It parks not far beyond the Chevron station.
The dust and shit on the glass ain't thick enough, it won't hide their movement. Her clean hair is so bright, she sticks out like a lantern.
The passenger door pops open with a squeaking creak; no time to get behind the counter or to the back. Not with the way daylight filters in. He spins from the windows and pushes her to the side; she stumbles along the wall, kicking trash. As far from the glass as they can get– a few measly feet. He does all he can think of: leans his arm up by her head, angling over and in front of her. Shielding her blonde head and pale face with his dark clothes.
"Shh," he hisses near her ear.
Don't move, he wants to warn her.
If I say so, get out the back to Rick, he'd like to demand, but he doesn't wanna risk an argument.
She understands enough without all the words. Beth flattens against the wall, makes herself smaller, ducking behind his stiff frame. He does his best to make them nothing more than a shadow through the grime.
He peeks by his arm, holding still as he can but he's thrumming with nerves. Legs swing out– black boots, black pants. He stands and Daryl catches glimpses of a dark-toned man in all the same Atlanta PD costume bullshit. He leaves the door open and casts his eyes around carefully, starts on the mobile homes and mechanic's. A slow, suspicious sweep counter-clockwise round. He can tell somethin's not right here, something tipped 'em off, but he doesn't know what.
Yet.
The pig's hand stays on the butt of his gun.
He takes his sweet ass time examining it all, like he expects a trap. He wanders cautiously from the truck, getting closer to the Taurus– to them. It's harder and harder to stay motionless and calm. This asshole in his little make-believe outfit is a bitter joke that pisses him off the more he watches him.
Law enforcement's always been adversarial in his life– even when they weren't an enemy, they were not friends (Rick the one exception). But now... they have no laws but their own to abide by, and the same overinflated egos, self-righteousness and entitlement. Daryl tries to fall into the patient, silent part of him when he hunts, but he feels like prey. The adrenaline pulses through him, he's edgy as fuck.
He grimaces into his shoulder when the guy finishes his prolonged perusal with the Texaco, squinting at the door. Staring right at 'em.
Feels like it, anyway, from this angle. The hair on his neck stands. His chest tightens.
He crowds closer to the wall, stubbing his left toes. Beth's nervous breathing brushes her coat against his. Her thigh is jittery next to his, ready to spring, and her elbow pokes his stomach when she grabs her knife hilt like a security blanket.
In the fraught silence, her jumping thigh heats where it touches, distracting him. This'll probably go wrong any fuckin' second now, he should be ready to shoot that motherfucker through the eye. But he's sidetracked by the way her quad flexes when she leans a few degrees closer.
The cop disappears behind the Taurus, so Daryl only sees brief flashes of his head and shoulders over the roof.
Beth's chin dips and tilts toward him, like she might fit herself into the crook of his neck. Like she might hug him again. It's familiar. Far more intimate than this whole situation should be. It's the closest they've been since the kiss.
Stupid to think of that, too.
They've only got a few yards, the car, and some dirty glass between them– and yet, part of his mind is remembering how she felt when she kissed him, slick and chilled and ethereal. How she feels now, warm and tense and prepared for threats. He ignores his own reaction, the different sorta tension knotting low in his gut. Blames the rushing blood on the fast adrenaline and their recent bout with police brutality. Blames that shit, and the sudden danger, for the pounding in his ears and chest and groin.
The driver shouts somethin'- too muffled for Daryl- drawing his partner's head back around, mighta been Should we check it out? or Should we look around?
Daryl ain't sure, but he is sure it startles Beth, she flinches at the strange, stern voice. It's slight but all the places she bumps into– arm, side, hip, thigh– tingle.
He grits his teeth.
Beth stops breathing, her ear tipped toward the door, listening as hard as she can. Her hand tightens on her knife, her elbow still stuck into him.
Daryl's beginning to believe it's gonna go bad. Maybe they shoulda been sneaking out the back anyway. This is not good. He's antsy and it's arduous, staying stock-still, the crossbow weighing down his arm. The officer takes long enough to respond, Daryl asks whoever's listening upstairs– Hershel's God, Merle's crude spectre, even his mama– to get these dickheads moseying down the road already.
Like before, the cops make time go slow motion, elongating each second into a torturous minute.
The man finally responds over his shoulder, "Nah... we ain't got time."
Dumb luck for dumb prayers, he thinks, but he ain't looking a gift horse in the mouth, whatever that means. He lets out a long breath into his own arm.
Beth twists a little, an instinct to look, her left foot readjusts between his feet. Subtle, but the slight shift rubs her hip against him, her leg firm against his, closer into this outrageous mockery of an embrace. The kinda way Merle used to loom over women in bars. This shouldn't be an issue, shouldn't be anything at all, but he's too tuned to her, sensitized. The slight friction she causes– the places she's snug up to now– are impossible to ignore. He remembers their belt buckles clicking together. The noise she made with her mouth under his.
He can't move yet, no matter how his skin crawls to get space.
Maybe it's the oxygen after holdin' his breath, the dizzying bit of relief. He keeps his attention on the cop– off his busy nerve endings– he stoops out of sight behind the golden sedan. When he stands, he gazes around the buildings again, back into the glass of their hiding spot. Still wary, his cop instincts on edge. It feeds Daryl's unease, too. What he can see of the guy's face is pinched with thought, confusion, suspicion.
His head stays on a swivel while he jogs back to the Tahoe– with a bag now– as if a sniper's waiting. Daryl wishes.
He makes it to the truck just fine, though.
The door shuts with a shocking slam that jolts Beth again– all these noises she can't put her eyes on going straight through her. His traitor dick twitches, a perverted kinda call-and-response, an echo of her movement. His palm's itchy to push her hip away, but it won't do any good, she's plastered to the wall. He's the one stuck to her, growing harder and more unnerved. He white-knuckles his bow with his sweaty hand.
Fuckin' mortifying
The brake lights tick off, the tires crunch loose gravel again. He doesn't move, not till he's sure they won't pull a U turn. Beth looks up to him, her big eyes full of questions: Are they leaving? Are we safe yet?
He readjusts the bow enough to press his forearm to her side, a brief wordless answer– and request. Hold on/not yet/just wait.
Beth's tension begins to unravel anyway, the farther the engine gets. The hand on her hilt relaxes, her arm and side settling. Her muscles and tendons– taut and twitchy with fight-or-flight– ease. She softens into him, against his hard-on. Makes him tenser, nearly shuddering when sensation bum-rushes him.
She's the teenager here, but he's the one acting like a damn fifteen year old. It's even worse when he realizes she must feel it. His neck and face smoulder with humiliation. He can't look her dead-on when her eyes flick up to his face again, he doesn't wanna read her expression.
She doesn't shuffle in discomfort or pull away. Just waits like he wants. The further the engine gets without doubling back, the better he should feel, but his clenched, overstrung body doesn't unwind like hers. His anxiety just turns.
The Tahoe's a dim hum when she quietly asks, "Cops, right?"
Her hand is gentle on his ribs when he doesn't respond immediately. It slides down an inch, a restrained caress, like she's comforting him, tryin' to soothe his nerves. Or the searing embarrassment.
But it's not comfort he feels.
He pushes back from the wall, pretty much flings himself away from her. He retreats to the far windows, wiping dust away with his forearm, but the car is gone. He checks the street. He needs the distance, a reason to put his back to her. Outside is nothing more than an empty road-side trap again.
Beth adds, to his back, "Or dressed like cops, anyway…"
"Yeah," he grunts out, his smudged reflection frowning at him. Her blurry mirror image joins his, and when he looks back, she's rubbing her palms off on her thighs, drying them of the same nervous sweat his are slick with. This was stupid. They get into too many stupid situations. He admonishes her, "You shoulda stayed hidden."
Switching to annoyance helps stifle what started.
She just shrugs, and says, "I wanted to see."
He wants to be a smartass, How'd that work out for ya? or somethin' meaner, anything for the energy balling up inside him, spoiling for an argument now, an outlet.
Instead, she brushes it off, changes tack, asks, "Why'd they have a cross?"
He frowns harder. He rolls his sore shoulder in a shrug and mumbles, "Dunno."
"It was the same–" Beth's voice cuts off at a door clapping shut close by. One of the others comin' out.
Daryl readjusts the bow, flexing his shoulder a little before backing out the door. As he goes, he points a finger at her and orders, "Stay put, for once."
He spies half an eye roll before he's gone, but still hears her sarcastic, "Yes sir, Mr. Dixon."
Rick's on the sidewalk outside the store, Carl holding the door open. Abraham's not far behind. The others stay near their doors, quiet and armed, waiting for direction.
"Did you see 'em?" Rick asks him when he approaches.
"Yeah. More cops. Maybe a whole fuckin' precinct somewhere. They grabbed a bag."
"Maybe they're lookin' for their people out here. Don't know if that woman got back to 'em or not."
"Maybe they're lookin' for us," Daryl contradicts.
Out here, though, on the street, Daryl can hear somethin' else. At first, he thinks he's just paranoid, just expecting the worst now. Just the blood still pumping dully in his ears.
He ignores Rick and Abe's conversation, listening beyond their shoulders. Not just one sound, but many piling on top of each other, from the distance. It's chaotic, erratic, from many different places, both sides of the road. Cracking branches and rustling brush. Over a slight hill in the road, he starts to see heads bobbing.
The reason the cops didn't have time.
A walker springs out of the trees much closer, propelled forward by pure hunger. Then others, till they're spilling out everywhere. A mess of death materializing from the direction the cops came, where they still gotta go.
The street fills too quickly, they keep appearing, more than hundreds, thrashing through the woods and over each other. Getting back up and coming, a wave growing.
Abe remarks, "Well, we ain't got the ammo for all'a that," but he raises his M16 anyway.