Fight to Survive (Daryl Dixon)

10. Signs

Chapter Ten

 

My eyes opened up, the sun was shining directly in them. It was morning, I shivered under the blanket. It was a very cold morning. It took me a minute before I realised that my head was no longer resting on the door, like it was before I had fallen asleep last night. I was leaning up against something warm. I looked next to me to see I was laying up against Daryl, with my head on his shoulder, and my hand was resting on his thigh.

I gulped nervously and quickly sat up. Daryl looked at me, he had not realised I had been awake, and my sudden movement made his jump a little in his seat.

“Sorry.” I mumbled, feeling my cheeks burn up.

“It’s right.” Daryl murmured. I had a feeling he was embarrassed by the situation as well. He placed the key in the ignition of the truck and started it up. “Better get going, we got a lot of ground to cover today.”

I nodded rubbing my eyes; the blush still in my cheeks. Daryl drove the car out from the trees. On the side of the road I looked up at the street sign to see how far the next town was away. We were still 700 Kilometres away. I sighed, that would take 6 plus hours to drive. I looked up at the sign again as we got closer to it. I gasped seeing something written at the bottom of the sign.

“Daryl!” I grabbed his arm tightly.

“What is it?” He asked, surprised at my reaction; we drove straight past the sign.

“Quick, go back. There was something written on that sign back there,” I told him.

Daryl frowned at me, “What was it?” He asked, still not turning the car around.

“Your name!”

The breaks on the car screeched loudly, as Daryl stomped his foot on the breaks. He quickly did a U-turn and headed back towards the sign. He pulled over right next to it. I got out of the car followed by Daryl. We walked over and stood in front of the sign. Sure enough there was Daryl’s name written at the bottom of the sign, with a little arrow drawn below it, pointing in the direction straight ahead.

“This was written in blood,” Daryl informed me. He reached his hand out and touched the writing. I cringed as he did this. “Maybe a day old at the most.”

“Do you think Merle wrote this?” I asked Daryl with a glimmer of hope.

“Nah, wouldn’t make sense,” Daryl said. “His kidnappers would have wrote it, they are leading us to them. But why? What do they want?”

“This is some sort of trap isn’t it?” I shivered, not wanting to find out where this led.

“Could be. They might want something from us, a trade maybe, to get Merle back.”

“I don’t see what we would have that they could possible want.” I said, and Daryl shrugged.

I looked away from the sign and walked over to the truck. My arms were covered in goose bumps. I really was not liking this at all. Who were these people and what could they possible want from us. We didn’t have anything really, everything was stolen from the camp.

“Are you ok?” Daryl walked over to me, seeing the terrified look on my face.

“I just don’t like this. We don’t know who these people are, or what they want, and we are just going to walk right into their trap.”

“I can’t just leave Merle with these people Alex,” Daryl leaned up against the car with his arms crossed against his chest. He looked down at the ground, he seemed to be deep in thought. He looked up at me again. “I will think of something, don’t worry I won’t let anyone hurt you,” He promised me.

I looked in Daryl eyes, and could see he was serious. I smiled slightly at him, and took a step closer to him, so I was standing in front of him. Without warning I wrapped my arms around his middle and hugged him, so my head was resting against his chest.

Daryl tensed up, “What are you doing?” He asked, his voice seemed breathless and uncomfortable.

“Saying thank you for protecting me.” I lifted my head up of his chest so I could look up at him. Daryl wriggled out of my grip and walked around to the driver’s side of the car.

“Ya could have just said thank ya, ya didn’t need to go and do that,” Daryl hoped in the truck without looking at me.

Daryl started up the truck again as I got in, and we drove off done the road. I looked over at Daryl out of the corner of my eye. He was concentrating on the road. I smiled. He acted all tough, but I had a feeling he had a sweet side, one he did not want anyone to know about. I really wanted him to show that side of him, I had only just had little glimpses of it.

I had finally made up my mind about him. I did not hate Daryl, instead I liked him; I liked him a lot. I found myself really wanting to hug him again, even though I knew he would not like that. But to me it felt comforting, and comfort is very hard to come by in the world today.

“What?” Daryl asked annoyed, his eyes still on the road.

“What?” I asked him, slightly confused at his question.

“Ya keep looking at me. Cut it out!” He frowned.

“No I don’t,” I liked.

Daryl let out a little growl of annoyance, but did not reply back to me. I took one last peek at him out of the corner of my eye, before settling my eyes on the road ahead. We had a long trip a head of us, and my stomach ached from being so nervous of what was to come.

**

Along the way we saw more signs with Daryl’s name on it, with arrows still pointing a head. They were letting us know we were still on track. Each time Daryl would get out of the car and feel the blood written writing to try determine how long ago with was written.

“Are you ok?” I asked as Daryl hopped back in the truck after observing the latest sign.

“We don’t have much fuel left,” He informed me. “Not enough to make it to the town. I haven’t seen a car yet we can take some from, not even a turn off to a farm.” Daryl place his arms over the steering wheel and rested his forehead on top of them, with his eyes closed. “If we don’t come across something soon we are going to have a very long walk a head of us.”

I did not like the idea of walking such a long distance, but I couldn’t help the slight relief I got from knowing we wouldn’t be arriving at our destination any time soon. I knew it was not going to be good for Merle the longer Daryl and I took. But at the moment I cared more for our lives than I did his.

“Just keep ya eye out for any cars run off into the trees as we drive,” Daryl told me, and I nodded.

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