Sneaky

Chapter 22

The cold air bit at my nose while I watched the forest from the top of the RV. Only the closest trees are visible in the moonlight.

A chill ran down my spine as the breeze blew my hair away from my neck. I pulled my knees tighter into my chest, rubbing my legs through my black jeans.

If only the moon gave off heat like the sun. In the sunlight the black keeps me warm but in the dark it makes it easier to hide. At night, I'm near impossible to see if I don't wanna be seen.

Plus your brain is built to filter out black, and focus on white, shimmers, things that move, red in particular.

I wear black for more than just personal liking but it would be nice to have something else once in awhile. I miss wearing shorts. Skiing. Summer— swimming.

I'd kill a hundred walkers for a churro right now.

...Even more— however many it would take, to find Sophia safe.

Why did you run away?

You could have run towards the others, Rick— your mom...Why'd you run to the forest?

I rubbed my forehead against my knees before sitting up straight and taking a look around through my night vision goggles. I can't see as far as I'd like, barely ten feet into the treeline. What's the point of having up to 500 feet of viewing distance if you can't see past the vegetation?

I looked up the road, being able to see all the way to the end of the cars. It's hard to distinguish bodies from walkers in the dark so I've just been looking for movement.

Most of it's false alarms; Small animals, leaves, trash blown by the wind, etc.

My eyes wandered to a plastic baby doll on the road for the hundredth time tonight.

I've been sitting up here for hours and every 20 minutes, like clockwork, I've ended up looking at that doll. It doesn't look like Sophia's but just being a doll is apparently enough to remind me of her.

I can see her carrying hers. Clinging to it when she's scared, crying and burying her face in it, talking to it, looking at it and hoping someone finds her. Someone to chase away the dark.

A deep frustrated sigh escaped the confines of my lungs, and I stood up, pacing.

I'm fed up with just sitting here. Why didn't she just keep going? Why'd she change direction? Why?

My jaw began to ache with the gritting of my teeth. I haven't felt the need to hit something like this since Merle tried to hit on me a few months ago.

I stopped mid-step, slowly rocking back onto my back foot.

This isn't helping. There's nothing we could've done for Merle. He was gone when we got there, and unlike Sophia, he left no trail.

He was an asshole, but...I brought them into this group. Him and Daryl both.

What am I doing? It was too late to save Merle, it's not too late for Sophia.

Focus. A twelve year old girl, alone in the woods. What's the first thing she'd do?

Rick's just left her alone and lead the walkers away. What would she do?

Do like he said, head back to the highway.

Even if not immediately. It doesn't matter if she left right after him or not, either way she didn't make it back before him and was gone by the time we got there. So she had at least a half hour head start on us.

Everything was fine up until she changed course for no reason. But scared kids don't abandon the chance to get back to their parents for no reason.