Daryl's Angel: Saviour (Book Two)

Chapter 33: Scared, Stupid

Daryl walks his bike through the trees. He won't risk the noise bringing attention to himself and, with where his head's at, he won't risk another fall either. It's slow going and the bike is damn heavy without an engine pushing it along, but he treks onward, past blackened skeletons and crunchy burnt leaves.

He has to find a spot to stash it. Once he finds Abraham and Sasha again, they can come back and pick it up. He grunts as he pushes it over a small incline. His entire body aches. For the first time in his life, he wonders if he's getting too old for this.

He lets the bike drop onto its side next to a bunch of burnt bushes, stepping away as he brings the radio to his lips.

"Sasha? Abraham, you there?"

Static hisses. He releases the button, bringing the silence back as he looks down at himself. There's another skeleton at his feet, and he can hear the steady drip, drip, drip of water. He winces as he lifts his hand, coated in blood too red not to be from a fresh wound.

Guess his jacket didn't completely save him.

He winces as he peels his glove off, then grits his teeth as he slowly does the same with his jacket. The material seems to cling to his skin, tugging on it, and he squeezes his eyes shut as he pushes through the discomfort. With the jacket off, he examines his arm and yeah, his elbow is fucked. There's a layer of skin rubbed off, blood seeping down his forearm and coating his hand.

He unclips his bag from his bike and grabs his crossbow. He should have something he can patch himself up with, but a branch snaps nearby before he can dig into his bag, and he goes completely still.

It'll have to wait.

He hauls the dead bushes over his bike, hiding it from view, and swings the bag across his body. He can still hear the snapping, faintly, too soft and too far apart to be a walker. He's dealing with people, then. He keeps his finger near the trigger as he raises his crossbow.

Rustling, again, and he creeps closer to the noise. There's a hollowed-out tree trunk, large enough to hide behind, and he moves around it in search of who's hunting him. What he doesn't expect is to find two women, faces dirty, hands raised in surrender.

"You found us, okay?" the taller one says, a brunette in a lacy tank top. "Here we are. We earned what we took."

Another branch snaps, but it's behind him. Daryl barely has time to turn before everything goes dark.

----------

Daryl wonders how much of this story he should tell Hope. Guess it depends on whether he makes it out of it or not.

What's important is that these people clearly think he's someone he ain't.

Fuck, his head hurts even worse now. Even when he tries to wake up, everything is so fuzzy, and his eyes are too heavy. He sees flickering light, a campfire, three voices murmuring to one another. It's dark out.

"Probably just another soldier from one of the outposts," he catches from one of them, a man. He works on a piece of wood, carving out a crude shape. "Probably hates him too."

Movement, someone tugging on him. No, not him, his crossbow. His arms are too heavy to fight back. Their voices are echoey, distant.

"You know how to use one, D?"

"Yeah. Never liked using them to hunt."

"We pick up Patty, and we're gone. This is the last day we gotta live like this."

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

When Daryl finally opens his eyes, the world is soft and bright again, and crickets chirp. Daylight, and early too. He's bound at the wrists with a thick rope and, when Daryl raises his head, the man is kneeling in front of him. One of the women called him "D." He has greasy blond hair, a goatee and a sharp face: sharp chin, sharp jaw and cheekbones, sharp nose. He glares at Daryl with a hatred that can only come from knowing and hating someone intimately.