Angel Warrior

It was dusk by the time they reached the highway, all of them - minus the Angels - were exhausted, Hunter nearly on the stage of passing out as she was the one who took point and taken care of any walkers that stumbled across them. Sam had asked Sophia if she could see anyone from her group on the long stretch of road, which she nodded and pointed at the RV that was a few yards to the right of them; they could see two people among the cars and Hunter could cry from relief when she saw her truck not too from where the RV was stationed.

As they made their way through the cluster of cars, four more people emerged through the woods, heading directly towards the RV and an old man holding a rifle. After hearing Sophia excitedly whisper, “That’s my mom!”, Sam let her down so she could go to her, the rest of them following close behind her.

“Mom!” Sophia shouted, running at full speed towards her mother, who cried in shock and elation at the sight of her unharmed daughter, dropping to her knees as Sophia got within distance and pulled her into a tight hug, sobbing as she held on for dear life. Hunter smiled slightly at the reunion, hanging back with her group a few feet back as they all watched the mother and daughter hug.

“Where did you find her?” The old man asked her in awe but with a bit of distrust in his eyes; Hunter mentally nodded her head in approval - you can’t trust anyone these days, especially one who shows up with a lost child and a group of mostly men.

“Up a tree, sir, had to coast her down,” She replied stiffly, reverting back to the obedient solider that she was. She saw her brothers give her a look in the corner of her eye but she ignored them, staring straight at the man so he could see that she was telling the truth. Finally, he nodded and stuck his hand out, which she took and shook it firmly.

“I’m Dale, thank you for finding Sophia and bringing her back,” He thanked her, smiling genuinely at her now. She allowed a small one in return.

“Names Hunter, these are my brothers, Dean and Sam,” She said, pointing them out as they nodded in greeting, “Dean’s boyfriend, Castiel,” She, again, ignored the death looks and snickers, “and Sam’s boyfriend, Gabriel,” Now, she was getting death looks from all of them but she was enjoying their discomfort too much to care. She also noticed how none of them were deny her claims, which made her chuckle in joy - ‘’Bout damn time they grew some balls,’ She thought to herself as she grinned at a shocked Dale.

“Well, our leader is sort of in a delicate situation right now but you’re welcome to stay with us, if you’re willing,” Dale started, sweeping his hand out behind him to include the others. A man welding a crossbow heard this as he walked past and he immediately came up to the old man, scoffing.

“Ya serious? We don’t know these people. They could be psychos for all we kno’” He growled, glaring at the group before him, his body tense as if waiting for an attack; Hunter eyed him curiously, trying to figure out what crawled up his ass and died.

“Here, I’ll give you a little background. Hunter O’Brien, Master Gunnery Sergeant of the Marine Corps, grew up in Ireland, moved here at twenty-five with two friends, got call back from my tour in Iraq to take care of this bullshit - only to watch as my whole platoon got torn to shreds and lost some fine soldiers. That enough?” She snarled, green eyes blazing in the darkening sky. The man just scoffed and walked off, heading towards a motorcycle, which she assumed was his since he set his crossbow next to it. A blonde woman came up to stand next to Dale, her hip cocking out to the side as she crossed her arms and gave Hunter a disgusted look.

“Daryl’s right, we don’t know who they are. A group with four men and one woman? Sure, they brought Sophia back but how do we know that they didn’t take her? Tortured her to get her to tell them where her group was, kill and rob us?” She sneered, anger and hatred swirling in her eyes. Hunter narrowed her eyes and took a step toward the woman, preening with satisfaction that she took a step back, fear now seeping into her eyes as she took in the other blonde’s weapons.

“If that’s who you think we are, then I pray you don’t run into worse people because you won’t last long,” Hunter threatened, her voice dropping to a deep bass. “I don’t think you heard me earlier when I said that those guys are gay and I know for a fact that they’d rather rip off their own dick before touching a little girl inappropriately. You think we brought the girl back to her ma just to turn around and kill her? You don’t think we could’ve done that after she told us about her group? Spent all day trekking the woods and almost being walker food just to bring her here and murder y’all? For what? A few supplies? Sweetheart,” Hunter mocked, her Irish accent bleeding through as she got angrier, “I don’ need ya food or ya goddamn weapons, y’all have nothin’ tha I don’ al’eady ‘ave, so w’at would ta poin’ of killin’ y’all be? I don’ kill just ta kill, I kill ta stay alive, jus’ as we all ‘ave been. So, ya can go shove ya righteous, self-pretentious bullshit up ya ass and mind your own fuckin’ business.” She spat on the ground by the blonde’s feet before pushing past her, bumping her shoulder roughly as she did so, and made her way towards her car.

“That was hot,” She heard Gabriel mutter in awe before a smacking sound resounded in the air followed by a yelp and she knew that Sam hit him; she chuckled dryly before sighing in relief as her ‘72 red Dodge Challenger sat in front of her. It had been a rough day and she felt a lot better knowing she still had her car - she didn’t care if it was dirty and had walker blood smeared all over it, it was still her baby and she’d rather die then have to ditch it somewhere.

“That yours?” A small voice spoke up from behind her. Hunter stiffened and spun around, her sword already in her hand before she realized what she was doing; noticing it was the young Asian boy from the group, she relaxed and sheathed her sword once again, glaring at the boy as he shifted uncomfortable on his feet, shoving his hands deep into his pants pockets. She let him squirm for a bit before answering him, taking pity on the poor boy.

“Yea, it’s mine - had it since I was sixteen. Took it with me after I left Ireland. Couldn’t bear it to leave her behind and that’s not gonna change just because the apocalypse happened,” She joked, walking around to the trunk and unlocked it, knowing the boy was following close behind her so she shifted her duffel bag a bit to hide the latch to her secret compartment - no need for the boy to know what she did for a side job - and set her bow and arrows behind it.

“I’m Glenn, by the way. Sorry about Andrea, she - she’s been on edge the past couple days...we all have,” Glenn muttered, kicking at the asphalt. Hunter just hummed in understanding as she shrugged her military jacket off and chucked in the trunk next to her gear, leaving her in a black racer-back tank top. Hunter went through her routine of emptying out her pockets and throwing whatever she found into the trunk, so she didn’t hear Glenn’s gasp of excitement when her tatted up arms were revealed. She was pulling out a cigarette from one of her many new packs when Glenn reminded her that he was still next to her.

“I didn’t peg you as a Pokemon fan,” He stated with a grin, gesturing to her arm when she shot him a confused look. Hunter looked down at her arm as if she forgot there was a full sleeve of different Pokemon ranging up and down her arm; she smirked at him as she lit her cigarette and leaned against the bummer.

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,” She pointed out, raising an eyebrow as Glenn shrugged before nodding. Hunter chuckled a little as she took a drag and licked her lips, preparing to share the story behind her sleeve, “Pokemon was my life in the 90’s - of course, we didn’t get it until it already aired for a few months and it was in Gaelic but goddamn, made my teenage years, I tell ya,” Taking another drag, she looked over at where her brothers and angels were milling about - the hunters were speaking with Daryl and the angels were listening intently to whatever Dale was telling them. “After I moved here, I thought, why the fuck not? Saved up enough cash and got all my favorite Pokemon tatted on my arm. Came in handy during boot camp, too,” She sent Glenn a mischief grin as she finished her cigarette and stomped on it.

Hunter noticed a figure huddled in the back of RV behind Glenn and she furrowed her eyebrows, glancing over at the Asian boy before nodding towards the figure, “Who’s that?” Glenn spun around to see who she was talking about and his shoulders slumped, heading bowing before looking over his shoulder at her.

“That’s T-Dog. He’s got a blood infection, cut his arm pretty badly on one of the cars and we couldn’t find any sort of medicine in any of them,” He explained, frowning as he watched his friend shiver violently under the dying heat of the sun. Hunter frowned as well, humming in thought as she turned and re-opened her trunk, digging around in her personal duffel bag for her first aid kit. Holding the metal tin under her arm, she made sure no one was watching her before opening her secret compartment and dug around until she found her baggy of drugs - all prescription and from a pharmacy she looted last week. Snapping the lid closed, she slammed her trunk and re-locked it, setting her things down on the hood before motioning for Glenn to bring his friend over to her.

Looking over to her brothers, she caught Gabriel’s attention and motioned him over. Sniffling, she dug around in her pockets to find a hair tie and piled her greasy blonde hair into a bun, praying she can find a stream or a small body of water soon to take a bath. As she waited for Glenn and Gabriel, she popped open her first aid kit and set to work on filling a syringe with morphine; feeling someone coming up behind her, she took a quick glance to see Glenn helping T-Dog shuffle over to her. Noticing that it was his right arm injured, she scanned over her car quickly and wrenched open the driver’s side, rolling down the window as the duo stopped in front of her, Gabriel sauntering up next to them - she gave him a look as she climbed out of her car, to which he just shrugged at.

She smiled gently at T-Dog, “Hi, I’m Hunter and I saw that you hurt your arm pretty bad. Is it alright if I take a look at it?” The way he was just staring at her was making her uncomfortable, so she tried a different approach. “If it’ll make you feel better, I know what I’m doing - my friend was a Combat Medic and, ya know, being in the military, ya kinda have to know these things. Plus, I have morphine to help-” She cut herself off when he suddenly stumbled towards her, catching the door frame in time and plopped himself down onto the leather seat; T-Dog looked up at her expectantly, holding his injured arm out the open window.

Chuckling, she motioned for his other arm and prepped him for the syringe, patting his arm gently after she was done. While she waited for the morphine to kick it, she went around to the passenger side and dug out the travel size bottle of cheap whiskey - she can always go looting for more later, right now was more important. Jogging back over, she noticed T-Dog was smiling stupidly at nothing, so she assumed that the morphine was working; snickering, she went over to Gabriel and told him to keep T-Dog distracted while she tending to him. Pouring the whiskey over her hands, she rubbed the alcohol in and up her forearms a bit, shaking off some of the access as she opened a new needle and thread. But first, she had to see how big this cut was before she measured out the thread and knotted it.

Grabbing a pair of surgical scissors, she carefully cut the electrical tape of his make-shift bandage and peeled it off, wincing when blackened veins and angry flesh greeted her. Hearing a small groan of discomfort, she looked up at T-Dog to see him chatting peacefully with Gabriel; furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, she glanced around her to see Glenn eyeing T-Dog’s arm with a queasy expression. Rolling her eyes, she told him to go keep her brothers company, seeing as he was close to barfing everywhere and she’d rather not deal with a queasy stomach herself.

Hunter sighed, prepping the needle and thread before kneeling next to her car door so she was eye-level with her work and wasted no time at stitching the wound, the occasional wince and groan from T-Dog when she hit a tender spot. She was half way done when the sound of stomping boots came from behind her - knowing that almost everyone wore heavy boots nowadays, she took a quick glance behind her and was surprised to see Daryl swaggering up to her. She gave him the briefest of nods as an acknowledgment before going back to her work, trying to finish it quickly as the sun went further down.

“Hey,” Daryl grunted, setting a pill bottle on the hood of her car, “Got some antibiotics for ‘Dog. Doxycycline, think they’ll help?” Hunter hummed, nodding her head distractedly as she squeezed T-Dog’s skin together and gently pushed the needle through a tender spot.

“Generally, any type of antibiotic can cure Sepsis, so that’ll definitely help but isn’t Doxycycline mainly for treating the clap?” She asked, glancing up at him just in time to see him grimace.

“My brother, they’re his,” He explained, nodding to the pill bottle. Hunter ‘ah’ed with a nod, finishing up the stitches and bandaged his arm with a fresh roll of gauze. She washed her hands again in alcohol before grabbing the pill bottle, reading the instructions on it and caught a glimpse of a name. Merle Dixon. ‘Well, thank you, Merle Dixon,’ Hunter thought as she shook out a couple and gave them to T-Dog before giving the bottle back to Daryl.

“The group’s about to head out, towards a farm. Our leader’s kid got shot while we were out looking for Sophia and we’re about to go meet up with them,” Daryl said, pocketing the bottle. Although he was speaking with her, she could tell he was not comfortable with her yet and probably only came over to see what she was doing with T-Dog - she wasn’t quite comfortable with him either but her body obviously was by the way it was reacting to him just talking. The man has probably the most sexist voice she ever came across and that was saying something when Castiel’s around.

“Good. ‘Cause although T-Dog’s out of the ball park right now, he still needs an IV to get his blood pressure and fluids back up and I don’t have that kind of thing on me,” She mumbled as she dug around in her pockets for her smokes. As she lit one, she noticed Daryl was eyeing her pack with a look she knew belonged to a smoker who hadn’t had one in a while; smirking, she offered him the pack and with a raised eyebrow, he took one with a nod of thanks. Chuckling, she shook her head and offered him the pack again.

“Take it, I found a few more on a couple of the corpses,” She was careful on not saying ‘Croats’ because then it’d just raise more questions that she didn’t want to answer. With a shrug, he pocketed the pack with a grunt and produced a lighter, lighting his cigarette quickly and leaned against a neighboring car. Leaning against her own car, she enjoyed her cigarette and watched her brothers bicker with their angels, while Glenn was helping T-Dog into the RV as she saw Sophia and her mom laughing from the window. She snorted when Gabriel jumped on Sam and planted a sounding kiss on the giant.

“What happened to ya face?” Hunter’s head snapped around at the question, looking at Daryl with furrowed eyebrows and a head tilt.

“What?” He gestured to the left side of his face before pointing at hers. Hunter froze, cigarette dangling from her lips as she tried to find the right excuse to explain the three claw marks marring the left side of her face. She was wondering when someone would have the balls to ask her but she wasn’t expecting it to be so soon after she met them, she didn’t have enough time to think up a lie.

“Wolf,” Might as well tell half the truth, “Went hiking in the woods and got attacked. Was lucky to keep my eye,” She shrugged, taking a deep drag and prayed that he’d believe her - not that he should, she was still just a stranger to them but she hoped she gained some of his respect in the short half an hour from their encounter.

“Where?” He narrowed his eyes at her, his own cigarette dangling from his lips and she had to fight the inappropriate thoughts away.

“Backwoods of Ireland. Really, it’s nothing, past is the past, nothing to do about it now,” She tossed her now dead cigarette on the ground and turned around to pack up her kit, tossing it in the backseat. She looked over her shoulder to see Daryl was still watching her, his cigarette dead on the ground as well. “Well? Thought we had to go meet up with the rest of your group?” She grinned as he rolled his eyes and stomped back to his bike. Whistling a four-tone, she beckoned her brothers over once she got their attention and they all piled into her tiny car, Dean sitting up front with her while the others sat in the back, Gabriel having to sit on Sam’s lap with his feet in Castiel’s - neither of them protested (save for Cas, who poked at his brother’s leg with a frown) as she pulled up behind Daryl in the convoy.