Fire With Fire // D. Dixon

chapter two

Chloe Grimes had no idea how far she had gone, but she knew it wasn't far enough. 

Looking into the sky, she could still see the dark cloud of hazy black smoke. The sight had confirmed her suspicions. She knew she hadn't ventured too far just yet, not even a full five miles yet. 

The growing pain in her chest forced her to stop. Stopping to catch her breath, she had noticed a car just ahead. It looked to have been abandoned on the side of the road. If she was lucky, maybe it would run. 

Chloe made the move towards the little Ford and opened the door. Scrambling around the dash and hastily searching the console, she managed to find the keys. Without thinking too much, she shoved the key into the ignition and turned it. The car grunted as the girl tried to get it to start, but it did not. 

Of course, that would have been far too easy. Chloe simply rolled her eyes.

"Damn it!" she groaned, slamming her hands against the steering wheel in pure anger, "Piece of shit Ford!"

She knew she shouldn't, but she just sat there. Looking in the rear view mirror, seeing the smoke that had begun to fill the sky. She sobbed, thinking about all of the things she had just witnessed.

"We gotta do something..." Carl spoke, his gun aimed right at the Governor. If he could just pull the damn trigger, this would all be over. One shot was all it would take.

"Your dad's got it." Daryl told the boy, his gun in his hands. He held the gun firm within his grip, his eyes set on the Governor. He trusted Rick, with his life and everything else. He just hoped that they would all make it out of this unscathed.

"They're talking! We could kill the governor right now." Carl suggested, aiming his gun towards the man standing so proudly on the tank. What an asshole, he thought.

"From fifty yards?" Daryl scoffed, and Chloe only sighed. She had wanted the man dead just as much, but his plan could get their Dad killed. That wasn't something she wanted to risk.

"I'm a good shot," Carl said, adjusting his grip on the gun, "I could end this right now." Carl kept his eyes on his Dad, making sure he was still talking. The second he sees a gun raised, he'd fire. Both Daryl and Chloe knew that much.

"Yeah, or you could start somethin' else," Daryl said, watching the Grimes boy closely, "Ya got to trust him."

"Carl..." Chloe whispered to her little brother, "Daryl's right. If you shoot and miss, we're all dead. That includes Dad." She was very worried. For her Dad, for her brother, for her baby sister, for the prison. They had so much to lose.

"What if I don't miss, Chloe?" Carl retorted, frustrated at the silence that had fallen among the survivors. Things were a bit too quiet. Dangerously quiet.

"Then we'd still have a whole army firing at all of us, Dad's down there right in front of them. He wouldn't make it." Chloe urged him to hear her, to stop his death mission and think about Dad. They were all they had left, all they had was each other.

"You don't know that-"

"Carl, if ya ain't gonna listen to me, listen to your sister." 

Chloe missed him. It hadn't been an hour, but she so desperately missed her family. Dad, Carl, Judith, Daryl...the list goes on. She wondered if they had even made it out alive. Maybe she should have looked longer, but she had run for the hills the first chance she had gotten. She hadn't seen if anyone had gotten away, the haze of firing her gun had distracted her from watching the people around her. She had let the chaos of war make her weak, which lead to her being alone.

Worst of all, she felt guilty. If she had let Carl fire his gun, Hershel would still be alive. Maybe none of this would have happened. Everyone would still be alive and safe back at the prison. It was her fault.

She just kept walking down the road, with no specific destination in mind. She was just wandering around aimlessly. The girl thought about all the things they'd say to her if they were here. 

"Wanderin' around ain't gonna keep you alive," Daryl spoke to her, "Ya shouldn't be out here in the open like this."

Heeding Daryl's imaginary advice, she decided to stick to the woods. That way, she would at least walk along the treeline and avoid being spotted from the road. After everything they'd been through, it was clear that people were far worse than the dead.

"You think you can just keep walking on and on like this without water?" Carol spoke in her motherly tone, "Three days without it and you're dead."

Once again, the imaginary advice was true. She couldn't just walk away from all of her problems, she would become dehydrated in this heat quicker than anything. And I'll be damned if I die from dehydration, she thought.

Chloe began trudging her way through the forest, being sure to go in the opposite direction of the black smoke. At least she'd be making progress of getting as far away from the prison as possible while also looking for supplies.

In the meantime, Chloe did her best to keep track of where she had been and tried to go in a straight line. The last thing she needed was to get lost in the woods, where walkers were sure to stumble upon her and feast on her flesh without a second thought.

As she paused where she stood and began listening for anything of interest, she could hear continuous whooshing sounds from a little deeper in the woods. She smiled, knowing it was the stream she had been looking for.

"Atta' girl. Water is a good first step, but nightfall is comin' and you don't wanna be unprotected." Daryl spoke.

Sighing, Chloe grabbed the water bottle that she had found in the car earlier and began collecting water. She knew this stream was a goldmine, but she wasn't sure if it was safe to stay here much longer. With nighttime approaching rapidly, she had decisions to make.

Chloe Grimes was alone. In the woods. For the first time, really. 

She had been out on plenty of runs, but she had always been with someone. She had learned a lot from the members of her group, specifically Daryl and Glenn. Rick had trusted them, more than anyone, to take care of her and to protect his eldest daughter, and so they did. But Daryl Dixon and Glenn Rhee weren't here right now. 

Chloe Grimes was alone.