Unattainable (A Daryl Dixon love story)

3

Pepper told the group to stay out of sight as she jogged over to the man now standing by the dead buck. “Yeah, that just might be me.” She replied. “There’s no way a little girl like you has that good of a aim.” the man said, he had a very county accent, different from her slight Texas drawl, he must have been a native to Georgia.

“Oh piss off with the sexist shit, alright?” she sighed. “look little girl, don’t get an attitude, keep the damn deer” he said turning away. She hated that he called her little girl, hated it. She wasn’t even little, her 5’8 frame was tall and mature, over the average height for a 23 year old, but her face was that of a 17 year old’s.

She wanted to let the vile man leave, but something told her he had a camp. Maybe it was the condition of his clothes that gave it away, how they were clean yet slightly tattered. No man would do laundry unless he was either forced to, or someone else did it.

She called to him “Hey! I’m not done with you!” He stopped and turned, looking her straight in the eyes with a harsh look then walked back to her. “What do you want?” “You have a camp” she said, staring him straight back in the eye. “No I don’t” he said harshly, bringing his body closer so he was now looking straight down at her. Pepper smiled out of amusement of his quick temper “yes you do.”

He backed away yelling “I do not! Are you stupid? Can you not hear?!” Still smiling she replied “Just the opposite. I know you do because why else would you need a whole buck?” He quickly replied “I’m really hungry, in case you hadn’t noticed, IHOP is closed.”

This made Pepper burst into a short burst of laughter then back into her sarcastic smile “Even if you were that hungry I seriously doubt you could eat the whole thing, so let’s say you don’t finish it. I know you wouldn’t just leave the remainders of what you couldn’t eat, you look like a responsible hunter, but I don’t see you hauling any Tupperware containers or ziplock bags so if you did try to save the leftover meat it would spoil, and you know that, so you must have other people with you.” “Well what about you Poindexter?” he quickly countered, obviously annoyed “Why do you need this whole thing for yourself?”

“I’m not alone” Pepper said, signaling her group to come out. When the man saw the group, he instantly eyed and analyzed them “Are any of them hurt or bitten?” The sudden concern in his voice surprised Pepper “No, everyone is fine.”

Just then an Asian boy came running out of the brush of trees yelling “Daryl look! I caught 4 squirrels!”