The Battles End (#wattys2016)

Chapter 3

So I'm gonna do the same thing as I do with my other TWD fanfic Every Last Breath (you should go check it out) I'll give the title if there is one in the chapter to try to prevent people from skipping around. Seriously, you miss main points of the story by skipping around.... Sorry to all of you who actually fully read the story, anyway..
Chapter 3: Bite

Cautiously I raised my crossbow, leading the horses behind me.

I had found one that looked like Daryl's. It was next to the body of some man. A woman with short brown hair was dying and turning right next to him. It had looked like they had a vehicle of some kind but it was taken by whoever attacked them.
Since then, I had gotten pretty good with it. Not as good as my big brother, but good enough. I had practiced and shot with it so many times back at the farm.

Angel and CJ were deathly silent, probably getting as small on Cobalt as they could. The smell of the dead was practically part of the air. The were around here, somewhere around the corner of a building maybe, but we see just lucky enough to not have seen a walker. Yet. I had gone the direction I thought the group had fled, in hopes the twins and I could find them before they turned and headed home. It's been two days since I've seen them, so that hope was almost completely depleted. I had no clue if I'd be able to stumble apron Alexandria without a map. Pausing, I looked back at my two kids. They both had dirt and dust smeared on them and their clothes. The same went for me. Shaking my head, I snapped back to attention and kept moving forward. That was when I heard it. Human voices coming from a trashed corner store.

"Hold 'em back!" A male voice directed.
"We're trying!" A female snapped.
Now I figured out where all the walkers were.
I glanced back to see Angel and CJ almost flat against Cobalt's back. Swiftly I went back to them.
"CJ, honey, you'll tell mommy if you see a monster from behind right? Will you do that for me?" CJ, with Carl's hat loose on his head, gave me a firm nod. I hated having to ask a five and a half year old to do something like that, but who knew about these people? There could be a list of possibilities concerning them and Alexandria. And damn it, I was desperate. And these two weren't your normal everyday five year olds. They had to both grow up quickly. I led the horses a little closer to the building, before kissing my babies on the foreheads. "Thank you. I love you both." There was a look in CJ's eye that for a second, had me fooled that I was talking to Carl. But no. I was talking to Carl's son. And he was exactly like his father.

I ran into the side door of the building, observing the group, while staying hidden by crates. They kept yelling back and forth at each other, when I spotted an older man, with grey in hair and beard. My memory shot back to when I was pregnant with the twins. I had been stuck in a town, trying to figure my way out when he, and a little boy were cornered in an ally. I helped the only way I could, only to get walkers bursting open the door to the roof I was on. The only word I got out when he asked me my name and of I wanted to go with him, was 'hope'.
But that was few years ago.

Quickly I made my way onto a stack of crates, pulling bolts from my quiver, and firing as quickly as I could. Somewhere in the midst of my rapid fire I jumped down, and took out my knives. Taking out a numerous amount of walkers, I noticed the group could handle themselves, and darted out the door I came in. I was in a dead sprint around the building to find CJ backing the horses away from the tree I left them by. There was a walker that was poking it's head between the two main branches. I loaded a bolt and shot it. CJ paused his activities, before he and Angel jumped down off of Cobalt. They ran up to me, and I engulfed the two in a hug, picking them both up. They did this every time I came back from something. I carried the two back over to the horses. Once I set them down, I retrieved my bolt from the walker at the tree. It was when I got back over to the twins, holding the reins of both horses, they bolted behind me. I stiffened, but looked over to find the group slowly making their way over to us. From the way I stood, they probably couldn't even see my kids behind me.