Never Alone (All of Us Sequel)

Chapter 2

I opened my eyes and peeked around the room. Looking at the sun shining through the window, it must have been late afternoon now. After Michonne and Rosita left, I had fallen back asleep on the couch. I sat up and stretched my arms, feeling much better. I still had a bit of a headache but at least I wasn't that nauseous anymore.

I decided to get out of the house and get some fresh air. I walked around for a while, but when I couldn't find anyone I went to the infirmary to see if I could find anybody. When I opened the door, I stopped when I saw everyone crammed in the infirmary. The two people I was most surprised to see were Daryl and Adira.

Daryl had been gone on a hunting trip for the last few days. I had been starting to worry because he was only supposed to be gone a day or two tops. I knew there were so many reasons that could have held him up, but I also knew that many of those reasons weren't good. The hardest part was not knowing.

I had gotten used to being with Daryl these past few months, and we had started depending on each other. When he was gone for days at a time, it was hard because I never knew if he was alright or if he was in trouble. I always offered to go with him, but he was so stubborn and always went alone.

On the nights he was gone, I could never control my mind from wandering, fearing that he would never come back. On those nights, I barely got any sleep. Maybe that was part of the reason why I had downed that beer last night, hoping it would help me sleep.

"Daryl," I said breathlessly, my eyes instantly tearing up at the sight of him. He was back. I felt the urge to run and jump into his arms, but I knew Daryl didn't like PDA, and we were surrounded by people. He nodded his head and I cleared my throat and looked at Adira.

"Adira," I said, surprised to see her. She was sitting on a chair and Siddiq was treating a cut she had on her arm. I hadn't seen her in a month, but she visited every once in a while and we exchanged information and supplies with her group. Adira's grouped was called the Nomads now, even though they finally did settle down about a day's travel from Alexandra in an abandoned warehouse. Ever since that day where our groups had almost gone into battle against each other but we decided to settle in peace instead, things had been good between all of us.

"Sloane," Adira smiled and I walked to her.

"What happened? Are you alright?" I asked as I looked at her arm. 

She looked down at the cut and then back at me. "Oh, yes, I'm alright." She smiled. "Just a cut I got in the woods on my way here."

"What brings you here?"

"Rick said he had some supplies for us," she said. "And I came to tell you guys about a group we met."

"She said they're good people," Michonne said and looked to Adira who nodded her head in confirmation.

"They're a group of army people," Adira explained. "They seem like good people. They have military trucks and gear. They've been tracking large herds of walkers and taking them out if they need to with explosives. There's a herd that's around our place, that's how we met them. They're tracking it. They said they'd let us know if any become a danger to any of our communities," Adira said.

I nodded my head. "That's good."

You never knew what kind of people you would meet nowadays. Usually, they weren't good people, but these army men sounded good.

"So you've been in contact with them recently?" Rick asked.

Adira looked startled and then quickly recovered. I frowned at her reaction.

"No. I mean, yes," she stuttered. "We've tried to stay in contact, you know, to make sure there's no herds headed to any of the communities. That's all."