[Finished] Living Among the Dead

24. Always Accountable

We've been driving in silence, I feel completely numb. I hear Sasha from over the radio say, "All right."
Daryl take a hand off the bike to press the button on the radio and ask, "That's 20?"
"It will be. We gotta put distance between us and them before the turnoff."
Abraham's voice pipes up, "So floor it."
"All right, try to keep up." Daryl responds, before telling me to hold on tight. I nod as Sasha speaks.
"Daryl, have you looked at this car?" She scoffs, "Believe me, we want to get back there, too."
I tighten my grip as we speed off, but then someone starts shooting at us, we crash, painfully, and Daryl rushes to get the bike back up, once he has it even, I jump back on behind him, and we speed off after the car that's now following Sasha and Abe whilst still getting firing at.
"Hold on!" Daryl yells, as cars begin following us.
I nod, tightening my grip as we turn around a corner, the dead surrounding us.
We get far enough ahead we are able to hide out in the woods and let our tail pass us by.
He drives us to a spot in the woods before stopping, the bike toppling over.
"You alright?" He mutters, I look at him to see blood falling down the side of his face.
"Bet I'm a right side better than you." He shakes his head. "Can we rest here a bit?" I ask, ignoring the dead man in a bike helmet growling next to us.
"We should move."
I nod, standing up and then helping him up, we each take a side of the bike and begin walking.
Once we can't go on anymore, we drop the bike and he gets on the radio, "Sasha? Abraham, are you there?" We're met with static.
I look at him, and notice blood pouring down his arm.
"Your bleeding," I mumble.
"So are you," is his response.
He takes his glove off and then his jacket, wincing as he does.
He then walks over to his bike, grabbing a green satchel before we both hear the branch break.
I help him hide his bike silently, and we both start quietly moving toward the sound, weapons up and at the ready.
We get to where two woman are, they stand up, arms in the air as one with long brown hair says, "You found us, okay? Here we are. We earned what we took."
I look around, only to see a blond man coming at us, and before I can even warn Daryl, he's bashed my head and everything goes dark.

I hear the distorted and slightly echoing voice of a man, "Probably just another soldier from one of the outposts. Probably hates him, too."
"You know how to use one? " a woman asks.
"Yeah. Never liked using them to hunt. We pick up Patty and we're gone, okay? This is the last day we gotta live like this."

I hear someone yelling, but can't quite make it out. It's a man. When I open my eyes and the world spins, I groan.
I then hear a gun click, and look over to see Daryl tied next to me and a very blurry blond guy kneeled in front of us, he has the gun pointed at me. "We're moving. Here's the deal. You don't say shit and I don't kill her."
"I ain't who you think," Daryl groans.
The hammer clicks in the gun and he places it on the side of my head. "Say something else. Go ahead." He pulls Daryl up and I attempt to get up as well, but the world starts to spin around me. "Woah," the blond guy says, irritably. "Steady up now."
I try to focus as he continues, "Follow them."
We walk through the woods, the blond man practically dragging me. I hear the brunette woman say, "Here, drink the rest." She's in the front of the group.
The short haired blonde woman replies, "We should save it."
"We'll find some more," the brunette contradicts. "Drink. You're supposed to stay hydrated. It all works together."
"Yeah, it does."
The brunette then offers the water to Daryl saying, "Have it."
Daryl stares at her, "Give it to her," he says, nodding his head towards me.
"We don't need you falling down. Take a drink. She can have the rest."
Daryl takes the water and drinks as the blond guy keeps talking, "They find us, maybe we give you to them, they let us call it even."
I get handed the water bottle and I drink the rest in one gulp, it's warm but refreshing as I realize I haven't had squat to drink in much too long.
"You see, we're reasonable people. Everybody's got their code. You feel you gotta kneel, that's fair enough. We don't. Let's go." Daryl and I look at one another.
"I can't believe we're back," The blonde woman says as we walk through the burnt up forest.
"It's not home anymore, but it's better than where we were." The brunette agrees.
"This is a pit stop. We pick up Patty, nothing more than that."
"How'd you do it?" The blond asks.
"You saw where we left the truck?" The man asks. "We opened the valve and drove all the way in from Farmview Road. Ran from the tree line till we got to the pavement. Lit up a matchbook from the Sweetwater and dropped it in on the trail. Then we just ran for the car. Got in and the dead ones were there. They were beating on the hood, and then and then boom! Knocked 'em on their asses and I took an axe to each one."
"Then we just watched it go up.
No more moans, no more of that wailing." The brunette adds. "It was just the fire, just burning them all away."
"You did all this?" Daryl asks.
"It was right at the start. Everything stopped the TV, the radio. We were here. The forest was full of them. And the other ones in town, they were drawn to it. They just walked right into the flames. We got most of them. Thought we ended it for us, and she was in DC. We thought everyone was fighting them wherever they were."
"Yeah," The blond agrees. "we thought that was what everybody was doing. Fighting it. That we'd all win together. We were stupid."
"Y'all don't think you're being stupid right now?" Daryl asks, stopping.
The blond clicks the hammer of his gun back into place, points the gun at me, "Are you saying I should kill you? I mean it, are you gonna try and pull something on us? Are we just being thick here by not removing all doubt? Right now, by me not pulling this trigger, is that a mistake? I'm serious.
I really wanna know. You made a choice to kill for someone else, to have them own you for a roof over your head and three squares, so maybe I'm not considering all aspects here. You tell me, am I being stupid?"
"No," Daryl says, glancing at me. "Look, we got somewhere to be. We can make a deal. We can help you out."
"You're one of them. You're hurt and you're alone and you'd say anything."
"Please," I beg. "We have no idea what you're talking about."
"We should've never trusted you people to begin with. Go on. Keep moving."
We keep walking, and tears start falling from my eyes.
Once we hit a fence we see the inside has the dead inside.
"Son of a bitch. Patty." The blond puts his hands on the top of his head in despair.
"She could be..." the brunette trails off.
"No, she's gone."
"Then we make another plan."
"Yeah, we get out of here, that's the plan."
"Then that's the plan."
"You guys didn't have to do this for me," The blond says.
"It was the right thing for all of us."
"This was the right thing? Even if just you guys went back now, if you just told them that it was me-"
"No, we'll find a way."
"Just think about it-"
"No."
"Look," The man says, "maybe we don't get as far, but we'll get-" the blond collapses, and Daryl nudges me, grabbing their sack and starts running, I try my hardest to keep up, but my head is throbbing and my world is spinning.
"Hey, stop!" We hear the gunfire after us, but we go until we can stop briefly, he bites off his binding around his hands, before quickly untying mine. I keep an eye behind us as he grabs his radio, "Sasha, Abraham, are you there?" We're met with static and I groan as one of the dead start approaching us, we just can't catch a break.
"Daryl," I warn as he looks through the sack, and just as the Dead gets his hands on me, Daryl has his crossbow out, and shoots the dead.
I sigh, and then look over to see an insulin bucket inside the sack, "Daryl..." I mumble, and he nods. "Damn it!" I grunt, kicking the tree next to me before falling over.
"Hey!" He says, rushing over to me. "You good?"
"I'll be fine, we need to decide what our move is. Are we the horrible people who steal insulin, or are we going to take it back?"
"They kidnapped us."
"And that blond girl is just a kid herself. That's probably why she collapsed in the first place. We should go back and help."