New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤
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“Did you find her?”
Carol looked at Rick with hope so raw it hurt to see.
Rick lowered his eyes before he could stop himself, guilt heavy on his face.
“We didn’t find her,” he said.
“Only this.”
He took a torn piece of pant leg from his pocket.
Carol recognized it at once.
She had dressed Sophia herself that morning.
At the sight of the fabric, Carol staggered back two steps.
She could not believe Sophia was simply gone.
In her memory, her daughter still stood there holding that doll.
In Carol’s bag was a set of new clothes she had asked Glenn to find for Sophia.
A sob shook her.
Her knees gave out, and she dropped to the ground.
The warm sunset in the distance seemed to turn cold.
Sharp golden light washed out the outline of Sophia in Carol’s memory.
“Carol, listen to me,” Rick said quickly.
“We found a walker in the woods, but it didn’t get Sophia.”
“How do you know?” T-Dog asked.
Rick looked at Shane.
Shane touched the knife at his belt.
“We cut it open.”
There had been no fresh human flesh in the walker’s stomach.
That meant Sophia was still alive, at least for now.
“It’s getting dark,” Rick said.
“If we keep searching tonight, we could hurt our own people.
Tomorrow, we’ll go back in and keep looking for Sophi-”
“How dare you!”
Carol’s cry cut him off.
Her eyes were red as she looked at Rick, but the anger in her face collapsed almost immediately.
Her voice broke.
“How could you…
leave her alone…
in those woods?”
Rick looked up and met the eyes of the others.
Dale shook his head at him.
Lori held Carl’s shoulders tightly, her face drawn with worry.
“I’m sorry,” Rick said.
“We’ll find her.
We’ll find Sophia.”
He made the promise again.
But pain had already settled over the whole group.
Everyone knew what a child alone in the woods after dark most likely meant.
On the other side of the county, Evan climbed into the red brute.
Sophia sat in the passenger seat, clutching her doll as they drove west toward camp.
Halfway there, Evan slowed the fire truck to a stop.
The road to Greene Farm was blocked by two thick logs.
Evan laughed once.
He did not need to think hard to know who had done this.
He rolled down the window and leaned his head out.
A rifle barrel pressed silently against the back of his head.
“Merle,” Evan said, “you don’t actually think I missed you in the mirror, do you?”
A rough laugh came from behind him.
Merle lowered the rifle and strode to the driver’s side, slapping the fire truck’s door hard.
“You been gone two days.
My little brother figured some walker chewed your ass up in the dark.”
‘Daryl?’
Evan lifted an eyebrow.
Daryl would not worry like that.
Daryl would see Evan return, flip him off, and mutter, “Fuck you.”
Or if Evan really had died, he would quietly pick up his crossbow and go kill whoever had done it.
Evan looked at Merle’s cheerful face and snorted.
“Lying bastard.
Look who I found.”
He leaned back, and Sophia climbed over from the passenger seat.
“Hi, Uncle Merle.”
“Who the hell’s your uncle?
Damn it.”
Merle cursed the second he saw her, but Evan understood.
That was how Merle showed he cared.
Maybe even his version of gentleness.
The Dixon brothers really were alike in some ways.
After moving the logs aside, Merle lifted Sophia from the passenger seat and put her in the rear crew seats.
The repainted motorcycles were strapped to the back of the fire truck.
Then Merle climbed into the passenger seat with obvious satisfaction.
Evan watched the whole process without expression.
The look in his eyes said only one thing.
‘You absolute bastard.’
Merle noticed the look and did not so much as blink.
“What?
Drive.
Why you starin’ at me?
I ain’t some cheap wh-”
Evan cleared his throat sharply and glared at him.
Apparently, Merle had forgotten there was a child in the back.
The red brute rumbled to life again and drove toward Greene Farm.
The fire truck was much larger than the minivan, and Evan was still not used to it, so he could not drive too fast.
By the time he reached camp, night had fully fallen.
Across the farm, only Hershel’s house was clearly visible.
The fire truck rolled to a stop.
Daryl and Andrea came running with weapons in hand.
Daryl kept his crossbow trained on the driver’s side.
Only when the headlights went dark and he saw Evan and Merle climb down did Daryl relax.
“Fuck you,” Daryl said in a low voice.
“Two days gone, and Merle thought you were dead.”
Evan looked at Daryl in surprise.
He had not expected the man to actually worry.
“Don’t get sentimental,” Evan said, opening the rear door.
“I’m fine.
Brought someone back too.
Look who it is.”
He lifted Sophia down from the rear crew seats.
Daryl frowned as soon as he saw her.
“Sophia?
Where’s your mom?”
Sophia being here did not necessarily mean good news.
If she had reached the farm alone, what had happened to the rest of the Quarry group?
What had gone wrong badly enough that they could not protect one child?
Daryl’s mind raced.
“We got separated,” Sophia said softly, tightening her hand around Evan’s collar.
“That’s how you talk to a kid?” Evan said, giving Daryl a look before carrying Sophia toward camp.
“Where did you find her?” Daryl pressed, following.
“You know what it means if Sophia’s here, right?”
“Don’t panic,” Evan said.
“They’re alive.
They just lost her.
I don’t know those woods well enough to search for them properly, so I brought Sophia back first.”
He set her on a stump stool, ladled meat soup from the pot over the fire, and handed it to her.
Only then did he look back at Daryl.
“If nothing goes wrong, they’ll find their way here in the next couple of days.”
It was still early enough that Hershel’s family had not gone to bed.
When a fire truck drove onto the farm, Hershel pulled on a coat and came out with his daughters and the others.
“Evan?”
He looked at him and frowned.
“I thought you were dead.”
Evan rolled his eyes.
‘Did everyone have to greet him with the same line?
Talk about bad luck.’
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Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.