Jinx || Daryl Dixon || The Walking Dead Fanfic

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DARYL

Daryl came to the realisation that the most sensible place for everyone to go would be where they'd left supplies for Sophia on the interstate, so he directed the bike in that direction.

Now he had somewhere to go, he had point he was moving towards, he let his mind drift, he hadn't seen Jinx get out, she hadn't been in any of the cars that had been attempting to draw walkers away. He hoped she was with Lori and Beth, he thought he'd seen them get into the truck that T-Dog and Andrea had been driving.

As he pulled up to where they'd broken down before, he was relieved to see Rick, Carl and Hershel. Only a minute later the other two trucks and a car pulled up behind him. Lori ran out and hugged Carl and Rick, holding them tightly and he glanced up at Carol to see her smiling at their reunion. Hershel was holding his daughters close and Glenn and T-Dog stood nearby looking exhausted.

"Where's the rest of us?" Daryl asked, one person specifically on his mind.

"We're the only ones who made it so far", Rick told him, Lori asked about Shane and he just shook his head.

Glenn asked about Andrea, Carol said she'd saved her, but T-Dog said they saw her go down. Hershel then asked about Patricia, but through tears Beth told him the walkers had got her too, she asked hopefully about Jimmy, only for Rick to confirm he had been in the RV when it was overrun.

"What about Jinx?" asked Carol.

Daryl could feel the fear rising up in his chest, no one had seen her.

"I'm gonna go back" he went to get on the bike, but Rick stopped him. "We can't just leave her".

Lori pointed out that they didn't even know if she was there. "She isn't there. She isn't. she's somewhere else, or she's dead. There's no way to find her" Rick said with some finality.

"So we're not even going to look for her?" Glenn asked incredulously. Rick made the decision that they needed to keep moving, there were walkers crawling all over and they weren't safe in the open.

Daryl didn't know what to do, Rick was right, there was no way to find her, going back would be suicide. He pushed the girl from his mind as a walker approached them. "Stay off the main roads, bigger the road the more assholes like this one. I got him." He put a bolt in its head.

___

JINX

She kept just inside the edge of the treeline as she moved down the interstate. She'd caught her bearings enough now to know where she was, and she was close enough that she could see the cars of the others. She breathed a sigh of relief, she had been right, they were there.

She wasn't close enough that they could see her, or even the horse, but she recognised the cars. She was too exhausted to run, but she started as she heard the rumble of Daryl's bike and seconds later the car engines also started up.

They were leaving.

They thought she was dead and she thought maybe she was without them.

She fell to her knees on the damp earth as she saw them drive away, but the horse nudged her head with its nose, reminding her it was there. She looked up with hope, grabbed the nearest tree branch and held on for her life again as she managed to steer the horse in the direction the cars had been going.

___

DARYL

He heard the truck behind him coming to a stop and pulled over. Rick got out and walked towards him, "You out?" he asked the sheriff.