the claimed child-the walking dead

chapter one// the strange girl

daryl sat cross legged on the hot pavement, his heart feeling torn in two. all he had wanted to do was keep beth safe, and reunite with his group. but now, beth was gone-taken by someone, and he didn't know how the hell he was going to find her again. the sound of heavy boots on the ground and guns cocking made him stiffen, coming to his usual, non emotional and logic based senses. he surveyed the men standing around him in a circle, and he narrowed his eyes, aiming his crossbow after throwing a punch at the one nearest. "easy, friend. i'm joe. you shoot me with that thing and these guys here put a bullet in your brain. suicide is stupid. why hurt yourself when you can hurt other people. right, honey?" joe pulled a small hand out from behind him, dragging a skeletal child from behind his back. this joe fella looked like a maniac, with blood dripping down onto his teeth as he grinned, holding the hand of a skinny girl with big frightened eyes. "you gotta kid?" daryl grunted, thinking this was his daughter. "oh, i got a kid alright." joe didn't elaborate, and daryl didn't say anything, but he lowered his weapon. he wasn't going to kill a group who was trying to protect a kid. "smart choice, man. let's be on our merry way, then, and find a place to hole up for the night." joe whistled, and the men ran up ahead to keep a watch out for the dead. daryl hung back, still uneasy in the presence of strangers, and he kept glancing back at the girl, who was straggling behind. he noticed her feet were bare and dirty, in fact-she was dirty all over. her clothes were raggedy, and her blond bangs were cut crudely, as if someone had taken blunt scissors and cut it in a hurry. she avoided his gaze, crossing her arms over her chest. her white spaghetti strap tank top was thin, and she was avid to keep her chest covered-not that anything was there. not that daryl was looking there, either, but he noticed how she covered herself up when he stared. he thought it was odd. they kept on walking, joe explaining the rules of the group, and the consequence of a beating when you break the rules. tilly shuddered as she remembered her first night, when she stole meat from the knapsack and tried to run. she hadn't known their stupid rules then, but joe didn't care, and so he smacked her on the jaw to teach her a lesson, and then he taught her what loving was like. at least, that's what he called it. to tilly, it was just a bunch of sweating and moving and feeling disgusting. she hated when it was time to 'do some loving'. but it was over faster if she lay still and accept it, and so that's usually what she did. she kept walking, her feet blistering on the hot cement. she edged over into the grass to avoid the concrete heat. 

// 

joe's whistle was the deciding factor that camp was to be set up for the night. tilly wandered by the edge of the camp they set up, fingers trailing the makeshift barbed wire alarm system, with loud jangly cans hanging off it. tilly tested it, and smiled softly to herself. no walkers would be eating them tonight. tilly didn't fear death-but she didn't want to go out being torn apart by a zombie. and she wasn't ballsy enough to just end it herself. so she went along in misery with joe and his merry old band of 'claimers'. she rolled her eyes to herself as she went to sit down by the low crackling fire that tony had started up. dan was too stupid to start fires and the like. he just tagged along because he was a brute, and could beat the shit out of walkers easily. tilly grinned at the curse word she said in her head, feeling her own spark of silent rebellion. "something funny?" joe asked her, looking amused. the smile fell from her lips, and she bowed her head, toeing the dirt with her bare foot. joe turned to the men as they claimed their spots to sleep for later. they rooted around in their packs, pulling out claimed food they had scavenged from various locations. it was slim pickings, and joe usually shared with tilly. after all, he did call her his 'little lover', and if you loved someone you fed them. there were enough days to count on one hand the days she had either had to find something for herself, or simply go without, and those days were because she had vexed joe. resisting his 'loving' was what made him the angriest-she remembered the second night she spent surviving alongside them, she struggled-screaming and clawing. his eyes had flashed like the holy fire the bible promises, and she was the kindling to light his righteous fury ablaze. tonight, though, she was free. there was a newcomer, and joe was tired from explaining all the rules, and the excitement of the day. and so, after he handed her some dried cheese and a sliver of meat, with a piece of bread (he had broken off the piece with mold, telling her it was safe to eat), which she scarfed down, he patted the sleeping bag next to him, and she silently crawled over and laid next to him. his body warmth (which she tried to seperate from him himself) and the cover of the roll of blanket was what she decided to be thankful for, as she closed her eyes to dreams of how she would kill joe one day, as he drifted off with his hand down her thin shirt. 

//

 daryl awoke when the stars were still out in the midnight sky, and nature lit twisty paths through the woods with silvery moonlight. he grabbed his crossbow and slung it over his shoulder, setting off to find breakfast. he had only made it a few steps away from camp after ducking under the alert system, when he heard a crunch. he turned, and saw the child, eyes large as she took him in under the moonlight. "go back to bed, kid." he grunted. his voice was like gravel, tilly noted, and she could see that his eyes were blue now that she was looking directly at him. she ignored his command, and stepped closer, moving past him. the twigs and leaves crunched underneath her bare feet, and he sighed, moving on with the idea to hunt, and opted to ignore her presence. she went ahead of him, and he inwardly groaned. they went on like this, her sauntering casually, peeking around trees and picking up sticks and breaking them into pieces, before discarding them and moving on. she was weird, daryl thought. he had never met a child like her, so quiet and interested in odd things. but the world was different, and he only knew so many children-in fact, all of them he had come across was during this hellish apocalypse. he was extracted from his thoughts when a rabbit darted in front of him. he raised his bow, ready to shoot, and pulled the trigger of his crossbow. he whipped around when he realized not one, but two arrows were buried in the exposed side of the rabbits now bloody side. tilly squeaked, a noise she made often daryl noted, and she scaled a low tree next to her in just seconds. he was impressed, he couldn't deny himself that. "that's mine. i've been out here since before the sun came up." daryl explained, and len and daryl broke into an argument. tilly watched with wide eyes from above in the tree, as she lay sprawled over a branch, her small frame folded in an odd way. it reminded daryl of a movie merles old dealer had put on once to gawk and laugh at, called the virgin suicides or some shit. one of the characters had folded up on a tree just like that. joe appeared, seemingly from nowhere. he did that a lot, tilly thought. the rabbit ended up getting cut, and daryl ended up with the ass end. "ass end is still an end." joe smirked, leaving daryl silently fuming at the rules of this group. he had to leave soon, he knew that for a fact. but he would stay a little longer, stay near these people since there was safety in numbers. what was really bothering him, more than getting only half of the rabbit he had worked so hard to find, was that len had made an odd joke about daryl being a sullen loner due to the fact that he was angry about leaving a girl behind, and missing the sex. it had pissed daryl off, because he was, in fact, missing a girl, but not for sex. he shuddered. beth was like a sister, a cousin, a friend-god-anything but something sexual. but what had tipped him off the edge and made him lunge for len before joe appeared was the way len spoke about children. he had said they didn't survive long-which was usually true. but he had also insinuated something a lot more sinister, something that made daryl glance up at tilly as joe whistled for her to come down. he saw her hesitation, and only then, with the sunlight filtering over her, did he notice her split lip. 

//

authors note:

soooo daryl is slowly realizing shit is off with tilly being with the group. and that this group is bad news. and omg poor tilly trying to find little things to be thankful for, like the warmth and comfort of a blanket and someone's body heat even though she literally hates them.