I'm With You ➝ Daryl Dixon

new sheriff in town.

six.

tw. less daryl in this chapter and its a bit shorter!! sorry!!

"I think that should do it," Jim said, wiping his sweaty forehead against his shirt sleeve, "I put some further out but I still think we need them closer to camp."

He had strung empty tin cans on string all around the hilltop camp. Layla was leaning against a large log near to where Jim was working away, scribbling the last little details of his sweating brow and focussed eyes.

"Layla?"

"Jim?" Layla smiled at him as she mirrored his voice fondly.

"You wouldn't mind tying the last one would you?" He asked holding up his empty tin cans, "Dale's asked me to help him out with fixin' the van and- Is that me?"

Layla had held up her new masterpiece to her subject of choice. He laughed and squinted his eyes, looking closely at the sketch of himself that Layla had been persistently doodling. "I gotta fix the eyes a little, and I think I got your cap a little wonky..."

"That's awesome." Jim laughed as he squatted next to her. In the corner of her page she jotted down, 'JIM IS A GOOD MAN.' "You're not just trying to distract me from asking you for a favour are you?"

Layla laughed closing her tiny notebook firmly and leaving it to one side of the log she was leaning on, "Gimme your cans, Dummy."

Jim gave her a smile, shook his head and made his way over to Dale's van.

Taking the empty cans and string, Layla wrapped an end around a tree a couple feet away from the Hilltop camps designated tenting area. She could hear the soft chuckles of Carl, Lori and Shane, the muffled complaints of Carol's husband and ... the radio fuzzing... T-Dogg?

The radio on Dale's camper squawked loudly, "Hello, base camp! Can anybody out there hear me? Base camp, this is T-Dogg. Anybody hear me?"

Dale took the radio quickly as the groups attention turned to the fuzzy voice it emitted. Layla hurried towards it.

"Hello? Hello? Reception's bad on this end." Dale started through the radio.

"We're in some deep shit. We're trapped in the department store." The radio rang out again. Layla's heart sunk, "There are ... all over the .... Hundreds... surround..."

The signal went static.

"He said the department store." Lori said.

"I heard it too." Dale said and Layla nodded a confirmation that she had also heard it.

"Shane?" Lori asked, a hopeful glint in her eye that he would know what to do.

"No way. We do not go after them." Shane said firmly, "We do not risk the rest of the group. Y'all know that."

"I can go, I volunteered anyway. At least let me go and check it out?" Layla suggested.

"Absolutely not." Shane replied.

"So we're just gonna leave her there?" Amy replied, in reference to her sister Andrea.

After a brief dispute with Shane, Amy left the group with tears threatening to fall from her eyes just as rain seemed to threaten from above. Layla went after her, a crack of thunder echoing around them.

Amy was sat in Dale's van, her head in her hands.

"What I'd give for a twinkie right now..." Layla spoke awkwardly. She cursed herself for saying something so unimportant, "Sorry. That sounded insensitive."