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We barged through the door, our weapons held high as we stormed the small house. Daryl and I took the upstairs as T, Rick and Carl searched downstairs, filtering off into separate rooms.

The stairs and doors creaked as we slowly opened them, peering around the doors.

I headed towards the master bedroom in the house, hoping to find something worth my time, but there was nothing.

The windows were covered up and concealed by torn blankets, hanging on by a thread.

The walls were painted an interesting shade of light green, though the paint was now beginning to peel.

A huge mirror hung in the center of the wall, one side stooped lower than the other.

Slowly, I wandered over to it, peering into it at my reflection.

My light brown hair was tied into a braid, loose parts falling out, exposing my split ends. My once bright green eyes now a darker shade. I was skinnier, we were struggling for food and it was showing, I was dropping more weight by the week.

I looked down at my body, a small deposit of fat still sat there, unable to budge. It was a memory to me. It was Charlie's mark on my body, along with the stretch marks I had gained as he grew inside.

The past 7 or 8 months had been hard. Lori was heavily pregnant now, but there was still tension between her and Rick.

The group was in a sorry state. This new safe haven Rick talked about, seemed to be nowhere in sight and our spirits were dull.

Since the farm, since losing Charlie, I had established myself as a stronger member of the group. While all the other women were lugging bags around and fluffing everyone's pillows, I was helping, using my anger and pain to keep the group safe.

I had done what Daryl told me, I had made my choice. If I ever found Charlie, I wanted to be able to protect him properly, without fear of losing him again. The idea of finding him seemed like a dream now, especially after all this time. Daryl would keep reminding me that we would find him but, you could tell he barely believed it himself.

The loss of Charlie had hit Daryl much harder than I realised. He would sneak away from camp on an evening and not return for some time, when he did return his eyes would be puffy, red, though no one dare ask any questions.

I left him to deal with it, the only way people could, to feel it. Daryl left me to work through it alone and I was grateful.

Daryl and I had suffered a few relationship changes, but nothing like Dale had pushed for. There had been no time, between losing the farm and running around trying to survive, we hadn't had much time to establish anything.

My feelings for Daryl had taken a backseat, but as I moved along, they were slowly returning.

"You coming?" A voice chuntered as I pulled myself away from the mirror and nodded.

When I joined the group in the kitchen, the somber mood didn't change. Daryl sat, plucking an owl and Carl eagerly opened a tin of dog food as we all watched.

Rick noticed and picked up the other tin before he threw it in anger, making Daryl jump as I leaned against the door frame.

"psst" T nodded towards the window, the group immediately packed up our things and scuttled out of the house as a group of walkers headed towards it.

We threw our things into the cars as I jumped on the back of Daryl's bike, the walkers getting closer as we set off, leaving a trail of crawling walkers behind.

A few miles down the road, we stopped the cars and pulled out the map.

An action we'd become all too familiar doing.

Daryl, T, Rick, Maggie, Glenn, Hershel and myself stood around the map which was sprawled out on the front of the car. "We got no place left to go" Maggie sighed. "When this herd meets up with this one, we'll be cut off, we'll never make it south"

"What would you say? That was about 150 head?" Daryl grumbled,

I nodded, "If not more"

"That was last week, it could be twice that by now" Glenn explained.

Hershel pointed to the map, "This river could have delayed them, if we move fast we might have a shot to tear right through there--"

T shook his head, "Yeah but if this group joins with this group, they could spill out this way"

"So we're blocked"

"The only thing to do is double back to 27 and swing back towards Greenville" Rick explained with a huff.

T scratched his head, "Yeah, we already pick through that, it's like we spent the winter going in circles"

Rick nodded, "I know, I know, at Newnan we'll push west, haven't been through that way yet" He paused for a second, "We can't keep going house to house, we need to find somewhere to hole up for a few week" He explained, looking over at his wife who was sat in the car.

Everyone began wrapping things up, heading back to retrieve things from the car, "Is it cool if we head back to the creek before we head out? We got to fill up on water"

I pulled out my gun from Daryl's motorbike, "Hey, while the others go wash their panties, wanna go for a hunt? That owl didn't exactly hit the spot?" Daryl asked Rick and I.

Daryl had been slowly teaching me how to hunt, but we hadn't had much time to do it, we were always on the move.

We shuffled through leaves on the road, following a small train track as Daryl lead the way.

As we wandered through a clearing, we spotted a large prison, walkers crawling the courtyards. "That's a shame" Daryl muttered as we looked at it.

There were prisoners and officers everywhere. All dead of course.

"We could take that" Rick smiled, a switch going off in his head. "We could, that could be a real home"

I chuckled, "Yeah, real homey"

Rick looked at me, "I'm serious, we clear the main yard first, take the courtyard and then cell block by cell block, we could have a real shot"

"Man, that is a risk" Daryl chuntered.

I nodded in agreement, "We aren't exactly at our strongest Rick"

"I know, but we can do it, I know we can"

The three of us looked between each other before we headed back, announcing the new plan.