Future Ghosts • TWD

134. Chasing After You.

"This is the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life," Rosie muttered as she hiked her backpack further up her shoulders. She, Henry, and Ian had left shortly after the sun went down, leaving behind nothing but a note in Henry's room, telling them where to find them if anything went bad. Rosie had insisted that that was stupid, because as soon as anyone found it, Daryl was going to be out there, following them, searching for them, and stopping them from saving Lydia. But Henry left it, anyway.

"That's not true," Ian said with a laugh that sounded a bit more like a scoff.

"Yeah, I know," Rosie murmured. She'd done her fair share of stupid shit, but this wasn't nearly the stupidest. It was definitely, up there, though. Daryl was going to be so fucking mad. Rosie turned to Henry, who was walking on her left side. "Why'd you want me to come, anyway? I punched you," she asked.

"Because you're smarter than us," Ian mused with a shrug.

"Uh, no," Henry said with a scoff, scrunching up his face at Ian. Ian had become more of a brother to him than a friend, after all the time that had gone by. He certainly annoyed him like a brother. "Because you know how to track," Henry corrected, "and you've been out here. You know what you're doing."

"So, in simpler terms, because she's smarter than us," Ian said, raising his eyebrows.

Henry rolled his eyes. "She's not smarter than us," he said.

"Are you insecure about your intelligence or something? She's definitely smarter than us, dude," Ian said, amused with how Henry was acting.

"I'm not-"

"Shut up. It doesn't matter," Rosie interrupted the both of them. She liked to think that she was smarter than the two boys, too, but right now, she was feeling pretty fucking stupid. "Be quiet, or you're gonna attract walkers," she scolded them. She took her flashlight out of her bag and pointed it down at the grass. It had been pretty easy to follow Alpha's trail when she and her people were walking on the dirt road that led up to Hilltop, but as they veered off into the woods, it wasn't as easy. It was hard to tell the difference between their tracks and walker tracks, because of how they mimicked the way the walkers moved, but Rosie figured that it didn't matter if she followed the people's tracks or the walker's tracks, since they were moving together, anyway. Keeping her flashlight pointed at the ground, Rosie followed their trail. "Looks like this is where there went off into the woods," she said, beginning to follow the tracks.

"How can you tell?" Henry asked, squinting his eyes to try and see what she was seeing.

Rosie pointed down at broken twigs and brushed over patches of grass. "You can see where they stepped," she said.

"See? Smarter," Ian joked, looking over at Henry with an amused smile.

"Shut up, du-"

"Both of ya, shut up. I a'ready said that," Rosie snapped at them. Henry and Ian both snapped their mouths shut and began following silently behind Rosie. Rosie had supplied Ian with a knife and Henry already had his stick, so he was set. Their job right now was supposed to be keeping watch and taking down any walkers they ran into while Rosie tracked, but they got distracted pretty easily.

"Hey, can I tell you something, if I talk quietly?" Ian asked in a hushed voice. It wasn't quite a whisper, but he wasn't speaking very loudly, either.

"No," Rosie muttered, keeping her focus on the trail.

"Well, I'm gonna, anyway, 'cause I think you need to hear it," Ian said, making Rosie roll her eyes. But Ian was right. She did need to hear what he was about to say. "I think it's good you're doing this. Not because it's, like, dangerous and stupid or whatever, but because you're doing it even though your dad doesn't want you to," Ian explained.