My Hunter || D. Dixon (On Hold)

Seven - Squirrels

The next day rolled around quicker than I wanted. I stayed up all night, having taken watch so that Dale could sleep. I spent nearly the whole trying to work out the different ways that this conversation with Daryl was going to go. Nearly all of them ended up bad one way or another. Caleb and Jess were in the tent, either asleep or waking up but I do know that they were in there asleep all night.

Everyone was starting to get up and into the swing of things with the sun coming up. My gaze landed on Rick and Caleb as they walked up to the RV, walking about whatever. All the kids, on the other hand, were out and about playing Gods know what. "You ever gonna come down from there?" Dale's voice called up, making me look over the side of the RV to see him and Caleb.

I smile and stood up from the seat, stretching my arms over my head. "Sure." I groaned, my eyes screwing shut as my back popped with my stretch. I climb down the ladder, standing in front of the pair. I hold out the rifle to Dale, who takes it with a smile before climbing up the RV. I turned to Caleb and flashed a smile.

He raised an eyebrow to me, looking me over. "Did you get any sleep last night?" I gave him a pointed look, proving that his answer was the right one. "Luna." He scolded me, placing his hand on my shoulder. I let out a sigh, shaking my head at him. I take my bow off of my back at the sound of the kids screaming. Caleb's head whipped in their direction, panic paints his face. "Jess?!"

I turn on my heels, taking off to where the kids were running, Jessica almost tackling Caleb. I drew back an arrow, running with Shane, Dale, Jim, T-dog, and Rick. We got to the small clearing through the tree line where a walker knelt, feasting on a buck. My eyes caught the black and orange feathered arrow, making me furrow my eyebrows.

My actions of going to shoot the walker are stopped when the men of the group start to beat the walker. I hold back my laughter as Dale cut the head off. It rolled to the side while the body fell forward. The jaw of the head was still moving as it tried to get something. I pull my arrow to shoot before turning it to the bushes as they shook with movement.

A man appeared from the shrubbery, short brown hair and piercing blue eyes and one nice looking crossbow in his arms. The group sighed except for Rick and me, who looked at the man in confusion. His attention quickly went to the deer that was ripped open. "Son of a bitch. That's my deer! Look at it." He then turns his attention to the walker body. "All gnawed on by this. . .filthy, disease-bearing, motherless poxy bastard!" He starts kicking the lifeless walker body, yelling at it. I raised an eyebrow at Shane before looking back at him as he crouched down. "What do ya think? Cut around here?" He pointed his arrow at the torn spot.

I shook my head in disgust. "Can't risk it," Shane speaks my mind. The man stands up with a sigh.

He shakes his head. "Damn, I was gonna cook us up some venison too." A frown sticks to his face for a moment. The walker's head started to gargle and moan from beside me. I glanced down at it, watching the jaws of the walker snap open and closed hungrily. Amy, who I didn't even know was behind me, made a sound of disgust and the man quickly put the walker down. "Don't you people know anythin'?" He mumbled before pulling the arrow from its head and brushing past Rick like he wasn't even there.

I followed after the rest of the group and the guy, who now I assume is Daryl. Panic started to hit me as we followed him. The rest of the group seemed to take attention to Daryl. Rick, Shane, and I were quick on his tail. Caleb and Jess stood by the RV, Caleb moving to help before I held my hand up to him.

Daryl set his crossbow down to the side as he started to make his way towards the RV. "Merle! Merle, get your ass out here. I got us some squirrel!" His southern accent yelled out. "Merle!" I hand my bow to Glenn, ready to step in at any moment. Things could quickly turn bad at any moment.

Shane moved ahead of both Rick and I. "Daryl, just slow up a bit. I need to talk to you." Shane called to him, making Daryl turn and look at the three of us coming up on him. He's focused on Shane, who was holding up his hands at the redneck.

Daryl looked at Shane with a gare. He's clearly not Shane's number one fan. "'Bout what?" Shane sighed and I move a bit closer from behind him. He shifted on which foot he was standing on.

Shane took a small step back, looking to the ground for a moment before looking back up. "About Merle. There was an. . .there was a problem in Atlanta." He changed up how he was going to do this halfway through. He's not confident in his decision at all.

"He dead?"

"We're not sure."

Daryl's hands clenched into fists. "He either is or he ain't!" I take a step back at his raised voice. I know exactly what was going to happen, and dare I say, it's going to be very stupid, and highly predictable. Rick's going to totally take the blame and this man is going to be pissing Daryl off and that's gonna start a fight that we're going to have to break it up no matter what.

Rick strolled up like the man he was and sighed deeply. "There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just gonna say it." He says and Daryl looks to him.

Confusion and anger mix together in his face. "Yeah? And who are you?" Daryl snapped, his voice full of anger. I looked to Caleb then to Shane for a moment as the two talked.

Rick held no emotion in his face as to if the yelling got to him or not. "Rick Grimes," Rick answered calmly.

Daryl scoffed at that. "Well, Rick Grimes," Daryl mocked. "You got somethin' you wanna tell me?" Daryl asked him and Rick let out a sigh.

This was going to get real ugly real fast as Rick looked him in the eye. "Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him to a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there." The look that comes to Daryl's eyes is one of pure anger and I take a step forward but stop at Rick's hand.

Daryl turns away, walking forward a bit towards the RV before stopping"Hold on. Let me process this." He turned back to Rick and stared him down. "You're saying that you cuffed my brother to a roof and he's still up there?!" Daryl yelled at him and Rick stood tall.

"Yes," Rick answered and before I could move, Daryl threw his sash of squirrels at Rick, who moved back. T-Dog and Caleb went to grab Daryl but moved back at the knife in his hand.

Shane and Rick both backed up as I approached him. "Watch the knife," Shane warned as I rushed to Daryl when he jumped at Rick and got punched. The moment that I got a chance, I punched him, knocking the knife out of his hand before I had him in a chokehold. Shane took the knife from the ground, nodding at me.

"Calm the Hell down."