CHAPTER THIRTY

Andie breaks through the tree line, her eyes darting around as Daryl stops next to her; they're now standing beside a broken-down car on a deserted highway. "I heard them. Where the hell did they go?" She questions, scanning the darkness surrounding them.

"You said it was Theo — he's always been fast." He reminds her. "That's why he was always on the supply runs with us."

"I have to find him."

Daryl reaches out and grabs her arm before she can try to take off again. "We've been runnin' from walkers for hours, they probably have been too. We all need to find a place to hole up for the night."

"I can't just—"

"Protect yourself first, for once." His jaw tightens. "Damn it, woman. We will pick up the search first thing, I promise. But first we have to survive the night."

Andie can almost see the desperation in his eyes as he pleads with her, even in only the dim light of the moon. The brunette looks to her left, hearing all of the walkers that they just got away from, and she nods as her gaze meets his again.

She then reaches out and grabs his vest, pulling him with her toward the trunk of the car before opening the hatch. Tossing her weapons bag ahead of her, she climbs into the trunk and shoves it farther in. Daryl climbs in after her, and she rolls onto her side to give him more room to lay down. He uses his bandana to tie the hatch shut, and Andie clutches her knife tightly as she listens to what's going on outside the car.

The moans of the dead continue to get louder and louder as the herd passes through, and their shadows can be seen under the lip of the trunk hood. It's definitely not the quiet night they had days before as thunder starts to rumble overhead, and they see the flash of a lightning strike.

Daryl's on his back, holding his crossbow at the ready. Walkers are bumping the car, and Andie's cursing the rain as she waits for it all to pass. The scent of the walkers alone would probably be enough to override the members of their group that they were trying to catch up to, but now it's all gonna be washed away by the storm.

It's after sunrise when Andie finally decides that the walkers are far enough away that they can get out of the trunk. She has to lean across Daryl to untie the bandana, and she shoves the hatch open as soon as it's free.

The brunette's stretching after her feet hit pavement again, and she groans. "I lied, fuck the sleeping bags. I want my mattress." She grumbles as she reaches the tips of her fingers to her toes. "That hurt like a bitch."

"Sorry, Darlin'. I don't see us coming across a cozy hotel anytime soon." Daryl says as he walks past her.

"Not soon, but sometime?" She raises her eyebrows, but he doesn't bother with a response; they both know the answer. "They were headed that way up the highway." The younger of the two points before leaning back into the trunk to grab her weapons bag.

"Let's go then."

They make it a few miles, and Andie groans as she wipes sweat off her forehead. "I miss my lazy weekends with my mom. All we ever do now is walk, go on endless treks through the woods."

"That ain't true." He glances over his shoulder.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot our nightly runs."

"We should probably hunt soon too." He tells her, and she starts grumbling about killing cute little woodland animals. "You used to eat burgers before the world fell, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but I didn't watch them kill the cow." She argues, and he turns to look at her. "Yeah, I'm a hypocrite. I never claimed not to be."

"Least you know it."

"Bite me."

"Naw, we try to prevent people from doing that nowadays." Daryl says, and she chuckles as she walks behind him. He smirks, glad he could brighten her mood, even if only for a moment.

He manages to convince her that they need to stop to get some food, so Andie sets up a small camp and digs a hole for a fire. She's just getting the flames going when he makes it back with a dead rattlesnake in hand, and her nose scrunches.

"Yay." She mutters sarcastically.

"Tastes great when you're starving." He tells her, and she slaps her hands over her face when he grabs his hunting knife to start skinning it.

"I'm gonna be sick."

"I thought you were past that — vomiting over stuff."

"Over the sight of an animal being gutted? No, I don't think I'll ever get used to that. Thank you."

"How the hell did you survive on your own?" He questions, glancing over at her.

"I stuck to small towns, raided abandoned stores, ate whatever I found on the shelves." She tells him. "Or I ate berries and whatever else I found. It's a no-go on killing anything fuzzy...or scaley, apparently."

"Alright, well, I'll do the killing. You can just eat."

"How chivalrous."

The pair finish eating, and Andie gets to her feet. She had a hard time with the snake, despite how hungry she might be. Pushing past it, she starts packing up their stuff, but she stops when she sees that he's not moving.

"Come on, we have to get back to it." The brunette says, and he picks up the green bottle they have for water.

"They're gone." He says. "They were gone before we climbed into that trunk."

"What happened to you saying that you'd track whatever trail I find?" She questions.

"What happened to you saying that we were just gonna worry about surviving from now on?"

"That was before." Andie argues. "We heard them. We know they're out there, and they can't be that far."

"No, you heard them." He refutes, and she pauses as she looks down at him.

"You think I imagined it." She realizes. "You don't think they were ever there at all."

"Wouldn't be the first time it's happened to one of us." Daryl says as he looks up at her. "You want to find someone, you wanna know that they're alive. You think it was Theo — the closest connection you have to your old life."

"I know what I heard. It wasn't my mind playing tricks on me. They were there." She tells him, but he won't budge. "You can be a real dick sometimes, you know that?"

"Mhm."

"Everyone kept telling me to have a little hope. Now I'm actually trying to believe that something can work out for the better. Why can't you help me?"

"No, see... That was Theo too." He reminds her. "I think you cared about him more than you want to admit, and he's the one you wanna find."

"Maybe he's trying to find us too and that's how we ended up so close to each other." She reasons, but he shakes his head as he looks down. "Fine. I'll go on my own."

Andie steps over the string that she set up to warn them about walkers, and she heads in the direction they were tracking the others in before. She doesn't make it very far before she sees a small group of the dead — four, it looks like.

She pulls her knife from the sheath on her hip and sends it sailing through the air. The first walker drops, then the second as soon as her hatchet hits it. The brunette runs over, shoving one of the remaining walkers into the other and they both stumble.

Pulling her knife from the dead walker is easy, then she stabs the one closest to her. It falls to the ground with a hole in the side of its head, and she goes after the last. It grabs her, and they both go down as she stabs it in the forehead. Even after it's dead, she keeps pulling her knife back and stabbing it over and over again, fighting back tears as she takes her anger out on the corpse.

Noise behind her catches her attention, and she spins around as she gets to her feet, ready to kill whatever comes at her next. She stops when she sees that it's just Daryl standing a few feet away with his crossbow in hand. The brunette takes a deep breath as she looks at the dead walkers at her feet, then she walks past him and heads back to their camp.

Andie's cleaning the blade of her knife when he gets back, and she turns her head when she sees the handle of her hatchet next to her head.

"Probably shouldn't leave that in a walker." He tells her, and she reaches out to take the weapon from him.

"Thanks." Her voice is barely audible as she starts cleaning the hatchet's blade as well.

He watches her as she finishes with her task, then she puts her weapons back in their respective sheaths on her belt. She sets up her bag about a foot from the low fire before using it as a pillow as she lays there with her fingers laced over her stomach, her eyes now closed.

"I thought you were goin' to track the others down." Daryl says.

"I wasn't under the impression you gave a shit what I wanted." She retorts. "Clearly I'm just a delusional little girl who imagined our friends were out there."

"That's not how I meant it."

"What do you want from me, Daryl?" She gets to her feet and looks up at him. "I wanna look for our group, but you act like you couldn't care less about any of them. I don't wanna be alone again, and I don't wanna leave you. So, congratulations, you win. I said I wanted to find shelter, but again, I don't wanna leave you. And you seem pretty damn content to stare into the fire and sit out in the open, so here we are. You haven't listened to anything I've said so far, so what difference does it make now what you thought I wanted? You clearly don't give a shit!"

He grinds his teeth as he looks down at her, then he walks over and starts kicking dirt over the fire. "Come on then."

"Oh, great, so now I'm forcing you to follow my delusion?"

"Ain't no different than me forcing you to stay put." He grumbles.

"Why don't you ever try to communicate what you're thinking?" She questions. "You just walk around with your head down, and when you do say something, it's usually muttered under your breath."

"Don't seem to stop you from hearin' me."

"Do you even give a shit about anything going on anymore? Is there anyone that you actually care about?" Andie asks, and he turns around to face her. "I mean, you don't even want to look for your own brother."

Shuffling and twigs snapping to her right gets their attention, and they both turn as they hear the moans of the walkers headed their way.

"Time to go." Daryl says, leaning down to pick up his hunting knife where he left it sticking out of the dirt.

"Yep." She agrees as she quickly scoops up her bag, throwing their water bottle inside.