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chapter seventy-five | the white cross
"ARE WE CLOSE?"
"Almost done."
Daryl stood behind Beth as she held up his crossbow, aiming it forward. After their fight, their... confessions, then burning down the trailer, they kept moving. On the way, Beth asked if he could actually teach her how to shoot his weapon and how to track. He agreed.
He never was able to teach Laurel how to shoot his crossbow. She just wanted to teach him to each everything else. She was decent at tracking and setting traps, but she was getting frighteningly good at throwing knives and killing either animals or walkers. Might be better than him. Might have, he corrected himself.
It's all his fault.
"How do you know?" Beth said, breaking him out of it.
He glanced over her shoulder, then examined her stance. "Signs are all there. Just got to know how to read 'em."
"What are we tracking?" Beth asked.
"You tell me."
She dropped the crossbow and gave him a look. He shrugged, "you're the one who wanted to learn."
She turned forward again, looking down at the ground in front of them, "well, something came through here. The pattern is all zig-zaggy... It's a walker."
She smiled, looking back at Daryl for confirmation. He scratched his chin, "maybe it's a drunk," he joked.
"I'm getting good at this. Pretty soon I won't need you at all," she boasted. She aimed the crossbow forward again then kept walking.
"Yeah, keep on trackin'," He mumbled.
They followed the tracks into an opening with a walker knelt down in front of something, eating it. Beth pointed to the gun in between its shirt and pants. "It's got a gun." She glanced back at Daryl who gave her the go. He raised his hand to tap her elbow twice but froze, stopping himself.
That's how he and Laurel communicated silently on runs and hunts.
His chest started to hurt as Beth stepped forward, aiming the crossbow at the back of the walker's head. He watched closely, unsheathing his knife just in case anything would go wrong. She kept walking forward until something loud snapped and Beth fell down with a whimper in pain.
He rushed forward, and Beth fired the crossbow but hit its shoulder. She gasped in pain at the bear trap around her foot. Daryl quickly grabbed the crossbow from her as he passed her, swinging into the walker's temple. Daryl turned around and knelt down next to her before the body even fell.
He helped her out of the bear trap, "can you move it?" he asked once her foot was free.
She turned her ankle around, feeling slight pain but she was able to move it. "Yeah."
