Prologue

This was her first memory; she kept thinking… Nothing existed before this moment. Her hands clenched around Emma's, the quiet sobs in her ear, deafening in their own right…. She could feel the warm blood trickling down her face as they both began to calm, hearing walkers saunter past the cold hole in the ground she had dug days earlier. The growling and trembling in the ground began to pass, but her heart was still beating loud enough for anything, dead or alive, to hear her fear.

The cannibal monsters that were walking that day, they were less frightening than the living, and that's what was on her front porch. You couldn't trust a damn one of em' you met. You could only trust yourself, and those still innocent enough to know the difference between right and wrong… like Emma.

"Ali?" Emma spoke quietly. "Are we okay now? Is it safe?"

That was a question she couldn't answer. She had seen the others arrive, had watched their descent upon the north end of the prison. The walkers that lay within the inner walls of their own concrete haven were restless. Gunfire had exploded into their lives as gunfire usually does, unexpectedly. She studied the way the others entered, their strategy, something that Ali herself would have planned. They were in, and they weren't leaving.

"No honey, no it's not safe." She put her hand on either side of the young girl's face, her own body wavering a bit from the blow to the head. "But that's okay right?" Emma nodded, pursing her lips and swallowing back tears. "We're gonna be fine, you and me, right? Cuz you remember everything I taught you, you remember it all… right Emma?"

"Yes Ali," She whispered, "I remember."

Daryl...

Daryl tried to block out the cries around him, he had to focus. One arrow, two arrows… three arrows, four…

They were dropping like flies. Daryl could feel Herschel's pain his own skin as he tried to protect the group behind him. His feet were scraping against the floor, his body weight not close enough to surpass the beasts on the other side of the door. The dull crunch of axe against bone, the old man's body going still as he went into shock. Almost everything after that moment was instinctual, second nature, he didn't remember most of it.

That night, settling into his cold corner of the cell block they inhabited, he could still hear Herschel's cries from earlier, could still feel the warmth of the fire the night before. But most of all, he had a snapshot in his head. Something he couldn't shake, two dark shadows in the distance. They disappeared as quickly as they had entered his sight, so fast. He should have just forgotten, shrugged it off, but that vision stayed. It wasn't going to budge.

They were going to meet sooner or later. Daryl imagined sooner would be better. Might as well eliminate the threat before it became an actual threat. But that one dark figure… so small… just a kid. What was he supposed to think of that? What the fuck was he supposed to do?

He couldn't sleep, it was useless. Sitting up he realized why much-needed rest evaded him… he needed to find the dark shadows invading his mind. He needed to find them both. He went over the what ifs and the maybes in his head. He realized quickly that none of that shit compared to what could happen if he just let it go. Walked away. Fuck that. He needed to know who they were. He needed to know why they were here, if they followed them or if they were here before they stepped inside the prison. He needed to know who they were because, well, they were able to run from him. He hadn't ever met someone who could mask the scent they left, cover their tracks this way unless they really knew what the hell they were doing. He hadn't seen anything like this before. It made him realize that perhaps he wasn't as skilled and safe as previously thought.

Only thing he knew for sure is that he needed to find them, he couldn't explain. He got up quietly, gathered his gear, and headed out into the night with no one following, no one to take care of or watch after, he was all alone. That's how he liked it. He was alone. He was at home.