Robin Hood (Sequel To Hiraeth- TWD)

Chapter 25

Days passed.

Beth and Daryl and Cailey still roamed the forest, hoping to find anything that would link them to their old group. Beth had been learning how to hunt, and had also gotten better at knowing which plants to eat. Cailey had almost been getting better at tolerating people and not being a "compl'ee douche," as Daryl put it.

Days turned into weeks.

Cailey and Daryl were reverting back into antisocial hunters. They didn't do anything but hunt and fight walkers and keep everybody alive.

Beth tried to stay true to herself. She would sing herself to sleep, or she would sometimes sing when they walked through the empty forest. She washed her clothes in the river and hung them to dry when they stopped to eat or sleep. She didn't know how Cailey and Daryl just lived like empty shells, only caring to eat and survive. Frankly, once Cailey and Daryl had gotten their groups, they didn't know either.

Every once in a while, Cailey and Daryl would mess around and playfight. They learned rather quickly that they couldn't do this very often without Beth thinking they were trying to beat each other up.

Beth also learned there was more to Cailey and Daryl than she had originally thought. She could hear them wake up almost every time they slept, their breaths shaky and their eyes alert. She could see an angel tattoo on Daryl's back, and all the different scars that marked their bodies. 

The weeks were mostly peaceful until they hit the city. The trio decided to scavenge a few of the buildings for supplies. 

"Place 'ere is big," Daryl told the teenagers. "Best stay close."

Daryl slammed on the windows of a massive broken-down skyscraper. When they looked inside the dark building, they could see a wide desk at the front, and spiraling stairs to the next floors. A broken elevator still had its doors open. A few dead bodies lied on the ground, but there was no movement.

Daryl tried to open the door. It was locked. He pulled his knife out, pointed it straight down at the knob, and knocked it off loudly. He side-stepped inside, swinging his crossbow at everything he watched. Cailey held an arrow back in her bow, following Daryl in, and Beth held her knife close behind. 

Daryl nodded to a door across the lobby. He pointed for Cailey to go in, and he started towards another door nearby. 

Cailey slowly let one hand off her bowstring, placing one hand over the silver doorknob. Beth watched carefully as she gripped her knife tighter. Cailey swung the door open. 

A spitting half-eaten walker threw itself. Cailey let an arrow fly. The walker fell dead like it was nothing, and Cailey picked her arrow back up before sauntering through like she had done it without effort. 

"Clear," she called out to Daryl. 

Beth began running her fingers over the oak desk that Cailey passed. The room was windowless, but the walls were covered in bookshelves and the floor covered in turned tables and loose pages. 

The teenagers heard a walker hissing across the lobby before the sound of Daryl's arrow whizzing by in the other room. "Clear," he called back. 

Beth and Cailey began rummaging through the drawers in the dead office, and Daryl did the same in the room he had found. Cailey picked up a half-empty carton of cigarettes, and a new water bottle, but the room was otherwise empty. Beth picked up a white sweater from the back of a chair, dusted it off, and put it into her backpack. 

Daryl came back into the lobby nearly the same time as the teenagers. They nodded at each other before they began taking the stairs, the sunlight lighting the floors enough to see their surroundings.