My Damaged Protector

Chapter Forty-six ~ Always Accountable

It took all night at the pace we went at, but we finally hit twenty in the early hours of the morning. "Alright." Sasha had been watching her mile counter in the car.

"That's twenty?" Daryl asked and I smiled into his vest. My arms were still wrapped around his waist and my head rested against the soft fabric of his vest.

"It will be. 642 is a mile ahead. We gotta put distance between us and them before the turnoff." Sasha kept talking.

"So, floor it." Abraham laughed.

I rolled my eyes as Daryl responded. "Alright. Try to keep up." He hit the gas and we flew down the street with Sasha driving right beside us. The wind blew my hair back and I held tighter to Daryl.

"Daryl. Have you looked at this car?" Sasha almost laughed at the red car that was being overtaken by rust. "Believe me, we wanna get back there too."

We passed a sign for 642 and made a sharp left in order to get the sound of our engines out of the air so the walkers wouldn't continue following us. Everything was going smooth. We were taking it slower so Sasha and Abraham could keep up and it was finally quiet without the snarls of the walkers. I turned to make sure the two in the car were ok when gunshots filled the air. Bullets flew around us and a little shout of fear and surprise escaped my mouth. "Hold on!" Daryl yelled at me, making me squeeze his waist tighter as he sped up as quickly as he could.

Glass shattered behind us as the shots continued. Daryl veered left a little too quickly and the bike tipped over, sending us harshly to the ground. I slammed into the cement harshly on my back and slid a few feet before stopping. My thin brown jacket did little to lessen the impact and it shredded as we slid on the cement. My skin split down my arms and the blood soaked into the fabric of my shirt. Daryl grabbed me up off the ground quickly and yanked the bike up as I took a deep breath to keep from crying out in pain.

We got back on the bike, and he restarted it. A black car pulled out behind us and continued firing. I pulled my gun and fired a few shots back as Daryl drove passed walkers and into the woods. He pulled the bike into the woods and cut the engine, hiding from the car that followed us. My gun was put back into its spot and after the car passed us, Daryl cut across the street into the deeper section of the woods. Everything we passed was black and charred from what I could assume was a fire.

Daryl flew silently through a few more yards of trees, my eyes falling on blood running from his head and a few spots soaking through his flannel. "Daryl?" I questioned, wanting to make sure he was ok.

"I'm fine. Jus' hold on." He brushed me off as he continued driving, my arms tightening around him in fear.

We eventually slowed to a stop and got off. Daryl dropped the bike on its side with a grunt, nearly falling himself. I waved my hands for him to come closer. "Let me see you."

He shrugged me off. "I'm fine. Just sit for a moment." Both of us fell down to the dirt, my arms stinging and my back throbbing a bit as I relaxed into the hard ground.

A walker growled somewhere to our close left, both Daryl and I jumping away from the sound before realizing that the walker was burned beyond what either of us had ever seen before. Once we were sure that the walker was not a threat to us, we both relaxed back into the dirt, taking long deep breaths to calm our racing hearts.

Daryl gave us both a half hours rest before he began pulling me to sit. He helped me pull the jacket from my arms in order to get a better look at and scrapes and bruises I was sure I'd have. Daryl unclipped a bag from his bike, moving back to my side and dabbing at the more serious cuts with antiseptic to keep them clean. When he finally sat back, it was my turn to check over his injuries. The cut on his forehead was still dripping blood down over his brow.