Not Today

Chapter Four

HAILEY I

When Hailey heard the news that Rick Grimes had been shot, she swore that it was the worst moment of her life. The man who had held her when she broke her leg after falling from a tree when camping, and watched every soccer game she played in, was fighting for his life in a surgery room. 

But then she was ushered into her dad's pickup truck as the world descended into chaos around her. When she was with her dad and Rick, Hailey felt untouchable. Like she was above everyone else. Safer then them, anyways. That ideology crashed and burned around her, when she saw the helicopters fly over Atlanta. Saw the smoke spill into the night sky, and the fires light the night sky into a beautiful amber. 

Without Rick, Hailey had lost her security blanket.

Now, every snap of a twig jolted her nerves, sending her brain into an overdrive as her eyes immediately sought out the comforting figure of Shane Walsh. Tall and broad shouldered with the muscle to match, Shane cast an imposing figure over the average person, and nothing filled Hailey with more comfort then burying herself into his arms for a warm hug. 

Now, she had to share that comfort though. 

Nothing filled Hailey with a greater sense of guilt then when she saw her father with Carl Grimes. The boy was practically her brother, yet when she saw him sobbing to her dad, or begging him to play catch with him, Hailey felt furious. A bitter horrid feeling, welling up in her stomach and making her heart ache. Those little moments had occurred before the outbreak, on those days when his parents would shout each other into oblivion and Carl would end up in tears. Hailey's heart had broken for the boy then, when Shane would take them both to Meg's Diner to try and take the young boy's mind off of his parent's impending break up. But now, plagued with this physical pain, this fury, Hailey wanted to scream. 

Now that the boy's dad had died, what used to be fleeting moments now occurred on the daily. Hailey had resolved to stay silent, yet her eyes burned with angry tears and she clenched her hands so tightly, that her nails would cut open her palms. She despised this feeling, and so she buried it, pushing down her agony as her mind yelled out her hurt. 

I'm hurting too, she'd shout, why can't you see that?

In the first week, her attempts at being silent had been entirely unsuccessful and Hailey found herself blowing up at the slightest of inconveniences. Glenn had been an unlikely ally, the lonely Asian man providing a welcome listening ear for the young girl who's heart ailed her. During the second week another distraction came in the form of two angry hunters and their deaf family member. 

The eldest of the trio was a middle aged man named Merle, who swore loudly and angrily, and resented her father with a burning fire. He was tall, around five foot ten, but alcohol and drugs had ruined what was once an intimidating figure. His hair was closely shaven and he reeked of stale beer. 

His younger brother Daryl was in his thirties, with short choppy dark blonde hair. Unlike his brother, he didn't seem to care for alcohol, and he handled a large metal crossbow with impressively large biceps. Where his brother shouted and raved, Daryl was quiet, sharp beady eyes assessing the situation as he covered Merle's back but also shielded the third member of their odd family unit. 

Rosemary Dixon, was as tall as her father and an inch taller then her uncle with plain brown hair that fell in messy ringlets around her pale face. Her eyes were a dark coffee brown, different to her family's blue ones, and when she locked eyes with Hailey, the girl found herself shuddering. Unlike her family members whose emotions were plainly drawn on their faces, Rosemary's face was drawn blank, completely apathetic to the chaos around her. When she learned the girl was deaf, the emotionless blank face only served to impress her.