*The Next Day*

      I woke up to the sun blinding me and tara next to me her arm wrapped around me and my head on her shoulder. I jump up and her arm moves away from me and she says "sorry sometimes I cuddle in my sleep" I shake my head at her "no it's okay". She turns her head and see's two water bottles and something wrapped in a napkin and a spear. Tara helps me move back and she grabs the water bottles and hands one to me and she takes a drink of it I do too.

She grabs the napkin and she sees it's a fish we both look over and I see a tan girl about to enter the woods tara turns to me. I shrug and I whisper "I saw her with a little girl yesterday the little girl was gonna kill you but she stopped her before I could do anything" she furrows her eyebrows at me and she whispers "why did she stop her?". I shrug my shoulders I grab some of the deer meat and put it in the plastic bag and put it in my backpack and grab my gun and she whispers "let's follow her". I get up and we follow behind the girl being careful not to make much noise.

We follow her back to a mossy wall and tara ducks under it and then I do to and she grabs my hand and I whisper "toe to heel don't push yer foot down they may know how to track". I dust up her footprints and she nodded at me and we keep looking through the tree's and we hear kids laughing and people talking they don't seem like bad people to me and I am a good judge of character. We even see kids making speers and some folding clothes and I whisper "that's the little girl I saw yesterday". Then they start moving around and going and grabbing their guns and before I could whisper all hell breaks loose.

One girl fires at us and we run back tara right behind me and we make it through the tree's and one girl with short brown hair is right behind us. Right as she goes around the same corner as us I hit her with the butt of my gun and she falls to the ground and she says to me "go ahead". I scoff and I hit her again with the butt of my gun only this time it was lights out for her. We run around the other side of the cabin and then I see the same little girl from yesterday holding us at gunpoint and she says "it doesn't matter we're supposed to".

Before she could fire the gun at us the tan girl runs over to us and she says "Rachel, no" she stands in front of us and then everyone starts to head over to us and I send the little girl a glare hoping to scare her but she doesn't budge she just glares back at me except hers was half as good she tries to talk for us. Then it was lights out for me and I fell to the forest floor all I heard was tara's screams "dahlia" when I finally wake up I see tara and I handcuffed to an old air conditioner I think. I hear the door open and I place my hand to my head where I have a giant goose egg I groan in pain.

I look up when I hear the old woman say "do either of you need to use the bathroom before we get started?" tara shakes her head "uh no thank you". She looks at me and I say "no" tara bumps my arm and I ask "which one of ye's is the one who knocked me out?". The old woman chuckles and she says "that would be Rachel she says you were glaring at her". I scoff and shake my head "well that little piss ant" tara snickers and the old woman say "hey now she's a little girl".

I snort and shake my head at them and she says "I am Natania and this is Kathy and Beatrice, whom you've already met". Tara waves at them shyly and I fixed my face into a glare and tara asks "am I the only one hearing bells?". I run my hand over the goose egg and I flinch and Natania says "they're ours we have six of them some nearby, some a couple of miles away". I bite my lower lip and I speak up for the first time "what about the air horn?" natania sends me a smile and she answers me "we could only find so many bells they are to redirect any of the dead that might have been drawn by it".

I bite the inside of my cheek and tara sighs and compliments "not bad" I nodd in agreement to her "yeah like she said that's not bad". She shrugs and says nonchalantly "it helps sometimes but a branch in the wind leaves rustling we're lucky this is a relatively clear area. The evacuations, the barges, if they were even real". I lean against tara and her finger glides across my back and I find comfort in it and she asks us "where are you two from?".

Tara answers for me "Atlanta" I nodd and send her a smile and I lie "I was looking for my dad and I met tara on the road she wanted to help me find my dad because I helped her out with a walker situation and it's just been the two of us ever since". She smiles at me and she says "Atlanta was a long time ago we just stayed on the move looking for her dad" I smile at tara softly and the girl I hit earlier says "you know there is a slight chance he's dead right?". I turn my glare to her and I say "well that's the thing Beatrice you don't know him like I do Dixon's know how to stay alive but shortly after that I gave up hope of ever finding him".

"But tara found a old friend of hers that used to work with her on a fishing boat we found a settlement with a bridge not far from here and we got separated tara fell into the lake and heath got away in time but I jumped in the water to save tara so that was the last time we saw him". I run my hand through my still wet hair and Beatrice asks "what kind of fishing boat did you work on? trawler,seiner,larder?" before I could answer tara opens her mouth "the last one". I bite the inside of my cheek and I lay my head back and natania says "when people just find their way into our home" she nodded at her and I say "we washed up on the shore yesterday we didn't know the beach and everything was claimed by all of you and this morning the tan girl brought us a fish this morning and water she was just being nice and we followed her back because being that close to another group made me antsy I just wanted to check it out and make sure you weren't bad people that could kill us".

Beatrice scoffs and she says "you expect us to believe that?" I roll my eyes "look all I got is my word I mean I could have killed you when I knocked you out but I didn't because deep down I know your not bad people". I roll my eyes and I say "oh god I'm getting a killer headache because of this I need a long ass nap". Tara snickers and after tara and natania do their song and dance the Asian woman comes and gets us and takes us to one of the cabins and they unlock our handcuffs and I smell the aroma of beef stew and I ask natania "is that beef stew?". She looks at me surprised and she nods "yes it is" I go through my backpack and grab the ziplock bag and hand some to her "if you wanna add some deer meat to it".

She sends me a smile and Cyndie says "wanna help?" I nodd at her and I follow her into the kitchen and Cyndie grabs a bowl and I shred it and then add it to the pot and she starts stirring it. Until it's mixed in and she tries a bite of it and she smiles "that's really good it adds more flavor to it". I smile and nodd I put the ziplock back in my bag and when we walk out to the kitchen Cyndie puts the bowl onto the table with potholders. I turn to natania and I say "not to be rude or anything but I am really tired and just wanna sleep after that little ankle biter hit me on the head".

Cyndie giggles and natania say "yes down the hall first door on the right" I nodd and smile "thank you" I look at Cyndie and I say "uh thanks for bringing us fish and water". She smiles at me and tara says "I'll go with-" I shake my head at her and I say "no it's okay you need to eat I'll be fine I just need to get some rest". She nodded and I walk down the hall and go straight to the room it was small but it will have to do for now. I go through my backpack and find the shorts that I sleep in and I find one of tara's shirts it must have gotten mixed up with my clothes and I thought it was mine and just shoved it in there I guess it was very baggy I bet it's comfortable.

I smell of it and it doesn't smell the least bit dirty it smelled like tara's scent which is weird considering what this backpack has been through in the last 24 hours. I remove my shirt and my bra and slip on tara's shirt I see she had another one in here too. So I just placed it on the dresser right next to the window along with the basketball shorts she likes to sleep in those. Me however I love sleeping in soft spandex shorts they are so comfortable I put my hair into a bun and ease into the bed I read one of my comic books under the covers while I lean against the wall.

Pretty soon after that, I cut off the light and lay down on the pillow against the wall the bed was surprisingly not as small as I thought it would be. There was still room for one more person just not enough space at all. I move closer to the wall and then I hear my door open and close and tara walks in and I say "hey" she sends me a smile and I say "your pajamas are on the dresser by the window". I point it out and she runs right into the dresser and I snicker and she says "it's not funny" I giggle and nodd "yes it is rae".

She turns on the lamp on the dresser and she says "cover your eyes?" I cover my face with my hands and wait until she was done and she climbs into bed beside me. She turns to me and she stares at her shirt and she chuckles "is that my shirt?". I bite my lower lip and I smile at her and I lie "no" she full-on smiles at me and she giggles "it is to my shirt why are you wearing my shirt?". I snicker and she lays beside me and I say "it was comfortable alright it's a soft shirt and I may end up stealing it from you".

She shakes her head and she says "it's alright you can have it I got more at home and besides you look better in it anyway". I send her a smile and after a while of just laying there, we don't talk we just stared at each other it made me feel comfortable and scared at the same time. We just lay there just staring at each other and I ask "I have to ask you something". She smiles and nods at me telling me to go ahead and I ask "how did you know that you liked girls?" she turns on her back and stares up at the ceiling and she says "I was in seventh grade and I was in the girls' locker room and when I looked at there breasts and when I would go home I would look at guys arms and abs and stuff and I never got turned on by that I was always attracted to the same sex in ninth grade I kissed that boy and that confirmed it too".

She turns back and she asks "so when did you know?" I lean back and I was gonna answer "uh when I was fourteen-". I turn to see her smiling at me I hit her arm and she says "you just told on yourself". I giggle nervously and I say "I experimented with Chrissy that's how I knew" she nodded in agreement and she says "so the only girl you've ever kissed is Chrissy?". I nodd at her and turn towards her again and her thumb glides across my cheek and then moves to my lip and I find myself leaning closer to her and my hands wrap around her waist and my lips collide with hers.

She immediately kisses me back and her hands wrap around me and then go down to my ass and then she breaks away and then she raises up. My hand touches her arm and she pushes it away and I find it very hurtful that she rejected my touch and she says "I'm sorry dahlia". I bite my lower lip and I say "no it's okay I shouldn't have done that". she shakes her head and she says "no it's okay I shouldn't have lead you on" I lay back and I say "it's okay I wanted you too".

She sighs and she says "that's the thing dahlia I have a woman at home waiting for me I can't waste my time on a little girl". I scoff and click my tongue "well here's yer problem tara you just kissed a little girl". I turn towards the wall and turn my back to her and I whisper "whatever". She tries to talk to me but I ignore her and she grabs another comforter and goes in the other room and that moment right there is the first night in a long time where I actually cried.