broken claims

Part 13

Daryl didn't know what Merle would like more. Knowing that his niece was alive or that he was hunting police officers down in the wild remains of Atlanta. Both, he thought grimly, lining up a moving car through the scope of his rifle.

Guilt made his hands steady. Rage made his hands steady. The black car raced down one empty street like a bullet fired and he watched, considering the direction it was moving it. The hospital sat like a grudge just blocks away and he was in the shadow of it, keenly aware that he had lost two children to it.

Two children that better be alive and breathing. And one, he thought grimly as he toyed with the trigger, that better know he was coming.

A door swung open and he spun for it on instinct, rifle locking up in the man peering out of the darkness of the interior stairwell. It had been a luxury set of apartments to rent. Daryl had flagged it from the street and pried the lock off, killing a handful of the undead before setting up a temporary perch to spend his morning. "Hold it," Daryl warned, settling the stranger in the cross hairs of his scope. "Don't take another step."

"Oh, friend. It's been a while, yeah?" Said the person, tugging slowly at the mask covering his face. "Got something for you. You telling me you don't recognize an old buddy?"

Daryl was missing two children and didn't have time to play games. He still had the blood of that officer beneath his nails, that old final scream rattling inside his skull. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Ah, ah. Picked up your boy back in the day. You forget that? Toothpick of a guy."

He inched forward and Daryl applied a touch of pressure to the trigger. He had spent a handful of days seeking out a stash of guns and weaponry just to become a walking armoury, waiting in the sun and darkness to catch a glimpse of his enemy skulking around. Beth's knife was in his pocket like a reminder. The old photograph of Leigh like a reminder he didn't need. "Don't move," he growled out, mouth twitching into a scowl. "Whoever the hell you are, you best turn the other way and keep on walking."

"Jesus and Mary, both. C'mon out, blondie. See if you can break this ice."

He nearly shot Beth as she rounded the narrow corner, coming out from behind the stranger's arm. Daryl lowered the rifle and his heart nearly split in half from how hard it wrenched in his chest. Her cheek was bruised and stitched together in a neat black line. She nearly tripped crossing the space and he caught her carefully, one hand touching the plaster of her cast gently. "How'd you get out?" Daryl asked gruffly, barely believing in the proof of life before him. There had been darkness full of teeth and claws last he saw her; brakes screeching as a car shot off.

"I knew you were out here. I made it through," Beth said weakly, pulling back like she needed to see him as well. "I knew you'd be somewhere."

"You weren't supposed to get lost," he said on reflex, as grimly thankful as he had the time he found Leigh up at the cash of the grocery store, vanished when he turned around for a second and gone when he looked back. "

"Didn't plan for it. I was fighting one of 'em off on the ground and it all went dark. Woke up somewhere else. They said they were on a lead for more guns and found me instead."

"I tried following you. I saw the car pull off with you and I tracked on foot as long as I could. Thought you were long gone until one of those pricks flashed your knife," he wrestled it free from his pocket and handed it back to the rightful owner. She snatched it up and held tight to the wooden hilt of it, thumbing the old engraving.

She looked at him with suspicion. "Did you send that girl in for me? She's still there."

"You saw Leigh?"