Future Ghosts • TWD

105. Where Are You.

Daryl stepped out from underneath a bridge and looked around for any Saviors. There were none in sight. He raised his arm in the air, pointing to the woods across the road, and let out a quiet whistle. "C'mon," he said quietly to the Alexandrians he'd been traveling with throughout the night. "Best to stay off the roads. Head into the woods right there. C'mon. Go, go," he said, watching as the group passed by him. Every face walked by. Tara, Dwight, Siddiq, Tobin with Judith on his back, and Rosita. Rosita was the last, at the end. Daryl's eyebrows furrowed. He stopped Rosita. "Where's Rosie?" he asked.

"What? I thought she was with Tobin. She wanted to stick by Judith," Rosita said, her eyebrows furrowing now, too. Both Daryl and Rosita stopped and double-checked Tobin to see if Rosie really was there and Daryl just missed her. But no sign of her.

"God damnit," Daryl murmured, turning back to the woods they had just left from. Now he'd have to backtrack. "Can't take my eyes off that kid for one fuckin' second without her disappearin'." Rosie had been following along with them like she was supposed to all night long. Daryl had been periodically checking in on her to make sure she hadn't gotten her hands on a weapon that she could use to kill Siddiq- and, of course, checking in on her for her own well-being. And he had just taken her backpack to carry it for her not that long ago. She couldn't have gone far. Daryl started heading back to where they'd come from.

"Wait, wait. Where are you going?" Rosita said, stopping him.

"To go get 'er," Daryl said, assuming that that was already very obvious.

"You promised Rick you'd get Judith to Hilltop. These people need you," Rosita reminded him, gesturing to the large group of Alexandrians that were waiting on him.

"What, so I'm just s'posed to leave her?" Daryl asked with a scoff.

Rosita rolled her eyes. "That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying send someone else. Like Dwight," she suggested. Daryl scoffed and shook his head. Maybe he didn't want Tara to kill Dwight just yet, but that didn't mean that he had any trust in him. "Saviors won't kill him. If you go back there and get caught, you're dead. Dwight goes back, gets caught, he's fine," Rosita reasoned.

Daryl seemed to consider this for a moment, looking over at Judith. Couldn't Rosie have just done what she was supposed to this one time? What the hell could've gone through her head to make her leave the group without a word? Daryl wanted to throw his crossbow down and start yelling at everyone for not paying enough attention. But he didn't. He went over to Dwight and put his hand on his shoulder, forcibly turning him around to look at him. Daryl pulled his gun out of his waistband and put it in Dwight's hand. "You're goin' back," he said.

"What?" Dwight asked before Daryl could even finish what he was going to say.

"You're goin' back, lookin' for Rosie," Daryl told him.

"Rosie? She's with..." Dwight trailed off, looking over to Tobin only to see that Rosie wasn't anywhere near him.

"She's gone. You're goin' back to look for her. I see you again- I don't give a shit what happened- I see you again, and she's not with you, I'm puttin' a bullet in your head," Daryl said, his voice threatening and gravelly as he leaned in close. "Hear me?" Daryl asked.

Dwight nodded his head quickly. "Yeah. Yes. I'll find her," he said, swallowing. The last thing he wanted to do was backtrack, and maybe even run into the Saviors. But it wasn't like he could say no.

•

The group of Alexandrians had walked through the night. Rosie wasn't allowed to keep her knife in the sheath on her own belt anymore. Every time she looked at Siddiq she wanted to kill him. She'd been thinking a lot about Carl. As often as she'd been thinking about Carl, she'd been fidgeting with the bracelet he gave her, which was still tied around her wrist- at least, she thought it was. When the sun had just barely risen, Rosie had reached for the bracelet once more, only to find that it was gone. All her fidgeting must've somehow gotten it to untie and fall off. Rosie immediately started to panic, looking around in the grass below her feet for the beaded bracelet. It wasn't there. It wasn't there. She'd torn Fraser's hoodie and now she lost Carl's bracelet. Rosie felt so panicked and awful about losing Carl's bracelet that she didn't even think before going off to find it.