Dixon's Daughter

Prologue

Third Person's POV

Cassidy Dixon followed her father Daryl and Uncle Merle through the woods. They were tracking quite a large buck, had been for the last little while, and finally they were getting close.

"It's just up ahead." Daryl whispered, motioning to a spot past a row of trees. He glanced back at Merle and Sadie, who nodded.

As they approached, they were able to see it. The buck was standing in a small clearing, eating some grass. Daryl motioned for Merle to go up the left, Sadie to go up the right, and Daryl would go up the middle.

So that's what they did. Sadie and Daryl kept their crossbows up while Merle did the same with his gun. When they were all in their places, Merle did something unexpected.

Instead of just shooting the buck, he decided to mess with it first. He shot a bullet into the ground right next to one of its legs and it's head snapped up to look at Merle, who laughed.

Immediately, the buck ran off in the other direction. But unfortunately the opposite direction happened to be directly toward Sadie.

The buck must've been so frightened that it didn't have a sense of its surroundings because it plowed right into her, knocking both her and it off the cliff behind her.

Sadie let out a shout as she fell, slamming against the steep hill over and over again. When she reached the bottom, she sucked in a sharp breath of pain.

"Sadie!" Daryl shouted, running over to the top of the cliff. Despite a small sharp pain in her abdomen, Sadie did her best to shout back. "I'm fine!"

"I'll be right down! Hang on!" Daryl shouted before he and Merle started heading down a less steep part of the cliff. Sadie watched as they rushed down to her and then saw something that made her gasp.

There was an arrow sticking out of the middle of her stomach.

That's when the adrenaline started wearing off. The pain started becoming more prominent and Sadie squeezed her eyes shut, letting out a pained moan.

Daryl was at the bottom of the cliff, just a small ways away, when Sadie started coughing up blood. Maybe I'm not so fine after all, Sadie couldn't help but think, and it's the last thing she thought before she passed out just as Daryl reached her side.

Merle held back as Daryl pulled Sadie's body onto his lap. "No, no, no. Stay awake, Sadie. Stay awake. You're gonna be fine. You're gonna be just fine."

Merle stepped forward towards his brother and niece. "Brother–" He started, but Daryl cut him off. "This is worse than we can handle ourselves, Merle. She's coughing up blood. Call 911. We'll meet them at the edge of the woods." Daryl instructed and Merle did as he said.

Daryl picked up Sadie's limp body and started running with Merle to where the medics would meet them.

"You're gonna be just fine." Daryl whispered, more for himself than his daughter, as he ran. He was used to injuries and so was Merle and Sadie, but like he said, this was worse than he could handle.

Just an arrow itself he could handle fine, but the fact that she was coughing up blood showed that it had pierced something important, which required a hospital. And Daryl would do anything to save his daughter.