Fighting to Survive: The 3rd installment to Daring to Feel

Chapter 28: Dangerous Roads

We pull to the side of the road and towards an old town. As we follow close behind Daryl the back window shatters all over me and I duck, familiar with the sound of gun shots. Bullets are ricocheting off the car and the three of us try to stay down. Sasha plows into a wooden wall and the car stops. I fly into her seat and we all curse out, "come on!" Abraham shouts out as he pushes his door open. I see him and Sasha swing their guns, ready to kill them. I get out of the car, pulling my knife out as I hear them shoot at the men in the car who attacked us first. I find a walker coming towards me and quickly take it down. I keep my eyes open for more while they defend us, not wanting anyone to sneak up from behind.

"They dead?" I ask going over to where they are standing, the gun fire ending.

Abraham goes to move forward, but Sasha grabs his arm to stop him, "leave it."

"Just gonna give it a last little polish." He grins towards her.

"What the hell you got to grin about?" She asks incrudisously, her face stained with confusion and disgust.

"We won, darlin'." He returns trying to move forward again.

"There could be more." I speak up, not wanting to hand around, "anyone see Daryl?" I ask, my mind quickly coming back to him.

"We gotta move." Sasha quickly comments as the sound of another car is heard approaching. I follow the two of them towards a building.

"There, it's clear." I point over to a spot on the road.

I kneel down onto the ground, looking for all the clues, "his bike's gone." Sasha comments, nodding towards me.

Abraham picks up a shell casing from the ground, "these are his shells."

"He fired at 'em, got away." I say, glad to not see him or his bike laying on the ground.

"He caught a good bounce." Abraham says. I eye him to watch what he says.

"There aren't enough people around to just wait around for somebody to ambush." Sasha comments, getting back to the situation at hand.

"And they couldn't have just been watching us, not with what we were doing." I add on, knowing whatever just happened was bad luck for us.

"Nah, they were looking to chew up someone in particular." Abraham says, "whoever the hell they were."

"Daryl, you copy?" I try to walkie, praying he responds. The static hisses back at me, "Daryl?" I try again.

"Dollars to doughnuts, he's on his way back to Alexandria now." Abraham snarls.

"He wouldn't leave us behind." I retort.

"Correction, he wouldn't leave you behind." Abraham tries to correct me.

"He already did." Sasha reminds him, "but he came back."

"So we go look for him." Abraham tries to put a plan together.

I shake my head, "the best way to find a tracker is to stay put. Let him find us." I try to tell them, knowing how good Daryl is at what he does.

"You just want us to sit here with our precious leathers in our hands?" Abraham asks us with a nasty snarl.

"No." Sasha breathes out, standing up to find somewhere else to take cover in. We make our way to a building, the area pretty clear of the dead. The door is open so I pound on it hard to draw out any nearby. As I wait, I grab a piece of dirt and start to write Dixon on it. Give him a clue without being too obvious. "Don't." I hear Sasha say as I write.

"What?" Abraham asks her.

"You're smarter than that." She says, stopping him from killing the corpse a bit down the street. "We don't need to leave bread crumbs."

Abraham mulls it over but ultimietly agrees. He takes the lead through the door as we start to clear out a place to wait, "there's one in here." I comment to Sasha, whose rummaging through a desk drawer.

"Leave him." She says without looking up. I shrug, lowering my bow and moving to the wall. I slide down, feeling exhausted.

Sasha pulls up one of the chairs, and sits directly across from the walker stuck behind the glass doors. He pounds on it, trying to get his food, "how come gorgeous over here is still standing?" Abraham asks as he comes into the room.

I chuckle with a breathe out of my nose, "he can't get out." She tells him. The dead guy bangs on the door at Abraham now, and he tries to open it, "it's locked." She informs him, "we're fine."

"Stand watch or sleep?" She asks him, then eyes me over her shoulder, "your choice."

"I'll take the former." Abraham answers first, "do a little shopping, maybe."

"I'll try and take the later then." I answer too, closing my eyes.

I don't how much time passes, not much I assume when Abraham drops his bag of goodies onto a desk, "can't sleep?" He asks.

I know he's not talking to me since my eyes are still closed, "what does it look like?" She retorts back.

"I just wanted to know if it was a choice." He returns.

"You have no idea how much I want to release that thing from this plane of existence." Abraham says, walking over towards the window I am near. He sighs, "this our new home? Should we give him a name?" And I hear his feet walk away from me again.

"You got yourself into this." She tells him, "I was driving that car solo until you chose to come with."

He comes back with, "oh, I didn't have a choice there."

"Tell me why." Sasha asks.

"Stop." I simply say, not wanting to listen to them right now. The annoying sound of the walker behind the wall was bad enough, I didn't have to hear them bicker.

"You going stag was not an option." He replies, ignoring my request.

"Tell me why." She pushes for an answer.

"You were out of control for a good while there. Just about took my arm off on the road to paradise. You remember that?" He asks her. I open my eyes now, clearly not going to get any quiet from them, "I do." He answers for her.

"I'm in control now." Sasha tells him. I can see it in her eyes, she truly believes she is.

"Me, too." He simply says back.

"That's why you wanna kill that walker? The one down the street? The guys in the car? 'Cause you're in control?" She asks, basically rhetorically.

"'Cause loose ends make my ass itch." Abraham says firmly. If I have not gotten my psyche situated straight, it's because the shit's continually been hitting the fan without respite."

"Oh, there's been respite." I add on, annoyed already of this conversation, "there was a party."

"Oh, I remember that." Abraham looks at me, then turns his attention back to Sasha, "you had the time of your life there."

"You don't have to throw yourself out of a moving car to feel like you're catching the ball. That's easy. You jump out of an airplane, you don't have choices after that. Maybe you play some chicken with the ground, but you pull the rip cord, you live. But if you have a roof over your head, you have food, you have walls, you have choices." She stays calm, and he takes a deep breathe, clearly not wanting to hear the reality she is saying, "and without walkers and bullets and shit hitting the fan, you're accountable for them. I mean, hell, you're always accountable. It's just with all that other noise, you know people won't notice." She asks again, "stand, watch or sleep."

"The former." He responds sternly, "straight through the night. We'll reassess in the morning."

"What do you mean?" She asks.

"What the hell we're doing here." He says, going to storm out of the room.

"We're waiting for Daryl!" I call out to him. He doesn't answer and I just sigh with frustration.