HEART OF GLASS
CHAPTER EIGHT !

[ season two, episode two ]

"What's your favourite colour?"

Intrigued, Marley cocked her head to the side to peer at Glenn. She was bored, and the only way to curb the humdrum of traipsing through the seemingly endless forest was to ask questions. This was the sixth one in five minutes.

Glenn shrugged, "Red, probably."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Cool."

They lapsed into a silence almost immediately. Marley could see Glenn was not at all interested in continuing their Q&A — far more determined to locate Sophia before nightfall. The group had split around midday, and he was growing relatively anxious about Rick, Shane and Carl's possible whereabouts — wondering if they were okay, or if they had located Sophia. Not only that, but the immeasurable fear of stumbling into the path of ravenous walkers at any given moment — and fighting for their survival on a mere slither of willpower and energy — gnawed away at the edge of his gut. Glenn scratched his head, adjusted his cap, and peered over his shoulder.

It had gone from bad to terrible in a matter of minutes.

They heard a gunshot about ten minutes ago. A rumble of gunpowder rolling through the air in the distance. Some were far more concerned then the others. Lori, for example, had stopped to turn and glance around at their surroundings an uncountable amount of times. She was worried about her husband, son, and . . . well, Shane. For the first time since the start of the apocalypse, she was on her own. Amongst the group, there was no judgment directed toward Lori's obvious struggles adapting to independence.

At least, most of them didn't bat an eyelid her way.

Marley knitted her fingers together and tried not to think about it — the gunshot and Lori's avid concern. With a delicate flick of her wrist, she swung her machete forward so the elongated blade merely shivered in the breeze, dangling by her thigh.

It didn't pose an immediate threat to severing somebody's legs, so Marley continued swinging the weapon.

She turned to Glenn again, humming a wistful tune beneath her breath. He was staring at the ground.

"Do you like . . . brussel sprouts?"

What?

Marley regretted the words almost as soon as they spilled from her mouth. Mentally, she slammed her hand against her forehead in disappointment.

Glenn's brow pinched in confusion, and she was surprised to see him laugh a little. "What kind of question is that?"

She shrugged bashfully, "A good one?"

"A bad one," the Korean man corrected, shaking his head in amusement. He considered her bizarro question with a small jut of his chin as he stepped over the decomposing trunk of a fallen tree. "People who willingly eat brussel sprouts are freaks of nature. So, to answer your question, no — I do not like them."

Marley nodded in approval, smirking. "Good."

They continued on, trailing behind Daryl who had been taking the lead since the group split ways back at the abandoned church.

His hand was clasped around his crossbow, as always, and he seemed more determined to find Sophia than everyone else, storming ahead feverishly. He wanted to be the one to find her. Not Shane. Not Rick. Him.

Perhaps he wanted to prove himself — to show that he was a good person. Deep down, he really cared. More than anyone could ever imagine.

Truthfully, Marley had mixed feelings about Daryl. Always had. He was okay, she supposed. Funny when he wanted to be, repeatedly making 'jokes' by mistake in response to something somebody said. Always ensuring the group were lugging behind him. Usually checking to make sure they were okay, safe from harm, without anyone noticing the gesture.

He didn't have many bad qualities, but they somehow overruled his good ones.

He was grumpy and rude and demanding. He never spoke to Marley or Lori or Dale with much respect. He always had something to complain about. And his desire to be independent was almost as smothering as his obvious hatred for the people who didn't share any similarities to his redneck, waste of space brother, Merle Dixon. They weren't as intimidating as Merle. They weren't as brooding or strong or opinionated. They weren't fit to survive in a poisoned world as well as the jerk he called a brother.

Most of all, they weren't blood. 

So, he pretended he didn't care — which, for the most part, wasn't always completely pretend.

Ever since Merle's presumed death, Daryl had built up an unwaveringly strong facade. It was hard for Marley to crack it open and see past the cold, hollow, and mean exterior of the person he consistently put on view. A man fit to fight the war of undead. A man sculpted and warped into a brand new soul by whatever his past held.

On the rare occasion, a flicker of warmth would wash over the redneck — a smile or a gruff chuckle for example — that would give Marley a small insight into his true persona. Slithers of his soul would bleed through his eyes like flashlights piercing through thick fog, and she would see.

And she saw that, as the prolonged days ticked on, the ice smothering Daryl Dixon's heart was beginning to melt.

Yet, he still needed to see that to believe it.

"Are you still hung up about it?" Andrea's sudden question snapped Marley away from her thorough scrutinisation of Daryl Dixon.

In unison with the others, she stumbled to a halt in the middle of a ring of trampled shrubbery. She turned to look at Lori, mimicking Glenn's actions which everyone else soon mirrored like a domino effect. They were stumped. Sage was stood beside the Grimes woman, and she frowned in confusion at the sudden pause.

"Lori?" Marley urged softly in bemusement.

The concerned expression plastered across Lori's pointed face was enough to tell Marley the singular blast of a distant gunshot had worried the mother-of-one more than she initially wanted it to. If the shot was an indication of something serious, and the remainder of their group was now vulnerable, Lori had far more to lose — her husband and her son to be exact.

She continued looking into the segment of wood they stumbled through only moments ago, "It was a gunshot."

"We all heard it." Daryl mused.

Visibly troubled, Lori glanced over her shoulder at the clan of grimy survivors. She tipped her head to the side, "Why one? Why just one gunshot?"

Daryl's shoulders raised in an insouciant shrug. "Maybe they took down a walker."

"Please don't patronise me," Lori snapped irritably. "You know Rick wouldn't risk a gunshot to put down one walker. Or Shane. They'd do it quietly."

Daryl's eyes roved their surroundings. He clutched his crossbow and turned his head away from Lori, clearly not in simultaneous agreement with the others.

Growing anxious, Marley decided to speak up. "Lori's right," her chest heaved as she released a tentative sigh from between parted lips. "Maybe we should be worried. They should've caught up with us by now, right?"

She looked to Daryl for approval, but he shrugged again.

"There's nothin' we can do about it. Can't run around these woods chasin' echoes."

Marley rolled her eyes. She had every right to worry about the haunting echoes, knowing there was a great possibility her life — and the life of her friends and sister — were balancing on the remarkably thin line that was precariously wobbling over a pit of hissing vipers.

Only, it wouldn't be vipers — they couldn't hold a gun. What if they were being chased by someone with a taunted mind and a finger hovering over the trigger? The apocalypse changed people, for the better and the worst. It wouldn't be surprising.

So Marley was in the right mind to worry. The echoes Daryl spoke about were a knell of death nowadays.

Begrudgingly, she placed her hands on her hips. "So what do you suggest we do?" she inquired. "Run around like headless chickens? Maybe we should try to figure out where that gunshot came from, and then we can find Rick, Shane and Carl."

"No. We beat the bush for Sophia, work our way back to the highway." Daryl said, his expression impassive. "Best case scenario, the rest of our people'll be there already."

"But—"

Andrea placed a hand on Marley's shoulder. "I wouldn't argue if I were you. Daryl's too stubborn. But he's also right . . . most of the time. We'll be fine."

Marley was somewhat thankful that Daryl had already began marching ahead, too far to hear Andrea's words. She was also fairly surprised to see Sage stumbling along behind him, brushing hanging branches away from her face. The youngest Whitman's fear for Daryl had always been apparent.

Coming within ten inches of the man was something she dreaded doing since his first day at camp back in the quarry at Atlanta, and his bike rumbling along the gravel sent her running to their tent, shivering at the prospect of meeting strangers. She had even once downright refused to sit beside him at a campfire. Merle laughed until his cheeks turned pink.

The Dixon brothers were quite possibly the most intimidating people Sage had ever met.

"I'm sorry about what you're going through," Andrea said. Marley whipped her head around and watched the conversation between withering-mother and grieving-woman unfold. "I know how you feel."

Carol's eyes twinkled, "I suppose you do. Thank you." she gulped and her lower lip quivered as she held back an onslaught of tears. "The thought of her out here by herself . . . it's the not knowing that's killing me. I just keep hoping and praying she doesn't wind up like Amy."

Andrea's sincere expression dropped. She was stunned, for a moment, by Carol's confession. Her face was a picture of sadness and despair and shock, all morphed into one painting of unrelenting grief.

Amy was gone. Carol was only telling the plain truth. They all saw it.

"Oh, God." Carol whispered, completely taken aback by her own words. She reached for Andrea's hands and took them in her own. "That's the worst thing I ever said."

Marley watched from the sidelines and glanced at Sage. She was carving swirls into a tree's rippled bark, the tip of her tongue poking from between her front teeth as she concentrated. Glenn watched the flakes of bark fall to the forest floor with a frown.

A strange sense of relief made Marley's heart swell. She was inordinately thankful to still have her sister. Luck had certainly been on her side when the world was plunged into darkness. She couldn't imagine how Andrea felt — she couldn't imagine how hard it must have been to hold Amy's hand as the light faded from her eyes. Andrea was brave. Far braver than she thought.

Nodding, the woman in Marley's thoughts swallowed back her grief. She pressed her lips into a tight smile. "We're all hoping and praying with you, for what it's worth."

Words smothered with guilt were hanging on the tip of Carol's tongue when Daryl stepped toward them.

"I tell you what it's worth — not a damn thing." he said. "It's a waste of time all this hoping and praying."

Marley's jaw clenched. How could he—

"'Cause we're gonna locate that little girl and she's gonna be just fine."

Oh.

She exchanged a look with Glenn. They were both thunderstruck by the sheer amount of genuineness in his voice.

"Am I the only one zen around here?" he added in annoyance. "Good lord."

Marley's lips quivered into a lopsided smile.

Unable to control herself, she reiterated Daryl's words in sign language for Sage. The girl sucked in a sharp breath that couldn't be mistaken for suppressed laughter.

For the first time, she saw Daryl in another light.

✧.｡. *.

Around another half-hour into the groups hike, a hoarse scream alerted them to the sobering fact that something was wrong.

Immediately, Marley broke into a sprint. Her heart was already hammering against her ribcage as she pushed through overgrown shrubbery, only a metre ahead of Glenn and Daryl. Determined, she headed in the direction of the squeals of terror, holding her machete aloft as she prepared to impale the danger with the pointy end.

Through a clump of trees, she saw Andrea lying on the ground, thrashing against the dirt. Hovering above her was a snarling, gnashing member of the undead, discoloured blood oozing from an open wound splattered across it's abnormally broad chest.

"Andrea!" Lori yelled from the back of the group.

Marley was still ahead of the men — much faster in comparison to the pair. Doing track at school to please her parents had paid off after all.

She skidded to a stop beside the growling walker, spraying chunks of dirt and snapped twigs into the air behind her feet like a small plume of smoke. The creature didn't turn. The thing's main priority was reaching Andrea to make a desired meal from the alabaster flesh clinging to her hollow bones.

The woman below her scythe continued screaming. Fear had paralysed her, sapping the will to fight from her body.

Marley's hand trembled when she raised her machete.

This would be her second walker kill.

"Marley!"

The girl gnawed on her lower lip and ignored Glenn's desperate shouts. It felt like the earth had begun to rotate in slow motion. The ground beneath her feet swayed. Everything around Marley dissipated into a meaningless haze, and the only entity she could focus on was the walker.

Glenn rushed forward. "Marley, watch out!"

And then, the next thing she knew, a horse had galloped into the clearing.

Glenn dragged her away, a singular hand coiling around the dirtied cream material of her long-sleeved shirt. She fell to the forest floor with a resounding thud — a fall so hard her butt and lower back began aching instantaneously. She gritted her teeth to avoid crying out from the flash of pain.

Sage was immediately by her side with her hand splayed across Marley's shoulder.

The eldest Whitman's lips parted like the Red Sea when she tipped her head upward. A woman — with choppy-brown hair and clad in florally clothes — was sitting atop the dappled horse. In her hand she clutched a bat, the surface of the handheld weapon covered in brain matter and rotten blood.

Andrea clambered up from the ground and brushed herself off. Shock rendered her incapable of walking in a straight line, and she almost stumbled head on into a tree.

"Lori?" the stranger inquired breathlessly. "Lori Grimes?"

The mother pushed through the scattered crowd. "I'm Lori."

"Rick sent me. You've gotta come now." the stranger demanded, rushing her words out as if she couldn't wait a moment longer.

"What?" Lori retorted sceptically.

The woman atop the horse tugged sharply at the reins. "There's been an accident. Carl's been shot. He's still alive, but you gotta come now."

Marley refrained from gasping out of sheer horror, hoping not to submerge a stunned Lori beneath more stress. Carl? How on earth could he have been shot? Was that gunshot . . . the knell of his death?

No. The stranger said he was still alive.

"Rick needs you! Come on!"

Lori dropped her backpack on the ground. She was as white as a sheet. Paler than a ghost. Every inch of colour, the prominent hues of pink brushed upon her cheekbones, had drained from her face.

She jumped on the back of the horse, her hands visibly shivering.

"Rick said you had others on the highway, that big traffic snarl?"

Glenn appeared slightly flabbergasted when the stranger lay her bulging eyes upon him. He nodded in response to her question, gulping as he did so.

"Backtrack to Fairburn Road," the woman ordered. "Two miles down is our farm — you'll see the mailbox. The name is Greene."

She tugged the reins and kicked the horse's rear with her heels. Everyone stared in awe as the stranger and Lori galloped away, the sound of hooves echoing across the ever-so-still air plunging them all into silence. 

Marley heaved a shaky sigh.

Sage was staring at the cluster of bushes that the horse just passed through, her thoughts completely scrambled. Carol was as stiff as a board. Glenn gulped again, taking a step back. Daryl looked angry — but, then again, when didn't he?

They were all completely and utterly stunned.

Suddenly, there was a great wheeze and a rustle of twigs.

The walker had risen.

Marley stumbled back, a shuddering gasp leaving her lips when the creature lethargically clawed for her leg. She felt an urge to kick it like a football. It wheezed again, beginning to growl louder.

"Shut up." Daryl grumbled, raising his crossbow.

An arrow whistled by Marley's head and plowed into the centre of the walker's skull, poking out from between it's milky eyes. It fell down like a bag of bricks.

Marley swallowed thickly.

"I need to sit down."

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

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