Illusion - A Daryl Dixon Love Story

Chapter 2

Tucker's POV
I make my way through the city, making sure to stay hidden. I walk across the side of an ally. Groans come from the shadows; I take my knife out of my boot and ready myself to kill anything that gets in my way. The groans become louder and closer. One of the dead's comes out from the ally's shadows. Its coming my way. This one is weak, and is easy to take down. My knife penetrates the skull with ease.

A gun shot goes off about three blocks away. "Run!" I hear faintly under rapid gun shots. I contemplate helping. "RICK!" A woman screams. "HELP!" She screams again. I feel the urge to help. 'Don't go. Don't Tucker.' I tell myself. I run towards the screams with my knife ready. I take some of the dead down. "Go! Run!" I yell at the people. There must be at least four or five people killing off the dead.

We manage to kill off the dead. A woman lays on the ground. "Are you bit?" I ask her. She pants and keeps her hand planted on her arm. "Are you bit!?" I yell at her. The woman glares up at me. "Just do it." She tells me. I hesitate. "Do it."

I take her hand and squeeze it. "Sorry." I whisper as I penetrate her brain with my knife. I close my eyes for a moment. "Fuck." I say. I get up and four people stair at me. I scan them. They look broken. There's a woman and three men. "Where'd you come from?" A man asks me. I clutch my knife. Another man sees, "Drop it." he tells me. "And if I don't?" I snap. His crossbow is pointed at me. As well as everyone else who has a weapon, points their's at me.

The man who seems to be the leader tells them to lower their weapons. "Daryl," he growls, "lower it. Now." Daryl, the man with the crossbow, huffs and lowers his weapon. The leader gets closer to me. He holds out his hand, "Hand it over. Along with any other weapon on you." I roll my eyes like a child and put my knife in his hand.

"Anything else?" He asks me. "No. That's all I have." I answer. "Search her." A woman says. She looks weak. I step back but trip on a piece of raised pavement. A hand grabs my arm. I turn around to be met with the face of this Daryl guy. "Well, I've got to be going now, so I'd like my knife back." I hold my hand out to the man who took it. "You're coming back with us." He tells me. "Like hell I am!" I yelled, "Fuck you!" He flinched at what I said. "How many have you killed?" The leader asks me. "The dead? At least fifty, probably more." I tell him. "How many people have you killed?" The Asian asks me. "Seven. I was in the army. I've only killed one person in this shit hole." I look down to the shoes. "Why?" Daryl asks. I look up and flash my eyes between the leader, the Asian and Daryl. "What kind of a question is that? 'Why?' Really?" I ask them. The leader gets closer to me again and starts to pat me down. I back up. "Don't touch me!" I yell. he tilts his head towards Daryl, he comes over and pats me down. The leader holds my hand behind my back.

I try to wiggle out of the grip of the leader, but its strong. "Quit movin'." Daryl snaps. He looks up at me. His eyes lock with mine, but he looks back down. "She's clear, Rick." He says. Rick. That's the leader's name. Rick holds out his hand. "Rick. Rick Grimes." he tells me. "This is Glenn, Andrea, and Daryl." I nod. "The name's Tucker Darks." I announce to the group. "I was looking for food, and maybe some water. I thought I'd be alone." I laugh. "Really, I didn't expect people this far into the city. Its not safe."

"Yeah," Ruck says, as he hooks his thumbs in his belt loops, "we are running low on supplies, we've got at least fifteen more people back at our camp." He tells me. He's being quite open with me. "Oh. Well," I start. Ruck cuts me off. "You're welcome to come back with us. That is, if you want. And if you trust us."

"We're not taking this whack back with us! We have very limited supplies as it is! We can't support anyone else!" Andrea fights. I roll my eyes. "I'm fine on my own." I tell them. But Rick insists on me going back with them. He shuts Andrea up and we go back to their truck. I stand outside the truck with Daryl. "Get in." He grunts. I look at him, "You can go first. Its not my place to be here."

"Go." He tells me again, completely ignoring what I just said. I shrug and get in the back of the truck. Daryl hops up and slams the little hatch-back up. We're the only two in the back, along with all the things they managed to pick up. "Who was that woman who got bit?" I ask. Daryl looks at me, "Dunno. Mmm... Want one?" Daryl fiddles with his jacket and pulls out a box of cigarettes and a lighter. "I don't smoke." I tell him. He just nods and goes back to doing nothing.

Thunder goes off in the distance. I look up and the sky is consumed with darkness. Rain starts to fall. Not hard, but its coming down pretty fast. I take my leather jacket off and put it over my head. Daryl looks up and smirks. "Can't get wet?" I shake my head, "No, I'd rather not." We get onto a dirt road. Its rather bumpy, but I guess I'm used to it. The roads we drove on in the army were definitely not flat.

We stop, Daryl gets up and jumps off the back on the truck. I stand up and walk to the back of the truck. Daryl puts the hatch-back down. I sit down and slide off. Rick comes to the back of the truck. "C'mon. Let's go meet the group."

Rick nudges me in the side to introduce myself. "I'm Tucker." I say. Not in a shy way, I'd just rather be alone. "Welcome Tucker." An old man smiles. He holds out his hand, "I'm Dale." I nod, and shake his hand. Its quite formal for what is left in the world. "I'll introduce you to the rest of the group." I try to object but Dale already starts naming people. "Amy, Lori and Carl, Carol and Sophia, T-Dog and Jackie, Shane and Jim. I'm sure you've met Andrea, Glenn, Daryl and Rick already." I nod again, not wanting to talk.

"Boy you sure are quite." Jackie says. "Yeah." I tell her scratching my head. A little girl, Sophia I think, pulls my shirt. I look down, "Your hair is pretty." she smiles. "Thank you."

Lori walks over to where I sit. "You are welcome to join the fire, if you want. We also have food, not much, but it looks like you could use some." I thank Lori for her offer. I get up and walk over to the large group. Andrea gives me a dirty look. "Someone get her food." Lori demands. Dale takes a plate; something is put on it. I can't tell what it is, since its pitch black. "Here." Dale hands me the plate. "Its squirrel. Hope you don't mind"

The people slowly went to bed. Me, Rick, Dale and Daryl are left. "So, what did you do before this happened, Tucker?" Dale asks me. "I was in the army. We had just gotten back from Afghanistan, and this shit hit the fan."

"What about your family?" Dale is quite interested. "My mother died when I was fourteen. My dad died a year ago. I don't know about my sister, she's probably dead by now." Part of me hopes that my sister is alive still. Rick looks up at me, "How old is she? Your sister." I shift on the ground. "Twenty-three."

"How old are you?" Dale asks. "Twenty-five." Rick and Dale nod. Daryl sits on the ground, playing with a stick. "Well, I'm off to bed. Night." Dale gets up off a stump and walks to his RV. "Daryl?" Rick asks. "Hmm?"

"You got room in your tent?" Oh please. I don't need to sleep with him. "Mmm... Yeah. Why?" Daryl furrows his eyebrows. "Tucker's gonna need a place to sleep." Rick tells him. "I'm good in a tree. I've slept in them before." I shout. I don't want to sleep with Daryl.

Daryl's POV
"Go on. Daryl show her your tent. See y'all tomorrow." I groan. "C'mon." I get up, Tucker follows me. I open the door on the tent. "Get in." I tell her. "It looks like a bomb went off in here." Tucker grumbles. I roll my eyes. "I ain't got no one to impress."

"Mmhm. You got that wrong, Dixon."