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LOUD GROWLING and hissing surrounded the white farm house. Kate was standing on the porch, her gaze fixed on the seemingly endless number of walkers that were coming closer by the minute. Her shaking hands tightened around the black gun, ready to shoot.

With the extra ammo in her pocket, she had at least hundred rounds left, which probably still wasn't enough, but nevertheless she started shooting at them, right between the eyes, just like Daryl had shown her.

Kate wasn't a great shot, or fighter in general, like the archer had told her many times, but she had practiced a lot over the last weeks and could now hit most of the walkers clean through the head. She would never admit it, but Daryl, despite his grumpy manner, was a pretty good teacher. It had taken a lot to convince him to even talk to her, let alone spending hours and hours practicing together, but the red haired girl simply left him no choice.

At first, it was Shane who showed her how to use her weapon and she didn't mind, she liked Shane, but she didn't like how Daryl always kept to himself. She thought that everyone should have at least someone who cared for them, so she took it as an excuse to approach him.

When she heard Lori cry that Carl wasn't in the house anymore, she immediately let her eyes wander over the fields, searching for any sign of him, but she couldn't spot him anywhere.
The others of her group, who where driving through the herd, where the only ones she saw. Hopefully he was with his father or Shane. The little boy always wanted to help and she prayed he was safe.

"We can't wait any longer, we have to get out of here," she told Lori tense when the latter stopped next to her and started firing too.

She didn't want to leave, especially when she had no idea if the others would make it out in one piece, but she knew that they would die if they stayed. Lori's unborn baby would die. With that in mind, Kate grabbed Lori's arm and pulled her down the stairs, still firing her gun.

„Carol! We have to leave!" Kate called for their friends but tried to keep her voice low.

There was a red car not that far away, they could make it.

"Come on, guys!" Lori yelled when Carol, Beth and Patricia hastily came up to them. Carol took the lead and Kate let go of Lori's arm so that she could cover the two blondes who didn't have a weapon.

The walkers came dangerously close to the group and before she could do anything, they where crowded around Patricia, who was running before her, and started eating of the screaming woman. She tried to reach Lori, who was now pulling Beth with her, but the blood had attracted even more walkers and the only thing left for her was running, and that she did.

Heavy breaths escaped her parted lips as she leaned on her knees and looked behind her to find that the walkers where still hot on her trails. She was cut off from Lori and the others and could only observe from a distance how they climbed into T-Dog and Andrea's car. But before she could draw attention to herself, they drove off, leaving only a cloud of dust behind.

Kate knew she had to get to one of her friends, to one of the cars, or else she couldn't survive. Straightening up she started running again, this time in the direction she last saw Daryl's bike, the walkers still following her.

Her legs hurt and her breath went labored but she couldn't stop now, she had to reach Daryl. The other vehicles were already gone. This made her panic even more, but it relieved her at the same time. The people she had grown to love and considered family made it. At least some of them.

As she was occupied fighting off two walkers with her knive, she couldn't concentrate on keeping the bike in her sight and when she finally turned around, Daryl was driving away from the farm.

"No! Daryl! Daryl, please!" She cried, hot tears streaming down her dirty cheeks, in the hope that a miracle would happen and he would actually hear her and turn around, "Please, don't leave me."

The loud grunts around her reminded her that she didn't have time for self-pity. The walkers had taken over the farm, a place they were happy in, and she had to leave. Quickly shooting at the nearest, she made her way to the forest.

Kate knew that the group was probably heading for the highway, at least that's what she would do if she were them. Hoping they would wait for her, she turned left and sprinted in the direction she assumed was the right one.

Long red hair flashed through her sight and tickled her nose, as she ran through the woods. Jumping over tree trunks and dodging branches. Her hair was no longer tied up, which meant that the ribbon she always wore had fallen off whilst fighting. This didn't seem important, but for Kate it was.

She was torn from her thoughts when a bony hand grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back, the sickly-sweet scent of death reached her nostrils. Luckily she reacted quickly and pulled out her knive and stabbed the rotting corpse in the temple, then she fastened her pace even more, still trying to escape the many walkers, who where constantly trying to grab her.

Never in her live had she ran this fast, and never in her live was she as scared as in this moment. Kate knew that she was a lost cause, she wasn't going to survive this, but something inside of her didn't just let her give up. Maybe she had found new faith in herself, or maybe she was just afraid of death, probably the latter.

Before now, she always had a little hope left, maybe she would survive the end of the world, maybe everything would become normal again and they could be happy. But this hope had vanished the second Daryl drove off, leaving her behind.

_____

After waiting for a long time, Rick no longer thought that the others would come to the meeting point on the highway, where they had left some food for Sophia. He had hoped that the others had the same thought as him and would come here too.

They were about to leave when they heard the hum of Daryl's bike that came into view, followed by the two cars. A happy grin flashed over Carl's face when he saw his mother jumping out of the blue pickup before it even fully stopped and running towards him, pulling him into her arms.

The joy of finding each other was quickly interrupted by Daryl, whose eyes were darting over the partly sad and partly relieved faces of his companions, but some were missing.

"Where's the rest of us?"

"We're the only ones who made it so far," Rick answered solemnly.

"Andrea?" Glenn asked, his eyes searching the group. A sad expression washed over his face when he noticed the absence of a red haired girl.

"She saved me, then I lost her," Carol mumbled.

"We saw her go down," T-Dog told them, his gaze fixed on his hands.

"Where is Kate?" Daryl asked the question he knew he didn't want the answer to.

Surprisingly, he grew to think that the annoying redhead was pretty alright. She talked a little to much and wouldn't leave him alone, following him like a lost puppy, but she wasn't that bad. For some reason she had decided he needed a friend and that she needed a "grumpy pal". He had actually enjoyed spending time with her, though he would never admit it.

"She was with me, but we got attacked and I lost her in the crowd. I don't think she made it," Lori stated tiredly. The pregnant woman thought of Kate as a friend, although she was often annoyed by her endless positivism. She knew how excited the girl was about the little baby that was growing in her belly. "Hope for a future" she had called it grinning, which now made her shake her head sadly.

"Did you definitely see them?" Carol inquired, looking at T-Dog and Lori.

"There were walkers everywhere."

"But did you see them?"

"I'm gonna go back," Daryl announced when Lori couldn't answer the question because she didn't actually see Kate die. She only assumed she was dead, the same goes for T-Dog.

"No," Rick stopped Daryl, who was gripping his crossbow tightly.

"We can't just leave them," Daryl pointed out sharply. Andrea was tough and a good fighter, he didn't worry about her as much as about Kate. The girl wasn't like that, she was tough, but in an other way. She wouldn't make it on her own, not in this world.

"We don't even know if they are there," Lori backed her husband up.

"If Andrea is alive, she already left the farm. And as for Kate," Rick mumbled while running a hand over his face, "if she really escaped, there's no way to find her, but she isn't going to make it. She's probably dead already."

It wasn't easy for Rick to say those words, but he believed them to be true.

Daryl's jaw clenched as he processed Rick's words and he laid down his crossbow. Of course, he had thought the same thing as Rick the moment he noticed that the girl wasn't by his side, smiling at him, but to actually hear it was different.

"Here," Rick grumbled, "I found it on the ground." He held his hand out to Daryl, who let out a shaky breath when he saw the stupid red ribbon Kate always wore. But no matter how much he had teased her with it, she had never taken it off.

"So we're not even gonna look for them?" Glenn asked incredulously, looking at Rick.

"We gotta keep moving. There've been walkers crawling all over here." With that, the exhausted people got in two of the cars and once again drove off onto the wide roads. Daryl mounted his bike and took one last look over the place, hoping to spot fiery red hair amidst the endless cars.

"I'm sorry, Redhead," he mumbled and turned around, the red ribbon tied around his wrist.