Much Further

the Plan

I find the stream that we were at earlier that day and start to wash the man's blood off me. I stared into the water that I held in my cupped hands, watch as it drained slowly. I repeated this but instead of letting it drain completely I splashed it on to my face. Trying to wash everything away.

I hear a snap of a twig, I turn quickly fist balled and hit whatever was coming up behind me. Suddenly I'm being tackled and we land in to the stream, who ever it was is on top of me. "Open your damn eyes and realize who it is woman!" the man yells at me while having my hands pin above my head. The water is flowing all around me, soaking me. I didn't realize I had my eyes sealed shut until he yelled this in my face. I open them to find Daryl is the man I had punched, busting his lip. "Get off me!" I yell while trying to push him off.

He gets up and holds his hand out to help me up. I don't take it. "Why did you follow me?" I say with anger in my voice. "Just to make sure you didn't do anything stupid" he replied, studying me as I stood up and started walking away. I crossed the stream walking deeper into the woods.

"I killed a man." I said stopping after five minutes of wandering with no words shared. I don't turn towards Daryl, I don't even know if he continued to follow me or not. I just say the words that were eating me up. "You're just going to have to live with it." Daryl says behind me, confirming that he did indeed follow me. "We've all had to do things that we're not proud of, that's just how the world is now."

I start walking again, a house starts to come into view. I found it odd that there was a house in the middle of the woods. But it was a cabin so it must have been a hunters home for hunting season. Daryl's hands come around my mouth and body, yanking me behind a tree. His back is to the tree and my back is to his body. I feel heat run down my body, I've never been close to a guy like this. Then I hear loud voices coming from the cabin. "Shhh don't do anything unless I tell you" Daryl whispered into my ear quietly, sending chills down my back. I reply with a nod of my head.

He let go of my mouth and pushed me to where my back was against the tree and he was standing in front of me. He nodded towards some bushes near the house intending for me to follow him there. "Stay close and low." he demanded quietly.

I did as he told me, staying behind him from tree to tree until we were close enough and went for the bushes. From here we could hear everything. "We need to go over there and take everything they've got!" one of the men said loudly to the other men. "We're not even sure where they're at, Dean just said it was up the road a bit!" Replied another man. "If we're gonna do this we've got to figure out where they are first!"

"I want the girl if we do go!" the first guy added. I took in a deep breath slowly and released it. Daryl nudged me to follow him to the back of the cabin. We continue past the back of the cabin going further into the woods behind it. When we get far enough we stop, "We need a plan." I say to him "Yeah what kind you stormed off without any weapon so we can't just take them right now." Daryl replies to me aggravated.

I sit down and start to think, "Let them follow us back!" I say a little to loudly. He gives me this look like he's about to leave me stranded for how dumb I am. "Just hear me out. Do you still have the walkie you used to talked to Rick with earlier?" Daryl nods to me question. "Okay we go that way and walk by the cabin towards the stream. Act like we don't even pay the cabin any mind. They see us follow, we make it seem like we don't know they're there. When we get to the stream where we are in range for the walkies, you get a hold of Rick tell him that we've got company and to meet us on the road. We hide, wait for them to catch up and take them out then!" I say almost out of breath. Feeling pretty proud of my plan.

"It could work, but how are we gonna know they're following or not." he counters my plan, making me think for a minute. "I'll stay behind and make sure. If they do I'll let you keep going, if they don't I'll come back this way and around to catch up with you. If they do follow you I'll come after them too." He nods "Fine." Daryl get up and starts walking off. "We do it now, it's getting late so it needs to be done now."