𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐨𝐧𝐞 || 𝐓𝐖𝐃 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞

━━━━━━━━━.◦*∘☽
𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐓𝐰𝐨

When Rick comes back from the woods, covered in blood and sweating profusely, I imagine a worst case scenario.

He explains that he hid the girls in a mass of tree branches and sticks, only big enough for the two children to fit inside while he ran off with the walkers hot on his trial to dispatch the freaks of nature quietly and effectively without worrying for the two childrens safety or alerting the looming herd by shooting them.

When he came back to where he'd left them both, they were gone.

He explained that running back here to get Daryl or Gage, who are both skilled trackers in the woods, sounded like his best option in the moment instead of running around the woods searching for two little girls and possibly ending up lost himself.

Desperate to be of some use, I'm the first person to volunteer to go with him and Daryl, which forces Glenn and Shane to go as well.

My father is nowhere in sight but I don't care. I only give myself enough time to demand Elijah stay with Lori or Dale and not to leave their sight until either our dad or myself return because we don't need any more people going missing before we're heading into the woods.

Rick leads the way, while Daryl and myself search the ground for tracks.

"You can track?" Glenn asks me as we follow the running pattern of boot prints from where Rick took off to follow the girls.

"I can't say I'm an expert but yes, to an extent." I explain to him.

"How?" He asks and I shake my head, not feeling the need or want to explain the legistics of tracking to someone right now, when my focus is on finding my sister and Sophia.

Within five minutes we reach the place where Rick had left the girls, and I stare at the ground as Daryl and Rick jump down into the water to look for some sort of idea on where they went.

"I left them right here. Told them once it was safe to head back to the highway, keep the sun on their left shoulder to help." Rick explains as he points to where he told them to leave the creek bed to head back towards us.

I look to the ground near where we're standing and see two sets of small foot prints, walking back toward where we just came from.

"They had a close call with two walkers man, how much of that information do you think stuck?" Shane asks Rick and I roll my eyes at the comment.

"I think it stuck just fine, Daryl come look at this." I say, gaining everyone's attention and point at the ground.

Daryl moves to where I'm pointing and nods.

"Looks like they did what you said, and took off back toward the highway." Daryl agrees with my statement. "Lets spread out and make our way back." Daryl says as Shane moves towards the two in the water to get them back up onto the bank were all standing on.

Once they're both up, Daryl and I are leading the way, following the small sets of tracks as we go.

Daryl's more crouched than I am, watching the movements of the prints closer than me, but I can see the prints just fine as I walk beside him, leading through a narrow path of trees.

Suddenly, the prints halt, the leaves and dirt kicked up before the print marks spread out like the girls took off running.

"They were doing fine until right here, then they took off that way." I tell everyone as I crouch like Daryl is over the marks, pointing to where they went off.