Remember Me (Daryl Dixon)

Chapter Seventy-Nine: Return of Dwight

I tried to remain quiet during the long drive to the community.
The others were able to get back in time, saving Aaron's life. And Judith didn't get sick, so I guess we did all win. It took convincing to get Rick to even consider going there.
The others took an RV while Rick, Glenn, Michonne, Aaron, and I took the car Aaron spoke of. It was cramped, but we were doing okay. The RV brought back memories of the farm and memories of Dale. I tried to keep all of those things tucked away. There are some thing that you never want to remember. I guess the way Dale went out was one of them.
I looked at Rick as he opened the glove compartment. I expected to see some weird shit in there and I did. Rick pulled out license plates and looked over them. There were a ton in there. Probably more than I wanted to count.
"Um, I'm trying to collect all 50 states," Aaron said in a happy tone. He seemed proud of them. I wanted to be proud of something like that. "Put them all on a wall in my house."

"You have your own house?" Michonne asked with surprise. I was pretty surprised too. A secure area with your own house? It sounded too good to be true. That's why I thought it was a fake.
"Mm," Aaron replied. "See for yourself."

Michonne grabbed the envelope with the photos and began looking at them. I peeped along with her. Everything there looked wonderful. There was just no way it was real. Michonne continued flipping through them with a smile. She looked over at Aaron who also grinned at her. I could tell that she was very excited about everything. She wanted to go more than any of us it seemed.
She flipped more and got a look of concern on her face. I looked at her with confusion as she did this. "Why don't you have any pictures of your people?"

I became concerned too when she said this. She was right. There were no people in any of his photos. There wasn't a single trace of life, but why?

"Oh, I took a picture of the whole group, but I didn't get the exposure right," Aaron explained. I didn't believe his story. It was more likely that he just didn't have any people. Maybe he took photos of a random area and passed it off as his community.
"When I tried to develop it later, it just--"

"Did you ask him the questions?" Michonne interrupted.
"No," Rick replied.

I had forgotten about the questions. We hadn't asked them in so long that they were just a memory. I didn't think we would ever ask them again. "How many walkers have you killed?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Aaron asked with confusion.
"How many?" Michonne asked again.

"I don't know. A lot," he replied, unsure. I wasn't sure how many I killed either. Probably more than I would like to admit.

"How many people?"

"Two," Aaron answered after a moment.

"Why?" Michonne asked.
"Because they tried to kill me."

We all paused for a moment as we watched Rick pull something out of the floorboard. I wasn't sure what it was, but it looked like some advanced technology to me. Glenn and Rick reacted badly when they got a good look at it. "You were listening to us?"

"I already said I was watching you. Yes, I was listening," Aaron replied in a panic. I was pretty angry too. We were getting 0 privacy with him around. He was listening to every word we had said. He knew everything we were doing.

"It means his people could have one, too," Rick announced to us. He was right, what if they knew where we were? "They could've heard our plan. This isn't safe."
Rick was seriously working me up with all of this talk. Things were finally good and then this happens. This is why I never try to enjoy things. Something bad always comes and erases the good. That's exactly what was happening.
"Shit!"