𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋𝐒

𝟐𝐱𝟏𝟐

FUNERALS. You'd think we'd be used to 'em by now, yet each one hurt more than the last. The first thing to be done that morning was Dale's funeral. He was like a father figure to most of us and he had definitely been our morale compass. Now he was gone, and he wasn't coming back.

"Dale could-could get under your skin. He sure got under mine, because he wasn't afraid to say anything exactly what he thought, how he felt. That kind of honesty is rare and brave. Whenever I'd make a decision, I'd look at Dale. He'd be looking back at me with that look he had. We've all seen it one time or another. I couldn't always read him, but he could read us. He saw people for who they were. He knew things about us, the truth, who we really are. I'm the end, he was talking about losing our humanity. He said this group was broken. The best way to honor him is to unbreak it. Set aside our differences and pull together, stop feeling sorry for ourselves and take control of our lives, our safety, our future. We're not broken. We're gonna prove him wrong. From now on we're gonna do it his way. That is how we honor Dale." Rick finished off his speech as we all formed a circle around where we had buried him.

I had tears pooling in my eyes threatening to escape but I tried to hold them back. Throughout the speech Daryl and I would make eye contact each other. When I'd look at him, he would be looking at the ground or somewhere else, when he was looking at me I'd be looking elsewhere. I had hoped that Dale's death would be a turning point for the group. We have to come together because all we have left in this world is each other. So we've gotta fight for each other.

Hershel had thought that all of us should be moved into the house, what with the winter coming and what not. All of us had been gathered around each other awaiting our tasks and yes, I cannot do much but I've gotta help out somehow.

"Gonna be tight, 15 people in one house." Rick said. "Don't worry about that. With the swamp hardening, the creek drying up..." Hershel explained, trailing off towards the end of his statement. "With 50 head of cattle on the property, we might as well be ringing a damn dinner bell." Maggie finished. "She's right. We should've moved you in a while ago." Hershel agreed. "All right, let's move the vehicles near each of the doors facing out toward the road. We'll build a lookout in the windmill, another in the barn loft. That should give us sight lines on both sides of the property." Rick announced to all of us as we were all moving around and doing a bunch of different things.

"T-Dog, you take the perimeter around the house. Keep track of everyone coming and going." Rick told T-Dog who stood next to me. "What about standing guard?" T-Dog asked. "I need you and Daryl on double duty." Rick told him. "Gotcha." T-Dog answered and walked off. "I could help them." I offered looking towards Rick. "No. Your staying here. T and I got this." Daryl dismissed from by the truck, answering before Rick could even get a word out. "He's right. Can't risk one of our best fighters getting hurt even further than she already is." Rick agreed. "Since when did I become like Glenn? I'm more than capable." I defended myself, completely disregarding Rick's compliment. "Since you got shot and almost died three days ago. Keep everything to a minimum." Rick recalled. I sighed and walked off to help some of the others move our stuff into the house.

Lori both went outside to get more stuff off of the truck to put inside. Glenn had been walking at the same time as us with his stuff in his hand. "The men are in there." Lori told Glenn signaling her head toward the kitchen area. I saw Maggie walk up to Glenn as I was putting stuff down. "You can put your stuff upstairs in my room." Maggie offered. "With your dad in the house? I just—I'm just gonna put my stuff over there." I heard my brother decline in respect of Maggie's father. I had thought back to Glenn, Dale, and I in the R.V. telling Dale that Glenn had slept with Maggie. I guess he had taken in Dale's words but also our Mom had taught him well, Dad too.

Maggie had walked off and I walked over to Glenn. "Our parents taught you well little brother. I know you wanted to bunk with my future sister in law." I grinned before nudging him. "Shut up." He groaned while nudging me back. I laughed at him before back outside with Lori to help with more stuff.

I was helping Lori pick up a larger bin in the house. "Whoa. Don't-don't-don't strain yourselves, either of you." T-Dog said before taking the box of our hands. "Thank you." Lori and I said in unison. "Rick, Carl, and I are taking the corner of the living room." Lori informed T-Dog before he walked into the house. As T-Dog was walking up the steps Hershel opened the door for him. "You can put that in my room." He told T-Dog.

"You'll be more comfortable there." Hershel told Lori as her and I were taking stuff out of the back of the truck. "We can't do that." Lori declined the offer. "A pregnant woman and child sleeping in the floor while I've got a bed to myself?" Hershel questioned. "This is still your house." Lori protested softly. "It's our home. I'll take the couch downstairs. On nights when I came home reeking of bourbon, my wife would lock the bedroom door. I'm sad to say that couch and I became old friends." Hershel informed Lori, in efforts of trying to assure her it was alright. T-Dog had came back outside during that conversation and I handed him another bin.

T-Dog, hearing the end of that conversation, chimed in. "If you two can't decide, I'll take it." He said with a grin on his face. "Yeah, we know you will T." I laughed at him as he turned around and walked in the house. "The couch is mine." Hershel yelled out to T-Dog as he got towards the front door. I laughed at Hershel when he had made eye contact with me and grinned. Hershel then grabbed another bin off the truck. Today was gonna be a long day.

I looked over to see Lori had stopped what she was doing and looked over at Shane who was working hard on the wind mill. I looked at Shane's figure before I looked over at Lori. Oh god. "I'll uh, I'll be right back." Lori told me before handing me the bin she had to n her hand. "Yeah. Ok." I responded before walking toward the house. Before I walked in the house I turned around and eyed Lori's retreating figure as she walked over to Shane. "Man Lori, what the hell are you doing?" I mumbled under my breath before opening the door and heading inside.

I put down the stuff and walked over to T-Dog. "You sure I can't help out you and Daryl?" I asked. "Nope. Don't do that. Rick already said no and I am not putting you in any further damage." T-Dog shook his head. "Oh come on, T." I groaned "No. I care about you too much, and if anything happened to you I'd never live it down. Stay here and help them put shutters around the house or something." He protested. I sighed before be walked off and gripped my shoulder. I thought at least T would have my back. We go farther back than Rick and I.

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Daryl and T couldn't even get rid of Randall because he had escaped. How? I had no idea. It just didn't make sense considering the barn door was locked from the outside. Shane had also miraculously been gone at the same time as Randall had. I wouldn't be surprised if he had anything to do with it. Shane was a loose canon and he was unpredictable. He had been going in a spiral, slowly unraveling and his humanity was fading into nothing. As I was thinking over theories, we had all been gathered around each other looking for the prisoner.

We were all discussing over what we were gonna do if he wasn't found and how the hell we were gonna go about this. We all looked in the barn to assess how he got out in the first place. "The cuffs are still hooked. He must've slipped 'em." Rick told us. "Is that possible?" Carol asked from beside me as we looked inside the farm. "If your as desperate as he was and you've got nothin' to lose." I answered. "The door was secured from the outside." Hershel said. "He had to have been led out." I voiced my opinion. "You think?" Rick asked. I was about to answer before Shane came out of the woods shouting out Rick's name. Blood had been dripping down his face, starting from his nose onto his shirt.

"Rick! Rick!" Shane shouted. Rick was starting to walk over to see what the commotion was about to see Shane covered in his blood. "What happened?" Lori yelled. "He's armed! He's got my gun!" Shane shouted walking up to us. "Are you okay?" Carl asked. "I'm fine. Little bastard just snuck up on me. He clocked me in the face." Shane yelled out. "All right, Hershel, T-Dog, get everybody back in the house. Glenn, Daryl, come with us." Rick demanded. "T, I'm gonna need that gun." Shane ordered holding out his hand.

"Just let him go. That was the plan, wasn't it, to just let him go?" Carol questioned. "The plane was to cut him loose far away from here, not on our front step with a gun." Rick gritted through his teeth. "Don't go out there. Y'all know what can happen." Carol begged. "Get everybody back in the house. Lock all the doors and stay put!" Rick ordered before he walked off with Shane, Glenn and Daryl. Everybody had ran off in the house like they were supposed to. Not me. Screw that. I do not trust Shane with Rick, Glenn, or Daryl. I was gonna follow them. Good thing I had my sword.

I waited until the walker further into the trees to follow them. I didn't want to be right on their tale and I could not risk getting caught early. I hid behind a tree as I heard them conversing amongst each other.

"I saw him head up through the trees that way before I blacked out. I'm not sure how long." Shane said.

"He couldn't have gotten far. He's hobbled, exhausted." Rick said.

"And armed." Glenn added.

"So are we. Can you track him?" Rick questioned Daryl.

"No, I don't see nothing." Daryl answered.

"Hey, look, there ain't no use in tracking him, okay? He went that way. We need to pair up. We spread out, we just chase him down. That's it." Shane deflected. He was definitely hiding something and he was a bad liar. I guess Daryl caught on too.

"Kid weighs a buck 25 soaking wet. You tryna tell us he got the jump on you?" Daryl questioned, not buying Shane's story.

"I say a rock pretty much evens those odds, wouldn't you?" Shane questioned back getting defensive.

"All right, knock it off. You and Glenn start heading up the right flank. Me and Shane'll take the left. Remember, Randall's not the only threat out there. Keep an eye out for each other." Rick gave the orders. He and Shane walked one way and Glenn and Daryl walked the opposite way. I needed to follow all four of them, but there was only one me. I'm gonna follow Daryl and Glenn, yet looking back on it, I probably should've followed Rick and Shane.

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It had officially been dark out. I was still following Glenn and Daryl, while making sure to keep my distance so I wouldn't get caught. The only sound being made for a while was just feet crunching against the leaves and crickets chirping until Daryl sighed and started a conversation.

"This is pointless. You got a light?" He asked Glenn. Glenn held out a flashlight for him and Daryl turned it on. Daryl was shining the light before he let out an irritated sigh, ushering Glenn to come on, to which Glenn followed. I tailed them from a distance and realized they had been walking back to where they had originally parted ways from Rick and Shane.

"We're just back to square one." Glenn said lowly.

"If you're gonna do a thing, you might as well do it right." Daryl told him as he continued to shine the line on the ground.

"There's two sets of tracks right here. Shane must've followed him a lot longer than he said." Daryl said as he kept walking the path of the footprints on the ground.

"There's fresh blood on this tree." Daryl said while shining the light in said tree.

"There's more tracks. Looks like they're walking in tandem." Daryl informed as he followed the tracks before stopping. In the distance you could hear animal calls and even in the dark I could tell Glenn was spooked by it. "Sorry." He apologized to Daryl as he accidentally bumped into him.

"Yeah, there was a little dust up right here." Daryl said.

"What do you mean?" Glenn asked.

"I mean something went down." Daryl informed him.

"It's getting weird." Glenn said shakily.

"Had a little trouble." Daryl said as he stopped again. Glenn then picked up the blindfold that had been on Randall's head. There had been rustling against some leaves. I had looked around but I hadn't seen anything. When I had turned back around I had heard growling and a walker was in front of Glenn and Daryl. Oh shit. I got out my dagger and threw it at the walker, I had only hoped that it would hit it seeing as I could barely see. I saw it embedded in the walkers head as I ran up to them.

We were all panting and looking at the dead walker. "What the hell are you doing out here?! Your supposed to be at the farm with everybody else!" Daryl scolded me. "Oh so now your talking to me?!" I exclaimed with raised eyebrows. "Guys! That's Randall." Glenn exclaimed getting our attention as Daryl shined the flashlight on the walker, proving to be Randall.

"Well that could be an issue." I said awkwardly. "Yeah." Glenn agreed. Daryl bent down to see if he had any scratches or bites. "Got his neck broke." Daryl said as he looked at his neck. He then flipped him over and pulled up his shirt to see if any scratches or bites were on his back. "He's got no bites." Daryl told us. "Yeah, none you can see." Glenn remarked. "No, I'm telling you he died from this." Daryl said as he looked at Glenn and I. I sighed as Glenn asked, "How's that possible?"

Daryl then looked at the walker lying in the ground with scrunched eyebrows before looking back at us. The gears in his head were definitely turning and I knew that he had a few theories. He got up and got my dagger and handed it to me before we started walking back.

There were so many questions that had gone unanswered. Questions that needed answering as soon as possible.

WHOOP WHOOP the season finale is on its ways. I'm so excitedddd!!! ITS GON BE GOOD!! I'm so freaking ready!! Love you guys 3000 and I'll see you next chapter and act 3.
-brayla❤️❤️