Keep Holding On

"You're alive." Angela stated softly, her aim faltering for just a moment. She was a bit shocked and sort of thankful that she ran into survivors, even if this guy was aiming a crossbow at her head.

"What was that?" He asked his voice rough and demanding. Angela didn't respond. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"I'm just another survivor like yourself." Angela answered before an idea came to mind giving her a rush of hope and she lowered her bow. "Hey, you haven't by chance run into a little girl have you?"

"What's it to you, if I have or not?" He asked his guard not wavering, as his eyes watched Angela's every move.

"She's my sister, she ran off a day or two ago, she's only ten." Angela said her voice cracking a bit at the end. Before the man could respond, leaves rumbled behind him as another survivor appeared.

"What's your sister's name?" The new guy asked; he was wearing a sheriff outfit.

"Layla, she probably had a dog named Samantha with her, a border collie that's overly protective of her." Angela said; as she said Layla's name, she could have sworn that a flash of recognition went through the men's eyes.

"What's your name?" The man with the crossbow asked.

"Angela."

"Morrison?" His crossbow still remained aimed at her, but he was no longer focusing so hard on his shot.

"H-how did you know that?" Even if they had seen Layla she didn't expect them to know her last name, or her name at all for that matter. The man finally lowered his aim away from Angela's head.

"'Cause we've seen your little sister." He said looking around at their surroundings. The other man, the officer, put his gun in its holster before walking towards Angela with an outstretched hand.

"I'm Rick, Rick Grimes." Angela shook his hand, but she could only think of her sister.

"Is my sister okay, is she alive?"

"Yeah she's fine." The man with the crossbow answered.

"You seem to have all the answers about my sister, what's your name?"

"Daryl." He wasn't going to continue, until he realized Angela was waiting for a last name. "Daryl Dixon."

"Look, we can tell you about your sister later," Rick jumped in. "We're actually looking for someone ourselves."

"Yeah, a little girl named Sophia; she's not much older than your sister. You seen her?" Daryl said.

"I haven't seen anything but freaks, but I'll help y'all anyway I can to find her."

"Thank you." Rick said sincerely while Daryl just gave a curt nod, if Angela had blinked she would have missed it.

"Rick, her trail went this way." Daryl said looking at the ground. Rick and Angela went to stand by Daryl, looking down where he pointed, and sure enough there were tracks.

Rick began to lead the way with Daryl following him, and Angela bringing up the rear. She listened to her surroundings, but she kept her eyes on Daryl; there was just something about him that she couldn't figure out. He seemed like the kind that wouldn't care about anyone but himself, yet here he was trying to find a little girl and he kept answering her questions about Layla, when he could have let Rick. What was up with this guy?

There was shuffling suddenly up ahead and the three survivors crouched down; it was one of the living dead. Daryl seemed to forget Angela was there as he gave Rick silent instructions on how they were going to take the zombie down.

They acted quickly; Rick running to where he would be noticed by the creature, while Daryl crept up behind it, and Angela followed behind Daryl. The freak saw Rick, making a strange sort of scream at finding fresh meat, but before it could take a step it fell to the ground with an arrow through its head.

The three walked over to the fallen zombie, where Rick who had donned a pair of gloves began to look at the creature's hands.

"What are you lookin' for?" Daryl's southern accent broke the silence.

"There's skin under its nails." Rick said grimly, turning the corpse over and examining its teeth. "There's skin stuck in its teeth."

"What kind of skin?" Daryl asked, crouching down beside Rick, putting his own gloves on.

"Only one way to find out." Rick stated ripping the thing's shirt open and pulling out his knife.

"Here let me do it." Daryl said standing over the body and pulling out his knife.

"You've gotta be kidding me." Angela mumbled placing a hand over her mouth. She didn't get sick easily, but this just seemed morally wrong to her.

"What, never skinned and gutted an animal before?" Daryl asked teasingly, but with a tone of disgust as well.

"An animal, yes!" Angela exclaimed to be hushed by Rick, she lowered her voice some as she continued. "This is different, it's not an animal; this used to be a person, just like the three of us. He just wasn't as lucky."

"World's not the same anymore girl. It might as well be an animal now, acts a bit like one." Daryl said leaving no room for arguments as he drove his knife into the stomach and began to cut it open.

The sight was gruesome, not as bad as watching one of them eat a living thing of course, but still gruesome. Once Daryl finished cutting through the skin he began looking for the stomach.

"Had itself a pretty big meal recently, I can feel it." Daryl said as he pulled the stomach out of the corpse and dropped it in front of Rick who decided to cut it open.

Angela leaned forward some to get a better look, now getting over her disgust; she lost her balance and quickly placed a hand on Daryl's shoulder to catch herself. He sent her a look that caused her to regain her balance quickly, muttering a soft apology in the process and they both looked back towards Rick, who had the stomach cut open. Daryl took his knife and stuck it in the stomach, pulling out a skull.

"Had himself a woodchuck for lunch." He said throwing the skull aside and standing up, ready to leave.

"At least we know." Rick said looking away from the body in front of him and catching Angela's sorrowful expression while hearing Daryl repeat his sentence.

"Are you alright?" Rick asked Angela quietly while the trio headed back to the group.

"Yeah, I fine." Angela said.

"I noticed your expression after what we did to the walker, you looked pretty shaken."

"I'm fine, and it wasn't about cutting the walker, is that what you called it?" Rick nodded. "It wasn't cutting it opened that bothered me, it was the fact y'all were cutting it open to see if it ate a little girl. I guess what really bothers me is that sometimes I just can't stand the way the world has changed. We're afraid because we might be eaten by the living dead, just sounds like something from the movies."

"Yeah I guess it does." Rick said with a lifeless laugh.

"I know what y'all must be going through, not knowing where this girl is. I always feared that I'd never find my sister, that one of the freaks ate her."

"They almost did." Daryl said entering the conversation. "She was runnin' round the outskirts of Atlanta being chased by a couple of walkers. When she saw our cars she began screamin' for help and I just happened to look and notice her. Stopped my truck and took out one of the geeks, that mutt of hers managed to take down the other b'fore it caught her and I finished it. She wasn't bit or scratched so I took her with us, kept her safe."

Angela didn't get time to respond, because the highway came into view and people started to gather at the side. Rick and Daryl went up to the others and began explaining the situation, while she stayed back unsure of how these people would react to her arrival. She saw the lady she assumed was The missing girl's mother begin to breakdown and heard her ask about the blood, along with Daryl muttering about cutting the 'son of a bitch open' and then she heard the familiar voice.

"Daryl, you're back!" She said running to him. "Did you find Sophia?" Her voice was sad, but she was alive and that's all Angela could think of as tears blurred her vision and she began taking slow steps towards the group.

"Who's that?" A blond woman asked nodding toward Angela and all eyes were on her, and that's when she saw Layla, with Samantha sitting loyally beside her as usual.

"Angela!" Layla screamed running to her sister, Samantha right on her heels, barking like crazy.

"Oh my God, Layla!" Angela cried dropping to her knees as Layla ran into her arms. She couldn't find the words to describe how happy she was, she only kept muttering 'oh my God' as she held her little sister tightly to her. Layla was the first to pull away, taking Angela's hand in hers as she began to pull her towards the others.

"How did you find us?" Layla asked

"Ran into Rick and Daryl in the woods while looking for you and they brought me here." Angela said as tears still fell down her face, she noticed the woman that had been upset earlier, stormed off into the RV that sat on the road, she was definitely the mother.

"They're good people, especially Daryl, he saved me." Layla said looking up at Daryl who had a small smirk on his face at her words, but it vanished quickly.

"So I heard."

"Well you gotta meet everyone else." Layla said stopping between Rick and Daryl.

"Yeah, we do need to introduce you." Rick said placing a hand on Angela's shoulder. "Everyone this is Angela, Layla's older sister. She's offered to help us look for Sophia. I'm sure y'all will introduce yourselves later to her, so I need to talk about the search. We're going to search further tomorrow, Daryl knows the woods so I've asked him to oversee it. Now get some rest, we leave as soon as we have light." Rick said before turning to Angela as a woman and child came to his side. "Angela this is my wife Lori and my son Carl."

"Nice to meet y'all." Angela said shaking their hands.

"Nice to meet you too, I'm happy you two found each other again." Lori said referring to Angela finding Layla.

"Thank you. I should be thanking your husband and Daryl though, they didn't have to bring me to y'all's group; I mean I could have just been a scavenger."

"We figured one person wouldn't be able to take the whole group, besides you seemed nice enough and Layla told us a great deal about you." Rick said placing a hand on Layla's head ruffling her hair.

"Are you really going to help us look for Sophia?" Carl asked hope filling his voice.

"Yeah, it's the least I can do since y'all saved and took care of my sister."

"Thank you, Sophia means a lot to the group, we're all worried about her." Carl said and Angela put a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry Carl; I'm sure we'll find her."

"Alright, time for bed Carl. Good meeting you Angela." Lori said walking away with her son.

"If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask." Rick said before following his family as an older gentleman came up along with a black man.

"Hi Angela, I'm Dale and this is T-Dog." The older man said.

"T-dog?" Angela asked

"Theodore Douglas actually, but I prefer T-dog."

"Okay, T-Dog it is, nice to meet y'all." Angela said with a smile.

"Your sister's been staying in my RV; you're welcome to sleep there as well. Not much room, but it's safer than outside." Dale offered, Angela immediately liked him, he was kind even living in the hell they were.

"Thank you, I'd appreciate that." Angela said then caught a glimpse of T-Dog's arm. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I cut my arm on a car, thought I was going to die because if my own stupid mistake." T-Dog said looking at his arm.

"I'm sorry, glad you're okay."

"Thanks." T-Dog said as him and Dale left and the blond from earlier came over along with a man.

"Shane Walsh." He said extending his hand which Angela shook. "What makes you want to look for a girl you don't even know?"

"Y'all took care of my sister, it's the least I can do. Besides the thought of a girl no older than my sister out there alone and scared bothers me, so I want to help."

"Sounds pretty dumb to me. Putting your life on the line for someone you haven't even met." Shane said walking off.

"Don't mind him, he's harmless." The blond said. "I'm Andrea."

"Angela, nice to meet ya."

"I think it's sweet what you're doing, helping us out." Andrea began then thinking about what Shane said. "Okay Shane may be a little right about it being stupid since you don't know her, but it's still a kind offer, and we need all the help we can get."

"I'm happy to help, and nothing's gonna stop me from doing so."

"Thank you, see you in the RV." Andrea said walking off. That's when Angela noticed the Asian guy by the car.

"You seem like the quiet type." Angela stated making him blush and babble. "Chill, I'm only joking. You got a name?"

"Uh, Glenn."

"Nice to meet you Glenn, you seem like a nice guy." Angela said with a smile while Layla went to sit on the RV steps.

"I've barley said two words to you."

"Yeah, but I can tell. Where are you from?"

"Michigan, but before that, my family was from Korea."

"Sweet, I'm just from Georgia, born and raised here. Well I'm going to head in, see ya later Glenn."

"See ya."

Angela and Layla went inside the RV and curled up together on the couch. Angela was introduced to Carol, who she was right about being the missing girl's mother, but other than learning her name they didn't speak much.

Angela looked down at Layla who was fast asleep one last time before wrapping her arms around her and falling into a light sleep.