[ xxvii. you can let go now ]

june 30th, 2012

➸➸➸

THE RUMBLE OF SPEEDING tires was the only sound to be heard directly following Astrid's heated argument with Daryl. Her tremoring hands, clenched into fists, lay bundled in her lap as she stared intently through the windshield at the shadowy silhouette of the black car ahead. They had maintained a cautious distance for the most part, close enough to keep a clear path within sight, but far enough to remain concealed from unwanted view.

Astrid longed to alleviate the stifling tension. The interior of their vehicle seemed to close in on her, and she yearned to roll down the window and let the cold breeze soothe her clammy skin. Out of her peripheral vision, Daryl sat rigidly, his own stare fixed ahead, his knuckles white as they clung to the steering wheel. The atmosphere seemed to grow more oppressive by the second.

In a hushed tone, the Lancaster woman finally dared to break the silence. "So, it was just you and Beth after?"

Daryl's answer was hesitant, as though he had not anticipated—nor particularly wanted—Astrid's initiative. "Yeah," He replied, his voice barely rising above the purring of the engine.

"You save her?" Astrid persisted, all the while her thoughts drifted back to the prison. Beth, though more than capable of dealing with walkers, often steered clear of confrontations with other humans. Astrid had faith in her survival skills, certainly. Yet doubts still crept into her mind about the teen's overall adaptability to how far she could go in this world on her own. She was still only a kid after all.

"She's tough. She saved herself," Daryl corrected. "She's tough. We were out there for a while. 'Til we got cornered. She got out in front of me, and . . . I don't know. She was gone. I went outside to the last place I saw her and saw a car with a white cross on the window drivin' off."

"Like the one up ahead?" Astrid asked, nodding toward the vehicle leading the way.

"Yep."

Astrid gnawed on her lower lip, her eyes briefly drawn to a walker feasting on some obscured prize in the underbrush on the side of the highway. But the distraction could not hold her attention long, for they were quickly hurtling past. With a resigned sigh, she murmured, "Rick's going to wonder where we went."

Daryl's tone dripped with cynicism as he retorted, "Thought you wanted nothin' to do with him anymore. Or am I mixed up? You wanted everythin' to do with him now?"

Astrid's blood ran ice-cold, as a sudden surge of rage and vulnerability clawed at her insides. Her hunter had never spoken to her like that before—not even in the early days when they had first met. It took every ounce of restraint to not immediately fire back. Daryl's words had landed like a low blow, leaving her breathless, as though the very air had been torn from her lungs. Still, she swallowed the pain back down. Because she comprehended that, although Rick had set in motion the events, it was her ill-timed confession that had ignited this bitterness.

The truth, even when spoken from brokenness, could be a double-edged sword. Admitting her fleeting moments of weakness had been a colossal mistake. But she had only ever dared to consider such notions when melded with her darkest hours—after Daryl had left her stranded at the prison, leaving her more alone than she had ever felt before.

Perhaps, a part of Astrid, even after all this time, had not fully forgiven Daryl for that abandonment.

Maintaining her gaze steadfastly forward, arms crossed tightly over her chest, the Lancaster woman eventually snipped, "The tank's running on fumes. Best do something soon."

Daryl growled in irritation, "Like what?"

"We could put an end to this," She exclaimed. "Just run the bastard off the road!"

The intensity of her tone drew Daryl's eyes to her, but she refused to meet his glare, just as she had refused to confront the disconcerting stare of Rick back at the church. Finally, her hunter heaved a frustrated sigh, redirecting his attention to the road. "Nah," He rejected.

"What if they're holding Beth somewhere?" Astrid challenged. "We can get it out of the driver."

"And how would we go about that? Torture him?"

"Well, it'll certainly get the man to talk."

"What if he don't?" Daryl countered sharply. "If he clams up, we're back to square one."

Astrid turned toward her hunter, her eyes blazing. "Do you want answers or not?" She snapped. "Because I can promise you that if we show up with nothing but our charm, we're screwed. They had a reason for taking Beth. Who's to say they won't have a use for us? What if this is another Terminus situation? We don't hesitate with something like this. We kill this guy at the first opportunity."

In less than a nanosecond, Astrid registered her unintentional echo of Rick Grimes during their escape from the cannibal compound. Daryl did, too. She could see it in his eyes, in the way they darkened as they looked upon her. Regardless, the Lancaster woman found that she cared little now for his reaction. Their harsh reality demanded ruthless decisions, and she was prepared to embrace that mindset, even if Daryl hesitated. Beth's survival depended on it.

"They ain't doin' no harm right now," Daryl pointed out. "I say, right now, we've got the advantage. We'll see who they are. If they're a group, we'll see what they can do. And then we'll do what we got to do to get her back."

Astrid bit her tongue. For a long minute, she did not speak. Then another minute passed. Then another.

Finally, still suppressing her instinctual urge to disagree, she reluctantly assented to Daryl's plan. If there was any chance of making it through this night without heads coming off, they needed to work together. Perhaps there remained a possibility, no matter how small, that these strangers were well-intentioned individuals. Besides, Astrid acknowledged that she could not always be like Rick—bursting into confrontations with guns blazing and a readiness to annihilate anyone who crossed her path. Their current situation, she supposed, resembled a strategic game of chess, with the stakes higher than ever. One wrong move, and she might reveal herself far too early—but by then, the opponent had already yelled out 'checkmate.'

Astrid's eyes eventually landed on a massive, green sign indicating their direction, and she recited the information aloud, "North on I-eighty-five." As they neared the towering, dark skyscrapers, an involuntary shiver coursed through her. "Atlanta."

Sitting up straighter, the Lancaster woman watched as the cityscape grew increasingly more alive the deeper they ventured into the metropolis. Walkers roamed aimlessly, searching for their next meal. Astrid inwardly noted the change to her last visit here, the last time she had navigated this far into the heart of the city. That time, she had been with Glenn, both having been taken by the Vatos group. She could not help but wonder about the lives of those strangers, though the state of the city suggested that very few, if any, survived within it now.

Her attention shifted back to the unknown car ahead, which began to slow down, and Daryl matched its deceleration. Then, in the middle of downtown, the vehicle came to a complete halt at a dead stoplight, leaving Astrid puzzled. She did not dare raise her voice, as she issued a low command to her hunter, "Stop the car."

Following her directive, Daryl parked their vehicle in the black shadow of a building adjacent to the road. Astrid squinted her eyes, leaning forward with interest to decipher the intentions of the car ahead. Daryl mirrored her curiosity, his impatience evident in his tone as he snapped, "The hell's he waitin' for?"

Astrid contemplated the situation. "Maybe he's got a partner." She kept a watchful eye as the car's taillights dimmed, and shortly thereafter, the passenger-side door swung open. "Well, well," She huffed, "what do you know."

"Is that a cop?" Daryl questioned.

Astrid inched forward, her chin almost grazing the dashboard, her brows knitted in a deep frown as she took in the sight of the man who climbed from the car. The faint moonlight barely illuminated him, but his police uniform was unmistakable. "Why is he dressed like that?" She muttered.

"No clue. But he sure looks like a dumbass." Astrid nodded in agreement. She reached for her waistband and retrieved her gun before placing it on her lap, her finger poised near the trigger. Then she noticed Daryl's puzzled stare. "What's that for?" He asked.

"They might've seen us," She explained. "Why else would they stop?"

Her hunter's lips pressed into a firm line in response to her reasoning, and ultimately opted for silence instead. Both of them redirected their focus to the car, watching as the policeman disappeared around a corner, his intentions unclear. Astrid watched timidly, waiting for the driver's reappearance, her mind swirling now with apprehensions of a possible ambush.

But before she could voice her concerns, a thunderous thud resonated through the car, causing her to startle back in alarm. The snarls of a walker drew Astrid's attention to her window, where the reanimated corpse pounded its bloodied fists against the glass, desperate to reach her. She swallowed slowly, trying to regain control of her breathing, when she felt a strong grip encircle her upper arm.

Turning slightly, she encountered Daryl's large hand, his fingers firmly wrapped around her slender bicep. Their eyes locked in a shared understanding—in a shared instinct to always protect one another. But then Astrid made an attempt to pull her arm free.

"You can let go now," She reminded him.

Daryl, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment, instantly released his grasp and shifted away, creating as much distance as possible between them on the opposite side of the car. Astrid breathed deeply as she watched him, her fingers absently rubbing her arm. She could not help but wish that her hunter had held on just a moment longer.

Suddenly, Astrid's attention was seized by movement again, and her gaze peeled back to the policeman who had vanished earlier but was now making his way back toward the stalled vehicle. Her body tensed as she observed the man carrying a large duffle bag, and her immediate thought veered toward the morbid possibility of it being a body bag. Strangely, the policeman stopped mid-trek and then dropped the bag in the center of the street altogether. He cast cautious glances in all directions before finally slipping back into his car.

Less than a minute later, the black vehicle roared to life and resumed its drive as if it had never come to a standstill in the first place. Meanwhile, the ravenous walker continued its futile assault on their own car, but Astrid paid it little mind. She turned her attention to Daryl, who tried to restart their own vehicle. Her ears strained for the reassuring sound of the engine purring to life once more, but instead, she was met with the distressing sound of the engine sputtering, barely clinging to life.

"Shit," She cursed under her breath.

"Tank's tapped," Daryl grumbled with annoyance as he struck at the wheel. His glare held steadily on the street down which the other car had disappeared. "They should've taken the bypass, but they didn't," He pointed out. "They must be holed up somewhere in the city."

Astrid pinched the bridge of her nose. "We need to get Beth out of this mess," She mumbled. "Fast."

"We will. But we ain't doin' it tonight. We've got to move," He decided. "Find someplace to hole up 'til mornin'."

Astrid quickly scanned the surroundings through the windshield, until her eyes alighted on a familiar sign on the side of a faraway building. Her recognition left her momentarily frozen. She knew this neighborhood better than she had originally thought. With a nervous gulp, she released her seatbelt. "I know a place," She insisted. "It's just a couple of blocks from here. We can make it."

Her hunter acknowledged her with a stiff nod before gathering his few belongings and climbing from the car. Meanwhile, Astrid pulled her knife from its sheath on her hip and clutched it to her chest, her focus now fixated on the walker that still hovered at her window. Summoning every ounce of her strength, she forcefully pushed open the car door, sending the walker hurtling backward, affording her the few moments she needed to make her escape. She lifted her knife to strike, but just as she prepared to swing, an arrow whizzed past her face, striking the walker squarely in the eye.

Astrid frowned, watching the body as it crumpled to the ground, and then she turned her attention to Daryl, who stood on the opposite side of the car. "I had that handled," She retorted.

He scoffed and crossed over to retrieve the arrow. "Sure looked like it."

Rolling her eyes, the Lancaster woman stowed her knife again but still held firmly to her pistol with both hands. She surveyed the darkness around her once more, the distant hum of walker groans pervading the night sky, and then she began jogging down the pitch-black street. Her memory proved stronger the further she ran as she recognized more and more once-forgotten landmarks.

The cool air seeped deep into her bones, yet she pressed forward, taking in the utter devastation around her. Shattered windows, doors torn off hinges, and caved-in roofs were what remained of most buildings. Overturned and charred cars littered the crumbling streets. Numerous decomposed bodies, debris suspended in the night breeze, and signs of desperation and tattered American flags clinging to long-looted storefronts, lamp posts, and streetlights painted an uninviting portrait of Atlanta. It was a city unrecognizable—it was a city that belonged only to the dead now.

Finally, after nearly ten minutes of running, Astrid's eyes settled on a two-story building nestled at the intersection of two avenues. Her gaze widened as she took in the damage, realizing that a section of the building had crumbled, inadvertently eliminating a number of immediate threats that could have been posed to them. "This way," Astrid urged to her hunter before sprinting across the street and making her way to the front entrance.

It was no surprise to see the door in splinters and abandoned on the ground. However, what did give her pause was the presence of military markings on the wood, when there had not been before. Astrid could only guess that she must have already left the city by that point, beginning a solitary life on the road.

What might have happened if she had stayed?

Astrid eventually stepped over the threshold, and fresh darkness swallowed her, but she knew this building like the back of her hand. She proceeded down the shadowy foyer hall, sensing Daryl's presence close, and she shifted slightly away. The doors that lined the hallway were a mix of closed ones and others wrenched open, their frames battered, most likely due to looting. However, the bloodstains that splattered the walls and floors told a darker tale; even the looters had been driven out, it seemed. Looking around, Astrid could not help but feel a shiver of gratitude, for whatever had chased them away seemed to have followed them out.

Approaching her destination, the Lancaster woman swallowed slowly, as her eyes went to the rusted number affixed to the wall beside the door. 09. Her hand reached for the doorknob, and she heaved a sigh of relief as she found it locked, just as it had been nearly two years ago. With a gentle bend at the waist, she lifted the weathered mat and unveiled the glimmer of a small silver key tucked beneath. Despite the chaos that had so evidently descended upon this building, the key had remained undisturbed in its dust, a silent guardian over this place.

Astrid picked it up, acutely aware of Daryl's watchful eyes upon her. Sliding it into the lock, she savored the familiar click of the tumblers, and with a push, she coaxed the door open. Her lips curled into a smile as a warm wave of nostalgia washed over her. Deep down, she had always known she would return. She had always known she would find her way back home.

Lost in her own memories, Astrid scarcely noticed how long she stood in the open doorway until her hunter's voice jolted her back to reality. "What is this place?" He asked, uncertainty lacing in his tone. The innocent smile never left her face as she slipped the small key into her back pocket and turned to face Daryl.

"My brother's apartment."

~~~~~~~~~~