old kid by throwin her off a roof. A kid, Daryl's mind traitorously whispers at him, that's done nothin but be kind to him, try to be his friend, for reasons Daryl can't understand. A kid that, though Daryl hated to admit it, hated to think about it but couldn't ignore it, may have started to succeed before he fucked it all up cuz no one's ever treated the hunter like she had, like he was smart enough to be listened to and…and just enough to be around without it bein an obligation. So no, Daryl doesn't have the words. He doesn't have actions either, a physical plan B when he finally saw his brother. Merle was tied up, left in the city to die, and cut off his fuckin hand, all in the span of one day. He's gonna be pissed like Daryl's never seen him. And if he's amped up again, there ain't no stoppin him, one handed or not. The hunter wonders at what his brother could have done already, even one hand down and sufferin from major blood loss. The list he comes up with is long and gruesome and he just prays that Merle passed out or somethin cuz he doesn't want to think about the alternative.

However, when he hears the first gunshots, a part of Daryl thinks that whatever vague alternatives he had thought up were gonna be nothin like watchin his brother put bullets in people skulls.

Grimes actually stumbles when the sharp retorts and sharper screams shatter the night's silence and, even in the weak light, Daryl can see the cop blanch. "Oh my god," he whispers, like a fuckin prayer, a plea. The four of them freeze in the echoes, stock still and tense, half aborted thoughts of hearin things, exhausted hallucinations, but then someone screams again, voice going up and up until abruptly being cut off by another gunshot, and then Grimes is runnin, balls to the fuckin wall, and the rest of them have no choice but to follow. Daryl feels bile in his throat, somethin akin to fear clenchin in his chest as he cocks the shotgun in his hands and knows that he has to say somethin fast or his brother's gonna be dead, if he ain't already.

But when he finally bursts into camp, steps from the trees and out into the open, it's not to see Merle waving a gun around with Walsh dead at his feet. It's not to see Walsh beatin his brother's head in. Runnin into camp, Daryl sees somethin worse, much fuckin worse.

He sees hell on earth.

Walkers are everywhere, dozens of them, a moanin, shamblin, horde. Daryl can't keep track of them all, so many shiftin shadows in the dark. Bodies cover the ground more than dirt does and Daryl doesn't have to wonder at what the slick wet patches are; the moon catches the red of them well enough. The air smells like smoke and something metallic, something wet, and Daryl fights the urge to gag. It's like anyone's worst nightmare; it's like the world's endin again. Beside him, Grimes gasps, Chinaman honest to god whimpers, and then the geeks finally see them and they're sucked right into hell.

Daryl reacts from the gut. He doesn't think bout it, doesn't second guess, doesn't stand there in shock cuz he has learned not to since the apocalypse started; has learned instinct's the only thing gonna keep you alive now, the urge to fight or flee. Well Daryl can't fuckin run so he settles for his only other option. A geek is five yards in front of him, arms raised, jaw slack with moans, and he aims and fires within the span of two breaths. The walker tumbles to the ground and before it even stops twitchin, Daryl's already firin again and again and again.

Bodies start droppin like flies. It's a constant stream of aim, fire, thud, aim, fire, thud. Out of the corner of his eye, Daryl sees Grimes kill with precision, steady hand and a cool trigger finger that always finds its mark, even while his face screams fear like nothin else. Even Chinaman and T-Dog are holdin their own, though their aim isn't as good. Daryl watches as the chink pulls the trigger of the rifle in his hand, the round goin wild as the weapon bucks unfamiliarly in his hands, hittin a geek in the chest, just to the right of the sternum. The walker stumbles and falls from the impact but before long it's gettin back up and shamblin toward the young Asian again, not even fazed, a thick, almost black liquid oozing down what is left of its shirt. Daryl shoots it in the temple and it doesn't get back up this time round. Chinaman looks at him in wide-eyed gratitude, pantin, but it's only a moment's pause cuz then he's off and runnin again, this time yellin at the top of his lungs. It takes the hunter a second to realize the chink's speakin English and another second to process what he's hollerin.

"Audrey! Audrey where are you?!"

The kid's name is like a blow to the back of the head. Unwillingly, Daryl automatically drops his gaze to a body he's steppin over, lookin for short brown hair and wide, dead, green eyes. But it's just another geek starin back at him, rotten through and through. Daryl feels somethin like relief swell in his chest but it's quickly doused when he looks out across camp and sees the dozens of bodies, anyone of them possibly bein the kid.

Or his brother, his mind whispers but Daryl doesn't even pay the thought any attention cuz the cube van is nowhere in sight. Merle ain't here and Daryl has more pressin matters to worry about.

Like the fact that he finally sees Audrey.

Daryl jerks to a stop the instant he recognizes her, squintin through the smoke in the air. She's standin twenty yards away, wan and pale in the moonlight. That sword of hers dangles to the ground, slanted just so to catch the dyin light of the fire, the steel lookin like it's set aflame. It would look fierce if the kid was wieldin it but she ain't. It hangs useless and unused at her side and Daryl wants to fuckin scream at her cuz a geek has her by the front of the shirt and she needs to fight if she wants to live. But she doesn't; she just stands there and Daryl makes the decision for her, snappin his shotgun up, sightin along the barrel and firin just as the dumb, dead, bastard goes to sink its teeth in Audrey's neck.

Its head explodes just as the kid manages to wrench out of its grip. She stumbles as the body tumbles and both she and the walker slam harshly into the ground. Daryl has half a second to fear that maybe he had shot her too, a spare pellet imbedded in her skull, but then she's jerkin her head up, eyes castin frantically about before they land on him. Even at this distance, Daryl can see the green of her eyes, the fear and shock and relief. Someone screams off to his left and Daryl would have turned to help but before he can, another walker is settin in on the kid who is still lyin on the ground. He goes to shoot it but the chamber of his shotgun clicks empty and Daryl realizes he's run out of ammo. Audrey seems to realize it at the same moment he does cuz she goes white as a sheet, the bruises on her face standin out livid even in the dark. She meets his eyes for just a split second and that's when Daryl realizes he's movin, steppin over bodies and shiftin his hands so he's not holdin the metal in his hands like a gun but like a club cuz if he can't shoot these sumbitches than he's gonna beat their fuckin heads in. He opens his mouth to yell at the kid to get up, to run, to just damn move but he doesn't have to cuz she seems to have read his mind.

One moment this kid's lyin half propped up in the blood soaked dirt and the next she's on her feet, unsteady but upright nonetheless. Daryl feels surprise burn through him but it quickly turns to abject shock when the geek goes to grab her and she has her sword skewered through the crown of its head, the hilt jammed up under its chin, before it can even touch her. By the time he's standin five feet from her, she's already jerkin her sword out with a wet squelch, shovin the geek's body so it collapses away from the two of them, landin on top of the one Daryl put down not thirty seconds ago.

Daryl thinks back to the fight Audrey had with Walsh and the fierceness of her expression. Then he thinks that couldn't hold a candle to the look on her face now.

Chest heavin, Audrey looks up at him and Daryl goes rigid as their eyes clash. No longer separated by distance and darkness, he can see the terror and determination battlin for dominance in her gaze; he can see the bruises imprinted in her skin, still painful and black; he can see the sweat on her temples and the splatter of geek blood across the collar of her t-shirt, the juts of her clavicle, sprinkled across her cheek. She looks like hell but she's alive and Daryl tries not to notice the knot in his chest unfurlin.

"D…Daryl," the kid gasps, eyes wide. Her voice still sounds wrecked and scratchy from Merle's grip. Now, it also sounds high pitched and breathy, seeped in fear and exhaustion. "W…what…where—?"

A sudden growl behind her cuts Audrey off and Daryl is snarlin, "Duck!" right before he swings the butt of his rifle into another walker's face, its head snappin to the side right before it drops. The kid straightens with a wince and eyes as wide as the moon above them as she gazes down at the walker and back up into Daryl's face. Her mouth opens and closes but nothin comes out. Daryl can't think of anythin to say either. He just continues to stare at her and she at him as the moans and screams begin to peter out around them, gunshots comin less and less until they don't come at all.

It's Audrey that finds her voice first. "What are you doing here?" she asks. Daryl can't help but be thrown a little by her unexpected question.

"What am I doin here?" he repeats. A million responses tear through his mind and he says the first thing he can grasp. Shiftin the gun in his hands, he points the blood-streaked butt at her, a roar in his ears and adrenaline like heroin in his veins. "Savin yer ass kid!"

What did she think he was doin? Takin a goddamn Sunday stroll?!

At his words, the shock and awe clicks from Audrey's eyes. The green orbs abruptly turn hard and she scowls at the gun in her face, pushin it away with a harsh movement, the edge of her sword catchin on the wooden grain and tearin a chunk out before Daryl pulls it completely away. "Yeah well I didn't ask you to," she returns, words sharp and serrated. Daryl balks at them, uncomprehendin, mentally still back on that long windin road leadin to camp, lost and disoriented and desperately needin to play catch-up. Audrey doesn't seem to notice or particularly care bout any of this. She just turns her sword in her grip and perfects her sneer. He shouldn't be surprised, not after the shit he said, shit he did, but it stings him nonetheless. "And I'm pretty sure Merle isn't gonna actually be too happy with you. He worked pretty damn hard to do what that geek just tried to accomplish."

The mention of his brother, and what he had done, is like a sucker punch for Daryl. Coupled with the venom in the kid's voice, toxic where her words used to be sweet, the hunter can't come up with a response and ends up just starin at her, watchin the blood dry on her skin as her eyes start to crystallize before him. Like earlier today—Christ has it not even been a day?—it seems like the kid is far away, her eyes cold and detached, bottled glass with nothin behind them. Her usually expressive face is blank save for the sneer curlin her split lip and Daryl feels vaguely sick when he realizes the expression the kid is wearin now is the same one people have been givin him since he was a kid himself: disgusted and disdainful. Seems like that saint like patience and forgiveness has run out. His mind supplies that Audrey's just finally come to her senses and seen him as the world does. A part of Daryl, the part that sounds like his older brother, thinks it's bout damn time. The other part he ignores completely.

Forcin a scowl onto his lips, he's just bout to come up with a retort, an ingrained reaction, rackin his brain for one even as his mouth parts, when a sudden scream beats him to it. Both he and the kid flinch, scramblin for their weapons, forgettin the tension between them, but a quick look round reveals no new dangers, no new geeks. Audrey's brow furrows, bruises dancin in interestin patterns along her face, and she's just takin a curious step towards the blood curdlin sound when it repeats, the noise roundin out into a single word.

"AMY!"

The shrill name bears no meanin for Daryl, he can't even place it, but one look at the kid and he can actually see the blood drain from her face, her eyes almost bulgin out of her skull. She inhales so sharply it's a whistle and then she's no longer standin in front of him. Neck on a swivel, Daryl watches as she tears across the blood stained ground like her leg ain't fucked up, leapin over bodies and debris, feet barely touchin the dirt. Daryl cranes his neck and tightens his grip on the empty rifle he still holds, on edge and waitin for the second wave of walkers to immerge.

They never do.

And it isn't until he spots glimpses of blood streaked, blonde hair, until he sees the kid collapse to the ground feet away from the RV with Chinaman holdin her back, until he actually steps on the gore covered sword that Audrey had abandoned without a second thought, that he realizes…

The scream ain't one of fear.

It's the scream one hears at the end of the fuckin world, when breathin just ain't worth it anymore. Daryl shifts in discomfort, now that the adrenaline starts to fade, and stoops down to pick up the kid's now scarlet weapon, listenin as other cries join the first as he fumbles along the warm hilt. He doesn't know what's happened, only the general hell of it, but he knows someone's world is endin and even though it's cruel, even though he hates himself for it, Merle's image flashin in his mind's eye, still lost and fate unknown, he thinks…

Join the fuckin club.

The second I hear Andrea's scream everything else fades from my mind; all the hell I just experienced, walkersblooddeathfear, the exhaustion replacing the blood in my veins, even Daryl himself, standing there with bright blue eyes and my life in his hands. Everything. It's like it didn't happened; it's like it didn't exist. Because with Andrea's voice rebounding in my skull, all I can think about is how this all started: Amy, a scream, a geek, and redscarletblood.

I'm running before I realize it. I'm feeling no pain. My eyes are trained on the RV, on the blonde hair sprawled across the dirt, and the ground could be collapsing behind my heels and I wouldn't know it. There's a single thought in my head and I let it consume me. I just need to get to Amy. I just need to reach her. She's…she's fine. She has to be. I'll make her be. Something is screaming at the back of my mind that I can't help her; that she's gone, infected, beyond my reach. I force the thought away; mentally shout no no no nononononononono. It's only when I feel arms around me, only when I hear Glenn's voice at my ear, telling me all the things that I thought were only in my head, that I realize I'm screaming loud enough for God to hear. But He isn't listening; He never has. Better yet, He doesn't even exist because if He did, there is no fucking EXCUSE for Amy's blood spilling across the dirt, seeping into the Earth, slicking Andrea's arms and burning into her skin. God doesn't exist. He can't. Because if He did, I would find a fucking way to kill Him.

"Glenn! Let me go!" I hear myself scream, as if at a distance. Amy's head shifts like she hears me, and something shatters brilliantly inside of me. "Let me go, let me go, LET ME GO!" I fight against his grip and the two of us buckle to the ground, me thrashing all the while. Glenn doesn't loosen his grip though. If anything, it only gets tighter and his words get more frantic, louder, as they break.

"She's gone Audrey," he sobs against my ear, lips dragging harshly along the shell. The letters sound ripped from his mouth, bloody and jagged as they crash upon my ears. I vehemently shake my head, smashing into his skull, eyes wide as I reject his words. "She's gone. You can't do anything. Stop. Please…just stop."

His words make me angry, so fucking angry because Amy's our friend, MY friend, and how can he give up on her like this? She'll be fine. She has to be. She…we were just talking. Talking about Faulkner and time and wrestling in the light of the fire. This isn't real. Can't be, can't be, can't be. The disbelief builds in me, a tremendous pressure, and it explodes with me throwing my elbow harshly into Glenn's side, not even listening to the groan he emits, only feeling his arms slide from my ribs. I scramble away the instant I'm free, crawling in the dirt. Someone tugs at my calf, my ankle, but I wrench away and shuffle to Amy's side, collapsing beside her head, opposite Andrea.

The instant I look into Amy's eyes, I know; know it's too late, know what Glenn said was true. It burns my lungs out from my chest and I can't breathe but that doesn't stop me from reaching out and trailing my fingers down her cheek, across her jaw, down to her neck and pressing hard on the gaping wound there, trying to keep the blood in, in her body, in her veins, in her heart. That same traitorous, clinical, voice at the back of my mind says it doesn't matter; the blood's infected anyway; it wouldn't help even if I could stop the bleeding. My hands don't seem to be listening though. My body's disconnected. Because though my brain knows it, knows it's over, the rest of me keeps trying to refute it and it isn't until Andrea sobs out harsh words that my brain registers that my mouth's been moving all this while, mindless and instinctive.

"I'm here Amy," I hear myself ramble. I taste bile and decay in the back of my throat. "Right here, I'm right here. Just look at me ok? Look at Andrea. We're here. We aren't leaving. Just look at us. Keep your eyes on us. It's…it's…it's gonna be fi—" I choke on the word and start up my previous lines again, reassuring my friend that I'm right beside her. My heart screams to tell her it's fine, that it's gonna be alright, ok, just fine. But I can't. It's a lie. Even my body knows this and it won't let me say it, won't let the last thing I say to Amy be a lie when almost everything else between us has been a deception.

Andrea feels no such hesitation though. "It's going to be ok Amy," she whispers to her sister. The younger blonde's eyes, starting to mist over and lose their focus, lazily flicker over to Andrea's and tears start to slip out of their corners, trailing across her temples and back into the bloodied hair. There's fear in her gaze, fear because she knows it too; knows her fate as much as I do even as everything in me rages against the inevitable. "I'm going to save you," Andrea continues and Amy exhales what would have been a sob or a laugh if the hole in her throat didn't bubble with the escaped air, blood gushing between my clamped fingers, warm and sticky. Andrea seizes at the sound, the sight, and suddenly shoves my hands away, pressing her own fingers to the palm sized wound. As if her efforts will yield a different result. As if she can actually save Amy.

She's dying.

The thought is like a gunshot going off in my head. It stops me dead—dead get it? Stops me dead—and all previous notions of rescue and grand, heroic gestures bleed from me as fast as Amy's blood is draining from her. A numbness and an ice-cold disbelief begins to trickle through my veins. My body begins to shut down, detach, wanting to pull in and away and not witness this. I don't want to see this, don't have to see this. I can run, run, run away. Like I ran from Dalton, like I ran from Adeline Way almost ten years ago. I'm good at running. I can do it forever. Don't want to see this. Don't want to see this. Don't want to see this.

She's dying.

But I see it all the same. I stay in place, not moving, not running. I force myself to stay alert, force myself to fumble for Amy's hand and intertwine our fingers, squeezing her palm to let her know I'm right beside her because I don't think she can see me anymore. She's my friend-friend, friend, I keep losing them all—and I'm not going to abandon her. Not now. Not when she's been there for me since the start, even when I didn't want her to be. Here, at the end, I will not leave her.

She's dying.

Amy's pale blue eyes rove listlessly, tracing patters that I can't track. Her mouth opens and a gurgle falls from her blood stained lips. The sound is too close to a moan and I find myself talking again, just so I don't have to hear it.

This time, however, it's not assurances that trip off my tongue. I don't have any more in me.

"I'm sorry Amy." My apology is nothing but a slurred wreck but Amy seems to understand, seems to hear me, because her eyes suddenly find mine, bright and clear and still fucking Amy. The world narrows down to the two of us. There are no walkers; there is no quarry. Amy doesn't have a sister still desperately trying to keep sand in a sieve and there is no one named Glenn tugging at my calf, thigh, trying to wrap his fingers around my shoulder and tug me away. It's just Amy and I. Just the two of us. Nothing more.

Amy struggles to open her mouth. Tears are still dripping down her temples and her blood burns me where it touches my skin. Already, I imagine I can feel a fever to Amy's body. Somewhere deep, I know it's nothing more than a hallucination. It takes hours for the fever to set in. Amy has moments left. I realize this. She's lost too much blood. She's going to die…but she's going to die decidedly human.

It should be reassuring. It's fucking not.

"A…a…d…ree." My name is no more than a sighed breath, almost unrecognizable, but I hear it nonetheless.

"I'm here Amy," I say again because I can think of nothing else. Then I blurt out, "I'm sorry. So sorry. So fucking…but I'm here," because she needs to know. Know that I'm so fucking sorry. Sorry I couldn't trust her before. Sorry I could never be her Emma. Sorry she's dying right in front of me and that I'm doing nothing but letting it happen. Voice cracking, I realize my eyes are blurred with tears and I blink them away rapidly, needing to see my dying friend.

She's d.y.i.n.g.

Amy looks scared to death—oh god oh god she's going to die—as her eyes find mine. There's a slight pressure on my hand and it takes me a moment to realize she's squeezing it. Unbidden, I bring our intertwined arms up, stomach roiling at the chunk of flesh missing from the underside of her forearm, the gushing blood staining her normally pale skin crimson. Sitting on her thin wrist, the pink bracelet I just gave her shines dully in the bright light of the moon, silver molten in the white light. I find myself staring at the red stained, pink knots before looking back at Amy's face. Her lips twitch and her throat makes that gasping sound again. I distantly hear Andrea cry out in distress but I'm more focused on leaning towards Amy's face, pulled as if by an unstoppable magnet, trying to make out the weak words her lips are trying to frame.

My hair brushes her cheeks and I feel her shaky exhalations along my jaw. A beat passes, and then two, and I'm just thinking Amy's gone, when I hear it.

"T…th…an…k y…ou."

I rear back as her words process, tears scattering off my eyelashes, because what is she thanking me for?! I've done nothing for her; not a thing. I can't even save her, my friend, who I promised to try and make happy, make safe. I couldn't even tell her the fucking truth about myself. Why is she fucking thanking me?!

I never get my answer.

Because just as I pull back, Amy's eyes slide over to Andrea and there's the beginnings of a smile curling the corners of her mouth, plaintive and heart wrenching, full of unspoken love and goodbye, right as her hand goes lax in mine. There's another gurgling shudder echoing out of Amy's throat and then she's completely still; bright, pale blue eyes going dim and dull, staring past her sister's head and into the dark above our heads.

She's dead.

The ensuing silence is deafening and it's like the whole world has been put on mute. I stare down at Amy's oval and unmoving face without blinking. I want to wish that this is just a dream, a nightmare, but I know the truth. The truth is carved into the agony in my heart, branded on my skin with blood, burning my eyes with tears. I can't escape it and I don't fight it.

She's dead. Amy's dead. One bite, one moment, just a breath. She's gone, gone, gone, and I couldn't do a damn thing.

I drop Amy's hand and slump backward against the RV, staring unseeingly at my friend's corpse as Andrea starts to scream and sob.

There's a hand on my shoulder but I pay it no mind; there is a voice at my ear but I don't even acknowledge it. I just sit there, in the dirt, yet another friend's blood on my hands, Amy's face flickering in my mind: long, blonde, pin straight hair, full pink lips and blue eyes.

Except the blue of her eyes don't stay blue. They bleed amber, and then turn into a blank, white, opaque color and I can't tell if I'm staring into Amy's dead gaze or Kaleigh's and somewhere along the line decide it doesn't matter either way. Both blondes, both of my friends, are dead and I could do nothing to save them. I failed them equally.

Amy's dying words echo in my head. "Thank you."

And then, it's Kaleigh's voice. "Please. Please Audie."

What was Amy thanking me for? What was Kaleigh asking?

The answers feel just out of my reach, dancing along the fringes of my mind. I grasp for them blindly, needing to know, please tell me, but I grope empty air for an eternity before other fingers tangle with mine. I blink and I'm sitting in the dirt again. Glenn's hand clasps mine tightly and I stare at out intermingling digits, my scarred and slighter ones spearing blood—Amy's blood—into his skin. I look up and realize Glenn has me pressed into his side, back to the RV beside me, arms pulling me close. There are tears on his cheeks, sliding into his mouth as he talks to me, but I don't hear his words. There's an urge to wipe the salt off his face but it's buried below ice, immutable and unmovable. I just stare and stare and stare as Glenn cries and I feel myself slipping below the glacier in my chest. It all becomes numb—nothing hurts, I can't feel a thing—and when I look over absentmindedly, shrugging off Glenn's attempts to press my face into his neck, the body two feet from me is just another body in an endlessly dying world. I feel no connection with it. It's just blonde hair and pale skin and wrongwrongtoowhite blue eyes. It's not Amy. It's nothing but decaying matter. Amy's gone and I refuse to cry over some shell.

The words seem harsh, even in my own head, and I flinch because that seems the appropriate thing to do. I can hear people crying, see their tears; I can feel my own salty tracks carving furrows in my cheeks. But it's all so far away. It's hard to grasp, hard to hold on to. Glenn keeps calling my name but I don't respond. The world keeps revolving around me: red and scarlet and crimson and whitetoowhite. White skin, white eyes, white moon above us. The colors are too stark, too unsettling, and my eyes wander, yearning for relief.

Blue.

I find blue. Right blue. Not toowhiteblue. It's deep and soothing and calm. It cools the burning of Amy's blood on my hands; it thaws the ice in my heart. I find myself locked into the color and I blink when they blink, timing so I'll always been looking when the color is present. Daryl gazes at me across the battlefield, the cemetery, his eyes tied to mine, and I suddenly find myself wanting the older man closer.

If only because he's not crying, not grating on my ears with anguished screams.

If only because he won't want to hold me, hands too constraining, restraining, on my skin as Glenn tries to press our bones together, our friend lying dead a few feet away.

If only because his eyes look something like Amy's, look like my Mom's and Irina's and feel like the only grounding force in the world; blueblueblue in a sea of redddeathscrarletcrimsondyin gred.

But he doesn't move and I find myself immobile. Cast adrift in a tempest of vermillion sorrow, I'm quickly going under, Glenn's hands and Andrea's screams dragging me down. As the world starts to fade, Amy's last words resounding like a mocking condemnation in my skull, I know that this isn't me passing out. Oblivion is too merciful. This is me checking out; giving in; giving up. Something in me balks at the idea—you must never give up; you must endure—but I find myself too far gone to care.

Amy's gone.

I know.

All your fault.

I know this too.

What are you going to do now?

Survive.

You don't deserve it. You never did.

I know.

I know.

TBC.

So thoughts? :) Please let me know! Even if it's one word or a whole page. I like all feedback but its especially gratifying to see long reviews *hint* *hint* ;)

And sorry that I kind of lied about the abundance of Daryl/Audrey interaction in this chapter :/ When I said that I was planning for a LONG chapter but that didnt pan out. :/ Sorry.

However! Next chapter starts us going to the CDC and all that jazz and Audrey's going to be turning more and more to Daryl in the wake of Amy's death. ;) I know. I'm a tease. I regret nothing.

Until next time!

~Shadows

PS: *****IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE! PLEASE READ!******

Hey guys I also wanted to say I'm heading into a big move at the end of this week :P And starting a new school year. As a college student. SO! That being said, I'm warning you now that it might be about 2 weeks until my next update as I will be getting used to my new surroundings and blah blah blah. But don't fear! When I do update, it will be LONG AS HELL and chock full of Daryl/Audrey interaction and feels :) Hope that keeps you around! Please don't abandon me or this story yet! It's just about to get GOOD!