rag doll | TWD

[3] cherokee rose

peace of mind --- boston

[JJ]

Maggie and I were catching up, sitting on the front porch. It reminded me of the summers I spent here once Maggie and I became friends. It was calm, peaceful. Made me forget about what was going on in the world.

"It's interesting now that I have a face to the name." Maggie told me, talking about Rick.

I nodded, "yeah, Rick's a character. That's for sure."

"It's just, I know so much about him and he doesn't know shit about me."

"Well, technically, you know most of the bad stuff about him." I told her. "But we had a lot of good times too, believe it or not. I think I was just so mad about everything, I only found myself venting about him."

"Don't worry, I won't hold it against him." She joked. 

I noticed part of the group gathering around an old truck, "what's going on over there?"

"One of their group member's daughters is missing. She's Carl's age. We told them we'd help where we could. Patricia's getting that map out now."

"Damn, I hope they find her."

"Me too." Maggie looked over, "Speaking of, you suck at directions, how'd you find this place without your GPS?"

I rolled my eyes and deadpanned, "a damn paper map. You know how hard it is to drive and try to find directions on a paper map?" Maggie laughed. "I mean, shit. It was worse than when we got lost going to that new venue we were playing at."

"And we ended up in some po-dunk town in only God-knows Alabama."

I scoffed, "bet that's where Daryl's from."

Maggie loudly laughed at my remark.

"Here you go, Maggie." Patricia walked out the door, handing her the folded-up map. "Hi, JJ."

I softly smiled, "Hey. Sorry about Otis. I always liked playing guitar with him."

"Yeah, you two could play a great rendition on Bless the Broken Road. Always loved it when you two played that one."

"Yeah. That was one of my favorites."

Maggie stood up, holding the map, "Come on. Let's go see if we can help with that missing girl."

We walked up mid-conversation to Hershel asking, "how long has this girl been lost?"

"This'll be day three." Rick informed. 

Maggie outstretched the map on the hood of the truck, "county survey map. Shows terrain and elevations."

"This is perfect. We can finally get this thing organized." Rick said. "We'll grid the whole area, start searching in teams."

"Not you. Not today." Hershel told my brother. "You gave three units of blood. You wouldn't be hiking five minutes in this heat before passing out." He looked up to Shane, who I was adamant about not even looking at. "And your ankle, push it now, you'll be laid up a month, no good to anybody."

"Guess it's just me." Daryl accepted. "I'm gonna head back to the creek, work my way from there."

"I can still be useful. I'll drive up to the interstate, see if Sophie wandered back." Shane offered. 

I sighed, "I can head up the other way. See if she came out of the woods farther north."

"That's good. But you're not going without someone. Don't wanna have to send a search party out for you next." I rolled my eyes at my brother thinking he was funnier than he really was. At least Maggie laughed. Probably because, in all honesty, he had a fair point "All right, tomorrow then. We'll start doing this right."