64. piece by piece

QUINN

     'SO, ITS WAS YOU TWO AND BETH AFTER?' Carol questioned as they made their way through the darkness after the car with the white cross.

Quinn didn't bother answering. She didn't feel like talking, afraid that if she opened her mouth her food would come out. She was nervous and couldn't say why. Which made her only more nervous. Now that they had a chance to find Beth again, a real chance, she suddenly felt sick with fear about the wellbeing of the teenager they lost.

'Yeah,' Daryl replied to Carol's question instead and through her nerves she almost felt jealous. He talked so easily with the woman but when he was with her it felt like she had to remove a thousand obstacles to get a word out of him, time and time again. But her worry for Beth drowned out the jealousy. It faded before she even truly realised it'd been there in the first place.

'You save her?'

'She's tough,' Daryl replied, 'she saved herself. We were out there for a while. We got cornered and...Don't know she was gone. I came out and a car's pullin' out with a white cross on the window.'

Her body tensed at the story, remembering the night and she felt a stab in her heart. She was suppose to protect her, but she failed. All she could try to do now was make up for it, and driving through the darkness to an unknown location seemed like a pretty good start.

'Just like that one?' Carol asked, despite knowing the answer.

'Yup,' Daryl replied. His eyes drifted to Quinn for a second but she kept her gaze on the road, not wanting him to see all the emotions she was pretty sure were written all over her face.

'Rick's gonna wonder where we went,' he continued and she shivered at the thought of the people they left behind. She could only imagine how Milo would react. Thinking about it made her feel an icy stab of guilt and so she pushed those thoughts into the back of her mind. 'Tank's runnin' low.'

'We can end this quick. Just run him off the road,' Carol suggested.

'No,' Quinn finally spoke, slightly startled by the harsness in her own voice. 'If we do that we might never find her. If the assholes don't talk we're back to square one.' She fell silent before adding quietly. 'I'm not losing her again.'

She kept her eyes focused on the car, afraid it would disappear if she so much as blinked.

'They're heading north, I-85,' Carol noted.

She pinched the cloth of her shirt as she realised what that meant. And soon enough Atlanta doomed up out of the darkness and she almost cursed. How dumb did you have to be to stay in the city? But she swallowed all her words and fears. Beth was there somewhere and she would not turn back without knowing where.

They drove through streets and allyways and no matter how hard she tried to stay focused on the car, she couldn't help but notice how much of a ghost town the city had become. Corpses littered the street, most truly dead, some alive, waiting for their next meal. Trash covered the ground, glass of broken windows, paper and clothes. She wondered where most of it came from.

Finally they came to a stop. Her heart was beating way too fast in her chest as she watched the car just standing there.

'The hell's he waitin' for?' Daryl asked but she had no answer.

The door opened and she exhaled slowly, narrowing through the darkness at the clothes the man was wearing.

'Is that a cop?' She asked, frowning as she watched him walk into an alley. The seconds it took for him to come back felt like hours and she was surprised her body hadn't cracked from the tension she felt in her bones.

A loud bang came from her right and she jumped in her seat, covering her mouth with one hand before she would scream, her other hand reaching for her dagger. A walker was standing by the window, growling and snapping its teeth into the air. It kept on pounding the window, throwing its entire body against the car.

She let out a shaky breath as the cop returned to the car, apparently having thrown some bikes out of the way to clear a path. But when he noticed the walker he stood still, narrowing through the darkness at their car. Her hand held the hilt of her dagger in a firm grip, ready to strike but it turned out unnecessary as the cop climbed back into the car and drove away.

Daryl tried to start the engine and follow them but it sputtered and refused to come to life. He tried again, but still the engine didn't start. 'Oh, shit,' he muttered, 'tank's tapped.'

Quinn let out a small sigh, her gaze on the spot where the other car stood only seconds ago.

'They'd have taken the bypass and they didn't,' Daryl said, looking at her. 'They must be holed up in the city somewhere.'

She nodded, chills running down her spine when she saw the noice the walker was making, drew every walker within a few miles towards them. Soon they'd be surrounded.

'We better move,' she said, gesturing outside.

'Gotta find a place to hold up 'til sunlight,' Daryl added, already reaching for his weapons.

'I know a place just a couple of blocks from here,' Carol nodded. 'We can make it.'

Quinn took a deep breath, pulling her dagger free before pushing the door open with such force the walker fell on the ground. She stood over it, slamming her dagger through its skull. By the time she was done, Carol and Daryl had climbed out of the car. They ran into a dark alley, following Carol's whispered directions. They ran into a few walkers before reaching the building, but nothing too troubling. Daryl broke down the door with ease and they ran inside, leaving the moans of the walkers on the street behind.

The building Carol had taken them to appeared to be some sort of office. Clean, polished floors, desks and lots of hallways and sometimes a corpse.

Carol entered a small office, looking around with her knife raised but there were no walkers in sight.

'You used to work here or somethin'?' Daryl asked, shining around with his flashlight.

'Something,' she replied, her voice soft as if memories she didn't want to remember were rushing back to her.

They placed the desk in front of the door they entered through before making their way through another door that took them through a small hallway. Quinn was happy with Daryl's flashlight. She was pretty sure she would've freaked out in a small dark space like this.

Finally they reached the place Carol had in mind. A small room with a bunkbed and a desk. There was one window, looking out over the roofs of Atlanta. It reminded her of a shelter of sorts, a place for emergencies. And when her eyes fell on a book titled: "Treating survivors of Childhood Abuse." She knew she probably wasn't far off.

'What's this place?' Daryl asked.

'Temporary housing,' Carol replied.

Quinn reached out, tracing the words on the cover of the book with her fingers before suddenly pulling back, as if they burned her. Maybe, in a way, they did. She noticed Daryl's gaze resting on her but the choose to ignore him and looked the other way.

'You came here?' He asked, turning to Carol.

'We didn't stay,' was all she said.

'I'll take first watch,' Quinn said, then nodded at the bunk bed. 'There's not enough room for three anyway.'

Carol nodded, not protesting. 'I'll take the top bunk, I think that one's more your style.'

Daryl didn't reply, just took his jacket off before glaring at Quinn. 'This place is locked up tight,' he said.

She shrugged. 'I don't mind.' Then she turned away before he could protest and disappeared in the hallway. She leaned against the wall, staring through the window, her hand tightly around her dagger and the other around her gun. She could hear their muffled voices through the thin walls but couldn't make out the words.

Leaning her head back against the wall she sighed deeply. She wouldn't be able to sleep anyway, which was why she didn't mind standing watch. It wasn't truly necessary in a place like this but there was nowhere she'd ever feel safe enough again to sleep without someone standing watch.

Her thoughts kept going to Beth, a thousand questions burning in her mind. They didn't even know if she was still alive, maybe they were just chasing ghosts. But even if that was the case, she wanted to know. She refused to leave here without answers. She failed Beth before, and wasn't willing to do so again.

A lound bang broke through her thoughts. She held her weapons up and slowly walked down the hallway towards the sound. Soon she could hear the familiar groans of a walker but when she reached the door they were banging against, she stopped in her tracks.

Hurried footsteps came from behind her and soon Carol and Daryl appeared. She didn't say a word, just kept staring at the door. There were two shadows of corpses banging on the glass, one grown up and one...

She took a sharp breath but somehow wasn't able to turn her eyes away. Of course she'd known there were child walkers out there but she couldn't remember ever seeing one. And somehow it hurt way more than a thousand grown up walkers ever could.

She took a step towards the door but Daryl placed his hand on her arm, lightly, barely a touch but it stopped her anyway. She turned to look at him, her eyes wet from unwanted tears.

'You don't have to,' he said, watching her as her eyes drifted back towards the child. It deserved rest and peace, not to be cursed to roam around like this. 'You don't,' he repeated, as if able to read her thoughts.

Finally she nodded and turned around, noticing Carol had already disappeared back down the hallway.

'You okay?' Daryl asked as she took a deep breath to steady herself.

She nodded but knew he wouldn't believe her. She didn't understand what was suddenly going on with her. Ever since they'd gotten into that car she felt as if some part of her had died. And again when she read the book title and again upon seeing that walker...

She couldn't say why she all of a sudden she was this weak, all of her walls torn down within hours. She didn't know and was terrified to find out.

'I'll take first watch,' Daryl said, with a tone that left no room for protest.

She simply sighed before walking back towards the room, laying down on the lower bunkbed. She closed her eyes and fell asleep almost immediately, a lot more tired than she originally thought. She dreamed of many things, some happy but most filled with death and screams. When she woke up though, she remembered none of them.

Her bones were aching from the thin matress but she ignored it, blinking against the morning light that came shining through the window. From the bed above her she could hear Carol's steady breathing, the woman still fast asleep.

She pushed herself up, taking a moment to stretch herself before walking towards the hallway. She frowned when Daryl wasn't there. Turning in a small circle her eyes suddenly noticed something outside the window. She took a step towards the glass and noticed him standing on a rooftop, placing two bodies wrapped in sheets on a pile of wood. One large body and one small...

She swallowed her tears and turned to walk down the hallway, through the office and finally over the balcony.

He heard her coming over the gravel that was placed on the roof, she could see it in the way his shoulders tensed, as they always did when she got close.

She pretended as if it didn't hurt her and came to a stop next to him, watching in silence as he lit a match and threw it on the pile, the bodies and wood catching fire immediately.

They stood in silence, watching the fire consume two people who died before their time. Her heart was aching and suddenly she realised why she'd been feeling like she was slowly dying. Staring into the flames, she relived her memories. Being saved by Michonne, finding Andrea, her impossible conversations with Merle, stumbling upon the prison, being reunited with her brother, finding a family, finding a man who wore a soul just as tainted as hers, finding a girl who made both of their souls feel lighter, as if the darkness had never been there in the first place.

She had been whole, she'd been complete.

And now she was losing it all, piece by piece.

She left the only family she'd ever known behind for a tiny possibility, a chance...And maybe they'd never see each other again, maybe they wouldn't find Beth, maybe they'd die here.

She wasn't strong enough to do this, she was nothing without her brother, was nothing without the certainty that she'd see him again. She was drifting on a raft through an ocean of doubt. She hadn't felt this way since the world first fell apart. Like hopelessness was slowly eating her alive.

'Stop,' Daryl suddenly spoke, finally turning to look at her. His voice was sharp, strong and left no question to the intention of his words.

A small frown appeared on her face as she stared into his blue eyes. How he managed to read her like an open book, while she still got lost trying to read him, would always remain a mystery to her.

'We'll find her,' he spoke, again with that strong voice, so sure and without doubt. Or maybe he was just trying to convince himself too.

'Yeah,' she finally mumbled, offering him a small smile. 'We'll find her.'

He stared at her and for a second it looked as if he wanted to say something else but he swallowed his words and turned away from her.

Disappointment went like a stab through her stomach but she ignored it, turning her gaze back to the fire.

Footsteps came from behind them and Carol came to stand next to the two of them. For a moment they didn't speak, just stood in silence, in respect for the fallen.

Until Carol finally whispered a small. 'Thank you.'