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SUFFICE TO SAY, the gunshot was not a pleasant sound to have heard echo through the trees. Especially when Rick, Shane, and Carl had not caught up to them. Lori had stopped once again, looking back through the branches with a distant expression.
"Still worrying about it?" Andrea asked as they all slowed to a stop with her, turning back to watch as the woman fretted.
"It was a gunshot," Lori reiterated what they were all already painfully aware of.
"We all heard it," Daryl confirmed.
"Why one, why just one gunshot?" Lori fired back, turning her head to look at the rest of them in desperation.
"Maybe they took down a walker," Daryl suggested with a shrug, just as unknowing as the rest of them. They all knew if they didn't keep moving it could spell danger for each and every one of them.
"Please don't patronize me, you know Rick wouldn't risk a gunshot to put down one walker. Or Shane. They do it quietly."
Lori spoke fast and fervent, denying every possible reason or explanation that could have been offered as to why they heard a gunshot. "Shouldn't they have caught up by now?" Carol asked, not helping the situation any further by feeding into Lori's concerns.
"There's nothing we can do about it anyway," Daryl dismissed, very eager to get a move forward. Out in the open was dangerous, and he knew that. "Can't run around these woods chasing echoes."
"So what do we do?" Lori demanded, like the gunshot was supposed to change all of their plans.
"Same as we've been. We beat the bush for Sophia and make our way back to the highway," he replied simply.
"I'm sure they'll hook up with us back at the RV," Andrea assured Lori with a nod, their entire dynamic having changed since their small confrontation just a ways back. Arden nodded to herself and started to walk forward again.
She wasn't sure she quite belonged. Many of the people there had known each other for longer and she just felt like she was always looking in at everyone else. She was quiet and she knew that and she began to wonder if they would be better off if she just made herself scarce. Maybe she could make her way to her family's home just outside of Atlanta. Then what she would do was unclear. But she would figure something out.
And it wasn't long before light was dwindling and they decided that they would pick up the search for Sophia the next day. They kept trekking through the woods and Andrea questioned tiredly, "How much further?"
"Not far. Maybe a hundred yards," Daryl answered as they trudged through the thigh high grasses. It was less blistering out since the sun was slowly lowering itself to the horizon, which was a blessing as they walked back under the shade of the trees.
